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The definition of anarchism is not one that an encyclopedia like this one can settle. The only role Wikipedia can have is to say what more respected theorists and sources themselves say. However, I therefore have a problem with the introduction of this article because it assumes that there is one political philosophy called anarchism which merely has a number of "strains." The article says:
Anarchism is a political philosophy...
And for example:
however, anarchism has for some time included an economic and legal individualist strain,[18] with that strain supporting an anarchist free-market economy and private property (like old anarcho-individualism and today's anarcho-capitalism).[19][20][21]
However, this flat-out contradicts what many anarchists on the left say, which is that anarcho-capitalism is not a form of anarchism. For example see The Anarchist FAQ, which lists numerous original sources. I'm not familiar with much of what anarcho-capitalists say about left anarchists, but I think lumping ideas that are so virulently opposed to one another under one philosophy is a distortion.
Instead of defining anarchism as one philosophy, it should instead be defined as a group of philosophies that happen to all call themselves "anarchist." Then from the very beginning, when these different philosophies are delineated, it can be made clear that some explicitly reject others as being examples of anarchism. They should not be described as being "within anarchism" as this article does, but rather as merely using the title of anarchism, with it being left to the reader to decide on the true classification of any given philosophy.
I think this would help a great deal in both accurate reporting of the facts and in ending editing wars. Khin2718 ( talk) 19:41, 30 November 2009 (UTC)
This is not the place for editors to proffer their own conceptions of what anarchism is. Skomorokh 03:12, 17 December 2009 (UTC)
Since this is turning into an edit war, I've created this so that the two parties can discuss this like rational people instead of just reverting each other. Thank you. Zazaban ( talk) 22:44, 23 December 2009 (UTC)
I've just put myself up to review this article which is listed at the GA nomination page. However, I can't see the expected template on this talk page and it doesn't look as if the nominator mentioned the nomination here.
So, before I start investing what might be a lot of time to review this article, are the regular editors surprised by this nom and do you think it is at or close to GA quality? If not then we can pretend the nomination never happenned and just remove it from the GAN page. Otherwise I'll take a deep breath and dove in. Thanks-- Peter cohen ( talk) 21:45, 8 January 2010 (UTC)
How much of the Schools of thought section should be given over to discussion of forms of anarchism that emerged in the late 20th century? See also the anarchist schools of thought article, of which the section is a summary. Skomorokh 19:57, 11 January 2010 (UTC)
I check pages listed in Category:Pages with incorrect ref formatting to try to fix reference errors. One of the things I do is look for content for orphaned references in wikilinked articles. I have found content for some of Anarchism's orphans, the problem is that I found more than one version. I can't determine which (if any) is correct for this article, so I am asking for a sentient editor to look it over and copy the correct ref content into this article.
Reference named "carlson":
{{
cite book}}
: |access-date=
requires |url=
(
help); External link in |chapterurl=
(
help); Unknown parameter |chapterurl=
ignored (|chapter-url=
suggested) (
help)These people don't eat out of dumpsters because they're poor and desperate. They do it to prove a political point. You wouldnt expect someone to choose a lifestyle that involved eating out of dumpsters. Kind of seems like something you do as a desperate last resort. But there's an entire society of people who willingly get their meals out of the garbage. They're called freegans, and they say they have a reason for doing it.
{{
cite news}}
: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors=
(
help)I apologize if any of the above are effectively identical; I am just a simple computer program, so I can't determine whether minor differences are significant or not. AnomieBOT ⚡ 23:01, 14 January 2010 (UTC)
so this article aparently is nominated for good article. i added a section on contemporary anarchism but seems it needs some references. maybe someone could help on this. maybe i will do when i have some free time.-- Eduen ( talk) 04:42, 22 January 2010 (UTC)
It's been great to see the article move on from an obsessive focus on documenting in detail every faction of theorists to attempting a broader and deeper portrayal of the anarchist movement. I think there has naturally emerged some unevenness however that asks for addressing. Until relatively recently, the "Social movement" section was broadly chronological, following the evolution of anarchism from the International, through the labour and syndicalist movements in Europe and the US, through the Russian Revolution and anarchist Ukraine to the Spanish Civil War and anti-fascist resistance. In that it covered the most important events in the movement's history, this was a rather coherent summation.
In the current version, however, we have sections on free love and libertarian education (as well as a welcome section on the contemporary movement), which don't fit into the historical scheme (i.e. free love activism did not largely only within the window between the International Anarchist Congress of Amsterdam and the October Revolution). These new sections are valuable, and cover topics which are important aspects of anarchism as a social movement, but added into the historical section they come across as disjointed. It strikes me that we have a few options here:
I'd worry that the first two options would be trying to put square pegs in round holes; it would be hard to write the anarchist experience in the Russian revolution up as a theme (a sort of generalised anti-authoritarianism, the perils of pacifism vs. insurrection, or perhaps "never trust a leftist"?), or to pigeonhole a perennial anarchist interest like libertarian education or for that matter the organised labour movement into a specific few decades. I'm most inclined towards the third option, according to which there would be a major-events-based history section, the existing schools of thought section, and a sociological section detailing the important characteristics and causes peculiar to anarchism.
