this post was submitted on 03 Dec 2023
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Anarchy (as a political philosophy) is about an absence of coercion.
Capitalism is about the supremacy of property rights over all other rights, backed up by the threat of violence against anyone who doesn't play along.
How anyone can think those two concepts are compatible is beyond me.
Every political ideology includes that. What good are rules without enforcement? Just because the enforcers are supposed to be random individuals in some ideologies doesn't mean the threat of violence for not playing along is gone.
Anarchism claims to be different. But yeah, that's a big part of why I see anarchism as a thought experiment and not a serious ideology.
I'm an anarchist, and my take is that anarchism isn't pacifism, and "no coercion" is a bad summary. It's more about the absence of hierarchical coercion and instead distribution of power to all people and communities.
If you're going around burning down houses, your anarchist neighbors are going to use force to take away your matches and gasoline if you don't stop.
Yup, that is my understanding as well. Likewise, if you're going around stealing, and someone happens to think that's bad, they can use force to stop you because there's no state telling them otherwise.
The idea that if there's no state we'd automatically be living in communist utopia where everything is shared and nobody owns anything is flawed on its face. It's certainly possible that there would be groups or tribes of people that choose to live that way, but other tribes would form around the idea that property rights should be protected and build a community around that.
You're very much misrepresenting how anarchism is supposed to work with that "automatically" statement. No one thinks if will happen by itself, there's a whole library on thought on how to go about making it the societal norm, with quite a lot of good points that humanity already largely acted like this for most of its two to three hundred thousand years of existence.
Supposedly, anyways. I suppose paleolithic man might well have been selling mammoth futures and executing debtors in the street.
But I also don't really buy it in a urban society unless that society is largely run by the Culture's Minds.
Capitalism is primarily an economic system, not a political philosophy. And while it requires property rights in order to function, it is primarily concerned with solving problems in the absence of coercion, so it is absolutely compatible with anarchy.
You're making a fundamental error when you think that property rights would not or do not exist in anarchy. What doesn't exist in anarchy is the enforcement of such rights by a STATE. A property owner (or in this case, really anyone who lays claim to a property, since a state that could issue official deeds does not exist) still has the right to defend their property using violent means if necessary.
So yes, capitalism and anarchy are absolutely compatible.
Anarchy requires the absence of a state... And private property... Anarchy is to the left of "workers siezing the means of production".
But anarcho-capitalists are, as you've said, only focusing on the economic system of their politics. If you ask them about the politics and government of their fantasy? Well, they all reveal a desire for a deeply coercive state. Anarchy, and also Libertarian, are words being co-opted.
Nope, anarchy is only the absence of a state. Like I said, it is still possible to enforce property rights in such a scenario... as long as you do it yourself.
This likely WOULD lead to less hoarding and more wealth distribution, because you cannot keep what you cannot defend. But it's definitely wrong to assume all property would automatically become public and "free use" and everyone would share freely as in a communist utopia, because that requires agreement between people. And in the absence of a state, there is no authority that could enforce such an agreement.
I've always wanted someone to explain how you eliminate capitalism or the symbolic exchange of value to achieve a socialist/ anarchist state without violence.
The nice part about anarchism is both systems are free to coexist in the absense of the state. That cannot be said under communism and socialism.
If you think about it, such communities probably already exist: most families, even in capitalism, are communist internally: the parents contribute far more to the household than the children do, who tend to consume far more than they produce. From each according to their ability to each according to their need.
This likely also explains the continued popularity of communism as a political philosophy, especially among young people. Going out into the world, where there is competition and conflict is jarring, and the wish for society to be organized more like a family unit is understandable, although it is far more difficult to organize a large country in this way than a household of no more than, say, a dozen people.
Communism is a classless stateless society, parents within our society literally own their children as property.
Remind me again, what is the political ideology of the new world superpower? The one with 1.4 billion people? You know, now that the capitalist US empire is in obvious terminal decline.
Are you talking about China? If so, I'm afraid they're communist in name only. They realized many years ago that Marxist economic theory doesn't work and began to integrate capitalist principles into their economy. There are banks, there is a stock market, and there is private ownership of the means of production, although all of these are tightly regulated by the state and can be rescinded at any time or for any reason (such as not paying enough bribes).
De facto, China is a capitalist-fascist state more comparable to WW2 Germany than anything Marx ever came up with.
You're kind of incredibly ignorant on China. They're a mostly publicly controlled economy.
Source: https://www.piie.com/research/piie-charts/chinas-state-vs-private-company-tracker-which-sector-dominates
The reasoning for a private sector is to prevent economic and technological siege.
Also marxist economic theory is literally just a structured critique of capitalism. It doesn't have anything to say about socialism or communism, that is marx's other works.
I would really suggest reading "Economy and class structure of german fascism" and comparing it to the political and economic situation of China. (And actually understand those situations, not just passively absorb ideas from anglophone media) This isn't meant to be a dig, but this level of political illiteracy is embarrassing.
Have you literally read any book that Marx wrote? (The manifesto is a manifesto, it doesn't count, but I'd also be interested in knowing if you've read that)
Private Property cannot exist without a state. That which gives private property legitimacy is a monopoly of violence, otherwise you have a winner-takes-all might makes right system.
