[Nunt]

The first thing to say is that it is pretty well documented that human beings have always been social animals. The Rousseauean or Lockean "primal individuals" never existed. What we have always had are human relations. Society is not made of individuals. It is made up of human relations. Society is a complex interchange of various relations. From that "Individual" is derivative.

Individuals engage in social relations with other individuals. How could the individual possibly be the derivative here? Each social relationship starts with an individual. Only an individual thinks and acts. Society is the result of individuals thinking and acting together.

You could take the individual out of society. Just drop a newborn on an empty planet. Sure the infant wouldn't survive much longer, but thats not a problem here. The invidual will continue to exist beyond the point that society has disappeared.

You can't create a society without individuals. Remove all the individuals and society instantly disappeares.

[Eran]

The question was whether or not there could be any success in a socialist command economy, and clearly we have examples where it was.

I guess it depends on one's criteria for "success". The Soviet Union managed to fly a man into space and fight off Hitler's armies. Economically in judging success, achievements can never be separated from costs. I cannot think of any economically-reasonable criterion based on which a command economy could have been considered a success.

My model is of decentralized market socialism. Not only does Mises's arguments fail in theory, but it simply does not account for any kind of anarchism--particularly anarcho-syndicalism.

Having read most of Mises's relevant works, I can try to address this. The model you are proposing (as I understand it) wouldn't be considered "socialism" by Mises. The reason is that while the means of production aren't owned by individuals, they are still owned by relatively small groups within the overall economy. This is a crucial point.

Mises's argument against central planning addresses a model in which a single entity ("government" as a proxy for "society") centrally owns and directs all production within the economy. As such, there is no market for the means of production. There is no market in which land, machines, human labour and raw materials trade at "arm's length" between unrelated parties. Without such market, prices cannot emerge. Without prices, economic calculation is impossible.

In your model, individual syndicates/communities make independent production and trading decisions. They buy and sell at least some of the inputs to production (e.g. raw materials) in a competitive market, allowing for prices to emerge. I am uncertain as to whether, in your model, there is a market in human labour, money and land. If not, markets will not emerge for those factors, and no rational calculation will be possible regarding their optimal use.

Let's focus on labour, where I am almost confident your model doesn't allow for prices (wages) to form. Without paying workers differentially, how can your system allocate people efficiently? Many production decisions involve trade-offs between number and skill level of workers, machines and productivity. Without wages, how can your system tell whether employing 5 unskilled workers to accomplish a task makes less or more sense than employing 2 skilled workers plus $100,000 in equipment?

Would the individuals in a grouping in which the interactions are governed by the ideology of libertarianism fare better than those in other groupings?

Without a doubt. It is important to understand that libertarianism isn't a complete world-view or even ideology. It is merely a political theory. It has much to say about the proper use of force in society, and little or nothing to say about anything else. You should think of libertarianism as a variant on such systems as "constitutional monarchy" or "constitutional republic". A constitutional republic can have less or more social welfare, less or more role for religion in public life, less or more free trade, etc.

A libertarian society is characterised by a relatively small (if any) role for government and the coercion/aggression/force initiation that it inevitably brings about. However, libertarianism qua libertarianism is silent about many crucial aspects of society, leaving those to members and institutions to work out (peacefully).

Thus a libertarian society can be secular or religious, individualistic or highly communal, capitalist (private ownership of means of production) or socialist (communal ownership of the means of production), open to outsiders or xenophobic, etc.

Both constitutional democracy and libertarianism (and there is a continuum rather than sharp line between them) are based on the aspiration for having society reflect the views and preferences of its members. Libertarianism is vastly superior to constitutional democracy because (1) there is no distorting intermediation by political establishment in expressing public choices, (2) individuals are allowed much more freedom to express their values as they see fit, rather than conform to choices made by others, (3) the economy operates much more efficiently without the burden of taxes and regulations.

On the question of self/society continuum, the contrast between them is false. The point isn't whether decisions are made by individuals or by "society". "Society" never makes decisions as it has no mind of its own. Rather, decisions are always made by individuals. The only question is whether we allow individuals, as much as possible, to make decisions for themselves, or whether a small number of privileged individuals will get to make decisions on behalf of many others.

