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Whatever Happened?

I've been gone for two months, and not much has changed in the article, as far as I can tell, except for the new little section about "Issue and Movement Anarchisms". Whatever happened to the epistemological approach, drafted at Anarchism/historical? If I was the only editor inclined towards such a radical reorganization, then I'll gladly drop the idea. --albamuth 05:01, 29 September 2005 (UTC)

Who what where? never seen the draft page before. u ain't gonna get collaboration if people keep starting spinoff pages naebody knows about till theyv'e written an essay. max rspct 10:29, 29 September 2005 (UTC)

I definitely like the changes offered in the historical version, which I feel breaks anarchism down in a much more sensible, topic-by-topic fashion, resolving a number of the structural issues with the article at present. Sarge Baldy 03:47, 2 October 2005 (UTC)

I hope then we can start working on it as an eventual replacement for the current article, which is barely readable (as in large obnoxious blocks of unbroken text). --albamuth 04:16, 2 October 2005 (UTC)

Albamuth, If you want to know what happened, It's RJII and his capitalist flunkies, who aren't allowing fundamental changes to the entry at all anymore -- and then he keeps pretending that anything challenging his domination of this section and their unfair rewiting and spin of anarchist history is some "POV" or "vandalism" and switching things back to his take (do we really need to be re-assured that Proudhon wasn't "really" against private property when he said "Property is Theft?" Are you people so stuck up that you think nobody can be an individualist and refuse to have faith in capitalism?) ... see more of what I have to say specifically about this under the "All_your_edits_will_be_wiped_out_by_RJII" section below.

Also, if Wikipedia were controlled by come corporation, and we anarchists had no say in what is written here, it would not mater. (just as ideological capitalists have put their own spin on the definition of anarchism on all "authoritive" sites they control) - it is the fact that we ARE supposed to hae a say here.. we ARE supposed to have some form of libertarian and democratic control here (and Wikipedia has the ethos of anti-elitism behind it), that we CAN'T simply "accept" this bogus rewriting, and this false idea of a "fair and balanced" definition. It is not fair... it's more like a "coup on paper", and it makes it look like we anarchists agree to it (because everyone knows that if we could, we would change it), when we in fact do NOT agree to it .. but RJII and his cohorts repeatedly and forcibly undo any changes we make to the entry now.

RJII, if you want the Wikipedia definition of "anarchism" so much, why don't you just get your capitalist pals together to BUY wikipedia so you can FORCE everone to accept your rewriting of history? That strategy has worked for capitalists pretty well up until now. Radical allard Tue Nov 22 18:58:28 EST 2005

Vote of Confidence for Anarchism/historical?

Well, in my limited amount of Wikipedia time I alot myself, I am starting to make revisions to the epistomological historical version of the article. Can I get some votes of confidence that this is a worthwhile endeavor (that it may eventually be worthy to replace the main article with)?

  • Approve - (of course) --albamuth 04:13, 6 October 2005 (UTC)
  • Approve. Needs a lot of work still, but the structure makes more sense. Sarge Baldy 04:14, 6 October 2005 (UTC)
  • I don't see the point. Why not just edit this article? RJII 13:29, 6 October 2005 (UTC)
    • Because trying to restructure an article entirely is hard to do simply by editing the page in its current state. Also it would likely turn out terribly messy, since some information has to be readapted to fit the modified structure. Sarge Baldy 22:40, 7 October 2005 (UTC)
    • RJ, since you are one of the most active (if not THE most active) editor of this article, I am very interested if you would take a look at the alternative way of presenting the article, and if it is a direction that would be fruitful. --albamuth 09:22, 8 October 2005 (UTC)
      • I just took a look. I don't have any problem with it. An historical format looks good to me. But, I hope you don't want to eventually delete the schools of anarchism. I think it's important to describe these. RJII 15:58, 8 October 2005 (UTC)
        • It's not so much as deleting the "Schools" of anarchism than putting them in the appropriate category: for example A/C would still be included, but as as one of the (many) modern anarchist strategies, rather than as an opposing ideological branch.--albamuth 08:08, 9 October 2005 (UTC)
          • So you're going to try to make it look like all the schools of anarchism agree with each other? There is no unanimity in anarchism. There is indeed opposition between the schools, and its important to discuss each one in depth. The most significant chasm is between individualism and collectivism. RJII 14:46, 9 October 2005 (UTC)
            • Actually, there's much more unamity within anarchism than the article in its current form makes out. We have our squabbles, but the different trends within anarchism usually get along & work together okay. I'm an anarcho-communist, but I usually get along with syndicalists, mutualists, primitivists & other anarchists. Stateless capitalists often like to over-exagerate the infighting within anarchism to make it look like the anarchism vs. stateless capitalism debate is just another case of anarchist infighting. It isn't. Look at this talk page - there isn't some giant fight between syndicalists & platformists spewing all over it, it's a debate between stateless capitalism (a non-anarchist philosophy masquerading as anarchism) vs. all branches of anarchism. That's because stateless capitalism & anarchism are two fundamentally different philosophies, while anarcho-communism anarcho-syndicalism etc. are different versions of the same philosophy.
  • Approve Much better way of going about things -max rspct 16:16, 6 October 2005 (UTC) 16:13, 6 October 2005 (UTC)
  • Approve 68.89.240.80 22:19, 7 October 2005 (UTC)
  • Approve Looks much cleaner than the present page. Given impossibility of agreeing 'what is anarchism' in the abstract, i think a historical approach to development of ideas is definitely the best option. Thanks for working on this. However I'm not sure disputes are purely semantic - the new article won't be so clean if people start inserting large chunks of anarcho-capitalist fringe history throughout.

Bengalski 19:42, 11 October 2005 (UTC)

The non-utility of "Schools" of anarchism

(continuing discussion from above) Anarchists are united in their heterogeneity, if anything. I believe that the latter 20th century meme of multiculturalism has affected anarchists' acceptance of varying radical strategies within their ranks. For example, the new Crimethinc book does not shit on any one anarchist strategy but simply presents many projects and ideas in many different directions.

As I stated on Talk:Template/Anarchism, "schools" implies an institution that promotes a certain ideology, whereas there are none -- anarchism is not "taught" in any way, except via people reading books or zines or the writings of thousands of different voices. Anarchist strategies is a better way to categorize the different labels of "anarcho-communism" and "anarcho-syndicalism" or "anarcho-syndicalism". --albamuth 19:24, 9 October 2005 (UTC)

Just call it "Anarchist schools of thought" then, if you're concerned people will think we're talking about educational institutions. RJII 22:37, 9 October 2005 (UTC)
I think even "Schools of thought" is a misnomer. Example: Because there is no officiating body that declares what anarcho-communism is or isn' t, the nuances vary between every individual that calls themself an "anarcho-communist." The gist of what I am saying is that you cannot even group motivational ideals in a way that bears coherence to the term "anarcho-communism." The only coherent way of describing the collection of writings and ideas that we call "anarcho-communism" is by similar practices/social behavior, or recommendations of a certain sort of those (in this case, forming small, collective communities, called communes). The reasons for individuals to practice or preach anarcho-communism might vary considerably (refugees from capitalist society, spiritual belief, desperation, ideological zealotry, scientific ratonalization, etc.) but the key defining and codifying signifers are simply that of praxis, not theory. --albamuth 09:00, 12 October 2005 (UTC)
I don't know about that. There are significant things that all anarcho-communists have in common, all individualist anarchists, etc. Essential things. These schools of thought are not so nebulous that there is no reason for a distinction, if that's what you're trying to say. RJII 15:25, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

Not time for replacement with Anarchism/historical?

I thought maybe we would save ourselves from losing good edits by simply putting the historical version in. So what if there's little notes and missing sections? It's a lot better than the current article, which can be used piecewise via merging. --albamuth 17:01, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

Well, this is an encyclopedia and it should always be presentable as one at any given time. RJII 18:06, 12 October 2005 (UTC)
I have to agree with RJ on this one. I don't think it has to be in any special shape before you make the change, but I do think it has to be more-or-less complete. The historical article looks very much like what it is, a work in progress. Sarge Baldy 01:23, 13 October 2005 (UTC)
That's perfectly agreeable. Let's work on it, then. --albamuth 05:10, 13 October 2005 (UTC)
Why don't you just move pieces over when they're ready? It's kind of drastic to replace to whole thing at once with another version. RJII 20:54, 14 October 2005 (UTC)
This article has needed drastic reworking for a long time. See above about the need to scrap the current mess and start over. --Bk0 23:12, 14 October 2005 (UTC)
I don't think you can just replace it piece by piece, because the structures aren't really compatible with one another and it'll just turn into an inconsistent mess. Better to just replace the whole thing when it's at a reasonable state, and then build it from there. Sarge Baldy 23:18, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

All your edits will be wiped out by RJII

(This is a response to the message below this one)

Dammit. I just have to say something here that I am quite pissed off about.

RJII, under the claim of "fairness" or "fighting POV" you have wiped out everyone's new mods to the Anarchism section of wikipedia but yours and your friends. You don't even give any information about who you really are, but you seem to think you can rewrite or put spin on a whole movement and history. You and your cohorts have been pushing your capitalist agenda on anarchists here on Wikipeda now for months. Why dont you just leave well enough alone? You already have so many labels and so much control of the world.. Republicans, Democrats (the modern politial term "liberal" does not mean anticapitalist, you know), "Libertarian Party", objectivists, classical liberals, liberty, freedom, individualism, so many governments, so many corporations and businsses, TV stations, newspapers (all singing the praises of capitalism an saying it is synonemous with freedom, liberty, individualism, etc)... yet you're never happy .. you always have to have MORE.. and on the Internet, in every forum describing the anarchist/libertarian movements you try to make all nice sounding words and ideas point to yours, while always, like some chess game, trying to manouver us so that those of us in movements to oppose capitalism are to look bad. It suggests that the class war exists even here, n Wikipedia and you wont be satisfied unless you can rewrite any freedom-based ideas so they can't point away from your idea of "freedom". (and of course te rest of us are constrained by your language to being "against freedom".)

I do not think that a bunch of right-wing professors and such, who sit around talking chicago school economics or this and that, writing some books and proclaiming themseles "anarchists" or "anti-statists" makes it so, or even warrents mention in the anarchism section of Wikipedia. (and yes, chomsky too is a professor, but he's admitted he's a member of the ruling class, and repeatedly tells anarchists that he's simply offering his personal views, observations and opinions - he never tried to be "another bakunin") You do not participate in protests against corporate welfare, you have littele to offer the poor other than trickle-down theory or "pull up your bootstraps" Horatio Alger fantasies... you havn't physicaly put much on the line at all. While hiding behind the power of the state (the only thing that can keep private property in existance) ... while the real anarchists struggle, are jailed, or killed for their beliefs, you stuffy farts sit around in places like Princeton or your corporate "dream jobs" and think you can bequeth what a movement (that existed in its essense for centuries) "really is" is on everyone. It isn't fair, and it isn't right, and you know it. You keep erasing any realistic changes to the anarchism (and yes, I do believe the pro-capitalist stuff has no place there) page and then claiming anyone who goes against your wishes is commiting "vandalism", or acting like there is some idea that if anarchism is to be made up of some equal group of pro-capitalists and anti-, that this is "fair" (it is only true on paper.. huge numbers of so called "Libertarians and Von Misus institute" fans and such voted for Bush, after all.. and of course voting for the Libertarian Party means participating in the state, not to mention supporting the states private property laws.. hardly anarchism.. hardly freedom or liberty.)

Hasn't it occured to you that when Bryan Caplan wrote his "anarchist FAQ" in the 1990s, none of the actual anarchists asked him to write it, and in fact he ignored us and didn't care about our protests and objections, and when we told him about the spanish civil war (as an example of anarchism in action - he had no knowledge of it before we mentioned it to him), he chose to write a ridiculously biased smear essay, under the guise of "scholerly work" (whats so scholerly about reading one book, then writing paragraph after paragraph of politically spun opinion stating "anything the spanish libertarians did was bad and evil an a failure" ... come on.) Bryan Caplan's FAQ was hardly "fair and balanced". it was a underhanded way to write something authoritive looking (mimiking scholerly or objective writing styles but filling it with personal point of view and opinion) that blasted anarchist history full of pro-capitalist bullet holes. No self-respecting anarchist would have written such a FAQ, and how can it be accepted as any kind of authority if the anarchiss object to it, and the author makes it quite clear he absolutely hates and detests anarchists, and justifies their mass murder (by Franco, the spanish communist party, and pretty much anyone else) and uses terminology that semantecly makes it "ok" to justify state repression of anarchists while maintaining some guise of "anti-statism" as Caplan and the life repeatedly did, over and over, some becoming even more shrill after 9/11)

Why do I keep mentioning Caplan's FAQ? because the Wikipedia Anarchism entry we have now seems to be modled after nothing other than Caplan's work. You seem to be going on this assumption that some outside moral authjority sort of hangs over everything here, like a cloud (or God?), and it justifies and enforces this idea of capitalist ideologues "in the name of fairness" riddling the Anarchism entry (and related entries) with opinions, barbs, lines like "not everyone aggrees" or "not neccesarily so" (any other scholerly work would be laughed off the table if it were full of such Point-Of-View, ideologically driven crap.)

And on top of this... if you have so much of a right to claim the word "anarchism" as in any way related to capitalism, then why dont the "libertarians" in the US also admit that the word "libertarian" is disputed and modify what they call themselves? Are you really for "Fairness" and "balance" and a "lack of POV", or is it only when it doesnt go in your favor, mr. RJII? Radical Mallard Tue Nov 22 18:42:34 EST 2005

--- Just a note to everyone that any edits they make to this article are apparently going to be wiped out if the few people working the Anarchism/historical article have their way. They plan on wiping out this article and moving that article over here. I'm not so sure that's a good idea. I've looked at this article as a work in progress that's been in a gradual state of improvement. To just discard it and replace it with an article 2 or 3 people have worked on doesn't make much sense. It also seems inconsiderate of those who are editing this article. RJII 05:59, 15 October 2005 (UTC)

I agree, let's replace the page now to minimize the number of lost edits made by casual visitors. --Bk0 17:30, 15 October 2005 (UTC)
All your edit are belong to us! *Dan T.* 17:45, 15 October 2005 (UTC)
The best approach I think is to open both articles side by side, compare similar sub-sections, then merge the bits from anarchism into anarchism/historical sub-section by sub-section, until the historical version is sufficiently caught up to the main article. Unfortunately, though I have been the main advocate of this strategy, I have been really really busy lately (working 50 hrs/week (I'm a carpenter), 15 hours of night classes a week, homework, people visting, etc.) so I really hope if people are into this restructuring work as I am, you ppl can pick up my slack! --albamuth 07:11, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

direct democracy

in the article you say: "Direct democracy (majority rule) is considered another form of authority and thus "authoritarian."" but that's a mistake. you can see it's a mistake in this link that is from the ANARCHIST FAQ. what do you say? 85.250.187.194 14:09, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

Looks like what you say is right for collectivist anarchists. I know individualist anarchists don't like democracy. RJII 14:57, 21 October 2005 (UTC)
even if it's right only for collectivists, than it's still a mistake to put it in one of the first paragraphs, as if it's something that all anarchists agree with. 85.250.187.194 15:51, 21 October 2005 (UTC)
I agree. I think the more specific you get in trying to generalize what an anarchist is, the more you realize that anarchists as a whole have very little in common. RJII 16:20, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

Generalize defintion of anarchism? yes thats what u are trying to do RJII ..watering down the definition ... including all kinds of unsubstantiated crackpot fads into it. However i wouldn't have put direct democracy at top of article. A point should be made (che etc) that democracy can be more than just voting (whether it benefits the bourgeouisie or not) - Aside from 19th century excusions to the right, Anarchists are the only ones who have consistently argued AND put ito practice alternative communities which preclude hierarchy and class system. There are big parallels between anarchist experimentation in 30's Spain and 60's shakeups. Yes i am in favour of the historical version! - max rspct 14:42, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

Yeah, I think it's a mistake as well. Anarchists tend to believe that anarchism is democracy and that what we call "democratic systems" do not represent people equally. My own complaint is that democratic systems tend to reduce people's ideas/values/struggles to a simple numerical system, a "yes/no" sort of ideal that completely eliminates all critical thought. I don't know if this is a common critique amongst anarchists or not though. Sarge Baldy 15:01, 21 October 2005 (UTC)
Most anarchists believe in direct democracy mixed with limitations on how much society can intertfere in individual's lives.-- Revolutionary Left | Che y Marijuana 01:18, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

2001 Argentine uprising

Although it is mentioned in brief on the Anarchism and society page, there is currently no article that deals with the widespread social experimentation with [small 'a'] anarchism (popular assemblies, occupied factories, strikes, autonomy, direct action, cooperativism, etc...) in Argentina following the 2001 economic crash.

The article covering the events is currently titled December 2001 riots (Argentina) and it looks like it might have been written by the World Bank :P

Que se vayan todos doesn't even get a shoutout.

So if anyone has any spare time, this is a really important section that is missing. Nihila 13:57, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

working on history of anarchism section

I think the approach of this page now is excellent, but it really needs some work to get it up to standard - and with a bit more urgency now it's become the main page.

I put a note on the anarchism/historical discussion page a few days back with a kind of proposal for moving forward on this. As no one answered yet I thought I'd just start doing it that way - if people aren't happy with my approach, we can just revert it all anyway I suppose.

Below is what I wrote before. As you might see though I've changed the order slightly as I've been doing it in practice.

I really like the feel and the look of this new page, but at the same time it seems to be getting pretty muddled. Have been sitting looking at it for a while trying to think of ways to help straighten it out, and thinking maybe we need to - not dumb down but inject a shot of simplicity. I can see people don't want to introduce a timeline of famous characters, but perhaps it'd help to be more linear in terms of the development of ideas. I.e., follow a stricter chronology in terms of sub-head topics and within each one.
Eg. at the moment we jump from godwin and proudhon to the florence congress then back to the ego and its own. And within private property section have the (20th century) platform then next para starts 'later in the 19th century'.
As a suggestion - what about:
1) first agree on the discussion page an ordered list of subheaded topics
2) within each subhead use a strictly chronological approach.
As my clumsy stab at an ordered list of subheads:
godwin and proudhon - birth of modern anarchism.
private property - starting with proudhon's 'what is property'
individualism
(you know i'm not sure about including russian nihilism at all as a section - it is very country-specific, and not exclusively anarchist history by any means - eg. could argue as well that SR party was true successor of nihilist movement)
the international - development of anarchism as libertarian tendency within working class movement
propaganda of the deed / insurrectionary anarchism (don't these two belong together?)
pacifist anarchism - debates around violence (would also mention debates over 1st world war here) - tolstoy
syndicalism
feminism
russian revolution - the platform
anti-fascism - spanish civil war
I think looking at my schema I would tend to work more around historical events and movements, and the way ideas fed off actions, more than as it currently is. I don't think this is a bad thing in a historical account - to situate anarchism within working class revolutionary history rather than as if ideas are are born in the air.


Bengalski 14:34, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

Okay so I've done quite a lot to it now. If people don't like what I've done, revert by all means, I won't be offended. If I don't hear any objections to my approach I'll be back and do more. I think I've probably made the syndicalism section too long. Also I took out nihilism - I don't really think it belongs here, or maybe a paragraph as background to russian anarchism. But it's below if someone wants to paste it back in.

Bengalski 18:09, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

That's enough now. Some of the sections I've edited have become pretty long - if people are happy with general idea of what I've done, maybe someone could trim it down a bit. Particularly syndicalism and communism sections look a bit extended.

Bengalski 23:24, 26 October 2005 (UTC)


Great edits! --albamuth 06:06, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

Nihilists - 1860's

Main article: Nihilist movement

Nihilism was not a political movement. It was a youth culture. Nevertheless, it led to the politization and radicalization of the Russian youth. Many revolutionaries like Nicholas Tchaikovsky, Sophia Perovskaya, Sergei Kravchinski, Vera Zasulich and Sergey Nechayev were adept of Nihilist values.

