Talk:Criticisms of anarchism

References

Sorry guys, I was trying to add in a couple of edits when I somehow messed up the Sources box and all the sources moved into the external links. I really need help.

Never mind guys, I fixed it.

Move discussion in progress

There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:Criticisms of socialism which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. —RM bot 15:04, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

autarchism

Last time I checked this page it was about social anarchism mostly, now it's solely about right-wing libertarianism!

I'm responsible for most of this. The page is about criticizing anarchism (not social anarchism or anarcho-capitalism). Therefore, we only have criticisms that cover anarchism as such here byelf2007 (talk) 1 August 2011

None of these criticisms cover anarchism; they're all targeted at "anarcho"-capitalism. While I don't even regard that as a form of anarchism in the first place, even if it was, it's a minority current.--Life in General (Talk) 12:47, 20 August 2011 (UTC)

I'd like to third these complaints! This article clearly refers to a specific form of 'anarchism' known as anarcho-capitalism and makes no mention of it's distinction from other schools of anarchist theory. I propose these page is renamed as such or that a major overhaul and some actual criticisms are put in their place. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.193.104.228 (talk) 09:26, 23 October 2011 (UTC)

Agreed, even if we pretend that Anarcho-Capitalism is Anarchism, this page still doesn't address any concerns related to the main idea of Anarchism. This entire should probably just be added to the Anarcho-capitalism page, and then removed from here. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.42.118.188 (talk) 16:20, 21 November 2011 (UTC)

It looks like either this was taken directly from the page for criticisms of anarcho-Capitalism or vice versa. In any case, it needs to be either altered to also include criticisms of communist anarchism and mutualism or altered to only include criticisms that cover anarchism as a whole meaning opposition to authority.

I see byelf2007 has done it again. How many times does it need to be pointed out that this article is about criticisms of anarchism, not "anarcho"-capitalism. Byelf2007, don't let your POV about what anarchism "really" is get in the way of your editing. As much as "anarcho"-capitalism bears absolutely no relation to anarchism whatsoever, whenever I edit general articles on anarchism I take into account that a lot of people do regard it as anarchist, and that unfortunately there is no concensus on it not being anarchist. Even within that caveat, it remains a minority current; a current that seems limited mostly to North America (that it receives so much coverage at all is symptomatic of systemic bias). At the moment I'm too busy to fix this article, but I'm definitely going to get around to it once I finish my ongoing work on some other articles. In the meantime, if anyone else can start working on fixing this article, please do.--Life in General (Talk) 00:05, 24 November 2011 (UTC)

Yeah, criticisms of anarcho-capitalism or autarchism or what have you should be moved to articles on those subjects. The way the article is written now is very confusing. 137.165.175.57 (talk) 05:17, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

Claiming that so called 'anarcho-capitalism' (aka so called right-wing 'libertarianism') is anarchism is incoherent and ahistoric, in doing so you disregard most of the history of anarchist thought (including self-described) (approximately 180 years), this article reads like it was written by a person suffering from Dissociative identity disorder. Anarchism and so called 'anarcho-capitalism' are too fundamentally different to be criticised in the same article (at least without substantial explanation given to their difference). 'Anarcho'-capitalism claims to be anti-state, but anything further than the most superficial inquiry reveals that it want's to do away with the bourgeois-democratic two-party political corporate-state-capitalist state and privatise the oppressive functions of the state, the very functions that allow the exploitation of workers by owners and managers who will now be even further integrated and centralised into this command and control structure.Autoarbitaster (talk) 11:39, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

I recommend you take this to talk on the "anarchism" page, where you will find reliable sources which assert the notion that anarchism is variously defined and that it is generally defined in such a way that renders anarcho-capitalism a type of anarchism (regardless of the fact that the vast majority of early self-declared anarchists were social anarchists). Insisting that your opinion is correct without much explaining (other than a couple of brief arguments) doesn't do us much good. Your position has already been covered in this and other articles.