Don't be misled by the rhetoric behind the decisions. Politicians will, of course, cloak their decisions by the language of "public good". But politicians are human like everybody else, and, ultimately, they are just as likely to make self-serving decisions as anybody else. Private people are expected to make self-serving decisions, but will often choose to serve their family, friends, neighbours, community, nation, humanity or even Earth as a whole.

Setting aside rhetoric, decisions made under a libertarian framework are much more likely to benefit society because nobody has the power to invade another person's body or property. Transactions are voluntary, and thus, a-priori, benefit both sides. Under government rule, politicians and civil servants are awarded the power to use force (or, more often, the threat of force) to compel others to act against their interest. Transactions of that nature may benefit some people (like the politicians themselves) but at a cost to others.

[anticlimacus]

Mises's argument against central planning addresses a model in which a single entity ("government" as a proxy for "society") centrally owns and directs all production within the economy. As such, there is no market for the means of production. There is no market in which land, machines, human labour and raw materials trade at "arm's length" between unrelated parties. Without such market, prices cannot emerge. Without prices, economic calculation is impossible.

In your model, individual syndicates/communities make independent production and trading decisions. They buy and sell at least some of the inputs to production (e.g. raw materials) in a competitive market, allowing for prices to emerge. I am uncertain as to whether, in your model, there is a market in human labour, money and land. If not, markets will not emerge for those factors, and no rational calculation will be possible regarding their optimal use.

Let's focus on labour, where I am almost confident your model doesn't allow for prices (wages) to form. Without paying workers differentially, how can your system allocate people efficiently? Many production decisions involve trade-offs between number and skill level of workers, machines and productivity. Without wages, how can your system tell whether employing 5 unskilled workers to accomplish a task makes less or more sense than employing 2 skilled workers plus $100,000 in equipment?

First, it must be stated that prices, particularly in capitalism, hide costs inputs and do not necessarily reflect the real costs of goods and services. For instance, prices do not necessarily reflect extrinsic costs, such as pollution or the reasons for lower cost of labor, such as deskilled labor or job insecurity. In capitalism they also do not reflect inequality both in purchasing power and in distribution of goods. So some particular good may therefore cost less than another, but that doesn't necessarily make it more efficient--it does not account for costs put off on society, devaluing labor, or consolidation of resources.
Second, as I mentioned before, Mises was fairly ignorant in relation to anarchism. We agree centralization does not work. But not that we need capitalist markets in order to determine efficient rational calculation (which markets simply often do not do!). A centralized planning committee does not know the real use value of a good is to me. But if we are in a decentralized system, where exchanges are between simple use-values then we each know exactly what we need and what each use-value's worth is to us.
Third, my system is of market socialism, which is not capitalism. Just because you have markets does not mean you have capitalism. Proudhon's mutualism, for instance, is similar to what I am describing. Communally owned banks control capital. They coordinate with entrepreneurs and communal boards about investments. Then a particular syndicate develops on a certain peace of land paid for with communal money (so communally owned in that sense). The syndicate itself, via workplace democracy, then decides its pay structure and mode of production. Labor is never on the market as alienated from capital. There is no capitalist, or owner of industry, paying me wage labor, because I do not sell my labor without controlling production. Each syndicate pays its labor based on voting practices by the workers themselves. They know what is most efficient and what they need because they operate their own industry.

Would the individuals in a grouping in which the interactions are governed by the ideology of libertarianism fare better than those in other groupings?

