Yes, because anarchism is against all hierarchies and the class system is a form of hierarchy. Instead, decisions should me made collectively, for example in councils open for everyone
@lugal@danc4498 Anarchism is against specifically unjust hierarchies, it can permit certain ones to exist within individual communities should the community find it justified, but still strongly favours not having any where possible.
There are a group of anarchists who would still believe in the idea of an adult > child hierarchy as they struggle to imagine an alternative world without it.
Anarchism thus becomes meaningless as anyone who defends certain hierarchies obviously does so because they believe they are just. Literally everyone on earth is against “unjust hierarchies” at least in their own personal evaluation of said hierarchies. People who support capitalism do so because they believe the exploitative systems it engenders are justifiable and will usually immediately tell you what those justifications are. Sure, you and I might not agree with their argument, but that’s not the point. To say your ideology is to oppose “unjust hierarchies” is to not say anything at all, because even the capitalist, hell, even the fascist would probably agree that they oppose “unjust hierarchies” because in their minds the hierarchies they promote are indeed justified by whatever twisted logic they have in their head.
Telling me you oppose “unjust hierarchies” thus tells me nothing about what you actually believe, it does not tell me anything at all. It is as vague as saying “I oppose bad things.” It’s a meaningless statement on its own without clarifying what is meant by “bad” in this case. Similarly, “I oppose unjust hierarchies” is meaningless statement without clarifying what qualifies “just” and “unjust,” and once you tell me that, it would make more sense you label you based on your answer to that question. Anarchism thus becomes a meaningless word that tells me nothing about you. For example, you might tell me one unjust hierarchy you want to abolish is prison. It would make more sense for me to call you a prison abolitionist than an anarchist since that term at least carries meaning, and there are plenty of prison abolitionists who don’t identify as anarchist.
Parents have natural bootmaker authority and if you want to be a good parent then you realise that the kids also have it: They, or maybe better put their genome, know how they need to be raised, and try to teach you, as well as (with increasing age) seek out the exact bootmakers that seem sensible. Worst thing you can do as a parent is to think that learning is a one-way street.
I honestly hate the concept of “bootmaker authority”, because it’s exactly the same wrong conflation that Engels makes. Not every inequality is a form of authority. Expertise is not authority, it is expertise.
Authority is the socially-recognised power to dominate. Getting a bootmaker to advise on or perform bootmaking tasks is not domination. The bootmaker can’t hold you at gunpoint and command you to wear a certain kind of boot, nobody would allow that. There aren’t bootmaking cops.
Like what exactly does the bootmaker’s “authority” entail in this theory? Giving consent does not confer authority. Authority operates regardless of consent, that’s what makes it bad.
Knowledge is power, thus with a knowledge gap we have a power gap. As a bootmaker’s apprentice, my capacity to judge whether or not I’m getting taught proper technique is limited, I can alleviate that disparity by consulting more than one bootmaker, but ultimately that gap won’t vanish until I, myself, have mastered the craft.
Authority is the socially-recognised power to dominate.
…unnatural authority. Natural authority aka the bootmaker’s does not require social recognition. The bootmaker knows more than the apprentice no matter what society thinks, the imbalance is not socially caused.
If you don’t want to call it authority, fine, but saying “as bad as Engels” is going too far IMO. While bootmaker’s authority does not rely on (wider) social recognition it is still a thing that happens in a social relationship, and not in the relationship of a worker to their alarm clock or whatnot. Though arguably in the modern world that line is also blurring, see technological paternalism, OTOH it’s just a reification of the relationship between the producer and consumer of a technology. It’s an unavoidable (unless you’re a primitivist) side-effect of increased division of labour in a technologically advancing society.
Heck I’m myself on the page of “the state is a people, a territory, and organisation”, simply because the classical anarchist definition drifted miles and miles from the dictionary and the lived experience of people in liberal democracies, when you say “abolish the state” they hear “abolish garbage collection”. We can re-do terminology once in a while, it’s a good idea.
I need you to define the word “authority” in that case. I’ve given my definition, so what is yours and how does it differ, please? Because I already addressed the fact that an imbalance doesn’t create a hierarchy, and your description of imbalance does not fit my definition of authority.
Power imbalance doesn’t automatically create the conditions for domination. For that you would need both expertise and monopoly.
