Author: Db0

The three struggling powers of non-socialist systems

Db018 Comments

There are always three currents in each society, striving for dominance. Conservatives, Progressives and Socialists. The former seek to retain rule, the second to achieve it and the later to dismantile it forever.

Populism
Image by Dr Case via Flickr

It is a rare occasion when I get an insight for a blogpost from a comic but this is what happened as I was reading this one. Although the part that spoke to me was just the buildup to the main even, it seems to me that the author did present the powers that struggle for dominion in all non-socialist systems quite succinctly.

So basically, every system characterized by class struggle (thus anything other than socialism) has the following three movements vying for control.The Conservatives, the Progressives (or liberals) and the Populists (or Socialists in recent centuries).

The Conservatives

The ruling elite of any society is generally conservative and thus generally belongs to such parties. This is born out of basic self-interest. The current ruling elite was once the progressives who have reached a position of power and through this leverage has slowly consolidated their gains by pushing for the appropriate legal or ruling system. The best way to preserve this position of course is to oppose progressive reformation of the current system so as to conserve their profit sources and prevent future progressives from overtaking them.

That is not to say that the conservatives are comprised only of the ruling elite, although historically it has been the case. Monarchs, Aristocracy and Feudal lords were all at some point the only conservative aspects of society, opposing transitions to another type of society, such as Capitalism. In recent centuries however, through misinformation and propaganda the conservative agenda has managed to make limited headway in the middle and lower class.

This is generally achieved through faulty reasoning, which is why it is mostly based on irrational beliefs such as religion and nationalism, through which you can make people follow you even if it will be against their own best interest. As such, the progressives either find it impossible to convince people through reason,  and even if they do manage to attack a particular point, as they don’t have the leverage of power, the argument can simply be ignored.

This path of a progressive becoming the conservative is the norm and examples of it abound in history, but one very recent example is none other than the success of Microsoft. Here we have a company which in the 80s and even up until the early 90s was hailed as someone who was doing everything right, the underdog that was challenging the status quo and coming out on top, putting one over the Big Blue etc etc. Back then, while MS was still growing, it was very tolerant of piracy (they didn’t like it but they took only token action against it) and against software patents.

Once Microsoft became the power in the software world however it started singing a different tune. Suddenly patents are necessary and good, piracy must be squelched by any means necessary and political lobbying has increased hundredfold. Looking at this change alone, it doesn’t really make sense and it just feels like a company suddenly turning “evil” for no reason. But from the perspective of power consolidation, the actions of Microsoft (and other in a similar position) make a lot more sense. They are the type of actions any entity which gains the power takes in order to be able to retain it with the least amount of effort.

Think of that the next time you wonder why Google “does evil” now.

Progressives

The progressive or liberal part of any society is simply those who are moderately well off but cannot ascend to the position of ruling elite due to the barriers the previous batch of progressives – the current ruling elite, has put up. In short the progressives are generally the middle class with great expectations.

The progressive face changes form in every epoch. They were the artisans under the monarchs, the bourgeoisie under the aristocracy and today they are the right-libertarians, the minarchist-capitalists etc. The “progress” they seek, is their progress to the top, and the “liberty” they ask  is the liberty to rule. Like all progressives before them, once power is in their hands they become tomorrow’s conservatives in their attempts to retain it.

Like the conservatives above of course, their number are not limited simply to the middle class, although that is their base. Their rationalistic rhetoric can easily demolish the weak arguments of the conservatives and draw in people with dreams of grandeur. It is convenient that a fact which can be ignored is that there is simply not enough room at the top in they pyramidal form of all hierarchical systems. As such, only the most capable and/or brutal progressives will achieve ruling position. But of course, all progressives consider themselves the most capable.

It is not realistic to expect progressives or liberals to stick to their values once society has been reformed to their liking (ie with them on top). History is ample proof of that. This is something to keep in mind when you listen to rhetoric from “anarcho”-capitalists about how good a society would be under unregulated capitalism.

Socialists

I use the label ‘Socialists’ instead of ‘Populists’ for while the former is a relatively recent movement in the history of mankind, (whereas populism, or movements “for the people” have always existed to some degree) populism without a socialist or egalitarian perspective has always been hijacked by the few for their own ends. The people have always been betrayed by those liberals or Authoritarian “Socialists” leading them to fight “for the people”.

