We should reject name Capitalism, because it falls into the same tent as State Capitalism, Mixed Capitalism, Democratic Capitalism, among other things.
What evidence do you have than most anarchists are not voluntarists by our definition?
History mainly, then current events and personal acquaintances to a smaller degree.
It’s funny that you find it acceptable to ally with those who support taxation (a rejection of private property) while attacking anarchists for rejecting private property.
I’ll take someone who is inconsistently for private property over someone who consistently rejects private property. One just needs to be taught basic logic the other needs an exorcist.
I don’t even understand what it means to “ally” with someone in this sense. I mean, how does one go about allying with an anarcho-whateverist? Do you draw posters together or create a political party together or hold hands protesting the G8 together?
We could organize under the name of Anarchists Without Adjectives (or some other name) to facilitate discussion and activism. We could create facebook groups, forums, and such. We could find areas of agreement and lobby for causes.
For example, you would think that most anarchists would support political localization over centralized control. Even communists are localists. Minarchists are politically localists too, in my experience. That is an area where we can probably find common ground and work together. Working together on such things might smooth over the animosity between anarchist groups.
Lobbying for anarchy? That is pipe dream.
As opposed to what? Revolution?
Peddling with politicians to eliminate their jobs is kinda of counterintuitive, no?
Maybe secession (not necessarily state breakaway from the union) or small scale dissension? People would migrate to pursue libertarian prospects and if the state can be fended off it would facilitate a voluntary society in flux. This is simple guesswork though.
You are going to need a new name for your discussion group, even the Anarchists Without Adjectives don’t accept Capitalists.
One last point, some “anarcho”-capitalists have attempted to use the tolerance associated with “anarchism without adjectives” to argue that their ideology should be accepted as part of the anarchist movement. After all, they argue, anarchism is just about getting rid of the state, economics is of secondary importance. However, such a use of “anarchism without adjectives” is bogus as it was commonly agreed at the time that the types of economics that were being discussed were anti-capitalist (i.e. socialistic). For Malatesta, for example, there were “anarchists who foresee and propose other solution, other future forms of social organisation” than communist anarchism, but they “desire, just as we do, to destroy political power and private property.” “Let us do away,” he argued, “with all exclusivism of schools of thinking” and let us “come to an understanding on ways and means, and go forwards.”
[quoted by Nettlau, Op. Cit., p. 175]
In other words, it was agreed that capitalism had to be abolished along with the state and once this was the case free experimentation would develop. Thus the struggle against the state was just one part of a wider struggle to end oppression and exploitation and could not be isolated from these wider aims. As “anarcho”-capitalists do not seek the abolition of capitalism along with the state they are not anarchists and so “anarchism without adjectives” does not apply to the so-called “anarchist” capitalists (see section F on why “anarcho”-capitalism is not anarchist).
To be fair though they did say capitalist societies could exist within their anarchist world.
As far as i can tell, that quote is not from an Anarchists Without Adjectives source. This following quote is.
http://www.anarkismo.net/newswire.php?story_id=4717
I am pleased to hear it, but I didn’t see that on the site you linked.
As far as i can tell, that quote is not from an Anarchists Without Adjectives source. This following quote is.
It isn’t. Its from the famous Anarchist FAQ.
Did you read the entire page that quote comes from?
… Hence “anarcho-capitalism”, the very negation of anarchism, which has always been anti-capitalist. This confusion is also to be seen within the anarchist movement. Murray Rothbard (1926-1995), the father of anarcho-capitalism, an enemy of the State but a supporter of the “free market”…
Clearly Rothbard was also against the multinationals, like all liberal radicals: he was against private monopolies that prevent the free operation of the market. But the anti-capitalism of anarchists does not stop with the fight against the multinationals. By no means. Nor in the social-democratic or unionist method of expropriating the capital gains that the bosses snatch from the workers, be it through laws or dictatorships, or even agreements. No. Anarchist anti-capitalism is based on the belief that nobody can sell their labour to create capital gain, for the State or for private industrialists. That is the point.