There are two forms of libertarianism: Right wing, and left wing. Right wing is the one supported mostly by those in this particular sub-forum. They are either anarcho-capitalists or minimal state capitalists. Left wing libertarianism is the older and more traditional form of libertarianism. It needs to be clarified today as libertarian socialism. I have been describing one version of this, but there are many others. As I have briefly suggested, individuals do not just happen. Individuals need to be fostered by social upbringing and social context. How that upbringing and context occurs effects what kind of individuals we create. So, for example, if we live in a society where most of the population is enslaved, and the rest ruled by an aristocracy we will naturally create individuals that experience a sense of entitlement and empowerment with all the opportunities available to them; on the other hand, we will have dominated individuals with no opportunities, with an experience of servanthood, within an enslaved community.
What right wing libertarianism does, by making negative liberty and private property the cornerstone of its social organization is isolate individuals and make them alone: Alone for your own survival, alone to either find property or to sell your labor, alone to find your own education, healthcare, shelter, etc. Given we live in social contexts where resources are unequally distributed, right wing libertarianism also leaves you alone to completely go without any of the basic needed resources. It does not allow for more choice. It opens up opportunity and choice for some, and in that very process it excludes it from the majority.
Left wing libertarianism is a form of communalism, because it begins from the premise that substantial communal cooperation gives rise to individual liberty. By the corporate power of the communal, by communal wealth and production we open up space for the individual to be empowered and carve out his/her own life. There is no state, no government, and no private owners of capital that can control and determine what we can and cannot do. There are many forms of this, and the kind I have been describing is a form of anarcho-syndicalism. The point of communal cooperation in terms of ensuring a certain amount of equality and the abolition of wage labor is to optimize the potential for self-determination, the capacity for individuals to be able to have the opportunities they need to shape their own lives without having to either sell themselves to others (as in capitalism) or to be controlled and managed by state power.

[anticlimacus]

Individuals engage in social relations with other individuals. How could the individual possibly be the derivative here? Each social relationship starts with an individual. Only an individual thinks and acts. Society is the result of individuals thinking and acting together.

You could take the individual out of society. Just drop a newborn on an empty planet. Sure the infant wouldn't survive much longer, but thats not a problem here. The invidual will continue to exist beyond the point that society has disappeared.

You can't create a society without individuals. Remove all the individuals and society instantly disappeares.

I am not saying there is no such thing as a thinking acting human being. If you want to isolate these as individual units fine--but, so what? When has this unit ever existed outside of a social relation? When has this individual never been defined as a particular individual (as a "person") outside of a social context?
I agree--"society" is an abstraction. But so is "individual"--do we count infants as "individuals"? Do all societies? Do we count the insane as individuals or those in comas? Some societies may others may not. We become what we are as agents (actors within social contexts) in the context of our interactions with our environment and other agents. We are not just "individuals" (however you want to define that!), and then enter into social relations. We are interactive beings, and our "individuality" (our very "personhood") is defined within that context.

[Eran]

First, it must be stated that prices, particularly in capitalism, hide costs inputs and do not necessarily reflect the real costs of goods and services. For instance, prices do not necessarily reflect extrinsic costs, such as pollution or the reasons for lower cost of labor, such as deskilled labor or job insecurity.

The solution for negative externalities such as pollution is better property rights. Any industrial society would have some pollution and no mechanism other than property rights can quantify its cost and thus aim towards an optimal level of pollution.

The other issues you mention would require further explanation. What do you mean be "the reasons for lower cost of labour, such as deskilled labour or job insecurity"?

But not that we need capitalist markets in order to determine efficient rational calculation (which markets simply often do not do!). A centralized planning committee does not know the real use value of a good is to me. But if we are in a decentralized system, where exchanges are between simple use-values then we each know exactly what we need and what each use-value's worth is to us.

I agree that the critical component for Mises's analysis isn't capitalism per-se, but rather free markets coupled with diverse ownership of the means of production (or, more accurately, of the residual value of production). A system whereby the means of production are effectively owned by small syndicates or communities which, amongst themselves, trade products at arms-length may well produce price information on the traded factors of production, though not (as below) on those factors of production (like labour) which are not "traded".

They know what is most efficient and what they need because they operate their own industry.

They cannot know what is most efficient if there are no prices (wages) associated with different employment alternatives. As Mises showed, economic calculation cannot be reduced to a technical ("engineering") problem. An engineer (or an industry expert) might be able to tell you that the same job can be performed by 5 low-skilled workers, or 2 high-skilled workers plus $100,000 in capital equipment. But therein ends his expertise.

To be able to determine which alternative is more efficient one has to be able to compare the two alternatives on a single scale. Money provides the only possible such scale. But without wage information, you don't know what the relative cost of the various workers are.

Further, workers move from one industry to another. Even if workers somehow did know the value of individuals in their own industry, how would they be able to compare that value to the value those same individuals might have in another industry?

