Anarchy

[Nickademus]

i disagree pce . . . .for example, crimes of passion are often because we have been taught a certain way. ie we get upset because our spouse is cheating BUT that is only because we are taught that a spouse should be loyal and limit themselves to one person. The same goes for many other things. Theft for example, people steal because we are taught that we are better if we have more stuff.



(Edited by Nickademus at 9:28 am on Aug. 12, 2001)

[Nickademus]

And pce or Nicademus, (I don;t know which) Women are always at risk of being overpowered. As they say, rape is a crime of power, not sex, Consider carrying a can of mace or pepper-spray. Though I have also heard contrary of trying to defend against such an attack.

(Edited by Valkyrie at 9:15 am on Aug. 12, 2001)

actually valkyrie, just FYI, I was raped after being drugged with rohipnol, mace or pepper spray would not have done any good at all.

[pce]

valkyrie, i get what you are saying now. value is based on how much someone needs something, and therefore, whatever he is willing to barter for is fair game because that's how much he needs it. but the person selling can raise the price above the price of the buyers value.

"luckily with wear, tear and age, material items depreciate, and potential accumulated wealth would depreciate also"

as for that statement. i don't think that's to stop a smart businessman. afterall, depreciation exists in the world of today but you don't see the effect you allude to because capitalists/business are constantly shifting

"Your question of shouldn't there be laws so that capitalism cannot happen. There are laws in an anarchist society, they are just not coming down from on high, ie. the hierarchy"

doesn't anarchism with law = communism?

let me see if i got this. anarchism assumes that people are basically good, and the only reason people do bad is because of things they are taught by society/government. hence, if you get rid of these things, the good people will rule themselves- right valkyrie, nickademus, filimarxist?

whereas, communism doesn't assume people are inherently good, and that they need laws to govern what the do (and these laws are made directly by the people themselves). right el_che, others?

also nickademus- i was just kidding about the sex thing

and you all raise valid points about anarchism that i will think about more. thanks

[paris.]

Yes, you're right pce, but there is no prices in trade or even an invisible price. Anarchism with laws is anarchism. The misconception is that anarchism means a society without laws, rather than a society without a centralized government.


(Edited by Valkyrie at 12:53 pm on Aug. 12, 2001)

[paris.]

According to Marx, a communist government is a transitional period of a dictator of the proletariat until there is the eventual "withering away of the state"

I think you're pretty much right pce in your assessement.

I am editing these posts to make them as short as possible.


(Edited by Valkyrie at 12:57 pm on Aug. 12, 2001)

[pce]

if under communism there is a dictator of the proletariat, then what is the difference between communism and socialism? i always thought there is a "dictator of the proletariat" under socialism, and then communism is when there is no dictator/ruler and the people rule the people (themselves).

[El Che de Boca Jrs]

I think it would be awsome if there was an ultimate utopia where everybody shared everything and there was no ruling party but unfortunately, in todays greedy society, that would not work, socialism and communism could definitely work though, they could definitely be stepping stones for anarchism to work in the future.

[paris.]

Today is Fidel's 75th birthday.

El-Che, I'll give you a couple paragraphs from the Anarchist FAQ, I can say this at the most, though I am not the spokesperson for anarchism by any means, anarchists reject power of any kind.

Anarchist FAQ I 2.3:
"Thus the social structure of an anarchist society will be the opposite of the current system. Instead of being centralised and top-down as in the state, it will be decentralised and organised from the bottom up.

The key to that change, from the anarchist standpoint, is the creation of a network of participatory communities based on self-government through direct, face-to-face democracy in grassroots neighbourhood and community assemblies. As we argued in section I.2.3 such assemblies will be born in social struggle and so reflect the needs of the struggle and those within it so our comments here must be considered as generalisations of the salient features of such communities and not blue-prints.

Other anarchists counterpoise neighbourhood assemblies to workers' councils. These assemblies will be general meetings open to all citizens in every neighbourhood, town, and village, and will be the source of and final "authority" over public policy for all levels of confederal co-ordination. Such "town meetings" will bring ordinary people directly into the political process and give them an equal voice in the decisions that affect their lives. Such anarchists point to the experience of the French Revolution of 1789 and the "sections" of the Paris Commune as the key example of "a people governing itself directly -- when possible -- without intermediaries, without masters."

Thus participatory communities are freely joined and self-managed by their members. No more division between order givers and order takers as exist within the state or capitalist workplaces. Rather the associated govern themselves and while the assembled people collectively decide the rules governing their association, and are bound by them as individuals, they are also superior to them in the sense that these rules can always be modified or repealed (see section A.2.11 -- "Why are most anarchists in favour of direct democracy?" -- for more details).

In a nutshell, a participatory community is a free association, based upon the mass assembly of people who live in a common area, the means by which they make the decisions that affect them, their communities, bio-regions and the planet. Their essential task is to provide a forum for raising public issues and deciding them.





(Edited by Valkyrie at 10:01 pm on Aug. 13, 2001)

[paris.]

that's the media-distorted way of thinking of anarchy. being shown contrary, and still denying it's authenticity.
The concept of society with out state embraces the full thoery of Marx from beginning to end.

If you check out Engels "Scientic Socialism" there is a part which I will post here that unequivocably speaks of the state as becoming unneccesary. The contrasting point between anarchy and Marxism is in which process the state and capitalism should be eliminated. The anarchists more radically contend that the abolishment of the state by revolution will lead to the fall of capitalism. (Bakunun) Marx contends "do away with captialism, the concentration of all means of production in the hands of a few, and the state will fall of itself." (Engles) This done post-revolution.

If you read Lenin's "State and Revolution - he goes into in much detail of the necessary downfall of the state.

-- Engels "Scientific Socialism"

"The proletariat seizes political power and turns the means of production into state property. But in doing this, it abolishes itself as proletariat, abolishes all class distinction and class antagonisms, abolishes also the state as state. That is, of an organizationn of the particular class which was pro tempore, the exploiting class, an organization for the purpose of preventing any intereference from without with the existing conditions of production, and therefore, especially, for the purpose of forcibly keeping the exploited classes in the condition of oppression corresponding with the given mode of production (slavery, serfdom, wage labor) The state was the official representative of society as a whole, the gathering of it together into a visible embodiment. But is was this only in so far as it was the state of that class which itself represented, for a time, society as a whole; in ancient times, the state-owning citizens; in the Middle Ages, the feudal lords; in our time, the bourgeoisie. When at last it becomes the real representative of the whole of society, it renders itself unneccessary. As soon as there is no longer any social class to be upheld in subjection, as soon as class rule and the individual struggle for existence based upon our present anarchy in production, with the collisions and excesses arising from these, are removed, nothing more remains to be repressed, and a special repressive force, a state, is no longer neccessary. The first act of virtue of which the state really constitutes inself the representative of the whole of society - this is, at the same time, its last independent act as a state. State interference in social relations becomes, in one domain after another, superfluous, and then dies out of itself, the government of persons is replaced by the adminstration of things, and by the conduct of processes of production. The state is not "abolished." It dies out. This gives the measure of the value of the phrase "a free state", both as to its justifiable use by agitators, and as to its ultimate scientific insufficiency; and also the demands of the so-called anarchists for the abolition of the state out of hand."




(Edited by Valkyrie at 11:08 pm on Aug. 14, 2001)