Post by capitalistpig on Sept 12, 2012 19:40:19 GMT -5
Hey everybody. Sorry that it appeared as if I ignored you. There was some real life stuff I had to attend to. I hope now to be able to frequent this board. I was asked why I was an ancap on the intro board and figured I may as well explain it as briefly as I can in this thread.
Now why am I an ancap? I base this on two lines of thought: the ethical and the pragmatic.
Ethically, I believe that I own myself. If I own myself, I own my labor. If I exhaust labor on nature, then that becomes my property for if it did not, anyone could use that nature on which I have labored and they have "stolen" my labor. Without property therefore, I am paradoxically reduced to slavery. Therefore, a man should be free to do as he wants, provided he does not initiate force (or threaten to do so) against the property of another individual.
On a more consequential line of thinking, property rights are the only way to rationally allocate scarce resources. Also, without property and the price system that develops naturally from private property, one is doomed to inefficiency as economizing scarce resources becomes impossible. I reject the labor theory of value as I have NEVER heard a cogent and convincing defense of it or a convincing critique of subjective value theory. I think subjective value is for all intents and purposes self-evident (however, if this is to be a point of contention, I will gladly defend it as ardently as I can). I believe that profit is not exploitative, but rather that it is interest from undertaking risk and from the low time preference of the capitalist entrepreneur. He is offering a wage in the present for services which do not render value until the future. For this reason, wages are not exploitative but beneficial. I believe that increased class mobility and great improvements in the standard of living for ALL classes comes best from ACTUAL capitalism. Voluntary exchange is most always preferable to coercion.
Why am I wrong?
Now why am I an ancap? I base this on two lines of thought: the ethical and the pragmatic.
Ethically, I believe that I own myself. If I own myself, I own my labor. If I exhaust labor on nature, then that becomes my property for if it did not, anyone could use that nature on which I have labored and they have "stolen" my labor. Without property therefore, I am paradoxically reduced to slavery. Therefore, a man should be free to do as he wants, provided he does not initiate force (or threaten to do so) against the property of another individual.
On a more consequential line of thinking, property rights are the only way to rationally allocate scarce resources. Also, without property and the price system that develops naturally from private property, one is doomed to inefficiency as economizing scarce resources becomes impossible. I reject the labor theory of value as I have NEVER heard a cogent and convincing defense of it or a convincing critique of subjective value theory. I think subjective value is for all intents and purposes self-evident (however, if this is to be a point of contention, I will gladly defend it as ardently as I can). I believe that profit is not exploitative, but rather that it is interest from undertaking risk and from the low time preference of the capitalist entrepreneur. He is offering a wage in the present for services which do not render value until the future. For this reason, wages are not exploitative but beneficial. I believe that increased class mobility and great improvements in the standard of living for ALL classes comes best from ACTUAL capitalism. Voluntary exchange is most always preferable to coercion.
Why am I wrong?