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I think there’s a reason anarchists aren’t migrating in droves to anarchies like Haiti or Somalia.
Naive Understanding of the topic detected like
Where did you learn this talking point?
I’m going to play devil’s advocate because I think this is a learning opportunity and I want to set someone up to give a good answer.
A lot of people hear “anarchy” and equate it with a lack of government. Haiti has not had a functioning government for quite some time. What distinguishes Haiti’s situation from anarchy?
hierarchy
Literally everything, nothing about either of those places even resemble anything any anarchist philosopher ever said, anarchists aren’t even against government in the first place so the premise is nonsense.
being ruled by warlords is not anarchist.
The point stands though. Pure Anarchism is a power vacuum. There is no way to achieve a power vacuum, it will be quickly filled — the most basic way it is filled is by dictators and warlords. You want to live in a power vacuum? Ask yourself how you will enforce it and suddenly you’re no longer talking about anarchy.
Pure Anarchism is a power vacuum
power vacuums are fictions deployed by imperialist forces to justify regime change
How did gangs take control of Haiti? How did warlords take control of Somalia? I guess those governments just decided to dissolve and hand over their monopolies on violence to other groups.
I don’t know the particular histories you’re talking about, but I bet it involves private property, prisons, and policing. none of that is anarchy.
? No, power vacuums can exist and are quickly filled by any group with a modicum of power. Look at ISIS. The US deposed the Iraqi government. The new government was weak and those with a stockpile of weapons and funding from other interested countries quickly swept in and took control of large swaths of territory. They also took territory in Syria after the Arab Spring put Assad on his back foot, unable to maintain power in the east.
power vacuums are a myth
Why are they a myth?
they are a story that people tell to explain the world. but they are not a phenomenon that can be empirically tested.
The point stands though.
no, it doesn’t
Oh okay, thanks for that enlightening response.
any time.
Ask yourself how you will enforce it and suddenly you’re no longer talking about anarchy.
this is a no true Scotsman.
No we’re talking about definitions. You’re advocating for anarchy being a viable state for humankind, I’m saying practically you can’t enforce or defend its existence without turning it in to something that it is not by definition. It is practically impossible to defend a state of anarchy as it will and always has been overpowered by a more organized, hierarchical force.
it will and always has been overpowered by a more organized, hierarchical force.
you can’t prove this
You are arguing against a complete strawman, and seem to know nothing about anarchism.
Anarchism is not against government, or even some heirarchy, it’s about the abolishment of unjust heirarchy.
Pure anarchism? How do you define that, and which philosophers did you read to get to that definition?
Absence of government; the state of society where there is no law or supreme power; a state of lawlessness; political confusion.
https://gcide.gnu.org.ua/?q=Anarchy&define=Define&strategy=.
Yes, that’s a co-opted definition that doesn’t come from any anarchist philosophers. The definition has changed because people use the word differently. Note, anarchy is completely different from the political philosophy of anarchism.
There is not a single anarchist philosopher that means that definition when they say they are an anarchist, the first anarchists did not use anything resembling that definition.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarchism
Proudhon would be rolling in his grave if he knew people were saying that’s what anarchism was. There’s never been an argument made by anarchist philosophers in support of that, as it would be stupid and obviously terrible.
There’s a million terms where the definition in the dictionary has nothing to do with the academic study of it… this happens all the time in politics. The language may change, but the academic usage of the term is already established, dictionaries stay up to date with language changes, rather than using academic definitions.
Another example: the marxist definition of private property has nothing to do with the current definition, what marx meant when he said private property is property that generates capital, not your toothbrush.
You can’t prove that
it’s tautological
Prove that it is
anarchism is a system without rulers. warlords are rulers. ipso facto.
Correct. So, what happens when you have, as you say, pure anarchy without rulers and then some folks interested in power notice that you have no organized way to defend yourself? They take the power easily. These people are often warlords. That’s why anarchy is so closely associated with such things, because anarchy is a power vacuum. That vacuum is easily filled. The most rudimentary thing that can fill it are warlords.
power vacuums do not exist in fact. you’re telling a story based on a myth.
what makes you think a community would not keep the means to defend itself and it’s neighbors?
In the absence of other power structures (political, legal, religious, economic, etc) whoever has the means and willingness to do violence will exert their will over others. Unstructured societies always devolve into might makes right.
