What's Wrong With Anarchy and Group Sex ?

My Tattoo.

I have said it before, I will say it again. Capitalism is a system whereby there is a price for everything, but no value to anything. We have friends who are trying to adopt. The guy in question is adopted himself as am I. Apparently in this brave new world of ours, the best interest of the child is no longer the standard used when determining who can adopt. Adoption is a for profit industry, like porn, medical care, pets and funeral care. Cash money, credit or loans are the keys to a successful adoption.

We have already seen how successful a model capitalism has been for health care. All you have to do is go down to your county hospital and look at the enormous lines. Or you could try and get a flu vaccination this year. Or look at your insurance copay. Last and worst of all, look at the cost of self insurance.

There are some industries, sectors, areas, whatever you want to call them where capitalism is a successful model and should not be interfered with.

However there are other areas where capitalism has been a miserable failure. I would argue that almost any field involving social services highlights the shortcomings of capitalism. Healthcare, funeral, adoption, pets and elder care are all areas that I would like to see excluded from capitalism. In each and every one of these areas, we have seen capitalism work against the benefit of society as a whole and individual lives in particular.

What exactly is wrong with socializing these sectors?

Capitalism takes advantage of an important survival trait in order to work. That trait is selfishness. It impoverishes us as a culture to assume that selfishness is the only driving force that can power an economy. Another survival trait, which is underutilized and not accorded the respect it deserves, is cooperation. Maybe, for the social services, we should look at utilizing cooperation rather than competition.

Another problem we face in this discussion is that we are constrained by the intellectual frameworks in which we operate. In the middle ages in Europe, the framework was feudalism. Today we have a couple of choices: socialism, communism and capitalism. The dominant framework (primarily because it gives the meanest monkeys the most say) is capitalism.

All of these intellectual frameworks were created to explain the industrial revolution and the individual’s relationship to society (actually Adam Smith’s “invisible hand” explanation of capitalism predates the industrial revolution). We are now in a world that is substantially different from the world that birthed those ideas. Maybe it is time to look for new intellectual frameworks through which we as a society, a culture and a species may operate.

I am inclined to look to the open source movement and twelve-step programs. That is to say, I am looking towards a fledgling form of anarchy. Neither I nor my children will live in such a world, but I can hope. An anarchism based on cooperation, with a heavy dose of libertarianism. Sounds good to me.

Now all we have to do is abolish government, redefine the concept of private property to encompass cooperative over competition, destroy all corporations and eliminate the military and we are on our way!

Oh, and while we’re at it, we should probably do away with the “mega-churches” that have essentially turned Christianity into a retail product that they sell to the public. Even though I am not a Christian, I regard these churches as being the greatest threat to the Christian faith today. I honestly don’t think Christ wanted us to run churches the way we would run a corporation.

Sometime soon I am going to have to comment on the differences between the two species of chimpanzees (Pan trogolodytes and Pan bonobo I believe) and why we should move away from copying the chimps who beat the hell out of each other and emulate the chimps who use group sex as a way of establishing social rankings.

I have long thought that fucking is, in general, better than fighting and would like to move to a culture based on sex over violence.

Good Morning Goddess Brigit, my name is Andy and I am an anarchist alcoholic! I have been kept sober one day at a time since Imbolc 2001 by Your grace and Your grace alone. I want to thank You, my Higher Power, for my daily reprieve. Today is a good day to be sober.

Please, Great Mother, be with me today, all through the day and help me to stay sober all day long. Show me Your will for me and grant me the power to carry that out. Thy will, not mine, be done. Thank You, Blessed Be.