User:SuperEditor

I will update this page with more about myself soon. I am familiar with Wikimedia and the rules and guidelines it entails. I am currently working on The Anarchist Manifesto, an ongoing collaborative work (anybody may contribute) and I will host it on my userspace until I find an acceptable forum to host it on permanently, Wikimedia-based or otherwise. For now, Crimethinc.

Government is an inherently evil and repressive institution. Whether large and totalitarian, as in Russian Communism, or small and regulatory as in American Capitalism, the philosophy of the Ruling class has been cynical and Machiavellian; that the common people do not know what is good for them, and thus must be kept in line by a higher power. In the United state, two parties clash over trivial differences in the size of government. In the Middle East, oppressive regimes wield the power of government to enforce irrational and made-up nonsense (Islamic Law). In China, government prevents citizens from having access to vital information and executes dissidents at will. The list goes on. Look at all the grievances that government causes us. Here's a revolutionary idea for you; how about no government at all?

Corporations are no better. Unlike a government, a corporation does not even pretend to look out for the welfare of the populace. Without government, we would be subject to profit-hungry monster with no regulations holding them back. Can the corporation be permanently eliminated?

A NOTE ''The example of the United States Government will be used frequently throughout this work. This is for no particular reason other then that it happens to be the residence of the (primary) author. There is no reason why ideas or practices detailed herein are exclusively applicable to the United States.''

It is my belief that humans are, for the most part, inherently good. I would like to think that do not need government to be good citizens, we are capable, as good and moral human beings, of following natural law and maintaining order to the extent that we may be able to build a civilized society in the absence of government. The issue is that we have been taught that we need a great surveillance camera to watch us, a great policeman to punish us, and a great legislator to decide for us what is right and wrong. Some will point to incidents like the 1955 Montreal Police strike, when the city erupted into chaos, or the present-day nation of Somalia, where with no government warlords are free to ruthlessly battle for power. These cases are not anarchy as I imagine it; they are example of what happens when a government collapses and leaves a dangerous power vacuum. The docile Canadians and civilized Somalians were taught that should something go wrong, law enforcement would correct it. Denizens of an Anarchist America will be taught from an early age that they are responsible for their actions and their impact on society. It boils down to the Golden Rule; treat others as you would like to be treated. Stealing, for example, would work for me as a lone selfish individual, but I should not wish that everybody take up stealing. Obviously, I do not want my shit stolen. Anarchism is about leaving such decisions up to the individual. Perhaps the biggest change in an Anarchist Revolution would be how we educate our children; rather than giving them and artificial reward/punishment system, we must teach youth to have integrity. Because there are no laws to break, it will be up to the individual citizen to decide if, say, shoplifting, is justifiable in a particular case. If Anarchism is ever about to become a realistic goal in the United States, it would be necessary for either A) A charismatic leader to emerge, perhaps as a presidential candidate, or B) A loosely connected group of anarchists, fighting guerrilla-style; to overthrow the government, take the helm of the bureaucracy, and direct the available resources of the federal government to institute a system of "re-education" in order to ween the American public off of the necessity of government institutions such as law enforcement and public school. We must be taught to be personally responsible for our actions, so that we may earn the freedom to follow our own conscience, unbound by law. A thief must not ask himself "Will I be caught by the police?" but "Does the victim really deserve this?" and "Will my actions contribute to the general demoralization of society" You would be surprised how many social programs can be eliminated in favor of private, non-profit ones. The educated can school neighborhood kids in their homes. Lawyers could appeal to local vigilantes on behalf of the accused. Doctors could heal their sick neighbors for barter. WE DON'T NEED GOVERNMENT.

On an economic level, there is no reason that we need currency. What with the abolition of the Gold Standard and all, a dollar is just a fuckin' piece of paper anyhow. Citizens can use a combination of tangible assets for bartering and personal checking for trade. The Notary Public will be a valuable asset to the community, as people use self-written contracts and IOU's increasingly in the absence of paper currency. In an Anarchist America we would undoubtedly see an immense urban sprawl as people need more land with which to produce a greater percentage of their own food, now that major food distributors are a thing of the past. Through a system of IOU's, bartering, and subsistence farming, Anarchism could be viable not only as an ideology, but as an economic system as well.

