Lets get iconoclastic

[tyrannosaurus vex]

to Cain

I don't necessarily agree with this guy when his opinion creeps in, but his description of the way government works is good. It's a bit of synchronicity since just earlier today I was thinking about the government perpetually cementing its power by cultivating our dependence on it.

[Disco Pickle]

tl:dr for this evening..  I got through three posts before the alcohol kicked in..  I'll wrap it in a cocoon and plan to enjoy it later.

so far, mostly agree, with some reservations.. 

[Triple Zero]

Cathedral The academic establishment that the guy Cain quoted is talking about.

Science  A rigourous method of pursuing knowledge that has, so far, been applied to quite a few disciplines, not included in those disciplines are economics, politics, law, and several other areas, however the cathedral likes to pretend as if they are proper scientific disciplines so that they can justify themselves as a meritocracy.

Play science mocked up as science isn't science. Therefore, no.

no in response to what question?  Or were you simply rejecting my definitions?

IE the socalled social sciences ARENT' SCIENCE. therefore not included in science


IT'S 'FAKE SCIENCE.

No offence to RHWN, TALKING ABOUT THE IMPLIMENTATION AND THE IVY LEAGUE SCHOOLS. CAUSE RHWN WANTS KNOWLEDGE IS A SCIENTIST.

drunk sorry.

Ah yeah right, we make a distinction here between alpha and beta sciences for "hardness". The beta is like math and physics and chemistry and such, while alpha is like psychology and sociology and such. Biology and Computer Sciences are "officially" regarded as beta, but by the people that actually do them, say "can also be somewhere in between, depending".

A theoretical physicist friend of mine calls everything short of theoretical physics and fundamental mathematics as "alpha". (he's not entirely being serious btw)

However, when I am being completely honest with myself, I think defining Science in such a cliqueish manner is a lot like arrogant monkey territory politics, but if you want it like that, you can have it, I made my choice, I don't want that sort of science.

Although one thing I don't understand, how are social sciences (psychology, sociology, yeah?) not science in your definition? When they do statistical trials and experiments and such, they do the whole hypothesis/experiment/falsifiability thing as well, and they do it thoroughly. Even though they sometimes do other stuff as well, so do biologists.

[Kai]

Cathedral The academic establishment that the guy Cain quoted is talking about.

Science  A rigourous method of pursuing knowledge that has, so far, been applied to quite a few disciplines, not included in those disciplines are economics, politics, law, and several other areas, however the cathedral likes to pretend as if they are proper scientific disciplines so that they can justify themselves as a meritocracy.

Play science mocked up as science isn't science. Therefore, no.

no in response to what question?  Or were you simply rejecting my definitions?

IE the socalled social sciences ARENT' SCIENCE. therefore not included in science


IT'S 'FAKE SCIENCE.

No offence to RHWN, TALKING ABOUT THE IMPLIMENTATION AND THE IVY LEAGUE SCHOOLS. CAUSE RHWN WANTS KNOWLEDGE IS A SCIENTIST.

drunk sorry.

Ah yeah right, we make a distinction here between alpha and beta sciences for "hardness". The beta is like math and physics and chemistry and such, while alpha is like psychology and sociology and such. Biology and Computer Sciences are "officially" regarded as beta, but by the people that actually do them, say "can also be somewhere in between, depending".

A theoretical physicist friend of mine calls everything short of theoretical physics and fundamental mathematics as "alpha". (he's not entirely being serious btw)

However, when I am being completely honest with myself, I think defining Science in such a cliqueish manner is a lot like arrogant monkey territory politics, but if you want it like that, you can have it, I made my choice, I don't want that sort of science.

Although one thing I don't understand, how are social sciences (psychology, sociology, yeah?) not science in your definition? When they do statistical trials and experiments and such, they do the whole hypothesis/experiment/falsifiability thing as well, and they do it thoroughly. Even though they sometimes do other stuff as well, so do biologists.

It's not science if the whole of the field is making up bogus hypotheses and then using these to justify policy. Armchair philosophy is very fashionable, as is folk psychology. I'm not saying that there is no real social science, no psychology or whatnot, just that when people from these schools go on to work in government, they stop being scientists, they become policy makers with agendas.

