CZ Talk:Anarchism Subgroup

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Forgotten where to endorse...

But I'll do so for politics.

"Libertarianism"

While the word "libertarian" is the synonym to the word "anarchist", nowadays another school of thought appropriated this term. May be someday one will create "libertarian subgroup"? It is obvious that "Libertarian parties", minarchists, conservatives have nothing to do with anarchism. And i don't mean market anarchism, but statist tendencies only. --Mirzhan Irkegulov 08:01, 21 September 2010 (UTC)

Then this co-opting needs to be explained. As I mentioned, I have very little knowledge of the European schools of anarchism. Certainly since the mid-1960s, however, anarcho-libertarianism, in varying degrees, has been part of American libertarian theory and even practice.

The last term I would associate with libertarianism is statism. A "pure" anarcho-libertarian tends to want no government at all. Variants want extremely minimal government functions.

In the U.S., the Libertarian Party is not a strong force among extremely individualistic libertarians. Depending on who may be speaking, libertarianism may or may not be considered part of American conservatism. In the Tea Party Movement, there's a conflict between libertarian-oriented people that consider personal freedom to be the most important right, and social conservatives who want to control personal behavior. They have an uneasy alliance because both, in principle, want to reduce government.

Would you elaborate on the co-opting? Howard C. Berkowitz 08:10, 21 September 2010 (UTC)

What i'm trying to explain is that anarchism deals with the abolition of the state. Not minimization, not reforming, not improving of it, but abolishing. It is what you call "pure", and anarchism can not be impure, or it is not anarchism. There are, however, many theories of minimizing state activity, from "libertarian" minarchism to left communism (Marxist branch, which has similarities with social anarchism, but again, is NOT anarchism). So i think that everything that is about abolishing the state by direct action is appropriate here (be it agorism, left-libertarianism of Roderick Long and others, individualist anarchism of Tucker and Spooner, if we talk about "libertarian" anarchism), but everything that is about reforming the state should be elsewhere.

I am a social anarchist myself, so you may think i am biased, but this opinion is shared with those of my comrades, who are extreme market individualist anarchists. Our discussion is quite fruitful, so may be in future it would be even better to create an article like "Differences between anarchism and libertarianism" with sources from anarchist theorists. --Mirzhan Irkegulov 13:52, 21 September 2010 (UTC)

Your definition may be pure from a European standpoint, but it's going to confuse American, and quite possibly other, readers. As a Politics and Military Editor, I'm of the opinion that "Differences between anarchism and libertarianism" is so critical that it must be in the top-level article.

I do know anarcho-libertarians that want no state, but they are rather rare.

Also, I have to ask you what you mean by abolishing the state by direct action. Both as a Military Editor familiar with that term in several countries, "abolishing the state by direct action" usually means "abolishing the state by violence or the threat thereof." There's a delicate line between defining terrorism and encouraging it, and having a non-state abolish a state gets fairly close to most definitions of terrorism, and indeed may be more appropriate in the terrorism article. Under current policies, advocacy in general is not appropriate for an article. Howard C. Berkowitz 14:18, 21 September 2010 (UTC)

Personally, I find it very hard to picture any nonviolent way to replace a democratic state with anarchism, but I'm willing to hear ideas. Howard C. Berkowitz 14:18, 21 September 2010 (UTC)

First of all, i do not advocate anything here, encyclopedias are not for propaganda (while i do advocate anarchism elsewhere). I never knew, that in America things are so different. I am not European, and most of the time i collaborate with Russian-speaking anarchists, but still we have a general consensus that anarchy is the non-existence of the state and coercion. And the phrase "there are rare anarcho-libertarians who want no state" is very strange for every anarchist (be it well-known bearded theorists of the past or unknown young activist of the now) i know of. Firstly, "libertarian" means "anarchist", so "anarcho-libertarian" is a tautology (that is why many market anarchists try to provide other terms: market anarchism, free-market anarchism, left libertarianism, agorism and so on). Yes, it's a pity, that the term was appropriated by statists (e.g. minarchists). And THAT is what really confuses anarchists. Secondly, anarchists really strive for destruction of the state: the whole history of anarchism shows that. If anarchist does not want abolition of the state, is he/she anarchist? No, as anarchist theory says.

