When I talk to people about anarchism, they all think the same thing at first : anarchy = violence. I wasn’t thinking that myself before looking more into anarchism, but I must admit I had strong bias concerning anarchy.
For instance I was surprised when I found out that Gandhi was considered by some people to be an anarchist… but it makes sense since he was fighting the stat.
So all this is called anarcho pacifism, and we can also talk of philosophical anarchism.
Anarcho-pacifism (also pacifist anarchism or anarchist pacifism) is a form of anarchism which completely rejects the use of violence in any form for any purpose.
Philosophical anarchism is an anarchist school of thought which contends that the State lacks moral legitimacy but does not advocate revolution to eliminate it. Though philosophical anarchism does not necessarily imply any action or desire for the elimination of the State, philosophical anarchists do not believe that they have an obligation or duty to obey the State, or conversely, that the State has a right to command.
This kind of anarchist view is less “extreme” and it seems that some of the philosophical anarchists like William Godwin accept the idea of a minimal state (minarchism). I will discuss minarchism later on, since this is an interesting theory.
Well all that sounds really nice, but can it lead to change ? We fall back once again to my question on the effectiveness and justifications of riots. I guess history showed that both the approaches worked (e.g. the French revolution, and the Indian Independence Movement)…
Proposition 8 was a California State ballot proposition that amended the state Constitution to restrict the definition of marriage to a union between a man and a woman. It overrode a recent California Supreme Court decision that had recognized same-sex marriage in California as a fundamental right. The official ballot title language for Proposition 8 is “Eliminates Right of Same-Sex Couples to Marry.” The entirety of the text to be added to the constitution was: “Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California.”
“If the individual has the right to govern himself, all external government is tyranny”, Benjamin R. Tucker
In my opinion, mariage is just something left of old religious habits and we should switch to a more civil union, but why forbid people wanting to get maried?
Why let the government decide what lifestyle is right or wrong ?
Once again we get to a religious problem thanks to people thinking that they are superior therefore have the right to impose their views on other people, here using an oppresive law. People are just not fit to decide on these kind of questions ! I am not concerned by prop 8, but I still don’t see why some people need to push their opinion on others… it won’t chance a thing for them ! But still they try to oppose social progress… and the system let them !
It should be up to each individual to decide what lifestyle they want to follow as long as it doesn’t harm their neightboors… and to me two guys or two girls getting maried won’t kill anyone.
Right now I’m in Florida and I discover that a LOT of people are homophobic. It is really “ok” here, it won’t offend anyone. Why all these ignorant people raised with a religious blindfold should get the right to decide who I can mary ? Leave me alone !
They have no clue of what’s going on in the world, they base their logic on the bible or other ridiculous beliefs… but in the end they still get to decide for other how to rule their life by allowing laws like prop 8 to pass.
Once again, I am not directly concerned, but I wonder what would I do if I was. What would I do if I was denied my rights to live my life as I want ? Well I’m not sure…
I leave you with this video of Keith Olberman :
I was watching some videos like this one :
What would I do if I was denied my rights ? What if I had neo nazi parading right in front of my house or having fun in my neighborhood ? ?
Militant anti-fascism is a form of anti-fascism that advocates the use of violence against fascists. Within the anti-fascist movement, the term militant anti-fascism is often used in contrast to liberal anti-fascism.
What do I think about the Antifa movement?
Direct action is political action which happens outside normal political channels via indirect actions such as electing representatives. Direct action is often associated with movements or groups who have little influence over normal political processes. Direct action is a form of political activism that seeks immediate remedy for perceived ills.
What do I think about direct action ?
After reading a comment made by Anok of Identity Check, I started looking into fair trade and gift economy.
“I find that for purposes of practicality - being that we live in a world that is not at the moment conducive to Anarchism of any real sort - the mixed economies that we are moving towards are best for the moment.
I myself, prefer fair trade barter and gift economies - keeping in mind that in my ideal Anarchist world the social structure would be very different than it is now.
The other aspect of Anarcho-capitalism that I take issue with is inequality. Class, or caste systems are inherent to capitalism, which is why most Anarchists oppose it. Now, when I talk about economic equality, I mean that each person’s contribution to society is deemed valuable, and equal in worth. Think about it - the factory worker’s job is as important as the waste management guy’s job, which is as important as a mother’s job to raise her child, which is as important as the seamstress, and teh farmer etc and so forth.
Without each part of society working together, society has a very hard time functioning. But in capitalist societies, those whose jobs are unsavory, pay less, or are simply deemed “fringe” or unworthy become the determining factor of that person’s social status in life.”, Anok
He was reacting to a post I made about anarcho-capitalism.
So what is fair trade and gift economy. Let’s ask wikipedia as it is usually a good way to start !
Fair trade is an organized social movement and market-based approach to empowering developing country producers and promoting sustainability. The movement advocates the payment of a fair price as well as social and environmental standards in areas related to the production of a wide variety of goods.
So from what I understood the fair trade system is already here and is working fine to help people in less developed countries. To me this is really good since this is based on the following principles :
It will therefore help small producers make a better living by including them in the economy and giving them access to the market. All this is based on the idea that a well informed consumer will stand up for fair trade and prefer to help small producers, and it actually work for a part of the population. The system is actually helping a lot of people in less developed countries, so it makes it good !
The only thing I start to wonder is what is the difference between the “fair market value” and the “market value”. In the end both are what the customer is willing to pay for a product. I must have my definitions wrong…
A gift economy is a social theory in which goods and services are given without any explicit agreement for immediate or future quid pro quo. Typically, a gift economy occurs in a culture or subculture that emphasizes social or intangible rewards for solidarity and generosity: karma, honor, loyalty or other forms of gratitude.
