In the same way that the onus is on monotheists to prove all other gods false and justify theirs as the one true god, the onus is on statists to explain not only why other nation states fail to conform to their own ideal but they must also explain the absence of world government.
If government is natural and necessary why is there no global government? If it is so preferable why does the world seem to overwhelmingly not prefer greater conglomeration of coercive power? why do nation states fight fiercely to defend their individual sovereign existence in an anarchic global order. why is this principle of individual sovereignty violently prohibited at any level other than the nation state?
Saturday, 31 March 2012
Friday, 30 March 2012
a radically economic view of cooking
Not only is eating out more economically efficient (due to the cast iron laws of comparative advantage, specialisation and the division of labour when not impeded by minimum wages, regulation and restrictions on the use of land) but it is safer. Most accidents occur in the home and most of them are the result of cooking – a specialist skill and a hazardous past time. Not only is it best not to waste time learning and practicing the art of preparing food but it is safer. Totally free markets in medical, household and buildings insurance may perhaps offer lower premiums to customers without kitchens. Save all that real estate cost on space, all that cash on specialist equipment and protect yourself from burns, cuts, poisoning, onion tears, odours and risk burning the house down.
Thursday, 29 March 2012
who invented the internet
Some statists, or more accurately anti-anarchists, may claim that the internet is not the product of the market but was developed by the state for the military. This may well be historically accurate. However the free market has clearly taken the idea and developed it far beyond its original limited scope into the resource it is today. but more importantly making the case that the internet has its origins in coercive action does not justify or legitimise the state in any way. The implication would be that the internet has its origins in the state and that absent the state we would not have the internet. This is an a priori statement that cannot be proven. That the state invented the internet does not preclude the development of a similar or better system in a non coercive society. If the state had not monopolised communications from the very inception of its history then things may have been very different. The state has claimed monopoly over communications throughout history – postal services, telegraph services, telephone services. It is only in the last ten years or so that most states have de-nationalised such communication services. These industries are still licensed, heavily regulated and cartelised for purposes of control and profit. But my point is that absent the state, communications may have developed differently. For example digging trenches across entire continents, and burying millions of miles of the precious metal copper (all centrally controlled) may perhaps not have been the most effective way to implement such networks. Perhaps radio (a technology contemporaneous with wired telecoms) would have been the choice of non centralised society. Perhaps in this non state world we would have had mobile telephony fifty to one hundred years sooner. Perhaps competing telecoms networks would have innovated new services to entice custom. Perhaps the age old human dream of the video phone (up there with the similarly state-prohibited flying car) would have come to fruition far sooner. Perhaps wired networks were the best choice and wireless televisual and radio services would have been more plentiful without the costs of nationwide broadcasting if simply piped into the home. Perhaps nothing would have ever been broadcast. Perhaps private commercial enterprises without the opportunity to offload IP type enforcement onto the state, would have opted for physical media to avoid free riders rather than mindlessly spewing their content free to all. (I'm thinking postally delivered wax cyclinders, vinyl discs, vhs cassettes etc)
Perhaps air ballons or tethered kites would have been a cheaper, earlier and more easily achievable form of signal intermediary than trillion dollar orbital space satellites. Perhaps the somalian post state mobile phone telecoms explosion shows the possibilities.
The possibilities are endless. But my point remains that just because the state does something does not follow that that good or service is impossible absent state involvement. Who is to say that in a totally free market telecoms companies would not have innovated a system similar to what we call the internet? Bastiat's that which is not seen. The internet is hampered by its origins. It was never meant to do what it does now. Its foundations are limited. Who is to say that the alternative anarcho-web would not have been more able to adapt and grow.
Even saying that 'just because the state did it first does not mean the market would not have done it later' does not go far enough. My point is that the state may have hampered and otherwise impeded the development of such goods and services to the point where the state was the only actor capable of such ‘innovation’ at that time.
Perhaps air ballons or tethered kites would have been a cheaper, earlier and more easily achievable form of signal intermediary than trillion dollar orbital space satellites. Perhaps the somalian post state mobile phone telecoms explosion shows the possibilities.
The possibilities are endless. But my point remains that just because the state does something does not follow that that good or service is impossible absent state involvement. Who is to say that in a totally free market telecoms companies would not have innovated a system similar to what we call the internet? Bastiat's that which is not seen. The internet is hampered by its origins. It was never meant to do what it does now. Its foundations are limited. Who is to say that the alternative anarcho-web would not have been more able to adapt and grow.
Even saying that 'just because the state did it first does not mean the market would not have done it later' does not go far enough. My point is that the state may have hampered and otherwise impeded the development of such goods and services to the point where the state was the only actor capable of such ‘innovation’ at that time.
Friday, 23 March 2012
Freedom of money equals freedom full stop
Attack the System » Blog Archive » Greeks Adopt Alternative Currencies as Economy Implodes
Links to numerous examples of failing centralised fiat systems and emergent voluntarist markets.