Anarchists DO wish to abolish the state. It's what unites every anarchist. It's what comes from the word "anarchy" itself - "no ruler". And yes, destroying the state means overthrowing it. Means stop paying taxes, obeying cops, voting. Means crossing borders, creating organizations, unions, movements without state supervision, exchanging possessions and being absolutely free to defend oneself. And if government authorities, mercenaries, cops or others provoke, anarchists strike back. So, yes, anarchists say, there would be violence, blood, killing of soldiers, policemen and scabs, whom the state will use to stop revolution.

There ARE anarchists, who reject violence at all. These called anarcho-pacifists. They too have ideas to achieve anarchy: by civil disobedience and peaceful strikes and protests. Leo Tolstoy was one of such proponents. Agorists, such as Samuel Edward Konkin III, even called for creation of black markets to provide counter-economy, which will destroy state economy. So if you want to picture a peaceful direct action, try to imagine, what Martin Luther King, Jr. or Mohandas Gandhi would do, if they wanted to destroy state.

These things, that i am talking about right now, are essence of anarchism. I am NOT calling for violence here! I am here for writing articles, but all i said IS anarchism. --Mirzhan Irkegulov 14:59, 21 September 2010 (UTC)

No, libertarians, in U.S. usage, ar not necessarily anarchists in that they want no state. They want a minimal state (e.g., for a trusted currency), so they can implement essentially market systems. Most discussions, however, find there are needs for some autonomous servbices, such as public health or firefighting.

I cannot picture a reason that Martin Luther King would want to destroy a state. Rather, he saw a state as a protector and guarantor. Not all violence comes from states, so who protects individuals from bandits? I'm afraid that I'm reminded of one of the sixties radicals -- I think it was Huey Newton -- who asked those who are willing to die for the revolution to stand against one wall. Next, he asked those willing to kill for the revolution to stand against the opposite wall -- and then told them to look at the people they would hage to kill.

Anarchists who think they can destroy a modern state by violence simply are not knowledgeable in military matters. Exactly where are the anarchists going to get weapons that can cope with heavy military ones? Now, if you take someone such as myself, with experience in public health, much less the military or emergency services that the anarchist wants to destroy the ambulance service, etc., then I'm personally -- just as an example -- apt to come into violent confrontation. Emergency services simply do not work on a purely individual basis in the 21st century. Howard C. Berkowitz 15:16, 21 September 2010 (UTC)

I will be very interested to hear why true anarchism appeals to anyone except theoreticians, who have neither participated in protecting from violence, including from natural disasters, or that will themselves have used violence. 15:16, 21 September 2010 (UTC)

Howard, first of all, i'm not going to participate in debate of is anarchy possible or not. This is not in the scope of an encyclopedia. We can discuss this elsewhere, via email or jabber if you wish.

Yes, nowadays in US the word "libertarian" means something else, so i could do nothing about that. But the word "anarchist" still means what it meant 150 years ago: struggle against oppression (state, capitalism, church etc.). And i didn't say Martin Luther King was anarchist, i offered you imagine what would he do, if he was. He used non-violent grassroots tactics, which are applicable within anarchist practice. --Mirzhan Irkegulov 15:31, 21 September 2010 (UTC)

Clarification

First, if you want the article to say Gandhi or King considered their methods consistent with anarchism, as a politics editor, I would want you to produce a sourced statement from them that such was their belief. I don't think it's good research writing to coopt people or documents as examples to support a position. There are, for example, various U.S. political groups that cite the Declaration of Independence as a document as authoritative as the Constitution, a position that has never been supported either by the Constitution itself or by the Supreme Court.

Saying Martin Luther King used anarchist tactics is coopting him unless he said it. Neither my imagining nor yours are adequate sourcing for an article.

You do not have to discuss whether anarchism is possible, but sourced arguments that it is not are perfectly within the scope of an encyclopedia. Not to be able to do so implies an encyclopedia cannot present critical views. Further, it is the general policy of CZ, hopefully to be even better clarified by a new Editorial Council, to make it clear what the mainstream opinion of a controversial topic may be. If, for example, political scientists (i.e., the underlying skill set for the Politics Workgroup) say anarchy cannot be implemented, that is fair to present.

Given that there are apparently very strong differences between what you describe as Russian-language sources and usages of the word elsewhere, this is a topic where definitions and context really need to be precise. Howard C. Berkowitz 15:44, 21 September 2010 (UTC)

Again, i never said that King or Gandhi were anarchists or used only anarchist methods. They used some methods (e.g. civil disobedience), which are absolutely applicable within anarchist practice. These two were heavily influenced by ideas of Tolstoy and Henry David Thoreau, who are often cited as Christian anarchist and individualist anarchist respectively. Plenty of sources can be found here: [1]. You asked about what would anarcho-pacifist action look like, i answered.

