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.
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.
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.
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.)
It really, really isn’t. Most people (think they) know Christianity and then pattern match everything else to it, instead of looking at other religions as arising from completely different frameworks, with very different philosophical assumptions about the world.
Absurdity of all religion
I’m willing to bet they only know Christianity and think all religions are like Christianity, just with a different looking skydaddy.
I hear you, is all I can say. I hope you find our way!
People want borders for exactly the same reasons you want a yard to do stuff in. You can direct that question right at yourself. Why do you want to have your own space? If someone comes along and tries to force you to give up your space, would you try to “get along” and just relinquish your space, or would you defend it? Why do you think you have more rights to that space than the other person? We don’t tend to like it but there is no ultimate law in the universe that says that people can’t acquire a space with violence.
You’re asking questions about human nature that you yourself are equally subject to.
I do get the frustration. Best solution I can offer is just working on the level of the self. Like I said, non-attachment. Read some philosophy. Look into https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nondualism (also https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLKUeOXz8J87Q9qi-YfBfkT1KlKyhdKhrj). That was the only way I was able to finally come to increasing amount of acceptance of reality without losing my will to try to have at least small positive impacts on the world while I’m here. Actually I’m more effective at it because it helped me significantly reduce endlessly chasing after pointless dopamine fixes and trying to get “more” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hedonic_treadmill).
Not that I disagree with the sentiment but you are veering close to the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberal_paradox
You can buy a piece of land in bumfuck nowhere and try to live off it. Or you can join a community that tries to do that (more realistic). There’s the whole https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Off-the-grid thing
Problem is that most people want the conveniences of modern, globalist life, and many people don’t have a realistic choice.
Personally I try to find a balance between Buddhist non-attachment and making do with the life I got.
Tell me you had a certain experience without telling me you had a certain experience.
Were you taught to not talk in certain terms about how your world “shattered”? Because I was.
Not really all that interesting. It’s just the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberal_paradox wearing the cape of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solipsism
Without the fancy jargon, the argument is “All people must be free to do whatever they want (the paradox part they don’t say out loud is: except form a consensus)”
If you resolve the paradox, what you’re left with is exactly the same world we have now: everyone is free to do exactly what they want, including forming a consensus (that may restrict the freedom of the individual)
It’s a philosophical sleight of hand that’s easy to hide in grandiose and virtuous rhetoric. I’ve seen it often from the Libertarian Right, and I suspect so have others on Lemmy.
I recommend you check out analytic idealism instead:
This is one of the best and most ignored rules.
I’m not entirely sure what you’re getting at with the sarcasm. You asked, I answered. My point was never that capitalism is good or necessary, but that it’s the system we’re currently stuck in and I suggested relatively low bar action individuals can take.
I’m not interested in discussing hypothetical worlds that woulda been, clouda been or shoulda been if not for them darn capitalists. I’m sure we could live in a completely egalitarian utopia if not for this, that and the other thing.
But we don’t.
If you have something constructive to contribute, feel free to do so.
Noted, you have successfully got me to edit my first post. I await the results of this revolution.
You are absolutely correct on all points. Now what do you propose we do about it?
You’re arguing with a straw man. The point isn’t that billionaires are the sole reason these things exist in some abstract sense - it’s that, in the world we actually live in right now, they control the levers that determine whether you have access to them at all. Nothing that we have right now could be possible if not for everything that came before it. So unless you invent a time machine, you’re arguing beside the point.
I might be misunderstanding you but there seems to be an assumption that I’m making the claim that the kind of modern life we have can’t be possible without capitalism. I am not. It’s completely irrelevant to me (and my point).
If people want to insist that a world like ours can be possible while resources are shared equally, great. I have nothing against making the attempt at that, please do. But that’s not the world we live in right now. The world we currently find ourselves is the one where capitalism has made all the luxuries etc. possible, and we are very habituated to it. To the point that many people are reluctant to let any of that go, while simultaneously demanding for a systematic change. Hence the “can’t have your cake and eat it too”. People are demanding revolution but precious few have any actually actionable suggestions on how to bring that about. I’m suggesting things that anyone can do by themselves, as much as is possible for them. Doing those things doesn’t require that everyone agrees with you, because you start with yourself. It doesn’t require a massive systematic change, because again, you start with yourself.
If anyone has suggestions on concrete actions to take to bring about massive systematic change, please let me know. Let everyone know. But keep in mind you’d have to persuade people that it’s going to work and it’s a better system. Revolution is very easy on paper.
Claiming any of these things only exist because of billionaires is absurd. They take over and destroy.
But if they ‘took over,’ then by definition, the things that exist now - including the infrastructure you’re using to complain about them - exist because they allowed it. What you (and !Feyd@programming.dev ) have actually described is a world where billionaires are both all-powerful and completely irrelevant. That’s not a critique. That’s a paradox. And it’s a useful one because it lets you feel angry without actually taking any concrete action.
After all the Quanon stuff and the general population increasing their awareness of how conspiratorial thinking works, it’s weird to see “my side” use the same rhetorical tactics:
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Definitions_of_fascism&useskin=vector#Umberto_Eco
“Fascist societies rhetorically cast their enemies as “at the same time too strong and too weak”. On the one hand, fascists play up the power of certain disfavored elites to encourage in their followers a sense of grievance and humiliation. On the other hand, fascist leaders point to the decadence of those elites as proof of their ultimate feebleness in the face of an overwhelming popular will.”
Great, all the better. Please do start building it again from scratch.
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