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The following is intended as a comment to Winton Bates’ post titled Are Americans pessimistic about the prospects for the next generation?

Speaking as a ‘Generation X’ American (born 1965) I’m inclined to believe that (1) my generation’s coming-of-age years occurred during that ratcheting-down of working class expectations called Reaganomics, (2) future generations can expect further ratcheting down of expectations and (3) the high point of American civilization was what was called the ‘post-war period,’ maybe 1946-1979. Some put its definitive end as early as 1973 (OPEC embargo). I’ll go along with that, but human resources made a strong campaign of working with rather than against the trends circa 1980; what Jacob Hacker has termed the Risk Shift.

Whether the American standard of living is rising or falling, it should be undisputed that the structural trend is for Americans of modest means to be expected to eat more and more of the risk inherent in enterprise. All of the trends in human resources practice point in this direction, be it the trend from union to non-union workplaces, gainful (permanent, full-time) to ‘contingent’ employment, employee status to ‘independent contractor’ status, fee-per-service to HMO in health benefits, and defined benefit to defined contribution in retiree benefits. I would say that whatever gains (if any) have been made in median income have been more than offset by the losses in economic security. Even if it’s true that risk was systematically underpriced by employers and insurers (perhaps due to incompetence or lack of 20-20 hindsight) during the postwar period, that underpricing enhanced quality of life in very tangible ways.

I think at least the next two or so generations are facing a continuation of this trend. For them, debt-financing of education, unpaid internships, attrition hiring, and self-employment by default are being added to the expectations placed on individuals generally.

There are of course many very important ways in which the present is much better than postwar America, which was far more racist and sexist. It was also more bureaucratic and conformist, but in these areas I think the present-day trend toward a surveillance state, and more significantly, a surveillance workplace, more than cancels out the relative cultural freedom, which in practice has more to do with expression than with substantive rebellion.

I don’t expect a reversal of the Risk Shift trend until the painful market correction between global-north and global-south wage expectations has run its course to equilibrium. I think the odds are against this particular elephant being swallowed and digested during my lifetime. The only hope for a mercifully quick (though possibly more traumatic) resolution of these structural inequities is to ‘liberalize’ human migration with as much ideological ram-rodding as has been applied to the ‘liberalization’ of trade and of capital flows. The necessary adjustment of global-north consumption norms to the reality of global warming should also help, as will the projection that we will probably clear the population hump (though at a staggering 9 billion) by about mid-century.

Toward a thick individualism

Thick individualism as I intend to formulate it is not exactly the same thing as thick libertarianism. Of course I don’t regard individualism as exactly synonymous with libertarianism. Libertarianism, both thick and thin, it seems, is anti-government first and pro-individual second. Another reason I tend to distance myself from libertarianism is because while libertarianism draws the battle lines between the public sector and the private sector, I tend to draw the battle lines between individuals and institutions. The latter category definitely includes all governments and businesses, and I generally also tend to throw in nonprofits, religions and perhaps families. I’m the type of anti-authoritarian for whom the creators of the Geek Code invented the PE>$ designation, which translates to “Distrust both government and business.” That statement pretty much sums up my worldview, and it’s been my worldview pretty much since my first job.

The apparent cluster of ideologies that includes thick libertarianism, left libertarianism, market anarchism, market socialism, and mutualism (at least in the American sense) seems to have a decidedly anti-corporate flavor (which, curiously, is starting to emerge in right-wing ‘libertarian’ circles) but it isn’t clear to me whether they are pro- or anti- ‘business,’ in a sense that would include, for example, small business. I’m decidedly anti-business, as my working definition of capitalist is ‘someone who owns and/or operates a business.’ Like the IWW, I understand a worker to be ‘someone who isn’t a boss.’ An employee of a small business is an employee, which is to say, used. From the vantage point of the employee, the employer is definitely an institution. Granted some employers are individuals, but here we’re generally talking about work in personal service and other situations involving explicit social rank, which would logically be an affront to all schools of anarchy save the capitalist ones.

