[tray5]

Eh it's not really a general purpose reddit clone, it was written by users of /r/anarchism as an alternative platform for discussion because they lost faith in the reddit administration. You can see this in the design of the site, with a larger focus on democratic decision making and an intolerance for any bigoted or racist communities. If voat was the alt-right's reddit alternative then raddit is the lefts.

[wallace_f]

It is worth noting that voat didnt start out as particularly alt right, it's just that's now probably the majority of what is left.

The site is totally committed to free speech, and even the Dark Web will allow paedophiles, hit men, and every type of criminal, but collaborated to push off an alt right page. In other words, it doesn't appear to be any agenda of Voat, it's just a fact that any site which allows free speech is where those people will end up.

[stevenwoo]

Isn't that kind of what this is about? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance

[mejin]

How does that make sense? If a culture is tolerant and somewhat smart they can add tolerance to their constitution. By doing so they will both allow tolerance and not have to worry about anyone (tolerant people or not) taking away their "ability" to tolerate.

[BooglyWoo]

Because it's hard to unanimously and unequivocally identify those who are intolerant as such. Owing to the beguiling nature of language and rhetoric, the intolerant can thrive and propagate by arguing that they're not in fact intolerant, and appealing to "free speech". This seems to be the MO of this so-called "alt-right" stuff; legal or constitutional barriers are almost impossible to define or enforce.

[observation]

If you want to ban reactionaries then you are pushing out an entire political category of thought that historically and arguably presently includes a huge portion of the West's intelligentsia. Might as well throw in Socialism or Liberalism while you're at it.

> Because it's hard to unanimously and unequivocally identify those who are intolerant as such.

> This seems to be the MO of this so-called "alt-right" stuff; legal or constitutional barriers are almost impossible to define or enforce.

These are fairly creepy statements. Very difficult to apply a charitable explanation to what you're saying.

> Owing to the beguiling nature of language and rhetoric, the intolerant can thrive and propagate

Sounds familiar.

[BooglyWoo]

I don't want to ban anything; I was just explaining how the potential effects of Popper's intolerance paradox cannot easily be solved with legislation.

[mejin]

My English is not so good so I hope that I understood you.

What I am trying to say is that there is no need to identify intolerant people. All that is needed is to make sure that intolerant and tolerant people do not limit free speech. Protecting free speech can be done without worrying that people will misinterpret laws. For example, a law saying that anyone wishing to publish something to their site can do so regardless if they are anarchists, Nazis, conspiracy theorist, or anyone else. No mater how much hate the intolerant write they will not be able to stop other people from writing about how much they hate the intolerant people.

[stevenwoo]

OK, there are multiple counter examples from just the last couple of months of this year in the USA, a woman laughed at Jeff Sessions during his confirmation hearing and she's on trial for this, (twice) http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/348857-woma... , and the US Justice Department subpoenaed the users of an anti-Trump website. http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/news/a57033/ju...

So we have the intolerant people in the government trying to suppress dissent from the tolerant. This is described in the first paragraph from the wiki link.

[likeslogic]

Let's say in a 100% tolerant society a group that is intolerant of every other group comes into existence. They just operate by the credo - you're either with us, or the enemy, and all enemies must be destroyed. No further logic can be applied (they may even declare all logic as one of the enemies).

Now if as a society you tolerate them without the use of force, they will try to destroy everyone else who is not part of the their group. Effectively, all tolerance will be eliminated.

The only way you could prevent this from happening is if you are prepared to contain such a group one way or the other. Or allow other people to not tolerate them by using force too. Either way you void your tolerance tenet.

Have to admit - it is indeed a paradox.

[wallace_f]

This would only work assuming such a group could gain enough power to overthrow local PD and eventually the US military, etc., which is kind of unrealistic for an group that is not supported by a majority of the population.

The wikipedia page on this notes people dispute this idea, sourcing John Rawls as a notable example.

[likeslogic]

Not really. A little further is this - "However, Rawls also insists, like Popper, that society has a reasonable right of self-preservation that supersedes the principle of tolerance: "While an intolerant sect does not itself have title to complain of intolerance, its freedom should be restricted only when the tolerant sincerely and with reason believe that their own security and that of the institutions of liberty are in danger."[2][3]"

[int_19h]

The problem with this paradox is that it's applied to situations that are actually different from what's describe here.

Suppose even we have this group that's intolerant of everyone else. But their intolerance is expressed in speech, not actions. In other words, they're saying, "you're all our enemies, and should be destroyed", but they aren't doing anything about it. Or maybe they are, but it consists of running a political party on that platform, encouraging people to vote them in.