Discussion and suggestions most welcome, Skomorokh 06:05, 22 January 2010 (UTC)
Alright, this seems uncontroversial. I'm going to make the first edit now and let it build over time. Cross your fingers and hope for the best. FA status, here we come!-- Cast ( talk) 18:04, 22 January 2010 (UTC)
Here's something that the article actually says:
Alright, so, how can you have a government (like a federation or a direct democracy) while being anarchist, again? I'd love to hear how these people reconcile this doublethink with themselves. Macai ( talk) 06:23, 21 January 2010 (UTC)
Macai, what is it you are looking to do here? Improve the description to better explain what anarchist communists believe, or make a point about the inadequacies of this school of thought? Because only one of those is something Wikipedia ought to be a forum for. I'd recommend reading Cast's comments below. Regards, Skomorokh 05:38, 22 January 2010 (UTC)
I'm sorry, but Macai is ~not~ alone in his views! Communism and Socialism are fundamentally at odds with true Anarchism. Some may speculate that a society could be built that somehow accomplishes collectivist cooperation without appealing to force, but this is a pipe dream. Socialist and Communist countries have and always will involve massive, bureaucratic governments, and this is something that all true Anarchists oppose. I can only imagine how confusing this article would be to someone lacking a basic understanding of political science. To portray Anarchism (the abandonment of government) as though it were merely a branch of Socialism is misleading at the very least. Any political view that advocates an establishment of government or of a governmental process (e.g. "voting") is ~not~ Anarchism! I agree with Cast that at the very least, some rewording is in order. ChihuahuaAssassin ( talk) 19:18, 3 February 2010 (UTC)
I think an issue being overlooked by some is that the sentence describing anarcho-communism can be better written. Of course, that is what Macai claims to be advocating, but the editor's preference thus far as been to disparage the tradition of anarcho-communism rather than to make improvements. In the future, I hope editors will make the edits they wish to see. Now, from a discussion I've had with Lawrence Jarach on the matter, I agree that "anarchy" (that is, an anarchist society) is incompatible with "direct democracy". The problem isn't that anarchists object to consensus decision making processes that include voting as a basic tool. The problem is that "direct democracy" doesn't exist in any practical form. If we vote as part of a process that is short term and organic for a basic decision making process, this is hardly an institution of government. Institutions are organizations which exists outside of their members. Like the government of the United States, the "Communist" party of China, the Catholic Church, or the Skull & Bones society, they will exist long after their current members have died (or at least, we anarchists hope not). They are institutions. A representative democracy is an inherently hierarchical structure used in some institutions, such as the United States, to share power among the ruling elite. If we, that is anarchists, were to break down the system to the community level, and decide what will happen in our communities through consensus, and our communities did not out live us, they would not be institutions, and they would not function through a process of "direct democracy". "Direct democracy" in this form, is a synonym for "anarchism on the community level". A network of communities in contact with each other may meet and send delegates who were chosen at the community level to meet at distant locations, and formulate trade and pacts of alliance. (This was all theorized well before the advent of the internet. LOL. Now we can just twitter? ¯\(°_o)/¯ ) Anarcho-communism isn't a "pure" or "distilled" version of democracy. That's marketing speak by people like Noam Chomsky looking for mainstream approval and sympathy. The line of thinking goes: "Global consensus is that democracy is good and anarchy is bad. So we must spin global consensus to associate anarchy with a better democracy!" This same thinking leads people to claim people as anarchists when they are not. Sometimes it is an appeal "cool" and so you get people claiming Fight Club is a 20th century anarchist thesis, and Tyler Durden is a famous anarcho-primitivist.
So, my suggestion: write out references to "self-governing", "direct democracy", "federation", and other phrases which can be confused with government, and get over trying to appease the mainstream? This argument can be settled with a few rewritten sentences. I really shouldn't have had to go through the process of writing this paragraph. Here, I'll do it for you:
It's a tragedy that some anarchists thought coming up with "anarchy w/out adjectives" would solve this problem a hundred years ago, and yet people continue the same infighting their stubborn, dead anarcho-forebears did. Your arguments are entirely rudimentary and based on miscommunication. We have greater enemies in this world than each other, and we are possibly each others greatest friends, if only we would look past 19th century texts to see it.-- Cast ( talk) 15:40, 21 January 2010 (UTC)
I think there´s a problem with this :"Socialist anarchism is the largest school of anarchism. In contrast with most forms of individualist anarchism, which stresses the importance of private property or possession, socialist anarchism rejects private property, seeing it as a source of social inequality, and emphasises cooperation and mutual aid."
With the exception of the recent US centered neoliberal "anarcho" capitalism all Individualist anarchists have been in economics either mutualists or egoists. mutualism recognizes only that which is used as deserving recognition as "yours" according to the labor theory of value and so they also can advocate expropiation on the bourgoise. egoism is opnely disrespectful of private property and so inspired illegalism. We can consider the view of italian individualist Renzo Novatore on this issue: "Only ethical and spiritual wealth" as "invulnerable "This is the true property of individuals. The rest no! The rest is vulnerable! And all that is vulnerable will be violated!""To create new ethical values. To create new aesthetic values. To communalize material wealth. To individualize spiritual wealth.. " Emile Armand says that the individualist anarchist "inwardly he remains refractory -- fatally refractory -- morally, intellectually, economically (The capitalist economy and the directed economy, the speculators and the fabricators of single are equally repugnant to him.)"
Oscar Wilde even went as far as defending socialism as the only way to guarantee individualism in his essay "The soul of man under socialism". Benjamin Tucker said his economic views were socialist and Lysander Spooner views were similar and strongly opposed wage labor mainly trying to defend small family agrarian economics. But Wilde and Novatore take a nietzchetian stirnerist humanist view in which individualism is mainly a defence of the individual integrity and self determination (we could even call it aesthetic individualism as well as how L. Susan Brown called it "exixtential individualism") and so it is very different from the liberal "possesive individualism" which focuses on the right to have things. Emile Armand somewhere even says that an individualist doesnt focus too much on economics. Colombian stirnerist Biofilo Panclasta was so uninterested in possesing things as to live as a vagabond as some sort of stirnerist sadhu. Here i think we are dealing with an individualist impulse who, in the terms of Nietzche, rejects the herd mentality of religion and working conditions under mass industrial capitalism and what later will be called by the Frankfurt School, the culture industry.
