By Cake Boy

Here,  Springtime of Nations says: all anarchists (left and right) agree on voluntary association (what he calls the non-aggression principle, the ‘NAP’), as a foundation for anarchism.

This voluntary association would then result in panarchist constructs, consisting of liberal and socialist tendencies, I suppose (if you would formulate a geopolitical outcome of this principle)

But is he right? Not all leftist anarchists have their foundation on this voluntary association/NAP model. A lot of antifa types in this country, people inspired by Bakunin or Marx, believe in force to create a new world. Their anarchism can be described as destroying the old world and, by doing so, making a new world. Their definition of ‘the old world’ is then very broad. This old world consists not only of economic arrangements but also of cultural arrangements. The old world is not only about landlordism and the banks. Marriage, religion, conservatism, and heterosexuality are also ‘problematic’ in their eyes.

Force is not a problem in breaking what is seen as authoritarian (in a way, they say, using authoritarianism to destroy what they see as authoritarianism).

This Marx-inspired form of anarchism is not compatible with right-wing/Rothbardian anarchism.

Because Marxist anarchism doesn’t have a ‘live and let live’ framework, it doesn’t let live, it doesn’t accept reactionary tendencies, and it doesn’t accept free speech when it disagrees.

In the Spanish Civil War, we saw that large plots of land were collectivised by the anarchist/Bakunist CNT, and small landowners could keep their own land to work for themselves. But this was not always the case. In some cases, these farmers were forced to work for the collective. I would personally be strongly against this. I would never drive a small landowner from his own land. Springtime of Nations and I would agree on this.

In this situation, we saw the difference between Proudhonian and Bakuninist theories. Proudhon wants the small owner to keep his own land, Bakunin would ‘destroy social order for the sake of creation’ (assuming that the new order will be by definition better than the old one) (leftism often assumes that what is new, is always superior, because this is how ‘history’ develops).

In the Spanish Civil War, we also saw (Bakuninist) anarchists killing Catholics. This would also not be in the style of Proudhonian anarchism, because it doesn’t believe in force for the sake of force. And it wants people to choose their own lifestyle. In Bakunist anarchism, the attack on catholics is part of the ‘destruction for creation’. Bakuninism was also always very much against religion, which was/is not the case for Proudhonism. According to Bakunin, an anarchist world would be a ‘world of reason and without religion’. You don’t find this in Proudhon’s theory. Proudhon was ambiguous towards religion.

From a philosophical viewpoint.  Is your thinking based on classical liberal/French foundations?

Or is it based on German/Hegelian foundations?

Is anarchism a version of French political thought or a version of German mysticism?

With Bakunin, anarchism entered the German/mysticist domain. It began as a French cultural phenomenon and, in a way, a radicalisation of classical liberal thought.

Springtime of nations says: let me do my things, and you do your things, and we find a way not to harm each other. This is a classical liberal way of thinking. The difference is that he doesn’t believe in top-down democracy/statism/colonialism as the right tool to create this world. He wants federalism and free association (in the Proudhonian tradition).

We can also look at right-wing libertarians critically. In this country, right libertarians often, by definition, side with the neoliberal establishment. For example, they don’t admit that the housing market isn’t a market, and that’s a corrupt construction, an outcome of crony capitalist interests. Still, they defend crony capitalism when squatters take an empty house. They somehow always side with corrupt state capitalism/oligarchy. If Springtime of Nations says that right libertarians should neglect the left libertarians, this often does not happen. They defend big finance against left libertarian activism. If they have to choose: side with squatters, or side with neoliberal conservative parties, most of them would side with the conservatives/neoliberals (although these neoliberals don’t care about Austrian economics, or fair trade).

Modern right libertarians also have little impact. They only function as defenders of neoliberal dominance and landlordism/usury. To many right libertarians, right libertarianism means that the government doesn’t help poor people.

Sprintime of Nations is a right-libertarian/Rothbardian who is sympathetic to things like Zapatista, Rojava, Makhnovista, etc. This is pretty rare, as far as I’m concerned. If right-libertarians were all like him, then modern anarchism would look very different.

If the more intelligent left and right anarchists came together, they could try to formulate a consistent program that is neither cultural Marxist nor a puppet of neoliberal globalism. I think someone like Springtime of Nations is able to formulate such a new program. The smart left and right libertarians could have some Zoom debates about this stuff to see what would happen and what the outcome would be.

As we can see, the situation is very complicated and chaotic. On the left, we have tension between Proudhonian and Bakuninist/Marxist theory. On the right, we have tension between neoliberalism and anti-establishment/Austrian tendencies.

All of this is because anarchism has a lot of faces and foundations. Some of these foundations are compatible, others aren’t. In the core, I would say, a Proudhonian anarchism/confederalism is compatible with Rothbardianism. A Bakuninist anarchism isn’t.

As I said before, the Rojava confederation is more or less a Proudhonian system. This is why Springtime of Nations is positive about it. As I pointed out before, this Proudhonian confederalism is compatible with classical liberal wishes to a large degree.

So we might look again at the Proudhon theory next time.

Cake