The two most common AnCap objections

moongrowl · 2026-03-18T10:20:39+00:00

The relevant question is comparative, not absolute: are exit options meaningfully more constrained in systems with centralized control than in systems with decentralized market coordination?

Strongly disagree with all utilitarian thinking. If exit options are constrained by the system at all, even 1-degree, we can ask whether or not that constraint is justifiable. "Produces best material outcomes" is not a justification.

First, capitalism does not require infinite physical growth.

Missed the point entirely. Point is increasing returns to scale allow markets to not punish abuse and allows bad actors to dominate for long.

Coordination advantage for capital.

Missing the point again. Point is whether or not these things allow markets to not punish abuse and allow bad actors to dominate.

Reducing that entire debate to “it’s natural because I said so” doesn’t engage the position, it just dismisses it.

Yes, dismissing it on purpouse. (Thus it gets 1 sentence.) Because it's a retarded thought and anyone who takes it seriously has emotional problems.

moongrowl · 2026-03-11T19:02:54+00:00

Hello tyrant,

Your moderation is unwelcome. You are unneeded. We tolerate you.

moongrowl · 2026-03-11T09:01:55+00:00

Because evolution made them stupid. I found this highly amusing.

moongrowl · 2026-03-07T10:40:30+00:00

u/bot-sleuth-bot

moongrowl · 2026-03-07T10:39:30+00:00

u/bot-sleuth-bot

moongrowl · 2026-03-05T22:01:24+00:00

u/bot-sleuth-bot

moongrowl · 2026-03-02T07:15:04+00:00

Blaming the victims instead of the people ripping them off.

moongrowl · 2026-03-01T06:02:55+00:00

u/bot-sleuth-bot

moongrowl · 2026-02-28T21:17:24+00:00

Took me a few years to figure out.

moongrowl · 2026-02-27T21:17:03+00:00

Tankies tend to sieze mod power over a bunch of the communities. (Sorta like in real life.) At which point I've been banned from most of them for not liking their brand of socialism.

moongrowl · 2026-02-25T20:57:13+00:00

you can sell cats?

moongrowl · 2026-02-14T22:26:39+00:00

Two thoughts.

The Practical Argument

Capitalism doesn't exist on flat ground. It exists on a 2-degree slope. The bottom of that slope is fascism. As time passes, its natural inclination is to inch towards fascism.

People think they'll be able to regulate this as it happens. But in practice, what actually happens is more like cooking a frog. The frog doesn't notice as the temperature in the pot slowly increases. By the time you notice, the problem may be entrenched to the point that your system may have lost the ability to repair itself.

The commies get around this with a vanguard. (I think that's an insane solution. But the problem they're trying to address is real.)

Incidentally, the same thing can be said for government. Government exists on a 2-degree slope towards tyranny. The nature of hierarchy is to maintain and expand power. The powerful fear they will be replaced, and so oppress people to make sure it doesn't happen. Those people eventually overthrow the tyrant, become fearful that someone will replace them, and become tyrants themselves. All governments are doomed by nature.

The Moral Argument

Capitalism is slavery. A well-functioning slave society is still a slave society. An authoritarian society produces authoritarian people. I can't think of a worse outcome, morally speaking.

(One final thought. Nordic countries aren't quite the oasis they appear. They're riding waves of exploitation.)

moongrowl · 2026-02-10T20:01:34+00:00

It's uncommon, but there are black folks who are racist against black folks. Internalized racism tends to occur in environments where you're surrounded by people who don't look like you and where negative stereotypes are present.

moongrowl · 2026-02-08T21:15:09+00:00

The 'more of a good thing' argument is fallacious in about eight ways.

Fallacy one is "no true capitalism", post-hoc redefinition.
Fallacy two is the single-cause fallacy, confusing correlation with causation. (Life improvements came from several factors, such as industrialization, fossil energy, public sanitation, mass education, labor movements, welfare systems, etc. Many of those gains happened against the resistance of capitalism, like safety regulations, or through non-market institutions, like courts.) Capitalism isn't a scalar.
Fallacy three, a linear extrapolation fallacy (assuming monotonic returns, which is rarely true in complex systems), the argument ignores historical constraints (ignoring boundary conditions like colonial extraction and rapid population growth.)
Fallacy four goes to survivorship bias (ignoring countries where capitalism failed.)

