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Sus in a vacuum, as @Edie@hexbear.net said it’s more reasonable than you’d expect. I still have the usual Marxist disagreements, but this isn’t the same as what the other user was doing (and is why I gave them their fair credit).

Their statements are wrong, as are their disparagements of class struggle and the vague hodge-podge of ideas, but it’s one of the least bad takes on that thread.

Maybe my standards are too low.

Many anarchist currents characterize their theory and praxis as elements of an ongoing process rather than a political program with a well-defined end state. A lot of anarchist collective action is in the realm of prefigurative praxis. To create a world that aligns with your current starts with destroying/diminishing existing social structures and building new structures so that you and your comrades can live in that world now and demonstrate what is possible, with the aim to convince others that what is currently a tenuous possibility could be an enduring reality. This is definitely in conversation with Where Do Correct Ideas Come From?

Developing theoretical foundations, material implementations, and replicable methods is as much a part of the anarchist model as the Marxist one, but the intellectual lineage is much clearer for Marxists. Most actually practicing anarchists I’ve worked with are functionally indistinguishable from very enthusiastic Maoists if you don’t dig too deeply into the abstract foundational principles that bring them to their positions.

It’s especially strange when people who are far more adventurist and bloodthirsty than I am call me a tankie. It’s pure reaction, like a call and response. I’ve seen liberals act like they are going to form Luigi guerilla squads and execute every single billionaire today and then call me a fascist for supporting Venezuela against the US Empire.

Thank goodness for the Red Sails series on “brainwashing,” I’d be far more confused by their actions otherwise.

Side-note: I’m aware that “tankie” is just a pejorative for Marxists and anti-imperialists and thus I am a “tankie,” I’m more pointing out that the radical liberals devoid of theory and devoid of meaningful organization end up lashing out at everyone.

Aww, thanks! I do agree that my insistence on trying to answer the regular hostility and bad-faith I get daily with good-faith has earned some respect from otherwise liberal people, and some of these people have softened their views of leftists because of that. It’s what keeps me doing this, not because I’m sweet necessarily but because it works for people that outright confrontation doesn’t. I don’t disavow the outright confrontation style though, as it works for some people that my methods don’t.

Well you’re a master to me. Like not to slob your knob too hard but yeah.

It just sounds like we’re saying the same thing tbh with some minute differences and sone pettiness too.

I use endeaver, does that make me a trot?? 😨

MarxLinux

ah well then congrats you’re an archist

I probably should’ve been clearer that I was talking about pointless online squabbles and not IRL. You’re right that out there, where it actually matters, all this online infighting melts away, and anyone trying to act like a Twitter leftist is quickly chased away. I’ve worked plenty with anarchists as a communist, because we both want to abolish capitalism, it’s only online that you see this smug sort of “NATO anarchist” type actively declaring that all other forms of leftism aren’t “real leftists” because that would mean leftism involves going outside and actually helping people instead of just getting into fights on twitter.

I should’ve clarified that this is an online phenomenon, mainly working as a way to keep people away from actually organising IRL and waste all their time falling deeper into a smug self-satisfied twitter coma.

Ultimately I’m also just crassly speculating, but I’d say you’re probably right. In an environment where the only currency is speech and the only profits are clout and lifestyles, why would they produce something fundamentally hostile to liberalism and able to challenge it? Then they’d get more friction and for no benefit, because it’s not like changing things was on the table to start with. Performatively opposing liberalism can still be rhetorically beneficial, but fundamentally they are still frequently bound to very liberal sensibilities (see the “anarchist” in this thread who only believes no one can be made to do anything).

Yes a good one, sadly completely worthless as political theory.

That’s fine and well, but these things do not happen in a vacuum. You try to feed people vegetarian meals in a park, and the cops come after you. You host a block party, and city authorities come after you for a permit. You assist precarious people by harboring more than 3 of them (familially unrelated) in your apartment, and your landlord raises your rent or evicts you. You go into business as a self-employed maker, competitors sell their equivalent as a loss-leader to squeeze you out. You post anarchist content on a mainstream social network, and you get shadowbanned. You form a multiethnic federation of cooperatives and municipalities in a power vacuum, and the murderous theocratic faction in the region goes to war with you.

