The Gilded Age is characterized by gross inequality and squalor for the many. Revolutionary sentiments thrummed, necessitating heavy government intervention before and during to protect the interests of capital. It was made possible by massive government intervention to secure land and protect the interests of the rail industry. Extreme margin debt in unregulated financial markets caused Black Tuesday and the Great Depression.
In other words, laissez-faire is the right choice if you want to live fast and die young.
P.S. You should read more anarchist history. Anarchism first spread in the US as Russian (and later Soviet) refugees fled state tyranny throughout the Gilded Age. They quickly observed, however, that laissez-faire capitalism and the business oligarchy you deified is every bit as oppressive as the tyrants and communists. Writers like Emma Goldman insisted that all forms of hierarchy must be abolished, including the state, but also capital and property rights, because any hierarchical system becomes tyrannical.
Try and tell me with a straight face that what Google, Meta, Twitter, and others do is less Orwellian than China. Now folks on the right want the state to stop private enterprise from exercising their executive will. See? We all see the need for balance.
My preferred outcome is the elimination of all hierarchy, but in the meantime? Balance. Not that this government is doing a good job of it. They're terrible.
FWIW, I also practice anarchy locally, by assembling a network of farmers, mechanics, nurses, and other professionals for community resilience in the face of state retreat and market disruptions.
Emma Goldman plotted with her lover to murder, in cold blood, Henry Clay Frick, chairman of the Carnegie Steel Company.
You've now mentioned her multiple times, so if anyone is "deifying" anything, it is you worshipping a would-be murderess, which I'm afraid eclipses some of her other, worthy positions, such as opposition to the draft (a.k.a. involuntary servitude).
Laissez-faire capitalism is really just *free* people creating goods and services, and engaging in *voluntary* transactions with each other. No government or other coercion wanted or allowed.
Tell me, when you "assemble your network" do you do so by force? Do some parties dictate to others what they can buy and sell to each other, and under what conditions?
If the answer is no, then you are engaging in free market capitalism.
I would wager that some of those in your "network" are better off than others. Does this mean that those people are "oppressing" those of lesser means?
The assertion is preposterous on its face, which is why no serious person criticizes free-market wealth inequality, which with notable exceptions, is fleeting for most given competitors are omnipresent wherever profits are to be had.
The only way to abolish this naturally occurring economic hierarchy is by aggressive force, which is anathema to freedom and is therefore both uncivilized and immoral.
The only proper use of force is defensive, by individuals or groups.
Barbarism, of the sort we now endure, and far worse sorts in the recent past, are the alternative.
I guess we know where you and Emma stand on this, eh?
The Gilded Age is characterized by gross inequality and squalor for the many. Revolutionary sentiments thrummed, necessitating heavy government intervention before and during to protect the interests of capital. It was made possible by massive government intervention to secure land and protect the interests of the rail industry. Extreme margin debt in unregulated financial markets caused Black Tuesday and the Great Depression.
In other words, laissez-faire is the right choice if you want to live fast and die young.
P.S. You should read more anarchist history. Anarchism first spread in the US as Russian (and later Soviet) refugees fled state tyranny throughout the Gilded Age. They quickly observed, however, that laissez-faire capitalism and the business oligarchy you deified is every bit as oppressive as the tyrants and communists. Writers like Emma Goldman insisted that all forms of hierarchy must be abolished, including the state, but also capital and property rights, because any hierarchical system becomes tyrannical.
Try and tell me with a straight face that what Google, Meta, Twitter, and others do is less Orwellian than China. Now folks on the right want the state to stop private enterprise from exercising their executive will. See? We all see the need for balance.
My preferred outcome is the elimination of all hierarchy, but in the meantime? Balance. Not that this government is doing a good job of it. They're terrible.
FWIW, I also practice anarchy locally, by assembling a network of farmers, mechanics, nurses, and other professionals for community resilience in the face of state retreat and market disruptions.
Emma Goldman plotted with her lover to murder, in cold blood, Henry Clay Frick, chairman of the Carnegie Steel Company.
You've now mentioned her multiple times, so if anyone is "deifying" anything, it is you worshipping a would-be murderess, which I'm afraid eclipses some of her other, worthy positions, such as opposition to the draft (a.k.a. involuntary servitude).
Laissez-faire capitalism is really just *free* people creating goods and services, and engaging in *voluntary* transactions with each other. No government or other coercion wanted or allowed.
Tell me, when you "assemble your network" do you do so by force? Do some parties dictate to others what they can buy and sell to each other, and under what conditions?
If the answer is no, then you are engaging in free market capitalism.
I would wager that some of those in your "network" are better off than others. Does this mean that those people are "oppressing" those of lesser means?
The assertion is preposterous on its face, which is why no serious person criticizes free-market wealth inequality, which with notable exceptions, is fleeting for most given competitors are omnipresent wherever profits are to be had.
The only way to abolish this naturally occurring economic hierarchy is by aggressive force, which is anathema to freedom and is therefore both uncivilized and immoral.
The only proper use of force is defensive, by individuals or groups.
Barbarism, of the sort we now endure, and far worse sorts in the recent past, are the alternative.
I guess we know where you and Emma stand on this, eh?