💾 Archived View for library.inu.red › file › kevin-carson-definitions-and-distinctions.gmi captured on 2023-01-29 at 11:44:38. Gemini links have been rewritten to link to archived content
➡️ Next capture (2024-07-09)
-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Title: Definitions and Distinctions Author: Kevin Carson Date: January 19, 2005 Language: en Topics: definitions Source: Retrieved on 4th September 2021 from https://mutualist.blogspot.com/2005/01/definitions-and-distinctions.html
FREE MARKET: That condition of society in which all economic
transactions result from voluntary choice without coercion.
THE STATE: That institution which interferes with the Free Market
through the direct exercise of coercion or the granting of privileges
(backed by coercion).
TAX: That form of coercion or interference with the Free Market in which
the State collects tribute (the tax), allowing it to hire armed forces
to practice coercion in defense of privilege, and also to engage in such
wars, adventures, experiments, “reforms”, etc., as it pleases, not at
its own cost, but at the cost of “its” subjects.
PRIVILEGE: From the Latin privi, private, and lege, law. An advantage
granted by the State and protected by its powers of coercion. A law for
private benefit.
USURY: That form of privilege or interference with the Free Market in
which one State-supported group monopolizes the coinage and thereby
takes tribute (interest), direct or indirect, on all or most economic
transactions.
LANDLORDISM: That form of privilege or interference with the Free Market
in which one State-supported group “owns” the land and thereby takes
tribute (rent) from those who live, work, or produce on the land.
TARRIFF: That form of privilege or interference with the Free Market in
which commodities produced outside the State are not allowed to compete
equally with those produced inside the State.
CAPITALISM: That organization of society, incorporating elements of tax,
usury, landlordism, and tariff, which thus denies the Free Market while
pretending to exemplify it.
CONSERVATISM: That school of capitalist philosophy which claims
allegiance to the Free Market while actually supporting usury,
landlordism, tariff, and sometimes taxation.
LIBERALISM: That school of capitalist philosophy which attempts to
correct the injustices of capitalism by adding new laws to the existing
laws. Each time conservatives pass a law creating privilege, liberals
pass another law modifying privilege, leading conservatives to pass a
more subtle law recreating privilege, etc., until “everything not
forbidden is compulsory” and “everything not compulsory is forbidden”.
SOCIALISM: The attempted abolition of all privilege by restoring power
entirely to the coercive agent behind privilege, the State, thereby
converting capitalist oligarchy into Statist monopoly. Whitewashing a
wall by painting it black.
ANARCHISM: That organization of society in which the Free Market
operates freely, without taxes, usury, landlordism, tariffs, or other
forms of coercion or privilege. “Right” anarchists predict that in the
Free Market people would voluntarily choose to compete more often than
to cooperate; “left” anarchists predict that in the Free Market people
would voluntarily choose to cooperate more often than to compete.
Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson, The Illuminatus! Trilogy (New York:
Dell, 1975) pp. 622–23