0:00

Hello, everyone. I'm Stephen West. This

0:02

is Philosophize This. Thanks

0:04

to everyone that supports the podcast on Patreon.

0:06

Any support at any level on Patreon gets an ad

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free RSS of the show, as well as the stickers,

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pens, T-shirts that we send out for whatever the tear

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is. Thanks for helping the podcast keep

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going. I hope you love the show today. So

0:18

a question that's worth asking of these anarchists

0:20

we've been talking about, you know, the kind

0:23

of anarchists that would say we're better off

0:25

without the police, without laws, without a central

0:27

authority, with a military warding off other countries

0:29

invading. A question a skeptic has to ask

0:31

these people is if all these ideas

0:33

of yours are so great, why

0:35

in recent history, every time they've been

0:37

tried, have they eventually failed? I

0:40

mean, we mentioned the Seattle strike last time, the

0:42

Ukrainians post World War One, the Spanish

0:44

Civil War, and Peter Gelderloos in his book

0:46

mentions dozens of other moments in history with

0:48

anarchist principles in action. But one

0:51

common theme among all these examples is that they

0:53

all ended up collapsing. What does an anarchist have

0:55

to say about the fact that their track record

0:57

here isn't exactly great? Well, the answer

0:59

to that is that there's specific reasons each of them went

1:01

south when they did. Admittedly, sometimes

1:03

it was a tactical error by the anarchists

1:05

themselves. Other times, like in the

1:08

case of the Seattle strike, sometimes things just reverted back

1:10

to the way they were before there was a need

1:12

for people to organize themselves. Most of

1:14

the time, though, in recent history, regardless of

1:16

the specific reasons each of these experiments ended,

1:18

you could say that a major factor is

1:20

that there's really just been a lack of

1:23

solidarity with other anarchist societies. You

1:25

could say that many of these examples from history

1:27

would still be going on today if there just

1:29

happened to have been more international support at the

1:31

time for bottom up organization like this. In

1:34

fact, if the reason you're even asking that question is

1:36

because you're actually interested in the viability of anarchism in

1:38

the world we're living in today needs

1:41

to be said. A lot of anarchists out

1:43

there would say that far from anarchism being

1:45

the strategy that's been totally debunked. On

1:47

the contrary, we're in about as prime a territory

1:50

as we ever have been for these ideas to

1:52

catch fire. I mean, there's certainly

1:54

some promise in things you could point to. How about

1:56

the fact that 20 years ago, a lot of publishers

1:58

wouldn't even consider printing a book on. on anarchism,

2:01

nowadays he got best sellers on anarchism. Nowadays

2:03

we're talking about anarchism on a show

2:06

like this. And you

2:08

know, short of a few emails from people

2:10

saying I must be huffing Elmer's glue to

2:12

be even covering something like anarchism, short of

2:14

that, there's not really as much

2:16

of a social cost that people have to

2:18

pay anymore for considering these ideas. Another

2:21

promising thing that an anarchist might bring up is

2:23

that one of the biggest barriers for this

2:26

bottom-up direct democracy style ever working in the

2:28

past is that people have said that

2:30

the level of communication that's required to make something

2:32

like this work is just impossible.