And while there have always been egalitarian ideologues, they never gathered a lot of momentum before the Marxist and Anarchist movements which presented not only a reasonable argument on why an egalitarian society is preferable but also practical methods to achieve it. And while both Progressives and Socialists are disgruntled with the current ruling elite and rules of society, that is where their similarities end, for only the later seek a permanent end to ruling elites.

So where the Conservatives struggle to retain their rule and Progressives strive to claim it for themselves, it is only the Libertarian Socialists who wish to allow each person to achieve self-rule, and actualization. All three currents will use populism as reasoning but only the libertarian socialists have a concrete way to achieve it.

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Why not try to change the system from within?

Db024 Comments

Is working within the capitalist system preferred to other actions when one does not expect Capitalism to topple within one’s lifetime? Obviously not.

What is it with the people who have taken the road of compromisation to direct arrows or morality and condescention to those of us who have recognised it for the sham it is and choose to act appropriately? It is not the first time I’m reading this kind of appeal to emotion, but the difference is that this time the argument comes from a self-identified socialist who even flies and red and black flag.

So this latest argument (in Greek) basically says the following:

  1. Capitalism is bad and many of us struggle to topple it in favour of socialism.
  2. But realistically this will not happen within out lifetimes. If that is the case, why do we still struggle instead of just  living a normal life?
  3. Is it because we want to help the downtrodden nevertheless? But in that case, centrist politics are a better path since those have the possibility of making an actual change within our lifetimes.
  4. If you don’t want to follow centrist politics, it follows then that it must be because of your “egoistic idealism” which prevents compromise even though it would do more good within your lifetime.
  5. If then one does not expect his struggle to topple capitalism in his lifetime, and as a result of this knowledge does not turn to centrism, then they are a hypocritical idealist.

Unfortunately the author makes some pretty bold assumptions in here which I need to tackle.

It seems that a very main point of the author is point 2, (something which is later confirmed in the comments). But wether Capitalism will be toppled within our lifetime is irrelevant to wether one should struggle towards this purpose. The reason why I speak and take the appropriate actions against it is because it must be toppled eventually. It may not be within my lifetime but I can only hope that what I do and say will be the base on which others will step on to perhaps complete this task.

Further to this, it is practically impossible for any of us to know when Capitalism might die. None of us is a seer and if anything has been shown by history is that Capitalism is a very precarious system. Going from a stable Boom to a dangerous Bust within a few short years. And if the correct mindframe has not been cultivated when the Bust comes, then the opportunity is lost.

So if anything, not working towards the end of Capitalism through radical means, even when the system is stable, only ensures that the system will perpetuate.

Point 3 however is the largest objection I have to the whole thing. The assumption that working through parliamentary centrist channels will do more overall good than radical actions. The whole political history of the 20th century in the western nations is one of Socialist or Centrist parties trying to make the system better. What have they achieved? That the worst excesses of Capitalism will simply be migrated to areas outside of their “benevolent” influence (ie other nations), that the revolutionary movements at times of crises were safely defused by a few scraps thrown to them (via the same centrist parties) by a terrified capitalist class, that the situation in the world has nevertheless steadily grown worse.

No, the reformist parties are never a better solution. History has proven that much time and again.

What is the reason why me and others refuse to play this game? No it’s not utopian idealism, it is the knowledge that our energy would be better served elsewhere. Direct action for example is a 100 times more effective than parliamentarism. It is through direct action that every socialist change has happened, for which then the aforementioned parties have attempted to get credit. Leading by example, with cooperatives and takeovers is another.

There’s too many different ways that Capitalism can be undermined, and reformism is not one of them. If anything, the accusation of naive idealism should be directed back to those who call themselves socialists and yet support a course of action that has been proven, both in theory and in practice, to be actually helping the Capitalist system stay in place, rather than the opposite.

Of course, that is not to say that parliamentarism cannot have its uses. In some political systems for example, where non-voting counts for the winning party, it’s far better for radicals to simply vote for the most radical party that exists, or alternatively to simply create a new party for the purpose of removing the votes from the (usually two) ruling ones and to serve as an awareness vessel. Winning parliamentary seats is irrelevant as even if by stroke of luck it happens, it will not amount to anything.

