Anarcho-communism flag ..

libertarians and ancaps are largely seen as a joke by anarchists, and generally everyone,
it is after all- a self-contradictory statement, as capitalism is itself infringement on liberty,
and is itself hierarchical; and they are right-

as such, libertarians and ancaps, should not be taken seriously at all.

however with that said- i would like to address one particular claim these groups tends to make-
that claim being that, apparently- the only reason "capitalism is bad"-
is because of the state interfering with peoples choices;

as it goes; 'there are only big monopolies because the state prevents competition',
pointing to things like copyrights or patents, or overregulation so only a few can comply..
or how they constantly buy out big companies from bankruptcy.

and so if not for that then the magic 'invisible hand' would set everything straight or something-

if you don't know- the invisible hand is a religious belief that any issue with capitalism will just magically solve itself,
because the people being oppressed by companies- will simply just not be oppressed by them, when this doesn't happen, you simply blame the victims for it.
the difference with god is that we have definitive proof the invisible hand does not exist.

now you see, the issue with this is that their is kind of a grain of truth here-
it is true that the state makes capitalism worse in this way; because in capitalist nations the state is an agent of the bourgeoisie
in states that claim 'not' to be capitalist, then the state is called out for the violent, oppressive, force it always is (see e.g China or USSR-)

however there are a few issues with this claim, the first one being that neither ancaps nor libertarians actually want to abolish the state-
rather, libertarians just want to have a state anyway, because they acknowledge capitalism cant exist without some shit enforcing it,
and ancaps say they want to abolish the state, but then when you talk to them it becomes apparent they actually just want the state to be run by corporations;
or.. as they would say it, have an alternative institution that just so happens to do the exact same things the state does-
but that manufactures consent with 'contracts' instead of 'law'

the fact it is just a state government again (which is hierarchical, oppressive, violent, and all the other things you could say about the previous thing-)
and the general hierarchical nature of capitalism in general (people with money are deemed important, have access to resources, those without are withheld from, money is power and all that-) is why they're mostly treated as a joke, anarchism is about abolishing hierarchical power structures, and- capitalism is that.

now i could say, that a state with a different name is functionally equivalent to a state,
and the state will always be oppressive to people and benefit those with the most power and control, and since capitalism cannot actually function without a state or state equivalent, to enforce poverty, monetary systems, and the likes onto you; the whole thing is just state 2.0 electric boogaloo; its worthless and be done with it;

however; that is no fun, and more highlights a issue with implementation than anything else, it would be allowing the possibility that maybe the reason that capitalism does suck is purely because of state actions; even if you cannot actually have capitalism without a state, or state-like structure;

so ... i would like to also explore that claim a bit more, because uh lol no-

a common thing said is that 'oh they wouldn't do something unethical because no one wants to buy from an unethical company'
this ignores the fact that the other thing we often care about more (and that capitalism tries to push you to care about more) is things being 'cheap'

and there comes a point where making things cheaper is only possible via unethical means, for example slavery is literally just a capitalists dream and end goal, not having to pay workers at all for anything 100% profits, now of course, they'd quickly point out that 'but you need the state to force you to be a slave, no one would do it otherwise'- and you are only partly right, see this is the issue with focusing 100% of attention onto state governments-

the thing is it doesn't need to be a state, and it doesn't need to be slave labour; because of the nature of capitalism being that you need to work to be able to exist at all, this then means that a few companies could organize and make this the literal option, 'but! you could just make your own business that doesn't do that'.. well yes, except your business wont be able to sell the thing as cheap, which is what capitalism incentivizes you to actually care about above everything else, meaning it would never be successful; but also just how would you even start a business without having money to start it with?