Tuesday, 20 March 2012
August Landmesser
Spot the free thinking individual among the sheep
You know the social ostracism you receive upon even verbally challenging a universally resented state tyranny such as taxation, now imagine the courage it took to do this.
August Landmesser deserves at least enough seconds of your life to go read the wiki article http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/August_Landmesser
You know the social ostracism you receive upon even verbally challenging a universally resented state tyranny such as taxation, now imagine the courage it took to do this.
August Landmesser deserves at least enough seconds of your life to go read the wiki article http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/August_Landmesser
Wednesday, 7 March 2012
criminal enterprise
Can you imagine working for a company that only has a little more than 635 employees, but, has the following employee statistics..
29 have been accused of spouse abuse
7 have been arrested for fraud
9 have been accused of writing bad cheques
17 have directly or indirectly bankrupted at least 2 businesses
3 have done time for assault
71 cannot get a credit card due to bad credit
14 have been arrested on drug-related charges
8 have been arrested for shoplifting
21 are currently defendants in lawsuits
84 have been arrested for drink driving in the last year
and,
collectively, this year alone, they have cost the British tax payer
£92,993,748 in expenses!
Which organisation is this?
It's the 635 members of the House of Commons.
The same group that cranks out hundreds of new laws each year designed to
keep the rest of us in line.
What a bunch of ‘toss-pots’ we have running our country - it says it all...
And just to top all that they probably have the best 'corporate' pension
scheme in the country!!
If you agree that this is an appalling state of affairs, please pass it on
to everyone you know.
Sunday, 4 March 2012
Anarchism without Hyphens
Karl Hess http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Hess
Any man who holds true to the above belief, can weld and was a friend of Murray Rothbard has go to be worth reading.
Anarchism without Hyphens
There is only one kind of anarchist. Not two. Just one. An anarchist, the only kind,
as defined by the long tradition and literature of the position itself, is a person in
opposition to authority imposed through the hierarchical power of the state. The
only expansion of this that seems to me reasonable is to say that an anarchist stands
in opposition to any imposed authority. An anarchist is a voluntarist.
Now, beyond that, anarchists also are people and, as such, contain the billionfaceted varieties of human reference. Some are anarchists who march, voluntarily,
to the Cross of Christ. Some are anarchists who flock, voluntarily, to the communes
of beloved, inspirational father figures. Some are anarchists who seek to establish
the syndics of voluntary industrial production. Some are anarchists who voluntary
seek to establish the rural production of the kibbutzim. Some are anarchists who,
voluntarily, seek to disestablish everything including their own association with
other people; the hermits. Some are anarchists who will deal, voluntarily, only in
gold, will never co-operate, and swirl their capes. Some are anarchists who, voluntarily, worship the sun and its energy, build domes, eat only vegetables, and play the
dulcimer. Some are anarchists who worship the power of algorithms, play strange
games, and infiltrate strange temples. Some are anarchists who see only the stars.
Some are anarchists who see only the mud.
They spring from a single seed, no matter the flowering of their ideas. The seed
is liberty. And that is all it is. It is not a socialist seed. It is not a capitalist seed. It is
not a mystical seed. It is not a determinist seed. It is simply a statement. We can be
free. After that it’s all choice and chance.
Anarchism, liberty, does not tell you a thing about how free people will behave
or what arrangements they will make. It simply says that people have the capacity
to make the arrangements.
Anarchism is not normative. It does not say how to be free. It says only that
freedom, liberty, can exist.
Recently, in a libertarian journal, I read the statement that libertarianism is an
ideological movement. It may well be. In a concept of freedom it, they, you, or we,
anyone, has the liberty to engage in ideology or anything else that does not coerce
others, denying their liberty. But anarchism is not an ideological movement. It is an
ideological statement. It says that all people have a capacity for liberty. It says that
all anarchists want liberty. And then it is silent. After the pause of that silence, anarchists then mount the stages of their own communities and history and proclaim
their, not anarchism’s, ideologies—they say how they, how they as anarchists, will
make arrangements, describe events, celebrate life, work.
Anarchism is the hammer-idea, smashing the chains. Liberty is what results and,
in liberty, everything else is up to people and their ideologies. It is not up to THE
ideology. Anarchism says, in effect, there is no such upper case, dominating ideology. It says that people who live in liberty make their own histories and their own
deals with and within it.
A person who describes a world in which everyone must or should behave in a
single way, marching to a single drummer, is simply not an anarchist. A person who
says that they prefer this way, even wishing that all would prefer that way, but who
then says that all must decide, may certainly be an anarchist. Probably is.
Liberty is liberty. Anarchism is anarchism. Neither is Swiss cheese or anything
else. They are not property. They are not copyrighted. They are old, available ideas,
part of human culture. They may be hyphenated but they are not in fact hyphenated. They exist on their own. People add hyphens, and supplemental ideologies.
