Freedomain Radio

Well I'm having a sort of a debate with an anarcho socialist on digg and I gotta say this is such a twisted ideology that I find it actually worse in some ways to statism. In fact I am beginning to understand a second reason why so many people equate anarchy with chaos. The first one is typical media focus on bomb carrying rioters defacing other people's property as "anarchists". The second one is the fact that anarcho-socialist ideology in fact supports theft on a regular basis, everyone's products of labor are free for all, no boundaries of any kind.

In short this is the difference between statism and anarcho-socialism:

Statism: One group stealing from everyone.

Anarcho-socialism: Everyone stealing from everyone.

Both are completely incompatible with voluntaryism and voluntary interaction. No wonder anarcho-socialists accuse anarcho-capitalists of not being real anarchists. They include property owners under "archy". In fact their main beef with the state seems to be that it enforces property rights.

Any act which either disposes of property or negates its disposition is an implicit property rights claim because a person is asserting the right to exercise exclusivity over it. This is the basis of ownership.

Socialists cling to this conceit of collective ownership or ownership by nobody for a simple reason. Ownership is a necessary requisite for theft. That is to say that theft cannot occur without a previous claim of ownership by another. By removing the element of ownership, socialists believe they can appropriate and consume what others produce without committing theft.

Anarcho-socialists do promote stealing from corporations in order to take down the current system in place. Also in an anarcho-socialist society, you're right, property rights are not enforced.  However, it's not really stealing because no one individually owns anything; everyone voluntarily chooses to participate in a system of sharing. 

Statism is most definitely worse because no one has the choice to do anything, its all based on coercion.  An anarcho-socialist commune could only be comprised of people who are voluntarily choosing to live that life.

Liv3Fr33:

Statism is most definitely worse because no one has the choice to do anything, its all based on coercion.  An anarcho-socialist commune could only be comprised of people who are voluntarily choosing to live that life.

But would they accept the property rights of those who did not choose to participate?

I'm perfectly fine with anarcho-socialists setting up a commune in which they share everything so long as they do not force anyone to participate and so long as they steal no property to use in that commune.

But if their ideology completely denies property rights then they may easily think that just taking property from others, which we call stealing, is fair game. Otherwise they have to compromise their ideology before they can establish a commune by asking for consent to take despite believing they aren't supposed to. So consistently applied (not compromised) anarcho-socialism is directly incompatible with voluntaryism.

yeah that makes sense. i'm not sure if which they hold more highly, anti-property rights or anti-force/voluntaristic interactions. 

I don't think one can categorically state that statism is worse than anarcho-socialism. Even assuming anarcho-socialism has a few defining characteristics--which I don't think is the case, given the differing beliefs of the anarcho-socialists I've debated in the past-- it's impossible to decide because statism includes such a wide variety of possibilities. The Netherlands, Zimbabwe, and the United States are all statist territories, but there is a clear difference among them in terms of quality of life and freedom.

Right, but in either case the main point about its likely incompatibility with voluntaryism remains. That is, there are specific conditions under which anarcho-socialism may coexist in a voluntary society which not all anarcho-socialists are necessarily willing to meet. That combined with the inherent contradictions of anarcho-socialist position makes it a priority to treat anarcho-socialism as an ideology that is at least as problematic as statism.

Contradictions in fact apply regardless of whether an anarcho-socialist is willing to ask for permission before adjoining somebody elses property to their commune or not. If they do they're in practice not really anarcho-socialists, but anarcho-capitalists with a preference of one particular type of contractual relationships. If they don't then they're holding on to a self-contradictory view that an individual keeping his wealth for personal gain is immoral yet somebody taking said wealth for his personal gain is perfectly moral, because no matter what any individual does in life is always in pursuit of a particular personal value. Humans wouldn't sustain their life if it weren't otherwise.

