Smash the State

It’s been a while since I’ve talked about bartering; and it occurred to me the other day that I have been remiss in discussing it in a proper context. That’s what I’m going to attempt to do today.

I don't have kids. But for those who do, I want to make sure you are aware of a resource that, to me, appears superb. There's a guy named Arthur Robinson, a scientist who long ago worked hand in hand with Linus Pauling, who was forced to figure out what to do with his children when his wife died leaving him with the brood. The Robinson Curriculum is what resulted. I highly recommend giving it a look. He has produced at least one impressive scientist son using this program and I expect the others will excell as well.

- NonE

To be honest, I’d been thinking that feature had outlived its usefulness, since it’s been a very long while since we’ve gotten any questions. I’m glad to be shown wrong. The questions come from an anonymous individual, whom I don’t think was being facetious with the questions posed via email:

When will the best of the anarchy theorists accept that the bulk of humanity will no more give up their State than their religion, as they both generate feelings of safety? And once accepted, switch strategies from converting the world, to inventing technological and cultural mechanisms by which a permanently small anarchist minority can avoid the grasp of the bulk of humanity? How can the anarchists duplicate the state-rejecting successes of the Amish?

I’ll take on each in turn; and, as usual, others are welcome to provide their answers or engage as preferred on the subjects in the comments.

One of the most common accusations of hypocrisy leveled at anarchists is that many of us use public roads, which are financed by taxbux. It is very difficult to lead any sort of typical life these days without doing so, of course—but leave it to the state to provide some motivation for changing that.

And it’s becoming something of a habit, apparently.

I don’t regularly visit One Small Voice, because the posts are sporadic and often more techy–geeky than my reptilian brain can handle (also, it’s too easy for me to slither in to the “abundance of jewels” I’ve found scattered about and not emerge for hours ... and with my brain swirling with even more thoughts than I’ve time to consider, much less share). So that’s why I didn’t see his post-election item until this morning: I Unvoted!. We’re still working on restoring graphics upload capability here, so I can’t present his images for your convenience, and I dislike hotlinking to images unless it’s explicitly approved by the originating site ... so I encourage you to hie thee thither for the best way to deal with a ballot that I have seen to date.

Because some relatively newish friends of mine have been exploring the issue of principled voting and nonvoting, I’d been toying with the idea of writing on the subject again. But I simply haven’t been able to summon any enthusiasm for the task—not even framing it in terms of it being for their possible benefit. Perhaps I’ve already devoted my allotment of life force to the issue, I dunno ... but I’m happy to say that someone else whom I respect has written an excellent piece on the subject:

... I love this country, but I hate its government.

If it is alive, government wants to kill it. If it is valuable, government wants to steal it. If it is beautiful, unique, or quirky, government wants to standardize, regulate or get rid of it. If it is interesting, risky or in any way not already completely safe and benign, government wants to dumb it down to manageable and predictable levels.

And no, putting your favorite idiots in charge will not fix it. Even putting smart people or caring people in charge will not fix it. ....

... [I]s it better for me to vote for an evil tyrant or not vote at all? Seriously. Those are the choices as best I can tell. For another thing, if it doesn’t matter who I vote for, then why does it matter that I vote at all except to prop up a system which I vehemently oppose? ....

After a good discussion recently, it has become clear to me that not voting in and of itself is not necessarily a sufficiently clear message that I have no faith in and no respect for the system. Therefore, I am spelling out my message explicitly right here.

I will not vote in this election.

I will not participate in this distraction and sham, and neither laziness nor apathy is among my reasons behind my choice.

I think most of the possible voting choices are unethical. Specifically, I believe it is unethical to vote to place another human being in a position of power over a peaceful person who cannot opt out of that system if there is a reasonably realistic chance your choice might prevail. I believe it is unethical to vote to steal a peaceful person’s property- be that theft in the form of taxation, eminent domain, zoning, gun control, the drug war, fines or penalties for victimless activities, or any of a bazillion other activities I could list. I believe it is unethical to vote to take away any peaceful choice a person could make- be that choice to carry arms either openly or concealed in public, to fuck bicycle parts, to wear clothing with distasteful graphics, to speak, publish or read offensive material, or again any of a bazillion other things that do not violate anyone else’s right to their own equally individual choices.

Kirsten says much, much more that is worth your attention in Casting My Whole Vote. She’s captured my thoughts and feelings much more concisely than I probably ever could.

