Category: Pondering Infinity

A Taste of my mind. Anything from Sociopolitics to Religion to Philosophy in general goes.

What role does Capital play during production?

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Steve Keen makes a detailed argument against Marx’s inconsistencies in the explanation of the Labour Theory of Value. I present an alternative explanation.

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I’m a cautious fan of Steve Keen’s post-Keynesian economics ever since I was introduced to him via the AFAQ. A fan because he takes an empirical criticism to contemporary economics and cautious because he still supports the capitalist system and dismisses the LTV. So when I stumbled upon his reasoning for this dismissal [pdf] I felt that there are some flaws in the logic that I should point out.

The basic argument that Keen pursues in his refutation of the LTV is to concentrate on Marx’s own arguments on why Capital does not add any surplus value during the productive process, point out logical contradictions and use this as a proof that capital does add part of the surplus value created in production. First of all, I want to point out that I find this reasoning fallacious. The flaws in Marx’s reasoning might invalidate the proof of the LTV as Marx argued for it, but it just leaves us back in a situation where we again need to figure out what adds the surplus value in production. What it doesn’t do, is constitute a proof for the validity of the STV or even proof that labour isn’t the only thing that adds to the surplus value created in production. But this is the non-sequitur that Keen does as soon as he has pointed out the Marxian inconsistencies.

Of course I can imagine that for Keen, this follows from other theories of value such as Sraffa’s, but still this criticism makes it appear that all those other theories cannot stand unless Marx’s theory of value is countered and labour is shown not to be the only source of surplus value. However I believe that even though Marxian theory might be flawed, there are other argumentation paths that can point out the truth of the LTV, and I’m going to posit one now. I’m going to try and show what the actual purpose of Capital is.

A Primal Example

Lets take a tool-less society of humans (I know, completely unrealistic but stick with me). No tools (and thus capital at all) exists in the current society but nevertheless people can still create some basic commodities (trinkets to exchange, food to eat etc). Now lets take a person in this society which manages to discover the way to make a stone hammer from raw material. Lets say it takes him 20 hours to build it once he’s figured out how (Obviously he will have to do in in his free time, which assumes looking for food does not take up all of his productive life.)

If we assume a market economy in this society and that person wanted to trade the hammer for something else, the would obviously do so for something of equal value, ie something which took approximately the same amount of time to create. Why? Because if either party tried to get more, then a better option would be to build whatever it is you’re looking for, yourself.

For the same of simplicity, lets assume that this corresponds to 20$. Now at this point, we can’t realistically talk about any productivity of capital since none was used in this process. The whole 20$ of exchange value is a result of the surplus value created by only by labour.

Now lets assume that with a stone hammer available, someone can build another stone hammer in 15 hours only. The hammer is now being used as a mean of production, Capital. Does this prove that the capital contributes value to the surplus value created? To see if this is the case, we need to look at two different examples.

1. Let’s assume that the first hammer is not sold while the second hammer is created in order to be traded, seeing as there would be a demand for it. We can safely assume that the second hammer will be sold at the price of 20$ again, for the same reason as before. If it wasn’t, then someone would simply build his own. At 20$ though, a hammer that was made in 15 hours gives a 5$ profit (seeing as in those extra 5 hours, one can work on building more hammers to sell.) Does this show that the hammer provides 5$ of to the final surplus value created? We’ve already seen that the same hammer, and thus the same value can be created with no capital at all, and thus its “contribution” is not actually necessary at all. The only evidence of capital’s contribution is the price difference between the hours worked and the fair price requested for it.

But there is one simple problem. The price of the hammer will not stay at 20$ for long. As soon as the second and third hammer has been sold, others will figure out that there is a profit to be made in selling hammers and will use their new hammers to build them within 15 hours as well. A price war will occur until the price now stabilizes at around 15$, which will correspond to the time required to build it. So what has just happened? Where has Capital’s contribution disappeared to?

What happened is that once new novel capital was created, there was an immediate disequilibrium between the Socially Necessary Labour Time (SNLT), that is, the average time required to build the commodity with the new technology level, and the current price which still corresponds to the old SNLT. So what was the role of Capital in this case? Reducing the SNLT. It doesn’t provide surplus value, it doesn’t contribute anything, it simply makes the productive process faster.

But one would ask: What about the initial profit that the first builder made between making the first hammer and until the price stabilized to 15$? To jump to the conclusion that this was capital’s contribution is wrong. Not only because the capital’s contribution was in fact the original worker’s in the first place, as the hammer was nothing more than crystallized labour-power, but also because there are far more fitting explanations for the initial profit, the most simple one being: Reward for the intellectual labour required to build novel capital, ie a return for innovation. It’s only natural to assume that the first prototype of the hammer took far more effort to build than any subsequent copies. But this labour lost can never be captured simply through selling, for once it’s been designed, it’s not difficult for others to copy the idea anymore, so that’s basically labour-time lost. However, the time between the creation of novel capital and the reset of the SNLT is exactly which provides the opportunity for the creative labour investment to be returned.

