Sunday, September 28, 2008

The Unintended Consequences of School Vouchers

Individual progress

The individual works for real progress. Inflation, or monetary expansion, behaves like a tax. In the absence of inflation, incentives to save arise. Without the threat of inflation destroying the individual's savings, he or she would invest more. 

Workers will work their way up with a true free education system in a free society. Without the constant theft from inflationary, regulatory and tariff pressures, workers will accumulate wealth to invest in real education, not the state "education" in which it wastes and too expensive.

In the current system, the state regulates education, even the so-called "privatized" voucher schools. Amazingly, these voucher schools function similarly to the state-funded "public universities." The state funds voucher schools similar to how the state funds the "public universities." We cannot distinguish between the terms "private" and "public." This exemplifies that we should use "private" and "pubic" relatively.

In the "developing" countries in Asia and Latin America, the worker currently works for long hours in slave conditions, with little income. Inflation destroys the worker's savings, preventing him or her from stepping up the ladder. Their subsistence quality of life impedes their progress, as it prevents them from getting an education. The "free" trade agreements, which set special quotas, tariffs, patents, and regulations, privilege the monopoly corporations at the expense of the worker. 

Subsidized education, or any education funded by vouchers by the state, harms the workers more than it helps. The state must implement all its subsidized services with regulations,  otherwise subsidies would misdirect. The state must specify the criteria required by these services to subsidize them, to prevent misuse of funds to firms that fail to pass the criteria. For example, the state must specify the curricula for voucher-funded schools, otherwise the voucher-funded schools would misuse their funds to teach something unrelated to education. The state must regulate student loans the equally as subsidized education. When the state gives a student a loan, it must regulate the schools that the student uses the loan. The state must regulate the curricula by these schools. Otherwise, the student would spend it on something else unrelated to "education," such as an athletic school.

Besides the regulated curricula, the state must perform some tests to test the effectiveness its education subsidies. In that way, the state will not fund any school that fails to pass the test. The state uses tests as a strategy to avoid wasting funds to the "bad" schools. However, since the state makes the "tests," it can choose any question to test that it want to ask. The state controls the curricula that the subsidized schools teach by a curricula or standardized testing. These curricula and tests might contain propaganda.

Proponents of "school vouchers," particularly the so-called "free market" economists, cite that it results in more freedom than "state-regulated" education. We proved that "school vouchers" function the same as "state-regulated" education, as the state must regulate the curricula and provide tests to prevent misuse of the "voucher funds." 

We see the "developing" countries as highly corrupt and frequent abuses of power. In a less totalitarian area, such as the developed countries, we see more sole proprietorships and small businesses than the corporations. However, the reverse occurs in the "developing" countries. Corporations vastly outnumber sole proprietorships and small businesses. In the "developing" countries, we see a few multinational corporations dominating the country.

The corporatist "free" trade agreements only defend the existence of multinational corporations. The written agreements contain special privileges, such as favorable regulations and patents. Corruption and the favorable treatment to the large corporations arise at the expense of small businesses. This results in a monopoly, a state-granted privilege prohibiting competition of the large corporations with smaller businesses. These corporations can charge as high and pay as low to the workers as they want. 

Until the state-privileged corporations can compete with new businesses entries, they will continuously enslave workers. Until the state withdraws all funding for "education," workers will not really learn. The workers cannot pay for even low-quality state-education.

As we proved that the free society will provide higher quality education from the lack of state controls, and the free society also will make individuals afford education as the privileged corporate monopolies paying slave-like wages would not exist.

We omitted the situation in which an individual who possesses relatively diminutive wealth wants to make money in a field requiring a long time of expensive education, but he or she lacks the patience to save. We see three advantages in a free market:

  • In a free society with free competition, the corporate parasites will not confiscate the individual's wages, thus letting he or she save the education sooner.
  • The state will not regulate the curricula, which will let the free market education services compete until the education costs reduce to a fraction of the state-regulated or subsidized, while providing higher quality education. 
  • In a free society, individuals can freely start working without state-required licenses. In a closed society, however, the state requires individuals to own a license before working. The licenses often contain special provisions mandating the individual to study at a school for a long period in order to work. For example, the state forces individuals who wants to work as a medical doctor to study in an university for ten years. This increases the costs of education tremendously.

