The irony of ancaps is that what they want is a fundamental contradiction. Capitalism requires a powerful centralized nation state because it falls apart without one. I think that most ancaps do understand this and are being disingenuous on some level, either with others or themselves, and merely fantasize about collecting power in the chaotic years between disenfranchisement and the crash.
Slightly related but on my mind, this reminds me of anthropological studies on the origins of money. The story that money arose as a way to lubricate otherwise rigid and incompatible exchanges in so-called “barter markets” is a myth. In reality it seems that in all instances money actually arose as a punitive system of legal account in order to avoid the violence of blood libels (eg Alice killed Bob’s cow, to avoid Bob killing Alice the elders decree that one cow is worth 12 chickens and order Alice to give Bob 12 chickens. The elders write down these equivalent exchanges for future conflict resolution and a unit of account is the obvious next step). Ironically when modern anthropologists have gone looking for examples of barter markets they find none in antiquity or ancient times, they find them only in modern times and places where formerly capitalist or mercantilst populations got shut out of the wider economy for various reasons and suddenly had to make due without money. Rather than money arising from barter, barter is merely just what people who know money do when they suddenly have no money. TL;DR: Barter systems are largely a modern capitalist myth.
I am interested. If no barter system, how did the exchange of goods and services happen? Or I guess maybe those concepts didn’t make sense before money as communities would be focused on survival, thus the “assets” of the community being freely available (i.e. only part of the community hunts, but the results are available to all?)
If that is the case, could it be that a part of the invention of money came from increasingly successful communities that could allow themselves to travel and meet and trade and exchange cultural artifacts rather than be fully focused on survival of said community?
Even in a hierarchical community materially established well beyond immediate concern for survival, if everyone knows everyone else and society isn’t structured around a pursuit of upward mobility then mutual aid kind of runs the show as an unspoken matter of fact. You give a cow to your neighbor because he’s always there for you and you want to support that fact. Or viewed cynically, your involvement in those social exchanges (Because absent money, material exchanges are just social exchanges) is important for maintaining your social standing.
I’ve never read of money being invented primarily to do remote trade. I have however read of money being foisted upon communities by distant traders, seeking to create new trade partners (We do that today too, the IMF calls it “Lifting people out of poverty”). And in all cases I know of where distant trade wasn’t monetary it was either 1) People who already knew money but didn’t have a common currency (Like the silk road) or 2) They viewed it as a diplomatic gift exchange (Like indigenous Americans making contact with Europeans).
Yup, people can’t even imagine a world where people are treated like humans without needing an entry fee. We have the means right now to end all human suffering (not over night of course) but we don’t because fuck you. The next evolution of humanity is ultra collectivism. There’s not a problem we can’t solve of we work together. It’s the wealthy and powerful willing to drive humanity to self destruction all for luxury houses and sex abuse islands.
The irony of ancaps is that what they want is a fundamental contradiction. Capitalism requires a powerful centralized nation state because it falls apart without one. I think that most ancaps do understand this and are being disingenuous on some level, either with others or themselves, and merely fantasize about collecting power in the chaotic years between disenfranchisement and the crash.
Slightly related but on my mind, this reminds me of anthropological studies on the origins of money. The story that money arose as a way to lubricate otherwise rigid and incompatible exchanges in so-called “barter markets” is a myth. In reality it seems that in all instances money actually arose as a punitive system of legal account in order to avoid the violence of blood libels (eg Alice killed Bob’s cow, to avoid Bob killing Alice the elders decree that one cow is worth 12 chickens and order Alice to give Bob 12 chickens. The elders write down these equivalent exchanges for future conflict resolution and a unit of account is the obvious next step). Ironically when modern anthropologists have gone looking for examples of barter markets they find none in antiquity or ancient times, they find them only in modern times and places where formerly capitalist or mercantilst populations got shut out of the wider economy for various reasons and suddenly had to make due without money. Rather than money arising from barter, barter is merely just what people who know money do when they suddenly have no money. TL;DR: Barter systems are largely a modern capitalist myth.
Ancaps are to economics what flat earth is to physics
I am interested. If no barter system, how did the exchange of goods and services happen? Or I guess maybe those concepts didn’t make sense before money as communities would be focused on survival, thus the “assets” of the community being freely available (i.e. only part of the community hunts, but the results are available to all?)
If that is the case, could it be that a part of the invention of money came from increasingly successful communities that could allow themselves to travel and meet and trade and exchange cultural artifacts rather than be fully focused on survival of said community?
Even in a hierarchical community materially established well beyond immediate concern for survival, if everyone knows everyone else and society isn’t structured around a pursuit of upward mobility then mutual aid kind of runs the show as an unspoken matter of fact. You give a cow to your neighbor because he’s always there for you and you want to support that fact. Or viewed cynically, your involvement in those social exchanges (Because absent money, material exchanges are just social exchanges) is important for maintaining your social standing.
I’ve never read of money being invented primarily to do remote trade. I have however read of money being foisted upon communities by distant traders, seeking to create new trade partners (We do that today too, the IMF calls it “Lifting people out of poverty”). And in all cases I know of where distant trade wasn’t monetary it was either 1) People who already knew money but didn’t have a common currency (Like the silk road) or 2) They viewed it as a diplomatic gift exchange (Like indigenous Americans making contact with Europeans).
Yup, people can’t even imagine a world where people are treated like humans without needing an entry fee. We have the means right now to end all human suffering (not over night of course) but we don’t because fuck you. The next evolution of humanity is ultra collectivism. There’s not a problem we can’t solve of we work together. It’s the wealthy and powerful willing to drive humanity to self destruction all for luxury houses and sex abuse islands.