By Cake Boy

Let’s look at libertarian unity again. Can you blend ancap with ancom (anarcho-capitalism with anarcho-communism)? Most leftists react very emotionally when you talk about ancap. They will start to scream that ancaps are not anarchists immediately. But let’s look at it in a logical way.

What does Ancap want? I think their theory is a bit strange. It’s a futuristic, far-fetched theory. In short, how does their program look? The market takes over everything. It takes over the state apparatus. Businesses take over the land and the security, and these businesses will compete for people.

And how should this be done? Gradually, the market will take over the statist system until America is a company, so to speak. Or, America consists of companies.

I personally don’t see something like that happening. Capitalists should do all of this? Capitalists often don’t care about the state. They say they do, but in the end, the state doesn’t bother them that much. The state protects its businesses for free. The state lets them get away with tax avoidance. The state protects their property. They will be a bit grumpy about the state but won’t try to eliminate it. Why would they? They have an easy life, to them politics is more like a hobby. This Elon Musk guy was supposedly the big voice of libertarianism? We see that he is very much in favor of the state. As long as this state has no social democratic face.

In theory, how would ancap society look? It would be a system in which there is only supply and demand in everything. The ancaps say this will be good for labor and the middle class because it drives down prices a lot. I personally think it would lead to corporate feudalism.

But, on the other hand, I could be wrong. Something like this has never been tried, so we all just speculate about it. Capitalism has always existed within the constraints of a state. And will AnCap ever be tried? I don’t think so. I think it will remain a sort of science fiction fantasy, for and by men.

Leftist anarchists, whether we agree or disagree with them, at least were able to get a hold on the world. They managed to create their democratic municipalism. This means that their theory is a bit more serious. And this is the reason i often look at them, when i talk about modern anarchism. Rothbard wasn’t able to put his ideas into practice, but Bookchin was. So, this means people can build on Bookchin’s model as a foundation. Rothbard’s theories can be blended into it, but it will not be the foundation for further development.

As I said before, the main issue here is land. Ancaps and ancoms have different ideas about land—that is actually their only real difference. If they want to work together, they need to find a way around this issue. This should be possible.

The Georgists are right that land is a far more important topic than people tend to think. I would say it’s the core of many political issues. If you don’t have land, you are a dependent. I think the core of every political theory is land, defense, and trade. So, the georgists are right when they focus on these issues as the most important.

In communism, the state owns the land. In capitalism, the landlord owns the land. In anarchism, the collective/the people should own the land. Only in that way can a new form of individualism arise.

If the land is held in common by municipalities, this means it can be used for socialist or liberal purposes.

Suppose a thousand libertarians/ancaps would move to Rojava. They take all their money with them. How could Rojava respond? It could be said that you get an autonomous zone here, where you have your own rules. You can send people to the districts. But you can’t buy the socialist/mutualists’ spaces in Rojava. You can be you, but don’t push others away. I think something could be possible. Suppose that something like ‘Liberland’ (the ancap experiment) was connected to Rojava, got support from it, and supported it, in a way that both benefit.

Rojava could say: You get your own municipality, with your own rules. We don’t control you; we only want you to pay taxes and not interfere with the socialist and feminist practices of the other municipalities.

The ancaps would benefit from it, because there would not be a centralised state that demands all kinds of things from them. They would only have to pay some tax/tariff, for defense, and they can send some delegates to councils, but that’s it. The leftists would leave them alone, so they can perform landlordism in their municipality, and their wives can be tradwives, etc. Rojava would benefit from it if it paid the defense tax. Meanwhile, they can just trade with the other municipalities. Mind you, there is personal property in Rojava, and there are markets, something the ancoms should, in theory, be against, although you never hear them talk about it when they talk about Rojava. Isn’t that strange?

Is all of this too futuristic? Is it not down-to-earth enough? Are these utopian speculations?  Well, Rojava exists, and Liberland existed. So, they could also be blended, as ancaps and ancoms would work together for strategic reasons. And if they would ignore the cultural/identitarian subjects. You could say that the pragmatic, class-oriented ancaps and ancoms could work together. The dogmatic, culturally focused ones can not work together. If you want total control, and if you want to push your cultural progressive or conservative worldview, then you can’t work together. In a postmodernist framework, these people can work together. In an absolutist modernist framework, they can’t.

Don’t forget that Murray Bookchin talked at libertarian conventions in the past. It seems people tried to see if there could be any form of unity. When the culture war started in the 2010s, it became taboo to talk with people who had different ideas from you.

Don’t forget that Bookchin said he would rather live in a libertarian society than a communist society. This is strange because after the 2010s, leftist anarchism started to become more associated with Marxism/Leninism. What happened here?

I am not against anarcho-capitalists as long as they leave me alone. I don’t care if their theory is real anarchism or not, as long as they don’t push their landlordism on me. If you want to pay 80 percent of your income to rent, that’s up to you.

Here are some things to think about for today. I think we should not think in black-and-white shades but in grey. The world is often too complicated to be fully black or fully white. If we forget the nuances, we get lost in extremes. We deal with multilayered, complex systems and cultures. People tend to forget that.

Cake