I think it’s time to remind people that in the early Red Scares, post-Bolshevik Revolution, communism didn’t represent “totalitarianism” but “anarchy.” In early anti-communist literature, “communist” and “anarchist” are used as synonyms. You see this in this 1920 essay by Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer, “The Case Against the Reds.” The case Palmer makes is not that Communism would create an oppressive totalitarian state but that it would destroy all authority and let lawlessness and crime run rampant.
Of course, as government calling themselves “communist” became ruthlessly dictatorial, peoples’ ideas about communism shifted. But Marx’s original vision was of a society without government where free people, unencumbered by class distinctions, would communally and democratically make decisions together. Yeah, it didn’t work.
I thought of this after reading the comment thread attached to this post at Reason. The blogger dutifully criticizes Sen. Richard Shelby for holding up nominations just to secure pork for Alabama. But most of the commenters don’t see it that way. Example:
Yes,Team Blue is in power.They hold the executive and legislative branches of government.When Team Red is trying to constrain state power I’m rooting for them.
Exactly how Shelby’s act of grandstanding isn’t “state power” also eludes me.
Anyway, some of the commenters refer to themselves as “an-cap,” which I take it stands for “anarchist-capitalist.” The an-caps are opposed to all government, period. When one person issued a challenge, “Who enforces your contracts,” an an-cap had a ready answer — a link to this document, “Privatizing the Adjudication of Disputes,” in which a couple of whackjobs seriously argue in favor of a private, for-profit criminal justice system.
Just read it. It’s one of the most jaw-dropping-ridiculous things I’ve ever seen. The bozos authors criticize the “near-monopoly of law that most governments possess,” and argue in favor of putting “public” courts out of business.
Here’s a radical idea of returning to the good old days:
Legal centralists posit that legal systems must govern everyone to function at all. If lawbreakers could simply drop out of the system, law could hardly protect us from their misdeeds. And yet, history contains many instances of pluralistic legal systems in which multiple sources of law existed in one geographic region. These were much more sophisticated than primitive law. In medieval Europe, for example, canon law, royal law, feudal law, manorial law, mercantile law, and urban law co-existed; none was automatically supreme over the others. Naturally, some jurisdictional conflicts occurred. But this system of concurrent jurisdiction overlapped with a period of economic development (c.1050-1250), not a period of chaos and impoverishment. Apparently these diverse systems did what Thomas Hobbes declared impossible: They created social order and peace in the absence of a distinct, supreme sovereign.
Look at the time peoriod — they are talking about the glory days of European feudalism, folks. I guess you could say there was social order and peace, but there was also serfdom. The real thing, not the kind Friedrich von Hayek wrote about. If you were one of the privileged few born into the aristocracy, I guess life probably was pretty sweet. But otherwise, Hobbes was right — for serfs, life was nasty, brutish, and short.
Here’s the conclusion of the paper:
For arbitration to live up to its full potential, however, government has to stop holding it back. Public courts should, as a matter of policy, respect contracts that specify final and binding arbitration. Legislatures should abolish laws that hamper ostracism, boycott, and other non-violent private enforcement methods. These small changes would make private courts much more attractive than they already are – and go a long way toward putting the public courts out of business.
“Private enforcement methods.” It sounds so banal. As in sending around that nice Vinnie “the Nickle” De Luca to make you an offer you can’t refuse. Before long a small coterie of people with means will have a monopoly on “private enforcement.” That’s not at all what the authors of the paper intend, of course, but it’s how their ideas would turn out in the real world.
The early Marxist ideal was to eliminate private property, and utopia would follow. The an-caps think that by making everything private, utopia will follow. Both groups value human freedom and desire an end to oppression. Put into practice, seems to me both inevitably lead to the utter subjugation of most people under the rule of a powerful few. Extremists may go around opposite sides of the circle, and their rhetoric and ideals may be utterly different, but sooner or later they end up in the same place.
This is grossly over-simple, but it’s how politics works. Extremist ideas all end up in about the same place, whether they originated on the Left or the Right. That’s because ideas that aren’t based in reality and real human nature generally pave the way for oppression and, eventually, totalitarianism. Anarchism has never brought about greater freedom; it just sets up conditions for some sort of Strong Man, whether tribal warlords or a national dictator, to step into the power vacuum.
