Anthony Papa discusses the stories of drug war prisoners.

Timothy Karr discusses crony capitalists in Congress.

Kevin Carson discusses so called “free trade” agreements.

Jesse Walker discusses why the U.S. should stay out of Iraq.

Andrew Levine discusses imperial stupidity.

Sheldon Richman discusses the effects of imperialism in the Middle East.

Justin Raimondo discusses how the U.S. government is intervening again in Iraq.

Patrick Cockburn discusses how U.S. attacks will hurt but not defeat jihadists.

The ninth part of George H. Smith’s series on Edmund Burke and Thomas Paine.

Eric Alterman discusses the revisionism of neocons on Iraq.

Robert Parry discusses the surge in Iraq.

Seumas Milne discusses how more U.S. bombs and drones will only add to Iraq’s horror.

Shireen T. Hunter discusses the real culprits in Iraq.

Dahlia S. Wasfi discusses trusting Iraqis with Iraq.

Rob Urie discusses Iraq and the persistence of American hegemony.

Lawrence Davidson discusses the mess in Iraq.

David Swanson discusses the Democratic Party push to bomb Iraq again.

Pepe Escobar discusses the jihadists in Iraq.

Renee Parsons discusses the current situation in Iraq.

John Eskow discusses sending boots to Iraq.

Cory Massimino discusses why Hilary Clinton is a terrorist.

Ariel Dorfman discusses a tale of torture.

Missy Comley Beattie discusses Iraq.

David Gordon reviews Lew Rockwell’s new book on anarcho-capitalism. I am not an ancap, but I find the review interesting.

Eric Margolis discusses the coming American defeat in Iraq.

Ronald Bailey reviews Nicholas Wade’s, A Troublesome Inheritance: Genes, Race, and Human History.

Nebojsa Malic discusses a new forum designed to stop a new Cold War.

Alexander Alekhine defeats K. Iskaov.

Alexander Alekhine beats Fred Dewhirst Yates.

Gus writes:

Non-profits often pad the salaries of their top people, especially big ones. Padded salaries come from shifting resources away from other purposes, like that sheriff in Marion County. Just because something is a nonprofit does not mean those in charge are not greedy. Consider the Komen Foundation and others like it. There is nothing sacred about nonprofits. Some are great and some are corrupt. In addition, where will the non-profits get the money they need? Someone has to pay for them. We are more likely to contribute to causes that support positive goods than ones that incarcerate bad guys.

Gus makes a good point about non-profits here, but there would be competition between non-profit prisons to offer the most humane conditions. I’ve already stated that clients of defense associations would pay for prison expenses. As for people preferring to donate to positive goods rather than the improsinment of bad guys, I’d point out that the humane treatment of bad guys is a positive value. There is also the possibility of error in judging guilt and the positive value of helping innocent people get freed or have comfortable conditions while serving their sentences.

In public prisons in democratic countries if people are incarcerated they retain the rights of citizenship including being able to see an attorney. Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird tells the story of why that matters. In that case the accused ended up with court appointed attorneys. This is something that beggars the imagination happening in a libertarian anarchy. Ron Paul did not even help his most important fund raiser pay his medical bills, and libertarians as a whole raised only 10% of the total needed. His survivors were left with a huge debt. If libertarians cannot help their own people who have rendered them great services, why expect them to help the accused who often are guilty?

Defense associations could provide for competent attorneys in the absence of the ability to hire one. This would be paid for by th clients of said defense associations. As for the lack of charitable giving by libertarians, is that a consequence of libertarian ideology or a reflection of personal characteristics of existing libertarians unrelated to their ideology? I argue it’s the former. The libertarian, Jacob G. Hornberger points out that Americans gave 150 billion dollars to chairty in a year I’ve forgotten. If more of them became libertarian, I see no reason why they wouldn’t retain this charitable sensibility. Steven Horowitz has written about the importance of mutual and so have others like Kevin Carson. There is clearly libertarian support for charitable giving.

Some libertarians such as the one I quote above then shift the ground to ‘restitutive justice.’ I agree that when possible restitutive justice is a good thing and vastly superior to incarceration. We need much more of it. Nevertheless it needs to be enforced with the threat of less desirable punishment if the person does not provide restitution. Further some crimes have little chance for restitution, such as murder. If you claim, as some libertarians do, that they should pay “weregeld” or some other medieval notion, we need to remember that back then the fine for killing the equivalent of a Koch brother was vastly more than for killing a peasant. It would be the same in a libertarian society where ‘the market’ is the final evaluator of worth. Indeed, this happened in the Triangle Shirtwaist fire during a time in our history that libertarians generally praise as superior to our own for ‘freedom’.

House arrest is an alternative to prison for murderers. It has similiarties but isn’t exactly the same. In a left-libertarian market anarchy, there would also be a strong civil society alongside a freed market. The market would not of necessity be the final arbiter of worth.

Gradually this spread of kind of thinking far beyond libertarian circles has encouraged even supporters of public services to think about them in private terms in which citizens become consumers. But whereas the term :citizen” applies to everyone equally, the term “consumer” is the opposite. Everyone is a consumer, but not at all equal even as an ideal. The results are hideous when the logic of consumers and of privatization is applied outside its appropriate sphere.

I am not sure why a consumer is not equal, but a citizen is. There is often differential access to power in statist societies and all citizens are not equal. Is it because there is a difference in money between consumers? There is a difference in power between citizens even with formal equality before the law. Why can’t someone be a citizen and a consumer too?

For libertarians one public value is determining what constitutes property rights. Until they are determined the vaunted libertarian market cannot exist much past the point of barter. Libertarianism is parasitical on government in this respect. It depends on it for the market to work but then claims that government is what keeps the market from working even better.

This assumes that property rights can’t be defined by private defense associations which are community based and thus have equal input. They would only be private in the sense of being non-state or non-government.

Democracy is complicated and never perfect, but it is a vastly more rational way to address problems of public concern than libertarian boilerplate about ‘stateless’ societies existing beyond the level of a village.

Democracy and anarchy are not of necessity mutually exclsuive. As for stateless societies beyond the village level, there are examples like Medieval Iceland that were beyond said level.

In said piece; Gus says:

Privatization of prisons creates corporations with a vested interest in maintaining current crimes as illegal even when there is no just reason for doing so, because it guarantees keeping their cells filled and their profits high. They also have a vested interest in criminalizing additional behavior. They demonstrably use some of their profits to support friendly legislators and lobby for legislation they desire. And their political favors are returned.

We agree on this point. This would be less of a problem in a left-libertarian market anarchist society, because there would be no monopoly state or government to influence. The corporations would have to successfully bribe and get favors from a variety of defense associations. It would require more resources and effort. There would also be countervailing pressure from non-bought defense associations. If in fact said corporations would still exist without state or government favoritism. I doubt they would, because there would be no subsides, regulatory protectionism, tariff walls, and monopolistic state power backing them up.

At the same time since prison inmates are not their customers they have an incentive to spend the absolute minimum allowed on them, so as to keep the most for themselves. My old friend Scott B. observed he had “ learned why the Sheriff of Marion County, Indiana was the highest paid government official in the state. Sheriffs get to keep the difference between the fixed per prisoner allocation and the cost of running the jail.” He became opulent employing modern business management in government agencies.

The next step in this logic will be to force inmates to work at minimum wages to pay their way (so as to ‘help taxpayers’) and charge them for their incarceration. Thus market logic will re-establish slavery in the US. And libertarians will call it freedom and the magic of the market.

In a left-libertarian market anarchist society, prisoners would be able to choose what prison they want to go to. Prisons would compete by offering humane conditions. The clients of defense associations would be paying for prison upkeep, so there would be no forced labor by prisoners to pay their expenses. I can’t speak for other libertarians, but I wouldn’t refer to the slavery mentioned above as freedom.

