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What is Anarchy?
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The idea about the friendly police-under-another-name would require an in-depth response that I wont do it now, maybe later.
To the question "What is Anarchy?"I want to tell you about Anarchism.Introduction
I want to tell you what Anarchism is, because I think it is well you should
know it. Also because so little is known about it, and what is known is
generally hearsay and mostly false.
I want to tell you about it, because I believe that Anarchism is the finest
and biggest thing man has ever thought of; the only thing that can give
you liberty and well-being, and bring peace and joy to the world.
I want to tell you about it in such plain and simple language that there will
be no misunderstanding it. Big words and high sounding phrases serve only
to confuse. Straight thinking means plain speaking.
But before I tell you what Anarchism is, I want to tell you what it is not.
That is necessary because so much falsehood has been spread about
Anarchism. Even intelligent persons often have entirely wrong notions
about it. Some people talk about Anarchism without knowing a thing about
it. And some lie about Anarchism, because they don't want you to know
the truth about it.
Anarchism has many enemies; they won't tell you the truth about it. Why
Anarchism has enemies and who they are, you will see later, in the course
of this story. Just now I can tell you that neither your political boss nor
your employer, neither the capitalist nor the policeman will speak to you
honestly about Anarchism. Most of them know nothing about it, and all of
them hate it. Their newspapers and publications - the capitalistic press-
are also against it.
Even most Socialists and Bolsheviks misrepresent Anarchism. True, the
majority of them don't know any better. But those who do know better
also often lie about Anarchism and speak of it as 'disorder and chaos'. You
can see for yourself how dishonest they are in this: the greatest teachers
of Socialism - Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels - had taught that Anarchism
would come from Socialism. They said that we must first have Socialism,
but that after Socialism there will be Anarchism, and that it would be a
freer and more beautiful condition of society to live in than Socialism. Yet
the Socialists, who swear by Marx and Engels, insist on calling Anarchism
'chaos and disorder', which shows you how ignorant or dishonest they are.
The Bolsheviks do the same, although their greatest teacher, Lenin, had
said that Anarchism would follow Bolshevism, and that then it will be better
and freer to live.Therefore I must tell you, first of all, what Anarchism is not.It is not bombs, disorder, or chaos.
It is not robbery and murder.
It is not a war of each against all.
It is not a return to barbarism or to the wild state of man.
Anarchism is the very opposite of all that.
Anarchism means that you should be free; that no one should enslave
you, boss you, rob you, or impose upon you.
It means that you should be free to do the things you want to do; and that you should not be compelled to do what you don't want to do.
It means that you should have a chance to choose the kind of a life you want to live, and live it without anybody interfering.
It means that the next fellow should have the same freedom as you, that every one should have the same rights and liberties.
It means that all men are brothers, and that they should live like brothers, in peace and harmony.
That is to say, that there should be no war, no violence used by one set of men against another, no monopoly and no poverty, no oppression, no taking advantage of your fellow-man.
In short, Anarchism means a condition or society where all men and women are free, and where all enjoy equally the benefits of an ordered and sensible life.
'Can that be?' you ask;'and how?'
'Not before we all become angels,' your friend remarks.
Well, let us talk it over. Maybe I can show you that we can be decent and live as decent folks even without growing wings.
Introduction to "What is Anarchism?"
Alexander Berkman
Wiki
Basically you're not going to get the answer in this thread, and 15 pages
in without a definite answer is proof enough.
You'll have to engage in that devilish enterprise known as reading
if you really want an answer & I think this book will give you a flavour
of what to expect.
The best thing about all of this is that every statement is written in order
to be challenged & made better by you, nothing is fixed fast & shouldn't be.
For instance, Alexander Berkman was a fool for what he did but that
doesn't invalidate the arguments put forth here, steal the good ones &
burn the bad ones
A teaser for chapter 1:
What Do You Want Out Of Life?
What is it that every one wants most in life? What do you want most?
After all, we are all the same under our skins. Whoever you be - man or
woman, rich or poor, aristocrat or tramp, white, yellow, red or black, of
whatever land, nationality, or religion - we are all alike in feeling cold and
hunger, love and hate; we all fear disaster and disease, and try to keep
away from harm and death.
