I realize most people who would visit 196 certainly know this, but I still feel compelled to point out that anarchism is entirely incompatible with capitalism.
Technically, anarchism is incompatible with communism, fascism, and socialism, as all of those require the state to exist in some way if undertaken at the national scale.
Anarcho-capitalism makes the most sense of them all. Just say you don’t want a state to exist at all because you want to suck some robber baron/warlord’s cock.
Tell me you know nothing about anarchism, communism, fascism, or socialism, without saying you know nothing about anarchism, communism, fascism, or socialism lol..
A state, according to the average anarchist, is a society ruled by rulers who make decisions for you.
Resource distribution and factory management could absolutely be planned without a central planner under socialism/communism/whatever. Capitalism, on the other hand, needs bosses and police officers that protect the boss’s property. Fascism doesn’t require an explanation IMO.
Whoever is making the decisions about distribution and factory management is effectively a state at that point.
There’s also the fact that generally, people want to live in developed nations. You’ll need a military to keep your neighboring countries from taking all your stuff/people/land, and you’ll need some kind of police force to keep those few assholes you have internally from just kidnapping people or stealing everything that isn’t nailed down whatever.
You’ll need a military to keep your neighboring countries from taking all your stuff/people/land, and you’ll need some kind of police force to keep those few assholes you have internally from just kidnapping people or stealing everything that isn’t nailed down whatever
As you have pointed out here, the state will always be the enemy of progress, will stand in the way of and disrupt every attempt at creating a more equitable society (which must exist apart from a state, since a state will always trend toward fascism, without exception).
For this reason, most anarchists start practicing our ideals immediately and do not await a revolution. We try to educate people and inform them. We work imperfectly within desperately broken and inequitable systems to introduce more equity and justice.
Want to see an example of this in action? Look up the Zapatistas.
I love how that was the one moment you weren’t willing to expand your explanation and just left a link. Did you notice yourself accidentally describing a state and decided to not leave the opening?
Whatever diplomatic routine you pull that results in the organization that communists are striving for: that’s the state. An external force with a plan about how people organize. You can call it whatever form of state you want, you can call it a commune, a collective, but whatever method the people use to organize themselves that way is that state.
Think it through: how are decisions made, do we cast a vote? Well contracts, you have a democratic state. Do we use diplomacy? Congrats, you have a diplomatic state. Okay so what if we just want some rules for who does what and we don’t make people make those decisions, congrats you have a constitutional state. Uh oh people aren’t following rules, looks like we need to hire people to enforce those rules… Ever wonder why every communist system ever had an overabundance of police?
The link you posted is completely untrustworthy by the way. I mean, look at this:
If anything, getting paid to do something makes it less enjoyable
Any health brain in the world would throw up alarm bells at this. A classic sophist technique, to prime the conclusions by peppering little lies that make it more palatable. Every study ever performed on paid/unpaid labor has this solved, don’t start pretending it’s true now.
Here’s a hint: unpaid labor is called what exactly? Using unpaid labor to get things done, what’s that called?
Plus, look at how this comment chain started. The original replier made the point that communism fascism and socialism all need a state to exist. Your source, when arguing that you don’t need bosses or state control mentioned a case where 500,000 workers over through a factory and controlled it democratically. He suspiciously doesn’t mention how long it lasted, only that it happened post WW1. He also doesn’t mention that that’s immediately before the fascist takeover of Italy, in which Mussolini cooperated with many of these violent revolutionaries called syndicates, and they were unproductive without right control.
I hold the same sentiment as you in regards to the state, I have a natural distrust towards it I suppose. However, I do not agree that this is at all compatible with an ideology that necessitates maximal cooperation. It’s not any wonder to me at all that the regimes who felt most passionately about how people should cooperate and live together end up the most oppressive
Which do you not understand: anarchism or communism? Communism is a stateless, classless society. It does not require a state, and it is perfectly compatible with anarchism. In fact, within any form of anarchism you’d find communism.
Anarchism is no state and no hierarchies. In any form, it seeks horizontality and mutual aid. It is absolutely unhinged to think that’s compatible in any way with capitalism.
Jfc the media has really succeeded in deluding people about what anarchism is, haven’t they? The surprising thing is I’d expect that on, say, Facebook or 4chan or Stormfront, but I thought 196 was more … leftist
Good point. I always browse by new, so I forgot that that’s a thing.
