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  • Good luck keeping order without an entity for keeping order.

    • There is an entity for keeping order. Its called a community. Everyone protects everyone because everyone knows everyone because everyone needs everyone. If you step out of line people won't protect you.

      Stateless societies existed for millennia before all the states came along and enslaved them. They had order because strong personal relationships maintain order without leaders.

      • Surprise: as soon as you form a community, the most dependable members become a governing core. What the fuck do you think a "village elder" is?

        Also, what happens when village A decides their neighbours B don't deserve all of their land? There's no governing body to mediate, so village A simply attacks B.

        • the most dependable members become a governing core.

          Yes, and that governing core does not have complete authority over the village, They are trusted members of the community and if they abuse their powers they get removed.

          This is exactly the kind of order you want. The people that have put the most effort into the community naturally want what's best for that community, and if they are trusted that means they are more likely to be kind and nice people and not greedy.

          what happens when village A decides their neighbours B don’t deserve all of their land?

          The best option is for village A to send a delegation to B and voice their concerns. After which village B decides what to do.

          Just like people do not need to be governed, groups (in this conversation villages) do not as well. They should have enough common sense to do things peacefully because if they become hostile all the other groups band together to oppose them. The same dynamics are at play.

          • And then the fluffy unicorns join the care bears in a happy dance

          • What happens when the governing core says no? For this system to work, you need an almost perfect level of education and reprogramming. That same level of education and reprogramming would also theoretically solve all problems in the current system and power structure. You have the same power to help people now as you magically would under your proposed system. You just refuse to play by the same rules because you think they are rigged against you when they aren't. You just refuse to play.

            • The governing core is the society. If they say no then that society changes. That is how the system works. The people decide how to live their life and if they don't want to live a certain way they change. As long as the people stay skeptical of all authority the system works. If they don't it collapses into a class based society.

              You don't need perfect reprogramming. You just need a couple of people who want to live this way and let them live.

              Anarchism works. The systems that I am describing have been successfully implemented and work.

              • Anarchism does absolutely nothing to oppose oppressive systems of power but hopes and dreams. Good luck changing people's minds when communications are restricted in non-liberal societies. Your core tenants are that you reject the power structures required to defend against them. The only difference between you and the original communist revolutions is that you reject the soviets that allowed them to organize a revolution and consolidate power.

                This is not the first time I have been sent that source. Your source only proves that it can work in addition to existing power structures or at a smaller scale. If you cannot convince the majority to shift, a couple people are not going to lead a general strike which is commonly held to be a requirement for societal change towards anarchism. You are not arguing the actual ideology of anarchism.

                There's so much that anarchism fails at but ultimately its inability to sustain itself as an ideology means that it will always fail, regardless of if it could work at scale(It cannot) Thus, you are only hurting people with attempts at radical change because the only societies that allow it are liberal ones. What naturally results is opposition in the forms of fascism or a shift to actual communism and oppression. All this while less liberal societies take advantage of free peoples. It is either an unethical ideology or you are proposing it with malicious intent.

                • I am not against hierarchies if they are justified. The hierarchies that are democratic and non-coercive are acceptable.

                  Power should not be consolidated, it should be distributed among the population. Any sort of consolidation of power opens the door for people to create systems and hierarchies that maintain power unjustly.

                  I think that if a society is capable of working in a smaller scale it can be scaled up. Especially with the technology that we have today.

                  I don't think that anarchism is unsustainable. all attempts to create anarchist societies have ended because of outside factors (invasions). I don't see these as shortcomings of anarchism but instead as shortcomings of other systems to tolerate alternate political systems. Also if an anarchist society descends into fascism (red or otherwise) then that is because the people didn't do enough to oppose it.

                  I also apologize if some of these statements are short. You can't unbind ctrl+w to close the window on firefox and I use it to delete the last word so I accidentally deleted my previous two attempts to answer this comment.

                  Also I appreciate this conversation as it requires me to think through my ideology.

                  • All societies have ended due to a combination of internal and outside factors. That is the test of a society. To claim that anarchist societies do not have internal issues is intellectually dishonest. All capitalist societies that have failed have done so due to outside factors. So too have all monarchist and communist if the true believers are to be listened to. When the USSR and the CCP started it was economically anarchist so I do not accept the claim that all anarchist systems ended due to outside factors. They also naturally consolidate.

                    The key difference is how much suffering is caused along the way. Anarchist society ascends into fascism so easily because it already controls the resources and is a single-party system that does not allow dissent. All the elements are there minus the natural rhetoric and for people to vote themselves a better position (tyranny of the majority). You cannot stop that. It is going to happen because it is human nature.