Everywhere you go, you run into deep problems created by inequality, class, racism, patriarchy, imperialism, etc. Every day, you deal with resource constraints in a world of ecological overshoot.

For over 5 years I was part of an anarchist collective that held down a social center, I was easily there more than 20 hours a week. We were having to navigate complex and difficult social situations all the time. If you don’t have a clearly understood set of norms and coordination, your collective will fall apart from infighting or people taking advantage of you.

“Creating spaces and communities based on mutual aid and human connection in which people can safely exist as themselves” is something bourgeois people do all the time, there’s just a substantial cost barrier to it that excludes the lower classes. These spaces were the best part of my life until I realized the oppositions and structural privilege they were predicated on. And after that it became the anarchist milieu that was the best part of my life, but that is based on constant struggle. Asserting that you can just do all these good-person things without an understanding of struggle screams “baby leftist” to me.

imagine all the peeeoeple

Ah I hate those situations. Absolute perfect demonstration of hyperindividualism on display.

So, if a normal car can’t get in there, how will an ambulance?

It makes me wonder if there is an anarchism of the 21st century. Something that actually logically works in theory and could be materially implemented. So at least if I come across another dork that wants anarchism-in-form-primitivism-in-action ism, I could at least point them in a direction for them to learn the most realistically up-to-date materials of their own worldview.

Then again that’s just too far into the weeds even for me, and I’ll just stick with saying “who’s gonna build and maintain the roads”

Yep. vibes all the way. baby. anything more structured will inevitably fall apart when other people have differing opinions, this way I remain compatible.

Yeah. Obviously… unless… I create gunpowder. That way I’ll be unstoppa… Oh, the Akkadians stole the recipe and conquered us anyway, damn.

I don’t usually use forums or Reddit, I usually just post comments on Ancap blogs like Molyneux or Cantwell’s blog, but they didn’t seem appropriate places to post my story. So here goes, I just wanted to share this with all of you.

Nov 3 I flew to Europe for a Eurotrip type tour. Not a guide or packaged deal, just going around by myself. I paid for half of the trip with the wages I earned over the last two years, my dad paid for the other half. I am 19, I guess that is normal starting college and all. (Before that I worked for my dad’s company part time, so I guess you could say he paid for all of it, lol).

I did France and then Italy and then Greece next. I am an Ancap so I wanted to see anarchists in these places. Yes, I know they are different kinds of “anarchists” and not really full anarchists like us. I went to an anarchist book store in Italy and it had a lot of English books, but no Rothbard or Ancap. Like I said, I expected that, not a surprise.

I went to Greece, which everyone knows is famous for its revolutionary anarchism, its economic crisis and everything going on right now. Here I found directions for a local anarchist center. I went and didn’t see anybody, but it was covered in graffiti, mostly in Greek so I couldn’t read it. Whatever, I started taking pictures. Then some people came out and confronted me.

This should have been my first warning sign something was not right, because photography is not a crime. They were not violent, but they were not friendly, like asking who I was, what I wanted. They all spoke good English actually. Not uncommon in Greece. I said I was a tourist and an anarchist and I just wanted to take pictures. Then they got friendly and told me I should have asked first (but pictures are no NAP violation so I don’t know why, but I didn’t say anything) and they invited me inside.

We hung out for a while and smoked hash (there is no good dank in Europe as you might find out like in Cali, everyone smokes hash with tobacco which isn’t as cool as it sounds). We started talking about politics and anarchism. I was trying to talk about the state, they were like yeah no doubt the state was bad. But they wanted to talk about capitalism, capitalism this and that. This is when we started to get into a debate.

I told them that what they called capitalism is different from the free market. They said capitalism is free markets. And I said I agreed. That is what I am saying. Real capitalism is free markets. And they said yes, that is what we are trying to get rid of. And I said no, but we don’t even have that right now. We need more free markets. And everyone at the same time was like “nooo” we are anarchists, we are against capitalism. Anarchists oppose capitalism.

