In Defense of Anagorism

political economy in the non-market, non-state sector

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  • Getting tired of the blowhards who say “I’m not against unions, just public sector unions”

    I’m left first and libertarian second. Why? Quite simply, I consider that combination of priorities to be an under-served market. The opposite set of priorities has enough spokescritters and doesn’t need the addition of my voice to their choir.

    I’m also, nominally, an American. In my country the word “libertarian” has been distorted to mean “laissez-faire capitalist,” so maybe instead of saying I’m “a libertarian second” above, I should just call myself an antilibertarian. My reasons for identifying with the older, more authentic idea of what libertarianism is, are rooted not in anti-statism, but in anti-authoritarianism, which is a completely different set of emphases.

    With the exception of anarcho-syndicalists, I am very skeptical of people who claim to be simultaneously for (or even not against) the unions and against the public sector. Disingenuous at best. Doesn’t pass the smell test.

    I am not bothered by the fact that a democratic electorate offers better job security and bennies to its employees than does their country’s business community, which will not waste any opportunity to lean on the contingent workforce, or better yet, desperately cheap labor in/from the developing world. The public policies of a democracy reflect the people’s values, so of course the public sector ends up being the people’s idea of an “exemplary employer.” I just know someone is now waiting in the wings to roll out the “republic not democracy” canard. There’s a Bircher or two in every issues discussion, it seems. Just stuff it, already.

    The current situation is that the private labor market has more or less completely decimated the tacit social contract of post-war America, that gainful employment should be the norm, and the public sector has managed to dodge that bullet, largely, I think, because the voters (due to their basic decency and humanity) don’t want to play the role of managerial hatchet-person. The question isn’t why public employees are over-paid, but why private employees are under-paid.

    At the risk of being called a fan of post-war America, please allow me to point out that I’m only pointing out that it had at least (perhaps at most!) one thing right. Think “mend it don’t end it.” Make gainful employment as social norm inclusive for minorities and women, rather than dismissing job security itself as a racist and sexist institution.

    That’s all for now.

  • Engagement with the anagorist(s?) on free markets

    This is my take on Kevin Carson’s Engagement With the Left on Free Markets recently re-posted at C4SS.

    The left-styled libertarians seem to see themselves as the best of two worlds; those being “statist leftists” and “libertarian rightists,” which can also be referred to as “vulgar socialists or liberals” or “vulgar libertarians.” The implication often seems to be that either of these ideologies, minus vulgarity, equals left libertarianism. Thus, if they are effective enough with both vulgarities in their message that “you’re really one of us,” they can form a coalition of three quarters of the Political Compass™. I wish them well with that. I really do.

    I’m neither a statist leftist nor a libertarian rightist. The most concise description of what I am, in plain English, is probably that which is represented by “PE>$” in the Geek Code: “Distrust both government and business.”

    Carson opens with a reference to a comment by Anthony Gregory on The Market Shall Set You Free… in the NY Times? at George Mason University’s “History News Network” website:

    If libertarians can explain that the right actually opposes free markets, but instead embraces corporatism and state capitalism, the battle to win them over will be half-won. One reason they don’t like markets is because people like Bush pretend to like them, but I think the left is catching on.

    It’s true that one reason I don’t like markets is because people like [George W.] Bush pretend to like them, but another reason I dislike markets is because people like Bryan Caplan like them. Too many of the actually-principled right libertarians who (to their credit) actually define free-market as synonymous with voluntary, also have disgustingly elitist attitudes, such as believing that IQ is real, or that poverty is a symptom of lack of conscientiousness, or that businesspeople are more valuable members of society than intellectuals, or that American conservatives (in public opinion, not necessarily in political careers) are more commonsensical than American liberals. Would it absolutely kill left-styled libertarians and libertarians-without-adjectives to publicly distance themselves from people who brazenly declare “inequality of results” (which I believe to be a straw-man, anyway) to be a feature rather than a bug?

    Mention is also made to jeanine_ring’s comment:

    And there’s a *cultural* side to this too: what many leftists oppose in their antagonism to corporations into just mercantilist exploration but the heirarchical, conformist structure and “Dilbert” culture of corporate modernity.

