How would the NAACP respond if a politician or other public figure had said this about all black people?
Recently, US Representative John Boehner (R-OH) odiously mischaracterized anarchist philosophy and painted an inaccurate portrait of its core values, saying that at Tea Party events there are “Always a couple of anarchists who want to kill all of us in public office.” Anarchism is an ideology based on individual freedom and opposition to institutionalized aggression, not on some insane love of public mayhem.
Yes, when people hear the word “anarchist” their neurons start firing on images of Molotov cocktail-wielding, black bandanna-wearing street fighters at G20.
That impression is more a product of 200 years of Boehner-style smear rhetoric than an accurate perception of what anarchism means or what anarchists do. It’s on par with any other stereotype — the “lazy/violent Negro” used to justify Jim Crow, the “potential pedophile” trotted out to support discrimination against homosexuals and other sexual minorities, the hopped-up robber or rapist offered up as justification for the war on drugs.
Yes, there are violent and insurrectionary anarchists, just as there are people who resemble those other stereotypes. No, those particular people are not representative of this diverse movement any more than those other stereotypes are representative of African-Americans, LGBTQ persons, or recreational drugs users.
I’ve attended Tea Parties as an anarchist because I’m a sincere libertarian who cares about limiting the power, scope, and size of government and fighting its unjustified intrusion upon the lives of peaceful individuals. Many of of my fellow Tea Party attendees intuitively and intellectually grasp the danger of the unlimited state and seek to reduce its influence over their personal lives. Anarchism is a radical extension of that reasonable impulse, not the nihilist tantrum that Boehner makes it out to be.
At Tea Party events, I like to ask questions of people who care about limiting governments.
How is land is justly acquired? Most people accept homesteading, occupancy and use as appropriate justification to call a parcel of land one’s own.
In reply, I note that the state homesteads nothing, produces nothing, but merely draws a political boundary and declares that if one lives within the stated arbitrary geographical area one must buy defense and justice services from its monopolistic organization.
What happens if someone attempts to buy competing services not linked to artificial political borders? Agents of the state will throw that person in a cage (and kill them if they resists).
Market anarchism is such a basic and consistent idea, an idea so in tune with the values professed by the Tea Partiers, that it’s only natural for anarchists to show up and challenge fellow freedom-lovers to adopt it.
I agree that a consistent philosophy which values and respects the peaceful choices of the Tea Partiers and their neighbors is indeed a threat to Boehner and his ilk, but not a threat of the type he claims. It’s not a death threat, it’s the threat of a pink slip.
Citations to this article:
- Ross Kenyon, Do anarchists at tea parties really want to kill all politicians?, Christian Science Monitor, 30 Aug 2010
Well said Ross, these politicians don’t know where their own heads at, least of all the anarchists if they did they’d get the hell out of that coercive institution called the state and stop supporting it morally and if they can help it financially as well.
He didn’t make a mass generalization though, Ross. He said “Always a few”. And I would appreciate the whole comment he made, to provide context.
Thomas Knapp did substantial editing on this piece. My thanks to him for making it turn out well!
Well, he’s not saying “there are only a few anarchists out of all anarchists who want people dead.”
He’s saying that amongst all the other people at Tea Parties, there are a few anarchists who uniformly DO want people dead.
Do you have proof that it’s not true? I’m not debating that his definition of anarchy may be a little hazy, but have you provided absolute evidence to the contrary of his assertions?
to Page Gerrick —
Just click on the hypertext of “odiously mischaracterized” in Ross’s essay.
If Boehner means that not all anarchists are bad and that most are good people who don’t want to violently kill him and overthrow the state, I’ll eat my hat AND be a monkey’s uncle, at the same time. It seems highly unlikely that he was giving us that much credit.
It is far more probable that he meant there are some violent crazed anarchists amongst the midst of responsible citizens.
Anarchy carries a wide set of beliefs with it. Proudhon’s “property is theft” assertion, urging a society without authority. Kropotkin was an anarcho-communist, anti-statist, anti-authoritarian. Kropotkin proposed a system of economics based on mutual exchanges made in a system of voluntary cooperation. Bakunin was another guy who melded a few different ideals.
It’s easy to get confused
I don’t want to kill all of them, but I wouldn’t try to argue that if they all somehow ascended in some sort of statist Rapture, the world would be worse off.
