What are your views on anarchism?

[MisSkeptic]

With it being election season in the States, and both Democrats and Republicans battling it out between each other to see who becomes the next president, the media is there to document the latest circus act of American politics.

To tell you the truth I don't have faith in the system, and none of the candidates appeal to me. They all come across as wooden, unadaptable, disorganized, fanatic, etc. I can continue but I think you get the point.

The two major political parties in the United States-Democrat and Republican-have both dominated local, state, and national government for decades. While it's not uncommon, it's still rare to hear someone from a third party, or even an independent, being victorious over the old guard.

In my opinion both parities have been in power for so long that they have run out of energy, run out of ideas, run out of direction, and they ought to be run out of town. Yes, I just took a leaflet from Bill Clinton's playbook.

Anyway, that's why I wanted to discuss anarchism. Throughout history there have been multiple great anarchist thinkers (Lysander Spooner, Peter Kropotkin) who helped contributed greatly to anarchist philosophy.

Whether it be anything from individualism to collectivism, labor, environmentalism, feminism, etc. you can find something in anarchism that is worth to to research. I really found it interesting that  Lysander Spooner's American Letter Mail Company was successful enough to decrease the price of stamps and even offered free mail delivery before it was shut down by the U.S. government.

Now I don't necessary agree with every anarchist idea; Anarcho-primitivism being something I disagree with because I don't share their views on civilization, and romanticize of the "noble savage" stereotype. Because I favor science and technology being used to help humanity, animals and the environment. I just can't see ideas like primitivism being beneficial to mankind. 

[Murica!]

Aside from primitivism and capitalism, I at the minimum support all forms of anarchism, though of course I support some, such as syndicalism and communism more than others.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Anarchists of the world, UNITE!

Dyslexics of the world, UNTIE!

[TNF]

I am for a stateless society, but you'll never get there using the methods that anarchists advocate. Anarchism is basically liberalism but without cops, with an unhealthy glorification of everything local, small, decentralized, etc, etc. It would never work in practice, and any large-scale anarchist experiment would result in a retrogression in terms of social organization for human beings.

[SWE]

I wouldn't considered myself an anarchist, but I can respect that anarchists are actually committed to building a society that isn't just Social Democracy with added genocide, which is more than you can say about MLs, Trots,  Maoists, et al.

[Famous Mortimer]

It's ridiculous.

I ask anarchists, after extreme local government is implemented in a place like Alabama, what's to stop them from outlawing homosexuality or even killing gays.

Their answer is always "they wouldn't be allowed to do that because that's not in keeping with anarchist principals".

How do you keep people from doing things that aren't in keeping with anarchist principals? Especially if a majority disagree with those principals?

They never have any answer.

[TNF]

I wouldn't considered myself an anarchist, but I can respect that anarchists are actually committed to building a society that isn't just Social Democracy with added genocide, which is more than you can say about MLs, Trots,  Maoists, et al.

Except that isn't what any of the workers' states that have existed at this point (however bureaucratically deformed) have been. The Soviet Union was not a 'social democracy with added genocide', unless you define social democracy as a system in which the capitalist system has been thoroughly eradicated (which was the case in the USSR and remains the case in the remaining deformed workers states), a definition that no social democrat would accept as legitimate. You don't have to be a genius to be able to discern that there was indeed a difference in the economic systems of, say, Sweden circa 1975 and the USSR or GDR of the same period. If the USSR and its allied states were really just 'social democracy with added genocide', wouldn't one expect that said states would be on friendlier terms with actually existing social democracies, as opposed to being completely hostile to them?

It also goes without saying that using the term 'genocide' in a context aimed directly at the USSR and its allied states is dubious at best, given that for genocide to occur you have to have some degree of outright planning, which wasn't the case at all in the USSR or PRC, unless of course you're willing to deem the murder of factional opponents within the bureaucracy of these countries 'genocide' (in which case you lack a developed understanding of what that term entails). Did the USSR and PRC (among others) engage in ruthless suppression of the class enemy in these countries? Certainly. But was there much of a choice, in the context in which these societies sprang up?

