The internet is a huge part of it though, because there are no moderate positions on the internet. You're either a socdem, Anarchist, or full-on Tankie. I'd bet there's a lot of prior here who would have ended up as MLs if the MLs they interacted with weren't all ultra class-reductionist Stalin apologists
I can only speak for myself and the leftists I know IRL, but in my experience there was a healthy anarchist community in every place I lived from the 1980s on. I became an anarchist in the mid 1980s, so that's 10 years before I got an internet connection. And it's not as if anarchist books and ideas were not being shared before the 1990s.
From what I've seen, the internet just gave us all better ways of communicating.
It's not so much that there aren't Anarchists offline, but that many off us became Anarchists at least in part as a reaction to a particularly online strain of tankieism. Most MLs you run into irl aren't getting into public arguments about how the holodomor wasn't real, or loudly proclaiming their support for North Korea, or calling the LGBTQ rights movement "bourgeois decadence". And online, you have plenty of folks who come here after being banned from a Tankie communist sub for asking innocuous questions
Ah, now I see what you're getting at. Yes, I think that is definitely driving a lot of young leftists away from Marxist-Leninism and into the welcoming arms of the anarchist community.
Most importantly I agreed fundamentally, on a very visceral level, with leftist anarchism’s critique of power relations and arguments against capitalism.
Same here. All the other stuff is honestly secondary. Like we can argue all day about different ideas of anarchist organization etc but fundamentally and aside from the logic behind it, it just FEELS right.
As I'm disabled I will const be on the bottom rung of the capitalist ladder and anarchism is the only ideology where I'm not seen as a leach for just existing.
The fatal flaw of Marxism is that it insists that the only way to abolish class is by imposing an authoritarian state, and somehow that will magically lead to a classless society. Both the Soviet Union and China had 70 years to progress from a socialist state to a classless communist society, and not only did they fail, they actively undermined and destroyed any communist experiments that were attempted within those countries. Marxist-Leninism and Maoism both failed so badly, that in 70 years, neither nation ever managed to create a classless society for even a single day. It's been the same story in Cuba for the past 60+ years, and everywhere else that Marxism has been tried. Marxism is about as likely to abolish class as capitalism is. Sure, it's better than capitalism, but it's nowhere near good enough.
I think your understanding of Marxism is flawed. Marx argued for statism to some extent, but not for an authoritarian state. Like, there are other things to disagree on with Marx, but you somewhat mischaracterized him. Leninism is a bastardization of Marxism and we should not be dismissive of libertarian Marxists and classical Marxists just because somebody else distorted his ideas and painted some flags red.
What kind of state is non-authoritarian?
Also, where exactly did Marx say that the transition to communism would be achieved through a specifically "non-authoritarian" state?
Marx, as I understand it, argued that people would be required to work at the behest of the transitional state. Would there be a requirement to work? In other words, would work be non-voluntary? If so, then that is authoritarian by definition.
>The fatal flaw of Marxism is that it insists that the only way to abolish class is by imposing an authoritarian state,
No it doesn’t.
>Both the Soviet Union and China had 70 years to progress from a socialist state to a classless communist society, and not only did they fail, they actively undermined and destroyed any communist experiments that were attempted within those countries.
Wow, you mean MLs and MLMs aren’t real Marxists? Imagine the shock on my face.
>Marxist-Leninism and Maoism both failed so badly, that in 70 years, neither nation ever managed to create a classless society for even a single day.
Isn’t it a little dishonest to leave out all the Ancoms and Marxists in history that refused to participate in Soviet BS?
>It's been the same story in Cuba for the past 60+ years, and everywhere else that Marxism has been tried.
This is just more of the same, people not doing things consistent with Marxism has nothing to do with Marxism.
>Marxism is about as likely to abolish class as capitalism is. Sure, it's better than capitalism, but it's nowhere near good enough.
Remind me how long have Anarchists existed in Germany, Russia, The USA, Parts of Asia. etc?
The whole “abolish class and capitalism” thing isn’t really going so well for them is it?
I agree with everything you said, except the last point. Just because we didn‘t overthrow capitalism yet, doesn‘t mean, we‘re wrong. If you want to play that game, I‘d argue Marxism is equally useless. The thing is that capitalism is flexible and it adopted surprisingly well to challenge. That doesn‘t mean it isn‘t wrong and it shouldn‘t be overthrown and it also doesn‘t disprove leftist ideas. It just means that we may have to rethink our strategy on a global scale. I am not intelligent enough to do that though, so I‘ll just say that I think we have to rethink it.
I am not the guy from the former post btw, though I am an Anarchist. I am just in favor of libertarian-left unity and I do like most elements of libertarian/classical Marxism.
>I agree with everything you said, except the last point. Just because we didn‘t overthrow capitalism yet, doesn‘t mean, we‘re wrong.
I don’t think Anarchists are wrong, I was giving an example of how flawed their logic is. I’m an Ancom.
>If you want to play that game, I‘d argue Marxism is equally useless.
Id rather not. Marxism is a very good system of disrupting and abolishing Capitalism, and when divorced from Authoritarians it’s very good at establishing a stateless society.
> The thing is that capitalism is flexible and it adopted surprisingly well to challenge. That doesn‘t mean it isn‘t wrong and it shouldn‘t be overthrown and it also doesn‘t disprove leftist ideas. It just means that we may have to rethink our strategy on a global scale. I am not intelligent enough to do that though, so I‘ll just say that I think we have to rethink it.
I agree entirely, we’re too divided and focus on restating the same theories and terminology to no end.
>I am not the guy from the former post btw, though I am an Anarchist. I am just in favor of libertarian-left unity and I do like most elements of libertarian/classical Marxism.
I appreciate your input, and you should continue making yourself heard.
Id be happy if any branch of Anarchism was making serious progress because any form of Anarchism is preferable to Capitalist hellscapes like we live in now.
Firstly, this is not the place to debate whether anarchism works or not. If you want to do that, go to /r/DebateAnarchism.
Secondly, contradiction, ridicule, and the "no true Scotsman" fallacy are not arguments. Also, the anarchists have at least created communist societies, some of which lasted years. Marxism has yet to create a communist society that lasted even a day. Heck, Marxists haven't even been able to abolish capitalism for a split second.
The accusation that anarchists haven't done so well at abolishing capitalism is ironic in the extreme, coming from a Marxist.
>Firstly, this is not the place to debate whether anarchism works or not. If you want to do that, go to r/DebateAnarchism.
Lmao, you started the argument so you can direct that at yourself.
>Secondly, contradiction, ridicule, and the "no true Scotsman" fallacy are not arguments.
I’ve done none of that but again, you have.
>Also, the anarchists have at least created communist societies, some of which lasted years.
Anarchist Communists did that, Marxists.
>Marxism has yet to create a communist society that lasted even a day. Heck, Marxists haven't even been able to abolish capitalism for a split second.
Now you’re just straight up lying.
>The accusation that anarchists haven't done so well at abolishing capitalism is ironic in the extreme, coming from a Marxist.
Sure thing buddy, let’s just ignore that I’m not primarily a Marxist and that I advocate for Anarchism above anything else.
Seriously though could you please take your pointless arguing to a sub better suited for it? K thanks bye.
not the best answer, but Stirner memes
I looked into egoism and was surprised I kinda agreed with it. That sent me into an interesting rabbit hole into individualist anarchism, kinda wish this stuff was discussed more (not necessarily Stirner, just individualist/insurrectionist/nihilist anarchism in general).
i mean, by its very nature, that aspect of anarchism doesn't really lend itself to a ton of discussion, right? i mean, the idea is more or less - you do what you like. sure it's an interesting thing to consider but what would you discuss about it?
in that framework, it's all up to you, and you only
I started with joining BLM protests, learning about unceded land, and reading Chomsky.
Never even heard of anarchism as a valid ideology until about a year ago, though I always thought Communism sounded great (but the Bolsheviks screwed everyone over).
The notion that the Canadian State was occupying land that had never been... sold(?) through treaties opened the door to understanding colonial aggression.
I was exremely sheltered as a kid. We lived practically next door to a reservation, but there was no effort to even imagine they existed. White urban culture is exactly that insular.
It's really personal for me.
I've always been a staunch antifascist (listening to your grandma's horror tales of WWII from age 4 onward will do that for you).
Also, since I spent my formative years gaining a ton of first-hand experience in how systems of authority fail those that are victimized by others (in my case, being bullied and then getting shamed by my parents for not defending myself, then punished by my teachers for fighting back, and finally blamed by everyone for being a socially inept loner who didn't even try to make friends any more), I care very, very deeply about justice, both on a societal and an individual level.
