Anarchism: A history, origins and context

Excellent OP. You could put it on kindle, or start your own web site.

Voluntary cooperation between individuals and groups of individuals is often forgotten; but cooperation is the basis of human society and the world economy.

Society and the economy are the real rulers of human life. The roots of the word "Economy" come from the Greek word for home, or domestic management. Economics (praxeology) is everything that people actually do, and society reflects what people expect of the future.

The government inserts itself and takes control of society and the economy to the greatest extent it can. Government is "people who are fallible given powers as though they are infallible".

A real mind control mechanism is the notion that the government is the absolute given and absolute necessity.

a reply to: MagicWand67

the anarchosyndicalist Confederación Nacional del Trabajo (CNT) claimed more than a million members and had as its stated aim the revolutionary overthrow of capitalism. - See more at: www.abovetopsecret.com...

Anarchy can have property rights and laws. The property rights and laws must be enforced by private citizens or persons compensated for enforcement. Trial by jury is one of the laws. In anarchy, the citizens must enforce the law personally, or personally empower others (hire them).

The Constitution was intended to make a coordinating body, not a governing body.

a reply to: Wrabbit2000

S&F. Well thought out thread.

I would like to point out that there are problems which exist in the anarchy theory, which are solved under the model of the republic. The republic is all we need - yet anarchists fight to undermine that alongside communists for theories that are full of holes and have never worked in large scale before to the actual benefit of the people.

The United States was "The great experiment in self government" The experiment is to answer the question, "Can self-governing people coexist and prevail over government agencies that have no authority over the People?" I say we can, but we must fight against those who want to destroy the republic at the same time we fight for prevalence over government agencies who have been trying to remove the republic from our system of governance.

Hey Wrabbit!

Excellent thread!! I remember as a teenager having "friends of friends" who were hard core punk-rocker anarchists of the angry and spikey stereotype.

So, from what I can see, anarchy places full responsibility on the individual in addition to promoting the individual equality and freedom of the people in this loose association. It is a lot of work to be an anarchist. There is a lot of constant communication skill building to keep harmony between people and make sure agreements are fair, etc. There is no real delegation to any outer authority, so one's ability to communicate, diffuse tensions, negotiate fairly and one's character become extremely important.

It was a lot different than I expected. I've heard it is exhausting sometimes from someone who is a member of a long-term commune - its a LOT of work and no small amount of drama can ensue. Anarchy outside of local associations would seem, imo, to be a huge challenge to implement so that the values of true equality, respect and freedom were maintained against the interests of those whose values are aligned more with manipulation and domination. Then again - I'm no expert on this!!

Thanks for the history lesson - I definitely have a much greater understanding of Anarchy in its historical context after reading through this - well done.

- AB

a reply to: Wrabbit2000

Do you feel that anarchy and communism ever fused? What if they became one.

a reply to: Not Authorized

I think the historical record is fairly clear. Anarchism broke into two distinct and very different directions about the time of the building toward a Russian Revolution. One branch went very much in with Karl Marx and burgeoning Communism as the world would come to know the knew experiment. The other went the way of rejecting central and total controls from Government as Communism took that branch of Anarchism directly into.

The American side and perhaps other branches members have mentioned and I hadn't had the chance to thoroughly explore, took a far better approach in my view. That being something along the lines of a commune model, before the 'hippie' approach of the 1960's jaded that word beyond repair for some folks.

Basically, I could see a Governing system similar to what I lived a part of in Occupy. The General Assembly and community's direct participation at the community level. Communities forming to loosely build into the model of the states we have now. However, NOT with the central and invasive control over life as a comprehensive thing, as we see it now.

The BIGGEST problem with Occupy's modern and very short experiment with limited direct representation was scale. No one considered that what worked wonderfully for 150 people in camp...failed spectacularly for several thousand people in one of the last and largest nights for gathering at Zuccotti Park.

Governing by representation is simply a required part of living in enormous populations, unless those populations are truly like minded ..which we're ANYTHING but.

The question comes in degree and power for where I think it really broke down the most to differentiate Anarchism and Communism. Anarchism saw power coming from the bottom up. Communism is from the top down.