The new anarchist thread
This is the new anarchist thread. Before bashing anarchism, take a look at the pages at the bottom. Anarchism is not chaos or destruction. It is about getting rid of hierarchy. I don't think I did as good a job as Spiritual Anarchy at making the new thread, but I hope this leads to some insightful debate.
Here are some anarchist nations:
Letila (http://www.nationstates.net/cgi-bin/index.cgi/36948/page=display_nation/nation=letila)
Free Soviets (http://www.nationstates.net/cgi-bin/index.cgi/36948/page=display_nation/nation=free_soviets)
Bodies without organs (http://www.nationstates.net/cgi-bin/index.cgi/36948/page=display_nation/nation=bodies_without_organs)
Free Outer Eugenia (http://www.nationstates.net/cgi-bin/index.cgi/36948/page=display_nation/nation=free_outer_eugenia)
Utopio (http://www.nationstates.net/cgi-bin/index.cgi/36948/page=display_nation/nation=utopio)
Carlemania (http://www.nationstates.net/cgi-bin/index.cgi/36948/page=display_nation/nation=carlemnaria)
Neo-Anarchos (http://www.nationstates.net/cgi-bin/index.cgi/36948/page=display_nation/nation=Neo-Anarchos)
Anarchist pages:
www.infoshop.org
http://question-everything.mahost.org/Socio-Politics/BasicAnarchy.html
http://flag.blackened.net/revolt/spain/coll_l.html
http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/Anarchist_Archives/bright/berkman/comanarchism/whatis_toc.html
http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/Anarchist_Archives/kropotkin/conquest/toc.html
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<b>Free your mind!</b>
<i>You can fight back.</i>
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http://www.angelfire.com/mo3/terrapvlchra/images/steatopygia.jpg
useful links, thanks. i'd be interested in hearing which system of decision making the anarchists around here support (consensus or direct democracy), and why. i personally don't think either would work, but i'd listen to suggested models with an open mind.
useful links, thanks. i'd be interested in hearing which system of decision making the anarchists around here support (consensus or direct democracy), and why. i personally don't think either would work, but i'd listen to suggested models with an open mind.
I would be happy with either, myself. Why don't you think either could work? What would you suggest?
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<b>Free your mind!</b>
<i>You can fight back.</i>
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http://www.sulucas.com/images/steatopygia.jpg
useful links, thanks. i'd be interested in hearing which system of decision making the anarchists around here support (consensus or direct democracy), and why. i personally don't think either would work, but i'd listen to suggested models with an open mind.
I would be happy with either, myself. Why don't you think either could work? What would you suggest?
well, consensus is a no brainer; there are plenty of issues on which people simply will not agree, and there's not going to be a compromise that can be accepted by everyone. direct democracy seems like a one-way ticket to oppression by the majority, though your link suggested that those in the minority could simply leave the group if they didn't like the majority ruling...that seems an awful system to me, since it means that you have to live at the whim of the majority opinion or get the hell out, regardless of the reasons or who was there first or what interests are being weighed.
Free Soviets
13-02-2004, 08:54
[this is the first post of the old anarchist thread (http://www.nationstates.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=71742&start=0), copied here for ease of access and so that any additions or changes can be made]
Posted: Tue Sep 16, 2003 1:30 am Post subject: The Anarchist Thread
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CALLING ALL ANARCHISTS!
This thread is for you. Come and say hello, debate and discuss, organise, meet one another here, even role-play if you like...
Everyone is welcome... non-anarchists come and debate! Note - if the thread veers off topic it might be steered back!
Spiritual Anarchist
* - * - *
This first post will contain lots of info and links to anarchist things - individual nations and regions on NationStates, offsite websites and forums, books, anything else we can think of. If you want your anarchist nation or region to be listed, or you know some good anarchist websites, please post them in this thread or telegram me with them and I'll put them in.
Anarchist nations on NationStates (alphabetical order)
Anarchio
Dischordiac
Free Soviets
Neo-Anarchos
Revolushia
Spiritual Anarchy
Utopio
related:
Pinochio [Minarchist]
Anarchist regions on NationStates (alphabetical order)
Anarchy
Anarchy Island
Anticapitalist Alliance
Anarchist websites
General
An Anarchist FAQ - there are many copies distributed around the net: http://www.infoshop.org/faq/ http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/1931/ www.anarchistfaq.org www.anarchismfaq.org www.anarchyfaq.org
DMOZ Anarchism http://dmoz.org/Society/Politics/Anarchism/
flag.blackened.net http://flag.blackened.net/
Infoshop.org http://www.infoshop.org/
Anarchy Archives http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/Anarchist_Archives/
Spunk Library http://www.spunk.org/
Anarchism in Action: Methods, Tactics, Skills, and Ideas http://www.radio4all.org/aia/
Anarcho-Syndicalism http://www.anarchosyndicalism.org/
Anarchist Youth Network: Britain & Ireland http://www.enrager.net/ayn/index.php
Specific kinds
Alexander Berkman - What Is Communist Anarchism? http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/Anarchist_Archives/bright/berkman/comanarchism/whatis_toc.html
Magazines
Anarchy: A Journal of Desire Armed http://www.anarchymag.org/
Total Liberty magazine http://mysite.freeserve.com/total_liberty1/index.jhtml
Books
AK Press (US) http://www.akpress.com/
AK Press (European) http://www.akuk.com/
Black Rose Books http://www.web.net/blackrosebooks/
Freedom Press http://vega.soi.city.ac.uk/~louise/freehome.html
Technical
riseup.net http://www.riseup.net/
Other
Anarchist Action Network http://www.zpub.com/notes/aadl.html
CrimethInc. http://www.crimethinc.com/
Raise the Fist http://www.raisethefist.com/
Onward :: Newspaper of Anarchist News, Opinion, Theory, and Strategy of Today http://www.onwardnewspaper.org/
Anarchist People of Color http://www.illegalvoices.org/apoc/
The Ideal http://s7.invisionfree.com/The_Ideal/index.php
Anarchist-related websites
Anti-Capitalist
Anti-Capital Web http://www.webcom.com/maxang/
CorpWatch http://www.corpwatch.org/
Peoples' Global Action http://www.agp.org/
World Social Forum http://www.forumsocialmundial.org.br/
There must be more anti-cap websites! Please tell me them
Anti-War
Antiwar.com http://www.antiwar.com/
Refuse & Resist! http://www.refuseandresist.org/altindex.html
International A.N.S.W.E.R. http://www.internationalanswer.org/ (Act Now to Stop War & End Racism!)
Disobedience Against War http://riseup.net/ourmayday/dis/
Stop The War Coalition http://www.stopwar.org.uk/
Activist
Indymedia http://www.indymedia.org
Calendar of upcoming protests http://www.protest.net/
Democracy Now! http://www.democracynow.org/
Movement of the People http://www.movementofthepeople.org/
Organization for Autonomous Telecommunications http://www.tao.ca/
Reclaim the Streets http://www.gn.apc.org/rts/
Amnesty International http://www.amnesty.org/
Z Communications - http://www.zmag.org/
EZLN/Zapatistas http://www.ezln.org/
Landless Workers' Movement (MST) http://www.mstbrazil.org/
SQUALL Magazine Online http://www.squall.co.uk/
Schnews - http://www.schnews.org.uk/
Isole Nella Rete ("Islands on the Net") http://www.ecn.org/ (Italian) http://www.ecn.org/multilang/ (English & other languages)
Ya Basta! - http://www.yabasta.it/
The Mark Thomas Product http://www.fnord.demon.co.uk/mt/
The Mark Thomas Product (Channel 4 site) http://www.channel4.com/news/microsites/M/mark_thomas/
CND - http://www.cnduk.org/
Other radical
Disinformation http://www.disinfo.com/ (has many alternative/underground subjects)
Robert Anton Wilson http://www.rawilson.com
The Nation magazine http://www.thenation.com/
The Progressive magazine http://www.progressive.org/
AlterNet http://www.alternet.org/
Michael Moore http://www.michaelmoore.com/
Free Mumia Abu-Jamal http://www.mumia.org/freedom.now/
International Journal of Community Currency Research http://www.geog.le.ac.uk/ijccr/
Communes
Intentional Communities http://www.ic.org/
Punk
Profane Existence http://www.profaneexistence.com/
Chumbawamba http://www.chumba.com/
Anarcho-capitalist
Anarchism.net http://www.anarchism.net/
anti-state.com - market anarchism online http://www.anti-state.com/
DMOZ directory http://dmoz.org/Society/Politics/Liberalism/Libertarianism/Anarcho-Capitalism/
Libertarian
Libertarian Alliance (UK) http://www.libertarian.co.uk/
Advocates for Self-Government http://www.self-gov.org/
The Free State Project http://www.freestateproject.org/
DMOZ directory http://dmoz.org/Society/Politics/Liberalism/Libertarianism/
Innovism: A Primer http://www.mega.nu:8080/innovism.html
Books
Avrich, Paul, ed., - The Anarchists in the Russian Revolution
Bakunin, Michael - God and the State
Barclay, Howard - People Without Government: An Anthropology of Anarchism
Berkman, Alexander - What is Anarchism (ABCs of Anarchism + What is Anarchist Communism)
Dolgoff, Sam - The Anarchist Collectives
Dulles, John - Anarchists and Communists in Brazil 1900-1935
Goldman, Emma - Anarchism and Other Essays
Guerin, Daniel - Anarchism
Guerin, Daniel, ed., - No Gods, No Masters: Books 1 & 2
Kropotkin, Piotr - Fields, Factories, and Workshops
Kropotkin, Piotr - Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution
Kropotkin, Piotr - The Conquest of Bread
Le Guin, Ursula - The Dispossessed (fiction)
Zerzan, John - Running On Emptiness
Non-anarchist but related:
Aronson, Elliot - The Social Animal
Cordingly, David - Under the Black Flag: The Romance and Reality of Life Among the Pirates
Ember, Carol and Melvin, - Anthropology
Heinlein, Robert A - Stranger in a Strange Land
Klein, Naomi - No Logo
Mauss, Marcel - The Gift
Macleod, Ken - The Stone Canal
Macleod, Ken - The Cassini Division
Orwell, George - Homage To Catalonia
Palast, Greg - The Best Democracy Money Can Buy
The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Human Evolution
Wilson, Robert Anton - The Illuminatus Trilogy
Saskatoon Saskatchewan
13-02-2004, 09:14
I have a question for Anarchists. A while back, while debating making things, we ended up @ one point in the night debating Anarchism priciples. I commented that in an Anarchist society, humans would be free to do whatever makes them happy. However, my friend made an interesting point. He said, " well, having sex makes me happy so, after having a child, how would one be able to raise a child? if you didn't know there was a hierarchy, how could raise a child without some sort of authority. After you've done this, wouldn't the child see the potential for hierarchy and that he/she could be @ the head of it? Because, invariable we all need rules to guide us exspecially children. They need rules to follow, otherwise how else will they grow up to be proper?" So, the question really is, how would you raise a child in a complete anarichal society without showing them any sort of authority or hierarchy when raising them? Just a thought I guess.
I have a question for Anarchists. A while back, while debating making things, we ended up @ one point in the night debating Anarchism priciples. I commented that in an Anarchist society, humans would be free to do whatever makes them happy. However, my friend made an interesting point. He said, " well, having sex makes me happy so, after having a child, how would one be able to raise a child? if you didn't know there was a hierarchy, how could raise a child without some sort of authority. After you've done this, wouldn't the child see the potential for hierarchy and that he/she could be @ the head of it? Because, invariable we all need rules to guide us exspecially children. They need rules to follow, otherwise how else will they grow up to be proper?" So, the question really is, how would you raise a child in a complete anarichal society without showing them any sort of authority or hierarchy when raising them? Just a thought I guess.
Kids need to be taken care of. Most adults don't need to be taken care of.
Ok, so I didn't mean to sound like a mafiosi...
Anarchism is perfect. If I want to rape some children or women, I just do it, as there is nothing to prevent me from doin it. I want to become a cocaine pusher, no prob, I just fly to Colombia, buy a few ks and then sell them to everybody. If I m lucky I manage to kill some of my buyers and take their money. I'm Tony Montana and you guys are a bunch of f*** a****.
Anarchism is perfect. If I want to rape some children or women, I just do it, as there is nothing to prevent me from doin it. I want to become a cocaine pusher, no prob, I just fly to Colombia, buy a few ks and then sell them to everybody. If I m lucky I manage to kill some of my buyers and take their money. I'm Tony Montana and you guys are a bunch of f*** a****.
Please don't be behave in such a silly manner in this thread, okay my friend? ^_^
Anarchism is perfect. If I want to rape some children or women, I just do it, as there is nothing to prevent me from doin it. I want to become a cocaine pusher, no prob, I just fly to Colombia, buy a few ks and then sell them to everybody. If I m lucky I manage to kill some of my buyers and take their money. I'm Tony Montana and you guys are a bunch of f*** a****.
You're confusing anarchism with nihlism.
Anarchism is perfect. If I want to rape some children or women, I just do it, as there is nothing to prevent me from doin it. I want to become a cocaine pusher, no prob, I just fly to Colombia, buy a few ks and then sell them to everybody. If I m lucky I manage to kill some of my buyers and take their money. I'm Tony Montana and you guys are a bunch of f*** a****.
*sigh* No, you wouldn't. How many times, peeps? Anarchy is not chaos. Anarchy is not disorder. Anarchy is not no rules.
Anarchy is no rulers, no hierarchy, no top-down order.
How these rules would be implemented/enforced is a matter that merits discussion. Talk about that, or other theories of anarchy, don't spread baseless crap .
When we were all ruled by kings and priests, democracy was seen as a force of chaos and disorder - an idea, seen as foolish, that only extremists and radical thinkers supported. It was thought, and proclaimed by those in power, that if we lived in a democratic system everything would break down, that human nature would get in the way and government would collapse.
Those in power obviously do not want their populations turning to the idea of no hierarchy, and try and sully anarchy's name. This is not an uninformed bash of the govern ment - think abot it; whenever you hear of countries ruled by the mob and gangs, violence on the streets and the like, we hear of the country 'descending into anarchy'. I like to think we're ascending to it.
Gaspode the Wonder Dog
13-02-2004, 11:56
So anarchists are basically pacifists?
I never read the original thread, so this is quite interesting.
Anarchy is no rulers, no hierarchy, no top-down order.
How these rules would be implemented/enforced is a matter that merits discussion. Talk about that, or other theories of anarchy, don't spread baseless crap ..
In Utopia anarchy is the advanced stage of communism, when all the people are that far developped that we don't need rules anymore, as everybody wants its best for the community. Well, utopia...
In reality everybody here understood that you have to create rules which everybody follows. It means that you need some kind of (flexible) system to create laws, change them and implement new ones with the time.
Now you have the choice between a democratic or a dictatorial system, but in both cases we can't call it anarchy anymore.
In Utopia
Good book, Utopia. You know what was funny about Utopia? the sheer amount of rules there!
anarchy is the advanced stage of communism, when all the people are that far developped that we don't need rules anymore,
No it isn't. It is not a magical land where human beings become fwuffy wuffy bunnies. As long humans interact there will be rules. It is (as is my understanding) these rules will not longer be enforced by a seperate 'armed body of men' as Engels put it.
YOUR QUOTE: "It is (as is my understanding) these rules will not longer be enforced by a seperate 'armed body of men' as Engels put it."
MY QUOTE: "when all the people are that far developped that we don't need rules anymore"
What's the big difference? Does it mean, if somebody commits a crime neighbours will lynch the gangster, as there is no police force? That's not far away from Tony Montanas world...
"Anarchism is a political theory holding all forms of coercive control and authority to be unnecessary and undesirable, advocating instead a society based on voluntary cooperation and free association of individuals and groups. As Benjamin Tucker put it, anarchism is the philosophy that "all the affairs of men should be managed by individuals or voluntary associations, and that the state should be abolished." "
So far what we all know and knew, but now the text continues:
"The anarchy sought by most anarchists is not chaos or anomie — that is, anarchists do not desire an absence of order, rules, and organized structure. "
and
"Although anarchists all wish to reach a stateless society, the proposed methods of political, economic, and social organisation vary immensely. "
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarchism
From this point on there is no common definition of anarchy any more.
In other words: The ideal anarchy is a country w/o any government and with people that are that well self controlled that ultimate prosperity and freedom will prevail. For the way how to make people become like this every anarchist has a different opinion.
Maybe one day some Marsians will come and brainwash all of us, but until this day an anarchy described as above will never occur. Al Capone will win, if anybody tries to create a state with no gov...
YOUR QUOTE: "It is (as is my understanding) these rules will not longer be enforced by a seperate 'armed body of men' as Engels put it."
MY QUOTE: "when all the people are that far developped that we don't need rules anymore"
Well I thought that the difference was made perfectly clear. You tried to claim that anarchism, or stateless communism (which ever phrase takes your fancy) means 'no rules' I say that this state of being does not mean the absence of rules. In short you say: no rules, I say: rules.
What's the big difference? Does it mean, if somebody commits a crime neighbours will lynch the gangster, as there is no police force? That's not far away from Tony Montanas world...
No it doesn't mean that if someone commits a crime that there must automatically be a lynching. The paris commune, the revolutions of 1905 and 1917 in Russia, in 1919 in Germany, the proto soviets in Britian of the same year, in Spain in '36 all thew up forms of workers' democracy. These periods are not characterised the absence of rules nor was it simply 'rule of the mob'. The working class has proved that it is capable of self organisation. Self organisation is not 'everyone does their own thing'. Self organisation is concretely seen on a picket line, in a factory occupation and in the soviets as well as in tennant's organisations, discussion groups, and the like.
I must say I am stumped how you could come to your conclusion that anarchists advocate no rules when after reading any of the websites listed and after realising that anarchist organisations already have rules and the democratic means of enforcing those rules.
Ignore my first article and read the 2nd one.
From this point on there is no common definition of anarchy any more.
In other words: The ideal anarchy is a country w/o any government and with people that are that well self controlled that ultimate prosperity and freedom will prevail. For the way how to make people become like this every anarchist has a different opinion.
Probably, which is what debate is for. I know that debate when viewed through the prism of an internet forum is just a combination of a kindergarten and BDSM dungeon, but in the real world, debate can be a way for people to arrive at a synthesis of ideas. To say that every anarchist has an different opinion does not mean that they cannot find some commonality. Obviously they do, and they are refreshingly inclusive (at least the sensible ones). I was a member of an anarchist organisation whilst being open about the fact I was a marxist. And no one tried to beat me, brainwash me or expell me.
Maybe one day some Marsians will come and brainwash all of us, but until this day an anarchy described as above will never occur. Al Capone will win, if anybody tries to create a state with no gov...
Yes well, you see I don't think that anarchism means no government, I believe that it means no state; I would argue that the state and government are entirely different things and the soviets are a form of government. The soviets have been proven to be viable models of self rule, in very trying circumstances.
But let us say they were not. Let us say it is all pie in the sky. Is it important? Is not not enough to have statelessness as an asipration? is the journey not as important as the destination? I would regard that it is. Like the communist arguments by biggest peeve is not the arguments over its feasibilty, it is that, the theoretical future becomes the debate, rather than what we do today.
Still, what do I know? I'm not an anarchist ^_^
Then you should have lived happily under Stalinist or Mao rule or move to N Korea. Personally I'm happy that I didnt have to.
Dont forget to explain yr happiness about those regimes to the relatives of the millions of deads caused by them.
Then you should have lived happily under Stalinist or Mao rule or move to N Korea.
No, doubtless I would have been killed or hounded out by Stalin as part of the workers' oppostion. You see, there was always more to Marxism than Stalinism. There were the 2nd Internationlists like the Socialist Party Of Great Britain denounced the 1917 revolution almost on the day it began as 'state capitalism'. There were the 'council' communists that Lenin denounced in his book, 'Left Wing Communism: An Infantile Disorder'. There were the 'Bolshevik-Leninists' (led by Trotsky) who opposed Stalin and organised an opposition to the regime. Marxism has always been a richer tradition than a brief ( a very brief) skimming of events shows you. So please, do not attribute positions to me that I do not hold. I do not do that to you. It adds nothing to the debate except for bitterness and anger.
Ok? Ok. ^_^
The Great Leveller
13-02-2004, 14:39
‘To be governed is to be watched over, inspected, spied on, directed, legislated over, regulated, docketed, indoctrinated, preached at, controlled, assessed, weighted, censored, ordered about by men who have neither right, nor knowledge, nor virtue. . . It is to be, on the pretext of the general interest, taxed, drilled, held to ransom, exploited, monopolised, extorted, squeezed, hoaxed, robbed; then, at the least resistance, at the first word of complaint, to be repressed, fined, abused, annoyed, followed, bullied, beaten, disarmed, garrotted, imprisoned, machine-gunned, judged, condemned, deported, flayed, sold, betrayed and finally mocked, ridiculed, insulted, dishonoured. That is government, that is its justice, that is its morality.’
‘the government of man by man, under whatever name it is disguised is oppression: the high perfection of society consists of the union of order and anarchy.’
Is it the same today? I think it is, the nature of government rarely changes. Also there is something for everyone there (except maybe, Authoritarians).
Free Soviets
13-02-2004, 20:03
So, the question really is, how would you raise a child in a complete anarichal society without showing them any sort of authority or hierarchy when raising them? Just a thought I guess.
a good question. small children probably do in fact require some use of 'parental authority". it is one of the few places where some amount of authority is able to be justified.* children just cannot be expected to learn the hard way about crossing busy streets or drinking poison. but an anarchist ethic for child raising would doubtlessly be far less arbirtary in its use of authority than the ethic of child raising in other societies. the point of raising children in any particular way is to help them become functional adults in their society. and to be functional in an anarchist society means being able to think for yourself and to participate in self-rule. which i think means that raising and teaching children will become a process of of leaving more and more decision-making up to the child from a much younger age, and no use of the old parental stand-by of "because i say so". which essentially means allowing children from a fairly young age to begin participating as an equal in the decision-making that affects them, and having parents leave more and more decision entirely up to the child as they get older.
*to quote chomsky,
"Anarchism, in my view, is an expression of the idea that the burden of proof is always on those who argue that authority and domination are necessary. They have to demonstrate, with powerful argument, that that conclusion is correct. If they cannot, then the institutions they defend should be considered illegitimate."
Free Soviets
13-02-2004, 20:31
"Although anarchists all wish to reach a stateless society, the proposed methods of political, economic, and social organisation vary immensely. "
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarchism
From this point on there is no common definition of anarchy any more.
In other words: The ideal anarchy is a country w/o any government and with people that are that well self controlled that ultimate prosperity and freedom will prevail. For the way how to make people become like this every anarchist has a different opinion.
that's not how i would summarize that article, or anarchist thought. for the most part, anarchists don't think people need to "become" anything other than what they are. we just need to change the institutions of society that people operate within.
there are only really four different schools of thought from people who consider themselves anarchists.
you've got the social anarchists (who further subdivide into collectivists, communists, syndicalists, and the odd mutualist - though none of these bitterly argue against each other because they see themselves as compatible).
then there are the anarcho-primitivists (there is some debate about whether they count as anarchists or not, but i personally think they do and that there will be room for primitivists in the world i envision).
and there are still a few individualist anarchists around (they mostly hang out with the social anarchists).
and then there is "anarcho"-capitalism, which is a fundamentally different sort of thing, and i'm only including it because they use the prefix 'anarcho'. they do not have much in common with any school of anarchist thought, though they claim to spring from individualist anarchism.
the first three could all exist together - they are mostly just different theories on the best way to organize a just and free society, and such a free society will be open to variation. "anarcho"-capitalism would be horrific and the embodiment of all that anarchists have always fought against.
The myths about anarchism are quite annoying. I think one of the biggest roadblocks to anarchism is the great variety of ideas within it. Within the category of social anarchism, there are 4 different ideas.
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The Great Leveller
14-02-2004, 00:23
The myths about anarchism are quite annoying. I think one of the biggest roadblocks to anarchism is the great variety of ideas within it. Within the category of social anarchism, there are 4 different ideas.
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A view I've held for a long time is that there are almost as many Anarchist ideas as anarchists. However, this may stem from the fact I cannot 'pigeon hole' myself into any of the groups and most other anarchists I meet I disagree with, not many I admit.
