Somehow a pair of right-wing libertarians, calling themselves “Brothers in Anarchy”, managed to get themselves a column in Victoria University’s student newspaper Salient. My response:
Dear “Brothers in Anarchy”,
By some feat of luck it appears you have managed to gain a regular column in Salient – I only wish you would make better use of it.
I should play my cards up front: I am an anarchist, but of a variety quite opposed to the vulgar politics you two profess. As far as I can tell, you seem to advocate an anti-State right-wing libertarianism, a neo-liberalism of the most extreme kind. You reject the State and democracy but seem to entertain a misplaced belief that the all-too-obvious evils of capitalism will right themselves through some sort of unabated market mechanism.
This anti-State right-wing libertarianism of yours developed a small, short-lived, but vocal following in the mid-90s in the U.S., a following that also used the label “anarcho-capitalist”. This, of course, was to distinguish them from the vast majority of anarchists at the time who – of both the social and individualist varieties – located themselves firmly in an anti-capitalist politics. This anarchism, which has strangely gone unacknowledged in your column thus far, had its roots in the development of socialism in mid-19th Century Europe (notably Russia). It underwent an historic split in the last part of the 19th Century with the Statist socialisms (Marx, Engels, Lenin, etc.) that would eventually result in the predictable events of the Long Twentieth Century. It was also this anarchism which utterly eclipsed the proponents of “anarcho-capitalism” in 1999 in the now-infamous Seattle riots and the onset of the anti-globalisation movement.
But these semantic debates between anarchists and the “anarcho-capitalist” variety are now well-worn and tiresome. Rather than arguing who represents the most legitimate variety, perhaps it is best to go back to roots upon which we can both agree.
For me, anarchism is based upon an ethics and a desire which aims towards the maximisation of freedom. This is not simply the freedom of the tyrant to do what they wish, but instead a generalised social freedom that aims towards enabling individuals the ability to “grow naturally and simply, flower-like, or as a tree grows” (to quote Oscar Wilde). That is, it is a ‘freedom-to’, rather than just the liberal ‘freedom from’.
Compare these root values with your “anarcho-capitalist” system. While you seek the abolition of the State, you seem to quite happily transfer its repressive functions (namely its police and military forces, and their enforcement of law and especially property relations) to be managed through profit-seeking security companies. You advocate State court systems being run by businesses and using some sort of price mechanism as the basis for law. In fact, in an Orwellian twist, the pigs appear as men and the men appear as pigs. The functions of the State appear to have been retained in full and delivered through the mechanisms of the market and pseudo-State corporate forms. This vision seems more like a dystopian nightmare than anything worth fighting for.
More to the point, you seem to completely miss the oppressive capitalist relations involved in the employee/employer relationship – otherwise known as wage slavery. For 8 hours a day, 40 hours a week (or more if there are no labour laws), people will continue to endure the micro-dictatorship of the workplace. And so long as private property is staunchly defended by your corporate security lackeys, a combination of poverty and no access to productive capital makes wage slavery unavoidable (unless we retreat to sea-floating platforms as you advised us in your last column??). With profit the only basis for law, I would imagine a “race to the bottom” of working conditions and wages unparalleled by even the worse exigencies of economic globalisation today.
Anarchism must be anti-Statist and anti-nationalist, but it must also be anti-capitalist.
Nothing of your political vision seems to me to be anything that might approximate the “maximisation of freedom”. Orwell wrote that “if you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stomping on a human face – forever” and I wonder if this might have been perfected in your politics?
14 Comments
Great post. As a USAian I hear far too much from these so called Anarcho-Capitalists who never seem to realize that a powerful unfettered corperation is just another form of “STATE”
Stargeezer
We don’t seem to have them in Britain. Shame…
Finally, the fuckwits get a reply. Nice work.
“unless there is freedom for all, there is no freedom.” someone said that and I agree!! Excellent post.
hello there
I have added your blog to the http://www.3monkeyz.net blog listings
Peace
madhatterz
“of the Long Twentieth Century”
isnt it called the short 20th Century from 1914 to 1989? or am i confused…
Hey – I did a google search and apparently it’s Eric Hobsbawm uses the phrase “short 20th century”, who I’m guessing you’ve got the phrase from. I picked up the phrase from something Chamsy wrote I think, who in turn must have gotten it from Giovanni Arrighi, whoever that is.
From Wikipedia:
The short twentieth century
The “left-wing” historian Eric Hobsbawm uses the term “short twentieth century” for the period from the start of World War I to the fall of communism (1994: Age of Extremes), presumably intended to evoke historians’ commonly used term “long nineteenth century”, referring to the period from the start of the French Revolution in 1789 to the start of World War I.
The long twentieth century
On the contrary, the Italian marxist historian Giovanni Arrighi, describes a long twentieth century, one that was characterised by a persistent class struggle, wars and revolutions (1994: The Long Twentieth Century). In capitalism the world economy has peripheral and central areas. Arrighi defines in capitalist history four long centuries: Genoa’s, the Netherlands’, the British, and at last the American hegemony, which is now coming to an end.
The long twentieth century is generally said to have begun in 1870. It was marked by Reconstruction following the American Civil War in the United States, along with the Meiji restoration and the unification of Germany. In this period, we see the beginnings of women’s liberation and the spread of democracy, as well as the commodification of agriculture and the growth of world trade, trends which played out through the rest of the century.
Nice blog!
Nicely written. Wish I could be so polite
Please stop spreading your lies. Leftist “Anarchy” is not Anarchy. Supporting the mechanisms of the State while professing to oppose it (like your hero Chomsky) is not Anarchy. Get your head outta the sand.
I have posted a response on my blog here.
To me, the inherent appeal of anarchism is the idea of each to their own. It seems like your version of anarchism is more oppressive than theirs; they want the state not to exist, you want the state not to exist and also to crack down on capitalism/pursuit of wealth/whatever you want to call it. I completely understand that you find these things abhorrent, but completely disagree that we should be able to enforce our preferences on others. Under their system you would be free to start your own company/organisation with non-oppressive non-wage slavery systems. I get the feeling their way of live would not be allowed under your system. For this reason alone, I prefer their proposal. Theirs seems to encourage innovation, whiles yours seems to oppose it. Have I misunderstood?
Keep up the good work, “anarcho” capitalists don’t realize that anarchism by definition means the abolition of private property.
But if we keep up the discussion, we can win them over.
I think I just read a critique from the girl of my dreams.