freeman, libertarian critter

new year, new beginning, new blog

2007-01-08T03:00:00.000-05:00

I'll be starting anew in a different location.

2006 was a real bummer for me in many ways. Out of last year's shit arises a flower that'll bloom as 2007 progresses, and beyond. The new blog should help.

freeman's NO POLITICS

the folly of bureaucracy, in one quote

2006-08-13T17:31:00.001-04:00

“I don’t know. I don’t care. They just asked me to stamp it, so I stamped it.” ~~ some Chinese official guy

Inspired words by a man thoroughly challenged and stimulated by his work. Rather revealing, isn't it?

It doesn't even really matter what the context is, given the fact that so many endeavors burdened by bureacracy wind up being designed, directed, and carried out by people whose knowledge and drive matches the Chinese official who so eloquently sums up the bureaucratic mindset.

For those who wonder, the quote comes from this Intellectual Conservative article questioning the trustworthiness of the USDA organic label. I didn't think I'd ever find a worthwhile article from such a site, let alone one about organic food. It's definitely a worthwhile read, especially if one is increasingly concerned about the food they eat.

Here's the portion of the article related to that quote:

Lavigne also quotes Matsumi Sakuyoshi, a Japanese inspector who has checked Chinese soybean fields for organic certifiers. Sakuyoshi found an empty plastic bag of herbicide. When confronted, a farmworker told her the wind must have blown it from a neighbor’s field.

Sakuyoshi also questioned a certificate that said a piece of land hadn’t been farmed for the previous three years, making it eligible for organic status. Hardly any Chinese farmland is left idle. The official who stamped the certificate told her, “I don’t know. I don’t care. They just asked me to stamp it, so I stamped it.”

The article concerns itself with organic farming in places like China since an increasing number of organic foods sold here in the US with a USDA label come from places like China. If organic consumers are uneasy after reading that excerpt, they may feel downright ill after reading the rest of the article (hint: human waste is involved).

I guess I now have even more reasons to seek out locally grown and produced food as much as possible. Additionally, the collection of fodder for condemning the USDA continues to grow. In fact, stay tuned for more anti-USDA posts (well, at least one) in the coming week. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm about to chow down on some mandu that'll be dipped in organic soy sauce produced here in Michigan by a pioneering organic company that rejects the USDA label (more on that later).

who needs the usda?

2006-08-10T16:11:00.000-04:00

I sure don't. Neither should anyone else.

All of the supposedly beneficial things that the USDA is "supposed" to carry out can be practiced without a government bureaucracy inherently prone to corporate manipulation.

The latest example of the USDA's status as a menace to our health came to my attention thanks to the LRC blog.

First, fromAnthony Gregory's May 2004 article titled "The USDA and Cow Disease Madness":

The USDA is blocking an American slaughterhouse that wishes to voluntarily test its beef for mad cow disease so it can sell meat to Japan.

Creekstone Farms, a slaughterhouse in Kansas, has spent $500,000 to create a mad cow testing facility to comply with Japan’s tougher regulations. Forbidden from testing and shut off from its Japanese market, the company loses $200,000 in sales every day, and it has already been forced to layoff fifty workers.

Unfortunately for the people at Creekstone Farms, the USDA will not permit such testing, because the agency does not consider the testing “scientifically warranted,” and it worries that competing slaughterhouses may appear unsafe by comparison.

Americans who believe that the USDA protects consumers from tainted beef might find themselves scratching their heads. Why would the USDA interfere with a business taking extra precautions to prove the safety of its product to its customers?

Historically, government regulation of beef has often had less to do with common sense or genuine health concerns than with the state-corporate favoritism inherent in a highly regulated economy.

The USDA is continuing such thuggery today, as revealed by this USA Today editorial:

The U.S. Department of Agriculture — invoking an obscure 1913 law intended to thwart con artists from peddling bogus hog cholera serum to pig farmers — is blocking companies from selling the testing kits to Creekstone.

USDA is doing the bidding of large cattle barons afraid that Creekstone's marketing will force them to do the same tests to stay competitive. It's true that the incidence of mad cow disease is quite low. But there's little logic in stopping a company from exceeding regulations to meet the demands of its customers, or protecting its rivals from legitimate competition.

Not only is USDA blocking Creekstone, the department said last month that it's reducing its mad cow testing program by 90%. The industry and its sympathetic regulators seem to believe that the problem isn't mad cow disease. It's tests that find mad cow.

The department tests only 1% of the roughly 100,000 cattle slaughtered daily. The new plan will test only 110 cows a day.

By cutting back on testing, USDA will save about $35 million a year. That's a pittance compared with the devastation the cattle industry could face if just one human case of mad cow disease is linked to domestic beef

So, the USDA is also slashing it's already feeble testing program in addition to serving as hired goons for the big firms. If food safety is to be a serious concern, then realizing that testing and other safeguards will only be administered, or even allowed, by the government to the extent that it doesn't threaten privledged businesses is a necessary step towards ensuring that the right paths are taken to ensure safety. Rest assured that the USDA will always go down the wrong path, while also setting up roadblocks preventing passage through more proper paths.

Food won't be safe until a separation of food and state occurs. Without such a separation, those with the most cash and the most political clout will continue to dominate the food supply, driving recklessly in search of power and profits without concern for safety.

the book virus thingie

2006-08-04T17:46:00.000-04:00

I've been tagged by Nick Manley to play along with the latest book virus thingie for bloggers, so here it is.

* One book that changed your life:
Burning All Illusions: A Guide to Personal and Political Freedom by David Edwards. I read this book 7 or 8 years ago when my political mindset basically consisted of a strong civil libertarian streak with severe economic ignorance and apathy. This book changed all that and made me think more and read more about politics, albeit from a more or less statist left standpoint. The book served as my introduction to Noam Chomsky and also touched upon many Buddhist teachings that I was sort of interested in at the time.

Even though I'm now a radical free market advocate, there is much that is worthwhile about the book. I don't remember a whole lot of detail and I can't skim through it again since I don't own a copy, but if you're interested in reading a review of it, here's one from Dave Pollard.

* One book that you have read more than once:
Well, I'm currently reading Wendell Berry's Another Turn of the Crank for the second time.

* One book that you would want on a desert island:
The Illuminatus! Trilogy. It's long, it's fun, it's wild, it's chock full of stuff, and every reading is radically different from the last. Why not?

* One book that made you laugh:
I was going some of my boxed up books and organizing them recently when I saw my copy of Aristophanes's The Clouds. I remember finding the play to be quite funny when I read it back in the day. I also liked the fact that the particular translation that I have contains swear words.

* One book that made you cry:
Hmm... I'm sad to say that I can't think of one right now. I've read plenty of dark and/or sad things, but I don't actually recall shedding any tears while reading anything. I find that to be rather unfortunate.

