Friday, May 12, 2017

How did Anarchism become Authoritarian?

My first interest in politics came from an anarcho-philosophy.

When I was about 12 or 13 I would always notice the big "A" symbol my favorite punk bands would have on their album covers and T-shirts. I asked an older kid in his teens what that symbol meant. He explained "It means a society with no government where everyone can do whatever they want". I found this concept shocking but interesting. As a child I was living in a town and going to a school that was run by extremely leftist, authoritarian teachers. I was constantly in trouble for questioning their propaganda. I was suspended multiple times for everything you can imagine that an extreme leftist would suspend a child for... And that is just about everything that is normal to a rational human being.

When I was in the 5th grade we were told that we could not sing certain Christmas carols, especially if they had any Christian reference. During Christmas we could only sing songs that had "holiday season" themes.

We then were being taught about Hanukkah soon after being instructed that all blatant Christian reference was not to be allowed in school. I saw the hypocrisy in this and brought this up as the teacher was giving us the history of Hanukkah. Many students agreed with me and we protested verbally. I was suspended for being disruptive and insensitive to the Jewish students.

These kinds of people and authoritarian mindsets made me only more rebellious and angry. So when I heard about this Anarchist concept, of course it intrigued me. I began researching it and found out that it was not as simple as "do whatever you want". It was a philosophy that focused on building a society based on freedom and egalitarianism. Some people may describe Anarchism as an anti-authoritarian ideal that combines libertarianism with socialism. It is a political concept where governments, oligarchs, wealthy elite, media, corporations or lords and kings have no right to control or dictate laws and ideals. The masses and individuals are free to think what they want and work together as a collective to build a better society through voluntarism.

Now of course, this is a utopian idea and it is very difficult to get such a society to function on a massive level for any extended period of time, if not impossible. But I found it inspiring.

As I became an adult my political ideals shifted but I always had a fondness for anarcho ideals and I have always seen myself as someone who is anti-authoritarian, but things have changed drastically and the people who support anarchism now are much different. At one time liberals were people who supported freedom and liberty, but now they are most often ultra-authoritarians who often are marxist sympathizers. Anarchists are now moving into the same boat as the liberals. AntiFa seems to be dominated by Anarchists and black lives matter as well.

These people hate freedom of speech, freedom of association and support authoritarian tactics to achieve their goals. Ironically there is nothing anarchist about them.

Now I see so called "anarchists" claiming to be "anarchist-marxists"! Seriously, how can you be an anarchist-marxist? That is like saying I am a violent pacifist or a satanist-Christian. Anarchists have a history of supporting and aiding communists and not realizing that the true Marxists will put them on the chopping block when they are done with them.

In Orwells book, "Homage to Catalonia", where he journaled his accounts fighting in the Spanish revolution, he describes how the anarchists formed militias and supported the Marxist militias against the government in hopes of building an egalitarian society.

The Anarchists were later rounded up and imprisoned, and often killed.

And so it goes, the cycle keeps going on and on.


  1. Very odd how the words and label barely matter anymore. Anarcho-communism being a term that combines two words that are inherently opposite.

    Anarchism is the idea that management of our own lives is not to be left to governors, presidents, city councilmen or mayors. Paraphrased from Edward Abbey.

    1. I feel like the Marxists have infected every political philosophy in the world. Christianity, Islam, Democratic ideals, Liberals, Libertarians are now getting hijacked. When I was in Iraqi I noticed most all of the political parties in Kurdistan were openly marxist combined with Kurdish nationalism.