The prefix "crypto-" originates from the Ancient Greek word κρυπτός kruptós, meaning "hidden" or "secret".[5] This differs from its use in terms like 'crypto-fascist' or 'crypto-Jew' where it signifies that an identity is concealed from the world; rather, many crypto-anarchists are open about their anarchism and promotion of tools based in cryptology.
A 2022 study examined whether crypto-anarchism can be a useful tool in addressing socio-political issues. Their findings revealed that crypto-anarchism does not have a significant influence on actual politics, but studying it can be useful for creating political movements geared toward Internet users.[7]
Anonymous trading
Bitcoin is a currency generated and secured by peer-to-peer networked devices that maintain a communal record of all transactions within the system that can be used in a crypto-anarchic context. Adrian Chen, writing for The New York Times, says the idea behind Bitcoin can be traced to The Crypto Anarchist Manifesto.[8]Silk Road was an example of an illegal drug market on which Bitcoin was the only accepted currency.[8]
In The Cyphernomicon, Timothy C. May suggests that crypto-anarchism qualifies as a form of anarcho-capitalism:
What emerges from this is unclear, but I think it will be a form of anarcho-capitalist market system I call "crypto-anarchy."[10]
Another quote in The Cyphernomicon defines crypto-anarchism. Under the title "What is Crypto Anarchy?", May writes:
Some of us believe various forms of strong cryptography will cause the power of the state to decline, perhaps even collapse fairly abruptly. We believe the expansion into cyberspace, with secure communications, digital money, anonymity and pseudonymity, and other crypto-mediated interactions, will profoundly change the nature of economies and social interactions. Governments will have a hard time collecting taxes, regulating the behavior of individuals and corporations (small ones at least), and generally coercing folks when it can't even tell what continent folks are on![11]
Virtual and Network States
A network state is a theoretical community of users—called “subscriber citizens”—connected via the internet, who accumulate enough capital, territory, or political clout to achieve diplomatic recognition as a state.[12]
For crypto-anarchists, creating such a virtual or network state to increase freedom and reduce physical coercion has been a consistent talking point since at least 1992, when Timothy May initially discussed a version of these ideas in his article, Libertaria in Cyberspace.[13] May said:
This is the most compelling advantage of "Crypto Libertaria": an arbitrarily large number of separate "nations" can simultaneously exist. This allows for rapid experimentation, self-selection, and evolution. If folks get tired of some virtual community, they can leave. The cryptographic aspects mean their membership in some community is unknown to others (vis-a-vis the physical or outside world, i.e., their "true names") and physical coercion is reduced.[13]
In his 1999 book, Virtual States, cypherpunk Jerry Everard explored these ideas through the lens of Foucauldian philosophy, especially in the context of discourse formation. His discourse analysis focused on the interrelationship between objects and statements describing the state. He acknowledged the state exists as a monopoly on violence in relation to its subjects. In other words, the state enjoys a power imbalance between itself and its citizenry.[14]
Everard formulated the idea of disaggregating various elements of the nation state while considering what voluntarily procured "virtual states" in a market environment would look like. He suggests that virtual states based in cyberspace will take over the “goods and services economy” aspect of the state apparatus. In the final treatment, he did not believe the "state" would face an extinction-level event, only that its power may be diminished in some areas but strengthened in others.[14]
Technologist, angel investor, and former CoinbaseCTO, Balaji Srinivasan, has fully fleshed out the idea of network states. In his 2022 book, The Network State: How to Start Your Own Country, he details how a non-territorial affiliation of like-minded individuals could join to enact a covenant to share, build, and distribute power in the form of a network state.[12] Srinivasan articulated the definition concisely:
A network state is a highly aligned online community with a capacity for collective action that crowdfunds territory around the world and eventually gains diplomatic recognition from pre-existing states.[12]
He furnished a fuller, more complex articulation as well:
A network state is a social network with a moral innovation, a sense of national consciousness, a recognized founder, a capacity for collective action, an in-person level of civility, an integrated cryptocurrency, a consensual government limited by a social smart contract, an archipelago of crowdfunded physical territories, a virtual capital, and an on-chain census that proves a large enough population, income, and real-estate footprint to attain a measure of diplomatic recognition.[12]
The "moral innovation" piece of Srinivasan's crypto-anarchist articulation underlies the goal of a network state. His motivation is to align ideologies more cohesively, disrupt political infighting, and institute a freer human future. Throughout the book, he expresses the problems with traditional nation states and emphasizes their territorial, coercive nature. In the section on Nation States, he says, "(State) refers to the entity that governs these people, that commands the police and the military, and that holds the monopoly of violence over the geographic area that the nation inhabits."[12]
In one prominent section, Srinivasan argues for a modern variation of Frederick Jackson Turner'sFrontier Thesis. He makes the case that frontiers throughout history have been open, uncontested territories allowing exploration, experimentation, and settlement. In his modern take on the thesis, cyberspace represents the crypto-anarchist new frontier for social creativity and growth. It is only through these new frontiers, he claims, can people secure greater sovereignty and build saner, more voluntary governance mechanisms.[12]
The Frontier Thesis is reminiscent of John Perry Barlow's famous, A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace, where he eschews the domination of nation states by comparing cyberspace to a frontier inhabited by the "virus" of freedom.[15]
Criticism
Some scholars criticize that Crypto-anarchism is referencing the term "Anarchism" in its regards to freedom as a primary value in them, whereas the political thoughts of Crypto-anarchism are closer tied to Libertarianism as to Anarchism:
However, it is different in the case of crypto-anarchism. It is a thought and activity not based on anarchism of the turn of the 20th century, in which the idea of freedom had a social dimension. Freedom in anarchism of that time was treated as a value manifested in and towards other people, rather than in competition between individuals. Crypto-anarchism therefore has a different – libertarian – genesis, and libertarianism is not treated by social anarchists as anarchism. Nevertheless, the idea of freedom can be treated as a primary value in crypto-anarchism, and although it would be realised in the virtual world, it could also be realised in the real world.[16]
See also
Jim Bell — originator of the idea of assassination politics
Anarchism is a political philosophy and movement that is against all forms of authority and seeks to abolish the institutions it claims maintain unnecessary coercion and hierarchy, typically including the state and capitalism. Anarchism advocates for the replacement of the state with stateless societies and voluntary free associations. A historically left-wing movement, anarchism is usually described as the libertarian wing of the socialist movement.
