What Individualism Is Not • Frank Chodorov

originally posted by: Semicollegiate

Is employment the goal, or the means to an end?

Constantly decreasing prices eventually leads to more time for self fulfillment.

For people to buy, they have to have money- if they have no job, they have no money.
In a culture which holds the philosophy that having money IS self fulfillment, that is no longer viable.

Higher wages (in this comparison) are the result of laws forbidding them to hire children to work 16 hours a day for fifty cents an hour.

Higher wages are only possible with increased productivity. Otherwise the money to keep workers here instead of there does not exist.

The money exists if people have money to spend on your product (because they have jobs), and the highest positions in the organization aren't keeping to themselves ridiculous amounts of it.

We is everyone alive. The collectivist apocalypse started at bloodiest wars in human history (1861 to 1945), followed by the destruction of the free economy worldwide (1919 to 1945), and culminating in the assimilation of all thought and property (1861 to present). Collectivism is the norm since 1945 or so. You,,, might call it progress.

All thought and property is gone? Collectivism is the norm? What planet is this we are talking about again? That is a wildly extreme and irrational statement. I feel like I am having discussion with a Jehovahs Witness... except God being able to save me, it is what? Laissez-faire capitalism? Do you NEED to rely upon such tactics? Why not just down to earth realistic statements?
See, that kind of method always makes my alert bells go off in my head- if you need to use such methods, then somewhere, there is a reason....



I don't think you got my point about the socioeconomic influence upon the markets- how the expected effects depend largely upon the collective values, morals and philosophy.

To say "consumers will buy more if you bring the price down" is not a universal truth, adaptable to all nations and peoples.
It is relative.
There was a sudden invasion of low cost grocery stores that happened here a few years ago, a concept that worked well in some other countries. They popped up everywhere. And went out of business just as fast. Because the people here are repulsed by extremely low prices. To them it means low quality, which they devalue, and also it means less money going to their nation, to their collective security- it means some fat cat is taking a lot of profit and not participating in the collective project.

Now, disregard whether this is a "good" attitude or a "bad" one- that is irrelevant to my point that the philosophy, the world view, the values of the consumers as a mass is an important variable in the theoretical projection of effects.

originally posted by: daskakik

originally posted by: greencmp
Oh, I wouldn't say there are no laws in Somalia at all,

I didn't say there are no laws, part of my point is that even if there is no official government or legislation, there can still be rules that a group has to follow.

I agree that the warlords in Somalia are, for all practical purposes, government. A local gang, if they coerce you into something against your will are also controlling you. That is my point.

But, I will think about your question about what is an acceptable example of a truly free market in action.

Good luck. I can't think of any.

So, after going back and trying to find documented examples of successful anarchies I think the most recent best example was William Penn's "Holy Experiment" which was as close as I can find in North America.

It became the most successful colony in the new world and survived for 80 years.

a reply to: greencmp
Good example but they had a council which voted and passed legislation. There was a duty on liquor, on the export of furs and a sales tax.

A Holy Experiment in Laissez-Faire
A couple points I dug up:

The King, however, restored Penn's charter in 1694, after Penn promised to levy taxes to support King William's war against the French, raise a militia, and obey the Navigation Acts.

The survival of the colony was threatened because of the Quakers' false assumptions about the virtue of human nature. Aside from the reality of such motives as greed and a lust for power, sometimes honest disagreements are irreconcilable. Reason, good arguments, and compromise cannot, by themselves, guarantee security.

The Quaker legislators disagreed. They refused to appropriate any funds for defense, even after the horrific bloodbath of 1756. Instead of an armed regiment, the Quaker assembly created a commission to make sure the settlers were treating the Indians fairly. This provided little comfort for the frontiersmen seeing their wives raped and butchered, their children scalped, their crops destroyed, and their homes burned to the ground.

The three main points I take from the above is that:

1) King William was controlling things no matter how free the colonials thought they were.

2) Not only did they have legislators but at some point the decisions of these representatives cost human lives.

3) Once again, we have people looking to trade freedom for security.

Now you might be of the idea that they deserve neither and it's funny that that text that I found says that Franklin, cited as the the author of that quote, actually used the above to rally support from the non-quaker population of Pennsylvania by offering security.

a reply to: daskakik

True, it was torn down but, it did last a pretty long time.

More importantly, it represents the spirit behind a stateless (or near stateless) society.

"If we will not be governed by God, we must be governed by tyrants."

-William Penn

I like old Ben but, he was about as far from an anarchist as someone could be.