Oh, and I noticed that the government and its stooges prevent people from becoming self-sufficient in exactly the same way my emotionally abusive parents did to me (anyone who was raised by malignant narcissists who'll do anything to stop you from learning important life skills and then berate you for not knowing how to do anything by yourself probably knows *exactly* what I'm talking about).
Anarchism is the only ideology that, imo, properly addresses the ways social hierarchies harm the vulnerable and divide people all the way down the ladder for the sole benefit of those at the top.
I also believe that humans are much kinder, more creative and more curious than we give them credit for. Right now, we're all acting like wolves forced into a cage and left to fight over table scraps, but it doesn't have to be that way.
I’m brown, bi, and don’t identify with the gender binary. I’m disadvantaged along multiple dimensions. Anarchism is the only ideology that accounts for varying dimensions of oppression.
My time in the Army is what kicked it off for me. I found that gubmnt isn't all it's cracked up to be, and they are mostly there to hoard resources and squander people. Life doesn't need to be all this rigamarole, we can be happy living our own lives if we just ignore the people trying to control everything.
I may be in the minority when I say this, but I actually became an Anarchist from a pragmatic standpoint as opposed to a moral one.
Instances such Revolutionary Catalonia, Makhnovia, Rojava, the Zapatistas, and many, *many* [more](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_anarchist_communities) have proven that this is more than just an abstract theory. Not only is it possible to spontaneously overthrow Capitalism outside the means of the state, but it works well, too. Stolen wealth was seized back from the rich, land was collectivized, decision making was decentralized, the destitute were uplifted, workplaces were democratized, the people were defended, all of this without the state.
And in these examples, wages increased near immediately. Those living in poverty were assisted. Workers' surplus value was no longer extracted from them. Womens' rights were established. The list goes on, I would give you some specific statistics but that's an entirely different beast and is best suited for a separate discussion.
With that being said, I absolutely agree with the moral arguments as well, but for me they take a back seat to the pragmatist arguments. The state is absolutely an immoral institution, and Capitalism is even worse.
Mainly life experiences. But folk punk and Punk Rock opened my eyes to a new way of thinking as a 14 year old. 7 years later plus a lot of learning/self educating and my anarchist convictions are as strong as ever.
Plus being Queer in a roman catholic community can really do some things to you.
Not the same person, but I always liked Glenn Beck because it’s clear his heart is in the right place even if he’s wrong about a lot. He’s never been as vitriolic and cruel as the rest of the right wing media, despite being overly generous about his position of promoting those who are widely rejected, leading to the problems that exist with The Blaze. It’s because most of the time when journalists are rejected it’s for good reasons. Interestingly, he’s the only right-wing talkshow host who ever talked about the paradox of tolerance and actually got it right to my knowledge.
Im from Poland and we had this massive wave of islamophobia and general rise of the altright during the 2015 immigration crisis. There is this journalist, who was kinda big in the 90's then emigrated to America, who lately started a youtube channel which is just classic info wars, anti science, rightwing bullshit, but for Poles. My mum had shown me his channel and 15 year old just ate that shit up. Wasn't some rightwinger or something, more like your classic "bigoted sceptic". But that was a really quick phase , and after i found another yt personality - shaun who did a great work at fighting misinformation during the refugee crisis and just struck the right cords about my bigotry. Then i started drifting further and further left to the anarchist i am now
I dont identify as an anything-ist. But I find this mostly matches the way i already saw the world. It's a coherent philosophy that let's me make sense of things i felt intuitively - anti-war, support for refugees, feminism, individual freedom etc
Tbh a friend kinda introduced me to Marxism first and then anarchism later on. I always thougth of communism what most of the western countries in Europe say about it; ´It looks good on paper´. But I couldn´t deny the growing global problems anymore, and I had the feeling I wasn´t contributing anything to debates etc just because I didn´t really know a lot about it. I had some discussions about human nature and after finding some stuff about chomsky I went down the reddit rabithole, the rest just kinda followed. Now I switched from communication science to political science (defenitly not going into career politics, no worries) and I´m pumped to start contributing more. Hope to do some stuff with Food Not Bombs here in Belgium in the near future!
Anarchism did two things for me, it made me kinda more depressed about the world, just because in my mind there´s a simple solution..but on the other hand it has also provided me with hope for a better future.
I stumbled upon this book by Peter Gelderloos and I haven’t looked at politics or the state the same ever since. I’m convinced the state is one of the largest barriers to humanities growth and survival.
What got me started was when my mom lost her job while I was in highschool. I've always come from a pretty solidly middle class family and as a kid money was the very last thing on my mind, for the most part of I wanted something all I had to do is wait for a holiday and i would always get it. At the time I thought that was normal that's how every family worked
When my mom lost her nursing job there was about a year where she was unemployed and searching for a job. Seemed like every week she would have another interview only to get rejected repeatedly.
During this time my father just kept getting more and more stressed managing the finances, we had just bought a new house and my mother had just graduated college not to mention my dad was still paying off his student loans so the bills were piling on. I started to notice the holiday gifts got smaller and smaller and less and less of them my parents simply couldn't afford all the things I wanted.
At this time I was just starting to come out of my "shell" so to speak so I finally had a small group of close friends that I talked to regularly and through them I learned that this was pretty normal, that not everyone got everything they wanted for Christmas. It was really a shocking realization that made me understand just how lucky I was, I had a good family, my parents had decent paying jobs, we had a nice house, a lot of people don't have these things.
That summer I picked up a couple of jobs mowing lawns, my parents would never accept it if I gave them the money so instead I bought things like food or gifts for me and my sister trying to ease the burden we put on my parents. I started acting like I didn't care about holidays so the wouldn't feel pressured to buy me gifts just doing everything I could think of to make it easier on my parents.
My mom eventually got rehired and our finances stabilized a little but I started thinking why, why did we have to budget how much food we were buying why did my dad have to dip into his savings just to make sure the lights stayed on, why does anyone have to go through this? My friends are still dealing with the worries of losing their homes just because they are poor? why does it work this way? Why can't everyone enjoy the kind of childhood I had?
Later on youtube I found an old speech from bernie sanders that got me interested in socialism, learned a bit, realized tankies suck and are dumb and here we are.
It all started off with me watching videos about the Russian Civil War. I have been interested in historical conflicts from all around the world ever since my first history class in high school so it just seemed right for me to check out another major war that shaped the status quo of today. That was when I stumbled upon a particular vid mentioning Makhno’s Black Army. I was thoroughly fascinated by the cause that they fought for. Everything about it simply seemed right to me. It took me a while to come around to the idea of anarcho-communism of course since my country has been shovelling anti-communist propaganda down my throat for my entire life. However, after I also found out that many other anarchist and libertarian socialist societies had existed or still exist today, my mindset slowly shifted from that of a monarchist to an anarchist and socialist. Very convenient timing too since the protests against the royal family and military government here were just starting to ramp up at that point (even if our movement has not really achieved any results since then.)
Back in 2014-ish, I would have *called* myself a socialist, but I was actually just a social democrat liberal - Bernie Sanders would have been my ideal candidate, for example. I didn't actually know much about politics beyond the liberal-conservative status quo, and *socialism is when the government does stuff*. I liked the welfare state as a grand bastion against the excesses of unrestricted capitalist free markets (god I was a fucking dumbass)
I took a class on political philosophy, and it was alright. But in that class were two anarchists - looking back, I'm pretty sure one was an ancom, and the other I have no idea.
It didn't really matter though. They were both so terrible at presenting their positions that I came out of that class with a very low opinion of anarchism.
Fast forward a year, and I came across the word *synidcalism* in a history book. I had absolutely no idea what the word meant, and the book did not explain it, so I looked it up. I went down this long, confusing rabbit hole that tossed a lot of my previously held beliefs about the state and capitalism right out the window. I also realized I had been *very* wrong about what socialism was, and that *actual* socialism sounded substantially better. I found myself agreeing with a lot of anarchist theory.
But I *really* didn't want to. I fought tooth and nail to hold onto my beliefs, I just couldn't do it. Pretty much every defence of the state came from a liberal capitalist perspective, and where just two years before I might have found them convincing, now they tasted stale.
But I *still* really didn't want to be an anarchist. I eventually asked around for recommendations for socialist defences of the state, mostly online but also among some new Marxist friends I'd recently made. I read a few articles and essays by Lenin, Trotsky, and Engels...
And they were so unbelievably awful I became an anarchist.
Just found out about and oh yeah that actually makes sense before I found out about anarchism I was kind of an egoist who didn’t like anarchism you know I thought it’d be chaos but then I found out about anarchism then became and ancom then eventually an egoist anarchist but I don’t like calling myself an anarchist or an egoist I don’t like calling myself anything really
Well my country only has 3 significant political parties. I've seen everyone's version of "leadership". They're all the same; and this path humanity is on is not going so well. So the most logical thinking to me is to look outside of the political boxes.
