no third solution

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Category Archives: Anarchy!

Leasing and Renting in a Free Economy: Dealing With Scarcity

July 8th, 2009

As long as resource scarcity is a fact of reality, there will be some conflict between the limitless spectrum of human desires, and the limited resources at our disposal. Among these conflicts is that fact that not all resources will at all times be immediately available, especially within our own community, and that sometimes our desires conflict with others’.  Exchanging, or offering to exchange by sale of goods with one another on these terms, is one manner by which market participants simultaneously mitigate conflict, and allocate scarce resources.

To differentiate from an agreement to purchase an item permanently, we might consider agreements to lease or rent the item in question.  One would purchase a car from another, if he believed he had a great and continued need for transportation.  One might rent or lease a car from another, if he believes he only needs temporary transportation.

Deep in the comments to Profit IS Justified by Entrepreneurial Risk, I posed a question to db0, inquiring why:

  1. One should not be allowed to offer some of his belongings for temporary use, to another individual
  2. No other individual would be allowed to offer some of his belongings in exchange for temporary use of anothers’

In his response, db0 says both of these things are to be allowed, but qualifies the former by excluding “rent, wage-labor, interest” as “usury”, and further:

[T]his is not about preventing individuals from participating in such a transanction but to convince them not to. If we are to reach a libertarian society, then this kind of mentality will be built up as we progress towards it

I don’t understand why it is desirable to convince people not to participate in voluntary transactions, all parties to which believe said transaction is to their benefit. Consider: if I have an item, which I am using, and someone else says to me, “I would like to use that item for a few days, mind if I borrow it?” how should I respond?

On one hand, I might simply say, “No, I’m using it and therefore you can’t use it.” On the other hand, there is most likely some exchange he could effect, which would induce me to surrender (temporarily) the use of the item, and would offset the discomfort[1] I would otherwise experience if I were to loan it to him for “free”.

I do not mean to argue that “free” transactions won’t take place in a liberated economy.  Even in our current society, free transactions take place all the time. You borrow a compound mitre saw from your father, or an extension ladder from someone at work. Perhaps you loan a book or a CD or a video game to a friend[2]. And transactions of these sorts are wonderful.

They are wonderful because they are indicative of qualities inherent to true community: friendship, trust, neighborliness; all qualities inherent to true community.  I think in a free society, we would see more transactions like these (several orders of magnitude more, hopefully!), but I am by no means convinced that value-based exchange, especially the renting or leasing of items, would simply cease to exist.


1. Even considering an item that I am not immediately using, we might surmise that I am saving it for some anticipated future need, therefore anyone who wishes to use it now should pay (at the very least) for the depreciation of the item, and perhaps a small risk premium to account for the possibility that the item might be irreparably broken while in his possession.


2. But the people receiving these “free” loans are never under any illusion that they own the item which you’ve let them borrow, and for the most part, we understand that if the item is broken or stolen, the right thing to do is to offer to replace it.

Saving the Economy: Agorism to the Rescue

June 27th, 2009

Perhaps the most striking paradox of modern economics is the existence of near-record levels of involuntary unemployment.

Consider: there are millions of people who have bills and obligations to pay, for things that they want to keep (but are in danger of losing to their creditors). Among these millions (and their creditors, perhaps), to dig up an antiquated term, you’d think there would be some double-coincidence of wants. That is, couldn’t they help themselves by helping each other?

In Michigan, something like 14% of the work-force is currently unemployed. These people are losing their homes, their cars, their families — their lives. Nationally, I believe the figure is currently around 9% which is a 25-year high. But few, if any of these people want to be unemployed. They didn’t quit their jobs. They didn’t stop paying their obligations because they are deadbeats, scofflaws, or criminals. They were essentially forced out of work, into their current condition, by a grossly perverted economic system.

Couldn’t they help themselves? Yes. And no.

I’ve been pondering this paradox for a while now:

As long as needs and wants remain unsatisfied, it doesn’t make sense that people are losing jobs left and right.

Yes, we could help ourselves by helping each other. But no, unfortunately, there are decades and decades of interference contributing to unsustainable growth, unsustainable structures of production, and unsustainable levels of debt, which all need to be undone. Undoing it will be painful. The political choice is to slap a band-aid on it, grant everyone a reprieve of uncertain duration, and attempt to restore faith in the zombieconomy, which as John Robb succinctly states,

When authorities resort to propaganda confidence building instead of substantive action in response to an actual crisis, you know you are in real trouble

This band-aid, “confidence building” course of action may appear to “fix” the economy. Until the next crisis, crises of course being endemic to the system. In reality, restoring faith in a system which deserves none, only serves to perpetuate a system which will only continue to suck the life out of humanity until it is slain, or until it takes us all down with it.

