do anarchist agree with liberals

Question

I know they dont agree with democracy at all but do they atleast agree with ideas equal rights and all the equality stuff

Comments

there is no way this question should have been downvoted. it's a perfect question for an anarchy101 site.

grumble grumble

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"liberal" may very well be the most complicated word in the english language. it means so many different things that this question is very hard to answer.

in the united states, "liberal" tends to mean almost the opposite of what it meant two hundred years ago. and, if you take a detour a little bit north to canada, the liberal party - which has run the country for most of it's history - is probably the closest thing to a social anarchist party in the history of the western world. this is for the precise reason that it sticks closer to the old eighteenth century ideals that liberalism and anarchism both developed out of. if you swing down to australia, the liberal party is a bastion of right-wing extremism. in russia, "liberal" tends to actually mean "nationalist" - and often borders on fascism.

if you want the strictest definition, "liberal" and "anarchist" are essentially interchangeable. worse, keep this in mind: marx never called himself a marxist. he always called himself a liberal. and such is also true of a wide swath of thinkers that we give all sorts of other titles to, retroactively.

to co-opt a famous canadian saying, one could say something along the lines of that anarchists are liberals in a hurry.

don't interpret that to mean that anarchists will support political parties that call themselves liberal parties - we usually will not, or will only do so very tentatively. this, however, has less to do with anarchists disagreeing with liberals and more to do with liberal parties generally not being very liberal.

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@dtk: "if you want the strictest definition, "liberal" and "anarchist" are essentially interchangeable."

from merriam-webster's dictionary (since you mentioned "strict" definitions):

a political philosophy based on belief in progress, the essential goodness of the human race, and the autonomy of the individual and standing for the protection of political and civil liberties;specifically :  such a philosophy that considers government as a crucial instrument for amelioration of social inequities (as those involving race, gender, or class)

 

aside from the "autonomy of the individual" - which conflicts directly with the clear desire for "government" (to, i guess, enforce that autonomy?) - there is nothing anarchistic about that philosophy/position/political perspective. at least not to this anarchist.

i don't see any way that individual autonomy can coexist with the concept of "rights". for reasons articulated pretty well below by rice boy.

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that's a definition that is lacking, though. it's less that it's wrong and more that it's kind of over-specific. and, in the end we're talking about splitting hairs. when you talk about "using government to ameliorate social inequalities", it's not clear what that refers to: parliamentary democracy, workers co-operatives, council democracy. if you restrict it specifically to parliamentary democracy, you get the kind of liberalism that exists in canada. if you're a bit more broad about it, you're constructing anarchism.

i consider the opposition to rights, as articulated, to be marxist, not anarchist. i'd actually point to this as one of the differences between anarchism and marxism, and why anarchism is superior.

nor do i think it's off-base to suggest that anarchists are hegelians or that they believe in the inherent goodness of people.

to me, the only serious defining difference has to do with private property. liberals are, of course, advocates of private property; anarchists are generally not. but, there's a spectrum, there, and degrees of support - enough that if you want to be as general as possible, it sort of fades away.

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to clarify a little: what i'm trying to get across is that anarchists would support and uphold the idea that people have the rights to certain things like food and shelter, that's the entire point of abolishing capitalism and private property, but they would also argue that the state acts to restrict rather than uphold those rights. so, the idea of having this constitution that says what rights we have and don't have would strike us as the wrong approach, sure. but we do agree with the idea that these rights exist, we just don't agree the state can do anything but interfere in them.

it's marxists that look at the situation and declare the whole thing a "bourgeois fantasy" and throw it out the window in favour of some pseudo-fascist, collectivist concept of contributing to the whole - creating untold human misery.

so, it's one thing to point out that anarchists are generally going to look at the idea of a constitution upholding human rights and say "no. no. this is all wrong.", and it's another to suggest that they don't accept the existence of natural rights - of course we do. we always have. it's the major reason we're not marxists.

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"what i'm trying to get across is that anarchists would support and uphold the idea that people have the rights to certain things like food and shelter, that's the entire point of abolishing capitalism and private property,..." 

