Hacker News Reader

Comment by missedthecue | Hacker News Reader

"everyone would simply choose not to enjoy the benefits of private property" isn't a very compelling argument. In fact, it's observably untrue. We can look at societies that forbade the ownership of private property and these systems always gravitated toward it in spite of state enforcement. People didn't gravitate away from it. Black markets thrived in these economies.

View on HN

That's not what I meant by private property. Buying food on a black market is what I'd describe as personal property. By private property I'm referring to the private ownership of things which are used to provide a collective benefit, i.e., a factory, or an apartment complex.

May I ask how much familiarity you have with anarchist theory outside of anarchocapitalism?

How will you prevent people from owning some means of production?

Congratulations, you're not an anarchy anymore and are now a socialist dictatorship imposing authoritarian limits on what people can do, for the "common good".

You can put power in a "democracy" to make sure everyone is equally poor or spread it in the individuals composing a free market and accept a natural level of unbalance.

Any type of anarchy which doesn't involve capitalism as the basic tenet to drive decisions on what gets done has no way of working, unless all citizens behave perfectly.

It's not so much that you need to use violence to stop people from privatizing the means of production, as much as that you don't use the authority and capacity for violence of the state to enforce private property rights. In the absence of a such a threat of violence, abolishing the privatization of a community resource can be put to a vote, and then you can just not respect this person's claim to private property. If no one respects the claim, it doesn't exist. Until such a time as this can be achieved peacefully, we are not ready to live under anarchism.

Capitalism creates an imbalanced distribution of resources by enforcing a certain set of property relations. It isn't a law of nature. Like Gandi said, poverty is a human invention that can be abolished by humans.

Everyone might be equally poor but they'd be equally rich too. We have a massive economic capacity, largely misused to produce things of little value. We can provide for everyone. Capitalism creates no incentive to provide for everyone (as it serves capitalism well to have an underclass who will readily accept poor working conditions to survive), and market failures are frequent. Consider that public transit is much more efficient than everyone having a car, but that there is very little incentive to create good public transit systems under capitalism, not because they don't do their job well, but because they're difficult to run profitably.

Don’t even need only theory, researchers like Graeber and Wengrow have shown successful anarchical structures in the historical record, in large societies including after discovery or agriculture, see Dawn of Everything

As much of a fan as I am of Dawn of Everything, claiming that they have shown this in any conclusive sense is really pushing it.

DoE offers a different interpretation of archeological and historical evidence. Most of that interpretation, like the ones that came before it, are supposition as much as "showing".

If anyone is interested but doesn't want to read a 700pg book, this is a 1hr lecture from the authors that hits on a lot of the key ideas. https://youtu.be/EvUzdJSK4x8

I think of the transition from capitalism to socialism as similar to the transition from feudalism to capitalism. If you offered someone with a basic education and a decent job the opportunity to take a land tenancy as a serf under you, they would refuse.

Ownership of private property extends to a larger and larger population with each upheaval of the world's economic systems. The end result is socialism, where private property is owned by everyone, and is thus public. Why would I give you private ownership of what is, under socialism, partly my land?

I think the more credible critique of anarchy is that it is too hopelessly idealistic to occur any time soon.

You would give private ownership because of the same reason anything happens under capitalism. Because you are compensated what you think is a fair price.

There are lots of critiques of anarchy. This isn't my only one or my best one. I am only pointing out that anarchism and private property and trade are fully compatible.

Democracies often protect free speech, but a democracy without free speech protection is completely conceivable. This is concept I am trying to explain.

That's not a very conventional view of democracy. Without freedom of speech, how would we conduct rigorous debate and come to an unforced consensus? Voting can happen without freedom of speech, but that doesn't mean it was a meaningful election or that the democratic apparatus is more than a fig leaf for a dictatorial regime.

Anarchism isn't magic, it's entirely possible that an anarchist society fails and becomes capitalist. Just like democracy isn't magic and can fail and become a dictatorship. But that doesn't make these things compatible. My body will one day fail and I will die, but I don't consider my life to be compatible with organ failure.

I'm gathering your definition of anarchism is, "everyone does what they want, except forming a state, and therefore everything is compatible with anarchism?" Because that's not what anarchists are talking about, the classic quip being, "no government doesn't mean no governance."

The definition of anarchism I would use, given in this video essay [1], is (paraphrasing) a body of theory, method of critique, and set of practices to implement a society free of hierarchies of domination. Given that capitalism is a hierarchy whereby the wealthy are able to impose their vision on others (a concrete example being when Charlie Munger donated $1.5B in order to implement his vision of an ideal college dorm at UC Santa Barbara, one that encodes his particular ideological values) I can't see a way it is compatible with anarchism.

[1] https://youtu.be/Ag9EcQsqP_8

> I think the more credible critique of anarchy is that it is too hopelessly idealistic to occur any time soon.

Certainly this is beyond the foreseeable future, but I don't think this is actually a good way to critique a vision for society. I believe it is important for us to pursue bold utopian visions, even though they are not achievable in our lifetime. Just because we do not reach it does not mean the exercise isn't valuable; it provides a guidestar to help us to see how society can be improved today.

