BillJ wrote:
There is no way to "live out" your anarchist beliefs in a capitalist societyYou can at least refrain from purposefully engaging in activity that runs counter to those beliefs?
Is it part of anarchist beliefs to work for a wage in service of profit? I'm assuming most people on this board do that!
BillJ wrote:
You are thus compelled to either sell your labor-power to someone who plans to use it for profit-making, or you are the someone buying labor-power. Neither of these things make one more or less of an anarchist, just more or less likely to become one.But one might continue in the former condition, and still call oneself an anarchist, with a straight face, not in the latter.
I am opposed to exploitation and wage-work. So does that mean I can't be a communist and also work for a living in this society? I am also opposed to money and commodities. Does that mean that I can't be a communist and deposit my paycheck in a bank, and buy the things I need to survive in this society? I am opposed to the state. Does that mean I can't have a driver's license and a social security card? You see where I'm going with this. If one wants to be a moralist, and say that one can't participate in activities which they ultimately oppose, one may as well be a coherent moralist.
Sure there is, and when I go to work, labour is being exploited also; but who is actively doing the exploitation? am I exploiting myself?
how about relinquishing control to the workers in the case of full ownership? that may seem like a fantasist scenario but only because it is fantasist to expect a capitalist to act against his own material interest for the sake of anarchism, which is some people were arguing above in response to the ridiculous claim that capitalists can be anarchists.
what does that mean? how does an individual decide to get rid of the whole fuckin system? What childish terribilisme.
The point is, he (the capitalist) will ultimately decide to do whatever is in his material interest, which means directly opposing the interests of the workers. What room is there for anarchism (that is not vacuous individualist philosophical bullshit)?
Oh yeah, sure he would. Flocks of capitalists have recently decided to "do away with the whole fuckin system," isn't that right? I'm just being an obtuse moralistic bastard. Come the fuck on.
No we're not, but exploitation is not me contributing to some bank loaning money to some war lord. Exploitation is when a class lives of the labour of another class. It is dishonest to deride the whole argument that you "can't be for exploitation and against it at the same time" (which is pretty much common sense) as moralistic because "you too mr. disgruntled prole are sponsoring imperialist wars and taking part in exploitation." The fuck I am my friend; whatever capitalists do with the money I have in my account (which is probably 20 bucks right now) does not benefit me or anyone else like me.
I don't want to speak for him, but he did say that "You can't believe that exploitation is wrong and then actively carry it out. " I for one am pretty certain that he did not mean any sort of half-baked primmo shit about retreating from capitalism and singing kumbaya in the woods. What it means, imo, is that if you own capital and make a living off the labour of others it is technically impossible for you to adopt an ideological position that dictates you fight against capital and for the rights of workers (that you are exploiting).
This question needs to be clarified before it can be answered. A capitalist is not a biological organism, it is a socioeconomic position in the current society. As an individual human being, anyone can pretty much do anything they set their mind on (within the limits of physical laws and their own abilities); of course you can renounce your social position and the benefits it brings you and "pull a Kropotkin" as it were. That's fine. But once you do so, you are obviously no longer a capitalist. So the likelihood of someone who is part of the ruling class becoming an anarchist is I don't know X % or whatever, the likelihood of a capitalist being simultaneously an anarchist is 0% by definition. If you don't agree, you'll have to explain why, and what you mean by capitalist and anarchist respectively.