What i do describe is not a Russian-language source, but a general agreement among many anarchists. The whole http://anarchism.pageabode.com/afaq/index.html is devoted to defining what anarchism is and has hundreds of sources to historians, activists and scientists, whether anarchist or not.

And if some expert says anarchism is impossible, well, we will include that into article, but firstly we must include what anarchists think of anarchism themselves, else the whole article would have no sense.--Mirzhan Irkegulov 16:23, 21 September 2010 (UTC)

One starting point

There is a paper on libertarianism vs. anarchism, from the U.S. Cato Institute, at [2]. The specific focus is how dispute resolution takes place, and assumes some kind of court system. It would certainly seem that the anarchism main article should address how, in an anarchy, things considered minimal needed functions of government would be provided. Courts are one, and defense, to include not only armed aggression but natural disasters, would be others. Howard C. Berkowitz 16:05, 21 September 2010 (UTC)

Of course this would be described. Anarchist society would consist of a network of many federations without any central authority. These federations would consist of communes, syndicates, etc. That is the principle of federalism. State tasks such as firefighting, punishing criminals, building roads will be done by voluntary worker association, which are local to every commune. Arbitral tribunal is a good idea for court system. Etc. Anarchists have various ideas how the social and economical system will function. For getting quick idea AFAQ which is given above is good, later i will surely add quotes from anarchist theorists.--Mirzhan Irkegulov 16:23, 21 September 2010 (UTC)

Arbitration is plausible. One of the challenges in firefighting or public health is that the service simply doesn't work if it depends on membership -- even if the fire service won't put out the fire in a non-subscriber's house, that house may well throw flames elsewhere. Fire has to be fought on its borders, not people-imposed ones. In like manner, I'm not sure how epidemic quarantine would work, but I'm willing to hear approaches.

Even harder is the challenge of how communes and syndicates would stop external military attacks, from attackers that do not respect human life and deal with civil resisters by shooting them.

I'm not trying to block anything, but I do think an article has to make it clear what it might be like to live in an anarchy, rather than hear about political philosophy. Howard C. Berkowitz 16:45, 21 September 2010 (UTC)

Philosophy Workgroup

Could anyone who is pushing for this to be a working subgroup explain what role they think the philosophy workgroup will have?

In my experience, political philosophy doesn't have a great deal to say about anarchism except negatively. If you study political philosophy, a great amount of time is spent on social contract theories of the state, which obviously attempt to justify the state with reference to a social contract real or otherwise. Such contractarian theories obviously do say something about anarchism in the negative: you could line up an anarchist thinker of either the Proudhon type or of the anarcho-capitalist type and then directly contrast them with Hobbes' description of the State of Nature. Same for Locke. Same even for Rawls. But I don't see anarchist theories in the tradition of Proudhon and Kropotkin being taken very seriously by political philosophers in the Western analytic tradition - and, frankly, that is the sort of people you are going to get from the Philosophy Workgroup (I mean, that is, if the philosophy workgroup had any active editors. Heh.)

Political philosophers are interested in the Rawls vs. Nozick debate, but Nozick is a minimal state libertarian who basically endorses a version of the social contract theory that is based on the idea that the state is justified simply because something like a capitalist free market would bring about a state-like monopoly of powers through mutual agreements between opt-in protection agencies (imagine: Halliburton after a few hundred mergers becomes the United States government!).

Anarchism both of the Proudhon/Kropotkin kind and of the anarcho-capitalism kind is not exactly something many philosophers take a big interest in. I'm not saying we shouldn't include the philosophy workgroup in an subgroup on anarchism, but I would like someone who is involved in this proposal to explain their thinking in pulling the philosophers in (there's a joke waiting there about non-existent philosophers still editing articles, but I'll leave that for the also non-existent ontology subgroup!). –Tom Morris 17:46, 21 September 2010 (UTC)

I have no strong feelings about the role of the Philosophy workgroup, although, I suppose, there's a blurry area of political philosophy.

The following is a question, not a challenge: to what extent does ethics become involved, in the sense of supporting other than self? There's no question that I lack the courage for the "Was Ayn Rand a philosopher" debate, but remember one of her works was The Virtue of Selfishness. As a non-philosopher, I suspect there are questions in that area.