* One book you wish had been written:
It's hard to think of book that could have or would have been written but weren't for some reason. I guess I'll just go along with the crowd by choosing Samuel Edward Konkin III's "Agorism".

If I can come up with an imaginary book, then how about a decentralist, individualist manifesto linking libertarianism with leftism by Karl Hess? That would have been cool. I've read Community Technology, but that's not really what I have in mind.

* One book you wish never had been written:
While choosing any Ann Coulter book at random is tempting, I think I'll go with Mein Kampf instead. It's close enough to going with Coulter, I suppose.

* One book you are currently reading:
I mentioned the Berry book already. The other book that I've started but not finished yet is Daniel Quinn's The Story of B.

* One book you have been meaning to read:
Butler Shaffer's Calculated Chaos. It's on my shelf and ready to go as soon as I finish one of the two books I'm currently working on. (I don't want to exceed 2 at a time) Also, I'd like to say "shame on me!" for not purchasing a copy of Kevin Carson's Studies in Mutualist Political Economy yet. I've read some of it online, but I want to have an actual printed copy of it as well. Kevin should also recieve some more financial compensation for writing such an important work.

* Now tag 5 people:
Rad Geek (it's a virus, not a meme!)
Larry Gambone
Adem Kupi
Vache Folle
David Reynolds

update

2006-08-03T20:06:00.000-04:00

I apologize for the continued lack of blogging this summer. The past few weeks have been really trying for myself and my family since my mother passed away. I do guarantee though that I'll be more active here this month than I have for the past 3 months combined.

One cool announcement is that I plan on signing up with a web host sometime this month and will begin to transfer stuff from here to the eventual new blog. I'll also be setting up a separate music-related blog so that anyone either interested in my music posts or uninterested in my more serious posts can frequent that blog instead of this one. Look for that blog to be up and running before I deal with setting up flc 2.0 on the new host.

Stay cool.

commie pinko wishes for a happy 4th

2006-07-04T13:40:00.000-04:00

Who's the commie pinko, you ask? Why, it's me!
Dont'cha know that if you ain't a servile, war-worshipping Republican who knows his place, shuts his face, and salutes his masters while waving the Stars and Stripes, then you're a commie pinko?

Wally Conger will be displaying his Gadsden flag today. I would do so myself if I had one. There may be others out there who will display the other flag I admire, the one that is all black. I don't have one of those either, but I am wearing a black t-shirt today.

July 4th is supposed to be a day to commemorate the rebellious souls who said NO to tyranny. Today, that spirit only lives on with us "commie pinkos". In true Orwellian fashion, the minds of the majority have been molded to view this day as one to commemorate the masters of war and the masters of other men. In other words, tyranny is now celebrated.

I hope that everyone has a enjoyable day with friends and family. I'll be grilling up some organic burgers and drinking some fine brews - I'm not a party pooper who'll treat this day as one to mourn the loss of liberty or anything, despite my total unwillingness to acknowledge the typical slogans and symbols that typical Americans view with the reverence people must have had for Christian imagery back in the days when the Church was the main institution engaged in indoctrination and terror.

Here's some subversive reading for all those commie pinkos out there who actually admire the Declaration of Independence and know what it's like to be rebellious rather than servile.

From Eugene Plawiuk: A New American Revolution (a great post from last year that's about real revolution, not those damn Chevrolets)
From Kevin Carson: Patriotic Quotes for the Fourth
From Roderick Long: A Thought for the Fourth
From Rad Geek: Independence Day
From Anthony Gregory: Which America Do You Celebrate?

These links aren't specificaly about the Fourth, but are relevant reads nonetheless:

Voltairine de Cleyre: Anarchism and American Traditions
Sheldon Richman: Americans Should Be "Anti-American"
Jeff Vail: Love Your Nation-State

Now go out there and have some good ol' disobedient fun! Anyone have any illegal fireworks?

the libertarian divide over the south central farmers issue

2006-06-16T15:12:00.000-04:00

There are many examples out there refuting the silly stereotypes and claims regarding libertarians as being all the same. There are many different types of libertarians in reality, and certain issues bring difference of opinion amongst them to the forefront. The most recent example of this involves the plight of the South Central Farmers out in Los Angeles.

I'm sure that liberals and lefties are assuming that all libertarians are siding with Ralph Horowitz, the man who is claiming ownership of the land and is using the city goons to get rid of those pesky farmers. Indeed, there are some libertarians that I am aware of who are indeed taking this position. Examples of this come from Kirsten at Enjoy Every Sandwich and certain people over at the Mises Institute blog.

An assumption that all libertarians would be siding against the farmers would not be true though. The other side of the debate is being defended by some libertarians. Examples here include blog posts by Rad Geek, David at the view from below, along with Brad Spangler's comments in the Mises discussion linked to above.

I don't have the time to spell out my full opinion on this, but I will say that I personally am siding with the farmers, and not just because I love what they've done with the land over the past 14 years.

update & links

2006-06-12T14:11:00.000-04:00

I'm back... sort of. Posting will remain quite scarce for the next couple of months or so. My mother has just returned home from spending the past month in the hospital and is extremely sick and crippled. She requires constant care and attention, and I'm the primary person in charge of that. With that in mind, it's obvious that blogging has become an extremely low priority for me.

There are a few things I'd like to mention here briefly. These things have already been mentioned elsewhere, but I'd like to link to them here anyway.

* freedomSLUT: This great new resource provides liberty oriented social bookmarking - kind of like del.icio.us for libertarians.

* 2 new Myspace groups for radical libertarians: It's nice to see such subversive ideas being promoted over in that popular interweb networking scene. There is the Confederation of Agorist for agorists and Anarcho-Individualists for anarchists of an individualist persuasion.

* Thanks to Roderick Long, Joseph Stromberg's "English Enclosures and Soviet Collectivization: Two Instances of an Anti-Peasant Mode of Development" is now available online at the Molinari Institute site. This is the excellent essay from The Agorist Quarterly that I blogged about back in April. I must also thank Stromberg himself for not only writing the essay but also allowing it to be published online.

i'll be back in june

2006-05-23T08:48:00.000-04:00

Sorry for the absense of new stuff lately and for no explanations until now. Things have been been really hectic and bad lately around here, and I have neither the time nor the interest needed to blog.

I'll resume blogging at some point in early June.

Hope things are better for y'all than they are on this end.

cinco de mayo post

2006-05-05T18:29:00.000-04:00

Feliz Cinco de Mayo, mis amigos!

I'll be going out tonight to see my friend Laith perform, and Mexican beer will be my drink of choice.

Cinco de Mayo is, of course, more than just a day to get drunk and celebrate Mexican culture. To learn more about the day's historical significance, check out the Cinco de Mayo Wikipedia entry.