A view I've held for a long time is that there are almost as many Anarchist ideas as anarchists. However, this may stem from the fact I cannot 'pigeon hole' myself into any of the groups and most other anarchists I meet I disagree with, not many I admit.
I consider myself an anarcho-communist and from what I've seen, most anarchists seem to lean in that direction, though the details vary. I personally want to see an end to money.
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I think currency would still be necessary in a anarcho-communist state, as long as we accept the premises that, at the very least, some people are self-interested some of the time, and that people are entitled to some equality of reward for labor (two people should get roughly the same compensation for the same labor)
I think currency would still be necessary in a anarcho-communist state, as long as we accept the premises that, at the very least, some people are self-interested some of the time, and that people are entitled to some equality of reward for labor (two people should get roughly the same compensation for the same labor)
Ignoring the fact that an anarcho-communist state is an oxymoron (anarchism opposes the state), there is more to self-interest than being paid. You can benefit a lot by sharing what you make. It will benefit you by making the community as a whole a better place to live. Also, it will gain respect. People who demand payment aren't going to be nearly as well liked as people who just share. It's called the gift economy.
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http://www.sulucas.com/images/steatopygia.jpg
The Great Leveller
14-02-2004, 01:37
Just wondering. What do you other anarchists think should be done with parasites (ie people who don't work)? I feel that they should still be supported, but I have met an other anarchist who said that they should be ostrasized because then nessecity and public opinion will force them to work.
Ignoring the fact that an anarcho-communist state is an oxymoron (anarchism opposes the state), there is more to self-interest than being paid. You can benefit a lot by sharing what you make. It will benefit you by making the community as a whole a better place to live. Also, it will gain respect. People who demand payment aren't going to be nearly as well liked as people who just share. It's called the gift economy.
Ok, but lets think of it like this
Bob likes beer as much as much as Sam likes champagne.
Sam doesn't like beer
Beer take 1 unit of labour to make, while champagne takes 10.
So if we gave them equal ammounts of an aboslute good, beer in this case, Bob would get a lot of satisfaction while Sam would get none. If we distributed goods so that both received equal satisfaction, Sam's consumption would cost society ten times as much as Bob's consumption. This seems intuitively unfair.
Money, if only as a mechanism which can 'store' labour value, would be an excellent way to resolve this kind of problem
Just wondering. What do you other anarchists think should be done with parasites (ie people who don't work)? I feel that they should still be supported, but I have met an other anarchist who said that they should be ostrasized because then nessecity and public opinion will force them to work.
I personally think that they won't be a very big problem. While capitalists don't do any work, they still have high prestige because they are rich. In a society without money, prestige, if it still exists will be measured by contribution.
Also, work would be a lot less unpleasant when you manage it and working conditions aren't sacrificed for profit. I don't think many people would refuse to do anything useful. The best thing to do would be to help them find something they enjoy that is useful rather than starve them.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
<html><body>
<b>Free your mind!</b>
<i>You can fight back.</i>
</body></html>
http://www.sulucas.com/images/steatopygia.jpg
The Great Leveller
14-02-2004, 01:56
Ignoring the fact that an anarcho-communist state is an oxymoron (anarchism opposes the state), there is more to self-interest than being paid. You can benefit a lot by sharing what you make. It will benefit you by making the community as a whole a better place to live. Also, it will gain respect. People who demand payment aren't going to be nearly as well liked as people who just share. It's called the gift economy.
Ok, but lets think of it like this
Bob likes beer as much as much as Sam likes champagne.
Sam doesn't like beer
Beer take 1 unit of labour to make, while champagne takes 10.
So if we gave them equal ammounts of an aboslute good, beer in this case, Bob would get a lot of satisfaction while Sam would get none. If we distributed goods so that both received equal satisfaction, Sam's consumption would cost society ten times as much as Bob's consumption. This seems intuitively unfair.
Money, if only as a mechanism which can 'store' labour value, would be an excellent way to resolve this kind of problem
Unless Bob was a brewer, and Sam was a Champagne maker.
However, I understand why you want to retain the money system, but do you want to also retain the wage system, because it is the only to measure the amount of labour put into work.
The Great Leveller
14-02-2004, 02:21
Just wondering. What do you other anarchists think should be done with parasites (ie people who don't work)? I feel that they should still be supported, but I have met an other anarchist who said that they should be ostrasized because then nessecity and public opinion will force them to work.
I personally think that they won't be a very big problem. While capitalists don't do any work, they still have high prestige because they are rich. In a society without money, prestige, if it still exists will be measured by contribution.
Also, work would be a lot less unpleasant when you manage it and working conditions aren't sacrificed for profit. I don't think many people would refuse to do anything useful. The best thing to do would be to help them find something they enjoy that is useful rather than starve them.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
<html><body>
<b>Free your mind!</b>
<i>You can fight back.</i>
</body></html>
http://www.sulucas.com/images/steatopygia.jpg
I feel the work shy, are work shy for a reason. For example, give someone a task that they don't like (whether it is physical like farming, or mental like calculus), they will take a long time to do it, if at all, even if they can. However, if someone has a job they love doing, it will not seem like work, but play, and enjoy their task. The best example of this I have heard is, a factory worker can spend all day in a factory at work and come home shattered. However at the weekend the worker goes to his allotment/garden/whatever, and even if he consumes and expends the same amount of energy gardening he will not be shattered, even though he is doing something others may find boring and toilsome.
Also the better the community, the more parsites it should be possible to maintain.
Whilst I agree with on some parts. The part I'm concerned with is "prestige ....will be measured in contribution." Now although I agree that 'prestige' (as we know it) will cease to exist, I'm worried about public opinion, as it is a way for society to force the individual to conform, and the possibility of public opinion to form its own tyranny as it can be more "irresistible than whips and chains." This can be a good thing, ie the reform of the criminal. It is also common for people (including anarchists) who take the moral high ground to develope an authoritarian streak as they have a perception of what the individual should be like.
How do you think that the anarchic society will deal with public opinon?
Ok, but lets think of it like this
Bob likes beer as much as much as Sam likes champagne.
Sam doesn't like beer
Beer take 1 unit of labour to make, while champagne takes 10.
So if we gave them equal ammounts of an aboslute good, beer in this case, Bob would get a lot of satisfaction while Sam would get none. If we distributed goods so that both received equal satisfaction, Sam's consumption would cost society ten times as much as Bob's consumption. This seems intuitively unfair.
They wouldn't necessarily get the same amount of beer. The approach taken varies depending on the details of the economy, which would be left up to the people living in the commune.
I feel the work shy, are work shy for a reason. For example, give someone a task that they don't like (whether it is physical like farming, or mental like calculus), they will take a long time to do it, if at all, even if they can. However, if someone has a job they love doing, it will not seem like work, but play, and enjoy their task. The best example of this I have heard is, a factory worker can spend all day in a factory at work and come home shattered. However at the weekend the worker goes to his allotment/garden/whatever, and even if he consumes and expends the same amount of energy gardening he will not be shattered, even though he is doing something others may find boring and toilsome.
I agree.
Whilst I agree with on some parts. The part I'm concerned with is "prestige ....will be measured in contribution." Now although I agree that 'prestige' (as we know it) will cease to exist, I'm worried about public opinion, as it is a way for society to force the individual to conform, and the possibility of public opinion to form its own tyranny as it can be more "irresistible than whips and chains." This can be a good thing, ie the reform of the criminal. It is also common for people (including anarchists) who take the moral high ground to develope an authoritarian streak as they have a perception of what the individual should be like.
That's true. It's something we will have to be careful about, but it's not like anarchism is supposed to be perfect. Compared to the current system, it's certainly a big improvement, but there will still be problems in it.
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The Great Leveller
14-02-2004, 04:45
Letila did you post that post a few hours ago, or have lost track of time?
I deleted and reposted the post to bump the thread. It's interesting how I mainly asked questions on the old anarchist thread and now I'm answering them.
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The Great Leveller
14-02-2004, 05:01
I deleted and reposted the post to bump the thread. It's interesting how I mainly asked questions on the old anarchist thread and now I'm answering them.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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<b>Free your mind!</b>
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You live and learn (I noticed that, like the gift economy).
The Great Leveller
14-02-2004, 05:05
So anarchists are basically pacifists?
I never read the original thread, so this is quite interesting.
Not all anarchists are pacifists, most are (me being one of them). A good quote is from a Spanish anrchist (I forget his name): "Fascism doesn't need to be stopped; It must be crushed"
It is not bombs, disorder, or chaos.
It is not robbery and murder.
It is not a war of each against all.
It is not a return to barbarism or to the wild state of man.
Anarchism is the very opposite of all that.
Anarchism means that you should be free; that no one should enslave you, boss you, rob you, or impose upon you.
It means that you should be free to do the things you want to do; and that you should not be compelled to do what you don't want to do.
It means that you should have a chance to choose the kind of a life you want to live, and live it without anybody interfering.
It means that the next fellow should have the same freedom as you, that every one should have the same rights and liberties.
It means that all men are brothers, and that they should live like brothers, in peace and harmony.
That is to say, that there should be no war, no violence used by one set of men against another, no monopoly and no poverty, no oppression, no taking advantage of your fellow-man.
In short, Anarchism means a condition or society where all men and women are free, and where all enjoy equally the benefits of an ordered and sensible life.
'Can that be?' you ask;'and how?'
'Not before we all become angels,' your friend remarks.
Well, let us talk it over. Maybe I can show you that we can be decent and live as decent folks even without growing wings.
That dispells some of the myths rather poetically.
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<b>Free your mind!</b>
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The Great Leveller
14-02-2004, 05:21
Another good quote is:
‘He who throws a bomb and kills a pedestrian, declares that as a victim of society he has rebelled against society. But could not the poor victim object: “Am I society?”’ Malatesta
http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/Anarchist_Archives/bright/berkman/comanarchism/whatis_toc.html
I'm reading that. It's a good resource on anarchism.
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<b>Free your mind!</b>
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The Great Leveller
14-02-2004, 05:32
http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/Anarchist_Archives/bright/berkman/comanarchism/whatis_toc.html
I'm reading that. It's a good resource on anarchism.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
<html><body>
<b>Free your mind!</b>
<i>You can fight back.</i>
</body></html>
http://www.sulucas.com/images/steatopygia.jpg
Its very interesting. Thank you.
I'll put it in my signature. I hope that will help.
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Free your mind! (http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/Anarchist_Archives/bright/berkman/comanarchism/whatis_toc.html)
The Great Leveller
14-02-2004, 05:41
I'll put it in my signature. I hope that will help.
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Free your mind! (http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/Anarchist_Archives/bright/berkman/comanarchism/whatis_toc.html)
It will. Actually, whilst we are on the subject, how do you 'make' a signature?
Just add the desired text to the end of your posts. You can save it to a notepad document and copy and paste it into the post.
---------------------------
Free your mind! (http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/Anarchist_Archives/bright/berkman/comanarchism/whatis_toc.html)
I like big butts!
http://www.sulucas.com/images/steatopygia.jpg
Cuneo Island
14-02-2004, 05:52
I'm joining a biker gang to go rule a country.
The Great Leveller
14-02-2004, 05:55
Just add the desired text to the end of your posts. You can save it to a notepad document and copy and paste it into the post.
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Free your mind! (http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/Anarchist_Archives/bright/berkman/comanarchism/whatis_toc.html)
I like big butts!
http://www.sulucas.com/images/steatopygia.jpg
O, as simple as that, sorry I thought it was more complecated.
Anyway back on topic.
Do you know of any groups? I have always been isolated (possibly a reason I'm an individualist), with other anarchists I've known not taking it seriously, and treating it in the Sex Pistols sense of the word. So I know very little about current anarchist activities, news etc. Search engines are just frustrating, you so many crappy sites.
--------------------------------------
When Adam dug, and Eve spun; who was then the gentleman?
That isn't anarchism. There is no authority or rather irrational authority in anarchism. No biker gang government.
www.infoshop.org is a good place for any anarchist info.
---------------------------
Free your mind! (http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/Anarchist_Archives/bright/berkman/comanarchism/whatis_toc.html)
I like big butts!
http://www.sulucas.com/images/steatopygia.jpg
The Great Leveller
14-02-2004, 06:02
That isn't anarchism. There is no authority or rather irrational authority in anarchism. No biker gang government.
www.infoshop.org is a good place for any anarchist info.
---------------------------
Free your mind! (http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/Anarchist_Archives/bright/berkman/comanarchism/whatis_toc.html)
I like big butts!
http://www.sulucas.com/images/steatopygia.jpg
I am fully aware of that, I meant I wanted to know about modern day anarchists, and what there doing. All my anarchist ideas are a mish mash of the 19th and early 20th Century anarchists. I want to know if any new ideas have arisen, I just felt maybe my ideas were dated and part of them needed updating.
Anyway thank you for the link.
--------------------------------------
When Adam dug, and Eve spun; who was then the gentleman?
The best way is to talk to various people involved in anarchism.
---------------------------
Free your mind! (http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/Anarchist_Archives/bright/berkman/comanarchism/whatis_toc.html)
I like big butts!
http://www.sulucas.com/images/steatopygia.jpg
I am fully aware of that, I meant I wanted to know about modern day anarchists, and what there doing. All my anarchist ideas are a mish mash of the 19th and early 20th Century anarchists. I want to know if any new ideas have arisen, I just felt maybe my ideas were dated and part of them needed updating.
Anyway thank you for the link.
Growing trends in the anarchist movment? Here's a short lil' summary
Anarcho-primitivism -- Anarcho-primitivism is about destroying the techno-industrial hierarchy and civilization itself. It would be really hard to un-do plenty of dis-information about primitivism in a short amount of time, but understand that they believe that technology has alienated humyns from their natural state (i.e. when you use complex tools, they use you back). In the U.S., anarcho-primitivism is most associated with the writings of John Zerzan and the excellent 'zine Green Anarchy (www.greenanarchy.org/). For other sites, check out primitivism.com (www.primitivism.com) and Insurgent Desire (www.insurgentdesire.org.uk). Anarcho-primitivism is a close ally of...
Post-leftism and anti-work -- Post-leftism? I can hardly make sense of this stuff, aside from "moving beyond the left." Judge for yourself, especially in one of the best 'zines out there, Anarchy: A Journal of Desire Armed (http://www.anarchymag.org/), which is a hall-mark for both trends. The anti-work trend has a great advocate in the writings of Bob Black (http://www.spunk.org/texts/writers/black/), which goes beyond advocating the equalization of work, but rather, its abolition. Both post-leftism and anarcho-primitivism argue against
Situationism -- From the Situationist International of the French May-June Revolt fame. The Situationists hold the capitalist media is the modern-day face of the "Spectacle," spreading alienation wholesale, by giving the impression that identity, happiness, or fun is something with a price-tag attached to it. Plenty of their writings can be found here (http://www.bopsecrets.org/SI/). For the modern-day heirs of the Situationists, check out CrimethInc. (www.crimethinc.com), who sometimes border on lifestyle-ism, but are always entertaining.
While you're at it, check out the Anarchist People of Color website (http://www.illegalvoices.org/apoc/knowledge/index.html), which puts a non-white perspective on a sometime euro-centric movement.
One piece of advice: "Anarcho"-capitalism is not a form of anarchism.
---------------------------
Free your mind! (http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/Anarchist_Archives/bright/berkman/comanarchism/whatis_toc.html)
I like big butts!
http://www.sulucas.com/images/steatopygia.jpg
The Great Leveller
15-02-2004, 03:02
I am fully aware of that, I meant I wanted to know about modern day anarchists, and what there doing. All my anarchist ideas are a mish mash of the 19th and early 20th Century anarchists. I want to know if any new ideas have arisen, I just felt maybe my ideas were dated and part of them needed updating.
Anyway thank you for the link.
Growing trends in the anarchist movment? Here's a short lil' summary
Anarcho-primitivism -- Anarcho-primitivism is about destroying the techno-industrial hierarchy and civilization itself. It would be really hard to un-do plenty of dis-information about primitivism in a short amount of time, but understand that they believe that technology has alienated humyns from their natural state (i.e. when you use complex tools, they use you back). In the U.S., anarcho-primitivism is most associated with the writings of John Zerzan and the excellent 'zine Green Anarchy (www.greenanarchy.org/). For other sites, check out primitivism.com (www.primitivism.com) and Insurgent Desire (www.insurgentdesire.org.uk). Anarcho-primitivism is a close ally of...
Post-leftism and anti-work -- Post-leftism? I can hardly make sense of this stuff, aside from "moving beyond the left." Judge for yourself, especially in one of the best 'zines out there, Anarchy: A Journal of Desire Armed (http://www.anarchymag.org/), which is a hall-mark for both trends. The anti-work trend has a great advocate in the writings of Bob Black (http://www.spunk.org/texts/writers/black/), which goes beyond advocating the equalization of work, but rather, its abolition. Both post-leftism and anarcho-primitivism argue against
Situationism -- From the Situationist International of the French May-June Revolt fame. The Situationists hold the capitalist media is the modern-day face of the "Spectacle," spreading alienation wholesale, by giving the impression that identity, happiness, or fun is something with a price-tag attached to it. Plenty of their writings can be found here (http://www.bopsecrets.org/SI/). For the modern-day heirs of the Situationists, check out CrimethInc. (www.crimethinc.com), who sometimes border on lifestyle-ism, but are always entertaining.
While you're at it, check out the Anarchist People of Color website (http://www.illegalvoices.org/apoc/knowledge/index.html), which puts a non-white perspective on a sometime euro-centric movement.
Thank you, I'm sure these links will prove most illuminating. I have come across the privitivists, I have only tended to sympathise with them them rather than agree with them (ie, I agree that some of their points are valid, but I disagree with most of them on most things). I have never encountered post-leftism or situationism (at least not in those names), so I will read about them.
Thank you.
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When Adam dug, and Eve spun, who was then the gentleman?
I invite people to debate us.
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Free your mind! (http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/Anarchist_Archives/bright/berkman/comanarchism/whatis_toc.html)
I like big butts!
http://www.sulucas.com/images/steatopygia.jpg
Bodies Without Organs
15-02-2004, 04:29
When Adam dug, and Eve spun, who was then the gentleman?
None of the above.
Have you gotten anyone to become anarchist, BWO?
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Free your mind! (http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/Anarchist_Archives/bright/berkman/comanarchism/whatis_toc.html)
I like big butts!
The Great Leveller
15-02-2004, 06:29
When Adam dug, and Eve spun, who was then the gentleman?
None of the above.
Well done, now I'll give a thousand quid to anyone who can tell me where I got the quote (clue, the origanal was in 14th cwntury old english)
Bodies Without Organs
15-02-2004, 06:33
When Adam dug, and Eve spun, who was then the gentleman?
None of the above.
Well done, now I'll give a thousand quid to anyone who can tell me where I got the quote (clue, the origanal was in 14th cwntury old english)
John Ball.
"When Adam delved and Eve span, Who was then the gentleman?"
It scans better with the archaicisms.
The Great Leveller
15-02-2004, 06:41
When Adam dug, and Eve spun, who was then the gentleman?
None of the above.
Well done, now I'll give a thousand quid to anyone who can tell me where I got the quote (clue, the origanal was in 14th cwntury old english)
John Ball.
"When Adam delved and Eve span, Who was then the gentleman?"
It scans better with the archaicisms.
Well done (all you need to do now is track me down), I heard it in a lecture, so wasn't sure how it exactly went (with the archaisms) so i turned it into modern english in the hope no one would realise. Anyway no mind if I nick the proper version?
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When Adam delved and Eve Span, Who was then the gentle man?
It almost makes me want to put a memorable quote in my sig, oh wait, I have two.
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Free your mind! (http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/Anarchist_Archives/bright/berkman/comanarchism/whatis_toc.html)
I like big butts!
http://www.sulucas.com/images/steatopygia.jpg
The Great Leveller
15-02-2004, 20:10
It almost makes me want to put a memorable quote in my sig, oh wait, I have two.
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Free your mind! (http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/Anarchist_Archives/bright/berkman/comanarchism/whatis_toc.html)
I like big butts!
http://www.sulucas.com/images/steatopygia.jpg
Sorry I unashamedly love history. Both my nation name and quote are historic
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When Adam delved and Eve Span, Who was then the gentle man?
Free Soviets
15-02-2004, 23:50
i'd be interested in hearing which system of decision making the anarchists around here support (consensus or direct democracy), and why. i personally don't think either would work, but i'd listen to suggested models with an open mind.
personally, i favor a system of mixed decision making styles, depending on the type of decision being made. complete consensus seems like the ideal to be strived for, but will not always be possible - sometimes people will just fundamentally disagree, or be too stubborn to compromise. but the point is that the bargaining position of everyone is equal (and much better than it is under any system of hierarchy) and compromise will be the order of the day. the system will be directly democratic because everyone will have an equal say in the decisions that affect them.
you will not always get your way, but you will always get the choice of agreeing to the final decision (agreeing to abide by the decision even though you disagree with it), standing aside (agreeing to disagree, and just not participating in the implementation of that decision - this may not be possible for some decisions), or attempting to exercise a principled veto (convincing enough people that some course of action is so out of line that it undermines the entire nature of the community and the decision making process - or that the outcome will be otherwise grossly bad). and if you never get your way, you always have the option to disassociate from a particular association.
in this way, anarchism offers stronger protection of minority rights than any system of centralized democratic authority, where minorities have rights only because the majority allows them to have some. or because the elite that is actually behind the democratic aspect of the system allows them to. in either case the minority is relying on the continued goodwill of some other party - when that goodwill goes away, they often find themselves in rather nasty circumstances. detained indefinitely on a military base, for example.
I almost have to wonder if BDSM would conflict with anarchism. I'm told it doesn't, but it seems like it would to me.
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Free your mind! (http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/Anarchist_Archives/bright/berkman/comanarchism/whatis_toc.html)
I like big butts!
http://www.sulucas.com/images/steatopygia.jpg
The Great Leveller
17-02-2004, 21:17
The Great Leveller
17-02-2004, 21:18
I almost have to wonder if BDSM would conflict with anarchism. I'm told it doesn't, but it seems like it would to me.
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Free your mind! (http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/Anarchist_Archives/bright/berkman/comanarchism/whatis_toc.html)
I like big butts!
http://www.sulucas.com/images/steatopygia.jpg
What is BDSM?
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
When Adam delved and Eve span, who was then the gentleman? (http://www.thisisessex.co.uk/essex/local_interest/famous_faces/social/jball.html)
Give me liberty, or give me death (http://www.tlio.demon.co.uk/leveller.htm)
A form of sexuality in which dominance and submission are a key part.
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Free your mind! (http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/Anarchist_Archives/bright/berkman/comanarchism/whatis_toc.html)
I like big butts!
http://www.sulucas.com/images/steatopygia.jpg
The Great Leveller
17-02-2004, 21:41
dp
The Great Leveller
17-02-2004, 21:41
dp
The Great Leveller
17-02-2004, 21:45
A form of sexuality in which dominance and submission are a key part.
---------------------------
Free your mind! (http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/Anarchist_Archives/bright/berkman/comanarchism/whatis_toc.html)
I like big butts!
http://www.sulucas.com/images/steatopygia.jpg
It's voluntary and the submissive in a way 'needs' it and can leave the relationship with little less then a bruises.
http://www.infoshop.org/faq/secJ6.html
If I interpret the Infoshop faq right, it says that "sexual perversion" is caused by bad parenting and will go away. Are they implying that BDSM will cease to be a problem because it will disappear?
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Free your mind! (http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/Anarchist_Archives/bright/berkman/comanarchism/whatis_toc.html)
I like big butts!
http://www.sulucas.com/images/steatopygia.jpg
The Great Leveller
18-02-2004, 03:15
http://www.infoshop.org/faq/secJ6.html
If I interpret the Infoshop faq right, it says that "sexual perversion" is caused by bad parenting and will go away. Are they implying that BDSM will cease to be a problem because it will disappear?
