cross-posted from: https://piefed.blahaj.zone/c/politicalmemes/p/392491/do-you-agree
Do you agree?
this post was submitted on 09 Nov 2025
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How do you build such a system though? Every system is eventually exploitable. The US system of checks and balances was actually a pretty solid attempt, but it eventually fell to corruption. The USSR was a noble attempt, but it eventually fell to corruption.
How do you construct a system which has the authority to prevent corrupt individuals from oppressing others, but doesn't oppress people itself?
Neither the USSR or the US were good attempts imo.
They both used authoritarian tactics to shut down dissenting opinions since the very beginning.
The idea here would be bottom up power, not top down.
How do you build that though? I'm all for distributed power, I think the ideal system for this point in history is a highly federated iterative representative system starting at the neighborhood level, but that still puts larger regional power in representatives.
How do you build a system that has no authoritarian component, but can still respond to people oppressing one another? There will always be natural born sociopaths, how do you thread the needle of preventing those sociopaths from stealing, raping, murdering, etc. while not creating offices for sociopaths to abuse?
Regulating a system comes down to understanding logistic curves. I like to refer to the general concept of a justice system:
You can get the majority of your violent criminals behind bars, but the collateral damage is a lot of innocent people in there with them.
Or you can keep the majority of your innocent people out of prison, but the collateral damage is a lot of violent criminals out there with them.
You've got to find the acceptable middle ground between tyranny and negligence.
I think the US Legislative, Judicial, Executive system is a pretty good attempt. I think it's probably a good framework for anything that replaces it. Obviously it needs some major tweaks, but I've explored most of the left side of the political spectrum and devoted a lot of time to theory-crafting, and it's hard to come up with a more resilient basis for a system.
Sincerely I want to know, how would a system that preserves democracy look substantially different? You still need to decide on policy, you need to direct that policy, and you need to review that policy to make sure that everything is being done in accordance with the stated will of the people.
In my dreams, leftists sweep Congress and call a Constitutional Convention, and change less than you might think.
Only if they're dynamic an instantly recallable at any moment. Why not have people represent their own interests directly, again?
That introduces its own vectors of dysfunction and abuse. What triggers a recall? How do you cope with the inherent instability when a recall can happen at any time?
And people can't represent their own interests, most of them know nothing about the intricacies of supporting a functioning civilization. Direct democracy is a breeding ground for celebrity demagogues.
There was never a time in American history where checks and balances actually protected the rights of anyone. Nothing we are seeing today is new. This is how the system has always worked.
Also hierarchical authority is incapable of fighting corruption.
What is capable of fighting corruption?
Non-hierarchical systems where power of authority comes from the bottom up through mutual agreements between participants to ensure no singular entity within the government can command control of another.
Have you even attempted to read any anarchist theory? This is Anarchism 101
I have, and I get that, but how is that meaningfully different from the US system as it's designed? The states joined together in a mutual agreement, politicians are supposed to be temporary representatives, the three branches are supposed to check each other. And yet, corruption.
Like how would a successful system look substantially different? How do you fix the vulnerabilities while still having a system which fulfills the needs it's designed for? All the theory I've read either focuses on conceptual principles and hand-waves the implementation, or winds up inventing something that looks an awful lot like the existing system.
I'm not saying I'm opposed to the principles of anarchism, I just sincerely don't understand what kind of structure is expected to accomplish them.
Simple. You create a culture where that shit isn't allowed. Make each person an informed educated sovereign of themselves.
Collaborate non-coercively, by any of dozens of mechanisms, and just don't be a piece of shit. If someone is a piece of shit, abd can't be helped to not, attempt to ostracize.
And don't pretend anything bad is prevented by current hierarchy. Fuck off with that shit.
USSR was still a state, so of course it didn't work. You need to eliminate power structures
You can't eliminate power structures. You can eliminate existing power structures, but all you've accomplished is removing checks on new upstart power structures: warlords, mafiosos, charismatic demagogues.
All power ultimately rests upon the threat of violence. Eliminate the state's monopoly on "legitimate" violence, and you find yourself under the dominion of those who have the savvy to concentrate forces of illegitimate violence.
I wouldn't go so far as to say we can never reach sustainable anarcho-communism, but it's not something we'll see in our lifetimes. Premature attempts are going to result in "anarcho"-capitalistic neofeudalism.
