Malicious Faux-Individualism and Market Anti-Capitalism

Shane Ross | @taocuck | November 22nd, 2021

There is an odd side to the American Dream. One deemed worthless long ago, by the
Soviets, by the Maoists, by the BPP. There exists a culture of greed. Though most
people lack an in-depth understanding of economic terms of the eighteenth century, a lot
of young people are coming to grow issues with the system we call “capitalism.”

Capitalism is, according to some of the Marxists on twitter, the private ownership of the
means of production. Of course, analyzing capitalism beyond the lens of pure material
trade is both an absolute necessity and somewhat lackluster in anti-capitalist groups,
though I have begun to see Deleuzian or Debordian criticisms slip their way into the
spaces “leftist” youth tend to occupy. We may begin to define capitalism as a process of
alienation, not just from the means of your labor, but from your existence. We may call
capitalism fascism, or a mass scale disaster that reduces relationships to mere sign.

I retain that the great anti-capitalist philosophers need to be analyzed through several
lenses in order to gain a deeper understanding. Beyond orthodox marxism, beyond
traditional revolution, and beyond traditional critique, as capitalism continues to evolve,
our approaches should as well.

In order to make a good critique of capitalism, we should at least attempt to

conceptualize it. Vague terms like markets, individualism, libertarianism, darwinism,
and private property help allude to capitalism, but as a concept it’s history is a tad more
convoluted.

A French politician named Louis Blanc invented the term to describe individual
ownership of the means of production. It says that those places which produce
commodities are privately owned. This gives us an idea that capitalism requires
privatization, and thus the idea of privatization became intertwined with the term
“capital.” But what is privatization?

“Privatization” gives us a certain understanding of a thing being owned by a specific

person. I think a usable definition for privatization would essentially be individual
ownership, rather than collective ownership. Now, some leftists clearly advocate for
collective ownership, while some others advocate for the “abolition of ownership.”
Ownership is quite the interesting concept, and although the law currently dictates what
is owned, it does this via a monopolization on use of force.

For example: If there exists an empty apartment, one owned by some billionaire that
nobody is staying in, and you’re homeless and in debt, and try to live there, the thing
stopping you are the legal consequences. I.e. forceful removal and likely imprisonment
or robbery. If you refuse these punishments, more force will be used. The thing that
keeps the current order of ownership is infact a state monopoly on violence that haunts
the decisions we make as it looms in the back of our minds reminding us what is
permitted. Panopticon means that the state need not institute mind police. It’s much
more efficient for them to get you to do it for them.

However, I am not one that claims ownership does not exist beyond the state’s
existence. The entire point of this “bodily autonomy” we fight so truly for in anarchist
circles is rooted in the idea that we dictate our existences, and we extend the same
privilege to others. This is interpreted by many market anarchists who see bodies as an
extension of property as the idea that you “own yourself,” which sounds weird, but is an
interesting idea.

Anyhow, regardless of the state’s existence, humans always have and always will
possess things. Unoccupied things that somebody uses as a basic part of their life are
generally considered their “possessions.” If we are to understand that people’s bodily
autonomy matters because they have a right to dictate their lives, we should understand
that people’s basic necessities, living quarters etc. should be treated with respect. A
respect not necessarily of legal ownership, but of a looser sort. Occupancy. Possession.
To us, property is not a lease. Rather, ownership lies in labor exertion, in use. Scarcity
exists, and if anarchy is collective liberty, every individual continues to engage freely
and voluntarily to bring about anarchy.

The idea that ownership does not exist at all is not applicable in the real world and
completely abandons any usable basis for human trade. However, the idea of ownership
resides in occupation, gets rid of land monopolies and rent prices, and allows people to
have genuine trading opportunities.

In essence, privatization as a form of ownership isn’t bad. Really, if we contrast

privatization with communization, i.e. the community (in our existing society, the state,)
taking ownership of something, it is the collective owner that maintains violence. True
and infinite privatization means no more rent. Infinite privatization means loose
possession.

You could retaliate that a collective could exist in a non-statist form, but generally
mutualists would respond that these sort of collective systems of ownership will never
account for property disagreements and will inevitably result in conflict of use, as well
as being an inefficient model for decision making and easily leading to systems of
domination.

The other thing we see intertwined with capitalism is the concept of markets. Money.
Commodities. Corporations.

Markets. Quite the intriguing concept. Controversial perhaps, in certain online spaces. I
think the vague societal idea of the market just tends to be a means of exchange
moderated by cold, hard, cash. However, as the internet changes the concept of money,
and as anti-authoritarian theories present brand new ways to run a market, it is time we
ask what a better definition may be.

