C4SS Media presents Gary Chartier‘s “We Should Abandon The Term ‘Capitalism‘” read by James Tuttle and edited by Nick Ford.
Advocating liberty means opposing the use of force to restrain peaceful, voluntary exchange. But it doesn’t have to mean calling a system of peaceful, voluntary exchange “capitalism.”
Il quindici aprile sembra diventata una sorta di festività per i progressisti, che ogni volta inevitabilmente tirano fuori la frase di Oliver Wendell Holmes, secondo cui le tasse sono “il prezzo che paghiamo per la civiltà”, e ci ricordano tutte le grandi cose – strade, scuole e altro – che le tasse producono. A ben vedere, però, il giorno della dichiarazione dei redditi non è la scelta migliore in fatto di festività progressiste.
Cominciamo dall’idea di una tassazione progressiva come rimedio alla diseguaglianza economica, e all’ingiusta distribuzione della ricchezza, prendendo Bill Gates come esempio illustrativo. Quasi tutto il prezzo del software Microsoft, probabilmente 99 centesimi per ogni dollaro che entra nelle sue tasche, corrisponde ad un furto. Tutta la fortuna di Gates è un bottino, rendita monopolistica estratta dalle tasche dei consumatori grazie alle leggi sulla “proprietà intellettuale” (sic). Se non fosse per il copyright e il monopolio dei brevetti sui suoi sistemi operativi e altri prodotti, Gates avrebbe potuto diventare, giusto come possibilità, milionario vendendo servizi di supporto e di personalizzazione di software di per sé gratis (il modello imprenditoriale di Linux). Anche accumulando 10 milioni di dollari, raggiungerebbe lo 0,01% del suo reddito massimo raggiunto, che è di 100 miliardi. Se pensiamo che Gates non avrebbe mai potuto acquisire quel bottino senza l’aiuto delle leggi federali, sembra ragionevole supporre che l’obiettivo della giustizia potrebbe essere raggiunto solo tassando il reddito di Gates al 100%. Altrimenti, lo stato sta semplicemente aiutando Gates a derubarti per poi renderti una frazione del bottino tanto per rendere l’ingiustizia meno destabilizzante.
Lo stesso principio si applica a tutta la “tassazione progressiva” della ricchezza dei plutocrati. Il compito primario dello stato consiste nell’imporre diritti di proprietà artificiali e scarsità artificiali da cui la classe economica dominante può estrarre rendita. Aspetto molto secondario, una piccolissima porzione di questa rendita viene data ai più poveri tra i poveri, così da evitare che la fame e la disperazione raggiungano un livello politicamente destabilizzante talmente alto che la popolazione potrebbe fare a pezzi tutto il macchinario dello sfruttamento. Questa ricchezza serve anche a dare alla classe media qualche diritto acquisito, come la Social Security (il sistema pensionistico pubblico americano, ndt), sebbene questo sia finanziato quasi interamente dalle deduzioni non progressive in busta paga. La spesa sociale serve a mantenere il potere d’acquisto abbastanza alto da impedire al ciclo economico di boom e crollo di diventare troppo aspro. Tornando alla questione, tutte queste forme di assistenza sociale per i più poveri e diritti acquisiti per la classe media impallidiscono di fronte alla ricchezza che i plutocrati rubano alla popolazione con l’aiuto dello stato.
Anche tassare i plutocrati al 100% e dare tutto alla popolazione sotto forma di reddito garantito sarebbe profondamente stupido. Sarebbe come prendere con una mano e rendere con l’altra, mangiando metà del denaro con i costi amministrativi. Sarebbe molto più sensato che lo stato smettesse di aiutare i ricchi a derubarci in primo luogo: Abolite brevetti e copyright, diritti di proprietà su terre possedute e inutilizzate, barriere d’ingresso imposte alle piccole aziende, costrizioni normative sui lavoratori autonomi e chi lavora a casa e compete con attività fatte di capannoni e uffici, e altro simile. Ma voi sapete che lo stato non lo farà, perché imporre il sistema di sfruttamento è la sua ATTIVITÀ.
E tutte quelle autostrade, strade, scuole, “difesa” nazionale e altri simili? Bè, in linea generale, tutte le volte che lo stato fornisce “servizi pubblici” sottocosto a beneficiarne di più sono le grandi imprese il cui modello d’impresa dipende fortemente da questi aiuti di stato. I principali beneficiari del sistema autostradale interstatale (messo su sotto la supervisione del segretario al dipartimento del dipartimento della difesa Charles “Quello che è bene per la General Motors è bene per l’America” Wilson, ex amministratore delegato della General Motors), ad esempio, sono i comparti del trasporto su strada, le grosse catene commerciali, le industrie conserviere, le grosse birrerie, che hanno fatto fuori i negozi, le conserviere e le birrerie locali, e hanno trasformato la provincia in un deserto.
La scuola classifica, seleziona e trasforma gli esseri umani in “risorse umane” piegate e deformate per renderle adatte ai bisogni delle grandi imprese, per farne macchine burocratiche obbedienti e acritiche. Il sistema stradale locale, promosso dall’industria automobilistico-stradale e da quella immobiliare, serve principalmente a trasformare l’automobile in una necessità per la povera gente, che un tempo avrebbe usato i piedi, la bicicletta o il tram per andare al lavoro o a fare la spesa.
Quanto alla “difesa nazionale”, il suo scopo principale è l’imposizione del dominio corporativo su tutto il pianeta. Tra “difesa”, ruolo militare dalla Nasa e della Sicurezza Nazionale, e debiti delle guerre del passato, i militari (in pratica, poliziotti a noleggio che terrorizzano il mondo per costringerlo ad accettare il dominio corporativo) prendono più della metà del bilancio americano.
Questo è il genere di “civiltà” che stiamo finanziando.
Palestinian prisoners incarcerated in Israeli jails are not allowed conjugal visits. They have no physical contact with loved ones, and all visits have a glass barrier between visitors and inmates. But prisoners and their wives are finding a route around this social control by smuggling sperm out of prison and using in vitro fertilization to have children, the Washington Post reports.
Suad Abu Fayed, whose husband is imprisoned for involvement with the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, recently had a child by this method. “I know it won’t be easy raising a baby with a husband in jail, but this is our way of breaking Israel’s siege on us,” she told the Post. “We are challenging [Israel’s] occupation and getting something beautiful in return.”
These restrictions on reproduction and human contact are unjustifiable forms of control that are cruelly dehumanizing, unnecessary for preventing or stopping violence, and fit into an overall system of occupation, coercion, apartheid, and control. Yet prisoners, their families, and others find ingenious and entrepreneurial ways around this.
Black markets have played a similar liberating role in Alabama with the recent Free Alabama Movement. Prisoners inside Alabama prisons have used cell phones, which are prohibited inside prisons, to produce videos exposing and protesting unjust conditions. The Free Alabama Movement made headlines in late April by calling for a strike by prison laborers to protest slave-like labor conditions. The strike was endorsed by the Industrial Workers of the World. The transparency, political speech, and action taken by the Free Alabama Movement would not be possible without the illicit smuggling of cell phones into prisons. Once again, black markets prove vital to political resistance.
