I Confess..

I cannot help it. I’ve argued heatedly and I’ve held the coldest of discourse. When one mocked me or made preconceived notions of the love for my theory – I tempered it with heavy-laden logic. I perceive it is this logic that is indeed, heavy; indeed leaden. For while it is one thing to utterly confound my opposition to my beliefs with wit and intellect – it is another to completely lose them by attacking with disregard for emotions and attention spans. Once boredom in your opponent is conceived, the point of displaying the thought (no matter how strong the argument) is fruitless.

That person will never again wish to hear another ounce and entrench themselves deeper in the ways they find comfortable. It is the nature of those with the mental faculty for satisfaction to despise those who are mentally active.

I will attempt to infuse much of my own personality into the subject at hand, giving reasons sufficient to myself. I hope that personal reasons coupled with logic-ridden generalizations may help illuminate that the political is indeed personal. There are many who would protest that I stick to cold rationale only. In the past I’d agree with those sneering philosophers. (They make the best of comrades). However; this protest seems more borne from the hatred for emotional appeal than is within reason.

We are human. The surface is comprised of logic. The bulk beneath is raw ore. To attack emotional appeal – one must fairly attack the logical portion of our beings.

Always I’ve maintained a craving. This craving grew in direct opposition to conventionality and tradition. This craving evolved to disagree with fads and fashion. This hunger grew for something that wasn’t force fed down the throat. This taste spat out the spun out details of elections and wars. It digested subjective history on administration and facts on bureaucracy. It was pleased at first. But I grew hungry to know: what about the people? Who paid for all these wars? What did they say in their homes those who never fought? Wasn’t the Civil War predominantly one for growth of Federal Government and not one of slavery? The dissatisfaction grew only when I was but eight years old.

I grew older and the disgust bloomed with it. I grew further angry that life was a never ending tale of bureaucracy. I learned fury when I looked on my classmates in quiet disbelief – seeing them for the cogs they were. I grew angry knowing, our education was one which meant for us to fit in with society. What of an education for us where the only notion was to enrich our heads with knowledge? Knowledge: not for the sake of upholding traditions which stagnate. Knowledge: not for the sake of keeping things as they are. Knowledge: not for the sake of making the same mistakes repeatedly.

Wisdom fed to us not for remedy! Lessons to nourish and strengthen the individual. The problem was never how to find a way to relieve distress, to feed poverty or shelter the homeless. The problem was never to make people codependent sops begging on the kindness and charity of others. The solution was to find a way for everyone to stand on their own feet.

I once believed that the Constitution could possibly protect almost anything (concerning the people). I loved the ideals for our country. Long thought, and a war between reason and lesson allowed me to conclude that the victory of the political in our great nation – was a husk. People believed rights on paper gave them their rights. Finally, the idea of a majority rule was found to be nothing more than a minority rule. The only desirable notion of society is one, where no one is compelled against their will to live or abide by a rule made with vested interest.

It was clear to me from the start that in order to attain actual liberty, one must have liberty in access to resources. Hence my interest in economics and the trade of values. So then what were those resources? How would a commoner in this era vulgaris come upon them when they are withheld and denied?

Motives are one thing, but everyone disagrees on the execution thereof. One common theme is ownership and possession of land.

American-borne Socialists would plead that land become property of state. The land would then be divvied out by committees representing a majority of local communities. The state would exercise theft on a large-scale, redistributing surplus to those who wouldn’t produce as much. The idea is old – through legal enactment, they wish to confiscate estates and declare the property for all.

This wasn’t satisfactory (though it was charming at first to my more compassionate side.) It was a reason I thought myself democratic at the tender age of 14. The social principle of equality is such that I couldn’t help but love it. I grew to abhor it within a few years.

In the end the weakened individual must still get permission to work. The individual would still be a chew toy for a mass of regulations and bureaucracy. While material comfort became more easily a ‘right’ to all, there was a delegated power assuming it knew best how everyone should live. Once that weak individual found labor, they would find that it wasn’t anything they truly wished to do. No, they would be demanded to work jobs that were deemed most necessary for society. This design is exceedingly simple – and Socialists are praised for its apparent simplicity.

However; by channeling efforts through the current system – they must confront the judicial power. Reforms of weaker character have done the same in the past. It seems certain that a socialist reform for redistribution of the land would then be deemed unconstitutional. And we’d be back to the drawing board. It was about this time, my conclusion was democracy was non-existent in our country. Rather we were a republic by definition. I began to entertain right-wing understandings.

