IMO, I think it is more focused than the general scope of anarchism, as it doesn’t imply that no governence would exist (it would only imply to those who don’t know enough about anarchism to realize anarchism would entail self-governence among individuals). It focuses on the core aspects of society being voluntary & non-coercive oriented, rather than the currently involuntary & coercive oriented society we live in.
It would deduce that our current method of governance, & previous ones (specifically, a recent example being our consitutionalism) , have failed entirely to provide liberty & freedom as they are not voluntary (one cannot, at the time of birth, decide whether or not to agree to the constiution, etc.), & would go through many of the same insights of anarchism, but without having to jump through semantic hoops to distinguish itself from self-proclaimed anarchists who utilize coercive & violent action.
In french the world “volonté” means will, and “volontarisme” means the will of government is being imposed upon reality, in other words submitting reality to willpower.
I’m going to once again propose the term Plurarchy or Pluriarchy. It means the multiplicity and diversity of orders, which is an idea no one has so far even considered.
The only problem I would have with that is that is sounds (and looks) too much like plutocracy. Supporting plutocracy is something advocates of a free market are sometimes smeared with already.
Freiheit is the German word for freedom. We are in the Austrian tradition so why not use a German word as the basis for this new term?
Freiheitist anyone?
I say market-based governance, and oppose it to democratic/rebuplican governance. Its vote per dollar rather than per person. The market will decide on how many governments there are and the quality and quantity of their service. It will only be capitalistic in that the protection of private property yeilds better real revenues for the governments that protect such, as opposed to socialist, fascist, mercantilist, or other governments.
You don’t need to “reclaim” the word “anarchist” from the leftists. The leftist anarchists are your allies not your enemies. The vast majority of leftist anarchists have a philosophy that could very easily CO-EXIST with yours. I’ve participated in a “Black Bloc” but we specifically told each other NOT to damage private property. The point of a Black Bloc is to shut down the streets in a major city with a massive protest (usually an anti-war protest). PUBLIC property is often damaged (cop cars). Also, we specifically told each other to never hit a cop until after they started abusing us. The only people with us who didn’t follow the “Non-aggression Principle” were either idiots who none of us knew or FBI infiltrators (most likely BOTH). The FBI infiltrate anarchists groups just so they can smash windows of private businesses and whatever else to make us look like psychopaths.
Read the anarcho-socialist manifesto named “ParEcon” and explain where that goes against your philosophy. There is no coercion involved. It’s just about people choosing to work together. (On a side note, how are Howard Zinn and Chomsky statists at all?)
Also, the third largest group of anarchists, anarcho-primitists, just want to peacefully live off of the land and invite others to do the same. Without the state, they could do that. They don’t want to forcefully take property from anyone else. But this does bring up the question: under the new society explained in the anarcho-capitalist essay “Chaos Theory”, who would own the property that tribal natives currently occupy? Would businesses continue to burn down their rainforests (or where-ever else depending on which natives we are talking about) just because the businesses bought the property from past governments?
Why can’t we all just unite under the pure black flag. Do we really need the gold/black, red/black, green/black flags? The vast majority of anarchists can unite under the common “Non-aggression Principle.”
No, they could not. They do not embrace private property rights. They are fixated on a false paradigm class struggle.
Democracy is coercion.
The reason why there are different flags, are due to our differences which sometimes are trivial, and sometimes very significant.
This is what I found about ParEcon on the net.
Albert argues both against the market and central planning as distributive methods in an egalitarian society.
That so doesn’t go over well here, when we are pretty much all about the market. I don’t want to express my preferences in a council. I don’t want to be egalitarian. And I don’t think people should be paid by how much effort they put in.
From what I read, ParEcon rejects the subjective theory of value, the market, and individual sovereignty. It reads like crank theory to me (no offense intended, but it is what it is…)
Tell that to the Anarchism sub-reddit @ Reddit. An-cap is a dirty word, & anything remotley related (i.e. market anarchism, & even Voluntaryist) are looked down upon by a few select elitists who if given the chance, probably would instantly be in favor of private property if they were threatened by something (i.e. a call to not be a hypocrite, & give up their current private property in order to be more consistient, etc.).
No, not until I see some efforts by the other anarchism movements to stop treating those who do not buy into “popular rhetoric” as idiots, which I really don’t think will happen, seeing as most participants are probably only moonlighting as anarchists to sleep better at night under the watchful eye of The State.
To quote specifically from the blog LS referred to:
First off…
1.) Not a single word on the page (as far as I can understand) on whether this parEcon system should be voluntary or involuntary. From the language used, it is the typical idealistic Statist rhetoric of getting “the right tools”, “the right attitude”, and “the right men” to get the job done correctly. If they are advocating this as an involuntary system that will be used as a package deal towards others who do not wish to be involved, I have no interest in it whatsoever. I’ve briefly read up on particpatory economics, & like other economics systems, think it would be one of many in a free-market compeition of overall economic systems if it is done voluntarily.