In short no, even if Capitalism is not to be toppled within my lifetime, direct action from below is infinitely better than parliamentarism. Any emotional arguments to the contrary simply try to play people in supporting the lesser evil and perpetuate the status quo.

Further Reading

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Libertarians and Intellectual Property

Db0116 Comments

The only thing more inconsistent than a libertarian who supports Intellectual Property (IP) is a libertarian that doesn’t but continues to support Private Property (PP).

Intellectual Property Zone
Image by gurdonark via Flickr

The only thing more inconsistent than a libertarian who supports Intellectual Property (IP) is a libertarian that doesn’t but continues to support Private Property (PP).

Renunciation of IP is actually a very trendy thing to do by fledging right-libertarians. I would venture to suggest that it might be the very first dip many take in libertarian waters.

Some will do it on a purely practical grounds, such as the devolution of the Free Software concept that is Open Source, by taking out all the ethical base in order to make it more “business friendly”. Others, on the other hand will renounce it on ideological reasons, namely by claiming that the concept of IP is nothing more than a state sponsored monopoly and thus illegitimate. I’ve actually been stumbling on this type of reasoning quite a bit lately and something about sounded inconsistent.

And the other day it struck me as I was arguing with an Agorist, who was at that point defending private property. The argument he had made in another passing comment against IP was the same as above (IP is state-sanctioned monopoly blah-de-blah) so as  I was pressuring him to explain how PP would remain in a stateless society where the workers would be capable of seizing the factories without fearing state reprecursions he gave me a most underwhelming answer: “Any sensible free market court would rule against workers who tried to violently seize the factory they worked in.”

But why would any such “sensible court” side with PP? Because it is self-evident? But obviously it is not, for the workers attempting the seizure of the means of production. don’t see it. Because it is a Natural Law? Don’t make me laugh.

But lets for a moment consider that indeed the courts side with the Capital instead of labour. The question then arises of why such a “sensible free market court” would not in a similar way side with IP as well? Any possible argument one can make in defence of PP can most likely or with slight modifications be made in defence of IP as well.

The thing is, that here the anti-statists ((No, they aren’t Anarchists. That’s much more than simple anti-statism)) are blinded to the fact that PP claims are state-sanctioned in exactly the same was as IP. They assume that in a post-state world, the federation of courts (or what have-you in Agorist Libertopia) will protect private property in exactly the same way as before but for some reason refrain from doing so in regards to intellectual property.

And since their dismissal of IP is not based on an ethical argument but rather on the infantile “It’s not legitimate because the state does it”, in a stateless future where IP is still supported by the courts and enforced by those private insurance/security forces, they can only stay silent.

Of course there are the few libertarians who do dismiss IP on purely utilitarian grounds. But then they go on to support PP on ideological reasons, which is a clear sign of ideological bankrypcy. This is because from a utilitarian perspective, the abolition of PP is superior (for reasons I shan’t go through here).

And because of this, such libertarians will forever remain inconsistent, for to avoid that, they would have to look at both types of property on ideological grounds and therefore support both or to look at them from utilitarian grounds and thus reject both.

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My four days of hell are (almost) over

Db03 Comments

Back after 1 hard weekend of moving.

Those more attentive of you might have noticed that in the last few days I haven’t been very active online. Not many posts, twits and whatnot. The reason is that I’ve been preparing to move to a new flat down to the road and finally this long weekend we went through the hellish task of renovating and moving.

I’m still hurting.

I don’t have internet anymore.

My previous landlord has dissapeared from the face of the earth with 1k of my deposit.

I don’t have a place to put my PC anymore.

I’m still hurting.

All in all, some good fun. I just don’t want to be moving for the next 10 years.

On the bright side, I finally got a room in the colour I always wanted. It looks something like this 😉

Pics will follow.

Can market exchange create new value?

