By Cake Boy

I just read this little piece on Reddit in the anarchist discussion forum. I want to repeat it.

https://www.reddit.com/r/DebateAnarchism/comments/hozr9p/individualist_anarchism_is_kinda_dead/

It’s about social and individualist anarchism. The two significant anarchist theories are very different.

What does individualist anarchism want?

1 Usufruct/homesteading of the earth

2 Radical free markets

3 Gradual change or direct action

4 They don’t use parties/official organs

5 Free association between political or economic entities (the state is not free association, so it’s not legitimate)

6 Free speech absolutism

7 No violence towards the non-invasive

8 No official stance around cultural matters

9 Based on Enlightenment radicalism (philosophically speaking)

Individualist anarchism is indeed clearly inspired by classical liberalism. It’s a sort of classical/Jeffersonian liberalism minus the state.

When classical liberal-minded people saw the state becoming corrupt (and focused on serving specific interest groups), they turned to individualist anarchism, you could say. (Classical) Liberal values are okay, but the state can’t maintain them.

Pluralist anarchism is more or less the same as individualist anarchism.

What does pluralist anarchism want?

1 Usufruct/homesteading of the earth: groups of people will control pieces of a land/country

2 Radical free markets

3 They want secession, which is not the same as a revolution

4 They do not use parties

5 They want free association between the different social/political bodies

6 Free speech absolutism

7 No violence towards the non-invasive

8 No official stance around cultural issues

9 Based on Enlightenment radicalism (philosophically speaking)

In a way, we can see that pluralist anarchism could result from individualist anarchism. We also see that individualist anarchists like Emile Armand advocated for it, which is unsurprising.

What does socialist anarchism want?

1 Democratization of the earth (not the same as usufruct)

2 Internal communism

3 Political revolution

4 They use parties and official organizations

5 They want a country consisting of communist councils that work together (but who do not compete, somehow)

6 No tolerance for free speech because it could hinder ‘social revolution’

7 Violence towards ‘class enemies’ (which can be everyone)

8 Radically progressive when it comes to cultural issues

9 Based on Hegelian/historicism (philosophically speaking), socialist anarchism could exist within an individualist/pluralist framework. But not the other way around. Within pluralist anarchism, a political body/zone could be communist. But there could be no free trade and free association within a country controlled by anarchist syndicates (the democratically elected bosses of anarchist syndicates, who rule the land and industry)

Individualist anarchism is radicalized classical liberalism.

Social anarchism is a more decentralized form of communism. In a way, it’s more or less the same as the Council communism, created by thinkers like Anton Pannekoek (a pannekoek is a Dutch dish we often eat here. But it’s also a word you use to insult someone).

This writer says C4SS’s individualist anarchism is not very popular. C4SS is not as big as leftist/ socialist/Antifa anarchism, but it’s still pretty big. I believe it has around 20,000 followers. Progressive-oriented people, Georgists, pirate party/open source followers, and (the more open-minded) libertarians are often interested in the C4SS work.

C4SS scholars write papers and books of a very high quality. Their work is far more professional than, for example, the things (the socialist anarchist) Crimethinc does. Crimethinc is emotional, bombastic, and pubertal. In contrast, C4SS work is rational, dry, and academic.

C4SS really digs to the core of what the state is, how the Cash nexus functions, what markets are, what they could be, how capitalism developed, etc.  I learned a lot from C4SS books, especially the genius work of Kevin Carson. C4SS intellectuals really helped me understand the world, the economy, and politics better.

I personally don’t like the C4SS people (as what kind of people they are) (very woke/PC, intolerant people, which clashes with their own political ideas, but that’s beside the point, and not really relevant for politics)

Individualist anarchism might be smaller, but its academic work is ten times stronger than the current socialist anarchist work. Socialist anarchism is big these days, but it can’t reach anything because it’s a mess, ideologically speaking. It functions more like the leftwing of the Democratic party these days. It often functions like progressivism, not like anarchism.