Secession meeting

[Little Owl]

Such wordsmithing fails to explain how such a system would be implemented without creating a large and powerful central apparatus to administer and enforce it.  This apparatus, once controlled by the unprincipled, paves the way for tyranny.

In the mid 19th century, long polemics about the ways that Communism could be achieved without an abusive central authority flooded the discussions for decades.  History showed this all to be folly for some rather obvious and simple reasons, many of which were known even to Communism's ideological allies such as Bakunin.

Nock's critics are correct here.

[BillKauffman]

Such wordsmithing fails to explain how such a system would be implemented without creating a large and powerful central apparatus to administer and enforce it.  This apparatus, once controlled by the unprincipled, paves the way for tyranny.

You mean like capital's current tyranny over labor with the help of the state?

By removing the state, just curious - what underlying property structure should go with it to insure no continued tyranny of labor by capital?

[Little Owl]

You mean like capital's current tyranny over labor with the help of the state?

I'd say labor exercises plenty of tyranny over the public and "capital".  Ask GM or anybody whose ever had to deal with unionized schools.

By removing the state, just curious - what underlying property structure should go with it to insure no continued tyranny of labor by capital?

If you're asking me, I did not advocate elimination of the state.  I merely think many of the current state's powers should be removed.  Collective "ownership" of the means of production, repackaged with fancier names, is still Communism.  Forced redistribution of capital towards achieving a redistribution goal was known as the "Dictatorship of the Proletariat".  Ask a few million Soviet corpses what that's all about.

And as those who suffered under Stalin learned, its not who owns the means of production, but who controls them that wields true power.

We are not the Borg.  We do not think or act on a subconsciously collective level.  Any attempt at collectivism invariably requires a controlling authority.  It is this authority that will amass and abuse power.

Oh, and did I mention how badly circular this line is...

... I propose ... to call one's own labor and the equivalent exchange of one's own labor for the labor of others, the "economic means" for the satisfaction of needs, while the unrequited appropriation of the labor of others will be called the "political means."...The state is an organization of the political means. No state, therefore, can come into being until the economic means has created a definite number of objects for the satisfaction of needs, which objects may be taken away or appropriated by warlike robbery.

Because Nock proposes definitions for the terms "economic" and "political", and further decides to define the state as "an organization of political means", he concludes that "objects may be taken away or appropriated by warlike robbery".

A wee overdependent on his somewhat arbitrary definitions.  Let me give it a try...

I propose...to call the cooked flesh of slaughtered swine the "economic means", while solidified bovine lactose will be called "political means".  The state is an organization of the political means.  No state, therefore can come into being until bread is combined with political and economic means to create a ham and cheese sandwich

[Russell Kanning]

I think I need to seceed from the endless debate