(2004-08-19) Carson Mutualist

Kevin Carson champions Mutualism - I can't figure out whether he's Anarcho Capitalist, Libertarian Socialist, or something else...

• his "Political Program for Anarchists" - see Route Around

• his "Libertarian Property and Privatization: An Alternative Paradigm"

• his "Iron Fist Behind the Invisible Hand"

  • pretty nasty history of Big Government actions in England to appropriate commons property (Enclosure), restrict movement that would affect labor supply/demand (Settlement Act, Poor Law), etc. (State Capitalism)

  • Mercantilism (Mercantalist) was extremely efficient for its real purpose: making wealthy manufacturing interests rich at the expense of everyone else. Adam Smith consistently attacked mercantilism, not as a product of economic error, but as a quite intelligent attempt by powerful interests to enrich themselves through the Coercive power of the state.

  • section on Money Monopoly/Central Bank as creator of Scar City of Capital Market to avoid SmallCo formation (competition for Cheap Labor).

  • big section on dependence of Old Economy on government Industrial Policy and War Economy.

  • section on Patent as a source/cause of industry consolidation (BigCo).

  • reviewed by Keith Preston - Serious Free Market economists, such as Murray Rothbard, have long recognized that the Corporatist structure of modern "Big Business" (BigCo) rests on state intervention (Market Distortion) rather than lassez faire. The state creates the fictitious legal infrastructure of corporate "personhood". The state protects and assists corporations by means of Limited Liability laws, Subsidy, Government Contract-s, loans, guarantees, Bail-Out-s, purchases of goods, Price Control-s, regulatory privilege, grants of monopolies (Monopoly), Protectionist Tariff-s and trade policies, Bankruptcy laws, military intervention to gain access to international markets and protect foreign investments, regulating or prohibiting organized labor activity, Eminent Domain, discriminatory taxation (Tax Law), ignoring corporate crimes and countless other forms of state-imposed favors and privileges.

Semi-related, by Hans Hermann Hoppe, Democracy The God That Failed ISBN:0765808684 (Democracy)

• intro
• pitch - Nor is it an advantage of democracy that free entry into every state position exists (whereas under monarchy entry is restricted by the king's discretion). To the contrary, only competition in the production of goods is a good thing. Competition in the production of bads is not good; in fact, it is sheer evil. Kings, coming into their position by virtue of birth, might be harmless dilettantes or decent men (and if they are "madmen," they will be quickly restrained or if need be, killed, by close relatives concerned with the possessions of the dynasty). In sharp contrast, the selection of government rulers by means of popular elections makes it essentially impossible for a harmless or decent person to ever rise to the top. Presidents and prime ministers come into their position as a result of their efficiency as morally uninhibited demagogues. Hence, democracy virtually assures that only dangerous men will rise to the top of government... Democracy has transformed the limited wars of kings into Total War-s. (Pure War?) The motive for war has become ideological - democracy, liberty, civilization, humanity. The objectives are intangible and elusive: the ideological "conversion" of the losers preceded by their "unconditional" surrender (which, because one can never be certain about the sincerity of conversion, may require such means as the mass murder of civilians). And the distinction between combatants and non-combatants becomes fuzzy and ultimately disappears under democracy, and mass war involvement - the draft and popular war rallies - as well as "collateral damage" become part of war strategy.