There is an Alternative to Capitalism

[Apone]

Baby steps, muir, baby steps.

 

[tfg345i4u5lw]

muir is a sav

 

[the]

ESOP

An employee stock ownership plan (ESOP) is a defined contribution plan that provides a company's workers with an ownership interest in the company. In an ESOP, companies provide their employees with stock ownership, typically at no cost to the employees. Shares are given to employees and are held in the ESOP trust until the employee retires or leaves the company, or earlier diversification opportunities arise.
There are annual limits on the amount of deductible contributions an employer can make to an ESOP. ESOPs are governed by federal pension laws, called the Employee Retirement Income Security Act, or “ERISA”. ERISA sets forth clear requirements to ensure that there can be no ‘preferred’ classes of participants in an ESOP; all employees must be treated proportionally the same. Internal Revenue Code section 404(a)(3) provides for an annual limit on the amount of deductible contributions an employer can make to a tax-qualified stock bonus or profit-sharing plan of 25 percent of the compensation otherwise paid or accrued during the year to the employees who benefit under the plan.
The National Center for Employee Ownership estimates that there are approximately 11,300 employee stock ownership plans for over 13 million employees in the United States.[SUP][1][/SUP] Notable U.S. employee-owned corporations include the 150,000 employee supermarket chain Publix Supermarkets, McCarthy Building Company and photography studio company Lifetouch. Today, most private U.S. companies that are operating as ESOPs are structured as S corporation ESOPs (S ESOPs).http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Employee_stock_ownership_plan

http://www.esopassociation.org/

''The Free State Project (FSP) is a political movement, founded in 2001, to recruit at least 20,000 libertarian-leaning people to move to a single low-population state (New Hampshire, selected in 2003) in order to make the state a stronghold for libertarian ideas.[SUP][1][/SUP] The project seeks to overcome the historical ineffectiveness of limited-government activism by the small, diffuse population of activists across the 50 United States and around the world.

Participants sign a statement of intent declaring that they intend to move to New Hampshire within five years of the drive reaching 20,000 participants, or other self-selected triggers. As of June 2011, more than 1,000 FSP participants have become "early movers" to New Hampshire, in that they have made their move prior to the 20,000-participant trigger.[SUP][2][/SUP] Over 12,000 people have signed this statement of intent.[SUP][3][/SUP] In 2010, at least 12 "Free Staters" (early project movers) were elected to the 400-member New Hampshire House of Representatives.[SUP][4][/SUP]
The Free State Project is a social movement generally based upon decentralized decision making. A control group that performs various activities, but most of FSP's activities depend upon volunteers, and no formal plan dictates to participants or movers what their actions should be in New Hampshire.''http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_State_Project

http://freestateproject.org/

''Democratic Education is a worldwide movement towards greater decision-making power for students in the running of their own schools. There is no generally agreed definition of the term, but at the IDEC (International Democratic Education Conference) in 2005[SUP][1][/SUP] the participants agreed on the following statement:

“We believe that, in any educational setting, young people have the right:

• to decide individually how, when, what, where and with whom they learn
• to have an equal share in the decision-making as to how their organisations — in particular their schools — are run, and which rules and sanctions, if any, are necessary.”

IDEN, the International Democratic Education Network, is open to any school that upholds such ideals as these:

• respect and trust for children
• equality of status of children and adults
• shared responsibility
• freedom of choice of activity
• democratic governance by children and staff together, without reference to any supposedly superior guide or system

This list is taken from the IDEN website, where there are other attempts at a definition of the term.
The European Democratic Education Community offers a briefer statement:
"There are two pillars of democratic education:

• self-determined learning
• a learning community based on equality and mutual respect." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_education

A list of democratic schools around the world: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_democratic_schools

The Ripple Project (rival to PayPal)

''Ripple is an open-source software project for developing and implementing a protocol for an open decentralized payment network. In its developed form (it is not substantially implemented), the Ripple network would be a peer-to-peer distributed social network service with a monetary honour system based on trust that already exists between people in real-world social networks; this form is financial capital backed completely by social capital.'' http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ripple_monetary_system

http://ripple-project.org/Main/HomePage

''Microfinance is usually understood to entail the provision of financial services to micro-entrepreneurs and small businesses, which lack access to banking and related services due to the high transaction costs associated with serving these client categories. The two main mechanisms for the delivery of financial services to such clients are (1) relationship-based banking for individual entrepreneurs and small businesses; and (2) group-based models, where several entrepreneurs come together to apply for loans and other services as a group.