As far as your experience in Tea Parties go, I agree that anarchists should be going to these and asking questions exactly like the ones you asked. I know that a lot of anarchists can be a bit put-off by all the followers of Palin and Beck, and all the blind patriotism etc. There may be a lot of people there who espouse a sort of conservatism that we don’t care for and often even a handful of actual racists whom we find repugnant, but most of the people have their heart in exactly the right place of personal liberty, but simply haven’t been exposed to\haven’t fully considered real libertarian ideas. A lot of them are baby boomer Republicans who have never really been involved in political activism before but are now awakening to the idea that we are on a course towards fascism, and that it is imperative that they try to do something about that. If the process of awakening a person to the full extent of state tyranny could ever be described as ‘easy’ its a situation like that. Well, easy enough that I’m willing to give it a try next time there’s a tea party event I can attend.
Yes, a wide set of beliefs with sooo much in common! Even the crazed anarchists usually aren’t violent.
What does this have to do with Boehner’s quote or the context you claimed Ross was excluding? Is it Boehner you claim is confused? Are you implying the reason Boehner uses the label “anarchists” to describe violent people is because he has read Proudhon and/or Kropotkin?
There is actually a very long and storied history of anarchists who advocate direct and often times violent action against the state and other systems of domination and exploitation. In fact the advocacy of direct action against the State (as well as a calling into question all statist institutions such as the law and the vote) is a definitive aspect of anarchism. Those who try to reform the state through the state's own institutions are best described as liberals (of at least some species).
How can you be an anarchist if you believe in private property? That's not anarchism. You can't be an anarchist and a capitalist because capitalism is economically coercive. Besides property "rights" are derived from the state and the legal system. Abolish the state, as all anarchists want, and there is no legal system (courts, police, law etc) to enforce the coercive ownership of property. It resolves to the community to decide if someone has the right to possession of a property, and that is collectivism.
[…] Read more: Anarchists at the Tea Parties “Want to Kill us all in Public Office?” […]
We don’t?
(the preceeding comment was intended as satire, perhaps, and the author in no way intends nor advocates harm upon, nor dreams of biting out the throats of, our wonderful politicians and bureaucrats who keep us free. God Bless America)
"In fact the advocacy of direct action against the State (as well as a calling into question all statist institutions such as the law and the vote) is a definitive aspect of anarchism. Those who try to reform the state through the state’s own institutions are best described as liberals (of at least some species)."
Not definitively. It depends on who you're talking about. I've heard reformers called 'reformists' mostly. The only time I hear anarchists (especially anti-propertarians) say the word liberal is when they mean neo-liberal capitalists.
"Abolish the state, as all anarchists want, and there is no legal system (courts, police, law etc) to enforce the coercive ownership of property."
Ultimately one's property ownership does depend on the willingness of your neighbors to respect it. However, if I grow a crop of corn, I'd see no problem using coercion to keep people from stealing it. Would you? If property is acquired through homesteading or occupancy and use, that is seemingly legitimate, and I would join social contracts with others who agreed to respect such ideas. I see no essential conflict between this and a belief that statism is a bad way of solving social problems.
If anyone has a better response, feel free. I'd love to keep the conversation going and learn more!
Great article, Ross. You really nailed it.
I tried outreach to tea partiers online once. I was on the Valley Forge Patriots – Tea Party Conservatives Meetup mailing list until I was kicked out for advocating liberty & tolerance.
Here’s a good sampling of the debates:
http://www.meetup.com/VFP-TeaParty09/messages/8814395/
http://www.meetup.com/VFP-TeaParty09/messages/8812052/
http://www.meetup.com/VFP-TeaParty09/messages/8812152/
http://www.meetup.com/VFP-TeaParty09/messages/8812165/
http://www.meetup.com/VFP-TeaParty09/messages/8751524/
http://www.meetup.com/VFP-TeaParty09/messages/8660373/
http://www.meetup.com/VFP-TeaParty09/messages/8654408/
http://www.meetup.com/VFP-TeaParty09/messages/8496851/
They also believed every goofy email that came down the pike.
