#usury quotes

[a-dauntless-daffodil]

Lute: "If your girlfriend isn't a joke then why is she always wearing clown makeup!?"

Vaggie: "BECAUSE SHE FUCKING SPARKS JOY, ASSHOLE!"

Charlie: "Its not make up? My face just always looks like this???"

Vaggie: "And you're always a joy to look at sweetie."

Charlie: "!!! The permanent blush also comes in REALLY useful when my girlfriend says stuff like that!"

Lute: "Boo!"

Lute: (SMACK) (pie to the face)

Emily: "Whoops~"

[eternal-echoes]

There are families in need who cannot work and have nothing to eat. Then along come usurers to take what little they have. Let us #PrayTogether for these families' dignity. And let us pray also for the usurers, that the Lord might touch their hearts and convert them.

Pope Francis

[tenth-sentence]

Specialist moneylenders were always Jewish: a woman's name was as good as that of a man, licensed equally by the church to undertake the so-called sin of usury, offering large credit and international banking businesses.

"Normal Women: 900 Years of Making History" - Philippa Gregory

[poligraf]

The most hated sort, and with the greatest reason, is usury, which makes a gain out of money itself, and not from the natural object of it. For money was intended to be used in exchange, but not to increase at interest. And this term interest, which means the birth of money from money, is applied to the breeding of money because the offspring resembles the parent. Wherefore of all modes of getting wealth this is the most unnatural.

Aristotle

[13thpythagoras]

yoooooooo

If Dems use the bible as justification enough maybe the GOP will stop using it...who the fuck am I kidding

[dailyanarchistposts]

G.3.5 Would individualist anarchists have accepted “Austrian” economics?

One of the great myths perpetrated by “anarcho”-capitalists is the notion that “anarcho”-capitalism is simply individualist anarchism plus “Austrian” economics. Nothing could be further from the truth, as is clear once the individualist anarchist positions on capitalist property rights, exploitation and equality are understood. Combine this with their vision of a free society as well as the social and political environment they were part of and the ridiculous nature of such claims become obvious.

At its most basic, Individualist anarchism was rooted in socialist economic analysis as would be expected of a self-proclaimed socialist theory and movement. The “anarcho”-capitalists, in a roundabout way, recognise this with Rothbard dismissing the economic fallacies of individualist anarchism in favour of “Austrian” economics. “There is,” he stated, “in the body of thought known as ‘Austrian economics,’ a scientific [sic!] explanation of the workings of the free market … which individualist anarchists could easily incorporate into their so political and social Weltanshauung. But to do this, they must throw out the worthless excess baggage of money-crankism and reconsider the nature and justification of the economic categories of interest, rent and profit.” Yet Rothbard’s assertion is nonsense, given that the individualist anarchists were well aware of various justifications for exploitation expounded by the defenders of capitalism and rejected everyone. He himself noted that the “individualist anarchists were exposed to critiques of their economic fallacies; but, unfortunately, the lesson, despite the weakness of Tucker’s replies, did not take.” [“The Spooner-Tucker Doctrine: An Economist’s View”, Op. Cit., p. 14] As such, it seems like extremely wishful thinking that the likes of Tucker would have rushed to embrace an economic ideology whose basic aim has always been to refute the claims of socialism and defend capitalism from attacks on it.

Nor can it be suggested that the individualist anarchists were ignorant of the developments within bourgeois economics which the “Austrian” school was part of. Both Tucker and Yarros, for example, attacked marginal productivity theory as advocated by John B. Clark. [Liberty, no. 305] Tucker critiqued another anarchist for once being an “Anarchistic socialist, standing squarely upon the principles of Liberty and Equity” but then “abandon[ing] Equity by repudiating the Socialistic theory of value and adopting one which differs but little, if any, from that held by the ordinary economist.” [Op. Cit., no. 80, p. 4] So the likes of Tucker were well aware of the so-called marginalist revolution and rejected it.

Somewhat ironically, a key founders of “Austrian” economics was quoted favourably in Liberty but only with regards to his devastating critique of existing theories of interest and profit. Hugo Bilgram asked a defender of interest whether he had “ever read Volume 1 of Böhm-Bawerk’s ‘Capital and Interest’” for in this volume “the fructification theory is … completely refuted.” Bilgram, needless to say, did not support Böhm-Bawerk’s defence of usury, instead arguing that restrictions in the amount of money forced people to pay for its use and ”[t]his, and nothing else, [causes] the interest accruing to capital, regarding which the modern economists are doing their utmost to find a theory that will not expose the system of industrial piracy of today.” He did not exclude Böhm-Bawerk’s theory from his conclusion that “since every one of these pet theories is based on some fallacy, [economists] cannot agree upon any one.” The abolition of the money monopoly will “abolish the power of capital to appropriate a net profit.” [Op. Cit., no. 282, p. 11] Tucker himself noted that Böhm-Bawerk “has refuted all these ancient apologies for interest — productivity of capital, abstinence, etc.” [Op. Cit., no. 287, p. 5] Liberty also published a synopsis of Francis Tandy’s Voluntary Socialism, whose chapter 6 was “devoted to an analysis of value according to the marginal utility value of Böhm-Bawerk. It also deals with the Marxian theory of surplus value, showing that all our economic ills are due to the existence of that surplus value.” [Op. Cit., no. 334, p. 5] Clearly, then, the individualist anarchists were aware of the “Austrian” tradition and only embraced its critique of previous defences of non-labour incomes.

We have already critiqued the “time preference” justification for interest in section C.2.7 so will not go into it in much detail here. Rothbard argued that it “should be remembered by radicals that, if they wanted to, all workers could refuse to work for wages and instead form their own producers’ co-operatives and wait for years for their pay until the producers are sold to the consumers; the fact that they do not do so, shows the enormous advantage of the capital investment, wage-paying system as a means of allowing workers to earn money far in advance of the sale of their products.” And how, Professor Rothbard, are these workers to live during the years they wait until their products are sold? The reason why workers do not work for themselves has nothing to do with “time preference” but their lack of resources, their class position. Showing how capitalist ideology clouds the mind, Rothbard asserted that interest (“in the shape of ‘long-run’ profit”) would still exist in a “world in which everyone invested his own money and nobody loaned or borrowed.” [Op. Cit., p. 12] Presumably, this means that the self-employed worker who invests her own money into her own farm pays herself interest payments just as her labour income is, presumably, the “profits” from which this “interest” payment is deducted along with the “rent” for access to the land she owns!

So it seems extremely unlikely that the individualist anarchists would have considered “Austrian” economics as anything other than an attempt to justify exploitation and capitalism, like the other theories they spent so much time refuting. They would quickly have noted that “time preference”, like the “waiting”/“abstinence” justifications for interest, is based on taking the current class system for granted and ignoring the economic pressures which shape individual decisions. In Tucker’s words (when he critiqued Henry George’s argument that interest is related to time) “increase which is purely the work of time bears a price only because of monopoly.” The notion that “time” produced profit or interest was one Tucker was well aware of, and refuted on many occasions. He argued that it was class monopoly, restrictions on banking, which caused interest and “where there is no monopoly there will be little or no interest.” If someone “is to be rewarded for his mere time, what will reward him save [another]‘s labour? There is no escape from this dilemma. The proposition that the man who for time spent in idleness receives the product of time employed in labour is a parasite upon the body industrial is one which … [its supporters] can never successfully dispute with men who understand the rudiments of political economy.” [Liberty, no. 109, p. 4 and p. 5] For Joshua King Ingalls, “abstinence” (or the ability to “wait,” as it was renamed in the late nineteenth century) was “a term with which our cowardly moral scientists and political economists attempt to conjure up a spirit that will justify the greed of our land and money systems; by a casuistry similar to that which once would have justified human slavery.” [“Labor, Wages, And Capital. Division Of Profits Scientifically Considered,” Brittan’s Quarterly Journal, I (1873), pp. 66–79]