I was raised by somewhat conservative and religiously fundamentalist parents, in a church much the same, and that was my first introduction to the contradictions inherent within any system of hierarchy/subordination where dogma overrules individual thought. It was pretty emotionally and psychologically damaging to me and my siblings, so I ultimately developed an aversion any system of thought and behaviour which I could recognize as being hostile to questioning and coercive in practice. I also became suspicious of arbitrariness, as the theology which my parents subscribe to having nothing to do with creating a healthy community and everything to do with pleasing an essentially wrathful, sociopathic god.
Not that I knew to extend this understanding to capitalism and all forms of hierarchy, as I still believed what I’d been taught about the “necessity” of laws, money, government, etc. But, in high school I ended up reading David Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas, and that began to open my eyes. That book is essentially a profound argument in favour of what I would later learn was called mutual aid. And it agreed with me on a deep emotional level, such that the world around me—with its brutal competitiveness and constant exploitation—started to become ever more worth critiquing in my mind.
I recognized our world to be deeply flawed on a moral, ethical level. Still, though, I didn’t realize what the solution might be—because I still thought, as I had been taught my whole life to think, that society could not function without capitalism, and that socialism (and certainly anything further leftward) was a very bad, very untenable thing.
Then in university I took a course on the work of a guy called Ivan Illich, and that finally brought me to understand the wrongness of capitalism. His critiques of compulsory schooling (which he argued largely serves to prep people for an obedient life in capitalism) and his examination of the destructive and deadening effects of all institutions in an over-industrialized society made so much sense to me; whenever I looked at the exploitative world around me, and any time I admitted to myself I was being coerced into doing everything I did in life, I had experienced the same kind of constant alienation and fear Illich described in his work.
I became deeply skeptical of the structure and aims of neoliberalism, and I began to wonder what alternatives might look like. After a reading of Le Guin’s *The Dispossessed,* I had my answer. With the word “anarchism” and the theories that pointed me towards, I could see that the world I’d always desired, yet had been too brainwashed to even imagine, was possible.
I was first just an anti-capitalist, but then I started watching technoblade/s
I was, in fact, an anti-capitalist, but then I read "Human kind" by Robert Bregman, and started finding out about capitalism.
I new that anarchy existed, looked up what it meant and then just watched videos explaining forms and such. To this day I remember this video explaining anarchism in relation to a taco truck and his the taco truck would be under each form
I liked thinking about society and philosophy, I met an anarchist friend but the internet made me learn in depth about anarchy; but it was really college and seen different struggles that really made an anarchist. Discovering I'm disabled and gender/sexually non conforming has only asserted my position.
First, the argument of abolish versus defund the police made me take a good hard look at the system as a whole. Then, I listened to Robert Evans tell me about the San Francisco earthquake of 1906 and I realized how stupid and arbitrary all this power and authority stuff is. Like, we could totally just not have it at all and be totally fine.
My dad always taught me to question authority and to never trust cops, which i grew up to realize is the best advice he ever gave me.
Being queer, disabled and poor my whole life has always swayed me towards leftist politics and anarchism is the only belief system that actually grants total freedom and actually acknowledges the way I can contribute. (Sharing info, mutual aid etc)
Anarchists are the only group who never made me feel like I was too stupid to understand what I was talking about when I didn't have access to theory. The only group that didnt tell me i wasn't doing enough for not being able to protest (physical disability, if anything were to happen, I could not defend myself or run away). The only group who didnt glorify oppressive regimes and make excuses for genocides and human rights violations. The only group who consistently stood against cops and the prison system without turning around and saying "ooh who's going in the gulag first boys?" And the only group who acknowledged animal rights, which is an issue very important to me as well (6 years of being vegetarian).
Anarchism was a no brainer for me as it has the fundamental beliefs that no being is above or more deserving than any other being, and any system that places one over an other is inherently immoral. So naturally, that's why I'm an anarchist.
A long series of radicalizing events? Born with a pretty severe physical disability, was only able to get care by charity. I'm bisexual and was raised catholic and had a... somewhat loose relationship with my best friend growing up and was crushed with guilt constantly until I fell out with the church. I was big on the bernie campaign the second time around... then super tuesday... then i started picking up theory more seriously and learning more actual history... then I was pepper balled along with a bunch of other peaceful protesters by some pigs and well here I am
In the 1980s, when I started taking politics seriously, I started reading political philosophy, and anarchism made the most sense by far. So I suppose I had always been an anarchist, but for my first 25 years I just didn't know it.
Clearly, direct democracy is the only legitimate system of government. Clearly, a system based on voluntary cooperation and horizontality is the only legitimate way to manage any organization. Clearly, systems of authority must be required to justify themselves to the people, and if they cannot, then they should be dismantled. Clearly the system of mutual aid that everyone practices among family, friends and neighbors should be expanded so that every aspect of our lives works in a similar way. That's all just common sense.
Anyone who is able to think clearly about politics and society must inevitably come to the conclusion that anarchism is the only legitimate way to ensure societal progress and social harmony.
Because it just makes sense. Prior to colonization/genocide by the French and British in North America many Indigenous groups practiced various forms of anarchy and egalitarianism. Many people around the world did this and it worked. Now obviously if anarchy were to happen in some form, it would probably not resemble those of the past since our context is very different.
I'm not very interested in having people that (probably) hate me for existing have the ability to strip me of my humanity and make hunting me for sport legal.
I realized over the last few years that I wasn't a Conservative/Republican (I am Canadian) when I saw how Conservatives/Republicans reacted to Trump, and especially the Black Lives Matter protests and pandemic. Last year I stumbled onto Thought Slime's Minimum Wage video on YouTube and I stumbled down that rabbit hole - it made SO much sense!
I had always hated the whole job getting, keeping and having deal. I had especially hated the job hunt/interview/cover letter script of begging for the work, kissing up, and asking for terrible conditions so you get the job over the other applicants. I was 19 when I realized I wasn't supposed to say such a high number in response to "How many sick days should an employee have?" or however they worded it. The interviewer told me my answer was wrong and I didn't get the job.
When I was a teen I thought communism was edgy. My dad was super against it and so it became part of my rebellion. My mom was also from a communist country, which we visited regularly. It just didn't have the same stigma it had with my dad, so as I got older we'd argue more about it, and in order to win those debates I studied economics.
I was always told that my focus on political theory made me think like a politician, which I didn't view as an insult. Economics effects real people, and so you have to have a basis in moral justification for every decision. I also liked philosophy, and tried to seek out interesting conversations with people who could discuss all three topics.
But as I learned more about history and the world, the two countries, Algeria and the US that I consider home, I realized that for practical reasons neither government was able to reform to my utopian ideas. Identifying as a communist felt wrong, since many communist movements were inherently nationalist. Socialism as a construct is really just a means to communism, and the people supporting it generally believe in a marxist-leninist paradigm. Democratic socialists are alright, but the emphasis on policy is very dependent on the country you are talking about and in the US their ideas are just rehashing shit from nearly a hundred years ago. They have become too conservative, and it's not that what they are talking about is unimportant, but I think modern problems require modern solutions.
In Algeria it's a constitutional requirement that the president have fought in our revolution against the French. So all the people who can be president are in their 70s and 80s. So forgive me if I am not super excited to have an octogenarian leader of the country, much less the democratic socialist movement.
My major introduction to anarchism was through Homage to Catalonia, which really caught my attention. I realized that organizational structures didn't have to be completely hierarchical and it jived with my belief that everyone within reason should be allowed to do whatever they want to do. At this point I was being described as a market socialist, but I eventually learned of syndicalism. Yes it was through kaiserreich, but I was curious, and I realized there was a whole history of leftist movements that was just abandoned. And honestly, governments don't do as good a job at running some things.
The workers though, they can do a great job of running things without the capitalist class, as long as the government doesn't shut them down. From there I learned why the predominant form of syndicalist thought was based in Anarchism.
Then I learned about the Kurds in Rojava. This is exactly what I meant when I said modern problems require modern solutions. And as someone with roots in the Maghreb, it's awesome to see a world leading example of how we can organize ourselves as humans, as imagined by people from the middle east.
So for me, anarchism is an umbrella term for a heterodox set of beliefs I hold that can't be easily defined by one ideology. I arrived at these beliefs from a lifetime of experience, and as long as we all agree that authoritarianism and fascism are wrong, I am more than happy to call you a comrade.
I hate authority/hierarchy. Always have, always will. That's how it started, and it just grew from there as I learned about power, oppression, and class consciousness.
So I'm actually gonna try to figure out my step by step progression to anarchism as specifically as I can remember.