Unstructured societies always devolve into might makes right.
you can’t prove this
Theoretically maybe, but empirically, humanity was completely unstructured at the beginning and currently not a single anarchist society exists. Why do you think everyone transformed into various kinds of nation-states eventually? Because nation-states were exceptionally good at filling that “power vacuum”. To overpower nation-states, something at least comparable is needed. Transnational corporations/syndicates/unions, something like that.
currently not a single anarchist society exists.
that’s a lie
In the context of previous message I meant anarchist society comparable to state, at least very small state. Not just a club of shared interests with members living their lives in regular nation-states. Do you have any examples in mind?
they’re going to say rojava lol
anarchist society comparable to state
a what?!
Something that can replace state, at least basic stuff like economy and infrastructure.
Which ones? There are few places on Earth that are not under practical control of a formal government and legal system, and most of those places are either unpopulated or controlled by various local power brokers.
exarcheia and anabaptist sects come directly to mind, but you’ve just excluded them for some reason. it seems like no-true Scotsman to me.
exarcheia and anabaptist
Do those guys build their own roads, pipes for water and heat, homes, bake bread, make drugs, provide healthcare? Or do they depend on external nation-states and their economy to exist?
It seems like a pretty good reason to exclude them, considering the criticism being discuss was specifically that they would inevitably decay in to a “might makes right” situation. Communities existing in a situation where police and courts would prevent someone from taking over by force disqualifies them from disproving this hypothesis.
there simply isn’t evidence of some causal mechanism by anarchist societies must decay. their hypothesis can’t be proven. I didn’t even know how it could be tested.
humanity was completely unstructured at the beginning
can you cite this?
https://anarwiki.org/List_of_Anarchist_Societies
Also, you list syndicates as an example, which is an anarchist belief.
There is a difference between Anomie and anarchy
Just because there are no leaders/rulers, doesn’t mean there are no social rules or morale values.
A law doesn’t keep one from doing bad stuff.
Else we wouldn’t have murderers.But society must grow and develop. At the current state anarchy probably wouldn’t work…
a law doesn’t keep one from doing bad stuff
that’s true, they need to be enforced somehow…
In anarchism, usually policing is handled rotationally, like most positions of authority.
what do you do if there’s not enough people that want and are skilled enough to fill the positions
What do you do if that happens in non-anarchist societies?
They’re enforced now but murder still happens.
That doesn’t prove that not enforcing them would somehow make murder disappear, it just proves that you can’t absolutely eliminate a behavior. Every action has diminishing returns.
I can remove some of the heat from an object by putting it in the fridge. I can remove more by putting it in the freezer, but that requires more energy. I can remove even more by using more and more sophisticated scientific equipment, but I can never reduce the temperature to absolute zero. That doesn’t mean the soda in my fridge isn’t colder than one on the counter.
Perfect results aren’t obtainable except in trivial cases.
To your point though diminishing returns. When is it worth it. You’ve just a conceded that enforcing said laws don’t actually prevent the crime. I would say enforcement never prevents any crime and enforcement is about punishment not prevention. So when is it worth it? What level totalitarianism an authoritarianism is worth it? How much abuse and Injustice is necessary to assuage your fears about the other? Surely you’re not going to sit here and tell me only fear of punishment is what stops you from murdering people?
I would say enforcement never prevents any crime and enforcement is about punishment not prevention. So when is it worth it? What level totalitarianism an authoritarianism is worth it? How much abuse and Injustice is necessary to assuage your fears about the other? Surely you’re not going to sit here and tell me only fear of punishment is what stops you from murdering people?
What if we focused on resolving systemic issues that might provide motivation to prevent crime? What if we focused on rehabilitation instead of punishment for those that commit crimes anyway?
Sure, you can take any idea to an extreme strawman and shriek things like “authoritarianism!” but that means nothing.
we should do all that and have law enforcement
Saying “enforcement never prevents any crime” is just naive. Say what you want about the american justice system, but even over there, they’ve incarcerated repeat offenders of assault, robbery, etc. where the incarceration itself most definitely prevents them from harming more people.
If you’re talking about actual prevention, just look to the programs enforced in several European countries that have provably been very effective in taking people who have been living off crime and turning them into productive citizens of society.
Yes, it’s been shown several times that fear of punishment is extremely ineffective at preventing crime. That doesn’t mean law enforcement doesn’t prevent crime. Putting a person that abuses their family in jail most definitely prevents them from continuing to abuse their family.
