Philosophy Discussion Forums | A Humans-Only Club for Open-Minded Discussion & Debate

[Sim Al-Adim]

I agree with everything you say about Wal-Mart and its business model, but I must insist that greed cannot be undone by arson. After everything is ashes, the greed remains.

Greed is like hunger. It feeds on the ignorance, naivity, good will, fear, etc. of good people. It keeps making money (it thrives) so long as these naive qualities in good people can be exploited.

The only way for good people to overcome the greed of not-so-good people, where (in specific terms) the lives of the good people have been distorted to finance the pocket books of the not so good ... The good people have to remember the good way of living - the way that is fair and equitable to the majority.

I might have you wrong, but I think you're a passive Christian. Jesus was not a pacifist. Granted, he never talked about fire. But he also didn't endorse the idea that goodness in and of itself is enough to combat evil. If the good do not take action, the evil will continue to bleed us dry.

Jesus toppled the vendor stands in the temple when he saw that it had been turned into a market. The soul of every society in the west is being turned into markets. Our social lives have been reduced to that of plugs and screw and bolts on an assembly line.

Burning down one, two, or three Wall-Marts stops greed temporarily. I do not believe that anyone's greed can be abolished. I am not advocating that we abolish greed. I am advocating that we strike at the heart of greed. Give it an aneurism. Make it a little harder for the wealthy to line their pockets while utterly destroying MY time on earth - ie. the time that ME wants to see a town and feel the town. I want to feel the simplicity of a town in my eyes. And the makers of Wal-Mart view my existence as an extension of the numbers of zero's at the end of their bottom line.

I'm too proud to let that go on. I may not be able to stop it. But I'll be damned if I go to my grave knowing the only reason I didn't oppose Capitalism was fear of a legal system that is designed to protect it from the very thing it is utterly dependent on. Ie. me and my free will.

-- Updated December 1st, 2014, 9:00 pm to add the following --

WalMart's should burn to the ground. Why would you let a filthy rich corporation tell you what social existence should be? Can't you see this model is being forced on you?

Burning buildings is an application of force just as much as offering a service is. There is no possible end to being constantly enraged at that board definition of force.

Exactly. I would force my belief on theirs, because theirs is designed to make my life suck. The sprawl utterly confines me in a concrete expanse of useless shyte - not because it is necessary, not because it is the best way - because it makes the owners and developers and conglomerates and insiders and traders and monopolies very, very happy.

The manifestation of their desires over mine appear in things like Wal-Mart. Hence, ... Therefore ... Equals "anarchy"

The important effect is the outcome that people will realize that the process of being a consumer doesn't end with the Wal mart business model.

That sounds like a idea it would take a generation to imprint on a population not just a single burning of a Walmart. The thing they could take on with a single event is that burning businesses is a good way of removing larger competition and driving up costs to place them in a better negotiating position in relation to customers.

Probably.

But seriously. In "1984", history was continually being revised. Today, no one appears to be revising history, because no one appears to acknowledge we ever lived in a world different from this one. Granted, the conditions of society are what they are. Greed, competition, callousness et al. are as they should be.

Wal Mart's need to burn to the ground. I've seen acres and acres of farm land, entire grazing pastures "licked up" by Wal Mart. The majority of the land is parking space. Then Wal Mart; a few little chain stores; and A LOT of empty building space.

Walmart displaces a number of stores and does what they do but just packs all the stock really close together. So if you burn a Walmart to the ground would not a lot more good land get concreted over to make new shops and new car parking spaces as a larger town center pops up to replace it?

I haven't thought that far ahead.

But in theory, the commercial sector of the residential component of a township should grow in relation to the residential component of the town ship. When a "thing" like Wal-mart "swallows" up acres and acres of defunct land to mass distribute its products, the commercial sector influences the growth of the residential sector. This is backwards.

And this is allowed to happen for several reasons. A. Why is the untapped land defunct for farming purposes? Because in other far away places men have coordinated and consolidated farm lands and farm resources into a trade guild. This is unethical in practice. It is no miracle of any sort that the places where Wal Marts appear are places which would have otherwise been farming lands, had not trade guild monopolies gotten hold of the rights to own, monopolize, and distribute the whole freaking agriculture sector "abroad" (ie. anywhere they can force it on unsuspecting people).

B. The agriculture sector is supposed to influence the residential sector. And the residential sector, the commerial. But, as it has been since the glory days of Egypt, farming and agriculture are and have been consolidated and tightly controlled.

C. The markets have been rigged to control the townships. And now the townships have been displaced from the agriculture sector. So, people fall into a panic when they think of anarchy. And for good reason. Where would their next meal come from if not Wal-Mart?

It's not simply the end point of this distribution monopoly that must be questioned by any forward thinking anarchist. It is the distribution network itself.

-- Updated December 1st, 2014, 9:30 pm to add the following --

The meaning of Black Friday and why it is so aptly named and why children likely view it to be as much a social holiday, today, as thanksgiving.