---------------------------
Free your mind! (http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/Anarchist_Archives/bright/berkman/comanarchism/whatis_toc.html)
I like big butts!
http://www.sulucas.com/images/steatopygia.jpg
I think there is a case to be said for that view that upbringing can lead to this 'perversion.' That the parenting one recieves early in life, can affect you for the of your life, and that it manifests its self in different way in different aspects of life. But I feel that this only covers the subvissive, and not the dominatrix, but I would hesitate to say that it is completely 'unnatural'. I think that can be a completly naturaly occuring thing to though, some sexual preferance defy reason, for right-wing Christians it seems to be homosexuality, for some on this board it seems to be you liking for big butts (don't take that the wrong way, I personally have nothing against it).
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When Adam delved and Eve span, who was then the gentleman? (http://www.thisisessex.co.uk/essex/local_interest/famous_faces/social/jball.html)
Give me liberty, or give me death (http://www.tlio.demon.co.uk/leveller.htm)[/quote]
Hey, I missed the beginning of the new anarchist thread! Oh well, how's the anarchism going Letila?
Hey, I missed the beginning of the new anarchist thread! Oh well, how's the anarchism going Letila?
Hey, I missed the beginning of the new anarchist thread! Oh well, how's the anarchism going Letila?
It's going well. I've really learned a lot. I still would like to learn more about the gift economy, though. It's hard to find good information on it.
I think there is a case to be said for that view that upbringing can lead to this 'perversion.' That the parenting one recieves early in life, can affect you for the of your life, and that it manifests its self in different way in different aspects of life. But I feel that this only covers the subvissive, and not the dominatrix, but I would hesitate to say that it is completely 'unnatural'. I think that can be a completly naturaly occuring thing to though, some sexual preferance defy reason, for right-wing Christians it seems to be homosexuality, for some on this board it seems to be you liking for big butts (don't take that the wrong way, I personally have nothing against it).
I personally am interested on how anarchism and BDSM would interact. As for my preference for huge butted women, who is it that objects? I would to know.
---------------------------
Free your mind! (http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/Anarchist_Archives/bright/berkman/comanarchism/whatis_toc.html)
I like big butts!
http://www.sulucas.com/images/steatopygia.jpg
Bodies Without Organs
18-02-2004, 04:05
I almost have to wonder if BDSM would conflict with anarchism. I'm told it doesn't, but it seems like it would to me.
It isn't a display of dominance and submission: it is a case of playing at those roles, wherein both parties have given their consent.
I see. You certainly seem to be well informed.
--------------------
Free your mind!
Free Soviets
19-02-2004, 07:57
saw this today on infoshop. seems like short notice, but anyone who can should probably try to hook up with this.
http://www.infoshop.org/inews/stories.php?story=04/02/18/0790219
NORTHEAST GATHERING FOR AUTONOMY
February 27-29
University of Hartford, West Hartford, CT
In response to the call for stronger organization through a de-centralized, anti-capitalist, anti-authoritarian network-- We are calling for a convergence of Anarchist, Anti-Authoritarian collectives, organizations, and individuals to form a Northeastern Regional Network, which will eventually become a continental network.
February 27th
*introductions* "A panel discussion on the principles of anarchism"
February 28th
Daytime *skill sharing and organizing workshops* Guerrilla theater* Hactivism* Self Defense* Food Not Bombs* Building Community Spaces* Posters and Propadanda* Radical Alternative Media* Activist Art as Outreach... and more Evening An elegant mix of anti-capitalist hip hop, folk song, punk rock, spoken word, plus An open mic for all the burning hearts with a literary inclination
February 29th *Building a Network* Sunday we will all come together and decide what a regional and continental community will look like, discuss campaign ideas,etc. For registration (necessary) and other info, visit www.northeastautonomy.org
Child Care provided* no one will be turned away for lack of funds!* lunches provided* housing available
Send your name (or alias), e-mail, phone number, and check/M.O. made out to AFSC. Mail to "Northeast Autonomy" c/o AFSC, 56 Arbor St., 2nd Floor, Hartford, CT 06105. $10 Suggested donation, to pay for food and space reservations.
*Please specify if you need housing
Thanks for the post, Free Soviets. I do have a remaining question: Are there any anarchist communities currently in existance?
-----------------------------------------
"But by an equality, that now at this time your abundance may be a supply for their want, that their abundance also may be a supply for your want: that there may be equality."
Free your mind! (http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/Anarchist_Archives/bright/berkman/comanarchism/whatis_toc.html)
I like big butts!
http://www.sulucas.com/images/steatopygia.jpg
Free Soviets
20-02-2004, 05:09
full out communities? i don't really know that there are - though the world is pretty big and we are everywhere. there are a bunch of communes that more or less qualify, and numerous collectives, but i'm not aware of any full size functioning completely anarchist communities. mostly we've got lots of places that are part way to full blown functioning anarchy, though still surrounded by the institutions of the state and capitalism.
though you could always go try to visit port watson! (http://www.sonsorol.org/port_watson.html)
What kind of partially functioning anarchist communities are there?
-----------------------------------------
"But by an equality, that now at this time your abundance may be a supply for their want, that their abundance also may be a supply for your want: that there may be equality."
Free your mind! (http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/Anarchist_Archives/bright/berkman/comanarchism/whatis_toc.html)
I like big butts!
http://www.sulucas.com/images/steatopygia.jpg
Free Soviets
21-02-2004, 11:41
well, there are all sorts of "intentional communities" around, and some of those a fairly anarchistic. take a look at http://www.thefec.org/ or http://www.ic.org/
and then you've got your more transient communities, squatted buildings and such. some of the squats in europe are decades old and overtly political, and a lot of the people that are openly and flagrantly squatting buildings in north america are anarchists or influenced by anarchism.
and then there are a good number of collectives and co-ops that are run essentially anarchistically, though in the context of being surrounded by capitalism. we've also got anarchist free skools and all sorts of other stuff. sadly, most of it is pretty localized and isolated - we have most of the necessary parts, but not all together and not fully developed.
Anarchist schools? How do they work? I know I wouldn't do school work without being punished. It's boring and really doesn't accomplish anything.
-----------------------------------------
"But by an equality, that now at this time your abundance may be a supply for their want, that their abundance also may be a supply for your want: that there may be equality."
Free your mind! (http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/Anarchist_Archives/bright/berkman/comanarchism/whatis_toc.html)
I like big butts!
http://www.sulucas.com/images/steatopygia.jpg
Free Soviets
23-02-2004, 05:20
Anarchist schools? How do they work? I know I wouldn't do school work without being punished. It's boring and really doesn't accomplish anything.
i'm afraid i'm going to just toss a couple of links at you on this one, and assure you that your hatred of school work has more to do with the structure of school than with education per se. and that the various libertarian education plans have repeatedly worked in actual practice.
http://www.infoshop.org/faq/secJ5.html#secj513
http://www.ratical.org/ratville/Summerhill.html
http://www.social-ecology.org/harbinger/vol2no1/education.html
oh no, anarchosyndicalism.org is down! well, here's the google cache of a page i was looking for
http://www.google.com/search?q=cache:RjgTy6bNAMsJ:www.anarchosyndicalism.org/culture/paideia.htm
Sounds cool. I certainly wish I didn't have to go to the school I go to now. All they do is brainwash you.
-----------------------------------------
"But by an equality, that now at this time your abundance may be a supply for their want, that their abundance also may be a supply for your want: that there may be equality."
Free your mind! (http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/Anarchist_Archives/bright/berkman/comanarchism/whatis_toc.html)
I like big butts!
http://www.sulucas.com/images/steatopygia.jpg
Free Soviets
26-02-2004, 07:57
a new link for all to check out, and hopefully contribute to. it just got started, so it's still a little sparse.
http://www.anarchistprojects.net/
Cool. How many friends do you know that are anarchist?
-----------------------------------------
"But by an equality, that now at this time your abundance may be a supply for their want, that their abundance also may be a supply for your want: that there may be equality."
Free your mind! (http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/Anarchist_Archives/bright/berkman/comanarchism/whatis_toc.html)
I like big butts!
http://www.sulucas.com/images/steatopygia.jpg
Free Soviets
27-02-2004, 05:22
Cool. How many friends do you know that are anarchist?
in person i know a dozen or so - the pitfalls of living in the middle of wisconsin. but the internet boosts my numbers substantially.
how about anybody else? how connected to the rest of the movement are we?
I don't know any anarchists outside the internet. My mother keeps saying that the Lord of the Flies disproves anarchism.
-----------------------------------------
"But by an equality, that now at this time your abundance may be a supply for their want, that their abundance also may be a supply for your want: that there may be equality."
Free your mind! (http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/Anarchist_Archives/bright/berkman/comanarchism/whatis_toc.html)
I like big butts!
http://www.sulucas.com/images/steatopygia.jpg
Free Soviets
29-02-2004, 20:00
I don't know any anarchists outside the internet. My mother keeps saying that the Lord of the Flies disproves anarchism.
i highly suggest finding other anarchists in your area, or just starting up some anarchistic projects with people who at least seem to lean that way.
and ask your mother how a work of fiction can prove or disprove anything. or if orwell's "1984" disproves statism and le guin's "the dispossesed" proves that anarchism can function.
personally i would argue that works of fiction can offer insights, but not proof. and that it will all come down to the assumptions that are behind the writing and whether you find those assumptions credible. i find the (christian) assumption that people are basically evil just stupid - and "the lord of the flies" entirely relies on it to make its story. remove authority and people will run around killing each other for fun. one has to ask, how did the 'wise and benevolent' system of law and rulers come to be if people are so fundamentally evil? and what good is giving people who are also fundamentally evil power and authority?
Good point. It seems that most of the debating is happening on other threads. People are genrally quite resistant to the idea of a classless society, though.
-----------------------------------------
"But by an equality, that now at this time your abundance may be a supply for their want, that their abundance also may be a supply for your want: that there may be equality."
Free your mind! (http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/Anarchist_Archives/bright/berkman/comanarchism/whatis_toc.html)
I like big butts!
http://www.sulucas.com/images/steatopygia.jpg
Free Soviets
02-03-2004, 08:29
http://www.infoshop.org/inews/stories.php?story=04/02/18/0790219
NORTHEAST GATHERING FOR AUTONOMY
February 27-29
University of Hartford, West Hartford, CT
In response to the call for stronger organization through a de-centralized, anti-capitalist, anti-authoritarian network-- We are calling for a convergence of Anarchist, Anti-Authoritarian collectives, organizations, and individuals to form a Northeastern Regional Network, which will eventually become a continental network.
a bit of a follow-up on this. mainstream news story on it:
http://www.ctnow.com/news/local/hc-anarchists0229.artfeb29,1,3099956.story?coll=hc-headlines-local
use crimethinc for the username and password, if you want in without registering. otherwise go to
http://www.infoshop.org/inews/stories.php?story=04/02/29/2733308
Activists Regroup At U of H
It's Not Always About Killing The TV
February 29, 2004
By MATTHEW KAUFFMAN, Courant Staff Writer
"Worm," a radical disc jockey from Vermont, is regaling his mostly young audience with details of his austere, low-tech lifestyle, including the joys of foraging for wild plants in the forest and his first, tentative morsel of North Carolina roadkill.
"I tend not to describe myself as a primitivist," Worm tells the group in a soft, even voice. "I just feel like civilization hasn't made the world much better and has probably made it worse."
The comment gets knowing nods from the group, and the warm reception for the anti-establishment philosophy is really no surprise. Worm has taken the day off from his radio show ("subverting the airwaves every Saturday from 4 to 5 p.m.") to address a singularly sympathetic audience.
Yes, Worm is here in Connecticut - attending an organized gathering of anarchists.
There's a joke in there somewhere.
But, in reality, it's no laughing matter to the scores of activists who came to the University of Hartford campus for the Northeast Autonomy Gathering, a weekend of workshops, art presentations and the occasional tip on killing your television.
Matt McLaughlin of Hartford, a 19-year-old activist who helped organize the gathering, said a latter-day anarchist movement has been gaining strength for a decade and became a political force with the disruption of World Trade Organization meetings in Seattle four years ago.
Over the years, it has attracted a broad range of left-leaning activists, from vegans to gay activists and anti-war protesters. That diversity was on display Saturday in a hallway lined with tables, where various groups sold books, pamphlets and bumper stickers. Among the messages: "The World Can No Longer Afford the Rich" and "Just Because We Won Doesn't Make it Right."
Participants broke off into more than a dozen workshops, including "Guerrilla Theater," "Proper Propaganda," "Workplace Organizing with the Industrial Workers of the World" and "The Relevance of the Revolution Within Today." The workshops were held, curiously, in classrooms at the University of Hartford's United Technologies Center, named for the company whose technology includes Army helicopters from Sikorsky Aircraft and military jet engines from Pratt & Whitney.
Some workshops were interrupted by the occasional chirp of a cell phone, and there was a lively debate over whether the Internet was a legitimate tool for spreading an anti-technology message. The consensus: Yes.
Worm, whose show on an unlicensed radio station in Brattleboro is billed as offering "incendiary news and music from a radically anti-authoritarian and biocentric perspective," said mankind is decades away from exhausting the planet's natural resources, which could lead to human extinction. But as alarming as it sounds, he acknowledges it's a hard sell.
"Whenever I talk with someone and say we can live without industrial development, they say, `What? What? No! How can we do that? How can we live without television?'" Worm said. "Well, that's been around 50 years. We've been around 2 million years. We've lived with electricity for only 100 years."
McLaughlin said 60 people pre-registered for the conference and he suspected dozens more would show up during the weekend. Most were from Connecticut, although Maryland, New Jersey, Long Island and Albany were represented.
In the morning, Julia Rosenblatt, a member of the HartBeat Ensemble, a three-person theater troupe, held a series of ice-breaking exercises, including one in which participants lined up by age; only a handful were older than 25.
At the front of the line was Christine Gauvreau, director of the Labor Art & Mural Project at Central Connecticut State University. Gauvreau, who told the group she has "52 years of struggle," said later she knows that for most of her anti-establishment comrades, the Vietnam War is the stuff of history textbooks. But she said she sees some improvements from her early anti-war days, when the movement was more divided.
"Today, I see people of my generation working side by side with all the students who were first mobilized in the anti-globalization movement and are now focused around ending the war in Iraq," she said. "This is bringing together people of all generations."
McLaughlin said the anarchist movement fell dormant after the end of the Spanish civil war in 1939, but was revived in the late 1970s by labor and student activists and punk rockers. The movement got a jolt in 1994 when Zapatista rebels staged an uprising against the Mexican government. McLaughlin said the Zapatistas' anti-establishment credo emphasized equality and regional autonomy. That struck a chord with American anarchists, who had grown disenchanted with both Western-style capitalism and Soviet-style communism.
Still, he recognizes the word, and the movement, carry negative connotations for many, who see anarchists as militants who promote violence and chaos.
"I'm not going to go out of my way on a huge PR campaign, but I try and deconstruct that misconception by the way I live. And if people can't see that I'm a positive, decent person who calls himself an anarchist, then there's not much I can do about that," McLaughlin said. "It's less important to destigmatize that word than it is to really just do the solid organizing. And if it means not calling ourselves anarchists, it's not a big deal.
"An anarchist by any other name is still an anarchist."
While I believe technology should be questioned to see whether it is actually necessary or beneficial, completely abandoning it seems a bit much.
-----------------------------------------
"But by an equality, that now at this time your abundance may be a supply for their want, that their abundance also may be a supply for your want: that there may be equality."
Free your mind! (http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/Anarchist_Archives/bright/berkman/comanarchism/whatis_toc.html)
I like big butts!
http://www.sulucas.com/images/steatopygia.jpg
Luciferius
07-03-2004, 19:16
How many times, peeps? Anarchy is not chaos. Anarchy is not disorder. Anarchy is not no rules.
Anarchy is no rulers, no hierarchy, no top-down order.
How these rules would be implemented/enforced is a matter that merits discussion....
Please do not take my questions as being offensive. They are ginuine legitimate questions. No matter how rules were implemented wouldn't that create a ruling body of some compacity? Or is it that Anarchists just don't want leaders?
Where do most Anarchists stand on the issue of smaller Government Vs. larger Government? Which of the Two do You think Anarchy would bring?
Are Anarchists Anti-Capitalists? If so, Why? Do you favor Government or some sort of ruling body regulation and higher taxes?
When we were all ruled by kings and priests, democracy was seen as a force of chaos and disorder - an idea, seen as foolish, that only extremists and radical thinkers supported. It was thought, and proclaimed by those in power, that if we lived in a democratic system everything would break down, that human nature would get in the way and government would collapse.
Can a National Economy really work with Anarchism? How would the Economy bee ran under Anarchism? How come almost every other Anarchist NationState has an imploded or weak econnomy?
What about the Military? Who would they take their orders from? Who would run it?
Those in power obviously do not want their populations turning to the idea of no hierarchy, and try and sully anarchy's name. This is not an uninformed bash of the govern ment - think abot it; whenever you hear of countries ruled by the mob and gangs, violence on the streets and the like, we hear of the country 'descending into anarchy'. I like to think we're ascending to it.
What about the situations in Haiti, Irag, and Afghanitstan? Do you really believe that those places would be better off with Anarchism?
Free Soviets
08-03-2004, 01:03
Please do not take my questions as being offensive. They are ginuine legitimate questions. No matter how rules were implemented wouldn't that create a ruling body of some compacity? Or is it that Anarchists just don't want leaders?
we tend to say that each person should have direct say in the rules that they have to abide by. if you want to call that a ruling body, that's fine. but its not the kind of ruling body that can command you, because everybody involved is part of it, and you can always disassociate yourself from that particular group if you find that the rules suck. so yeah, we don't want leaders who can order people around and make them obey.
Where do most Anarchists stand on the issue of smaller Government Vs. larger Government? Which of the Two do You think Anarchy would bring?
i think that it is mostly a red herring. the "small government" people want to keep only the scariest parts of the state - its monopoly on the use of force, through its cops and military. and a lot of them in actual practice keep vastly expanding the authority and pervasiveness of those agencies. and "big government" does the same but with more extensive social programs. the problem with those programs is that they are mostly an afterthought to the primal purpose of the state, and are handled in those terms - people are numbered and regulated and spyed on and controlled through the bureaucracy created to administer those services.
as anarchists we will do away with government as it has always existed - there will be no ruling class imposing its will on the rest of everybody through use of cops and soldiers. but we also intend to take away control of the economy from the tiny class of people who hold it now, and put the economy under the direct control of the people. which means that anarchism doesn't even fit in the big and small government dictotomy.
Are Anarchists Anti-Capitalists? If so, Why? Do you favor Government or some sort of ruling body regulation and higher taxes?
yes. all anarchists are anti-capitalists, because to not be is to claim that vital parts of society ought to be owned and controlled by a tiny elite who the rest of society has to pay for the privilege of being allowed to make a living.
there are different theories about running an anarchist economy, so i'll be keeping this kind of vague. its not about regulation and taxes, its about social ownership of the means of production and distribution. regulations would be made by the owners, who happen to be the people. and taxes wouldn't exist, though wealth created in various enterprises would be used to achieve other social aims. an anarchist economy is a decentralized system that works together as an intergrated whole (or several, due to free association between individuals and collectives).
How come almost every other Anarchist NationState has an imploded or weak econnomy?
in this game? its because all the business issues are written with a distinctly capitalist bias to them, and most left leaning people take the economy hit again and again by not dismissing issues. how many times do you have to outlaw mining for gold in pristine lakes? just the once works well enough. and for less objectionable business issues, nobody remembers that they alreay have outlawed private enterprise, therefore all these businesses are either state-run or worker-run deals - you gots to let people create wealth somehow. a little creative reading and it all works out (and you wind up like me, with an economy that is out of control. and i've been lowering it).
What about the Military? Who would they take their orders from? Who would run it?
the military would be organized as a voluntary militia, based around democratic principles. leaders chosen by the militia members and subject to recall if they suck, with no ability to command others except maybe in actual battle. the militia would be pretty much exclusively a defensive thing. it would be run by those that are in it and the communities/federation it defends.
Those in power obviously do not want their populations turning to the idea of no hierarchy, and try and sully anarchy's name. This is not an uninformed bash of the govern ment - think abot it; whenever you hear of countries ruled by the mob and gangs, violence on the streets and the like, we hear of the country 'descending into anarchy'. I like to think we're ascending to it.
What about the situations in Haiti, Irag, and Afghanitstan? Do you really believe that those places would be better off with Anarchism?
yes. almost anything would be better than the warlordism going on in afghanistan. but if there were enough anarchists around to make it work, anarchism would be great for anywhere. of course, i hold it to be an achievable ideal, so i would think that. but what's not to love about freedom, peace and equality?
Free Soviets
08-03-2004, 04:47
alright, time to promote some anarchist events. we've got a number of things coming up in the us (i have very little info from outside the us, please post if you have some).
Calling all Anarchists & our Allies! Please join us for the 2004 Anarchist Social Retreat!
The ASR-2004 gathering will be held August 19-22, 2004 on the edge of the San Juan Mountains of Colorado.
Many past Anarchist gatherings have tended towards being either drunkfests or endless meetings - not this one!
ASR-2004 will be a 3 day weekend of networking, relaxing and fun - all FREE!
The gathering will be a friendly and safe space for children and their families - so don't leave your parents at home! (They might even have fun AND learn something!)
We want *YOUR* help! Do you: Play Music? Have skills or knowledge to share? Enjoy cooking? Want to help with cleaning? Want to help with activities for kids? Have something else you want to share not mentioned here? Please let us know how we can get you involved!
We are providing a wheelchair accessible space fully equipped with electricity and water, bathrooms, kitchen, outdoor camping & indoor floor space for sleeping, a stage for music & plenty of room for general events.
Want to help organize ASR-2004? www.groups.yahoo.com/groups/asr2004
Questions? Suggestions? Want more info? Please Call: 719-539-3553 or email: loveliberate@yahoo.com
ASR2004 forums: http://mhrbb.dbom.net
Are you an anarchist or anti-authoritarian?
Are you looking for something to do on May Day?
Want to be part of putting anarchist principles into action?
Come get involved!
The Buffal@ Collective (clever eh?) is an attempt by Buffalo-area anarchists to organize and fight against capitalism, the state, and all forms of oppression. If that sounds good to you, come to our next meeting:
What -- Buffal@ meeting
When -- Saturday, 3/17 7:30 PM
Where -- Access Community Infoshop, 3180 Main Street
For more info, contact eagercolin@yahoo.com
and a couple things out on the left coast, including one of the larger anarchist events, held out in san fran.
Announcing the 1st Annual BADASS (Bay Area Direct Action Soccer Series) Tournament 2004.
March 13 - 14, 2004. San Francisco Bay Area
SHOWDOWN IN THE BAY
The inaugural BADASS Tournament will feature soccer teams from all over who can make it to the Anarchy Week in the San Francisco Bay Area in March 2004. The BADASS Tournament aims to provide a fun outlet for many anarchists who will gather in the Bay Area in mid-March to attend the various annual events such as the Anarchist Cafe, the Bound Together Anarchist Bookfair, and the BASTARD Anarchist Conference.
Teams already confirmed in the tournament line-up so far include a team from Chicago representing Arsenal magazine, Bay Area's 2003 Revolutionary Soccer Tournament Cup Champions Kronstadt FC, and Anarcho-hyphenists, an up-and-coming team closely affiliated with SF Food Not Bombs.
TOURNAMENT SCHEDULE
The tournament is scheduled to take place on Saturday, March 13th in San Francisco and on Sunday March 14th in Berkeley. Exact times and locations of the matches will be announced on the Anarchist Football Network website when they are confirmed.
ENTERING THE TOURNAMENT
While the majority of the players who will take part in the tournament will already identify as anarchists, there is no requirement for philosophical allegiance in order to join the tournament. The only requirement is for anyone entering is to be open-minded about anarchism and other anti-authoritarian ideas and to respect and support each other by emphasizing fun instead of pure competition.
The number of players for team rosters in each game will have to remain flexible due to the busy schedule of the entire weekend, especially as many of the players themselves will be involved with things like tabling at the bookfair.
We encourage folks to form teams and enter the tournament. It's not too late! We encourage participation from players of all or no skill levels. And while there will not be any gender quotas, we ask that all teams be multi-gendered.
