Anarchism

I really loved the Idea but sadly, after living for many years
in a Anarcho Hot-Spot Squad i decided it is not working for me at the moment,
to many Maggots, Ticks and Pooholes!

First we need Education and educated People before we can start the great Anarcho Experiment

When we start this now, without a long Prologue (ca. 20-50 Years)
we will create more Evil than we face already now!

Well,

However entertaining and self-fulfilling the post-post-modern young adult and teenager may find 'Anarchy', it has now been co-opted in to the same pointless, unavoidably entropic quagmire that any other type of 'political ideology' has. In other words it has been re-wired to funnel one's energies in to a black hole of meaningless effort and expression.

The rich kids go off in the summer to save Africa and the rest riot in the streets as 'Anarchists'.

I think we were better off when you all just went and blew off steam at a Grateful Dead concert instead of cooperating with 'The Man' and fighting with the cops in the streets.

Tell you what Anarchists; we'll let you know if we need your help; meanwhile go play with Anonymous, or something.

You are nothing but useful tools for the establishment that you claim to be eradicating.

X.

Originally posted by SilentThundersGF
He was the originator of the early anarchist slogan, “Property is Theft.” He did believe families had a right to their own property, however.

I must point out though what he meant was families have the right to their private property, as in their personal possessions, but should not have the right to use their private property to exploit labour.

“We want the mines, canals, railways handed over to democratically organised workers’ associations . . . We want these associations to be models for agriculture, industry and trade, the pioneering core of that vast federation of companies and societies woven into the common cloth of the democratic social Republic.” Proudhon

Most people think anarchists are just anti-government but ultimately they are anti-capitalist, the only reason they are anti-government is because government is apposed to revolutionary change of the economic system. Marxist wanted to create a revolutionary government, the anarchist saw that as an impossible task, and they were right.

reply to post by RichieRay

Go be a hunter gatherer in some wooded area if you really want a taste of the "anarchism" you defined above.

We can't. That governments of the world will not let us alone so that we could do so.

reply to post by SilentThundersGF


I really like your ideology, and your thread for the most part, but I wish you'd stop posting pictures of violence when talking about anarchy, it just reinforces the msm's neuro-linguistic programming that anarchy is chaos and rioting when that is NOT what anarchy means at all. I know you said that in your post but still, people probably just click on this, take a glance, and have their prejudices confirmed.

Originally posted by Severin
I have been watching this forum for a while now but never felt I needed to join UNTIL I saw your thread here... It made me want to post a comment to understand fully your motives.

Before I go on I would like to answer to this point because your post made me think carefully. As to "why." I think there is more than one reason. First, if you are a thoughtful child or young adult who like reading and is curious, it doesn't take long to spot the contradictions in society, the lies, the unfairness, the TPTB. Isn't that why most of you are here too? So as a thoughtful child this thing can really gnaw at you. It speaks to the most important center of the young adults moral identity. And it forms who you are, how you answer these questions for yourself. For me anarchism was an attractive answer. It has it's own theorists who provide a nobler moral vision. It's like coming home, to discover such purity. Also in my case my family situation was not so stable or happy. I didn't have a good home life or any control over where I went or what I did. The other anarchists were and still are my real family. 

Do you know what it is like to stare as one at the enemy and put your safety on the table for your belief? To do this is self affirming in the highest, even if it can lead to mistakes. The problem is even people who have this feel can be wrong. As I am still struggling to understand the difference

What else. As an adolescent to be part of a street action seems romantic, even if it is stupid. In lots of Europe this is what the smart good people do. Don't forget social control in Europe is always harder than in the US although maybe not for much longer. I do not condone violence as I said and yet in Greece or Italy now for the people it is do or die. Talk is no longer enough, do you understand what Greece is now? The "cradle of democracy " ? Now being crushed by TPTB as we speak.   Pay close attention the symbolism is no coincidence. They mean to annihilate the autonomy of the Greek people and leave it like a sheepshead on a pike. A warning to those who would resist the one-planet order. Can you blame people for feeling strongly?