[tyrannosaurus vex]

RE: OP

Ultimately all this individual-vs-hive-mind stuff is just background chatter in a hive mind that already exists, and has effectively existed since humans started existing in groups larger than one. The fact that more people are contemplating it only says to me that the hive mind is gradually becoming self-aware.

I see why the author assumes the "Cathedral" is evil, and I understand why the "Right" is concerned about all this. But the underlying points made by his piece, hiding (not very far) behind the actual text, are a big disconcerting to me.

"Not even Hitler" succeeded against the Cathedral. So, Hitler should have done more to defeat the Cathedral?

Slavery can be natural and healthy - and yet, the master-slave relationship between the State and the Individual is something to loathe. Regardless of how misguided I believe the author is on this whole subject, isn't this a contradiction?

The entire piece eventually boils down to a slippery-slope argument against "activist judges," pegging the Judiciary as a tool in the hands of "the Cathedral" (which, for some reason, is not called "the Liberal Elite" like it is in other Right-wing writings, but is essentially the same animal). From what I gather, the author believes that neither the Individual nor the People themselves have any actual power in government and that this is a good thing; and that those who do have power are an evil group of intellectuals bent on the dissolution of Individual's autonomy over himself, basing public policy on "mathematical" ethics. This leaves the benevolent [Fascist/Nationalist] dictator as the only good alternative, right?

[BabylonHoruv]

Cathedral The academic establishment that the guy Cain quoted is talking about.

Science  A rigourous method of pursuing knowledge that has, so far, been applied to quite a few disciplines, not included in those disciplines are economics, politics, law, and several other areas, however the cathedral likes to pretend as if they are proper scientific disciplines so that they can justify themselves as a meritocracy.

Play science mocked up as science isn't science. Therefore, no.

no in response to what question?  Or were you simply rejecting my definitions?

IE the socalled social sciences ARENT' SCIENCE. therefore not included in science


IT'S 'FAKE SCIENCE.

No offence to RHWN, TALKING ABOUT THE IMPLIMENTATION AND THE IVY LEAGUE SCHOOLS. CAUSE RHWN WANTS KNOWLEDGE IS A SCIENTIST.

drunk sorry.

Ah yeah right, we make a distinction here between alpha and beta sciences for "hardness". The beta is like math and physics and chemistry and such, while alpha is like psychology and sociology and such. Biology and Computer Sciences are "officially" regarded as beta, but by the people that actually do them, say "can also be somewhere in between, depending".

A theoretical physicist friend of mine calls everything short of theoretical physics and fundamental mathematics as "alpha". (he's not entirely being serious btw)

However, when I am being completely honest with myself, I think defining Science in such a cliqueish manner is a lot like arrogant monkey territory politics, but if you want it like that, you can have it, I made my choice, I don't want that sort of science.

Although one thing I don't understand, how are social sciences (psychology, sociology, yeah?) not science in your definition? When they do statistical trials and experiments and such, they do the whole hypothesis/experiment/falsifiability thing as well, and they do it thoroughly. Even though they sometimes do other stuff as well, so do biologists.

It's impossible to create an experiment with properly controlled variables.  You can't falsify hypotheses about economics or politics aside from the REALLY wrong ones.  The one discipline that is not people based that I would include as a soft science is Climatology since that's another where we cannot properly control for variables.

[Doktor Howl]

RE: OP

Ultimately all this individual-vs-hive-mind stuff is just background chatter in a hive mind that already exists, and has effectively existed since humans started existing in groups larger than one. The fact that more people are contemplating it only says to me that the hive mind is gradually becoming self-aware.

Papa Hemmingway would kick your ass for that.

[Jasper]

I've been reading this, and I just wanted to say it's tremendous.  And, same gripe as everyone else re:opinions.

That is all.

