Submitted by alexayanchenko in Anarchism

I guess we all know what Anarcho-Communism is and many of us believe in it and fight for it. If we look at the name Communism many think of dictators abusing power and not giving the power offered by socialism to the people. Also Communism involves a authoritarian style government making decisions and then people collaborate to make it work but because it is Anarcho there is no head of state involved so is the people themselves making decisions. So wouldn't it make more sense if we called it Anarcho-Socialism?

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_caspar_ wrote

"I guess we all know what Anarcho-Communism is"

not sure who we are, but very few people in my experience know what either anarchism, socialism, or communism is, or have a limited understanding. at this point differentiating between socialism (what I understand as the means toward collectivist society) and communism (what I understand as the end goal: collectivist society) comes close to splitting hairs. both conceive of liberation as the liberation of the collective, something external to both you, I, or anyone.

collectivism is a logic that prioritizes the goals of an abstract we over particular individual persons. this abstract we can be given an endless number of names: group, community, the people, hairdressers, Italians, zoomers, etc. or it can be simply we, with the speaker assuming that they and their audience are all a we. this abstract we lives in the realm of the ideal, as something external to the beings it claims to be. the collectivist logic uses categorization to make all sorts of determinations based on singular beings as units of measurement, or numbers on papers and screens. while fundamental to politics (strategies and tactics to manage large numbers of people), I find this logic detrimental to a liberatory anarchist practice that isnt willing to deny the unique contingencies of beings, and desires to let go of control.

governance by the people is governance nonetheless. or rather: governance by abstraction, in service of the abstraction.

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