The individual will easily get his or her education, and these three reasons may make him or her well sufficient. In a free society, even more advantages will make everyone, including the ones who resided in the "developing" countries, to afford an education. As discussed in the previous section, in a free society interest rates will significantly lower. The impatient individual can afford education even sooner, by borrowing at significantly lower interest rates. After completing his or her education, the individual would directly benefit in the increase of productivity. The individual could easily pay back the loan from his or her directly increased productivity, and in the absence of the opportunity losses from taxes and regulation. This encourages a productive society.

If the free society suddenly arose from a fast, peaceful Agorist revolution, we would indeed see a temporary adjustment to a more equal wealth and income distribution fixes. We see the temporary adjustment as fast, as individuals would possess the incentives and the freedoms in the absence of the parasites. Any worker would use the cheap, high-quality and fast free education to raise his income more quickly than anyone can guess.

The productive society

As incomes approach more equality in a free society, workers will increase productivity. As noted in Artificially high interest rates?, the state taxes individuals 50% of their income and an 80% opportunity loss exists in the parasitic society.

We should not imply that income will double due to 50% less tax. We should not imply that income will increase by a factor of five due to 80% opportunity cost. As productivity increases, individuals work less. Some individuals will work as hard in a free society as they worked in a parasitic society, to amass great wealth. Some individuals will reduce their work time by half, as they still can receive wages 2.5 times than they live in the parasitic society. Some individuals will reduce their work time by five in the absence of 80% opportunity cost, while still resuming the equivalent pay as they worked in the parasitic society. 

GDP, or gross domestic production, measures the gross production in a select number of individuals who happens to locate in the same geographical territory. As GDP measures production, it lacks opportunity costs. Lower opportunity losses mean higher productivity. For example, open source "free software" increases productivity, but decreases GDP. Taxes increase opportunity losses, but might increase GDP, as individuals might produce more for the state to confiscate.

I wrote this article as valid E-Prime, avoiding the "to be" inflections (be, is, am, are, was, were, been and being). In addition, to avoid redundancy, I avoided the terms: (has, have, had, does, do, did, becomes, become, became, left-wing, right-wing), the ontological terms (belong, type, kind, class), relative terms (most, overall, generally, very, few, many, majority) and all the terms that ended in -ism, -ist and -ian (capitalism, communism). I tried to use avoid the passive voice if possible, and including the actor if possible. Although I believe in abstract thinking, I wrote unambiguously, concretely, and precisely as possible, to avoid potential conflicts in communication. I avoided abstract terms such as Malthusian, Darwinian, and Marxian. 

Extensions of the State

An inverted index of List of Fully Parasitic Sectors, ordered by level of state fusion. When the state fully expands itself, it would be considered level 1. Levels increase by less state fusion.

level 1 (red market)

Extensions of the state. Contains government-granted sectors. This also includes state subsidized sectors, directly and indirectly funded. Because the state subsidizes or buys services from these sectors, firms cannot control price and quality.

The state must specify the criteria required by these services to subsidize them, to prevent misuse of funding to firms that do not validate to the criteria. For example, the state must specify the curricula for voucher-funded schools, otherwise the voucher-funded schools would misuse their funds to teach something unrelated to education. The state also must regulate the curricula to the schools that they give student loans to.

