Anarchy is a political structure where there’s basically no one in charge, right? But wouldn’t that just create a power vacuum that would filled by organized crime, corporations, etc.? Then, after that power vacuum is filled, we’re right back at square one, and someone is in charge.
Are there any political theorists that have come up with a solution to this problem?
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The issue is that it’s not one problem, it’s thousands. Anarchism has countless solutions for countless power vacuums, from regulating the flow of meetings to federating different Zapatista towns.
You yourself are probably engaging in anarchic power vacuum mitigation when your friend group decides when to hang out and what to do; if anyone got too much power or responsibility you would take action to make things fair again.
Generally speaking, power vacuums are dismantled by dissolving the hierarchies that can be dissolved, changing the material conditions so power is decentralized, and building a social structure to hold the remaining power conditional on not being authoritarian. You can probably remember doing these things with your friends (or former friends).
Anarchist theory is either descriptive, like critically analysing the Zapatistas, or it’s putative, like sociocracy. So far we have no proven overarching theory of what works for everyone everywhere in every situation, but we do have lots of small anarchist collectives that are benefiting their members and their society in limited scopes.
Love the post. I would argue the latter (single overarching model concept) is antithetical to anarchist theory
This is the best answer. Anarchist societies do not work in practice. They work in theory.
It’s more that they don’t scale well. What works well in a small group of friends will fall apart long before you scale it up even to just a national level, much less all of humanity.
The Zapatistas show that region-scale anarchy can work and remain stable. You need more careful and explicit structures to do things at scale, but the same goes for nation-states, just look at the average state’s legal and regulatory codes. Compared to trying not to break the law in a nation-state, participating in local anarchist organizing committees is child’s play.
We’ve only had the opportunity to apply this at a scale larger than the smallest 30-or-so nations, but in theory systems like sociocracy can nest exponentially, meaning there are applications that are already halfway to a world government.
I am not sure if I would call it Anarchism if it has explicit structures
Maybe you’re using some formal or narrow definition of “structure” but in my experience there are lots of things I would call structures in anarchist theory and practice, from meeting templates to the mental flowcharts of emergency medicine.
I guess we could just choose not to scale? We could go back to the city state model they had in Europe during middle ages and in antiquity.
The only issue is how you would defend yourself militarily. Case in point: there is a reason why these city states eventually became part of the Roman Empire. A city state versus the Roman empire? It’s not a fair fight at all.
To prevent something like this you would need, like, a super NATO full of thousands of nation states, but corporation at that level maybe difficult (NATO is already proving difficult to maintain as is). You could also have a state for the purpose of only having the military, but that could easily slide into a military dictatorship. So it’s tricky.
If your idea of not scaling up involves a super NATO of thousands of nation states, you should probably go back to the drawing board.
Yeah, I wasnt trying to present it as feasible
insert alt-right fantasy about how great ancient Europe was /s
Jokes aside, the cities model worked because that was the scale a society was able to grow to. Transport was very difficult as was communication. And even in the ancient cities there was a power hierarchy with councils of elders and stuff.
Military? Who would act militarily against a community? How do you figure slums survive? People could act “militarily” against them. Yet they survive and thrive.
…that is not what they said at all
would anarchy work better in addition to some other system that does not rely on hierarchy?
What system does not rely on any hierarchy? That is supposed to be Anarchism
maybe something that has semi hierarchy, that can be dismantled on a whim if needed? Have the best from both worlds. Like, anarchy + democrady -> voting system, but politican can be removed at any time by anyone, meaning that they have to actually do good job to keep representing people. Cant even try pleasing everyone and do nothing as that wont help either. Abusers get dealt with in same way as abusers get dealt with in regular anarchy. Though all this relys on humans being even semi rational and decent, which kind of makes it utopistic idea. But it would still work likely better than current only rich get to rule system. And besides, what is the worst that would happen? People vote against their own interests, get apathetic and do nothing?
At worst, nothing at all gets done as no one is in charge of anything, which would still be better situation than current one as at least things wont get worse and if there is some ongoing crisis going on that has to be dealt with, if people still cant get the head out of their arses to deal with it, they have decided to let it happen. Just as we have right now decided to let climate change happen by just pretending to do meaningful things to stop it while in truth just focusing to protect the wealth of the rich.
Every day we have less and less to lose. Any system seems better than what we currently have, though i wonder if soviet union got started with that sentiment. But something has to change because way things currently are are intolerable and by the time that transforms into physical need(like hunger) its too late already because everything is too broken already due to planet not supporting enough life to sustain meaningful civilization.
All layers of decentralization add complexity and inefficiency. Anarchism relies on every human being fully educated on Anarchist theory (never going to happen).
Anarchism is more of a “good samaritan” ideology which can work as a band-aid for people to help each other within a bad system, but it has never become a fully functioning system itself.
we need something else than just democracy, or at least something that would also protect the integrity of democracy from corruption. If we had something like that and it would function reliably well people who want change would at least have something to rally behind instead of just wanting change into “something” that isnt ever really specified and thus wont ever gain any traction.
I love the people who say anarchism / communism are utopian and would never work in practice without negative externalities- and then go bootlicking for representative democracy and capitalism
I think it’s important to denote that some people categorize anarchism as a distant dream regime, for convenience of course.
You can see anarchism in action in the punk movement or other community efforts. People building bridges on their own, living in a gridless community, sharing art using their own methods like cassette tapes. That’s all anarchism.
I’m not at the heart of anarchism. I’m not occupying an abandoned building to help the poor, for example. But I’ve read a couple of books on it.