You’ve just a conceded that enforcing said laws don’t actually prevent the crime
Except I didn’t concede that? I said enforcing laws doesn’t totally eliminate crime, in the same way that putting a soda in the fridge doesn’t drop the temperature to 0K. Enforcing laws reduces crime.
I would say enforcement never prevents any crime
I would say you’re demonstrably incorrect.
and enforcement is about punishment not prevention.
Punishment is the method of prevention. Additionally, incarceration is in part about removing law breakers from polite society so they do not continue to break laws. We quarantine the murderers so they don’t keep murdering people.
So when is it worth it?
As with most things in life, we decide on a reasonable compromise. Putting a soda in the fridge is beneficial, putting it in the freezer is too much, and causes more problems than it solves. We decide these things collectively as a society, by electing representatives to draft laws. When they overstep, we elect new representatives to change the laws.
How much abuse and Injustice is necessary to assuage your fears about the other?
What’s abusive and unjust about trying to prevent murderers? Where’s the justice for victims and their families if as a society we just say “Golly, sorry this guy killed your children, but if we punished him we’d be just as bad”? How do you recommend reducing the injustices people enact against each other?
Surely you’re not going to sit here and tell me only fear of punishment is what stops you from murdering people?
Me personally? Of course not. But obviously some people want to do crimes. You can’t build a society based on everyone behaving just like you all the time. Some people are more violent, or greedy, or deceptive. We are barely domesticated apes, jungle impulses course through us all. Some more than others. Without some mechanism to curtail that, consequences that outweigh the benefits of selfish behavior, you wind up back at might-makes-right anyway when the selfish behave selfishly with no recourse.
I think it’s great. We should fucking try it.
Seriously, though, I think it would be nice but it’s going to be impossible unless you can fully get rid of greedy, corrupt, power hungry pieces of shit with zero empathy.
So as long as the the greedy, power-hungry pieces of shit have at least some empathy, we can make it work?
It at least shows they could possibly be rehabilitated.
I guess what I’m saying is that an individual with lack of empathy is much less of a problem for an egalitarian society than one that seeks power. And yes, even empathic individuals seek power.
The problem is one of human nature. We need a society that works for humans, and that means a system that puts limits on the worst parts of human nature. Saying “this will work when people behave better” means it’s never going to work.
And to be clear: I think this is one of the big advantages that anarchism has over, say, socialism. With no power apparatus to corrupt, there’s less of a target for the corrupt power-seekers.
But it needs to be structured in a way that reinforces eusocial behavior and disincentivizes antisocial behavior; further, the mechanisms for those reinforcements and disincentives needs to be communal rather than centralized, or someone will steal the reinforcement apparatus for their own selfish ends.
Don’t forget the morons who keep worshipping said pieces of shit. Even now, I run into Musk cultists regularly.
The end goal of civilization.
Stateless, Egalitarian societies.
Responsible anarchism is a good ideal to aim for, but in pure form it’s utopian. Realistic way to get closer to this ideal is shifting to stateless/borderless societies that center around some alternative entities other than geopolitical nation-states.
It depends on the definition
The definition is whatever you want the definition to be. Don’t let others force a definition on you.
That it’s basically the lefty equivalent to a libertarian. Both of those philosophies seem juvenile to me in a “I don’t want to, and you can’t make me” kind of way. Call me old fashioned, but I like structure as long as it’s not totalitarian. I’m happy to pay taxes as long as they’re going toward the benefit of society. Granted, that largely hasn’t been the case, but I don’t think we need to throw the baby out with the bathwater either.
Recent events have also highlighted how much my taxes actually were going toward the betterment of society (though still not nearly enough), and that I had taken them for granted until they were recently axed/defunded.
Anarchists aren’t against government, or even taxes, they’re against the state, which is different.
you defeated a strawman, no anarchist philosopher would disagree that that would be stupid
You got it. Both anarchist and libertarian systems are what children come up with once they mature just enough to see how governments work.
Which anarchist philosophers did you read to come to that conclusion?
I consider myself an anarcho-pragmatist. It would be nice not to have any rulers or an hierarchy. But I also know people well enough to know that unless we defer any decision making to a supercomputer everyone trusts, we’re going to need some form of societal structure.
No one will unanimously trust a computer model. People will try to undermine and destroy it. So, the question would then be, how do you stop that? And suddenly you’re not really talking about anarchy. The computer will need to enforce its existence through violence.
I think that if humanity can manage to survive long enough, anarchism is inevitable.
It’s essentially the adult stage of human society - the point at which humans collectively and consistently, rather than just individually and situationally, can be trusted to generally do the right thing simply because it’s the right thing and therefore the most reasonable thing to do.
