A. R.:
Economic exchange is fair if it is a voluntary exchange.
R. A.:
How much voluntarism and liberty is there when the class of propertyless direct producers
sacrifice so much for so little, while the class of private proprietors of capital forfeit little or
nothing for so much?
When it comes to economics, exchange is more compulsory than voluntary. It is necessary
that we exchange labor with matter and nature in order to extract from material nature the
goods we need in order to survive and thrive. Economics is the realm of necessity, not of
freedom. Economics alone is the sphere of human need, not of human rights. Human
rights appear when economics and politics come together, as in political economy.
Economics is about the necessity of productive labor, not about the liberty to enjoy leisure.
Economics is about the pain and sacrifice of necessary labor, not about the pleasure and
satisfaction of discretionary leisure. Economic exchange is not voluntary exchange; it
is necessary exchange, compulsory exchange. Labor is not a voluntary activity.
Production is not a voluntary activity, Exchange is not a voluntary activity. Human beings
must work, must produce, must exchange. If there is a propensity to exchange, then this
propensity to exchange is more an expression of necessity, and less an expression of
liberty.
J. M. H.:
So, to play your game. How much self-rule is there when your democratic majority can
impose it's will upon me? How can your system be just or anarchistic?
R. A.:
OK, then, let's play this game.
If a democratic majority, in a given society, expresses its will -- its choice, its decision
-- that an act of premeditated murder will be treated as a punishable crime, then I would say
. . .
J. M. H.:
No, you don't get to cherry-pick the specific examples you want to use and then reject
others that you don't like.
R. A.:
So, when I ask a question, you get to ignore, neglect, and reject the question if you don't
like it, or if you don't have a serviceable answer; and then you get to cherry-pick the
specific questions that you want to ask?
I can see no reason why I cannot cherry-pick a specific example that I wish to use in order
to illustrate the well-known democratic principle of the separation of public from private, of
what is political from what is personal. There is res publica, or res communis, or res civilis,
on the one hand, and there is res solitudo, or res secretum, or res privatus, on the other
hand.
I used the example of murder as having a public interest and importance, as having a
political concern and consequence, because this example is usually uncontroversial, and is
therefore a very serviceable and expedient exemplum. In order to make a point, in order to
explain a point, it is prudent to use an example that you believe is a non-contentious, non-
polemical illustration.
Of course, you are free to cherry-pick an example that you believe discombobulates the
distinction between the private sphere and the public sphere, between what is personal and
what is political.
J. M. H.:
Let's stick with the general principle.
R. A.:
If the general principle is the principle of a distinction between what is properly private and
what is properly public, between what is peculiarly personal and what is particularly
political, then I do believe that the example I cherry-picked actually did adhere to the general
principle, that the example I offered actually does cohere to the principle of separation of
what ought to be an object of individual choice and what ought to be an object of democratic
choice.
J. M. H.:
If your democratic majority can impose it's will upon me how is this just and anarchistic?
R. A.:
This is another example of your own ingenious and clever cherry-picking. We live in a less-
than-democratic society in which a despotic minority imposes it's decisions on the entire
world. This is what is really-real. And yet, you do not ask if this is just, or if this can be
allowed from an anarchist philosophy.
You also conveniently neglect and disregard the example I used of a democratic majority
electing to designate murder as a punishable crime. I believe that a democratic majority
can impose its will concerning murder on every individual, and that this imposition against
murder is compatible with a just and libertarian society. An anarchist society is not an
immoral or lawless society; it is a society without an authoritarian government. If there are
moral laws in an anarchist republic, then there will be some place in such a society for a
permissible imposition, as well as for legitimate enforcement.
In my opinion, it is more just and fair, it is more legitimate and reasonable for a democratic
majority's decisions to serve as a prescriptive imposition, rather than an aristocratic élite,
or a plutocratic minority. A democratic majority is never above the law, because every law
equally applies to every citizen. In every other form of government, the political élites are
more or less above the law.
J. M. H.:
Your democratic structure has created a system of rules where I and all other minorities
are no longer allowed to be our own person but are forced to abide by the will and choice of
your majority will as imposed by the apparatus of the democratic structure.