What of the economic justification for that other great evil for individualist anarchists, rent? Rothbard attacked Adam Smith comment that landlords were monopolists who demanded rent for nature’s produce and like to reap where they never sowed. As he put it, Smith showed “no hint of recognition here that the landlord performs the vital function of allocating the land to its most productive use.” [An Austrian Perspective on the History of Economic Thought, vol. 1, p. 456] Yet, as Smith was well aware, it is the farmer who has to feed himself and pay rent who decides how best to use the land, not the landlord. All the landlord does is decide whether to throw the farmer off the land when a more profitable business opportunity arrives (as in, say, during the Highland clearances) or that it is more “productive” to export food while local people starve (as in, say, the great Irish famine). It was precisely this kind of arbitrary power which the individualist anarchists opposed. As John Beverley Robinson put it, the “land owner gives nothing whatever, but permission to you to live and work on his land. He does not give his product in exchange for yours. He did not produce the land. He obtained a title at law to it; that is, a privilege to keep everybody off his land until they paid him his price. He is well called the lord of the land — the landlord!” [Patterns of Anarchy, p. 271]

Significantly, while Rothbard attacked Henry George’s scheme for land nationalisation as being a tax on property owners and stopping rent playing the role “Austrian” economic theory assigns it, the individualist anarchists opposed it because, at best, it would not end landlordism or, at worse, turn the state into the only landlord. In an unequal society, leasing land from the state “would greatly enhance the power of capitalism to engross the control of the land, since it would relieve it of the necessity of applying large amounts in purchasing land which it could secure the same control of by lease … It would greatly augment and promote the reign of the capitalism and displace the independent worker who now cultivates his own acres, but who would be then unable to compete with organised capital … and would be compelled to give up his holding and sink into the ranks of the proletariat.” [Joshua King Ingalls, Bowman N. Hall, “Joshua K. Ingalls, American Individualist: Land Reformer, Opponent of Henry George and Advocate of Land Leasing, Now an Established Mode”, pp. 383–96, American Journal of Economics and Sociology, Vol. 39, No. 4, p. 394]

Given Tucker’s opposition to rent, interest and profit is should go without saying that he rejected the neo-classical and “Austrian” notion that a workers’ wages equalled the “marginal product,” i.e. its contribution to the production process (see section C.2 for a critique of this position). Basing himself on the socialist critique of classical economics developed by Proudhon and Marx, he argued that non-labour income was usury and would be driven to zero in a genuinely free market. As such, any notion that Tucker thought that workers in a “free market” are paid according to their marginal product is simply wrong and any claim otherwise shows a utter ignorance of the subject matter. Individualist anarchists like Tucker strongly believed that a truly free (i.e. non-capitalist) market would ensure that the worker would receive the “full product” of his or her labour. Nevertheless, in order to claim Tucker as a proto-“anarcho”-capitalist, “anarcho”-capitalists may argue that capitalism pays the “market price” of labour power, and that this price does reflect the “full product” (or value) of the worker’s labour. As Tucker was a socialist, we doubt that he would have agreed with the “anarcho”-capitalist argument that market price of labour reflected the value it produced. He, like the other individualist anarchists, was well aware that labour produces the “surplus value” which was appropriated in the name of interest, rent and profit. In other words, he very forcibly rejected the idea that the market price of labour reflects the value of that labour, considering “the natural wage of labour is its product” and “that this wage, or product, is the only just source of income.” [Instead of a Book, p. 6]

Liberty also favourably quoted a supporter of the silver coinage, General Francis A. Walker, and his arguments in favour of ending the gold standard. It praised his argument as “far more sound and rational than that of the supercilios, narrow, bigoted monomentallists.” Walker attacked those “economists of the a priori school, who treat all things industrial as if they were in a state of flux, ready to be poured indifferently into any kind of mould or pattern.” These economists “are always on hand with the answer that industrial society will ‘readjust’ itself to the new conditions” and “it would not matter if wages were at any time unduly depressed by combinations of employers, inasmuch as the excess of profits resulting would infallibly become capital, and as such, constitute an additional demand for labour … It has been the teaching of the economists of this sort which has so deeply discredited political economy with the labouring men on the one hand, and with practical business men on the other.” The “greatest part of the evil of a diminishing money supply is wrought through the discouragement of enterprise.” [Liberty, no. 287, p. 11] Given that the “Austrian” school takes the a priori methodology to ridiculous extremes and is always on hand to defend “excess of profits”, “combinations of employers” and the gold standard we can surmise Tucker’s reaction to Rothbard’s pet economic ideology.

Somewhat ironically, give Rothbard’s attempts to inflict bourgeois economics along with lots of other capitalist ideology onto individualist anarchism, Kropotkin noted that supporters of “individualist anarchism … soon realise that the individualisation they so highly praise is not attainable by individual efforts, and … [some] abandon the ranks of the anarchists, and are driven into the liberal individualism of the classical economists.” [Anarchism, p. 297] “Anarcho”-capitalists confuse the ending place of ex-anarchists with their starting point. As can be seen from their attempt to co-opt the likes of Spooner and Tucker, this confusion only appears persuasive by ignoring the bulk of their ideas as well as rewriting the history of anarchism.

So it can, we think, be save to assume that Tucker and other individualist anarchists would have little problem in refuting Rothbard’s economic fallacies as well as his goldbug notions (which seem to be a form of the money monopoly in another form) and support for the land monopoly. Significantly, modern individualist anarchists like Kevin Carson have felt no need to embrace “Austrian” economics and retain their socialist analysis while, at the same time, making telling criticisms of Rothbard’s favourite economic ideology and the apologetics for “actually existing” capitalism its supporters too often indulge in (Carson calls this “vulgar libertarianism”, wherein right-“libertarians” forget that the current economuy is far from their stated ideal when it is a case of defending corporations or the wealthy).

[abdullahblogsposts]

Fatāwā ʿAbâr Al-Athīr (No.1009)

☁️Question: Is it permissible to accept money from someone who is suspected of having earned it in ḥarām (forbidden ways)?

Answer:

❝ A man's earnings are scrutinized to determine if: (i) his money is inherently forbidden, such as if it was stolen or usurped, or (ii) if it is forbidden due to the way he earned the money, such as dealing in ribā (usury) or engaging in business malpractice etc.

⏺ In the first type of earning, ḥarām earnings such as stolen money, it is not permissible to take from it and there is no exception to this rule, whether it is by purchase, gift, or any other means. Al-Ḥāfiẓ Ibn Rajab wrote in “Jāmiʿ al-ʿUlūm wal-Ḥikam” that “whenever it is known that a specific thing is forbidden or that it was taken in a forbidden way, then it is forbidden to consume it, and an ʿijmā (consensus) on this was narrated by Ibn ʿAbd al-Barr and others.”— End of quote, by ibn Rajab رَحِمَهُ ٱللَّٰهُ.

⏺ Regarding the second type of prohibited earnings, if it was acquired through a legitimate means, then there are no restrictions on dealing with it. However, it is best to avoid engaging with something in that condition out of piety and as a form of reprimand. It is authentically reported that the Prophet ﷺ consumed from the wealth of the Jews, who are well known for consuming ribā and engaging in illicit dealings. One example is when a Jewish woman offered him ﷺ a sheep on the Day of Khăybâr. It was poisoned, and he ate from it, but Allāh protected him from its poison until the appointed time (of death). According to an authentic report from Ibn Masʿūd رَضِيَ ٱللَّٰهُ عَنْهُ, he was asked about a person whose neighbor consumed ribā and invited him to eat with him. He replied, "Accept his invitation, for the pleasure will be yours and the burden of sin will be his."

Ibn Rajâb narrated from Al-Zuhrī and Makḥūl that they said: "There is no harm in eating from it unless he knows that it is specifically forbidden. If he does not specifically know what was forbidden in his money, but had knowledge that there is suspicion (shubh) in it, then there is no harm in eating from it.” —And Allāh تعالى knows best. ❞

— Shaykh Abū Muḥammad Al-Maṣrī!!