For the time being and the foreseeable future though, humanity is nowhere even close to that. Through the course of history, human society has managed to advance to about the equivalent of adolescence. There’s still a long way to go.
In spite of that, I do identify as an anarchist, but my advocacy is focused on the ideal and the steps humanity as a whole has to take to achieve it. I think it’s plainly obvious that it cannot be implemented, since any mechanism by which it might be inplemented would necessarily violate the very principles that define it. It can only be willingly adopted by each and all (or close enough as makes no meaningful difference), and that point will come whenever (if) it comes.
Even when people will do the right thing in 99.99% of situations, there will still need to be rules.
Just take a look at how game theory works. Anyone exploiting those mechanism in a group even if only one in a thousand, could devastate a society in no time , if it’s naive enough to not have rules and norms for correct behavior, even when they are not usually needed.I do like your thinking though, and I also have dreams of a future society where criminals are not punished but nurtured. Because it must have been awful to have been in a state of mind, to want to do something to hurt others.
I’m not sure it’s possible though. But it is the ideal we should hopefully at some point strive for. But there still needs to be standards or “rules” for when people need help to be readjusted to functioning normally in society, if they get “confused”.
But I still don’t think anarchy will work, because so many things will need to be structured, and societies are getting bigger and more complex, which increases the need for rules to make societies work. So instead of anarchy I think we must expect more rules not fewer.
But probably in the future, many rules will be for machines and not for humans?
Anarchy doesn’t mean no rules, it means no rulers.
OK so how are the rules upheld?
A democracy is a rule by the people who are ruled. What function would make anarchy better?
Who is this ruler that isn’t present? How are rules decided? Who enforces those rules?
The only way I see to perform these functions rationally is by democracy.Democracy (proper democracy) is literally a social contract my dude. Anarchism uses democracy and consensus to make decisions. Are laws the only thing keeping you from not doing things??
Yes laws are the reason I drive on the right for instance. It is very practical that we all use the same laws in traffic.
Now you may think this is obvious, but compared to many other things, traffic is dead simple. Without regulations it will be chaos, and meaningful form of anarchy is chaos.You can’t have consensus on everything in any society, it’s impossible, so if Anarchy is merely democracy, why than call it anarchy?
Because anarchy isn’t chaos my dude. And funny you should bring up traffic laws considering many countries have different traffic laws - and yet no one has an issue with that. Hasn’t disturbed anyone.
Anarchy isn’t just democracy (which technically, democracy is a no-cracy since the “power” being in the hands of the people - aka everyone - makes it obsolete, so there isn’t really a -cracy). Anarchism looks at existing systems and unravels them little by little and pinpoints which aspects of our behaviour and our lives have been dictated by what - and how they would be different if no one forced them to be so. In an anarchist society there wouldn’t be much to agree on concerning traffic safety because, simply put, it would follow the standard method of figuring out what works, like how traffic laws are mostly made now. Only difference is if a rule was deemed unhelpful or harmful, the people could contest it a lot more easily because they give a shit about their loved one’s safety
funny you should bring up traffic laws considering many countries have different traffic laws - and yet no one has an issue with that. Hasn’t disturbed anyone.
Oh boy maybe I should just rest my case here. Who claimed the rules had to be the same in different countries? Choosing to drive on the left or right is completely arbitrary, which is why a decision needs to be made to improve the flow of traffic and lower accidents. Without rules for traffic it would be chaotic.
Your response is arguing a complete strawman, why the fuck would I have a problem with a tiny island like Japan and Great Britain drive on the left?
What I DO have an issue with is ghost drivers on the Autobahn that drive in the wrong side of the road at high speed. How is that not obvious? … Well I guess it’s not obvious in much the same way it’s not obvious to you that anarchy can’t work at scale much beyond small tribal groups.
You can’t have consensus on everything in any society, it’s impossible, so if Anarchy is merely democracy, why than call it anarchy?
- That’s why you default to a vote in cases where consensus is impossible
- because it’s about the abolishment of unjust heirarchy, please read the work of proudhon, bakunin, or kropotkin before giving your opinions on anarchism.
next you’ll say “but there are so many laws and so little time for normal people, how can we vote and do consensus on everything?”
to which I will respond, can you point me to a historical example of this being a problem?
You may then say, there’s never been any anarchist societies
Oh boy I love how the Freetown Christiania is first on that list. Since that’s a place I actually know very well.
