Ramblings

[Seth King]

Does anybody here ever wonder if the rabbit hole goes deeper than we currently think? I mean, coming to the conclusions we have really are pretty far down the rabbit hole, if you really think about it. But I still feel like it gets deeper. It's hard to imagine it getting any deeper and yet my intuition tells me it does.

I just finished rewatching The Matrix again for the umpteenth time. It definitely seems anarchistic to me. I remember watching it when it first came out thinking to myself "Ah, the red pill will show people the conspiracy for world government." I was a Bircher at that time and my worldview was such that the conspiracy for global government was unseen to almost everyone, and that returning to the Constitution was the answer.

Now I watch it and I think to myself "Ah, this film is clearly anarchistic and the truth is that we don't need government at all." However, as I watch the film, it seems clear to me that The Matrix is anarchistic of the syndicalist variety. I often wonder if the next step down the rabbit hole would take me to the anarcho-syndicalist conclusion. That would definitely blow my mind because as I stand right now anarcho-syndicalism just seems way off base. But if somebody would have asked me a decade ago what I thought of anarchists, it wouldn't have been pretty either, and here I am.

What bothers me the most is how little I really know about anarcho-syndicalism. I read Understanding Power by Chomsky, which was a good book, but he only briefly mentions the topic, instead focusing his attack on the current regime, which is easy. Other than that I've read some attacks on anarcho-syndicalism by the anarcho-capitalists. But I'm tired of that too. I want to read an anarcho-syndicalist book straight from the horse's mouth.

But I don't know where I could find a good one. Of all of the anarcho-capitalist books out there I feel confident that For A New Liberty sums it up beautifully. But if someone interested in our philosophy asked a few random AnCaps which book to read, they might get a half-dozen different book titles, all of them paling in comparison. When I go to AnComm websites, they all look half run-down, neglected, overly dark and negative. The articles are really just long diatribes, similarly to what can be found on one of our websites.

I don't like reading long diatribes. I want a well thought out book. I want THE anarcho-syndicalist manifesto and I don't want to have to read a half-dozen inferior books to discover it. I want to read and find out whether or not AnComm is total fooey or the way.

The reason why I am even bringing it up is only because my gut instinct tells me the rabbit hole gets deeper. Problem is I cannot imagine where it could lead to get any deeper other than AnComm because that would definitely blow my mind. I can't imagine much else blowing my mind at this point, unless I somehow found out that Ben Bernanke was a closet AnCap or something. Or perhaps there is a secret underground brotherhood of AnCaps that are far more pervasive and well positioned than any of us even know. That might blow my mind. Other than that I guess I will have to get lucky to find it or perhaps it's not my destiny to know, or the rabbit hole really does end here.

Does anybody else have any thoughts on my ramblings?

[helio]

I prefer to deal with what I can measure, or from personal experience.  If the 'rabbit hole' is deeper, then I have not yet had reason to suspect it to be so.  I personally do not give much credence to a one world government conspiracy because I don't give much credit to the efficacy of large scale central planning.  If such a conspiracy exists, I would view the world financial system coming apart at the seams because of the failure of the central planners to execute their grand strategy rather than attributing the collapse as being part of the plan.  Kings don't cause revolutions to get more power, because revolutions cannot be controlled.

I cannot give syndicalism much credibility because the theory still rests upon marx's class theory, which I think is beyond anything I have witnessed or experience.  I don't deal with a 'bourgeoisie' when my boss tells me he needs something done, I'm dealing with a guy, like any other, with the same limitations of information as any other, with his own motives like me.  When he got his title, he didn't suddenly abandon some 'worker class consciousness' and adopt a 'bourgeois class consciousness'.  

I reject syndicalism and communism because I view social reality through the lens of individual actors operating in a massive feedback system, not as some ephemeral or metaphysical class consciousness that controls the minds of its members.  The notions of marxist classifcation are ridiculous to me.

AnSyn fails the test of accepting the Individual Sovereignty Principle and as such, fails as a valid social theory for me to be interested in it.

[Seth King]

Everything you said about Syndicalism, how did you learn it? Did you learn it by reading one of the AnCap's attacks on it, some ranting on a forum by a syndicalist, or by actually sitting down and reading one of their books? Let me give you an example of why I think it matters.

