Welcome To Anarchast!

[Steve Kinney]

On 07/11/2017 04:25 PM, juan wrote:
> On Tue, 11 Jul 2017 11:31:23 -0400
> Steve Kinney <admin at pilobilus.net> wrote:
> 
>>
>>
>> On 07/11/2017 10:59 AM, Razer wrote:
>>
>>> CrimetInc Ex-Worker Podcast #18: "What Anarchism Isn’t, Pt 1:
>>> Libertarianism and Anarcho-Capitalism"
>>>
>>> With transcript: https://crimethinc.com/podcast/18
>>
>> No time to play the podcast right now (though I will later) - but
>> here's my "elevator speech" on the AnCap Bullshit:
>>
>> "Capitalism can not exist without armed State authorities to define
>> and enforce the so-called rights of absentee landlords.
>> Anarcho-capitalism is a contradiction in terms, just a super
>> fashionable name for direct rule by gangs of billionaires who get to
>> do literally anything they want."
>>
>> The only reason to add the prefix an- or anarcho- to the name of a
>> 19th century political theory or ideology is to make it sound hip and
>> fashionable.
> 
> 
> 	modern 'anarcho capitalists' are fucking idiots, fake
> 	libertarians, corporate apologists and the like. 
> 
> 
> 	However, the liberal tradition based on common sense morality,
> 	rights to life, liberty and property, and its obvious anarchist
> 	(no state) conclusion isn't just a '19th' century political
> 	theory'. Not sure what you want to accomplish with that label...

"Liberal" is such a broadly defined term that I don't think of it as a
political or economic theory so much as a propaganda buzzword roughly
meaning "socially permissive in a good sense."  In propaganda advocating
for Liberalism its connotations include generosity, fairness and
tolerance.  In propaganda advocating against Liberalism its connotations
include naivety, larceny and evil.

When I say "19th century" political and economic theory, I generally
mean Capitalism, Communism and hybrid variants like Socialism - not
because they were invented then, but because they became widely known
and instances were implemented about then, as adaptations to the
Industrial Revolution.

> 	"A great part of that order which reigns among mankind is not
> 	the effect of government. It had its origin in the principles
> 	of society, and the natural constitution of man. It existed
> 	prior to government, and would exist if the formality of
> 	government was abolished. " 
> 
> 	See? That's liberal anarchism. And that's not from the 19th
> 	century. That's paine's "Rights of Man" - 1791 - so it's 18th
> 	century. 

That sounds like Anarchism to me.

> 	And here's some more 18th century stuff 
> 
> 	"... to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among
> 	Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the
> 	governed" 

That sounds like Representative Democracy.  In a society that
consistently teaches and promotes Anarchism it might work, as long as
the units of governance do not exceed a scale permitting "ordinary
people" to observe and understand the activities of State and private
power centers on a continuing basis, enabling effective feedback via
both the ballot box /and/ direct action on the ground.

> 	So, now, get this : no fucking CONSENT, no government. And of
> 	course the government created by the supreme scumabag(s)
> 	who wrote that was and is one the most corrupt and hypocritical
> 	tyrannys in history. 
> 
> 	But regardless of the frauds involved with it,
> 	liberal/libertarian anarchism is a pretty solid 'theory'.

Oh, those bothersome buzzwords!  Unless one explicitly defines them,
they tend to mean whatever promoters and their audiences wants them to
mean, in a self congratulatory context.

In propaganda application as Identity Politics brand labels, "Liberal"
and "Libertarian" often mean approximately opposite things in practical
application:

Liberal generally suggests a preference for a Nanny State that devotes
itself to providing a comprehensive safety net to assure that nobody
suffers poverty or persecution.  This general idea gets a lot of support
from people with a deep investment in social conformity and highly
formalized status hierarchies i.e. academic degrees as a basis for
employment discrimination.

Libertarian generally suggests a minimalist State that only arbitrates
disputes between members of an economic ruling class, leaving everything
but tort law (and its enforcement at gunpoint) to the private sector.
This general idea gets a lot of support from our "temporarily
embarrassed millionaires":  Me-first individualists who just know that
if their inferiors stopped conspiring to keep them down, they would
accomplish Great Things.

I do not think of Anarchism as a form of government or economics.
Rather, I consider it a body of theory and practice relevant to
resisting the concentration and abuse of power in the hands of an elite
minority.  Humans do compete for dominance, some more than others, and
once a specialized ruling class has acquired control of significant
territory and its inhabitants, a feedback cycle sets in that continues
to concentrate more power in fewer hands.  This process does not end
well, and restraining it by what some call "direct democracy" may delay
or prevent the worst abuses of power.

Among all these ideas, I really want to promote the a definition of
Anarchism as a theory of politics and economics as a dynamic system of
power relationships between and among competing groups, with emphasis on
methods for redistributing power down the status hierarchy, preventing
dominance by elite minorities to the fullest practicable extent.  As
such, Anarchism provides a general purpose tool kit for troubleshooting
and attempting to repair Utopian political/economic regimes.

:o)





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