Ask an Anarchist

[Lone Wolf]

I was pointing out that communism has been a lot more violent than anarchism.

Propaganda of the deed. Though even with these, your point might be valid

 

[Hygro]

I came back from burning man. It is not anarchy, the crowd is self selecting, it lasts only a week, and it begins with a huge infusion of capital, but a society based on radical self reliance, radical inclusion, a gifting economy (no money or commodity trades!) with total strangers was immediately functional and natural.

 

[Flying Pig]

Do we have examples of anarchist attempting to over throw the state even peacefully.

Anarchists place no faith in conventional politics, since they believe that power corrupts: in other words, they don't believe that any government purporting to be anarchist would ever really dissolve its own hold on society. The closest that their methods have come to peaceful would be the idea of a general strike, which was popular among earlier anarcho-syndicalists such as the Spanish CNT, which during the Spanish Civil War turned Catalonia into the closest thing we have to an example of a functioning large-scale anarchist community. One might even argue that the Occupy protests and other - if it's strictly correct to speak of Occupy as an anarchistic movement - large anarchist gatherings peacefully created areas in which the state had no power, although this is only on a very small scale and is more avoiding the state than overthrowing it.

 

[Cheezy the Wiz]

but I was pointing out that communism has been a lot more violent than anarchism.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Makhnovshchina

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda_of_the_deed

 

[Takhisis]

Nice bit near the end about how Makhno's faction was attacked by the Bolsheviks who wanted to take over Ukraine.

 

[Cheezy the Wiz]

Nice bit near the end about how Makhno's faction was attacked by the Bolsheviks who wanted to take over Ukraine.

Why anyone sheds tears over that is beyond me. My point is that Makhno did exactly to other people as was done to him in the end.

 

[ReindeerThistle]

Hey guys, this is the Ask an Anarchist thread, not the "bury the hatchet IN the Trot thread." I'll start one in the Tavern if you want.

 

[Smellincoffee]

Given that it is unlikely anarchist ideas will ever govern most political bodies around the world, how do you 'practice' anarchism in your everyday life? Do you know people who opt out of the money system, for instance?

 

[Cheezy the Wiz]

Hey guys, this is the Ask an Anarchist thread, not the "bury the hatchet IN the Trot thread." I'll start one in the Tavern if you want.

That won't be much fun without a resident Trot to go at fistycuffs with.

 

[ReindeerThistle]

That won't be much fun without a resident Trot to go at fistycuffs with.

Tru dat. Any volunteers?

Sent via mobile.

 

[Takhisis]

If I were a Trotskyte I would totally volunteer.

 

[ParkCungHee]

Given that it is unlikely anarchist ideas will ever govern most political bodies around the world, how do you 'practice' anarchism in your everyday life? Do you know people who opt out of the money system, for instance?

This is a very excellent question.

In my every day life, I attempt to use whatever coercive power I have at a minimum. I'll give you a few practical examples from the last few days.

Sunday night, I was watching Netflix with my Fiance when I heard a loud repetitive tapping coming from outside my house. She thought it sounded like somebody jogging, but I doubted that, and went out side to investigate. My worst suspicions were confirmed, when there were two people in my sideyard, completely naked and going at it.
The man apologized, and they began getting dressed, and I headed back inside. My Fiance, and everyone I've told this story to since asked if I'd called the police. I didn't want to because it wouldn't do any good. That is, it would only hurt the two people in the sideyard, so I could only see involving the police as malicious. I realize in retrospect that given the fact that they were very, very drunk I should have offered them more assistance in leaving rather then just convincing them to do so. Oh well, maybe next time.

Speaking of police, I just got back a response to my application to the NYPD, which I put in about two years ago, before these convictions solidified. I'm very seriously considering declining the job, even though it would be a huge help, because aside from the duties of a police officer potentially being morally unconscionable, it seems wrong for me to rail against state and private coercion and also draw my living from it.

Praxis is often a difficult, muddled thing, and I wish I had better answers.

 

[Hygro]

You will of course conform to the agent of the state or find yourself ostracized rather quickly as a police officer, but it's possible you can fill the position in a way that's a net gain.

