[P2P-F] feasible - legally - to set up an alternative government body in Wisconsin ?

[Kevin Carson]

On Thu, Mar 17, 2011 at 8:29 PM, Mark Janssen <dreamingforward at gmail.com> wrote:

>> Well, yeah.  The propertied classes, the ruling classes, over the past
>> 3000 years have invested a lot of thought in how to use states to
>> extract a surplus from the producing classes through artificial
>> property rights, artificial scarcities, and assorted subsidies and
>> privileges.

> Kevin, there are no "producing classes" -- you have free will.

As a simple empirical matter, there are classes that work harder than
necessary to produce what they consume, and other classes that consume
more than they produce.  And the latter accomplish this through rents
on artificial scarcity enforced by the state.

And
> property is an imaginary construct upheld by those too afraid or too
> ignorant to challenge it.  Take it to court, keep your wits, and
> you'll find a very frail basiis for its continuance.  Watch the whole
> fucking structure collapse right in front of your eyes.

I agree that challenging the structure will cause it to collapse.  I
just think the best way to do it is to circumvent it and render it
unenforceable.

> That is certainly what it has become, but I think it is mostly because
> people got intimidated, then apathetic, and then sold-out their soul
> and accepted convenience in place of ideals (a.k.a. the yuppies).  I
> salute all who don't let this happen to themselves.

I don't think it's ever been anything else.  The first states came
into existence when the peasantry started producing a large enough
surplus for kings, nobles and priests to milk them like cattle.

And I don't think there's any ideal time in the past where government
really worked for the people.  If you look at the so-called
Progressive Era, as described by the New Left historian Gabriel Kolko,
most of the legislative agenda was actually passed at the instigation
of the regulated industries, in order to make possible stable
oligopoly cartels.  Or look at the role of GE chief Gerard Swope and
the Business Advisory Council in the New Deal.  To the extent that
government action has ever made things comparatively better for
working people, it was a side-effect of one faction of big business
promoting its own interests through government.

> This is an argument by one who thinks they need the property owners to
> survive.  This is one of the means they control you.  Get
> straighttedge, streamlined, and free, then you can push the system
> from the outside.

Huh?  My whole argument is based on the idea of demonstrating that we
DON'T need the property owners to survive, and pushing from the
outside by rendering their property claims unenforceable or by
adopting low-cost technologies that render their accumulated capital
superfluous.

> This would be true if the nation-state in question had no values or
> was constitutionally dictatorial, but the U.S. is not.  Either it
> abides by its principles or it fucking falls dude.   There's no way
> around it, especially now where such cases can get enormous mind-share
> via the Internet and such.

I don't think it's ever abided by its "principles."  The U.S.
Constitution was put in place through what amounted to a Federalist
coup d'etat, representing the big financial and land-holding interests
of the 1780s who wanted a central government capable of pursuing
stronger mercantilist policies.

-- 
Kevin Carson
Center for a Stateless Society http://c4ss.org
Mutualist Blog:  Free Market Anti-Capitalism
http://mutualist.blogspot.com
The Homebrew Industrial Revolution:  A Low-Overhead Manifesto
http://homebrewindustrialrevolution.wordpress.com
Organization Theory:  A Libertarian Perspective
http://mutualist.blogspot.com/2005/12/studies-in-anarchist-theory-of.html