Ask an Anarchist

Traitorfish

The Tighnahulish Kid
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Sep 14, 2005
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"The freedom of all is essential to my freedom. I am truly free only when all human beings, men and women, are equally free. The freedom of other men, far from negating or limiting my freedom, is, on the contrary, its necessary premise and confirmation."

Mikhail Bakunin


A thread for asking anarchists about anarchist theory, history and ethics.


Please remember that this is a question and answers thread, so although we welcome challenging questions, this is not the place for polemic or debate.


Posters currently approved to answer are: Traitorfish, ParkCungHee, Amadeus.
 
Would you say an anarchist society is less or more political than the status quo?
 
As an anarchist, how do you view the former Soviet Union, especially under Stalin? Noam Chomsky, an anarchist, says that Stalinism was essentially authoritarian and that one of the first things Stalin did when he came to power was to undermine the power of the workers' Soviets. Chomsky has few good words to say about Stalinism. I've also heard it said that the communists more or less undermined the Spanish anarchists during their civil war, despite the fact that they were both fighting on the same side. I've asked similar questions in the Ask a Red Thread and one reply was that Stalin had to centralize power in order to preserve the Soviet Union against outside threats. what do you as an anarchist think about Stalin and the Soviet Union?

EDIT: Alexander Berkman also seems to denounce the Bolsheviks in his book "The Bolshevik Myth". All in all I gather that most anarchists don't have a lot of good things to say about Stalinism. Are you in agreement with that assessment?
 
What distinguishes one anarchist movement from another and roughly how many would you say there are?

Edit: Or perhaps more precisely, what common elements do anarchist movements share?
 
What are the cliffsnotes on property, or how society functions if I don't have a proprietary interest in, for example, my toothbrush (assuming that works as a follow up to the first part)?
 
If I had a paper due on anarchism and I paid you five dollars, would you write it for me?

edit: Or would you be saying that supports the 'corrupt capitalism, enforced by the state'? :mischief:
 
Would you say an anarchist society is less or more political than the status quo?
I would have to say that an Anarchist society would be less political than the status quo, because, at least in my understanding, it is a rejection of politics as a meaningful social category.

How far would a perfect anarchist society go in terms of removing government institutions? Where do you draw the line and how do you provide the removed services to the populace once they are no longer provided by the government?
There is no limit to have far we should go to remove government institutions. The solution of how to provide for services is, well, to simply provide for them. You don't need a coercive apparatus to volunteer, to donate or to help people. It's good to want to see these things provided to people, and if that's the case, you should provide it. :)

As an anarchist, how do you view the former Soviet Union, especially under Stalin? Noam Chomsky, an anarchist, says that Stalinism was essentially authoritarian and that one of the first things Stalin did when he came to power was to undermine the power of the workers' Soviets. Chomsky has few good words to say about Stalinism. I've also heard it said that the communists more or less undermined the Spanish anarchists during their civil war, despite the fact that they were both fighting on the same side. I've asked similar questions in the Ask a Red Thread and one reply was that Stalin had to centralize power in order to preserve the Soviet Union against outside threats. what do you as an anarchist think about Stalin and the Soviet Union?
I can't think of much good to say about either one of them. Fundamentally, the Soviet Union was a state like any other, behaved like any other, and pursued power like any other. In the details, Under Stalin especially, it was one of the most brutal and cruel states in modern times (at least that ruled over a significant territory).

That it created new terms for justifying itself is, in the long term, of remarkably little consequence. States tend to create new terms of justification for themselves at least once a century. The only significance of the Soviet Union was that it was a justification it was first to implement, and was aped by other states, mostly tyrannous, throughout the world for a time.

EDIT: Alexander Berkman also seems to denounce the Bolsheviks in his book "The Bolshevik Myth". All in all I gather that most anarchists don't have a lot of good things to say about Stalinism. Are you in agreement with that assessment?
Yeah, I'm certain there's some breeds of Anarchism that might defend Stalin, but they amount to odd curios, like Anarchists who like Mussolini.

