But mostly propaganda. They think Anarchy means random violent chaos because what all films about authority collapse shows.
Met a dude once who actually believed that shit. I’d try to explain to him like “We don’t expect instant harmony to just happen like that, there’s work to do, people want to organize” and he looks me, dead serious: “Dude, have you never seen the movie Purge? That’s what happens when there’s no police anymore”
Some peoples worldview… Never ceases to shock me.
especially when the purge is EXPLICITY about a hierarchical society pitting the working class against itself to enact the enforcement of the wealth hierarchy on itself
illiteracy: the realest reason we are in this mess.
Those people make me nervous. Same with people who can’t comprehend not needing a set of rules from a god for society to behave. “What stops me from killing someone if it’s not a sin?” Um… I would have hoped you just instinctively knew that was wrong. Like who raised you?
God I hate Malcolm McLaren and the sex pistols
Disagree. A lot of people just want to be told what to do. Everyone has periods like that.
this type of relationship or social organization is fine in anarchism so long as it’s consensual
yes*
it is fine, but such a relationship should always be critically inspected by anarchists. relying on someone’s expertise and following their suggestions is fine and reasonable, that shouldn’t take the place of individual thought and autonomy
most honest people like to be able to explain (to themselves at the very least) why they are doing what it is that they are being told to do. When one can’t come up with a satisfying answer, that’s when the authority of the leader will need examining, having their integrity weighed and measured, and considered for rejection/replacement (choice of the follower to defect from that particular dictatorship). The issue these days is that most people have no deep driven reasoning for anything that they are doing on a day to day basis, aside from the usual tendencies towards self-preservation.
No. Some people just don’t want to think about it and just do what they’re told.
What are examples of indignities caused by social hierarchical structures I might experience but dismiss due to habit?
Edit: thanks, all! Were some examples I thought of before, but many “novel” ones too. Definitely nice to try to be explicit about it, I think
I’m not even an anarchist, but anything and everything related to job hunting, for instance.
love as a market like in dating apps, police, being jobless, having a job, the monetary system, internet providers, housing, politicians idk a lot
That we, the working class, lessen ourselves to labor for the owning class who demands the private ownership over that which we as workers have produced, collectively through our shared labor and community resources, so they can demand a fee before they allow access to its use.
Because of the arbitrary hierarchy that private ownership creates (haves over the have-nots/owning class over working class) those who have-not/ of the working class must suffer indignity where we must pay access for that which we have ourselves collectively produced from those who have never lifted a finger in order to be able to live our life solely because of an arbitrary hierarchy imposed by our system of ownership.
Well put. A nice follow-up to the post, I think. Thanks
school funding coming from property tax
EDIT: I fired that off quick while I was in the middle of something and failed to explain how this acts as a system of oppression and white supremacy. Schools in high income neighborhoods have better schools because they have more access to resources. Properties in good school zones have higher property values because families with the money to buy homes in those neighborhoods want their children to receive a good education. This creates a circular feedback loop in which people who already have access to more resources are more likely to receive a high quality education. The students from lower income school zones are not dumber. They are simply being strangled by a system that wants to gate them from achieving academic and financial success.
If you are American capital is taxed less than labor.
After skimming through the Country section of the Wikipedia article on capital gains tax, it seems that the rate of capital gains tax is commonly lower than that of labour. Quite a few places also had capital gains tax removed in favour of a total tax rate on income + capital gains.
Personally, I think it’s important to tax capital gains closer to labour tax rates, to better distribute wealth. But a more efficient way is maybe by wealth tax. I would even consider lowering taxes on businesses for a wealth tax (as to not cause exodus of the rich - the point is not to get rid of them, just their massive wealth and means of hoarding too much).
How do you calculate “wealth”? It’s obviously not impossible, but it’s easier for billionaires to game their wealth then it is capital gains.
Tax capital gains much more than labor and tax loans on capital and a wealth tax will eventually be redundant. I do think either way we will need a one time wealth tax to redistribute capital.
We do not need the rich, the point is to get rid of them. Rent seekers and money changers aren’t a necessary part of the economy and there is no legitimate reason to keep them.
I am far from an expert in the practical aspects of calculating wealth, but seems doable by the fact that wealth tax exists in countries today.
I too think it would be nice to tax capital gains higher than labour, but I am unsure how it would impact pension savers - both those who save by owning a home and those who invest in equities and bonds. I think I could only accept a very high capital gains tax if state funded retirement would cover full costs of living in cities, and reasonable lower bounds on retirement age. But this seems impossible with large shares of private ownership of homes in cities - they would likely be able to charge exorbitant prices for living if every old person had a comfortable pension. So I guess we shouldn’t have private ownership of homes. But I dunno.
Speaking of a one time wealth tax, would a 100% inheritance tax accomplish what you want? Just curious about how you see the redistribution of wealth happening, as I am myself unsure how it should happen in practice.
When you say we don’t need the rich, do you mean that we don’t need those particular individuals, or that we don’t need them having their wealth? Is getting rid of them achievable by getting rid of their wealth and the means to hoard?
Its all hypothetical of course, but if you had the support for a 100% inheritance tax, you likely have the support for like a 99% wealth tax for anyone over 100M.
Either one require a peoples revolution in my opinion, as were currently going the opposite way.
I am saying we don’t need wealth hoarders, we could effectively ban anyone having over $50M and everything would keep on working fine. In fact things would almost certainly be better.
I am of the mind that we tax regular corporations much higher than co-ops to try to push every business towards mostly employee ownership.
I disagree with the consumption of (Etc) because the excess of the capitalism of the branch of “something” that I guess is some other stuff is just as bad and eh… something something…. As a branch of anarchism and given the whole subversion of the last ism branch means the loss of the whole other ism branch…
The point is no one should have a valid point. Even if you can see a path forward your likely not liberal enough to achieve it…
Fuck you! DRINK MORRE ALCHOHOL YOU NIRVANASSIST!!!
BLAH, BLAH, blah, belch.
Most criticism of left stuff comes down to ‘but what im doing is so hard. Everything must suck qe much as thism jot this though. How dare you critique this!’
yea authoritarian mindset reproduces itself that way
“Better the devil you know, than the devil you don’t know” as they say.
just say: “What are taxes⸮”
and it all answers itself