There is a registration form for entering the tournament at http://www.passionbomb.com/soccer
This will help us in scheduling the matches in advance. You will also receive play guidelines designed to keep the matches friendly. In the event that a team was to be formed at the last minute, we will try our best to fit them in.
If you would like to volunteer to help organize the tournament, please subscribe to the Anarchist Soccer email list at http://lists.riseup.net/www/info/anarchistsoccer and say hello or contact the Anarchist Football Network.
Anarchist Football Network Contacts:
www.passionbomb.com/soccer
anarchosoccer@riseup.net
---
Related Anarchy Week events:
Anarchy Magazine Benefit 80's Dance Party, Berkeley. Thursday, March 11, 2004 (http://sfbay-anarchists.org/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=193&mode=thread&order=0&thold=0)
7th Annual Anarchist Cafe, SF. Friday, March 12, 2004 (http://sfbay-anarchists.org/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=190&mode=thread&order=0&thold=0)
9th Annual Bound Together Bay Area Anarchist Book Fair, SF. Saturday, March 13, 2004 (http://indybay.org/calendar/event_display_detail.php?event_id=3178&day=13&month=3&year=2004)
BASTARD Anarchist Conference, Berkeley. Sunday, March 14, 2004 (http://sfbay-anarchists.org/conference/index.php?cf=1)
California: APOC conference workshop call-out
From: Carwil James
Greetings all,
We are looking for speakers and/or workshop presenters for an upcoming Anarchist People of Color conference, to take place in Oakland April 16-18. You do not have to be an anarchist to present a workshop. You do, however, have to be a person of color to attend this conference.
There is no one unifying theme for the gathering, however, there are a few different things people are interested in having at the conference -
Skillsharing - Confronting the powerful, surviving capitalism and building a new world takes all kinds of skills! Can you copwatch, make art, or facilitate meetings exceptionally well? Want to share advice and experience on organizing in the workplace, getting brutal cops fired, or making our own media? Or do you know how to entertain kids, fix a bike, or teach self-defense? If you think you know something other folks will also want to, send us a workshop proposal!!!
The "basics" of anarchism - Anarchism means different things to different people, but we're looking for people who can break down anarchist takes on the state, oppression and capitalism and anarchist visions for running our lives without any of them. We want people to be clear and understandable so we can expand the circle of POC taking on the state.
Anarchist theory - Turn off the conventional rules of politics and you get a lot of new ideas. Do we want cultures, communities or nations, or just free individuals? Just how much organization and how much chaos to need to challenge the powerful? How do we build an anarchism that respects our roots? Lay it all out, or set up a debate that contrasts the ideas that animate our movement.
Caucuses and clusters - Part of our work is creating spaces to hear our own voices and confront our own privileges. Caucuses will be held by LGBTQI folks, non-male identified folks, and other groups who would like to meet up - we need people willing to facilitate these groups. Also, the gathering is a place for POC in various scenes: labor organizers, anti-globalization activists, poets, street militants etc. to check in with each other and the context and critiques.
Strategies and projects - So now what? Talking and community are great, but this can also be a place for envisioning and planning new projects, conspiracies, and communities. Make it happen.
To submit a proposal, or suggest a topic, please email lani@akpress.org workshop proposals based on participatory learning are encouraged.
If you want any more info on the conference in general, please email race@riseup.net
Free Soviets
08-03-2004, 20:38
and another one
South East Anarchist Network Gathering (SEANet), April 9th-11th, Greensboro NC Meet people who share your anti-authoritarian passions, and who want to support each other in challenging oppression! **Open to All Anarchists, Anti-Authoritarians, and Folks Curious about Anti-Authoritarian Approaches to Social Change** (register on line, or fill out the registration form at the end and send in by e-mail it or regular mail) SEANet Conference Website: http://www.anarcha.org/seanet/main.php SEANet main Website: www.southeastanarchist.org
As a tool, we hope the SEANet conference will help us get to know each other better, communicate, & share resources, and will increase our ability to respond to and organize against repression, as well as to help us better understand how the anarchist movement is developing. All though we are not interested in challenging or being challenged by organizers who advocate an authoritarian approach, we do want to encourage activists and organizers who work outside of anarchist communities, scenes and groups to join us at this conference.
Two exciting things to expect at SEANet that will set it apart from the usual "lots-of-workshops-at-the-same-time" type conference:
*Fun, Networking and Community Building: The gathering will include plenty of time for networking through: spending time with people who share your passions in "passion groups," getting to know each other, lounging in the grass, hot dance parties and fun. There will also be discussion on what this network will look like, how it may operate, and identifying what our needs may be as a movement in the Southeast. As 2004 will be a busy year for us, part of this network building will include discussion about the upcoming G-8 meetings in Savannah/Sea Island, GA and the upcoming Republic National Convention protests in New York. The better we know each other, the more we like each other, and the more fun we have together, the stronger our SE network will > be!
*Challenging Oppression: Anti-oppression will be a focus of the gathering, including challenging racism, sexism, classism, homophobia, ageism, transphobia and more. Small group discussions will be available to facilitate us through these issues. This approach will be an amazing addition to the format of past anarchist conferences, and will challenge anti-authoritarian movements to better understand these oppressions, both within and outside the movement. We hope draw some conclusions on how to build momentum within our movement that will both combat these issues and display a genuine dedication to anti-oppression and acting as allies to oppressed people. This will also make our networks stronger through dealing with these important issues in a positive and supportive way, rather than having the discussions after the fact or feeling guilty, scared, intimidated and nervous.
The SE has an amazing history of anti-authoritarian-influenced resistance by poor people, people of color, and their allies....From slave uprisings to workers' walk-outs in textile mills, to the civil rights and black power movements of the 60s and 70s, to immigrant resistance, popular education and anti-racist efforts now, the SE has been an origin point for many of the most powerful movements of the United Snakes. Beautiful art, music and other cultural resistance has also come out of the SE US. Despite a history of repression, conservativism and religious fundamentalism, oppressed people of the SE have risen up, and others have taken up the challenge to support these struggles. Drawing on the long history of anarchism in the US, we believe that the hierarchies of capitalism, white supremacy, patriarchy, heterosexism, state power and transphobia all need to be challenged in our personal lives, in how we organize and approach social change, and in the US and the World. We plan to gather and strengthen our movements and be part of the powerful history of resistance in the SE.
So we ask you to join us in this process of network building. Working groups have formed in Greensboro and are hard at work setting up logistics for the weekend, including food, childcare, registration, housing, and entertainment. Setting these pieces in place, however, will require work not just within Greensboro, but also throughout the Southeast. If you have something to contribute, you can email us at seanet@riseup.net. you can also join our list-serve by emailing seanet_subscribe@lists.riseup.net. visit us on the web at http://www.anarcha.org/seanet/main.php
Free Soviets
09-03-2004, 20:31
the original thread has been archived (http://www.nationstates.net/forum/viewforum.php?f=11).
now it will never go away...bwahahaha!
I'm glad. I learned a lot on that thread.
-----------------------------------------
"But by an equality, that now at this time your abundance may be a supply for their want, that their abundance also may be a supply for your want: that there may be equality."
Free your mind! (http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/Anarchist_Archives/bright/berkman/comanarchism/whatis_toc.html)
I like big butts!
http://www.angelfire.com/mo3/terrapvlchra/images/steatopygia.jpg
Dischordiac
10-03-2004, 00:42
Dischordiac
10-03-2004, 00:48
then there are the anarcho-primitivists (there is some debate about whether they count as anarchists or not, but i personally think they do and that there will be room for primitivists in the world i envision).
They can live in the trees at the end of my totally non-primitivist house full of electricity and computers and stuff and, if they complain, I'll torture a lettuce. Hah!
Vas. (not a big fan of primitivists, not because I don't like them, just their ideas don't leave much room for the rest of us).
Dischordiac
10-03-2004, 00:59
Do you know of any groups? I have always been isolated (possibly a reason I'm an individualist), with other anarchists I've known not taking it seriously, and treating it in the Sex Pistols sense of the word. So I know very little about current anarchist activities, news etc. Search engines are just frustrating, you so many crappy sites.
Let http://www.indymedia.org be your guide. Not just anarchists, more like the divine chaos of the modern left around the world.
Vas.
The Great Leveller
10-03-2004, 01:43
Do you know of any groups? I have always been isolated (possibly a reason I'm an individualist), with other anarchists I've known not taking it seriously, and treating it in the Sex Pistols sense of the word. So I know very little about current anarchist activities, news etc. Search engines are just frustrating, you so many crappy sites.
Let http://www.indymedia.org be your guide. Not just anarchists, more like the divine chaos of the modern left around the world.
Vas.
Thanks,
Free Soviets
13-03-2004, 01:26
so i was at work yesterday, and my boss's (bosses'? boss'?) boyfriend was there. he happens to be the guitarist for a band that i like - small world, eh? anyway, he see's my jacket and reads the back of it - it says "no gods, no masters". and he asks me if i got the slogan from crimethinc. i say no and that i got it from the same place they did. we then have a bit of a conversation about "days of war, nights of love". on the clock, no less.
but anyway, this brought two seperate and unrelated questions to mind.
number one, who here knows about crimethinc and what do you think about 'em?
and number two, how can someone who is dating a punk who reads anarchist lit be a boss? it just seems very unpunk to me.
I know. She must be a closet boss or something. This thread has been remarkably free of debates.
-----------------------------------------
"But by an equality, that now at this time your abundance may be a supply for their want, that their abundance also may be a supply for your want: that there may be equality."
Free your mind! (http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/Anarchist_Archives/bright/berkman/comanarchism/whatis_toc.html)
I like big butts!
http://www.angelfire.com/mo3/terrapvlchra/images/steatopygia.jpg
Free Soviets
15-03-2004, 21:49
heh, check this out. the peace, love, and anarchy bucket brigade (associated with the pittsburgh organizing group) marched in the pittsburgh st. patrick's day parade
http://media.indypgh.org/uploads/indyp11.jpg
http://media.indypgh.org/uploads/indyp2.jpg
http://media.indypgh.org/uploads/indyp10.jpg
I have a question, I'm never really sure how to put it, so it may come out as incoherent. Okay, as you may or may not know, I'm a Marxist who has been influenced by Victor Serge a great deal, and also the Italian autonomists to an extent. The question I always ask myself is, why aren't the soviets and the workers' militia a state? I would consider the soviets (not the subsequent Bolshevik centralisation) and the miltia to be an organ of working class rule= a state. If I remember rightly (and I could be wrong) that Bakunin announced that the Paris commune meant that the state was abolished but to Marxists, the Paris Commune was a workers' state in embryo. Engels said it himself that the Paris Commune is an example of the dictatorship of the proletariat. So where do we begin to branch off in our own direction?
Rumagistan
19-03-2004, 04:53
I find it really ironic that a lot of these anarchist websites have popups on them.
Don't get offended, I'm on your side.
Yeah, I know. That's one of the great things about anarcho-communism: No money or profit means no more advertisement.
-----------------------------------------
"But by an equality, that now at this time your abundance may be a supply for their want, that their abundance also may be a supply for your want: that there may be equality."
Free your mind! (http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/Anarchist_Archives/bright/berkman/comanarchism/whatis_toc.html)
I like big butts!
http://www.angelfire.com/mo3/terrapvlchra/images/steatopygia.jpg
Free Soviets
20-03-2004, 07:52
http://sf.indymedia.org/uploads/squat6-use.jpg00knmb.jpg
see you all in the streets
---Post deleted by NationStates Moderators---
Free Soviets
22-03-2004, 02:25
some pictures of the anarchist presence in chicago's m20 anti-war protest. check the link for a few more.
http://www.midwestunrest.net/m2004.html
http://www.midwestunrest.net/p7.jpg
http://www.midwestunrest.net/p8.jpg
http://www.midwestunrest.net/p5.jpg
http://www.midwestunrest.net/p4.jpg
http://www.midwestunrest.net/p3.jpg
Free Soviets
26-03-2004, 20:19
The question I always ask myself is, why aren't the soviets and the workers' militia a state? I would consider the soviets (not the subsequent Bolshevik centralisation) and the miltia to be an organ of working class rule= a state. If I remember rightly (and I could be wrong) that Bakunin announced that the Paris commune meant that the state was abolished but to Marxists, the Paris Commune was a workers' state in embryo. Engels said it himself that the Paris Commune is an example of the dictatorship of the proletariat. So where do we begin to branch off in our own direction?
well, i would say that what i mean by 'the state' includes the idea of rule by a tiny minority that forms an elite in terms of access to power, prestige, and resources. any kind of soviet and militia that i would find acceptable would not. and then there is the principle of free association that ultimately is meant to keep the majority from totally over-running the minority all the time in group decision making. in a lot of respects anarchists are pretty close to anti-authoritarian marxists of vrious stripes, though i absolutely hate the term 'dictatorship of the proletariat'.
(sorry for the delay, i haven't really been up to actually answering questions for awhile)
New Granada
26-03-2004, 20:30
The soviets have been proven to be viable models of self rule, in very trying circumstances.
Remember, people tried soviets and tried communism, and evidence proves that it doesnt work like intellectuals want it to.
Rabid Chinchillas
26-03-2004, 20:43
The soviets have been proven to be viable models of self rule, in very trying circumstances.
Remember, people tried soviets and tried communism, and evidence proves that it doesnt work like intellectuals want it to.
True, but also remember that anarchism isnt different to communism. Anarchism requires the dissilusion of governing heirachies. Communism still keeps a state system in control, it just says that everyone within that state is equal
Free Soviets
27-03-2004, 05:22
two more anarchist events that are coming up. and i'll be at one of them.
first up we have a christian anarchism conference
Engaging the Powers:
Christianity, Anarchism and Social Change
Saturday July 31, 2004 New York City
Friends Meetinghouse
15th Street and Rutherford Place
(between 2nd and 3rd Avenues)
Contact: jesusradicals@jesusradicals.com
http://conferencenyc.jesusradicals.com/index.html
and then the one i'll be at (for at least one day)
http://www.madisoninfoshop.org/bkfair-banner.gif
Come to the Midwest Anarchist Bookfair!
“Deep down our needs are simple: apart from food, shelter, and
clothing there are needs to love and be loved, for community, to be open to the world at large and for it to be open to us, to affect and to be affected, to understand and to be understood, to hear and be heard, to accept and be accepted.”
Derrick Jensen, “Language Older than Words”
Tired of always reacting to the bad stuff? Ready to help create the world you want to see? Our hope springs from our community our relationships with the world and ourselves. Only together can we see through the mass western hysteria to a world where ALL share food, skills, ideas and dreams!
We invite you to join us in Madison, Wisconsin May 7—9 for a book fair and gathering, very much in the spirit of Chicago's Matches and Mayhem. A space for us to come together, discuss our cynicism and overcome that which drags us down.
We'll gather to share literature, hold workshops/discussions, and build praxis in a convergence of not only people, but of ideas. On the agenda: skillshares, variety show, music, soccer matches, bike jousting, more games, possible networking discussion, and - of course - the book fair.
We're openly soliciting volunteers to facilitate discussions, skillshares, workshops, and games. Please contribute your ideas and resources to help us make this a triumphant eclectic event. Register for housing, a lit table at the bookfair, more information, or other contributions you would like to make on the form below.
If our rhetoric sounds a bit cheesy, keep in mind we are from Wisconsin!
With much love,
Madison Anarchists
Spread the Word!
madisoninfoshop.org phone 608262 9036
1019 williamson st #2 fax- 608 2600900
madison, wi 53703 circle_a_books (at) riseup.net
http://www.madisoninfoshop.org/bookfair.html
New Granada
27-03-2004, 06:25
When have people ever been content to be mere equals?
Free Soviets
27-03-2004, 07:01
When have people ever been content to be mere equals?
when the alternative is being dominated.
Remember, people tried soviets and tried communism, and evidence proves that it doesnt work like intellectuals want it to.
First of all, thanks FS, I'll think about that. ^_^
Now to you. I 'remember' no such thing. The soviets, or councils, did not spring from the books of any intellectuals. If I recall rightly, the Leninists, who nowadays claim their mantle of both Marxism and the soviets as their exclusive domain, felt that the soviets, far from a vindication of workers' rule, were a grave folly, particuarly as they did not fit into Lenin's schema of 'the democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and the peasantry'. The soviets were an organic creation of the workers themselves and were championed by anarchists and the more farsighted Marxists that Lenin later denounced as suffering from 'an infintile disorder'.
To anwser your point about 'communism'. If by that you merely mean the rule of the communist party, then no, I hardly see 70 odd years of iron fisted rule as failure. Most of the old apparatchniks still hold the reins of economic power today despite the party's collapse into a Red-Brown morrass.
If you mean communism the way I understand it then in no sense was it 'tried'. There was a revolution which in my opinion, as I have said so many times before, degenerated and turned in on itself by its isolation, an isolation that could have been overcome by the success of the German revolution-- although as that revolution was stillborn, that can only ever be idle speculation. The revolution would have to spread to the 'dominant peoples' on the world stage for a backward country like Russia did not have the necessary productive level to make socialism possible. As Marx points out:
...And, on the other hand, this development of productive forces (which itself implies the actual empirical existence of men in their world-historical, instead of local, being) is an absolutely necessary practical premise because without it want is merely made general, and with destitution the struggle for necessities and all the old filthy business would necessarily be reproduced
Marx, Karl (1996) The German Ideology, Lawrence and Wisheart, London.
And that is what happened, a return to the old filthy business. This was the result of real histrorical processes. I understand that its far easier to just say 'well it failed'. To explain why it failed, what were the causes of degeneration, what was happening elsewhere in the world, what the productive forces were in russia and what Russian society actually became takes research that most people can't bothered with. Which is fine. What irritates me is the smugness of these blaket statements which are invariably reinforced with precisely nothing whatsover and yet are presented as the last word in ultimate wisdom.
So to get back to what I said: the Soviets were first seen in Russia, but have been repeated elsewhere in the world, although obviously under different names. Given that the soviets in Russia were able to supercede the consitutient assmbly and win the trust of the Russian people, and the fact that even after a bloody civil war, some vestige of democracy remained in them, that I would argue could have been revived if the german revolution had gone forward, they have been proven to be a viable form of rule. How long the soviets can last in the post revolutionary period (i.e., in peace time) and how well they can resist the pressures of centralisation has yet to be really proven. Given that Russia was such a royal fuck up, its probably unfair to regard Russian soviets as a model.
Liberal Monsters
27-03-2004, 10:19
Not to inturpt the flow of ideas here, but I think I used to date the girl in the green dress.... I gotta get back up north.
http://media.indypgh.org/uploads/indyp2.jpg
EAT THE RICH.
You cannot get to Anarchy by adding more government. The only way to get to true Anarchy is to reduce government and regulations to wean the people off of the addiction of government. Historically by adding government just creates horrendous inefficiencies.
Free Soviets
02-04-2004, 03:51
i demand argument. or at least discussion. quick, somebody say something controversial.
No Communist leader will ever go to true anarcho-communism because it's too good being "king." As proof of this no communist leader has ever even tried to go to anarcho-communism. Anarchy is just something they use to sell their repackaged medievalism, with the communist party becoming the new nobles.
The Frostlings
02-04-2004, 06:01
We need classes- not to make people suffer but rather to cause competetion; don't wanna end up like COMECON, y'know!
Free Soviets
02-04-2004, 06:18
No Communist leader will ever go to true anarcho-communism because it's too good being "king." As proof of this no communist leader has ever even tried to go to anarcho-communism. Anarchy is just something they use to sell their repackaged medievalism, with the communist party becoming the new nobles.
which neatly explains bakunin's argument with marx that wound up with the anarchists kicked out of the first international - well part of it anyway.
of course, no communist party ever claimed to be anarchist. we were usually pretty high on the list of dangerous counter-revolutionaries than needed to be gotten rid of. leninists do not use anarchism as part of a slick ad campaign. at best they tolerate it (and us), but mostly the fight and argue against it. ya see, anarchism is related to but not the same as other forms of socialism.
Free Soviets
02-04-2004, 06:21
We need classes- not to make people suffer but rather to cause competetion; don't wanna end up like COMECON, y'know!
who's in the what now?
Bodies Without Organs
02-04-2004, 10:18
i demand argument. or at least discussion. quick, somebody say something controversial.
The best way to bring about the anarchist revolution is by taking up arms and employing them against the illegitimate state machinery and in so doing, bring about a crackdown, suspension of civil rights, and ultimately martial law. Only then will the true power behind the throne be revealed, and it will become obvious that the only choice is between a life of slavery and oppression or a life of liberty and self-determination. The anarchist movement should concern itself less with political campaigning, and more with bringing into being terrorist cells which will ignite the touch paper of a new society. We should not be basing ourselves upon CND, but instead the Red Army Faction.
Hold grudges, not hands.
Mohandas Gandhi bad: Baader-Meinhof good.
Free Soviets
02-04-2004, 10:24
i demand argument. or at least discussion. quick, somebody say something controversial.
The best way to bring about the anarchist revolution is by taking up arms and employing them against the illegitimate state machinery and in so doing, bring about a crackdown, suspension of civil rights, and ultimately martial law. Only then will the true power behind the throne be revealed, and it will become obvious that the only choice is between a life of slavery and oppression or a life of liberty and self-determination. The anarchist movement should model itself less on political campaigning, and more on bringing into being terrorist cells which will ignite the touch paper of a new society. We should not be basing ourselves upon CND, but instead the Red Army Faction.
Hold grudges, not hands.
Mohandas Gandhi bad: Baader-Meinhof good.
now that's what i'm talking about. nothing like the smell of 'the deed' to really kick off a good controversy.
<snip>
Hold grudges, not hands.
Mohandas Gandhi bad: Baader-Meinhof good.
Oooh, ooh! Someone show this to Salishe or Raysia. They'd have a fit!
Seriously though, would a large part of the country not also fall behind support of the state? If government had an effective propaganda machine as I believe they do, I feel a large amount of people would be 'swayed' by state reasoning. Look how many people are behind the US Patriot Act and the Terrorism Act in the UK.
Personally I'm more of an evolutionary anarchist. I would like to believe a revolution would work, but I tend to think it would divide people too much for a proper anarchy to arise.
Care to argue BWO?
Bodies Without Organs
02-04-2004, 10:39
i demand argument. or at least discussion. quick, somebody say something controversial.
The true importance of all single-issue politcal campaigning should be realised. We should not devote time or effort to alleviating the problems of racism, sexism, lack of gay rights, lack of children's rights, lack of animal rights: they are all just distractions from the central problem which is facing us now. To fight for these causes is merely to adopt a reformist postion, one which is therefore ultimately self-defeating. The recent history of South Africa has shown that there is no inherent link between removing the oppression of any specific groups of individuals and the central conflict between anarchism and statism. It may very well be that as in the SNCC, during the anarchist revolution the position of women will be 'prone'. We must ask ourselves if we want larger prison cells and longer chains tomorrow or real freedom the day after.
Bodies Without Organs
02-04-2004, 10:47
i demand argument. or at least discussion. quick, somebody say something controversial.
It is impossible to believe in a God and to believe in anarchism without holding contradictory beliefs. The very recognition of a greater entity than the human being is itself a refusal of all the ideas upon which the anarchist movement is based. The great anarchist victories of the Spanish Civil War were not the establishment of collective farms, but the burning of the churches in Barcelona.
Free Soviets
02-04-2004, 10:49
i demand argument. or at least discussion. quick, somebody say something controversial.
It is impossible to believe in a God and to believe in anarchism without holding contradictory beliefs. The very recognition of a greater entity than the human being is itself a refusal of all the ideas upon which the anarchist movement is based. The great anarchist victories of the Spanish Civil War were not the establishment of collective farms, but the burning of the churches in Barcelona.
such a waste - those buildings could have been put to useful community purposes.
It is impossible to believe in a God and to believe in anarchism without holding contradictory beliefs. The very recognition of a greater entity than the human being is itself a refusal of all the ideas upon which the anarchist movement is based. The great anarchist victories of the Spanish Civil War were not the establishment of collective farms, but the burning of the churches in Barcelona.
What?!? Burning churches were the greatest anarchist victories? I would say establishing peaceful comunes and a stable community would be far more important than wanton destruction.
Yes these building's original purpose was the antithesis of anarchism, however their destruction serves no purpose. As FS said, they could have been put to good use.
