Hey i think we have a lot in common but i just had a question considering anarchist capitalism, seeing as that is the strain (at least from what i have inferred) you believe in. in an anarchist capitalist system, how is property, the basic unit of capitalism, protected without the state? for example if there is a factory and the workers take it over from the owner, who protects the owner? a private police force? Also, will wages and currency exist in an anarchist capitalist society? maybe i just have a major misunderstanding of anarchist capitalism.

Although I replied there, it occurred to me that my response ought to make a decent blog post with a little editing. Thus, here we go…

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I consider myself anti-capitalist but market oriented. I used to call myself an “anarcho-capitalist”, but I was never in favor of what libertarian socialists call “capitalism” in the sense of a system of oppression. If that sounds incoherent, then we need to compare some definitions and have a longer talk.

Regarding property — like Proudhon, I distinguish between property in the sense of an unjust state privilege and property as a naturally occurring ethical phenomenon supported by widespread consensus. Property justly acquired through production or trade would be defensible in roughly the same manner “possession” would be defended under a usufruct property system. This property theory, while referred to as “private property”, actually provides a basis for the revolutionary redistribution of property from the state-allied plutocracy to the workers. See here:

http://agorism.info/_media/ma1.pdf

With regard to property claim conflicts between owners and workers, let me say that I envision the revolutionary process as the bootstrapping of a non-state system of law and security. The nature of that law would tend to favor selective redistribution of property from state-allied plutocrats to the workers, so redistribution would be an affirmation of property rights rather than their negation. On the other hand, just because someone is rich wouldn’t make it okay to take their stuff. Rather than wealth being judged on amounts, its ownership would be evaluated methodologically (e.g. “How was this acquired?”) with state-granted privilege being regarded as criminal means of acquisition, thus negating the fake state-granted property title.

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I will be looking to revise the above and expand it into a booklet. I’ve been meaning to produce such for a while now, but procrastination takes a toll. At least I have a start now.

Also, many of us are very proud of William Gillis.

I want to personally thank, and salute the work of, Soviet Onion and Darien Worden for their exploits this week.

I’ve just started to read, “The Gift: Forms and Functions of Exchange in Archaic Societies” by Marcel Mauss, an important cultural anthropologist. It is an absolutely fascinating account of exchange in indigenous societies. I find it highly relevant for free market anti-capitalist, left libertarian, anarchist, and libertarian socialist thought. I’ve posted the first three pages of the introduction on myspace. Its highly recommended.

http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendID=59722264&blogID=430167687

Do read it.

Of course, I shouldn’t fail to note that praxeology indicates all true gift economies are market economies. When gift-giving occurs on a wholly voluntary basis, the giver is giving the gift in order to increase their own subjectively perceived satisfaction and the receiver is accepting the gift in order to increase their own subjectively perceived satisfaction.

1. Do your part in the RNC Jail Pressure Campaign.
2. Promote the pressure campaign as best you can, such as by voting for it on social news sites and emailing your friends about it.
3. Donate to the RNC legal support team.
4. Mentally commit yourself to long term activism, including self-education so you can help educate others.

Finally, if you’re wondering why I’m equating “patriot” (in an American context) and “anarchist” in this post, you should print out and read Voltairine de Cleyre’s classic work Anarchism and American Traditions, which makes the case that anarchism is the logical outgrowth of the anti-statist values of the First American Revolution.

NOTE: You may find the staggered page order in that de Cleyre work confusing. That’s because the file is designed to be printed out and folded together in such a way that it becomes a booklet instead of being easy to read online. See this guide for more detailed instructions.

ADDENDUM: Soon after publishing the above, the following came to my attention: Thousands of Twin City High School Students Walk Out to Protest the RNC. While some men tremble before God, I now tremble before History — as I recognize the arisal of a Hero [archetype] Generation of a Fourth Turning.

Part 1: Rally & Breakaway.
http://nyc.indymedia.org/en/2008/09/99581.html [4]

Part 2: RNC Blockaded.
http://nyc.indymedia.org/en/2008/09/99603.html [5]

Part 3: Battle for the Streets.
http://nyc.indymedia.org/en/2008/09/99625.html [6]

[4] http://nyc.indymedia.org/en/2008/09/99581.html
[5] http://nyc.indymedia.org/en/2008/09/99603.html
[6] http://nyc.indymedia.org/en/2008/09/99625.html

“Fellow Americans & Freedom Fighters, Every attendee of the Republican National Convention, from politicians to their cheerleaders, are actively complicit in the violence of state power… Those planning civil disobedience to impede the warmongers descending upon our city are acting in self-defense to re-secure the liberties of all Americans.”