All we can hope is that “an-cap” ideas never get put into practice.
For another perspective on Shelby et al., see Krugman.
“The early Marxist ideal was to eliminate private property, and utopia would follow. The an-caps think that by making everything private, utopia will follow. Both groups value human freedom and desire an end to oppression. Put into practice, seems to me both inevitably lead to the utter subjugation of most people under the rule of a powerful few.”
I won’t quibble with the characteri
“The early Marxist ideal was to eliminate private property, and utopia would follow. The an-caps think that by making everything private, utopia will follow. Both groups value human freedom and desire an end to oppression. Put into practice, seems to me both inevitably lead to the utter subjugation of most people under the rule of a powerful few.”
I won’t quibble with the characterization of anarcho-capitalism, but I think it’s important to note (for pet peevish reasons) that, while the notion gets made fun of, it really is true that “Marxism” never really has been embraced. Lenin, Mao, Castro, etc. rejected fundamental tenets of Marxist idealism, especially with regards to egalitarianism and democracy. Lenin, in particular, explicitly denied being a Marxist.
1. Read Barbara Tuchman’s “A Distant Mirror” if you think the 12th to 14th Centuries are what we want to aspire to. Her book compared the 20th Century to the 14th. I’m not sure who the winner was, I just know it wasn’t “just plain folks” like us. And the similarities are astounding. Too bad she’s no longer alive, or she could write a sequal, “The Not So Distant Mirror,” about how the 21st may eclipse the 14th for religious zealotry, mahem, murder, and insanity.
2. The problem of Marx and Engels is that they pre-dated Freud and phsychology. Had they had knowledge of some of Freud’s and Jung’s analysis, among others, they might have come closer to some nearly “absolute” truth. The search, of course, for an “absolute thruth” is a large part of the problem of human nature, and has been since we EVOLVED (Wars are an attempt at validation of some ‘absloute truth” as some nation sees it). The other problem with Marx and Engle’s is that their books are the most boring EVER written. They weren’texactly “Groucho” Marx and “Harpo” Engels.I know. I read them, oh, some 30+ years ago. They could put a cup of coffee to sleep, and make amphetamine’s take a nap!.
3. To paraphrase the rest of what you wrote maha, ‘Extremism in the defense of Liberty IS a VICE!!!’
My “Socialist” vision of a Liberal Heaven here would be some corporatist’s idea of Hell on Earth.
Our mission on this Earth, as I now see it, is to find some sort of practical “Purgatory” that does the most amount of good for the many with the least amount of harm. (Animal, vegetable, and mineral, btw…). That’s what I’m starting to realize (Yeah, still kind of Socialist, ain’t it?). Taxing the rich is not a punishment. It a reminder of their social responsibilty for getting where they got – and it’s giving some help for those who ain’t got. And if it means the richest 4% of the country has to pay more taxes, then I wish I were one of them so that I could help contribute.
Anone hiring?
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/06/opinion/06herbert.html
Krugman: …but, from the second half of the 17th century, the liberum veto was used to virtually paralyze the Sejm, and brought the Commonwealth to the brink of collapse.
I’m sure Shelbey is just looking for pork, while carrying out the obstructionist goal of his party. Win/win, he thinks. He’s not smart enough, or dumb enough, to even think about total collapse. But the tea partiers? They are dumb enough to be thrilled by the idea of total collapse.
erinyes,
I love Herbert. But, he’s an optimist. Our economy is done.
We only do three things anymore economically:
1. We continue to build our military industrial complex,. We sell off the excess. And worry later if that excess can, or will, be used against us.
Btw – we have continued to increase outsourcing more and more of that, too. National security, my ASS!!
2. We move money around. We create new schemes for moving the same amount of money, with all of the usual vulture’s take a piece of their action.
3. We create and service debt around products that are made in other nations, but still need our local presence in order to maintain appearances and ensure viability in the product(s) sold here.
Memories of better times are all that still sustain us. We think we can ‘Lazarus’ this nation back from death’s door economically.
We remember the fine ‘eau de cologne’ that was our economy from the end of WWII to the early part of the Reagan years. Now, what we smell is not ‘eau de cologne,’ it’s ‘oh, dat toilet!”