You list is bullshit, that’s like saying 5 friends are an anarchist society. Those are NOT self governing societies. They are under the rules of countries.
If any are not, they are probably just very small cult like communities.They do not run factories power-plants, electricity grids, infrastructure or anything of any serious scale, and are in no way models for how to run a country.
Freetown Christiania had lots of problems with crime, and they also had huge problem of elitism as in very few people actually decided everything, the power structure is/was very much based on who had lived there from the beginning.
All this anarchy idealism/ideology is bullshit that doesn’t work in real self governing societies. Of course it can work for small groups, like what the fuck, just because I live in a street where we help each other, we don’t form a government and police for that!
Christiana may have called themselves autonomous, but they never where in any meaningful sense of the word. And the truth is they needed help from criminal rocker gangs to get rid of widespread sales of hard drugs. And later they chose to legalize according to Danish law, and called on help from the real police to get rid of the remaining drug sales. Christiana today a mostly normal part of Copenhagen today, but maybe still influenced more than average by the 70’s flower power roots, although there was never any flower power in the way that society was run.
Christiania was always 100% depending on the normal society they existed within, the dependence wasn’t superficial either but for EVERYTHING, Jobs, hospitals, doctors, sewage, electricity. Christiania was never much more than a football club deciding to play by their own rules. They can do that, but they still live in a society where everything is governed by the rules of the country and the city.I’m sorry, but your dream is an impossible lie. And you just proved your complete inability to demonstrate any self governing society of any significant size that function by a system of anarchy. By significant size, I’d say it needs to be at least 50000 people, to have any significance to show it as a working model at a scale above a tiny tribal community where everybody mostly know each other.
Anarchism uses democracy and consensus to make decisions
Genuine question: Is that not a democracy?
No, as there are no leaders
In a democracy you give your vote and have no say afterwards.
In an anarchy people need to work out their social rules together.
There could also be Anarchist societies with a police force, that ensures the basic democratically created roles of that society are followed - like protecting people from just more muscle who want to rape or steal from them.In a democracy you give your vote and have no say afterwards.
You’re restricting democracy to mean representative democracy?
It could be? Being a democracy or using democracy as a tool for decision making doesn’t mean it has to happen through government. If you’ve ever made a decision with a friend group via popular vote, does that make you a government? Or did you exercise authority over your friends when they all agreed popular vote was okay to decide where to eat out? I wager neither
And fyi, you’re thinking of a representative democracy, which is rarely ever truly fair, especially considering the scale it’s supposedly applied to.
I don’t think practically you could end up with a state of anarchism because it implies that humans can exist in a power vacuum. Something will always fill that vacuum. Now, the question is what is that thing? It can take a lot of forms. The goal should be to make it serve the qualitative needs of most people - food, shelter, well being, safety. People advocating for true anarchy are usually doing so from a naive idealism. Idealism is often good, but sometimes ignores other factors that make the ideal impossible to achieve.
Anarchists are not against government, they’re against the state, and these are two different things.
They are also not against rules, there’s no power vacuum because power is held by consensus. I don’t think you’ve ever read an anarchist philosopher, based on this take.
Absence of government; the state of society where there is no law or supreme power; a state of lawlessness; political confusion
https://gcide.gnu.org.ua/?q=Anarchy&define=Define&strategy=.
Whatever you’re arguing for, I’d suggest using another word
Yes, that’s a co-opted definition that doesn’t come from any anarchist philosophers. The definition has changed because people use the word differently. Note, anarchy is completely different from the political philosophy of anarchism.
There is not a single anarchist philosopher that means that definition when they say they are an anarchist, the first anarchists did not use anything resembling that definition.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarchism
Proudhon would be rolling in his grave if he knew people were saying that’s what anarchism was. There’s never been an argument made by anarchist philosophers in support of that, as it would be stupid and obviously terrible.
I should not have to change that i’m an anarchist when I know what the word means, just because people are using it to mean something else, it’s the political philosophers that established it that get to own the term, not colloquial speech.
There’s a million terms where the definition in the dictionary has nothing to do with the academic study of it… this happens all the time in politics. The language may change, but the academic usage of the term is already established, dictionaries stay up to date with language changes, rather than using academic definitions.
Another example: the marxist definition of private property has nothing to do with the current definition, what marx meant when he said private property is property that generates capital, not your toothbrush.
I think it’s one gun away from a dictatorship.