I am an anarchist. I need to know that, and you should know it. After that, I am a
writer and a welder who lives in a certain place, by certain lights, and with certain
people. And that you may know also. But there is no hyphen after the anarchist.
Liberty, finally, is not a box into which people are to be forced. Liberty is a space
in which people may live. It does not tell you how they will live. It says, eternally,
only that we can.
the dandelion, Spring 1980 by Karl Hess
found at
http://c4ss.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/Karl_Hess_forprint.pdf
“I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no
vice! And let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue!” – Karl Hess, for Barry Goldwater; attribution to Cicero.
Any man who holds true to the above belief, can weld and was a friend of Murray Rothbard has go to be worth reading.
Anarchism without Hyphens
There is only one kind of anarchist. Not two. Just one. An anarchist, the only kind,
as defined by the long tradition and literature of the position itself, is a person in
opposition to authority imposed through the hierarchical power of the state. The
only expansion of this that seems to me reasonable is to say that an anarchist stands
in opposition to any imposed authority. An anarchist is a voluntarist.
Now, beyond that, anarchists also are people and, as such, contain the billionfaceted varieties of human reference. Some are anarchists who march, voluntarily,
to the Cross of Christ. Some are anarchists who flock, voluntarily, to the communes
of beloved, inspirational father figures. Some are anarchists who seek to establish
the syndics of voluntary industrial production. Some are anarchists who voluntary
seek to establish the rural production of the kibbutzim. Some are anarchists who,
voluntarily, seek to disestablish everything including their own association with
other people; the hermits. Some are anarchists who will deal, voluntarily, only in
gold, will never co-operate, and swirl their capes. Some are anarchists who, voluntarily, worship the sun and its energy, build domes, eat only vegetables, and play the
dulcimer. Some are anarchists who worship the power of algorithms, play strange
games, and infiltrate strange temples. Some are anarchists who see only the stars.
Some are anarchists who see only the mud.
They spring from a single seed, no matter the flowering of their ideas. The seed
is liberty. And that is all it is. It is not a socialist seed. It is not a capitalist seed. It is
not a mystical seed. It is not a determinist seed. It is simply a statement. We can be
free. After that it’s all choice and chance.
Anarchism, liberty, does not tell you a thing about how free people will behave
or what arrangements they will make. It simply says that people have the capacity
to make the arrangements.
Anarchism is not normative. It does not say how to be free. It says only that
freedom, liberty, can exist.
Recently, in a libertarian journal, I read the statement that libertarianism is an
ideological movement. It may well be. In a concept of freedom it, they, you, or we,
anyone, has the liberty to engage in ideology or anything else that does not coerce
others, denying their liberty. But anarchism is not an ideological movement. It is an
ideological statement. It says that all people have a capacity for liberty. It says that
all anarchists want liberty. And then it is silent. After the pause of that silence, anarchists then mount the stages of their own communities and history and proclaim
their, not anarchism’s, ideologies—they say how they, how they as anarchists, will
make arrangements, describe events, celebrate life, work.
Anarchism is the hammer-idea, smashing the chains. Liberty is what results and,
in liberty, everything else is up to people and their ideologies. It is not up to THE
ideology. Anarchism says, in effect, there is no such upper case, dominating ideology. It says that people who live in liberty make their own histories and their own
deals with and within it.
A person who describes a world in which everyone must or should behave in a
single way, marching to a single drummer, is simply not an anarchist. A person who
says that they prefer this way, even wishing that all would prefer that way, but who
then says that all must decide, may certainly be an anarchist. Probably is.
Liberty is liberty. Anarchism is anarchism. Neither is Swiss cheese or anything
else. They are not property. They are not copyrighted. They are old, available ideas,
part of human culture. They may be hyphenated but they are not in fact hyphenated. They exist on their own. People add hyphens, and supplemental ideologies.
I am an anarchist. I need to know that, and you should know it. After that, I am a
writer and a welder who lives in a certain place, by certain lights, and with certain
people. And that you may know also. But there is no hyphen after the anarchist.
Liberty, finally, is not a box into which people are to be forced. Liberty is a space
in which people may live. It does not tell you how they will live. It says, eternally,
only that we can.
the dandelion, Spring 1980 by Karl Hess
found at
http://c4ss.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/Karl_Hess_forprint.pdf
Friday, 2 March 2012
cant do better than this
just a lazy redirection of a blog post but easily worth the click through. If some other guy has already said it then why reinvent the wheel. http://attackthesystem.com/2012/03/02/no-one-notices-no-one-cares/ angry, exasperated, just how we all feel.
if you need cheering up check out the always hilarious and excellently written fred http://www.fredoneverything.net/Abdulah.shtml
if you need cheering up check out the always hilarious and excellently written fred http://www.fredoneverything.net/Abdulah.shtml
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