this is post is based on a conversation i had with someone about whether we positively connect our anarchism to democracy or not, because on one hand the democratic ideal, of everyone being in power and making decisions together is pretty neat and anarchist, and that's also what many people think of when they hear democracy, but then democracies (as in democratic organisations and states) since the greek inception of the word also have almost exclusively been the ruling of a privileged few over the rest, with just enought power (or illusion of power) handed back to us that we wouldnt rebel. as one argument goes: if "democracy" literally means "rulership of the people" then who are the people?
sadly we did not kiss after the conversation :<
but i think we agreed that honestly either is fine ฅ^>⩊<^ฅ
and now: me rambling about anarchy :3
if you are wondering now "anarchy? isnt that when everyone just does whatever they want and fucks everyone else over?? isnt that just destructive chaos?"
then well, that is one definition of anarchy but it is not the anarchy that anarchists desire ;3
anarchy as anarchists understand it is a society organizing itself by anarchist principles. this expesses itself through things such as mutual aide, free association, absence or minimalization of hierarchies and direct action.
basically people getting together in all areas of their lives, to together fulfill their needs, help each other, make decisions among those affected and resolve conflicts together. it's ofc not always glamourus, no society is, but we believe that it is a better way of living and organizing and we can start building it here and now by just doing those things
important values of anarchy are equality, freedom, solidarity, consent, and uniqueness. those are also shared (or claimed to be shared) by other political movements and organizations, but i would argue that most put other things first such as upholding the current system, maintaining and extending the rulers power and such.
ofc not all anarchists think alike so at the end of the day this is just one perspective out of many
if u are intrigued now and wanna hear more about anarchism, you could check out the anarchist faq or ask in the comments but pws don't be mean
Thanks for your ramble on anarchism, it's a good read, but there are some things that always puzzle me with this ideal:
How does a society prevent, or at least reduce the chance of, tipping into "everyone just does whatever they want and fucks everyone else over"?
I can see how this works when the society is small enough that everyone knows everyone else, and can get together to self-correct. Once you get past that size limit though, which is around 150 from the studies I've seen IIRC, you're going to tend to get cliques and factions forming, who may well work against each other, especially if some resource is constrained.
Capitalism and, what I shall generously call, "representative" democracy as systems seem less at risk as they sort of rely on that behaviour to function. I'm not saying that's good, but it's resilient up to a very high level of inequality.
Absolutely! I see so many people talking about other systems, but comparatively few actually making them happen. In most places there is enough space in the current system to build small examples of different approaches and show how they work better.
The society is at a much higher chance of "everyone just does whatever they want and fucks everyone else over" when there's an imbalance of power. Like right now, with capitalism. Global superpowers and billionaires are in fact doing just that.
In an anarchist society, no single person would be able to get close to that much power/money/influence.
The thing is that is the current system, that's how it's designed to work, rather than being a risk to the system. Obviously there's a limit to that imbalance somewhere, and we may well be banging up against it, but so far the system is functioning as intended.
What happens when someone is persuasive enough get others to follow them? That allows them to consolodate both influence and potentially resources. Again, in democracy we'd probably call tgat the start of either a cult or political party, and that's how it's supposed to work, whereas in an anarchist system you want to avoid it.
Every governent structure could fall under someone who is persuasive enough it being a revolution or a cult emassing power or whatever there are ofc many things we can do to midigate this risk and things that would make this harder are weaved into most anarchist theorys
Absolutely, you're right that it can subvert any government system, but I'm mostly curious as to how an anarchist system would protect itself without that working directly against the desire for minimal hierarchy.
Ideally, no single person should be able to make decisions on behalf of other people, ever. There should be a consensus required and reached so that everyone has a say in how they live. Of course, that requires that everyone has a basic minimum level of education and quality of life, that simply wasn't possible in the societies of the past.
Sorry, I know this is probably digging into the guts of the system, but I am curious about it. I have seen the concept of "consensus" suggested as a solution to this before, but what happens when complete consensus is not possible?