Yeah, yeah ... I know what I said about that phrase nigh on a year ago. Today I’m addressing that phrase again from a rather different context. And, I also admit with more than a little embarrassment, I thought I’d written on this a long time ago, as I had promised to upon my return from my adventure teaching at a couple of Liberty English Camps in ‘07 ...

It is always a pleasure to learn that one’s scratchings have been of value to someone else; it’s even better when they’ve been used in such a way that comes back to the author, thereby expanding his thinking in some way. That’s what’s happened here lately—NonEntity has had another essay, titled Non-Money, published at Strike the Root; and he credits my recent musings on trust as an inspirational factor. It’s hard for me to winnow out a good, representative snippet, because he touches on several important facets in the challenge of creating economic systems independent of the state. Instead I encourage interested folk to read it in its entirety—it’s pretty short—then return here, where I’ll toss out some thoughts I have and invite feedback on any and all relevant issues.

It was Billy Joel who wrote a song some time ago about love relationships ultimately being “a matter of trust”. While that’s true, the larger point—and the reason the song has been repeating in my mind for a few hours now—is that all relationships are built upon trust. Every contract, formal or informal, every market transaction, happens because there is some degree of trust between the participants. It appears to me that trust is such a deep, implicit part of that most of us probably don’t recognize its role, unless something happens to disturb it and therefore bring it to our attention.

Readers who have perused my recent rantings on the current economic landscape may find all that at odds with the quote that currently appears atop the sidebar: “Life should be more than just the passage of time; it should be the enjoyment of time as it passes.” While it is true that I am not enjoying the current crises, nor the prospect of what’s still to come, I do mean to do my best to turn the large shipment of lemons coming our way into lemonade, lemon meringue pie, lemon freeze, lemon chicken ... you get my point.

Costa Rica:
Arenal Kayaks – kayaking tours and more; trusted individual with whom I have done business and been highly satisfied

USSA:
Cat’s Curiosities – Cat Farmer, Las Vegas; online bookstore and physical shop in NV; trusted individual whom I have met in person; have not done business with yet
Jill of Many Trades – Mama Liberty [email to myeft_coach at yahoo.com], Wyoming; offers EFT and other energy therapy coaching, either in person or via email and/or telephone; teaches several levels of handgun classes & is NRA certified instructor; retired nurse and knowledgeable herbalist; trusted individual whom I have met in person many times, and have done business with and been highly satisfied
Mailable Art – “A. Subset”, mobile; individual I have met in person, briefly; have not yet done business with
The Marksman’s Box – Gene McCarron, Wyoming; individual I have met in person, briefly; also vouched for by Mama Liberty; have not done business with yet
Restored Spirit Arts – jewelry, including custom made jewelry; trusted individual with whom I have done business and been very satisfied
Richardson and Bluhm – Warren Bluhm and B. W. Richardson; I have met both, and satisfactorily done business with both; highly trusted individuals
Navigating In the New World – book by Australian Shaun Saunders; individual whom I have known well for years but not yet met in person; highly trusted
J. Smith books – Jon [email to j-wyant at austin.rr.com], Fredericksburg, Texas; he’s also near completion of massage therapy training and will accept clients for cash, gold, silver, or barter, fees dependent upon session length and distance to come to you; trusted individual with whom I have successfully bartered
Sunni’s Caramels – me, WA (north of Seattle, south of Bellingham); homemade caramels, truffles, and other treats; special orders welcome; can make gluten-free chocolate cakes, cheesecakes, and regular cakes, pies, etc. for local pickup or delivery
Sunni’s Salon – Tom Ender and me; Amazon and other bookseller’s affiliate sales; Salon Payola guarantees a review; I will review books, music, movies for other sites for a fee [barter welcome]; I am also available as a ghostwriter or copy editor
Vera Verba – Sean Hastings and Paul Rosenberg; book publisher and seller (print and online, although the entire catalog is not currently available online); t-shirts also available; I have met Paul in person multiple times and have a great deal of trust in him; have not yet done business with VV

If you want to be included on this list, please send me an email [either my first name at this domain or sunni.snake at Gmail; sending to both is a good hedge against the email demons that have been intermittently bothering me] with “Agora” somewhere in the subject line. Please include a link to your web site, if you have one, or an eddress; your business(es), general location, especially if important to your work; payment form(s) accepted; and if I do not know you, two pro-freedom references I can contact to vouch for you.

Just the headline alone was enough to start my head shaking: U.N.’s Ban questions faith in “magic” of markets. Here are the first three paragraphs for additional context:

The global financial crisis endangers efforts to reduce world poverty and demands a new approach with less "uncritical faith in the 'magic' of markets," U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said on Tuesday.

