I’ve never been able to get my head around oxymoron-sounding concepts like “anarcho-communism” or “anarcho-capitalism”.
These day’s “ism’s” like “socialism” have so much baggage attached to them they’re on my list of essentially useless vocabulary for layperson conversation!
Are we playing questions now?
Ooh, can I play?
Don’t you miss that game?
Can we post pictures of cupcakes?
Don’t those look yummy?
Anarcho-communism only sounds like an oxymoron if you don’t know the history of the movements.
The proto-anarchist movements that existed before the 19th century like the Diggers were also proto-communist. It was Proudhon, the first known person to describe themselves as an anarchist, who stated property is theft. Anarchists were part of the First International along with Marxists. Joseph Déjacque was the first person to describe themselves as a libertarian. Mikhail Bakunin stated that “We are convinced that freedom without Socialism is privilege and injustice, and that Socialism without freedom is slavery and brutality.”
Marxism never had a monopoly on the words socialism or communism, despite what Lenin, Stalin, Trotsky and Mao wanted people to believe. As anarcho-communism predates the Soviet Union by nearly a century I don’t think their view can be correct. The bottom right of your corner still sort of works if you consider it to only represent Marxism-Leninism/Stalinism/Maoism, although I would say that they are hierarchical too.
I agree that anarcho-capitalism is a recent oxymoron, hierarchy is built into capitalism. Even the individualist anarchists who split away from the anarcho-communists in the late 19th century though so. It doesn’t stop the “anarcho”-capitalists from trying to recuperate their work though.
Communism and capitalism are models for how participants interact economically. Anarchism and authoritarianism are models for how people govern themselves or are governed.
The Nolan chart and its various two-axes variants are not entirely useless, but they’re a poor description of a more complex reality.
[Edited to do battle with my old-nemesis: typos.]
That’s an important distinction that needs to made.
But like you alluded to when acknowledging the complexity of these concepts, the fact remains that government and economics are two systems that cannot be understood independently of each other.
True.
The point of including the simplistic chart was to highlight the axiomatic conflict when conflating these concepts.
I hope I didn’t imply they were simplistic or always independent of each other! Most institutions can be plotted in the space around the centalisation/hierarchy axis.
I try to learn and still struggle!
I was hoping you guys would enlighten me.
Good point.
I like how Petr Kropotkin makes a clear distinction when referring to “authoritarian communism” in his Britannica entry.
Of course not. But as @the_borderer points out, there are anarchist/libertarian models for both communism and other schools of socialism, of which there are many.
There are also a number of schools of capitalism, some of which have fallen by the wayside and some of which are extreme (such as anarcho-capitalism). Sadly, the Randian an-caps and the neo-liberal Keynesians have largely succeeded in promulgating the Manichean narrative of “free” markets vs socialist regulation, which in addition to harming public literacy of economics, encourages policy that has no relationship to the real needs of actual economies, which in practice always incorporate elements of both very broad categories.
Promoting that illiteracy is no accident; it’s a deliberate choice that benefits a few opportunists at the cost of the general weal. This is why the oh, Fox so dumb analysis is a little misleading. I have no doubt that many of their talking heads are every bit the blithering morons they appear to be, but the organization as a whole is a very efficient organ of propaganda that knows exactly what it’s doing. Nor is that speuclation, as Rupert Murdoch, the late unlamented Roger Ailes and their ilk were boldly public in the early days about their intentions and objectives.
It’s useful to keep in mind however that these schools of social and government organizational philosophy are only models. To quote the statistician George Box, all models are wrong, but some are useful. The two-axes social charts are a little better than single-axis spectrums in that they can encode a second data point, but their risk is in over-simplifying the dynamic and multifaceted relationship between the two axes as well as the many possible corollaries and consequences of their interactions.
I appreciate the explanations and context from you and @the_borderer.
I agree and I find myself torn between taking Orwell’s advice of “let the meaning choose the word and not the other way around” and just accepting the language changing and moving on.
I find myself avoiding labels like “anarchist” because the meaning has been subverted to “no rules” instead of “no rulers”. I respect others who prefer to try and reclaim words and meanings despite the propaganda against them although it seems futile.
These days I’ll reject words that have been codified to engender defensive and aggressive reactions.
“Respect” trumps “politically correct”.
Using “prejudice” and “bigotry” can be more productive online than “racism”.
Any good alternatives around for “socialism”?
To a certain extent, I understand. I mostly stopped using the word libertarian to describe my own views largely because it’s been hijacked by quasi neo-feudalists and I wound up spending more time explaining to people the rich history of left-libertarianism than drilling down to specific policy discussions. Occasionally there would even be someone left-of-center who simply could not accept that I was not secretly a raging Randian an-cap because I once offhandedly mentioned that I had some libertarian sympathies. I had to stop interacting with a guy on another site with whom I otherwise got on really well with because it got to the point where he would bring that up in barely orthogonal discussions, to the point where even the mod told him to drop it. In the end, standing my ground on the word just wasn’t worth it to me any more.
At the same time, I still describe myself as an anarchist and it hasn’t been nearly the headache because there isn’t anything like the an-cap oriented American Libertarian party appropriating the term.
Ultimately I think each interlocutor has to make the decision for themself. That said, @the_borderer has pointed out to me that the semantic battle for libertarian isn’t quite as much of a lost cause in Europe as it is in the US, and I find that encouraging in no small part because there is a rich intellectual history of left-libertarianism and its broader historical discussion with the rest of economics that it would be a shame if people seeking to learn about the subject dismissed out of hand because of a not-entirely-natural semantic shift.
I tend use all three as they have nuanced meanings. That said, when I use the term racism, it’s typically to confront attempts to cloak it in these difficult times when racism is being legitimized by the most powerful people.
That’s one area that I feel guardedly optimistic about. Younger people entering the American political climate today are doing so with a lot less of the Cold War baggage and don’t have nearly as much reflexive negativity to the term. It’s no coincidence that Fox News is working overtime to foster that knee-jerk reaction.
Yeah why? Turn off Fox news? Critical thinking? Education?
Speaking of which…
Most of the folks who like to cite Adam Smith as an authority have obviously never read him.
Eh?
Neolibs ain’t Keynesians. Pretty much the opposite.
Wow… You think I care what any news channel regurgitates shit 24/7? I said both you and I are conditioned to think one way whether we like it or not. My “critical thinking” & “education” like yours is biased to where we live.
Unfortunately, in my country and yours …education is dealt out to us from our central govts how they see fit.
Call it what you want. All i did was ask what YOUR definition was… of 3 GROUPS of people was and you tell me to read a book that i guess defines those groups for you.
Last I checked the library system hadn’t been completely defunded. Institutions of higher education aren’t run by the government. There’s also that whole “Internet” thing.
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