He championed everything from public schools to a public postal service. Though, I will say that he would probably be shocked at the nationalization of the former.

originally posted by: greencmp
True, it was torn down but, it did last a pretty long time.

It was only about 13 years before they caved to the King's requests and at no point did they not have government.

You pay taxes to someone, does it make a difference if they call themselves a government or not?

More importantly, it represents the spirit behind a stateless (or near stateless) society.

Well, my point is that spirit doesn't transfer into the real world and this just proves it.

Also, "near stateless" is not "stateless" and neither guarantees freedom from coercion.

Pennsylvania had virtually no government at all until 1756, when the Quakers finally relinquished control, or rather non-control, over the colony.

How does one relinquish non-control?

AC can be a direction as much as a prevalent environment. Our current socio-political-economic situation is the result of poorly informed voluntary choices over the last century.

The essential core of AC is that the more action the average person is allowed, the more motivated and productive he will be.

AC can be approached one repeal at a time.


Ideological change

a reply to: daskakik

The heart of the praxeological study of human actions is a priori deductive logic.

If I had to peg you down for a particularly stuck craw it would have to be the proposition that if freedom is good, therefore, more freedom is better. I believe that and you don't.

I acknowledge that I frequently use seemingly hyperbolic language to assail socialism. I do so because people rarely make the connection that it requires the abdication of freedom.

It was Franklin himself who made the famous quote and he was a statist of the republican ilk.

"Those who surrender freedom for security will not have, nor do they deserve, either one." -Benjamin Franklin

Almost every argument made in defense of socialism violates the principal noted above be it for financial, medical or job security reasons.

originally posted by: greencmp
If I had to peg you down for a particularly stuck craw it would have to be the proposition that if freedom is good, therefore, more freedom is better. I believe that and you don't.

I believe that but I also believe that you are not "free" and you are not going to be "more free".

Good as it sounds it is unattainable.

Catch 22, the freer everyone becomes, the freer they are to conspire against others. Unless everyone agrees to respect each others freedoms, you will have people looking to play unfair.

You might think that vigilance and a lynch mob can keep that in check but has it ever worked, long term?

a reply to: daskakik

That is the question that we can't answer having not tried it yet.

I don't believe we are ready (nor is the world) for America to become isolationist. As such, we can't become a political anarchy nor do we really need to.

There is nothing incompatible with a truly open and free economy and our constitutional republic.

originally posted by: greencmp
That is the question that we can't answer having not tried it yet.

While it hasn't been tried as a national policy, it is put to the test in every human interaction and it isn't hard to extrapolate and recognize why it would fail on a larger scale.

Sounds like it's a matter of faith for you.

originally posted by: Bluesma

originally posted by: Semicollegiate

Is employment the goal, or the means to an end?

Constantly decreasing prices eventually leads to more time for self fulfillment.

For people to buy, they have to have money- if they have no job, they have no money.
In a culture which holds the philosophy that having money IS self fulfillment, that is no longer viable.

The free market offers more wealth, not just more jobs. Money and jobs are a means to an end. The end is retirement or doing something fulfilling or enjoyable. The promise of a job in an insensible economy is a false, short sighted, and misleading promise.

The money exists if people have money to spend on your product (because they have jobs), and the highest positions in the organization aren't keeping to themselves ridiculous amounts of it.

Money is exchanged for goods or labor. That is the reason money has value. Money created without goods or labor to directly represent and exchange for it, is not money. It is counterfeit no matter who issues it. The idea that money only needs to flow, and need not have any inherent value, is Keynesian and collectivist/progressive/socialist. This kind of flow money is what we currently have world wide and is one proof of the Collectivist Apocalypse.

When money has no value, wealth is difficult to accumulate for everybody, because the value of the wealth in mandatory government currency decreases every time the central banks issue more money. And central banks issue new money a lot.

All thought and property is gone? Collectivism is the norm? What planet is this we are talking about again? That is a wildly extreme and irrational statement. I feel like I am having discussion with a Jehovahs Witness... except God being able to save me, it is what? Laissez-faire capitalism? Do you NEED to rely upon such tactics? Why not just down to earth realistic statements?
See, that kind of method always makes my alert bells go off in my head- if you need to use such methods, then somewhere, there is a reason....

I wrote that thought and property are assimilated into the collectivist ideology. You said that thought and property were gone.

Assimilate

1. to take in and incorporate as one's own; absorb:
"He assimilated many new experiences on his European trip."

2. to bring into conformity with the customs, attitudes, etc., of a group, nation, or the like; adapt or adjust:
"to assimilate the new immigrants."

dictionary.reference.com...

gone

2. departed; left.