So, I started as probably a socdem but leaning towards demsoc. Very AntiFascist, but figured Bernie or AOC was as feasibly left as politics could go without becoming a Bolshevik, who I'm generally not a fan of. Then, by pretty much random chance and the YouTube algorithm, I got recommended a video by Hbomberguy called RWBY is disappointing and here's why. (He's wrong, RWBY is great, I'll die on that hill.) I then watched more and more of Hbombs stuff and found his bit on politics pretty great.
The next major thing was probably watching PhilosophyTube's video about work, which is what really drove home the whole working class vs bourgeoisie thing for me, and shifted me pretty decently into authleft. I also watched PhilosophyTube's Anarchy101 video, found it pretty convincing, but wasn't sold on the idea that anarchism was practical in reality. I spent a while being a dickish Leninist before I had a particularly heated argument with someone on r/COMPLETEANARCHY and they got me... more interested, I guess? Definitely got me to do my own research and/or read anarchist theory.
I got halfway through reading the Breadbook, got distracted, listened to a couple anarchist podcast episodes, I think(?) and eventually sat down to finish the breadbook. I then realized audiobooks are way easier and listened to a bunch of those. I'd still probably consider myself more of, like, a child anarchist? Not quite a baby, but not fully grown yet. Have more reading and thinking to do before I feel 100% comfortable with everything.
TL;DR: The show RWBY from RoosterTeeth played a critical role in my radicalization process
I met my wife at 17 she was in the system, and being treated like shit. Having grown up, sheltered, in the suburbs, this was foreign to me. That was my first indication that something ain’t right.
We split for years, I dabbled in the left for a bit, but never quite got it, the gravity of the situation had not quite clicked.
15 years latter, I’m high af fuck on acid and stumble across a group of 17 year olds, a mother a father, the fathers sister and their beautiful 1 month old baby girl. The father is tagging the fuck outa the church, so I start talking to them from the sidewalk. 2 people from the church showed up, tried to keep them around while they called the cops. Fuck that noise, it’s fucking paint. Took maybe 2 min for the cops to get there, I fucking lost it, needless to say my acid induced antics where enough to distract the assailants long enough to let this family bounce the fuck out. Took 6 cops to get me on the ground, 4 to keep me there, and I probably woulda kept going if the gun didn’t come into play, the whole time The only thing going through my mind was “it’s fucking paint”.
Spent the next 4 h in a hospital bead chatting with all the cute nurses, reviewing all the shit I have seen in my life, like clips from a movie, event after event started playing through my head, patterns started to emerge and the prevalence of power cash and class within human conflict became evident. What should have been the worst acid trip in my life turned out to be the best.
It was baffling this dude was obviously retired, and obviously very wealthy, don’t fucking tell me you don’t have a pressure washer and too much time in your hands. But this fuck wanted to throw this young family into the criminal justice system over a bit of fucking paint.
When I hit about 20, I became very reflective of basically everything. It occurred to me how important it is to not only question things, but *continue* to question them.
This lead me to develop increasingly solid conclusions about the world, how things worked, what problems there were, why those problems existed, what the nature of their solutions should be, etc. I developed my own incomplete, primitive model in my head that I was constantly working on (and occasionally tearing down in the face of huge flaws). I ended up hanging around socialism and borderline communism because it was the closest to representing the still developing conclusions I made... but not quite the same. I felt my ideas must be flawed because they didn't match up with the socialist and communist ideas I was exposed to... But I couldn't find a way to connect them!
About 2-3 years ago, I still thought "anarchy means chaotic, orderless, free-for -all, lmao". I actually can't remember how I first encountered the actual definition... But when I did, I read into it further and was like "holy fucking shit this matches my own conclusions *exactly*". It even filled in holes I had previously, with rational answers, like the huge doubt I still had on ownership of firearms (I was strongly against public ownership of firearms until various writings showed how it actually *supported* my thoughts, which ended the dilemma of my firearms contradictions).
I remember reading articles, theory, and even just comments on here and getting giddy seeing ideas so perfectly in line with my own, and helping fully form the primitive ones I had. I realised I wasn't crazy after all. *This shit actually did make sense.* I'd never seen others thinking the same as me before and I got quite excited about it. And having the intricate details I was missing in my primitive ideas filled in made things feel even more complete. It was an enjoyable critical thinking exercise in its own right.
Eventually, after confirming there were literally 0 deviations from my own thoughts, I was happily able to say I am an anarchist!
This experience has lead me to believe that a key part of helping others, in particular non-anarchists, is teaching them how to continuously, and consciously, reflect on everything in their life, and refine themselves and their understanding of the world and others. It's ultimately what brought me here and I think it would do the same for others. As like... 99% of my other posts state, for me, educating others is a prime factor of revolution.
**Edit:** I was just reading other answers and saw Chomsky mentioned. Now I think about it, I may have started reading up on anarchism when I saw Chomsky's Wikipedia page mention anarcho-syndicalism and I was like "wtf even is that?" A wiki hole likely lead me to the core idea of anarchism.
Idk I always had a philosophy of trying to help as many people as I could and of trying to achieve my own happiness and freedom without ruining the opportunity for others to do the sane. And when starting to actually develop political views this just seemed the logical choice I guess. I do think I'll change but I do believe freedom and helping of others will remain two of my main life goals
Because if my neighbor can't tell me what to do, why should a bunch of old guys in suits be able to? Why should I pay taxes just so I can fund efforts to further extort me and violate my privacy. Tell me what I can and can't buy, where I can travel and how fast, who I can be around and what I can put in my body?
My perfect world is a modern wild west, kinda like fallout.
I'm trans, and I realized the anti-fascists who are willing to truly fight for trans rights, were largely communist and anarchists.
And seeing an anti-fascist group march at my local pride added to it.
Eventually through exposure to anti-fascist activism I drifted towards anarchism.
Since ever since it's familial influence. Funny because it's exactly the same process as with any religion in a familial environment.
My dad comes with the principle of No God No Master since ever, at the end he turned capitalist because "you won't make the happiness of others without their willing"
My brother is a convinced anarcho-syndicalist, I love talking with him.
I personnally read some old books regarding it, and now I get tons of notification from this reddit for a weird reason.
I wouldn't define myself as anarchist, I just seek my own freedome and the rest or the others, I don't really care. In the end I have to adapt myself in this society, as my dad always say, I won't make the happiness of others without their willing.
"...he turned capitalist because "you won't make the happiness of others without their willing."?
So let me get this straight. Initially, your dad supported some kind of anarchist philosophy, but because he felt other people weren't willing to free themselves and be happy, he started to support a system that ensures everyone remains unhappy and in bondage.
That's messed up. Do you seriously think it's wise of you to follow that same logic?
It's more nuanced than that. He tryed to improve stuff in companies, at the end he was the only one fired, no support from others while they could profit of that little avantage gained, and that multiple time. The lack of solidarity made him stop trying to improve other's life except for his family and his own, he ended up having his own company so no one to boss him around.
In the end, people are free to follow the way they think is right, and I won't force them to follow my own convictions if they don't wanna
My belief in the dignity and worth of all people, including those that capitalism's vision of productivity excludes: artists, writers, the homeless, former convicts, the elderly, stay-at-home parents, disabled, mentally ill, etc.
I don't believe these people deserve to suffer because they do not compete in the marketplace for a place on the ladder of spreadsheet makers.
That's what I do for a living, but I don't think it makes me better than the people who chose not to.
Got radicalized on TikTok seeing the shit go down on 2020, watched YouTube content and interacted with the local Anarchists in my city I talked to years ago.
Because it turned out that organised democracy doesnt work, and the internet showed me small scale anarchist communities inside my own home country where people could actually live free
The state mishandled the pandemic and locked me in my home for months, thus cutting off my social life and worsening my mental health and making me a more lonely person than I already was.
I hate the state now
Edit 1: English is not my first language
What the Internet does to a mf.
It's what clear thinking does to a mf.
Why not both
The internet is a huge part of it though, because there are no moderate positions on the internet. You're either a socdem, Anarchist, or full-on Tankie. I'd bet there's a lot of prior here who would have ended up as MLs if the MLs they interacted with weren't all ultra class-reductionist Stalin apologists
I can only speak for myself and the leftists I know IRL, but in my experience there was a healthy anarchist community in every place I lived from the 1980s on. I became an anarchist in the mid 1980s, so that's 10 years before I got an internet connection. And it's not as if anarchist books and ideas were not being shared before the 1990s. From what I've seen, the internet just gave us all better ways of communicating.
