Philosphical Anarchism?

Philosphically speaking, I suppose most anarchists are not philosophical anarchists in the strictest sense. The main assumption of phil. an. is that to be free, one must be free of other people and be allowed to own oneself. This, then, creates a contradiction in that a modern industrial society, well pretty much any society, would end up having some final allowed authority to stop people co-operating too much. A final allowed quasi-religous "supernatualist abortion of society" would therefore have to be justified to take over the vital functions and administrations of society, over and above every autonomous individual.

This is, in effect, the liberal justification for the state,and as a justification its a pretty lame one! The pseudo-worship of the individual is soon negated by a Hobbesian insistence on obeying laws whether they make sense or not! It never occurs to liberals that there might be some debate or consensus on when certain rules at certain times apply or not.

This, in turn, effectively defines the Right, although by defining too much, conservatism can suddenly become a left-wing ideology. With their insistence on rules to protect their non-existent individuality, the right have always rallied behind conservative and reactionary parties and governments, just so long as no-one forces them to co-operate (or think for themselves!)

A distinction of the Left is that, generally, they can think for themsleves and see events through different points of view (some of the time). This is why, despite a belief in commonality and solidarity, there is so much sectarianism in the Left historically.

I shouldn't bad mouth liberalism per se. I would consider my own beliefs to be a synthesis of positive and negative freedoms, so it would be fair to say I am a philosophical liberal. Whether other liberals are is hard to say.

It should also be said that many who consider themsleves anarchists are, both strictly and philosophically speaking, communists or capitalists. Employing an anarchic critique of the state does not make you an anarchist, libertarians (to use the American usage) make similar claims but in the framework of minimal government.

The term "free communism" is a term I have come across recently which may be applicable to communist anarchism as it assumes communism in roughly Marxist terms can spontaneously emerge in a mass society with the absence of the state, ditto "free capitalism" (although capitalsim as we know it would disintegrate without the state). So-called "anarcho-communism" I would myself use Marxist terminology and situate it as part of a, much admired on my part regardless of my comments, "Utopian Socialist" tradition stretching back to Gerald Wistanley and even to the early Christians.

For my own position, I can only say that a "free market" can only come through co-operation and a degrre of collectivism, but by free market I basically mean free movement of goods and people. My economic sympathies lie somewhere amoung collectivism, syndicalism and mutualism but I would also add that in a democracy the people would be free to choose whatever economic situation best suits everyone.