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–2 votes
The way I see it is that the only true version of anarchy is a free society able to do what they want to with their property. If I want to smoke a plant, that is my freedom because my body is my property. If I work my ass off on a farm and earn money for my services, I deserve to be able to spend my money in whatever way I wish. If a lazy person who doesn't do well with his or her job earns 10 dollars, how come a hard worker who puts 110% into his job and does it well only gets 10 dollars? Communism in any form takes away economic freedom. So how could somebody call themselves an anarchist if they support communism? Communism takes away freedom and has to be enforced by some authority. Anarcho-capitalists would only enforce natural law. They would protect people from real crimes such as murder or theft. They wouldn't stop people from reaching their full potential by adding a ceiling at the top of the ladder so you have to quit climbing no matter how hard you try or how well you do. They wouldn't force people to only be able to earn a certain amount of money. They would let humans perform their actions voluntarily. So I don't see how anarcho-communism could be considered anarchy. I'd rather call it liberal communism. An ideology that supports personal freedom but not economic freedom. Am I missing something with the anarcho-communist philosophy? Please educate me.

edited for tags
by (170 points)
edited by
Hey Brad, you do know what kind of site this is, right? Your pro-capitalist binary nonsense (it's either capitalism or communism) won't make you many friends here. Some of us aren't particularly interested in economics, other than wanting to see it destroyed as a category of human relations. If I could vote down your question more than once I would.
I was providing my opinion so that somebody who answers would be able to counter and defeat my beliefs so that my beliefs would in-turn become more defined. I was asking about the ideology of anarcho-communism and why it was better than true anarchy because it didn't make sense to me. I can't believe I am being personally cut down for my opinions, even when I was remaining completely open-minded.
It's nothing personal, dude. And it's not a competition, despite your adherence to an ethos of competition. If you want someone to counter and defeat your beliefs, you won't find that here either. There might be opinions from people who will disagree with your faulty premises, bad assumptions, and absurd conclusions, but I don't think anyone will be able to dissuade you from your beliefs; they seem pretty entrenched already.

Asking about the problems and inconsistencies of anarchist communism is one thing; promoting capitalism and some phantom called "natural law" (what's next? "Human nature"?) is quite another.

As I said, many of the regular posters on this site are not interested in economics other than as a category to destroy, along with the state and other hierarchies and institutions of exploitation and oppression.
I didn't mean to come off as a bad guy. And I'm not looking for competition. I'm looking for education. And I am against oppression. That's why I am against communism because it takes away my freedom to make my decisions with what I earn or am given. Natural law is basically a moral law that exists in nature when we are brought into this world either by a god or science. We have free will so we are free to make decisions by nature. Government punishes you for making decisions that don't even hurt others. If I am being controlled and prevented from making my own economic decisions, then I will not be able to be happy. I don't deserve that because I'm not hurting others. I want to be able to work hard and earn money to buy myself some land and a house and a car and live with my family and buy whatever I want to. I don't care much for economics either but I do care about personal freedom, therefore I care about economic freedom. And you can't say that I won't be dissuaded. You don't know me. My beliefs come from me thinking more in-depth about life but being proven wrong by others. I learn from my mistakes and I take other opinions into consideration. If I am wrong then I change my beliefs so that I am right. I am not  a stubborn asshole. Though using this technique has cause my beliefs to be more defined, I always keep an open mind. So if I am not dissuaded then it is because I am right or I don't completely understand how you are right.
Step one in understanding anything would be to recognize that "natural law" doesn't exist.
bradley, i'm sure we all appreciate open minds, even when they come clothed in rhetoric that is abhorrent to us.
so one thing to keep in mind is that i for one am offended when people talk about anarcho-capitalism, and that can make me short-tempered.
there are posts on this site that talk about how capitalism is inherent to the system that we are fighting against ("we" being anarchists). the argument is that capitalism requires the state to maintain it. here are some posts on this topic.
http://anarchy101.org/25/why-does-capitalism-rely-on-the-state
http://anarchy101.org/6/how-can-there-be-anarchocapitalists-and-anarchocapitalism
http://anarchy101.org/2378/can-capitalism-be-destroyed-without-destroying-the-state

the only thing i think should be added to the conversation (that hasn't been addressed in the posts above) is that shawn wilbur is a very smart man who writes about mutualism and other economic ideas, and if you really want to address the practicalities of what a post-major-change world might look like, then checking out his site and writings would be a more thoughtful direction than many others you could choose.
here is a site of his:
http://mutualisminfo.blogspot.com/
"Natural law is basically a moral law that exists in nature when we are brought into this world either by a god or science."

wow.
Bradley Liberty: I just want to say that "private property" is a delusion that can only be maintained by force. Without the state, you really don't have any possessions. Any person can come and take those possessions from you anytime they feel like it. If you want the state to continue protecting people's possessions, then you are not an anarchist.
lawrence, i know this is three years too late, but please do not speak for other people on this site (i have also done this, and i shouldn't have either). speak for yourself, and as always, remember this site is for people who are new to the ideas, so ease up some, please.