Anarchy is not the vandalism by loading arms or explosives as in the chaotic nature of 1790s France but a simplistic philosophy originating in the far east Lao-Tze or Taoism. But still on the contrary to the others, anarchy is not a style of constructing general agreement(choosing the one of the sames)

Wars are very unlikely to occur within an anarchist system, which may sound like zealous wishful thinking because it appears to imply that there will be no conflict between people because of an absence of authority (many would consider this paradoxical in itself). The reason wars are unlikely to happen is because to start and continue a war an individual must have a personal interest in it, kings, presidents, popes, lords and generals (autocrats and oligarchs) all have such an interest in practicing warfare for various reasons. Insurrectionists will also have an interest in continuing a war but will only have the objective of ending it, autocrats and oligarchs will usually wish to continue the war for as long as possible. The more important distinction between the two is that an insurrectionist is likely to be in personal danger of being killed during the war whilst the autocrat or oligarch have the possibility of assassination but are otherwise not in danger. To illustrate the distinction of an anarchist society, suppose there was an anarchist city with two neighborhoods, for whatever reason they do not share what they have with each other, so neighborhood A decides that they want to take what they like from neighborhood B and to do so they will go to war with neighborhood B (incidentally this is capitalist/fascist rather than anarchist reasoning but it will have to suffice for this example). Everyone in neighborhood A that wants to go to war will have to be involved, to play the part of the insurrectionist, to kill and probably die for what they want. This is a very different scenario to the one the autocrat/oligarch find themselves in where they are not personally willing to die for what they want but are willing to sacrifice others for it. So it can be seen that in an anarchist system someone would have to be willing to die for their desire to start a war in order for one to begin at all. Many people oppose anarchism under the grounds that "warlords" or feudal rulers will inevitably arise. This is a preposterous dismissal, because the only reason it provides to avoid anarchy that it provides is that anarchy will somehow create government; therefore it is not an argument as such that anarchy is unfavorable, but that it can never be achieved realistically. This is not so, as long as people refuse to be ruled. This swings back to the re-education programs, mentioned earlier. If we learn that we do not need rulers, (would-be) warlords would not become warlords, with no means to assert their power (which would not exist).

Indeed, I have mentioned this re-education theory several times. I will now elaborate on this subject. We have been taught time and time again that the general populous is dumb, selfish, and immoral; therefore we need a small intellectual elite to preside over us. Some idiots would claim that Democracy is somehow different. The Democracy of the ancient Athenians may have been, but modern-day "Representative Democracy" is not; indeed, it is the exact opposite. Short of trivial state budget matters, the citizen does not vote on individual pieces of legislation, they vote for the people who vote for them, who are smarter, richer, and more important than you, and are so jaded and detached from the effects of the legislation that they vote on and the needs of their constituents (no matter how far some Republicans roll up their shirt sleeves) that it makes no difference anyhow. Political parties add insult to injury; politicians invariably act towards the preservation of their own political party, as is true with just about all hierarchical organizations. We have been taught that this is the only way to go, that we are incapable of being civilized when left to our own devices. We have been taught this, and this is wrong; therefore we must be re-taught. We must be taught to share we make and take what we need, to ensure not only that our neighbors don't cheat us but that we don't cheat them, and to keep order in the absence of law. We must be taught to own the means of production, to learn trades and man factories without corporations forcing us to do so and mercilessly exploiting the working man; to give and take freely, according to what we think is fair. Wrongs will undoubtedly be committed, we must learn to take it upon ourselves to right them. This is true freedom, to be able to follow one's own conscience, to give and take freely. As I stated earlier with the example of political parties, all "groups" of any kind invariably seek the interest of the survival and well being of the group. This includes charitable organizations, like Greenpeace; their activities consist of "helping the environment" or whatever, but recruiting new members and collecting dues is top priority, a priority over, say, encouraging people to take it upon themselves to go sabotage deforesting operations. It is for this reason that we must learn that our collective in-group does not consist of our class, our sex, our race, our residence, or even our nation, but of the human race, and to a lesser extent, all living things. We must act in the interest of all people, everywhere; to do what we want, but do no harm. To teach us all of these things would require a massive public works program, a public works program put out by the government so that no public works programs may be necessary ever again, in hopes that government may cease to exist.

AFTERWORD This has been a work of political theory. I have made clear all that I need to in this short treatise; short and sweet, that's how I like it. I would never have imagined myself writing such a piece. I hate politics. You could say that this is my attempt to destroy politics forever. If your knew you had one week to live, what would you do? You certainty wouldn't worry about politics. Or law, for that matter. Would you watch TV? Would you check your Facebook account? Or would you steal some equipment, hitchhike to Nepal, and climb Mount Everest?