Post
Topic
Board Bitcoin Discussion
Re: bitcoin changing my ideology from socialism to libertarianism! What about you?
by
jonald_fyookball
on 07/08/2014, 15:30:54 UTC
Anarchy, however, throws out the baby with the bathwater in
that it doesn't recognize the rule of law at all.

You had me until that last sentence. This is exactly how people argue against bitcoin claiming it is unregulated and chaotic when nothing can be further from the truth.

Anarchy does recognize laws and governments can exist as long as self ownership, and the non-aggression principle is recognized. I understand it may be un-intuitive because we are so familiar with rules, laws and regulation to be enforced through the violence of the state, but anarchists posit the existence of less corruptible and more efficient ways to regulate without coercion.... and Bitcoin is one example.


I was going off the standard dictionary definition: absence of government and absolute freedom of the individual, regarded as a political ideal.
“Anarcho”-capitalists claim to be anarchists because they say that they oppose government. As noted in the last section, they use a dictionary definition of anarchism. However, this fails to appreciate that anarchism is a political theory. As dictionaries are rarely politically sophisticated things, this means that they fail to recognise that anarchism is more than just opposition to government, it is also marked a opposition to capitalism (i.e. exploitation and private property). Thus, opposition to government is a necessary but not sufficient condition for being an anarchist — you also need to be opposed to exploitation and capitalist private property. As “anarcho”-capitalists do not consider interest, rent and profits (i.e. capitalism) to be exploitative nor oppose capitalist property rights, they are not anarchists.


Define capitalism then, because I honestly think you don't understand it.