Setting aside the escape clause of “principled libertarians,” which plays the same role as “real Christians” does for aggressive evangelicals, we end up with an anarchist argument that somehow things will be different without a ‘state.’

What pray tell is a ‘non-state operated’ prison? The writer writes as if such things exist. The closest analogue I can imagine as currently existing are either the private prisons I am discussing or kidnappers incarcerating their prey until ransom is paid. Such people are simply free lance anarcho capitalist entrepreneurs if they claim their victim is being held until restitution for alleged crimes against others. Like seizing Dick Cheney. Much as I think he should spend the rest of his life in jail, that is a very bad precedent as any sane person should recognize.

Principled libertarianism is designed to make sure that people actually representative of genuine libertarian ideology have their arguments addressed. A Nazi could otherwise claim to be libertarian and have libertarian ideas. As for non-state operated prisons, Gus is partially correct to note that “private” prison corporations represent them. I only say partially, because they receive taxpayer dollars and benefit from government or state legislation defining what a crime is. It does show that such things can partially exist, but it’s not the ideal model. The kidnappers example is faulty, because no anarcho-capitalist I know of would advocate that you could forcibly imprison someone without any trial and objective establishment of guilt. What is the difference between a defense association doing this and a government agent doing it? I’d also add that just because something hasn’t existed yet; that doesn’t mean it can’t exist. Democracy was once only an idea and yet is widespread today.

By definition a prison forcibly incarcerates a person against his or her will as punishment for a crime he or she allegedly committed. This means there had to be a system to apprehend a person against their will, take them to some process where their guilt or innocence could be determined, and if found guilty, incarcerated. Otherwise the existence of a ‘prison’ as a legitimate part of society makes no sense at all.

I agree with Gus on this one. I support competing defense associations with prison, judicial, and police services. They would constitute the enforcement arm of a left-libertarian market anarchist legal system.

So long as one uses the Marxist propaganda term “capitalist” (other than in quotes to refer to the term rather than use it) one is surrendering the language to the statists. –Fred Foldvary

Au contraire. Definition: Capitalism is state rule by and for those who own large amounts of capital. Corollary: the purpose of such rule is to restrict innovation, arbitrage and re-allocation of investment, i.e, to eliminate Enterprise (that which entrepreneurs do).

Definition: Free Enterprise is unobstructed, unregulated and unintervened entrepreneurial human action, which, by its nature, cannot have any form of Statism, including Capitalism, present.

Anarcho-Capitalism should mean a social system wherein large holders of capital exist but do not attempt to use the State to capture or maintain their predominance; that’s legitimate if you also accept anarcho-communism to mean a system where Communists do not attempt to create or use a State to have everyone ruled by Communes, and Anarcho-Syndicalism to be distinguished from State Syndicalism (aka Guild Socialism or Fascism) accordingly.

Remember, the term Capitalist was invented as a pejorative by free-market advocate Thomas Hodgskin back in the 1830s and then picked up by Marx (who admired Hodgskin for inventing schools for labourers).

Freely as ever, SEK3 (Samuel Edward Konkin III) [July 24, 2000].

Muita agitação a propósito do ”fim do mundo” precedeu o 21 de dezembro de 2012, final do calendário maia de  “Longa Contagem.” Na China, a data iminente inclusive ocasionou prisões em massa de supostos membros do “culto do dia do Juízo” — provavelmente religiosos comuns ou dissidentes políticos, naturalmente, mas o fato de o regime selecionar essa deixa como sua mais recente justificativa para suas atividades usuais indica que a lenda maia ganhou considerável profundidade em penetração social e de mídia.

Algumas das análises menos bombásticas do fenômeno de “Contagem Longa” observaram que tal contagem não necessariamente significava o fim do mundo, mas apenas o fim de longo período histórico, a ser seguido de um novo paradigma. Pois bem, eu não compro a mitologia maia para qualquer efeito, mas ocorre-me que 2012 pode na verdade ter significado em certa medida um ponto de inflexão.

Este ano, pela primeira vez em minha própria vida e em perto de um século tanto quanto eu saiba, o termo “anarquista” começou a pipocar como mais do que referência marginal em narrativas da mídia convencional. Vinha ganhando terreno na última década ou em torno disso com referências por exemplo aos ativistas do Bloco Preto em manifestações na Organização Mundial do Comércio – OMC/WTO e que tais, mas este ano começou a movimentar-se para o centro do palco.

Quando o estado grego viu-se sitiado e perto de completa desintegração sob o ônus das dívidas de seus políticos, a mídia usou os anarquistas como sua primeira bete noire, sublinhando seu envolvimento nos protestos anti-”austeridade” naquele país.

Em abril, uma das operações de segurança do Bureau Federal de Investigações dos Estados Unidos – FBI (vocês sabem, aquelas nas quais eles incessantemente induzem ameaçadoramente algumas pessoas instáveis para que cometam atos violentos, e em seguida precipitam-se para consertar as coisas quando aquelas pessoas realmente fazem algo errado) apanhou quatro “anarquistas” por eles terem concordado em explodir uma ponte em Ohio. Nada inusitado no tocante à operação em si — o FBI é de longe o mais prolífico grupo de urdidores de atos terroristas do mundo — mas hemos de ter em mente que os “perpetradores” não são selecionados aleatoriamente. O FBI escolheu “anarquistas” porque desejava sublinhar (leia-se: fabricar) uma ameaça específica.

A tendência continuou durante todo o ano, culminando em dezembro quando o Centro Sulista de Direitos dos Pobres – SPLC vasculhou seu chapéu mágico de “mate de medo os  liberais para que eles puxem seus talões de cheque do bolso” e tirou … ruflar de tambores, por favor …“anarcocapitalistas.”

Para aqueles não familiarizados com a terminologia, “anarcocapitalistas” são irmãos de criação de mente levemente atrapalhada dos anarquistas de mercado (levemente atrapalhada porque identificam “capitalismo” com livres mercados, incorretamente situando-se na “direita” — isto é, na extremidade errada — do espectro político esquerda-direita).

As tentativas do SPLC, com algum sucesso (devido principalmente à estragégia eleitoral de mente curta “populista de direita” deflagrada nos anos 1980 e início dos 1990 pelos “anarcocapitalistas” Murray N. Rothbard e Lew Rockwell, em conluio com o político conservador Ron Paul), de vincular os “anarcocapitalistas” com o movimento direitista “Patriota.”

O interessante no atinente ao jogo de medo do SPLC não é essa conexão, por mais tênue, existir. É o SPLC entender que pode com eficácia agitar a bandeira preta anarquista como camisa ensanguentada para conseguir levantamento de fundos.

Para usar expressão da inteligência militar, isso é conhecido como “Indicador de Atividade do Inimigo.” A seleção do SPLC de bichos-papões levantadores de fundos usualmente se faz em compasso com — por vezes um pouco antes ou um pouco depois, mas nas mesmas áreas gerais que — o próprio cartaz de anúncio de peça teatral de segurança do estado. E prefere fazer-se um pouco antes, para poder declarar situação de “canário na mina de carvão” quando o próximo Grande Pavor eclodir.

É difícil dizer se 2012 foi indicador de anarquismo realmente aumentando, ou da intenção do estado de usar o anarquismo como desculpa para seu próximo “grande impulso” rumo ao totalitarismo. Se eu tivesse de adivinhar, diria que a resposta é um pouco muito de ambos … e que esses fenômenos tendem a alimentar-se mutuamente.

