Only you can save you
In the end, the only person that can save you is you. The reason I’m not an anarchist is because it requires putting your faith in a system to save you. Anarchists may claim that they are actually advocating for a lack of system, but I argue it is just a system that looks different than the standard government system. It is the assumption that an ideology is the answer.
The quote above is sagacious and I agree with it. I never classify myself as anything more than a pragmatist and consider anarchism just another ideology. Any ideology has requirements for adherents to follow which may or may not be in their self interest. In the case of anarchism there are indeed norms, patterns of thinking, trends, popular sentiments, which a lot of anarchists promote, adhere to, follow in some cases blindly. This could be anything from the non-aggression principle which many anarchists follow as an absolute, or it could be code is law, or it could be taxation is theft, or any other dogma.
In nature there are really just groups and individuals. Some groups and or individuals are stronger than others typically. The stronger groups and or individuals typically begin taxing those who are less strong than they are. It does not matter what the system is calling itself or which ideology it is running on, they all typically offer protection to peaceful individuals for a fee. By weaker I mean peaceful individuals who don't want war, and don't like continuous conflict. Whether the individual is made to pay the fee to the US government, or an AI, or the mining cartel, or the gangsters, it's practically inescapable for the vast majority of individuals.
This does not mean all systems, all governments, all powerful groups are equal. Some make better offers than others. Some offer more freedom for lower fees and offer more security for less cost. In my opinion it's not right or wrong to pay a fee, or a tax, to whomever is protecting your interests, just so long as they actually are protecting your interests and you get what you paid for.
I am a capitalist. When I told this to the gentleman from the event, he pressed me to admit I was an anarcho-capitalist. I am not. I am just a capitalist. I deal with money, how it works, and how to make it work for me. I have spent my life learning the rules of money and putting them to use to get rich, and I have done so under both Republicans and Democrats.
A pragmatist typically will seek to be successful no matter which group is in power at the time. An ideologist will sacrifice their own success in many cases to prevent a certain group from gaining power or to keep their own group in power. In a sense to be aligned fully to an ideology is to be a soldier for that ideology and or school of thought. I'm not against the idea of fighting for what you believe in, but it has to truly be a great idea and something you believe in rather than merely something a lot of people around you believe to be true but which you haven't direct evidence. If we for example go by scientific ways of deciding what is true then the only measure of whether or not to follow a certain ideology is based on it's effectiveness for achieving your goals, and or supporting your values.
At the end of the day, far too many people put their faith in systems rather than in themselves. They attach labels to themselves—labels that can get them killed. Wars are started as these people of one label begin fighting people of another label. So, I get very angry when people try to label me and associate me with their ideology. To try and pressure someone into your camp is no small thing.
Some of my values and my understanding of Robert Kiyosaki's anger
And on this I can completely understand the anger. No one should be pressured into joining any camp, ideology, group, or trend, if they don't truly arrive at the conclusion on their own. No one should tell someone else "you're a BLANK". It should always be up to the individual to define their own identity, political, social, or otherwise, because individuality and person status requires the freedom to choose your identity and define yourself.
Conclusion
My post represents my own views. I do not take any hostile position against @dollarvigilante and respect his passion to follow his beliefs. I am simply a fan of Robert Kiyosaki's ideas and better relate to his line of thought. Any anarchists reading this should know that what label people call themselves shouldn't really matter. What actually matters is whether or not people have values which are compatible enough that they can work together to promote a future which aligns with those values. If anarchists value individualism, freedom, then we are aligned in principle. The question is what is the most effective means of promoting and empowering the individual and the freedom of the individual and on that there is in my opinion no reason to apply any ideology when we can simply take a pragmatic approach of measuring the effective outcomes to discover the best approaches. If an ideology leads to the most effective outcome then clearly it's the best approach, but no ideology is going to be effective all the time and good ideas and or approaches come from individuals not ideologies.