On a more serious note, David Reynolds has taken the time to write a Cinco de Mayo post about the current struggle in Mexico between farmers and the government. The following excerpt explains the the plight that these farmers face:

The flower farmers are supported by members of a group known as Frente de Pueblos en Defensa de la Tierra (People’s Front in Defense of the Land or FPDT). The FPDT opposes the government confiscation of communal lands known as ejidos that have provided farms and residential space to the ejidatarios for decades. The ejidos were eliminated by the Mexican government when it signed the NAFTA agreement.

As a result, the Mexican government routinely gives land to transnational corporations to build factories, retail stores, and the like. (It has been rumored the marketplace area where the FPDT-supported flower farmers tried to set up their stalls is slated to become a Wal-Mart.) The indigenous ejidatarios are often forced off the land where they have lived their entire lives, and their livelihoods are destroyed. Their choices are usually either becoming wage slaves for the transnational corporations or seeking lives elsewhere, including sneaking across the border into the United States to seek work.

A violent standoff between the farmers and local, state, and federal authorities began on Wednesday, with the predictable result of police initiating violence and taking control of the town.

The people who live and work on the land are the rightful owners of it, not the government. The government has no right to claim the land as their own and then hand it over to transnational corporations, continuing the accumulation of wealth by force that should be condemned by all friends of liberty.

online pamphlets from the labadie collection

2006-05-05T17:50:00.000-04:00

One of the greatest resources for radical literature found anywhere is the Labadie Collection, a special collections library that is part of the University of Michigan library system. There is a project in the works there to digitize all of their anarchist pamphlets and make them available online. Some of them are already available - click here to take a look.

As mentioned on their webpage, the collection of pamphlets currently online represents a very small part of their entire collection. Most seem to be about non-market forms of anarchism, although there should be something of interest for all anarchists. What is unfortunate is that some of the pamphlets can only be viewed by authorized viewers, such as Frank Chodorov's "The Myth of the Post Office."

Here are links to some of the pamphlets that I plan on reading within the next few days:

Stephen Pearl Andrew's "The Labor Dollar"
Henry Bool's "Liberty Without Invasion, Means and End of Progress"
Hubert Bourgin's "Proudhon"
Randolph Bourne's "The State"
Henry Appleton's "What Is Freedom and When Am I Free?"

(a tip o' the blog hat to Mark Dilley)

*UPDATE: It turns out that I won't be reading the Bourgin pamphlet. It's en français. Darn.

may day post

2006-05-01T22:40:00.000-04:00

Today is May 1st, otherwise known as May Day, a day of international labor solidarity. Contrary to the efforts of some to paint the day as a "commie holiday" in support of the USSR and other "communist" countries, the real roots of the holiday predate the horrors of 20th century statist collectivism.

The following links provide some interesting historical commentary on the roots of May Day. While Kevin Carson focuses on the American origin of the modern May Day movement and the role of individualist anarchists in the labor movement of that time, Eugene Plawiuk goes back even further to reveal the day's Pagan origins.

Kevin Carson's " May Day Thoughts: Individualist Anarchism and the Labor Movement"
Eugene Plawiuk's "The Origins and Traditions of May Day"

the sweet signs of spring: flowers & pucks

2006-04-21T03:01:00.000-04:00

The sweet smell of spring is in the air. Temperatures here in southeast Michigan have been in the 60s and 70s with a brief trip into the 80s during the past couple of weeks. Yellow beauties such as dandelions, daffodils, and forsythias are blooming all around. I'm especially glad to see the dandelions since I plan on making some dandelion wine for the first time this year.

Another good thing about spring, one that was absent last year: the NHL playoffs. As far as professional sports are concerned, hockey is all I really care about anymore, and the best time of year for hockey is now through mid-June.

The best of the west and the beasts of the east better look out - the Detroit Red Wings are primed to fly through the playoffs, dropping slimy octopi on unsuspecting foes, on route to winning another Stanley Cup!

Game 1 is tonight @ 7 PM vs. the Edmonton Oilers.

stromberg on land theft

2006-04-19T19:55:00.000-04:00

As I mentioned in a previous post, I plan on blogging about a few of the things I've read from my recent KoPubCo order. I'm currently reading the one and only issue of The Agorist Quarterly, and the essay from Joseph Stromberg has captured my interest. Titled "English Enclosures and Soviet Collectivization: Two Instances of an Anti-Peasant Mode of Development", this Stromberg essay compares those two instances of land theft and comes to a conclusion that certainly wouldn't be welcomed by those committed to one or another variation of corporatism.

Stromberg's analysis complements the analysis of people like Kevin Carson and Karl Marx by coming to the conclusion that the English enclosures were a result of political coercion benefitting a privledged minority. This essay also provides the additional service of comparing the English enclosures to not only the Soviet collectivization of land, but also to the Latin American latifundismo, or feudal land monopolies that still exist to this day. All of these coercive actions had adverse effects on the peasantries of each respective country.

I'd like to provide a few excerpts of the essay in order to give y'all a taste of Stromberg's analysis and provide further online content dealing with the issue of land theft. Rather than start with the primary two examples, I'll start off with the portion of the essay providing an interlude between the two primary examples of land theft. Upon giving a brief synopsis of the elitist politcal structure that maintains the unjust and exploitative Latin American system, Stromberg had this to say about the problems associated with the system:

According to Ernst Feder, the concentration of good land in the hands of a very small minority creates gross inefficiency, waste, mismanagement, and low productivity on Latin America's latifundia. '[F]orcefully shut off from the market mechanism,' the peasants respond by displaying self-hatred and unambitious behavior which is then taken to prove their inherent stupidity. Built in disincentives dicourage the peasants, who gain nothing from harder work. Far from reflecting economies of scale arrived at in free markets, the politically based latifundia are so over-expanded that often as much as one third of the work force is required to boss the other demoralized two thirds. Hence, the great estates resemble nothing so much as islands of socialist 'calculational chaos' unable to operate at optimum economic rationality. In contrast, Feder argues that poor people are actually capable of great economic rationality and capital accumulation. To the extent that a small sector of family farms exists in Latin America, it is here that one finds land-intensive and productive farming as opposed to the better capitalized estate sector. Given the economic irrationalities of the quasifeudal sector and the destitution of peasants who could be productive, Feder supports land reform both on the grounds of simple justice and economic progress. Like Feder, the sociologist Stanislav Andreski takes a critical view of the chief structural realities of Latin American society. He believes that most of the problems in those countries stem from a inherited pattern of political parasitism. Interestingly, Andreski derives his conception of parasitism from the Traite de Legislation (1826), the major work of the neglected French sociologist Charles Comte, whose importance as a classical liberal theorist is only now coming to be appreciated. Parasitism, by severing work from reward, is a necessarily strong barrier to social progress.

Stromberg later states that:

Although conditions vary from country to country, high tariffs, state loans, the licensing-and-bribery syndrome, government contracts, and even tax-farming (in Peru) contribute to the popular view that all governments are 'merely bands of thieves.' In Mexico, where state intervention is most extensive, pay-offs are naturally highest.

