I am 100% an anarchist, and a proud anarchist of color. Anti-hierarchy, anti-state, anti-capitalist, none of my commitments to these values are being questioned. My problem, as someone who makes zines on anarchist theory and used to make videos on anarchism on TikTok before being fed up with MLs, is that nearly all other leftist ideologies talk about liberation. Whether it is people talking about Marxism, Marxist-Leninism, Maoism, POC variations of Marxism, etc.

I fundamentally do not understand how these ideologies can remotely think or envision any, and I mean ANY, of liberation while intentionally upholding the state and not wanting it gone immediately. People then ask me how would the state be immediately gone? My response is always "the state won't be gone tomorrow, but we HAVE to create alternative structures OUTSIDE of the state to be dependent on." I understand that approach is slightly more "defensive" than "offensive" since we're not immediately disrupting the state other than excluding our presence in it. But either way, the brain's base is "I do not want a state" and the result is "I will build dual power" or "I will attack the state," both types of anarchists are invited to my cookout.

My problem lies with every single statist ideology. Do these people completely reject the existence of state violence and state domination? It makes incredible and inherent sense that anarchism, an ideology completely rid of the state, situates itself as a libertarian ideology since it treats individual liberty and personal sovereignty as the highest values. Few days ago I posted this

>Marxist-Leninism is only successful if you view success as something being able to grab power. Change your measuring stick to measure actual freedom, actual liberation, sovereignty, and autonomy, and it’s an incredibly failed ideology.

>“if the objectives of those who used the DC [democratic centralist] methods were simply to seize power, then their record during the 20th century was impressive. It has proved itself as brutally efficient and capable of outdoing anything the bourgeois forces are capable of.” - Russell “Maroon” Shoatz, “The Dragon and the Hydra.”

and someone retweeted it saying:

>lemme just tally up my Freedom Points

To which i quickly responded:

>Just say you don’t care about actual freedom, no need to talk all smug about it. this is how i know people who don’t care about that actually aren’t liberationists nor are they interested in genuine liberation for people. they just want some abstract ass revolution with zero actual progress to humanity.

Lately I've been getting more and more frustrated with leftists north of the X-axis in the authoritarian realm. I don't understand how they can have such detailed and complex analyses on damn near everything, and then turn around say they want to seize the state. From my perspective, anyone who wants to seize the state is not anti-state because they need it intact for it to be under their control. State-centered visions of liberation are completely meaningless to me, useless, and completely counter-revolutionary to me no matter how you spin it. How did going after the state become seen as something revolutionary if the state is a bourgeois creation strictly to oppress the many by decisions made by a few?

In my understanding, state socialism advocates for state ownership of the means of production. Industries and natural resources are state-owned, and like all types of anti-state socialists at the time thought it was the most effective form of socialism (which is a weird blanket statement to make on behalf of all socialists, but anyways). Economic systems of ML states were not socialist due to the continued use of commodity production and wages as remuneration. Even if Marxist-Leninists are anti-state because *eventually* they want it to wither away, why do they advocate for state socialism? How have they single-handedly convinced people that liberation will come and the state will disappear after a revolution that puts them in charge? It's completely unfathomable and illogical.

As someone studying Black and African anarchisms, I can say with my chest that there were severe problems with countries in the African post-colonial period that embraced state socialism, this is both my opinion and the opinion of African sociologists. It was attempted by 21 countries within the continent and I think less than 10 times in Europe. I do not understand why Marxist-Leninists or any other authoritarian leftist ideology do not look to the failures of state socialism and say that it was not a socialism problem but a state problem like African anarchists have diagnosed.

In Tanzania, Nyerere wanted to mix traditional precolonial communal values with the then-current ideas of socioeconomic development. His view of socialism did not focus directly on class struggle but rather on the family unit. From 1968-1975 he led Tanzania through a period called villagization which was the consolidation of rural Tanzania into village-style agricultural communities where resources would be collectively shared. His logic makes sense to me, even the part where he said village production would remove the culture of capitalist value and power. But nearly all of the state of Tanzania's agricultural production was done by independent owned farms that were not absorbed into the new state. In the article "Deconstructing Ujamaa: The Legacy of Julius Nyerere in the Quest for Social and Economic Development in Africa," they say that the cultural and lifestyle changes they were expected to embrace by forced collectivization didn't make sense. Even though 96% of children went to school (50% of which were girls), female life expectancy went up, and maternal mortality rates went down, overtime "the state assumed a degree of control over village management and production that some historians have labeled coercive and autocratic, claiming this contradicted the democratic values Ujamaa espoused." What is the trade-off here? How do we as libertarian socialists/anarchists view the strong state oversight of villages against clearly good rates and %'s that were in the green?

