A longer look at Anarchism
Anarchism is…
A common misunderstanding about anarchism is that it means violent chaos or no rules or do whatever the hell you want. These are just silly myths and you should unburden yourself of that daft rubbish before settling down to watch another episode of Game of Thrones...
Instead try this is an image of anarchism: a young person holding a door open for an old lady. THAT'S anarchism!
When we open a door to an old lady that is the kind of behaviour that anarchism is built on and is trying to encourage. When we move slightly over on the road to let another person come the other way. When we let person X talk, listen to them, then they wait and listen to our reply. When we help our friend move to a new house, carrying all that heavy stuff up 3 flights of stairs...all that and the 1000 little ways we co-operate, help and be nice to our fellow humans everyday…
You may think 'Thats just normal decent behaviour'....right, it is - and that is exactly the kind of behaviour and attitude that anarchism is built on and is trying to encourage. Decent consideration and respect for all people, regardless of race, gender, class position, strength, power, money, age.
Or another example on a larger scale: when we get together with a bunch of other parents to organise school sports day, or the christmas party or whatever, we are doing anarchist type things. I wont say we are being full blown anarchists - but we ARE behaving in ways that are central to anarchism: we are co-operating as free volunteers, with no set leaders (in the tight, boss type way) and we are not doing it for money. We’re doing it for the sake of the community. THAT is how anarchism works.
So, it means: the basic behaviour of anarchism is not some distance unreachable state, its actually pretty normal. its what we do already, a lot of the time. The aim of anarchism is essentially to extend that behaviour yet further, into more areas of how we organise our society.
Anarchism is essentially one big christmas party all year round. free snacks and booze included! Wayyy heyyy!
A common misunderstanding about anarchism is that it means violent chaos or no rules or do whatever the hell you want. These are just silly myths and you should unburden yourself of that daft rubbish before settling down to watch another episode of Game of Thrones...
Instead try this is an image of anarchism: a young person holding a door open for an old lady. THAT'S anarchism!
When we open a door to an old lady that is the kind of behaviour that anarchism is built on and is trying to encourage. When we move slightly over on the road to let another person come the other way. When we let person X talk, listen to them, then they wait and listen to our reply. When we help our friend move to a new house, carrying all that heavy stuff up 3 flights of stairs...all that and the 1000 little ways we co-operate, help and be nice to our fellow humans everyday…
You may think 'Thats just normal decent behaviour'....right, it is - and that is exactly the kind of behaviour and attitude that anarchism is built on and is trying to encourage. Decent consideration and respect for all people, regardless of race, gender, class position, strength, power, money, age.
Or another example on a larger scale: when we get together with a bunch of other parents to organise school sports day, or the christmas party or whatever, we are doing anarchist type things. I wont say we are being full blown anarchists - but we ARE behaving in ways that are central to anarchism: we are co-operating as free volunteers, with no set leaders (in the tight, boss type way) and we are not doing it for money. We’re doing it for the sake of the community. THAT is how anarchism works.
So, it means: the basic behaviour of anarchism is not some distance unreachable state, its actually pretty normal. its what we do already, a lot of the time. The aim of anarchism is essentially to extend that behaviour yet further, into more areas of how we organise our society.
Anarchism is essentially one big christmas party all year round. free snacks and booze included! Wayyy heyyy!
Anarchy as a word
Yes, I noticed his interest in how dictionary words are assessed. However, if his reason for using anarchy is to follow common usage (misuse) then why does he make such efforts to stand against OTHER misuses (against the use of ‘comma splice’ by his students, for instance)? Even if we recognise the common usage we can express our disapproval of certain language developments, can’t we? I presume that you may also sometimes say to your children or friends that A or B word is not a good one.
I would think that this is especially the case when some word has been deliberately distorted by a powerful group in order to miss-lead the rest of us. Which appears to be the case with the word anarchism (possibly starting with the French govt outlawing anarchist publications in the 1890s). Would it not be the duty of any intelligent and conscientious person to highlight that distortion (even if you did not like the ideas behind the word, for the sake of historical accuracy). For example, if - for some odd reason - the word ‘fascism’ became strongly connected with the similar sounding word ‘fashion’, we should at least log some complaint about that confusion, no?