What right wing libertarianism does, by making negative liberty and private property the cornerstone of its social organization is isolate individuals and make them alone: Alone for your own survival, alone to either find property or to sell your labor, alone to find your own education, healthcare, shelter, etc. Given we live in social contexts where resources are unequally distributed, right wing libertarianism also leaves you alone to completely go without any of the basic needed resources.

To be perfectly honest, I find this disappointing. Numerous (right) libertarians, myself included, have explained, time and time again, how false this characterisation is. In fact, it is almost exactly the opposite of the truth.

Libertarianism leaves open a wide range of forms of social interaction, ruling out only the initiation of force. History is full of examples of how people organise in various forms in the context of such framework. No, you are not alone. You can join or form a labour union, a friendly society, a syndicate or a co-op. You can donate your time or money to charity or accept assistance from others. You can find employment or become self-employed.

So no, right libertarians don't "leave you alone".

I agree--"society" is an abstraction. But so is "individual"--do we count infants as "individuals"? Do all societies? Do we count the insane as individuals or those in comas? Some societies may others may not. We become what we are as agents (actors within social contexts) in the context of our interactions with our environment and other agents. We are not just "individuals" (however you want to define that!), and then enter into social relations. We are interactive beings, and our "individuality" (our very "personhood") is defined within that context.

Yes, of course. We are individuals operating within a social context. We are also social animals. Which is precisely why you can be confident that free people would still choose to cooperate and help each other.

[anticlimacus]

The solution for negative externalities such as pollution is better property rights. Any industrial society would have some pollution and no mechanism other than property rights can quantify its cost and thus aim towards an optimal level of pollution.

The other issues you mention would require further explanation. What do you mean be "the reasons for lower cost of labour, such as deskilled labour or job insecurity"?

Communities know best what the cost of externalities are on them, and when they actually have say over what goes on in their communities and are afforded the means to organize and deliberate over what constitutes healthy production for both themselves and their environment, externalities are not only more efficiently controlled, but also fairly controlled. Problems are not just hidden in a price. They are vocalized and deliberated upon and conveyed to syndicates by communal boards.

Lower costs of labor can occur for a variety of reasons. It can occur by automation, which is not always a bad thing so long as production is always controlled by workers themselves (which it is not under capitalism). It can occur as a result of cheaper labor elsewhere due to different labor laws and/or standards of living and inequality. It can occur due to deprofessionalization, where labor is given less control and discretion on the job and instead more routine and standardization. The reasons--and whether it is efficient, both in terms of economic cost and social and psychic costs (time, stress, anxiety, etc.)--are not evident in the price and also often not even reflected in the price.

I agree that the critical component for Mises's analysis isn't capitalism per-se, but rather free markets coupled with diverse ownership of the means of production (or, more accurately, of the residual value of production). A system whereby the means of production are effectively owned by small syndicates or communities which, amongst themselves, trade products at arms-length may well produce price information on the traded factors of production, though not (as below) on those factors of production (like labour) which are not "traded".

Local syndicates could very well keep track with rigorous bookkeeping of how much of what is needed and what goes into what. This could be very easily communicated with other syndicates and could very well work in a federated system, and it does not necessarily need to be governed by markets for this to be efficient.

They cannot know what is most efficient if there are no prices (wages) associated with different employment alternatives. As Mises showed, economic calculation cannot be reduced to a technical ("engineering") problem. An engineer (or an industry expert) might be able to tell you that the same job can be performed by 5 low-skilled workers, or 2 high-skilled workers plus $100,000 in capital equipment. But therein ends his expertise.

To be able to determine which alternative is more efficient one has to be able to compare the two alternatives on a single scale. Money provides the only possible such scale. But without wage information, you don't know what the relative cost of the various workers are.

Further, workers move from one industry to another. Even if workers somehow did know the value of individuals in their own industry, how would they be able to compare that value to the value those same individuals might have in another industry?

