Hmmm. What about anarchocapitalists that leave capitalist out of their descriptors and larp like they’re contemporary versions of the DK-listening, doc martens wearing, spiky hair having kids from the 1980s. And ancaps might be slightly better than the rich people at the top that use every advantage they’ve been given as a lever to suppress the success of everyone else. At least ancaps still have the potential to change.
There are voluntarists that believe we are ethically obligated to help each other, but aren’t willing to use violence to force others to do what we want.
Fascism has done far more harm to the world. Barely any half-serious anarcho-capitalist has had a hand into influencing much practical policy. Even Milei is backing down from some of his campaign proposals, and he’s just gotten elected.
Because I dont want the most vulnerable folks in our society to just fuxking die. People have chronic conditions that require daily medical care that would not be available for the vast majority of folks in an anarcho capitalist society, if they were available at all. I used to love fantasizing about zombie apocalypses and the fall of society myself, untll i realized my partner who is a Type 1 Diabetic probably wouldnt live long in that future. Wanting an anarcho capitalist future is the highest indicator that you live a life of extreme privilege and dont care about fellow human beings.
Okay, fair enough, and I am by no means intending to criticize you for your kindheartedness here, but that’s literally the opposite of economic theory, which concerns itself primarily with achieving the maximum output possible given a certain input.
Also, consider that this does not mean that it is therefore by nature entirely inhuman and incompatible with caring about people, but rather that the ability to achieve a high productivity is required in order to have an excess of resources than can be used to care for those who cannot care for themselves.
If you think about it, this is in fact essential to maintain human life. Children for instance always require more resources than they can produce, so parents have to be able to produce more than they need for themselves if they want their children to survive. Same goes for society as a whole — the productive members have to be able to produce an excess or the unproductive (weak, sick, or old) will starve.
I made a number of well-reasoned and coherent arguments, to which responded with flippant one liners.
You’re free to convince me that I misjudged you by actually making an argument, but I’m afraid your childish insults aren’t going to change my mind anytime soon.
So you are saying we will produce in excess and give all of the excess to people who can’t produce (children, weak, sick, old…) So from each according to their ability, to each according to their needs?
backed up by the threat of violence against anyone who doesn’t play along.
Every political ideology includes that. What good are rules without enforcement? Just because the enforcers are supposed to be random individuals in some ideologies doesn’t mean the threat of violence for not playing along is gone.
I’m an anarchist, and my take is that anarchism isn’t pacifism, and “no coercion” is a bad summary. It’s more about the absence of hierarchical coercion and instead distribution of power to all people and communities.
If you’re going around burning down houses, your anarchist neighbors are going to use force to take away your matches and gasoline if you don’t stop.
Yup, that is my understanding as well. Likewise, if you’re going around stealing, and someone happens to think that’s bad, they can use force to stop you because there’s no state telling them otherwise.
The idea that if there’s no state we’d automatically be living in communist utopia where everything is shared and nobody owns anything is flawed on its face. It’s certainly possible that there would be groups or tribes of people that choose to live that way, but other tribes would form around the idea that property rights should be protected and build a community around that.
You’re very much misrepresenting how anarchism is supposed to work with that “automatically” statement. No one thinks if will happen by itself, there’s a whole library on thought on how to go about making it the societal norm, with quite a lot of good points that humanity already largely acted like this for most of its two to three hundred thousand years of existence.
Supposedly, anyways. I suppose paleolithic man might well have been selling mammoth futures and executing debtors in the street.
But I also don’t really buy it in a urban society unless that society is largely run by the Culture’s Minds.
I only put that there because the thread starter seems to be an anarcho-communist who thinks that in absence of a state enforcing property rights, property rights simply won’t be enforced. That is not the case. They may or may not be enforced, either by the property owner themselves or their tribe/community.
Capitalism is primarily an economic system, not a political philosophy. And while it requires property rights in order to function, it is primarily concerned with solving problems in the absence of coercion, so it is absolutely compatible with anarchy.
You’re making a fundamental error when you think that property rights would not or do not exist in anarchy. What doesn’t exist in anarchy is the enforcement of such rights by a STATE. A property owner (or in this case, really anyone who lays claim to a property, since a state that could issue official deeds does not exist) still has the right to defend their property using violent means if necessary.
