can someone explain the difference between ancap and mutalism

coolguy3867 · 10 days

So could it be said that mutualism is just another method of working towards eventual "pure" communism (i.e. classless, stateless society,) Where Marxists would get rid of capitalism and wither away the State, mutualists would get rid of capitalism and the state, but wither away money, whereas other anarcho-communists opt for total revolution and public ownership of the means of production?

I know this probably belongs more in /r/Anarchy101 but I thought I might as well ask here while we're on the topic.

LincolnSt · 15 days

Ah yes. Start a competing company. Just like that. With magic beans or something. This is the problem with libertarian thinking, it can't think outside of it's own privileged mindset. YOU might be able to just start a competing company if the employment opportunities don't suit your desires, but not everyone can. Even a cursory glance at the way a market economy works reveals that at least some people would have to take what they can get.

The ideal of voluntary association relies on a working class that have to take what they can get and say "Thank you, sir."

LincolnSt · 15 days

And the thousands of people out of work who have to take what they can get, no matter how shitty the conditions, no matter how low the pay?

el_tonio · 15 days

Lapsang was my first ever experience of tea beyond the "normal" black tea you get in bags in the supermarket, it's something I have to be in the mood for. I got some very nice Orange Pekoe recently that's become my other favourite black tea.

el_tonio · 15 days

The only Ceylon I've had was bagged, I enjoyed it, but I have a feeling it's a tea that really does need to be loose leaf to fully appreciate.

el_tonio · 15 days

Currently I'm really digging the Assam my girlfriend got for me. She found it on the shelves of her local health food store, didn't have a brand name so I don't know much more about it.

Twobitz · 16 days

I think to some extent utopianism is a good thing, as it gives you something to strive for, personally an ideal world would be one of equality and freedom, so that's why I'm an anarchist.

The reason I'm hard left and revolutionary about it is because I don't see any middle ground solutions doing much good in the long run. That's not to say I refuse to co-operate all the time on ideological grounds. I support reforms within the system for now, i.e. if there's a campaign for gay rights, or stronger unions etc., I'll support it, but the end solution, for me, has to be a revolution, as in the end all I see reform doing is granting us bigger cages, and longer chains.

Twobitz · 16 days

But all anarchists agree on the lack of a central government which, in the United States, is a right-wing idea.

It depends on whether capitalism is also abolished, most anarchists today, as well as historically speaking, are left wing, i.e lack of central government, as well as a lack of private ownership of property.

As an anarchist, I don't find it particularly naive or stupid. Naivete is pretending that a government truly works in the best interests of the people. Stupid is allowing a small group of people dictate to the masses.

penguinofevil · 18 days

What then, would the motivation be for a worker-owned business, that would make it a better system than not having such firms at all and operating with straight anarchocommunist methods? That is, a moneyless gift economy, give what you can take what you need for the good of us all?

ApocalypseWoodsman · 20 days

William Burroughs also might have been on some drugs at some point in his life. It's unconfirmed though.

Also, as far as the NAMBLA thing goes, Ginsberg maintained it was more about free speech than touching kids. Whether that waas just an excuse or not I don't know. I like to hope he meant it sincerely (the free speech bit, not the child-molesting bit.)

NewUSSR · 25 days

You were lucky to have an ark!

xijhing · 29 days

Clawhammer is better.

I kid, of course. Like usonian said, it takes less time with clawhammer to get to a level where what you're playing sounds like music. If you choose bluegrass picking (I'm assuming by 3-finger you mean bluegrass, there are about as many old-time three-finger styles as there are players out there) expect to spend A LOT of time practising basic rolls.

Clawhammer is better for playing solo, whereas bluegrass style is more of a group-based style, in my humble opinion.

Go with whatever you enjoy playing and listening to. I started off trying to play Scruggs but found frailing/clawhammer to be much more my style. Maybe it'll be the same with you, maybe it'll be the opposite, try both and see what you like.

whatthe_f · 1 month

Happy to have the discussion, I'm enjoying it too, I very rarely get to talk to an omnivore who will even begin to entertain the fact that I have a valid argument.

To clarify a little further, I'd say that rather than leave the animals we choose to no longer eat to fend for themselves in the wild we have a duty of care to them, until they die out.

I'm glad to hear that you would consider a vegan diet in a situation where it's possible for you, it makes your arguments seem far more sincere, as opposed to just blindly defending a diet because it's more convenient than having to actually think about it's implications.

Thanks for the discussion.

whatthe_f · 1 month

I want to address your last point first, because I think it's important to get out of the way, when I said humans can thrive on a plant-based diet, I was obviously generalising, there are certain people who for medical reasons would not get the necessary nutrients without animal products, and that is obviously a different case. Just as in the current situation, not everyone can afford to turn vegan.

You've hit upon the moral dilemma exactly, without humans, these animals would likely die out, but with humans they exist only to suffer at our hands. We see non-existence as preferable to a life of pain.

I'd say you are grasping at straws with the plants thing. They have no central nervous system, if they undergo any "feeling" at all, it's nothing like what an animal experiences. The same argument can be made for certain lower classes of sealife (think oysters and other molluscs, but not octopi or squid, they're different,) so while I personally don't, I don't see any moral problem with eating certain seafood.

