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Since my new conservative colleague Hirota was suggesting books, I thought I’d jump on the literary bandwagon and throw out my own suggestions. Here is some light reading that is guaranteed to generate quite the dialogue between conservatives, progressives, old school liberals, market anarchists and left/right libertarians.
Courtesy of Kevin Carson from Center for a Stateless Society (http://www.c4ss.org)
About Center for a Stateless Society
“The Center for a Stateless Society is a project of the Molinari Institute and dedicated to building public awareness of, and support for, market anarchism. We provide news commentary, related analysis and original research from our unique perspective, serving as a market anarchist media center.”
http://c4ss.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/Thermidor-of-the-Progressives.pdf
Guy, if I don’t understand what this post is about, I bet a lot of other folks don’t either.
Can you tell us more about what market anarchism is, and what you mean by the “Thermidor of the Progressives?” I’m guessing decentralized organization is something you like, which “Progressives” and “Managerial Liberals” are hostile to. This all sounds way grad school. Can you explain and give examples from real life?
I just figured this was a breakdown of progressive policies baked in a lobster shell with a lovely cheese and cream topping………
Of course it doesn’t make sense. He was high when he wrote it.
I’ll tackle this. I’ve read some stuff from C4SS. The literature ‘eats the state,’ but never really explicitly mentions the hierarchy of corporations which in the world of libertarian socialist Noam Chomsky are more totalitarian fashioned than political systems that bear the name. Instead, as the website’s FAQ states
“Market Anarchists tend to see economic domination of working people as the product of statism and not the market.”
An overly simplistic dichotomy and consequently not my intellectual cup of tea.
Whether I was toking or not when I posted this is irrelevant. I smoke pot and I like it. So what?
In regards to the subject at hand, I will be the first to admit that market anarchism is a very broad philosophy that looks difficult to comprehend on the surface. There are many different strains of this philosophy including the one that I subscribe to: voluntaryism. As far as voluntaryists go, they (myself included) believe that there are many goods and services that are essential for human survival and that these services should not be provided by the government. Instead they believe that these services should be provided through voluntary, consentual transactions between individuals who wish to have these services. Voluntaryists oppose the state because they believe that government often uses coercive means to collect revenue and often use their power, be it intentional or unintentional, to prevent certain individuals from entering and competing in the marketplace.
In our economic climate today, big corporations often use the power of government to get tax breaks, subsidies or curry political favor with political leaders to get laws or regulations passed to help them squash their competition. I’ll be happy to cite some examples for you in future blog posts. The situation with the Great Park Board/Irvine City Council awarding no bid contracts to corporations like The Irvine Company to help build the Great Park will be one of the examples that I will be highlighting (and a post that I am working on as we speak). A post that would be censored if I was submitting posts for the Northwood Night Stalker’s blog.
Is the market anarchism approach the answer to all of our economic ills or the answer to complete the Great Park five years beyond its promised deadline? Maybe, maybe not. There is no one size fits all solution like many politicians on the left and right would have us believe. What I am offering is a look at another economic approach that you won’t hear about in the mainstream press (FOX and MSNBC included) or in the apologetic blogs of the “alternative media.” Right now, our current corportatist system, which is mistaken for free markets, and centralized government economic planning have been a disaster and it’s only going to get worse no matter how many tax cuts, tax hikes or stimulus packages you throw at our economic problems.
But I can guarantee you one thing. When I talk about this, I won’t be weeping like the new Weeper of the House: John Boehner.