I would assert that, to a degree and with some people, this truly does reduce to differences in one’s predictions of the outcome of a stateless society. So on the meta-level, who cares if people have a different prediction about the outcome of a stateless society?
And one doesn’t have to be a communist to see that the state does in fact uphold the injustice of various “private” elites, which is not the fault of free market mechanisms, it’s part of the nature of the state and the symbiotic relationship between various segments of the economy and the state.
Insofar as someone is genuinely opposed to the state, I’d consider them to be a likely ally. I don’t really care if their personal fantasy for what life would be like in a post-state society is a bit off or kooky.
Brainpolice, to show Anarcho-Communists are Anarchists you just need to demonstrate it is possible to eliminate all capitalist relations and therefore all “exploitation” without a state. Can you do that?
A voluntary workers collective as such is capitalistic in its dealings with its surronding yes. A successful workers collective gets to “exploit” an unsuccesful workers collective. Unless you plann on coercively regulating relations between the collectives or getting every single last worker to enter the same “voluntary” collective you have not eliminated capitalism.
That’s not a proper criteria. It’s not necessary to demonstrate that to show that anarcho-communists are anarchists.
The fundamental problem is that you seem to refuse to approach anarchism as a broad paradigme, I.E. you’re approaching this from the perspective of anarcho-capitalism rather than anarchism as such. Anarcho-anything is anarchism if voluntaryism is embraced as a sort of meta-ethic and whatever follows the prefix of anarcho functions as a personal preference or flavor. Anarcho-communism, for example, could only be manifested on a small scale only for those who embrace the flavor of communism, and as such it poses no inherent threat to your liberty. Let them have their commune, you don’t have to be a part of it. If you are a part of it, you can secede from it. That’s what anarcho-communism actually means.
It’s not “capitalism” or “socialism” or “primitivism” or any of the things that are used to follow “anarcho” that should be treated as an ethic, it’s the “anarcho” part that inevitably should be.
Now, if someone goes around calling themself an “anacho-communist” or “anarcho-syndicalist”, but in actual fact advocates the state and mob violence, then yes, that person is noone to ally with. The point is, they aren’t anarcho-anythings in actual fact, they are state-socialists who have hijacked segments of the anarchist movement. It doesn’t mean that all anarcho-communists or all anarchists who aren’t anarcho-capitalists are statists and thugs in disguise though, it means that these anarchist movements have been corrupted by the likes of Noam Chomsky and need cleansing badly. They actually need to return to their roots in a sense.
I think the problem is rather that you do not approach Anarcho-Communism from its specific ideological foundations. Anarcho-Communism is not only this one word. Besides its name "Anarcho-Communism " also consists of a well defined ideology developed by prominent Anarcho-Communists. What they developed is not neccesarily anarchistic simply becuse they belived it was and named it accordingly. It is not enough Anarcho-Communists call their ideology Anarchism. They must demonstrate that is not a misnomer.
Surly people have different predictions of the outcome of a stateless society, but the issue here was not peoples view on the outcome, but rather opposing views when it comes to private property etc. Peoples’ predictions often, if not always, coincide with their own ideology, which indicates that this is not just about “predictions”, but also about their philosophy. The problem isn’t predictions; it is opposing views, the views from which their predictions come from.
I have not argued against that. But communists aren’t just against what you would call “unjust private property”, but rather all private property. They view it as illegitimate, not because the State upholds it, but rather the existence of private property in and of itself.
Insofar as someone is genuinely opposed to the state, I’d consider them to be a likely ally. I don’t really care if their personal fantasy for what life would be like in a post-state society is a bit off or kooky.
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Insofar as someone is opposed to private property i consider them an enemy, not an ally. I also don’t reduce their views to “personal fantasies”, but rather see it as an opposing view. If someone says that they want to abolish the State in order to seize all property, and put it under the control of the collective, and claim that property is a crime I can’t view them as allies. Then it’s not just different “predictions”, its opposing views about the most important of issues.
And one doesn’t have to be a communist to see that the state does in fact uphold the injustice of various “private” elites, which is not the fault of free market mechanisms, it’s part of the nature of the state and the symbiotic relationship between various segments of the economy and the state.
That is what you consider it to be. Anarcho-communists view private property as illegitimate (like other branches of communism), so their “voluntaryism” is different. They don’t view private property as I do, and they would see my property, not as mine, but rather something that I’m not entitled to. So their “little commune” could, according to their views on property legitimately steal it from me, since they don’t recognize my right to it.
Fantastic post. That’s really it in a nutshell. I think people mess around with the extreme right and left, thinking that they are useful idiots until statelessness occurs, but they are kidding themselves. Many of these groups have very unlibertarian (NAP, property) objectives.
Regardless, wouldn’t there need to be a meta-ethical strategy regarding arbitration with those who are not violent, yet do not hold similar views of property rights with other’s in a stateless society?
Those who may not agree with me regarding property rights (which is presently: personally agree to private property, but disagree with “Intellectual” Property) may not be an immediate ally to my view, but if they are not violent to me nor coercive, that also doesn’t make them my enemy either.