If there is one good thing that has come out of all this, it is the growing view amongst the people living down there that all governments are "merely bands of thieves". Indeed, the primary difference between governments and mafias is that the latter doesn't resort to flag-waving and the abduction of children for the purpose of molding their minds into a form that believes in the legitimacy and neccessity of said mafia while dutifully bowing down to authority. There are very few differences beyond that.

Stromberg's treatment of the English enclosures involves the same type of stuff that I had been reading from elsewhere, followed by this conclusion:

Given the role of political power in the process of enclosure, it does not seem unfair to view enclosure as collectivization of agriculture for the benefit of a narrow class. Whether or not it was the only way to increase agricultural efficiency or whether it did increase it to the degree often supposed are probably open questions. Folke Dovring writes that the enclosures 'depended primarily on the de facto power of the landlord class.' This naturally raises the question of whether or not England did not - at least in the agrarian sphere - follow a path closer to the 'Prussian road' to capitalism than is usually believed.

Indeed, market forces had nothing to do with the primitive accumulation of land and wealth that is often defended by so-called market proponents. Then again, many of these people are only being consistent in the defense of a few "exceptional individuals" and their institutions rather than liberty itself, let alone the workers who so badly need liberty as opposed to the various brands of collectivism that serve to keep them down. If that means a defense of massive land theft, so be it.

Moving on to the example of Soviet collectivization, Stromberg begins by explaining the situation prior to Stalin's takeover of the Communist Party, including a description of the "left" and "right" positions within the Party. Neither Trotsky nor Bukharin (who favored a more free market direction for the economy) gained power however, and here's Stromberg's explanation of what did happen:

Unfortunately for both sides, Stalin gradually eased himself into control of the Party and state and purged them all. Once firmly in control, he adopted most of the Left's economic program, sending cadres of armed Party members into the countryside to divide the peasants and push them into collective farms as called for by ideology and interest. With all kinds of violence and dislocation necessary, the prosperous peasants, the kulaks, were eliminated as a class, many of them physically. With their much-feared leaders eliminated by the Stalinst Terror, the peasants had little choice but to acquiesce in this bureaucratic enclosure movement. Only after Stalin's death could any debate on the direction of Soviet economic policy, however mild, reemerge. The Soviet state itself had become the new landlord. It seems clear enough that the "right" program was viable. Certainly, it did not entail the level of violence, death, and economic destruction required to carry through the Trotsky-Stalin model. But just as in the case of the English enclosures, political power decided the event, not necessarily in the interests of the peasants - short or long run. Perhaps the two cases, though they differ considerably, will shed light on some persistent fallacies concerning peasants, agriculture and development (it might be too much to ask for justice, too).

Stromberg concludes the essay by lamenting the role of these two examples and their proponents in the promotion of large-scale agriculture and the inaccurate dismissal of the small-scale alternative. He also ponders the conceivability of alternative routes being taken in both England and Russia, concluding that the routes that were chosen did not have to be chosen. However, the political class cares not for justice or free markets, which is why corporatists and their "left" counterparts chose to collectivize, centralize, and rely on their fellow "exceptional individuals" to run things, all other considerations dismissed.

One of the interesting things about this comparison is that it adds to the criticism of corporate state capitalism promoted by left-libertarians that likens nominally private institutions to the bureaucratic collectivism of "communist" states. Of course, if we consider the leftist equation of the Soviet Union with state capitalism, we're left with viewing the ideological rift of the Cold War as being between two varying and competing versions of state capitalism - one that was entirely collectivist and one that was (and still is) pseudo-individualist in nature. Libertarian communists rightfully reject the former system while free market libertarians reject (or at least should reject) the latter.

There is much that I have left out, so consider visiting KoPubCo and purchasing a copy of The Agorist Quarterly before it sells out.

obedience & authority

2006-04-16T22:23:00.000-04:00

James Leroy Wilson recently wrote a column about the famous experiment carried out by psychologist Stanley Milgram back in the early '60s. He provides a good description of Milgram's work and also makes the important point that Milgram's findings are just as important now than ever. James also encourages people to teach children about disobedience and rebelling against authority, which is good advice to heed if liberty is something one values. Being an obedient little worker isn't wise when the job orders being dictated from above involve things like theft, torture, enslavement, or murder.

Aside from bringing attention to James's column and the experiment itself, I'd also like to inform y'all that a documentary about the experiment is now available for download via bit torrent. Click here to get the torrent.

micro$oft: how would you like to be raped today?

2006-04-16T16:42:00.000-04:00

The following report is from February 17th, although this is my first encounter with such news. Micro$oft, always looking for ways to screw over both competitors and consumers, has come up with a new idea to screw over the latter group: training police to decrypt the upcoming Vista software. From this vnunet.com article:

Microsoft may begin training the police in ways to break the encryption built into its forthcoming Vista operating system.

The news was revealed in a parliamentary committee session in which Professor Ross Anderson of Cambridge University warned MPs that if such a move was being considered then the police should start learning sooner rather than later.

The need to decrypt hard drives was a prominent reason given for extending the length of time that the police could hold terrorism suspects.

"It is our goal to give PC users the control and confidence they need so they can continue to get the most out of their PCs," said a Microsoft spokeswoman.

"At the same time, we are working with law enforcement to help them understand its security features and will continue to partner with governments, law enforcement and industry to help make the internet a safer place to learn and communicate."

I decided long ago that I'd never switch to Vista once it is released. This news will likely be the nail in the coffin to many others who may have been wary about Vista. Anyone who cares about liberty and privacy should consider M$ to be a serious threat. Anyone who is troubled by state/corporate collusion should place M$ near or at the top of their shit list.

While some may just stick with an older M$ OS, others will either choose or stick with the Mac route or switch over to a Linux distro. I recently recieved some install discs for Ubuntu Linux, free of charge. I'll be installing it on an external hard drive once it's formatted and begin to get a feel for the distro. If I like it, I'll eventually do a full transition. Sooner or later, I'll be using Ubuntu or some other Linux distro full time, dumping M$ into the recycle bin of history.

reisman revealed

2006-04-15T01:21:00.000-04:00

There are plenty of wonderful thinkers affiliated with the Ludwig Von Mises Institute. However, there have been occasions where I have read things from there that disappointed me, or worse. More often than not, those bad apples from an otherwise healthy tree were written by the same person - George Reisman.

The one disappointment to go alongside the great news of the mutualist symposium issue of the Journal of Libertarian Studies was finding out that Reisman had written one of the critiques of Kevin Carson's mutualist ideas. I thought that his essay would represent the token example of "vulgar libertarianism", the plague within the libertarian movement that serves to exacerbate the false notions of libertarianism held by various non-libertarians.

