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Welcome to the 8chan /ancap/ board, a platform dedicated towards anarcho-capitalist theory and praxis.
Linked Boards: /anarchism/ /anarcho/ /liberty/ /leftistpol/ /ubf/ /politics/

 No.687

I've been thinking about Anarcho-Capitalism and its philosophical underpinnings.

Basically, as long as property has been justly acquired in accordance with the NAP, then it's yours. The first way to acquire property is usually taken as being mixing your labor with the land to create something new, and then you can sell it off or whatever, and so long as new owners engaged in voluntary trade, then it's okay and just.

However, almost all property at some point was taken from someone through conquest in the past.

The standard Ancap answer to this is to just say that we can't really sort this out as there are too many claims that can't verified, so we should just assume a statute of limitations and say that all existing property is just.

This is one approach, but I think there's another approach that is totally consistent with Ancap first principles, and that is to say that precisely because none of the existing property claims can be verified to have origins in the NAP, we should act as if every piece of property has not undergone initial appropriation yet. Every piece of property is treat as unowned yet.

Therefore, all existing private property claims are wiped out and the whole thing starts again with claims being valid based on usage, mixing labor, and the NAP.

All absentee claims collapse since they can't be proven to be in accordance with the NAP historically. The property then goes to the occupiers. You can literally construct worker ownership from Ancap first principles depending on how you address the historical question of appropriation.

This is also only an extension of an idea Rothbard (seen as the father of ancap) already played with in a pamphlet "All power to the Soviets". When talking about illegitimate government ownership in the socialist countries, he said that since governments don't have a legitimate claim, they don't even have the right to sell off the property. Rather, their property being illegitimate should be treat as unowned and given to the workers in shares.

Since the definition of the state in Ancap is any body that coercively appropriates outside of accordance with the NAP, then this applies to bodies that would normally be considered private too (consider thiefs).

Taking this further as I have done, if first appropriation back in history cannot be justified as almost all property was taken by force from those who had actually mixed their labor to create it, subsequent generations who traded for that property have been trading in something with no legitimate ethical backing.

Therefore the NAP demands that all absentee claims are nullified, and we reset the market.

This branch off from Anarcho-Capitalism, I have just created would be called "Resetism", and being that it is revolutionary rather than conservative of absentee claims, it can be considered farther to the left than regular Ancap based on statute of limitations/unprincipled exceptions, though at the same time it is still based on the free market and ethically justified private property in accordance with (one interpretation of) the NAP.

You get two results from this.

As in regular Ancap, you get: free markets, private property, NAP.

As in socialist Anarchy, you get: revolutionary redistribution of property to who uses and occupies it.

This is the one and only way that you can have Ancap and redistribution of property in a non-contradicting package.

This may be the "third position" of anarchism. What do you think?

It's pretty clear that "revolutionary Ancap" or "Resetism" is still Ancap, because it just has a more radical answer to a question that is debatable within Ancap. Murray Rothbard himself said that so called private organisations that get at least 50% of their funding from the state should be considered null private property and therefore unowned, since they are being coercively maintained.

This is just an extension of the same logic but back into time. The only question is history. If you consider that there should be a philosophical statute of limitations on property claims then you will be a conservative Ancap, but if you consider that all existing property was originally gained through theft and not mixing with the land or other justifiable NAP compliant Neo-Lockean way, then you can be a revolutionary Ancap and argue that all property is up for claims by those using it now, since the owners on paper can be linked back to an illegitimate claim from when the initial people who peacefully mixed their labor were conquered.

Or is it too late now? Would this create too much chaos? Really, there would be no violent taking as in communism, since the property would just go to the existing users like renters or share owned for workers at a factory and the absentee owners are simply left with useless deeds. Private property is then claimed and everything operates in a free market unlike socialism.

 No.688

File: 1446036216751.jpg (57.91 KB, 720x720, 1:1, curious task.jpg)

>>687

The problem I'm seeing here is that you're trying to take a very anti-market approach to establishing a market; you're trying to make blanket prescriptions regarding the distribution of property, instead of allowing individuals to sort it out on a case-by-case basis.

It seems insurmountably daunting to address the countless property claims, but you must remember that these claims will be sorted out by the people directly concerned, and the arbitrators they entrust with settling the matter.

