Showing posts with label Local Government. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Local Government. Show all posts

Friday, February 22, 2013

Agorism and Mutualism: Summaries, and Compare and Contrast

   Agorism is a system in which free and voluntary society is pursued through competition with the State and counter-economics.
   Counter-economics is market action which is either forbidden by the State (black market) or unapproved or unintended by the State (gray market); for example, "under the table" interactions, tax-dodging, trading-out, sharing, gifting, bartering, and trading.
   While minarchism expresses the notion that the State should only secure and defend people, protect their property, and provide essential military, police, and justice systems; Agorists view each of these services as a market in which there should be competition.
   Agorism would therefore see the State monopoly on the provision of those goods replaced by multiple syndicates (or companies, agencies, organizations) which compete against one another for customers.
   Additionally, Agorism seeks to specialize services typically provided by the State, causing its functions (such as personal security and defense; detention and arrest; detection and investigation; dispute-resolution / arbitration / adjudication; restitution; and property protection and insurance) to be split-up into separate industries.
   Significant contributors to Agorist thought include Samuel E. Konkin III (basic theory), J. Neil Schulman (counter-economics), Wally Conger (class theory), Robert Murphy (private law and defense, and insurance), Brad Spangler, Gary Chartier, Charles W. Johnson, and Mike Gogulski.

   Mutualism is an ethical philosophy and theory embracing mutuality and reciprocity, as well as an economic theory. It intends to be the “synthesis of community and property”, and is associated with the phrases “anarchy is order without power” and “property is theft”. Mutualists support titles to landed property, as long as it is continually occupied, used, and accessed.
   Proudhon favored possession of land, workplaces, and means of production by individual workers and peasants, or by collectives thereof; and desired that access to land not be arbitrarily withheld from those who desire to labor on it.
   Mutualist Pierre-Joseph Proudhon described himself at various times as an anarchist and a federalist, favoring a federation of voluntarily-associating co-operatives (or workers’ associations). He also favored a national bank which would give loans at a minimal interest rate, its administration costs funded by income tax on capitalists and stockholders, and also by the minimal interest rate.
   Although Mutualists oppose income derived from loans, investments, ground rent, and interest on capital, Proudhon wrote that he would not support legal prohibitions of those practices. Mutualism is based on the labor theory of value, promotes a system in which trade represents labor, and supports workers earning the full product of their labor as property.
   Many Mutualists disagree with the notion that having wealth gives one a right to accumulate more wealth – especially through rent, profit, and interest – viewing such practices as forceful, fraudulent, and / or coercive.
   Significant contributors to Mutualist thought include Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (articulation of ethical theory into anarchist theory), Josiah Warren, Lysander Spooner, and William B. Greene.

   Disputes between Agorists and Mutualists typically revolve around:
- Whether unoccupied, unused landed property should be protected as a right (especially in regards to the Lockean proviso, which gives that homesteading is permissible only when one adds his labor to it, and enough land is left for others)
- Whether value should be thought of as subjective, or objective (such as value and trade based on labor)
- Whether exploitation of labor by capital for profit is coercive (and objectively unethical), or merely hierarchical (and subjectively unethical)
- Whether the Non-Aggression Principle of voluntaryism and the ethical imperativeness of  reciprocity are valid expressions of the Golden Rule and / or an objective ethics (if such a thing exists)
- Whether Agorism and Mutualism are tactics, or philosophical theories
- Whether revolution, insurgency, or reform are feasible or ethical tactics
- Whether internationalism, nationalism, federalism, municipalism, and panarchy are feasible geographical organizational structures

   Agorists and Mutualists generally agree that:
- Monopolies of many or all varieties should be opposed
- The right of contract should be supported
- Voluntary cooperation should be promoted
- Counter-economics / social counter-power / dual power, and gradualism are feasible and ethical tactics
- Anarchy is a form of order (articulated by Austrian economists as catallaxy; spontaneous orders include catallaxy [associated with market-anarchism] and stigmergy [associated with social-anarchism])
- Most varieties of capitalism and socialism are insufficiently supportive of individual rights



 Approximate figures regarding topic of argument,
"Agorist-Mutualist Alliance" group on Facebook