His essay is indeed pretty bad. With people like Reisman identifying themselves with free enterprise and libertarianism, it's no wonder that many leftists view libertarians as being fascists in disguise. To read Kevin's thorough rebuttal, click here. (pdf file)

As thorough and satisfying as Kevin's own rebuttal is, I found a much much smaller one tonight that reveals a rather unlibertarian side to Reisman. Adam B. Ricketson left the following comment behind in response to Sheldon Richman's post titled "Capitalism versus Capitalism:

I read George Reisman's essay in Journal of Libertarian Studies and was surprized and kinda disgusted by his (Randist) definition of "individualism"

He writes:
"Here Carson, the “individualist” anarchist shows himself to be
quite the collectivist, attributing to the average person qualities of
independent thought and judgment that are found only in exceptional
individuals."

I side with Carson's definition of individualism, and can only see Reisman's view as socialism or collectivism. Individualism means that, as a rule, each individual is capable of directing his own life. If most individuals are incapable of directing their own lives and must be subsumed into an unthinking mass (for their own good), then we have collectivism...whether it is run by a benevolent dictatorship of market selected (meaning "self-selected") "meritocrats" or by an elected aristocracy.

Yep, I cringed when I read that remark by Reisman. All those leftists who view libertarians as corporate apologists who wish to have tyrannical megacorp executives rule the world actually have a point, at least if and when they're referring to people such as Reisman. In Reisman's world, we're only a tiny hop, skip, and jump away from "free market" paradise, complete with Wal-Mart type enterprises in charge of every human endeavor, and including bureaucratic managerialism and top-down orders from those "exceptional individuals" who know how to be responsible and successful, unlike all the common peons who must be disciplined by the iron fist...er, invisible hand of the "free market". In other words, it seems as if many aspects of statism are just fine in Reisman's mind, as long as they're "privatized" and run only by wealthy businessmen who actually have the ability to engage in independent thought and judgment.

Adam is correct - Reisman does indeed appear to be a collectivist. How can one so consistently defend an institution (the modern corporation) that is so thoroughly hostile to individualism and not be collectivist? I'm reminded of the following portion of the classic 1976 Karl Hess Plowboy interview that elaborates a bit on all this:

PLOWBOY: Is there any similarity between this pressure being exerted by America's big businesses and, say, the collectivism of Soviet Russia?

HESS: Certainly. They're much the same. In the Soviet Union, the economy is developed under the ownership of a bureaucracy which shot its way to power, while in the United States exactly the same pattern exists except that our collectivists just buy their way to power. In either instance, the final result is the same: You owe your loyalty to the collective unit the corporation or the state, as the case may be. You're subordinated to its plans and processes.

There's no essential difference in the kind of world that either the large corporations of the U.S. or the collectives of the U.S.S.R. would impose on us. Back in the thirties, in fact, Jim Burnham wrote a book, The Managerial Revolution, in which he said that a DuPont bureaucrat could join a planning commission in the Soviet Union and never even know he'd changed jobs!

By the way, I recommend checking out that Sheldon Richman post I linked to above. He does a nice job of critiquing Walter Block's attempt at smearing Kevin Carson. He also plans on writing a similar post about the Reisman essay in the near future.

scumbags: john mccain & the usda

2006-04-14T22:07:00.000-04:00

Time for another post acknowledging various scumbags within our midst. Like last time, an individual and a gang of thuggish individuals comprise the examples of scumbaggery for this installment.

*White Amerikan Thief & Scumbag: John McCain
The USSA government has engaged in various forms of violent oppression against Native Americans (or American Indians, or whatever one wishes to call them) over the past 200+ years. Upon reading a standard issue government history text, one gets the idea that such things are essentially a thing of the past. Such an idea needs to be tossed aside in favor of the truth, with scumbag John McCain attempting to continue the long tradtion of stealing and general bullying of Native Americans.

This Hammer of Truth post by Stuart Richards reveals McCain's plan. Richards provides the following quote from this link:

Navajo and Hopi families residing on Big Mountain and the surrounding area of the Black Mesa in northern Arizona may be forced to relocate as a new senate bill, S1003 “The Navajo Hopi Land Settlement Act Amendments of 2005,” goes before Congress. If passed, the bill will permanently displace the Navajo and Hopi, and, according to a press release by the Black Mesa Indigenous Support organization, “relieve the federal government of any further responsibility for the relocated people.” Sponsored by Senator John McCain, S1003 was initiated at nearly the same time as Peabody Coal, the world’s largest coal company, expressed an interest in the Navajo land. Peabody Coal plans to expand its strip mining into this area, where billions of tons of low-sulfur coal are located

What we have here is a blatant promotion of eminent domain targeting a paricular group of people who will wind up in a state of destitution because of such theft of land and autonomy. Dare I say... ethnic cleansing? I don't care if ethnic cleansing is a chief motivating factor or not, such will be a consequence of further crimes committed against the Najavos and Hopis. And for what? The enrichment of Peabody Coal seems to be a motivating factor, making this yet another example of corporate welfare allowing the political class to pillage and rape the masses.

This reminds me of a poem of sorts that I once read for a Native American Literature course - Carter Rivard's "A Brief Guide to American History Teachers". Another recommended read I'd like to point out before moving on with this scumbags post is an essay by Peter Spotswood Dillard titled "The Unconquered Remnant: The Hopis and Voluntaryism". Those sure are some great people that McCain is sicking Leviathan upon.

*Gang of Scumbags: The USDA
James Leroy Wilson has written a quality column called "Totalitarianism Through the Back Door" that shines light on the fact that humans aren't the only critters being targeted by Leviathan's plan to utilize a "mark of the beast", so to speak. The USDA has come up with what it calls the National Animal Identification System, a clear example of government scumbaggery. Here's an excerpt from the James Leroy Wilson column that provides a glimpse of what NAIS is all about:

What is the rationale for NAIS? Supposedly, it is to trace back diseased animals to their source, within 48 hours of discovery of the disease. This sounds like it will protect the public, but the real reason is expressed quite well at RedState.org: "NAIS was developed to give the large meat exporters more markets to countries like Japan who are demanding trace-back on meat they import, specifically cattle."

NAIS is a classic case of corporate welfare. After all, if foreign (or domestic) markets want reliable trace-back, agri-business can supply that on their own, and do not require the government's help. Nor would it have to apply to those who sell only in local, or raise animals only for personal pleasure or consumption. What doesn't make sense, as RedState.org points out, is that NAIS would apply to "all livestock at all farms, homesteads and even for livestock kept as pets. [italics added]"

Here's the worst of it: the big producers get to tag their livestock by the lot, while farmers who keep smaller numbers of animals will have to track and report the movements of each individual animal. This is costly in time and many, and will drive many smaller farmers out of business.

One may wonder what the purpose is. The answer is that this is what government does. Government is essentially a predator of the small businessman, including the small farmer. Profit margins are usually quite small for them, and every additional tax, form, and regulation they must comply with eats more and more into those margins. Corporations, on the other hand, already have lawyers, accountants, and human resource staff to handle compliance issues. Compliance costs are proportionally much smaller for them.

