Talk:Anarchism/Archive 64

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Edit request on 15 August 2013

While some argue anti-statism is central, others take the position[1] that anarchism entails opposing authority or hierarchical organization in the conduct of human relations, including, but not limited to, the state system.[2]Cite error: A <ref> tag is missing the closing </ref> (see the help page).

Not done: please make your request in a "change X to Y" format. Jackmcbarn (talk) 00:40, 25 August 2013 (UTC)

Anarchocapitalism yet again

I will be talking about here to this proposal of change of this article.

Anarcho-capitalism is already mentioned in this article. Nevertheless a user pretends that we give it more importance than other recent currents. Besides Anarcho-capitalism being a very recent phenomenon it is also highly controversial due to the fact that historically and in contemporary times anarchism has been a highly anti-capitalistic position as well as due to the fact of capitalism being a higly hierarchical form of organization and as such incompatible with anarchist anti-authoritarian views. As such one can suggest that the word "anarchocapitalism" is as strange as saying "satanic christianity" or "maoist capitalism". I know there exists for example "Christian atheism" but for good reasons the article on chrstianity hardly mentions it at all.

So we have given in this article the same space to anarcho-capitalism as to other recent developments such as "post-left anarchy", insurrectionary anarchism, anarcho-primitivism and post-anarchism. ¿Why should we give more space and importance within this article to anarcho-capitalism in particular over these other recent developments? I will love to hear a good reason from the users who want to give it this undue importance.

Now as far as "voluntarysm" i have to suggest that as a term it is hardly used at all in anarchist concepts and it is not present at all in the main bibilography which this article provides. So the inclusion of that term in this article will be a serious mistake. As I check the article "voluntarysm" i will have to say that it is hard to identify who are the proponents of this thing and particularly since it tries to include within it people in some cases due to a single view or sentence pronounced. But also i will have to say that the most prominent references and connections are with liberalism and neoliberalism and as such it is clearly something foreign to anarchism.

I have to add the fact that these changes were supported by something as unclear and obscure as this "Removing Sub-sub-schools; mvd to sub-pages respective articles. Removed slanted POV. rmv cricisms." That on itself is a good reason for a reversal of the edition. After that User:Knight of BAAWA has come to almost start an edit war and for support of the change he gives as reason "Oh, don't start your POV nonsense again". And on top this edition even decided to erase an entire well sourced paragraph from the section "individualist anarchism". The paragraph erased was this "From these early influences individualist anarchism in different countries attracted a small but diverse following of bohemian artists and intellectuals,[178] free love and birth control advocates (see Anarchism and issues related to love and sex),[179][180] individualist naturists nudists (see anarcho-naturism),[181][182][183] freethought and anti-clearical activists[184][185] as well as young anarchist outlaws in what became known as illegalism and individual reclamation[186][187] (see European individualist anarchism and individualist anarchism in France). These authors and activists included Oscar Wilde, Emile Armand, Han Ryner, Henri Zisly, Renzo Novatore, Miguel Gimenez Igualada, Adolf Brand and Lev Chernyi among others."

So i will wait for any response to this arguments. I will think that User:Objective Reason could very well come and be clear and specific as to why he thinks we should give more importance to anarcho-capitalism over other recent and less controversial recent developments and also to why he thinks we should erase the entire paragraph mentioned previously.--Eduen (talk) 03:28, 25 March 2013 (UTC)

Besides Anarcho-capitalism being a very recent phenomenon it is also highly controversial due to the fact that historically and in contemporary times anarchism has been a highly anti-capitalistic position as well as due to the fact of capitalism being a higly hierarchical form of organization

Major premiseAn anarchist ideology is an ideology calling for a stateless society; Minor premiseanarcho-capitalism is an ideology calling for a stateless society; ergo, Conclusionanarcho-capitalism is an anarchist ideology.

So we have given in this article the same space to anarcho-capitalism as to other recent developments such as "post-left anarchy", insurrectionary anarchism, anarcho-primitivism and post-anarchism. ¿Why should we give more space and importance within this article to anarcho-capitalism in particular over these other recent developments?