Db021 Comments

No misconception is more common among free market proponents than the idea that simple exchange creates new value. I wish to show how this reasoning is flawed.

free lunch
Image by arbeer.de via Flickr

A very common argument from economists and generally free market proponents is that the only thing that creates value are market interactions.  The basic idea they try to promote is that the Capitalist system is not a zero sum game as one person’s gain does not need to come from another person’s loss. You can see an example of this argument from this latest post on Techdirt.

Too many people, it seems, assume that “there is no free lunch” means that the market is entirely static. That is, they believe it’s a zero sum game. If I do x, then y loses out. So, if I am offered free internet service or a free lunch, then whoever provided that is out the same. But that’s simply not true. Economics is not a zero sum game, but is built around economic growth — where the sum of economic activity can be greater than the parts. If I do a transaction with you, and in the end, we’re both better off (i.e., we both got more value than we gave up), then the amount of overall value in the world increased. It might not be a “free” lunch (the economic transaction cost me something), but new utility is created above and beyond what was there before.

(Emphasis mine)

I will not argue on the liberal use of vague concepts and examples that seem valid (eg Why “Free Internet” and not “Free Apples”? Because the argument sounds more plausible that way) but I will point out the black hole in the end.

What the author is telling us in effect is that when you and I trade commodities, new utility is created. So if I give you an apple and you give me an orange, new utility has been created out of thin air. What this utility is, the author does not deem worthy to mention so your guess is as good as mine.

We can safely assume that the author is rather talking about utility in the economic sense, which can roughly translate as satisfaction. In that case however, new utility has not been created but rather the individual utility of each person has been increased. But this kind of utility does not affect the cumulative value of the world, it only affects the individual. The amount of value in the world remains constant.

It is this kind of fallacious reasoning that leads to events such as the rise and fall of Iceland, where their “value” skyrocketed simple because the traders agreed upon themselves that their stuff was worth more. What they basically did was trade amongst themselves and with each trade, they were creating “new utility”. By the logic above, that is perfectly normal and acceptable. The result of which was that Iceland’s “wealth” ballooned to such an extraordinary degree and then popped at the slightest disturbance.

But the reality is that utility, and by that I mean objective value of any single commodity can only be created through one of two ways. Human Labour and Natural Phenomena. The only way to create a new car is to build it. The only way to create a new microchip is to build it etc. It is funny that the author quotes someone else who goes very close to this but fails to grasp it

A useful metaphor for production in an economy comes from the kitchen. To create valuable final products, we mix inexpensive ingredients together according to a recipe. The cooking one can do is limited by the supply of ingredients, and most cooking in the economy produces undesirable side effects.

But of course the extra value that is created in the kitchen does not come from simply possesing lots of inexpensive ingredients. By this reasoning, the best cooks would be the ones who could trade their material best and get the biggest array of them, or trade for the ones that gives them personally the largest amount of satisfaction. After all it’s the trading that would “create new utility” and thus “value” isn’t it?

But that of course is patently absurd. The extra value that is created in the kitchen does not lie in the ingredients. It lies in the amount of labour the cook will put in his cooking. And if we take into account the skill of the cook, then we can speak about the SNLT to be more accurate. The more labour the cook puts into his cooking, the more value the end result will have.

It is understandable that economists would be avert to recognise where the value comes from, but this dooms them to simply a series of equivocations.

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Managers are the new nobility

Db071 Comments

Why do MBAs get so well paid even though all evidence points that they do not deserve it? My half-cooked theory is that they are the natural result of the crypto-feudalism of our system.

Harvard University
Image via Wikipedia

I just read this interesting piece on how the MBA degree is not only useless but practically fostered the mindframe that drove the Wall Street meltdown. There are some interesting points within and some of the quotes are just hilarious but I feel that the author does not go far enough.

While the problems of the mindframe that your can “train a leader” are obvious not only after a short explanation but also through viewing the dismal failure most managers are, a failure which in turn has not relation to their subsequent payment and bonuses, the reasons of why this paradigm came to be is not explored.

And what would you know, I have a theory on that.

You see, we have a society which rewards those who can accumulate wealth better with more wealth. We also have the concept that this wealth can and should be passed to one’s progeny so as not to be squandered.  We also know that wealth = power and power can be used to prevent others from challenging one’s own wealth/power.