 

[Traitorfish]

Sorry, guys, I have been super-lazy about getting to this.

And here I think we could take a worthwhile lesson about anarchism. Interesting that this was precisely the solution that the Zimmerwald-minded socialists and communists sought before World War I.

Given your above comments, and previously voiced general attitude, would you mark that policy/assumption/hope as the last point before the divergence of anarchist and communist thought and/or practice? Or was the Leninist policy of " revolutionary-minded state assuming all duties of the economy and so abolishing classes and itself in the process" the death knell to cooperation, because that's not something anarchists could possibly endorse?

I don't think there's ever been any final divergence between anarchism and Marxism, only between various officialdoms. And of course that works both ways, with various anarchists finding placing themselves on the other side of the line, as when the circle around Kropotkin came out in favour of the allied war effort. The ultimate issue for me is class, not intellectual heritage, which develops with only so much regard to ideology. The Italian autonomists, for example, began amid the dogmatic Marxism-Leninism of the post-war CPI, but were compelled by the social conflict of the 1960s to develop a more radical analysis, to the point that autonomists today are generally seen as "anarchists who like Marx".

Physical acts, laws, contracts, words, ideas? Do any of those topics contain examples of coercion by your understanding?

Coercion is the use or threat of force to oblige an individual to take a certain course of action. That's not really a point of an anarchist philosophy so much as basic semantics, anarchist just take it at value, rather than finding the various excuses and get-outs that most people find. Anarchists regard property as coercive not because we have some special, eccentric notion of coercion, but because we refuse to wave away the violent inherent in property with some alchemy of "right" that transmogrifies violence into non-violence.

Most people in pre-state societies (not so long ago) had a sense what was theirs and what was not, i.e. private property. Which shows that the state is not completely necessary to enforce such things, at least not in the invasive, omnipresent way that it is today.

I think you're over-simplifying, though. Certainly many pre-modern societies had notions of "mine" and "yours", but they were rarely identical or even all that similar to ours. Specifically, it's wroth stressing the extent to which pre-capitalist peoples tended to understand ownership in terms of layered, co-existing claims, so that a given plot of farming land could in a very real sense belong to a household, a village, a manor, a parish and a kingdom all at the same time, and that various claims might take priority in different contexts, which really cannot be crammed into the individualistic and exclusive framework characteristic of Western bourgeois concepts of property.

However, is it necessary in order to keep the 'modern, complex, industrialised economy'? The official answer would be 'yes', but businessmen always want less state intervention, except when it's to be bailed out. What does the Anarchist say?

Those who call for lessened state intervention in the name of free markets do so from within a certain ideological framework, in which the violent imposition of property and the wage-system are a matter of natural right, and therefore above politics. They're not actually arguing against the state, just against the state doing certain things they object to, as when fundies declare that the state has no right to recognise gay marriage, not because the state has no right to recognise marriages of any sort, but because it has no right to recognise "immoral" or "unnatural" marriages.

Maybe we should draw a distinction between norms, laws, and customs?

Maybe; I'm honestly not familiar enough with the appropriate anthropology to know quite how these terms are used. But, it's not uncommon to find "law" being discussed without an accompanying concept of "legality", as in most stateless (condescendingly described as "tribal") legal codes. Even today, in matters of civil law we tend not to think in those terms, so that while we might describe a breach of contrast as "against the law", we probably wouldn't describe it as "illegal".

Given that it is unlikely anarchist ideas will ever govern most political bodies around the world, how do you 'practice' anarchism in your everyday life? Do you know people who opt out of the money system, for instance?

Honestly, not much. My major points of reference are the anarcho-syndicalists and the autonomist Marxists, but neither my college nor workplace present many opportunities to act on them. I can't even really claim that I make much of a concious effort to avoid coercion, because I'm naturally non-confrontational, so it really doesn't tend to come up.

 

[ParkCungHee]

You will of course conform to the agent of the state or find yourself ostracized rather quickly as a police officer, but it's possible you can fill the position in a way that's a net gain.

