"Anarchism is not about [...] class or opposing archists"

Are Lemmy anarchists okay? How does this person have 24 upvotes? In what universe are anarchists NOT doing class analysis, (therefore) don't want to abolish capitalism, and don't want to fight archism?

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I suspect this is just because libs absolutely DESPISE comrade @Cowbee@hexbear.net and will upvote anything smart-sounding that supposedly addresses whatever is being discussed?

Also, gotta love the whole "I have this opinion and many anarchists will disagree and that's what anarchism is about". Like, buddy, you haven't read one book or talked to one anarchist IRL, let alone organized in your entire life.

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In what universe are anarchists NOT doing class analysis
In this one.
I wouldn't presume to speak for anyone else (the first place that you've gone wrong), but my own anarchism consists of little more than the recognition that I cannot possibly have the right to decide what someone else may, may not, must or must not do, say, think or believe, and the ambition to help bring about a world in which each and all recognize and accept that simple truth.
Beyond that, there are any number of things that I'd want to see as a part of the society of which I was a part, but I understand that since the foundation of that society will be that each and all are entirely free to prefer and work towards whatever they desire, there's no possible way that I could make any predictions, much less any declarations, regarding what that society will end up being, since what it will and can only end up being is whatever comes of the expression of the free and unconstrained preferences of each and all. Since nobody will possess the nominal right to force anyone else to submit to any particuar thing, we'll necessarily end up compromising, and there's no way to know what shape those compromises will take.
Personally I think it's bludgeoningly obvious that anyone who presumes to decree what shape an anarchistic society must take hasn't even grasped the most basic necessary realities of such a society.
- Do you want to abolish capitalism and class?
  
  I cannot possibly possess the right to "abolish" anything.
  I want to be free to choose to not take part in or be subject to either. Other people's preferences are their own.
  
  Here's the thing though, capitalism doesn't let you opt out. Just ask the Native Americans, or the Africans, or the Aboriginese. Either you kill it or it kills you.
  
  Bingo.
  
  Capitalism is not a moral agent.
  The actions that are ascribed to "capitalism" are the actions of individuals.
  
  Capitalism is a mode of production that exists in the material world, it is not merely the actions of individuals in a vacuum but a system that encompass entire economies, informing the nature of the class structure of a given society. You don't "do a capitalism," capitalism can only exist as a system with interlocking and circulating parts.
  Commodities are commodities not because one person pays for a labubu, but because of immense systems of circulation of capital and the social relations this reinforces.
  
  Nonetheless, all of it resolves to individual decisions.
  
  We are not static or isolated beings, but instead exist in the context of massive systems that inform how we interact, produce, and distribute. We cannot just say that everything is in our heads, nor can we create such a society through fiat.
  
  You appear to have missed my point.
  When I say that it all resolves to individual decisions, I'm not speaking of an individual decision, but of a veritable flood of them. The systems are built on millions... billions... quindecillions of individual decisions. But they're still, each and all, individual decisions.
  
  I haven't missed your point, you're arguing that if we change everyone's minds society will magically bend into this new reality, ie by fiat. This is utopianism.
  
  ...if we change everyone’s minds
  Sorry, but the fact that you phrase it in that way, as if other people's minds are ours to change, makes it pretty clear that you haven't understood even the most basic things I've said.
  
  The individual decision for e.g. a fruit company CEO to lobby the president to colonize a Latin American country to enslave its population for cheap fruit exports can only be made in the context in which many things exist, such as: private companies, armed forces capable of expeditionary warfare, individual wealth accumulation sufficient for such lobbying, commodity production and accumulation of profit, a colonial bureaucracy. To prevent someone from doing this requires dismantling that infrastructure. Since those who benefit from these systems will not accept this voluntarily, such dismantlement can only be done by force.
  
  Which simply replaces a system under which some are forced to submit to the wills of others with a system under which some are forced to submit to the wills of others.
  Not that I oppose the effort to, for instance, force the submission of CEOs or the politicians they buy. But I'm not going to pretend that that has anything to do with anarchism, particularly when history has shown essentially without exception that each new set of people who successfully exercise the nominal right to force the submission of others simply lay the foundation for the next set of tyrants who in turn need to be overthrown.
  
  Capitalism is not a moral agent.
  Neither is an avalanche, but it can still kill you.
  The actions that are ascribed to "capitalism" are the actions of individuals.
  Who were sufficiently incentivized do to those actions because they operated under capitalism.
  
  https://ianwrightsite.wordpress.com/2020/09/03/marx-on-capital-as-a-real-god-2/
  
  You believe class and capitalism are preferences and not impositions?
  