You don't get to say that all current property claims are legitimate or illegitimate, because you can't possibly know. As with all things in a proper market, you just let people figure it out amongst themselves. Where there are no competing claims, you shouldn't initiate conflict by saying that the standing claim is illegitimate. Where there are competing claims, you shouldn't mis-allocate by assuming that the standing claim is legitimate. That would defeat the purpose of law.

As a limited being, your conception of the situation is necessarily simpler than it really is. Don't try to impose one-size-fits-all solutions for the sake of conforming reality to your ideas; that's a very statist thing to do. One of the beauties of AnCap philosophy is the recognition that we don't personally have to cook up solutions for every single problem; the people concerned can handle that.


 No.689

>>688

>You don't get to say that all current property claims are legitimate or illegitimate, because you can't possibly know.

The problem for Ancap is that practically speaking you have to pick one, or try find a middle way somehow, but you can't just ignore the issue.

You can pick "all are legitimate", but the legitimacy under Ancap rests on a just idea of appropriation, and then you let very recent unjust appropriators get away with it, and everything with the label "private property" slapped on it by the state gets away with it.

You can pick "all are illegitimate", because of the history of war, and you void all state set up contracts, but then you may create a lot of conflict before things can settle down and what counts as being NAP compliant can be agreed upon.

Either of those creates big problems. In the one, it never gets off the ground because you are locking in place the property distortions of the historical state and aggressors, and in the other you risk a lot of violent retaliation in bringing a fresh start to appropriation.

I think it's a critical problem with Ancap itself that is hard to address.

>you just let people figure it out amongst themselves.

But people figuring it out for themselves means total chaos unless most people have a reasonably similar idea of what counts as property.

For example; if a big corporation only exists because of imminent domain and state subsidies, then some would consider the shareholders property to be illegitimate as it only exists due to breaking the NAP, and they might therefore act as if that property was unowned and appropriate it as their own private property.

The shareholders then pay people to defend it, and others pay people to take stuff based on their own interpretation of how far statute of limitations should go, and we just get "might makes right".

>One of the beauties of AnCap philosophy is the recognition that we don't personally have to cook up solutions for every single problem; the people concerned can handle that.

But in order for Ancap to work and result in self-emergent order, you need the majority of people to agree on what and what doesn't violate the NAP, and in order for them to agree on that, they need to agree on what property was gained without violating it in the first place.

Since there are different philosophical approaches to that, I expect a big war even if everyone accepted Ancap to begin with.

Even for yourself, I'm sure you have a situation where you would be biased one way and other Ancaps another. The problem is that who is to say when Ancap begins?

What if communists take over the state, and centralize everything under a Stalin figure, and then a few decades later the system starts to become unworkable and then they privatize it and sell the state's assets to five big corporations?

Do those corporations then rightfully own 1/5th of the economy each? Would it be breaking the NAP to do anything to that property without their permission?

There's no singular answer here. You can't just point to the NAP, because you need to decide whether someone has just ownership of something first before you can say its wrong to infringe on their control of it.

This is why I think only statist libertarianism works. You need a common law first, and only then can you have freedom within a certain context of unfreedom, which is there to prevent the greater lack of freedom from everyone competing violently. Hayek, who you quote in your pic, recognized that because he was a classical liberal, and he understood that you need the state so that citizens can enforce a specific property law under which you can have a lassez faire market. You need something common that is defended first before you can make free everything besides that. Ancap tries to make NAP the only thing that is common or law, but in practice, since people have different ideas about what counts as the NAP, a state would emerge from "might makes right" to have a monopoly on force to enforce a specific concept of the NAP rather than an arbitrary one, and then we'd be just back to states, albeit a lassez faire enforcing one.

Do you see?


 No.695

>>689|

>practically speaking you have to pick one, or try find a middle way somehow

No, you don't. The entire point of anarcho-anything is that it isn't any of your damn business what other people do. If you declare all property to be one way or another, you're making sweeping authoritarian proclamations, and have thus failed to grasp the concept of anarchism.

>But people figuring it out for themselves means total chaos

So you reject the possibility and the historical reality of private courts? You think that a species that depends upon cooperation and conflict avoidance to survive is so powerfully predisposed to violence that it will inevitably be the general rule?

