The problem with Macy’s is not the building of the stores, or even their purchase. It is the operation of the credit financing system which makes the stores possible. Macy’s does not make their money on selling products – they make it by selling products on credit. If there were no state to facilitate and enforce the operation of the Macy’s Credit Cards there would be no Macy’s. Without the financial system we have now, Macy’s would not be able to convert the checks it receives in payment into salaries and the purchase of more goods, etc. It could not securitize its receivables so that it can issue more credit. It could not garnish the wages of those who refuse to pay or sell bad securities to debt collection agencies.

Should all of this be abolished so that there is no Macy’s? At this point, I am not so sure. I would certainly favor a kind of voluntary financial exchange whereby they would accept a debit/payroll line of credit card from an employee-cooperative. While they could, of course, offer a store card – I would hope that a system exists where employees of anarcho-syndicalist companies would not have to use it.

This example pretty much covers my views of what should happen to the financial system as well.

Social Credit assumes that government intervention to counter the effect of savings (the B is Say’s Law) is essential. However, in a society of employee-owned companies, all of the “B” is owned by the producers of “A”. In fact, B becomes A for retirees. In a totally closed system there is no problem, assuming that the cooperative produces all product and owns all resources. Any “credit” that needs to be issued can be done so on the books of the cooperative so that the only requirement is to make sure that enough children are produced to keep the Ponzi scheme going.

rmangum: Since I started writing these posts, the main audience I’ve tried to keep in mind is people (especially liberals, self-styled “progressives” and mainstream leftists of the Nation and Mother Jones variety) who are familiar with libertarians only as “pot-smoking Republicans,” and have generally bought into the official “big govt. vs. big business” narrative. My goal has been to point to the central role of the state in creating all the injustices they complain of, and the hyporisy of most “free market” rhetoric in mainstream American politics.

Re ABCT, I certainly agree that credit expansion has played a significant role in the development of state capitalism. I just don’t think it’s the Rosetta Stone of the business cycle. See, for example, Joseph Stromberg’s Austrianized version of overinvestment/underconsumption theories in “The Role of State Monopoly Capitalism in Empire.”

One of my objections to Austrian money and credit theory, in general–more of an incompleteness than an error per se IMO–is its overemphasis on “wage-fund” treatment of capital and investment as accumulated past savings (what Schumpeter called “money theories of credit”), to the neglect of capital as a socially-mediated claim to *current* production (see Hodgskin’s argt in “Labour Defended”) and of money as an accounting system for providing liquidity for exchange between producers and enabling advances of current against future output through LETS systems and the like (what Schumpeter called “credit theories of money”).

More later on questions of political strategy.

Now, as someone who educated himself in economics mostly via Austrian sources, it is by no means self-evident, no matter how “honest” I decide to be, that countercyclical spending is necessary or even good for economic recovery, given that I believe the Fed to be the source of business-cycles and that the Keynesian fiscal model was discredited by stagflation in the seventies. Unless of course by “the existence of a corporate economy on the present model” the inefficient and overvalued money-for-nothing tulipomaniacs in Wall Street and the banking world- then yes, those folks are ultimately dependent on government, just as the merchants of death are dependent on military Keynesianism. But then all the Austrians are in favor of letting all these guys go to perdition.

Not that I wouldn’t change my view, given a better explanation than the one provided by the Austrian business-cycle theory- but I’d like an argument, please.

“I make no secret of the fact that I prefer the kind of statism that weighs less heavily on my own neck.”

Indeed, don’t we all. So does Bernie Madoff, Rupert Murdoch, Bill Gates, and an endless army of professionals who would man the admistrative/managerial/therapeutic state. Are you as influential in getting what you want out of it as they are? Can you compete? And do you really think, on net, that the Democratic party will in fact ease up on the pressure of that boot stomping on the human face? As for myself, I used to think that Dems played good cop to the Republican bad cop, as a necessary illusion for the untergang of mass democracy, but I’m not even sure there’s that much difference anymore.

All the more reason for us anarchists to stick together.

“But are they net beneficiaries? They are also taxed and regulated.”
The purpose of taxes and regulations is to cartelize industries, so I don’t see how this is an argument against me.

“And what is a ‘net’ beneficiary anyway?”
I never used the term net beneficiary, so I’m not sure why you’re asking me this.

aquemere:

“Kinsella: I’m curious as to what you have to say about the eminent domain abuse of chain stores.
How can you seriously argue that chain stores aren’t beneficiaries of state robbery?”