In some regions, for example Southern Africa, microfinance is used to describe the supply of financial services to low-income employees, which however is closer to the retail finance model prevalent in mainstream banking.
For some, microfinance is a movement whose object is "a world in which as many poor and near-poor households as possible have permanent access to an appropriate range of high quality financial services, including not just credit but also savings, insurance, and fund transfers."[SUP][1][/SUP] Many of those who promote microfinance generally believe that such access will help poor people out of poverty. For others, microfinance is a way to promote economic development, employment and growth through the support of micro-entrepreneurs and small businesses.
Microfinance is a broad category of services, which includes microcredit. Microcredit is provision of credit services to poor clients. Although microcredit is one of the aspects of microfinance, conflation of the two terms is endemic in public discourse. Critics often attack microcredit while referring to it indiscriminately as either 'microcredit' or 'microfinance'. Due to the broad range of microfinance services, it is difficult to assess impact, and very few studies have tried to assess its full impact.'' http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microfinance

An example is the Grameen Bank: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grameen_Bank

Crowd funding or crowdfunding (alternately crowd financing, equity crowdfunding, social funding or hyper funding) describes the collective effort of individuals who network and pool their resources, usually via the Internet, to support efforts initiated by other people or organizations.[SUP][1][/SUP] Crowd funding is used in support of a wide variety of activities, including disaster relief, citizen journalism, support of artists by fans, political campaigns, startup company funding,[SUP][2][/SUP] movie[SUP][3][/SUP] or free software development, and scientific research.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crowd_funding

Islamic Finance

''Islamic economics refers to the body of Islamic studies literature that "identifies and promotes an economic order that conforms to Islamic scripture and traditions," and in the economic world an interest-free Islamic banking system, grounded in Sharia's condemnation of interest (riba). The literature has been developed "since the late 1940s, and especially since the mid-1960s."[SUP][1][/SUP] The banking system developed during the 1970s.[SUP][2][/SUP] The central features of Islamic economic literature have been summarized as the following: "behavioral norms" derived from the Quran and Sunna, zakat tax as the basis of Islamic fiscal policy, and prohibition of interest.[SUP][1][/SUP]

In Shia Islam, scholars including Mahmoud Taleghani and Mohammad Baqir al-Sadr developed an "Islamic economics" emphasizing the uplifting of the deprived masses, a major role for the state in matters such as circulation and equitable distribution of wealth, and a reward to participants in the marketplace for being exposed to risk and/or liability.
Islamist movements and authors generally describe an Islamic economic system as neither socialist nor capitalist, but as a "third way" with none of the drawbacks of the other two systems.'' http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_finance

Zakāt (Arabic: زكاة‎ [zæˈkæː], "that which purifies"[SUP][1][/SUP] or "alms"), is the giving of a fixed portion of one's wealth to charity, generally to the poor and needy.[SUP][2][/SUP] It is one of the Five Pillars of Islam. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zakat

LETS

''A local exchange trading system (also local employment and trading system or local energy transfer system; abbreviated to LETS or LETSystem) is a locally initiated, democratically organised, not-for-profit community enterprise that provides a community information service and record transactions of members exchanging goods and services by using the currency of locally created LETS Credits.

The first LETS required nothing more than a telephone, answering machine and a notebook.[SUP][7][/SUP] Since then there have been several attempts to improve the process with software, printed notes, and other familiar aspects of traditional currencies.

1. Local people set up an organization to trade between themselves, often paying a small membership fee to cover administration costs
2. Members maintain a directory of offers and wants to help facilitate trades
3. Upon trading, members may 'pay' each other with printed notes, log the transaction in log books or online, or write cheques which are later cleared by the system accountant.
4. Members whose balances exceed specified limits (positive or negative) are obliged to move their balance back towards zero by spending or earning.

LETS is a fully fledged monetary or exchange system, unlike direct barter. LETS members are able to earn credits from any member and spend them with anyone else on the scheme. Since the details are worked out by the users, there is much variation between schemes.

