Most of what's described in this article isn't anarchism, it's socialism (and a lot of it is also outright communism). Which is ironic given that socialism cannot exist without a form of government to enforce it. The most blatant evidence is the "anti-capitalism" entry, true anarchism can't be "anti" anything but state. As well as the article's ridiculously, and deliberately, nebulous stance on private property.
I won't bother editing because I'd probably just get into an edit war with whoever wrote this, but I'll leave it here for anyone who this might help. For an accurate description on anarchism, check the other wiki.
I do think this should be renamed to "Social Anarchism". The dainty little note (because however wrote it didn't want to be clear enough to write it as an actual part of the text, preferring to hide it) explaining that that's what this article is actually about hardly makes it clear enough.
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- sigh* gotta repress those impulses to trash on an internet ancap...
An-arkós: without arkón, without rulers. That is, without leadership/authority figures, completely or as much as possible.
Noam Chomsky also views anarchism more as a tradition that began with illuminism rather than a social ideology that began with Proudhon. He says the common characteristic of anarchism is that "All hierarchies have to be justified, if they can't then they must be abolished for this way we increase the scope of human freedom".
There is also the "stateless" definition. So let me define a state in a way that's coherent:
A "monopoly of legitimate violence" on a given territorial area;
An institutional and professional nature to the administration of that violence;
A hierarchy, the centralization of power and initiative in the hands of a few.
So, these are three definitions of anarchism. Now let me demonstrate how "anarcho"-capitalism fails at every single one of them. Let me begin from the last and most "latu sensu" one and work backwards.
Do ancaps oppose hierarchies and the centralization of power and initiative in the hands of a few? No, so long as it doesn't break the NAP, companies can work like that. Do they oppose an institutional and professional nature to the administration of violence? So long as it's done by a security company to protect the property they secure, no, they're all in favor of that. Do ancaps oppose a security company having an exclusivity contract with the owner of a territorial area and therefore being the only company allowed to offer services there? No, not only are they okay with that, but that's an efficient market strategy. So ancaps are not against states so long as they're private.
Second definition. Do ancaps believe hierarchies should be abolished if they cannot be justified? No. They believe they can be formed so long as private property is not being violated, there is no problem with hierarchy itself, just with violating private property. So ancaps do not question hierarchy.
First definition. Are ancaps against rulers? No, they are not, so long as command does not violate private property. So ancaps are not an-archists.
And finally, are ancaps libertarian socialists, a term which includes all anarchists and a few more ideologies? No, they are not libertarian socialists.
So ancaps not only aren't anarchists, they're not libertarian socialists, they're not even close to anarchism. Which is why I would like to remove the "anarcho" from their name and replace it with another name:
Idiocapitalists. Ídhios comes from the greek root that means "private", "separate", "individual", and "ancaps" are basically capitalists who believe capitalism should be entirely private. Idiocapitalism is therefore the correct name for their ideology. It also helps that it shows they're stupid. So please spread this name.
Anarchists are against the state, indeed, but it doesn't really end there. And when you recognize how anarchism is always form of libertarian socialism, you understand how it cannot be capitalistic.
Strategy works like a multiplier of chance. If there is a possible path to victory, it makes you follow closer to it. But you never had one.
What's wrong? :v
Strategy works like a multiplier of chance. If there is a possible path to victory, it makes you follow closer to it. But you never had one.
Nothing. You went in pretty brutally with him, but I have no objections.
I'm here, I guess.
Oh, thanks! Uw U
Strategy works like a multiplier of chance. If there is a possible path to victory, it makes you follow closer to it. But you never had one.
I love how BLATANTLY bad-faith Mand 21's arguments are, and how they pretend to be so badass ("sigh* gotta repress those impulses to trash on an internet ancap... ")
It's hilarious.
Edited by hppavilion1
It's always funny when someone is simultaneously this smug and this wrong.
>Do ancaps oppose hierarchies and the centralization of power and initiative in the hands of a few? No, so long as it doesn't break the NAP, companies can work like that.
If it doesn't break the NAP, then by definition the company doesn't have the type of 'power' required to be a state. Also, this is a tangent, but I'll take this opportunity to remind everyone that abolition of hierarchy requires hierarchy to enforce.
>Do they oppose an institutional and professional nature to the administration of violence? So long as it's done by a security company to protect the property they secure, no, they're all in favor of that.
And... Security just wouldn't exist in an ansoc area? The use of violence to defend oneself does not require a higher authority.
>Do ancaps oppose a security company having an exclusivity contract with the owner of a territorial area and therefore being the only company allowed to offer services there? No, not only are they okay with that, but that's an efficient market strategy.
I'm assuming 'owner of a territorial area' means land or factory ownership and not something like ownership of a town other people live in, which ancaps obviously don't believe in. What possible purpose would that exclusivity contract serve? Who besides the property owner is going to hire defense for that property? This point just makes no sense.
