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Title: Vulgar Anarcho-Communism
Author: Spooky
Date: June 26th, 2020
Language: en
Topics: anarcho-communism, anti-statism, post-left, c4ss
Source: Retrieved on 2020-06-27 from https://c4ss.org/content/53016

Spooky

Vulgar Anarcho-Communism

Radical positions are always a hard sell. To some extent, this is an

inherent aspect of advocating any alternative system of social

organization, instead of just proposing reform and “bipartisan

solutions.” Some, perhaps too many, have attempted to dull the edges of

their political labels by wrapping their ideology in broader language,

using “common sense” rhetoric, and reducing their viewpoints to simple

but incomplete definitions. One of the most successful examples of this

is Noam Chomsky’s definition of anarchism as “opposition to unjustified

hierarchies.” This has persuaded many people who otherwise might never

have investigated these ideas, myself included.

However, by hanging onto such a moderate definition, some people have

effectively created a separate branch of libertarian thought that they

describe as “anarchism,” though their vision of statelessness is notably

distinct. Similar to Kevin Carson’s coinage of “vulgar libertarianism,”

I find it appropriate to think of these people as vulgar

anarcho-communists (or vulgar ancoms as a shorthand); they represent a

strain of leftism which focuses more on broad conceptions of “equality”

and collective ownership rather than embracing the implications of

statelessness.

The most significant issue with this position is an insistence on the

link between anarchism and a monolithic definition of “democracy,”

involving some form of universal consensus or majoritarian

decision-making system that affects every member of a given community or

network. Some adherents advocate for a system of representation

involving “delegates” who bargain, vote, and interact with other

communities in a type of inter-communal congress. This system, to a

disturbing amount of self-proclaimed anarchists, is either not

considered a hierarchy at all or somehow justified due to its

“democratic” nature.

This principle is significant to the point that vulgar anarcho-communism

could adequately be described as a type of minarchism or council

communism. While this isn’t inherently a bad thing, the issue is how the

adherents of this tendency morph the definition of the state to near

unrecognizability. Vulgar ancoms frequently dial back their opposition

to the state, clarifying that they don’t oppose “government,” just “the

state,” by which they generally mean the worst parts of existing nation

states – the police, military, politicians, etc.

They often propose that workers’ councils, communes, or some form of

local municipal government will be the primary unit of organization in a

post-capitalist society. Cops wouldn’t exist, they argue, since without

a state there would be no “police force” in the current sense. Instead,

they claim, defense would be provided by a voluntary community

self-defense team that can be recalled by the community at any time in

the event that their services are no longer satisfactory. The specifics

regarding how these institutions are organized varies widely — some

involving a rotating staff of commune members and others just being a

fixed group of volunteers — but they are almost always described as

being “democratically run” in some sense.

Emerican Johnson’s five-part series “How Would Anarchism Actually Work?”

is a great illustration of this particular vision of “anarchism.” While

I’m not claiming that all anarcho-communists subscribe to Johnson’s

particular view of anarchism, the concepts covered in the series serve

as effective examples of some common “vulgar ancom” perspectives.

Every human being in an anarchistic society will have a right to having

all of their material needs met in full. Food, clothing, shelter,

electricity, running water, internet and health care and so on. In

exchange for having their needs met, individuals must agree to a

reasonable contribution to the commune. It’s important to note that what

constitutes a reasonable contribution will vary from individual to

individual… Ideally, for most folks, this would look something like a 15

to 20 hour workweek that includes labor performed for the commune.

As I said before, this resembles council communism more than it does a

stateless society. Work weeks and “reasonable contributions” of labor

don’t sound like desirable conditions at all, regardless of how such a

decision was reached. Democracy, to vulgar anarcho-communists, is a

means that justifies most ends; if the people vote on a temporary method

of organization, then it has legitimacy. This is shockingly similar to

the means used by right-libertarians to justify “voluntary” employment

contracts that they might otherwise view as coercive, swapping out the

logic of the market with the logic of the democratic process. In some

cases, including Johnson’s, this is used in an attempt to justify

“anarcho”-re-education centers.

… crime in an anarchist society would be seen as ‘treatable,’ a social

problem that would be corrected with rehabilitative measures that are

tailored to each individual’s circumstances… Most crimes would be

addressed through counseling, education, and other such communal

interventions designed to heal the individual and the community. If an

individual’s harmful behavior stems not just from social problems but

from some biological or neurological condition, then they would be

committed to a ‘special circumstances’ hospital, which would cater

specifically to those needs…

My goal in presenting these moments from Johnson’s work is to show where

such a myopic focus on democracy and communist economic relationships

can lead. These vulgar anarcho-communist tendencies appear to be popular

in radical and anti-capitalist spaces, perhaps causing many to think

it’s the predominant strain of libertarian socialism. In part, this is

due to the tactics used by Chomsky and Johnson, pacifying the premise of

the ideology in order to attract moderate onlookers. While appealing to

democracy and anti-capitalism seems to have worked as a PR strategy, the

lack of focus on anti-statism, individual autonomy, and the consistent

rejection of all hierarchies has led to a lot of confusion over what

anarchists actually want.

Attempts at pacifying anti-statism often involve catering to moderates

who insist that we need certain answers to how post-capitalist

infrastructure will function. Unfortunately, this has led many to

dedicate themselves to drawing detailed blueprints of Ancomistan rather

than fully exploring the implications of statelessness. The fact that we

don’t have all the answers to how roads will be built or how video games

will be made isn’t necessarily a weakness. The greatest strengths of a

stateless society lie in its total decentralization, as experiments with

many different types of social institutions and economic arrangements

are made possible in the absence of government mandates that prop up

monolithic systems. Vulgar anarcho-communism completely ignores this

potential in favor of one template that claims to benefit everyone,

despite the sheer impossibility of fulfilling such a promise.

We don’t need to water down our ideals to win favor with fence-sitters.