Ah. Buy Nothing Day. The annual Circle Jerk of the Righteous. The day when anti-capitalists gather round, in disgust of the rampant consumerism we live in, and….
We are once again taking to the streets and holding a free shop. Meeting at 11.00 in the centre of Broadmead, we will setup our free shop inviting people to take whatever they want for free, and stopping for something to eat and a chat etc.
…engage in voluntary, free market capitalism.
Yes, you heard me. Buy Nothing day is totally compatible with capitalism- that is, if you take capitalism in the correct (libertarian) way. 
What it really means is a system under which each person is free from aggression against him, and that he’s able to enter into deals and contracts with others without some centralized agency using force to say “y’know what? I don’t like that deal. Do something else instead". Nowadays, capitalism more refers to the current system of private property if you’re a corporation (a legal fiction) who is best friends with the state. Otherwise, it’s all fair game for taxing and taking. I myself have a lot to say against our modern economic system.
Perhaps a better term would be merely “free market” than just capitalism. Although at the end of the day, the concepts involved are more important than what we call them. So, what are BND’s ideas?
Everything we buy has an impact on the environment. Buy Nothing Day highlights the environmental and ethical consequences of shopping. The developed countries – only 20% of the world population are consuming over 80% of the earth’s natural resources, causing a disproportionate level of environmental damage and an unfair distribution of wealth.
As consumers we need to question the products we buy and challenge the companies who produce them. What are the true risks to the environment and developing countries? The argument is infinite – while it continues we should be looking for simple solutions and Buy Nothing Day is a good place to start.
So, it’s environmental in nature, with a hint of social justice. Fair enough. How do they plan on reaching this goal? Well, by purely voluntary acts. Don’t shop, don’t spend, don’t choose to buy from big supermarkets. No where are they saying “We need a big, all powerful central force to reach these goals-Oh, I know, how about the government?”. As far as I’m concerned, that’s all the free market asks- nothing intrinsic to the free market means people must act in entirely profit driven, selfish goals, and no one ever said workers unions, charities, and co-operatives were to be outlawed. In fact, laws against such things would, by their nature, be anti-free market. A genuine free market society would easily tolerate a socialist* community, with a voluntary “State” centrally planning the economy in as far as they control it in that community, but a socialist* society would not tolerate a free market community. I myself would consider living in such a community if I felt it would give me a better life.
So, Buy Nothing Day is arguing for individuals to make their own value judgements on consumer goods, and encourages them to live on those choices by voluntary acts, and doesn’t call for aggressive, statist acts to enforce their values.
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is all the free market really asks.
Not that I’ll be joining in. If I spend no money tomorrow, it won’t be out of a conscious decision to take part in BND, but because I’ll be far too busy to go shopping. That, and I really have to question the wisdom of the basic idea. You can’t get along in life without trade. A world with no kind of trade at all is a subsistence economy where every person must produce everything they consume themselves. Yeah, doesn’t sound good, does it? Trade, however, is the key to prosperity. Trade isn’t an evil capitalist function for the exploitation of the masses; trade is a fact of life. You’re not going to last long without it, but at least you get to make (under a free market) your own judgements about what you buy and from whom you buy it. So, take this, from the BND’s FAQ:
Buy Nothing Day supports independent local shops and chooses to encourage people to shop locally and at markets. Our high streets are being cloned by the big brands and the small corner shops are closing.
Obviously, in the eyes of whoever runs this little outfit, small shops=ok, big business=bad OK, fine. I can see why you support such an idea- big business does some quite terrible things at times, including lobbying hard for laws and regulations that act in their favour (Tesco and compulsory purchase orders, anyone? another example of statism and big business working together at the expense of the free market), and many people don’t want to shop there. So, they voluntarily choose to shop at smaller, local shops, as suggested above. Sounds perfectly ethical to me. Non-aggressive actions in according with individual’s values? Yep, it’s that pesky free market again!
I may not see the point, in the end, of Buy Nothing Day, but ultimately, there’s nothing wrong with it. They aren’t aggressing against anybody else, they aren’t calling for some new statist intervention, they aren’t, to put it briefly, doing anything anti-libertarian. They aren’t exactly living the ultimate capitalist lifestyle of economic individualism, but then again, no one every said that was mandatory.
*By “socialist”, here I strictly mean forms of socialism under which the state centrally plans the economy, as practiced in the USSR, etc. I don’t mean such ideas as anarcho-communism, etc. This is an important distinction, so bear it in mind. Voluntary forms of socialism are fine and dandy. I may not agree that they are the best way to organize society, but those who disagree should be allowed to live their lives in a socialist manner- I have absolutely no intention of using coercion to stop you.
