Amebix
Bluelighter
- Joined
- Sep 1, 2006
- Messages
- 1,506
protovack said:Well, we have reached the central point here.
The problem with this type of thinking is that it doesn't hold up in the real world. Sure, you could point out inherent "inconsistencies" in capitalist orthodoxy, such as suffering, but to me that doesn't really represent a problem. Just a short time ago, we were all suffering. Whether by a King, an Emperor, or just plain old natural forces, we have for a long time been slaves.
With the rise of a capitalist class, the old power elite have finally been put in their place. There are no more legions of wealthy princes....landowning aristocrats who contribute nothing to society. Sure you still have some vestigial families...but money rules.
If you want to make money, you have to PRODUCE something! For the first time in history, a single individual can become rich without having to bow down before some feudal lord. Instead of tax rates being nearly 90%....they are closer to 30%. Instead of enriching royal families, we are enriching business owners, who then lend money to new operations - and from that we get growth, both in population and standard of living.
As for anarchism, nothing is stopping anarchists from setting up their own communal living system. There is no law that says a farmer must sell their product on the market. Nothing stops traditional christian groups from living how they want to.
If anarchists are so committed to "organization" then why haven't they gotten themselves organized yet?
I think the reason is that for the anarchist, it is all about the ideas. It is an idea game to them. They don't particularly care whether it "would work" or whether it is "compatible with human nature."
Here is the thought process. Pick two virtues, utilitarianism and altruism. Then derive from those the idea that coercion is inherently incompatible with them. Then voila, you have your ready made society, perfect as a snowflake. Totally logical and internally consistent. They strive for a perfect congruence between the ideals and the "reality."
It seems to me that this kind of logical order only exists internally. Nature is an unpredictable mass of events, and human society is no different. This is what we learned from science. We found that the orbits of the planets were not perfect spheres, and that we in fact were orbiting the sun in an ellipse. This was horrifying because most people believed perfect circles represented divine movement.
Anarchists want to believe in perfect spheres, even though reality says something different. The extreme order and logic of anarchism is derived from a few basic axioms, and that is why it is a weak system. The axioms are too "perfect" to be true or useful.
So what your saying is the suffering is justified, simply because its been going on for a long time? Are you sure thats not just an excuse to turn a blind eye? And have not the old monarchs, the wealthy princes, the land owning aristocrats simply been given new titles, presidents, ceos, land owners, bosses? I think you side stepped the question "Does this not entail that suffering induced systemically by the world-capitalist system indicates a failure on the system's OWN TERMS? ". And of course anarchists have organized before, they do all the time. Take squats for example. They TAKE land that is not occupied, completlely abandoned, and make a living space out of it. They had one here in montreal years back, and it was operated with a participatory democratic principle, quite nicely i might add. There downfall? Internal squabbling? Power struggles? No, it was Government. They didnt pay for the the land, they had no "title" to it, therefor they could not live on it, irregardless of the fact that the land was abandoned and that it provided free housing for the homeless. So please dont say that anarchists are all talk please, because you know not of what you speak. That was 1 example i might add. And i believe it has been demonstrated time after time that it is control, rather then freedom, that is not compatible with human nature.