Shameless Self-promotion Sunday #28
Here's a pretty old post from the blog archives of Geekery Today; it was written about 16 years ago, in 2008, on the World Wide Web.
It’s Sunday. You know what that means.
Or maybe you don’t. If not, what it means is that we’re open line. What have you been up to in the past week? Write anything? Leave a link and a short description for your post in the comments. Or fire away about anything else you might want to talk about.
As for myself, I just finished up with Food Not Bombs; now I’m off to a fellow anarchist’s yard sale. Cheers!
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I quoted William Gillis’s post about anarchism as personal liberation via philosophic change — to paraphrase. Indeed; the root of all political change is ultimately philosophic and cultural. This is at the root of all sound radical political thinking, because it keeps us anchored to contextual reality.
Check out my post here: http://www.lifeloveandliberty.com/2008/11/12/bravo-william/
This might be too personal, but I was wondering how you’re getting to the M society meeting this year. I was thinking of ways I might be able to attend on the cheap, and I thought about your attendance.
Is it too much to wonder if I could catch a ride? ( :
I’ll probably ask other people I trust around here too. I have to check my school schedule, but I am still feeling out the situation. The society’s focus on “meet the critics” looks like a good theme. I already printed out Hassan’s essay on why Libertarians should be welfare liberals — she lists it on her website: http://www.hss.cmu.edu/philosophy/hassoun/papers.php.
Email me with a response, if you don’t want to talk about this on a public forum.
I read a fascinating essay about why restaurants should be abolished:
http://www.prole.info/ar.html
I’m afraid to ever go out to eat and tip again for fear of perpetuating the capitalist system. :(
Think of it as the class war — you’re tipping the low waged workers. Does that make you feel better? ( :
Actually in the essay they show why tipping only contributes to hierarchy and domination – in this case because after you tip the waitress she tips the rest of the staff, reinforcing their hierarchical ways.
I don’t dare wonder what ordering the house special does!
Charles,
I am sorry you had to endure Block’s mangling of your pro-unionist politics.
http://www.jhhuebert.com/articles/corporations.html
To quote:
“Given that the law allows some workers to not only organize themselves but also coercively organize others, it’s not clear what Long is talking about. To support his claim, he cites a blog post which laments that U.S. labor laws do not go far enough. We should support current labor laws, says Long’s source, but ideally we will return to the days of more “militant” unions.
You remember “militant” unions – the kind that used to (and, well, still do) beat and kill workers who do not cooperate with them. Long and his “comrade,” of course, make no mention of the unions’ bloody history.”
Walter Block says that violation of a “voluntary” slave contract constitutes “theft of future services”. And he is criticizing unidentified unions for allegedly killing people?!?!?! Are we to think that catching runaway slaves will be violence free?
It’s interesting when Block and Huebert compare unions to “tapeworms” on the economy – it seems to be vulgar libertarian redux. For example, suppose worker cooperatives ran their own farms and had access to the “means of production”. Suddenly the ability of Ford or GM to exploit workers isn’t so great, yet somehow I suspect Block would see this as a horrible situation.
Block’s response here is symptomatic of a larger problem with libertarianism – that Rothbard’s definition of “state” is eerily similar to his definition of private property. Both involve monopolies of force. Block even admits Walmart uses eminent domain! Workers at Walmart have no freedom of speech, the place is run like Italian Fascism. From my standpoint Walmart sure seems more like a state than a corner drug store.