  I believe they're both - the preferences of some imposed upon others.
  And I reject the imposition of ones preferences upon others entirely.
  Possibly the point that's causing difficulty is that I don't believe that people can be successfully prohibited from imposing their wills upon others, since that in itself is an imposition of will. Rather, for a society to eatablish and maintain stable anarchism, it must be the case that each and all (or close enough as makes no meaningful difference) freely choisecto refrain from the imposition of their wills upon others
  And yes, I know how idealistic that is, but nonetheless, I see no way around it. Any society in which some claim the right to impose their wills upon others, regardless of the details, will inevitably end up authoritarian.
  
  Since you acknowledge that it is an imposition and assuming you don't believe your self-confessed idealistic utopia will never come about naturally, then wouldn't it make sense to embrace the path of least harm that brings you as close as possible to this religious conception of human society you hold so dear? Even if that means imposing on those who impose on others as a default?
  
  I think it will come about naturally (at least if humanity manages to not destroy itself in the meantime). In fact, I believe that it's inevitable if we survive that long - that humanity, given sufficient time, can't help but ultimately come to understand, essentially universally, the inherent destructiveness of institutionalized authority.
  I just think that point is unavoidably far in the future.
  I spent most of my adult life doing just as you say - advocating for a "least harm" alternative as at least something that could possibly be achieved.
  But I reached a point at which I just could no longer do it. To me, the logic behind my stance against the nominally rightful imposition of the will of some upon others is so solid that I can't deny it, and the need for intellectual integrity is so vital that I can't pretend I don't see it, so I have to content myself with idealism and leave it to others to pursue least harm stopgaps. I just can't do it - it would be a betrayal of my convictions
  
  the cruel tyranny of standardized units of measurement
  
  Harm reduction as liberals use it is worthless horseshit, but if you recognize that your stance is one of passive idealism and it is necessary to act, wouldn't it be better to have a growth mindset about it and have convictions that allow you to make the world better? Not necessarily to myself assert what those are, of course.
  
  This is a bit right
- I cannot possibly have the right to decide what someone else may, may not, must or must not do, say, think or believe
  Isn't this incompatible with the lack of class analysis? Isn't class the main driver of some people telling others what they may, may not must or must not say, think or believe?
  
  I think class is more in the nature of a consequence of that dynamic.
  I don't think it generally starts with a presumption of class per se, since it's ultimately an individual thing. It starts with an individual's generally entirely unexamined presumption that they rightfully have some say over what other people may, may not, must or must not do, say, think or believe.
  The problem is that any argument one might make to justify that claimed right is necessarily an argument that another might make for the same claimed right, which immediately leads to stalemate. And that is the reason that the conception of class, whether consciously or not, is introduced - in order to break the stalemate, it's necessary to take the position, again consciously or not, that one is distinct from others in such a way that they are subject to ones declarations regarding their decisions even as one is not subject to their declarations regarding ones own.
  Note though that while class is a common conception by which individuals attempt to resolve that cognitive dissonance, it's not the only one. Many who understand and thus generally at least try to avoid the pitfall of class still fall prey to the same fundamental error simply by basing their own presumed authority on something like claimed expertise, superior intellect or superior mental health.
  
  You can't ignore the mode of production and its relations to systems of oppression, hoping that you can simply go your own way. Class is imposed upon us, not something we choose.
  
  My goal isn't a world in which those who impose are imposed upon instead, but a world in which the imposition of ones will upon another is seen, as I believe it should be, as an intolerable wrong regardless of who's doing the imposing.
  That such a world is a distant ideal makes it no less my goal.
  
  Do you have a meaningful way to get there? I can say that my goal is to sprout wings and fly, but without a meaningful way to get there my goal may as well not exist. That's what's in contention here.
  
  I'm already there, at least to the degree possible in this world. I believe that I do not and in fact cannot possess a right to force others to submit to my will and act accordingly.
  What you're really asking is if I have a meaningful way to get the rest of humanity there, and I not only don't, but can't. I try to share my thinking, as I've done here, but beyond that, there's nothing really I can do. Of necessity, individuals have to choose this path of their own volition.
  
  So in other words, you're aware that your ideals are impossible, and rather than grounding yourself and fighting for what's possible, you're content with the ideal itself being lofty?
  
  I believe it's a law of the internet that whatever follows the phrase, "so in other words" is invariably bullshit.
  
