11mo ago

how do you do, fellow anarchists?

187 comments

I reject the premise that right-wingers can be anarchists. I don’t care what they call themselves. Anarchism is a left-wing movement, fundamentally.
- anarcho-capitalism is actually corporate fascism
  
  A bit debatable on the individual level but that’s likely what it would lead to. Some ancaps are weirdly anti-corporate though. They think somehow big powerful corporations were created by the state. Which is true in some cases but clearly not in others.
  
  It's just latter-day feudalism. Their program is to Make Landlords Lords Again.
- If they didn't blatantly steal ideas from the left and twist it to support rich people, where would they get ideas? Have you stopped and considered how mentally bankrupt they are?
- Yes, and I think that’s the joke here.
  
  Kind of seems like that’s what they’re getting at but I find this linguistic deception so irritating that I can’t even tolerate the implicit suggestion here that the top dude might be some kind of anarchist.
- Back The Blue supporters jamming to Rage against the Machine for decades then suddenly getting upset at the band.
  
  Same vibes as when they got mad at Green Day for trashing Trump. Like they never paid attention at all.
- Having "less government" eventually crosses a threshold into having "no functional macro government at all".
  What you do after that threshold is entirely open ended.
  Anarchism is not owned by one political group, the ideation of what comes next is. (In leftist groups, collectivism via willful participation, focused on meeting the needs of all members of the group. In right groups, what amounts to libertarian bartering and more insular communing.)
  
  Anarchism is about opposition to all oppression and unjust hierarchies. If you are pro-capitalism, pro-patriarchy, pro-white supremacy, or pro-nationalism, you aren’t an anarchist. Sorry.
  And if you aren’t any of those things, what affinity do you have with the political right?
  
  Having “less government” eventually crosses a threshold into having “no functional macro government at all”.
  What you do after that threshold is entirely open ended.
  I think that is where you leave what anarchists define as anarchism. It doesn't end there, it's not open ended. If you end up with some town or camp that is ruled by a leader and/or a priesthood and police force to keep law and order, it's not anarchism. If you can own land and impose your vast property rights so others don't have anything, you're not anarchist.
  Exactly how a voluntary collaboration of anarchists is supposed to work to avoid quickly growing small systems of power again (chiefs or warlords) I never figured out so don't ask me. Best answer is that "because the people already overthrew the existing power structures they will have an easier time preventing future power structures". So I think they assume the belief system is powerful enough so that once people are indoctrinated, they would reject any systems of control again. How such an indoctrination is achieved and maintained would be my next question.
  Of course there are theories like anarcho-syndicalism. And I think in generally anarchism is understood as merely being of a mindset that any authority has to justify itself or be abolished, but necessary authority is not. So you'd still pay taxes for roads and schools.
- So what else do you call not-having-a-government-ism?
  
  Anti-statism. Anarchism is against all hierarchy. Including class.
  
  Anarchism. A king is a government.
- The terms "right wing" and "left wing" are quite nebulous, anyways.
- How is it fundamentally a left wing movement? I like lib left ideals, but fundamentally speaking, How can you have centralized economic planning as well as anarchism?
  
  Left-wing does not necessarily imply a centralized or planned economy.
  
  You’re thinking of the liberal/conservative spectrum as a line, which is common simply because political parties have a stranglehold on things and you vote for representatives instead of directly voting for policy. The side effect of voting for representatives is that it inherently ties social and fiscal policy together, because you as an individual don’t have any choices that diverge from that left/right line.
  But political policy is really closer to a graph with an X/Y direction. Social policy on one direction, and fiscal policy on the other. You’re thinking of liberal social and financial policy, which is communism. Socially liberal but fiscally conservative is anarchism.
- What about anarcho-capitalism?
  
  Ancaps aren't anarchists any more than buffalo have wings. Anarchism is the rejection of hierarchy, and capitalism is inherently hierarchical.
  
  Ancaps aren't really anarchists, they just coopted the word.
  
  That's exactly what was meant.
  
  Amazon's Human Resources Department buys all the land around where you stand, kills you of you violate the NAP by trespassing, and then barters for your unending indentured servitude in exchange for food and water.
  Anarcho-capitalism is like taking the worst parts of feudalism and chattel slavery, but with fewer human rights.

Jesse plemons was awesome in this scene, but I'm not sure if the character is someone leftist anarchists want to model themselves after lol
- That's what I thought. The meme is backwards.
- Defintely not. Right up there with right wingers using villians as their icons in memes. Although, I can't tell if that's a deliverate choice or ab ignorant one.

Meth Daemon: "Paris Commune of 1927 or Shanghai Commune of 1928?"
Wagner Moura: "Neither. They both deprived the aristocracy of their rightfully contracted private property."
Meth Daemon: "Die Heretic!"
- Must be Emo

I was surprised by how much I enjoyed that movie.
- What movie is that from?
  
  Civil War
  
  Based on Jesse Plemons name above I think it's civil war 2024
- One of the best movies I've seen in a long time! Great acting, music, writing, costumes, concept, locations. Proper cinematic experience!
- It was insanely good! And no one I know went to see it!
  
  Oh? I saw the trailer and figured it was some bs like that 2012 apocalypse movie. Didn't think it would be a fun watch.
- It was amazing. What ~~are~~ I mean would the media do while a country tears itself apart?
  I'm a fan of Alex Garland. I probably went into it a bit too hyped, and still thoroughly enjoyed it.
- Have been trying to figure out what movie it is. Can you give me a tip?
  
  Civil War

Why is the Gadsden flag placed alongside a thin blue line flag? Those symbols are mutually exclusive. I would also strongly question the intent of the valknut symbol.
- Ancaps are not ideologically consistent.
  
