Is anarcho-libertarianism the new communism?

[Darth Wong]

I'm not asking if the ideologies are identical because they're obviously not (although they are ironically both based on the same naive misconceptions about human nature). I'm asking because I get the feeling that libertarianism occupies the same spot in the public psyche that communism did through the late 19th and early 20th century.

At the time, it was pretty fashionable for people to support the idea. It was widely popular, based mostly on the propaganda which focused primarily on the sins and inequities of the status quo. Of course, the problem was that the ideology had never really been tested on a large scale in a major country, so its proponents were able to confidently spout their unrealistic predictions about how well communism would work. And the idea was popular not just among the working poor who felt they would benefit, but also among intellectuals, particularly of the "I'm set for life because Daddy is rich" variety.

Now doesn't the above paragraph remind you strongly of the place that anarcho-libertarianism occupies in the public psyche today? Supported by the common man who doesn't understand why it's a bad idea, as well as the dilletante intellectual whose education is mostly for show? Popular because its propaganda is almost entirely based on attacking the sins of the status quo? Instead of "Workers of the World Unite" we have "I want to make government so small I can drown it in a bathtub".

And we have the same kind of evangelistic zeal: just as communist governments attempted to spread their ideology around the world, the US has done everything in its power to ram "free market reforms" down the throats of other countries, particularly developing nations which are beholden to the world bank.

Just replace "bourgeoisie" with "government" and it seems to me that you have libertarianism in a nutshell. And unfortunately, the same cycle seems to be occurring: in order to discredit the idea, it is necessary to try it out on a large scale first, and see what happens to its victims.

[Guardsman Bass]

When you say "Anarcho-Libertarianism", are you talking about the kind that appeared with that one guy who came here a while back, complete with private security forces instead of police, etc? Or are you talking more about the usual Libertarianism, which basically says that government exists to protect the private property of its citizens?

The latter definitely has its appeal, both in the public sphere and among the Conservative Intellectual Class (I say that in capital letters because they have their own institutions, think tanks, and so forth), but I haven't seen much popular appeal for the former.

[Darth Wong]

Frankly, I use the term "anarcho-libertarianism" to describe all economic libertarians, since that is where their deregulatory ideology leads. They just won't admit it. I only distinguish them from social libertarians.

[Mayabird]

Anarchists were a pretty widespread bunch in the late 19th/early 20th century as well, but I don't really know what their policies were aside from "we're a bunch of punk kids with nothing better to do who'll assassinate people!" That's how Tsar Alexander II and William McKinley, among many others, bit the dust.

[Darth Wong]

Anarchists were a pretty widespread bunch in the late 19th/early 20th century as well, but I don't really know what their policies were aside from "we're a bunch of punk kids with nothing better to do who'll assassinate people!" That's how Tsar Alexander II and William McKinley, among many others, bit the dust.

That's what's different about modern libertarians: they believe they have a utopian social system. Old-school anarchists just wanted society to burn down; these new ones think they can create a utopian new society with their half-baked ideas.

[Imperial Overlord]

That's what's different about modern libertarians: they believe they have a utopian social system. Old-school anarchists just wanted society to burn down; these new ones think they can create a utopian new society with their half-baked ideas.

Not that different. The old school ones believed they would create a better society out of the ashes of the old one, although they leaned more to the fuzzy left (we'll be free of tyranny and help each other) instead of the greedy right (Don't need the evil government taking my money) of modern anarcho-capitalists.

[Beowulf]

Except even a large-scale experiment won't discredit it to the true believers. Witness ANSWER et al, who frequently show up at anti-war protests. There are still communists out there, who go: "Oh, the USSR wasn't a good example. Let's try it again!"

[Illuminatus Primus]

Frankly, I use the term "anarcho-libertarianism" to describe all economic libertarians, since that is where their deregulatory ideology leads. They just won't admit it. I only distinguish them from social libertarians.

I completely support you in this. People always quibble on the details, but conceptually their premises cannot simultaneously have no tolerance for state intervention for regulatory purposes (probably where the 20th century proves it can do the most good), yet have faith in a standing army (much less a sprawling, interventionist one) and faith in its ability to protect property rights fairly.

[Mayabird]

It doesn't really have to discredit the True Believers if it's basically discredited to everyone else and they have no influence at all. There are still Flat Earthers out there but unless society really goes to hell they won't have any power to push their beliefs again.

[Junghalli]

People always quibble on the details, but conceptually their premises cannot simultaneously have no tolerance for state intervention for regulatory purposes (probably where the 20th century proves it can do the most good), yet have faith in a standing army (much less a sprawling, interventionist one) and faith in its ability to protect property rights fairly.

