Anarcho-Socialists

Here is what a self-proclaimed anarcho socialist said in another forum..to me.

 

"i would rather have a tax and spend government than a low tax, fuck the poor government...

no government and no businesses would be best..."

 

lol?  It amazes me how many self-described anarchists (of the socialist flavor), say they would prefer an interventionist government. I also run into a lot of these so called anarchists, trolling conservative forums, and defending Barack Obama

Many anarcho-socialists seem to think that the state apparatus is the reason why people would rather make a profit than be slaves to society. They appear to believe that with the end of the state, every non-altruistic character trait will rapidly disappear.

And if that's not the case, well - then we need a "tax and spend government" for just another while to reeducate the masses, I guess.

fezwhatley:

Here is what a self-proclaimed anarcho socialist said in another forum..to me.

 

"i would rather have a tax and spend government than a low tax, fuck the poor government...

no government and no businesses would be best..."

 

lol?  It amazes me how many self-described anarchists (of the socialist flavor), say they would prefer an interventionist government. I also run into a lot of these so called anarchists, trolling conservative forums, and defending Barack Obama

I blame Noam Chomsky's idiotic rhetoric ("anarchy, but not yet", essentially) as the blame for this.  It allows them to feel comfortable being hyprocrites & yet, still slaves, in a system when they have hopes of "one day" achieving "anarchy", when the very means of such are by economics, a field many of self-described socialist anarchists are devastingly ignorant of.

I've learned something about so-called "anarcho-communists"/"syndicalists"/"socialists."

They don't really want to abolish the state. They want to become the state.

Ask one of them how they intend to maintain compliance with the top-down social dictates that a society based on "property is theft" must necessarily rely on?

Let me know if you ever get a clear answer, or at least one that doesn't include some form of monopolization of coercive force (i.e., a state).

Well, the premises of anarcho-socialsm are very different from those of ancap.

To my understanding they posit that coercion doesn't start with the state but with the existence of private property. The main problem with state is therefore that it "protects" property and by doing this enables "exploitation".

When the state does something "social" like free healthcare, education etc it actually compensates the **** (insert favourite marginalised group here). Thats why they also cheer when the goverment does something to "curb the power of buisness" while actually completly misunderstanding the nature of goverment regulation.

This makes the fact that a lot of them have no qualms of working with "state socialist" groups and organisations much more understandable.

 

That said IMHO most of them are closeted socialist anyway, the anarchist stuff is only there for the shoch value (Oh noes anarchism!!111 the strong wille rule and nazis will ride dinosaurs again).

 

 

 

 

I'm not sure what group of people is more baffling: "libertarian socialists" or "anarcho-socialists".

nameless:

I'm not sure what group of people is more baffling: "libertarian socialists" or "anarcho-socialists".

Don't they find us anarcho-capitalists baffling too?

I found it strange that human technologies would advance so much but yet stuck with the age old questions and debate in political philosophy. Individualism versus Collectivism, the form of how economy should be organized, and right down to what form of human organization could be considered exploitations are example.

Heck, even anarcho-capitalists still debate among themselves whether intellectual property should be considered property.

Is there anything that could possibly be abandoned universially as false by the human race so we can finally move on to the next stage of the debate?

Steve Bachman:

I've learned something about so-called "anarcho-communists"/"syndicalists"/"socialists."

They don't really want to abolish the state. They want to become the state.

Ask one of them how they intend to maintain compliance with the top-down social dictates that a society based on "property is theft" must necessarily rely on?

Let me know if you ever get a clear answer, or at least one that doesn't include some form of monopolization of coercive force (i.e., a state).

Though I can't speak for any anarcho-socialists, as I am not one, I would think they could retort, "how do you anarcho-capitalists deal with murder?" Essentially, they view owning property as a crime, so they would deal with it in the same way that we might deal with any other crime.

Powdered Toast Man:

The main problem with state is therefore that it "protects" property and by doing this enables "exploitation".

This is why I believe that cooperation between anarcho-capitalists/libertarians and anarcho-socialists/communists is wrong. Anarcho-communists are just communists with another strategy; they all want to abolish private property. The idea is virtually the same, but the means to reach the end are different.

 

 

Anarcho-Commune (ism) or Socialism... has been tried.

Think tribes.. like the Aborigionals, or amazonians.

No state or ruler and no private property... 40,000 years... living in the dirt without an advacement all because their social structure contained communism/socialism...

Civilization needs private property rights to exist. these people want the abolition of private property, and thus were all human rights are derived. They are unwittingly advocating the regression of civilization.

What is stopping these people starting up a commune though, or moving to the Outback or Amazonian forest?

