This is heavily promoted by mainstream media and language
Anarchists are pacifist
Many people seem unable to comprehend how a community might defend itself without a standing military and so assume we must be unwilling to defend ourselves.
Nothing can be accomplished without coercion
Because most of us have grown up within strict hierarchies coerced to do things we don’t want, we have trouble imagining any other way.
It’s a dream. Capitalism would be great and completely valid without some greedy fuckers trying to get everything for themselves. Communism would work without some greedy fuckers trying to get everything for themselves. Anarchism would work without… You get the jist.
Our problem is not politics, it’s the human nature. No matter how many loving hippies there are, there are always going to be some people who try to exploit everything for their own good
It inherently incentivizes greed, it’s not built in per se. As are all traits of the dark triad. This is what makes capitalism the worst choice and really sad. It brings out the worst in us. And those who are better have no chance.
Greed came long before capitalism. Capitalism is the current way to organize greed.
Wealth disparity has always existed as a result of greed, not capitalism. There have always been extra wealthy and poor. There has always been nobles and serfs. Patricians and plebians. Bourgeoisie and proletariat.
Any system of economic equality cannot exist unless there is a very tight framework around it and people designated to enforce that framework, which, ipso facto, eliminates equality, as that then puts a monopoly on a legal use of force. With a legal use of force, corruption is only a matter of time.
The problem is the human condition of greedy tuckers, so let’s keep political systems which give a few people who want all the power all the power, rather than work towards anarchism where no one gets the power?
Greedy fuckers are going to be making anything worse, but that only means that a complete utopia is impossible, not that all systems are going to be equally bad. Would you argue that the average absolute monarchy would have just as much abuse as your average liberal democracy?
I’m not asking for sources, it’s a simple logic experiment with a look at history. A decentralized pacifist state is a power vacuum to certain people. We need at least the basic sketch of a larger state and acceptance of organized violence as a method to defend it.
Worrying about sealions on Lemmy in particular is just vanity since one really has the option to move on and ignore, or even block, at will. There is no way to force an answer, but it is perfectly okay to ask politely for one on a forum-like platform.
The same that stops them from taking over a democracy. Sometimes.
If a society became anarchist enough to abolish state structures, there obviously had to exist a reason - there had to exist popular support.
Thus, someone attempting to recreate a state would face questions and opposition. People would try to persuade them of their error. If they declared a state, anarchists would not recognize it. If it claimed sovereignity above a territory, anarchists might not recognize that either.
The new state might encounter problems - unwilling residents would leave and be accepted in anarchy, annoyed anarchists would organize trade boycotts and sanctions, ultimately it could go badly and armed confrontation could follow. In some scenarios, the state might remain and attract people who want to live there. In some scenarios, war would follow - and if the majority really was anarchist, the state would lose and disappear.
Oh no, you misunderstand. They’re not giving you a choice. They aren’t proponents of democracy or any kind of representative government. You have to go from an Anarchic state to resisting an organized group while they are grabbing community leaders in the middle of the night and taking young men and women to work camps.
To resist an organized group, you communicate the problem (in an anarchist society, communicating the problem of a nascent state seems like the easy part), present evidence of the nature and severity of the problem, and ask people and existing organizations to mobilize.
Whether the next step is obstructing the state peacefully or mass production of munitions, would already depend on how bad the state has got.
Well you’re already adding violence back in, but honestly that’s fine. I didn’t buy that pacifism would work anyways. It’s good to practice in regards to starting stuff, but you’d have to be ready to end stuff.
And honestly I hope what you’re saying would work but now you’ve got 3 more problems to solve. You’re starting from standing and they’re already going. So they’re going to have a head start in every way. You’re asking for volunteers and you have to deal with the bystander effect. They’re coercing people to fight for them. And third, you’ve now created an army and at least some infrastructure to support it. There’s more than a few times through history that the defending army just decided it was in charge now.
And just so you know where I’m coming from I’ve always thought you need at least some of the state institutions we have for a leftist state to work. Like education, enough military to make invading too costly, enough police to tackle organized crime, a tax system to provide help in disasters and keep infrastructure working, and a civil government to manage that infrastructure. Having it all in place negates the Dicky McDickerson problem from the outset. What we really need is to scale back a lot of what we have and to classify much of what people do to get rich as organized crime.
For the US specifically we’ll also need a plan to deal with Christian Conservatives who will attempt to institute a theocracy pretty much right away.
So… as soon as the society based on mutual aid starts?
Speaking entirely seriously, the reduction of societal relations in a capitalist economy to purely or even primarily material concerns conceals and denies the very real and very prominent place personal and cultural biases have. Oftentimes materially damaging movements are ignored until they begin to threaten cultural norms.
What is the best example of something built by anarchists?
For the sake of curiosity I’d leave this quite broad. Buildings, institutions, inventions, art. What’s the showcase example of what anarchy has created for us?
much of the basic technique in photography and film? not being a chattel slave? OSHA? there not being a cop city in atlanta just yet? several major art movements; really most of them at least since radio became a thing? the personal computer? FOSS(what about Lemmy, originally? was that anarchists?)? a major chunk of the muscle behind the positive parts of the early internet and trying to keep it free? modern shadow archives? most (by a very small very arguable margin) of the Russian revolution, before the Bolsheviks killed all the communists? organized labor? curry burritos? LOTR? the entire genre of science fiction?