The point of anarchism is the rejection of hierarchy. If enough people reject hierarchy, they would all be on board with not filling the power vacuum. That’s why establishing anarchism is much more than getting rid of the current despot. It has to be get rid of all those with power over others, get rid of the concept of hierarchy, get rid of wealth accumulation as power concentration, get rid of anyone even trying to rule over others. They would have no support with anyone, because everyone knows power corrupts and we’re not taking any chances. Nobody should desire to rule over others, if (1) nobody listens to you, (2) people will fight you, and (3) you, like everybody else, knows it’s morally wrong
I’m not saying all of this is practical, but that’s the idea. Dismantling hierarchy is difficult, but still not sufficient to establish anarchist society. People would just build a new hierarchy if not convinced that hierarchies in themselves are the issue
I wonder if hierarchical structures need reframing rather than removing. If changing our mental model could be the dismantling. I’m considering the definition and observation of emergent and beneficial hierarchies as discussed in “Thinking in Systems” by Donella Meadows-- the hierarchy structure is not inherently bad. What’s bad is, when it comes to human social structure, the person coordinating a collection of people is often considered more important.
If they were equally as replaceable as anyone in the collection (as it should be in a resilient system)-- perhaps by randomly reappointing that position, periodically-- then you could have a central-coordinator structure where benefitial, without the problems of that coordinator becoming drunk on power.
Coincidentally, that book has a quote from Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance that’s very fitting for that last part you mentioned:
if a factory is torn down but the rationality which produced it is left standing, then that rationality will simply produce another factory. If a revolution destroys a systematic government, but the systematic patterns of thought that produced that government are left intact, then those patterns will repeat themselves in the succeeding government. There’s so much talk about the system. And so little understanding.
Thank you, nice quote.
I do think the hierarchy is the problem, not only who is in charge or how they transfer power. There is always tension between “give the people in charge enough power to get things done” versus “now they have too much power and are corrupt”, but by that point you cannot do anything about it. Democracy allows dictatorships to form in the name of government efficiency or the democratic will of the in-group majority.
If you rotate leaders, you will sooner or later rotate in the dictator. Ruling over others should be unacceptable across the board. This is what anarchists fight for. You can fight for that even if the system you’re living in is predominantly hierarchical. You don’t need to dream about a revolution that never comes, it’s all about changing people’s mindset over time.
Taking the definition at its etymological root, all anarchy means is “without rule”.
In my head-canon, that doesn’t necessarily mean the lack of laws, state, institutions or governance; the implication is that there are no citizens or individuals with permanently elevated authority in the polity of government. Without rulers.
Many, of course, disagree with this mostly on the basis of practicality, but I’d like to think it’s another way to describe the concept of “No gods, no kings, no masters, no slaves.”
Democracy is supposed to be that, but the citizenry doesn’t participate like they should so it devolves to where things are now.
Because the citizenry are disempowered, they have delegated their social obligations to institutions to handle it for them and thus hold no stake in what happens.
They view the result of politics as something that happens to them rather than something they influence, and frankly they’re right. We elect representatives who maybe hold one or two values we want, yet constantly act out of our own interests.
The only true democracy that can last is a direct democracy where everyone votes on the issues they want too.
I guess you mean “without rule” as in “without people ruling” and not as “without norms”, and it is indeed correct. There is a word for “without norms”, which is anomie (at least in french).
Also, i’d argue that states and governance inherently require permanently elevated authority, but if you meant more general meaning for those, like state as organization of masses of people and governance as common decisions for those masses, then i see your point.
The “political class” of an anarchical state as I’ve described would be rotationary.
We in the United States have “Jury Duty”, where the average citizen is required by law to be selected to be part of a “jury of peers” on legal cases if the defendant exercises their right to a trial by jury.
Jurors can be struck down (relieved of their duty) for many reasons in the jury selection phase by attorneys, the judge, or submitting documentation on why they can’t perform their duty.
A corollary compulsory service or duty could be applied to the positions in the three branches of government we have in our current constitutional structure.
We would effectively shift from being a constitutional federal republic (on paper; in practice, the current form of government is a plutocracy) to a constitutional aleatory republic. We would have representative governance, but they’d be subject to review, competency approval, and votes of confidence.
One could also imagine ranked-choice voting and mandatory direct referendums regarding crucial policy decisions. Lobbyists must present their legal proposals to jurist-representatives and the general public, mitigating the efficacy of monetary influence in political speech and advertising.
There are many types of theories, but they rarely are literally “no organized public sector”. Generally you can more think of it as your municipality being more or less completely sovereign and independent.
That’s archy.
Whats the difference between archy and anarchy?
‘Basically no one in charge’ is not exactly correct. Heirarchies are allowed to exist, but ideally should be as brief and flat as possible.
My best understanding of the end-goal is an intermeshing alliance of small democratic collectives working together to provide for one another. This type of system has existed previously, such as with the various tribes across the Americas which often traded and collaborated with one another. In contrast with previous times, there is vastly more understanding of how the world works now, and thus many more possible projects to strive towards.
There is also no expectation of some supposed utopia from this, as i understand - conflicts are still expected to flair up every now and again. The main aim is for equality and the absence of a single constant power structure which oppresses and dictates the conditions of all, but instead that there is a democratic collaberation defining the conditions for folks involved.
Sounds a lot like a bunch of small states to me.
States have governors, towns have mayors, and in anarchist theory none of those heirarchal positions would exist. Usually, heirarchies are formed in order to complete projects and those heirarchies are supposed to disappear once the project is complete. Can’t really have a state without a legislative body dictating it.
The original definition of state is different from the western nuspeak one that means government
the point being that there will be government, just horizontally managed.
Pretty much describes the US in 1781. The Founding Fathers were essentially trying to create a viable anarchy themselves but kept having to make compromises.
Yes, but you’re thinking pragmatically. Like how it would work in the real world.
Anarchy is an ideal theory. It’s not a practical or pragmatic one. It is argued for in comparison to other ideal theories.
Pretty much every political theory breaks down when subjected to pragmatic real world problems.
This rings 100% true for me in regards to anarchism, communism, capitalism, socialism, feudalism… Pretty much any organisational structure that mankind has or will ever conceive.