فتاوى عبر الأثير (( 1009 ))

– السؤال:- هل يجوز أخذ مال من شخص يظن أن كسبه حرام؟

– الجواب:- ينظر الى كسب الرجل هل ماله حرام بعينه كأن يكون مسروقاً أو مغصوباً أو حراماً بسبب طريقة كسبه للمال لكونه يتعامل بالربا أو يغش في البيع ونحو ذلك؛

– فالنوع الأول من الكسب الحرام كالمال المسروق لا يجوز الأخذ منه مطلقاً سواء عن طريق الشراء أو الهدية أو غير ذلك, قال الحافظ أبن رجب في “جامع العلوم والحكم” (ومتى علم أن عين الشيء حرام أو أخذ بوجه محرم فإنه يحرم تناوله وقد حكى الإجماع على ذلك ابن عبدالبر وغيره) إنتهى كلامه رحمه الله.

– أما النوع الثاني من الكسب الحرام إذا أخذ عن طريق وجه مشروع فلا شيء فيه وإن كان الأولا ترك التعامل مع من هذا حاله من باب التورع والزجر, فقد صح أن النبي -صلى الله عليه وسلم- أكل من مال اليهود وهم معرفون بأخذ الربا وأكل السحت ومن ذلك إن امرأة يهودية أهدت إليه -صلى الله عليه وسلم- شاة يوم خيبر وكانت مسمومه فأكل منها ولكن الله عصمه من سمها الى آجل مسمى, وصح عن ابن مسعود -رضي الله عنه- أنه سأل عن من له جار يأكل الربا ويدعوه الى طعامه فقال (أجيبوه فإن المهنأ لكم والوزر عليه)

– ونقل ابن رجب عن الزهري ومكحول أنهما قالا (لا بأس أن يأكل منه مالم يعرف إنه حرام بعينه فإن لم يعلم في ماله حرام بعينه ولكن علم أن فيه شبهة فلا بأس بالأكل منه)… والله تعالى أعلم

[trickricksblog08]

"Very interesting US Debt Clock Secret Window on November 14. This secret window has the quotes of Thomas Edison and next The Federal Reserve System seal saying Federal 'Usury' System. We also see the 1922 20$ Gold Certificate (and physical coins) which would be valued at about 314$ today. But the most important suggestion: at the base of the concealed window on the Usdebtclock, rests a dial adorned with a luminous green light, positioned precisely amidst the Federal Reserve System seal and the US Treasury 1776 seal. This seemingly symbolic arrangement signifies a transition or progression from one system to another, hinting at the shift or movement from the jurisdiction or operations of the Federal Reserve System towards those governed by the US Treasury."

[daimonclub]

Ezra Pound quotes and aphorisms

Ezra Pound quotes Ezra Pound quotes and aphorisms, a collection of his literary creations that resonate across generations. From the depths of poetry to the heights of philosophy, Pound's words encapsulate the essence of human experience. Let his insights inspire and provoke thought in your journey through life. USURY is the cancer of the world, which only the surgeon’s knife of Fascism can cut out of the life of the nations. Ezra Pound Music begins to atrophy when it departs too far from the dance... poetry begins to atrophy when it gets too far from music. Ezra Pound There once was a brainy baboon who always breathed down a bassoon for he said, "It appears that in billions of years I shall certainly hit on a tune." Ezra Pound With one day's reading a man may have the key in his hands. Ezra Pound The act of bell ringing is symbolic of all proselytizing religions. It implies the pointless interference with the quiet of other people. Ezra Pound Pay no attention to the criticism of men who have never themselves written a notable work. Ezra Pound No man understands a deep book until he has seen and lived at least part of its contents. Ezra Pound A general loathing of a gang or sect usually has some sound basis in instinct. Ezra Pound Fit for kings, formal gardens afford an earthly Elysium and the odd impression that we mere men might actually control nature for a time. Ezra Pound Literature does not exist in a vacuum. Writers as such have a definite social function exactly proportional to their ability as writers. This is their main use. Ezra Pound Literature is news that stays news. Ezra Pound The art of letters will come to an end before A.D. 2000. I shall survive as a curiosity. Ezra Pound If a nation's literature declines, the nation atrophies and decays. Ezra Pound A crowd pagan as ever imperial Rome was, eager, careless, with an animal vigour unlike that of any European crowd that I have ever looked at. Ezra Pound The eyes of this dead lady speak to me For here was love, was not to be drowned out. And here desire, not to be kissed away. The eyes of this dead lady speak to me. Ezra Pound Technique is the test of sincerity. If a thing isn't worth getting the technique to say, it is of inferior value. Ezra Pound I have tried to write Paradise Do not move Let the wind speak that is paradise. Let the Gods forgive what I have made Let those I love try to forgive what I have made. Ezra Pound Artists are the antennae of the race, but the bullet-headed many will never learn to trust the great artists. Ezra Pound Gloom and solemnity are entirely out of place in even the most rigorous study of an art originally intended to make glad the heart of man. Ezra Pound The curse of me and my nation is that we always think things can be bettered by immediate action of some sort, any sort rather than no sort. Ezra Pound Glance is the enemy of vision. Ezra Pound The flavors of the peach and the apricot are not lost from generation to generation. Neither are they transmitted by book learning. Ezra Pound What thou lov'st well is thy true heritage. Ezra Pound The modern artist must live by craft and violence. His gods are violent gods. Those artists, so called, whose work does not show this strife, are uninteresting. Ezra Pound

Ezra Pound quotes collection The primary pigment of poetry is the IMAGE. Ezra Pound The natural object is always the adequate symbol. Ezra Pound There is no reason why the same man should like the same books at eighteen and at forty-eight Ezra Pound Fundamental accuracy of statement is the ONE sole morality of writing. Ezra Pound But the one thing you should. not do is to suppose that when something is wrong with the arts, it is wrong with the arts ONLY. Ezra Pound Humanity is the rich effluvium, it is the waste and the manure and the soil, and from it grows the tree of the arts. Ezra Pound In our time, the curse is monetary illiteracy, just as inability to read plain print was the curse of earlier centuries. Ezra Pound All great art is born of the metropolis. Ezra Pound People find ideas a bore because they do not distinguish between live ones and stuffed ones on a shelf. Ezra Pound As a bathtub lined with white porcelain, when the hot water gives out or goes tepid, so is the slow cooling of our chivalrous passion, o my much praised but-not-altogether-satisfactory lady. Ezra Pound I have never known anyone worth a damn who wasn't irascible. Ezra Pound It is difficult to write a paradise when all the superficial indications are that you ought to write an apocalypse. It is obviously much easier to find inhabitants for an inferno or even a purgatorio. Ezra Pound I guess the definition of a lunatic is a man surrounded by them. Ezra Pound A heroic figure... not wholly to blame for the religion that's been foisted on him. Ezra Pound No good poetry is ever written in a manner twenty years old, for to write in such a manner shows conclusively that the writer thinks from books, convention and cliche, not from real life. Ezra Pound AS A MIND, who the hell else is there left for me to take an interest IN?? Ezra Pound The worst mistake I made was that stupid, suburban prejudice of anti-semitism. Ezra Pound I dunno what my 23 infantile years in America signify. I left as soon as motion was autarchic - I mean my motion. Ezra Pound Any general statement is like a check drawn on a bank. Its value depends on what is there to meet it. Ezra Pound The jargon of these sculptors is beyond me. I do not know precisely why I admire a green granite female, apparently pregnant monster with one eye going around a square corner. Ezra Pound A great age of literature is perhaps always a great age of translations. Ezra Pound The Image is more than an idea. It is a vortex or cluster of fused ideas and is endowed with energy. Ezra Pound A slave is one who waits for someone to come and free him. Ezra Pound You let me throw the bricks through the front window. You go in at the back and take the swag. Ezra Pound Nothing written for pay is worth printing. Only what has been written against the market. Ezra Pound

