404 karma · joined February 14, 2017
I'd say you're strawmanning both sides here, left anarchists know the state grows out of the conflicting class interests of the working class and capitalist class, and that abolition of the state necessarily requires abolition of capitalism. Propertarians believe that if you got rid of the government, the free market will sort things out because it's the gov. interference in private enterprise that causes societies conflicts. Neither believe in a magic switch or anything.
Just because your system is dominated by capitalists doesn't make the rest of the spectrum irrelevant, and redefining the conversation to fit into your narrow band is what has led to the frustrations with the American situation.
The American left is not left when considering the entire spectrum of left-right political ideas, and you don't get to suddenly chose to define something as leftist within the context of your narrow window of acceptable thought, it must encompass all ideas.
‘One gratifying aspect of our rise to some prominence is that, for the first time in my memory, we, “our side,” had captured a crucial word from the enemy . . . “Libertarians” . . . had long been simply a polite word for left-wing anarchists, that is for anti-private property anarchists, either of the communist or syndicalist variety. But now we had taken it over. . .’ [The Betrayal of the American Right, p. 83]
I don't believe they aren't "true anarchists", I believe they aren't anarchist at all. They aren't even in the realm of consideration of what constitutes anarchist. Their ideal society would end up corporate feudalism.
You should read Pyotr Kropotkins "The Conquest of Bread" and Alexander Berkman's "What is Communist Anarchism?" if you'd like to know more about anarcho-communist ideology. Or if you'd like to know more about mutualism (essentially a workers run system with a market), then check out the works of Joseph Proudhon.
I'd also argue that anarcho-capitalism and right-libertarianism are not anarchist in any sense, as they uphold the inherently hierarchical system of capitalism.
You should read his manifesto, the dude had some funky ideas about society and there's no excuse for murdering innocent poeple, but he does defend what he believes in very vigorously. He wasn't a man without an ideological backing.
You're absolutely right. It's intuition for neurotypical people, it's just something they get. For aspies socialization is about learning all the hidden rules that come naturally to others. But I do admit that knowing the rules and applying them in real time is a very, very difficult thing to do. It gets exhausting quick, and if this was one of the reasons hermits decide to become hermits, I can empathise massively.
Now you've misunderstood me, I'm not saying that because they've done a lot of hard work that what they say is immediately relevant. I'm saying what they've said is relevant, and they've put in a lot of hard work to get their points across. You can't just handwave because in your ignorance you believe you're right and everyone else is wrong, you have to actually confront what they've said
This is a frustrating and arrogant thing to say. If you can honestly go through and thoroughly criticize the core collective works of great socialist thinkers like Engels, Marx, Lenin, Bakunin, Kropotkin, Goldman and the uncountable thousands who have poured thousands of hours into tomes which are freely available online to study and understand, then you should do so. I would love to read this! You'd probably become a very famous person! But coming out gung ho and so arrogantly conclude that all these people, and all the hard work they have done in both theory and praxis is kaput without a very strong argument behind you is pointless and childish. It stifles conversation and is the reason discussing economic systems with people who don't understand them is an exercise in futility.
People have been hating capitalism since the invention of capitalism, it's not new. Americans might just be starting to hate it but thats due to the fact that they really haven't been able to ever have a fair and honest discussion about the various economic systems of the world because of 80 years of capitalist propaganda and suppression of socialists and communists
I can't read the Czech link (do you know if there's a translated link or something in English?) but that seems more like from your one sentence description (and my reading of the wikipedia link) a game satirizing the ridiculousness of playing politics rather than communism?