[SolarCross]

@Malatant
I doubt I am the first to realise that the longing for freedom and self-determination comes from a bio-psychological need to be as free as our ancestors were. I think Kropotkin observed something similar. Anyway, as you know, I don't think that freedom is incompatible with complexity, specialisation or high technology. I don't think tyranny is inevitable for large, complex, technological societies. There is perhaps a greater risk of tyranny with increasing size and complexity but it is not inevitable. Well that is a debate for another thread.

Back to the subject of this thread.

Can we get back to the question of coke and hookers? Specifically, whether they'll be legal or illegal in this shiny new city?

Like any stratified hierachical society, vice will be permitted to the rulers (executives) but forbidden to those that do the work (because otherwise they might not perform their allotted tasks with sufficient servility and regularity.)

[Eran]

And that's why I am convinced this "free city" we're talking about won't be anarchic.

A city shouldn't be expected to be anarchic. It is society as a whole that is anarchic, while individual communities can choose whichever form of governance they want, provided only that entry and exit are free, and that no aggression is used to secure the land over which city authorities "rule".

[Red Barn]

Taxizen, you are the first anarchist I have ever encountered who understood this about the root motivations of anarchism. You are absolutely right. That's where all forms of anarchism comes from, including Marx's communism: a longing for the type of society that is natural to us, the type for which we evolved. I understand that completely.

So do I.

I love this thread.

[Eran]

I share the intuitive longing for the simplicity of olden days.

I believe, however, that:

(1) the society for which we evolved had features which most people today would find morally unacceptable. In particular, humans were evolved to live in small, cohesive groups in which individual priorities were often over-ridden for the interests of the group.

(2) It is, in practice, impossible to reap the benefits of modern technology and the division of labour without close collaboration within much larger groups of people, requiring a more hierarchical organisation structure.

[Red Barn]

I don't believe that at all.

Clearly, technology makes it increasingly possible to transcend the reliance on vulgar hierarchies that old-style industrial capitalism imposed, and to decentralize power tremendously. This is one of the main reasons why right now is such an auspicious time to start thinking about how to replace the outmoded capitalist model with a truly forward-looking, truly anarchistic one.

Of course, "Anarcho-Capitalism" isn't really anarchism, and is anything but libertarian, (your own remarks make this plainer than mine ever could!) so I have a feeling you guys will be sitting that one out.

[SolarCross]

I share the intuitive longing for the simplicity of olden days.

I believe, however, that:

(1) the society for which we evolved had features which most people today would find morally unacceptable. In particular, humans were evolved to live in small, cohesive groups in which individual priorities were often over-ridden for the interests of the group.

(2) It is, in practice, impossible to reap the benefits of modern technology and the division of labour without close collaboration within much larger groups of people, requiring a more hierarchical organisation structure.

These two assertions contradict each other. You assert that hunter-gatherer society is morally unacceptable because you claim that individual priorities are over-ridden by group interests then assert that modern society requires the interests of the individual be subjected to hierarchical organisation presumably for the interests of the group with the implication that this is different and morally good compared to assertion (1)!

[mikema63]

I've often thought technology is going to be infinitely more effective in producing the end of government than any anarchist movement will ever be.

[Red Barn]

At the moment, I'm rather more interested in whether technology spells the end of capitalism.

And that's no joke.

If it doesn't, I think we'll be looking at forms of enslavement so complete and so horrific that they'd make a worker's life in Marx's London look like a millionaire's holiday on the Costa del Sol.

[mikema63]

Hmm, well 3d printers are looking good to decentralize the means of production. They can now produce batteries and motors, use glass, metal, and plastic. They can also recycle materials and have been used to produce all the parts necessary for a go cart.

As you know a lot of pharmaceuticals and bioengineering stuff is going the same way (see DIY bio in google).

In vitro meat has the potential of making meats super cheap, and it could also be done at home theoretically.

You would also be surprised (or not I suppose) at the amount of food that can be grown at home using aqua phonics and genetic engineered plants and nitrogen fixating bacteria.

You could certainly see the end to much of the capital accumulation that exists.

