Sociology of the Anarchists - Gozips.uakron.edu - The University of ...

ACADEMIA'S ANARCHISTIC “WANNABES”
So many rules and so much opinion
So much bullshit but we won't give in
- Le Tigre
Perhaps due to the academy's resistance to the liberatory notions of true anarchism—and
the fact that as “academics” they might lose their treasured roles as intellectual guardians
and vanguards if the rabble learned that knowledge did not have to matriculate from
universities—scholars have repeatedly misconstrued the basic principles of anarchism
and humorously applied them to bizarre and contradictory fields of study. Do a simple
database abstract search or literature review, and you will find more examples of these
“wannabes” than examples of actual social movement, left-wing anarchism. What follows
is an attempt to explore, explain, and challenge these wannabes.
“Philosophical anarchism” This theory is most commonly found in philosophy and the
“humanities”. Sometimes, this is seen as an attempt to say there are “no rules” or that
every idea is merely flailing away at every other idea. (look at more in-depthly) To be
fair, this theory is the most analogous of the wannabes.
International state anarchism holds that states operate “anarchistically” on the global
level, since there is no world government. Of course, this belies the fact that nearly all of
these individual units are themselves states and governments. This theory is most
commonly found in political science. Many a political scientists view “anarchism” as a
stateless form of international government, as opposed to a natural order of human
beings. As such, they discuss how nation-states can interact with each other, minus the
coercion of a over-arching government. To anarchists, this defies belief, since it is clearly
the most powerful states that can exert themselves upon less powerful states. But, it is
overlooked that anarchists do not view a dog-eat-dog world where the more powerful
crush the others, but rather a society in which the powerful actually restrict their
dominance to the aid of the less powerful, working together not against each other.
“Anarcho-capitalism” is not only found in academics, but in outside world, too, as illinformed
people use it to explain philosophies that are tantamount to anti-government,
pro-capitalism sentiments—essentially ultra-free-marketism. The US's “Libertarian
Party” espouses this line of thinking rather well. The Libertarian Party is a source of
frustration to some anarchists, since the word “libertarian” used to a synonym for a leftwing
anarchist, before its recent abduction. Of course, as a “party” it is particularly
repugnant to anarchists.
This is also perceived as the “right-wing” of anarchism. This theory is most commonly
found in economics. Economists refers to the “anarchy” of the pure marketplace, where
there is no governmental control; yet, “anarcho-capitalists” do not seem incredibly
[ Williams 39 ] [ this is a draft. do not cite. ]