Why couldn't they know what is most efficient any more than any other use value? Labor is treated as a use-value and that value is readily determined by those who actually do the work--they know what they need, and what is most efficient. The price of labor in a market system, however, is not necessarily efficiently determined. The fact that I am getting cheap labor may mean more profits for my business, but it also may mean less economic consumer power. Is it really efficient for a capitalist business to buy labor at 10 cents an hour for 16 hour days? Maybe it is for the capitalist, but not necessarily for labor or the community from which labor is sourced. They are the ones who experience the social cost of high stress and job insecurity. And when the business moves for cheaper labor and lax pollution laws elsewhere? Once again it is the communities that feel those costs, not the capitalist.
Now in my system, labor is paid--not by somebody who owns the capital, but as voting members of a syndicate that makes decisions on the value of their labor. Labor would have to consider how much they are paid in one syndicate and how much they would be able to get paid in another. Likewise each syndicate would have to determine the value of incoming labor--how much do we pay engineers with more experience and expertise? How much do other pay them? Etc. Again, my system employs pricing, but within a socialist system where property is communally owned and the workplace is democratized.

To be perfectly honest, I find this disappointing. Numerous (right) libertarians, myself included, have explained, time and time again, how false this characterisation is. In fact, it is almost exactly the opposite of the truth.

Libertarianism leaves open a wide range of forms of social interaction, ruling out only the initiation of force. History is full of examples of how people organise in various forms in the context of such framework. No, you are not alone. You can join or form a labour union, a friendly society, a syndicate or a co-op. You can donate your time or money to charity or accept assistance from others. You can find employment or become self-employed.

So no, right libertarians don't "leave you alone".

The key difference is that right wing libertarians leave options open only on a formal level. There is no substantive means supplied for all in order to actualize potential. So only in a very abstract way are persons "open to a wide range of forms of social interaction"--however, if we live in a ghetto because we have next to nothing, then our "wide range of forms of social interaction" available in the abstract, as a formal guarantee, are in reality, substantially limited. That is why I say it "leaves you alone." In the abstract, the world is available to you, so are all kinds of social interactions. But we do not live in the abstract. We live in the real substantial world, and in that world we are confronted with all the limits and barriers society (and the environment) sets up. If some are super rich at the expense of the many, those are real barriers that make a substantive difference on life opportunities--even if nobody can legally force me to do anything, I am forced by circumstance to, for instance, sell myself for less because I already have next to nothing. We share nothing in common, universally--as social givens--, on a substantive level in right wing libertarianism. In that regard we are, you must admit, "left alone."

Yes, of course. We are individuals operating within a social context. We are also social animals. Which is precisely why you can be confident that free people would still choose to cooperate and help each other.

Yes, but my point is twofold: the first is that the dichotomy between "Society" and "individual" is a false one. THere is neither just "society" nor just "individual". We are interactive beings, and society is composed of the networks of patterned interactions and individuality is derivative from that.
Second, Right wing libertarianism, as opposed to left wing libertarianism, leaves us free only in a negative and abstract sense. In reality it leaves so many confined and subject to the authority of others--authority that comes with economic power and control over the means of production. Left wing libertarianism socializes much of this: capital is socialized entirely, and certain social goods are shared in common so that opportunity is equally shared. So substantially, as well as formally, left wing libertarianism frees us to actualize our potential.

[Eran]

Problems are not just hidden in a price. They are vocalized and deliberated upon and conveyed to syndicates by communal boards.

Prices do not hide problems, but rather expose those problems in quantifiable way. Without quantifying problems society loses the ability to handle them rationally.

Let's say your community is faced with two production choices. It can produce variant A while producing less pollution, or variant B creating more pollution. Members of other communities prefer B to A. How will the community choose?

The market answer is to charge more for B, an excess which can be viewed as the price of the pollution. If others are willing to pay the extra amount for B, it makes sense to produce it despite the higher pollution level. Otherwise, stick with A. The higher price of B thus exposes the pollution issue to the rest of the world.

How would your world handle the issue?

Lower costs of labor can occur for a variety of reasons. It can occur by automation, which is not always a bad thing so long as production is always controlled by workers themselves (which it is not under capitalism). It can occur as a result of cheaper labor elsewhere due to different labor laws and/or standards of living and inequality. It can occur due to deprofessionalization, where labor is given less control and discretion on the job and instead more routine and standardization. The reasons--and whether it is efficient, both in terms of economic cost and social and psychic costs (time, stress, anxiety, etc.)--are not evident in the price and also often not even reflected in the price.