[Eran]

These two assertions contradict each other. You assert that hunter-gatherer society is morally unacceptable because you claim that individual priorities are over-ridden by group interests then assert that modern society requires the interests of the individual be subjected to hierarchical organisation presumably for the interests of the group with the implication that this is different and morally good compared to assertion (1)!

I highlighted your error.

The relationship between the individual and the group is mutually beneficial as are all voluntary relations. While on hunter-gatherer (and all other violence-based societies), the benefits of the group come at the expense of the individual, in a purely voluntary society, the two coincide.

[SolarCross]

.The relationship between the individual and the group is mutually beneficial as are all voluntary relations. While on hunter-gatherer (and all other violence-based societies), the benefits of the group come at the expense of the individual, in a purely voluntary society, the two coincide.

I highlighted your error, unless you are talking about the wild animals they eat but then really the same goes for supermarket meat. It still got killed.

[Red Barn]

You could certainly see the end to much of the capital accumulation that exists.

Or not.

If Monsanto can sue people for saving seeds, and water companies can own every drop of rain that falls, I hardly think they're going to let you get away with bathtub insulin and homemade GMOs.

Sorry, Comrade.

[mikema63]

This calls for drastic measures.

[mum]

While I am a big fan of 3D printers and aquaponics, this type of production is and always will be far more expensive than mass production.
As you keep buying cheaper and faster 3D printers and cheaper base materials, large factories are at the same time utilising significantly faster and cheaper 3D printers and other techniques.

There is simply no escaping the fact that our large complex industrial infrastructure gives us such an abundance of cheap energy, low cost high quality products and high quality of life.

[mikema63]

Well the main cost factors are distribution here but that's not the main point.

One of the main arguments about capitalism seems to be that your choice to work is forced because you either except their terms or starve. These technologies would relieve much of the precieved force around the choice to work because you could produce most anything from home if you wanted.

As for production costs, there really isn't any value in scale after considering labor costs when we are talking about simpler goods. Higher end products would likely be manufactured more at scale but most of the shit we make in the third world certainly won't benefit from scaling 3d printers when the at home stuff would offer infinite levels of creativity and choice.

[Eran]

One of the main arguments about capitalism seems to be that your choice to work is forced because you either except their terms or starve.

Indeed.

What people don't seem to realise is that people don't actually ever starve in developed economies. There is always an alternative. An alternative that the worker deems inferior to the wage labour he actually chooses, but still an alternative.

A more sophisticated (and credible) argument is that the entire range of choices available to workers is limited by the system. Since we all know that capitalists tend to compete much more than to collude, there is only one organisation that can perpetrate and perpetuate such system-wide restriction to the range of options available to workers.

[Malatant of Shadow]

What people don't seem to realise is that people don't actually ever starve in developed economies.

Actually, although it's rarer than in developing countries, they do.

http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/learning_history/children_depression/depression_children_menu.cfm

More to the point, though, is that people are denied the ability to make a living except by taking a job supporting someone else's profits. Whether they actually, literally starve to death isn't the important question here.

[mikema63]

Often they are denied by the law, even little kids have been shut down when they try to run a lemonade stand, it's like their trying to broadcast their purpose of keeping you from working for yourself.

[Malatant of Shadow]

Often they are denied by the law

Directly or indirectly, that's almost always what denies them.

The question is which laws.

[mikema63]

Hmmm, the most obvious ones are of course licensing and tax laws that must be jumped through before beginning, and for many people can be to complex to even understand and involve several classes and a fair outlay of money.

Another would be many regulations that don't really help with anything or are unnecesary but do produce a cost to follow that is relatively easier for large firms to deal with but are simply enormous for a small startup.

There are of course the indirect legislation procured by corporations that create regulations for the above purpose or simply produce an economic environment that inhibits small startups. For instance by artificially lowering the prices of a business down to a level that cannot be competed with, the most obvious being direct subsidies, but a more subtle method like free highways which reduces the costs of shipping for a large corporation like Walmart.

Then there ate the "free" trade deals which have specific clauses to protect some businesses, prevent small companies from benefiting, and create conditions in the target company that make it cheaper for large companies to operate factories there.

Plenty of stuff.