'Anarcho-Liberal = Libertarian'
I will enjoy running them through all the better now this has been said. Thanks.
I will enjoy running them through all the better now this has been said. Thanks.
Anarcho-Liberal = Libertarian
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Libertarians are only those who stand for a single principle, Non-Aggression Principle. Everything else stems from it. Initiation of force is out of question, and any government is coercive by definition. You truly wouldn't be able to 'lead' a country based on such philosophy. And I doubt anyone would be able to 'conquer' such a country if it's of reasonable size, with well armed and hostile pops. Huge GB resolved to genocide and containment of whole Boer population to win a 'colonial' war against a minority. Think of some millions of them and it gets nasty.
Anarchists, on another hand, are not averse to violence. There are anarcho-syndicalist, more or less socialists denying both property rights and government above community level, and, on another end, intrepid individualists, who live to the motto 'Don't thread on me or I'll shoot you'.
Anarcho-Liberals are a joke. They are neither. As mentioned earlier, Jacobin would be a better name for them.
And please, please, don't use 'Liberal' at all in discussion in contemporary settings. It's either Old/Classic Liberalism (when talking about Adam Smith and Co), or Socialism (when talking about nowadays USA).
Anarchists, on another hand, are not averse to violence. There are anarcho-syndicalist, more or less socialists denying both property rights and government above community level, and, on another end, intrepid individualists, who live to the motto 'Don't thread on me or I'll shoot you'.
Anarcho-Liberals are a joke. They are neither. As mentioned earlier, Jacobin would be a better name for them.
And please, please, don't use 'Liberal' at all in discussion in contemporary settings. It's either Old/Classic Liberalism (when talking about Adam Smith and Co), or Socialism (when talking about nowadays USA).
I see the anarcho liberals as more anarchist than libertarian, but it is definitely a way to envision them as extreme radical libertarians.
I've always felt that the way the game models them being against all reforms period, especially rolling back everything when they come into power not as a mistake, but a way the game models the lack of existence of a state. Public meetings aren't allowed because there is no government, citizens are free to do whatever they want, but not because it's mandated by a government. Likewise no voting because no government exists.
I've always felt that the way the game models them being against all reforms period, especially rolling back everything when they come into power not as a mistake, but a way the game models the lack of existence of a state. Public meetings aren't allowed because there is no government, citizens are free to do whatever they want, but not because it's mandated by a government. Likewise no voting because no government exists.
I agree. They seem much more like the Robspierre type than Libertarians.
I've always taken the voting and all political reforms prohibited thing to be a reflection of government by corporation and local grouping without democracy. In fact with half a mind you could take it as a criticism of the whole ideal.
They're vaguely market anarchists. I've sort of imagined them more along Hoppean-Rothbardian lines (these are modern philosophers who were "anarcho-liberals"), but the historical precedents would be people like Gustave de Molinari, Max Stirner, Jakob Mauvillon, and Benjamin Tucker.
Essentially, these people believe that the modern, liberal state is bad, for whatever reason. Either because it violates property rights (taxes are theft, and anlibs believe property is the primary ethical principle, so taxes and the state are evil), because it grants bad types of property (the state grants titles to property that are not justified - these are the mutualists like Tucker who are actually very pro-market, only they think this system of distributing claims to property is bad), or for another reason (democracy means everyone plunders his neighbor, traditional clan-based aristocracy and crap is better, etc. etc.). Exactly what their objection to the modern state is and what their alternative proposed isn't really clear - what is clear is that they don't like the gob'mint, and they do like the free market.
I've always imagined that the bourgeois dictatorship is either:
A) A transition into this anarchist society - the anlib revolution has toppled the state, so the dictatorship is essentially a coalition of revolutionary vanguards that is temporarily exercising force (being illegitimate by collecting taxes, etc.) as a "radical, revolutionary government". So, the soviet Union was not a true proletarian dictatorship (becasue hierarchy remained in the state, etc.), just as anarcholiberal France isn't really anarcholiberal (because hierarchy remains in some Robespierre-type Reign of Libertarian Terror). I've always kind of imagined this being essentially a Committee for Public Safety situation, where the anlibs are going about killing former government officials (as retribution), putting together revolutionary purges, etc... but actually we've just ended up with a slightly more pro-market government.
