Why do people who claim to be anarchists turn out to be Marxist acolytes?

Question

When you inquire their actual political views?

Answer 1

There are many similarities between people who call themselves anarchists and those who call themselves Marxists. Although they are all against capitalism, their main difference lies in how powerful they believe a central government needs to be. With the collapse of the Soviet Union, many people who may have once gone on to call themselves Marxists have become disillusioned with the lack of political rights and freedoms of the Soviet system and have been attracted to anarchism instead.

Instead of reading Marx, they may read Proudhon instead. They both share similarities in that they side with the poor instead of the rich, but you can't really say anarchists are crypto-Marxists any more than you can say Marxists are disguised anarchists.

There has been a trend in modern communism to adopt anarchist ideas. For example, if you look up council communism http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Council_communism its ideas about workplace democracy are very similar to anarcho-syndicalism.

Answer 2

Because the true end of Marxism, (Communism Phase II, otherwise known as the "Withering away of the State") is the essense of anarcho-syndacalism.

Marx believed that all forms of crime and social deviance were caused by economic factors. Once those factors were addressed by the "Dictatorship of the Proletariate" then there would be no reason for the state. People would be able to govern themselves, and the state would die away, leaving only anarcho-syndicalist combines.

This streak of purile optimism in the perfectability of human beings lies at the core of Marxism and Anarchism. Throughout history there have been many attempts at making this system of thought a reality, and they've always failed because they can only work if everyone behaves rationally and responsibly. What about crime? What if someone steals or rapes or murders? With no law and no enforcement mechanism, how do you handle it?

Because it's impossible to expect people to behave perfectly all the time, these societies have always had to create a system of laws to govern actions, and then to create a state to enforce those laws. That's called "Government;" and it's inevitable.

Anarchy? Marxism? Nice idea -- just won't work. Never has -- never will.