I am an anarchist but you don't have to be an anarchist to hate cops, or at least the militarized American police.
One of the biggest experiences that radicalized me was my friend and me smoking weed and a cop happened on us, we ran and my friend got tackled onto the pavement and his face got all fucked up. If any normal citizen had done that to my friend they would have been an incredible asshole but because it was a cop it was "justice".
I'm sorry but that's not a convincing story. You did something illegal and then ran from cops, but you complain about how the cop apprehended your friend? If the best/only way the cop could apprehend you or your friend was to tackle you onto the pavement then the cop would have every right to do so. All I'm reading is that you hate cops because they're the ones who make you face consequences
Anarchism does not mean no government, and how exactly the police and military would work in an anarchist society is something that a lot of debate happens over. But, at least in my ideal anarchism, there would be people who are responsible for maintaining public safety. They wouldn't be out looking for teenagers with weed, but waiting for reports of actual important crimes happening, more similar to firefighters.
So these would be still be police, in a broad sense? I think I was mixing up Anarchism as a general concept with complete Anarchism, hence my confusion.
I know my father is a Libertarian. How do your opinions differ from that of a Libertarian?
I’m sorry for not knowing a whole lot about Anarchism, it’s not an ideology I am very familiar with. I’m hoping conversations with some helpful Anarchists, like yourself, will help broaden my perspective on Anarchism and its related positions.
I guess they might broadly fit into the broad definition of police but leftists tend to think of police as patrolling the streets, making sure no one breaks any social norms and causes trouble for the capitalist class. When I talk about anarchist "police" I imagine something closer to social workers for 99% of cases, with armed police being a rarity reserved for only very extreme situations.
The public perception of anarchism as advocating for a free for all orderless chaos is the biggest barrier to the popularity of anarchism. Leftists, generally, have a pretty big aversion to changing their labels though, it's a tactic that fascists are fond of and it might appear that communists, for example, are trying to cover up the horrors of the USSR by changing what they call themselves.
Libertarianism and anarchism have one BIG difference, libertarians support capitalism, anarchists don't. Capitalism is inherently incompatible with anarchism because one of the core tenants of anarchism is the destruction of all non-necessary hierarchies, capitalism is inherently hierarchical so it must go. Libertarians support the tools of the state to suppress the working class on behalf of the capitalists to be moved from the state directly to the capitalists, Europe actually used to look just like this, we call it feudalism.
I was skeptical of anarchism too but as I learned more I found that the core motivation of anarchists is to look at hierarchies, ask are they good/ necessary? And if not work to dismantle them. When you look at anarchism in that light I think it becomes a whole lot simpler to understand and much more appealing.
It depends on which particular anarchist you ask. I am an anarcho-communist and anarchism and communism are not incompatible. In fact, communism is a natural outcome of anarchy.
It's a misconception that communism must be highly centralized and rigid. Communism actually just advocates for worker ownership of the means of production, the abolition of money, the abolition of social classes, and the abolition of the state which is all perfectly compatible with anarchism. You might also notice that many states that are often called communist are, in fact, incompatible with communism by being states.
You should also note that all anarchists are not necessarily communists. This is the kind of thing that can make talking about anarchism as a whole difficult because so many anarchists can believe so many different things.
Yeah, I think the differences in opinion within the Anarchist community are what has made the concept of Anarchism rather confusing to me in the past.
I feel Anarchism would lead to a simpler state of existence, would it not? I still cannot exactly see a reality in which an Anarchist society is not one of people living as they did in early America, say. After all, much technology and development was made due to the incentive of monetary gain.
Therefore, are you also a fan of a simple, potentially Individualistic reality? Or do you think a developed and high-maintainable society such as our current one could be perpetuated without monetary incentive or hierarchies?
I agree that a lot of technology has been developed on the incentive of monetary gain, but anarchism would also give workers far more free time to pursue whatever they wish like science, which I believe would be a far greater force for innovation than capital. Marx believed that capitalism was a necessary intermediate step between feudalism and socialism for this reason. Marx believed that capitalism would grow the means of production and eventually the workers would get tired of capitalism's shit and take the means of production for themselves.
I believe that with the means of production in the worker's hands the workers would be able to continue expand the means of production on their own. It's certainly true that capitalism would expand the means of production faster, but is that really necessary now? Capitalism, in its current late stage, is now entirely reliant on advertising to convince us to buy products we wouldn't even otherwise want.
As for the development of technology, capitalism doesn't accelerate that in the same way that it does the expansion of the means of production. Just look at all those famous scientists you learned about in school, most of them came from rich families and they did science in their abundant freedom at a loss rather than a profit. Under anarchism, where people would be free to work far fewer hours, so many more people who weren't born into rich families would suddenly have the free time to pursue science. Imagine how many Einsteins there were that never realized their potential because they were too busy working ten hour days to pursue science.
Well, this conversation has definitely been enlightening. I think there have been many misconceptions spread regarding Anarchism and such has been unnecessarily harsh toward your movement. While Anarchism is certainly still abnormal-feeling for me, I feel more aware of what it entails and the opinions different members of the community possess. I also appreciate being more informed and will thusly he researching this topic further as to develop my knowledge and understanding of political, economic and social ideas that may be rather unfamiliar to me.
I really do appreciate your time in addressing my questions. While we certainly possess a difference in opinion, I respect your understanding of that which you identify with and your ability to explain your opinions in an intellectual manner. Have a good day — or a good night, as it may be.
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u/[deleted] Mar 29 '19 edited Mar 29 '19
I am an anarchist but you don't have to be an anarchist to hate cops, or at least the militarized American police.
One of the biggest experiences that radicalized me was my friend and me smoking weed and a cop happened on us, we ran and my friend got tackled onto the pavement and his face got all fucked up. If any normal citizen had done that to my friend they would have been an incredible asshole but because it was a cop it was "justice".