As a society, you can absolutely tolerate them without the use of force, at least until the point where they actually get the majority of votes (but at that point, they are the society, and you're an outgroup in that society).

[likeslogic]

What about constant verbal abuse? Or - as in this particular case - the right to bombard (or drown) any useful discussion? Should that be tolerated? I don't know.

For some people this kind of online attacking and lack of freedom to communicate (through effective trolling) may be worse than physical abuse. In the end its the brain interpreting signals and outputting pain.

[pixelmonkey]

Your comment is precisely the paradox, though. "You can absolutely tolerant them until they get the majority of votes." First of all, it's not every society where a "majority of votes" grants political power. In Greece, the White Supremacist group (Golden Dawn) holds parliament seats even though they are a small (but vocal and politically active) minority. White supremacists now influence policy in Greece despite being a minority.

In the Middle East, this kind of outsize influence might be even worse. I am no expert on Middle East politics, but I think it's fair to say that the most intolerant factions have striven to gain the most political power, in spite of the political leanings of the mass populations over which they rule.

One issue with intolerant groups is that they tend toward violence and oppression of opposing speech. The tolerant and pacifist among us can allow them to gain enough minority power to effect a political coup, which can result in a societal coup, since having political control can grant you some degree of societal control.

In such a society, espousing tolerance might carry with it the risk of violent retribution (since tolerance is viewed by the "in" group as heresy/dissent). This will cause the intolerance to spread, even if seemingly against the will of more tolerant citizens. In this way, certain ideologies can have a "toxic" societal effect. You don't need to look far in modern history to find examples. And, that's the paradox.

[hsod]

> Or maybe they are, but it consists of running a political party on that platform, encouraging people to vote them in.

> As a society, you can absolutely tolerate them without the use of force, at least until the point where they actually get the majority of votes (but at that point, they are the society, and you're an outgroup in that society).

You just answered your own question

[mszcz]

I have a feeling that that kind of speech, given enough time and tolerance, eventually might escalate to action.

[otakucode]

It's not a paradox at all. You made a completely unjustified leap. You presumed that the 'enemies must be destroyed' portion would somehow be carried out without resistance. That's nonsensical.

[stevenwoo]

The wiki summary is if one lets intolerant people rise to power, they use their power to implement intolerant policies, eliminating the ability of the tolerant to change things back.

One always has to worry even in a democracy, for instance here one party manipulated the voting system so even though they only got 49 percent of the votes in the election, they got 60% of the representation in the state legislature. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/06/us/politics/prominent-rep...

You can take the absolutist free speech argument that some in the US make from the first amendment (you write later down that English is not your native language) but Germany seems to be going OK banning Nazi speech/symbols.

[specialist]

Huh. I hadn't considered that 4chan, voat, others were petri dish incubators for the alt-right.

I'd really like someone (sociologists) to update Paradox of Tolerance with what we've learned about the Overton Window, the normalization of hate speech (violent rhetoric).

David Neiwert (Orcinus) has deeply influenced (completely changed) my positions on tolerance, free speech. As I've stated else where, I used to be a Chomsky style ultimatist for free speech. Alas, people aren't nice.

Now I know that how we talk changes how we think, that propaganda works, that most people aren't even aware of when they've changed their mind.

http://dneiwert.blogspot.com

https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=dp_byline_sr_book_1?ie=UTF8&tex...

[austenallred]

While that may be true, it truly gained popularity when Reddit started banning "hate" and other "inappropriate" subreddits, so it became the refugee for those folks

[nthcolumn]

I was on digg but stopped using the site as it was overrun by pedos and not wanting to be associated with child-rapists I was part of the reddit-exodus. Reddit was even worse than digg, still is. I complained about violentacres and his ilk to no avail. I gave up using the site 1009 days ago. I cannot understand how anyone would use a site that does not harshly punish anyone like that or want to be associated with such a site in any way.

[Semaphor]

> or want to be associated with such a site in any way.

Because I see it the same way as if you replaced Reddit with Usenet or Internet in your comment. Reddit is a platform where I care and am active only in a very small part of it.