That always reminds me deliciously of that bit in 1984, about how war is the great bringer of reality. It's OK for them to fanatically cling to laughable fantasies in things like market regulation, because it's only the poor who will suffer and they probably deserve it anyway (if they weren't so dumb and lazy they'd be rich, of course), but you might suffer too if your country got its ass kicked militarily and conquered, so you better make an exception and leave a little spot of sanity there.

The appeal of free-market fundamentalism is pretty easy to understand. It's all about getting you to not feel so bad about being a selfish bastard clinging to your money and screaming "mine, mine, I don't wanna share!"

[Stark]

Is this perhaps a RESULT of the 'fall' of communism as a popular idea? I'm not a big student of earth 20th century history, but I believe in the 'revolutionary period' the communists generally came to dominate the 'left' and the anarchists and other 'left' revolutionary ideologies were absorbed into it. These days, communism is perhaps losing it's cultural cachet as the 'down with the power' leftist ideology of choice, so perhaps a resurgence of anarchisms was predictable?

[Rye]

Is this perhaps a RESULT of the 'fall' of communism as a popular idea? I'm not a big student of earth 20th century history, but I believe in the 'revolutionary period' the communists generally came to dominate the 'left' and the anarchists and other 'left' revolutionary ideologies were absorbed into it. These days, communism is perhaps losing it's cultural cachet as the 'down with the power' leftist ideology of choice, so perhaps a resurgence of anarchisms was predictable?

You have to remember that communism cropped up mostly as a response to the dire situation the working classes were in while the new aristocratic class of businessmen was on the rise. Social reform produced a better society all around as it grew more liberal, and as the shitness of Victorian poverty faded from living memory and was replaced with memories of heavy-handed governments, fascists, theocratic nuts and eventually hippies and the like, the laissez-faire pining started anew. It's no surprise where Ayn Rand came from, really. The fall of communism in popularity is important, but I think the popularity of 'narcho-tards is down mainly to a failure to understand just how shit things in a modern country can be without a well-funded government with anti-poverty, pro-worker legal system. If you browse their sites or ask them questions, they usually say that the 19th century was actually pretty great, the problem with workhouses was down to the individuals running them, etc.

[Ziggy Stardust]

Frankly, I use the term "anarcho-libertarianism" to describe all economic libertarians, since that is where their deregulatory ideology leads. They just won't admit it. I only distinguish them from social libertarians.

Honestly, I think most libertarians don't think about the implications of their ideology. They simply take a boiled down definition of libertarianism ("Individual rights! Less government interference!") and mindlessly apply it to all sectors of life.

[Marcus Aurelius]

Except even a large-scale experiment won't discredit it to the true believers. Witness ANSWER et al, who frequently show up at anti-war protests. There are still communists out there, who go: "Oh, the USSR wasn't a good example. Let's try it again!"

Strictly speaking that is true, since the USSR was a Marxist-Leninist socialist country that never got to the communist phase. There were actually quite a bit disillusioned communists during the first years of Soviet Russia (later USSR) who thought that Lenin and other leading Bolsheviks had betrayed the true ideals of egalitarian communism. The most well know were the Kronstadt sailors who actually rebelled against the Bolshevik government after being among its strongest supporters initially. They did not like the centralized "state capitalist" nature of the Bolshevik government.

The only and admittedly very significant problem with the neo-communist ideology is that nobody knows how a non-Leninist communist state should work and how could it avoid all the mistakes of the USSR and Maoist China. Before somebody figures that out -- and chances are nobody ever will -- it's better that communism is never tried again in real life...

[Samuel]

Except even a large-scale experiment won't discredit it to the true believers. Witness ANSWER et al, who frequently show up at anti-war protests. There are still communists out there, who go: "Oh, the USSR wasn't a good example. Let's try it again!"

Strictly speaking that is true, since the USSR was a Marxist-Leninist socialist country that never got to the communist phase. There were actually quite a bit disillusioned communists during the first years of Soviet Russia (later USSR) who thought that Lenin and other leading Bolsheviks had betrayed the true ideals of egalitarian communism. The most well know were the Kronstadt sailors who actually rebelled against the Bolshevik government after being among its strongest supporters initially. They did not like the centralized "state capitalist" nature of the Bolshevik government.

The only and admittedly very significant problem with the neo-communist ideology is that nobody knows how a non-Leninist communist state should work and how could it avoid all the mistakes of the USSR and Maoist China. Before somebody figures that out -- and chances are nobody ever will -- it's better that communism is never tried again in real life...