That enciclopedia which is given as a reference might say something different but the fact is that US views and the research and influence of neoliberal think tanks have obscured the views of individualist anarchism in general. This has been joined i think with the prejudice of social anarchists againts individualist anarchism and so the research on it and the avalability of it in the english language is very poor as well as the translations of european and latin american individualists.-- Eduen ( talk) 21:00, 24 January 2010 (UTC)
i dont see why you take it as an insult. neoliberal and neoliberalism is a widely used term in academia and politics. the wikipedia article on it says "The label refers to a redefinition of classical liberalism, influenced by the neoclassical theories of economics" the positions of Murray Rothbard clearly fit this description.-- Eduen ( talk) 01:16, 25 January 2010 (UTC)
I just noticed that the free market form of individualist anarchism is totally ignored in the Individualist Anarchism section. Jadabocho ( talk) 02:11, 25 January 2010 (UTC)
well, the individualist anarchism section is preceded by a section dealing with mutualism and since in post classical schools of thought "anarcho" capitalism is also covered "free market anarchism" is well enough covered in this article.-- Eduen ( talk) 05:53, 25 January 2010 (UTC)
if they get a mention also european individualist anarchists like Emile Armand and Han Ryner should get mentioned.-- Eduen ( talk) 09:17, 25 January 2010 (UTC)
I have no strong feelings about what the section should cover, other than thinking that the propertarians/natural law individualists get short shrift in the current version, but there is no scope for further bloating of the schools of thought. Three paragraphs on the two major currents is more than enough for this summary article. Skomorokh 15:34, 25 January 2010 (UTC)
well this could be solved with 2 or 3 sentences in the individualist anarchism section covering on the one side "boston anarchists" and another dealing with european individualists like Emile Armand, Han Ryner, Albert Libertad, Adolf Brand, Lev Chernyi, Miguel Gimenez Igualada and illegalism. Equal treatment and brief. we could also add in the "main articles" both the american individualist anarchism and the european individualist anarchism links. now as far as american individualists in the long run Henry David Thoreau has been very influential in green anarchism but seems to me the most influential of all the american individualists since he wen to influence people like Leo Tolstoy, Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. as well as being also the person who could be said started anarcho-pacifism. Anyway i suggest Warren, Thoreau, Spooner, tucker. I hope no one wants to reduce american individualism to "natural rights" economics. Ecology and free love were almost as important or just as important.-- Eduen ( talk) 19:16, 25 January 2010 (UTC)
As this process has gone with a nice consensus based process, i want to proceed on that line. So i propose the following to replace the parragraph i complained about:
"Social anarchism is the largest school of anarchism. In contrast with most forms of individualist anarchism which focus on the individual and his/her relation to society and its products, social anarchism emphasises the themes of revolution, cooperation and mutual aid."
now the reasons:
-Individualist anarchism is not economics centered. From Max Stirner onwards it contains a strong existentialist humanist content and revolt againts societarian products ( Murray Bookchin called it lifestyle anarchism). These harmful anti-individual societarian products denounced by individualists have included mass society, religion, morality, patriarchy, homophobia, wage slavery, work, pop culture, etc. This has been the dominant trend in european individualist anarchism and it is also an important current in US individualist anarchism as can bee seen in Henry David Thoreau and the individualist free love and feminist propagandists. From the individualist lifestyle anarchism viewpoint self creation and self determination is individualism, not possesion of things. From a humanist viewpoint, this is the case as well.
-Mutualism is market socialism, it is for noncapitalist markets. As such its defends non capitalist private property. Egoism has been combined with both mutualism and anarchocommunism. So the sentence that individualist anarchism "stresses the importance of private property or possession" overgeneralizes things and presents an economicistic view of individualist anarchism
-From the economic viewpoints of egoism and mutualism, as exposed before, one can only affirm that most individualist anarchism has been in fact, a socialist viewpoint. As such, the distinction between "socialist anarchism" and "individualist anarchism" is absurd. This is the reason why historically the distinction has been between "social" and "individualist" anarchism.-- Eduen ( talk) 12:04, 27 January 2010 (UTC)
about, the image which says that not all schools of anarchism agree upon. it will be nice to have some explanation about this. i hope the person who wrote that is not implying we should give excessive importance to the recent US centered anomaly which calls itself "Anarcho" capitalism. anyway, i will not defend the presence of that praticular image in the article.-- Eduen ( talk) 20:48, 9 February 2010 (UTC)
post left anarchy does not critizice class war. it criticizes anarchosindicalism and it develops a more individualistic view on class war similar to individual reclamation but in the end it develops a position similar to left communism and autonomism. for a nice post-left anarchy view on class war and communism check this by Wolfi Landstreicher [1].-- Eduen ( talk) 23:57, 11 February 2010 (UTC)
Quoting Infoshop.org's "Anarchist FAQ" as the sole source for why social anarchism is the "largest school of anarchism" is not a good practice. According to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/An_Anarchist_FAQ , the Anarchist FAQ "documents anarchist theory and ideas while arguing that social anarchism is a better form of anarchism than individualist anarchism which it critiques." Reading through the site, it is HEAVILY biased in the favor or social anarchism, and even tries to claim that individualist anarchism is really a form of socialism. The motto on their main page is "Kill capitalism before it kills you!" I'm sorry, but this is not a reliable source. I think some people have been reading too much of this literature, and it has affected their concept of what Anarchism is on the whole. This article still needs several adjustments to meet Wiki's NPOV. ChihuahuaAssassin ( talk) 16:35, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
In the previous section I developed extensively on how individualist anarchism has been an anticapitalist form of thought. But also let´s consider that the Anarchist FAQ only deals with US individualist anarchists and it concludes correctly how american individualist anarchism was anticapitalist. European individualist anarchism was in many cases even more strongly anticapitalist.-- Eduen ( talk) 04:40, 8 February 2010 (UTC) An Anarchist FAQ is a project independent of Infoshop.org, but we are the primary hosting location for the FAQ. Several of the FAQ's domain points to the Infoshop version. Speaking of which, we just moved the FAQ to our new content management system. I've updated a few links on several entries. We've set up redirects on our site to the new locations, so people should update links where relevant. As far as using the FAQ for citations here--the FAQ has a bias and point of view, like any written document on politics. Let's remember that all Wikipedia entries are biased and have a point of view. If I were writing the main entry on "Anarchism", it would look much different than the current version here. But the Anarchist FAQ is an authoritative source on the different kinds of anarchism. It's been developed over 13 years and the authors have consulted with individualist anarchists. It's also been published, in part, as a book, so that should satisfy Wikipedia citation sticklers. Chuck0 ( talk) 16:51, 27 February 2010 (UTC)
