Date: Thu, 01 Jan 2004 20:02:28 -0500
From: "Shawn P. Wilbur" <swilbur-AT-libertatia-labs.org>
Subject: Re: [postanarchism] anarchism & markets




eduardo enriquez wrote:

>  --- JessEcoh-AT-cs.com escribió: > In a message dated
> 12/30/2003 7:40:30 PM Central
> 
>>Standard Time, 
>>
>>yes, yes!  i've said it here before, and i'll say it
>>again: 
>>"antirepresentationalism"/"anti-essentialism" in
>>economics IS the laissez-faire thesis of 
>>hayek, von mises, etc.  either one accepts that,
>>yes, human beings have some 
>>natural needs of fairly determinate shape (i.e., an
>>"essence" of sorts), and that 
>>these can be known and quantified (i.e.,
>>represented), 


Yes. Though it is probably worth maintaining the
destinction between *kinds* of "anti-essentialist"
critiques, so that we don't engage in a kind of
counter-confusion where we allow "essence" to stand
for, say, a range "soul subject to the will of God"
to "evolutionary or historical mission" to "hunger"
(and "tendency to fall when dropped"...)

This is probably more important in the realm of
"representation," where some very valid criticisms
of the *possibility* of representation (variously
conceived *may* impose on us the need for a kind of
transvaluation or deep rethinking of the concept
before we develop the practices we seek.

>>or one throws up one's 
>>hands and declares that no justice can ever be done
>>(and therefore a value 
>>called justice, or equality, can never complement
>>the sole and supreme value called 
>>"freedom," which is henceforth to be conceived only
>>as the freedom to 
>>bargain, to arbitrate).  the same goes for ecology .


It may, of course, be possible to declare justice or
freedom "impossible" or impracticable, and *not* - or
*not just* throw up one's hands. There is the opposite
notion that if "justice can be done," all we are left
with is the application of a technology or the work of
arbitration.

Impossible or impractical, but still vital and
necessary, justice has had a place in radical thought
from at least Skidmore through at least Derrida.

 
> but indeed this "giving up of options" of sorts is an
> important part of liberal and conservative thought
> and indeed definitely one to defend "individualist"
> politics be it right wing or supposedly "anarchist"
> ones.
> 
> Paul Jacobson wrote:

Actually, that was me...


>> "Non-capitalist market economics were common among
>> individualist and 
>> mutualist anarchists in the 19th century, particularly
>> in the US. The 
>> best account here is probably still _Men Against the
>> State: The 
>> Expositors of Anarchist Individualism in America,
>> 1827-1908_, by James 
>> J. Martin. You'll probably find it a little "right" in
>> its critical 
>> orientation, but it's very well researched. For more
>> contemporary work, 
>> you might look at what Kevin Carson is doing at
>> mutualist.org."
> 
> indeed bourgoise anarchism, proudhomism, etc.
> discourse critical of modern industrial capitalist
> society which preserves inside it cultural structures
> of the big modern bourgoise oversized ego which
> structuralism and post-structuralism have very nicely
> critisized. 


This seems specifically true of philosophical egoism,
as well as certain of the "anarcho-capitalisms," but
it's not all that clear that it is true of other 19th
century market anarchisms. While Stephen Pearl Andrews
and William B. Greene certainly *had* big egos, it's
not clearly the case that their anarchist theories
were egoistic as such.

> of course not that i want a return to pure
> organic society but rather what i think is a main way
> to identify left wing thought from organic
> comunitarian hierarchical conservatism and rationalist
> individualist utilitarian liberalism: the wish for not
> giving up neither community nor the individual for the
> sake of chosing one over the other which is
> specifically something which can be explained by
> understanding both the interests behind these two
> political options. 


Again, however, the concern to engage both the individual
and the social has a history stretching from the pre-
libertarian "individual right practicable only in society"
of Skidmore to the "being singular plural" of Nancy, and
is probably an issue apart from that of "markets."

-shawn