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ziq wrote

You're really not talking about anarchism though, you're talking about communism. Anarchism is specifically the struggle against authority - all authority. Not just the capitalist mode of production.

Anarchism can effectively be summarized as libertarian Socialism. I don't see a reason to use another term.

Because I'm an anarchist, not a libertarian socialist? I don't even think socialism has any real value in the midst of the Holocene extinction. Socialism is a way to organize industry. Industry is inherently exploitative and destructive to everything it touches. Anarchy and industrial workerist society are at odds.

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[deleted] wrote

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ziq wrote

I tend to see Anarchism as historically being a political philosophy that is inextriably tied to the Left. I don't really like the Left, but, I do think that that is the case.

Because "the left" says so? Anarchy is simply the struggle against authority. If people want to attach ideology and mythology to it, they can, but that doesn't give them ownership over the struggle against authority which has been fought since before Homo sapiens even existed.

The left is an invention of liberalism, it has no real value as an anarchist concept since it's just another function of the state apparatus.

What do you mean by the Holocene extinction?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocene_extinction

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ziq wrote (edited )

The terms left and right only exist to keep the people living under statism thinking they have choice. That the state can be molded to suit their economic and social ideals. In reality, the state couldn't care less whether you identity as left or right. It's all just misdirect to get you to play the game by the state's rules. Rules that ensure you can never gain any traction if your goal is to dismantle the state.

the terms just generally denote some form of political inclination

Yes. A political inclination positioned firmly within the state apparatus. The illusion of choice.

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ziq wrote

I don't give a shit about the french revolution. I'm talking about the contemporary left / right paradigm, not its origination.

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kore wrote (edited )

EDIT: Okay so this was kind of a stupid post in retrospect. I guess what I was trying to get at is that all terms, including "Anarchism" and "Authority" and "Democracy" are dependent on the contexts they are used in. What "Anarchism" meant in 1850 is different than what it means now. words have a history and all that jazz. I get that expertise isn't a hierarchical power structure.

Bakunin, What is Authority?:

"Does it follow that I reject all authority? Far from me such a thought. In the matter of boots, I refer to the authority of the bootmaker; concerning houses, canals, or railroads, I consult that of the architect or the engineer...I receive and I give — such is human life. Each directs and is directed in his turn. Therefore there is no fixed and constant authority, but a continual exchange of mutual, temporary, and, above all, voluntary authority and subordination."

Engels "On Authority" is also pretty good, pretty chill passage here, even though Engels didn't really get it totally:

"But the anti-authoritarians demand that the political state be abolished at one stroke, even before the social conditions that gave birth to it have been destroyed. They demand that the first act of the social revolution shall be the abolition of authority. Have these gentlemen ever seen a revolution? A revolution is certainly the most authoritarian thing there is; it is the act whereby one part of the population imposes its will upon the other part by means of rifles, bayonets and cannon — authoritarian means, if such there be at all;...Would the Paris Commune have lasted a single day if it had not made use of this authority of the armed people against the bourgeois? Should we not, on the contrary, reproach it for not having used it freely enough?"

Food for thought, anyway. EDIT: upon thinking a little more Engels was kind of a dumbass in this essay, but I think I was just trying to point out that there is some sort of "authority" in self-determination.

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kore wrote (edited )

I'm more just playing around with terms. I find it impossible to make a catch-all definition of authority, as any other word. I just thought it was an interesting point, after all. Is there a difference between authority and authoritarianism? Just like I've seen critiques of anarchy vs anarchism

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Pop wrote

Anarchism can effectively be summarized as libertarian Socialism.

I dunno, I don't think anarchism has to have anything to do with socialism

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Pop wrote

It seems like you're saying that the first person who uses a word is the one who defines the word?

Are you an Individualist Anarchist?