So it all ties perfectly together in showing how labour is the only thing that created the surplus value (realized via the exchange value) while capital’s purpose was simply to reduce the SNLT and allow humans to produce more stuff in less time. However this does not change the fact that the average exchange value of whatever is produced is tied directly and only to the labour-time extended to replicate a commodity. This is in fact the process by which human production achieves an exponential rate since each new piece of capital frees up more time and thus allows more commodities and new capital to be built, and so on.

But now, lets take the second example, in which I’ll try to take a society that approaches our a bit more.

2. Let’s now assume that we have a similar situation of creating novel capital, but in this case, within a society which is  wildly unequal. Some people have hoarded all the land for themselves, which means that there are a lot of people who do not have the capability of feeding themselves without working for others. Let’s also assume that the same hammer was created by one of those who own the land. Again, the hammer’s fair price is once more the same 20$ since anyone with free 20 hours would be able to make it. However now there’s a problem: Most don’t have the capacity to extend these 20 hours as their whole productive power is spent in the time they need to work for others. If they took this time off, they would starve ((OK, this might sound silly when used about something that needs 20 hours to create but the same principle applies to larger scale capital which requires hundreds of hours to build. However this is simply a hypothetical example where one full days work as a wage-labouring farmer provides enough food live and be productive for one day. Please bear with me.)) and thus even though the capital is as costly as before to make, it is external circumstances which make it unfeasible for others to trade for it in a fair price.

Now our wannabe-capitalist knows that most people can’t afford it and thus there is a market only for other capitalists (ie, those who make stone idols or other stone commodities). He knows that those will build in in 20 hours themselves if he tries to sell it at a higher price, so his max is 20$ again. However, now he has another way to make more money. Rather than use the hammer himself to make new hammers to sell as in example 1, he now hires one of those people who don’t have another choice (remember, everything is hoarded already by the few, much like the current system) to use his hammer and make new hammers. He gives them a wage of 10$ per hammer created (which is enough money to live and be productive for one day and something extra to give incentive for people to work for him) which means that he starts with a profit of 10$ which eventually drops to 5$ once the hammers have become distributed and the SNLT has dropped to 15 hours.

Now according to opponents of LTV, the 5$ of profit is now considered the productivity of capital and thus belongs to the person who created and owns the capital that the worker’s use. But there is a problem as we’ve seen in example 1: The only way that the productivity of capital can even exist when the SNLT has moved to 15 hours is if the new hammers are being produced via wage-labour. And this can only exist in a situation where all other resources have been hoarded and people are being passively coerced (ie starvation, homelessness) into wage-labour.

As such, the “productivity of capital” is in fact completely indistinguishable from the rate of exploitation caused by an unfair distribution of resources. The flaw in this logic in short, is that it assumes an unfair distribution of resources (ie hoarding) as a normal and appropriate situation which evolved naturally and from this starting point tries to understand capital’s relation to the production. But the hoarding of resources is not something that can happen naturally, both in theory and the history of humanity can point to this as it took very extended state and private violence in order to allow some to control most of the land.

The role of Capital then, has always been simply to reduce the SNLT required to produce any commodity. It’s role is not to contribute to surplus value, but simply to allow humans to produce the same amount of surplus value in lesser time than they would need without it. The surplus value is still created by the actual human labour and as such, all the conclusions that follow from this point still stand. To claim that capital contributes to production and therefore its owner needs to be “rewarded” for such production (even though the owner did nothing other than claim ownership) is simple apologetics for wage-slavery and exploitation.

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What about discrimination against men?

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Is it discrimination against men when a women organize a women’s only event? In this I explore this idea and show it as the cover for misogyny that it is.

Everyday Sexism
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In my recent encounter with sexism, one argument was often put forth by the males of Reddit. It went something like this:

If it is discrimination to setup male-only poker tournaments, then it follows that it must be discrimination to setup female-only poker tournaments. Therefore the guy did nothing wrong to use anti-discriminatory laws in order to take part. And if you would root for a female taking part into a male-only tournament and winning, so we are justified in rooting for a the guy in this case.

This is actually an argument that makes sense, unlike the rest of the misogynistic strawmen, and thus deserves a more detailed counter.

The short answer is no, it’s not discrimination when women do it. You’re not justified in rooting for a male crashing the women’s tournament. No, this is not a double standard. Why? Because of privilege and existing domination.

You see, we do not live in a gender equal society and many many sports and hobbies are male-dominated without particular logical reason (ie unlike some physical sports where the male physical build gives a distinct advantage) but rather as a historical continuity. This changes the environment and thus the ethical considerations we have, with which to decide if the label of discrimination can be assigned. You see we cannot judge as if the environment was already equal and so act as if we’re simply trying to maintain this equality. The environment is not equal and men are the privileged party in this case.

How are they privileged? In this particular case by dominating all such events (ex: poker tournaments). Why is this privilege? Because of a few things. First, a man playing in such an event, is not automatically assumed to represent the whole of his gender. If he wins or loses, he’s a good or bad player respectively, while women are treated as if they represent every other woman. Second, they don’t get to feel like an external no matter the event. There will always be a majority of males which act and speak in manners comfortable to other males. This by default makes it an uncomfortable environment for women, instantly putting them on their guard and accentuating their alienation. Finally, and this follows partly from the previous point, there will be a natural hostility of males, who now have to conform more with mixed-gender social standards, and thus will feel bitter that they cannot be as relaxed as they were. I believe it will manifest as a subconscious attempt to turn attending women off the sport.

