[All Anarchists] You cannot eliminate the state without global Socialism, and you cannot sustain nor eliminate Capitalism without a state.

I'm posing this debate to all Anarchists, including "An"Caps. I will mostly be addressing Anarcho-Communists and "Anarcho"-Capitalists. Most of my arguments will also apply to other Anarchist variations.

My definitions are as follows:

• The state - "The state is a special organization of force: it is an organization of violence for the suppression of some class." ^1 ^2 i.e. "Political power, properly so called, is merely the organised power of one class for oppressing another" ^1

• Socialism - The working class owning the means of production. By this definition, the USSR, PRC, Cuba under Castro, and Vietnam under Ho Chi Minh were Socialist states. The Wikipedia page is useful for more basic info.

• Capitalism - The privatization of the means of production, with class distinctions separated between those who own the means of production (Capitalists/bourgeoisie) and those who don't (workers/proletariat). By this definition, every state on Earth is Capitalist without argument, including the US, Sweden, Venezuela, Cuba, North Korea, China, France, etc. etc.. The Wikipedia page will be used in combination with this for more basic terms, info and whatnot.

• Communism (societal) - A stateless, classless, moneyless society. Only achievable at a global level due to the interactions of classes, economies and people on an international level.

• Force (n, abstract, political) - The use of political power such as but not necessarily nor limited to violence, coercion, propaganda, censorship, education, media, and economy to dictate the political will of someone, a group of individuals a class and/or a society.

• Anarcho-X - The pursuit of X ideology with an intrinsic opposition to the concept of the state, including the usage of the state.

• Capitalist - A person within the bourgeoisie/Capitalist class of society, i.e. someone who privately controls the means of production for profit, who does not have to do labor to earn money (i.e. someone who owns private property, where the majority of their money comes from said property)

• Proletarian - A person within the proletariat/working class of society, i.e. someone who does not control the means of production, who earns sustenance from selling their labor, i.e. from wages.

• Means of production - Buildings, land, tools, utilities and so on which serve the social role of producing for society at large. Examples include factories, mines, taxis and so on.

• Private property - Means of production which are privately owned and controlled within a Capitalist society.

Arguments:

Preface: Arguments against the Anarchist definition(s) of the state:

Definition 1 (Anarcho-Communist/Socialist Anarchist): "human community that (successfully) claims the monopoly of the legitimate use of physical force within a given territory" - Max Weber

While this one is strongest and most common, it also can easily be seen as either a variation of my earlier given definition of a state, and/or is otherwise contradictory to the idea of achieving Communism/Socialism through stateless means.

The former interpretation is to view the concept of "human community" to be flexible enough to include distinguishing classes. In this case human community is just a vague term to indicate classes. A human community claiming a monopoly on the legitimate use of physical force is very similar to the use of special forces of class oppression/suppression. As such, after an Anarcho-Communist revolution, the proletariat claims a monopoly on the use of violence, being that the eliminate the ability for the bourgeoisie to use violence as a means of class suppression. Therefore, a state is created.

The latter interpretation plays into the latter half of the above paragraph, as a leftist Anarchist revolution eliminates the ruling class from having monopolized power and gives it to the working class.

Definition 2 ("Anarcho"-Capitalist): "[The state is] that organization in society which attempts to maintain a monopoly of the use of force and violence in a given territorial area; in particular, it is the only organization in society that obtains its revenue not by voluntary contribution or payment for services rendered but by coercion" - Murray Rothbard

This definition is relatively similar to Weber's, however it has additional content, which further contradicts the principles of "Anarcho"-Capitalism. Given that we've already indicated class rule, the monopolization of legitimized force by a class and so on and so forth already qualifies a state, let's take a look at the additional content of this definition:

"in particular, it is the only organization in society that obtains its revenue not by voluntary contribution or payment for services rendered but by coercion"

From my past experiences with "An"Caps, (and please feel free to argue this point if you object) I will use the dictionary definitions of "voluntary" ^1 and "coercion" ^1.

In a hypothetical "Ancapistan" type society, i.e. unregulated, Laissez-Faire Capitalism we have to establish whether or not actions between people would be voluntary or coerced. We already know that in literal technicality there is a state due to class oppression. However there are more aspects to be examined here, which is to ask, are individual businesses (in this case, primarily referring to multi-national, multi-million/billion dollar corporations) states in and of themselves?

By the ways in which private property is manifested, we can deduce that there is in fact land, i.e. territory in which these corporations lay claim to. To protect their privately owned land, buildings and so on they have to use some sort of force or violence to do so. Furthermore, only the owner(s) of said land can do this, as otherwise it would be an outside party invading or otherwise encroaching upon their land via violence and force. Therefore, to protect itself, the Capitalist must legitimize as a part of its company policy, rules or otherwise that only it has the right to defend or otherwise use force to maintain its territory, property and so on.

Furthermore, there is also the issue of voluntary trade versus coercive trade. Coercion defined as "the use of force or intimidation to obtain compliance" has a multifaceted use here, as force has many different manifestations, especially in the case of political power.