  No, this is just being smug. I could say just the same of your comment when you said "what you're really asking," when you also tried to interpret my comment and rephrase it. Ultimately you believe in a world where neither you nor anyone else can tell anyone what to do, but you have no means to get there and thus it will just be a nice daydream and nothing more.
  
  That doesn't answer their question. You seem to follow this worldview not out of a desire to change things or help others, but simply to feel good about the fact that you are doing nothing to help others. It's smug self-satisfaction disguised as enlightenment.
  
  Contradictory in the same way as the paradox of tolerance. You think people should not believe they have the right to tell others what to believe. The usual way to resolve this is by turning it into a contract where the right (not to be told what to believe) is extended only to those who extend that right to others. But then you have to distinguish between those who do and do not uphold the contract, and determine how to enforce actions against people who do not uphold the contract.
  Fundamentally you cannot shy away from the obligation of imposing your (hopefully, collective) will on others in some way.
  
  Contradictory in the same way as the paradox of tolerance.
  The paradox of tolerance is bullshit apologetics.
  You think people should not believe they have the right to tell others what to believe.
  No - I think, exactly as I said, that I cannot possibly possess such a right, and that any argument one might make for such a supposed right is necessarily either self-defeating, since it's a right that would be held equally by all, or reconciled by the presumption of some sort of hierarchy by which some are empowered to impose while others are relegated merely to being imposed upon.
  The usual way to resolve this is by turning it into a contract where the right (not to be told what to believe) is extended only to those who extend that right to others.
  In the first place, if it's conditional, it's not a right.
  Beyond that, my ideas about rights would require much more of an essay than I'm interested in writing, but in a nutshell:
  I don't believe that anyone ever needs to claim a right to not be made subject to the will of another, since not being subject to the will of another is the default state.
  One can only be made subject to the will of another if that other explicitly acts to bring that about, so I believe that it's that action that must be justified - that they must successfully claim a right to so act. Otherwise, ome remains as one was - not subject to the will of another.
  And I don't believe that a case can be made for a right to act to make amother subject to ones will that is not either self-defeating or reconciled by the presumption of some sort of hierarchy, so I don't believe such a right can be claimed in an anarchistic society.
  But then you have to distinguish between those who do and do not uphold the contract, and determine how to enforce actions against people who do not uphold the contract.
  By what authority would one make, much less make others subject to, any such distinction or determination?
  Fundamentally you cannot shy away from the obligation of imposing your (hopefully, collective) will on others in some way.
  I entirely reject the ludicrous notion that there's any such obligation, nor do I have any intention or desire to pursue any such imposition.
  And I'd also note that "collective" makes no difference to me - I think an individual is no more rightfully subject to the wills of many than to the will of one. That many might agree to violate the rights of an individual doesn't somehow grant that violation legitimacy (if it did, gang rape would be legal).
  
  One can only be made subject to the will of another if that other explicitly acts to bring that about, so I believe that it's that action that must be justified - that they must successfully claim a right to so act. Otherwise, one remains as one was - not subject to the will of another.
  Okay, well the person subjecting you to their will does not believe they need to justify it (this seems to be the norm). What now? Do you want to be free in your head or free in real life?
  
  As long as people who claim the right to impose their wills upon others continue to exist, anarchism will remain a practical impossibility.
  That includes self-professed anarchists who claim that right.
  I would like to be free in real life, but I never will be. Humanity is nowhere even close to the intellectual, philosophical and psychological maturity necessary to create or maintain such a world. So the best I can do is share some ideas that will hopefully contribute to our progress toward that distant goal.
  
  Thankfully other anarchists are not nearly as hopeless as you and have thought quite a lot about the practicalities of anarchism and the transition from here to there.
  
  As I noted, one of the alternatives to class that people invoke when they seek to justify the imposition of their preferences is claimed expertise.
  
  I don’t disagree, but will submit that if your expertise does not rise to the level of being able to answer “what do you do if someone acts wrongly” in your hypothetical way of organizing the world then you don’t have a very strong claim that I am snowing you with expertise.
  Think smaller: before submitting organizing principles for all of society, try to come up with organizing principles that would work within a small community, for example a couple of roommates. Consider a chore chart. What do you do when someone doesn’t do their chores?
  
  before submitting organizing principles for all of society
  That's not up to me - it's up to all of society.
  I believe that the first place people go wrong - the first layer of the foundation upon which authoritarianism is built - is thinking that one can meaningfully declare what shape society nominally should take.
  I believe that if a group of people come together armed only with the determination to refrain from the imposition of their wills upon others, whatever form their society might take couldn't help but be the best possible compromise for all involved, since nobody would be seen to be rightfully forced to settle for anything less. That's sufficient for me.
  Consider a chore chart.
  I've never used one, and can't imagine ever doing so.
  What do you do when someone doesn’t do their chores?
  Sorry, but I can't even wrap my head around the idea of assigned chores.
  I know there are people out there who don't have a basic appreciation for cleanliness or the minimum of responsibility necessary to contribute to it, but the moment I get a hint of that when I'm talking to someone, they're immediately out of roommate contention. And maybe I have good instincts, because I've never had a problem with that.
  And I suspect there's a more fundamental answer to this whole line of questions there.
  