So why anarchism? (Market Anarchy to be exact.) The title bears to mind violent ignoramuses, disturbers of the common people; disturbers of the peace. I could through a process of elimination muse on the different economic systems and reveal why each is quite unsatisfactory for me. I can just as easily filter through each form of anarchism with its secondary natures of communism, socialism, individualism, primitivism, syndicalism, pacifism and all other contrived ‘isms’. I’d be then raising a debate that those who identify as anarchists are more than willing to debate about. It is apparent that one form of anarchy is neither correct nor ideal as it then leads to another form of governance.

It seems to me to be a question of wealth but most importantly: its exchange.

It is the question of the nature of ‘value’ and the necessity for a ‘standard’ in asset exchange. Spooner I believe addressed this issue by revealing that wealth itself is neither material nor immaterial – but rather a flux between the both. Wealth begets wealth. One with a keen mind has the tools at hand to produce material wealth. Adam Smith comes to mind.

How many thousands of years must we debate over the trivialities of the superiority of one form of commodity over another? Let there be an end to a monopoly on the ‘necessity’ for a form of wealth. I’m sure someone starving for thirst would cast aside diamonds for water. Wealth is in the eye of the beholder; it is subjective. Let each community attempt a different form of money for exchange. It is quite apparent that there are currencies which rise to the top due to their liquidity and their prevalence within the market.

Centralization of wealth itself is the problem. Decentralization would not counter anything currently in place but for the ability to amass riches to a ridiculous corporate level to the detriment of competing small business. And while it is plainly good when a company reaches large-scale the negative effects are only attained through state-supportive monopolies and protectionist (specialist) agenda.

This is hailing of course from the theory for voluntary association. Not where we are placed side by side and expected to exist in peace as the current system dictates. Anarchism easily defines not utopia but heterotopia.

Now as to the application it becomes readily apparent that technology affords us a method for attaining this ideal liberty. Every machine is one of complexity and never is it conceived by one person. Always the different tweaks and developments are those of many (not always for profit) but for solving problems at hand. Take a look at Edison and the light bulb. He wasn’t the creator of the light bulb – he merely had access to patents and copyrights. His innovation came 70 years after the original. Since the creation is one of many and not ever of one – no one man deserves exclusive possession to it.

Technology is about production. The streamlining of production allows for goods to be produced at ever cheaper levels (and always for profit). It seems inevitable that technology may be able to outgrow monopoly.

The idea is simple: the way to liberty lies in plainly seeking land out and settling upon it and utilizing it. Each community should be absolutely free to make its own regulation (if it so chooses). There should be no imaginary line dictating regulation to people who live hundreds of miles in distance from each other, living with different interests and customs in mind. It seems to me, that the privatization of the public sector is the necessity.

The idea is simple: the way to liberty lies in not creating systems for the masses, but in allowing the minority – the individual ability to cope with the differences in ‘classes’. The way to liberty cannot be controlled and should not be controlled. Ever is it mankind’s method for wrestling with a world he has no right to conquer. Worse is it man’s method for controlling other men. It is not our place to rule others and it is not our place to be ruled. If there is a ruler – it is the ineffable, it is the ‘god’ construct the church maintained a knowledge monopoly over. If there is a ruler, we answer in the next life and not in this one. So instead of making it hell on earth – we should be attempting to build a heaven by all constructs now. Ceaseless is our struggle because we attempt to exercise dominion over the petty material things which easily rule us.

The aims of anarchism are only measurable in what one opposes. If one opposes the current state driven capitalist system – then that is the measure of anarchy for them. If one counters the selling of individual rights to another through the process of outdated marriage – then that is the measure of the feminist anarchism, ad infinitum.

It knows isolation is undesirable and impossible for the good of man. This system is one of mutual needs and collaboration. It is a system where resources are not taken away from the individual but rather, asserted as the natural birthright to all. It is a system where we retain our dignity above the pageants of wealth and class.

I despair knowing full well that my ideal shall never come to pass. I despair in my love for a theory knowing full well that the mass of our kind are too blind and witless to ever effect change. But I do not despair that I should remain silent to the ones I know and love. I do not despair that I’ve fallen for an ideal: freedom.