I guess that explains why posts seem to start with some productive discussion, but then tend to get derailed over time. It gets exhausting having to explain the very basics over and over again, but maybe I need more patience. I too grew up propagandized, and thankfully I’ve had some people help me learn.
Yeah, it can spiral downhill pretty quick, and it's often the same handful of people who go around doing their wilfully ignorant reactionary thing on every fucking post (and since we can see them on kbin - another group who lurk and downvote any marginally leftist comment without engaging, because gods forbid their bias gets challenged)..
Trying to help these people learn is great, but can only go so far as long as they aren't interested in knowing. The undecided lurkers though, those are the ones you hope are picking up your knowledge!
I guess I fall off when we talk about communism or anarchism outside of being a concept. That’s just me and not some snark. I’m not a very good student and I also feel like the curriculum was light on both those subjects.
I just said to someone else perhaps I should have more patience because I too grew up propagandized against both anarchism and communism.
Best books about anarcho-communism are perhaps those by Kropotkin. People often recommend the Conquest of Bread, perhaps his most famous book. Personally, I find Mutual Aid to be a better introduction.
For anarchism in general, Anarchy Works is fantastic. Very accessible, too.
BTW both books can be taken in small bits. Just reading the introductory chapters will tell you a lot.
There’s also a YouTube channel called Audible Anarchist, if reading is hard or if you just prefer audio. I listen to it while I’m out for a walk or a longboarding session.
You misspelled utopia. Not sure what reality you’d expect humans to create a stateless and classless “communism” outside the hippie commune out in the woods.
The comment you replied to even said “at a national scale.” That’s the rub, isn’t it?
Well of course, there would be no nation ideally, so the concept of a national scale is a bit incompatible in a way, isn’t it? As you pointed out in another comment, the existence of nations only threatens progress and equity! They can and do disrupt any such attempt. I mean, look what happened to the Spanish anarchists, and what the US has done every time a remotely leftist movement has taken hold in Latin America.
I don’t agree with the Marxist-Leninists, but even for them the end goal is (at least in theory) to advance to statelessness and classlessness. We anarchists don’t agree that such a thing can be achieved via a state. A state will never offload its power. Its whole shtick is coercion and control, and it will hold onto that at all costs.
utopia
Very few anarchists would use this term. The concept of a utopia is rather antithetical to anarchism, by most people’s assessment. “Utopia” implies a perfect society with no room to progress. I doubt such a thing is possible, and I think it might be rather harmful to imagine we’ve arrived at perfection. It would stifle progress, now wouldn’t it?
I’d say that I’m about half anarchist, and about half libertarian socialist. Give or take.
In my estimation, anarchism–and all other flavors or communism–start to break down past the community level. Humans in general seem to be wired to work communally in tribal groups, but don’t seem to be able to work communally in larger groups without some kind of authoritarian or coercive control. My own experiences with anarchistic groups have been that they work fantastically well at a local level, and then break down immediately once you have to deal with a national organization and branches in other cities and states. Having direct democracies in those groups also meant that some things would get bogged down by endless debate and schisms, when any action would have been better than no action at all.
So then this is yet another argument against large, powerful states, and an argument for the exact types of communities that anarchists are calling for. Obviously, we need to abolish statehood entirely if we wish to progress. You’re preaching to the choir! No state, no hierarchies, no classes.
There are multiple problems with that. Take something like climate change, for instance. At a community level, there’s not a lot you can do. In fact, at a community level, there’s less you can do, since a single small, local community won’t individually have the resources to do something like, say, build a nuclear power reactor. (Of course, multiple small communities could band together to do that, but then you’ve just recreated the kind of large gov’t that you’re attempting to abolish.) Even worse, you’re likely to have communities like, say, every city in Texas (other than Austin, maybe) that would eliminate all emissions controls in the name of cheap power. Addressing the problem requires not only national regulation, but international regulation, which goes well beyond the ability of local communities.
You’ve also got problems with local communities often running roughshod over individual liberties; e.g., cities tend to be much more forgiving of people being LGBTQ+ than small communities, and LGBTQ rights tend to be protected by states and national governance rather than by community governance. (I’m speaking from experience on this one.)