I feel like it's no secret that the abuses that go on as a result of modern farming practises cause animals real pain and suffering, and so that right there is a reason to not consume animal products, but taking the more borderline example of is it right to eat an animal that has been raised compassionately, I'd say that regardless of whether they can conceive of death (and there's evidence to say that some can) it's not a massive stretch of the imagination that an animal that is enjoying it's existence (as far as it's own level of sentience allows), that it would probably, given the choice, want to continue it.(I hope I'm making sense)

whatthe_f · 1 month

In a broad sense freedom means you can do as you please so long as no-one else is exploited or harmed.

As anarchists we all know that the freedom afforded by anarchy isn't the freedom to murder, or the freedom to steal, and so it shouldn't be the freedom to take life without consent.

So, I suppose, yes, freedom means you can't eat chicken. But only in the sense that freedom also means you can't beat your partner, or enslave your neighbours.

whatthe_f · 1 month

Assuming a society where most if not all people are vegan, then certain animals such as cows, pigs, sheep, chickens would either go extinct or see a serious decline in population. This isn't a bad thing, not-existing isn't suffering, existing only to be killed, I would say, is suffering, even an animal raised humanely, who would probably not have the mental capacity to realise they are being raised as food, would, I assume not want to be killed, my point here being that being killed against your will constitutes suffering, even if it's painless.

As far as lions eating gazelles go, let lions eat gazelles, it's what they do, they don't have the ability to think about it, and they wouldn't survive on a plant based diets, humans can both reason, and thrive on a plant diet.

whatthe_f · 1 month

A lion can't control it's own nature when it hunts down a gazelle. A human has the capacity to consciously make the choice between causing unnecessary suffering and not causing unnecessary suffering. An anarchist should choose the latter.

whatthe_f · 1 month

The 18th century philosopher Jeremy Bentham sums this up rather nicely:

The French have already discovered that the blackness of the skin is no reason why a human being should be abandoned without redress to the caprice of a tormentor. It may come one day to be recognized, that the number of the legs, the villosity of the skin, or the termination of the os sacrum, are reasons equally insufficient for abandoning a sensitive being to the same fate. What else is it that should trace the insuperable line? Is it the faculty of reason, or, perhaps, the faculty of discourse? But a full-grown horse or dog is beyond comparison a more rational, as well as a more conversable animal, than an infant of a day, or a week, or even a month, old. But suppose the case were otherwise, what would it avail? the question is not, Can they reason? nor, Can they talk? but, Can they suffer?

So the fact that certain animals aren't self-aware (although some are) really makes no difference. It's not about the individual capacities of each animal, it's about their capacity for suffering. Animals can suffer, just as humans can suffer.

But even arguing from the self-awareness standpoint, there's an inherent contradiction, in that a human baby is less self-aware than an adult dairy cow, but the baby gets full and unequivocal rights, whereas the cow is forced into a life of misery.

The animal liberation movement and the anarchist struggle are linked because an evaluation of oppression and exploitation should extend to animals because of their capacity to suffer, to say that anarchism is a human social movement is, as I said, arbitrary.

whatthe_f · 1 month

Vegan here. I think a post-revolution society would have to be necessarily vegan.

Firstly from a practical standpoint, the amount of space needed to provide sustenance for a plant-based diet is substantially less than an omnivorous diet. I'd rather not focus on that point too much because I don't know enough about agriculture to discuss it properly.

Secondly, as far as I see it, anarchism, at it's core, is about non-exploitative relationships. I'd say it's fairly illogical and arbitrary to say that you believe in non-exploitative relationships, but only within your own species. An equally arbitrary distinction is race, and all anarchists oppose racism; so how then can an anarchist justify discrimination on the grounds of species, but condemn discrimination on the grounds of race, gender or class?

satyagraaha · 1 month

/r/redditrequest Looks like if we go there and put a request in, someone can take over moderation.

satyagraaha · 1 month

It appears that the sole moderator hasn't been active on reddit in 10 months. Can we do anything to get the sidebar changed?

_n_a_m_e · 1 month

Ruler, noun: A person who rules or governs

Rule, noun: Control, government, or dominion

I'd say you're arbitrarily warping the definition of ruler, a ruler could quite easily mean boss, or CEO. While anarchism does literally mean "without rulers," it's not about what the literal translation is, it's about what the accepted definition is. I hate to be the bearer of bad news to an-caps, but the anarchist tradition has always been anti-capitalist. Even Murray Rothbard, anarcho-capitalism's founder, agreed that it isn't anarchism.

Further to this, I honestly don't know why it's so important to ancaps that they be accepted among anarchists. Our views are so vastly different, and opposed to each other, it makes no sense for you to want to be considered part of anarchism. Why not just accept and define yourself as a different political belief entirely?

calj13 · 1 month

"The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn, like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes "Awww!"

Jack Kerouac - On the Road

afinko · 1 month

It is a fundamental belief of anarchist communists that the working class already have all the skills needed to run society. Not everyone has all of these, of course, and equality does not mean that we all take it in turns to perform heart surgery. Neither will we all have the skills to nurse the sick back to health. Thus, some specialisation will be necessary. What will change, however, is that there will be more prestige or status attached to one social function in comparison to another.

The Anarchist Federation, Beyond Resistance

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