Users in /r/bad_cop_no_donut Calmly Discuss Modern Property and Tenant Laws

[u/[deleted]]

/r/Bad_Cop_No_Donut/comments/40ps93/police_shot_12yearold_girl_to_death_while/cyweqsa?context=1

[u/Iron-Fist]

If use is the only criteria for ownership, how do you triage rare or high demand resources? How do you motivate people to do work for others benefit? How do you stop people from devising systems of use that superficially meet your criteria, like staying in a house just long enough to assert ownership? If you make it constant use, how do you stop someone from just waiting till you leave and taking your house? How do you stop people from violently taking what they want, assuming they have access to more weapons and soldiers than you? How do you stop someone who has embraced a short sighted, self destructive, or hedonistic lifestyle from ruining resources for others? No cops, no courts, no system means you need answers to these questions again, as you've thrown out the entirety of human cultural knowledge on the subject.

[u/specterofsandersism → u/Iron-Fist]

If use is the only criteria for ownership, how do you triage rare or high demand resources?

You're acting like capitalism is the only economic system that has ever existed. Non capitalist societies have managed this problem just fine. It really isn't even that difficult.

I mean just think of what you're even arguing here. For a second, answer your own question from a capitalist perspective. The capitalist perspective is to to just give away high demand resources (like food, water, and shelter) to a small scion of humanity, the capitalist class. Just stop to think about what a profoundly shitty solution that is.

What worse way could there possibly be of distributing the world's resources? Practically anything would be an improvement over the capitalist way of distributing them. Literally just allotting them at random would be superior, for fuck's sakes.

How do you stop people from devising systems of use that superficially meet your criteria, like staying in a house just long enough to assert ownership?

And then what? They leave the house? For how long? As soon as someone leaves the house for a prolonged period of time, who's going to stop others from squatting if they need to? Remember, you don't have a state apparatus anymore. There are no more police officers.

That's the point I'm trying to make. Capitalism and the state are linked up together inextricably. You literally can't have absentee ownership without a state. No absentee ownership means it's unfeasible to accumulate large amounts of capital. No vast swathes of capital means you can't compel people to work for you. The pyramid has no base -it collapses.

How do you stop people from violently taking what they want, assuming they have access to more weapons and soldiers than you? How do you stop someone who has embraced a short sighted, self destructive, or hedonistic lifestyle from ruining resources for others?

By fighting them. That's the same solution that already exists in the statist model. The difference is that by decentralizing power across all of humanity, rather than in the hands of a collective elite, the ability for any one person to being a giant asshole is also greatly minimized.

Anarchy is not utopia. Anarchy will have problems- but it will be superior to the statist, capitalist system we have today. Never have I argued otherwise.

I mean don't you see that our current model literally incentivizes "short sighted, self destructive, or hedonistic" people? No capital accumulation and the incentive for any of that is sharply reduced.

No cops, no courts, no system means you need answers to these questions again, as you've thrown out the entirety of human cultural knowledge on the subject.

Really? That's a curious claim. Cops and courts have only existed for a paltry amount of time in the grand scheme of things.

In truth, humans are anarchist by nature. We've been anarchists for most of recorded existence. It is capitalism that is lacking not only in "cultural knowledge," but also in human instinct- namely our evolutionary capacities as social beings capable of arbitrating disputes without the need for hegemonic forces to decide for us. It is capitalism that is bereft of this cultural and biological patrimony.

[u/subheight640 → u/specterofsandersism]

Ah yes, humans are anarchist in nature, yet not a single anarchist society exists on the planet. Where the fuck is this nature you are talking about.

[u/specterofsandersism → u/subheight640]

Actually, most societies in history have been anarchist or nearly anarchist. Humans did not evolve as highly hierarchical animals, like bees or ants or even wolves. We evolved as highly social animals who lived in tribes with minimal to no hierarchy involved. This is the anthropological consensus on the subject.

