An Ideology Doomed From the Start
Contradictions are nothing new to Anarchists; their ideology is fundamentally rooted with them, in fact. During research and general experience I have dealing with Anarchists, one inherent flaw the ideology and most of its subscribers follow is the concept of morality. To Anarchists, morality is more concerning than reality. This can be proved with their belief that political and economic systems are the result of a society as large’s beliefs, rather than the material conditions that society is allocated by the capitalists. If this belief were anywhere close to reality, all that would be required to change a political or economic system would be changing society’s beliefs. Following this way of thinking, Anarchists believe previous socialist experiments “failed” because of moral corruption among the population and leadership. Yes, Anarchists are a living, breathing example of the white-savior complex at work. Furthermore, most, if not all, Anarchists assume moral inferiority of supporters of previous and Actually Existing Socialist states (AES), despite these states being responsible for many great things, one of those being the 800 million people lifted out of poverty by the People’s Republic of China.
Economic Proof of Anarchism’s Inability to Function
It is undeniable that a market economy is able to, at least to an extent, provide supply to demand, due to the inherent nature of capitalism to put profit above all else. Under a planned economy, resources are also able to be balanced due to the nature of a planned economy having access to information needed to be able to directly control costs of production and resource allocation, yielding just as good or better results than market economies (No, USSR citizens did not starve. Don’t take my word for it, take the CIA’s). Anarchists generally, though not always, propose some economic system outside of both market and planned economies; a so-called ‘gift economy.’ Keep in mind, however, that they do not arrive at this objectively through a rigorous analysis of the development of capitalism as Marxists arrive at their understanding, no, they propose it because it sounds morally good to them. Suffice to say, a gift economy simply cannot balance resources in a way that is sufficient enough to sustain even one thousand people, yet alone a society. For example, capitalist market economies solve the issue of shortages by raising the cost of consumption (That’s right, the inflation we are all feeling is a result of corporate greed). On the other hand, a planned economy solves shortage by allocating resources from other, more profitable sectors, a key advantage planned economies enjoys over market economies. Meanwhile, a gift economy has no planning or market capabilities set in place to regulate shortages, leading to no economic calculation. As proven by the history of economic development and implementation, when even a marginal amount of economic calculation is introduced into a governing body in control over an economy, the economy naturally ends up with either a market or a planned economy.
Other Problems and Closing Thoughts
Once again, contradiction is riddled in Anarchist discourse, theory, and discussion. One of these contradictions being ‘ACAB.’ In a capitalist society, both Marxists and Anarchists believe that all cops are bastards, because they have opted to betray their class in the service of those with capital. The difference between these two views lies within how to deal with the need to enforce laws during and after revolution. When asking Anarchists how they believe this issue should be dealt with, you will get various answers, the most likely one being local militia’s or a state funded security force. While these are contradictions to Anarchism itself, it should be noted that there is not a clear, concise answer that is wildly accepted among Anarchists when it comes to the issue of law enforcement. In a Marxist society, as we can see in China and Cuba, police are funded and trained by the state to serve the proletariat, instead of capital. Building on the issue of security, Anarchists also bring no solution to the problem of self preservation against counter-revolutionaries and foreign invasion. While each Anarchist has an opinion on what should be done, there, again, is no clear and universally accepted solution within Anarchism, one of the main non-economic reasons Anarchism does not work outside of theory. Marxists, however, deal with the threat of counter-revolutionaries and invasion via the Vanguard Party; groups of organizations lead by the class-conscious, some armed. Real world examples of Vanguard deterrence of counter-revolutionaries is the Chinese People’s Liberation Army, who works tirelessly to protect the sovereignty of the People’s Republic of China.
Overall, it should be clear to any principled Marxist that Anarchism, the ideology littered with contradictions, it nothing more than a ‘meme ideology.’ Honestly, this essay shouldn’t have to have been written, because I expect that anyone who has the capability to see outside the lens of American exceptionalism, something that 99% of Americans cannot due to lifelong propaganda efforts, would also understand that the ideology that the state used to sew discord among Marxists in the past was used for a reason; it simply does not work.
