Nydhogg
New member
The main difference between the libertarian right and the libertarian left is the position on corporations, the stance on unions and strikes, and the stance on the legitimacy of the current property structure.
We contend that current big corporations can only exist via state fiat and blood money, and are thus illegitimate property, like the fruits of theft. Nationalizations or collectivizations are a worse remedy than the disease, though.
Thus, we propose that the workers should turn the evil corporations into worker-owned and worker-managed co-operatives. It sounds vaguely commie, but it ain't.
You see, wealth accumulated by insider trading, State fiat or State-enforced thuggery against your competitors is not justly acquired property.
And, since the State steals from all of us a penny at a time to favor their chosen elites, it's *very* impractical (as in impossible) to return each penny to its owner.
It is common sense that thugs shouldn't be left to enjoy the fruits of their thuggery, so a pragmatist compromise is made, and the companies are turned into co-ops.
It doesn't apply to a small business, since they're not the receivers of dirty State favors. A LLC would lose that status, although it would stop paying corporate taxes for it. Instead, the LLC would insure its liabilities (at a much smaller fee) in a free market and go its merry way, effectively keeping the status quo but without the State thugs in the mix.
Regulatory agencies would be deprived from coercive power, although they would be split as independent, worker-owned certifying institutions.
If you build a house, instead of checking with the building codes, you'd build it and get it certified for safety from an independent, non-state firm. Now it gets funny: If they certify the safety of your installation, and it is not safe, THEY get sued out of their butts in your place.
Unless there was fraud on your part, or you didn't get your stuff certified at all. In that case, YOUR butt gets sued.
The State favors the ugly corporate model over other more practical and humane and simple models, like the co-op. Without the State, mutual credit would probably replace the financial industry, and mutual defense associations would replace the police and the military.
As for law courts, we could start from scratch and drop all statutes, instead developing a humanist and libertarian common law.
For most common disputes, voluntary arbitration would be the way to go (cheaper than a trial, mutually agreed rules). If no arbitration is acceptable, then the common law of the land would be a fallback.
Roads and infrastructures would be managed as common property, electing trustees for the management thereof.
Neighbors could decide the road that passes through their lands should remain free to use, and thus maintain it, or assign the maintenance to someone else in exchange for advertising deals or the permission to set up tolls.
If someone objected, they could build their own roads .
Federal lands would be open to homesteading, driving the value of land down from its current outrageous value (which is due to artificial scarcity). Natural preserves could be established if people agreed to set them, and thus declared them common property and managed them accordingly (trustees setting rules for hunting and fire prevention, you name it).
ALL the functions of the State can be replaced with voluntaryist alternatives. Instead of the pro-corporate capitalism that is frequent in Randian circles, we left-libertarians defend a free market by and for the common Joe.
I'm not sure if I'm making my point across.
The beauty is that both left-and right-libertarianism, and even anarcho-communism, can freely coexist as long as nobody is forced to take part of either .
Everyone can withdraw consent and not be forced to take part into anything, except for restitution of damages caused, there's no opt-out for that (technically there would be, but it would essentially mean outlawry and being hunted down, so it's not a wise decision to make.)
As for Konkin, he's a pan-libertarian, in the sense that the agorist model is specifically designed to let coexist the anarcho-commies and their communes and the Rothbardians and their companies .
Agorism is a strategy: Counter-economics. Counter-economics is the sum of all peaceful and voluntary economic action that is forbidden or not regulated by the State. By involving libertarians, their political goals and their ethics in the black and grey markets, the State is deprived of revenue, the "official (regulated) markets" start becoming unattractive, and the pro-freedom crowd eventually gathers enough resources to resist and eventually rollback and crush any possibility of Statist aggression.
.
We contend that current big corporations can only exist via state fiat and blood money, and are thus illegitimate property, like the fruits of theft. Nationalizations or collectivizations are a worse remedy than the disease, though.
Thus, we propose that the workers should turn the evil corporations into worker-owned and worker-managed co-operatives. It sounds vaguely commie, but it ain't.
You see, wealth accumulated by insider trading, State fiat or State-enforced thuggery against your competitors is not justly acquired property.
And, since the State steals from all of us a penny at a time to favor their chosen elites, it's *very* impractical (as in impossible) to return each penny to its owner.
It is common sense that thugs shouldn't be left to enjoy the fruits of their thuggery, so a pragmatist compromise is made, and the companies are turned into co-ops.
It doesn't apply to a small business, since they're not the receivers of dirty State favors. A LLC would lose that status, although it would stop paying corporate taxes for it. Instead, the LLC would insure its liabilities (at a much smaller fee) in a free market and go its merry way, effectively keeping the status quo but without the State thugs in the mix.
Regulatory agencies would be deprived from coercive power, although they would be split as independent, worker-owned certifying institutions.
If you build a house, instead of checking with the building codes, you'd build it and get it certified for safety from an independent, non-state firm. Now it gets funny: If they certify the safety of your installation, and it is not safe, THEY get sued out of their butts in your place.
Unless there was fraud on your part, or you didn't get your stuff certified at all. In that case, YOUR butt gets sued.
The State favors the ugly corporate model over other more practical and humane and simple models, like the co-op. Without the State, mutual credit would probably replace the financial industry, and mutual defense associations would replace the police and the military.
As for law courts, we could start from scratch and drop all statutes, instead developing a humanist and libertarian common law.
For most common disputes, voluntary arbitration would be the way to go (cheaper than a trial, mutually agreed rules). If no arbitration is acceptable, then the common law of the land would be a fallback.
Roads and infrastructures would be managed as common property, electing trustees for the management thereof.
Neighbors could decide the road that passes through their lands should remain free to use, and thus maintain it, or assign the maintenance to someone else in exchange for advertising deals or the permission to set up tolls.
If someone objected, they could build their own roads .
Federal lands would be open to homesteading, driving the value of land down from its current outrageous value (which is due to artificial scarcity). Natural preserves could be established if people agreed to set them, and thus declared them common property and managed them accordingly (trustees setting rules for hunting and fire prevention, you name it).
ALL the functions of the State can be replaced with voluntaryist alternatives. Instead of the pro-corporate capitalism that is frequent in Randian circles, we left-libertarians defend a free market by and for the common Joe.
I'm not sure if I'm making my point across.
The beauty is that both left-and right-libertarianism, and even anarcho-communism, can freely coexist as long as nobody is forced to take part of either .
Everyone can withdraw consent and not be forced to take part into anything, except for restitution of damages caused, there's no opt-out for that (technically there would be, but it would essentially mean outlawry and being hunted down, so it's not a wise decision to make.)
As for Konkin, he's a pan-libertarian, in the sense that the agorist model is specifically designed to let coexist the anarcho-commies and their communes and the Rothbardians and their companies .
Agorism is a strategy: Counter-economics. Counter-economics is the sum of all peaceful and voluntary economic action that is forbidden or not regulated by the State. By involving libertarians, their political goals and their ethics in the black and grey markets, the State is deprived of revenue, the "official (regulated) markets" start becoming unattractive, and the pro-freedom crowd eventually gathers enough resources to resist and eventually rollback and crush any possibility of Statist aggression.
.