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So you want to know the answer, do you? You know: The Answer. Well, freedom’s the answer! (What’s the question?) Joining me to demonstrate this point and discuss a few of the details are Keith Knight, Managing Editor of The Libertarian Institute and editor of The Voluntaryist Handbook, and Larken Rose, author of The Most Dangerous Superstition and creator of Jones Plantation film.
Watch on Archive / BitChute / Odysee / Rokfin / Rumble / Download the mp4
SHOW NOTES:
Keith Knight on The Voluntaryist Handbook
Larken and Amanda Rose on Jones Plantation film
Daniele Ganser on The Corbett Report
Don’t Worry! The Border Problem is About to be Solved!
Commie Hogwash! (Larken Rose video)
That Fraser Institute list was a bad example Keith, as the countries they declare to have the most freedom are actually the most statist, collectivist and socialist (socialist here not meaning communist but welfare state) countries.
Their criteria are bogus, as you can see when going on their website, their number 1 indicator as listed is: rule of law! So actually the exact opposite to the freedom you’re advocating.
Their idea is: free countries are countries where you don’t get harrassed by your fellow man as opposed to not getting harrassed by your state.
It’s best to refrain from using such examples, as it undermines your goals.
I was also in disagreement with Keith citing the pompous Niall Ferguson, who was discredited for me long before he became an ‘expert’ on Covid. Here’s his WEF bio: https://www.weforum.org/people/niall-ferguson/.
But I really enjoy Keith and did an episode on him and James talking about The Unnecessary War: https://thirdparadigm.substack.com/p/corbett-unz-and-wwii-the-unnecessary. That led to this one: https://thirdparadigm.substack.com/p/churchills-atrocities and this: https://thirdparadigm.substack.com/p/the-trials-of-david-irving. And provided the foundation for my latest critique of the Jews: https://thirdparadigm.substack.com/p/hot-and-cold-hatred.
I also wanted them to define anarchy before debating it. My book goes back to the etymology and looks at it as rule by rules, not by rulers. My book: https://www.amazon.com/How-Dismantle-Empire-2020-Vision/dp/1733347607 is an economic system of anarchy or small scale sovereignty. I think it will take another episode to respond to James, Keith and Larken!
Definition of terms is a good idea prior to any meaningful debate can take place.
Yes! I finished listening and heard Keith refer back to the archons of Greece, which is where my book starts. I often start my episodes by defining the question, all the terms in it, and why it matters. Like this one on Empire & Religion: https://thirdparadigm.substack.com/p/empire-and-religion. Otherwise, you can argue for hours only to figure out you agree but had different meanings for the same term. Life’s too short! And the questions are too many to waste a good dialogue.
“A slave is one who waits for someone to come and free him.”
– Ezra Pound
– – – – – – – – – – – – –
“To learn who rules over you, simply find out who you are not allowed to criticize”
– Voltaire
Great podcast, though I would question the idea that keeping free trade with Communist China is somehow foundational to establishing or maintaining our freedoms.
Quite to the contrary, “Free Trade” with China, one of Bill Clinton era linchpins which has led to the abdominal circumstances we find ourselves today.
Lets see, free trade with China was moving forward simultaneously with the explosion of Wall Street backed Walmarts, the purveyors of all things made in China. A one two punch at the manufacturing and retail (small town) base of America.
Rexleo
“…A one two punch at the manufacturing and retail (small town) base of America…”
I think you miss the point- they dont give a damn about what happens to the small town base of America. I imagine that they all think of themselves as better then your average hick in fly over country because their smarter and better educated.
This philosophy is either
a)Selfish in the sense that its taken up by folks WHO WILL DO WELL UNDER ITS RULE
or
b)Solipsistic , in that it fails to understand that out of the 70 or 80% of people who WONT do better a portion will get organized and to demand that the rest give them stuff or take care and they will use organized violence to get their way
Anarchism poses less threat to the power structure then the Ghost Dance did to White rule of the USA. It poses even less threat then even conservatives do
I don’t MISS the POINT, the attack on small town IS THE POINT. I know they don’t care, they HATE US and want to kill us.
We are animals to them, just like they call the Palestinians.
They NEVER HELP US, one need only look at Maui to see how they really feel about us when we need help that does not align with what they want.
They help migrants when it comes to replacing white people, they help single mothers when it helps destroy the family…they never help only undermine.
RexLeo
“… they HATE US and want to kill us…”
I doubt that Mr Corbett, or the other too jokers, actually want to kill us.
The point I was making is that these folks we just watched chatting dont care about the small town types either- the idea of anarchism is, like i said, a mind game that well off,educated, cosmopolitan types enjoy.
Like one of them said, if the neighborhood goes to sh17 because of the people moving into it HE WILL JUST HAVE TO MOVE…..the unsaid part being “F you poors who cant” .
Glad you mentioned the idea of “free trade” with China, etc. I actually haven’t watched the entire podcast yet but did listen to that part.
I do agree with his point of view on moral grounds. The state does not have a right to intrude in the business of individuals who want to buy or sell to other countries. But in practice, this means something entirely different. Large corporations exploit cheap labor abroad and outsource manufacturing. There are sweat shops in other countries and child labor, almost slave labor. That is what “free trade” seems to mean currently.
Also pragmatically, immigration into a socialist country like the US is harming dependent Americans, elderly and disabled. Also, there are armed drug cartels operating in the US now and they are dangerous. If you shoot these people, you might die or be arrested by the state. So, to judge American’s for wanting to restrict immigration without considering valid points of view about the real life situation right now will fall on deaf ears.
So, I agree with JC and Larkin Rose on moral grounds in an ideal world, but we are not in an ideal world and there is a massive power and morality difference between the elitists and regular people. No every single immigrant is some upstanding person same as every American.
I think the gist of his point is “free trade for thee, not for me” or something. Because elite corporations can get away with just about anything, trade with whoever but the people don’t have the same liberty.
Clarification, not every single immigrant legal and illegal is some upstanding person and this can be said for Americans as well. There are psychopaths in the general population who aren’t part of the elite.
What exists now should be considered when discussing these ideas. Cultural differences exist and many ideas discussed here are from the west and western influenced cultures would be more amenable to them IMO.
I totally agree, I believe the issue is with the question, it, indirectly assumed some amount of benevolence of the system/state, when in reality is it purely malevolent.
America was built as a McNation, something to serve a short term purpose, then be hollowed out and thrown away.
We were the richest nation in the world, yet those riches were rarely if ever used for making America a great nation, highspeed rail, free education, secure borders, affordable healthcare…
America was always ready to “help the poor”, not the poor native (white people born in America) Americans, but the immigrants, the single mothers. When you build a “welfare” system that penalizes having a father in the house you know it was not there to help but undermine.
Hollywood, built not to entertain, but to manipulate. Now that they are wrapping up, they are purposely DESTROYING Hollywood, they want all white people out of California/Oregon/Washington. Hard to say why, but my only thought is they want us out so it will make it easier for China to move in.
America was built to be destroyed, we are vulnerable on every level, it is only a matter of when, not if. It is all part of the Abrahamic nonsense, they see us as Rome, and with Palestine, we see all too clearly what is in our future, we are all “animals” to them. I wish this was not true, but it is so obvious now, truly horrifying.
Indeed, for a good visual of the above, the first 10 minutes of the movie Elysium would to the job quite well.
Weapon: Freedom – I won’t. MYOB.
Peace.
Anon
But do you pay taxes….? Do you have a drivers licence…?Does your car have a plate?
Because for all the talk about ‘doing what thou wilt’ very few people are willing to drive without a licence or pay no taxes because, in their heart, everyone knows getting a bullet in the head is not worth it.
Everyone who wants to exist with a modicum of liberty does these things, i.e. not spend their life behind bars. Tax evasion prosecution is how the state regulates criminal enterprise and how they took down some of the mob (the government wanted a monopoly on organized crime). They also shake down ordinary people too for this.
The elite pay less and can break rules without penalty because they own the system. Look at Epstein and how long it took for any type of penalty. The most evil and wretched people are above the law. This is infuriating. The system as it is now is completely corrupt and it is natural to be disgusted by it.
The problem seems to be that wealth and bad intentions take over organized government, or there is a fundamental flaw in government itself, centralized authority etc. If it is a flawed system, the outcome will always be flawed. They don’t want to abide by the rules but they want others to be impeded by them.
There is even corruption in small towns, not all but some places. Why is that? People put up with it is the main reason.
cu.h.j
“…People put up with it is the main reason….”
Yes, people somehow swallowed the lie that the Government is your best friend….. or the counter lie that all authority is bad.