No-one (or very few) people believe in Set or Isis, should we then destroy the Great Pyramid? Or the Parthanon? Or Ularu? Of course not.
Bodies Without Organs
02-04-2004, 10:55
i demand argument. or at least discussion. quick, somebody say something controversial.
If government had an effective propaganda machine as I believe they do, I feel a large amount of people would be 'swayed' by state reasoning.
Those who allow themselves to be swayed by the lies of the state do so willingly. They are not concerned with the liberation of the world, but instead with feathering their own nests. They have made their decision, and in doing so have marked themselves out as legitimate targets. They are traitors not only to their class, but to all of humanity. The best way to change the way things are organised is to shoot the people that organise things. We should spend less time learning from the methods of the Ploughshares movement, and more time studying the tactics of the Symbionese Liberation Army.
"The Tygers of Wrath are Wiser than the Horses of Instruction" - William Blake
Bodies Without Organs
02-04-2004, 10:59
i demand argument. or at least discussion. quick, somebody say something controversial.
such a waste - those buildings could have been put to useful community purposes.
And what of the priests that minstered there and preached their Bible of fascism from the pulpits? ... could they too have been 'put to useful community purposes'?
Free Soviets
02-04-2004, 11:06
And what of the priests that minstered there and preached their Bible of fascism from the pulpits? ... could they too have been 'put to useful community purposes'?
aww, its too bad that my university took down my website (apparently they don't want to host things for people who have graduated). i had a great image of catholic priests in spain giving the fascist salute.
Bodies Without Organs
02-04-2004, 12:12
Yes these building's original purpose was the antithesis of anarchism, however their destruction serves no purpose.
So you assert, Ute, that it is impossible to be an anarchist and a theist simultaneously without holding contradictory ideas?
So you assert, Ute, that it is impossible to be an anarchist and a theist simultaneously without holding contradictory ideas?
If your theism is the Christian style, hierarchial system, with a single 'Boss God', then yes. However, anarchism, I believe, leaves plenty room for ones own personal spirituality. Not that I am particulary that way inclined.
Libertovania
02-04-2004, 19:04
How many times, peeps? Anarchy is not chaos. Anarchy is not disorder. Anarchy is not no rules.
Anarchy is no rulers, no hierarchy, no top-down order.
How these rules would be implemented/enforced is a matter that merits discussion....
Please do not take my questions as being offensive. They are ginuine legitimate questions. (a) No matter how rules were implemented wouldn't that create a ruling body of some compacity? Or is it that Anarchists just don't want leaders?
(b) Where do most Anarchists stand on the issue of smaller Government Vs. larger Government? Which of the Two do You think Anarchy would bring?
(c) Are Anarchists Anti-Capitalists? If so, Why? Do you favor Government or some sort of ruling body regulation and higher taxes?
When we were all ruled by kings and priests, democracy was seen as a force of chaos and disorder - an idea, seen as foolish, that only extremists and radical thinkers supported. It was thought, and proclaimed by those in power, that if we lived in a democratic system everything would break down, that human nature would get in the way and government would collapse.
(d) Can a National Economy really work with Anarchism? How would the Economy bee ran under Anarchism? How come almost every other Anarchist NationState has an imploded or weak econnomy?
(e) What about the Military? Who would they take their orders from? Who would run it?
Those in power obviously do not want their populations turning to the idea of no hierarchy, and try and sully anarchy's name. This is not an uninformed bash of the govern ment - think abot it; whenever you hear of countries ruled by the mob and gangs, violence on the streets and the like, we hear of the country 'descending into anarchy'. I like to think we're ascending to it.
(f) What about the situations in Haiti, Irag, and Afghanitstan? Do you really believe that those places would be better off with Anarchism?
(lettering mine)
Good questions which highlight some of the problems with the anarchists who've been posting here.
Anarchism isn't really a unified ideology in the same way that democracy isn't. For instance people who want a democratic system of government could have any number of different conceptions on what sort of democracy to have: direct or proportional elections, socialist or free market, authoritarian or permissive, imperial or pacifist etc. Imagine if you'd never seen a democracy and someone showed you Dubya, it might put you off the concept, right? Don't be put off anarchist just because some particular anarchists upset you.
I'll give you the answers to your questions as I see them. (in a mixed up order)
(c) No, not all anarchists are anti-free market. Those that are tend to say employers are literally governments and those that are not tend to say anyone who takes your property is, but this is hysterical name calling and you should ignore it.
Personally I'm pro-free market along the lines of the US libertarian party but even more radical as I advocate privatisation of police and abolition of government (see below for how this could work)
(d) The economy would work similarly to how it is now. Voluntary cooperation and trade. In short, the free market. It doesn't need guiding, it runs itself. This is why it is called a FREE market.
(e) The military could be run by charity (e.g. companies could donate 1% profits to the army and in return be allowed to put an army logo on their products, people would voluntarily only buy products which voluntarily contribute towards defence). The armed forces could be formed by local militia who'd elect their officers as in the US war of independence. With nobody to enforce gun laws the citizens would be well armed and could attack invaders using guerilla warfare. This is just one example, of course, and there are other ways of providing defence. (see link below)
Who would run it? Anybody who could convince people to follow them and assemble the resources, same as any free market situation.
Would an army even be necessary? Costa Rica does okay without, and there'd be no govt to provoke enemies like the US does (and ends up with 9/11). I think it probably would be necessary now but maybe not in the future, especially if a large portion of the Earth was anarchist.
(a) Non-state law has existed before. Typically someone volunteers to hear trials (law merchants) and if people trust him they go to him to resolve disputes. Private security forces would function much as police forces today except with market competition. We all know how bad monopoly is for farming or cars (check the USSR out) and the same analysis applies to protection from criminals.
This isn't head in the clouds thinking, it's existed in practice. In fact, govt policing is relatively modern. Examples of stateless justice are medieval iceland, ireland and pre norman england, the free states of renaissance Europe, 19th century Britain, revolutionary America, the not-really-wild-at-all-west and various African tribes. Again, check the links below. The main theme is spontaneous order (bottom up) rather than authoritarian state law.
(b) Small is better but both are bad. "There's no govt like no govt". The best form of rule is self rule. Others are only justified in interfering in your life if you violate their rights by violently attacking them or by stealing from them.
(f) I don't know, would they be better off in democracy? Most of these conflicts are over who should form the government. Eliminate government and they've one less reason to fight. This won't work unless people are generally disposed to anarchism. If you got rid of the govt anywhere in e.g. America today the first thing people would do is form a new govt. It is my dear wish that people will learn to rely on themselves rather than the state but I'm not terribly optimistic.
This might happen if e.g. the libertarian party's platform were undertaken by the US. It will probably happen gradually if at all, unless there is some major disaster like the collapse of the wellfare state. (if that would be a "disaster")
My main aim is to convince people that anarchism is not just a pipe dream but a realistic alternative, emphasis on realistic. I'm not a Utopian or an "ivory tower" type, my embracing of anarchism is entirely grounded on solid economic theory and historical evidence. Here are some excellent links on free market anarchism.
http://www.mises.org/rothbard/newliberty.asp
Murray Rothbard's online book is a good overview of my philosophy. The chapter "Police, courts and the law" will be of special interest. This is the book that really swung me. Next is
http://praxeology.net/anarcres.htm
This is an online collection of essays on market anarchism, historical examples and pure theory. Of special interest may be,
http://libertariannation.org/a/f22l3.html
on "defending a free nation".
Does your form of anarchism have hierarchial businesses, libertovania?
We need classes- not to make people suffer but rather to cause competetion; don't wanna end up like COMECON, y'know!
Competition is bad. We produce more when we coöperate.
You cannot get to Anarchy by adding more government. The only way to get to true Anarchy is to reduce government and regulations to wean the people off of the addiction of government. Historically by adding government just creates horrendous inefficiencies.
No one here proposes that we do add more government.
No Communist leader will ever go to true anarcho-communism because it's too good being "king." As proof of this no communist leader has ever even tried to go to anarcho-communism. Anarchy is just something they use to sell their repackaged medievalism, with the communist party becoming the new nobles.
You're thinking of Marxism.
--------------------------------
Free your mind!
Free Soviets
02-04-2004, 20:46
Those who allow themselves to be swayed by the lies of the state do so willingly. They are not concerned with the liberation of the world, but instead with feathering their own nests. They have made their decision, and in doing so have marked themselves out as legitimate targets. They are traitors not only to their class, but to all of humanity. The best way to change the way things are organised is to shoot the people that organise things. We should spend less time learning from the methods of the Ploughshares movement, and more time studying the tactics of the Symbionese Liberation Army.
heh, you're good.
the problem is that we are small in number. which means that we will just be fundamentally unable to have a free world when we have declared so many to be enemies and traitors. we need broader support before we can go 'off the pigs' or whatever. heh, i guess my complaint is that at this moment in history in the place where i live, armed insurrection will not get me the results i want. which doesn't say that it isn't still a valid choice, just not one that i would make at this time. though firebombing empty banks and cop cars seems pretty reasonable.
and for all the fatherland security agents that are bound to be reading this by now - just kidding.
Bodies Without Organs
02-04-2004, 22:03
And what of the priests that minstered there and preached their Bible of fascism from the pulpits? ... could they too have been 'put to useful community purposes'?
aww, its too bad that my university took down my website (apparently they don't want to host things for people who have graduated). i had a great image of catholic priests in spain giving the fascist salute.
You are avoiding the question - what should be done with the priests? Should they be sent to the re-education camps? Or do you hold with Voltaire 's idea of 'Strangling the last king with the entrails of the last priest'?
Free Soviets
02-04-2004, 22:24
You are avoiding the question - what should be done with the priests? Should they be sent to the re-education camps? Or do you hold with Voltaire 's idea of 'Strangling the last king with the entrails of the last priest'?
i always liked the imagery of that phrase, though i think it was diderot actually. but i'm not down with killing people or forced 're-education' too much - i'd rather just subvert the preisthood with more libertarian versions and undermine the power of the old church hierarchies over people. after that i don't care what the actual people involved do, though i'd prefer that they go away if they wanted to continue on as before. of course, if they actively oppose freedom then so much the worse for them.
The Catholic church certainly does pose a problem. Burning churches isn't the answer, though. How did so many people keep their extreme atheism secret?
-----------------------------------------
"But by an equality, that now at this time your abundance may be a supply for their want, that their abundance also may be a supply for your want: that there may be equality."
Free your mind! (http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/Anarchist_Archives/bright/berkman/comanarchism/whatis_toc.html)
I like big butts!
http://www.angelfire.com/mo3/terrapvlchra/images/steatopygia.jpg
Bodies Without Organs
03-04-2004, 00:05
Or do you hold with Voltaire 's idea of 'Strangling the last king with the entrails of the last priest'?
i always liked the imagery of that phrase, though i think it was diderot actually.
Me actually speaking my mind, without italics and not just for the sake of trying to start up some discussion:
- you are correct in attributing it to Diderot and I am in error - personally I prefer the modified version which goes "the last bureaucrat with...".
I'm surprised that no one picked up on it when I declared that issues such as feminism are mere distractions from 'the great anarchist cause' - people surely don't agree with that do they?
i demand argument. or at least discussion. quick, somebody say something controversial.
The best way to bring about the anarchist revolution is by taking up arms and employing them against the illegitimate state machinery and in so doing, bring about a crackdown, suspension of civil rights, and ultimately martial law. Only then will the true power behind the throne be revealed, and it will become obvious that the only choice is between a life of slavery and oppression or a life of liberty and self-determination. The anarchist movement should concern itself less with political campaigning, and more with bringing into being terrorist cells which will ignite the touch paper of a new society. We should not be basing ourselves upon CND, but instead the Red Army Faction.
Hold grudges, not hands.
Mohandas Gandhi bad: Baader-Meinhof good.
Wrong. The way to Anarchy is to slowly cut taxes and reduce regulation. Not by armed rebellion. Armed rebellion has never ever gotten to (and it's been tried) anarchy and never will.
Bodies Without Organs
03-04-2004, 00:19
i demand argument. or at least discussion. quick, somebody say something controversial.Mohandas Gandhi bad: Baader-Meinhof good.
Wrong. The way to Anarchy is to slowly cut taxes and reduce regulation. Not by armed rebellion. Armed rebellion has never ever gotten to (and it's been tried) anarchy and never will.
So you recommend that those striving for an anarchist society stand for Parliament? - it is there that the rate of taxation and the amount of regulation is decided, and the populace at large have no direct input into the decisions as they are made. If such a strategy is feasible, then why hasn't it succeeded? If such a strategy is unfeasible, then we are back to armed insurrection. A process of slowly cutting taxes and reducing regulation has never brought about a regime change and never will.
By that reasoning, the Libertarian party is almost anarchist. In truth, it is very far from anarchism.
-----------------------------------------
"But by an equality, that now at this time your abundance may be a supply for their want, that their abundance also may be a supply for your want: that there may be equality."
Free your mind! (http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/Anarchist_Archives/bright/berkman/comanarchism/whatis_toc.html)
I like big butts!
http://www.angelfire.com/mo3/terrapvlchra/images/steatopygia.jpg
By that reasoning, the Libertarian party is almost anarchist. In truth, it is very far from anarchism.
-----------------------------------------
"But by an equality, that now at this time your abundance may be a supply for their want, that their abundance also may be a supply for your want: that there may be equality."
Free your mind! (http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/Anarchist_Archives/bright/berkman/comanarchism/whatis_toc.html)
I like big butts!
http://www.angelfire.com/mo3/terrapvlchra/images/steatopygia.jpg
You cannot get to no government by adding more government. That is your fundamental problem. Secondly libertarianism is a stepping stone to true anarchy. Adding government has historically never worked. You have never tried slowly weaning people off government.
How are you supposed to reach anarchism by strengthening capitalism?
-----------------------------------------
"But by an equality, that now at this time your abundance may be a supply for their want, that their abundance also may be a supply for your want: that there may be equality."
Free your mind! (http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/Anarchist_Archives/bright/berkman/comanarchism/whatis_toc.html)
I like big butts!
http://www.angelfire.com/mo3/terrapvlchra/images/steatopygia.jpg
Bodies Without Organs
03-04-2004, 00:33
i demand argument. or at least discussion. quick, somebody say something controversial.By that reasoning, the Libertarian party is almost anarchist. In truth, it is very far from anarchism.
You cannot get to no government by adding more government. That is your fundamental problem. Secondly libertarianism is a stepping stone to true anarchy. Adding government has historically never worked. You have never tried slowly weaning people off government.
By this reasoning the economic policies of Thatcherism and Reagonomics should have moved us closer to an anarchist society. Does this appear to be the case?
EDIT: for mangled quoting.
i demand argument. or at least discussion. quick, somebody say something controversial.By that reasoning, the Libertarian party is almost anarchist. In truth, it is very far from anarchism.
You cannot get to no government by adding more government. That is your fundamental problem. Secondly libertarianism is a stepping stone to true anarchy. Adding government has historically never worked. You have never tried slowly weaning people off government.
By this reasoning the economic policies of Thatcherism and Reagonomics should have moved us closer to an anarchist society. Does this appear to be the case?[/quote]
I'm sorry to rain on your parade but Reagan added government, he just slowed the rate of growth. You need a combination of both. The closest anyone got to Anarchism was the old west where a blacksmith would shoe your horse for coupla loaves of bread. Minimal government.
Bodies Without Organs
03-04-2004, 01:17
i demand argument. or at least discussion. quick, somebody say something controversial.
By this reasoning the economic policies of Thatcherism and Reagonomics should have moved us closer to an anarchist society. Does this appear to be the case?
I'm sorry to rain on your parade but Reagan added government, he just slowed the rate of growth. You need a combination of both. The closest anyone got to Anarchism was the old west where a blacksmith would shoe your horse for coupla loaves of bread. Minimal government.
Personally I would go to a farrier rather than a blacksmith to get my horse shod, but that is by-the-by.
Note that I use the phrase 'economic policies' rather than just plain 'policies' in my response.
The old west is often cited by anarcho-capitalists as a proto-anarchist model to build upon, but the heirarchies which were imported from the Old World remainded very much in place, and gave rise to the 'Old Money'/Nouveau Rich division which we see today. It has never been specifically explained to me what is to prevent the minimalist government from expanding into the kind of bloated monstrosities that we see today. The implication that anarchism can function through a primitive barter system is problematic on two counts: firstly, the problems which lead to a coinage as a means of exchange and trade have not been removed (what if the farrier doesn't want your loaves/pelts/handicrafts - why should he take them in the hope of being able to trade them to someone else at a later date? - a particular problem with perishable items), secondly it ignores the fact that government issued coinage was in circulation, and a tax system was in place, even if it was ignored in the wilderness, and that tax system operates on the basis of exchanges in coinage.
A minimalist governement collecting minimal taxes and practicing minimal regulation must still enforce its will through the apparatus of bailifs, judiciary, government agents: thus merely slimming down the operations of government does not remove the primary problem which most anarchists consider to be in existence - the state relies on the possibility of a resort to violence in order to keep its populace in line.
Not paying taxes under a minimalist government will still see you facing the same extortionary practices which are currently in operation.
i demand argument. or at least discussion. quick, somebody say something controversial.
By this reasoning the economic policies of Thatcherism and Reagonomics should have moved us closer to an anarchist society. Does this appear to be the case?
I'm sorry to rain on your parade but Reagan added government, he just slowed the rate of growth. You need a combination of both. The closest anyone got to Anarchism was the old west where a blacksmith would shoe your horse for coupla loaves of bread. Minimal government.
Personally I would go to a farrier rather than a blacksmith to get my horse shod, but that is by-the-by.
Note that I use the phrase 'economic policies' rather than just plain 'policies' in my response.
The old west is often cited by anarcho-capitalists as a proto-anarchist model to build upon, but the heirarchies which were imported from the Old World remainded very much in place, and gave rise to the 'Old Money'/Nouveau Rich division which we see today. It has never been specifically explained to me what is to prevent the minimalist government from expanding into the kind of bloated monstrosities that we see today. The implication that anarchism can function through a primitive barter system is problematic on two counts: firstly, the problems which lead to a coinage as a means of exchange and trade have not been removed (what if the farrier doesn't want your loaves/pelts/handicrafts - why should he take them in the hope of being able to trade them to someone else at a later date? - a particular problem with perishable items), secondly it ignores the fact that government issued coinage was in circulation, and a tax system was in place, even if it was ignored in the wilderness, and that tax system operates on the basis of exchanges in coinage.
A minimalist governement collecting minimal taxes and practicing minimal regulation must still enforce its will through the apparatus of bailifs, judiciary, government agents: thus merely slimming down the operations of government does not remove the primary problem which most anarchists consider to be in existence - the state relies on the possibility of a resort to violence in order to keep its populace in line.
Not paying taxes under a minimalist government will still see you facing the same extortionary practices which are currently in operation.
If you keep on cutting taxes and shrinking the government constantly society will adapt and government will disappear. You just got to keep on cutting.
That will just shift power into capitalism. That doesn't bring us anarchism.
-----------------------------------------
"But by an equality, that now at this time your abundance may be a supply for their want, that their abundance also may be a supply for your want: that there may be equality."
Free your mind! (http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/Anarchist_Archives/bright/berkman/comanarchism/whatis_toc.html)
I like big butts!
http://www.angelfire.com/mo3/terrapvlchra/images/steatopygia.jpg
Bodies Without Organs
03-04-2004, 01:37
i demand argument. or at least discussion. quick, somebody say something controversial.
If you keep on cutting taxes and shrinking the government constantly society will adapt and government will disappear. You just got to keep on cutting.
you != government and it is government that decides the rate of taxation and how much regulation there should be.
There is also no indication that any of the established non-governmental hierarchies which are present in modern society will be changed by such a move.
Ergo: violent revolution.
That will just shift power into capitalism. That doesn't bring us anarchism.
-----------------------------------------
"But by an equality, that now at this time your abundance may be a supply for their want, that their abundance also may be a supply for your want: that there may be equality."
Free your mind! (http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/Anarchist_Archives/bright/berkman/comanarchism/whatis_toc.html)
I like big butts!
http://www.angelfire.com/mo3/terrapvlchra/images/steatopygia.jpg
Why? There is no government to stop Anarchy? Anarchy is not that weak. Are you arguing that Anarchy is that weak?
You need to get rid of capitalism before you have real anarchism.
-----------------------------------------
"But by an equality, that now at this time your abundance may be a supply for their want, that their abundance also may be a supply for your want: that there may be equality."
Free your mind! (http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/Anarchist_Archives/bright/berkman/comanarchism/whatis_toc.html)
I like big butts!
http://www.angelfire.com/mo3/terrapvlchra/images/steatopygia.jpg
You need to get rid of capitalism before you have real anarchism.
-----------------------------------------
"But by an equality, that now at this time your abundance may be a supply for their want, that their abundance also may be a supply for your want: that there may be equality."
Free your mind! (http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/Anarchist_Archives/bright/berkman/comanarchism/whatis_toc.html)
I like big butts!
http://www.angelfire.com/mo3/terrapvlchra/images/steatopygia.jpg
Why? Is Anarchism that weak?
Anarchism, by definition, opposes hierarchy. That includes in the workplace.
-----------------------------------------
"But by an equality, that now at this time your abundance may be a supply for their want, that their abundance also may be a supply for your want: that there may be equality."
Free your mind! (http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/Anarchist_Archives/bright/berkman/comanarchism/whatis_toc.html)
I like big butts!
http://www.angelfire.com/mo3/terrapvlchra/images/steatopygia.jpg
Anarchism, by definition, opposes hierarchy. That includes in the workplace.
-----------------------------------------
"But by an equality, that now at this time your abundance may be a supply for their want, that their abundance also may be a supply for your want: that there may be equality."
Free your mind! (http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/Anarchist_Archives/bright/berkman/comanarchism/whatis_toc.html)
I like big butts!
http://www.angelfire.com/mo3/terrapvlchra/images/steatopygia.jpg
I guess Anarchy is that weak if it cannot co-exist with Capitalism.
Free Soviets
03-04-2004, 11:02
Anarchism, by definition, opposes hierarchy. That includes in the workplace.
I guess Anarchy is that weak if it cannot co-exist with Capitalism.
no.
anarchism cannot co-exist with capitalism for the same reason that it cannot co-exist with the state and for the same reason that it cannot co-exist with any of the other hierarchical institutions it opposes. it has nothing to do with weakness and everything to do with definitions. if those institutions exist in a society, you do not have anarchism.
Libertovania
03-04-2004, 15:20
Does your form of anarchism have hierarchial businesses, libertovania?
We need classes- not to make people suffer but rather to cause competetion; don't wanna end up like COMECON, y'know!
Competition is bad. We produce more when we coöperate.
If people use their property in that manner (I assume they will) then yes. Of course, you can leave your job and do something else if you like so it isn't like they're forcing you to do anything, unless you count dissassociating yourself from someone a threat of force (I assume you do).
If this makes me a non anarchist so be it. I don't really care for the label anyway. How can you convince someone you don't want chaos if you call yourself an anarchist? Anarchy means chaos to the average punter.
Cooperation not competition is the main feature of free markets. The farmer cooperates with the miller who cooperates with the baker who cooperates with the shopkeeper etc. The price and incentive structure of the free market ensures that the cooperation is coordinated and efficient.
Of course business isn't the only way to get things done. Without a welfare state there would be private charity to do all the carey-sharey things. Charity has never needed to be enforced at gunpoint and bottom up help for the unfortunate would be more effective and more efficient.
Anticipating being called "heartless" I'd like to point out I used to be a moderate socialist until I learned about the how charity and free markets could do a better job helping the poor. I think the poor would benefit most from radical liberalism.
imported_Joe Stalin
03-04-2004, 16:02
Anarchism, by definition, opposes hierarchy. That includes in the workplace.
-----------------------------------------
"But by an equality, that now at this time your abundance may be a supply for their want, that their abundance also may be a supply for your want: that there may be equality."
Free your mind! (http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/Anarchist_Archives/bright/berkman/comanarchism/whatis_toc.html)
I like big butts!
http://www.angelfire.com/mo3/terrapvlchra/images/steatopygia.jpg
I guess Anarchy is that weak if it cannot co-exist with Capitalism.
