Why Anarcho-Communism Is An Oxymoron

I have been clearing up my thoughts about this issue for a few weeks now. Anarcho-Communism (or libertarian-socialism) has been on my mind for a while. The ideology can be broken down into the two words that make its name, Anarchy, and Communism.

Anarchy (according to the dictionary):

Absence of government and absolute freedom of the individual, regarded as a political ideal.

Anarchy (according to Proudhon):

A none-hierarchical form of organizing society

Much confusion has occurred based simply around the fact that different people decide to believe in the different definitions. The dictionary meaning states that the absence of government is related to the "absolute freedom of the individual", meaning that, in a libertarian sense, the lack of government aggression towards its citizens is freedom. The dictionary meaning leads me/us to believe that the absence of forced taxation and other government interferences, leaves the people with complete ownership of their property, and the liberty to do so with that property as they please, as well as voluntaryism. Naturally, a system that upholds to these ideas is a capitalistic one. Anarcho-Capitalism has been defined.

Proudhon's definition also hints towards the absence of government, and the liberties of the people, however, it is much broader, and can be easily twisted to suit the user of this definition. Many left-anarchists prefer to use this definition, as it fits in nicely with the absolute equality of communism, but only works with the idea that capitalism means hierarchy and the oppression of the proletariat, that it means less liberties and more slavery. Now, the best way to pull apart Anarcho-Communism is to use its other name, Libertarian-Socialism.

Libertarianism (according to the dictionary):

an extreme laissez-faire political philosophy advocating only minimal state intervention in the lives of citizens.

Socialism (according to the dictionary):

a political and economic theory of social organization which advocates that the means of production, distribution, and exchange should be owned or regulated by the community as a whole.

Libertarianism advocates minimal government and minimal state intervention into the lives of citizens, basically meaning that citizens should have maximum liberties and rights, which to me, includes the right to private property and the right to free trade. Socialism on the other hand, states that the means of production should be owned and regulated by the community as a whole, which immediately eradicates the individual right to property and the right to free trade.

Already we have an incompatible set of ideas. How can one be a libertarian, or an anarchist, if they believe that no-one has the right to do as they so please? That no-one has the right to the fruits of their labor (property)? If you believe in anarcho-communism, you are as bad as the government that your goal was to dissolve. In order to instill these involuntary ideals on a population, their must be some kind of force, their must be some kind of aggression, some kind of hierarchical organization that sits on-top of the population, governing. If their was no aggression from a governing body, this ideology would not work, it would immediately dissipate into free-market capitalism, simply because socialism/communism is involuntary.

So, if you believe that you can be an anti-state communist, you are heavily fooled. Simply by believing that the best thing for the population is your anti-property and anti-freedom ideas, you are just as authoritarian as the government you hate, perhaps worse. You cannot be an anarchist if the first thing you wish to achieve is the total control of the population. Anarcho-Communism is an oxymoron!

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