2:35

I mean, it's a fair question. How

2:37

do you coordinate between this ever-growing, federated

2:39

network of communities that themselves

2:42

are constantly changing shape? But

2:44

some anarchists say that in the world we're living in now,

2:46

the technological climate with Web 3.0, decentralized

2:50

technology like blockchain, cryptocurrency, digital

2:52

democracy platforms, these sorts of

2:54

things make the communication that's

2:56

required for anarchism something far

2:58

more feasible than it's ever

3:00

been before. So yeah,

3:02

some anarchists think this is definitely a possible

3:04

direction that things could be going in in

3:06

the future. Big question you gotta worry about

3:08

if you're them on the other side of all this is, if

3:11

this is a set of ideas that takes off one

3:13

day, exactly what kind of

3:15

anarchists do you wanna be? Because

3:18

as we've mentioned at multiple points on this series so

3:20

far, there's many different kinds of

3:22

anarchists and not all of them like each

3:24

other. In fact, ironically, there's a

3:26

bit of a turf dispute that's been

3:28

going on among anarchists in their ranks,

3:31

the totally non-hierarchical horizontal ranks, that is

3:33

of course. My friends, today

3:35

I wanna tell you about the plight, the

3:37

sad situation of a particular kind of anarchist

3:39

out there right now. It's

3:41

a type of person who thinks of themselves

3:44

as an anarchist, but most other anarchists don't

3:46

think of them as a real anarchist. Maybe

3:48

you've heard of them. I'm talking about someone

3:50

who calls themselves an anarcho-capitalist. If

3:52

all the other anarchists are kinda like Santa's reindeer,

3:55

you know, not letting one of the reindeer play

3:57

in all the reindeer games. This

3:59

is... Rudolph the anarcho-capitalist

4:02

really is excluded from the party sometimes Reason

4:05

being is the kind of anarchists we've been

4:07

talking about in this series so far again

4:09

The kind that doesn't like police laws private

4:11

property many of the people that think this

4:13

way fall under the very broad category of

4:15

what's called Anarcho-communism and that

4:17

would make them anarcho-communists and

4:20

as anarcho-communists They don't really like anarcho-capitalist

4:22

for many reasons will elaborate on in

4:24

this episode for now though It's just

4:26

important to say try not to

4:28

get too thrown off by these titles communist

4:30

and capitalist Because as we'll also

4:32

talk about when it comes to the anarcho version of

4:35

these two things This is not

4:37

your grandpa's capitalism And it's

4:39

not your grandma's communism either for the record Anarcho-capitalist

4:41

would certainly not be a fan of any of

4:43

the capitalist systems that are going on today and

4:46

Anarcho-communist would certainly not be a fan of any of

4:48

the communism that went on in the 20th century I

4:51

mean obviously how could they be they're anarchists.

4:53

They don't believe in the legitimacy of the

4:55

state How could they ever be a fan

4:57

of the communism of the 20th century that

4:59

was dominated by a massive state and government?

5:02

Well hear more from the anarcho-communist side of things here

5:04

in a second But first few questions

5:06

got to be answered at the start of

5:08

this. What is an anarcho-capitalist? Why would they

5:10

call themselves that and how exactly do they

5:13

differ from other people who call themselves anarchists?

5:16

And maybe the best place to start explaining that

5:18

is to say that to an anarcho-capitalist One

5:20

of the ways that they're different is that the type

5:22

of anarchists We've been talking about on this series so far

5:25

has a bit of a problem that they really haven't

5:27

laid out a clear solution to yet The

5:29

problem is once we remove the government

5:32

from the equation How

5:34

exactly are we going to organize society on

5:36

the other side of that? They

5:38

say they haven't answered that I mean they

5:40

could talk about their decentralized Hypothetical ways

5:42

the world might be organized in a

5:44

totally different world once people's values change

5:47

into something where these things are possible

5:49

But that's not really answering the question sure

5:52

if everyone was like me then we wouldn't

5:54

need any laws would we? But

5:56

look if we could guarantee that almost everyone is gonna

5:58

have a set of values where they're peaceful and

6:00

hard-working. You can structure a society

6:02

basically any way you want to. But

6:04

how do we actually have what David

6:06

Friedman calls a system of anonymous coordination

6:08

among millions of people that all have

6:10

different subjective takes on what is valuable?

6:13

To an anarcho-capitalist, anarcho-communists have

6:15

not given a sufficient answer to that question

6:18

yet. And the good news

6:20

to an anarcho-capitalist like David Friedman is

6:22

that we already have a system of coordination

6:24

we know about that helps us efficiently distribute

6:26

and allocate resources. It's a system

6:28

that becomes a mirror for the value that society is

6:30

placing on things. It's a self-regulating

6:33

system that can meet every need a person

6:35

may have in a society, and that is

6:37

the free market system combined with the wisdom

6:39

of capitalism. That once we're living

6:41

in this world, we remove the unnecessary hierarchy

6:44

of the government, free markets are

6:46

what we should be steering into and trying to

6:48

make better to provide the services the government used

6:50

to provide for people. Now

6:52

you may recognize the name David Friedman. He's

6:54

the son of the world-famous economist Milton Friedman,

6:57

God rest his soul. And

6:59

Milton Friedman believed that having a

7:01

government was necessary, a small government,

7:03

a government that provides certain basic

7:05

human services, national security, police, the

7:07

enforcement of contracts. We need a

7:09

society, he thought, where people feel

7:11

safe enough for something like a

7:13

free market to ever truly be

7:15

free. If everyone's fearing for their

7:17

life all the time, then you can never really have

7:20

people feeling comfortable enough to make consumer choices. Point

7:22

is, most things, he thought, are better

7:24

off without the government involved in them.

7:27

But there are some basic things we benefit from when

7:29

a government does them for us. Well,

7:31

his son David just takes this one step further.

7:34

It's a bit like that argument that an atheist will make to

7:36

someone who's religious. They'll say, it's like

7:38

if there's a thousand gods out there, both

7:41

of us don't believe in 999 of them.