democracy
Self-explanatory.
military-industrial complex
Private contractors lobby the state for wars. It funds war propaganda for the state to fund war.
security-industrial complex
Unneeded, free market security firms would provide them.
prison-industrial complex
These lobby victimless 'crimes' such as drug laws to get more prisoners to profit.
university-industrial complex
The state funds universities to spread propaganda. An article
Internet sector
Net "neutrality" regulations prohibit competitors.
roads
The energy companies fund roads specifically designed for cars so cars would use energy. Claim hundreds of deaths and injuries.
education vouchers
Purely extensions of the government. Restricts these curricula to prevent abuse of funding that they do not approve.
state granted organizations
Public universities, etc.
student loans
central bank
banking sector
The central bank funds these.
law
They lawyers make laws more complicated so they would benefit because they make the laws. The lawyers indoctrinate individuals to be agents to report every violation to the police. The low supply of lawyers limits the number of firms that employ them. And creates artificial economies of scale for firms that employ them due to high prices due to high demand. If everybody is an independent contractor or if there are many small businesses, the number of lawyers too small and little.
accountancy
Similar to the lawyers limits the number of firms and creates artificial efficiencies.
tax preparation
Tax preparation companies legislate complicated tax regulations so they would profit. They own many "tax patents" so they retain a monopoly in efficient tax preparation.
trade agreements
labor unions
Labor unions control pricing and hence controls quality of the jobs
urban planning
The urban planning sector restricts business development in residential areas. This would make workers consume more energy to drive to their business everyday. The energy companies lobby the urban planning sector to profit from selling energy to workers everyday when they drive to work.
patented sector - drugs, machinery, electronics, equipment, business methods, etc.
Bureaucrats working to legislate government regulations would hold stocks of a corporation, then legislate a monopoly on the corporation so they would profit from the stocks that they hold in a corporation.

Federal employees own stocks of many companies and then make regulations to benefit the company so he would profit.
Patent examiners would own stocks of a company and then grant that company patents so he would profit.
subsidized housing
Examples include Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Bailouts to inflate.

level 2 (pink market)

The state goes through a highly restricted approval process, but does not fund or buy these services. The approval process and regulations restrict the supply of firms, which results in high prices, but firms still have the ability to compete for prices. Ergo firms have some degree of control of price, but not quality. Price and quality may still be thousands of times worse - same as level 1.

medical-industrial complex
The whole medical sector is parasitic. Physicians are licensed to prescribe drugs for the pharmaceutical companies. The licenses are written by big-pharmacy. The damage done from high prices from licensing that restrict the supply of doctors is very little compared to the damage done from physicians who diagnose false. When the physicians diagnose false, it results in drug addiction which causes side-effects. In order to correct the side-effects, more drugs are addicted.
civil engineering
The government subsidies these industries, and due to huge corruption and bureaucratic inefficiency, it parasitically robs a large fraction economy to the civil engineers.
construction
Due to building codes, it suppresses smaller businesses to compete.
psychiatry
Psychiatrists that study non-existent disorders such as autism, ADHD, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia and others legislate regulations so psychiatrists would diagnose them. Psychiatry is pseudoscience. They conflate correlation with causation.
dentistry
The strict certification process.
non-subsidized "private" education
The state strictly controls the curricula taught in these schools.
The "free trade agreements" contain corporate privileges, quotas, duties, licensing and regulatory requirements. This industry lobbies favorable tariffs that raises the price of imports and exports by hundreds of times.
Telecommunication
Net neutrality regulations raises costs of lines and inhibits innovation.
Electricity
The state regulates electricity companies
Water supply
Agriculture
Highly subsidized, confiscation of money

level 3 (white market)

The general white market, moderate state regulation distorts and creates inefficiencies. Firms have a relatively large degree of freedom to behave similarly as they would in a free market, with the oligopolies and artificial economies of scale. Frequently lobbying the state, these actions considered as parasitic.

non-profit firms
The state arbitrarily exempt taxes on some activities but not others (basically limits the activities)
corporations
The state exempt taxes on "capital goods," Government arbitrarily determines if a good's category fits in "capital goods," basically distorts goods and services
financial industry
Though the current financial industry likes to steal money, such as parasitically lobby government to inflate, the financial industry, intrinsically, does a useful job in the free market. The speculators know internal information about the interest rates. They has grown too large, and embezzeles the majority of the wealth.
regulatory capture
food industry

limits some non-FDA approved foods

level 4 (black market)

The black market, state does not control these, but due to risks to state takeover, these firms operate less than their maximum efficiency.

unlicensed businesses
high prices due to risk of state
immigrant transport industry
too risky
illegal drugs
high prices & monopoly
prostitution
high prices & monopoly

level 5 (free market)

Market anarchism, no threat of state, optimal efficiency.

