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RE: Is Anarcho-Capitalism an Oxymoron?
Thank you for commenting civilly. I don't often see such civil disagreement on the internet!
By UBI, I'm assuming you mean Universal Basic Income, correct? The problem is that wealth doesn't come from thin air. Someone has to work to produce the income that will be redistributed. Someone has to work to produce resources that everybody needs to survive.
I have no problem with the idea "from each according to his ability to each according to his needs" so long as it isn't accomplished by force. If people voluntarily wish to band together and pool their resources to produce a UBI for those less fortunate, that's fine. But with government, it's accomplished by the threat of violence. That's how everything is accomplished by government.
I think the problem lies within our government and how a state is currently run. The state is supposed to serve the people, today it is the other way around. There is no state that is truly controlled by its people, but that does not mean it is impossible, especially with information technology we have nowadays.
I am big fan of @dwinblood's post and I have a lot of sympathy for the volunteristic approach, but I also see a lot of flaws in anarchistic ideologies in general. It is a topic I plan to post about at some point.
Is one of his arguments I actually dont like to be made against me. Mainly because I never claimed that the state can just produce "free" wealth for its people. Everything has its price in life, I am well aware of this ever present fact.
To me everybody should be free to contribute as much to society as he wants and it should be rewarded to do so. I just don't want people creating their own states in my state via their monetary power and the existential threat to employees is a tool for that.
I understand where you're coming from. However, I don't think it's a matter of how the government is currently run. No matter what, governments run on violence or the threat of violence. Even if they're properly representing "the people."
There's no such thing as "the people" as a whole, so some people will get what they want and other people won't. Those who don't get what they want will have to follow the rules laid down by the majority, or else.
That's why I believe in Voluntaryism. All human interaction should be voluntary. But force could still be used in self defense, and that includes defense against "people creating their own states in [your] state via their monetary power and the existential threat to employees"
I know we're coming at these issues from totally different foundations so it might be difficult to take this conversation much further. If you're interested in learning more about Voluntaryist/anarchist philosophy, I would recommend Larken Rose's book The Most Dangerous Superstition.