What is your view of political anarchism?

Originally posted by beezzer

Originally posted by SilentKoala

Originally posted by beezzer
The person with the biggest club makes all the rules.

Pretty sure that's a dictatorship.

And a dictator arbitrarily makes laws, rules based on his/her own beliefs. A dictatorship is just a formal version of anarchy.

(In my humble opinion)

The social-organisational evolution of mankind has always tended towards the freeing of mankind from its rulers. Thus, Social Anarchism would be the polar opposite from anarchy imposed by a dictatorship.. Blame media for the confusion of terminology. The tendency would be towards the ultimate expression of democracy and not the farce of a system we have now where you get to choose your rulers every 4-5 years.

Originally posted by beezzer
The person with the biggest club makes all the rules.

That is simply not true.

You might try reading a little about the Spanish revolution of 1936 and how the anarchists organised industry and the community, after they took advantage of the lack of government. They ran the country on anarchist socialist principles for two years and were very successful. If it wasn't for the fact that they were being apposed by three fascist armies, and the advent of WWII, the revolution would have spread across Europe.

A good place to start...

The Spanish Revolution (1936)

George Orwell 'Homage to Catalonia' is also a useful read.

en.wikipedia.org...

Originally posted by beezzer
And a dictator arbitrarily makes laws, rules based on his/her own beliefs. A dictatorship is just a formal version of anarchy.

It's the complete opposite. Dictatorship is total authority, and would put it on the far right. Anarchism is complete liberty, and would put it on the far left.

The original political meanings of ‘left’ and ‘right’ have changed since their origin in the French estates general in 1789. There the people sitting on the left could be viewed as more or less anti-statists with those on the right being state-interventionists of one kind or another. In this interpretation of the pristine sense, libertarianism was clearly at the extreme left-wing.

www.la-articles.org.uk...

This is not completely accurate, but close enough for government work...

Is not the left right argument a form of political anarchism??
I don't even know what left and right means and am not sure if i want to know because the political spectrum is anarchy to me and the people who follow it are quite confusing to me and sort of nuts in my eyes.

Everybody has an opinion.....dividing us like this is BS and a form of controlled chaos,is it not??
I could be left somedays and right the other days....why call me names and start telling me who i am and what i believe or should believe based on left and right??

THAT...is political anarchy.

Its funny how two of the oldest trades are now.
Politics is legal but prostitution isn't yet both screw people for money???
Prostitutes are politically incorrect but politicians are ok????
Really???????
Really??

reply to post by DrumsRfun


Left and right are not labels to pin on people.

It is simply a scale of authority. The more left you go the less authority and more individual freedom, the more right the more authority and less freedom.

reply to post by ANOK


I can't say I agree with that. You think there is more freedom in communist China than in the west? Left vs Right just dictates which freedoms are repressed. I think to be more accurate you need a multidimensional spectrum.

Originally posted by SilentKoala
I can't say I agree with that. You think there is more freedom in communist China than in the west? Left vs Right just dictates which freedoms are repressed. I think to be more accurate you need a multidimensional spectrum.

China is not communist. They have never had a communist economy.

Just like the USSR they had state capitalism, now they have more private capitalism.

What I am talking about is the original communism/socialism before the term was appropriated by state systems in order to gain or maintain power. Go to the source not what someone 100 years later claims.

You have to look at definitions of the term in the 1800's before it was demonised and misrepresented by state powers.

China and the USSR would be on the far right of the political spectrum as they were highly authoritarian.

Originally posted by SilentKoala

Originally posted by definity
what to say a bunch of these guys get together and rape a load of women or start killing people who will stop them?

That isn't true anarchy. Those 'guys' would be acting as a government in that situation.

So you think that just because their is no form of law or order people are just all of a sudden going to turn good and become a nation of ethical thinking, and no crime?

Yeah no one is going to take advantage of that.

There is no such thing as political anarchism, it's basically an oxymoron.

Political: relating to or the use of government.

Anarchism: Stateless society; government doesn't exist. Some also define it as 100% Liberty 0% Authority.

Anarchism or Libertarian Socialist is the ideology I best fit with, though I don't push for anarchy because I see it as an ideal, a goal to work toward... it is something that, I personally feel, humanity is no where near ready for. I tend to focus on politics that deal with increasing authority and try to make people aware of why such policies are not good for us.

Originally posted by ObservingYou
I'd consider my self an anarchist.

If your not part of the solution, your part of the problem.

Its no good sugar coating the situation we're all in, there's no point attempting to replace little bits of the system, when the whole lot needs destroying.

Democracy? Try Bureacrasy and aristocracy.

Communist Socialism? Try Corporate Socialism.

I object with every bone in my body, and proudly.

Now is the time you choose the side you represent.

How can you call yourself an anarchist and you violate the non-aggression principle?

I thought libertarianism is non-violence and defensive not violent,predatory and coercive like a state is.

Originally posted by beezzer

Originally posted by SilentKoala

Originally posted by beezzer
The person with the biggest club makes all the rules.

Pretty sure that's a dictatorship.