You may very well be correct that anarcho-capitalism should not be considered a school of anarchism and have plenty of good arguments for this position. However, wikipedia is concerned with presenting supermajority views as the truth. It is the currenty supermajority view that anarchism is variously defined and that it is generally defined in such a way that renders anarcho-capitalism a type of anarchism. Until you change enough people's minds about this issue, anarchism will remain generally defined in such a way that renders anarcho-capitalism a type of anarchism. In the meantime, wikipedia must report that this supermajority view is what it is regardless of whether or not that definition of anarchism is correct. Byelf2007 (talk) 26 February 2012

I have to agree with all the other users besides user Byelf2007 who:

1. don´t think "anarcho-capitalism" is a form of anarchism

2. even if we decided to include "anarcho-capitalism" as part of anarchism, we shouldn´t overpriviledge that particular minoritarian viewpoint (both from historical and theorectical points of view) in this article which refers to anarchism as a whole.--Eduen (talk) 20:53, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

Revisions as of 24 November 2011

I've gotten around to fixing this article. Byelf2007, before you revert my edits, please read this. Your claim in one of the edit summaries that "that's what anarchism is--no monopoly on courts/defense. if this didn't apply to social anarchists, they wouldn't be anarchists," demonstrates a lack of understanding of anarchism. I won't even mention my own (much more specific) POV of what constitutes anarchism, I'll focus on the general consensus instead. As per Wikipedia's own page on anarchism, it is defined as a "political philsophy which holds the state to be undesirable, unnecessary, and harmful, or alternatively as opposing authority in the conduct of human relations. Proponents of anarchism (known as "anarchists") advocate stateless societies based on non-hierarchical voluntary associations." Leaving aside the fact that the "non-hierarchical" side of that definition already precludes the possibility of "anarcho"-capitalism being anarchist, that definition already opens the possibility of societies in which arbitration and defence are not run by private firms, but rather by society on a collective, directly-democratic and federated basis.

So the page as your edits have left it only does cover criticisms of anarcho-capitalism, because it only covers criticisms of the idea that "courts/defence" ought to be run privately.

Nonetheless, I've bent over backwards to accommodate you. All of your sections in this article have been retained as subsections under the section "Anarcho-Capitalism," along with one new subsection. All the sections that existed prior to your unilateral revisions are now subsections under "Social Anarchism." I'm afraid the two are often so divergent in their views that finding criticisms of anarchism in general, under the generally agreed upon definition, is almost impossible.--Life in General (Talk) 03:25, 24 November 2011 (UTC)

There are two definitions in the anarchism article. One says its just anti-state and the other says its anti-hierarchy (basically social anarchism). I decided to go with common/primary definition, but, yes, we should also include criticisms of social anarchism since there's a possibility of that being anarchism, whereas no one says anarchism is ancap (I'm also pretty sure there's no "criticisms of social anarchism" article).

I will be making a series of edits and justify them in the edit summaries. If you want to revert them, please do them one at a time, and only after you've explained your position on talk (you haven't attempted to justify the majority of your massive edit and I'm sure I already have a bunch of edit summaries on the changes I've made). byelf2007 (Talk) 24 November 2011

"One says its just anti-state and the other says its anti-hierarchy (basically social anarchism)."

I suspect you really haven´t read any individualist anarchists such as Emile Armand, Benjamin Tucker and others who point out to "authority" as the things anarchism opposes and not just to the state. For the references for this check the introduction to the anarchism article.--Eduen (talk) 20:41, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

Ridiculous

This page in it current form is completely ridiculous. It contains perhaps three lines of anything resembling criticism of anarchism and the rest is a pro-anarchism tract. How could anyone possibly imagine that a statement like "This implementation of Anarchy definitely demonstrates that social anarchism is a realistic and well working alternative to the hierarchy-based forms of social organization." is neutral point of view.

Sensemaker

Neutrality?

I have to question the neutrality of this page. The majority of what's written here is a defense of Anarchism, rather than a legitimate presenation of proper criticisms thereof. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 152.16.51.59 (talk) 20:01, 13 June 2013 (UTC)

I've removed a particularly non-neutral paragraph, but at this rate there will be nothing left in the article... 77.175.87.201 (talk) 07:07, 13 July 2013 (UTC)

It's woefully underdeveloped. Very few non-anarchist streams focus on criticism of anarchism, and as such there is an abundance of anarchist literature and very few that directly addresses this literature. Tinyds (talk) 03:17, 11 October 2018 (UTC)

FAILED: merge to Anarchism

There was a proposal to merge this article into Anarchism. The proposal failed. — Lentower (talk) 02:10, 17 March 2015 (UTC)

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