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

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

#671

Post by stale2002 »

boomboomsubban wrote: post #547
stale2002 wrote: post #533

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So then that is not voluntarily association. Because presumably, you would be kicking people off of roads, using force, if they refuse to pay the roads tax. That's using force.

It's not a "road tax," if you don't choose to be a part of society, you can't be a part of the society. You are free to leave. The concept of "kicking people out" implies that they have some natural right to be part of that society.

> The concept of "kicking people out" implies that they have some natural right to be part of that society.

Thats still force, though.

You are just saying that the force is justified. But thats still force to physically prevent someone to have access to those roads.

It is force, in that you are physically, using a threat of violence against someone else, because you don't want them using your road.

I am not saying that this is morally wrong, or anything. I support the justified used of government force against others. But lets not pretend that this isn't force/violence.

> you can't be a part of the society.

It is not that they "can't". Instead, it is that other people will use violence/force against them, in order to prevent them from being a part of society. That is force. that is violence.

You can make the argument that the violence is justified. Which is fine. I absolutely believe that violence and government force can be justified. But justified force is still force!

> You are free to leave.

And if they refuse to leave? What are you going to doing about it? Answer: you will probably use force against them (although you may believe the violence is justified, justified violence is still violence!).

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

#672

Post by mindslight »

agumonkey wrote: post #590
amscanne wrote: post #393

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The other flaw with that example is that there is obvious social pressure. If you try to cut the line, people will likely confront you. Situations where there’s no social pressure are different. During University, I was a believer in co-ops as a form of organization. I lived in and was actively involved in student housing co-ops. During grad school, I lived in a large house with 12 other people. I was the house organ…

Have you had the bliss of being frowned upon twice during covid ? by wearing a mask before others agreed, and then forgetting it (left in the car by accident kind) after society decided it was important ?

I have a similar story. I got weird looks for wearing a respirator to grocery shop in early March (but felt totally vindicated by some idiot coughing furiously in the middle of the store). More recently I had a hassle getting into a hospital to visit, due to said respirator being a "street mask". Luckily one of the more enlightened staff focused specifically on the concern of it having a vent, we were able to have a reasonable conversation where I explained and demonstrated how I fixed that, and then she remembered me after that.

That same staff member lamented that her sister had gotten her some N95 masks, but she was prohibited from wearing them. I can imagine if Covid continues much longer (as it will until we find a magic vaccine, as there is no societal will to contain it), enforcement of the rules will become even more mechanical and unforgiving. Glaringly suboptimal outcomes imposed by top-down structure is a tyranny anarchists take issue with. Although the group behavior around Covid shows why the ideal is ultimately impractical for everyone, I still consider myself a libertarian.

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

#673

Post by AnimalMuppet »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #668
bufferoverflow wrote: post #534

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hmmm, no, it's a false equivocation. What do you do with really bad / evil people who got caught doing evil things (there's enough evidence to put them in prison). I never heard a good answer from an anarchist. You have to realize there are truly evil people out there. People who will assault innocent people, who will torture, who will rape, who will murder, who will do all of the above to a toddler. And will force t…

> What do you do with really bad / evil people who got caught doing evil things (there's enough evidence to put them in prison). I never heard a good answer from an anarchist. I think most anarchists believe in self defense. So in that sense the really bad people are self-eliminating -- they try to kill and instead they get dead, and then they don't bother anybody anymore. Obviously this is imperfect, but it doesn't…

As a guy who doesn't want to have to fight to the death, your version seems much worse than the status quo. As a guy who doesn't want his wife and daughters to have to fight to the death, your version seems even worse.

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

#674

Post by AnthonyMouse »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #673
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #668

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What do you do with really bad / evil people who got caught doing evil things (there's enough evidence to put them in prison). I never heard a good answer from an anarchist. I think most anarchists believe in self defense. So in that sense the really bad people are self-eliminating -- they try to kill and instead they get dead, and then they don't bother anybody anymore. Obviously this is imperfect, but it doesn't…

As a guy who doesn't want to have to fight to the death, your version seems much worse than the status quo. As a guy who doesn't want his wife and daughters to have to fight to the death, your version seems even worse.

You don't actually have to do the fight to the death, all you need is a society in which people are willing to do it. Because that provides deterrence, which eliminates most of the would-be murderers, the same as the existing system except that you don't have to deal with getting it wrong based on second hand accounts or corruption because the people handing out the consequences are the witnesses.

Notice that for the would-be murderers who aren't deterred by the threat of death, you have to do the fight to the death even under the existing system.

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

#675

Post by elindbe2 »

tdeck wrote: post #500
elindbe2 wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"the capacity for doing harm is only very large when you have highly centralised power structures" I don't think this is true. Look at the Mongols. A few nomadic tribes got together and conquered most of Asia. They created a highly centralized power center by force but they didn't start out with one.