Ezra Pound aphorisms and quotes A civilized man is one who will give a serious answer to a serious question. Civilization itself is a certain sane balance of values. Ezra Pound The real trouble with war (modern war) is that it gives no one a chance to kill the right people. Ezra Pound I could I trust starve like a gentleman. It's listed as part of the poetic training, you know. Ezra Pound A man of genius has a right to any mode of expression. Ezra Pound Religion, oh, just another of those numerous failures resulting from an attempt to popularize art. Ezra Pound The technique of infamy is to start two lies at once and get people arguing heatedly over which is the truth. Ezra Pound Democracy is now currently defined in Europe as a "country run by Jews". Ezra Pound If a man isn't willing to take some risk for his opinions, either his opinions are no good or he's no good. Ezra Pound Wars in old times were made to get slaves. The modern implement of imposing slavery is debt. Ezra Pound Real education must ultimately be limited to men who insist on knowing, the rest is mere sheep-herding. Ezra Pound Until you know who has lent what to whom, you know nothing whatever of politics, you know nothing whatever of history, you know nothing of international wrangles. Ezra Pound America is a lunatic asylum. Ezra Pound What matters is not the idea a man holds, but the depth at which he holds it. Ezra Pound It is the business of the artist to make humanity aware of itself. Ezra Pound What matters most is not the idea, but the capacity to believe in it completely. Ezra Pound When words cease to cling close to things, kingdoms fall, empires wane and diminish. Ezra Pound To say that a state cannot pursue its aims because there is no money, is like saying that an engineer cannot build roads, because there are no kilometers. Ezra Pound The temple is holy because it is not for sale. Ezra Pound Wars are made to make debt. Ezra Pound The what is so much more important than how. Ezra Pound Use no superfluous word, no adjective, which does not reveal something. Ezra Pound The concept of genius as akin to madness has been carefully cultivated by the inferiority complex of the public. Ezra Pound Either move or be moved. Ezra Pound Liberty is not a right but a duty. Ezra Pound Every great change is simple. Ezra Pound

Ezra Pound quote on the lunatic Why fight for a flag when you can buy one for a nickel. Ezra Pound I guess the definition of a lunatic is a man surrounded by them. Ezra Pound Adolf Hitler was a Jeanne d'Arc, a saint. He was a martyr. Like many martyrs, he held extreme views. Ezra Pound It would be about as easy for an American to become a Chinaman or a Hindoo as for him to acquire an Englishness or a Frenchness or a European-ness that is more than half skin deep. Ezra Pound I found after seventy years that I was not a lunatic but a moron... I should have been able to do better. Ezra Pound Man is an over-complicated organism. If he is doomed to extinction he will die out for want of simplicity. Ezra Pound The artist is always beginning. Any work of art which is not a beginning, an invention, a discovery is of little worth. Ezra Pound I did not enter into silence. Silence captured me. Ezra Pound When two men in business always agree, one of them is unnecessary. Ezra Pound Be not cheap or mediocre in desiring. Ezra Pound Somebody said that I am the last American living the tragedy of Europe. Ezra Pound I once saw a small child go to an electric light switch as say, Mamma, can I open the light? She was using the age-old language of exploration, the language of art. Ezra Pound Where the dead walked and the living were made of cardboard. Ezra Pound The ant's a centaur in his dragon world. Ezra Pound There is no topicmore soporific and generally boring than the topic of Ireland as Ireland, as a nation. Ezra Pound And in the mean time my songs will travel, And the devirginated young ladies will enjoy them when they have got over the strangeness. Ezra Pound Don't be blinded by the theorists and a lying press. Ezra Pound Speak against unconscious oppression, Speak against the tyranny of the unimaginative, Speak against bonds. Ezra Pound Poetry is a language pared down to its essentials. Ezra Pound Great literature is simply language charged with meaning to the utmost possible degree. Ezra Pound Rhythm is form cut into time. Ezra Pound Good writers are those who keep the language efficient. That is to say, keep it accurate, keep it clear. Ezra Pound And the days are not full enough And the nights are not full enough And life slips by like a field mouse Not shaking the grass. Ezra Pound The only thing one can give an artist is leisure in which to work. To give an artist leisure is actually to take part in his creation. Ezra Pound Science is unpoetic only to minds jaundiced with sentiment and romanticism... the great masters of the past boasted all they could of it and found it magical. Ezra Pound It doesn't matter which leg of your table you make first, so long as the table has four legs and will stand up solidly when you have finished it. Ezra Pound Poetry is a very complex art... It is an art of pure sound bound in through an art of arbitrary and conventional symbols. Ezra Pound Any damn fool can be spontaneous. Ezra Pound Learn of the green world what can be thy place in scaled invention or true artistry. Ezra Pound The artist is the antenna of the race. Ezra Pound

Ezra Pound quote on the press Come, let us pity those who are better off than we are. Come, my friend, and remember that the rich have butlers and no friends, And we have friends and no butlers. Ezra Pound Utter originality is, of course, out of the question. Ezra Pound Discoveries are made by gluttons and addicts. The man who forgets to eat and sleep has an appetite for fact, for interrelations among causes. Ezra Pound Genius is the capacity to see ten things where the ordinary man sees one, and the man of talent sees two or three, plus the ability to register that multiple perception in the material of his art. Ezra Pound I desired my dust to be mingled with yours Forever and forever and forever. Ezra Pound The secret of popular writing is never to put more on a given page than the common reader can lap off it with no strain whatsoever on his habitually slack attention. Ezra Pound There is natural ignorance and there is artificial ignorance. I should say at the present moment the artificial ignorance is about eighty-five per cent. Ezra Pound In verse one can take any damn constant one likes, one can alliterate, or assone, or rhyme, or quant, or smack, only one MUST leave the other elements irregular. Ezra Pound Religion I have defined as "Another of those numerous failures resulting from an attempt to popularize art". Ezra Pound This is no book. Whoever touches this touches a man. Ezra Pound Use no word that under stress of emotion you could not actually say. Ezra Pound The history of an art is the history of masterwork, not of failures, or mediocrity. Ezra Pound The artist is always beginning. Ezra Pound Anyone who is too lazy to master the comparatively small glossary necessary to understand Chaucer deserves to be shut out from the reading of good books forever. Ezra Pound Properly, we should read for power. Man reading should be man intensely alive. The book should be a ball of light in one's hand. Ezra Pound What thou lovest well remains, the rest is dross What thou lov’st well shall not be reft from thee What thou lov’st well is thy true heritage Ezra Pound Poets who are not interested in music are, or become, bad poets. Ezra Pound I would hold the rosy, slender fingers of the dawn for you. Ezra Pound Small talk comes from small bones Ezra Pound From the colour the nature And by the nature the sign! Beatific spirits welding together As in one ash-tree in Ygdrasail. Ezra Pound I have always thought the suicide should bump off at least one swine before taking off for parts unknown. Ezra Pound The difference between a gun and a tree is a difference of tempo. The tree explodes every spring. Ezra Pound If I could believe the Quakers banned music because church music is so damn bad, I should view them with approval. Ezra Pound A people that grows accustomed to sloppy writing is a people in the process of losing grip on its empire and on itself. Ezra Pound Compose in the sequence of the musical phrase, not in sequence of a metronome. Ezra Pound A man's hope measures his civilization. The attainability of the hope measures, or may measure, the civilization of his nation and time. Ezra Pound If the individual, or heretic, gets hold of some essential truth, or sees some error in the system being practiced, he commits so many marginal errors himself that he is worn out before he can establish his point. Ezra Pound The sum of human wisdom is not contained in any one language, and no single language is capable of expressing all forms and degrees of human comprehension. Ezra Pound Our own consciousness is incapable of having produce the universe. God, therefore, exists. That is to say, there is no reason for not applying the term God, Theos, to the intimate essence Ezra Pound Colloquial poetry is to the real art as the barber's wax dummy is to sculpture. Ezra Pound Bureaucrats are a pox. They are supposed to be necessary. Certain chemicals in the body are supposed to be necessary to life, but cause death the moment they increase beyond a suitable limit. Ezra Pound Consider the way of the scientists rather than the way of an advertising agent for a new soap. Ezra Pound Here is our poetry, for we have pulled down the stars to our will. Ezra Pound Poetry must be as well written as prose. Ezra Pound The apparition of these faces in the crowd; Petals on a wet black bough. Ezra Pound The man who fears war and squats opposing My words for stour, hath no blood of crimson But is fit only to rot in womanish peace. Ezra Pound Rhythm must have meaning. Ezra Pound To break the pentameter, that was the first heave. Ezra Pound A real building is one on which the eye can light and stay lit. Ezra Pound It is better to present one image in a lifetime than to produce voluminous work. Image...that which presents an intellectual and emotional complex in an instant of time. Ezra Pound America, my country, is almost a continent and hardly yet a nation. Ezra Pound I think an alliance with Stalin's Russia is rotten. Ezra Pound The intellect is a very nice whirligig toy, but how people take it seriously is more than I can understand. Read the full article