The end of summer occurs each year on September 21. This generally coincides with the peak of the wheat growing season and/or the peak of the harvest. The harvest doesn't take long. The growing season doesn't even take long. You plant in mid August and the crops are ready by sept. 21st IF - if what? If the summer weather hasn't been to hot. If the spring season hasn't been to cold or too hot. If the winter hasn't been to cold.

The vast majority of us aren't farming. But we can all see the signs.

After the harvest what happens? Modern man jumps in his car, races off to work, and does his thing. Great. Life sucks. Hooray.

Meanwhile, all of the food supplies are being collected, packaged, and made ready for shipment.

Us peons go around like gad flies, bumping and mating with whatever we come across. And our internal fears about the good supplies grow. They grow and grow and grow and our hearts turn dark with misgivings.

The beheading last August was a tribute of thanks and good wishes to the Americans for the expectation of a bountiful growing season. Whenever there is indication of a bountiful growing season Kings among neighboring kingdoms sacrifice respective comrads to pay tribute to their pagan gods.

What is Black Friday? At the peak of our collective misgiving - compare the tradition of thanksgiving (which is all or more now a defunct day meaning nothing) - when we are all ready to riot, corporations around the world offer up their love and generosity and open up their hearts and wallets to the world to show us that all is still well.

We panic and shop and panic and frenzy - and by the end of it, by the next day, there's snow on the ground and nobody thinks for a second that they ever had a reason to question the foundations of their slave-camps.

Cyber Monday. That's the day when I go online and tell you "question your slave camp and do something about it before your time and will run out".

Black Friday. Pfff. Very apt. Very ape.

[Belinda]

Theophane wrote:

Depravity, lack of reason, call it what you will. Reason is not necessarily benevolent or pro-social, if it's nothing but the ability to think effectively.

True, but 'effectively' implies morally and cooperatively. Therefore the more and the better the reason, the more and better the morality and cooperation.

[Theophane]

I disagree. Thinking effectively does not favour the magnanimous over the antisocial. You seem to have combined reason with moral consideration.

[David_the_simple]

Anarchy, as defined in this thread, seems to work in small groups of moral majority. It appears to break down, like democracy did, when the population gets bigger.

Studying history shows that there are alpha personalities, times when leadership is necessary, and organized crime. Regretfully, this leader does not meld back into society as the crisis subsides and crime lords do not get religion.

It would seem reasonable to categorize both anarchy and communism together as great ideas that can never happen by and of themselves. By this, I mean that another principle needs to be added to make it empirically work.

[Wayne92587]

Anarchism stands for violence and destruction, hence it must be repudiated as vile and dangerous.

Both the intelligent man and the ignorant mass judge not from a thorough knowledge of the subject, but either from hearsay or false interpretation.

The emotions of the ignorant man are kept at a pitch by the most blood-curdling stories about Anarchism. Not a thing too outrageous to be emplored this philosophy and its exponents. Therefore Anarchism represents to the unthinking what the proverbial bad man does to the child,--a black monster bent on swallowing everything; in short, destruction and violence. Destruction and violence! How is the ordinary man to know that the most violent element in society is ignorance; that its power of destruction is the very thing Anarchism is combating?

I say that the Foe of the Anarchist is Church, Moral, Law; the Anarchist having the desire to be free of Church Rule choose the Rule of Law over Moral Law, are born of the desire to Separated Church and State.

[I_Dont_Know]

Chaos created government.

[Wayne92587]

Chaos born of the Hypocrisy, the Abomination, of a Moral Law, Moral law is a dismal failure when it comes to bringing the Chaos to Order; Would that I could I would destroy Morality.

[Theophane]

You can't destroy Moral Law any more than I could destroy Chaos.

[Wayne92587]

Don't bet on it! Moral Law is an Abomination.

The Separation of Church and State, the Rule of Law has ended the Dominance of Moral Law, Church Law, over the People.

[Vlad]

Anarchy, as defined in this thread, seems to work in small groups of moral majority. It appears to break down, like democracy did, when the population gets bigger.

...

It would seem reasonable to categorize both anarchy and communism together as great ideas that can never happen by and of themselves. By this, I mean that another principle needs to be added to make it empirically work.

No.

Anarchy and communism split very distinctly at the Paris Commune when Marx and his followers wanted to retain the big statist institutions like military, banks, universities, and marriage; while Bakunin and his followers wanted to dissolve them. (As we know, the state never did "wither away" as Marxists had insisted".)

Anarchism does not mean small groups; anarchism is a very extensive and varied political philosophy; I too had held very naive and ignorant attitudes about anarchism until sitting down and reading extensively from anarchist literature. Here is Colin Wilson's widely available Anarchism: A Very Short Introduction to get started,

http://libcom.org/files/Colin%20Ward,%2 ... uction.pdf

http://zinelibrary.info/files/Anarchism ... 004%29.pdf

http://www.bastardarchive.org/books/War ... uction.pdf

[Sy Borg]

Anarchy increases with the percentage of the population with nothing to lose.

[David_the_simple]

Anarchy, as defined in this thread, seems to work in small groups of moral majority. It appears to break down, like democracy did, when the population gets bigger.

...