7:44

I just take it one step further, don't believe

7:46

in any of the gods, and think maybe you're

7:48

just doing the same thing you think all those

7:50

other people are doing. You apply the same kind

7:52

of argument to the government. And as David Friedman

7:55

says, just take the smallest level of government you

7:57

can possibly imagine, where everything else is being fulfilled

7:59

by the people themselves or the private

8:01

sector and then just take it

8:03

one step further. In other words, police, enforcement

8:05

of contracts, national security have these things provided

8:08

by the private sector as well. The

8:10

thinking is that the private sector is

8:12

just generally better at doing everything than

8:15

the government is. You ever drive

8:17

by a construction site and it's something you drive by

8:19

every day so you see the thing being built at

8:21

every step along the way? Is that

8:23

a government building that's going up or is that

8:25

a new business coming to town? Well don't

8:27

think too hard. Just wait a few weeks and you'll know exactly

8:29

what it is because if it's a private

8:32

sector contract that building will be done in two

8:34

months. If it's a government contract you'll

8:36

be driving by that same site two years from now. Five

8:39

dudes will be standing around in reflective

8:41

vests. One dude will be

8:43

shoveling dirt. The other four will be standing

8:45

around ensuring this is a safe operation

8:47

that's going on. And

8:49

to an anarcho-capitalist the reason this

8:51

happens obviously is that the government

8:53

has a monopoly on government. The

8:56

government doesn't have competition like a business

8:58

does. The government is gonna lose the job. They

9:00

don't have customers that are gonna leave and go somewhere

9:02

else if they aren't happy. As Michael

9:05

Malice says, what other arrangement do we have

9:07

in society where it is locked in for

9:09

four years or whatever the term limit is?

9:11

And if at any point you realize this is

9:13

a bad situation for you, you can't decide to

9:15

go elsewhere. When is it ever like

9:18

that? When would we ever put up with something

9:20

like that? What we do when it comes to

9:22

the government? And this idea is part

9:24

of the core of anarcho-capitalism as a potential

9:26

solution. They'd say that maybe

9:28

not all hierarchies are a bad thing. Maybe

9:31

there are definitely hierarchies that are bad,

9:34

like the involuntary monopolistic control of the

9:36

government for sure. But is

9:38

it just stupid to not consider that

9:40

we have other hierarchies that are not

9:42

monopolies that are entirely voluntary for people

9:44

to participate in? Things like capitalism. And

9:47

wouldn't it just be stupid to throw all that out? Here's

9:49

what we can be certain of. There was no

9:51

service out there that has a monopoly at the

9:53

head of it that is better off for the

9:55

customer than something without a monopoly. So

9:58

this is why the services the government has... a

10:00

monopoly on providing are never really done

10:02

that well. As Michael Malice puts

10:04

it, this is why the police can shoot

10:06

somebody in the streets and the penalty

10:08

is just to get a leave of absence and a pension.

10:11

This is why you see people high up in

10:13

politics and the law just doesn't apply to

10:15

them in the same way it does for people like you and

10:17

me. Celebrities can literally kill

10:19

a person, face very little consequences. Look at

10:22

the geopolitical decisions that are made with everyone's

10:24

lives hanging in the balance. To

10:26

an anarcho-capitalist like David Friedman, the

10:28

politicians that are suggesting these solutions

10:30

to supposedly fix our social problems.

10:33

These are people who are entrenched in

10:35

a system that has horrible incentive structures.