OR
B) This really is an anarcholiberal society, and the bourgeois dictatorship is just the best analog through which the player can "represent" that society. Anarcholiberalism rejects the state, so there'd be no single, monolithic actor for you to play if we simulated this accurately. Law would be produced through multiple, overlapping courts and legal systems, there would be multiple private security organizations (which would probably be localized to protect their clients... so the military would be really complicated), and of course no taxes exist, etc. There's no government that decides who resources are allocated, so I've always just assumed that this "bourgeois dictatorship" you play as is essentially just the market itself - you're the invisible hand of the market. "Taxes" are just the total amount of voluntary consumer spending allocated to the vital sectors that the state would otherwise control, and the military consists of many coalitions of private organizations.
Just to be clear, "anarcholiberalism" (which today is generally known as market anarchism or anarchocapitalism - there exist nuances in these ideologies but they are both similar to the anarcholiberals in game) is a libertarian ideology, but not all libertarians are anarcholiberals. Libertarianism generally just means an ideology that places a value on human liberty, which can basically mean anything (and historically, geographically, and intellectually means hugely different things... this is why many libertarian socialists call libertarian capitalists non-libertarian. Chomsky does not think Ron Paul is a libertarian, and left-wing anarchists don't think that right-wing anarchists are really anarchists, and right-wing anarchists don't think left wing anarchists are really anarchists: Tucker hated Marx, and Chomsky disagrees with Rothbard). Anarcholiberals value private property and individual autonomy, so they are "libertarian", but most libertarians don't believe in abolishing the state to be replaced with private legal institutions.
Now, the reason anarcholiberals want to roll back political reforms is that democracy doesn't jive well with anarcholiberalism as an ideology. A system in which the majority of the population is entitled to (as anarcholiberals believe) expropriate property from the minority is really horrifying to anarcholiberals, who think property is sacred and the individual should be able to do whatever he wants with himself. If force has to be exercised, it should be exercised in defense of property, and the sort of institutions that would do that in an anarcholiberal society would probably not be democratic, at least in the sense we're thinking of. Anarcholiberals think the democratic, modern, liberal state is bad, and that state reflects a value system (populism/collectivism) that is very much opposed to anarcholiberal ideology.
Also, "19th century classical liberals" would generally just mean the liberal party. Like, the really radical wing of the liberal party would include the minarchists like Bastiat, but Bastiat and friends still would not find themselves in the anarcholiberal category. The anarcholiberal category is for people who offer a radical critique of the modern state and want to abolish that state with a market, so like Molinari and Mauvillon (and then... idk, Stirner and Tucker are difficult to categorize. I'd put them here despite their socialist sympathies, because they also really opposed the socialist ideologies of their time and meant something different than the modern sense of "socialism").
tl;dr anarcholiberals have an historical basis, they were just never a mass-ideology. It's basically a neologism that describes some very radical 19th century liberals and anarchists who modern day anarchocapitalists like a lot. They don't allow voting b/c there's no government, and they're both anarchists and libertarians.
Essentially, these people believe that the modern, liberal state is bad, for whatever reason. Either because it violates property rights (taxes are theft, and anlibs believe property is the primary ethical principle, so taxes and the state are evil), because it grants bad types of property (the state grants titles to property that are not justified - these are the mutualists like Tucker who are actually very pro-market, only they think this system of distributing claims to property is bad), or for another reason (democracy means everyone plunders his neighbor, traditional clan-based aristocracy and crap is better, etc. etc.). Exactly what their objection to the modern state is and what their alternative proposed isn't really clear - what is clear is that they don't like the gob'mint, and they do like the free market.
I've always imagined that the bourgeois dictatorship is either:
A) A transition into this anarchist society - the anlib revolution has toppled the state, so the dictatorship is essentially a coalition of revolutionary vanguards that is temporarily exercising force (being illegitimate by collecting taxes, etc.) as a "radical, revolutionary government". So, the soviet Union was not a true proletarian dictatorship (becasue hierarchy remained in the state, etc.), just as anarcholiberal France isn't really anarcholiberal (because hierarchy remains in some Robespierre-type Reign of Libertarian Terror). I've always kind of imagined this being essentially a Committee for Public Safety situation, where the anlibs are going about killing former government officials (as retribution), putting together revolutionary purges, etc... but actually we've just ended up with a slightly more pro-market government.