I think that new proposal is fine but saying that social anarchism is the same as libertarian socialism does not take into account non anarchist forms of libertarian socialism such as autonomism or council communism. A good thing is that it takes out the definition of individualist anarchism as a strong defender of private property which as i already argued before, is not the case.-- Eduen ( talk) 04:46, 8 February 2010 (UTC)
The new paragraph shows how individualist anarchism´s main characteristic is emphasis on the individual as its name suggests. The issue of private property is ambiguous in individualist anarchism incluiding strong rejections of private property and so, saying that "it emphasizes private property" is false. As this has not been challenged here I proceded with the change.-- Eduen ( talk) 20:46, 19 February 2010 (UTC)
Infoshop.org has resolved its downtime problems that have plagued the site for much of last year. I know this has been an issue for people who want to make links to our content from Wikipedia entries. Infoshop has the most content online of any anarchist or libertarian website. We are also moving some older files, but adding redirects from old locations. We are cleaning up dead links and adding new ones. We are planning to add hundreds of books, documents, and images to the Infoshop Library and other sections of the site. We apologize for our downtime issues and thank you for your patience. Chuck0 ( talk) 16:56, 27 February 2010 (UTC)
There doesn't seem to be here anything about Anarchist terrorism from the 1880's onwards. I guess this shows the bias of this updating this page. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.86.243.150 ( talk) 14:10, 11 March 2010 (UTC)
I've added a section on this. It fills a large gap in the 'as a social movement' section, and more information was needed on the subject anyhow. Zazaban ( talk) 06:51, 17 March 2010 (UTC)
propaganda of the deed is mainly trying to motivate action through showing something is possible. This means propaganda of the deed is not nessesarely a violent action and so civil disobedience as proposed by anarcho pacifists can also be propaganda of the deed. im will see if i can find something more specific and well referenced on this. What i think is a bit problematic though is saying "Propaganda of the deed was abandoned by the vast majority of the anarchist movement after World War I (1914–18) and the 1917 October Revolution.".-- Eduen ( talk) 05:07, 30 March 2010 (UTC)
I know it may be too soon: but we should at least get together a list of things that need to be improved so that we can start working at it slowly, now. The good article push was phenomenal. the whole article was revamped, and is now actually stable for what is likely the longest time ever. FA status doesn't seem inconceivable to me. Zazaban ( talk) 01:28, 30 March 2010 (UTC)
I noticed these are not dealt with in this article. Anarcho-pacifism goes back as far as Henry David Thoreau and so it is a clear tendency within anarchism which mainly through Thoureau also influenced individualist anarchism. Christian anarchism meets with anarcho pacifism in Leo Tolstoy and afterwards in the 20th century it will play influential roles in things like the antinuclear movement, antiwar movements and civil rights movements. Anyway i will love to hear opinions on how these could be dealt with and i could present a proposal for inclusion.-- Eduen ( talk) 05:16, 30 March 2010 (UTC)
I have a problem with this line. While some anarchist communists favour direct democracy, others feel that its majoritarianism can impede individual liberty and favour consensus democracy instead. Direct democracy is when decisions are made directly by the citizens. It can be by majority vote or consensus. 24.180.173.157 ( talk) 18:29, 22 May 2010 (UTC)
The problem of this sentence is that it rewords a symmantic argument held several weeks ago, without actually solving the original problem. At the time, the sentence stated that anarcho-communists favored direct democracy. An editor with a subtle anti-anarcho-communist agenda began to highlight this as an example of anarchist hypocrisy. After a brief argument ensued, I pointed out that the term "direct democracy" was a misnominer, as anarcho-communists have often used "democracy" as a short hand term to describe a voting process in decision making, rather than an institutional form of hierarchical power. I proposed that the term "consensus decision making" should be used instead, as it more fundamentally described what was at heart of anarcho-communist theory. It would seem that the sentence was reworded to travel down the middle of the road, without satisfying either side in the debate. Now the issue has risen anew. I once again insist that this is just a symantic issue. Representative democracy is inherently non-anarchist, as representation is inherently hierarchical. This flies in the face of actual anarcho-communist and syndicalist theory. It is also ahistorical. Original descriptions of worker federations did not suggest that worker delegates would be voted into an institutional position of authority. They are temporary delegates. The federations were not intended as institutions of power. They are structural boundaries in a society which shift and change as social context dictates. The IWW is not an example of representative democracy. it is a worker syndicate. The IAF is not a representative democracy. It is federated conglomeration of organizations. Further, consensus takes place in direct democracies as well, with individual voters reaching consensus on propositions for vote and agreeing to recognize the legitimacy of any law that is passed. Democracy is a viable format for power sharing when political entities agree that social stability is preferred to the usurpation of political power. Among anarchists, there is agreement that cooperation is at times more useful than competition (with various scenarios either legitimizing individualist or communalist branches of thought) but there is mutual agreement that institutions organs of power are the driving force for statism, as institutions exist outside, and exert power over, the individual power/ego of the individual. So can we hurry up and reword the sentence? -- Cast ( talk) 16:49, 24 May 2010 (UTC)
![]() | This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 55 | ← | Archive 58 | Archive 59 | Archive 60 | Archive 61 | Archive 62 | → | Archive 65 |
The definition of anarchism is not one that an encyclopedia like this one can settle. The only role Wikipedia can have is to say what more respected theorists and sources themselves say. However, I therefore have a problem with the introduction of this article because it assumes that there is one political philosophy called anarchism which merely has a number of "strains." The article says:
Anarchism is a political philosophy...
