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Are You an Anarchist? The Answer May Surprise You by David Graeber (2000)

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Re: Are You an Anarchist? The Answer May Surprise You by David Graeber (2000)

#61

Post by beaeglebeachh »

wahnfrieden wrote: post #58
beaeglebeachh wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep which is why I'm ancap anarchist not socialist anarchist which seems almost an oxymoron. You cannot take things from people, like means of production they've produced, and force them to share without aggression. All anarchism stems from voluntary interactions, which depends on free trade .

Capital is hierarchy and relies on state violence for coercion power / protecting property ownership

Take away the state and I can self defend my capital from aggression with ak47. Under anarchism then what you going to do? Either you attack me, get someone else to attack me, or have a 'not' state do it.

Or just maybe leave me alone and agree to trade capital voluntarily. All options.

Re: Are You an Anarchist? The Answer May Surprise You by David Graeber (2000)

#62

Post by bell-cot »

Synaesthesia wrote: post #45
bell-cot wrote: post #41

Looking at the closing para... > Now, you might object that all this is well and good as a way for small groups of people to get on with each other, but managing a city, or a country, is an entirely different matter. And of course there is something to this. Even if you decentralize society and put as much power as possible in the hands of small communities, there will still be plenty of things that need to be coordi…

Anarchy does not mean absence of organisation. It means absence of unfair dominance and control of one over another. An anarchist society could be highly organised, in all kinds of ways people decide to.

At least on-line, the definitions I'm seeing are very heavy on the "there are no rulers / authorities / states / government" points. There ain't no "as long as it's fair" escape clauses.

Small-scale, if well-behaved people are the vast majority, and there are easy ways to cut out the occasional bad actor - that can work very well. Just look at the Internet of the 1970's and 1980's.

Larger scale, with a real-world mix of human behaviors, and cutting off the "wrong sort" far more difficult - OOPS. Look at the modern internet, and the many toxic actors and organizations that have explosively grown in the large-scale anarchy.

EDIT: Add "no big rewards for becoming dominant" to my preconditions for anarchy working well. You for-sure could not have gotten Zuckerbucks-grade rich by dominating the early internet.

Re: Are You an Anarchist? The Answer May Surprise You by David Graeber (2000)

#63

Post by pookha »

No such thing as Anarchy. I've evolved my view on politics, gangs, tribes and governments into a simple understanding that we're dealing with systems at-large and those systems will always be expanding to fill the known universe and they'll constantly be bumping into each other and competing. An "Anarchist" is someone that does not consent to an authority (system) or its self identified "social contract". Ironically these kinds of people are the ones that dream-up systems (Rousseau's ideas built the US constitution) which then attract and absorb the systems-people (conformists). I accept that these systems-people are violent (nature of systems) and predatory but inevitable and sometimes useful and will be part of humanity for as long as humanity exists. Anarchy is impossible.

Re: Are You an Anarchist? The Answer May Surprise You by David Graeber (2000)

#64

Post by incomingpain »

Anarcho-X people are heavily misrepresented by the government.

If north america went anarcho-capitalist, it'd work as well as or better the current system.

But the problem is that there's still an entity which must enforce property rights, etc. This 'police/military force' then becomes the new government. It will ever increase in size. Eventually you arrive back to where we are.

Where government got so large that it's unsustainable, suddenly anarchist sentiments return.

Re: Are You an Anarchist? The Answer May Surprise You by David Graeber (2000)

#65

Post by ancap »

bell-cot wrote: post #33
ancap wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I find this definition interesting because it seems to me there’s a very prevalent portrayal in media pointing towards the opposite, that is that humans left alone (read, without some powerful/wealthy authority) will unravel into the most depraved state imaginable. That's not surprising as the media, speaking generally, is a class which aligns itself closely with the ruling class and is incentivized to maintain the…

Um... how many stories in the media, from the front page of the NYTimes to top-grossing movies, are about the incompetence & evils of governments & members of ruling classes? I'm thinking that the problem is audience bias. Outside of a few little niches, running "All Is Well in Happy Valley"-type stories does not pay the bills.

> Um...how many stories in the media, from the front page of the NYTimes to top-grossing movies, are about the incompetence & evils of governments & members of ruling classes?

I don't have a copy of today's NYT so I'll leave it to someone else to perform the exercise. But it's besides the point. You're asking the wrong question. Again speaking generally, when the media criticizes the "incompetence & evils of governments" it is in effort to elevate or promote some other government party, or to promote their alternative program or policy, not to fundamentally alter the system of government itself. When they criticize a member of the ruling class it frequently is part of a coordinated PR campaign organized by another member of the ruling class.

Anyone part of the media who veers too off course the path of allowable opinion is quickly reigned in or let go.

Re: Are You an Anarchist? The Answer May Surprise You by David Graeber (2000)

#66

Post by TotalCrackpot »

hnthrow289570 wrote: post #14

>The first is that human beings are, under ordinary circumstances, about as reasonable and decent as they are allowed to be, and can organize themselves and their communities without needing to be told how. That's a crock of shit, look at how brutal early civilizations were compared to today. You have an argument over long terms (100+ year spans), but not in the near term. If you want the assumption to apply to the n…

Most civilizations created hierarchy, there are examples of somewhat anarchistic cities and civilizations that were very egalitarian and free, we can get inspiration from the to try to create a different world.

Re: Are You an Anarchist? The Answer May Surprise You by David Graeber (2000)

#68

Post by [deleted] »

ancap wrote: post #25
hnthrow289570 wrote: post #14

>The first is that human beings are, under ordinary circumstances, about as reasonable and decent as they are allowed to be, and can organize themselves and their communities without needing to be told how. That's a crock of shit, look at how brutal early civilizations were compared to today. You have an argument over long terms (100+ year spans), but not in the near term. If you want the assumption to apply to the n…

Compared to today? In the past century hundreds of millions of people have been slaughtered by states. Compare that with any "private sector" killing, now or in "early civilization" and the mounds of bodies are non-existent by comparison.

[deleted]

Re: Are You an Anarchist? The Answer May Surprise You by David Graeber (2000)

#69

Post by beaeglebeachh »

wahnfrieden wrote: post #56
paxys wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's impossible to generalize this without factoring in the external environment. Put a group of mentally stable people together in a safe, hospitable community with unlimited resources and yes the theory will probably hold true. But what happens when the food runs out? If there's a natural disaster? A plague? Some other crisis? What if they get invaded by a neighboring tribe whose intentions aren't so great? That's…

Dawn of Everything has possible examples of that Btw anarchy is quite new. You may learn from eg Zapatistas or Rojave but these are anarchy adjacent

I lived in Rojava and they are quite capitalist outside a few sectors. Go someplace like qamislo and it's basically capitalism with street vendors and stark disparity of wealth and poverty. However you can get free bread by simply appearing at a few stalls.

The socialist (leftwing anarchism adjacent), mustache-jesus ("apo") stuff is far more revered in the military and certain communes.

Re: Are You an Anarchist? The Answer May Surprise You by David Graeber (2000)

#70

Post by [deleted] »

Synaesthesia wrote: post #49
_heimdall wrote: post #4

The terms anarchist and libertarian are both really misunderstood (or misused?) today. At least in the US, most people seem to think libertarians are anarchists and anarchists are terrorists that want to lice in The Purge. I guess that does kind of make sense though. We also don't use the left/right spectrum the way most other cultures do and we've totally redefined what it means to be liberal or conservative. Well l…

Anarchism has been unfairly maligned, it’s basically associated with bomb thrower. But it’s really not about that.

[deleted]
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