Needless to say, at some point I started to refer to my system as anti-institutionalism. This left a disturbing aftertaste, however, since it seems the only thing more trite than a neologism ending in -ism is one that also begins with anti-. Besides, it is fashionable these days, for some reason I can’t quite fathom, to chide people for expressing with precision what they are against without describing what they’re for. The formulation neo-individualism occurred to me, but the neo- prefix is perhaps even more trite than anti-. Then a few days ago, I saw yet another reference to thick libertarianism and it hit me. Why not call it thick individualism, describing it more or less as individualism as if individuals mattered.

The practice and advancement of thick individualism should logically avoid the creation of institutions. This begs the question of the legitimacy of organizations such as syndicalist unions and federations. One way around this is to regard these as part of a dual power strategy, although I’m generally inclined to think of power itself as a dirty word. Small-f federalism as a decentralizing tendency is, I think, of real value, so I would say that if we must have organizations, they should be federations of smaller organization, which devolve in a transparent way all the way to the individual. Given my general anticapitalist (which to me implies anti-market) bias, I’m inclined to think that if we must accept organizations as a necessary evil, they should also ideally be nonprofit organizations.

Anarcho-capitalists, of course, self-identify as individualists. Like thick libertarians and thick individualist(s?), this to them means they are anti-statists. They seem to think the state is collectivism taken to its logical extreme. I think of it is inequality taken to its logical extreme. Meanwhile I struggle with certain questions, like, whether it’s possible for an organization not to be an institution, and whether my professed love of collectivism is simply out of spite toward the capitalist types. My provisional answer is that I can imagine no non-collective strategy by which the mice can bell the cat, whether the cat is the boss or the state.

Market anarchy means anarchy (i.e. freedom) for the market. Real anarchy means freedom for the people, which means, among other things, freedom from the market. If the market enjoys freedom to find its equilibrium, that doesn’t help me if the equilibrium price of my talents happens to fall short of the equilibrium price of my needs. Unmet needs are the basis to all forms of exploitation. Those who have what they need within easy reach are those who have the freedom to take this (or another) job and shove it. Freedom for the people may require the ability to override market outcomes. Obviously a nongovernmental means of accomplishing this must be invented, but such an invention is necessarily part of the struggle.

I’m not the religious type. If anything, I’m the irreligious type. I definitely do not harbor a theistic viewpoint. ‘No gods, no masters,’ etc. In spite of all this, I have a tendency to think in terms of a supposed dichotomy between the categories of ‘sacred’ and ‘profane.’ I’ve been meaning for a while to blog on this subject, and what finally broke that particular writer’s block was a comment I received from David Gendron:

I disagree about your anti-market stance. Even sexual relations and gifting are realizations of market mechanisms.

I hear claims like this every so often. My reaction is always the same, and it is a verbal thought, and it’s worded exactly thus: Is nothing sacred?

Perhaps it is significant that David Gendron refers to sexual relations rather than romantic relations. His hobby horse over at anarchopragmatisme seems to be the vileness of statism applied to the criminalization of so-called vices, including the flesh trade. I regard sexual relations as sacred in the context of romantic relationships and profane in the context of commercial ones. I should point out that I don’t have any opinions whatsoever of the ethical or unethical nature of any kind of sexual conduct. Sacred and profane, to me, is not analogous to ethical and unethical. A slogan I came up with that I delight in throwing around: Friendship is sacred. Networking is profane. Here of course I mean networking in the careerist sense; networking meaning working with rather than against the fact that in the real world, who you know is more important than what you know. Friendship is the more organic practice of simply gravitating to those people with whom you are most at home, or who reflect your interests or values. Networking is the practice of sizing people up as useful or not, influential or not, in the loop or not. Who is worth spending time with is determined by pragmatic considerations.

In a market economy you have to market yourself. That, for me, is the single most compelling argument against market economics. The fact is, some of us detest everything about sales, marketing and promotion. As Killer says, “The present economy is organized to produce a considerable amount of crap that wouldn’t be needed in a post-capitalist society and industry can be made more efficient if organized differently.”

When deciding whether one has common cause with movements like ‘market socialism’ or ‘free-market anticapitalism,’ it makes sense to figure out just what it is that these people mean by ‘market.’ What are the essential properties of the market mechanism?