So these are all effects that any woman entering a male-dominated hobby will face, something I’ve seen personally from my RPG/Tabletop gaming groups to the IT sector where I work. Even when there are people who wish to have more girls involved, their eagerness can inflame the problem rather than help (think of the awkward sweaty gaming geek trying to be nice to a shy girl joining the group, while leering at her boobs half the time.)

So all of these constitute the privileged position of males in a sector and thus an inequality that will remain until sexism is abolished. In this situation, someone who strives for equality, cannot simply act as if equality already exists. This is simply living in a dreamland and giving your silent consent to sexism at best, or actually acting like an unwitting apologist to misogyny at worst. Rather, someone who strives for equality roots for the weakest party until such time as equality has been achieved.

And this is the ethical aspect that determines that a women-only event in a male-dominated hobby is not discrimination.

You see women do not host such events in order to avoid losing to their “natural superiors” as sexists like to imply, they do it as a reaction to the fact that it’s impossible to avoid the male privilege in all such events. It’s impossible to avoid the subconscious hostility, patronization or over-eagerness that exists in male-dominated events and thus a specific event needs to be organized for fans of the hobby in question in order to play in a more relaxed environment. To call this setup discrimination is wilful ignorance which serves as an excuse for asshole-ish acts against it.

So to put it plainly, when there is a male-dominated hobby or job, any attempt to restrict entrance to females can rightly be called discrimination as the reasoning behind it is simply to maintain “purity.” On the other hand, when in the same male-dominated hobby or job, an attempt by the few females that exist to organize a female-only event cannot by any strain of imagination be seen as an attempt to restrict males, since they already dominate. Rather it is an event of solidarity which serves to avoid the very real effects of the male domination.

The same reasoning just as well applies to other marginal groups in different settings. Blacks setting up black-only events in a society dominated by whites and crypto-racist sentiments is also an understandable reaction. And not only that but when the roles have been reversed, when say you have a women-dominated hobby/job, in that case any attempt to restrict entrance to men can rightly be seen as discrimination against males.

In closing, things are not simply black and white on the issue of discrimination. It is the whole of the environment around any such act which provides the ethical considerations we need to in order to decide on the issue. Those ignoring them and simply looking at one such decision in isolation in order to jump on the high horse are simply using intellectual dishonesty in order to hide their sexism.

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Sexist Schadenfreude

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A “funny” post was made in reddit about a man winning a women’s tournament. I point out the insidious sexism lurking just below the surface.

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It surprises me sometimes of how many faces male sexism can take. One usually expects it to be in the clear form of misogyny, which would make it easy to point out and counter but more often than not it appears in many other insidious methods which make it difficult to discern.

Such was the case when I stumbled onto a link from the /r/funny subreddit, pointing to a story about a man winning a women’s-only poker tournament. Now that title, or story, by itself is not really sexist (or especially funny for that matter) but what really got on my tits was the OP comment:

Sheesh, feminists: They complain about the world being man dominated, then a man puts himself in a female dominated environment, still wins and suddenly it’s ‘why is he ruining it’.

lame, so very lame.

Not only was the OP displaying his misogyny as what made him find the post funny but he’s spinning the quotes he mined from the article to make it sound as if the women are simply complaining about losing to a man (instead of complaining that he ruined a women’s only tournament which is the truth.) and as if this is some kind of proof of the inherent superiority of males which makes them suitable to dominate the world.

It thus clearly shows that this was pure shadenfreude of a misogynist enjoying a women’s event be spoiled and taking opportunity to make pot shots at caricatures of feminists he has in his small reptile brain. It adequately helps point out how sexist mentality can crop up without being a clear women-hating comment.

As was only natural, when I pointed out the implications of the OP comment, apologetics and alternative interpretations of it were quick to come and I was quick to be buried while trying to set the record straight. People were unbelievably eager to believe that all women were annoyed about was simply that a man won. They were also quick to use a man’s victory as some kind of proof of superiority of the whole genre in poker.

Even worse was the OP who continued to press the issue, even when his misogyny became glaringly obvious. It just goes to show how blind sexists are to their own trait even as they spew out the lowest forms of bile against women and feminists.

Through the whole of this exchange, I was dismayed not only by the popularity of the OP but also by the number of people who in this day and age eagerly jump in to defend him. Fortunately even though I was  downvoted out of sight, there were other voices of reason who managed to give the correct context.

All of this just points even more to how widespread patriarchy remains in this day and age and how this mentality spreads itself even without having to be glaringly obvious. We still have a lot of work in front of us.

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Why Anarchists and "Anarcho"-Capitalists can't be allies

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Can the two camps of anti-statism unite in order to pursue their common goal? No. It is tactically impossible.

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One things that crops up over and over when someone on the libertarian right notices the outright hostility of anarchists when he appropriates the “Anarchist” label for himself is the accusation of “harming the movement” by not being willing to look past differences and work with each other for a stateless society. The argument goes that since both Anarchist and “Anarcho”-Capitalists wish a stateless society but simply with a different mode of production (Socialism VS Capitalism respectively) we have at least one common goal we should be working together for: The abolition of the State.

