What's the real difference between an "anarchist communist" and a "communist"? The first one can have "personal property" while the second cant? So... an anarchist communist can own a car but not a house? According to the internet "personal property" is everything that can be moved (not real estate) and isn't considered for production of something...
Anarchism is fundamentally a firm rejection of unjust hierarchy, including the state, via building up of bottom-up structures using networks of Mutual Aid or other strategies (like Syndicalism).
Communism is fundamentally about advancing beyond Capitalism into Socialism and eventually Communism. It's fundamentally Marxist, unlike most forms of Anarchism (which don't necessarily reject Marx, but also don't accept everything Marx wrote). Communists are generally perfectly fine with using the state in order to eventually achieve a Stateless, Classless, Moneyless society, as each becomes unnecessary and whithers away.
In essence, Anarchism rejects that a state is necessary at all, and seeks to directly replace current systems with the end-goal of an Anarchist structure, whereas Communists tend to agree more with gradual change, rapidly building up the productive forces, and achieving a global, international Communism.
Anarcho-Communism seeks to combine these into directly implementing full Communism without going through Socialism first.
All of this is from a generally Leftist perspective, without leaning into any given tendency, as I believe the most critical battles now are building up a sizable leftist coalition. Everyone should focus on organizing, unionizing, reading, learning, sympathizing, empathizing, and improving themselves and those around them.
A big part of the confusion comes from the fact that different people will use these terms differently.
In a capitalist framework, there's private property and public property. Either an individual (or or specific group) own something, anything, or it's owned by the government.
In a socialist framework, private property is distinguished from personal property. Personal property is your stuff that you use for yourself. Your coat, your car, your TV, etc. Private property is the means of production, or capital—things that increase a worker's ability to do useful work. Think factories or companies, where ownership in and of itself, regardless of labor, would make the owner money. Socialists think that kind of private property shouldn't exist, because it means wealthy people can just own stuff for a living, profiting off of the people who do the work.
Housing can go either way. Owning a home for yourself and your family would be far closer to personal property, while owning an apartment building to collect rent would be far closer to private property.
Socialism, for the most part and historically, is an umbrella term describing social rather than private ownership. That would include anarchism, which largely synonymous with "libertarian socialism." Lenin, on the other hand, used it to more specifically refer to an intermediate stage between capitalism in communism, so you might see people using that more narrow definition to exclude anarchists, democratic socialists, etc.
I've never heard anyone argue against personal property. Usually the difference is that Anarchists want to skip the workers' state, while other Communists think it's a necessity to achieve Communism.
Neither, the title specifically states Anarcho-Communism, not Marxism-Leninism. Closest analog would be any other AnCom that created a large publicly available service.
Anyone can fork it and do what they want, people respect Linus and follow suit because he's good at what he does and knows it best. He holds no power or authority beyond the willful respect and acknowledgement of the people.
Is that why there were so many darn anarchists there?
And yeah books to prisoners programs are both a means of direct action and of spreading anti carceral propaganda to those most effected. Not all programs are anarchist, but the one I helped with had a zine library that included a lot of stuff by former prisoners about the harm, ineffectiveness, and racist origins of the American prison system. Which was good because at least that was something they always had enough of unlike English-Spanish dictionaries. Seriously if you ever have any lying around donate it to a books for prisoners program. A lot of prisoners want to learn to communicate with those they’re locked in a cage with. And for anyone with more liberal sensibilities it’s also a form of self improvement that helps on the outside.
Idk, technically voluntary association is a key tenet of volunteerism/anarcho-capitalism, so if we're just using volunteering as the basis we might as well say it's volunteerism. I think anarcho-communism and anarcho-capitalism are a bit more nuanced than "sharing."
Those advocating for it also use it to display their total lack of perspective and analysis of the mechanics of capitalism. I.e. one can use it as a sign on one's head saying "not at home for the moment, try again later".
Anarcho-Capitalism isn't a thing, it's just Libertarian Capitalists LARPing with Leftist aesthetics. The very rejection of individual ownership rejects Capitalism, it's like saying Worker Co-operatives are an example of Capitalism because markets tend to not care what makes them up.
Just because FOSS would be "allowed" in Capitalism doesn't mean it's an example of Capitalist principles.
Yes and they'd argue that anarchism isn't exclusively leftist (well, I'D argue that depends on one's definition of left/right, because depending on who you ask it's either good/bad, collectivism/individualism, or lib/auth, and by the latter definition they would then be leftist capitalists, which is funny to think about.) They support individual ownership without rulers, however they still promote sharing of things you own with your community if you can/want.
Right, and just because sharing is "allowed" in communism doesn't mean sharing is communism. It being allowed in both not being necessarily representative of either is my whole point.