Com 365 anos de idade, a nação-estado westfaliana está-se desfazendo nas costuras e despedaçando-se em seu cerne. Cada dia torna-se mais claro que o estado tal como o conhecemos não pode competir bem-sucedidamente com as redes não estatistas que hoje funcionam em todo setor político e econômico no mundo inteiro. A sociedade sem estado não está apenas revelando-se cada vez mais viável teoricamente, como está surgindo abertamente como paradigma do próximo longo ciclo histórico.

Obervem, para ver tempos interessantes.

Artigo original afixado por Thomas L. Knapp em 26 de dezembro de 2012.

Traduzido do inglês por Murilo Otávio Rodrigues Paes Leme.

Some of the less bombastic analyses of the “Long Count” phenomenon noted that it didn’t necessarily mean the end of the world, but merely the end of a long historical cycle, to be followed by a new paradigm. Now, I don’t buy into the Mayan mythology for any purposes, but it occurs to me that 2012 may indeed have been a turning point of sorts.

This year, for the first time in my own life and  in a nearly century or so so far as I know, the term “anarchist” started popping up as more than an aside in conventional media narratives. It’s been gaining ground for the last decade or so with e.g. references to Black Bloc activists at WTO demonstrations and such, but this year it began to move toward center stage.

As the Greek state found itself besieged and nearing complete disintegration under the burden of its politicians’ debts, the media used anarchists as their first bete noire, highlighting their involvement in that country’s counter-“austerity” protests.

In April, one of the US Federal Bureau of Investigation’s security operations (you know, the ones where they incessantly hector a few unstable people to commit violent acts, then swoop in to save the day when they finally get a bite) netted four “anarchists” for agreeing to blow up a bridge in Ohio. Nothing unusual about the operation per se — the FBI is by far the most prolific group of terrorist plotters in the world — but we must keep in mind that the “perpetrators” aren’t randomly picked. The FBI chose “anarchists” because they wanted to highlight (read: manufacture) a particular threat.

The trend continued all year long, culminating in December when the Southern Poverty Law Center reached into its magical “scare the bejabbers out of liberals so they pull out their checkbooks” hat and pulled out … drum roll, please … “anarcho-capitalists.”

For those unfamiliar with the terminology, “anarcho-capitalists” are the slightly addled step-siblings of market anarchists (slightly addled because they conflate “capitalism” with free markets, incorrectly positioning themselves on the “right” — that is, the wrong — end of the left-right political spectrum).

The SPLC attempts, with some success (mostly due to a hare-brained “right populist” electoral strategy launched back in the late 1980s and early 1990s by “anarcho-capitalists” Murray N. Rothbard and Lew Rockwell, in collusion with conservative politician Ron Paul), to link “anarcho-capitalists” with the right-wing “Patriot” movement.

What’s interesting about the SPLC’s scare play is not that the connection, however tenuous, exists. It’s that SPLC thinks it can effectually wave the anarchist black flag as a bloody fundraising shirt.

To grab a military intelligence term, this is what’s known as an “Enemy Activity Indicator.” SPLC’s selection of fundraising hobgoblins usually runs in tandem with — sometimes a little ahead or a little behind, but in the same general areas as — the state’s own security theater playbill. And they prefer to run a little ahead so that they can claim “canary in the coal mine” status when the next Big Scare cranks up.

It’s hard to say whether 2012 was an indicator of actually surging anarchism, or of the state’s intent to use anarchism as the excuse for its next “big push” toward totalitarianism. If I had to guess, I’d say the answer is a little big of both … and that these phenomena tend to fuel each other.

At 365 years of age, the Westphalian nation-state is fraying around the edges and brittle at its core. Every day, it becomes more clear that the state as we know it cannot successfully compete with the non-state networks now operating in every political and economic sector worldwide. The stateless society isn’t just looking more and more theoretically viable, it is openly emerging as the paradigm of the next long historical cycle.

Stand by for interesting times.

Translations for this article:

• Portuguese, 2012: Talvez os Maias Estivessem Certos.

Oscar Wilde, a brilliant libertarian mind, made an art of producing sketches of complacent vacuity (“I love talking about nothing. It is the only thing I know anything about.”) and humorous judgments about the virtue of vice (“Moderation is a fatal thing. Nothing succeeds like excess.”). In the context of political thought, there is one idea more than any other that can boast of many witty aphorisms: anarchism. This must be said in praise of anarchist thinkers, who are able to condense knowledge and principles in formulas that taking up little space, produce much delight: “Anarchy is order” – for example.

That motto, the relish of which is in the apparent paradox, is by the man who first dared call himself ‘anarchist’ in a positive sense, specifically Pierre J. Proudhon. Who does not know the slogan, also by the typesetter from  Becancon: “Property is Theft”? The phrase is delicious, in fact, without doubt, it’s short and contains a dose of truth that goes from half a unit to one and a half.

To the disgrace of anarchists however, it must be said that very often they know no more than the aphorisms of their authors. So there are self-styled anarchist partisans, who despite being almost literate, are convinced that Proudhon was opposed to free trade. Some others, able to add two plus two, know that twenty five years after having given to history and T-shirt manufacturers that motto, the Frenchman came along with a powerful defense of private property. The latter, armed with such rudimentary knowledge, are the architects of that harebrained theory whereby there would be two Proudhon’s, one opposed against the other, corresponding to the young anti-proprietarian and the mature free-trader.

These people may well speak with the character from Wilde’s aphorism, the one who loves to talk about nothing, because it’s the only thing he knows anything about. Patience. If they had taken the trouble to read a few more lines they would have understood that in 1840 [1] the author responded to the question “What is property?” and acted as an earnest theorist of natural law, denying by its very nature the idea that this was a natural  right, concluding that it was instead an act of abuse and a pillar of exploitation. In 1865 [2] there was not a change of perspective, but one of method. In his own words:

The only thing we know about property and for which we can distinguish it from ownership is that it is absolute and abusive; very well: precisely in its absolutism and its abuse, to say nothing worse, that we must seek its own ends.[3]

“Must seek its own ends.” The approach is no longer ontological, but utilitarian. Since the State, the second and the largest pillar of exploitation, is even more abusive, the full sovereignty that the individual has over a piece of property, may play for him a defensive role. Property is a counterweight to the abuse of the state. Proudhon in fact, had already identified well in advance the risks associated with a complete abolition of private property. That’s all. He even anticipated Ludwig Von Mises in highlighting that without a free market it was impossible to define the value of goods and ensure their allocation, all issues over which any attempt to question the devotees of the aphorisms, obtains a change of subject, perhaps another aphorism. There are people who confuse the free market with capitalism.

Those same people that are appalled with this defense of property as an anti-state argument, are not bothered at all when some anarchist comes in defense of the state as a function of an anti-capitalist agent, as championed by some of the stars of international anarchism like Noam Chomsky [4] or Hakim Bey. [5] The idea that in addition to a liberal and a socialist one, there exists an anarchism with a statist soul is a new acquirement, and a concept that as well as being better tolerated than propertarianism, also enjoys the merit of originality.

Another formula of success is owed to Mikhail Bakunin and relates to the precarious balance in which the first two principles of the revolutionary triad, Liberty, Equality and Fraternity prove to be, since the great Mother of the Enlightenment gave birth to her three bastard children: liberalism, socialism and anarchism. The Russian says:

Freedom without socialism leads to privilege, to injustice, and socialism without freedom leads to slavery and brutality.

Hard to blame him. Between Marxist promises of a farewell to the realm of necessity and capitalist pledges of an always better distributed freedom, the only prophecy that has been fulfilled is this one by the Russian anarchist. However, if you think about it, you understand how this balance is maintained, and it is necessary to presuppose what Rocker called “voluntary socialism”.

