• OurToothbrush@lemmy.ml
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    1 year ago

    A property owner (or in this case, really anyone who lays claim to a property, since a state that could issue official deeds does not exist) still has the right to defend their property using violent means if necessary.

    Okay, but if there isn’t a state, who is to say the workers don’t have the right to protect their surplus labor value from theft by seizing the means of production, through violence if necessary?

    This is one of the reasons why anarcho capitalism is an incoherent ideology. People who believe in it think that the right of private property is just something everyone agrees should be held sacred, when it only exists because of state violence.

    • MacN'Cheezus@lemmy.today
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      1 year ago

      Okay, but if there isn’t a state, who is to say the workers don’t have the right to protect their surplus labor value from theft by seizing the means of production, through violence if necessary?

      Nobody. But conversely, if there isn’t a state, what’s to prevent property owners from banding together and protecting their property with violence?

      Before you say “but there’s more workers than property owners”, keep in mind that given enough money or gold or whatever, they could also hire mercenaries to prevent workers from rebelling.

      It really all comes down to who is better at organizing. So it’s possible that in one scenario, workers would seize the means of production successfully, and if they are good enough at keeping it running, they’d operate as a commune, while in another scenario, there’d be a more hierarchical, capitalist structure of organization.

      You’re simply arguing from a standpoint of “but I like THIS approach better” when it’s a question of “but can you make it WORK?”

      • OurToothbrush@lemmy.ml
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        1 year ago

        But conversely, if there isn’t a state, what’s to prevent property owners from banding together and protecting their property with violence?

        That would literally be a capitalist state in every meaningful sense.

        keep in mind that given enough money or gold or whatever, they could also hire mercenaries to prevent workers from rebelling.

        Sorta like a police force of some kind?

        It really all comes down to who is better at organizing. So it’s possible that in one scenario, workers would seize the means of production successfully, and if they are good enough at keeping it running, they’d operate as a commune, while in another scenario, there’d be a more hierarchical, capitalist structure of organization.

        You know what is really fucking organized? A state. It is almost like at the beginning of the country all the large landowners and capitalists got together and made one of those to protect their interests.

        You’re simply arguing from a standpoint of “but I like THIS approach better” when it’s a question of “but can you make it WORK?”

        Lol. I am literally asking how your hypothetical system would handle class antagonisms, the primary concern of politics. I am very directly asking “but can you make it work”

          • OurToothbrush@lemmy.ml
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            1 year ago

            Is this meant to be a gotcha? What I prefer has nothing to do with understanding how states function and why they coalesce.

            • PsychedSy@sh.itjust.works
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              1 year ago

              Not really a gotcha. I just forget I’m pretty alone in my (particular) distaste for violence.

              Edit: didn’t really mean for that to sound so negative.

              • OurToothbrush@lemmy.ml
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                1 year ago

                I guess I dont base my understanding of politics around morality, morality enters the field when determining what to do within that understanding

                • PsychedSy@sh.itjust.works
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                  1 year ago

                  I’m certainly overly reductive of politics. When we’re talking ideology, though, yeah I’m going back to my ethics. A government can’t act on our behalf with more rights than us - we just end up creating our master. Pragmatic actions, in the real world, are different from ideological conversations, though.

                  • OurToothbrush@lemmy.ml
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                    1 year ago

                    I’m somewhat confused by your separation of ideology from practical actions. That sounds internally inconsistent.

                    I am willing to accept a state if it is necessary to suppress the bourgeoisie and their toadies, so long as that continues to be necessary. I would prefer we lived in a communist society but we can’t get there overnight and socialism is how you transition to it.

        • MacN'Cheezus@lemmy.today
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          1 year ago

          That would literally be a capitalist state in every meaningful sense.

          In the same way that a collective of workers getting together to control the means of production would be a communist state in every meaningful sense.