As for the comment about images and violence, this by another poster, it is also an important point. There has always been a tension between the insurrectionary strain and the more peaceful strains. I do not condone violence but my own experience to date has been with the former strain not the latter. I am making the transition now by studying Kropotkin's theory of mutual aid as peaceful anarchy. Not so much resisting the state but sidestepping it by developing new associations and relationships. This is a far more powerful idea than mere resistance. And I hope we can get into it later. But at the same time I want the world to see these images of what people in Greece Italy France and other places are doing because the world wants to bury their voices and the mainstream press assists in this denial. Let's deny ignorance by seeing what people do even if you don't agree.

I wanted to thank you for this thread because it prompted me or I would say inspired me to explain my own ideology of choice in my own first thread, which is active now in this forum. I like the way you use pictures and also explain big ideas simply so I tried to do something similar, I noticed this is a good strategy of many good threads and different posters on this site, so thanks for being an unknowing teacher. I hope you and your friend will post the next installment soon. I want to talk about alienation next so maybe I would ask, what is the anarchist perspective on alienation? As I am sure you know its a huge part of Marxist theory. How about Marx in general, to what extent do you people accept Marxist ideas, axioms, truths? The Marx-Kropotkin debates could get pretty nasty, sorry about that, hugs and kisses your ideological cousin.

reply to post by Leftist


Thank you for your kindness. The next part will be along soon. Anyway, what you wrote was nice, your thread has really taken off! Its a very good job.

In answer to your question, the doctrine I generally identify with the strongest is Anarcho-Communism, which would be very similar to your seemlingly "classical" Marxist-Leninism, as I can see in your thread. Its also based on Kropokin. I guess I could say I am an "anarchist first and communist second." So a lot of our ideals will be similar. Other anarchists will disagree. From my own perspective, I accept the Marxist theory of alienation. The understanding of Alienation tends to be fairly strong among "thinking anarchists," most give it some sort of credit. Except for the right/ "post-left"/individualist strains perhaps. We'll get into that when I get to the next piece.

Originally posted by Sci-Fi_entist

Originally posted by RichieRay
Look at the crime rate statistics that we have now WITH a legal system and police to enforce laws. Imagine how crazy things would get if we didn't have any sort of legal structure and people could just do as they pleased. Again, I think government definitely needs to be reshaped, but anarchism is far from the answer. Go be a hunter gatherer in some wooded area if you really want a taste of the "anarchism" you defined above.

I think it's interesting to note that, even though there hasn't ever really been a large-scale anarchist society on this planet ( I can't actually think of even a small scale one either), this argument ALWAYS gets used as a rebuttal. But there's never been any evidence to suggest that the world would be any worse off than some of the insanity that is occurring in some countries now.

i beg to differ...

The Spanish Revolution
The Free Territory
The Paris Commune

and for small scale examples that lasted longer and still exist (one of which still exists on the same principles to this day):

The Kibbutz Movement
Freetown Christiania

and here's a list of anarchist societies that have existed:

en.wikipedia.org...

also, though the EZLN doesn't formally identify as libertarian socialist (as synonym for anarchist), it runs on anarchist principles and so their communities could be considered anarchist communities in a sense:

flag.blackened.net...

the reason you can't think of examples of anarchist societies isn't because they don't exist, but simply because you think the fact that you are unaware of them means they don't exist/haven't existed. try doing your research next time before making claims.

The Varieties

of the

Anarchist Experience


One of the first things one notices in studying anarchism is how many hyphens there are, and how many subtypes. How do we even begin to approach this complex field? Are these subtypes really so different from one another? And how do we go about sorting them all out?

First of all, Anarchism has traditionally been considered a left-wing philosophy, as can be seen in the sort of simple one-dimensional left-right political spectrum most people carry around in their heads.