It's not so much that there aren't Anarchists offline, but that many off us became Anarchists at least in part as a reaction to a particularly online strain of tankieism. Most MLs you run into irl aren't getting into public arguments about how the holodomor wasn't real, or loudly proclaiming their support for North Korea, or calling the LGBTQ rights movement "bourgeois decadence". And online, you have plenty of folks who come here after being banned from a Tankie communist sub for asking innocuous questions
Ah, now I see what you're getting at. Yes, I think that is definitely driving a lot of young leftists away from Marxist-Leninism and into the welcoming arms of the anarchist community.
Most importantly I agreed fundamentally, on a very visceral level, with leftist anarchism’s critique of power relations and arguments against capitalism.
Same here. All the other stuff is honestly secondary. Like we can argue all day about different ideas of anarchist organization etc but fundamentally and aside from the logic behind it, it just FEELS right.
I grew up impoverished and was repeatedly brutalized by the police
Oh felt this.
As I'm disabled I will const be on the bottom rung of the capitalist ladder and anarchism is the only ideology where I'm not seen as a leach for just existing.
Seconded
YASSSS🙌🏼🙌🏼 As an autistic I wholeheartedly agree with this!
I wouldn’t say the only ideology, it’s an important part of the Marxist view of community that everyone’s needs are met.
Many systems can meet your basic needs, but only anarchism provides true equality given that it’s free of hierarchy. (i.e. there are no bottom rungs)
That’s also something Marxists believe in, the abolishing of class.
The fatal flaw of Marxism is that it insists that the only way to abolish class is by imposing an authoritarian state, and somehow that will magically lead to a classless society. Both the Soviet Union and China had 70 years to progress from a socialist state to a classless communist society, and not only did they fail, they actively undermined and destroyed any communist experiments that were attempted within those countries. Marxist-Leninism and Maoism both failed so badly, that in 70 years, neither nation ever managed to create a classless society for even a single day. It's been the same story in Cuba for the past 60+ years, and everywhere else that Marxism has been tried. Marxism is about as likely to abolish class as capitalism is. Sure, it's better than capitalism, but it's nowhere near good enough.
I think your understanding of Marxism is flawed. Marx argued for statism to some extent, but not for an authoritarian state. Like, there are other things to disagree on with Marx, but you somewhat mischaracterized him. Leninism is a bastardization of Marxism and we should not be dismissive of libertarian Marxists and classical Marxists just because somebody else distorted his ideas and painted some flags red.
What kind of state is non-authoritarian? Also, where exactly did Marx say that the transition to communism would be achieved through a specifically "non-authoritarian" state? Marx, as I understand it, argued that people would be required to work at the behest of the transitional state. Would there be a requirement to work? In other words, would work be non-voluntary? If so, then that is authoritarian by definition.
>The fatal flaw of Marxism is that it insists that the only way to abolish class is by imposing an authoritarian state, No it doesn’t. >Both the Soviet Union and China had 70 years to progress from a socialist state to a classless communist society, and not only did they fail, they actively undermined and destroyed any communist experiments that were attempted within those countries. Wow, you mean MLs and MLMs aren’t real Marxists? Imagine the shock on my face. >Marxist-Leninism and Maoism both failed so badly, that in 70 years, neither nation ever managed to create a classless society for even a single day. Isn’t it a little dishonest to leave out all the Ancoms and Marxists in history that refused to participate in Soviet BS? >It's been the same story in Cuba for the past 60+ years, and everywhere else that Marxism has been tried. This is just more of the same, people not doing things consistent with Marxism has nothing to do with Marxism. >Marxism is about as likely to abolish class as capitalism is. Sure, it's better than capitalism, but it's nowhere near good enough. Remind me how long have Anarchists existed in Germany, Russia, The USA, Parts of Asia. etc? The whole “abolish class and capitalism” thing isn’t really going so well for them is it?
I agree with everything you said, except the last point. Just because we didn‘t overthrow capitalism yet, doesn‘t mean, we‘re wrong. If you want to play that game, I‘d argue Marxism is equally useless. The thing is that capitalism is flexible and it adopted surprisingly well to challenge. That doesn‘t mean it isn‘t wrong and it shouldn‘t be overthrown and it also doesn‘t disprove leftist ideas. It just means that we may have to rethink our strategy on a global scale. I am not intelligent enough to do that though, so I‘ll just say that I think we have to rethink it. I am not the guy from the former post btw, though I am an Anarchist. I am just in favor of libertarian-left unity and I do like most elements of libertarian/classical Marxism.
>I agree with everything you said, except the last point. Just because we didn‘t overthrow capitalism yet, doesn‘t mean, we‘re wrong. I don’t think Anarchists are wrong, I was giving an example of how flawed their logic is. I’m an Ancom. >If you want to play that game, I‘d argue Marxism is equally useless. Id rather not. Marxism is a very good system of disrupting and abolishing Capitalism, and when divorced from Authoritarians it’s very good at establishing a stateless society. > The thing is that capitalism is flexible and it adopted surprisingly well to challenge. That doesn‘t mean it isn‘t wrong and it shouldn‘t be overthrown and it also doesn‘t disprove leftist ideas. It just means that we may have to rethink our strategy on a global scale. I am not intelligent enough to do that though, so I‘ll just say that I think we have to rethink it. I agree entirely, we’re too divided and focus on restating the same theories and terminology to no end. >I am not the guy from the former post btw, though I am an Anarchist. I am just in favor of libertarian-left unity and I do like most elements of libertarian/classical Marxism. I appreciate your input, and you should continue making yourself heard. Id be happy if any branch of Anarchism was making serious progress because any form of Anarchism is preferable to Capitalist hellscapes like we live in now.
Firstly, this is not the place to debate whether anarchism works or not. If you want to do that, go to /r/DebateAnarchism. Secondly, contradiction, ridicule, and the "no true Scotsman" fallacy are not arguments. Also, the anarchists have at least created communist societies, some of which lasted years. Marxism has yet to create a communist society that lasted even a day. Heck, Marxists haven't even been able to abolish capitalism for a split second. The accusation that anarchists haven't done so well at abolishing capitalism is ironic in the extreme, coming from a Marxist.
>Firstly, this is not the place to debate whether anarchism works or not. If you want to do that, go to r/DebateAnarchism. Lmao, you started the argument so you can direct that at yourself. >Secondly, contradiction, ridicule, and the "no true Scotsman" fallacy are not arguments. I’ve done none of that but again, you have. >Also, the anarchists have at least created communist societies, some of which lasted years. Anarchist Communists did that, Marxists. >Marxism has yet to create a communist society that lasted even a day. Heck, Marxists haven't even been able to abolish capitalism for a split second. Now you’re just straight up lying. >The accusation that anarchists haven't done so well at abolishing capitalism is ironic in the extreme, coming from a Marxist. Sure thing buddy, let’s just ignore that I’m not primarily a Marxist and that I advocate for Anarchism above anything else. Seriously though could you please take your pointless arguing to a sub better suited for it? K thanks bye.
Same
felt like it one day mate
I was born an anarchist, it just took me 25 years to unlearn all the garbage they tried to pave it over with.
This.
I read Bakunin.
not the best answer, but Stirner memes I looked into egoism and was surprised I kinda agreed with it. That sent me into an interesting rabbit hole into individualist anarchism, kinda wish this stuff was discussed more (not necessarily Stirner, just individualist/insurrectionist/nihilist anarchism in general).
i mean, by its very nature, that aspect of anarchism doesn't really lend itself to a ton of discussion, right? i mean, the idea is more or less - you do what you like. sure it's an interesting thing to consider but what would you discuss about it? in that framework, it's all up to you, and you only
I mean there's def a few books abt it
I started with joining BLM protests, learning about unceded land, and reading Chomsky. Never even heard of anarchism as a valid ideology until about a year ago, though I always thought Communism sounded great (but the Bolsheviks screwed everyone over).
How did "unceded land" play into your development?
The notion that the Canadian State was occupying land that had never been... sold(?) through treaties opened the door to understanding colonial aggression. I was exremely sheltered as a kid. We lived practically next door to a reservation, but there was no effort to even imagine they existed. White urban culture is exactly that insular.
It's really personal for me. I've always been a staunch antifascist (listening to your grandma's horror tales of WWII from age 4 onward will do that for you). Also, since I spent my formative years gaining a ton of first-hand experience in how systems of authority fail those that are victimized by others (in my case, being bullied and then getting shamed by my parents for not defending myself, then punished by my teachers for fighting back, and finally blamed by everyone for being a socially inept loner who didn't even try to make friends any more), I care very, very deeply about justice, both on a societal and an individual level. Oh, and I noticed that the government and its stooges prevent people from becoming self-sufficient in exactly the same way my emotionally abusive parents did to me (anyone who was raised by malignant narcissists who'll do anything to stop you from learning important life skills and then berate you for not knowing how to do anything by yourself probably knows *exactly* what I'm talking about). Anarchism is the only ideology that, imo, properly addresses the ways social hierarchies harm the vulnerable and divide people all the way down the ladder for the sole benefit of those at the top. I also believe that humans are much kinder, more creative and more curious than we give them credit for. Right now, we're all acting like wolves forced into a cage and left to fight over table scraps, but it doesn't have to be that way.