10:38

Think of what it's like to be a politician oftentimes. There's

10:40

some problem that faces us socially. We want to find a

10:42

way to fix it. And the politicians

10:44

who make the decisions can suggest anything

10:46

they want. It costs them

10:49

literally nothing to suggest anything actually. They'll

10:51

just spend a hundred billion dollars and

10:53

build a sanctuary for koalas. That seems

10:55

like it might work. And

10:58

then after their brilliant suggestions on the other side of

11:00

it, when people are dealing with the backlash of whatever

11:02

policy it was they put in place, these

11:04

politicians often live far away from their constituencies

11:06

in some gated community where they don't bear

11:09

any of the costs of the bad policy

11:11

they supported. In other words,

11:13

to David Friedman, these people have no skin

11:15

in the game. And the result for us

11:17

as citizens is that things get done that are usually

11:19

not as good as they could be. The

11:22

government is the problem here. In

11:25

an anarcho-capitalist society based around free markets

11:27

without the government. To suggest

11:29

something as a potential solution to a problem

11:31

people are facing, like a koala sanctuary, that

11:34

takes an initial investment by the person that's

11:36

suggesting it. More than that, if

11:38

their product or service fails to meet the needs of

11:40

the consumers, or the koalas, they

11:42

bear the negative cost of that failed

11:45

investment, not the taxpayer. People

11:47

can talk about the woes of capitalism and what

11:49

often happens in our current systems. But

11:52

to an anarcho-capitalist, what we have

11:54

is not capitalism, but crony

11:56

capitalism. governments

12:00

embedded in free markets to the extent that they're no

12:02

longer free. Subsidies and bailouts

12:04

for certain companies over others. Not

12:07

regulating certain companies the same way we

12:09

regulate other companies. Contracts and licenses exclusively

12:11

given to a certain company that just

12:13

has a better lobby. But when

12:15

you let the free market truly be free,

12:18

it has a very beautiful sort of

12:20

self-correcting mechanism built into it that's driven

12:22

by human behavior. Because when

12:25

consumers engage in totally voluntary exchanges with each

12:27

other, when two people agree to trade this

12:29

good or service for that amount of money,

12:32

that's not just a trade that's going on.

12:34

To an anarcho-capitalist, that is more

12:37

deeply a manifestation of individual preferences

12:39

and consent. It is a statement

12:41

about what people subjectively value in

12:43

a society. And from that

12:45

information and through many of these voluntary transactions,

12:47

it not only becomes a signal we can

12:49

read for how to efficiently allocate economic resources

12:51

without central planning. You know, we don't need

12:53

a team of people planning out what our

12:56

society should look like. On the contrary, human

12:58

behavior will show us what society is. Not

13:01

only that, but this spontaneous order

13:03

that emerges out of a bunch of

13:05

different voluntary exchanges between people, this

13:08

can produce a natural decentralization

13:10

of power to an anarcho-capitalist.

13:12

When a company produces a good or service, trying to

13:15

meet the needs of the citizens, and then that company

13:17

does a bad job at doing it. Unlike

13:19

when we rely on the monopoly of the government

13:22

and there's no choice in the matter, people in

13:24

an anarcho-capitalist society can just choose to not do

13:26

business with them anymore. Then the companies

13:28

that are actually meeting the demands of the citizens

13:30

will be the ones that people naturally buy from.

13:33

So to an anarcho-capitalist, in a truly

13:35

free market, what would emerge is

13:37

not a centralization of power, but a lot

13:39

of different parties holding power that's more spread

13:41

out because a lot of different consumer choices

13:43

would be being made. And

13:46

just so we don't kind of interrupt the show at

13:48

any point beyond this, I want to thank everybody that

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back to the podcast. Now combine

16:43

this vision of there being no need for

16:45

economic central planning with a world where basic

16:47

services like the police are provided by private

16:49

companies as well. It may seem

16:51

a little strange to imagine at first but it's actually not that

16:54

far from what's already being done. Michael

16:56

Malice gives an example. He says imagine a bar

16:58

late at night. Can a bar

17:00

really rely on the monopoly security service

17:02

provided by the government to resolve every

17:05

conflict that may come up? No.

17:08

No. So what do they do? They hire private

17:10

security and the result of that

17:12

is that everyone around that security is safer

17:14

for it. That bar late at night becomes

17:16

ironically a safer place for you to be

17:19

than something like a public park late at

17:21

night that it's the government's job to police.

17:24

So far from it being chaos, an

17:26

anarcho-capitalist society could have an abundance of

17:28

security. A constant overlap of one security

17:30

detail over another. We could handle disputes

17:32

between people the same way we already

17:35

handle most disputes we have between each

17:37

other in our private lives. That is

17:39

privately without the government being involved. Now

17:42

a natural question that comes up here is

17:45

what happens when my security guard and

17:47

your security guard don't agree on how

17:50

we should be securing things? Do

17:52

they rock paper scissors? Do they both pepper

17:54

spray each other at the exact same time? Well

17:57

no. Because this entire anarcho-capitalist

18:00

society that I'm suggesting is founded upon an

18:02

ethical principle first devised in this way by

18:04

the philosopher Murray Rothbard, what's

18:06

known as the non-aggression principle. Murray

18:09

Rothbard would want to stress that any organization

18:11

in this type of society would need to

18:13

be founded on a principle of non-aggression where

18:15

each person, understanding how important it is

18:18

to respect the natural rights and property rights of

18:20

others, understanding that that's what allows for

18:22

society to be able to function at all, in

18:25

this world the vast majority of

18:27

people would agree that initiating force

18:29

against others is inherently wrong, that

18:31

you can argue with people, you can

18:34

completely disagree with how they live their life,

18:36

you can hire private arbitration companies to

18:38

mediate a dispute between you and them,

18:40

but there should never be a situation

18:43

where initiating force against someone else or

18:45

their property is seen as the correct

18:47

course of action, and this obviously

18:49

comes with everybody else having that same respect for you.