To learn more about NAIS, check out one or more of the following sites focusing on the issue: NoNAIS.org, Don't Tag Me.org, and Stop Animal ID.org

What really burns my nuts about this is rhe fact that I've been recently reading about people who are raising chickens in urban environments with quite a bit of interest. Once I own some property and get going with my gardening plans, I've decided that having a hen or two would be great for things like providing pest control, fresh fertilizer and eggs - all organic. They're also supposed to be very friendly and affectionate, as opposed to roosters. I'll really have to scope out the immediate surroundings, including prospective neighbors, to make sure that everything is "cool", if you catch my drift. Why? Because no critter of mine will be tagged, catalogued, and monitored by the biggest pest of them all (Leviathan), along with it's scumbag minions.

gridiron gumption

2006-04-12T19:28:00.000-04:00

Wide receiver Mike Williams of the Detroit Lions had this to say recently concerning the need to get in gear and compete for playing time:

"There's no government jobs here. I've got to do my part to get my position."

mp3 motley

2006-04-07T18:24:00.000-04:00

I've been quite sick these past few days. Two different afflictions at once have whipped my ass, resulting in no desire to blog. I have done a little bit of web surfing though, and I've been inspired to post something. Not one thing in particular, just a few random things with mp3 accompaniment.

The new issue of the Journal of Libertarian Studies came out just in time for me to spend some birthday dough on a subscription. Since the current issue happens to be a symposium focusing on Kevin Carson's Studies in Mutualist Political Economy, it should be an extremely interesting read.

This was the one thing I wanted to mention in this post that didn't spark an initial mp3 accompaniment in my mind. After some thought, I decided on an Antibalas song that provides a critical yet funky critique of corporatist state capitalism.

MP3: Antibalas - Big Man (Who Is This America?, 2004)

The editor of JLS is none other than Roderick T. Long, who deserves praise for setting up the Carson symposium issue. Long deserves additional praise for his recent speech titled "Rothbard's "Left and Right": Forty Years Later". The preceding link goes to the online text of the speech, while this link is for downloading an mp3 of the speech.

Next up is this Bombs and Shields post (hat tip to William Gillis) about a spontaneous demonstration against police brutality in NYC led by over a thousand Hasidic Jews. Good for them for standing up to police state thuggery!

Speaking of police state thuggery and Hasidic Jews, I've been waiting for some time now to share a great song by a klezmer/jazz/rock outfit known as Hasidic New Wave. The song is about Rudy Giuliani, and I'm sharing it now since I'm sick of waiting for Giuliani Uber Alles to do or say something newsworthy. For those who are curious, the song is indeed a knockoff of the classic Dead Kennedys tune "California Uber Alles."

MP3: Hasidic New Wave - Giuliani Uber Alles (Kabalogy, 1999)

I've listened to King Crimson a few times recently, which is one of the reasons why I appreciated coming across Eugene Plawiuk's post on progressive or "Classical Rock" earlier today. While I enjoy many different types of rock music, progressive rock is what I turn to when I want to zone out, put some headphones on, and immerse myself in the richness and experimentation of rock that is influenced more by classical and jazz than R&B and other rock precursors.

I'll have to familiarize myself with some of the artists that Plawiuk wrote about, although I'm already quite fond of some of them. I need no introduction to King Crimson or Frank Zappa, and the following mp3s showcase a couple of great studio recordings of the former and some rare live cuts of the latter.

MP3: King Crimson - 21st Century Schizoid Man (In the Court of the Crimson King, 1969)
MP3: King Crimson - Indoor Games (Lizard, 1970)

MP3: Frank Zappa - Black Napkins (live)
MP3: Frank Zappa - Peaces en Regalia (live - SNL, 12/11/76)

Finally, I'd like to give some blogprops to some of the great music-related blogs that I frequent. Ian and his blog Retrobabe is smokin' as of late, with great posts about artists ranging from Augustus Pablo to Can. Matt at los amigos de durutti is dishing out all sorts of hip sounds from the rap world, including some dish about the upcoming release by Gnarls Barkley. Another great music blogger, etnobofin, has embarked on a journey away from his native New Zealand. Best wishes to ya!

blogprops

2006-03-29T21:18:00.000-05:00

In the spirit of Thomas Knapp's occasional posts designed to point out cool happenings on other blogs, I'd like to acknowledge a couple of relatively new blogs that may not have recieved much attention yet.

I mentioned Lady Aster Francesca in my last post, and I encourage y'all to check out her blog. She has written a number of stimulating posts regarding libertarianism in an attempt to plead for a more socially-conscious current within the movement. Some of her posts have taken people such as Hans-Hermann Hoppe to task for holding some rather unenlightened social conservative views, while others have made the point that racism, for example, is something that libertarians should spend more time openly rejecting since the State is not the sole monopoly holder on oppression. Other posts shed light on issues such as pornography and sex work, an occupation that is subject to much demonization by social conservatives and should be entirely legalized.

Next up is David Reynolds's blog titled "the view from below". David's blog appears to be one of the growing number of blogs promoting libertarianism from a more left-oriented point of view. A fine example of this is his recent post about Mexican maquilas that are built on stolen land, faux trade (as opposed to genuine free trade), political corruption, and state terrorism.

asserting libertarianism as being a people's movement

2006-03-29T19:36:00.000-05:00

There have been a number of discussions about the French CPE issue in recent days on various libertarian blogs. In response to those who signed the MLL letter of solidarity, many libertarians have been baffled at the sight of libertarians showing sympathy for the young French workers affected by the new law, while attempting to show how logic should compel libertarians to support the new law as a legitimate "free market reform".

To this day, none of those who have objected to the libertarian solidarity have influenced me to change my mind on the subject. Some of them may have some valid points to make, but it seems as if this issue is helping to reveal a more broad difference of opinion amongst libertarians that may help to shed additional light on why some have embraced the left-libertarian moniker.

Many like to criticize the American media and it's coverage of foreign policy and other international issues (and for good reason), and it seems as if the CPE issue is no exception here. I bring this up upon reading Sheldon Richman's latest blog post on the subject. He quotes a BBC article that explains what the new law is all about, and then offers his two cents:

Thus the controversy is about a government-written labor contract that is to be imposed on all employers and under-26 workers. The government is not repealing a restriction; it is merely tweaking the restrictions it imposes on all. Freedom of contract be damned! The new uniform contract may have some benefits for young people who cannot find jobs and for upstart firms that had a tougher time than large incumbent firms coping with the earlier, less-flexible contract. But nevertheless, this is no retrenchment of French fascism. (And that's what the French system is.) It is a continuation of corporativist social engineering. I can see nothing for a libertarian to do but to condemn the blasted system root and branch.