R. A.:
You say this without considering the permissible content of democratically-elected policies
or laws. In a democracy it is permissible to include rules against slavery, violence, murder,
theft. What democratically-permissible laws do you believe a democracy would likely
enact against some minority? In answering this, remember that every individual citizen in a
democracy is a minority of one, and that an intelligent and enlightened citizen will know that
his or her individuality is endangered if another person's individuality is threatened by some
rule or regulation, by some law or legislation.
In a true and faithful democracy -- one that is true and faithful in its practices to each and
every important principle of democracy -- every citizen is free to be their own person. In
every possible social arrangement, including capitalism and socialism, the individual is free
to be their own person within the socio-environmental context and conditions of their
associated life within a political community. As long as human beings must live together, as
long as we need to work together, then we will need to make political and associated
choices, we will have to make decisions of a public and collective nature. The best of
all possible methods for making communal choices and political decisions -- but not for
making non-communal decisions -- is the method of democracy, with every citizen freely
and fully participating in any, or every referendum that he or she thinks is important enough
to get actively involved in, and with every citizen being free to include their voice, and their
vote in the process of governmental decision-making. In every possible social arrangement
there will be constraints. Some constraints are good; some are bad. You cannot condemn
democracy because there will be constraints, unless or until you can show which
constraints are necessary and unacceptable in a democractic commonwealth.
I acknowledge and understand that people usually do not associate anarchism with
democracy, or vice versa. But, I do associate anarchism and democracy. And I am not the
first to make a connection between anarchism and democracy. For a very long time the
connection was simply assumed.
J. M. H.:
How is this just when another's will is imposed in place of my own?
R. A.:
If another's will is imposed on you against your will, then this imperious imposition is not
just, and it is never legitimate. But, if you do elect to live within a human social arrangement,
if you do choose to work with other human beings as your equals, then there will be times
when your general desire, your umbrella decision to live and work in association with other
human beings will necessitate that you agree to live and work in the association, even if
and when the association makes decisions that you do not always agree with. If you elect to
live and work in community with other human beings, then this choice is an expression of
your own will, and this choice is always present, even if and when the community makes
decisions that you do not agree with. In other words, the will of a democratic majority is not
imperiously imposed in place of your own will, if you have a prevailing will to live and work in
community with other human beings. If you have a general will to live and work in
association with other people, then this, your general will must be educated and informed
enough to know what your normal will to live and work in association implies. Your will to
live and work in association must imply that you will freely and fully consent, comply, and
conform your own will to the democratically-expressed will of the community you have
elected to live and to work in.
If there is a general will -- "la volonté générale" -- then this habitual and overall will, this
unspecific and ubiquitous will, must serve to inform and to influence your specific choices,
your particular political choices. If you have a communal will to live and work in community
with others, then this communal will must permeate, enlighten, and modify your particular
political choices, must influence and moderate your specific public policy choices.
I look at anarchism and democracy in a kind of stereoscopic method, such that when I talk
or write about the one, I never lose sight of the other. When someone talks about the
so-called democratic state, a nervousness -- an angst or an anger -- electrifies me. There
can be no such thing as a democratic state. There can only be democratic societies,
democratic communities, democratic associations, democratic organizations, etc., but
there can be no democratic state. The state is necessarily an authoritarian form of
government. When you have a so-called democratic state, what you have is democracy
located in the state, what you have is a representative democracy in which democracy is
situated in a representative body, a legislative assembly, a Congress or a Parliament.
Every state is an oligarchy, and a democratic state is a state where the oligarchs are the
focus of democracy, not the people. In a democratic state, the people are subjects of the
state, not citizens of a democracy.
A truly democratic society is not a liberal democracy, nor a plutocracy, nor a
representative democracy, nor a democratic state; rather, a truly democratic society is a
social democracy, an anarchist society, a direct and participatory democracy. When I
contemplate and advocate anarchism, I do not consider what I am advocating to be an anti-
social and egoistical anarchism, or a possessive and selfish anarchism; rather, I am
thinking about a social and communal anarchism, a mutualist and prosperous anarchism.
There can be no true and lasting anarchism as long as there is plenty for some co-existing
with poverty for others. There can be no realistic and durable anarchism if there is material
bounty for some co-extensive with minimal subsistence and material destitution for the rest. Authoritarian statism is incompatible and inconsistent with a democratic society; but
anarchism is both compatible and consistent with a democratic society. The perversion of
democracy is statism.
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"When you are just you use your character as law."
-- Menander
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