Anarchist in name only

Periodically, I like to look in on some anarchist/agorist group just to see if the movement is pulling it's head out of it's collective ass yet. Sadly, it isn't.

As everybody who is familiar with the philosophy should know, anarchy is about the removal of the coercive state. It's about pure voluntaryism. No person or group has the right to control the behavior of another person or group so long as the second group is not aggressing against anybody. It is the most simple of concepts. And it doesn't leave any room for interpretation. But apparently it does.

Today I nearly had an aneurysm again when I read a site proclaiming to explain the concept of agorism. There were two bits of utter rubbish which caused me to reach for my glycerine pills. The first was the phrase "soft propertarian". They went on to explain this meant agorism supports private property rights within certain parameters. They defined these parameters as "occupation and use". In other words, you can only own property if you live there and do something on it. No, no, no. You fucking brain-dead morons. I'm tired of being polite with fucktard socialists who insist on twisting anarchy to suit their own bias. Ownership means exclusive control. If you own a car, nobody can tell you what color to paint it or how often to drive it. It is yours to do with as you please. It's the same with land. Either you own it or you don't. If you own it, then nobody can tell you what you have to do with it. You can build a cathedral or you can leave it untouched so you can enjoy nature. If somebody else can tell you that you must do something with the land, then you don't own it. That means there's no such thing as private property. And if an individual can't own land, neither can a group. Because groups cannot have rights that individuals don't possess. If these nuts are going to say collectives have rights individuals don't, then they are arguing in support of the state and can't call themselves anarchists. The whole theory of statism hinges on the notion that *society* has rights all it's own that must be defended. Anarchy opposes this ridiculous notion. There is no logically consistent way to justify the oxymoronic idea of "soft" property rights. It's the same thing as "soft" freedom of speech. It's meaningless.

Not content to stop with espousing the socialist ideal of no private property, this group took the next predictable step. They attacked "capitalism". Now, in all fairness, the word "capitalism" is a bit of a chameleon. Socialists love to point to the current corporatist economy and label it "capitalism" to show it's a failure. But the current economy is not purely capitalist. Nor is capitalism synonymous with "free market" as many anarcho-capitalists like to claim. You can have a purely free market without capitalism. Capitalism is basically a credit economy. When you borrow money, you are engaging in capitalism. It is the capitalist who loans you money and charges you interest. This site also included landlords. This is rational since they hold capital, in the form of property, and charge you a fee for using it.

So here we have a group purporting to desire a free market economy where all financial transactions are voluntary and no third party has the right to interfere. But they are already putting restrictions on the transactions that are allowed in their "free" market. If you need $75 to pay for a dentist visit, I can't loan you the money. Such a transaction would be capitalism, and that is verboten in their "free" market. Think of all the other things they have outlawed in the name of the Greater Good: Car insurance, health insurance, motels, vacation homes, life insurance, mortgages, apartments, and all sorts of loans and credit cards.

Try to imagine this "perfect" world of theirs. When you wreck your car, you can't call the insurance company to get it fixed. You better have the money in the bank. Because insurance companies are capitalist institutions. They don't actually produce anything, they just grow money. But you can't have money in the bank because there wouldn't be any banks. Banks make their money off the fees they charge and the interest the charge on loans. They couldn't make loans in an anti-capitalist market. So they would have to charge fees to pay their overhead. And they can't pay interest on your savings because interest is capitalism. So you put $100 in the bank and every month pay $8 in fees to keep it there. Who would be stupid enough to do that? So no checking accounts, no debit cards. Everybody deals strictly in cash and has to keep their cash at home.

Picture the new highschool graduate ready to leave home. Where do they go? They don't have money yet to buy a house. They can't get a loan to buy a house. And there is no such thing as rental property or apartments because those are capitalist ideas. The kid has no choice but to live with their parents until they've saved enough to pay cash for a place of their own.

You can't take a vacation unless you have relatives in the area you plan to visit. There are no hotels or rental properties since those require landlords. And landlords are capitalists.

The issue is very simple. Some people cannot handle credit. But that has nothing to do with credit. Some people can't handle alcohol. Because of that, a bunch of self-righteous fucks banded together and banned alcohol. Did that solve anything? No, it made things worse. Capitalism is the same story. Some people can't handle it. Rather than acknowledge the incompetence of their fellow man, a bunch of self-righteous fucks think they can fix the problem by instituting a ban on the "offending" substance. And just as with every other prohibitionist group in history, these morons are too short-sighted and narrow-minded to realize the inherent flaws in their "perfect' plan.

Anarchy means freedom. It doesn't mean everybody gets to drive a Ferrari. It doesn't mean everybody gets 1.3 acres of land and a hoe to till the soil. It means everybody is free to choose their own path. Everybody is free to succeed. And everybody is free to fail. You can't eliminate failure by eliminating the tools necessary to succeed.