Markets, at their root, are many moments of reciprocal exchange. A market, truly, is not
one system, at least not initially. It is a term that comes to describe the rapid and
constant shifts and transactions within a given economy. The issue within our “market”
is not that it’s too free. Rather, it has lost its freedom. The patent laws maintained by the
state make it possible to monopolize. The deals between corporations and the
government allow tech-billionaires to continue to exploit the working class. The money
monopoly maintained by the government allows it to control it’s every use and purpose.
It’s violence maintains land ownership (rent), and discourages squatting.
However, in a truly free market, with systems of decentralized, loose exchange, every
“worker” is a completely self automated contractor (as work revolutionizes its purpose
with time.) How would work do this? The lack of authority in a market doesn’t just
eliminate bosses, it allows for genuine economic calculation to make it so that the only
“work” being done is that which is either necessary or desired. The social function of
work has changed.

This is a model of work where we both get to allow our desires to take control whilst
also disengaging the central beast. There is a system that looms over us. It is not just the
government. It is not just markets. It is how the state has corrupted violence to
economically fascistic levels of control. That is capitalism. When we see capitalism for
what it is, marketists couldn’t be any bigger of it’s enemies.

As for work abolitionists, mutualists respond that this form of work without bosses,
expensive schooling, single career paths, and pointless desk labor is not truly “work” at
all. In a market that is free, you do not “work for someone.” You live your life, and you
can make money doing tasks and exchange that money freely with others. There is no
reason people couldn’t set up individual communes, steal, use from charities, etc.
Simply put, in a “post-left-anarchist” or communist society, work would look about the
same as under the freed market. Doing tasks you feel like doing and getting something
for it.

Now for the fun part. I’ve attacked capitalism as this looming collectivist beast, so how
did it get to be equated with individualism? As the state was able to maintain absolute
control over our economy, it was also diplomatically and economically profiting off of
this idea of an American dream. This was an odd individualist myth, but it served a
purpose. This idea that you could do anything you wanted helped to sell the idea that
these mega billionaires were just lucky, when in reality most of them were born into
situations of power. It sells this idea that the landlord that actively exploits your living
situation for cash is just like you. It allows the state to justify a huge military and armed
police force and claim itself to be a free country (if such a thing existed.)

The critiques we see thrown at the free market often mention nineteenth century
America, an era characterized by massive corporate industry and state control over
economic power and development. It was just less obvious. The capitalist market has
never been free. For capitalism to operate as we see it, it necessitates a system of statist
control. Capitalism requires that the state’s monopoly on violence be maintained.

Now people on the left tend to equate this flawed American economy with markets and
individualism, which shifts the focus of anti-capitalism towards pro-governmental
stances. Of course, as we have explored, the government just so happens to be the root
of capitalism. But what use can we get from this idea of anti-capitalist individualism?

Collective anti-capitalism tends to emphasize the idea of a revolution. A collective

enlightenment event in which the masses wake up and overthrow the capitalist
enterprise. The next step depends on who you ask. However, this hopeless myth of
group enlightenment does little but keep people disillusioned. On the other hand, agorist
economic strategy emphasizes free trade in a government denying sense, both for the
benefit of yourself and your peers and without supporting the state.
Sneaking illegal immigrants across the border, selling drugs, sex work, distributing
weapons, tax evasion and any number of other actions could all fall under this label. At
the end of the day, we seek to emphasize a resistance that you can do to make your life
easier, and to drive authority out of your life and the lives of those around you. Mutual
aid, reciprocity, respect, these principles allow us to cultivate a culture of creative
destruction. Tearing down forces of oppression whilst simultaneously building up
decentralized networks and communities of support and care. Co-ops, protest groups
and more.

But how is money not bad? Isn’t that what causes all this greed in the first place? How
will you operate money without a state?

The concept of money as slips of paper printed by the government becomes less
relevant every day. The emergence of cryptocurrency as an easy way to manage illegal
exchange (which has helped to deliver hormones to trans people who cannot access it
legally) creates an open space for agorist action. As money becomes more digitized, and
as government/monopoly interest is abstracted from currency, it becomes less of a
driver of power and more simply a means of economic calculation/exchange. Although
trade is possible without currency, the supply and demand calculated even by a
computer can never come close to the accuracy and speed at which a market regulates
itself via currency as to what is necessary and what isn’t.

The profit motive assures “greed” in a sense, but this is an individualist “greed” and a
form of greed that inevitably helps others through the creation of wealth in a free
market. The difference is we change this notion of prosperity at the cost of others to a
market where trading is for mutual benefit, reciprocal and free. To a world where
workers don’t have bosses, only equal contracts. To a world where mutual aid is seen as
a market force.

My goal with this is not to pass it off as if I am a pioneer of some new school of
thought. In fact, some might consider it the first school of anti-capitalist thought.
However, I am trying to bring attention to the fact that we are not limited to the options
of complacency to capital or complacency to state. Our resistance must revolve around
free, dynamic and individual imagination. This is how we repel the collective machine.
Do not simply reject the government. Become ungovernable.