User talk:Libertatia

Abstraction
I deem unfounded the complaint (if you meant it to be directed specifically at me, as seems the case from the context) that I answer specific "historical accounts" with abstractions. I'm always happy to discuss historical accounts of capitalisms But on the Talk page of Anarchism just now I was countering the abstract claim of 88.152 and others that anarcho-capitalism is inherently contradictory with an equally abstract (but no more so) explanation of why it isn't. I wasn't 'countering' particulars with abstractions. I will always try to address anyone on the level of concreteness with which he addresses me. Christofurio 20:02, 2 May 2006 (UTC)
 * It was directed to the comment directly above. I'm agnostic about the label anarcho-capitalism, as those who fly that particular flag vary in important regards as to their actual politics. Libertatia 14:05, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

A few words more, because this is a lazy Sunday. You write, in the same passage I responded to above, "Now, traditional individualist anarchists also trade in the (semi-mythic) promise of a really-free market-to-come, but try to call it something different, to avoid confusion."

Something different from "capitalism," then, is apparently what you mean there. This task of looking for a "Something Different" name that would itself be immune from anybody's nitpicking seems unnecessarily burdensome. I'll continue to call it "capitalism" in the meantime, and let the nitpickers make of that what they wish. And this is why it risks no genuine confusion: capitalism as an ideal is continuous with certain aspects of capitalism as an existing force in the world. One of the contentions implicit in much anarcho-capitalist writing is that if and when that ideal free market does come about, the historians of that time will see the development of, for example, secondary markets in equity over the recent centuries as having been a positive step forward toward the world that they enjoy. They'll see the prosecution of "insider traders" in the late 20th and early 21st centuries as having been a hindrance to the coming-to-be of the world that they enjoy. The word "anarcho-capitalism" doesn't merely constitute a mooning after an imagined future ideal -- it connects that ideal with some factors in the present and the past. It means one takes the side of the "kulaks," rather than of their liquidators, in memory.

So the term "anarcho-capitalism" isn't merely internally consistent. It contributes to your goal of "avoiding confusion." --Christofurio 15:59, 7 May 2006 (UTC)


 * It's not really an issue of "looking for a ... name that would itself be immune from anybody's nitpicking." Sure, such a thing is impossible, and to the extent that these debates never rise above the level of semantics, they are essentially worthless. Constructions like "consistent Manchesterian," "unterrified Jeffersonian," and "free-market anti-capitalist" do, however, strike me as more initially thought-provoking than "anarcho-capitalist," in part because it has been so easy to appropriate that last term to describe the mafia-capitalism of the post-Soviet states. Then again, when I see Enron execs associated with "kulaks," and in a positive sense, perhaps you don't mind those associations. In that case, your use of capitalism is clear as a bell, and in line with historical usages. It's your definition of anarchism that remains open to question. Libertatia 14:05, 8 May 2006 (UTC)


 * Its a good thing I never associated Enron execs with the kulaks, then, isn't it? I associated myself with the kulaks, "in a positive sense," because I think their memory must be defended. I certainly imlied that some prosecutions for insider trading and related offenses have been, in my view, misguided. I'll give you some examples if you like, but for now let's say this has nothing to do with the Enron crowd. They're on trial (yippee!) for having violated their fiduciary responsibilities to their stockholders. A manager's fiduciary responsibility is to work to make the owners of the company -- which in this case was a category that overlapped with the category "employees" considerably -- a profit. And that means a real profit, one that would show up given honest accounting! Lay, Skilling, and crowd violated that responsibility. They failed the basic test of capitalist ethics. And I'll never call myself an "unterrified Jeffersonian," I assure you. Huh? The adjective fits, but the noun applies to me not at all. --Christofurio 03:03, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

Come join Project Utopia!
Well, it's not a project yet, just a proposal. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Council/Proposals#Utopia But sign up and help make it a reality! Rabidwolfe (talk) 12:52, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

Regarding the message on your page
"system which attempts to do without any practice of critical judgement and expertise on the part of the editors will...drive away expertise.." That's the point, don't you see? Self-proclaimed experts on Wikipedia are not to be trusted. That's exactly what the system is trying to prevent, "original research," and for good reason. Wikipedia is simply a central repository for already-published information. It is not the editor's place to judge the truth of the information, and selectively input what he thinks is true and censor what he thinks is false. That defeats the whole idea of Wikipedia, including the policy of NPOV. Operation Spooner (talk) 06:32, 7 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Alas, what you describe is not what Wikipedia pretends to be. If Wikipedia would acknowledge that truth is the first casualty of their policies, there wouldn't be a problem. But it really isn't a questions of "self-proclaimed" experts in the case of our most recent conflict. It's a case of poorly researched material overwhelming well-researched material, of baseless assertions naturally being unchallenged, since nobody who had a clue would have made the claim in the first place. Libertatia (talk) 19:58, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Preamble to a profile
Greetings, Mr. Wilbur. As you are no doubt aware, articles on anarchist and libertarian topics come under assault on Wikipedia every now and again as "non-notable". If they do not seem to have enough attention from reliable or notable sources, they risk deletion. I'm sure you remember Articles for deletion/Roderick T. Long and Articles for deletion/Charles W. Johnson (philosopher). As someone who thinks the encyclopaedia is very much damaged by the removal of quality material on such figures, I've tried to come up with ways to combat it. One problem is that your average Wikipedian (i.e. "twelve year olds, convenience store clerks and failed grad students") don't know much about the field, and can't recognise when someone is noteworthy. The matter then rests with the perceived quality/authority of the sources which cover the topic.

