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Anarcho-Capitalists?
- Thread starter Slide
- Start date
I wonder if we've ever taken a census on RF?
Count me in!
Note:
There's some flexibility in the term "anarcho".
I'm the minarchist variety.
Count me in!
Note:
There's some flexibility in the term "anarcho".
I'm the minarchist variety.
Slide
The 1st Rule.
I've found we're a small group. In fact, most people I talk to think anarchism and capitalism are opposite concepts. I'm not a political genius and I get lost when there's a lot of jargon, but that's why there's Wikipedia. Not so you can read the Wikipedia articles, but so you can read the source material for the articles.
Hooray, Interwebs.
Hooray, Interwebs.
I find that a great many people who identify as anarchist are actually quite authoritarian. They just want government to exercise its power differently....& more against business & the wealthy.
Slide
The 1st Rule.
I can't figure out why people are out to stick it to the wealthy. I don't mind a guy being rich. I don't give a shenanigan what his tax rate is. I don't mention him on my 1040 EZ, so I don't care about him. I just want to do what I want with my money and my property and my life without being told by someone else what I can and can't do with it.
I chalk it up to envy.
So they invented the label of "privilege" to tag the evil ones.
They're guilty just because they're successful.
(Tis hard to accept responsibility for one's own lack of success. Someone else must be culpable.)
Slide
The 1st Rule.
Someone give this man a cookie. And a good beer. And a handshake. And a parade. And a pony.
Mequa
Neo-Epicurean
What about the issue of socialised medicine? I know many hardcore Anarcho-Capitalists are vehemently opposed to it.
I would personally be dead without it, by the way. I needed a pacemaker fitted since I was 14 due to a pre-existing medical condition, so I am grateful for my country's National Health Service.
This nevertheless exists in a mixed-market capitalist framework, where competition drives innovation in medical technology and drives down prices of medical equipment which are used by the NHS. Ergo, hardly anti-capitalist by nature.
Yet I have had hardcore American Libertarians tell me that "they should have let you die", as apparently my survival needs, while outside my control, are not a claim on other's resources (thank you Ayn Rand for articulating that stance so clearly), and forcing hard-working taxpayers to pay for my life-saving ongoing treatment via taxation is apparently "theft", and therefore immoral.
So by this stance, the moral thing to do is rip out systems of socialised medicine so that hard-working taxpayers can stop being "robbed" by the state, and (given how voluntary charity is almost certainly insufficient, with human nature as it is), anyone who cannot afford to pay for their own medical bills, due to circumstances entirely outside their control, gets to die. Unless, for someone unfortunate enough to have a life-long pre-existing condition, their parents are multi-millionaires and they are born with a silver spoon in their arse. (Essentially leading to a form of neo-feudalism.)
And no, this isn't a straw man. This is the actual position the more hardcore right wing Libertarians have offered me as the supposedly most moral stance. This shows the thinly-veiled social Darwinist agenda at work here, the "survival of the fittest", plus contempt for the principle of equality of opportunity, and a reactionary desire to make survival more contingent on fortune than merit, where immutable characteristics and circumstances outside one's control (and thus, outside of one's personal responsibility) become a much larger factor in whether a person lives or dies.
Under such a system my only moral duty would be to sacrifice my life to other people's liberty. I get left with the impression that such a stance has not really been thought through...
The funny thing is, I hardly doubt that those advocating such a system would simply agree to lay down and die, should the shoe be on the other foot.
A good counterargument to this hardcore line I recently heard is that the above will amount to manslaughter which is surely worse than theft. It's quite a stretch to put the desire to live down to envy and hatred of the rich.
I would personally be dead without it, by the way. I needed a pacemaker fitted since I was 14 due to a pre-existing medical condition, so I am grateful for my country's National Health Service.
This nevertheless exists in a mixed-market capitalist framework, where competition drives innovation in medical technology and drives down prices of medical equipment which are used by the NHS. Ergo, hardly anti-capitalist by nature.
Yet I have had hardcore American Libertarians tell me that "they should have let you die", as apparently my survival needs, while outside my control, are not a claim on other's resources (thank you Ayn Rand for articulating that stance so clearly), and forcing hard-working taxpayers to pay for my life-saving ongoing treatment via taxation is apparently "theft", and therefore immoral.
So by this stance, the moral thing to do is rip out systems of socialised medicine so that hard-working taxpayers can stop being "robbed" by the state, and (given how voluntary charity is almost certainly insufficient, with human nature as it is), anyone who cannot afford to pay for their own medical bills, due to circumstances entirely outside their control, gets to die. Unless, for someone unfortunate enough to have a life-long pre-existing condition, their parents are multi-millionaires and they are born with a silver spoon in their arse. (Essentially leading to a form of neo-feudalism.)
And no, this isn't a straw man. This is the actual position the more hardcore right wing Libertarians have offered me as the supposedly most moral stance. This shows the thinly-veiled social Darwinist agenda at work here, the "survival of the fittest", plus contempt for the principle of equality of opportunity, and a reactionary desire to make survival more contingent on fortune than merit, where immutable characteristics and circumstances outside one's control (and thus, outside of one's personal responsibility) become a much larger factor in whether a person lives or dies.
Under such a system my only moral duty would be to sacrifice my life to other people's liberty. I get left with the impression that such a stance has not really been thought through...
The funny thing is, I hardly doubt that those advocating such a system would simply agree to lay down and die, should the shoe be on the other foot.
A good counterargument to this hardcore line I recently heard is that the above will amount to manslaughter which is surely worse than theft. It's quite a stretch to put the desire to live down to envy and hatred of the rich.
This reminds me of the old ad hominem fallacy....."There are no atheists in foxholes."
Some thoughts:
Because you really need something, you believe you have the right to take from others (always backed up by threat of force).
We oppose that.
But take solace in the fact that all viable political systems are a compromise, & that we heartless fringe libertarians are & always will be a minority. And we're useful in providing balance against the other extreme....commies who would take all our income & property to live high on the hog in fancy dachas.
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Are you a "capitalist"?The impression I'm getting is that a guy who leans more towards Neo-Marxist economics probably is gonna be the odd-one out, so I'll just sit and watch from the sidelines.
[metis is now sitting and watching from the sidelines]
metis
aged ecumenical anthropologist
Yep, and of the purist kind.
metis
aged ecumenical anthropologist
Oh, I'm not one of you as I would never be associated with such an element.
[metis is back on the sidelines sitting quietly and peacefully]
Too late.
You're now branded a "capitalist".
Where do you think......arm, butt cheek, forehead?
Slide
The 1st Rule.
Yes.
Now that you say so, it's so obvious!
Slide
The 1st Rule.
Don't worry, Metis. Bessie here said, "HOLY !@#% that !@#%&*! hurt like a--"
Shut up, Bessie.
But no, to answer the question about socialized medicine. I don't see free healthcare as being contradictory to anarcho-capitalism. Instead of being provided by the government, however, it would be provided by citizens of the community. If you'd prefer to live in a society where the government provides the healthcare, that's your prerogative. I currently live on government health insurance, and I don't mind it, except they dictate what they will and won't cover. In my mind, no one should have to pay for medical services with a resource they don't have. In the ideal community (in my opinion), barter would be an acceptable system. Your doctor saves your life, so you mow his backyard every week or somesuch.