And for example:
however, anarchism has for some time included an economic and legal individualist strain,[18] with that strain supporting an anarchist free-market economy and private property (like old anarcho-individualism and today's anarcho-capitalism).[19][20][21]
However, this flat-out contradicts what many anarchists on the left say, which is that anarcho-capitalism is not a form of anarchism. For example see The Anarchist FAQ, which lists numerous original sources. I'm not familiar with much of what anarcho-capitalists say about left anarchists, but I think lumping ideas that are so virulently opposed to one another under one philosophy is a distortion.
Instead of defining anarchism as one philosophy, it should instead be defined as a group of philosophies that happen to all call themselves "anarchist." Then from the very beginning, when these different philosophies are delineated, it can be made clear that some explicitly reject others as being examples of anarchism. They should not be described as being "within anarchism" as this article does, but rather as merely using the title of anarchism, with it being left to the reader to decide on the true classification of any given philosophy.
I think this would help a great deal in both accurate reporting of the facts and in ending editing wars. Khin2718 ( talk) 19:41, 30 November 2009 (UTC)
This is not the place for editors to proffer their own conceptions of what anarchism is. Skomorokh 03:12, 17 December 2009 (UTC)
Since this is turning into an edit war, I've created this so that the two parties can discuss this like rational people instead of just reverting each other. Thank you. Zazaban ( talk) 22:44, 23 December 2009 (UTC)
I've just put myself up to review this article which is listed at the GA nomination page. However, I can't see the expected template on this talk page and it doesn't look as if the nominator mentioned the nomination here.
So, before I start investing what might be a lot of time to review this article, are the regular editors surprised by this nom and do you think it is at or close to GA quality? If not then we can pretend the nomination never happenned and just remove it from the GAN page. Otherwise I'll take a deep breath and dove in. Thanks-- Peter cohen ( talk) 21:45, 8 January 2010 (UTC)
How much of the Schools of thought section should be given over to discussion of forms of anarchism that emerged in the late 20th century? See also the anarchist schools of thought article, of which the section is a summary. Skomorokh 19:57, 11 January 2010 (UTC)
I check pages listed in Category:Pages with incorrect ref formatting to try to fix reference errors. One of the things I do is look for content for orphaned references in wikilinked articles. I have found content for some of Anarchism's orphans, the problem is that I found more than one version. I can't determine which (if any) is correct for this article, so I am asking for a sentient editor to look it over and copy the correct ref content into this article.
Reference named "carlson":
{{
cite book}}
: |access-date=
requires |url=
(
help); External link in |chapterurl=
(
help); Unknown parameter |chapterurl=
ignored (|chapter-url=
suggested) (
help)These people don't eat out of dumpsters because they're poor and desperate. They do it to prove a political point. You wouldnt expect someone to choose a lifestyle that involved eating out of dumpsters. Kind of seems like something you do as a desperate last resort. But there's an entire society of people who willingly get their meals out of the garbage. They're called freegans, and they say they have a reason for doing it.
{{
cite news}}
: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors=
(
help)I apologize if any of the above are effectively identical; I am just a simple computer program, so I can't determine whether minor differences are significant or not. AnomieBOT ⚡ 23:01, 14 January 2010 (UTC)
so this article aparently is nominated for good article. i added a section on contemporary anarchism but seems it needs some references. maybe someone could help on this. maybe i will do when i have some free time.-- Eduen ( talk) 04:42, 22 January 2010 (UTC)
It's been great to see the article move on from an obsessive focus on documenting in detail every faction of theorists to attempting a broader and deeper portrayal of the anarchist movement. I think there has naturally emerged some unevenness however that asks for addressing. Until relatively recently, the "Social movement" section was broadly chronological, following the evolution of anarchism from the International, through the labour and syndicalist movements in Europe and the US, through the Russian Revolution and anarchist Ukraine to the Spanish Civil War and anti-fascist resistance. In that it covered the most important events in the movement's history, this was a rather coherent summation.
In the current version, however, we have sections on free love and libertarian education (as well as a welcome section on the contemporary movement), which don't fit into the historical scheme (i.e. free love activism did not largely only within the window between the International Anarchist Congress of Amsterdam and the October Revolution). These new sections are valuable, and cover topics which are important aspects of anarchism as a social movement, but added into the historical section they come across as disjointed. It strikes me that we have a few options here:
I'd worry that the first two options would be trying to put square pegs in round holes; it would be hard to write the anarchist experience in the Russian revolution up as a theme (a sort of generalised anti-authoritarianism, the perils of pacifism vs. insurrection, or perhaps "never trust a leftist"?), or to pigeonhole a perennial anarchist interest like libertarian education or for that matter the organised labour movement into a specific few decades. I'm most inclined towards the third option, according to which there would be a major-events-based history section, the existing schools of thought section, and a sociological section detailing the important characteristics and causes peculiar to anarchism.