People are difficult, irrational and unpredictable. Put a whole bunch of people together on a plot of land, multiply that 1 billion times over and you get the unfathomable clusterfuck that is modern civilization. Not even being defeatist about it, just pointing out the factual reality that the perfect society does not and will never exist, far from it. I am aware I’m rambling on and pointing out the obvious here.
well, at least until aliens invade.
people tend to be remarkable cooperative when faced with an external existential threat. most countries cohere quite well when they are in a state of war.
We got covid, and a lot of countries governments took advantage of it and spread misinformation and active vaccine denial. That’s about as close to an alien invasion as we’re gonna get, and we kinda failed disastrously at it.
I used to think we’d come together over an external threat too. Now I’m not so sure. In fact, we might even get people denying that it’s even happening.
people tend to be remarkable cooperative when faced with an external existential threat.
Counterpoint in the US at least: Covid.
that wasn’t an external threat. it was an internal one
I think of anarchy like a guiding ideal: flatten hierarchies.
You can’t eliminate hierarchies. If you eliminate “official” hierarchies, you lack measures to prevent individuals from exerting their will over other individuals by force, which is just another hierarchy. As long as one person can swing a club at another, you have a naturally emergent hierarchy. Once you’ve created a group of people to stop people from swinging clubs at other people, you’ve invented a hierarchy.
The anarchic ideal would be a system of organization to minimize the club-swinging. The proverbial sweet spot between preventing oppression without being oppressive. But it all ultimately comes down to club-swinging, you can’t have a purely anarchic system without enabling private power. The best you can do is aim for the flattest possible hierarchy.
I view anarchism as a philosophy and lifestyle more than a government or system. Whenever you thwart, resist or defy authority, you are engaging in anarchism. This can’t be a system because it is a negative. It’s a response to power. What you are asking for is egalitarianism, and there are many kinds of egalitarian governance structures that have varying degrees of success. Ostensibly, the US is egalitarian. In practice, not so much.
Read up on Spain pre-Franco, which was the only time that an Anarcho-state was seriously attempted. It basically coagulated into an Anarcho-syndicate, but failed miserably at getting many traditional ‘state’ responsibilities covered. When Franco rolled in with the backing of Hitler, Durruti was the only guy that tried to mount a defense, because the “government” couldn’t come to a consensus on whether to defend themselves or not. Durruti had to literally raid government weapons stocks to arm a militia to try and fight back, but that totally failed and then they ended up as a fascist steel production center feeding arms to Nazi germany.
So that’s about how it goes in practice. It’s a style of government that’s good in theory, but it fails when implemented, generally due to ever present outside influences. It’s on the same sort of pedestal as communism really, in that lots of folks look at it on paper and think it sounds great, but reality’s a bitch.
It’s on the same sort of pedestal as communism really, in that lots of folks look at it on paper and think it sounds great, but reality’s a bitch.
I guess the difference is that anarchism doesn’t fail due to internal problems, it fails like you said by outside influences. Whereas most historical examples of communism failed due to internal influences (like corrupt leaders making bad economic decisions)
Yeah – though in all fairness, we haven’t seen too many larger implementations of its principles. Some other guy was whining that I’d missed some regional sub-states/failed revolution attempts for example, but that’s the best he could find to counter my ‘only spain so far has tried it’ note. The sample size is stupid small, so it’s a bit dicey to draw definitive conclusions.
I guess you could argue that things like Durruti’s struggle to get support qualifies as an internal problem – like a government/large group, making decisions on consensus, is much more difficult to motivate in any particular direction even when existentially threatened by an outside force. But ultimately, without that outside force, the CNT likely would’ve continued to meet the basic needs of people in the country in line with the anarchist principles it was based on. Bit of a mixed bag.
- The sample size is stupid small, so it’s a bit dicey to draw definitive conclusions.
This is the part that always gets me when leftists do infighting. Like, guys, we’ve only been doing this socialism thing for like 125 years and there’s only been a handful of projects that even successfully overthrew the bourgeoisie. The bourgeoisie themselves took 200-300 years to overthrow feudalism and had many failures and committed awful atrocities along the way.
Let’s learn from our mistakes and stop being so puritanical with our ideologies. None of us have any idea what socialism will look like when it is finally successful, the most we can do is just keep working to put power in the hands of the people, whatever form that takes.
I agree to some extent – I kind of look at the socialist democracies that’re around and think of them as a step in the direction of having a ‘functional’ version of a “libertarian socialist” setup. However we’re also witnessing these fail almost in real time as a result of the global turmoil currently on-going, with rights erosion and increase in authoritarian tendencies on both the political left and right.
I do think there’s a fundamental issue that is a nearly impossible hurdle for ‘proper’ anarchist states of any meaningful size to arise, which is somewhat exemplified in that Spain example. In order for a ‘state’ to exist, it basically needs to have a “force” component. People don’t always want to accept it, and it’s often an open debate on what level of force and how that force is structured in democratic setups. In Anarchist setups, it’s nearly impossible to implement, as there’ll always be dissenters from any use of force, which pretty well blocks that whole function of the government in a consensus based decision model. There also needs to be a method to incentivize/organize large groups of people to complete increasingly complex tasks the larger and more complicated/advanced the tech level of the country may be. Anarchism, from what I’ve read at least, tends to work better in smaller community setups, because there’s less need for either of these things, based on those small community goals. Sorta like the old (and horribly flawed) Marxist refrain of apple farmers and orange farmers swapping produce in a system without capital, it doesn’t really translate to something like making computer chips for advanced tech, or trading direct unskilled labour for something like a surgeon’s services.