What scares me is that what we’re smelling right now is only the fart in the wind. The real shit’s about to come down on us soon. And that stink will make us say, “OH MY GOD!?!?! Why have you forsaken us?”
The new fight won’t be over real estate and housing prices, it’ll be over which overpass has the best year-round protection.
I hope I’m wrong. I pray I’m wrong. Now, show me some evidence that I’m not right (and I don’t mean in the head – THAT’S a given!).
I wondered if these were just stupid kids – their argument sounds sophomoric – but then I followed the link to the academic paper arguing for private courts.
More and more I see our social system orienting around a kind of 21st century feudalism, meaning barons and serfs, which these twits think would be just great. I can’t wrap my mind around 1) how incredibly ignorant and small-minded these idiots are, and 2) they have real university teaching positions? At least one at a state university, with salaries paid for by taxpayers?
Fortunately for those who want to consider an-cap theory, the planet provides us with many examples of how well it would work, not just in history, but right now. Truth be told, there are many regions of the world where “government” as we would know it has withered away or abdicated its rule, and these supposedly wonderful private enforcement mechanisms hold sway.
Curiously, most people, and, I must notice, that includes these an-cap theorists, choose not to emigrate to Somalia, central Africa, the favelas of Sao Paolo or similar locales. Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that normal people realize that, for what anarcho-capitalists might a ‘decentralized, private, for-profit dispute adjudication system’ we typically just use terms like “warlord”, or “strongman.” We don’t need to go back in time to see how well medieval justice systems worked and how “free” the people in them were. For far too many people, systems like that are still in effect.
How both amazing and yet sad it is that these people are so blessed and safe in modern industrial democracy that they have the ability to not even understand how blessed they are.
“Does the state need to provide law”?
Seriously, the economics profession needs to rid itself of neo-feudalist nuts. I’m really starting to think that all conservative economic theory (EMH, etc) is just a cover for a longing for the good old days when the little people knew their place.
A couple of comfortable upper middle class academics, who have probably never been busted for anything, really think that private “justice companies” will know how to handle those pesky criminals. (Not “their” kind of people of course!)
Nuts.
” But the tea partiers? They are dumb enough to be thrilled by the idea of total collapse.”
The boneheads weaned on ‘Atlas Shrugged’ think that the collapse is the first step of a conservative utopia. That’s what the book implies at the end… All the good guys rebuild a just capitalist system. BTW, in a long-ass book, there’s not a bad capitalist to be found. The tea party movement is sorta convoluted there, faning the flames of discontent about Evil Wall Street, while proclaiming loyalty to the principles of free enterprise without government interference. How do you keep business from being evil without regulation? After all, it WAS the banks, free of government interference, that brought the economy to the brink, which made the bailout nescessary….
What the ‘revolutionaries’ ignore is how revolutions usually go. Bloody. The American Revolution was the exception compared to the purges of the French Revolution and the overthrow of the Czar. In the last year, there’s been a boom industry – gun and ammo sales. Want a clue how the collapse might play out in the US – look to the last 8 years in Iraq. BYODB. (Bring your own drill bits)
So how are these justice companies supposed to compete? With speedy drive thru windows? What about “tipping†the judge? Wouldn’t guys who knew they were guilty all go to the “Get Out Of Jail Free” company which had been rated by another private company with the lowest incarceration rate? And what company watches that company?
Anarchism has never brought about greater freedom; it just sets up conditions for some sort of Strong Man, whether tribal warlords or a national dictator, to step into the power vacuum.
I think a lot of these guys need to google “successful sociopath†or “socialized psychopath†or “malignant narcissistâ€, or experience one up close and personal. Afterwards, their time figuring out how to plug power vacuums with their new knowledge/experience would be time better spent than rationalizing bizzaro world crap.
while I sympathize with libertarian concerns for freedom and individual dignity, but both of those will suffer if they ever get the kind of world they want. and it IS a different world. it’s some scifi fantasyland. libertarians seem to have no real sense of the social.
The people who advocate Obama’s failure are also advocating for their country to fail. They also are advocating for their own failure. These are patriots? Patriots don’t work to see their country fail.
Bingo, Bonnie! If Obama wants to put the Taebaggers in their place, he needs to use the “patriot”meme; Bush used it effectively to brand the opposition as “unpatriotic”.