Even before those of us who are ill-informed due to the shoddy American press became aware of the specifics, many of us libertarians already rejected the new law as a faux market reform aiming at expanding state capitalist privledge. As Sheldon Richman points out upon reading the BBC piece, there isn't even any reduction of statism going on here, which should further show that there is nothing wrong with libertarian opposition to it.

To further elaborate on my mentioning of a difference of opinion amongs libertarians, I'd like to quote a passionate comment left by Lady Aster Francesca at Liberty & Power's CPE post:

Mark: "'Cutting welfare from the top down, and taxes from the bottom up.'" I guess that's as valid as 'cutting welfare from the bottom up, and taxes from the top down' but an implicit interpersonal valuation is present either way.... I suggest it involves some interpersonal valuations different from those that are inherent in mainstream libertarian doctrine."

Um... I think the 'interpersonal valuation' involved is that shifting the tax burden to the poor while favouring the rich will end up with the poor trapped in misery, squalour, and poverty, while a tiny elite benefits. Simply put, one way of reducing net societal technical coercion ends up with a much more awful situation in human terms. Cutting corporate welfare in a semi-statist society isn't going to destroy anyone's life; cutting welfare for the otherwise destitute, in a society where state favouritism still directly and indirectly walls off their choices and opportunities, it might.

If detesting this involves valuations at odds with mainstream libertarian doctrine, so much the worse for mainstream libertarian doctrine. Libertarianism may not logically require simple human compassion but 'tis my hope it would not make it controversial. Why exactly is cutting the the budget on the backs of privileges built up by the state, rather than those who've been ruined by it, a potential problem?

I could also point out that if libertarianism were to try to dismantle the state while selectively attacking social benefits for the poor while ignoring the structural advantages of the rich, the result would be that the working class would make one great rush for the local state socialist party's recruiting office while classical liberalism remained the party of a few intellectuals and middle-class eccentrics out of touch with social reality. I rather submit that this is what has been happening for the last 150 years or so.

The modern libertarian movement believes its politics are in the interest of everybody yet converts no one (except intellectuals). I suspect this has something to do with the fact that the poor don't see any reason to think libertarians take their perspective or interests seriously, while the comfortable are often regimented sheeple who don't object very much to having the state economically and culturally prop up their institutions. Do you desire libertarianism to succeed? I think there's no way to do that without a libertarian theory that resonates with the actual lives and struggles of human beings.

Too many people view libertarians as being cold-hearted, intellectually aloof and out of touch with social reality, and thus don't take their ideas seriously. What is serious about this is that many libertarians are not only unaware of this, but don't seem to mind all that much.

While reading Lady Aster's comments, I was reminded of this Uncapitalist post by Kevin Carson where he quotes Karl Hess referring to libertarianism as being a "people's movement". It seems long overdue for libertarians who wish to make their ideas more persuasive to become more assertive and promote a "people's libertarianism", if you will, to counter the various libertarian sects that have helped to shape the public's perception of libetarians as "cold-hearted" or "pot-smoking Republicans" or whatever.

The MLL has taken the initial step, and without resorting to statist apology, contrary to those who misunderstood the MLL solidarity letter to the French students. Rather than supporting further state intervention or whatever else the French may likely support, along with the needless and unfortunate destruction of property that has occured during the riots, the signatories of the letter merely wish to reach out and show support the plight of French workers who have to live in such an appallingly statist system, while showing them an alternative libertarian-based approach toward achieving a better life for all. Failure to do so or even supporting the CPE will only result in furthering the negative portrayal of libertarians while also, as Lady Aster correctly put it, resulting in masses of people embracing even more state socialism to counter the reforms carried out on behalf of the ruling class.

I'd also like to use this post to refer readers to this post by Adem Kupi. Adem links to three different Los Angeles Indymedia articles about the mobilization of people who are opposed to HR 4437. Immigration is another issue where libertarians differ in opinion, and one where I find myself agreeing with the sentiments expressed by those who are opposed to the legislation. I support the supposedly hundreds of thousands of people who have taken to the streets and even interfered with various government offices in protest of the latest statist BS.

"harass the brass" with SDS/MDS

2006-03-27T22:04:00.000-05:00

Kyle Taylor of SDS Michigan has written a proposal for a campaign to be carried out later this year called "Harass the Brass", which you can read over at this SDS Organizer post.

It sounds like a good idea, and Brad Spangler and other MLL members seem to agree. Brad is thus collecting endorsements and asking people to consider joining either SDS or MDS (Movement for a Democratic Society). Libertarians may not agree with all actions promoted by SDS/MDS, but that shouldn't hold anyone back from joining. To add your endorsement, click here.

left-libertarian solidarity with French workers

2006-03-23T21:27:00.000-05:00

Young French workers are outraged over the recent new French law titled Contrat première embauche (CPE). The CPE allows French employers the right to fire workers under the age of 26 without any justification during the first two years of their employment. Despite it being technically an example of market liberalization on the surface, it represents an example of the type of market reform that benefits the political class at the expense of workers while preserving the overall corporate statist framework.

Here's what Brad Spangler had to say about the CPE:

On the face of it, that initially might not sound so unreasonable to us as Americans and market-oriented libertarians. The French are fighting mad about it, though, and with good reason. The overall economic environment in France is so thoroughly statist that they quite reasonably expect no tangible benefit from this one small so-called market reform — and quite probably a fair amount of pain.

Young people in France currently often have to live at home for several *years* while job hunting. The consolation that sustains them is that once they’re in, at least they have job security. We ought to be able to express sympathy for their plight and point towards a better way — a revolutionary way.

The CPE is technically market liberalization — but representative of perhaps the worst possible choice of priorities, I would counter. Such is the nature of political reformism — to subvert the market toward the interests of the political class and bring it into unjustified disrepute. It’s up to agorists to put forward the alternative — counter-economic revolution. (emphasis mine)

As a representative of the Movement of the Libertarian Left, Brad has taken it upon himself to write a letter of solidarity to the French workers, explaining the reasons for solidarity along with an invitation to explore the agorist alternative to statist reformism. I have already signed the letter myself, and I ask any of my readers to do as well if they support the messages contained within the letter. To do so, simply visit Brad's post on the subject and leave a comment expressing your interest to be included as a signatory to the letter.

Here is the letter:

Students and Workers of France,

Professor Roderick Long once wrote:

“When Marx called the French government ‘a joint-stock company for the exploitation of France’s national wealth’ on behalf of the bourgeois elite and at the expense of production and commerce (’Class Struggles in France’), he was only echoing what libertarians had been saying for decades.”

France and all other nation-states remain so today. You and we live in a world where freedom and economic
opportunity exist only at the sufferance of a political class that allows us only some small amount of them for sake of their own convenience and take the rest from us by force and coercion for sake of their own parasitism.

Under such circumstances, state-sponsored market liberalization is a cruel joke. The legislation you protest and rebel against seeks only to increase the latitude given your overseers, while maintaining the overall restrictions on your own liberty that, if abolished, would empower you to seek your own prosperity. We believe you and we would be very good at that, mixing both cooperation and peaceful competition, if we were not slaves.

