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vovchik_ilich [he/him] @hexbear.net
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"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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  • I'm sorry but val's logic for an anarchist society just doesn't function. No matter what starting point such society begins with - i.e a post-u.s state downfall, a world wide victory, getting in a time machine and telling the Akkadians in Uruk to overthrow Gilgamesh and to immediately construct an anarchist society in the cradle of humanity - that society will simply conduct a great leap backwards.

    Logistics networks? You'd go back to struggling to even have a post office.

    Infrastructure? Good luck trying to maintain anything more advanced than a dirt road.

    Electricity, water, plumbing, waste management? Most likely can't maintain anything larger than a hamlet.

    Val, in concrete terms, isn't arguing for anarchism, they're arguing for primitivism.

    • Infrastructure? Good luck trying to maintain anything more advanced than a dirt road.

      Here's a fun anecdote to that point. My friend lives at the end of a private dirt and sand road/driveway with a gate at the front, there are five or six other houses along the road. It's difficult to impossible to get a normal car down it when the sand gets dry and deep, and also when it's wet and muddy. It's downright frightening to ride a motorcycle with road tires down it even in the best of times. My friend has been trying to get the neighbors to agree to chip in a little bit of money for an improvement, even as simple as gravel. His neighbors are all wealthy, wealthier than him as well. They absolutely will not agree, and some of them do stuff to actively make the road worse. The only resolutions are either he spends the money and puts in the time to do it himself, or he does some legal bullshit to try to force the county to take the road (and remove the access gate) so they will maintain it.

    • They largely admit as such, to taking a vibes-based approach that is individualism ad absurdum.

      • It makes me wonder if there is an anarchism of the 21st century. Something that actually logically works in theory and could be materially implemented. So at least if I come across another dork that wants anarchism-in-form-primitivism-in-action ism, I could at least point them in a direction for them to learn the most realistically up-to-date materials of their own worldview.

        Then again that's just too far into the weeds even for me, and I'll just stick with saying "who's gonna build and maintain the roads"

        • What I tend to point to is anarchist orgs doing mutual aid and community building within the confines of existing societies and trying to fill in the gaps with mutual community defense. The zapatistas reject the anarchist label, but I do support the mutual aid groups and whatnot that meaningfully improve the lives of their communities. I'm not aware of any broader systems that outright exist outside of the context of an existing society though, outside of small communes.

          • I can't think of anything either. Every scattered bit of info on actually-existing anarchist projects that I've read about have been mentions of experiments conducted in the Soviet Union by anarchists. Insofar as the closest I've heard of in the PRC has been the maoist communes.

        • Isn't Anarchism all about there being no project? For instance I am aware of a group who self-describe as anarchist and seem to follow an anarchist principle. I'm sorry I don't want to fedpost about them so I won't go into details.

          You generally won't find them on the internet. Their core principles seem to be all about independence and struggle against authority, they will ally themselves with you or they might become your enemy, depending on how you treat them. They seem like good people at heart and have principles, they will never sell you out. They just won't budge from their position.

          From what I've talked to them, they believe that another group is going to show up and build those roads, why? I don't know, honestly it's like a human nature argument. I try to put myself in their shoes, these are the people who chose to put themselves in a detrimental position, for whatever reason, sometimes for the sake of those like me who need help society won't provide.

          I think Anarchism is something that happens when a state fails to integrate people. If a socialist project integrated the group of anarchists why would they choose to be separate? Capitalists exploit people and the anarchists are aware of it, therefore they keep themselves away, but they want to live their life right now and aren't interested in building a socialist project, they could help you with the fight against Capitalism however.

        • It makes me wonder if there is an anarchism of the 21st century. Something that actually logically works in theory and could be materially implemented.

          Working on it. The task of redesigning a society in a way that is stable in the long term* and does not have class contention is tricky, you end up needing to have a prototype for an entirely new civilization from the ground up.

          *On just the scale of the scale of the 21st century, resource and ecological collapse is going to utterly topple virtually every existing society. Even had the USSR not undergone degeneration and even prevailed against the capitalist world, they would be imminently struggling with overshoot and resource scarcity.

          A caveat, though, is that anarchism is never pure, it always has its peculiarities, and "rejecting the label of anarchist" like @Cowbee@hexbear.net mentions is one of the most common things anarchists do.

          Interestingly enough, the projects I'm involved in could fit the bill of "as close as you can get to an-prim while still being serious and having continuity". We like to emphasize permaculture, appropriate technology, and technological transparency, "permaculture communism" is something we often like to call it.

          For some examples of basic needs, you can build wildly efficient and comfortable buildings (timber structure, strawbale insulation, masonry/rocket-mass heater) with Neolithic technology, in non-tropical climates you'll need glass too. In a wet-enough climate (Köppen-types A, C, and D) you can cut out almost all need for the plumbing grid with rainwater collection, slow sand filters, and composting toilets, all 100% pre-Classical tech. For electricity we're used to using maybe 5-10% of what normal people use, rocket stoves and heaters displace a lot of that need; we're still very reliant on solar panels and LEDs. We could plausibly have CHP stoves that require blacksmithing and a minimalist supply chain for electrical parts; those probably wouldn't be as good at power generation as PV solar.

          Building networks and standards for collective self-defense and preservation is difficult; unsurprisingly it's the human side of things that's far more challenging than the material one.

      • Yep. vibes all the way. baby. anything more structured will inevitably fall apart when other people have differing opinions, this way I remain compatible.

    • Ah for the case of Val going back in time to try and overthrow the first hero of humanity, assuming somehow that happened, - assuming best cases happened through out their life - anything they accomplished within their lifetime would be quickly swept away after their death and whatever remnants that remained would too be swept into the dustbin of history as the Akkadians begin their conquest of the region.

    • anarchism is of course about classes. The guy's wrong. That being said, unions and federations of soviets can take care of things, like they did during revolts.

280 comments