[Cain]

Sorry I didn't get into this discussion more.  Anyway, here is another article, from my second favourite anarchist writer (IOZ wins by virtue of being funnier), Kevin Carson.

http://c4ss.org/content/3732

It's quite common for mainstream liberals to dismiss as "naive" and "utopian" the anarchist vision — all varieties of anarchism, not just market anarchism — of a society governed by voluntary associations between free people. Without the state to prevent it, society and the economy will be dominated by the savage, combative, greedy and self-centered.

But if anything is naive and utopian, it's the view of the state as something that protects ordinary people against big business. If the liberals' implicit Hobbesian view of human nature is correct, rather than my Kropotkinian view, then we're all doomed in any case.

So it's utopian to believe that the ruthless people in charge of businesses will be restrained from making those businesses bigger and bigger at the expense of their competitors, or the ruthless rich will be restrained from getting endlessly richer and richer at the expense of a progressively poor working class and disappearing middle class, by the simple removal of entry barriers and the presence of unfettered competition. But apparently, in the mainstream liberal view of the world, it's not utopian at all to believe that simple procedural rules and paper restrictions can prevent the state from being controlled by the same ruthless people for their own ends.

Frankly, in terms of gritty realism, I'll put my belief in the power of market competition to restrain business against their belief in the power of democratic majorities to control the state, any day of the week.

The state, since the beginning of history, has been the instrument of a ruling class. It first came into existence when human predators figured out the peasantry produced a sufficient surplus to be milked like cattle; since then, starting with the king, priests and nobles, moving on to feudal landlords and capitalists, one ruling class after another has been milking us.

It's utterly naive and utopian to believe a majority of the public can exert meaningful control over the state apparatus. A minority of insiders will always have an advantage in time, attention span, interest, information, and agenda control over those of us on the outside. The average person on the outside only has a limited amount of time or energy for maintaining an interest in politics, after dealing with the primary issues of work and family, friends, and local community. But for the elites that control the state, politics IS a major part of their daily work and social life. Can anything be matched for sheer naive optimism with the belief that, in the long run, we can maintain a higher degree of vigilance over the functioning of the state than they can?

If the state exists as a level of economic control by which a ruling class can profit, you'd better believe the most savage, combative, greedy and self-centered will always have a leg up in gaining control of it. Our only hope, in that case, is that the self-centered savages who gain control of the state will be smart enough to see it as in their self-interest to take good care of us so they can get more work out of us. That's essentially what happened in the New Deal. The so-called "progressive" policies of the 20th century were brought about, not by democratic pressure (as in the Art Schlesinger received version of history), but in the interest of one faction of the capitalist elite.

So anything done by the state to make our lots more bearable will be done, not because the state is "all of us working together," but as a side-effect of plutocratic and managerial elites pursuing their own self-interest. Apparently the same people who cannot be trusted in the economic sphere become fully trustworthy when they're sitting in the "executive committee of the ruling class."

May the liberals' illusions rest kindly on them.

[tyrannosaurus vex]

Sorry I didn't get into this discussion more.  Anyway, here is another article, from my second favourite anarchist writer (IOZ wins by virtue of being funnier), Kevin Carson.

http://c4ss.org/content/3732

It's quite common for mainstream liberals to dismiss as "naive" and "utopian" the anarchist vision — all varieties of anarchism, not just market anarchism — of a society governed by voluntary associations between free people. Without the state to prevent it, society and the economy will be dominated by the savage, combative, greedy and self-centered.

But if anything is naive and utopian, it's the view of the state as something that protects ordinary people against big business. If the liberals' implicit Hobbesian view of human nature is correct, rather than my Kropotkinian view, then we're all doomed in any case.

So it's utopian to believe that the ruthless people in charge of businesses will be restrained from making those businesses bigger and bigger at the expense of their competitors, or the ruthless rich will be restrained from getting endlessly richer and richer at the expense of a progressively poor working class and disappearing middle class, by the simple removal of entry barriers and the presence of unfettered competition. But apparently, in the mainstream liberal view of the world, it's not utopian at all to believe that simple procedural rules and paper restrictions can prevent the state from being controlled by the same ruthless people for their own ends.

