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Don't be fooled by libertarians / an-caps, they are not going to bring you a democracy! Their real world experiment brought only low-wage sweatshops and repressions.

www.theguardian.com The Ciskei experiment: a libertarian fantasy in apartheid South Africa

The long read: In the 1980s, South African libertarians set up a deregulated zone that they sold to the world as ‘Africa’s Switzerland’. It was a sham, but with its clusters of sweatshops, it was very modern – and in some ways it anticipated the world we live in today

The Ciskei experiment: a libertarian fantasy in apartheid South Africa
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  • I’ve never met a single libertarian/ancap type that would agree to the premise of some sort of “wiping of the tablet” or whatever you wanna call it. Meaning every single person would be reduced to zero accumulated wealth and, just for added fun, everyone has to pick random numbers that relate to some area on earth. Kinda like being reborn but with no privileges built in. Everyone is a zero wealth accumulated, completely mixed up jumbled mass of people spread over the earth.

    Obviously that’s a fantasy hypothetical, libertarian/ancap ideology IS fantastical, but they won’t even agree to those terms would be as close to “fair” as I can come up with off the top of my head.

    Which of course raises the question(s): “but I thought all humans are successful based solely on their worth as a person? Ie more wealth = more valuable person?”

    I mean I could ask a million little bullets through their moronic philosophy, but it all boils down to a few “principles” from what I’ve encountered. Selfishness, lack of literally ANY historical knowledge, and a ballooned-ego as a result of being born into relative privilege. My little hypothetical, which I feel is more than fair for what they’re asking, rips into their entire worldview. “But the things I have… I earned these!” But did they? It’s not as simple as “no,” but it’s not yes. A lot of these dingdongs are otherwise regular people who either work for a wage or are petit bourgeois with aspirations to be full blown capitalists one day when they wouldn’t even have to labor themselves; they can live off the profits brought in by others. The classic HVAC guy or used car salesman types. Mid 40s, two divorces, kids never call anymore.

    So, in a sense, a lot of them did labor and now they have wealth and commodities. A house, a couple cars, some savings and stocks and shit. And in their egotistical brains they can’t see that they only have that stuff because the world has been set up to benefit them. The system they think they want to tear down already serves them! Which is the real irony and joke of this shit. The only people who hypothetically could benefit from going to an ancap type system would be those who own everything already and are only barely still restrained by the few laws we do have that prevent them from openly enslaving people, murdering, etc.

    That’s the darker side to the otherwise laughable concept the low level hogs push for. They would be enslaved under such a system. And not just “GODDAMN TEENAGERS AT STARBUCKS TOLD ME TO PUT A FUCKIN MASK ON THIS IS BULLSHIT FASCISM!” but literal outright slavery. Am I supposed to believe that people like Musk or Bezos wouldn’t just buy off a personal army to enforce their own laws and enslave the rest who don’t work for them? They already try their best to break every labor law in existence which in the US is basically zero to begin with.

    I get, to an extent, why hogs fall into worshipping this bullshit. They’ve been told since day 0 they’re special, they work hard and earn everything, and anyone with less deserves less because they didn’t work hard. The only reason they don’t have more, and why their kids never text back, is because of the almighty LIBERAL government! Without that they’d be free to hire a force of 20 year olds to piss in bottles. Only problem is 1) no and 2) in such a world, even more than our real one, wealth, land, commodities would be power. And without any sort of laws restraining those with the most… I mean they already do horrible shit and that’s with laws in place.

    The hogs have no alternative view of the world though. The right wing media for like 40-50 years+ has shoveled the notion than communism/socialism can never work. At this point even suggesting to these people that it has and could in other places is not possible. Literally just not possible to them. Meanwhile they see the current situation, things are slowly tightening in on them, although not nearly as much as it’s going to going forward, and they don’t know where to turn and who to truly blame. They’re absolutely correct that neoliberal economics has destroyed the world that they might remember or at least their parents do. Most of that destruction benefited them though… until now. The solutions going forward though are the same ones people have been saying for a long time now, but their minds will remain closed because of all the stuff I wrote earlier. Namely, selfishness and egotism. They’d have to admit they were wrong, they’d have to admit that the stuff they’re so desperately clinging to for salvation is the reason for their demise. Outdated and false ideologies of the American dream and “you get out what you put in.” Things so obviously false since the official founding of the US (let’s be honest, that’s where the majority of these people are for now) and proven more and more false day by day.

    Part of me wants to he hopeful thinking “well, they understand some stuff…” they aren’t just like CNN Biden loving libs who are tweeting over and over about economic numbers, heads planted three feet under the sand. On the other hand though, once these reactionary types reach real adulthood, like 25+, I REALLY don’t see them being “saved” from that shit. The older they get the more dug in they get. And as their materials conditions worsen they aren’t going to blame corporations and collaborating governments… they’ll just blame lazy people and, apparently we’re doing retro 1980 gay panic again, so they’ll get blamed too. Oddly it’s never Musk, Bezos, Chuck fucking Schumer, Obama, Bush, Biden, their local shithead small capitalist state representative. It’s never THEIR fault. Not on the actual merits of anything they’ve actually done anyway- it’s just generally “he’s a pedophile!” And whatever other slurs they can think of.

    Just about the only thing I can ever think of to pull Americans, I can’t say for anywhere else, out of this conspiracy-minded, ego-driven, deathcult that we’re deadset on pushing to the inevitable end is some sort of massive, nationwide building project. Just something where literally everyone has to pitch in and be part of it forcing interactions and community. But the only way I can see that happening is (ripping off Alan Moore) some horrible event happens that snaps people to reality and appeals to whatever is left of their humanity to work together towards something instead of only seeking the destruction of others. To me, most of the problems result from extreme alienation, through work and otherwise, which results in loss of touch with the things people are supposed to live for… they end up becoming nihilistic and turn to self harm, harm of others and fantasies of a world where THEY could be the boot. All of this would require some sort of unifying group or a person at the center leading it though at the exact right moment towards some sort of positive end. An American Lenin or something. Because such an event cough9/11cough could very easily be turned towards evil ends and all the people who currently hold power would absolutely do so.

    So, if anyone is bald, has incredibly high blood pressure at all times, insanely based and well read, and most importantly has a Georgian, Mustachioed bank robber friend to fund things. Well. You already know what to do.

    • yeah, obviously all this neoliberal and libertarian ideology is completely serving interests of capitalists and the only goal of it is just to have more power to exploit workers. The interesting thing here is what oligarchs managed to spread both neoliberal and libertarian nonsense among working people. D. Harvey has an interesting take on this.

  • Broken clock etc