Preferences? What preferences?

A few questions for you, gentle reader, with my own comments upon them. Note that these, too, reflect my own preferences.

Given the context that we can’t presently know what a free society would look like, how it would self-organize, etc., consider the following:

Against Intellectual Property by Stephan Kinsella

• If private property is impossible in a libertarian society, do you prefer the state? If so, you’re not a libertarian or anarchist.
• If minimal states always collapse either into truly free anarchic or grow to monstrous proportions but never remain minimal, do you prefer a non-minimal state? If so, you’re not a libertarian or anarchist.
• If achieving a free society means that you must give up all legal and societal privileges flowing from state and other crooked institutions today (religion, poison culture, patriarchy, heteronormativity), would you do it? If not, you’re not a libertarian or anarchist.
• If living in a free society means that you can’t beat, abuse, indoctrinate or otherwise harm your children, do you prefer the state? If so, you’re not a libertarian or anarchist.
• If transitioning to a free society means you must change big portions of your life, would you? If not, you’re not a libertarian or anarchist.
• If a free society is nothing like you ever imagined, will you cling to the state? If so, you’re not a libertarian or anarchist.
• If Wal-Mart, Tesco and other mega-corporations are impossible in a free society, do you prefer the state? If so, you’re not a libertarian or anarchist.
• If intellectual property (copyrights, patents, trademarks, etc.) is impossible in a free society, do you prefer the state? If so, you’re not a libertarian or anarchist.
• If wage labor, profit, rent and/or interest are impossible or widely loathed in a free society, do you prefer the state? If so, you’re not a libertarian or anarchist.

There are any number of other questions like these that I could ask. How do you reply?

Are you so chained to your own preferences that the unknowable unknown of what a free society might look like scares you right back into statist servitude?

Your comments, answers, complaints, curses, death threats, etc., all welcome below.

I hold that institutions of property relations to mass-energy are essential for regulating peaceful interactions among sophonts comprised, themselves, of mass-energy. Just as I have the right to say “This is my aorta, and I will shoot you if you try vigorously enough to deprive me of my use of it,” I hold that I also have the right to say “This is my atom, my molecule, my widget, my asteroid, and, should my claim achieve social legitimacy by virtue of my homesteading and non-abandonment, shoot you if you try vigorously enough to deprive me of my use of it.”

By looking at this cookie cutter, you hereby agree that should you ever make a cookie in the shape of a revolver for other than your personal use, it'll be okay for me to shoot you.

I also hold, in direct opposition to intellectual “property”, that patterns are information, and that information cannot be a subject of legitimate property. Information is intangible and infinitely replicable. By extracting the information pattern from a physical subject of legitimate property — a DVD, a book, a widget — and then using that information for my own purposes, I deprive nobody of their property. Steal my DVD, my book, my widget, and I have grounds to resist that action by any means, up to and including the application of lethal force. Take a stab at expropriating my aorta and I’ll fight you to the death, and expect my neighbors to come to my aid.

In a truly free society, in a freed market, I hold that an inventor has a moral right to credit for that output of their mind which has enough social value to be replicated. If Kevin invents a fantastic new potato-slicer and Bob copies the device and runs around marketing it as his own creation, Bob is a jerk and ought to be treated as such. However, if Kevin now comes along and tries to shoot Bob for doing this, Kevin is a criminal, and I and other free people will come to Bob’s aid in repelling Kevin’s attack.

See also the terms of use for this website at “… and you agree“.

Purchase the revolver cookie cutter from Cakes Cookies & Crafts Shop.

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