In attempts to squelch such black markets, prison officials engage in pervasive surveillance and invasive searches. Among the worst of these are strip searches and cavity searches. These searches can traumatize rape survivors and provoke them to harm themselves or others. Moreover, they involve forced exposure and intimate contact to the point that they themselves often meet the state’s own definition of sexual assault. Angela Davis refers to strip searches as “routinization of sexual assault.” Yet in 2011, the Supreme Court ruled that anyone being booked into jail, even for something as trivial as a traffic stop, could constitutionally be strip searched in order to prevent them from bringing contraband into a jail or prison. Given the transparency and accountability illicit cell phones could facilitate, it could be argued that the state has created a feedback loop where routine sexual assault is justified in order to deprive inmates of access to tools that could counter illicit sexual assault. Yet in spite of these systems of control and surveillance, markets persist and flourish, and contraband remains common in prisons around the United States and around the world.
Ultimately, human beings want to engage in exchange and access goods and services. According to economist David Skarbek, prison gangs have largely formed as governance institutions to facilitate this sort of exchange. Skarbek’s forthcoming book, The Social Order of the Underworld, examines these issues in detail. Skarbek has also documented more open markets in San Pedro Prison in Bolivia, where prisoners engaged in self-governance and guards did not squelch market activity.
Prohibition does not work. Markets route around prohibitions and state violence, and the flourishing of black markets is a key part of prison resistance.
Há décadas as regulamentações de táxi têm sido excelentes exemplos de como a proteção do governo cria privilégios, rendimentos artificiais e estimula o trabalho assalariado. Além do grande conjunto de regulamentações que definem até a cor das meias dos motoristas, o sistema de “praças” limita dramaticamente o número de táxis nas grandes cidades, ao mesmo tempo que permite que as licenças sejam alugadas e vendidas (e os preços vão desde centenas de milhares de dólares e chegam a mais de um milhão em Nova York). Naturalmente, essa escassez imposta levou a situações de monopólio controladas de perto por intermediários, forçando os motoristas a trabalharem sob chefes caprichosos em péssimas condições.
Hoje, finalmente, essas sérias e longas distorções estão prestes a serem dissolvidas. Contudo, um ponto interessante é que as barreiras não estão sendo quebradas pelos esforços incansáveis de organizadores populares, mas pelo poder de duas novas empresas capitalistas, Uber e Lyft, equipadas com seu próprio capital político e capazes de desafiar os monopólios de várias cidades americanas.
Uber e Lyft não são santas e, de várias maneiras, dependem de vários privilégios estatais. As reservas inimagináveis de dinheiro de investidores capitalistas, que os protegem de pressões comunitárias e de organizações trabalhistas, têm origem nos rendimentos artificiais extremos extraídos dos setores bancários e de propriedade intelectual, com lucros que não existiriam sem o braço armado do estado. Além disso, os modelos de negócios de Uber e Lyft envolvem o cercamento dos usuários — neste caso, taxistas independentes potenciais — em “jardins particulares” online para extrair seus lucros.
No entanto, são empresas que exploram lacunas nas legislações de táxi e abrem a profissão para motoristas independentes que não podem pagar as taxas exorbitantes da profissão. E esse é um ponto absolutamente positivo. Embora não haja garantias de que Uber e Lyft não irão tentar excluir os concorrentes no futuro para que eles possam explorar os consumidores e taxistas potenciais com a restrição das opções, suas ações abriram as portas para competidores em modelos mais descentralizados e cooperativos. A tendência está mudando.
Infelizmente, essa mudança não foi tão bem recebida entre os membros menos radicais da esquerda.
É compreensível que os taxistas que já haviam aplicado grandes investimentos dentro das regulamentações atuais fiquem assustados com qualquer iniciativa que possa abrir a profissão a novos competidores. A concorrência certamente empurrará os preços para baixo e, dentro da legislação presente, muitos motoristas mal conseguem pagar as taxas exorbitantes cobradas por despachantes e burocratas. Mesmo se os taxistas pudessem facilmente sair dessa rede de laços predatórios que os prendem e desfrutar das novas oportunidades, o simples fato de que outras pessoas estão entrando nessa área sem restrições parecidas pode ser irritante.
Contudo, as tentativas de defesa das regulamentações de táxi como se fossem necessárias para garantir o “profissionalismo” do setor são apenas a última manifestação de uma longa lista de ações executadas por sindicatos conservadores para lutar contra os outros trabalhadores e não contra os chefes ou contra o estado, como na pressão em favor de leis que proibiam imigrantes de assumir certos trabalhos por “preocupações com segurança”. Essa mentalidade incrivelmente míope de organização trabalhista sempre acaba prevalecendo e piora a situação da sociedade como um todo.
Em nome da proteção dos empregos existentes, os esquerdistas mais inocentes acabam protegendo o sistema de trabalho assalariado.
A solução radical é parar de depender dos chefes para nos prover nosso sustento; não devemos nos prender a eles cada vez mais e esperar por uma revolução que pode nunca chegar, mas sim gerar nossos próprios empregos. A insanidade do desemprego em massa atual e a precariedade dos empregos disponíveis a uma população tão criativa só é possível quando alguns poucos controlam o que o resto da população tem permissão para fazer. Esse é o efeito perverso das “regulamentações” social-democratas: um cenário em que cabeleireiros podem tornar ilegal que outras pessoas façam trançado no cabelo de clientes sem uma licença caríssima.
Numa época de relatórios amplos de consumidores em aplicativos como o Yelp e de meios descentralizados de certificação, “Como regulamentar?” é um questionamento sem sentido. O que piora as condições de trabalho e de segurança são as oligarquias. As barreiras à entrada e a escassez artificial criada pelo governo não ajudam em nada a classe trabalhadora. E os esquerdistas que as defendem são incoerentes e reacionários.
Traduzido do inglês para o português por Erick Vasconcelos.
Mutual Exchange is the Center’s goal in two senses — we favor a society rooted in peaceful, voluntary cooperation, and we seek to foster understanding through ongoing dialogue. Mutual Exchange will provide opportunities for conversation about issues that matter to the Center’s audience.
A lead essay, deliberately provocative, will be followed by responses from inside and outside of C4SS. Contributions and comments from readers are enthusiastically encouraged. The following Mutual Exchange began as a feature by Joseph S. Diedrich, Private Property, the Least Bad Option. Cory Massimino and Diedrich have prepared a series of articles challenging and exploring the themes presented in Driedrich original article. Over the next week, every other day, C4SS will publish one of their responses. The final series can be followed under the title: Private Property: How, When and Why.
What reasons do people have to respect property rights, if any? It’s not an easy conundrum considering political theorists and moral philosophers have been grappling with it for centuries. In an excellent and ideologically significant article, Joseph Diedrich argues,
The right to private property isn’t some intuitive, natural axiom… on the contrary, private property evolved as the best and only method of peacefully allocating scarce resources.
I agree with this conclusion. Libertarians often wrongfully treat private property as a foundational rule, which presupposes all their arguments. This is the wrong approach since we need to justify private property on some grounds. Joseph says, “Private property isn’t morally meritorious or great in itself, but only insofar as it is the best and only way to avoid conflict given the reality of scarcity in the physical world.” However, I believe there are reasons to respect property rights beyond just its socially positive consequences.
It’s vital not to forget Joseph’s wonderfully put and absolutely correct argument that private property is the only method by which people can peacefully interact and allocate scarce resources. It would be odd indeed if we ignored the volumes of work, such as Human Action or Man, Economy, and State, showing how and why property rights are important, indeed necessary, for a functioning and prosperous society. Still, it would be similarly odd if we ignored the volumes of work explaining why people have an inherent moral right to private property, such as The Ethics of Liberty or Two Treatises of Government.