What distinguishes one anarchist movement from another and roughly how many would you say there are?
The most common form of disagreement is about the nature of a state is, and what makes it particularly abhorrent. For example, I'm an Anarcho-Pacifist, someone who rejects the use of violence against man as a means of legitimate problem solving, and therefor must reject this violence when it's done by soldiers or police as well as by us "ordinary individuals." Which means that from my perspective, when I hear Anarcho-Capitalists talking about enforcing their property rights, or Anarcho-Communists talking about stringing people up, I'm not seeing much distinction. You've simply reinvented the state, the monopoly of violence, in a new name.

The thing that combines us is our revulsion at injustices. But being defined by a negative does not mean we have much in common. The result is I have no idea how many anarchist movements there are, but even if you had a good categorization system, you could spend a lifetime counting them all.

I have a question too:

Do you think that at any time in history there was a (positive in your view) example of a society which can be reasonably termed as anarchic?
It depends on what you mean by society. I would argue that most, if not all, societies have been, on the whole, anarchic.

Most human interaction in almost all societies is not governed by the use of violence, much less the monopoly of violence. People discuss books together, drink beer together, play football, form study groups, listen to music, go to church together and even work together without resorting to active or implied violence all the time.

If you look at Anarchism as a state of governance that a society flips over to like in EUIII, you'll find very few models of anarchism, I'm afraid. But, if you look at Anarchism as a concrete reality, at the level of real people, you'll find that peaceful anarchy is the rule of society, and violence is the bizarre aberration that we always have a hard time figuring out how to work.

How do the various breeds of anarchists view each other?

Do "true" (read: left) anarchists view anarcho-capitalists as aI,narchists?

How dissimilar are anarcho-communism and anarcho-syndicalism?
I'm gonna leave this one to Traitorfish, because he's not only more familiar with Left Anarchism, but can do a much better job tackling questions about the broad strokes and history of Anarchism than I can.

What are the cliffsnotes on property, or how society functions if I don't have a proprietary interest in, for example, my toothbrush (assuming that works as a follow up to the first part)?
Generally the same as it would against anyone else who you would not enforce you property rights on your toothbrush against. Presumably, there is someone in your life, a mother, spouse, sibling, friend, who you would not resort to coercion in defense of your toothbrush. It would be unthinkable for you to call the police or have them brought before the courts over that toothbrush.

They in turn, hopefully shall respect your "right to use" as I call it, for your toothbrush (unless they developed some superior right to use), but if they did not, you would try to understand and forgive why they violated your right to use.

The goal here, is to share that same bond of love and respect to everyone.

If I had a paper due on anarchism and I paid you five dollars, would you write it for me?
Probably not.

edit: Or would you be saying that supports the 'corrupt capitalism, enforced by the state'? :mischief:
Generally, I'd be more inclined to object on the grounds that it is a collaboration towards deceiving someone, and contrary towards my best behavior towards you (even if it would be in your best interest).
 
How dissimilar are anarcho-communism and anarcho-syndicalism?

Isn't anarcho-syndicalism essentially worker ownership of capital operating in a market environment (i.e. capitalism with workers as capitalists), while anarcho-communism is in fact total elimination of the market?

The most common form of disagreement is about the nature of a state is, and what makes it particularly abhorrent. For example, I'm an Anarcho-Pacifist, someone who rejects the use of violence against man as a means of legitimate problem solving, and therefor must reject this violence when it's done by soldiers or police as well as by us "ordinary individuals." Which means that from my perspective, when I hear Anarcho-Capitalists talking about enforcing their property rights, or Anarcho-Communists talking about stringing people up, I'm not seeing much distinction. You've simply reinvented the state, the monopoly of violence, in a new name.

If somebody attacks you, would you fight back inasmuch that would be necessary to stop the one attacking?
 
If somebody attacks you, would you fight back inasmuch that would be necessary to stop the one attacking?
Yes. The actual pacifist boundaries of hand to hand combat get kind of messy when you get into the details. I've spent a long time thinking about it, and have a hard time finding concrete boundaries. So I have to resort to internationalist ones, which is to say I would fight back inasmuch that would be necessary to prevent harm to myself, I would fight equally so to prevent harm to my attacker.
 