Capitalism is a world encompassing socio/economic system. To suggest that Anarchism can compete on an equal footing with it is as absurd as saying that capitalism could supplant Anarchy if there was a world encompassing Anarchist society.
Cuneo Island
03-04-2004, 16:03
Anarchy doesn't work.
imported_Joe Stalin
03-04-2004, 16:04
Anarchy doesn't work.
Oh well, thats that then! :roll:
Bodies Without Organs
03-04-2004, 16:10
Anarchy doesn't work.
Thank you for you input.
I tremble before your detailed and incisive analysis.
Statism doesn't work.
The ball is back in your court.
Shall we keep this up all day, or do you want to elucidate on why you think anarchism doesn't work?
Free Soviets
03-04-2004, 21:23
Of course business isn't the only way to get things done. Without a welfare state there would be private charity to do all the carey-sharey things. Charity has never needed to be enforced at gunpoint and bottom up help for the unfortunate would be more effective and more efficient.
Anticipating being called "heartless" I'd like to point out I used to be a moderate socialist until I learned about the how charity and free markets could do a better job helping the poor. I think the poor would benefit most from radical liberalism.
of course, i don't want to help the poor. i want to abolish the entire system that invented, creates, and maintains poverty. i don't want more charity or more welfare. i want empowered people with control over their lives and communities and workplaces. i want freedom and equality, not the sham freedom of horrific inequality.
Free Soviets
04-04-2004, 10:41
- you are correct in attributing it to Diderot and I am in error - personally I prefer the modified version which goes "the last bureaucrat with...".
I'm surprised that no one picked up on it when I declared that issues such as feminism are mere distractions from 'the great anarchist cause' - people surely don't agree with that do they?
yeah bureaucrats and capitalists are just as good as kings and priests.
and don't blame me, i was busy focusing on burning catholic churches.
Libertovania
04-04-2004, 14:46
Of course business isn't the only way to get things done. Without a welfare state there would be private charity to do all the carey-sharey things. Charity has never needed to be enforced at gunpoint and bottom up help for the unfortunate would be more effective and more efficient.
Anticipating being called "heartless" I'd like to point out I used to be a moderate socialist until I learned about the how charity and free markets could do a better job helping the poor. I think the poor would benefit most from radical liberalism.
of course, i don't want to help the poor. i want to abolish the entire system that invented, creates, and maintains poverty. i don't want more charity or more welfare. i want empowered people with control over their lives and communities and workplaces. i want freedom and equality, not the sham freedom of horrific inequality.
And what you'll get is equal poverty for everyone. But that's okay because everyone's equally rubbered, right?
If you leave people alone the'll end up unequal because people are unequal in their abilities and energys. If they end up all equal that implies they weren't free at all.
You communist anarchists have done a lot to give statelessness a bad name (literally). Thanks to you fools whenever I say I'm an anarchist people remember bomb chucking terrorists and thousands of priests, nuns and businessmen murdered in Spain. They think of familys destroyed, property looted, serial killers free to prowl the streets and hippies mincing around muttering about the environment or some such nonsense. I think I'll take your advice and stop calling myself an anarchist.
What you want is an impossibility, freedom without responsibility. You can have a world where people aren't responsible for their own actions and can have their wellfare provided by others but the inescapeable price of this is slavery of one degree or another.
Free Soviets
04-04-2004, 21:56
And what you'll get is equal poverty for everyone. But that's okay because everyone's equally rubbered, right?
nah. poverty is a social relation. everyone will have access to the means to provide material comfort. we may be rich or we may be poor but we will all be rich or poor together. no one will starve while others feast. no one will have no choice but to sleep under the bridge while others live in extravagant mansions. no one will be maimed or killed working in shitty unsafe conditions while others spend all of their time at the country club.
If you leave people alone the'll end up unequal because people are unequal in their abilities and energys. If they end up all equal that implies they weren't free at all.
the 'leaving people alone' line is such obvious bullshit, i can't believe anyone thinks it makes sense. yes people are unequal in talent and energy. but in what meaningful (non-circular) sense is bill gates several million times more talented and energetic than the rest of us? people's natural talents do not vary by factors of hundreds, let alone millions. capitalism does not just 'leave people alone' to create such ridiculously high levels of inequality. even being overly generous, the best we can say is that it arbitrarily exaggerates the outcomes of certain talents to a ludicrous extent.. but it really isn't like that at all - it exaggerates outcomes to a ludicrous extant based mostly on class position, power, and luck, with some bit of talent showing up here and there. like most things, it has to do with underlying structures. change the structure and the outcome of 'leaving people alone' will be radically different.
What you want is an impossibility, freedom without responsibility. You can have a world where people aren't responsible for their own actions and can have their wellfare provided by others but the inescapeable price of this is slavery of one degree or another.
but then again, we don't call for freedom without responsibility. if you want to call it 'slavery', i'll take my 'slavery' where everyone has a direct say in the running of their communities and workplaces and direct control over their individual actions any day over the very real slavery of domiantion by the rich which would inevitably be the case under 'anarcho'-capitalism.
Free Soviets
07-04-2004, 07:21
i mentioned this earlier, but as a reminder the southeast anarchist network gathering is this coming weekend in greensboro, north carolina. as always, everybody who is anywhere near the area should try to be there.
for more info check out http://www.anarcha.org/seanet/main.php
the 'leaving people alone' line is such obvious bullshit, i can't believe anyone thinks it makes sense. yes people are unequal in talent and energy. but in what meaningful (non-circular) sense is bill gates several million times more talented and energetic than the rest of us? people's natural talents do not vary by factors of hundreds, let alone millions. capitalism does not just 'leave people alone' to create such ridiculously high levels of inequality. even being overly generous, the best we can say is that it arbitrarily exaggerates the outcomes of certain talents to a ludicrous extent.. but it really isn't like that at all - it exaggerates outcomes to a ludicrous extant based mostly on class position, power, and luck, with some bit of talent showing up here and there. like most things, it has to do with underlying structures. change the structure and the outcome of 'leaving people alone' will be radically different.
You're thinking of the US, not free-market capitalism (as in, the government doesn't give you loads of money) I have only read the last page (recently at least, it's too late for lots of reading now) But it seems as though Libertovania is arguing for what many people call anarcho-capitalism, which pretty much means you leave people alone and they get what they earn and no more. (By the way, I'd be totally up for a redistribution of wealth and power right now, I think it'd be interesting to see where everyone ends up, with every starting at zero- but it's not something that could be done more than once, cause then it's no doubt not fair to those who earned their way) I understand the anarcho-communists (and all the rest of the anarchists, if there are any others) around here think this is a contradiction in terms, but it's exactly what existed in the Gulch. I'm sure most of you have read some Ayn Rand since you hate her so much. I understand that it's a work of fiction, but I think that it shows what we can accomplish when we cooperate AND compete AND mind our own respective businesses AND earn the fruits of our labors
Free Soviets
08-04-2004, 08:41
You're thinking of the US, not free-market capitalism (as in, the government doesn't give you loads of money) I have only read the last page (recently at least, it's too late for lots of reading now) But it seems as though Libertovania is arguing for what many people call anarcho-capitalism, which pretty much means you leave people alone and they get what they earn and no more.
that's just the thing. the more 'free' the market, the greater the income inequality, the greater the concentration of wealth into the hands of an elite, and the greater the social stratification in general. this is because of the underlying structures of capitalism, such as the power over income and wealth distribution granted to the tiny minority of individuals who own capital. that isn't leaving people alone, that is an active granting of power to some at the expense of the vast majority. if we 'left people alone' in a system where that tiny elite didn't wield that power, the results would be radically different.
Libertovania
08-04-2004, 15:02
You're thinking of the US, not free-market capitalism (as in, the government doesn't give you loads of money) I have only read the last page (recently at least, it's too late for lots of reading now) But it seems as though Libertovania is arguing for what many people call anarcho-capitalism, which pretty much means you leave people alone and they get what they earn and no more.
that's just the thing. the more 'free' the market, the greater the income inequality, the greater the concentration of wealth into the hands of an elite, and the greater the social stratification in general. this is because of the underlying structures of capitalism, such as the power over income and wealth distribution granted to the tiny minority of individuals who own capital. that isn't leaving people alone, that is an active granting of power to some at the expense of the vast majority. if we 'left people alone' in a system where that tiny elite didn't wield that power, the results would be radically different.
Try reading a decent economics textbook before you come out with such blatent lies. Hint: Marx wasn't a decent economist.
Inequality of wealth is not a bad thing. It's morally neutral so long as the inequalities arose through the voluntary actions of individuals. To get equality of wealth requires inequalities of something else, namely rights or treatment before the law. Equality of rights is the only equality worth striving for. As a side note, inequality of wealth is perpetuated by the very welfare state which is supposed to relieve it.
I don't understand why you'd rather have everyone on $5000 rather than half on $10 000 and half on $20 000. Socialism has more to do with punishing the rich than helping the poor. It is a hateful ideology and reeks of jealousy as can be seen from a cursory glance at your "free" *scoff* soviet ramblings.
I repeat and emphasise: The poor would benefit the most from free market libertarianism. Further, I add: the "old money" established rich have much to fear from the competition and release of potential which would follow liberalising the markets.
Libertovania
08-04-2004, 15:17
The purpose of the free market is not to distribute wealth according to some pattern of merit, it's to allow the transfer of property according to 3 rules, selected for their inherent justice. Namely:
1) Anyone may aquire unowned property. The criterion for initial ownership would look something like the Lockean "mixing of labour" criteria wherein the first person to bring an unowned resource into use aquires ownership. The definition of "use" is flexible and may include, say, simple preservation in the case of an area of rain forest. Courts may be sometimes necessary to resolve disputes.
2) Property ownership may be voluntarily transferred from the rightful owner to another of his/her choosing. Examples include charity, inheritance and voluntary trade.
3) Property may be forcibly transferred from the owner to another as restitution if the owner has committed a crime against the other's person or property. Again, courts are necessary to resolve disputes.
Before you get excited I'm well aware that condition (1) was rarely the historical practice so is all actual property invalid? No. Since we go by the maxim "innocent until proven guilty" you would have to prove beyond reasonable doubt that the property did not in fact arise this way.
Also, since it is impossible to compensate the original owners (you don't know who their decendents are or whether the property would have been bequeathed to them) so the property would resort to unowned status to be claimed by whoever was using it: most probably the present "owner".
Best not to tinker (see Zimbabwe for consequences).
You're thinking of the US, not free-market capitalism (as in, the government doesn't give you loads of money) I have only read the last page (recently at least, it's too late for lots of reading now) But it seems as though Libertovania is arguing for what many people call anarcho-capitalism, which pretty much means you leave people alone and they get what they earn and no more.
that's just the thing. the more 'free' the market, the greater the income inequality, the greater the concentration of wealth into the hands of an elite, and the greater the social stratification in general. this is because of the underlying structures of capitalism, such as the power over income and wealth distribution granted to the tiny minority of individuals who own capital. that isn't leaving people alone, that is an active granting of power to some at the expense of the vast majority. if we 'left people alone' in a system where that tiny elite didn't wield that power, the results would be radically different.
no, THAT is the thing. Because the CEOs and such are the tiny minority, they can be easily overruled by their workers. If factory workers schedule a large scale strike for just a few days the plant owner HAS to do something or else shut the plant down...and do you have any idea how much it costs to start the plant back up again? The problem is with official unions. where people high in the union are also friends with the boss. If the people led their own rebellion and government unions weren't involved, it would work much better for the workers, and thus for everyone. Employers would be encouraged to pay their workers a fair wage for fear of losing them- losing the good ones at least. It's like the US system of checks and balances where the boss is the president but the workers are congress. The president may not like what the workers are doing, but if they pass it twice he has no other option.
Free Soviets
08-04-2004, 19:58
Try reading a decent economics textbook before you come out with such blatent lies. Hint: Marx wasn't a decent economist.
Inequality of wealth is not a bad thing. It's morally neutral so long as the inequalities arose through the voluntary actions of individuals. To get equality of wealth requires inequalities of something else, namely rights or treatment before the law. Equality of rights is the only equality worth striving for. As a side note, inequality of wealth is perpetuated by the very welfare state which is supposed to relieve it.
so just which part is a blatant lie?
btw, not a marxist. nor a welfare statist. anarchist
anyway, inequality of wealth is a bad thing because it invariably leads to inequality of other things. such as access to healthcare, eductation, and opportunity for yourself and your offspring. those with a large wealth have longer life expectancies, work in the nicest conditions if they work at all, live in the nicest and cleanest areas, deal with less violent crime, and have a method of maintaining their lifestyle that is systematically denied to those without a large concentration of wealth. and wealth also gives people disproportionate political power - in a state system this is obvious, and in a privatized state system i see no difference except that the wealthy may form several competing private states where there used to be just one. if some people can have their own armies and others can't you cannot have equality in any sense whatsoever, because control of the means of destruction is at least as important as control of the means of production.
i reject any claim of the moral nuetrality of wealth inequality because both means and ends matter.
Free Soviets
08-04-2004, 20:05
no, THAT is the thing. Because the CEOs and such are the tiny minority, they can be easily overruled by their workers. If factory workers schedule a large scale strike for just a few days the plant owner HAS to do something or else shut the plant down...and do you have any idea how much it costs to start the plant back up again? The problem is with official unions. where people high in the union are also friends with the boss. If the people led their own rebellion and government unions weren't involved, it would work much better for the workers, and thus for everyone. Employers would be encouraged to pay their workers a fair wage for fear of losing them- losing the good ones at least. It's like the US system of checks and balances where the boss is the president but the workers are congress. The president may not like what the workers are doing, but if they pass it twice he has no other option.
welcome to the theory of the general strike. and if you take it a step further you become a syndicalist of some sort, because you realize that the real source of power lies with the workers, not the tiny elite of private dictators and oligarchs who have unjustly usurped it for themselves - they are unnecessary. or maybe they are needed for their administrative skills, but they do not need or deserve the power over people's lives they are granted.
Thanks to you fools whenever I say I'm an anarchist people remember bomb chucking terrorists and thousands of priests, nuns and businessmen murdered in Spain.
As though priests and businessmen never cause mass murder. You aren't an anarchist if you support the hierarchy of capitalism.
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Free your mind!
Thanks to you fools whenever I say I'm an anarchist people remember bomb chucking terrorists and thousands of priests, nuns and businessmen murdered in Spain.
As though priests and businessmen never cause mass murder. You aren't an anarchist if you support the hierarchy of capitalism.
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Free your mind!
Thanks to you fools whenever I say I'm an anarchist people remember bomb chucking terrorists and thousands of priests, nuns and businessmen murdered in Spain.
As though priests and businessmen never cause mass murder. You aren't an anarchist if you support the hierarchy of capitalism.
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Free your mind!
Anarchism, by definition, opposes hierarchy. That includes in the workplace.
I guess Anarchy is that weak if it cannot co-exist with Capitalism.
no.
anarchism cannot co-exist with capitalism for the same reason that it cannot co-exist with the state and for the same reason that it cannot co-exist with any of the other hierarchical institutions it opposes. it has nothing to do with weakness and everything to do with definitions. if those institutions exist in a society, you do not have anarchism.
Then by definition it is weak since it must first destroy these institutions first. That's pretty sad.
no, THAT is the thing. Because the CEOs and such are the tiny minority, they can be easily overruled by their workers. If factory workers schedule a large scale strike for just a few days the plant owner HAS to do something or else shut the plant down...and do you have any idea how much it costs to start the plant back up again? The problem is with official unions. where people high in the union are also friends with the boss. If the people led their own rebellion and government unions weren't involved, it would work much better for the workers, and thus for everyone. Employers would be encouraged to pay their workers a fair wage for fear of losing them- losing the good ones at least. It's like the US system of checks and balances where the boss is the president but the workers are congress. The president may not like what the workers are doing, but if they pass it twice he has no other option.
welcome to the theory of the general strike. and if you take it a step further you become a syndicalist of some sort, because you realize that the real source of power lies with the workers, not the tiny elite of private dictators and oligarchs who have unjustly usurped it for themselves - they are unnecessary. or maybe they are needed for their administrative skills, but they do not need or deserve the power over people's lives they are granted.
That's part of my point... Many times the workers grant the administrators more power than necessary. (they are definitely still necessary- but so are the workers!) In a society where the workers had some freedom they would be able to take that power back- and they could ask for higher pay (within reason) In more socialist societies the decisions are already made for the workers and they can't fight for themselves (that's including here and now) People just go along with how things are because they don't care enough to change- they only care enough to bitch.
Free Soviets
10-04-2004, 01:21
The purpose of the free market is not to distribute wealth according to some pattern of merit, it's to allow the transfer of property according to 3 rules, selected for their inherent justice. Namely:
1) Anyone may aquire unowned property. The criterion for initial ownership would look something like the Lockean "mixing of labour" criteria wherein the first person to bring an unowned resource into use aquires ownership. The definition of "use" is flexible and may include, say, simple preservation in the case of an area of rain forest. Courts may be sometimes necessary to resolve disputes.
in addition to the well known problem with 1 - that absolutely every peice of existing property in land exists because of force of one sort or another - there are at least several more. first off, why exactly should ownership of all resources be vested in particular individuals? for example, many (maybe most) societies have treated land as collective property of one sort or another precisely because each individual has an equal right to the products of the earth. until the question of whether all kinds of property should be privately owned is settled, we cannot just jump on to the just way of getting some. maybe some should be held by individuals and some collectively. or maybe none should be privately held. both of which mean that there might not be a just way of acquiring private property in some things.
secondly, why should the 'mixing of labor' or 'use' of something grant absolute and eternal personal ownership of that thing? your 'use' is transient at best (you aren't going to use it forever), and it can deeply affect the others who you live with in your society. which seems to me to point towards a somewhat limited 'continued use' basis for ownership (or as we call it 'possession').
third, just how much 'use' or 'mixing of labor' is required to grant one person absolute ownership for all time? would just building a fence around some land count? even if i never did anything with it again? or if all i did with it was charge other people to use it? what about if i built a fence around all of the land (or a huge chunk of it at least), and never did anything with it besides charge people to use it?
clearly there is a great danger of naked exploitation without some severe limits on claiming private property. especially when one of the main 'uses' you can put private property to is charging others for access to what was their's by birthright.
The first man who, having enclosed a piece of ground, bethought himself of saying "This is mine," and found people simple enough to believe him, was the real founder of civil society. Humanity would have been spared infinite crimes, wars, homicides, murders, if only someone had ripped up the fences or filled in the ditches and said, "Do not listen to this pretender! You are eternally lost if you do not remember that the fruits of the earth are everyone's property and that the land is no-one's property!"
Free Soviets
10-04-2004, 01:30
Then by definition it is weak since it must first destroy these institutions first. That's pretty sad.
no, that's just silly. by your logic a relatively free society must be weak because it must destroy the institutions of slavery and the absolute rule of god-kings first.
do you really have a point that just isn't coming across properly?
Then by definition it is weak since it must first destroy these institutions first. That's pretty sad.
no, that's just silly. by your logic a relatively free society must be weak because it must destroy the institutions of slavery and the absolute rule of god-kings first.
do you really have a point that just isn't coming across properly?
First of all Anarchy is not free. You are not free to be a Capitalist as well. You are not free to print or have money, as well as to hire workers. That is why it's weak, Anarchy is not freedom.
No country in the 20th or early 21st century has adopted Anarchy. None. Not one. Nada, zip zero. Not even countries that are run by communist parties have even attempted it. Not a single one. Anarchy has not convinced one single democracy to adapt it. Zero. Anarchy has been a total unmitigated historical failure that no one in power has any serious interest in it.
Capitalism on the other hand has never ever been eradicated from a country successfully. If outlawed the market just goes black. In fact capitalism is just growing stronger. The 20th century and the early 21st century is an unmitigated success for that economic system. Capitalism just gets harder to eradicate and better at doing what it does best. Capitalism can change.
Libertovania
11-04-2004, 10:24
Try reading a decent economics textbook before you come out with such blatent lies. Hint: Marx wasn't a decent economist.
Inequality of wealth is not a bad thing. It's morally neutral so long as the inequalities arose through the voluntary actions of individuals. To get equality of wealth requires inequalities of something else, namely rights or treatment before the law. Equality of rights is the only equality worth striving for. As a side note, inequality of wealth is perpetuated by the very welfare state which is supposed to relieve it.
so just which part is a blatant lie?
btw, not a marxist. nor a welfare statist. anarchist
anyway, inequality of wealth is a bad thing because it invariably leads to inequality of other things. such as access to healthcare, eductation, and opportunity for yourself and your offspring. those with a large wealth have longer life expectancies, work in the nicest conditions if they work at all, live in the nicest and cleanest areas, deal with less violent crime, and have a method of maintaining their lifestyle that is systematically denied to those without a large concentration of wealth. and wealth also gives people disproportionate political power - in a state system this is obvious, and in a privatized state system i see no difference except that the wealthy may form several competing private states where there used to be just one. if some people can have their own armies and others can't you cannot have equality in any sense whatsoever, because control of the means of destruction is at least as important as control of the means of production.
i reject any claim of the moral nuetrality of wealth inequality because both means and ends matter.
The first blatent lie was that more free markets means more inequality. A free market would have less inequality than our current mercantilist system. Much of our current inequality is due to a tax/regulation structure which favours big business over small and the ineffectiveness of govt welfare, education etc. These facts are not common knowledge so it is understandable that you'd make this mistake.
The second lie is mis-construeing free markets as rule by the rich. Saying free markets favour the rich is like saying free speech favours the eloquent. Everybody benefits from the freedom.
Private states. Hahahahahaha. Very cute.
Making provision for healthcare, education etc is part of being a responsible human being. The fact that they may be provided unequally is irrellevent. Ensuring everyone has access to them is an important moral goal but it is a moral goal, not a legal one. I think we would both agree that people ought to help each other achieve these goals but that the help should be voluntary. To force people to provide these services for others is immoral and amounts to slavery. It should be a matter of your concience if, how and how much you want to help the poor.
An analogy with free markets would be free speech. Although I oppose racism I defend peoples' right to spread racist propaganda because the freedom of speech is more important than any particular words which upset you. Similarly, although I oppose selfishness I defend peoples' right to do what they like with the product of their labour since it is justly theirs and no one elses.
Your conception of private security is way wide of the mark and I would recommend the molinari institute (try a search on google) for a guide to this. How would you prevent crime in your socialist world, or do you believe it will somehow disappear? A position I consider to be extremely naive.
The only moral means are those consistent with rights to person and property. All the ends worth striving for are best served by consistently applying these means so there is no conflict between means and ends.
Libertovania
11-04-2004, 10:28
Thanks to you fools whenever I say I'm an anarchist people remember bomb chucking terrorists and thousands of priests, nuns and businessmen murdered in Spain.
As though priests and businessmen never cause mass murder. You aren't an anarchist if you support the hierarchy of capitalism.
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Free your mind!
Am I to understand by this that you support the actions of the Spanish anarchists?
There is no hierarchy in capitalism. All trade and employment is voluntary. Hierarchy arises when one group claims the right to dispose of the product of another as you recommend. We can have this debate if you like but it's not very productive to quibble over the definition of the word "anarchist".
Libertovania
11-04-2004, 10:48
in addition to the well known problem with 1 - that absolutely every peice of existing property in land exists because of force of one sort or another - there are at least several more. first off, why exactly should ownership of all resources be vested in particular individuals? for example, many (maybe most) societies have treated land as collective property of one sort or another precisely because each individual has an equal right to the products of the earth. until the question of whether all kinds of property should be privately owned is settled, we cannot just jump on to the just way of getting some. maybe some should be held by individuals and some collectively. or maybe none should be privately held. both of which mean that there might not be a just way of acquiring private property in some things.
secondly, why should the 'mixing of labor' or 'use' of something grant absolute and eternal personal ownership of that thing? your 'use' is transient at best (you aren't going to use it forever), and it can deeply affect the others who you live with in your society. which seems to me to point towards a somewhat limited 'continued use' basis for ownership (or as we call it 'possession').
third, just how much 'use' or 'mixing of labor' is required to grant one person absolute ownership for all time? would just building a fence around some land count? even if i never did anything with it again? or if all i did with it was charge other people to use it? what about if i built a fence around all of the land (or a huge chunk of it at least), and never did anything with it besides charge people to use it?
clearly there is a great danger of naked exploitation without some severe limits on claiming private property. especially when one of the main 'uses' you can put private property to is charging others for access to what was their's by birthright.