Nihilist political philosophy rejected all religious and political authority, social traditions, and traditional morality as standing in opposition to freedom, the ultimate ideal. In this sense, it can be seen as an extreme form of anarchism, but devoid of a revolutionary programme or political strategy.

Nihilism greatly resembled anarchism, though there are three main differences:

  1. Nihilism did not see the State as absolutely bad. Reforms that would lead to fundamental changes in society were considered to be possible. This is not the case with anarchism.
  2. Nihilism was more along the lines of a cultural rejection of all systems of authority and all social conventions. Anarchism is more along the lines of a political strategy which puts more emphasis on promoting and furthering a definite constructive revolutionary programme, although anarchism definitely places importance on opposing systems of authority as well.
  3. As a political movement, nihilism was primarily a Russian phenomenon.

Nihilists made an impression to young radicals in Russia, such as Alexander Berkman. As he writes in his biography, Life of and Anarchist (ISBN 1583226621), Berkman was fascinated by the revolutionary zeal of the nihilists. In 1892 Berkman attempted the assassination of Henry Clay Frick, inspired by Johann Most's endorsement of propaganda of the deed.

Socialist POV cartel back?

Just as I was starting to think that the NPOV article was quite good and amazingly stable, the socialists have come back. They've totally rewritten the article (quite badly), and eliminated all non-socialistPC material (where's Edmond Burke and Vindication of Natural Society?; what's this shit about "social hierarchy"?, and so on.)

Edmund Burke's essay was a satire, not a genuine advocacy of anarchism. Edmund Burke himself said this explicitly and it seems fairly backed by the fact that it went completely against everything else he ever advocated in his life. Or maybe we should edit the canabalism page to indicate that Jonathan Swift made a serious proposal that we sell impoverished children to rich people in the form of foodstuffs? Revkat 19:38, 30 October 2005 (UTC)
See my comment in the Burke section. Vindication was the first thing Burke wrote, when he was a youngster and before he went "conservative." Of course he denied it after he went statist.
He wrote "A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful" only one year later. As anyone who has read both can see (I would be happy to provide urls to both if you haven't), Vindication was written in a style very different than everything else he ever wrote, and the Enquiry was actually compatible with his later writings. Vindication was stylisticly nearly identical to the writings of Bolingbroke, the target of the parody. Now, hey, if you want to deny the words of Burke himself and guess that he was actually lying, and that he went through a huge transformation in character and style in the space of only a year that lasted for the rest of his life, and ignore the views of the vast majority of historians who have written on the matter, and reject all evidence of style and consistency that runs contrary to your theory, and base everything only on the idle speculation of Rothbard (which you seem to have inherited), then go right ahead. But fantasies of possible hidden motives are not a basis for an encyclopedia, and we have as alternatives far more concrete and certainly more consistent writings in both Godwin and Proudhon, both of who have actual ties to the anarchist tradition that followed from them. Revkat 02:08, 31 October 2005 (UTC)


Revkat: "Vindication was written in a style very different than everything else he ever wrote."

Correct. Burke was imitating the style of a famous writer, as many young writers do. Haven't you ever tried to imitate, e.g. Mark Twain?

Revkat: "Enquiry was actually compatible with his later writings."

Yes, but Enquiry is also compatible with Vindication. (In ideas, not style.) Enquiry is quite compatable with both anarchism and conservatism, since it has nothing to do with politics. Enquiry is about asthetics. (Did you really read it?)

There is nothing in Vindication that strikes me as parody. Read it yourself and judge. Hogeye 21:55, 31 October 2005 (UTC)

I have, and the overflowing style of Bolingbroke seems an obvious parody, not only to myself but to the majority of historians, and to Burke himself who often criticised that style as overblown and meaningless. Again, you seem to be offering nothing but speculation to make your case, which makes me wonder why we should prefer whispers about Burke's real motives behind his back to the clear and unambiguous writings of both Proudhon and Godwin? If we are going to go onto wild speculations about people's real intentions, why not speculate that Rothbard only tried to revise historian consensus as concerns Burke in order to create the apperance of a conservative link to anarchism that doesn't actually exist? But neither of these unsupported fantasies, regarding Rothbard or Burke, is appropriate for an encyclopedia, which should rely first and foremost on source material. If Burke says it was a satire (and he did), and there is controversy over whether it was or not by a small number of individuals who may even have a vested interest in a particular interpretation, then my first impulse is to take Burke at face value until there is evidence to suggest that I shouldn't. Once you can supply such evidence, as opposed to further conspiracy theories, I'd be happy to accept the claim. Revkat 22:20, 31 October 2005 (UTC)
There is nothing ambiguous about "Vindication." It is clearly anarchist. You seem to be falling for the genetic fallacy - the essay comes from someone who became statist, so the essay (despite everything it says) is tainted. But you admit that you are not considering the content and ideas, only the style.
Yes, Burke claimed it was a satire ... many, many years later when he had a established position in the ruling elite. Obviously, this is an older version of Bill Clinton's "I smoked dope when I was young, but I didn't inhale." Hogeye 23:20, 31 October 2005 (UTC)
I didn't say it was tainted, I said it was a satire. You want to base a claim to the first anarchist essay off of a satire that you have speculated was not a satire. I would prefer that an encyclopedic article such as this one be based in fact, not speculation, and it so happens that both of the other two historical figures in question are undeniably anarchist in their writings. I'm not sure how I can make this any more clear to you. Revkat 02:20, 1 November 2005 (UTC)

The "majoriy" of historians do not believe Burke's style in Vindication deviates from his later works. Godwin cited Burke as a predecessor. Warren and Tucker praised it and Tucker reprinted it. It was clearly significant to individualist anarchism... which is real anarchism, right? See my posts on Vindication in the previous archive that you did read. MrVoluntarist 18:07, 1 November 2005 (UTC)

I'm not sure how many times I have to say I read them before you will believe me. Am I supposed to be so bowled over by your claims that I can't help but agree? I'm sorry, but all I see are a few claims that in themselves seem to mean nothing at all, but perhaps I'm missing something. I think Telemachus summed it up pretty well, "When you add it up: Godwin had already formed his own opinions; a friend (name, please?) of Warren liked it; Tucker wrote the equivalent of a positive "book review" for it."
Except that I'm not even sure I would go that far yet. Telemachus requested a source from you for one of the claims (that from what I can tell was never provided), I would prefer a source for all three to see for myself if your interpretations hold. Revkat 09:22, 2 November 2005 (UTC)
You think Telemachus summed it up pretty well? What a joke! Did you read what he wrote? His entire tone did not allow any debate on the topic. No matter how much evidence you gave him, he would shrug it off. If you told him Tolstoy supported non-violence and gave dozens of quotes from his books, he would say "Oh, okay, so he wrote a little about it here and there and maybe told some Hindu it was a good idea." All Telemachus did was present his person opinion and analysis of the evidence, which counts for nothing on Wikipedia. The fact is, some historians have deemed it serious, and that its style matches his later works. And even if ALL that happened was that Tucker wrote a positive "book review" (???) of it (he reprinted it, but what's a reprinting between friends?), that would STILL make it relevant to the history of anarchism as the first essay advocating anarchism that other anarchists recognized as such an essay. The source for all three should be in Rothbard's essay that was probably linked in one of the versions of the article you wiped out or in the archives. But since you're familiar with Liberty (given that you do regard individualist anarchists as genuine anarchists despite their support of markets) it should be easy to find. I'll get to your comments below later. MrVoluntarist 14:17, 2 November 2005 (UTC)
It is a little strange that you dismiss Telemachus as doing nothing more than presenting his personal opinion and analysis of some evidence, when you still haven't offered any source for your evidence and spent most of your time expressing your personal opinion. I'm sure I could dig through the issues of liberty to document your claims, but the least you could do is tell me the issue to look in, especially given the fact that it is your evidence in question and to my knowledge not all of liberty is available online (so documenting your claim would require some footwork for me). As for Rothbard's essay as previously linked from this page, feel free to check it out yourself:
William Godwin, the late eighteenth-century English founder of communist anarchism, hailed the Vindication as a precursor of his own viewpoint. On the other hand, an English disciple of Josiah Warren’s individualist anarchism reprinted the Vindication in 1858, with appropriate marginal comment, and it was highly praised and reprinted by Benjamin R. Tucker in Liberty in 1885. On balance, it would be fair, though inconclusive, to place the Vindication in the individualist camp, since there is no sign of enmity to private property as such in this work.
I don't see a single source for any of these claims, do you? Maybe they were all removed when the article was put online, or maybe good ole Murray kept them in his head. At least we now know exactly where you got it all from, since you cribed his three pieces of evidence directly and, like Rothbard, failed to mention who this anonymous disciple of Josiah Warren was. Anyway, of the three the strongest is also the weakest, if Godwin claimed it was a precursor that is an actual link of a sort, but a link that also distances the essay from anarchism, because a precursor (as I'm sure you already know) is something that comes before. Its one thing to say that Godwin (a man who never used the term and came before those who did) is an anarchist precursor, its another claim a link of the precursor's precursor. That provides the kind of intimate relationship between Burke and anarchism that would be shared by the likes of Aristotle, Christ, and emperor Norton. The second claim is just silly in its relevance, unless proper documentation shows it to be more than is indicated. The third would count for something in theory, but that all depends on exactly what Tucker said (he translated and said a lot of nice things about tons of things he disagreed with, I can cite this if you would like), which means that we need a source not only to know that it is a fact, but also to know what the fact is.
And BTW - I didn't "wipe out" anything. The new version of the article was mostly completed by the time I showed up, and the Burke claim had (rightly) been removed before that. All I'm doing is standing up for the legitimate action of another editor, this isn't a personal thing between us. Revkat 17:54, 2 November 2005 (UTC)

Versions

I have to say that the version that some are trying to replacing the previous version with is quite bad. I'd like to stick with the old version. Also it's best to modify an article incrementally than to attempt a coup like this. Replacing a whole article isn't kosher. I see there was a little vote of "support" thingy among 4 or 5 people, but I don't think that's good enough. I would have voted against it if I was aware of the "vote" and it looks like some others feel the same way. I'm just registering my opinion here to make it known that there is a lack of consensus. PlayersPlace 19:16, 30 October 2005 (UTC)

Actually there were 8 people for it and 1 against, and it would appear that this page has been entirely reverted by many people in the past, so the current version you are reverting to is itself the product of such an effort. Revkat 19:40, 30 October 2005 (UTC)
Perhaps there's a natural instability in the article. I.e. People satisfied with the article tend to look at it less and less frequently, especially if it appears stable. People who don't like the article start accumulating, and eventually pull off a coup. This is repeated indefinitely, except when both factions are well-represented causing an edit war. - Hogeye
I didn't vote on it. I wasn't aware of such a vote. So I'm registering my vote now. PlayersPlace 19:45, 30 October 2005 (UTC)
Me, too. - Hogeye
Are you two disagreeing with the poll? Please show which poll(I though it was the one above) and show why there was no consenses. Thank you.Voice of All
I'm not disagreeing with the poll..whatever that means. But the poll was taken in the past and only represented those that voted. This is the present and if there was a consensus then, there's not one anymore. PlayersPlace 00:03, 31 October 2005 (UTC)

Hogeye

Hogeye has a known history of bad faith edits and vandalism to this article (see previous talk archives). Hogeye has been previously banned for the use of sockpuppets and various other bad behavior. Interesting how now that this user is back to reverting the recent progress made on this article, suddenly PlayersPlace (check the user contributions) and various anon ips show up doing the same.

New contributors should be aware that this user has not shown any interest in a high quality, NPOV anarchism article, but instead engages in POV edit wars and vandalism. --Bk0 (Talk) 19:49, 30 October 2005 (UTC)

Tsk, tsk. Ad hom. Readers are welcome to judge my seriousness by looking at User:Hogeye/Anarchism, or my edits on other articles. - Hogeye 20:12, 30 October 2005 (UTC)
I have taken up Hogeye's offer to evaluate his edits of articles. From all appearances, he went so far as to violate his ban from wikipedia by using multiple anonymous services and totally ignored the requests of more than one administrator to cease his activity, even deleting multiple warnings from his talk page. There is no way to know if he is Playersplace, but the sudden appearance of each of them seems rather suspicious given his past behaviour.
However, all of this is neither here nor there. What is important is that at least two people (RJ and Hogeye) seem to have objections to the new page. I would like to hear what their specific objections are (saying it is POV is meaningless, as both pages have POV problems) so that we can know exactly what needs to be done to both versions to account for the disagreements. Revkat 22:52, 30 October 2005 (UTC)


Sarge: "This article has been fairly calm."

Right - the article was quite stable until some asshole(s) deleted the whole thing and replaced it with the "historical" article. Hey, why don't you "historical" folks keep your POV shit in a separate article like you were doing?

Wikipedia:No personal attacks --Bk0 (Talk) 22:38, 31 October 2005 (UTC)

Revkat: "I would like to hear what their specific objections are."

1) 1st sentence. Anarchists are against rule/authority. They are not (necessarily) against "social hierarchy" so long as it is voluntary. Certainly, being against "social hierarchy" is not part of the definition of anarchism.

2) 2nd sentence. Anarchists are not (necessarily) against private ownership. (Both modern anarcho-capitalists, and old-timey individualist anarchists strongly support private property.) Anarchists are not necessarily against profit and rent.

3) 3rd sentence. Anarchists are not (necessarily) for a society where one must get the permission of anyone "affected" to act. Anarchists are for freedom, not slavery to the masses or random others. Many belive that it is permissable to do whatever one wills so long as it doesn't violate the rights of others (so long as it is non-aggressive.)

Those are objections to just the first three sentences. Obviously, as soon as the real anarchists were satisfied with the article and left, the socialists came back and are now trying to recapture the article. Hogeye 21:45, 31 October 2005 (UTC)

PS: BK0, please don't censor my posts. If you are truly hypersensitive to "profanity", then use a strikethrough, so less uptight folks can still read it.

Removing personal attacks is an accepted recourse on Wikipedia. --Bk0 (Talk) 22:38, 31 October 2005 (UTC)
It would appear as though user Hogeye is unwilling to act in a civil manner during these discussions, this makes it more difficult to remain objective in seeking a solution.
Anyway, these objections all seem focused on the emphasis of one sub-movement to the detriment of the status of the page as it applies to all other anarchists. Individualist anarchists do, in fact, object to the kind of private property that is normally refered to by those terms today, the kind supported by anarcho-capitalists and capitalists in general, and their objection is already covered in that section. I think there is probably good reason along these lines for a disambiguation, and I've noticed that articles like libertarianism have simply declared at the begining that such and such article concerns the most popular meaning of libertarianism while controversial or contradictory sub-movements can be found elsewhere (libertarian socialism in that case, which is a bit odd given that many of the original libertarians were socialists). Anyway, since libertarianism has been erected as a featured article, I see no reason not to follow suit here in order to reach the same kind of status for this article. In fact, it would appear that some of the people involved in the objections to the historical version of this article have been active in the libertarianism article themselves and done nothing to object to its current strategy of single-sentence disambiguation. So it would seem consistent for them to support the application of the same solution to fix this problem. We make a one sentence disambiguation at the top of this article explaining where the anarcho-capitalist conception of anarchism can be found, and leave the rest to detail the far more widespread use of the term as anti-authoritarian (and thus anti-capitalist), both today and through history.
The current alternative being sought by Hogeye and RJ seems to be to undo a great deal of work that has progressed on the article since the old version, to hold up a clear large majority in favor of changing it, and to make the entire article center on the prefered definition of anarchism that is shared only by one of its many claimants. That, despite Hogeyes claims otherwise, certainly doesn't seem unbiased.Revkat 22:11, 31 October 2005 (UTC)
Also note Hogeye has threatened to "call in the troops from anti-state.com again" (a right wing libertarian/anarcho-capitalist site), apparently to help him conduct his revert war. See the edit summary for his most recent (as of this writing) reversion. --Bk0 (Talk) 22:36, 31 October 2005 (UTC)


Revkat: "these objections all seem focused on the emphasis of one sub-movement to the detriment of the status of the page as it applies to all other anarchists."

They are focused on the definition of anarchism. A POV definition with defines away legitimate schools of anarchism is counter to Wiki philosophy.

Revkat: "Individualist anarchists do, in fact, object to the kind of private property that is normally refered to by those terms today ..."

False. IAs support virtually all forms of private property as the meaning is understood today. The only exception to their support of private property is unused land.

BTW, in the past I have suggested a neutral disambiguation page (see history and talk) but most folks hated the idea.

Revkat: "The current alternative being sought by Hogeye and RJ seems to be to undo a great deal of work..."

The NPOV article, I daresay, has involved even more work ... but that's really irrelevant of course. What we want is an accurate, unbiased article, isn't it? Hogeye 22:45, 31 October 2005 (UTC)

You seem to have completely ignored my suggestion. According to the standard you are suggesting, the libertarianism page currently "defines away" libertarian socialism. Glancing through the history of the libertarianism article I see that you were one of its editors, so certainly you must be familiar with the way it is currently set up. Why not set this page up in a similar way?
And no, individualist anarchists do not support virtually all forms of private property. Stirner did not support it at all, Tucker did not support vast accumulations of wealth that interfered with the free market, none of them actively supported private property entitlement used to enforce interest, and only one that I know of supported entitlement to rent enforcement. Their conception of property followed from Proudhon's and he clearly forked the modern concept of property into two distinct concepts, possession based on labor and occupation, and entitlement based on coercive force. For you to take a set of nuanced and diverse positions of the individualists and blanket them with the judgement that they "support virtually all forms of private property as the meaning is understood today" is an inaccurate oversimplification that borders on outright misrepresentation. Revkat 02:16, 1 November 2005 (UTC)
I don't really consider Stirner to be an individualist anarchist (though perhaps he's a forerunner.) Please document your claim that Stirner "did not support it (private property) at all." The Wiki article says otherwise, i.e. "'Power' is of central importance for Stirner, and can best be described as a form of mental creativity, represented as the key to psychological and social possibility of radical change. In Stirner's sense power, also referred to as the acquisition of 'property', has a broad meaning, ranging from the smile of the child, that acquires its mothers' love, over the sensual and material pleasures and meanings of taking what one desires, to the wholesale attribution of meaning, value and existence in language and life. Power in this sense is synonymous with the dynamics of utter autonomy, and the ability of change, of existence, of life itself." He sounds pro-private-property to me!
Maybe thats because you don't understand his position. I think you are confusing different senses of the word "property". Stirner was not refering to private property when he expressed the entailments of egoistic property, this article may help clear up the confusion for you,
This notion of ‘egoistic property’ is not to be confused with more familiar juridical concepts of ownership (such as private property or collective ownership). These more familiar forms of property rest on notions of right, and involve claims to exclusivity or constraints on use, which Stirner rejects.
Let me illustrate what Stirner was trying to say with a few quotes. All of the following passages are from Ego and his Own, and show that whatever Stirner supported, it was not property (private or communal) in any normative conception of the term.
Private property lives by grace of the law. Only in the law has it its warrant—for possession is not yet property, it becomes “mine” only by assent of the law; it is not a fact, not un fait as Proudhon thinks, but a fiction, a thought. This is legal property, legitimate property, guarantied property. It is mine not through me but through the—law...
Thus the independent establishment of the State founds my lack of independence; its condition as a "natural growth," its organism, demands that my nature do not grow freely, but be cut to fit it. That it may be able to unfold in natural growth, it applies to me the shears of "civilization"; it gives me an education and culture adapted to it, not to me, and teaches me e. g. to respect the laws, to refrain from injury to State property (i.e. private property), to reverence divine and earthly highness, etc.; in short, it teaches me to be -- unpunishable, "sacrificing" my ownness to "sacredness" (everything possible is sacred; e. g. property, others' life, etc.).
Stirner argued against property in favor of the war of all against all,
Let me then withdraw the might that I have conceded to others out of ignorance regarding the strength of my own might! Let me say to myself, what my might reaches to is my property; and let me claim as property everything that I feel myself strong enough to attain, and let me extend my actual property as far as I entitle, i.e.—empower, myself to take.
Here egoism, selfishness, must decide; not the principle of love, not love-motives like mercy, gentleness, good-nature, or even justice and equity (for justitia too is a phenomenon of—love, a product of love): love knows only sacrifices and demands “self-sacrifice.”
Now, you can call that private property if you want, but you could just as easily call it no property or all property (as Stirner did at times). It is not a system of justice in distribution of property rights as any propertarian seeks, but a war against property and any of the other "ghosts" that exist only in our minds and haunt us, leading some to communism and others to capitalism. Revkat 23:27, 2 November 2005 (UTC)
Tucker was definitely a supporter of private property (with the one exception cited re unused land.) Your statement, "Tucker did not support vast accumulations of wealth that interfered with the free market," is true. But that does not imply that he was against private property. He was against government privilege/monopoly which often let to vast accumulations of wealth. He opposed a process - statist aggression - not private property. Similarly, he opposed the conduct of charging rent/interest, not private property per se. Hogeye 18:46, 2 November 2005 (UTC)
Tucker was only "a supporter of private property with one exception," if we talk about a form of labor totally divorced from the entitlement that modern day capitalists (and anarcho-capitalists) support. For Tucker, the entire basis of property rested in labor,
Anarchism considers the greatest amount of liberty compatible with equality of liberty the fundamental law of social expediency, and that nearly all Anarchists consider labor to be the only basis of the right of ownership in harmony with that law" (liberty and property)
Let me emphasize "LABOR IS THE ONLY BASIS" for property according to Tucker. As such, he was not a supporter of normative private property with "one exception". Rather, he supported a kind of property with a completely different foundation, and his rejection of unused land entitlement was merely one entailment of this, not an exception to the rule. It was joined by his rejection of rent beyond cost, wage beyond labor, and accumulations of property that obstructed the free flow of labor, all of them entailments of this radically different basis for property. He followed Proudhon in distinguishing between that property which was the root of tyranny (based on coercion), and that which was capable of ensuring freedom (based on labor and occupancy). The private property supported by capitalists and theorized by anarcho-capitalists includes the very kinds of property that Tucker believed included illegitimate coercion, and again you are trying to pretend that a complex and nuanced distinction can be shoved into the form of a overly simplistic sound-bite. Now, if you want to change the text to "reject private property entitlement" go right ahead, because all the anarchists in this article once it is brought into consistency with the libertarianism article do in fact reject private property entitlement, but removing that part about property altogether because of the individualists, when they also rejected the kind of private property we are talking about, is just an attempt to cover up the extent to which individualists are distinct from capitalists. This game of switching your meaning halfway through a conversation but still using the same terms to refer to it is nothing more than rhetoric that is getting in your way, and that is one of the reasons Proudhon so insisted on distinguishing property from "possession", for fear that people who make the exact mistake you are making right now. As Robert Neuwirth writes,
there's a difference between property and possession. Property turns land into a commodity: people own land not to use it, or because they need it for survival, but simply as an investment. Possession guarantees personal use and control rather than profit. For Proudhon, property, not money, is the root of all evil... Revkat 23:27, 2 November 2005 (UTC)
Most anarcho-capitalists also think that "labor is the only basis for property." That's conventional liberalism. RJII 03:16, 5 November 2005 (UTC)