[nthcolumn]

Reddit is a business. I don't support businesses that facilitate child rape forums. You do. That's how we are different. Other businesses should not suffer for what Reddit does so I use the internet, on usenet other providers likewise, on reddit you all share the blame because you support the same business. I can't tell myself I'm only using this tiny part and those nasty people aren't anything to do with me because it's bullshit, or to provide an extreme example - I don't think you'd use 'just the comments section' of 'Playpen' and be guilt free (or free outside jail). I think you conveniently ignore the fact that there are inappropriate images of children on the site not because you believe in free speech for pedos, you simply don't care enough. And no I don't think pedo sites are a free speech issue - there are things we will not tolerate nazis, pedos, being two of them. I can't believe I even have to have this conversation. I said HN had not succumbed, I should have said '...yet'.

[mwerd]

Absolutely absurd argument.

Do you use toll roads? They're a business. Criminals and even "child rapists" use them too. Can't believe you would further their ability to move about our society and evade law enforcement by willfully funding the infrastructure they use.

Get over yourself with your absolutist nonsense.

[std_throwaway]

Voat used to be a "best of Reddit" reposting page with some spicy free speech here and there. Now it seems to be an echo cabinet for the so-called alt-right with the same sermon reposted all day every day.

[kakarot]

I don't mean to nitpick, but if you don't think the "alt-right" should be labeled as such then maybe you shouldn't use it in your vocabulary, as it only strengthens the presence of the word in our society regardless of if you say "so-called" before it.

[skrowl]

4Chan and 8Chan are similar. Most online communities that lack the kind of heavy-handed censorship you find on Facebook, Twitter, and Reddit will naturally end up being right-leaning.

[nthcolumn]

My free speech/opinion:

>and even the Dark Web will allow paedophiles, hit men, and every type of criminal

alt-right? Why don't you call them what they are - Nazis and fascists. They are lowest of all these. There is probably strong overlap. Fascists think nobody should have any rights but themselves.

The vigilantism/collaboration was made necessary by the alarming fact that the people who should have been doing something - authorities all the way up and including POTUS were tacitly sanctioning them, facilitating them, normalizing their behavior.

They present a clear and present danger to the country and free speech. They still have their free speech, they can still cry on youtube. Daily Stormer was just one head of that hydra.

If you know of any pedo, hit men or criminals then reach out to law enforcement and failing that publicly shame them so that the same can happen. None of the above should or will be tolerated.

[kanwisher]

How are they effecting free speech? It seems you are trying to take it away from people, by trying to call them nazis and getting rid of them. This group is probably way more free speech, their main enemy Antifa is specifically against free speech

[Can_Not]

> Antifa is specifically against free speech

Antifa is specifically against fascism. Some sects may also be against free hate speech.

[skrowl]

A central tenent of facism is forcible suppression of opposing views through censorship or violence. What would you say Antifa is doing when they attack people with bike locks, throw bottles of urine on them, etc?

'Antifa is specifically against free speech' is provably correct. They are intolerant of any views they disagree with to the point of inciting violence to suppress those views.

Look beyond their name standing for "anti-facism" and instead look at their actions.

[Can_Not]

I'm not sure I understand your point. Would you not use bike locks, bottles of urine, etc. if a known hostile enemy was advocating for the ethnic cleansing of your fellow Americans?

[nthcolumn]

The views they disagree with are fascist views so yes duh. they are literally anti-fascists. Have you any examples of them opposing any views which aren't fascist, violently or otherwise? We should oppose that.

[enraged_camel]

>>by trying to call them nazis and getting rid of them.

Uh, they are quite literally Nazis. They do the Nazi salute, carry/wear swastikas and yell "blood and soil".

You may disagree with antifa but don't make the mistake of equating them with these losers.

[nextlevelwizard]

The thing is, at the moment if you do not agree with Antifa/SJW crowd you are automatically labeled a Nazi even if you do not wear their symbols or chant any of their slogans. It is strange that on some groups people always say "not all", but with alt-right it is always "they are all Nazis".

[zimpenfish]

> at the moment if you do not agree with Antifa/SJW crowd you are automatically labeled a Nazi

This just isn't true no matter how many times people say it.

[nthcolumn]

How much free speech you think you'll have when they have their fascist state?

[arkh]

"alt-right? Why don't you call them what they are - Nazis and fascists. "

Maybe when the media stop putting a lot of people in the alt-right category who are not Nazis nor fascists.

I'd also like to take the time to link to an old classic which I guess a lot of young Internet users don't know about: Godwin's Law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin%27s_law which feel more relevant every day.

[nthcolumn]

Yeah I remember it doesn't apply. This isn't Godwin as we are talking about actual Nazis. The right, the vast majority of decent Republicans want nothing to do with these scum. If you call yourself alt-right then you probably are a fascist. I don't think it is a spectrum.