Frankly, in terms of gritty realism, I'll put my belief in the power of market competition to restrain business against their belief in the power of democratic majorities to control the state, any day of the week.

The state, since the beginning of history, has been the instrument of a ruling class. It first came into existence when human predators figured out the peasantry produced a sufficient surplus to be milked like cattle; since then, starting with the king, priests and nobles, moving on to feudal landlords and capitalists, one ruling class after another has been milking us.

It's utterly naive and utopian to believe a majority of the public can exert meaningful control over the state apparatus. A minority of insiders will always have an advantage in time, attention span, interest, information, and agenda control over those of us on the outside. The average person on the outside only has a limited amount of time or energy for maintaining an interest in politics, after dealing with the primary issues of work and family, friends, and local community. But for the elites that control the state, politics IS a major part of their daily work and social life. Can anything be matched for sheer naive optimism with the belief that, in the long run, we can maintain a higher degree of vigilance over the functioning of the state than they can?

If the state exists as a level of economic control by which a ruling class can profit, you'd better believe the most savage, combative, greedy and self-centered will always have a leg up in gaining control of it. Our only hope, in that case, is that the self-centered savages who gain control of the state will be smart enough to see it as in their self-interest to take good care of us so they can get more work out of us. That's essentially what happened in the New Deal. The so-called "progressive" policies of the 20th century were brought about, not by democratic pressure (as in the Art Schlesinger received version of history), but in the interest of one faction of the capitalist elite.

So anything done by the state to make our lots more bearable will be done, not because the state is "all of us working together," but as a side-effect of plutocratic and managerial elites pursuing their own self-interest. Apparently the same people who cannot be trusted in the economic sphere become fully trustworthy when they're sitting in the "executive committee of the ruling class."

May the liberals' illusions rest kindly on them.

Framing the argument in economic terms, the guy obviously has a point, but his illustration of State corruption does little to counter the idea of corporate corruption in anarchy. And speaking of naivety, where does he get this notion that anarchy would result in "removal of entry barriers and the presence of unfettered competition" ? It would seem to me that a society without government would automatically mean government by powerful businesses, at least if an existing developed nation were to somehow convert to anarchism. With no governmental check on corporate power, we would even have (more) corporate armies, enforcing not law but economic edicts from some board of directors.

I agree that democratic government is an illusion, and that it is ultimately controlled by the same corporate interests that would control an anarchist society. But democratic government does serve the function of equalizing (to one degree or another) the power of various competing corporate interests, so that none of them gain absolute power (which would happen in anarchy), and at least ensuring a generally peaceful and measured execution of corporate interests. Not to mention the State allows the People themselves to be one voice, if not the only voice or even the loudest one.

I will never understand the Anarchist opinion of human nature. Why is the belief that humans are basically good so prevalent? Why, especially after the events of the past century, do Anarchists still insist that humans would be nice to each other in a power vacuum? It's one of the most ridiculous propositions I've ever encountered.

Most people will be civil to one another, under the following conditions: A) The repercussions of being violent outweigh the benefits of violence; and B) violence is unnecessary because the necessities of life are guaranteed without it. Governments generally exist in order to satisfy at least one of those conditions (or, cynically, to generate the illusion that they are satisfied). Anarchy, on the other hand, offers reliable satisfaction of neither. Even if things go well in an anarchy and it is relatively easy to thrive, many more people will be driven to violence by immediate insecurity and a lack of consequences.

Corporations, of course, would probably resort to violence for the same reasons, then magnified by the amount of resources and "necessities of life" required by such an entity, and multiplied by the gains in power and wealth that would be possible. A corporation is also an inherently hierarchical organization that depends on internal stability and structure to remain competitive and efficient. Nothing about that would change in the absence of a state. In order to preserve and defend that structure, corporations would be prone to violence, misinformation, accounting tricks that dupe people out of their life savings, and anything else that would give it an edge or cement its power. We know they would, because they do anyway.