But of course they are. For example, if people are less happy to engage in deprofessionalized tasks, a producer would have to pay more to attract workers, and the issue will be reflected in the price. If a product can be produced more cheaply due to lower labour costs elsewhere, its price could be dropped reflecting the lower costs. Workers in a foreign country face fewer employment opportunities. They appreciate the opportunity to work more than domestic workers. That preference is expressed in their willingness to work for lower wages and, ultimately, in the price.

Local syndicates could very well keep track with rigorous bookkeeping of how much of what is needed and what goes into what. This could be very easily communicated with other syndicates and could very well work in a federated system, and it does not necessarily need to be governed by markets for this to be efficient.

Local syndicates can easily keep track of the quantity of different production factors. But without market-generated prices, how can you compare them? How can you tell whether producing using 10 * A + 5 * B is better or worse than producing using 5 * A + 10 * B if A & B are different factors of production, and you have no market-generated prices for them?

The price of labor in a market system, however, is not necessarily efficiently determined. The fact that I am getting cheap labor may mean more profits for my business, but it also may mean less economic consumer power. Is it really efficient for a capitalist business to buy labor at 10 cents an hour for 16 hour days? Maybe it is for the capitalist, but not necessarily for labor or the community from which labor is sourced. They are the ones who experience the social cost of high stress and job insecurity. And when the business moves for cheaper labor and lax pollution laws elsewhere? Once again it is the communities that feel those costs, not the capitalist.

Cheap labour doesn't mean higher profits. It means, in the context of a competitive industry, lower prices reflecting lower cost of production. Higher profits merely attract competition which would force producers to reduce their prices.

In terms of the workers and the community, under capitalism, they choose the work that best meets their preferences. All people prefer, other things being equal, making more money. But people also prefer shorter hours, more pleasant and safe working conditions, longer vacations and more job security. Different occupations (whether as employee or otherwise) represent different "packages", and workers are free to choose amongst them. "Efficiency" in that respect is expressed by allowing workers to choose the employment package that best suits their preferences.

Now in my system, labor is paid--not by somebody who owns the capital, but as voting members of a syndicate that makes decisions on the value of their labor. Labor would have to consider how much they are paid in one syndicate and how much they would be able to get paid in another. Likewise each syndicate would have to determine the value of incoming labor--how much do we pay engineers with more experience and expertise? How much do other pay them? Etc. Again, my system employs pricing, but within a socialist system where property is communally owned and the workplace is democratized.

Ok, so you envision free flow of labour from one syndicate to another, with syndicates potentially paying more to attract workers with valuable and rare skills. Once again I find your system interesting because it looks a lot like free market capitalism.

In particular, workers don't really have the freedom to decide how much to pay their fellow workers. Conceptually you can think of the pay an employee gets as being made of wage plus profit share. I know you don't use this terminology, but bear with me. Broadly speaking, the "wage" component is the stable, long-term payment, while the "profit" (which could also be a loss) reflects short-term fluctuations above or below the "wage" level.

In the long-term, by this definition, the profit component averages to zero. If workers are offered a "wage" which falls below what they would be offered by other syndicates, they will leave the syndicate. If they are offered "wage" which is higher than that of other syndicates, the other syndicates would be able to offer their products for a lower price, thereby winning market share away. Thus in the long-term, the workers are constrained. What they can offer each other by way of payment is effectively determined by the market, not by their discretion.

Let's work through a scenario. An American syndicate is producing shirts to sell to various communities around the world. One day, a Vietnamese syndicate opens up offering the same shirts for a lower price due to lower labour costs. The American syndicate rapidly loses market share, as buyers prefer paying less rather than more for the same shirts. Soon, the American syndicates has to let all its members go as they find more profitable employment with other syndicates.

Thus the syndicate system doesn't protect workers from foreign, low-cost competition, does it?


More generally, let's try the following thought experiment. Let your society run for a while. Then one day change the "rules of the game" as follows. Every worker is awarded a share in the syndicates within which he works. He can choose to continue to hold the share, which entitles him for an equal vote in the running of the syndicate. However, the worker may also sell his share while keeping his job.