Religion--although religious individuals advertise this fraud, the existence does not depend on the existence of the state. Less intelligent individuals do not realize the obvious contradiction in religion.

Pandemics, such as AIDS--This does not depend on the state.

Authoritarian parenting--This does not depend on the state.

Rent and Interest Will Shrink

Artificially high interest rates?

The current interest rates range from about 2%, the Fed funds rate, to 10%, the mortgage loan rate. The Austrian School economists that I encountered see this rate as artificially low. They think that the Federal Reserve, the central bank that counterfeits new money, artificially lowers interest rates which promotes malinvestment. They base their theory on the Austrian Business Cycle Theory, which suggests the artificial decrease of interest rates by the central banks. However, I see these rates as artificially high. Let me explain.

The burdensome lending regulations prohibits anyone to lend without a license. Less individuals would lend as a result, and interest rates raise in response due to low supply of loaned funds. Taxes also lower the supply of loaned funds and increases the demand of loans. The state directly confiscates about 50% of the workers' income through taxes. If one multiplies up both sides of the payroll taxes, tariffs, the federal, state and local income taxes, value added taxes, sales taxes, corporate income taxes, property taxes and the regressive excise and inflation taxes, one would get a taxation rate higher than 50%. Indirect "taxes" include the monopolized firms (we will explain this below), business regulations, and others mentioned in the index of fully parasitic industries, although workers see these "taxes" as loss of opportunity costs, not a decrease in production (as in gross domestic product, we will mention later). Including these indirect taxes would result in an 80% "tax" or, more accurately, 80% opportunity loss. Without these "taxes," individuals would lend more which lowers interest rates significantly.

The Austrian economists also avoided the uneven distribution of rates. In the current corporatist society, interest rates distribute unevenly throughout wealth and class levels. I see the privileged corporations borrow at the Federal funds rate, a nominal rate of 2% from the Federal Reserve.

Unprivileged individuals, such as the working class, borrow at a nominal interest rate higher than 6% for mortgages. I consider this unfair to the productive working class when the privileged corporations borrow at 2%.

Monetary expansion may also raise the real mortgage interest rates, to 10-30%. Monetary expansion discourages savings at the expense of increases in speculation and consumption. Suppose an individual wants to lend out money and earn interest. However, he or she cannot profitably invest by lending. The current monetary expansion rate looks closer to 10%-30% annually. The individual cannot profitably invest even if he lends out with an 8% interest rate. If the individual lends 8% when the rate of monetary expansion approximates 10%, he would lose 2%!

Besides the workers who unfairly borrow at a higher rate than the privileged corporations, the current system also treats Mom and Pop businesses unfairly. The Federal Reserve prohibits anyone other than the privileged corporations or banks to borrow at the Federal funds rate. Smaller businesses borrow at a higher rate. They could only borrow at a high interest rate of 20%, which allows the privileged corporations to crush them!

Many Austrian economists consider Hans-Hermann Hoppe as a respectable economist. He wrote an article theorizing the existence of the upper class, even in a free society, though many Austrians disgree with him. In his article, he mentioned that in the monarchical period in early modern period, the real interest rates averaged an amazingly 2.5%. Even in the feudal age, in which I consider as a highly corrupt period, interest rates averaged 5%. The state raised the interest rates since corruption begun in the 19th century.