Despite being a very recent phenomenon, as you yourself described it, anarcho-capitalism has spread like wildfire in some circles. Remarkably, if one goes by Google search results, “anarcho-capitalism” has far surpassed every other anarchist school of thought listed in this article. EIN (talk) 13:33, 28 March 2013 (UTC)
"Some circles" meaning "the Internet". In the real world, Anarchism means what it always has. 24.197.249.153 (talk) 19:03, 19 July 2013 (UTC)
Oh, look. It's this thread again... *yawn* 71.65.237.218 (talk) 08:17, 2 June 2013 (UTC)

Anarchism has been defined as more than just anti-statism. Anarchism is rejection of hierarchies and of authoritarianism as as such it is clearly very uncompatible with something as hierarchical as capitalist enterprises. This is the reason why anarchism has always been a strongly anti-capitalistic movement alongside marxism and also the reason why "anarcho" capitalism is not taken seriously or is ignored by most anarchists and anarchist sources as part of the movement.--Eduen (talk) 20:10, 3 June 2013 (UTC)

I do not see that it requires much mention, and can be discussed at length in its own article. Certainly anarcho-capitalists have little connection with any other anarchist movement, and in fact work with other right-wing groups. TFD (talk) 20:55, 3 June 2013 (UTC)


The biggest difference between anarchism and anarcho-capitalism is that anarchism doesn't include "capitalism". This article looks like it was taken over by Murray Rothbard. --Frybread (talk) 06:54, 29 September 2013 (UTC)

The problem here is reflecting an accurate reflection of reality

File:Anarcho Capitalism Versus Anarcho Communism Popularity since 2004.jpg




' Stephen Molyneux is the most searched for philosher and also calls himself an anarchist; despite being clear anarcho-capitalistic [3]


There is systematic editing in here that needs to be addressed in two ways: either the top of the article must have a a clear disambiguation or this article needs to be drastically edited so be put in line with Wikipedia's policy undue weights & neutrality

Objective Reason (talk) 15:33, 27 September 2013 (UTC) Objective Reason (talk) 15:45, 27 September 2013 (UTC)


Objective Reason (talk) 15:45, 27 September 2013 (UTC) Objective Reason (talk) 15:51, 27 September 2013 (UTC)
Search terms mean nothing and certainly don't illustrate a systemic bias. Has it occurred to you that more people search "anarcho-capitalism" because they have no idea what the term could possibly mean being that it is paradoxical? Anarcham (talk) 15:44, 27 September 2013 (UTC)

Slapping new tags all over the place makes no sense. You are trying to force your viewpoint all over the article and the truth is that anarchism throughout history has been anti-capitalist. AnCaps have only existed for about thirty years (and there are vigorous debates about whether or not they are even anarchist) so to rewrite the article to suit a new minority subsect is just silly and a pushing a seriously non-neutral point of view. Anarcham (talk) 21:35, 27 September 2013 (UTC) Your text Stored revision Line 233: Line 233:

+ − I'm really not interested in engaging you in this subject. I'm speaking from a encyclopedia point of view. That search term was to illustrate a much more important point; when people search anarchist first; the most likely thing they will click on is anarcho-capitalism and remains to be that way. There is a reason you guys have been spending this argument over and over and over again on your talk page; it's because people seeking both coluntaryism and anarcho capitalism believe it is synonomous. + t's how I know you're wrong, I have nothing to do with anarcho capitalism. You've proven that you're interest isn't in being the most informative to the greatest number of people; it's too polarize, confuse, and create conflict. If it's not; then that damn well better be clear because that's where your fighting starts. This is a clear solution that has nothing to do with the subject matter; it has to do with directing people to their likely end points. It's called being a good reference for the most amount of people. − If Anarchic Capitalism was a sex position or if anarchism was a race horse. Wikipedia I'm really not interested in this subject matter, once soever. This is an issue about traffic from these two groups being misdirected here; they question the article (because they want to know where is the "anarchy" they hear about. And instead of them finding their article; I see endless edit wars, which I you just attempted to vandalize first, ask questions later? If ANARCHO CAPITALISM ISN'T AN ANARCHY; WHY WOULDN'T YOU REDIRECT THE TRAFFIC WHO ARE COMING HERE? That just serves a purpose of creating confusion.

o you know that this article is written in a sense where it's intentionally polarizing? Do you know how asinine your approach is to ward off edits repeatedly without a disambiguation?

Objective Reason (talk) 21:45, 27 September 2013 (UTC)
You definitely should be thanked for the warning that I informed you wikipedia's guide policies,
You aren't interested in engaging me in this subject? So basically, you want to be able to alter the article any way you want with no discussion or consensus? I'm sorry but it doesn't really work that way. Anarcham (talk) 21:49, 27 September 2013 (UTC)
The article wasn't altered, I sent you a warning about vandalism, already gave you three attempts to seriously explain why this compromise does not work? You want anarchic-capitalists to edit your page to their beliefs that they have veen the last two years, daily? How is not allowing them access to their page helpful? You seem to have no interest in contributing at this point and only interest in harrassmentm and trolling. Disambiguation deleted for a fourth time without addressing the massive misdirecting of traffic away from their target point.
You are adding all sorts of tags and then threatening people when they remove them. You gave me a bunch of warnings for edit warring all at once and then hours later gave me another even though I hadn't edited anything in that time. How is me trying to have a dialogue with you "harrassmentm and trolling"? You are the one making threats to both myself and to Eduen. Incidentally, below you claim that 6 people were warned when a look at your edit history shows that only Eduen and I were warned by you. You continually keep adding tags that no one else agrees with but you complain that everyone else is edit warring. Anarcham (talk) 01:15, 28 September 2013 (UTC)


