RE: I am an Anarchist.
he was advocating for freedom, love , kindness and taking personal responsibility for ones actions.
As I said, he was a communist.
He also shared what he had with others, which is core communism.
Yeah, I know, for most US people it is a total mystery, since they don't connect communism with anything positive. The propaganda still works...
But if we are talking about socialism or communism as the ideal was or what was told to the people, then you find those things.
That there were also countries with party-dictatorships that called themselves communistic or socialistic without being it is a different story.
Let's make a little test. I will make a (very shortened) translation of something and you can guess where it comes from ;)
You should be:
- fight for international solidarity
- be patriotic
- stop the exploitation of humans by humans
- do good deeds
- help each other, work together, and consider critique of others
- protect and increase the property of everyone
- always strive to better yourself, be thrifty and a good worker
- raise your children in the spirit of peace and these rules,
- live clean and decent and respect your family
- show solidarity to the people fighting for their freedom and independence
Does that sound bad? Can you guess where this comes from?
That is what remains if you take away the political lingo from:
The Socialistic Personality, East Germany, 1958
Jesus was not a communist. Above all he taught spirituality eternal life recognizing one's sin and repenting of transgressions. forgiveness of sins loving one another.
He was still a communist, as were most of the early christians communities.
"To each according to his needs" was "stolen" from the bible by the 19th/20th century communists.
Luke 3:11 “And he answered them, “Whoever has two tunics is to share with him who has none, and whoever has food is to do likewise.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_communism
I think voluntary solidarity between individuals was not the intended goal of the Communist Party of the former German Democratic Republic. International solidarity is in fact solidarity between people organized as nations against all others, and 'being patriotic' is nothing less the being a nationalist. All the rest does sound well, you're right. But how much of it is simply for propaganda purposes ?
That may or may not be, but this is the core of what a communistic person is, so we may give them the bonus of doubt? ;)
Not at all.
Communists are trying to appeal to the best in people to control them. Capitalistic corporatism is doing exactly the same. This are only methods.
The solidarity demanded by socialists and nowadays even by European conservatives is a blind, prescribed fake-solidarity.
This is definitely not voluntary solidarity
An Anarchist is free to adopt the principle of Solidarity. As are other Anarchists free to to cut any relationships to people only trying to prey any other.
Ahem.. no. What corporations use is your fear. They need it. They take your fear of e.g. being alone and tell you you stink if you don't use Deo X.
Ever watched any ads in the last years? Only emotion appealing, and fear is the strongest.
You're right ! They manipulate the feelings and the moral standards of people. Even more worse is that even someone immune to the propaganda, is forced by others to act in the same way as all the others.
I think if someone wants to follow those rules, there is nothing wrong with that. I think where Communism often goes wrong is that it puts socialism ahead of personal freedom.
Lets take "always strive to better yourself, be thrifty and a good worker" as an example. Now maybe I dont want to be a good worker and just want to live a simple but relaxed life. That does not hurt anybody, but I am already in conflict with these 10 rules.
So in short, if personal freedom comes first, then I am happy with everyone who wants to follow communist rules.
But that sentence is even more "true" in our current capitalistic society. How often do you hear something on the lines of
"If they don't work, they should not get anything from our tax money".
That definitely isn't a fault only of those rules. In fact it comes from christian work ethic "those who do not work should not eat".
Maybe we should identify this with protestant work ethic. In fact taxes are are theft and after being robbed you have to be thankful becoming something back. So do not become ungrateful, this would force the authorities to stop giving you anything back.
I do not agree.
This is simply not true.
First, the whole planet is occupied by nation states. The only choice you could have, would be to choose a new master. This would not change anything substantial.
Second, the nation states have designed rules - similar to the slaveholders in northern America not too long ago - and established them on a nearly global scale.
You are not allowed to live or work in a freely choosen part of this planet. Even not if you are able to prove that you are self-sustained. It is Slavery, it is Serfdom, it is Exploitation.
No, taxes are not theft, neither legal nor moral, but I am really fed up with that topic.
For your fun and education, I will just copy a part of my post on governments.
Your Choice!
In real democracies you always have the option to no longer be a subject of the government, and as such you don’t need to pay those taxes. You can always leave, most people just don’t do it because it is too much of a hassle.
This is often rebuked as “the old jungle argument” and declared invalid, but hell, it is true!
pic CC0
You are living in a society, and every society has rules. The ideological libertarian society is “there is only private property and you cannot force anybody”. But you are not living in this society. You are living in a society that basically says:
It is up to you to either agree with that society or to or use all your options to change the rules of the society you live in. And all options does include your choice of changing the society you belong to to a different one. (Which gives you an advantage, since one rule of today’s democratic societies is that the societies cannot change your belonging to a society without your consent.)
If you don’t go for that choice (“going into the jungle”), then you aren’t using all available choices. If you aren’t using all your (morally good) choices, then you are implicitly agreeing to the society you live in and have to abide the rules (with the restriction above, that you could change the rules peacefully).
Or to use more libertarian lingo: You are in a contract with a society by being born in it. But it is opt-out. You are free to leave that contract at any time after you grow up to be mentally able to. If you don’t cancel the contract, you of course have to uphold it’s terms (like paying taxes).
Yes you can opt out. What I am fighting for is to make that easier. Currently rich people have it simple to opt out. For this reason there are tax-heavens etc.
But the poor, they are essentially trapped. If they want to leave, they first have to find some new land, but all of it is already government owned. Then they have to subscribe to a new government before they are able to rebuke their old citizenship. In addition they have to leave their home, family and friends.
So it we own land, why cant we opt out and stay on that land. Why do we need to be citizens of another recognised country before we can opt out? Why are we forced to organised into localised states and not borderless decentralised systems?
We know that the option to opt-out is a fundamental part of a free society. So I think we should make that as easy as possible and not force people into rules just because they were born in a certain geographical part of this planet.
It is a street gang. As soon as they have control on a block they do only accept other street gangs as nearly equal. You're not fighting against our oppression ? Then we have the right to oppress you.
I cant tell you about christian work ethic, but yes the current system is also deeply flawed.
Not at all. At least not proven by this argument. There is nothing wrong nor 'communistic' to suggest people respecting each others personality, intentions and needs. Definitely is is a core ability of any anarchist to take responsibility of its own actions. In the en, he is fighting for responsibility - not willing to delegate it in any way.