There are capitalists all over this platform. Many of them claim to be anarchist, while in reality capitalism and anarchy are incompatible. Sadly, they have taken over the anarchist forums so creating this one was necessary.
Now let's start the first discussion, what is your favorite anarchist quote? Mine is:
“Whoever will be free must make himself free. Freedom is no fairy gift to fall into a man's lap. What is freedom? To have the will to be responsible for one's self.”
― Max Stirner
this site keeps switching my accounts smh
well sadly chainbb was taken down already lmao
I think you'll understand why I like this quote very much.
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Random question- have you ever read James C. Scott's Seeing Like a State? Though I'm not an anarchist myself, James C. Scott is, and this book has been instrumental in my thoughts regarding the interaction of nature and civilization of late. If you've not, I highly recommend it!
I don't understand your assertion that capitalism and anarchism are incompatible. Anarchy means without rulers, and capitalism means the voluntary exchange of goods and services. Do you think you need a government for the exchange of goods and services? Or are you using different definitions?
There are socialist systems with markets.....
Capitalism is based on private ownership of the means of production
Anarchy more particularly means without hierarchy, of course having absolutely no hierarchy is disasterous. So more or less the definition is no unjustified hierarchy.
The main point with capitalism is the fact that capitalism must indeed have hierarchies which are unjustified such as relationship between the work and the boss. But even if so taking your definition of anarchy that it is without state, it is incredibly disasterous to let people setup their own police forces that have authority over other people: which is also why we have the government, the police isn't owned a by single entity but rather the tax payer. Ontop of that the government is quite nessecary for the capitalist economy as without it and the police there would be no one to enforce private property, which is what most of capitalism is based off.
Do you think if I mow my neighbours lawn and he washes my car that one of us is the boss and one the worker?
Also If I make such a voluntary trade with my neighbour ,would you find it ok to stop me from making that choice?
Those "police forces" would not have the "right to rule" as the government version has now.
If I become the so called police force in a free world, I would only have the right to do what I as a normal human being am allowed to do, because I am a normal human being. What clothes I wear, or shiny things (badge) I carry does, not change that.
The police forces are owned by government. Not by the taxpayers. If you want to know who owns something one can look at who has the last word over what is done with it.
Government makes the laws so government is the owner.
With government you can never have private property, because you always have to pay the extortion money. ( or else your protectors come to your house (police)) You merely rent it, it's their property they are the owner. It doesn't matter to them how long you worked for it to pay it of or how long it took for you to build. (can you see how the police works for government?)
For documenting things like this, you don't need a government.
Also if you have property in a free society you are responsible for the protection. You can't make your neighbours pay (via taxes) for the defense of your property.
One more thing about owning. Now everything, and even everyone is owned by a group of people with guns, that own everything that lives withing some lines on a piece of paper some people, long ago, have drawn with magical inc.
If you can not decide what you can, put in your body, if you can not decide who you invite in your house (for instance a so ( by the government) called illegal, if you can not decide to sell lemonade without a permission... and they punish you, or kill, you if you do not eventually obey or pay them. Then you own nothing, and they own everything including you.
"Do you think if I mow my neighbours lawn and he washes my car that one of us is the boss and one the worker?
Also If I make such a voluntary trade with my neighbour ,would you find it ok to stop me from making that choice?"
markets exist in socialist anarchist systems and trades like that can exist under literally every system, stop being delusional.
Private property vs personal property.
"With government you can never have private property, because you always have to pay the extortion money. "
actually private property can't exist without the government, because it only exists through a monopoly of violence, so the "owner" just becomes the head of the localised state
Thank you for the reply.
Under socialism those trades can not exist if there is money involved, which in end effect is just as an voluntary trade as barter, (if we both consent)....If you do, and the tyrants/masters/a big group of people with another opinion, finds out you get punished. If you do not obey...and keep resisting you're dead, make no mistake.
Boss worker employee employer ....all labels to divide and conquer. There is only voluntary trade If something is not voluntary it's violence, theft, fraud rape..archating...etc.
If I have the property I worked for, or build, and I defend that against thief's I don't hold the monopoly on violence....no way. What I do hold is the right to defend, which has nothing to do with violence. I would define it as defensive force as a reaction to the initiation of violence.
"Boss worker employee employer ....all labels to divide and conquer. There is only voluntary trade If something is not voluntary it's violence, theft, fraud rape..archating...etc."
private ownership of the means of production is not voluntary.