Also, if the point is that words take on the meanings in common use and do not stick strictly to their original meaning, then its possible that the word ‘anarchism’ could reconfigure to a more accurate set of associations, if enough of us use it in that way, right?
'This is probably because the actual theory behind the word is esoteric at best, and impossible to implement at worst’
These are both views, not facts. although im glad that you checked out aspects of the theory. In my view the basic theory of anarchism is rather simple (‘a society based on voluntary cooperation and free association of individuals and groups.’). although there are a lot of complicated aspects to it and many disagreements and different approaches, yes.
But that is because of the same reason that science has a lot of disagreements, different theories etc. Because its an ongoing messy process in which no one central authority says 'THIS is the way!'
But its almost certainly not impossible to implement - many anarchist type behaviours are already in daily use, and many of the things and actions we value the most, within capitalism, are things that fit very nicely with an anarchist approach. Actions that we do DESPITE capitalism not encouraging them. Anarchism wishes to increase those aspects - like mutual aid, consideration for others, respect for differences, etc.
‘Noam Chomsky notably advocated a diluted version of the theory.’ He advocates an adjusted version, perhaps, but not diluted as in watered down and balanced with other, so called, more 'practical' elements. Flexibility is a KEY aspect of anarchism, it is inherently an approach that has ‘adapting to the situation’ built in to it. So all anarchism is adjusted anarchism, there is no 'do it or be sent to a camp' Stalinist aspects that must be obeyed. I have worked with Chomsky a little - he wrote the intro to one of my books, this one:
http://seanmichaelwilson.weebly.com/parecomic.html
‘still have some regulatory mechanisms in place, as well as some agreed upon standards and shared values ‘ Please forgive me, I dont wish to be rude - but this shows that you need to consider anarchism a little more, since its a fundamental miss-understanding. There is nothing at all in it that says we should have no regulatory mechanisms or agreed upon standards and shared values - in fact, its quite the opposite. it would have MORE order than capitalism, a genuinely democratic system of agreeing on standards and far more focus on what our shared values are, etc.
As to anarchism’s possible correlation with violence - this is an area that still concerns me and i need to think more on myself. I can’t give a clear view there yet.
For further consideration you might wish to check out the participatory economics system that my PARECOMIC book is about: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Participatory_economics
Thanks!
Yes, I noticed his interest in how dictionary words are assessed. However, if his reason for using anarchy is to follow common usage (misuse) then why does he make such efforts to stand against OTHER misuses (against the use of ‘comma splice’ by his students, for instance)? Even if we recognise the common usage we can express our disapproval of certain language developments, can’t we? I presume that you may also sometimes say to your children or friends that A or B word is not a good one.
I would think that this is especially the case when some word has been deliberately distorted by a powerful group in order to miss-lead the rest of us. Which appears to be the case with the word anarchism (possibly starting with the French govt outlawing anarchist publications in the 1890s). Would it not be the duty of any intelligent and conscientious person to highlight that distortion (even if you did not like the ideas behind the word, for the sake of historical accuracy). For example, if - for some odd reason - the word ‘fascism’ became strongly connected with the similar sounding word ‘fashion’, we should at least log some complaint about that confusion, no?
Also, if the point is that words take on the meanings in common use and do not stick strictly to their original meaning, then its possible that the word ‘anarchism’ could reconfigure to a more accurate set of associations, if enough of us use it in that way, right?
'This is probably because the actual theory behind the word is esoteric at best, and impossible to implement at worst’
These are both views, not facts. although im glad that you checked out aspects of the theory. In my view the basic theory of anarchism is rather simple (‘a society based on voluntary cooperation and free association of individuals and groups.’). although there are a lot of complicated aspects to it and many disagreements and different approaches, yes.
But that is because of the same reason that science has a lot of disagreements, different theories etc. Because its an ongoing messy process in which no one central authority says 'THIS is the way!'
But its almost certainly not impossible to implement - many anarchist type behaviours are already in daily use, and many of the things and actions we value the most, within capitalism, are things that fit very nicely with an anarchist approach. Actions that we do DESPITE capitalism not encouraging them. Anarchism wishes to increase those aspects - like mutual aid, consideration for others, respect for differences, etc.