It is hard to even understand what has been happening in this article but it seems to me user Objective Reason has a problem articulating an argument and even using wikipedia software as the above edits show. On top this user is accusing me today of engaging in an edit war by posting something he seems is not even authorized to posting within wikipedia when i have not even used wikipedia for about a few days. By looking at his wikipedia User page he doesn´t even seem to hold administrator status here in order for him to come and post those things in my user page. As far as the banners in this article i don´t see how they can be justified when this user has not even made a real argument as can be seen above this post.--Eduen (talk) 21:55, 27 September 2013 (UTC)


This is an Android in action, and yes, you were one of 6 edit war participants big scary box asking you to discuss things? Six of you received them; I put no discretion on to whose side they were fighting. including bkknight.

I see you're more interested in establish a few pathos appeals towards me then you are interested in directing those who keep discussing :anarcho-capitalism to the proper, not anarchy (I even researched the correct class). Wow guess what? That's me trying to protect the content you :two have warred on for months with failed reverts. disambiguation at the top gets these people who are changing your article to SOMEWHERE ELSE :before starting I gave you a very large picture to illustrate the teaffic coming through here. It seems to me you would prefer an indefinite edit war over a the most basic compromise. Yet, because I illustrated to you that there's a hell a lot of traffic diverted here to edit spam back.
If Anarchic Capitalism was a sex position or if anarchism was a race horse. Wikipedia I'm really not interested in this subject matter, once soever. This is an issue about traffic from these two groups being misdirected here; they question the article (because they want to know where is the "anarchy" they hear about. And instead of them finding their article; I see endless edit wars, which I you just attempted to vandalize first, ask questions later?

If ANARCHO CAPITALISM ISN'T AN ANARCHY; WHY WOULDN'T YOU REDIRECT THE TRAFFIC WHO ARE COMING HERE? That just serves a purpose of creating confusion.

Do you want to hold an edit war giving you a solution. Do you have any reason to object to the simple disambiguation? Objective Reason (talk) 22:25, 27 September 2013 (UTC)

A

Objective Reason, please read WP:HATNOTE to understand the purpose of Wikipedia hatnotes. Thank you. — Malik Shabazz Talk/Stalk 01:16, 28 September 2013 (UTC)
Indeed, thank you for applying the correct wiki note for me. Objective Reason (talk)

Objective Reason, don't change my comments. You altered the text here and that is not appreciated. Anarcham (talk) 01:20, 28 September 2013 (UTC)

This user seems exhibit the behavior of a troll. None of this user's comments were deleted; not that any administrator would believe the user that has done his absolute best to try and shift relevance away from the reason this page is now protected. Grasping strawman and turning this discussion against any user personally is exactly why this article lacks WP:neutrality. Who cares who I am? No one cares who you are, nor should they. The focus of this discussion should be purely on the merits of a the claim that most people who search for anarchist, are most likely to be looking for that other term "capitalist" immediately afterwards according to multiple SEO measurements, as well as the most popular terms on Alexa. I'm not interested in making the final edits to this page; because I'm not interested in an outcome that has no bearing on my opinion; and thus propose that the administrators use due diligence and send a moderator for a dispute resolution on the WP:HATNOTES illustrating the need for the full protection. Objective Reason (talk) 10:17, 1 October 2013 (UTC)
Did you just call me a troll? You falsely reported me to Administrator intervention against vandalism, you deleted one of my comments and altered another of my comments. You can't even be honest about your own behavior. And you never even bothered to reply to the substance of the comments you deleted and altered. Anarcham (talk) 15:34, 1 October 2013 (UTC)
  • I've just fully protected the article for three days due to the ongoing edit warring. Please discuss the matter on this talk page and try to come to a consensus. Mark Arsten (talk) 02:09, 28 September 2013 (UTC)


Objective Reason wants to add numerous possible iterations of "anarchism" at the top (I think that this is what he/she means by talking about making it a disambiguation) which he begins by saying "This article is about Anarchy in terms of eradicating social 'hierarchies'. For The 'anarchist' philosophy of...." but Anarchism literally means "one without rulers" so obviously this article is about eradicating social hierarchies. For Objective Reason to argue that we should cover a different definition of Anarchism requires there to be a different definition of anarchism and there simply isn't one. Further all the links to other article he/she wants added to the top are already in the article itself with explanations. Adding a needless hodgepodge to the top doesn't better the article and certainly doesn't improve readability. Objective Reason says that we should "seriously explain why this compromise does not work" but it isn't a compromise by any definition when one person changes things and then demands everyone else explain why it shouldn't be that way. Anarcham (talk) 02:26, 28 September 2013 (UTC)

User:Objective Reason: "If Anarchic Capitalism was a sex position or if anarchism was a race horse. Wikipedia I'm really not interested in this subject matter, once soever." "This is an Android in action, and yes, you were one of 6 edit war participants big scary box asking you to discuss things?"