As wealth accumulated to fewer and fewer hands, those at the top, through inheritage ended up creating dynasties, and the mentality of those who are born within a dynasty is that they deserve to be there. That they deserve these privileges that their ancestors have granted them (AKA Spoiled rich brats). When you add to that the common feeling of people who have “made it”, who do not want to see their progeny having to walk the same path but rather continue where they left them, you get the mentality of nobility: By right of heritage, one deserves their social position.

Sure one could train his children as experts on something but that would mean that they may start low and actually have to take orders from someone else. There also the alternative that the progeny simply lives of the considerable wealth the parents have created but this would lead to a progressive reduction of wealth, especially since a jbless hedonistic child is bound to spend increasingly more and more. No, the wealth a position had to be transferred somehow.

In the past, the founder of a very succesful company could easily tranfer his wealth to his children (or at least some of them) which wasn’t much different from a lord tranferring his feud to his sons. However as privately owned companies were outcompeted from public ones, this path became progressively harder to take as the shareholders don’t necessarily have to be the same as the managers.

So another way had to be found to ensure that the progeny of the movers and shakers of any society would in turn become the movers and shakers of the future.  And just in time, the managerial courses came about. I have noted that the rise to prominense of such courses correlates very nicely with the increased incorporation of American business. The less the posibility one has to transfer the accumulated wealth, the more necessary to have a way to jump start one’s career.

And slowly but surely, the managerial class was created. A class which incidentally has a very high entrance cost (as you need to have both the money and the status to be accepted in institutions such as Harvard) which practically means that only those already in the upper levels of society can enter. And as progressively the higher paying positions of companies necessitated one being part of the managerial class, the cumulative dificulty in getting in, became even larger.

So now you’ve basically got a system where if you’re rich and powerful you get to become even more rich and powerful by right of heritage, while the chances of one of the unwashed masses “making it” are as high as the chance a mercenary or a merchant had to become a “sir” or a lord in an Aristocracy.

Like the nobility, the managerial class is not taught how to be productive or ethical like the rest of us, they are tought how to be decisive and arrogant. Like the nobility, the managerial class does not need to suffer the bad results of their actions (golden parachutes and the like) unless they happen to step on the toes of another of the ruling class while they’re at it.

It is funny because this is the culmination of all the bourgeoisie has been striving to achieve ever since the liberal revolutions of the past few centuries. To take the place the aristocracy had in their zenith. They have obviously achieved it, but like the aristocracy before them, they have nowhere to progress, but down.

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Are the USA heading towards a military coup?

Db015 Comments

All the recent events point to the US military moving to a position to depose of their President if he gets too out of line.

ObamaNation
This is the kind of Propaganda I’m talking about  – Image by fletcherwarren via Flickr

I’m seeing way too many right-wing secessionist alarms coming from the US lately and the trend is much too concentrated and much too supported to be extremist scaremongering imho.

The Army generals have already declared their distrust for the current administration and I’m willing to bet that the ruling elite are funding most of the secessionist movements. They’ve already uncovered that the “Tea Parties” and “Spontaneous Rants” were setup by the NeoCons so it’s not really a stretch to imagine that much of the rest is as well. We already know that Faux News wouldn’t fart without Murdoch’s approval so their latest stunt gives at least some credence to that theory.

Personally, I’m starting to believe that this is in psychological preparation for a military coup. They want a large amount of the populace supportive of a forceful takedown of the current government. I can’t really foresee how this will go down but I assume an increasing secessionist/revolutionary movement through astroturfing and viral messages, playing on popular disenchantment and anger.

Once the kettle has been brought to a boil, all it will take will be a crisis ((I’m assuming a catastrophic economic event, such as a nationa default or the disuse of the dollar as the global exchange currency)) that will give the cause for the generals to step in and declare the government null or somesuch.

The sad part is how the “Liberals” of the US are joking about these threats as if military coups have never happened before. If anything, with the increased reliance of the US on Mercenaries under the control of private individuals (with very strong ties to the NeoCons) such a move would be impossible to resist through democratic means. The Democrats will still be thinking that this can never happen in the land of the Free while the fascist flags are being raised on the white house.