Certainly not. The Bolsheviks took power peacefully in 1917. Very little blood was actually shed during the seizure of power, mostly in Moscow (Petrograd, by contrast, was essentially bloodless), where resistance from the bourgeois elements was much more fierce. It was only when organized resistance to the (popularly-supported!) Bolshevik government sprang up did the Bolsheviks have to resort to the use of force, and why shouldn't they have? The Whites were murderous thugs who would stop at nothing to restore their lost privileges and power. We don't condemn the Union for using force against the Confederacy on the same account, and neither should we condemn the Bolsheviks for defending the popularly supported government they headed against counterrevolutionaries.

In Eastern Europe after World War II, the opposition was fascist, and was dealt with in a manner befitting fascism. The Red Army liberated these territories and brought with them the social structure of the October Revolution, allowing the backward, peasant states of Eastern Europe to develop modern economies. Far from being 'Soviet imperialism,' literally any source on the relationship between the USSR and the 'People's Democracies' of Eastern Europe will attest that the Soviets spent more on uplifting these regions and transferring technology and skilled laborers to them than it 'gained' from having them within its political orbit.

Also, as for China, again, the opposition was pro-imperialist (Chiang was in the pocket of the US and UK) and had it won, the result would have been the prostration of China yet again for the imperialist rape of its resources. Would we not repel invaders (or 'patriots' aligned with them) to this country with equal zeal?

This argument that the USSR and the workers' states that sprang forth from it are somehow worse or no different than the capitalist states (whether liberal or social democratic) is lacks historical context. However flawed, these states represented (and represent, in the form of the five that remain) an attempt to transcend capitalism and institute a society based upon a collective plan of production and the provision of essential human needs to all members of society, not just capitalist parasites. These states have done far more for the cause of human liberty (in spite of very real bureaucratic deformations) than any anarchist movement has at any point in human history.

Unlike anarchism, of course, they are able to survive for more than ten minutes in lieu of outside pressure. They are likewise not deluded by petty bourgeois prejudices concerning 'democracy' or allowing counterrevolutionary murderers to continue along the path of capitalist restoration just because they call themselves socialists.

[perdedor]

I respect anarchism on an intellectual level, but I have zero interest in fighting for political objectives that could not realistically be achieved within my lifetime. By "realistically", I mean without violent revolution. </liberal>

[Clark Kent]

Either misguided idealists or radical lunatics. I wouldn't trust either to lead a country.

[Murica!]

Either misguided idealists or radical lunatics. I wouldn't trust either to lead a country.

Um...

[Goldwater]

Anarchy is impossible.

[OSR stands with Israel]

Either misguided idealists or radical lunatics. I wouldn't trust either to lead a country.

This

[Blue3]

It may be ideal... but it's unworkable at our current technological level.

If one day every individual is able to provide for themselves (through advanced technology) all the things that a government could, then government becomes unnecessary.

But government is definitely necessary now.

[Chunk Yogurt for President!]

I like private control over government control for most services, but I don't want private police/military/etc.

[Goldwater]

I like private control over government control for most services, but I don't want private police/military/etc.

Private control doesn't equal anarchy, since some from of government is necessary for enforcing private property rights.

[RINO Tom]

Seems overly idealistic and silly.

[TNF]

I like private control over government control for most services, but I don't want private police/military/etc.

That isn't what anarchy is. Anarchy is the absence of the policy/military/etc, not privatized versions of them.

[Chunk Yogurt for President!]

I like private control over government control for most services, but I don't want private police/military/etc.

That isn't what anarchy is. Anarchy is the absence of the policy/military/etc, not privatized versions of them.

So I'm assuming everyone would have to rely on self-defense?

[Murica!]

I like private control over government control for most services, but I don't want private police/military/etc.

That isn't what anarchy is. Anarchy is the absence of the policy/military/etc, not privatized versions of them.

So I'm assuming everyone would have to rely on self-defense?

Have you even heard of the Free Territory of Ukraine? Or at least Anarchist Catalonia?

[Zioneer]

Anarchism? Too orderly for me.

[Murica!]

I like private control over government control for most services, but I don't want private police/military/etc.

That isn't what anarchy is. Anarchy is the absence of the policy/military/etc, not privatized versions of them.

So I'm assuming everyone would have to rely on self-defense?