I have to confess that it is hard to understand the writing of user User:Objective Reason and one can very well begin to question his capacity of writing in english as the above citations show. From what i can understand from what he has written above i can answer that the issue of anarchism and anarchocapitalism is well dealt with within the article and anarchocapitalism has a wikipedia article of its own. So i don´t see from where he can come argue here that there is some kind of confusion being propagated by wikipedia.

User:Objective Reason: "That search term was to illustrate a much more important point; when people search anarchist first; the most likely thing they will click on is anarcho-capitalism and remains to be that way."

He doesn´t say where exacly this happens but when i do a search in google of the word "anarchism" what i get is general information on anarchism as a whole as one will expect. But now in wikipedia the representation of anarchism or any other subject as related to wikipedia in google is not something wikipedia has to worry about.

As far as the banners placed at the beginning of this article as far as "systemic bias", "Systematic conflation of philosophical prominence and political dogma", and "neutrality of the article". This is only being argued here by one user and has been responded by two users who disagree with him. User:Objective Reason is now being warned of a possible blocking of his account for engaging in an edit war. I think this is not a situation that can support keeping those banners on top of this article.--Eduen (talk) 02:29, 28 September 2013 (UTC)

I would like to have an actual discussion about this but Objective Reason is just harassing Eduen and I. Objective Reason reported me to Administrator intervention against vandalism claiming "vandalism after final warning; vandalism after recent release of block; actions evidently indicate a vandalism-only account; account is evidently a spambot or a compromised account; account is being used only for promotional purposes." none of which is at all true. This is hardly a vandalism-only account, not a bot, never been blocked, and certainly isn't used for promotional purposes, and never vandalized at all let alone after a final warning. Objective Reason used obviously false reasons to try and get me blocked. Anarcham (talk) 15:05, 28 September 2013 (UTC)
So user Objective Reason has not responded yet. Basically the two banners on top of the article are there because of him and we are still waiting for his response. As such it might be just time to remove those banners since the controversy situation does not exist anymore and the case that Objective Reason was elaborating was clearly not helped by his threats to other users and his crazy edit warring.--Eduen (talk) 02:12, 1 October 2013 (UTC)
User Uduen, I do not know about whom you believe you speak for, however it evidently is not the general populace, nor is your pathos appeal going to appeal to anyone other than those who this tag directly indicted . You attempting to create a false consensus among those indicted highlights a direct example of who I am speaking of. After about, what, 600+ edits on this page vivaciously fighting against a clear political divide by himself. Eduen is hardly someone who could be perceived neutral. I am looking for an outside dispute resolution from someone who hasn't had hundreds of edits that relate to a particular personal identity. Eduen seems to act like slightly more articulate, but note that his pathos lacks the basic structure of validity, which makes sense as he is one user who identifies with the political ideology undermining what could otherwise be an informative discourse for a label that's commonly misplaced. However, when you these personal relevancy shifting trolls creating user names that illustrate their own emotional attachment to the political direction whereby a wikipedia's anarchism page is attacking any user who not simply just disagrees with his personal ideology within this article, but speaks of the existence of another opinion. Despite the massive amount of words and conjecture, there is still no substantive response to my original proposal and we are left sitting still an ad-hominem fallacy. There's a proposal, that have been intentionally ignored; and instead illustrating how studying traffic; noting the Most popular philosophy show is encyclopedia worthy alone. But instead, offering what I thought to be a disambiguation is being portrayed, quite ironically, as "pushing my beliefs". Now that the Dogma tags have become self evident, I have only interest in a dispute resolution coming from someone who has yet to edit this article less than 30 individual times Objective Reason (talk) 09:40, 1 October 2013 (UTC) 09:25, 1 October 2013 (UTC)
I can say that i find it amusing how much you decide to analyse my personality here. Nevertheless as far as the purpose of this article i have to say that i find it hard to see the specific issue which you want to address. When i check the wikipedia article on Stefan Molyneux i really don´t see why we should give the importance that you want to give to this particular author. The article on him lacks bibliography and it even says that "self-published non-fiction books which he distributes for sale and free download on his website" which does not really qualify as reliable sources by wikipedia standards. But even if we decided to accept his writings as realiable sources as far as this article we will have to accept historical works or descriptive as far as the philosophy of anarchism, works about anarchism in general. It looks like this author you bring here into consideration as what i can see from his article is mostly a radio host who comments on politics. He might be popular but as far as wikipedia that does not interest us here or that particular data might be of use only for the wikipedia article on him. A google related scan does not qualify as reliable source either.--Eduen (talk) 10:19, 1 October 2013 (UTC)
Once again, Eduen has refused to address the argument and use a pathos appeal to shift focus and baiting into a political credibility game, self evidently a strategy to shifting away the discussion from the merits of the topic to his own personal emotional identity. The topic is about the general influx of traffic to this article comes from prominently Voluntaryist spectrum. Thus, there is no reason not to show them where they wanted to go before they come to find out the that apparently half the web really isn't doing what the photo at the top of this section illustrates. Most people see this as clearly inviting an edit war. Objective Reason (talk) 10:39, 1 October 2013 (UTC)
Anarcho-capitalism is a small aspect of the subject and it is questionable whether it is a type of anarchism at all. TFD (talk) 15:55, 1 October 2013 (UTC)
When wikipedia decides to accept scans of google as reliable sources i guess you can argue what you are arguing. As far as "voluntarism" it is mostly a foreign problematic to anarchism as i read its wikipedia article. The sources that deal with anarchism in general as a philosphy never mention this particular political theory. As i check again the wikipedia article titled "voluntarysm" the main source that supports that this view exists at all says the following "Voluntaryism has a long historical tradition in the English-speaking world. Our first cite of modern usage is from WIKIPEDIA, THE FREE ENCYCLOPEDIA, found on the worldwide web: voluntaryism "in politics and economics ... the idea that human relations should be based on voluntary cooperation ..., to the exclusion of political compulsion..... A journal is published based on this idea: The Voluntaryist ... (http//:www.voluntaryist.com)". It is clear this particular website where this definition comes form is not an independent source on the subject. There is clearly a problem with that particular wikipedia article.--Eduen (talk) 05:35, 3 October 2013 (UTC)

