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by bingoMen 28 days ago
It depends. In their original political and philosophical roots, socialists pursued the same goals as anarchists: a political order without top-down hierarchical structures, but one that is self-managed from within. Workers for workers. No hierarchies constructed by things like patriarchy or capitalism. Communism, which is supposed to lead to socialism (?), can be diametrically opposed to anarchism, as it incorporates the idea of imperialism, a doctrine of order and authoritarianism. People who are called socialists today, such as Bernie Sanders, are not socialists in that sense, but rather liberals in the guise of socialism who subordinate themselves to the order of capitalism and thus have very, very little to do with anarchism. But also little to do with socialism. For reformist approaches pursue the treatment of symptoms rather than systemic changes that tackle the actual problems at their root. Anarchist structures, on the other hand, are also called “root movements,” as they aim to address fundamental changes—even if only on a small scale—at their very roots.