>Do ancaps believe hierarchies should be abolished if they cannot be justified? No.
Including 'justified' as a qualifier in the definition for an ideology is so dumb. Since 'justified' is a subjective term, all I really need to say here is that ancaps believe all the hierarchies they support the existence of are justified, therefore they still fit the definition.
>Are ancaps against rulers? No, they are not, so long as command does not violate private property. So ancaps are not an-archists.
Assuming self-ownership is included under 'private property' here; In which case, what this statement boils down to is "Ancaps are not against forceful authorities so long as they do not exert forceful authority". What?
>And finally, are ancaps libertarian socialists, a term which includes all anarchists and a few more ideologies? No, they are not libertarian socialists.
>And when you recognize how anarchism is always form of libertarian socialism, you understand how it cannot be capitalistic.
"Ancaps aren't libsocs because they aren't anarchists, therefore ancaps aren't anarchists because they're not libsocs". That's all this segment says.
TL;DR - Please don't spread misinformation. Ancaps are anarchists
Edited by Slate_
No Gods, No Masters! Except for my boss of course. Yeah, that is surely anarchist and something Proudhon and Makhno would have approved of.
Anyways, watch Tought Slime video on ancaps. He debunks in 8 minutes how they are not anarchists.
Apparition in the Woods
So, most of this article is solid enough, but I feel that the section on post-left anarchy (here labelled as "lifestylism") is really slanted in terms of its framing and language, and the single mention of insurrectionary anarchism similarly misrepresents the theory behind that school of thought. The objections that post-left and insurrectionary writers had and have to more conventional leftist organising go a lot deeper than Bookchin's frankly absurd canards about "lifestyle anarchism" in the former case and the straw-nihilist depictions commonly associated with the latter; both can also be seen as developments upon currents in anarchism which were largely dormant in the first half of the twentieth century, particularly individualist anarchism and Goldman's synthesis of egoism and anarcho-communism, as well as a response to postmodernist and Situationist concepts. Boiling it down to freegans and brick-throwers is just… dumb? It's dumb.
I'll hide your name inside a word and paint your eyes with false perception.
Looks very good for a relatively small overview. I'm not sure why there is so much much on anarchist opposition to religion, yet relatively little critique of "anarcho"-capitalism. Through my reading and personal experiences, religion has only been opposed in cases of blatant authoritarianism, such as WBC, homophobia, and the Christian Right. Personally, most of the anarchists I know are religious (or at least apathetic). Maybe my range of affiliation with anarchists (in person & on the internet) and anarchist literatureis severely limited, but seemed to me a little exaggerated in its' opposition to religion in general.
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Not religiosity itself, but institutionalized religion is often criticised by anarchists for usually siding with and helping perpetuate hierarchies and systems of oppression in society, when not creating them itself. Even the christian anarchist Tolstoy who derived his anarchism from christianity complained about how the church fused with the state when christianity became accepted as the official religion of Rome. Also, a large proportion of anarchists are metaphysical naturalists, making them very often atheistic.
Strategy works like a multiplier of chance. If there is a possible path to victory, it makes you follow closer to it. But you never had one.
How the hell did T Vtropes end up with such a comprehensive article on anarchism?
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>Anarchism is inherently anti-nationalism
I'm sorry... What???
I'm sorry if this seems blunt, but you can tell a white anarchist who only understands the world through a first-world lens wrote this. Anarchism is such a complicated ideology with no actual overall unifying structure that can fit all anarchists that you can hardly say that all anarchists are either able to fit into the binary of "pro-globalist" or "pro-nationalist". And often times in-fighting between "localist", or "autonomist" anarchists vs "global" or "unitary" anarchists has been a significant source of disunity in the anarchist community, such could be seen with certain both modern and prior tenants of current anarchist thought, that being post-colonial and independence anarchists, which see the national struggle of colonized groups as mandatory in the aims to abolish unjustified hierarchy (not to be confused with national-"anarchists") contrasted with certain first-world anarchists which see nationalism as inherently related to the "nation-state", or the anationalism movement, which literally sees language itself as a barrier to world solidarity, thus needing to be destroyed and instead be replaced with the global language of Esperanto (much to the chagrin of other anarchists at that time).
The main point I am trying to get at is, that to say "anarchism is anti-nationalist" is at best a vast overgeneralization from a first-world worldview which is ignorant of how nationalism and anarchism has often worked alongside each other outside of the western anarchist movement countless times in the past, and to a certain degree, even in the present, and at worst, could be seen as an intentional smear of other anarchists simply because they disagree with the editor's biased interpretation of what "anarchy" is. And to be honest, in my opinion, my critique of the overgeneralizations made here towards nationalism can just as easily be applied to much of this article on many other stances discussed, likely only to insert the bias of only certain anarchist users, when in reality anarchism never has, and quite possibly never will be unified on any stance as complex and nuanced as much of the issues brought up in the article.