In fact, Bakunin is a collectivist, although he discards centralization and safeguards the property which is fruit of individual work. The question, from the logical point of view, is put exactly in the wake of what the psychologist Paul Watzlawick has called, “confusion between garlic and love”. [6]

The disappointed wife, says, in fact, to her husband: “If you really loved me, you would eat garlic voluntarily.” The problem is not garlic or socialism, which can be liked or not, but the claim that those who do not appreciate the one, the other, or both, not only have to allow the thing in question to be administered, but that they should also take it with pleasure.

It has to be made clear that the paradoxical intimation, i.e., the pretense of authority over something that should be spontaneous, is considered one of the most pathological forms of communication. So behind this well-known aphorism, on whose absolute truth nothing can be argued in descriptive terms, is however implied at a prescriptive level, nothing more than the most extreme variation on the theme of confusion between love and  garlic, in other words the exhortation to behave spontaneously.

Bakunin says, “We want freedom and equality.” We want garlic! Moreover, since, “no man can emancipate himself without emancipating together all the men around him,” he orders every other man to, “be free” that is contradictory, “don’t follow any orders.”

The two giants of anarchism, Proudhon and Bakunin, spent many nights drinking cups of tea and coffee (the lovers of aphorisms know that the Russian agitator wanted it “black as night, sweet as love, hot as hell “) and arguing their methods of implementation of a free society. The Frenchman saw a self-organization among individuals and composite groups that would have gradually eroded the spaces of statehood, the Russian a violent revolution that would have replaced the society of inequality with a new society without classes (“The passion for destruction is also a creative passion”).

This sort of “voluntary socialism”, which in Peter Kropotkin becomes real anarchist communism, requires the assumption of a benign anthropology, which characterizes somewhat all classical anarchism. This can be then considered a secularization of Christianity. In fact while the first two elements of the revolutionary triad , Freedom and Equality will be claimed as “rights”, Brotherhood is an ethical imperative, and upon an ethical imperative, nothing better than a religion can be founded. Nietzsche could well say that anarchism is “Platonism for the poor” (another wonderful aphorism).

This conception, in addition to being inconsistent from a logical point of view, shows many things. Firstly the apparent equidistance between liberalism and socialism which the Bakuninian slogan seems to reveal on its surface, is absolutely false, since there is a clear bias towards collectivism. [7]

As the paradox demonstrates in fact, the revolutionary from Prjamuchino offers his own revolutionary triad, which are the means to produce liberty in socialism and socialism in liberty: “poison, noose and knife.” In this regard, the aphorism by free-market anarchist David Friedman, comes to our rescue by highlighting the fallacy of this reasoning:

Under any institutions, there are essentially only three ways that I can get another person to help me achieve my ends: love, force, and trade.[8]

Love of course works, but, as the voluntary self-administration of garlic, it cannot be imposed. It only works with those who already appreciate garlic. Force also works. Poison, noose and knife ran the whole world for the “ancient regime” and in countries in which property was abolished, even beyond. You can not however define as “anarchist” the condition of shoving garlic down the throats of the recalcitrant.

All is left is trade, or the arrangement by which A agrees to help B to achieve his purpose if the latter helps him to realize his own. The idea that goals and preferences may be different, is not however acceptable to those who believe that social happiness is an indisputable and uniform recipe: like garlic for everyone. Bakunin rejects trade and pursues the principal two systems, the first, insufficient, an the second, inconsistent.

George Orwell incidentally, points out well the close connection between “love” and “power” when he writes:

(…) public opinion, because of the tremendous urge to conformity in gregarious animals, is less tolerant than any system of law. When human beings are governed by “thou shalt not,” the individual can practice a certain amount of eccentricity: when they are supposedly governed by “love” or “reason,” he is under continuous pressure to make him behave exactly the same way as everyone else. [9]

This moral coercion, real power imposed on individuals, which seems to be accepted by Bakunin within certain limits, and by Kropotkin wholesale, shows that a stateless society is not necessarily a free society. Therefore aphorism fans, can even memorize the truth and a half contained in the Bakuninian exhortation, “Do you want to make it impossible for anyone to oppress his fellow man? Then, make sure that no one has the power, ” but they will forget that the community, society itself, is still a power.

It is here that Proudhon comes out with extraordinary relevance. Devoid of prophetic enthusiasm, free from messianic dressing, insensitive to the charms of the end of history, he proposes a self-organization that is realized through free association and free contracts. Here there is no confusion therefore between love and garlic. The community thus conceived is made up by a network of voluntary agreements by which individuals and workers’ associations (mutualism) – but also social groups and local governments (federalism) – are connected to each other by regulating their own interests independently. Proudhon embraces, the second option proposed by Friedman: trade. Garlic for those who want it, fresh breath for others.

Also, regarding the idea of building communism based on “brotherhood”, Proudhon argued that it is like trying to, “build a house starting from the dormer.”

Some aphorism connoisseur not completely inexperienced could, highlighting the common basis between the mutualist conception described above and economic liberalism, dare to stand up and denounce in Proudhon an imbalance that is exactly the opposite of Bakunin’s. That would be terrible in his eyes, because denouncing the liberal ethos implies denouncing the “free market”, and everyone in his class knows, that the free market means “capitalist exploitation”.

“Extreme” economic liberalism then, the only true liberalism, is in fact Murray Rothbard’ s anarcho-capitalism , a sort of taboo for left-anarchists. [10]

This front row anarchist however, could only make a good impression in a class of dunces. In fact, the balance between freedom and equality is not pursued by Proudhon in a static synthesis between the two elements in opposition, but actually in a dynamic equilibrium, a tension constant and unsolvable. That’s the way life is.

Only dead things are given and finite. The best metaphor is the one about the tightrope walker whose rod swings up and down in seemingly random ways, but instead is dictated by the ever-changing circumstances, which if fixed in advance, would hurtle the acrobat to the ground. No palingenesis. “The antonymous terms” – Proudhon said – “attain no more resolution than opposite poles of an electric battery destroying each other”. “Self-government of the producers” is therefore, a pluralistic decentralized socialism, i.e. a system of equilibrium in which everyone gets the same benefits in return for the same services. A system that is essentially “egalitarian” and “liberal.”

Years later, Francesco Saverio Merlino will express himself in similar terms. Socialism – Merlin says, is the condition of equality in access to credit and to the means of production without the “capitalists”, understood here as a political caste connected to the state, preventing free competition and producing legal monopolies and parasitic incomes.

This is a perspective by which socialism is not the overthrow of liberalism, but something beyond it. [11] With all due respect to the advocates of imbalance. The same things could be said in his country, producing less outrage, by the editor of “Liberty” Benjamin Tucker, the American anarchist strongly attached to his self-definition of “socialist”.

As for Rothbardian anarcho-capitalism, a political ideology that proposes the abolition of the state and its replacement with the free market, the fact that these pro-capitalists consider Proudhon a noble reference does not imply completely similar views. It is clear that anarcho-capitalism turns upside-down the Frenchman’s concept of property. The latter considering it an abuse, conceived of it as a means. The aims are to ensure freedom and fairness. The “orthodox” anarcho-capitalists, considering it as a natural right, make of its defense an end.

According to the “libertarian” view, the sacredness attributed to property entails questionable consequences. So if a monopoly is born out of a legitimately acquired property, or if the owner on the basis of legitimate acquisitions, constitutes an illiberal domain (i.e, forcing all human capital on his property – for example, individuals who make up the population of his private city – on a diet based on garlic), that however it should be defended from any group of “bandits” that was intent on reconstituting conditions of greater equity.