Apparently in Magical Lala Capitalist Land, all evil emanates from the State, so the dissolution of government will bring peace and harmony and good vibrations to everybody automatically. Well, maybe Anarchy really is Utopia. After all, nobody will ever go hungry (because nobody will stop you from killing the guy running the hot dog stand), nobody will ever need health care (because there's not much a doctor can do after you've been "market researched" by a gang of thugs with unregulated access to bazookas), and nobody will care who you marry (except the Church of the Raging Jesus who hold regular militia meetings every Tuesday and Thursday -- whites only).

So, this guy can have all the "gritty realism" and talk about those "crazy liberals" all he wants. I'd rather hang out on this side of the Apocalypse (however imminent it may be) where the State -- even if it's hanging by a thread and being gnawed at by the forces of, well, Anarchy -- has proven to at least hold the bastards off for a while.

[BabylonHoruv]

Sorry I didn't get into this discussion more.  Anyway, here is another article, from my second favourite anarchist writer (IOZ wins by virtue of being funnier), Kevin Carson.

http://c4ss.org/content/3732

It's quite common for mainstream liberals to dismiss as "naive" and "utopian" the anarchist vision — all varieties of anarchism, not just market anarchism — of a society governed by voluntary associations between free people. Without the state to prevent it, society and the economy will be dominated by the savage, combative, greedy and self-centered.

But if anything is naive and utopian, it's the view of the state as something that protects ordinary people against big business. If the liberals' implicit Hobbesian view of human nature is correct, rather than my Kropotkinian view, then we're all doomed in any case.

So it's utopian to believe that the ruthless people in charge of businesses will be restrained from making those businesses bigger and bigger at the expense of their competitors, or the ruthless rich will be restrained from getting endlessly richer and richer at the expense of a progressively poor working class and disappearing middle class, by the simple removal of entry barriers and the presence of unfettered competition. But apparently, in the mainstream liberal view of the world, it's not utopian at all to believe that simple procedural rules and paper restrictions can prevent the state from being controlled by the same ruthless people for their own ends.

Frankly, in terms of gritty realism, I'll put my belief in the power of market competition to restrain business against their belief in the power of democratic majorities to control the state, any day of the week.

The state, since the beginning of history, has been the instrument of a ruling class. It first came into existence when human predators figured out the peasantry produced a sufficient surplus to be milked like cattle; since then, starting with the king, priests and nobles, moving on to feudal landlords and capitalists, one ruling class after another has been milking us.

It's utterly naive and utopian to believe a majority of the public can exert meaningful control over the state apparatus. A minority of insiders will always have an advantage in time, attention span, interest, information, and agenda control over those of us on the outside. The average person on the outside only has a limited amount of time or energy for maintaining an interest in politics, after dealing with the primary issues of work and family, friends, and local community. But for the elites that control the state, politics IS a major part of their daily work and social life. Can anything be matched for sheer naive optimism with the belief that, in the long run, we can maintain a higher degree of vigilance over the functioning of the state than they can?

If the state exists as a level of economic control by which a ruling class can profit, you'd better believe the most savage, combative, greedy and self-centered will always have a leg up in gaining control of it. Our only hope, in that case, is that the self-centered savages who gain control of the state will be smart enough to see it as in their self-interest to take good care of us so they can get more work out of us. That's essentially what happened in the New Deal. The so-called "progressive" policies of the 20th century were brought about, not by democratic pressure (as in the Art Schlesinger received version of history), but in the interest of one faction of the capitalist elite.

So anything done by the state to make our lots more bearable will be done, not because the state is "all of us working together," but as a side-effect of plutocratic and managerial elites pursuing their own self-interest. Apparently the same people who cannot be trusted in the economic sphere become fully trustworthy when they're sitting in the "executive committee of the ruling class."

May the liberals' illusions rest kindly on them.

Framing the argument in economic terms, the guy obviously has a point, but his illustration of State corruption does little to counter the idea of corporate corruption in anarchy. And speaking of naivety, where does he get this notion that anarchy would result in "removal of entry barriers and the presence of unfettered competition" ? It would seem to me that a society without government would automatically mean government by powerful businesses, at least if an existing developed nation were to somehow convert to anarchism. With no governmental check on corporate power, we would even have (more) corporate armies, enforcing not law but economic edicts from some board of directors.