Funny enough I suspect BOTH sickly ideas grow from the Enlightenment thinking that has killed off the west.
The idea that we should have no bonds other those we choose is sick and in-human…..we owe our parents and our children at a very basic level. We owe our families, and from the family grows the nation and, to an extent, even the state.
As for tyranny …..
No one in Merry Olde England ACTUALLY thought the king could do anything he wanted or that he REALLY owned all the land….they believed in Absolute Monarchy in the sense that they Absolutely knew who messed up if something went wrong.
But people who idolize personal autonomy to the exclusion of everything are atomized and helpless against any organized force.
In a world where a small Network of Oligarchs own the Money Supply System (Federal Reserve) and create unlimited amounts of Money which they use to manage and manipulate those who will do anything for their Money, there will be no freedom. As we can see, the so called “Brightest Minds” among us are being paid well to create an AI system that will track our every move and transaction. The only way to beat the Network is to make their Money worthless by not using it. Gold and Silver is real Money. Barter and Trades can be done without paying tax. Bitcoin and other Crypto Currencies are good except that the exchanges are required to “Know their Customer” and thus Rat them out to a government.
Anyway, after the pre-planned Events of 9/11/01 the Network of Oligarchs has taken control of every worthless soul that can be bought. Today they pay Rachel Maddog at MSNBC upwards of $5 million a year because she can read lies and get large numbers of people to believe them. This is far more than Ted Compo was making in 2001 when he left ABC News as the #1 Journalist in the world. He walked away from that job when they gave him a Script to read, and he said that was not journalism.
I think that getting rid of real Journalists was one of the ways that the Network of Oligarchs was preparing to make sure that the “News” was controlled on, and after, 9/11/01.
MYOB
Its funny to hear the Boomer Take on how any system of Gov “has never worked” while advocating a system of life THAT HAS NEVER EXISTED, (the closest being the state of nature (where less then half the men get all the women and most of the food)
Its not even worth the effort to attack anarchism on philosophical grounds , simply because it is (like philosophy to a Roman) an intellectual game played by comfortable, smart, well off men….suggesting that something that has never existed is viable puts the onus upon the one suggesting it may come into being.
DIS-organized groups and individuals are always going to be subject to the will of ORGANIZED groups the mention of Mao and PopPot ought to remind folks that neither of these mass killers was ‘chosen’ to lead, they seized power thru force and achieved their own will thru directing organized groups of people.
Ditches are full of people who talked morality…. mass killers often die old and fat.
As to immigration…..the smart and well educated can say F’k poor people , but since I’m not an Elitist A-hole I dont want poor, sick or dumb people in my country driven into poverty wages by free trade and importation of cheap labor.
Open boarders are the ultimate Malthusian shredder if your into evolution, i guess
The mention of South Africa is timely as we see there that when a small Elite ran the place everyone was better off and the place was the bread basket of Africa….now its a economic cripple rife with ethnic violence. BLACK life span and quality of life was better with a bunch of racist whites in charge. Those blacks, and poorer whites, are now stuck in the dump while the wealthy ‘move to a new neighbourhood’ ….very moral, I’m sure 😉
Ask the Quakers if they should have had immigration controls…..
Read “The Populist delusion” by Neema Parveni and almost anyone will be cured of anarchism. I wish Mr Corbett would have him on, that would be a super cool conversation to hear.
That would be an interesting conversation. To be fair, “The Populist Delusion” was a very short cliff note version of Elite Theory(ies?).
I think a more workable idea(s) would be a step wise reduction in big government while teaching people how to be responsible for themselves.
I do think cultural differences also need to be taken into consideration since “anarchy” is a concept from Western culture as far as I know.
My question is has there ever been political leadership that has not become corrupt?
I think JC’s work has been inspired by the ideas from Political Ponerology(sp?) where those who want power tend to be psychopathic. At least this is how it has seemed to be with politics and heads of corporations, high IQ, low EQ/low empathy. So, in the interim period if we want to change things, leadership can come from the resistance and perhaps less psychopathy?
Perhaps separate the idea of leadership from government? Maybe decentralized leadership with educated “followers”?
I think it’s usually good to look at viewpoints that are different from one’s own and I think it would be fascinating to hear JC’s take on Neema Parveni’s work.
One obvious critique I have of this line of thought is that human consciousness is static and that there are no changes over time. I don’t think this is accurate and so there is the possibility to inspire a pivot out of a pyramid of power type societal structure in the West.
Leadership does not necessarily mean tyranny. In politics though, it sure seems to.
Strongly agree, Duck.
Anarchapulco was once described as a collection of very wealthy white dudes imagining a cocaine based fantasy paradise in a poor country.
Jeff Berwick admitted he loved the HBO documentary about Anarchapulco because he had no idea most of the things in it had happened even though he was meant to be in charge.
Anarchism is an untested Shangri-La. Crypto pie in the sky.
in SA, blacks were worse off under Mandela than under apartheid.
Anarchism will happen when we are independent of each other.
Perhaps not a cocaine based fantasy, more like MDMA or some other empathogen perhaps. Cocaine inspires shallow thoughts. But I get the point you’re making.
Point well-taken, Duck. Also, conspicuous by its absence (unless I missed it — please tell me if I did) was the contingency aspect of private property. It’s all well and good to have your own acreage, but from whom did you acquire it to begin with?? Perhaps you wrested or purchased it from the previous occupant, or found it abandoned or never occupied. But wars have been waged over smaller matters than real estate, so by what authority does one seize land, and by what consensus body of rules is one entitled to retain and control it?
And then there’s navigating the consequences of your impact on neighbors downstream (or upstream, if it’s YOUR water they’re polluting, or restricting by way of a dam, et cetera). If no ostensibly impartial third party (governmental or other) oversees the allocation of land, adjudicates territorial and impact disputes, et cetera, then we’re in a certain voluntaryist hell, wherein the guy who leads the most armed young men gets what he wants, and everyone else gets to suck it up until the tyrant is deposed.
I called myself an anarchist, growing up in a situation where most people joined an extreme socialist political party. Like Orwell power horrified me and I became a piss taking anarchist in the spirit of the Sex Pistols.
I now identify as a conspiracy theorist. I hate all politics and political writing. Particularly the ‘alternative media’.
John Lennon Gimme Some Truth – lyrics
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rsy6QxXiLKg
It turns out (sociology) that a pecking order appears to be inherent in groups (of animals and humans). Removing hierarchy doesn’t stop bullying or coercion. Hippy communes typically fell to pieces in months.
loggin
“…I now identify as a conspiracy theorist. I hate all politics and political writing….”
I understand the disgust, but being a “Conspiracy theorist” IS a political view is it not? I mean, you are taking a position on how “the Polis” works.
Man is basically a political animal, in the sense that you point out that there is always a hierarchy.
Thanks for the reply. Yes conspiracy theory influences politics.
I’m interested in promoting what brilliant researchers like Corbett have uncovered about 9/11. I don’t want to hang Tony Blair or ban Israelis from America.
I’m not pretending to be absolutely pure, obviously.
loggin
“…I’m not pretending to be absolutely pure…”
Reeeeee! I shall begin my purity spiral NOW!! 🙂 lol, JK
Duck,
You overgeneralise too much. I suggest you learn critical thinking skills. There are plenty of books out there on logic and reasoning etc.
All the best.
anon
“…You overgeneralise too much….”
On what subject?
Assuming you mean the “boomer take” comment then in what way am I over generalizing?
If you mean our earlier interaction, (“paying taxes”) then I should point out that the “Freemen on the land types” who actually have the balls to put their money where their mouth is are a astonishingly tiny band of crazy folks.
“…books out there on logic and reasoning etc…..”
Without looking at the data Logic is useless- if I see a dozen white sheep the logical assumption is that ALL sheep are white and this error can only be corrected by added observational data.
You DONT want to be like that Greek philosopher who expelled a student for suggesting that the best way to know how many teeth a horse possesses was to open its mouth and count them do you?????
Duck,
You’re entitled to your opinions. Thank you for sharing them.
Anon
Your welcome…but the only reason to share them is so that they can be challenged and the more correct opinion arrived at.
I was suprised just the other day at a person i know personally who flat out refused to argue and got tearful when challenged on their opinion that ‘Human life has inherent value’ (I agree BTW, lol) but the fact that they were totally unable to argue their position and burst into tears when asked to prove the point made me dismiss them as someone who will be led around by others.
Duck,
As a general rule, I tend not to have discourse with pseudo-intellectuals. It’s generally a waste of time because that kind of interlocutor is not genuinely interested in productive, intellectual discussion; but rather they’re interested in trying to appear clever to the audience.
