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I think that if humanity can manage to survive long enough, anarchism is inevitable.
It’s essentially the adult stage of human society - the point at which humans collectively and consistently, rather than just individually and situationally, can be trusted to generally do the right thing simply because it’s the right thing and therefore the most reasonable thing to do.
For the time being and the foreseeable future though, humanity is nowhere even close to that. Through the course of history, human society has managed to advance to about the equivalent of adolescence. There’s still a long way to go.
In spite of that, I do identify as an anarchist, but my advocacy is focused on the ideal and the steps humanity as a whole has to take to achieve it. I think it’s plainly obvious that it cannot be implemented, since any mechanism by which it might be inplemented would necessarily violate the very principles that define it. It can only be willingly adopted by each and all (or close enough as makes no meaningful difference), and that point will come whenever (if) it comes.
It depends on the definition
The definition is whatever you want the definition to be. Don’t let others force a definition on you.
coupled with communism it’s the real shit
The end goal of civilization.
Stateless, Egalitarian societies.
ITT: Nobody has any idea what any anarchist philosopher ever said or believed and simply thinks it means no rules
They then strut victoriously, thinking they are smarter than every anarchist philosopher who has ever existed because they know that rules matter in a society, not realizing that no anarchist thinker has ever said “let’s just have no rules or organization and just see how it goes based on the vibes”
Anarchy sounds good to me then someone asks “Who’d fix the sewers?”
edit: This is lyrics from The Dead Kennedy’s “Where Do You Draw the Line?”
Anarchist response would be “people who want functioning sewers, which should be everybody.”
Yeah it’s a dirty job. So is wiping your ass. Does someone need to threaten you to wipe your ass? Take a shower? When your toilet breaks at home do you shrug and just shit on the bathroom floor?
No, you fix the toilet. Same with the sewers.
Ok and who does that end up being?
Whoever steps up first. For a sewer, probably several people. What’s your point?
Most aren’t capable ir willing to do this work without substantial compensation above and beyond what most jobs provide.
I think you may underestimate the impact of sewage backing up into your home :D
You are right though. Tragedy of the commons is a catch22. When everything is everyone’s problem, nothing is anyone’s problem. This occurs in EVERY political system though, and they still function.
Yes, capitalist republics compensate for this by paying others more for these jobs. Authoritarian states push people into these jobs. I’m not sure how this gets addressed in an anarchistic society in practical terms.
I’m of the opinion that an anarchist society is probably the wrong way, but incorporating anarchist ideals into things, such as “no really you actually are responsible for everyTHING (not everyone) around you” and “you are the only person who is capable of being responsible for your own choices, opinions and decisions.” and “consider the consequences of your actions before doing what you are told” and “a just hierarchy is one you are free to join and leave as required, and without coersion”, we can actually improve even our current system.
honestly people like to talk about about moneyless societies but I’d imagine it would still be around for a while. I imagine a system where people chip into a fund to provide a bounty of sorts for jobs that require extreme skill or a strong stomach.
Given that an anarchist society wouldn’t have capitalists, I Imagine that wages, if they still existed, would be substantially different than they are today.
I would think the desire for flush toilets would be enough, but if you think people need extrinsic motivation there is room for that.
I have mucked a sewer line before. I don’t think anyone who hasn’t actually handled sewage should really take a second to ask if they would step up to do this and are they even capable of doing so (I cannot at 50 do this anymore).
This is where anti-capitalist ideologies have a shortcoming that needs to be considered as we have to move away from capitalism.
I can’t deny there are dirty jobs that nobody would do on a lark or as a hobby or even a calling.
A busted sewer is a community emergency. You can ask the infirm, the pregnant, the elderly “what are you willing to do to support our efforts to fix the sewer?” And the answer might be cook some large meals, care for the children, or take someone’s regular job for a week
Yes, everyone will be side eyeing young, strong, men (and maybe women) to take the lead on fixing the sewer. There might be promises to make it up to them later. A fifty year old with carpentry experience might offer to expand a house install new cabinets if they will help with the sewer. I do think there are things that others can do to support a major effort like that.
I see it as a guideline for how society could be structured after the elimination of class.
I consider myself an anarcho-pragmatist. It would be nice not to have any rulers or an hierarchy. But I also know people well enough to know that unless we defer any decision making to a supercomputer everyone trusts, we’re going to need some form of societal structure.
No one will unanimously trust a computer model. People will try to undermine and destroy it. So, the question would then be, how do you stop that? And suddenly you’re not really talking about anarchy. The computer will need to enforce its existence through violence.
Responsible anarchism is a good ideal to aim for, but in pure form it’s utopian. Realistic way to get closer to this ideal is shifting to stateless/borderless societies that center around some alternative entities other than geopolitical nation-states.
Quite literally impossible to implement. Same as true “Libertarianism”. Can’t actually exist.
Look at it this way. You and your neighbours want no government. No taxes. No laws. No “authority” telling you what to do and how to do it. Great!
What happens when the road needs to be fixed? Do you fix just the road in front of your house? Or do you negotiate with your neighbours for you all to pay a fair share to get the entire road done? Congratulations…you just invented government.
