Capitalism: A Conflation Story

Those of us who give a damn about societal discourse should have consistent terms. Many disagreements occur because of what the debate community refers to as two ships passing in the night. If our arguments don't meet each other face-to-face, we are talking at each other and not with each other. Communication brings understanding. Without understanding we convince no one.

The Telegraph and The Guardian are two British newspapers that I read from time to time. I sense less partisan goat offerings, and it is refreshing to see English written differently. Read this article about Detroit from The Guardian. Read this article about Detroit from The Telegraph. Richard Wolffe and Daniel Hannan, I accuse you both of conflation. They both use the term capitalism in contradictory ways.

Wolffe says that

Over the past 40 years, capitalism turned that success into the abject failure culminating now in the largest municipal bankruptcy in US history.

Hannan says that

The Observer, naturally, quotes a native complaining 'that capitalism has failed us', but capitalism is the one thing the place desperately needs.

They cannot both be right. Either capitalism was a detriment to Detroit, or would be a boon. Wolffe and the Detroit denizen seem to be speaking of capitalism in its common usage. The prefix corporate makes it more accurate, but capitalism usually references the status quo. Proper understanding of the status quo, lets us know that Wolffe is confused. He wants more workers' cooperatives, and claims the movement of production was the main woe. The status quo incursions into the production process by the State, on behalf of corporate interests, was, is and will be the problem unless we end the State. For smaller workers' cooperatives to flourish, the State imposed increased costs of production need to be discarded. Hannan is usually a sober analyst of economics, and does not disappoint in noting the problems with Detroit. His Atlas Shrugged reference is a bullseye. Ayn Rand's fictional Starnesville is a doppelgänger of Detroit in 2013. But, he should know better than to think that the Detroit denizen and he agree on what capitalism means. Hannan is no anarchist, but he definitely wants to sever the umbilical chord between corporation and State. He wishes the market would be freed.

The corporate capitalist State is the ungodly polygamous union of privileged cyclopean corporations to the tangled bureaucracy of taxgatherers. Corporate capitalism is the status quo. Corporate capitalism is the theft of our funds, to maintain and promulgate the flourishing of the largesse of corporations and the State. State regulations, State licenses, State prohibitions, State land grabs, and State monopolization are the tools of oppression. Corporate capitalism is evil, always and everywhere. I capitalize the s in State, because I want that word engraved in your minds. Corporate capitalism is impossible without the State. If you don't believe me that the State is the problem, I want you to at least consider it. Many ignore the State. Ignore the State, and it wins. I refuse to cede to it, and will ever more audaciously proceed against it.

Furthermore, we must end the State.

Reparations Exist

The adage goes

even a broken clock is right twice a day.

The State, though evil root and branch, is capable of making good decisions. In Columbia, the State has  a law that helps victims of land theft get their land back. Non-State marauding gangs of goons with guns, led by supervillain Carlos Castano, stole land from Mario Cuitiva. Thank God, Mario got it back.

Find the full story from Human Rights Watch  here.

These types of joys are what we should appreciate more often today, and look forward to in a stateless society. With no monopolized court system, we would have sundry consensual dispute resolution firms. Some would be cooperatives, and some would be business. There would be community courts of varying shapes, sizes, and colors. The State occupies acres of land that was acquired through conquest. In a stateless society distribution of this land would be settled in consensual courts. Consequentialists would yawp for the land slide in land prices. Fanatics of justice would yawp for the equality of protection under the homesteading principle.

Furthermore, we must end the State.

Call a Duck a Duck, and a State an Honor-less Thief

Lysander Spooner is my hero. His religious views and copyright/patent views aside, I stand in solidarity with him. He was a lawyer when the legislators said he couldn't be. He delivered mail to consumers when the legislators said he could not- resulting in lower prices for consumers. He was an abolitionist when slavery was a la mode. He called the constitution an antislavery manuscript, whilst maintaining that it was of no force.

In any case, the man's writings deserve to be explored. Have at it.

Lucidity is one of my immovable values. Conflation of ideas, meanings, and intentions sully our talks. Whether you disagree or concur with Lysander Spooner, you know where he stands. I made this blog with this intent. I don't think everyone will agree with me. But, these ideas need to be considered outside the hollow halls of Capitol Hill, and the suburban ivory towers of academia. Spooner's lucidity on taxes is unparalleled in today's discourse.