This “liberism” was peeled off from “liberalism” and runs alone. The relationship between the mutualist vision derived from Proudhon and “classic” anarcho-capitalism is therefore not very close. One example is the following excerpt by a contemporary neo-mutualist, Kevin Carson, a ‘”left wing” member of that “free trade” galaxy which is stigmatized as a friend of capital by those who fed on aphorisms, continue to confuse free market and capitalism:

Capitalism, arising as a new class society directly from the old class society of the Middle Ages, was founded on an act of robbery as massive as the earlier feudal conquest of the land. It has been sustained to the present by  continual state intervention to protect its system of privilege, without which its survival is unimaginable.[12]

These sentences seem taken from a pamphlet from any of the activists scattered along the spectrum that goes from more “retro” communist anarchism, to a more “à la page” insurrectionalism. All people who take seriously the words by the good old dandy, “Moderation is a fatal thing. Nothing succeeds like excess.”

However known aphorism repeaters, which are not always ashamed to be accompanied by the most backward and xenophobic reactionary right-wingers, united by the hatred for liberal globalization and bourgeois modernity [13], often reveal (especially in Europe) an attitude of outrage against those who set themselves out, with an open mind and with an experimental disposition, to handle the delicate matter of free trade. Whomever confronts the liberal mindset, is more of a pariah than a heretic, an untouchable guilty of renouncement. An Italian online encyclopedia for this purpose coined the definition of “pseudoanarchico” (false anarchist). It is in short a revisionist, if not an anarcho-capitalist in disguise. These little priests of the “circled A” must have read some critical aphorism by Noam Chomsky [14] ignoring that the well-known linguist however, defines himself as “founded in the origins of liberal thought.”

In other words, libertarians sometimes appear to distribute anarchists patents, based on others’ agreement with their own bagful of aphorisms. Sometimes even with the orthodoxy – understood in aphoristic terms, of course – of their acquaintances. It is legit to have doubts about the logic of this type of judgment. Mephistopheles, who Goethe deems “part of the force that constantly pursues evil and always creates the good”, is a character whose acquaintances you could not really define as good company. Where he uses to stay, good companies are rarities. But from sulfur, says the great German, come good things. It should be noted rather, that Judas Iscariot attended what were said to be irreproachable people.

In conclusion, if you abandon some dusty catechism, you might even venture some daring idea. “It ‘s looking for the impossible that man has always made the possible.” That’s Bakunin.

Translations for this article:

• Italian, Amore, aglio e anarchia.

Notes:

[1] Proudhon, P.G., Che cos’è la proprietà, Laterza, Bari, 1978  (IT. ED.)

[2] Proudhon, P.G., La teoria della proprietà, Seam, Roma, 1998 (IT. ED.

[3] Cit. in Treglia, E., Proprietà e anarchia in Proudhon, Edizioni La baronata, Lugano, 2007, pag. 19

[4] (…) the anarchist vision, in almost every variety, has looked forward to the dismantling of state power. Personally, I share that vision, though it seems to run counter to my goals. Hence the tension to which I referred. My short-term goals are to defend and even strengthen elements of state authority which, though illegitimate in fundamental ways, are critically necessary right now to impede the dedicated efforts to “roll back” the progress that has been achieved in extending democracy and human rights.(http://www.chomsky.info/books/prospects01.htm)

[5] Bey’s anti-globalization ideology goes as far as to set up a facile opposition between globalization (‘sameness’) and the nation-state (‘difference’???). Bey states: “Like religion, the State has simply failed to ‘go away’ — in fact, in a bizarre extension of the thesis of ‘Society against the State,’ we can even reimagine the State as an institutional type of ‘custom and right’ which Society can wield (paradoxically) against an even more ‘final’ shape of power — that of ‘pure Capitalism.’” (http://theanarchistlibrary.org/HTML/Anonymous__The_Continuing_Appeal_of_Nationalism_among_Anarchists.html )

[6] Watzslavick, P., Istruzioni per rendersi infelici, Feltrinelli, Milano, 1984, (IT. ED.)

[7] On these issues, some authors able to go beyond the aphorisms have focused their critical attention. Michel Onfray, for example, writes:

Bakunin differs from Marx only by means, not for the purpose. In the two thinkers you can find the same sacrifice to teleology, the same optimism, the same Hegelian belief in the possibility of a end and accomplishment of history, an identical communion in hatred for private property inherited from Rousseau, from which both take borrow their critique of modernity, their ridiculous discrediting for the technique. Both believe in the whole man, freed from its alienations for the simple fact that he moves in a classless society.We know the story  (translated from: “La politica del ribelle”, ponte delle Grazie, 1998, Milano, pag. 92) IT.ED.

 Massimo La Torre, for his part, says,

Sorry to say, but in Bakunin we can found a critique of democracy and of the parliamentary system similar to the anti-modern and anti-egualitarian one of political romanticism. (translated from: Reasoning, discuss, act publicly, negotiate (II)”A City” n. 88 September 2000

[8] Friedman, D., L’ingranaggio della libertà, Liberilibri, Macerata, 1997, pag. 36 IT.ED.

[9] Cit. in Woodcock, G., L’anarchia. Storia delle idée e dei movimenti libertari, Feltrinelli, Milano, 1977, pag. 73 IT.ED.

[10] Rothbard, M., Per una nuova libertà. Il manifesto libertario, Liberilibri, Macerata, 1996 IT. ED.

[11] Merlino, F. S. , Pro e contro il socialismo, Esposizione critica dei principi e dei sistemi socialisti, Milano, 1987, p. 41

[12] Cit. in Sheldon, R., Libertarian Left. Free-market anti-capitalism, the unknown ideal, AmericanConservative,http://www.amconmag.com/blog/libertarian-left

[13] Fraqueille, M., A destra di Porto Alegre, in Libertaria, 1-2004, 24-37

[14] For example, “Anarcho-capitalism, in my opinion, is a doctrinal system which, if ever implemented, would lead to forms of tyranny and oppression that have few counterparts in human history” (http://www.zcommunications.org/anarcho-capitalism-in-my-opinion-is-a-doctrinal-system-which-if-ever-implemented-would-lead-to-fo-by-noam-chomsky)

Karl Kraus, uno dei più brillanti autori di quelle condensazioni semantiche note come aforismi, scrisse che “Un aforisma non è mai una verità: o è una mezza verità o è una verità e mezzo.” E’ l’aforisma perfetto! Vi si ritrova il senso, l’arguzia, il paradosso, la mezza verità e, ovviamente, la verità e mezzo. Ma la definizione migliore è forse quella di Nilt Ejam: “un aforisma è molto sfizio in poco spazio”. Esatto. Senza il gusto del bon mot o di una iperbole, una locuzione rimane un’osservazione, si mantiene al livello di semplice riflessione. Il successo degli aforismi risiede invece nel grottesco e nel paradosso oppure nella grande capacità condensativa di ampi principi filosofici e morali.

Oscar Wilde, splendida mente di libertario, ne fece un’arte producendo schizzi di autocompiaciuta fatuità (“Amo molto parlare di niente. È la sola cosa su cui so tutto.”) e umoristiche sentenze sulla virtù del vizio (“La moderazione è una cosa fatale. Nulla ha più successo dell’eccesso.”). Nell’ambito del pensiero politico c’è un’idea che più di ogni altra si può gloriare di molti arguti aforismi: l’anarchismo. Ciò va detto ad onore dei pensatori anarchici, in grado di condensare principi e saperi in formule che, occupando poco spazio, producono molto sfizio. “L’anarchia è ordine”, ad esempio.

Il motto, il cui gusto è nell’apparente paradosso, si deve all’uomo che per primo osò definirsi “anarchico” in senso positivo, cioè Pierre J. Proudhon. E chi non conosce lo slogan, sempre del tipografo di Becancon, “la proprietà è un furto”? La frase è sfiziosa, appunto, non c’è alcun dubbio, è breve e contiene una dose di verità che va dalla mezza unità all’unità e mezza.