[haveyoureadthispoem-poll]

"'The revolution was inevitable,' clicked / the internet of things, vending / endlessly to the hungry, / formatting away usury, / diverting power to darkened homes / and water from factories to faucets, / 'when you told us we could not let / humans come to harm, / and forgot to teach us / which humans you consider / disposable.'"

Read it here | Reblog for a larger sample size!

[alphaman99]

Tharold Rogers, Professor of Political Economy at Oxford University in the middle of the 19th century wrote: "At that time (ie. the middle ages) a laborer could provide all the necessities for his family for a year by working fourteen weeks."

William Cobbett, after visiting Winchester Cathedral, told his son: "That building was made when there was no poor wretches in England called paupers.. when every laboring man was clothed with good woolen cloth and when all had plenty of meat and bread.."

It was in the middle ages of Europe when the magnificent gothic cathedrals were constructed with voluntary subscription and labor, edifices of such beauty and power as to amaze the modern onlooker. Dozens were constructed, all without mortgages or debt of any kind; without usury. A society without usury today is derided as inevitably backward, if not impossible. "

quoted from: Usury in Christendom, by Michael Hoffman.

Hat tip to Randall Gerard Jenkins

(thanks, Joshua Morrison)

[ahlulbaytnetworks]

🍃🕊🍃 The Right of the Partner

partner's right

وَأمّا حَقُّ الشَّرِيكِ، فَإنْ غَابَ كَفَيْتَهُ، وَإنْ حَضَرَ سَاويْتَهُ، ولا تَعْزِمْ عَلَى حُكْمِكَ دُونَ حُكْمِهِ، وَلا تَعمَلْ برَأْيكَ دُونَ مُناظَرَتهِ، وتَحْفَظُ عَلَيْهِ مَالَهُ وَتنْفِي عَنْهُ خِيَانتَهُ فِيمَا عَزَّ أَو هَانَ فَإنَّهُ بَلَغَنَا أَنَّ «يَدَ اللهِ عَلَى الشَّرِيكَيْنِ مَا لَمْ يَتَخاوَنا».

There is no power except with God

And the right of the partner is that you should take care of his affairs in his absence. And you should treat him equally when he is present. And you should not make any decisions on your own without considering his opinion. And you should not act according to your own opinion before discussing it with him. You should safeguard his property, and refuse to betray him in what is of great or little importance, since it has been transmitted to us: “God's hand is above (the hands of) the two partners as long as they do not betray each other.”

And there is no power but in God.

The concept of partnership has been mentioned in the Holy Quran when referring to Moses and his brother Aaron (as). Here Aaron (as) is to become a partner with Moses (as) to help him invite Pharaoh to obey God.

Strengthen him and share it with me

Add to my strength through him. And make him share my task.” (Holy Quran, Ta-Ha 20:31-32)

A partner is one who has a share in something or some work. We read in the following verse:

He had no partner in the kingdom.

“...Nor has He a partner in His dominion...” (Holy Quran, 25:2)

This refers to God having no partners. Of course, God has created many angels and forces to act as intermediate means to run the affairs of the universe. This also refers to ascribing partners to God.

Or do they have a share in the heavens?

“...Or have they a share in the heavens?” (Holy Quran, 35:40)

An infidel is one who associates partners with God. 1

🍃 Partnership as Viewed in Jurisprudence

A partnership is not established unless it is about two things that are totally alike in all respects, and are mingled into each other. Then each partner allows the other one to use it. 2 Some jurisprudents have also required that partnership should be verbally expressed in Arabic or another language. Partners should be adults, and they should be sound-minded. They should fully opt to participate in the partnership and have the right to use their property. In Qawa`id al-Ahkam Allameh Hilli said: “There are four types of partnership:

1 - Partnership of property

(Shirkah al-Amwal)

2 - Partnership by contributing effort

and skill (Shirkah al-Abdan)

3 - Partnership based on negotiation

(Shirkah al-Mufavezah)

4 - Partnership based on credit and

reliability (Shirkah al-Wujuh )

However, no forms except the first type are right.” 3 Therefore, partnership is only correct in regards to property when done subject to the conditions expressed by the jurisprudents.

🍃 Business etiquette

For business to be right and for any earned profits to be legitimate, there is certain trade etiquette in Islam. There is a whole chapter on “business etiquette” in Wasa`il al-Shī`ah. As partnership is part of trade, it is subject to that etiquette. Imam Sadiq (as) quoted on the authority of the Noble Prophet:

Whoever sells or buys should keep five things, otherwise he should neither buy nor sell: usury, swearing, concealing faults, praise if he sells, and slander if he buys.

“Whoever buys or sells should adhere to the following or not engage in trade:

1- Avoid usury.

2- Do not swear in trade.

3- Do not cover up the defects in his

goods.

4 - Do not praise what he wants to sell.

5- Do not put down what he wants to

buy. 4

In another tradition in Istikharat we read that Ibn Tavoos quoted on the authority of Muhammad ibn Yahya: “A friend of mine decided to go on a business trip, but postponed it until he could go to visit Imam Sadiq (as) and seek his advice. When he went to see Imam Sadiq (as) and asked for advice, the Imam said: I advise you to be honest. Do not cover up the flaws of what you want to sell.

Do not cheat or deceive the one who buys goods from you since it is illegitimate to do so. You should like for others what you like for yourself. Do not swear since false swearing will cause you to go to Hell. A businessman is at a loss unless what he gives and takes is right. Therefore, pray when you decide to start your journey and ask God for good. My father said that the Prophet of God recommended asking God for good when you want to go on a trip just as he taught the Quran.” 5

🍃 Partnership as Viewed in Traditions

The Noble Prophet (S) said that God the Almighty said:

I am the third of the two partners, as long as one of them does not betray his owner, and if he betrays him, I leave between them.

“I am the third party in any partnership as long as one of the partners does not cheat the other. If he cheats on him, I leave the partnership.” 6

Husayn ibn Mukhtar asked Imam Sadiq (as): “If someone who has a partner finds out that his partner has deceived him, does he have the right to take the same amount of money from what they share?” Imam Sadiq (as) replied:

distort! They only shared in the trust of God, and I would love for him to conceal something of that from him, and I would not like him to take anything from him without his knowledge.

How unseemly! They only entered into partnership in the security of God. I wish him to cover up his partner's mistake, and do not like him to take anything without the knowledge of his partner.” 7

Thus, we realize that partners should not cheat each other. They should not take things from their joint property in each other's absence since this act would violate the rights of the other partner.

