For example, taxation is theft. War, as conventionally understood, is mass murder. Arrest for a “crime” with no actual victim is kidnapping.

The understanding of how such a system of law would be possible is that the business of applying law ought not be forcibly monopolized by any one single organizational entity. As a result, adjudicating disputes and providing non-aggressive security services could be carried out by a multitude of organizations.

It is not the provision of such services that demands hegemonic monopoly over a particular territory. Rather, it is the nature of forcible maintenance of a monopoly itself that requires hegemonic domination — and such actions are demonstrably criminal, as crime is best understood to mean violation of a person’s rights.

Ultimately, then, an authentically anarchist revolution would be the process of bootstrapping this polycentric system of stateless law and resulting suppression of the biggest criminal gang around — government itself.

See also:

• Wikipedia: Polycentric law
• Introduction to Natural Law
• Legislation and Law in a Free Society

Can you lead me to info on where Ron Paul stands on the disabled and the poor? No hurry. I’m at the embryonic end of my journey on learning about Anarchism and its branches.

I don’t support electing Ron Paul or anybody else. There’s a similarity of message, though, in that he advocates less state power while I advocate abolishing the state.

Generally, without the predatory state forcibly transferring wealth from average people to the elite, people would be better able to take care of each other through non-governmental approaches (which can’t come about right now only because we’re all being bled dry to fund the empire, banks and so forth). In anti-state “leftist” language those non-governmental approaches are called “mutual aid”. In “conservative” language, the same basic concept is called “civil society”.

The basic understanding (you might agree or disagree) is that a professionalized welfare state bureaucracy demanding upper middle class salaries and implementing inflexible top-down programs is actually not all that effective at helping people, despite the advantage of tax funding.

But that’s just a general outline of thinking on the matter. I can’t speak for the man. I would suggest Googling him and getting in touch with either his campaign or his Congressional office.

* “The Philosophy of Liberty” (Schoolland) and some introductory short material on free market econ (”I, Pencil”, some Bastiat, etc.)

* The Market for Liberty (Tannehill/Tannehill) and Chaos Theory (Murphy)

* What is Mutualism? (Swartz) & selected works by Carson such as “The Iron Fist Behind the Invisible Hand” and “Austrian and Marxist Theories of Monopoly Capital”

* For a New Liberty (Rothbard)

* New Libertarian Manifesto / Agorist Class Theory / Agorist Primer (Konkin/Conger/Koman)

* selected left libertarian material on thick libertarianism, ambiguity of the terms “capitalism” and “socialism” and market anarchist theory as the foundation of a more intellectually rigorous “anarchism without adjectives”.

Feedback?

“Does anyone else read support for direct action of this sort [in the workplace] as support for ‘the destruction of property as a legitimate part of the bargaining (collective in this case) process’?”

It can happen that way if the workers in question don’t know any better. Conversely, title to stolen loot can be uncritically accepted and a whole class of what would be ethically acceptable tactics can be foolishly disregarded.

The pertinent thing to keep in mind would seem to be the understanding that the more statist the economy, the less likely it might be that the property of any given business is legitimately held property in terms of libertarian theory.

But direct action in the workplace does not have to mean sabotage that destroys property. In a lot of cases, management is so dysfunctional and clueless that a stringent adherence by workers to the rules handed down amounts to “sabotage”. The normal order of affairs in many corporations is for incoherent and contradictory mandates to be pushed down by management more interested in CYA than production. Many of the decisions about which corners to cut and what priorities to set get pushed down to the lowest level. Think of it as limited worker self-management through the imposed terror of potential job loss. In such a (common) environment, “sabotage” can be as simple as stopping trying to make the bureaucratically hamstrung production process work. Or stopping trying to make intelligent decisions in situations where any choice made results in arbitrary punishment if it comes to the attention of management.

An astute observer might recognize a bit of Atlas Shrugging in such approaches to the workplace in an oligopsony job market:

“I swear by my life and my love of it that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine.”

In other words, a lot (if not most) so-called “managers” out there aren’t managing squat. They go through the motions and find a scapegoat if their bosses find anything wrong. When the rules are incoherent, following them strictly can grind things to a freakin’ halt. Recognizing and exploiting this is not a new labor tactic. It’s called “work to rule”.

AGWT advocates have (correctly, in my opinion) responded that it does no such thing. Weather can be thought of as, basically, a heat-driven engine — so a globally warmer climate might result in more turbulent weather patterns. Thus, for example, an arctic air mass might be driven hundreds of miles further south than it normally would — bringing a good old-fashioned Saskatchewan blizzard to the mid-Atlantic states.

That’s a perfectly valid rebuttal on that narrow point. AGWT critics who point to a heavy snowfall or notable cold snap really are just being simple-minded.

But what AGWT advocates might neglect to point out is that simple-minded criticism has been invited by comparable simple-minded advocacy on their part.

For example:

Hat tip: that hydrocodone addict with a cigar.

So, let’s take a step back for a moment. What’s really going on here?

We have a scientific question being debated politically. The political process (as George Orwell noted, if I recall correctly) more or less consists of the scientific manipulation of hatred. With control of state policy as the prize, the brass ring to grab for, we can see the search for truth getting shunted aside by both groups of disputants — in favor of politically useful stupidity and dishonesty.

The climate debate, so far as I can discern, tells us little about climate change. It should tell you all you need to know about politics, though.

If you think it’s ironic when other activists glorify the American Revolution but are horrified at the suggestion of protesting without a permit — you just might be an anarchist.