'rights' don't have anything to do with anything. in terms of food and water, for me it's about opening up the possibility that i, and others, can obtain them in a far more direct manner than we may currently under this oppressive system.

edit for clarity

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"...suggest that they don't accept the existence of natural rights - of course we do. we always have. "

you obviously speak for yourself, but you do not speak for me or most anarchists i choose to associate with.  i do not accept the existence of "natural rights", any more than i accept the existence of some universal morality, or "god".  i surely can't "prove" those things don't exist, any more than you can "prove" that they do. it is irrelevant to my life.

i also agree with amorfati's comment above.

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in the spirit of clarity, let me point out that there is no single, universally accepted "anarchist" perspective. as evidenced by the existence of folks that identify as anarcho-capitalist and others that identify as anarcho-communist. (just to point out how wide the spectrum can be, in the minds of some).

a number of the regulars on this site tend towards a perspective that diverges from the classical (radical) "left" that anarchy clearly shares some roots with. there are surely some core tenets that any conscious anarchist would acknowledge, but "natural rights" would not be one of them. being against all forms of government, and capitalism, and any other institutionalized hierarchy, would be.

edited to add: an obvious problem, from my perspective, with the concept of "natural rights" is this:  who determines what those natural rights are?

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natural rights are inherently atheistic. they're erected on the framework of reason and logic, in opposition to written laws that were seen to be the results of supernatural dictates. and, historically, that's how they've been used: to overrule positive and theistic law.

again: the purpose of anarchism is to remove the state and capitalism because they infringe upon people's rights. liberalism seeks to use the state to enforce rights. anarchism claims that is impossible. but, there is no disagreement on the existence of those rights.

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but, of course natural rights don't actually exist. they're just the arbitrary rules we make up and agree to abide by, because we want to, not because we're forced to. that underlying system of morality (derived through reason) is what separates anarchism from barbarism.

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if you want a reference, it's basically the social contract, as articulated by proudhon. but it's really rather intuitive. and, i would claim that anarchism could only be barbarism, otherwise.

or, to put it another way: without a near-universal, willing adoption of the principles of natural rights theory, hobbes was right, and we are wrong.

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"they're erected on the framework of reason and logic, in opposition to written laws that were seen to be the results of supernatural dictates."

the framework(s) of reason and logic are supernatural dictates by definition precisely because they're axiomatic, that is, they are believed worthy and fitting prior to any exercise of reason and logic. circularity ensues since one would have to 'prove' them as actually worthy/fitting by the very framework they provide!

"again: the purpose of anarchism is to remove the state and capitalism because they infringe upon people's rights."

ok. you've simply repeated yourself. all talk of 'rights' is based upon the power which precedes it, not vice versa. power is simply 'being able.' each of us has capabilities unique to us (that which we can do) and a host of relationships and conditions of uniquely available and constraining us (that which we may do). the interplay and interweaving of can/may might be called 'life.'

further, rights-talk always presumes some sort of mass society and thus requires colorless, tasteless, dead abstract language. i have no desire for any kind of mass society to continue and thus no desire to maintain the abstractions such a society requires...to the best of my capability within my current relations/conditions, of course.

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you have made clear your perspective. i do not share it.

edit (af slipped in before i posted): that was for the koala killer.

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"without a near-universal, willing adoption of the principles of natural rights theory, hobbes was right, and we are wrong."

yes, cuz we all know that hobbes hobnobbed so much with pre- and un-domesticated peoples (band societies) to come to the patently false and absurd hasty conclusion they beat the shit out of each other constantly.

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i guess you can think what you want, but you have no right to call yourself an anarchist. anarchism is a philosophy in the tradition of locke, paine, proudhon and kropotkin, all of whom placed enlightenment principles at the core of their thinking. you cannot be an anarchist and reject the enlightenment at the same time. it's like claiming you're a socialist, but don't oppose private ownership of the means of production. it's a position of utter nonsense. you need to come up with something else.

i suggest the term "lout".

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traditional societies generally have very clear concepts of natural rights.

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but, of course, let's remember that anarchism is not rooted in engels' racist romanticization of traditional cultures. again, that is marxism. what we call "anarcho-primitivism" is just a nonsensical stringing together of words that do not make sense together. anarchism is not and cannot be primitivist - it is the search for civility. advancement. it assumes mass societies of the type that exist in europe, and is void of context when removed from such a thing. it is not a plan to abolish society. it is a theory of how society may function without centralized control.

