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Are anarchists considererd left wing? Anarchists and especially anarcho-capitalists have a lot of overlap with libertarians. If you talk to a serious anarchist

Are anarchists considererd left wing? Anarchists and especially anarcho-capitalists have a lot of overlap with libertarians. If you talk to a serious anarchist, they sound like they are against big government and other authority structures. The far left is suppsed to be communist, which seems the opposite of anarchy.

cgag 9y ago
R/anarchism absolutely hates anarchocapitalists
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
xxpor 9y ago
It doesn't fit neatly into the left-right divide. If you look at the political spectrum as a 2 dimensional grid with (0,0) in the center, the limits are -10 and 10, and economics on left/right and authoritarianism and libertarianism as up and down, anarchists would be (x, -10). You can basically plaster any economic system on top. IMO, they do tend to the extremes of communism and full on capitalism because it's not very practical to have a mixed market economy like ours without a government entity to do regulation.
e12e 9y ago
> The far left is suppsed to be communist, which seems the opposite of anarchy. Communism: weak central government, strong communal (local) democratic decision making - let people make decision that effect them directly (locally). You may be thinking of the old-fashioned idea of a socialist state as a "tyrrany of the many" as a transition from an armed uprising towards a communist state?
- pjc50 9y ago
  > Communism: weak central government This is not how it worked out in practice, no?
  - e12e 9y ago
    In terms of political theory, communism has always been (a somewhat utopian) theory that shares many ideas with anarchism. I like to think of communism as slightly more pragmatic, in that there's somewhat of an acknowledgement that there needs to be a agency that holds a monopoly on violence (a police force) - as a last resort to mitigate anti-social behaviour. But if one reads eg Rosa Luxembourg, the lines are very much blurred between the two. There's a tendency to spend time arguing that the various socialist states that where formed by communist parties were communist, because they were ran by organizations that labeled themselves (and indeed were) communist - I don't think such discussion is much more fruitful than discussing how the US attempted to "liberate" Vietnam, or institute "democracy" in Chile.
tray5 9y ago
All anarchists are left wing, the majority of which are communist (some are mutualist). Anarchism has always been an anti-capitalist movement (I guess it's fairer to say, it's an anti-unjust hierarchy movement), it's only been co-opted by propertarians ("anarcho"capitalist) in the past 50 years. And even then, that's largely localized to America, outside of America libertarians have always been anarchists (communist anarchists that is). 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.
- kbenson 9y ago
  I think you have a fairly narrow view of anarchism. > 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. In what way is capitalism hierarchical, except in an ad hoc way that is constantly redefined based on the current needs of the people interacting?
  - tray5 9y ago
    I'd recommend you check out those books because they explain it far better than I or anyone else could hope to in a single comment, but it essentially comes down to the capitalist/worker divide. The capitalist will always be on top, and the worker will always be subservient to their interests. That is how it is hierarchical, because there will always be the capitalist class imposing it's will on the working class, and so anarchists and communists hope to abolish the class system. However the two groups disagree massively on how to achieve that abolition.
  - flogic 9y ago
    Capitalism is more about a few controlling the means of production than it is about market activity. People tend to think of it as a market economy but it's really about who has power and reaps it's rewards.
andrepd 9y ago
Maybe then a simple one-dimensional spectrum cannot encompass the vast breadth of political and philosophical views out there? :p
SapphireSun 9y ago
It's pretty confusing, but it seems to me that the uniting factor between the anarchists and the statist left is a common belief in human freedom from hierarchical structures, but each chooses different method to implement it.
- tray5 9y ago
  This is very much the truth, anarchists and communists want the same thing, a communist society, they just disagree fundamentally on how to do it. That's why you see them join forces and fight together, like in the Russian Revolution and Spanish civil war
  - int_19h 9y ago
    Both examples famous for communists eventually turning on and slaughtering anarchists, I must add.
ekianjo 9y ago
most libertarians are for a small state, not a state of anarchy.
