Left anarchists love arguing over what the word anarchy actually means. In fact, their only real argument against right anarchists is that theyre not real anarchists. Now, I really dont care if lefties dont consider me an anarchist. They can call me whatever the hell they want. However, without being mistaken for a patriot, I would like to point out that there is a geographical difference between the origins of the respective philosophies. Nearly all left anarchist thought can be traced back to Europe, while nearly all right anarchist thought can be traced back to the United States. I think the main reason for this is that the Untied States was built upon Lockean, individualist, Classical Liberal ideas, while nearly every modern collectivist political philosophy, whether statist or anti-statist, came from Europe. The word libertarian has also meant different things in the US than it has in Europe. In either case, it has almost always been synonymous with anarchy. Modern American libertarianism, which is universally considered to be an extreme right philosophy, can be traced directly back to 19th century individualist anarchists such as Spooner, Thoreau, and Tucker (who also called themselves libertarians). The American individualist anarchists of the 19th century typically did not consider themselves capitalists, but they certainly were not anti-capitalist. Most of these people did actually believe in the labor theory of value (which was originally a Lockean idea), and, because of this, they considered things such as retail mark-ups to be morally wrong. However, they also believed in contract law, so if the creator of a product agreed by contract to allow the buyer to mark-up the price and resell it, they had no problem with that, as it was a voluntary agreement. Of course, Spooners take on usury was actually quite capitalist; he believed that lenders should be allowed to charge borrowers whatever interest rate they wanted to based upon risk, so long as the borrower voluntarily agreed to the rate. Its logical, then, that Rothbard would later take the ideas of individualist anarchists and mix them with free market capitalism. The two ideas are not mutually exclusive, so long as any and all exchanges are voluntary. Libertarian socialists, meanwhile, were developing their philosophies in Europe around the same time as the American individualists. Theyre core ideas came from democratic socialism, Marxism, or somewhere in between. It is important to note that communism is, in fact, an anarchist philosophy. The main flaw in communism, however, is that it requires a growth in the state before its eventually abolished. If power corrupts, this poses a huge problem. Furthermore, the idea of initiating a violent revolution exists almost exclusively in left anarchist philosophies. These are your Molotov throwing anarchists. They also have such a tremendous hatred for capitalism that they dont believe anyone should be allowed to take part in it, even if its voluntary. Finally, equality of outcome, which left anarchists unapologetically promote, is impossible to achieve without the use of force (unless everyone just happily agrees, of course). Todays anarcho-communists and anarcho-syndicalists argue that capitalism, even when voluntary, creates hierarchies, and, because of this, it is impossible for capitalism and anarchy to coexist. Meanwhile, American libertarians see anarchy by the dictionary definition, which simply means a society without a state. The leftists also claim that anarchism has always been a leftist ideology, therefore, they hold some sort of historical truth that right anarchists dont. It is truly impossible, though, for one to be both an individualist and a collectivist. If this is the case, then the individualists I mentioned before were not truly anarchists, despite the fact that they were quite adamant about claiming to be.
Posted on: Fri, 12 Sep 2014 15:39:41 +0000
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