Curious it is that “we” don’t have ” Czars”, but we all of a sudden got a “Homeland” one day, a department to go with it, and a “Czar” to run the thing.
Gulag, like Herbert, I’m also an optimist, not a magical thinker, but optimistic.
It has to do with sustainability. Humans by nature are social creatures, and I can’t think of a worse time for civilization than during WW2; but it eventually got better.
I was in a hydroponic supply store last week, and struck up a conversation with the owner and another customer, The owner was a neat guy, very helpful; the customer was a survivalist type, anti government, buy gold and ammo, ad nausem. I told him I’m into growing a shrub called Jatropha, which produces a green fuel, but the recent extended freeze damaged my plants, and I want to get a cloner to propagate what I have left rapidly so I can get my stock back up.
His response was that the government will want to tax any biofuel I produce, so why bother, and it’s better to produce food, but you need guns to protect your food from the roving bands of starving people soon to come.
I think these prople are so stuck on the every man for himself deal that they are blinded. This is why we have soceity. People working together get things done, people working alone get left in the dust. Large numbers of people bitching and moaning about imagined perils will be at the back of the line when things turn around, as they always do.( teabaggers)
Our government needs to hit the “grand reset button”, wipe out consumer debt, and get on with the rebuilding. A consumer based system cannot resurrect if the consumer base is hobbled.
Looking back over the past 10 years, it is plain to see that the right has been wrong about EVERYTHING, from the WMD in Iraq to the “blame the stupid minorities” for the real estate market crash, to the UAW members make to much money and crank out inferior products, while the guys building Toyotas build a better product and make less (Whoopie!); but damn those stuck gas pedals and the billion car recall.If Ford had a similar problem, the right would be crowing like a rooster in rut.
It’s one bullshit line after another; there is egg all over their faces, but nobody points it out
And one last point;the righties are fond of pointing out govt waste, but few, with the exception of Ron Paul and his immediate followers, will say anything negative about the BILLIONS spent on the war machine. If anything bankrupts the US, it will be these wars, and possibly sooner than later.
“In medieval Europe, for example, canon law, royal law, feudal law, manorial law, mercantile law, and urban law co-existed; none was automatically supreme over the others.”
Well different laws exist today, just as they did then, and in precisely the same manner. Just as “royal law, feudal law, manorial law, and urban law co-existed then, city law, state law and federal law co-exist today. We call them jurisdictions, and each has its own laws and statutes, its own courts, its own enforcement officers, and even its own jails. Wow, amazing.
Just as “royal law, canon law and merchantile law co-existed then, criminal law and civil law co-exist today. Again, there are separate statutes and separate courts.
If you call the police over a dispute regarding property, they will tell you “that is a civil matter” and leave without taking action, because police deal in criminal law and are not permitted to deal in civil law.
People with an IQ higher than room temperature understand all of this quite clearly. You can even learn it by watching such high level television shows as Judge Judy.
“…it’s better to produce food, but you need guns to protect your food from the roving bands of starving people soon to come.”
We had a guy like that in our neighborhood, wanted to build walls to close off the canyon as well, in 1999 over the Y2K thing. We all recall how that one turned out.
A couple of points here. I have seen public courts where the rich can buy judges etc. For that matter these places are all over the freakin globe, but oh-no – these dipshits don’t want to move to Mexico or some other lovely developing nation, because the services will be inferior! They need to be reminded who provides these services.
In regard to the economic situation – while I think my long period of unemployed status is coming to an end this spring – Gulag is correct, our economy is now based nearly entirely on military contracts and moving funny money from one place to the other. Has anyone ever seen an interview with one of these asshole bankers? They sound to me as though they think of themselves as the kings of the world, despite the fact they can’t understand half of what they do.
I remember when I was a kid I had a friend whose father Artie used to play the ponies. One Sunday morning Artie went up to the Five Corners to get the Sunday paper along with his traditional coffee and hard roll. Artie wasn’t able to cover his book and make a timely payment for prior debts to his bookie, so Artie’s bookie had some private contract enforcers grab him and drag him behind the stores to deliver his a late notice. Artie came back to his house covered in blood with his front teeth missing.