But this simple left-right spectrum is problematic for all sorts of reasons, and although its fair to say that most anarchists are leftist, there are a number who consider themselves right-wing or “post-left” in various ways, or who consider the entire left-right spectrum to be meaningless when it comes to talking about anarchy or even politics in general.

Whatever the case, perhaps the clearest thing that unites all anarchists is the advocacy of stateless societies based on non-hierarchical voluntary associations.

Zooming in and looking within anarchism, the picture hardly seems any clearer at first. To me, the first major broad-based distinction we can make is between individualist and social strains of Anarchism. This division existed from the very beginning, with the social streams representing the largest part of Anarchism. The individualist strains, as we will see, tend to be less recognizably “left wing” than the social anarchies, the latter of which tend to rely more heavily on the assumptions and general intellectual milieu of the “classical left.”

Another way to look at it starts from this basic twofold division and then goes on asks two economic questions, for four broad categories into which most forms of anarchy would fit.





The scheme above is based on the site author’s contention that “the most important and contentious issue by far in modern anarchism is economics. In particular justice in property and justice in trade.”

There are other basic ways to think about the big picture, too. We can speak of philosophical anarchism, which is anti-state but does not explicitly see the need for revolution, versus the more solidly-defined sectarian forms of anarchism organized for social action and explicit real-world change. We can talk of classical and post-classical schools of anarchism, which is more a division based on chronology than anything else. There is certainly a major division between insurrectionary anarchists (i.e., from street brawlers to professional proponents of armed struggle) and those opposed to direct action.



Some say the whole project of sub-dividing anarchy is itself a mistake and one that creates needless divisions where unity would be best. Certainly, there is much overlap, and in many cases the various schools of thought are not mutually exclusive. The term "anarchism without adjectives” was first used by Fernando Tarrida del Mármol as long ago as 1889, when he worried about the “bitter debates” of the time that threatened to destroy anarchism. Today as well, many resist the trend to sectarian division (perhaps enough to represent a separate division itself!). I personally feel there are too many divisions in anarchism. But whatever your feelings, these divisions do exist, so we should investigate them, I believe.

At the same time, it is always vital not to let our feelings or theories create excessive division.



In my own mind, I think of the major types of Anarchism somewhat as follows, acknowledging of course that this is only a broad-brush way of thinking and does not include every type of anarchism out there, by a long stretch.

1. Classical Anarchism
A) Social Anarchism: Mutualism, Collectivist Anarchsim, Anarchist Communism, Anarcho-Syndicalism, Platformism
B) Individualist Anarchism: Egoism, Non-Egoism, Illegalism

2. Post-Classical Anarchism/Other
“Identity” Anarchism, Religious Anarchism, National Anarchism, Anarcho-Primitivism, “Green” Anarchism, “Post-Left” Anarchism, etc.

As you can see, it is a lot to cover. I will start with the classical social anarchisms in my next post, as they represent the majority of anarchists.

Originally posted by SilentThundersGF
But this simple left-right spectrum is problematic for all sorts of reasons, and although its fair to say that most anarchists are leftist, there are a number who consider themselves right-wing or “post-left” in various ways, or who consider the entire left-right spectrum to be meaningless when it comes to talking about anarchy or even politics in general.

I actually consider that to be accurate, as it reflects the true original meaning of left and right...

The original political meanings of ‘left’ and ‘right’ have changed since their origin in the French estates general in 1789. There the people sitting on the left could be viewed as more or less anti-statists with those on the right being state-interventionists of one kind or another. In this interpretation of the pristine sense, libertarianism was clearly at the extreme left-wing.

www.la-articles.org.uk...

Libertarian should not be on the right as indicated by that other left/right spectrum. Libertarian and right is an oxymoron, as indicated by that true left/right spectrum. Libertarian was originally a left wing term, it means the same as anarchism. Just a case of the right appropriating left wing terms, just like the oxymoron 'anarcho-capitalism'. The right has always been authority, and the left anti-authority, of varying degrees, this is why fascism is the extreme of the right and anarchism the extreme of the left. But of course Americans mostly ignore this because it contradicts the revisionist politics they have been taught. Historical revisionism, by the right-wing capitalist establishment, is why people are so confused.