Protected

This page has been temporarily locked from editing for 3RR/edit war problems. Please resolve any disputes here, on the talk page. Thank you. Voice of all 20:52, 30 October 2005 (UTC)

Hm? This article has been fairly calm. I would strongly agree with Bk0's suspicion that "PlayersPlace" is a Hogeye sockpuppet, based on this user's record and the very limited history of this new "user". There was a clear vote of support for the historical version, and even if the poll does not suggest immediately replacement, there hasn't been any opposition outside of Hogeye (and "PlayersPlace"), and things have been progressing on the article. Sarge Baldy 21:34, 30 October 2005 (UTC)
I'll keep it locked for today, and unlock tommorow, if sockpuppets want to revert again, then they will likely get 3RR punishment or get blocked for Disruption. Voice of all 21:45, 30 October 2005 (UTC)
So you accuse me of being a sockpuppet and threaten to block me knowing good and well that you have absolutely no evidence to back that up. Some administrator you are. Wikipedia is a joke if youre allowed to get away with that. PlayersPlace 00:18, 31 October 2005 (UTC)

Ensuring consistency

I have edited the intro of this article to point to anarcho-capitalism and removed the section on anarcho-capitalism. This is an attempt to mirror the status of the libertarianism article in regards to the lesser known libertarian socialism, please take a moment to look at each article and compare. It is my belief that given the featured status of the libertarianism article, its relative stability compared to this article, and the clear similarity of the subject matter, this is a road toward a legitimate compromise. I would ask that the two major catalysts of the ongiong edit war of this article (RJ and Hogeye), both of whom have also edited the libertarianism article, please ensure that you are consistent in any standard you apply to this article. Hopefully this will help us reach the point of stability that the civil editors of libertarianism have been able to do in the relative absence of constant antagonism. Revkat 16:52, 1 November 2005 (UTC)

I have no problem with this as long as you document why specifically you feel that most people do not use "anarchism" to mean just "opposition to the state". Please justify the source you use to make this claim. And good luck. With "libertarianism", you can look through the history of English periodicals and you find that "libertarian" unambiguously refers the the capitalist sense (unless qualfied, like "civil libertarian" or "left-libertarian" - and by the way, the last one can actually refer to capitalist libertarians who emphasize personal liberties, or to geo-libertarians). MrVoluntarist 18:00, 1 November 2005 (UTC)
Of the two things you ask for one is easy and the other is basically impossible given the data we have. But just as it is not possible to make a real gauge of the extent to which anarchism means only opposition to the state, there has not been any substantial evidence indicating that libertarianism is commonly used to mean only libertarian capitalism. So any efforts we make in that direction are going to be fruitless wastes of time. Still, in case you think there is no evidence on that point, I will explore it below. But first lets check out your own claim. Why do you feel that the history of English periodicals indicates that the use of "libertarianism" unambiguosly refers to capitalist libertarianism? While you have required a "justification of source" from me, you haven't even provided a source to justify in your case. But don't worry, I can provide as much counter evidence to your claim that in the "history of English periodicals" "libertarian unambiguously refers [sic] the capitalist sense" as you wish to look at. So lets get to some sources,
  • There is "Revolutionary Catechism" written in 1951[1] in which Bakunin (whom I hope we both know was a socialist) describes the political equality he seeks as "libertarian". The article commentary also describes Bakunin as a libertarian.
  • According to this article, The title "libertarian" has been used, since the 1800s, by anarchists: people who reject government, capitalism and religion on the ground that each introduce hierarchy/authoritarianism/coercion into society." [2]
  • There is this article[3], a biography of Guy Aldred, who considered himself a libertarian and a socialist. You will notice that the article uses the words seperately to describe Aldred, as he did himself.
  • Here is a blog by an individual who details the history of the term libertarian as originally belonging to anarchists in general, rather than to capitalists, and also indicating the relatively small anarcho-capitalist portion of anarchism [4]
I hope that is sufficient evidence, if not I'd have a hard time imagining what would be.
I believe the reason that you make the mistake of thinking that socialist libertarianism is qualified because libertarianism implies capitalism stems from the simple fact that most libertarian socialists are more aware of their political opponents than are libertarian capitalists. This is not because they are better educated. Simply put, capitalism is an ideology that is ubiquitous in our current culture, so anyone who has heard the term libertarian has almost certainly heard it in the context of libertarian capitalism at least once, usually with an objectivist or minarchist or anarcho-capitalist (though they probably don't actually know that). Libertarian socialists, while considering themselves (and being) full libertarians in the unqualified use of the term, are more rare, and thus find the need to qualify themselves in order to distinguish themselves from capitalists. This is not because libertarianism means or implies capitalism, it is because capitalist libertarians are more common, and socialists who are libertarians are thus required to be more precise when refering to themselves than capitalists are.
The same argument could be applied to anarcho-capitalism, which is a much smaller tradition than anti-capitalist anarchism, and thus the reasons for having libertarian socialism merit little more than a by-line in libertarianism apply to anarcho-capitalism in this article. Obviously anarcho-capitalism should be mentioned, but a quick referance at the very top of the article should suffice. Unless, of course, some kind of double standard is being applied by the editors of the libertarianism article (who happen to be some of the same ones causing a fuss here).
As for your second requirement. There is simply no way to document in any form how "most people" use a term short of extensive poling or a rigorous academic survey (probably requiring echelon), and neither has been performed for either word. As such, this requirement hasn't strictly been met for the libertarianism article either. Thus, we are relying on the "general sense" of wiki editors, which is bound to fail and contradict at times. However, I think that a look at most dictionaries can indicate that anarchism is not generally taken to mean only opposition to the state. Lets start with the online merriam-websters: "1 : an advocate of the doctrine of free will 2 a : a person who upholds the principles of absolute and unrestricted liberty especially of thought and action b capitalized : a member of a political party advocating libertarian principles"
Clearly it isn't the first, and the capitalized version is not what the current article refers to. Thus, it is 2a, which is entirely consistent with libertarian socialism, gives no indication of capitalism, and is not qualified with anything extraneous such as "left" or "civil" to worry about. So libertarian socialism qualifies.
As for anarchism, lets use the same dictionary. "1 : a political theory holding all forms of governmental authority to be unnecessary and undesirable and advocating a society based on voluntary cooperation and free association of individuals and groups"
Notice how it does not say "the state", but rather "all forms of governmental authority"? There is a reason for this, because there are forms of governmental authority that go beyond the state, as the word government will tell you in the same dictionary. In fact, governmental authority stretches to a wide spectrum of human action, and this alone is probably one of the reasons that anarchism is generally taken to encompass more than sound-bite sized rejection of authority. Of course, if you would like a survey of historical anarchists to provide evidence that they all believed anarchism went beyond "the state", I could provide that as well.
I would speculate that an informal survey of most mainstream news sources would reveal the same thing, that anarchism is not generally used by journalists to refer solely to "anti-statism". Anyway, I hope all of this satisfies your objection. If not, I'm afraid I might have to propose rather more stringent requirements on the status of libertarian socialism than are currently being applied to the libertarianism, and a complete overhaul to most of the claim made throughout the article, for the sake of intellectual integrity concerning the standard many of those same libertarian capitalists are applying here. Revkat 19:01, 1 November 2005 (UTC)

If you look at the archives, you'll see that I've already proved and documented that Proudhon, Kropotkin, and even Emma Goldman defined "anarchism" in a way that would include anarcho-capitalism. Hogeye 18:31, 2 November 2005 (UTC)

You didn't prove anything. Only your ignorance in this matter. You have always cited out of context these authors. How anarcho-communists like Kropotkin or Emma could include capitalism in anarchist theory and practice? --XaViER 19:21, 2 November 2005 (UTC)
I haven't been able to find the proofs you refer to. All I was able to find were a series of descriptions that were clearly cherry picked out of many others to give a particular impression, followed by a heavy dose of ideological interpretation. If you would like me to supply similar descriptions by each of these individuals concerning anarchism just as easily be interpreted to rule out capitalism, please just say the word. However, I would expect you to immediately drop this line of argument once they are supplied, for to continue to wiggle about in various interpretive struggles would only demonstrate my point that no proofs have yet been offered, and that you are making claims beyond your ability to back them. Revkat 23:50, 2 November 2005 (UTC)
Should we dig up the old chart of "invalid arguments" from the archives? This sounds like a broken record (you know, the old analog kind, made of vinyl). --albamuth 06:03, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

So the situation seems to be that every once in awhile someone cleans up the external link section because it has grown too massive, only to have people casually visit and throw a link to their-prefered-website(tm) and have it grow huge once more. I figure that rather than constantly deleting links that may actually have some relevance, it seems reasonable to be to cut down on the size and edits by moving the vast majority of external links to a separate page, in addition to my recent efforts to move them to pages specifically address their topic. I've done this now, being very strict and only leaving those links which appeared to apply to no specific submovement, region, topic, or obscure forum with three people typing back and forth. I've also brought in some links that were on this page at various times in the past. I encourage everyone with a few moments to spare to visit that page and add whatever external link clutter your heart desires. Revkat 21:32, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

Well nevermind, the page was speedily deleted for not conforming to wikipedia policy. Of course, it is rigidity in wikipedia policy that has continued to allow this page to deteriorate, with several admins unwilling to approach RfCs that arose from this page due to its "unstable nature". So now the letter of the policy is being followed in order to ensure that the spirit is destroyed, "Mere collections of external links or Internet directories. There is nothing wrong with adding a list of content-relevant links to an article; however, excessive lists can dwarf articles and detract from the purpose of Wikipedia." Which is exactly what will continue to happen to this article if something isn't done. As such, I'm standing by the removal of the links, almost all of which are already replicated several times on other pages. Revkat 22:09, 4 November 2005 (UTC)
Heh, all fixed now, move along =) Revkat 05:50, 5 November 2005 (UTC)

header is POV

The header of this article which ostracized anarcho-capitalism is POV. An NPOV anarchism article includes all forms of anarchism. RJII 06:40, 5 November 2005 (UTC)

Actually its NPOV either way, so long as all viewpoints are represented in the context of wikipedia emphasis does not have to be equal in the context of every article, its just a matter of what form of emphasis is most appropriate for a coherent article and to properly represent the subject matter. This solution is an attempt to make this page more stable by following the example of the libertarianism page, which has become a featured article and found a similar solution. Please refer to my proposal above. Revkat 07:32, 5 November 2005 (UTC)
I don't see anything intrinsically good about stability, if it's at the expense of having a biased article. This article is clearly biased if it ostracizes certain forms of anarchism. RJII 07:36, 5 November 2005 (UTC)
Gee, RJ, but the header at libertarianism is a-OK? I find it utterly ironic for you to talk about what's "NPOV" or "biased" when you clearly seem not to be at issue with this obvious hypocrisy. Sarge Baldy 17:03, 5 November 2005 (UTC)
The libertarianism article is irrelevant. RJII 17:04, 5 November 2005 (UTC)
Even if it were, and that's certainly contested, I still find it impossible to treat your claims at "neutrality" seriously. Sarge Baldy 17:36, 5 November 2005 (UTC)
I consider myself working to maintain NPOV on all articles, but you don't have to accept that. Whether *I* am "neutral" or not should not be the issue. The issue should be whether this article is NPOV. RJII 17:43, 5 November 2005 (UTC)
I see a pretty thin line between the neutrality of an individual user and that user's conception of what defines a NPOV article. Seeing as your argument applies directly to libertarianism, your selective use of POV implies either a) both these articles are acceptable in using the tag b) using the tag at either article is POV c) there is some fundamental difference between the use of the tag in these articles that remains unclear. Certainly the existence of such a glaring inconsistency represents a systemic POV, and this needs to be considered in addition to the independent NPOV of this article. Sarge Baldy 18:10, 5 November 2005 (UTC)
Including the header does not necessarily negate NPOV. The header states that this article focuses on one definition of Anarchism while providing a link to an article with a contrary definition. This is not POV since it does not claim that one definition is more correct than the other.
Should Libertarianism include the anti-capitalist Libertarians? Should Orthographic projection include the geometric and cartography definitions?
These articles all focus on one primary definition of the term while linking to articles with other definitions. Including all definitions in one article would confuse the issues since in most instances the definitions are used differently in different contexts. --jaredwf 18:08, 5 November 2005 (UTC)
The use of a disambiguation link ("an article discussing one particular meaning of a term has a link at the top (or, rarely, at the bottom) pointing the user to another page with a similar title") is suggested as a solution to "word ownership" problems by the NPOV tutorial. --jaredwf 18:41, 5 November 2005 (UTC)

It seems to me from the history of this page, like it or not, that anarchists and anarcho-capitalists haven't been able to cohabit here very successfully. Now you might argue that this is only natural, given that they hold essentially conflicting views - indeed it is at the very least highly controversial whether anarcho-capitalism should be considered a form of anarchism at all, but that's another debate which i know has been done to death before. On the other hand, maybe in theory they are all anarchists and should all get along. But even if true in theory, it doesn't seem to be happening in practice. This new approach may not be ideal from either point if view but it looks to me like the best compromise available. It has clear precedents on other wikipedia entries (including but not only libertarianism), it doesn't deny the existence of a-c or even the fact that they claim to be anarchists, and it gives a direction from the very top of the page for anyone who wants to know more about their views.

As for the libertarian page being irrelevant. Coming from outside the US, I have to say that I always thought anarchism and libertarianism were synonymous, and in either case as far from capitalism as you could get. It seems to me that anarchists have made a big compromise here letting one tendency from one country take over the libertarianism page. Again, we are talking compromises here not ideals. Is it beyond the a-cs to reciprocate? Bengalski 18:58, 5 November 2005 (UTC)

Perhaps the header could be reworded to be more NPOV:
Anarchism, in its most general meaning, is the belief that rulership is unnecessary and should be abolished. This page focuses on the most popular interpretation of what it means to abolish rulership: the elimination of all forms of government and social hierarchy. For more information about alternative interpretations, please see anarchism and capitalism.
I like that header better, because it seems very neutral. The current header makes it sound, as RJII has mentioned, like anarcho-capitalism is simply being left out because it does not meet the definition of anarchism (and thus is not true anarchism). I feel like my suggestion explains the controversy in a more neutral manner. Thoughts? -- Blah99 21:13, 5 November 2005 (UTC)
I like your header better. It is neutral, clear, and concise. --jaredwf 21:34, 5 November 2005 (UTC)
I prefer this as well. Sarge Baldy 21:38, 5 November 2005 (UTC)
Yes, that does seem a better header. Revkat 22:57, 5 November 2005 (UTC)
Hey guys, thanks for the positive feedback! I just changed the header. Well, that's my contribution for today! -- Blah99 03:34, 7 November 2005 (UTC)

How about this, which I feel better clarifies what the article tries to do?

This article refers to anarchism in its historical, anti-capitalist incarnation. For ideologies referred to as anarchist which favor capitalist economic relations see anarcho-capitalism.