Discussion and suggestions most welcome, Skomorokh 06:05, 22 January 2010 (UTC)
Alright, this seems uncontroversial. I'm going to make the first edit now and let it build over time. Cross your fingers and hope for the best. FA status, here we come!-- Cast ( talk) 18:04, 22 January 2010 (UTC)
Here's something that the article actually says:
Alright, so, how can you have a government (like a federation or a direct democracy) while being anarchist, again? I'd love to hear how these people reconcile this doublethink with themselves. Macai ( talk) 06:23, 21 January 2010 (UTC)
Macai, what is it you are looking to do here? Improve the description to better explain what anarchist communists believe, or make a point about the inadequacies of this school of thought? Because only one of those is something Wikipedia ought to be a forum for. I'd recommend reading Cast's comments below. Regards, Skomorokh 05:38, 22 January 2010 (UTC)
I'm sorry, but Macai is ~not~ alone in his views! Communism and Socialism are fundamentally at odds with true Anarchism. Some may speculate that a society could be built that somehow accomplishes collectivist cooperation without appealing to force, but this is a pipe dream. Socialist and Communist countries have and always will involve massive, bureaucratic governments, and this is something that all true Anarchists oppose. I can only imagine how confusing this article would be to someone lacking a basic understanding of political science. To portray Anarchism (the abandonment of government) as though it were merely a branch of Socialism is misleading at the very least. Any political view that advocates an establishment of government or of a governmental process (e.g. "voting") is ~not~ Anarchism! I agree with Cast that at the very least, some rewording is in order. ChihuahuaAssassin ( talk) 19:18, 3 February 2010 (UTC)
I think an issue being overlooked by some is that the sentence describing anarcho-communism can be better written. Of course, that is what Macai claims to be advocating, but the editor's preference thus far as been to disparage the tradition of anarcho-communism rather than to make improvements. In the future, I hope editors will make the edits they wish to see. Now, from a discussion I've had with Lawrence Jarach on the matter, I agree that "anarchy" (that is, an anarchist society) is incompatible with "direct democracy". The problem isn't that anarchists object to consensus decision making processes that include voting as a basic tool. The problem is that "direct democracy" doesn't exist in any practical form. If we vote as part of a process that is short term and organic for a basic decision making process, this is hardly an institution of government. Institutions are organizations which exists outside of their members. Like the government of the United States, the "Communist" party of China, the Catholic Church, or the Skull & Bones society, they will exist long after their current members have died (or at least, we anarchists hope not). They are institutions. A representative democracy is an inherently hierarchical structure used in some institutions, such as the United States, to share power among the ruling elite. If we, that is anarchists, were to break down the system to the community level, and decide what will happen in our communities through consensus, and our communities did not out live us, they would not be institutions, and they would not function through a process of "direct democracy". "Direct democracy" in this form, is a synonym for "anarchism on the community level". A network of communities in contact with each other may meet and send delegates who were chosen at the community level to meet at distant locations, and formulate trade and pacts of alliance. (This was all theorized well before the advent of the internet. LOL. Now we can just twitter? ¯\(°_o)/¯ ) Anarcho-communism isn't a "pure" or "distilled" version of democracy. That's marketing speak by people like Noam Chomsky looking for mainstream approval and sympathy. The line of thinking goes: "Global consensus is that democracy is good and anarchy is bad. So we must spin global consensus to associate anarchy with a better democracy!" This same thinking leads people to claim people as anarchists when they are not. Sometimes it is an appeal "cool" and so you get people claiming Fight Club is a 20th century anarchist thesis, and Tyler Durden is a famous anarcho-primitivist.
So, my suggestion: write out references to "self-governing", "direct democracy", "federation", and other phrases which can be confused with government, and get over trying to appease the mainstream? This argument can be settled with a few rewritten sentences. I really shouldn't have had to go through the process of writing this paragraph. Here, I'll do it for you:
It's a tragedy that some anarchists thought coming up with "anarchy w/out adjectives" would solve this problem a hundred years ago, and yet people continue the same infighting their stubborn, dead anarcho-forebears did. Your arguments are entirely rudimentary and based on miscommunication. We have greater enemies in this world than each other, and we are possibly each others greatest friends, if only we would look past 19th century texts to see it.-- Cast ( talk) 15:40, 21 January 2010 (UTC)
I think there´s a problem with this :"Socialist anarchism is the largest school of anarchism. In contrast with most forms of individualist anarchism, which stresses the importance of private property or possession, socialist anarchism rejects private property, seeing it as a source of social inequality, and emphasises cooperation and mutual aid."
With the exception of the recent US centered neoliberal "anarcho" capitalism all Individualist anarchists have been in economics either mutualists or egoists. mutualism recognizes only that which is used as deserving recognition as "yours" according to the labor theory of value and so they also can advocate expropiation on the bourgoise. egoism is opnely disrespectful of private property and so inspired illegalism. We can consider the view of italian individualist Renzo Novatore on this issue: "Only ethical and spiritual wealth" as "invulnerable "This is the true property of individuals. The rest no! The rest is vulnerable! And all that is vulnerable will be violated!""To create new ethical values. To create new aesthetic values. To communalize material wealth. To individualize spiritual wealth.. " Emile Armand says that the individualist anarchist "inwardly he remains refractory -- fatally refractory -- morally, intellectually, economically (The capitalist economy and the directed economy, the speculators and the fabricators of single are equally repugnant to him.)"
Oscar Wilde even went as far as defending socialism as the only way to guarantee individualism in his essay "The soul of man under socialism". Benjamin Tucker said his economic views were socialist and Lysander Spooner views were similar and strongly opposed wage labor mainly trying to defend small family agrarian economics. But Wilde and Novatore take a nietzchetian stirnerist humanist view in which individualism is mainly a defence of the individual integrity and self determination (we could even call it aesthetic individualism as well as how L. Susan Brown called it "exixtential individualism") and so it is very different from the liberal "possesive individualism" which focuses on the right to have things. Emile Armand somewhere even says that an individualist doesnt focus too much on economics. Colombian stirnerist Biofilo Panclasta was so uninterested in possesing things as to live as a vagabond as some sort of stirnerist sadhu. Here i think we are dealing with an individualist impulse who, in the terms of Nietzche, rejects the herd mentality of religion and working conditions under mass industrial capitalism and what later will be called by the Frankfurt School, the culture industry.