No, I think the individualist/collectivist dichotomy is nonsense and that both strands are weak

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ziq wrote

Why should a dead white rich European man be granted authority over the definition of anarchy? Wouldn't it make more sense to untether anarchy from the grasp of Eurocentrism? To decolonize it and refute its forced attachment to industrial colonialist European civilization?

the anarchists, in common with all socialists, of whom they constitute the left wing, maintain that the now prevailing system of private ownership in land, and our capitalist production for the sake of profits, represent a monopoly which runs against both the principles of justice and the dictates of utility. They are the main obstacle which prevents the successes of modern technics from being brought into the service of all, so as to produce general well-being. The anarchists consider the wage-system and capitalist production altogether as an obstacle to progress. But they point out also that the state was, and continues to be, the chief instrument for permitting the few to monopolize the land, and the capitalists to appropriate for themselves a quite disproportionate share of the yearly accumulated surplus of production.

Notice how centered he is on European civilization? Why should the rest of the world be expected to see anarchy through this dead prince's eyes?

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ziq wrote

I don't know what you're asking.

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ziq wrote

I feel like we're reading from different scripts or something because I have no idea what you're asking me.

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ziq wrote

What social configuration do you think should be brought about?

I reject the notion of 'social configuration' and the idea that I have the power to bring it about.

Ideally you would abolish social configurations altogether, but, how is that to happen?

It's not.

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ziq wrote

Proudhon is dead. Anarchy preceded his ideas and anarchy exceeded his ideas.

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Pop wrote

depends what you mean by 'tied'

I said it doesn't have to have anything to do with socialism, not that there's no history of socialist anarchism

there is a lot of content to socialism, and we don't need to frame ourselves in its terms

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ziq wrote

You're kind of making an appeal to authority argument though which makes little sense in an anarchist context. History be damned, anarchy isn't owned by the European left.

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ziq wrote

I do, however, think that the philosophy has some of its beginings in The International Workingmen's Association

Anarchy existed long before European scholars decided to yearn for it. All they did was advocate for a return to it.

Are you suggesting that an appeal to history is an appeal to an authority?

It is when you view history with such Eurocentricism. Anarchist cultures have been around for millennia. Anarchy wasn't invented by 19th and 20th century European men. European society doesn't have ownership over the struggle for anarchy. The International Workingmen's Association was far removed from anarchy's beginnings.

Anarchy isn't something that was invented with the advent of industrial civilization - it was something that industrial civilization stripped from us.

so I do tend to see Anarchism as being a somewhat exclusively left-wing school of thought

Well you don't even think anarchism should be called anarchism because you think 'libertarian socialism' is more descriptive, so it's not surprising that you'd reject anarchist currents that don't revolve around industrial workerism.

I just simply think that libertarian Socialism just simply is what Anarchism is.

Not to me or any anarchist I care about.

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ziq wrote (edited )

I don't necessarily think that Anarchism is something like the lost wisdom of the ancients

There's nothing lost about it, it's just the default. We're all born into this world in anarchy. Then almost immediately; especially if we live in civilization, authority is stamped on us, shoved down our throat and into our ears, tied around our neck and then for the rest of our lives we're conditioned to obey that authority.

ideal Anarchist society

There is no ideal anarchist society. No end point where we all announce we've achieved utopia and retire. Anyone claiming anarchy can be achieved rather than it being a permanent struggle against authority either doesn't understand anarchy or is trying to manipulate you into being ruled.

The moment someone declares they've achieved "ideal anarchist society", you need to kill them.

Check my profile for a link to my anarchistlibrary stuff or look through w/anarchy101 if you want to understand my perspective better.

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ziq wrote (edited )

We're born in anarchy because we haven't been indoctrinated into authority yet. Authority constructs are placed on us all through our lives, both physically and mentally.

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An_Old_Big_Tree wrote

If I'm really trying to be as specific as I can with as little language, I just say anti-authoritarian.

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kore wrote

The history of these terms is pretty fascinating to me. I think a substantial reason that North American anarchists prefer the term "anarchy" as opposed to "libertarian socialism" is that the word "libertarian" in United States politics now refers to something like "anarcho"-capitalist ideology, and so this might give people who don't know the history of the terms the wrong idea. Even though anarchists were the original libertarians.

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