You, Howard Olson, wrote:

>The solution may be some kind of Union control ( like the IWW's OBU
>concept) of banks with no statist authority. This is itself open to
>challenge as well but it seems safer than leaving any State or government
>(i.e. monopoly of force) in charge.
I don't think I necessarily have a "monopoly of force" in mind, only that
human society, whatever its shape, will inevitably depend on
contract-like agreements between its members in order to function--you
know, like, if you paint my house, I'll mow your lawn. All contractual
relations involve rights and duties. What happens when the lawn mower
decides not to hold up his or her end of the bargain? I'll tell you what
happens--the house painter looks to a third party to dispense justice
(except maybe in Albania, where he just shoots the guy who screwed him).
Third parties, justice, power: sounds like law and authority to me, and I
think most people reasonably see that as Not Necessarily a Bad Thing.

Meanwhile what you describe doesn't sound like anarchism, but rather
anarchy, another thing altogether in my book. Put another way, how is
your anarchist utopia different from the Hobbesian state of nature, viz.,
"solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short," "a war of all against all"?
Since you renounce force as legitimate means for achieving revolution,
you are thrown back on persuading people of the superiority of the
anarchist program, if you ever hope to see it realized. How do you
address these perfectly common sense objections?

To get back to your original thought, you alluded to attempts at
alternatives to the wage system. I am still looking forward to hearing
what those were, and how they fared.

y'r obdt. Svt.,

Tresy