From: Xela@yabbs
To: all@yabbs
Subject: Anarchy *might* be bullshit
Date: Wed Feb  2 01:34:25 1994


    Please allow me to read you all a quote on what got me
 started about what freedom is and whether control over another can be 
eliminated.  I'll start first off by saying that I am not so sure that 
even without a government smacking our hands (or shooting us in the 
streets) we will be free of oppression from others.  
    The key word to the subject of control is *guidance*.  How do we, the 
social beasts that we are, deal with one another without guiding a 
behavior pattern?  "The teacher who merely selects the material the 
student is to study or the therapist who merely suggests a different job 
or change of scene has exerted control, though it may be hard to detect." 
(Skinner, _Beyond Freedom and Dignity_)
    It has also been mentioned before that anarchy is eliminating 
capitalism in this country.  I venture that anarchy would eliminate more 
than that, but more to the point, what replaces it?  Do we steal from 
another?  An argument stating that we have unlimited resources and can 
feed, clothe, and shelter one another without any problems would be hard 
to swallow.  But say "anarchy" results and we are left with a libertarian 
wet dream, so to speak, where government dissociates itself
 from free-market behavior?  "A free economy does not mean the absence of 
economic control, because no economy is free as long as goods 





  


and money remain reinforcing.  When we refuse to impose control over 
wages, prices, and the use of natural resources in order not to interfere 
with individual initiative, we leave the individual under the control of 
unplanned economic contingencies." (Ibid.)
    So even without government, how do we keep from controlling, that is, 
manipulating each other for the fulfillment of some goal(selfishness, 
etc.)?  Anarchy is more than giving the Man odd finger gestures, what is 
to be done after to insure the individual calls his own shots?

-Alex Reynolds