Added insert

Added "First known use of the word was in 1539" from the Merriam-Webster Dictionary online definition. [4]Mabour (talk) 22:15, 27 October 2013 (UTC)

Deleted sentences

Deleted As a subtle and anti-dogmatic philosophy, anarchism draws on many currents of thought and strategy. Anarchism does not offer a fixed body of doctrine from a single particular world view, instead fluxing and flowing as a philosophy. NPOV) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mabour (talkcontribs) 05:29, 28 October 2013 (UTC)

Proposed changes

  1. Lead suggested by the above editors reads: "Anarchism is a political philosophy that advocates stateless societies based on non-hierarchical free associations."
  2. This is incorrect:
    1. Firstly, anarchism is not a single political philosophy, hence "set of political philosophies". Some arguably have very little in common, other than point 3 below.
    2. Secondly, not all strands of anarchism advocate the above stateless societies stuff – some types of "philosophical" anarchism arguably advocate no such thing, and would do away with "societies" altogether.
    3. The one thing the various strands of anarchism have in common is "hold[ing] the state to be undesirable, unnecessary, or harmful". This must be emphasised.

124.169.113.132 (talk) 04:40, 9 November 2013 (UTC)

  • His lack of good faith about the reverts notwithstanding, the Canberra, Australia IP does have a point. Carrite (talk) 05:38, 9 November 2013 (UTC)
IP, you need to provide sources in order to support the statement you wish to include. TFD (talk) 05:50, 9 November 2013 (UTC)
Hey, thanks for discussing, and apologies if I came – I actually thought I was more restrained than I could've been, and I hope it's obvious why I was frustrated. I'm not sure if this holds much ground, but I'm not a sockpuppet, and I'm not solely interested in anarchism, if you would care to check my edit history (I'm also from Perth, actually – maybe Carrite should use a different IP locator). I'm not quite sure if I've any of the changes really need more sources than what's already there – my proposed change isn't that controversial, is it? I simply switched the positions of the first and second sentences, and hedged the phrasing of the second sentence a little (surely it isn't in dispute that there are anarchist schools that would do away with society altogether?). I suppose changing "political philosophy" to "set of political philosophies" is mildly controversial (but given the numerous school of thoughts, I really can't see how). If a source is required (once again, I'm not radically changing the scope of the article or anything), I'll quote from the introduction to David Miller's Anarchism, (the only anarchism-related book I really have on hand, and part of a set on "Modern Ideologies" – quite reputable I think?): "…generally speaking we can at least find a coherent core, a consistent set of ideas which is shared by all those who embrace the ideology in question [… i]t is by no means clear that we can find such a set of core assumptions in the case of anarchism. We must face the possibility that anarchism is not really an ideology [emphasis his], but rather the point of intersection of several ideologies". He goes on to write: "Despite this initial caution about searching for a comprehensive definition of "anarchism", we may still be able to point to features which have allowed anarchist of different persuasions to be collected together under a common label. The first and most obvious of these [emphasis mine] is their hostility to the state: anarchists argue that it should be abolished […]. Thanks, 124.169.113.132 (talk) 09:58, 9 November 2013 (UTC)
Thank you for bringing your proposed change here instead of continuing to edit war. I don't have any objection to your proposed change. — Malik Shabazz Talk/Stalk 23:18, 9 November 2013 (UTC)