So yes, capitalism and anarchy are absolutely compatible.
Anarchy requires the absence of a state… And private property… Anarchy is to the left of “workers siezing the means of production”.
But anarcho-capitalists are, as you’ve said, only focusing on the economic system of their politics. If you ask them about the politics and government of their fantasy? Well, they all reveal a desire for a deeply coercive state. Anarchy, and also Libertarian, are words being co-opted.
Nope, anarchy is only the absence of a state. Like I said, it is still possible to enforce property rights in such a scenario… as long as you do it yourself.
This likely WOULD lead to less hoarding and more wealth distribution, because you cannot keep what you cannot defend. But it’s definitely wrong to assume all property would automatically become public and “free use” and everyone would share freely as in a communist utopia, because that requires agreement between people. And in the absence of a state, there is no authority that could enforce such an agreement.
I’ve always wanted someone to explain how you eliminate capitalism or the symbolic exchange of value to achieve a socialist/ anarchist state without violence.
The nice part about anarchism is both systems are free to coexist in the absense of the state. That cannot be said under communism and socialism.
If you think about it, such communities probably already exist: most families, even in capitalism, are communist internally: the parents contribute far more to the household than the children do, who tend to consume far more than they produce. From each according to their ability to each according to their need.
This likely also explains the continued popularity of communism as a political philosophy, especially among young people. Going out into the world, where there is competition and conflict is jarring, and the wish for society to be organized more like a family unit is understandable, although it is far more difficult to organize a large country in this way than a household of no more than, say, a dozen people.
Communism is a classless stateless society, parents within our society literally own their children as property.
This likely also explains the continued popularity of communism as a political philosophy, especially among young people. Going out into the world, where there is competition and conflict is jarring, and the wish for society to be organized more like a family unit is understandable, although it is far more difficult to organize a large country in this way than a household of no more than, say, a dozen people.
Remind me again, what is the political ideology of the new world superpower? The one with 1.4 billion people? You know, now that the capitalist US empire is in obvious terminal decline.
Are you talking about China? If so, I’m afraid they’re communist in name only. They realized many years ago that Marxist economic theory doesn’t work and began to integrate capitalist principles into their economy. There are banks, there is a stock market, and there is private ownership of the means of production, although all of these are tightly regulated by the state and can be rescinded at any time or for any reason (such as not paying enough bribes).
De facto, China is a capitalist-fascist state more comparable to WW2 Germany than anything Marx ever came up with.
Are you talking about China? If so, I’m afraid they’re communist in name only. They realized many years ago that Marxist economic theory doesn’t work and began to integrate capitalist principles into their economy.
You’re kind of incredibly ignorant on China. They’re a mostly publicly controlled economy.
The reasoning for a private sector is to prevent economic and technological siege.
Also marxist economic theory is literally just a structured critique of capitalism. It doesn’t have anything to say about socialism or communism, that is marx’s other works.
De facto, China is a capitalist-fascist state more comparable to WW2 Germany than anything Marx ever came up with.
I would really suggest reading “Economy and class structure of german fascism” and comparing it to the political and economic situation of China. (And actually understand those situations, not just passively absorb ideas from anglophone media) This isn’t meant to be a dig, but this level of political illiteracy is embarrassing.
than anything Marx ever came up with.
Have you literally read any book that Marx wrote? (The manifesto is a manifesto, it doesn’t count, but I’d also be interested in knowing if you’ve read that)
I’m not convinced about the second paragraph. How do you think we ended up where we are? In the stone age there was no government either, and yet some people became royalty and he and his friends became wealthy
Private Property cannot exist without a state. That which gives private property legitimacy is a monopoly of violence, otherwise you have a winner-takes-all might makes right system.
Collective ownership of property can be enforced via the collective itself, without a need for a governing body.
Anarchism is certainly idealistic, but Anarcho-Capitalism is pure fantasy.
I dont know, let’s ask Chinese feudal lords how their ability to enforce private property went after the CPC stopped enforcing their private property rights for them like the old government did.