I agree that democratic government is an illusion, and that it is ultimately controlled by the same corporate interests that would control an anarchist society. But democratic government does serve the function of equalizing (to one degree or another) the power of various competing corporate interests, so that none of them gain absolute power (which would happen in anarchy), and at least ensuring a generally peaceful and measured execution of corporate interests. Not to mention the State allows the People themselves to be one voice, if not the only voice or even the loudest one.

I will never understand the Anarchist opinion of human nature. Why is the belief that humans are basically good so prevalent? Why, especially after the events of the past century, do Anarchists still insist that humans would be nice to each other in a power vacuum? It's one of the most ridiculous propositions I've ever encountered.

Most people will be civil to one another, under the following conditions: A) The repercussions of being violent outweigh the benefits of violence; and B) violence is unnecessary because the necessities of life are guaranteed without it. Governments generally exist in order to satisfy at least one of those conditions (or, cynically, to generate the illusion that they are satisfied). Anarchy, on the other hand, offers reliable satisfaction of neither. Even if things go well in an anarchy and it is relatively easy to thrive, many more people will be driven to violence by immediate insecurity and a lack of consequences.

Corporations, of course, would probably resort to violence for the same reasons, then magnified by the amount of resources and "necessities of life" required by such an entity, and multiplied by the gains in power and wealth that would be possible. A corporation is also an inherently hierarchical organization that depends on internal stability and structure to remain competitive and efficient. Nothing about that would change in the absence of a state. In order to preserve and defend that structure, corporations would be prone to violence, misinformation, accounting tricks that dupe people out of their life savings, and anything else that would give it an edge or cement its power. We know they would, because they do anyway.

Apparently in Magical Lala Capitalist Land, all evil emanates from the State, so the dissolution of government will bring peace and harmony and good vibrations to everybody automatically. Well, maybe Anarchy really is Utopia. After all, nobody will ever go hungry (because nobody will stop you from killing the guy running the hot dog stand), nobody will ever need health care (because there's not much a doctor can do after you've been "market researched" by a gang of thugs with unregulated access to bazookas), and nobody will care who you marry (except the Church of the Raging Jesus who hold regular militia meetings every Tuesday and Thursday -- whites only).

So, this guy can have all the "gritty realism" and talk about those "crazy liberals" all he wants. I'd rather hang out on this side of the Apocalypse (however imminent it may be) where the State -- even if it's hanging by a thread and being gnawed at by the forces of, well, Anarchy -- has proven to at least hold the bastards off for a while.

Rule by corporations is not Anarchy,  it's Fascism.  And the state is the most potent tool in the corporate toolbox at the moment.  Corporations are an invention of the state, without a state corporations cannot exist.  They're legal entities after all, and without a state there no laws. (not the sort that create corporations anyways) I don't know Kevin Carson's work well enough to judge but Market Anarchist traditionally does not mean Anarcho-Capitalist, it means an Anarchist who believes in trade, rather than communalizing all property.  Market Anarchists usually do favor communalizing the means of production, but not the products of it.

[Phox]

Ya know the funny thing about the human nature argument, not even John Locke, who is considered to be the antithesis of Hobbes in political theories and human nature by most textbooks' standards, couldn't bring himself to oppose a government. He claimed that the reason for government (in oversimplified terms) was because humans, when wronged, cannot be allowed to act as judges of their own case because... they might overreact. Even Locke believed that things would play out in the "Chicago Way", which means that his "state of Nature" as a benevolent, peaceful place bs was... bs. And even he knew it.

However, Plato's observation that human beings are political animals is pretty accurate. Even without a government and in a Lockian setting, in my opinion, there would form cliques (economic, social, etc.) and each of them would vie for power, and it would eventually get to the one clique wrongs another-overreaction chain of events leading to everything going all Lord of the Flies. In which case, one or several governments of some sort would form.