  Expertise is blatantly worthless as a fundamental governing mechanism and that should be obvious to anyone who thinks about it for a moment, because it establishes a class of "experts" who are then set in antagonistic relation to the rest of us and also, because "experts" are the fundamental governing entity, get to decide what "expertise" is. Technocracy is a joke.
  
  I agree, but nonetheless, expertise is probably second only to class as a basis for the establishment of a hierarchy by which those so inclined seek to avoid the stalemate that arises if they simply posit that humans possess a right to impose their wills on each other.
  And note that it's not always personal expertise. Many try to take the position, "You must do/say/think/believe as I say because [this expert] said so." Sort of hierarchy-by-proxy.
  
  I entirely reject the ludicrous notion that there's any such obligation, nor do I have any intention or desire to pursue any such imposition.
  Are you not a human being who lives in the world, a social animal that necessarily relies on the labor of others to sustain your life? Are you a monad in a value free vaccum with no social or emotional attachment to any others?
  
  How does the one preclude the other?
  Are you really saying that you can't even conceive of l6oving as a part of a society without imposing ones will upon others?
  
  I don't automatically start from the religious assumption that all imposition is everywhere and everyway a bad thing; newborns, children, parents, spouses, communities by and large impose on each other in some way, shape or form, we are social animals, our lives are literally in each other's hands
  Nature, technology, resources, biology, impose constraints on us that necessarily requires we engage in collective actions to sustain ourselves, that reality precludes your conception of how you think humans should behave
  Currently, we are under a totalized global system of imposition known as capitalism that far exceeds the constraints of nature and is actively harming our ability to sustain ourselves on this planet, that is where the struggle lies, not in some manichean belief in the orientation of human wills
  
  Are you really saying that you can't even conceive of l6oving as a part of a society without imposing ones will upon others?
  Nope. Welcome to the human race.
- So your personal strain of ideology is that you have absolutely no predictive power and you can't do or change anything, but eventually everyone else will agree with you?
  Since nobody will possess the nominal right to force anyone else to submit to any particuar thing, we'll necessarily end up compromising, and there's no way to know what shape those compromises will take.
  Right up until someone invents violence, I assume?
  
  So your personal strain of ideology is that it you have absolutely no predictive power and you can’t do or change anything, but eventually everyone else will agree with you?
  No.
  
  ...my own anarchism consists of little more than the recognition that I cannot possibly have the right to decide what someone else may, may not, must or must not do, say, think or believe..
  ...there's no possible way that I could make any predictions, much less any declarations, regarding what that society will end up being...
  
  Feel free to articulate what you actually believe then?
- Since nobody will possess the nominal right to force anyone else to submit to any particuar thing, we'll necessarily end up compromising, and there's no way to know what shape those compromises will take.
  This sounds like a form of pacifism. Would it be correct to assume that you would be openly critical of, say, a marxist revolution, but ultimately would not use force to stop it, since that would be contrary to your ideals? Would sabotage in favor of a fascist counter-revolution be on the table?
  
  I reject labels in general, and that one in particular
  The simplest way I've come up with so far to illustrate my stance on the right to impose ones will on another and to counter the common notion that it equates to pacifism:
  I believe that you have the right to, if you so choose, decide that you're going to kill me, and I do not have the right to prevent you from making that choice.
  However, I also believe that I do have the right to do whatever it might take to prevent you from succeeding.
  Would it be correct to assume that you would be openly critical of, say, a marxist revolution
  Possibly.
  I would be critical of it to be sure, since I believe that anything that enshrines the nominal right of some to force the submission of others is doomed to end up just another authoritarianism, But I doubt I'd make much of an issue of my criticisms, since if nothing else, a successful revolution would potentially create a bit of temporary breathing room, before the next set of power-hungry psychopaths slotted themselves into the system and became the next set of tyrants needing to be overthrown.
  but ultimately would not use force to stop it
  Yes.
  Would sabotage in favor of a fascist counter-revolution be on the table?
  On my part? Of course not. I'm not even willing to try to force submission to something I advocate - I'm certainly not willing to try to force submission to something I oppose.
  Did I misunderstand your question?
  