Have you even heard of the Free Territory of Ukraine? Or at least Anarchist Catalonia?

States which broke apart almost immediately? Did you just read about them on Wikipedia and assume they were great?

Did you just?

[Murica!]

I like private control over government control for most services, but I don't want private police/military/etc.

That isn't what anarchy is. Anarchy is the absence of the policy/military/etc, not privatized versions of them.

So I'm assuming everyone would have to rely on self-defense?

Have you even heard of the Free Territory of Ukraine? Or at least Anarchist Catalonia?

States which broke apart almost immediately? Did you just read about them on Wikipedia and assume they were great?

Did you just?

Force of habit.

Anyway, let's say region.
Regions which broke apart almost immediately? Did you just read about them on Wikipedia and assume they were great?

Both lasted three years until they were betrayed by authoritarian "Marxists" who were their supposed allies in a war against reactionaries and fascists. By the way Have you read Orwell's Homage to Catalonia or anything by Makhno, because yeah I did.

[TNF]

Makhno was an anti-semitic lunatic who robbed the Red Army, so it really isn't surprising that "Anarchist" (in reality, a military dictatorship run by Makhno) Ukraine was snuffed out by the Red Army. As for Catalonia, the betrayals of the Stalinists there are obvious and disgusting, but the CNT leadership was dumb as a rock and literally turned down power when they were offered it by the Catalan government because muh state

[Murica!]

Makhno was an anti-semitic lunatic who robbed the Red Army, so it really isn't surprising that "Anarchist" (in reality, a military dictatorship run by Makhno) Ukraine was snuffed out by the Red Army. As for Catalonia, the betrayals of the Stalinists there are obvious and disgusting, but the CNT leadership was dumb as a rock and literally turned down power when they were offered it by the Catalan government because muh state

TNF, please provide an argument that isn't just Bolshevist propaganda.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

It also goes without saying that using the term 'genocide' in a context aimed directly at the USSR and its allied states is dubious at best, given that for genocide to occur you have to have some degree of outright planning...

This is a hilariously bad argument: mass murder does not count as mass murder unless there's paperwork everywhere! What would it then be? Mass Regrettable Unpleasantness? On this basis there has only ever been one genocide in human history (the Holocaust) and even that would be surprisingly tenuous.

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Most of the people murdered by Communist regimes were not Party members. Obviously the terminology around this sort of thing is sensitive, but I don't see the issue with describing the deliberate mass murder of members of a particular group as genocide even if the intention was not to eliminate that particular group. It means we have to distinguish between different forms of genocide, but then this is the norm anyway (c.f. the correct insistence on the singularly appalling nature of the Holocaust and so on). Of course in the case of the Soviet Union we have the interesting case of a purposeful attempt to eliminate an essentially fictitious group (i.e. the Kulaks) that resulted in the murder of vast numbers of very real people. I suppose you could argue that the lack of an ethnic element means that 'genocide' is not the appropriate term to describe this, but this strikes me as needlessly pedantic.

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Oh I think there's always a choice not to murder millions of people in the name of ideology. Of course you aren't entirely wrong here: the social policies of Stalin and Mao (and which were advocated by Trotsky years before Stalin) would have been completely impossible without mass murder. My view is that this means that these policies were criminal in nature and should not have been implemented.

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That's a new one. Even the Bolsheviks themselves never claimed that; if anything they were prone to exaggerating the drama of their little coup.

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There was a General Election in Russia in 1917 you know. The Bolsheviks were heavily defeated, polling less than a quarter of the vote and trailing the SRs by around 15pts. It is thus pretty clear that while there was overwhelming popular support for Revolution in a general sense, there was not for the Bolshevik government.

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This, at least, is accurate.

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...

Not even possible to dignify this insane screed with a proper response, sorry. I don't even entirely understand it as I don't believe you are actually a Stalinist so you have no 'requirement' to defend all aspects of Soviet policy. All I can say is that you should meet some people from Eastern Europe sometime...

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Quite how the undeniably awful nature of Chiang Kai-shek justifies the sort of government that Mao established is lost on me.

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If this is true then it would mean, given the record of these states, that the attempt to overthrow capitalism was a massive and entirely regrettable error.