That’s why I tend to argue for a blended model, something that has strong protections for personal, individual liberties, while still having a solid framework to address problems too large for communities to deal with.
Communism requires someone to distribute goods and assign labor. That person is effectively going to be your state at essentially any scale above a family.
And if you want to live in a developed society, you need a state to defend against invasion and colonization, arrest murderers and rapists, and regulate trade (even if trade is only external).
That distribution doesn’t have to be top down. And as communism is a stateless society, the entire concept is predicated on the absence of top down distribution. Read up on democratic confederalism, parecon, project cybersin (admittedly done with the presence of a state but there’s nothing about the system the necessitates one).
The CNT-FAI, zapatistas, rojava, and free territories of ukraine can all speak to decentralized militias. For auth-left examples just check out maoist militant orgs, they drew a ton of inspiration for anarchists in how to manage militias.
Most anarchists are prison abolitionists, I’m not going to summarize that one, look into it if you wish
Market economies can and have existed in horizontal societies. There’s nothing inherently contradictory regarding trade regulations in a horizontal society
Communism does not require a state. What part of “a stateless, classless society” are you failing to grasp?
Even state authoritarian communist nations at least ostensibly seek a stateless, classless society. That’s the whole fucking point.
And you don’t need a state for those other things either. Do you think anarchists just throw shit at the wall and hope for the best? There are functioning anarchist communities which have no state. If they did, then they wouldn’t be anarchist.
It’s because capitalism the pejorative is distinct from capitalism the naturalistic economic theory and a lot of people actively refuse to understand this. Unless your anarchist society is truly post-scarcity, you will end up with commerce and value proxies regardless of how much you wish otherwise. And even in a material post-scarcity society, there will still be scarcity in the form of things like artistic talent, companionship, etc. If you don’t want to call that capitalism, then you might as well just define capitalism as monsters under your bed.
There is no post-capitalist society besides the one focused on harm reduction. And then there is no utopia, no end goal, only an eternal struggle to combat the evils of where material scarcity and human greed intersect.
I think you are misunderstanding the conversation. I am a leftist, and I am not saying it’s “human nature,” more that “capitalist” structures are an inevitable byproduct of scarcity. This is not particularly controversial economics, and if anything, I am making a linguistic argument against reducing capitalism to “everything bad about modernity.” Just like many people do in terms of reducing leftism to “everything bad about the USSR.”
More generally, making leftism liturgical and literally blocking out any discussion of first principles is one of the biggest things about online leftist communities which turns people off.
The whole issue is that you go into pretty much any Lemmy thread and it’s like “man I hate getting up early for work” and there will inevitably be a bunch of comments being like “yeah fuck capitalism.”
Because communism is when sleeping in, or whatever.
It’s just kind of juvenile and completely misses the point about the nature of the anti-capitalist struggle and the nature of effective praxis, and I’m honestly sick of it. And to make matters even worse, on top of that you have people smugly spouting off day one political science 101 like it is some kind of enlightenment, and then literally blocking out any conversation about more contemporary leftist thought, literally calling it propaganda, because I guess it doesn’t scratch the itch for revolutionary fan service enough. And this is the “intellectual side” of internet leftism.
As someone who has actually studied political science and economics, being lectured by ignorant internet leftists after gently questioning their reductive, outdated dogma is just exhausting.
Communism is a stateless, moneyless, classless society. In what way is that incompatible with anarchism, the ideology based on the elimination of heirarchy (the state)?
Modulo MLs defining state to mean “any method of organising a society” in which case not even anarchism is stateless because yes of course we’re doing that. The common politological understanding of state is more or less along those lines, too. I propose to not get anything in any twists over definitions.
Anything is only incompatible with anarchism insofar as it inflicts hierarchical power. Certain stuff at least some people call communism most certainly falls under that umbrella (though even Lenin admitted it was state capitalism), others are compatible or at least very close. Classical council communism certainly looks awfully like anarcho-syndicalism.
That’s assuming anarchists agree with Marx’s definition of the state. Which, famously, they don’t. It’s far too nebulous to be useful for analysis, theory or prefigurarion. Marx isn’t the end all be all of left wing politics. Here’s a short video going into more depth on anarchist criticisms of the Marxist conception of the state.
