At C4SS: "I've Never Seen A Poor Person Give Someone a Job"
posted by Kevin Carson | 9:08 PM
Mutualist Blog: Free Market Anti-Capitalism
To dissolve, submerge, and cause to disappear the political or governmental system in the economic system by reducing, simplifying, decentralizing and suppressing, one after another, all the wheels of this great machine, which is called the Government or the State. --Proudhon, General Idea of the Revolution
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2 Comments:
"All of these “arguments” accept existing distributions of property and power as a matter of course, with no regard to whether or not they came about in a just manner."
Okay, we all know that they did not come about in a just manner. The question is: what if they had? What if, by a series of market exchanges, we ended up with inequalities of wealth and two classes -- those who own and those who work?
Where would modern individualist anarchists stand? Would they tolerate current and future exploitation and oppression because of past fair exchanges?
And, yes, I know that many "libertarians" (propertarians) use the logical possibility of such a "fair and free" evolution to support the current wealth distribution produced by past coercion. I'm just wondering whether, in the unlikely situation that could occur, where you stand.
I'm hoping I know the answer -- it is just when I read "just manner" I could not but ponder that the question.
Iain
An Anarchist FAQ
Iain, if by some monstrously unlikely process something like the present distribution of property came about through just acquisition, I suppose I'd have to favor leaving it along because I believe in self-ownership and nonaggression as a matter of principle.
But to me it's a waste of time even discussing such hypotheticals because it's the equivalent of saying what if the air molecules in a room sorted themselves by random chance so that half the room was at absolute zero and the other half was at the boiling point of lead.
In the real world, the present distribution of property under capitalism would no more have come about through labor, peaceful exchange and just acquisition than did the distribution of property under feudalism or chattel slavery.
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