The financial turmoil roiling world markets put at risk the achievement of the U.N.-agreed Millennium Development Goals set in 2000 to halve global poverty by 2015, Ban said in his opening address at the United Nations General Assembly.

"The global financial crisis endangers all our work -- financing for development, social spending in rich nations and poor, the Millennium Development Goals," he told world leaders gathered in New York for the annual meeting.

Ban is also quoted toward the end of the article (not really worth reading beyond the quotes included here) as saying, “We must think about how the world economic system should evolve to more fully reflect the changing realities of our time.”

Both of these statements reveal a deep ignorance of markets and how they work, and the typical hubris of politicrats everywhere: for anything to work, they must have their fingerprints all over it. Markets are not magic. When unfettered by regulations, they can seem magical because of their fluidity, and the speed at which they can work. Think of eBay, back in the day before they got control–happy—a person who wanted to buy something could search there for a seller, and if he found what he wanted, he’d put a bid on it. If his was the highest bid, he bought the item. A seller could set a minimum price for his item in order not to lose money or to guarantee a minimal profit, but because of competition from others selling identical or similar things, if his minimum was too high he risked losing buyers. Freedom and transparency mean markets work smoothly and fast, when buyer and seller connect in good faith; thus it can seem like magic, especially to those who haven’t thought about the processes.

But markets are delicate things. Interference of any sort can set in motion all sorts of consequences, which sometimes compound. Absent a clearing of these problems, they continue to compound and possibly expand until the market seizes up—as we have seen over the past year.

What can mess with a market? Attempts at cheating can temporarily screw one up. Once that attempt becomes known, however, not only is the game up for the cheater, he now has a damaged reputation that will haunt him in future endeavors. As long as information is available to those in the marketplace, cheating will eventually be discovered somehow.

Rules that tip the market in one way or the other, or allow participants to hide aspects of their activities, can completely skew markets. And thus it is that when politicians try to help ensure fair markets, they inevitably destroy the “magic” of a free market. The free market—which isn’t really a structured system at all; it is simply an aggregate view of individual transactions—morphs into a structured system. And that system begins to favor some at the expense of others. Or it allows cheating. Or it discourages advances. Or any of a number of other things can happen that ultimately hurt, rather than help. This is why any and all interference ends up going wrong; but in their zeal to do good (or at least give the appearance of doing something), all would-be leaders fail to see that the best way to help is to do nothing at all.

Planning is a good thing, especially when flexibility is an integral part of the plan. But one cannot plan and control markets nor the aggregate world market. Ban’s last comment, quoted above, neatly encapsulates the shortsighted hubris of central planners everywhere: there is no way to direct a market without interfering in it. More importantly, the only “reality of our time”—or of any time—is that change is the only constant. And as a constant, it can vary wildly. (Heh.)

This is why agorism is the solution to today’s problem, and indeed every problem of market interference. Agorism is a free, voluntary marketplace of exchange. No, it isn’t perfect; there will be attempts to manipulate it somehow, and natural market changes as technology advances, fashions and tastes change, etc. mean that market sectors will die out—but new ones will spring to life. There’s always risk, but there is also always opportunity. I would much rather take my chances in a free market than any manipulated one.

Yesterday—along with probably everyone else who’s been paying any attention to the financial industry lately—I ranted a bit about the outrageous plan Strong-Dollar Paulson and Helicopter Bernanke are trying to push through Congress. I also took a bit of a mordant humor break and browsed LOLFed ... but the situation is serious, and requires thoughtful consideration and careful planning.

I almost cannot believe I’m going to say this, but I think the time has come for a warning shot to the politicrats in D.C. As articles and commentaries reveal regulatory burdens that kept markets from working properly and absent oversight, their solution is to continue to pretend that they can control the mess that they made—and moreover, to burden USSA taxpayers with the costs, which will be inflated beyond today’s estimates, subject to cronyism, and carry many other unintended consequences that come with state intervention. For a better, more informed perspective on these issues than I can offer, I recommend Mish’s Global Economic Trend Analysis, Naked Capitalism, The Market Ticker, and the folks at The Daily Reckoning. Some of these people are urging their readers to contact their Congressvermin, and Mish recommends contacting sympathetic Senators [scroll down to the bottom of that post] to encourage them to stand against the forthcoming legislation.

I join that call, but probably for a different reason. I see it as a serious warning shot—a “We’re not going to take this” messge—to be followed with real consequences should Congress pass it and give the Treasury more coercive power than Congress and the President combined.