Anarcho-Conservatism

Anarcho-Conservatism, shortened to AnCon, is an ideology occupying a variable position in bottom 2 quadrants that advocates for a stateless society that upholds Error creating thumbnail: Unable to save thumbnail to destination Traditional values and respects traditional hierarchies.

Conceptions and History

Error creating thumbnail: Unable to save thumbnail to destination Religious Conservative Anarchism

The term 'conservative anarchism' has been used in regard to a number of Error creating thumbnail: Unable to save thumbnail to destinationreligious anarchists who support conservative cultural doctrines and norms out of religious belief. The core of these types of thinkers have been Error creating thumbnail: Unable to save thumbnail to destinationChristian notably Error creating thumbnail: Unable to save thumbnail to destinationCatholic but also have included Error creating thumbnail: Unable to save thumbnail to destinationJewish figures, it could theoretically include practically any religious doctrine.

Error creating thumbnail: Unable to save thumbnail to destination Jewish

One of the earliest people the term has been used to refer to has been the pre-Mishnaic Jewish rabbinic sage Shemaiah, who instructed in Avot 1:10 to 'Love work, loath mastery over others, and avoid intimacy with the government.'

Another Jewish anarcho-conservative figure includes the third century rabbi Gamaliel III who instructed in Avot 2:3 to 'Be careful with the government, for they befriend a person only for their own needs. They appear to be friends when it is beneficial to them, but they do not stand by a person at the time of his distress.'

Error creating thumbnail: Unable to save thumbnail to destination Christian

One of the first Christians to be regarded to be described as such is the spiritual leader and author Peter Chelcicky who influenced the Bohemian Reformation. Chelcicky supported non-violence as a social principle and believed that '... he who obeys God needs no other authority.'^[1] with the full quote being:

The Church, having lost the capacity for patience and long-suffering, has also lost God. Authority based on compulsion and the love of Christ are incompatible terms. The state sovereignty does not admit the possibility of standing under the moral judgment of God. But he who obeys God needs no other authority. “Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfilling of the law.”[356] For the deeds of faith consist in loving God and one’s neighbor, and the fullness of the law is love; the secular authority cannot produce this love by its sword, but it descends from above from the Father of Lights into the hearts of good will to whom it is a delight to love God, to do His will, and to obey His commandments.
Peter Chelcicky, The Net of Faith (1443)

Chelcicky is also regarded as an early Error creating thumbnail: Unable to save thumbnail to destinationChristian communist.^[2]

Error creating thumbnail: Unable to save thumbnail to destination Bourgeois Conservative Anarchism

The term 'Conservative Anarchism' has been used to describe a set of views which combine the support of values commonly associated with the Error creating thumbnail: Unable to save thumbnail to destinationbourgeois socio-economic class while also being sceptical towards the power of the state, including but not limited to: private property, a strict work ethic and nuclear or nuclear-like family structures.

One of the first uses of the term with this definition in mind have been in the relation to the Error creating thumbnail: Unable to save thumbnail to destinationclassical liberal thinker Herbert Spencer, with Russian Error creating thumbnail: Unable to save thumbnail to destinationmarxist theorist Georgi Plekhanov calling him '... nothing but a conservative Anarchist" in his book Anarchism and Socialism^[3]. With the full quote being:

The “father of Anarchy”, the “immortal” Error creating thumbnail: Unable to save thumbnail to destinationProudhon, bitterly mocked at those people for whom the revolution consisted of acts of violence, the exchange of blows, the shedding of blood. The descendants of the “father”, the modern Anarchists, understand by revolution only this brutally childish method. Everything that is not violence is a betrayal of the cause, a foul compromise with “authority”. The sacred bourgeoisie does not know what to do against them. In the domain of theory they are absolutely impotent with regard to the Anarchists, who are their own “enfants terribles”. The bourgeoisie was the first to propagate the theory of “laissez faire”, of dishevelled individualism. Their most eminent philosopher of today, Error creating thumbnail: Unable to save thumbnail to destinationHerbert Spencer, is nothing but a conservative Anarchist. The “companions” are active and zealous persons, who carry the bourgeois reasoning to its logical conclusion.
Georgi Valentinovich Plekhanov, Anarchism and Socialism (1895)

This later meaning was later used to describe the Error creating thumbnail: Unable to save thumbnail to destinationOld Right libertarian author Albert Jay Nock, who favoured a form of Error creating thumbnail: Unable to save thumbnail to destinationphilosophical anarchism while also being a staunch supporter of Error creating thumbnail: Unable to save thumbnail to destinationclassical liberalism believing the so-called 'Error creating thumbnail: Unable to save thumbnail to destinationliberalism' of Franklin Delano Roosevelt was a betrayal of the doctrine. Nock was the first person to use the term 'Error creating thumbnail: Unable to save thumbnail to destinationlibertarian' within a right-wing context.