What we need is a sustainable economy, and the degree to which we can wrest ourselves free of the crushing and now insatiable debt burdens, foist upon us by the zombieconomy is extremely limited. The zombieconomy is unsustainable, because it thrives on the perpetuation of debt, which itself thrives upon mere faith. I submit that no viable system can survive on faith alone. I sustainable economy must (in accordance with Say’s Law) be erected upon a foundation of production and free exchange.

All that needs to be done is nothing! Let people produce wealth unimpeded, let them be free in order that they may propser.

The zombieconomy needs to be broken. Some good old-fashioned, well-timed revolts won’t hurt. Revolts against the status quo. Revolts against a broken monetary system which is the foundation of our shell-game, rat-race economy.

Agorism is the weapon of choice.

Agorism is the non-violent, free-market-based means by which individuals, acting in their own best interests (in order to satisfy the interests of other individuals), may achieve lasting prosperity. When the white market refuses to employ you (and one-in-seven of your neighbors) for wage or salary, you and your neighbors need to ask yourselves, “What can we do for one another, which previously required our dependence upon the zombieconomy that utterly failed to provide for us? What can we do to reduce our reliance on this system?”

Here we are, one-in-ten or one-in-seven unemployed but with needs yet unmet. Isn’t there a way for us to meet one another’s needs?

Answer those questions, and break the chains that bind.

Belief in Government Means Ignoring the Evidence

June 23rd, 2009

According to popular lore, men are not angels and therefore need a government to constrain them. As Madison famously wrote in Federalist No. 51:

If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary.

Lots of people subscribe to some variant of this belief.  Many people see at least some evil in government and therefore seek to reform it.  Satisfied with the evil they do see, they believe that the rest of it is just fine; if only they could excise the evil…

I can’t fault them for trying. At the end of this tract, however, what I want you to understand is this: reform is not possible, and “goodness” is simply not in the nature of this beast.

Anyone who doesn’t go through a “reluctant” phase is probably not a serious libertarian, and certainly not a serious anarchist: arriving at the conclusion that most of the ideologies and theories with which one has been indoctrinated from childhood, on, are misguided (at best) or manifestly and malevolently false (at worst) is quite understandably a tough pill to swallow. It takes a lot of time, effort, reason and examination, to finally make the plunge.

This “reluctant” phase might be characterized by the pipe-dream of a small, limited, and benevolent government; the idea that if only the powers of government were restored to some ideally limited scope (e.g., the Constitution of the United States), that all would be dandy. Of course, I’m speaking from experience and your mileage may vary, but many others seem to have followed a similarly reluctant path:

the last thing I expected to become was an anarchist. For many years I didn’t even know that serious philosophical anarchists existed. I’d never heard of Lysander Spooner or Murray Rothbard. How could society survive at all without a state?

…“But what would you replace the state with?”

One wonders why questions like the one posed above are so often ignored, or as the writer inquires, even asked in the first place! especially by those who claim a disposition towards liberty and human freedom.  As the writer comments,

The question reveals an inability to imagine human society without the state. Yet it would seem that an institution that can take 200,000,000 lives within a century hardly needs to be “replaced.”

The only plausible argument for failing or refusing to address this particular grievance, is if one believes the course of human events could have been—nay—would’ve been worse without the State. But the argument that a few bad people would be even worse than they are now, were we to eliminate their financing, their control, their veil of legitimacy, and lift the protection afforded by myths and militaries, is as inconceivable as going in against a Sicilian, when death is on the line.

If one believes that a sufficient proportion of humanity is so depraved as to carry out injustices of a greater magnitude than all the combined barbarism perpetrated by their governments throughout history—paying particular attention to the last 100 years or so—one would be compelled by logic to conclude that no government, indeed no peaceful arrangement whatsoever could be instituted among such a population. The evil ones would never accept it, (or worse, and possibly more likely) they would embrace the institution of government as a source of power and legitimacy.

The belief that regular people—like you and I—would’ve have (could have?) done these things, is certifiably insane.

no third solution

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