That enciclopedia which is given as a reference might say something different but the fact is that US views and the research and influence of neoliberal think tanks have obscured the views of individualist anarchism in general. This has been joined i think with the prejudice of social anarchists againts individualist anarchism and so the research on it and the avalability of it in the english language is very poor as well as the translations of european and latin american individualists.-- Eduen ( talk) 21:00, 24 January 2010 (UTC)
i dont see why you take it as an insult. neoliberal and neoliberalism is a widely used term in academia and politics. the wikipedia article on it says "The label refers to a redefinition of classical liberalism, influenced by the neoclassical theories of economics" the positions of Murray Rothbard clearly fit this description.-- Eduen ( talk) 01:16, 25 January 2010 (UTC)
I just noticed that the free market form of individualist anarchism is totally ignored in the Individualist Anarchism section. Jadabocho ( talk) 02:11, 25 January 2010 (UTC)
well, the individualist anarchism section is preceded by a section dealing with mutualism and since in post classical schools of thought "anarcho" capitalism is also covered "free market anarchism" is well enough covered in this article.-- Eduen ( talk) 05:53, 25 January 2010 (UTC)
if they get a mention also european individualist anarchists like Emile Armand and Han Ryner should get mentioned.-- Eduen ( talk) 09:17, 25 January 2010 (UTC)
I have no strong feelings about what the section should cover, other than thinking that the propertarians/natural law individualists get short shrift in the current version, but there is no scope for further bloating of the schools of thought. Three paragraphs on the two major currents is more than enough for this summary article. Skomorokh 15:34, 25 January 2010 (UTC)
well this could be solved with 2 or 3 sentences in the individualist anarchism section covering on the one side "boston anarchists" and another dealing with european individualists like Emile Armand, Han Ryner, Albert Libertad, Adolf Brand, Lev Chernyi, Miguel Gimenez Igualada and illegalism. Equal treatment and brief. we could also add in the "main articles" both the american individualist anarchism and the european individualist anarchism links. now as far as american individualists in the long run Henry David Thoreau has been very influential in green anarchism but seems to me the most influential of all the american individualists since he wen to influence people like Leo Tolstoy, Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. as well as being also the person who could be said started anarcho-pacifism. Anyway i suggest Warren, Thoreau, Spooner, tucker. I hope no one wants to reduce american individualism to "natural rights" economics. Ecology and free love were almost as important or just as important.-- Eduen ( talk) 19:16, 25 January 2010 (UTC)
As this process has gone with a nice consensus based process, i want to proceed on that line. So i propose the following to replace the parragraph i complained about:
"Social anarchism is the largest school of anarchism. In contrast with most forms of individualist anarchism which focus on the individual and his/her relation to society and its products, social anarchism emphasises the themes of revolution, cooperation and mutual aid."
now the reasons:
-Individualist anarchism is not economics centered. From Max Stirner onwards it contains a strong existentialist humanist content and revolt againts societarian products ( Murray Bookchin called it lifestyle anarchism). These harmful anti-individual societarian products denounced by individualists have included mass society, religion, morality, patriarchy, homophobia, wage slavery, work, pop culture, etc. This has been the dominant trend in european individualist anarchism and it is also an important current in US individualist anarchism as can bee seen in Henry David Thoreau and the individualist free love and feminist propagandists. From the individualist lifestyle anarchism viewpoint self creation and self determination is individualism, not possesion of things. From a humanist viewpoint, this is the case as well.
-Mutualism is market socialism, it is for noncapitalist markets. As such its defends non capitalist private property. Egoism has been combined with both mutualism and anarchocommunism. So the sentence that individualist anarchism "stresses the importance of private property or possession" overgeneralizes things and presents an economicistic view of individualist anarchism
-From the economic viewpoints of egoism and mutualism, as exposed before, one can only affirm that most individualist anarchism has been in fact, a socialist viewpoint. As such, the distinction between "socialist anarchism" and "individualist anarchism" is absurd. This is the reason why historically the distinction has been between "social" and "individualist" anarchism.-- Eduen ( talk) 12:04, 27 January 2010 (UTC)
about, the image which says that not all schools of anarchism agree upon. it will be nice to have some explanation about this. i hope the person who wrote that is not implying we should give excessive importance to the recent US centered anomaly which calls itself "Anarcho" capitalism. anyway, i will not defend the presence of that praticular image in the article.-- Eduen ( talk) 20:48, 9 February 2010 (UTC)
post left anarchy does not critizice class war. it criticizes anarchosindicalism and it develops a more individualistic view on class war similar to individual reclamation but in the end it develops a position similar to left communism and autonomism. for a nice post-left anarchy view on class war and communism check this by Wolfi Landstreicher [1].-- Eduen ( talk) 23:57, 11 February 2010 (UTC)
Quoting Infoshop.org's "Anarchist FAQ" as the sole source for why social anarchism is the "largest school of anarchism" is not a good practice. According to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/An_Anarchist_FAQ , the Anarchist FAQ "documents anarchist theory and ideas while arguing that social anarchism is a better form of anarchism than individualist anarchism which it critiques." Reading through the site, it is HEAVILY biased in the favor or social anarchism, and even tries to claim that individualist anarchism is really a form of socialism. The motto on their main page is "Kill capitalism before it kills you!" I'm sorry, but this is not a reliable source. I think some people have been reading too much of this literature, and it has affected their concept of what Anarchism is on the whole. This article still needs several adjustments to meet Wiki's NPOV. ChihuahuaAssassin ( talk) 16:35, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
