Talk:Anarchism and capitalism

Questions

I have a few questions for the writer of this article,

1. Is there any value in the orginization of labor?
2. Is there any value in risk?
3. What is the labor value referring to in this article? Is it the value added due to an increase in usefulness to others?
4. Say we lived in a land without government of any kind and I have a fishing pole. I loan it to you and you catch a couple of fish. Upon its return you give me a fish and say thanks. There are no laws requiring you to give me a fish or for you to return the pole. Are we in a anarchy in this situation?

I look forward to your clearifications. Wekins

You should refer to the main article on anarchism. --albamuth 01:31, 15 Dec 2004 (UTC)

This is ridiculous. Anarchists oppose one man ruling over another. "Anarcho"-Capitalism creates an enviroment inwhich a boss has even more authority over his workers. See the problem? Authority vs anti-authority? Fake Anarchism vs Real Anarchism. Why are you all so keen on hijacking the term anarchist? You already hijacked libertarian.

There is no difference...

...between the "arguments" put forth by these so-called "anarchists", and the "arguments" put forth by commies and pinkos. Nothing but the same old Marxist bullshit that is slowly being relegated to the ash heap of history.

Socialists, communists, and any other Marxists are INCAPABLE of being anarchists.

I wish people would sign their posts. It took me a while to realize the above two paragraphs were from different people. --albamuth 09:37, 30 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I meant those paragraphs to be part of the same statement. The page history documents each change on a per-user basis. --Anonymous via Tor 128.2.213.23 15:56, 30 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Ah. So what are you trying to say? Should the article shift it's focus away from the older, historical anarchist arguments? Can you suggest a source for contemporary anarchist critiques of capitalism? --albamuth 18:38, 30 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Since capitalism is what occurs naturally in any true anarchy, an "anarchist critique of capitalism" is an oxymoron. --Anonymous via Tor

To the idiot who wrote that LOAD OF CRAP ABOUT ANARCHO-CAPITALISM NOT BEING AN OXYMORON ANARCHO-CAPITALISM IS AN OXYMORON. NO ANARCHIST CAN EVER BE A CAPITALIST —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Phoneabove (talk • contribs) 00:43, August 21, 2007 (UTC).

Odd, I guess that would mean that all the people who originally called themselves anarchists were not "true" anarchists, and that the very people they fought against, who never considered themselves anarchists, were the "true" standard bearers all along. Kev 16:03, 1 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Those who think Anarchism is not about Socialism, are very much deluded.--Sennaista 17:08, 6 May 2005 (UTC)

This doesn't belong in an encyclopedia

This article just doesn't belong in Wikipedia in its current form. It says up-front that it isn't providing a balanced viewpoint—therefore, it doesn't belong in an encyclopedia. Wikipedia is fundamentally intended to be NPOV, not to have blatantly ideological articles. The fact that the article admits it's ideological is immaterial. This article's content isn't all bad, but its phrasing needs to be completely overhauled, and capitalist responses need to be added. For now, I'm adding the POV check template. —Simetrical (talk) 21:01, 2 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I agree. I wrote that part in the beginning since I've pretty much been the only editor of this article and it was a lot of work to rewrite the source material to be NPOV (so I didn't, mostly). Any help is appreciated. --albamuth 19:40, 3 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I disagree. I see no reason why an encyclopedia shouldn't contain an article describing the views and or beliefs of a group of people. An article that has as it's main topic the description of the viewpoint of a group of people is not biased just because it decribes a pov. The perspective it describes is of course itself biased, but an article accurately describing a biased pov is not in itself biased! If this article, which is supposed to present the anarchist's view of capitalism, were, for example, actually written by a capitalist (e.g. seeking for political reasons to weaken anarachists arguments in the public eye) in such a way that it did not accurately reflect the anarchist point of view, then it would be biased.

Everybody who's arguing here about about POV/NPOV is on the wrong meta-level. An article which has as it's very content the description of a pov is not biased purely because of it's content. It would be biased if it didn't represent that pov accurately. An article which had as it's topic "anarchistic vs. capitalistic views" and only represented the anarchistic views would be biased. If there's really any question, the title of this article could be changed to something like, "the anarchistic perspective on capitalism", or whatever, to make it clear for even the numbest of numbskulls, but arguing that this article is biased and that it doesn't belong in an encyclopedia is just plain silly.

Additionally, I see no reason why an article describing the anarchist perspective on capitalism should need to include arguments in favor of capitalism in order to be npov. There's a fine article in Wikipedia on Christianity which describes the beliefs of that group. There doesn't seem to be alot of unending discussions and editing wars from other religious groups who contend that the article on christianity is biased because it doesn't include descriptions of their different beliefs, or insist upon adding arguments supporting their beliefs to that article.

