Capitalism, coercion, and slavery

Bi0Hazard: Politics can be any exercise of power within an organization, including but not limited to a government. Boardrooms are some of the most political places on earth.

admin: Yeah, since organizations are governments. However, if they can use coercion, how close does that make them to a state?

Bi0Hazard: Pretty darn close if you ask me.

admin: So, then "anarcho-capitalism" is an oxymoron since capitalism is statist (has rulers)?

Bi0Hazard: Well it's a different kind of politic. Less centralized, at least in theory.

admin: That being said I can see where you're coming from.

admin: Another question: What do you believe the human relationship to capital tends to be, more socialistic (common/collective ownership for the means of producing) or individualistic (keeping things to themselves, as if private property is a natural tendency)?
Another way to ask it is, does private property exist because a state enforces it with coercion or is that just the natural way of organization when humans interact?

Bi0Hazard: The state doesn't enforce it per say, culture enforces it. Our understanding of ownership and property is culturally relative - some cultures are strongly one or the other. I don't really think humans have any natural tendency towards public or private ownership.

Bi0Hazard: Capitalism is not statist. Ayn Rand coined the term statism,

The political expression of altruism is collectivism or statism, which holds that man’s life and work belong to the state—to society, to the group, the gang, the race, the nation—and that the state may dispose of him in any way it pleases for the sake of whatever it deems to be its own tribal, collective good.

Actually, it is anarchism that reduces to statism. In anarchism, a mafia will eventually control everything.

And yes, "anarcho-capitalism" is an oxymoron, but not for the reason you think. Capitalismrequires a legal system as a prerequisite to free market. Anarchism denies this.

boris7698: If a state enforces property rights and the organizations can coerce, than I would think that is pretty close to statism.
If capitalism requires a legal system as a prerequisite, than that means capitalism requires coercion to exist. This is true since the state by its very nature is a coercive institution.
Capitalism in general, if allowed to work, results in the top controlling the means of production. Organizations can use coercion by means of money, barriers, private ownership, and class. State law isn't required to coerce a person.

Also, you are wrong about anarchism inevitably leading to a "mafia" controlling everything. There is also form of societal organization to think about.

boris7698: FYI - the term "statism" precedes Rand by a century ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statism )

I didn't know this, thanks. But Ayn Rand's "statism" has a different definition, than the prior definition. Ayn Rand's definition makes "statism of capitalism" an oxymoron.

boris7698: That depends on what constitutes a state and control.