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Are you an anarchist? The answer may surprise you (2000)

theanarchistlibrary.org

181–190 of 839 posts

Re: Are you an anarchist? The answer may surprise you (2000)

#181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see this when dispersed camping, simple things like cleaning up at the campsite before leaving. Most people don’t have a problem with it but there are small groups who don’t care about anything. Those small groups tend to ruin it for everyone. You don’t see that at managed campgrounds because you will be fined.

>I see this when dispersed camping, simple things like cleaning up at the campsite before leaving. Most people don’t have a problem with it but there are small groups who don’t care about anything. Those small groups tend to ruin it for everyone. As I understand it, an anarchist camping group (for lack of a better name) could still collectively agree on and enforce rules - in many ways still a "managed" campground, j…

[deleted]

Re: Are you an anarchist? The answer may surprise you (2000)

#183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is where I see one of the most striking arguments for anarchist philosophy. That is: It takes, and it took, an immensurable ammount of violence to make the status quo, 'lawful order' is a very shaky concept there. From this perspective it's way clearer that the unbalances and the unlawlessness of a big chunk of the "order" are themselves the sources of so much messed up stuff we have to deal with and try hopeles…

> humans already come from nature with capacity for ... conflict resolution ... Um, I don't think so. Conflict resolution is the main obstacle to the viability of entirely voluntary ("anarchist") organization. That's why it's the self-defining function of any government, even the most minimal.

Again this is taking the position that anarchism would need it's "government program" to justify itself and then maybe society could see about moving over to that program, I don't think that's the point, as I've argued in my previous comment.

Re: Are you an anarchist? The answer may surprise you (2000)

#184
The simplest expression of anarchist principles I've seen is that it is opposed to coercion. All else follows. This is very appealing but at any scale we find that people must be forced to be persuaded. If that sounds Orwellian, you're not wrong. Orwell was anarchist adjacent and a keen critic of the left. (Check out Homage to Catalonia.) Anarchy is a fig leaf for totalitarianism. It is a short step from the University diversity council to the reeducation camps. We need to be very careful that the political options we are advocating in the spirit of freedom and equity are not poisoned bait preying on our best instincts for fairness and care.

Re: Are you an anarchist? The answer may surprise you (2000)

#185
post #133

I don't understand anarchy. Take littering for an example. Would an anarchist system (oxymoron alert) have fines for littering? How about signs and a slogan? TV advertisements? Another example: I regularly volunteer at conventions. Somewhere between 90 and 95% of people follow the rules without much prompting. 5-10% of people don't... but I sincerely believe that without volunteers watching, that number would go up s…

Taking littering: how littered is your home? Your work place? What about a Comercial Center? In an anarchy society, the littering is limited to your own property. Yes, you can live like a pig, as long as you don't litter properties of others. If you throw trash in other people property, you don't face a fine, but you will be expelled from the property and face a trial. In our current society, littering is a problem i…

Could you expand on how one could face a trial for littering in a society that has no government?

Re: Are you an anarchist? The answer may surprise you (2000)

#186
Is there a name for this type of thing where you label yourself as something that everybody already understands, but then try to bait and switch the definition on them?

Anarchists: we don’t believe in anarchy! We believe in the human spirit and peace and harmony!

Satanist: we don’t believe in evil, we believe in love and treating each other with respect and kindness!

I see this pop up all the time in politics and it’s always kindof funny to me.

(I won’t go into specifics of places this is happening in politics right now for obvious reasons)

Re: Are you an anarchist? The answer may surprise you (2000)

#187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see this when dispersed camping, simple things like cleaning up at the campsite before leaving. Most people don’t have a problem with it but there are small groups who don’t care about anything. Those small groups tend to ruin it for everyone. You don’t see that at managed campgrounds because you will be fined.

>I see this when dispersed camping, simple things like cleaning up at the campsite before leaving. Most people don’t have a problem with it but there are small groups who don’t care about anything. Those small groups tend to ruin it for everyone. As I understand it, an anarchist camping group (for lack of a better name) could still collectively agree on and enforce rules - in many ways still a "managed" campground, j…

You mean, decide by voting and agree on penalties for people who break the rules?

Re: Are you an anarchist? The answer may surprise you (2000)

#188
"How many hours would we really need to work in order to maintain a functional society — that is, if we got rid of all the useless or destructive occupations like telemarketers, lawyers, prison guards, financial analysts, public relations experts, bureaucrats and politicians, and turn our best scientific minds away from working on space weaponry or stock market systems to mechanizing away dangerous or annoying tasks like coal mining or cleaning the bathroom, and distribute the remaining work among everyone equally?"

Somewhat interesting thought, but it does not sound anarchist at all. Who's going to do the turning of our scientific minds, decide which minds are the scientific ones, or distribute the rest of the shitty jobs? When jobs are being distributed, who is going to be paying or otherwise providing for the workers? This sounds a lot more like some kind of totalitarian communist state.

Re: Are you an anarchist? The answer may surprise you (2000)

#189
post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I know a banker who is communist. That's an incontinent position to hold and he must have high cognitive dissonance of schizophrenia. Except if he is duplicitously self-serving, ie happy to receive the payments but not the opprobrium that comes with a high paying system position.

You'd be very surprised how many socialists and communists there are in banking. On one hand one of the things Proudhon and Marx agreed on was that driving down the cost of credit is an inherently radical act - the cheaper credit becomes the weaker the hold of employers over employees becomes, as it becomes easier to start for yourself. On the other hand in finance you see the mechanisms at work laid bare. Nowhere el…

I'm not surprised. They see themselves as doing the best for themselves - that's anarchy, right? But they are prepared to harm others to do it. But even so, they want to be thought well of.

I guess bankers and communists share the idea of looking at 'the people' as a group to be governed and managed. Both are wedded to the system. I think communistic thinking is the idea that seems to have won, and (technocratic) governance is going to proceed with that as its basis.

Re: Are you an anarchist? The answer may surprise you (2000)

#190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "> Just look at how we treat the planet and other living things in the presence of lawful order" On the contrary, it' and indictment of the current law system, it has utterally failed to protect the environment and other living things, where-as anacistic organisations, charities and protest movement have done a lot for the environment. In fact they are the only ones that have done anything at all. If a given CEO da…

> anacistic organisations, charities and protest movement have done a lot for the environment. In fact they are the only ones that have done anything at all. This is not true at all. Protecting the environment isn’t just about actions like planting trees and buying up the occasional extra property parcel to dedicate as a land reserve. It requires government scale regulation to impose negative consequences on people a…

The anarchist argument is distribution of power.

Take the example of pollution. Say you're an employee of a fossil fuel cooperative. Is it in your interest to continue polluting? Yes, because you after all own some of the ressources of that company and control it. So what is the anarchist solution? Well, it's in the interests of everyone to stop pollution, right? So you'd need people to come together, decide that population is a concern, at least a good percentage of people, and offer you to be compensated for your investment in fossil fuels in exchange to stop polluting and find another job or not work in industry at all anymore. You might say that this is unrealistic, but for the government to do anything about pollution we needed hundreds of millions of people to protest and a majority of the people agreeing that pollution is a problem worth fixing. And if that doesn't work either, you elect and randomly chose people to supervise the elected with short term limits in order to have authority against pollution.

This is the anarchist solution to the tragedy of the commons in this case.

As for making incremental change, there are hard limits. There are existing power structures that will hamper you very strongly - the state, private interests, the corporate media, and so on. If you do incremental change that they don't like, they absolutely will use violence to prevent you.

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