I am saying that the anarcho capitalists are just a joke not worthy of serious consideration.
For the bulk of your argument as discussed I would refer to what Wilhelm Von Humboldt said and what he wrote is elegant and complete. If there is a general concept it is that there should be self-responsibility and what the government does should be limited.
Attacked maybe too strong a word, always open to question - the weakest in society should be able to go to the most powerful organisation and say why does this exist and how does it serve the public good. If it does not serve the public good then the question of what is better could be introduced.
Again I don't want to enter the discussion of what a perfect government could be as I don't think there is one, the truth is as I say that anarchism is at it's heart peacefully asking questions and that this is not allowed as we live in a largely totalitarian society. In the past anarcho syndicalism involved violence in resistance to the state, I don't support violence but it has to be understood in the context of the times.
Most of my comments on the forum are in fact anarchist in nature (and no objections are raised as they are also correct - the only difference is in the bias of the audience), it is a part of who humans are perhaps people like me are a kind of genetic throwback to ancient times. Ben Graham was very much anarchist in the way he criticized the workings of capitalism but unfortunately he was still a capitalist so there are some things he failed to understand.
There's a reason I have such a strong affinity to his ideas it's 'cause I think the same way and buying a bunch of shares to sack a useless board comes naturally to me also.
I don't know who the "left" you refer to are but you are just repeating my point about communists and anarchists, of course the anarchists always disagreed with the communists.
The fact that anarcho-syndicalism was violently suppressed by the state (communist and capitalist) has no bearing on it's merits.
George Orwell said this, and he's the only one who actually experienced it.
"Waiters and shop-walkers looked you in the face and treated you as an equal. Servile and even ceremonial forms of speech had temporarily disappeared. Nobody said ‘Señior’ or ‘Don’ or even ‘Usted’; everyone called everyone else ‘Comrade’ and ‘Thou’, and said ‘Salud!’ instead of ‘Buenos dias’. Tipping was forbidden by law; almost my first experience was receiving a lecture from a hotel manager for trying to tip a lift-boy. There were no private motor-cars, they had all been commandeered, and all the trams and taxis and much of the other transport were painted red and black. The revolutionary posters were everywhere, flaming from the walls in clean reds and blues that made the few remaining advertisements look like daubs of mud. Down the Ramblas, the wide central artery of the town where crowds of people streamed constantly to and fro, the loudspeakers were bellowing revolutionary songs all day and far into the night. And it was the aspect of the crowds that was the queerest thing of all. In outward appearance it was a town in which the wealthy classes had practically ceased to exist. Except for a small number of women and foreigners there were no ‘well-dressed’ people at all. Practically everyone wore rough working-class clothes, or blue overalls, or some variant of the militia uniform. All this was queer and moving. There was much in it that I did not understand, in some ways I did not even like it, but I recognized it immediately as a state of affairs worth fighting for. Also I believed that things were as they appeared, that this was really a workers' State and that the entire bourgeoisie had either fled, been killed, or voluntarily come over to the workers' side; I did not realize that great numbers of well-to-do bourgeois were simply lying low and disguising themselves as proletarians for the time being."
So as far as I am concerned like Eric, I would like to live in a society of equals not a society of slaves and masters (with varying degrees as to how bad the slavery is, from a lawyer in a partnership to a factory worker making shirts in India).
Right so for all this you still haven't asked me any questions I don't know, to be fair I have a huge advantage because I have been able to refine my arguments as everyone raises the same objections you have but I am the only anarchist sympathiser you have talked to.
Yawn.
Anarcho-Syndicalism was a positive force, not a utopia but it is dead and a negative ghost as people hold it up as an ideal.
When considering the limits of state action, you need to look as Wilhlem Von Humboldt did at personal responsibility. When you do things for people you make them dependent on you, crippled and unable to fulfill their potential.
Practical example: investing - how is it that I can beat every fund manager with no training beyond a few old books and a few hours a week sniffing for bargains? People should have personal responsibility over their money, nothing beats skin in the game.
Yes the benefits of automation arose under capitalism but correlation does not imply causation, I am an engineer by profession because I don't give a stuff about money. The automation I do is to show people I am clever and improve their lives.
There's something sick about money, money and more money consuming people's lives. http://4umi.com/nietzsche/zarathustra/11
Nonetheless as I said I acknowledge as a practical observer of finance the benefits of scarcity and note that the modern person is very wealthy and lives in completely different circumstances to the socialism of the past. The way of approaching the problem of anarcho syndicalists relates to a bygone age.
Rather than preaching revolution you need to point to specific examples of things that could be improved, that way people don't get confused by all the crap because like you they are utterly propagandized with little knowledge of the past. Anyone who reads what the old communists wrote about the condition of the working class in 1844 is going to be appalled by the circumstances of the times.
Still however they repeat the refrain in modern ways that if children were not forced to work in the mills they would only remain in conditions unfavourable to their development. Without thinking that maybe a different framework for analysing the problem is needed.
My personal view is that there should be police but that their role would be much smaller, most of what the police does is imprison petty crimes while the largest banks create massive frauds and get bailed out on the public tick.
A lot of violence is born of poverty, not that this excuses it but it is a contributing factor.
As I say you really haven't analysed the problem just read a bunch of irrelevant stuff and raised some points I already knew then tried to knock down a straw man of what 'leftists' think or old fashioned anarchists which I sympathize with but as I said do not entirely agree.
Like I say you haven't considered both sides of the argument with an open mind but started with the assumption that a stateless society could not work. That's just not true.
Best wishes with SHJ, if the best you can come up with is that Foucault said 'attack' instead of 'question' I have little hope that you will be able to identify the underlying truth of things given the veil beneath which it is hidden.
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