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Anarcho-Syndicalism versus
American Conservatism Debate
On Land and Work
Image: From "Land" Gallery from RadicalGraphics.org
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"The day when the labourer may till the ground without paying away half of what he produces, the day when the machines necessary to prepare the soil for rich harvests are at the free disposal of the cultivators, the day when the worker in the factory produces for the community and not the monopolist--that day will see the workers clothed and fed, and there will be no more Rothschilds or other exploiters."
--Peter Kropotkin, "The Conquest of Bread," 1892, Chapter 4, Part I
"The central focus of the America First Party is to put America and all Americans First. We will elect candidates who will restore morality, ethics, and common sense to public service. We will return our Constitution to its proper place in our Republic."
--America First Party, Homepage
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Letters #01-#05
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Summary: Debate is started by an open letter from Punkerslut to the America First Party suggesting that there are options available for ending unemployment. America First replies that taxes are the cause of poverty, and Punkerslut responds that the government actually helps big businesses. Fighting for property rights begins with ending taxes, says the party, while Punkerslut says that it would start with giving land to the oppressed and exploited workers.
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"We both want to have farmers in those fields, and food in those stores. We want the people to be provided with a means by which they can work for themselves, support themselves, and possess a real type of independence."
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"The vexatious taxation, coupled with the creation of a counterfeit currency to sustain a corporate and personal welfare state, has forced our economy to a position of imbalance and skewer that negatively impacts vitality and prosperity."
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Letters #06-#10
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Summary: The America First Party states that the capitalist contributes capital, but capital is made by the workers. Statistics about poverty are produced, but then the right-wing party claims that they're made up by the government to justify welfare spending. To end unemployment, lower the deficit, says the America First Party, but Punkerslut says that this has been tried, and it didn't create jobs for all.
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"If workers produce all of the wealth in society, then it belongs to them! John Locke didn't dance around the issue of property, and neither did Rousseau or Adam Smith. It's not 'Marxist lunacy' -- it's called the Enlightenment."
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"Your statement about the 'best businesses' not creating any jobs is, again, crazy. All the people they employ are jobs they have created. Are you saying they aren't employing anybody."
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Letters #11-#15
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Summary: There is an agreement that Socialist Parties won't resolve the problem of poverty, but disagreements about interpreting economists and statistics. Punkerslut investigates the profit of the wealthy, and exposes it as being produced by slavery, but the America First Party denies that such a fact has any significance.
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"If I become unemployed, I want it to be because I can't add anything of value to the economy; I don't want it to be because some Capitalist thinks they can get 0.25% better revenue by buying war bonds. The organization, the management, the profits, and the right to labor the earth for myself -- I want all of these things to be mine, and I don't want to exclude anyone else by taking them."
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"When you say that capitalists own property because they stole it from the workers, you are telling lies. I am a capitalist, and I never stole anything from anybody."
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Letters #16-#20
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Summary: Workers commit violence, too, and get state aid, America First Party states. But, as the economists have suggested, all Capitalists depend on profits that are based on slavery and exploitation. America First Party rebuts that if Capitalists are responsible for theft, then so are workers. But Capitalists are the main reason for the poverty, suggests Punkerslut. In countering, America First Party says that Capitalists contribute to the social order.
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"Yes, I certainly am a little student of politics and history. I'm intensely passionate about my liberties, my rights, and the world that I live in. If I want to end oppression in our current world, I need to understand how it was ended in the past."
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"Do you actually work in the real world? Because what you are writing makes no sense, and doesn't line up with what all of us out here in the real world are thinking and doing."
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Letters #21-#25
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Summary: Punkerslut says that most workers don't really have the option of starting up a business and competing against conglomerations. That's why Capitalists are paid for their intelligence, responds the party. Yet the competition among Capitalists can eliminate neither unemployment or poverty. But the party argues that there isn't enough land and capital for all to be working. The statistics of property ownership, however, do prove that it is the few who are responsible for the misery of the many.
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"If you want there to be peace, then there has to be justice. Workers have every reason to believe that we create the wealth, and that the lands were seized from our ancestors. If you want us to think that the government isn't trying to exploit and oppress us, then you'll have to give some of the land back to the laborers."
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"I could probably give you statistics that prove that there are left-handed capitalists, and there have been left-handed capitalists since the dawn of time, indeed, that there is a 'pattern', a 'trend', of left-handed capitalism, but that doesn't prove that all capitalists are left-handed, or that all capital was obtained from 'left handed capitalists."
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Letters #26-#30
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Summary: The America First Party seriously doubts the use of force by the American government. And then makes an appeal for Christ. Punkerslut responds that Christ has nothing to do with this, and the economists have spoken well on his side. By entering into cartels and price-fixing schemes, businesses artificially deflate employment. The America First Party responds that they are opposed to oppression, and that Socialist ideas dominate oppressive governments.
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"Eternal death? You mean, god doesn't allow intermittent death if you plea-bargain your sin-case? I honestly just don't care. You don't shake and cry when your parents tell you that Santa won't give you presents if you're bad. At least, not any more. But you behave exactly the same now before god."
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"Look, for some time now I have suspected that you either do not argue in good faith, or your logical abilities are handicapped by your Marxist ideology."
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Letters #31-#33
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Summary: The right-wing party makes another defense of Jesus and then says that cooperative work and economy is a fantasy. But Punkerslut responds that oppression is still prominent in so-called Democratic countries. And no real solutions to unemployment have been brought up.
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"Capitalists are making a deal, to cut back production, to lay off workers, and increase profits -- only because they can make more when they starve the market. When there is not enough bread, bread prices go up, and so it is in the self-interest of bakers to fix prices, and this is the natural situation of a free market. That is, it is not very free for the individual."
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"There is no doubt that God works out all things according to His sovereign will, and yet He makes it clear that man is responsible for his rebellion and sin. Your objection is precisely the one that Paul answers in Romans 9:19-20."
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