An Anarchist FAQ (1217) by The Anarchist FAQ Editorial Collective & The Anarchist FAQ Editorial Collective

Author:The Anarchist FAQ Editorial Collective & The Anarchist FAQ Editorial Collective
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: affinity groups, An Anarchist FAQ, anarcho-communist, anti-capitalist, anti-civ, anti-voting, autonomy, Benjamin Tucker, bibliography, capitalism, children, Chile, class, crime, crisis, critique, democracy, direct action, ecology, economics, environment, ethics, feminist, France 1968, green, health, Herbert Spencer, history, Iain McKay, individualist, introductory, Leninism, marxism, Max Stirner, media, movement, Nestor Makhno, not-anarchist, organization, oxymoron, Paris Commune, platform, practice, prefigurative politics, primitivist, propaganda of the deed, property, proprietarians, reformism, religion, revolution, Russian Revolution, science, self-determination, sexuality, socialism, social revolution, society, Spain 1936, symbols, syndicalist, technology, terrorism, theory, the State, trade, trade unions, Trotskyism, vanguard, violence, work
Published: 2009-08-14T16:00:00+00:00

So, perhaps, if we change society then the social inequalities we see today would disappear. It is more than probable that natural difference has been long ago been replaced with social inequalities, especially inequalities of property (which will tend to increase, rather than decrease, inequality). And as we argue in section 8 these inequalities of property were initially the result of force, not differences in ability. Thus to claim that social inequality flows from natural differences is false as most social inequality has flown from violence and force. This initial inequality has been magnified by the framework of capitalist property rights and so the inequality within capitalism is far more dependent upon, say, the existence of wage labour, rather than “natural” differences between individuals.

If we look at capitalism, we see that in workplaces and across industries many, if not most, unique individuals receive identical wages for identical work (although this often is not the case for women and blacks, who receive less wages than male, white workers). Similarly, capitalists have deliberately introduced wage inequalities and hierarchies for no other reason that to divide (and so rule) the workforce (see section D.10). Thus, if we assume egalitarianism is a revolt against nature, then much of capitalist economic life is in such a revolt (and when it is not, the “natural” inequalities have been imposed artificially by those in power).

Thus “natural” differences do not necessarily result in inequality as such. Given a different social system, “natural” differences would be encouraged and celebrated far wider than they are under capitalism (where, as we argued in section B.1, hierarchy ensures the crushing of individuality rather than its encouragement) without any change in social equality. The claim that “natural” differences generates social inequalities is question begging in the extreme — it takes the rights framework of society as a given and ignores the initial source of inequality in property and power. Indeed, inequality of outcome or reward is more likely to be influenced by social conditions rather than individual differences (as would be the case in a society based on wage labour or other forms of exploitation).

Another reason for “anarcho”-capitalist lack of concern for equality is that they think that “liberty upsets patterns” (see section 2.5, for example). It is argued that equality can only be maintained by restricting individual freedom to make exchanges or by taxation of income. However, what this argument fails to acknowledge is that inequality also restricts individual freedom (see next section, for example) and that the capitalist property rights framework is not the only one possible. After all, money is power and inequalities in terms of power easily result in restrictions of liberty and the transformation of the majority into order takers rather than free producers. In other words, once a certain level of inequality is reached, property does not promote, but actually conflicts with, the ends which render private property legitimate. Moreover, Nozick (in his “liberty upsets patterns” argument) “has produced ... an argument for unrestricted private property using unrestricted private property, and thus he begs the question he tries to answer.

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