this post was submitted on 22 Aug 2023
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For a moment, assume a complete stateless world. Anarchy in the genuine sense - literally no state, just people and the product of what they do. Let's say someone invents a thing and they want to sell it. There's no state to regulate what he does, so selling it isn't out of the question by default. Let's say he buys wood to construct storage facilities, and a store front. That was wood he bought, and he owns the product of it. Again, there's no state, just things to buy/sell and stuff to do. no state to claim the land he built it on, it's just his shop, his wood, his materials, his ideas. Those are privately owned by him, because he collected or bought it himself. Is this the result of enforcement, or is this just a guy who wanted to sell something?
Now consider again an anarchist state, at what point does the collective come into play? It's not his wood, it's everyone's wood! According to who, who decided that? This guy didn't, so it's his. Okay well let's say people have agreed that the means of production are collectively owned. Well, what if this guy doesn't agree? Actually, fuck it, it's my hypothetical, he doesn't agree. I sure wouldn't. I built it, so it's mine. Okay well now we have a group of people that agree they collective own the things I made. How are they gonna make it theirs? Are they gonna take it by force, thereby enforcing the rule?
Private ownership is not enforced, it's achieved. Collective ownership is enforced.
Who is he buying wood from? How did they come to own that wood? What is he using to pay for that wood? That "just things to buy/sell and stuff to do" is hand-waving a lot that goes into running the systems that we have in place. It's a common fallacy to assume capitalist functions are a feature of nature that have and will always exist just because it's the system you're living under.
It's not hand waving, it's a hypothetical lmao. You can't just call it a fallacy and leave without engaging with any of the reasoning, that's just cheating and lazy
You have no reasoning to begin with. I asked basic questions about your little scenario and you couldn't answer them. Again, where is this guy buying the wood from? How did the person who he bought the wood from come to own that wood in the first place? How were they granted the rights to that wood? Did they just stake a claim by calling firsties? First come first chop? What do they accept as payment for that wood? Some form of currency? What gives that currency legitimacy? You're hand-waving crucial details in your little capitalist fantasy but scrutinize collective ownership. You're either completely clueless or you're intentionally skipping over those details because then you'd have to admit the enforcement involved in getting your little capitalist fantasy to actually work out.
Dude there's no way you actually expect me to explain all of this just to illustrate that private ownership doesn't require enforcement. That point has been made, and it's been made clearly. Just because you're confused about specific details doesn't mean I did a poor job of explaining it. But, out of pure stubbornness, I'll indulge:
Either he cut it down or someone else did and sold it to him
Rights are a matter of state. There is no state. Nobody did.
Sure, I guess.
Again, there is no state. Currency is a representation of value legitimized by the state. Without a state, there's no currency. They would use money, and by money, I actually mean the Marxist definition of it. Money is a commodity, something that holds genuine value.
And this is why your questions are annoying to me. Are you under the impression that this was not a hypothetical? Do you think this was an analogy, or a genuine prescription for how a society should run? You're taking scrutiny hyper specific details because you want to argue with what I'm saying, yet what I'm trying to tell you have not even made a passing through your train of though.
My point is this, and only this: It is natural for people to take ownership of things. Any claim that something I gathered, bought, built, or was given as a gift is actually just in my possession would necessarily have to be enforced, otherwise it's just mine.
Okay so this guy went to some random forest and cut trees. Then someone emerges and says "hey, that's my forest, you're cutting my trees", to which the initial guy responds with "I don't see your name on 'em". Now what? Who resolves this dispute? The only point you've made is that you haven't thought your favored ideology through. It doesn't count as enforcement if it's your favored system because only the bad systems require enforcement in your eyes? A hypothetical doesn't work when it falls apart at the most basic level.
No, just seem to be willing to participate in a thought experiment that could contradict your worldview. That's fine, I'll just leave you alone now. Have a good one
You weren't willing to answer basic questions about your own thought experiment because those simple questions challenged your worldview. I've been trying to participate this whole time and it's just made you angry. Do you think participation is just people agreeing with you?
Okay so I just re read our exchange to see if I could see where you were coming from and oh man lol. Like, I do, but before I get to that, I really want you to understand how this exchange went from my perspective. I set up a hypothetical story set in genuine anarchy, and you called the premise of the hypothetical a fallacy. As if it's a fallacy to set up a hypothetical scenario. The point of the story was that taking ownership of something privately does not need enforcement to happen, nothing else. I explicitly said so. Part of the reason I described it as genuine anarchy was because I thought that would be pretty clearly allegorical. It seems like you took it to be an advocation for genuine anarchy in spite of this
Also, the questions you asked were not about the narrative or genuinely engaging. It was 3 in a row about anything you could think of relating to the wood specifically, and acted as if it was hand waving to have not preemptively answered them. That's why I called it cheating and lazy, you could just pick any word I wrote and do that. Why would you expect me to think any of those questions were asked in good faith or leading to anything engaging when you ask them like that?
Then, after I tried clarifying it was a hypothetical you asked several more hyper specific questions and again unfairly called it hand waving for having not already answered them, calling them crucial, and saying it's my fantasy, again implying you think I'm advocating for the world I set my story in. Hoping I might be wrong about that and that you'd respond in good faith, I did answer your questions! I even tried clarifying more explicitly that I'm not saying the story I set up is an ideal world.
Instead of engaging with any of my answers, you asked more hyper specific questions about the lore of the world I set up, call it my "favored system", and then you tell me the world in my story was flawed. You literally explicitly say you think I'm in favor of this world immediately after I explicitly told you I wasn't lol. Honestly, you've just been unpleasant and disagreeable as a whole. You repeatedly misinterpret what I'm saying in a way that I honestly can't tell is willful or not, while simultaneously implying I'm stupid. If you're really look at how you were talking to me right out the gate, can you honestly be surprised no fruitful conversation came of it?
Anyways, I can see why you'd say the same about me just saying what you said was cheating and lazy instead of being clearer about what I was thinking. Sorry about telling you your questions were frustrating because in hindsight that wasn't the issue.
In fact, there's fruitful conversation to be had about the protection of ones property which you were getting at when you mentioned the enforcement that would be required. It's just, when you are clearly insisting on pinning me as the defender of anarchy when I have made it clear I am not, that conversation doesn't really get anywhere good either.
And I'm sorry for the long comment lol hope ya actually read it. I guess it doesn't matter really, you can let me know what you think if you want but I've kinda said my piece so, again, have a good one.