This is going to be one of those reads that you need to have a mental prep for. Take a seat, take a deep breath, relax, it’s going to be okay.
Let me start you off a bit low. The preface to everything in life is liberty. I think we can all agree that liberty is everything. A good definition of liberty is any personal choice that does not violate the NAP (Non Aggression Principle) in any way. Now that we have a basic definition of what liberty is; let me get into the main point of this post. Anarchy, libertarianism, and communism, can all co-exist.
Now hold on! I know what you are thinking! “ARGHH HOW CAN COMMUNISM AND LIBERTARIANISM COEXIST BECAUSE MUH RUSSIA.” Well, simmer down. Please allow me to try and explain myself.
Communism at its core is not a product of the state. Don’t get me wrong, more often than not that’s how people have tried communism out. This is a weak and corrupt version of Karl Marx’s vision. Communism is nothing more than people working together for the common good of a group of people. In other words: collectivism. As long as this group remains on a strict volunteer level basis, there is nothing wrong with it.
Now let me lay out a vision of what something like this, implemented correctly, may look like. It’s going to be pretty simpleton, and obviously would likely be more complex than the fictional world that I will attempt to depict to you, but hopefully it will get at least a vague point across. Imagine our country, the United States, is a borderless country. Let's take borders down a step further, and get rid of states and their borders. Let’s take that even further, get rid of county lines, and town lines. Now you are left with a country where private property defines the lines, or borders of the county. You have the liberty and freedom to always protect what is yours, and what you own.
Where does communism come into play? Well, imagine in this country the only borders are your property lines, individuals come together to form communities with the goal for communities to self sustain. You have the liberty to decide whether or not you want to join one of these communities, or fend for yourself. You can trade your property for someone else’s property, to find a community that more so aligns with your personal views. You can also simply not elect to join any community. There is no force involved in this version of communism. Micro levels of communism happening across our nation. Each community, self sustained, and in cases where it is needed, trading with other communities. That is the ideal picture of what communism is. A community, where everyone takes care of each other. Where you are not forced to be a part of it if you don’t want to be.
In this communism scenario, you can get away with a minarchist national government, in which communities, and individuals apart of these communities have a small national government for purely defense purposes and a conduit for foreign communication, such as trading (I mean actual defense, not “offense is the best defense” nonsense that we have been doing for the past hundred years).
Liberty is still intact, therefore an anarcho communism is still a libertarian principle. No one is being forced to do anything they do not want to, therefore the NAP (non aggression principle) is not violated. How would we pay for a national government? Isn’t taxation theft and violates the NAP? Well, if people are adapting a communist mindset, those micro communities of communism would adapt the mindset that they need to elect volunteers to serve in national defense, and national politics.
This is just a food for thought post. I know from personal experience, when I use to see the words anarchy and communism in the same sentence, I used to laugh. However, my curiosity drove me to look into more, and this is what I personally came up with after reading a lot, and listening to a bunch of podcasts. So next time you see an ancom on the internet, or in public, hear them out, it’s actually not as a crazy of a concept as it may seem on paper.
JIV Phenolates & Piraticus
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