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This game gives you two concepts related to anarchy. Your goal is to think of the connection between them. This connection can be political, philosophical, artistic, personal... whatever you feel most comfortable with.
If you're stuck, try defining the concepts from a Market Anarchist perspective first.
This game is also great if you need a topic for a blog entry. Just click until you find an interesting combination to write about.
Write your answer here if you want, and I'll add it to the page :
If you have sent an entry, thank you! I will add it as soon as I get to it.
Your submissions (latest=top):
name = Dave Metric
combo = Exploitation and Inequality
comments = Human beings are naturally inequal. We all have different abilities, strengths, weaknesses, and niches. Naturally, an inequality of wealth arises from the free market.
Statists and socialists alike tend to agree with me on this. An effect of this inequality is a concept they call "exploitation". Specifically capitalists exploiting workers.
"Exploit" is a pretty nasty word. No person who truly cared about carving a free and moral society would want exploitation to be a part of it. Market anarchists tend to not disagree with the premise that capitalists exploit workers and merely come back with theories that the state has given capitalists more bargaining power over the work place or that the free market will result in less hierarchical workplaces. Though these theories might have some degree of truth, they are wrong to just simply take the statist/socialist's word that exploitation is taking place. Here I will try to debunk this idea of capitalist exploitation.
The first thing that should be asked is how does one define exploitation. Clearly, statists and socialists don't mean it to mean simply using people for one's own gain. They mean it mean THE IMMORAL use of other people for one's own gain. They believe that since the capitalist has control over the workplace and sells the products of the workers for more than what he bought from the workers that he is therefore exploiting them. He is supposedly not giving them the “full value” of their labor. Supposedly there is an inequality of exchange going on and thus an immorality is taken place.
First of all, there is no such thing as an objective price or objective value. Prices are determined by the compromise between the subjective preferences of human beings. Taking this into account it is absurd to claim that the capitalist is taking away the “full value” of the labor of workers.
Second, there is no reason to believe that equality is a noble virtue, but let’s explore further the question of an inequality of exchange.
The exchange could be inequal in two ways. 1) Scientifically or 2) Value wise
It would be absurd to worry about exchanges that are scientifically inequal because demanding that every exchange in the market be scientifically equal would result in no trading at all. Why trade a Blastoise pokemon card for another Blastoise pokemon card of the same condition?
The question now comes down to whether the exchange of the worker’s products for a wage is an inequal transaction in terms of value, but we have already concluded that there is no such thing as objective value or objective price. Any evidence the statists or socialists bring up to prove capitalist exploitation is going to be on the basis of subjective evidence.
The bottom line is the voluntary and mutual beneficiary nature of the workers exchanges with the capitalist proves that the transactions between them are equal. There is no reason market anarchists should have to bow down the socialist and statist’s theories of capitalist exploitation and compromise their position. I hope this blog helps market anarchists deal with the trouble of statists and socialists claiming exploitation happens within the free market.
name = DaveDoggOwns
combo = Individual Rights and Control Over the Borders
comments = I think we all know what individual rights are. Individuals rights are just rights you have as a human being. There is the right to property, the right to life, etc. Most people accept in their daily lives that everyone has a negative right to life, property, and the freedom to associate with who ever they please as long as they don't hurt anyone. Most people also believe in free immigration. You never hear anyone in America say "You can't travel to California" or "You can't travel to Arkansas". Everyone clearly believes that people can free immigrate between towns, cities, districts, regions, and states. Why is it that free immigration BETWEEN COUNTRIES is now all of a sudden illegitamite?
Some people will say that "immigrants steal jobs" or "immigrants are a burden on society".
1)Let's say you live in Texas. If immigrants "steal" your job by moving and competing with you (which they don't. Most select unskilled jobs that nobody would do) than why aren't you complaining about New Yorkers immigranting next to you and competing and "stealing" your job? The bottom line is free immigration is either legitamite everywhere or it is legitamite no where. A world where no immigration is okay sounds to be to be pretty absurd.
2) If you are worried about immigrants abusing the welfare state then be in opposition to the welfare state.....not the immigrants. It makes no sense to INCREASE the size of the state in order to prevent an increase in the size of the state.
For the most part however most people don't object to free immigration for these reasons. People think in terms of groups and don't see the forest for the trees. They despise the group but forget that there are individuals in that group that have rights as human beings. The race of a person does not justify them having a radically different set of ethical rules from everyone else.
name = BulimicMind
combo = customer demand and inequality
comments = Customer demand and the notion of "equality" are phenomena on two entirely seperate, and in some sense, mutually exclusive, tracks. It is the fulfillment of the demand of the costumer - consumption - that in the end either validates or invalidates an economic system of organization, whether coercive or consensual. Inequality, of course, is merely evidence of a poorly designed system - but in no way the design's poorness. Equality in abject poverty is even more reprehensible than inequality of any sort, though they both pale in comparison to equality in prosperity. In short, inequality is just that - evidence - that the economic design in question does NOT adequately address customer demand in a world of nuclear power, ample resource, and near-perpetual-motion.
name = Peter Namtvedt
combo = taxation and the Non-Agression Principle
comments = Since taxation is the taking of a part of my wealth or income by force or threat of force, which throttles my freedom to make my own rational choices regarding the use of my resources on which my life as a human depends, taxation is a form of aggression, which is the initiation of physical harm and that violates the Non-Aggression principle.
name = Chris Khawand
combo = Utilitarianism and censorship
comments = Generally, utilitarianism refers to the belief that what is just is what provides the greatest good to the greatest number. The ends justify the means. Any argument for censorship invariably must return to the notion of a "greater good" in order to rationalize the visible costs it incurs to those who consent to it. Censorship of violent videogames, for example, argues that its interference with game developers and consumer's personal choices is justified since it keeps the influence of violence away from children.
name = Aaron Sokoloski
combo = cooperation and individualism
comments = Cooperation is only possible when individual rights are recognized. Two or more people cooperate because working together produces more valuable results than working alone. However, when the fruit of one's labor is redistributed to others forcefully as in a collectivist society, the incentive to cooperate is destroyed, and people focus instead on getting as much as possible for themselves while doing as little work as possible.
name = Andrew Greve
combo = the money supply and warfare
comments = Control of the money supply is essential for the state to gain enough resources to support a war financially. The American government, for example, took the American dollar off the gold standard as a way to make paying back debts incurring during World War I easier. Inflation is one of the greatest means of wealth transfer in most countries today.
name = Andrew Greve
combo = public education and competing value systems
comments = Public education necessarily implies value imposition. The authority figures involved in creating and administering a public education system impose their values on the students who are forced to attend schools in the system. In the absense of government monopoly on education, potential students are free to choose an educational institution which best reflects their own value system. A free market ensures that innocent children are not subjected to the strong arm of state coersion.
name = Andrew Greve
combo = the Drug War and individual rights
comments = The Drug War is an imposition of false values held by some members of society on an entire population. The right to do what one wishes with one's body is essential for survival. The Drug War limits value expression, and is therefore anti-individualist.
name = Andrew Greve
combo = foreign aid and the free market
comments = Foreign aid is when one "nation" gives money or food or something else to another "nation". This is often done ostensibly in the name of helping to boost an economy or halt a famine. However, the taxation required to gather resources given as foreign aid is disruptive to the natural process of wealth redistribution inherent in the free market. So, when "nations" give to "nations", what is really happening is one group of politicians gives to another group of politicians, or in some cases, a single dictator. The people in need of the aid are often the last to be offered a slice of the foreign aid pie. Without the presence of a state, the free market allows for competition to bid-up the price of labor.
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