One of the most well-known supporters of this type of anarcho-conservatism is the Error creating thumbnail: Unable to save thumbnail to destinationGerman economist of the Error creating thumbnail: Unable to save thumbnail to destinationAustrian school Error creating thumbnail: Unable to save thumbnail to destinationHans-Hermann Hoppe. One of Hoppe's central points is that the 'traditional bourgeois family life' is one of the historically best and most prosperous lifestyles (as well as one best for the continual sustenance of a libertarian social order) which should be encouraged, with one of the means most important means being the usage of covenant communities which exclude through the usage of ostracism those who violate common values.^[4] Hoppe believes that the existance of this lifestyle allows the existance of other lifestyles and therefore 'deviants' should not be aggressive towards those who share the bourgeois lifestyle:

All other people, by and large, only imitated what they had invented and constructed first. All others inherited the knowledge embodied in the inventors’ products for free. And isn’t it the typical white hierarchical family household of father, mother, their common children and prospective heirs, and their ‘bourgeois’ conduct and lifestyle — i.e., everything the Left disparages and maligns — that is the economically most successful model of social organization the world has ever seen, with the greatest accumulation of capital goods (wealth) and the highest average standards of living? And isn’t it only on account of the great economic achievements of this minority of ‘victimizers’ that a steadily increasing number of ‘victims’ could be integrated and partake in the advantages of a worldwide network of the division of labour?
Hans-Hermann Hoppe, Getting Libertarianism Right (2018)

Miscellaneous

The term 'conservative anarchist' has been used self-descriptively by the Taiwanese software developer and Error creating thumbnail: Unable to save thumbnail to destinationExecutive Yuan digital minister Audrey Tang. Tang describes Error creating thumbnail: Unable to save thumbnail to destinationanarchism as the belief people should people co-operate voluntarily without the state coercion and preferably non-hierarchically and Error creating thumbnail: Unable to save thumbnail to destinationconservatism as the belief that the various cultures of Taiwan should and non-state institutions of Taiwanese society should be respected and preserved. Tang is also transgender and non-binary, being fine with people using whatever pronoun they see fit for them.^[5]^[6]

The term 'anarcho-conservative' has been used self-descriptively by the Error creating thumbnail: Unable to save thumbnail to destinationEnglish philosopher Stephen Richard Lyster Clark.^[7] Clark is a supporter of animal rights and vegetarianism^[8] as well as a writer for the U.K.-based Libertarian Alliance think tank which espouses Error creating thumbnail: Unable to save thumbnail to destinationright-wing libertarianism.^[9]

How to Draw

The Anarcho-conservative flag is a diagonal bicolour of Blue (representing Error creating thumbnail: Unable to save thumbnail to destinationconservatism) and Black (representing Error creating thumbnail: Unable to save thumbnail to destinationanarchism).

Draw a ball,
Draw a black (#141414) line diagonally across the ball,
Fill the bottom in black and the top in blue (#01B8F1),
Add the eyes and you're done!

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Relationships

Further Information

Literature

On Doing The Right Thing by Error creating thumbnail: Unable to save thumbnail to destination Albert Jay Nock
The Strange Case of Tory Anarchism by Peter Wilkin
Man Versus the State by Error creating thumbnail: Unable to save thumbnail to destination Herbert Spencer
The Political Animal: Biology, Ethics and Politics by Stephen R.L. Clark

Articles

References

↑ The Net of Faith, Chapter 26 by Peter Chelcicky
↑ Communism in Central Europe in the Time of the Reformation, p. 105-106 by Karl Kautsky
↑ The Bourgeois, Anarchism, and Socialism by Georgi Plekhanov
↑ Getting Libertarianism Right by Hans-Hermann Hoppe
↑ The Anarchist Minister From the Future Who's Redefining Democracy by Asaf Ronel
↑ Audrey Tang on what it means to be a Conservative Anarchist by Hack Club
↑ Anarchists against the Revolution by Stephen R.L. Clark
↑ On the Side of Animals by the RSPCA
↑ Slaves and Citizens by Stephen R.L. Clark

Gallery

Template:Libunity Template:Anarchist Template:Conservative

[1] The Net of Faith, Chapter 26 by Peter Chelcicky

[2] Communism in Central Europe in the Time of the Reformation, p. 105-106 by Karl Kautsky

[3] The Bourgeois, Anarchism, and Socialism by Georgi Plekhanov

[4] Getting Libertarianism Right by Hans-Hermann Hoppe

[5] The Anarchist Minister From the Future Who's Redefining Democracy by Asaf Ronel

[6] Audrey Tang on what it means to be a Conservative Anarchist by Hack Club

[7] Anarchists against the Revolution by Stephen R.L. Clark

[8] On the Side of Animals by the RSPCA

[9] Slaves and Citizens by Stephen R.L. Clark

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