Any objections?-- Revolutionary Left | Che y Marijuana 01:49, 6 November 2005 (UTC)

I prefer the heading offered by Blah99. This one still has a "so-called" sort of attitude in saying "referred to", and "historical incarnation" would seem to discount less traditional varieties, such as postanarchism, post-left anarchism, etc. Sarge Baldy 02:40, 6 November 2005 (UTC)

This article was purported to be an historical account of anarchism, but intentionally censors anarcho-capitalism. It's utterly FRAUDULENT! I'm not going to stand for it. I hope everyone else that's interested in an NPOV article to not stand for it either. RJII 03:33, 7 November 2005 (UTC)

Come on RJII, it's not that bad. If the page pretended like anarcho-capitalism simply did not exist, then that would be fraudulent. However, the current setup acknowledges that anarcho-capitalism exists, but it is not included on this page because a large number of people believe (wrongly, in my opinion) that anarcho-capitalism is not really anarchism. As Wikipedia writers, I don't think it is our place to tell people what to think (i.e. "anarcho-capitalism IS anarchism and should be described with all the other forms of anarchism"), but rather, our place is to structure articles to reflect popular distinctions between philosophies, even if our opinion is that the distinctions being made are arbitrary. -- Blah99 03:55, 7 November 2005 (UTC)
Sure, a large number of people think anarcho-capitalism is not anarchism. But, a large number also think it is. And, you're correct that we as editors shouldnt tell people what to think. Therefore, anarcho-capitalism should be presented (because after all it's called "anarcho" capitalism) and leave the reader to judge for himself if it's anarchism. There are even disputes among anarcho-communists and anarcho-syndicalists, with the former claiming that the latter are not real anarchists. For this article to really be NPOV it needs to present ALL anarcho philosophies. RJII 04:00, 7 November 2005 (UTC)
There's also claims by anarcho-communists that other anarcho-communists aren't anarchists. However, these opinions don't reflect the groups at large. Even anarcho-capitalists don't consider themselves "anarchists" in the broadest sense, they consider themselves the only anarchists and moreover generally identify with right libertarianism and not anarchism, in the same way that most anarchists identify primarily with anarchism and not left libertarianism. They're mirror opposites, and the policy should reflect that. It would be a hypocritical to do otherwise. You can keep talking about "NPOV", but it only makes me laugh when the exact same situation exists at the libertarianism article. On the contrary, it would be a systemic POV to keep such a glaring inconsistency. Sarge Baldy 04:34, 7 November 2005 (UTC)
I don't know where you're getting the idea that anarcho-capitalists don't consider themselves anarchists. Rothbard, their disciple, certainly considers himself an anarchist. Your claim is absurd on its face. If anarchism wasn't purported to be anarchism, it wouldn't be called ANARCHO-capitalism (or as Rothbard usually refers to it "private-property anarchism.") RJII 14:47, 7 November 2005 (UTC)
I agree that it is inconsistent. And from what I can tell, all the editors who are currently trying to push the anarcho-capitalism POV across the entire page have taken part in editing the libertarianism article and voted against any change to reflect libertarian socialism within the context of that article. Further, it seems that many people have already pointed this fact out, and they continue to ignore it and push an edit war here. One of these pages has got to change, until then wikipedia is only demonstrating the bald-faced hypocricy of its editors. I was trying to give a solution to the dilemma that worked for the libertarianism article to allow it to become a featured page, but apparently it only worked because the libertarian socialists were mature enough to accept it, while the capitalists seem to feel that things are only "fair" when the world revolves around them. Revkat 06:25, 7 November 2005 (UTC)
There's no need for the hostile tone. Blah99, I believe, is an anarcho-capitalist and is sensitive to the hyprocrisy. Frankly I'm not convinced that anarcho-capitalists in general (even if Rothbard did) consider themselves "anarchist", except through a redefinition of anarchism. As a former anarcho-capitalist, I didn't identify with the term, even if some do. RJ, I'm convinced, doesn't consider himself so much an anarcho-capitalist as an "American individualist anarchist", and appears to me to be fighting a cause that his clients wouldn't even care to have fought for them. As for another point, RJ seems convinced that all anarchists identify into separate "groups" somehow in competition with one another. Frankly most anarchists I've met don't identify under any of these rubrics, even if they might tell you they prefer a more green or feminist model. Anarchists primarily identify as anarchist, and not as "anarcho-primitivist" or "anarcho-communist". Anarcho-capitalists can't identify as anarchist without the clarifier, because they want to escape the connotations of that term, in the same way that left libertarians want to escape the connotations given to libertarianism in many English-speaking countries. Sarge Baldy 06:48, 7 November 2005 (UTC)
"I was trying to give a solution to the dilemma that worked for the libertarianism article to allow it to become a featured page, but apparently it only worked because the libertarian socialists were mature enough to accept it..." Are you sure it's not just laziness on their part? RJII 14:51, 7 November 2005 (UTC)
And Sarge wonders why I'm becoming hostile toward you. If I wanted to change the libertarianism page, I would not be trying to hold it up as a standard for this page to follow. Revkat 15:19, 7 November 2005 (UTC)
It's my understanding that most of the socialists think that the libertarianism article is POV --biased for right libertarianism. It looks to me like a cop-out on their part if they'll settle for a header that amounts to saying it's a POV article. I don't think putting a header on an article magically transforms it to NPOV, but rather, only serves to institutionalize POV. RJII 16:01, 7 November 2005 (UTC)

If RJII won't stop pushing his POV version of "anarchism", maybe we sholud start working on POV "libertarianism" page.--XaViER 08:13, 7 November 2005 (UTC)

If you think the libertarianism article is POV because it takes libertarianism to mean market libertarianism then why wouldn't you think this article is POV? It seems some of you guys have the opinion that two wrongs make a right. If the libertarianism article is POV, then making this article is POV doesn't settle the issue. All that does is make two articles inconsistent with the NPOV standard of Wikipedia rather than one. RJII 14:42, 7 November 2005 (UTC)
We don't (or at least I don't) think that the libertarianism article is particularly POV. There's such a split between right and left libertarianisms trying to synthesize them is impossible. Frankly I prefer the idea of it being left alone rather than turning it from a featured article into a cesspool. But what we do need is a consistent policy, or we're forcing a systemic POV. Sarge Baldy 16:43, 7 November 2005 (UTC)
Exactly, you are just institutionalizing POV if you just attach a header to POV articles. It's a bandaid for a real NPOV problem. I for one am not willing to sell-out the NPOV standards so easily. RJII 18:53, 7 November 2005 (UTC)
Odd, looking through the history of the libertarianism page I see that there was a vote some months ago to remove the header and create a disambiguation, and you voted against it on a technicality. So you have these high ideals, but when it comes to follow through you only look to enforce your policy on those philosophies you are hostile toward. Thus you have done nothing to object to libertarianism as a featured article, but you won't even let this article be stable a few days when it applies the same standard. That must be convienent for you. Revkat 02:13, 8 November 2005 (UTC)
I don't think the libertarianism article is POV since the NPOV tutorial suggests using disambiguation (e.g., a link at the top of a page) in order to solve problems of word ownership. For me, the definition of anarchism includes "the abolition of force and domination from human relations" [5]. Others may disagree with that meaning of the word anarchism and that is why a disambiguation is used like the NPOV tutorial suggests. It would be inconsistent and incoherent (e.g., Anarcho-capitalism and Anarchism have different definitions of capitalism) to try to explain all movements that claim anarchism on the anarchism page. --jaredwf 18:33, 7 November 2005 (UTC)
If you look at the various definitions from anarchists throughout history, they define pretty much as you just defined it --a society that interacts on a voluntary basis. What is or isn't voluntary is where the POV comes in, and we as editors shouldn't push our POV's on the readers. Anarcho-communists, anarcho-capitalists, and others, all regard their respective systems as voluntary --they all regard their systems as anarchistic. For this article to be NPOV it must present all such philosophies. Let the reader decide which philosophy is the "true anarchism" --not the editors. RJII 18:53, 7 November 2005 (UTC)
All of these philosophies may claim anarchism but the left-anarchism is the historical and most predominant. For this article to be NPOV, it could include all movements that claim anarchism or it could provide disambiguation as the NPOV tutorial suggests. --jaredwf 19:12, 7 November 2005 (UTC)
I will make this point more clear since it has been glossed over in the past. NPOV can be maintained by (a) including all anarcho-movements in one article or (b) providing links to other anarcho-movements. It only becomes POV if we claim one anarchism is the "true anarchism". At the moment, the anarchism article claims that one form is more popular than the others. Is this not true? --jaredwf 19:34, 7 November 2005 (UTC)
I don't know which kind of anarchism is more popular. Anarcho-capitalism seems to me to be very popular. But, that's not the question we should be asking. The criteria for including something in Wikipedia is notability --not popularity (especially not majoritarian popularity). RJII 19:45, 7 November 2005 (UTC)
No one is wanting to remove Anarcho-capitalism from Wikipedia so you skipped the actual argument. Have you read the NPOV tutorial? By that tutorial, NPOV can be maintained by (a) including all anarcho-movements in one article or (b) providing links to other anarcho-movements. --jaredwf 19:53, 7 November 2005 (UTC)

Headline is now total bullshit POV. And I'm a long suffering supporter of anarcho-capitalist inclusion within the movement. Just worded horridly. Was this vandalism? Was there a decision to change to this crap? --William Gillis 07:00, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

The header looks quite good to me. What wording specifically do you consider horrid or POV? Hogeye 23:57, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

first paragraph contains two contradicting sentences. "Anarchism refers to various political philosophies and social movements that advocate the elimination of the state" is the one that I take issue with because as has been discussed, Anarchism is about more than just the absence of classic government, but the absence of all rule. Anarchism is not "defined by what it is against". Anarchism is a positive assertion of freedom. Power structures are the imposition. This whole argument between positive and negative rights has continually been used to subvert this article by choosing tones of wording. Tone carries POV as much as anything else and it has cropped up in every version of the "positive v. negative" passage. To avoid this I suggest cutting down the second paragraph. Obviously it carries important information. But in this article's latest iteration it seems inexcusably POV.--William Gillis 04:30, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

on the art of POV warrioring

Well, if "links" is chosen, then all types of anarchism listed in the article needs to be just links. But, I don't see any good reason for that alternative. There is nothing to prevent each kind of anarchism to be discussed other than POV warriors. RJII 20:10, 7 November 2005 (UTC)
Well its not a good argument, but at least you profer an argument in favor of your tactic of POV warrioring. Still, I would prefer an article that is the product of the principles of wikipedia (like, say, consensus, discussion, compromise), and being a POV warrior is an express denial of those principles. Perhaps you've found the wrong project to work on? Revkat 16:17, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

"this article focuses on the most popular form of anarchism? what is that? there are many forms listed here. anarcho-capitalism is just as popular as many of the others listed" -- RJII

This article focuses on the most popular tradition of anarchism (i.e., the anti-capitalist one). This tradition "describes a moral-political ideal of a society untouched by relations of power and domination among human beings" [6] This tradition includes many specific forms but most agree that social hierarchy and government should be eliminated since they are relationships based on domination. Some anarchists, by this definition, are pro-"free market" but capitalism (usury, landlordism, tax, tariff) does not fit in this definition.
Anarcho-capitalism is a link because it does not fit the more popular tradition and definition of anarchism. Would anarcho-capitalists accept the definition that includes the elimination of social hierarchy? If they would, I see no problem with including them on this page. If they wouldn't, they are using a dictionary definition of anarchism (anarchism == no government) instead of the philosophical definition (anarchism == no domination, no rulers). -- jaredwf 20:32, 7 November 2005 (UTC)
Anarchism is not ordinarily defined as opposition to "social hierarchy." That's an anarcho-communist phrase. Individualist anarchists don't mention anything about social hierarchy. Look in various encyclopedias. For example, consult the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica that people seem to respect so much. It's not defined there as opposition to social hierarchy. By the way, how do you defined "social hierarchy"? RJII 03:24, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

I don't know how does it look in the USA, but in Poland there are 10-20 or so anarchocapitalists (mainly in academic circles) compared to several thousands anticapitalist anarchists. If this is not predominant, what is? Rothbard got an idea in 50s, that anarchism and neoliberalism are the same idea (both are trying to abolish or diminish the state), only reading stupid dictionary definitions (anarchism = abolishing the state), and knowing almost nothing about tradition of anarchist thought. These are two different anarchisms. And one of them is mainly product of Rothbard's imagination. --XaViER 21:21, 7 November 2005 (UTC)

My take is that anarchism comes from the roots "no rulers&;quot;, but either because most anarchists were anti-government anti-capitalists, or perhaps because of a lack of imagination on the part of many about what a world would look like without rulers, anarchism came to simply mean "anti-government anti-capitalists". But, whatever the reason, most people now think of anti-capitalism when they think of anarchism. So, it really doesn't bother me if anarcho-capitalism is put on another page. The fact that anarcho-capitalism is on its own page doesn't make it bad, it just makes it special, in my humble opinion. If one form of anarchism is the only one that really makes sense, and all of the other forms are just different branches of the same fallacious idea (capitalism is a form of rulership), then this division makes sense.
So, I'm sorry RJII, but I've chosen not to fight with you. If anarcho-capitalism isn't on this page, that's fine by me, as long as everyone knows where to find it. The only thing that would bother me is if this page takes a POV. For instance, saying "anarcho-capitalism isn't really anarchism", rather than saying a more neutral "Many anarchists consider anarcho-capitalism to be (insert cheap shots here)." As long as all the text is NPOV, it doesn't really bother me if someone has to click a few times to get to anarcho-capitalism. *shrug* I respect the fact that you stick to your guns, but I really think you're making a mountain out of a mole-hill. -- Blah99 02:15, 8 November 2005 (UTC)
If this article censors anarcho-capitalism then it is the same thing as saying "anarcho-capitalism isn't really anarchism." RJII 03:31, 8 November 2005 (UTC)
Not at all, it's just saying that it's not anarchism as that term is commonly used. Much as left libertarianism isn't libertarianism as that term is commonly used (in some areas, anyway). Sarge Baldy 04:43, 8 November 2005 (UTC)
Well it's not true. When one uses the term anarchism as it is "commonly used" is he talking about individualist anarchism, anarcho-communism, anarcho-syndicalism, anarcho-capitalism, anarcho-primitivism, or anarcha-feminism? If someone tells you he's an anarchist, is there anything you can be sure of other than that he opposes government? How anarchism is "commonly used" is opposition to government. RJII 04:51, 8 November 2005 (UTC)
I think it was clear that this is your personal opinion some time ago. At the moment that is all it is, repetition of your personal opinion. But there are lots of other people from lots of other places in the world where their personal opinion would not match your own, so I'm curious as to why you continue to find it so relevant. Revkat 16:17, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

I might take RJJ's avowals of NPOV-seeking goodwill more seriously if he didn't keep trying to import not just capitalism but fascism (his 3rd positionist 'national anarchism') into the page. Bengalski 01:55, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

If anything the fact that I'm putting national anarchism in exemplifies my "NPOV-seeking" goodwill. National anarchists oppose capitalism. If I was POV pushing, I wouldn't be putting in both national anarchism and anarcho-capitalism. Also, I'm the one who created the black anarchism article and fought to put it on this page. I also put individualist anarchism in the article. If you can see a POV in that, I'd like to know what it is. RJII 03:31, 8 November 2005 (UTC)
I would guess that the inclusion of nation-anarchism demonstrates your lack of knowledge of the subject matter. I'm sure "flat earth" people believe that their views are legitimate and notable, but the "earth" article does not include a single link to them nonetheless. They are included on wikipedia, as they should be, and as national anarchists should be, but I see no compelling reason to think that every crackpot group that shows up has equal claim to anarchism based on the existence of a handful of websites, especially when that group is one so obviously set apart from all other anarchists as the national anarchists are. Anarcho-capitalism is a different matter, its history being longer, its notability being greater, its ties to anarchism being (very slightly) stronger, thus it merits a link somewhere on this page. But again these are all matters of degree. To the average person anarchism itself is barely notable, and in comparison to anarchism as a whole anarcho-capitalism is a very minor movement. You seem to be basing all your arguments on an absolutist philosophy. Either we include everything even possibly related or we are doomed to NPOV violations. That might be internally consistent for you (though again your failure to edit libertarianism along these lines stands out), but lack of reasonable flexibility will make for a horrid article that does nothing to elucidate the subject. Still, if you really feel this strongly, maybe you should head over to the "earth" article and begin a crusade there.

Social Hierarchy and Anarchism

"individualist anarchists don't oppose 'social hierarchy'" -- RJII

If a social hierarchy exists, then anarchy does not. This is obvious from the etymology of the terms: an-archy (=absence of rulers) and hier-archy (=sacred rulers). In modern usage, hierarchy is a power structure where power allocation is based on status or authority. Obviously, in a hierarchy, there will be individuals who hold more power (i.e., rulers) over the others (i.e., ruled).

Individualist anarchists:

John Henry Mackay:

"I am an Anarchist! Wherefore I will
Not rule, and also ruled I will not be!"

Benjamin Tucker

"not necessarily absence of order, as is generally supposed, but an absence of rule."

Max Stirner:

"is an association, wherein most members allow themselves to be lulled as regards their most natural and most obvious interests, actually an Egoist's association? Can they really be 'Egoists' who have banded together when one is a slave or a serf of the other?"

Robert Anton Wilson[7]:

"I see anarchism as the theoretical ideal to which we are all gradually evolving to a point where everybody can tell the truth to everybody else and nobody can get punished for it. That can only happen without hierarchy and without people having the authority to punish other people."

Other sources:

Howard Zinn, Declarations of Independence:

"Anarchists, I discovered, did not believe in anarchy as it is usually defined—disorder, disorganization, chaos, confusion, and everyone doing as they like. On the contrary, they believed that society should be organized in a thousand different ways, that people had to cooperate in work and in play, to create a good society. But anarchists insisted, any organization must avoid hierarchy and command from the top; it must be democratic, consensual, reaching decisions through constant discussion and argument."

Liz A. Highleyman, An Introduction to Anarchism:

"The basic tenet of anarchism is that hierarchical authority—be it state, church, patriarchy or economic elite—is not only unnecessary, but is inherently detrimental to the maximization of human potential. Anarchists generally believe that human beings are capable of managing their own affairs on the basis of creativity, cooperation, and mutual respect. It is believed that power is inherently corrupting, and that authorities are inevitably more concerned with self-perpetuation and increasing their own power than they are with doing what is best for their constituents."

-- jaredwf 08:51, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

Really, RJII, I thought we laid this whole quibble about "social hierarchy" to rest long ago. I believe that was when you actually went and started changing the social hierarchy article (not a criticism, because I did, too). I don't know if it has improved much since your last edit (diff) Though the citations here make the usage clear, this also shows how the other article could be improved.--albamuth 09:18, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

The problem is "social hierarchy" is a vague term. Collectivists include wealth inequality as social hierarchy. You don't see other encyclopedias defining anarchism as opposition to social hierarchy because it's meaningless. For example:
    • "Anarchism, political theory that is opposed to all forms of government." -MS Encarta Encyclopedia
    • "cluster of doctrines and attitudes centred on the belief that government is both harmful and unnecessary." -Encyclopedia Britannica
    • "ANARCHISM (from the Gr. , and , contrary to authority), the name given to a principle or theory of life and conduct under which society is conceived without government - harmony in such a society being obtained, not by submission to law, or by obedience to any authority, but by free agreements concluded between the various groups, territorial and professional, freely constituted for the sake of production and consumption, as also for the satisfaction of the infinite variety of needs and aspirations of a civilized being." -Encyclopedia Britannica of 1911
    • "theory that equality and justice are to be sought through the abolition of the state and the substitution of free agreements between individuals." -Columbia Encyclopedia
None of these enyclopedias mention "social hierarchy" at all in the text of the articles, much less in the definition. The term is way too vague to define anarchism by it. It's not even used in any of the quotes from the anarchists above, so I don't know why you provided them. RJII 14:56, 8 November 2005 (UTC)
The definition of hierarchy (www.m-w.com) includes: 3 : a body of persons in authority. Now lets take a closer look at all the evidence you just gave, none of which is from primary sources like those used by Jaredwf. First Encarta, "According to Proudhon and his followers, anarchism would exclude authority from society, setting up extreme individualism.". Second Britannica, "Derived from the Greek root (anarchos) meaning “without authority,” anarchism, anarchist, and anarchy are used to express both approval and disapproval." Third Britannica 1911, "ANARCHISM (from the Gr. , and , contrary to authority), the name given to a principle or theory of life and conduct under which society is conceived without government - harmony in such a society being obtained, not by submission to law, or by obedience to any authority, but by free agreements concluded between the various groups". Last Columbia, "Also central in anarchism are the belief in individual freedom and the denial of any authority, particularly that of the state, that hinders human development."
I should note that this is an encyclopedia being written here, rather than a collection of other encyclopedias, so wherever possible we ought to prefer primary sources first. Rejection to social hierarchy is not only entailed by all of Jaredwf's evidence and your own, but referance to it is also a historical tendency amongst anarchists, so it is actually one of the better choices amongst many possibilities for descriptions that are both consistent to anarchism and representative of it as it has actually existed, rather than as someone who has little experience with it might theorize about it using only third party material as sources. Revkat 15:27, 8 November 2005 (UTC)
None of the orginal sources presented include the term "social hierarchy" either. I presented the encyclopedias just as an example to show how respected encyclopedias, which do much research, don't even mention "social hiearchy." The term is way too vague to mention. Take a look at the social hierarchy article. No one there seems to be able to figure out what it means. RJII 15:34, 8 November 2005 (UTC)
Most individualist anarchists did not use the word hierarchy but does this mean they were not against hierarchy? Most (if not all) individualist anarchists were against hierarchy.
Josiah Warren, Manifesto[8]:
Equitable commerce furnishes no offices to be filled by the ambitious and aspiring, no possible chance for the elevation of some over the persons or property of others; there is, therefore, no temptation here for such persons; and they will not be found among the first to adopt EQUITABLE COMMERCE. It appeals, first, to the most oppressed, the humble, the down-trodden, & will first be adopted by them and by those who have no wish to live upon others, and by those whether among the rich or poor whose superior moral or intellectual qualities enable them to appreciate some of the unspeakable blessings that would result from such a state of human existence.
The key in this quote is the elimination of the possibility for some individuals to become elevated over other individuals or other's property. Individualist anarchists are against hierarchy but it is obvious that anarcho-capitalists are not against hierarchy.
David Friedman[9]
"I think some voluntary forms of hierarchy are perfectly reasonable and consistent with anarchy"
Anarcho-capitalists are the only group that claims anarchy but does not claim the elimination of hierarchy or other forms of rule. -- jaredwf 21:25, 8 November 2005 (UTC)
I hope you don't think that Warren means an equal amount of property. What he's saying is that no person should be able to dictate how another uses his property. You don't think that the classical individualist anarchists were wealth egalitarians do you? I can dispell that notion easily. Anyway, I don't see anyone using the term "social hierarchy." RJII 21:32, 8 November 2005 (UTC)
No one is claiming equal property when they claim elimination of hierarchy. As long as the individual with more property does not have more power over the individual with less, it is not a hierarchy. A hierarchy presupposes an imbalanced relationship where one individual can dictate rules/terms to the other. -- jaredwf 21:40, 8 November 2005 (UTC)
What do you mean by someone with more property having more power over others with less? What does property have to do with having "power" over another? What do you mean by "power"? RJII 23:41, 8 November 2005 (UTC)
Power (Macht) is the probability that one actor within a social relationship will be in a position to carry out his own will despite resistance, regardless of the basis on which this probability rests. --Max Weber
By power is meant that opportunity existing within a social relationship which permits one to carry out one's own will even against resistance and regardless of the basis on which this opportunity rests. --Max Weber
-- jaredwf 00:37, 9 November 2005 (UTC)
That doesn't explain anything. What does property have to do with "social hierarchy"? Or are you as clueless as me as to what "social hierarchy" means? RJII 01:55, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