Here’s just one:
http://www.meetup.com/VFP-TeaParty09/messages/8675624/
Re: Alun
If Property is a Social Norm, then so is Anti-Property
Alun, that is to me a highly inconsistent viewpoint. Even if I’m willing to accept the following as a true premise, (and to me it does indeed not seem to be all that far off the mark): “You can’t be an anarchist and a capitalist because capitalism is economically coercive. Besides property “rights” are derived from the state and the legal system. Abolish the state, as all anarchists want, and there is no legal system (courts, police, law etc) to enforce the coercive ownership of property.”
This doesn’t follow at all: “It resolves to the community to decide if someone has the right to possession of a property and that is collectivism.” Immediately after the abolition of the state, property rights would be in an amorphous state of being undefined… certainly not in existence, but certainly not naturally abolished either. It would, as you say, be up to the community to decide if someone has the right to possession of a property *or not.* It would be no less a form of collectivism to say that the community would automatically assume property does not exist, and then have that collective enforce that social norm.
Following up on Ross’s response, how is it non-coercive to say to the farmer “that grain you grew is as much mine as it is yours.” I understand that you might structure an economy so that such concepts of ownership are outdated, but such a structure of an economy implies a coercion, an elimination of choice, a prohibition of capitalistic systems that free individuals might choose to participate in.
True anarchy is neither propertarian or anti-propertarian. It is neutral on that question, leaving it up to individuals free from state control.
Re: Micah
I recently wrote an essay about one Severino di Giovanni, an Italian-Argentine anarchist who carried out a prominent terrorist bombing campaign in the late 1920s and early 1930s. At the time he initiated his campaign, Argentina was as much of a liberal democracy as has ever existed in South America. His home land of Italy, however, had come under the rule of Mussolini, forcing him to flee to Argentina, and he feared the same thing would happen in his adopted homeland. The native Argentine anarchists, and many other anarchist immigrants from nations not under fascism, strongly condemned his campaign of terror, arguing instead for anarchy through education, mutual aid, and the press. My argument is that anarchists tend to take a long-term view on the revolution and are generally not incited towards violence as long as they believe that they have some sort of alternative means of spreading their views, i.e. the press, and as long as that means appears to have a good chance of success in the long-run. Only once it appears that tyranny is on the verge of a complete victory over anarchist thought, do they turn to violence. I’m not even making the stronger claim that they *should* turn to violence at that point, merely that they do.
Direct action /= violence as well. You can strive to reject participation in the state system (political reform), as I do, without resorting to violence.
I should also mention that just because I say “True anarchy is neither propertarian or anti-propertarian” doesn’t mean that I think you should discontinue your advocacy of anti-propertarian philosophy, on the off chance the state falls tomorrow, there would be a compeititon between your ideas and my propertarian ideas. I just ask that you not ask me to discontinue my advocacy of property.
I advocate the abolition of the state. I’m an anarchist. Trying to say I’m not a true anarchist because I don’t agree with your vision of how society would work after the collapse of the state is not only unreasonable, its willful ignorance designed to put down my arguments without actually having to address them.
Andrew:
I wish i was better equipped with knowledge to make these points to you (i only tacitly understand some of these histories) but i recently heard someone arguing the point that capitalism, as a theory of practice, has always been historically embedded in the state and therefor cannot simply be seperated from 'the state' (i.e. there's never been a 'non-state capitalism', while there have been functioning 'anarchic' societies of various degrees). Even in the days of Adam Smith, capitalism was not really just the idealized mom and pop shops. In it's myriad forms, it could also be argued, the structures of the state are also what allows for the codification of private property and its enforcement over large territories. Not that there is no 'property' without the state, just that it takes much more of the shape that RanDomino suggested, a non-codified and malleable form. There have also been quite a few critiques on how the wage-relationship system (pretty key to capitalism) is inherently oppressive, and i've never met an anarchist that was ok with oppression. It can also be argued that all anarchists, from the inception of 'anarchist thought', have explicitly rejected capitalism as a part of that thought (though, not the entire idea of markets, which does not equal capitalism, see Proudhon for instance). From Proudhon to Tucker to Kropotkin and on and on, all the way until we hit Murray Rothbard claiming the names of 'Libertarian' and 'Anarchist' in what could be conjectured as highly simplistic and partly hollow forms of their former meanings.