So as to respond to this user´s proposals:

"## Firstly, anarchism is not a single political philosophy, hence "set of political philosophies". Some arguably have very little in common, other than point 3 below."

The intro has some affirmations which deal with plurality within anarchism such as "As a subtle and anti-dogmatic philosophy, anarchism draws on many currents of thought and strategy. Anarchism does not offer a fixed body of doctrine from a single particular world view, instead fluxing and flowing as a philosophy.[16] There are many types and traditions of anarchism, not all of which are mutually exclusive." Also it points out to that it has accomodated inside it both individualism and communism and later in the article there is said that there is both a violentist tendency (insurrectionism, ilegalism)) and ultra-pacifism adhering to total non-violence.

If we decided to compare anarchism with other political philosophies such as marxism, conservatism, liberalism and fascism we will get the same amount of internal differences and variations as anarchism if not more. So i really don´t see why specifically the wikipedia article on anarchism will have to emphasize more the fact that it is very plural inside rather than the other political ideologies i just mentioned and as such more than what the other wikipedia articles do on their articles.

"## Secondly, not all strands of anarchism advocate the above stateless societies stuff – some types of "philosophical" anarchism arguably advocate no such thing, and would do away with "societies" altogether."

We don´t have "statistics" on this but it is very clear that "philosophical anarchism" is more or less a literary phenomenon mostly while mass organized anarchism has manifested itself as anarcho-communism and anarcho-syndicalism so that should provide us a good guide on this issue on the numbers. As far as "doing away with societies altogether" that sounds as unclear as possible to me and it comes from no outside reference and not even a single author´s name is provided for that. So clearly your argument here it not very strong and here we seriously have very few to discuss upon since there is not even a single name or a citation provided here.

"## The one thing the various strands of anarchism have in common is "hold[ing] the state to be undesirable, unnecessary, or harmful". This must be emphasised."

The intro does say that anarchism has a strong anti-state component within it. It also has to say that the state has not been the only thing anarchism has opposed and the etymology of the word "anarchy" itself reads "no rulers". As such a ruler over a person can be both a state agent (ex: the police, politicians) as well as non state "rulers" (ex: a boss at the company one works at, an authoritarian violent husband over a wife and his children, a mafia like criminal organization over an area it controls, a clergy trying to impose theocracy, etc).--Eduen (talk) 01:42, 10 November 2013 (UTC)