In Ghana, Nkrumah adopted a strategy of increasing state-controlled services while putting restrictions on privately owned ones. 60% of bank deposits were at state-run banks, 17% of sea cargo was handled by state-run firms, 27% of industrial production was ran by the state, and the state controlled 35% of total imports. Completely centralized planning, economic mismanagement, and an authoritarian regime is what described Ghana at this point. There was a suppression of political opposition, no free and fair elections, and Ghana became a one-party state. Yet today he is heralded as a Pan-African hero and anticolonial Socialist revolutionary. How do we consistently, CONSISTENTLY, use a measuring stick that that almost NEVER measures actual freedom of the people or sovereignty of the Ghanaian or Tanzania villages? Why is the pure and raw ingenuity of the African peoples (NOT leaders) almost never depended on?

Even in the case of Tanzania. Why did the state pass something the villages were clearly not ready for? Now they are in the drivers' seat of the state's entire production? I don't remotely see that as a problem of socialism because obviously there would be some variant of this European ideology that would value that non-state version of decentralized organizing. So once again I see it 100% as a state problem. Even if the %'s of literacy rates went up and the %'s of mortality went down, HOW did it go down? Could those rates have not changed had there been no state? Obviously those decisions about healthcare and education still need to be made, but shit how were they made BEFORE the state and BEFORE colonization? Sometimes people wag in my face that state socialism (or i guess, state capitalism technically) lifted 900M people out of poverty in China. First off, what is described as poverty? As of 2022, 21% of Chinese people are living in poverty under $5.50. So what if you make $6, is that not poverty anymore? That's still pretty shit. Even in India, 34% lives under a dollar a day? That's ridiculous to me, the arbitrary line of poverty makes no sense because people who earn $2 a day in India or $6 a day in China are still living IN POVERTY if not extreme poverty. Why is China seen as a successful socialist state by MLs and Maoists? People both in capitalist and state socialist societies are suffering. I don't care if they got a bullet train, they're not free! Even dictators and capitalists can build roads, that doesn't justify dictatorships or capitalists.

I know this has turned into a weird rant talking about state socialism and stuff, but my point hopefully is weaved throughout and I just don't understand it. Since authority and the state is clearly a problem in their own right along with being a core part of capitalism, why are these other ideologies such as Marxist-Leninism absolutely winning the propaganda war against anarchism? I'm done ranting, someone help me understand this.

One could quibble and say anarchist communism has existed, but examples are primitive societies or blips in history. Examples of pure capitalism are comparatively rarer, medieval Iceland and Ireland are go-to examples cited by ancaps.

To an extent, while I'm a strong descriptivist, if we said every country claiming to be something is that thing, we'd have to accept the Third Reich and China as socialist.

I see a lot of theoretical-based discussion in this subreddit regarding how X would work in anarchy. How would bad people be dealt with? How would industry be organised? How will school operate? While these make for fun debates, I wanted to do something a bit different this time and talk about how anarchists could be building permanent power towards making anarchy a reality.

Building the power of the working class to fight against capitalist exploitation and the state that upholds it is, in my view, the best antidote to our fucked up situation. Rank and file networks within the unions are a good start to this, for workers to evade the trap of union bureaucracy and create the capacity to fight for immediate changes that improve their lives (and the lives of their comrades). I personally believe that it should be a task of anarchists to support our co-workers in these endeavours, and I am proud to be in an anarchist organisation comprised of people who dedicate themselves to this task.

I would respectfully disagree with the somewhat commonly held belief that, in the face of state repression, capitalist destruction of community and climate change, building mutual aid networks is the best way to go. Mutual aid networks provide an immediate relief to those in need, but they do not build the kind of power that can make permanent positive changes; higher wages, lower working hours and better working conditions, and other such things can put the working class in a better and more able condition to continue building their class power for a possible revolution.

Perhaps there should be a balance of building networks of aid, while fighting for class power? I am curious to know what people think of this :) so feel free to leave a comment or two below!

So lately I've become convinced at the importance in engaging in ethical philosophy for anarchists. I feel that politics has completely subsumed ethics in our modern era. Things such as conflict resolution, personal responsibility, and even interpersonal boundaries have come to be understood within the discourses of politics - of law, of authority, of hierarchy. As anarchists, our aspirations are anti-political, and thus I think that ought to entail a return to the ethical as opposed to the political as the guiding principle of society.

