You are viewing a single comment's thread from:

RE: Anarchy Misunderstood

in #anarchy5 years ago

Saying that power corrupts in no way contradicts the fact that the corrupt seek power. However, there is a pervasive myth that, "If only we get the right guy in office in this next election, all the corruption will be washed away in a tide of democratic virtue!" Remember how Trump was supposed to "drain the swamp"? Obama was the "peace candidate"? W. promised a "humble foreign policy"? I am certain all three were corrupt from the start, but they sold their campaigns on virtue. I think even Ron Paul and other politicians who have a reputation for fighting corruption were tainted by the power they held, though.

Sort:  

Interesting that you cite Ron Paul, who I was going to cite as the singular politician of which I am aware that apparently did not ever accept encomiums from lobbyists. I acknowledge that being an honest man is a terrible flaw in a politician, however.

Instead of wrangling over whether or not everyone, or only most everyone, is corrupt to varying degrees, I reckon adopting newly available means of production suitable for individual use, like aquaponics and 3D printing, as convenient and profitable in our particular circumstances, and then expanding those means to our fellows and families incrementally reduces parasitization and institutional power as it increases the profitability of our productive undertakings.

As development proceeds, the personal ability to manufacture modern security technology that is able to prevent armed thugs from projecting institutional force will increasingly render institutions of every kind, private corporation and state alike, obsolete.

Then we will be free.

Decentralize everything without begging for permission first.

Absolutely. There are no permits required to adopt emerging means of production suitable to individual use. 3D printers, aquaponics, CRISPR, etc., are all in the wild now and essentially zero regulation has been undertaken regarding any.

how do you decentralize healthcare?

Well, prior to Nixon, US healthcare was decentralized, and absent taxation (in the form of mandates to provide employee insurance) US healthcare was the best in the world, and least expensive. Both those metrics have worsened progressively as increasing mandatory benefits decreased free market incentive to keep prices down and provide better services. At the time many NGOs (such as religious organizations) provided assistance to folks unable to afford medical treatment on their own. This is why today many hospitals still bear names associated with churches and religious orders, even though such religious organizations often no longer are involved, private corporations having purchased the facilities.

Today AI, CRISPR, robotics, and other technological advances are concatenating to enable individuals to tailor nutrition and lifestyle control to their personal requirements, diagnose illness, and produce their own pharmaceutical and treatment regimens to cure or treat themselves. People dependent on government mandated nutritional information on food provided by Big Agra are hopelessly misinformed, poisoned, and then funneled into the Big Pharma profit center.

It is becoming rapidly less useful to seek treatment by institutional walled gardens of specialists controlled and parasitized by corporations, and horrible food quality is the cause of ~50% of epidemic diseases like obesity, cardiovascular illness, and type 2 diabetes, in the west today. Increasingly failing to undertake to ensure your own health is tantamount to suicide.

It is notable that medical malpractice and errors are ~the third leading cause of death in the West today. Little is potentially more profitable for individuals to undertake than avoiding that murderous industry.

Okay, so how do you explain the best healthcare systems being universal government funded ones today? That kind of debunks your whole homicidal thesis.

Her derr yer durcentrulize heatlhcare?

Take care of yourself. 85% of chronic diseases are directly related to behaviors and life choices.

Socialsists are officially mentally retarded.

Wait, you're citing government monopoly healthcare as proof that competition and choice don't work when you of all people know how anti-choice the corporate cartel system in the US is? And then you simply declare dissent to be advocating murder? What kind of anarchistic foundation are you trying to build from here?

I know you'll likely whinge about the source, but please, give this a read.@valued-customer's statement seems historically accurate and plays a huge role in the mess we have today. In addition, the AMA has been fighting for a century or so to kill mutual aid societies and worker cooperatives that reduced medical costs. When FDR imposed wage caps in the 40s, health insurance benefits were specifically exempted from taxation or wage cap consideration, establishing a permanent tie for benefits to wages, and killing rational economic calculation on the part of all involved in the industry. The mess of today is a consequence of crony capitalism, not free markets, and that is why there needs to be a distinction in terms. But in the English-speaking world, both ideas are still called "capitalism," and that is why ancaps use that term. but to say they favor the political interventions and bear responsibility for its failures is intellectual dishonesty.