A couple of days ago I posted about what being an anarchist means to me. Obviously given the way I defined it, I can't determine what it means for anyone else. A contradiction, yes. But one that holds space for flexible ways of understanding that can better respond to our constantly shifting situations.

One thing my freedoms-based definition didn't address though, was how I apply it to political economy. For example, do I believe that all legitimate anarchist politics is anticapitalist?

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So one thing I want to clarify is that although I see "anarcho-capitalism" as just fascism with better branding (Peter Thiel being an archetypal example of where it leads), I do accept that a person can be right-leaning economically, and still be an anarchist.

But there are limits, beyond which this becomes a contradiction in ways that are universalizing, and inflexible (again think of the neoreactionaries defending the freedom to deny others freedom).

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When people claim that property is an inalienable right - like freedoms of expression or association are - then "property is theft", as Proudhon famously put it. But as long as they accept that property is a social agreement, subject to negotiation and consensus, then "property is freedom" (a lesser known quote from Proudhon).

Having said that, being open to the idea of a place for markets in a free society does *not* make an anarchist right-leaning. It just makes them not a Stalinist.

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@cy
> So markets both cannot exist in a free society and a free society cannot persist with any sort of market in place

David Graeber covered this in Debt, better than I possibly could. If you haven't read that, I recommend you do. If you have, maybe time for a refresh?

But one argument against what you say here is that it's ahistorical. In his book Life Inc. Douglas Rushkoff pointed out that the importation of the tradition of the bazaar into Europe had a profoundly liberating effect.

@cy
> The freedom to do business without government interference.

This is some serious reading out of context. Did you even read the thread you're replying to? By what tortured logic did you extract that conclusion from references to Graeber and Rushkoff FFS?

@light

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@cy Ok, now I've calmed down a bit, let me flesh out my point and see if it clarifies anything for you.

This turns on how we're defining "business". Does a subsistence farmer selling surplus veges in a bazaar-inspired medieval market, or a baker selling bread there, count as "business"? In the broadest sense, sure, but not in the sense that I think concerns you here.

For this explanation, I'll use 'bazaar' instead of 'market' to avoid confusion with other uses of 'market'.

@light

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Were medieval bazaars free from central government interference (ie the King and the Crown)? Yes, as most governance functions in the Middle Ages were more localised. Nation-state scale government didn't become practical until the emergence of tech like national train networks and reliable postal system, which were originally inseparable from them.

Were bazaars unregulated? certainly not. For a start they existed by the grace of the local landlord and church authorities.

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Within that, a bazaar was a commons, run by and for the community that bought and sold in it. Like any sustainable commons, this required regulation, eg to avoid having stallholders selling poisonous food or faulty goods, or people stealing from stallholders, or anything else that would threaten the market's reputation.

The modern equivalent would be a supermarket run as a multi-stakeholder co-op, where workers, producers and customers all have a stake in ownership and decision-making.

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Is a bazaar or a co-op supermarket the ideal model for food exchange in a community too large to do it by trading veges over the back fence? The question makes no sense to me. There are no 'ideal' models, only what makes the most sense as a response to a given situation.

Gaining this understanding this is one thing that makes slogging through the dense prose of situationist writing worthwhile. Revolutionary Self-Theory isn't too hard a read, and is a good intro;

https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/larry-law-revolutionary-self-theory

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Are Farmer's Markets (also inspired by the medieval bazaar) and co-op supermarkets an improvement on corporate supermarkets and their highly centralised, too-big-to-fail supply chains? I think so. Keep in mind that union-driven projects like this were used to build worker self-management in the lead up to the Spanish revolution.

Could there be a place for them in a society run mostly on anarchist principles? On what basis could we suppress them without becoming Stalinists or Red Guards?

@strypey

while i agree with the goals here and am in favour of street markets and bazaars and farmwrs markets and mutual aid networks and worker co-ops and so on...
...i would step back and wonder what are prerequsites for those?

certainly all of the above have in common that they use money owned by the capitalists and billionaires, who would love all the above and then print money for themselves to buy the most popular ppl and products who are happy to receive lots of money we all work for

@strypey

... that IS the centralizing/consolidating/bullying effect @cy mentioned, but imho misleadingly associated it with any kind of market in general, ...its in the money we use.

@light @KevinCarson1 @strypey @cy imho that has been tried by a project called "Ripple" and it didnt scale so that turned into XRP.

The best or closest system to that today is imho bitcoin lightning and its amazing.

Maybe theres a way to scale the original idea, but it requires imho open supply chain and a massive amount of people keen to try hard to work with this and even then its unclear. if it works we can still switch to it, but bitcoin lightning with open supply chains could get us there

@KevinCarson1 @light @strypey @cy

i think that is a misunderstanding

1. bitcoin is not backed by something and "proof of work" is just a mechanism to defend the network against attackers trying to rob everyone

2. money is never scarce. the wording is misleading - i agree. only goods and services can be scarce. a limited money supply does not make it scarce, it just standardizes it - is 1kg or 1m as a standard measurement unit scarce? ...would you want constant change in what 1m or 1kg means?