Before answering if there is good reason to respect private property beyond just consequential considerations, we have to ask, is there good reason to respect individual sovereignty beyond just consequential considerations? It seems evident that there is. Arguably the entire libertarian and anarchist project is predicated on the idea of a certain moral worth that each individual is entitled to, by their very nature, which makes states and oppressive hierarchies unjust.
Certainly the only reason I don’t drive to Joseph’s house and punch him in the face isn’t just that I have figured out the consequences would be harmful to me and/or society. I ought to respect his autonomy because of his nature and mine. Resorting to coercion and abandoning reason would go against my nature as a rational creature. It would be acting subhuman. I shouldn’t treat him as a means to my ends, even if I could get good effects out of doing so. Whether we call this idea “self-ownership” or not is not of huge importance here. I simply want to establish there are moral reasons to respect personal autonomy and not cross peoples’ “boundaries” without their permission, beyond the consequential considerations.
But why does this mean people are also morally obligated to respect property? Suppose I decided I was really in the mood for some pizza. I even got the dough, the cheese, and the sauce all together and made it step by step. I toiled for hours putting the ingredients together. Now, right when I was about to take a big bite out of the pizza Joseph sneaks in and takes it. He takes all eight slices. Now it could be that he ought not to do this because that action, along with the rule associated with that action, would result in bad social consequences. But, aside from that, did, in some way, Joseph violate my personal autonomy? Did he invade my “boundary,” despite never laying a hand on me?
It seems implausible to say that he didn’t just because the pizza was external to my physical body. I spent the whole day cooking that pizza just to have it taken away from me. I altered physical matter to create something new, something delicious. While we do this all the time with external objects, we also do it with our own body. The particles that make up our bodies currently weren’t always there. We constantly gain new ones and lose old ones. We take external matter and make it part of us. We make it part of our ongoing projects.
This is exactly what I’ve done with the dough, cheese, and sauce. I utilized previously unclaimed or traded particles and made them part of my ongoing project. That project being eating pizza. External property that we mix our labor with, and make part of our ongoing uses, is an extension of our individual boundary. If you don’t respect my justly acquired property, you aren’t respecting my personal autonomy.
Joseph is right in that we have good reason to respect private property because of its social consequences. The system of private property is vital to social cooperation and the efficient allocation of resources. However, that isn’t the whole story. We have other reasons to respect private property, too. Matter that is altered and made part of one’s ongoing uses is an extension of their person. Just as we have good reason to respect peoples’ individual autonomy regardless of the consequences, we have good reason to respect peoples’ property claims regardless of the consequences.
C4SS Media presents Kevin Carson‘s “The Gnosticism of Power” read by James Tuttle and edited by Nick Ford.
Those in power regularly reveal themselves to be oblivious to conditions in the real world, and to material constraints on transforming their commands into reality. There’s good reason for this: Their power insulates them from direct experience of the material world, and from direct experience of the constraints offered by material reality.
About 2,748,978 Americans are employees of the federal government.
The population of the US is somewhere around 317,940,000.
The federal government takes 17.3% of Gross Domestic Product in taxes.
So the average federal employee controls a little more than 20 times as much of each year’s produced wealth as the average American. And it’s not just production income: As highlighted in the recent Bundy ranch standoff, that 0.86% of the population claims to “own” 28% of land in the United States.
Oh, they say they control it “for all of us” and “on everyone’s behalf,” but that just doesn’t wash even if it’s true (and we all know it isn’t). After all, many — maybe even most — “private sector” rich people contribute to charity and so forth, but the “wealth inequality” complainers hold that it’s the fact that they have/control the wealth, not what they do with it, that’s important.
What got me thinking about this? Well, a lot of people are talking about Thomas Piketty’s book Capital in the 21st Century. I haven’t read it yet, but I’ve been following the talk, and one blurb stood out to me:
“A landmark book … which brings a ton of data to bear in reaching the commonsensical conclusion that inequality has to do with more than just blind market forces at work.” Paul Krugman, New York Times
That quote caught my attention because I find such a … libertarian … statement rather odd coming out of Krugman’s mouth. I believe it to be true that it is indeed not “blind market forces” which create drastic wealth inequalities. I suspect that in a free market, wealth would distribute itself quite a bit more evenly than it does in a state-managed economy. I’m not saying that there would be no rich people or no poor people, just that most people would be wealthier than they are now and that “the super-rich” would control a smaller percentage of wealth than they do at present.
But is that what Krugman meant? I tried Googling the specific quote and wasn’t able to find the piece it came from. What I did find was his upcoming piece on Piketty in The New York Review of Books, “Why We’re in a New Gilded Age.” In which he holds that:
So progressive taxation — in particular taxation of wealth and inheritance — can be a powerful force limiting inequality.
And he’s just. Flat. Wrong. When wealth is “progressively taxed,” it doesn’t get redistributed equally among those poorer than the people who had it before. It gets redistributed to a tiny bureaucratic minority who are just as interested in acquiring, using and keeping that wealth as anyone else, even if they formally disclaim personal interest and pretend to be acting as agents of “the public.” As history demonstrates, this tiny bureaucratic minority tends to align itself with those “progressively taxed” wealthy rather than with the poor, however deserving or undeserving you might think the poor are (if for no other reason than that even under very “progressive” taxation, the wealthy retain enough wealth to pay bribes, hire lobbyists, elect candidates, etc.).
The state is, as Karl Marx put it, “the executive committee of the ruling class.” And it pays itself a hell of a salary.
[cross-posted from KN@PPSTER — this piece is in the public domain]
In April, I made 38,078 English-language op-ed submissions (our media coordinators working in other languages also made submissions and had pickups by publications which run in those languages), and I have detected 47 “media pickups” of our content (this is content that was published in April or late March).
Just a quick note on submissions, as I sometimes get questions along the lines of “wait … you guys wrote 38,000 op-eds in one month?” The answer to that is “no.”
When I say that I’ve submitted 38,078 op-eds in a month, what I mean is that the op-eds we wrote in that month have been submitted a total of 38,078 times. So one op-ed may have been submitted in the US only (to around 1,700 newspapers), while another may have been submitted worldwide (to about 2,600 newspapers). I keep a running tally of how many newspapers each op-ed is submitted to and that’s the 38,078. So any one op-ed may have been sent to as many as 2,700 papers, and any one paper may have received some or all of the op-eds we published that month. Hope that clarifies things.
Michael Uhl discusses the murder of a Brazilian torturer who confessed to his crime.
John Grant discusses Losing Tim: A Memoir.
Troy Camplin reviews Literature and the Economics of Liberty: Spontaneous Order in Culture.
Michael S. Rozeff discusses why libertarians should still embrace the non-aggression principle
William L. Anderson discusses Republican governors who are against the Bill of Rights.
Joe Scarry discusses U.S. military advisers in Southeast Asia.
Paul Rosenberg discusses the truth about war heroes.
Justin Raimondo discusses Obama’s pivot to Asia.
W. James Antle III discusses the libertarian right’s issue with plagiarism and conspiracy theories.
Cathy Reisenwitz discusses why Republicans should get to know their enemy on income inequality.
Steve Chapman discusses the hawkishness of Hilary Clinton.
Jacob G. Hornberger discusses U.S. intervention in Venezuela and Egypt.
John Glaser discusses how the U.S. supports regimes that support terrorism.
Justin Raimondo discusses the lamentation of a neocon.
David R. Henderson discusses an economist’s case for a non-interventionist foreign policy.