LETS can help revitalise and build community by allowing a wider cross-section of the community–individuals, small businesses, local services and voluntary groups–to save money and resources in cooperation with others and extend their purchasing power. Other benefits may include social contact, health care, tuition and training, support for local enterprise and new businesses. One goal of this approach is to stimulate the economies of economically depressed towns that have goods and services, but little official currency: the LETS scheme does not require outside sources of income as stimulus.'' http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LETS

Localisation as a response to globalisation for example:

''Transition Towns (also known as Transition network or Transition Movement) is a grassroots network of communities that are working to build resilience in response to peak oil, climate destruction, and economic instability.[SUP][citation needed][/SUP]

Transition Towns is a brand for these environmental and social movements “founded (in part) upon the principles of permaculture”, based originally on Bill Mollison’s seminal Permaculture, a Designers Manual published in 1988.[SUP][1][/SUP] The Transition Towns brand of permaculture uses David Holmgren’s 2003 book, Permaculture: Principles and Pathways Beyond Sustainability. [SUP][2][/SUP] These techniques were included in a student project overseen by permaculture teacher Rob Hopkins at the Kinsale Further Education College in Ireland. The term transition town was coined by Louise Rooney[SUP][3][/SUP] and Catherine Dunne. Following its start in Kinsale, Ireland it then spread to Totnes, England where Rob Hopkins and Naresh Giangrande developed the concept during 2005 and 2006.[SUP][4][/SUP] The aim of this community project is to equip communities for the dual challenges of climate change and peak oil. The Transition Towns movement is an example of socioeconomic localisation. In 2007, the UK-based charity Transition Network was founded to disseminate the concept of transition and support communities around the world as they adopted the transition model.'' http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transition_Towns


+100 others

I see your cut and paste works. Thanks for that.

 

[muir]

I said to a few people that i would post some ideas regarding alternatives

I will be posting some more ideas

Obviously these aren't all gonna be relevant or even acheivable to many but you never know they might provide some inspiration. There's a lot of debate and discussion at the moment about politics because of the elections and all the crazy stuff happening around the world at the moment and its easy to feel like we can't do much about it, but there is the odd thing here and there that we can do and when enough people do things they make a difference

Many people feel dispondant that they can't influence things on a large scale but anyone can be a part of a movement and movements do make a difference. 'Movements' aren't the work of individuals they are the work of large numbers of people working together

 

[Apone]

[MENTION=1871]muir[/MENTION]:

You seem to be obsessed with decentralization and anarchy.
I'm assuming then that you must love guns and war.

Maybe one day there will be a nuclear holocaust and cities will fall to ruin and we'll all enter paradise in the form of isolated pockets of primitive civilization in the woods. Maybe we'll even get to the point where we can't make guns and have to use sticks and stones.

But until that day, I'm fine with capitalism-- we've just got to control it better.

 

[muir]

@muir :

You seem to be obsessed with decentralization and anarchy.
I'm assuming then that you must love guns and war.

Maybe one day there will be a nuclear holocaust and cities will fall to ruin and we'll all enter paradise in the form of isolated pockets of primitive civilization in the woods. Maybe we'll even get to the point where we can't make guns and have to use sticks and stones.

But until that day, I'm fine with capitalism-- we've just got to control it better.

Its capitalism that has brought us endless war and its the capitalist system that enables a huge trade in guns and weapons to flourish

 

[Apone]

Its capitalism that has brought us endless war and its the capitalist system that enables a huge trade in guns and weapons to flourish

War has always been around.
Weapons have always been around.
I thought that we had already had this conversation?

If anything, wars have been getting smaller and less destructive, with fewer deaths in relation to the overall population, which is increasing.

If you decentralize authority, then you are going to destabilize everything, and make everything worse… I'm talking about criminal warlords rising to power and taking over their own 'turf'… how would you prevent conflicts/territorial disputes between independent states?


And yes, it can get much much worse.

 

[muir]

War has always been around.
Weapons have always been around.

That's why i said: 'it is capitalism that has brought us endless war'

War has come as a result of inequalities and inequalities are a fundamental aspect of capitalism so war is built into capitalism

Add to that the fact that bankers have for centuries lent money to different kings and nations and intrigued in order to encourage them to fight each other in order to make vast profits and you can see why there has been so much conflict in Europe for the last millenia. The venetian banking houses have been particularly active in this regard along with the 'black nobility' many of whose ancestors are still sitting on thrones across Europe

A huge industry based around supplying armaments and other war requirements has grown up in the US and Europe as a result of the two world wars and the people behind these war profiteering corporations have grown so powerful that they now fund/lobby politicians and shape national policy. War has become profitable for the capitalist elite but costs the working people in blood and taxes

I thought that we had already had this conversation?