‘Noam Chomsky notably advocated a diluted version of the theory.’ He advocates an adjusted version, perhaps, but not diluted as in watered down and balanced with other, so called, more 'practical' elements. Flexibility is a KEY aspect of anarchism, it is inherently an approach that has ‘adapting to the situation’ built in to it. So all anarchism is adjusted anarchism, there is no 'do it or be sent to a camp' Stalinist aspects that must be obeyed. I have worked with Chomsky a little - he wrote the intro to one of my books, this one:
http://seanmichaelwilson.weebly.com/parecomic.html
‘still have some regulatory mechanisms in place, as well as some agreed upon standards and shared values ‘ Please forgive me, I dont wish to be rude - but this shows that you need to consider anarchism a little more, since its a fundamental miss-understanding. There is nothing at all in it that says we should have no regulatory mechanisms or agreed upon standards and shared values - in fact, its quite the opposite. it would have MORE order than capitalism, a genuinely democratic system of agreeing on standards and far more focus on what our shared values are, etc.
As to anarchism’s possible correlation with violence - this is an area that still concerns me and i need to think more on myself. I can’t give a clear view there yet.
For further consideration you might wish to check out the participatory economics system that my PARECOMIC book is about: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Participatory_economics
Thanks!
Anarcho capitalism - what is then?
If you are free in capitalism to set up your own business, and free to employ some people, and they are free to agree to become your employees.. well, then the freedom stops. because you, as the boss will have more and more POWER over them, their freedom will decrease. you, as the boss, will accumulate much more money than your employees and thus also decrease their freedom. your actions are likely to become more and more in the direction of decreasing the freedom of your employees, and that class of people who are workers in general, and of increasing the power of that class of people who are bosses. capitalism and genuine freedom are not compatible.
I am interested in learning more about how people such as yourself think anarchism and capitalism are compatible. And i mean that, politely, as a genuine interest... For example if I work for capitalist company A, that is owed by Mr Brown, i have to follow his commands as a subservient worker in his company. how is that compatible with anarchism? Since anarchism has at its core the idea the voluntary cooperation of equals in such places of production, how can it be acceptable to have a working place where Mr Brown is the king like figure and his workers are structurally not his equals. A place where the workers are not able to exercise as much power, as much say, as Mr Brown over how the production place is organised, working conditions etc. These two seems completely incompatible to me.
I’d be interested to see what rationale can be given for the existence of such capitalist style private ownership within an anarchistic system. And let me make three points to save time: the answer ‘they are free to leave company A’ does not resolve the contradiction WITHIN that company. Also, the answer ‘anarcho-capitalism would not have the voluntary co-operation of equals as a feature’ means that it is not anarchist, its plain capitalist. Then, if the answer is ‘Mr Brown would not have any more power in the company than the workers’ then i dont see how its capitalistic… As i say, i ask these points politely, as genuine questions.Thank you!
Axel lieber - Sean, if you work for someone, you enter into an employment contract, that gives both parties rights and duties. This is a voluntary and equitable act: both sides negotiate, both sides are free to take it or leave it, neither side would enter into the relationship if this didn't benefit them, and both sides are free to end the relationship. Whatever happens rightfully in the relationship is based on the contract you agreed to. It's not just the employer who has all the rights. Based on the contract, you can force the employer to pay you the agreed wage! If he doesn't, you can give him hell! One could even say: the poor employer! What an unequal relationship he must suffer through! He has to pay you but you don't ever need to pay him! He even has to pay you if he dislikes you or if he isn't satisfied with your performance! (And I assure you, as an employer who has been through it a few times, I find myself anything but a king in such situations!)
Selling your skills, your labor, your time is also no different from selling anything else. You sell comics, I take it. If you're interested in making a living in this way, you probably treat your customers with a certain amount of politeness and try to be nice to them. You'll probably at least listen if they have any feedback or requests. You may ignore their wishes and of course you are aware that you may lose their business as a consequence. If you continuously treat your customers poorly, just do whatever you want, pay no attention to what they want etc, then you'll either have very little business, or you're in the relatively rare position that you somehow offer a shit-hot product that they want to buy despite your generally poor attitude. There are employees like that, too. An absolute pain in the ass, yet indispensable so they don't get fired and can even demand a raise at the end of each year, or any old time of the year, indeed.