I remember about a decade ago a friend had me read a book titled "Give Me Liberty" by a famous defense attorney Gerry Spence. At the time I thought it was a really good book by a libertarian. It wasn't until some years later that I flipped through the pages again to see what it was about. I was astonished at how TERRIBLE the book was. It wasn't libertarianism at all! It was a lot of socialism and pragmatism. Of course, I had progressed a huge amount by that time and was able to see the book for what it really was, GARBAGE. But at the time I read it I was under the illusion that it was, in fact, libertarianism.

More recently I did a book exchange with a new friend who wanted me to read another book by a so-called libertarian. It was so far from libertarianism it wasn't even funny. So my point is, that it's entirely possible that if a critic is attacking syndicalism, or even if you read the WRONG syndicalist book, your opinion of what syndicalism is may actually be distorted from reality. What if the communists have perverted the meaning of syndicalism much like the Koch brothers pervert what is libertarianism?

What I'm saying is that I want to read the Anarcho-syndicalist manifesto from the Murray Rothbard of syndicalists, whoever the hell that is! The problem is that I don't know who it is or what book to read. I would just like to read it for myself and make up my own mind, that's all.

[helio]

What I have gained from Ansyn is purely through osmosis, and a little bit of internet reading.  My initial impressions were formed by some videos of chomsky speaking.  I don't have the patience for him because I view him as a terrible butcher of meaning, even though he is lauded as a linguist of the highest order. 

Wikipedia, and some ansyn websites have been the main source of what I know.  The ansysn websites i visited about a year ago were full of vitriol and nastiness and it turned me off immediately.  I didn't stick around long enough to listen to what they had to offer because if being a syndicalist meant having a caustic personality, I wanted no part of it. 

So no, what I know is not from some epic tome of Anarcho-Syndicalist doctrine.  Personally though, what I know of anarcho-capitalism didn't come that way for me either.  It was the result of personal experience applied to countless pages of various books, blogs, videos, and forums.  It was a gradual process of internalization.

My critique is based solely on my limited knowledge of anarcho-syndicalism and I profess no expertise in the subject.

[Seth King]

The point of my ramblings wasn't even about AnSyn per se, it was more about where the rabbit hole leads. But the more I think about it, the more I realize that we don't get to find our own way through the rabbit hole. We have to follow the rabbit. That is to say, we just have to do what we normally do and if we discover, by chance, a deepening of the hole, so be it. As I look back now, I realize that all of my revelations about the world happened organically. I never forced to find meaning in things that had none. However, seeking the truth was bound to take me down certain paths. I figure if there are deeper truths, and if I am open to them, I will discover them only when it is meant to be.

[JustSayNoToStatism]

Seth, if you find this AnSyn Manifesto please let us know.

As far as this rabbit hole analogy goes, my new tunnel was figuring out that I cannot ever "prove" my moral values are objectively superior to someone else's (it's not pleasant, but until someone can show me otherwise I'm holding this position) It's kind of vacuous to justify property as an extension of yourself, since homesteading is such a vague idea. Property rights are in my opinion, good guidelines that cooperative human beings will naturally accept as a way of organizing society. If I use violence to defend my property, then that's that. I don't know if it's possible to objectively say if that's "good" or "bad".

I don't actually know the difference between AnSyn and AnComm etc. I've debated dumbasses on forums before and since they couldn't beat me, I gave up on their position. That's not the smartest thing I've ever done. I need to hear these things from their source, instead of arguing with a bunch of disgruntled incompetents, who hate gov't because they don't get as much welfare as they want  . Okay, sorry for that last part, but that's the impression I've gotten. As a result, I agree with Seth that a solid book would be good. Or maybe an author... Proudhon is a place to start, since the blackened.flag people worship him.

[helio]

The thread Hijacker has arrived! 

(Talking about myself, JSNTS =)

my new tunnel was figuring out that I cannot ever "prove" my moral values are objectively superior to someone else's

I am an objective moralist, but I agree with you.  Yes I know that may be a confusing thing to say. I shall clarify.

Hume's razor is always at play when we start talking about Is/Ought distinctions, which is why 'moral values' are unprovable. It is because Subjective Theory of Value works not only for economic values but also 'moral values' which are really just a way to define behavioral patterns in a social context. We subjectively prefer others to behave certain ways. 

The breakthrough for me was in recognizing that a moral proscriptive is a incoherrent statement because it is an incomplete thought. Saying someone 'should' do something begs the question "to what end?".  Only when you consider the ends, can you objectively evaluate the means as being able to bring about those ends. 

Such that, "You shouldn't steal", becomes "If you desire to live in a society with bountiful wealth, you shouldn't steal".
Such statements can be measured against behavioral pyschology and are therefore objective.