So I see this coming and it’s scary. The signals are all loud and clear. The secessionists are proudly proclaiming their plans for terrorism and nobody even blinks (while of course animal-rights activists are labeled terrorists and detained at the drop of a hat).The ironic insult to injory is that a very large proportion of the mess the US is in right now has been caused by NeoCon policies. And now that the opposition is in the rule, they are going to use the disaster they’ve helped create to push forward something even worse.

The most unfortunate thing is that the reactionary feelings of general populace are being guided into supporting fascists instead of being agitated to struggle for their freedom. If what I foresee comes to be, US Citizens will be tricked into exchanging a Plutocracy for a Junta or a fascist regime and all their revolutionary energy will be sapped once they realize the result they’ve helped accomplish (or failed to stop).

Perhaps it can’t be helped. The Socialism movement of the USA has been hamstrung through persistent and extreme propaganda to the point that the mere word is used as slander. As such, there are few people that can push the coming reaction to the right direction and while a crisis of Capitalism can turn people Socialist overnight, a sustained misinformation campaign, such as the one going on at the moment, can easily polarize in the opposite direction.

For your sake Americans, I hope I’m being horribly wrong on this.

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How would Anarchists/Communists deal with the Free Rider Problem?

Db061 Comments

The issue of Free Riders is frequently brought forward as an argument against Anarchism and Communism. However not only would such societal leeches be fewer but also far less problematic.

Free-rider
Image by schoeband via Flickr

A Free Rider is considered someone who consumes more than he should, or more than what is considered “fair”. In the more extreme case it is someone who contributes nothing but still receives the full benefits of society. In a more mild case, it might be the lazy person who manages to obscure the fact that he’s only working half the time.

Both of these cases are considered a problem because they present a prisoner’s dilemma to whatever they apply. If I work in a factory and can simply slack off half the time, this will bring me the benefit of living a happier, less tiring and stressful job. If this can pass unchallenged it will trigger others in the factory to act in the same way (defect) so as to get the same benefit. When a few people become free riders then it usually does not create an issue as others can cover for their loss without noticeable drawbacks. However when everyone, or a critical mass, defects then everyone suffers.

Free rider then must be somehow convinced or coerced to stop defecting from contributing what is expected of them, and societies have come up with various ways to work around this problem. In a modern nation for example, active coercion is used via the form of taxes to insure that everyone contributes their share. In a theoretical “Anarcho”-Capitalist society on the other hand, this problem is resolved through death ((To be fair, this is the position is espoused by this particular AnCap who seems to be a bit challenged in the empathy department. As such, it does not necessarily mean it’s the position espoused by all AnCaps, so a more accurate description instead of “death” would be “reliance on private charity, but possibly including death where charity is ineffectual”. H/t sblinn)). The question occurs then, how would an Anarchist/Communist society deal with Free Riders.

The way I see it, there’s two necessary conditions that must exist to turn someone into a free rider. These are Incentive and Obfuscation. Incentive is the fact that in a prisoner’s dilemma the best result is when the other side cooperates as you defect. The greater the difference from the result of mutual cooperation compared to cooperation/defection, the greater the incentive to defect. Obfuscation on the other hand is the ability to hide your choice in the prisoner’s dilemma so as to avoid coercion or others defecting with you.

The greater the incentive and the easier the obfuscation, the more free riders you will get in your system until it collapses. A Capitalist system (wether a fascist, democratic or an stateless one) has such a a major issue with free riders because both conditions are high. It is easy to hide the fact that you’re lazy when your co-workers won’t care to give you away and the rewards for doing it are considerate (same pay for less work).  I want to show how in a Socialist society both of these conditions are severely reduced.

Incentive

Lets say we have a factory where our potential free rider is a worker. In a Capitalist run factory he would either be getting the minimum wage (the cost to survive) due to the commoditization of labour, or in the lucky case that the worker is living in a Bourgeois nation, he’ll be getting a decent one. Whatever happens then, the worker knows that he will be getting the same wage and it will also be unlikely that any extra effort will be rewarded.

