You should read Pyotr Kropotkins "The Conquest of Bread" and Alexander Berkman's "What is Communist Anarchism?" if you'd like to know more about anarcho-communist ideology. Or if you'd like to know more about mutualism (essentially a workers run system with a market), then check out the works of Joseph Proudhon.
I'd also argue that anarcho-capitalism and right-libertarianism are not anarchist in any sense, as they uphold the inherently hierarchical system of capitalism.
> I'd also argue that anarcho-capitalism and right-libertarianism are not anarchist in any sense, as they uphold the inherently hierarchical system of capitalism.
In what way is capitalism hierarchical, except in an ad hoc way that is constantly redefined based on the current needs of the people interacting?
Karl Marx's definition of "capitalism" is very different from Ayn Rand's definition of "capitalism". And both of them are very different from the "capitalism" that describes the economy as it actually exists in the present day.
That is completely untrue.
I don't believe they aren't "true anarchists", I believe they aren't anarchist at all. They aren't even in the realm of consideration of what constitutes anarchist. Their ideal society would end up corporate feudalism.
Yea, that's what I said. Putting "true" in quote marks was me dismissing the notion that you can redefine words because you don't like their current definitions.
‘One gratifying aspect of our rise to some prominence is that, for the first time in my memory, we, “our side,” had captured a crucial word from the enemy . . . “Libertarians” . . . had long been simply a polite word for left-wing anarchists, that is for anti-private property anarchists, either of the communist or syndicalist variety. But now we had taken it over. . .’ [The Betrayal of the American Right, p. 83]
The real difference here is philosophical. Right-wing anarchists believe that private property is a natural concept that exists independently of power hierarchies. Left-wing anarchists believe that's an artificial concept that requires such a hierarchy to enforce, and doesn't exist without it. Hence ancaps believe that absence of government will result in a capitalist utopia, while traditional anarchists believe that it would result in a socialist utopia. These two viewpoints are irreconcilable, because the fundamental premise is not just different, but literally opposite.
However, insofar as both groups believe that their ideal society is characterized primarily by the lack of a power hierarchy (and all other things, like unrestricted property rights, or complete lack thereof, simply follow naturally from that), both groups are "real" anarchists.
You might say that anarchism is the left wing on a spectrum where authoritarianism or absolute monarchs are considered the right wing. Anarchism is anti discrimination (pro egalitarianism) and by definition is against racism, sexism, nationalism, fascism, etc. It's not because it's "left" like socialists or (socialist) progressives are, but because of the hierarchies it is ideologically opposed to. Its main objective is a society free from imposed and unnatural hierarchies.
Edit: what I'm trying to say is that no one-dimensional linear scale that goes from left to right on which you can place all ideologies and compare them.
Of which we already have a great example in FOSS.
When did anarcho-capitalists stop being anarchists?
Because I strongly doubt any political change will get everyone to work for 'common interests', and a fair few product creators, service owners, artists and others will try and sell their work anyway.
How do anarchists plan to avoid this? What about the people who don't want to own the means of production and are perfectly fine with working for others for a wage? What would stop people competing with each other to get more money and resources?
It works the same way with anarchism as it does in general; that is to say, it captures a real and major axis of variation among anarchists but not the only one. It actually works a little better with anarchists then it doesin general, because “anarchism” limits one of the other significant axes of political variation that exist in the wider society.
Anarchism is anti-state. That's it. Everything else is anarcho-something.
Anti-involuntary hierarchy, not those who voluntarily take part of certain types of power hierarchies.
Politics is complicated, but the two-axes model is a lot less laughably simplistic: left/right, liberal/authoritarian. To drastically oversimplify:
left-liberal: Bernie Sanders, sort of
left-authoritarian: full communism
right-liberal: libertarian
right-authoritarian: paleocons
This is just off the top of my head, has some issues, and is _still_ oversimplified[1], but you can already see how much less than the one-dimensional model it smushes together fairly-mainstream groups that have absolutely nothing to do with each other.
Anarchists are very much on the left, and big parts of the left (and the right) these days very much dislike liberals.
[1] For example, anarcho-communism doesn't fit very well into this. Ancaps fit (sort of) on the right-liberal side.
The vast majority of people, at least in western countries, agree with the basic assumption of (classical) liberalism, which is that "people should be allowed to do what they want, except...". For the most part people just differ on what comes after the "except", whether it's "sell harmful drugs" or "exploit workers" or "use hate speech" or "burn coal" or whatever other grab-bag of activities a certain individual has decided are sufficiently harmful to outlaw.
The acceptance of the left-right paradigm by half the US voter base looks like little more than a successful propaganda campaign by the incumbent political parties.
Communism: weak central government, strong communal (local) democratic decision making - let people make decision that effect them directly (locally).