150 years of Libertarian

People are always going to disagree how a political system should be implemented. Socialists all want worker ownership of the means of production, as apposed to private ownership (capitalism) ultimately. All traditional form of anarchism were collective, not individual. Anarcho-socialism, libertarian socialism, is basic anarchism.

Even individual anarchism is a form of socialism.

Here we present a short summary of why individualist anarchism implies socialism and not capitalism. While it is true that people like Tucker and Warren placed "property" at the heart of their vision of anarchy, this does not make them supporters of capitalism. Unlike capitalists, the individualist anarchists identified "property" with simple "possession," or "occupancy and use" and considered profit, rent and interest as exploitation. Indeed, Tucker explicitly stated that "all property rests on a labour title, and no other property do I favour." [Instead of a Book, p. 400] Because of this and their explicit opposition to usury (profits, rent and interest) and capitalist property, they could and did consider themselves as part of the wider socialist movement, the libertarian wing as opposed to the statist Marxist wing.

G.2 Why does individualist anarchism imply socialism?

Most misunderstanding of anarchism seems to come from America, where political terms have been misrepresented and confused. Anarchism originated in Europe by socialists who were apposed the state version of socialism that became Marxism. Socialism originated with the workers during the industrial revolution, when the workers realized they would be better off if they owned and ran the factories and mills themselves.

i think you can pretty much simplify the theoretical aspects thus as they all fit into one of these categories to some extent:

left-wing anarchism, or social anarchism/libertarian socialism has three major theoretical trends all based first on the socialist principle of WORKERS' CONTROL OVER THE MEANS OF PRODUCTION:

1. the communist strains of anarchism (just as other legitimate forms of communism) are based on the principle from each according to ability, to each according to need," meaning that distribution of goods in such a society is based on the needs of the people.

2. the collectivist strain of anarchism is based on the principle "from each according to ability, to each according to labor," meaning that one gets out the equivalent of the labor he puts in. both this idea and the one presented above propose that people labor collectively in worker controlled businesses.

3. the individualist strains (mutualism as well as the many ideologies that don't have -isms beside them such as Josiah Warren and Lysander Spooner's ideas), which could also be referred to as "free market socialism", believe in giving everyone a choice of how they wish to labor, but stressing 1. that no one is exploited by capitalist means (ie: business relationships aren't such that an owner has control over the capital and gives what he feels he should to his subjugated workers), and 2. that they may labor either individually or collectively as long as they did not themselves employ others and therefore subjugate them.

right-wing "anarchism", which came about MUCH later and was criticized as being authoritarian by left-wing anarchists as well as supporting the idea of deposing the current state for a form of private state that we can find in the corporation, is an ideology that is relatively new. the term "anarcho-capitalism" was coined by Murray Rothbard in the 50's and it referred to an "anarchist" strain based on PRIVATE PROPERTY IN THE MEANS OF PRODUCTION. the last portion of that definition (means of production) is the critical part as most socialists DO NOT oppose private property (which they often refer to as POSSESSION or to use the Marxist term PERSONAL PROPERTY), but rather they oppose private individuals owning the things that others use to produce. anarcho-capitalists propose a system by which private owners control productive tools and resources and decide themselves what to give their workers. these private owners would have a monopoly of force over the business and therefore said property, therefore making them a form of state and thus not a legitimate form of anarchism.

there is also a middle ground between left and right-wing anarchism.

distributism is the idea of individuals or families owning their own means of production. it has socialist qualities in that individual workers control their own means of production, but it is not socialistic in that there would be no collective labor. it is capitalistic in that it encourages private ownership over the means of production, but it isn't capitalistic because there is no hierarchical structure in the workplace.

while there are other forms of anarchism that transcend these labels, such as many of the "post left" ideologies (Bob Black's ideas come to mind), but generally speaking, all forms of hyphenated anarchism can fall into one of these five categories.

reply to post by eboyd


Your schema is good but I would posit a break between collectivist/individual at the highest level, and put all the non-individualistic strains together, at least as first, as the OP did.