Though that doesn’t mean they’re bad people, that they don’t have good character traits, redeeming qualities etc. And it doesn’t mean they’re doomed to delusion and ignorance forever. There’s always the chance that they learn and develop.
All the best.
anon
“…. but rather they’re interested in trying to appear clever to the audience….”
I find its more useful if you find someone who will make me look stupid and thus make ideas actually worth holding.
Personally, since I am not a silly young girl, I don’t care if people like me online, or in real life TBH.
The thing is that the general Feminine-ization of culture results in people reacting emotionally (as in the true story earlier) rather then being able to bring points- they want social capital rather then Truth.
Such people really do not matter because they will always do what they are told in the end anyway which is why they are socialized to act like that.
A pecking order does seem to be natural, particularly male populations in scarcity/stress. I was learning a lot about the male prison system many months ago and it was fascinating to learn how things operate there.
In the state of CA people segregate based on race and there is a pecking order established there. But this is an artificial system with a lot of violent and low empathy people inside. It’s similar to the rat utopia.
Perhaps with less artificial scarcity and stress, this pecking order would/could change.
There are measurable chemical factors that influence human behavior in addition to sociology. We can’t ignore these factors.
Some of the men who end up in prison who weren’t sociopaths had to abide by the rules to survive. I’ve listened to some interviews of people who discuss prison life. Under duress and stress and in survival mode people behave very differently.
@ Loggin
I have been a follower of religion in the past. No Government is just. I am sure anti-government is just as bad.
Now I follow Catastrophism. Have you heard of the EPIC of GILGAMESH?
Have you ever read the book written by Chan Thomas “Adam and Eve”?
https://archive.org/details/the-adam-and-eve-story
Here is the CIA version https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP79B00752A000300070001-8.pdf
After I discovered the earth wobbling. I noticed the sun in a place it has never shown on my property. It really changed my perspective on everything. https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/maps/historical_declination/
Most people are unaware of all of that is happening. For example the solar cycles. The Maunder Minimum, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maunder_Minimum#/media/File:Sunspot_Numbers.png
The Carrington Event https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carrington_Event
There is much more going on in our world and universe. These clowns that think they are in control of something are about to be awakened by some real in your face CME, A magnetic flip or a total wipeout of everything like a toilet flush.
FYI: we are in solar cycle 25 a Grand Solar Minimum is expected soon. Just like the MAUNDER MINIMUM.
You can learn much here from Dr Tony Parker. https://spaceweather.com/
Here is a quick summary of the book Adam and EVE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z98ndrw29L4
I enjoyed this conversation. I found it very thought provoking, and also a nice challenge to common beliefs and world views. Yes, it seems principles have consequences, and can be costly. But what are we without them?
The segment has my brain gears a spinning.
thanks for making this.
I was not upset on this occasion.
I wasn’t upset either.
Although a new question popped up in my mind: suppose a majority of people would agree to try anarchy (i guess it would have to be regional), what would then happen to all the public buildings and infrastructure? Who would own it if there’s no state and noone has more rights than his neighbor to claim ownership?
I don’t understand that part either. If someone has an answer, say all public buildings are sold to Jeff Bezos and public transportation including subway system with drivers and everything belongs to company X. Where does X get the money from to maintain the infrastructure and pay the train drivers?
Pill
You CAN turn a profit with a rail company, but if profit is your main goal you will have a much more compact service thats not as much a ‘public good’, so to speak.
The rail systems were privately owned and built for a long time in the UK….they nationalized and then privatized it later after the Minister of Transport (who owned a road building company) had shut off all the smaller branch lines that made the system useful.
I deliberately used the subway system as an example because building tunnels with huge subway stations under a city costs more than a railroad above ground, on flat land, without tunnels. The subway fare alone does not pay for all that, so other taxpayer money is used to cross-finance it. At least in Europe.
And as for the privatized railroad, yes, it has been tried in many countries, especially in the late 90s and early 2000s. However, if you look closer, it’s usually the service that’s really been privatized, not the infrastructure part. Maybe it was different in the UK and didn’t fail, didn’t require any more tax money, I don’t know. The same pattern applies to many other public projects that have been privatized, like nuclear power plants: It now belongs to a private energy company which makes money with it, but as far as I know, no private company is willing nor able to pay for decomissioning, so the taxpayer has to pay.
Back to rail infrastructure. What if a huge tsunami damages most rails, overhead power lines, bridges, plus the roads where the workers would have to drive everywhere to repair everything. Which private company is going to pay all that, without asking for tax money?
Building and maintaining infrastructure does not generate profits, so it is traditionally done by the state. If well planned, people end up with, say, new subway stations some years later. If planned by kleptocrats, it’ll redirect taxpayers’ money to those kleptocrats without anything new being built.
So yes, you can privatize infrastructure that has been built with public money, but the private owner usually isn’t able to rebuild it if too much of it breaks and for the same reason, privatized infrastructure usually isn’t maintained properly anymore.
Pill
“…So yes, you can privatize infrastructure that has been built with public money, …”
The British Railways were all built by private companies, inc the London Underground.
They were taken over by the state AFTER having functioned for decades, then sold off (kinda……the Gov still pays the upkeep mostly)
That said, they did have to pass Bills to allow right of way and such, with the provision (as I heard it) that stations be built at least every so often….there is a town called Anerly which got its name from the resident of the lone house in the place being a scottsman who when asked what the place was called said “D’Ont know, mines the ‘annerly’ house around here….” 🙂
Thats the story, anyway.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Underground
It’s definitely interesting that the UK subway appears to be an exception to the rule, apparently having been built with private money. Now, let me point out what I believe might underline my argument.
Quoting Wikipedia, under “Move to public ownership, 1924-1933”:
Despite the modernisation of the C&SLR and other improvements made to other parts of the network,[note 13] the Underground railways were still struggling to make a profit. The Underground Group’s ownership of the highly profitable London General Omnibus Company (LGOC) since 1912 had enabled the Group, through the pooling of revenues, to use profits from the bus company to subsidise the less profitable railways.[note 14] However, competition from numerous small bus companies during the early years of the 1920s eroded the profitability of the LGOC and had a negative impact on the profitability of the whole Group.
That paragraph alone seems to confirm what I wrote earlier (Building and maintaining infrastructure does not generate profits, so it is traditionally done by the state):
A) They were struggling to make a profit, which I read as: They are not making profit.
B) Funding from that Omnibus Company was required to pay for the subway (pooling of revenues).
C) Competition from bus(!) companies caused that Omnibus Company to make less money, so there was less money that could be pooled, i.e., used to pay for the subway.
D) Subsequently, a public transport board was formed etc.
So if I read it correctly, it confirms my knowledge of how it works today – the subway system is a type of infrastructure that’s too expensive for a private company alone as it doesn’t generate profits. They need money from others (“pooling of revenues”) to build and maintain it. It works the same way nowadays. And who is “others”, whose money are we talking about? It’s the taxpayers’ money that a public organization receives. In this particular case, private money from that Omnibus Company was apparently sufficient for a certain time, until that bus company didn’t have a monopoly anymore. Do you see what I’m trying to point out here? It’s the exact same mechanism, other money is required and the only reliable source of money is tax money.
Note point C: It was competition (free market) that caused less money to flow in. On the other hand, tax money is available (to a public org) as long as the government allocates money to keep the infrastructure running. I am in a part of Europe where that is the case and where, at the same time, other former public services which were privatized are visibly degrading because maintaining infrastructure costs, well, I’m repeating myself.
Finally, I was going to ask if any private company is actively building infrastructure like new tunnels and underground stations and/or maintaining the existing ones to keep them safe but I think you’ve already answered that:
> (kinda……the Gov still pays the upkeep mostly)
I have to say, I feel like this story basically confirmed by knowledge (or bias?).
But in any case, the history of those projects from 100 years ago is very interesting, I have to read more.
Pill
“….It’s definitely interesting that the UK subway appears to be an exception to the rule, apparently having been built with private money…..”
You should note that Britain was AFAIK the FIRST nation to create a steam railway system of any kind.
The reason you see OTHER Gov involvement in paying for railways MAY be because they saw how it turned the UK into a CyberPunk SUperpower and wanted to copy them.
About Infrastructure-
1) infrastructure is kept around IF it pays for itself OR IS USEFUL TO THE REST OF THE SYSTEM (When the Brits shut off the little ‘branch lines’ the railway became far less useful and started to die)
2) The INCENTIVE (see “freakanomics” books) structure matters….Victorian Englishmen built for the Ages and they kept things up because they expected their kids to inherit.