Regardless of whether you think global warming is real or not, if you think mainstream policy proposals to supposedly deal with it are all about big business, and that they have to be BECAUSE they’re mainstream policy proposals — you just might be an anarchist.

Leaving aside the word “property” for a moment… If you think the question of who rightfully owns what has little or nothing to do with what the government has to say about the matter — you just might be an anarchist.

If you put a cucumber in your pants in anticipation of a patdown at the airport — you may or may not be an anarchist, but you’ve got a great sense of humor. Especially if you’re a lady.

If you prefer the AK series to the AR-15 and variants because the charging handle of the AR-15 keeps getting hung up on your nose ring — you’re probably an anarchist.

UPDATES: I might post other riffs on this theme that I notice from others…

“If you go to a national or state park and catch yourself evaluating potential homestead locations, you might be an anarchist.” — K.B.

“If you think the most offensive phrase on money is not ‘in God we trust’, but ‘legal tender’, you might be an anarchist.” — K.B.

“If your investment in precious metals strategy includes lead, you might be an anarchist.” — K.B.

“If you stumble across a WWF wrestling match while channel surfing, and mistake it for election coverage, you might be an anarchist.” — K.B.

“If you imagine an Olympic games where individuals go to compete without being divided up into national teams… you might be an anarchist.” — B.W.

“If you have been punished by your teacher for sitting silently while all of the other children are reciting the pledge… you might be an anarchist.” — B.W.

This is what I wrote on the wall of the group:

“Capital punishment is only part of the problem. Punishment of any kind is not justice. Justice is best understood as compelling the criminal (forcibly if necessary) to make restitution to the victim. If the victim has been killed, restitution should go to the kin, associates and (if applicable) insurance company.”

The ancient custom of restitution to kin and associates for murder (or any other wrongful death, as I understand it) was referred to in Germanic tribal law as weregeld.

The Wikipedia article mentions that “The standard weregeld for a freeman appears to have been 200 solidi (shillings)…“, although it also explains that the amount could vary widely according to social status.

It seems to me that in a modern context of the understood importance of “equality before the law” and liberty as the natural right of all, the weregeld for a “freeman” arrived at in those times serves as a landmark to orient by and a potential default restitution amount for arbitration over any wrongful death. Furthermore, it seems to me that restitution amounts should only vary from that default if compelling and detailed reasons for that departure can be articulated and withstand critical analysis.

A solidi or shilling is said to have been 4.5 grams of gold. Thus, 200 shillings would be 900 grams of gold. I suggest 900 grams of gold be considered the default amount for restitution awards in cases of murder or any other wrongful death. At current rates, that works out to about $33,000 in US fiat currency.

It can’t.

Property is a claim to that which is scarce. It doesn’t matter how much work you did to produce something — once it’s created as an item of information, it’s not naturally scarce anymore with todays information transfer/duplication technology. In similar manner, flailing my arms about as “labor” doesn’t create a claim to the not-particularly scarce air that I pass through. This despite calories being expended and despite breathing being vitally important and “valued” — because the air is, for the most part, not scarce.

J. Neil Schulman, who advocates his own version of IP that he calls “logorights“, responded on Facebook that:

“Value does not derive from labor; existence as a newly created real object does.”

To clarify, Neil regards a created, distinct, identifiable item of information as a “thing”. I’m mostly not inclined to quibble with him about that because what matters is that it’s not a naturally scarce thing.

Neil continued:

“…a new and unique thing which can be distinguished from all other things is scarce by virtue of its uniqueness.”

Not quite! With current information duplication/transfer technology, an item of information is pretty much ONLY (naturally) scarce PRIOR to the point of creation (leaving aside, for purposes of discussion, closely guarded secrets).

But Neil disagrees with my characterization of items of information as not particularly scarce.

“That its scarceness is horizontal rather than vertical is beside the point; all property rights are with respect to things that have ways in which they are unbounded.”

Above, Neil is elaborating on his already stated notion that the uniqueness of a particular item of information is a type of scarcity. That notion, though, conflates the concepts “distinct” and “scarce”. The atmosphere and the ocean are (at the scale of an individual, anyway, leaving aside large scale issues for purposes of this example) not scarce. They are, however, distinct. Distinctness is not scarcity. That the air is not the ocean does not mean I can flail my arms about to create a claim to the not-particularly scarce air around me that would allow me to charge you a toll for passing through “my air”.

We can say “property” in that which is scarce matters because it serves as a metaphorical container for labor as an aspect of its scarcity.

That is, it is wrong to forcibly take a scarce item from someone who has made it theirs via their labor (or which was gifted or exchanged to them from those who had a labor-derived original claim). To take a scarce item from someone that their own or exchanged labor brought into their possession is to take their labor from them against their will — to enslave them.

After the point of creation, duplicating an item of already created information does not remove it from the enjoyment of any other possessor — because it’s not scarce. The duplicator has not stolen from or enslaved anyone. No labor has been stolen because the labor has not been “contained” in a scarce item in the first place. No property claim, in any ethical understanding of the term “property”, has been created.

Northern Agorists gathering
Time: January 9, 2010 from 1:30pm to 3pm
Location: Red Apple Buffet (Chinese)
Street: 161 Loudon Road
City/Town: Concord, New-Hampshire
Website or Map: http://maps.google.com/maps/p…
Phone: (603) 226-8866?
Event Type: social, planning

PDF flyer available — agorists-unite-9jan10.