no third solution

Blogging about liberty, anarchy, economics and politics

Category Archives: Left Libertarian

Property Rights Do Not Justify Sexual Harassment

September 29th, 2009

To extrapolate from a sample size of exactly one (who has, if I’m not mistaken, previously defended such absurdities as “slavery contracts”), a singular, authoritative “anarcho-capitalist” ethos[1], is the apex of ridiculousity. With that out of the way, François Tremblay is tilting at strawmen again. Quoting Block, Tremblay takes issue[2] with:

Another type of pinching or sexual harassment is that between a secretary and her boss. Although to many people, and especially to many people in the women’s liberation movement, there is no real difference between this pinching and the pinching that occurs on the street, the fact is that the pinching that takes place between a secretary and her boss, while objectionable to many women, is not a coercive action. It is not a coercive action like the pinching that takes place in the public sphere because it is part of a package deal: the secretary agrees to all aspects of the job when she agrees to accept the job and especially when she agrees to keep the job.

Specifically, Tremblay charges:

Once you accept that much degree of control over other people’s actions, then you can justify any degree of control. “Anarcho”-capitalists will complain that Block’s ravings are not indicative of their beliefs, but they will remain utterly unable to explain why he’s wrong without contradicting their own beliefs

Block’s argument is so stupid that I feel dirty just knowing that some readers might interpret this as a positive defense of his argument. I do not[3].  To the extent that Block believes an ambiguous employment agreement grants the employer unlimited license to molest his employees, absolutely he is a raving ass. This does not mean that the entire corpus of “anarcho-capitalist” ethics is wrong, only that maybe this particular belief is wrong, or does not follow, or is improperly framed, etc.  A reappraisal:

Either the secretary agreed to the circumstances explicitly set forth by the terms of whatever agreement she reached with her employer, or she did not.

If you know your neighbor has a rule, that any visitor to his house is obligated to wear the “funny hat“, you can’t barge in to his kitchen and refuse to wear the “funny hat”. You either wear it, or you befriend someone else. If she does not agree to the terms ex ante, having been fully informed, then she ought not take the job in the first place.

If she did not agree to be sexually harassed because these terms were not presented to her, then there was no meeting of the minds, and on general principles of law and reason, the uninvited and unwelcome intrusion into her personal space—indeed her being—is in-fact coercive, and worthy of derision. Ergo, Block is an ass, and wrong to-boot.

If she did agree (in which case it’s not harassment), and later decides she is no longer satisfied with the arrangements, then no the employer is guilty of no specific wrongdoing, and yes she ought to leave. Further, her withdrawal of consent may not be construed as breach of contract since such interpretation essentially permits unlimited license over another (i.e., “slavery contracts”).

Does it boil down to “property” at some level? Kind of, but not really. At least not entirely, as Tremblay presumes. “Property” is not the whole story, nor is it even a crucial determinant in evaluating this scenario. Block is wrong, not because of his belief in property rights, but because an argument resting solely on this premise is as stupid as a football bat.

+++

  1. I do not consider myself an anarcho-capitalist
  2. Walter Block is wrong
  3. Comments suggesting that I support such a stupid argument will be redacted or deleted at my discretion

This is What a Police State Looks Like

September 28th, 2009

Last week in Pittsburgh, the Group of 20 discussed, among other things, reforming the IMF (Providing liquidity to dictators and tyrants since 1944!) and resolved itself as the permanent world council for international economic cooperation, which is newspeak for the preservation of international economic oppression.

Whatever objective brings together the most powerful people from the most powerful nations in the world, is not wholesome. They do not have the people’s interests in mind because the their interests are not the people’s. So it is no wonder that a relatively diverse crowd showed up to protest the gathering darkness in Pittsburgh last week, where the Group of 20 met to discuss, among other things, reforming the IMF (Providing liquidity.

The powers that be do not like dissent. In particular, they do not like vocal, public displays of dissent which threaten to reveal their fraud. So thousands of hired guns, bought paid for with the people’s money were brought in to Pittsburgh last week to secure “order” and to silence the people’s voice of opposition.