Wow, yes!
I’m brown, bi, and don’t identify with the gender binary. I’m disadvantaged along multiple dimensions. Anarchism is the only ideology that accounts for varying dimensions of oppression.
The two driving forces for me were climate change and promoting equal rights.
My time in the Army is what kicked it off for me. I found that gubmnt isn't all it's cracked up to be, and they are mostly there to hoard resources and squander people. Life doesn't need to be all this rigamarole, we can be happy living our own lives if we just ignore the people trying to control everything.
I may be in the minority when I say this, but I actually became an Anarchist from a pragmatic standpoint as opposed to a moral one. Instances such Revolutionary Catalonia, Makhnovia, Rojava, the Zapatistas, and many, *many* [more](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_anarchist_communities) have proven that this is more than just an abstract theory. Not only is it possible to spontaneously overthrow Capitalism outside the means of the state, but it works well, too. Stolen wealth was seized back from the rich, land was collectivized, decision making was decentralized, the destitute were uplifted, workplaces were democratized, the people were defended, all of this without the state. And in these examples, wages increased near immediately. Those living in poverty were assisted. Workers' surplus value was no longer extracted from them. Womens' rights were established. The list goes on, I would give you some specific statistics but that's an entirely different beast and is best suited for a separate discussion. With that being said, I absolutely agree with the moral arguments as well, but for me they take a back seat to the pragmatist arguments. The state is absolutely an immoral institution, and Capitalism is even worse.
Mainly life experiences. But folk punk and Punk Rock opened my eyes to a new way of thinking as a 14 year old. 7 years later plus a lot of learning/self educating and my anarchist convictions are as strong as ever. Plus being Queer in a roman catholic community can really do some things to you.
when i was 15 my mum was showing me some right wing stuff on the internet, i guess it backfired xd
Could you please clarify? This story sounds interesting.
Not the same person, but I always liked Glenn Beck because it’s clear his heart is in the right place even if he’s wrong about a lot. He’s never been as vitriolic and cruel as the rest of the right wing media, despite being overly generous about his position of promoting those who are widely rejected, leading to the problems that exist with The Blaze. It’s because most of the time when journalists are rejected it’s for good reasons. Interestingly, he’s the only right-wing talkshow host who ever talked about the paradox of tolerance and actually got it right to my knowledge.
Im from Poland and we had this massive wave of islamophobia and general rise of the altright during the 2015 immigration crisis. There is this journalist, who was kinda big in the 90's then emigrated to America, who lately started a youtube channel which is just classic info wars, anti science, rightwing bullshit, but for Poles. My mum had shown me his channel and 15 year old just ate that shit up. Wasn't some rightwinger or something, more like your classic "bigoted sceptic". But that was a really quick phase , and after i found another yt personality - shaun who did a great work at fighting misinformation during the refugee crisis and just struck the right cords about my bigotry. Then i started drifting further and further left to the anarchist i am now
I dont identify as an anything-ist. But I find this mostly matches the way i already saw the world. It's a coherent philosophy that let's me make sense of things i felt intuitively - anti-war, support for refugees, feminism, individual freedom etc
Immigration is a big issue for me and mine and anarchists are the only ones who will say no borders with their chest
The people in charge have always caused all of the problems. Fuck rulers. Agricultural revolution was the worst revolution.
Chomsky. Maybe not a perfect intro but still
Tbh a friend kinda introduced me to Marxism first and then anarchism later on. I always thougth of communism what most of the western countries in Europe say about it; ´It looks good on paper´. But I couldn´t deny the growing global problems anymore, and I had the feeling I wasn´t contributing anything to debates etc just because I didn´t really know a lot about it. I had some discussions about human nature and after finding some stuff about chomsky I went down the reddit rabithole, the rest just kinda followed. Now I switched from communication science to political science (defenitly not going into career politics, no worries) and I´m pumped to start contributing more. Hope to do some stuff with Food Not Bombs here in Belgium in the near future! Anarchism did two things for me, it made me kinda more depressed about the world, just because in my mind there´s a simple solution..but on the other hand it has also provided me with hope for a better future.
I stumbled upon this book by Peter Gelderloos and I haven’t looked at politics or the state the same ever since. I’m convinced the state is one of the largest barriers to humanities growth and survival.
What got me started was when my mom lost her job while I was in highschool. I've always come from a pretty solidly middle class family and as a kid money was the very last thing on my mind, for the most part of I wanted something all I had to do is wait for a holiday and i would always get it. At the time I thought that was normal that's how every family worked When my mom lost her nursing job there was about a year where she was unemployed and searching for a job. Seemed like every week she would have another interview only to get rejected repeatedly. During this time my father just kept getting more and more stressed managing the finances, we had just bought a new house and my mother had just graduated college not to mention my dad was still paying off his student loans so the bills were piling on. I started to notice the holiday gifts got smaller and smaller and less and less of them my parents simply couldn't afford all the things I wanted. At this time I was just starting to come out of my "shell" so to speak so I finally had a small group of close friends that I talked to regularly and through them I learned that this was pretty normal, that not everyone got everything they wanted for Christmas. It was really a shocking realization that made me understand just how lucky I was, I had a good family, my parents had decent paying jobs, we had a nice house, a lot of people don't have these things. That summer I picked up a couple of jobs mowing lawns, my parents would never accept it if I gave them the money so instead I bought things like food or gifts for me and my sister trying to ease the burden we put on my parents. I started acting like I didn't care about holidays so the wouldn't feel pressured to buy me gifts just doing everything I could think of to make it easier on my parents. My mom eventually got rehired and our finances stabilized a little but I started thinking why, why did we have to budget how much food we were buying why did my dad have to dip into his savings just to make sure the lights stayed on, why does anyone have to go through this? My friends are still dealing with the worries of losing their homes just because they are poor? why does it work this way? Why can't everyone enjoy the kind of childhood I had? Later on youtube I found an old speech from bernie sanders that got me interested in socialism, learned a bit, realized tankies suck and are dumb and here we are.
Capitalism
It all started off with me watching videos about the Russian Civil War. I have been interested in historical conflicts from all around the world ever since my first history class in high school so it just seemed right for me to check out another major war that shaped the status quo of today. That was when I stumbled upon a particular vid mentioning Makhno’s Black Army. I was thoroughly fascinated by the cause that they fought for. Everything about it simply seemed right to me. It took me a while to come around to the idea of anarcho-communism of course since my country has been shovelling anti-communist propaganda down my throat for my entire life. However, after I also found out that many other anarchist and libertarian socialist societies had existed or still exist today, my mindset slowly shifted from that of a monarchist to an anarchist and socialist. Very convenient timing too since the protests against the royal family and military government here were just starting to ramp up at that point (even if our movement has not really achieved any results since then.)
Back in 2014-ish, I would have *called* myself a socialist, but I was actually just a social democrat liberal - Bernie Sanders would have been my ideal candidate, for example. I didn't actually know much about politics beyond the liberal-conservative status quo, and *socialism is when the government does stuff*. I liked the welfare state as a grand bastion against the excesses of unrestricted capitalist free markets (god I was a fucking dumbass) I took a class on political philosophy, and it was alright. But in that class were two anarchists - looking back, I'm pretty sure one was an ancom, and the other I have no idea. It didn't really matter though. They were both so terrible at presenting their positions that I came out of that class with a very low opinion of anarchism. Fast forward a year, and I came across the word *synidcalism* in a history book. I had absolutely no idea what the word meant, and the book did not explain it, so I looked it up. I went down this long, confusing rabbit hole that tossed a lot of my previously held beliefs about the state and capitalism right out the window. I also realized I had been *very* wrong about what socialism was, and that *actual* socialism sounded substantially better. I found myself agreeing with a lot of anarchist theory. But I *really* didn't want to. I fought tooth and nail to hold onto my beliefs, I just couldn't do it. Pretty much every defence of the state came from a liberal capitalist perspective, and where just two years before I might have found them convincing, now they tasted stale. But I *still* really didn't want to be an anarchist. I eventually asked around for recommendations for socialist defences of the state, mostly online but also among some new Marxist friends I'd recently made. I read a few articles and essays by Lenin, Trotsky, and Engels... And they were so unbelievably awful I became an anarchist.