I'm happy to go one more round of the carousel

If anything, wars have been getting smaller and less destructive, with fewer deaths in relation to the overall population, which is increasing.

This is utterly absurd. the last century saw millions upon millions killed by war and this century has been very bloody so far with a new world war looming on the horizon due to the web of allegiances between different countries that may be activated by the potential flashpoints of syria and Iran who Israel keeps threatening with violence including nuclear strikes

There has been an uneasy balance kept between the US and Russia since 1950 due to 'MAD' (mutually assured destruction) as both countries have the capacity to annihilate the other so neither has overtly provoked the other. however both countries have been involved in proxy wars with each other and various other covert cold war operations. An example of which would be the arming of the mujahideen in Afghanistan in the 70's-80's by the USA in order to help them fight the USSR. Now the USA is having to fight the same people it armed and trained! Not to mention the issue of missing stinger missiles that they sold to Afghanis to shoot down russian hind gunships which have not all been accounted for. No doubt those missiles have been sold to the highest bidders who have then reverse engineered those missile to be able to mass produce their own

The world has not been at peace during this time. It has seen constant low level conflict and has seen the entire planet living under the shadow of nuclear war

If you decentralize authority, then you are going to destabilize everything, and make everything worse… I'm talking about criminal warlords rising to power and taking over their own 'turf'… how would you prevent conflicts/territorial disputes between independent states?

There are already criminal warlords running our countries! Who do you think are behind 'private defence contractors' such as 'blackwater'? Its the same people who are running the fed and the military industrial complex

If we decentralised power we could work towards ending 'states' so that we are not clubbed together in little small minded groups waving our childish flags around and spinning demonising lies about people in other parts of the world

And yes, it can get much much worse.

It IS going to get worse (under the current capitalist system which is morphing into fascism); the fiat currency is collapsing

 

[Apone]

That's why i said: 'it is capitalism that has brought us endless war'

War has come as a result of inequalities and inequalities are a fundamental aspect of capitalism so war is built into capitalism

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111904106704576583203589408180.html

How is getting rid of capitalism or decentralizing government going to get rid of competition and war? Furthermore, how is getting rid of central authority going to prevent your independent mini-states from developing/acquiring nuclear weapons and using them against each other? How are you going to prevent your decentralized states from turning into new, smaller recentralized states that eventually enter into competition with other smaller re-centralized over resources and start the killing all over until finally one is dominant over all of the states?

You can't go backwards on this!

There are already criminal warlords running our countries! Who do you think are behind 'private defence contractors' such as 'blackwater'? Its the same people who are running the fed and the military industrial complex

If we decentralised power we could work towards ending 'states' so that we are not clubbed together in little small minded groups waving our childish flags around and spinning demonising lies about people in other parts of the world

How are we going to be able to work towards anything if there's no authority?

In Canada we have minority governments and majority governments-- and it's generally accepted that a minority government will always be much weaker and less effective than a majority… and so it tends to be a period where very few bills are passed and very few actions are taken… and it's also common for the government to collapse during this time and for there to be an election. It's possible for opposition parties to form coalitions, but again, this is less about co-operation as it is about power.

My point is that for the most part people can't agree and they can't work together… especially when power is less centralized. If there's no authority, then there is no agreement. Think about all of the arguments you've gotten into with me or with other people, and then imagine that all of a sudden instead of them being just about the ideas, they're suddenly extremely important decisions that are going to affect the lives of thousands of people. If you try to do something that I think is going to hurt me and the ones I care about, then I'm going to do everything I can to try to stop you-- and you're going to do the same. And so we're only going to end up in destructive conflict and nothing is going to get done. This is exactly the kind of world that you think is preferable to the one that we have now. People are not just suddenly going to agree on absolutely everything… it's not just a matter of not being informed/being brainwashed by the elites-- there are valid reasons supporting each and every possible course of action, which is why things like 'true' and 'right' courses of action will always be choices enacted due to subjective opinions… and which may or may not produce favorable outcomes which may or may not have occurred despite the actions.

We need a central authority to prevent us from killing each other… the problem is that a central authority needs to have another power that can keep it in check, etc… but no one is immune to corruption.

The only real path to world peace is letting the computers control us.

