In Defense of Anagorism

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

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  • Ancaps may be a genuine step in the general direction of freedom

    For better or worse, I understand anarcho-capitalism to be the abolition of the political order in favor of an economic order. The key to survival in either order is fending for oneself. In the political order this means literal self-defense, while in the economic order it is the less explicit “holding one’s own” in negotiation and the like. I see more similarities than differences here. In the political order effectiveness at combat is a prerequisite for dignity, while in the economic order is the triad of recession-proof skills (in terms of the want ads, etc.): sales, collections and security. In either order, the meek inherit the dust. My own subjective sense of freedom is that the ultimate freedom is the freedom to let one’s guard down. If the abolition of politics, in itself, is a step in the direction of freedom (and I believe it can be), then the abolition of economics is a step further in the same direction. It’s certainly ironic that my assertion that meaningful economic freedom is freedom from economics is always attacked most fiercely by the proselytizers of the right wing notion called negative liberties, which is otherwise a generalization of the idea of “freedom from.”

    Against market and state!

  • Quotebag #60

    “Obfuscation is just another marketing tool.”—KenG_CA

    “I don’t see the moral or ethical distinction between a rich person paying a lawyer to pay less tax and a poor person not declaring his cash work to the benefits office because if he did they’d cut his benefits pound for pound. One is lawful because it is lawyered, the other technically criminal, both are the result of a broken tax system.”—ejoftheweb

    “I too had to practically flog myself to read Atlas Shrugged. It is grossly repetitive and pedantic. It’s like being whacked with a hammer again and again and again while being asked ‘did you get the point?’… when you could hardly have missed it the first time around.”—anne.ominous

    “First impressions matter, and a failed first impression is hard to overcome. One of the most important factors in a first impression, from future employers to prospective lovers, is a winning smile. In fact, a good smile has become so important over the last thirty or so years it has become ‘a test’ for whether someone is part of the middle class.”—John Robb

  • Twitter gets a little more mercenary

    It seems now they place “promoted tweets” from unfollowed feeds (example) in the user’s newsfeed, in addition to the “promoted feeds” in the “who to follow” column. It’s a free-as-in-beer service, so I’m not complaining, but I tend to think of trends toward salesmanship and advertising playing a bigger part of business models (and of course also job descriptions) as a sort of barometer indication of tough times.

  • Quotebag #59

    “Doing business, even small business, requires mystification.”—Jack Crow

    “The phrase ‘commercial in confidence’ implies a conspiracy; a conspiracy that should be unlawful.”—ejoftheweb

    “You folks in the 53% movement are being played.”—Kevin Carson

    “Yes there are kooks on the left, there are kooks on the right too and as far as I’m concerned all moderates are kooks.”—Skex

    “I’m never shocked when powerful people abuse others. I’m shocked when they don’t.”—Mel

    “Interaction can be divided into competitive and cooperative. Competition is transacted through power plays, cooperation is free of free of power plays.”—Claude Steiner

  • Can anagorism survive panarchy?

    By panarchy we mean pluralism in anarchist ideology, or the coexistence of different and perhaps conflicting non-authoritarian ways of life. More to the point, can anagorism succeed in a world that contains anarcho-capitalism? For this purpose I define success as independence. My optimism is generally so guarded that I assume the odds are against anarchy in any sense being achieved during my lifetime—but I think the less utopian forms such as propertarianism and agorism are more likely to become part of my reality, so it is important to me to keep the anagorist dream alive—do what I can to make sure the revolution doesn’t stop there.

    Total independence, like utopia itself, may be a non-option, or as I prefer to say, an asymptotic goal. A good strategy to start may be closure seeking, or making a non-competitive “game” of seeing “how low can we go” with respect to minimizing interactions with decidedly propertarian sectors of society, be it the actually existing business sector, or for-profit entities existing in some future state of anarchy. But what other strategies are available? One is economic minimalism, or re-categorizing supposed necessities as luxuries, but reliance on that strategy alone would be a trap. My idea of the ultimate luxury is the luxury of not being in it for the money, whatever “it” is.