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DtK -- i appreciate the input from someone who has a 19th century understanding of anarchist thought (you seem to have taken black flame very very seriously indeed). this site doesn't get many perspectives like yours, so it's nice to have a little more breadth.

but insisting on your definition of anarchism as the only valid one is antithetical to the purpose of this site (not to mention entirely unconvincing as to the validity of your points).

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dtk: "but you have no right to call yourself an anarchist."

finally you get it!  (i wish...)    i need and want no RIGHT to anything. 

following up on one of dot's points, you may as well go live in the 19th century radical reenactment village, as your ideas seem stuck there. and that is where you will undoubtedly find much more affinity with your ideology than you will anywhere i would choose to be. 

i personally will continue to grow my ideas, based on actual lived experience and observation/analysis of the world around me. sorry if that approach doesn't fit into your historically based (and apparently constipated) ideological box. 

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funkyanarchy, et al - this raises a point that is interesting to me.

this site does hold a line about what counts as anarchist, although it's pretty inclusive (ie no statism, no capitalism). what is too far? DtK's rigidity aside (and also keeping in mind that only in a format that is alienated would this question be relevant), what amount of change to the... let's call them "first principles" would count as no longer being anarchist to you?

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indeed, that is a great question and great food for thought.

can i just say "i know it when i see/hear it"?  :-)  

i will definitely think about this.

what might be useful is to see, in a single place, a comprehensive "list" of principles (or whatever they might be called) that includes every possible one that any anarchistic perspective (including those i might disagree with) would include. and then i (we) could look at each one, flesh out some commonly agreeable definition for it, and decide whether - or to what extent - i (and whoever) consider it anarchist.

with the obvious caveat that such an exercise tends toward rigid(ish) boundaries for inclusion/exclusion, where i tend to see things as a bit more nebulous and fluid.

nice exercise suggestion!

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what does "have the right" or "having rights" mean?

i usually feel sickened when i hear expressions like that, but i'd like someone who believes in such a thing to explain what it means to them. dtk?

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dot, et al: it seems some of us feel nausea when the word 'principles' is mentioned. it's no wonder given its historical usage as apologia for all kinds of dimwits and dimwitted ideas. far from playing semantic games, i would propose 'patterns' instead. thoughts?

DtK: i don't know if the 'lout' comment was meant for me, but given that you've not engaged my direct challenges to your posts with either questions or even the most basic informal reasoning (and you who bloviates about the age of reason aka 'the enlightenment'!) i don't feel i can entertain you with much enthusiasm at this point.

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"this site does hold a line about what counts as anarchist, although it's pretty inclusive (ie no statism, no capitalism). what is too far?...what amount of change to the... let's call them "first principles" would count as no longer being anarchist to you?

how come this isn't a question yet? i think it's a good one even if it goes unanswered for a time.

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it is interesting to me in the context of this thread (ie someone rejecting anything other than extremely traditional anarchist thought), and of working on anarchist websites, but pretty much in no other context.

questions like that easily get out of hand and turn into rule-setting propositions.

i think?

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see, this is a symptom of the general problem. the principles of anarchist thought are laid out in two hundred years of writing. and, for all your own language aside, none of you have provided me with anything worth responding to further.

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the principles of anarchist thought are not dead; they are not in the past; they are either a living, changing set of ideas or they're useless. the world changes, and ideas need to change to remain (or become) relevant.

it's too bad that you have been unable to find something of value on this site. better luck elsewhere.

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" the principles of anarchist thought are laid out in two hundred years of writing"

yes, and they shall never, ever be tweaked or adapted by anyone, as that would clearly make them not an anarchist.

good riddance, you condescending, narrow minded ideologue.

@dot: your patience is admirable.

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"the principles of anarchist thought are laid out in two hundred years of writing."

...another way of saying 'it hath been written' which, for not being a religious person, comes across as kinda biblical on your part.