As I mentioned, anarchy per se is just the absence of government. Ancoms try to make it about the absence of hierarchies but that's something other anarchists like me disagree with. A hierarchy that's based on contract is something completely different from a hierarchy that is imposed by force (as government is). It is in no way incompatible with anarchy.
And on that note, here is what we ancaps find puzzling about socialist anarchism: it is explicitly based on expropriation and coercion, and yet it styles itself as anarchism. That doesn't compute.
If you are free in capitalism to set up your own business, and free to employ some people, and they are free to agree to become your employees.. well, then the freedom stops. because you, as the boss will have more and more POWER over them, their freedom will decrease. you, as the boss, will accumulate much more money than your employees and thus also decrease their freedom. your actions are likely to become more and more in the direction of decreasing the freedom of your employees, and that class of people who are workers in general, and of increasing the power of that class of people who are bosses. capitalism and genuine freedom are not compatible.
I am interested in learning more about how people such as yourself think anarchism and capitalism are compatible. And i mean that, politely, as a genuine interest... For example if I work for capitalist company A, that is owed by Mr Brown, i have to follow his commands as a subservient worker in his company. how is that compatible with anarchism? Since anarchism has at its core the idea the voluntary cooperation of equals in such places of production, how can it be acceptable to have a working place where Mr Brown is the king like figure and his workers are structurally not his equals. A place where the workers are not able to exercise as much power, as much say, as Mr Brown over how the production place is organised, working conditions etc. These two seems completely incompatible to me.
I’d be interested to see what rationale can be given for the existence of such capitalist style private ownership within an anarchistic system. And let me make three points to save time: the answer ‘they are free to leave company A’ does not resolve the contradiction WITHIN that company. Also, the answer ‘anarcho-capitalism would not have the voluntary co-operation of equals as a feature’ means that it is not anarchist, its plain capitalist. Then, if the answer is ‘Mr Brown would not have any more power in the company than the workers’ then i dont see how its capitalistic… As i say, i ask these points politely, as genuine questions.Thank you!
Axel lieber - Sean, if you work for someone, you enter into an employment contract, that gives both parties rights and duties. This is a voluntary and equitable act: both sides negotiate, both sides are free to take it or leave it, neither side would enter into the relationship if this didn't benefit them, and both sides are free to end the relationship. Whatever happens rightfully in the relationship is based on the contract you agreed to. It's not just the employer who has all the rights. Based on the contract, you can force the employer to pay you the agreed wage! If he doesn't, you can give him hell! One could even say: the poor employer! What an unequal relationship he must suffer through! He has to pay you but you don't ever need to pay him! He even has to pay you if he dislikes you or if he isn't satisfied with your performance! (And I assure you, as an employer who has been through it a few times, I find myself anything but a king in such situations!)
Selling your skills, your labor, your time is also no different from selling anything else. You sell comics, I take it. If you're interested in making a living in this way, you probably treat your customers with a certain amount of politeness and try to be nice to them. You'll probably at least listen if they have any feedback or requests. You may ignore their wishes and of course you are aware that you may lose their business as a consequence. If you continuously treat your customers poorly, just do whatever you want, pay no attention to what they want etc, then you'll either have very little business, or you're in the relatively rare position that you somehow offer a shit-hot product that they want to buy despite your generally poor attitude. There are employees like that, too. An absolute pain in the ass, yet indispensable so they don't get fired and can even demand a raise at the end of each year, or any old time of the year, indeed.
As I mentioned, anarchy per se is just the absence of government. Ancoms try to make it about the absence of hierarchies but that's something other anarchists like me disagree with. A hierarchy that's based on contract is something completely different from a hierarchy that is imposed by force (as government is). It is in no way incompatible with anarchy.
And on that note, here is what we ancaps find puzzling about socialist anarchism: it is explicitly based on expropriation and coercion, and yet it styles itself as anarchism. That doesn't compute.