Kevin Gosztola discusses transparency on drone strikes.
Bill discusses how a slave society is a polite society for the government.
Thomas L. Knapp discusses Israel and apartheid.
Laurence M. Vance discusses he phony conservative war.
Gene Healy dicusses why Obama is right on pardoning non-violent drug offenders.
Jason Brennan discusses the three types of democratic citizens.
Ed Krayewski discusses why it’s not World War 3.
John R. Graham discusses whether the Canadian middle class is doing better than the American one.
Jacob Sullum discusses Obama’s plan to grant clemency to non-violent drug offenders.
Daniel J. D’Amico discusses four things you should know about mass imprisonment.
George C. Leef reviews Go Directly to Jail: The Criminalization of Almost Everything.
Charles Johnson giving the talk “What is Anarchism?” at the University of Oklahoma.
http://youtu.be/smd8jixlUos
C4SS Media presents William Gillis‘ “The Retreat Of The Immediate” read by James Tuttle and edited by Nick Ford.
The world is not a simple place and simplistic abstractions (even in the form of “shit’s too complicated” or “we’re sure to lose”) do violence through irresponsibility. Further they signal a cognitive surrender to the ossified and sweeping logic of the state.
For decades taxi regulations have served as the textbook example of government regulations creating artificial enclosures, rents, and wage labor. In addition to a host of prohibitous regulations that even extend to the color of a driver’s socks, the “medallion” system dramatically limits the number of taxi in major cities while at the same time allowing licenses to be rented and sold (prices range between hundreds of thousands of dollars and over a million in New York). Naturally this imposed scarcity has led to monopolistic situations with medallions tightly controlled by middlemen, forcing drivers to operate under capricious bosses in dire working conditions.
Today, finally, this remarkably sharp and long lasting perversion is on the verge of being dissolved. Yet there’s a twist: The dam is breaking not through the longstanding efforts of grassroots organizers, but through the power of two venture capitalist juggernauts, Uber and Lyft, with their own political capital capable of contesting the entrenched monopoly interests in various cities.
Uber and Lyft are not saints, in many ways they too rely on the state privileges. The unimaginable reserves of venture capitalist money that protects them from labor or community pressures have their roots in the extreme rents extracted from the intellectual property and banking sectors, profit that wouldn’t exist without the gun of the state. Further the business models of Uber and Lyft involve corralling users — in this case would-be independent taxi drivers — into centralized “walled gardens” online and extracting rents.
Nevertheless their exploit of holes in taxi regulations and opening up of the profession to independent drivers who haven’t paid exorbitant fees is an unqualified positive. While there’s no guarantee Uber and Lyft won’t eventually try to cut their own deal to exclude competition and enable them to prey on customers and would-be drivers with limited options, their steps have opened the door to competitors with more decentralized or cooperative models. The tide is finally turning.
Sadly this has been greeted with outrage among the less-radical ranks of the left.
It’s understandable that taxi drivers who’ve already sunk a deep investment in the present regulation regime would be horrified at anything that might open the profession up to outsiders. The competition is certain to drive fares down, and in the present regulation regime many drivers are barely breaking even paying huge cuts of their income to dispatchers and regulators. Even if drivers could easily extricate themselves from the web of predatory ties that currently bind them and take advantage of new possibilities, watching others enter the industry without similar burdens can be galling.
Yet attempts to frame defences of taxi regulations as a matter of securing the “professionalism” of the industry are but the latest chapter in a long sad history of conservative unions fighting other workers rather than the bosses or the state by attempting to limit the labor pool through means such as laws that forbade immigrants from getting certain jobs “out of concern for standards”. In this incredibly short-sighted mindset organizing existing workers comes first and the devil take everyone else.
In the name of saving existing jobs the naive leftist ends up protecting the wage labor system itself.
The actual radical solution is to stop relying on bosses to provide us with income; not to cling to them tighter waiting for some distant revolution but to generate jobs ourselves. The insanity of mass unemployment and precarity in a creative able-bodied populace is only possible when gatekeepers control who’s allowed to do anything for anyone else. This is the inescapable perverse effect of liberal “regulation”; where hairdressers lobby to make it illegal to braid hair for money without spending thousands of dollars on a certification.
In an age of robust and widely-used consumer reports like Yelp and decentralized means of certification, the statist cry “How would you regulate that?!” has long grown defunct. What most imperils standards of service and working conditions are oligarchies. Barriers to entry and fake scarcities created at the point of a policeman’s gun are no friend of the working class, and leftists that defend them are incoherent and reactionary.
Translations for this article:
My name is Nick Ford and I would like to welcome you to this blog of mine, Hardly Working.
The goal of this blog is to promote a future where none of us will have to work. And by “work” I don’t mean just giving effort, but labor that we give to others under systematic duress. A good example is the workers who work in retail or low-paying jobs because they have no other good options.
These lack of options come from state-granted monopoly privileges like intellectual property to big corporations and licensing restrictions (the taxi medallions being a good example) that make independent work harder to obtain. Through these privileges, corporations have been able to take up far more space in the marketplace than they would be able to normally. Without these privileges we’d see much wider array of economic experimentation: from worker cooperatives, to self-employment and independently contracting individuals. All sorts of possibilities could open up once we abolish the state and actually-existing capitalism and bring our labor more under our individual control and out of the hands of big business or government.
The goal of anarchism and the anti-work position I support is to give tools to all of us that will free us from such systems and relations. I don’t mean that they would be evenly distributed or exist in some perfect equilibrium, but the means of production would certainly be more socialized than it is now – as well as much more accessible by your average individual. This in turn makes work a lot less necessary.
Any labor that exists through either artificial economic or political conditions (i.e. a situation wherein your agency or power is overridden by another involuntarily) must be abolished. That means revoking the monopoly privileges granted by the state and putting businesses on a much more equal footing. Abolishing the state and making tools and wealth more accessible by getting it out of capitalist hands and giving it to the individual are some of the key components of abolishing work.
Getting tools or wealth doesn’t necessitate a workers revolution, some sort of vanguard or any violence on our part. The exception being, if the state decides to attack us on either their own behest or the behest of the capitalist class. No, what it requires is the old Wobbly slogan of “building the new society within the shell of the old” and, then, these institutions would work to, as Proudhon said, “…dissolve, submerge, and cause to disappear the political or governmental system in the economic system, by reducing, simplifying, decentralizing and suppressing, one after another, all the wheels of this great machine, which is called the Government or the State.”
Of course, abolishing work is not just concerned with the economic sphere, but also the personal sphere (especially because these two things are intimately connected). I don’t want people free from the abuse of a system of work that is in place, but also from the cultural norms that reinforce the work environment. Cultural norms and attitudes, the Puritan Work Ethic for example, that reduce slackers and people who prefer leisure as “losers” or “deserving” their poverty.
The anti-work perspective, then, tries to criticize economics, culture and both the extra-personal parts of our lives (i.e. our relations to work, our bosses, our co-workers, our wages, the government, etc.) and our deeper personal levels (i.e. our own views about labor, how we view other people, our ethical and meta-ethical beliefs about work or the lack thereof, etc.).