It would seem reasonable to categorize both anarchy and communism together as great ideas that can never happen by and of themselves. By this, I mean that another principle needs to be added to make it empirically work.

No.

Anarchy and communism split very distinctly at the Paris Commune when Marx and his followers wanted to retain the big statist institutions like military, banks, universities, and marriage; while Bakunin and his followers wanted to dissolve them. (As we know, the state never did "wither away" as Marxists had insisted".)

I admit that many times I am too brief. I was not equating anarchy and communism as the same, but both in the same category: 'that neither can happen by themselves, but need amendments or transitional phases to be feasible'. As you pointed out, historically, men used the 'communistic' label to sway the people into giving them 'power' and they became dictators. Here I agree with you. But I what I was pointing out is that on both forms of government not likely to be feasible without a transistionary government.


Anarchism does not mean small groups; anarchism is a very extensive and varied political philosophy; I too had held very naive and ignorant attitudes about anarchism until sitting down and reading extensively from anarchist literature. Here is Colin Wilson's widely available Anarchism: A Very Short Introduction to get started,

Here again, I did not say that anarchism is a small group, but like true democracy would only work for small groups


http://libcom.org/files/Colin%20Ward,%2 ... uction.pdf

http://zinelibrary.info/files/Anarchism ... 004%29.pdf

http://www.bastardarchive.org/books/War ... uction.pdf[


I am a horribly slow reader, I will go over your leads, thanks

/quote]

[Vlad]

I am a horribly slow reader, I will go over your leads, thanks

You can't even read "A Very Short Introduction", so you're not going to read Goldman, or Tolstoy, or Proudhon, or Bey, etc. So you know next to nothing about this topic, and are decided not to learn anything about it, and yet you are contributing to this thread.

In light of the widespread ignorance and misunderstanding of what anarchism is really about, I suggest that actually reading anarchist literature is a non-negotiable prerequisite for discussing the topic.

[David_the_simple]

I am a horribly slow reader, I will go over your leads, thanks

You can't even read "A Very Short Introduction", so you're not going to read Goldman, or Tolstoy, or Proudhon, or Bey, etc. So you know next to nothing about this topic, and are decided not to learn anything about it, and yet you are contributing to this thread.

In light of the widespread ignorance and misunderstanding of what anarchism is really about, I suggest that actually reading anarchist literature is a non-negotiable prerequisite for discussing the topic.

Thanks for the lead. I did read it as I said I would. It took me while, and I was only this fast do to reading for the purpose of discovering "what is anarchism" rather than point for point memorization. Within the text I found these main points:

P31 paragraph two was a nice summary: "It is possible to discern four principles that would shape an anarchist theory of organizations: that they should be (1) voluntary, (2) functional, (3) temporary, and (4) small."

P41 "Kropotkin claimed in 1886 that a society built around cooperation rather than competition would, for that very reason, suffer less from antisocial activity."

P68 ... "the chief principle of anarchism is not freedom but autonomy, the ability to initiate a task and do it one’s own way."

By this Anarchism may work on small scales with moral majority. Much the same way Communism may work on small scales.

Neither are likely to happen for long or on large scales due to human nature collective. By human nature collective, I do not mean a set of properties that all humans have, but all properties that people have in varying proportions: ambitious, lazy, leading, following, giving, greedy, moral and immoral.There are the few who are ambitious, leading, greedy and immoral. They exist and are cause of anarchism's in feasibility over time.

I can agree that anarchism can and has influenced modern thought. Some principles are sound, but just not enough to make it work in reality.

[Vlad]

(4) small."

Anarchism can be a principal that guides a society of trillions; whole galactic systems.

majority

Democracy is not anarchic; democracy is the tyranny of the majority. You may never have noticed this because you identify with the majority, or because the democracy you are familiar with has no power (being actually a plutocracy or dictatorship)? Imagine instead that you live in Malaysia which is over fifty percent Muslim, an increasingly radicalized Muslim majority, which imposes increasingly strict forms of Sharia law, even for non-Muslims...

ambitious, lazy, leading, following, giving, greedy, moral and immoral.

No. No one has these qualities. These are labels and projections. Certainly not objective. Even if they were, they are the conditioned (slave/psychopath) character of capitalist patriarchy.

Some principles are sound, but just not enough to make it work in reality.

Because...

Anarchism is the only possible free system for a peace-loving people who no longer believe in the inertia of politics which is only and has ever been 'a continuation of war by other means'.

You definitely get points for taking time to read a book. What's next? Hakim Bey's T.A.Z.,

http://nomadism.org/pdf/taz.pdf

http://hermetic.com/bey/taz_cont.html

https://ia600405.us.archive.org/33/item ... ism_a4.pdf

-- Updated Sun Dec 21, 2014 4:43 pm to add the following --

PS, for me, this is the most important sentence,

P2 "For anarchists the state itself is the enemy....because every state keeps a watchful and sometimes punitive eye on its dissidents, but because every state protects the privileges of the powerful."

The state is a historical construction, something that formed at definite identifiable points, and which is transitory; statist structure is inherently disciplinary and controlling and unequal.