The protesters, and many of the students at University of Pittsburgh saw firsthand what a police state looks like:

unidentified police officers pose for a "trophy" photo with captive

The photo (taken from the video on YouTube) shows a group of heavily armed police officers posing for a group photo with one of their trophies captives.  The purpose of staging such a photograph with someone who is “innocent until proven guilty” is psychological warfare. It is meant to intimidate, debase, and to humiliate the opposition. It is the exercise of physical strength and brute force. The motivation is pure malice, the sort of cream which rises to the top of the State’s violence gangs.

Right out loud, the students and protesters learned (if they hadn’t learned already) that the police were not there to protect them. The police arrived in Pittsburgh in their professional capacities as soldiers of fortune, hired guns and goons…  After all, four thousand heavily armed and armored men do not storm in to your city and tear gas you for your own safety. They were not there to protect Pittsburgh from the G20, they were there to protect the G20 from Pittsburgh.

h/t: iwitness video

Hang the Zombieconomy by its Own Rope

September 1st, 2009

Lenin once said that capitalism would ultimately undo itself, because the entrepreneurs would gladly sell the rope with which they would later be hanged; they’d be too busy counting the profits to see the noose tightening around their necks.  Well, somebody is choking right now, but it’s not the “capitalists”.

Instead, like a torture victim, the little guy is being pressed to see just how much he can tolerate, how close they can bring him to the brink of asphyxia… Aside from the obvious swindle, the banks are using trillions of blackmailed dollars, stolen from the people, to strengthen the stranglehold.

Several companies (e.g., Goldman Sachs and American Express) became “bank holding companies” only after the sh*t hit the proverbial fan, for the sole purpose of capitalizing on TARP funds, which they’re now using successfully to buy up the “not too big to fail” banks (the ones that actually failed, or were on the verge of failure) in order to become “too big to fail,” ensuring a limitless source of future bailout funds. And they are now using those stolen funds to earn risk-free profit.

Quoth Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Economy.com, “The oligopoly has tightened.” The Washington Post emphasizes:

Regulators pushed failing mortgage lenders and Wall Street firms into the arms of even bigger banks and handed out billions of dollars to ensure that the deals would go through

In several metropolitan regions, [J.P. Morgan Chase, Bank of America and Wells Fargo] were permitted to take market share beyond what the Department of Justice’s antitrust guidelines typically allow,

Right now the biggest banks in the world are sitting on the biggest stockpiles of “excess” money ever, and the government is paying interest on these reserves.  And why would bankers lend the money to people who might need it, or might be able to put it to good use, (especially in such turbulent times!) when they can instead earn risk-free profit?  Banks do not need to compete for business when the government guarantees their profits and subsidizes their losses.

That risk-free profit is someone else’s loss.  And that “someone else” is you.

This is not an accident, not misfortune, not due to “animal spirits” or any other academic gobbledygook. Economic depressions are built into the system, by design:

[T]he booms and busts of State-capitalism are coordinated. …[T]hey are coordinated in the sense that, failure to coordinate them results in the complete dissolution of State capitalism’s power structure. Business Cycles then, are not so much engineered by policy makers, as they are tolerated as a necessary evil.

— Engineering a Depression: Monetary Policy 101

Because the zombieconomy feeds on the flesh of the living, at some point the torturer has to relax his grip, has to let go.

So they give us—the victims—a brief reprieve, allowing us to catch our collective breaths just long enough to beg for mercy. At which point they will offer to advance us our own labor and our own credit and our own belongings that were stripped from us in our previous attempts to satisfy their new demands (plus interest). Failing to learn from our mistakes and the mistakes of our forefathers, many will likely accept the terms of whatever new bondage they can devise.  History is doomed to repeat.

How much more suffering at their hands will it take to learn the lesson? We do not need them. But like any parasite, they need us.

I used to doubt whether the “capitalists” were stupid enough to sell the rope, but I confess now that I grow less doubtful each day.  Whether the rest of us are wise enough to tie the hangman’s knot, is another story.

We can control our fates if only we stand and take back what’s ours.

no third solution

Blogging about liberty, anarchy, economics and politics