I’m against it, and it’s unlibertarian. But are they net beneficiaries? They are also taxed and regulated. And what is a “net” beneficiary anyway? And so what if they are? What’s the criterion, and the theory, here? Is it some kind of unclean hands doctrine-if you’re not lily white, your property is up for grabs? Etc.

Brad Spangler:

“Your assertion is, essentially, that large chain retailers (as they currently exist) have not been shown to be guilty of being net beneficiaries of statism.”

No it’s not. Even if they are “net beneficiaires” of statism, whatever this means–so what? Is there some theory out there that you are taking for granted, that says if you are a “net beneficiary” of statism then you have no rights…? What?

But yes, of course I argue this has not been shown anwya. I think almost everyone would be vastly better off in a free market. (see e.g. L. Neil Smith’s argument that we would almost all be 8x richer, easily — http://lneilsmith.org/utopian.html )

“At this time, I’d like to ask if you have articulated a standard of guilt that could be applied to large chain retailers as well as to large defense contractors.”

No, I haven’t; but if I wanted ot make a particular case against a particular person, the burden would be on me to establish this. I think it’s easy in the case of the state itself, and also easy in the case of anyone engaging in per se aggressive behavior. It’s also pretty easy in the case of defense contractors. But Macy’s? Good god. And the problem is the arguments I see are pathetically weak. They seem to be basically that (a) there are roads; and (b) corporate statutes. Come on. WEak weak weak. Roads benefit not just large companies; and they cost everyone too, e.g. in taxes and in poor quality. As for limited liability and corporate status–I think we’ve beat this one to death. If I read correctly even Carson admitted he leans to Hessen’s position.

“Saying we have not met the burden of proof is fine, but it only carries weight if one is willing to discuss where that threshold might be.”

I disagree–the burden of proof, even the burden of theorizing, is on you. You figure it out, and defned it.

“So why can’t large chain retailers be guilty?”

Of what? Sure, they are not lily white. MOst people are not. Most support the state. Are they now not legitimate properyt owners?

re: “NO, there are some net beneficiaries, surely–but society is not a net beneficiary”

You are here conflating X (large chain retailers) and Y (society generally).

That is not an honest approach to this argument, and an ongoing tendency toward such tactics is precisely why many are coming to regard your objections as — well, “lacking”.

Well, yes, they are distinct claims.

Saying X “per se” could not exist in a free market is not the same thing as saying X (as they currently exist) are net beficiaries of statism.

re: “No, I don’t believe this at all.”

Great!

re: “My view here is that you guys have not given good enough reasons to think that Macy’s, Wal-Mart, etc. could not exist in a free market; and ceratinly not good enough reasons to assert that they are not the presumptive proper owners of the property they nominally own.”

Note again that these are distinct claims. I am engaging the latter of the two below.

Your assertion is, essentially, that large chain retailers (as they currently exist) have not been shown to be guilty of being net beneficiaries of statism.

I first wish to praise you on the form of that argument. While I disagree with it, you are arguing rationally with regard to that point.

At this time, I’d like to ask if you have articulated a standard of guilt that could be applied to large chain retailers as well as to large defense contractors.

I ask that because asserting that any standard of guilt that finds large chain retailers innocent of being net beneficiaries of statism merely *because* they are large chain retailers and not defense contractors is unconvincing in the face of directly identifiable state subsidies to large chain retailers.

Saying we have not met the burden of proof is fine, but it only carries weight if one is willing to discuss where that threshold might be.

Furthermore, why does finding that the class of criminals is found, through analysis and argumentation, to include X (even though X was formerly regarded as innocent) then mean that there are no criminals and no victims at all?

You don’t see that as prematurely giving up on your analysis?

I mean, it’s not like you’re trying to obfuscate the matter, right?

So why can’t large chain retailers be guilty? If you’re going to rule that out, state your reasons rather than engaging in consequentialist hand-wringing.

How can you seriously argue that chain stores aren’t beneficiaries of state robbery?

@Kinsella — re: Macy’s. Do you make any distinction between 1) your claim that we’re saying large chain retailers could not exist in a free market and 2) the point that large chain retailers have demonstrably prospered from statism?

I suppose these are distinct claims….?

