• This is a political forum that is non-biased/non-partisan and treats every person's position on topics equally. This debate forum is not aligned to any political party. In today's politics, many ideas are split between and even within all the political parties. Often we find ourselves agreeing on one platform but some topics break our mold. We are here to discuss them in a civil political debate. If this is your first visit to our political forums, be sure to check out the RULES. Registering for debate politics is necessary before posting. Register today to participate - it's free!

The Anarchist Prophets

And socialism isn't?

Considering the historical association of anarchism with stateless socialism, and the superiority of socialism above all other existing economic systems to reduce hierarchical managerial structures, I'd say not.

The only true anarchism is consistent opposition to any system of government. If rules are created, the anarchist opposes those rules and whatever body created them, regardless of whether the rules protect workers' access to the means of production or protect the ruling class's control over the means of production.

Though opposition to the existence of a state is a necessary condition of anarchism, it is not a sufficient one, as opposition to capitalism and other sources of unjust authoritarian hierarchy are also necessary conditions of anarchism or any principled libertarianism. Since opposition to hierarchy is the most fundamental tenet of anarchism, some anarchists do consistently support state intervention in presently existing conditions as a means of reducing injustice. Since I'm a consequentialist, I'm among them.

Ironically, only reason a government can impose its rules on anyone is because there isn't any rule saying they can't. From anarchy, hierarchy is established, and to anarchy it shall return.

Libertarians are generally willing to suffer a government to the extent that it protects its constituents against force and fraud.

Libertarians, meaning libertarian socialists, are generally willing to suffer a government to the extent that it protects its constituents against coercion in addition to outright force and fraud, and reduction of the power and influence of capitalism is an integral component of that.
 
The inevitable deficiencies of excessively centralized organization are related to the dispersed knowlede problems identified by Hayek as deficiencies of the centrally planned economy, actually.

Dispersed knowledge is irrelevant compared to the power of unified strategy and logistics. Without something as basic as ammunition commonality, the disadvantages are crippling. There is a reason why every powerful military of the last few centuries has been heavily centralized.

That, along with the ideological fervency of the libertarian movement, accounted for anarchist militias' successes over opponents prior to incorporation into tradititional military bodies in battlefields already exposed to the widespread usage of firearms, not some medieval context

The anarchists didn't win in any of those conflicts. In fact, that they were willing to be incorporated into a regular military body proves my point, not yours. They were willing to sacrifice their ideological points in order to better fight an even worse outcome.

Simply ignoring this historical reality in order to assert the superiority of abstract theory doesn't advance your point.

You accuse me of ignoring historical reality? The power of the centralized military is obvious considering the wars of the last century.
You are pushing an abstract theory, considering the 100% failure rate of anarchists at war.

Why not simply answer my thought experiment? If you are correct, why would you have a problem with proving your point?
 
Back
Top Bottom