Anarchism is not the lack of government. It’s the lack of hierarchy. There can (and practically must) still be government and cooperation. Anarchism is not chaos, like the media portrays it.
There’s a lot of resources online if you want to learn more.
I didn’t find anarchic rhetoric to be very compelling because it seems like endless layers of “Actually,”, not unlike libertarianism. We wind up reinventing the thing discarded.
I’m a systems guy. When I have conversations with politically idealistic individuals, I ask them questions about their proposed system. Every anarchist I talk to at length about infrastructure and industry either refuses to imagine that people wouldn’t spontaneously cooperate out of the goodness of their hearts, or winds up reinventing hierarchies. But different hierarchies, which aren’t the same things for some reason.
I’m also a systems guy. It isn’t that people will spontaneously cooperate and just build roads or whatever. It’s about creating systems that can solve these problems, but systems that listen to everyone’s voices. Yes, there will be disagreement on some things, but the solution with the most agreement will be enacted.
Also yes, not everyone can be involved in everything, so you need groups in charge of certain tasks. However, again, this does not need to be hierarchical. It just needs to be cooperative. Those groups will handle those tasks, and they’re accountable to the people. They aren’t above them. They’re just filling a role for now, as everyone is also doing.
I thought the same thing as you about anarchism for a while too. I thought it seemed stupid and that it couldn’t work, and they’re just reinventing the same things with different names. I don’t believe that anymore though. It turns out the structures we have in place lead us to a very poor understanding of alternative systems of governance, for some very mystifying reason.
I’m not even specifically talking about systems of governance, just systems of decision and production.
It’s about creating systems that can solve these problems, but systems that listen to everyone’s voices.
How, tho? Once we get into the nitty gritty of implementation, how do you build that system? How do you defend that system from roving hooligans? From popular tyrants? When the people agree on basic laws, how are they enforced? Are they just supposed to meet in the town square to hunt down thieves and killers?
This is what I’m talking about. You either have to assume that in an anarchist utopia, greed and malice will somehow spontaneously disappear from all humanity, or you have to have to devise a way to handle that.
Logistically, getting the whole town together to make every decision just doesn’t work. There are too many little fiddly conflicts for total democracy, no one would have time to do any of the important stuff, they’d be in councils all day. So we assign representatives (legislators, judges, police, etc) with cumulative referred power to enforce the democratic will of the people. Follow that process a few steps and you wind up right at a modern liberal democracy.
The structures we have in place are flawed, but not by lack of trying. The founding fathers seemed to have made a sincere attempt at developing
systems that can solve these problems, but systems that listen to everyone’s voices. Yes, there will be disagreement on some things, but the solution with the most agreement will be enacted.
It turns out that getting parasocial apex predators to coexist peacefully is actually pretty difficult, and every system has to make compromises. I don’t see anarchism as a mature system that has taken these difficulties seriously. It hand-waves the difficult parts with “We’ll figure it out through cooperation”, without serious consideration given to how that cooperation manifests in implementation.
How, tho?.. How do you defend that system from roving hooligans? From popular tyrants? When the people agree on basic laws, how are they enforced? Are they just supposed to meet in the town square to hunt down thieves and killers?
Have you heard of Community Policing before? That’s an example of non-hierarchical cooperative policing, and it’s effective all over the world. I don’t know if you’re trying to be obtuse or just really haven’t heard or thought about any of this, but it isn’t anything particularly revolutionary.
Logistically, getting the whole town together to make every decision just doesn’t work. There are too many little fiddly conflicts for total democracy, no one would have time to do any of the important stuff, they’d be in councils all day. So we assign representatives (legislators, judges, police, etc) with cumulative referred power to enforce the democratic will of the people. Follow that process a few steps and you wind up right at a modern liberal democracy.
I talked about this above. Yes, not everyone can be involved with everything all the time. The key is accountability and cooperation. Our current democracies are largely missing both of these. In an ideal world, sure they’re accountable to voters, but power in that is unfairly controlled by the owner class.
The structures we have in place are flawed, but not by lack of trying. The founding fathers seemed to have made a sincere attempt at developing
Absolutely, and they should be treated as human as anyone. They weren’t flawless gods. They thought we’d have torn it apart and built something better by now. Hell, they threw out their first attempt in a few years (The Articles of Confederation). We should be inspired by their attempt and actions and try to fix the issues we can see in the current systems. That’s could mean starting over, like they did… twice.
I don’t see anarchism as a mature system that has taken these difficulties seriously. It hand-waves the difficult parts with “We’ll figure it out through cooperation”, without serious consideration given to how that cooperation manifests in implementation.
It does not hand wave it away. You hand wave away the solutions and just say “oh, they haven’t actually considered it.”
Anarchism has been a philosophy for hundreds of years. There’s solutions to everything you’ve presented, and probably anything you could think of. Being ignorant of something isn’t the same thing as it not existing. It just means you don’t know about it yet. If you made a sincere attempt to understand Anarchist philosophy and though, and different forms of Anarchism, and they’re solutions, you wouldn’t be so confused. You don’t have to do this, but if you’re actually curious you should.
