Why I'm no longer an Anarchist (I think)
Arguably I got into Anarchism too quickly, being an An-cap prior I suddenly realised my beliefs were flawed, and with Stalin not being an option I figured Anarcho-Communism was the only place left to go.
However about a year into it all I started again finding holes, which as you can imagine frustrated me further. As of this point I’ve done some more research and feel ready to admit I don’t consider my views worthy of being labeled ‘Anarchist’ anymore.
Currently I find that the Anarchist goal, whilst definitely noble and ideally, the best system, I have bring my concerns to how this would work out in actuality, in other words I find it a little Utopian.
By Utopian I must address that this does not mean the cliche of Infantile Rainbows and Unicorns, after all if I could prove to you a method of getting to that goal it wouldn’t be Utopian would it? What is indeed meant by this is the effective ways to achieve the end goal.
Anarchism doesn’t view the state as a tool to achieve Communism but rather a plague that needs to be gotten rid of, this can become problematic.
Without a doubt I don’t want a state, but then nobody does, at the far end of the spectrum I’m fairly certain that the most reverent beholder of Marxism-Leninism doesn’t want a state. The only reason why so many Marxists put a large emphasis on the necessity of a state apparatus is because of its effectiveness.
With a state you can very easily coordinate resources, respond effectively to disasters, and most importantly, defend against external threats.
When you remove an entity so prevalent in the thousands of years of civilisation, and indeed the entity that allows society in its present to function properly, people don’t just suddenly go “Oh ok we’re stateless now, and there are no markets, lets just commune together” theres going to be bloodshed, theres going to be backlash. This method of bringing both down together doesn’t suddenly result in you having a stateless, classless society, what it creates is a power vacuum, and if you’re not ready to fill it in someone else will.
A lot of my movement away from Anarchism has actually been inspired from watching the state of Libertarianism slowly die and fade into irrelevance in this highly political age. People who just 2-3 years ago were preaching the love of non aggression, are now vehemently supporting things that nobody would have believed in any way fitted the stereotype of a Libertarian. Yet ironically, this brand of Libertarianism is quite possibly the most fitting, and most effective.
As time has gone on, they’ve realised that even though they love their NAP, other people don’t and are not going to be becoming Libertarians any time soon. Larken Rose can go on all he wants about how all we need is to just reject the state and accept voluntarism, but society isn’t created upon Liberty alone.
What is going to happen when another group of people who decide to use very ‘collectivist’ tactics against his homestead? He’s going to die thats what, and no matter of owning a few dozen rifles is going to protect you from a coordinated military who can block off your supply lines and bomb you with drones.
As of such, those who reject the idealism of American Libertarianism will be the ones who survive and gain progress, even though their philosophy of xenophobia and racism is barbaric in this modern age, it is what lends itself towards further support for their objectives. 1 Far-Right populist is more effective than 20 Arm Chair Libertarians.
Now I’m not going to say that Anarchists in any way are as ineffective as Libertarians, far from it, but the Libertarian transformation has been very eye-opening.
Anarchism has really been a historical failure. We can go on all we like about how the Soviet Union failed in 1917 when they become authoritarian, but fact of the matter is they survived and at least managed to improve their people’s livelihood somewhat, as it did in China, Cuba and elsewhere.
The same cannot be said for Anarchist societies, we overemphasise Catalonia to an almost comedic extent, its not to say that a lot of good didn’t come from it, but if 1-2 years of a highly fragile society is the best Anarchism has to offer we might want to have a look at why they always ended up failing in the first place.
The Fascists did indeed massively overwhelm the Catalans, but thats an argument that you make towards Liberals not other Socialists. We have to win, and if we’re serious about that then we cannot just waltz around the failure in Spain and cherry pick things to learn from it. When you are faced with a massive army over the hill there is no time to be complacent, ideals have to be surrendered for a short while or else everything you have been doing it for nought.
Whats interesting is that I have found many of my, ugh, ‘comrades’ (I hate the casual use of that word) make excuses for the ongoing experiment in Rojava, which still operates in a highly authoritarian state. They claim that because of the on going war its understandable why they do need to operate in a more Auth fashion, but why do we not say the same then for the Russian Revolution? Lenin never wanted to have a standing army, he wanted there to be as little authoritarian measures in place, but when he found that 12 other countries and rebels disagreed with him he didn’t have any other option.
If the Bolshie’s had lost because they acted like the Catalans I could only guess that people like me would have been heralding the Bolshevik failure as a great attempt by the workers to crush the state, and if the Kurds win and take up practices similar to the Soviets in our timeline we will probably be denouncing them, its an endless cycle of ideals.
I find too often that we get preoccupied on abstract notions of what our ideal society would look like, and not about how to counter present barriers towards that goal. If you asked me a year ago who I would have preferred in power, Maduro or a US puppet, I would have responded by saying “I wouldn’t want either” but thats a terrible answer because that is the reality of the situation in Venezuela right now, sometimes there are no easy options and we have to settle with whats available. Have you ever lived under a Fascist dictatorship? Spain was left to suffer under one for 40 years, and I highly doubt most of those Spaniards would have looked upon you kindly when you go around hinting that a Fascist regime is preferable to a State-Socialist one. This isn’t just rhetoric, I’ve genuinely heard people say this.
A lesser qualm I have is with the state of online youtube, it was a sobering moment when I found that ‘The Black Rose’ became an Anarchist after watching Libertarian Socialist Rants, and now presently he is a sort of Maoist. I too became an Anarchist after viewing LSR, as did others. This isn’t a criticism of anyone, but its highly interesting that many of us got into this school of thought not by reading the theory, not by researching the history of the movement, but through just 1 popular friend of mine, but then maybe thats just me being angsty.
Sometimes I just figure when it comes to Anarchism “Go that way and Die” because as good as our ideals might be, when it comes to people who are not going to fight on our terms, its always ended up in bloodbath.
I am still frankly unsure as to whether I’ve got this right or not, I might be missing a few areas here and there and I’m welcome to being corrected, but I am interested in winning, and if that means taking upon views that aren’t the Anarchist view, so be it. As time has gone on I’m not interested in specifically labelling myself anymore, I want to win, and I think you should too.
- Nope, this doesn’t mean I’m ML, MLM, or Juche the Mooch, I’m currently in the privileged position of uncertainty.
- I still love Anarchist culture and prefer it to Vanguard stuff. And this doesn’t mean I don’t find a great amount of good from Anarchist theory and practice.
- This is not an attack on anybody, and I’d appreciate it if you didn’t try and berate me for it.
- Yes I still support Social Justice, sorry NazBols.
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