jameslk 9y ago
Anarchism can be considered either left or right, as its a completely orthogonal ideology to what is typically considered left and right wing ideologies. Libertarianism is just a form of minimal government, but not anarchism. Left and right are not really well defined ideologies[0]. They're just archaic and lazy ways to generalize political stances. 0. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Left%E2%80%93right_political_spectrum#Relevance_of_the_terms_today https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Left%E2%80%93right_political_s...
- cies 9y ago
  > Anarchism can be considered either left or right Nope. It is always socialist/anti-capitalist. The name as been wrongfully appropriated by anarcho-capitalist, a contradictory term. They are merely for no-gov't-capitalism; which it against pretty much every anarchist principle (anti-oppression). > Libertarianism is just a form of minimal government Yes. > Left and right are not really well defined ideologies[0]. Indeed. But pro-private-property-ad-inifinitum and against it are well defined (and largely overlap with true-left and true-right). Problem, nowadays many that subscribe to capitalism may call themselves "social dems", and thus get a little "lefty" vibe going, thereby diluting the term. No problem, new terminology come to rescue.
eyko 9y ago
The left/right dichotomy doesn't work with anarchism since it doesn't necessarily have to be on either side of that spectrum - generally based on ideas about economy and not social structures or hierarchies. It can display features usually attributed to left wing ideologies (fight for equality, emancipation, fair society, freedom of speech, freedom of (and from) religion, self organisation, bottom-up communities, etc), as well as right wing ones: small (or no) government in the sense of a state and an establishment, fewer coded laws, no monopoly of power/rights by one group or institution (e.g. right to bear arms), free market, etc. You might say that anarchism is the left wing on a spectrum where authoritarianism or absolute monarchs are considered the right wing. Anarchism is anti discrimination (pro egalitarianism) and by definition is against racism, sexism, nationalism, fascism, etc. It's not because it's "left" like socialists or (socialist) progressives are, but because of the hierarchies it is ideologically opposed to. Its main objective is a society free from imposed and unnatural hierarchies. Edit: what I'm trying to say is that no one-dimensional linear scale that goes from left to right on which you can place all ideologies and compare them.
- tray5 9y ago
  Your free market part is where you'll find the clash. Any anarchist would say that a free market is inherently oppressive. The only place a "free" market would work is in a mutualist economy, and even then, that requires worker ownership over the means of production.
  - CM30 9y ago
    And how exactly do you aim to stop a free market existing? Because I strongly doubt any political change will get everyone to work for 'common interests', and a fair few product creators, service owners, artists and others will try and sell their work anyway. How do anarchists plan to avoid this? What about the people who don't want to own the means of production and are perfectly fine with working for others for a wage? What would stop people competing with each other to get more money and resources?
  - kemiller 9y ago
    But what, exactly, is the alternative to a free market?
wutbrodo 9y ago
I truly don't understand why people try so desperately to shove politics into a one-dimensional axis, _even in a comment that's pointing out how inadequate it is!_ Politics is complicated, but the two-axes model is a lot less laughably simplistic: left/right, liberal/authoritarian. To drastically oversimplify: left-liberal: Bernie Sanders, sort of left-authoritarian: full communism right-liberal: libertarian right-authoritarian: paleocons This is just off the top of my head, has some issues, and is _still_ oversimplified[1], but you can already see how much less than the one-dimensional model it smushes together fairly-mainstream groups that have absolutely nothing to do with each other. Anarchists are very much on the left, and big parts of the left (and the right) these days very much dislike liberals. [1] For example, anarcho-communism doesn't fit very well into this. Ancaps fit (sort of) on the right-liberal side.
- pamqzl 9y ago
  Two dimensions is certainly better than one, although I note that almost nobody would self-identify as "authoritarian" which makes half of the chart a bit useless. The vast majority of people, at least in western countries, agree with the basic assumption of (classical) liberalism, which is that "people should be allowed to do what they want, except...". For the most part people just differ on what comes after the "except", whether it's "sell harmful drugs" or "exploit workers" or "use hate speech" or "burn coal" or whatever other grab-bag of activities a certain individual has decided are sufficiently harmful to outlaw.