From a social science dictionary:

Hierarchy is the vertical organisation of society. By vertical is meant that people are ranked above and below one another according to their authority. Some societies are more hierarchical than others.[10]

The interesting distinction between Dominators and Egalitarians from Who Rules America?:

Dominators think that there are inherent inequalities among individuals and groups that justifiably lead to extreme hierarchy and social stratification. They emphasize competition and say it's a dog-eat-dog world. Down through the centuries they have believed in male superiority, racial superiority, and the need for kingships and nobilities to control ordinary people. In the nineteenth century, they wanted to restrict the vote to property owners. More recently, they resisted feminism, racial integration, and the extension of civil liberties and democratic rights to everyone.[11]
Egalitarians, on the other hand, are those who want to minimize arbitrary authority and hierarchy, and who believe that everyone should be accorded the same opportunity and respect in the political, economic, legal, and personal realms of life. They emphasize cooperation as the key to the good society. They deny that some individuals or groups are better than others, although they recognize that some individuals, but not groups, have unusual gifts for activities like art, athletics, music, or scientific research. [12]

We should probably add common anarchistic definitions of words like hierarchy, private property, capitalism, socialism, etc. It would make the article easier to read if we can all agree on the common anarchistic definitions.... -- jaredwf 22:38, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

Good luck with that. RJII 23:42, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

Round Earth POV

I would like to protest the state of the earth article on wikipedia. It is clearly a violation of NPOV policy that the article gives no links to "flat earth" and worse, indicates that the planet is sometimes called "terra". The only way to make that article neutral is to allow for a definition of earth that includes all possible claimants. For example, it should mention how god moved on the surface of the water before forming the earth [13], as is written in genesis, and the fact that the earth rests on a turtle, [14], as so many cultures have believed for so long. In particular, I object to this vague notion of "terra". You will notice that nowhere in Ms Encarta, Columbia Encyclopedia, or Britannica do you see any mention of this "terra" concept. It is POV to include "terra" when not all philosophies refer to earth as "terra", and this term is exceedinly vague, (www.m-w.com) "any of the relatively light-colored highland areas on the surface of the moon or a planet". I mean, it doesn't even state which planet is being refered to. Yet, despite this, the earth is refered to as "terra" in the very first sentence of the wikipedia article!

And please don't talk to me about "reasonable compromise" or putting issues in perspective. We must absolutely conform to the ideals of NPOV as I interpret them, POV warriors like myself are required to ensure that articles like "earth" remain balanced. Revkat 17:12, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

So hop to it if you think that article is POV. Don't bother us here about it. RJII 17:25, 8 November 2005 (UTC)
I ask only that you join me in this righteous crusade. After all, you said, " I for one am not willing to sell-out the NPOV standards so easily." So you must be as ready as I am to tackle this issue on any page, be it the earth article, the libertarianism article, or this one. Please, don't defile our pure intentions by focusing on only one article and one presentation (that happens to conflict with your preconceptions) at the expense of all of wikipedia. Join me in our struggles my friend, show that you are sincere in your professed beliefs! Revkat 18:04, 8 November 2005 (UTC)
Don't patronize me. RJII 18:35, 8 November 2005 (UTC)
I'm only trying to help you RJ. If I point out how inconsistent your expressed ideals are from your actions, then maybe you will learn to better mask your actual intentions so that your insincerity isn't so evident. 18:51, 8 November 2005 (UTC)
Actually, the Earth article does have the passage "...In the past there were varying levels of belief in a flat Earth...", complete with a Wikilink to "flat Earth". *Dan T.* 17:56, 8 November 2005 (UTC)
Saying that this is enough would be as silly as suggesting that a warning made at the very top of the article and pointing directly to anarcho-capitalism is enough. Nonsense, we flat earthers must change every sentence in the article refering to "sphere"s or "planet"s for NPOV to be maintained! Revkat 18:04, 8 November 2005 (UTC)
Take it to Earth, Kevehs. RJII 18:17, 8 November 2005 (UTC)
I'm revkat, but I'd be happy to switch back to kevehs if you agree to stop being a hypocrit. Revkat 18:51, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

While the roundness of the earth can be easily proven scientifically, it is not as easy to prove that anarchism only refers to left-wing anarchism - indeed the last question is not a scientific but a sementic question. Mixing a scientific argument with a semantic argument...Revkat, we expected more and better from you ;). Luis rib 18:10, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

Who here is trying to prove that anarchism refers only to left-wing anarchism? Revkat 18:34, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

NPOV tag

Just noting I'm putting an NPOV tag on the article because the article is biased toward left anarchism. And, anarcho-capitalism is being censored. RJII 02:10, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

I removed it. Perhaps we should create a special template called NRJPOV : Not RJ's Point-of-View. --albamuth 07:30, 9 November 2005 (UTC)
That constitutes vandalism. RJII 12:52, 9 November 2005 (UTC)
Agreed, don't remove the tag. Sarge Baldy 18:21, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

Proudhon

RJ has been doing soem very selective quoting to try and make Proudhon into an an-cap. But I think he does raise an underlying point that needs addressing - Proudhon did later on give some different views about property which seem inconsistent with 'What is property.'

The way I see it is this (I don't claim to be an expert on the subject, but I think I'm closer to the truth than RJ):

- Proudhon's views in What is Property are fairly clear, as we have on the page

- Later on he changed his views to something which can no longer be called anarchism, or even ancapism for that matter

- So: In the context of an article on anarchism, we should focus on his early view as this is what has been taken up by later thinkers and the movement.

- But, as with Godwin, we can mention that he later moved away. I think this only needs to be a brief mention - this is a page about anarchism not Proudhon as such, and the details can be taken up on the Proudhon page.

I put a long post on the proudhon page going into the details of my doubts about RJ's quotes and his interpretation of Proudhon.

Bengalski 13:05, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

I'm doing no such thing. Proudhon is not an anarcho-capitalist and is definitely not compatible with anarcho-capitalism. Proudhon subscribed to the labor theory of value. Anarcho-capitalists don't. The former leaves no room for profit while the latter does. But, both support individual ownership of the produce of their labor. In ordinary terms that's private property --that which an individual owns as opposed to a collective pool (which is why the anarcho-communists condemned Proudhon). What essentially makes Proudhon incompatible with capitalism is his opposition to profit. Private property, while necessary for capitalism, is not sufficient for capitalism. Hence, his preferred economic system called mutualism (economic theory) (aka as market anarchism). Here is a decent article on his position: [15] "Proudhon was not against private property-his famous statement that "property is robbery" simply meant that privilege was robbery, that property had come to mean not only mere possession but monopoly privileges. The private property of privilege called forth and commanded the State and the government and, in order actually to establish free competition, free trade, and free contract, the government itself, instrument of privilege and monopoly must be abolished." RJII 13:18, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

I've reverted more highly selective quotations - this time trying to show that Proudhon was never an anarchist at all. Further discussion on Proudhon talk page .Bengalski 23:13, 10 November 2005 (UTC)

Don't think that I'm trying to push a POV by being bring forth "selective" quotes. It's of no consequences to me one way or the other whether Proudhon advocated the abolition of government. It's merely intellectual curiosity. I believe I'm satisfied from the quotes you provided on the Proudhon page, that early on he did advocate the abolition of government before he turned minarchist. RJII 05:08, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

I too have intellectual curiosity about these matters, and I don't mind debating them with you. But it'd be better on the talk pages rather than editing straight into the text before you're actually sure. Also, please go and read Proudhon instead of relying on third-hand out of context quotes. If I was you I wouldn't be satisfied with the two quotes I gave you either - I'd go and read the book for myself.Bengalski 10:56, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

Insurrectionary anarchism

Not sure about this section, which is mainly one long quote. Don't know much about it though so I've left it alone. Should this be expanded, or merged with something else? How do we link it historically to the other sections? Wolfi Landstreicher on his page is described as 'a contemporary anarchist theorist' - so should this be moved into contemporary anarchism?Bengalski 17:30, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

It's not really article-worthy, as it is more like a term than description of any movement. You could call anything "insurrectionary", ie. insurrectionary communism. --albamuth 07:54, 11 November 2005 (UTC)
Insurrectionary anarchism is definitely a distinct trend within the larger milieu. In this context it is not merely an adjective such as radical. Nihila 03:24, 17 November 2005 (UTC)
We're getting into the hair-splitting territory of post-revolutionary theory (eg, anarcho-syndicalism vs anarcho-communism) and pre-revolutionary tactical and strategic debate. "Insurrectionary anarchism" is not mutually exclusive to any so-called "school" of anarchism (except the obviously non-anarchist Rothbardites, but nevermind about that for now...), rather it is about emphasizing the act of insurrection as a key revolutionary strategy. Insurrectionary anarchism is as much a reaction against milquetoast liberal-influenced activist politics (which talk revolution but don't do much else) as it is a "school". There is no dichotomy. --Bk0 (Talk) 04:11, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

Vandalistic removal of NPOV tag

Albamuth and Bengalski have been removing the NPOV tag I placed there. An NPOV tag is not supposed to be removed unless the POV issue is settled. This article was NPOV a few weeks ago, but not anymore now that a few are trying to censor and ostracize anarcho-capitalism as if it's not a "popular intepretation" of anarchism. Do not remove the tag until the POV issue is settled. RJII 18:27, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

Vandalistic removal? User:RJII and User:Hogeye, both of which have refused mediation, arbitration, and in the latter user's case, was banned for repeated vandalism, are the only editors pushing for the NPOV tag. Both have repeatedly made edits in bad faith, both have time and time again tried to use disproven arguments, and both have been unrelentlying/uncompromising in their positions. There is no need for an NPOV tag as long as their edits are kept out of the article. --albamuth 20:33, 9 November 2005 (UTC)
Just noting for the record that the above comment was made in bad faith. As for the contents of the claim, I don't edit in bad faith. I don't try to use disproven arguments. I took part in extensive discussion in the last so-called "mediation." One claim is true, however. I am utterly uncompromising on NPOV standards. Don't expect me to compromise that. It will never happen. RJII 20:42, 9 November 2005 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Requests_for_mediation/Archive_17#Anarchism "The above is a misrepresentation of me and my position. Do not make anymore false claims about me. And, I do not wish to participate in this mediation. Thank you. RJII 20:29, 25 Jun 2005 (UTC)" --albamuth 21:00, 9 November 2005 (UTC)
I participated in the most recent "mediation." I didn't participate in that mediation because you misrepresnted me. I don't trust you and I won't mediate with someone who I think acts in bad faith. RJII 21:26, 9 November 2005 (UTC)
Ironic that you say I misrepresented you, when the claim I was making was that you were misrepresenting yourself! --albamuth 07:55, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

POV versions - Tit for Tat

Any version of the article which defines certain schools of anarchist thought out of existence is POV. Currently there is instability in the article due to alternately defining communism and capitalism as non-anarchist. The Schelling point is the NPOV article we had before the socialist-only so-called "historical article" overwrote it. I intend to use a forgiving tit-for-tat strategy - responding to a socialist-only move with a capitalist-only move, but occasionally responding with the NPOV article to see if the 'other side' is willing to compromise with that. This strategy has worked before here at Wiki. Hogeye 18:50, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

Albamuth on individualist anarchism

Albamuth, you deleted my changes in the individualist anarchism section with the explanation "purposeful misconstruing of individualism." Aside from your pathetic claim of bad faith on my part, what specifically was wrong with the edits? RJII 20:46, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

You continue to use the adjective "collectivist" to describe non-individualists. This term creates a false dichotomy, suggesting that the individualist-anarchists were somehow estranged from their contemporaries -- that is, other anarchists. Since we have discussed this point in so much detail before, trying to reinsert this language at this point not only ignores all of the past discussions, but illustrates your unwillingness to accept consensus. "Purposeful misconstruing" is part of your POV campaigning, which is why I reverted it. --albamuth 21:06, 9 November 2005 (UTC)
So because of that one word you wiped out all the edits? How ludicrious. More vandalistic behavior on your part. And, I am not ignoring "past discussion." Whether individualists are "enstranged" or not is not the point. The fact is, individualism contrasts with collectivism. Use the term "anarcho-communism" if you want; I don't care. But, it needs to be said what makes individualist anarchists NOT anarcho-communists. Don't wipe out a whole set of edits because you oppose one word. Your're out of line. Edit like a responsible editor. RJII 21:23, 9 November 2005 (UTC)
It was only a few sentences, ones I felt were corollary to the usage of that term. Nonetheless, the article is actually looking pretty good (right now). Moving on, what issues are preventing the NPOV tag from being removed, in your opinion? --albamuth 06:13, 11 November 2005 (UTC)
Mainly, the exclusion of capitalist anarchism from the article. The notion that one has to stick to the labor theory of value to be an anarchist is ludicrous. We as editors should not pick and choose what is or isn't true anarchism. For the article to be NPOV it must present all philosophies that represent themselves as a form of anarchism. The article was NPOV before, before "historial" article was imported as an attempt to censor anarcho-capitalism. That the article is supposed to be "historical" is even more reason to include anarcho-capitalism. Anarcho-capitalism happened, with the migration to the idea that value is subjective rather than intrinsic. Anarcho-capitalism can't be ignored. RJII 06:25, 11 November 2005 (UTC)
I don't see how it has anything to do with "sticking" to the labor theory of value. Postanarchism for one vehemently rejects that model, and post-left probably does as well. In fact, in my understanding of anarchist communism it rejects it as well, which is why it shies away from Marx and proposes a gift economy incompatible with traditional socialism or capitalism. Sarge Baldy 06:34, 11 November 2005 (UTC)
Anarcho-communists do accept to the labor theory of value. That's how they justify their opposition to profit. They choose another route than the individualists to prevent profit --the abolition of wages, private property, and trade. RJII 06:40, 11 November 2005 (UTC)


I did not introduce the historical epistemology approach to censor A/C, but because many people reflected the sentiment that the segmenting of the article into "schools" was misrepresentative. For the record, I never deleted the section on A/C from the article. Chronologically, I think it would fit between the section on Feminism and Punk Rock, but that might even be a bit early. Nobody (I mean people other than Rothbard) even started using the term "anarcho-capitalism" until about 5 years ago, as far as I know. --albamuth 06:35, 11 November 2005 (UTC)
From what I understand Rothbard coined the term "anarcho-capitalism," but he referred to it "private property anarchism" (as did Hoppe). The term "anarcho-capitalism" was in use in at least in the late 1960's or early 1970's: "the term 'anarcho-capitalist' is now in use in the USA - particularly amongst those who contribute to the Los Angeles publication 'Libertarian Connection'." (A Critique of Anarchist Communism by Ken Knudson 1971) Also, some historians consider a few individuals in the 1800's as advocating anarcho-capitalism, such as Gustave Molinari and Julius Faucher. RJII 06:52, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

labour theory of value

RJ you keep repeating this idea that anarchists oppose profit because they adhere to the 'labour theory of value'. This may be in some sense true for some individualists, but it has never been the case for any anarcho-communist theory that I know of.

I think you need to get a few things straight here:

1) You are using the term 'labour theory of value' in a very unusual way. What economists mean by this phrase, and what I have always taken it to mean, is something akin to a theory of price (though the difference between value and price opens up a different can of worms). I would recommend you look at the wikipedia labour theory of value page which is not perfect but at least a start at explaining some of the controversies in economic value theories.

2) You on the other hand seem to be using 'LTV' to mean a normative theory - that, when anarchism is in place, people will trade, or be rewarded however, according to their labour. This is something else altogether. And this is a model that is by no means universal amongst anarchists - it doesn't sit well with the classic communist creeds of 'each according to their needs'.

3)So I think there are two different things here - LTV as understood by economists, and a 'labour theory of just reward' model adopted by some but not all anarchist theorists. But you don't have to support either of these theories to oppose profit.

I would think a more common anarcho-communist argument against profit, and against private property as a whole, would be along these lines (as with Cafiero referred to in the article): property and/or profit allows individual accumulation of wealth; accumulation of wealth leads to inequality and social hierarchy. (And indeed to the return of the state as capitalists will use their wealth to create a new state to defend their capital). What has labour theory of value in either sense got to do with that?Bengalski 10:42, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

Many socialists/communists do use the LTV in a normative sense. The classic ("exploitation theory") argument against profit is that all value comes from labor, ergo profit is robbery. Thus workers should (normative) get all proceeds, the full alleged value of their product.
Bengalski, you do have a different (rather unusual) criticism of profit. You contend that saving is bad, and since profit-making can contribute to saving, then it is derivatively bad. I (and I suspect most people) reject your premise that saving ("accumulation of wealth") is a bad thing. I also note that your argument works equally well to condemn savings from labor. E.g. if a laborer manages not to immediately consume all his wages - if he has some foresight and self-control and doesn't blow his paycheck - then he is bad. In short, I find your rationale for opposing profit to be very weak - even weaker than the LTV rationale. Hogeye 18:49, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

Apologies for writing an essay to answer this, but it’s a subject that interests me a lot, so here goes:

Hogeye, if this were an arcticle on marxism then you would have a strong point. Marxist economists have often tended to conflate the two senses of ‘labour theory of value’ I tried to distinguish. A few anarchists who have been influenced by Marxist economics have tended to do the same – but it isn’t a defining characteristic of anarchist communist theory.

Certainly anarchists talk about exploitation. But I think it is a Marxist characteristic to tie exploitation to LTV. You can talk about exploitation without using a theory of ‘value’ – and I would argue that it is quite possible, indeed preferable, to read anarchist communist writings in this way. (Thus you could say that capitalism is exploitative and at the same time ascribe to a ‘subjective theory of value’, even neoclassical rational choice theory if you wish.)

the anarchist formerly known as prince

How so? Take a look at Kropotkin for instance (eg Conquest of Bread). If he has a labour theory of anything, it is a labour theory of wealth. What he is saying is: workers have created everything we have, all the overall, accumulated stock of ‘wealth’ in the world, all existing capital and consumption goods. Thus they are entitled to a fair share. As he sums it up in the last para of the preface: “All is for all! If the man and the woman bear their fair share of work, they have a right to their fair share of all that is produced by all, and that share is enough to secure them well-being.”

Or again in chapter 1: “In claiming that right [to well-being] they claim the right to possess the wealth of the community--to take the houses to dwell in, according to the needs of each family; to seize the stores of food and learn the meaning of plenty, after having known famine too well. They proclaim their right to all wealth--fruit of the labour of past and present generations.”