So now the road is getting done, but the people doing the work really don’t want to deal with every individual for every particular decision. It’s a much better idea to elect one person to do the communicating. Congratulations…you just invented civics and beaurocracy
This person that you all agreed to handle all of this stuff doesn’t have time anymore to support himself or his family because he’s dealing with your shit, so he demands that each of you pay an amount to keep in able to feed himself while he administrates your “anarchic society.” Congratulations…you just invented taxes
Replace “roads” with literally anything else in a community and the end result is the same. Both Libertarians and Anarchists are fucking morons.
You don’t know what anarchism is or what it means and are arguing with a strawman.
anarchism means no rulers, not no rules
we would just use direct democracy for our government
we don’t even want no government, we want no state, those are different things
can you point to an anarchist philosopher who believes the nonsense you argued against?
Anarchism isn’t “no government”. I don’t think your larger assessment is incorrect in that anarchism is utopian in nature and unrealistic on a larger scale but your understanding of the ideology is flawed.
I don’t think practically you could end up with a state of anarchism because it implies that humans can exist in a power vacuum. Something will always fill that vacuum. Now, the question is what is that thing? It can take a lot of forms. The goal should be to make it serve the qualitative needs of most people - food, shelter, well being, safety. People advocating for true anarchy are usually doing so from a naive idealism. Idealism is often good, but sometimes ignores other factors that make the ideal impossible to achieve.
Anarchists are not against government, they’re against the state, and these are two different things.
They are also not against rules, there’s no power vacuum because power is held by consensus. I don’t think you’ve ever read an anarchist philosopher, based on this take.
Absence of government; the state of society where there is no law or supreme power; a state of lawlessness; political confusion
https://gcide.gnu.org.ua/?q=Anarchy&define=Define&strategy=.
Whatever you’re arguing for, I’d suggest using another word
Yes, that’s a co-opted definition that doesn’t come from any anarchist philosophers. The definition has changed because people use the word differently. Note, anarchy is completely different from the political philosophy of anarchism.
There is not a single anarchist philosopher that means that definition when they say they are an anarchist, the first anarchists did not use anything resembling that definition.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarchism
Proudhon would be rolling in his grave if he knew people were saying that’s what anarchism was. There’s never been an argument made by anarchist philosophers in support of that, as it would be stupid and obviously terrible.
I should not have to change that i’m an anarchist when I know what the word means, just because people are using it to mean something else, it’s the political philosophers that established it that get to own the term, not colloquial speech.
There’s a million terms where the definition in the dictionary has nothing to do with the academic study of it… this happens all the time in politics. The language may change, but the academic usage of the term is already established, dictionaries stay up to date with language changes, rather than using academic definitions.
Another example: the marxist definition of private property has nothing to do with the current definition, what marx meant when he said private property is property that generates capital, not your toothbrush.
Technically the whole world runs on pure anarchism. No rules, only those created by local groups. With agreements between some of the groups. Most of it enforced by violence.
Laws only exist because most people believe in them. For the rest they are enforced with violence. I believe that anarchy would result in a similar system. Most people would behave but some would not. To protect everyone eventually some kind of police and laws would form again.
Anarchism has nothing to do with “no rules”
When I was younger, I believed that it was an ideal worth striving for. Now I don’t have that much faith in people anymore and I think that the best you can ask for is to try to live life your way and stay true to your beliefs and morals as best you can, according to whatever circumstances that you’ve been given.
It seems foolish and young to me. Same as libertarian rules or rule by religious doctrine. None of that shit works. Just shiny little playthings to keep people distracted from real and genuine problems that cause an existential threat to all species living on earth.
Which anarchist philosophers beliefs did you find foolish and young, and why? I’d love a critique!
Strange claim, given that it’s arguably how humans have organized their society for 296,000 years until that religion you dislike fucked it all up.
Uhm, no? For most of humanity, we were in patriarcal tribes. That’s not the same as anarchy. And the moment settlements grew, there was typically some kind of hierarchy in place, some chief.
Lol, love when someone just hangs their whole ass out on every point of order.
Sure mate!
I think it’s great. We should fucking try it.
Seriously, though, I think it would be nice but it’s going to be impossible unless you can fully get rid of greedy, corrupt, power hungry pieces of shit with zero empathy.
Don’t forget the morons who keep worshipping said pieces of shit. Even now, I run into Musk cultists regularly.
So as long as the the greedy, power-hungry pieces of shit have at least some empathy, we can make it work?
It at least shows they could possibly be rehabilitated.
I guess what I’m saying is that an individual with lack of empathy is much less of a problem for an egalitarian society than one that seeks power. And yes, even empathic individuals seek power.
The problem is one of human nature. We need a society that works for humans, and that means a system that puts limits on the worst parts of human nature. Saying “this will work when people behave better” means it’s never going to work.
And to be clear: I think this is one of the big advantages that anarchism has over, say, socialism. With no power apparatus to corrupt, there’s less of a target for the corrupt power-seekers.
But it needs to be structured in a way that reinforces eusocial behavior and disincentivizes antisocial behavior; further, the mechanisms for those reinforcements and disincentives needs to be communal rather than centralized, or someone will steal the reinforcement apparatus for their own selfish ends.