The difficulty isn’t in the cooperation part. It’s with the not having an authority. Some corrupt assholes will always try to take charge and be an authority.
I am an anarchist, but I am also not naive. The only way an anarchist utopia could ever truly exist is if people were completely free of greed and desire to have power over others. Which is extremely unlikely.
But I like roads and hospitals and fire stations and no purge.
Anarchism is not the lack of government. It’s the lack of hierarchy. There can (and practically must) still be government and cooperation. Anarchism is not chaos, like the media portrays it.
There’s a lot of resources online if you want to learn more.
I didn’t find anarchic rhetoric to be very compelling because it seems like endless layers of “Actually,”, not unlike libertarianism. We wind up reinventing the thing discarded.
I’m a systems guy. When I have conversations with politically idealistic individuals, I ask them questions about their proposed system. Every anarchist I talk to at length about infrastructure and industry either refuses to imagine that people wouldn’t spontaneously cooperate out of the goodness of their hearts, or winds up reinventing hierarchies. But different hierarchies, which aren’t the same things for some reason.
I’m also a systems guy. It isn’t that people will spontaneously cooperate and just build roads or whatever. It’s about creating systems that can solve these problems, but systems that listen to everyone’s voices. Yes, there will be disagreement on some things, but the solution with the most agreement will be enacted.
Also yes, not everyone can be involved in everything, so you need groups in charge of certain tasks. However, again, this does not need to be hierarchical. It just needs to be cooperative. Those groups will handle those tasks, and they’re accountable to the people. They aren’t above them. They’re just filling a role for now, as everyone is also doing.
I thought the same thing as you about anarchism for a while too. I thought it seemed stupid and that it couldn’t work, and they’re just reinventing the same things with different names. I don’t believe that anymore though. It turns out the structures we have in place lead us to a very poor understanding of alternative systems of governance, for some very mystifying reason.
I’m not even specifically talking about systems of governance, just systems of decision and production.
How, tho? Once we get into the nitty gritty of implementation, how do you build that system? How do you defend that system from roving hooligans? From popular tyrants? When the people agree on basic laws, how are they enforced? Are they just supposed to meet in the town square to hunt down thieves and killers?
This is what I’m talking about. You either have to assume that in an anarchist utopia, greed and malice will somehow spontaneously disappear from all humanity, or you have to have to devise a way to handle that.
Logistically, getting the whole town together to make every decision just doesn’t work. There are too many little fiddly conflicts for total democracy, no one would have time to do any of the important stuff, they’d be in councils all day. So we assign representatives (legislators, judges, police, etc) with cumulative referred power to enforce the democratic will of the people. Follow that process a few steps and you wind up right at a modern liberal democracy.
The structures we have in place are flawed, but not by lack of trying. The founding fathers seemed to have made a sincere attempt at developing
It turns out that getting parasocial apex predators to coexist peacefully is actually pretty difficult, and every system has to make compromises. I don’t see anarchism as a mature system that has taken these difficulties seriously. It hand-waves the difficult parts with “We’ll figure it out through cooperation”, without serious consideration given to how that cooperation manifests in implementation.
Have you heard of Community Policing before? That’s an example of non-hierarchical cooperative policing, and it’s effective all over the world. I don’t know if you’re trying to be obtuse or just really haven’t heard or thought about any of this, but it isn’t anything particularly revolutionary.
I talked about this above. Yes, not everyone can be involved with everything all the time. The key is accountability and cooperation. Our current democracies are largely missing both of these. In an ideal world, sure they’re accountable to voters, but power in that is unfairly controlled by the owner class.
Absolutely, and they should be treated as human as anyone. They weren’t flawless gods. They thought we’d have torn it apart and built something better by now. Hell, they threw out their first attempt in a few years (The Articles of Confederation). We should be inspired by their attempt and actions and try to fix the issues we can see in the current systems. That’s could mean starting over, like they did… twice.
It does not hand wave it away. You hand wave away the solutions and just say “oh, they haven’t actually considered it.”
Anarchism has been a philosophy for hundreds of years. There’s solutions to everything you’ve presented, and probably anything you could think of. Being ignorant of something isn’t the same thing as it not existing. It just means you don’t know about it yet. If you made a sincere attempt to understand Anarchist philosophy and though, and different forms of Anarchism, and they’re solutions, you wouldn’t be so confused. You don’t have to do this, but if you’re actually curious you should.
Cooperation can still exist without authority.
The difficulty isn’t in the cooperation part. It’s with the not having an authority. Some corrupt assholes will always try to take charge and be an authority.
I feel like the logical endpoint of “corruption in a system of anarchy” then is just bandit gangs.
I have a hard time saying those are worse for society than rich capitalists these days. But they’re not good.
I am an anarchist, but I am also not naive. The only way an anarchist utopia could ever truly exist is if people were completely free of greed and desire to have power over others. Which is extremely unlikely.
That doesn’t mean I don’t want it, tho. 😔