If a free society exists today, individuals can borrow at a lower interest rate, such as 1%, much lower than the current Federal funds rate of 2%. Everybody will own a house!

Many Austrian economists assume that interest rates would rise in a "free" society. We proved that they made a mistake. They avoided about how corruption, such as regulation and taxes, raises interest rates more than the central banks would decrease. They failed to take note of the inequality of interest rates differing between the privileged corporations and the mortgage rates. We predict that interest rates will decrease.

Saturday, September 20, 2008

Anarchist Communication Guide

Communication as a marketing strategy

Those who use communication to spread ideas commonly use verbal communication. All kinds of communication contains vagueness, semantic barriers and misunderstandings that cause unproductive conflicts. Communication requires an amount of common understanding and definition of language and its use.

Suppose if an individual thought of an idea. The first thing that he should do, involves researching the benefits of communicating his idea in the first place. If he wants to spread his idea to others as a larger strategy in achieving some goal, such spreading his idea of Agorism, he should adhere to the common marketing strategies.

Communication and groupthink

The process of multiple individuals collaborating to create ideas and to solve problems defines groupthink. Groupthink, since it requires a plurality of individuals, requires communication. Members should equip the same definitions of the terms to communicate thoroughly.

However, groupthink has its disadvantages. Because of the effort of communication, it often results in slowness of idea development due to time spent on communication. The time spent speaking and writing out ideas to others may lag the speed of idea creation by hundreds of times. The time spent on communication may constitute 99% of the time, while authentic thinking may constitute merely 1% of the time.

Research their audience

The effort on writing concise and non-vague text consumes too much time. Writers should explain clearly, even though the idea may seem obvious for him, to express his ideas. Writers should research their audience for their jargon and their definitions, in order to avoid semantic disputes and misunderstandings. They also should research the audience's background and knowledge, and define terms that they might confuse.

One thing that communicators often forgot, includes the style of their communication and the attractiveness of the text. They should research his audience's interests and include things that may interest them, in order for them to continue the reading. Using active voice instead of passive voice makes writing more interesting. For example, use The state enslaves people. instead of People are enslaved by the state. Avoid "nots," for example, use Inflation harms instead of Inflation does not help. Truth behaves objectively, instead of Truth does not behave subjectively. The state behaves evilly, instead of No state can behave morally.

Communicators often ignore marketing their text, which in many cases considered the most important step in spreading ideas. Forgetting their marketing strategy undermines their purpose of writing: to spread their idea to as many as possible to promote a cause, such as Agorism. If they do not market their idea as wide of an audience as possible, then why write at all?

Symbol grounding

In order to perform an accurate standard of communication without any semantic conflicts, communicators would often should define their terms concise enough. This challenging task, ironically, often results in incomplete and unclear definitions, due to the confusion within these words that defines the term. John Searle's Chinese room argument considers the theoretical impossibility of defining terms without going contradictory, while not assuming common assumptions.

A partial solution to reduce vagueness involves giving examples demonstrating the definition. Explain examples of physical actions demonstrating what the definition does and does not mean increases clearness. For example, defining defense requires the communicator to explain thoroughly various situations:

  • If one physically hit the same individual who had hit himself without his permission, one has defended himself.
  • If one put a fence around his property or locked the door to his home, one defended himself.
  • No contract existed between Alice and Bob exempting punishment for threatening speech. Bob said a threatening statement I am going to hit you. Alice did not get offended. If Alice hits Bob, Alice has performed self-defense.
  • No contract existed between Alice and Bob prohibiting non-threatening speech. Bob said a non-threatening statement: Women are stupid. Alice becomes offended. If Alice hits Bob, Alice would have aggressed against Bob. Therefore, if Alice hits Bob and then Bob hits Alice, Bob has performd self-defense when he hits Alice.

Use concise terms

Counterproductive aphorism

Whenever an anarchist saying aphorism like government is slavery, taxation is theft, or democracy is bad, these phrases would result in semantic disputes if interpreted incorrectly by the interventionist. Interventionist have multiple interpretations of words like theft, is, or government in these contexts.

