I was reading Wikipedia and normally I'm not into this ideology stuff
but I found some really interesting stuff. I was trying to understand
what anarcho-communism is about and whether it was voluntary. For me it
seems like you have some central assemblies where resources from
individuals flow to be redistributed via democratic decision making
according to the guiding principle: "from each according to his ability,
to each according to his need".

As someone who values individuals, and wants to see a society based on
merit where leaders can strike it out, I don't like democracy and I
don't like collective decision making as always the consensus of the
majority is to oppose progress and normalise anything different.

The idea of communist worker councils oppressing the rich classes,
taking the power to guide the economy is very much rooted in the times
of industrialisation where a poor rural Russia needed to industrialise.

"While Kollontai was initially drawn to the populist ideas of
a restructuring of society based upon the peasant commune,
effective advocates of such theories in the last decade of the
19th century were few.[11] Marxism, with its emphasis on the
enlightenment of factory workers, the revolutionary seizure of
power, and the construction of modern industrial society, held
sway with Kollontai as with so many of her peers of Russia's
radical intelligentsia."

So this is where it gets interesting. I'm reading about market
anarchism, which I know is something people have called me as well as
being labelled voluntarist. I like the Proudhon and Lysander Spooner too.

There's a section called "Left-wing market anarchism":
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free-market_anarchism#Left-wing_market_anarchism
and the first paragraph in, is the stuff I already know but the rest is
veeeerry interesting. I'm surprised at how much the ideas expressed
there are the same as my own. Like I go on, and there's many things I
thought were unique to my political beliefs.

> proponents of this approach strongly affirm the classical liberal
> ideas of self-ownership and free markets
yep already knew this, I like self-ownership a lot.

>taken to their logical conclusions, these ideas support strongly
> anti-corporatist, anti-hierarchical, ...
yep this is what I thought of market anarchism.

> pro-labor positions in economics
that's new to me. My economics do take a view with empowering the
disempowered in an open economy so that self-liberation and
self-emancipation are available to all.

> anti-imperialism in foreign policy;
no borders right

> This strand of left-libertarianism tends to be rooted either in the
> mutualist economics conceptualized by Pierre-Joseph Proudhon,
> American individualist anarchism, or in a left-wing interpretation
> or extension of the thought of Murray Rothbard.
I pretty much agree with all those ideas.

> Arguing that vast disparities in wealth and social influence result
> from the use of force, and especially state power, to steal and
> engross land and acquire and maintain special privileges
This is my main argument for why we need markets. The system is rigged
through printing money, force and a rigged democracy.

> They judge that, in a stateless society, the kinds of privileges
> secured by the state will be absent, and injustices perpetrated
> or tolerated by the state can be rectified. Thus, they conclude
> that, with state interference eliminated, it will be possible to
> achieve "socialist ends by market means."
Wow, I definitely want to achieve socialist ends by market means. If we
can form cooperatives that allow people to live cheaply and freely, to
pool money for things like costly cancer treatment or insurance, then we
have no need for intermediaries and we can make an economy that works
for ourselves. This is why the market is so powerful because it gives
you the ability to wield it for whatever objectives, and then the
effectiveness (in a "free open" market which values merit) is tested.
It's by no means perfect, but it's a much more fun way to live, and
that's the only way to unlock liberty.

> Left-libertarians favor worker solidarity vis-à-vis bosses
yes, become the boss. Take back your work.
> support poor people's squatting on government or abandoned property
let me get back to u on this one
> prefer that corporate privileges be repealed before the regulatory
> restrictions on how those privileges may be exercised.
they split up the electromagnetic spectrum and sell it to corporations.
Part of that spectrum (in the middle) is visible light. Can you imagine
selling the license for emitting a shade of red? So ridiculous, and
that's why we have a crap monopolised telecom infrastructure- they
control the airwaves.
> They see Walmart as a symbol of corporate favoritism—supported by
> highway subsidies and eminent domain—view the fictive personhood
> of the limited-liability corporation with suspicion
I've been reading Assange's Google book, page 25 paragraphs 2-3 are a
good read for a greater enunciation of this.
> doubt that Third World sweatshops would be the "best alternative"
> in the absence of government manipulation.
I don't want a world of privatised slaves. I want everyone to be an
entrepreneur and to own their work.
> Left-libertarians tend to eschew electoral politics
I don't vote. It's a waste of time and a silly game.
> They prefer to develop alternative institutions and methods of
> working around the state.
So much this!! This is definitely my strategy.
> that market anarchists can and should call themselves "socialists."
I would call myself socialist.

