What are you going to do with your Steemit gains (if they ever come), what do you do with them now if you have made it? Do you identify as an anarcho-capitalist?
To me, it seems that what most here really just want to do is buy themselves a better position on the ladder of the system, still caged, still controlled, still told when to sing, just in more comfort, a better neighborhood, a nicer car. Lambo! Right? So much for anarchy when people will spend their gains burying themselves deeper into the system they claim to renounce.
I myself am not an anarcho-capitalist, well, perhaps I am as I don't even really know what one is and, don't really care for labels. You can call me one if you want but, you can essentially call me whatever the hell you want, it doesn't make me it.
What I am interested in however is the reduction of suffering in this world and an increase in well-being. I am not talking about some marketing study to create top ten lists, I am talking about increasing the opportunity for as many people as possible to discover their talents and fulfill their potential.
For me, ancap concepts of free markets will always fail if the freedom of some depends on the enslavement of others. Why? Because that is just capitalism. Free markets without an ethical or moral stance means the most heinous of human behaviors are accepted, as long as there is a market for it. Much like the world we live in now where people in the worst circumstances are producing products that they can never dream to own - most will never even see the finished product for a chance to admire its design and beauty.
So many talk about freedom and government tyranny here yet, if given the opportunity, they would blue pill it straight back in if they were granted a higher position, more status and a better salary. Maybe the bars are replaced with windows to give the illusion of freedom but, one is still trapped within the system.
Instead of buying their freedom and that of others, they buy into the system and sell the others into slavery or more commonly, just turn a blind eye to the suffering. This isn't about charity, it is about necessity, one that the ancaps seem to turn away from.
The problem is that there are boundaries or there are not, which means if anyone is caged, all are caged. Do you understand why? It is relatively simple isn't it? Let's say that the entire world is free and living harmoniously in anarchy, all except for one small nation where a dictator rules. As soon as there is that boundary fencing them in, it also fences the rest out. Even though the rest live without authority, that fence is a dictator of behavior. Would you cross it? At what cost are you willing?
Now, in that scenario perhaps the majority could free the oppressed but, we are a long, long, long way away from having an overwhelming majority of free folk. For the most part, we are all bound by the system, forced to adhere even if it causes us harm. We are all bound by debts to people who have engineered the system for centuries to indebt us. You may say, I am not in debt yet, why must you pay taxes to a system that keeps sliding further and further into debt? Where does it end?
Do you choose not to pay? How about your neighbors, your parents, your siblings? Are they still enslaved? Are they still tied to a dictator? Are you free to free them? Of course not. How free are you if you see people suffering and you are unable to help them? Perhaps you are free and just unwilling?
No, I don't think that for the most part people want to live in a world knowing that their 'freedom' is only possible because of the enslavement of others. Do they? I don't at least.
The problem is that everyone wants to be free before they will lend a hand to others without realizing that they can never be free until they start lending hands. Again, I do not speak of charity although at times, it may be charitable, I speak of doing what is morally and ethically necessary to reach the position one claims to want. Or, do you expect those in power now just to give it up?
It doesn't work if only the odd people 'get out' of the system, it has to be a concerted effort, a drive out en masse, and that can't happen when the majority are only interested in looking out for themselves until they are comfortable enough to help others. What is enough? The system is set up to make sure that the majority needed will never have enough to walk away as it convinces us to buy back in time and time again.
I don't know about all of the intricacies of political ideals and their claims but, a free market and a society to operate requires many people working together toward a common target of that idealistic freedom, doesn't it?
It seems to me that no matter what people call a system, if everyone keeps buying-in and supporting the current one, it is unable to change much from where it is. Most likely though, if you want to change the world for the better you need to put out your hand, and instead of begging and expecting something to be put into it, lend it to help another. I don't think it would take long to cover the majority required to tip the scales.
But, for the most part, no one is likely to think much about their own behaviors and how they will affect their and other people's future positions because in general, we are short sighted animals. We are in it for a quick meal even if it means tomorrow we will starve.
As someone mentioned to me a few moments ago, we are killing the goose that lays the golden eggs. I talked of golden tickets, but the metaphor still holds truth.
Taraz
[ a Steemit original ]