For more entries on banking, the treasury, currency, inflation, and business, please visit:
http://www.aquarianagrarian.blogspot.com/2014/05/response-to-campaign-for-liberty.html

For more entries on enterprise, business, business alliance, and markets, please visit:
http://www.aquarianagrarian.blogspot.com/2010/10/enlightened-catallaxy-reciprocally.html
http://www.aquarianagrarian.blogspot.com/2014/05/agorist-protection-agencies-and.html

For more entries on theory of government, please visit:
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Friday, November 16, 2012

Joe Kopsick vs. "Fighting Bob" LaFollette: Compare and Contrast



Before unveiling my general platform for the 2014 Wisconsin gubernatorial race - and before delving into the complicated world of secession, nullification, interposition, and expatriation - it will be necessary to succinctly explain the most important similarities and differences between myself and Republican-turned-Progressive Wisconsin Governor and U.S. Senator Robert M. LaFollette, one of the most influential senators - and most successful third-party presidential candidates - in American history.

This is especially appropriate in light of the praise of LaFollette which was recently voiced by self-described progressive Republican Arthur Louis "Art for Gov" Kohl-Riggs, the young man who ran against Governor Scott Walker in the Republican gubernatorial primary earlier this year (2012).



FOREIGN POLICY, DEFENSE, AND CIVIL LIBERTIES

I stand with LaFollette in his support of freedom of speech during wartime, his opposition to the prosecution of admitted socialists, and his opposition to needless American military interventionism and involvement in foreign conflicts.

As LaFollette opposed the League of Nations, I view the modern United Nations as a potential threat to the self-determination of the country of the United States of America, and - more importantly - of the nation and the people of Wisconsin. I believe that international legal bodies of any kind pose a risk that human rights standards may deteriorate - and / or become irrational, by imposing unwarranted responsibilities upon others - due to failed leadership and corruption of wealthy and powerful nations, and due to complacency of weaker and poorer nations. This is especially risky given the veto power which the United States currently wields in the U.N. Security Council, which I see as nothing more than a form of tyranny, albeit shared with the governments of four other nations.

As LaFollette opposed the open arming of American merchant vessels during wartime, I would do the same. However, I would take a "laissez-faire" - or (for lack of a better phrase) a "don't-ask-don't-tell" - approach on this issue; that is, I would not support open admission that such ships be armed, nor would I demand that such ships be unarmed. I believe that such a position would prevent needless casualties of crew members, which could seem feasible and excusable in the eyes of our rivals, were it to become known that the crews of such ships would have insufficient means to defend themselves against initiatory aggression.



POLITICAL LIBERALISM, AND GOVERNMENTAL AND ELECTION REFORM

I praise LaFollette's efforts to make government more accessible to citizens and tolerant of alternative political viewpoints. Not only this, but I would call for an augmentation of many of LaFollette's projects.

These projects include - but are not limited to - voting rights for women and minorities (naturally), open and transparent government with a direct role for citizens in proposing and passing legislation, non-partisan elections and a direct and open primary system, and collegiate research on - and development of - public policy.

Additionally, I join LaFollette in his support of the home rule of municipalities, as well as of the state of Wisconsin as a "laboratory for democracy". However - being that I support municipal home rule as part of my wider support of political subsidiarity (the notion that decision-making should take place at the maximally-locally-oriented level which would not risk undermining competence), I would criticize LaFollette's support of the direct election of U.S. Senators, which became federal law in the form of the 17th Amendment to the Constitution.

To mix the language of LaFollette and former New Mexico Governor and 2012 Libertarian Party presidential candidate Gary Johnson, if Wisconsin is to become a laboratory for the innovation of democracy and public policy - and if we are to support "home rule" and subsidiarity in general - then we should urge our representatives at the state and federal levels alike to allow the legislatures of the states to re-assert their influence on the country at large, by pursuing a repeal of the 17th Amendment, thereby restoring the principles of republicanism and dual-federalism as envisioned by our Founders.



CORRUPTION, COMMERCE, AND DOMESTIC INDUSTRY

As LaFollette was outspoken in his opposition to political and economic corruption, so too would I oppose the hierarchical decision-making and power structure in the two dominant political parties, the very existence of which undermine political speech, and drown out important voices and viewpoints.