18:52

But hold on a second, I got a stupid question.

18:55

What if people just say no? What

18:57

if people just don't believe in this

19:00

non-aggression principle here? See it's very fascinating

19:02

Murray Rothbard, but I too have a

19:04

principle, it's my own principle I

19:06

just came up with, it's called the aggression principle.

19:08

My principles, I just take your stuff and

19:11

I beat you senseless in front of your family if you try

19:13

to stop me. What happens when 10% of

19:16

society doesn't believe in the non-aggression principle? Well

19:19

there's answers to all these questions, much like we've

19:21

seen anarchist answers in the last three episodes of

19:23

the show. The bottom line is

19:25

it takes imagining a world that's structured in

19:27

a very different way than our present world

19:29

currently is. For example when it comes

19:31

to people not going along with the non-aggression principle, I mean

19:34

you can imagine the anarchist communities emerging of

19:36

like-minded people we've been talking about. Well

19:38

if there's someone that doesn't respect the rights of

19:40

others, they're not exactly going to be accepted into

19:43

one of these communities of people that believe in

19:45

non-aggression, and if they were to

19:47

ever try to disrespect the rights of one of

19:49

those communities, they'd be going up against an entire

19:51

community of people and whatever security measures they decided

19:53

to set up. Anyway, it needs

19:55

to be said here. I personally

19:57

have come across very few serious

20:00

and anarcho-capitalists that talk about this hypothetical world

20:02

as though it's obvious we should be doing this

20:04

and that the path to get there is simple.

20:06

Nobody talks that way. They all pretty much acknowledge

20:09

that this transition is going to be a tricky

20:11

one, that nobody has all the answers, and

20:13

that like anarcho-communism, it ultimately is going to require

20:15

a pretty substantial shift in the values of the

20:17

average person than what we have today. But

20:20

then although, the world certainly wouldn't be a

20:22

problem-free place on the other side of these

20:25

changes, to an anarcho-capitalist, the incentive for considering

20:27

these ideas is just too great to ignore.

20:30

That said, what would an anarcho-communist have to

20:32

say about this whole strategy? Why do

20:34

they see anarcho-capitalists as fake anarchists, to

20:37

the point that some people say that

20:39

the entire movement of ANCAP, as it's

20:41

called, uses anarchism in its

20:43

name to deliberately obscure the strength of

20:45

anarchism as a movement more broadly? Well,

20:48

the reason ANCAPs are not real anarchists is because

20:50

through a lot of anarchists out there, the entire

20:52

point of anarchism is to remove forced

20:54

hierarchical authorities from the way a society

20:56

is organized. And to the ANCAP's point,

20:59

there certainly are hierarchies out there that are

21:01

pretty harmless. The ranking of sports teams comes

21:03

to mind, rankings in games

21:06

that people play. Like when someone says,

21:08

you know, I'm a level 37, woodsy,

21:10

vegan, blood elf, emotionally conflicted

21:13

in this board game that I'm playing. There's

21:15

places where this stuff doesn't hurt anyone. But

21:18

to an anarcho-communist, the hierarchies of capitalism

21:20

is not one of those places. An

21:22

anarcho-capitalist can talk all they want about

21:25

how capitalism is voluntary. How if you

21:27

don't like it, simple, just don't participate.

21:30

That's a little bit like saying if you go to prison for

21:32

40 years, you don't have to join

21:34

a gang. Just stand by your morals and deal

21:36

with the consequences of that. To

21:38

say that capitalism is voluntary is to ignore

21:40

the reality of what it is to be

21:43

in a capitalist system. You know, take the

21:45

popular conservative intellectual position where you're a fan

21:47

of capitalism, and you say that capitalism is

21:49

actually a brilliant way to set things up

21:52

because it's essentially forced morality. The

21:54

thinking is, look, we're trying to manage a society

21:56

here, and there's no guarantee that anybody gets off

21:58

the couch and does anything to get contribute to

22:00

this whole operation. So what capitalism

22:02

does is it forces people to either find some

22:04

way to contribute, a good or service that other

22:06

people want, or else you starve

22:09

to death. They'll say this is a good thing.