To quote Malatesta “Anarchists, including this writer, have used the word State, and still do, to mean the sum total of the political, legislative, judiciary, military and financial institutions through which the management of their own affairs, the control over their personal behaviour, the responsibility for their personal safety, are taken away from the people and entrusted to others who, by usurpation or delegation, are vested with the powers to make the laws for everything and everybody, and to oblige the people to observe them, if need be, by the use of collective force.”
If you’re going to debate anarchist ideas, you should use anarchist definitions so at the very least you understand what you’re criticizing.
Definitions matter and communism has been understood as a stateless, classless, moneyless society for as long as the term has existed. The only people who would contest that definition are either ignorant or anti-communist actors who have a vested interest in muddying the waters. And I don’t think those individuals should have the final say on what is and isn’t communism.
Lenin didn’t practice or install a communist society, and as you’ve noted, he didn’t intend to. Council communists and even libertarian marxists (Marxist autonomists for example) are both horizontal ideologies and despite some linguistic differences from anarchism, I consider them comrades. They can call it a state if they want, anarchists would disagree. But if the only difference between us and them is definitions, I don’t really see an issue. That’s something that can be debated post-revolution
If you’re going to debate anarchist ideas, you should use anarchist definitions so at the very least you understand what you’re criticizing.
I know Malatesta’s definition trouble is I consider it just as problematic as the other definitions as it obscures horizontal structures already existing within the overall hierarchical structure, dismissing all of it because it’s part of the overall usurpation of power, while we have way better terms to address the parts that matter (hierarchy and horizontal). Back in Malatesta’s time, the state indeed was horizontal, and peasants organised horizontally apart from the state. Things are way more intertwined and fuzzy now.
But more generally speaking I wanted to point out, to the general audience, that different definitions are in use.
I don’t have a good definition of state, either. I’d even go so far and ask why the hell should anarchists have a definition of state? Why should we cling onto a concept which can either only ever be used in the negative, or bog down to something so generic as the ML one? Neither is theoretically productive.
And on yet another level I’d say that’s all egg-headed gobbeldygook without any practical relevance whatsowhatever. Including my meta-thoughts on this. So I just avoid the term state and talk about power to vs. power over/hierachy vs. horizontal.
I generally agree with you but I do find it useful to have some description of the state. If anything, I’d say Malatesta’s definition is more relevant now than it was when he wrote it. At the very least when speaking to non-anarchists who may not have a grasp on how power functions. It points out specific areas of statehood that are broadly problematic and shifts the conversation towards the lack of political power and self determination present in our everyday lives. It’s a useful rhetorical device, perhaps a bit dated, but most people aren’t familiar with politics outside of electoralism. Having a short description on hand can help others towards radicalization.
Having negative terms isn’t inherently a bad thing either. Every ideology has things they’re for and against. Being able to clearly describe the things we’re against is not only helpful, it’s necessary. We use terms like domination, coercion and heirarchy almost exclusively in the negative, should we get rid of those as well?
It is a bit nerdy lol, but I feel the concept of a state still has relevance in our day to day work, even if onyl as a rhetorical device. It can, and still is, used to write good theory and analysis. At the end of the day, MLs and other authoritarians use the term positively and seek to grow state power. The state is still present in our everyday lives as I (and I think plenty of other anarchists) view it as part of the kyriarchy/mega machine/whatever you want to call it. What would you refer to this particular apparatus as?
What would you refer to this particular apparatus as?
The state. But in the usual politigological sense, not a special anarchist one. Anarchists can also talk about bananas, and solve issues and organisational problems regarding bananas, without having a specifically Anarchist definition of bananas: A specifically Anarchist understanding and approach suffices.
More practically speaking: There is a metric buttload of horizontal organisation that can be done in the average liberal democracy, without stepping on the state’s toes but still prefiguring Anarchism, strongly challenging hierarchical realism. Depending on where you are, the state will even actively support your work, even if it’s specifically Anarchist, say, increasing rapport and horizontal enmeshment between civil society actors. If, in such a situation, we’re theoretically fixated on opposition of “the state” we’re, in my mind, by pure equivocation of the Anarchist vs. politicological concepts of state, less effective than possible. “Let’s apply for that state funding pot, it meets our goals and principles” shouldn’t be a taboo thing to say in a meeting, just make sure to have an erm diplomatic corps in place when dealing with entities that are mixed hierarchical/horizontal to avoid becoming hierarchical by osmosis.