[nextlevelwizard]

>alt-right? Why don't you call them what they are - Nazis and fascists.

Oh boy, here we go...

[e12e]

In the site's own words:

https://raddit.me/wiki/history

BTW, the footer links to the source:

https://gitlab.com/edgyemma/raddit-app

(php symphony based site)

[kbenson]

> https://raddit.me/wiki/history

Wow, it's been a while since I read something that full of propaganda that wasn't at least somewhat tongue-in-cheek (unless this is and I'm missing it). Not that I doubt there's at least a grain of truth to most the statements, but when someone uses "redditcorp" to describe Reddit, and says stuff like "The_Donald completely took over the site and likely propelled Donald Trump into the white house" (emphasis mine), it's hard to take them seriously.

[striking]

Especially considering The_Donald is no longer visible on the default homepage.

[jrimbault]

Was that before or after november ? I can't recall...

[nextlevelwizard]

I'm assuming the election was in November? The sub was prominently on front page weeks if not months after the election.

Still if you try and contribute (or perhaps blame) the election on a subreddit you are highly delusional. Both candidates were terrible for very different reasons. Still I thought Clinton would have won.

[Melk]

That's not propaganda. I thought HN would know better.

[arkh]

Here is where it gets fun. You ask any libertarian on reddit and they'll tell you how it is against them. You ask any LGBT and they'll have the same answer. You ask any anarchist and they'll tell you that no, reddit does not love them. You ask t_d and they'll give you examples. You ask MRA, feminists, SJW, anyone and they'll have examples of the reddit hive being against them.

That's what you get when you have multiple echo chambers cohabiting under the same domain. The only things you can go by is which subreddits are removed or not by the admins. Which is an exercise left to the reader.

[kbenson]

In what way is it not propaganda? It's exaggerated for their own benefit to further their agenda, which is to promote their reddit alternative.

[blackguardx]

Are anarchists considererd left wing? Anarchists and especially anarcho-capitalists have a lot of overlap with libertarians. If you talk to a serious anarchist, they sound like they are against big government and other authority structures. The far left is suppsed to be communist, which seems the opposite of anarchy.

[tray5]

All anarchists are left wing, the majority of which are communist (some are mutualist). Anarchism has always been an anti-capitalist movement (I guess it's fairer to say, it's an anti-unjust hierarchy movement), it's only been co-opted by propertarians ("anarcho"capitalist) in the past 50 years. And even then, that's largely localized to America, outside of America libertarians have always been anarchists (communist anarchists that is).

You should read Pyotr Kropotkins "The Conquest of Bread" and Alexander Berkman's "What is Communist Anarchism?" if you'd like to know more about anarcho-communist ideology. Or if you'd like to know more about mutualism (essentially a workers run system with a market), then check out the works of Joseph Proudhon.

I'd also argue that anarcho-capitalism and right-libertarianism are not anarchist in any sense, as they uphold the inherently hierarchical system of capitalism.

[kbenson]

I think you have a fairly narrow view of anarchism.

> I'd also argue that anarcho-capitalism and right-libertarianism are not anarchist in any sense, as they uphold the inherently hierarchical system of capitalism.

In what way is capitalism hierarchical, except in an ad hoc way that is constantly redefined based on the current needs of the people interacting?

[tray5]

I'd recommend you check out those books because they explain it far better than I or anyone else could hope to in a single comment, but it essentially comes down to the capitalist/worker divide. The capitalist will always be on top, and the worker will always be subservient to their interests. That is how it is hierarchical, because there will always be the capitalist class imposing it's will on the working class, and so anarchists and communists hope to abolish the class system. However the two groups disagree massively on how to achieve that abolition.

[flogic]

Capitalism is more about a few controlling the means of production than it is about market activity. People tend to think of it as a market economy but it's really about who has power and reaps it's rewards.

[pamqzl]

Actually what you're describing is just the fact that the word "capitalism" is used to mean markedly different things by different groups of people, which makes it a bad word to use in discussions between people with different perspectives.

Karl Marx's definition of "capitalism" is very different from Ayn Rand's definition of "capitalism". And both of them are very different from the "capitalism" that describes the economy as it actually exists in the present day.

[zakk]

Both the far left and the far right advocate a stronger control of the government over citizens, and in doing so they distance themselves from anarchism.

[cubano]

Just go right to the source material and read Marx..to hell with all his imitators and wannabes.

[B1FF_PSUVM]

Marx had big beefs with Proudhon and Kropotkin - they were not imitators or wannabes - exactly because he was willing to prescribe a dictatorship and they were not.