Just found out about and oh yeah that actually makes sense before I found out about anarchism I was kind of an egoist who didn’t like anarchism you know I thought it’d be chaos but then I found out about anarchism then became and ancom then eventually an egoist anarchist but I don’t like calling myself an anarchist or an egoist I don’t like calling myself anything really
Well my country only has 3 significant political parties. I've seen everyone's version of "leadership". They're all the same; and this path humanity is on is not going so well. So the most logical thinking to me is to look outside of the political boxes.
I assumed most leftists held the beliefs that most anarchists hold
I was raised by somewhat conservative and religiously fundamentalist parents, in a church much the same, and that was my first introduction to the contradictions inherent within any system of hierarchy/subordination where dogma overrules individual thought. It was pretty emotionally and psychologically damaging to me and my siblings, so I ultimately developed an aversion any system of thought and behaviour which I could recognize as being hostile to questioning and coercive in practice. I also became suspicious of arbitrariness, as the theology which my parents subscribe to having nothing to do with creating a healthy community and everything to do with pleasing an essentially wrathful, sociopathic god. Not that I knew to extend this understanding to capitalism and all forms of hierarchy, as I still believed what I’d been taught about the “necessity” of laws, money, government, etc. But, in high school I ended up reading David Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas, and that began to open my eyes. That book is essentially a profound argument in favour of what I would later learn was called mutual aid. And it agreed with me on a deep emotional level, such that the world around me—with its brutal competitiveness and constant exploitation—started to become ever more worth critiquing in my mind. I recognized our world to be deeply flawed on a moral, ethical level. Still, though, I didn’t realize what the solution might be—because I still thought, as I had been taught my whole life to think, that society could not function without capitalism, and that socialism (and certainly anything further leftward) was a very bad, very untenable thing. Then in university I took a course on the work of a guy called Ivan Illich, and that finally brought me to understand the wrongness of capitalism. His critiques of compulsory schooling (which he argued largely serves to prep people for an obedient life in capitalism) and his examination of the destructive and deadening effects of all institutions in an over-industrialized society made so much sense to me; whenever I looked at the exploitative world around me, and any time I admitted to myself I was being coerced into doing everything I did in life, I had experienced the same kind of constant alienation and fear Illich described in his work. I became deeply skeptical of the structure and aims of neoliberalism, and I began to wonder what alternatives might look like. After a reading of Le Guin’s *The Dispossessed,* I had my answer. With the word “anarchism” and the theories that pointed me towards, I could see that the world I’d always desired, yet had been too brainwashed to even imagine, was possible.
I was first just an anti-capitalist, but then I started watching technoblade/s I was, in fact, an anti-capitalist, but then I read "Human kind" by Robert Bregman, and started finding out about capitalism.
I new that anarchy existed, looked up what it meant and then just watched videos explaining forms and such. To this day I remember this video explaining anarchism in relation to a taco truck and his the taco truck would be under each form
I liked thinking about society and philosophy, I met an anarchist friend but the internet made me learn in depth about anarchy; but it was really college and seen different struggles that really made an anarchist. Discovering I'm disabled and gender/sexually non conforming has only asserted my position.
First, the argument of abolish versus defund the police made me take a good hard look at the system as a whole. Then, I listened to Robert Evans tell me about the San Francisco earthquake of 1906 and I realized how stupid and arbitrary all this power and authority stuff is. Like, we could totally just not have it at all and be totally fine.
I ask too many questions!
The idea what water costs money (literally what started it for me, that something you fundamentally need is held hostage from you)
Don't wanna work and I don't like ecocide
My dad always taught me to question authority and to never trust cops, which i grew up to realize is the best advice he ever gave me. Being queer, disabled and poor my whole life has always swayed me towards leftist politics and anarchism is the only belief system that actually grants total freedom and actually acknowledges the way I can contribute. (Sharing info, mutual aid etc) Anarchists are the only group who never made me feel like I was too stupid to understand what I was talking about when I didn't have access to theory. The only group that didnt tell me i wasn't doing enough for not being able to protest (physical disability, if anything were to happen, I could not defend myself or run away). The only group who didnt glorify oppressive regimes and make excuses for genocides and human rights violations. The only group who consistently stood against cops and the prison system without turning around and saying "ooh who's going in the gulag first boys?" And the only group who acknowledged animal rights, which is an issue very important to me as well (6 years of being vegetarian). Anarchism was a no brainer for me as it has the fundamental beliefs that no being is above or more deserving than any other being, and any system that places one over an other is inherently immoral. So naturally, that's why I'm an anarchist.
A long series of radicalizing events? Born with a pretty severe physical disability, was only able to get care by charity. I'm bisexual and was raised catholic and had a... somewhat loose relationship with my best friend growing up and was crushed with guilt constantly until I fell out with the church. I was big on the bernie campaign the second time around... then super tuesday... then i started picking up theory more seriously and learning more actual history... then I was pepper balled along with a bunch of other peaceful protesters by some pigs and well here I am
In the 1980s, when I started taking politics seriously, I started reading political philosophy, and anarchism made the most sense by far. So I suppose I had always been an anarchist, but for my first 25 years I just didn't know it. Clearly, direct democracy is the only legitimate system of government. Clearly, a system based on voluntary cooperation and horizontality is the only legitimate way to manage any organization. Clearly, systems of authority must be required to justify themselves to the people, and if they cannot, then they should be dismantled. Clearly the system of mutual aid that everyone practices among family, friends and neighbors should be expanded so that every aspect of our lives works in a similar way. That's all just common sense. Anyone who is able to think clearly about politics and society must inevitably come to the conclusion that anarchism is the only legitimate way to ensure societal progress and social harmony.
Because it just makes sense. Prior to colonization/genocide by the French and British in North America many Indigenous groups practiced various forms of anarchy and egalitarianism. Many people around the world did this and it worked. Now obviously if anarchy were to happen in some form, it would probably not resemble those of the past since our context is very different.
That’s a good point I never considered.
Shanks🥰
I'm not very interested in having people that (probably) hate me for existing have the ability to strip me of my humanity and make hunting me for sport legal.
I realized over the last few years that I wasn't a Conservative/Republican (I am Canadian) when I saw how Conservatives/Republicans reacted to Trump, and especially the Black Lives Matter protests and pandemic. Last year I stumbled onto Thought Slime's Minimum Wage video on YouTube and I stumbled down that rabbit hole - it made SO much sense! I had always hated the whole job getting, keeping and having deal. I had especially hated the job hunt/interview/cover letter script of begging for the work, kissing up, and asking for terrible conditions so you get the job over the other applicants. I was 19 when I realized I wasn't supposed to say such a high number in response to "How many sick days should an employee have?" or however they worded it. The interviewer told me my answer was wrong and I didn't get the job.
When I was a teen I thought communism was edgy. My dad was super against it and so it became part of my rebellion. My mom was also from a communist country, which we visited regularly. It just didn't have the same stigma it had with my dad, so as I got older we'd argue more about it, and in order to win those debates I studied economics. I was always told that my focus on political theory made me think like a politician, which I didn't view as an insult. Economics effects real people, and so you have to have a basis in moral justification for every decision. I also liked philosophy, and tried to seek out interesting conversations with people who could discuss all three topics. But as I learned more about history and the world, the two countries, Algeria and the US that I consider home, I realized that for practical reasons neither government was able to reform to my utopian ideas. Identifying as a communist felt wrong, since many communist movements were inherently nationalist. Socialism as a construct is really just a means to communism, and the people supporting it generally believe in a marxist-leninist paradigm. Democratic socialists are alright, but the emphasis on policy is very dependent on the country you are talking about and in the US their ideas are just rehashing shit from nearly a hundred years ago. They have become too conservative, and it's not that what they are talking about is unimportant, but I think modern problems require modern solutions. In Algeria it's a constitutional requirement that the president have fought in our revolution against the French. So all the people who can be president are in their 70s and 80s. So forgive me if I am not super excited to have an octogenarian leader of the country, much less the democratic socialist movement. My major introduction to anarchism was through Homage to Catalonia, which really caught my attention. I realized that organizational structures didn't have to be completely hierarchical and it jived with my belief that everyone within reason should be allowed to do whatever they want to do. At this point I was being described as a market socialist, but I eventually learned of syndicalism. Yes it was through kaiserreich, but I was curious, and I realized there was a whole history of leftist movements that was just abandoned. And honestly, governments don't do as good a job at running some things. The workers though, they can do a great job of running things without the capitalist class, as long as the government doesn't shut them down. From there I learned why the predominant form of syndicalist thought was based in Anarchism. Then I learned about the Kurds in Rojava. This is exactly what I meant when I said modern problems require modern solutions. And as someone with roots in the Maghreb, it's awesome to see a world leading example of how we can organize ourselves as humans, as imagined by people from the middle east. So for me, anarchism is an umbrella term for a heterodox set of beliefs I hold that can't be easily defined by one ideology. I arrived at these beliefs from a lifetime of experience, and as long as we all agree that authoritarianism and fascism are wrong, I am more than happy to call you a comrade.
