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

theanarchistlibrary.org

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

#411

Post by the42thdoctor »

cortesoft wrote: post #389

Here is my argument against anarchism as some alternative to what we have. We ARE living in the end state of anarchism. We know how people will organize when there is no existing coercive power structure; they will form themselves into groups with rules and laws and enforcement. How do we know this? Because it is what people have done, over and over and over, when in that situation. If all of the government were to s…

As long a group does not try to conquer another and everyone is free to change groups, there's no problems with it.

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

#412

Post by runjake »

They lost me in the first paragraph with:

    “Anarchists are simply people who believe human beings are capable of behaving in a reasonable fashion without having to be forced to. It is really a very simple notion.”
Having dealt with the dark side of humanity, there are lots of people who will not behave reasonably if left unchecked, due to one reason or another.

And there are a lot of these people. Some of them lifelong criminals, some of them even your friendly neighbor that keeps his yard looking really nice.

So you need a system of checks. You need some sort of enforcement arm that apprehend and deals violence to these people. You need some place, away from society, to secure these people. And now, you’ve more or less reinvented the current structure.

Whether we like it or not, violence is the foundation upon which society ultimately sits. The threat of violence keeps everyone inline. If you resist each step of the law, ultimately, you will be dealt violence.

You may choose to be a pacifist, and that is somewhat admirable, but you’ve really chosen to outsource the violence required to survive to other parties. Society provides us a useful curtain that covers the horror of nature’s rules.

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

#413

Post by username90 »

sudosysgen wrote: post #391
squibbles wrote: post #321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anarchism does not prevent tribes, warlords, organizations, or armies - it is the absence of such constructs. If anyone is truly interested in applied anarchism, look to Somalia [0] and try to make a difference there. It's not all bad [1] [2], but I think there are many vastly superior alternatives. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Somalia_(1991%E2%80... [1] https://www.independent.org/pdf/working_papers/…

Somalia really isn't a good example of anarchy, there was still tons of hierarchies. Anarchists aren't libertarians, they're not content to just topple the state, you still need to form anarchist governments and institutions. Otherwise that's just anomie

> you still need to form anarchist governments and institutions

???

> Anarchy is the state of a society being freely constituted without authorities or a governing body.

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

#414

Post by sneak »

cortesoft wrote: post #371
boomboomsubban wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you only make reasonable choices because you are forced to?

Here is the thing... a reasonable choice for an individual is not the same as a reasonable choice for a group. A classic example is something like fishing. As an individual, it is entirely reasonable for me to catch as many fish as possible. I won’t put a dent into the fish population, and the more fish I catch, the better it is for me. However, if everyone fishes as much as they want, the fisheries will be depleted.…

There’s precedent for human beings cooperating on matters like this to, say, prevent overfishing.

What makes you think such coordination would be impossible in the absence of a hierarchy that boils down to “obey these rules or we’ll put a gun in your face”? Most humans are reasonable and cooperative.

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

#415

Post by wongarsu »

wolco wrote: post #408
wongarsu wrote: post #397

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just because you implement anarchism, you haven't automatically abolished capitalism. Bars would still be privately owned, and the owners would have incentive to keep them open in order to earn money to buy food (and protection etc). In theory you could institute socialism in an arachic society. But that seems ... ill advised for anything larger than a small community. I can at least imagine socialism working in an e…

Wait did you say money? Money doesn't exist in the situation you describe. Who is issuing the money? At best trading for good is the best possible.

Money is just a concept. Whether that's governement issued legal tender, gold, cigarettes or coffee beans doesn't really matter. Silver coins were in use long before governments started stamping them.

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

#416

Post by andi999 »

sudosysgen wrote: post #154
elgfare wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you do that though? There would of course be no enforcable private property, but ownership would not disappear as a (albeit nebulous) concept.

Anarchism would mandate worker ownership of production, in the principle that ownership only ever derives from use. So factories and the like would be cooperatively owned, which makes it very very difficult for one individual to amass seriously outsized amounts of material resources. Combined with monetary policy that increases the velocity of money, the issue is fixed. As for personal property, under the principle t…

So what would happen to farming? Same like in Simbabwe? People were encouraged to take over farms, but somehow these people choose not to be productive; Simbabwe went from beiing the Cornchamber of Africa to famine.