Collectivism fails.

Conza88:

Civilization needs private property rights to exist. these people want the abolition of private property, and thus were all human rights are derived. They are unwittingly advocating the regression of civilization.

Yes, civilization requires private property in order to exist, and it is as you say – by advocating the abolition of private property one is advocating decivilization.

Conza88:

What is stopping these people starting up a commune though, or moving to the Outback or Amazonian forest?

Their remaining mental health?

All I've seen them social-anarchists/ansynts to be is a flavor of Marxism, with corny dislike for money, no understanding of economics (seeing that labour theory of value is very much alive on message boards) and a firm belief that they are the only human beings capable of compassion.

What authors of them are worth reading? In that they actually write coherent and simple theory and don't ramble on in their red mist about 19th century factory girls with breathing problems?

Conza88:

Anarcho-Commune (ism) or Socialism... has been tried.

Think tribes.. like the Aborigionals, or amazonians.

I disagree. Primitive tribes belived in property and ownership. Take the Plains Indians for example. A warrior owned his tent, his bow and his horse. If he died all of that was passed on to his family. They did not own land, but they were hunters not farmers so there would have been no point. Their "means of production" were their bows and horses and those were privately owned. They also owned the full produce of their own induvidual work. A new foal belonged to the owner of the mare. After a mustang hunt a warrior only owned the mustangs he had lassoed himself.  After a buffalo hunt he was only entitled to the meat and skins off the animals which he had downed himself. They hunted buffalo together because it was safer and more efficient that way, but all of their hunting arrows were marked so they could later determine which warrior had killed which buffalo, precisely for this reason.

It was entirely unthinkable a warrior would actualy complain about not getting meat off the animals which he had not killed. That would have been extremely unmannly and dishonoring. He would probably end up being ridiculed as an old woman or something of the sort.

Okooka:

What authors of them are worth reading?

For a brilliant rather recent (1970) book by a "leftist" anarchist, see:

Robert P. Wolff, In defence of anarchism; which is a Kantian vindication of anarchism on purely analytical grounds, and an unattackable jewel of a book.

Incidentaly, Rothbard did congratulate the author on the book, which lead Wolff (a neo-marxist) to publicly dissociate himself from libertarianism -;(

Still, it is really worth a read!

Could my opinion of these individuals drop any lower? Dissociate himself? He should be happy he could even be associated with a guy like Rothbard in the first place. What a degenerate, worthless person (yes, yes, I know... his book is probably good.)

Yes, it is very good! ... and useful for any libertarian / anarchist; which is why Rothbard did congratulate him in the first place...

I know, it's a pity that left-anarchists feel the need to undermine libertarianism; after all, we're in the same (anti-state) boat. To Wolff's credit, though, he kinda changed his mind later on and suggested, in light of the current totalitarian developments of the "war" on terror, an alliance with right-libertarians... Strategic alliance maybe, but still a step in the right direction -;)

 

They're intellectual snobs/elitists.

What if I reject both anarcho-capitalism and the anarcho-syndicialists/anarcho-communists? What ever happened to anarchism proper? I have a feeling that, while many of the socialists who wave the black flag are just state-socialists, some self-proclaimed anarcho-capitalists are just minarchists or monarchists. It seems that people are much more interested in capitalism vs. socialism then anarchism as such, which isn't directly privy to either of them. Perhaps it's time for people to make up their minds: are you a partisan of capitalism/socialism or are you an anarchist? I don't think the dichotomies work very well when we are dealing with actual anarchists, who by default are opposed to both capitalism and socialism as state systems.

Why should being an anarcho-capitalist preclude the notion of tolerating other forms of anarchism? Answer: it doesn't. I do not call myself an anarchist simpliciter because I have particular preferences and beliefs as to which form of anarchism I would prefer living under...

I'm getting the impression from reading this thread that some of you don't really understand the distinctions between the various anarcho's, considering that all of them are being lumped into the same group (ancap vs. everything else). It isn't as simple as that; an anarcho-syndicalist is not the same thing as a mutualist and an anarcho-collectivist is not the same thing as an anarcho-communist.

The so-called "ancap" segment can't even agree with eachother on things like wether or not there can be common property in a free society or wether or not the state can legitimately restrict immigration, and the so-called "ansoc" segment can't even agree with eachother on things like the extent to which the state props up illegitimate property claims or interpersonal ethics for that matter.

None of the genuine social anarchists support state-socialism though, they advocate mutual aid, just like none of the genuine market anarchist support state-capitalism, they advocate free markets. It's fairly easy to weed out the genuine anarchists from those who are using it as a cover from their genuine position in favor of state-socialism or state-capitalism.