I am a Communist, not an Anarchist, although as a left-Communist, I have a lot of sympathy for Anarchism. But the endless parsing and subdividing of anarchy into all these little compartments is very destructive and it is, IMHO, the biggest flaw in Anarchism. There is a constant tension between the need to organize to actually get anything done, and the decentralized ethos of anarchism. Ultimately, I believe the strain of these incompatible needs makes Anarchism unworkable. We simply aren't a good enough species for anarchism - yet. With the right social engineering and patience, we might get there. I certainly hope so - the highest goals of left-socalism and anarchism are almost identical, when you really break it down. But for now the world is too muddy for that kind of purity, says this Communist.

reply to post by Leftist


I'm sure you understand this, but to add another angle for the readers.

Technically communism is anarchism. All these different forms are just different ways to achieve that goal, they're not the goals themselves.

What it really is is 'free association'.

In the anarchist, Marxist and socialist sense, free association (also called free association of producers or, as Marx often called it, community of freely associated individuals) is a kind of relation between individuals where there is no state, social class or authority, in a society that had abolished the private property of means of production. Once private property is abolished, individuals are no longer deprived of access to means of production so they can freely associate themselves (without social constraint) to produce and reproduce their own conditions of existence and fulfill their needs and desires.

en.wikipedia.org...

In fact Marx was heavily influenced by Proudhon's 'What is Property', the classic publication that Anarchism was based on.

The state in Marxism was supposed to be temporary, state-socialism, in order to increase production to the point that it reversed the artificial scarcity caused by capitalism, it was then the state was to be broken down and communism take it's place.

Feudalism, capitalism, socialism, communism, was the natural progression.

Anarchists were socialists (as all communists are socialists), who rejected the state system proposed by other socialists, and recorded by Marx and Engels in the 'Communist Manifesto'. Marx himself did not come up with what is now commonly called Marxism. Marx and Engels were commissioned to write the results of the meeting of the Communist League, which became the Communist Manifesto.

"Anarchism is stateless socialism", Mikhail Bakunin

Most people agree that Einstein was a smart guy, but most don't know he was a socialist and even wrote a book about it....

Is it advisable for one who is not an expert on economic and social issues to express views on the subject of socialism? I believe for a number of reasons that it is.

Let us first consider the question from the point of view of scientific knowledge. It might appear that there are no essential methodological differences between astronomy and economics: scientists in both fields attempt to discover laws of general acceptability for a circumscribed group of phenomena in order to make the interconnection of these phenomena as clearly understandable as possible. But in reality such methodological differences do exist. The discovery of general laws in the field of economics is made difficult by the circumstance that observed economic phenomena are often affected by many factors which are very hard to evaluate separately. In addition, the experience which has accumulated since the beginning of the so-called civilized period of human history has—as is well known—been largely influenced and limited by causes which are by no means exclusively economic in nature. For example, most of the major states of history owed their existence to conquest. The conquering peoples established themselves, legally and economically, as the privileged class of the conquered country. They seized for themselves a monopoly of the land ownership and appointed a priesthood from among their own ranks. The priests, in control of education, made the class division of society into a permanent institution and created a system of values by which the people were thenceforth, to a large extent unconsciously, guided in their social behavior....

Why Socialism?

reply to post by ANOK


Yes, it is an important point, to remind. it is a good point and important to note that the end goals of anarchism and communism are the same. Maybe some varients of each philosophy are too different to reconcile but I believe anarchism and communism are compatable, on the left flank anyway lol.

So the difference becomes a question of means, not ends.