Would a hypothetical anarchist society rely on a utopian view of human nature and how humans would interact with one another?

EDIT: Also, Ama is an anarchist?
 
Would a hypothetical anarchist society rely on a utopian view of human nature and how humans would interact with one another?
Some might, there are certainly utopian Anarchists. But my position is one of accepting the fallen nature of man, rather then supposing some new innovation shall fix him.

EDIT: Also, Ama is an anarchist?
Anarcho-Capitalist. Originally him and I were going to do the thread, but he's been very busy. I figure between him, me and Traitorfish, we should have a pretty diverse set of viewpoints.
 
There is no limit to have far we should go to remove government institutions. The solution of how to provide for services is, well, to simply provide for them. You don't need a coercive apparatus to volunteer, to donate or to help people. It's good to want to see these things provided to people, and if that's the case, you should provide it. :)

So if all government institutions were abolished today, you predict that people would band together and offer free police & fire protection services for the rest of us? And that others would maintain our roads and public parks, just so that the rest of us would have someplace to drive and play on? People would go down into the sewers and maintain those too? Some of us would band together and form a national army, to protect the rest of us outside military threats?

1. What makes you think that any of this would actually happen? People don't just get up one day and decide to clean out the sewers for free!

2. How would any of this be coordinated? You'd need some sort of a central planning authority, no?

I also wonder how you see this new society regulating businesses, without a centralized entity in place.
 
So if all government institutions were abolished today, you predict that people would band together and offer free police & fire protection services for the rest of us? And that others would maintain our roads and public parks, just so that the rest of us would have someplace to drive and play on? People would go down into the sewers and maintain those too? Some of us would band together and form a national army, to protect the rest of us outside military threats?
I make no estimations of what would happen. Only point out what should happen. People are far to unpredictable to make any guesses about how they'll organize themselves. I couldn't (and no one couldn't) provide a decent map of how people would organize themselves in highly specific circumstance, never mind a vague hypothetical.

What I can do, however, is provide normative instruction for the individual.

I also wonder how you see this new society regulating businesses, without a centralized entity in place.
I wonder how you see businesses, without a government. I think, and this is a problem which is common, the problem is you imagine life would be much the same in an "anarchist society" except the 'public sector' would shut down.

What anarchists generally are proposing is a radical reordering of how society works, because society as it exists is built to conform to the functions of the state, and vice versa.
 
I make no estimations of what would happen. Only point out what should happen. People are far to unpredictable to make any guesses about how they'll organize themselves. I couldn't (and no one couldn't) provide a decent map of how people would organize themselves in highly specific circumstance, never mind a vague hypothetical.

What I can do, however, is provide normative instruction for the individual.

I don't think it'd be an unreasonable assumption to make that most of the services offered by the state would not be done for free by an organized group of concerned citizens.

I don't see how society could function with all these services removed. Don't you see this as a problem?

I wonder how you see businesses, without a government. I think, and this is a problem which is common, the problem is you imagine life would be much the same in an "anarchist society" except the 'public sector' would shut down.

What anarchists generally are proposing is a radical reordering of how society works, because society as it exists is built to conform to the functions of the state, and vice versa.

So the free market and the way businesses are set up and operate would be altered as well? In what way(s)?
 
Isn't anarchism essentially self-contradictory?

Which is to say: if a society were ever truly anarchic, then there would be no society?

Or is this just an incredibly naive question?
 
Can we get a concise (Maybe TF shouldn't answer this one ;)), lay man's, rundown of what kind of society we should be picturing?

Legal systems
Family structures
Education
Work
Leisure
International relations
Expectations re. standards of living
Competing, non anarchist views within the society

To name a few. I'm really interested in this thread and would like a better idea so I can get involved.
 
Where in the world do you believe is ripe for you anarchists to create "anarchist societies"? Are anarchist numbers mostly limited to the Americas and Europe?
 
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