What about strong efficiency? Is transparency a necessary condition for efficiency? If it is, there may hope for a non-dystopian yet market-oriented future. Under strong efficiency, informational outsiders are nevertheless treated to ‘efficient prices,’ which suggests the dismal possibility that we’re living in the best of all possible worlds. A related question is whether market equilibrium is the best of all possible worlds. I may be wrong (I’m often wrong) but this seems to be the main bone of contention between the neoclassical and Austrian schools of economics. From my perspective, they both look far-right and laissez-faire capitalist (if anything the Austrians more so), but if the Austrians are de-linking equilibrium-seeking and (global) optimum-finding, perhaps that should be interpreted as a form of optimism, and it can be understood (to some extent) why so many ‘left’-oriented anarchist and libertarian blogs link to mises.org, despite the snarkiness and the ‘yes Virginia TANSTAAFL’ tone.

Most of these seemingly paradoxical market≠capitalism schools accept the exchange paradigm but not property. But what is exchanged in this actually-free market if not property?

Another question is whether market economics can be had without marketing, or the related dark arts of salescrittership and advertising. If forced sales is inherently authoritarian, how is it that involuntary unemployment is not? Maybe it’s a lesser evil thing, prioritizing freedom over security or equality. Or is the libertarian left in full agreement with the libertarian right that not only doesn’t the world owe anyone a living, but it doesn’t even owe them a job offer or the equivalent? I can see how there is a problem if someone’s particular handiwork (and gift to society in the gift economy sense) is neither needed nor wanted. But assuming one is flexible about what work they will perform, must the opportunity to perform it be a privilege? Perhaps this is the fatal weakness of gift economics based on doing your own thing—the likelihood that the outcome of doing it is not what is needed by others. So it is that Henry David Thoreau had to “make it worth men’s while” to buy his particular kind of basket of a delicate texture. In what to me is the spirit of anti-authoritarianism, he elected instead to study “how to avoid the necessity of selling them.” He of course pursued this by attempting a minimalist and subsistence-based lifestyle. We all know this strategy has its limits.

These class struggle agorists also tend to embrace competition, at least between group endeavors, be they cooperatives, syndicates, federations, etc. I fail to understand how this type of competition can help but lead to competition between individuals over opportunities to participate. Inevitably at some point some individual will be seen as a competitive liability to a work group and will face rejection, and possibly failure, insolvency or non-survival, or is this not as inevitable as I imagine? Even if competition is somehow magically limited to ersatz institutions and not individuals, what is being competed over? Wealth? Power?? Market share? What is the penalty for being a loser?

It’s hard to imagine a movement rallying around what it terms ‘the free market,’ but also having a shared social goal of eliminating the necessity of selling. Perhaps mutualists have no complaint with the necessity of selling, per se. The question becomes, what organized or at least self described movement or school of thought does? Whoever they are, I wish to join them.

I’ve added a blogroll of sorts to this blog. The positioning and coloring is based on the ‘political compass‘ displayed in the upper left corner. The coloring is copied directly from the political compass for the four corners, and RGB-interpolated for the other five positions in my 3×3 grid. The left column of my 3×3 grid is in the left column of my blog template, likewise for the right. The center column I didn’t quite know what to do with. For now I decided to place it in the center column under the blog entries. It’s too obscure a placement for blogroll-type lists, but seemed for now more appealing than arbitrarily assigning it to either left or right, or putting it above blog entries, which shouldn’t require navigating past much and should certainly be visible without pressing page-down or the equivalent.

Assigning blogs to pigeonholes of course is on a call-’em-as-I-see-’em basis. If anyone has complaints with their placement (where or if) they will be honored. Just send email to november-eight-charlie-hotel-zulu-at-yahoo-dot-ca.