I'd be sorely tempted to remove the npov warning on this article, if I did't think it would start a flame/editing war. I welcome comments on my position. --erasurehead 21:30, 9 Jul 2005 (UTC)

You're right, but your explanation of describing viewpoints is lost on editors that purposefully push a POV in edits. Also, check the diffs -- I already deleted much material I felt didn't add much to the article. --albamuth 22:20, 9 July 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for your comment. It is indeed sad that people choose to abuse wikipedia as a platform for promoting their pov. Do you feel that the title is misleading? It's the only point I feel is debatable regarding npov, since it isn't obvious from the title that the article describes the anarchist's critique of capitalism? --erasurehead 15:59, 10 Jul 2005 (UTC)

Well, actually I believe that this issues is taken care of by the introductory sentence "Though the anarchist critique of capitalism is rooted in socialist theory, there are certain key distinctions in their critiques, which this article attempts to elucidate." Also, this article neatly places itself in a row with the other articles in the anarchism series, so I don't see that the name of this article should be changed. This article should deal with Anarchism and capitalism, like the title says. Since anarchism strongly opposes and criticizes capitalsim, it is pretty obvious that the article deals with anarchist critism of capitalism. Besides that, I agree with your opinion to focus on anarchist views here. IF there is an article covering Capitalist criticism of anarchist theories (for example, "Capitalism and anarchism"), than it should be linked at the bottom, but not included in the article, as it would only resoult in reverwarring and such. To make a clear distinction between those two opposing views would be best imho to resolve these disputes. --Johnnyw 16:17, July 10, 2005 (UTC)

legal issues?

Is the anarchist FAQ from which this was adopted part of the public domain? Are we allowed to use it in the first place? Dave 08:34, Mar 20, 2005 (UTC)

From the FAQ: "Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.1 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation, and/or the terms of the GNU General Public License, Version 2.0 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation." Kev 17:19, 20 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Cool. Now we just need to make it a decent article. Dave 18:04, Mar 20, 2005 (UTC)

Problems with article

The attempts to make this article more balanced were good in theory, but rather poorly applied. The first sentence of this article indicates that its subject matter is the anarchist critique of capitalism. However, many of the passages have been greatly altered to reflect capitalist views of their own economic system, rather than anarchist critiques of it. It is fine to explicate such views here, but they need to be properly labeled as the views of capitalists, not the voice of wikipedia, and the actual critiques of the anarchists need to be put back in where they were replaced. As it stands this article is no longer actually describing anarchist views, but rather a mismash of anarchist and capitalist views which are unattributed and thus come across as incomprehensible when read all the way through. I'm tempted to revert back to an earlier version, because working to make all these passages reflect their subject matter will be silly if it is all going to be re-inserted by folks who apparently aren't willing to simply allow a description of the anarchist critique to stand on its own merits. Kev 10:28, 13 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Okies, I'm rolling up my sleeves and starting on removing arguments that clearly are not those of anarchists and are unattributed. I'm not trying to remove content, to my knowledge all of these arguments are present in other parts of wikipedia. However, this article is not the place for capitalist conceptions of their own economics, and I don't have time to comb through each part and figure out whose voice is supposedly being used when the editors who copy-pasted this stuff in didn't do it themselves. Kev 22:52, 14 Jun 2005 (UTC)

On further analysis, this article has been so horribly gutted that there is nothing left to salvage. I hate to do it, but given the vast content that was removed and the fact that it was all replaced by unattributed POV, I'm reverting to an earlier version. I'm included the POV warning that was present at one point, because it still needs to be reworked, just not by partisans with an eye for destroying its content. Kev 23:05, 14 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Surely there is some literature where left anarchists respond to the real capitalist arguments and not just their own strawman versions. Otherwise, perhaps this article's title should be, "Anarcho-socialist's misimpressions about capitalism".--Silverback 04:03, Jun 22, 2005 (UTC)

One thing at a time, please. If anarchists promote strawman arguments, then so be it, because those are the arguments they make. Rewriting the arguments to your own understanding and speculations of what anarchists would argue is original research. If you wish to update or correct the arguments, please attribute sources -- ie anarchist writers. The changes you've made sound like they're straight off the top of your head.