To give an example of the deeper personal realm, a friend of mine recently sent me this link that explains the lives of a few different people. They are extreme cases and there is a ton of possible wiggle room, but let’s have a look at two:
He got up at four and set out on foot to hunt black grouse, wood grouse, woodcock, and snipe. At eleven he met his friends, who had also been out hunting alone all morning. They converged “at one of these babbling brooks,” he wrote. He outlined the rest of his schedule. “Take a quick dip, relax with a schnapps and a sandwich, stretch out, have a smoke, take a nap or just rest, and then sit around and chat until three. Then I hunt some more until sundown, bathe again, put on white tie and tails to keep up appearances, eat a huge dinner, smoke a cigar and sleep like a log until the sun comes up again to redden the eastern sky. This is living…. Could it be more perfect?”
And:
Wallace Stevens in his forties, living in Hartford, Connecticut, hewed to a productive routine. He rose at six, read for two hours, and walked another hour—three miles—to work. He dictated poems to his secretary. He ate no lunch; at noon he walked for another hour, often to an art gallery. He walked home from work—another hour. After dinner he retired to his study; he went to bed at nine. On Sundays, he walked in the park. I don’t know what he did on Saturdays. Perhaps he exchanged a few words with his wife, who posed for the Liberty dime.
I cannot say that either of these lives strike me as “perfect” because of my own individual capacities and skills, but, even so, I’d prefer the first example of a Dutch aristocrat – where naps are available, sleep is as long as I need, I can relax and write when I want to and so on. Sure, the aristocrat has this all in a routine too, but it’s clear that he probably wouldn’t hold to it too tightly. Notice that the aristocrat says he would “outline” and not just simply write his given routine. He naps or rests as he pleases and sees friends as a pastime.
Stevens, on the other hand, has a grueling routine. There’s certainly nothing unethical about what’s going on here, but would it be desirable? Perhaps for some. I know I am not one of those people and I think most people would prefer the first scenario over the second. Discipline is something many of us strive for within many contexts, yet we, often, give ourselves breaks, cut ourselves deals or give ourselves rewards. The second example of living doesn’t seem to ever stop, or reward the toil or give ourselves a few seconds to take in the outside breeze and just breathe.
So while I am, by no means, calling for the universality of the former or the total rejection of the latter (I don’t think having discipline or a routine is de facto bad), I do hope for a time when more of us can claim that we live like the first example.
Except it won’t be the aristocratic class that can claim such a pleasure, but any and all who want it.
No class, but the leisure class!
O Partido Democrata dos Estados Unidos normalmente se pinta como o “partido da compaixão” com sua retórica que fala dos “trabalhadores americanos” e de “sentar na mesa do jantar com a família”, que contrasta com o discurso dos fantoches de Wall Street que povoam o Partido Republicano. Os republicanos, por sua vez, se colocam como o partido do “livre empreendedorismo” — ao contrário dos socialistas anti-empresários do outro time. Mas o Partido Republicano não é a favor da “livre empresa”, mas favorecem mercados manipulados pelo governo para garantir os lucros dos grandes bancos e das corporações da lista da Fortune 500. Os democratas também não são representantes dos “trabalhadores comuns”. São — adivinhe só — favoráveis à manipulação dos mercados para garantir os lucros dos grandes bancos e das corporações da Fortune 500.
Numa pesquisa recente, os grandes doadores de Wall Street para partidos políticos, que normalmente apoiam o Partido Republicano, disseram que, no caso de uma disputa entre Jeb Bush e Hillary Clinton, “qualquer um serve”. Se Jeb decidir não concorrer e Chris Christie não se recuperar do escândalo “Bridgegate”, o mercado financeiro provavelmente apoiará Clinton para evitar a imprevisibilidade do Tea Party. O CEO do Goldman Sachs Lloyd Blankfein, que gerenciou as campanhas de doações de Clinton em 2008, aparentemente ficaria “muito feliz” tanto com Bush como com Clinton.
Francamente, é difícil ver por que Wall Street seria contrária a um dos democratas possíveis. Clinton, num discurso fechado aos executivos do Goldman Sachs no ano passado, disse a eles exatamente o que queriam ouvir. As administrações democratas tendem, tanto quanto as republicanas — pelo menos — a juntarem os trapinhos com o Goldman Sachs e com o Citigroup. Apesar de sua retórica, a ala “progressista” do partido é igualzinha. A senadora Elizabeth Warren, líder da “ala democrata do Partido Democrata”, recentemente expressou preocupação com o número de membros da administração Obama que faziam parte do Citigroup — logo antes de votar na confirmação do veterano do Goldman Sachs Stanley Fischer para o Banco Central americano. Veja como Warren é capaz de aprovar o controle de Wall Street sobre a política do governo como uma legítima democrata — mas se sente muito, muito culpada ao fazer isso.
As empresas adoram a estabilidade e a certeza da economia regulamentada pelo estado, junto com a garantia de que “continuarão a ser lucrativas”. Um item em específico que acelera os corações tanto de social-democratas quanto dos CEOs corporativos é o “investimento em infraestrutura”: o sistema nacional de rodovias e as gigantescas represas de que Rachel Maddow fala em seus comerciais de TV. Claro que as grandes empresas gostam de “financiar infraestrutura”. A infraestrutura altamente subsidiada de transportes de alto volume foi o que centralizou a economia americana no século 20 sob o controle de algumas dezenas de oligopólios e permitiu que os grandes varejistas destruíssem as empresas menores de Main Street.
Portanto, se estiver procurando um partido “anti-corporativista” na política americana, ele não existe.
Traduzido do inglês para o português por Erick Vasconcelos.
Gary Chartier answers questions after giving the talk “Achieving Social Justice Through Liberty” in September of 2013 at the University of Oklahoma.
http://youtu.be/81uWXAiTC0k
The debate on thick and thin libertarianism continues, and that’s a good thing. Libertarians can only gain by the discussion. Often one comes to appreciate one’s own philosophy more fully in the crucible of intellectual argument.
So I, for one, welcome the debate — so long as it is a real debate and not merely a series of unsupported denials of the proposition on the table. As Michael Palin of Monty Python pointed out in the brilliant sketch “Argument Clinic,” “An argument is not the same as contradiction. An argument is a collected series of statements to establish a definite proposition. It isn’t just contradiction. It isn’t just saying ‘No it isn’t.’” (To which John Cleese responded, “Yes it is.”) “Argument is an intellectual process,” Palin continued. “Contradiction is just the automatic gainsaying of anything the other person says.” (To which Cleese responded, “No it isn’t.”)
The proposition on the table is that the most robust case for the libertarian philosophy (such asI articulated but of course did not originate) entails commitments not only to the Nonaggression Principle — or what I now call the Nonaggression Obligation — but also to other values that don’t directly relate to aggression (for example, opposition to even non-rights-violating forms of racism). Charles W. Johnson spells this out in some detail in “Libertarianism through Thick and Thin.” What Johnson calls “thickness from grounds” is only one of the forms of thickness he has identified, but it’s the one most relevant for this discussion. Here’s how he puts it:
There may be cases in which certain beliefs or commitments could be rejected without contradicting the nonaggression principle per se, but could not be rejected without logically undermining the deeper reasons that justify the nonaggression principle. Although you could consistently accept libertarianism without accepting these commitments or beliefs, you could not do so reasonably: rejecting the commitments means rejecting the proper grounds for libertarianism.…
Noncoercive authoritarianism [for example, patriarchy] may be consistent with libertarian principles, but it is hard to reasonably reconcile the two. Whatever reasons you may have for rejecting the arrogant claims of power-hungry politicians and bureaucrats — say, for example, the Jeffersonian notion that all men and women are born equal in political authority and that no one has a natural right to rule or dominate other people’s affairs — probably serve just as well for reasons to reject other kinds of authoritarian pretension, even if they are not expressed by means of coercive government action. While no one should be forced as a matter of policy to treat her fellows with the respect due to equals, or to cultivate independent thinking and contempt for the arrogance of power, libertarians certainly can — and should — criticize those who do not, and exhort our fellows not to rely on authoritarian social institutions, for much the same reasons that we have for endorsing libertarianism in the first place. [Emphasis added.]