The IP's source says, "We must face the possibility that anarchism is not really an ideology." It is presented as an opinion in a 1984 book from a non-academic publisher (J. M. Dent) and there is no source that the opinion has received any support. It is questionable whether right-wingers who call themselves anarchists are really anarchists. The IP should present a reliable source supporting his views, and reporting another editor to ANI, edit-warring and calling other editors "dicks" is offensive. This is trolling and I suggest other editors do not waste their time in humoring him. TFD (talk) 02:07, 10 November 2013 (UTC)
TFD, the fact that a book was not published by an academic publisher does not mean it is not a reliable source. I have no experience of Miller's academic reputation or other work, but I assume Oxford professorships aren't handed out to complete idiots. I hope you understand that it is very hard to assume good faith and respond when other editors seem to not be able to do the same, like reverting you continually without explanation, reporting you as a sockpuppet, accusing you of trolling, and telling other editors not to engage with you. I am deeply, deeply sorry that you were offended. Regarding your version of the "no true Scotsman" fallacy, I'll quote Chomsky: "It's an odd feature of the anarchist tradition over the years that it seems to have often bred highly authoritarian personality types, who legislate what the Doctrine IS, and with various degrees of fury (often great) denounce those who depart from what they have declared to be the True Principles. Odd form of anarchism." 124.169.113.132 (talk) 12:04, 10 November 2013 (UTC)
Responding to Eduen (and thanks for the well-considered response):
  • I would hold that anarchism, while perhaps equally as fragmented as equivalent articles, is fragmented more widely, and the various fragments have much more less in common than, say, Marxism. I don't think you could find people asking to what extent is Marxism a single ideology?. That's probably a bad example, given Marxism arguably stems from a single source, but I think the same would apply to others. Another option would be to remove "is a political philosophy which" altogether (incorporating that link elsewhere, I guess), and instead have "Anarchism advocates […]". This is what our article Monarchy does, which I think would quite a good solution.
  • I agree that it is made abundantly clear throughout the article and the introduction that anarchism "advocates stateless societies…" and "holds the state to be undesirable…". My main quibble is with the order in which these points are displayed – my original change sought basically to switch the order of the two. I think the first sentence of an article should, and generally does, equate to a dictionary definition (MOS:LEDE#First sentence: If its subject is definable, then the first sentence should give a concise definition.). I obviously can't examine every reference work to see what is most common. But, referring to our our list of "selected online English dictionaries", all but one site (CDO being the outlier) refers to anarchism as something along the lines of "belief in the abolishment of all government" first, and only then goes on to talk about voluntary organisation [if at all]: (Collins, dictionary.com, Longman, Merriam-Webster, Oxford,Cambridge*, Macmillan, OALD). I think the order of the two "components" should reflect general practice.
  • The other part of my edit sought to temper "advocates stateless societies…" by adding "generally". I originally had "egoist and individualist anarchism" in my second point, and I was probably mistaken in replacing that with "philosophical anarchism". To quote from Individualist anarchism#Egoism, Max Stirner "proposes that most commonly accepted social institutions—including the notion of State, property as a right, natural rights in general, and the very notion of society—were mere spooks in the mind. Stirner wants to 'abolish not only the state but also society as an institution responsible for its members.'". This certainly seems like an example of a philosopher considered "anarchist" who does not advocate stateless societies. I don't think we should make statements in absolute terms where some, even perhaps a comparatively minor amount of, doubt or conjecture exists. 124.169.113.132 (talk) 12:04, 10 November 2013 (UTC)
1. "I would hold that anarchism, while perhaps equally as fragmented as equivalent articles, is fragmented more widely, and the various fragments have much more less in common than, say, Marxism."
Marxism has included within itself both murderous ultra authoritarian tyrants like Stalin and Pol Pot as well as people advocating highly anti-authoritarian ideas such as Herbert Marcuse and Wilhelm Reich. Even though contemporary economic liberals advocate laissez faire capitalism and oppose the welfare state, John Maynard Keynes (the main theorist of the XX century welfare state) was a member of the UK Liberal Party. Many modern conservative parties such as the UK conservative party or the US republican party include both religious conservatives and civic libertarians on issues such as abortion or drugs.
It seems anyway that the problem here is not that in wikipedia people write "fragmented articles" but that politics are a complex issue which has many implications with things like culture, economics, history, nature, geo-politics, etc. As such people who come to a political ideology come from various diverse situations. That is the reason why there exists such diversity, not only in anarchism, but in all political philosophies.
2. Dictionary definitions are ceartainly useful guides to write an article within an enciclopedia. Clearly they shouldn´t be the only sources since something like anarchism that has existed for about 2 centuries will certainly have to deal with more than dictionary definitions but also things like historical works and more profound and long works such as philosophical treatments of it, both from anarchists and non anarchist encyclopedic sources. Readers of an encyclopedia certainly want a more complex definition of something than a single sentence definition. And it is a logical expectation to ask "if these people oppose state and authoritarianism, what do they propose instead?". This is not an innovation of the anarchism article but happens in all the other political ideologies articles which also provide the proposed alternatives by the ideologies dealt with.
3. Stirner is one of the most anti-state authors i can think of. Frankly i can´t even call your third point an argument since it is clearly a huge logical contradiction. What else can one say about this sort of sentence construction:
"Max Stirner "proposes that most commonly accepted social institutions—including the notion of State, property as a right, natural rights in general, and the very notion of society—were mere spooks in the mind. Stirner wants to 'abolish not only the state but also society as an institution responsible for its members.'". This certainly seems like an example of a philosopher considered "anarchist" who does not advocate stateless societies."
Anyway leaving that aside i think your argument will become stronger with more examples or philosophical works that deal with anarchism in general and not dictionary definitions. In a encyclopedic definition almost every sentence, if not every word, contains strong implications in which we should only try to be as rigorous as possible. Changing "advocate stateless societies" for "generally advocate stateless societies" will certainly need as support not just one quote (and hopefully not a quote from within wikipedia such as the one you brought for Stirner).--Eduen (talk) 01:20, 11 November 2013 (UTC)
IP, it does not help that you are now calling me an authoritarian. TFD (talk) 01:36, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

Change

Hi, The idea is to shorten the history section, especially of ancient precedents of anarchism, and put more info on the actual founders of modern anarchism, Godwin and Proudhon. There is a more detailed History of anarchism page for early history.Noodleki (talk) 22:13, 30 November 2013 (UTC)