Take, as a rather extreme but hopefully illustrative example, a situation where two people desperately need a replacement heart, each will certainly die soon without it, both have the same requirements, and organs that match are rare. A suitable heart arrives at the hospital both are at. Who decides which patient lives? I am certain that each patient, and their families, will insist it is them that does, and will not consent to the other receiving it in their stead. This situation could be replaced with any allocation of an important, but scarce, resource.
How is such a decision made when consensus will not occur? Should it be the medical staff who make the choice? If it is, it must eventually fall to an individual to choose unless the staff can somehow reach consensus, but in either case it is a life-or-death decision over someone else.
I realise that's a rather extreme example, but I'm not trying to set up some "gottcha", just trying to understand how this sort of system is expected to work. Every description I've read tends to just gloss over the edge cases.
Asking questions and doubting any system is right, and is the core of any anarchist movement. I don't have a ready answer for your hypothetical, unfortunately. All we can do is to push our society forward to reduce scarcity and thus reduce the chances of such grim situations occurring. And there likely won't be a one size fits all solution for such cases.
If there is truly no way to choose via consensus, perhaps a random chance can help ensure that at least one person survives. I realize that deciding life or death based on something like a coin toss is grim, but that would be one way to resolve the situation without escalating to blame and conflict.
Maybe the anarchist FAQ linked in the OP has a more in-depth answer to your question, though. I recommend you check that out of you're interested.
Thanks for taking time to answer, I appreciate the perspective, and I really appreciate the non-confrontational way you said it. I'll have a look at the FAQ because you've got me interested in how to resolve this sort of dilemma.
I only get confrontational when I'm getting argued with in bad faith :) I can never turn away genuine curiosity.
One of the things in hear from.Anarchists is that anarchy is perhaps the most common, most "natural" form of governance. That we are all born anarchists. But historically e see this same problem over and over again.
In a society which allows violence as a means to resolve disputes, those who are the best at violence are able to accumulate resources and power. Combine this with biological trends and you get patriarchy. Eventually you get people who are good at organizing, so factions or tribes form. Eventually a class structure emerges with the organizers at the top, those.who commit violence below them, and those who are good at neither at the bottom.
I have yet to see an anarchist system with a leveling mechanism that I think could actually work scale.
I wouldn't consider anarchy a "society which allows violence as a means to resolve disputes". But, I can see how you might make that assumption.
I agree that the "most natural" form of governance is actually warlord-ism, the best people at violence raid from the worst people at violence, and often amass some level of power just a little beyond what a isolated community can wield. At least recent history seems to have this happen a lot when existing governments fall.
The the descriptions of anarchy I have seen, violence is only permissive in defense of the rights of self or others, in particular but not limited to bodily autonomy and is not used to resolve disputes.
Still, I'm uneasy about the leveling mechanisms I've seen proposed to counter the hoarding behaviors that seems to be not uncommon among humans, particularly those steeped in Capitalism like myself. I also probably have trust issues.
What does this mean? I understand you go on to list the circumstances where violence could be permitted, but who exactly is doing the permitting here and how does that work? Are we expecting everyone who feels that their rights have been violated to be responsible for their own justice? If we want to ban people from using violence to achieve their own goals, or for collectivizing violence...How do you does anyone actually stop them? There are options like economic and social consequences, but when I look at world history those things can only succeed in rare scenarios.
Who judges this in an anarchist society? This is a statement that is very easy for political philosophers to make but is incredibly difficult to translate to the real world. Even on the case of individual vs individual, physical violence.
But what about the more abstract violence? Looking back at ancient history, that could be things like overhunting, overfishing, overlogging. Hoarding rain water. People living downstream of others dealing with human waste in the river they depend upon. In modern times, who do we stop people from mining and burning fossil fuels?
High marginal tax rates funding social programs has, historically, worked. Part of what is necessary for it to work though is the collective and organized threat of violence against the wealthy, for the crime of being too wealthy.
No, you are called to defend not only yourself, but others as well. Everyone is responsible both for their own and everyone else's justice. If you are more capable and willing to produce justice, you may produce more than you need. In many ways it is like all the other requirements of a good life: excess freely given, unmet need freely taken.