Let's look at a real world business/company: De Beers. De Beers is widely known to have a monopoly on the diamond trade, and has had its monopoly for decades, unaffected and unchallenged by free market policies in some countries and regulations in others. However, its monopoly alone is of course not enough to have it deemed as a state in a hypothetical "Ancapistan" wherein which De Beers still exists. However, in the real world it's been seen that De Beers has in many cases used coercion ^1 ^2 and violence ^1 ^2 in tandem to establish power and control. So not only do they not conduct voluntary, non-coerced trade, but they also maintain a monopoly on violence (and diamonds) via those same traits. Thus, this company, if present in "Ancapistan" would be a state, its CEO(s)/Owner(s) being the equivalent of despots.

However one might argue that this is an example of "Crony Capitalism" or something of that nature, in which case you say that for its actions De Beers would somehow be stopped from doing aforementioned acts of coercion and violence. However, this now insinuates that Capitalism in and of itself is voluntary and non-coercive, which is not the case.

The non-voluntary, coercive nature of a hypothetical "Ancapistan" has already been detailed above. However, there are also the issues of trade, property and wage labor markets. These aspects within "Ancapistan" also are established as at least coercive if not non-voluntary. However, determining whether or not "Ancapistan" would be voluntary is solved simply by determining if it is coercive, which it is.

"Ancapistan" would present coercive structures in multiple forms. First is the power-relationship between worker and CEO, which is established both in political power and economic power. What distinguishes a Capitalist from a proletarian is their access to the means of production. In the case of the proletarian, they do not possess access to the means of production, and therefore must offer their labor to be sold. However, they do not have power over the price of their labor even though they are the sellers of it, especially in a society where there is no minimum wage, no regulations and so on and so forth. So, in this powerless situation, they are forced to work, and the payment for their labor is of course unrepresentative of the value of what their labor creates. Furthermore, they do not have a say in the price of the product they helped create, only the Capitalists do. Due to this, the worker is powerless both in the labor market and commodity market, and as such is politically and economically removed from power and platform. This, combined other facets of the Capitalist market such as advertising results in the working class being under extreme coercion.

Thus, at every level, "Anarcho"-Capitalism is not only not stateless, but in fact would establish itself as a form of corporate despotism.

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.1. Anarchism of any and all variants does not achieve statelessness in and of itself. It in fact simply creates a state.

1A. In the case of an Anarcho-Communist revolution, a state would be established. This occurs due to the fact that an Anarcho-Communist revolution is a proletarian one, and establishes the proletarian class as having control over the bourgeoisie class, and thus it suppresses the class interests of the bourgeoisie. In this manner, the Anarcho-Communists organize force to prevent Capitalism and Capitalist interests from re-emerging. If they do not then their revolution and intrinsically their ideology fails.

1B. In the case of an "Anarcho"-Capitalist revolution (or paradigm shift of whatever it's presently called), a state would be established. This occurs due to the fact that the "Anarcho"-Capitalist ideology is based on maintaining the class division between the bourgeoisie and proletariat, and that class division only comes from suppression of class interests, which can only be done via force. Furthermore, due to the conflicting interests in regards to private property between the bourgeoisie and proletariat class, if force is not used then the proletariat will immediately establish control, establishing a Socialist state.

.2. The fate of Capitalism requires a state.

2A. In order for Capitalism to be eliminated, it must systematically be removed by the class suppression of both the ideology and those of the class interest of the bourgeoisie. Doing this intrinsically results in the establishment of a state as it requires force to be done. If this is not done, Capitalism will reemerge and reestablish itself in a Capitalist state.

2B. In order for Capitalism to be maintained, force must be used against the proletariat class to prevent it from pursuing its class interests. This force is that used to defend private property, markets, capital and so on from losing their status as being privatized. If there is no force used to stop the proletariat from pursuing its class interest then it will rise and establish a Socialist stat. If there is a force used, then there is a state.

.3. Anarchism is therefore either self-defeating, contradictory or entirely idealist.

3A. If the goal of Anarcho-Communism is to achieve Communism without a state preceding it then it intrinsically fails as it either establishes a state under Anarchist/proletarian control, or it fails due to counter-revolutionary forces. This failure is caused by either the refusal to use the power of the state apparatus (that is to say, they refuse to use force to suppress the Capitalist class) or is caused by their acceptance of it (in which they no longer follow the tenets of Anarcho-Communism).

3B. If the goal of "Anarcho"-Capitalism is to preserve Capitalism without a state then it intrinsically fails as it either establishes a state via maintaining a class dichotomy via force, or it fails due to the proletariat class establishing societal control. This failure is either caused by refusal to use the power of the state apparatus (that is to say, they refuse to suppress the proletariat class) or is caused by their acceptance of it (in which they no longer follow the tenets of "Anarcho"-Capitalism).

.4. The state will be eliminated if and only if Socialism is adopted globally.

4A. The only way for a state to not exist is for there to not be class conflict. For there not to be class conflict there cannot be classes. For class to be eliminated, the entire world must be one class (i.e., if everyone is proletarian, then there is no other class nor class interest than the proletarians, which means that to be proletarian is to be human). Only when this happens will states cease to exist.

4B. Anarchism cannot do this for it intrinsically fails (as aforementioned) due to both its own definitions as well as Marxist ones. Furthermore, it fails due to the fact that classes naturally pursue their class interests. Anarchism either establishes states as a part of its goal, and due to this is no longer Anarchism, or it does not establish the necessary forces to maintain itself and loses to the opposing class.

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Apologies for any typos. I wrote a lot so I might've missed a few if my computer didn't give a red misspelling underline for them.