[AimHere]

Not to mention that Proudhon predated Marx, so if there is an imitation (and there isn't), it goes the other way.

[duncan_bayne]

> Anarchism has always been an anti-capitalist movement

That is completely untrue.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarcho-capitalism

[wutbrodo]

Dude his comment is like a paragraph and a half long. At least finish reading it before disagreeing with it. Like you, I think he's _wrong_ about Ancaps not being "true" anarchist (or Scotsmen...), but it's not like he didn't address them and isn't aware of the concept (he addresses them in literally the next sentence! Jesus). Smugly linking the Wikipedia article is entirely unhelpful for anything except revealing that you didn't bother reading for more than 6 seconds before rushing to reply.

[tray5]

>I think he's _wrong_ about Ancaps not being "true" anarchist

I don't believe they aren't "true anarchists", I believe they aren't anarchist at all. They aren't even in the realm of consideration of what constitutes anarchist. Their ideal society would end up corporate feudalism.

[int_19h]

By this metric, one can say that e.g. anarcho-syndicalists aren't anarchist at all, because their ideal society would end up as lots of small but totalitarian communities. Of course, the syndicalists themselves would dispute this, but then ancaps would also dispute your "corporate feudalism" claim.

The real difference here is philosophical. Right-wing anarchists believe that private property is a natural concept that exists independently of power hierarchies. Left-wing anarchists believe that's an artificial concept that requires such a hierarchy to enforce, and doesn't exist without it. Hence ancaps believe that absence of government will result in a capitalist utopia, while traditional anarchists believe that it would result in a socialist utopia. These two viewpoints are irreconcilable, because the fundamental premise is not just different, but literally opposite.

However, insofar as both groups believe that their ideal society is characterized primarily by the lack of a power hierarchy (and all other things, like unrestricted property rights, or complete lack thereof, simply follow naturally from that), both groups are "real" anarchists.

[wutbrodo]

> I don't believe they aren't "true anarchists", I believe they aren't anarchist at all.

Yea, that's what I said. Putting "true" in quote marks was me dismissing the notion that you can redefine words because you don't like their current definitions.

[tray5]

Did you read the rest of my comment?

[eyko]

The left/right dichotomy doesn't work with anarchism since it doesn't necessarily have to be on either side of that spectrum - generally based on ideas about economy and not social structures or hierarchies. It can display features usually attributed to left wing ideologies (fight for equality, emancipation, fair society, freedom of speech, freedom of (and from) religion, self organisation, bottom-up communities, etc), as well as right wing ones: small (or no) government in the sense of a state and an establishment, fewer coded laws, no monopoly of power/rights by one group or institution (e.g. right to bear arms), free market, etc.

You might say that anarchism is the left wing on a spectrum where authoritarianism or absolute monarchs are considered the right wing. Anarchism is anti discrimination (pro egalitarianism) and by definition is against racism, sexism, nationalism, fascism, etc. It's not because it's "left" like socialists or (socialist) progressives are, but because of the hierarchies it is ideologically opposed to. Its main objective is a society free from imposed and unnatural hierarchies.

Edit: what I'm trying to say is that no one-dimensional linear scale that goes from left to right on which you can place all ideologies and compare them.

[mixedCase]

> Anarchism is anti discrimination (pro egalitarianism)

Anarchism is anti-state. That's it. Everything else is anarcho-something.

[tray5]

That's not true at all, anarchism is anti-hierarchy. The state is just one (and the second most prominent) hierarchy that anarchists oppose.

[mixedCase]

>anarchism is anti-hierarchy

Anti-involuntary hierarchy, not those who voluntarily take part of certain types of power hierarchies.

[tray5]

Your free market part is where you'll find the clash. Any anarchist would say that a free market is inherently oppressive. The only place a "free" market would work is in a mutualist economy, and even then, that requires worker ownership over the means of production.

[AimHere]

The sticking point is not so much free market - mutualists are considered anarchists by other anarchists - but other, major, aspects of capitalism, mainly private ownership of the means of production and the use of waged labour, where owners hire others to work on or with their property - those are outright incompatible with anarchism, outwith the anarchocapitalists whose 'anarcho' credentials are disputed.

[CM30]

And how exactly do you aim to stop a free market existing?

Because I strongly doubt any political change will get everyone to work for 'common interests', and a fair few product creators, service owners, artists and others will try and sell their work anyway.

