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.
That it’d be great if we lived in a fluffy world of perfection, but in the real world, things aren’t quite as simple. You can never assume an actor is or even desires do be logical, nor that people will gladly behave with others’ interest at heart
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.
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.
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.
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 are you trying to say here?
That it’d be great if we lived in a fluffy world of perfection, but in the real world, things aren’t quite as simple. You can never assume an actor is or even desires do be logical, nor that people will gladly behave with others’ interest at heart
Do you only act out of your own interests? Why do you think every one else does?
David Graeber once said in an interview that anthropologists have an affinity to anarchism because they know it works.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
David Graeber once said in an interview that anthropologists have an affinity to anarchism because they know it works.
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source; check me out at GitHub.
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.