    Independence from business entities, like independence from government, consists of ability to fend for oneself. The point behind anagorism is to minimize the need to fend for oneself, in both the martial and commercial spheres, at least to the extent that such strategy and one-upcrittership is a burden on individuals. This presents a strategic weakness for the anagorist community as a whole, as its capacity of collective self defense capabilities, or economic independence capabilities, at some level, draws on the competence of its members. Anagorism does not seek to hobble the individual! Anagorism has the competing goals of maximizing ability and minimizing non-elective challenge. It is not the only ideology with competing goals, but higher ideals do tend to make for harder tradeoffs. We should use our more exacting (or less realistic) ideals as an elective challenge to develop the skills necessary to fend for ourselves, and to produce at least some of the outcomes of business (in the form of products) without the methods of business.

  • Quotebag #58

    “I think property is like power, Soma. If you don’t use it, defend it, teach it and perhaps most of all, prevent others from having it — it loses not only the value determined by exclusivity, but [its] ability to grab hold of the minds of those without it. ”—Jack Crow

    “Exchangeable value requires coercion and creates hierarchies.”—Anatole David

    “The RIAA’s political strategy in the war on piracy has been alternately to oppose and support government regulation of the Internet, depending on what’s expedient. I wonder if rights owners and the trade groups that represent them experience any sense of cognitive dissonance when they advocate against something at one moment and for it a little while later—to the same audience, on the same issue.”—Annemarie Bridy

    “If you want freedom and justice, then work towards equality and solidarity.”—Marja Erwin

    “It’s worth asking, largely rhetorically, how many jobs are created by requiring public schools students to take a loyalty oath first thing in the morning.”—Eric B.

  • New rallying cry

    While I like “against market and state,” and even the neo-mutualist paradox of “free-market anticapitalism,” I can’t deny that I’ve been influenced by the reductionist Robinson Crusoe (“imagine a world in which the only economic goods are eggs and root beer…”) approach of libertarians, so in the spirit of  paradox and mindfuckery, I give you “against coercion and competition.”

  • Quotebag #57

    “The fact that music and the arts is argued for inclusion in our schools primarily as a way to raise math scores shows you how useless the whole exercise in education ‘reform’ is.”—Purple

    “If I somehow manage to come into the classroom every day and keep my religion to myself, I don’t understand why a politician, a judge, a doctor, anybody else cannot do the same.”—Clarissa

    “Well, there are plenty of historical societies that dealt in people rather than money. I personally believe that printed money maintains a separation — a boundary, if you will — between the individual and the work that the money symbolizes. Money, as a result, allows us to look past the humanity and excuse atrocious behavior like layoffs and cut benefits as ‘only business.’ When in fact it is extremely personal and inhumane.”—Academic Monkey

    “If I sell my TV and other ‘gadgets’ that are always used to show how rich poor people are compared to earlier days, it will get me exactly nowhere today as far as paying my rent.”—Isabel

  • Quotebag #56

    “I agree about the negative consequences of ‘crony capitalism’. But is crony capitalism only defined as an unwholesome alliance between government and business? What about unwholesome alliances between businesses?”—Poor Richard

    “A common job interview question is ‘Why do you want this job?’ And the true answer, ‘Because it’s a job,’ is not acceptable.”—impudent strumpet

    “Contempt is the only way to manage others.”—Jack Crow

    “The last thing the European left ever needs to do is follow America’s lead of all things when it comes to resistance, just as the last thing US Occupiers need is to lose themselves in a narcissistic fantasy that they are leading the world only to be lead by the nose by incumbent-elites to domesticate a real possibility for organized resistance into another Burning Man.”—Dale Carrico

    “I also have a sense that many of the most ardent reactionaries hold to a very strange version of the labor theory of value, wherein the unworthy poor are sapping surplus off of the vigorous masters.”—Nerdy McGee

    “Remember, modern elites are trained to think in terms of cost-benefit analyses. If the cost to them of not giving in is less than the cost of not giving in, they won’t give in. It took trillions of dollars to bail out Wall Street. They take home billions of dollars in personal bonuses. You must cost them, personally, more than that, for them to want to give in.”—Ian Welsh

  • Geek Code of the majority: PE>$

    It’s official.  The Washington Post (h/t John Robb) informs us that solid majorities of Democrats, Republicans and “independents” alike have unfavorable views of both Wall Street (“jump”) and Washington (“how high?”).  As the people who devised the Geek Code put it, “distrust both government and business.”