I thought credit for both of those usually goes to unions. Which anarchists or groups of anarchists made the most significant contributions to the 40 hour work week or 8 hour days?
How did a philosophy of minimized government involvement contribute to the regulations and enforcement mechanisms around our labor laws?
syndicalism is a tendency of libertarian socialism. it was anarchists engaging in — typically violent — direct action that bred the popular labour movement, women’s suffrage, the abolition of racial segregation, and others.
How did a philosophy of minimized government involvement contribute to the regulations and enforcement mechanisms around our labor laws?
… because we live in a society? the State needs labour, but if all the labourers refuse to sell themselves until labour-buyers stop X, then the State may decide very graciously to abolish the practise of X. so the theory of syndicalism goes: rinse and repeat till you have eroded all the power of labour-buyers, and you can seize the workplace and cut out the State.
They arise because there will always be a small percentage of humans who are sociopaths. Simplified, this means they are willing to harm others, not just because they are starving and NEED to harm someone to get their basic needs met (which I’d argue most people are capable of), but even to take things they don’t actually need. Since most people are not willing to hurt others to take things they don’t actually need (usually even willing to bend rather than fight), sociopaths have a leg up on the rest of us. They were able to rise to power way back when the first cities were being built, and have maintained a sociopathic society ever since. Sociopathic tendencies are lauded amongst the corporate elites, and without them it is unlikely one will make it in the corporate world.
Sociopaths are people who take what they want and are willing to harm others to do so. These people do and will exist in literally every system anywhere literally ever.
These people become kings. They become tyrants. They do what they want and everyone else suffers.
Maybe eventually you’ll have a peasant revolt. And what can the peasants do to establish a system that mitigates this possibility in the future?
They arise because the capture that economy. A state is not required to capture an economy. However, a state is required to have any hope of even remotely controlling the people controlling the economy.
It’s supposed to be funny bc the failed idealism of the Narodniks later lead to the individual terrorist approach of the “Narodnaya Volya” (“Peoples Will”)
(this is not meant to be a jab at anarchists btw, just thought it was midly relevant and funny/ironic)
As much as I abhor the state and wish we live like the state of Cheran (ironic of me to say state in this case, I know), anarchy will only work in a very small group, where everyone knows each other, are like-minded enough to not abuse each other’s goodwill, and respect each other’s personal boundaries.
the same ‘literally nothing’ that currently stops us from ending starvation, poverty, homelessness, war…
people and ideology create the institutions which (re)produce and enforce a status quo. this is not inherently bad, and it would not be significantly different under any other ‘system’. we are all the state so long as we do nothing different.
Obviously does not solve the whole problem. Imo, smaller, self-governing groups are better able to apply democratic policies, as there are not likely to be as many different ideas within the group.
Yes, our massive population and current way of life are not natural tendencies of our species, they are organizational forms put into place by rulers for more effecient exploitation.
I also wonder what happens as new generations start to become prominent, they might not have the same ideals as their parents and either move away or change the dynamics of the group.
Yeah, that’s not my favorite. I don’t really want to rely on people or be part of a close community like that. And I really like having personal property. I probably contribute the bare minimum to society outside of my taxes. Not part of any organizations, don’t give to charity. Definitely don’t give to the homeless. Don’t volunteer. I just want to work and come home to my house with my family and all my stuff. I’d make a terrible anarchist.
Why do you mention personal property? Anarchism and communism still allow ownership of personal property, but collective ownership of the means of production such as factories and schools. You could do everything you do now in a socialist or anarchist society.
Let’s think of fun comparison for a second. Mods/admins are government, judges and police at the same time. This is equivalent of an authoritarian regime. Now if the mods would be elected by users that would be a democracy. Then if there would be no mods - there we have - anarchism.
In authoritarian regime views of government dictate everything. In democracy people decide who will dictate a lot with various safe guards. In anarchy people directly decide what views are popular and what is a crime, sometimes by groupthink.
What it tells me is that among many anarchists groups some will be absolutely terrible place you wouldn’t want to be in for even a second and some will be amazing but it isn’t a rule but it depends on the people that make up the given group. Obviously if you are POC you would hardly want to be in a racist community, I mean they would probably kill you on sight with their views being very white centered to say the least. So you keep going to find your community assuming you luckily got away. Then you meet community of religious gun freaks flat earthers that you may want to skip as well. Finally you find your dream group but it was raided by some barbarians
Let’s think of fun comparison for a second. Mods/admins are government, judges and police at the same time. This is equivalent of an authoritarian regime. Now if the mods would be elected by users that would be a democracy. Then if there would be no mods - there we have - anarchism.
Ha it isn’t the easiest or quick read if one really wants to understand the topic. I will need few days to digest it properly before I can make up my mind about it
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