On first view, this makes a modicum of sense, if we both want a stateless society, and if we are willing to tolerate each others productive organization within their respective areas, then why are we fighting, arguing and criticizing each other when united we could be more formidable in both convincing people and undermining the state?

The answer is simple: Tactics.

It is true that Anarchists wouldn’t try to violently enforce libertarian socialism on other areas and other people. This is simply contrary to the whole theory behind it. As such, it is only to be expected that after a possible revolution, in some parts of the world capitalist relations would remain and some of them might even approach the “Anarcho”-Capitalist model. However a revolution will not happen by itself. The areas which turn Anarchist or “Anarcho”-Capitalist will do so – will move to either stateless direction, by the methods that were used to bring the general populace to the boiling point of revolt.

And these methods are inherently opposite.

Libertarian Socialist of all types (yes, including individualist anti-capitalist anarchists) generally promote all tactics of Direct Action and Mutual Aid. This means that they will be positive to Unions, Strikes, Takeovers, Cooperatives, Mutual Banks, Communes and the like. They will even be the least hostile on state acts giving more power to the working class ((Anarchists do not support using the state to push forth regulations but do not oppose regulations which benefit the working class out of principle. Such regulation, even though flawed, can be the result of direct action or can give some breathing space for the workers to request more and get their hopes up.)) Their arguments on the other hand, will be based on the things which support such paths. That would include stuff like the fact human evolutionary psychology is conductive to Mutual Aid, the validity of the Labour Theory of Value and the consequent exploitation theory, the moral imperative for self-determination and self-management, a hostility against all types of domination and hierarchy and so on.

On the other hand, the “Anarcho”-Capitalist, even though distinctly lacking in tactics, are ideologically opposed to most such measures which would bring a society to a libertarian socialist revolt. They are against unions (at least, most of them are), against expropriation of land and capital by those who work it, consider Cooperatives “ineffective”, vehemently oppose all state acts which increase social security (while being least hostile to state acts which simply protect private property more) etc. Their ideological bases furthermore compels them to acts as apologists to the system through their dismissal of the LTV, the ethical support for the right to Private Property, accumulation and usury, the allowance or even support of hierarchy and domination as long as it’s “voluntary” and so on.

Even what tactics they do have end up being opposite to anarchist principles since they advocate the consolidation of force and judgement to third parties which is a distinctly anti-direct action idea.

All of this should make it obvious that there is an impassable rift between these two movements ((Well one movement and one ideology, as there’s not really any actual movement behind AnCaps)) which prevents both of them from working together to change the system, since they would be simply pulling in opposite directions, countering each other. Much like the practical gap between Private Property and Possession, so does the difference of tactics and theory make co-operation of these two camps impossible.

Sure, if by simply willing it strong it enough, lots of people could magically pop-out a stateless society, then “joining forces” might make sense. But the world is not the magical la-la land. It’s the paths we tread, the methods we espouse and the tactics we use that defines which kind of stateless society we will have in the end.

So please “Anarcho”-Capitalists, Right Libertarians and all other assorted Propertarians, don’t ask us to co-operate and accept your as “fellow Anarchists”. Our possible co-existence in a stateless future is irrelevant when in the real world your whole worldview is counter-productive to what we suggest.

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Why choose Libertarian Socialism?

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A facebook contact has challenged me to provide “proof” for Anarchism. In here I will point out the fallacious reasoning behind this question.

I’ve been having a lengthy discussion with an Anarchist on Facebook which was triggered by my criticism of a link he made on one of Molyneux‘s videos. The argument has been mainly around the issue of whether we should be promoting “Anarcho”-Capitalist ideas since they are also considered libertarian, promote freedom/liberty and might thus bring someone close to Anarchism, even if through a different path. Needless to say I disagree.

Nevertheless, the discussion took an unexpected direction when he demanded “proof”

I just want something more substantial than rhetoric (no offense) but the more I look for these kinds of quantitative examples, the more I realize that, so far, there are none in existence. Rather than encourage, I find that discouraging; even disturbing. […] I won’t be satisfied until I see real, measurable progress[…]I’m open to new information if it’s quantifiable; it’s generalized rhetoric that fails to persuade me.

The quote above is referring to my pointing out the success of anarchist movements from the takeovers of Argentina to the Spanish Revolution. It seems then, that because the world is at the state it is now, ie not in Anarchy, all anarchist theory has been empirically disproven. That is, none of the methods suggested – syndicalism, collectivism, direct action etc, have made the world a better place. This reasoning might look valid on the surface but unfortunately is quite fallacious.

The problem here is that one ignores the reality of human politics. There has never been a human society which managed to totally change their sociopolitical system within a generation or hell, even within a 100 years. In fact, there has never been a radical sociopolitical change of such scale outside of socialist revolutions. Both Feudalism and Capitalism came about through hundreds of years of evolution, struggle and pressure which slowly made the environment fertile for their spread. In fact the form of those systems never reached a “final form” of any sort and simply continued to change according to the way the environment around them allowed. One could even go further and say that Capitalism is in fact the natural continuation of Feudalism as it provided a way for the Landed aristocracy to retain their elite status without having to base it on metaphysical rights.