I agree that most current land titles are of contentious legitimacy but I also think any attempt to "redistribute" will cause more unfairness than it will prevent.
There are no "products of the earth". An apple is no use on a tree it must be picked. Oil is no use underground it must be drilled. There is nothing that does not require someone to "mix their labour" with it in order to be useful.
The problem of collective ownership is the well known "tragedy of the commons" whereby a resource having nobody to control it has everyone scrambling over it making sustainable ventures impossible. This is why we run out of fish or buffalo or elephants but not sheep and cows. However if, say, a field was traditionally owned "by the community" it is immoral to appropriate it to oneself. Collective ownership of some resources is just one acceptable type of ownership, not the only one.
Defining property rights are a matter for courts. Just building a fence around land might sometimes be enough to count for ownership. E.g. a chunk of rainforest where conserving it rather than logging it may be considered a "use" of sorts. There are many places where the line could be drawn and there is leeway in interpretation of the principle, just as there is leeway in defining your sort of "collective" property.
Imagine a sculptor who takes a rock from the beach and carves it into a beautiful statue. Would anyone deny that the statue is his to use as he sees fit, or to give to who he wants, or that nobody has a right to take it without his permission? But how is this qualitatively different from any other sort of production?
Property will in practice always be defined by a combination of custom and prevailing attitudes.
Please don't quote Rousseau, he makes me ill.
Libertovania
11-04-2004, 10:52
Then by definition it is weak since it must first destroy these institutions first. That's pretty sad.
no, that's just silly. by your logic a relatively free society must be weak because it must destroy the institutions of slavery and the absolute rule of god-kings first.
do you really have a point that just isn't coming across properly?
First of all Anarchy is not free. You are not free to be a Capitalist as well. You are not free to print or have money, as well as to hire workers. That is why it's weak, Anarchy is not freedom.
No country in the 20th or early 21st century has adopted Anarchy. None. Not one. Nada, zip zero. Not even countries that are run by communist parties have even attempted it. Not a single one. Anarchy has not convinced one single democracy to adapt it. Zero. Anarchy has been a total unmitigated historical failure that no one in power has any serious interest in it.
Capitalism on the other hand has never ever been eradicated from a country successfully. If outlawed the market just goes black. In fact capitalism is just growing stronger. The 20th century and the early 21st century is an unmitigated success for that economic system. Capitalism just gets harder to eradicate and better at doing what it does best. Capitalism can change.
Capitalism=anarchism. Approximations to anarcho-capitalist societies have existed in England, Ireland, Iceland, Africa and North America and they were generally successful. Anarcho-socialist societies have indeed failed whenever people were foolish enough to try and implement them.
1000 years ago no democracies existed. It didn't stop them existing afterwards.
Free Soviets
14-04-2004, 06:18
The first blatent lie was that more free markets means more inequality. A free market would have less inequality than our current mercantilist system. Much of our current inequality is due to a tax/regulation structure which favours big business over small and the ineffectiveness of govt welfare, education etc. These facts are not common knowledge so it is understandable that you'd make this mistake.
i just call 'em like i see 'em. and as i see it, all the examples 'anarcho'-cappies like to use just so happen to be examples of ridiculous levels of inequality. and within the us the trend has been towards increased inequality every time the market has been 'more free'. so apparently we just have a basic disagreement about the facts.
as an aside, have i ever mentioned that the 'anarcho'-cappie line on egalitarianism strikes me as odd? first, egalitarianism is a revolt against nature. second, things will be more egalitarian under and 'anarcho'-capitalist system and inequality is caused by market interference. weirder still is that both of these lines often come out of the same person.
(maybe more on this later)
Free Soviets
14-04-2004, 06:45
There are no "products of the earth". An apple is no use on a tree it must be picked. Oil is no use underground it must be drilled. There is nothing that does not require someone to "mix their labour" with it in order to be useful.
no amount of labor by itself will create the apple or the oil. they exist by themselves and would exist even if we weren't here. we do not create them, therefore they are the products of the earth.
The problem of collective ownership is the well known "tragedy of the commons" whereby a resource having nobody to control it has everyone scrambling over it making sustainable ventures impossible. This is why we run out of fish or buffalo or elephants but not sheep and cows. However if, say, a field was traditionally owned "by the community" it is immoral to appropriate it to oneself. Collective ownership of some resources is just one acceptable type of ownership, not the only one.
the tragedy of the commons doesn't actually deal with the commons. it deals with unowned/unregulated resources. it would be better to call it the tragedy of the free-for-all. collective ownership does not imply unregulated access by anybody. it implies collective management of the resources/land/factory/whatever. which nicely explains how all those commons existed for so long all over the world and somehow managed to avoid such a tragedy.
http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/1931/secI6.html
Imagine a sculptor who takes a rock from the beach and carves it into a beautiful statue. Would anyone deny that the statue is his to use as he sees fit, or to give to who he wants, or that nobody has a right to take it without his permission? But how is this qualitatively different from any other sort of production?
because that type of production only involved the one person. if it involved a team of sculptors, why should just one have exclusive right to do as he pleases with the statue? its sort of a general moral principle for us: each person has full and direct say over that which is theirs alone and for collective projects each person has a full and equal say with every other person involved.
there are lots of ways that cultures can deal with ownership or control of things. among the !kung, for example, the person that 'owns' (essentially the person that is primarily responsible for the first round of meat sharing) the meat that they hunted is the owner of the arrow that killed the animal. but the owner of the arrow is almost never the person who shot it, and sometimes isn't even a person who went along on the hunting expedition; people swap arrows with each other a lot.
Free Soviets
14-04-2004, 06:47
Then by definition it is weak since it must first destroy these institutions first. That's pretty sad.
no, that's just silly. by your logic a relatively free society must be weak because it must destroy the institutions of slavery and the absolute rule of god-kings first.
do you really have a point that just isn't coming across properly?
First of all Anarchy is not free. You are not free to be a Capitalist as well. You are not free to print or have money, as well as to hire workers. That is why it's weak, Anarchy is not freedom.
No country in the 20th or early 21st century has adopted Anarchy. None. Not one. Nada, zip zero. Not even countries that are run by communist parties have even attempted it. Not a single one. Anarchy has not convinced one single democracy to adapt it. Zero. Anarchy has been a total unmitigated historical failure that no one in power has any serious interest in it.
Capitalism on the other hand has never ever been eradicated from a country successfully. If outlawed the market just goes black. In fact capitalism is just growing stronger. The 20th century and the early 21st century is an unmitigated success for that economic system. Capitalism just gets harder to eradicate and better at doing what it does best. Capitalism can change.
...and if you listen closely you can hear the sound of the goal posts rushing past...
Free Soviets
14-04-2004, 06:48
There is no hierarchy in capitalism.
you can say this with a straight face?
Mutual Liberty
14-04-2004, 10:03
There is no such thing as "Anarcho-Capitalism", all Anarchism is Socialistic in nature.
Despite the attempts of the right to hijack Anarchism, no one takes Capitalists who try to make the connection with it seriously. Libertarian Capitalists, Laissez-Faire Capitalists and those looney Objectivists are aboout as close as Capitalism gets to non-hierarchical systems. Very few of them actually go so far as to call for the total elimination fo the state, and those that do, well none of them want to see the end of hierarchy.
Hi, I'm an Anarch-Communist with heavy Syndicalist leanings.
From the anarchist FAQ:
While modern social anarchists follow Kropotkin in not denying Proudhon or Tucker as anarchists, we do deny the anarchist title to supporters of capitalism. Why? Simply because anarchism as a political movement (as opposed to a dictionary definition) has always been anti-capitalist and against capitalist wage slavery, exploitation and oppression. In other words, anarchism (in all its forms) has always been associated with specific political and economic ideas. Both Tucker and Kropotkin defined their anarchism as an opposition to both state and capitalism. To quote Tucker on the subject:
"Liberty insists. . . [on] the abolition of the State and the abolition of usury; on no more government of man by man, and no more exploitation of man by man." [cited in Native American Anarchism - A Study of Left-Wing American Individualism by Eunice Schuster, p. 140]
Kropotkin defined anarchism as "the no-government system of socialism." [Kropotkin's Revolutionary Pamphlets, p. 46] Malatesta argued that "when [people] sought to overthrow both State and property -- then it was anarchy was born" and, like Tucker, aimed for "the complete destruction of the domination and exploitation of man by man." [Life and Ideas, p. 19, pp. 22-28] Indeed every leading anarchist theorist defined anarchism as opposition to government and exploitation. Thus Brain Morris' excellent summary:
"Another criticism of anarchism is that it has a narrow view of politics: that it sees the state as the fount of all evil, ignoring other aspects of social and economic life. This is a misrepresentation of anarchism. It partly derives from the way anarchism has been defined [in dictionaries, for example], and partly because Marxist historians have tried to exclude anarchism from the broader socialist movement. But when one examines the writings of classical anarchists. . . as well as the character of anarchist movements. . . it is clearly evident that it has never had this limited vision. It has always challenged all forms of authority and exploitation, and has been equally critical of capitalism and religion as it has been of the state." ["Anthropology and Anarchism," Anarchy: A Journal of Desire Armed no. 45, p. 40]
....
Needless to say, anarchists oppose state socialism just as much as they oppose capitalism. All of which means that anarchism and capitalism are two different political ideas with specific (and opposed) meanings -- to deny these meanings by uniting the two terms creates an oxymoron, one that denies the history and the development of ideas as well as the whole history of the anarchist movement itself.
Free Soviets
15-04-2004, 03:11
anarchist news time:
first up, some news from the south
Announcing the Georgia Anarchists List!!
This list was created to help Anarchists in the entire state of Georgia network and keep eachother updated on projects we are working on. The list is open to all Georgia Anarchists, so please post this announcement far and wide!
For more information or to subscribe visit:
http://lists.riseup.net/www/info/gaanarchists
or send a blank email to:
gaanarchists-subscribe@lists.riseup.net
To contact the list administrator email: gaanarchists-admin@lists.riseup.net
and a report back from the southeastern anarchist network conference
At long last, the SouthEastern Anarchist Network Conference happened in the post-industrial small city of Greensboro, and out of it comes the latest acronym in the worldwide fabric of anarchist struggle – SEANet, or SouthEastern Anarchist Network. As a Southerner myself, I find it rather strange that no southeastern anarchist network existed already – for despite it’s lack of headlines, many of the most committed, passionate, and possibly lunatic anarchists I know come from the Southeast United States, and have been for years. I suspect that unlike their sisters and brothers in struggle in areas with huge anarchist scenes such as West Philly, being an anarchist in the most religious and conservative part of the country is an utter trial by fire. As one southern anarchist put it: “Fundamentally I had a choice: I could either move to some anarchist ghetto where things were already happening, or I could try to start things happening in my hometown against all odds.” Luckily, some folks have chosen the latter path, and the SEANet conference is just a symptom of the rising insurgency of the Southeast. Here’s a quick, one-person, hopelessly biased review of the event.
...
http://www.infoshop.org/inews/stories.php?story=04/04/14/7373899
Free Soviets
15-04-2004, 03:13
and now for some from even further south
Zabalaza Anarchist Communist Federation Congress 2004
Revolutionary anarchist greetings from southern Africa!
The Zabalaza Anarchist Communist Federation (ZACF) of southern Africa is pleased to announce that over the past weekend, April 10-11, 2004, it held its successful first full Congress. The congress took place a few days before the South African capitalist class holds its third bourgeois elections this Wednesday.
The first day of Congress was held at the Workers' Library & Museum in downtown Johannesburg, an independent facility saved from decay by anarchist militants in 1999 which is today a vital facility used by the new social movements, while the second day of Congress was held at the Phambili Motsoaledi Community Project in Motsoaledi, Soweto, a food garden and book-and-tool lending library established by anarchists in 2002.
Congress is the policy-making body of the Federation and consists of all available members. It was attended by ZACF delegates from Durban, Umlazi, Johannesburg and Soweto, plus observers from Soweto. Present were members of all six collectives that make up the ZACF: the Zabalaza Action Group (Durban & Umlazi); the Black Action Group (Motsoaledi, Soweto); the Shesha Action Group (Dlamini, Soweto); Bikisha Media Collective (Johannesburg); Zabalaza Books (Durban & Johannesburg); and the Anarchist Black Cross (Johannesburg).
Messages of support were sent from observers in Cape Town.
The ZACF was launched on May Day 2003, following more than a decade of anarchist activity in South Africa, but has so far operated under an interim skeleton constitution, which is currently on our website.
On the first day of Congress, the members voted to accept a new full constitution which will be put up on our website to replace the interim skeleton constitution. The new full constitution affirmed our adherence to the principles of revolutionary anarchism, taking our inspiration from the "platformist" tradition of Europe and North America, the "especifist" tradition of Latin America, the historical anarchist movement in southern Africa, and the current anti-capitalist movement in our region. Congress endorsed the ZACF's membership of International Libertarian Solidarity (ILS) and encouraged greater co-operation, both with the ILS and with other organisations that had asked for closer ties with the ZACF: the Insurrectional Anarchist Federation (FAI) of Brazil, and Autonomous Action (AD) of Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Ukraine and Armenia.
red & black regards - Michael Schmidt (ZACF International Secretary)
*****************
* Note on terms:
"Zabalaza" = struggle "Phambili" = forward "Shesha" = to move swiftly "Bikisha" = (labour) strike
ZACF: For an Internationalist Social Revolution by a Front of Oppressed Classes!
http://www.zabalaza.net/
Then by definition it is weak since it must first destroy these institutions first. That's pretty sad.
no, that's just silly. by your logic a relatively free society must be weak because it must destroy the institutions of slavery and the absolute rule of god-kings first.
do you really have a point that just isn't coming across properly?
First of all Anarchy is not free. You are not free to be a Capitalist as well. You are not free to print or have money, as well as to hire workers. That is why it's weak, Anarchy is not freedom.
No country in the 20th or early 21st century has adopted Anarchy. None. Not one. Nada, zip zero. Not even countries that are run by communist parties have even attempted it. Not a single one. Anarchy has not convinced one single democracy to adapt it. Zero. Anarchy has been a total unmitigated historical failure that no one in power has any serious interest in it.
Capitalism on the other hand has never ever been eradicated from a country successfully. If outlawed the market just goes black. In fact capitalism is just growing stronger. The 20th century and the early 21st century is an unmitigated success for that economic system. Capitalism just gets harder to eradicate and better at doing what it does best. Capitalism can change.
...and if you listen closely you can hear the sound of the goal posts rushing past...
...and the sound of Anarchy in a rut and largely a discredited, obsolete, impossible to achieve theory.
Bodies Without Organs
15-04-2004, 09:17
Approximations to anarcho-capitalist societies have existed in .... Ireland.... and they were generally successful.
Exactly when did an approximation to an anarcho-capitalist society exist in Ireland?
1000 years ago no democracies existed. It didn't stop them existing afterwards.
Leaving aside debate about whether the Athling of Iceland founded in 930 counted as a democracy or not, democractic government existed elsewhere about 2500 years ago. Your point being?
Bodies Without Organs
15-04-2004, 09:25
Imagine a sculptor who takes a rock from the beach and carves it into a beautiful statue. Would anyone deny that the statue is his to use as he sees fit, or to give to who he wants, or that nobody has a right to take it without his permission? But how is this qualitatively different from any other sort of production?
What is the sculptor eating while he makes this sculpture?
Bodies Without Organs
15-04-2004, 09:28
There is nothing that does not require someone to "mix their labour" with it in order to be useful.
So, the sun is not useful, by this definition. Is air, given that we "mix our labour" with it beyond conscious control? Various assorted flora that convert CO2 to O2 also fall outside your definition of useful.
Anyhow:
If I can interrupt here for just a moment - here is a link to an interesting guidebook on protecting yourself during protests:
http://www.devo.com/sarin/bodyhammer.html
And on a related note, here are a couple of images of police practicing riot control tactics with medieval recreationists:
http://www.phreeow.net/riot/tn/Jam397.jpg.html
http://www.phreeow.net/riot/tn/Jam403.jpg.html
And now back to our regularly scheduled anarcho-communist/anarcho-capitalist flamewar...
First of all Anarchy is not free. You are not free to be a Capitalist as well. You are not free to print or have money, as well as to hire workers. That is why it's weak, Anarchy is not freedom.
Capitalism is not free. You are not free to consume what you need. You must take orders or risk starvation.
Your conception of private security is way wide of the mark and I would recommend the molinari institute (try a search on google) for a guide to this. How would you prevent crime in your socialist world, or do you believe it will somehow disappear? A position I consider to be extremely naive.
Without social classes or government, many forms of crime will disappear or become much less common.
Am I to understand by this that you support the actions of the Spanish anarchists?
While they made many bad decisions, they tried to make a better society.
There is no hierarchy in capitalism. All trade and employment is voluntary.
I suppose the rich people who "earn" money through the stock market and inheritance don't qualify as hierarchy. I suppose I voluntarily did what my boss told me and the fact that if I didn't, I would starve on the streets is just a coincidence.
----------------------------
Free your mind!
The Great Leveller
16-04-2004, 00:26
First of all Anarchy is not free. You are not free to be a Capitalist as well. You are not free to print or have money, as well as to hire workers. That is why it's weak, Anarchy is not freedom.
Surely it is free. In an Anarchy no one will stop you from printing money. But you may have problems getting other people to accept it. You are free to hire people. But one the other hand, other people are free not to work for you.
:shock: I know, it's amazing that people don't want to be exploited so you can get fat isn't it?
The Great Leveller
16-04-2004, 00:30
First of all Anarchy is not free. You are not free to be a Capitalist as well. You are not free to print or have money, as well as to hire workers. That is why it's weak, Anarchy is not freedom.
Surely it is free. In an Anarchy no one will stop you from printing money. But you may have problems getting other people to accept it. You are free to hire people. But one the other hand, other people are free not to work for you.
:shock: I know, it's amazing that people don't want to be exploited so you can get fat isn't it?
First of all Anarchy is not free. You are not free to be a Capitalist as well. You are not free to print or have money, as well as to hire workers. That is why it's weak, Anarchy is not freedom.
Capitalism is not free. You are not free to consume what you need. You must take orders or risk starvation.
No, in anarcho-capitalism (or laissez faire, or objectivism, or libertarianism, or whatever you want to call it) You can consume whatever you want, as long as you've put in enought effort to earn it- and if you're not making that much at you're job, you're free to leave and sure, "risk" starvation. I bet Bill Gates is really scared that he's risking starvation since he's not taking orders for anyone. (and of course he's not a normal case, but anyway) Anyone can start a business. Period. (another ellipsis, how fun) I believe I mentioned a few weeks ago how I'm starting a business for like 40 bucks (though I think it's $40 a year) You just have to have an idea.
Your conception of private security is way wide of the mark and I would recommend the molinari institute (try a search on google) for a guide to this. How would you prevent crime in your socialist world, or do you believe it will somehow disappear? A position I consider to be extremely naive.
Without social classes or government, many forms of crime will disappear or become much less common.
That's probably kind of true. For example, if you don't have nearly the production, you can't have nearly the robbery. And no one will have really nice things, so again, less stealing. Well actually, since there aren't any property rights, you can't steal at all. Let's all start downloading!!! And obviously, victimless crimes would disappear because they'd no longer be illegal (something I do actually support)
Am I to understand by this that you support the actions of the Spanish anarchists?
While they made many bad decisions, they tried to make a better society.
I don't know if I'd say that's better. Besides, didn't you say anarchy would decrease crime? I assumed that when you said that you mean violent crimes (since victimless crimes aren't criminal)
There is no hierarchy in capitalism. All trade and employment is voluntary.
I suppose the rich people who "earn" money through the stock market and inheritance don't qualify as hierarchy.
nope, who are they higher than? (though I suppose someone who inherits a factory also inherits the current employees-as employees, not as inheritance) You're right, anytime an owner of a company dies all the workers should be fired and the company should be dissolved. It's only right- we have to keep someone from inheriting it.
I suppose I voluntarily did what my boss told me and the fact that if I didn't, I would starve on the streets is just a coincidence.
yep
You're either being a bit over dramatic or a bit self-defeating. And you're confused about the word fact. You did voluntarily do it. You voluntarily took that job, and voluntarily accepted that you would do what he said. Starving is when you stop eating (for several days in a row), not when you stop doing what your boss says. Not listening to your boss might mean that you have to give up booze, but hey! in this country that's not even true. You can get food stamps and welfare. You pay for the brownies with the food stamps and the beer with the welfare money. Seriously though, if you don't like your job, quit. You can find another one, I promise. If nothing else, I'll let you take my idea. Start a delivery service- where people call you and you'll bring them whatever they want- they don't actually buy it from you, they just pay you to bring it to them. You'll need a couple of bucks as a start-up fee for a phone (unless you have one) a phone line (unless you have one) and a bike (unless you have another way of getting around) I think that would be lots of fun, and you could probably make a decent amount of money at it. I recommend doing it in a college town- where people are especially lazy
Oh, and I like to think that if it came down to it, I could move to the woods somewhere and pick berries, catch squirrels and such. I've been taught, from a very early age, that I can do anything I want. And I believe (that in an anarcho-capitalist society) I can.
----------------------------
Free your mind!
let's say, that in your dream world (this is addressed to everyone on the thread, capitalist and communist and everything else alike) a man discovers a technology that will allow people to live forever. He doesn't want to share the secret of this technology with anyone, but he will agree to give it (the technology, not the secret) to anyone that works under him, or otherwise allows him to continue working (IE gives him money) People then must either take orders or face certain death. What does your society do?
(sorry, I don't think I phrased that exactly how I wanted...if I can think of a better way to put it, I'll change it, but go ahead with what I have for now)
Free Soviets
16-04-2004, 04:26
And on a related note, here are a couple of images of police practicing riot control tactics with medieval recreationists:
http://www.phreeow.net/riot/tn/Jam397.jpg.html
http://www.phreeow.net/riot/tn/Jam403.jpg.html
its interesting how when you take guns out of the equation, tactics go back all the way to the bronze age.
and i'm proud to be a barbarian at the gates.
Bodies Without Organs
16-04-2004, 06:54
let's say, that in your dream world (this is addressed to everyone on the thread, capitalist and communist and everything else alike) a man discovers a technology that will allow people to live forever. He doesn't want to share the secret of this technology with anyone, but he will agree to give it (the technology, not the secret) to anyone that works under him, or otherwise allows him to continue working (IE gives him money) People then must either take orders or face certain death. What does your society do?
So this man makes us immortal and then claims he can kill us? Slight problem there, I'm sure you will agree.
You also run into problems with the division you have created between the technology and the secret - have you ever heard of clean room implementation? Given the technology it is possible to discover the secret.
Given that it is a technology, and we now have strong grounds to believe that such technology is possible 'my' society is free to direct its research in that direction if it desires and replicate his findings.
However, to get to the nub of your question: what does 'my' society do when offered the chance to live forever as slaves or to live three score and ten (+/-5%) as free people - I can't answer that, that is up to individuals to decide for themselves. You cannot force people to be free.
I don't answer for 'my' society (real or envisioned), I answer for me alone.
So this man makes us immortal and then claims he can kill us? Slight problem there, I'm sure you will agree.
Yes, if I had said anything like that then there would be a problem...good thing I didn't.
You also run into problems with the division you have created between the technology and the secret - have you ever heard of clean room implementation? Given the technology it is possible to discover the secret.
No I haven't, but yeah, you probably could figure it out if you had the technology- it's hard to tell though, depending on what type of technology it would be. In theory, someone would probably be able to figure it out, but who knows when that someone would come- or if he wuold ever develop in such a society.
Given that it is a technology, and we now have strong grounds to believe that such technology is possible 'my' society is free to direct its research in that direction if it desires and replicate his findings.
That you certainly could do...assuming you had some idea of what that direction was...