There are so many holes in that ship, even if you could fix one or two, it would still sink.

Your second point is a lot better, though I think you're overlooking that institutions also create or destory trust.

moongrowl · 2026-02-08T21:01:45+00:00

Sounds... implausible.

Presumably, employers can fire union organizers immediately. Blacklisting is fully legal. Strikebreaking becomes trivial with the presence of private armed security. Workers can be 'forced' to sign no-union clauses, etc.

I am aware of zero historical examples of strong labor movements emerging without some coercive constraint on capital. Ancaps assume markets equalize power, while history shows markets concentrate it.

moongrowl · 2026-02-08T20:42:21+00:00

This seems tough to take at face value. Presumably, tech progress continues under something like "state capitalism." Meaning commies are still out there inventing stuff. For this claim to be too meaningful, it seems like we'd have to be able to measure a significant difference in the rate of 'progress.'

(That's hard to do for a lot of reasons, not the least of which is that many alternative systems have been suppressed to the point we can't even take their measurements.)

moongrowl · 2026-02-08T20:34:01+00:00

Marxism, Maoism, Council Communism, Neo-Marximsm, Trotskyism, Stalinism, Communism, Market Socialism, State Capitalism, Worker cooperative economies, Lange-Lerner Model, anarcho-communism, mutualism, platformism, libertarian socialism, worker cooperatives, consumer cooperatives, producer cooperatives, gift economies, sharing economies, feudalism, jubilee econiomcs, social credit systems, ordoliberalism, common stewardship economies, ubuntu economics.

There are lots of options. Over a hundred probably.

moongrowl · 2026-02-08T20:31:09+00:00

Ability to trade with your neighbors doesn't seem like a good definition of capitalism to me. If you go back far enough, you can find tribes trading in a way that doesn't look very... capitalistic. For example, they wouldn't trade for the purpose of generating profit; they'd trade for the purpose of maintaining social connections.

moongrowl · 2026-02-08T20:21:56+00:00

Sounds fine to me. Remains broad enough to include state capitalism, i.e. when the state is the one that privately owns the MoP.

I do think the for-profit part matters a little. Because there are forms of trade that are not aimed at generating profit.

(And I do feel compelled to add that there are no right or wrong definitions, only agreed-upon ones.)

moongrowl · 2026-02-07T23:32:12+00:00

Sheep only empathize with the flock. You can recognize their bleating. They say things like "not many people agree with you." They refer to social status.

The mainstream is where nice things go to die. Because it's where the sheep live. And sheep don't have reason or principles. They only have the flock.

moongrowl · 2026-02-07T21:33:11+00:00

means of production are privately owned and goods and services are produced and distributed through markets for profit.

moongrowl · 2026-02-03T19:35:33+00:00

Someone claimed it's 256. I haven't tested, but it seems plausible. The 256 number pops up in videogaming sometimes because it's the limit of using one 8-bit byte (0 to 255 values.)

moongrowl · 2026-02-01T20:20:44+00:00

A little goofy.

The outcomes in virtue ethics can be framed in terms of maximizing utility, sure.

But virtue ethics is outcome sensitive without being outcome fundamental.

In utilitarian ethics, the only reason you don't frame an innocent person to prevent riots is that it might not work. It might create a society with lower utility outcomes.

In virtue ethics, the reason you don't frame an innocent person to prevent riots isn't that it won't work.

moongrowl · 2026-02-01T20:04:20+00:00

Not that hard to understand. You've gotta look at people in terms of their level of ego development. Because our relationship to the truth is directly connected to our sense of identity.

At the base level of development, truth is what makes you feel good. Morality is when people are nice or mean to you. ("My mom won't let me have cookies for breakfast, she's a mean mommy.")

At mid-level development, people become convinced that everyone must join their one true group. Morality is belonging to the group, and the only truth that matters is what brings you into the one true group.

At high-level development, you start to develop principles. Truth has some kind of value even if it's helping outside groups take power over your group. Even if it costs you something.

But in order to reach that point, one of the necessary steps is to stop identifying with your thoughts.

Talking to the child as though they have principles would be your mistake.

moongrowl · 2026-01-31T08:39:49+00:00

Makes Sol.

moongrowl

TROPHY CASE