  - int_19h 9y ago
    Many socialists quite eagerly self-identify as "authoritarian", actually. It's not the opposite of "democratic", necessarily, at least not on paper: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_centralism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_centralism
- Chris_Jay 9y ago
  I believe the answer is quite simple - the two major US parties would like to maintain their duopoly and allocate a considerable fraction of their vast resources towards pushing that narrative and smearing anyone who tries to act outside it. The acceptance of the left-right paradigm by half the US voter base looks like little more than a successful propaganda campaign by the incumbent political parties.
wallace_f 9y ago
Ideology is maybe not scientific or evidence-tested well enough to model the world well enough to take it as seriously as we really do. There exist libertarian socialists. Libertarian communists. Anarcho-libertarians. You can be whatever you want. And that may sound silly to you, but the reality is that everything is like this. America is a mix of socialism, capitalism, some new version of authoritarianism, and at least somewhat mercantilist even though we dont admit that we loot resources from weaker countries. In the past we were much more federalist and what would be described today as libertarian, really. Obama has some quote (that I cant find now) about how ideology isn't as good as pragmatics. He said something like "my ideology is just that everyone should have equal opportunities, dignity and freedoms, and we should try to maximize those, so just ask ourselves what is the best way to do that?" Hopefully this is not crossing the line in being too snarky, but the trend in identifying with political ideology looks like it is filling the void that religion left behind. I mean, come on, they're both unscientific, morally pompous doctrines to be a part of and get your heart pumping for.
ycmbntrthrwaway 9y ago
I suggest you read at least the start of "An Anarchist FAQ". It is specifically dedicated to explaining why "anarcho-capitalism" is not anarchism. From Introduction [1]: "We should also indicate the history of this FAQ. It was started in 1995 when a group of anarchists got together in order to write an FAQ refuting the claims of certain "libertarian" capitalists to being anarchists. Those who were involved in this project had spent many an hour on-line refuting claims by these people that capitalism and anarchism could go together." It is pretty obvious that so-called "libertarians" (Rothbard et al., who argue for absolute private property) are not anarchist, but now that David Friedman's ideas and "Machinery of Freedom" book becomes popular and he calls himself "anarcho-capitalist" it became necessary to explain why "anarcho-capitalism" is an oxymoron again. There is a long tradition of market anarchism, and even Agorsim (see Samuel Edward Konkin III) can be considered to be anarchism in my opinion, but "anarcho-capitalism" is not. [1] http://anarchism.pageabode.com/afaq/intro.html http://anarchism.pageabode.com/afaq/intro.html
pamqzl 9y ago
Both left-anarchists and right-anarchists (anarchocapitalists) tend to deny that the others are "true" anarchists. In my view the main difference is not in their view of what should happen, but rather in their impossibly rosy assumptions of what happens next. Left-anarchists assume that if you get rid of the government the world becomes a left-wing utopia, while right-anarchists assume that if you get rid of the government then the world becomes a right-wing utopia. To me, neither of these scenarios seems more likely than the other.
- tray5 9y ago
  > Left-anarchists assume that if you get rid of the government the world becomes a left-wing utopia, while right-anarchists assume that if you get rid of the government then the world becomes a right-wing utopia. 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.
  - pamqzl 9y ago
    > left anarchists know the state grows out of the conflicting class interests of the working class and capitalist class > 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 I think you've just given a slightly better summary of the magical thinking of each, rather than fundamentally disagreed with me. Right-anarchists believe that destroying the state will finally allow capitalism to thrive, while left-anarchists believe that destroying the state will destroy capitalism too. Partially this disagreement is simply about the meaning of the word "capitalism", though, which both sides chuck around unexamined without bothering too much about the fact that they have completely different definitions of this word, and that neither definition really matches what the man in the street means when he uses it.