Like for the force thing – take something like minority rights. Say some minorities decide to protest in a way that shuts down major streets in a city, demanding special treatment. In a democracy, they get given some media attention, can schedule marches etc, but they can’t illegally shut down businesses / regular day to day life, without running the risk of having the state apply force for their illegal behaviour – cops should show up and force a resolution. If those cops could only show up after a consensus is reached by all parties, including the protesting minorities, then a group like MAGA could basically sit there not compromising on their demands, and inflicting pain on their neighbors/others without a care in the world. Spain’s inability to mount a defense against fascists in the 1930s, was basically the result of them not being able to get a consensus in this sort of regard – you couldn’t get them to all agree to defend the country against franco/hitlers invading force, because some were in favour of it, so no action was taken (except by Durruti’s militia). (and yes, that sort of thing clearly happens in failed democracies like the USA still to some extent, so it’s a problem that goes beyond ‘just’ anarchist decision models – but it’s yet to hit them in an existential way)
Uhhh Anarchist Ukraine, Rojava, Chiapas just to name a few Anarchist entities.
Please study the topic you’re engaging in more instead of being factually incorrect.
Afaik, Ukraine was a failed attempt to setup an Anarchist government. Rojava and Chiapas are not realistically established enough to qualify as a case study so much, they’re also not countries, but general regions/states within countries. As sub-regions protected within and by a state, they benefit from the state while putting on airs of being anti-state: much like a parents-basement dwelling neckbeard sort, who rants online against capitalism, while enjoying the benefits provided by their parents participating in that system, and who’s lifestyle is wholly dependent on the system they oppose. Anarchist principles often function ‘ok’ for smaller communities, but they struggle/fail once attempted as a full government of a country – Spains the only example I know of in that regard.
Spains attempt lasted ‘roughly’ 30 years, with the movement starting in the 1870s, the CNT coming in sometime around 1905 or so, and Franco fucking it all up around 1936-1939, give or take?
I worked in an anarchist bookstore for a few years after uni, where I read books about anarchist history, and the Spanish attempt. That’s what I base my comments on. And, yea, Rojava and Chiapas are so ‘new’ that no one had bothered to write about them at that time. So really, they don’t seem like examples worth mentioning, other than to be a little shite online.
It wouldn’t.
Anarchism (and communism) live and die by the idea that ALL people would have a completely unrealistic level of cooperation and selflessness. As fucked up as capitalism is, it can bend when people don’t play nice and there’s at least a theoretical possibility of anyone gaining power (money) to impact change in the system. Money itself doesn’t inherently have preferences or moral opinions on what should be. Anarchism however breaks the moment someone behaves selfishly. It can work fine in small, like-minded communities where people can always leave (or be excluded) to find other systems that better fit their ideals. However, Anarchism on a societal level would demand that there is basically no other type of society available - which would lead to Sen’s paradox. The reason we don’t have true anarchist (or communist) countries is that they get wiped out by powers that function in sync with people’s natural inclinations for self-interest (like capitalism). People like to argue that these attitudes are DUE to capitalism, not inherent in human nature. Even if I were to entertain the idea that that’s true, we currently live in this world of self-interest. Unless you can press a reset button on humanity, this is what we are working with. Solutions that rely on the idea that we can just fundamentally change how ALL people in the world currently are, are not solutions. They’re idle fantasies. The “argument” that “if the world wasn’t shitty, we could have an amazing utopia”, is not an argument at all, it’s just a tautology with no power of utility.
The way db0 handled their defederation from feddit.org is a great example of how Anarchism fails even on small scale. They espouse ideals about democratic voting and rational discourse, but the moment the organizing body of the instance had opinions on how they think things “should” be, they used propaganda and political theater to get the result they wanted. Anarchist ideals couldn’t function in a low stakes online space, it has little hope of functioning where people are driven by actual survival needs (and desire for power). Whatever ideological purity drove the db0 admins to present the “democratic vote” the way they did, will be the exact same drive people tend to fall to on larger scales as well.
Same thing can be seen in the Communist instances: they rely heavily on propaganda and people sticking to the “correct” narrative. Which also brings up the conflict: there has to be an organizing body that has opinions on what is “right” and what is “wrong”. This organizing body will be the authority, no matter how people try to use rhetorical slalom to get around it and trick people into thinking the spade isn’t a spade.
People can start to build small grassroots communities with these ideals. Please do, and once they gain enough power (money) in the system we are currently living in, perhaps they can impact policy changes etc. that are more humanitarian. That would be wonderful. But always be aware that the ideals are fragile and break under any corruption. Capitalism works with corruption (not merely despite of), which is why it’s extremely effective at being the might that makes right.
(And because I’m aware how these discussions go: I’m absolutely NOT saying “capitalism good”. I’m saying it has more functional power than Anarchism. And I find Anarchism to be far more ethical and appealing in theory.)
I really dislike the idea that anarchy doesnt work because people follow their own interest, because i think it is based on a bad understanding of what anarchy is. It is not a system based on simple good will and sacrificing yourself for others. It is a system where you share help, you give it and you receive it : one grows food, one builds houses and at the end of a day, everyone get a house with food. So you have an interest in helping people, so that they help you. It works the same way as our current societies, skipping the part where someone forces you to do so or where you add the step of giving money to each other for this. If people don’t play nice, either it’s a few people and that’s no big deal, either it’s a lot and they’re defederating and that’s a valid possibility, anarchist systems are precisely adaptable.
Now, I perfectly understands the fear that it’s not stable enough to compete with states, but it’s not the same thing. It does not mean that anarchy fails by itself, it means that it fails when a state destroys it, those are two very different points. Your concluding paragraph makes me think that you are actually thinking the 2nd point, while stating the 1st as an opening.
Also i don’t really understand what is the big deal with db0 defederation. I mean db0 has issues, and this was a debatable and debated action, but defederation itself is not really bad is it? You make it sound like a definitive failure, and i don’t really see the bad part of it. Or is it something else alongside defederation?
