sc94597 said:
It was a process. I took a class on political philosophy that slowly broke down my prejudices of other ideologies: feminism, socialism, progressive liberalism, etc and also allowed me to better critique my own ideas. Around the same time the "anarcho-capitalist" movement was being influenced (and influenced) the alt-right significantly, mostly through the ideas of Hans-Herman Hoppe. You'd see a lot of racist and nationalist bullshit thrown around. More and more you'd also find anarcho-capitalists whom rejected enlightenment ideals, not because they thought they were insufficient, but because they thought the enlightenment put us in the wrong direction and feudalism/absolutism would be preferable in so much as the feudal lords/kings didn't interfere with the peasants lives.This was obviously bullcrap. Overall there was a shift rightward in the ancap community, and while I didn't reject the ancap label, I thought many people whom labeled themselves ancaps were acting and believing things contrary to libertarian principles. I was also very interested in what the economies of near anarchic societies were like at the time, reading about colonial Pennsylvania, medieval Iceland, the American frontier, etc, and they definitely weren't capitalist. At the same time I read a lot of stuff by Lysander Spooner, Roderick Long and other anti-capitalist lockeans as well as mutualists like Kevin Carson. Through Long's and Carson's work I read the work of other's at the think-tank C4SS (Center for a Stateless Society.) Particularly I read Markets Not Capitalism: Individualist Anarchism Against Bosses, Inequality, Corporate Power, and Structural Poverty. There was a lot of stuff about the 19th century individualist anarchists like Benjamin Tucker, Voltairine de Cleyre, Josiah Warren, William Greene Batchelder, and many others who were radical individualist and radical anti-capitalists that stuck with me. Much more than anything an anarcho-capitalist wrote. Mostly because the individualist anarchist's theory and praxis was grounded in the world that we have today and wasn't so axiomatic based on debatable premises. I then read some stuff from Ricardian Socialists like Thomas Hodgskin and John Gray who saw (classical) liberalism and socialism as two-sides of the same coin, unlike Marxists. I finally ended my transition by rejecting objective morality and absolute property through reading Pierre-Joseph Proudhon and Max Stirner. Both of these are probably my biggest influences currently, besides Benjamin Tucker. Additionally I read stuff from Peter Kropotkin and Mikhail Bakunin to realize that anarcho-collectivists and anarcho-communists want most of the same things as individualists, and in many ways communism or collectivism can complement individualism in so much as neither is taken to an extreme. For example, when somebody is young an energetic asserting one's individuality is important. When somebody is old and content they might want the benefits of community. As long as everyone's free to choose. This was all within the last two years. |
Thank you that was very informative. Many socialists I know used to be former social democrats that decided to take a more radical stance, but I always find it interesting when people from the right turn towards socialism since it's such a radical change. I even know a few former alt-righters that made the jump.
There is a misconception out there that the radical left or socialists are just a hivemind of people who hate capitalism, but that couldn't be further from the truth. There is a great wealth of diversity in ideas and theory and no one has to swallow a Marxist dogma, unless if they want to of course. Even if you like Marx, chances are you're going to end up in endless arguments with other Marxists who challenge your dialectics.
Pyro as Bill said:
That's what happens when you come off the gold standard and put 'coin clippers' in charge. Sir Isaac Newton used to torture counterfeiters to death when he was Master of the Mint. If the current laws were to change, I wouldn't oppose the same thing happening to the boys and girls at the Bank of England and their enablers in Parliament. How are internet speed ($/kb) and computer speed prices today compared to the 80s? How much richer would 'the workers' be if all of their costs dropped by a factor of a thousand/million/billion? |
The problem is the lack of gold standard directly benefits governments and the very rich and going back to it right now would probably trigger an economic collapse. So I think that issue is dead and buried by now.
Wages would be flat but wealth would be higher, this also probably means you would have less inequality like in the 1970s. Conditions today is why the welfare state continues to expand which attempts to solve this problem.
Last edited by Leadified - on 01 February 2018