What you most want out of life, what you fear most, that also is true, in
the main, of your neighbor. Learned men have written big books, many of
them, on sociology, psychology, and many other 'ologies', to tell you what
you want, but no two of those books ever agree.
And yet I think that you know very well without them what you want.
They have studied and written and speculated so much about this, for
them so difficult a question, that you, the individual, have become entirely
lost in their philosophies. And they have at last come to the conclusion
that you, my friend, don't count at all. What's important, they say, is not
you, but 'the whole', all the people together. This 'whole' they call
'society', 'the commonwealth', or 'the State', and the wiseacres have
actually decided that it makes no difference if you, the individual, are
miserable so long as 'society' is all right. Somehow they forget to explain
how 'society' or 'the whole' can be all right if the single members of it are
wretched.
So they go on spinning their philosophic webs and producing thick volumes
to find out where you really enter in the scheme of things called life, and
what you really want.
But you yourself know very well what you want, and so does your
neighbor. You want to be well and healthy; you want to be free, to serve
no master, to crawl and humiliate yourself before no man; you want to
have well-being for yourself, your family, and those near and dear to you.
And not to be harassed and worried by the fear of to-morrow.
You may feel sure that every one else wants the same. So the whole
matter seems to stand this way:
You want health, liberty, and well-being. Every one is like yourself in this
respect.
Therefore we all seek the same thing in life.
Then why should we not all seek it together, by joint effort, helping each
other in it?
Why should we cheat and rob, kill and murder each other, if we all seek the
same thing? Aren't you entitled to the things you want as well as the next
man? Or is it that we can secure our health, liberty, and well-being better
by fighting and slaughtering each other?
Or because there is no other way?
Let us look into this.
Does it not stand to reason that if we all want the same thing in life, if we
have the same aim, then our interests must also be the same? In that
case we should live like brothers, in peace and friendship; we should be
good to each other, and help each other all we can.
But you know that it is not at all that way in life. You know that we do not
live like brothers. You know that the world is full of strife and war, of
misery, injustice, and wrong, of crime, poverty, and oppression.
Why is it that way then?
It is because, though we all have the same aim in life,
our interests are different...
Now, where are all those babies that those filthy atheists are eating?
They should be sharing with them childish anarchists!0 -
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oscarBravo wrote: »
I actually laughed out loud...
This is what confuses me you jeer me about my short explanations and say that this is a discussion board, but yet you leave these silly remarks.
Denmark was invade by Germany in the 40's Between the 18th and 19th century Denmark collapsed several times.0 -
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This is what confuses me you jeer me about my short explanations and say that this is a discussion board, but yet you leave these silly remarks.
Denmark was invade by Germany in the 40's Between the 18th and 19th century Denmark collapsed several times.
Denmark and Norway was invaded in 1940.
And the three scandinavian countries with sweden have had a long history of conflicts among them,but also unions between them.Thats why they are so close even today.
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It's essentially the same thing except libertarians are full of hate and greed.
I think what you mean to say is Libertarians value peoples freedom to
choose, recognise that human being's choice is essentially linked to monetary
gains & freedom is best expressed through monetary gain so we should
cut all benefits to poor people & let a particular magic hand sort them out
That's not greedy, that's freedom loving :cool:
But yeah, you might want to wiki Ron Paul before you go off knocking
people's attempt to organise & talk about life by incorrectly associating
them with someone through indirect slander...0 -
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Well I would say that pregnant mothers should take responsibility and become informed consumers and to understand and control what they are eating themselves- not expecting some benevolent state to do it for them. I always check the ingredients on the food I eat- I don't just think "ah it's grand the government gave it the ok! Fill me up!"
If it's not the tax-payer it's the "informed consumer" or something to
do with humanities freedom as long as it's codified in terms of a monetary
judgement.
No, I was talking about certain companies lying to the ASA, & promoting
their product as safe compared to the natural alternative, offering this up
in hospitals, failing to produce any credible evidence to counter
the claims of certain groups that their promoting products that lead to
thousands of infantdeaths a year along with the usual standard procedures
for dealing with people claiming a bit more than the dirt they seemingly
deserve... Sure, what's life without a few child slavery exploitation
allegations with some shirking of responsibility sprinkled on the
chocolatey spoon every morning? :rolleyes:
Remember, this is a global market contributor that has relished under
free market policies, I fear to see how bad things could potentially
become if those darned government sanctions were any laxer...