It is a system where you share help, you give it and you receive it : one grows food, one builds houses and at the end of a day, everyone get a house with food.
This is exactly the problem I was highlighting. It’s nice to construct the idea where people get along but how do you incentivize them to actually do that without using coercive methods? “We can make this work if everyone just gets along” is just another tautology. Unsurprisingly, any system will work if all people would just cooperate.
Not to even get to the general logistical difficulties with deciding how many carrots one should get for building a house, and if that’s fair. And the free rider problem.
If people don’t play nice, either it’s a few people and that’s no big deal, either it’s a lot and they’re defederating and that’s a valid possibility, anarchist systems are precisely adaptable.
And what if the people who disagree decide to subjugate (and possibly erase) the anarchist system? What if (as is likely) people decide that they want is personal power and authority over others?
It does not mean that anarchy fails by itself, it means that it fails when a state destroys it,
It fails internally due to it’s fragility in the face of corruption. And when scaled, it would have to compete with anyone who decides that might makes right (by any means necessary). Pure, non-coercive anarchism inherently cannot withstand an attack from anyone who is willing to be coercive in order to gain power.
Also i don’t really understand what is the big deal with db0 defederation.
(Also to @ageedizzle@piefed.ca)
They can defederate all they like. The problem is in the way the “democratic” vote was presented. Their method of conducting the vote (with very clear bias) shows that the Admins had a strong opinion on what the correct result of the vote should be. This is abuse of power - which should not exist in an actual Anarchist setting. The exact same driving forces can be copied and pasted to other scenarios: the organizing body of an Anarchist community has a Strong Opinion about a matter, and they put the matter to vote “democratically”, but they use extremely loaded rhetoric to push their own agenda so that people vote the way they want. It’s consent manufacturing, and thus, not Anarchism. I highly recommend reading Animal Farm.
And to be clear: I’m fine with db0 admins doing whatever they like, but calling it an “Anarchist” instance is then misleading. It’s rather just another informal, progressive oligarchy where the appearance of democracy is used to mask centralized platform governance. Anarchism failed, because the moment they created that farce of a vote, they stopped being anarchists and became authoritarians. Anarchist ideals did not do what they needed to do for the db0 admins to get the results they wanted.
1st point : how to motivate people to do useful things ?
Because as i stated, they have an interest to do so. If they help, they get help in return. You have an interest to do your job and voluntary work because in return people will help you, either because you give them money or because they help people as volunteers.
Also people do things in their lives, mostly things helpful to themselves or others. They don’t sit there waiting unless they are forced to do stuff. This point of view is obviously false, and is a premise used by bourgeois propaganda to legitimate exploitation.
2nd point : what if people try to recreate power ?
This is a whole debate, it can come to education, groups looking out for power situations like ngos do with corruption, and if need be armed struggle. But this falls under the “how to destroy power” problem rather than “how to live when there is no power”, and you’re right to point it out, this is one of the big problem. It’s even bigger than what you point out, because we have to get rid of actual existing powers, which we’ll agree is far harder than preventing new ones to emerge.
3rd point : corruption/weakness against power
I agree that anarchy is weak against power, because power is predatory and anarchy is not or is less. Preventing rise of authoritarianism would be one of the big problems, we agree. Now, again you make it seem quite absolute, like “one dude using violence would make the whole system fall” : this is not that easy, violence can be in the hands in the anarchists too if it’s used against them. If one dude wants to use violence to take power, you can simply stop them with a bunch of people. Now, if they armed themselves or got a bunch of people to follow them, you get a semblance of power again, and it calls for struggle against it : either discussion to find a common ground, either violent struggle if previous is not possible.
Again, your comments make me think that you don’t think that anarchy does not work, you think it does not stand against power, which is different, and which i perfectly understand.
4th point : on db0
OK, my bad for mistaking your point. Indeed, the db0 admins are quite intense about their positions, but i do think that it is fine. The problem is that they hold power over the instance, not that they state their opinion. But it has to do with how tech works rather than anything else.
You cannot have anarchy when someone or a group physically has the system, and/or the ability to do whatever to do with it. If it was an anarchist system, they would be mandated, they could be revoked, etc., and people submitting an idea to assembly vote could be very vocal for it, to defend it (and typically would not be part of the mandated organizing people). db0 is indeed not that, it is a anarchist-themed or anarchist-leaning instance functioning by non-anarchist means. So the problem you identified has to do with power, not with anarchy. Eventually with power used by people promoting anarchy, but not anarchy itself.
1st point : how to motivate people to do useful things ?
Because as i stated, they have an interest to do so. If they help, they get help in return. You have an interest to do your job and voluntary work because in return people will help you…
If someone decides to take without giving, how does your system stop them? Social pressure? Then you’re admitting coercion exists. Violence? Then you’re admitting authority exists. Might makes right. Or do you just let them freeload until the system collapses? Yes, people do help others - but not universally, not equally, and not without incentives or consequences. Capitalism and states channel self-interest into productive outcomes (even if imperfectly). Anarchism relies on self-interest magically aligning with collective good. This is not a mechanism, it’s an ideal, a fantasy.
power
If anarchists need armed struggle to prevent power, they’re admitting that violence (i.e., coercion) is necessary to maintain their system. But if coercion is allowed, what makes this different (to the point of superiority) from what we currently have?
Again, your comments make me think that you don’t think that anarchy does not work, you think it does not stand against power, which is different, and which i perfectly understand.
Like I said in my first post: I’m absolutely NOT saying “capitalism good”. I’m saying it has more functional power than Anarchism.
If it was an anarchist system, they would be mandated, they could be revoked, etc., and people submitting an idea to assembly vote could be very vocal for it, to defend it
“Who watches the watchdogs” issue.
So the problem you identified has to do with power, not with anarchy. Eventually with power used by people promoting anarchy, but not anarchy itself.