And the solution to a misunderstanding isn’t to concede the definition of the word “state” but to educate. The state is any entity that has a monopoly of the legitimate use of violence in a region. That applies regardless of the system of government that rules it.
Your definition isn’t a definition, it’s just a collection of categories that gives no useful information.
We don’t need to be dominated in order to clean up our garbage. And the state is often really bad at collecting garbage, so just teach people that.
Authority is a power imbalance in a social relationship. It does not, in itself, imply domination or monopoly or expertise it happens each time two people are not on eye level regarding something, cannot, for whatever reason, relate to each other as complete equals. If you find yourself having it and are keen on proper praxis then you take on the responsibility to lift the other up as you are capable to do. I think for that reason alone I think it’s important to recognise it as authority, so that we are careful when using it, which, in the end, is unavoidable.
We don’t need to be dominated in order to clean up our garbage. And the state is often really bad at collecting garbage, so just teach people that.
Garbage collection is a non-issue over here, it just works. Couple of neighbouring municipalities own the company and it’s run on an at-cost basis with decent wages. If, suddenly, an anarchist revolution were to happen I’m quite sure the general arrangement would carry over.
…and I took that as an example precisely because (over here) it just works, it’s a baby you wouldn’t want to throw out with the bathwater. I’m reasonably sure that wherever you’re living, you can think of such an example.
So, do the anarchists not think that capitalism will just prevail and bring along with it the classes of the haves and have nots? Anarchy won’t solve the problem of wealth inequality, will it? I have genuinely never understood this aspect of anarchism.
Let’s take the most “conservative” form of anarchism: anarchosyndicalism. Every factory is organized in councils, confederated both with the import or mining council and the consumer council. Now a capitalist comes and asks how much this factory costs. Do you think the council will tell them a price or to fuck off?
Well, I don’t think a capitalist will call themselves a capitalist. I think they will have allies that get themselves appointed to the council and before we know it the factory is doing the bidding of the capitalists.
And yes, I am incredibly cynical (I blame the last 25 years), so I get that a less cynical perspective exists where this wouldn’t happen.
The council isn’t elected. It’s open for everyone to join in all decisions. It might delegate some tasks, even smaller decisions, but it can always recall them.
So in your scenario, the council would delegate the power to sell the factory to a group of people which is very unlikely. Now this group of people who are trusted by everyone would decide to sell the factory which might happen. But the council would most certainly recall them from this decision making power the never should have given away in the first place.
Maybe I should have stressed more that a council is really open for everyone to join. It’s not an elected parliament or something
I gotcha. It just feels to me like there are so many opportunities for the capitalists to abuse this system for their own profit and power. People are easily manipulated, even when they think what they’re doing is for the good of the community.
Maybe the factory doesn’t sell, but it could still very much feed the capitalists through manipulation of the members of the council. My cynical view: It may not be immediate, but it will be inevitable.
Anarchism is opposition to power hierarchies, specifically non-consensual or coercive ones. Wealth inequality without safety networks is a coercive power hierarchy, and so needs to be fought. Capitalism as a whole is almost always incompatible with anarchy, at least in the way we tend to do it now. In a system with strong social safety networks the choice to work for someone can actually be a choice, and so some schools of thought would view it as compatible.
Others view exclusive ownership of property as someone asserting power over someone else’s ability to use said property, and therefore wrong. Needless to say, abolition of private property is not compatible with capitalism.
Capitalism as a whole is almost always incompatible with anarchy, at least in the way we tend to do it now.
That last part is really important. Many anarchists, socialists, and whatnot recognize that capitalism can be fine. It’s just that humans really suck at doing capitalism, we keep doing pseudo-feudalism instead
Under direct democracy (or even representative democracy but with more levels in between) it would be at people’s disposal to try and ultimately solve anything…
Isn’t anarchy just against imposed hierarchy? Most anarchists I’ve met are okay with heirarchies that form naturally, and believe those hierarchies to be enough for society to function, hence why they call themselves anarchists, not minarchists.
I have never heard the term minarchist. Many anarchists say, we need structures against the building of hierarchies, like avoiding knowledge hierarchies by doing skillshares.
