Hello everybody and welcome back to ideology
explained.
Today I am telling you about anarchism.
In general, all of it.
To the best of my ability.
Please note this is a very basic overview
over some general anarchist ideas.
I will not go into detail about anything here.
In general Anarchism can be summed up as the
ideology which attempts to reach anarchy.
Now, most people think about chaos and destruction
when they hear anarchy but that’s not what
this is about.
In this case anarchy means a society without
unjust hierarchies or without any hierarchies,
depending on which kind of anarchist we are
talking about.
That means no queen, no president and no governments
as we know them.
This is because to anarchists nobody can have
the right to govern someone else without consent.
Individual freedom is very important in anarchism.
But this is not to say that there would not
be any government anymore.
Anarchism just demands a nonhierarchical or
completely voluntary government, sometimes.
Others really want no government.
That means there could still be a government
but there could be no people with the ability
to decide over anyone else without the expressed
consent of those people.
That means democracy is basically the only
way this can work.
But not representative democracy since that
one has representatives, not delegates.
The difference is that a delegate can be called
back at any time while a representative get’s
elected and then get’s legal immunity for
4 years.
Alternatively is could also be direct democracy.
The prevalence of this depends on the type
of anarchist.
As you can tell there is quite a diversity
of thought in anarchism so it’s very hard
to say general things about it.
Almost all anarchists would abolish nations
and governments as we know them completely
though.
Some would replace the function of the state
with a 100% democratic commune and others
would trust in their guns and the decency
of the average person.
All anarchist ideologies I am aware of would
abolish the police force.
The reason is that people who are in positions
of power, like the police, for a long time
can come to abuse it.
This is also the same reason why there must
be no people who govern.
The theory is that absolute power corrupts
absolutely and thus all power corrupts to
a certain extent.
The anarchist solution is to abolish positions
of power like that.
There are different ideas as to what should
replace the police force.
Some anarchists want a new type of law enforcement
which is done by the people themselves.
There are lots of theories on this.
Pretty much all anarchists are pro-gun since
that’s how they would defend themselves.
They also oppose anything that violates individual
freedom, that means they are often times on
the side of antifa in order to oppose fascism,
or on the side of whoever wants to legalize
abortion.
Some anarchists are anti-electoralists, that
means they don’t take part in democracy
because they view it as an unjust system and
they don’t want to legitimize it.
But others again argue that the state, even
if unjust in nature and not capable of meaningful
reform, can still be used to reduce harm like
by voting for a party that won’t put children
in cages.
Very broadly anarchists can be split into
two groups.
Social anarchists and individual anarchists.
Basically, individualist anarchy is all about
the liberty of the individual form outside
control while social anarchy is more about
achieving most freedom for a whole group like
by mutual aid which just means helping those
who need it in your community, like offering
to look after your neighbor’s kid or them
giving you food and care if you’re unable
to provide for yourself.
Economically anarchists can be divided into
anarcho-capitalists and anarcho-communists.
And they do not like each other.
As the names suggest anarcho capitalists or
ancaps want to abolish the state while keeping
the institution of private property as well
as the free market.
Their property would be defended by the so
called Non aggression principle, or NAP.
It states that nobody can aggress against
anyone else or their property or else they
are exempt from the NAP and they will presumably
be lynched.
Anarcho communists or ancoms believe that
anarchism requires socialism as well as the
ownership over the means of production by
the people.
That means a factory would not belong to an
individual but to the people who work there.
That ownership could be enforced by the workers
themselves or by the commune.
Naturally ancoms are very much influenced
by the writings of Karl Marx and other leftist.
And those two groups hate each other.
They accuse each other of not being real anarchists.
The ancoms say that capitalism is inherently
authoritarian because it gives an employer
a lot of power over the lives of their workers,
like by dictating when they must work and
so on as well as that private security organizations
would just turn into the new state which would
be ruled by the rich.
And on the other side ancaps accuse ancoms
of not being real anarchists because they
are using Marxism which killed 7 quintillion
people and by oppressing the freedom of the
employers to own property.
And they hate each other so much that if you
scroll down to the comment section you will
see anarchist angrily asking why I mentioned
the evil not-real-anarchist-anarchists at
all.
There are a great deal of anarchist authors
and they all have different theories as well
as different ways of achieving their anarchist
society.
Please forgive me for not mentioning any,
this video is supposed to be a very broad
overview over what anarchism is in general.
Around anarchists you will often hear the
words praxis and theory.
Theory refers to all of the theoretical literature
about anarchism which has been around since
the French revolution and praxis refers to
the act of actually working towards that ideal
anarchism.
In general when doing praxis anarchists use
horizontalism which is just code for a style
of leadership, in which everyone has a say
in what they are going to do.
Anarcho communist praxis can include creating
mutual aid networks in which members help
each other, taking part in antifascist action,
taking over unoccupied houses and living in
them without paying rent as a protest against
private property or taking part in a peaceful
demonstration against police brutality.
Anarcho capitalist praxis on the other hand
is making a youtube channel with a furry avatar
that crosses it’s arms while rambling about
how the labor theory of value is wrong because
of people with disabilities.
And that’s all I had to say about that.
Thanks to my patreons for giving me money
and extra special thanks to Aaron J peton,
dordoise, Jenarchist 77, and Tyler Dang for
your generous donations.