For power to be safely devolved to the people there need to be resilient structures in place to prevent a bad actor from simply wresting control by force.
Also, I think that while it solves societal issues well for the most personal of personal liberties it fails to properly add in protections from the liberties of others that may be imposed on you… i.e. a spouse trying to escape an abusive relationship will find sparse services to support them.
Lastly, I like trains. Trains don’t happen in a reasonable time-frame without a strong centralized government. In the UK a coop recently opened a new train line… I think it took them 30+ years.
For power to be safely devolved to the people there need to be resilient structures in place to prevent a bad actor from simply wresting control by force.
Why do you think this is incompatible with anarchism?
Also, I think that while it solves societal issues well for the most personal of personal liberties it fails to properly add in protections from the liberties of others that may be imposed on you… i.e. a spouse trying to escape an abusive relationship will find sparse services to support them.
Why can’t they simply vote on such laws being absolute, and hard to change, like we currently do in non-anarchist democracies?
Trains don’t happen in a reasonable time-frame without a strong centralized government. In the UK a coop recently opened a new train line… I think it took them 30+ years.
Why did it take them 30+ years? Why couldn’t an anarchist society simply vote to build a new train line?
For power to be safely devolved to the people there need to be resilient structures in place to prevent a bad actor from simply wresting control by force.
Why do you think this is incompatible with anarchism?
There still must be a state with the capacity for violence to prevent strongman takeovers. Most descriptions of anarchism generally exclude the existence of a unified state and often exclude any form of non-individual violence.
Also, I think that while it solves societal issues well for the most personal of personal liberties it fails to properly add in protections from the liberties of others that may be imposed on you… i.e. a spouse trying to escape an abusive relationship will find sparse services to support them.
Why can’t they simply vote on such laws being absolute, and hard to change, like we currently do in non-anarchist democracies?
What state apparatus would be preserved into anarchism that would provide these supports and how would it be funded? Additionally, how would we reconcile the lack of a state with the need for apparatuses to oppose individual suppression that are necessarily authoritarian and imbued with violence. Think first about a village of good people with one abusive relationship - that village can perhaps support the spouse in escaping that relationship. Think now about an evangelical or Mormon community with widespread and socially accepted spousal abuse - a solution to that abuse will almost never emerge internally. An outside authority imbued with the power of violence by a large populace is required to make that situation just - and that justice will come against the majority opinion of that locale.
Shit like this has happened in the past - most cult raids you’ve heard of were breaking up situations where everyone made a voluntary choice with the assistance of coercion and other disabling factors.
Trains don’t happen in a reasonable time-frame without a strong centralized government. In the UK a coop recently opened a new train line… I think it took them 30+ years.
Why did it take them 30+ years? Why couldn’t an anarchist society simply vote to build a new train line?
It took them 30+ years because they needed to privately fund it. I think you may be confusing anarchy with council republics or other devolved and federated forms of governments (like Lenin’s idealized Soviets - not to be confused with the USSR).
It’s important also to look at the costs of devolution of power. After the first Trump term human rights around reproductive care were devolved to be the decision of the states - that devolution of power resulted in less freedoms for individuals.
People like to focus on the “I can do…” freedoms in US political thought but I think some of our most important freedoms are “I can refuse to have … done to me” freedoms - and those two freedoms are always in opposition. Someone wants to not be murdered and someone else wants to murder them - no matter the outcome someone is having their freedom restrained.
There still must be a state with the capacity for violence to prevent strongman takeovers. Most descriptions of anarchism generally exclude the existence of a unified state and often exclude any form of non-individual violence.
Yeah, against the state, but not a government, which in anarchist philosophy are two different things.
What state apparatus would be preserved into anarchism that would provide these supports and how would it be funded?
None, but plenty of government apparatuses would exist with funding through taxes…
Additionally, how would we reconcile the lack of a state with the need for apparatuses to oppose individual suppression that are necessarily authoritarian and imbued with violence.
Usually through rotational authority, again, this shows you haven’t read any anarchist philosophy.
Think first about a village of good people with one abusive relationship - that village can perhaps support the spouse in escaping that relationship. Think now about an evangelical or Mormon community with widespread and socially accepted spousal abuse - a solution to that abuse will almost never emerge internally. An outside authority imbued with the power of violence by a large populace is required to make that situation just - and that justice will come against the majority opinion of that locale.
rotational. authority.
Shit like this has happened in the past - most cult raids you’ve heard of were breaking up situations where everyone made a voluntary choice with the assistance of coercion and other disabling factors.
no anarchist philosophers supported cult-like systems.