If this was a Marxist text (and not an 'analytical' marxist one like John Roemer's ‘A general theory of class and exploitation’), LTV might now come in as an explanation of how capitalists have managed to get disporportionate shares of the world’s wealth. But Kropotkin never does this.

beggars and choosers

As I read him, some of his main points are (mainly from chapter 4, ‘Expropriation’):

The main way that capitalists have expropriated stocks of capital goods is through outright theft and murder – ‘knavery’ he calls it. (Actually when he uses the term expropriation he means taking wealth back from the capitalists – but I think the term works well both ways.) As well as theft, capitalists might accumulate ‘initial’ stocks of capital through inheritance and indeed (though this seen as an insignificant part of it) saving from wages.

Once your capitalist has got some capital, he is in a position to appply it in a business paying the minimum possible to workers – who would otherwise starve. This is basically a bargaining issue (and I personally think the best way to analyse it in greater depth would be using modern bargaining theory rather than Marxist LTV). Kropotkin didn’t have game theory, but here’s his version:

“Take the case of a citizen of the middle class, who somehow or other finds himself in possession of £20,000 … our worthy citizen starts a factory. The banks hasten to lend him another £20,000, especially if he has a reputation for "business ability"; and with this round sum he can command the labour of five hundred hands. If all the men and women in the country-side had their daily bread sure and their daily needs already satisfied, who would work for our capitalist at a wage of half a crown a day, while the commodities one produces in a day sell in the market for a crown or more? Unhappily--we know it all too well--the poor quarters of our towns and the neighbouring villages are full of needy wretches, whose children clamour for bread. So, before the factory is well finished, the workers hasten to offer themselves. Where a hundred are required three hundred besiege the doors, and from the time his mill is started the owner, if he only has average business capacities, will clear £40 a year out of each mill-hand he employs.”

exploitation without LTV

Kropotkin nowhere explicitly defines ‘exploitation’ (that I know of), but there is no need here to relate it to a theory of value. You could just as easily do it in terms of a ‘theory of wealth’. Here’s a rough idea:

Inputs to the factory = the labour of the workers, and the capital supplied by the ‘worthy citizen’. Output = goods to the value Y. From this the capitalist pays the workers their wages to a total W and keeps the surplus or profit P = Y-W (I’m ignoring the bank here, who we can see as just another capitalist, also depreciation etc. Also issues about how capitalism misdirects capital, which K makes a lot of.)

We can define exploitation now just by applying a ‘theory of wealth clause’. The capitalist has no right to the initial capital – all the stock of wealth at any time belongs to all. Suppose, which is maybe importing too much but for simplicity’s sake, our theory is then that everyone is entitled to an equal share in the product – we’ll include the capitalist too. Then the capitalist and all the workers should each get an equal share y. But the capitalist gets more than his fair share: P>y. This difference P-y you could say he has ‘exploited’ from the workers.

I hope you can see that we do not need a theory of value to do this: the role that LTV plays in a Marxist model is here played by what I’ve called a ‘theory of wealth’. We are not saying anything about how this ‘wealth’ is valued, priced or what have you. You could use a STV such as marginalism rather than LTV to do that of you wanted.

what's wrong with profit?

So why is profit wrong for Kropotkin? Oversimplifying a bit, basically for the same reason that private property is wrong in general – the two things aren’t really separate in his theory. For Kropotkin profit - like ‘knavery’, inheritance, and saving too – is a means of capitalist expropriation (or individual accumulation of wealth, as I called it before). All wealth belongs to all, and so individually expropriating wealth by any means is wrong. Profit entails exploitation, and vice versa. But I wouldn’t say that profit is wrong for K just because it entails exploitation. It is wrong because it is a form of misappropriation of common wealth - just like theft. (I think, as I wrote before, you can then also tie that expropriation in to an account of how social hierarchy develops – but this is enough for now.)

is saving wrong?

So saving is wrong, too? Yes, Kropotkin and other anarchist communists are against individual saving – in a state of anarchist communism, at least. (Though actually Kropotkin doesn’t think saving is a very likely means for a worker to become a capitalist – when capitalists say they have come up by thrift, much the greatest part of their fortune will be profits they have gained by applying any initial savings from wages.)

Actually I don’t think K would criticise any worker living in a capitalist society for saving from his paycheck – so long as he doesn’t then use it to set himself up as a capitalist. But in anarchist communism, so the theory goes, there would be no need for individual saving as any individual could claim all that he needed from the communal stock.

Now you may think all this is a weaker theory than the marxist one, but it is anarchist communism.Bengalski 15:17, 12 November 2005 (UTC)


Thanks for that exposition. I'm convinced that the Labor Theory of Value is not the only rationale for an exploitation theory. Kropotkin bypasses the whole question by simply assuming that "all wealth belongs to all." If you believe that a person is entitled to the fruits of his labor (as I do), then you'd disagree with that assumption.
There are many arguments to support entitlement to one's product, ranging from observations of human beings and deducing the necessary conditions for living (Rand), to self-ownership/sovereignty assumptions (Tucker), to game-theoretic observations about rational contracts (Narveson's contractarianism).
Your idea of "everyone owns everything" is 'impossible' in real life. [[As Rothbard pointed out]], in practice it becomes the few plundering the many. (Except on a very small scale such as a household commune of like-minded.) And then, of course, there is the problem of perverse incentives. Slackers are rewarded. Work isn't. Competition doesn't go away, it just changes to competition in neediness rather than productivity. - Hogeye 18:39, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

header is POV again?

At 18:47, 8 November 2005, Revkat changed the header to say:

This page focuses on the most popular interpretation of what it means to abolish rulership: the elimination of all forms coercive authority, such as government and social hierarchy.

There is a missing 'of' in there, but more importantly, the header is now claiming that this page focuses on the elimination of all forms of coercive authority, rather than simply saying "the elimination of government and social hierarchy."

Anarcho-capitalism claims to be against all forms of coercive authority. In anarcho-capitalism, your boss, for instance, is not considered to have "coercive authority" over you, since you can quit any time you want. So, if anarchism means the elimination of all forms of coercive authority, then anarcho-capitalism must be included on this page and there is no need for a header.

On the other hand, if the elimination of social hierarchy is set as part of the definition of anarchism for this page, then anarcho-capitalism does not need to be included, because social hierarchy would exist in anarcho-capitalism.

Basically, the point of the header is that it should be completely neutral. If a phrase like "coercive authority" is defined differently by anarcho-capitalism and other forms of anarchism, then it should not be used in the header as though everyone agrees on its definition. -- Blah99 01:55, 10 November 2005 (UTC)

How about the term "social hierarchy"? That's really vague; no one here has been able to define it. Is class distinctions due to different wealth levels "social hierarchy"? Is an employer/employee situation "social hierarchy"? How about individualist anarchists who don't oppose employee/employer relations? I say get rid of the header altogether and go back to being NPOV like the article was before, where all philosophies that represent themselves as forms of anarchism are presented. In other words, all philosophies that oppose what they interpret to be forms of government. We as editors shoulnd't force our POV on what is or isn't "true anarchism" on the reader. RJII 02:03, 10 November 2005 (UTC)



Social Hierarchy 101

Social hierarchy is just what it sounds like: people enjoying arbitrary priviliges at the expense or exclusion of others. A few examples to illustrate why individualists, as well as all other anarchists, oppose social hierarchy and the mechanisms by which it is created:

  • When person A lends money to person B, and pays interest along with the sum of the initial loan, anarchists argue that person A is exploiting their privilige of having money, to make a profit. Institutionized economic systems that allow this privilige allows institutionalized social hierarchy.
  • When persons or entites (ie. a corporation) controls so much land that others must pay to live on it, the land-owners constitute a social class, Since that class exerts priviliges over the non-owners, you have a social hierarchy.
  • When certain ethnic groups enjoy economic rights and/or priviliges that others do not, you have social hierarchy. Note that even with laws enforcing civil rights, minorities in the USA still occupy different social classes, mostly from historical conditions, thus perpetuating a social hierarchy.

What is society but a word describing people and groups that exist with some sort of relationship? Hierarchy is a structural condition describing power relations, and thus social hierarchy not only describes what we're talking about, but the character of what we're talking about. If social hierarchy is a part of government, anarchists oppose it. If social hierarchy is part of the economic system, anarchists oppose it. I hope that clears things up. --albamuth 06:28, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

That looks like "original research" to me. There has to be a sourced definition somewhere. I might not mind it being mentioned in the article, but in the definition is not acceptable. I have never seen a definition of anarchism in any encylcopedia nor from any notable anarchist that defines it as opposition to "social hierarchy." Anarchism is opposition to all forms of government. Now, maybe "social hierarchy" falls under that, if we can find a definition but it should not be the definition of anarchism. By the way, individualist anarchists aren't all opposed to interest. For example, Spooner: "All legislative restraints upon the rate of interest are arbitrary and tyrannical restraints upon a man's natural capacity amid natural right to hire capital, upon which to bestow his labor." According to your reasoning, he therefore doesn't oppose social hierarchy and is not an anarchist. RJII 07:13, 11 November 2005 (UTC)
It's not original research because there's nothing to be researched. It's two words, put together. I'm not saying anarchists are against social hierarchy because they say so with those words, but saying that anarchists are against social hierarchy is an apt description. The Spooner quote is irrelevant, unless you are deliberately misinterpreting the examples I gave. Besides, anyone can look up the meaning of "social" and "hierarchy", and figure out what they mean when combined, which is how we, people who supposedly understand the English language, intend to use those words. --albamuth 07:38, 11 November 2005 (UTC)


The problem is that a hierarchy may be voluntary, or it may be the result of aggression. Anarchists (generically) have absolutely nothing against voluntary hierarchies. OTOH by definition (against rule) anarchists are against aggressive hierarchies.
The term "social hierarchy" does not make the critical anarchist distinction between the orders of rulers and voluntary order - between decreed order and emergent ('spontaneous') order. Therefor, the term is totally unsatisfactory.
Here's a suggestion: Replace the term "social hierarchy" with "hegemonic hierarchy." That term is much better, as it specifies the violence-based forms of ranking rather than the voluntary forms. Hogeye 19:02, 11 November 2005 (UTC)
Albamuch, to me, social hiearchy means different classes based on wealth. A society were some are poor and some are rich would be a "social hierarchy" by my interpreration. To not have social hierarchy you would have to have a classless society where everyone shares everything equally. Maybe to you it means something else. Obviously the term is vague, so it shouldn't be there. RJII 23:05, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

"Political hierarchy" seems a good, unambiguous term. Hogeye 23:55, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

Someone found a good solution - delete the misleading term "hierarchy" and replace it with a society whose members interact on a voluntary basis. That should satisfy everyone. I think. Hogeye 18:33, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

capitalist ownership of the means of production

The intro says anarchists oppose "capitalist ownership of the means of production." What does that mean? RJII 05:13, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

What does it mean to you? --albamuth 06:29, 11 November 2005 (UTC)
It doesn't mean anything to me. I'm guessing that someone is trying to say private ownership of the means of production but I'm not sure. If so, then it needs to be more explicit. Throwing the words "capitalist" and "capitalism" around randomly isn't very commmunicative. RJII 06:35, 11 November 2005 (UTC)
To me, it makes sense. Somebody who owns the means of production and is trying to capitalize on it is a capitalist. Using that phrasing does not exclude, say, individualist-anarchists, for which owning the means of production doesn't mean exploiting the workers, as a capitalist would. --albamuth 06:39, 11 November 2005 (UTC)
Then it's vague. It should say something like "operating the means of production for profit." But, I'll delete it anyway, because it falsely holds that anarcho-capitalists aren't anarchists. RJII 06:59, 11 November 2005 (UTC)
How is it vague? People know what capitalism is, and therefore what a capitalist is. If they don't, they can look it up via the wiki-link. Anarcho-capitalists are not anarchists, which you would realize if you care to read the last billion words in these talk archives. As it is, I feel like I'm arguing with the main character in "Memento". --albamuth 07:49, 11 November 2005 (UTC)
Anarcho-capitalists are indeed anarchists. They oppose all forms of government. They believe all interaction should be voluntary. That makes them anarchists. RJII 23:08, 11 November 2005 (UTC)
Just noting I deleted that anarchists oppose "capitalist ownership of means of production" since anarcho-capitalists don't oppose it. Also deleted that anarchists oppose profit. That's not true for all anarchists either. And, I deleted that anarchists oppose rent --even some of the classical individualists don't oppose rent. RJII 23:34, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

Still no agreement

It seems we still can't seem to agree on how to structure this page. I thought the header I chose was fairly neutral, but RJII did not like it because it censors anarcho-capitalism. Now the header has been completely removed, because apparently someone from the opposing side found the header too generous to anarcho-capitalism, since the header dared to state that some people believe anarchists can also be capitalists. But anarcho-capitalism remains in the page, making the entire article schizophrenic.

It seems like we're just spinning our wheels here. How can we create an article that everyone respects? If the definition is so controversial, perhaps the only way we can reach agreement is to cite sources. That is, if someone has sources at the beginning of the article that show that at least a notable amount of people believe anarchism simply means "no government", than we should respect that definition as well as the more restrictive definitions in the rest of the article.

Some would say, "But that's now the Libertarian and Libertarian Socialist pages work." True, but those philosophies define the word "liberty" so differently that it really is hard to combine those two positions into one article. In our particular case, however, it's fairly easy. For instance, if you use the term "state capitalism", both anarcho-capitalists and other anarchists will agree that it should be abolished. If you want to use the term "stateless capitalism", than there will be some disagreement, but only a small part of the article really even needs to address that issue. So, the fact that "capitalism" is defined differently is not a problem...we just need to go out of our way to use neutral terminology.

So, can we all agree that if you remove something from this article that cites sources, that's basically vandalism? If we can't agree on that, I can't see how we're going to get anywhere on this issue... -- Blah99 17:24, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

I don't think you're going to solve that issue with sources. Plainly there are writers, albeit a handful in one country, who call themselves a-cs and anarchists and define anarchism as mere anti-statism. Plainly there are many others saying the opposite. Although in my experience you'll find that most non-english speaking anarchists have never heard of a-cism or even considered the idea that anarchism and capitalism could co-exist, so are unlikely to be in print against it. Whilst most writers in any language who have heard of the theory probably just ignore it - as I always did before I made the fatal mistake of getting involved in this article. My position:

1) I'd be okay with going back to the header you chose Blah, i.e.:

Anarchism, in its most general meaning, is the belief that rulership is unnecessary and should be abolished. This page focuses on the most popular interpretation of what it means to abolish rulership: the elimination of all forms of government and social hierarchy. For more information about alternative interpretations, please see anarchism and capitalism.

2) Otherwise, I'm actually not too bothered if there is a para on anarcho-capitalism in the contemporary anarchism section - so long as it is made clear that most anarchists do not accept a-c as a genuine form of anarchism. I don't think that's ideal - an encyclopaedia should reflect how things are defined in the real world not just the balance of views internally - but I could live with it. (And before RJ chips in - yes it is right to distinguish a-c in this way. You claim that different 'schools' are constantly excommunicating each other - but I haven't seen any significant case of that either here or even in the real world. It's pretty obvious that the only such dispute here is over a-c.) Bengalski 16:01, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

I liked Blah99's header, but I'd also be just fine with its removal if it didn't make Wikipedia structurally hypocritical. And RJ is only instigating a fallacy in trying to divide anarchism into various "schools". Many anarchists don't even identify with these "schools", and if individual anarchists are criticizing people across them, they're doing so as individuals. To pretend these sort of divisions exist, you'd have to show them as the dominant attitude of these independent philosophies, which frankly it isn't. Just the fact these "groups" are comfortable in simply self-describing as anarchist is evidence enough that any mutual hostility is effectively negligent. Sarge Baldy 20:17, 12 November 2005 (UTC)
Blah99> "If the definition is so controversial, perhaps the only way we can reach agreement is to cite sources."
Been there, done that. See the archives for quotes and citations. We have determined that virtually all online dictionaries define anarchism in a way compatable with capitalism. We have also determined that Proudhon, Kropotkin, and even Emma Goldman define "anarchism" in a way that is compatable with capitalism. (However, Bakunin's definition precludes capitalism.) When this was pointed out, the socialist cartel basically said "Forget all the dictionaries, forget the luminaries, we wanna go by Wiki vote."
Bengalski, that header would be okay if you replaced social hierarchy with political hierarchy. Anarchists are not (generically) opposed to voluntary social hierarchies, e.g. hierarchies based on wisdom, talent, skill, knowledge, or expertise. Hogeye 20:22, 12 November 2005 (UTC)
But those are individual, rather than social, characteristics. Sarge Baldy 20:29, 12 November 2005 (UTC)
Yes, and these individual characteristics create a inequalities among humans - social hierarchies. Hogeye 00:05, 14 November 2005 (UTC)
They don't have to. And anyway, most social psychologists would tell you these traits are primarily learned abilities rather than biological advantages, and thus are the product of social hierarchy moreso than the instigator of it. Sarge Baldy 00:58, 14 November 2005 (UTC)
Baldy, I don't know why you want to pretend that all anarchism is the same. All anarchists are the same in that the want to abolish government, but they're not all the same in regard to what kind of system they want to replace it with. The collectivists want to get rid of private property; the individualists want private property. This divide in positive anarchism cannot be ignored. Anarchism will always be divided into various "schools" and there's nothing you can do about it. All anarchists are not the same. RJII 20:25, 12 November 2005 (UTC)
Of course all anarchists are not the same. No two anarchists are the same. Sarge Baldy 20:29, 12 November 2005 (UTC)
But some anarchists similarities with other anarchists. Those who have a similar interpretation of what a voluntary society would be call themselves, anarcho-commmunist, anarcho-capitalist, individualist anarchist, anarcho-syndicalists, anarcho-primitivist, geoanarchist, black anarchist, national anarchist, etc. I don't know how you could have an article on anarchism without discussing and comparing and contrasting each of these. RJII 20:33, 12 November 2005 (UTC)
I'm not saying they shouldn't be discussed, I'm saying that they shouldn't be treated as hostile competitors, and that these philosophies anyway overlap more than they differ. Saying that anarchism is just a bunch of independent philosophies is silly because they overlap way too much. It's like saying feminism is made up of a number of various philosophical "schools" such as liberal feminism radical feminism, socialist feminism, and so on. All wide-ranging philosophies have to divided up in some way, but it hardly means that everyone entirely rejects all other forms. Sarge Baldy 20:50, 12 November 2005 (UTC)
Individualism has always been hostile to collectivism. And, just the fact that there is a war on whether anarcho-capitalism should be in the article is proof enough that people don't think all anarchist philosophies are compatible with each other. Supposedly this was supposed to be a historical type article --if so, we can't neglect that the 19th century individualist anarchists were very much against the anarcho-communists. The antipathy continues to this day: "This dichotomy between communist and individualist anarchists continues to the present day. If anything, the differences have become even more pronounced." (from Capitalism versus Free Enterprise, by Keith Preston 2003). RJII 21:16, 12 November 2005 (UTC)
"While the anarchists of old often argued fervently over ideological differences (Tucker and Johann Most refused to recognize one another as "true" anarchists), a mutual admiration frequently existed between the communist and individualist camps. Tucker was an admirer of the European anarchists Proudhon and Bakunin and translated their works into English and his anarchist journal, Liberty, published the writings not only of anarcho-socialists but also of outright Fabians or Marxists, such as George Bernard Shaw." (from Capitalism versus Free Enterprise, by Keith Preston 2003)
From your source, it sounds like the individualists and communists were not hostile to each other. They argued but I don't see the antipathy you suggest. On another note, the war about anarcho-capitalism is unrelated to individualist anarchism. No one claims that the individualists are not anarchists and all historical treatments of anarchism include them. If you read the Dictionary of the History of Ideas Anarchism article [16], you will see why most anarchists do not view anarcho-capitalism as a form of anarchism. -- jaredwf 11:27, 14 November 2005 (UTC)
Where do you see in that article that anarcho-capitalism is not a form of anarchism? The article says individualist anarchism is rooted in the liberalism of the Declaration of Indepependence. Anarcho-capitalism, which is a form of individualist anarchism, of course has the same liberal roots. Pretty good article, by the way. RJII 14:38, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

I have reverted to the intro that seemed to have wide support a few days ago. I have left anarcho-capitalism in though. I actually do not see this as a contradiction - the intro should reflect the general view, which is not shared by the a-cs. Skewing the intro to include a-cism introduces misleading bias and POV. I think anarcho-capitalism can stay as one discrete section qualified so that it is clear that it is not accepted by most anarchists. A-cism is then appearing not as a 'school of anarchism', but as a controversy with links to further discussion. As it is not being represented as a type of anarchism, it does not have to be represented in the intro - therefore no contradiction.