I mean, first of all, have you taken a look at our current society, and second of all, this is just a thought experiment to prove that anarcho-communism is pure fantasy, or at the very least not inevitable.
Anarcho-Capitalism cannot exist, it would cease to exist the very second it did.
Anarcho-Communism is a lofty goal, but is fully capable of existing.
That’s the fundamental difference, what you consider to be Private Property simply wouldn’t be, it would either be personal property or you wouldn’t have it. It is only through threat of violence that one can own the products of tools despite not doing the labor.
Okay, as frustrating as it is to have you simply repeat your initial statements despite any arguments made to the contrary, it seems as though your point hinges on the distinction between personal and private property.
However, I don’t see how private property couldn’t be maintained as long as you have the ability to defend it. Hiring guards for instance does not constitute a monopoly on violence, since others can do so as well. In an anarcho-communist scenario, for instance, if the workers want to maintain control of the means of production after ousting the owner, they would potentially have to post guards as well, or the property owner could hire a bunch of mercenaries to take the property back.
The long and short if this is, I don’t see how anarchy would favor either the creation of capitalist or communist structures of organization. Most likely, there would be both, and survival would be a matter of who is better at organizing.
There are numerous critical flaws of what you just said.
Why would Guards support you? If you become a robber-baron, hiring muscle to protect your factories from the Workers, you have to deal with the fact that either you don’t actually control and own your factories, the mercenaries do, or accept that you have become a micro-state.
What is preventing any of these micro-states from absorbing others and becoming a full state? Nothing.
Why would anyone willingly work for you, unless it already reached the point where you are essentially a state? They could make more money simply by working cooperatively.
Private Property cannot maintain itself unless you have a monopoly on violence and thus a state.
Cooperatively owned property, on the other hand, supports itself and is maintained cooperatively. There are no avenues to realistically overturn it.
I don’t think you’re wrong about the idea of micro-states forming, but I don’t see how a communist cooperative isn’t a micro-state by the same definition as well.
As far as cooperatives being naturally more efficient, I highly doubt that. Centralized structures are far more conducive to decision making. While your commune is still debating about whether both Marx’ and Engels’ birthdays should be a day off, the capitalists are already working.
Also, the idea that property somehow magically supports itself by virtue of being communally owned is complete fantasy. You clearly have no actual experience and are just spouting off a bunch of dogma you’ve read somewhere.
If everyone has equal power, there’s no statist component.
Cooperative structures are not inherently more efficient, but Cooperative work structures would result in higher paid workers. The strawman about a lack of decision making in the Cooperative could easily be flipped, while the Workers are already producing, the Capitalists are figuring out how to extort their customers and workers better.
Communally owned property supports itself by virtue of being communally owned. If nobody has an individual claim to it, someone who tries would be contested by the community, hence its communal ownership.
You only have strawmen and vibes, no actual points.
I really hope you get to fulfill your dream of living in a commune one day so you’ll have some actual first hand experience of what you are talking about.
I’d pay good money to see your face the first time you get outvoted on something you think you are absolutely right about.
A property owner (or in this case, really anyone who lays claim to a property, since a state that could issue official deeds does not exist) still has the right to defend their property using violent means if necessary.
Okay, but if there isn’t a state, who is to say the workers don’t have the right to protect their surplus labor value from theft by seizing the means of production, through violence if necessary?
This is one of the reasons why anarcho capitalism is an incoherent ideology. People who believe in it think that the right of private property is just something everyone agrees should be held sacred, when it only exists because of state violence.
Okay, but if there isn’t a state, who is to say the workers don’t have the right to protect their surplus labor value from theft by seizing the means of production, through violence if necessary?
Nobody. But conversely, if there isn’t a state, what’s to prevent property owners from banding together and protecting their property with violence?
Before you say “but there’s more workers than property owners”, keep in mind that given enough money or gold or whatever, they could also hire mercenaries to prevent workers from rebelling.
It really all comes down to who is better at organizing. So it’s possible that in one scenario, workers would seize the means of production successfully, and if they are good enough at keeping it running, they’d operate as a commune, while in another scenario, there’d be a more hierarchical, capitalist structure of organization.
You’re simply arguing from a standpoint of “but I like THIS approach better” when it’s a question of “but can you make it WORK?”
