anarchism

Posts tagged with anarchism

A Hayekian Argument For Occupancy-and-Use

1 Occupancy-and-use is the term given by anarchist theory to a vague collection of property norms focused around the idea that the right[fn:1] to use a thing, to determine what happens to it, and determine the conditions of its transfer, etc, should be assigned to those who actually do use (or occupy, a form of use that has to do with spacial location) that thing. Of course, the range and extent of this bundle of rights, as well as what counts as actual occupancy or use, is up for debate and

Abortion and Individualist Anarchism

1 Ever since I first began my journey towards anarchism, my views on multiple conflicting intuitions and considerations all pulling my values in different directions, while the prevailing winds of my evolving moral system changed which were foremost in my mind. Usually, with things like this, it is important to open a dialogue about it with others, in order to gain new perspectives and refine one's understanding, but due to the understandably controversial nature of the topic, I've found it di

An absolute beginner's cyberspace privacy guide for rising fascism

So you're worried about the rising tide of fascism in the United States, and you want to take some steps to make it harder to surveil you. Welcome! I'll take you through a few things you can do.

Many of this will involve using alternatives to the technology you're presently used to using. This will be difficult, both because you'll have to get used to new interfaces and set new software up, and because many of these pieces of software, while very functional (I use them every day), are also de

Anarchism: Process, Not Destination

That which dominates all my studies, its principle and aim, its summit and base… is that I affirm, resolutely and irrevocably, in all and everywhere, Progress, and that I deny, no less resolutely, the Absolute… Progress, once more, is the affirmation of universal movement, consequently the negation every immutable form and formula, of every doctrine of eternity, permanence, [perfection], etc., applied to any being whatever; it is the negation of every permanent order, even that of the u

Anarchist Conflict Resolution and Community Defense

/Author's Note: before or after you read this essay, I highly recommend you read What Is Individualist Anarchism, which overlaps with this one in a few ways but in general elaborates more on values, property norms, and long term goals, but less on institutions specifically. I view these essays as essentially two sides of the same coin, and the way I phrase my ideas in one or the other my make more sense to you./

Anarchistic Relations

Introduction In giving up the anarcho-capitalist framework for distinguishing between legitimate and illegitimate interactions between people, I gave up clarity for greater correctness. This has left my philosophical system, in terms of what I support and do not support, in a state of general flux. This was acceptable, in the sense that being correct is far more there are a million wrong, but quite simple, narratives about the worl

Autonomy: Our Flourishing and Power

Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience. They may be more likely to go to Heaven yet at the same time likelier to make a Hell of

Cops, Vigilantes, and Protection

1 There is a fine line between the defense of oneself and others, which is proper to anarchistic relations, and the exercise of authority which (when unleashed) is paradigmatic of police. This is not to say that there is a fine line between reciprocal anarchistic relations and the that is not the case at all, those two things are poles apart. Instead, this is to say that the line where one steps from non-hierarchical, anarchist relations with others onto relations of authority and hierarchy wh

Democracy Won't Save You

God, the State, Society, Humanity, etc., etc. have their own cause for themselves. If I don't want to subjugate myself God's cause, I am a "sinner". If I don't want to submit to the State, Society, Humanity, I am a "wicked man", a "criminal", a "delinquent". "Sacred"! This is the most monstrous and terrible phantom before which all have trembled up to now. Here is the old, harsh tablet that the new human beings must Renzo Nevatore, Cry of Rebellion

In leftist circles, democracy is often us

[T]he things that we do together with others do not simply add up… specialization and association bring about the formation of unity-collectivities, social beings with qualities, strengths and perhaps even ideas that arise from the combination and unification of Shawn P. Wilbur, Constructing an Anarchism: Collective Force

So, given the shortcomings and internal contradictions of a planning, t

Freedom and Domination: Toward a Reunification of Values

As soon as the relationship between lord and subject is established, hearts become daily more filled with evil designs, until the manacled criminals sullenly doing forced labour in the mud and the dust are full of mutinous thoughts, the Sovereign trembles with anxious fear in his ancestral temple, and the people simmer with revolt in the midst of their poverty and distress; and to try to stop them revolting by means of rules and regulations, or control them by means of penalties and punishments

Freeing the noosphere

Author's note: the historical references found herein are meant to be general and impressionistic. I am intentionally simplifying and linearizing this narrative to make a point about how the representation media for ideas effects the nature of the noosphere-economy, not to make any historical point. I have linked to relevant respectable sources for each historical thing so that you can go learn the real history in all its proper complexity if you are interested.

