Anarchists campaigning for Ron Paul
I'm recently back from an almost three week trip campaigning for Ron Paul. As a philosophical anarchist and defiantly proud non-voter, I should first state my reasons for going.
The United States government has grown into a tremendous beast. Nearly half of our wages and earnings are taxed before or while we spend it, our property, actions and decisions are ensnared in a dense and growing web of regulation and the loot taken from is used to finance destruction at home and abroad; I don't subscribe to the view that man is an island, common in libertarian circles due to the unfortunate influence of Ayn Rand.
The political world operates on an ideological track and an "activist" track. The American revolution was fought by men with an intense interest in the ideological foundations of liberty and men who were willing to act upon those ideals, fighting the British and eventually striving to set up a government in which our God-given rights would be practically preserved. Seven years ago, Bob Murphy audaciously predicted that 1% of the population would be market anarchists by 2007. Having talked with many "Ron Paul" revolutionaries, while that number has probably not yet been reached, it has surely gone up by many orders of magnitude, because of the political activism associated with Ron Paul's campaign. What we did in Iowa and later in South Carolina was rational evangelism, combined with political acumen. I met a number of market anarchists on the trip, many of whom did not believe there were so many. Add the number of people who are anarchists philosophically and there is definitely over 1% of the current population that are market anarchists. The ideological aspect of campaigning for Ron Paul is the strongest and most vibrant aspect of the campaign.
I do confess, however, that in the process of campaigning I got caught up in the politicking and began to get a little too optimistic about the short term possibilities. I still think it is possible for Ron Paul to get elected, but I think the groundwork has not yet been laid for it to be very likely. It's not even that we need a majority, because we don't, but a strong and tireless minority, of maybe 5%, to sow the critical brushfires of liberty.
The United States government has grown into a tremendous beast. Nearly half of our wages and earnings are taxed before or while we spend it, our property, actions and decisions are ensnared in a dense and growing web of regulation and the loot taken from is used to finance destruction at home and abroad; I don't subscribe to the view that man is an island, common in libertarian circles due to the unfortunate influence of Ayn Rand.
The political world operates on an ideological track and an "activist" track. The American revolution was fought by men with an intense interest in the ideological foundations of liberty and men who were willing to act upon those ideals, fighting the British and eventually striving to set up a government in which our God-given rights would be practically preserved. Seven years ago, Bob Murphy audaciously predicted that 1% of the population would be market anarchists by 2007. Having talked with many "Ron Paul" revolutionaries, while that number has probably not yet been reached, it has surely gone up by many orders of magnitude, because of the political activism associated with Ron Paul's campaign. What we did in Iowa and later in South Carolina was rational evangelism, combined with political acumen. I met a number of market anarchists on the trip, many of whom did not believe there were so many. Add the number of people who are anarchists philosophically and there is definitely over 1% of the current population that are market anarchists. The ideological aspect of campaigning for Ron Paul is the strongest and most vibrant aspect of the campaign.
I do confess, however, that in the process of campaigning I got caught up in the politicking and began to get a little too optimistic about the short term possibilities. I still think it is possible for Ron Paul to get elected, but I think the groundwork has not yet been laid for it to be very likely. It's not even that we need a majority, because we don't, but a strong and tireless minority, of maybe 5%, to sow the critical brushfires of liberty.
A 'market anarchist' is a contradiction in terms. A market requires a state. Even if a market did not require a state, the most successful sociopaths (some call them businessmen) would certainly retain some psychopaths (cops/warlords) to protect their economic advantage thus forming at least a crude proto-state.
ReplyDeleteHow do you keep a market capitalist system without a concentration of violent force in the hands of those who would hold on to profits produced by the hands of others? What would keep workers from realizing that they can manage quite well without a useless leech with paper ownership of their enterprise taking a big fat cut of the pie?
Why would anyone pay rent to a landlord without a state or proto state forcing them to?
Goodbye state, goodbye iniquitous property regimes. Or hello reactionary fascistic proto-state.
Without a critical mass of revolutionary working class consciousness expressed in a popular people's movement, I'd put my suddenly worthless paper money on the latter.
Capitalism without a state is as untenable as communism within one.
not a "market" anarchist, but interesting nonetheless to find others that declare themselves to be anarchists and supportive of Ron Paul and what can at least be termed minarchy or decentralist libertarianism which is surely better then what we have now and one step closer to even further liberty and decentralism of power.
ReplyDeleteIn life, we will face a lot of choices for us to choose. At times, we do not know how to choose, this is a hard thing for people to make a decision. Take aoc gold for example. That is an easy choice for you to make. If you do not know how to do now, please turn to make conan gold, then you will find surprise on aoc money. You will find that it is easy to make age of conan gold. If you do not know how to buy cheap aoc gold, I can help you.
ReplyDelete