Anarchism isn’t “neutral” on the topic of property, it has a different definition. Capitalism recognizes property based on title, the idea that there’s a legally-recognized document that certifies that a person is the owner of a piece of property (based on nothing more than that document- an inherently authoritarian system). Anarchist property is based on use, not title; if you grow some corn and intend to eat it, it’s your corn. If you grow some corn and intend to throw it on the ground, that’s up to you, too, as long as you don’t bother anyone else about it. Enforcement is handled by the community. I think we just say, “Down with property!” because this “anti-property” stance is simply human nature. Use-based ownership is so obvious and fundamental that we don’t even need to name it to do it.
If that is the socialist anarchist perspective on property, why do we spend time creating schisms amongst ourselves? It doesn’t sound like we’re arguing about much at all.
There are some problems with occupancy and use (homesteading has problems too), but what if I build a house and someone comes and starts living in it because I was somewhere else for a week/month/year? How does O&U deal with this? I’ve been struggling with that.
RanDomino:
So you would agree, then, that just because I advocate a form of personal property and a free market economy – *outside of state authority* – that does not disqualify me from being a “real anarchist?”
Anarcho-capitalists don’t advocate a statist capitalist system. I don’t see what the Left finds so hard to understand about this. Ross, I agree completely… that’s why I spend a lot of my time trying to heal a schism that seems to me to not be a disagreement but a misunderstanding.
As for the question you pose regarding O&U and squatters, I also think that’s an interesting scenario. I don’t think that it is unreasonable to say that if a property owner has little use for the property he owns, and therefore decides not to defend that property in some way against use by others, thats a legitimate abandonment of property and anyone else should feel free to claim it. The point at which the abandonment period is reasonable (if I leave my house for a week, I shouldn’t expect to come back and find it lived in and owned by someone else) would simply be determined by free market arbitration\justice services. If I leave my house with all my personal possessions in it for a week, then that house is mine and would be found to be mine by a neutral third-party. If, however, I skip town with all my possessions and merely expect that someday I might return to resume the benefits of owning that property, the expectation that the property will remain mine (unless I contract with someone to live in\protect the home in my stead) is a false one.
I’m familiar with those historical arguments and I find they have a lot of merit. This is why I dislike the word capitalism as a word to describe what I advocate, because it is by definition not statist. If your definition of capitalist is statist; and I’m an anti-statist and a capitalist, please consider that perhaps this does not mean that I am in reality a statist, but rather that I am not a capitalist as you conceive of it.
I would disagree that there has never been a non-state capitalism, or a true free market. The Wild West, mises.org/journals/jls/3_1/3_1_2.pdf; early Pennsylvania colony… in any case I agree that capitalism is very closely linked to the state. I think it will be very difficult to topple the state and have a voluntary market while we’re still on this planet, and if this does happen, free market capitalism will be very different from capitalism as we know it. For example, I would agree that the wage work system is rather oppressive, especially as long as there are no free alternatives to it (and that, I think, is the root of its definition as oppressive) and that in a truly free market, there would exist many alternatives, and I really do think that it is very likely that it would be characterized by contractor-entrepreneur relationships, not wage-worker\capital-owner relationships. The state creates an artificial scarcity of capital and concentrates it in the hands of elites… without the state and this concentration of capital we would see something much more like the mom-and-pop fantasy that never existed. There is a fundamental flaw with capitalism, and it is the state. Remove the state, and you have the free market, the best damn system of coordinating the action of free individuals there is.
If a ‘free market’ does exist, then it is not capitalism. Capitalism is a historically situated concept, one which has historically been utterly intertwined with the rise of the modern state, and this is a history which should not be forgotten or confused. Markets existed before the rise of capitalism, and they existed along side other forms of economy (Polanyi, for instance, postulated four types of social patterns matched with four types of behavioral principals, the patterns being symmetry, centricity, autarky, and market, matched in order with reciprocity, redistribution, householding, and exchange). I’m not disagreeing with you in your idea that ‘actually free markets’ could (<emphasis on that qualifier) be beneficial to us all. if we can find a way to maintain 'actually free markets' while allowing for gift economies or other modes of distribution, and also without the violence that was neccesary to colonize the 'wild west' for instance (please don't forget that 'we' exterminated over 95% of the indigenous population residing in what is now called the 'continental united states', quite a large portion of which we did kill AFTER the british left, AFTER we crossed the Appalachian chain in the push westward in the, in your so-called 'wild-west'. That annoying yellow ribbon that people use to symbolize 'the troops' were originally scarfs that the us calvary wore while shooting the native americans during that time. And i highly doubt that any of the 'natives' really wanted Mises market, they would have likely preferred survival). But a big part of my point, is that the concept of 'capitalism' does not mean 'free market', neither etymologically nor historically. It is not my definition of capitalism that invokes the state, it is any realistic and historically sound definition that invokes the state.