I've come up with two ways to better educate/influence opinion on Wikipedia about sources on anarchist/libertarian topics. One is to provide a guideline on which sources are reliable, with justifications based on our policy (this guideline recently started at WP:ANCITE, at which your expertise is more than welcome). The second method is to add or develop articles on anarchist/libertarian sources; in recent months I've added Todd May, Lewis Call, Spunk Library, Anarchist Studies, Alternative Press Review, Lawrence Jarach and Andrej Grubacic. Aside from the encyclopaedic value of these articles themselves, having an article on Wikipedia gives them credibility as sources; especially as self-published sources (i.e. web-based sources). By way of example, I wrote the (admittedly bare) Dyer Lum article, and had its nomination for Good article status (and the wider audience that confers) thwarted because most of it was referenced to a blog. Only because I was able to point the reviewer to our article on the author of the blog, Kevin Carson, was it accepted as a source.

I realise that you don't contribute to Wikipedia as often as before and you can't be expected to help out here with these efforts, but I do have one request. I did some looking around online, and am convinced that there is enough coverage of you and your work to merit an article here. If we had an article on you that established your credentials, your work – including blog posts etc. – could then be used to reference and expand other articles. This strategy has a cascading effect; "Carson is noted as an expert by the attention in the Journal of Libertarian Studies. Wilbur is a noted expert because his scholarship has been highly praised by Carson. Destutt-Tracy is notable because he has been given non-trivial coverage by Wilbur." However, given the possibility that articles can be used for slander, invasion of privacy etc., I wanted to make sure you don't object to Wikipedia having an article on you. If you don't mind the ego-massage, then I could use some help in one regard: basic biographical information. Although I could find plenty of scholarly references, I couldn't find a page with a few paragraphs on who you are and what you've done, your institutional affiliations and publication credits and so on. If you could put one up, on your blog or personal website perhaps, I could write a decent stub article in a couple of minutes. Let me know what you think of the idea.

Regards, Skomorokh  03:30, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Property is theft
Yes, it concerns me. We have got to a point where every one of our errors is made to look like it is supported by one or more published sources (your user page didn't say "not for stealing", you see...) However, I think doing the things you say will not be challenged. The reason we cannot is because of page protection, and the reason for page protection is an edit war, and the reason for the edit war has nothing to do with the fact that Proudhon or Marx is badly presented. Rather, the situation is as I have said on the article's talk page. --EmbraceParadox (talk) 19:10, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

Cyberpunk
Libertatia, thank you for your comments and for the information you've shared. I'd eagerly like to learn more about the subject from your perspective, if you have anything more to share. I invite you to contribute any more comments to the talk page for the album article, so that after I have finished contributing to it, the record of our discussions and your contributions may be collected for browsing researchers to read. Understanding the "behind-the-scenes" discussions which could not be included on an article page can potentially be an important as the actual article content. --Cast (talk) 03:08, 16 August 2008 (UTC)

Ohh there you are

 * ) Lord Metroid (talk) 19:14, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

Hey
We need some help with citations over at User:Zazaban/Egoist anarchism, and I understand you're well versed in the subject. Also, if you could perhaps find other content we can add, that would be great, I feel the article could be bigger than it is. Thanks a bunch. Zazaban (talk) 00:59, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

Syndicalists and the First International
Regarding this, I lifted the claim right from Milorad Drachkovitch's The Revolutionary Internationals, 1864-1943 (details). Considering Drachkovitch was a professor at Harvard, Stanford and Berkeley, it seemed a reliable source. Is it the content of the claim you object to, or the anachronism of the term "syndicalist"? Skomorokh 18:35, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

Also, if you could comment on the claim that "Proudhon's followers, the mutualists, opposed Marx's state socialism, advocating political abstentionism and small property holdings", I would quite appreciate it, as I have not been able to find full support for this in the literature. Skomorokh 18:36, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