    I was never much into Dilbert, but one thing about that comic strip spoke to me quite directly—the character Catbert, the evil HR director. The idea that there’s something evil about human resources resonates very strongly with me. I am offended by the idea that competition (making the sale; HR is the most visible symbol of that) is a prerequisite for work…which in turn is a prerequisite for independence, and then solvency, de-facto political freedom, and on down the line. This appears to me to be a consequence not of “a world where corporations aren’t the specially priviledged [sic],” but of a world that recognizes the moral authority of negative liberty. The former is in inevitable, almost axiomatic, consequence of the latter. Perhaps inclusivity and freedom really are a “pick one” proposition. Perhaps I, if push comes to shove, will prioritize inclusivity over freedom. Or perhaps I’ll sacrifice myself in the name of freedom, demonstrating the fatal flaw in Objectivism.

    Mention is made in Carson’s post of Robert Anton Wilson. Robert Anton Wilson managed to direct my attention to a number of subjects I usually avoid. Wilson had a sense of humor, and one of those would probably be the single most important strategic asset to those libertarians seeking engagement with non-libertarians in general.

  • Quotebag #87

    “what this means, as a practical matter, is that financial independence is not really in reach for huge numbers of workers. people live with their parents, or in terrible places; they go without health care; they can’t be prepared for emergencies; and they scramble. it is pepper-sauce in the wound to call these workers lazy, to jack them around on hours.”—kathy a.

    “However, our culture must admit that all the waste products of market-based capitalism are not ‘waste’ at all, but a very valuable resource.”—Nick Meador

    “There are many practical and philosophical reasons for obeying a law you don’t agree with, but there is never a reason to feel guilty about breaking a law you don’t agree with.”—kfogel

    “Obviously one is not entitled to a job in a ‘Right to Work’ state, so what is the truth behind the PR spin?”—David Hummels

    “If the world ends next week bring it on, because I can’t continue living in a society that’s getting more violent, selfish, greedy and stupid every single minute of every single day”—lostonearth35

    “In contrast to the relatively immutable laws of physics, economics are completely man-made; these are not immutable laws by any stretch.”—Michael Silverton

  • C4SS anti-“RTW” blogathon

    C4SS, to its credit, has taken a stand against the barrage of anti-labor legislation in Michigan with a barrage of posts attacking so-called “right to work:”

    I’m disappointed that the framing of the issue is almost entirely contractarian. This opens the door to the “freedom of association” defense of excuse for employment discrimination, and has the further effect opening the door to the claim that a union-organized worplace “discriminates against people who aren’t union members.” This may be true with craft unions, but craft unionists, like libertarians, are right wing tools who think they’re better than other people. With real unions, industrial unions, union membership, in the too-few workplaces where it is present, is merely a condition of employment, just as intrusive background checks, piss tests, etc., are conditions of employment in too many places. To invoke a disparaging cliché popular with libertarians and other conservatives: “Nobody’s holding a gun to your head. You can always get a job somewhere else.” When snotty “I got mine” types with right-wing viewpoints such as libertarianism/conservatism say “you can always get a job elsewhere” they talk as if jobs are easy to find. In my invocation above of this tired mantra, at least there is half-truth to the “You can always get a job…” BS, in that non-union jobs, while not easy to get, are a hell of a lot easier to get than good union jobs in today’s precaritized post-Reagan economy.

    David Hummels, to his credit, not only points out that, as a slogan “right to work” is patently dishonest, but explicitly states why:

    Obviously one is not entitled to a job in a ‘Right to Work’ state, so what is the truth behind the PR spin?

    This actually gets to the core of what anagorism is all about. It’s about right-to-work in the non-disingenuous sense.

  • La lucha continua

    What has now become the old model (the J.O.B. as the usual means of support) was a factory sweatshop partially humanized by several generations of intense activism and reform. Perhaps the precarious “freelancer” model that is rapidly replacing it can similarly be modified. The new rules seem to be that successful self-employment is a necessary but not sufficient condition for basic dignity. We can and should do better. I suspect the boycott will be more relevant than the strike this time around. I particularly like replacing the idea of “general strike” with “general boycott”–instead of “buy nothing day”, how about “live like a monk for a month”?