But this is not the case in a socialist mode of production. Because the workers themselves reap all the fruits of their own labour any slacking at work will come directly out of one’s “paycheck” while any extra effort will increase their reward. Because of this, in our prisoner’s dilemma abstraction of the situation, the reward one receives from cooperating with others within Socialism are approaching the reward one receives via defection. The smaller this difference between rewards becomes, the smaller the incentive for one to defect

Obfuscation

The second condition is how easy it is for a potential free rider to hide the fact that he is slacking about. Within a capitalist company, the limited management finds it very difficult to tell apart who is the slacker as opposed to who is simply slower than others (but still trying) or who is having a bad time. And since other workers generally don’t rat on their colleagues, especially when working conditions are bad, it becomes quite easy to hide the fact that you’re avoiding work, and this only gets easier in direct proportion to the size of the company.

However when you have a company where every worker’s reward is directly affected by every other contribution, suddenly people who take but do not give stand out much more. And because  we’re talking about interactions between equals, workers will find it much easier to speak out and pressure the slacker socially to behave. Whereas it’s easy to hide from ( (or suckup to) the minority of the people who have the power to punish or fire you, it is not as easy to do the same when everyone you work with has a chance to notice, complain and eventually get rid of you.

Now you might have noticed that I’m mostly talking about workplaces as this is the main area where someone might try to free ride, but there’s also the case that one tries to escape working altogether. How can you tell then if your neighbour is contributing his part to the community for all the  benefits he’s getting back? Like the workplace, in a small scale community ((since I generally advocate those I will argue from that point.)) it is very difficult to hide the fact that you never seem to be doing anything. Sooner or later neighbours and other member will start adding 2 and 2 together and come to the right conclusions.

We also should consider that it’s very unlikely that any person would prefer doing nothing for most of his life. I think it’s in our evolved psychology to want to feel productive to some degree. Certainly there are subcultures where it seems as if free riding (on social benefits) is promoted, but how much that is caused by other social conditions is a big argument (ie are people free riding because they can, or are they free riding because the alternative low-paying crappy non-fulfilling jobs are a far worse option?)

Dealing with Free Riders

So I’ve argued how the number of Free Riders within an Anarchist/Communist society would be much lower than what we’ve come to expect from experience, but it’s still conceivable that a number of them will still exist. While it will be easier to be discovered and the rewards of them defecting will be marginal, some may opt for this method. Perhaps they are just that lazy or don’t care what others think etc. How will we deal with them?

Social Pressure

Humans are primarily social animals and don’t really want to live alone. When a free rider is discovered in work, his colleagues can easily make his life miserable by avoiding contact and/or being hostile, depending on how much he is slacking off. This type of pressure works even now to a significant degree and you very often see people quit from nice jobs because of office hostility. If this can work on people who can even be on the right (that is, not being lazy) then it will doubtly work on people who have to face their colleagues and their own conscience.

Outside work, the same thing can happen. Friends & Family will start urging you to do your part or abandon you if you don’t. Social contacts may become hostile and as the information spreads more and more, people around you will do the same. Imagine your grocery store clerk wordlessly giving you your necessities, imagine your postman “forgetting” to bring you the mail. You get the idea. I do not think there’s many who will want to be in this situation, especially if it’s their own fault for wanting to be lazy.

Ostracism

There is always a chance that a free rider will associate with other free riders in order to alleviate the effects of social pressure. As long as food and shelter are always provided, then one only needs to avoid social withdrawal in order to function in society and if they can find other like them, a subculture of free riders may be created that will be more resistant to social pressure.

Hopefully a future society will be a federation of communities whereas people cluster together with whoever they want to associate with. As such, each community will get to decide with whom they want to associate with and provide their communal resources. Were such a group of free riders to appear amidst the community, it would be relatively simple for the productive members of society to refuse to support them. Whereas this is impossible in a tax based welfare system, it would be fairly simple under Anarchism.

Leaving them be

It is very possible that even with the small incentive and low chance to hide, some people might still find a way to free ride in a Anarchist/Communist society and this is unavoidable in any kind of system really. For example in a taxation situation, you still have a lot of people who find a way to hide their true income or simply become invisible and only work through the black market. In the sense that these people keep using public services that the rest of us have paid for, they are free riding.

Well how about simply ignoring them? The number of such undiscovered free riders can never be large enough to be disruptive as this would mean that the method they achieve it would eventually leak to the rest of the community which would then take action. Trying to get rid of them through blanket measures is more likely to do more harm than good, as it may require authoritarian measures and the like.