Collective ownership of property can be enforced via the collective itself, without a need for a governing body.
Anarchism is certainly idealistic, but Anarcho-Capitalism is pure fantasy.
Do you believe that collective forms of ownership would win on an even playing field?
I dont know, let's ask Chinese feudal lords how their ability to enforce private property went after the CPC stopped enforcing their private property rights for them like the old government did.
If the collective has to enforce collective ownership, isn't that just a monopoly on violence again?
Private ownership doesn't require a collective, or a monopoly on violence. You only get to keep what you can defend.
If everyone has equal ownership, there is no "mono"poly.
Private ownership requires a monopoly on violence to exist, if you can't defend it there are no rights.
I have a gun. Try taking it from me.
There are no laws saying I can’t have one, and there are no laws saying I can’t shoot you if you try to take it.
You cannot seriously believe in a might makes right society, can you?
I mean, first of all, have you taken a look at our current society, and second of all, this is just a thought experiment to prove that anarcho-communism is pure fantasy, or at the very least not inevitable.
Anarcho-Capitalism cannot exist, it would cease to exist the very second it did.
Anarcho-Communism is a lofty goal, but is fully capable of existing.
That's the fundamental difference, what you consider to be Private Property simply wouldn't be, it would either be personal property or you wouldn't have it. It is only through threat of violence that one can own the products of tools despite not doing the labor.
Okay, as frustrating as it is to have you simply repeat your initial statements despite any arguments made to the contrary, it seems as though your point hinges on the distinction between personal and private property.
However, I don't see how private property couldn't be maintained as long as you have the ability to defend it. Hiring guards for instance does not constitute a monopoly on violence, since others can do so as well. In an anarcho-communist scenario, for instance, if the workers want to maintain control of the means of production after ousting the owner, they would potentially have to post guards as well, or the property owner could hire a bunch of mercenaries to take the property back.
The long and short if this is, I don't see how anarchy would favor either the creation of capitalist or communist structures of organization. Most likely, there would be both, and survival would be a matter of who is better at organizing.
There are numerous critical flaws of what you just said.
Why would Guards support you? If you become a robber-baron, hiring muscle to protect your factories from the Workers, you have to deal with the fact that either you don't actually control and own your factories, the mercenaries do, or accept that you have become a micro-state.
What is preventing any of these micro-states from absorbing others and becoming a full state? Nothing.
Why would anyone willingly work for you, unless it already reached the point where you are essentially a state? They could make more money simply by working cooperatively.
Private Property cannot maintain itself unless you have a monopoly on violence and thus a state.
Cooperatively owned property, on the other hand, supports itself and is maintained cooperatively. There are no avenues to realistically overturn it.
I don't think you're wrong about the idea of micro-states forming, but I don't see how a communist cooperative isn't a micro-state by the same definition as well.
As far as cooperatives being naturally more efficient, I highly doubt that. Centralized structures are far more conducive to decision making. While your commune is still debating about whether both Marx' and Engels' birthdays should be a day off, the capitalists are already working.
Also, the idea that property somehow magically supports itself by virtue of being communally owned is complete fantasy. You clearly have no actual experience and are just spouting off a bunch of dogma you've read somewhere.
If everyone has equal power, there's no statist component.
Cooperative structures are not inherently more efficient, but Cooperative work structures would result in higher paid workers. The strawman about a lack of decision making in the Cooperative could easily be flipped, while the Workers are already producing, the Capitalists are figuring out how to extort their customers and workers better.
Communally owned property supports itself by virtue of being communally owned. If nobody has an individual claim to it, someone who tries would be contested by the community, hence its communal ownership.
You only have strawmen and vibes, no actual points.
I really hope you get to fulfill your dream of living in a commune one day so you'll have some actual first hand experience of what you are talking about.
I'd pay good money to see your face the first time you get outvoted on something you think you are absolutely right about.
What an excellent way to dodge literally everything I pointed out and feign a logical high ground. Perfectly smug and absolutely irrelevant.
Okay, but if there isn't a state, who is to say the workers don't have the right to protect their surplus labor value from theft by seizing the means of production, through violence if necessary?
This is one of the reasons why anarcho capitalism is an incoherent ideology. People who believe in it think that the right of private property is just something everyone agrees should be held sacred, when it only exists because of state violence.
Nobody. But conversely, if there isn't a state, what's to prevent property owners from banding together and protecting their property with violence?
Before you say "but there's more workers than property owners", keep in mind that given enough money or gold or whatever, they could also hire mercenaries to prevent workers from rebelling.
It really all comes down to who is better at organizing. So it's possible that in one scenario, workers would seize the means of production successfully, and if they are good enough at keeping it running, they'd operate as a commune, while in another scenario, there'd be a more hierarchical, capitalist structure of organization.
You're simply arguing from a standpoint of "but I like THIS approach better" when it's a question of "but can you make it WORK?"
That would literally be a capitalist state in every meaningful sense.
Sorta like a police force of some kind?
You know what is really fucking organized? A state. It is almost like at the beginning of the country all the large landowners and capitalists got together and made one of those to protect their interests.