No middle ground is possible on this subject. Either "taxation without consent is robbery," or it is not. 

This is an apodeictic claim. He asks, where do you stand? And by the phrasing of the question, we can infer where he stands. Depending on where you stand, what follows?

If it is not, then any number of men, who choose, may at any time associate; call themselves a government; assume absolute authority over all weaker than themselves; plunder them at will; and kill them if they resist. If, on the other hand, taxation without consent is robbery, it necessarily follows that every man who has not consented to be taxed, has the same natural right to defend his property against a taxgatherer, that he has to defend it against a highwayman.

 No one can truly call this argument inconsistent. Spooner goes further. He says a highwayman is evil, but he is a saint in comparison to the State goons. The State goons are duplicitous. The highwayman is lucid in his theft.

The highwayman takes solely upon himself the responsibility, danger, and crime of his own act. He does not pretend that he has any rightful claim to your money, or that he intends to use it for your own benefit. He does not pretend to be anything but a robber. He has not acquired impudence enough to profess to be merely a "protector," and that he takes men's money against their will, merely to enable him to "protect" those infatuated travelers, who feel perfectly able to protect themselves, or do not appreciate his peculiar system of protection. He is too sensible a man to make such professions as these. Furthermore, having taken your money, he leaves you, as you wish him to do. He does not persist in following you on the road, against your will; assuming to be your rightful "sovereign," on account of the "protection" he affords you. He does not keep "protecting" you, by commanding you to bow down and serve him; by requiring you to do this, and forbidding you to do that; by robbing you of more money as often as he finds it for his interest or pleasure to do so; and by branding you as a rebel, a traitor, and an enemy to your country, and shooting you down without mercy, if you dispute his authority, or resist his demands. He is too much of a gentleman to be guilty of such impostures, and insults, and villainies as these. In short, he does not, in addition to robbing you, attempt to make you either his dupe or his slave (emphasis is mine).

Spooner continues his kritik, by illustrating the cowardice of State theft. The bureaucracy is so dense and interwoven that the victims of theft don't know whom to blame for the loss of their property. Is it the taxgatherer? The monopolized law writer? The monopolized security that protects and serves the taxgatherer and the monopolized law writer? Is it the bankster whom stores these stolen goods? Is it the rubber stamper, judge, who approves of this process?

The whole institution of coercive governance is to blame. We should have voluntary governance. Furthermore, we must end the State.

Our Enemy, Centralized Power

Before I knew I was a libertarian, I knew that I delighted in asking questions. Usually the questions that others left to the dust mite kingdoms. Liberalism is the pattern of thinking that questions the status quo. Do we need to be ruled by bosses at every level of society? Or is there room for me to be the boss of me? Do I need the State to tell me what food I can eat, and whose dietary recommendations I can pay for? Do I need the State to tell me which tour guide I can use? Do I need the State to tell me which hair braiding professional I can use? The scientists, political analysts, cable news anchors, environmental inspectors, licensing writers, corn and sugar lobbyists are all establishment thinkers. At its root, they say, there are no problems with this world. I say nay, the problems are legion.

When I was a young warthog, I loved studying George Orwell's 1984 and watching JRR Tolkien's Lord of The Rings trilogy. Their fiction novels have been fodder for the edacious readers of the English language, as well as the wide-scale consumption of the reading laity. Listening to revisionist historian Jeff Riggenbach's podcasts on Erik Blair (George Orwell) and J.R.R. Tolkien told me why I was a party to this feast. Authority and power are wielded by people, with the same flesh and blood as us, who believe us too incompetent or evil to manage our own affairs. The banner of Liberalism contains people who, at differing degrees, say "no, I want to manage my own affairs." For some this leads to opposition to State invasion of social affairs. For others this leads to opposition to State invasion of economic affairs. For the globally conscious, this leads to opposition to State invasion of international affairs. For the anarchist, this leads to opposition to State invasion in all affairs.