Anarcho-capitalism is an anti-statist, libertarian political philosophy and economic theory that seeks to abolish centralized states in favor of stateless societies with systems of private property enforced by private agencies, based on concepts such as the non-aggression principle, free markets and self-ownership. In the absence of statute, anarcho-capitalists hold that society tends to contractually self-regulate and civilize through participation in the free market, which they describe as a voluntary society involving the voluntary exchange of goods and services. In a theoretical anarcho-capitalist society a system of private property would still exist, and would be enforced by private defense agencies and/or insurance companies that were selected by property owners, whose ownership rights or claims would be enforced by private defence agencies and/or insurance companies. These agencies or companies would operate competitively in a market and fulfill the roles of courts and the police. Some anarcho-capitalist authors have argued that voluntary slavery is compatible with anarcho-capitalist ideals.
Individualist anarchism is the branch of anarchism that emphasizes the individual and their will over external determinants such as groups, society, traditions, and ideological systems. Although usually contrasted with social anarchism, both individualist and social anarchism have influenced each other. Some anarcho-capitalists claim anarcho-capitalism is part of the individualist anarchist tradition, while others disagree and claim individualist anarchism is only part of the socialist movement and part of the libertarian socialist tradition. Economically, while European individualist anarchists are pluralists who advocate anarchism without adjectives and synthesis anarchism, ranging from anarcho-communist to mutualist economic types, most American individualist anarchists of the 19th century advocated mutualism, a libertarian socialist form of market socialism, or a free-market socialist form of classical economics. Individualist anarchists are opposed to property that violates the entitlement theory of justice, that is, gives privilege due to unjust acquisition or exchange, and thus is exploitative, seeking to "destroy the tyranny of capital,—that is, of property" by mutual credit.
Anarchist communism is a political ideology and anarchist school of thought that advocates communism. It calls for the abolition of private property but retention of personal property and collectively-owned items, goods, and services. It supports social ownership of property and the distribution of resources "From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs".
A cypherpunk is one who advocates the widespread use of strong cryptography and privacy-enhancing technologies as a means of effecting social and political change. The cypherpunk movement originated with the establishment of an electronic mailing list, through which informal groups sought to achieve privacy and security through proactive use of cryptography. The cypherpunk movement has been active since about 1990 at the latest.
An assassination market is a prediction market where any party can place a bet on the date of death of a given individual. This incentivises assassination of the individual, as parties with advanced knowledge of an assassination plot can profit by betting accurately on the date of the death. Because the payoff is for accurately picking the date rather than performing the assassination, it is substantially more difficult to assign criminal liability.
Timothy C. May, better known as Tim May was an American technical and political writer, and electronic engineer and senior scientist at Intel. May was also the founder of the crypto-anarchist movement. He retired from Intel in 1986 at age 35 and died of natural causes at his home on December 13, 2018 at age 66.
The Argentine Libertarian Federation is a libertarian communist federation which operates in Argentina, out of the City of Buenos Aires, San Pedro, La Pampa Province, and Rosario. Founded in October 1935 with the name of the Anarcho-Communist Federation of Argentina the FLA adopted its current name in 1955. It is governed by the Declaration of Principles and the Organic Charter approved by its congress. Its structure and operation are federative and are coordinated by Local Councils and the National Council.