@KevinCarson1 @light @strypey @cy

i am saying this, because if you had more or less money in circulation and everything else stays the same (e.g. demand and supply of services and goods) then prices just adapt and you keep the same buying power.

nothing here is scarce and therr is no problem.

problems appear under fiat where the epstein class constantly prints money to defraud us, hence the growing divide between poor and rich. bitcoin inverts this by ending money printing to pay for upkeep

@KevinCarson1 @light @strypey @cy

nah, the measurement are prices.
you measure prices in a currency, but if the denominator changes, its a futile exeecise.

the money is just what you measure with.

price stability is a ridiculous concept invented by mad men, it shields ppl from feedback about growth or decline of the economy by seeing prices around them.

@serapath
> price stability is a ridiculous concept invented by mad men

Theoretically defensible, but politically sociopathic. As monetary policy, it says;

Keeping the value of a $ stable, as an objective measure of the value of things sold in markets, is more important than whether people can afford enough food to stay alive.

This is '#neoliberalism' and its hands-off central banking in a nutshell. Obsessed with controlling inflation, regardless of the effects.

@KevinCarson1 @light @cy

@strypey @KevinCarson1 @light @cy

I think this is just absolutely idiotic or even borderline evil.

If there is fixed monetary supply in an economy then price changes will give real feedback to people. Price changes will tell people whether the economy grows or shrinks or stays the same.

If ppl start hoarding, then prices will deflate, good for everyone, if ppl stop hoarding prices will inflate temporarily until nobody hoards and the maximum is in circulation.

@KevinCarson1 @strypey @light @cy

i dont really understand what you are saying or what problem you are referring to.

are you saying you want to work for money which others print to becoke billionaires and you watch house prices explode? ...it that a fetish you have?

also -goldbugs and bitcoin share little to nothing. some goldbugs converted to bitcoin, many others didnt, but also ppl from all other backgrounds like bitcoin. its not a goldbug thing and there is little in common

@KevinCarson1 @strypey @light @cy

yes they can.
bitcoin is just a social contrqct you can opt into buy using it.

it allows anyone to sell for bitcoin and have a guarantee from all others in the network they will sell to you for bitcoin.

if you dont have bitcoin you should start out by earning some first, but ...it doesnt prevent you by buying from somebody who trusts you to pay back later - thats always possible .... can even be a group, but its a individuals/group based special agreement

@KevinCarson1 @strypey @light @cy

money is not created by the act of exchange.

money is different from barter, but also from credit.

an act of bidirectional exchange is barter and comes with its own problems.

an exchanfe where just one side provides is a donation or a credit/loan

That is different too. a credit/loan has to be settled later on.

you use either goods (as in barter) or money to settle it.

So paying money is used to SETTLE debt 🙂

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@serapath
> money is not created by the act of exchange

> money is different from barter, but also from credit

Exactly wrong. You're getting 'money' confused with *currency*. Which is indeed not created by exchange, it's issued by fiat of states, currently by trading banks on their behalf. Which does indeed make it different from barter (which emerges after money systems collapse, see Debt), and mutual credit, in which money *can* be created during exchange

@KevinCarson1 @light @cy

@strypey @KevinCarson1 @light @cy

Okay, lets get definitions clear please:

1. Money is denominated in a currency (e.g. USD, cigarettes, etc.. anything ppl accept as means of payment & price goods in)
2. sellers price stuff & buyers become debtors who owe sellers the price
3. debtor normally settles by paying price in money
4. Buyers need a positive transferable balance in a currency to be able to use it as money to pay debt

@strypey @KevinCarson1 @light @cy

Many things have been used as money throughout history, but today, the only money that matters is fiat currencies (the money created by (central) banks and/or governmemts) and maybe some alternative forms like bitcoin, crypto and so on - who all have different rules and properties governing them.

Fiat money is debt created by banks, not other market participants. Normal market participants cant create fiat money.

@strypey @KevinCarson1 @light @cy

just to make it clear:

different currency types are better/worse money based on inherent properties/rules that govern them.

BUT in fiat money, positive balance denominated in (e.g. USD, EUR, GDP, YEN, ...), are NOT created via buying/selling of goods or services, but by banks when others take out loans.

Loans mint new money.
debit: The money is the banks debt.
credit: The debtor ows the bank equally

They cancel each other out.
Paying back loans burn money.

@strypey @KevinCarson1 @light @cy

There is only ONE EXCEPTION:

When banks buy stuff, they create money and use it to pay the seller - that is THE ONLY WAY how banks can pay under fiat money 🙂

I appreciate questions to clarify this definition as needed.