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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)

#101

Post by TotalCrackpot »

pif wrote: post #86
TotalCrackpot wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This civilization meant exploitation of peasants, genocide of Native Americans, slavery, exploitation of women. It created a lot of wars and suffering. I treat anarchism as a direction to try to get nice parts of current world (scientific research, some technologies like advanced medicine) without the inequalities and suffering that was done along the way. Anarchists postulate structures, a lot of them postulate repl…

> I treat anarchism as a direction to try to get nice parts of current world (scientific research, some technologies like advanced medicine) without ... Don't fool yourself! The niceties of modern times require a critic mass that is orders of magnitude larger than what anarchism can cope with.

Anarchists can federate so scaling is not a problem.

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

#102

Post by TotalCrackpot »

krapp wrote: post #37
pif wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed, anarchy was the default state of human nature until communities reached Dunbar's number, i.e. around 150 people. Then, they did invent civilization for a reason!

That doesn't pass the sniff test for me. The smallest possible human "community" would be a single family, and families are definitely coercive and hierarchical.

Parenting doesn't have to be hierarchical. Giving support doesn't constitute hierarchy is the sense that anarchists use the term.

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

#103

Post by TotalCrackpot »

beaeglebeachh wrote: post #61
wahnfrieden wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

How would you defend your all 100 properties at once without a state? If by capital you mean your personal belongings, then they can easily stay with you. Anti-capitalism concerns monopoly on land, resources, machines relevant for production and intellectual property like patents. Some people don't have access to those and they have to either become slave workers or starve.

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

#104

Post by enoch_r »

> Anarchists are simply people who believe human beings are capable of behaving in a reasonable fashion without having to be forced to.

This is an empirical question. It seems to me that even if a good-sized majority of the population is capable of living in this fashion, a small minority is absolutely not. (And this obviously is not due to "deprivation" or "inequality", unless you believe that white collar criminals are "deprived.") A small percentage of people can quite easily ruin things for everyone else, e.g. in NYC where a third of all shoplifting arrests were for 327 people (https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/15/nyregion/shoplifting-arre...).

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

#105

Post by peteradio »

pookha wrote: post #63

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…

Ok but hands off my chickens hoa clucker

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

#106

Post by [deleted] »

denton-scratch wrote: post #95
jampekka wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Left" is a relative concept. The original French revolution left was liberalist. Liberalism is the core ideology of the current western world. Both Democrats and Republicans are liberalists. Even Putin is predominantly a liberalist.

> Even Putin is predominantly a liberalist. He's an authoritarian autocrat. I've never come across a definition of "liberal" that includes that.

[deleted]

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

#107

Post by jampekka »

denton-scratch wrote: post #95
jampekka wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Left" is a relative concept. The original French revolution left was liberalist. Liberalism is the core ideology of the current western world. Both Democrats and Republicans are liberalists. Even Putin is predominantly a liberalist.

> Even Putin is predominantly a liberalist. He's an authoritarian autocrat. I've never come across a definition of "liberal" that includes that.

Liberalism is totally OK with authoritarian autocrats as long as they maintain the "freedom" of property holders to do as they please regardless of societal outcomes. Liberalism has a more problematic relationship with democracy. Quite expected as most people suffer from the liberalist economical order, making it somewhat tricky to maintain democratically.

https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/friedrich-hayek-dictatorshi...

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

#108

Post by enoch_r »

_benj wrote: post #15

> Anarchists are simply people who believe human beings are capable of behaving in a reasonable fashion without having to be forced to. 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. Reading the book f…

I think the media portrayal is quite wrong, but the reality is far worse for the anarchist ideology.

Around 1% of people are responsible for 63% of all violent crime convictions: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24173408/

So the vast majority of people are capable of behaving in a reasonable fashion without having to be forced to. But a tiny minority of people, even in a world where we try to force "reasonable behavior," cause an unfathomable amount of suffering and destruction. If we completely give up on the idea of "forcing people to behave," you have to have a good answer about what exactly these people do in that world, and what exactly happens as a result.

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

#109

Post by denton-scratch »

TotalCrackpot wrote: post #100
denton-scratch wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Most anarchists consider themselves far-left. "Far-left" is a derogatory term, a synonym for "left-wing extremist". Nobody considers themselves an extremist. I've noticed that my own views seem to be to the left of any mainstream political party here. For me, that just means that all the mainstream parties are right-wing. I reserve the term "far-left" for hyper-dogmatic communist revolutionaries who don't object to…

Anarchists are far-left. Some far-lest is authoritarian like Marxist-Leninists, some far left is anti-authoritarian like Anarchists.

It appears that you want to use the term "far left" to mean something like "socialist". I agree that anarchists are socialists.

I don't agree that all Marxist-Leninists are authoritarian; and for what it's worth, I'm not aware of any Marxist-Leninist grassroots group operating here (UK).

I repeat: "far-left" is a term of abuse. It's routinely deployed by US persons of the Trumpian and Tea-Party persuasions against anyone they disagree with, including the leadership of the Democratic Party, a party that has never espoused any kind of socialism.

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

#110

Post by wahnfrieden »

beaeglebeachh wrote: post #69
wahnfrieden wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Thx for the perspective
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