"The idea that there could be an anarcho capitalist is a bad joke. I can't believe you would think I am that dumb."
I'm not sure by this statement if you are questioning the existence of anarcho-capitalists (they're quite real), or simply saying that their concept is a bad idea (I agree, but then I don't think any type of anarchism is a good idea).
Anarchism is a little more than just asking why - It is the removal of government and government institutions, including police and emergency services, infrastructure, government run utilities and so forth.
I agree in part with Foucault's statement that we should criticize the workings of institutions however i disagree that they need always be attacked. The desirability of an attack on or removal of an institution would be contingent on it's objective merits and demerits. Furthermore this should not be done until we have something to replace it with that is objectively better.
One of the things that the replacement would need to deliver is a functioning economy. We would all like to go surfing all the time and we would all like to do just what we like in terms of work and creativity. The problem here being that any society needs to get things done, and some of those tasks are unpleasent. The question here is who will clean the toilets, pickup the rubish, grow the food, mine the coal, and so forth. If you remove the incentive for humans to work, then nothing gets done and we all starve. How do you solve this problem... the communists used forced labor camps. I recommend Alexander Solzhenitsyn's classic book 'The Gulag Archipelago' for a discussion on this.
A capitalist society without government (an-cap) would technically function. Work would get done because people are incentivized to perform it, though for a wide variety of reasons this would be a horrible place to live. A socialist society without government would be an economic basket case. I'm all for small government, but not anarchism.
It's true that we are becoming increasingly automated and will reach a point where human labor is redundant but we are not there yet. This will free us from labor, but that's not down to socialism... Socialism won't free people from labor, the lack of requirement for labor will make socialism finally feasible (though in my view not desirable). I have no issue with automation and technological progress, though the inevitable 'creative destruction' will need to be managed to reduce the suffering of those impacted (but not by artificially propping up dead industries e.g. car manufacturing in Aus).
I sometimes hear the state described as an entity that has a monopoly on violence. Anarchists wish to take that monopoly away but what does that mean? It means that violence becomes privatized. Under an individualist conception of anarchy it means the wild west, while under collectivized anarchy it means mob rule.
I've read Orwell's Homage to Catalonia, there are some lessons there that the modern left hasn't learned. The chief being that for the anarchists (advocates of no government) the communists (advocates of total government control) are not their friends. Should be obvious no? Indeed when these groups conflict centralized control gives the communists a massive tactical advantage. No reason in the world they wouldn't stab the anarchists and socialists in the back which as you know is exactly what happened.
Regarding my portfolio, though i typically run a concentrated portfolio however it is currently far less diversified than I would like. This the consequence of averaging down however in the case of Shine the logic of doing this was obvious.
SHJ Price at posting:
89.0¢ Sentiment: Hold Disclosure: Held