A plea for some help - socialist anarchy?
In my wanderings around politics I’ve come across many concepts. I can understand how many are theoretically meant to work and why.
I can understand the appeal of totalitarianism (and oppose it all the more because of that).
I have a rough idea how anarcho-capitalism might work, the same with mutualism and other individualist anarchism. I see the theory of socialism at a state and a voluntary level.
Everything I’ve come across makes some sort of sense with the exception of socialist or collectivist anarchy.
That is something I simply do not understand. How will it succeed in removal of the state? I do know one collectivist anarchist, but he’s arrogant and obviously deems my inability to understand a sign that I’m not worthy to have it explained to me.
So, how on earth does it work in theory? Is it really based on a naive view of humans as all lovely and cooperative beings who will all voluntarily put the collective above themselves despite all evidence to the contrary?
When I look at collectivist anarchy I see the replacement of one state with another (one coercive body with another) differentiated by the people in charge.
So can anyone out there explain where I’m going wrong? (Or if I’m right…)
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August 30th, 2007 at 11:42 am
You’re right of course.
I guess they take the idea that people are moulded by their environment, and conclude (wrongly) that they could be so moulded to make work any system you can think of. Then they say “let’s have equality and freedom”.
They might say ‘re-educate’ rather than mould, and they probably don’t intend to mean anything nasty or coercive about it at all.
Of course however much you think you can persuade people to be better people, it is still a bad idea to advocate a political system that would rely on them being better people.
August 30th, 2007 at 12:03 pm
Broadly socialist anarchism is a utopian philosophy that rests on the usual utopian assumption… ‘if only everyone felt, thought and did the same as I do, wouldn’t the world be wonderful’.
In this case the common understanding would be that coercion and possession are wrong. Consequentially without the need for state intervention we would all be content to live in common communities with a high degree of sharing, trust and equality. We would aspire to care for one another and protect each other from external threats without the need for a standing army etc…
Unforntunately, like most utopian visions the underlying assumptions about human nature and the way the world works are pants in a handcart.
Even in a social group that had nothing worth owning beyond bare necessities there would still be stress on the mutuality of the group in times scarcity, or frankly over things as basic as who gets to sleep with who.
Hierarchies and rules evolved with our cultures not simply due to the greed and meglomania of the powerbrokers, but to get things done for common benefit, and as a way of stopping the arbitrary injustice of anarchies under stress.
August 30th, 2007 at 2:30 pm
I think you are actually wrong about anarcho-collectivism. I believe that has workers paid a wage according to how much they work, so it does acknowledge peoples actual attitudes somewhat. Doomed for many other reasons, but that seems off topic. I think you are thinking of anarcho-communism, which is the same but distributes according to need.
Not being an anarchist, of course, I’m liable to be wrong about everything…
September 1st, 2007 at 7:33 pm
it is essentially just a very liberal way of fulfilling very left wing aims, from what I gather. If it ever became a government reality it would essentially be a government enforcing economic controls and socialism combined with localism, radical changes in government structure towards the very liberal and very libertarian social values (although certainly not economic ones). at least thats what I think, I’m just a social liberal so I may be wrong but thats the impression I got from looking at Spanish Anarchists and republicans during the civil war.
September 3rd, 2007 at 9:56 am
John Dixon:
Except the left wing aims of economic controls cannot be implemented without coercion so its incompatible with liberalism.
The body which does the coercion is the state in all but name (so the anarchist goal of no state falls down there).