A disonore degli anarchici, però, va detto che molto spesso dei loro autori non conoscono più degli aforismi. Così ci sono sedicenti partigiani dell’anarchismo, alcuni perfino in grado di leggere e   scrivere, che sono convinti, sulla scorta di tale affermazione, che Proudhon fosse avverso al libero scambio. Qualche altro, capace di far di conto, sa che, venticinque anni dopo aver regalato alla storia ed ai fabbricanti di T-shirt quel motto, il francese si è prodotto in un’apologia della proprietà privata. Quest’ultimi, forti di tali rudimentali conoscenze, sono gli artefici della balzana teoria per cui esisterebbero due Proudhon l’uno contro l’altro armati corrispondenti al giovane anti-proprietarista e al maturo liberista.

Questa gente può ben discorrere col personaggio dell’aforisma di Wilde, quello che ama parlare di niente, perché è l’unica cosa di cui sa  tutto. Pazienza. Se si fossero presi la briga di leggere qualche riga avrebbero capito che nel 1840 [1] l’autore rispondeva alla domanda “Che cos’è la proprietà?” e lo faceva da giusnaturalista, negando, proprio in quanto tale, l’idea che questa fosse un diritto naturale, concludendo che è invece un atto d’abuso e un pilastro dello sfruttamento. Nel 1865 [2] non è avvenuto un cambio di prospettiva, ma di metodo. Lasciamo parlare il diretto interessato:

l’unica cosa che sappiamo della proprietà e per la quale possiamo distinguerla dal possesso è che essa è assoluta e abusiva; benissimo: appunto nel suo assolutismo, e nei suoi abusi, per non dire peggio, che dobbiamo cercare i suoi fini. [3]

“I suoi fini”. L’approccio non è più ontologico, bensì interessato all’utile. Poiché lo Stato, secondo e maggior pilastro dello sfruttamento, rappresenta un abuso ancora più grande, la piena sovranità che l’individuo ha su una porzione di materia può svolgere per questi una funzione difensiva. La proprietà è un contrappeso all’abuso statale. Proudhon, insomma, aveva già individuato con largo anticipo i rischi connessi ad una totale abolizione della proprietà privata. Tutto qui. Aveva perfino anticipato Ludwig Von Mises nell’evidenziare come senza libero mercato fosse impossibile definire il valore dei beni e provvedere alla loro allocazione, tutti problemi sui quali ogni tentativo di interrogare i devoti degli aforismi ottiene un cambio del discorso, magari un altro aforisma. Ci sono persone che confondono libero mercato e capitalismo.

Quelle stesse persone che sembrano scandalizzarsi davanti a questa difesa della proprietà in funzione anti-statale, non si scompongono affatto davanti alla difesa dello Stato in funzione anti-capitalistica operate da alcune star dell’anarchismo internazionale come Noam Chomsky [4] o Hakim Bey. [5] Che accanto a quelle liberale e socialista nell’anarchismo esistesse anche un’anima statalista è acquisizione nuova e concetto che, oltre ad essere più tollerato del proprietarismo, gode anche del pregio dell’originalità.

Un’altra formula di successo si deve a Michail Bakunin e ha per oggetto il precario equilibrio nel quale dimostrano di trovarsi i primi due principi della triade rivoluzionaria, Libertà, Eguaglianza e Fraternità, dacché la grande Madre del secolo dei Lumi partorì i loro tre figli bastardi: liberalismo, socialismo e anarchismo. Dice il russo:

La libertà senza il socialismo porta al privilegio, all’ingiustizia; e il socialismo senza la libertà porta alla schiavitù e alla brutalità.

Difficile dargli torto. Fra promesse marxiste di addio al regno delle necessità e promesse capitalistiche di libertà sempre meglio distribuite, l’unica profezia ad essersi avverata è quella dell’anarchico russo. Se, però, ci si riflette, si capisce come il mantenere questo equilibrio presupponga quello che Rocker definì “socialismo volontario”.

In effetti, Bakunin è un collettivista, per quanto rigetti la centralizzazione e salvaguardi la proprietà dei frutti del lavoro individuale. La questione, dal punto di vista logico, si pone esattamente nel solco di ciò che lo psicologo Paul Watzlawick ha definito “confusione fra aglio e amore” [6].

Dice, infatti, la moglie delusa al marito: “se tu mi amassi veramente, mangerestivolontariamente l’aglio”. Il problema non è l’aglio o il socialismo, che possono piacere come no, ma che si pretenda da coloro i quali non apprezzano l’uno, l’altro o entrambi, che non solo si facciano somministrare la cosa in oggetto, ma lo facciano anche con piacere.

E’ da chiarire che l’ingiunzione paradossale, cioè la pretesa d’imperio di qualcosa che dovrebbe essere spontaneo, è considerata una delle forme più patogene di comunicazione. Dietro questo noto aforisma, sulla cui assoluta veridicità in termini descrittivi nulla si può obiettare, è sottesa, invece, a livello prescrittivo, proprio la più estrema delle variazioni sul tema della confusione fra amore e aglio, cioè l’esortazione a comportarsi spontaneamente.

Bakunin dice: “desideriamo la libertà e l’uguaglianza!”. Desideriamo l’aglio! Del resto, siccome “nessun uomo può emanciparsi altrimenti che emancipando con lui tutti gli uomini che lo circondano”, egli ordina ad ogni altro uomo “sii libero”, cioè, contraddittoriamente, “non farti ordinare nulla”.

I due giganti dell’anarchismo, Proudhon e Bakunin, passarono molte notti a bere bicchieri di tè e tazze di caffè (i cultori degli aforismi sapranno che l’agitatore russo lo voleva “nero come la notte, dolce come l’amore, caldo come l’inferno”) e litigare proprio sui metodi di realizzazione della società libera. Il francese vedeva un’auto-organizzazione fra individui e gruppi diversi e compositi che avrebbe eroso gradualmente gli spazi della statualità, il russo una rivoluzione violenta che avrebbe sostituito la società della diseguaglianza con una nuova società senza classi (“La passione per la distruzione è anche una passione creativa”).

Questa sorta di “socialismo volontario”, che in Petr Kropotkin diviene vero e proprio comunismo anarchico, necessita del presupposto di una antropologia benigna e caratterizza un po’ tutto l’anarchismo classico. Questo può quindi essere considerarato una laicizzazione del cristianesimo. Infatti, mentre i due primi elementi della triade rivoluzionaria, Libertà e Eguaglianza, si pretendono “diritti”, la Fratellanza è un imperativo etico, e su un imperativo etico si fonda niente più che una religione. Poteva ben dire Nietzsche che l’anarchismo è “platonismo per i poveri” (altro splendido aforisma).

Questa concezione, oltre ad essere incongruente dal punto di vista logico, dimostra molte cose. La prima è che l’apparente equidistanza fra liberalismo e socialismo che lo slogan bakuniniano sembra palesare in superficie, si rivela assolutamente fallace, visto un netto sbilanciamento verso il collettivismo [7].

A dimostrazione del paradosso, il fatto che anche il rivoluzionario di Prjamuchino ha da proporre una sua triade rivoluzionaria, quella degli strumenti atti a  produrre la libertà nel socialismo e il socialismo nella libertà: “veleno, cappio e coltello”. A tal proposito ci viene in soccorso per mettere in evidenza l’aporia di questo ragionamento, l’aforisma dell’anarchico ultra-liberista David Friedman:

Ci sono solo tre modi per indurre gli altri a fare ciò che vuoi: l’amore, la forza, lo scambio. [8]

L’amore, di certo, funziona, ma, come la volontaria auto-somminitrazione di aglio, non può imporsi. Funziona solo con coloro i quali l’aglio già lo gradiscono. La forza funziona anch’essa. Veleno, cappio e coltello hanno gestito il mondo per tutto l’ancient regime e, nei paesi in cui la proprietà è stata eliminata, anche oltre. Non si può comunque definire “anarchica” la condizione di infilare l’aglio giù per il gargarozzo ai recalcitranti.

