Are Pure Anarchy and Pure Communism essentially the same thing?

[Grumpier Than Thou]

I think so, but what say you?

[Goldwater]

If by "essentially the same thing" you mean that neither of them can possibly work in reality, then yes.

[The world will shine with light in our nightmare]

If by "essentially the same thing" you mean that neither of them can possibly work in reality, then yes.

[Lief 🗽]

Anarchists and Communists both have the same three goals: 1) the abolition of the wage system, 2) the abolition of individual ownership of the means of production, and 3) the abolition of the state. So broadly, yes, but there are differences in the details.

[The world will shine with light in our nightmare]

Also, there are many different anarchist/communist schools of thought.  I don't know how one would define "pure" anarchy or "pure" communism from an objective point of view.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Marx made it pretty clear that once a society would reach Communism the State would become obsolete and spontaneously die off. So if you take his view, then the answer is yes.

[Undecided Voter in the Midwest]

No, I'd say the two are mutually exclusive, because you really can't have communism without some form of totalitarian government to enforce it and regulate it. Total anarchy would quickly lead to the same unequal distribution of wealth and resources that we see in free market capitalist economies.

There would always be some people who would want more than their "share" of the goods, and would then take what they could by force... which would then require intervention by a stronger force to reclaim the "stolen" goods. But even then, what's to keep that stronger force from keeping those goods for themselves instead of distributing them back to their neighbors?

Ultimately you would need some supreme authority to regulate how much property each person/family/town owns, both to guarantee that everyone got his/her fair share, and also to prevent them from taking more than they should.

[traininthedistance]

Yes of course.  Other things which are, in practice, identical to "pure anarchy" and "pure communism" include:

* unicorns
* "creation" "science"
* cold fusion
* Big Rock Candy Mountain
* completely efficient free markets

This is obviously far from an exhaustive list.

[SPC]

I would think that it depends how you define "pure anarchy" and "pure communism."

[Blue3]

Pure anarchy would still have private property and personal property, right?

[Grumpier Than Thou]

Pure anarchy would still have private property and personal property, right?

It could be argued, but does it not seem ultimately likely for private and personal property to be eliminated in time?

[Lief 🗽]

Pure anarchy would still have private property and personal property, right?

So would communism. In a pure communist society you still own your own personal property/private possessions. Only the means of production are held in common.

[courts]

no. there's plenty of fundamentalist anarchists, national anarchists, etc. who are certainly not leftists let alone communists. and then there's the "anarcho-capitalists." as it is "anarchy" doesn't actually have much of an accepted meaning other than as a pejorative.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

A utopia is a utopia is a utopia, right?

[Antonio the Sixth]

A utopia is a utopia is a utopia, right?

Basically.

[angus]

A utopia is a utopia is a utopia, right?

Yes, but a dystopia is a not a dystopia.  There may be only one permutation that leads to perfection, but there might be many that lead to something less.  That's the difference.  

Anarchy is Le Terroir without the guillotine, whereas communism is Le Terroir overt followed by Le Terroir mystérieux, basically.  One overthrows and offers no solution.  (Out of the frying pan and into the fire, as it were.)  The other overthrows the frying pan and replaces it with a pressure cooker.

Anyway, No.

[Lief 🗽]

no. there's plenty of fundamentalist anarchists, national anarchists, etc. who are certainly not leftists let alone communists. and then there's the "anarcho-capitalists." as it is "anarchy" doesn't actually have much of an accepted meaning other than as a pejorative.

Those people don't really count as anarchists though. Anarchism has evolved from socialism, while anti-state capitalism (anarcho-capitalism is not a good name for it, IMO) evolved from right-libertarianism and classical liberalism. They're completely different schools of thought, and anti-state capitalists only call themselves anarchists because they want to appear edgy/relevant and not tools of the existing economic system.

[DemPGH]

I don't think so, anyway. Anarchy is free-for-all, mob rule, disorder, and who-knows-what whereas Communism is actually very stable: it's a collection of small, self-sustaining communities with minimal need for government. Certainly ideal, but not at all what I would call anarchy.

[Person Man]

Pure anarchy would still have private property and personal property, right?

It could be argued, but does it not seem ultimately likely for private and personal property to be eliminated in time?

Well, private and personal property only exist because the state entitles you have such things through contracts that the state entitles you to make though I feel that people would still agree to exist in symbiotic relationships (as in contracts) even on a desert island.

[Obamanation]

No pure libertarianism is pure anarchy.

[Redalgo]

I reckon "pure communism" is better described as a sub-category of "pure anarchy" in this case. Abolition of state or even government in general does not infer anything about the prevailing economic order to which people choose to adhere - who are not really limited to adopting either capitalism or communism unless the definitions for those systems are interpreted very broadly.

[LastVoter]

Yea they are

[politicus]

I don't think so, anyway. Anarchy is free-for-all, mob rule, disorder, and who-knows-what whereas Communism is actually very stable: it's a collection of small, self-sustaining communities with minimal need for government. Certainly ideal, but not at all what I would call anarchy.

Take away the government thing and thats also the original definition of an Anarchist society. Anarchism is not chaos.

[DemPGH]

I don't think so, anyway. Anarchy is free-for-all, mob rule, disorder, and who-knows-what whereas Communism is actually very stable: it's a collection of small, self-sustaining communities with minimal need for government. Certainly ideal, but not at all what I would call anarchy.

Take away the government thing and thats also the original definition of an Anarchist society. Anarchism is not chaos.

Government and structure are all handled locally under Communism, which emphasizes the community, whereas Anarchism emphasizes the individual with no rules and total freedom of choice. It's assumed that there would not be chaos and assumed that no one would come to power in the vacuum of leadership in Anarchy, and those are erroneous assumptions. But nonetheless, in Communism every choice that is made is made with respect to the wellbeing of the community, not the individual's whims, which means in Communism there are a lot of social norms to be followed. Not in Anarchy. If you introduced anarchy into a truly Communist society, it would unravel in days, probably. Beyond the fact that they both want de-centralization, and both make it easy for a dictator to come to power, I don't see much similarity in their philosophies.

[k-onmmunist]

marxism and anarchism have the same goal, the abolition of the state, money and property. the difference is that marxists believe in a transitional "socialist stage"

so yes.