The first thing this quotation does is refute the mistaken but common notion that advocates of thick libertarianism believe that force may properly be used for reasons other than to counter initiatory force. The second thing it refutes is the spurious claim that thick libertarians simply add their pet preferences onto libertarianism, like so many ornaments on a Christmas tree. To repeat Johnson’s point, “rejecting the commitments means rejecting the proper grounds for libertarianism.” There are no “add-ons.”
Note also that Johnson says that the sort of commitments he has in mind “could be rejected without contradicting the nonaggression principle per se.” In other words, he does not say that someone who rejects these commitments is not a libertarian. He says only that rejection of the commitments weakens the best case for libertarianism, which in turn could weaken a particular libertarian’s commitment to libertarianism itself. Despite what you may have heard, there is no attempt here to read anyone out of the movement (as though someone could actually do that).
Let’s look at some counterclaims made recently in this discussion. Unfortunately, I’ve seen little more than the sort of unsupported contradictions about which the dissatisfied Argument Clinic customer complained. I hope someone will take up the challenge of presenting a contrary case for the Nonaggression Obligation that does not reasonably entail commitment to values not directly related to the use of force.
In a recent lecture, libertarian economist Walter Block rebutted the case for thick libertarianism, particularly my rendition, by insisting that libertarianism is only about nonaggression combined with property rights acquired through homesteading. But insistence is not argument.
He went on to rebut my proposition that libertarianism is intimately associated with individualism. Surprisingly, he denied this is the case, no matter (he added) what his mentor Murray Rothbard and most modern libertarians have believed. While Block said he has no problem with methodological individualism, he sees no connection between libertarianism and political individualism. (I had in mind political and ethical individualism: the individual is the basic unit morally and politically precisely because only individuals act.) According to Block, libertarianism is entirely compatible with collectivism as long as it is voluntary, such as in a free commune.
Of course, Block is right about that compatibility, but that in no way refutes my claim about the historical and philosophical association of libertarianism with ethical/political individualism. In my article I defended the proposition that we owe other individuals nonaggression because we owe them respect as ends in themselves. (Block never says why we owe anyone nonaggression. Does he ever ask that question?) That is why we respect a person’s choice to join a commune. Thus, Block’s “voluntary collectivism” cannot refute individualist libertarianism. Where Block goes wrong is in conflating ethical/political individualism, which is based on the idea of the human being as a social animal, with what we might call lifestyle, or atomistic, individualism, which I never claimed was the essence of libertarianism. To see the absurdity of Block’s position, note that in his lecture he said my notion of libertarianism should logically lead to the rejection of team sports! Symphony orchestras and jazz bands too, I presume.
Another critique is provided by Lew Rockwell. (For the convenience of the reader, his article ishere.) In response to my claim that libertarianism must be about more than force, Rockwell in effect parrots John Cleese: “No it mustn’t.” But he does a bit more: he makes an argument from authority by citing Murray Rothbard (of whom I was a long-time friend, informal student, and admirer). He quotes Rothbard thus: “Libertarianism per se has no general or personal moral theory. Libertarianism does not offer a way of life.” That’s not an argument either, but of course the thick libertarianism that Rockwell is criticizing makes no such claim. Reread Johnson’s passage and see for yourself.
Rockwell then warns that thick libertarianism threatens to repeat a tragic episode in the history of classical liberalism:
To claim that it is not enough for the libertarian to oppose aggression is to fall into the trap that destroyed classical liberalism the first time, and transformed it into modern liberalism. How, after all, did the classical liberalism of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries become the state-obsessed liberalism of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries? How did the once-venerable wordliberalism become perverted in the first place? Precisely because of thickism.
This is flat wrong. Statist “liberalism” did not arise from the association of classical liberalism with broader values; many classical liberals in the early days associated political liberty with a broader social and ethical philosophy rooted in natural law; so did Rothbard. Instead, liberalism was corrupted by thinkers and activists who, contrary to liberalism, wanted to use the state to accomplish their ends. As Herbert Spencer, an eye witness to the transformation, wrote in “The New Toryism,” which is included in his book The Man versus the State,
Passing now to our special question, we may understand the kind of confusion in which Liberalism has lost itself: and the origin of those mistaken classings of political measures which have misled it — classings, as we shall see, by conspicuous external traits instead of by internal natures. For what, in the popular apprehension and in the apprehension of those who effected them, were the changes made by Liberals in the past? They were abolitions of grievances suffered by the people, or by portions of them: this was the common trait they had which most impressed itself on men’s minds. They were mitigations of evils which had directly or indirectly been felt by large classes of citizens, as causes to misery or as hindrances to happiness. And since, in the minds of most, a rectified evil is equivalent to an achieved good, these measures came to be thought of as so many positive benefits; and the welfare of the many came to be conceived alike by Liberal statesmen and Liberal voters as the aim of Liberalism. Hence the confusion. The gaining of a popular good, being the external conspicuous trait common to Liberal measures in earlier days (then in each case gained by a relaxation of restraints), it has happened that popular good has come to be sought by Liberals, not as an end to be indirectly gained by relaxations of restraints, but as the end to be directly gained. And seeking to gain it directly, they have used methods intrinsically opposed to those originally used.
In other words, classical liberalism sought to, and to an extent did, ameliorate the suffering of the masses indirectly by removing burdens imposed by the state and letting natural social and market forces do their work. In contrast, the New Tories sought to ameliorate suffering directlythrough affirmative state measures. Where are the self-styled thick libertarians who call for ameliorative state measures or advocate the use of force except to counter aggressive force? There are none.
For this reason, Rockwell need not lose sleep worrying that these libertarians might choose some other value over other people’s freedom. No one understands better than they that no rational value can be achieved by violating individuals’ rights.
This is the second part of my two part series on Lynn Stuart Parramore’s recent article titled How Piketty’s Bombshell Book Blew Up Libertarian Fantasies. Let’s get started.
She writes:
By 1987, Ayn Rand acolyte Alan Greenspan had taken over as head of the Federal Reserve, and free market fever was unleashed upon America.
Alan Greenspan was indeed one of the original acolytes of Ayn Rand, but he deviated from pure laissez faire by becoming head of the central bank called the Federal Reserve. The notion that a “free market fervor” emanated from a statist institution like the Federal Reserve is absurd. It may have been in the direction of relatively more freed market freedom, but a fervor implies a massive revolutionary shift. Something I highly doubt occurred, but I am open to evidence otherwise.
The next thing worthy of discussion she wrote was:
People in U.S. business schools started reading Ayn Rand’s kooky novels as if they were serious economic treatises and hailing the free market as the only path to progress
Ayn Rand’s novels do touch on economic themes like corporatism and government management or regulation of the economy. It may not be a full blown economic treatise, but it doesn’t deserve to be dismissed. This left-libertarian market anarchist doesn’t believe the free market or freed market is the only path to progress. A healthy dose of civil society is essential to my theory of political economy and positive change.