Of course, I agree that that might be completely impossible or just too much of an headache depending on how the local state bureaucracy functions. Over here the long march through the institutions has been quite successful, they don’t really have an idea what to really do with those newly-gained positions, but they and with it many parts of the apparatus are amenable. You deal with them just like you’d deal with, what, the Rotary Club: At arm’s length, but not antagonistic on principle (even though they’re a bunch of elitist bourgeois snobs). Antagonism should be directed specifically at hierarchy, and not attack imperfect and only barely principled other structures, those should be left room to see the light for themselves, absorb horizontalism by osmosis.
Or, differently put: If your local city council wants to move a homeless camp to proper housing and to organise that they call you first, not the Salvation Army (six hierarchy steps from “soldier” to “general”) because they think you can do it better you’ve already won, the system just hasn’t fully understood it yet.
If bananas were a central part of anarchist ideology and, through decades of discussion and theory, we came to a more holistic and useful conception of what constitutes a banana than the common understanding of what a banana is, I would argue in favor of using the more distinct definition. But the state is also infinitely more complicated than a banana. It’s character has changed over time, often progressing in ways that past anarchists have predicted. The fact that a hundred year old conception of the state still has legs shows that not only is it accurate, but useful. You could define so many horizontal societies as states using the common definition. If we’re trying to build a society distinct and separate from what currently exists, shouldn’t our language reflect that? It’s important to distinct, concrete markers for progress in our struggles. And the abolition of the modern state is among the top of the list in matters of importance.
Just because we can peacefully coexist and even work with the state apparatus for a time doesn’t mean we don’t seek it’s elimination. If we’re calling our end goal by the same name as the thing we wish to eliminate, it only serves to create confusion. What’s the point of saying “the state is our enemy, we seek to recreate the state but minus all of the things that most people would consider functions of the state?”
Language can also be prefigurative, and part of that is using terms held in common among our group in the way we understand them. It’s far easier to mold this facet of the world we wish to change if we’re not immediately contradicting ourselves and confusing others. Even if you went through the route of focusing strictly on power dynamics and heirarchy without mentioning the state. Eventually it’s going to come up, people are going to ask if we want to get rid of the state/government. What do you say? “We don’t want to get rid of the state, we want to turn it into the state but one that’s completely unrecognizable as a state to the average person”?
Just because we can peacefully coexist and even work with the state apparatus for a time doesn’t mean we don’t seek it’s elimination.
You’re doing it. That’s the equivocation I was talking about: We’re not co-existing with the state Malatesta put at the core of his definition, we cannot seek its abolition because it does not exist in that form, any more. We’re not out to eliminate the muncipical organisation of garbage collection yet when you say “eliminate the state apparatus (that we currently can work with)” you’re saying exactly that. Malatesta’s state would never fund a rag-tag group of peasants doing things the lord didn’t order.
“We don’t want to get rid of the state, we want to turn it into the state but one that’s completely unrecognizable as a state to the average person”?
Honestly? Yes. If in doubt just say that you want a better democracy: More participatory, more direct, delegates instead of representatives. I have no idea whether there will actually be a revolution or not because noone, anywhere, has ever actually come close to implement what’s possible in liberal democracies, without changing the constitution, without changing laws. Take over at least a municipality before judging how the broader state will react – over here our federal states don’t really care, aren’t allowed to care (subsidiarity), how a municipality collects garbage what’s mandated is that garbage is collected which isn’t really a thing I feel like rebelling against. There’s some doubts I have about constitutional requirements, OTOH the law on municipal constitutions actually does contain an experiment clause, so you could make a council structure municipal law and state courts would uphold it. Is it undignified to have to beg state bureaucracy to let you organise your municipality in the way you want? Possibly, but also remember that the laws are in place to prevent fascists from abolishing municipal democracy, any anarchist federation would have a similar mechanism, “here’s five standard municipal constitutions to choose from, if you like something else and it’s still anarchist we can talk”. In the mean time you can elect people to the official city council that take being a delegate of their neighbourhood council instead of mere representatives seriously. Yes, form a party if that’s what’s needed.
