May 17, 2013 by Liberty
The acceptance of the non-aggression principle is rather easy. Just about everyone in the world is willing to say they follow it (even if they don’t.) Non-aggression is peace. Acceptance of the non-aggression principle implies that someone understands the anarchist philosophy. When someone does accept the anarchist philosophy, even if only in spirit, there are many of options available.
There are anarcho-capitalists, anarcho-syndacalists, anarcho-pacifists, etc. Many of these groups overlap each other in philosophy more than they go against each other but anarcho-capitalists tend to take a bit of a beating. Capitalism is not only perfectly acceptable but it’s been the most effective tool in history to buy peace. You can’t buy peace with more violence. You can only do it from reduction of scarcity and not introducing more violence.
Capitalism is looked at with skepticism around the world. The vast majority of the American population believes that capitalism leads to cruel business owners squeezing selfless innocents into giving them money. People see it as a conflict between capitalists and average folks.
The government has been spreading that belief for over a hundred years. It’s built a history curriculum that revolves around blaming everyone except the government for problems. Corporations are often blamed. Free markets do not encourage cheating. In fact, free markets can’t exist in too coercive of environments.
When Capitalism Lives
Capitalism is competitive. Many people look at that as a negative thing. If companies are competitive then some people win and some people lose. The businesses that are able to serve the market more effectively are able to survive. The ones that can’t help the market collapse. The more failing businesses there are, the better the market is for the customers. That means more failure brings more value to the consumers because prices get driven down and services get driven up. Ultimately, most companies fail but the remaining ones are the most efficient companies around at providing for the customers.
Many people assume that a capitalist society without government would end up with business monopolies. That just isn’t possible without a government being formed. Businesses are always competing. Monopolies are impossible. If one man owns all the railroads in the world, he’s still competing with the price of car transportation, planes, buses, new train businesses, walking, biking, and millions of other pieces of technology. Monopolies can only be enforced by aggression. Aggression would leave us with a government (right back where we started.) That means that the worst that can happen is what we have now.
Capitalism reduces scarcity. That means helping other people costs less and less. That can lead to the most powerful method of buying peace.
When Capitalism Dies
When guns start coming into play, there is no practical way to consider it free market capitalism. Businesses that we have today aren’t free market businesses. They are all capable of using the monopoly of violence for their own benefit. You cannot blame the free market for the mess we have now. Capitalism is dead in America.
Businesses run to make as much money as possible. As long as government runs their racket, businesses will take advantage of it. Government steals from the poor and gives benefits to the monopolies. Capitalism does not allow for that.
One of the biggest sticking points for anarchist philosophies are the property rights. Anarcho-capitalists support the property system, pretty much as we have it. Many other anarchist groups believe in shared property or no property rights.
Most agree that you own yourself. Other people can’t control you through force ethically.
By that belief, I think that it’s fair to assume you own that which your body creates. To understand that, what if body excrement proved to be valuable. Do you own your excrement or is someone allowed to take it from you and profit off it? That’s a disgusting question but it holds a fundamental point. If other people aren’t allowed to milk you for excrement then why would they have the right to take a plant you grew yourself.
People own that which they create.
The great thing about this is that it leads to the creation of more stuff. People make things that they want to have (or that other people want to have.) Motivations can be selfish or good, either way, the world gets more stuff. More stuff means that fewer people have to suffer.
That’s an amazing concept because we’re benefiting from the selfish people that we worry abouthurting us. The more self-obsessed someone is, the more they’re going to want to produce new stuff for the world. Everyone in the world is suddenly motivated to do good (even if it’s for the wrong reason.)
Government changes things though. Government steals a cut of the money. That means the selfish person will either move to politics, move to illegal trades (resulting in more violence), or move to something other than money to get his or her selfish fix.
The reduction of scarcity is the secret to buying peace. If you want to buy peace then you need to create more survival for more people.
There are two reasons that people commit violent acts: 1. Because they’re poor and “need” to fight to survive. 2. Because they’re sick.
Violence has been shown to bring more violence time and time again. Children that get hit end up more violent then children not hit. People that suffer through the violence of prison are more likely to go back to prison. When we reduce the survival violence, we will reduce the number of sick people in the world. When we reduce the government violence we will reduce the overall violence.
Certainly, peace is not something that’s just going to happen one day when we buy it.
It’s going to be something that we have to work at. Peace will need to be paid for in payments. Violence will reduce year after year when we decide to do it. Slowly those addicted to violence will die off. If we parent children better and use less violence in our everyday life (including business) then I believe we can do it. The most important step in that is the reduction of scarcity. That’s when we can start to buy peace.