The thing is that now we get to the territory where Anarchy always stays pure and perfect, because the moment people drop anarchist ideals in favor of an actually functional alternative, it’s no longer Anarchism. Ideals are nice and all, but lack functional power, which I’ve been saying all the time.
Anarchism would work beautifully - if everyone would just agree and cooperate.
On people giving without taking : Someone taking without giving would be someone sitting around without doing anything. It does not exist, people do things, and most of them are useful to the community. But let’s admit some people just sleep and eat, or let’s admit that you consider people that give less than they take a problem (which it isn’t in anarchy, it is not a meritocratic system) : if that’s just a few (closest to reality), probably not a problem. If it is more than the community can support, then it’s a problem the community has to solve with anarchic means : try talking to get some of them to do stuff, try getting help from other communities,etc. If in a very weird world, it does not change anything, then you just have the possibility to provide help and resources for participative people first.
Anarchism relies on self-interest magically aligning with collective good. No, that’s precisely the point i’m trying to make. You are not helping selflessly : you are helping each others, so that they are able to help you. You can be selfish in an anarchist community : just do the bare minimum, and not help for collective actions. It does not break the system. Even if everyone does it, as long as everyone do the minimum, everyone get the minimum. This is something that works out of the box for everyone : whenever you do stuff with friends, family, neighbours, be it playing football, repairing something, preparing a party, in an informal manner, then people organize by themselves. Some do more, some do less, almost everyone does something. Unless there is a strict hierarchy in the group, when the popular friend or patriarch might then do nothing.
On preventing power : Your point is that armed struggle is necessary to prevent power, and you then equate prevent power to make the system work. Again, preventing power is not about how the system works, it’s about how the system survives. The difference between current systems and anarchy is that coercion is not needed to make the system work day to day, it is needed in its most primitive force when the system is threatened. Also, you directly skipped all the solutions to try beforehand (educating the people to what power is and how and why to prevent it, watching out symptoms of power, etc.) to just sum it up to “violence”, which is the last resort option. Another difference from the current systems.
On capitalism : it’s all good, i get your point of “it’s the more likely regime to survive, so be it”, and i’m fine with it, it’s a valid point of view, especially nowadays. I’m just struggling with why you need to establish that anarchy has to fail on its own (rather than against power/capitalism) to prove it.
On “pure” anarchism : You could be right to call out “purity” behaviours, they are common in far left movments, i acknowledge that, especially for myself. But here that’s not the case : they are clearly not functioning with anarchist principles, like i explained it’s simply impossible to do because of the concept of server. They are anarchists using non-anarchists means, just like some royalist parties take part in republican systems.
As you are very cautious about what your intentions are, i should be too, my bad if it comes late in the discussion : i’m not saying anarchy is the best system for every one, i’m not saying it’s viable as it is, i’m not saying it is a perfect thing that hurts no one. I think it is the best for me, would be the best for most people weren’t they born under capitalism, and that’s it’s one of the less dangerous form of politics. I understand it has to face powers far more violent and dangerous and therefore far more likely to survive, and i also understand that it has to be conceived from within societies full of capitalist and pro-state assumptions. My main goal is to get you and people to a nuanced take on anarchy, notably that it does not fail inevitably on its own, but is very likely to fail because of capitalism, and is likely to fail on its own if you want (but not inevitably, that’s the absolute i’m trying to fight here).
My main goal is to get you and people to a nuanced take on anarchy, notably that it does not fail inevitably on its own, but is very likely to fail because of capitalism, and is likely to fail on its own if you want (but not inevitably, that’s the absolute i’m trying to fight here).
As I’ve said multiple times in different words, Anarchism would work beautifully in ideal, perfect conditions.
dbzer0 has recalls, if the userbase doesn’t like the mods or admins they can literally vote them out.
So yes you can even have anarchy when a group physically holds the system if they’re willing to let go of holding it.
Interesting, thanks for sharing ! I didnt know much about db0 system, i get from this post that db0 themselves consider it not to be a perfect system (both for the fact that they are the sysadmin and it is still based on their goodwill and the fact that they have to restrict to people donating to prevent manipulation from fake accounts). So to my eyes, there still is bigger problems than just the fact that mods and admins are vocal about their opinions, but I admit that i was too quick to judge that “physical servers = no possibility for anarchy”, there probably is a way to have far closer to anarchism organization than i thought. How does quokk.au works about that ?
Thanks for your input. This convo between you and @asofon@discuss.online is very interesting
What bias was done in the voting? People voted and it was tallied up.
The admins can hold whatever view they want, and they can try to state their case as much as they want, as can every other user, what matters is the overall community vote. Which voted to defederate.
That was entirely democratic, you’re being entirely dishonest and in bad-faith here.
Oh and Animal Farm was written by someone who fought for Anarchists in Spain, and supports Anarchism. It’s a rebuttal of the authleft, not anarchism.
Interesting comment, thanks.
The way db0 handled their defederation from feddit.org is a great example of how Anarchism fails even on small scale. They espouse ideals about democratic voting and rational discourse, but the moment the organizing body of the instance had opinions on how they think things “should” be, they used propaganda and political theater to get the result they wanted.
Was there some funky business with the vote or are you more referring to the fact that the mod conducting the vote had a clear preference for banning feddit.org?
I wanna reply to this one more time (if you still care to read) because I’ve thought about this whole exchange a bit and realized that in lacking the spirit of charitability, I missed that from the perspective of db0 admins, it’s likely that they think that because of Anarchist egalitarian ideals, representing the situation in any way they want - even extreme bias - is fine. Because from the principle of egalitarianism, they also do not have any particular responsibility to present the case “objectively”.
However, it still completely fails to follow the Anarchist Code of Conduct, falling into decidedly “Unacceptable” behavior and definitely not heeding the invitation for rational discourse, which propaganda, by definition, is not. In the case of the original post on db0, it may have indeed been a human error, but after it’s been pointed out and unacknowledged, I’d say it has become an explicit rejection.