  I would hesitate to call this only an inconsistency; it's really more of an example of cognitive dissonance.
  
  I feel like we shouldn’t bully the dead husk of niche ideology. It must feel terrible to have virtually zero support for your politics and frustratingly pace around in the anonymous niche web communities because everyone in real life would just laugh.
  It must be hard to have such views and grasp at straws daily reading some same scraps of Wikipedia with examples where for 56 days the system worked as intended.
- Why is the Gadsden flag placed alongside a thin blue line flag? Those symbols are mutually exclusive.
  You should tell that to the endless sea of car bumpers and flagpoles I see flying both those flags and a Trump flag.
  
  I would if I could.
  
  I live in Southern Oregon and it's gotten to the point that I'm actually a little surprised when I don't see them side by side on pickups or flagpoles. On the way through Camas Valley or somewhere between the 5 and the coast, IIRC, there is a flagpole that has those, a thin green line flag and a Trump flag, just to really confuse everyone.
  It's truly baffling. Perhaps not that they don't seem to understand, at the most fundamental levels, what they are so passionate about, but that they are so eager to let everyone know.
- Standard libertarian/ancap combo. Don't tread on me (the Gadsden flag), tread on my enemies (the thin blue line flag). The valknut signals who those enemies are (blacks and immigrants) just in case the thin blue line by itself wasn't explicitly racist enough.
  
  Standard libertarian/ancap combo.
  The presence of a thin blue line flag and a valknut symbol indicates that they are neither libertarian nor ancap.
- I've seen this in the wild. I always ask myself "who do you think does the treading?"
- The intent of the symbols may be diametric but the stupidity of the right to co-opt and repurpose any symbol is a historic tradition.
- Did Nazis co-opt the valknut? I know it's Norse, so it wouldn't surprise me if they did, just couldn't find anything from some quick searching.
  
  I'm not sure. I've honestly never seen it prior to this post. My knowledge of its use as a symbol of white supremacy comes from its Wikipedia article, so there's a high probability of my ignorance on it.
- It makes sense when you realize that AnCaps are uneducated Anarchists who haven't read political theory (they generally swap as soon as they do)
  
  Ancaps have different weights of the main criteria (which are the same set).
  Both employ voluntarism and, well, lack of hierarchy. But there's such a thing as voluntary hierarchy. For ancaps voluntarism takes priority here, for the rest it doesn't. All the differences stem from that single point.
  Other things aside, I think ancaps think about guns more often, so, eh, the pic would be inverted.

Can I get a guide to all those logos, please?
- The yellow and black flag is the ancap (anarcho-capitalist) flag. The rattlesnake is a libertarian icon and says "don't step on me". Bitcoin was built out of a libertarian idea that the government was to blame for the 2008 GFC because they somehow regulated the banks too much, so a decentralized digital currency was the best way to get around that regulation. ETA: the black and white US flag with the blue stripe is the "thin blue line" flag, flown by supporters of the police, typically a symbol used by the right wing of America. The three interlocking triangles form the valknut, a symbol used by ancient Germanic people's, and currently used by people who identify with Germany and the Vikings; white supremacists make up a large group who fit this description.
  The red and black flag is an anarchist flag, a combination of two older anarchist flags: the black flag and the red flag. The ancap flag is descended from this one, replacing the red with gold (because gold is a very old and widely used form of currency, and money good, government bad). The purple and black one is the anarcha-feminst flag, and they also use the pink and black flag, but it's primarily seen as the queer anarchist flag. I'm sure I don't need to explain the LGBT+ flag. All Cops Are Bastards (ACAB) is a popular slogan amongst anarchists because cops are the strong arm of the state, and as such Black Lives Matter is a movement that a lot of anarchists strongly identify with and support.
  
  this comment having a single upvote is a crime
- Top panel: Gadsden flag (no step on snek!) with anarcho-capitalist black stripe, Bitcoin logo, "blue lives matter" boot-flavored US flag, "better dead than red" anticommunist Gadsden flag, and a tri-something-or-other that's a Norse symbol co-opted by Nazis who are legally prohibited from using a swastika. Altogether: Ayn Rand's fanclub.
  Bottom panel: black power first, feminist... power fist?... "all cops are bastards," self-explanatory BLM, three flavors of anarchism, oddly subdued anarchism circle-A, and a transgender flag with what I think is the same oddly subdued circle-A getting lost in JPG's chroma subsampling. Even though this is a PNG.
  
  Very helpful, thanks.

AnCaps are basically Anarchism minus the political theory (aka all the core fundemental values of Anarchism) and with too much economic theory from Murray Rothbard ("free market" capitalism). The best thing I can say about them is that most of them grow out of it and choose an actual version of Anarchism as soon as they're exposed to theory (at least I did and now I'm an AnSynd).
- Great that you made the turnaround, but what you describe is only true for the many confused online ancaps that usually ended up there through the bitcoin pyramid scheme propaganda pipeline.
  There is a different group often condidered to have been started by Murray Rothbard that have a well defined ideological basis for which they try to appropriate terms like "Libertarian" and "Anarchist" but which has nothing to do with the original meaning of these words. This group is well funded by oligarchs and serves as the ideological think-tank to justify the massive theft of these very same oligarchs.
  These justifications are in turn often uncritically lapped up by the first group.
  
  I'm referring to the ignorant people who blindly follow the capitalists because that's most "An"caps and right "libertarians". Many people like myself fell down the pipeline when we realized that the government is fundementally a source of evil and the ideal society is one based on mutual cooperation rather than coercion. The problem therefore is that "An"caps have only figured out half of the problem, they understand the evils of government but not the coercive power of the capitalist class. The group you described can be simply referred to as the capitalist class as they hold no true morals or political ideology.