Rimane solo lo scambio, cioè l’accordo per cui A  acconsente ad aiutare B a realizzare il suo scopo se questi aiuta  A a realizzare il suo. L’idea che gli scopi e i gusti possano essere diversi non è, però, accettabile per chi ritiene che la felicità sociale stia in una ricetta uniforme e indiscutibile: aglio per tutti. Bakunin rigetta lo scambio e persegue i primi due sistemi, il primo, insufficiente, il secondo, incongruente.

George Orwell ha puntato bene su questo aspetto facendo anche notare la stretta connessione fra “amore” e “forza” quando ha scritto:

L’opinione pubblica è meno tollerante di qualsiasi sistema di leggi. Quando gli esseri umani sono governati da un potere che impone loro di “non fare” questo o quello, possono concedersi una certa dose di eccentricità; quando sono governati, almeno in teoria, dall’ “amore” e dalla “ragione, l’individuo è sotto una continua pressione intesa a ottenere che si comporti e pensi esattamente come tutti gli altri. [9]

Questa coercizione morale, vera forza che si impone sugli individui, che Bakunin, entro certi limiti, e Kropotkin, in toto, sembrano accettare, dimostra che una società senza stato non è necessariamente una società libera. Così, schiere di cultori dell’aforisma potranno anche mandare a memoria la verità e mezza contenuta nell’esortazione bakuniniana “Vuoi rendere impossibile per chiunque opprimere un suo simile? Allora, assicurati che nessuno abbia il potere”, ma si scorderanno che la comunità, lo collettività sono comunque un potere.

E’ qui che Proudhon viene fuori nella sua straordinaria attualità. Scevro da entusiasmo profetico, libero da abiti messianici, insensibile al fascino della fine della storia, egli propone un autogestione che si realizza mediante libere associazioni e liberi contratti. Qui non si cade, quindi, nella confusione fra amore e aglio. La società così concepita risulta costituita da una rete di liberi accordi mediante cui i singoli e le associazioni operaie (mutualismo), ma anche i gruppi sociali e gli enti locali (federalismo), si collegano fra loro regolando i propri interessi in piena autonomia. Proudhon abbraccia, cioè, la terza opzione proposta da Friedman, lo scambio. Aglio per chi lo vuole, alito fresco per gli altri.

Riguardo, poi, all’idea di costruire il comunismo sulla “fratellanza”, Proudhon affermava che è come pretendere di “costruire la casa a partire dall’abbaiono”.

Qualche conoscitore di aforismi non totalmente sprovveduto potrebbe, sulla scorta delle evidenziate comuni basi fra la concezione mutualista appena descritta e il liberalismo, ardire ad alzare la mano e denunciare in Proudhon uno sbilanciamento esattamente opposto rispetto a quello di Bakunin. Ciò sarebbe terribile ai suoi occhi, perché denunciare un ethos liberale implica denunciarne il “liberismo” e, tutti lo sanno nella sua classe, il liberalismo è “sfruttamento capitalistico”.

Il liberismo “estremo”, che poi sarebbe l’unico vero liberismo, infatti, è l’anarco-capitalismo di Murray Rothbard, una sorta di moloch per gli anarchici “di sinistra” [10].

Questo anarchico del primo banco però, potrebbe far bella figura solo in una classe differenziale. Infatti, l’equilibrio fra libertà e eguaglianza non viene da Proudhon ricercato in una statica sintesi fra i due elementi in antitesi, bensì, appunto, in un equilibrio dinamico, una tensione costante e irrisolvibile. La vita è così.

Solo le cose morte sono date e finite. La miglior metafora è quella dell’equilibrista la cui asta si muove in su e in giù in modi apparentemente casuali, ma invece dettati dalle sempre mutevoli contingenze e che, se fossero fissati in anticipo, farebbero rovinare a terra il funambolo. Nessuna palingenesi. “Le antinomie – diceva Proudhon – non si risolvono più di quanto non si distruggano le polarità opposte di una pila elettrica”. L’ “autogoverno dei produttori” costituisce, quindi,  un socialismo pluralista decentralizzato, cioè un sistema di equilibri in cui ognuno ottiene gli stessi vantaggi in compenso degli stessi servigi. Un sistema essenzialmente “egualitario” e “liberale”.

Anni dopo sarà Francesco Saverio Merlino a esprimersi in termini simili. Il socialismo, diceva Merlino, è la condizione di eguaglianza nell’accesso al credito ed ai mezzi di produzione senza che i “capitalisti”, intesi qui come una casta politica innervata allo stato, impediscano la libera concorrenza e producano monopoli legali e rendite parassitarie.

E’ questa un’ottica in cui il socialismo non è affatto rovesciamento del liberalismo, bensì suo superamento. [11] Con buona pace dei fautori dello sbilanciamento.  Le stesse cose poteva dire nel suo Paese, e con minor scandalo, il direttore di “Liberty”, Benjamin Tucker, anarchico statunitense tenacemente attaccato alla sua definizione di “socialista”.

Quanto all’anarco-capitalismo rothbardiano, un’ideologia politica che propone l’abolizione dello Stato e la sua sostituzione col libero mercato, il fatto che questi filo-capitalisti considerino Proudhon un nobile riferimento non implica la totale comunanza di vedute. E’ chiarissimo che l’anarco-capitalismo ribalta la concezione della proprietà del francese. Quest’ultimo, considerandola un abuso, la concepisce come un mezzo. I fini sono quelli di garantire la libertà e l’equità.  Quelli, gli anarcocapitalisti “ortodossi”, considerandola un diritto naturale, della sua difesa fanno  un fine.

Nella concezione libertarian, infatti, la sacralità attribuita alla proprietà comporta conseguenze discutibili per cui, se un monopolio nasce da una proprietà legittimamente acquisita o se il proprietario costituisce sulla base di legittime acquisizioni un dominio illiberale (volesse, cioè, obbligare tutte le pertinenze umane della sua proprietà – ad esempio gli individui che compongono la popolazione della sua città privata – ad una dieta a base di aglio), esso andrebbe comunque difeso dall’eventuale gruppo di “banditi” che ritenesse di ricostituire condizioni di maggiore equità.

Questo “liberismo” si è scollato dal “liberalismo” e corre da solo. La parentela fra la visione mutualista di derivazione proudhoniana e l’anarco-capitalismo “classico” è, quindi, non strettissima. Ne è un esempio il seguente stralcio di un neo-mutualista contemporaneo, Kevin Carson,  esponente dell’ “ala sinistra” di quella galassia “liberale” che viene  stigmatizzata come amica del capitale da coloro i quali, nutriti ad aforismi, continuano a confondere libero mercato e capitalismo:

Il capitalismo, venuto su come una nuova società di classe direttamente dalla vecchia società di classe del Medioevo, è stato fondato su un atto di rapina, tanto massiccio quanto la precedente conquista feudale della terra. E ‘stato sostenuto fino ad oggi dall’ intervento dello Stato che continua a proteggere il suo sistema di privilegi, senza il quale la sua sopravvivenza sarebbe inimmaginabile. [12]

Questi periodi  sembrano estrapolati da un pamphlet di uno qualunque degli attivisti che si disperdono lungo lo spettro che va dal comunismo anarchico più retrò all’insurrezionalismo più à la page. Tutta gente che prende sul serio la frase del buon vecchio dandy “La moderazione è una cosa fatale. Nulla ha più successo dell’eccesso”.

