Mikhail Bakunin was the Russian father of the strain of anarchism known as collectivist anarchism. He was initially loosely associated with both Karl Marx and Pierre Joseph Proudhon, and eventually he developed anarcho-collectivism using both of them as influences while deviating from them both at the...
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Sat, Jan 31 2009
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Filed under: Anarchism, Collectivism, Propaganda, Religion, Socialism, Philosophy, Free Association, History, Marxism, Communism, Proudhon, Bakunin, Mikhail Bakunin
The British philosopher Herbert Spencer was a vital player in the developement of theories of evolution in the 19th century. It's important to note that Spencer was one of the first proponents of the theory of socio-cultural evolution, and social darwinism is a more specific thing than socio-cultural...
The American individualist anarchist Lysander Spooner was one of the last natural law philosophers of the 19th century, and his crowning achievement is arguably the total demolition of the myth of the social contract. Spooner applied a libertarian theory of natural law to the United States Constitution...
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Wed, Jan 28 2009
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Filed under: Anarchism, Constitution, Thomas Jefferson, Social Contract, Natural Rights, Libertarianism, Philosophy, History, Murray Rothbard, Egoism, Max Stirner, Benjamin Tucker, Natural Law, Lysander Spooner
Many contemporary libertarians may be mystified at Proudhon being considered a libertarian, but Proudhon was undoubtably the first genuinely libertarian socialist. Proudhon's political philosophy represents a synthesis of sorts between classical liberalism and socialism, without yielding any ground...
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Tue, Jan 27 2009
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Filed under: Anarchism, Socialism, Libertarianism, Philosophy, History, Mutualism, Communism, Proudhon, Kropotkin, Bakunin
I reject the natural/synthetic dichotomy. The natural/synthetic dichotomy is manifested in two fundamental ways: (1) the assumption that humans and/or human constructs are separate from nature and (2) the assumption that certain human constructs are "natural" while others are not. The problem...
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Sat, Oct 11 2008
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Filed under: Anarchism, Racism, Social Evolution, Social Contract, Religion, Socialism, Philosophy, Human Nature, conservatism, Environmentalism, History, Primitivism
Conservatism is a defense of the existing order or past existing orders as "natural". Any potential alternative to the existing order or to the romantisized past order is immediately brushed aside as "unnatural" and "utopian" or "idealistic". In the conservative...
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Wed, Jun 25 2008
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Filed under: Determinism, Collectivism, Social Evolution, Equality, Philosophy, Human Nature, conservatism, History, Vulgar Libertarianism, Marxism
Walter Block recently wrote an article at LewRockwell.com on the topic of religion and state. He critisizes what he considers to be an irrational hatred of religion that many libertarians have apparently inherented from Ayn Rand. While he is an atheist himself, he defends the premise that religion is...
Conflict between the socialist oriented and market oriented camps within anarchism can get very tedious. Many anarcho-communists and anarcho-syndicalists appear to emphatically claim that market anarchism isn't truly anarchism, that opposition to private property and capitalism is a requirement for...
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Mon, May 5 2008
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Filed under: Anarchism, Competition, Subjective Value, Capitalism, Socialism, Economics, Philosophy, Free Association, Labor, History
It is common for many libertarians, especially those in America, to assume that they have a natural alliance with "the right". This is based on certain assumptions, such as the notion that contemporary libertarianism grew out of the old American conservative movement and that "the right"...
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Fri, Apr 25 2008
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Filed under: Racism, Collectivism, Religion, Capitalism, Socialism, Libertarianism, Economics, Philosophy, conservatism, Corporatism, liberalism, Nationalism, History
Political philosophies often involve views of history. There seems to be two fundamental views of history, as I have touched on in " Traditionalism as Stagnation " and " Radicalism and Moderation ". These two views are what I would call the "conservative" and "progressive"...