22:11

This is a way to get people doing the things we need

22:13

people to do. Now, an

22:15

anarchist would obviously see that as coercive and not

22:17

how society should be set up. But

22:19

they would no doubt agree with the idea that the

22:22

choice people really have is either to participate in the

22:24

capitalist system or starve to death. But

22:26

that's not really a choice, they would say. This

22:29

whole idea that this is all voluntary, so it's not really

22:31

a hierarchy we've got to worry about, it's

22:33

just inaccurate. Another problem anarcho-communists

22:36

are going to have with all this

22:38

is that capitalism is not, in fact,

22:40

a system that naturally gravitates towards a

22:42

decentralization of power. The entire

22:44

thing, they'd say, is built around an imbalance of

22:46

power. You have a small handful of people who

22:48

control the means of production and private property. And

22:51

then the rest of society who works for them

22:53

creates a surplus of value with their labor that

22:55

the capitalist then takes and justifies it as their

22:57

payment for taking all that risk to own the

22:59

means of production. But then consider

23:01

what always seems to happen. That wealth is

23:04

then used to acquire more wealth. Nothing

23:06

wrong with that. And then that

23:08

wealth is used to further dominate the market

23:10

that the company's currently competing in, squeezing out

23:13

their competitors. This is what happens in a

23:15

competitive system like capitalism. And then

23:17

just keep following this domino effect into

23:19

the future far enough until you arrive

23:21

at the reality of companies then using

23:23

their market dominance and abundance of resources

23:25

to use media to influence consumer decisions.

23:28

What companies usually do when they advertise. Again,

23:31

the capitalists can say all they want that

23:33

the market is self-correcting. That when

23:35

there's a bad company, people can just go shop

23:37

somewhere else. But what happens when

23:40

we have something like what the media has

23:42

become in today's world, where it's grown into

23:44

something so powerful that it's capable of shaping

23:46

the very preferences and perceptions of the people

23:48

that are making these consumer choices? Is

23:51

that liberty? Is that a free

23:53

market where consumer choices are going to self-correct and

23:55

guide us in the right direction? I

23:57

mean, right now, if you just look at the media and

23:59

what it is, there are just a few

24:01

massive corporations that control most of the media

24:04

that people consume. Now, consider that

24:06

for a second. If there was that

24:08

much centralized control over the media in some other

24:10

way, say it was controlled by the government, we'd

24:12

just call that a ministry of propaganda. But

24:15

under capitalism, it's just called good business.

24:18

See, that's maybe the more general critique here

24:21

from the anarcho-communist to an anarcho-capitalist, that

24:23

the anarcho-capitalist has focused so hard on how

24:25

dangerous the government is as a hierarchy, that

24:28

they practically ignored all the other glaring examples of

24:30

hierarchies that are staring them in the face that

24:32

are most of the time more dangerous than the

24:34

government. So many things we've mentioned

24:37

on recent episodes since we've been covering modern-day philosophy.

24:39

An anarchist that's truly committed to finding these in

24:41

the world around them doesn't have to look too

24:43

far. What are the things that

24:45

really have control over people's lives? Is it

24:47

the government? Well, yes, to

24:49

an extent. And corporations like we're

24:51

talking about for sure. They're often

24:54

so powerful that they control the government just

24:56

through successful lobbying. How about

24:58

financial institutions in particular? How much power do

25:00

they have when it comes to determining what's

25:02

possible? Again, how about the media?

25:05

Is that something with a level of power we have to

25:07

worry about? Media has the

25:09

power to control someone's entire worldview. It not only

25:11

gives them the information they use to construct a

25:13

worldview, but then it also gives them the opinions

25:15

they're supposed to have about it. How about

25:18

technology, our digital panopticon, and its increasing

25:20

ability to lock people in little algorithmic

25:22

cells that they can't see out of?

25:24

Or text ability to run surveillance and keep a record

25:27

on practically everything that you do? How

25:29

about our schools and universities that control what

25:31

type of bias is going to be academically

25:34

endorsed on this particular decade? The

25:36

same universities that control who gets tenure, who will be

25:38

a thought leader in the coming years for us to

25:40

look to for guidance? How

25:42

about religions or ideologies? Or how about examples

25:44

of power that's held over people simply because

25:46

of their group identity? See, we're

25:48

not living in a world where government's the only form

25:50

of power we have to worry about. In

25:53

fact, you could say that a necessary skill for

25:55

survival in our modern world is being able to

25:57

pay attention to all these different mechanisms of control

26:00

as though they're predators. Noam

26:02

Chomsky says that what an anarcho-capitalist is

26:04

truly advocating, though they often don't even

26:06

realize it, is what will eventually become

26:09

a pure corporate tyranny. It's

26:11

funny because it's based on good intentions, as he

26:13

says, and caps say that freedom is essentially

26:16

people being able to do whatever they want.

