General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsReal Anarchists
Individuals striving to stay free from Big Brother -- Big Government, are called anarchist.
An anarchist is simply someone who desires there be no arch of ruling power over their daily existence. They are anti-arching-rulers. Anarchist.
The largest group of anarchists in our society are our corporations. Corps don't want to exist under any rule except that which they create. They shun government, because government can arch over them and control them. Corporations hate any control. Corps are the anarchist sect of our society which is most powerful and dangerous.
Warren Stupidity
(48,181 posts)RobertEarl
(13,685 posts)Your statement is stupid. Do you believe corps want to be controlled?
Warren Stupidity
(48,181 posts)That says nothing at all about whether corporations want to be controlled. Not wanting other power structures controlling your power structure is not anarchism.
RobertEarl
(13,685 posts)Maybe you don't understand what anarchist means?
It means: Against having a over arching ruler.
The government is the only over arching ruler of corporations and they are against being ruled. Corps fight and spend big money to keep from being ruled over by the government. They don't always succeed. But they damn sure are the prototypical anarchist type.
brooklynite
(93,871 posts)...that Government is somehow an alien "them" oppressing "us".
Last time -I- checked, Government IS us...
RobertEarl
(13,685 posts)But conflating it with TP is ridiculous.
TP wants government to lay off corps.
We the people need government to over arch the destructive nature of capitalist corporations. IOW, control corps.
Warren Stupidity
(48,181 posts)Last edited Tue Mar 20, 2012, 04:44 PM - Edit history (1)
Again - corporations are not anarchist organizations. People running corporations might want to minimize regulation so that they can run their hierarchical undemocratic power structures without being interfered with by a nominally democratic centralized power structure, but they most certainly do not want to get rid of the power structures that prevent people from, for example, simply appropriating the means of production controlled by that corporation, and they would prevent that using either the power of the state, or in some dystopian nightmare their own private enforcement authority. Disposing of one power structure in favor of many smaller power structures is not anarchism, it is neo-feudalism.
You are most likely confusing anarcho-capitalism with anarchism. Sorry, it isn't. It has a massive blind spot in its theory that ignores the neo-feudalistic implications of their proposals.
JackRiddler
(24,979 posts)The big corps as presently constituted cannot exist without the state.
Many of them lobby actively for wars by the state. (Not all.)
They need and expect the state to enforce their property rights, including titles, patents, copyrights and trademarks.
They need the state to maintain conditions of law and order, especially with regard to property rights.
On the other hand, they expect the state to evict people from foreclosed properties for them, even when they can't show title!
They need and have often used the state to crush workers movements and other rebellions.
They commandeer the state every way they can: for investment, for technological development, for subsidies, for providing an educated workforce, and, possibly in the most significant way to their bottom line, as contractors.
They are constantly lobbying the state to get their way. They're not calling for an end to politicians, they love politicians because they can buy politicians.
Just because they want to be above the law and never be prevented from doing anything they like, doesn't mean they are anti-statist. They are extreme pro-statists and part of the state policymaking elite, but they are also outlaws whenever it suits them. No contradiction.
In no philosophical sense whatsoever are conventional corporations anarchist.
A few coops are, however. Credit unions can be.
JFN1
(2,033 posts)Can't call corporations anarchists, as this implies non-existant personhood...
Taverner
(55,476 posts)Take Mikhail Bakunin - the man was a staunch anti-capitalist.
Anarchism also seeks to put the workers in the driver's seat
Anarchism is not about no law, just no leaders
RobertEarl
(13,685 posts)Corporations want to be their own leaders and do as they please.
Sure, there are leaders in the corps. And if you look at the conspiring corps -- which strive to eliminate rules over the lot of them -- as 'workers', 'oppressed' by the government, the similarities are keen.
white_wolf
(6,238 posts)To make this case you'll have to throw out the historical understanding of anarchism which has historically been an opposed to be the State and Capital, both of which corporations love. Corporations cannot exist without the State, they don't want a smaller government, that's part of why Ron Paul's libertarianism will never catch on in the Republican Party. It's bad for business.
Skidmore
(37,364 posts)some form of structure, call it a state, a city, a nation, a corporation, a society, or any other label you care to slap on. Now such structures may be functional or dysfunctional, but simply removing societal structure or rules for order just creates chaos. Changing structure or rules does not necessitate adopting chaos. I have yet to hear how anarchy can serve as the core guiding principle of a society. Somebody is welcome to explain it to me.
ErikJ
(6,335 posts)semi-famous quote
backscatter712
(26,355 posts)They just want government rigged so they make the rules and rule over everyone, and everybody else must submit to them.
So I'd describe them as totalitarians.
RobertEarl
(13,685 posts)A corporation cannot be totalitarian if they have something over them, because then they wouldn't be totalitarian, would they?
Their desire to be totalitarian is only held down by the over-arching which would be one: the government and two: Nature.
They can buy the government. They have. And try to overcome Nature. But at that they will ultimately fail.
baldguy
(36,649 posts)They don't want to just eliminate government control of society - the want to replace it with their own.
And so far, in America they have succeeded.
RobertEarl
(13,685 posts)Corps do love that the government controls individuals. But hate that government tries to control them. So maybe the right term is they are not anarchist but anarchistic?
Like someone above said: to claim they are anarchist is to imply personhood. So maybe it is that in their corporate yearning for elimination of over-arching rules they are simply anarchistic? Which is merely a political stance.
baldguy
(36,649 posts)"Anarchism is generally defined as the political philosophy which holds the state to be undesirable, unnecessary, and harmful, or alternatively as opposing authority and hierarchical organization in the conduct of human relations."
1. The theory or doctrine that all forms of government are oppressive and undesirable and should be abolished.
2. Active resistance and terrorism against the state, as used by some anarchists.
3. Rejection of all forms of coercive control and authority: "He was inclined to anarchism; he hated system and organization and uniformity" (Bertrand Russell).
Corporations just LOVE govt when it does their bidding. And they just LOVE their own hierarchy. They have nothing in common anarchism.
RobertEarl
(13,685 posts)""political philosophy which holds the state to be undesirable, unnecessary, and harmful,...""
Yes. Corps do consider the state ruling over them to be undesirable, etc.
""Rejection of all forms of coercive control and authority...""
That's what I am saying.... the corps work hard to reject any control and authority over them. Corps want to do whatever they want. Government is the sole force which rules over corps.
I realize now that many here have a hard time thinking out of the box when it comes to being anarchistic. Anarchy has a bad reputation, but most people have a streak of anarchism built into their genome. So do corps.