What do anarchists want?

Shaodeus

Shaodeus

Still Mildly Glowing
I'm confused as to why they are so anti-capitalist and yet want no government, which to me it would seem would lead to the most hardcore capitalistic system imaginable, so maybe I'm missing something here.
 
Anarchy, otherwise known as a state of disorder due to absence or non-recognition of authority or other controlling systems.
Capitalism is an economic system based on private ownership of the means of production and their operation for profit. Characteristics central to capitalism include private property, capital accumulation, wage labor, voluntary exchange, a price system, and competitive markets.

I think you are getting capitalism confused with survival of the fittest.
 
That would be Anarcho-Capitalism, which is a possible outcome, but not a necessary one.
The ideal outcome (depending on what kind of anarchism they follow) would be either total individualism (in the case of the individualist movments) or some form of tribalism up to communist/collectivist anarchism (for the collectivist movements. It might sound oxymoronic, but remember that communism is not actually equivalent to oppression by the state).
I think the baseline for all kinds of anarchism is that everything is voluntary, and apart from anarcho-capitalism most movements seek to abolish money and all forms of control.
The various movements are of course much more complicated than that, but the gist is, there is no generic "anarchism" and a goal that every anarchist strives for.
 
Everyone uses freedom as their mantra, everyone claims that their ideology will make people free, well almost everyone that is
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Stop with the stupid philosphical anarchism shit its retarded. An anarchistic society would be several shit tons worse than ours because some charismatic nutjob Adolf Hitler would take complete control and we would have a dictatorship.
 
Franco would probably be a more apt comparison.
> Be Franco
> Be buttmad your side lost the election
> Start civil war and take over by force
 
Or be a b*tch that if it hadn't asked for Hit & Mus's help would have lost
 
I have yet to encounter a working government that does not in some way restrict the freedoms of the individual it exists for. Sure some do better to allow their "citizens" greater degrees of freedom, but there is also a stigma with change and risk. A large majority of citizens will gladly give up civil liberties or "freedoms" to feel more safe or less in danger.

From my perspective to many people require regulation to be able to co-exist with each other. Which makes no sense to me considering putting people together is a great invitation for conflict.
 
Seriously, why do people ask random schlubs on the internet for their opinion on political stuff? Anarchist philosophical theory has been a concrete thing for like three-hundred years. Go read some William Godwin, Kropotkin, Proudhon and Max Stirner then tell me how all of them are anti-capitalist. Oh wait, not all of them are. All the information you could want is elsewhere online.
 
Earth said:
Seriously, why do people ask random schlubs on the internet for their opinion on political stuff?
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You're right I could find this information anywhere on the internet, however this community seems to be quite diverse with its people's opinions on here and I'm curious to what you fine folk think about random stuff, hence why I ask.
 
Anarchy is a good example of a "utopia", a society that can only exist in fantasyland, and not in realityland.
In the ideal anarchy, there wouldn't be "capitalism" in the traditional sense, because ... it's a utopia. And in the utopia everyone cares about each others and hold hands and laugh and sing and dance. In such an environment a cynical and exploitative form of capitalism cannot endure.
Only unicorns can.
And rainbows!

I sometimes have a romantic attitude to "anarcho-primitivism", but in reality such a scenario would only be like rewinding human history, only to fast forward it again.
Humans in a non-government state, will naturally create a government.
Humans in a non-urban state will naturally create urbanity.
Humans withough agriculture will naturally develop agriculture, and so on.

We are what we are because we are unable to be anything but what we are.
 
Something equally as unachievable as communism.

Unfortunately being a moderate libertarian/classical liberal, I get looped in with the loonies who think having privately owned roads and community-suing to prevent pollution is a good idea. Those kinds of people being anarchists and anarcho-capitalists.
 
I don't see what's so utopian about it. It's not as if human differences and personal struggles would just perish into thin air if we were to become free. It's just an idea that there should not be an agent of coercion meddling into them.

The whole "MUH ROADS" meme is just old and tired, there are countless examples of good privately built and operated roads (shit, I don't know if any good roads in all of Christendom are actually built by government companies), as well as a logical explanation of how it could work with no state intervention.
 
Most utopian ideas crash when they become "all or nothing", that's why I'm not a fan of "no government" or "all government" because its all or nothing

Tried and tested - is some government. State owned military is a good idea, for example. State owned police is another good example. State owned fire department has been discussed before as a obvious given. State owned health care and education is obviously also a... ... a...

why are you guys lighting those torches?
Did I say something wrong?

Shouldn't healthcare be - wait - HEY! NO... ! AAAGH!!! AAAAAAAAAAAAGH!!!!
 
They want the absolute freedom of man, the only form of leadership should be an elected leader and his right hand man. This is according to my brother, who is a punk and an anarchist.
 
erich van loon said:
They want the absolute freedom of man, the only form of leadership should be an elected leader and his right hand man. This is according to my brother, who is a punk and an anarchist.
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There is the illusion though.
We allready have ultimate freedom, at least in our democratic societies. You have freedom of movement, freedom of speech and religion - and you are even free to go against the rules. You can walk up to someone, and use your freedom to whack them over the head with a brick. They'll have to spend the rest of their lives with severe brain damage - and there's no ammount of justice that can undo that.
You were free to do it.
Sure, you will be arrested after the fact - IF... investigation manages to conclude you were the culprit, of course. You'll have much of your freedom removed, by being put in jail. But freedom is there, you were free to act in the first place.

What is absolute freedom then? You allready have the freedom to work, study, pray, think. MORE freedom?
Well, that could be to study for free. Some countries have that. Freedom to work, despite there being no jobs available? Hmmm, that's tricky. You could be free to forcibly remove someone else from their job, but they'd be just as free to remove you right afterwards - unless you used a brick.

IF you used a brick - and there's no police, because we have anarchy, then we are allready looking at a very brutal world, where everyone solves their problems with big, red bricks. We're suddenly looking at a horrific social darwinist dystopia, instead of a utopia, where everyone who lack friends, lack security, are bashed with bricks, and everyone who have protection, who have friends, are safe from exploitation.

In the end, humanity tries and tests methods. Among all the different societies we have, some things stay very uniform, across the world - such as having a central government to begin with (even tribal societies are governed centrally - by a chief or a set of elders. All following government types include the government itself as a core, despite the variations)
No country on earth, that I know of, have a currently privatized fire department (early fire departments were indeed private, and it didn't work very well, with ill will between rivalling departments resulting in houses burning down "on spite")
The same goes for police forces. There's plenty of private security forces, but always alongside a state controlled police force.

In the end, we are not even meant to work in an ideal way, because we are only animals, and only follow our basic instincts, limited as they are. Unless you happen to be religious, then we ARE perfect, and there's a plan for us all! :]
 
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