In my recent post, Libertarian Social Democracy: The Structure of a Free Society, I stated that I no longer self-identify as an "anarchist" and explained the reasons why. In this post, I will be recapping some of the points I covered there, and elaborating a little more on certain points.
For quite a while, I have been interested in tax reform, basic income, ranked-choice voting, delegative democracy, and other such ideas. I have also been interested in monetary reform. I'm fascinated by social credit, mutual banking, crypto-currencies and such. Although the analysis of Pierre-Joseph Proudhon is the philosophical basis for my attraction to such reforms, it really does seem that much of the reforms that interest me would require something akin to a State.
In addition to this, my theory of ethics has changed quite a bit over time. I had started out with a theory of ethics based in Vaishnavism and Christianity. I believed in natural law, created by the Supreme Godhead. This gave me a basis for believing in categorical imperatives.
"Categorical imperative,..., a moral law that is unconditional or absolute for all agents, the validity or claim of which does not depend on any ulterior motive or end. 'Thou shalt not steal,' for example, is categorical as distinct from the hypothetical imperatives associated with desire, such as 'Do not steal if you want to be popular.'"(Encyclopedia Britannica)
I believed that moral rules were derived from either divine decree or the will of God. Ultimately, I came to reject the religious ideas behind this belief. I now embrace the critical rationalism of Karl Popper, which holds that all knowledge is merely conjectural and recognizes human fallibility. I also believe in the Darwinian theory of evolution and adhere to Darwinian natural law theory. On top of this, I do not believe in the fact/value dichotomy proposed by classical philosophy, instead I'm now following in the footsteps of Hilary Putnam. My views on ethics are laid out in my 3-part series on ethics. The conclusion that I ultimately reached is that all moral imperatives are hypothetical imperatives rather than categorical imperatives. This means that whether or not the existence of the State is justified really isn't as simple as I once thought. From a religious perspective, I could point to the moral absolutes or categorical imperatives in God's law―don't kill, don't steal, don't kidnap, etc.―point out that the State exists only by doing these things―war is murder, taxation is theft, arrest and conscription are kidnapping, etc. From the religious perspective, anarchism was the only logical conclusion. The State is immoral in the very nature of the case. My current perspective, however, is not so simple. I view the goal of ethics as maximizing well-being and happiness. It seems to me that a land value tax (LVT), along Georgist lines, combined with a universal basic income (UBI) would eliminate most inequality and tend to maximize human happiness. And I believe such an arrangement would do more to maximize human well-being than free-association, participatory decision-making, consensus processes, or communist anarchist arrangements would. Given my current stance on ethics, libertarian social democracy with LVT and UBI, alongside universal health insurance, et al. would actually be preferable to pure anarchism in many ways.
In order to have LVT and UBI, you must have a monetary system. Having read David Graeber, John Maynard Keynes, and others, I truly believe that something akin to the State is necessary for a monetary system to function well. And LVT and UBI would be useless in a poorly functioning monetary system.
I also believe that there are certain regulatory functions of the State that are beneficial. Prior to the EPA and other regulatory agencies, major cities in American had a terrible problem with smog and pollution. Prior to the regulatory State, wages were dreadfully low and working conditions were extremely harsh and dangerous. OSHA is a beneficial regulatory agency.
It could be argued that my current position is compatible with anarchism. There are precedents for my position in Noam Chomsky, David Graeber, Murray Bookchin, and other anarchist writers. There is no doubt that I am, in some sense, still an anarchist. However, the sense in which I am an anarchist is a sense in which virtually all non-fascists are anarchists without realizing it. Consequently, I think it would be intellectually dishonest to continue to identify as an anarchist. While I do derive inspiration from anarchist writers, I don't think I can really identify with anarchism anymore.
The flag below represents my current political position. It is similar to the anarchist social democracy flag that I used to use, only the anarcho-syndicalist flag has been swapped for an orange and blue flag. The orange represents mutualism or market-socialism, and the blue represents peace, stability, and transhumanism. As with the original flag that I made, the dog is the "hound of distributism," the rose is the symbol of social democracy, and the globe represents geosim (Georgism) and ecology.
I understand where you are coming from. I always identified anarchism as a vague compass direction rather than a strict dogma. When that direction faces an obstacle, some veer around either to the left or to the right, whilst others give up claiming the obstacle insurmountable. Yet others come along and find a way through the obstacle, effectively changing the game. My point is that to get from where we are now, to achieving actual anarchism, might not involve simply giving up democratic control of the state and letting corporations and rich institutions to control everything. In fact, I am pretty sure it doesn't involve that. In fact, if global anarchism is actually achievable, dismantling the state might only come after it has already been rendered redundant. To do that, global access to healthcare, basic food and shelter, care for disabled/elderly would already need to be organised privately. Simply cutting government support hoping it all works out is psychopathy, not anarchism.
Really? I thought anarchism was the opposite of psychopathy since the psychopaths are usually in the government or controlling them behind the scenes.
Well said
This is a great post and essentially summarizes my constantly changing thoughts on these topics. Combining pieces of all the ideas in the "anarchism universe" will get us to a better place.....eventually. [fingers crossed]
nice post
Keep working, stop paying.
But why is the rose on fire?
The hound of distributism carries a torch, to symbolize spreading the message of distributism like spreading fire. So the hound is now spreading the light of social democracy and distributism both.
It's pretty dense. Thanks.