If someone wants to fit into some "heroic police officer" or even "hero vigilante" role, they will likely be celebrated and supported as long as their actions are heroic, but if they take any bad actions they will be reprimanded and resisted; they chosen role will not be a justification or mitigation.
Threats of violence are allowed to be neutralized by whatever means, including preemptive, defensive violence. All actions should be for the collective good, even as they are done by individuals. Collaboration, communication, and coordination are encouraged in whatever form the individuals find is best.
I think a lot of what is done depends too much on specifics to make general statements. But, anything from a strong talking to next time the offender interacts with the community to assassination to revolution-scale secretive, cellular, violent action might be justified.
Each person is their own conscience. Anyone may arbitrate, and others might comply or ignore it as their conscience dictates. Arbitration might call for violence, and if executed, that violence will surely be judged in turn.
Despoiling the commons is considered anti-social behavior and is subject to resistance. Generally this will start with a discussion, but if consensus can't be reached, property damage (e.g. destroying tools and/or machinery) will stop the worst effects with no "crimes against persons". But, persons or organizations that purposely and repeatedly engage in anti-social behavior will be treated as if they were the government and resisted potentially violently.
I don't disagree. I'm all for bringing back to 92% marginal tax bracket, getting rid of corporate welfare (particularly for petrochemical companies), and really building a safety net that ensures no one has to go without food, water, clothing, and shelter, whether they can work or not. I can defend anarchy while still working within the existing systems. Sometimes the best way to the goal actually is building up something you later will choose to tear down.
I'm not even a committed anarchist, but I know that all of your questions, and every "gotcha" question for anarchists I've ever seen, has already been considered and answered in anarchist theory, sometime many, many times -- often even refined through the practice of anarchist societies.
So the meek are dependent upon the benevolence and excess production of the strong.
This is assuming that "justice" is constant, objective, and binary, when it is none of those things.
This is also assuming the capacity exists for individuals. I could very easily choose to travel to Gaza or Ukraine right now, and I am sure I could find a way to join the Palestinians and Ukrainians in their respective fights. I am not doing that, because there are other things I want to do with my life. I could participate in some sort of community watch program if I wanted to, but I do not because I have other things I want to do with my life. We need to compel people with the threat of violence just to get them to participate in jury duty, and you expect them to suddenly dedicate their lives to defending everyone else? That is simply not how humans work.
There are no objective lines between heroic or villainous actions. Heroes and villains are works of fiction. In reality, heroes and villains are determined by messaging, public relations, and marketing.
Drive through any town in America and count how many thin blue line signs you see. These people honestly believe that the police are heroes. A lot of people think "the troops" are heroes for murdering brown people in the middle east.
The term "collective good" sounds really great in essays on political philosophies, but has been impossible to put into practice in the real world. There are some right now who believe that sacrificing our land, our water, our trees, our energy, and the work of human artisans to create AI is in favor of the "collective good".
I could have gone through your whole comment and continued, but it's all the same stuff. These are not "gotcha" questions. They are the very real and obvious flaws that are the reasons that anarchism is not popular. This is not the first time I have sought out the answers to these questions myself. I suppose our difference here is that when I read anarchist theory, I find some ideas that I like but a lot of the solutions are incredibly optimistic, or are dependent upon a world in which everyone was born into an anarchist utopia.
And I don't mean that as a particular dig at anarchy. I'm sure we could talk and agree at-length about the problems with authoritarianism of all kinds. Even my preferred system, social democracy, has some very clear and obvious flaws like protecting minorities and the state monopoly on violence. I'm in favor of elections for representative democracy in general, but electoralism has plenty of its own flaws and needs to be tempered with other forms of democracy.
The hoarding behaviours likely can be greatly alleviated by providing every human with basic societal safety nets. If you know that you'll have food, water, shelter and other basic amenities even if you lose your job (or get sick, or get old, or take a maternal/paternal leave etc), how likely are you to want to hoard money or other items just for the sake of it?
Of course, the small percentage of people would still do that, which is how we have the billionaires.