The term government implies a broad range of definitions, ranging from a state government, to self-government, to corporate government. The latter two definitions can derive from voluntary associations, while the former implies an inherently aggressive association which does slavery. Thus, the phrase The state is slavery. feels more neutral.

Individuals from various backgrounds interpret the word is in this phrase differently. The is word may have interpreted as an inherent property of the "state." However, the term "state" does not possess any inherent positive or negative attribute; its behavior determines its positive or negative attributes. Therefore, Objects are Morally Neutral.

A more neutral method to rewrite the phrase The state is slavery involves replacing the meaning of "slavery" in this context, which equates the state and theft as inherent, to resemble a behavior, like "enslaves." The phrase becomes The state enslaves. However, it contains further vagueness since it does not acknowledge the object that it enslaves. Does the state enslave the working class, the capitalist class, or the bureaucrats? The state does enslave the former, and it does not enslave from the latter two. Appending "us," an object, to the phrase would look more neutral: The state enslaves us. This has clearly shown that the phrase The state enslaves us. looks much more neutral than the phrase Government is slavery.

Interventionists do not interpret the phrase taxation is theft as consistent because they irrationally believe that the state has resulted from a social contract, hence all members implicitly legalized taxation. Though anarchist realize that taxation is theft, the use of the word "theft" to the interventionist would confuse them. Counterproductive strategies such as repeating the vague phrase would do nothing than to incite further conflict and semantic disputes. A more rational strategy involves using concise words and logical arguments to derive that taxation harms rather than helps us.

Ontology

The word "is" in the phrase taxation is theft can imply synonymy for taxation and theft, hence taxation and theft becomes interchangeable.

The word "is" can also imply taxation as a subset of theft, which would imply the word "is" behaves as an injective relation.

The word "is" can further imply that there exist only one classification of the subject. For example, the look at the definition of a dog: A dog is a species of mammal. The "is" would imply that the term dog does not have any definition other than a species of mammal. Because individuals would interpret the word "is" as an injective relation, other definitions such as humans commonly keep dogs as pets, or dogs bark, should not exist. An ontological or ultimate categorization of "dogs" does not exist. Because this does not exist, this refutes the connotation that the word "is" behaves like an injective relation even though the definition of "is" in the previous paragraph defines "is" as an injective relation.

This demonstrates that the word "is" implies vagueness. However, all the verbs that means "to be," in addition to "is," also implies ambiguity. The word "to be" has derived from ontology, a theory of the ultimate categories of things. Since reason shows that "ultimate categories" do not exist, the use of the "to be" words imply an ultimate category of things.

Avoiding "to be" words (am, is, was, are, were, be, been, being) lessens the ontological concepts in writing, which would make sentences look more neutral. E-Prime uses this strategy. The use of E-Prime, though does not eliminate ontology in any way, lessens the use of it. Individuals still should reason non-ontologically and non-taxonomically to make objects neutral. More active voice sentences over passive voice sentences result from a side-effect of E-Prime, as explained above that active voice often makes writing more interesting.

Vagueness

Consider a statement used by Austrian economists:

While most people agree that computer science, physics and chemistry contains deductive truths, most people deny that economics contains deductive truths.

The use of the word "most" resembles a vague statement. The word "most" did not refer whether to most of individuals in the United States, the neoclassical economists, the majority of self-identified Austrian economists, or did it refer to the speaker. "Most" of the individuals in the United States, paradoxically, might believe that economics contains deductive truths because of their ignorance of the empirical methodology of mainstream economics. Thus the use of the word "most" interprets as highly vague and represents a subjective viewpoint, without any objective criteria of the usage (whether over most of the individuals in the United States or mainstream economist). The words "majority," "some," and "few" also interpret as vague words.

