What is Anarchism? | Ideology explained

This video is a short explanation of what anarchism is about. I don’t go into detail about any specific anarchist ideology and just explain what they generally have in common which are things like aversion toward authority, opposition to the police and a desire for more democracy. I mention individualist, as well as social anarchy and I mention both anarcho-capitalists and anarcho-communists in order to give a full picture of the diversity of thought which can all be traced back to anarchism. Want to get into anarchism? Here is a reading list: Subreddit: Patreon: Twitter: E-Mail Address: viki1999mail@ Transcript: Hello everybody and welcome back to ideology explained. Today I am telling you about anarchism. In general, all of it. To the best of my ability. Please note this is a very basic overview over some general anarchist ideas. I will not go into detail about anything here. In general Anarchism can be summed up as the ideology which attempts to reach anarchy. Now, most people think about chaos and destruction when they hear anarchy but that’s not what this is about. In this case anarchy means a society without unjust hierarchies or without any hierarchies, depending on which kind of anarchist we are talking about. That means no queen, no president and no governments as we know them. This is because to anarchists nobody can have the right to govern someone else without consent. Individual freedom is very important in anarchism. But this is not to say that there would not be any government anymore. Anarchism just demands a nonhierarchical or completely voluntary government, sometimes. Others really want no government. That means there could still be a government but there could be no people with the ability to decide over anyone else without the expressed consent of those people. That means democracy is basically the only way this can work. But not representative democracy since that one has representatives, not delegates. The difference is that a delegate can be called back at any time while a representative get’s elected and then get’s legal immunity for 4 years. Alternatively is could also be direct democracy. The prevalence of this depends on the type of anarchist. As you can tell there is quite a diversity of thought in anarchism so it’s very hard to say general things about it. Almost all anarchists would abolish nations and governments as we know them completely though. Some would replace the function of the state with a 100% democratic commune and others would trust in their guns and the decency of the average person. All anarchist ideologies I am aware of would abolish the police force. The reason is that people who are in positions of power, like the police, for a long time can come to abuse it. This is also the same reason why there must be no people who govern. The theory is that absolute power corrupts absolutely and thus all power corrupts to a certain extent. The anarchist solution is to abolish positions of power like that. There are different ideas as to what should replace the police force. Some anarchists want a new type of law enforcement which is done by the people themselves. There are lots of theories on this. Pretty much all anarchists are pro-gun since that’s how they would defend themselves. They also oppose anything that violates individual freedom, that means they are often times on the side of antifa in order to oppose fascism, or on the side of whoever wants to legalize abortion. Some anarchists are anti-electoralists, that means they don’t take part in democracy because they view it as an unjust system and they don’t want to legitimize it. But others again argue that the state, even if unjust in nature and not capable of meaningful reform, can still be used to reduce harm like by voting for a party that won’t put children in cages. Very broadly anarchists can be split into two groups. Social anarchists and individual anarchists. Basically, individualist anarchy is all about the liberty of the individual form outside control while social anarchy is more about achieving most freedom for a whole group like by mutual aid which just means helping those who need it in your community, like offering to look after your neighbor’s kid or them giving you food and care if you’re unable to provide for yourself. Economically anarchists can be divided into anarcho-capitalists and anarcho-communists. And they do not like each other. As the names suggest anarcho capitalists or ancaps want to abolish the state while keeping the institution of private property as well as the free market. Their property would be defended by the so called Non aggression principle, or NAP. It states that nobody can aggress against anyone else or their property or else they are exempt from the NAP and they will presumably be lynched.