Zen (bear with me) talks about “sudden enlightenment, gradual refinement”, what I want to say is that the revolution might actually already have happened, and what’s necessary now for society is to find our bearings, to cast off old habits, that resistance we still face is not due to hierarchy still being in a strong position, but due to inertia and our own incapability to come up with horizontal modes of organisation to replace existing structures, and the courage to implement them, that this “the state is the enemy” talk is actually a mistake of ours, preventing ourselves from doing what we could because we confuse Malatesta’s state for the one that currently exists.
Sorry I was not clear. You said that anarchy is incompatible with anarcho-capitalism. I am disagreeing with this by saying that anarcho-communism is incompatible (with anarcho-capitalism), but I think anarchy in general sense is comparable with anarcho-capitalism.
Anarchy is not by any stretch of the imagination compatible with capitalism. Anarchism by definition rejects hierarchies. Capitalism relies on hierarchies and oppression.
There are different valid anarchist theories – anarcho-communism, anarcho-primitivism, syndacalism, etc. – but capitalism is not compatible with anarchism by any stretch. Like, what???
the organization of society on the basis of voluntary cooperation, without political institutions or hierarchical government
Notice that they specifically talk about government.
Wikipedia has simple definition as “without rulers” which does not defect societal hierarchies either.
I would say the question whether anarcho-capitalism is anarchy is a question of definition, and many people use definition that allows for non-governmental hierarchy, especially if it is not forced.
I’m literally an anarchist. There is no way to reconcile anarchism with hierarchies. You have no clue what you’re talking about, and posting a denotation straight from the dictionary just reveals your ignorance. No denotation can adequately define anarchism.
many people use definition that allows for non-governmental hierarchy
They’re mistaken and wrong.
People grossly misunderstand anarchism. More at 11.
You understand that you have here “no true Scotsmen” argument, and argue that only your definition of anarchism is the right one, right?
When I offer you definitions from dictionary and Wikipedia I show you, demonstrate with examples, established use of the word, as opposed to yours absolutely unsupported claim “it is because I said so”. Why do you discuss anything here at all if all you want is to proclaim your dogmatic truth?
That’s your opinion, and that’s all addressed by anarchist theory. It seems to me you’re just shooting from the hip and parroting anti-anarchist propaganda you’ve been fed all of your life.
Edit: Blocked because “anarchism is incompatible with anarchism” is some of the most utterly baffling pseudo-intellectual horseshit it’s been my displeasure to read. I need to wash my eyes after seeing those words on the screen.
Unfortunately, it’s just another in a long line of people who completely misunderstand anarchist theory and instead argue with a figment of their own imagination, based on years of propaganda.
On one hand, I should have more patience to educate people like that citing books and real-life examples. On the other hand, after a post’s been up for nearly a day, I get fucking exhausted with explaining to yet another person why they are completely off base. I come online to escape the people like that who I’m surrounded by in my backwards-ass red state. If they’re really interested in knowing why they’re wrong, they can reference my other comments. But I don’t have time for them.
Regarding the Chad as Anarcho-Capitalist convo: I think we maybe shouldn’t credit value to character archetypes rather than to logic and principles.
No one’s actually a complete Chad IRL. Some look the part. Some look the part and walk the walk some, but plenty are still true believers of white power. Some look the part but are really Gaston, or ready to go Joffrey at a moment’s notice.
Others of us don’t look Chad at all, and may look doomer, or sad girl (or whoever she is. Maybe Female Of The Species) and still have a point or legitimate grievance.
What others classify you as doesn’t make you or your feelings less valid. These archetypes are observer’s perspectives of instances. Moments. They’re not a complete picture of what is happening.
And being or becomming Chad (or Neitzsche’s ubermensch) is not in having perfect positions all the time, but being willing to err and learn from our mistakes. IRL, its a process, and even Christian nationalist Chad can learn, recover, and walk an enlightened path. Chad is a process. And 72% Chad is still pretty Chad.
Apparently you didn’t read the subtopics in the forum. Much ado was made about the Chad meme guy being used as thr anarcho-capitalist being hypocritical.
Has any online leftist ever talked to an ancap? It’s not that they suppirt oppression outright, just that they don’t care if it doesn’t affect them. That’s why their ideology makes sense: they don’t consider that they’d be the proles, they’d be the capitalists.
Coincidentally, that’s why most authoritarians support their brand of oppression: in their specific genre, they’re the winners and the losers can go fuck themselves. And no, they don’t consider that they’re just paving the way to their ineviable overthrow
It’s not that they suppirt oppression outright, just that they don’t care if it doesn’t affect them
So they support oppression outright.