But conversely, if there isn’t a state, what’s to prevent property owners from banding together and protecting their property with violence?
That would literally be a capitalist state in every meaningful sense.
keep in mind that given enough money or gold or whatever, they could also hire mercenaries to prevent workers from rebelling.
Sorta like a police force of some kind?
It really all comes down to who is better at organizing. So it’s possible that in one scenario, workers would seize the means of production successfully, and if they are good enough at keeping it running, they’d operate as a commune, while in another scenario, there’d be a more hierarchical, capitalist structure of organization.
You know what is really fucking organized? A state. It is almost like at the beginning of the country all the large landowners and capitalists got together and made one of those to protect their interests.
You’re simply arguing from a standpoint of “but I like THIS approach better” when it’s a question of “but can you make it WORK?”
Lol. I am literally asking how your hypothetical system would handle class antagonisms, the primary concern of politics. I am very directly asking “but can you make it work”
I’m certainly overly reductive of politics. When we’re talking ideology, though, yeah I’m going back to my ethics. A government can’t act on our behalf with more rights than us - we just end up creating our master. Pragmatic actions, in the real world, are different from ideological conversations, though.
I’m somewhat confused by your separation of ideology from practical actions. That sounds internally inconsistent.
I am willing to accept a state if it is necessary to suppress the bourgeoisie and their toadies, so long as that continues to be necessary. I would prefer we lived in a communist society but we can’t get there overnight and socialism is how you transition to it.
It’s similar to your position. I just have a different path to a stateless, voluntary society. I also don’t really care what the economic system looks like, so long as human rights are recognized.
I consider freedom of the press to just be freedom of speech, which we all have.
As for the homeless chap, it depends on their situation. I’d live in a community that would try to help them. I think we’re ethically obligated to help people in need as best we can, but I’m not comfortable using violence to force you to help them.
I consider freedom of the press to just be freedom of speech, which we all have.
The thing is we don’t. There is no such thing as free speech, any speech that meaningfully threatens the government will be cracked down on. See Fred Hampton. Free speech is a legal fiction in our country.
But my point is that the limited bourgeois privileges you get don’t matter if you’re starving on the street. You can’t meaningfully have those privileges without economic security.
As for the homeless chap, it depends on their situation. I’d live in a community that would try to help them. I think we’re ethically obligated to help people in need as best we can, but I’m not comfortable using violence to force you to help them.
So it is more violent to take food from a grocery store because that hurts the owners bottom line than it is to prevent a starving man from taking bread from a grocery store by kicking his ass and throwing him in a box? Is that your perspective on this issue?
I meant that freedom of the press shouldn’t be limited to just people that work for CNN or whatever. I don’t think they’re separate rights. I didn’t mean to say they’re appropriately implemented.
Theft of small amounts of food isn’t really something I care about. I’m not a fan of police or jails/prisons. We can handle these sorts of crimes more ethically. Robberies are a bit different. If you’re someone that visits San Francisco to bip cars then goes back home, you could prolly use a good kick or two if you’re caught by your intended victim.
Regardless, I think we, as a society, should be there with the bread. It shouldn’t be an issue we have to face.
Regardless, I think we, as a society, should be there with the bread. It shouldn’t be an issue we have to face.
But you don’t think we should use violence to enforce the idea, so how do you enforce the idea in the transition when former small business tyrants chafe at the idea of sharing? What if they don’t submit to nonviolent methods of control?
They don’t have to submit? We do things the right way and don’t deal with those cunts. As a gradualist, though, I think we can build up our communities while removing the regulations that enable corporations to operate the way they do while staying profitable.
They don’t have to submit? We do things the right way and don’t deal with those cunts
Okay but they have the means of survival right now. Not seizing them means people will die while you develop your own.
Also, while developing your own, the movement is vulnerable to getting crushed by them. They historically haven’t had any compunctions with killing millions to protect themselves from communism.
As a gradualist, though, I think we can build up our communities while removing the regulations that enable corporations to operate the way they do while staying profitable.
How though? Do you think the capitalist state is going to just let you mess with its bosses?
Okay but they have the means of survival right now. Not seizing them means people will die while you develop your own.