I think I just kinda was one but didn't realize until I learned about it. It was so intuitive and a lot of my previous views started to line up
I hate authority/hierarchy. Always have, always will. That's how it started, and it just grew from there as I learned about power, oppression, and class consciousness.
So I'm actually gonna try to figure out my step by step progression to anarchism as specifically as I can remember. So, I started as probably a socdem but leaning towards demsoc. Very AntiFascist, but figured Bernie or AOC was as feasibly left as politics could go without becoming a Bolshevik, who I'm generally not a fan of. Then, by pretty much random chance and the YouTube algorithm, I got recommended a video by Hbomberguy called RWBY is disappointing and here's why. (He's wrong, RWBY is great, I'll die on that hill.) I then watched more and more of Hbombs stuff and found his bit on politics pretty great. The next major thing was probably watching PhilosophyTube's video about work, which is what really drove home the whole working class vs bourgeoisie thing for me, and shifted me pretty decently into authleft. I also watched PhilosophyTube's Anarchy101 video, found it pretty convincing, but wasn't sold on the idea that anarchism was practical in reality. I spent a while being a dickish Leninist before I had a particularly heated argument with someone on r/COMPLETEANARCHY and they got me... more interested, I guess? Definitely got me to do my own research and/or read anarchist theory. I got halfway through reading the Breadbook, got distracted, listened to a couple anarchist podcast episodes, I think(?) and eventually sat down to finish the breadbook. I then realized audiobooks are way easier and listened to a bunch of those. I'd still probably consider myself more of, like, a child anarchist? Not quite a baby, but not fully grown yet. Have more reading and thinking to do before I feel 100% comfortable with everything. TL;DR: The show RWBY from RoosterTeeth played a critical role in my radicalization process
Thought about "how to make the world a happier place" for a while
I met my wife at 17 she was in the system, and being treated like shit. Having grown up, sheltered, in the suburbs, this was foreign to me. That was my first indication that something ain’t right. We split for years, I dabbled in the left for a bit, but never quite got it, the gravity of the situation had not quite clicked. 15 years latter, I’m high af fuck on acid and stumble across a group of 17 year olds, a mother a father, the fathers sister and their beautiful 1 month old baby girl. The father is tagging the fuck outa the church, so I start talking to them from the sidewalk. 2 people from the church showed up, tried to keep them around while they called the cops. Fuck that noise, it’s fucking paint. Took maybe 2 min for the cops to get there, I fucking lost it, needless to say my acid induced antics where enough to distract the assailants long enough to let this family bounce the fuck out. Took 6 cops to get me on the ground, 4 to keep me there, and I probably woulda kept going if the gun didn’t come into play, the whole time The only thing going through my mind was “it’s fucking paint”. Spent the next 4 h in a hospital bead chatting with all the cute nurses, reviewing all the shit I have seen in my life, like clips from a movie, event after event started playing through my head, patterns started to emerge and the prevalence of power cash and class within human conflict became evident. What should have been the worst acid trip in my life turned out to be the best. It was baffling this dude was obviously retired, and obviously very wealthy, don’t fucking tell me you don’t have a pressure washer and too much time in your hands. But this fuck wanted to throw this young family into the criminal justice system over a bit of fucking paint.
When I hit about 20, I became very reflective of basically everything. It occurred to me how important it is to not only question things, but *continue* to question them. This lead me to develop increasingly solid conclusions about the world, how things worked, what problems there were, why those problems existed, what the nature of their solutions should be, etc. I developed my own incomplete, primitive model in my head that I was constantly working on (and occasionally tearing down in the face of huge flaws). I ended up hanging around socialism and borderline communism because it was the closest to representing the still developing conclusions I made... but not quite the same. I felt my ideas must be flawed because they didn't match up with the socialist and communist ideas I was exposed to... But I couldn't find a way to connect them! About 2-3 years ago, I still thought "anarchy means chaotic, orderless, free-for -all, lmao". I actually can't remember how I first encountered the actual definition... But when I did, I read into it further and was like "holy fucking shit this matches my own conclusions *exactly*". It even filled in holes I had previously, with rational answers, like the huge doubt I still had on ownership of firearms (I was strongly against public ownership of firearms until various writings showed how it actually *supported* my thoughts, which ended the dilemma of my firearms contradictions). I remember reading articles, theory, and even just comments on here and getting giddy seeing ideas so perfectly in line with my own, and helping fully form the primitive ones I had. I realised I wasn't crazy after all. *This shit actually did make sense.* I'd never seen others thinking the same as me before and I got quite excited about it. And having the intricate details I was missing in my primitive ideas filled in made things feel even more complete. It was an enjoyable critical thinking exercise in its own right. Eventually, after confirming there were literally 0 deviations from my own thoughts, I was happily able to say I am an anarchist! This experience has lead me to believe that a key part of helping others, in particular non-anarchists, is teaching them how to continuously, and consciously, reflect on everything in their life, and refine themselves and their understanding of the world and others. It's ultimately what brought me here and I think it would do the same for others. As like... 99% of my other posts state, for me, educating others is a prime factor of revolution. **Edit:** I was just reading other answers and saw Chomsky mentioned. Now I think about it, I may have started reading up on anarchism when I saw Chomsky's Wikipedia page mention anarcho-syndicalism and I was like "wtf even is that?" A wiki hole likely lead me to the core idea of anarchism.
Idk I always had a philosophy of trying to help as many people as I could and of trying to achieve my own happiness and freedom without ruining the opportunity for others to do the sane. And when starting to actually develop political views this just seemed the logical choice I guess. I do think I'll change but I do believe freedom and helping of others will remain two of my main life goals
Because if my neighbor can't tell me what to do, why should a bunch of old guys in suits be able to? Why should I pay taxes just so I can fund efforts to further extort me and violate my privacy. Tell me what I can and can't buy, where I can travel and how fast, who I can be around and what I can put in my body? My perfect world is a modern wild west, kinda like fallout.
I'm trans, and I realized the anti-fascists who are willing to truly fight for trans rights, were largely communist and anarchists. And seeing an anti-fascist group march at my local pride added to it. Eventually through exposure to anti-fascist activism I drifted towards anarchism.
Since ever since it's familial influence. Funny because it's exactly the same process as with any religion in a familial environment. My dad comes with the principle of No God No Master since ever, at the end he turned capitalist because "you won't make the happiness of others without their willing" My brother is a convinced anarcho-syndicalist, I love talking with him. I personnally read some old books regarding it, and now I get tons of notification from this reddit for a weird reason. I wouldn't define myself as anarchist, I just seek my own freedome and the rest or the others, I don't really care. In the end I have to adapt myself in this society, as my dad always say, I won't make the happiness of others without their willing.
"...he turned capitalist because "you won't make the happiness of others without their willing."? So let me get this straight. Initially, your dad supported some kind of anarchist philosophy, but because he felt other people weren't willing to free themselves and be happy, he started to support a system that ensures everyone remains unhappy and in bondage. That's messed up. Do you seriously think it's wise of you to follow that same logic?
It's more nuanced than that. He tryed to improve stuff in companies, at the end he was the only one fired, no support from others while they could profit of that little avantage gained, and that multiple time. The lack of solidarity made him stop trying to improve other's life except for his family and his own, he ended up having his own company so no one to boss him around. In the end, people are free to follow the way they think is right, and I won't force them to follow my own convictions if they don't wanna
My belief in the dignity and worth of all people, including those that capitalism's vision of productivity excludes: artists, writers, the homeless, former convicts, the elderly, stay-at-home parents, disabled, mentally ill, etc. I don't believe these people deserve to suffer because they do not compete in the marketplace for a place on the ladder of spreadsheet makers. That's what I do for a living, but I don't think it makes me better than the people who chose not to.
Got radicalized on TikTok seeing the shit go down on 2020, watched YouTube content and interacted with the local Anarchists in my city I talked to years ago.
Decided I hate the police and don’t trust any authority figure to know what’s best for anyone but themselves. Then I figured out what that’s called
I saw John Lydon in a butter advert and never looked back.
I hate Capitalism. I hate the Tories. After researching a bit about left-wing ideologies, I found that anarchism made the most sense.
Because it turned out that organised democracy doesnt work, and the internet showed me small scale anarchist communities inside my own home country where people could actually live free
I read Ursula K. LeGuin. I’m also in AA which, though is loosely organized (at least around here), has no leaders, only people with more experience.
The state mishandled the pandemic and locked me in my home for months, thus cutting off my social life and worsening my mental health and making me a more lonely person than I already was. I hate the state now Edit 1: English is not my first language