As a member of anarchist culture of all kinds, I of course listen to many anarchist bands. The ones that stick out in my mind are Crass, chumbawamba, aus rotten, flux of pink indians, rudimentary peni, poison girls, against me!, ghost mice, this bike is a pipebomb, defiance ohio, Refused, the international noise conspiracy, billy bragg, and woody guthrie.
Every single one of them is either a proclaimed socialist/communist or an anti-capitalist. All the anarchists they have on the news destroying buildings, with bandanas on their faces are socialist anarchists. I really am starting to think that many, if not most of these people are not so much against capitalism as they are ill informed on the subject.
They seem to think that capitalism is the practice of greed, big government, monopolies. But the fact is that the main points of their discontent are things that are not part of capitalism but economic fascism. Capitalism is interchangable with the term 'Laissez Faire' which translates to "Let it be".
The problem that we have is that we (America) call ourselves a free market, capitalist society. The whole structure of capitalism/the free market rests on government not being involved with business. But this is exactly what we do. We have politicians from big oil and weapons companies working in the white house (Ahem...Dick Cheney), we have Barack Obama giving billions out to crooks and liars who don't know how to run a business (unless you mean run it into the ground), he's stopping the economy from "bottoming out" with tax dollar stimulus (an economy must bottom out to recover, stimulus just prolongs the agony), and taking over General Motors (running ford out of business). Now he is attempting to enact a health care plan which will not only raise the rates of private insurance companies (the plan is largely supported by taxing these companies more), and likely drive them out of business. It's not right for the government to be a business competitor.
These acts of sticking your hand in the cookie jar of the private sector are a strange mix of socialism and fascism. We are both giving tax dollars to criminals, spending tax dollars on "saving" GM (thus countering the idea of competition), spending tax dollars on stimulus, and giving out free or cheap health care at the cost of the private companies. This is the socialism aspect (big buisness socialism?). Merging state and government by absorbing GM, having a hand in supporting and dictating the actions of several banks and mortage companies, and becoming competition to private companies are all aspects of fascism. Fascism is defined by Benito Mussolini as "The merging of state and corporate". It's called the corporate state. I can't see a better example than this.
Wikipedia defines capitalism as:
Capitalism typically refers to an economic and social system in which trade, industry, and the means of production (also known as capital) are privately controlled (either singly or jointly) and operated for profit.
Wikipedia defines the Free market as:
A free market is a term that economists use to describe a market which is free of government intervention (i.e. No regulation, no subsidation, no single monetary system and NO governmental monopolies).
I don't understand how an anarchist of any kind can think that a lack of government intervention in ANYTHING could be bad. We are not using true capitalism in this country, so of course it's a mess. Because if the anarcho socialists want to get their way, they're going to have much more of a struggle than the capitalist/individualist anarchists, because giving up private property and living in any communal sense is not easy to convince someone to do. If they expect the world to change for their ideology, they're just being utopianists. A free market, retention of property rights, and overall individualism would make it so different people could live different ways. Different areas would have different laws, so snobby rich people can live in a clean town with no crime, and the glue sniffing crack head can live without drug laws. Being free of rule is the point of anarchism, and to realistically be able to gain power you would have to become a sort of government. At the very least a higher power.
If anarchists believe in "without rulers" or "no gods, no masters" then how can they support an ideology which would need force and aggression to exist? They attack market anarchism because of it's imperfections and flaws. But what they don't seem to realize is that market anarchism is openly imperfect. Anarcho socialism/collectivism bases it's philosophy around a situation in which people were all good and noble and hard working. There are flaws with both wings of anarchism, but the difference is that anarcho socialists act like their way is perfect (or close to it). We never said that market anarchism is perfect, we just say that it's the best, most fair, and most realistic method of obtaining true liberty. Would there be some problems? Sure. But the other option is a Marxist overthrow of the government and the citizens.
Just look at all the anarchists on the news during the WTO riots and such. They are all anarcho socialists who are destroying things and fighting cops. This is the type of mentality we're dealing with here. Do you really believe that between their belief that it is their right to intimidate a company out of business, and their belief in Marxist overthrows of land and power that they will be peaceful about obtaining their utopian collectivist society?
I watched the Care Bears as a child. Great show. But we don't live in that world. We are not multi colored bears running around on clouds all day. Many humans don't care about sharing, or advancing the country/town/society/humans/the world. This should be their right, as long as they are obeying natural law, and not stepping on other's freedom. Is it sad that someone with $100 billion dollars won't donate to support the disabled or the hungry? Of course. But many wealthy people already donate money to charities, and would probably donate more if it wasn't being taken out of their taxes for 'government charity'.
Also, if we had a truly free market competition would drive prices down on goods, which would make the money that private charities make be able to get far more food/medical care/housing etc.
Our problem is not capitalism, our problem is the government trying to control private business.