The poster Leftist thinks people are not "pure" enough for anarchism, but I disagree. Man and woman do not need to be controlled from the outside, this is a *MECHANISTIC* model from the past, very 19th century, as if we were all little railroad trams or cotton gins to be organized in rows. lol. Now we have a more sophisticated understanding of the principle of self organization. This is a more physics/biologique model rather than a mech-engineering one.

Spontaneous organization seems to be a very deep facet of existence, in both physical and biologique levels. Provided a few simple "rules of thumb", order emerges naturally from chaos. Condsider the following, it is quite instructive!



Given this, the anarchist's role is the "midwife" for the birth of spontaneous, complex order out of what is seemingly chaos. In the best births, a midwife's touch is light; she does not need to cut the patient open with a knife unless something is seriously wrong. Communism is the "ceasarian section" and Anarchism is the natural birth. We must guide humanity to its natural path, which is spontaneous self-organization, with a light touch! No hacking and slashing please!

Originally posted by Leftist
reply to post by eboyd

 

Your schema is good but I would posit a break between collectivist/individual at the highest level, and put all the non-individualistic strains together, at least as first, as the OP did.

i'm not sure i know what you mean by this. could you elaborate?

I am a Communist, not an Anarchist, although as a left-Communist, I have a lot of sympathy for Anarchism. But the endless parsing and subdividing of anarchy into all these little compartments is very destructive and it is, IMHO, the biggest flaw in Anarchism. There is a constant tension between the need to organize to actually get anything done, and the decentralized ethos of anarchism. Ultimately, I believe the strain of these incompatible needs makes Anarchism unworkable.

i agree with this actually and that is why i have been working on a theory that i believe would appease individualists, collectivists, communists, and other strains and subcategories within anarchism in order to bring all anarchists together around a common goal. if you wish for me to elaborate a bit i'd be willing to do so.

Originally posted by eboyd

Originally posted by Leftist
reply to post by eboyd

 

Your schema is good but I would posit a break between collectivist/individual at the highest level, and put all the non-individualistic strains together, at least as first, as the OP did.

i'm not sure i know what you mean by this. could you elaborate?

It's just that think when you organize all the "sub-anarchisms," the firstmajor division that comes to mind seems to be "individualist" versus "non-individualist." Most forms of anarchism can be ascribed to one of these two categories, so it seems like a good division to start with.

i agree with this actually and that is why i have been working on a theory that i believe would appease individualists, collectivists, communists, and other strains and subcategories within anarchism in order to bring all anarchists together around a common goal. if you wish for me to elaborate a bit i'd be willing to do so.

Please, by all means...the skeleton key of leftism is quite elusive. Pehaps you've found it...

Originally posted by Misoir
At least Anarchists are more honest egalitarians than their Liberal, Socialist, and Communist counterparts. But with that said, I find Anarchism as a political philosophy to be one of the constant threats to civilized society which has been infecting the minds of people for time immemorial. There has always existed, shall always exist, and rightfully exists authoritative hierarchies upon which we must humble ourselves in obedience. This is not to assert however that there has never existed a political authority worthy of condemnation.

Civilized society comes about first through authority which often does not arise by consent as Rousseau and Hobbes would hope for. It arises out of necessity. When people are free they become savages, unable to control their most primitive of instincts. Always this leads to disaster, social decay, and mass violence. Those who think otherwise need to admit they are nothing more than utopian dreamers, living in an unrealistic fantasy land.

As the necessity of authority arises, a hierarchy develops, usually through force of arms. The arising socio-political elite are typically well trained and armed soldiers of some sort. They have the unsavory job of civilizing the primitives who do not take kindly to being ordered around. The typical obnoxious rebellious attitude of ‘who do you think you are to tell me what to do?’ arises as the barbarians assert their hedonistic, animal like individualism as supreme.