Regardless of what AnCaps argue, the fundamental fact is that Anarchy is a rejection of hierarchy, whereas Private Property itself requires both the Owner/Worker hierarchy, and a monopoly on violence that cannot be reasonably contested to uphold Private Property protections. As such, it can only be considered Libertarian, as it both maintains hierarchy and maintains some semblance of at minimum a nightwatchman state.
As for Left/Right, the standard definition is Collective/Individual ownership of the Means of Production, not necessarily collectivism/individualism or lib/auth. Individual ownership by definition is supporting rulers, the larger Capitalists are effectively no different from a Feudal state.
Sharing being allowed does not mean FOSS aligns with AnCap principles, that's like saying bagel consumption is AnCap.
FOSS isn't simply "sharing" either, it's quite literally a rejection of Individual ownership and creating IP for the collective to use, fork, maintain, and distribute as they see fit. It isn't a coincidence that FOSS enthusiasts overwhelmingly lean left, just like Lemmy tends to.
Regardless of what AnCaps argue, the fundamental fact is that Anarchy is a rejection of hierarchy, whereas Private Property itself requires both the Owner/Worker hierarchy, and a monopoly on violence that cannot be reasonably contested to uphold Private Property protections. As such, it can only be considered Libertarian, as it both maintains hierarchy and maintains some semblance of at minimum a nightwatchman state.
Regardless is right, because my comments were never about espousing the benefits of anarcho-capitalism, I was using them to make the point that simply because things share a similarity with a political ideology it does not in fact make them "that ideology." Arguing about ancapistan in this instance is a "strawman."
Sharing being allowed does not mean FOSS aligns with AnCap principles, that's like saying bagel consumption is AnCap.
No this is my point, you get your own.
use, fork, maintain, and distribute as they see fit.
Your argument is that because FOSS would be permissible in AnCap society, FOSS being fundamentally constructed upon AnCom principles of rejecting Capitalism and centralization in favor of decentralized and collectively owned and distributed property makes it not in line with Anarcho-Communism.
When the article is giving an example of how Anarcho-Communism would work, Linux is a fantastic example. Nobody is saying Linux is Anarcho-Communism, or that Linux cannot exist within broader contexts, but that in an Anarcho-Communist society, the structure of Linux and FOSS would be the common structure.
Your argument is that because FOSS would be permissible in AnCap society..
Because voluntary association and sharing is also a core tenet of volunteerism/anarchocapitalism, as they also are of anarcho-communism..
FOSS being fundamentally constructed upon AnCom principles of rejecting Capitalism and centralization in favor of decentralized and collectively owned and distributed property
FOSS being similar to AnCom because both share principles of sharing
makes it not in line with Anarcho-Communism.
makes it notnecessarily Anarcho-Communist.
You're making false equivalencies for the sake of it.
"This rejection of profit and ownership made by a self-admitted leftist is actually completely in line with for-profit individual ownership just because AnCaps don't murder people for doing charity"
You're just trying to be contrarion for the sake of it, lmao. Again, the article was showcasing examples of gift economies and how Anarcho-Communism would function, and Linux fits that definition. It wasn't arguing that Linux is Anarcho-Communism itself. It is not an example of how Anarcho-Capitalism would function, as Anarcho-Capitalism is Capitalism, and FOSS is decidedly anticapitalist, even if said Capitalists wouldn't murder Linus for rejecting Capitalism.
You're again being needlessly contrarion, Anarcho-Capitalists don't advocate for setting up networks of mutual aid and FOSS software, they don't care about gift economies either. Using Linux as an example for AnCapistan would get you laughed out of the room, if calling yourself an AnCap didn't already result in that.
Cory Doctorow has a book, "Walkaway" that is basically exploring the politics of FOSS on a societal scale. It's pretty nerdy obv but I enjoyed it and it doesn't overly glamourize any political system the way you'd typically see in political fiction.
There's a book called Opt-Out from Rory Price about a future where humanity starts using AR more and more to the point that it's almost obligatory to have a device of this kind for everything, even as ID. It then talks about a group that develops a free/libre version of this device's OS and they have to decide about personal issues or try to maintain their views. It's entertaining and not too long, but I think it shows a very possible future.
I haven't heard from its author in some time, but I think they discovered they were someone else too ;), that's why I love this book.
I made a commentary about it here https://lemmy.ml/post/511377 in the FLOSS vs Closed Source Philosophy section:
The soul and spirit of FLOSS is socialist/communist, in a similar way to piracy. The purpose of it is to serve the greater good. In comparison, the soul and spirit of closed source software, outside rare cases of benevolence, is highly corporate and fascistic, similar to a leech, which in many cases these days may suck money out of your wallets for subscriptions. It may also serve as a leech to suck your data for telemetry and spying purposes.