  • Exploring, as always, possible end-runs around market omniscience

    Maybe “letting go and letting the Invisible Hand” is more or less guaranteed to result in an allocation that lies at rather than within the production possibility frontier (PPF), but maybe no point on the present PPF represents the best of all possible worlds. Ideally, the road to there will involve some non-market activity on someone’s part. It’s hard to imagine the best of all currently possible worlds not being on the PPF, but that leaves open certain other questions: Does the pursuit of a better-than-currently-possible world necessarily involve pushing outward the envelope that is the PPF, or are there other avenues? I’ll admit that growth as a prerequisite for everything that is good (human rights, poverty alleviation, a smarter humanity, etc.) is a doctrine I find particularly depressing. It almost implies that to be poor is to be part of the problem, or at least precludes the poor from being part of the solution. Contrast this with sustainability principles, steady-state economics and the kind of thinking around “affluenza,” which actually honor the lean life rather than the mean life. This tonal contrast has played a big role in shaping my tribal and ideological allegiances, and is also why I am rooting for the affirmative in the global warming debate.

    Maybe the ability of the Invisible Hand to solve the calculation problem is definitively superlative when it comes to local optima, but discovery of non-local (but maybe preferable) attractors can be effected by shocks to the system from other-than-market forces.

  • Quotebag #86

    “Values plus Socialism tends to oppression. Socialism plus Liberty without Values tends towards an aimless mediocrity, Liberty plus Values without Socialism leads to injustice.”—John Madziarczyk

    “I have long felt that one cannot be sure that a person has offered him- or herself voluntarily for work or a service if that person does not have an acceptable alternative; i.e., the means to cover his or her basic needs.”—Edward S.

    “If you echo the belief in Christianity, saluting the flag, and pro-business beliefs of your superiors, you can get ahead fast in certain places.”—John Madziarczyk

    “Apart from a handful of artistic careers, the sad truth is that deeply satisfying work for pay is squeezed-out toothpaste that can’t be coaxed back into its tube.”—Solidarity Economy editors

    “It is a sad thing that anarchism is beeing [sic] distored from it’s original sense, but only by definition capitalism and anarchism is contradictions. It is very simple. The state and private property rests in the same principle of unpersonal property. If the master/ruler of the property is a king, dictator, CEO or elected president, it is still a form of government. Call it whatever you want- capitalism/statism.”—MrAnhape

    “Derived from the adage that ‘we cannot trust an honest man,’ we (aka ‘society in general) institute flawed, unworkable or Catch 22- like social standards in a deliberate fashion.”—locumranch

  • Quotebag #85

    “If freedom means non-frustration of the exercise of one’s legitimate property rights, you can be made perfectly free by being relieved of all property, including the right to your own body and life.”—John Holbo

    “The truth is, frankly, that there is only one war left to fight; the war against our own baser nature, the war against those primitive impulses which compel us to wage war.”—voxcorvegis

    “Libertarians like to suggest great disanalogies between the coercive law-imposing competition of rising and falling states and the seemingly more peaceful and mutually beneficial competition of rising and falling business enterprises.”—Dan Kervick

    “So lorraine you pathetic freaks actually have the occasional “crisis of faith” wow now I really know that leftism is a pseudo religion. So pretty much you guys don’t even believe in your own bullshit? The problem I have with leftism is that it really is a blank canvis there is no structured dialogue all it is is a bunch of retarded miscreants attributing their own personal desires unto this blank canvis. ”—the truth

    “The fungibility of work, the reduction of demand for long-developed special skills, the impossibility of virtuosity in one’s limited job, has made work less and less a source of reliable, positive information about the increasing value of the self — because it has ceased to truly improve people. But people still desire to work at what they love, and to improve themselves. The market will sell them the feeling of this, but will not commonly supply them with food in exchange for pursuing virtuosity.”—Sister Y

  • It’s not always the fake free-marketeers

    The portions of the apparent free market package that disturb me the most are not the obvious distortions.  It’s the frank anti-egalitarian attitudes of certain individuals who clearly do understand that not all pro-business politics is pro-market.

  • “Freedom from arbitrary authority is a consumer good”

    So says Gary Chartier. I’m inclined to agree that it’s a consumer good, at least in the actually existing economy. If freedom is doomed always to be an economic good, then there will always be constraints on freedom. Either freedom is impossible, or freed markets are an incremental step toward actual freedom, or freed markets can actually bring the cost of freedom all the way to zero.