Now railways and such are run by managers who get ZERO BENEFIT FROM ANYTHING THAT HAPPENS AFTER THEY LEAVE OFFICE. They are basically like US home renters who knock holes in the wall and let their water beds leak because they will soon move elsewhere. You take good care of the house you will give your own kids, though.
Hughsername
“…what would then happen to all the public buildings and infrastructure? …”
Probably the same as happened in Russia….twice, once under Bolshevism and again with its fall.
A small (((Tribe))) that is tight knit and organized seizes control of, or buys everything at fire sale prices.
Buys it from who? If the state ain’t there, there’s no seller 😉
hugesername
“…Buys it from who? …”
Then they default to Option 1, as exercised by the (((Bolsheviks))) in Russia, is to seize control of those assets with a small group of organized, armed men.
People would the common interest in maintaing the infrastructure or they would not.
I don’t know about what’s happening in your parts, but here much of the infrastructure is crumbling. The aquifiers lose an obscene amount of water (50% and above), the roads are 75% pavement free, the railroad is a regional disgrace… If a lair of racoons took over, it could not get much worse.
Yeah, local and regional voluntary communities could be an example for how something like this could work.
With respect to borders though, private property does have these. If a community bought land and that was their community and it was a closed community could exclude or include people. To breach their borders without consent is trespassing. There are parallels to the idea of immigration with what nation states do in a way.
I think a lot of this type of system has to do with consent and I agree that that is necessary for a moral system.
correction, I think the voluntary system’s strength has to do with ethics, particularly consent.
The nation state system does not involve consent, thus it is less ethical.
So the guest describes nationalism like politicians claiming ownership of land, effectively overruling private property (friend from Mexico can’t come visit, around 30min mark).
But that reminds me of Dr. Gates who bought so much land, I think he now owns most of the farmland in the US. Does this still count as accepted private property? He legally bought it with all the money he accumulated investing in big pharma etc. Or how about Blackrock effectively buying Ukraine. It doesn’t mean that Blackrock agents are standing at the border, checking papers, but if they are pushing digital ids (vaccine passports) and these are then checked by “national” border agents, what’s the difference?
Bill Gates and others like him are criminals who have gained their wealth in a corrupt system. They essentially own the state or have so much influence that there is little difference.
Without state protection some of these criminals might find themselves in some form of prison or worse. The system that exists now is not for us, the regular people but it is for them who own it.
Right and if the argument is that in a fair system, an entity like Gates wouldn’t be able to accumulate so much wealth to buy half the land because he/it would be behind bars, I’d be all for it.
But as you say, it doesn’t work that way, it is a corrupt system.
And so it goes, Gates buys all the farmland and he can do anything because it’s all his private property. He can rent it to farmers, under the condition that they vaccinate their lifestock with mRNA medicine (conspiracy theory).
Yes, I think you are correct. A boycott of these companies could have some effect. However, if borders or open, people like this will just replace labor from other places who will comply with their conditions. This is why some people don’t want open borders at this time.
Additionally, there is human trafficking going on in addition to drug smuggling. I mean this will probably happen even if borders are closed because of bribes and corruption. But do open borders do anything to stop this or will this increase in the current corrupt system? I just would like to learn more of the specifics of what is the net benefit to an open border policy in a corrupt system. The thought of expanding drug cartel operation in America is unsettling.
Most of the methamphetamine and fentanyl are coming in via drug cartels from Mexico and this is decimating young Americans in cities. There are legitimate logical issues raised against open borders now at this time. It is not just people being xenophobic red necks.
As far as the open border question is concerned, I can only say that I’m generally against preventing anyone from crossing an imaginary line. I don’t mean that all border crossings should be removed. So in almost all cases, unless someone is a criminal, s/he should be able to cross the border (specifically without being harassed by people like TSA).
There will always be people who try to bring drugs across the border or who have some illegal migrants in their van. However, industrial sized inflow of drugs and weapons is usually organized by CIA & Co. and they do not cross land borders, they have their own planes.
Anyway, two examples come to mind.
A) Prostitution is illegal in some countries, although it has always and will always exist. The Netherlands is one of several examples where it’s been legalized. While illegal elsewhere, for the fear that women are forced to work there, a major reason for legalization was to allow it officially, so that there’d be no market for illegal, forced prostitution. And it appears to work, it’s almost omnipresent in certain areas and there, it’s no secret, you’d see huge red lamps on the building…
B) Within the EU, there are no border crossings anymore. Of course, there are airports and such. But you can drive between EU member countries and if you miss the sign, you’ll only notice that you’ve crossed the border when the writing is in a different language. For many citizens, that’s basically the only advantage of the EU but economically, it hurts all the poor member countries. With open borders, without customs regulations, production of goods is moved to the poorest countries (east) while at the same time, citizens from those poor member countries move in the other direction, to the richer member countries. In Eastern Europe, many production facilities have just been abandoned, foreign products are imported instead and so many hundreds of thousands of people lost their work, so no wonder many of them move to the richer member countries in the West. Without the customs union, those wouldn’t be out of work.
Having crossed many land border crossings myself, some within the EU, others elsewhere, international ones, although it’s obviously more convenient being able to cross a border without even stopping the car, but seeing all the misery and economic problems it causes, I don’t mind real international border checkpoints at all.
Sorry about the wall of text, not sure I have even answered your question.
Is God a Voluntaryist?
HRS
“…Is God a Voluntaryist?..”
Clearly not. He is a King.
Well, I guess going by the bible and other religious texts we could say no.
However, if by “god” we understood “the force that created the universe” I would answer your question as “yes, absolutely”.
This sandbox has been provided to us, absolutely free of charge and without any strings attached. I would say that this plain fact is the most primordial act of generosity. We are offered to understand its rules, which are there for our betterment, not to our detriment.
We are completely free to break the rules, as we do all the time. We are also free to ignore the consequences but we are not free of the effect of the consequences that follow from breaking the rules.
I.e. I can flaunt all the warnings regarding that vat of strong acid over there and put my hand in it just because I can, but that does not mean I will somehow magically avoid a debilitating bodily injury.
Essentially, we live in a shithole because we want to live in a shithole.
Is God a Voluntaryist?
mkey says:
“Well, I guess going by the Bible and other religious texts we could say “no”.
However, if by “god” we understood “the force that created the universe” I would answer your question as “yes, absolutely”.
This sandbox has been provided to us, absolutely free of charge and without any strings attached. I would say that this plain fact is the most primordial act of generosity. We are offered to understand its rules, which are there for our betterment, not to our detriment….”
Gentlemen, I thoroughly enjoyed this controversial conversation! Perhaps I can be counted as one of the choir because I was harmonizing with this one. I appreciate the antidotes and analogies you use to articulate the obvious. I’ll be using these.
There is an uncomfortable dissonance that comes with recognizing the illegitimate power of the state. But as the distortion clears, there is the bridge to harmony that happens when we apply respect and consent and creativity in our communities.
Some people think it’s so far out of reach, but it’s just this; the power to say “yes” or “no” exists squarely on each individual.
Freedom is the answer
No masters
No slaves
Good show guys.
I wasn’t upset at all with what you said!
Larken and Keith are brilliant as always (although Keith still has some 9/11 homework to catch up on). 😉
OK you convinced me.
You’ve got my vote for a system (anarchy) that doesn’t accept votes, or does it?
Can people vote for anarchy?
Who would count the ballots? 🤔
One who thinks he can vote for anarchy has a long way to go in search for his freedom. Freedom is not some abstract thing somewhere out there. It is very personal, very real and very close instead. People are looking so hard for freedom all their life and never find it. As if it was hard to find or hidden or something.
My post was tongue-in-cheek. 🙂
For any here who have not seen this brilliant inaugural speech by John Ruddick MLC in the NSW Parliament I highly recommending taking the 30 minutes or so to do it now.
He devotes a good amount of time cutting up the ridiculous scamdemic measures and has the gall to recommend the abolishment of parliament in favor of anarchism!
He tells his fellow parliamentary members who are in favor of anarchism to line up outside his office door to fill out a form (no votes are required). 🙂
This feller must be very popular at tea parties.
👍
You mean like Boston tea parties? 🙂
Yes over there, but also any other place where people of ill repute come together to spread their heretical free me or kill me hate speech.
How funny ! This dream team! come on give me the freedom perspective.
Feed the captives to the animals like the Romans did!
This is the perspective of the OKC people in this bar I’m sitting in.
Mkey this is live. What the hell should I do but ask them . In they say feed the captives to the animals.
These people are animals.
What has happened to my country?
Your country is becoming more and more like EU, but with some nasty twists.
I think of Howard Zinn when hearing this sort of discussion. They (anyone who wants to control others, I suppose) only have power if we obey them. We’d better understand that before – they – start using drones and robots to police us.
