Date: Wed, 28 Apr 1999 19:59:34 +0100
From: Iain McKay <iain.mckay-AT-zetnet.co.uk>
Subject: Re: Lysander Spooner


Hi all

Jamal Hannah x342446 wrote:
> 
> On Wed, 28 Apr 1999, Brian J. Callahan wrote:
> 
> > Jamal writes:
> > >Is it the Spooner-L list that all the anarcho-capitalists are on?
> >
> > Who is this Spooner?
> 
> Lysander Spooner was an individualist. He supported a form of the free
> market but also believed in the Labor Theory of Value, I believe, and
> thus felt that it was just for workers to organise for a better share of
> the pie. I think his idea of an ideal world was one of small trades
> and co-operatives... Proudhoun's mutualism, basicaly.  He shared views
> with Benjamin Tucker, too.

Basically, thats right. He opposed wage labour, and wanted workers to
work for themselves. I've read quite a bit of his works, and I would
say he was in favour of artisan production and opposed the "primative
accumulation" that was being enforced to convert america into a
capitalist society from an essentially non-capitalist one.

If you read his opposition to the gold standard, for example, he
basically argued that by reducing the money supply (by keeping
it tied to gold) workers could not buy the equipment they needed
to work for themselves and so had to sell their labour to others.

> It seems that the anarcho-capitalists have tried to co-opt him since he
> was an early individualist (who opposed communism) and they want to make
> it seem like their movement has been around for a long time. 

In the context of the time, Spooner was defending the "property" of
the working/artisan class against the violations of the market required
to create capitalism. In many ways his analysis is very similar to
Karl marx's (see Chapter 33 of Capital on the need to violate the
laws of the market to create capitalism). Strange, but true.

needless to say, to take his defense of "property" and apply it to
capitalist property is to totally miss the point.

 If you read
> everything he has said, instead of just snippits, he doesnt fit the
> anarcho-capitalist model much.

Jamal is right about that. There is a section about Spooner in the
FAQ, section G, if anyone is interested 
(http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/1931/)
 
> Here are some texts of his I put on my web site:
> http://www.tigerden.com/~berios/spunk/Spunk498.txt
> http://www.tigerden.com/~berios/spoonnat.html
> 
> The first text basicaly says the Constitution isnt a legaly binding
> document since it was written before we were born... the second text
> talks about "Natural Law".

His work on the constitution ("No Treason") is full of *very* violent
words. At one point he seems to want to slaughter all voters (who 
are part of the "secret gang of thieves and murderers" which is the
government). Makes Bakunin sound like a pacifist!

  I think the main arguments in both
> texts are less important than certain arguments he makes along the
> way, which give a better idea of how he thought.

Also its important to understand the context in which he is writing,
namely the transformation of the pre-capitalist america into the
capitalist system we know today. 

Iain