Introduction to Anarcho-Communism

Living under Fascism

A Path from Fascism to Libertarian Communism

Rehabilitating the Terms Communism and Anarchy

 “Living under Fascism” by Davidson Loehr

The full text of this article may be obtained at http://www.uua.org/news/2004/voting/sermon_loehr.html.

When all fascisms exhibit the same social and political agendas (the 14 points listed by Dr. Lawrence Britt), then it is not hard to predict where a new fascist uprising will lead.  And it is not hard.  The actions of fascists and the social and political effects of fascism and fundamentalism are clear and sobering.  Here is some of what’s coming, what will be happening in our country in the next few years:

The theft of all social security funds, to be transferred to those who control money, and the increasing destitution of all those dependent on social security and social welfare programs. 

Rising numbers of uninsured people in this country that already has the highest percentage of citizens without health insurance in the developed world. 

Increased loss of funding for public education combined with increased support for vouchers, urging Americans to entrust their children’s education to Christian schools. 

More restrictions on civil liberties as America is turned into the police state necessary for fascism to work 

Withdrawal of virtually all funding for National Public Radio and the Public Broadcasting System.  At their best, these media sometimes encourage critical questioning, so they are correctly seen as enemies of the state’s official stories. 

The reinstatement of a draft, from which the children of privileged parents will again be mostly exempt, leaving our poorest children to fight and die in wars of imperialism and greed that could never benefit them anyway.  (That was my one-sentence Veterans’ Day sermon for this year.)   

More imperialistic invasions: of Iran and others, and the construction of a huge permanent embassy in Iraq. 

More restrictions on speech, under the flag of national security. 

Control of the Internet to remove or cripple it as an instrument of free communication that is exempt from government control.  This will be presented as a necessary anti-terrorist measure.

Efforts to remove the tax-exempt status of churches like this one, and to characterize them as anti-American.

Tighter control of the editorial bias of almost all media, and demonization of the few media they are unable to control – the New York Times, for instance. 

Continued outsourcing of jobs, including more white-collar jobs, to produce greater profits for those who control the money and direct the society, while simultaneously reducing America’s workers to a more desperate and powerless status. 

Moves in the banking industry to make it impossible for an increasing number of Americans to own their homes.  As they did in the 1930s, those who control the money know that it is to their advantage and profit to keep others renting rather than owning.

Criminalization of those who protest, as un-American, with arrests, detentions, and harassment increasing.  We already have a higher percentage of our citizens in prison than any other country in the world.  That percentage will increase. 

In the near future, it will be illegal or at least dangerous to say the things I have said here this morning.  In the fascist story, these things are un-American.  In the real history of a democratic America, they were seen as profoundly patriotic, as the kind of critical questions that kept the American spirit alive — the kind of questions, incidentally, that our media were supposed to be pressing.

A Path from Fascism to Libertarian Communism

Dematerialism, which amounts to an orderly abandonment of materialism, is explained in Chapter 11 of my book, On the Preservation of Species (discussed below).  Materialism, that is, competition for wealth and power in all of its aspects, including employment, trade, markets, “free” enterprise, acceptance of rewards for what we do or give, hierarchies in business and government, whether appointed from above or elected from below, must inevitably lead to a totalitarian Orwellian nightmare or the complete annihilation of mankind along with many other species, whereas voluntary abandonment of materialism will lead eventually to the highly desirable future described in these web pages.  In the United States, materialism manifests itself in the collusion between corporate power and government principally to transfer wealth from the workers to the plutocracy, which amounts to a short definition of Fascism.  In the previous section., Davidson Loehr explained why we should regard the present political system in the United State s as Fascist.  Communism and anarchy are defined in the next section.  The word anarchy refers to freedom and the absence of hierarchy, which go together.  Obviously, we are not quite free if we have someone over us.  Libertarian communism is anarcho-communism.  Sometimes the term anarchy is used incorrectly to mean chaos.  This is an unfortunate mistake, but it will not do to allow ignorant people to force us to abandon the correct use of the term.