[tyrannosaurus vex]

Ya know the funny thing about the human nature argument, not even John Locke, who is considered to be the antithesis of Hobbes in political theories and human nature by most textbooks' standards, couldn't bring himself to oppose a government. He claimed that the reason for government (in oversimplified terms) was because humans, when wronged, cannot be allowed to act as judges of their own case because... they might overreact. Even Locke believed that things would play out in the "Chicago Way", which means that his "state of Nature" as a benevolent, peaceful place bs was... bs. And even he knew it.

However, Plato's observation that human beings are political animals is pretty accurate. Even without a government and in a Lockian setting, in my opinion, there would form cliques (economic, social, etc.) and each of them would vie for power, and it would eventually get to the one clique wrongs another-overreaction chain of events leading to everything going all Lord of the Flies. In which case, one or several governments of some sort would form.

This. Anarchism is a great fantasy, but it resembles reality precisely zero percent of the time. People form groups, then the groups form larger groups, and before you know it, you have a government - either as a stated legal entity, or as a status quo of established traditions. The only way to prevent it would be to enforce some kind of ban on associating with other humans, for which you'd need... a government.

Rule by corporations is not Anarchy,  it's Fascism.  And the state is the most potent tool in the corporate toolbox at the moment.  Corporations are an invention of the state, without a state corporations cannot exist.  They're legal entities after all, and without a state there no laws. (not the sort that create corporations anyways) I don't know Kevin Carson's work well enough to judge but Market Anarchist traditionally does not mean Anarcho-Capitalist, it means an Anarchist who believes in trade, rather than communalizing all property.  Market Anarchists usually do favor communalizing the means of production, but not the products of it.

Corporations as a legal entity exist because of a state. Groups of people who band together to produce something of value might look a lot different in an anarchy but they'd still be roughly the same thing, except with guns and nobody to tell them not to pack poisonous shit into their food or dangerous chemicals in their products. Sure, maybe people will boycott them if they do, after a bunch of people die. But that would require a media industry that is interested in divulging that kind of unpleasant information, and a public that is willing to hear about it, both of which might be hard to come by in an era of whatever the fuck kind of depraved shit you can think of being aired during prime time, and everybody working like dogs the rest of the time to bring home enough whatever-passes-for-money to buy that poisonous rot they call food.

I understand there is a theoretical difference between Fascism and Anarchism, but I doubt that difference would amount to much once the State is dissolved and businesses are left to their own devices. The only difference would be that in an anarchy, you wouldn't in theory be subject to corporate authority; it would have absolutely no effect on the fact that in all practicality, you would be subject to the authority whoever showed up with enough guns to claim you -- same as now, except without courts or police.

[BabylonHoruv]

What things would look like in an Anarchist state depends, heavily, on how that came to be.  A revolution which tears down the government but does not tear down corporations seems highly unlikely to me, unless it is actually a corporate revolution as opposed to an Anarchist one.  I don't deny that people tend to form groups, and have a biological predisposition to look to Alphas for leadership.  That could make Anarchy impossible.  Corporate evil on the other hand is really no more an obstacle than governmental evil.  The human nature argument (that people have an inherent bad side  at least, not the arguement that people have a built in need to be told what to do) is an arguement against government.  If people are prone to evil giving them power over other people is the worst thing to do.

[tyrannosaurus vex]

What things would look like in an Anarchist state depends, heavily, on how that came to be.  A revolution which tears down the government but does not tear down corporations seems highly unlikely to me, unless it is actually a corporate revolution as opposed to an Anarchist one.  I don't deny that people tend to form groups, and have a biological predisposition to look to Alphas for leadership.  That could make Anarchy impossible.  Corporate evil on the other hand is really no more an obstacle than governmental evil.  The human nature argument (that people have an inherent bad side  at least, not the arguement that people have a built in need to be told what to do) is an arguement against government.  If people are prone to evil giving them power over other people is the worst thing to do.

People naturally assume power over others. It doesn't have to be written into a Constitution to make it happen. In a strictly stateless society, there would still be assholes roaming the streets with teams of goons under their command, and those teams would grow, until they were a government. What's going to stop them? Other teams of goons, that's who. Not really a solution.

Government is not about giving people power. It is about regulating what the fuck they can do with their power.