I was an anarchist as a child because I read a short dictionary definition, maybe describing it as meaning "without rules", and I figured that was what I wanted in life. Then I graduated to libertarianism as a teenager. Then in my 20s I encountered people who really called themselves anarchists, and they were all basically socialists with a sprinkling of individualism, which seemed incoherent because the socialism is all about taking people's property away for "the public" (which definitely won't ever turn into for the state, right?) ... so I sadly had to stop using the word "anarchy" since the dictionary had apparently misled me and nobody is just purely against being ruled.
But, I must say, I'm increasingly easy-going about the whole thing. I don't claim to know how things should be arranged, tax me if you must, assign me to clean the communal latrines, do what you like, such is life. I will generally assume that we're all getting it wrong, regardless of viewpoint.
> I was an anarchist as a child because I read a short dictionary definition, maybe describing it as meaning "without rules", and I figured that was what I wanted in life.
I was an anarchist as a teenager. Then I stopped thinking about politics until recently, when I rediscovered it, with a much more critical look. Then I read the Tao Te Ching, fell in love with its positive view of humanity and nature, and more importantly because Laozi can be described as the first anarchist but more grounded, as a large part of his work was advising actual monarchs, not academic posturing that's prevalent today.
Anarchism today means everything and nothing. One thing I have learned to loathe in my adult age is any form of anarcho-communism, as communism is nothing more than dictatorship of the proletariat. The much maligned anarcho-capitalism, and even early American libertarianism is more compatible with the ideas of freedom and "don't tread on me nor impose any rules on me" than any anarcho-communism that has been so popular in the past 100 years. Why should proletariat decide that I cannot have any private property?
On the other side, Randian and modern day libertarians are just conservative republicans with a different name, but libertarianism at the end of the 19th century had its root firmly in anarchist ideals.
> Why should proletariat decide that I cannot have any private property?
The whole point is they don’t, there is no state to enforce this, you are free to go off and enjoy your private property. Anarcho-communism means believe that our communities are better organized around sharing and collaboration than striving for individual gains, and that pursuing private property is fundamentally hierarchical in nature.
Have any of you “anarcho”-capitalists actually read any anarchist theory? Proudhon, Kropotkin, etc?
There are sub-families of anarchism, and you would be correct that the predominant form at the moment is a flavor of socialist anarchy. The purported relation to anarchy is that the world would be split into tons of small, self-organized communities that individuals are absolutely free to join and leave at will.
I tend to agree that it makes far more sense to call it socialism with some individualist facets than anarchy with some socialist attributes.
What you’re describing would be closer to individualist anarchy or philosophical anarchy. Individualist anarchy believes the right of the individual is paramount, excepting when the rights of two individuals clash. Philosophical anarchy is the general belief that the desires of individuals should not never be co-opted because one person can never morally justify forcing another to do something and thus governments can never be moral as their entire reason to exist is to wield the monopoly on violence against individuals to override their will. Individuals are of course still free to join groups and abide their rules if they choose, but those groups would not be able to enforce any kind of agenda against its members.
Thanks! Anarchism is about removing hierarchy, of which the most potent in our modern times is the hierarchy of capitalism. Anarchism is also opposed to the state; you’ll find there’s a lot of us at protests of police brutality and other instances of the hierarchy of the state.
The word has potential to mean "without rule", following its etymology. Once in a while, especially in art criticism, it can be unambiguously used that way. If a review of Dude, Where's My Car calls it an anarchic comedy, that doesn't mean it attacks hierarchies. It just means it defies established rules, such as "a successful movie must be any good". But historically, early anarchists were class-struggle types (maybe Irish or Spanish?) with those round cartoon bombs with the lit fuse sticking out, so it's always going to carry both meanings.
I notice this raises the question of the similarities or differences between hierarchies (of people, not html tags or whatever) and rulership. Certainly management, or government, or the church (going etymological again), has a hierarchy of higher-up hierophants issuing commands to lower-down losers, and it's all full of stinking rules, and there's some connection. And, say, HN, has a hierarchy which consists of Dang, and us, and below us, noobs, and that's about enforcing the rules, which I have to admit might not stink in this particular case. But sometimes there can be a hierarchy without a connection to rules. For instance, how fancy is your hairstyle? Do you shave it off as irrelevant, or just let it grow like a hippie, or cultivate dreadlocks, or have a bowl cut, or trim it with clippers, craft it with scissors, or perhaps opt for dye, a perm, a beehive, or Roman braids? In the hair hierarchy there are people, the owners of the hair, but no chain of command or enforced rules. Capitalism, seen as simply people having money, has potential, perhaps, to be as benign as people having hair.
> If a review of Dude, Where's My Car calls it an anarchic comedy, that doesn't mean it attacks hierarchies. It just means it defies established rules, such as "a successful movie must be any good".
Yes, just like “conservative portion” doesn’t talk about politics. The political ideology of anarchism, the mention of which is what triggered this entire discussion, is by definition about resisting power hierarchies, so your hair example is a bit contrived.
But why would I expect genuine political discussion on HN instead of semantic navel-gazing? Read some Kropotkin.
But, I must say, I'm increasingly easy-going about the whole thing. I don't claim to know how things should be arranged, tax me if you must, assign me to clean the communal latrines, do what you like, such is life. I will generally assume that we're all getting it wrong, regardless of viewpoint.