This seems crucial for a number of reasons, but principally because you seem to be implying that BECAUSE we’d all be objectively more prosperous in a free market generally, THEREFORE deviations from a free market in the form of violent transfers of wealth (theft) can’t possibly exist right now and there are no thieves and no victims.

No, I don’t believe this at all. I do believe that if you think we have general prosperity then that means we have general private property, but that’s a side-point. My view here is that you guys have not given good enough reasons to think that Macy’s, Wal-Mart, etc. could not exist in a free market; and ceratinly not good enough reasons to assert that they are not the presumptive proper owners of the property they nominally own. I think that if there is nominal title to property, that has to be the the libertarian presumption unless you can show a good reason why not. This is just a consequence of the crux of libertarianism: which is the idea that the person with the better claim to a given resource has a better title than other claimants.

Because of the primacy of the first-user Lockean homesteading principle, because of the prior-later distinction’s crucial importance, the current possessor and user of a given resource–its occupant, if you will–has a better claim than anyone else, *ceteris paribus*. You have to have a reason just to oust someone. And having a bunch of left-libertarians academics point to the market-distorting effects of state subsidies and regulations does not overcome this baseline, civilized libertarian presumption.

Now, if you can show that the current owner is, say, a state agency, like the NSA–sure, the initial presumption is overcome. If you can show that the nominal owner is criminal, or stole the land from you, or bought it using funds stolen from you–then maybe your claim is better and you can oust them. If it’s McDonnel Douglas, a military contractor; or a state prison, or even a “privatized” prison–fine. You have a good chance of making your claim. But merely noting that we all live in a world riddled with state interference won’t do–and if it would, it means that no one has any stable rights, that we all live in a chaotic, unjust world, where might makes right, where there is no right, where it’s all against all, and there are no norms. Now, this is a possible position one might take–but it is not the libertarian one. It means something to be libertarain: it means we have a predisposition for peaceful interaction and for attempting to find the best owners for resources, and that implies adopting the prior-later distinction as significant and thus giving weight to the current possession and claim under color of title of a given resource. In essence, when you guys do your generalized handwaving and say this justifies “worker” squatting and sit-ins, when you refuse to condemn the Macy’s brickthrowers *as being aggressors and violating the property rights of Macy’s*–then you are basically equating *every* company or firm with Lockheed and the NSA and the Fed and state prisons; leaving no room for any peaceful dispute anymore–you view the entire world, and all human life, as one big lifeboat scenario.

I’m not ready to give up yet, or call such an emergency. You are free to; you are free to join the lawless hordes; but in this case, you are joining the side of the criminals, the statists, the skeptics, the socialists, and the animals, and become merely a technical problem to be dealt with.

As an addendum, I should add that I’m curious how you would square up the supposition that there are no net beneficiaries of statism with praxeology and the reality of special interest lobbying.

NO, there are some net beneficiaries, surely–but society is not a net beneficiary. If you argue that not only the NSA, the CIA, the military, the police, the unions [woops, scratch that, your sacrosanct group], military contractors, ADM, etc. are net beneficiarys, but you widen the scope so much that you lable even peaceful companies like McDonald’s, Wal-Mart, and Macy’s as part of the state, in essene, then you are basically saying 80% of the economy is just a huge state… and unless you argue that we are not prosperous and productive, then you seem to think that we are prosperous even though we are a huge state, despite the socialist calculation problem. I think that if so much of the economy is in essence socialized already, it cannot be prosperous–cannot be a net gainer. In fact then we would have conditions like seen in Soviet Russia etc.

But this is a side argument, not really essential to my view. I’m just pointing out the consequences of your own views. In sum, if you say Macy’s is not the proper owner, then that means Macy’s is part of the state; and that means that most of the economy is part of the state, if you are using such loose criteria; and that means that we somehow have a fairly productive state, despit the calculation problem! Miracle!

We can take the case of defensive lobbying on behalf of particular free market policies and set that aside for the moment. I’m talking about lobbying on behalf of statist policies.

Praxeology…

Is lobbying not an action?

Is not all action goal-driven?

Would you actually claim that special interest lobbying on behalf of statism is only driven by altruistic goals, such as a purportedly high-minded desire for “good government” in the social-democratic sense?

Because I wouldn’t.

I think the statist elite lobby for more statism because it happens to feather their own nests in the here and now.