In Defense of Anagorism

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

The Tyranny of the Necessity of Selling

“If, in the present chaotic and shameful struggle for existence, when organized society offers a premium on greed, cruelty, and deceit, men can be found who stand aloof and almost alone in their determination to work for good rather than gold, who suffer want and persecution rather than desert principle, who can bravely walk to the scaffold for the good they can do humanity, what may we expect from men when freed from the grinding necessity of selling the better part of themselves for bread?”—Lucy Parsons

“Instead of studying how to make it worth men’s while to buy my baskets, I studied rather how to avoid the necessity of selling them.”—Henry David Thoreau

“Man truly achieves his full human condition when he produces without being compelled by the physical necessity of selling himself as a commodity.”—Ernesto “Che” Guevara

“‘Market value’ means the amount that would be paid in cash by a willing buyer who desires to buy, but is not required to buy, to a willing seller who desires to sell, but is under no necessity of selling.”—Jeff Hamilton

Comments

3 responses to “The Tyranny of the Necessity of Selling”

  1. Lorraine Lee Avatar

    Any nonbusiness model. A single example of a noncommercial (but also nongovernmental) operating model in the context of any plausibly economic activity in any social setting. Perhaps there is not and never will be and even maybe never can be such an example; demonstrating yet again why nature abhors an anagora. Tom Slee, in Open […]

  2. […] possible outcomes for such ventures other than (1) a failed business or (2) a business that is for sale. At best, it seems that cooptation is a stronger force than disruption. Is this too an Iron Law of […]

  3. Poor Richard Avatar

    The necessity of selling may just be a modern, ritualized version of the necessity of running from bears.

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