now that i think about it, there was a good article follow by a decent discussion about just this the other day on this very website
http://c4ss.org/content/3202?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+c4ss+%28Center+for+a+Stateless+Society%29
the article is by Kevin Carson, who advocates for the ‘free market’ but strongly rejects that this would be anything like capitalism. Another author i appreciate that discusses non-capitalist ‘actual free markets’ can be found here
http://libertarian-labyrinth.blogspot.com/
All labels are subjective ("anarchist", "libertarian", "socialist", "communist", "capitalist", etc.) and are therefore meaningless. If you have time to communicate your ideas, a label serves no purpose (except to get attention) and, if you don't have time, a label is usually worse than meaningless (since the listener will use their subjective interpretation of the label to determine what they think you believe).
I am constantly amazed at how attached people become to labels (especially when the attached is a self-described anarchist). Everywhere I go, I see people arguing about what this or that label means even though I have never seen someone change their interpretation of a label based on someone else's interpretation of the same label. Maybe that time would be better spent trying to show people who still believe the state is legitimate that it is not instead of trying to convince someone who already knows the state is illegitimate that they're using the wrong definition of "socialism" or "capitalism".
Did you build the house with your labor and resources? If so, that is not the same as arbitrarily claiming a piece of land as your own, putting a fence around it and leaving. In that case, if someone came along and "claimed" your house because you hadn't been there in a couple months, they would be stealing a product of your labor.
nothing is totally subjective, just as nothing is totally objective. all of you ideas exist within the context of the idea's of others. that's not to say that you don't have any original ideas, but that all you original ideas are and have been influenced by your interactions and discussions with others throughout the time before said idea. and we use words to convey all of those said ideas. hence, what you actually mean when you say "x" "y" or "z" does actually matter. so even though the content of what you mean is important for a more thorough discussion, the actual words are important in order to have said discussion.
i was attempting to shine a light on what i see to be a flaw in any attempt to have discussions with 'radical capitalists', the flaw being that the later half of the term seems to be lacking in it's historic content, making it impossible to have conversations that go anywhere with people coming from other perspectives. i thought it it would be appreciated, considering that only one or two messages above my own was a surprised response to the differeing notions conjured up by the term 'property' between different perspectives. perhaps i was wrong
To be candid, Ross, if every member of Congress were dying in a fire, I wouldn't piss on any of them to save their lives. The same goes for every pig in every police department and every bureau-rat in every government agency.
The average Congress critter is a parasite who has a net worth of $2 million while the average American makes $42,000 a year and has a negative net worth, being upside down on their car payments, mortgage, and student loan obligations. If Boehner were attacked by a mob at his office, dragged out on the street, eviscerated, and hung from a lamppost by his entrails, I would not involve myself. But I would laugh.
If both people in a "transaction" do not believe in rights, no "free exchange" is possible. Without "free exchange" Capitalism is not possible. Capitalism depends on rights. It is the only system that does. Nowhere has Capitalism existed without Socialism. Economic problems caused by Socialism in this mixture are blamed on Capitalism. Most people who believe in Socialism refuse to believe their system could be responsible. Socialism is like religion in this respect. A superstitious person is usually not open to verbal proof (argument). But they can be convinced by a living, working example. When a person directly benefits from the system he fears and directly suffers from the system he adores, it is a powerful teacher.
Frank: “…how attached people become to labels…”? Those “labels” are concepts. We use concepts to think. Without them no communication is possible. However, I have seen people who are in agreement argue because they did not get the definition of their terms clear from the beginning. Socialism and Capitalism are two terms (ideas) (labels) (concepts) that are used without definition causing useless and endless arguments.
The characterization of Anarchists by a statist as being a violent group and therefore bad is ironic. One should turn the focus back on the statist by asking: “Like you?” If Boehner should reply: “Oh, no, I am not violent”, he can be exposed as the hypocrite he is.
[…] Christian Science Monitor has informed us that it intends to publish Ross Kenyon’s “Anarchists at the Tea Parties ‘Want to Kill us all in Public Office?’” in its web edition on […]