Mike talks about this in his essay on the Federation:

In order to answer the question of whether the Federation is communist, we must first define communism. As most people are vaguely aware, communism was first popularized by Karl Marx and Fredrick Engels, in the mid-19th century. In February of 1848, they published their "Communist Manifesto", which eventually became the inspiration for Communist revolutions in Russia, China, North Korea, North Vietnam, Cuba, and numerous other nations (I suppose I should note that neo-Marxists deny any connection to these communist states, claiming that they were "perversions" of the lofty, wonderful, perfect Marxist ideals that would have created a paradise on Earth if we had only given them a chance. Of course, they are reluctant to acknowledge that Marxist ideals defy implementation for numerous reasons of practicality and human nature, so a real-life communist state will always be a perversion of the "ideal").

Essentially, it is impossible to make a communist state that does not work by autocratic state planning. Except possibly a hive mind, and that comes with its own set of problems.

[Surlethe]

Frankly, I use the term "anarcho-libertarianism" to describe all economic libertarians, since that is where their deregulatory ideology leads. They just won't admit it. I only distinguish them from social libertarians.

Isn't that a black-and-white fallacy? One might as well use the same reasoning to lump all socialists with communists.

[Samuel]

Frankly, I use the term "anarcho-libertarianism" to describe all economic libertarians, since that is where their deregulatory ideology leads. They just won't admit it. I only distinguish them from social libertarians.

Isn't that a black-and-white fallacy? One might as well use the same reasoning to lump all socialists with communists.

Because socialists recognize the value of investment and the market- they just want large sectors state controlled or regulated. They don't go down a slippery slope usually. Libertarians do with less regulation is always better.

[Darth Wong]

Frankly, I use the term "anarcho-libertarianism" to describe all economic libertarians, since that is where their deregulatory ideology leads. They just won't admit it. I only distinguish them from social libertarians.

Isn't that a black-and-white fallacy? One might as well use the same reasoning to lump all socialists with communists.

You're barking up the wrong tree. Communism is not an extreme version of socialism; it is an entire extra step, involving the elimination of capital.

Also, anarchy is not an extreme version of deregulation; it is simply a more honest term for it. The whole idea of deregulation is to eliminate laws, under the laughably absurd idea that society will regulate itself if the rule of law is removed.

[K. A. Pital]

No, I do not see anarcho-libertarianism as the new communism, and I would like to explain why.

1) Communism, as basically an extension, some sort of new theoretical backbone behind XIX century socialism as DW correctly identifies, rose from the people experiencing genuine suffering and hardship. It was a reaction to really abysmal conditions of life, and a real, not perceived lack of rights and suffering.

2) Following from point 1, communism rose and swept through the backwards, agrarian and autocratic nations, where the plight of people has been great. Communism rose in the "third world", despite the very theory of Marx that heavy industrial societies only can shift to communism. Communism has been driven in no small part by a real desire to end disenfranchisement and improve conditions of life (and it has succeded in some parts and failed elsewhere). It did not spread in places where there was no suffering of people, in nations which were heavily industrialized, with high consumption. Industrialization, a key component of the most functional and widespread version of communism, that is Leninism, never was even necessary in industrialized nations.

3) Communism rose, and appealed to people of the Third World "from the roots", i.e. it had mass popularity, to the point where people were willing to fight civil wars for the victory of communism in a given nation. Popular revolutions ensued.

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1) Anarcho-libertarianism rose from, and among the, people experiencing no real suffering or opression from the government. It most prominently rose in First World nations, whose populations bask in wealth and whatever "hardship" they experience, on the average, it's ridiculously small and incomparable to the hardships of people in the Second or Third World. The lack of rights and suffering of "anarcho-libertarians" of the First World is ridiculous even to me.

2) Anarcho-libertarianism gained prominency in nations of the First World, and most notably America, where the adherents of this ideology managed to - legally! - claim power by getting elected. It never became popular in other nations (in Russia we don't even know what the word "libertarian" means, for the most part, hardly you'll find a person who knows that). As a general ideology, privatization was rammed down the throat of not a few nations by the United States, but this was not a "people's movement" - it was the weight of the US as the international superpower pressing the governments into adopting such policies.

3) Those policies did not enjoy mass support, much less ARMED support, from the populations of Second and Third World nations whose governments followed the US lead or "advice".

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So, while there are some similarities, I do fail to see how the libertarians suffer any real opression, or their ideology is a response to their abysmal conditions, or how it has any influence - beyond the influence of the US government - outside the First World and US in particular.

Were it not for the US, libertarianism would never gain any ground, whereas communism rose simultaneously among the worker classes in many nations, and if there was no USSR, it's not a given Communism would not rise in war-torn Germany, impoverished China, India, South East Asia, Latin America as it did in reality - because it was a response to conditions by the locals, not some sort of "virus" which the USSR spread around the world.