On another note, presenting the arguments in a technical style point-by-point would make it a lot clearer. Let's also think about how we can break up those huge blocks of rambling text. --albamuth 04:45, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I wasn't stating that the anarchists arguments were strawman, but rather that they selected strawman capitalist arguments to respond to, and then proceeded to argue against and "defeat" those arguments. I've no problem with a reorg, as long as the relative strengths of the arguments are not arbitrarily changed.--Silverback 06:20, Jun 22, 2005 (UTC)

I'm all for reinstituting the "historical" and "contemporary" critiques format. Do you agree? --albamuth 01:59, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I'm not familiar with that format? Since the discussion of the relationship between anarchism and capitalism is current. Anything historical should perhaps be deep background. I've never had much interest in invalidated or weak arguments. If invalid arguments are to be repeated here, there is no reason to allow them the appearance of validity. They should be thoroughly analyzed, the accepted refutations presented.--Silverback 08:13, Jun 23, 2005 (UTC)

Well, I was thinking that Proudhon, Kropotkin, Bakunin, etc. were working with pre-Keynesian economic analysis, so some of their arguments lack the terminology of contemporary ones and may be obsolete. Showing a chronology/timeline of the arguments might make better sense, I think. --albamuth 15:42, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Sources

The anarchist FAQ may be a convenient resource for these arguments, but all of them should be bulleted and attributed to a source, rather than left as broad, unfounded generalizations. --albamuth 08:20, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Neologisms and Unresolved Issues

Because of the ongoing, unsettled debate in Talk:Anarchism, I feel it is premature to start using the neologism anarcho-socialism. However, to avoid spilling the edit war over to this page, I won't change references to "anarcho-socialists" over to "anarchists" just yet. Secondly, it only seems to matter on the section on private property -- the problem seems to be how to distinguish Tucker/Spooner and other individualist-anarchists from previous, traditional anarchists that believed in only having personal property and collective property. Perhaps we should look more closely at the Individualists' definition of private property?

definition of capitalism

This article talks about capitalism but never bothers to define it. Apparently a lot of leftists, including left anarchists, don't define it as it is commonly defined today [1]. I suggest a definition of capitalism be included so everyone is speaking, and understanding, the same language. RJII 02:34, 20 November 2005 (UTC)

Capitalism have many definitions...

• "Under capitalism workers do not exchange the products of their labour they exchange the labour itself for money. They sell themselves for a given period of time, and in return for wages, promise to obey their paymasters. Those who pay and give the orders -- owners and managers -- are at the top of the hierarchy, those who obey at the bottom. This means that capitalism, by its very nature, is hierarchical."[2]
• "Capitalism is an evolving concept which is derived from earlier European economic practices (see Feudalism, Imperialism, Mercantilism)."[3]
• "An economic system built upon the profit motive. Capitalism depends upon private individuals or companies investing money in order to make profits. In Marxist analysis, these profits are secured by exploiting workers who provide their labour." [4]
• "According to Marx, a capitalist mode of production developed in Europe when labor itself became a commodity — when peasants became free to sell their own labor-power, and needed to do so because they no longer possessed their own land or tools necessary to produce."[5]

...but basicly it's the system where the menas of production is owned by a few and they then buy the labour they need from thw workers who have to sell it since they have nothing else to sell. It's a form of time limited slavery or wage slavery. The capitalists then live on the difference between what they pay for the labour and what the labour is actually worth (surplus value). Also see The "capitalist mode of production" // Liftarn

I believe capitalism and anarchism are almost mutually exclusive, and reading the section there is a bit on the confusing side, especially with a potential point I have just made. Do capitalists really believe this: "that capitalism is not exploitative", and what research do capitalists base this belief on (since it very much effects it nature in this article here)? Nonprof. Frinkus 22:47, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

Clarification

There are a couple of words that are not clear to me on first reading the article. "posibilitate" I believe this is a French word that should be translated into English. "rentiers" This is a British word for someone who rents. It should have a link to a reputable definition for the American reader or be replaced with something more accessible. Dictionary.com doesn't have it.

The British spelling doesn't really bother me, but mixing in French as well makes the article less approachable. IMHO. --darklilac 15:01, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

Anarcho-capitalist view

This article looks like it's missing the anarcho-capitalist view on capitalism.Anarcho-capitalism 20:34, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

Anarcho-captalism is an oxymoron

To whomever claimed that anarcho-capitalism is an oxymoron, this is not the place to discuss your opinions. There are hundreds of sources out there that might change your mind (e.g. [6], [7], [8], [9], [10], [11], [12]), but regardless, this space is here to discuss how to improve the article, not to debate each other on petty matters of whose POV is "correct." So regardless of your opinion on whether or not anarcho-capitalism is oxymoronic, it would be wise consider the suggestion of User:Anarcho-capitalism. I, for one, agree with User:Anarcho-capitalism's suggestion; persons are likely to come to this page with curiosity as to the market anarchist's take on the non-market anarchist's view of "capitalism." Allixpeeke (talk) 06:22, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

Commerce

Proudhon (General Idea of the Revolution in the 19th Century) argues that trade creates wealth; in his view, trade, like labor, is a legitimate source of wealth. Jacob Haller 17:20, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

