Political Anarchist Ideology

A Political Anarchist Ideology is a political ideology which assumes that the burden of proof for anyone in a position of power lies on them.

• Context:
  • It can be held by a Political Anarchist.
  • It can (typically) espouse Challenging Authority.
  • …
• Example(s):
  • Anarcho-Capitalism.
  • Anarcho-Syndicalism.
  • Anarcho-Communism.
  • …
• Counter-Example(s):
  • Monarchism.
  • Fascism.
• See: Democratic Ideology, Stateless Society, State (Polity), Hierarchical Organisation.

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References

2020

• (Wikipedia, 2020) ⇒ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarchism Retrieved:2020-9-1.
  • Anarchism is a political philosophy and movement that rejects all involuntary, coercive forms of hierarchy. It calls for the abolition of the state which it holds to be undesirable, unnecessary and harmful. It is usually described alongside libertarian Marxism as the libertarian wing (libertarian socialism) of the socialist movement and as having a historical association with anti-capitalism and socialism.

    The history of anarchism goes back to prehistory, when some humans lived in anarchistic societies long before the establishment of formal states, realms or empires. With the rise of organised hierarchical bodies, skepticism toward authority also rose, but it was not until the 19th century that a self-conscious political movement emerged. During the latter half of the 19th and the first decades of the 20th century, the anarchist movement flourished in most parts of the world and had a significant role in workers' struggles for emancipation. Various anarchist schools of thought formed during this period. Anarchists have taken part in several revolutions, most notably in the Spanish Civil War, whose end marked the end of the classical era of anarchism. In the last decades of the 20th century and into the 21st century, the anarchist movement has been resurgent once more.

    Anarchism employs various tactics in order to meet its ideal ends; these can be broadly separated into revolutionary and evolutionary tactics. There is significant overlap between the two which are merely descriptive. Revolutionary tactics aim to bring down authority and state, and have taken a violent turn in the past. Evolutionary tactics aim to prefigure what an anarchist society would be like. Anarchist thought, criticism and praxis have played a part in diverse areas of human society. Criticism of anarchism mainly focuses on claims of it being internally inconsistent, violent, and utopian.

2016

• http://www.filmsforaction.org/articles/anarchists-what-we-stand-for/
  • Anarchism : The word “anarchy” comes from Greek and means “no rulers”. As a political philosophy, anarchism is based on the idea that organization does not require rulers — that people can get together and deal with all the problems facing them, without an authority directing them. Only for those who think that the only way to organize is to have a boss giving orders, does “anarchy” mean “chaos”.
    1. . We are opposed to capitalism. The economic system based on private property and production for a profit literally creates poverty by depriving the poor of the means of subsistence. The poor are then exploited by the rich as a source of cheap labor. As long as there is capitalism, there will be poverty, misery and exploitation.
    2. . We are opposed to colonialism. Capitalism was founded on the profits reaped from African slaves and the stolen land of the indigenous people of the Americas. This brutal dispossession, subordination and exploitation or elimination of entire peoples continues today. The colonized people are everywhere among the poorest and most exploited.
    3. . We are opposed to white supremacy. While rarely explicitly advocated anymore, the systematic privileging of white people over people of color is a structural aspect of the society in which we live. This structural racism exists globally and locally and means that the rich and powerful tend to be white people, while the poorest and most exploited are people of color.
    4. . We are opposed to patriarchy. Across the globe there exists a structural sexism that gives men more access to wealth and power while creating conditions in which women are impoverished, exploited and brutalized. Everywhere, women are among the poorest workers, and much of the work that women do is unpaid.
    5. . We are opposed to police. The vast majority of crimes is caused by poverty and could be eliminated by doing away with poverty. Putting people in prison is a way to control rebellious poor people as well as a way to exploit their labor. The police and the army are the physical violence of the state. They exist to keep the poor and oppressed in their place. They serve and protect only the rich and their interests. We want work to be geared toward fulfilling the needs of the community and controlled by those doing the work. We want the means of subsistence guaranteed to those who cannot work.
    6. . We are opposed to war. Wars are fought to expand empires and to protect the interests of the rich in one country. Those who suffer and die are the poor in all countries involved. Nevertheless, we are not pacifists, and uphold the right of people to resist oppression violently if necessary.
    7. . We are opposed to borders. Borders are artificial barriers that divide us and facilitate our exploitation. They allow the rich and their investments to pass easily, while impeding the free movement of people. They allow empires to extend rights and privileges only to the border, while extending exploitation across the globe. Borders are the inhuman laws that allow humans to be labeled “illegal” and exploited as cheap labor.
    8. . We want economic equality. We want libertarian communism. We want the land and the means of production and distribution held in common.
    9. . We want political freedom. We want a stateless society— a society without rulers and ruled. We want political institutions created out of free association and not coercion. We want autonomy and self-government for all peoples and for all people.
    10. . We want human dignity. We want the means of development provided to all. We want a classless society, where cultures and people are free to define themselves and interact as equals. We want inter-personal, local, regional and global solidarity and mutual aid.
    11. . We need a revolution. We realize that those who profit off of misery will do everything in their power to maintain the world as it is, and the road ahead will be filled with battles. But only by fighting these battles, only through struggle on the part of the poor and exploited, against their exploiters can we ever hope to bring about an end to exploitation?

2014a

• (Wikipedia, 2014) ⇒ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarchism Retrieved:2014-11-4.
  • Anarchism is a political philosophy that advocates stateless societies often defined as self-governed voluntary institutions, Strains of anarchism have often been divided into the categories of social and individualist anarchism or similar dual classifications. Anarchism is often considered a radical left-wing ideology, and much of anarchist economics and anarchist legal philosophy reflect anti-authoritarian interpretations of communism, collectivism, syndicalism, mutualism, or participatory economics. At some point "the collectivist, communist, and liberal and individualist strands of thought from which anarchists drew their inspiration began to assume an increasingly distinctive quality, supporting the rise of a number of anarchist schools."

     Anthropologist David Graeber has noted that while the major schools of Marxism always have founders (e.g. Leninism, Trotskyism, Maoism), schools of anarchism "almost invariably emerge from some kind of organizational principle or form of practice", citing anarcho-syndicalism, individualist anarchism, and platformism as examples.

2013

• http://www.alternet.org/civil-liberties/noam-chomsky-kind-anarchism-i-believe-and-whats-wrong-libertarians
  • Noam Chomsky: Well, anarchism is, in my view, basically a kind of tendency in human thought which shows up in different forms in different circumstances, and has some leading characteristics. Primarily it is a tendency that is suspicious and skeptical of domination, authority, and hierarchy. It seeks structures of hierarchy and domination in human life over the whole range, extending from, say, patriarchal families to, say, imperial systems, and it asks whether those systems are justified. It assumes that the burden of proof for anyone in a position of power and authority lies on them. Their authority is not self-justifying. They have to give a reason for it, a justification. And if they can’t justify that authority and power and control, which is the usual case, then the authority ought to be dismantled and replaced by something more free and just.

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