On the other hand, libertarianism is not popular with the majority of European First World governments (in realty, they deny allmost all of it's postulates), and were socialist nations of WARPAC still around, it would be preposterous as an ideology to them, kinda like it has no adherents in China. Were it not for the US government adn the wealthy middle class of the US, other nations would never produce such a ridiculous ideology. I can't see a Second or Third World nations' citizens wilfully producing, supporting and spreading such an ideology anywhere.

Just noting a major difference, in my view. I can sympathize with the downtrodden supporters of socialism and communism, whose ideology - at least in theory! - aims at breaking their extreme poverty, but I cannot in any way at all sympathize with the wealthy, overconsuming First World citizens, who have zero concept of suffering, who have devised libertarianism because they were bored with their "large government", not because their conditions really ARE so bad and they are suffering.

[Junghalli]

I'd say in some ways economic libertarianism is more like the new Divine Right of Kings. It's a way of justifying injustice and stratification in a society as something that we shouldn't try to do anything about, or as something that is actually good*.

Divine Right: God has appointed me to lord over you peons! How dare you complain about me exploiting you ruthlessly! My authority comes straight from God!

Economic Libertarianism: My money is proof that I'm a more capable person than you and it's only right that I enjoy great wealth while you live in shit! How dare you expect me to share my wealth with you just because you're suffering! It's your own fault - if you didn't deserve to be poor, you wouldn't be!

*I've known one lolbertarian to argue that if we could manage a postscarcity society with general wealth and no need to work we shouldn't implement such a system, because it would be bad in and of itself if people were allowed to be so lazy (his own words: "contentment is the 8th deadly sin"). He literally basically argued that suffering is good and should be preserved even when it becomes totally avoidable with minimal effort and no skin off his back whatsoever! My jaw dropped at the sheer assholery. I mean, that is seriously getting into comic book moustache twirler territory.

[Thanas]

Without going into the specific arguments, it seems to me that communism/anarcho-libertarianism are passing fancies of the elite youth who apparently throughout western civilization need a new idea to latch on every fourty years or so. One needs to look no further than the age of enlightement.

[Zixinus]

What I can't wrap my head around, is that whether the USSR is a socialist state or a communist one. According to everyone around here, we lived in a socialist state, with appropriately named party (Socialist Party of Hungary, etc) and so on.

Now, correct me if I am wrong, but socialist: government that allows private ownership of companies and the like, but funds education and healthcare (among other things) for everyone while allowing private competitors to those.
Communist: everything is owned by the government and does not allow private ownership.

Essentially, it is impossible to make a communist state that does not work by autocratic state planning. Except possibly a hive mind, and that comes with its own set of problems.

What sort of problems?

[Samuel]

What I can't wrap my head around, is that whether the USSR is a socialist state or a communist one. According to everyone around here, we lived in a socialist state, with appropriately named party (Socialist Party of Hungary, etc) and so on.

Now, correct me if I am wrong, but socialist: government that allows private ownership of companies and the like, but funds education and healthcare (among other things) for everyone while allowing private competitors to those.
Communist: everything is owned by the government and does not allow private ownership.

The communists liked to call themselves socialists because they were true socialists, unlike others who took the name (the no true socialist fallacy)

Socialism is when the government runs certain sectors of the economy with various intervention, while still allowing capital and the market to exist. I'm not sure where the dividing line is between socialism and "capitalism".

What sort of problems?

Creating the hive mind in the first place. People feel very strongly about their individuality and probably won't give it up to be part of a greater group. It might be possible to just out compete the rest of society, but that invites a backlash.

[K. A. Pital]

What I can't wrap my head around, is that whether the USSR is a socialist state or a communist one.

Socialist. Communism is a new formation of society wherein private property, money and government for the sake of the definition, do not exist.

However, "soviet socialism" is the type of socialism which is Leninist in nature; that is, Lenin postulated, when all concentrated capitalist production is nationalized. Of course, Lenin's theory of socialism is different from quite many other socialists, thus why there is "eurosocialism" and a shitload of other socialism variants in existence.

The "communist states" are only called "communist" for they have a communist party in power, not because they actually have achieved anything resembling the communism as they themselves describe.

[Boyish-Tigerlilly]

The dictionary of philosophy (political) defined socialism as a political-economic philosophy characterized by the public ownership over resources and the means of production. This generally was exemplified through public cooperatives or direct state-control through nationalization of heavy industry. It usually means all or the majority of it.

Some forms of Socialism use a market system; some do not. The one that expressly supports it is called Market Socialism, which tends to be more decentralized. Socialism can be autocratic and authoritarian or it can be "democratic" socialism. It can be marked based or it can be largely planned.

Then you have Social Democracy, which is something else.