Natural authorities are a different topic. I think Kropotkin was an example of a leader who was accepted because everyone agreed with him. Once he said something people didn’t like, they rejected him as a leader. You can call this a hierarchy if you like. I wouldn’t because he couldn’t coerce his followers but this is pure terminology.
There is a huge difference between how things should work and how they will though. Without any system of enforcement, I would call it nothing but wishful thinking.
Your proposal is just an idealistic version of early US. You claim that corruption is fundamentally impossible, but assume that magically “the monarchs aren’t allowed to own property” without regard to enforcement. You claim to have an alternative to democracy but still propose majority voting on replacing rulers and constitutions. You simply assume that monarchs will keep each other in check and not devolve into the conspiring, warmongering tyrants that history is full of.
Power can always be abused to get more power and go against all your original ideals. The only way to definitely prevent corruption is to ensure power is never concentrated in the hands of few.
Your proposal is just an idealistic version of early US.
Thanks, I guess :)
You claim that corruption is fundamentally impossible, but assume that magically “the monarchs aren’t allowed to own property” without regard to enforcement.
I make no such claim, and I don’t make assumptions regarding enforcement either. Constitutional enforcement is discussed in quite some detail.
You claim to have an alternative to democracy but still propose majority voting on replacing rulers and constitutions.
There is majority voting on deposal of rulers, to be specific. Their replacement isn’t voted on by a majority of the population.
Constitutional changes are voted on through majority, but first require a majority of the monarchs to be on board.
Both these limitations are intentionally designed to mitigate manipulation of the population.
You simply assume that monarchs will keep each other in check and not devolve into the conspiring, warmongering tyrants that history is full of.
There is quite some detail about the enforcement mechanisms. The idea is very much not to assume, but to persuade the monarchs to act in a benevolent manner, by enticement through both the carrot (wealth for as long as they rule), but also the stick (deposal if the majority doesn’t vote in favour of their actions, with a threat of assassination if they refuse to be deposed).
Power can always be abused to get more power and go against all your original ideals. The only way to definitely prevent corruption is to ensure power is never concentrated in the hands of few.
Ah. So it wasn’t me that claimed that corruption is fundamentally impossible, it’s you that claim to have the definitive answer.
For what it’s worth, I agree power shouldn’t be concentrated in the few. Which is why I split power across districts, and between citizens and monarchs, and why the group of monarchs for each district cannot be too small either. It’s all there if you could try to be a little less dismissive.
Why wouldn’t the monarchs cooperate with each other to increase their power? Why do you think they’d keep each other in check instead? I think it’s quite plain to see that those with power would rather work together to fuck us, to their own benefit, rather than work with us against each other.
Mostly the same reason why democracy worked for quite a while too. As long as people believe in a system and see the benefits to themselves as well, they can go quite a while with it.
In general I also think most people aren’t out to screw one another, no matter how much it may seem that way sometimes, so as long as that keeps for the monarchs in a majority of districts, the system could balance itself.
But yeah, I’m not going to say it’s perfect. Sooner or later it would collapse, and when it does my money would be on the same reason as yours.
So I think the main question is: would it be able to last longer than democracies can, especially in the face of mass media manipulation and other challenges. I can’t prove it, but I suspect it might have a decent shot, mostly because the monarchs would be more agile to respond against unforeseen threats.
I think you’d get a better system looking at the roman republic than this crap. They had consuls who had the highest power, but it rotated every month between the two. Even they understood if you consolidate power it only leads to more consolidation. There’s no way in hell this would be good for more than a generation or two.
I’m posting another comment because you seem to be genuinely interested in discussion the concepts that you are bringing up in your essay. I haven’t yet fully read it, though I have skimmed and will spend some time giving out a fair read.
I do not think that I’ll have much positive in my critical analysis based mainly upon my philosophical orientation (anarchist) and neurodivergence (AuADHD so, have strong feelings about what I perceive as just/unjust ex. hereditary rule is intrinsically unjust). From a writing style/communication perspective, it does seem, at a high level, to be well-written.
I’ll try to remember to get some time to read through the rest of it on the weekend.
Interesting idea for sure. I’m not sure it would work though. The concept has lots of cultural implications as well. In traditional monarchies the king is usually divinely ordained, chosen by god. A democracy doesn’t get its legitimacy from above, the people are the ultimate sovereign and legitimize the system. New Monarchy also needs some kind of higher philosophical justification.