I also share LaFollette’s concerns about corruption, corporate welfare, and the dominance of corporate special interests over the interests of the public, which in LaFollette’s time were known as “patronage” and “vast corporate combinations”.

Like LaFollette, I would resolve to make decisions which are in the interests of consumers and workers. Additionally – as LaFollette was outspoken in his opposition to railroad trusts – I would be vocal in my opposition to trusts in general, and in my support of anti-trust laws, as I would apply them to commerce and governmental structure alike.

However, I differ with LaFollette in his support of a protective tariff on domestic goods, being that I believe they impose an unnecessary and artificial barrier to international trade, and due to the potential that such tariffs could stand to inappropriately benefit domestic industry. I believe that the idea of “the invisible hand” is an assertion that consumers naturally act to protect and favor domestic industry through their economic choices.

They would especially do so in an environment of diminished corporate influence on public affairs, and consumers would have sufficient influence on trade such that attempts by the government to ensure that domestic production persevere would be superfluous, egregious, self-serving, and inclined towards the very sort of business corruption which has been a scourge to political freedom, and to diverse and competitive markets.



SOCIAL PROGRAMS, WELFARE, AND LABOR POLICY

I side with LaFollette in his championing of the workers’ compensation system, the enactment of child labor laws, and social security and old age benefits, although I would take the sustainability of the ratio of revenues to disbursements of the latter program into serious consideration, with an emphasis on means-testing for recipients.

So too would I join LaFollette in his support of progressive taxation; I would support the closing of any loopholes which deviate from a graduated, accelerating (exponential) tax on income and wealth in property, especially on such wealth which is the product of the inappropriate perpetuation of unearned privilege bestowed upon special individual and business interests through means of government coercion.

While I would praise LaFollette for his efforts fighting for an eight-hour work-day and for collective bargaining in general, my support of the labor movement would be based on principles such as freedom and diversity of competition, diversity of ideology and goals within the labor movement, the right of consumers to influence trade and the labor markets, respect for the rights of minorities of all varieties, and rational and humane wage policies towards the poor and disadvantaged.

I believe that Wisconsin and the organized labor movement should not submit to the authority of the National Labor Relations Board to permit nor deny the right to strike; this undermines the freedom of union members to pursue negotiation goals which are more moderate or more radical than the goals of their leadership. There should be no such thing as wildcat strikes; in other words, no strikes should be illegal, being that the future of the labor movement relies on its independence and self-sufficiency in affecting its ends.

Were government favors and privileges for large and multinational business to be removed - and their lasting ill effects to be compensated for – I do not believe that government power would be necessary to uphold the gains of organized labor. If labor standards were to significantly deteriorate, I would call for a general strike, and for workers across the state to adopt similar standards on wages, additional compensation, and safety and health in the workplace, so that companies failing to uphold such standards remain neither fully-staffed nor profitable.

Unlike LaFollette, I would pursue the nullification of federal minimum wage laws, and the repeal of state minimum wage laws. Although laborers and the organizations which represent them will always pursue increased wages, benefits, and conditions, there would be no need for government to uphold these gains (given adequate compensation for the lasting ill effects of corporate welfare and domination of public policy by private interests).

Additionally, I would adopt the position of scholars such as Milton Friedman; that legally-enforced minimum wage laws constitute undue barriers to entry into the labor market, especially for the youth, the elderly, the disabled; and the economically disadvantaged, the under-educated, and the under-skilled; as well as the racial, ethnic, cultural, religious, and linguistic minorities which are disproportionately affected by the aforementioned deficits in skills, education, and job experience.
I also believe that the endorsement of minimum wage laws by unions – as well as of the politicians who support them (and increases in minimum wage rates), and even, sometimes, the standards themselves – contributes to a lack of solidarity in the labor movement, and to unnecessary animosity between demographic groups of laborers.

While I believe that the right to strike exists independently – and regardless of – government might and fiat, I believe that the power of public employees to engage in collective bargaining undermines political and economic liberty whenever and wherever they attempt to do so in an environment of monopoly government (Statism). As such, I would support the independence and self-sufficiency of organized labor, while opposing monopolistic governmental jurisdiction on anti-trust grounds – and in the interests of diversity of political association and consent of the governed – as well as first examining how fraud and abuse may be eliminated from the state government, and sustainable government finance and balanced budgets may be restored.