And a dictator arbitrarily makes laws, rules based on his/her own beliefs. A dictatorship is just a formal version of anarchy.

(In my humble opinion)

I thought in anarchism you have no rulers.

reply to post by John_Rodger_Cornman



Anarchism for the US would not work as it does not have the tradition of syndecalism that say the Italians had. Also sooner or later anarchism will go the way of all other ,isms i.e. become a mob rul situation where the mob is exploited by demagogues.

reply to post by Tiger5


Keep it small and decentralized.
promote a high level of living made with community(not federal) funded socialism.

-Community Welfare for the poor.
-Guns for crime prevention
-Syndicalism for the workplace
-100% death tax
-set of laws created by the community itself,enforced by the community.
-no elected leaders
-community hires police,teachers, and firefighters can be fired at any time by the community.
-community hires finance ministers can be fired at any time by the community.
-use the US constitution/Bill of rights as a base.

reply to post by John_Rodger_Cornman


At first glance your ideas look idyllic. On second glance the glaring weaknes is that you have left human nature out of it all. All it take s is one person to decide to get greedy and work out how to become top dog and away we go like all othere ""isms" and the murder and looting begins.

The founding fathers dreams became our own nightmares for the same reason.

Sorry to be so down.

As others have already mentioned politics and anarchism don't mix IMO. In a genuine anarchist state politics would not be needed. For anarchism to truly work on a practical level we would first have to address the underlying social, emotional, and spiritual problems of our society, other wise as Beez so eloquently stated "the guy with the biggest club" would take over.

In other words, until we get our "lower natures" in check I don't see anarchism as a viable option. If we can ever progress as a society to a degree where we understand that violence, greed and power hungry selfish pursuit are not in the best interests of the common good, and until we are responsible enough to not allow our negative emotions to dictate our behaviors, then the necessary foundation for true anarchism is possible IMO. The real question in my mind is....is it really possible for us to reach such a state?

While I don't have a strong academic knowledge of anarchism, I do understand it to be complete self-governance, with no leadership. Therefore, "the one with the biggest club", will be quickly overpowered by the masses of people who wish not to be ruled. As one other commenter pointed out, it would be a very messy transition from our current structure, if it were to happen overnight. There would not be groups who overpowered other groups, as that would not be in line with the ideals of anarchism. It may be attempted, and occasionally one may succeed, but ultimately, anyone attempting to exert control over another would be pushed to the fringes.

I have thought a lot about how this may work, and I see it to be far less chaotic, unhealthy, and dangerous than any political system around today. The government does not give me the rights that I was born with. To assume so, implies they can also take away my rights. It is not a right if it can be taken away.

I think that most people who have negative opinions of anarchism do so because they are afraid of what other people may do to them if there are no police or gov't around to stop the "bad guys". Well, guess what? There will always be "bad guys", and the gov't/police do far more harm to citizens, than they protect them.

Someone in another thread pointed out that if SHTF, we're pretty much on our own. I feel this to be true even now. When calling the police can turn against you as easily and as often as it does, there is no other choice but to protect yourself. Groups of people will protect one another in an anarchist society. People would not only realize that we need one another to survive, but we would have no other choice but to live it.

Anarchism, as a social ideology (by its very nature it is not a political ideology) represents the possibility of humanity's evolution unfettered by institutionalized systems of hierarchical control--marriage, government, religion, science (yes, that one too), and most importantly (in my humble opinion) economics.

At least, that's what it means to me. I don't pay too much attention to "official" definitions of... well, anything anymore. "They" manipulate the language to reinforce their control mechanisms when it suits them. In fact, some anarchists of the primitivist school maintain that language itself is fundamentally a system of social control. I agree with that to some extent (just ask any militant feminist--she'll explain it to you); however, human beings are social creatures, after all.

Anarchism is a political economic and social movement, because it's aim is to change the political, economic and social systems.

Noun 1. political movement - a group of people working together to achieve a political goal..

www.thefreedictionary.com...

Anarchism is a political goal.

"Politically we are anarchists, and economically, communists or socialists." Adolph Fischer, Anarchism: Its Philosophy and Scientific Basis as Defined by Some of its Apostles (1887)

"Anarchism is a theory of political science and is opposed to government in the political sense." Steven T. Byington, as quoted in "To Anarchists" by Henry Bool in Ithaca Journal (17 September 1901)

"Anarchism : Political concept and social movement that advocates the abolition of any form of State, which is regarded as coercive, and its replacement with voluntary organization." Carl Levy, "Anarchism" article for Encarta encyclopedia

"Anarchism is in reality the ideal of political and social science, and also the ideal of religion." Heber Newton, in Free Speech for Radicals (1916) by Theodore Schroeder, p. 7

"Anarchism is inspired by the moral-political ideal of a society untouched by relations of power and domination among human beings." Peter Saint-Andre, The Ism Book (1996)

Full anarchy is too extreme, idealistic and not really viable in todays world. However I do think anarchism offers a lot of good ideas. There is certainly too much authoritarianism in politics, there always was, after all politicians thrive on it and people are easily manipulated towards their simple but wrong solutions.