So the only way to measure your moral values are in the context of what purpose they serve. I argue that morality is a conceptual framework that describes what classes of behaviors give rise to society (not in the collectivist sense, but rather in the sense of a matrix of relationships between individuals) and that this system of society is a very popular value among people.  So if people value social cooperation, they must abide certain protocols of behaviors (ethics) to achieve that end.

So I think it is possible, once you present your desired ends, to "prove" which morals and their associated behaviors are superior. 

It is upon such a framework that we can argue from effect that statism is inferior at giving rise to society than individual sovereignty, because our moral values of non-aggression and property best support the desired outcome, based on what is known about human pyschology.

It is also through such a framework that we can understand that given the means of statism, we can show what the outcomes will be, in general.

This is hypothetical and assertive because I am not a social scientist.

[JustSayNoToStatism]

Helio, I greatly appreciate this clarification of what you mean by objective morality. I still think your task will be difficult. But now I understand that progress should be possible. Good luck with it, and if you need to bounce ideas off people, I'd be happy to help discuss or play devil's advocate.

Also, if anyone has found an AnSyn Manifesto at this point, please post a link, I may have time to do some reading, and would like to explore this further.

[nhwulf]

  Refuting Anarcho-syndicalism

 Until I read your "ramblings" I had not heard of Anarcho-syndicalism. I found "Anarcho-syndicalism" by Rudolph Rocker, (originaly published in 1938 by Martin Seckler). "Anarchism: Its Aims and Purposes; The Proletariat and the Beginning of the Modern Labour Movement; The Forerunners of Syndicalism; The Objectives of Anarcho-Syndicalism; The Methods of Anarcho-Syndicalism; The Evolution of Anarcho-Syndicalism."  I did not make it through even chapter 1 before being introduced to Proudhon.  Below is a short exerpt with my comments in parenthsis.

   "But a far greater influence on the development of Anarchist theory was that of Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, one of the most intellectually gifted and certainly the most many-sided writer of whom modern socialism can boast. Proudhon was completely rooted in the intellectual and social life of his period, and these inspired his attitude upon every question he dealt with. Therefore, he is not to be judged, as he has been by even by many of his later followers, by his special practical proposals, which were born of the needs of the hour.      ( Not to be judged because of the needs of the hour? This is to say that all action, in any moment in time are not to be judged as the actor deems them as nessesary or correct for that time. The end result of this is that no man or action is to be judged and therefore no value to be found. No good, no evil, no right, no wrong, just the hour. This makes all men equal in thier worthlessness.)      Amongst the numerous socialist thinkers of his time he was the one who understood most profoundly the cause of social maladjustment, and possessed, besides, the greatest breadth of vision. He was the outspoken opponent of all systems, and saw in social evolution the eternal urge to new and higher forms of intellectual and social life, and it was his conviction that this evolution could not be bound by any abstract general formulas.       (...any abstract general formula, otherwise known as an idea. Any man not bound by an abstract general formula, or idea is not bound by a moral code, personal constitution or rational thought. Any man conducting himself in such a way is merely acting on whim.)

Proudhon opposed the influence of the Jacobin tradition, which dominated the thinking of the French democrats and of most of the Socialists of that period with the same determination as the interference of the central state and economic policy in the natural processes of social advance. To rid society of these two cancerous growths was for him the great task of the nineteenth-century revolution. Proudhon was no communist. He condemned property as merely the privilege of exploitation,      (What one earns is the privilege of exploitation? Does this mean that all one works for or towards is only the act of theft from those that have not worked for it?)      but he recognised the ownership of the instruments of production by all,     (How were these instruments made? To what end? By what incentive? Does man work for his own survival and that of his increase, or for the survival of his nieghbor first, with the expectation of his neighbor to provide for his family)        made effective by industrial groups bound to one another by free contract, so long as this right was not made to serve the exploitation of others and as long as the full product of his individual labour was assured to every human being. This organisation based on reciprocity {mutualité} guarantees the enjoyment of equal rights by each in exchange for equal services. The average working time required for the completion of any product becomes the measure of its value and is the basis of mutual exchange. In this way capital is deprived of its usurial power and is completely bound up with the performance of work. By being made available to all it ceases to be an instrument for exploitation.      (When a thing is availible to all equally it soon rendered valueless as a trading commodity. With no reward for talent, experiance or intelligence and only time on a project to determine value, would any job ever reach completion? Whatch for todays stereotype of the union to blossom at record speed).