What you did was cut and paste information from the History of anarchism to this one and vice versa. This messes up the entire edit history because you are swapping information you didn't write. Helpsome (talk) 13:38, 1 December 2013 (UTC)
Why does that matter? The History article is just a more in-depth version, there's no need to use completely different material, and that's what's done all over wikipedia. Plus, I wrote some of the info in the fost place.Noodleki (talk) 22:29, 1 December 2013 (UTC)
See WP:CWW. Copying within the encyclopedia presents attribution issues, but they're not insurmountable. — Malik Shabazz Talk/Stalk 22:38, 1 December 2013 (UTC)

Noodleki, your talk page shows that you have been blocked a few times for cutting and pasting content from one article to another so you should know better by now. Please stop doing this and don't pretend you have consensus. Helpsome (talk) 22:43, 2 December 2013 (UTC)

Noodleki, this change has been reverted over three times now, so please discuss here first and gain consensus before reinstituting your text. Thank you! -- MisterDub (talk | contribs) 23:15, 2 December 2013 (UTC)
I discussed it earlier, see rationale above, and was directed to CWW for attribution. The other user does not yet seem to understand the guidelines, and he has therefore been reverting it. To rehearse what I said earlier, the article focuses to much on ancient precedents to anarchism, rather than on the intellectual founders of anarchism theory. The history article is there for more in-depth information.Noodleki (talk) 23:24, 2 December 2013 (UTC)

The article deals well enough with anarchist theory and the section history does that also considering theory alongside historical context. Just as there is an article called history of anarchism there is also an article called anarchist schools of thought with plenty of theoretical discussion for those interested only on that or mainly on that.--Eduen (talk) 06:48, 3 December 2013 (UTC)

Apart from being mentioned, there is no discussion on what Godwin or Proudhon said, quite a serious ommission. Instead of this basic level of required information for the reader, there is huge amounts on Laozi and Christ, who really have little if anything to do with anarchism. This is a weighting issue.Noodleki (talk) 10:10, 3 December 2013 (UTC)
Perhaps someone can explain the problem with Noodleki's edit? I reverted only because there was an edit war occurring, but Noodleki has made an excellent case that I feel has yet to be rebutted. -- MisterDub (talk | contribs) 16:15, 3 December 2013 (UTC)
Both Godwin and Proudhon not only are dealt with in this article as far as their views but also have their photos included. I think that is enough Proudhon and Godwin who also return in the anarchist schools of thought section. As far as early history their presence are not the only important things that have to be mentioned but other names must also be mentioned such as Josiah Warren, Max Stirner, Josep Dejacque, Anselme Bellegarrigue and others. Later the article also notes the influence of Proudhon on the Paris Commune. Godwin returns also in the Anarchism and education section and that notes the importance on his views of the issue of education. I think that is enough Proudhon and Godwin.--Eduen (talk) 19:16, 3 December 2013 (UTC)
It's difficult to understand you, but I do not think it is enough to say about Proudhon "The first to describe himself as an anarchist was Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, a French philosopher and politician, which led some to call him the founder of modern anarchist theory" at all. It is also too focused on early figures as I have mentioned several times. As it stands, the article is simply not doing a good job of giving a casual reader a good idea of the development of anarchist thought in modern times.Noodleki (talk) 21:42, 3 December 2013 (UTC)

Is anyone there?Noodleki (talk) 13:59, 5 December 2013 (UTC)

Reading this a little late but it seems that the only thing which will give more importance to Proudhon will be something along the lines such as "Proudhon invented anarchism" or "Proudhon is the mian theorist of anarchism". It seems that is what user Noodleki is arguing for. In fact other sources will tend to give Bakunin a more important role than Proudhon mainly since Bakunin carried out an internationalistic propaganda work, unlike Proudhon who only stayed in France. So this is to suggest that something like anarchism( just as any other political idea like conservatism, fascism, liberalism) will have many sources in different levels of inter-relationship. Proudhon is clearly one of the main names in this article if one will decide to count the number of times he is mentioned. I think more than that will be unfair historically.--Eduen (talk) 01:17, 13 January 2014 (UTC)

  1. ^ "Anarchists do reject the state, as we will see. But to claim that this central aspect of anarchism is definitive is to sell anarchism short."Anarchism and Authority: A Philosophical Introduction to Classical Anarchism by Paul McLaughlin. AshGate. 2007. pg. 28
  2. ^ "IAF principles". International of Anarchist Federations. Archived from the original on 5 January 2012. The IAF - IFA fights for : the abolition of all forms of authority whether economical, political, social, religious, cultural or sexual. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
  3. ^ Molyneux, Stephen (2010). "Everyday Anarchy".
  4. ^ http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/anarchy