Smash Capitalism, Comrades!

From comrade Charles “Rad Geek” Johnson comes “Free Market Anti-Capitalism?”, an exploration of, well, what I’m really all about. That’s not to say I agreed with every single thing Charles wrote before I read it — I lernt sum stuff here.

I’m presenting the links to the individual sections here both so my Dear Readers see them and so that reading from start to finish is a perhaps bit easier than just working off the links in the final entry in the series.

This is the final instalment of the remarks that I gave as part of my presentation at the Free Market Anti-Capitalism? panel at the Association of Private Enterprise Education on 13 April 2010.

1. By way of introduction or apology
2. With apologies to Shulamith Firestone
3. Two meanings of markets
4. Rigged markets, captive markets, and capitalistic business as usual
5. The Many Monopolies
6. What about them poor ol’ bosses? What about gains from trade and economies of scale?
7. Is this all just a semantic debate?

Go read, y’all, this is really good stuff. Some day I might be persuaded to do a podcast recording of it.

smashzaxlebax @ youtube

It seems that a rather kind foamer-at-the-mouth going by the handle “smashzaxlebax” has turned my podcast of Kevin Carson’s The Iron Fist Behind the Invisible Hand: Corporate Capitalism as a State-Guaranteed System of Privilege into a 12-part YouTube playlist.

You rock, sir! What is that thing, anyway? A cyanide cigar?

Without further ado, here’s the playlist!

Click here to view the embedded video.

With a single exception, attendees responded with words evoking free markets, individualism, free association, self-determination, respect for property, the ability to create and retain wealth, no interference in peaceful trade, ideological consistency, and so on.

I then told them that they are all absolutely right. And at the same time absolutely wrong.

I said: Capitalism is an exploitative system of privileges granted to wealthy interests to the detriment of the poor.

And that definition is also right, because it lives in the minds of billions.

Discuss.

As one big file (MP3, 46m51s, 43MB):

• Direct download from nostate.com: The_Iron_Fist_Behind_the_Invisible_Hand.mp3
• .torrent file at mininova
• .torrent file at nostate.com

Broken into chapters:

• .torrent file at mininova
• .torrent file at nostate.com
• Direct downloads from nostate.com:
• 0-Audiobook Intro by Mike Gogulski.mp3 (2m24s, 1.9MB)
• 1-Introduction.mp3 (3.5s, 2.8MB)
• 2-The Subsidy of History.mp3 (24m9s, 22.1MB)
• 3-Ideological Hegemony.mp3 (9m36s, 8.8MB)
• 4-The Money Monopoly.mp3 (9m40s, 8.9MB)
• 5-Patents.mp3 (13m20s, 12.2MB)
• 6-Infrastructure.mp3 (5m15s, 4.8MB)
• 7-Military Keynesianism.mp3 (2m43s, 2.5MB)
• 8-Other Subsidies.mp3 (6m44s, 6.2MB)
• 9-Political Repression.mp3 (6m20s, 5.8MB)
• 10-Conclusion.mp3 (4m15s, 3.9MB)
• .m3u playlist (note: for local use, not for playing off the net!)

Someone use these to make a YouTube series and playlist!

If you are able, please download the files via BitTorrent, and re-seed them to infinity.

Text of my introduction to the recording:

Good morning, left-libertarian.

The voice you will hear for the next 88 minutes or so belongs to me, Mike Gogulski.

I am a stateless ex-American. I renounced my American citizenship in 2008 and I have been a voluntary exile since 2004, presently living in Bratislava, Slovakia. As of this recording in June 2009, I maintain a website at www.nostate.com, which you are invited to visit.

The words you will hear belong to all of humanity, but they were written by Kevin Carson, a leading contemporary thinker in mutualism and individualist anarchism, and Research Associate for the Center for a Stateless Society, c4ss.org. The essay, The Iron Fist Behind the Invisible Hand: Corporate Capitalism as a State-Guaranteed System of Privilege, was published in 2001, and is available online at Carson’s Mutualist Blog, from flag.blackened.net, and from Red Lion Press in print form.

For the recording, I have broken the essay into ten parts:

• Introduction
• The Subsidy of History
• Ideological Hegemony
• The Money Monopoly
• Patents
• Infrastructure
• Military Keynesianism
• Other Subsidies
• Political Repression
• Conclusion

I have attempted to read the text of Iron Fist as I have it in hand. Any deviations from the written text are my own.