As such, to request “proof” of going closer to the Libertarian Socialist ideal is entirely the wrong way to look at this, as this is rather a gradual progress which is based on many different aspects such as popular understanding and/or support, betterment of human life, liberalization, democratization etc. And this process can even be reversed when the class struggle goes toward the benefit of the ruling class, as is what has been happening in the last 30 years.

So to ask for “quantitative examples” is to miss the forest for the trees. The process is all around us and we can see it whenever we see betterment of human life, greater satisfaction from work, increased social safety etc. If one is simply looking for the “signals of revolution” in order to be convinced who to support, they’ll be waiting forever.

The question to ask rather is: What is causing all these beneficial events? What makes human lives better, work more fulfilling and increases social safety? The answer can easily be seen: Direct Action & Mutual Aid. In short, the Libertarian Socialist principles. Whenever these have been applied, a noticeable improvement can be observed while when these are missing, when Authoritarianism (the opposite of Direct Action) and Crass Individualism (the opposite of Mutual Aid) take over, we notice the exact opposite, even though superficial improvements might be observed, like an increase in GDP or some other irrelevant statistic.

So if these principles work and if the improve the lives of humans, why are we not in Anarchy yet? The answer to this is class struggle. For every attempt by those at the bottom to self-manage and help each other directly, there is a push in the opposite direction by the ruling class through any means possible, from propaganda to violent suppression. You cannot simply ignore the opposing force and claim that nothing works because the result is not here yet! Rather one needs to look at the gradual progress and the many different movements that progress. Once there’s a relatively large amount of such anarchistic instances, then a revolution can’t but follow as the capitalist system will be too undermined to work. Such was the case in the Spanish Revolution for example.

Then there is the other aspect of the demand for “proof” put to me. The question I need to ask, proof of what? That an anarchist society can work? There’s more than enough historical proof of that already. Or is it proof that anarchist principles will bring about Anarchy? If so, then I have to point out that it’s impossible to prove the future. But you don’t have to anyway, we do know that even outside Anarchy, libertarian socialist principles make our lives better and give us incentive to do more of them. This is why Anarchism is a hopeful theory, not a Utopian or nihilistic one.

Or perhaps it’s proof that anarchist principles are better than Reformism, State Socialism or Neoliberalism? In that case, one only has to point out at the inherent flaws in each of these theories. Thus when they were attempted, their failure only validated the predictions that anarchists made. Along all of them, only Libertarian Socialism actually did what it predicted when put into practice, even if it was later crushed military before it had a chance to ignite people’s feelings elsewhere.

So there’s really no rhetoric needed to make the case for Libertarian Socialism. History and personal experience are more than enough. This is in fact why so much rhetoric is needed by everyone else, for they need something to cover the abject failure of their practice.

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Why Recorded History is Skewed Towards Conflict and Calamity

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Human history is full of war and strife and this is taken as evidence of the nature of human societies. However this perspective is missing an important fact of life, which end up giving the opposite impression.

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As I’m continuing my reading of Mutual Aid, Kropotkin keeps presenting one great insight after the other. This time it was something which is incredibly obvious but nevertheless something that people don’t take into consideration. The fact that recorded history presents a limited perspective of human existence; a perspective that is always centred around human conflict and competition with one another.

The cause of this is very easy to understand really. Like human memory, history is punctuated around great events, ones that enter into the consciousness of a large amount of people living in a particular area. But unlike an individual human who might consider a wedding or a birth as a generally important event in their lives, in the grander scale such positive events don’t register. What does register quite well however is conflict and disasters. And this is understandably, what the historians of each era write about.

This can be easily seen from even our modern experience. If a historian of a thousand years in the future were to look back into the popular records we’ve kept of our existence, such as newspapers or tv news, they would undoubtedly get the idea that all human life in the 20th and 21st century was one of perpetual crime, wars, disasters, exploitation, struggle etc. Why? Because this is what is newsworthy!

Normal life events are not newsworthy. Mundane facts of existence such as the fact that our lives generally roll in peace and quiet, the common social events such as parties or festivals, the small acts of human kindness like helping grannies pass the street or picking up hitchhikers, all of these are boring. And this is not because they are simple, but because they are so common that everyone of us has experienced them at one point or another. There is no reason to report on them because everyone is aware that they do happen.

On the other hand, not only is the rare disaster reported with glee, but most often than not, it’s exaggerated to make it seem even more interesting. And it is the rarity of such events that makes them more newsworthy. Most of us will very rarely, if at all, experience a murder or other unnatural death situations (ie not diseases)  in our living lives and yet, if one watches the news, they would undoubtedly get the impression that unnatural human death is commonplace. In fact, it has been reported and displayed in popular culture so much, that most of us have grown partially blasé to displays of human death without ever having witnessed one!

And this is the fallacy that far too many people make when looking back at recorded human history and seeing trends. They surmise, from the overwhelming majority of conflict depicted within, that humans during ancient times must have been living in a state of perpetual war against all. Greeks against Trojans, Greeks against Persians, Athenians against Spartans, Macedonians against everyone, Romans against Everyone, Catholics against Orthodox, Germans against Romans, Christian against Muslim, Ottoman against European, Scot against Scot, Scot against English, etc etc.