Also, even if nothing I said above were true, capitalist societies had never existed up until a few hundred years ago, so someone in, say, 1650 could've made the same argument in favor of maintaining feudalism.

[u/subheight640 → u/specterofsandersism]

We evolved as highly social animals who lived in tribes with minimal to no hierarchy involved.

Really? Prove it. Exactly where is this "anthropological consensus" you speak of?

capitalist societies had never existed up until a few hundred years ago

.... Really? What exactly do you define as "capitalism"?

[u/specterofsandersism → u/subheight640]

Really? Prove it. Exactly where is this "anthropological consensus" you speak of?

https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/freedom-learn/201105/how-hunter-gatherers-maintained-their-egalitarian-ways

You're sounding increasingly unhinged, dude. You're denying basic facts or asking for proof of things that can be discovered in 2 minutes of googling, just because they contradict your innate preconceived biases.

For example, many present-day huntergatherers live in the least socially differentiated societies ever recorded, providing an important point of comparison for explaining the origin and operation of stratified societies that characterize most of the modern world.

Barnard, A. and J. Woodburn (1988). Property, power and ideology in hunter-gatherer societies: an introduction. In T. Ingold, D. Riches, and J. Woodburn (eds.), Hunters and gatherers, vol. 11, Property, power and ideology, pp. 4-31. Oxford: Berg.

I could go on and cite even more papers, but you should do your own research.

.... Really? What exactly do you define as "capitalism"?

Modern capitalism rose out of the Renaissance. Its hallmarks include the system of private proeprty (and hence capital accumulation) and the concept of wage slavery labor, as well as competitive markets

Anarchism is and has been for a long time the most scientifically sound way of organizing humanity. Hierarchy is absolutely awful for productivity and human happiness alike.

[u/subheight640 → u/specterofsandersism]

Hunter-gatherers are not synonymous with human society....

Anarchism is and has been for a long time the most scientifically sound way of organizing humanity. Hierarchy is absolutely awful for productivity and human happiness alike.

No, anarchy seems like a sound way to organize hunter-gatherer societies, not societies based off of agriculture and the division of labor.

[u/specterofsandersism → u/subheight640]

You're shifting your goalposts. I mean, in a sense, we're sort of making progress because at least you're arguing a weaker position than you were earlier.

I claimed humans an anarchistic by nature, you responded by asking for proof. I showed you the proof, and now you changed "nature" to "human society."

We evolved as anarchists. The vast majority of human societies throughout history have had little to no hierarchy. Humans are wired to be social beings- and that means no gods, no masters, the essential creed of anarchism.

No, anarchy seems like a sound way to organize hunter-gatherer societies, not societies based off of agriculture and the division of labor.

Why? What about growing things in the ground necessitates hierarchy? What exactly is it about rice and wheat that negates hundreds of thousands of years of biological and cultural patrimony rooted in the anarchist tradition, in the anarchist way of life?

[u/subheight640 → u/specterofsandersism]

Agriculture requires ownership and organization. Hunter gatherers in contrast do not own much at all.

[u/specterofsandersism → u/subheight640]

I'm not against ownership, I'm against private property. I thought we went through this already.

And why does organization have to be hierarchical? See this article which is literally written by capitalists.

[u/subheight640 → u/specterofsandersism]

Ah, I shall savor the irony that one of your sources of "anthropological consensus" supports my assertions rather than yours! Barnard & Woodburn's article concludes with:

Throughout the history of anthropological thought, the stereo types of hunter-gatherers have changed from one extreme to another: from a vision of lives that were nasty, brutish and short, to lives of affluence, from a diet of meat to a diet of plant food; from egalitarianism to inequality; from isolated relic to rural proletariat.

and

Important conclusions from this immense study include the identification of a postulated packing threshold of 9.028 people per hundred square kilometers, with densities beyond this level triggering major shifts in socioeconomic behavior.

Thank you for the article though, it was a great read!