It kinda makes you appreciate the late charges sanctioned and upheld by the Fair Credit and Billing Act.
In defense of anarchy, if properly done: there do exist examples of lawful self-organizing large-scale social arrangements without ownership or authority. This Internet, for instance; owned and operated by none.
Of course the Web, though formally anarchic, depends upon state and corporate support; and it reciprocates that support.
Anarchy alone, and the Archon alone, do not suffice for a society fit for human habitation. The state must be limited; and so must anarchy; fortunately they limit each other. (If done properly.)
paradoctor, the Internet doesn’t employ me. It doesn’t provide (or deny) heath care coverage. I’m anonymous there. While it can try to scam me, it can’t mug me.
As to ownership, it used to have no owner per se, when it got heavy government funding via colleges and other public institutions. Now you can make quite a case that transport is owned by the ISPs, and I recall recent battles over “net neutrality” which would have given them rights to charge traffic differentials, among other things.
Local telco’s and cable companies can also determine what class of service I’m allowed. I’m in a rural area, so there is no cable company and the phone company deems it not profitable to provide service. My options are therefore either very slow or very expensive. No amount of self-organizing large-scale social arrangement is likely to resolve that particular problem.
In short, I’m not sure this is a valid analogy.
One thing i learned afew years ago, is that if you run afoul of federal law here in Texas, you stay in their system. My daughter did so years ago. When she was finaly released, she had two probation officers she had to go see, here in the town where we lived one federal parole officer she had to go see once amonth in another larger city, a physicatrist in that same city, and an mhmr clinic she had to report once amonth. And every place we went to the cars these people were driving werw very nice cars, so i remarked to my daughter that these people she was going to see must make pretty good money. She looked at me
On the subject of binding private arbitration, this incident came to mind:
(I know it was discussed on Mahablog, but damn if I could find it.)
From HufPO
“In 2005, Jamie Leigh Jones was gang-raped by her Halliburton/KBR co-workers while working in Iraq and locked in a shipping container for over a day to prevent her from reporting her attack. The rape occurred outside of U.S. criminal jurisdiction, but to add serious insult to serious injury she was not allowed to sue KBR because her employment contract said that sexual assault allegations would only be heard in private arbitration–a process that overwhelmingly favors corporations.
This year, Sen. Al Franken (D-MN) proposed an amendment that would deny defense contracts to companies that ask employees to sign away the right to sue. It passed, but it wasn’t the slam dunk Jon Stewart expected. Instead the amendment received 30 nay votes all from Republicans. “I understand we’re a divided country, some disagreements on health care. How is ANYONE against this?” He asked.”
The article discusses replacing the public courts, which have some flaws, with private arbitration, which has some legitimate applications when both parties freely accept it, as in relatively amicable divorces. But when the deal is rigged to favor one side, and the larger party can mandate arbitration as a condition for employment, for example then arbitration is not freely accepted even if it’s specified in the boilerplate contract.
She looked at me and grined and told me they also had federal credit cards. I said , how much do you think these people makr ayear forty thousand? That much for sure dad. Now, iwas taking her to see six people ayear every month and if each officer was making forty thousand a year, that is 240,ooo a year to watch ovef one little tiny girl and when yoy consider this t6hink about all the other parolees.
I’m just amused as hell by this new moniker, “an-cap.” It sounds like some kind of surgical implant for people with chronic diarrhea. I guess the libertarians finally figured out that when they say, “I’m a libertarian,” these days rational people fall over laughing. I think it has something to do with their dear leaders, Ron Paul and Sarah Palin, being racist idiots.
Just as “royal law, canon law and merchantile law co-existed then, criminal law and civil law co-exist today. Again, there are separate statutes and separate courts.
Yes, but they are all tied together by the federalist governmental system, which has spelled out what those jurisdictions are. Somebody outside some part of government can’t just built a courthouse and go into the criminal justice business, nor can a particular part of law enforcement decide on its own to expand its jurisdiction.
In feudal Europe, a number of what might be called justice or regulatory “systems” evolved to make various parts of civilization workable, but there was no one overruling “law of the land” that tied them together. The only institutional cohesion came from an intricate web of personal relationships among various ruling families and the Church.