Furthermore, words that relate to size, time, speed, distance and other quantifiable concepts have differing interpretations. The use of "large" or "small" to denote an object implies a relative comparison to other objects within the specific category. A "large" dog means that it looks larger than the mediocre "dog." However, what if a person who, in his lifetime, looked at dogs that grew large? That person would classify the "large" dog as mediocre.

Numerical concepts often represent highly subjective, and even inaccurate interpretations. The mainstream media frequently referred that India's "economy" would become larger than the United States. What does "economy" mean? Does it refer to the nominal GDP or CPI-adjusted GDP, the total GDP or the per capita GDP, or does it refer to another measure of the "economy"? The Indian government, using extrapolation of empirical growth rates, deduced this numerical statistic that the "economy" would grow larger. The statistic did not realize that the relatively "high" growth rates would slow down after time due to lower economic freedom compared to Western nations.

The left-right political spectrum

See The Fallacy of the Political Spectrum

True definition

Common or generally accepted definitions do not exist. While the majority of the individuals in the United States believe that democracy synonymously equates with freedom, the Austrian economist would equate it with majority rule. Others, including the Bush administration, would equate it with "capitalism."

While the majority defines socialism in the Marxist definition as a transitional stage to "communism," bureaucrats would define it as a mixed economy. The majority in Europe may equate socialism as a "Third Way" of "Social Democracy," and the Austrian economist may refer socialism as synonymous to a planned system. Furthermore, others, including the "left-libertarians," and the Mutualist, refer socialism as any strategy achieving workers' equality.

Socialism, communism and progressivism, do not adhere to any generally accepted definition among all types of subjects. While progressivism originally meant as making progress, it became distorted by the popular individuals which means nothing than a synonym for "leftism" among the majority in the United States, while in India, it may mean some form of totalitarian and planned social system. Always use the true definitions, not the "popular" definitions that one subjectively accept. As these might mean vastly different in other states and ideologies, a centrally accepted definition does not exist.

Liberal and conservatism mean polar opposites as defined by the majority in the United States and mean synonyms as in Australia. The majority in the United States might see these terms reversed to mean opposites, such as in Europe. Even worse, the terms "left-liberalism" and "right-liberalism" do not have any well-defined general acception. Left-liberalism might mean an economically non-interventionist corporate capitalist society by a majority of European professors, due to different definitions of "liberalism" in Europe; while right-liberalism might mean some branch in the Democrat Party that endorses religious fundamentalist values, by a majority of Democrats who attended some college that defines right-liberalism that way.

Murray N. Rothbard's mistake in the use of left-liberalism in his manifesto For a New Liberty may have convinced a few for his apparent self-explanatory definition, while others, such as European readers, may mistakenly interpret this as some pure free-market system while advocating maximum personal freedom. He did not appear to research how his audience defines left-liberalism, which resulted in huge mistakes. No one knows what it means. It could mean anything. It can mean the positions advocated by the current United States Republican Party, since they have the same view on economic intervention as the positions of the Democrat Party except lesser "pork barrel spending."

Rothbard could have used interventionism in place of left-liberalism. He could have used statist in place. He could even have used conservatism, since its true definition meant status quo or status quo ante, which logically implicated its opposition to change, especially anarchist revolution.

One should the true definition, not some "popular accepted" one. As proved, a popular accepted one, no matter how popular, might mean the polar opposite in other countries or in differing occupations. As this would discussed later, individuals should avoid ideological words to avoid differing definitions.

Don't replace semantics with content

Well, what has the current "anarchist" debate fed up to? Anarchist within a wide range of economic positions, each and every day, clashing among each other with loud and roaring sounds IN ALL CAPS and in repetition, have become label warriors every day. Many Internet warriors, who on the forums, blogs, mailing lists and even on YouTube comment discussions, rant each other out on confusing and conflicting terms filled with "package deals" and negative connotations that rapidly incite heated attacks against each other, enough to make any reader offended without any reason, other than the simple explanation: caused by the communication incompatibilities and differing definitions that go unnoticed.