Of course from my perspective it also runs into the ideal world problem inherent in Anarchism. The fact is that the posts in the community appear in a certain order (a hierarchy, if you will), and thanks to cognitive biases, what people see first is what will impact their thinking. Add to that the subtle but still existent authority signal, ironically, the red A (for Admin) next to the username. Considering the low stakes situation, there isn’t much pressure to think about the matter deeply either, so it’s just likely the first and loudest person wins in any case. Which gets to the larger problem in Anarchism where the Charismatic will become the new authority. An informal hierarchy, but a hierarchy none the less.
From The Tyranny of Structurelessness by Jo Freeman:
paljastus
FORMAL AND INFORMAL STRUCTURES
Contrary to what we would like to believe, there is no such thing as a structureless group. Any group of people of whatever nature that comes together for any length of time for any purpose will inevitably structure itself in some fashion. The structure may be flexible; it may vary over time; it may evenly or unevenly distribute tasks, power and resources over the members of the group. But it will be formed regardless of the abilities, personalities, or intentions of the people involved. The very fact that we are individuals, with different talents, predispositions, and backgrounds makes this inevitable. Only if we refused to relate or interact on any basis whatsoever could we approximate structurelessness – and that is not the nature of a human group. This means that to strive for a structureless group is as useful, and as deceptive, as to aim at an “objective” news story, “value-free” social science, or a “free” economy. A “laissez faire” group is about as realistic as a “laissez faire” society; the idea becomes a smokescreen for the strong or the lucky to establish unquestioned hegemony over others. This hegemony can be so easily established because the idea of “structurelessness” does not prevent the formation of informal structures, only formal ones. Similarly “laissez faire” philosophy did not prevent the economically powerful from establishing control over wages, prices, and distribution of goods; it only prevented the government from doing so. Thus structurelessness becomes a way of masking power, and within the women’s movement is usually most strongly advocated by those who are the most powerful (whether they are conscious of their power or not). As long as the structure of the group is informal, the rules of how decisions are made are known only to a few and awareness of power is limited to those who know the rules. Those who do not know the rules and are not chosen for initiation must remain in confusion, or suffer from paranoid delusions that something is happening of which they are not quite aware.
For everyone to have the opportunity to be involved in a given group and to participate in its activities the structure must be explicit, not implicit. The rules of decision-making must be open and available to everyone, and this can happen only if they are formalized. This is not to say that formalization of a structure of a group will destroy the informal structure. It usually doesn’t. But it does hinder the informal structure from having predominant control and make available some means of attacking it if the people involved are not at least responsible to the needs of the group at large. “Structurelessness” is organizationally impossible. We cannot decide whether to have a structured or structureless group, only whether or not to have a formally structured one. Therefore the word will not be used any longer except to refer to the idea it represents. Unstructured will refer to those groups which have not been deliberately structured in a particular manner. Structured will refer to those which have. A Structured group always has formal structure, and may also have an informal, or covert, structure. It is this informal structure, particularly in Unstructured groups, which forms the basis for elites.
And as a contemplation, to answer your original question, @ageedizzle@piefed.ca: if we accept the way the db0 admins are running their instance as a form of Anarchism (rejecting the Code of Conduct), we are already living in an Anarchist society. This is what it looks like, taken to its logical conclusion. People will exercise their freedom to do what they want, by any means necessary, as the fact is that ultimately, nobody is inherently more valuable than another. There is no superior power inherent in reality to keep people in a hierarchy, we may only impose human-experience created hierarchies. And imposing hierarchy is by definition, an exercise of authority - the question is how intentional it is. Anarchy leads to unintentional, implicitly imposed hierarchies, which is what we have and which we actively try to remedy with intentional, explicitly imposed hierarchies, so that the seemingly arbitrary advantages of the charismatic or the strong do not function as an unchecked, default mandate for authority within the community. And in order to impose explicit hierarchies, those who want to do so need to have enough Charisma (however that manifests) to impose their implicit authority on others :^)
@db0@lemmy.dbzer0.com @Deceptichum@quokk.au @Takapapatapaka@tarte.nuage-libre.fr
Thanks for your comment this is interesting.
I mostly agree with this, especially the fact that anarchy may lead to implicit charisma-based hierarchies, whereas current systems relies on explicit hierarchies filled with implicit hierarchies.
I say may because, while you’re right to point out that this has realistic chances to happen, anarchism is also the best tool to point out and attack those hierarchies, even implicit. History of left libertarian groups (at least in France) is mostly a drama of constant scissions and mergings of little groups : while some mock it as a proof of militant puritanism and useless bickering, I see it as a sign that anarchists have a sane tendency to oppose situations where a group could impose onto others, even in most implicit/vague situations.
My prediction is that it works for 5 minutes… then a neighboring state is gonna invade and annex it
You’d need some organizing to defend yourself… like a military… counter-espionage…
Oopsie… you’ve accidentally invented the state…
Most anarchist attempts had armies, built around anarchist principles : self-discipline, electing officers, more equal pays, etc. Some argue that this is state-like, i’d say it depends on what happens when the war is over. And i prefer an army where soldiers are inclined to criticize and change their officers, it’s more likely to disband.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2026_northeastern_Syria_offensive
This is the result of “Anarchist” societies…
Ah yes, their efficiency is very questionable. I still prefer an army less likely to murder civilians over a classic army, but I have to admit the latter are more likely to survive, precisely because of their violence. (SDF may be a more nuanced thing, i’ve read reports of bad civilians and prisoners treatments. But you’re right to say “Anarchist” with quotes, it’s effectively close without being strictly anarchism).
You’ve also invented immune-systems, which fight pathogens & parasites, within our bodies…
_ /\ _
2 minutes in, the biggest gang in the area would already have declared themselves the ruler, ending anarchy. But yes.