 

[muir]

View attachment 15794

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111904106704576583203589408180.html

How is getting rid of capitalism or decentralizing government going to get rid of competition and war?

Your graph shows a tiny slice of history but it does show how utterly destructive the recent wars of the industrial age have been

Here's a link to a wikipedia page showing wars by death toll: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_by_death_toll

It shows that like i've said wars have been pretty consistently bad for the last millenia. The worst of the large scale ones have been the most recent ones (WW1 & WWII)

Getting rid of capitalism will lesson the likelyhood of violence because capitalism is the primary driver of violence. The capitalist class profit from war. They have been bankrolling both sides in wars for hundreds of years. It is also in their interests to compete with other elites

Decentralising government helps because it gets rid of the capitalist class and lessens inequality which is what causes tensions.

The average person on the street doesn't want to go to war, they are sent to war by the capitalist class. if the average person on the street had some say over the running of their communities then they are not going to vote for war

Furthermore, how is getting rid of central authority going to prevent your independent mini-states from developing/acquiring nuclear weapons and using them against each other? How are you going to prevent your decentralized states from turning into new, smaller recentralized states that eventually enter into competition with other smaller re-centralized over resources and start the killing all over until finally one is dominant over all of the states?

I haven't said anything about 'ancient' greek style 'mini-states'.

There will however have to be a change in how communities of different sizes manage their affairs. The Paris Commune shows how an entire city can be managed by the workers. I myself work in a small scale voluntary association of workers but the principles we apply to our small scale operation could easily be used by larger operations and already are to different degrees in certain places

The internet is a global telephone network. It allows instant communication over large areas. It is a perfect instrument for communities to maintain a network through which communities can maintain contact, good relations and share resources....it can even act as a language interpreter

Some libertarians argue for a small government that exists only to uphold certain rights and some argue for no government at all.

Concerning how you would stop new tyrannies from emerging (which i definately see as a danger with anarcho-capitalism), the nature of consensus democracy is such that any attempt by a person or cabal to usurp power is going to be prevented by the community. Due to the internet the 'community' needn't end at the outskirts of your settlement....it could be part of a regional and eventually a global community

You can't go backwards on this!

Can't go back on what...anarcho-communism? No neither would i want to

How are we going to be able to work towards anything if there's no authority?

Work towards what? Everything is decided by consensus democracy via voluntary associations and workers councils

People's assemblies have been operating successfully in recent protest movements across the world; here's a link to the people's assemblies network: http://www.peoplesassemblies.org/

Think of all the corruption and scandals that keep coming out in the news. these are able to happen because there is not enough transparency and accountability. This would not be an issue when the community is openly involved in the decision making process

In Canada we have minority governments and majority governments-- and it's generally accepted that a minority government will always be much weaker and less effective than a majority… and so it tends to be a period where very few bills are passed and very few actions are taken… and it's also common for the government to collapse during this time and for there to be an election. It's possible for opposition parties to form coalitions, but again, this is less about co-operation as it is about power.

Yes the capitalist parliamentary system you inherited from the british who were (and still are) run by central bankers is shit and only represents the interests of the rich, which is why they are the only people getting wealthier at the moment while everyone else is getting poorer

My point is that for the most part people can't agree and they can't work together… especially when power is less centralized. If there's no authority, then there is no agreement. Think about all of the arguments you've gotten into with me or with other people, and then imagine that all of a sudden instead of them being just about the ideas, they're suddenly extremely important decisions that are going to affect the lives of thousands of people. If you try to do something that I think is going to hurt me and the ones I care about, then I'm going to do everything I can to try to stop you-- and you're going to do the same. And so we're only going to end up in destructive conflict and nothing is going to get done. This is exactly the kind of world that you think is preferable to the one that we have now. People are not just suddenly going to agree on absolutely everything… it's not just a matter of not being informed/being brainwashed by the elites-- there are valid reasons supporting each and every possible course of action, which is why things like 'true' and 'right' courses of action will always be choices enacted due to subjective opinions… and which may or may not produce favorable outcomes which may or may not have occurred despite the actions.