You may be thinking of the old-fashioned idea of a socialist state as a "tyrrany of the many" as a transition from an armed uprising towards a communist state?
This is not how it worked out in practice, no?
But if one reads eg Rosa Luxembourg, the lines are very much blurred between the two.
There's a tendency to spend time arguing that the various socialist states that where formed by communist parties were communist, because they were ran by organizations that labeled themselves (and indeed were) communist - I don't think such discussion is much more fruitful than discussing how the US attempted to "liberate" Vietnam, or institute "democracy" in Chile.
Left and right are not really well defined ideologies[0]. They're just archaic and lazy ways to generalize political stances.
0. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Left%E2%80%93right_political_s...
Nope. It is always socialist/anti-capitalist. The name as been wrongfully appropriated by anarcho-capitalist, a contradictory term. They are merely for no-gov't-capitalism; which it against pretty much every anarchist principle (anti-oppression).
> Libertarianism is just a form of minimal government
Yes.
> Left and right are not really well defined ideologies[0].
Indeed. But pro-private-property-ad-inifinitum and against it are well defined (and largely overlap with true-left and true-right). Problem, nowadays many that subscribe to capitalism may call themselves "social dems", and thus get a little "lefty" vibe going, thereby diluting the term.
No problem, new terminology come to rescue.
From Introduction [1]: "We should also indicate the history of this FAQ. It was started in 1995 when a group of anarchists got together in order to write an FAQ refuting the claims of certain "libertarian" capitalists to being anarchists. Those who were involved in this project had spent many an hour on-line refuting claims by these people that capitalism and anarchism could go together."
It is pretty obvious that so-called "libertarians" (Rothbard et al., who argue for absolute private property) are not anarchist, but now that David Friedman's ideas and "Machinery of Freedom" book becomes popular and he calls himself "anarcho-capitalist" it became necessary to explain why "anarcho-capitalism" is an oxymoron again.
There is a long tradition of market anarchism, and even Agorsim (see Samuel Edward Konkin III) can be considered to be anarchism in my opinion, but "anarcho-capitalism" is not.
There exist libertarian socialists. Libertarian communists. Anarcho-libertarians. You can be whatever you want.
And that may sound silly to you, but the reality is that everything is like this. America is a mix of socialism, capitalism, some new version of authoritarianism, and at least somewhat mercantilist even though we dont admit that we loot resources from weaker countries. In the past we were much more federalist and what would be described today as libertarian, really.
Obama has some quote (that I cant find now) about how ideology isn't as good as pragmatics. He said something like "my ideology is just that everyone should have equal opportunities, dignity and freedoms, and we should try to maximize those, so just ask ourselves what is the best way to do that?"
Hopefully this is not crossing the line in being too snarky, but the trend in identifying with political ideology looks like it is filling the void that religion left behind. I mean, come on, they're both unscientific, morally pompous doctrines to be a part of and get your heart pumping for.
In my view the main difference is not in their view of what should happen, but rather in their impossibly rosy assumptions of what happens next. Left-anarchists assume that if you get rid of the government the world becomes a left-wing utopia, while right-anarchists assume that if you get rid of the government then the world becomes a right-wing utopia.
To me, neither of these scenarios seems more likely than the other.
I'd say you're strawmanning both sides here, left anarchists know the state grows out of the conflicting class interests of the working class and capitalist class, and that abolition of the state necessarily requires abolition of capitalism. Propertarians believe that if you got rid of the government, the free market will sort things out because it's the gov. interference in private enterprise that causes societies conflicts. Neither believe in a magic switch or anything.
> Propertarians believe that if you got rid of the government, the free market will sort things out because it's the gov. interference in private enterprise that causes societies conflicts
I think you've just given a slightly better summary of the magical thinking of each, rather than fundamentally disagreed with me.
Right-anarchists believe that destroying the state will finally allow capitalism to thrive, while left-anarchists believe that destroying the state will destroy capitalism too.
Partially this disagreement is simply about the meaning of the word "capitalism", though, which both sides chuck around unexamined without bothering too much about the fact that they have completely different definitions of this word, and that neither definition really matches what the man in the street means when he uses it.
Does it, though? If you use the classic Marxist definition of capitalism as "private ownership of the means of production", I don't think either ancaps or left anarchists would fundamentally disagree with it. And both would believe, based on their premises on property (natural right vs social construct), that removing the government from the equation would result in their desired endgame wrt capitalism based on this definition. For left-anarchists, if you remove the government, you also remove any and all private property rights, by definition (since they're a creation of the government) - obviously, this would include property rights on the means of production, and such a society would then not be capitalist. Ancaps, OTOH, believe that governments impede natural property rights, and thus a society without a government would have the strongest possible private ownership of the means of production - i.e. capitalism in its purest form.