XPost: alt.anarchism, alt.politics, alt.politics.socialism   
   XPost: alt.politics.liberalism   
   From: pfbram_nospam@comcast.net   
      
   Haines Brown wrote:   
   > Paul Bramscher  writes:   
   >   
   >> Not mine.  I think we need to toss off those who claim monopolies of   
   >> real estate and natural resources, to restore an open space such   
   >> that anyone may sustainably collect resources (berries, mushrooms,   
   >> seed, firewood, meat, fish, etc.), erect a home, squat in a tent,   
   >> etc.  We need space in which no government -- or bank or "market" --   
   >> can fuck with you.  It's just that simple.   
   >   
   > Paul, what you offer here is kind of a story of the origins of   
   > capitalism. The bourgeois revolutions had smashed states that   
   > constrained free enterprise and the feudal lords who monopolized   
   > large-scale property. A large number of people had roughly equal   
   > resources of their own, but had thousands of years before escaped a   
      
   I don't quite trace it that way.  I'd go from egalitarian propertyless   
   hunter-gatherers to sedentary farmers.  With a sedentary lifestyle is   
   the necessity of a farm, and the rise of the warlord (the   
   proto-capitalist who demands the fruits of the labor of others).  They   
   would come in periodically and demand a tithe at harvest time, or simply   
   take the whole works.  Then we had the rise of the king and church,   
   which both institutionalized the process.  They simply switched names   
   over to industry and bank respectively after the revolutions of the 18th   
   century or thereabouts.   
      
   > brutal primitive life implied by such complete autonomy by entering   
   > into market relations. So property was not just growing raspberries,   
   > but also producing for the market. Because one's ability to produce   
   > for the market depended on being productive, people naturally used   
   > some of their return from the market to increase their   
   > productivity. Voila! Capitalism.   
      
   And yet, until fairly recently, people needn't produce for the market if   
   they didn't want to.  It was possible to live a subsistence lifestyle,   
   or to provide for one's extended family.  The rise of market gardening   
   in the US spelled its own doom.  My great-great-grandfather being a good   
   example.  A century later, upwards of 1/3 to 1/2+ family farms would go   
   extinct, since food was a mere commodity.  Markets aren't like   
   ecologies.  They don't naturally settle into a thermodynamic of even   
   distribution.  Try monopoly on for size.   
      
   > My point is that you don't seem to grasp the implications of your   
   > little utopian scenario. Rugged economic self-sufficiency may have   
   > been an idea associated with the bourgeoisie, but capitalism was not   
   > the result of such ideas, but of objective economic forces in a   
      
   Oh yeah, the 2 million years of proto-human bourgeois.  To be replaced   
   by Neanderthal capitalists.  Something is amiss, somewhere, in that   
   analysis...   
      
   In any case, it's not so much an issue of romanticism, utopian,   
   intellectual bullshit.  This is about freedom FROM the market.  A place   
   to go, to avoid the necessity of rent or mortgage, etc. while you engage   
   in the market in other ways -- if you wish.  Nobody should be forced to   
   render unto the banks the bulk of his weekly income.  What justification   
   do the banks offer for their monopoly of land?  They're great stewards,   
   environmentalist visionaries, won it militarily?  Honestly, what the   
   fuck rationale do they have?   
      
   > The assumption that each individual is self-contained and quite   
   > capable of supporting life entirely on his own is a bizarre (and   
   > historically unrealistic) notion that only the petite bourgeois could   
   > entertain. No other class is tempted by it. When this anti-social   
   > attitude first arose, it was among feudal artisans (petite bourgeois),   
   > for under feudalism it became possible for the first time in history   
   > to subsist in terms of one's own productive property as long as one   
   > entered into market relations (in which the trade partner is object,   
   > not subject). Although that was a mark of progress, feudal artisans   
   > were small-scale owners of productive property in a society much less   
   > developed than our own today. Were I able to turn the clock back I've   
   > no doubt I'd end up a slave or poor peasant. I know enough about these   
   > modes of living to avoid them at all cost.   
      
   Again, the mode of genuine self-sufficiency probably goes back 1-2   
   million years or so.  We know that people traded raw materials very   
   early on.   
      
   I think you misread my post, perhaps assuming a far, far, greater degree   
   of romantic/harmless naivety than was the case.  I'm talking about a   
   restoration of the Commons.  Such that you might freely erect a house,   
   cabin, barn, yurt, tent, etc. tell, Chase-Manhattan to go fuck itself   
   with usury, and direct the bulk of your productivity in other ways.   
   Maybe you want to live as a primitivist (people do), maybe you want to   
   start your own business, etc.  But the fact remains that the single   
   greatest expense ordinary people encumber is the justification of square   
   footage.  Essentially, it's like re-fighting the war of independence,   
   civil war, etc. all over again, for each generation anew.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)