I am not a state socialist, hence the libertarian prefix. Its close to anarchism, though my main gripe is to put all powerful institutions under popular control. Government and businesses are fine with me as long as they are accountable to the people they affect.


I was merely trying to identify the differences in our philosophy that would lead you to call libertarian socialism an oxymoron. Perhaps I did presume, true, but I imagine someone who started a thread arguing against labour unions would reject the notion of democracy in the market. Tell me then, do you believe in workers' cooperatives?

If you had read my entire thread on labor unions, you would know that I oppose labor unions as a monopoly of labor. Monopolies in any form are undemocratic, as they prevent free will and competition. People can get together to petition for higher wages as long as they want, so long as they don't attempt to sabotage the free-market. I am a firm believer in democracy and small government, and I am staunchly anti-corporatism and big business-government.

If you are saying that you are anarcho-syndicalist, then I wish to inform you that a syndicate is simply a new form of oppressive, tyrannical government.

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"It is no crime to be ignorant of economics, which is, after all, a specialized discipline and one that most people consider to be a 'dismal science.' But it is totally irresponsible to have a loud and vociferous opinion on economic subjects while remaining in this state of ignorance.

--Murray Rothbard

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Originally Posted by Skinny. A liberal is just a libertarian who hasn't studied economics.

That is incorrect, as the difference between the employer and the worker is who holds the power. Clearly the employer exercises power and control over his workers, and as such any counterbalance such as union organising serves only to redress the situation. A petition with no legal backing serves no purpose, employers can simply ignore it and hire more docile, unorganised workers.

I fail to see how smaller communes with no centralised authority, and all power subject to popular control, are more opressive than the current system. Or indeed some sort of Objectivist dystopia which others (not necessarily you!!) advocate, where a road would only be created if two people at either end decided they wanted to build it, and would then charge others to use it. A hate filled society where humans are slaves by renting out themselves to others in order to survive. That isn't real freedom.

ROFLMNAO... Oh GOD that's precious...

So you're not a statist... you just want any private insitution which you feel weilds some influence to be controlled by the state.

Man you people are beautiful... Is that you KOD?



I can't speak for the pale fox... but I'm all for worker cooperatives... I believe that any worker that wants to go out, obtain a contract, pony up to capital to execute that contract, take responsibility for the work and gets the job done should share as much of the profits as he wants to in cooperation with the workers.

But in all fairness, it's been my experience that those workers that have enough on the ball to do get the contract, usually figure out pretty darn quick that the workers in the co-op aren't near as critical to the contract as they seemed to be when he was one of them looking up to the top...

Workers are the last to come in, the first to go home, they don't sign any checks and they don't risk a penny in the process. They are fairly compensated the wage they negotiated before they hired on and that's the extent of their value.

I also have a problem with Unions that force business to pay top dollar for worse case scenario workers, thus raising the price of doing business; artificially inflating the value of the currency which pays the union wage, by forcing higher scale to workers, while not forcing higher levels of production.

OMG, it's a super leftist!!!

An anarcho-syndacalist!

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"It is no crime to be ignorant of economics, which is, after all, a specialized discipline and one that most people consider to be a 'dismal science.' But it is totally irresponsible to have a loud and vociferous opinion on economic subjects while remaining in this state of ignorance.

--Murray Rothbard

Quote:

Originally Posted by Skinny. A liberal is just a libertarian who hasn't studied economics.

I agree, Publius.

__________________
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"It is no crime to be ignorant of economics, which is, after all, a specialized discipline and one that most people consider to be a 'dismal science.' But it is totally irresponsible to have a loud and vociferous opinion on economic subjects while remaining in this state of ignorance.

--Murray Rothbard

Quote:

Originally Posted by Skinny. A liberal is just a libertarian who hasn't studied economics.

You mistake the population for the state. A mistake muslim extremists also make when they declare that they 'hate America'.

Thank you, I know of some attractive far rightists also.

No, but tell me about him/her.


You are advocating wage slavery. That is incompatible with freedom.

To borrow PI's and your's favorite phrase

ROFLMAO!!!

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"It is no crime to be ignorant of economics, which is, after all, a specialized discipline and one that most people consider to be a 'dismal science.' But it is totally irresponsible to have a loud and vociferous opinion on economic subjects while remaining in this state of ignorance.

--Murray Rothbard

Quote:

Originally Posted by Skinny. A liberal is just a libertarian who hasn't studied economics.

Oh the confusion is not mine sport... That confusion rest in the core myth of the ideological left; that "the people" can be fairly represented by government power. In truth and in practice the power of government only serves to oppress the individual, who inevitably comprises 'the people.' Thus where one strikes the rights of the individual, one strikes the rights of the people and there is no means to defend the rights of the people without protecting the rights of the individual.


Wage slavery is an oxymoron. If one is earning a wage he is not, by definition, a slave. He is free to accept or reject that wage and if he is recieving it, he has clearly accepted it. That's what freedom is all about.

If he wants to make more money than the prevailing wage, he merely needs to bring a set of skills which command a higher value than that which stands as the average.

Of course what YOU and the comrades want is to force business to pay artificially high wages to low skill workers, which by default devalue the currency with which they're paid by there having accepted more earnings for no additional increase in production. So in reality they have not gained by teir higher wage, as the costs of goods which they buy with that currency cost more.

It's not complicated, sport, but ya do have to pay attention.

Interestingly, for most of the world 'anarchism' is usually automatically used to refer to the leftist variety, i.e. Bakunin, Goldman, the anarchists in Spain during the civil war. It is strange how America is perhaps the only nation where the term is often used to describe anarcho-capitalism, a very small strain of the ideology with little support or history worldwide.

You and he are quite easily amused, though it's unfortunate that you are so quick to stifle and end political debate.