It took them 30+ years because they needed to privately fund it. I think you may be confusing anarchy with council republics or other devolved and federated forms of governments (like Lenin’s idealized Soviets - not to be confused with the USSR).
Their need to privately fund it only exists in a society that isn’t anarchist. I’m not confusing anarchy, I’ve read my anarchist philosophy, and could talk to you about the beliefs of bakunin, proudhon, and kropotkin, there’s others, but those are the basic ones.
It’s important also to look at the costs of devolution of power. After the first Trump term human rights around reproductive care were devolved to be the decision of the states - that devolution of power resulted in less freedoms for individuals.
Sure, it is important, but I don’t see what that has to do with our discussion.
People like to focus on the “I can do…” freedoms in US political thought but I think some of our most important freedoms are “I can refuse to have … done to me” freedoms - and those two freedoms are always in opposition. Someone wants to not be murdered and someone else wants to murder them - no matter the outcome someone is having their freedom restrained.
yup, that’s true, don’t know what it has to do with anything though.
Anarchy is the worst a society can devolve into.
And people who believe that certain anarchy “models” can work, know nothing about the psychology of larger groups.
When large groups of people need to live together there needs to be structure and rules that must be respected, and the rules need to be upheld by a governing body.
The best way we have to form that governing body is democracy.I don’t disagree… But that’s not how society operates historically or currently.
Closest we ever came to that us post ww2 era in some countries.
It has regressed into the circus we got eight now since then.
Life is untenable for the majority already, it will get worse.
I’m not sure, but I think maybe you are using USA as the norm, but USA is not a good example of a democracy, it is ranked as a FLAWED democracy. And it’s been my opinion for more than a decade that USA is ranked way too high. An essentially 2 party system is not a real democracy.
Democracies that actually work are for instance the Scandinavian countries:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Economist_Democracy_IndexLife is untenable for the majority already, it will get worse.
All the countries with the highest democracy ranks, have way less poverty than USA, also when USA is the far richer country, all have healthcare for all, free education, and also generally people have high satisfaction about their lives.
I agree USA has devolved badly in many ways since the start of the 80’s. Hopefully it will turn around at some point. But it’s hard to see it taking on a lasting course for improvements without a pretty serious modernization of their democracy, and cleaning up the corruption and exaggerated power of the super rich.
same thing that US oligarchs are doing within US is happening across OECD jurisdictions.
ie a broad assault on housing, education, healthcare and over all quality of life.
Fertility rates speak for themselves… including in the normie’s beloved scandi geos.
Swedish state is being dismantled as we speak too… and check this out, migrants are being used to do this lol can’t make this shit up.
UK is turned into more dystopian version of US, outright war on the poors.
German’s are having hard time maintaining their indsutrial base due to poor economic policy planning due to muttie Angela good work.
France’s Macron is a neo lyb acolyte. EE is doing decent economically and developing but they are just now hitting EU avgs.
neo lib regimes are working OT on dismantling any safety net they can get their hands on. “Democracy” aint stopping them, they polarized everything into America style left/right and gutting nations from within while making a few parasites can get wealthy
When large groups of people need to live together there needs to be structure and rules that must be respected, and the rules need to be upheld by a governing body.
you can’t prove this.
As I stated, people defending anarchy doesn’t understand the psychology of larger groups.
I can only say that EVERY successful society has a central government. If Anarchy could work as well, how come there are no successful anarchy societies?
Not as in so few, but NONE! If it should work so well, why has no country ever even tried? When a country is thrown into anarchy because the government is removed, and nothing replaces it. It always turns out the same. Extreme violence, theft and hunger.
That’s what is shown to happen when Anarchy reigns.can only say that EVERY successful society has a central government.
you don’t define success.
I absolutely do, as in NOT being dominated by Extreme violence, theft and hunger.
you’re describing capitalism
So how do you imagine Anarchy could work without capitalism. Even communist countries have a capitalist element.
communism is stateless. whatever you’re talking about isn’t communist. anarchy works through mutual aid.
If Anarchy could work as well, how come there are no successful anarchy societies.
there are
Bullshit.
exarcheia, the Paris commune, and the swamp maroons come right to mind, as well as anabaptists
This is what I get when I search “Exarcheia paris”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exarcheia
In December 2008, the murder of 15-year-old Alexandros Grigoropoulos by a policeman in Exarcheia caused rioting throughout Greece.
