They are horizontalist and demonstrate that the principles of anarchism work. They are compatible with the anarchist project.
You’re getting very specific and purist with these definitions, but most anarchists are a lot more pragmatic than that. We don’t need something to be explicitly called anarchist to recognise that they are doing a form of anarchism. Tellingly, a lot of successful horizontalist projects are indigenous in nature and don’t spring from a western form of anarchism. That doesn’t mean the concepts don’t work, it just means there are things to learn from them.
Also, if you want to tell me these aren’t horizontalist projects, can you tell me who any of their leaders are? If you can’t name them, it means there’s something anarchist going on, because anarchism literally means “without rulers”.
Also your understanding of the CNT FAI is wrong. It wasn’t just a union, it was part of an anarchist revolution that encompassed 7 to 8 million people that fought a civil war for several years. You can criticize it for its strategic errors, but you can’t say the society didn’t function. It absolutely did.
And this idea that “anarchism doesn’t work” could have been applied to capitalism when it was in its prefigurative stage during feudalism. It doesn’t work, until it does. One thing we can say for sure is that nothing else seems to fucking “work” if by “work” you mean “won’t continue us down the path of complete societal collapse”.
We both agree late stage capitalism is running its course to its natural end of fascism and environmental/economic collapse. Also I agree that democratic capitalists have violently suppressed other forms of governance over the past 150 years. And also yes the current capitalist system will make it hard to try anything else.
However, anarchism hasn’t been shown to be sustainable or immune from the same human weaknesses such as greed, distrust, etc. that plague our current system. There will still be those seeking to gain power over others, profit at the expense of anything else, etc. Also independent local regimes have no system to work with each other. Also democracy and capitalism do have the potential to yield sustainable, controlled outputs but they need some stronger socialist policies along with an actual election system that gives the people power over their leaders. Obviously Citizens United needs to be overturned, along with single donation limits, removal of PACs. Mandated ranked choice voting. Full transparency of voting systems. Outlaw this current form of bribery-ehh- I mean lobbying.
Ultimately human greed and lust for power will always be there, and anarchism doesn’t seem to have valid or robust mechanisms for controlling that. Really if we can just control these two aspects systemically, most other things will fall into line.
edit: also the EZLN leader is Rafael Guillén Vicente. CNT FAI: José Buenaventura Durruti Dumange. Rojava leaders: Îlham Ehmed, Mansur Selum, Amina Omar, Riad Darar
They are horizontalist and demonstrate that the principles of anarchism work. They are compatible with the anarchist project.
You’re getting very specific and purist with these definitions, but most anarchists are a lot more pragmatic than that. We don’t need something to be explicitly called anarchist to recognise that they are doing a form of anarchism. Tellingly, a lot of successful horizontalist projects are indigenous in nature and don’t spring from a western form of anarchism. That doesn’t mean the concepts don’t work, it just means there are things to learn from them.
Also, if you want to tell me these aren’t horizontalist projects, can you tell me who any of their leaders are? If you can’t name them, it means there’s something anarchist going on, because anarchism literally means “without rulers”.
Also your understanding of the CNT FAI is wrong. It wasn’t just a union, it was part of an anarchist revolution that encompassed 7 to 8 million people that fought a civil war for several years. You can criticize it for its strategic errors, but you can’t say the society didn’t function. It absolutely did.
And this idea that “anarchism doesn’t work” could have been applied to capitalism when it was in its prefigurative stage during feudalism. It doesn’t work, until it does. One thing we can say for sure is that nothing else seems to fucking “work” if by “work” you mean “won’t continue us down the path of complete societal collapse”.
We both agree late stage capitalism is running its course to its natural end of fascism and environmental/economic collapse. Also I agree that democratic capitalists have violently suppressed other forms of governance over the past 150 years. And also yes the current capitalist system will make it hard to try anything else.
However, anarchism hasn’t been shown to be sustainable or immune from the same human weaknesses such as greed, distrust, etc. that plague our current system. There will still be those seeking to gain power over others, profit at the expense of anything else, etc. Also independent local regimes have no system to work with each other. Also democracy and capitalism do have the potential to yield sustainable, controlled outputs but they need some stronger socialist policies along with an actual election system that gives the people power over their leaders. Obviously Citizens United needs to be overturned, along with single donation limits, removal of PACs. Mandated ranked choice voting. Full transparency of voting systems. Outlaw this current form of bribery-ehh- I mean lobbying.
Ultimately human greed and lust for power will always be there, and anarchism doesn’t seem to have valid or robust mechanisms for controlling that. Really if we can just control these two aspects systemically, most other things will fall into line.
edit: also the EZLN leader is Rafael Guillén Vicente. CNT FAI: José Buenaventura Durruti Dumange. Rojava leaders: Îlham Ehmed, Mansur Selum, Amina Omar, Riad Darar