In the previous section I developed extensively on how individualist anarchism has been an anticapitalist form of thought. But also let´s consider that the Anarchist FAQ only deals with US individualist anarchists and it concludes correctly how american individualist anarchism was anticapitalist. European individualist anarchism was in many cases even more strongly anticapitalist.-- Eduen ( talk) 04:40, 8 February 2010 (UTC) An Anarchist FAQ is a project independent of Infoshop.org, but we are the primary hosting location for the FAQ. Several of the FAQ's domain points to the Infoshop version. Speaking of which, we just moved the FAQ to our new content management system. I've updated a few links on several entries. We've set up redirects on our site to the new locations, so people should update links where relevant. As far as using the FAQ for citations here--the FAQ has a bias and point of view, like any written document on politics. Let's remember that all Wikipedia entries are biased and have a point of view. If I were writing the main entry on "Anarchism", it would look much different than the current version here. But the Anarchist FAQ is an authoritative source on the different kinds of anarchism. It's been developed over 13 years and the authors have consulted with individualist anarchists. It's also been published, in part, as a book, so that should satisfy Wikipedia citation sticklers. Chuck0 ( talk) 16:51, 27 February 2010 (UTC)
I think that new proposal is fine but saying that social anarchism is the same as libertarian socialism does not take into account non anarchist forms of libertarian socialism such as autonomism or council communism. A good thing is that it takes out the definition of individualist anarchism as a strong defender of private property which as i already argued before, is not the case.-- Eduen ( talk) 04:46, 8 February 2010 (UTC)
The new paragraph shows how individualist anarchism´s main characteristic is emphasis on the individual as its name suggests. The issue of private property is ambiguous in individualist anarchism incluiding strong rejections of private property and so, saying that "it emphasizes private property" is false. As this has not been challenged here I proceded with the change.-- Eduen ( talk) 20:46, 19 February 2010 (UTC)
Infoshop.org has resolved its downtime problems that have plagued the site for much of last year. I know this has been an issue for people who want to make links to our content from Wikipedia entries. Infoshop has the most content online of any anarchist or libertarian website. We are also moving some older files, but adding redirects from old locations. We are cleaning up dead links and adding new ones. We are planning to add hundreds of books, documents, and images to the Infoshop Library and other sections of the site. We apologize for our downtime issues and thank you for your patience. Chuck0 ( talk) 16:56, 27 February 2010 (UTC)
There doesn't seem to be here anything about Anarchist terrorism from the 1880's onwards. I guess this shows the bias of this updating this page. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.86.243.150 ( talk) 14:10, 11 March 2010 (UTC)
I've added a section on this. It fills a large gap in the 'as a social movement' section, and more information was needed on the subject anyhow. Zazaban ( talk) 06:51, 17 March 2010 (UTC)
propaganda of the deed is mainly trying to motivate action through showing something is possible. This means propaganda of the deed is not nessesarely a violent action and so civil disobedience as proposed by anarcho pacifists can also be propaganda of the deed. im will see if i can find something more specific and well referenced on this. What i think is a bit problematic though is saying "Propaganda of the deed was abandoned by the vast majority of the anarchist movement after World War I (1914–18) and the 1917 October Revolution.".-- Eduen ( talk) 05:07, 30 March 2010 (UTC)
I know it may be too soon: but we should at least get together a list of things that need to be improved so that we can start working at it slowly, now. The good article push was phenomenal. the whole article was revamped, and is now actually stable for what is likely the longest time ever. FA status doesn't seem inconceivable to me. Zazaban ( talk) 01:28, 30 March 2010 (UTC)
I noticed these are not dealt with in this article. Anarcho-pacifism goes back as far as Henry David Thoreau and so it is a clear tendency within anarchism which mainly through Thoureau also influenced individualist anarchism. Christian anarchism meets with anarcho pacifism in Leo Tolstoy and afterwards in the 20th century it will play influential roles in things like the antinuclear movement, antiwar movements and civil rights movements. Anyway i will love to hear opinions on how these could be dealt with and i could present a proposal for inclusion.-- Eduen ( talk) 05:16, 30 March 2010 (UTC)
I have a problem with this line. While some anarchist communists favour direct democracy, others feel that its majoritarianism can impede individual liberty and favour consensus democracy instead. Direct democracy is when decisions are made directly by the citizens. It can be by majority vote or consensus. 24.180.173.157 ( talk) 18:29, 22 May 2010 (UTC)
The problem of this sentence is that it rewords a symmantic argument held several weeks ago, without actually solving the original problem. At the time, the sentence stated that anarcho-communists favored direct democracy. An editor with a subtle anti-anarcho-communist agenda began to highlight this as an example of anarchist hypocrisy. After a brief argument ensued, I pointed out that the term "direct democracy" was a misnominer, as anarcho-communists have often used "democracy" as a short hand term to describe a voting process in decision making, rather than an institutional form of hierarchical power. I proposed that the term "consensus decision making" should be used instead, as it more fundamentally described what was at heart of anarcho-communist theory. It would seem that the sentence was reworded to travel down the middle of the road, without satisfying either side in the debate. Now the issue has risen anew. I once again insist that this is just a symantic issue. Representative democracy is inherently non-anarchist, as representation is inherently hierarchical. This flies in the face of actual anarcho-communist and syndicalist theory. It is also ahistorical. Original descriptions of worker federations did not suggest that worker delegates would be voted into an institutional position of authority. They are temporary delegates. The federations were not intended as institutions of power. They are structural boundaries in a society which shift and change as social context dictates. The IWW is not an example of representative democracy. it is a worker syndicate. The IAF is not a representative democracy. It is federated conglomeration of organizations. Further, consensus takes place in direct democracies as well, with individual voters reaching consensus on propositions for vote and agreeing to recognize the legitimacy of any law that is passed. Democracy is a viable format for power sharing when political entities agree that social stability is preferred to the usurpation of political power. Among anarchists, there is agreement that cooperation is at times more useful than competition (with various scenarios either legitimizing individualist or communalist branches of thought) but there is mutual agreement that institutions organs of power are the driving force for statism, as institutions exist outside, and exert power over, the individual power/ego of the individual. So can we hurry up and reword the sentence? -- Cast ( talk) 16:49, 24 May 2010 (UTC)