When I help my sister pay her rent a small business owner isn’t being evicted. Economics aren’t zero sum.
Also, while developing your own, the movement is vulnerable to getting crushed by them. They historically haven’t had any compunctions with killing millions to protect themselves from communism.
I think ideas like collective ownership and mutual aid have power without challenging the ruling class. Instead we beg daddy to give us more rations.
How though? Do you think the capitalist state is going to just let you mess with its bosses?
I don’t really have all the answers. I know what I consider ethical and try to work within that, but I’m no genius. I know it’s easy to say your answer is violence and we’ll sort it out later, but there’re a lot of missing steps there. I don’t think there’s a lot of difference between the class consciousness necessary to achieve a gradualist result vs revolution. Gradualism has time to show people the benefit without lining them up against the wall, tho.
We also live in a world that has a habit of fucking up collectivism. Trade is technology and in a free society we can test the tech and find what works instead of fucking shit up with bullets and famine.
When I help my sister pay her rent a small business owner isn’t being evicted. Economics aren’t zero sum.
Can you prevent a landlord from evicting a single mom, when that landlord is willing to use violence to do it, without using violence? Is the idea just "we will pay them all off, using money we definitely have in order to do it?
I think ideas like collective ownership and mutual aid have power without challenging the ruling class.
Then, bluntly, you are ignorant of history. I’m not calling you stupid, I’m just saying you need to actually learn about this stuff before trying to come up with a belief system about it.
Instead we beg daddy to give us more rations.
I dont know what you mean here
I don’t really have all the answers. I know what I consider ethical and try to work within that, but I’m no genius.
You need to consider the impact of your actions in morality, which means understanding what the outcomes of actions have been historically.
know it’s easy to say your answer is violence and we’ll sort it out later, but there’re a lot of missing steps there
That would be an easy and incorrect way of describing my beliefs, yes.
I don’t think there’s a lot of difference between the class consciousness necessary to achieve a gradualist result vs revolution. Gradualism has time to show people the benefit without lining them up against the wall, tho.
I think you haven’t thought about the material implications of this. Giving white supremacists and landlords and capitalists time to come around isnt nonviolent, it is permitting violence to continue for a while because you don’t want to commit violence on the people doing the violence. It is a statement that you dont want to help the oppressed if it is at the expense of the oppressor.
We also live in a world that has a habit of fucking up collectivism. Trade is technology and in a free society we can test the tech and find what works instead of fucking shit up with bullets and famine
Honestly, I think you’ve bought into a capitalist framing on the history of transitional states. The USSR had famines during: a bloody Civil War, collectivization, and right after ww2. It notably did not have any periodic famines that the Russian empire previously had. Communist China had a famine after the Civil War before relations were normalized. They notably ended the periodic famines, especially along the yellow river.
Ok I should preface by saying I think ancap is dumb and having a slight disagreement with what you’ve said does not mean I’m not defending them. They’re asshats.
But: imo, anarchist thought escapes definition. There’s no such thing as anarchism (in the sense of an agreed-upon political philosophy), only anarchists.
Readers of Rene Girard might describe coersion (insofar as it’s a natural result of hegemony), as a sort of force of nature, like violence, that, if society doesn’t find a healthy way to express, will come out sideways, in ways that are anti-social.
Anarchism can only exist when there’s a single individual not interacting with any other person, period. Every human interaction immediately breaks any sort of anarchism, there will always be some agreed upon behavior, whether implicit or explicit, violently enforced or not.
I suppose most ancaps are actually minarchists, or “minimal state” proponents, because capitalism fails terribly without laws and some way to enforce them. Without a state (even as small as a group’s leadership), “ownership” doesn’t exist, whoever’s stronger owns the thing. You blink, you lose. You die, it’s first dibs. Fell for a scam? Too bad, you should’ve been smarter. Got captured and sold into slave labor? Too bad, you should’ve seen that coming. Someone stole your stuff? Too bad, you should’ve secured it better.
In a 2008 interview, Coulier said he was the ex-boyfriend who inspired Morissette’s song “You Oughta Know”; in the 2021 documentary Jagged, Morissette denied the song is about Coulier.
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