But what defines such recorded events, what made them noteworthy, was exactly the opposite of what the contemporary historical analyst sees in them. They were rare! This is the reason why they were recorded in the first place. It is a great error thus for someone to surmise that humans must have been in a perpetual state of conflict from looking at their recorded history. It is an even greater mistake to define “human nature” from such a flawed analysis and from there to suggest “fixes” such as greater state control or free markets, to a problem that does not exist.

What in truth defines human societies, is exactly what is not mentioned at all or at best mentioned in passing, precisely because of it’s banality. And we see that what is rarely mentioned is human cooperation, solidarity and mutual aid in times of difficulty. It is these unmentioned facts of human life that are the unwritten rule of existence.

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The Politics of Science

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Can science ever be a political tool? Those who know of it’s impartialism would find it difficult to believe it, but this does not prevent its political force.

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The scientific method is unarguably one of the most objective and rational methods that humans have found to discover the world around them. It is also value-free, in the sense that it simply explains reality and has no normative propositions to make and thus it cannot be considered to put forth any bias.

But this does not mean that science cannot be used politically. In fact, the findings of it are the primary method by which secular people can promote their agenda as Reality, when supporting one’s position can be handily be used as a stronghold for one’s political ideas. And this actually makes the best kind of politics, ie ones based on reality. This is in fact why religion is hostile to Science as a whole, as it gives too much power to secular arguments in the area of moderating human behaviour and as such promotes a liberal ((In the sense of personal liberty and choice, not in the sense of Liberalism as a classic political movement)) agenda.

However there is one nasty aspect when science and politics interact, and that is all too insidious confirmation bias. It is the propensity of people, including scientists, to see only the facts that support their already held political opinion. The easiest way is when science is not absolute on one particular issue which allows partisans on the minority to pick the arguments which fit their predisposition, expand them using exaggerations and political hacks and thus cloud and prevent a reality-based decision. Such is the case in the Anthropogenic Global Warming debate and such was the case a few decades ago on the harmful effects of smoking.

Further than this though, science can be used as a political tool by simply avoiding or ignoring the actual facts. This became clear to me through my discussions with secular statists and/or liberals who base their ideas on what they think scientific facts support. In this particular case, that humans have evolved to be primarily competitive against each other and everyone else.  This argument can then be handily be used both for “proving” the naturalness of Capitalism and/or the necessity of the State.

But this creates a problem when one looks at scientific findings and discovers that they do not support this position of “war against all” in the least. How can this be the dominant worldview?

My personal theory is that people put far more weight to their political perspective than they do in science. To the tune of ignoring or subconsciously avoiding learning about scientific facts that would put cracks in their position. We know how much possible this is from the religious example, where people will outright deny evolution or geology when it threatens to challenge their currently held worldview. I do not believe that this is so much because religion is so much of a stronger belief, as much as it is their current politics and lifestyle which would be threatened by changing their mind.

To put it more plainly, I see people having some particular ideas, such as hate of teh gay, patriarchy or authoritarian tendencies. These are easily maintained by considering the Bible as a literal history and thus accepting its homosexual-hating, god-fearing ideas. When science enters the picture and points out that homosexuality is genetic, humans are genetically equal and there’s probably no higher authority to bow down to, it is the lifestyle and worldview that is threatened, not the religion itself which is simply the excuse to preserve said lifestyle. Thus science will be denied, in order for the comfortable excuse (religion) to be preserved. As such, those whose worldview is not threatened, such as say people growing up in more liberal areas are far more likely to accept science which is less threatening, while also keeping their religion (in its non-fundamentalist form).

In a similar way, this applies to irreligious people as well. While some particular worldviews (usually the most intolerant) require a religion in order to defend them, others can function with some other alternative such as nationalism. Still other require none at all and in fact do beg legitimacy by wearing the cover of “science”.

This generally occurs in worldviews that are so popular and internalized that their dismissal seems unrealistic. I’m talking of course about Statism and Capitalism which are being taught as inescepable from the youngest possible age. And what seems to happen then when these are challenged and there is no relevant religion or one espouses no appropriate ideology to defend them? (say: as Objectivism) One can only then turn to scientific facts to support their worldview, and if the facts do not fit the picture, they may just as well be ignored.

This then explains the curious fact that while Mutual Aid is a very (if not the most) important factor of evolution ((Known for at least a 100 years and Proven by many researches in different scientific sectors, from Zoology to Anthropology)), it is competition and “war against all” that is still being promoted as the generally accepted primary characteristic of life. How else can one explain this. other by assuming that scientists and secularists who’s worldview embraces Statism and/or Capitalism have subconsciously avoided learning about it? I can’t in good conscience attribute this to any kind of malice or conspiracy.

And this is the unfortunate aspect of scientific facts. They tend to raise uncomfortable questions for the status quo since they challenge the validity of the various defences such as religion and racism. This by itself makes science a political tool, but one which always seems to support a libertarian socialism worldview. And when all chips are on the table and one’s worldview is on the line, it seems to be preferable – even for self-labelled supporters of rationalism and scientific method – to bury the truth in order to avoid an uncomfortable political realignment.

