Ideas And Minds

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The Foundation

We hold true to the knowledge that the state is an illegitimate authority that maintains it’s power through threat of force and coercion. We seek to open minds to this reality and to explore and seek alternative ways of structuring society.

About Ideas and Minds

We are an anarchist and minarchist related site. We are here to help gather other blogs and sites together under one roof. We are here to help teach the philosophies we carry. We are not here to attack or argue as much as to educate and gather ourselves together in an attempt to bring our ideas to a wider audience that may not know what it is that we believe.

If you have an anarchist, austrian, anti-statist, or libertarian blog we are more than willing to syndicate your site with the others on the front page. We wish to collect our fragmented sites in one place. Please Submit Your Blogs and Websites Here.

Libertarianism and Anarchism

There are various forms of Anarchism and Libertarianism. Some may say they range from Socialist and Marxist ideas to Free Market ideas of Ludwig Von Mises and Murray Rothbard.

Seeing as how this site is still under development, we are working on compiling a list here of the many beliefs, philosophies and ideas surrounding these topics. If you have knowledge in certain forms of anarchism we would welcome your input, assistance and contributions.

You can see a page of resources to readings and websites around the internet here.

What is Anarchism?

According to The 2009 Oxford Pocket Dictionary, anarchism is defined as follows..

an·ar·chism / ˈanərˌkizəm/ • n. belief in the abolition of all government and the organization of society on a voluntary, cooperative basis without recourse to force or compulsion.

The word anarchist has its origins in the Greek word for anarchy which simply means absence of authority or government. Anarchists do not necessarily advocate a disorderly society without rules and civil behavior. Rather, anarchists view the modern nation-state as the greatest threat to an orderly, civil society, hence their desire to abolish the present nation-states. Most anarchists reject compulsion and violence and want peace instead, which runs contrary to the pop culture image of the anarchist being a mad bomb thrower as conjured from the images of the Mad Magazine “Spy vs. Spy” cartoon or the violent acts in the 1886 Haymarket Riots.

What anarchists want is to seek alternative means of civilized society organizing itself and cooperating from the bottom-up as opposed to the present form of doing things through a monopolistic government. Anarchists see the political process as being uncivilized. Anarchists see the creation of the State as being a distorted corrupt image of the natural instinct of humans to organically network and cooperate amongst each other through their self-interest. The creation of the State has its origins in violent marauders going through ancient villages & occupying as a means of extracting resources from their serfs or slaves. Moreso it is religion that led to the creation of the State in convincing primitive people that they needed to trade away their individual sovereignty for the false comfort provided to them by their charlatan spiritual leaders and prophets. The abolishment of the State is thus viewed as the next step in the evolution towards a more peaceful, civil society, which we all at heart, want and desire.

Nature does abhor a vaccuum and people who are exposed to the views of anarchy for the first time, are naturally inclined to recoil at the thought of abolishing the State for they fear what might fill that void could be even worse. Anarchists certainly understand this concern which is why it is important that we help people to understand that we’re not destructive nihilists who just want to worship the void. We too do want that feeling of stability and certainty in our lives. It is because of this that we intend to help illustrate and further educate people as to what our solutions are and what we see REPLACING the State. That is ultimately our goal here at this site in our hopes to further reach out to people in an understanding, non-combative manner. We hope your curiosity will be piqued and you will have an open mind in wanting to further explore our ideas. We’re all in this together. We want peace, nothing less will do.

Theories of Anarchism

Under the umbrella term of anarchism, there are many different strains of anarchism. It can seem needlessly confusing and be like splitting hairs to one who is exposed to this, but what they all share in common is their utter contempt and distrust of the State and their desire to abolish it. They reject anything they see as initiating violence and the use of coercive authority. That’s where the similarities end amongst some of the differing views of anarchism. Some belong to what could be considered a more market, individualist camp whereas some belong to what could be considered a more collectivist camp. They have different ideas as to how they think a society of individuals would and should naturally organize itself and its use of property in the absence of the State as we know it today.

As an example, two different strains of anarchism that are at odds with each other, are the anarcho-socialists and the anarcho-capitalists. The former see anarchism and capitalism as being incompatible with each other and reject what they see as the exploitive authority of the capitalist business owner over the employee. They adhere to the labor theory of value. The anarcho-capitalists on the other hand see the relationship between employer and employee as being a natural hierarchy that isn’t exploitive. They would tend to adhere to the subjective theory of value.

Without attempting to further delve into all the nuances of anarchism theory, we will leave it to you to further explore our site and any external sources that can be useful in learning more about this philosophy and add to the discussion that we welcome here.

Without further ado, here is a selection of some useful resources from across the anarchist, libertarian spectrum..