I have no idea what you are trying to argue here, but as far as I can tell Exarcheia is neither self governing or has anarchy and it isn’t in Paris, but in Greece???
You are extremely sloppy at trying to arguing your point.
if you don’t know exarcheia and the Paris commune are separate societies, you’re not qualified to discuss the practicality of if anarchism
Anarchists believe in a government with direct democracy, you are arguing against a strawman
Oh you mean a democracy that isn’t flawed like the USA.
Scandinavian countries have direct democracy, as in voting on their representatives directly, and they are in no way anarchist.Maybe you mean general elections on every detail of law, but again, that’s impossible, it’s stupid, it’s a waste of time and resources to have people decide how farmers interact with suppliers and dairy, something 99.9% of all people have no knowledge of.
It’s stupid because it’s impossible. You could also say it’s decidedly insane.
Maybe you mean general elections on every detail of law, but again, that’s impossible, it’s stupid, it’s a waste of time and resources to have people decide how farmers interact with suppliers and dairy, something 99.9% of all people have no knowledge of.
this is not a problem in any real world anarchist society that has ever existed, can you give one example of this being a problem? What actually happens is building law through consensus, look at the way the zapatistas organize for example.
showing up to the meetings isn’t mandatory, but they have one day off where everyone is allowed to participate, in the event of a tie, they vote, but most decisions are made through consensus.
also I think you vastly overestimate how much laws need to be changed, lawmakers will not endlessly go back and forth about unimportant things. did you know most members of congress in the US don’t even read the bills they sign? How much work is it really to help with making law once a week or so?
representative democracy is not direct democracy to be clear
this is not a problem in any real world anarchist society that has ever existed
As in none.
There are tons, they just are usually destroyed by outside forces
Oh boy I love how the Freetown Christiania is first on that list. Since that’s a place I actually know very well.
You list is bullshit, that’s like saying 5 friends are an anarchist society. Those are NOT self governing societies. They are under the rules of countries.
If any are not, they are probably just very small cult like communities.They do not run factories power-plants, electricity grids, infrastructure or anything of any serious scale, and are in no way models for how to run a country.
Freetown Christiania had lots of problems with crime, and they also had huge problem of elitism as in very few people actually decided everything, the power structure is/was very much based on who had lived there from the beginning.
All this anarchy idealism/ideology is bullshit that doesn’t work in real self governing societies. Of course it can work for small groups, like what the fuck, just because I live in a street where we help each other, we don’t form a government and police for that!
Christiana may have called themselves autonomous, but they never where in any meaningful sense of the word. And the truth is they needed help from criminal rocker gangs to get rid of widespread sales of hard drugs. And later they chose to legalize according to Danish law, and called on help from the real police to get rid of the remaining drug sales. Christiana today a mostly normal part of Copenhagen today, but maybe still influenced more than average by the 70’s flower power roots, although there was never any flower power in the way that society was run.
Christiania was always 100% depending on the normal society they existed within, the dependence wasn’t superficial either but for EVERYTHING, Jobs, hospitals, doctors, sewage, electricity. Christiania was never much more than a football club deciding to play by their own rules. They can do that, but they still live in a society where everything is governed by the rules of the country and the city.I’m sorry, but your dream is an impossible lie. And you just proved your complete inability to demonstrate any self governing society of any significant size that function by a system of anarchy. By significant size, I’d say it needs to be at least 50000 people, to have any significance to show it as a working model at a scale above a tiny tribal community where everybody mostly know each other.
I don’t know anything about or care about christiana, so, i’ll just assume you’re right about all that, but it really doesn’t matter. Problems with one society do not mean the ideology is fundamentally flawed, it just means that society was flawed, you’ll have to demonstrate issues with the fundamental ideology that apply to all anarchist societies, not some of them.
“They are usually destroyed by outside forces”
By significant size, I’d say it needs to be at least 50000 people
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolutionary_Catalonia
again you haven’t even begun to research the topic, but are very confident.
before you say, revolutionary catalonia doesn’t exist anymore, yeah, that’s what happens when fascists destroy you with a military, you’ll note none of the issue was internal politics…
Every single capitalist country immediately dogpiles and tries to destroy any anarchist movement, that doesn’t mean anarchism is fundamentally flawed.
coupled with communism it’s the real shit
Pls no anarcho capitalism. A good breakdown of the topic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HTN64g9lA2g&t=1
I see it as a guideline for how society could be structured after the elimination of class.