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The defenses of State and Religious law are surprisingly similar

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Statists love to argue that without the government humans would descend into chaos. Much like theists claim that without God we’d all be beasts. Here’s why they’re wrong.

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While discussing with people who are pro-state and even wish to increase its scale there are a few arguments that are most often used to base this position, the most notorious of which is the Argument from Human Nature. The perspective from the statist is basically that humans needs to be controlled from themselves lest they return to a beast-like existence as well as considering the state the most important institution for the advancement of civilization.

It is no wonder that those most supportive of the most authoritarian of states, the absolute monarchy, were also those who initiated the concept of Hard Primitivism to counter the Romanticism of the “Noble Savage” which made libertarian concepts such as self-management and direct action seem natural and possible. In fact the “Noble Savage” is all to often raised as a handy strawman when the idea that humans are not naturally bastards is put forth.

In this, the statists have a lot in common with monotheists who consider that a higher power is necessary to decide the hard rules all of us should follow. It is all too often for atheists to hear that without a god deciding the absolute rules for all of us (as interpreted by the official clergy of course), humans would immediately turn to barbarism. Without absolute objective morals, humans -is argued- would never be able to have a civilization, and thus religion (and the church) is necessary.

The basic idea from these two perspectives is surprisingly similar so lets look at them each in turn.

Is humanity inherently flawed?

Whereas theists consider than humans are  inherently evil, coming from an original sin and can be made “civilized” only through strict religious authority and trust in a god’s rules, Statists consider that humans are inherently greedy, vicious and destructive and can be made “civilized” only through strict state authority and trust in the common law. The difference is that the former’s excuse lies in the supernatural, while the later in perceived scientific authority.

In short, the idea that fear of God or fear of the State is the only thing keeping society together and chaos & destruction at bay.

The counter to the former is fairly simple: We’ve observed that in fact humans do not turn to barbarism when religious moral are taken away, in fact many Atheists can be perceived to be “better” morally, even from the perspective of the theists and secular societies have a generally good correlation with civility.

The counter to the later is similar: Much like we don’t expect a Theist to become a rampaging beast when they discard their religion, so will a human not turn into a beast when the state authority drops away. In fact, we would consider anyone who does not become a murderer, rapists or thief only because of the fear of getting caught as having a very stumped moral system. We normally consider such a person a sociopath.

But this is in fact the argument that the statist brings forward. That we are a society of sociopaths, barely being held together by the heroic actions of those at the top, who somehow have managed to escape their personal sociopathy while also convincing all the other sociopaths to elect them.

I hope the absurdity of this proposition becomes obvious.

The truth is fortunately somehow different. While humans do have a capacity for both good and evil acts, they also have a tendency towards cooperation and mutual aid as well as having their moral code internalized rather than enforced externally. This is why when the state authority drops away, such as in national disasters like Katrina, we see humans managing to act civilized (even if they can get away not doing so) and helping each other, while those who assume the worst in humans, end up becoming what they fear.

Examples such as these are all too often in human societies, where those at the top, who consider themselves enlightened and surpassing their own “human nature” act the most brutally, while those whom they condemn end up proving them wrong in reality. One only needs to look at the communes in the Spanish Revolution, the Soviets of the Russian Revolution (before Lenin’s consolidation of power that is), the libertarian projects such as Christania or the Kibbutz. All practical, working examples that humans without the state can function just as well if not better.

Thus, much like a new atheist retaining most of their moral system once they lose their religion, so do people retain their moral system once they lose their rulers.

Is central leadership necessary for civilization?

This is another favourite argument from both camps and we’ll see, it is related to the previous one. Theists will argue that without their god’s code of laws, humans would never have been able to organize and achieve a civilization. Without religious scripture and leadership of the clergy/founding fathers/scribes/etc humans would have forever remained in a state of primitivism. In a similar vein, statists claim that without a state promoting science and reason, humans would have remained ignorant, superstitious and crude.

The religious argument is generally easy to counter by pointing out the existence of civilizations which existed along with religions other than their own. They may argue that no other civilization managed to reach the level we have no except Christianity of course, but one can point out that this happened <i>despite</i> Christianity and in fact we see the rise of secularism and atheism as the best correlation, not a particular religion.

The counter-argument from the statist claims is a bit more tricky. They will certainly point out that a state existed ever since we’ve had civilization but that is through a clever definitional trick: We define “civilization” generally from the point at which a state appeared.

Certainly, almost all cultures at some point achieved a state but that has obviously not been enough for the modern civilization and in fact, very often rolled any progress backwards. Rather, something else was necessary.

That was Rationalism. The Age of Enlightenment saw finally the time where humans started coming out of the dark ages and superstition and religious or arbitrary authority started being superseded by rationality and reasonable authority. And while the initial states and other assorted authority institutes were initially hostile to the concept, as it undermined their rule, rationality still increased as the environment of the time made it a competitive meme.

As this increased, we saw first the mellowing of authority and then the first steps towards reasonable authority as seen by the use of political democracy. Traditional customs were discarded and relationships of domination started getting criticized. As rationality increased feeding upon its achievements, so did human behaviour which was shaped by it, start becoming more civilized.