CONCLUSION

I wholeheartedly support Robert LaFollette’s dedication to peace, a humble foreign policy, non-interventionism, opposition to belligerence, support of American national sovereignty, civil liberties such as the freedom of speech and ideology, voting rights, election reform, open government with direct citizen involvement, political subsidiarity, opposition to corruption and to the control of public policy by private and business special interests, opposition to trusts in industry, support of consumer’s rights and interests, social programs and individual welfare, and the struggles of organized labor.

However, LaFollette’s views on local governance and progressive economic issues (such as minimum wage laws) leave something to be desired. Luckily, after nearly a hundred years, developments in the economic and political sciences – especially in the fields of free-market economics and market-anarchist political theory – enable us to learn from the history of successes and failures of the progressive and liberal movements how LaFollette’s shortcomings may be corrected, and how his ideas may be supplemented and completed.

In truth, there is little daylight between the progressivism of Bob LaFollette and the left-libertarianism of the Agorists, the market-anarchists, the individualist-anarchists, and the classical liberals. As a candidate for governor, I hope to – as much as possible – unite and reconcile the ideologies subscribed to by the likes of the modern American socialist, Green, Libertarian, Constitution, and other political parties; not just on issues like military interventionism and civil liberties (on which they already - for the most part - agree), but also on issues which seem to be the greatest impediments to a solidified front against the domination of the political ideological landscape by the two-party duopoly, especially the most fundamental principles of such groups’ economic theories, and theories of what makes governance and authority legitimate.

Please support me - former U.S. congressional candidate Joe Kopsick – in my campaign for governor of Wisconsin in 2014. Putting a true political and economic independent – neither affiliated with nor supportive of the Democrats or the Republicans – in the Governor's Mansion will send a strong message to the nation at large that the two-party duopoly’s days are numbered.



For more entries on Wisconsin politics, please visit:
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Sunday, October 24, 2010

On Public Planning Departments


 In June or July 2008, I wrote the following essay for a university course on public planning and natural resources. It is an exercise based on a hypothetical situation in which a candidate for mayor were to advocate for the elimination of a city public planning department. Its original title was “Loss of Public Planning Department Would Impact Influence of Public Will, Slow Development."

It should be noted that I do not hold many of the opinions defended in this essay today. I explain why at the end of the essay. The essay reads thus:






I am concerned about the misleading rhetoric espoused by the conservative candidate for mayor regarding her plan to eliminate the public planning department.

To eliminate this department would leave a hole in our local government. It would dramatically diminish our city’s ability to engage in sustainable development with minimal detriment to the safety of our citizens, natural resources, and wildlife.

Were our local government to attempt to exist effectively without the public planning department, decisions regarding important public concerns such as unlimited pollution and inefficient or faulty transportation systems [would be left] up to individual people and businesses, meaning that a majority of the public could be affected without their knowledge, consent, or ability to voice their objections or suggestions.

Although the efficiency of the functioning of markets is a legitimate concern, it would not be correct to suggest that government interference in markets will decrease efficiency. Unlimited pollution would not interfere with the efficiency of the market in the short term, but it would be terribly inefficient to suspend the actions of a body created to handle problems affecting the public until a private investor with enough money and interest to fix the problem comes along, causing the delay of projects which may prevent further exposure to poorly-maintained roads and hazardous chemicals, thus creating several other problems such as rising health care costs and dissatisfaction with local government.

It would be more efficient for the progress of society as a whole, and to the specific community, to take some effort to ensure that groups of citizens who may not be able to invest time and money to fix problems affecting the public have a method to ensure that their concerns have a chance of being heard and addressed, rather than to eliminate the public planning department and allow the possibility that cheap, shoddy materials could be used to build infrastructure, or that decisions on improving transportation systems and protecting against damage by pollution could be left to the lowest bidder, whom cannot always be counted on to put the public interest ahead of his own desire to make profit.

The conservative candidate’s claim that “buyers and sellers know what is best for them, and the greater public interest will result from their decisions” is false. We cannot assume that any particular rational market actor will do what is in the public interest any more than we can assume that any particular person will know what the public interest is, or that he will understand how to implement decisions to best serve the public interest, or even that he can be relied on to ensure the safety and security of himself, his family, and his property.

