By Cake Boy
I don’t know why I write so much these days, but anyway. I hope you like my work. It’s meant to make anarchism serious again. I wonder if that is possible. I try to think with you. Not to ‘attack the system’ or anything (I’m less radical than people might think), but to formulate a philosophical political discourse.
I again want to respond to this little Antifa text about Preston and the pluralist theory. I respond to things they say in the text.
He himself argues for a concept call “pan-secessionism” or “anarchy-pluralism,” where by these “different anarchist tendencies” can collaborate in creating regional communities in a decentralist grid. It needs to be stressed, however, his idea of what different anarchist tendencies includes strange right-wing constructs that no one in the anarchist camp would include including such charming ideas like anarchy-monarchism, national anarchism, anarchy-capitalism, and anarchy-fuedalism.
Anarcho monarchism and anarcho feudalism do not exist, are joke theories. The different political zones also don’t need to be ‘anarchist’. Social democratic politicians can run a zone. The idea is that anarchism means that different parties will have their own place. Like, for example, now already every province and municipality has some different rules in this country. Pluralism would make these differences bigger. These provinces would even rule themselves. Politicians from all kinds of parties could run a province. The woke liberal party could run a province in which children learn about gender theory. The conservative politicians run a province where kids will read the bible.
Something like this is also already the case in America. For example, the death penalty exists in one state, and it doesn’t in another. Under the pluralist theory, these states could also set their own economic rules and regulations. They wouldn’t have to follow the rules of a centralized body, but they would come together in a parliament to work together and formulate positions around diplomacy, trade, and defense.
The left points out that people who propagate anarchist pluralism also propagate different strange ideologies within its borders. In theory, a pluralist system could contain a feudalist zone. Yes, in theory, this could happen, but it’s very unlikely. Because how many Western people are feudalists? How many people are monarchists? A handful of people. How many people in my country are really full-blown racist? Maybe a thousand, on a population of millions and millions. This ‘zone’ then wouldn’t really be a zone but just a small cult.
Most people are liberals, social democrats, libertarians, or communists (a small percentage is communist). So, a pluralist system would be something like 30 percent liberal, 30 percent social democrat, 15 percent communist, and maybe 15 percent conservative/religious. A zone could be, in theory, Islamist, but how many radical Islamist people are there in this country? Maybe hundreds.
A good thing about the pluralist setting would be competition between the zones. Libertarians always say that socialism will fail. In a pluralist setting, the people can choose between low rents (and high taxes) in the socialist zone or high rents (and low taxes) in the libertarian zone. People always say georgism can’t work. In the pluralist system, we could see how many people would join it, how many people would be ok with a land tax, and a basic income. In the meantime, they also wouldn’t push their theory on other people. So, it exists without violating boundaries.
Do we have to call it anarchist, this pluralist model? You could also call it ‘libertarian’? Or federalist? It’s based on the (American) anarchist core principle that ‘all social relations should be voluntary’. If you have a pluralist system combined with revived commons/autonomous zones, then you have a system in which everything is voluntary. So, then, you have an anarchist system. But you could also use another word for it.
I was thinking you could come to this pluralist position by studying classical liberalism or by studying anarchism. It’s a radical form of liberalism or a moderate anarchism. So, we can call it pluralist liberalism or pluralist anarchism. Pluralist liberalism would attract more people, because people are known with that theory.
Libertarianism, which is a completely deregulated form of capitalism, is a tradition that really did not exist in any meaningful way(We already know that you will probably dispute this Preston, but that is only grasping at straws) before the 1980s where people like Murray Rothbard vocally tried to take the “anarchist” title as a way of undermining the historic libertarian tradition
Rothbard and Mises wrote huge, interesting books. You can read them, agree or disagree with them. They discuss economics and markets, which are subjects that everyone could study. But leftist anarchists never study anything; they only read ‘zines’.
I am not a libertarian, but that doesn’t mean I wouldn’t read Mises or Rothbard. I’m also not a communist, but of course, I read some communist writers. Reading all kinds of thinkers can only enrich you.
The anarchist left is a deranged cult, so they never read thinkers outside of their stupid ingroup.
Literally, every single traditional anarchist that Preston likes to prop up on his website, Attack the System, consider themselves primarily of an anti-capitalist tradition. Emma Goldman, Alexander Berkman, Mikhail Bakunin, Peter Kropotkin, and even Pierre Joseph Prodhoun and Max Stirner,
Max Stirner wasn’t anti-capitalist per se. I can see you have never read Stirner, and you don’t understand his philosophy.
To be opposed to the state is because of its role in capitalism, patriarchy, and white supremacy.
The state doesn’t have a role in patriarchy per se. Neoliberal states are very pro-feminism and pro-queer. States are also not, by definition, pro-white supremacy, of course. On the contrary, the state where I live is very much in favor of multiculturalism, and what they call ‘diversity.’
States can be very progressive, and tribal systems, or socialist systems, can be very conservative/patriarchal. A lot of these African tribes, the leftist/woke anarchists talk about, aren’t very feminist I can tell you.
In a recent presentation at NPI, Preston embarrassed himself as he went on to show how white nationalism was compatible with anarchism.
It is compatible with the pluralist system, but it will be very, very, very small. In a pluralist anarchist/libertarian setting, there would still live some white supremacists. Anarchism tolerates them as long as they do not attack anyone. This is the main issue, you can think what you want, as long as you do not harm others.
I would personally never talk at such a conference, but I’m not Preston. The thing is, if you just use it to spread your ideas, then what is the problem? You can, as a non-communist, go to a communist event and talk about liberalism to spread the word of liberalism and to start a debate. I believe Preston tends to talk to anyone.
Instead, Preston can rail against Political Correctness as the true evil, which I’m sure is much worse than the crisis of sexual assault happening against women worldwide or the vicious cruelty of de-regulated capitalism on the working class.
Can’t it be both? Political correctness, and woke authoritarianism are a problem, and we don’t like sexual assault. I think most people don’t like sexual assault. You don’t have to be an Antifa warrior to dislike sexual assault, do you?
PC culture is ‘evil’? The antifa left always talk about ‘good’ and ‘evil’. Their Christian background shines through.
PC culture and woke undermine free speech, and free speech is essential, in my view. An anarchist system would only be really anarchist if there would be a culture of free speech. Without free speech, you live in an authoritarian superstate. PC culture leads to hyper-authoritarianism.
Keith Preston is likely to respond to this blog, and he will mention all of these different “anarchists” that support his anarcho-pluralism, yet your pack of fringe “dissidents” mean very little to people involved in the actual anarchist movements.
The ‘actual anarchist movements’, are nothing, reach nothing, do nothing. People only laugh about the silly Antifa boys.
I can understand that Preston wanted to get out of the leftist/woke anarchist milieu. But I do think he made some tactical errors with his political project. It’s tough, to recreate anarchism, it will be a process of trial and error. I think there also has been a lot of miscommunication in the last years between the anarchist tendencies. This is because a lot of anarchists are, in a way, a bit macho and proud. They don’t listen to each other.