26:18

But their mistake, he thinks, is that they're

26:20

not fully playing out the consequences of what

26:22

they're suggesting. He thinks what we're going to

26:24

end up with are companies that have security

26:26

services, quote unquote, that have transformed into armies,

26:28

that we'd have domination over media and corporate

26:30

monopolies and technology, and we'd have these going

26:32

on in a new world where we'd no

26:34

longer have a government to be able to

26:36

protect us from them. See,

26:38

this is why someone like Chomsky advocates for

26:41

using the power of government that we still

26:43

have to regulate these other forms of power.

26:45

Let's use government to regulate technology, media, financial

26:47

institutions, economic policy, and then once we get

26:50

these things under control, then we can start

26:52

having the bigger conversations about getting rid of

26:54

the government and organizing things in a more

26:56

bottom-up way. And that all sounds

26:59

really great in theory. You know, sometimes

27:01

you need power to take out a more dangerous form

27:03

of power, but to a lot

27:05

of anarchists, including Chomsky, that solution's built with

27:07

a bunch of potential problems as well. Take,

27:09

for example, the reality of how

27:12

regulation currently fails in today's world.

27:14

Governments already try to regulate companies,

27:16

but it's not a coincidence that a lot

27:18

of people in high-ranking government positions used to

27:21

have high-ranking positions in companies. It's

27:23

not a coincidence that K Street and lobbyists are

27:25

a thing. It's not a coincidence

27:27

that regulatory capture is something that commonly goes

27:29

on, and so at the very least, this

27:31

is all much easier said than done. But

27:34

then if we can't rely on the government as a tool to

27:36

bring this stuff about, what should we

27:38

be doing? It could be tempting to think

27:40

that if companies are so powerful, should

27:42

we all just start a company, become a

27:44

billionaire, buy a social media platform, and

27:46

start spreading the gospel to people? Well,

27:49

that's one way, I guess. But how about for the rest of

27:51

us that can't do that? I mean,

27:53

anarchists throughout this series so far have certainly

27:55

provided a lot of reasonable alternatives to most

27:57

of these powerful institutions in society. For

28:00

example, instead of companies, they might suggest worker

28:02

co-ops. Instead of central banking,

28:04

they might support community lending. Instead of

28:06

universities, they might support alternative schooling or

28:09

unschooling. And the list goes on. But

28:11

as we've said before, to get to the

28:13

world where these sorts of anarchist alternatives can

28:15

even work, it's going to

28:18

require different values and different social norms

28:20

than we currently have. And it

28:22

can seem to some people on the outside listening

28:24

in to these sorts of conversations that to even

28:26

talk about this hypothetical world of solutions without first

28:28

talking about how we're actually going to change people's

28:31

values. It can come off

28:33

to some people as disingenuous, self-indulgent.

28:35

Like some anarchists are not concerned with the real world

28:38

as it is. They're just interested

28:40

in having an overly intellectual discussion that should

28:42

only go on in an academic seminar, as

28:44

Chomsky says. But if you're

28:46

somebody looking at the state of the world, you want

28:48

greater levels of liberty, equality, and solidarity, there's a point

28:50

in these discussions where you've got to start talking about

28:52

the real, actionable things that people can do if they

28:55

want to be on the right side of that change.

28:57

And what you'll often hear from the reasonable people on

29:00

this side that aren't talking about a violent revolution is

29:02

the same sort of starting small conversation that

29:04

we already addressed on the Bookchin episode. That

29:07

if you want to change people's values, start

29:09

small. Start by just supporting critical

29:12

thinking. Support after-school programs and

29:14

communities that try to foster critical thinking.