References
- http://www.richdad.com/Resources/Rich-Dad-Financial-Education-Blog/July-2017/Why-I-Flipped-Out-on-the-Guy-Who-Called-Me-an-Anar.aspx?feed=RichDadNews
- https://steemit.com/politics/@dollarvigilante/that-guy-s-response-to-robert-kiyosaki-of-rich-dad-poor-dad-on-anarcho-capitalism
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Individualism
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egoist_anarchism
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pragmatism
Labels are what actually separate you from one another and you have a point , we should not label . We should just seek others friendship or relationship without actually labeling it as something because then you are generalizing it to facts @dana-edwards
I think a person's actions define who they are whether you claim a label or not.
Actions define "what" they are not "who". You define who, but your actions tell me what.
Alrighty then!
Objective Reality will always reward personal responsibility. It is a Natural Law. However, (anarcho-)capitalists are in for a shock, most don't know that Hayek was pro-basic income... why? because otherwise capitalism falls apart: https://steemit.com/freedom/@earthcustodians/elon-musk-s-universal-basic-income-trap-is-looming-anarcho-capitalism-in-favor-of-basic-income
edit: individualism is a smoke mirror. the human species will have to cooperate without any form coercion or go extinct. Voluntaryism is different from capitalism because market forces are always coercive, collusion is embedded in the premise.
I dont put faith into the system i realized long ago i couldn't my faith into a system that's all about money and lies or lies to make money dangerous combination.
this is an excellent article @dana-edwards
Excellent article @dana-edwards!
I agree with the point of not labelling yourself, but labels often help to organize groups working towards larger, or common goals (good or bad).
If the things that I'm interested in working towards had no labels, how would I know where to find like-minded people?
There's also "layers of labels" if you will. I might be a capitalist, but that doesn't mean I don't like social programs. (Just an example).
And what sort of people tend to want to organize other people against their will? Social engineers?
Rhetorical question?
This has basically been the theme of my year so far
to each his own I guess
Nice read! I agree that not only can you save you, you SHOULD save yourself. If more people were self-sufficient, reliable, and in general didn't rely so much on others or a system to float them we would have a safer more stable society at large. Each individual with the necessary precautions in mind and practical plan to execute on system failure makes for a painless transition to a new system and prevention of long term damage. I believe this was the idea when the U.S was first founded. Government won't get in our way but you are on your own. This is how it should be. Individuals makes up groups. Prepared individuals = Prepared groups.
Labels, ideology, boxes of thought, they are both useful for presenting a group of cohesive ideas but they are in nature limited. They simply cannot account for all the dynamics of life in practice. I personally like the ideas of libertarianism but am hesistant to say "I am a libertarian" cause bigger boxes or bigger labels get placed on top of that "So you're also conservative or republican" which begets more negative labels and so on. I feel we get so caught up in being this and that we forget that ideology is a tool not something that needs an army to rise up to protect it's sacred grounds from invading ideologies. This is how many wars are started and valuable minds are lost. Capital gets destroyed and at the end very few have really benefited from the aftermath. Dogma is very troublesome and I believe in order for society to reach the next level of advancement we need to let it go. Fanatic adherence to ideas to the point of suicidal murder will regress progress more than progress can be made and kept.
This is true but society isn't set up to promote resiliency, self sufficiency, independence. Society is or seems to be set up to promote the exact opposite actually.
How many people do you know who don't depend on being chosen in some way? Either for a job because they have a boss who chooses their salary, or for the college they got into, or into the sports league? Most people seem to get where they are because other people chose to give them some opportunity.
But if you're talking about self made self employed where no particular person gave them any opportunity, where there was no mentor, no parents, no community of investors to support their brilliant ideas? Very few people actually are in the position you speak of.
Becoming financially independent is extremely difficult but it is possible. I just don't think the vast majority of people understand that it can take most of a lifetime to reach that position if they ever reach it. In general I support universal basic income, as this would allow everyone to have at least the opportunity to reach that position, but as things are right now it takes money to make money work for you and a lot of people just don't get born with any advantages.