but okay, lets address this point even broader, the explanation for why companies would not be evil without a state is simply along the lines of-
"well you could just start your own company that's not evil" .. this of course ignores that being less evil is often makes you less money-

and greatly exaggerate how much someone is willing to spend on 'more expensive but less evil', at best, you might end up co-existing with them, people who care about a particular issue, would possibly go to you, rather than anyone else, but you also would charge more, so the 'evil' company will still be able to do things regardless, all you've done is gone, 'well their doing something bad, im going to do something less/not bad instead' .. which is great, but does not actually address the problem-

and this isn't theoretical either, i mean this is also kind of the reason alot of manufacturing is done in overseas, simply because other countries has worse work safety regulations- so its cheaper to build things there where you can exploit people more, then ship them overseas, or some shit- we have literally seen this play out already.

which leads me to another issue, those who actually buy things- are not always the same group affected by its harmful practices;
the example above alluded to this, but those harmed by the practice are *the workers* however, those actually expected to resolve things are *the consumers*

now the workers could go on a strike, or they could leave (except there's no where to go and they need to do it to exist ..) and so on, and so on, i mean ignoring the fact that going 'oh you should have done this' is pretty much just victim blaming- there are actually cases where infact, those impacted by the thing, are completely removed from those purchasing the thing;

an obvious example is something like; say, Weapons Manufacturing-

basically; the main complaint with weapons manufacturing is probably something about how the point of it is to cause harm
however, those who buy weapons are not likely to care about this, the only reason you'd buy one is to cause harm,
and- those harmed by them* are not actually the same as those buying them- it can be used against me, even if i never purchased one;

in this way, even IF it did work this way, even IF there was some effort to boycott this or something;
it doesn't work because the target audience is explicitly those who do not care about this;

this just fundamentally does not work, now maybe your weird and think having devices around with the express purpose of causing harm to others
is somehow fine or whatever the fuck, in which case please improve lmfao- but regardless of whatever it is this same situation applies to
*alot of things* actually here are some examples; but im sure there are more if you think about it!

• Surveillance equipment (targeted at those doing surveillance, affects those survaield)
• Parental controls (targeted at parents, affects children)
• Identity verification (targeted at those doing surveillance, affects everyone else)
• Conversion therapy (targeted at those with power over queer people, affects queer people)
• ABA therapy (targeted at those with power over autistic people, affects autistic people)
• Dairy products (targeted at non-vegans, affects animals)
• AI Companies (targeted at AIBros, affects , artists, webmasters, people trying to drink water, etc)
• 0day market (targeted at script kiddies usually state sponsored, or law enforcement, affects those hacked by it-)

the surveillance company isn't affected by a privacy conscious person not putting them everywhere, the parental control company is not affected by children not buying it, heck they typically dont even have money in the first place, the identity verification company doesn't care if no one wants it, the conversion therapist doesn't care that their services harm queer people, its for people who want to harm queer people, and so on-

so even if it did work like 'oh just don't buy the unethical shit, vote with your wallet-', for these kinds of issues- and you cannot just 'vote with your wallet'
going 'oh just make it but more ethically yourself' doesn't work- because fundamentally, no amount of 'voting with your wallet' will EVER fix it;

xS also on that note, since not everyone has the same amount of money it also means that someone with more money has more 'voting power' per-se than if someone with less, so, in a way this is also voter suppression; and the ones with the most money, also usually are not the ones who 'work the most' but simply the owner of some company succeeding despite them

like, economic 'theory' and the 'invisible hand' bullshit, does not describe how people actually act in the real world; but even if it did, it would not actually address any problems

.. capitalism cant exist without first having some means to force people to comply, whether its a state who will throw you in jail if you bypass it, whether its being denied essential resources because you dont have enough money, or the 'contract' you had no real option but to "agree too" .. or whatever else, without that then what would happen is simply you demand i pay you for food, and i simply take it without paying you, that's the real invisible hand- if anyone could actually choose, they'd choose not to be oppressed by capitalism- which is of course how it should be; but i digress-

heck capitalism also forces the idea that anything you make should be monetized too, which; is just very sad, how many times have you seen some project abruptly end because the person making it had to 'get a job' or whatever else, but mhm, save it for the post about "value" in capitalism;

ancaps are a joke, but- libertarians are atlest a joke more honestly-

but, i highly doubt any of them will actually read this.. but yet, i wanted to write something about it regardless,