Widespread nuke technology - the great equalizer.
Joking of course, we’d annihilate ourselves immediately.
I think humanity would need a very different set of priorities to make anarchy work. We’d need to value human life for starters. Maybe after experiencing collective ego death following a worldwide calamity or something.
When we say “in charge”, it can mean two very different things : either in charge for anything (like a leader), either in charge of a specific thing (like a worker). Most anarchist theories aim at getting rid of the former, arguing that only the latter produces anything directly. So there would/could be people in charge, but for specific tasks : that could be handling a single repair, managing a field of crops, or organizing the shipment of food across a region (depending on the anarchist system, some may or may not make sense). Those people would be chosen by various systems, mostly direct “democracy”, where assemblies of most people mandates them. The main difference between mandating and voting is that mandating is limited to a predefined task to accomplish. Also, in most anarchist systems, it has to be short and/or revocable, though that could be applied to voting too. A common point is also federation : most system advocate for little communities where you can establish rules as close as possible to what people desire. And then those communities can federate together for purposes that require or work best at large scale. This principle of little communities getting together for bigger problems is what has been established in anarchist Ukraine and autonomous Chiapas, though in two different ways.
So, there is no necessary power vacuum, as in the lack of power does not imply chaos which would imply need for power.
Now, of course there is the risk of power-hungry people aiming at recreating power : but I’d say if you managed to get rid of a state, you have the militant basis and strength required to get rid of mafias or other states, right? And if need be, anarchist armies existed with anarchist principles : elected officers, self-discipline, etc.
This is a very interesting comment, thank you.
This principle of little communities getting together for bigger problems is what has been established in anarchist Ukraine and autonomous Chiapas, though in two different ways.
Thats really cool. Can you elaborate on this? I’ve never heard of anarchist Ukraine or the Chipas
The idea is that once you’re organized in more or less little entities, you may still have the need for things your entity cannot provide (that’s one of the common first argument against anarchism) : tools, resources, craftsmanship, etc. To answer this, the most obvious solution is to federate with other close communities to share what’s needed : you get together (or send delegates) and establish what the needs are and what can be provided. The same principle can be replicated to those federation to create wide networks.
In Ukraine, which was very rural, they organized in little agricultural communes, as well as workers committees in factory and district assemblies for self governance. They then gathered in a common Congress to discuss matters for the whole region, to make propositions that were then discussed in the local councils. The anarchist army also played a big practical role, taking decisions for logistics in between Congresses, though they were not free to do what they wanted, and they tried to intervene in Congresses only as advisors. Their actual role is discussed, mainly by pro-state people claiming that they were the centralized entity that kept everything alive.
In Chiapas, i don’t know that much, but i believe they organize in villages, grouped in Communes, grouped in local governments (Caracoles if i’m not mistaken). Each level has some people elected to organize votes and debates with each assembly. The upper level need agreements of lower levels to apply things. Imagine if every town needed to vote for decisions applied to a region, and there was no mayors in the towns. Same thing here, there is an army alongside the movment, and it’s not 100% clear if they, as they claim, have no say in the political decisions, or if they unofficially have some form of governance. Though i have not seen much claims that they do such things, and it’s also one of the most devoted to peoole army that i know of.
To add a bit more context, there is an army in both cases because of the very violent context : nationalist and then bolchevik armies in Ukraine, state violence and cartels in Chiapas. Both are relatively short (few years for ukraine, few decades for Chiapas). And also, zapatistas in Chiapas reject the notion and term of anarchism, though they are relatively close in pure theory.
That’s interesting that they managed to have armies while doing that. How would that work? An army without top-down command seems unstable, it seems like they could easily seize control of the local communes if they wanted to
Well, those armies are not 100% pure anarchist systems, and my phrasing was misleading if you understood that. They were conventional armies, with some anarchist principles included. Most notables principles i knew of were self-discipline (soldiers were expected to watch their behaviours and their officers/comrades too) and election of officers (so they could be revoked and changed when soldiers lost trust).
The efficiency of such armies is very discuted : ukrainian anarchist were quite effective against nationalist armies (a fight in which they were partly helped by bolcheviks armies), but were half-destroyed, half-integrated by the Red Army once Ukraine was freed. Other than that, the military activities of the EZLN show a relative efficiency, but they struggle to prevent cartel violence. And the efficiency of anarchist in Spanish resistance (1936) is quite disputed, some stalinists blaming them for the defeat in the civil war against fascism, while other blame the stalinists who ended up arresting/disbanding anarchists (anyway, the massive help from nazi Germany and fascist Italy and the lack of support from France/UK / weak support of USSR probably was one main reason).
On a purely speculative side, I personnaly feel much safe about armies with some anarchist principles not seizing control of local communities, since the soldiers would be encouraged to disband/oppose in those cases. The anarchist army in Ukraine, the Makhnovchtchina, was known for executing its soldiers caught looting or iniating pogroms. So it shows that those armies had the same problems than the others (giving power to people), but they also had some drastic approach about it (you have to fight abuse of power strictly). Clearly a rather bad thing overall, but a bit better than other armies to my eyes, especially at the time.
That’s interesting. I didn’t realize there was so much history behind this. Thanks for sharing
it doesnt, in TNG star trek there was a species that was totally anarchically but they were advanced enough to encounter other alien species, they originally were “civilized” race, but they are totally disorganized as a race/people. and i beleive the race is kill the way to the top, or until someone deposes you.
To be honest, I’ve read a lot of fictional representations of ‘anarchist’ or ‘libertarian’ societies and they all fall apart if you look at them too closely.
“The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress” is a science fiction classic and a fun read, but the ‘free’ society it envisions depends on everything being controlled by a single giant computer. It’s set on Luna 200 years after the Moon became the prison of choice for all Earth nations. No prison gangs for ‘reasons.’
It wouldn’t.
