Anti-natalism as codswallop

Text: https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/anonymous-antinatalism-as-revol…

This text seeks to syntheses anarcho-communism with the philosophy of anti-natalism. You know the text is anarchist, because they state:

"We begin with the axiom that the perfect and most satisfactory society is that built upon the ideals of anarchocommunism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarchist_communism), a society that is in agreement with the basic propositions of Kropotkin. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kropotkin)"

It is quite difficult to find any other content indicating this text is anarchist. Exactly what the "ideals of anarcho-communism" are, they cannot be bothered to explain, but simply link to Wikipedia instead. This is already off to a bad start.

Their basic argument is that proletarian reproduction helps sustain capitalism, therefore proletarians should not reproduce, and that is revolutionary, somehow. What exactly is expected to happen if proletarians did some kind of reproductive strike? Does this cause a labour shortage? Exactly how this brings any group closer to revolution or the abolition of capitalism is not explained.

This text also seems not to be taking the full anti-natalist position, as they do not argue against reproduction due to "negative experiences" being a necessary part of life, but instead they only seem concerned with the negative experiences caused by capitalism:

"Since our society today is not anarchocommunist, the proletarian lives a life full of negative experiences: debt, hunger, imprisonment, and fighting the wars of the elite. "

This implies they would be fine with reproduction in an anarcho-communist society. This is so obviously absurd. Just as the author(s) can say that proletarians ought not to reproduce because it sustains capitalism, I can say that the proletarians ought to reproduce due to the "revolutionary potential" of a proletariat large in size. In fact, it may be an ethical obligation for the proletariat to reproduce! There is power in numbers, so go forth now and reproduce! We must beat the capitalists by over powering them with proletariat babies! Any such claim is obviously ridiculous. Asking anybody to reproduce or not reproduce for ideology is so clearly an overstep of boundaries.

The other issue I take with this text is what it seems to implicitly state about the reproduction of capitalists. If my previous assessment is right, in that they do not take the full anti-natalist position, then do they believe that capitalists reproducing is fine, because their lives are less full of "negative experiences"? If they do not take this position, then they either have not fully extended their logic, or they instead take the full anti-natalist position, that no reproduction is good. In which case, why call yourself an anarchist? What would be the point of building an anarchist future when you do not believe in a human future?

Finally, the most unfortunate thing about this text is that the author(s) cannot even commit to their own position. For they say:

"We do not claim that we have a complete or "correct" answer to the issue of the desirability of child-bearing by proletarians. We simply provide an answer to this issue from a viewpoint that mixes antinatalism with anarchocommunism"

So what's the bloody point?
Their piece feels just as haphazardly thrown together as my critique of it. A complete distraction from anything real.
Perhaps anti-natalism and anarcho-communism can be synthesised successfully (I doubt it), and if so, I would be interested to read a strong argument for it, but this text fails at its aim.