3. lost or hopeless.

4. ruined.

5. that has passed away; dead.

6. past.

7. weak and faint:
"a gone feeling."

8. used up
dictionary.reference.com...

Comparing "assimilate" to "gone" , "gone" seems to show a more extreme and vague mental process. Try to be more precise or exact.

"The way is dark and at times the only light comes from your enemies" From the movie the Wind and the Lion

I don't think you got my point about the socioeconomic influence upon the markets- how the expected effects depend largely upon the collective values, morals and philosophy.

Those values would effect the prices. The market itself is value free. The price level would stay the same day to day because people will behave the same day to day. Over time the prices of most things would decrease because of increased productivity or increased competition. The choices of each of the masses of individuals determine the market prices.

To say "consumers will buy more if you bring the price down" is not a universal truth, adaptable to all nations and peoples.
It is relative.
There was a sudden invasion of low cost grocery stores that happened here a few years ago, a concept that worked well in some other countries. They popped up everywhere. And went out of business just as fast. Because the people here are repulsed by extremely low prices. To them it means low quality, which they devalue, and also it means less money going to their nation, to their collective security- it means some fat cat is taking a lot of profit and not participating in the collective project.

Now, disregard whether this is a "good" attitude or a "bad" one- that is irrelevant to my point that the philosophy, the world view, the values of the consumers as a mass is an important variable in the theoretical projection of effects.

You misunderstood, (or more likely I poorly wrote) my reference to economic man. Economic man is the collectivist (regular university graduate) economist construction that has only economic behavior and buys more at a lower price.

originally posted by: Semicollegiate
a reply to: Bluesma

Regular economists make each person an economic man for the purposes of economic equations. The economic man has only conventional economic behavior. He has no fun or love, only a preference for a high quantity at a low price. Austrian economics, or specifically Praxeology, makes demand for a product one of many choices a person can act on. To do Austrian Economics a person must use their historical, philosophical, sociological, (and whatever else can be summoned), knowledge in addition to their economic knowledge.

The summed total of all decisions of all people determine the free market prices. Continuity of social behavior keeps prices mostly the same day to day. No inflation and simpler investment prediction for everyone. Increases in productivity will decrease prices over time. Scarcity of resources will probably raise prices, (substitution can counter this) but the free market will signal this problem sooner and more publicly than a controlled economy does.

The free market man makes choices, economic choices compete with all other choices. Day in and day out, the number of economic choices vs all other choices and the market prices will stay about the same.

originally posted by: daskakik

originally posted by: greencmp
If I had to peg you down for a particularly stuck craw it would have to be the proposition that if freedom is good, therefore, more freedom is better. I believe that and you don't.

I believe that but I also believe that you are not "free" and you are not going to be "more free".

Faith divides out on both sides of the argument, although collectivists never consider that. Collectivists have a default ideology that they accept as truth, not faith, because it comes to them as a part of the social environment.

Good as it sounds it is unattainable.

Begging the question, most collectivists would agree with that while never giving proof.

Catch 22, the freer everyone becomes, the freer they are to conspire against others. Unless everyone agrees to respect each others freedoms, you will have people looking to play unfair.

Maybe true today. We have lived in our civilization for 5,000 years. It is a civilization derived from coercion and slavery. Had we lived in an AC civilization for the past 5,000 years, the conspirators would have been found to have no useful product to offer and would be gone from civilized life.

You might think that vigilance and a lynch mob can keep that in check but has it ever worked, long term?

Begging the question with a straw man.

Will every part of every AC social group lynch innocent people?

The AC groups that don't lynch people will have bigger and better networks and economies.

originally posted by: Semicollegiate
Faith divides out on both sides of the argument, although collectivists never consider that. Collectivists have a default ideology that they accept as truth, not faith, because it comes to them as a part of the social environment.

That's bad of collectivists. That isn't me though.

Begging the question, most collectivists would agree with that while never giving proof.

Again with those collectivists. Good thing I have provided many examples.

Maybe true today. We have lived in our civilization for 5,000 years. It is a civilization derived from coercion and slavery. Had we lived in an AC civilization for the past 5,000 years, the conspirators would have been found to have no useful product to offer and would be gone from civilized life.

So if the impossible were possible then the world would be different.

OK.

Begging the question with a straw man.

OP brought it up so it's not mine, with or without the straw.

Will every part of every AC social group lynch innocent people?

Who said anything about innocent people?

The AC groups that don't lynch people will have bigger and better networks and economies.

If by lynch, you mean what I meant, punish criminals, then no I don't think so. They will end up right where you are today.