This change in rules doesn't make any worker's position worse than it used to be. Each worker may keep his share, and thereby his voting power within the syndicate. However, he now has an additional option open to him that wasn't available under your rules. It seems like the transition from your rules to mine makes nobody worse off, and at least some people (those who would choose to sell their share) better off.

The key difference is that right wing libertarians leave options open only on a formal level. There is no substantive means supplied for all in order to actualize potential. So only in a very abstract way are persons "open to a wide range of forms of social interaction"--however, if we live in a ghetto because we have next to nothing, then our "wide range of forms of social interaction" available in the abstract, as a formal guarantee, are in reality, substantially limited.

Yet this analysis flies in the face of history. 19th century workers, living in a much poorer society overall, and making much less money than modern workers, created and benefited from all the forms of voluntary organisations I described.

We have been discussing the tendency of right-libertarianism to "atomise" society. Logically and historically, free markets didn't create such results. On the contrary - mutual aid has declined due to the emergence of the welfare state, not due to capitalism.

If some are super rich at the expense of the many, those are real barriers that make a substantive difference on life opportunities--even if nobody can legally force me to do anything, I am forced by circumstance to, for instance, sell myself for less because I already have next to nothing.

What you have has nothing to do with how much you sell your labour (not "yourself") for. You sell your labour to the employer who (other things being equal) offers you the highest wage. Employers offer employment because they expect you to generate additional revenues for them. Facing competitive pressures, they cannot afford to underpay you, as then you would be snatched by their competitor.

In fact, the mechanism for pricing labour works precisely the same as the mechanism for pricing capital or land. The worker qua worker may have nothing but his labour to sell, but the capitalist qua capitalist has nothing but his capital to sell. Entrepreneurs qua entrepreneurs provide neither labour nor capital. Rather, they "hire" both in order to take advantage of opportunities they identify. Competing with other entrepreneurs, they are forced to pay market prices for both labour and capital.

We share nothing in common, universally--as social givens--, on a substantive level in right wing libertarianism. In that regard we are, you must admit, "left alone."

Yes, under right-libertarianism you are not owed anything is a matter of universal social "given". But that means precisely the opposite to being "left alone". Under other forms which do provide people with those common universals, a person need not cooperate or collaborate with others, and others feel no particular need to help. They know that your basic needs are already taken care of as "givens".

Conversely, under right libertarianism, you have no choice but to rely on what others give you voluntarily. And not just you - the same holds for every other member of society. Thus nobody in society can afford to be alone. Everybody must cooperate with others in order to survive, let alone flourish.

Needless to say, your mental image of workers as sweatshop workers without property and on the verge of starvation doesn't accord even with 19th century realities, not to mention those of the modern world. Workers have routinely used their wages to save, invest and emerge from the harsh conditions of poverty.

Not only was starvation unknown in capitalist societies, mutual aid was common and workers enjoyed modest luxuries that weren't available to them in previous eras.

Yes, but my point is twofold: the first is that the dichotomy between "Society" and "individual" is a false one. There is neither just "society" or just "individual". We are interactive beings, and society is composed of the networks of patterned interactions and individuality is derivative from that.

Ok

Second, Right wing libertarianism, as opposed to left wing libertarianism, leaves us free only in a negative and abstract sense. In reality it leaves so many confined and subject to the authority of others--authority that comes with economic power and control over the means of production. Left wing libertarianism socializes much of this: capital is socialized entirely, and certain social goods are shared in common so that opportunity is equally shared. So substantially, as well as formally, left wing libertarianism frees us to actualize our potential.

Freedom is always "negative". It signifies the absence of confinement. People in a free (i.e. right libertarian) society aren't confined. They can do as they please, provided only that they don't trample upon the property of others. Now if we lived on a small island, all of which was already owned, I could see the constraint of not trampling on other people's property as "confining". But in practice, we don't live in such a world. Earth is mostly empty, and opportunities abound.

However, the empty world doesn't provide us with economic goods. Those require human labour. A system which guarantees certain goods as "given" must, by logical necessity, compel others to provide you with these goods. That compulsion is inconsistent with freedom. So while under a free society you cannot be guaranteed any goods, there is absolutely nothing to stop others from voluntarily assisting you.