Post
Topic
Board Politics & Society
Re: If Anarchy can work, how come there are no historical records of it working?
by
ktttn
on 09/06/2013, 01:59:14 UTC
I owe society nothing, but nor does it owe me anything.  Specificly, I don't owe the society that I was born into any loyalty, although I might choose to grant same for some time in exchange for ongoing consideration.  Likewise, my society does not owe me any support, although support might be provided. 

You owe society everything.

In exactly what format would you like an argument for this statement?
I'd be very happy to oblige your criteria for what constitutes an argument, since it seems that our disagreement hinges on this.

Form a premise that we can agree upon, and then try to build up from that logical beginning.  For example, you have already conceded that you own yourself, and that I own myself.  That's a premise. 

And based upon that premise; that I own myself, then no one else can own me without my consent.  How exactly, did I come to owe anything?  Did I consent to some great 'social contract'?  If you're going to say that I owe because I was born, when did I agree to that?  Even communist societies raise children for the benefit of the communist society, not for the children.  How do the children born in China under Mao owe Mao, or owe China, anything?

Still tweaking our premise...
'Consenting' to toil for a capitalist has never been free of coersion. One can be practically owned without one's consent.
The sum of genetics, technology and philosophy does not come into existence in a single person's bubble. Your predecessors gave you that. You don't need nationalism to recognize your debt to the whole of humanity.

Quote
Quote from: MoonShadow
Quote from: ktttn
We have slave vs volunteer, where do you see a real middle ground?
There really isn't a middle ground. Either labor is voluntary or involuntary.
Here's a good point. Elaborate plz? How does the obsolescence of banks and reliance on working for a boss factor into this?
Quote from: MoonShadow
What is there to elaborate?  Those words are opposites, and they are absolutes.  There can be no middle ground; literally speaking.  If you are working for someone, either you agreed to the terms in order to improve your own conditions, or you were forced into servitude against your own will.  Being 'forced' to work for a living simply because the alternative is hunger is not involuntary; society does not owe you a living, much less a comfortable one.

"Simply because the alternative is hunger"?
Srsly?
You don't believe that everyone is a snowflake with her own ability to contribute to humankind without dying in a Nike manufacturing plant?