Rand was very attractive to me when I was 18 or 20, but I gradually changed to a more social democratic model still stressing personal freedoms (in the sense of the Wiccan Rede, to really mix schols of thought). Howard C. Berkowitz 20:30, 21 September 2010 (UTC)

As Nixon said, I'll answer your second question first: with Ayn Rand when I was in undergraduate doing Intro to Ethics (which being at a Jesuit college was a rough history of philosophical ethics with a few non-dogmatic nods to Catholic ethical and social teachings), we discussed Ayn Rand as an example of someone who adheres to the metaethical position of ethical egoism - the idea that all ethical behaviour reduces to ego. You help the old lady across the street because you feel better doing so. You give a donation to charity so that you can have bragging rights about how much of a good person you are. Basically, all ethical behaviour is done out of the desire to have one's name up in lights, to be seen the world over as a Bill Gates type character, and the satisfaction one would get from such recognition.

Beyond her being almost a straw man character at the start of ethics classes, a sort of token ethical egoist, Rand isn't considered widely by those in academic philosophy as a philosopher. You won't find Rand's writings anthologized in ethics or political philosophy introductory collections and you won't find her theories discussed in the sort of depth one might find Rawls or Scanlon or Habermas or Walzer or Mill or Singer. Reasons I've seen include that she attacks straw man ethical theories or straw man versions of Kant, Aristotle et al. I did a little bit of a trial-by-Google a while back using the JSTOR database to show that for almost any philosopher I could think of, they had gotten much more scholarly attention from philosophy journals than Rand had. In the philosophy section of the University of London library, I have only ever seen two books on Rand.

So, on the topic of whether Rand is a philosopher, I'd say drawing on personal experience of studying for a few years in an London philosophy department, on the basis of the bibliometric data, and on the basis of numerous prominent academic philosophers stating so, it seems reasonable to conclude that Rand is not widely considered a philosopher by those working in academic philosophy. But, of course, 'philosopher' is a term of judgment, and I've seen plenty of people saying "such-and-such isn't really a philosopher" because they disagree with that person's views, just as one might consider someone to not really be a historian if they fail to practice by the accepted standards of the discipline.

As to whether there are ethical questions underlying the political questions that might be brought up? Absolutely. Much more for the anarcho-capitalist side of anarchism than for the Proudhon/Kropotkin kind (I use this simply as a label for all anarchisms that are not anarcho-capitalist). In one sense, political philosophy cannot be divorced from ethics: one's ethical views dictate political possibilities. But in another sense, they obviously can. Two people can be in full agreement about the ends of the good life, the morally good outcomes, but disagree on the political system tht allows those to come to pass. One need only look at the frankly nutty Revolutionary Communist Party types who actively fought against social democratic measures because they wanted to make Britain get worse to thus bring about the great revolution. Get an RCPer and a more moderate Communist and you'll find they both agree on the desired end goal, but they simply disagree on methods. Many libertarians agree that a minarchist state would be a desirable thing, but not necessarily for the same reasons Nozick does.

If articles about anarchism have substantive ethical content, obviously getting the philosophers involved to give it a once over is no bad thing. –Tom Morris 22:59, 21 September 2010 (UTC)

First, let me reiterate what I'm doing as a Politics Editor: mentioning things that an article must address. There's always a danger, in the more specialized articles, of assuming background, and I think we had a nice discussion and cleanup in one area. I think I can separate my personal opinions about what is "right" from saying that an article on society has to address how certain functions will be carried out in that society. To take an extreme case, what would be likely to happen if South Korea were to smash its state?

Second, for the record, I was once fairly involved in U.S. lower-case-l libertarian, and even Randite, activism of the late sixties and early seventies. It frankly baffles me that some of the people we thought anarchical (calling themselves anarcho-libertarian or anarcho-capitalist), whom appeared to want no government whatsoever, somehow coopted "real" anarchism. For the articles to be meaningful on both sides of the pond, this needs to be addressed.

Unfortunately, I never met Rand herself, although do know people that studied directly with her. Tom, if you haven't read it, dig up a book, which also has a sequel, called It Usually Begins with Ayn Rand, by Jerry Tucille. Do NOT go anywhere near a keyboard if drinking liquids while reading. I will alwways cherish the confrontation between Rand and Andy Galambos, quoting from memory, "who, within five minutes, pronounced one another to be totally insane." The same result came from Rand and Bill Buckley, but the Galambosians really have to be appreciated. Howard C. Berkowitz 23:19, 21 September 2010 (UTC)