I was approached by an Anarcho Communist yesterday (a title he gave to himself), and I am very much of the Anarcho Capitalist (aka ANCAP) persuasion myself. This encounter took place with an alter ego of mine, so I had to go do some research and some thinking and make a response here.
My first reactions
None of these were made to this person. I do try to be civil... this is simply to illustrate what wen through my mind.
- Anarcho-WTF!!!?!
- Oxymoron says what?
- Welcome to the Forward/Backward world...
- You should(not) errrr maybe(no)... uhm go there...
- Military Intelligence...
Rather than responding with a knee jerk reaction I went and did some readings, but before I had done that these were my initial thoughts:
Anarchy - no state/government or if you prefer a dictionary definition
"absence of government and absolute freedom of the individual, regarded as a political ideal."
Communism - I don't see possible it's ideals without some form of state/government/body who makes decisions for all. If you prefer a definition...
"a political theory derived from Karl Marx, advocating class war and leading to a society in which all property is publicly owned and each person works and is paid according to their abilities and needs."
So when I see those two things combined to me it seems like an Oxymoron. Here is why.
"paid according to their abilities and needs" Decided by whom? Who is permitted to decide what a persons abilities and needs are? How is this different from a state/government? It is still a group of people (no matter the number) deciding they know what is best for all and what the needs of all should be.
Now as I researched the term Anarcho-Communism itself I see that some of what we might term communism seems to be not included. So unlike Anarcho Capitalism which essentially combines the two concepts as they are, Anarcho Communism may change the interpretations a bit so that it isn't an oil and water situation. On this I am still unclear as it does have some of the same vulnerabilities of any ORGANIZATION or STATE.
I am an Anarchist, I believe in the free market. When I speak of capitalism I am referring to the Free Market. If you add in the cronyism that happens in free market environments when there is a state then you must remove the word FREE from Free Market. They are not the same thing. Likewise, even with communist and/or socialist ideals there is still plenty of avenues to exploit cronyism.
In fact this particular aspect of human nature can infest ANY organization and very likely will for the reasons I illustrated in another post: (NOTE: steemit went down when the images were broken, by the time it was back timer had run out so see a comment I added to the post with the relevant images)
What I describe in that post I truly believe is an issue with any organization regardless of the ideology it is based upon. So to truly understand where I am coming from I recommend checking it out as I don't want to rehash that here.
Given that conclusion I drew there in an Anarcho-Communist society who decides what my abilities are and what my needs are? What if I think I need more, or even what if I think you are giving me too much? (yes that does happen) What if I believe I have abilities that you don't even consider? Who is this group that is allowed to dictate my needs?
How do you deal with people like me who disagree? (this last one is asked towards Anarcho-Capitalists frequently as well)
Anarcho-Capitalism is based around no state, and property. The only murky areas I see is what constitutes property. There can be a lot of debate around this and I often ask questions challenging fellow ancaps myself.
I will provide the simple version. My body is my property. It does not belong to a community. My time and how I use it is my property. In order to facilitate exchange for my time we have created universal exchange mechanisms known as currency for they facilitate things that would be impossible for people to keep up without currency. When I agree to an action with another individual we can create a contract. This could be a contract giving them the right to property I create during an allotted time in exchange for currency for that time. I can agree to the contract or not and negotiate other terms if I'm so inclined. It is purely between me and that individual. There is no state to force my compliance, or to force that person to enter contract with me. This idea of CONTRACT is important.
Unlike Anarcho-Communism you'll find that Anarcho-Capitalism is INCLUSIVE.
In an Anarcho-Capitalist society you would be welcome to gather as many like minded people you could find and all enter a contract and agree how to live and essentially you could have your own Anarcho-Communist society existing inside of an Anarcho-Capitalist one. Why? Because you are free to do what you want in an anarcho-capitalist society short of harming another or stealing/harming their property. This does not make Anarcho-Communist societies inside of it an impossible thing.
Anarcho-Communism on the otherhand does not believe in the idea of private property. Any property is public, and since anyone can't just walk into the public area and take whatever they want that would require some sort of council, organization or essentially STATE. It also makes the possibility of people who want to practice Anarcho-Capitalism impossible.
So when it comes to which is the more FREE. I think that is pretty self evident.
As far as ENVY of those with more money being a problem in capitalism, there is envy in communism if I bust my ass and work very hard and someone who did almost nothing receives the same as me.
Envy is an emotion.
It is not solved by forcing others to do what you want. It is solved by working with your own mind and learning to use reason and not be ruled by emotions. A state is not going to kill envy, it will simply shift it around and perhaps even make it worse.
I feel envy too, I simply recognize it for what it is and choose not to see myself as a victim who has to lash out at whomever I was envious of.