The nature of capitalism is criticized by left-wing anarchists, who reject hierarchy and advocate stateless societies based on non-hierarchical voluntary associations. Anarchism is generally defined as the libertarian philosophy which holds the state to be undesirable, unnecessary and harmful as well as opposing authoritarianism, illegitimate authority and hierarchical organization in the conduct of human relations. Capitalism is generally considered by scholars to be an economic system that includes private ownership of the means of production, creation of goods or services for profit or income, the accumulation of capital, competitive markets, voluntary exchange and wage labor, which have generally been opposed by most anarchists historically. Since capitalism is variously defined by sources and there is no general consensus among scholars on the definition nor on how the term should be used as a historical category, the designation is applied to a variety of historical cases, varying in time, geography, politics and culture.
Anarchists have traditionally been skeptical of or vehemently opposed to organized religion. Nevertheless, some anarchists have provided religious interpretations and approaches to anarchism, including the idea that the glorification of the state is a form of sinful idolatry.
Sébastien Faure was a French anarchist, convicted sex offender, freethought and secularist activist and a principal proponent of synthesis anarchism.
Anarchism in the United States began in the mid-19th century and started to grow in influence as it entered the American labor movements, growing an anarcho-communist current as well as gaining notoriety for violent propaganda of the deed and campaigning for diverse social reforms in the early 20th century. By around the start of the 20th century, the heyday of individualist anarchism had passed and anarcho-communism and other social anarchist currents emerged as the dominant anarchist tendency.
Libertarianism is a political philosophy that places a strong emphasis on the value of liberty. Libertarians advocate for the expansion of individual autonomy and political freedom, emphasizing the principles of equality before the law and the protection of civil rights, including the rights to freedom of association, freedom of speech, freedom of thought and freedom of choice. Libertarians often oppose authority, state power, warfare, militarism and nationalism, but some libertarians diverge on the scope of their opposition to existing economic and political systems. Various schools of libertarian thought offer a range of views regarding the legitimate functions of state and private power. Different categorizations have been used to distinguish various forms of libertarianism. Scholars have identified distinct libertarian perspectives on the nature of property and capital, typically delineating them along left–right or socialist–capitalist axes. The various schools of libertarian thought have also been shaped by liberal ideas.
Right-libertarianism, also known as libertarian capitalism, or right-wing libertarianism, is a libertarian political philosophy that supports capitalist property rights and defends market distribution of natural resources and private property. The term right-libertarianism is used to distinguish this class of views on the nature of property and capital from left-libertarianism, a variant of libertarianism that combines self-ownership with an anti-authoritarian approach to property and income. In contrast to socialist libertarianism, right-libertarianism supports free-market capitalism. Like most forms of libertarianism, it supports civil liberties, especially natural law, negative rights, the non-aggression principle, and a significant transformation of the modern welfare state. Practitioners of right-libertarianism usually do not self-describe by that term and often object to it.
Anarchism as a social movement in Cuba held great influence with the working classes during the 19th and early 20th century. The movement was particularly strong following the abolition of slavery in 1886, until it was repressed first in 1925 by President Gerardo Machado, and more thoroughly by Fidel Castro's Marxist–Leninist government following the Cuban Revolution in the late 1950s. Cuban anarchism mainly took the form of anarcho-collectivism based on the works of Mikhail Bakunin and, later, anarcho-syndicalism. The Latin American labor movement, and by extension the Cuban labor movement, was at first more influenced by anarchism than Marxism.
The following is a list of terms specific to anarchists. Anarchism is a political and social movement which advocates voluntary association in opposition to authoritarianism and hierarchy.
Contemporary anarchism within the history of anarchism is the period of the anarchist movement continuing from the end of World War II and into the present. Since the last third of the 20th century, anarchists have been involved in anti-globalisation, peace, squatter and student protest movements. Anarchists have participated in armed revolutions such as in those that created the Makhnovshchina and Revolutionary Catalonia, and anarchist political organizations such as the International Workers' Association and the Industrial Workers of the World have existed since the 20th century. Within contemporary anarchism, the anti-capitalism of classical anarchism has remained prominent.
Anarchism: A Documentary History of Libertarian Ideas is a three-volume anthology of anarchist writings edited by historian Robert Graham. The anthology is published by Black Rose Books. Each selection is introduced by Graham, placing each author and selection in their historical and ideological context. The focus of the anthology is on the origins and development of anarchist ideas; it is not a documentary history of the world's anarchist movements, although the selections are geographically diverse.
A classless society is a society in which no one is born into a social class like in a class society. Distinctions of wealth, income, education, culture, or social network might arise and would only be determined by individual experience and achievement in such a society. Thus, the concept posits not the absence of a social hierarchy but the uninheritability of class status. Helen Codere defines social class as a segment of the community, the members of which show a common social position in a hierarchical ranking. Codere suggest that a true class-organized society is one in which the hierarchy of prestige and social status is divisible into groups. Each group with its own social, economic, attitudinal and cultural characteristics, and each having differential degrees of power in community decision.
Anarchism and libertarianism, as broad political ideologies with manifold historical and contemporary meanings, have contested definitions. Their adherents have a pluralistic and overlapping tradition that makes precise definition of the political ideology difficult or impossible, compounded by a lack of common features, differing priorities of subgroups, lack of academic acceptance, and contentious historical usage.
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