Oh of course. And for what it's worth mentioning, I don't think consequentialism can justify that course of action, which is why I strongly support "opt out" practices for Anarchists.

Consequences are beyond our control, so any justification in consequences seems to me to be an appeal to fate, or at least to chance to provide morality to an action. "I joined the police force, but fortunately, I was able to do my job so that it's a net gain" seems to me a long way to say "I joined the police force, but fortunately things worked out such a way that I did a good thing anyway."

This is all of course far an apart separate from the other issue of whether or not it's acceptable to participate at all. If I entered the police force, I'd be very happy to work my way towards, for example, a police translator. This is also fortunately, the kind of work that cannot be said to do much direct harm. However, I'd still be a supportive instrument of a coercive apparatus, and I'd draw my living from this very coercion. It'd be hypocritical to draw this paycheck by the very means I seek to renounce.

The only source of doubt I have in this matter is, well, times are tough, jobs are scarce, and I am human. I hope I'll be strong enough and wise enough to make the right decision.

 

[Takhisis]

Sorry, guys, I have been super-lazy about getting to this.

But you're an Anarchist! Answer us… or don't.

But bear in mind that if you answer soooo late then we don't much remember what it is youw ere answerign and have to do serious rereading.

I don't think there's ever been any final divergence between anarchism and Marxism, only between various officialdoms. (…)

Are you referring to groups of officials such as those in the Soviet Union or to 'official' doctrines? Or a bit of both?

I think you're over-simplifying, though. Certainly many pre-modern societies had notions of "mine" and "yours", but they were rarely identical or even all that similar to ours. Specifically, it's wroth stressing the extent to which pre-capitalist peoples tended to understand ownership in terms of layered, co-existing claims, so that a given plot of farming land could in a very real sense belong to a household, a village, a manor, a parish and a kingdom all at the same time, and that various claims might take priority in different contexts, which really cannot be crammed into the individualistic and exclusive framework characteristic of Western bourgeois concepts of property.

We still do have apartment owner -> co-owners -> city -> province -> nation-state for blokes in apartment buildings.

Those same pre-capitalistic peoples had that layered system of claims because there was also a series of social layers with aristocracy and such -never mind India's extant caste system-, which obviously can't exist in an anarchic society.

btw wroth = angry, wrathful .

Those who call for lessened state intervention in the name of free markets do so from within a certain ideological framework, in which the violent imposition of property and the wage-system are a matter of natural right, and therefore above politics. They're not actually arguing against the state, just against the state doing certain things they object to, as when fundies declare that the state has no right to recognise gay marriage, not because the state has no right to recognise marriages of any sort, but because it has no right to recognise "immoral" or "unnatural" marriages.

Ye-es. But they still like to spout that they are against the state (except when they control it, which we already know but is beside the point.
This remains unanswered though:
> is it necessary in order to keep the 'modern, complex, industrialised economy'? (…) What does the Anarchist say?
Is it?

Maybe; I'm honestly not familiar enough with the appropriate anthropology to know quite how these terms are used. But, it's not uncommon to find "law" being discussed without an accompanying concept of "legality", as in most stateless (condescendingly described as "tribal") legal codes. Even today, in matters of civil law we tend not to think in those terms, so that while we might describe a breach of contrast as "against the law", we probably wouldn't describe it as "illegal".

I'd recommend studying a bit of law, if anything, to know exactly what it is that you're opposing. The differences between concepts such as law, norm, custom, use, mandatory, optional, etc. are things that even lawyers struggle to clearly define, as they tend to overlap and clash with each other all too often.

Oh of course. And for what it's worth mentioning, I don't think consequentialism can justify that course of action, which is why I strongly support "opt out" practices for Anarchists.

Consequences are beyond our control, so any justification in consequences seems to me to be an appeal to fate, or at least to chance to provide morality to an action. "I joined the police force, but fortunately, I was able to do my job so that it's a net gain" seems to me a long way to say "I joined the police force, but fortunately things worked out such a way that I did a good thing anyway."