Nice. Thanks for the good show. Nice, how it gets clear in the discussion, how freedom starts with trust and as such it starts with the taking of risks.
Very important: trust and taking risk!
We all need to learn how to jump in that particularly dangerous rabbit hole 😉
Even when it might utterly destroy our long cherished preconceptions about actually everything we believed so slavishly and robotic all our lives…
I might add its not olny trust about others but, very important, trust in what one really is besides of that skin-encapsulated ego that we think we are.
I disagree with the notion that anarchy never truly existed in history. Only if one means RECORDED history that notion might be correct. History was first recorded by the Babylonian STATE. And ever since the history of states has been recorded. But humanity has been around for much longer. The Babylonian state came into being about 6000 years ago. But humans have been living on this planet for at least 300.000 years. If you look at the (very few) remaining groups of hunter-gatherers living today, you can see that they live in a state of anarchy. So it is very likely that humans were happy anarchists for about 299.994 years. And then the state happened…
kalle
“…f you look at the (very few) remaining groups of hunter-gatherers living today, you can see that they live in a state of anarchy…”
Indeed, like the Kalahari Bushmen, and they are healthy and strong BECAUSE THEY DIE if their not healthy and strong…..also they practice eugenics since the leading men are the ones who breed most of the women.
“… likely that humans were happy anarchists for about 299.994 years…”
I guess if your the Elite guy who gets most of the hot women and eats the best food you might be happy.
Not sure its so great for the Non Elite guys…also if their so happy its weird how they get all greedy for modern trash food and toys…..
Check out “civilized to death” by Christopher Ryan. In this book you will find out how hunter-gatheres really live: There are no “leading men” in hunter-gatherer tribes. They are wildly egalitarian. All of them. Everyone knows how to build their bow or boomerang. Everyone knows all the important plants. Everyone is their own expert. They need no leader, so they abhore anyone who wants to make himself one and kick him out of the tribe. But still they hunt in groups. Because the hunt will be more succesful. All of them know how to build their hut out of some trees or other plants – but yet they construct their houses together.
When it comes to eugenics, you probably overestimeated hunter-gatherers biological insights. There is one south-american group of hunter-gatherers who believe that a human baby is the amalgamation of all the seamen a woman has, well, taken up. So the women of that tribe try to have sex with all the desirable men, the quick runner, the funny on, the one guy who can imitate bird sounds the best,..
The notion of the “leading men getting the hot chicks” ist something very modern, something that could only arise once the idea of property was born. Soon after the idea of the state was invented.
The lives of anarchist hunter-gatherers were quite a happy ones. About 4 hours per day of “work” (hunting/gathering/repairing huts) and 20 hours of leisure time.
My only real point is still this one: humanity lived in a state of egalitarian anarchy for almost their entire time on this planet. The STATE has been around for only 6000 years.
With the help of modern technology, I think it’s quite feasable to be happy egalitarian anarchists TODAY. With perhaps 4 hours of work each day. maybe less, because of the robots.
kalle
Continued
It just occurred to me that “…And then the state happened…” shows why anarchism is a dead end idea.
Assuming your Timeline is correct then the power of organized peoples to drive disorganized peoples into the worst lands and then exterminate them is clear.
Hunter gatherers can not produce surplus food and the division of labor you need to produce technology and a large population….Thus they will ALWAYS get run off the good land and driven to extinction.
This is clear by how organized groups (not even ‘states’) have virtually annihilated hunter gatherers in a tiny amount of time. Any that still exist ONLY exist because the land they occupy was so undesirable that no one wanted to take it.
“Thus they will ALWAYS get run off the good land and driven to extinction”
This is a presumption. It is based on what has happened consistently in history. However, things do change. To say that things never change and people do not evolve is not accurate.
This can be demonstrated scientifically by looking at artifacts from the past including fossils of neanderthals and other early hominids. Clearly, man has changed. Thus change is a natural part of existence. People are born and they die and change throughout their lifetime.
The idea that “it has always been this way and will always be this way” is just not accurate IMO. Centuries ago, people believed the earth was flat and didn’t understand gravity and didn’t think man could build airplanes. If humanity can innovate in those ways, why can’t we innovate with the form of governance or lack of central “authority”?
cu.h.j
“…This is a presumption. It is based on what has happened consistently in history. ….”
Yes….what has happened before is much more likely to be what happens in the future is it not?
“… To say that things never change and people do not evolve is not accurate…..”
WHAT mechanism will make a small group of people who do NOT have a food surplus and are thus locked into low tech life beat a large group of people with the food surplus to sustain a big population, divide labor and thus create better tech?
“…If humanity can innovate in those ways, why can’t we innovate with the form of governance or lack of central “authority”?….”
1)People knew from Greek times at least the Earth was a sphere
2)Airplanes and cars and guns are physical tech that can ONLY exist because of a long chain of things (See BBC “connections” doc ,from the 70’s IIRC) but ALL THOSE TECHNOLOGIES ULTIMATELY DEPEND on having spare food to feed people who work metal, build machines, administer supply systems, ect
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Connections_(British_TV_series)
Humans used to be hunter-gatherers. And, yes, they have been driven off their land by powerful states with modern weapons.
I was not advocating to become hunter-gatherers again. I am advocating to lead egalitarian anarchist lives. As long as their is egalitarian anarchy, I don’t care, how people make their living. They can hunt and gather, or programm AI-code – I don’t care.
Kalle
“…I was not advocating to become hunter-gatherers again. I am advocating to lead egalitarian anarchist lives…”
The main point is that they have egalitarian lives BECAUSE their lives are stripped down to basic hunter gathering…..to have a food surplus that supports high technology you must have some form of organization and hierarchy.
THAT is why you can NOT have an equally egalitarian society where people program AI or farm or whatever, because all those technologies REQUIRE DIVISION OF LABOR TYPES….much as I hate the Bureaucratic state it exists because it was necessary for it to exist for food surplus and large populations to exist.
The reason that hunter gatherer is egalitarian is because they gather about 1 persons daily calories per person working per day- they can thus never field large armies or produce weapons in the way an organized society-even a pastoralial one- can.
On women/breeding…..if you are a good hunter you can have one, or two, women. If you are not a strong, skillful and healthy male you can have zero women. This is the”eugenics” I meant, in the sense that the weak dont pass on their genes, though no planning for such takes place.
The Lies of Marget Mead on the idyllic sex lives of primitive folks in Samoa and the fantasies of rich degenerates about the state of nature do not bear much scrutiny (see link) and humans are closer to regular chimps then Bonobos in out behavior
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-imprinted-brain/201702/margaret-mead-and-the-great-samoan-nurture-hoax
Cu.h.j (AND EVERYONE else too!)
I think I found the Connections doc on Internet archive
https://archive.org/details/ConnectionsByJamesBurke/Connections/Season+1/Connections+S01E01+-+The+Trigger+Effect.mp4
Well worth watching
Your math is off by some 5994 years 😛
Should tribes be categorised as an anarchy? Food for thought.
Yup, I realized that too late. Thanks for setting my math straight.
I think tribes can live in different ways. Most seem to have lived in anarchy. But no one can tell for sure, because they never left records. But some, espescially bigger ones, seem to have developed some traits of statehood. so living in a tribe doesn’t make you an anarchist, but most tribes had anarchy.
Well, we can be pretty confident of one thing: if there were records about succesfull pre “civilised” times they would bury them deep. After poring some gasoline over the records and setting them on fire. Or smashing them with a hammer.
The only reason this system survived as long as it did, is because people believe it is the best we ever had. Not that blind belief is apt to change due to evidence propping up, but they certainly would not want the status quo to be upset.
But it does make sese that less hierarchical, low tech societies would have difficulty leaving a permanend record. Clay tablets, for example, take lot of work and know how.
mkey
“..The only reason this system survived as long as it did, is because people believe it is the best we ever had…”
Well…. much as I hate many things about the modern world life REALLY IS BETTER for most folks today- compared to a King 300 yrs ago you have more kinds of food, better medical care, easier access to knowledge and entertainment, you can safely go to places he could never go.
‘…Clay tablets, for example, take lot of work and know how….”
Not really…..the system of record keeping/organization on the tablets was the REAL Know How.
That system was why the extra food existed which let them have bigger populations and dedicated tech workers and thus swamp out the hunter gatherers
Great episode. And, I love Larken’s wallpaper.
Nice talking. But still, just talking…
I wonder whether they could agree with the notion that the “anarchist revolution” will not take place without a preceding personal/individual/psychological revolution.
That is why I put it into quotes, because the anarchist revolution (without quotes) is simply another kind of hopium.