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one of the principles laid out in anarchist writing is that we get to figure shit out as it's coming at us, relative to a set of ideals. and that's really just democracy. saying that we're not willing to write down an authoritative plan is not the same thing as rejecting the principles that have led us to that position. this is the same point as seen elsewhere: it's not the abolition of principles, it's the abolition of enforced rules. the rejection of arbitrary restrictions. it's not a total absence of thought, but a rejection of all authority in controlling that thought. if we don't have a set of ideas, we're not proposing a real system of thought. we're opening up space for ancaps and other people that would oppose our basic values. and, that's inevitably just a hobbesian world of neo-liberalism that pits everybody against each other.

but, all i'm getting at is that you're reinventing the wheel where you don't have to. all of these ideas have been worked out elsewhere. you're not going to get anywhere novel by starting from first principles. taking the time to read through the existing arguments can only broaden your understanding of things, by drawing attention to things you hadn't thought of before and presenting arguments from perspectives you hadn't previously contemplated.

making every generation start from scratch is a surefire way to get absolutely nowhere.

and, if you're going to call yourself an anarchist, you really ought to have defined perspectives, at the least, on what property is, on mutual aid and on distributive justice. otherwise, it doesn't mean anything.

Answer 1

The idea of "rights" is problematic for me because it either implies some form of inherent natural law, or affirms the right of some body of people to define what people in general are and are not entitled to.

The former option is problematic from my perspective because I can't see any way of defining an objective universal morality that would say that human beings are inherently entitled to one thing or another. The only way of doing that would actually be the latter option, in which case the objection becomes: Who gets to define what our rights are, and why should that entity's definition be accepted and applied universally?

There's also the fact that a lot of so-called "rights" are just affirmations of liberal democracy; the right to vote, the right to serve in the military, and the right to free speech are all components of liberal democratic capitalism, and granting people the "right" to these things is just a means of assimilating formerly-excluded social categories into democratic society.

"Equality" is also a weird term for me because I don't really have any interest in somehow trying to force the world into ensuring that every single person in existence has the exact same resources and choices available to them. I don't think that's possible or desirable. I do believe that institutional hierarchies should be destroyed and that people should have meaningful control over the content of their daily lives, including being able to access basic necessities of life/survival without having to sell themselves into wage labor or participate in capitalism.

Comments

i don´t think you are answering the question here at all. here you are mainly telling us your reservations to the concepts of rights and equality, which are not featured at all in in the question asked here. if by any chance this was motivated in response to what i wrote before then you should consider making this answer into a comment to my answer.

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iconoclast - rice boy is addressing the part of the question that *specifically mentions rights and equality*. not sure how you missed that.

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Ah, yeah, this is actually addressing the part of the question reading "do they atleast agree with [the] ideas [of] equal rights and all the equality stuff".

I suppose I could have concluded my answer with the phrase "based on the fact that other anarchists I've met have shared similar criticisms of the concepts of rights and equality, it would be safe to say that some anarchists do not agree with liberal ideas at all" - but it seemed kind of unnecessary?

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A criticism of a concept can go from negating certain associations that come with it to total negation. Since anarchism by definition is againts hierarchies then one can expect a good part of it being concerned positively with equality. This is the reason why i might have not chosen to speak of equality at all in my response while deciding to deal with more specific issues which make a difference between anarchism and liberalism which are of course capitalism and states. As far as notions of "equality" and "liberty" it might be that i try too avoid too much of a metaphysical discusion and decided to focus on the differences between liberals and anarchists.

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I don't really see how I haven't just outlined several differences between liberals and anarchists through my (perhaps metaphysically-inclined) answer, I guess. I felt it necessary to address the potential interpretations or implications of "equality" since, from a liberal perspective, it tends to mean things like equal opportunity to participate in the market, or equal access to state institutions. You could maybe say that "real" equality would necessitate abolishing all hierarchical constructs, or someone could say that "real" equality would mean that every single person is treated the exact same way and expected to have opportunities and resources identical to the next person. It's a complicated concept and I don't think it can be discussed without bringing up its varying interpretations.

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late to this game, but...

@iconoclast: "Since anarchism by definition is againts hierarchies then one can expect a good part of it being concerned positively with equality. "

that draws an implicit (and completely false) dichotomy: hierarchy or equality. eliminating hierarchy in no way implies some sort of "equality" (whatever that means). equality, like rights, are terms that only make sense when everybody is shoehorned into a single worldview; one that inherently requires some "objective" "authority" to determine  a) what rights are granted to whom, and b) what measures constitute a ranking of "equal" (between every individual, with all their differences at every level).

[i think i just had a brief affair with "quotes"]

Answer 2

No. Even when we agree, our words actually mean different things.

Comments

can you explain further

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For example, with the word "equality", anarchists tend to believe in diversity without hierarchy, rather than making everyone the exact same. We don't believe in "equality under the law". So even when we use words like that, we mean different things. Do you have more specific questions of what we do and don't agree on?

