Quite a few comments making false claims about anarchism unfortunately.
Anarchism DOES NOT MEAN NON VIOLENCE. Anarchism means that no institution should have a monopoly over violence.
What happens when a king decides to invade anarchist communes?
Anarchist communes form militias and fight back. Violently.
Anarchism does not mean no organisation. It just means no individual elements giving away their means to violence to an entity that claims to represent the group.
I am not an anarchist myself, but for different reasons. However critiques of anarchism presented in the comments of this post make no sense whatsoever.
How do you call civil militias in a time of need and how do you make sure it’s not a bunch of randos with pipes and baseball bats against armor and guns?
If I understood your question correctly, you are asking how one can be sure that anarchist militias would be well equipped and trained against a professional army.
There’s somehow an underlying assumption that anarchist militias themselves wouldn’t be professional armies.
Let’s say 3000 anarchist communes exist in a given piece of land. There’s a dictatorship nearby which could invade. 2800 of these communes recognise the threat and a need for their own defense force. They come together and form a defense pact. Requirements of the pact are that every commune supplies x individuals for the militia and x resources. Training is done at xyz training camps, yadayadayada.
Communes are free to leave this pact, but doing so makes them lose protection.
Effectively what you get out of this is a professional army just like any other. WITHOUT the existence of a state.
Organisation can be done by these communes without giving the high command of this defence pact monopoly over violence.
Populism is a common phenomena. Anarchism is mostly a subject of discussion and arguments.
Anarchism is, as far as I can tell, a contradiction.
Equality and freedom are a core foundation of anarchy, right? Except, how do you enforce it when inevitably someone fails to respect others freedom and rights, if you reject any sort of hierarchy or control?
I’d really love to believe that everyone would be civically irreprehensible, but reality begs to differ.
It’s basically a philosophy that says, “if humans would stop being cunts the world would be a good place.”
Like, yeah, but have you met people?
Yeah. Most of them aren’t cunts.
Yeah, but it’s the ones who are that fuck everything up for the rest of us.
They’re the leftist libertarians. Instead of blindly believing in the free market self correcting, they blindly believe in the good will of civil society. Obviously neither has access to a history book.
Anarchists in fact DON’T believe in the goodwill of society. Which is why they’re against all states, (even if the states are democratic).
Lemme ask you a question. Would you support a world government? One democratic government, one armed forces. Only the UN has the ability to be violent. Noone else. I’m guessing you wouldn’t support such an arrangement. Why? Because you don’t trust the rest of the world to have the same values as you, the same way of life, etc. The world is deeply homophobic for example. The UN could immediately ban homosexuality. You wouldn’t want that.
The UN is an organization, yes. Is it a state? No. Would the world be better if it was one state? No.
Try analysing using the same technique to lower and lower levels. What about a country? Imagine country X doesn’t exist and instead, sovereign provinces in that country exist. They all want to make a deal to cooperate and further shared interests. Does giving up sovereignty over violence make sense as part of that deal? It almost always doesn’t (in my opinion).
Take this further down to cities and towns in those provinces.
Sovereignty over violence makes sure that exit from a cooperation agreement is possible. If you remove the ability to exit, then well… you’ve essentially allowed yourself to be enslaved.
Would you support a world government?
Uh, yes? That would be my dream scenario.
One democratic government, one armed forces.
Why would they need an army? To fight the penguins?
Uh, yes? That would be my dream scenario.
The majority of the world is deeply deeply socially conservative. A singular global state means that it can legislate away freedoms that queer folk have. Unless you are socially conservative yourself, I have no idea why this would be your dream scenario.
Why would they need an army? To fight the penguins?
To enforce laws. A “law” is a legislated rule that is backed by the threat of violence. Let’s say the global state decides to increase excise taxes on weed. The administrative division that was the former country of the Netherlands rebels against this and refuses to pay the increased tax.
The state’s last resort is sending in an armed force that can violently collect this tax if necessary.
Without an armed force to enforce laws, you get… the UN. An institution that just passes resolutions, which can easily be ignored by literally anyone. The UN is a forum of states to “talk”. It is not a state itself.
I don’t get your point, you ask me a question then assume to know what my answer is, then build your case on straw?
Would you support a world government? One democratic government, one armed forces. Only the UN has the ability to be violent. Noone else.
Yes, yes I would very much support that government. I don’t see a point in “one armed forces” though, they serve no purpose in such a world, and why would the UN be allowed to be violent?
Let’s continue from here.
EDIT: About your note that anarchism doesn’t believe in the goodwill of society: I said was that freedom and equality are core rights, I don’t think you’ve corrected me on this, so the question stands on who is meant to uphold these values once they get trampled on? Is it then every man for himself, wild west style, and fuck the weak?
I don’t get your point, you ask me a question then assume to know what my answer is, then build your case on straw?
It was my attempt to lessen the impact of status quo bias by positing the idea of states as a novel, non status quo concept.
Yes, yes I would very much support that government.
Hmm… Most of the world is deeply deeply socially conservative (Africa, India, the Middle East). Queer folk would be outright banned. Women’s rights would be eroded super quickly.
I mean forget Africa and stuff. I’m in Canada, and I wouldn’t want to be in any union with the US despite sharing similar cultures.
they serve no purpose in such a world, and why would the UN be allowed to be violent?
How else would laws be enforced? A law is fundamentally a rule that is enforced with the threat of violence.
who is meant to uphold these values once they get trampled on? Is it then every man for himself, wild west style, and fuck the weak?
