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So anarchism is a gigantic body of philosophy, and as much as I hate to do this, The Anarchist FAQ will answer your questions better than most people here. I'll try to summarize, though. The guiding principle of anarchism is anti-hierarchy. The primary hierarchies that anarchists are against are: capitalism, the state, racial hierarchies, gender hierarchies, and the ecological hierarchy of humans dominating the planet. The hierarchies that attract a bit less attention in anarchism include organized religion, the modern school system, nuclear/patriarchal families, and violence in general (there is active debate on when and whether violence is an appropriate tactic for social change). Many anarchists are fine replacing more oppressive hierarchies with less oppressive ones. So to your question about welfare and social security, very few anarchists oppose social programs outright. You're more oppressed if you need to work until you're 90 or starve, than you are in a country with robust social security. A lot of anarchists get caught in the romance of being free from all oppression (there is certainly a younger component, since that's around the time when people figure out what kind of hosed up world they're about to enter), but most are pretty practical. If there is any political philosophy that could be said to be anarchism's opposite, it would be fascism, where all oppressive systems are combined into a single, totalitarian entity. Unlike many political systems, there are both historical and contemporary anarchist societies. For the vast majority of humanity's time on the planet, there was no capitalism and there was no state. Maybe the most cited modern anarchist society is Revolutionary Catalonia. Others include the Ukraine Free Territory, the Zaps in Chiapas, Mexico (currently active), and (arguably) the revolution going on right now in Rojava. Among others. Anarchism is the state-skeptical branch of socialism. Flavors of anarchism include anarcho-communism (my guess would be this is the most prominent), anarcho-primitivism (think twigs and the Unabomber), post-left anarchism (don't know much about this; active in the 80s/90s), anarcho-pacifism (think Tolstoy), communalism (Bookchin), anarcho-syndicalism (Catalonia/IWW), and a bunch more. They agree on most of the big questions, it seems like more of an ethics-and-tactics debate. Anarcho-capitalism is not anarchism. It's capitalism, completely unregulated, and instead of the state enforcing property and breaking strikes, it's private armies (think the Pinkertons, or Mussolini's blackshirts, or the Freikorps). Many ancaps are admitted fascists. There is a long history of far-right groups co-opting left messaging; this is just the latest. That's a lot of history. What do anarchists do? Besides protesting (har), anarchists are over-represented in free software/free technology. They've set up infoshops in major cities where you can learn and talk and get help (especially if you're down on your luck). Food Not Bombs, which just distributes free food to whoever, is an anarchist group. Occupy was really over-represented, both in planning and during the occupations, by anarchists. Most anti-fascist organizing (antifa) is performed by anarchists, violently. There's really a shitload though, and every major social movement I can think of has or had an anarchist contingent. Okay, maybe not the Tea Party. Hope that helps. edit:elaboration and grammar Mofabio fucked around with this message at 05:34 on Mar 10, 2016 |
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Mar 10, 2016 04:45
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