The only other way I can see is just to take a-cism out altogether and go back to the libertarianism-type header approach. I am not happy with the article becoming skewed throughout, from the intro down through inserting marginal a-c slants and ancestors in the history section. If this is what including a-cism at all entails then I think it just has to go. As other people are not going to accept that we would plainly be back to a POV dispute and I'll stick the POV header on if no one else does.Bengalski 12:38, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

The article should not do anything that gives the impression that anarcho-capitalism is not a type of anarchism. RJII 14:40, 14 November 2005 (UTC)
Hey RJII, the introduction you just put up looks great! Very neutral. Bengalski, I looked at your intro, and here is the problem sentence:
In place of centralized political structures, capitalist ownership of the means of production, and exploitative economic institutions such as rent and profit, these movements favor social relations based upon voluntary interaction and self-management, and aspire to a society characterised by autonomy and freedom.
Not only is this incompatible with anarcho-capitalism, but remember, non-anarchists will be reading this page too! The sentence asserts that "rent and profit" are exploitative, as though non-Marxists would agree with that. The sentence also asserts that "in place of...capitalist owernship of the means of production...these movements favor social relations based upon voluntary interaction". Many capitalists would argue that social relations are based upon voluntary interaction, even under capitalist ownership! So, the sentence not only excludes anarcho-capitalists (of course), but it also asserts many things most people would disagree with as it attempts to describe anarchist movements. This is an excellent example of a POV sentence, and I don't think it has any place in Wikipedia.
I also object to this notion that making the article NPOV means "skewing" the intro. All we need to do is keep the POV stuff out of the introduction! Remember, this article is not a soap-box for anarchists; the article should merely describe anarchism. -- Blah99 15:56, 14 November 2005 (UTC)
If RJ ever actually stopped to read the NPOV policy, he'd see that all POVs need only be represented as according their assocation to the topic, and attempts to represent them in "equal proportion" is, in fact, very much POV, and slants the article towards minority definitions and points of view. Sarge Baldy 16:39, 14 November 2005 (UTC)
What minority point of view do you claim I'm overweighting? RJII 16:43, 14 November 2005 (UTC)
Groups that define anarchism as simply a lack of government. This is often only a secondary point against egalitarianism and the breaking down of social hierarchy and power relations. Sarge Baldy 16:49, 14 November 2005 (UTC)
I don't know what you're talking about. Article after article that I find, anarchist after anarchist I find, they define it as opposition to all forms of government (in other words, opposition to coercion (unless used in defense)). RJII 16:56, 14 November 2005 (UTC)
Other encyclopedias can be NPOV. Why can't this one?
  • "cluster of doctrines and attitudes centred on the belief that government is both harmful and unnecessary." (Encyclopedia Britannica)
  • Anarchism, political theory that is opposed to all forms of government." (MS Encarta Encyclopedia)
  • "theory that equality and justice are to be sought through the abolition of the state and the substitution of free agreements between individuals" (Columbia Encyclopedia)
  • "the name given to a principle or theory of life and conduct under which society is conceived without government - harmony in such a society being obtained, not by submission to law, or by obedience to any authority, but by free agreements concluded between the various groups, territorial and professional, freely constituted for the sake of production and consumption, as also for the satisfaction of the infinite variety of needs and aspirations of a civilized being. (The Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1910.)"
(RJII)
Well, opposition to authority is by extension opposition to social hierarchy by the definition of hierarchy. And if you think Kropotkin's article is NPOV, it should be noted that he also states that anarchism is inherently socialist (not that I agree with that). Sarge Baldy 01:00, 15 November 2005 (UTC)
I don't know how about the rest of the article but the definition seems pretty NPOV. About all anarchism being socialism, anarcho-capitalism wasn't around in 1910. Individualist anarchism was called a form of "socialism" back then --but it's not the same definition of socialism we have today --collective ownership of the means of production. Again, "social hierarchy" is very vague which is I'm sure why the term is not used in these articles. To me, different levels of wealth where there's a poor class, a middle class, and an upper class would be a social hierarchy. But, individualist anarchists don't oppose that. RJII 01:35, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

organization of article

I'm not sure I get the idea behind having a "history of anarchism" and then a "contemporary anarchism" section. These kinds of anarchism talked about in the history section still exist today. There would have to be a discussion on each kind in both sections, right? That would be kind of redundant, I think. RJII 01:28, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

I agree. The so-called historical article is quickly evolving into the former school of thought article, except with a redundent historical section. We could save a lot of time by simply reverting. My impression from the get-go is that the so-called historical article was really just an underhanded attempt to censor out anarcho-capitalism and other non-collectivist schools. Hogeye 18:29, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

It sure looks that way --a shady attempt. I looks like it's trying to give the impression that the forms of anarchism are irrelevent today. I think what's behind it is an element here that wants to create the impression that anarchists are one big happy family today (under the umbrella of "contemporary anarchism") with everyone in basic agreement (of course they have to try to hide that individualist anarchists support private property and censor anarcho-capitalism to maintain that facade). RJII 19:04, 14 November 2005 (UTC)
Instead of going by a timeline (which doesn't seem appropriate, since the title of the article is "anarchism", not "history of anarchism"), perhaps we could just split the anarchism schools into two categories: collectivist and individualist. Then the collectivist can have their introduction ("we think profit is exploitation and blah blah blah") and the individualists can have their introduction. So long as we don't give too much weight to less popular groups, does anyone really have a problem with this? -- Blah99 19:51, 14 November 2005 (UTC)
That sounds good. We revert to the pre-"historical" version and divide the schools into individualist (including Mutualism, Individualist Anarchism, Anarcho-capitalism) and collectivist (primitivist, socialist, synd/commie). Also (as before) we probably need a section on issue-oriented forms (green anarchism, anarcho-feminism, black anarchism) since these can go either way. Hogeye 22:37, 14 November 2005 (UTC)
Sounds pretty good. One thing that's awkward is that Proudhon is talked about outside of the individualism section, when most everyone agrees he was an individualist. I think we need to include him in the individualism section and also include Stirner there, who is not yet talked about. RJII 03:37, 15 November 2005 (UTC)
Absolutely not. You're only kidding yourselves in seeing anarchism as being neatly divided into these simple categories. Sarge Baldy 04:37, 15 November 2005 (UTC)
Either the philosophy favors private property (individual ownership) or collectivist "property." What anarchist movement false outside of those two? If there is something that false outside of that, we can make another heading. RJII 20:29, 15 November 2005 (UTC)
I meant the idea of fitting all anarchists neatly into various "schools" instead of a topical consideration of various issues. Also, there was a consensus for the current format, and trying to revert to the older version should be considered vandalism. But yes, not all anarchism fits so neatly as "collectivist" or "individualist" either. There is also post-left anarchism's "type-3 anarchism", and post-anarchism could probably go in any direction since it's more a critical form than a concrete concept and takes its biggest influences from Stirner, an individualist anarchist, and Emma Goldman, a communist anarchist. Newman appears to feel individualism and collectivism could be compatible:
The inter-relatedness of equality and liberty may form the basis of a new collective ethos, which refuses to see individual freedom and collective equality as limits on each other -- which refuses to sacrifice difference in the name of universality, and universality in the name of difference.
However, this so-called "school" has no official preference on the matter, possibly because, unlike other forms, it exists more as a theory than an ideology. Sarge Baldy 02:22, 16 November 2005 (UTC)
Sarge, you're asking: How should the Anarchism page be structured, if not a timeline? I was thinking about that, and then all of a sudden the organization reached out and slapped me! The perfect organization is on the page itself! It's the little bar to the right of the page that has a number of topics ("Topics", "Strategic Movements", and "Relevant lists") and a bunch of links under those topics. If we took each of those links, wrote a little paragraph for each one, and above each paragraph wrote "Main article: whatever", it would be perfect!
That table of index shows the basic information people want when they put "Anarchism" into the search box. They might want a little blurb about the history, but if they wanted everything in a timeline, they would have typed in "History of Anarchism"! I'm not saying that I'm going to try to change the article, I'm just amazed that this is so controversial when we already the perfect organization in front of us. Why we are using a timeline is beyond me. -- Blah99 20:18, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

Proudhon and Property

It is POV to cite "Property is theft" without citing "Property is liberty." In Proudhon's own words:

"In my System of Economic Contradictions I reiterated and confirmed my first definition of property [it is theft] and then added another, quite contrary one based on considerations of quite another kind. But this neither destroyed nor was destroyed by my first argument. This new definition was: property is liberty. Property is theft; property is liberty: these two propositions stand side by side in my System of Economic Contradictions and each is shown to be true." - Pierre Proudhon, System of Economic Contradictions, or The Philosophy of Poverty, 1863-4
I don't see any of this in Philosophy of Poverty. And, it's not 1863 pages long. RJII 18:49, 14 November 2005 (UTC)
"Property [is] a triumph of Liberty. For it is born of Liberty ... Property is the only power that can act as a counterweight to the State, because it shows no reverence for princes, rebels against society and is, in short, anarchist." - Pierre Proudhon
"Property is a decentralising force. Being itself an absolute, it is anti-despotic and anti-unitary. Property is the basis of any system of federation." - Pierre Proudhon
And, do you know where these are from? RJII 18:55, 14 November 2005 (UTC)
Good catch, RJII! I've been using that citation for some time, but it is apparently wrong. After surfing around for some time, I now think that all the above quotes come from: Proudhon, The Solution of the Social Problem, pp. 259-80, and The Theory of Property, p. 37, cited in Selected Writings of Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, pp. 140, 76. Unfortunately, I don't have the book "Selected Writings...", nor can I find either essay online. Attention Anarchists! Does anyone here have that book or those essays? Anyone willing to scan in and OCR the text and put it online? If someone scans it in, I'll be more than happy to put it up on my site in my Library of Liberty. Hogeye 22:25, 14 November 2005 (UTC)


Proudhon had two definitions of property; one based on statist decree, the other on natural human action. He was against the former and for the latter. Hogeye 18:26, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

Punk Rock

What does Punk Rock have to do with political/philosophical anarchism? Apparently nothing. The Punk Rock article points out that these bands could be anarchist is the chaotic sense, but there is nothing to indicate they have anything to do with the definition of anarchism in this article. Is there any objection to deleting the Punk section? Punks aren't real anarchists in our sense of the word. I.e. from the Punk Rock article:

"Punk bands were often accused of nihilism, reflexive anarchism, wilful stupidity, hooliganism, and of outrageous behavior and dress that existed merely for shock value. Some of the furore over punk was caused by the behavior of the fans at shows, which often appeared to the uninitiated to be more of a small-scale riot than a music concert. Fans spat and threw beer bottles at the band and each other, while stage diving, pogoing and slam dancing (which eventually led to the mosh pit). Fights both inside and outside the venue were common, as was damage to sound equipment or the venue itself."

Hogeye 22:48, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

Yes, I strongly object. Punk music has culturally kept the idea alive over the decades in many places; the fact that the music form has been commercially appropriated by non-anarchists in many instances is irrelevant. --Bk0 (Talk) 00:08, 15 November 2005 (UTC)
Maybe there is a better way to work it in. It's listed as if it's a kind of anarchism. Punk rock is not a type of anarchism. RJII 01:39, 15 November 2005 (UTC)
Punk rock does belong in the article insofar as it's a cultural expression of anarchism. But yes, let's make sure it's in the right place. Sarge Baldy 01:44, 15 November 2005 (UTC)
Is Punk really a cultural expression of anarchism? I associate it with nihilists and nazi-skinhead types - quite the opposite of anarchism. The only thing I can think of that may be (mis)construed as supporting anarchism is the Punk promotion of the circle-A symbol, which may have done more harm than good. Wiki articles claim that Crass promoted anarchism, but give zero evidence. Can you link me to Crass lyrics that call for the elimination of the State? I'd appreciate that, so I can judge for myself. Hogeye 16:47, 15 November 2005 (UTC)
Here again is where your interpretation of anarchism doesn't fit with most groups, who oppose the Establishment in general moreso than simply individual governments. Here's an example, however: [17]
Beat the system, beat its game
Ain't got no colour, we're all the same
People, people, not colour, class or creed
Don't destroy the people, destroy their power and their greed.
Sarge Baldy 17:09, 15 November 2005 (UTC)
Thanks for the link, Sarge. I must say, though, it's not convincing. The song cited was about tolerance, not anarchism:
Punk's the peoples music and I don't care where they're from,
Black or white, punk or skin, there ain't no right or wrong!
We're all just human beings, some of us rotten, some of us good.
You can stuff your false divisions cos together I know we could.
"The system" refers to people's intolerant and bigoted attitudes, not the institution of State or imposed authority. True, most anarchists would agree that tolerance is a good thing, but pro-tolerance is not anarchism. (Some anarchists would disagree with the lyrics, since the lyrics reject the validity of class warfare.) Hogeye 18:03, 15 November 2005 (UTC)
Not at all. It's saying we need to reject racial and class distinctions entirely and regard people simply as human beings. I'm not sure how you're translating the line "Don't destroy the people, destroy their power and their greed." as being simply tolerance of other groups. Sarge Baldy 18:18, 15 November 2005 (UTC)
Sarge: It's saying we need to reject racial and class distinctions entirely and regard people simply as human beings.
Right. I agree. Tolerance.
Sarge: I'm not sure how you're translating the line "Don't destroy the people, destroy their power and their greed."
Because of the ambiguity of the word "power," I'm not sure how to translate it. I agree that it could be construed as anarchist, i.e. Don't destroy the people; destroy their proclivity to use political power and their irrational acquisitiveness. Hogeye 17:40, 16 November 2005 (UTC)
If we state that Crass is anarchist on the basis of that, then we can state a whole slew of people are anarchists using such vague criteria. I would think we would need a stronger criteria than a song lyric that says "detroy their power and greed" and that states blacks, punk rockers, and skinheads are "all just human beings." At least the Sex Pistols explicitly say "I am an anarchist." RJII 18:03, 16 November 2005 (UTC)
I hardly think it's "tolerance" to say that we need to eliminate social categorizations. "Tolerance" implies that some "other" must be "tolerated". However, if you eliminate these distinctions, you cannot be "tolerant", because there is nothing to be tolerant of. I don't see the term "power" as being terribly ambiguous, and it's very commonly used in the social sciences. Please see Wikipedia's article on the subject.
Likewise, you should understand that Crass lyrics are hardly political manifestos, but rather a form of musical expression, and frankly it's not meant to be blunt, even if Crass is fairly blunt most of the time. To suggest that they need to identify as anarchist within the lyrics of the song is as awkward as saying hip hop songs talking about raping or beating women isn't misogynistic until they drop the word. Crass actively identify as and are consistently identified as an anarchist group, and it's not the purpose of an encyclopedia to judge whether they were, in fact, espousing anarchism. Frankly I don't care for the music of Crass and don't know their songs, and in any likelihood they do explain their anarchism more explicitly in the example I gave. As for the Sex Pistols, they were an atypical group that defined anarchism as a strand of individualist anarchism that favored chaos, and that most would describe as nihilism. This use of the term "anarchist" is contrary to the definition currently used to describe the term (The word "anarchy", as most anarchists use it, does not imply chaos or anomie, but rather a stateless society with voluntary social relations), which isn't to say it isn't appropriate for this article, but it certainly doesn't fit into the article in its current state and is certainly an outlier in terms of how anarchism is used within the context of punk music. Sarge Baldy 21:26, 16 November 2005 (UTC)
Well, if you insist that the article says Crass promotes anarchism, I'll probably also mention in the article that the Sex Pistols promote anarchism. If someone does not call themself an anarchists or does not explicitly advocate the abolition of government I don't think it's a safe call to mention them here as anarchists --unless of course you have a reputable source calling them anarchists. Do you have a source that Crass is anarchist? RJII 21:47, 16 November 2005 (UTC)
Allmusic describes them as "anarchist punk", and notes that two of its founders formed an anarchist commune [18]. Their page at Southern Records describes them as "anarcho-punk" [19], Wikipedia describes them as anarchist and this description is prevalent in other locations [20] [21], some of which note its importance in promoting anarchism in the United Kingdom. If you want to say the Sex Pistols supported anarchism, then we'll first have to redefine the article to include pro-chaos individualism as a legitimate conception of anarchism, which at present it isn't. It also should be clarified that they do not represent anarcho-punk in the same vein as other musicians, because there does not appear to be evidence linking them to that term [22], even if they were an obvious predecessor. Sarge Baldy 22:10, 16 November 2005 (UTC)
Looks like there's such an anarchism as "nihilist anarchism": "Closely linked to emotivist anarchism, though sometimes a little more theoretical, is nihilist anarchism. The anarcho-nihilists combine the emotivist's opposition to virtually all forms of order with radical subjectivist moral and epistemological theory." [23] RJII 01:28, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

Perusing Crass lyrics, here's a song that seems decidedly statist/unanarchist:

Do They Owe Us A Living? (Well?...Do They?)
Fuck the politically minded, here's something I want to say,
About the state of nation, the way it treats us today.
At school they give you shit, drop you in the pit,
You try and try and try to get out, but you can't because they've fucked you about.
Then you're a prime example of how they must not be,
This is just a sample of what they've done to you and me.
Do they owe us a living?
Of course they do, of course they do.
Owe us a living?
Of course they do, of course they do.
Owe us a living?
OF COURSE THEY FUCKING DO.

They think the State owes them a living!!! As far as I can tell, Crass lyrics are against politics and political action, but not the State per se.