29:17

Support any individual person you come across

29:19

that genuinely wants to learn more about

29:21

these social issues. Support anyone

29:23

that genuinely wants to develop more empathy for

29:25

the perspective of the other. Support

29:27

any program that tries to make it a priority

29:29

to care more about your fellow human beings around

29:31

you than they do about someone salsa dancing with

29:34

their dog in a TikTok video. And

29:36

I get it. I know all this can

29:38

sound like I'm youth pastor Steve right now. Oh,

29:40

wow, we're going to change the world one little

29:43

smile at a time, aren't we, guys? I

29:45

get it. And on that note, there's of

29:47

course a much more cynical line someone could take

29:49

with all this discussion. You know,

29:51

something an optimistic philosophy podcast like this may

29:54

have never even considered before. What if

29:57

it's too late? What if the

29:59

society we're talking about? about with all of its

30:01

entrenched power structures and corruption. What

30:03

if it's too far gone to save? What

30:06

if all these tactics to change the values of

30:08

people are really just the death

30:10

throes of a desperate person who wants to

30:12

help so bad, but sadly is just wasting

30:14

their time because no matter how much effort

30:16

they ever put into it, people

30:18

are just going to keep doing what they do. They're

30:20

going to keep getting their spray tents. They're going to

30:22

keep buying their butt implants. They're going

30:24

to keep buying their shiny watches and shoes and

30:26

that this is what's going to matter to people

30:28

until the entire ship finishes sinking and then everything

30:30

gets a reset. You could think that way and

30:33

you certainly wouldn't be the first person to become cynical

30:35

about the way the world is and then give up,

30:38

but cynicism is a

30:40

drug. It numbs you to the

30:43

pain that's going on around you. It

30:45

enables you to look at things you care about that keep

30:47

getting you to feel a certain way when you see them

30:49

and just put them off until tomorrow and then

30:52

tomorrow again. It's

30:54

a lot like other drugs where whenever you indulge in it a

30:56

bit too much, you can start to blame

30:58

everyone else for the reasons why you're using it. Ironically,

31:01

what some people from the outside may

31:04

see as an anarchist delusion, that

31:06

all we need for the world to change is for

31:08

everyone's values to change. Yeah. And

31:10

how some people might see that as avoiding the real question.

31:13

There's another way to interpret that whole line of thinking, which

31:16

is that the individual values that people hold,

31:18

at least where we are now, they

31:20

still do have a lot of power in

31:22

determining how the world takes shape, which

31:25

means your values and choices matter. Again,

31:28

you can be cynical about whether most people are going

31:30

to get there, but the fact is you still exist

31:32

in a world where you're making consumer choices that matter.

31:35

You are supporting certain causes over others.

31:37

You are investing your time. And

31:40

even if it's through a refusal to consciously

31:42

support anything, you still end up supporting something.

31:45

And look, history is filled with examples of

31:47

things that started as small grassroots movements,

31:49

things that had failed before many times

31:51

in the past. But then when

31:53

the right sequence of events took place, people took

31:56

small steps that collectively made a difference and people

31:58

were left with greater levels of liberty. equality

32:00

and solidarity on the other side of it. So

32:03

forget about anarchism for a second. Most people

32:05

want greater levels of liberty, equality, and solidarity

32:07

for people, whatever that means to them. And

32:10

most people would agree, anarchist or not, that

32:12

if we're imagining the world with the most

32:14

liberty, equality, and solidarity that makes sense, that

32:17

this world ain't it. See, the

32:19

fact is both of these things could be true at

32:21

once. It could be true that society

32:23

is past the point of no return, and it could

32:25

be true at the same time that there are tons

32:28

of examples from history where small movements catch fire and

32:30

end up doing a lot of good. The

32:32

question that matters if you're a person living through your

32:34

daily life is what sort of life do

32:36

you want to live? Do you want to

32:39

live a life of cynicism with no responsibility?

32:41

Which can sound pretty good, honestly. Or

32:44

if the ship that you're on is sinking, would

32:46

you rather go out while at least putting up a fight?

32:49

And when it comes to contemporary philosophy, the conversation

32:51

is going on right now, this

32:54

is one lens you can start to understand it

32:56

all through. You can take what may at first

32:58

seem like a ton of different very fragmented goals

33:00

that all these philosophers have, and

33:02

you can understand them all as different

33:05

attempts to address these non-governmental power structures

33:07

so that the world may have even

33:09

a little more liberty, equality, and solidarity.

33:12

These are all people that are unified in the sense

33:14

that they've decided that they're not going down without a

33:16

fight. Take thinkers like Martha

33:18

Nussbaum or Michael Sandel with

33:20

their focus on civic ethics and political

33:22

participation and liberty. Take

33:25

thinkers like Cornel West or Naomi

33:27

Klein focusing on intersectionality, bringing solidarity

33:29

to a bunch of different groups

33:31

that want greater social representation, groups

33:34

in the past that have seen their causes

33:36

as entirely separate. Take a thinker

33:38

like Judith Butler, the way she's supporting critical thinking,

33:40

as per our examples from before. And

33:43

I guess finally, take another person

33:45

who's supporting the cause of thinking critically about

33:48

the ideologies that determine people's thinking. He's a

33:50

man that many of you have no doubt

33:52

heard of before. He's a bit

33:54

of a character in the best way possible. And

33:57

while in the coming months on this podcast we're gonna talk about all

33:59

these different thinkers we've seen. just mentioned. The one we're going

34:01

to talk about next is Slavoj

34:03

Žižek. And as it turns out, I

34:06

recently heard from his people in my emails, and

34:09

they told me that he'd be available for an interview

34:11

if that's something that the listeners of the show would

34:13

want. So let me know either way. Thank

34:16

you for listening. Talk to you next time.