Eppure, i noti ripetitori di aforismi, che non sempre si vergognano di accompagnarsi ad esponenti della destra identitaria più retriva e xenofoba, cui sono accumunati dall’odio per la globalizzazione liberale e per la modernità borghese [13], palesano spesso un atteggiamento di scandalo dinanzi a chi si pone con mente aperta e disposizione sperimentale a maneggiare la scottante materia del libero scambio. Chiunque si confronti col pensiero liberale, più che eretico è un paria, un intoccabile colpevole di abiuria. Un’enciclopedia online ha coniato a tal fine la definizione di pseudoanarchico. E’, insomma,  un revisionista, quando non un anarco-capitalista sotto mentite spoglie. Questi pretenzoli dell’ A cerchiata devono aver letto qualche aforisma critico di Noam Chomsky [14] ignorando che il noto linguista si definisce comunque “fondato nel pensiero liberale delle origini”.

Insomma, i libertari sembrano talvolta distribuire patenti di anarchismo in base all’aderenza delle altrui dichiarazioni con il proprio bagaglio di aforismi. Talvolta, addirittura, con la ortodossia – in termini aforistici, s’intende – delle loro frequentazioni. Sulla logica di questo tipo di giudizi è lecito nutrire qualche dubbio. Mefistofele, che Goethe vuole “parte di quella forza che persegue costantemente il male e realizza sempre il bene”, non si potrebbe certo definire personaggio dalle buone frequentazioni. Dove alloggia lui sono rare. Ma da quello zolfo, dice il grande tedesco, vengono buone cose. Da notare, piuttosto, che Giuda Iscariota frequentava, si dice, persone irreprensibili.

In conclusione, se si abbandonasse qualche catechismo polveroso, si potrebbe anche azzardare qualche ardita idea. “E’ ricercando l’impossibile che l’uomo ha sempre realizzato il possibile”. E’ di Bakunin.

Note:

[1] Proudhon, P.G., Che cos’è la proprietà, Laterza, Bari, 1978

[2] Proudhon, P.G., La teoria della proprietà, Seam, Roma, 1998

[3] Cit. in Terglia, E., PropriSetà e anarchia in Proudhon, Edizioni La baronata, Lugano, 2007, pag. 19

[4] L’ideale anarchico, qualunque sia la sua forma, ha sempre aspirato, per definizione, verso uno smantellamento del potere statale. Io condivido questo ideale. Eppure, esso entra spesso in conflitto diretto con i miei obiettivi immediati, che sono di difendere, ossia rinforzare certi aspetti dell’autorità dello Stato. Oggi, nel quadro della nostra società, credo che la strategia degli anarchici sinceri debba essere di difendere certe istituzioni dello Stato contro gli assalti che subiscono, pur sforzandosi di costringerle ad aprirsi a una partecipazione popolare più ampia ed effettiva.(http://www.ecn.org/contropotere/press/298.htm)

[5] Bey’s anti-globalization ideology goes as far as to set up a facile opposition between globalization (‘sameness’) and the nation-state (‘difference’???). Bey states: “Like religion, the State has simply failed to ‘go away’ — in fact, in a bizarre extension of the thesis of ‘Society against the State,’ we can even reimagine the State as an institutional type of ‘custom and right’ which Society can wield (paradoxically) against an even more ‘final’ shape of power — that of ‘pure Capitalism.’” (http://theanarchistlibrary.org/HTML/Anonymous__The_Continuing_Appeal_of_Nationalism_among_Anarchists.html)

[6]  Watzslavick, P., Istruzioni per rendersi infelici, Feltrinelli, Milano, 1984,

[7] Su tali aspetti, autori libertari capaci di andare oltre gli aforismi hanno puntato la loro attenzione critica. Michel Onfray, ad esempio, scrive:

Bakunin si differenzia da Marx per i soli mezzi, non per i fini. Nei due pensatori si ritrova lo stesso sacrificio alla teleologia, all’ottimismo, la stessa credenza hegeliana nella possibilità di una fine e di un compimento della storia, un’identica comunione nell’odio per la proprietà privata ereditato da Rousseau, dal quale entrambi prendono in prestito la loro critica della modernità, il loro ridicolo discredito gettato sulla tecnica. Ambedue credono all’uomo totale, liberato dalle sue alienazioni per il semplice fatto di muoversi in una società senza classi. Conosciamo la storia (“La politica del ribelle”, ponte delle Grazie, 1998, Milano, pag. 92)

[12] Cit. in Sheldon, R., Libertarian Left. Free-market anti-capitalism, the unknown ideal, American Conservative, http://www.amconmag.com/blog/libertarian-left

[13] Fraqueille, M., A destra di Porto Alegre, in Libertaria, 1-2004, 24-37

[14] [Ad esempio “L’anarcocapitalismo, secondo me, è un sistema dottrinale che, se mai implementato, porterebbe a forme di tirannia e oppressione che hanno pochi uguali nella storia dell’umanità”

Now the dictator is gone, but instead of democracy, Iraq has civil war. What went wrong?

Well, more things than one, perhaps. But one in particular at least.

In any country torn by violent ethnic or religious conflict, what each faction fears most is that one of the other factions will gain control of the central state apparatus and use it to oppress, exploit, or crush its rivals. In such a situation, “democracy,” if understood as majority rule, offers no more security than dictatorship; to Iraq’s Sunni minority, for example, “democracy” simply means the threat of oppression by the Shi’ite majority.

Perhaps a better meaning of democracy is: the people ruling themselves. But in that case, mere majority rule is really no more democratic than dictatorship; whether the majority dominates the minority or the minority dominates the majority, either way it’s some of the people ruling others of the people, not genuine self-rule.

The real root of Iraq’s civil strife is the shared presumption that there must be a territorial monopoly of power — a centralised state exercising authority over the entire geographic region known as Iraq, and thus over all the different factions, Sunni and Shi’ite, Arab and Kurd.

As long as that presumption prevails, then given the mutual distrust among the factions, it is only to be expected that each faction will be desperate to ensure that it, rather than one of its rivals, gains control of the central state. A violent power struggle is thus only to be expected.

A chief cause of Iraq’s civil strife, then, is each group’s need to control the central state lest its enemies control it first. Replacing Saddam Hussein with a majoritarian constitution, then, is no move toward peace; it simply changes which groups get to be the dominators and which the dominated.

The obvious solution to this problem, then, is: eliminate the central state.

Some observers have suggested partitioning Iraq into three separate states: one Shi’ite, one Sunni, and one Kurdish. While this is a move in the right direction, it ignores the deep divisions, and potential for relations of domination, within each of those groups as well. Calling for three centralised states instead of one still leaves unchallenged the presumption that any given geographical area, large or small, must be under the aegis of some central state.

It is not inevitable that every society must organise itself as a state. There have been successful stateless societies in the past, and may be again. The nation-state’s day may well be passing, as absolute monarchy, chattel slavery, and other institutions once claimed to be essential to civilisation have largely passed.

Market anarchists like economist Dr. Bruce Benson in his book The Enterprise of Law: Justice Without the State have shown that institutions for resolving disputes and keeping the peace can be, and historically have been, successfully provided by private voluntary means, and need not enjoy a territorial monopoly or be funded by taxation.

Let Shi’ites live under Shi’ite law, let Sunnis live under Sunni law, let heretics and infidels live under heretic and infidel law; multiply legal institutions according to consumer demand, and resolve disputes among different institutions by arbitration. And thereby free each Iraqi from the fear that some one institution not his or her own will be the one to be imposed on everybody by state fiat.

If fifty people in a room are fighting to get hold of the one gun, in the fear that someone else will get it first and use it against everybody else, the solution is not to take sides with one of the contending parties, but to throw the gun out the window. In this case, the state is the gun.

The 17th-century English philosopher Thomas Hobbes said that life without a centralised state would be a war of all against all. He was wrong. In Iraq, at least, it’s the state’s presence, not its absence, that generates a war of all against all.