cgag 9y ago

R/anarchism absolutely hates anarchocapitalists

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]

xxpor 9y ago

It doesn't fit neatly into the left-right divide. If you look at the political spectrum as a 2 dimensional grid with (0,0) in the center, the limits are -10 and 10, and economics on left/right and authoritarianism and libertarianism as up and down, anarchists would be (x, -10). You can basically plaster any economic system on top. IMO, they do tend to the extremes of communism and full on capitalism because it's not very practical to have a mixed market economy like ours without a government entity to do regulation.

e12e 9y ago

> The far left is suppsed to be communist, which seems the opposite of anarchy. Communism: weak central government, strong communal (local) democratic decision making - let people make decision that effect them directly (locally). You may be thinking of the old-fashioned idea of a socialist state as a "tyrrany of the many" as a transition from an armed uprising towards a communist state?

pjc50 9y ago
> Communism: weak central government This is not how it worked out in practice, no?
- e12e 9y ago
  In terms of political theory, communism has always been (a somewhat utopian) theory that shares many ideas with anarchism. I like to think of communism as slightly more pragmatic, in that there's somewhat of an acknowledgement that there needs to be a agency that holds a monopoly on violence (a police force) - as a last resort to mitigate anti-social behaviour. But if one reads eg Rosa Luxembourg, the lines are very much blurred between the two. There's a tendency to spend time arguing that the various socialist states that where formed by communist parties were communist, because they were ran by organizations that labeled themselves (and indeed were) communist - I don't think such discussion is much more fruitful than discussing how the US attempted to "liberate" Vietnam, or institute "democracy" in Chile.

tray5 9y ago

All anarchists are left wing, the majority of which are communist (some are mutualist). Anarchism has always been an anti-capitalist movement (I guess it's fairer to say, it's an anti-unjust hierarchy movement), it's only been co-opted by propertarians ("anarcho"capitalist) in the past 50 years. And even then, that's largely localized to America, outside of America libertarians have always been anarchists (communist anarchists that is). 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.

kbenson 9y ago
I think you have a fairly narrow view of anarchism. > 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. In what way is capitalism hierarchical, except in an ad hoc way that is constantly redefined based on the current needs of the people interacting?
- tray5 9y ago
  I'd recommend you check out those books because they explain it far better than I or anyone else could hope to in a single comment, but it essentially comes down to the capitalist/worker divide. The capitalist will always be on top, and the worker will always be subservient to their interests. That is how it is hierarchical, because there will always be the capitalist class imposing it's will on the working class, and so anarchists and communists hope to abolish the class system. However the two groups disagree massively on how to achieve that abolition.
- flogic 9y ago
  Capitalism is more about a few controlling the means of production than it is about market activity. People tend to think of it as a market economy but it's really about who has power and reaps it's rewards.

andrepd 9y ago

Maybe then a simple one-dimensional spectrum cannot encompass the vast breadth of political and philosophical views out there? :p

SapphireSun 9y ago

It's pretty confusing, but it seems to me that the uniting factor between the anarchists and the statist left is a common belief in human freedom from hierarchical structures, but each chooses different method to implement it.

tray5 9y ago
This is very much the truth, anarchists and communists want the same thing, a communist society, they just disagree fundamentally on how to do it. That's why you see them join forces and fight together, like in the Russian Revolution and Spanish civil war
- int_19h 9y ago
  Both examples famous for communists eventually turning on and slaughtering anarchists, I must add.

ekianjo 9y ago

most libertarians are for a small state, not a state of anarchy.

