Anarchy Against Capitalism
Both market capitalism and Marxism are deeply flawed systems. There is
an alternative to both: Anarchism. Anarchism is the belief that capitalism,
the state and all other forms of hierarchy should be abolished. It has nothing
to do with chaos. Instead, we should have a society in which everyone has
control over their own life and an equal say in all decisions that involve
them. Unlike capitalists and Marxists, Anarchists have never imposed dictatorship
and mass murder on anyone.
Most authoritarians will automatically claim that Anarchism “won’t work”
because of some “human nature.” The same thing was said about representative
government several centuries ago. This claim has been disproven by real-life
experiments with Anarchist ideas. In 1918, Anarchists in Ukraine revolted
against their capitalist masters and set up a successful Anarchist society,
which lasted for several years before the Marxist regime in Russia used
its superior resources to conquer Ukraine. In the 1930s, Anarchists in Spain
did the same thing. There have also been many agrarian and hunter-gatherer
societies that were Anarchist or quasi-Anarchist and lasted for thousands
of years.
There is more freedom in any moderately de-Stalinized dictatorship than
there is in the average workplace. Most companies have a basically totalitarian
power structure. Those on the top tell those on the bottom what to do, and
they have to obey. There are no elections, no consensus, no voting. You
dont get to elect your boss. You just do what she or he tells you to do.
While there may be some consultation between top and bottom, the same can
be said of any slave society. If the government were run like a business,
it would be called totalitarian. This economic totalitarianism is blatantly
anti-freedom; workplaces should be run in a non-hierarchical, democratic
manner by the people working in them. The bosses have no right to control
our lives.
The capitalist idea that the best way to defend freedom is to defend private
property is laughable. Private property, owning things that you personally
don’t use (like factories & large tracts of land), is a restriction
on freedom. If I try to build a house on some land which no one else is
going to use but is owned by someone other than me, then the owner can call
the cops and have them coerce me into stopping. If someone isnt going to
use something then someone who wants to use it should be able to do so free
of charge. When property is used to control others, it has nothing to do
with freedom; it is the very opposite of freedom.
The claim that capitalism provides everyone with an equal opportunity to
become rich is a myth. Does anyone really believe that the 200 million children
under five currently suffering from malnutrition because its not profitable
enough for the capitalists to feed them have an equal shot at becoming a
billionaire as someone whose parents are billionaires? It is extremely difficult
for someone born into poverty to rise all the way to the top. It is easy
for someone born at the top to stay at the top. The nature of any class
system is that a tiny elite is at the top and the rest are below them. Even
if this myth were true, it still would not justify the economic tyranny that
is capitalism. If it was possible for someone in a totalitarian Marxist state
to go from a position with little or no power to being chief dictator, that
still wouldn’t make totalitarianism acceptable. Similarly, even if it was
possible for someone to rise from the bottom to the top in capitalism, it
is still a totalitarian system and should be condemned for that.
Another myth is that capitalism rewards people on the basis of invention,
innovation and hard work. This is bunk. Actors earn millions more than farmers
despite the fact that what farmers do is way more important. Without food
we’d all die. In a capitalist economy, a billionaire can put his money
in the stock market or a bank account and earn money off the interest without
doing any work at all. The people who already have a lot get more without
having to do any work, yet those who have little must work for it. We are
always paid less than the value of the goods we produce; thats how companies
make their profit. That profit then goes to the owners of the business who
make money without having to actually produce anything. If you believe people
should be rewarded for hard work, then you can’t support capitalism because
it’s based on this parasitic class of owners who make money off of our labor.
Capitalism produces misery all over the world. Billions live in poverty
despite the huge amount of wealth that has been created. This system is simply
unacceptable; it must be overthrown. You dont need to believe in Marxist
pseudo-science to know that capitalism is wrong.