It is this that defines the rise of modern civilization, not the democratic state. That was a symptom of the need for reasonable authority. As such, the claim that the state was necessary is false. Humans would have progressed to a brighter future with or without a state, and in fact they were on the road of doing exactly that within their medieval cities which freed from the state authority, became bastions of progress. If anything, the state, initially feudal but later democratic as well, was the primary cause of the stalling of such progress, with it violently enforcing a system with a conflicting nature in regards to human progress: Capitalism

How? Well it’s a fact that Capitalism is not good at inventing new stuff. This is because of its necessity for short term profit, while research is a long-term goal. As such, the state is necessary to provide the funds for research and advancement, and it is exactly this fact that Statists will bring up as definite proof of the necessity of the state.

But this argument is flawed. The state is only required as long as a system which is inherently irrational in regards to progress needs to be pushed in the right direction. And then it can only do a half-job. But this argument is defeated once one poses the question “Why is Capitalism required?”. Can we not have a system which does not provide a disincentive for research? We can. And once this fact becomes clear, the necessity for the state collapses. Which is naturally why a statist will also maintain that Capitalism is absolutely necessary while moaning about the inability of the system to do what is needed for humans.

In the end, for libertarian socialists, this defense ends up looking more like schizophrenia, with the Statist on one hand trying to praise Capitalism for its ability to promote progress, while one the other trying to defend the state’s existence by lamenting on how bad Capitalism is for progress.

The Truth? Humans Can do Without Authority.

Fortunately, there is ample evidence to prove that humans are not the flawed beasts that theists and statists suggest in order to maintain the rule of their chosen leaders. While humans are of course not Noble Savages, they do have a natural tendency towards Mutual Aid and Co-operation, something which is both historically and empirically proven. We’re not talking about romanticizing the tribal structures, nor are we suggesting we return to such a living (another favourite strawman of the statists).

What we are suggesting is that since humans have the capacity for both “Good” and “Evil” it is the system around them which naturally selects which behaviour will come to the front. Obviously, a system like Capitalism which promotes Greed, Material Self-interest, viciousness, win-culture etc will require a state in order (among other reasons) to prevent this behaviour from unraveling the whole social order. Of course that wouldn’t happen anyway as without a state or other organized submission, humans would most likely follow their natural tendencies and discard capitalism as well.

But a system which promotes a behaviour based around co-operation and mutual aid, such as any system which has discarded private property, will not risk devolving into chaos and therefore a state would not be required to maintain order.

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How to decode the US political terminology

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US politics terminology is so skewed to the right that it’s impossible to hold a discussion with them without running into definition arguments. This is the chart to easily avoid them.

Every time I have to argue politics with people coming from the US I have to internally cringe at the way most political concepts and movements have been distorted and twisted by their fear of Communism. It only becomes worse when people will ask me “but isn’t libertarian socialism an oxymoron?” or automatically conflate Anarchists with simple anti-statists. I end up having to mentally decode what an US American would say and what they really mean in the political language of everyone else. It’s as if their whole political spectrum has taken as a whole a turn to the right, to avoid mentioning (Oh Horror of horrors) “Socialism”.

And since I notice that there’s others encountering the same issues. I decided to make a handy table to make it easy for non-Americans to understand what the US are talking about.

Name of political theory or newspeak as used in the USA.

What everyone else calls it.
Liberal. Social Democrat.
Conservative. Imperialist.
Libertarian. Liberal.
Fiscal Conservative. Corporate Cronyist.
Anarchism. Anti-Statism.
Socialism when used by Liberals (see above). Social Democracy.
Socialism when used by Conservatives (see above). Totalitarian Dictatorship.
Democracy. US American proxy government.
Free Market. Mixed economy with hefty tax cuts and subsidies for the rich.
Fascism. Mixed economy with benefits for the poor.
Terrorist. Anyone who opposes US policy.
Nazi Communist Hippie Liberal Obama
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Let me blow your mind a bit

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An excellent TED talk on how disconnected management and business practices in general are from reality.

Lately it seems a day doesn’t pass where I don’t see something which confirms the Anarchist perspective of reality. Watch the following video from TED. It’s only 20 minutes long but if you haven’t heard about his before, I guarantee it will disrupt many of the things you think you know about business.

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It’s funny really. Just the other day someone decided to challenge me on my article about the Uselessness of Management and now I even have the handy proof to show their absolute disconnection from reality. I especially like this video since it points ample light in how much contemporary economics is based on ideology and assumed “axioms of human existence” rather than science.

This is an especially nice video to show to all those proponents of Copyrights and Patents who think these are somehow required to promote creativity and the arts. In fact, it should now be obvious that were copyrights to become absolute and unavoidable, creativity would be severely sniffled.

Hopefully this video should also make those who claim that “if this method was superior to rewards, it would have been selected by the market” reconsider their position on the effectiveness of the markets. Because one has to wonder; If non-reward based motivation is productively inferior, why is it still the dominant form? Unfortunately I know that most probably won’t listen, for when reality and markets clash, ideology will win hands down. But you never know, perhaps it will serve as a push in the right direction, a seed of doubt about the Capitalist system.

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