jameslk 9y ago

Anarchism can be considered either left or right, as its a completely orthogonal ideology to what is typically considered left and right wing ideologies. Libertarianism is just a form of minimal government, but not anarchism. Left and right are not really well defined ideologies[0]. They're just archaic and lazy ways to generalize political stances. 0. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Left%E2%80%93right_political_spectrum#Relevance_of_the_terms_today https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Left%E2%80%93right_political_s...

cies 9y ago
> Anarchism can be considered either left or right Nope. It is always socialist/anti-capitalist. The name as been wrongfully appropriated by anarcho-capitalist, a contradictory term. They are merely for no-gov't-capitalism; which it against pretty much every anarchist principle (anti-oppression). > Libertarianism is just a form of minimal government Yes. > Left and right are not really well defined ideologies[0]. Indeed. But pro-private-property-ad-inifinitum and against it are well defined (and largely overlap with true-left and true-right). Problem, nowadays many that subscribe to capitalism may call themselves "social dems", and thus get a little "lefty" vibe going, thereby diluting the term. No problem, new terminology come to rescue.

eyko 9y ago

The left/right dichotomy doesn't work with anarchism since it doesn't necessarily have to be on either side of that spectrum - generally based on ideas about economy and not social structures or hierarchies. It can display features usually attributed to left wing ideologies (fight for equality, emancipation, fair society, freedom of speech, freedom of (and from) religion, self organisation, bottom-up communities, etc), as well as right wing ones: small (or no) government in the sense of a state and an establishment, fewer coded laws, no monopoly of power/rights by one group or institution (e.g. right to bear arms), free market, etc. You might say that anarchism is the left wing on a spectrum where authoritarianism or absolute monarchs are considered the right wing. Anarchism is anti discrimination (pro egalitarianism) and by definition is against racism, sexism, nationalism, fascism, etc. It's not because it's "left" like socialists or (socialist) progressives are, but because of the hierarchies it is ideologically opposed to. Its main objective is a society free from imposed and unnatural hierarchies. Edit: what I'm trying to say is that no one-dimensional linear scale that goes from left to right on which you can place all ideologies and compare them.

tray5 9y ago
Your free market part is where you'll find the clash. Any anarchist would say that a free market is inherently oppressive. The only place a "free" market would work is in a mutualist economy, and even then, that requires worker ownership over the means of production.
- CM30 9y ago
  And how exactly do you aim to stop a free market existing? Because I strongly doubt any political change will get everyone to work for 'common interests', and a fair few product creators, service owners, artists and others will try and sell their work anyway. How do anarchists plan to avoid this? What about the people who don't want to own the means of production and are perfectly fine with working for others for a wage? What would stop people competing with each other to get more money and resources?
- kemiller 9y ago
  But what, exactly, is the alternative to a free market?

wutbrodo 9y ago

I truly don't understand why people try so desperately to shove politics into a one-dimensional axis, _even in a comment that's pointing out how inadequate it is!_ Politics is complicated, but the two-axes model is a lot less laughably simplistic: left/right, liberal/authoritarian. To drastically oversimplify: left-liberal: Bernie Sanders, sort of left-authoritarian: full communism right-liberal: libertarian right-authoritarian: paleocons This is just off the top of my head, has some issues, and is _still_ oversimplified[1], but you can already see how much less than the one-dimensional model it smushes together fairly-mainstream groups that have absolutely nothing to do with each other. Anarchists are very much on the left, and big parts of the left (and the right) these days very much dislike liberals. [1] For example, anarcho-communism doesn't fit very well into this. Ancaps fit (sort of) on the right-liberal side.