Now about anarcho-capitalism:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarcho-capitalism
I get many of the ideas, and I realise there are many variants which I
strongly associate with many of the traits. Also I feel a commonality
with many people who associate as anarcho-capitalist through their values.
However I don't understand a few things. Is this philosophy dealing in
absolutes? Is it always wrong to steal someone's property like a bag of
rice when you're starving? Is it more wrong to steal from a big
supermarket than an individual? Is it right to steal from the
government? How about a morally reprehensible individual? Or a
corporation? Or is the private property thing more of a steering
guideline- that we should seek to protect private property.

How is private property linked to use? For instance, many amazing or
valuable places on earth or certain resources have been taken by power
groups for nefarious ends. For instance DeBeers uses its influence to
further encroach its monopoly and rig the market to drive out
competitors. On an earth that had no borders or lines, who is to say
this millionaire guy has the right to buy an entire river or beach for
his own private mention, and then use force to prevent my use of that
natural unused geography. Is that really ethical?

I think Bitcoin is interesting as many of the things that ancaps are
striving for can now be done through blockchain & crypto technologies
without the need for private courts, law enforcement and security
services. I'm strongly of the view that the more we can live without
needing police and judges in a society, the better we will be.

How do anarcho capitalists view things like copying bytes of a movie or
jumping train barriers which do not deprive people of the movie or a
train ride?
I think maybe the situation in the relatively young US is different to
the older aristocratic Europe. Here we have the situation like the Duke
of Westminster who owns the best land and properties around England and
London, and is the 2nd richest man in the UK. He's a big supporter of
royalty and the military.
He is basically rich from being a rentier.
Would we be wrong for violating his property? How about if we made good
use of his buildings putting them to productive use?

My questions fall into:
* Does anarcho-capitalism deal with moral absolutes?
* How widely can you interpret aggression against property?
* When is it ethical to violate private property?
* Who enforces all of this? Is it private militaries and mafias?
* How does geography play in this? Not all land is equal, and capture of
land can be a self fulfilling advantage, especially with natural
resources like water or energy.
* Why is there such a huge emphasis on private organisations, and no
discussion about cooperatives or mutualism (normally a cornerstone of
anarchism)?
* What is the discussion around our individual action? In terms of what
values we want to promote, and how that informs our strategy.
* What if the voluntary market disagrees with defence of private
property? Which takes precedence?

> Anarcho-capitalist libertarians believe that the only just,
> and/or most economically beneficial, way to acquire property
> is through voluntary trade, gift, or labor-based original
> appropriation, rather than through aggression or fraud.

This is indeed correct.

> The only alternative that remains to Rothbard is self-ownership,
> which he believes is both axiomatic and universal.

Is this antithetical to the concept of anarchism?

From 2nd paragraph of Wikipedia article on Anarchism:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarchism
> As a subtle and anti-dogmatic philosophy, anarchism draws on many
> currents of thought and strategy. Anarchism does not offer a fixed
> body of doctrine from a single particular world view, instead
> fluxing and flowing as a philosophy.

I feel like having an axiomatic and universal basis for your philosophy
is a dogmatic way of thinking which leads to fixed doctrine.

> This ownership of "originally appropriated" places and goods by
> a person implies his right to use and transform these places and
> goods in any way he sees fit, provided only that he does not
> change thereby uninvitedly the physical integrity of places and
> goods originally **appropriated** by another person.

goes on further:

> According to Rothbard, property can only come about through labor,
> therefore original appropriation of land is not legitimate by merely
> claiming it or building a fence around it; it is only by using land
> ...
> Rothbard argues that the resource need not continue to be used in
> order for it to be the person's property
> ...
> "His labor has been irretrievably mixed with the land, and the land
> is therefore his or his assigns' in perpetuity."

> He believes slaves rightfully own any land they were forced to work
> on under the "homestead principle"
> He proposes that businesses who receive at least 50% of their
> funding from the state be confiscated by the workers.

Does that mean we should re-appropriate businesses to varying degrees
based on how much they benefit from the state?

> Some anarcho-capitalists prefer to see self-employment prevail
> over wage labor.

This is what I strive for generally, but with a lot of this stuff
(especially around contracts), it's cool but seems a bit wishful
thinking in places that someone people will organise this way because of
these rational principles... when for me I kind of have some ethic I
want to push, some strategy for working towards that but no really
strong vision of "how it must be". I try to develop my sense of ethics,
and actually I feel stealing from a supermarket is more ethical than
buying from it... especially if we oppose big nation-states with the
recognition that the deep state doesn't start and end with the public
institutions, but its echelons reach deep with many different consenting
players (some more than others including ourselves).

I'm curious to see how people are thinking about these sorts of ideas,
and feeling an affinity to anarcho-capitalism. I'm not interested in
what the theory says, but what you feel is right.