Social anarchism

Social anarchism refers to various ideologies/movements supporting some form of combination of socialism and anarchism. The term is often used interchangeably with libertarian socialism, left libertarianism, or left anarchism.

Most social anarchists are anti-fascist but some are not. See Nationalism and anarchism.

Social anarchism and criminality/violence

Social anarchism has a very criminal-prone and violent history with, for example, social anarchists during the late nineteenth and early twentieth century being involved in numerous assassinations/assassination attempts of heads of states. One example is the 1901 assassination of the US president William McKinley. Such anarchists often incorrectly thought that such violence would somehow cause social anarchist societies.

More recently, social anarchists have formed a major part of criminal antifa organizations. They are also major parts of those using criminality and violence as methods for environmental activism, animal rights activism, squatting activism, and so on.

Possible reasons for this association with criminality and violence include anarchism attracting violent individuals who dislike following rules and laws, the anarchist ideology itself promoting breaking state laws seen as illegitimate, and anarchist organizations being small and non-hierarchical, which makes it easier to for group and individuals to decide to do criminal activities as well as making it more difficult for the justice system to prevent and punish crimes.

"Black bloc"

"Blac bloc" is a name given to "protesters" who wear black clothing, face-concealing items, and sometimes items to be used as weapons during vandalism, rioting, or fighting with police or political opponents. The clothing is used to conceal identities, in order to make criminal prosecution more difficult. Criminal activities are often planned and expected by the participants.

"Black bloc" activities are associated with social anarchism and other far leftist views. As such, they are often romanticized and described misleadingly by leftist mainstream media, which may cause effects such as the police being reluctant to act against the criminal activities due to fear of being attacked by the media.

"Direct action"

Social anarchists often use the phrase "direct action" as a euphemism for their often quasi-legal and illegal activities.

Social anarchism and communism

Social anarchists and communists have sometimes both been participants and later competitors in leftist coups, revolutions, and wars, such as the Spanish Civil War. The better organized communists have then, despite sometimes being numerically much smaller, invariably out-competed the more disorganized social anarchists. Unlike communists, social anarchists have never managed to control any significant territory, except for very brief time periods, such as during the Spanish Civil War.

During the brief time period when social anarchists controlled some territory during the Spanish Civil War, they committed numerous atrocities. See the "External links" section.

Changing views

Several early, prominent social anarchists were anti-Semitic as discussed in the anti-Semitism article.

Especially earlier, it was popular among many social anarchists to romanticize primitive societies, which were viewed as utopian, social anarchist societies. There is even a social anarchist variant called "anarcho-primitivism" that advocates an abandonment of civilization. See the article Noble savage regarding criticisms of such utopian views.

More recently, social anarchists have often been very supportive of political correctness and Cultural Marxism, expressing support for various groups that it is currently politically correct to support, while in effect downplaying supporting poor Whites, a group that it is no longer politically correct to support.

Mainstream support

Certain forms of politically correct social anarchism receive mainstream support. One example is the supposedly "anti-fascist", pro-anarchist Hollywood film V for Vendetta, produced by several big media corporations, supposedly enemies of social anarchism.

Inspired by the film, Guy Fawkes masks have become popular symbols, despite that those using it often have little in common with the Catholic Guy Fawkes and despite that the plot he participated in would have killed and wounded many people if successful.

Social anarchism is popular in leftist academia. One example is Noam Chomsky.

External links

• The Anarcho-Statists of Spain - on atrocities by social anarchists