Political systems often have a short slogan, that emphasizes their values.
How would you reach consensus between hundreds of millions of people?
Look, I am sympathetic to the cause behind anarchism but it doesn’t work because it insists on ignoring biological realities. We need to look no further than our ape cousins to see how some hierarchical structure is inherent to our society. Only through the existence of a state can we reduce hierarchy and increase equality.
A stateless society wouldn’t last 10 minutes before establishing a state.
I agree with you in that we cannot have a society without some form of state, but I think the idea is that we would have small community governments with more or less direct democracy.
Also, bio-essentialism? Really?
I guess you can call it that but as I understand it bio-essentialism denies that society has any roles at all in shaping the individual. For me there’s obvious environmental pressures that force us to act a certain way in order to survive which in turn shapes us as individuals and our societies. Of course I’m talking back to the very first human societies, but all modern societies by necessity must trace their origins there. But at a certain point we started to add rules that are based on idealized humanity, divinity, which is in my view inherently hostile to human nature.
We are animals and we have no real way to discern instinct from rational. For all you know every “rational” thought you’ve ever had is actually just an instinct. How would you be able to tell that it isn’t? But that’s neither here nor there, my point is we need to form societies that are sympathetic to our biological realities, instead of societies formed on moral values sourced from anti-human religions or idealized human religions. We would be much much happier.
I know people don’t like these type of stances because they are sometimes used to exclude trans people, or to justify racism but that’s just using science to arrive at the wrong conclusions.
It’s not one big council but a confederation of councils. I like the idea of fractal democracy. Like a huge river branching into smaller ones and when you zoom in, these smaller ones branch again and again. You have councils on many levels, each making decisions, delegating to the next level and being recallable from below.
Decisions are made on the lowest level possible so you don’t go through all the layers normally. But not getting anything done is a common cliche about anarchist organization, including from people who’ve been there.
Still, closed contemporary examples are Rojava and Zapatistas. In Rojava, for example, they have councils of ethnic minorities so when the main council makes racist policies, the minority council can intervene.
Yes, because anarchism is against all hierarchies and the class system is a form of hierarchy. Instead, decisions should me made collectively, for example in councils open for everyone
@lugal @danc4498 Anarchism is against specifically unjust hierarchies, it can permit certain ones to exist within individual communities should the community find it justified, but still strongly favours not having any where possible.
There are a group of anarchists who would still believe in the idea of an adult > child hierarchy as they struggle to imagine an alternative world without it.
Anarchism thus becomes meaningless as anyone who defends certain hierarchies obviously does so because they believe they are just. Literally everyone on earth is against “unjust hierarchies” at least in their own personal evaluation of said hierarchies. People who support capitalism do so because they believe the exploitative systems it engenders are justifiable and will usually immediately tell you what those justifications are. Sure, you and I might not agree with their argument, but that’s not the point. To say your ideology is to oppose “unjust hierarchies” is to not say anything at all, because even the capitalist, hell, even the fascist would probably agree that they oppose “unjust hierarchies” because in their minds the hierarchies they promote are indeed justified by whatever twisted logic they have in their head.
Telling me you oppose “unjust hierarchies” thus tells me nothing about what you actually believe, it does not tell me anything at all. It is as vague as saying “I oppose bad things.” It’s a meaningless statement on its own without clarifying what is meant by “bad” in this case. Similarly, “I oppose unjust hierarchies” is meaningless statement without clarifying what qualifies “just” and “unjust,” and once you tell me that, it would make more sense you label you based on your answer to that question. Anarchism thus becomes a meaningless word that tells me nothing about you. For example, you might tell me one unjust hierarchy you want to abolish is prison. It would make more sense for me to call you a prison abolitionist than an anarchist since that term at least carries meaning, and there are plenty of prison abolitionists who don’t identify as anarchist.
Parents have natural bootmaker authority and if you want to be a good parent then you realise that the kids also have it: They, or maybe better put their genome, know how they need to be raised, and try to teach you, as well as (with increasing age) seek out the exact bootmakers that seem sensible. Worst thing you can do as a parent is to think that learning is a one-way street.