  I believe that you have the right to, if you so choose, decide that you're going to kill me, and I do not have the right to prevent you from making that choice.
  However, I also believe that I do have the right to do whatever it might take to prevent you from succeeding.
  Why just murdering you specifically? Why not extend this logic to other actions? For example, having the right to stop people from murdering others?
  
  To add to this: What if the murdering of others is done through sanctions and other means by the state that are not direct military actions?
  
  That's just a notable example.
  
  Would you like to answer the last question in the previous comment?
  
  Sorry - no. There are far too many variables, and thus far too many "gotcha" opportunities, and with no specific offense intended, I have zero hope of getting anything like intellectual charity on this thread.
  
  i didn't mean my question as a gotcha. i was more alluding to the fact that communists believe it is right to organise to stop murder or harm done not only to themselves, but also to others. concrete example: organising for an arms embargo to stop genocide committed by Israel. Another concrete example: enforcing masking and vaccinations to prevent the spread of deadly viruses.
  If you believe in the everyone's right to live, what makes fighting for someone else's life less important than for your own?
  Again, not trying to do a gotcha here. Just pointing out that the core of your premise (everyone has the right to live as they choose) is consistent with communism. The difference is that you take it to an extreme individualist/selfish approach, while communists take a communal/solidarity stance.
  
  I think people here would love to hear that you believe in fighting in defense of others.
  
  As an immediate, situational tactic - trying to stop, even forcibly, someone who's beating someone else for instance - I absolutely do.
  But if we're talking about, for instance, funding one side in a war so that its soldiers can kill the other side's soldiers in greater numbers and thereby make it more likely that one set of power-humgry paychopaths in expensive suits will be able to usurp the another set of power-hungry psychopaths in expensive suits, no - I'm not the least bit interested in such a "defense."
  And there's a broad range of scenarios between the two, each of which I'd have to decide on it's own.
  
  Can you tell me about any sort of systematic basis for what you approve of or reject?
  
  If one presumes true equality among humans, then the notion that anyone can rightfully be made subject to anyone else's preferences becomes incoherent, since any argument one might make in support of ones own claimed right to impose ones will on others is an argument that they might just as soundly make to inpose their own wills on oneself, which can only lead to stalemate.
  The way in which that stalemate is inevitably avoided, whether consciously or not, is by presuming some sort of hierarchy by which one is fundamentally dostinct from others, so ones own preferences are so meaningful that others are rightfully made subject to them while the preferences of others are so irrelevant that they areni even allowed to apply them to their own lives much less subject anyone else to them.
  aI reject any and all such hierarchies out of hand.
  So I find the entire concept of institutionalized authority to be logically unsupportable and reject it as well.
  And that's the extent of my views on the matter. Everything beyond that is just whatever comes of the application of that understanding.
  For instance - people get all twisted up about "capitalism." I don't.
  To a considerable degree, the failures of and harm done by capitalism exist because the system establishes a number of hierarchies that could not exist if the bulk of humanity took my view regarding authority and hierarchy. So there's no need to oppose capitalism specifically since just refusing to grant any credence to the underlying hierarchies that make it possible is sufficient. And beyond that, there are aspects of "capitalism" that are entirely within the rights of individuals so to attempt to eliminate them is to go too far in the opposite direction - to become the one claiming unjustifiable authority.
  For instance - my neighbor has built, entirely by his own labor a loom, and he offers to pay me a wage to operate it for him. I believe he has the right to make that offer and I have the right to accept it, but there are some, even among self-professed anarchists, who would disagree - who, though they likely don't consider it in these specific terms, believe that we should somehow be prohibited from entering into such an agreement. I think they're rather obviously wrong - they're veffectively claiming unjustifiable authority over our decisions.
  So in that last graph, there are two more or less concrete positions I take. But it's not so much that I take those positions as that I apply my understanding of the fundamental failure of claimed authority to the situation and those are two of the positions that result. So it's not as if I would or even could beat my chest and proclaim "wage labor is a right" because there are too many possible variables and too many nuances to make such a proclamation,
  I'm simply confident that my understanding of the inherent failure of claims to authority is sufficient, and that when humanity evolves to the point that that inderstanding is as common as, say, the current understanding that nobody can justifiably claim the right to kill and eat someone else, whatever norms might come of it can't help but becthe best possible since nobody could becnominally rightfully forced to settle for anything less.

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