I think a response to that might be that the state supports more authoritarian business structures. I would agree that it does, but there would still be a hierarchical order that would emerge as some people specialized in some tasks and were seen as more of an authority. That doesn’t mean that there would have to be a top down line of command where every person had a place, but in some areas, a person would be seen as higher in a hierarchy, and in another area, the roles would be shifted.

Look at how hierarchies emerge on the internet. On Wikis, some people are going to be seen as having more authority, not just admins. With blogs discussion forums and profile pages, levels of ownership shift. Of course people can always make a new space, if they feel that some existing place isn’t suiting their goals. Geographically, we can’t just make more land if we don’t like a state, as states have made a claim to all land, even though they haven’t done anything to own it.

I don’t see how there is ever any getting away from hierarchies without becoming a recluse. But it is possible to get away from forced social arrangements. I know that many in the libertarian left don’t like to end with voluntaryism.

I’m sure there are some points of mutualism that I am missing. I hope I am representing it correctly.

People don’t understand the true meaning of communism

“Tragedy of the commons” defies the evidence

Without property rights, there will be harmony

The possession and use-based property theories of mutualists are preferable to anything else

The State owns property

“Title and privilege” to private property exists courtesy of the State

Class theory should be considered in light of the mutualist class

Rent and interest are exploitative

Companies deliberately design shoddy products and services via false management and artificial property strictures

Entrepreneurs (company owners) who build capital and hire people treat them as “insignificant”

Anyone who manages a company, large or small, is a leach and usurper of both the productivity and the productive materials that would otherwise have been wisely used by members of the mutualist class

Fascism and socialism need to be exposed in detail as inferior to freedom and respect for property rights

Socialism, in bygone days, was devised to solve the “labor problem”

…and…

Selling your services to someone is a form of exploitation (“wage slavery”) and a relinquishment of self-ownership (which is itself a contradiction)

All these comments seem to be at odds with a logical understanding of how voluntary trade works, among other things. If a mutualist desires to have a worker-owned shop, a cooperative, that’s his prerogative, as long as others’ property rights (objectively defined) are respected. However, given the above beliefs, the mutualist will have a difficult time making profits in good conscience. After all, he will be receiving payment for what he produces with his own labor (i.e., work), which would seem to be the very condition of “wage slavery” that he scorns.

Even when he tries to escape this condition by engaging in barter, the fact of the matter is that he’ll be just trading with a different (less universally recognized) commodity. Once fiat currency is no more (after the fall of statism), metal-based currencies will just represent commodities, as gold and silver have been universally accepted in the past.

From the various writings of mutualists (both new and old) one’s gets the impression that they don’t mind conflating the present injustices arising from State-capitalism (taxes, subsidies, regulations, privileges, licenses, incorporation, IP laws, nonsensical contracts, etc.), with the nature of a truly capitalistic marketplace. They assume that capitalism, i.e., voluntary trade for profit between property owners, exists mainly via the “support” structure of statism.

Perhaps the only recourse enabling the mutualist to save his economic soul is to be completely self-sufficient, spurning the various economic gains present in society as righteously as he spurns “wage slavery.” Home gardening, local hunting and gathering, and do-it-yourself projects using recycled materials (even dumpster diving) are supposedly preferable to partaking in a capitalistic marketplace. However, the mutualist would no doubt contend that the nature of productivity in a neotechnic age society would be sustainable and much more sensible, unlike what we witness today (much of it reflecting the distortions of statism). Here’s a choice quote by Kevin Carson, from Chapter 14 (Decentralized Production Technology) in his book _Organization Theory: A Libertarian Perspective_:

“All this is not to say that complete household sufficiency in food, or the elimination of division of labor between town and country, is either necessary or desirable. It only means that it is possible. A return to agriculture based on intensive work with the spade, u-bar and fork would not mean starvation. It would mean greater output per acre than is presently the case.”

Having read the entirety of that chapter as well as 15 (Social Organization of Production: Cooperatives and Peer Production), and having skimmed over other interesting parts in this impressively long and thoughtful book (here’s a favorable
review), I’m of course in large agreement with his views against the statist status quo; he details both the seen and the unseen costs of statism in markets (though some of his speculations on a free market of mutualism I don’t endorse). I also appreciate the enlightened perspective presented in chapter 15 of respectful relations among equals in workplaces. In a competitive (and cooperative) marketplace of complete liberty, any and all old school, command-and-control managers would be greatly encouraged to see the error of their ways. People of high self-esteem seek to work with those who don’t see them as expendable or mere means to financial ends.

But Carson, being a mutualist, evidently sees the nature of management and capitalism–and thus the constitution of a stateless society (lacking all the above-mentioned injustices)–in a fundamentally different way than anarcho-capitalists and voluntaryists.

Mutualism apparently holds that managers are worse than useless, for they live off the work of their employees, aka “wage slaves.” The task specialization and efficiency aspects of a larger business (not a corporation, mind you) are disfavored and denied.

So, what’s the reason we don’t see cooperatives in place of allegedly exploitative managed companies? Have “capitalists” barred their entry? Or are worker-owned co-ops actually less efficient, and less appealing to most individuals’ time preferences? Though Carson offers evidence that co-ops are more productive in various ways, they can’t escape the process in which worker-owners must shift focus and manage da bidness at some point; apparently, this entails making decisions “democratically.” Of course, mutualism holds that this is way better than a manager making decisions unilaterally (as if being a manager means taking on the role of petty dictator over captive subjects).

Well, once the State dissolves, we’ll see how things shape up in the realm of business and commerce. As long as people are free to live and work as they please, unfettered by any authoritarian sociopaths who operate “governments,” I suspect that individuals will flourish in innumerable ways.

W

p.s., @John Delano and Fester. Thanks, I will do a podcast or two on the ideas of mutualism, including focus on the problematic property rights issues created by the Georgists, or Geo-libertarians. Strains of Marxism and the labor theory of value are hard for many folks to shake!

@Robby. Great article by Bylund, as well as many of the blog comments to it!

Thoughts??

My questions are:
1. Since you do not believe you own yourself, who owns you?

2. What rights or priviledges are you exercising by utilizing the capabilities of the body you don’t own?

3. Why and how are you thinking, breathing, expressing your beliefs and existing since you claim to not own yourself?

4. If another individual commits an act of aggression against you, would it be any of your concern?

Please excuse my ignorance if “you” denotes self-ownership.

I read most of the comments here, but if I’ve repeated anything posted by another, I apologize for doing so.

The entire book can be read for free in html or pdf here: http://mutualist.org/id47.html

The entire book is well worth reading. I hope you give it a shot.

This subject is so nebulous and disconnected from everyday reality that it is failing to hold my interest