At the same time however the more sane members of that geographic area or ethnic group accept the necessity of authority and submit. Those who refuse are slaughtered into submission for the greater good. All of this has happened repetitively throughout history. It was quashed for centuries until the naturalists arose seeking to defy established order by proclaiming the necessary contractual arrangement between peasant and King.

Thinkers such as Hobbes assumed that by allotting power to the state through consent, sacrificing primitive freedoms for security would both break ‘tyrannical’ authority and prevent the war of all against all. His more individualistic and liberal counterparts however felt that we need not a Leviathan. Man was capable of maximized freedom without causing a war of all against all – such a naïve assumption.

Nevertheless, Anarchism cannot work nor will it ever be permitted to take hold anywhere save the most primitive of places. Those who assume the maximization of individual liberty, especially in the form of Anarchism, is more civilized are quite humorous.

I disagree.

What if you start a anarcho-communist commune. Everyone agrees to be taxed. The more taxes the more allotments you get. There is minimal private property(only luxury items not land,real estate,infrastructures etc). People do have money but it can only be used on luxury items. You cannot give money to another person.
100% death tax. You can select your tax bracket.
0% taxes - bare minimum social programs, no luxury allotments.
less incentive to sit and do nothing. No cabletv, no phone, no car(a luxury), no gas money(except for restricted free bus fair)
10% taxes - fair amount of social programs, decent allotments.

33% taxes - good ammount of social programs good amount of allotments

66% taxes - great deal of social programs, a lot of luxury allotments

75% taxes - most of the programs if not all of them, the most luxury allotments.
High incentive on working and earning in the skilled trade or career. High taxes but you live like a king in a free
commune owned home/property/services. Have a Food card with almost 4-5 times as much as someone on the lowest tax bracket. This is not counting the 25% of your income you get to keep.

Luxury allotments are based on the amount you were taxed and the tax bracket you selected. So you can't work at say Mcdonalds and get $10,000 in allowances. Its prorated.

Allotments are not work they are socialist allowance. A worker would be taxed based on the bracket he selected.
No one is forcing you to be taxed but they are not giving stuff away.

No mayors no councils no boards. Just a group of people working together.

Originally posted by Leftist

Originally posted by eboyd

Originally posted by Leftist
reply to post by eboyd

 

Your schema is good but I would posit a break between collectivist/individual at the highest level, and put all the non-individualistic strains together, at least as first, as the OP did.

i'm not sure i know what you mean by this. could you elaborate?

It's just that think when you organize all the "sub-anarchisms," the firstmajor division that comes to mind seems to be "individualist" versus "non-individualist." Most forms of anarchism can be ascribed to one of these two categories, so it seems like a good division to start with.

that's deceiving though, because the line isn't that clear. there are individualistic forms of anarchism that are very left-wing (mutualism and the original American anarchists' ideologies, such as Josiah Warren and Lysander Spooner, come to mind) and there a right-wing forms of "anarchism" such as Murray Rothbard and David Friedman's ideas. these ideas are in much further contrast to each other than, say, mutualism and the collectivism of Mikhail Bakunin, whose ideology was not individualistic. i guarantee Bakunin and Proudhon, for example, agreed on a great many things and saw each other relatively as ideological allies. on the other hand, more than anyone else, both individuals saw the capitalists of their day as a major threat.

additionally, communists often accuse non-communistic anarchists of supporting "capitalism without capitalists" which they often refer to as "cooperative capitalism".

individualistic forms of socialism are too closely allied with other forms of socialism and too opposed to other forms of individualism to justify the idea of regarding the divide more between individualism and collectivism as the major divides in anarchist theory. the only people that suggest that are communists, and that has no basis in fact, especially considering the first self-described anarchist labeled himself both an individualist and a socialist as well. rather the divide begins with socialism vs. capitalism vs. distributism and everything else fits somewhere in one of these three categories.

Please, by all means...the skeleton key of leftism is quite elusive. Pehaps you've found it...

i do hope so! i'll elaborate a bit later.