Critique of the Communitarian Anarchism Espoused by Anarchy.net

http://www.anarchy.net/
The site where the article in question may be found.


“I am a citizen of the world”
– Diogenes, Greek (rather, Earthen) Cynic

The problems with communitarian anarchism are the communities. It bills itself as the “you do it your way, we’ll do it our way” anarchism, but who is the subject ‘you’ to which the sentence refers? You, or your community?

Alas, that is the curse of this “new anarchism”, this “anarchism of the future”. Every attractive thing about it has been stolen from it’s ideological nemesis, individualism! After all, you don’t want to be pushed into line, do you? You don’t want to conform to just one Globalist Utopian schematic, do you? Well then welcome aboard!
Yet the next words out of the communitarian’s mouth are in praise of the “community” and the “greater good”. What? What is this supreme contradiction? We should fear being governed by laws that apply to everyone, but not laws designed specifically for our particular geographical region?

“Communitarian anarchism is strongly opposed to the idea of one system applied to all people; we think that leads to the normalization of cultural diversity, creation of giant bureaucratic states, exploitation of our environment, and financial structures that force us to obey dogmatic, capitalist jobs where we slave for a rich elite who don’t care about us.”

Slippery slope fallacy. Cultural diversity is a blanket term, it applies as much to the nuances in traditional marriage garb as it does to the tribe that mutilates it’s infants and cuts patterns into children’s skin with sharpened rocks. Bureaucracies and states are opposed by every anarchist, you can not seriously claim that every globalist anarchist is a hypocrite by attempting to conflate globalism with statism. The environment, if it must be protected, requires uniform protection, you can’t have one country polluting and another not polluting, the same outcome will ensue – the ruin of the GLOBE. Or rather, the planet it is modeled after, our own Earth. And capitalism has nothing to do with globalism either. What kind of an argument are you trying to weave together there?

“Some say anarchism is trying to create Ultimate or Absolute freedom, meaning no restrictions at all = everything’s allowed. But wait. We all carry values. Some things seem to be less wanted, like dumping radioactive waste in rivers, raping women, torturing children, exterminating ethnic groups etc. Suddenly it seems like "Absolute freedom" is not realistic, since it would allow these things to come about. Think about it: Would you allow your neighbour to shoot your dog, because it was his personal freedom?”

http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/193..

Some may say it, but no anarchists are saying it. In fact, they’ve been trying to shut those people up for years. ALL anarchists oppose the freedom to coerce, whether communitarian or cosmopolitan, individualist or collectivist. The million dollar question is: do you?

I am an individualist cosmopolitan anarchist. I believe the same one standard applies to all people, and that standard is objective and not up for negotiation. That standard is as follows: Don’t make anyone do anything they don’t want to do – even, especially, dogs.

If communitarianism would excuse anyone or any community that didn’t adhere to this libertarian principle, then I will not excuse, or endorse, communitarianism.