Where no competing claims exist, there is no need to issue a ruling, and where competing claims do exist, people will tend to select nonviolent ways to resolve the issue through various conflict resolution methods. So long as the process is voluntary, it's anarchy. It's also none of your business if you aren't involved.

>The shareholders then pay people to defend it, and others pay people to take stuff based on their own interpretation of how far statute of limitations should go, and we just get "might makes right".

First of all, remember that with the collapse of the government support structure, the business must revert to practices that best satisfy consumer preferences, including conformity to social norms, or lose business to their competition. If they persist in an abusive fashion, they will lose their holdings and the problem will correct itself as they are forced to liquidate.

Second, that process of paying people to defend their claims constitutes one of the mechanisms by which a dispersal of their assets occurs. Since violence is expensive, the much more efficient route would simply be to pay off people with anything resembling a legitimate claim in the form of out-of-court settlements. This saves money and reputation.

Third, if you're worried about "might makes right", I must express my bewilderment in contemplating how you intend to bring your prescriptions to actuality, since they generate conflict between most extant or prospective property holders; and where there is conflict, there is opposition. You're basically calling to impose your vision of property allocation upon everyone. How do you intend to do so except by force of arms? I'm telling you right now that you're not going to convince everyone to go along with it peacefully.

>But in order for Ancap to work and result in self-emergent order, you need the majority of people to agree on what and what doesn't violate the NAP

False. Wrong. Incorrect. Negative.

You don't even need the NAP, for crying out loud. The entire point of the market is that it demonstrates order and cooperation emerging from people with very different preferences and values. If everyone agreed upon any particular matter of principle, there would never have been any need for law. It's absurd that you need consensus to pull off anarchy. It's… just plain antithetical to the philosophy.

>The problem is that who is to say when Ancap begins?

This question makes no sense. At all. It's like asking:

>Why blanket seven nacho expeditiously for next grapes even husbandry?

Since there isn't a proper answer to a nonsensical jumble of words grammatically resembling a question, I'm going to take a stab at ironing out what I'm guessing lies at the heart of your confusion.

Anarcho-Capitalism is nothing more than the rejection of coercion, both politically and economically. That's it. Doesn't matter whether or not people call themselves AnCaps, doesn't matter if people generally identify their social arrangements as AnCap, it's just a label we use to describe a particular philosophical insight. AnCaps tend to recognize various other philosophical notions, but that does not make those notions into a corpus of AnCap doctrine.

Economics informs us that consensus is not necessary for cooperation. Merely the intrinsic rewards of cooperation and the intrinsic disadvantages of conflict lead people generally toward the former and away from the latter, regardless of their values or interests. It requires a dedicated effort to oppose these trends, and such efforts are in the long run doomed to failure.

You don't need everyone to agree that gold ought to be money, or that cooperation is a good idea, or that English is a pretty good language, or that html is handy for making websites; it just works out that way without any consensus or central direction. That's what emergent order IS.

>There's no singular answer here.

Exactly. Yet you seem to be trying to provide one.

>This is why I think only statist libertarianism works.

Yet from this basis you seek to make prescriptions for anarchist libertarianism? Of course you can't understand anarchism if you think you need to impose it somehow. You need to question and evaluate the premises of your paradigm; that's how the rest of us got here.


 No.696

>689

>695

>You need a common law first

There NEVER was "A common law"; there were traditions of conflict avoidance and resolution, but there was never a single body of law. Hell, it wasn't written down or even recorded as an oral tradition until centuries later. Common Law was nothing more than the practice of formal argumentation before your peers for the purpose of conflict resolution. People would generally agree what was reasonable and set their expectations of each other accordingly; it was neither issued nor imposed.

>he understood that you need the state so that citizens can enforce a specific property law under which you can have a lassez faire market.

Since this notion is self-contradictory, it is necessarily wrong. A state is precisely the lack of a free market in law. Saying that you need to eliminate some part of the free market in order to have a free market is several fallacies in one.

If I had to agree with everything that everyone I quote ever said, I'd never quote anyone. I take insights where they are, and reject nonsense as I find it.

>Ancap tries to make NAP the only thing that is common or law

See above about doctrine. A great many AnCaps reject the NAP on various grounds. That isn't to say that they believe in violating others, but rather that they find some flaw in such a doctrine. I'm not a champion of the NAP, though I recognize its appeal as a corollary of consistent ethics.

>since people have different ideas about what counts as the NAP, a state would emerge from "might makes right"

How? What part of "people disagree with each other" inevitably leads to "they will violently impose their ideas on each other"? How do you defend this assertion?

>to enforce a specific concept of the NAP

>enforce a specific concept of the NAP

>enforce… the NAP

>force

>non-aggression

Oh, and

>lassez faire enforcing

>"leave it alone"

>force

Fucking for virginity, I see.

>Do you see?

I'm afraid you don't. With all due respect; you seem to struggle with constructing sentences which don't blatantly contradict themselves. I would advise you to research the position before you endeavor to criticize it, and to consult and compare the definitions of terms before you use them, especially in conjunction with one another.


 No.697

>>695

>You don't even need the NAP, for crying out loud. The entire point of the market is that it demonstrates order and cooperation emerging from people with very different preferences and values.

This is the crux of the problem, so I'll just address this, since most of my post was just trying to restate this same thing in various ways.

The market only works through peaceful competition. Without NAP you can't have that, and violence WILL happen. Look at the last 5000 years of human history.

Why did Rothbard come up with the NAP if it wasn't necessary for Anarcho-Capitalism? The entire point of the NAP is so that you can have a single law that supports everything without needed the state.

That's the entire point! If everyone avoids aggressing against each other, then you can have stable property rights and peaceful competition in the market.

Without the NAP, you can't have that, because you'd just end up with states again. If you think otherwise, it's incumbent upon you to explain how you think states first arose in the first place.

As Anarcho-Capitalists you want to convince people of your philosophy, this very fact is an implicit admission that there needs to be a consensus around Anarcho-Capitalism in order for Anarcho-Capitalism to work. The opposite scenario in which Ancap just happens through people's interactions would imply that we already had Ancap, or worse that it wasn't a political philosophy or system at all, but something inherent to all societies.

You know that this is not the case, which is why you advocate for an anarchist philosophy with specific principles, and you want people to believe in those principles in order to get your anarchist society. If you didn't need people to believe in Ancap principles, we'd already be in an Ancap society, because it would be unavoidable, since anything causes it and nothing specific needs to be applied.

This is why you need the NAP, and the guy considered the father of Ancap invented it.

Once we've established that this sort of consensus is needed, the problem is that the NAP is an incoherent principle, since we can argue on what counts as aggression forever. Without someone to have final say on what happens, you can't agree on what should be property and what shouldn't, because nobody has any common principles.

You mentioned private courts and so on, but people are going to disagree on which courts count, and without the ability to initiate force, the courts have no teeth.

>Anarcho-Capitalism is nothing more than the rejection of coercion, both politically and economically.

Yes, which is what the NAP is about! Without being able to define coercion and what is being coerced no one can agree on what counts at all.

This is not a small problem, but a massive gaping hole in Ancap philosophy. Consider that you call manipulating private property without the owners consent to be coercion; the socialist anarchists consider attacking people for using something to be coercion.

There is no objective definition of coercion, so the same old political fights and wars will remain.


 No.698

>>696

>A state is precisely the lack of a free market in law.

But the critical understanding I have is that the price in such a market is paid in blood.


 No.699

File: 1446121984048-0.jpg (80.85 KB, 720x720, 1:1, 10408492_793887717331414_4….jpg)

File: 1446121984049-1.jpg (71.15 KB, 469x459, 469:459, Higgs.jpg)

>>698

Please substantiate this claim. You are claiming that every polycentric legal system in history was fundamentally violent, and coercive, which is simply not the case. You're going to have to contradict the historical record which show these societies to be more peaceful, more prosperous, more free, and longer-lasting than comparable societies with strong monopolies in law.

The burden is upon you to demonstrate why the laws of economics–which show that free trade produces safer, more peaceful, more abundant, and more efficient results–suddenly reverse themselves in the specific case of the service of dispute resolution. The burden is upon you to demonstrate why these universal principles have a giant exception.




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