The events of their day today are told on Twitter posts and elsewhere by those who were there, trying to make a stand for what is right. At an undisclosed location, I spoke with some of them.

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The young man we’ll call Rocko said his group of around 8 activists started looking for a way to the area they had chosen to do civil disobedience work in at around 10 AM this morning. They decided to follow the SDS march from Macalester College at first along that groups route before then heading off on their own toward their objective. They then realized two bicycle police were following them. Those then became two bike police plus three or four police minivans full of riot police following them on the ground and a police helicopter following them in the sky above.

This went on for about an hour and a half as they walked from Macalester to the MN state capitol. There, they thought they were not being pursued any more and stopped to rest, drink water and discuss the route to their objective. They decided to get back into the SDS march, which they understood was now heading to (roughly) their area anyway. According to Rocko, they kept marching with SDS for a while with their banners as more and more kids joined them.

Eventually, Rocko said, 10 or 15 minutes into the March a line of about 10 police tried to block the marchers path. Police started a shoving match that escalated into a massive, prolonged use of pepper spray. The confusion in this small scene would later, according to Rocko’s description of events, be absorbed into the wider conflict associated with the police attack on the Funk the War march.

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The fellow who wants to be known as “Redcloud” left Macalester with the SDS march when he and another broke off on their own down Shepard Road and joined others setting up a blockade done with lockboxes. The lockbox devices commonly used in civil disobedience actions usually involve some large PVC and other parts put together to lock people’s arms to each other, making them more difficult to be moved. For a while they shut down Shepard Road completely — a major artery and important approach route for RNC delegates going to the convention center.

When word was received that another area needed reinforcements for their section of the blockade, Redcloud and others not needed to hold the Shepard Road intersection then started heading out to where they were needed. Redcloud bicycled ahead down Shepard to Jackson, acting as a scout for his group. He found several people were in street at Sibley blocking bus traffic to the convention center and joined them, linking arms in the middle of the street.

There, things then quickly became brutal. According to Redcloud, police at Sibley were indiscriminately pepper spraying everyone, with amounts of pepper spray comparable to the water that a garden hose left on at full blast would spray. As that battle was slowly being lost, he left in search of a place to be more useful.

Getting word that mounted police on Wabasha Street were “running over kids” using their horses, Redcloud headed there. When he arrived, he said he found (in addition to police) about 200 National Guard troops in riot gear. They seemed pretty nervous by his estimate. Others present nodded and said you could tell “by the looks on their faces”. At that point, the National Guard were staying behind police lines at that location. Sensing there was little he could do there, he continued down Kellogg from Wabasha where he found the (blackish) “ad hoc bloc” remnants of the Funk the War march.

While some had been dispersed by this point, the remainder held on, retreating with vinegar soaked bandanas over their faces to protect them from the mix of both tear gas and pepper spray they had to deal with while being shot with rubber bullets. Linking arms, they backed up under the relentless police assault. At one point, police threw a flash-bang grenade. Desperately searching for anything in the area to use as obstacles to protect themselves from the police, people pulled stuff into the street including newspaper boxes and road construction barricades.

He said the group backed up all the way down Kellogg, retreating to Mears Park before heading north with police lines still advancing on them. At the park, things changed from a retreat into a walking rout. When they reached 8th or 9th Street, police had them cornered on three sides, leaving only a westward route open. They headed west, still throwing whatever they could find up as obstacles as they went. After about about three more blocks, Redcloud said, police were beginning to box them in again on two sides. Knowing that getting fully surrounded was to risk serious injury, the group split in half and he went with the half that peeled off and dispersed. He knows nothing of those who stayed behind.

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More blogging tomorrow, possibly.

Second person: “It’s okay. We’re all hippies here.”

I’ll try to use my mobile phone to post short updates, when possible, to my Twitter account or possibly this blog, so follow me there if you’d like. You can also use Twitter to keep up with the excellent protest legal support team, Coldsnap Legal Collective, as well as subscribe to general RNC ‘08 protest updates. For breaking news, check Twin Cities Indymedia and Infoshop News. If you have news to report via phone, contact Twin Cities Indymedia @ 651-503-5661 or Infoshop News @ 913-940-7426.