How do you expect poor mothers in the third world to read the labels when
The company doesn't even publish the guidelines in the correct language?
This is just standard, as part of a libertarian philosophy there is always a
general attitude that people are bad or that they'll never be good to one
another i.e. we're not altruistic we will only do something if it's in our
interest but it's always taken as axiomatic that company owners will
always do the right thing & never sell their customers short.
Here, under a capitalist system in which company owners have all the
opportunities @ exploitation they can muster, they try nothing but to
undermine workers & customers, I don't know how under a libertarian
system things would get any better? Oh wait, no that has absolutely
nothing to do with the whole philosophy, nada... It's all about being
on your own, i.e. an informed consumer as long as you're free to
make money. IF you can give me some detailed exposition on how
people who suffer under capitalism would do better under
free market libertarianism, or anything of that ilk, I'm here
There is a fundamental clash between anarchism & libertarianism,
in my opinion, as it can be boiled down to a struggle for society
to either be atomized & independent (a hilariously contradictory irony) or
collectively working together.
Libertarian arguments are for freedom of people to choose how to live &
how to use & make money. It always just so happens that the scales are
tipped in a certain direction from the get-go & the whole system itself
has a tyrranical nature as necessary. The idea that everyone will be free
under this system is laughable, by necessity everyone reaches for the
stars as that's the fostered chracteristic in society & obviously not
everyone can get up to the top so as the people fall into their places some
will take up the cogs, some will oil the wheels & others will rule the roost.
You're talking about shuffling society like a doctored deck of cards,
French Revolution style, to supplant the old economic masters & usher in
hew ones who abide by less strict rules seeing as government's role is
diminished, if not obliterated.
This is hardly a poor mans philosophy
@ simplistic2, I'm not necessarily a statist per se but there is simply
no argument you can give that will convince us that the role of prisons &
government (in a certain sense) are unnecessary.
I thought I already said this, or meant to, but anarchism is not about
no rule it's about questioning authority & not accepting anything unless
there is good evidence/reason to do so.
It's hard not to see that this is a main tenet of anarchism seeing as one
of it's earlier proponents, Peter Kropotkin, contributed to the theory of
altruism & human reciprocity etc...
Government should be that of the common good, i.e. the people!
They (We!) should form & seriously control their government & how it's run,
the one who takes on the job should finally recognise their job role as
public servant i.e. in the common interest.
Also, people should regularly meet & find ways to avoid any instances of
the tyranny of the majority, e.g. people preventing homosexuals from
marrying etc... ridiculous rules like that should be regulalry scrutinized.
That is the ideal anyway
There is no reason why, under a better system, that machines could
work for people instead of people becoming cogs in said machine.
Seeing as it's estimated we have more than enough food to feed the
population we can do these things, also we need people to divise new
methods of producing food. Think of the intelligence we've squandered
due to poverty, how many untold lives could have worked on the future
instead of struggling with the present.
This is mainly a first world enterprise but last time I checked the
first world did not make up the majority of the world's population (If you want to use that antiquaited mode of classification, of which I am).
At least my understanding of anarchism is that the people will decide on
how they want to structure their lives & society, i.e. the polity become the
rulers doing away with the inbuilt corruption of democracy that Aristotle
recognised...
Basically you have a system that takes the philosophy of the scientific
method & applies it to humanity in such a manner as to end human
suffrage and steals all of the positive aspects of any political theory &
ignores the foolish ones. No other political philosophy does anything
like this, they are all too bogged down in rigidly adhering to their
dogma or falling into the necessary traps inhenent in their political DNA.
e.g.. Democracy - Fianna Fail & all the Ior Calley's we have yet to learn
about etc...
@MacDougal, whoever buys the rivers under a libertarian society will
own the rivers, I'm sure they would cut the sea up into meticulously
calibrated portions too That is, unless you believe in
geolibertarianism which isn't as anthropocentrically arrogant
as the other brands varieties 0 -
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