The means of production are built by the workers, upkept by the workers, and labored on by the workers. This is true under every economic system. The difference between socialism and capitalism is that under socialism the workers also control it, while under capitalism it is an outside entity.
The basis of capitalism is that outside divide and conquer tactic.
Can a human be a "means of production" since you can dig a whole with a shovel, a spoon, but you can also use your hands? Being the means of production yourself.
Can someone or the community force you to dig with your hands if someone/group/computer algorithm deems that necessary for society? (Since one does not own oneself in that theory)
“Anarchists did not try to carry out genocide against the Armenians in Turkey; they did not deliberately starve millions of Ukrainians; they did not create a system of death camps to kill Jews, gypsies, and Slavs in Europe; they did not fire-bomb scores of large German and Japanese cities and drop nuclear bombs on two of them; they did not carry out a ‘Great Leap Forward’ that killed scores of millions of Chinese; they did not attempt to kill everybody with any appreciable education in Cambodia; they did not launch one aggressive war after another; they did not implement trade sanctions that killed perhaps 500,000 Iraqi children.
In debates between anarchists and statists, the burden of proof clearly should rest on those who place their trust in the state. Anarchy’s mayhem is wholly conjectural; the state’s mayhem is undeniably, factually horrendous.”
― Robert Higgs
Anarchists did none of those things because they have never been in a position of power, in turn because they have no viable revolutionary theory. Anarchist society as a whole is conjectural without the preexistence of a socialist state.
I don't believe you need a state for anarchy or any centralized positions that give authority of power.
I agree, but the question is how do we get from here and now - the real world of capitalist relations - to that point in the future where hierarchy and centralised power is no longer necessary? It just seems a little too optimistic to believe that if we abolished the state tomorrow, and left people to free associate, that they would automatically starting behaving and organising in a non-hierarchical way.
That's what I mean when I say anarchism has no viable revolutionary theory - there is no serious discussion, as far as I am aware, of how to make these ideas flourish in the real world. In my opinion, democratic state socialism is the required stepping stone between these ideal and actual worlds.
I think we need to educate in decentralized blockchain systems. Then start slowly replacing what we have with decentralized systems. Perhaps building crypto capitalistic/socialistic/communistic or whatever systems designed to run along side state systems and eventually absorb/moot them.
That's an interesting thought! I certainly think blockchain will be an essential technological tool for ensuring that societies of the future can act in a completely democratic way - at the economic and the social level. I just wonder how long things can continue on their current trajectory before the governments and institutions of the world start to seriously limit blockchain's potential. Centralised power still holds all the cards and isn't likely to give them up without a fight...
We can sneak the systems in. Let's say I start a blockchain ecosystem aimed at replacing local government services. They wouldn't be able to turn the system off, or know who uses it (depending on how it is set up). So they can't directly attack the blockchain or users.
They could attack and block the services provided depending on the physicality of these services.
If this is based in the UK for example where they are constantly cutting services, increasing deaths, crime, etc. The systems would be designed to replace and moot the local failing government services (this wouldn't be its stated goal though). It would start by picking up the slack in slashed budgets, and run along side, and once it becomes a vital needed part of the local infrastructure, trying to stop it becomes a problem, as you have an area depending on it, and the alternative is the government who will just continuously cut services. No one wants that.
Anarchists are never in a position of power because we reject power.
What is power?
Threat, coercion, control, violence.
The Marxist doctrine that we need more state (socialism) in order to have no state (Communism) makes as much sense as saying we need to put gasoline on the fire in order to stop the building from burning down.
I think it's about time we faced the possibility that Marx invented a system that lured those who wanted to get rid of the state apparatus into a new form of radical Statism that promises a stateless society that never comes.
Communism was the bait to get all the freedom minded people on the socialist track of radical Statism, instead of that of the real revolution of ethics and freedom that is anarchism.
The state is the eternal enemy of freedom, ethics, abundance and security.
Great post and great discussion.
Joy
is this just spam?
What? Me? I am not a robot.
Lol. Whaddaya mean spam?
Joy
you might want to look up the definition of spam
The series I watched...they rescued people marked .
Is that not the same show?
Joy
The series I watched...they rescued people marked .
Is that not the same show?
Joy
this has nothing to do with a show?
U r soo right. I don't know how that happened tho. I apologize.
I am intuitve...so if you need me to pray for something...let me know. I have read and commented on your posts before. But please forgive my mistake. :)
Joy
Someone did a post about the series person of interest. I was commenting on the show.
Joy