How do anarchists plan to avoid this? What about the people who don't want to own the means of production and are perfectly fine with working for others for a wage? What would stop people competing with each other to get more money and resources?

[kemiller]

But what, exactly, is the alternative to a free market?

[tray5]

Personally I'm a fan of a workers run syndicalist economy. There are other options, like a workers run market economy, or an outright collectivist gift economy.

[int_19h]

The question is, how would you enforce that, if some part of the populace just decided to recognize property rights, and structured their part of the economy accordingly?

[s_kilk]

> or an outright collectivist gift economy.

Of which we already have a great example in FOSS.

[kemiller]

Are there any examples of that working at large scale?

[dragonwriter]

> Any anarchist would say that a free market is inherently oppressive.

When did anarcho-capitalists stop being anarchists?

[tray5]

They never were TBH, capitalism is inherently hierarchical and a system of entirely private enterprise would resemble corporate feudalism, not an anarchist society.

[dragonwriter]

> The left/right dichotomy doesn't work with anarchism

It works the same way with anarchism as it does in general; that is to say, it captures a real and major axis of variation among anarchists but not the only one. It actually works a little better with anarchists then it doesin general, because “anarchism” limits one of the other significant axes of political variation that exist in the wider society.

[wutbrodo]

I truly don't understand why people try so desperately to shove politics into a one-dimensional axis, _even in a comment that's pointing out how inadequate it is!_

Politics is complicated, but the two-axes model is a lot less laughably simplistic: left/right, liberal/authoritarian. To drastically oversimplify:

left-liberal: Bernie Sanders, sort of

left-authoritarian: full communism

right-liberal: libertarian

right-authoritarian: paleocons

This is just off the top of my head, has some issues, and is _still_ oversimplified[1], but you can already see how much less than the one-dimensional model it smushes together fairly-mainstream groups that have absolutely nothing to do with each other.

Anarchists are very much on the left, and big parts of the left (and the right) these days very much dislike liberals.

[1] For example, anarcho-communism doesn't fit very well into this. Ancaps fit (sort of) on the right-liberal side.

[Chris_Jay]

I believe the answer is quite simple - the two major US parties would like to maintain their duopoly and allocate a considerable fraction of their vast resources towards pushing that narrative and smearing anyone who tries to act outside it.

The acceptance of the left-right paradigm by half the US voter base looks like little more than a successful propaganda campaign by the incumbent political parties.

[pamqzl]

Two dimensions is certainly better than one, although I note that almost nobody would self-identify as "authoritarian" which makes half of the chart a bit useless.

The vast majority of people, at least in western countries, agree with the basic assumption of (classical) liberalism, which is that "people should be allowed to do what they want, except...". For the most part people just differ on what comes after the "except", whether it's "sell harmful drugs" or "exploit workers" or "use hate speech" or "burn coal" or whatever other grab-bag of activities a certain individual has decided are sufficiently harmful to outlaw.

[int_19h]

Many socialists quite eagerly self-identify as "authoritarian", actually. It's not the opposite of "democratic", necessarily, at least not on paper: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_centralism

[xxpor]

It doesn't fit neatly into the left-right divide. If you look at the political spectrum as a 2 dimensional grid with (0,0) in the center, the limits are -10 and 10, and economics on left/right and authoritarianism and libertarianism as up and down, anarchists would be (x, -10). You can basically plaster any economic system on top. IMO, they do tend to the extremes of communism and full on capitalism because it's not very practical to have a mixed market economy like ours without a government entity to do regulation.

[e12e]

> The far left is suppsed to be communist, which seems the opposite of anarchy.

Communism: weak central government, strong communal (local) democratic decision making - let people make decision that effect them directly (locally).

You may be thinking of the old-fashioned idea of a socialist state as a "tyrrany of the many" as a transition from an armed uprising towards a communist state?

[pjc50]

> Communism: weak central government

This is not how it worked out in practice, no?

[e12e]

In terms of political theory, communism has always been (a somewhat utopian) theory that shares many ideas with anarchism. I like to think of communism as slightly more pragmatic, in that there's somewhat of an acknowledgement that there needs to be a agency that holds a monopoly on violence (a police force) - as a last resort to mitigate anti-social behaviour.

But if one reads eg Rosa Luxembourg, the lines are very much blurred between the two.

There's a tendency to spend time arguing that the various socialist states that where formed by communist parties were communist, because they were ran by organizations that labeled themselves (and indeed were) communist - I don't think such discussion is much more fruitful than discussing how the US attempted to "liberate" Vietnam, or institute "democracy" in Chile.

