What're the Differences Between...
 

Communism, socialism and anarchist communism?

Jillian is our resident specialist regarding
Major Ideologies.

Godslayer? Care to answer her?

One gets you black balled, one gets you beaten and shot, and the last gets you killed.

Joe McCarthy, Joe Hill, and Sacco and Vanzetti as illustrations.

Haha, fucking awesome.

But if you want a more textbook answer, I'll still try to keep it relatively short:

Socialism - it's an umbrella type of theory that actually encompasses the two below. The system is formed in such a way that egalitarianism is tried to achieve. In democratic socialism, for example, people have, in theory, equal opportunities, such as in Denmark. In more 'red' socialisms like in Soviet Russia, the state controls the means of production so that there is also equlality of wealth (or equality of lack of wealth for that matter, which is the main argument by capitalists against it)

Communism is a more, let's say, leftist form of socialism. Basically socialism is about reform while communism is about revolution. Communism is a theory of what seems to be the logical path of our society, and according to it the capitalist system must inevitably be toppled over by the proletariat who will finally demand accountability for the bourgeois. The society then forms one sole party of economic distribution, not of political authority. The best example of communism more than Russia is Cuba. Communism and Socialism could be interchangeable, except that Communism deals with one specific type of Socialism.

And anarchocommunism is basically the utmost left, along with anarchosyndicalism (which is my theory of preference).
The above, as you have seen, both demand a centralized system. That is against fundamental anarchist beliefs. Real mainstream anarchists are socialists that have faith in human kind (so no, teens advocating chaos and "anarcho"capitalists are not real anarchists, for further reference) and as such don't see the necessity of a centralized system which will eventually become authoritarian.
Anarchocommunists feel that communism doesn't feel natural (though capitalism feels less natural) because people are forced to be equal to one another. If a community were left to its own accord, which implies that each member is perfectly accountable for her participation, then they would want by their own will to be equal to one another. Just think of the family unit: how pleasurable is it to be successful and see your younger brother struggling to make ends meet? You'll want to boost him up and you don't need someone to tell you that.


So yeah, I thought I was going to make it shorter than that. By the amount of talk into it, you kind of can figure out which theory I prefer.

Hmm. Interesting. Would you mind going a bit further and give me an example of how the ideal anarchocommunism society would work?

I would like to recommend you to read the book A Conquest of Bread by Peter Kropotkin, he explains the entire system.

Nice, mine too.
Was a socialist for years (after going to many regular, aging hippy run communist meetings with my dad starting when I was 13) and finally saw the beauty of anarcho-syndicalism.


<<anarcho-capitalism>>
::Puke:: What an oxymoron! (Though I'm sure I'm preaching to the choir with you, though. :) )I've tried to edit that disgusting Wikipedia entry, but it's locked or something.

Or perhaps Animal Farm by George Orwell.

Animal Farm does not explain anarchocommunism... (not that it's not a good reading)

^ I was confused about that. ^^ Gave me this face: o.O

ideal... very good referral

-john

So essentially, Where Thomas Jefferson said: "If men were angels there would be no need for government." an Anarcho-Communist would say: "Men are angels, there is no need for government."?

An Anarcho-Communist would say "If men aren't angels, why would electing men to control others sort the problem?"

Haha, true. I agree fully with JCC.
There's many anarchists that do believe men are inherently good and therefore don't need a government (in fact I feel like start using your quote, Despanan)
But anarchism is not all about idealism. Anarchism is also technically the maximum expression of federalism and of "checks and balances", two of America's most appreciated systems (or rhetorics at least)

Ok, this is going in the sig!

Go nuts GSJ.

That's very interesting.

I love threads like these!!

They just make me soooo.... fricken HAPPY!!!