Lol. I am literally asking how your hypothetical system would handle class antagonisms, the primary concern of politics. I am very directly asking "but can you make it work"
So you just want the violence you prefer meted out by the state.
Is this meant to be a gotcha? What I prefer has nothing to do with understanding how states function and why they coalesce.
Not really a gotcha. I just forget I'm pretty alone in my (particular) distaste for violence.
Edit: didn't really mean for that to sound so negative.
I guess I dont base my understanding of politics around morality, morality enters the field when determining what to do within that understanding
I'm certainly overly reductive of politics. When we're talking ideology, though, yeah I'm going back to my ethics. A government can't act on our behalf with more rights than us - we just end up creating our master. Pragmatic actions, in the real world, are different from ideological conversations, though.
I'm somewhat confused by your separation of ideology from practical actions. That sounds internally inconsistent.
I am willing to accept a state if it is necessary to suppress the bourgeoisie and their toadies, so long as that continues to be necessary. I would prefer we lived in a communist society but we can't get there overnight and socialism is how you transition to it.
It's similar to your position. I just have a different path to a stateless, voluntary society. I also don't really care what the economic system looks like, so long as human rights are recognized.
What about human economic rights? What use does a homeless starving person have for the freedom of press?
I consider freedom of the press to just be freedom of speech, which we all have.
As for the homeless chap, it depends on their situation. I'd live in a community that would try to help them. I think we're ethically obligated to help people in need as best we can, but I'm not comfortable using violence to force you to help them.
The thing is we don't. There is no such thing as free speech, any speech that meaningfully threatens the government will be cracked down on. See Fred Hampton. Free speech is a legal fiction in our country.
But my point is that the limited bourgeois privileges you get don't matter if you're starving on the street. You can't meaningfully have those privileges without economic security.
So it is more violent to take food from a grocery store because that hurts the owners bottom line than it is to prevent a starving man from taking bread from a grocery store by kicking his ass and throwing him in a box? Is that your perspective on this issue?
I meant that freedom of the press shouldn't be limited to just people that work for CNN or whatever. I don't think they're separate rights. I didn't mean to say they're appropriately implemented.
Theft of small amounts of food isn't really something I care about. I'm not a fan of police or jails/prisons. We can handle these sorts of crimes more ethically. Robberies are a bit different. If you're someone that visits San Francisco to bip cars then goes back home, you could prolly use a good kick or two if you're caught by your intended victim.
Regardless, I think we, as a society, should be there with the bread. It shouldn't be an issue we have to face.
But you don't think we should use violence to enforce the idea, so how do you enforce the idea in the transition when former small business tyrants chafe at the idea of sharing? What if they don't submit to nonviolent methods of control?
They don't have to submit? We do things the right way and don't deal with those cunts. As a gradualist, though, I think we can build up our communities while removing the regulations that enable corporations to operate the way they do while staying profitable.
Okay but they have the means of survival right now. Not seizing them means people will die while you develop your own.
Also, while developing your own, the movement is vulnerable to getting crushed by them. They historically haven't had any compunctions with killing millions to protect themselves from communism.
How though? Do you think the capitalist state is going to just let you mess with its bosses?
When I help my sister pay her rent a small business owner isn't being evicted. Economics aren't zero sum.
I think ideas like collective ownership and mutual aid have power without challenging the ruling class. Instead we beg daddy to give us more rations.
I don't really have all the answers. I know what I consider ethical and try to work within that, but I'm no genius. I know it's easy to say your answer is violence and we'll sort it out later, but there're a lot of missing steps there. I don't think there's a lot of difference between the class consciousness necessary to achieve a gradualist result vs revolution. Gradualism has time to show people the benefit without lining them up against the wall, tho.
We also live in a world that has a habit of fucking up collectivism. Trade is technology and in a free society we can test the tech and find what works instead of fucking shit up with bullets and famine.
Can you prevent a landlord from evicting a single mom, when that landlord is willing to use violence to do it, without using violence? Is the idea just "we will pay them all off, using money we definitely have in order to do it?
Then, bluntly, you are ignorant of history. I'm not calling you stupid, I'm just saying you need to actually learn about this stuff before trying to come up with a belief system about it.
I dont know what you mean here
You need to consider the impact of your actions in morality, which means understanding what the outcomes of actions have been historically.
That would be an easy and incorrect way of describing my beliefs, yes.
I think you haven't thought about the material implications of this. Giving white supremacists and landlords and capitalists time to come around isnt nonviolent, it is permitting violence to continue for a while because you don't want to commit violence on the people doing the violence. It is a statement that you dont want to help the oppressed if it is at the expense of the oppressor.
Honestly, I think you've bought into a capitalist framing on the history of transitional states. The USSR had famines during: a bloody Civil War, collectivization, and right after ww2. It notably did not have any periodic famines that the Russian empire previously had. Communist China had a famine after the Civil War before relations were normalized. They notably ended the periodic famines, especially along the yellow river.
In the same way that a collective of workers getting together to control the means of production would be a communist state in every meaningful sense.
Yes. The difference is I'm not claiming a proletarian democracy isn't a state.