Anarchism

[villain]

History has proven that anarchy only lasts a short while. Usually following the overthrow of a corrupt state/monarchial power. But it provides the impetus for something new and better. For this reason I see anarchy as the birthing ground of all people oriented systems. Just like the US.... following the revolution they decided to keep some of english law that they felt worked and wrote new laws and gave more individual freedoms.

There are rare cases where "anarchy" has had a lasting impression, notably the pirate haven of Sale, but even that had some form of governance.

 

You can call it politics... but if you start from politics, the first thing you do is form a party or join a party, and all parties have a designated platform. If you start in anarchy it is largely an exchange of ideas and theories (plenty of which are very good) much like what we are doing now. Look at all the discussion anarchy is provoking!

[KaBar2]

The anarchist fight to achieve the 8-Hour Day started in 1882, if memory serves. At that time, the standard American workday was 14 hours with 30 minutes for lunch, and the work week was six days, with Sundays off. If you ever heard of the infamous Haymarket Riot, it was a rally for the 8-Hour Day that was attacked by the police. The "Haymarket Martyrs" were all anarchists, every one, who spoke at the rally. They were hanged for inciting a riot and murder, although they did not do the crimes of which they were convicted.

 

The I.W.W., which was substantially an anarchist organization after 1924, fought for Disability and Unemployment Insurance to be administered by the government and paid for by the employer. I'm not sure when they started organizing for it. I'd need to look it up, but I think it became law in the 1930's.

[seeking]

villian,

i guess i just dont look at that as 'anarchism', it's simply the interum between two different forms of government. any time there is a new state created, or a collapse of one system, there will always be a period of 'self rule', but it's never the intended ends.

 

kabar,

even if they were 'anarchists' of some form, the fact that they were anarchists is irrelivent, since the things they fought for have nothing what so ever to do with 'anarchism'. pettitioning the government to regulate business is not 'anarchism'.

[villain]

Originally posted by seeking@Dec 3 2004, 10:40 AM

pettitioning the government to regulate business is not 'anarchism'.

Quoted post

 

 

Ummm.... why not? Have you seen the Regulations, or Constitution, or Manifesto, or Codex of Anarchy? Isn't this the point I'm trying to make? Alot of different anarchists believe in alot of different things. The only similarities are probably that it's all people oriented.

[KaBar2]

You Enjoy Myself-- "No."

 

Anarchism, what is sometimes termed "classical" or "philosophical" anarchism, developed from the early ideas of socialism. The two principal theorists of Socialism at that period of time (1860's) were Karl Marx and Mikhail Bakunin. They were both leading lights in the International Working Men's Association (IWMA) which still existed in the middle 1970's ( I don't know about today--maybe.) The IWMA was the organization that gave birth to the Socialist Party, the Communist Party and so forth.

 

Karl Marx and Fredrich Engels advocated what was then termed "scientific socialism." It was an authoritarian form of socialism that eventually came to be known as "Communism." This is because Mikhail Bakunin and his followers, who vehemently opposed Marx and his authoritarians, were having great success organizing workers with their ideas of a non-authoritarian form of socialism that they called "communism (small "c".) Unfortunately, the working class of that time wasn't very sophisticated, and plenty of them could not even read, or could not read well enough to follow complicated political treatises and arguments.

Marx and his scientific socialists ripped off the Bakuninist's name, and started calling their authoritarian brand of socialism by the designation "Communism." They also ripped off Bakunin's idea that the State itself was oppressive. Thus was born the irrational idea that the State would eventually "wither away" from the ministrations of one of the most authoritarian forms of government ever conceived by the mind of man. Bakunin resisted Marx's efforsts to dominate the First International Congress of the IWMA (known as the "First International") but he was unsuccessful, and the authoritarians managed to carry a vote expelling the Bakuninists. Marx called them "anarchists" which was intended as an insult (at that time, the word "anarchy" was synonymous with "chaos.") The Bakuninists repaired to another meeting hall, and set up what they considered to be the legitimate meeting of the IWMA, which they called the Second International (some anarchists today mark up a "2" inside of a diamond--a reference to the Second International.) Since Marx stole their name (communists) and tried to insult them by calling them anarchists, Bakunin and his followers adopted the insult proudly and "anti-authoritarian socialism," also called "libertarian socialism," has been called Anarchism ever since, and it's proponents have been called "anarchists." BUT IT IS A BRANCH OF THE SOCIALIST TREE.

 

One of the first expressions of philosophical anarchism was a satirical essay by Edmund Burke published in 1756, Vindication of a Natural Society.

 

In 1883, Joseph Lane---a long time labor activist, freethinker, atheist and anti-statist---published a pamphlet called An Anti-Statist Communist Manifesto. In it Lane defended liberty, equality and solidarity--what would today be called libertarian socialism. He attacked all forms of authority, whether religious or political, and declared himself both atheist and anti-statist. This was (and is) expressed in the anarchist slogan, Neither God Nor Master! Lane did not like the word "anarchist," prefering to call himself a revolutionary socialist or a free communist.

 

Although he was happily married with several children, he lambasted marriage as what was wrong with private life and Parlaiment as what was wrong with public life. He also rejected imperialism (the real deal--British imperialism), emigration, cooperatives, land "nationalization", "tee-totalism", vegetarianism, Malthusianism (birth control, and an early form of eugenics) and the eight-hour day and public relief for the unemployed (which many other anarchists supported on humanitarian grounds) as "mere palliatives that only delay the social revolution."

 

By 1885, there were two internationally well-known anarchist newspapers, The Anarchist and Freedom (which still publishes today, in London.) In 1887 there were two terrible tragedies, the Haymarket Martyrs, innocent of any violence, were hanged in the U.S., and a police riot against an anarchist rally in Great Britain known as "Bloody Sunday." These events triggered a big increase in anarchist organizing and from 1887 until the mid-twenties, the anarchist movement roared to life. Laws were passed in many countries making advocating anarchism or organizing anarchist leagues or disseminating anarchist literature as felonies.

 

There are a lot of different anarchist strains, from the individualism of Stirner, to Kropotkin's agrarian collectives, to anarcho-syndicalism. The CNT-FAI, in Spain, fought the fascists on the behalf of the legitimate Spanish government, as soldiers. Does that make them "not anarchists?"

 

Anarchists generally advocate:

--No State

--No Church

--No Marriage

--No conscription into the armed forces

--No taxes

--No prisons or jails

--No Laws restricting behavior, except cultural norms (in other words, one may defend oneself, but not attack others.)

--Ownership of the means of production in common

--Society should share the burden of illness or injury, and also the abundance of social production.

 

There are other important points, but this covers the basics.

[KaBar2]

BTW, I'm a Republican and a Christian. Maybe not too good of a Christian, but a Christian nevertheless. I haven't been an anarchist for years.