Saturday, April 10, 2010

I came upon this in a discussion of the forms anarchism takes in the USA. It was by someone using the name "Perdonaris". I thought I'd copy it to see if anyone's interested in the subject.

The reason I think Proudhon, Bakunin, and Emma Goldman would find Ayn Rand's company obnoxious is that Ayn Rand and libertarian capitalists are not opposed to government or even big government. They are afraid of levelling and government programs that help the disadvantaged at the expense of wealth and profit. In America (and other countries) there is an immense bureaucracy to protect private property and the freedom of the well off. Without this immense bureaucracy and big government the wealthy would not be able to hold on to their property. If someone steals your computer who do you call? The police. If the police do not help you can try to get a private detective to help you. The average person cannot afford a P.I. to monitor their spouses let alone track down a computer but the wealthy can. This is the libertarian socialist critique of Ayn Rand "anarchism". The rich and powerful need a big state to control their wealth. It does not matter whether it is a private dick (Magnum P.I) or a public dick (the police station) who does your bidding. Just ask a Wobbly about the Pinks. In fact this is what signifies authoritarianism or statism. The Bolsheviks said they had destroyed the State, it was the movement or the revolution that acts. Pinochet got advice from Milton Friedman on how to organize the Chilean economy according to libertarian capitalism. The police in Chile were just as prominent there however as they were in the Soviet Union or North Korea. Your average Chilean was as miserable and living on subsistence wages as your Soviet peasant. There was a wealthy elite ruling both countries. In Chile it was the generals and in the U.S.S.R. it was the politburo. In America it is Wall Street. It is impossible to separate Goldman Sachs and Ayn Rand. Both need the State for support and bailing out when they screw up. They need the State to prevent laid off workers smashing down the factories they once worked in and keeping the same people from stealing bread from the elite's stores when they are hungry. That Wall Street financiers and CEOs live in special gated communities and shop in special stores for themselves where they do not have to observe any poverty...well that was the U.S.S.R. In the U.S.S.R. you could get bread or vodka if you knew somebody that was high up (kind of like mafia connections). The most galling thing about the U.S.S.R. was that the Party which ran everything never took the blame for the mess they created (a new Five Year Plan will fix the old Five Year Plan). It was like being CEO but instead IBM or a consortium like OPEC and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce you were CEO of the entire country with the full weight of the forces of the Pentagon and the CIA. The Party lived in special places and shopped in special stores. The media was protected from interference by the Soviet citizens by massive armies around the radio and T.V. stations. The irony of the U.S.S.R. was that it was a paradise for politburo members and misery for the majority of society. If you had connections you could get pretty much anything you wanted just like in America. Without connections, like being related to a Party member or a general you had to wait in line like any other schlub. Walmart for the proletariat and Wegmann's for the Party. In America we have a great deal of freedom because of elections and choice, not capitalism, not competition. The object of competition is dominance, or controlling the market. If you cannot control the market what is the point of competition? Walmart was a small business that has come to dominate America economically and politically through competition. This is the same story with health insurance companies that resolve the problem of competition by demarcating territory to another company while that company respects your territory--kind of like two organized crime syndicates in New York: Italians run this and Irish run that (this by the way is how I would define nations, nationalism etc.--Great Britain has this land and Germany has this land. Don't go into my territory Hitler or we will wipe you out said Churchill to Hitler--2 gangsters planning a war). If the U.S. Chamber of Commerce were given the right to veto legislation then what we would have in America (whether the U.S. Chamber of Commerce is called the Department of Commerce or an independent entity) is the U.S.S.R.

8 comments:

fleming said...

Silly stuff Jemmy. Check the history of Wal-Mart. It didnt start as a behometh. It grew to be one after numerous failings by its founder, Sam Walton. It did so by being unbelievably hard working and smart about its distribution and cost controls.

Anarchists believe the "rule of law" is to their detriment because they dont have anything of value, or crave what others have. They want to take from those that do without repurcussion.

Chaos and anarchy do not make for a happy world Jemmy. Been to Haiti or Somalia lately? Too much control is bad also - aka North Korea and the old USSR. Its a balancing act. Nobody ever gets it perfect. The USA has, thus far, been pretty well balanced.

Ayn Rand-ites do not like big government. Obviously if the criminal element gets out of control, then either a public or private police force is required. Ayn Rand-ites dont advocate that individuals have the right to hurt or steal from others. Only that the govt has no role in telling people how to live their lives -- as long as its not harmful to others. FYI< being harmful does not mean making a profit.

Valda Redfern said...

Ayn Rand maintained that the proper role of government was to protect individual rights. Government, in her view, was essential, but for this purpose alone. She defined capitalism as "a social system based on recognition of individual rights, including property rights, in which all property is privately owned." She said this of anarchism, in the context of a scathing criticism of libertarians: "Anarchism is the most irrational, anti-intellectual notion every spun by the concrete-bound, context-dropping, whim-worshipping fringe of the collectivist movement, where it properly belongs."
[Source: http://aynrandlexicon.com/ ]

Anonymous said...

In the absence of government intervention, 'leveling' is an essential feature of a capitalist economy, as Ayn Rand pointed out repeatedly [see Prof. George Reisman's 'Capitalism' which is free on the 'net}.
The Uniformity of Profit Principle, is probably second only to the Division of Labour principle, in terms of fundamentality-

http://www.capitalism.net/program.pdf

so you are quoting someone who hasn't got a clue about anything - it's just words, words, words, signifying ignorance and stupidity, nothing more.

Jemmy Hope said...

"so you are quoting someone who hasn't got a clue about anything - it's just words, words, words, signifying ignorance and stupidity, nothing more."

You Rand cultists are a touchy bunch.

"Been to Haiti or Somalia lately?"
No, and I haven't been to New Orleans or Fallujah.

"The role of government is to protect the minority of the opulent from the majority." (James Madison). "Protecting individual rights", in other words.

"Ayn Rand-ites do not like big government." No, flem, but they like big armies. How individual are the military allowed to be?

Jemmy Hope said...

http://www.sott.net/articles/show/193346-Wealthcare-the-Cult-of-Ayn-Rand

fleming said...

New Orleans is recovering nicely Jemmy. Its far, far, far from Haiti. The areas that arent coming back werent really economically or geographically viable anyway. Thus, Ayn Rand says they must go :)

Sadly Jemmy, big armies are there to protect the successful from the non-successful. You know it takes a successful, organized, productive and coherent society to build a competent military. Demean it if you like, but nonfunctioning societies (see much of the world) dont have big militaries because they cant organize them.

That does not inmply big military = "good", necessarily. It merely means, in our case, we need the military in order that others dont try, for covetness, jealousy or envy, try to take what we have built.

Anonymous said...

'"so you are quoting someone who hasn't got a clue about anything - it's just words, words, words, signifying ignorance and stupidity, nothing more."

You Rand cultists are a touchy bunch.

"Been to Haiti or Somalia lately?"
No, and I haven't been to New Orleans or Fallujah.'

In other words, don't bother yourself with the principle of Uniformity of Profit, or any other principle for that matter. Just throw around a few ad hominems and smears and silly accusations and hope that no one notices.

That's the method of trolls - here's another principle for you to try to evade - I don't feed trolls.

Jemmy Hope said...

I repeat, touchy.
You don't feed trolls, you think I'm a troll. Thank Christ for that. Goodbye.