So in the end you have a very small percentage of any community leeching off somehow in a way that does not incite others to do the same, we simply write it off as part of the waste. Among the people with special needs, the sick, the children and the elderly, a bunch of free riders will never make any difference.

A vulgar right-wing libertarian might here say that as long as there is any waste, as long as any person has the possibility to leech off his hard work, then the system is unacceptable. But the problem is that under Capitalism not only do the free riders abound but they also get to wield all the power. Who are they? Well, as per the initial definition, they are of course the ones who do not contribute anything by themselves and retain all the benefits of society. How do they do that? By simply turning their wealth to more wealth without having to lift a finger. They are the parasitic class who skim all the surplus value without having to break a sweat. They are the Capitalists.

Given the choice of a free rider in an Anarchist society – who can never have anything more than anyone else, nor exert any power over his comrades – and a free rider in a Capitalist society who not only gets to live the good life without even trying, but also get to be more powerful as time passes at the expense of everyone else…well I’d like to think that most can see which is the best choice.

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"This ain't Capitalism"

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Whenever suffering and misery happen in a country which consider itself Capitalistic, it is quickly pointed that this is the fault of anything BUT Capitalism. This article explains why this is a fallacy.

Enjoy Capitalism
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It’s a recurring theme lately that whenever one will point out sufferring and generally bad stuff happening because of Capitalism, right-wing libertarian apologists will pop-up from the woodwork to point out that “This ain’t Capitalism”. They will claim that the government played too big a role and this we can’t really consider it a fault of the system per se, but must lay all the blame on the government intervention ((The hypocrisy that takes the cake of course is when the same people will blame all the suffering of USSR, Korea and China squarely on Communism without being willing to recognise any other factor other than how those nations defined themselves)).

This is starting to get quite annoying so I think it’s time to explain why I consider this a no-true Scotsman fallacy.

First of all, ‘Capitalism’ as a word is quite recent, only coming into the mainstream vocabulary at the start of the 20th century by Werner Sombart, a Marxian who used it in his critique of the system. Before that, the use of the word had been sporadic and in variants of the root, with the most important being by Karl Marx himself who wrote mainly about the Capitalist mode of Production.

This concept has been expanded in the last century to mean a complete economic system who’s core characteristic is the same Capitalist mode of production that Marx was accurately criticizing. Peripheral to that is the sociopolitical situation within which this mode of production exists. This can range from authoritarian imperialism (Fascism), to libertarian minarchism (The American ‘Libertarianism’).

All of these, are still Capitalism. The means of production (factories, land, labour) are still privately owned and the only thing that changes is the degree of political freedom and interference of the state. But the degree to which these two fluxuate has nothing to do with wether the system is Capitalistic or not.

The Austrian school of Economics is of course the most rabid denouncers of this idea. For them, as long as Capitalism is not absolutely free any government, it cannot be called as such (Merchantilism is apparently the correct word) something of course which is complete nonsense. Even under the most welfare-oriented system, the mode of production still remains in the hands of private owners and as such the core characteristic is fulfilled. To argue otherwise is similar to claiming that someone is not a Scotsman because he puts sugar in his porridge.

Apologists of Capitalism from every school of thought, wether that is that there is too much restriction on Capital or that there is not enough restriction on Capital, will eagerly lay the blame for all the human suffering under the actions (or inactions) of Capitalist regimes on anything else than the economic system itself. It’s too much state intervention. Or too much credit expansion. Or not enough checks and balances. Or too much Greed. Or too much Corruption. Or too much environmental destruction. Whatever. It’s anything and the kitchen sink to blame but Capitalism.

And yet we see the same suffering and destruction occuring to any Capitalist system sooner or later. Wether that is the Free Market Wonder of Chile, the Soaring Growth of India or the State Capitalism of the USSR. No matter how much or how little government intervention there is in the market, the same crises happen, povertry and starvation remain, and people suffer. And the only thing that stays constant, the only common denominator, is the Capitalist mode of production.

This is Capitalism.

Also see: Capitalism: A good word for a bad thing.

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