I don’t get lib as an insult. Seems like pretty much everyone on Lemmy is on liberal side of center. I’ve seen some hexbear users use it to refer to anyone who isn’t as tankie as they are, but I don’t get it.
I’m an anarchist socialist. We hate tankies, we hate libs. Libs are capitalists. Tankies are authoritarian. We hate both of those. Eh not hate but you know what I mean. Not ideologically compatible, therefore not allowed in the commune and you aren’t allowed to hurt others, and if I hear a lib say how they’re going to employ someone or a tankie talk about a vanguard state I’m gonna be upset
The great irony there is that the Tankies love anarchists. They want the west to burn themselves down.
It’s honestly hard for me to believe there are more than a handful real Anarchists on the fediverse and not just a bunch of masquerading Tankies, because at the end of the day Anarchy will just bring any currently existing state one step closer to an Authoritarian taking complete control.
The real nail in the coffin is that there is a political party in the USA, in Canada, in Australia, and in the UK who would absolute regulate government and industry, keep courts clean, and protect and expand the rights of citizens: but anarchists more often side with the deregulating authoritarians.
You’re a fucking dumbass who is confusing dumb ass libertarians with actual anarchists.
We’re apparently not speaking the language. I’m a liberal, and I’m a socialist.
There are a bunch of folks in some of the skeevier corners of the fediverse that think Liberalism means Capitalism, which does have some truth as the ability to own and sell goods would be a right Liberalism might protect, which they in turn view as the source of all evil.
Nevermind the fact that their political ideal has no real world equivalent aside from maybe Bhutan where the vast majority of people live like medieval peasants and their entire system of government exists to enrich a few elite off of the world’s most expensive tourism.
In Lemmy, and I would say in the Fediverse in general, the population skews left. That means there are more terms to describe the spectrum. Mainstream media and social media label anyone centrist and towards the left as liberals. And of course the Far Right labels the same people as socialists scum.
My rubric for here in the fediverse is as follows. Liberals are generally referred to as capitalists and/or believe capitalism is still the best economic system that only needs minor reforms, along with social justice reforms. Tankies are generally the ones that want to enforce the social and economic reforms with an iron fist, even against the populace at large if necessary. Leftists are generally anarcho-something (socialist/communist), and believe major change is needed beyond the system we have in place now.
Again, that’s my rubric, and I’m sure other people have their own.
Tangent topic, but how does an anarchist system prevent popular leaders from gaining authority? Also, how does it defend against an aggressive authoritarian neighbour that wants to annex territory?
I like the idea of anarchism in theory, but I just don’t see how it could be possible to get there from here where every existing power would see it as an ideological threat to their own power (similar to how capitalist powers reacted to communism), or how it would maintain stability if it was realized.
And as much as I don’t like the monopoly on violence system because it seems to encourage corruption on the side with more access to violence, I can’t help but think it would eventually devolve into a lot of in-fighting.
Like power constantly rises from nothing more than physical strength, charisma, or good strategic thinking in groups of humans. Some primates other than humans go to war with their neighbouring groups. Egypt became a kingdom when one tribe conquered the rest, and that one wasn’t the first to try. Countless empires have risen and fallen, most of the time despite violent resistance of those who would rather be neighbours than subjects. The Vikings sailed around raiding for their own benefit and then later conquered regions like in France, Britain, Sicily, and Kiev. The Mongols did the same except using horses instead of boats. Then European powers did it. Then America started pretty much puppeting anyone who went against corporate interests while a cultural movement in Russia and China started out trying to move power out of the hands of their ruling class only to see even more authoritarian powers take over.
History is full of cases of “I don’t care what you want, this is what I want and I’ll just kill you if you don’t go along with it.” How could that change?
Of course there’s no easy answers, but your post reminded me of the following:
Hannah Arendt’s essay ‘On Violence’. Power stems from people collectively working towards change, strength etc. is violence. Anarchism requires a collective desire which is anti-coercion and anti-violence. Arendt was partly inspired by Rosa Luxemburg’s views on spontaneous revolution.
Graeber’s ‘Fragments of an Anarchist Anthropology’ and le Guin’s fictional novel ‘The Dispossessed’ give some insight into what is required for maintaining anarchist ways of organizing. In brief: you leave, divorce yourself from oppressive systems and start over elsewhere.
Which is of course difficult if not impossible on a planet which has been near entirely colonized. Somewhat more philosophical, anarchism requires the dissolution of notions of property. Agamben writes on monastic forms of life, which seem rather anarchist to me, in ‘The Highest Poverty’. Graeber and Wengrow mention the ‘sacredness’ of objects in ‘The Dawn of Everything’, which is a terribly deep anthropological and philosophical rabbit hole, but there’s some interesting connections between sacred objects and possession.
All books mentioned are worth the read of course, imo.
The US uses lib to mean socially liberal, in opposition to the cons. The rest of the world uses it to mean fiscally liberal, as in support of not regulating capitalist markets, which is an anti worker position.
People often get pissy that a word can have more than one definition.
Given the number of Americans on here it’s now starting to make sense why I keep seeing commenters get snagged on the word “liberal.”
Liberals are not progressive. At least not except incidentally. I think that’s true everywhere…?