OR
B) This really is an anarcholiberal society, and the bourgeois dictatorship is just the best analog through which the player can "represent" that society. Anarcholiberalism rejects the state, so there'd be no single, monolithic actor for you to play if we simulated this accurately. Law would be produced through multiple, overlapping courts and legal systems, there would be multiple private security organizations (which would probably be localized to protect their clients... so the military would be really complicated), and of course no taxes exist, etc. There's no government that decides who resources are allocated, so I've always just assumed that this "bourgeois dictatorship" you play as is essentially just the market itself - you're the invisible hand of the market. "Taxes" are just the total amount of voluntary consumer spending allocated to the vital sectors that the state would otherwise control, and the military consists of many coalitions of private organizations.
Just to be clear, "anarcholiberalism" (which today is generally known as market anarchism or anarchocapitalism - there exist nuances in these ideologies but they are both similar to the anarcholiberals in game) is a libertarian ideology, but not all libertarians are anarcholiberals. Libertarianism generally just means an ideology that places a value on human liberty, which can basically mean anything (and historically, geographically, and intellectually means hugely different things... this is why many libertarian socialists call libertarian capitalists non-libertarian. Chomsky does not think Ron Paul is a libertarian, and left-wing anarchists don't think that right-wing anarchists are really anarchists, and right-wing anarchists don't think left wing anarchists are really anarchists: Tucker hated Marx, and Chomsky disagrees with Rothbard). Anarcholiberals value private property and individual autonomy, so they are "libertarian", but most libertarians don't believe in abolishing the state to be replaced with private legal institutions.
Now, the reason anarcholiberals want to roll back political reforms is that democracy doesn't jive well with anarcholiberalism as an ideology. A system in which the majority of the population is entitled to (as anarcholiberals believe) expropriate property from the minority is really horrifying to anarcholiberals, who think property is sacred and the individual should be able to do whatever he wants with himself. If force has to be exercised, it should be exercised in defense of property, and the sort of institutions that would do that in an anarcholiberal society would probably not be democratic, at least in the sense we're thinking of. Anarcholiberals think the democratic, modern, liberal state is bad, and that state reflects a value system (populism/collectivism) that is very much opposed to anarcholiberal ideology.
Also, "19th century classical liberals" would generally just mean the liberal party. Like, the really radical wing of the liberal party would include the minarchists like Bastiat, but Bastiat and friends still would not find themselves in the anarcholiberal category. The anarcholiberal category is for people who offer a radical critique of the modern state and want to abolish that state with a market, so like Molinari and Mauvillon (and then... idk, Stirner and Tucker are difficult to categorize. I'd put them here despite their socialist sympathies, because they also really opposed the socialist ideologies of their time and meant something different than the modern sense of "socialism").
tl;dr anarcholiberals have an historical basis, they were just never a mass-ideology. It's basically a neologism that describes some very radical 19th century liberals and anarchists who modern day anarchocapitalists like a lot. They don't allow voting b/c there's no government, and they're both anarchists and libertarians.
@Valenheim:
It's generally true that both anarchists and libertarians dislike government, but while libertarians (in modern sense, non-aggression principle being the only common ground for very different ideologies) don't advocate use of force unless attacked or under threat, anarchists ain't against initiation of force if need be. Since almost no A-L in game are shown as 'Pacifist', they are not libertarians (who'd place all law and order crap under individual sovereignty anyway). I frankly don't know any modern libertarian advocating wars. Same for tariffs and individual believes: why would any true libertarian care for anything but free trade and pluralism, which aren't that common among A-Ls?
It's generally true that both anarchists and libertarians dislike government, but while libertarians (in modern sense, non-aggression principle being the only common ground for very different ideologies) don't advocate use of force unless attacked or under threat, anarchists ain't against initiation of force if need be. Since almost no A-L in game are shown as 'Pacifist', they are not libertarians (who'd place all law and order crap under individual sovereignty anyway). I frankly don't know any modern libertarian advocating wars. Same for tariffs and individual believes: why would any true libertarian care for anything but free trade and pluralism, which aren't that common among A-Ls?
In my opinion its basically like Communism in our timeline, the ideals that trigger it (in this case that all men should be free from government) end up not being immediately feasible (suddenly dissolving the government in one day would lead to anarchy of the violent upheaval kind.) so the revolutionaries promise that after a period of state of emergency, things will be reformed. And the state of emergency never ends, while the party gets more and more autocratic.
