Property

Property rightly understood is an institution that would allow people to make cost/benefit judgments on their own subjective and unique terms. It’s a means of disuniting interests so they can be negotiated rather than asserted. It protects individuals from centralized judgment and universal evaluation.

But the absolutist property rights that we see in Lockean, and especially Neo-Lockean theory have the potential to undermine the entire point of property. Property becomes a value asserted onto others by the privileged. It becomes a means of externalizing costs.

Any meaningful discussion about the merits of property is also an argument for equality of authority and against privilege.
#mutalism

The Paradox

I like doubt, second guessing, and discouraged intellectuals.

Hell, I like hedonists, nihilists, and capitalists because they don’t always pretend to be righteous.

The condemnation of the righteous, the holders of the TRUTH. Well, that shit is what gets under my skin.

But there is the paradox isn’t it? In my irritation with the self-righteous I have become one of them.

So I guess I am just a doubtful, second guessing, discouraged intellectual.

Oppression and Individuality

The problem with most critiques of privilege is that it usually ends up being a bunch of pet projects rather than a critical theory of power relationships and individual relationships to those relationships.

The more we add groups to our pursuit of justice and equality seems to suggest rules of thumb just don’t apply to people and their struggles. Struggles and hardships are unique. This isn’t to suggest that there is no usual generalizations, but rather that generalizations just don’t get to the heart of the matter.

The more we see power relationships not as groups but as unique individuals and their relationships to power the more we should realize that we should embrace reciprocity and all the complexity it involves rather than trying to get people to fit into the groups we have decided are important.

Alienated moralism has no bounds

Thee is no obvious limits to moral assertions that don’t have anything to do with actual living values of individuals. Purity becomes the standard rather than approximation. Because of this alienated moralism gravitates towards fundamentalism.

Concepts and institutions become our masters rather than our tools

Problems with “free from coercion” definition of free market

Now I would consider myself someone who is flexible with definitions, because if you aren’t then your definitions tends to get in the way of actually communicating. Ya know, the only point of establishing definitions to begin with.

So I am not going to say that the current usage of a market place “free from government regulation” or “free from coercion” is a completely useless definition. But I think it is arbitrary and problematic in some ways.

For one thing, the answer of what a free market is depends on what you consider to be legitimate ownership. Property regulates what a market is.

For another thing, privilege in general can have the same economic effect as state intervention. Yet most “free market” advocates seem to be only concerned with the latter. For example we can imagine two scenarios.

 1: A law exists in where women are not allowed to take jobs

 2: A sexist community where no one will hire women. The results are the same. The root cause is the same (power disparities). Yet one is called a free market and the other is not.