"If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor"
(never mind that they openly support capitalism, and capitalism by design and necessity is oppressive, so either way, you're not making the point you think you're making, or worse, are being not even neutral in the face of "an"caps ambitions of oppression, but actively arguing in its defence)
Intent to support and support in effect are separate things. You can do one without the other. When you conflate the two, it muddies the water (although it is still good to point out that accidentally supporting something is still support)
There’s a difference between wanting to opress people and wanting something that oppresses people for its other effects. The forner is unrelatable and outright evil, the latter is something most people do without even realizing it
Bro its literally in the name, ancap is short for anarcho capitalism. And by definition its correctly used in that name, either you don’t speak about ancaps or you are stupid.
Ok then you must believe that Nazis were socialists and that North Korea is a democracy. Everyone knows that if it’s in the name, it must be true! And fascists like ancaps are famous for being honest and forthright, historically speaking
There is a difference between naming your thing after something and your thing being named after a defined term, you just don’t understand what you are talking about…
You don’t understand what you’re talking about. I see in another comment you think that anarchism is “doing whatever you want” or some ignorant childish shit like that.
You know what I think? I think you actually do know what anarchism is and that you’re just an ancap-defending troll and fascist who came here to start shit. You’re not wanted here, and I’m reporting you for trolling and uncivil behavior on the grounds that you’ve had multiple people patiently explain to you why you’re wrong, and you continue to fling shit like the reactionary primate you are.
Stop trolling. Shit gets named so it sounds god on the surface all the time. Like ‘noLifeKing’ one would assume that meant someone was against monarchy. But here you are, eager to bend the knee and suck their balls, for any ancap around… Or perhaps i misread, and the pronunciation is no-life. Which explains why you’re 50 comments deep in defending an terribly ideology you claim not to support, and clearly know nothing about.
No life King is another name of Alucard hellsing wich is the guy in my pfp.
The therm anarcho capitalism (ancap) has a definition you just ignore the definition and call Faschist or Plutocrats ancaps because you don’t know what the word means.
Terms have meanings indeed, but sometimes those meanings are stupid, made up, and deliberately chosen to mist the waters for whatever the actual agenda is. But seeing how some adults believe in Santa Claus or s first earth, maybe ancaps are just delusional.
No. They’re correct. AnCap is not an anarchic ideology and is just a form of re-branded neo-feudalism. There’s a lot of hand-waving and arguments that intentionally avoid following threads to their logical conclusion.
Capitalism is a mandatorily hierarchical system. It literally revolves around capitalists owning the means of production and leveraging it to extract as much value from workers’ labor as is possible to keep as profit. This makes it incompatible with any form of anarchism.
“AnCap” has nothing to do with anarchism and revolves around elimination of regulatory power, services, and social safety nets of the state, while preserving the state’s ability to use violence to coerce workers into falling in line. State services and social safety nets are then “replaced” by dependence on the goodwill of capitalists voluntarily providing for the less fortunate. The dynamic setup by this can logically only lead to increasingly disparate distribution of wealth and power, with capitalists becoming kings and workers becoming serfs, completely dependent upon their rulers because they have no ability to economically support themselves.
Nope. That’s bartering. When small children want to exchange goods, they don’t draw up paper to represent abstract value, they barter because it’s natural, then they need to be taught how capitalism works. People bartered and exchanged goods and services for thousands of years before capitalism came along.
This is the most idiotic take I’ve seen in a long time, children want to keep stuff for themselves or exchange it for something of “equivalent value” money is just a substrate because humans specialized in making different things, a baker can’t trade 10k breads for a new oven even if its the same value, this is because the bread goes bad before its used. Money is just something that we rely on for the sake of convenience.
Its logically the most natural way of doing things.
It’s not a take, it’s history. Like recorded history. My argument was for what is natural, not what is logical or better. Humans started bartering thousands of years before the invention of currency because it’s the quickest and most natural way of exchanging goods. No need for insults either, we’re just talking here, no need to get so hot and bothered over it.
Wrong again. Human society was around approximately 300,000 years before we invented currency, money as we know it was only really invented 5,000 years ago, so unless your argument is it took humans 300,000 years to do what came naturally to them then money isn’t really natural.
its impractical
You’re moving the goalpost again, my argument was for what is natural, not what is practical.