Here's an objective reality for you

Your current economic system is about to collapse. The top 1% of the top 1% have taken all the wealth and are hoping to create a centralised state run economy that they will control. No one except the top 1% of the top 1% is going to agree with that

If people are able to thrash out ideas in a public forum and then make a decision as a community, the needs of that community will be far better met than if you leave all the decisions to an elite from a propertied class, because what will happen if you leave all the decisions upto an elite from a propertied class is that THEY WILL LEGISLATE IN THEIR FAVOUR TO ENRICH THEMSELVES AND TO ENSLAVE THE WORKERS

The idea behind anarcho-communism is to end coercion so that we are not made to do things we don't want to do. Under capitalism we all have to do things we don't want to do all the time

Whenever people discuss theoretically the idea of creating a society it basically boils down to how to balance the personal freedoms of the individual against their responsibilites to their community

I belive that anarcho-communism allows the greatest amount of personal freedom while not impinging on the freedoms, health and happiness of the community

Capitalism on the other hand places many constraints on the individual unless you are super rich in which case you are above the law

 

[Patrick Williams]

I have enjoyed reading some of the threads in this post and would hope there is some type of alternative to pure Capitalism whose basic philosophy is, "the strong survive and the weak fall by the wayside". From what I understand, which is little as far as economics goes, Capitalism is based on the idea written in "The Wealth of Nations" that individual greed is good and will spur an economy forward (and greed is the underlying motivating factor of Capitalism to spur it onward).

Although I understand the concept, I think it is flawed because unbridled greed leads to oppression, corruption and fighting to eliminate those who would stand in the way of fulfilling your greed (which is never fulfilled - lust/greed is only temporarily satisfied but never, ever fulfilled).

I do not have the answer to this perennial problem but every system has failed (whether communism, marxism, Capitalism or other "isms") due to certain things that humans seem to always gravitate towards. These things are:

1. Humans desire and want things and this desire tends to be, fundamentally, self-centered.
2. Humans want to satisfy their desires
3. If a person has to inconvenience others to satisfy their own desires, they, most of the time, will justify their desire and why the other people should have to be inconvenienced for their sake.
4. People have egos that cause us to put ourselves before others (most of the time, with some exceptions at times).
5. When people get power, they, inevitably, abuse it ("power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely") (again, there are always exception but the general course of history bears this truth out)
6. Everyone believes that their perception, outlook and worldview is the best and most correct perception (because, if they did not, they would change it to acquire a true or clearer perception)
7. Some people just do not care about others, period.

So how do you curtail or deal with these?

The problem, ultimately, does not seem to be the "systems" but the people that rise to power within the "systems".

Although I have never been to a commune, I am certain that the ones in charge have abused their power and privilege at one time or another (look at Jim Jones).

How do you come up with a system where people can make a living and be content?

I do not have the answer because the problem lies, fundamentally, deep within each human being. Systems, by and large, are neutral entities but it is people and corruption that makes them bad (or become bad)... and this can happen at any level. Whenever people become involved in a system and ascend to a position to benefit themselves and their family, they tend to take advantage of it as much as they are legally allowed even if this hurts others - how do you curb this natural tendency?

 

[Apone]

Your graph shows a tiny slice of history but it does show how utterly destructive the recent wars of the industrial age have been

Here's a link to a wikipedia page showing wars by death toll: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_by_death_toll

It shows that like i've said wars have been pretty consistently bad for the last millenia. The worst of the large scale ones have been the most recent ones (WW1 & WWII)

I couldn't find a graph that shows the decline in violence over the past millennia, but if you had read the article, it also explains that the death toll per 100,000 people has been decreasing, that someone is far far less likely to be murdered by another person now than they were in the past, and that this is a trend that has continued over thousands of years. The global population has exploded in the past centuries, and so there are going to be more deaths, more crimes, more murders etc... the point is that the amount of murders does not reflect how violent we are as a culture or suggest that most people are becoming more violent. I do think that we're more likely to express outrage and shock over acts of violence than people in the past, however.. which again points to the fact that people are coming to find violence less acceptable and more distasteful, and are themselves less likely to practice it.

Getting rid of capitalism will lesson the likelyhood of violence because capitalism is the primary driver of violence. The capitalist class profit from war. They have been bankrolling both sides in wars for hundreds of years. It is also in their interests to compete with other elites

This is the most absurd idea on the entire thread. People were violent long before capitalism. The Native American tribes, who did not have capitalism, fought. Cavemen fought. History is full of war. There is no reason to believe that things will stop if you 'liberate' everyone-- if anything, when people/individuals are free to make up their own rules, it means that there's a much greater chance of violence.