Rehabilitating the Unpopular Terms Communism and Anarchy (8-24-04)

Definition (communism) [Random House Dictionary (RHD) {interlinear commentary by Wayburn}].  1. a theory or system of social organization based on the holding of all property in common, actual ownership being ascribed to the community as a whole or to the state.  {The (philosophical) definition preferred by this author appears in the next paragraph.}  2. (sometimes cap.) a system of social organization in which all economic and social activity is controlled by a totalitarian state dominated by a single and self-perpetuating political party.  {This sounds like the “communism” of the Soviet Union, as portrayed in Western propaganda at the time the RHD was compiled, or the “democracy” of the United States.}  3. (cap) the principle and practices of the Communist party.  {In keeping with the advice of William Morris, there is no dematerialist party.}  4. communalism.  {One sees, then, that employing the less inflammatory word communalism is inadvisable.}

The above definition was written at a time when anti-communist propaganda was most virulent, affecting scholars as well as non-scholars.  It is doubtful that the government of the Soviet Union referred to itself as totalitarian any more than Republicans and Democrats refer to themselves as members of a single party.  For the purposes of dematerialism we need a better definition.  Presumably, the author’s definition is reasonably congruent with the sentiments of most good communists.

Definition (common) [RHD].  1. belonging equally to or shared alike by two or more or all in question: common property; common interests2. etc. irrelevant.

Definition (communism) [Wayburn].  The belief or any social or political system based upon the belief that all earthly wealth is bequeathed to the inhabitants of Earth in common by the Creator or Sustainer or Sustaining Principle (regardless of what It is called), or by Nature, and that no one has a greater right to any of it than does anyone else, from which it is to be deduced that all material wealth, including energy, and all political power ought to be shared equally.

[Note.  I did not mention minor adjustments to account for the special needs among individuals of the same species or between species because I do not wish to create a loophole by which one person can become materially better off or marginally more powerful than another.  Such things, along with appropriate examples, are discussed in various sections of On the Preservation of Species.]

Definition (anarchy) [RHD].  1. a state of society without government or law,  2. lawlessness or political and social disorder due to the absence of governmental control,  3. a theory that proposes the cooperative and voluntary association of individuals and groups as the principal mode of organized society,  4. confusion; chaos; disorder.

Of course, by anarchy, I mean Definition 3, by which I hope to attain the circumstances described by Definition 1.  Definition 4 is what I hope to avoid with dematerialism, which bypasses Definition 2 by the process of delegislation and the replacement of laws with a rational social contract in an orderly manner.

The following is a brief sketch of my reasons for employing the terms ‘communism’ and ‘anarchy’.  Although I could attract more readers by avoiding them, such gains aren’t worth the moral cost.  I do not wish to belabor the points at this time.  A good website for modern anarchist thought is http://www.infoshop.org/faq/intro.html.  If you can’t reach it at first, keep trying.  Not everyone wants you to read this.

1. I do not wish to deceive people by describing with other words what will be recognized as communism and anarchy eventually.

2. Doing so would lend ammunition to conservative critics.

3. It is dishonorable to betray the great people who have endorsed these noble ideas in the past.

4. Communism and anarchy are the natural and legitimate terms for what mankind should aspire to – according to my best lights.

5.  Moreover, I wish to avail myself of the excellent material on anarchist and libertarian communist websites.

6. Nothing has been proven about communism.  Anyone who thinks so does not understand what a proof entails.  Libertarian communism has not been tried in the Soviet bloc, in North Korea, in China, in Viet Nam, nor in Cuba.

7. Finally, dematerialism is my own peculiar name for the process whereby my own peculiar style of communism and anarchy would be established according to my own peculiar thinking, which I do not wish to impose upon anyone.  Rather, I commend my ideas to your inspection and approval or disapproval.  I would appreciate a careful inspection.

I expect that some people will claim that every alternative to capitalism has failed or even that every alternative to capitalism is guaranteed to lead to totalitarianism.  People who have no idea what constitutes a mathematical or even a scientific proof claim that this has been proved.  One wonders when such detractors will realize that in the United States totalitarianism has been realized in a form so cleverly crafted that many people still imagine they are free even though they never tire of whining about how bad things are.  Some people point to South Korea as a marked success compared to North Korea; however, in the wake of Peak Oil, North Koreans have a much better chance to survive than do South Koreans.  People are already traveling to Cuba to study such low-energy technology as is in place.  On the other hand, China is building a huge dam that will displace many small cities that even a government-vetted travel guide will admit are self-sufficient – clearly a step in the wrong direction and one more sign that within the Communist Party of China communism is no longer embraced.  (Market communism is just as absurd as libertarian capitalism.  Under capitalism the rich rule and liberty is nowhere.)

To the intelligent skeptic, I must admit that, without introducing into the argument the population explosion and Peak Oil (and that which follows from Peak Oil), most propaganda advocating communism and anarchy can be defeated by a conservative who is not very fussy about personal liberty.  [Here is a hyperlink to an excerpt from Chapter 2 that describes something of what I mean by “that which follows from Peak Oil”.]

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