You can flatten power structures.
Power structures can absolutely be eliminated. By taking away the ability for anyone to carry out the threat of violence, and removing harmful institutions like the state and capitalism
How exactly do you take away the ability for anyone to carry out violence? How do you take away my ability to punch you? To beat you with a steel pipe? To get my friends together to beat you to a pulp?
Literally, I'm curious. How do you take those abilities away?
You could start by trying to resolve any conflict that would lead to that in the first place. But if you mean do it just because you feel like it then the community could require you to make reparations or something like that. If that still didn't work you could be kicked out of the community
Right, but that's a power structure. The community has the power to require reparations or kick you out.
Not necessarily as a community would have power split equally among all.
Until the first person realizes that if they can sway 51% of the community, they can oppress the other 49%. Technically everyone has an equal vote, but one person definitely wields more power. It's just mob rule, whoever is most persuasive is in charge.
Interestingly enough what you just described is a democracy, the socalled system that gives people power. Anarchist societies would be by consensus
Okay, but how do you make decisions if you can't reach unanimous consensus?
Well everyone wants something so you should always be able to make something that is best for everyone
People have conflicting wants. I want to live in the nice riverside plot, so do other people. I want the streets to be brick, other people want cobblestone. I want the town square to be a green space, other people want it to be a playground.
Sometimes different parts of the community want mutually exclusive things. All of political and economic theory ultimately comes down to how to negotiate disagreements about how to do things. You're not going to get unanimous consent on anything of substance in a group of more than a dozen people or so.
Do you understand the events that led up to the 1917 Russian revolutions, and how they became corrupted? Looking over some of your responses here seems like you want bureaucratic answers, when it was the bureaucracy that corrupted the USSR's "noble attempt."
What is your theory of societal change? Or what do you think would not work to change society to become more just?
I can furnish my own theories but would like to hear some of yours. I could also help to explain the what, where, when and how of revolutionary Russia, as it informs some of my own thinking about these problems
I'm not looking to bureaucracy for answers, I'm just looking for answers. My whole point was about the conflict of creating a system that can preserve rights without being able to violate them.
I'll go back to my point about criminal justice: any system that puts every criminal in jail will put innocent people there with them, and any system that keeps every innocent person out of jail will put criminals out there with them.
Any system too weak to violate your rights is also too weak to prevent others from doing so. Obviously we don't want a corrupt state oppressing us, but without some form of legitimized authority, there's no way to prevent private individuals from oppressing us. We don't get to live in a world without authority, we get to choose between a world where we have a say in the authority, and a world where authority is imposed upon us by warlords, mafiosos, and celebrity demagogues.
I believe there is no "right answer", no perfect solution. Anything we come up with is going to be a compromise. Like I keep getting told "build non-hierarchical systems" like that's a solution and not just the reframing of the problem. It's like saying "FTL travel is easy, you just have to bend spacetime" as if bending spacetime isn't the hard part.
I believe the US system is actually pretty robust at its core, despite needing some significant changes. I think implementing those changes will be more efficient than trying to restart from scratch.
I think you are lacking some context in what is meant by "build non-hierarchal systems." Anarchists have a robust theoretical understanding of, but to people less acquainted with that understanding, it seems kind of empty and convenient. This jargon problem needs to be better addressed in political education, which is relevant to this discussion.
We conceive of these problems differently. When you (most people in my experience, including myself at one time) conceive of the criminal justice problem, and you locate a logical contradiction, you stop.
However, the primary contradiction in society is created when one majority group, dominates and therefore oppresses the majority. All other contradictions are effects and consequences.
We can't develop a society free from social contradictions (such as poverty, carcerial justice, oppression, exploitation, racism, queer phobia, etc.,)" until class rule is abolished.
Now, that is very big and abstract. We are back to your FTL dilemma.
So we start with reflecting on the true nature of our material conditions and acting on them. But this is no small undertaking either. We've been taught to perceive of certain truths, in a certain way. So our role as individuals is to seek out education and organization, so that we can collectively struggle to reform and attack the basis of negative social contradictions.
In your carcerial justice example, where you describe a dilemma, I see a "site of struggle." I want to get involved, learn, educate, affect change. Doing this develops us to become the people who will be able to solve these problems, institute reforms, not for the masses but as part of the masses (non-hierarchal). Until so much change has occurred within politics, culture, and material well being of the vast majority for the benefit of all, that revolutionary conditions become apparent. One anarchist formulation of this is called "Dual Power."