I think you forgot that humans, for their most time lived in very very little gettogethers like monkeys, the start of humanity is said to be the foundation of the first city, approximately 12000 years ago and humans used “money” before that, if it was gigantic stones that have Been named by the owner or if its small shells or anything similar.
Money isn’t just stuff give out by a government.
And no im saying that your argument is wrong because you missed the point that money is not capitalism, money is, as i said, a practical solution for trading stuff, the equivalent exchange is much much older(and the natural way, as its observed by even small animals), but it got impractical as society progressed into more specified jobs.
Your definition of humanity is more the definition of civilization, which came after the domestication of wheat, which is a thing I’ve actually studied a lot. The problem is that that definition has nothing to do with a physical change in humans, it’s just a societal shift. Humans have existed for like 315,000 years and those people, other than different advancements in technology were the same, doing what came naturally to them. We’re social animals and living in societies is as old as humanity itself.
Capitalism was a system so alien to humans before the hording of wealth that it took a solid millennium for them to get used to it. People just exchanged goods and services for thousands of years, or sharing tasks and pitching in to help each other. The majority of human existence resembled anarchy or communism more than capitalism.
Humans just don’t naturally use money or enact capitalism unless the need exists, which usually doesn’t arise without the complication of advancements of society.
I think you missed the point again, so here a TLDR: capitalism can exist without money and is the most natural way of economy, money isn’t capitalism its just a convenience.
My point was and is that capitalism is natural not that money is natural. BTW, we teached animals to use money as well so the concept is so easy that even animals understand.
Depends on the ancap. Some are actually progressive capitalists, like the Democrats but on steroids. Others are just nazis that like to jerk off to loli hentai and playing video games, but don't want the negative association with the authoritarian right, be it your grandpa conservatives or some caricature of nazis (read: a lot of people think nazi equals with people wanting to do evil things for the sake of evil).
no they don’t. anarcho-capitalists are fascists. they don’t want the state gone they just want it minimal and out of the way so they can exploit whoever and whatever they want to build their own empire like a robber baron of ages ago. there is no place for capitalism in anarchy.
Bro did you drink paint? Either you are anarchists (anarcho) or Faschist, you by definition can’t be both. Faschism is maximum state influence, real faschism is closer to communism than capitalism.
And there is place for capitalism in the concept of anarchy. By definition you can do whatever you want in anarchy. Wich is completely idiotic but that’s a different story.
What you describe is a form of Plutocracy not Ancaps or something similar.
ancaps are not anarchists was my whole point bud. and no, the point of anarchy is not ‘do whatever you want even capitalism lol’. anarchy is recognizing that power over others breeds corruption and endeavouring to flatten hierarchies as much as feasibly possible to limit it. anarchy is ‘no ruler’ not ‘no rules lol wheeee’.
And your point is bs because its against a literal definition. You might mean something else, what you mean is rather Plutocracy than ancaps but you don’t seem to understand that.
everyone here is disagreeing with you about this. maybe you’re just wrong. i am an anarchist. ancaps are not accepted by any other faction of anarchists and are recognized as fascists in hiding. just like libertarians are just fash who want to smoke weed, ancaps are fash who want no regulation in the way of their riches, both hide behind minimal lip service and labels. just like fascist states nk and russia hide behind their democracy label.
And your point is bs because its against a literal definition.
Maybe a dictionary definition because dictionaries capture common understanding, which in the case of anarchism is abysmal. Good dictionaries will also list the actual meaning. But, as you said, a literal definition? That’s exactly “The absence of rulers”. Not the absence of order, the absence of norms, “lawlessness”, that’s called anomie.
And even if we here were wrong and you were right that still wouldn’t matter as by your own admission we can do as we please, including using terms in ways which seem disagreeable to you. But we don’t because we actually care about theory and the general intellectual integrity of things (in a material sense (in the actual meaning of material)) as without theory there’s no praxis, only actionism.
According to classical anarchist political theory anarcho-capitalism is a contradiction in terms. Private property (as in a select few owning the means to production, not as in personal possessions) will lead to hierarchy and oppression.
Of course self-proclaimed anarcho-capitalists disagree with this point. They believe a free (unregulated) market would be empowering for everybody.
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