It is worth noting for more mainstream libertarians and others not familiar with Carson’s work that one need not adopt Carson’s mutualism or his predictions regarding profit, rent and interest in a truly free market in order to find the analysis and historiography contained here of great value.

What are we, German-speakers holding on to the old orthographic convention of capitalizing every noun? Monotheists who capitalize “God” or “Allah” while letting little-g inequality in for “the great god Zeus”?

Go anti-capitalist.

As Uncyclopedia says:

Capitalism is a philosophy of punctuation. Capitalists are people who believe that all words should be capitalized, no matter what the situation.

For instance, the sentence:

“This is a sentence.”

would be written this way by a capitalist:

“This Is MY Sentence.”

Decapitalize that bad boy in your writing; decapitalize it in your head; decapitalize it in your life. Or else.

smash the state!

[My translation from original Slovak at the Priama ackia ("Direct Action") website. All errors mine.]

Priama Akcia’s call: “We don’t intend to pay for the crisis!”

Activism opportunity in Slovakia and the Czech Republic

12 November 2008

A world summit will take place on 15 November 2008 in Washington at which 20 of the most economically powerful countries in the world (including the UK, France, Germany, Italy and Spain) will debate regarding reform of the global financial system. It is the day on which the elite will decide upon the salvation of capitalism. This meeting merits our attention because its outcome affects even us. Come what may, we are not going to just sit back and watch the whole crisis. There are many possibilities for beginning activism related to the crisis.

OUR POSSIBILITIES IN SLOVAKIA AND THE CZECH REPUBLIC

The politicians, bosses and bankers settle things and take care of their own. And we should do the same. The only way we can succeed in not being forced to pay for this crisis is to know ourselves, to have contact among ourselves and to help each other. The objective of this call is to take the first step toward presenting an approach to the crisis from the perspective of ordinary people rather than liberal economists and politicians.

We say this openly: ordinary people – workers, students, retirees and unemployed alike – should in our view take advantage of this global financial crisis to build contact among ourselves. Regardless of how or even whether the capitalists manage to salvage their system, the problems will not go away. They will always arouse discontent and the striving to resolve it by our very own energies. The current situation is an opportunity for establishing contact and thinking about setting up a contact network amongst ourselves. In the process the crisis can be built upon in terms of aid and solidarity regarding the various problems what await us in the near future.

CONCRETE ACTIONS IN OUR TOWNS AND WORKPLACES

During Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and subsequent days we will publish a flyer, a poster and a questionnaire at our website, www.priamaakcia.sk.

• We suggest distributing flyers basically everywhere. Places where people gather (cafes, clubs, etc.) are good, but distributing them in trains is also very good. All you have to do is get on before the train leaves, throw a few flyers into the cabin and get off before departure. Quick and effective.
• Posters for transport stops, schools, workplaces and elsewhere can also draw attention to this activism.
• The questionnaire will be able to be filled out right on a web page and is part of an international project by militant workers. More information coming soon.

Only two things are needed for anyone to get involved in this activity immediately: the urge to do something and the ability to print out materials. These will be prepared in PDF form for open download in Slovak and Czech. Even now you can talk about activism options with someone near you with whom you might be able to do something today, tomorrow or the day after.

OTHER ACTIVITIES GOING FORWARD

Other activities are planned as well. If you want to get involved, let us know at priamaakcia(at)priamaakcia(dot)sk. We will provide information on the website about further activism opportunities and we would be especially pleased if more people – including readers of this text – took part in our ideas. Should you get involved in any way (such as by distributing flyers), please let us know.

We can’t count on chit-chat saying that the crisis will impact us to a weaker extent than it will other countries. The fact is, it’s already impacting us through layoffs at US Steel, in the auto industry (the firms Riba Nitra, Dura Stupava and Johnson Controls), in machining (PPS, Embraco), etc. This will by no means be where it ends…

For spreading this call farther – among your acquaintances, friends or colleagues, via discussion forums, blogs, web pages, myspace, hi5, facebook or other information channels – we thank you in advance.

This is the impulse. What else, and how, is up to you.

WE DON’T INTEND TO PAY FOR THE CRISIS!
Watch www.priamaakcia.sk

PRIAMA AKCIA
Priama akcia (“Direct Action”) is the Slovak branch of the International Workers Association (IWA), a confederation which unites trade unions and initiatives from 16 countries of the world as a membership base.