Or it could be the fog. Morning of Thursday July 15, 2010 was hopping for ATSC (i.e. DTV) DX-ing from my QTH north of Detroit. Picked up the following stations:

• 11 WTOL Toledo CBS (+ 11.2 ‘News 11’)
• 15 → 5 WEWS ABC Cleveland
• 17 → 3 WKYC Cleveland NBC (+ 3.2 weather radar)
• 23 ION, Qubo, ION Life (local Christianist station WUDT still logging as 8 → 23.1)
• 26 → 25, WVIZ Cleveland PBS (+ 25.2, 25.3, 25.4)
• 27 WBGU Bowling Green, OH PBS (+ 27.2, 27.3))
• 31 ION, same routine as channel 23, above.
• 34 → 61 WQHS Cleveland Univision

Antenna is a simple single ‘bowtie’ UHF antenna in the attic.

There were also those pregnant pauses suggesting the receiver really wanted to pull a signal out of digital channels 10, 12, 13, 20, 47 and 50

According to one “Flash Card Machine,” anagorism means the following:

the point in the plot especially of a tragedy at which the protagonist recognizes his/her or some other character’s true identity or discovers the nature of his situation

This is of course unrelated to my own formulation of anagorism simply as an antonym or negation of agorism. The ‘original definition’ of anagorism nevertheless has a spooky relevance to my own emerging consciousness concerning the inevitability of the agora, and all the inner conflict etc. arising from such realizations. In the interest of advancing the word anagorism as a sort of a meme, I’ve started using it as a tag.

The following is a parody:

I once saw a bumper sticker that read: “I don’t have anything against God—it’s His fan club I can’t stand.” Substitute The Invisible Hand for God, and you have the way I’ve been feeling lately, to a point. To be glaringly honest, I must say I have never really been intellectually capable of not believing in the inevitability of the market mechanism. On the other hand, I have never been emotionally capable of being at peace with its implications. I want to believe that the market is a human invention rather than a force of nature, but I can’t summon up enough suspension of disbelief to maintain that belief.

For the sake of argument, let’s tentatively classify me as someone who accepts the market as a reality that isn’t going away any time soon. As the gnostics have their “Hypostasis (i.e., reality) of the Archons,” I’m burdened with the realization (gnosis) of the Hypostasis of the Agora.

In this blog post I would like to outline my current thinking on how best to pursue radical change with both freedom and equality in mind.

While I’m prepared at this point to give up on giving the Invisible Hand a bone-crushing ‘bionic handshake,’ I’m still determined at least to arm wrestle it to a draw. Human outcomes should be a negotiated compromise between the reality of the market and the hopes and dreams of humanity (or at least the present specimen thereof); prominent among those being freedom from precarity and the supplanting of competition by cooperation.

While solving the Calculation Problem may be theoretically impossible, I believe we may have sufficient information technology to uncloak the Invisible Hand; making it a visible hand. Even under main$tream economic theory, transparency is a prerequisite for a fully competitive market. I’m trying to build a collection of ideas on how to impose transparency on the world and to monkeywrench business models based on asymmetric information. Readers (if any) are encouraged to participate in this effort at the pubwan wiki. Even if the market ultimately turns out to be something we can’t control, I’m nowhere near ready to accept is as something we can’t understand, and I intend to understand it at a microscopic level of detail.

I reject as false the dichotomy between ‘market economy’ and ‘centrally planned economy’ (or more pejoratively, ‘command economy’). I see no reason decentralization should be incompatible with economic planning. Wild Pegasus once ridiculed Participatory Economics as ‘making Pol Pot look like a piker.’ I see this as a gross overstatement. Although I’m not a peace with economic consumption requiring permission (apparently the case under Parecon), I’m equally not at peace with participation in production being a privilege. As far as I know, all pro-market views equate the ‘a job is a right’ thinking to what they call ‘forced sales.’

So, while I can’t with any intellectual honesty fully identify with the NMNS or non-market-non-state tendencies, neither can I have solidarity without reservations with the market socialist and related tendencies. I also refuse to jump on the ‘post-left’ bandwagon as I find rightist ideas such as the free market to be as inimical to social solidarity as statist institutions are to freedom.

Not so much as a middle ground, but as a reversal of stated priories, I will tenatively start labeling myself as MNNS (market-negative-non-statist). Basically I’m addressing the market mechanism as something inimical to my hopes and dreams, but that is theoretically impossible to dispense with. It occupies a position of contempt similar to that of entropy in my estimation. Maybe instead of ‘anagorist,’ you should call me ‘agoraphobic.’