[Voice from the background:]The revolution will make things right!
Oh yes? Are you sure?
Does the fact that none of them dares to speak about it mean that they do not agree? Or do they just ignore it because it would somewhat devalue all the talking about politics (and other wor(l)d(l)y things that one can do to fix it). An interesting if uncomfortable question that I would like to see answered someday.
Anarchism is harmless to those in power.
It posses as much threat to power as the Ghost Dance or Q-tards.
Do they know why the “revolution” will not be televised? Do you? The “revolution” will not be televised because it happens in your head and nowhere else.
Yes, there really is a war going on. A war over our minds and hearts. This is not a recent development.
And this is how anyone can easily discern exploiters from the well-meaning crowd and tell them apart:
Exploiters and their followers want to tell us exactly what our mind is and what kind of stuff it should contain and think about. It’s all about how and what to think.
The well-meaning guys simply invite to critical thinking, curiosity, disobedience, fearlessness and want us to find out for ourselves.
It don’t get any easier than that but it is easy enough I guess.
EP
“…The well-meaning guys simply invite to critical thinking, curiosity, disobedience, fearlessness and want us to find out for ourselves. ….”
LOL, I hate to say it but plenty of bad actors tell you to be disobedient and fearless….. and critical thinking is important, but not uch use unless you have had your head stuffed with things to think about and digested that knowledge.
many of the folks suggesting ‘freedom’ are really just trying to take us to Pleasure Island or ignore our parents warnings about getting in the white van.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XuPneCrPRM4
Pinocchio(1940) – The True And Sinister Purpose Of Pleasure Island
Thanks for this episode. I am always glad to hear the thoughts of idealists and recognize the importance of innovation and attempting to enlighten people to effect change.
Diversity of thought and innovation is important and part of what makes human beings unique. We have great potential for good.
I am a pessimist from a young child having had negative experiences and know that darkness dwells in the heart of the common man too and this has been shown to me as well by my work with the general public. But this does not negate the good and also does not mean that our trajectory and so I hope that JC and Larkin Rose are able to keep their idealism and share their thoughts and good work for the betterment of humanity.
There have always been people who say things will never work or challenged scientific discovery and the naysayers have turned out to be wrong. So I do think a state of freedom for humanity is possible. At the very least decentralized groups that avoids consolidation of power in the hands of a few psychopathic tyrants.
When people hear anarchy, the term used, they hear chaos and violence and lawlessness. The term itself has meant something different than what is being described here I think. I think people also think that people are suggesting this transition happens overnight and this might make some people uncomfortable.
To be fair though, if anyone has actually lived in a border town, their testimony should be included in the conversation. I have heard that there are places in Arizona and Texas where criminals are coming into the country and stealing from small land owners and not able to defend their property without penalty from the state.
When I say “land owners” I need to clarify because if we pay taxes on our land we don’t really own it. I “own” property but pay tax, thus I am renting it from the state. That is absurd and infuriating.
I think maybe a Q and A session would be helpful and more outreach to people who want to form alliances with each other against the evil elite would be a way to organize with others.
I do think organization would be more effective to address the issues in many ways. Some may want to try to affect their local government by reaching out to people who are accessible who may listen to ideas and want to help. Nothing will change unless we try.
> When I say “land owners” I need to clarify because if we pay taxes on our land we don’t really own it. I “own” property but pay tax, thus I am renting it from the state. That is absurd and infuriating.
I agree, well said. I wonder how long ago this tax was introduced, it probably wasn’t always like it, and if there are significant differences depending in different countries.
Maybe an idea for another episode or something.
correction, the dark side of man does not negate the good nor does it mean that we cannot alter our trajectory.
Same worn out quotes from the same commentators. Same arguments from nay-sayers of anarchy who have never lived it.
Good topics for discussions.
Some basic questions:
What is property?
What is safety?
I think we all disagree on that in some way.
In Nature both do not exist.
You never really own anything, anything can be taken by weather or erosion.
Or can not be carried around.
And you are never safe.
But animals build shelters and organize communities.
And as humans we build our own structures.
To own unused properties, people made all kinds of “contracts.
(even to the extend to demand what someone else is owning)
To stay safe people made community “rules”.
(even to the extend to make other people unsafe)
Just a few steps further we suddenly have lost all freedom to a “government”
So isn’t government the result of Humanity fighting against nature?
My interpretation is that people do this to themselves because of a deep rooted hatred for self. What you are putting forward would seem to be stacking somewhere a few levels higher.
“…So isn’t government the result of Humanity fighting against nature?…”
Yes, because we live in a fallen state, in a dangerous world.
Not many folks are willing to run about poking sticks into animals and grubbing for berries.
I’m not sure what’s the source of this text, but it is interesting.
We, children of the earth, born of dust and starlight, why do we take up arms? Why do we pit brother against brother in the savage theatre of war, when peace seems but a heartbeat away? We are bound by the same threads of life, yet we rend these bonds with blades and malice, staining the earth with our sorrow.Is it the primal urge, a cruel legacy left to use by the wilderness from which we crawled? Or perhaps the callous hand of necessity, bidding us fight for resources, for territory, for survival? The echo of the battlefield is a haunting lament, a dirge that sings of lost futures and extinguished hope. The chilling sceptre of death, once a distant shadow, looms close, casting a long and terrible shadow upon our hearts.Yet within this stark tableau, the soul of humanity thrives. Like a flower blooming on a battlefield, we endure, we adapt, we overcome. We fashion tools of war into instruments of peace, and out of the ashes of old conflicts, we build anew.In every heartache, there is a lesson, a precious gem forged in the crucible of hardship. From the depths of despair, we find courage. From the rubble of destruction, we find resilience. From the silence of a fallen empire, we find our voice.And so, I bid you, brave souls, hold fast. Look to the heavens in your darkest hour, and remember the stars from whence you came. Your journey is not in vain, your struggle not without purpose. The choices you make, the battles you fight, they shape the future. They carve the path for generations to come, in the ceaseless dance of progress.In this vast theatre of existence, let us not be players in a tragedy, but authors of an epic, a tale of resilience, and redemption, of love and unity. Let our actions echo through the annals of time, a beacon of hope for those who follow in our footsteps.Let our battles not be in vain, but rather, let them pave the way for a future of peace. Let our choices be guided not by fear, but by the love we bear for each other, for this precious world we share.So, let us fight, not against each other, but for each other. Let us wage war, not on our brethren, but on ignorance, on hatred, on division. And in the end, let us find, etched in the tapestry of time, a tale of a species that loved, that fought, that endured, and that, above all, chose to hope.Eloquent text.
Seems like the author is the writing.com forum member “Peremos”, who published it there in august this year under the title “A King`s last writings”:
https://www.writing.com/main/view_item/item_id/2302496-A-Kings-Last-Writings
Unless he was quoting an earlier text of course, but seems a bit unlikely since giving no acknowledgment of it at all….?
I am a Solano County, CA Libertarian. I understand libertarianism and anarchism and support the movement against intellectual property and many other aspects of libertarianism. The part that surprised me about the California libertarian platform 2022 is its open-border stance. Compared to a far right-wing society, where all of that society’s resources and spent on defense, open borders is a very liberal idea. In fact, feudalism is the natural response to a borderless situation. Remember, in feudalism, people trade their freedom for protection. That’s what people do when the alternate is no security whatsoever. People who could be overrun by shiploads of Vikings, for example, may opt for subjugation over freedom that offers exposure to foreign enemies. So, this open border idea is not exactly libertarian or conservative, but it is anarchistic. Anarchists need to deal philosophically with this. Do anarchists disbelieve in foreign threats, or do they not understand what the feudal lord offers to his subjects?
Sorry for typos. I almost got the edit in. Not quite.
I understood the part about open borders to mean in an ideal world with people who are similarly respectful and would be beneficial to befriend or trade with etc. If the non-aggressive principal were applied there would be no state to intervene and say who may or may not do business or may come in and out.
If I lived on a border town and there were armed members of drug cartels coming in and stealing from me, I’d be pretty pissed off and even more enraged if I protected my property and were thrown in prison for doing so. So, I would ask, what should I do? I mean people do violate private property all the time, come in and rob you. But the cartels have fully automatic weapons and are brutal.
But our state actually doesn’t do much about this, in fact, they probably want this situation to take advantage of it. I think that was the point, that our state in practice does not protect us from foreign threats (armed drug cartels, etc.) and instead wants to roll out more biosecurity slavery tech to pretend that this will do something about it while actually keeping Americans hostage.
If these guys believe in private property, they necessarily believe in borders though, so maybe I need to watch the entire episode.