There is also the concept in anarchism of prefiguration [1], in which you build your ideal society in miniature from within the context of the society you exist in. So for example, we're currently discussing capitalism; we probably won't live to see the end of capitalism, but we can create a microcosm of a better world in the form of a worker's cooperative. This is much more achievable and it allows for us to put our ideas to practice in a sort of "societal laboratory".

Tangentially, I personally have a hypothesis that tech companies are stifled by hierarchical decision making that stops different parts of the organization (eg sales and engineering, or different teams within those departments) from properly collaborating, and creates maladaptive behaviors. For instance, I've seen situations where different parts of the same company feel that need to lie to each other in order to get their needs met, because the systems of prioritizing work weren't functioning properly, but the politics of the company made it impossible to call out these issues.

My hypothesis is that horizontally oriented tech companies, like worker's cooperatives, would outcompete hierarchically oriented companies, all else being equal (eg, if they had equal access to investment [which they don't]). I would like to test this hypothesis by creating such a company.

If anyone is interested in this topic and would care to correspond with me about this hypothesis, including/especially people who are critical of this idea, I'd love to hear from you. Email is in my profile.

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prefigurative_politics

Transitioning from feudalism to capitalism in its liberal form meant freeing people and providing them more rights and liberty.

Transitioning from that to socialism would mean taking freedom away. Despite what some claim the dictatorial nature of the 20th century's socialist countries is not accidental, it is inherent to socialism.

I'd argue that a violent revolution to sieze state power and use an authoritarian regime to implement socialism will always result in an oppressive regime, but that socialism does not, in itself, lead to authoritarianism or oppression. There's nothing inherently oppressive about a stateless, classless society where the means of production are owned collectively. And you can get there by giving people more rights, by democratizing more and more parts of society and giving people the right to access the essentials of life like health care, food, and shelter. I think someday we'll look back on this time in history and think it was absolutely crazy that health care wasn't considered a fundamental right.

> where the means of production are owned collectively.

This, right there, is inherently oppressive because it removes individual liberty and initiative and it requires enforcement. The same goes with lack of private property.

That's why, in fine oppression is inevitable.

In this same way as I think "implementing socialism" has to start by violent means.

I think some people are so idealistic that they don't, or don't want to, realise this.

Now, what liberal countries have done is to take some socialist ideas and to implement them as social policies within the liberal capitalist system. That is very different from socialism and a working approach.

There's a quote, with many variants and attributed to many people, which I think holds a lot of truth: "Any man who is not a socialist at age 20 has no heart. Any man who is still a socialist at age 40 has no head.".

You have the freedom to move your body in whatever way you please, until the point where your fist contacts someone's nose. I don't think anyone would argue this is oppressive. In the same way, everyone had a right to participate in whatever kind of economic activity they please, until that becomes holding hostage the tools society needs to provide for itself.

There's no law of physics which says society has to be changed through violence. In my lifetime I've seen the rights of LGBTQ people extended dramatically, and it hasn't been through violent means.

Regarding whether violence is necessary to "enforce" a lack of private property, please see my response elsewhere in this thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33965787

You're free to view me as too idealistic, you're entitled to your opinion and it doesn't disturb me, but I'd point out that the other side of this coin is being so cynical that you become blind to how society is changing and underestimate what is possible to achieve. Personally I think it's better to air on the side of optimism; I'd rather try and fail than to despair, and while cynicism can often have an aloof detachment that feels very intelligent, I think it's skin deep.

I don't know what LGBTQ rights have to do with socialism. If anything they are the progression of enlightenment liberalism.

Overall, I think your reply somewhat proves my point about idealism and denial of reality. And that's fine in principle but can have dangerous consequences (road to hell is paved with good intentions kind of thing).

It's an example of a successful social movement to bring about positive change without violence.

You're entitled to feel however you like, if you want to express that as an argument I'm happy to respond to it, if you don't feel so moved than that's fine too. But if I don't know what about my response makes you say that, there's not really anything more for me to add.

(If you do elaborate, I won't see it until tomorrow because I'm going to log off for the evening now.)

> This, right there, is inherently oppressive because it removes individual liberty and initiative and it requires enforcement. The same goes with lack of private property.

Private property is also inherently oppressive, you need to violence to maintain it.

> In this same way as I think "implementing socialism" has to start by violent means.

In a capitalist society, sure. To start implementing capitalism you also have to start with violence.

> Private property is also inherently oppressive, you need to violence to maintain it.

I'd also add that those with an interest in profit often end up using resources that are held in common, to the detriment of everyone else, which doesn't seem fair. But such is our politics where profit is more important than many other things.

Why should a billionaire get to buy millions of acres of beautiful natural land exclude everyone else? There are places where land belongs to everyone, where you can get a 99 year lease to use it for your lifetime, but not forever, and places where everyone has a right to roam, and land can't be walled off from the public. Why should a farmer make money depleting river waters and aquifers, and the rest of us have to pay higher water bills? Why should an industrialist be able to profit while polluting that same river? Or a media company pollute our minds and public discourse for their profit? Why should mining companies make money from a natural resource at the expense of future generations who won't have access to those resources any more? Etc.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com