Don't ever go on these sites nor read anything, even in curiosity, unless one wants to have a mental conflict that forces one to reply against these apparent trolls. Never use any controversial terms like "capitalism," "anarcho-capitalism," and "objectivism," unless one wants to feed the collectivist "anarchist," and the Randroid trolls.

What causes the internal cause of these fights? Different definitions between the Randians and the non-Randians exemplifies the main cause of the objectivist-subjectivist conflicts. The clash of the word "Anarchism" of the Communist and the Free-Marketeers results in an ever-growing, ever-lasting debate among these, even in the original philosophers such as Murray Bookchin's essay: Social Anarchism or Lifestyle Anarchism - An Unbridgeable Chasm.

In his essay, filled with bizarre and obvious flawed assumptions, these flawed assumptions perform the major contributions!

He has renamed Individualist anarchism with Lifestyle anarchism for the very misunderstanding that Individualist anarchism does not even respect nor help the workers in any way--Bookchin perceived that the rich and the elite developed the "individualist anarchist" philosophy as a way to liberate from the traditional cultural restrictions on drugs and gambling, at an expense of the decrease in the living standards of the workers.

All the chapters in his book, filled with same-old arguments against the current state-capitalist order, have the same criticism sections in An Anarchist FAQ against anarcho-capitalism.

All the labels have become semantic, and the "anarcho"-communist who wrote the FAQ have become so informed that they do not even know the true concept of "individualist anarchism." If the philosophy "individualist anarchism" replaces its name to "free-market anarchism," the authors would quickly shun it. The self-identified "anarcho"-communist contain a diverse array of "anarcho"-communist philosophies, such as Mutualism, Anarcho-Communism, Anarcho-Collectivism, Anarcho-Syndicalism, etc., which internally differ much more greatly with each other than all the free-market anarchist philosophies combined!

Please ignore the Anarcho-Communist. Ignore them. Spend more time marketing Agorism instead of criticizing Anarcho-Communism, and then have everything done.

What do we do?

Instead of playing the "semantic game" with the statists who shun away whenever the word "anarchism" appears, focus on using more neutral words. As said, please avoid controversial words and words differing in definition, especially anarchism, capitalism, socialism, communism, libertarianism, and even free market if possible; in order to convert the maximum number of statists directly to anarchist philosophy without all the mess trolling in forums and in blogs.

To further and maximize the effect of avoiding as many connotations as possible, please avoid the ideologies that ends with "-ism," and avoid words such as "property." Avoid arguing abolishing "minimum wage" laws, as readers would often get shocked of how it might mistakenly yield a return to the "Robber Barons." Avoid any arguments defending Wal-Mart or Standard Oil, which would quickly shun away many readers, and even avoid the word "property."

It works! For a few examples, see Mary Ruwart's Healing Our World, with a free online version.

In her book, all the political philosophies ending in "-ism" do not exist. The term "free-market" does not even exist. The book defines the word "property" only after it argued that non-aggression against the products of the labor would result in fortune. Because her book avoids the semantic game by avoiding potentially conflicting terms, all of her book focuses on pure logic instead of semantics.

By emphasizing only one term--"aggression"--she refutes all the statist proponents without any other words.

However, mistakes encountered during reading includes the refutation of minimum wage placed too early in her book, which might drive away potential converters. Her defense of statist corporate firms such as Standard Oil would almost shun away anyone who opposes the current gas company profits.

Bad marketing practices for promoting Agorism include the promotion on web forums, blog comments, mailing lists and YouTube comments. Agorists consider that the vast quantity of Ron Paul spammers on YouTube damaged "libertarianism," though Ron Paul behaves like a fascist.

Good marketing strategies in promoting Agorism, if one exist, include marketing ideas and books as wide of an audience as possible. Marketers should use copywriting techniques to increase converters of Agorism. The main role of promoting the free market comprises of marketing strategies to spread it. Agorist should engage in marketing the free market.

Semantic links

For links, see: