RE: Anarcho-Capitalism, Voluntarism & Alternatives - My Response to @kafkanarchy84; RE: @dannyshine
Thanks for the video!
I think the main disconnect here is that you are viewing Anarcho-Capitalism/Voluntaryism as a system, and I am simply viewing it as the respect of the objective reality of individual self-ownership. I also think you are conflating free trade with the state at times.
Free trade works for me in my life nearly flawlessly every day. Most individuals I know in my day to day life share their resources with those in need freely, want to help others, and want to keep the fruits of their own labor. In this sense, anarchism is here and is working State embedded corporations, banks, and politicians, however, do not help others in this way and are greedy, but this is not how I would define free trade/capitalism.
Regarding the hippies, that was spoken a bit flippantly, I suppose, but I did not mean that "hippies" honestly cheated by the state/having nothing are selfish. I reference, for example, the Bernie Sanders supporter types. These folks don't think twice before advocating the application of violent force to secure resources for themselves.
As for the human dignity quote, you totally mischaracterized it! I feel like it was pretty clear that I meant that the absence of dignity would be slavery, instead of sharing value for value, and acknowledging your fellow human beings' self-ownership, beauty, and dignity. I NEVER SAID MONEY "MAKES FREEDOM!" That is absurd, you are correct, and I never argued that.
If a person acts immorally because of money, it is a character flaw, and not a flaw with money itself. That does not logically stand. Even in the absence of money, I may not want to work to plant my food. However, this is the reality of life. Money does not corrupt. Corruption corrupts. Some work must be done, even if we do not "want" to, to survive.
You have severely misunderstood me here man. The reason I am for Voluntaryism is because I care about folks! :)
You are welcome!
Capitalism is a system, by every definition I know of it. Anarchy isn't really a system, but the capitalist part is. I also don't really think that voluntarism is synonymous with capitalism since it is possible to volunteer without commerce, trade or 'ownership' being involved.
It seems that the philosophical issue of the definition of ownership is more relevant than I thought then.
The problem I have tried to point out is that while these approaches might work for some people - just as all economic systems work for some people (including even communism) - the real measure is how they work overall, holistically. In my experience, capitalism does not really attempt to address it's failures to a radical enough degree. I'm sure the empire builders of the world think that capitalism works fine for them too and might even think of themselves as altruistic - such as when Dollar Bill Gates 'gives billions' in toxic vaccines to otherwise relatively healthy children, but there is always another side to the story.. I am not comparing you to an evil empire builder, I am just pointing out that a way of living that involves capitalism cannot be properly tested until it is widely adopted. I totally agree that your approach is better than the mainstream version of it - I just think we can do better still.
I see, I don't think these people can correctly be called 'hippies' - I'm not sure what the right word for them is though as I haven't studied them closely enough.
Fair enough, perhaps a better choice of words would have made the difference. If we talk digital face to digital face, we can prevent these misunderstandings ;)
I see this more and more these days, and it really bothers me. Voluntarism and Voluntaryists are not called those things because of volunteering. It seems some people are trying to change the definitions of the terms.
This isn't about volunteering.
It is about interactions between humans being voluntary opposed to forced. It is a separation between people who seek to control others and those who do not. I have no desire to control other people for any reason. That makes me a voluntaryist!
I do understand that, when I said 'volunteering', that is what I meant. Interactions between people being voluntary IS volunteering, to me - this is a somewhat rare case of differences just being semantic to me.
I've seen a lot of people on here using the term voluntarist or voluntaryist to mean volunteering to do community work as in feeding the homeless. If you ask them about why they are using that term, they will feign ignorance too. I have never heard of that type of volunteer work being called voluntarism before either.
Oh, I see, ok - we have inherited a mental boundary around what volunteering is that is quite limited and I can understand why using the word voluntarism to describe such a limited concept of voluntary action would be a trigger.
Bill Gates is not a capitalist though, in the Voluntaryist sense of the word. He leverages state power and violent monopoly.
Free trade is simply nature. The ability to trade and be, freely. This is already happening worldwide, but is suppressed by the state. Any system which would work holistically must always protect the natural law rights of the smallest minority, which is the individual, whose right is self-ownership. I agree it should be allowed to function on a large scale, but regardless of how many engage in free trade, and whether they are able to or not, allowing free trade remains the only moral choice. Anything else would require the application of aggressive force.
I really appreciate that you are an advocate for vaccine injury awareness. I am as well. That is excellent.
As for the hippies, yes, perhaps I was lazy with my word choice there.