Ah, it was the "First International" that tripped me up. I really ought to write a disambiguation page for that; I'll have to go and double check the other references I added now. The information about the Proudhonists has not been challenged, so does not need immediate verification. Thanks very much for your swift replies. Regards, Skomorokh  20:15, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

If you have a minute...
I'm not sure how au fait you are with the Russian anarchist movement, but I've written articles on Alexander Schapiro and Sascha Schapiro, and am not entirely confident I haven't gotten them mixed up in places. If you could give them a skim for any obvious inaccuracies I'd really appreciate it. Sincerely, Skomorokh  00:16, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

Free-market anarchist
Hi. I'm very near from your political position about libertarian anarchism. But there is needed an historical note: american old anarcho-individualism -market anarchism- is not a synonimous of mutualism, this one is an intermediate place between individualist and collectivist anarchism (Proudhon, Bank of People, Federalism, Tolain). Tuckerite and Carsonian market anarchism aren't orthodox mutualism, historical market anarchism is represent by old amercian anarchism (absolute iusnaturalist propertarians like Warren or Spooner, and Tucker revised version of mutualism -not the original one-) and by old british voluntarysm (spencerians) and european laissez-faire racical liberals (Molinari, Faucher, etc). Market anarchism is almost ever represented by any form of anarcho-capitalism in modern times. I believe minorities should have their space but should be cleared who is who in free-market anarchism. Do you agree with me in any part of my comment? --Libertatis (talk) 00:09, 4 September 2009 (UTC)
 * If you want to introduce talk of "orthodoxy," then you have to do it with sources, in the appropriate places. My impression is that it will be hard to find the secondary sources to draw lines as clearly as you would like. Proudhon, for instance, announces himself in favor of laissez faire and "complete insolidarity" as early as 1848, and keeps coming back to similar positions, despite the fact that he also keeps proposing voluntary minimums and maximums in the realm of price. Tucker is certainly less "orthodox" than Langlois or even Greene, but there's a shortage of good sources to draw the distinctions clearly. And the sources that have been used thus far (Nettlau, etc.) actually lump a far broader range of positions into "mutualism." Tucker is, for instance, much closer to Proudhon than to Gray. The way that some of the distinctions are made here is certainly presentist, but "free-market anarchism" is a term of fairly recent coinage. Libertatia (talk) 21:05, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

Mutualism
Are you able to manually perform this split? It needs someone who knows the differences well. Timrollpickering (talk) 22:20, 28 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Libertatia, I answered the same question on my talk page saying that it's ok to move the pages currently in Category:Mutualism to Category:Mutualism (movement). Just dropped by to tell you that, jonkerz♠ 23:47, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

Follow up from Mutualist Discussion, FB
Just wanted to let you know I'm here, if my assistance should ever be required. Kristian Poul Herkild aka Dylansmrjones (talk) 15:34, 17 September 2012 (UTC)

ArbCom elections are now open!
MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 13:41, 23 November 2015 (UTC)

WikiProject Anarchism checking in
Hey there! I noticed you're on the WikiProject Anarchism members list, but you don't appear to have been very active in this subject area for some time. Just in case you're still interested, here's a little update:
 * In the past couple years, we have brought four articles to Featured status, including the ones on Nestor Makhno, La Salute è in voi, The May Pamphlet and "The Day Before the Revolution". We're likely to get even more to this status in the near future, so stay tuned to the front page for some of our best articles on the platform.
 * A number of our most vital articles have been reviewed and achieved Good Article status, including ones on Gaetano Bresci, Camilo Cienfuegos, Joseph Déjacque, Luigi Galleani, Paul Goodman, and the Kronstadt rebellion. As these "vital articles" are generally considered among the most important on the platform, we aim to get as many as possible to GA and FA status over the coming years.
 * We recently hit the first milestone for our stub-expansion project, getting the number of stubs down to under 1/5th of our total articles. This means that the vast majority of our articles are now relatively substantial, as we expand and add greater detail to the articles that lack sufficient information. We hope to narrow this number down even further, so more articles have the information they deserve.
 * We just started a cleanup drive, in which we are aiming to resolve the problematic parts of our articles, from finding citations for unsourced sections to fixing up formatting errors. In doing this, we intend to make sure our articles provide the best possible reading experience, without unsourced claims or ugly tags littering the page.

If you want to get more involved in the project, please feel free! We always need an extra pair of hands to help out with our ever-growing project. If you want to help out with one of the above efforts, go right ahead. If you want to keep more up to date with the project's activities, consider adding our noticeboard to your watchlist or adding your name to our mailing list. On the other hand, if you think you're time with the project is over, then consider removing your name from the members list, but we do hope you're still interested in our wee project.

All the best to you, whatever your future plans are. Regards, --Grnrchst (talk) 10:56, 13 May 2024 (UTC)