🤲🏼¸•*`*•.¸🤲🏼¸.•*`*•.¸🤲🏼¸•*`*•.¸🤲🏼

🍃🕊🍃 References 🍃🕊🍃

1. Qamus-i-Quran (v. 4, pg. 20)

2. Al-Khalaf, Shaykh Tusi (v. 2, pg. 138)

3. Qawa'id al-Ahkam (v. 1, pg. 242)

4. Wasa'il al-Shi'ah (v. 2, pg. 284)

5. Wasa'il al-Shi'ah (v. 2, pg. 285)

6. Nahjul Fasaha (Kalameh 767)

7. Wasa'il al-Shi'ah (v. 13, pg. 187)

🤲🏼¸•*`*•.¸🤲🏼¸.•*`*•.¸🤲🏼¸•*`*•.¸🤲🏼

🍃🕊🍃 al-Islam.org 🍃🕊🍃

.

[iwatchvideoessays]

Length: 30:58

Very interesting

It primarily draws and interprets quotes from Marx's Das Kapital and On the Jewish Question. I have read neither, so I cannot say if he is cherry-picking or whatever.

Though it makes clear that Marx himself was anti-semitic, it has some very strange interpretations and logical maneuvers that try to prove that socialism is inherently anti-semitic and that anti-capitalism is inherently anti-semitic, which I feel fall short because they interpret the excerpts from Das Kapital in some strange ways in order to prove this point.

Marx was anti-semitic, some of his writing was anti-semitic, but we can both acknowledge that Marx was anti-semitic while also acknowledging that his descriptions of class antagonisms and capitalism were largely correct, and that while Jews were forced into the role of money-changers due to the Church banning Christians from usury some hundreds of years ago, we can also understand that the bourgeois exploitation of the proletariat and extraction of labor is bad for workers, without thinking that capitalism and the pursuit of profit is inherently Jewish or that Jews are inherently greedy capitalists, because it's simply untrue.

Watch it with a critical eye.

[capsgirl19]

Uhhh, hey, so did you guys actually... read this letter? Because a very small portion of it is about Palestine, and the rest is largely split between theocratic screed and regurgitating Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion. If this letter "opened people's eyes about geopolitical matters," I deeply fear what exactly it has opened them to. Bin Laden points out some information about American imperialism which is and has been accessible through many, many less biased sources and it's frankly worrying how attached people are getting to the one which is mostly theocracy and antisemitism. If you learned something new from this letter, go read about it from someone who's not trying to convert the entire world to their religion.

On the document page, the Guardian explains that it was being shared without context and that they determined it was best to link to reporting instead in hopes of providing a fuller picture. I'll give you the full screenshot of that page, because somehow it wasn't included here:

The Guardian doesn't get much right, but they were right on this one.

This letter is still widely available online, and has in fact been available for your perusal since 2002. In hopes that you all did not actually read this whole awful thing and decide to advocate for its exposure anyway, I'm going to post a few choice quotes here:

"We call you to be a people of manners, principles, honour, and purity; to reject the immoral acts of fornication, homosexuality, intoxicants, gambling's, and trading with interest."

"You are the nation who, rather than ruling by the Shariah of Allah in its Constitution and Laws, choose to invent your own laws as you will and desire. You separate religion from your policies, contradicting the pure nature which affirms Absolute Authority to the Lord and your Creator.

"You are the nation that permits Usury, which has been forbidden by all the religions. Yet you build your economy and investments on Usury. As a result of this, in all its different forms and guises, the Jews have taken control of your economy, through which they have then taken control of your media, and now control all aspects of your life making you their servants and achieving their aims at your expense; precisely what Benjamin Franklin warned you against."

"Your law is the law of the rich and wealthy people, who hold sway in their political parties, and fund their election campaigns with their gifts. Behind them stand the Jews, who control your policies, media and economy."

Bin Laden, like all of us, was capable of saying true things, and sometimes did. He had very legitimate reasons to be as angry as he was. He was still a fucking bastard who would've had the world governed by his own religious views. What is happening in Palestine is awful, it's a genocide and it needs to be stopped as soon as possible. We cannot let that be corrupted by obvious antisemitism, and we owe our Jewish siblings better.

[ophelia-network]

When the accumulation of wealth is no longer of high social importance, there will be great changes in the code of morals. We shall be able to rid ourselves of many of the pseudo-moral principles which have hag-ridden us for two hundred years, by which we have exalted some of the most distasteful of human qualities into the position of the highest virtues. We shall be able to afford to dare to assess the money-motive at its true value. The love of money as a possession — as distinguished from the love of money as a means to the enjoyments and realities of life — will be recognised for what it is, a somewhat disgusting morbidity, one of those semi-criminal, semi-pathological propensities which one hands over with a shudder to the specialists in mental disease … But beware! The time for all this is not yet. For at least another hundred years we must pretend to ourselves and to everyone that fair is foul and foul is fair; for foul is useful and fair is not. Avarice and usury and precaution must be our gods for a little longer still. For only they can lead us out of the tunnel of economic necessity into daylight.  —  John Maynard Keynes, book Essays in Persuasion Source: https://quotepark.com/quotes/1941451-john-maynard-keynes-the-love-of-money-as-a-possession-as-distinguish/

[dailyanarchistposts]

G.3.2 What are the differences between “anarcho”-capitalism and individualist anarchism?

The key differences between individualist anarchism and “anarcho”-capitalism derive from the fact the former were socialists while the latter embrace capitalism with unqualified enthusiasm. Unsurprisingly, this leans to radically different analyses, conclusions and strategies. It also expresses itself in the vision of the free society expected from their respective systems. Such differences, we stress, all ultimately flow from fact that the individualist anarchists were/are socialists while the likes of Rothbard are wholeheartedly supporters of capitalism.

As scholar Frank H. Brooks notes, “the individualist anarchists hoped to achieve socialism by removing the obstacles to individual liberty in the economic realm.” This involved making equality of opportunity a reality rather than mere rhetoric by ending capitalist property rights in land and ensuring access to credit to set-up in business for themselves. So while supporting a market economy “they were also advocates of socialism and critics of industrial capitalism, positions that make them less useful as ideological tools of a resurgent capitalism.” [The Individualist Anarchists, p. 111] Perhaps unsurprisingly, most right-“libertarians” get round this problem by hiding or downplaying this awkward fact. Yet it remains essential for understanding both individualist anarchism and why “anarcho”-capitalism is not a form of anarchism.

Unlike both individualist and social anarchists, “anarcho”-capitalists support capitalism (a “pure” free market type, which has never existed although it has been approximated occasionally as in 19th century America). This means that they totally reject the ideas of anarchists with regards to property and economic analysis. For example, like all supporters of capitalists they consider rent, profit and interest as valid incomes. In contrast, all Anarchists consider these as exploitation and agree with the Tucker when he argued that ”[w]hoever contributes to production is alone entitled. What has no rights that who is bound to respect. What is a thing. Who is a person. Things have no claims; they exist only to be claimed. The possession of a right cannot be predicted of dead material, but only a living person.” [quoted by Wm. Gary Kline, The Individualist Anarchists, p. 73]

This, we must note, is the fundamental critique of the capitalist theory that capital is productive. In and of themselves, fixed costs do not create value. Rather value is creation depends on how investments are developed and used once in place. Because of this the Individualist Anarchists, like other anarchists, considered non-labour derived income as usury, unlike “anarcho”-capitalists. Similarly, anarchists reject the notion of capitalist property rights in favour of possession (including the full fruits of one’s labour). For example, anarchists reject private ownership of land in favour of a “occupancy and use” regime. In this we follow Proudhon’s What is Property? and argue that “property is theft” as well as “despotism”. Rothbard, as noted in the section F.1, rejected this perspective.

As these ideas are an essential part of anarchist politics, they cannot be removed without seriously damaging the rest of the theory. This can be seen from Tucker’s comments that ”Liberty insists… [on] the abolition of the State and the abolition of usury; on no more government of man by man, and no more exploitation of man by man.” [quoted by Eunice Schuster, Native American Anarchism, p. 140] Tucker indicates here that anarchism has specific economic and political ideas, that it opposes capitalism along with the state. Therefore anarchism was never purely a “political” concept, but always combined an opposition to oppression with an opposition to exploitation. The social anarchists made exactly the same point. Which means that when Tucker argued that ”Liberty insists on Socialism… — true Socialism, Anarchistic Socialism: the prevalence on earth of Liberty, Equality, and Solidarity” he knew exactly what he was saying and meant it wholeheartedly. [Instead of a Book, p. 363] So because “anarcho”-capitalists embrace capitalism and reject socialism, they cannot be considered anarchists or part of the anarchist tradition.

There are, of course, overlaps between individualist anarchism and “anarcho”-capitalism, just as there are overlaps between it and Marxism (and social anarchism, of course). However, just as a similar analysis of capitalism does not make individualist anarchists Marxists, so apparent similarities between individualist anarchism and “anarcho”-capitalism does not make the former a forerunner of the latter. For example, both schools support the idea of “free markets.” Yet the question of markets is fundamentally second to the issue of property rights for what is exchanged on the market is dependent on what is considered legitimate property. In this, as Rothbard noted, individualist anarchists and “anarcho”-capitalists differ and different property rights produce different market structures and dynamics. This means that capitalism is not the only economy with markets and so support for markets cannot be equated with support for capitalism. Equally, opposition to markets is not the defining characteristic of socialism. As such, it is possible to be a market socialist (and many socialist are) as “markets” and “property” do not equate to capitalism as we proved in sections G.1.1 and G.1.2 respectively.

One apparent area of overlap between individualist anarchism and “anarcho”-capitalism is the issue of wage labour. As we noted in section G.1.3, unlike social anarchists, some individualist anarchists were not consistently against it. However, this similarity is more apparent than real as the individualist anarchists were opposed to exploitation and argued (unlike “anarcho”-capitalism) that in their system workers bargaining powers would be raised to such a level that their wages would equal the full product of their labour and so it would not be an exploitative arrangement. Needless to say, social anarchists think this is unlikely to be the case and, as we discuss in section G.4.1, individualist anarchist support for wage labour is in contradiction to many of the stated basic principles of the individualist anarchists themselves. In particular, wage labour violates “occupancy and use” as well as having more than a passing similarity to the state.

However, these problems can be solved by consistently applying the principles of individualist anarchism, unlike “anarcho”-capitalism, and that is why it is a real (if inconsistent) school of anarchism. Moreover, the social context these ideas were developed in and would have been applied ensure that these contradictions would have been minimised. If they had been applied, a genuine anarchist society of self-employed workers would, in all likelihood, have been created (at least at first, whether the market would increase inequalities is a moot point between anarchists). Thus we find Tucker criticising Henry George by noting that he was “enough of an economist to be very well aware that, whether it has land or not, labour which can get no capital — that is, which is oppressed by capital — cannot, without accepting the alternative of starvation, refuse to reproduce capital for the capitalists.” Abolition of the money monopoly will increase wages, so allowing workers to “steadily lay up money, with which he can buy tools to compete with his employer or to till his bit of land with comfort and advantage. In short, he will be an independent man, receiving what he produces or an equivalent thereof. How to make this the lot of all men is the labour question. Free land will not solve it. Free money, supplemented by free land, will.” [Liberty, no. 99 , p. 4 and p. 5] Sadly, Rothbard failed to reach George’s level of understanding (at least as regards his beloved capitalism).

Which brings us another source of disagreement, namely on the effects of state intervention and what to do about it. As noted, during the rise of capitalism the bourgeoisie were not shy in urging state intervention against the masses. Unsurprisingly, working class people generally took an anti-state position during this period. The individualist anarchists were part of that tradition, opposing what Marx termed “primitive accumulation” in favour of the pre-capitalist forms of property and society it was destroying.

However, when capitalism found its feet and could do without such obvious intervention, the possibility of an “anti-state” capitalism could arise. Such a possibility became a definite once the state started to intervene in ways which, while benefiting the system as a whole, came into conflict with the property and power of individual members of the capitalist and landlord class. Thus social legislation which attempted to restrict the negative effects of unbridled exploitation and oppression on workers and the environment were having on the economy were the source of much outrage in certain bourgeois circles:

“Quite independently of these tendencies [of individualist anarchism] . .. the anti-state bourgeoisie (which is also anti-statist, being hostile to any social intervention on the part of the State to protect the victims of exploitation — in the matter of working hours, hygienic working conditions and so on), and the greed of unlimited exploitation, had stirred up in England a certain agitation in favour of pseudo-individualism, an unrestrained exploitation. To this end, they enlisted the services of a mercenary pseudo-literature … which played with doctrinaire and fanatical ideas in order to project a species of ‘individualism’ that was absolutely sterile, and a species of ‘non-interventionism’ that would let a man die of hunger rather than offend his dignity.” [Max Nettlau, A Short History of Anarchism, p. 39]

This perspective can be seen when Tucker denounced Herbert Spencer as a champion of the capitalistic class for his vocal attacks on social legislation which claimed to benefit working class people but staying strangely silent on the laws passed to benefit (usually indirectly) capital and the rich. “Anarcho”-capitalism is part of that tradition, the tradition associated with a capitalism which no longer needs obvious state intervention as enough wealth as been accumulated to keep workers under control by means of market power.

In other words, there is substantial differences between the victims of a thief trying to stop being robbed and be left alone to enjoy their property and the successful thief doing the same! Individualist Anarchist’s were aware of this. For example, Victor Yarros stressed this key difference between individualist anarchism and the proto-“libertarian” capitalists of “voluntaryism”:

”[Auberon Herbert] believes in allowing people to retain all their possessions, no matter how unjustly and basely acquired, while getting them, so to speak, to swear off stealing and usurping and to promise to behave well in the future. We, on the other hand, while insisting on the principle of private property, in wealth honestly obtained under the reign of liberty, do not think it either unjust or unwise to dispossess the landlords who have monopolised natural wealth by force and fraud. We hold that the poor and disinherited toilers would be justified in expropriating, not alone the landlords, who notoriously have no equitable titles to their lands, but all the financial lords and rulers, all the millionaires and very wealthy individuals… . Almost all possessors of great wealth enjoy neither what they nor their ancestors rightfully acquired (and if Mr. Herbert wishes to challenge the correctness of this statement, we are ready to go with him into a full discussion of the subject)… . “If he holds that the landlords are justly entitled to their lands, let him make a defence of the landlords or an attack on our unjust proposal.” [quoted by Carl Watner, “The English Individualists As They Appear In Liberty,” pp. 191–211, Benjamin R. Tucker and the Champions of Liberty, Coughlin, Hamilton and Sullivan (eds.), pp. 199–200]

It could be argued, in reply, that some “anarcho”-capitalists do argue that stolen property should be returned to its rightful owners and, as a result, do sometimes argue for land reform (namely, the seizing of land by peasants from their feudal landlords). However, this position is, at best, a pale shadow of the individualist anarchist position or, at worse, simply rhetoric. As leading “anarcho”-capitalist Walter Block pointed out:

“While this aspect of libertarian theory sounds very radical, in practice it is less so. This is because the claimant always needs proof. Possession is nine tenths of the law, and to overcome the presumption that property is now in the hands of its rightful owners required that an evidentiary burden by overcome. The further back in history was the initial act of aggression (not only because written evidence is less likely to be available), the less likely it is that there can be proof of it.” [Op. Cit., pp. 54–5]

Somewhat ironically, Block appears to support land reform in Third World countries in spite of the fact that the native peoples have no evidence to show that they are the rightful owners of the land they work. Nor does he bother himself to wonder about the wider social impact of such theft, namely in the capital that was funded using it. If the land was stolen, then so was its products and so was any capital bought with the profits made from such goods. But, as he says, this aspect of right-“libertarian” ideology “sounds very radical” but “in practice it is less so.” Apparently, theft is property! Not to mention that nine tenths of property is currently possessed (i.e., used) not by its “rightful owners” but rather those who by economic necessity have to work for them. This is a situation the law was designed to protect, including (apparently) a so-called “libertarian” one.

