Atlas / Comparisons / Anarcho-Communism vs Apartheid Nationalism
Anarcho-Communism and Apartheid Nationalism
Measured distance across six axes
Opposite ends of the recorded space. No axis places them within three points of each other. They diverge by eight points or more on EC, CU, AU, SC, ID.
Axis by axis
| Axis | Kropotkin | National Party | Gap | Reading | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| EC · Economic organisation | −09 | 00 | 9 | Diverges | Carries the disagreement. Any claim that these two are alike has to explain this. |
| CU · Social and cultural order | −07 | +10 | 17 | Diverges | Carries the disagreement. Any claim that these two are alike has to explain this. |
| AU · Organisation of power | −10 | +07 | 17 | Diverges | Carries the disagreement. Any claim that these two are alike has to explain this. |
| SC · Scale of decision | −10 | +07 | 17 | Diverges | Carries the disagreement. Any claim that these two are alike has to explain this. |
| ID · Rule of membership | −08 | +10 | 18 | Diverges | Carries the disagreement. Any claim that these two are alike has to explain this. |
| CH · Method and tempo | +06 | +02 | 4 | Differs | Real difference, but not the dividing line. |
Each axis runs from −10 to +10; the distance is the straight-line separation across all six at once, out of a maximum of 49.0. How the scoring works →
The evidence behind the widest gaps
A distance figure is worth nothing unless the scores behind it can be checked. These are the artefacts supporting the axes that separate these two most.
Kropotkin · EC −09
Abolition of private property in the means of production and of money and wages together.
- Programme textKropotkin's Conquest of Bread argues for distribution according to need with no wage system at all.
National Party · EC 00
Coded at the centre, which surprises people in both directions: extensive state ownership and racially reserved employment inside a capitalist economy.
- Documented act or statuteState corporations dominated steel, electricity, transport, oil and armaments.
- Documented act or statuteJob reservation statutes reserved skilled categories for white workers until the 1980s.
Kropotkin · CU −07
Strongly egalitarian on every inherited hierarchy, including within the family and the workplace.
- ScholarshipNineteenth-century anarchist movements campaigned for free union, secular education and women's autonomy well ahead of socialist parties.
National Party · CU +10
At the ceiling: racial classification governed marriage, residence, education and public space by statute.
- Documented act or statuteThe Immorality and Mixed Marriages Acts criminalised interracial relationships from 1949.
- Documented act or statuteBantu Education from 1953 prescribed a separate and explicitly inferior curriculum.
What this comparison does not establish
Proximity means similarity of stated position. It carries no claim about competence, circumstance, scale of operation, or what either organisation actually did to the people under it. Two organisations can sit close together and produce entirely different histories, because those things are not on any axis and could not be.
Anarcho-Communism
1872– · Russia, Europe
Abolish the state and private property simultaneously; distribution according to need through voluntary federation.
Apartheid Nationalism
1948–1994 · South Africa
Permanent legal separation of racial groups with political rights reserved to one of them.
Distance is not the whole answer. Two organisations can sit the same distance apart for entirely different reasons, and the reason is the content of any claim about them. Open the comparison in the atlas to weight the axes yourself.
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