Anonymous Responds Before I Can Cogently Reply...

I'm honored by the repost, although I think the formatting on it is a bit messed up.

I'm fascinated by the idea of maintaining a compassionate way of communicating and I've been pondering it. My own persuasive tactics are less friendly. I am no politician. My first concern socially is a need for security. By pushing people immediately into dissonance without waiting to see whether they're willing to examine themselves like that, I filter out those who will cause problems down the line. (Specifically, people who explode when they're presented with flaws in their own thought are people I don't feel safe conversing with on an intellectual level.) My perspective is of course strictly personal; I percieve this to reduce stress in my life (possibly incorrectly). Even if I'm right about that effect in my own life, when viewed on a broader scale of space or time, I may be failing to persuade people who could be brought around, thus not averting problems so much as shoving them into the future (or onto other people).

However, note that these are statements of personal ignorance on the matter of... what was it, nonviolent communication? I don't understand it. Hence my statement that I have no idea how to correctly interact with your friend. I don't see myself as being in a position to give you advice. Anything I say that's correct is accidental!

Speaking of which, time to push my luck and take a stab at it anyways: It's always nice when people provide a "friend-tionary". Semantic differences are some of the most frustrating disputes, as the involved parties are literally not talking about the same things. Semantic arguments can then be quite productive in turn if the parties to the argument commit to some degree of formal exploration of the subject. You might try asking if you can get your friend to define what 'government' is. 

He said: "A government that approximates 'Anarchy' or 'voluntaryism' is indeed what is needed."

This implies that he is not using the term government in the way that you are using it, and that the two of you are not in agreement as to what the essential features of governance are. If nothing else, it's an avenue for future exploration, and could be intellectually stimulating.

Potentially more interesting though is that he also said: "Property: is ownership protected by governmental sanctioned authority and force of law."

Ownership was not defined... but WAS specified to be a superclass of Property. Your friend is defining property only as that class of ownership that is guaranteed by the government. Does he acknowledge voluntary ownership absent coercion? What protects it? Can those protections be extended to illuminate what a voluntary world would look like? This kind of question is why semantic arguments can be helpful. It may seem like trying to win the lottery, but sometimes there's a hidden agreement concealed by language. 

Anonymous' Response to "A DISCUSSION ABOUT VOLUNTARYISM"

AnonymousSeptember 23, 2012 8:10 AM

Your friend's viewpoint appears to be denying the essential 

personhood of "rich people" and "poor people". I don't think 

he's understanding them as people, but as abstract classes. 

Perhaps he should be reminded that everyone lives near the 

center of their own narrative. Most people are the heroes of 

their own story; when this isn't true, the hero still tends to be 

close by. They acquire resources to improve the world in 

which they live. Rich people and poor people alike do this. 

The desire to live a better life is universal. The fact that the 

modern world is better than the ancient world is testament to 

the fact that progress is real.

Your friend doesn't appear to believe that rich people are 

capable of being voluntarists. He is arguing that rich people 

will never seek win/win transactions with those who are 

poorer than they are. "Never" is a strong word, but it fits here. 

He is directly arguing that rich people will buy up the 

necessary elements of life and then use their exclusive 

access to enslave the poor. This can only work if, as your 

friend clearly believes, the poor have no collective resources 

with which to resist, no ability to use the market, and no 

ability to network with each other effectively.

I wonder if your friend understands that the debtor class in 

modern society is the ultra-wealthy, while the creditor class 

are the working poor and the middle class. People very often 

think "high net worth" equals "no debts, massive savings". 

Historically, that was generally true, but in the modern day 

the so-called wealthy tend to have vast amounts of fixed 

resources and shortages of liquid assets. The collective argument is a symptom of this dehumanizing perspective. Your friend appears to believe that it is right and proper to remove cancerous elements from society with a government's violence, just as it is right and proper to remove 

cancerous elements from the body with a doctor's scalpel. 

The government is not that precise, but that is not the real 

issue. He is dehumanizing people who disagree with him by 

referring to them as cancers in human society. His arguments appear to be an attempt at justifying the forcible 

excision of other people for the crime of disagreeing with him 

as to the best way to improve their lives.

I have no idea how to correctly interact with such an 

individual. There are specific counterpoints to some of what 

he's said that I've skipped mentioning, as none of the logical 

consequences of the policies he's advocating matter so much 

as the fact that he's targeting policies against people he 

doesn't regard as people. As long as he has no empathetic 

connection with the people over whose fate he is arguing, he 

is not going to come to a peaceful solution to their problems.