I'm not sure that's a good example because these tribes themselves were autocratic in governance before they conquered other nations.

I don't think it was "highly centralized" compared to say Imperial China as an example. It was a bunch of nomadic tribes banding together. And there's no reason to believe all autocracy could be abolished and forever prevented from forming under (or outside of) an anarchist regime.

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

#676

Post by lapinot »

oxymoran wrote: post #11

“Anarchists are simply people who believe human beings are capable of behaving in a reasonable fashion without having to be forced to.” My anarchist sympathies want this to be true but this is a demonstrably false fairy tale. Just look at how we treat the planet and other living things in the presence of lawful order. Why would you assume that we would act righteously in the absence of law? It is painfully obvious th…

> Why would you assume that we would act righteously in the absence of law? It is painfully obvious that we would act much worse under anarchy.

You seem to be conflating anarchy with chaos (to be fair most people do, the word "anarchy" itself was probably used as an insult before it was even picked up by anti-authoritarian communists).

The weight of laws in our societies is so big that and it's meaning so large that it's probably more understandable if we say that anarchism doesn't want to supress laws [#]. One particularly good example of law system that couldn't be more anarchist is international law, the main point being that it's normative and not coercive. That's not saying it's not respected, indeed you may suffer consequent actions from some countries if you don't: from diplomatic troubles (moral judgments) to degraded economic relationship (exclusions) and ultimately war (use of force). The basic assumption is that every subject of international law recognizes that the other subject are sovereign entities.

International law is for me the proof that such organizational principles do work in practice, and it's a source of inspiration for thinking about anarchistic organization. Quoting wikipedia, all the right keywords are in there:

> [international law] is the set of rules, norms, and standards generally accepted in relations between [subjects]. [..] It establishes normative guidelines [..].

> The sources [..] include [..] custom [..], treaties, and general principles of law recognized by most [..] legal systems.

> [It] operates largely through consent, since there is no universally accepted authority [..].

The conclusion i'm hitting is that at the planetary level, we do live in some kind of anarchist system. For me it's the biggest lesson of anarchism: the main goal is to conquer the level of states, extending down from the international level and up from the inter-individual cooperative level. I could continue with the fact that this level of states is also the realm of private corporations, which then bridges with usual marxist cooperative production systems rethoric.

[#] The more precise statement would be that anarchistic principles refuse "the singleton" judiciary institution (one that assumes monopoly of justice, has jurisdiction over everything). Judges and courts may still exist, for example contracts could specify under which jurisdiction they may be disputed/upheld.

ps: don't criticize saying that international law is dominated by usa/western countries, that's another debate.

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

#677

Post by lapinot »

lapinot wrote: post #676
oxymoran wrote: post #11

“Anarchists are simply people who believe human beings are capable of behaving in a reasonable fashion without having to be forced to.” My anarchist sympathies want this to be true but this is a demonstrably false fairy tale. Just look at how we treat the planet and other living things in the presence of lawful order. Why would you assume that we would act righteously in the absence of law? It is painfully obvious th…

> Why would you assume that we would act righteously in the absence of law? It is painfully obvious that we would act much worse under anarchy. You seem to be conflating anarchy with chaos (to be fair most people do, the word "anarchy" itself was probably used as an insult before it was even picked up by anti-authoritarian communists). The weight of laws in our societies is so big that and it's meaning so large that…

pps: I thought about this international-law example while i was reading Bolo'Bolo (by PM, free access). It's a really funny and thought inspiring short book. Its development on productive and economic relationships is really nice.

https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/p-m-bolo-bolo

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

#678

Post by [deleted] »

TulliusCicero wrote: post #354

> 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. This can sound reasonable when you think of it in terms of, " most people behaving in a reasonable fashion, most of the time". But anarchists don't want to eliminate hierarchical use of force for most cases, but for all of them. Any time I've heard…

[deleted]

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

#679

Post by likeclockwork »

TulliusCicero wrote: post #354

> 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. This can sound reasonable when you think of it in terms of, " most people behaving in a reasonable fashion, most of the time". But anarchists don't want to eliminate hierarchical use of force for most cases, but for all of them. Any time I've heard…

Hierarchical use of force is replaced with community use of force. In anarchism people have to take individual responsibility. There's no point saying "someone should do something about this", you're someone, do what needs to be done.

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

#680

Post by [deleted] »

374yruruuru wrote: post #658
TulliusCicero wrote: post #354

> 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. This can sound reasonable when you think of it in terms of, " most people behaving in a reasonable fashion, most of the time". But anarchists don't want to eliminate hierarchical use of force for most cases, but for all of them. Any time I've heard…

My issue with passionate anarchists is that I've never heard a compelling argument for why the situation won't develop into a government anyway. Without an uber entity there's all the incentive in the world to form an uber entity.

[deleted]
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