When I read 1984 and watched the Lord of the Rings trilogy, I was in the first and third platoons of Liberalism mentioned above. I opposed State invasion of social affairs, and international affairs. Now I am more consistently against State invasion. Orwell, were he alive, would stand with Eric Snowden's whistle-blowing of the NSA's global peeping Tom network. Orwell criticizes centralization of authority and power. The State's invasion could not occur without the centralization of power. Tolkien is also an enemy of centralized power. There are 19 rings, and one ring to rule them all. Whomever wields the one ring gains power over the rest of the world. Anyone who uses the ring will eventually become corrupt. If that is not a kritik of using the State, I don't know what is. I believe that my reasons for smiling through these stories were sundry. But, the struggle of the protagonists against centralized power was subconsciously pushing me to empathy, and I believe it did the same to you.

Please take the time to listen to the two podcasts highlighted in yellow above, and come to your own conclusions on these two literary behemoths.

Furthermore, we must end the State.


Post Scriptum:

Whatever theses authors' specific policy prescriptions may have been, they held their convictions through principled thought. Tom Woods Jr. recently wrote a piece on Sweetie-Pie Libertarians. Though Orwell and Tolkien may have never called themselves natural rights libertarians, their opposition to centralized power aligns them with the libertarians that believe in natural rights, and against the sweetie-pies. The sweetie-pie, or utilitarian, or pragmatic libertarians lack the passion of the natural rights variety. Murray Rothbard asks the question that is telling of where you stand, Do You Hate the State? An incendiary passion to change the world, because the world is engraved with centralized power, is a yes to this question. The beauty of Orwell and Tolkien lies in this passion. Do you have it?

The State is the Health of the Corporation

It had been awhile since I had ventured into the club scene. This Independence Day holiday weekend changed that. Some songs you hear have a classic ignorance about them summed in Aaron McGruder's The Boondocks series as "booty, butt, cheeks, booty butt, booty butt, booty butt cheeks". This brand was indubitably in attendance. But, the most wretchedly worldly brand of ignorance is corporate capitalism induced obsession, and nigh idolatry of, luxury items' names.

Listen to this song and be the judge.

Drake says Versace 12 times in his bars. Quavo chants Versace with an imagined bobbing head and Cheshire smile, 18 times on the hook. Quavo then says Versace 7 times in his verse portion. The hook plays again. Takeoff plays the moderate card and only glorifies Versace 5 times. Then you hear the Quavo 18 again. Offset then finishes the song with an even more humble 4 mentions of Versace.

Versace, Gucci, Nike, Ferrari, Lamborghini, Tesla, Louis Vuitton, Mercedes-Benz et cetera, would be atomized in a freed market. A freed market is incompatible with the status quo of corporate capitalism. There are key institutional privileges granted to corporations in the status quo that bar us from true freedom. One of these is the State harassment, threatening, bludgeoning, stealing, and kidnapping done to people selling products of their labor that emulate others' ideas. Corporations cower behind the State privileges of patents and copyrights. These two devils shield corporations from the free competition that would spread the wealth more evenly in society. Anarchist writer Jeremy Weiland says we should "Let the free market eat the rich!"

A patent is a State gifted privilege of dominion over a combination of preexisting quarks, neutrons, and protons. A person asks the State, the monopoly of goons with guns, to steal from or incarcerate competitors emulating her combination of preexisting particles. A copyright is a State gifted privilege of dominion over a combination of words, beats, software et cetera. A person asks the State, the monopoly of goons with guns, to steal from or incarcerate competitors emulating her combination of ideas.* Who wins? The State and the corporation. The State wins whenever demand for it is either increasing or staying the same. To end the State, we must reduce demand for the State. Godwilling, to zero. The corporation wins whenever it is permitted its artificial reign by the State. The current reign of the corporation is impossible without the violence of the State against decentralized local producers emulating ideas. The corporation, as we know it, would collapse if we abolished patents and copyrights. Who would arise? At the expense of the corporate capitalists, the proletariat and bourgeoisie would arise. The countless jobless would find gainful employment, and use their numbers to shred the corporations whose life support of the State vanished. Long live the rEVOLution.

Furthermore, we must end the State.

Post Scriptum:

*If I am being repetitive, it is because the blunders of the State are repetitive. And I want you to feel that.