Anarchist militias. Again, no state ≠ no organisation. Anarchist communes would likely have their own militias. These militias would likely form coalitions with other militias for collective protection and efficiency. Large consensual organisation can form. These militias could also be involved in preemptive strikes against forming authoritarian structures.
The important point however, is that these power structures can be exited. Let’s say a coalition member decides to exit the coalition. While the coalition can become violent against this former member, the former member still has teeth, as it hasn’t given this coalition monopoly over violence.
Talking about human rights violations, almost always, it’s states that are actively involved in trampling human rights. Slavery, the Holocaust, Native American genocide, most genocides, etc. were all conducted by states.
Ahh yes, humans are evil by nature, therefore we need to give some people power over others.
Individuals are usually good. Tribes are typically good to one another. Competing tribes are fucking ruthless.
Society is an attempt to string tribes together under agreed upon frameworks.
Society is an attempt to string tribes together under agreed upon frameworks.
And anarchism doesn’t contradict this. Anarchism does not mean no organisation. “Agreed upon frameworks” means consensual organisation. No anarchist is against this.
However, non consensual organisation, where an entity with monopoly over violence forces frameworks on “ruled” tribes and peoples is something that anarchism is meant to solve.
Lynchings are also what happens when people learn to speak and act for themselves.
Wee bit hard to imagine chattel slavery existing without a gigantic state apparatus making that happen, but sure, go off.
(In case it’s not clear, I’m assuming you’re referencing the American South, and any discussion of what occurred/occurs there cannot be disentangled from the history of state-driven slavery whatsoever, it is all fundamentally and inextricably the same interdependent thing)
Chattel slavery sure, but slavery in general predates the existence of nation states by centuries. That is beside the point. While lynching has become associated with chattel slavery, it refers to any extrajudicial vigilante execution. The term “Lynching” was coined during the American revolution after extrajudicial corporal punishment or killing of British Loyalists. It was later used quite a bit against Chinese and Mexicans in the American West. Current racial associations arose after the Civil War. (Justifiably so. I’m certainly not arguing that African Americans didn’t get the worst of it.)
Fair enough, if the original assertion above is along the lines of “groups thinking for themselves also leads to mob violence like lynching”, no real disagreement. But it sounds like you’re saying “and that’s why hierarchical systems are necessary”, or “better”, or something.
I just don’t find it very compelling to point out mob violence, when comparing it with the brutality enacted against our scapegoats today done with the full might of the state. Which is what your original comment seemed to do, yeah?
We have genocides, we have a teeming for-profit prison system, we have generations of families and people broken beyond repair from targeted attacks on their communities.
But small groups also do the immoral mob violence thing. And it can get really fucked up, yep. Okay? To me, pointing it out just serves to highlight how hierarchical systems are so much better at systematizing that human tendency toward scapegoating and violence.
I’m not going to pretend I don’t think some sort of hierarchical system is most effective for minimizing instances of mob rule. I think it’s fair to say it is an inevitability that sometimes the majority will want something that is very bad for a minority or an individual.
I have a hard time thinking of a non-hierarchical method of preventing the tyranny of the majority. For example, what happens when a To Kill A Mockingbird type situation happens where someone is falsely accused of a heinous crime and the public wants blood? There won’t always be an Atticus Finch in reality to persuade people to choose logic over emotion.
Interesting! I’ll check it out. Thanks
You are welcome :>
I’m pretty uneasy about those kinds of questions myself. I think caring about ideals of justice and fairness inherently carries some amount of “…so your rules should be like my rules” along with it, and how could it not? Self-determination allows choosing rules and behaviors I think are bad, including horrifically bad.
Nonetheless. Me imposing my judgment and values on what people should do, shares enough of the problems with some faraway monolithic state doing so, that I probably just shouldn’t.
And again, hypothetical harms from self determination vs known really horrific crimes at extreme scales, many done for fairly shallow and otherwise heinous goals, to boot. I understand unease, I don’t understand defending present systems against even just the idea of trying some better ways.
It sounds like we disagree about that.
If everyone was like you and me, anarchy would work perfectly fine as a social system. I don’t want to control anyone and I don’t care how anyone lives their life as long as it doesn’t directly harm me. But rules aren’t developed for reasonable people, but because of unreasonable people. Ultimately I’m more afraid of unreasonable people with no restrictions than I am of the present system.
But communities of people naturally, inevitably, develop rules to deal with unreasonable people.
In a way you’re just pointing out - “notice how some people are bad and must be controlled” (yes, clearly) and then arriving at “so the way we’re doing it now is better than what I’m imagining anarchists are suggesting”.
What I’m trying (probably failing) to say clearly is that - for me, the fundamental principle of *an-*archism - anti-hierarchical thinking - revolves around people in their own communities knowing what’s best for them. As an idea. As opposed to just gigantic new feudalism + boundlessly scary tech - knowing what’s best for folks. Which we have.
The launch into “but what if everyone can just do what they want” is…well, it’s you not thinking very hard. It’s not what I mean, I can’t speak for anyone else, but fairly sure it’s not what others mean either.
Hierarchies incentivize spreading hate. Divide and conquer is one of the oldest tactics rulers use.
Zero argument from me on that one.
You say that like any billionaire has treated you like a human.
It’s not just billionaires that would fall to mob justice.
Mobs tend to kill first and ask questions later. Think of how many black people were killed for imagined crimes.