This evolved eventually into a system of strong national monarchies, but in a few places where the feudal system fell apart without evolving into monarchy there was just anarchy for a time, until a monarch came along and took over.
This Internet, for instance; owned and operated by none.
And the only thing keeping parts of it from turning into bloody hell is the fact that it’s virtual.
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/02/07-1
jugheadjack, the prison/industrial complex is FUBAR. years of politicians being “tough on crime” have created a Frankinstein’s monster; once a person gets wrapped up in it, well the La Brea tar pits come to mind.
There is a brilliant lady politician down in Palm Beach County who was made aware that a plant called Salvia was being smoked by some kids to get high; she went on a campaign to get the plant put on a list of contraband, and making possession a felony. WTF?? WHY make that a felony and screw up more people’s lives? Because there is a big disconnect between cause and effect, and mostly because people who want to be “leaders” are many times sociopaths who want to control other people.
They can screech about communism and socialism all they want. Currently I think we exist under a corporate oligarchy and there’s not much to be done about it.
I might be reading all the wrong sources, but it seems to me that Shelby is getting some heat put on his ass…He’s become the poster child for what’s wrong with American politics. A fine GOP example of unadulterated obstructionism.
Remember Markey Maypo? …. ” I WANT MY MAYPO!”
http://readersupportednews.org:80/opinion/75-politics/944-palin-attacks
jughead, we have a mess in Virginia too. In Henrico County, if you go to prison, all of the court fees and fines are due even though they know you are not making any money and it is all turned over to a politician’s relative that’s a collection agency. Unless you have someone on the outside that can pay for you, you get out of prison bankrupt and you have all of those people with the cars and charge cards to see and you get to pay what little you earn to them.
The main problem with privatizing is that there is no incentive to let one go once they are in the system. A private company will only make money if they keep you. If it is government run, they benefit from getting one out of the system and helping them to establish a contributing life.
Well, at least in classic conservatism – some people are born to rule and some people are born to be ruled – it is recognized in a round-about way that we are not all ‘born’ on a level playing field.
The monstrous American lie that we are born with the same ‘start’ in life is, finally, the American scam that if you’re poor it’s because you’re lazy and generally profligate, in other words it’s your fault. And now, it seems that some (I suspect Tea partiers) are implying that if you’re poor it’s because you’re a ‘sinner’ and god is punishing you – this one’s been raising its ugly head on and off for millenia.
The reality is that ‘rulers’ and most of those who lift themselves out of poverty into wealth also usually know how to game the system, and those types couldn’t care less about all the more honest types who cannot / refuse to play those games. The best of the former often do wind up being philanthropic, but I’m not sure if that’s a way to shield themselves from all the enemies they’ve made while also maintaining some of the power and control they so crave?
There are many ways of looking at the period of socialist activism in
the thirties. I believe the anarchists were just one of many dissident
groups that opposed capitalism and I think it’s a mistake to compare
just socialism and anarchism in that period. They weren’t opposed to
each other and they weren’t two of a kind; they were two among many leftist parties in struggle at the time. I can’t say much of your
analysis there.
The people calling themselves an-cap sound like conintelpro. In other
words, infiltrators from the FBI or other agencies intended to give
the far left a bad name. I’ve heard this is very active right now and
I believe its only going to ramp up as things become more politically
unstable here in the U.S. No anarchist I’ve ever heard of would
advocate for privatizing the law.
Finally, there are many varieties of anarchism today. I don’t know if
they can necessarily claim roots in the anarchist movements of the
past. I know the government is particularly afraid of the anarchists
today and has targeted them in protests they’ve been involved in. I
also don’t think anarchism is always this crazy far-out movement that it’s depicted to be. Noam Chomsky is an advocate of
anarcho-syndicalism and he’s hardly an agent of chaos.
Of course, but I’m wasn’t talking about communist (not socialist) movements themselves in the early 20th century, but how they were perceived by the general American public.
That makes no sense. The an-caps aren’t identified with the far Left but with the far Right. That’s the entire point of the post; that Left and Right, taken to extremes, end up in about the same place.
Yet there they are.
I don’t know that they want to claim roots in the anarchist movements of the past. The an-caps are CAPITALISTS, remember. They are virulently anti-communist. They worship private property and free markets as God Himself.