Market Tendencies

Carson argues that markets tend to more evenly distribute wealth. So it is controversial whether markets tend to concentrate wealth (and thus recreate hierarchies) or disperse wealth (and thus undermine hierarchies). Jacob Haller 17:20, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

I don't know what it is, but Carson's argument is sure to be ridiculous. All empirical evidence says that markets concentrate wealth. The notion of economy of scale says that markets concentrate wealth. The game theory/economics of oligopy says that markets concentrate wealth. There is no way to take seriously any general claim that markets do not concentrate wealth. Every market begins with a large number of competitors and becomes stable only when a small oligopy develops. This is the history of the US markets in agriculture, manufacturing (e.g., auto), retail, publishing and broadcast... every mature market! Even software, which has only existed as a consumer market for 20 years, is getting there -- most of the programmers are employed by a few firms (more accurately: most of the money spent on programmers is spent by a few firms), most of which can afford to buy any new competing firm. Indeed, a buy-out by an established monopoly is the stated goal of most founders of new software firms! Who is this Carson guy and what the hell is he talking about? The number of firms in a market decreases over time. This is a fundamental, non-controversial observation of economics, and is well understood theoretically. Αναρχία 00:21, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

Carson is an individualist anarchist of the antiquated type who accepts the labor theory of value. That's how out of it he is. Anyway, why anyone should be concerned about concentration of wealth in the first place is strange. So what? As long as it was made through trade no problem, because both sides tend to benefit from trade. If someone creates a product of only marginal value to an individual's life but sells it to many people he becomes disproportionately wealthy. But everyone is better off for it. Concentration of wealth is not in and of itself a bad thing at all. But, you're right, Carson doesn't understand economics. Of course markets allow concentration of wealth.Anarcho-capitalism 04:37, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

User:Anarcho-capitalism, with all due respect, Carson's take on the labour theory of value is highly subjectivised. Allixpeeke (talk) 06:26, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

Check www.mutualist.org on the topic. Now when the same groups hold wealth and power, and these groups accumulate more wealth, we can debate whether the concentrations of power drive the process or whether the concentrations of wealth drive the process. The US government has subsidized large-scale agriculture, large-scale industry, and transportation, imposed intellectual property rules, ignored patents by smaller parties, ignored prior art and prior usage by smaller parties when granting patents, trademarks ("Personal Computer" anyone?), etc., and so on. It generally procures from larger suppliers too. Jacob Haller 00:58, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

Don't forget that dis-economies of scale also exist.Larklight 18:08, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Unclear what "anarchists" this is referring to AND unclear title of article

The article says "Anarchists say that.." "Anarchists argue that..." etc, but not all anarchists have the same arguments, so it's not clear what kind of anarchist it's talking about, whether communists, mutualists, or what. Also the "anarchists" may not include anarcho-capitalists. There should probably be a section on anarcho-capitalist critique of capitalism as well. Also, the title ("Anarchism and capitalism") doesn't indicate that this article is about critiquing capitalism, but that's all this article is about. The title should probably be changed, don't you think?Anarcho-capitalism 13:00, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

Indeed- the article makes it seem that all Anarchists hate capitalism, when clearly they do not. Perhaps specify sydacist, communist, eco anarchist arguements?

Actually, I think most of the marxist bits should be taken out: they belong in a marxist criticisms of capitalism page, Not an anarchist criticisms one, which should be based on those aspects specific to anarchists. Larklight 11:18, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

This article has become unfocused

The article is anarchism and capitalism, it has been turned into social anarchism v. "anarcho"-capitalism. There should be some space dedicated to talking about how ancaps support capitalism, but more should be towards anarchism involvement in anti-capitalist endeavors throughout history, and I am extremely disappointed that there is no detailed mention of mutualists or market anarchists (anarchists who are anti-capitalist but still support free markets). Lenerd (talk) 05:47, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

Agree, but we can merge a lot of this to anarchism and anarcho-capitalism. Which sections specifically concern you? Skomorokh 10:01, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

I just noticed that myself. Much of it is criticism of anarcho-capitalism, but there is already a criticism of anarcho-capitalism article. Plan your rocks (talk) 16:50, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

I suggest a merge with criticisms or a deletion. It really has no function other than repeat the criticism article. Soxwon (talk) 18:22, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

You're probably right. Maybe anarchism and capitalism can be discussed, but not as long as people like Skomorokh insist on the article being full of uncited material. Plan your rocks (talk) 18:49, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

Refocus on anarchist critiques of capitalism

Anarchist objections to capitalism redirects to this page, and this page is referenced by Anti-capitalism. I created it to pare down the already-lengthy anarchism article, and as a parallel to the Marxist equivalent. I think it should not be deleted, but merged into Critique of capitalism.--albamuth (talk) 22:22, 11 March 2009 (UTC)