I would feel pretty damn hypocritical if I found myself in a majority view, but knew others who were in a minority view, whom might be outcasted accordingly & possibly persuded as criminals.
I do not mean to over complicate the debate, but that seems like a legitimate problem that will need to be addressed, methinks.
Obviously, some would be reasonable to “agree to disagree”, but other’s would not. What happens to them? Would territories eventually develop as somewhat of a result from agreements with others of a different anarcho- suffix?
I would be really disappointed if anarcho-communists were regarded as criminals over non-violent “crimes” due to a majority view holding private property legitimate, as it would simply mirror the schism between statists & anti-statists in today’s society (only, it would be this flavor of anti-state vs. that flavor of anti-state).
It seems to me that something more than the NAP may be required for a Stateless society to function, if it were to inhabit various other societies with various other anarcho-suffix’s co-existing, somehow.
This currently seems like a fairly daunting task, given the obvious advantage of all those in favor of Stateless Society coalescing into an allied movement would have towards progress to such a society, as the Statists have so avidly done in the past (one must grudgingly admire their success in this respect).
I might be over thinking, however; I would be very surprised if this wasn’t addressed already somewhere by someone.
Why? The foundation of a free society is property. I believe that Mises said something along the lines of that the essence of liberalism is contained in the concept of property, and indeed he was correct. Without a clear conception of property rights it is not possible for one to attack the state consistantly nor can one create any coherent alternative to the state.
One may point out the possibility of people sacrificing a certain degree of material wealth in order to live in some sort of commune that would represent equality. But that would be market anarchism and such lifestyles would quickly die out.
I wouldn`t go there. Many non-libertarians have solid views on variety of issues, particularly on imperialism. Cooperation with them can be very useful, however it must be understood any such alliance is tactical rather than ideological.
Any alliance with people with whom you have fundamental disagreements with is out of the question. For libertarians that means that alliances with those who advocate force is out of the question. That means paleocons but to a greater extent it means the left, no matter how much they say they hate the government.
It also means that egalitarians and cultural marxists must be ruled out, because their conception of anarchism is incompatible with a sincere libertarians, and ultimately wrong.
I’m slightly confused; are you implying that private property & market anarchism are not compatible (by first saying"…sacrificing a certain degree of material wealth in order to live in some sort of commune" & then "But that would be market anarchism’, so i thought you were contrasting). I thought they were compatible; I doubt everyone would want to live in a commune under market-anarchism :\
In any case, I see no reason why it would be a bad thing for people to go through the motions of the market & eventually discover that certain arrangements (such as a commune) may not be ideal and/or efficient lifestyle, via competition of the markets.
If anything, I think for many it would serve an important transition tool for initial entry into a stateless society, similar to how one may go & join the FSP, have enough money & resolve to go straight up there, pay per night for a bed with other individuals, but only until they find a job & improve their situation.
I oppose empire on principle. On libertarian principle.
I can’t ally myself with someone who endorses coercion or other non-libertarian principles. We might be working to the same ends, but I can’t condone their means.
Some claim that the differences between libertarians and anarcho-communists (and closely related ideologies) are just semantics. Anarcho-communists being anti-private property and libertarianism being pro-private property are not semantics. Communists, no matter which branch, views private property as illegitimate, not because the State upholds it, but the existence of private property in and of itself. This in fact makes the claim that they “don’t entirely oppose private property”, or “it’s just semantics” into a false statement. We stand in complete philosophical opposition.
Cooperation with other groups, that represents other ideologies, could work as long as you don’t sanction their otherwise evil views in the process, and as long as you don’t compromise with your own views. Groups that are fundamentally anti-freedom (i.e. anti-libertarian) shouldn’t be made to look more legitimate, just because they might have some views that are closer to libertarianism.
More importantly, these alliances assume too much of a Machiavellian strategy that The Statists just absolutely excel at, & such tactics and/or “glass alliances” would easily shatter at the drop of the political top hat, if it proved beneficial to our comrade statists.
I may agree on both the reformist & radical approaches being used (in accordance with a de-centralized strategy of challenging the power structure of The State), but I do not think actually “being used” by Statists is a sound strategy at all.
My point was essentially that can either oppose or accept private property. It makes no sense for libertarians to side with those that clearly oppose private property, no matter how much they claim to despise the state. Likewise it makes no sense to form alliances with minarchists or the paleocons. Going off on a tangent it does, however, make far more sense to attempt to convert minarchists and paleocons by showing them that the state cannot provide protection and promote cultural conservatism respectively.
The alternative to opposing private property is accepting it. And the moment one accept non aggression and private property consistantly one becomes an anarcho capitalist. Regardless of whether or not one desires to live in a hippie leftist commune at a subsistance level or not.
Now as for forming alliances with those who do superficially accept private property and yet promote some form of egalitarianism and cultural marxism, I still don’t think it’s a good idea. Since those ideas are not compatible with a coherent theory of private property. Private property is by its very nature unegalitarian.
No, I’m saying that Statists are opportunists, snakes in the grass, access to guns, nukes, & the IRS. They regularly infiltrate (or attempt to) various libertarian and/or anarchist movements, what wouldn’t prevent them from repeating what they did to the RNC 8 on a wider scale?