From: Dickey, Michael F (michael_f_dickey@groton.pfizer.com)
Date: Mon Oct 21 2002 - 08:16:54 MDT
>From the Anarchism FAQ
www.anarchistfaq.org
A.1.4 Are anarchists socialists?
"Yes. All branches of anarchism are opposed to capitalism. This is because
capitalism is based upon oppression and exploitation"
"And since individuals do not exist in a social vacuum, it also means that
freedom must take on a collective aspect"
Arent 'freedom' and 'collective aspect' an oxymoron? Isnt 'collective
aspect' a polite way of saying 'forced to behave as part of a particular
group' ?
"Are these conditions of freedom met in the capitalist system? Obviously
not. Despite all their rhetoric about "democracy," most of the "advanced"
capitalist states remain only superficially democratic -- and this because
the majority of their citizens are employees who spend about half their
waking hours under the thumb of capitalist dictators (bosses) who allow them
no voice in the crucial economic decisions that affect their lives most
profoundly and require them to work under conditions inimical to independent
thinking"
Its hardly reasonable to compare the despotic regimies of evil dictators
such as Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot and Hitler to 'spending half of your waking
hours under the thumb of a capitalist dictator' Especially when you can
choose to not work, or to work for yourself.
They quote Chomsky on this topic...
"The capitalist workplace is profoundly undemocratic. Indeed, as Noam
Chomsky points out, the oppressive authority relations in the typical
corporate hierarchy would be called fascist or totalitarian if we were
referring to a political system. In his words :
"There's nothing individualistic about corporations. These are big
conglomerate institutions, essentially totalitarian in character, but hardly
individualistic. There are few institutions in human society that have such
strict hierarchy and top-down control as a business organisation. Nothing
there about 'don't tread on me`. You're being tread on all the time."
[Keeping the Rabble in Line, p. 280] "
Except in a corporation you can (gasp) quit your job if you dont like it.
Though I guess in a typical despotic totalatarian regime, you can always
simply choose to starve to death or be exectuated instead of participating
in. Chomsky seems to equate working for a company, earning money for what
you produce to spend on increasing your standard of living, as being a
plantation slave or worse the living life of the worst peasant in communist
russia or cambodia.
Anarchists would elimate working for others because it exploitive? What if
I want to choose to work for someone else? Anarchists would forbid me that
choice? And they consider this FREEDOM?
They comment on the 'but you can quit' counter argument here...
"Many capitalist apologists have attempted to show that capitalist authority
structures are "voluntary" and are, therefore, somehow not a denial of
individual and social freedom. Milton Friedman (a leading free market
capitalist economist) has attempted to do just this. Like most apologists
for capitalism he ignores the authoritarian relations explicit within wage
labour (within the workplace, "co-ordination" is based upon top-down
command, not horizontal co-operation). Instead he concentrates on the
decision of a worker to sell their labour to a specific boss and so ignores
the lack of freedom within such contracts. He argues that "individuals are
effectively free to enter or not enter into any particular exchange, so
every transaction is strictly voluntary. . . The employee is protected from
coercion by the employer because of other employers for whom he can work."
[Capitalism and Freedom, pp. 14-15] " ... "A moments thought, however, shows
that capitalism is not based on "strictly voluntary" transactions as
Friedman claims. This is because the proviso that is required to make every
transaction "strictly voluntary" is not freedom not to enter any particular
exchange, but freedom not to enter into any exchange at all."..."Some people
giving orders and others obeying them: this is the essence of servitude. Of
course, as [right-Libertarians] smugly [observe], 'one can at least change
jobs,' but you can't avoid having a job -- just as under statism one can at
least change nationalities but you can't avoid subjection to one
nation-state or another. But freedom means more than the right to change
masters" [Bob Black, The Libertarian as Conservative]. Under capitalism,
workers have only the Hobson's choice of being governed/exploited or living
on the street."
So here the Anarchists argue that because you can not choose to NOT work,
capitalism isnt freedom, even though in all other cases you have control
over your employ? But similiary, Anarchism necessities that you can not
choose to engage in capitalism, thus by the exact same standard that
Anarchism claims capitalism is not free, Anarchism itself is not free. How
about, instead, a system where you can choose to work OR not work?
Anarchism claims this is not freedom, because you are left to 'wander the
streets' But how does one support a society of individuals that, in order
to be free, must be able to all choose to NOT work? (as the need to work,
as defined by Anarchists, is not compatable with freedom) So what does a
society of non-workers do for food? Mustnt they gather their food? Or
should someone gather their food for them? Should the people that are best
capable at gathering food be the ones obliged to do the food gathering (or
producing) And if they, instead of being obliged to do the food gathering
and producing, instead claim that they have the right to choose not to work
(as work is slavery and thus not freedom) who forces them to produce? When
it comes down to it, who forces you to produce and gather foodstuffs just
for yourself? No one but the desire to live. Thus, by Anarchist standards,
no one can ever possibly be free because they are forced to work for
themselves to stay alive.
"So, when capitalists gush about the "liberty" available under capitalism,
what they are really thinking of is their state-protected freedom to exploit
and oppress workers through the ownership of property, a freedom that allows
them to continue amassing huge disparities of wealth, which in turn insures
their continued power and privileges"
All the while raising the objective standard of living for the entire
population by producing more goods at less cost and making them more
available to more people who also make more now than they have ever before.
"In capitalism, you are "free" to do anything you are permitted to do by
your masters, which amounts to "freedom" with a collar and leash"
In Anarchism, you are 'free' to do only what is permitted by other
anarchists, which also amounts to 'freedom' with a 'collar and leash' There
is no such thing as a life without a collar and a leash, as nature imposes
her own collars and leashes upon us.
As if charactherizing a looter complaining of his 'need' in Atlas Shrugged
Anarchism's FAQ says "However, due to past initiations of force (e.g. the
seizure of land by conquest) plus the tendency for capital to concentrate, a
relative handful of people now control vast wealth, depriving all others
access to the means of life."
Depriving all others access to the means of life? 'But what about the
little guy...' 'but its not *fair*, its not *fair*' If giving you more
free time than any group of humans have ever had in the history of mankind,
living longer healhtier lives spent with your loved ones, embracing yourself
in all aspects that make life worth living imported from all parts of the
world, and doing so without backbracking slavery is 'depriving all others of
access to the means of life' I shudder to think of what "anarchism" has in
store for us.
Chomsky them makes the comparison to working for someone in a company to be
robbed by a theif at gunpoint
"When a robber denies another person's right to make an infinite number of
other choices besides losing his money or his life and the denial is backed
up by a gun, then this is clearly robbery even though it might be said that
the victim making a 'voluntary choice' between his remaining options. "
[quoted by Noam Chomsky, The Chomsky Reader, p. 186]
So what would an anarchist society be like if put into place? I am having
difficulty seeing how anarchism is different from communism? If anarchism
requires that to be free you must be free of the need to 'work' but one must
'work' to stay alive, how is an anarchist society even logically possible?
If you are not allowed to work as much as you want, in fact you must be
guaranteed the right to choose not to work (or it is not freedom, by their
own definition) who supports you choosing not to work? Doesnt the person
now supporting you have the right to choose not to work as well? What if
everyone chooses not to work? I must not be familiar enough with Anarchism
to understand the society they invision, can anybody help me get a clearer
understanding of this?
Thanks
Michael
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