Here I will attempt to synthesize Max Stirner's egoism and virtue ethics - primarily the Aristotelian tradition. My goal here is to treat ethics as a social science, the "science of right action".

First Principles and Definitions

First: Because it is a concept I will be referring to a lot, I will define Rationality.

Rationality, in the sense I'll be using it in this post, regards to the assessment of means and ends; specifically, the consistency between means and ends. To act in accordance to reason is to ensure that your means are aligned with of your ends.

There are instrumental means, where you have a wide range of potential means to reach your desired end. And there are constitutive means, where your means effectively are your end.

An example of instrumental means is driving to a city. Means-ends consistency applies here, because in order to get to the city you mean to go to (your end), your means must be able to take you there. However, they are instrumental means, because there may be a great number of routes to get to that city, some of which may serve your interests more than others.

An example of constitutive means is playing a song on an instrument. The song is composed of a series of notes in a particular order for the right amount of time. If you do not play these notes, then you are not playing the song. Therefore, if your desired end is to play the song, you must play the notes in its defined order.

Rationality, as the concern for the consistency between means and ends, is the sole requirement for ethical action.

Second: we will be taking Stirner's egoism - specifically his claim of psychological egoism - as a given*.* Everyone acts in their self-interest either consciously or unconsciously. To be a conscious egoist, I will argue, not only must one act rationally, but also the lack of rational action is the defining trait of unconscious egoism.

Third: As Aristotle has observed, humans are social animals. This is in the sense that we are interdependent and exist within complex social realities due to our complex, abstract thinking capacities. As a result, "right action" towards others is key to our individual survival. The purpose of ethics, then is teleological - to facilitate the self-interest and flourishing of the human animal.

Conscious Egoism vs Unconscious Egoism

We have virtually infinite ends we can pursue, but we cannot pursue virtually infinite ends. As a result, we must choose which ends we wish to pursue, and we must choose the means with which to pursue them.

The conscious egoist pursues interests that are their own. Their causes are their own, not defined by factors or abstractions external to their will. But in order to properly do so, they must engage in means that are conducive to their desired ends. Any means in particular won't do; they have to be in harmony with the conscious egoist's ends. As a result, the choosing of ends to pursue places inherent constraints upon our actions. If my desired end is to get food, then my means have to match that end. I cannot desire to get food and then proceed to not do it, as that would not fulfill the desire.

The unconscious egoist also pursues interests that are their own, except they externalize their interests to any number of spooks: "God", "The Nation", "The Community", etc. Because their ends are externalized, the unconscious egoist is unable to properly assess whether their means achieve their end. Because their end is defined not by them, but by a mental construction, an ideal outside of them, their ends become unattainable abstractions that impose upon their will. They are rendered unable to exercise rationality.

To be a conscious egoist, one must be concerned with means and ends - specifically their means and ends.

Values and Virtues

A value, for the purpose of this post, is essentially something that you like. This can be something material, such as books, videogames, sweets, but more often these are concepts and behaviors such as love, honesty, empathy, truthfulness, etc.

Values exist for your purposes as your property. They may be taken on and disposed of as you wish. What you value today, you may not value tomorrow.

However, when you do value something, it is in your self-interest to pursue it. So the Conscious Egoist pursues their values, whatever they may be at that particular time, and engages in means that are conducive to those ends.

Virtues are those actions which facilitate your ends. Virtues are actions and skills. A virtuous person is not an identity, but rather a label for someone who engages in those actions that achieve their values. Someone who values empathy, for example, will likely engage in the virtue of compassion. Someone who values solidarity, will likely engage in the value of courage.

As Aristotle would argue, virtue is contextual and exists within a golden mean. The virtue of courage only applies when engaging in such courageous action isn't foolhardy. For example, saving someone from a car crash when you are able and have the opportunity to is courageous. Attempting to do so when the attempt would put both yourself and the one you're trying to save in more danger is foolhardy.

When we are engaging in the virtues that lead us to our values, we are living eudaimonia. Eudaimonia has many translations, but it typically means "well-being"; it is a state of individual flourishing.

Not all values make sense. People can value whatever they want, but there are values that defeat the purpose of having values in the first place. The purpose of values is to achieve your self-interest and your flourishing, so values that contradict such ends - such as the value of murdering - do not make sense, as suffering the consequences of doing so are not in your self interest. Because humans are social animals, our values must both align with our individual flourishing and the flourishing of others. A healthy society makes for healthy individuals, and healthy individuals make for a healthy society.

Why care about ethics at all?

The amoralist may see ethics itself as a spook, saying that we should instead not pay attention to it and do whatever is in our particular interest at the time.