[jameslk]

Anarchism can be considered either left or right, as its a completely orthogonal ideology to what is typically considered left and right wing ideologies. Libertarianism is just a form of minimal government, but not anarchism.

Left and right are not really well defined ideologies[0]. They're just archaic and lazy ways to generalize political stances.

0. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Left%E2%80%93right_political_s...

[cies]

> Anarchism can be considered either left or right

Nope. It is always socialist/anti-capitalist. The name as been wrongfully appropriated by anarcho-capitalist, a contradictory term. They are merely for no-gov't-capitalism; which it against pretty much every anarchist principle (anti-oppression).

> Libertarianism is just a form of minimal government

Yes.

> Left and right are not really well defined ideologies[0].

Indeed. But pro-private-property-ad-inifinitum and against it are well defined (and largely overlap with true-left and true-right). Problem, nowadays many that subscribe to capitalism may call themselves "social dems", and thus get a little "lefty" vibe going, thereby diluting the term.

No problem, new terminology come to rescue.

[ycmbntrthrwaway]

I suggest you read at least the start of "An Anarchist FAQ". It is specifically dedicated to explaining why "anarcho-capitalism" is not anarchism.

From Introduction [1]: "We should also indicate the history of this FAQ. It was started in 1995 when a group of anarchists got together in order to write an FAQ refuting the claims of certain "libertarian" capitalists to being anarchists. Those who were involved in this project had spent many an hour on-line refuting claims by these people that capitalism and anarchism could go together."

It is pretty obvious that so-called "libertarians" (Rothbard et al., who argue for absolute private property) are not anarchist, but now that David Friedman's ideas and "Machinery of Freedom" book becomes popular and he calls himself "anarcho-capitalist" it became necessary to explain why "anarcho-capitalism" is an oxymoron again.

There is a long tradition of market anarchism, and even Agorsim (see Samuel Edward Konkin III) can be considered to be anarchism in my opinion, but "anarcho-capitalism" is not.

[1] http://anarchism.pageabode.com/afaq/intro.html

[wallace_f]

Ideology is maybe not scientific or evidence-tested well enough to model the world well enough to take it as seriously as we really do.

There exist libertarian socialists. Libertarian communists. Anarcho-libertarians. You can be whatever you want.

And that may sound silly to you, but the reality is that everything is like this. America is a mix of socialism, capitalism, some new version of authoritarianism, and at least somewhat mercantilist even though we dont admit that we loot resources from weaker countries. In the past we were much more federalist and what would be described today as libertarian, really.

Obama has some quote (that I cant find now) about how ideology isn't as good as pragmatics. He said something like "my ideology is just that everyone should have equal opportunities, dignity and freedoms, and we should try to maximize those, so just ask ourselves what is the best way to do that?"

Hopefully this is not crossing the line in being too snarky, but the trend in identifying with political ideology looks like it is filling the void that religion left behind. I mean, come on, they're both unscientific, morally pompous doctrines to be a part of and get your heart pumping for.

[andrepd]

Maybe then a simple one-dimensional spectrum cannot encompass the vast breadth of political and philosophical views out there? :p

[cgag]

R/anarchism absolutely hates anarchocapitalists

[SapphireSun]

It's pretty confusing, but it seems to me that the uniting factor between the anarchists and the statist left is a common belief in human freedom from hierarchical structures, but each chooses different method to implement it.

[tray5]

This is very much the truth, anarchists and communists want the same thing, a communist society, they just disagree fundamentally on how to do it. That's why you see them join forces and fight together, like in the Russian Revolution and Spanish civil war

[int_19h]

Both examples famous for communists eventually turning on and slaughtering anarchists, I must add.

[ekianjo]

most libertarians are for a small state, not a state of anarchy.

[pamqzl]

Both left-anarchists and right-anarchists (anarchocapitalists) tend to deny that the others are "true" anarchists.

In my view the main difference is not in their view of what should happen, but rather in their impossibly rosy assumptions of what happens next. Left-anarchists assume that if you get rid of the government the world becomes a left-wing utopia, while right-anarchists assume that if you get rid of the government then the world becomes a right-wing utopia.

To me, neither of these scenarios seems more likely than the other.

[tray5]

> Left-anarchists assume that if you get rid of the government the world becomes a left-wing utopia, while right-anarchists assume that if you get rid of the government then the world becomes a right-wing utopia.