Then again, some punk rock bands may be anarchist - or at least have lyrics that can be cheered by anarchists. Check this out:

Red White And Brainwashed - Anti-Flag

they use the flag to control us brainwash us to be their patriotic slaves program our minds by controlling what we learn the only difference from the nazis is that someone tried to stop them red white and brainwashed the government says they're working for us just as long as we increase their pay but the minute they get into office we're a has-been a yesterday red white and brainwashed the red stands for the blood of all the people we've slain the white for this racist, bigoted foundation the blue for your aryan eyes -- all empty empty because you're taught to bow down to the man "fly that flag, that flag of freedom." "do what you can for your country." go and fight their wars for them "they're not following in our footsteps, kill them!" red white and brainwashed they call that being a patriot i just call it ignorant if you don't fight to make thing better then you're the one betraying this country! red white and brainwashed

Now I'll have to find it and listen to it! It's very reminiscent of a song I wrote called Flaghumper. Hogeye 18:57, 16 November 2005 (UTC)


I am an anarchist.
I don't know what I want but I know how to get it.
I want to destroy.
-Sex Pistols
I think this represented the conception of anarchism for the average punk rocker. It wasn't about philosophical anarchism but advocacy of chaos and disorder. Sure, there may have been some exceptions, but if it was at all deeper than that, it was negative anarchism --opposition to the government, with no theory on what should replace it. For most, the (A) was just about destroying things, wreaking havoc, and scaring people --for the hell of it. RJII 17:22, 15 November 2005 (UTC)
No, I would say that's very inaccurate. That's a good interpretation of the Sex Pistols' take, but they've never been considered an anarchist punk band either, even if they use the term because of its link to "anarchy". Sarge Baldy 17:27, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

Anarchist Punk Bands

Past and current overt anarchist punk bands include The Ex, Against Me!, Zegota, The Spectacle and various other lesser-known groups. I'm not including folk punk which has become a large trend in anarchist music; you could add around half a dozen relatively well-known folk punk artists to this list. Arguably Gang of Four was anarchist-influenced at least in the beginning, although they were fairly apolitical musically. Some people would include Pennywise however it's pretty clear to me at least that they are a phony, basically corporatist pop punk outfit. --Bk0 (Talk) 00:56, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

Looking around on Google, it looks like some people distinguish between "anarcho-chaos" and "anarcho-peace" punk. RJII 01:21, 17 November 2005 (UTC)
I think that the involvement of many prominent punk bands (including Anti-Flag, Pennywise and Against Me!) in the Punk Voter [24] project should call into question their stated/perceived anti-statism. Nihila
Red herring (although I agree about Pennywise being statist for different reasons). Noam Chomsky has repeatedly advocating voting in certain strategic instances, and he is generally accepted to be an anarchist. Also, the "Don't Just Vote" effort of 2004 in the US was a broad anarchist/antiauthoritarian project involving many including Chuck from infoshop.org, it was probably the most visible public anarchist outreach effort of the presidential campaign. That project was explicitly neutral on the voting issue, for good reasons. The A-C's beloved Proudhon would have to be labeled a statist by your standards as he both ran for public office and won. --Bk0 (Talk) 00:19, 18 November 2005 (UTC)
I am not discussing the Don't Just Vote, Get Active campaign. I am discussing the Punk Voter campaign. Nihila 02:26, 18 November 2005 (UTC)
I know what you were discussing, you don't seem to understand what I'm discussing. --Bk0 (Talk) 02:40, 18 November 2005 (UTC)
I respect your opinion, but I think that any comparison between Don't Just Vote and Punk Voter is ill informed. Don't Just Vote was an attempt to draw energy out of the election (while circumventing the voter/nonvoter argument) while Punk Voter was designed to funnel energy into the political process (in this case, the Democratic Party) and stifle criticism of electoralism. For a good anarchist critique of Punk Voter, see Settling for the System (an article that was republished on Chuck's Infoshop.org, incidentally) Nihila 03:09, 18 November 2005 (UTC)
I'm no fan of Fat Mike or Fat Wreck Chords or any of his ill-conceived reformist political projects (his band sucks too, for whatever that's worth). However, I think it's fairly naive to write off any band as "statist" that allowed their music to be featured on the Punk Voter comps. Some of them probably weren't asked or, due to them signing bad contracts, had no choice (Against Me! are signed to Fat). You could argue that it was bad judgment to sign record contracts (I'd agree) but this is the real world we're talking about; things are rarely as simple as we would like. Luckily I think defining a canonical list of anarchist punk rock bands is beyond the scope of this article (and is original research, blah blah). Let's focus on punk's historical ties to anarchism and its current role as (imperfect) underground cultural steward of the vague anarcho-punk DIY ideal. --Bk0 (Talk) 04:38, 18 November 2005 (UTC)
Fair enough. Nihila 14:13, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

Apparently there are anarcho-capitalist punks too: [25] RJII 14:35, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

New Voyages to North America by Louis Armand

Should we use the french title Nouveaux voyages dans l'Amérique septentrionale or the english title New Voyages to North America? Both versions were printed in 1703.

On another note, this quote from the preface of New Voyages is relevant to Anarchy:

to the Reader, whom I pray the Heavens to Crown him with Prosperity, in preserving him from having any business to adjust with most of the Ministers of State, and Priests; for let them be never so faulty, they'll still be said to be in the right, till such time as Anarchy be introduc'd among us, as well as the Americans, among whom the sorryest fellow thinks himself a better Man, than a Chancellor of France. These People are happy in being screen'd from the tricks and shifts of Ministers, who are always Masters where-ever they come. I envy the state of a poor Savage, who tramples upon laws, and pays homage to no Scepter. I wish I could spend the rest of my Life in his Hutt, and so be no longer expos'd to the chagrin of bending the knee to a set of Men, that sacrifice the publick good to their private interest, and are born to plague honest Men. [26]

-- jaredwf 00:24, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

Velly goood! Where U dig this out? The private property is this line? - "that sacrifice the publick good to their private interest" -max rspct 22:24, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

definition of anarchism is wrong

Why do a few editors insist on the definition of anarchism to be opposition to "social hierarchy" but cannot provide even one source that defines anarchism this way? Source after source that I've seen defines anarchism as opposition to all forms of government to be replaced with a voluntary society. RJII 16:38, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

Also, there is a POV problem with this line: "In place of centralized political structures and exploitative economic institutions such as rent and profit (except so-called anarcho-capitalism), these movements favor social relations based upon voluntary interaction and self-management, and aspire to a society characterised by autonomy and freedom." First of all it asserts that rent and profit are exploitative --not everyone believes that. Not even all anarchists believe that. Many of the individualist anarchists (and not just anarcho-capitalists) support rent. And, some individualist anarchists support profit (that is, they don't adhere to a labor theory of value). And by saying "except so-called anarcho-capitalism" it's saying that anarcho-capitalists favor exploitation, when in fact anarcho-capitalists also oppose what they believe to be exploitation. This sentence has to go. RJII 16:45, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

social hierarchy

It's not hard to look around the net and see the term "social heirarchy" referring to differing levels of wealth. For some, the existence of a lower class, a middle class, and an upper class would be a social hierarchy. A few editors keep trying to defined anarchism article as opposition to social hiearchy. But the opposition to different wealth classes only applies to the "social anarchists" like anarcho-communists. Individualists anarchist do not oppose this but see it as the natural result of anarchism and consistent with it. The term "social hierarchy" is too vague and open to much interpretation. Anarchism should not be defined that way. RJII 19:11, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

"For some, the existence of a lower class, a middle class, and an upper class would be a social hierarchy." Yes, indeed.

"But the opposition to different wealth classes only applies to the "social anarchists" like anarcho-communists. Individualists anarchist do not oppose this but see it as the natural result of anarchism and consistent with it."

No. RJJ you should know I'm not too keen on your game of citing quotes out of context, and I would recommend that you go and read the actual texts yourself - I could certainly do with reading more of them too, but here's just a few places where individualists are plainly coming out against class:

Josiah Warren in the conclusion to "Equitable Commerce", p101 in Burt Franklin edition argues that implementation of his ideas would 'abolish all distinctions of rich and poor':

"That cost being made the limit of price, would give to a washerwoman a greater income than the importer of foreign goods—that this would entirely upset the whole of the present system of national trade—stop all wars arising out of the scramble for the profits of trade, and demolish all tariffs, duties, and all systems of policy that give rise to them—would abolish all distinctions of rich and poor—would enable every one to consume as much as he produced, and, consequently, prevent any one from living at the cost of another, without his or her consent."

Benjamin Tucker - classes will disappear under anarchism:

in 'Liberty, Land, and Labor':

"Under the new economic conditions and enlarged opportunities resulting from freedom of credit and land classes will tend to disappear; great capacities will not be developed in a few at the expense of stunting those of the many; talents will approximate towards equality, though their variety will be greater than ever; freedom of locomotion will be vastly increased; the toilers will no longer be anchored in such large numbers in the present commercial centres, and thus made subservient to the city landlords; territories and resources never before utilized will become easy of access and development; and under all these influences the disparity above mentioned will decrease to a minimum."

in 'State Socialism and Anarchism: How far they agree, and wherein they differ.' (which by the way is an essay explicitly attacking anarchist communism, yet upholding his view of what would be true classless socialism):

"I should not undertake to summarize this altogether too summary exposition of Socialism from the standpoint of Anarchism, did I not find the task already accomplished for me by a Brilliant French journalist and historian, Ernest Lesigne, in the form of a series of crisp antithesis; by reading which to you as a conclusion of this lecture I hope to deepen the impression which it has been my endeavor to make.

"'There are two Socialisms. One is communistic, the other solidaritarian. One is dictatorial, the other libertarian. One is metaphysical, the other positive. One is dogmatic, the other scientific. One is emotional, the other reflective. One is destructive, the other constructive. Both are in pursuit of the greatest possible welfare for all. One aims to establish happiness for all, the other to enable each to be happy in his own way. The first regards the State as a society sui generis, of an especial essence, the product of a sort of divine right outside of and above all society, with special rights and able to exact special obediences; the second considers the State as an association like any other, generally managed worse than others. The first proclaims the sovereignty of the State, the second recognizes no sort of sovereign. One wishes all monopolies to be held by the State; the other wishes the abolition of all monopolies. One wishes the governed class to become the governing class; the other wishes the disappearance of classes. ...'"

Both essays are in 'Individual Liberty: Selections From the Writings of Benjamin R. Tucker' (Vanguard Press, New York, 1926; Kraus Reprint Co., Millwood, NY, 1973.)


Bengalski 00:44, 22 November 2005 (UTC)

Sure, some of the individualists (include some anarcho-capitalists) think that getting rid of government-backed privilege for capital will lead to more leveling out of wealth, but they don't oppose wealth inequality itself. And, let's look at the sentence you stopped short of in your first quote above from Tucker. The next sentence says: "Probably [inequalities] will never disappear entirely; on the other hand, it can never become intolerable" ('Liberty, Land, and Labor'). If you need something more explicit, then look at this quote from Tucker in Economic Rent: "there are people who say: 'We will have no liberty, for we must have absolute equality. I am not of them. If I go through life free and rich, I shall not cry because my neighbor, equally free, is richer. Liberty will ultimately make all men rich; it will not make all men equally rich." Individualist anarchists do not oppose wealth inequality, unless its caused by government-backed privilege for capital (which the classical individualist think is the only reason for large wealth disparities between individuals). RJII 01:56, 22 November 2005 (UTC)
So, maybe he was radical liberal (in classic definition of this term), not anarchist. Opposition to social hierarchy is main distinction between anarchism and liberalism.
--XaViER 09:42, 22 November 2005 (UTC)
Yes the individualists are radical liberals. But being a liberal doesn't preclude one from being an anarchist. That's why they're sometimes called "liberal anarchists." [27] RJII 14:26, 22 November 2005 (UTC)

No I think these writings are anarchist. And I think they clearly do oppose wealth inequality. Both Warren and Tucker here are clearly saying they are against 'distinctions of rich and poor' (Warren) and the existence of social class (Tucker). I think for you RJ to say (as you effectively introduced into the article) that they can support social class is therefore insupportable.

But you are right that: a) they do not see equality as an absolute value - i.e. inequality is nowhere said to be desirable, but a limited amount is 'tolerable'; b) they prioritise liberty over equality. However both of them, as I read it, believed that the libertarian societies they envisioned would lead to substantial, if not absolute, increases in equality. To the extent that it would no longer be possible to talk of separate classes of 'rich and poor' (or as you had it of 'a lower class, a middle class,an upper class'). As for example in contemporary capitalism there are relative differences in wealth between middle class families, even living in the same neighbourhood, but these are not enough to separate them into distinct 'classes'.

I need to read more of these individualists to support this from the text, but if their anarchist intuitions are anything like mine I imagine that somewhere what we are talking about will relate to power relations (or social hierarchy, if you like). As I see it, anarchists generally don't like societies where some people have power over others. Political structures enforce and perpetuate such power relationships, and so anarchists are against political institutions. But economic stratification also creates and perpetuates power relationships, by any definition of power. In general smallish differences in personal wealth, or maybe even large differences when everyone has plenty, wouldn't be enough to do this - although maybe you could tell some stories about power squabbles between middle class neighbours over who's got the best car or house. But when economic differences become substantial enough to be called 'class', that means ongoing and engrained power relationships which no anarchist could accept. (Whether such stratification is only possible with the existence of particular political institutions, such as 'the state', is another issue.)

Actually the quote you gave reminds me a lot of Kropotkin on this. In 'The conquest of bread' K imagines an objection - what if a Rockefeller arrived in an anarchist communist society and tried to use his enormous capital to reintroduce a wage system? K thinks - he can't do it, because the anarchists (like Tucker's) are free and rich, and Rockefeller has no bargaining position to persuade them to work for him. To put this in marginalist terms you might say - because there is decreasing marginal utility with respect to wealth. Or in Kropotkin's language - he can only exploit them when they're hungry. I think both Kropotkin and Tucker might say here - there are wealth differences between Rockefeller and the anarchists, but not such as to create a power relationship or class system. Or in other words a social hierarchy.

So to sum up - I think, for all anarchists, the problem isn't differences in wealth as such, it's when these differences create differences in power. So actually K doesn't have a problem with the Rockefeller - the anarchists don't even need to expropriate his wealth, they can just ignore him as they already have plenty. But this is not what happens in capitalism, where concentrations of wealth are used to gain power over others, and it is for this reason I think that anarchist-communists as against individualists believe expropriation is necessary.

Bengalski 12:21, 22 November 2005 (UTC)

Also note that in anarcho-communists' advocacy of abolishing private property in the produce of labor, wealth inequality would be impossible. If wages are abolished and everything people produce is collectivized then everyone owns an equal share of the produce of labor. This enforces the collectivist ideal of wealth egalitarianism. Since individualists support private ownership of the produce of labor, and support wages, logically they can't oppose wealth inequalities. That's why Tucker says it's the natural result of individual liberty. But, yes very large disparities of wealth would not occur (for Tucker at least. There may be other individualists who make no issue of wealth disparity at all). At what point does wealth inequality rise to the level of class differences? I don't know. That's why I don't like the definition of anarchism saying that anarchists oppose "social hierarchy"; I think it implies the collectivist ideal that the individualists don't hold. And, it implies other things. Individualists don't oppose employee/employer situations. Is that a social hierarchy? Look at any other encyclopedia and none of them define anarchism as opposition to "social hierarchy." Look at definitions of anarchism from anarchist theorists themselves and none that I've seen even use the term. It's too vague. Why do a few editors here insist on using the term? Also, look at Stirner: "No, my good old sir, nothing of equality. We only want to count for what we are worth, and, if you are worth more, you shall count for more right along. We only want to be WORTH OUR PRICE, and think to show ourselves worth the price that you will pay." RJII 14:49, 22 November 2005 (UTC)
Bengalski has already made this point, but maybe it's worth making again - those anarchists who countenance wealth inequalities do not do so because they are happy with social hierarchy, but because they think wealth inequalities are not an example of social hierarchy. And you obviously haven't looked very far if you haven't found examples of anarchists defining anarchism to include opposition to hierarchy - look at the InfoShop anarchist FAQ, http://www.infoshop.org/faq/secB1.html , for instance, or simply google '(anarchism or anarchist) (hierarchy or hierarchical)' - VoluntarySlave 19:24, 22 November 2005 (UTC)
Fine if they think wealth inequalities are not an example of social hierarchy, but for others it is an example of social hierarchy. That's why the term shouldn't be used in a definition of anarchism. It's vague and confusing. So, the anarchist FAQ is where some of the editors are getting the term "social hierarchy." However, none of the anarchists the author of that FAQ quotes use the term "social hierarchy." "Social hierarchy" is way too vague and open to way too many intepretations. For example is an employee/employer situation "social hiearchy"? I would say that it is, but individualists anarchists do not oppose that arrangement. So, it doesn't make sense to say that anarchists oppose social hierarchy. "Social hierarchy" is basically a meaningless term. RJII 20:34, 22 November 2005 (UTC)
A term that has [374,000 google hits] is 'meaningless'? The meaning of social hierarchy seems clear to me - a social structure which reproduces the power of some individuals or groups over others (generally, people just say 'hierarchy'; 'social' simply serves to disambiguate).
Different anarchists disagree on what counts as a social hierarchy, but they all, I think, agree in their condemnation of whatever it is that they take to be social hierarchy. The fact that the term is open to different interpretations is no argument against including it in the definition of anarchism. Do you believe there are anarchists who are in favor of a social organization that they themselves believe to be hierarchical? Are you saying that there are individualist anarchists who believe both that employer/employee relationships are hierarchical and that they are acceptable? VoluntarySlave 23:11, 22 November 2005 (UTC)
Of course there are individualists that think employee/employer situation is hierarchical. The employer tells the employee what to do; if he doesn't do it he doesn't get paid. The employer is the employee's superior, so to speak. It's a hierarchy. But for individualists, it's a voluntary hierarchy. Anarchists are against coercion. Saying anarchists are against "social hiearchy" is vague; even saying they are against "hierarchy" is vague. Anarchists don't oppose what they believe to be voluntary hierarchies. RJII 01:17, 23 November 2005 (UTC)
But, in that case, the employer/employee relationship wouldn't be an example of social hierarchy, that is to say, a hierarchy enforced by the structure of society; it would simply be a fortuitous relation between individuals. 'Hierarchy' is indeed vague, but 'social hierarchy' is not, I think (though it's unfortunate the social hierarchy article sucks). We could change it to something like 'coercive hierarchy', but that, to me at least, suggests only individual coercion, rather than structural coercion. Hmm... how about 'coercive and socially-enforced hierarchies'? VoluntarySlave 09:31, 23 November 2005 (UTC)
That would make much more sense. It's the enforcement that's non-anarchistic. RJII 14:29, 23 November 2005 (UTC)
Yes, it's the same "voluntary hierarchy" as in concentration camps was. You could pounce yourself on electric fence OR work hard to death. Was it volunatry decision or not? If capitalism is some kind of system, then your decision-making is limited by arrangements of this system. You can imagine that you have "free will", but it's only illusion. If capitalism by its very nature leads to hierarchy and cannot exist without systemic hierarchy, then it cannot be named non-coercive, if coercion and hierarchy (in practice) is inseparable part of this system. --XaViER 08:04, 23 November 2005 (UTC)
I didn't even have capitalism in mind. Just because there are employers and employees, it doesn't make it capitalism. RJII 13:37, 23 November 2005 (UTC)
XaVIER> "Yes, it's the same "voluntary hierarchy" as in concentration camps."
I don't see how you can call a concentration camp 'voluntary.' If you can't opt out, then it's not voluntary. This is precisely why employee-employer relationships are voluntary - either party can opt out.
VS> "We could change it to something like 'coercive hierarchy', but that, to me at least, suggests only individual coercion, rather than structural coercion. How about 'socially-enforced hierarchies'?"
Why not simply "enforced hierarchies?" I don't see how "socially" adds anything. Unless you specifically intend to allow hierarchies enforced by gods or gorillas or aliens from outer space. Like RJ11 says, "It's the enforcement that's non-anarchistic." Hogeye 20:05, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

Regarding Vague Terms

If we have to take out terms that are 'vague' or have disputed meanings we should probably start with all uses of 'coercive' and 'voluntary'.Bengalski 11:42, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

Hear Hear! What hypocrisy is contained there within.. RJII goes around for months creating articles vague and non-notable/almost unused concepts and then starts to deny social hierarchy or the idea of hierarchy in society .. Paaah! -max rspct 12:54, 23 November 2005 (UTC)


There is a difference between vagueness and inclusiveness. E.g. the term "six" can refer to anything from apples to penis length in inches, yet it is not vague. It is in this context an abstraction of cardinality with respect to any type of entity - it abstracts away the particular type of entity being counted.

The term "social hierarchy" is not some recognized higher-order concept - many have no idea what it means, how it differs from "hierarchy", or how it relates to anarchism. "Social hierarchy" is a vague term.

"Voluntary" is a higher-order concept which abstracts away any particular notion of what constitutes aggression. "Aggression" itself is a concept which abstracts away any particular theory of property or rights, just as the term "culture" abstract away any particular social norms.

So my opinion is that "voluntary" and "aggression" are inclusive terms which can be quite useful in the article (since all types of anarchists agree at this level of abstraction that e.g. aggression is bad.) But terms like "social hierarchy," which have no (or obscure) meaning to some anarchists, are not useful, being too vague. Hogeye 17:31, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

The fact that some anarchists do not know what "social hierarchy" (a well-understood term in social science) means is not ipso facto a reason for not using it. But perhaps its use should wait until it has a good Wikipedia entry, so that people who don't know what it means can find out. VoluntarySlave 19:19, 28 November 2005 (UTC)
If opposition to "social hierarchy" is so essential to defining anarchism then one has to wonder why the term is not mentioned in other encyclopedias out there ..from the Encyclopedia Britannica 1910 (which anarchists seem to have so much respect for) to the modern Encyclopedia Britannica, to MS Encarta Encyclopedia, to Columbia Encyclopedia, etc. Maybe they're not using it for the same reason ..it's so vague that it can mean pretty much anything. RJII 19:38, 28 November 2005 (UTC)
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