The thing is, human behaviors aren't random. We act in accordance to certain conscious and unconscious patterns. What we value isn't random, what we hate isn't random. They are determined by things other than our will - so when we do not consciously define our values, and engage in means conducive to our values, then we are acting in the capacity of an unconscious egoist, allowing our social context to dominate our wills.

When we are conscious and engage in the Science of Right Action, we gain the tools necessary to become aware of our actions and to which ends they are conducive to, and we allow ourselves to define them in ways that better suit our self-interest. Only then can we truly be a conscious egoist.

In the past, I've seen that many of you loathe the very idea of imprisonment for anybody for any reason even without the motivation of profit or even with humane conditions and a genuine drive towards rehabilitation, and whole-heartedly see the idea of exiling them as a much better alternative, but is it?

I mean, not only is there always the chance that the violent or abusive person you banished could simply return, since their actions strongly indicate a lack of care towards that community's wishes, but who's to say they won't find another community of people to torment? A commentor on another post brought up that it's not uncommon for abusive or predatory people to, once they've burned all the bridges in one community, choose to escape to another community where they can do it again, lather rinse repeat.

As much as you guys disdain prison as a concept for any number of reasons(and not just due to how horrific the US prison system is), banishment wouldn't be a much better alternative and in some cases might even be worse.

Your rebuttals?

Power is the ability to win a conflict.

If the winner of a conflict is predetermined in advance - then there is an asymmetry of power.

The ability to win a conflict is determined by who takes your side.

In order to have stable asymmetries of power - you need permanent alliances which reliably win in any given conflict.

If the individual is free to choose which side they want to take in a conflict - or whether to take a side at all - then individuals can switch sides at any time.

If individuals are free to switch sides at any time - then permanent alliances cannot exist.

Therefore - some mechanism of obligatory and binding allegiance is required to hold coalitions together.

Without obligatory allegiance - coalitions are highly vulnerable to defection - and cannot reliably enforce hierarchy at all.

Hello everyone - so I used to identify as an anarchist for a while, but now I identify as either an anti-capitalist or a non-denominational socialist. I say this because I want a world without classism, hierarchy, and domination, but I genuinely don't know how we get there. The fact is, the one thing that anarchists, Marxists, and democratic socialists have in common is that they've all failed. Despite the efforts of many people throughout history in these persuasions, our planet is still run by a cabal of capitalist vampires who will happily sacrifice the majority of the human population for a quick buck.

Anyway, like most of you, I cringe when Marxists try to dismiss the human rights abuses of ML regimes as "Western propaganda". But there is one compelling argument that Marxists make about the failures of their governments. It's what Michael Parenti refers to as "siege socialism". Essentially, there has never been a major socialist or communist experiment in history which has been allowed to exist in peace. The Soviet Union, China, Cuba, North Korea, Vietnam, etc. all emerged under conditions of intense aggression from capitalist powers. If these countries weren't outright invaded, then they were sanctioned into economic non-viability. These conditions lead to situations that unfortunately favor authoritarianism. If your whole community is getting bombed every day by a vastly superior military, you're probably going to gravitate to the shrewdest leader, even if they have deeply problematic tendencies otherwise.

I like Parenti's argument because it doesn't excuse the situation of ML regimes as acceptable, but instead points out that the bulk of responsibility still ultimately lies with the capitalist powers. Perhaps if the US hadn't dropped more ordinance on North Korea than in the entire Pacific War, then North Koreans wouldn't have allowed Kim to impose a cult of personality. Perhaps if Cuba hadn't been hit with an invasion and embargo, then Cubans would have demanded more protections of civil liberties, etc. When I consider the context that all these unsavory regimes emerged from, I honestly find it hard to blame the leaders for what came after. It's largely capitalism's fault that ML countries suck.

So, as anarchists, what do you all think? Do you agree that ML countries became what they are because of Western capitalist aggression, or do you think that it's still primarily because of issues with ML-ideology?

We are fundamentally embodied beings.

As embodied beings - we share an interest in control over what happens to our own bodies.

Since no one wants to live in a world where their body is public property for anyone else to use - we as embodied beings mutually agree to recognise and respect each other’s bodily autonomy.

When someone commits rape - they haven’t actually agreed that their body is public property for others to use as they wish.

Instead - the rapist is trying to benefit from the protection of their own bodily autonomy - without respecting the bodily autonomy of others.

This makes the rapist essentially a free-rider - trying to illegitimately benefit from the reciprocal social norm in a one-sided manner.

In order to truly act morally - we must recognise our own shared interests as universal - and act accordingly.