When the people are educated, the power is with us, and the objective reality of class antagonisms is clear to the people, then a just revolution is possible.
But you're right, it's success is not guaranteed. I'm a partyist, so I believe in the creation of a political party by the masses to fight on the basis of our own interests against the ruling classes. Through the most democratic means, not common in our workplaces and government, we can collectively reflect and take action on the basis of our collective interests. These interests are ideologically dispersed, but there is a material basis that cuts across all of our experiences, as more or less exploited members of society.
The party is able to accomplish 3 very important functions. 1. It can synthesize and develop a political platform to inform our activity 2. Develop a long term strategy for our activity 3. Actualize immediate tactics that advance our agenda.
I could go on. I will if you want me to. It may seem unsatisfying but I will die defending this, is that our job is not to imagine a more just world and then work our way backward, but to engage here and now in collective political, cultural, material struggle to create the conditions for such a world to exist. Since we can't know what that is, considering so many contradictions in society are productive (albeit evil) parts of society rather than something that threatens the stability, then we can't try to prefigure it. That puts the cart before the horse. The answers to your questions are all things you can do right now: join an org that puts you in touch with people who are worse off, become educated on the theory, history and science of liberation, reflect on and criticize every part of everything.
You are already doing this. You are asking burning questions and aren't quite satisfied with any answers. That, in itself, is an objective revolutionary condition. In my experience, this is what it feels like to begin to uncover actual truth. Don't stop.
I agree with this. "Anarchy" means lawless chaos to the general population, and it means many different things to different anarchist schools. It seems the anarchists have a general consensus that it means a "non-hierarchical system" but exactly what that is varies greatly between those I've discussed it with: from literally no actual structure, to a multi-branch system of checks and balances which really doesn't look fundamentally different to American representative democracy.
It's difficult to have a productive conversation about a topic with so much fundamental variance of definition.
I think you misunderstood my point. I was not using criminal justice to, itself, justify any particular system. I was using it to illustrate the problem of conflicting goals in any practical system.
I could have used the conflicting goals of power and fuel efficiency in an engine to illustrate the same point. You can design an engine for maximum power at the cost of fuel economy, or you can design one for maximum fuel economy at the cost of power. In practice, you have to choose a middle ground which provides an acceptable balance.
My point being that you can design a system of government which is capable of preventing individuals from violating the rights of others, or a government which is incapable of violating the rights of an individual itself, but you can't have both. In practice, you need a system with the power to "oppress" oppressors, but with checks and balances to limit its ability to oppress innocents.
The issue is that it is very difficult to educate the masses. Most people lack the interest, ability, or both. Especially when there's so much antagonism from the in-group.
I think the best approach in most applications is both. We need to imagine the perfect world, and work backwards from there, while also looking at our current conditions, and working forwards from there. Obviously the utopia-back side of that equation needs to be focused on solution spaces, with some flexibility.
On the present-forward end, I also think a broad approach is best. Vote strategically AND collaborate with local orgs AND engage in direct community action AND educate your neighbors AND unionize your workplace AND etc. We can't know what will be the most effective vector of action in the long run, but the more vectors we engage the more likely we are to get there.
You seem like you've given this real thought, and you're willing to engage the solution space pragmatically. I encourage you to visit !PLT@sh.itjust.works , it's a fledgling community I created for discussing leftist ideas with a focus on pragmatism over idealism.
What happened is the state became it's own thing, completely separated from people who (presumably) delegated their power to it, that is usually by design. Like in business, managing entity like CEO decides key questions while not directly affected by them. Then, there's no reason to care about the interests of those governed, but there is to care about oneself, one's power and profits. Then growing beaurocracy obfuscates every coming signal, detaches any responsibility, cements worst practices in a circularly self-defensive system, untouchable and independent from people.
The way to go is to scale up small/local union-like cooperative structures with equal participation, collecting them under bigger umbrella organizations, going from the bottom to the top. There's hardly a way to totally work around chosen experts or representatives having power and representing their people on the bigger stage, but such roles should be collectively confirmed, given for a well-defined period of time, task to solve, like we do with contractors. It sounds almost like the idealistic defenition of existing political systems, right? And it is.