I believe that people have the right to private property and boundaries. But in actuality Americans as tax payers don’t really own their property.
So how to protect from foreign threats? Arm oneself and know how to skillfully use them. If the US were ever invaded by an Army though, the average person would be pretty screwed even if they were heavily armed.
The US does have state militia who could theoretically help. But good you point out that there are actually foreign threats. There are actually people in other countries who would harm you. Just because some people are really cool from other countries doesn’t mean there aren’t bad people in other countries.
I know someone from Mexico and he tells me it’s very corrupt there, more than here. Things are cheaper there and more freedom but there have been people kidnapped and other bad things.
I’ve never lived in Mexico though, so I have no personal experience with the place, just going on anecdotes from people who go there frequently.
One more thing about Mexico. I don’t think it’s legal to have guns, unless of course you pay off the police like the cartels do. Then you can do almost anything you want. I mean that’s sort of like what we have here, but they hide it better.
Palama
“…Do anarchists disbelieve in foreign threats…”
The philosophy of anarchism is, IMO at its heart one of SELF, and a person who is so radically individualist that they dont believe they are ‘part’ of anything really do think that if somewhere goes bad they will just move somewhere better. Super Cosmopolitan-ism, as it were.
I mean….one of these guys said as much….zero regard for those who cant afford to move when the neighborhood goes bad and zero feeling that there might be a community in that area that wants to preserve itself.
Like Atheism its not a new thing, nor “progress’, its the symptom that the end of the cycle of civilization is close
“…its the symptom that the end of the cycle of civilization is close”
It seems to me that Ends are very important. Ends are the precondition for the New.
EP
“…Ends are the precondition for the New…”
But its NOT NEW….any more then seeing a spot on a wheel come back to the top makes a wheel ‘new’. What is coming now has come before , and will come again.
We are just ending the part of the “wealthy’ part of the cycle, always noted for a life of comfort/safety, lack of direction/vision, womens rights and atheism.
people always used to understand life was cyclic, its just that when we get ri9ch we always forget….drinking lethes coke flavored waters, lolol
Sir John Glubb “Fate of Empire”, the short essay being read by a chap with a fine voice.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SBLPDfu8XGQ
Follow up piece
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XkFKB9k68FA
Review by the great Charles Haywood at “The worthy House”
https://theworthyhouse.com/2022/03/31/emthe-fate-of-empires-em-john-bagot-glubb/
If anarchy is the end of the cycle, feudalism is the beginning.
Similar to “freedom”, we do not have to make the definition of “anarchy” more complicated than it actually is.
Some of us, when becoming adults, start to think for themselves, start to question what was learnt and thus outgrow authority figures such as parents and teachers. Because of those who never do, we have a government. One could call the former anarchists, I just call them grown people.
“Freethinker, n. A miscreant who wickedly refuses to look out of a priests’s eyes, and persists in looking into them with too searching a glance.”
–Devil’s Dictionary, Ambrose Bierce
Extra ammunitions against those fantasyland dwellers who still cling on the illusion that “Russia is different!”:
—-
When Alexandra Skochilenko swapped price tags at a St. Petersburg supermarket with statements criticizing Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine and highlighting civilian deaths in the conflict, she didn’t expect that it could lead to her imprisonment.
https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2023/11/16/i-just-wanted-to-stop-the-war-russian-artist-sentenced-to-7-years-for-price-tag-protest-a83019
—
Related Anarchy Question:
How do you even defend against groups
(Nazis, Zionists, Technocrats, neocons, drugsmafia, Isis, Red Kmer)
that want to kill you and your family?
The Organized minority will always rule the disorganized minority.
The best you can get is an educated and virtuous public who push back back and an Elite that has something in common with its own people and does not hate them.
Right now neither of those conditions are met 🙁
Someone posted this related meme:
https://media.communities.win/post/uvJeEOVNCKuT.jpeg
You think Nazism would be an issue without the state to use it as a scapegoat?
I (as well) do wonder sometimes if not this -fascinatingly even here on the Corbett report- evergreen “Nazi”-theme is infact perfect for illustrating/studying the exact opposit of what it is intended for.
While it is obviously used -as mentioned- as the eternal scapegoat and finger-wagging at “the (evil) others” with the intent of turning all focus away from the finger-waggerer him/herself, what better way to study exactly that.
And I also wonder if and how one could perform a purely statistical/quantitative study as to the size and effectiveness of this Nazi-meme, how often it is brought up, by whom and to what effect? Any ideas?
F.ex. it seems it was/is the by far most popular during the Ukraine war and of course not to even mention the current Israel-Gaza war and before that it was during earlier conflicts that Saddam was denounced as/compared to “Hitler/Nazis”, then Gaddafi, then Ahmadinejad, now Putin and Gazans (who next?)…
And interestingly in every instance this meme was/is used to ratify war and violence, never peaceful solutions/negotiations, what does that say I wonder….?
Also funnily the meme seems to have become circular recently, for f.ex both Russia and Ukraine actually accuse each other of being “Nazis” (Zelensky says Putin is Hitler and Putin wants to “de-nazify Ukraine”…), as do the Gazans and Israelis lately which really makes me wonder- what would we/anyone do without this meme at this stage, could anyone/especially nations and policies define him/her/them/self and get something done without it?
Anarchy = NO masters, of ANY variety
Anarchy ≠ political masters bad, economic masters good
That was such an enjoyable conversation / solutions watch episode. The three of you are brilliant!
British comedian Alexei Sayle said that left wing politics was based on a disastrous error, namely the inherent goodness of the human being. Same with anarchism.
Your neighbours may be lovely people but they voted for evil gangsters like the Bushes, Clintons, Obama or Biden.
Thomas Jefferson is an American hero but used his many slaves as a harem, is alleged to have sold his own children and was very credibly accused of being a traitor (a French agent who took more interest in the French revolution than the American one).
It is my view the American founding fathers were criminals interested in usurping the British Crown’s control of Indian land leading to genocide. Also my view that the civil war was a virtual genocide fought over tax revenue and control. This is the opposite of a freedom loving state.
Lol! Hi James, If I had a penny for every time someone accused me of being a “James Corbett type anti-government anarchist” I would have a big bag of pennies.
I will save these pennies for future use as exchange tokens in the counter-economic catallaxy that we should be well on the way to constructing.
I would love to hear what an anarchist society would look like, even theoretically, even on a small scale. I knew an anarchist restaurant in Glasgow but they fell out and the chef ran the business from her house.
John Lennon once suggested replacing George Harrison with Eric Clapton when Harrison ran off (again). Clapton burst out laughing when asked if he fancied being a Beatle. He said ‘no way, these groups can be really toxic’.
Here is the trailer for the HBO Anarchapulco documentary. Berwick is seen burning money, talking about private jets, sitting in a mega yacht. This a bunch of very wealthy Americans partying on the cheap in Mexico.
Berwick said he loved the film because he had no idea those things had happened. He’s so wealthy he has ‘people’. His psychiatrist dude told him he was the most fucked up person he had ever encountered. Drugs may be a factor.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z1EA5k34PEM
He offered (Twitter) to get me into crypto. It’s always looked like a scam to me. I wouldn’t even trust it to keep my transactions safe from the NSA.
Berwick always presented a bit “scammy” to me but I don’t know him and this might just be the ego he presents to the public. But he does seem to like to make money and that is part of what motivates him. I’m not judging this because there’s a difference between a psychopath and someone who likes to make money. There’s nothing inherently wrong with wanting to make money and make a profit IMO. But how you make the money is where the psychopathy can come in.
He seems a bit egotistical to me but some of these types put that image out there because it helps sell their products.
People with money can live a better quality of life in Mexico but the downside is ones safety seems a little bit less predictable (to the degree that ones safety can be).
Anyway, thanks for sharing this.
Thanks CHJ.
I watch Berwick’s videos. I enjoy the way he casually dances around the extreme end of conspiracy.
In the HBO documentary he looks and behaves more like the Wolf of Wall Street than James Corbett. Without being judgemental that made me uncomfortable. A self described anarcho capitalist, making money is obviously important to him.
Crypto is his thing but he made his ‘fortune’ in the dot com bubble. I have lived in a culture where private investing, trading played no part. I once created a website that allowed people to buy things from my website through PayPal. The (American) business language was torture to engage with.
The world of crypto seems to me like the wild west, where life is more dangerous and risks come round every corner. I watched a few videos on SBF and the background. It looks like an ideal place for gunslingers.
Best wishes
I’m always worried that Lucy is going to be flattened by a car.
She’s the the luckiest Chihuahua in all of Mexico.