Since the ‘80s, the top salaries and pay packages awarded to executives of the largest companies and financial firms in the U.S. have reached spectacular heights. This, coupled with low growth and stagnation of wages for the vast majority of workers, has meant growing inequality. As income from labor gets more and more unequal, income from capital starts to play a bigger role. By the time you get to the .01 percent, virtually all your income comes from capital—stuff like dividends and capital gains. That’s when wealth (what you have) starts to matter more than income (what you earn).
Wealth and income are related. You can also be said to earn wealth too. It doesn’t simply refer to what you already have. I agree that more wealth being acquired through capital rather than labor is a problem, but I don’t see government or the state as the solution. Freed markets will ensure that the only way of getting an income or obtaining wealth is through labor. They will also ensure that the wage of labor is its full product.
Another thing she writes is:
Wealth gathering at the top creates all sorts of problems. Some of these elites will hoard their wealth and fail to do anything productive with it. Others channel it into harmful activities like speculation, which can throw the economy out of whack. Some increase their wealth by preying on the less well-off. As inequality grows, regular people lose their purchasing power. They go into debt. The economy gets destabilized. (Piketty, and many other economists, count the increase in inequality as one of the reasons the economy blew up in 2007-’08.
There are ways to address the above problems without using government or state power. In a left-wing market anarchist society, the productive would be able to keep the product of their own labor. The disconnect between labor and results would not exist, so it would be more difficult to make a ton of cash to hoard. One would have to be continually innovate or rely on the cooperation of newly empowered fellow workers to make staggeringly high levels of money to put away. Speculation can also refer to forecasting the future direction of things, but I see the author as talking about speculation in the context of finances.
Which brings us back to Friedman’s view that people naturally get what they deserve, that reward is based on talent. Well, clearly in the case of inherited property, reward is not based on talent, but membership in the Lucky Sperm Club (or marriage into it). That made Uncle Milty a little bit uncomfortable, but he just huffed that life is not fair, and we shouldn’t think it any more unjust that one person is born with mathematical genius as the other is born with a fortune. What’s the difference?
Actually, there is a very big difference. It is the particular rules governing society that determine who amasses a fortune and what part of that fortune is passed on to heirs. The wrong-headed policies promoted by libertarians and their ilk, who hate any form of tax on the rich, such as inheritance taxes, have ensured that big fortunes in America are getting bigger, and they will play a much more prominent role in the direction of our society and economy if we continue on the present path.
She is partially right that inherited property or wealth has nothing to do with talent. I’d only add that it might represent talent in the form of manipulating the person who gives the wealth away. The rules of society do indeed determine who gets a fortune, and those rules deserve to be changed in the direction of left-wing market anarchism.
What we are headed for, after several decades of free market mania, is superinequality, possibly such as the world has never seen. In this world, more and more wealth will be gained off the backs of the 99 percent, and less and less will be earned through hard work.
Which essentially means freedom for the rich, and no one else.
We don’t live in any society with free market mania. I otherwise agree with her assessment. Look to my next blog post for an explanation and justification of the economic perspective underlying this assessment of Lynn Stuart Parramore’s article.
It’s common for Democrats to depict themselves as the “party of compassion,” as opposed to the Wall Street stooges in the GOP, resorting to soccer mom rhetoric about “American working families” and “sitting around the kitchen table.” Republicans, on the other side, frame themselves as the “free enterprise” party — unlike those anti-business socialists on the other team. But the Republicans aren’t for “free enterprise;” they’re for markets rigged by the government to guarantee profits to the giant banks and Fortune 500 corporations. And the Democrats aren’t the party of “ordinary working people.” They’re for — guess what? — markets rigged by the government to guarantee profits to the giant banks and Fortune 500 corporations.
In a recent survey of the big Wall Street political donors who usually back the GOP, most of the big money people responded to the prospect of a Jeb Bush vs. Hillary Clinton contest by saying “Meh. Either way’s fine.” But if Jeb decides not to run and Chris Christie doesn’t recover from Bridgegate, the financial industry will probably back Clinton in preference to the loose cannons of the Tea Party. Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein, who held Clinton fundraisers in 2008, would reportedly be “very happy” with either Bush or Clinton.
And frankly, it’s hard to see why Wall Street would object to an establishment Democrat at all. Clinton, in a closed speech to Goldman Sachs executives last year, told them exactly what they wanted to hear. Democratic administrations are just as prone as Republicans — at least! — to packing cabinets with Goldman Sachs and Citigroup alumni. And while they talk a good game, in practice the “progressive” wing of the party is about the same. Senator Elizabeth Warren, leader of the “Democratic wing of the Democratic Party,” recently expressed grave concern over the number of Obama administration appointees from Citigroup — right before voting to confirm Goldman Sachs veteran Stanley Fischer’s appointment to the Federal Reserve. See, Warren may rubber-stamp Wall Street control of government policy just like a DFC Democrat — but she feels really, really guilty about it.
Meanwhile, Bill Scher at The Week (“Ralph Nader wants liberals to back Rand Paul. Don’t do it,” May 1, 2014) sees corporate CEOs as much more congenial allies for liberals than libertarian civil liberties activists (he warns against Nader’s call to “side with government-hating libertarians over government-accepting corporations”). In contrast to Nader’s stated goal of “dismantling the Corporate State,” Scher argues that liberalism achieved its quiet victories through the 20th century with “some degree of corporate support,” and that the “coalition to nurture” for liberals in the future is “the CEOs.”
See, business loves the stability and certainty that comes with a state-regulated economy, along with the reassurance “that they will remain profitable.” One item in particular that makes both liberals’ and corporate CEOs’ hearts go pitty-pat is “investment in infrastructure”: the Interstate Highway System and the giant Army Corps of Engineers dams that Rachel Maddow talks about in her “great things” TV spots. Of course big business likes to “fund infrastructure.” Heavily subsidized, high-volume transportation infrastructure was what centralized the American economy in the 20th century under the control of a few dozen oligopoly corporations, and enabled big box retailers to destroy Main Street.
So if you’re looking for an “anti-corporate” party in American politics, there isn’t one.
Gli Stati Uniti hanno una storia variegata con l’ambientalismo. Gli americani sono sempre stati orgogliosi del loro retaggio ambientale. Il conservazionismo di fine ottocento, promosso da persone come John Muir, diede origine ad istituzioni civiche, pubbliche e private dedicate alla conservazione dell’ambiente. La rivoluzione industriale, però, accoppiata all’ascesa del capitalismo moderno, il New Deal e il boom del secondo dopoguerra, ha ingabbiato gli americani incatenandoli alla crescita economica. Questa storia variegata, di due americhe opposte, entrò in crisi nel decennio del cambiamento: gli anni sessanta. L’ambientalismo moderno nasce in quest’epoca.
L’ambientalismo moderno, alimentato dai movimenti anti-bellici, diede origine alla prima Giornata della Terra a livello nazionale il 22 aprile 1970. Quel giorno, venti milioni di americani occuparono strade, parchi, college e piazze per fondare un movimento sociale a favore della sostenibilità.
Il risultato è che la base della gabbia si è allargata. Il movimento a favore della sostenibilità ha dato origine all’Epa (l’ente americano per la protezione dell’ambiente) con le leggi sull’inquinamento dell’aria e dell’acqua e la protezione delle specie a rischio. Anche se è stato fatto del progresso e la base si è allargata, la gabbia è rimasta tale.