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best answer I have ever heard thanks :) Also, being a recovering spineless liberal/pacifist myself I have realized now looking back how satirical many of these words are... for example "social worker"...

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dtk::  what.the.fuck.  ???

Liberals are upper class corporate whores in designer suits and red ties.

Tories are upper class corporate whores in designer suits and blue ties.

Went to the same schools, belong to the same clubs, articled at the same law firms, sold themselves to the same corrupt power structure.  Neither one of them *believes* in a fucking thing, except getting whatever they can for themselves.  Fuck them both, they'll make pretty bookends when put up against the wall, side-by-side, ...

So, no, i don't agree with liberals, by your definition or any other.  but maybe that's just me.

(it may be worth noting that britain and australia have also fallen into the trap of government by the old boys club, who pretend to disagree for the cameras, then sell policy to the highest bidder regardless of their putative stripes.)

Answer 3

Anarchism emerged from enlightenment thought just as liberalism. Anarchism shares with liberalism a commitment to liberty and equality of rights.

As far as the democracy issue it is an important debate within anarchism and the main opinions go from advocacy of direct democracy or local democracy to a rejection of democracy when it goes againts individual actions which do not harm others such as drug use or consensual non-heterosexual sex and love.  Peter Kropotkin and others said that they wanted to determine how "things are managed" (economics) and let humans go more or less free on their individual daily life lives unlegislated and unruled although one will think he did not mean it for cases of murder or rape. So that will be the anti-democracy of anarchists who also tend to be critics of social engineering (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_engineering_%28political_science%29) and technocratic planning by experts.

Anarchism is mainly distanced from liberals on the issues of the state and capitalism. Liberals tolerate and the most pro-capitalist section of liberalism even are strong apologists of wage labour and class difference while anarchists reject that as obvious forms of hierarchy and advocate some form of wealth redistribution seeing that class difference makes the issue of equality as a joke without it. Liberals go from a modest welfare state vision to a laissez faire nightwatchman state while anarchists will oppose states and advocate instead descentralized voluntary associations of mutual aid while maintaining autonomy between individuals and communes and federations or networks of communes.

Answer 4

Typically not. Agreements are very rare.

While there are a few ideas that liberals support which get nods from anarchists, generally speaking, as they're wont to support statism as a solution then that results in a lot of headbutting.

Like, in the case of democracy. I do know a number of anarchists do agree with liberals that democracy is a good idea but hold that they should be direct democracies.

Anarchists like myself though, don't agree with them believing democracy is divisive and the worst form of control you can exert over other people.

As for equality, what do you mean by that exactly? Liberals typically tend to believe in hierarchies such as the boss/employee pyramid. That's something that goes against anarchism which holds that workers should all be on equal ground with no one being the designated whip handler.

Comments

Have I said something wrong by the way? I noticed I've been downvoted on this answer. If it helps I've tried to compress my answer down to something hopefully better.

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It wasn't me that down voted you, but I'm going to assume it has to do with 'equality,' anarchism, and democracy. Democracy involves some sort of repression of the individual and/or usually subjugates the individual to the will of others and/or majority. I find the definition and etymology of democracy to be problematic and have difficulties seeing how it's compatible with anarchism. I have no idea of what you mean by 'equality.' Here's a thread/question that better explains anarchist issues with democracy. http://anarchy101.org/114/what-is-the-anarchist-problem-with-democracy

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By equality I mean things such as trying to put people on equal footing such as the elimination of mechanisms that create unequal interactions such as the boss/employee paradigm.

That and treating another human being as normal no matter what their sexual orientation, ethnic background or disability is. The golden rule is another way of describing it... I think.

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I've gone ahead and retyped my answer in a big edit. Wasn't happy with the one I gave before.

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"The golden rule is another way of describing it... I think."

i understand the golden rule as: do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

as dot (i think?) pointed out in another thread (fuck if i can remember which), i don't want people treating me the way *they* want to be treated, but rather the way *i* want to be treated. and likewise how i treat them, assumedly.

but that does point out one way in which the golden rule fits into liberal ideology. only by assuming a "sameness" (equality?) between *all* individuals - as prescribed by mass society - could such concepts be desirable.

also, what is "normal"?