I honestly hate the concept of “bootmaker authority”, because it’s exactly the same wrong conflation that Engels makes. Not every inequality is a form of authority. Expertise is not authority, it is expertise.
Authority is the socially-recognised power to dominate. Getting a bootmaker to advise on or perform bootmaking tasks is not domination. The bootmaker can’t hold you at gunpoint and command you to wear a certain kind of boot, nobody would allow that. There aren’t bootmaking cops.
Like what exactly does the bootmaker’s “authority” entail in this theory? Giving consent does not confer authority. Authority operates regardless of consent, that’s what makes it bad.
Knowledge is power, thus with a knowledge gap we have a power gap. As a bootmaker’s apprentice, my capacity to judge whether or not I’m getting taught proper technique is limited, I can alleviate that disparity by consulting more than one bootmaker, but ultimately that gap won’t vanish until I, myself, have mastered the craft.
…unnatural authority. Natural authority aka the bootmaker’s does not require social recognition. The bootmaker knows more than the apprentice no matter what society thinks, the imbalance is not socially caused.
If you don’t want to call it authority, fine, but saying “as bad as Engels” is going too far IMO. While bootmaker’s authority does not rely on (wider) social recognition it is still a thing that happens in a social relationship, and not in the relationship of a worker to their alarm clock or whatnot. Though arguably in the modern world that line is also blurring, see technological paternalism, OTOH it’s just a reification of the relationship between the producer and consumer of a technology. It’s an unavoidable (unless you’re a primitivist) side-effect of increased division of labour in a technologically advancing society.
Heck I’m myself on the page of “the state is a people, a territory, and organisation”, simply because the classical anarchist definition drifted miles and miles from the dictionary and the lived experience of people in liberal democracies, when you say “abolish the state” they hear “abolish garbage collection”. We can re-do terminology once in a while, it’s a good idea.
I need you to define the word “authority” in that case. I’ve given my definition, so what is yours and how does it differ, please? Because I already addressed the fact that an imbalance doesn’t create a hierarchy, and your description of imbalance does not fit my definition of authority.
Power imbalance doesn’t automatically create the conditions for domination. For that you would need both expertise and monopoly.
And the solution to a misunderstanding isn’t to concede the definition of the word “state” but to educate. The state is any entity that has a monopoly of the legitimate use of violence in a region. That applies regardless of the system of government that rules it.
Your definition isn’t a definition, it’s just a collection of categories that gives no useful information.
We don’t need to be dominated in order to clean up our garbage. And the state is often really bad at collecting garbage, so just teach people that.
Authority is a power imbalance in a social relationship. It does not, in itself, imply domination or monopoly or expertise it happens each time two people are not on eye level regarding something, cannot, for whatever reason, relate to each other as complete equals. If you find yourself having it and are keen on proper praxis then you take on the responsibility to lift the other up as you are capable to do. I think for that reason alone I think it’s important to recognise it as authority, so that we are careful when using it, which, in the end, is unavoidable.
Garbage collection is a non-issue over here, it just works. Couple of neighbouring municipalities own the company and it’s run on an at-cost basis with decent wages. If, suddenly, an anarchist revolution were to happen I’m quite sure the general arrangement would carry over.
…and I took that as an example precisely because (over here) it just works, it’s a baby you wouldn’t want to throw out with the bathwater. I’m reasonably sure that wherever you’re living, you can think of such an example.
So, do the anarchists not think that capitalism will just prevail and bring along with it the classes of the haves and have nots? Anarchy won’t solve the problem of wealth inequality, will it? I have genuinely never understood this aspect of anarchism.
Anarchism is anti capitalist in nature since capitalism entails hierarchies
I just don’t understand how people think an anarchy can protect itself from capitalism.
Let’s take the most “conservative” form of anarchism: anarchosyndicalism. Every factory is organized in councils, confederated both with the import or mining council and the consumer council. Now a capitalist comes and asks how much this factory costs. Do you think the council will tell them a price or to fuck off?
Well, I don’t think a capitalist will call themselves a capitalist. I think they will have allies that get themselves appointed to the council and before we know it the factory is doing the bidding of the capitalists.
And yes, I am incredibly cynical (I blame the last 25 years), so I get that a less cynical perspective exists where this wouldn’t happen.