For those reasons, the signers of this letter offer their solidarity to you and present themselves as a sample of a small tendency known as the Movement of the Libertarian Left (MLL), advocates of revolutionary market anarchism or “agorism”.

It is not the place of others to tell you how to wage your own revolution against tyranny. We have some suggestions, though — a version of dual power strategy called “counter-economics”. We humbly recommend MLL founder Samuel Edward Konkin III’s small book on agorism, counter-economics, and revolution “The New Libertarian Manifesto” in hopes you may find it useful or inspirational. It is available free online at:
http://agorism.info/NewLibertarianManifesto.pdf

Signed,
The Movement of the Libertarian Left
Agora! Anarchy! Action!

UPDATE: The MLL letter has been published by Next Left Notes, the unofficial publication of the new SDS. Click here to view it along with the SDS letter. (the latter letter is also translated in French and German)

in defense of libertarian communism & markets

2006-03-22T18:23:00.000-05:00

Thanks to Brad Spangler, I recently discovered that author and artist Victor Koman has an extensive amount of old libertarian periodicals for sale through his KoPubCo Publishing site. I purchased a few things and will likely follow that up with another order sometime in the future. I'll likely be writing an occasional post about some of the stuff I've read in these periodicals, with this post being the first one.

One of those periodicals is the Strategy of the New Libertarian Alliance. I have a copy of issue number two, which is full of interesting and important material. For starters, it includes the introduction and first chapter of Samuel Edward Konkin III's unfinished book Agorism Contra Marxism, the book which influenced Wally Conger and led to his wonderful synopsis called "Agorist Class Theory". I highly recommend reading that essay if the idea of a libertarian-based class theory seems out of whack to you.

Another essay from that periodical that I found interesting was Kerry Thornley's "In Defense of Libertarian Communism". The essay is clearly written for a market anarchist audience, although many of the ideas he wrote about could also be used as a defense of markets amongst a libertarian communist audience. What follows are some choice excerpts from the essay:

But the charges that libertarian communism ignores the laws of the free market do not simply result from ignorance of its doctrines, but comprise instad an intellectually formidable position. In the first place, Berkman failed miserably to comprehend the significance of monetary mutualist ideas about central banking - blaming the warlike nature of capitalism upon the overproduction of goods and the consequent necessity to find new markets, unaware that in a free society stored overproduced goods could become a basis for mediums of exchange. Moreover, he failed to see that the prospect of war is needed by multinational banking corporations and failed to realize that credit monopolies such as central banks virtually thrive upon the misery and destruction that create debt.

Beyond that mistake, however, his thesis does not express an ignorance of free market principles, but instead depends upon a view of human nature that differs from that of most Conservatives and laissez-faire capitalists. Conservatives accept Original Sin and libertarian rightists assume that the laws which result from present economic values will always prevail, although those values result in turn from centuries of authoritarian conditioning.

As Hagbard Celine points out in the Illuminatus! Trilogy, left anarchists disagree with right anarchists only in their predictions as to how people will behave in a free market - the leftists believing that cooperation will take the place of competition, the rightists assuming that people will remain as competitve as ever. In other words, while authoritarian economics are proscriptive, libertarian economics are predictive - a realization which facilitates left-right unity among anarchists and libertarians.

...

But if, by libertarian methods, authoritarian values and the ignorance that they require are at a future point in history eradicated, what then? Will communist anarchism remain an anti-market philosophy or will the so-called laws of the market, being nothing mroe than descriptions of observed human behavior, change in accord with a proliferation of economic choices that result from psychologically liberated and informed values?

Like most higher mammals, human beings are herd animals, or tribalists. But the theological conceit that they are not mammals at all, but creatures "a little lower than angels,"causes them to behave in a way that alienates them not only from their own bodies, but also from their own emotional and social needs.

Imagine, as one example, belonging to a voluntary extended family of twenty-five individuals, children included, that lived in the same village neighborhood, labored in the same workplace, and enjoyed the same recreations together. Assume that these individuals had located one another through a computer matching service and taht therefore their lifestyle values were very much alike. Such a group might be further bonded in multilateral marriages, or it might be monoagamous and bonded vicariously in collective autoerotic sharing, or it might be sexually monogamous but held together by strong religious convictions or nonmystical values. Would such a group necessarily function in a manner that was anti-market? Even if it was organized internally for the equal sharing of what it produced?

...

That communist anarchists are by and large ignorant of free market principles is simply not true. For while their choices of words are different from those of the libertarian right and they therefore seldom use the term "free market,", it can be seen from a close reading of either Peter Kropotkin or Alexander Berkman that they recognize, as one example among many, that economic values are subjective, although they did not know this would become known among Austrian capitalists as the "law of marginal utility." In keeping with their contrasting view of human nature, the anarchists use marginal utility concepts to justify equal rations, since subjective value also implies that it is impossible to ascribe an objective value to anyone's labor.

Evidence that the communist libertarian view of human nature tend to be the more correct one is contained in A.S. Neill's Summerhill, where it is observed that in an environment of complete freedom children tend to be self-regulating and to master their subjects in the absense of any immediate rewards for so doing. That the resentment generated by compulsory measures is also absent in such a milieu seems to go a long way to explain why bribery, or reward, also becomes unnecessary. Further evidence is to be found in abundance in the study of anthropology, the Hopi Indians being only one very conspicuous, very extreme example of how far cooperation can develop in the direction of eliminating competition without crippling productive activity.

A logical political compromise between communist anarchism and libertarian capitalism would seem to be individualist anarchism of the kind espoused by Josiah Warren and Benjamin Tucker - for it makes the least number of assumptions in either direction about human nature and developed from experience with both utopian communist communities and the laissez-faire capitalism of teh last century.

Instead of making metaphysical assumptions about the nature of human beings in a free society, it asks: With people as they are how can we arrange social institutions to allow for the optimum in both individual choice and useful cooperation?

Once we construct our alternative institutions with that question in mind, generations of human beings will begin to grow up in genuine freedom - and no past or present communist anarchist or laissez-faire capitalist can predict with certainty what will happen after that, but it seems to me they should be able to agree that this is where to begin.

For libertarian capitalists that means becoming aware of communist anarchist doctrines, and realizing that they are based not so much on ignorance of economics as on unlimited optimism for the potential rationality of genuinely free people.

That is indeed some interesting stuff to ponder. With that last sentence from Thornley in mind, it would likewise behoove libertarian communists to become aware of market doctrines, especially realizing that markets are far more encompassing than merely the cash nexus. Here is a link to one of many posts written by Kevin Carson on the subject of markets and how broadly they are viewed amongst non-vulgar market advocates. As I stated in my previous post, anarchy is as simple as giving someone a hug, trading an apple for an orange, or purchasing a muffin at a bake sale, and none of those actions are anti-market.