However, to get to the nub of your question: what does 'my' society do when offered the chance to live forever as slaves or to live three score and ten (+/-5%) as free people - I can't answer that, that is up to individuals to decide for themselves. You cannot force people to be free.
I don't answer for 'my' society (real or envisioned), I answer for me alone.
Good response, but if that's how you feel, why didn't you answer for yourself. I mean, the way you put it, I would certainly choose to live "as a free person" but when it comes down to how it would actually be- I'd be totally willing to help him in some way. It would be fascinating to be a technician for him. Or just to bake bread for him daily...
Eh, who is John Galt?
EDIT: I am such a loser.... :lol:
I have a totally different question to ask now. This one, though, only goes to those who say that anarcho-capitalism doesn't exist because in such a society you have to choose slavery or starvation.
First a comment. We do NOT live in an anarcho-capitalist society or anything close to it
That out of the way. If, tomorrow, the US government dissolved (all except the military and police force that is) without a change in anything else (of course that wouldn't happen) how would your life be worse of than it is now. People still own companies. People can still work for those companies. You'd still own a home- or be renting a home (if you currently do) but you wouldn't have to pay any property taxes. How would anyone's life be worse? And moreover, since I know a lot of you think that life now is terrible, how is someone in this world being forced to live a worse life than in your world? You could quit your job right away and use your last paycheck to buy a bunch of seeds- maybe a good hunting knife, or else a couple of loving rabbits- and you'd be set. How are you in any way being forced to be a slave or starve? (obviously you'd have to put a lot more work in if you're renting- because unless you're gonna sell your produce, you need to own your own home. But you can build it, you just have to find an open area. that's what people did, once upon a time)
Anyway, as I first set out to ask, How are the people living in such a society forced into slavery?
Bodies Without Organs
16-04-2004, 16:43
So this man makes us immortal and then claims he can kill us? Slight problem there, I'm sure you will agree.
Yes, if I had said anything like that then there would be a problem...good thing I didn't.
Ah, right, I misinterpreted the "people then must either take orders or face certain death" line as meaning "those people who take the immortality treatment must obey his every order or he will kill them". 'pologies.
Good response, but if that's how you feel, why didn't you answer for yourself. I mean, the way you put it, I would certainly choose to live "as a free person" but when it comes down to how it would actually be- I'd be totally willing to help him in some way.
Why didn't I answer for myself? Insufficient data. The main problem is how do I know that the treatment provides immortality? I could be willingly submitting to a life of servitude , only to find out that fifty years later I have just been swallowing placebos or chalk pills all along. You know that Woody Allen line about planning to live forever ... so far so good... how do you prove immortality?
Bodies Without Organs
16-04-2004, 16:52
If, tomorrow, the US government dissolved (all except the military and police force that is) without a change in anything else (of course that wouldn't happen) how would your life be worse of than it is now.....
....You could quit your job right away and use your last paycheck to buy a bunch of seeds- maybe a good hunting knife, or else a couple of loving rabbits- and you'd be set.
(ignoring the fact that I don't live in the US, for obvious reasons)
So you are positing that the US government dissolves immediately, but I would still be able to spend my dollars to buy seeds without there being any knock on effect? Once government is removed there is no longer a functional banking system, which kind of makes using my last paycheck kind of awkward. If you had a bunch of seeds or a good hunting knife in Berlin May 1945, would you have sold them to me for Deutschmarks?
This is something I continually fail to understand with anarcho-capitalism: what is meant to allow the system of money to survive without a government?
Never mind the fact that in your scenario we now have an armed network (the police) and an armed-to-the-teeth network (armed forces) who previously were supported through the government and are no longer bank rolled by it. I wouldn't like to be living next to them when their supplies start running low...
Libertovania
16-04-2004, 20:23
There is no hierarchy in capitalism.
you can say this with a straight face?
Who forces who to do what?
Libertovania
16-04-2004, 20:30
The first blatent lie was that more free markets means more inequality. A free market would have less inequality than our current mercantilist system. Much of our current inequality is due to a tax/regulation structure which favours big business over small and the ineffectiveness of govt welfare, education etc. These facts are not common knowledge so it is understandable that you'd make this mistake.
i just call 'em like i see 'em. and as i see it, all the examples 'anarcho'-cappies like to use just so happen to be examples of ridiculous levels of inequality. and within the us the trend has been towards increased inequality every time the market has been 'more free'. so apparently we just have a basic disagreement about the facts.
as an aside, have i ever mentioned that the 'anarcho'-cappie line on egalitarianism strikes me as odd? first, egalitarianism is a revolt against nature. second, things will be more egalitarian under and 'anarcho'-capitalist system and inequality is caused by market interference. weirder still is that both of these lines often come out of the same person.
(maybe more on this later)
The markets have not become more free for over a century, to my knowledge. Thatcher and Reagan held it more or less steady. The US is not a free market by a long long shot.
While I believe that free markets will lessen inequality I don't really care either way since I don't hold equality of wealth as a relevant consideration. The reason I defend free markets is because they are compatible with the only equality that matters - equality of rights. Any good consequences are a happy bonus.
Besides, maybe without the alleged liberalisation of the markets the inequality would have been more severe.
If, tomorrow, the US government dissolved (all except the military and police force that is) without a change in anything else (of course that wouldn't happen) how would your life be worse of than it is now.....
....You could quit your job right away and use your last paycheck to buy a bunch of seeds- maybe a good hunting knife, or else a couple of loving rabbits- and you'd be set.
(ignoring the fact that I don't live in the US, for obvious reasons)
So you are positing that the US government dissolves immediately, but I would still be able to spend my dollars to buy seeds without there being any knock on effect? Once government is removed there is no longer a functional banking system, which kind of makes using my last paycheck kind of awkward. If you had a bunch of seeds or a good hunting knife in Berlin May 1945, would you have sold them to me for Deutschmarks?
This is something I continually fail to understand with anarcho-capitalism: what is meant to allow the system of money to survive without a government?
Never mind the fact that in your scenario we now have an armed network (the police) and an armed-to-the-teeth network (armed forces) who previously were supported through the government and are no longer bank rolled by it. I wouldn't like to be living next to them when their supplies start running low...
Well first off, apology accepted, sorry if I sounded mean about it, it was early and well, I'm really sarcastic.
As for the US thing- I originally put "our" government, but I figured it would be different for different countries and so many people on NS aren't from the US...figured it was best to have a standard.
I didn't mean to say that the army and police force would no longer be paid for by government money. We would have a sales tax probably- so people only pay for what they use. This would be a lot of money considering the government isn't wasting a ton.
The money system should survive, because the federal reserve isn't totally government. I actually hadn't considered that though, so thanks for bringing it up. Naturally though, we switch to the gold standard- which actually has value.
To answer your deutschmark question, No. But I'm assuming that the government doesn't just dissolve because we lose a massive war and our fuhrer is removed from office (and earth) Not that our fuhrer shouldn't be removed....
Libertovania
17-04-2004, 13:18
Approximations to anarcho-capitalist societies have existed in .... Ireland.... and they were generally successful.
Exactly when did an approximation to an anarcho-capitalist society exist in Ireland?
1000 years ago no democracies existed. It didn't stop them existing afterwards.
Leaving aside debate about whether the Athling of Iceland founded in 930 counted as a democracy or not, democractic government existed elsewhere about 2500 years ago. Your point being?
In Ireland for about 1000 years before the English invaded. Justice was provided and enforced by individuals and voluntary groups as opposed to the state. The King was basically a military leader and not much else. I may be wrong on this as I haven't had time to check it out and I'm only going on a few comments I picked up somewhere.
My point being that just because something hasn't been tried doesn't mean it won't work. The argument that there are no anarchys therefore it doesn't work is shown to be false by considering saying the same thing about democracy 1000 years ago.
Libertovania
17-04-2004, 13:23
Imagine a sculptor who takes a rock from the beach and carves it into a beautiful statue. Would anyone deny that the statue is his to use as he sees fit, or to give to who he wants, or that nobody has a right to take it without his permission? But how is this qualitatively different from any other sort of production?
What is the sculptor eating while he makes this sculpture?
Presumeably his food which he presumeably aquired legitimately.
In what way could trading with someone in the past give you a claim against their future production? (unless such an agreement was part of the trade)
Libertovania
17-04-2004, 13:26
There is nothing that does not require someone to "mix their labour" with it in order to be useful.
So, the sun is not useful, by this definition. Is air, given that we "mix our labour" with it beyond conscious control? Various assorted flora that convert CO2 to O2 also fall outside your definition of useful.
Good point. But you don't pay for sunlight or oxygen so it's not relevent to the debate.
Bodies Without Organs
17-04-2004, 13:31
So, the sun is not useful, by this definition.
Good point. But you don't pay for sunlight or oxygen so it's not relevent to the debate.
If I start smogging up the sky so as to block the sunlight, or cutting down the rainforests and thus upsetting the eco-system, then these things start to become relevant. Would I be correct in thinking that under anarcho-capitalism you would have not comeback at me for doing these things, even if it meant you could no longer breathe and your crops failed through lack of sunlight?
The Great Leveller
17-04-2004, 13:31
In Ireland for about 1000 years before the English invaded. Justice was provided and enforced by individuals and voluntary groups as opposed to the state. The King was basically a military leader and not much else. I may be wrong on this as I haven't had time to check it out and I'm only going on a few comments I picked up somewhere.
(DISCLAIMER: My knowledge of Pre-English dominated Ireland is sketchy at best, and I am using leaps of reason based on my knowledge of the prevailing culture in the rest of Europe at the time). I think that the term is being used very subjectively here. People would sort out there differences without the need of central authority. But weren't these "voluntary groups" providing justice an up shot of a clan system? This was of course dangerous, as it resulted in family feuds lasting many generations of occations.
But the point of the King only acting as a military leader I think is true. I know Charlemagne prefered to have 'puppet' kings in his dominions (it allowed him to do things he enjoyed, like conquering and hunting). And that in many ways, any form of central authority over a large area at this time was difficult.
My point being that just because something hasn't been tried doesn't mean it won't work. The argument that there are no anarchys therefore it doesn't work is shown to be false by considering saying the same thing about democracy 1000 years ago.
Bodies Without Organs
17-04-2004, 13:36
Exactly when did an approximation to an anarcho-capitalist society exist in Ireland?
In Ireland for about 1000 years before the English invaded. Justice was provided and enforced by individuals and voluntary groups as opposed to the state. The King was basically a military leader and not much else. I may be wrong on this as I haven't had time to check it out and I'm only going on a few comments I picked up somewhere.
That's not anarcho-capitalism though, nor an example of one of your "Approximations to anarcho-capitalist societies". Benevolent feudalism != anarcho-capitalism. Are you claiming that anarcho-capitalism was invented before capitalism?
Bodies Without Organs
17-04-2004, 13:43
The reason I defend free markets is because they are compatible with the only equality that matters - equality of rights.
If there exist regulated markets, but those regulations are applied fairly and without prejudice to all, then there also exists equality of rights. Where do you have a problem with this model of contemporary capitalism?
Libertovania
17-04-2004, 14:45
The reason I defend free markets is because they are compatible with the only equality that matters - equality of rights.
If there exist regulated markets, but those regulations are applied fairly and without prejudice to all, then there also exists equality of rights. Where do you have a problem with this model of contemporary capitalism?
I specifically meant negative rights of person and property. I.e. don't steal and don't start fights. Before you ask why these in particular it's because they uniquely appeal to my sense of justice.
Libertovania
17-04-2004, 14:49
Exactly when did an approximation to an anarcho-capitalist society exist in Ireland?
In Ireland for about 1000 years before the English invaded. Justice was provided and enforced by individuals and voluntary groups as opposed to the state. The King was basically a military leader and not much else. I may be wrong on this as I haven't had time to check it out and I'm only going on a few comments I picked up somewhere.
That's not anarcho-capitalism though, nor an example of one of your "Approximations to anarcho-capitalist societies". Benevolent feudalism != anarcho-capitalism. Are you claiming that anarcho-capitalism was invented before capitalism?
It's an example of law without the state. Most people think this is impossible and this is their main objection to anarcho-capitalism. This proves that it is possible and is in this respect an approximation to anarcho-capitalism.
Capitalism is not an "invention" or a "system". It's the opposite of a system. It's just letting people get on with their lives without being beaten up or robbed.
Bodies Without Organs
17-04-2004, 16:02
Capitalism is not an "invention" or a "system". It's the opposite of a system. It's just letting people get on with their lives without being beaten up or robbed.
Does the fact that it is dependent on an exchange system universally recognised and enforced (ie: your gold backed currency) by figures granted authority not argue that it is in fact a system?
If it was never invented, then surely it would have existed as long as mankind, and be the default economic model throughout history? Looking at anthropological evidence this certainly does not seem to be the case.
Bodies Without Organs
17-04-2004, 16:12
It's an example of law without the state.
Except for the fact that during the period of the high-kings, the Irish state existed. You are using an example of a state with laws as an example of laws without a state, which doesn't really seem to work.
The same goes for your examples which you referenced earlier of England, North America (presuming that you mean after the coming of the Europeans) and Iceland. "Africa" remains too vague to comment on at this point.
The Great Leveller
17-04-2004, 16:14
It's an example of law without the state.
Except for the fact that during the period of the high-kings, the Irish state existed. You are using an example of a state with laws as an example of laws without a state, which doesn't really seem to work.
I think his point was that whilst the High King had supremacy, most disputes were worked out without the aid of state aparatus. And that society, by and by large, was not 'lawless' or 'to the dogs'
Bodies Without Organs
17-04-2004, 16:17
It's an example of law without the state.
Except for the fact that during the period of the high-kings, the Irish state existed. You are using an example of a state with laws as an example of laws without a state, which doesn't really seem to work.
I think his point was that whilst the High King had supremacy, most disputes were worked out without the aid of state aparatus. And that society, by and by large, was not 'lawless' or 'to the dogs'
I have no problem with idea of order without a state, or with law (in the sense of nomos rather than logos) without a state, but originally he claimed Ireland as an approximations of anarcho-capitalist, whereas it was neither anarchist nor capitalist.
Even if most disputes were resolved without recourse to state apparatus, it is still the case that Ireland of the High Kings had a social class whose entire function was to resolve disputes, and their word was backed by the power of arms.
Lets just have a look at how anarchist the laws were:
"The Brehon Code forms a great body of civil, military, and criminal law. It regulates the various ranks of society, from the king down to the slave, and enumerates their several rights and privileges. There are minute rules for the management of property, for the several industries - building, brewing, mills, water-courses, fishing-weirs, bees and honey - for distress or seizure of goods, for tithes, trespass, and evidence. The relations of landlord and tenant, the fees of professional men - doctors, judges, teachers, builders, artificers, - the mutual duties of father and son, of foster-parents and foster-children, of master and servant, are all carefully regulated. In that portion corresponding to what is now known as criminal law, the various offences are minutely distinguished - murder, manslaughter, assaults, wounding, thefts, and all sorts of wilful damage ; and accidental injuries from flails, sledgehammers, machines, and weapons of all kinds ; and the amount of compensation is laid down in detail for almost every possible variety of injury."
http://www.alia.ie/tirnanog/sochis/iv.html
Does Ireland still seem like a good approximation of anarcho-capitalism?
Free Soviets
17-04-2004, 16:56
There is no hierarchy in capitalism.
you can say this with a straight face?
Who forces who to do what?
hierarchy doesn't necessarily require "holding a gun to your head" style force. all hierarchy (in the relevant sense) is is an asymmetrical relationship of power or authority, where those on the top have power over those below them in some sense. eseentially any social relationship where there are superiors and subordinates is a hierarchical one. and there is not much that is quite so perfectly and needlessly hierarchical as a capitalist enterprise.
opposition to hierarchy is the thing that binds anarchism together. it is why we oppose the state and capitalism and the old church hierarchies and social norms that place one group of people above another (racism, sexism, classes, etc).
A dissolve of the state would result in mass chaos. I know, It dosn't stand for that bah bah, But it is what will happen. People will group themselves and war will break out. They will seize territory and start the whole hierarchy thing again. You replacement will try break it down and if it is sucessful, start the whole cycle again.
Bodies Without Organs
17-04-2004, 17:47
A dissolve of the state would result in mass chaos. I know, It dosn't stand for that bah bah, But it is what will happen. People will group themselves and war will break out.
You assert that people will group themselves together: why would it not be possible for all the people to group themselves together?
Do you believe that the existence of the state is what prevents war breaking out in your hometown or street? (Certainly the existence of states doesn't prevent inter-state wars from occuring.)
A dissolve of the state would result in mass chaos. I know, It dosn't stand for that bah bah, But it is what will happen. People will group themselves and war will break out.
You assert that people will group themselves together: why would it not be possible for all the people to group themselves together?
Do you believe that the existence of the state is what prevents war breaking out in your hometown or street? The same reason we wouldn't. People will break themselves into factions each wanting a diffrent thing to serve their own interests.
Bodies Without Organs
17-04-2004, 18:44
You assert that people will group themselves together: why would it not be possible for all the people to group themselves together?
The same reason we wouldn't. People will break themselves into factions each wanting a diffrent thing to serve their own interests.
As a thought experiment: if there were effectively unlimited resources do you think the same thing would take place?
Free Soviets
17-04-2004, 19:30
Benevolent feudalism != anarcho-capitalism.
i don't know, sometimes i think that they really think the two equivalent. or at least compatible.
which just makes them look even more fundamentally confused about anarchism from my angle.
You assert that people will group themselves together: why would it not be possible for all the people to group themselves together?
The same reason we wouldn't. People will break themselves into factions each wanting a diffrent thing to serve their own interests.
As a thought experiment: if there were effectively unlimited resources do you think the same thing would take place?
If such a thing were possible while trying to dissolve a state and forcing a way of life on people, they might still break up and fight each other for land or ideological ideas
You assert that people will group themselves together: why would it not be possible for all the people to group themselves together?
The same reason we wouldn't. People will break themselves into factions each wanting a diffrent thing to serve their own interests.
As a thought experiment: if there were effectively unlimited resources do you think the same thing would take place? Yes. Power hungry people would seek to control all of the unlimited resources and use them to force other people to obey them. As a side note, if you want capitalism to fall just find a way to coal into gold.
Libertovania
19-04-2004, 15:39
Approximations to anarcho-capitalist societies have existed in .... Ireland.... and they were generally successful.
Exactly when did an approximation to an anarcho-capitalist society exist in Ireland?
1000 years ago no democracies existed. It didn't stop them existing afterwards.
Leaving aside debate about whether the Athling of Iceland founded in 930 counted as a democracy or not, democractic government existed elsewhere about 2500 years ago. Your point being?
In Ireland for about 1000 years before the English invaded. Justice was provided and enforced by individuals and voluntary groups as opposed to the state. The King was basically a military leader and not much else. I may be wrong on this as I haven't had time to check it out and I'm only going on a few comments I picked up somewhere.
My point being that just because something hasn't been tried doesn't mean it won't work. The argument that there are no anarchys therefore it doesn't work is shown to be false by considering saying the same thing about democracy 1000 years ago.
That is true, but Anarchy is so unappealing that no world leader wants to try it. Look at democracies, the majority does not want to try it, Communist party run countries do not want to try it. Not one dictator tried it. Nobody in power ever tried it and nobody in power ever will. In the 20th century and the early 21st century nobody has tried it. Because Anarchy is a bad, flawed, political theory an incompatible with technology.
Bodies Without Organs
20-04-2004, 11:19
Look at democracies, the majority does not want to try it, Communist party run countries do not want to try it.
Well, technically a truly Marxist country would be wroking towards an anarchist society through authoritarian means. Check your The German Ideology.
Because Anarchy is a bad, flawed, political theory an incompatible with technology.
Enough vague rhetoric: why exactly is it bad and flawed and incompatible with technology?
Free Soviets
21-04-2004, 05:42
Not one dictator tried it. Nobody in power ever tried it and nobody in power ever will.
umm, was this supposed to be surprising or illuminating in some way?
Free Soviets
22-04-2004, 06:22
The 2nd Annual "Black and Green Anarchist Gathering"
The Southern Cascades of Oregon
August 1st-8th, 2004
The Black and Green Network is facilitating a week-long gathering in the beautifully wild southern Cascades of Oregon. After taking part in the various anarchist and environmental events and conferences, we felt that there was a need to have a gathering focusing solely on what seems to fall through the cracks: rewilding, physically, mentally, and spiritually. From this came the idea for last year’s successful gathering in Pennsylvania. Our goal is to help bring people into a wild environment, to break down mediation between ourselves and our world, and to encourage active participation with it. The gathering will provide an introduction to the various strands of anti-civilization thought, as well as being an in-depth forum for discussing and developing the theoretical and practical aspects of anarcho-primitivism/green anarchy (though not exclusively). We will focus on trying to connect face-to-face and deal with issues that are brought up within the critiques and practice, making stronger connections with one another, and applying our visions to our lives. There will be a heavy emphasis on primitive skill-sharing and collective experience. We are hoping to create an environment where people are willing to share, grow, and have a good time. The entire event is centered on active participation and we hope that people will bring their knowledge and experience, as well as being prepared to be relatively self-sufficient. Some food will be provided (probably some sort of morning gruel, snacks and a dinner each day), but for the most part, bring what you need, including (depending on how domesticated you are): several layers of warm clothes (it’s high elevation, so it can get cold at night), sun block (especially for you pale ones), sleeping bag or blankets, tent or tarp, flashlight, batteries, sturdy boots, eating utensils and bowl, water filter, mini-shovel, toilet paper, snacks and food, water containers, notebooks, pencils, pocket knife, musical instruments, friends and family, special skills and knowledge, and an enthusiastic and participatory attitude. The site has wonderful swimming, hiking, and a natural spring. It is a wild place which needs to be treated with care and respect, seriously folks. It is about a mile and a half hike in, so don’t bring excessive shit you don’t want to lug around, and try to leave the canine friends at home if possible. It will also be at the height of fire season, so extra care will be necessary (including no personal fires). Please leave weapons and heavy drugs at home, and abusive behaviors will not be tolerated. The location and directions will be revealed one week prior to the gathering on our websites, and on our voicemail. Try to carpool, because parking is limited. Contact us if you would like to get involved in the planning. We are also asking for serious volunteers to come to Eugene a week or two before the gathering to get final preparations together. We are looking for people to commit to: food preparation, obtaining food (rice, beans, lentils, spices, soy products, jerky, oil, canned foods, dried stuff, roots, and veggies, etc.) and cooking material (utensils, pots, pans, knives, buckets, portable stoves, and fuel), people to help with shitters and obtain material for their upkeep (shovels, wood ash, buckets, tp, soap, etc), finding a few radio/walkie-talkies and batteries, people to give more formal workshops on specific skills, folks to coordinate rides from other bioregions, publicity for the event, and, most importantly, financial contributions (consider throwing a benefit in your area). We’re looking forwards to a life-altering event. See you in the wild!!
For more info, check out:
www.greenanarchy.org
To get involved, contact:
PO Box 11331, Eugene, OR 97440
feralvisions@greenanarchy.org
voicemail: 1-866-270-1653
Demonic Furbies
22-04-2004, 06:25
yay anarchists
*walks out*
Free Soviets
22-04-2004, 06:38
North American Anarchist Convergence 2004
A weekend of community-focused discussions on freedom, prosperity, and responsible society.
American Anarchists will cross borders to converge in the foothills of Appalachia to network, brainstorm, and discuss social change through building a positive movement toward a free and responsible society. We will focus on practical alternatives to problems associated with power-based governments, institutions, and internalized systems of oppression.
The event will take place August 12-15th, 2004 in Athens, OH.
http://www.naac2004.org/
Not more of this anarchist idiocy..
Free Soviets
22-04-2004, 10:39
i'm afraid you're going to see a lot more of it for the rest of your life. libertarian socialism is the wave of the future.
Anarchism isn't idiocy. Enough of that statist idiocy.
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"But by an equality, that now at this time your abundance may be a supply for their want, that their abundance also may be a supply for your want: that there may be equality."
Free your mind! (http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/Anarchist_Archives/bright/berkman/comanarchism/whatis_toc.html)
I like big butts!
http://www.angelfire.com/mo3/terrapvlchra/images/steatopygia.jpg