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

#417

Post by sneak »

username90 wrote: post #329
boomboomsubban wrote: post #324

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Not really. It is very relevant. You only need someone to behave unreasonable even once to destroy multiple peoples lives These things are true whether or not you believe humans are capable of living reasonably without being forced. Forcing people isn't stopping these psychopaths from destroying lives, and there's at least reason to believe it helps push them to action.

In an organized society a psychopath can kill a few in a murder spree. In an unorganized society the psychopath can gather and organize a lot of thugs to loot and burn millions of homes. Has happened many times in history. I know which one I prefer. The gun argument actually works here, if you ban good guys from organizing then all organizations will be bad ones. And an organized group of people always wins against u…

> In an organized society a psychopath can kill a few in a murder spree. In an unorganized society the psychopath can gather and organize a lot of thugs to loot and burn millions of homes. Has happened many times in history. I know which one I prefer.

I think this should be re-examined through the view of the ~1 million Iraqis recently murdered by one such “organized society”.

I don’t think the (violence-based) organization has the set of benefits you think it does.

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

#418

Post by baconandeggs »

zanny wrote: post #378
surfpel wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I’m also not an anarchist, I don’t believe these are good examples. In fact, they could be an argument for anarchism. With a lack of stimulus or even just in this economic system, bars and businesses in general are incentivized to stay open. They are being ‘coerced’ to stay open. People started rejecting masks and shutdowns en masse after astroturfing and media convinced them to. There are countries where order…

Capitalism is fundamentally built on competition, it pits all participants against one another. It stratifies social bonds and breaks people apart because any cooperation represents unrealized exploitation. Its why people are so miserable en masse, hostile, and chomping at the bit for targets to attack and hate. Its worse in America because theres almost no socialism at all to raise the floor of society - the country…

> Capitalism is fundamentally built on competition, it pits all participants against one another.

Life is built on competition, life pits all participants against one another. Resources are not infinite.

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

#419

Post by ByteJockey »

komali2 wrote: post #333
erinnh wrote: post #308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really. It is very relevant. You only need someone to behave unreasonable even once to destroy multiple peoples lives. There are enough psychopaths in the world to fuck up any kind of system that's not completely based on separation of powers. I would posit that communism would probably also be pretty nice for most people, if it actually worked. So far it hasn't, and its pretty unrealistic that it ever will. That…

What examples of communism are you looking at that "haven't worked?" I really hope you aren't about to suggest the soviet union, that would be silly, considering it had a state, social classes, currency, and no general ownership of the means of production, and therefore wasn't communism. Might surprise you to learn that communism is working this very day, on communes all across the world. Also, the basic tenants of i…

>I really hope you aren't about to suggest the soviet union, that would be silly, considering it had a state, social classes, currency, and no general ownership of the means of production, and therefore wasn't communism.

Y'know, this is a fair point for a philosophical conversation.

It's a terrible point in a conversation about deciding how to actually organize society, however. You can't ultimately know what people's intentions are before the fact. How other people who claimed to have the same ideology behaved once they gained power is inherently relevant.

Let's turn this around for a second. Let's say someone comes to you and says "Hitler got fascism totally wrong". It's actually a really great ideology that Hitler violated by doing X, Y, and Z. Would you give this person power in the real world?

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

#420

Post by sneak »

runjake wrote: post #412

They lost me in the first paragraph with: “Anarchists are simply people who believe human beings are capable of behaving in a reasonable fashion without having to be forced to. It is really a very simple notion.” Having dealt with the dark side of humanity, there are lots of people who will not behave reasonably if left unchecked, due to one reason or another. And there are a lot of these people. Some of them lifelon…

I think the main criticism is that centralizing the “legitimate” use of force to, as you say, “keep everyone in line”, is that you get all of the downsides of a violence-based society, and none of the upsides of freedom: such societies still enslave, torture, steal, violate privacy, and mass murder.

Indeed, we’re witnessing an unprecedented wealth transfer right now in the US as a result of such centralization of authority.

I’ve never met an anarchist that believes that by abolishing the state that society will become entirely nonviolent. It’s just a sort of standard “who will build the roads?” straw man: Policing doesn’t need police, and social contracts don’t need a statehouse.

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