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.

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.

The American Heritage Dictionary, among other definitions, suggests that a border is “The line or frontier area separating political divisions or geographic regions; a boundary.”

"Warning! State border!" -- sign at Devín, on the Slovak side of what was once the officially-impassible border between Republik Österreich and Československá socialistická republika

I’ve heard about these border things, but I’ve never actually seen one.

I got to thinking about this because the Motorhome Diaries crew (agorist comrades Jason Talley and Pete Eyre) just got stopped and searched and denied passage across one of these “border” things. From the reports, it sounds like the “border” in question was one dividing two political entities which call themselves “United States of America” and “Canada”.

Huh. These borders things sound a bit dangerous.

I offer a few alternate definitions for your consideration:

bor-der (bôr’dər) n.:

1. An imaginary line near which organized criminals in and out of uniform may stop, search, kidnap, cage, shoot, rob or otherwise harm peaceful people without consequence.
2. An imaginary line representing a place at which two or more tyrants agree to stop killing, raping, maiming and robbing each others’ slaves, the better to continue enslaving and stealing from their respective territorial thralls.
3. An imaginary line marking zones of exclusivity for legalized privilege in the forms of taxation, regulation, reporting duties, “law” enforcement, subsidy, etc.

Dangerous indeed. Stay away.

Anyone else have their own definition for “border”? Let’s hear ‘em in the comments!

www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Wt1ZjXv8Lg

Answers varied wildly. The exercise, as constructed, was great, because I didn’t know this answer for myself until doing it.

My answer: Compassion. Compassion is my highest value.

Next: What’s your vision for expressing/achieving/maximising that value?

My answer: End all legal privilege. Smash the state.

Next: What is your unique ability to contribute to making that happen? Where is your comparative advantage?

My answer: Crypto/web tech to support the growth of peaceful black and gray markets.

Agora! Compassion! Action!

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.

Democracy: The God That Failed

Democracy is fairer in the sense that the opportunity to rule is universal, whereas monarchy only allows for arbitrary family rule. In other words, if there must be rulers, then it’s more just that the rulers are selected through open competition than by arbitrary heredity. But this was the fateful error of the classical liberals: to see exclusivity rather than privilege as the problem. They merely replaced personal privileges (of the king) with functional privileges (of the democratic ruler). Of course, the real solution is to remove the privilege of ruling altogether, so that there is no ruler-ruled distinction. (emphasis mine)

Check it out.

Why assume that the amount you’re being assessed really does represent your fair share?

And if that makes sense, why not pay it forward?

If the state is so good at doing the things it does, why not give it more of your income, your wealth and your labor?

Next time a tax reduction comes around, keep paying at the old rate.

When there’s a chance to show solidarity on your income tax or VAT returns, do so by adding a few extra percent on top.

Quit taking exemptions, deductions and credits.

When you’re going to pay for a meal at a restaurant, give the waitperson a few extra of the local currency unit and explain that it’s not a tip, but that you’d like it to be sent to the treasury.

Try those things and see how they feel.

And if you’re not willing to, you really ought to be ready to explain why not.

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.