I wish that were true, but that simply does not align with my experience with people.
Are there people who would be satisfied with their basic needs being met? Yes, but I believe they are a small minority. The small percentage of people who are billionaires is not representative of all of the people who want to be, just the people who wanted to be AND SUCCEEDED. You do not know the names of the vast majority of people who have succumbed to greed and tried to become that wealthy, only to fail.
A huge factor is social status. Most people I see around me are highly concerned with how they are perceived by others. They want the job title, the bigger house, the bigger car, the expensive clothes. They want to be seen at the exclusive clubs and restaurants. They want the latest videogame console, to watch the latest movie and TV show, and be able to talk to other people about all of the #content they have consumed. That's why all these billionaires have mega-yachts - it's not because there is some correlation between sailing and business accumen, but because all of these wealthy people are using their megayachts to schmooze and show off to each other. It's why billionaires are starting to get into space travel. Most people want external validation and status over others.
Until we find a way to solve that as a species, I think we need either systems in place to prevent hoarding or we end up where we are today with the terrible consequences of wealth inequality.
We need therapy, as a species. Billionaires have become a horrible role model as they've built up this social status you've mentioned. The only real way to resolve that is to educate the humanity and also to remove them from power.
I know I would hoard less if I trusted the system for my basic needs. And, if I just get a few more years of good job, I might be ready to stop hoarding (and continue working, just with a lot more mutual aid and independent creator support going out).
But, I just don't think that's true of my father (RIP), or some of the people I met during my time in Northwest Arkansas; none of them even "millionaires" but all having a real drive to squeeze another penny out of every nickel. And, as you say, we have billionaires: any of them that aren't just handing out money every waking hour are not behaving ethically.
I just don't know that one the scale of 8b people, or even 300m people, that there aren't enough natural "hoarders" to ruin everything. But, I'm also sampling from as experience where everyone I meet is steeped in the "water" of Capitalism from the cradle, so maybe there'd be fewer natural "hoarders" in if Captialism hadn't soaked into us before puberty.
If we improve the material conditions, I believe with every generation the hoarding would diminish. Obviously, some people would need therapy or other sort of help, but I believe a very small percentage of humanity is actually irredeemable.
Material conditions have been improving for centuries and wealth inequality is arguably the worst it has ever been.
We can grow more food more efficiently than ever. We can build housing more efficiently than ever. We can make clothing more efficiently than ever. Globalization should, theoretically, greatly reduce the impacts of local disasters like earthquakes, storms, droughts, fires, etc to an extent never before seen on the planet.
Measuring income inequality throughout history and comparing it to today is challenging, but there are a lot of arguments that today's world is worse than anything we have seen before. At the very least, it is in the same conversation as notable moments in history like the Great Depression.
Well, existing inequality doesn't go away on its own just because material conditions improved.
First, they aren't improved enough to solve all the issues on their own. Second, under capitalism the wealthy are benefitting more from those improvements. And third, previous attempts at moving away from capitalism all either got taken over by dictators and turned into state-sponsored capitalism (see USSR and China), or got backstabbed and crushed by aforementioned state-sponsored capitalism (see various anarchists communes of 20th century).
We've gotta improve material conditions and eat the rich.
It all really depends on how you structure stuff some anarchist comunetys are non violent othersdo use violence but in a "controlled" manner governt by a council or other democratic organ
On the part of organizing its harder to take power where structures already use that power organizational organs wont freely give away power or infuance to warlords
Not what I said at all. Please take that argument to those that actually use it and spare me the strawman.
I see anarchist society not as past, but as future. Where technology allows everyone to have some guaranteed basic level of life and nobody is forced to do something they don't want to do in fear of death or violence.
Of course, for that we need to start with getting rid of already existing people who amassed disproportionate amount of power.
how would any anarchist society handle the existence of all the non anarchist societies around it?
"Society" kinda implies everyone is in on it already, as in it's the endpoint. If you're asking how anarchist organizations coexist with the rest of humanity, please refer to the anarchist FAQ linked in the OP and to specific organizations you're interested in.