Talk:Anarchism

Anarchism description suggestions

.. copied from Talk:Anarchy

"It is based upon the belief that people are good (see human nature), and will not commit crime if there is no law." ... People cannot commit crime if there is no law. Maybe we should say "won't do bad things to each other if there is no law".

• It may be a good idea to distinguish "anarchy" from "anarchism", as two separate articles. "Anarchism" is the political movement/ideology. "Anarchy" could be a very short article, saying that "anarchy" has two meanings: (1) chaos, (2) the ideal society believed in by anarchists. For more information on meaning 2, the user would click the link.

• • I think that we shouldn't separate these two ("Anarchy" and "Anarchism") in the Simple English Wikipedia unless there is a very good reason to do so. We should explain the difference in one article.

--200.165.178.155 12:41, 1 July 2004 (UTC)

I have removed the word "most" from the phrase "most anarchist philosophy does not promote chaos..."

I'm relatively well-schooled in all the classical and modern anarchist texts and I have found no anarchists (in the philosophical sense of the term, not the pejoritive) either self-described or objectively measured, who promote "chaos" as their goal. This word seems to have found its way into the text as a way for someone who does not know enough about anarchism to write the article and avoid NPOV problems. But I think an objective look will illustrate that there is no school of anarchist thought which endorses chaos as goal. Brendan141.140.6.66 16:46, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

If you look in the article history you can see that I re-added "most" some time ago with the comment:

"Anarchist philosophy" is anything but unified or organized, there's no central authority or standard; thus it cannot be generalized.

I still believe this to be the case, therefore I will have to add it yet again to avoid making sweeping generalizations about something that refuses and defies all generalization. Blockinblox 17:15, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Comrade, find me a single text from an objectively anarchist source that promotes chaos and I'll drop all objections. I can't think of any. Anarchism as chaos is a misconception spread by the media. Wikipedia should be here to speak the truth of the matter, not repeat unsubstantiated claims by sources with no interest in the matter. Brendan 141.140.123.117 20:42, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Anarchy by its very definition from Greek an-arche means "without leadership". There is no leadership. Therefore there is no one to define dictate what anarchy "is", and no one with the authority to state that "this can't be anarchy, because we said so". Having said that, any groups that do espouse chaos certainly would meet the definition of anarchist, so we cannot generalize and say "no anarchists espouse chaos". Chaos itself can have several different meanigns, so it's safest to leave some wiggle room and not generalize the un-generalizable. Blockinblox 21:45, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Okay, but you still haven't provided a single anarchist writer who promotes chaos as an objective. Find me one and I'll drop all objections. (And for the record, I've always read that anarchy comes from an-anarchos, that is "without rulers". I could be mistaken though.) Brendan 141.140.123.117 20:22, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

(1)(a) Anarchism takes no stance on human nature. (b) Crime can still exist in an anarchy because natural law (if it exists, and I believe it does) exists regardless of whether there is a state. Anarchists do hold that some people may commit these "natural crimes" even in an anarchy, crimes such as rape, theft, and murder; but the anarchist believes that society will be able to address problems such as these more effectively or more ethically without the coercive hierarchy of the state. (c) It can be argued that anarchism requires law. For an anarchy to be an anarchy, there must be an absense of aggression, where aggression is defined as the initiation of force or fraud, and examples include rape, theft, and murder. Since these actions create a coercive hierarchy (in which the aggressor acts as ruler over the aggressed), wherever these actions take place, anarchy ceases to be; in order to restore anarchy, this coercive hierarchy must be de-established, the aggressor thus is shunned worse. Punishment for crimes in an anarchy may range from shunning the aggressor to using equal and opposing force against the aggressor; different anarchists will disagree on what is permissible, of course (with anarcho-pascifists relying entirely on the influence of shunning or boycotting), but what virtually all anarchists agree upon is that, where force may be used against an aggressor, it mustn't exceed the initial crime; thus, while one may be required to pay restitution for stealing a pack of gum, one may never be executed for this crime.

(2) Anarchy never means "chaos." While it is true that some people use the term to refer to chaos, it remains nevertheless the case that the term does not accurately mean "chaos." Their usage, in short, is wrong.

I left the sentence in the article as it was, since it was clear that the word is often used "[i]n the common language" to mean chaos, which is technically accurate, even if the word itself does not mean chaos.

(3) If you wish to distinguish anarchy from anarchism, anarchy is the absense of aggression (or coercive hierarchy) and anarchism is the ideology advocating the absense or even punishment of aggression, advocating the de-establishing of all coercive hierarchies. It's as simple as that.

(4) To Blockinblox and others:

Yes, anarchist philosophy can be generalised. While there are certainly many varying schools of anarchism, all actual anarchists have a shared opposition to coercive hierarchy, for example; all actual anarchists have a shared opposition to the state more specifically, for another example.

Since anarchy means without rulers, anarchism therefore advocates a prohibition on being a ruler or aggressor. Since a prohibition on being rulers is a rule, we can conclude that anarchism inherently requires a rule. Here is a generalisation, is it not? Yet, reason compells us to make it, for if anarchism did not require this prohibition, then it would not be an ideology advocating anarchy. Further, since chaos exists not in any place where no person may rule over (i.e., rape, steal from, tax, enslave, defraud, batter, regulate, or murder) another person, since chaos only exists where these crimes occur, anarchism objectively cannot be an ideology advocating chaos. Thus, I have removed the word most from the article.

(5) Blockinblox's definition, according to all of the sources I've seen, of anarchism is wrong. Anarchy does not mean without leadership, it means without rulership. There is an important difference. One would never be prohibited from pursuing leaders in an anarchy, and if any person did initiate force against a person in order to prevent her or him from pursuing a leader, then the person initiating force would be an aggressor, and thus a ruler; thus, anyone who actively prevented people from voluntarily following leaders or from taking a position in a voluntary "hierarchy" would be creating a coercive hierarchy, and thus is destroying anarchy in that the sphere where the aggressor has acted. Anarchy is only restored in that sphere when the rulership is demolished and the aggressor's victim is once again free to pursue leaders.

(6) Reason dictates what anarchism is. Blockinblox appears to wish to contend that anarchism can have no definition, and that literally anyone can accurately define her- or himself an "anarchist" regardless of what she or he does or advocate. But if this were the case, there be no need to even have this article. But while anarchists do bicker about many subjects (e.g., violence v. pascifism, capitalism v. socialism), anarchism does have objective goals, and every rational person can discover what these objective goals are using reason. One needs merely to recognise that anarchism requires a prohibition on coercive hierarchy, for example, to realise that anarchism is objectively incompatible with anomism.

98.117.49.203 (talk) 04:23, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

Anarchy and Communism

How on earth could anarchists be communists if they believe that there should not be any government? In communism, the government keeps tight control over the economy, and it is not an anarchy therefore.--67.10.200.101 23:26, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

Read a book sometime. --71.93.182.252 23:45, 9 December 2009