The council isn’t elected. It’s open for everyone to join in all decisions. It might delegate some tasks, even smaller decisions, but it can always recall them.
So in your scenario, the council would delegate the power to sell the factory to a group of people which is very unlikely. Now this group of people who are trusted by everyone would decide to sell the factory which might happen. But the council would most certainly recall them from this decision making power the never should have given away in the first place.
Maybe I should have stressed more that a council is really open for everyone to join. It’s not an elected parliament or something
I gotcha. It just feels to me like there are so many opportunities for the capitalists to abuse this system for their own profit and power. People are easily manipulated, even when they think what they’re doing is for the good of the community.
Maybe the factory doesn’t sell, but it could still very much feed the capitalists through manipulation of the members of the council. My cynical view: It may not be immediate, but it will be inevitable.
Anarchism is opposition to power hierarchies, specifically non-consensual or coercive ones. Wealth inequality without safety networks is a coercive power hierarchy, and so needs to be fought. Capitalism as a whole is almost always incompatible with anarchy, at least in the way we tend to do it now. In a system with strong social safety networks the choice to work for someone can actually be a choice, and so some schools of thought would view it as compatible.
Others view exclusive ownership of property as someone asserting power over someone else’s ability to use said property, and therefore wrong. Needless to say, abolition of private property is not compatible with capitalism.
That last part is really important. Many anarchists, socialists, and whatnot recognize that capitalism can be fine. It’s just that humans really suck at doing capitalism, we keep doing pseudo-feudalism instead
Under direct democracy (or even representative democracy but with more levels in between) it would be at people’s disposal to try and ultimately solve anything…
Isn’t anarchy just against imposed hierarchy? Most anarchists I’ve met are okay with heirarchies that form naturally, and believe those hierarchies to be enough for society to function, hence why they call themselves anarchists, not minarchists.
I have never heard the term minarchist. Many anarchists say, we need structures against the building of hierarchies, like avoiding knowledge hierarchies by doing skillshares.
Natural authorities are a different topic. I think Kropotkin was an example of a leader who was accepted because everyone agreed with him. Once he said something people didn’t like, they rejected him as a leader. You can call this a hierarchy if you like. I wouldn’t because he couldn’t coerce his followers but this is pure terminology.
There is a huge difference between how things should work and how they will though. Without any system of enforcement, I would call it nothing but wishful thinking.
In fairness, democracy was a kind of wishful thinking too, which is why I would propose a new form of monarchy instead: https://arendjr.nl/blog/2025/02/new-monarchy/
Your proposal is just an idealistic version of early US. You claim that corruption is fundamentally impossible, but assume that magically “the monarchs aren’t allowed to own property” without regard to enforcement. You claim to have an alternative to democracy but still propose majority voting on replacing rulers and constitutions. You simply assume that monarchs will keep each other in check and not devolve into the conspiring, warmongering tyrants that history is full of.
Power can always be abused to get more power and go against all your original ideals. The only way to definitely prevent corruption is to ensure power is never concentrated in the hands of few.
Thanks, I guess :)
I make no such claim, and I don’t make assumptions regarding enforcement either. Constitutional enforcement is discussed in quite some detail.
There is majority voting on deposal of rulers, to be specific. Their replacement isn’t voted on by a majority of the population.
Constitutional changes are voted on through majority, but first require a majority of the monarchs to be on board.
Both these limitations are intentionally designed to mitigate manipulation of the population.
There is quite some detail about the enforcement mechanisms. The idea is very much not to assume, but to persuade the monarchs to act in a benevolent manner, by enticement through both the carrot (wealth for as long as they rule), but also the stick (deposal if the majority doesn’t vote in favour of their actions, with a threat of assassination if they refuse to be deposed).
Ah. So it wasn’t me that claimed that corruption is fundamentally impossible, it’s you that claim to have the definitive answer.
For what it’s worth, I agree power shouldn’t be concentrated in the few. Which is why I split power across districts, and between citizens and monarchs, and why the group of monarchs for each district cannot be too small either. It’s all there if you could try to be a little less dismissive.
Why wouldn’t the monarchs cooperate with each other to increase their power? Why do you think they’d keep each other in check instead? I think it’s quite plain to see that those with power would rather work together to fuck us, to their own benefit, rather than work with us against each other.