To suggest that individuals and markets can be counted on to bring about the public good eliminates the purpose of democracy: the ability of citizens to be represented in lawmaking and to engage in discourse with their elected representatives so that they may hear the complaints and suggestions of their constituents, better understand the public interest and good, and be held accountable for any failures to serve the public.

While it is true that ownership of private property is a condition for freedom, since ownership gives rights to the owner, and thus gives the owner freedom from infringement upon those rights, it is not, however, true that ownership of private property is a necessary condition for democracy. Even citizens whom do not own any private property have voting rights and are entitled to representation, so democracy can exist even if some of those citizens who participate in the democracy do not own private property.

The conservative candidate has not provided sufficient justification for the elimination of the public planning department. Although she is correct to warn against unjustifiable takings without compensation, she does not adequately explain why such cases represent a threat to democracy or to democratic values. She has used concerns for the efficiency of the economy and the endurance of democratic values to mislead the public to support a candidate whose reforms would drastically alter the structure and ability of the local government, which would cause layoffs and slow progress in issues of public concern.





I will next explain with which opinions contained in the above essay I no longer agree, and why. This text was written on October 24th, 2010.


First, while I believe that there is an important place for democracy in local government, I also believe that such democracy can only be protective of private property and individual rights so long as the authority of the democratic government in question is submitted to voluntarily.

But I would add that once such a government is constituted legitimately – that is, with the consent of all parties involved – it should have the right to make rules about which people and businesses may be permitted to reside and operate within the territory administered by the government (that is, if that government operates as a territorial government, rather than as a confederation of individuals, or some other formulation of a jurisdictionally-aterritorial confederation of governments and autonomous individuals).

     Second, I reject my previous claims that government interference in markets will increase efficiency. Being that our current government is centralized, exclusive, monopolistic, and has coercion as its main premise, I would now argue the opinion espoused by the Austrian School, which is that it becomes impossible for an optimally efficient balance to be found through the actions of the sum of freely acting participants in any given market over which some right to plan – especially in a centralized manner – is claimed and exercised by a monopoly government.

Third, while it is true that without a monopolistic central planning department, decisions could be left to the lowest bidder, it is not necessarily true that the lowest bidder would always provide for the goods which are desired by the community.

Although I did not overtly say this in the essay, I did reject the claim that “buyers and sellers know what is best for them, and the greater public interest will result from their decisions”, and I also said that “we cannot assume that any particular rational market actor… will understand how to implement decisions to best serve the public interest”.

While I believe that this claim is consistent with Adam Smith’s idea that “every individual… generally… neither intends to promote the public interest, nor knows how much he is promoting it”, it would appear that the implication of these two statements is that we can also not assume that any particular rational market actor who has been elected to serve in government will understand how to implement decisions to best serve the public interest.

While it would seem appropriate to note that this idea could be easily used to argue against democracy, it would take a bit more to use it to argue in favor of the free market. To do this, I would again invoke catallaxy, a term which is essentially identical with Adam Smith’s “invisible hand”, and which Austrian School economist Friedrich Hayek used to refer to “the order brought about by the mutual adjustment of many individual economies in a market”.

To invoke catallaxy in this argument is to defend the idea that as long as participants in the marketplace do not coerce, manipulate, or defraud one another, and act with deference to the mutual desire of all parties to economic agreements to make decisions which each party deems to be in its own best interest, the result will always be not only the most optimally efficient result possible (as judged by the parties), but also the most moral result possible, being that the consent of no party was ignored in the decision-making process.

    In attempting to understand this argument, it would also be helpful to note that in a free market of governance which rejected monopolistic economic planning, there would be nothing preventing an individual or a group thereof from seeking justiciable restitution in the event that their property were to be damaged as a result of decision-making by individuals unknown to the person or persons claiming that some damage has occurred.


Original Essay Written in June or July 2008 for a college course
Correction Written on October 24th, 2010
Originally Published on October 24th, 2010




For more entries on enterprise, business, business alliance, and markets, please visit:
http://www.aquarianagrarian.blogspot.com/2010/10/enlightened-catallaxy-reciprocally.html
http://www.aquarianagrarian.blogspot.com/2014/05/agorist-protection-agencies-and.html

For more entries on social services, public planning, and welfare, please visit:
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