                    I honestly don't expect to change your mind in this conversation. That's not how it works. I was once a radical thinker. I do hope that I've instilled some nuggets of thought that eventually turn into a worldview that is less likely to cause harm. Very few radicals that actually implement change survive it and they tend to cause a lot of pain along the way. The rest end up in teaching.

                    • I did not claim that anarchist societies did not have internal problems, I said that anarchist societies have ended because of external problems. Internal problems exists but they aren't fatal. The USSR and CCP were not anarchist. The economy may have functioned anarchically for a couple of months but the people were not anarchists and the ones that took power were vanguardists (because they usurped the previous state and used it to repress the population).

                      Also I am interested to know how anarchy, the system that is inherently based on dissent, does not allow dissent. Anarchy is only dissent. There isn't a single anarchist ideology. Anarchy is a way of thought that rejects the idea of conformity and it being a "single party system" is an insane thing to suggest.

                      The last thing I want to do is cause harm. I belie this society is possible but I do not want it implemented unless I know it can survive in a humane way. This is ideology it is the long term goals that we set for ourselves so we have something to strive for. This change should only happen if the people are ready for it. If they believe it. I think that any society that humans can imagine can exists as long as all the individuals in that society want it to.

                      My worldview does not cause less harm than any of the current ones. All of the points that you but forward come from the lack of faith in the system, or more accurately the people that make up the system. My ideology is based on the fact that people can be good, kind and selfless and the only thing stopping entire society from being those things is because our natural kindness gets destroyed by the current culture. I understand that this might be a naive thing to think but the world is currently ending (because of the "less harmful ideologies") so being naive and hopeful is the best thing I can do.

                      I am an anarchist because It is a society build on human interaction, kindness, friendliness, acceptance and tolerance. That is what my anarchy is. people existing for the sake of their friends and neighbors. If you can show me another ideology that has all of that I am eager to listen. because those things are antithetical to capitalism, and if you remove all of the things from capitalism that make it incompatible you will end up with anarchy.

                      • How do you define a system where decisions are made decentrally at a communal level and the owners of capital are the workers? Any serious study of early attempts at economic decentralization of the early Soviet and CCP systems should result in the conclusion that it was effectively an attempt at economic anarchy by its very definition. Just because it is not your prefered anarchy does not mean it was not anarchy.

                        Capitalism is compatible with kindness and, in fact, works better with it. Capitalism also allows for anarchist structures. Just because people do not throw resources at your system does not mean that it is not allowed. Any system that refuses to allow capitalist structures is one that does not allow dissent. Any anarchist system that does allow for capitalism bleeds skilled labor and capital over time. Any education system that promotes kindness and humanity is just as effective at bettering a capitalist system as it would be an anarchist one but good luck controlling the educational system with anarchist structures. We cannot even keep religious dogma out of our current ones with the strongest and most rigid structures.

                        Economics is the study of how best to allocate the resources within society. Anarchism does not allow for any of the economic structures that allow for resource allocation at scale. A command economy can but is inefficient the more centralized it is. Capitalism can but it is less human the larger it is. If you take out the scale of a command economy, people starve. If you make capitalist systems smaller, they become more human. There is a clearly preferred system which is smaller capitalism. That is my answer to you on a system that has all that.

                        Beyond the simple answer, it requires a few other things as a roadmap to get there (which Anarchism does not have in any form beyond attempts at general strikes and generally degrading the system in the hope that fascism would not be the natural response)

                        1. Promoting small businesses at the local and contractual level (Such as government requiring small business partnerships with large firms and providers)
                        2. Education on ethics and diversity
                        3. Robust public spaces with a sense of place supporting small communities (even within large cities)
                        4. Promotion of equity at the lowest levels
                        5. Increased mobility to increase labor and purchasing power over monopoly labor
                        6. More robust controls on anticompetitive business behavior beyond simple monopoly definitions
                        7. Promotion of nonprofits and other alternative corporate structures in certain industries

                        All of the above are interlinked and require each other to be most effective. All of them can be done in your community right now and don't require interjection by a higher government than your local town/city.

                        It honestly sounds to me like you do not understand capitalism if you think there is not a human element that comes into play. Reducing suffering enables better human interaction, excess kindness, leisure time, friendliness, and absolutely requires tolerance and acceptance. An efficient system is not one that allows for discrimination based on any human factors and that would be present in any system. Tribalism is in our nature. You see it in class with how people sit and between groups when they are at odds for goals. The only thing that can affect it is education and awareness. Only after that can we talk about resourcing solutions. It sounds to me like you just want a kinder world. I recommend finding a place that supports that in your life. They do exist and it requires compassion and probably moving on your part to find them. No one is going to force it on you.

496 comments