Decentralising government helps because it gets rid of the capitalist class and lessens inequality which is what causes tensions.

Why should I listen to someone who does not have any power over me?
Why should I listen to someone who does not understand what I do?

Inequality does not always cause tensions... in many situations, it defines a person's responsibilities and organizes society-- and also prevents conflict.

Equality does not always cause tension, but can... especially in the case of the high school dropout suddenly being on equal footing to the Harvard business school grad.

And inequality does not always mean exploitation... corruption isn't a natural byproduct of power, it's a learned behavior that is the effect of a certain corrupt behavior becoming socially acceptable among a certain group.

The average person on the street doesn't want to go to war, they are sent to war by the capitalist class. if the average person on the street had some say over the running of their communities then they are not going to vote for war

Remember 9/11? Right after it happened, everyone wanted a war. People want to see other people die. They want to see other people pay for what they have done.

I haven't said anything about 'ancient' greek style 'mini-states'.

How will you prevent these from forming? In the event of major disagreements, how will you prevent secret or even not-so-secret alliances between workers? Or what if the majority decision favors one community over another? What if there's a small minority who agrees and considers it unjust? Without a central law, how are you going to prevent uprisings, private armies, etc?

And the internet is not a substitute for real community.

There will however have to be a change in how communities of different sizes manage their affairs. The Paris Commune shows how an entire city can be managed by the workers. I myself work in a small scale voluntary association of workers but the principles we apply to our small scale operation could easily be used by larger operations and already are to different degrees in certain places

'Easily'-- hmmmmmm...

Concerning how you would stop new tyrannies from emerging (which i definately see as a danger with anarcho-capitalism), the nature of consensus democracy is such that any attempt by a person or cabal to usurp power is going to be prevented by the community. Due to the internet the 'community' needn't end at the outskirts of your settlement....it could be part of a regional and eventually a global community

How are they going to democratically decide on the best course of action in order to do so? Are you going to hold millions and millions of referendums at every waking hour? How are they going to decide who is going to fight? I thought that nobody wanted to fight?

Yes the capitalist parliamentary system you inherited from the british who were (and still are) run by central bankers is shit and only represents the interests of the rich, which is why they are the only people getting wealthier at the moment while everyone else is getting poorer

You really couldn't have missed the point more completely.

Here's an objective reality for you

Your current economic system is about to collapse. The top 1% of the top 1% have taken all the wealth and are hoping to create a centralised state run economy that they will control. No one except the top 1% of the top 1% is going to agree with that

If people are able to thrash out ideas in a public forum and then make a decision as a community, the needs of that community will be far better met than if you leave all the decisions to an elite from a propertied class, because what will happen if you leave all the decisions upto an elite from a propertied class is that THEY WILL LEGISLATE IN THEIR FAVOUR TO ENRICH THEMSELVES AND TO ENSLAVE THE WORKERS

The idea behind anarcho-communism is to end coercion so that we are not made to do things we don't want to do. Under capitalism we all have to do things we don't want to do all the time

This is not true at all-- we do have to work but we also have free time to do what we please. And what if what we want to do doesn't match the needs of the community? Are we all just going to want to do the things that other people don't want to do?

 

[Apone]

Here's a graph for you-- it's not a good one, however.

Here's the article:
http://www.psychohistory.com/originsofwar/03_psychology_neurobiology.html

It shows that child abuse has also been declining.
The fact that so many people are so sensitive and compassionate towards victims of any kind of abuse is a testament to that decline.

Another:



Interestingly enough, the highest violent death toll here was from a Native American site, before Columbus. And yet you still think that capitalism is the world's greatest evil and that decentralized power is a good thing.

Another:

This one shows the number of war deaths in non-state societies when compared to state societies.

 

[bamf]

Anarchy =/= chaos, and most people educated on political systems know this. Jus' sayin'. Not gonna tackle a bunch of graphs and statistics that don't actually back up capitalism's legitimacy in any way.

 

[Apone]

Anarchy =/= chaos, and most people educated on political systems know this. Jus' sayin'. Not gonna tackle a bunch of graphs and statistics that don't actually back up capitalism's legitimacy in any way.

They're not supposed to back up capitalism's 'legitimacy', they're supposed to show muir that capitalism is not making us more violent, which is the point we're currently arguing.

And you should really leave 'educated' out of this-- it's insulting and furthermore it doesn't suggest ignorance to say that I personally feel that anarchy couldn't produce a stable form of government in the long term.

