On Liberty
I consider myself a libertarian first, and a socialist second.
This may be somewhat controversial a point, particularly for my more statist friends, but explains the disconnect I sometimes feel with more party-oriented socialists and communists. While the concept of "liberty" is bandied about by the right as much as the left, and is highly subjective, I consider the primary object of a good society as the guarantee of maximum agency to all its members, with no-one qualifying for more or less of it. Where socialism comes into it for me is a question of method. In our society, our agency is determined by our material wealth, and liberty is afforded to some excessively, that is, the liberty to act in a way that disempowers or oppresses others, it is barely granted at all to others, namely, those oppressed by the choices of others. I don't believe this is fair, as I can't find a logical reason for one person being worthy of greater agency than another. The reason they have it is because of power and privilege. When the rich speak of liberty, they speak of their own. As they now experience excessive power, they view any attempt to equalise that power in terms of granting the poor and oppressed their agency, they interpret it in their own terms as a deprivation of liberty, when in fact it is a granting of liberty to those previously deprived of it. They are simply denying their privilege. This is observed in all power relationships, be they male/female, straight/gay, religious/secular, white/black or rich/poor.
The reason I examine my politics through the lens of "liberty" is because it is the common denominator for almost all humans when it comes to their political interests. I wish to take apart the question of why I fight for causes with socialists, as a libertarian, and a proponent of largely decentralised political power. I do not consider the perfect society one in which I am free to cause harm to others, or deprive them of the agency I would like afforded to myself, because humans live in communities, and we must self-regulate to a small degree in order to create harmony in these communities. Party socialists would, to a large degree, agree with this, but I do not think they view a primary objective of society to be liberation, and as such it seems that distribution of wealth, land and production is regarded somehow as the endgame. It is worth examining why we believe what we believe. Socialism is not a good in itself, and without the goal of maximum liberty for individuals as members of a community it is directionless and open to abuse, both in vision and method.
Abuse of the emphasis of community over the individual as a producing/consuming single unit is clear to anyone with eyes. Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot and Kim Il Sung are all direct examples, but right-wing fascism and nationalism could also be said to be a falsely-communitarian system in which a rich elite dominate "for the greater good" of the nation. Authoritarianism can never be a recourse in the struggle. The means are as important as the ends, I passionately believe, and resorting to the false unity of a party line necessarily promotes the idea that we can entrust our freedom to a few individuals, and in doing so granting them our liberty as their own. What we have then is exactly the same system of power-elites and commoners that we have today. Many on the more statist left joke about how brilliant Mao was, but they have never been to China. I don't think they actually and genuinely support his murderous policies and their horrendous consequences, but when all you say are "jokes" in support of dictatorship, and your real views are never aired, the notion of "ironic" support and true support become blurred. It is particularly offensive, of course, when said by a privileged person who has lived in a (by capitalist standards) "liberal democracy" for their entire life.
Socialists and communists today need to consider the goal of their actions. Some soul-searching is needed among state socialists, as well as among many anarchists, as to why they believe what they believe. On the left we are so entrenched in our politics, and our opposition to "the Tories", "the rich" or "the 1%" that it is tempting to think our "-isms" are goods in themselves. In my perfect society, no-one would be an anarchist, as we would all be anarchists. No-one would know the meanings of the terms "libertarian socialist", because that would just be the way society would be. I don't necessarily think utopia will ever be realised, which is why I believe so strongly in the importance of the means as well as the ends. In our struggles we must seek to promote the value of liberty, equality and respect for all beings, and we cannot afford to compromise on the values that separate us from those who are happy to watch the status quo destroy a huge part of human society.
I am an anarchist, a libertarian socialist and a humanist, among other things. I am lots of "-ists". What I must remember is that those "-ists" are terms that are used to describe me. They do not deserve the respect we afford beings, because they are not beings. We cannot compromise people for them, as we cannot compromise people for our own means. When we realise that, we will not need the false unity of a party, or the false borders of a state, and we will be genuinely free.