I'd say you're strawmanning both sides here, left anarchists know the state grows out of the conflicting class interests of the working class and capitalist class, and that abolition of the state necessarily requires abolition of capitalism. Propertarians believe that if you got rid of the government, the free market will sort things out because it's the gov. interference in private enterprise that causes societies conflicts. Neither believe in a magic switch or anything.

[pamqzl]

> left anarchists know the state grows out of the conflicting class interests of the working class and capitalist class

> Propertarians believe that if you got rid of the government, the free market will sort things out because it's the gov. interference in private enterprise that causes societies conflicts

I think you've just given a slightly better summary of the magical thinking of each, rather than fundamentally disagreed with me.

Right-anarchists believe that destroying the state will finally allow capitalism to thrive, while left-anarchists believe that destroying the state will destroy capitalism too.

Partially this disagreement is simply about the meaning of the word "capitalism", though, which both sides chuck around unexamined without bothering too much about the fact that they have completely different definitions of this word, and that neither definition really matches what the man in the street means when he uses it.

[int_19h]

> Partially this disagreement is simply about the meaning of the word "capitalism"

Does it, though? If you use the classic Marxist definition of capitalism as "private ownership of the means of production", I don't think either ancaps or left anarchists would fundamentally disagree with it. And both would believe, based on their premises on property (natural right vs social construct), that removing the government from the equation would result in their desired endgame wrt capitalism based on this definition. For left-anarchists, if you remove the government, you also remove any and all private property rights, by definition (since they're a creation of the government) - obviously, this would include property rights on the means of production, and such a society would then not be capitalist. Ancaps, OTOH, believe that governments impede natural property rights, and thus a society without a government would have the strongest possible private ownership of the means of production - i.e. capitalism in its purest form.

[kelukelugames]

I'm not sure how left this is: "If there's actual conversation on there, it's probably just a bunch of people with Wonder Woman avatars assuring each other that America is Already Great™."

https://raddit.me/f/ShitLiberalsSay/6024/verrit-a-hillary-cl...

[wutbrodo]

What do you mean? This is _precisely_ what I'd expect. Hating on (neo)liberals like Hillary Clinton is damn near ubiquitous on left forums these days, as is dismissing what they perceive as shallow identity politics and conflating liberals with the right.

Like, you literally couldn't have picked a better quote to sum up the left's views in 2017, and then you captioned it with "I'm not sure how left this is".

[tray5]

If I'm being honest it's because the American left really isn't leftist at all, and I think that Americans are becoming aware of it

[blowski]

Which just goes to show that reducing politics to a simple "left-right" axis is part of the problem, and not particularly helpful.

[wutbrodo]

Agreed, I have a comment down below expressing frustration at exactly that. I was just speaking on the terms that the parent comment was: liberals aren't very popular these days on the left _or_ the right, and as such aren't very well-represented in hard-left forums.

That being said, I wouldn't really classify Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama as all that leftist. In the two-axis model, they're sort of straight down-the-middle centrist liberals (like me!)

[pfarnsworth]

There is nothing centrist about Clinton or Obama or even the Democratic party, they're right of center. That's why Sanders was so incredibly popular, because he espoused true liberal beliefs, and something that hasn't been heard or represented in a long, long time.

[tray5]

The entire democratic party really isn't leftist, outside of the heavily skewed American ecosystem, they're centre right.

[wutbrodo]

Treating left as if it has some inherent, context-free meaning is ridiculous. If you're going to define a spectrum, the context matters, and the context we're currently discussing is American politics.

You may as well say that American politics only contains extreme leftists, when compared to the rest of American history.

[chongli]

Eh, not really, Hillary Clinton is way to the right of most non-US western politicians. It's just that the US skews so heavily to the right to begin with that she seems normal.

[dragonwriter]

It's why confusing the Democrats, a party whose dominant faction is a center-right one with the left is a problem, but its not really a problem with reducing politics to a single axis (that is a problem, in general, though its actually not that inaccurate when it comes to US politics.)

[SwellJoe]

Hillary is center-right by international standards, and the radical left treats her as such. You won't find many leftists praising Clinton, even if some of them voted for her out of desperation.

[WaxProlix]

I think that most anarchists and leftists are opposed to the Democrats as well as the Republicans, seeing them as similarly center-right on most meaningful issues.

It does sometimes result in funny moments like this where the critique of American liberal Democrats could easily come from either side.

[GhostVII]

Lots of the top posts seem to be very supportive of the antifa, so it seems pretty far left to me.

[Aeolun]

I don't know. It looks pretty general purpose to me. A clone of Reddit is almost by definition general purpose.