The

Fuck the State… But Not Like That

A state? What is that? Well! …*A state, is called the coldest of all cold monsters.* Coldly lieth it also; and this lie creepeth from its mouth: "I, the state, am the people." … Where there is still a people, there the state is not understood, but hated as the evil eye, and as sin against laws and customs. … The state lieth in all languages of good and evil; and whatever it saith it lieth; and*whatever it hath it hath

Thus Sake Zarathustra, Friedrich Nietzsche

The Coldest of All C

How to do a revolution

And tonight, when I dream it will be That the junkies spent all the drug money on Community gardens and collective housing

And the punk kids who moved in the ghetto Have started meeting their neighbors besides the angry ones With the yards That their friends and their dogs have been puking and shitting on

And the anarchists have started Filling potholes, collecting garbage To prove we don't need governments to do these things And I'll wake up, burning Time's Square as we sing "Throw your hand

"Another world is possible" every time equal uniques, free absolutes, meet on a terrain shaped by any number of histories but no structures of Shawn P. Wilbur, "The Anatomy of the Encounter"

Author's Note As has become somewhat of a theme, perhaps even a requirement, for this recent spate of better-quality postings beginning with "Vision of An Anarchist Society," instead of sitting down to =Write About Somethin

Possession Versus Absentee Property

1 In this post, I'm just going to try to explain, as succinctly as possible, the important differences between possession and absentee property (generally just referred to as "property" by Proudhon, e.g. "property is theft"). I've covered this distinction several times before, but I think I've boiled it down enough that creating a self-contained blog post for it is relevant.

2 Someone's possessions are the material objects that they regularly or semi-regularly use or occupy. Such things might

Power and Hierarchy

Identifying inequalities of power, instances of domination which creates the space for hierarchies and other forms of authority and subordination, is one of the cornerstones anarchist political and social theory. In order to fight back against something, after all, you have to be able to identify it. I began this project from an unorthodox angle in my account of the anarchic encounter, but I think a few words (at least) are ne

Property Provisos

1 One of the particularly interesting threads from 'Anarchistic Relations' that I wanted to follow more was that a set of limitations on property were a natural outgrowth of property based on egoistic reciprocity. To recap:

Essentially, if we take the idea that generally speaking people want to be able to satisfy the maximum amount of desires, that conflict is bad for that, and that autonomy is pretty much a prerequisite for desire

Radical elitist egalitarianism

The most disheartening tendency common among readers is to tear out one sentence from a work, as a criterion of the writer’s ideas or personality. Friedrich Nietzsche, for instance, is decried as a hater of the weak because he believed in the Uebermensch. It does not occur to the shallow interpreters of that giant mind that this vision of the Uebermensch also called for a state of society which will not give birth to a race of weaklings and slaves.

It is the same narrow attitude which sees in

Theft is Good, Actually; or, Stigmergic Socialism Vs. The Welfare State

stigmergy (noun) - (biology) A mechanism of spontaneous, indirect coordination between agents or actions, where the trace left in the environment by an action stimulates the performance of a subsequent action. - (systems theory) A mechanism of indirect coordination between agents or actions, in which the aftereffects of one action guide a subsequent action.

In my previous essay, I mentioned how the enforcement of absolute laws, for example in the case of theft, can actually be harmful - not

Two Principles of Anarchism

Introduction

Up to now the victories of justice over injustice and of equality over inequality have been won by instinct and the simple force of things, but the final triumph of our social nature will be due to our reason, or Pierre-Joseph Proudhon

There are two principles, which, when generally followed, bring the best average results in life for an individual who follows them, and also form the basis of a society which benefits all the members thereof. These principles are the principl

What Is Anti-Work?

1 Wanting work reform is not anti-work. Not wanting to do anything challenging or productive is not anti-work. These are the two primary misconceptions about what it means to be anti-work that I hope to correct. The latter comes from our overt enemies, and the former from those cultists of the status quo who wish to co-opt our terms and our spaces and destroy the revolutionary character of our ideas, all the i.e., our covert enemies. In this essay, instead of arguing head-on against these

What Is Individualist Anarchism?

"Infernal world! and thou, profoundest Hell, Receive thy new one who brings A mind not to be changed by place or time. The mind is its own place, and in itself Can make a Heaven of Hell, a Hell of Heaven. What matter where, if I be still the same, And what I should be, all but less than he Whom thunder hath made greater? Here at least We shall be free; th' Almighty hath not built Here for his envy, will not drive us hence: Here we may reign secure; and, in my choice, To reign is worth ambition,

Why I Am No Longer An Anarcho-Capitalist

A Fundamental Confusion Of Values

My primary problem with anarcho-capitalists, as I mentioned in another essay ('Two Principles of Anarchism') is that they are fundamentally confused about values. The value at the heart of all libertarian movements is autonomy, often referred to as liberty: the desire to be a free individual, making one's own choices about one's life, labor, and associations, according to one's own plans. This is why people are attracted to any form of libertarianism or in

Why I Identify As a Satanist

"Did [Satan] rebel against his maker? It was, as he himself informs us, because he saw no sufficient reason, for that extreme inequality of rank William Godwin, anarchist, 1793

1 I think, given the rather obvious Satanist imagery that has permeated my blog, not to mention the references to it that are sprinkled throughout my posts, that it is finally time to explain why I am a Satanist. I give a brief explanation of why in my about page, but something like this deserves a much deeper examin

Why the "Left" always loses

See also: What the fuck does praxis even mean?

In my opinion, I think it's really kind of for three interlocking reasons.

The first is that The Left has increasingly become the politics of /ressentiment, with very few exceptions. This is not inherent to many of the projects of the Left, but it's inescapable in Leftist culture as a whole. "Leftism" is a system of morality and values constructed by the w