Mostly the same reason why democracy worked for quite a while too. As long as people believe in a system and see the benefits to themselves as well, they can go quite a while with it.
In general I also think most people aren’t out to screw one another, no matter how much it may seem that way sometimes, so as long as that keeps for the monarchs in a majority of districts, the system could balance itself.
But yeah, I’m not going to say it’s perfect. Sooner or later it would collapse, and when it does my money would be on the same reason as yours.
So I think the main question is: would it be able to last longer than democracies can, especially in the face of mass media manipulation and other challenges. I can’t prove it, but I suspect it might have a decent shot, mostly because the monarchs would be more agile to respond against unforeseen threats.
I think you’d get a better system looking at the roman republic than this crap. They had consuls who had the highest power, but it rotated every month between the two. Even they understood if you consolidate power it only leads to more consolidation. There’s no way in hell this would be good for more than a generation or two.
That fact that you think “idealistic version of early US” is a compliment is very telling.
Pray tell, what does it tell?
I’m posting another comment because you seem to be genuinely interested in discussion the concepts that you are bringing up in your essay. I haven’t yet fully read it, though I have skimmed and will spend some time giving out a fair read.
I do not think that I’ll have much positive in my critical analysis based mainly upon my philosophical orientation (anarchist) and neurodivergence (AuADHD so, have strong feelings about what I perceive as just/unjust ex. hereditary rule is intrinsically unjust). From a writing style/communication perspective, it does seem, at a high level, to be well-written.
I’ll try to remember to get some time to read through the rest of it on the weekend.
Thanks! I’d be happy to hear your thoughts.
No kings. No gods*. No masters.
*“gods” here referring to use of organized religion to coerce others.
Interesting idea for sure. I’m not sure it would work though. The concept has lots of cultural implications as well. In traditional monarchies the king is usually divinely ordained, chosen by god. A democracy doesn’t get its legitimacy from above, the people are the ultimate sovereign and legitimize the system. New Monarchy also needs some kind of higher philosophical justification.
Political systems often have a short slogan, that emphasizes their values.
New Monarchism could use one as well.
How would you reach consensus between hundreds of millions of people?
Look, I am sympathetic to the cause behind anarchism but it doesn’t work because it insists on ignoring biological realities. We need to look no further than our ape cousins to see how some hierarchical structure is inherent to our society. Only through the existence of a state can we reduce hierarchy and increase equality.
A stateless society wouldn’t last 10 minutes before establishing a state.
I agree with you in that we cannot have a society without some form of state, but I think the idea is that we would have small community governments with more or less direct democracy. Also, bio-essentialism? Really?
I guess you can call it that but as I understand it bio-essentialism denies that society has any roles at all in shaping the individual. For me there’s obvious environmental pressures that force us to act a certain way in order to survive which in turn shapes us as individuals and our societies. Of course I’m talking back to the very first human societies, but all modern societies by necessity must trace their origins there. But at a certain point we started to add rules that are based on idealized humanity, divinity, which is in my view inherently hostile to human nature.
We are animals and we have no real way to discern instinct from rational. For all you know every “rational” thought you’ve ever had is actually just an instinct. How would you be able to tell that it isn’t? But that’s neither here nor there, my point is we need to form societies that are sympathetic to our biological realities, instead of societies formed on moral values sourced from anti-human religions or idealized human religions. We would be much much happier.
I know people don’t like these type of stances because they are sometimes used to exclude trans people, or to justify racism but that’s just using science to arrive at the wrong conclusions.
Yeah, I can agree to that.
It’s not one big council but a confederation of councils. I like the idea of fractal democracy. Like a huge river branching into smaller ones and when you zoom in, these smaller ones branch again and again. You have councils on many levels, each making decisions, delegating to the next level and being recallable from below.
That just sounds like nothing will ever get done, but it would be worth simulating. Maybe it is good, who knows.
Decisions are made on the lowest level possible so you don’t go through all the layers normally. But not getting anything done is a common cliche about anarchist organization, including from people who’ve been there.
Still, closed contemporary examples are Rojava and Zapatistas. In Rojava, for example, they have councils of ethnic minorities so when the main council makes racist policies, the minority council can intervene.