Il progresso può essere indifferentemente buono o cattivo. In natura come tra gli uomini è inevitabile. Dall’avvento del capitalismo industriale all’era neo-liberale reaganiana, il “progresso” è stato misurato in termini di una crescita della gabbia: Più strade e più auto, stato più grande e imprese più grandi, uno stato nazione più arrogante e un settore finanziario troppo grande per fallire. Le stesse istituzioni che l’ambientalismo ha aiutato a creare sono parte di questa gabbia. Non fraintendetemi: ci sono persone molto preoccupate, dedicate e intelligenti che lottano la buona lotta all’interno della struttura di potere ma, ahimè, i loro sforzi sono limitati dalla gabbia. Nonostante i passi fatti in direzione della salute pubblica e ambientale, gli stati nazione restano i più grandi distruttori del clima, dell’aria, la terra, le rocce, l’acqua, la flora e la fauna di tutti i tempi.
Come specie, però, sentiamo il bisogno di fare domande. In questa Giornata della Terra, e dopo, vorrei che la nostra natura inquisitiva fosse rivolta verso i finti confini politici. Perché la più grande minaccia all’ambiente è rappresentata dai grandi stati nazione militarizzati? Se siamo orgogliosi dei valori democratici, perché non riconosciamo che sono l’antitesi dell’autorità concentrata? Il concetto di crescita continua nel nome del “progresso” è sostenibile? O forse dobbiamo liberarci di questa gabbia e ridefinire il progresso?
Gli umani, come specie, hanno un’incredibile capacità di adattamento. Data la possibilità possiamo gettare, e getteremo, il seme della società futura che renderà la Terra degna di essere abitata per i nostri posteri. Possiamo liberare il lavoro dall’attuale sistema economico, decentrare le istituzioni, rispettare i confini naturali come le bio-regioni, e coltivare una società in cui ogni individuo potrà dire la sua genuinamente sulle decisioni che influenzano la sua vita. Questa è la lotta del ventunesimo secolo: liberarci della gabbia è reclamare il controllo democratico della società.
La prassi libertaria ultima è l’azione individuale esercitata sulle nostre istituzioni, sulla società, il lavoro, la proprietà e la persona. In una tale società noi saremmo liberi di proteggere le nostre tradizioni culturali e naturali, porre connessioni, imporre svolte, scegliere orizzonti e generare biodiversità. Le nostre abilità lavorative e la nostra disposizione alla libertà libereranno la società dall’economia centralizzata e dallo stato egemonico.
In questa Giornata della Terra mi auguro che possiamo capire che tutti i problemi complessi che l’umanità si trova di fronte – cambiamenti climatici, fame, guerra, colonialismo corporativo, estinzione, deprezzamento dell’ecosistema, eccetera – sono legati all’attuale esistenza dello stato. Mi auguro anche che possiamo trovare una risposta a questi problemi. E la risposta, come sempre, è libertà.
Os americanos foram condicionados a considerar o 1º de maio, o Dia do Trabalho, um “feriado comunista”, associado até recentemente com paradas militares na Praça Vermelha e “cumprimentos fraternais” dos líderes dos regimes marxistas-leninistas em nome de seus povos. Pode ser surpreendente pensar que se tratava, originalmente, de um feriado americano, criado pelos trabalhadores de Chicago para celebrar a campanha pela jornada de oito horas diárias e os mártires de Haymarket.
Talvez seja ainda mais surpreendente — tanto mais para os libertários atuais — notar que o 1º de maio é parte da herança do movimento libertário de livre mercado. Isso é contraintuitivo por alguns motivos óbvios. Desde Ludwig von Mises e Ayn Rand, o libertarianismo americano é associado — não sem razão — a uma defesa reflexiva do capitalismo e das grandes empresas. Apesar do realinhamento político à direita do movimento de livre mercado durante o século 20, havia uma grande esquerda de livre mercado no século 19, com laços estreitos aos movimentos socialista e trabalhista.
As origens do liberalismo clássico no Iluminismo coincidiam fortemente com as do movimento socialista original. Vários autores, como o britânico Thomas Hodgskin e os anarquistas individualistas americanos (ou anarquistas de Boston) reunidos em torno de Benjamin Tucker e da revista Liberty, pertenciam tanto aos grupos libertários de livre mercado quanto ao socialismo libertário. Em sua opinião, o capitalismo era um sistema em que o estado intervia em favor de latifundiários e outros rentistas, defendendo seus direitos de propriedade artificiais, monopólios e outros tipos de escassez artificiais, de onde se derivavam os lucros, juros e rendas. Para eles, o objetivo concreto do socialismo era a abolição desses monopólios, que permitiria que a competição no mercado pela oferta de capital e terras levasse seus rendimentos a zero, para que o salário natural do trabalho fosse seu produto completo.
Talvez não seja tão surpreendente que esses autores tivessem proximidade ou fossem participantes ativos nos movimentos socialista e trabalhista. Benjamin Tucker, embora se intitulasse socialista, era bastante indiferente às organizações trabalhistas. Ele considerava a organização contra os grandes donos de terras e o estabelecimento de bancos mútuos de crédito gratuito as formas de organização principais formas de ativismo — e era particularmente agnóstico quanto a que formas de associação as pessoas escolheriam numa economia livre desses monopólios.
Porém, vários participantes do grupo de anarquistas de Boston e do círculo da revista Liberty eram ativos na Liga de Reformas Trabalhistas de New England ou na União Nacional Trabalhista de William Sylvis, e mais tarde na Liga de Reformas Trabalhistas Americana. Havia também um contingente significativo de individualistas na Associação Internacional de Trabalhadores (formada por anarquistas que se retiraram da Primeira Internacional, que foi tomada por seguidores de Marx) e no movimento nacional e nas greves gerais pela jornada diária de oito horas. Alguns individualistas importantes nos movimentos políticos socialista e trabalhista eram Ezra Heywood, William Greene, Joshua King Ingalls e Stephen Pearl Andrews.
Individualistas como Dyer Lum mais tarde tentaram construir pontes com o movimento trabalhista radical. Lum tentou unir a análise econômica individualista e o ativismo trabalhista radical. Envolveu-se com os Cavaleiros do Trabalho e com a Federação Americana do Trabalho. Lawrence Labadie passou a promover ideias anarco-individualistas e mutualistas dentro dos sindicatos industriais — primeiro na Federação de Mineiros do Oeste e depois junto aos Wobblies.
A ligação comum que se faz do Dia do Trabalho com os partidos marxistas-leninistas e os regimes comunistas reflete uma vitória ideológica esmagadora dos defensores do capitalismo corporativo do século 20. Nos Estados Unidos, o contra-ataque ideológico começou com o culto à bandeira e o juramento nos anos 1890, continuou com o movimento pela “americanização” dos espaços de trabalho e das escolas públicas e culminou com a histeria belicista e a ameaça vermelha da administração Wilson, além das táticas de terror da Legião Americana, da Ku Klux Klan e dos Esquadrões Vermelhos locais.
Essa vitória ideológica foi conectada a outra vitória mais recente: a associação do “livre mercado” e da “livre empresa” ao capitalismo corporativo na opinião pública e a crença (promovida pelos gerencialistas autoritários do movimento progressista que roubaram o nome “liberal”) de que o estado regulatório são adversários em vez de aliados.
O 1º de maio não é só um dia para reclamar o Dia do Trabalho como um feriado essencialmente liberal e libertário, mas para afirmar que o livre mercado é o inimigo do poder e do capitalismo corporativo.
Traduzido do inglês para o português por Erick Vasconcelos.