What it should have though is a system of check and balances (yesyesyes), but those invented with the current knowledge of how they were systematically ignored, overturned, just failed or were created faulty from the start.
The worst possible enemy to tackle not even on ideological lines or of economical nature, it's alienation of politics from people and resulting apathy, misdirection. Like the whole state of things where people are told to vote for a random old dude they've never chosen (that's on party management) that is better than other old dude is unbelievable, and that is done via electors from intentionally redrawn districts. There's no direct democracy line A to B you can draw on a piece of paper, or even A to B to C.
That's the result of decisions after decisions, trends after trends stacked on top of each other those created completely insane machine that, instead of serving it's primal function - electing people for the job - artistically crafted to deny that power, to give them a placebo, and serving career politicians more than the voters.
And, well, what's the job of a president? It seems almost like this post was made for a dictator, even before modern total abuse. Can you fire them, conduct an invistigation into their wrongdoings? Why they can install other people at a whim? What kind of qualification there is to hold a scope that big, to somehow decide things like a pandemic response, even if informed by experts, and the next day decides to go to war?
There are certain jobs and fields, like recently created ICE, whose whole mission is to parasitically eat tax money while serving no one. There are prisons whose whole premise is dubious to say the least, and succintly summarized in how redditors wish select inmates to be raped in custody. Many things exist just because, or because they were installed in the past, or whatever.
And another good general point to that, is that, besides holding responsibility, that system should be flexible. If you was born into it, you shouldn't be given a fixed social contract with institutionalized power like it's godgiven. There still should be a way you can affect it or refuse it, and this check is one of the primal ones, and unless it ticks, this system can be thrown off like garbage.
Writing that, I started to ramble rather than giving a direct answer, but that's a given for a question this broad.
What I see as a working strategy not entirely a revolution (that I see as a gamble, with too much raw power on the side of the ruling class), but rather building alternative institutions based on such principles with direct power used mostly to deflect reactionary attack on them, these institutions based around long-unresolved issues. There is a coming, starting crisis in the US's social systems like distributing food for empoverished. A well-connected grass-root alternative, that would cover that on the national level, would be a strong alternative to failed gvmnt services. It would appear and overtake existing subsystem with a fresh, more effective approach. The risks are, like in the case of a comparatively mild MLK, are obvious - win too much, put status quo and earnings under question and you'd eat lead. This though means it should have a shield, and not only in a form of armed people, legal teams, but universal support and popular education about the issue, everyone's involvement in it, every Joe having a stake in it. One can always default to violence, and need to aknowledge that rotten path, but initial platform imho should lack it to have reach. Diverse, hybrid approach with partisan messaging on hostile platforms, on street corners, in a word of a mouth is a modern copycat of what gave american war machine hell in Vietnam. You build unkillable distributed network and grow it that much it kills the tired, useless, opressive regime's mutant.
My pow would probably raise brows and questions, but with how uneducated I'm on the subjects, that's probably the best I can write atm, as I'm still learning (yet speaking like I kbow shit).
You can't have a system that isn't susceptible to corruption because humans are imperfect.
Is a lack of perfection really the root of corruption? Sounds like puritanism to me
Well the assumption that something is perfect kinda implies the lack of corruption doesn't it?
Perfection is an ideal. Idealism can't change society.
Believing that perfection is the goal for anything is itself a form of corruption. Striving for purity is used to rationalize nearly every form of terrorism and oppression. Nazis strive for purity and call anything outside of it corruption. History shows that they always find some impurity to oppress until nothing is left.
Its not that corruption comes from imperfect humans, but that perfection is misanthropic, anti human. If we built society on centering humanism that would alleviate the corruption. But this is impossible in a society that inflicts the will of a minority over the majority. So the basis for corruption is in fact class domination, and not some inherent human imperfection. Human imperfection is a religious illusion that tricks people to accept the conditions of their own oppression.
What is your definition of corruption?
Corruption in the context of what we're discussing here is intentional action outside the intended purpose of a system for some sort of personal gain.
I don't agree that striving for perfection is wholly a form of corruption, particularly when referencing a system with a specific goal. Something like creating clean energy is an example. I do understand what you're saying in relation to humans though.
I do disagree with your argument about humanism being the thing that alleviates corruption. Sociopaths, psychopaths, narcissists all still exist regardless of external factors meant to deal with them. They are corruption; they seek power. But maybe using the word imperfect was a poor choice.