2.) At some points this sounds like an individualized, self-imposed socialism; intentionally limiting oneself to have incentive to consume, produce, etc. only insofar as much as one needs, in the name of “equality” or the egalitarian society.
3.) Not a damn word about how The State operates more efficiently with a consumer based society, economy, etc (I thought these guys were anarchists?) Not a damn word about how just maybe, without The State, there would be far more incentive to produce rather than rampant & almost mindless consumerism in our current Statist societies. Of course, socialism comes into play to take care of rampant consuemrism by balancing it out with rampant starvation, so I suppose it’s all good in the sense of “equillibrium”.
I’m sure not everything on the page is bad news, I’m only going off of what I’ve skimmed over thus far (about half way into the page, but I did use the Find function to see if anything I mentioned above was addressed, which I didn’t find.)
I’ll need more time to decide on parEcon, but my impression so far is “a nice possible organizational structure in the free-market being fudged over by fans of anarchism, going gaa-gaa over a new theory”.
Anyone who follows the NAP should be your ally. Demanding that anarchists should be isolated into separate groups is foolish and definitely not a winning strategy.
You can’t just generalize an massive group like that. Most of them embrace property rights, just not the property that was already taken via government intervention.
ParEcon is about people choosing to join egalitarian societies. If people don’t want to join them then they don’t have to. If it is your philosophy that no one should be allowed to voluntarily join an egalitarian society then you are not a libertarian nor an anarchist.
Thank you for at least spending time on it instead of immediately writing it off just because of what some random blog said about it. It’s endorsed by Howard Zinn and Noam Chomsky and it in no way endorses coercion.
[:)] That made me giggle. The primitist cultures that are being prevented to live that way are the natives who are being pushed off their land by governments. Not so much in this country anymore (since most were already murdered), but definitely in South America. And yes, I would consider native tribal cultures to be anarcho-primitists.
I know what you mean… and it makes me sad that there is such a misunderstanding between the an-caps and the an-socs. I think most of the misunderstanding comes from the words “capitalism” and “socialism”. People just don’t understand that anarcho-capitalism is totally different than the capitalism that we see today and that anarcho-socialism is totally different than socialism.
Anyone who believes in the abolition of coercion should be viewed as an ally.
I’m capitalist all the way but more or less agree with Robin’s point; there are more in-roads to be made by advancing anti-statism, rather than capitalism. Anarchy implies self-government, whose arrangements and alliances are constantly in revolution. The existence of socialists and capitalists in the same society does not result in war. It merely represents such economic arrangements both being economically sufficient to provide the capital (including labor/intelligence) necessary to protect their systems. Whether this means enforcing property rights or the enforcing the prohibition of such rights, such enforcement does not need to extend beyond those who choose to be self-governed in that manner; and thus does not require a resulting conflict.
I would disagree probably with Robin in saying that anarcho-socialists would be a rare breed, left to small groups, and never dominate in economic markets, presuming they even care to trade with capitalist sects. I don’t think any view that capital ownership, and thus free allocation, exchange, and entitlement to resulting products, is not only morally unsound but economically unsound has much merit.
A better point, however, is to remember that Mises and Rothbard stressed the difference between economics and ethics. Economics was dedicated to producing the largest amount of consumable output. Ethics is concerned about the distribution of this output. Conflating these two naturally lead many to economic socialism or central planning when they simply favor charitable ethics. Furthermore conflating ethics with power leads to statism.
It is almost without doubt shown that the most free and sizeable experiments in capitalism have been the most successful economic systems ever practiced. Additionally, these same societies are generally the most charitable and ethical in the world. It seems socialism in any form is contrary to its own goals, a product of classist myths that proved untrue. However, why should anyone be required to believe me over someone else? There are no moral means to have people follow your wise choices instead of their own foolish ones. So long as self-government is maintained and property rights of non-socialists are respected, force is immoral, even if practical. Human action is designed to maximize psychic benefits, not economic ones. We can never know the correct choices to maximize others’ happiness.
As a final point, the institution of marriage often imposes the collective principles of communists upon a couple (shared property, income, etc.), yet this leads to no conflict in the property rights of others or breakdown of the capitalist system…although it may be messy to disolve such unions.
I think you’d better hide the fact that Chomsky endorses it. Most anarchists here, and especially left-libertarian ones, have very little patience for him.
One would hope so, but the division is not just means, but also ends. For some people, non-aggression and collectivism are compatible. For some people non-aggression and democracy are compatible. I don’t believe so. I think that ultimately communal property rights + democracy = tyranny.
It’s what they want to do with the property afterwards.
Thanks for the link. I’ll take a look through it.
It doesn’t matter if democracy is forced. As soon as a vote is taken, and the majority “win” over the minority you’re no longer in a voluntary paradigm.
I don’t really care what people join or what they do. Until they show up on my doorstep, demanding my home and my property. AnSocs are much more likely to do so than AnCaps.