This is all of course far an apart separate from the other issue of whether or not it's acceptable to participate at all. If I entered the police force, I'd be very happy to work my way towards, for example, a police translator. This is also fortunately, the kind of work that cannot be said to do much direct harm. However, I'd still be a supportive instrument of a coercive apparatus, and I'd draw my living from this very coercion. It'd be hypocritical to draw this paycheck by the very means I seek to renounce.

The only source of doubt I have in this matter is, well, times are tough, jobs are scarce, and I am human. I hope I'll be strong enough and wise enough to make the right decision.

We won't think any the less of you for that.

But, still, being a policeman isn't just any job. It's not the same to be a state employee, say, teaching in a public high-school than being a law enforcer (police, judge, etc.) and the PD isn't the same as the FD, for example.

Have you found out just how much of a hunk you'd look in uniform?

 

[Hygro]

How do anarchists such as yourselves treat Rousseau's treatise on the social contract? There's a lot of room for varied interpretation.

 

[Terxpahseyton]

How much can Anarchism even be viewed as political ideology, and how much as personal philosophy?
In political science the orthodox understanding of political is that it is about binding decisions. A decision is in the end only binding if I am willing to put the fist where my mouth is. So a political ideology would be about an order which also naturally is supposed to be enforced.
Anarchism is about a lack of coercion, so hence also the lack of an enforced order.
One could of course say that one order is still supposed to be enforced. Which is that coercion will be fought by coercion. Is that a point of view popular among anarchists?

 

[Traitorfish]

How much can Anarchism even be viewed as political ideology, and how much as personal philosophy?
In political science the orthodox understanding of political is that it is about binding decisions. A decision is in the end only binding if I am willing to put the fist where my mouth is. So a political ideology would be about an order which also naturally is supposed to be enforced.

I think that one can characterise anarchism as essentially anti-political, and it's certainly true that any worthwhile anarchism is dead set against "politics" as conventionally understood. But I don't think that makes it a simply personal philosophy (although that is certainly an aspect of it), because it's still directed towards the world at large, towards one's relations with others. Even the most strictly individualistic anarchist cannot seriously suggest that, as long as his personal dealings with others are free of coercion, he can claim to be practising anarchism, because those dealings are always going to be structured, however indirectly, by the greater web of relations beyond them. Anarchism is always, necessarily, a social philosophy, even if that social dimension is simply a generalised individualism.

It basically comes down to whether you understand a "political community" as a body that makes, as you say, binding decisions which are consequently enforced, or whether it simply refers to any self-governing community. And, honestly, I don't think I have a firm position on this; I might tend to assume the former meaning, because it's more common, and allows you to more easily stake out an "anti-political position". But at the same time, I don't think that's the only way that we can we talk about "the political", or that it's the only useful way to apply the concept. (For example, Pierre Claustre's Society Against the State, a work on the stateless indigenous societies of South America, has strong anarchist undertones, but also explicitly discusses these societies as "political communities", here contesting the traditional assumption that they were pre-statial, that they simply hadn't "achieved" state or state-like institutions, an important and worthwhile argument.)

So, anarchism is a personal philosophy, but also a social philosophy, and how we understand its social dimension comes down to what categories we're working with.

Anarchism is about a lack of coercion, so hence also the lack of an enforced order.
One could of course say that one order is still supposed to be enforced. Which is that coercion will be fought by coercion. Is that a point of view popular among anarchists?

I'm not sure I understand what you're asking? I'm willing to meet coercive activity with violence (although reluctant; I'm really not the sort of person to whom violence comes naturally), but I don't think this itself constitutes another form of coercion. "You're coercing me against coercing you" is really just word-games.

How do anarchists such as yourselves treat Rousseau's treatise on the social contract? There's a lot of room for varied interpretation.

I'm not really sure. It's honestly not something I've ever felt the need to engage with? Which is probably a failing on my part. As far as picking holes in dead philosophers go, my attention has tended to be more on Hobbes and his ilk, who seem to wield more influence (or at least a more dangerous influence) in cynical times like these.

 

[Hygro]

Fair answer. I'd love to get your take but that's just one more project on your already busy plate