The most sustained attack I have ever experienced on stating the validity of property rights, or rather preference, came from an anarcho socialist. Maybe because the person in question was a home-owner and actually extremely possessive of his personal belongings and space he found the simplicity and clarity of the argument to be enormously threatening and became very angy and started saying offensive irrational stuff. I realised that there was a lot of emotional stuff happening for him, so while you can claim that property is theft while all along hanging onto your stuff with a vice-like grip, that's fine, but if someone mildly points out the inconsitency implicit in the claim and the actions, then things spin out of control and a lot of anger starts to spill out. Of course if anarcho capitalists are squatting and living in a far more communal situation they would have a greater claim to the validity of their affirmations, but I don't think it would be too easy to go to, say, Cristiania in Copenhagen and move into one of the choicest properties in the centre with your sleeping bag and guitar or pet hamster and a wide smile for all those around you.

I personally see myself as an anarcho-socialist in that which I support the workers right to the fruits of their labour as well as equality of liberty (much like all the classical anarchists did, even the first individualist anarchists called themselves "anarchistic socialists"). I believe these goals can be reached through competition on a genuinely free market, so I don't really focus much on that stuff. Socialism evolved as a movement of workers against usury and the such, which I see as highly compatible with anarchism. The newer definition of socialism however - like a system signified by socialization - of course isn't compatible with anarchism, as long as it isn't voluntary to enter and to leave of course.

MarcusNorberg:

...I support the workers right to the fruits of their labour...

The main point of contention seems to be over time preference. I'm unaware of anybody arguing that people are not entitled to the product of their own labor.

However, I've seen socialists on YouTube, and on various blogs and forums, claim implicitly that they should be exempt from compensating others for using facilities, tools, materials, and information acquired by their labor. So, in effect, these socialists would be doing precisely what they're accusing others of doing.

add: I was unhappy with the way I worded that last paragraph so I'll try to clarify what I meant. The way in which some socialists are claiming a right to the product of their labor would necessarily entail depriving others of just compensation for the use of facilities, tools, materials, and information they procured through their own labor and provided for others to use.

There's no contention about whether a worker or anybody else should be entitled to the product of their work, but pretty much all socialists I've seen (anarcho or otherwise) seem to completely confuse what this entitlement actually means. To them it doesn't appear to be simply the ability for an individual to decide whether to sell the product of his labor or exchange it for something else. They make it into something far more bizzare. The time preference in question is totally up to the individual. Socialists seem to have a rigid definition of that and somehow assume all "workers" must share that definition and that single preference. They're kinda stuck.

I don't then really see a point in sticking to their terminology then. Voluntaryism by itself and in a very simple manner is all about individuals rights to choose how to act and enjoy the fruits of their actions. Why confuse everyone and connote that with some form of socialism?

memeverse:

I don't then really see a point in sticking to their terminology then. Voluntaryism by itself and in a very simple manner is all about individuals rights to choose how to act and enjoy the fruits of their actions. Why confuse everyone and connote that with some form of socialism?

Socialism is far older than voluntaryism conceptually, take that into account. The most famous socialist thinkers lived during the 19th century, and I've never seen anyone of them use the term voluntaryism.

That doesn't necessarily make what they promoted any less confusing or inconsistent. Bottom line is, if someone argues against property rights he's not really a voluntaryist. Otherwise, there is little point in calling it socialism in modern context.

memeverse:

That doesn't necessarily make what they promoted any less confusing or inconsistent. Bottom line is, if someone argues against property rights he's not really a voluntaryist. Otherwise, there is little point in calling it socialism in modern context.

What old anarcho-socialists/free market-socialists (or mutualists) such as Proudhon argued was simply that these effects are immoral - it doesn't imply any force (thus it doesn't contradict voluntarism at all). Socialism generally doesn't mean the absence of property rights per se (in the case of means of production), even though many socialists (including myself) reckon the fact that private ownership of the means of production (with less/more competition meaning the better for the workers), the land monopoly (actually being able to possess land without using it), rent, interest and the such inevitably leads to usury, abuse and hierarchies. The moral around this is comparable to the moral around theft (in earlier days acts such as taking interest on loans - i.e usury - was commonly seen as exactly that - theft), so I don't really see why it has to be upheld with statism anymore than theft does? I'm personally a strong supporter of the non-aggression principle, voluntarism and anarchism in general - I don't see what the fuss around this is all about?