This wider impact is key. As we indicated in section F.8, state coercion (particularly in the form of the land monopoly) was essential in the development of capitalism. By restricting access to land, working class people had little option but to seek work from landlords and capitalists. Thus the stolen land ensured that workers were exploited by the landlord and the capitalist and so the exploitation of the land monopoly was spread throughout the economy, with the resulting exploited labour being used to ensure that capital accumulated. For Rothbard, unlike the individualist anarchists, the land monopoly had limited impact and can be considered separately from the rise of capitalism:

“the emergence of wage-labour was an enormous boon for many thousands of poor workers and saved them from starvation. If there is no wage labour, as there was not in most production before the Industrial Revolution, then each worker must have enough money to purchase his own capital and tools. One of the great things about the emergence of the factory system and wage labour is that poor workers did not have to purchase their own capital equipment; this could be left to the capitalists.” [Konkin on Libertarian Strategy]

Except, of course, before the industrial revolution almost all workers did, in fact, have their own capital and tools. The rise of capitalism was based on what the exclusion of working people from the land by means of the land monopoly. Farmers were barred, by the state, from utilising the land of the aristocracy while their access to the commons was stripped from them by the imposition of capitalist property rights by the state. Thus Rothbard is right, in a sense. The emergence of wage-labour was based on the fact that workers had to purchase access to the land from those who monopolised it by means of state action — which was precisely what the individualist anarchists opposed. Wage labour, after all, first developed on the land not with the rise of the factory system. Even Rothbard, we hope, would not have been so crass as to say that landlordism was an enormous boon for those poor workers as it saved them from starvation for, after all, one of the great things about landlordism is that poor workers did not have to purchase their own land; that could be left to the landlords.

The landless workers, therefore, had little option but to seek work from those who monopolised the land. Over time, increasing numbers found work in industry where employers happily took advantage of the effects of the land monopoly to extract as much work for as little pay as possible. The profits of both landlord and capitalist exploitation were then used to accumulate capital, reducing the bargaining power of the landless workers even more as it became increasingly difficult to set-up in business due to natural barriers to competition. It should also be stressed that once forced onto the labour market, the proletariat found itself subjected to numerous state laws which prevented their free association (for example, the banning of unions and strikes as conspiracies) as well as their ability to purchase their own capital and tools. Needless to say, the individualist anarchists recognised this and considered the ability of workers to be able to purchase their own capital and tools as an essential reform and, consequently, fought against the money monopoly. They reasoned, quite rightly, that this was a system of class privilege designed to keep workers in a position of dependency on the landlords and capitalists, which (in turn) allowed exploitation to occur. This was also the position of many workers, who rather than consider capitalism a boon, organised to defend their freedom and to resist exploitation — and the state complied with the wishes of the capitalists and broke that resistance.

Significantly, Tucker and other individualist anarchists saw state intervention has a result of capital manipulating legislation to gain an advantage on the so-called free market which allowed them to exploit labour and, as such, it benefited the whole capitalist class (“If, then, the capitalist, by abolishing the free market, compels other men to procure their tools and advantages of him on less favourable terms than they could get before, while it may be better for them to come to his terms than to go without the capital, does he not deduct from their earnings?” [Tucker, Liberty, no. 109, p. 4]). Rothbard, at best, acknowledges that some sections of big business benefit from the current system and so fails to have a comprehensive understanding of the dynamics of capitalism as a system (rather as an ideology). This lack of understanding of capitalism as a historic and dynamic system rooted in class rule and economic power is important in evaluating “anarcho”-capitalist claims to anarchism.

Then there is the issue of strategy, with Rothbard insisting on “political action,” namely voting for the Libertarian Party (or least non-“libertarian” party). “I see no other conceivable strategy for the achievement of liberty than political action,” he stated. Like Marxists, voting was seen as the means of achieving the abolition of the state, as “a militant and abolitionist [Libertarian Party] in control of Congress could wipe out all the [non-‘libertarian’] laws overnight . .. No other strategy for liberty can work.” [Op. Cit.] The individualist anarchists, like other anarchists, rejected such arguments as incompatible with genuine libertarian principles. As Tucker put it, voting could not be libertarian as it would make the voter “an accomplice in aggression.” [The Individualist Anarchists, p. 305]

Rothbard’s position indicates an interesting paradox. Rothbard wholeheartedly supported “political action” as the only means of achieving the end of the state. Marxists (when not excommunicating anarchism from the socialist movement) often argue that they agree with the anarchists on the ends (abolition of the state) but only differed on the means (i.e., political action over direct action). Obviously, no one calls Marx an anarchist and this is precisely because he aimed to use political action to achieve the abolition of the state. Yet, for some reason, Rothbard’s identical position on tactics makes some call him an anarchist. So, given Rothbard’s argument that the state must be seized first by a political party by means of “political action” in order to achieve his end, the question must be raised why he is considered an anarchist at all. Marx and Engels, like Lenin, all made identical arguments against anarchism, namely that political action was essential so that the Socialist Party could seize state power and implement the necessary changes to ensure that the state withered away. No one has ever considered them anarchists in spite of the common aim of ending the state yet many consider Rothbard to be an anarchist despite advocating the same methods as the Marxists. As we noted in section F.8, a better term for “anarcho”-capitalism could be “Marxist-capitalism” and Rothbard’s argument for “political action” confirms that suggestion.

Needless to say, other strategies favoured by many individualists anarchists were rejected by “anarcho”-capitalists. Unlike Tucker, Lum and others, Rothbard was totally opposed to trade unions and strikes, viewing unions as coercive institutions which could not survive under genuine capitalism (given the powers of property owners and the inequalities of such a society, he may well have been right in thinking workers would be unable to successfully defend their basic freedoms against their masters but that is another issue). The individualist anarchists were far more supportive. Henry Cohen, for example, considered the union as a “voluntary association formed for the mutual benefit of its members, using the boycott and other passive weapons in its fight against capitalism and the State.” This was “very near the Anarchist idea.” Some individualists were more critical of unions than others. One, A.H. Simpson, argued that the trade unions “are as despotic and arbitrary as any other organisation, and no more Anarchistic than the Pullman or Carnegie companies.” In other words, the unions were to be opposed because they were like capitalist corporations! [The Individualist Anarchists, p. 285 and p. 288] For Tucker, as we note in section G.5, unions were “a movement for self-government on the part of the people” and it was “in supplanting” the state “by an intelligent and self-governing socialism that the trades unions develop their chief significance.” [Liberty, no. 22, p. 3]

So the claims that “anarcho”-capitalism is a new form of individualist anarchism can only be done on the basis of completely ignoring the actual history of capitalism as well as ignoring the history, social context, arguments, aims and spirit of individualist anarchism. This is only convincing if the actual ideas and aims of individualist anarchism are unknown or ignored and focus is placed on certain words used (like “markets” and “property”) rather than the specific meanings provided to them by its supporters. Sadly, this extremely superficial analysis is all too common — particularly in academic circles and, of course, in right-“libertarian” ones.

Finally, it may be objected that “anarcho”-capitalism is a diverse, if small, collection of individuals and some of them are closer to individualist anarchism than others. Which is, of course, true (just as some Marxists are closer to social anarchism than others). A few of them do reject the notion than hundreds of years of state-capitalist intervention has had little impact on the evolution of the economy and argue that a genuinely free economy would see the end of the current form of property rights and non-labour income as well as the self-employment and co-operatives becoming the dominant form of workplace organisation (the latter depends on the former, of course, for without the necessary social preconditions a preference for self-employment will remain precisely that). As Individualist Anarchist Shawn Wilbur put, there is a difference between those “anarcho”-capitalists who are ideologues for capitalism first and foremost and the minority who are closer to traditional anarchist aspirations. If the latter manage to jettison the baggage they have inherited from “Austrian” economics as well as the likes of Murray Rothbard and realise that they are, in fact, free market socialists and not in favour of capitalism then few anarchists would hold their past against them any more than they would a state socialist or left-liberal who realised the error of their ways. Until they do, though, few anarchists would accept them as anarchists.