So now this is the part that I don’t agree with. It sounds like something wonderfull, but I don’t see how that could work. I know that there is already a part of “gift” in our current system (blood donation, charity, open source…), but in my opinion it can’t be the base of an economy. It can work in a small community, but now that everything is global, how could we switch to a gift economy without going back to the middle age ?
This system is based on the fact that everyone is nice and everyone is equal. It would be great, but we really are not. Jobs are also not equals, some are harder, some require a special strenght, some require special knowledge… and if no one has an incentive to get these skills, in the end no one will do the hard jobs.
Also, if someone want to start a business, he will have to work hard. At some point he could get people to help him out, since it’s impossible to imagine an economy without some kind of employees or partners. Well the guy starting the process will have put a lot of work into his project… but in the end he will get just as much as the guy that just joined the project. So what would he start the project in the first place ?
It would be great if people were just all altruists, but they are not. Some are, and it’s a good thing, but we need to realize that not everyone is ready to work hard for the same thing as the guy next door.
Another point made in this comment was :
The other aspect of Anarcho-capitalism that I take issue with is inequality. Class, or caste systems are inherent to capitalism, which is why most Anarchists oppose it.
To me it is hard to remove all inequalities, and this is sure that capitalism leads to problems of this kind. But there is no way that a global economy could work without problems. We could forget all about the globalization of exchanges and go back in time… but is this really going to happen ? Is this really going to work ?
But the thing that still bothers me about capitalism is not the extra hierarchy : if a hierarchy is prooved to be justified, why abolish it? Of course I’m not saying that all hierarchy are justified, but sometimes it is needed. The thing that bothers me is the fact that an anarcho-capitalist system would fail in providing help to the people in need. I haven’t seen a credible alternative to the state in that case.
This is a question that I’m asking to myself and to whoever get to this website.
As an anarchist, should you refuse to vote and therefore loose the only control you could have over the government, but in the meantime make a statement by demonstrating your oposition to the system ? I’m not sure that you would call that civil desobediance, but you get the point, right ?
Or should you vote and try to find a candidate that fits with your beliefes, or, in the end, the “lesser of the two evils” ? For instance if I could vote in the USA today, I would vote for Obama… but then again I seriously doubt the democratic system, so would that make sense to vote ?
I honestly don’t know since I’ve heard from people believing either one or the other and I can’t make up my mind about it. Good that I still have time since I don’t define myself as an anarchist and I have a few years ahead of me since getting to vote again.
In my opinion we should remove all frontiers.
People always preach the values of “freedom” and “equality”, but in the end when someone from another country try to get into yours, it’s not the same speech. Yeah, we should be equal… but only if we’re born in the same country !
I was born in France. What make me more entitled to wealth than another guy born in Africa ? Maybe he’s better than me and deserve more, who knows. If he wants to change the ods and get into a place -like Europe- where there are good jobs and good money… well he can’t.
Or it will be complicated. Or illegal.
Why ? If this guy want to get here and work, why should forbid that ? I’m sure that if he is good he will be usefull to society and therefore raise the level of living for everyone ! Of course, he might “steal” my job, but then why should that be MY job ? Because I was born here ?
Also, what is more arbitrary and random than frontiers. Let’s take the example of France, a guy in the south, near Spain, will be closer to their Spanish neighbors in many ways (geographical, cultural…) than to their compatriots from north of France ! So why shouldn’t the south of France and the North of Spain create a country of their own ? Or why every city shouldn’t become a country ?
It is just as arbitrary !
So in the end, because of where you were born you have to stay in this one territory. You can’t go elsewhere unless you go through a lot of procedures and paperwork… that often fail based on some criteria set by the governments.
Frontiers are just a way to keep people from making the best of their life by going to the place they could enjoy the most. It is arbitrary and unfair since the place you are born determine -in most of the cases- the country you’ll have to live in.
PS : A lot of people say that the problem of Africa is that it is overpopulated. The same people say that Europe and developed countries’ populations are getting older and older and that the birth rate is bad…
I just watched this video in what the author claims that he can proove that anarchy works :
His whole “nuke” theory doesn’t make any sense. Just look at terrorism. The USA have nukes, right ? But still it can be subject to terrorism since there is no clear and simple way to retaliate and therefore prove that this is not enought.
In the end this DRO system might end up being a government of its own if it gets too powerfull. I read somewhere, that if that happens then we would just be back at the state we are in today, making anarchy a “what do we have to loose?” situation. Well, if that happens the system we fall back in could be even worst, like some kind of tyrany.
His system is way to simplistic! Ok we have a way to approach exchanges and security, but what about some kind of charity to help people ? How about environmental issues ? There are so many issues that he didn’t discussed that it makes me doubt of what he said. But I’m downloading his book right now, so we’ll see how that goes.
“In a democracy, the nonvoters can hadly be said to support the rules, and neither can the voters for the losing side. But even those who voted for the winners may well have voted for the ‘lesser of the two evils’. The interesting question is : Why do they have to vote for any evil at all ? Such terms are never used by people when they act freely for themselves, or when they purchase goods on the free market. No one think of a refrigirator as an “evil” - lesser or greater. In such cases, people think of themselves as buying positivive goods, not as resignedly supporting a lesser bad. The point is that the public never has the opportunity of voting on the State system itself; they are caught up in a system in which coercion over them is inevitable.
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Setting all these matters aside, however, and even granting that a state might be enthusiastically supported by a majority, we still do not establish its volontary nature. For the majority is not society, is not everyone. Majority coercion over the minority is still coercion.”
“Power and Market - Government and the Economy” by Murray N. Rothbard.
This makes a good point don’t you think ?
An interesting video made by a former christian who “found answers to all his religious questions”. He created a lot of short movies that make a lot of sense and his opinion has a former christian makes it even more interesting.