Do you drive? If yes, every time you get in a car you are essentially taking part in an anarchist endeavor. People will usually believe that drivers don’t do stupid shit on the road because they are afraid of the police – no, most drivers behave correctly on the road because they don’t want to kill or get killed or kill themselves.
Another example. I go for a hike and encounter dozens, or even a few hundred people. Not one single cop! Well, once I did see a few cops watching (like hawks) a grandma and heir grandson (I assume) enjoying the beach during the clockdowns in spring 2020. At any rate, of these hundreds of people I encounter, nobody tries to kill me. They kind of mind their own business, sometimes we exchange a glance or some words and move on with our days. Absolutely no governmental oversight involved and somehow the hike does not devolve into utter chaos.
“most drivers behave correctly on the road because they don’t want to kill or get killed or kill themselves.”
Exactly. Plus the fact that most people are actually trying to get somewhere to do something, like to work to earn money. Getting into an automobile accident is an expensive and time consuming pain in the butt that they aren’t willing to spend their time or money on if given a choice.
Sane human beings have a natural inclination to cooperate and have a vested interest in choosing to behave reasonably.
How can the people in an anarchist community keep track of who owns which land? Nobody is going to want to build anything, or make other improvements, unless they can be confident that the community will recognize their title. It seems to me that any structure they set up for that would be a kind of government.
(122 comments already! Who is going to read thru them and get to this question?)
Forget about titles. Who would protect you from people trying to chase you off your land without any police around? Who, I ask.
“It seems to me that any structure they set up for that would be a kind of government. ”
Do you imagine that there would be some sort of rule, (see what I did there?), that would preclude deeds and land titles in an anarchist community?
Why would that be?
I think that a lot of the problem comes from how the word government is defined. If you think that any sort of hierarchy would automatically make something a government, then I can understand where you’re coming from. But I don’t really picture it being that way.
I think that most voluntarists or anarchists would maintain that the implementation of coercion is primarily what makes something a government as we’ve come to know it.
My understanding is that a voluntary or anarchist community or society would of necessity have rules based upon what I’ve heard referred to as “universally accepted behavior” and a means of enforcing them through some sort of private, accountable and competing policing agencies.
What do you picture an anarchist community would be?
…on that line of thought…
Management
Everyone manages things. We manage our budget, our family, our business, our relationships, our bodies, etc.
Cooperative Communitees manage things.
Sometimes I think that outsiders have a false concept that “anarchism” and “voluntaryism” do not include management.
Yeah. I think you’re right. Some people just think lawless chaos. I think the word anarchism or anarchy has been associated with things that perhaps it doesn’t mean.
I finally listened to the whole conversation and I thought it was a good one.
I ruffled some feathers, so by the criteria of this episode I’m successful. Yeah……..(wtf)
James, you introduced me as a communist, misrepresented me….on top, to Americans. All of that using my comment where the only word that could “unmask” me is ‘redness’.
You wanted gloves off, fine with me.
I wonder what happened to the guy who spent 13 hours only for reading “What is Property?” by Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (complete audiobook)?
https://www.corbettreport.com/?s=proudhon
I wonder what happened to the guy who was able to ask Vin Armani some hard questions?
corbettreport.com/vin-armani-on-self-ownership-property-and-morality/
I’m pretty sure to know the answer, but I’m not an asshole to say it.
Now, let me start with this episode.
(1:40) “….the one real solution to everything…..”
Freedom is the answer, supposedly. Do you really think LIFE in its entirety can be boiled down to freedom? Certainly, freedom is very very important.
(22:00) “There is never been a striving anarchist society in history….”
Larken in passing said there are some examples, but didn’t name them.
Keith was on “degrees of freedom”….(I can’t stand this guy).
Both guests used argumentation with appeals to history, but it looks they don’t know the history of anarchism, they, supposedly anarchist exemplars.
Let me fill the gap:
Barcelona during Spanish civil war
youtube.com/watch?v=oF7bjArb6uY&list=PL2Ms3UVVn-WzQZrIyhmBYwKls1B7v6Yhj&index=6
Nestor Makhno
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nestor_Makhno
Kronstadt rebellion
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kronstadt_rebellion
Or, maybe, these instances were just too red for the peculiar taste of anarchist exemplars.
(41:45)
Of course I won’t read a book of a guy saying “simple morality known to any child”, what can I learn from him. I don’t think one speculative sentence could count as a comment, certainly, after watching that episode and writing the speculative sentence I shouldn’t got a low blow.
I am an anarchist. Appreciating some of Marx’s ideas doesn’t make me a communist. I don’t endorse communism to be clear. But for Americans that is inconceivable, for them it’s like red cloth in corrida and some (Larken) start berserk attacks like a bull.
I will abstain from commenting of most that has been said here. Trying to explain why private property must be redefined (not abolished), why private property is not a scalable concept, is like attempting to show to statist that anarchy would be just fine.
Damn…just one thing….. for Larken regarding bow-arrow-fish. If you would ask for half of the catch my reply would be fuck off, that’s not fair, that’s immoral. I’m giving you 5% rounded to whole piece. But if you and yours would be hungry or the catch wouldn’t be sufficient to feed me and mine, that would be another story (I’m not even thinking that you could be a lazy renter, that would be virtually impossible in anarchy). At some point a might ask you to teach me how to make bow and arrow. Important, if I engage other people in my business I don’t ask for more than 5% above equal share when we participate equally.
James misrepresenting me totally distracted a debate about my particular comment. The essence of my comment was morality. During the entire episode guests many times invoked arguments based on morality.
Interesting, Keith said morality isn’t simple and continued with “state interpret morality unilaterally”. Who cares what the state thinks about morality, the most important is morality that is lived experience among us, the people. Larken has been blinded by “the red cloth” and mouthed there are grey areas about morality and a bunch of things we all agree…
I’m pretty sure they can’t say much about ethics(morality), let alone what should be anarchists ethics. Still, like most people, they are fully-mouthed of moral arguments. Some philosophers say ethics is the second metaphysics.
James, when I finish work on something that could be titled Prolegomena to Anarchist Ethics you will get it.
I was glad to hear Keith Knight mentioned “natural elite” and I think this idea should be explored.
There will necessarily be inequality and skill differences in any population. There are natural leaders who are experts at certain things and possess certain natural talents.
Human beings are not blank slates.
Small pilot communities to model what this would look like could help show what voluntary community could look like.
Glad “nationalism” and/or “ethno-nationalism” was mentioned as different from nation state.
There is already ethno-nationalism within multicultural nation-states. For example, it’s common for many Chinese people to do business with each-other almost exclusively. It is sometimes hard to find a more affordable Chinese contractor if you’re not Chinese. This was just a fact in the city I lived in several months ago. My neighbor was Chinese and confirmed this as accurate. She offered to recommend me to her contractors for work done on my house but I declined as it would require her to be the middleman for translation and would be a hassle for her.
There are others who prefer to trade and interact with others who are similar to themselves and others who do not. Xenophobia exists and is probably natural and in and of itself is probably not unethical. Exploitation of others however is.
I think what brings out the worst in people is scarcity or the belief in scarcity and also fear. When people are afraid, the “lizard brain” or animal instincts can take over. Everyone has this portion of their brain and some are better able to see the big picture and pan out and use the higher mental faculties “gifted” to man.
I would encourage those who are better able to see the big picture, probably those interviewed here recognize that some people are in different levels of awareness and capabilities. “Patience is a virtue”
I work with the public and see a vast difference in awareness and education and consciousness. Many people are operating within “scarcity consciousness”
It can be extremely annoying and frustrating when being patient but it’s possible and it is an important skill to develop especially when trying to build community.
Hi!
We will see if those theories, Friedmann & Hayek, have a chance in reality with those voting results in Argentina. There were several attempts allover the place which are described from Naomi Klein with a second try in this country.
Economical speaking is the country already a mess and according to the newly elected President is the only way more privatization and governmental downsizing.
Let’s wait and see if those “Markradikalen” can turn the tide.
It would supersize me but I’m always willing to learn something new
Cheers
The question could well be “What is the state that any violent abuser knocks out of the imagination of the abused, that is the very key to the end of the power imbalance?”
Put your POWER goggles on and see when that when power is concentrated it corrupts, is fought over as something to win, is violently defended in order not to lose it (with the bodies, minds, and souls of regular people like us posting on this website). Every day you can chose to enact your power, what you enable, what you stand for, who you stand by.
Is then the question “What essential state can YOU create that will bring prosperity, peace, and the ability to thrive for yourself and others?”
I usually don’t comment but felt it is worth noting excellence, provocation, and a good bit of mind gymnastics.
Count me appeased and delighted rather than offended.
On to the Voluntaryist handbook for me.