And I said but not anarcho-capitalists. Anarcho-capitalists are the anarchists who support capitalism. I had a fanny pack (yeah, lame I know) for my camera and in that I had this yellow and black bowtie (also super lame, it was a joke but I wasnt wearing it). And I said look, these are the Ancap colors, yellow and black, like versus the communist red and black. Well, these guys had a lot of red and black in the building already so I thought they would get it.

I think that is when it started to get a really bad vibe, really tense in the air. The free market thing was funny, we disagreed but I think they thought I was just confused. Everyone was uncomfortable now. Then someone said markets wont work with democracy. And I said exactly, that’s it, democracy is against anarchism. And they kind of agreed, and said yes, we don’t have real democracy, just governments, and we needed more democracy. I said no, we need less democracy, democracy is the enemy. And we need to end democracy to have anarchy. Then they were all like “noooo” again. You know that thing people do in groups when everyone all says “nooo” or expresses some disapproval at the same time.

And one of them said “but we do want to stop democracy” and then they kind of spoke back and forth in Greek. I didn’t really understand it. And they asked me what I meant.

So I said okay, I had the floor, I was going to tell them about ancapism. And I tried to explain to them some Rothbard and Hoppe. I said the natural order in anarchy is that the best rise to the top, the market picks who is the best. They compete and are peaceful. They said what do we want instead of anarchy. I said we want private owners to own their own land and businesses, and to employ people. They said that is what we have now. I said no, it would be even better. One of the guys said it was like feudalism. And I said it is not feudalism.

Eventually one of the guys spoke up and I thought he was Greek, but he spoke English perfectly so he may have not been. He said he knew what anarcho-capitalism was and that we were basically fascists. He asked me if I thought everything should be private. And I said yes. And he asked me if I thought people were unequal. And I told him yes. And that not everyone would have equal rights. I said everyone has the right to own property and not be done aggression against. But that not everyone had to be treated equally by the owners. He said what about immigrants and racism. And I said that would not happen in a free market, but yes property owners could be racist if they wanted to. They had to respect property.

Then he called me a fascist again, and someone else said I was a fascist. And then they basically all started shouting fascist at me, and one of them grabbed me by the wrists. They pulled me out the door, it was up three floors, and basically drug me down the stairs on my back. It hurt really bad and I remember yelling “you’re breaking the NAP” and things like that. “Stop initiating force against me.” Then they kicked me around on the ground in the hallway, before they took my camera and threw me outside. I was crying and stuff, I just sat there. I was in shock because it was so sudden. Looking back there were warning signs though.

I think they felt bad for me and gave the camera back, but when I looked later they stole the memory card with all of my Greek photos.

So they initiated force and theft. They broke the NAP. I knew the left anarchists were not real anarchists, but I never knew they would do something that bad.

I wasnt seriously hurt, just kicked around a little, lots of bruises and little cuts. I am fine guys so don’t worry. Just needed to share.

They aren’t talking about “human nature”, they are talking about the fundamental issue with valuing decentralization over democracy, which is that it is definitionally vulnerable to insurgency because if every locality is merely doing their own thing in a completely autonomous fashion without federal law and accompanying oversight to keep people on the same page, literally what is stopping them from recreating capitalism or building a fascist militia or anything else?

Oh nice lol, tbh with you I still have not made it all the way down.

Ananarchy

If opposing archy isn’t the focus then there is literally never going to be anarchy. All you’re doing is making community under archy more pleasant and therefore reducing the conditions that make people more likely to support revolution. It is exactly the same trap that democratic-socialists fall into as they pursue better conditions for workers under capitalism and ultimately never pursue revolution.

Do you actually want anarchy? Or do you just want healthcare and slightly better working conditions?

Serious question. I’ve said the same to so-called communists before too so don’t think I’m calling you out, I was an anarchist myself for several decades. Communists make the same god damn mistake too, many forget that they’re supposed to be achieving socialism, which ultimately requires revolution, not just making things under capitalism slightly better.

The primary goal of an anarchist should be to end archy. That requires direct conflict with the state and it requires convincing others of the need to destroy the state as well.