 

[Lerxst]

They're not supposed to back up capitalism's 'legitimacy', they're supposed to show muir that capitalism is not making us more violent, which is the point we're currently arguing.

And you should really leave 'educated' out of this-- it's insulting and furthermore it doesn't suggest ignorance to say that I personally feel that anarchy couldn't produce a stable form of government in the long term.

"You have, I want..." that always equals violence. Capitalism not only acknowledges this, but embraces it. There would be violence without capitalism, but it wouldn't be rewarded and supported by "the system" like it is with capitalism.

 

[Apone]

"You have, I want..." that always equals violence. Capitalism not only acknowledges this, but embraces it. There would be violence without capitalism, but it wouldn't be rewarded and supported by "the system" like it is with capitalism.

Trade isn't violent.

 

[this is only temporary]

"You have, I want..." that always equals violence. Capitalism not only acknowledges this, but embraces it. There would be violence without capitalism, but it wouldn't be rewarded and supported by "the system" like it is with capitalism.

Haha, so does sex. yet that works out for a lot of people too! Seriously.

One of the best things about capitalism (not that it is always good by any means) is that people are less likely to enter into wars with their trading partners.

 

[Kgal]

Haha, so does sex. yet that works out for a lot of people too! Seriously.

One of the best things about capitalism (not that it is always good by any means) is that people are less likely to enter into wars with their trading partners.

"People" may be unwilling ....but Corporations/Governments - oth - do it all the time with each other. If there's profit in it - who cares about a few dead thousands...

Have you ever played the game Risk? I often went to war with my best friend as we secretly cooperated with each other to dominate the world. We beat the guys all the time because of this.

 

[Apone]

If capitalism causes war, then why doesn't the US fight Canada?

Seriously, there's enough oil in Canada to last the US for years… why let the Canadians sell it to China when they're so ripe for the taking? The military is a joke, and 300 million Americans vs. 40 million Canadians seems like pretty good odds.

I think I've probably giving people the impression that I'm defending capitalism, which I suppose I sort of am-- but I don't think it's a perfect system or that it's the answer to everyone's problems-- my point is that I don't think it's the terrible universally oppressive force that some people make it out to be and I think there are actually some extremely big advantages that shouldn't be taken for granted, especially when the alternatives could easily lead to things becoming much much worse.

I also think it's important to consider that perhaps our current woes aren't so much the fault of capitalism but of other influences.

I do think that sometimes the question isn't one of greed and exploitation, and more a question of the population having reached a point where a large amount of people are actually redundant… we simply don't need that many people to run a society, and it's impossible to find places for everyone.

There is now an overabundance of unskilled workers as well as a shortage of workers who are skilled in the highly specialized fields where demand is highest. It used to be that a basic chemistry degree could probably put you in a position where you were capable of innovation, however yesterday's innovation is today's common knowledge, and so an innovator today would have to have a lot more knowledge, and probably a greater degree of specialization. Without pursuing a relevant specialization, people with basic physics degrees have now become unskilled laborers.

And how many unskilled laborers (factory employees, etc) does it take to provide enough goods for millions? It's pretty basic math-- you can have a relatively minute work force and if you are efficient they can provide enough goods for the entire world.

How many people do you need to feed a billion people? Even if you were distributing everything equally, there would probably still be people out of work.

If society were producing driven, innovative achievers then the question of place probably wouldn't be as difficult-- our rate of progress would probably triple and we might even have already been able to solve the problems that we are facing… but even the most advanced societies are churning out mostly unskilled workers… and a lot of that is due to the demand for specialization and the increasing complexity of our world… it's actually one of the reasons that societies fail-- because their complexity outpaces their ability to adapt.

So how are we ever going to be able to sustain our progress if we can't produce enough skilled workers?

Unless we find a new world to colonize, I would guess that collapse/dark age is probably inevitable, and a return to a more pastoral lifestyle (replete with all kinds of violence and barbarism, a sharp decline in education, medicine, technology and knowledge in general… as well as a huge drop in the population) will be the result… but I don't think it's something that should be glamorized or touted as the perfect solution to all of our woes… but it will probably be good for the planet and I do think it is easier for smaller societies to share and have a more egalitarian balance of power.

I don't really know if this is going to happen or if this is how it is, it's mostly just a theory.