This is perhaps unrealistic. Yes on some level you can say people have to do for themselves but not everyone is going to do that to the same degree and almost no one is completely independent. I mean you would have to live in the woods somewhere outside of society and off the grid. I promote individuality yes, but I don't think you have to be completely independent for your individuality to be respected. You can be an individual with a family, with friends, part of a community, etc, just as long as you know yourself and who you are.
I agree with you on a lot of what you say here. I don't really think in ideologies but in terms of whether or not something really works for people. If what you're doing and how you're thinking about the world is working for you then who am I to tell you to stop? On the other hand if a particular ideology is leaving people in really bad positions socially, economically, personally, then maybe the people adhering to that ideology should re-evaluate the value of the ideology? What good is an ideology if it produces negative outcomes for the people who follow it?
Robert Kiyosaki makes great and memorable points because he offers practical information on how a person can improve their life and improve their financial literacy. The fact is, whatever it is that he is doing is proven to work because it's working for him, and also to be honest a lot of other people who follow similar paths seem to be doing pretty well at least economically, so he's proving his thesis. If a person actually is rich, and actually made money, and actually knows the system, that is a person to learn the system from if the goal is to gain practical knowledge. A lot of academic scholars might know how the system works in theory, such as how the government works and how the voting system works, or even how the legal system is supposed to work, but how it works in practice is another matter and cannot be learned in class.
I would agree society is not setup to allow a person to be a full independent rugged survivalist. Nepotism is the dictator of who deserves the privilege of the opportunity to improve their living standard. This would be a good decision to make even if society were to promote "do it yourself". Give a man the ability to earn for himself and he needs not ask you for your ability or steal it from you. In many cases this is the only way to be self-sufficient. I do believe more than financial independence is needed for a more resilient society such as high quality education and a healthy dose of skepticism. Being informed and informing others goes a long way in surviving system failures. Individualism does extend further than being smart with money and career planning. Thinking is key too.
I can acknowledge and know it is not very easy and gets much more difficult as we lose sight of principles that would make the road less difficult. The U.S' deceased middle class tells the tale quite clear that many do not have the wage growth and may not see it to claim that status of stability. We'd do well to prioritize living within your means and saving. If we had, however, it makes me think would we be in a situation where there was high risk in systemic failure? If people refuted schemes to manipulate wealth generation would such a risk be present to resist in the first place? A statistic that comes to mind that I find interesting was 40% of Americans lived on farms at the beginning of the 20th century. These were people that could live of the land they owned as long as people bought their food and in most cases, people do need to eat. Not a lavish lifestyle but can sustain your livelihood. Now less than 2% of americans grow produce and raise livestock for a living. The other 98% rely on grocery stores and the food delivery infrastructure to be fed. Were we more self-sufficient a century ago? Now I know it is not practical nor am i suggesting we all go back to tending the fields but are there some principles we can learn from our predecessors a century ago about independence? Complete independence is highly difficult and would require a high degree of support to even achieve such a feat. Humans are social creatures and we can't get anywhere without cooperation which I support. I do advocate responsibility for yourself as much as you have the means to do so. If we can reach a status where the 'majority' would survive a collapse of vital system infrastructure I think that would minimize the threat and possibly the likelihood of such an event occurring.
Completely agree, family is the support everyone needs when you get knocked off your feet. People capable of helping up those who fall down requires those people be firm on their soles.
I remember being a child and reading just a few pages of my mom's copy of Rich Dad, Poor Dad. The insights I got from that book, while I did not absorb all the valuable concepts at that age, put financial literacy as a skill set I needed to develop early on. He is one of the mentors I stumbled on to that lead me down a path that I can say I would not have discovered if not for his knowledge. I know my school certainly wasn't going to teach me why I should pay myself first and prioritize saving. I really should read more of his books, Rich Dad, Poor Dad was a very fun read through!