I think the Anarcho-Liberals in game aren't any party as such, its a rebel group that wants to get rid of government, just as communist rebels aren't necessarily Leninists, they just believe all property should be shared equally. So they can be Farmers, Clergy, Officers, Slaves or whatever else.
The 19th century Cuban small farmer who wants to be able to sell his goods at the market without the Spanish taking a big slice of his profit isn't the same as the 21st Century American Billionaire who wants all the benefits of the government without any of the taxes or obligations.
I think the Anarcho-Liberals in game aren't any party as such, its a rebel group that wants to get rid of government, just as communist rebels aren't necessarily Leninists, they just believe all property should be shared equally. So they can be Farmers, Clergy, Officers, Slaves or whatever else.
The 19th century Cuban small farmer who wants to be able to sell his goods at the market without the Spanish taking a big slice of his profit isn't the same as the 21st Century American Billionaire who wants all the benefits of the government without any of the taxes or obligations.
Excuse me, but what is the link between USA and Socialism?Or you mean the fact that the rich get welfare instead of the poor?That is called exploitation.
Dustman is one of those people who uses his personal definitions of ideology as the universal definition. All libertarians embrace the non-aggression blah blah, and don't call those people liberals, because so on and so on.
I'm curious--can anyone tell me what real world political movement is closest to Victoria II's anarcho-libs? I think alternate hx and "Difference Engine" style, as has been said before, but were the Jacobins exemplary of this kind of nuke-it-all liberalism?
The liberals are the "libertarian" ones, while Anarcho-liberals are an even more extreme version of libertarians. They're poorly named, I think.
As said, I've always imagined them as french radicals/"liberal" Latin american Caudillos.
Actually, that's called Bourgeoisie socialism, AKA corporatism/economic fascism (I repeat, economic fascism). Before anyone says socialism is working class (as communism is) you can't argue that when government gives to the poor it is socialism, yet somehow just exploitational capitalism when government gives to the capitalist class.
The United States is Fabian Socialist -fascism at the macro level and creeping socialism at the micro level, to whatever extent. It varies but exists in every Western country.
Heh, sorry. Years of experience being a forum admin gave me a bad habit of replying to relevant threads when I search for said topic(s). All because there's less cleaning up to do and thus less to slow down the forum
Has there been a country who has adopted this type of ideology in history?
And were anarcho liberals such a huge problem? I heard of anarchists assassinating key American figures, but are they the same people modeled in the game?
And were anarcho liberals such a huge problem? I heard of anarchists assassinating key American figures, but are they the same people modeled in the game?
Basically no.
Anarcho-liberals are in the game to give some (non-communist) form of anarchy. Bomb throwers were important and some theorists were important, but they generally got over-taken by Marxism, which in turn is sort of a divergent form of anarchism that applies Darwinism* to politics and justifies autocracy by saying we haven't evolved enough to have real anarchy yet so need a vanguard of violent thugs as an in between stage (warning, this paragraph may contain non-Marxist anarchist bias).
Since Communism is basically already violent state anarchism, Anarcho-liberals are basically redundant and little more than horrifying chimeric free market Commies.
*Modern evolutionary theory doesn't really have a concept of progress, but it was a strong part of 19th and early 20th century approaches to Darwinism and even non-Marxists believed that societies could 'evolve' to a better place. One might say that 'Darwinism' is kind of an obsolete separate thing to the scientific theory of evolution which is accepted nowadays and is sometimes called 'Neo-Darwinism'.
Heh, sorry. Years of experience being a forum admin gave me a bad habit of replying to relevant threads when I search for said topic(s). All because there's less cleaning up to do and thus less to slow down the forum
Um, that's a December 2013 post, so this has been necro-d twice.
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Eh... Sorry, but that's really very incorrect. First of all, communism isn't "violent state anarchism," that's just a completely ridiculous and nonsensical statement, and "free market commies" is even worse... Anarcho-liberals have absolutely nothing to do with left wing anarchism or communism. They are followers of Austrian economics (Ludwig van Mises, etc.), which is the polar opposite of Marxian economics.
Anarcho-liberals are most analogous to today's "anarcho-capitalists."
Anarcho-liberals are most analogous to today's "anarcho-capitalists."
Actually hes not too far off, taken from one of the last passages of the Communist Manifesto itself:
"The Communists disdain to conceal their views and aims. They openly declare that their ends can be attained only by the forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions. Let the ruling classes tremble at a Communistic revolution. The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win."
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