Such a form of economy makes an political coercive apparatus superfluous. Society becomes a league of free communities which arrange their affairs according to need, by themselves or in association with others, and in which man's freedom finds in the freedom of others not its limitation, but its security and confirmation. "The freer, the more independent and enterprising the individual is in a society, the better for the society."     (The preceding statment sounds good on its own but cannot be reconciled in the contextof Proudhon beliefs about private property. The context suggests that there is freedom in servitude to the community, not the state.)    This organisation of Federalism in which Proudhon saw the immediate future sets no definite limitations on further possibilities of development, and offers the widest scope to every individual and social activity. Starting out from this point of view of the federation, Proudhon combated likewise the aspirations for political activity of the awakening nationalism of the time, and in particular that nationalism which found in Mazzini, Garibaldi, Lelewel, and others, such strong advocates. In this respect also he saw more clearly than most of his contemporaries. Proudhon exerted a strong influence on the development of socialism, which made itself felt especially in the Latin countries. But the so-called individual Anarchism, which found able exponents in America in such men as Josiah Warren, Stephen Pearl Andrews, William B. Greene, Lysander Spooner, Francis D. Tandy, and most notably in Benjamin R. Tucker ran in similar lines, though none of its representatives could approach Proudhon's breadth of view."


 My conclusion is Anarch-syndicalism is merely Community Communism instead of State Communism.
This piece alone leads me to reject Anarcho-syndicalism. I briefly read on but decided that this line of research had come to an end until my time had nothing of greater value to pursue.

[Seth King]

How do you feel about the fact that the anarcho-syndicalists outnumber us by at least ten to one?

[JustSayNoToStatism]

nhwulf: Wins the award for most substantive 1st post ever.
Welcome.

[Seth King]

nhwulf: Wins the award for most substantive 1st post ever.
Welcome.

Ha! I thought the same thing.

NHWulf. That name seems familiar to me. Have you spent much time on the FSP forum?

[nhwulf]

   Thank you, thank very much. No, i have not spent time on the FSP forum, or any other for that matter. I have tried, unsuccessfully, to write for Lewrockwell.com. This is the web site in which I found yours. That is the extent of my writing at present. How do I feel about being outnumbered 10 to 1? The answer to that is found in the history of man. It is found in physics. It is found in all you see around you. All organisms must succeed in continuing their DNA. To be successful in that endeavor one must appear to be the strongest, smartest, most able to care for offspring available. This goes for men as well as women. Those less able to provide on their own merits must utilize other methods. Subsidies, welfare, tax write-offs, all ways of being a better provider for the less intelligent, less productive, less industrious, by choice or ability. I do not claim these are lesser men by nature but in all contests there are winners and losers. Water will seek its own level. It will do so with the least amount of resistance. The same goes for men. This is why we find in a democracy men will vote themselves a portion of the wealth of others that they themselves did not earn. This is the reason, in short, that our founders set up a republic. One, by the way, Ben Franklin predicted we would not not keep. I have, for the moment, until further evidence, seen that Anarchocapitalism is a better system, in that it would prevent any government from picking and choosing winners by fiat. That is by subsidy and welfare. I haven't a problem with welfare as charity so long as it is voluntary. When men are left to their own devices they tend to be charitable to those they see as worth charity. When charity is by choice it becomes not a sacrifice but an investment. A sacrifice is the giving up the greater for the lesser. An investment is the giving up the lesser for the greater. This distinction is made by the giver, not  the receiver. When inverted by mandate it becomes a form of slavery. In a way our Agorist society exists. It is underground. It currently goes by the name of the black market.  However one may feel about those who operate in this market, the principle is the same. Keep the system out and leave mutual consent as the primary rule. This rule I hope one day will be followed by the executive as well as the janitor. I run a still for myself and a few friends. The label reads, Whiskey Rebellion. Content by consent. This is how I live as much as possible. This is what I teach my child.

[Seth King]

Wonderful. I started this site because I thought the anarchists needed a website similar to Daily Paul and LRC. Daily Paul is for minarchists, and LRC doesn't allow for comments and is almost impossible to guest post for.

That is where Daily Anarchist comes in. I can't guarantee I will publish others' guest posts, but I will surely read it with the hope that I like it enough to publish it. We need fresh content more than anything. I hope you'll submit some of your own for me to read.

[nhwulf]

I have attempted to register to publish, and to contact. Both captcha error repeatedly. Should I wait for a fix or send you writing another way?