Well also my conception of humanism, which is concrete and grounded in more than optimism, is under elaborated. I think it's hard to argue that dark triad personality disorders, and the negative expressions of them, are purely inherent traits. Our society seems to breed narcissism within people. Meanwhile there are many people who struggle with these traits and still manage to not do too much damage to other people. Ive known people with clinical diagnosis of psychopathy that were able to manage it with medication and therapy. They still might blow up for seemingly no reason, or be like scarily competitive, but they could also be loving (albeit difficult) husbands and fathers, hold down a good job, be productive.
I think your definition of corruption is interesting, "intentional action outside the intended purpose of a system." What influences such action? This is what I mean about decentering the human: the system is created by people, workers of all kinds. You are able to conceive of the individual and the system as separate things, but not how the system is made up of the reflective thought and productive activity of people. Your definition can account for abstract objects, but not their histories or the inherent relationships that create and sustain them.
I accept that there is a certain self discipline associated with doing good rather than doing evil. And I accept that we can reach some kind of consensus on what objective good and evil would be. But we have to question why some people develop that discipline and others do not, and the answers are verifiably linked to social and economic factors. I'm someone born with privilege, and my ability to develop myself and act to create positive change is itself a social privilege afforded by things like my race, gender, upbringing, etc.,
Until you are able to account for the fact that the system is made of the productive activity, time, reflective thought, experience, and effort of living breathing people, rather than conceiving of only static objects, you won't be able to formulate or concretely understand any actual theory of change.
That's not a dig at you, it's not an imperfection. Its quite literally how we are taught to think because it underwrites the domination of a minority over the suffering of a majority. We all start out there, but some of us change, because people are capable of change. which means society, made up of people, is capable of change.
In order to change your views beyond a socially imposed limiting perspective, you'll need to start having new experiences, develop the ability to authentically reflect and criticize them, and through that reflection and criticism, take action to change something in our shared material reality. This reflection in action is what is meant by praxis.
With a constitution that's can't be modified without a referendum
By fighting corruption instead of building a society on top of it
Bruh, the last time my country's constitution got changed was through a referendum that made gay marriage impossible.
Which country? was the referendum fair or rigged?
There's a precondition for a democracy to work which is a fair voting process, this includes free and non monopolized access to information. I don't think it's hard to write a constitution that is not fixed and that still grant essential rights to people.
Croatia. Completely fair, the referendum was the hottest topic in all media for weeks if not months and absolutely everyone who had an opinion on the matter could vote. Do you actually think most people out there aren't still homophobic as hell?
I don't know much about croatia but i'm sure mass media are rigged there just like in any other european country
What does it even mean that "media is rigged"?
that a bunch of people with ties to the government or political parties owns them all
Eh, I'd never use the word "rigged" for that meaning, nor am I 100% sure what that has to do with the outcome of the referendum - I don't remember hearing much support for the referendum in mainstream media, if you're assumimg they promoted it. The promotion went through other channels, primarily conservative activist orgs and the Church.
Regarding the political ties, the situation was more complex - the govt has almost direct control over one major media institution, while the rest of the media landscape is fragmented, private, with two of the three biggest TV channels being owned by foreigners. Still, you might wish to believe in some control the govt might have had over the media - but the govt at the time was nominally left-wing and the referendum went against their goals. They evidently didn't or couldn't influence the people through media enough. It was a massive embarrassment and symbolic defeat of them when the referendum passed.
I don't know what other sort of scenario you can now come up with to explain away the reality of widespread homophobia outside of your urban 1st world / internet bubble. It's all just utopistic imagination with no substance, and I have to admit it makes me pessimistic.
But how? How do you enforce the fight against corruption without a system which itself is vulnerable to corruption?
You don't have to enforce it, you should not promote it and not making rolemodels out of corrupted people. Have you ever heard of kids being teach in school that corruption is bad? Me personally never
You were never taught that corruption is bad? I was. I was also told not to lie, cheat, steal, harm others, etc. I think most people were, and yet we still have crime. D.A.R.E. told entire generations of kids that drugs are bad, and yet people still use drugs.
How do you prevent people from promoting corruption and making role models of the corrupt? That requires some method of enforcement, otherwise you might as well be wishing on a star.