this post was submitted on 09 Aug 2024
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anarcho-capitalism is actually corporate fascism
A bit debatable on the individual level but that’s likely what it would lead to. Some ancaps are weirdly anti-corporate though. They think somehow big powerful corporations were created by the state. Which is true in some cases but clearly not in others.
All corporations are created by the state. Corporations only exist because of the laws that create them. Without that special legal status it’s pretty much impossible to grow to the sizes most corporations do.
The same is true for private-property and capitalism in general, which is why "anarcho-capitalism" is so absurd.
I wholeheartedly agree!
I’m not sure I fully agree… some corporate entities are large enough to be self reinforcing. In practice they may end up recreating the state, but I don’t think it’s necessary impossible for large corporate structures to emerge in a stateless society. Of course, the nature of the stateless society is a very important variable here. A society that is hostile to accumulated wealth and social domination would make this much more difficult.
A corporation is a legal construct. While it’s theoretically possible for a single business to grow very large, most of the exploitation and legal cover provided by the simple act of incorporation becomes nearly impossible.
Plus without a state to push down competition, it becomes a lot harder to monopolize a market. Ideally there wouldn’t even be a market to monopolize, but that’s a different discussion altogether.
Incorporation is just a formality required by law. Corporations could still exist through internal cooperation without that, as long as there is no outside force that disrupts them.
In the absence of the state, a corporate structure can pursue its own coercive methods to maintain market dominance. And of course, some markets are naturally prone to monopoly due to the barriers to competition.
Anything the state can do, a large enough corporation can do as well. So this logic just doesn’t add up.
But without a state above them to reinforce laws the corporation would have to enforce them. So they don't have to follow their own laws, and thus become something else. More like a warband of kingdom or junta.
What do you think is the quality that would make such an organization still be a "corporation"?
You could argue at some point it wouldn’t be one anymore but what I’m saying is that nothing in this process of gaining power requires a state.
In a functional and lasting anarchist society, there would need to be norms and systems in place to stop this kind of authoritarianism from cropping up.
What you're talking about sounds like collectivism. I think it's a good thing. It requires humans or other actual people to have interests that they collectively look out for.
Corporations are a different thing. They continue to exist and act as though they have interests, even if those interests are not shared by any living person. They are essentially immortal AIs that have been subjected to evolutionary pressures for centuries. But that requires a state, I'm pretty sure.
Are large street gangs (Crips, etc.) not an example of a huge corporation operating outside the benefits of the law?
A corporation by definition benefits from the law.
Corporations are businesses that have been given the the legal rights of a person. As if they had a body. Or corpus, if you will.
Personally, that just feels like semantics to me. They're a structured group of people that exists to generate profit. Whether they technically meet the definition of a corporation doesn't change what they'd be like under anarcho-capitalism.
Yes, shockingly, the definitions of words are semantics!
And to literally ask if something meets a definition then try to dismiss the response as semantic while offering your own incorrect definition is fantastically silly.
Gangs are structured groups of people that exist to generate profit illegally.
Unincorporated businesses are structured groups of people that exist to generate profit legally.
Incorporated businesses are structured groups of people that exist to generate profit legally with the special legal status of personhood.
Part of the point @[email protected] was making is that corporations are nearly identical to other organizations, even illegal ones, except they have a legal status that lets them do far more damage.
No. Not all organizations are corporations.
Same with pirates. They have an internal structure and share profit, but are very illegal.
Sometimes states are created by corporations. Eg, Canada and the Hudson Bay Company
Except that they were literally given a monopoly and funding by the British monarchy:
And the HBC did nothing to induce the state to act in such a way? The King just decided, hey, I like these HBC folks, I'm going to give them an entire nation, because I'm swell.
They had some prominent backers as the article explains, but regardless of that the fact remains that HBC was created by a state with the clear goal to establish a another client state through it (hence the monopoly rights). Britain's rivalries with France probably also played a role as France was the dominant colonial power in that area at the time.
It's just latter-day feudalism. Their program is to Make Landlords Lords Again.