For anarchists, the creation of capital gain by means of work is related to the contribution to the collective wealth of the communist association. That is to say, of the communist society. For that reason, anarchists have never accepted the idea of wage-slaving, be it in a “free” or “planned” market. In other words, anarchism does not accept capitalist profit, be it private or public.
I am pleased to hear it, but I didn’t see that on the site you linked.
Scroll down
This is not to say that after a revolution “anarcho”-capitalist communities would not exist. Far from it. If a group of people wanted to form such a system then they could, just as we would expect a community which supported state socialism or theocracy to live under that regime. Such enclaves of hierarchy would exist simply because it is unlikely that everyone on the planet, or even in a given geographical area, will become anarchists all at the same time. The key thing to remember is that no such system would be anarchist and, consequently, is not*“anarchism without adjectives.”*
I don’t even understand what it means to “ally” with someone in this sense. I mean, how does one go about allying with an anarcho-whateverist? Do you draw posters together or create a political party together or hold hands protesting the G8 together?
That made me giggle. Plus it brought up the image of “allying and holding hands” with some anarchist girl. Either way, a valid question.
Mainstream anarchists are basically worthless. They don’t understand society or the economy, their philosophy is post-modernist nonsense. I’d rather be allied with a NeoCon than these twits.
Mainstream anarchists
That’s an interesting term.
it’s apt. Chomsky, Bob Black, other assorted know-nothing pseudo-radicals.
Both Bob Black and Noam Chomsky are mainstream anarchists? At least Post-left anarchy is interesting.
I did. The quote that you posted is from a different person (and a hundred years later) than the quote I posted. I am also not sure the person quoted by you is an ‘Anarchist Without Adjectives’. Whereas the person I quoted obviously is.
I have seen no evidence from an AWA source that adherents of AWA reject capitalism.
In fact, I also found this on Wikipedia.
Benjamin Tucker is an individualist anarchist who “rejected all forms of communism”. Sounds like they were calling for tolerance of anti-communist anarchists. That sounds like AnCap to me.
I did. The quote that you posted is from a different person (and a hundred years later) than the quote I posted. I am also not sure the person quoted by you is an ‘Anarchist Without Adjectives’. Whereas the person I quoted obviously is.
Appealing to a long deceased official advocate of Anarchism Without Adjectives to convince the current unofficial advocates of Anarchism Without Adjectives would require even more work. Would have to say “No, we are the real AWA, not all you guys who oppose capitalism, you are the faux-AWA, because Fernando said so” Secondly, According to Wikipedia had this to say about Fernando Tarrida del Mármol (the official advocate you linked):
Fernando Tarrida del Mármol’s original use of the term was a call for tolerance amongst collectivist and communist anarchists, all of whom rejected capitalism.
Rejecting capitalism was simply assumed.
Benjamin Tucker is an individualist anarchist who “rejected all forms of communism”. Sounds like they were calling for tolerance of anti-communist anarchists. That sounds like AnCap to me.
Benjamin Tucker was no capitalist though.
Benjamin Tucker is an individualist anarchist who “rejected all forms of communism”. Sounds like they were calling for tolerance of anti-communist anarchists. That sounds like AnCap to me.
Yes. All non-communist anarchists are market anarchists; though some (Georgists) have incorrect secondary derivations.
Benjamin Tucker was no capitalist though.
Yes, he was, under the definition of Murray Rothbard or Mises.
Tucker opposed plutocracy and state-created industry. He did not oppose capitalism in the sense of Mises, and in fact that was precisely what he advocated. In fact, as Mises thought of unjust land appropriations under the state - that the market would dissolve them and expropriation was not necessary - so Tucker believed of business trusts and cartels created by state intervention.
Calling Tucker an ‘anti-capitalist’, by libertarian standards, is merely semantic.
Interesting Tucker quote I saved from Wikipedia a few years back (I don’t know if it is still on the wikipedia page, and I don’t know the context of the quote):
“Capitalism is at least tolerable, which cannot be said of Socialism or Communism”