1 Answer

+4 votes
Responses, in order:

Anarchism does not involve private property in any way.

You, as a person, are not your "property". You are a person.

Wage labor is an entirely undesirable form of living and I don't want it to exist in an anarchist society no matter how "fair" or "unfair" it could be.

The "freedom" to withhold basic resources and participation in society until somebody obliges to take part in wage labor is not a form of freedom I recognize.

Natural law doesn't exist.

Crime is a relative/meaningless term that can only exist as the opposite of law.

Anarchism is against all hierarchical structures and has absolutely no room for societies that involve figurative ladder-climbing (or, more accurately, pyramid-climbing).

It is incredibly doubtful that most anarchists (at the very least, anarchists on this site) include money as a foundational component in their analyses of modern society.

All anarchism is anti-capitalist, but not all anarchists are anarcho-communists. You should probably learn and recognize some of the distinctions in anarchist theory.
by (8.7k points)
An anarchist society would permit people to interact with others in any manner they wish. Anarcho-Communism could exist within a free society, so long as it was voluntary. The domination, power-over relationship between communist rulers and their subjects could not exist in an anarchist society. Any violation of the non-aggression principle is contrary to anarchism. If a group of people want to live communally and share everything they produce among themselves, they could do this without violating the non-aggression principle. As soon as they force others to live under their system, they have violated the premises of anarchism because they are violating the self-ownership of the individual. Property is a system that is used to answer the question, "Who should be able to control a resource when there is a dispute between two or more people over the control of the resource in a given time and place?" The property rights answer is that the person with the best claim should be able to control the resource in question. I do not know of a response to this question that is more consistent with anarchist philosophy.

edited to make comment.
Okay, Economics: Now, we should all know that money its self isn't ours, it all belongs to the banks, the royal family and the vatican, not us, the proletariat, even the money in our bank accounts holds only the illusion that it belongs to us, no, no it doesn't... Money will always end up back at the top, it was simply a creation of evil, twisted, yet smart men who wanted to keep the rich rich and the poor poor. You spend money that you slaved away earning, monetary value is always rising and falling in which you have no say, one day you're £1 could be worth £2, the next it could be worth 30p. Anywhere, when you spend money it ends up in the hands of CEOs, who work with bankers on many levels in many areas, I won't go into too much detail there. Your money funds terrorism all over the world, it funds false flags, it funds everything bad, poverty, artificial scarcity. Money is created out of tax and debt. Money is the root of it all, the reason why the world's richest 3% own about 90% of all resources and cash, roughly 1/4 of the human population starve to death under the international bread line. They pretend to help, but they don't. Money has proven to be manipulated and thus obsolete... We can trade in other means other than money. Trade items, skills, ideas, knowledge, education, we do not need money. Have you done your research on Tesla? Yeah, he would be the reason why all wars would have stopped... War still exists, research why. Ever researched into water-powered cars? Urine generators? Earth Ships? We do NOT need money any more. And more and more people are beginning to realise this and leave society. Change is upon us. I suggest you get researching how we as a human race can live without the need for wage slave labour and creditless monetary "value". You may soon change your fallacious Capitalist ideology. Research all you can about Tesla. Research Water-Fuelled Cars. Research Urine Generators. Research Earth Ship Communities. Oh by the way, Communism, has never truly been practised. Have you even read the Communist manifesto? Compare the manifesto with Stalin, or Lenin. Are Lenin and Stalin not the very same assholes that Marx and Engels were telling us about? Wake up, these controlled opposition, who by the way belonged to the Fabian Society Freemason Guild, are not at all in the least bit Communist. They ARE the Bourgeoisie. That is why I am Communist, as well as Anarchist. As I know they were puppets, all of them are, and were, making Communism look bad, when in fact, they were just Bourgeois Capitalists PRETENDING to be Communists. And I wouldn't agree with Communism in its Statist form, there are more than one versions of Communism. Look at Kropotkin, for example. I've said my 2 pennies. Take it all in.
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