pamqzl 9y ago
Two dimensions is certainly better than one, although I note that almost nobody would self-identify as "authoritarian" which makes half of the chart a bit useless. The vast majority of people, at least in western countries, agree with the basic assumption of (classical) liberalism, which is that "people should be allowed to do what they want, except...". For the most part people just differ on what comes after the "except", whether it's "sell harmful drugs" or "exploit workers" or "use hate speech" or "burn coal" or whatever other grab-bag of activities a certain individual has decided are sufficiently harmful to outlaw.
- int_19h 9y ago
  Many socialists quite eagerly self-identify as "authoritarian", actually. It's not the opposite of "democratic", necessarily, at least not on paper: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_centralism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_centralism
Chris_Jay 9y ago
I believe the answer is quite simple - the two major US parties would like to maintain their duopoly and allocate a considerable fraction of their vast resources towards pushing that narrative and smearing anyone who tries to act outside it. The acceptance of the left-right paradigm by half the US voter base looks like little more than a successful propaganda campaign by the incumbent political parties.

wallace_f 9y ago

Ideology is maybe not scientific or evidence-tested well enough to model the world well enough to take it as seriously as we really do. There exist libertarian socialists. Libertarian communists. Anarcho-libertarians. You can be whatever you want. And that may sound silly to you, but the reality is that everything is like this. America is a mix of socialism, capitalism, some new version of authoritarianism, and at least somewhat mercantilist even though we dont admit that we loot resources from weaker countries. In the past we were much more federalist and what would be described today as libertarian, really. Obama has some quote (that I cant find now) about how ideology isn't as good as pragmatics. He said something like "my ideology is just that everyone should have equal opportunities, dignity and freedoms, and we should try to maximize those, so just ask ourselves what is the best way to do that?" Hopefully this is not crossing the line in being too snarky, but the trend in identifying with political ideology looks like it is filling the void that religion left behind. I mean, come on, they're both unscientific, morally pompous doctrines to be a part of and get your heart pumping for.

ycmbntrthrwaway 9y ago

I suggest you read at least the start of "An Anarchist FAQ". It is specifically dedicated to explaining why "anarcho-capitalism" is not anarchism. From Introduction [1]: "We should also indicate the history of this FAQ. It was started in 1995 when a group of anarchists got together in order to write an FAQ refuting the claims of certain "libertarian" capitalists to being anarchists. Those who were involved in this project had spent many an hour on-line refuting claims by these people that capitalism and anarchism could go together." It is pretty obvious that so-called "libertarians" (Rothbard et al., who argue for absolute private property) are not anarchist, but now that David Friedman's ideas and "Machinery of Freedom" book becomes popular and he calls himself "anarcho-capitalist" it became necessary to explain why "anarcho-capitalism" is an oxymoron again. There is a long tradition of market anarchism, and even Agorsim (see Samuel Edward Konkin III) can be considered to be anarchism in my opinion, but "anarcho-capitalism" is not. [1] http://anarchism.pageabode.com/afaq/intro.html http://anarchism.pageabode.com/afaq/intro.html

pamqzl 9y ago

Both left-anarchists and right-anarchists (anarchocapitalists) tend to deny that the others are "true" anarchists. In my view the main difference is not in their view of what should happen, but rather in their impossibly rosy assumptions of what happens next. Left-anarchists assume that if you get rid of the government the world becomes a left-wing utopia, while right-anarchists assume that if you get rid of the government then the world becomes a right-wing utopia. To me, neither of these scenarios seems more likely than the other.

tray5 9y ago
> Left-anarchists assume that if you get rid of the government the world becomes a left-wing utopia, while right-anarchists assume that if you get rid of the government then the world becomes a right-wing utopia. 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.
- pamqzl 9y ago
  > left anarchists know the state grows out of the conflicting class interests of the working class and capitalist class > 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 I think you've just given a slightly better summary of the magical thinking of each, rather than fundamentally disagreed with me. Right-anarchists believe that destroying the state will finally allow capitalism to thrive, while left-anarchists believe that destroying the state will destroy capitalism too. Partially this disagreement is simply about the meaning of the word "capitalism", though, which both sides chuck around unexamined without bothering too much about the fact that they have completely different definitions of this word, and that neither definition really matches what the man in the street means when he uses it.