I’m politically agnostic and have moved from a slightly conservative stance to a vastly more progressive stance (european). i still dont get the more niche things like tankies and anarchists at this point but I would like to, without spending 10 hours reading endless manifests (which do have merit, no doubt, but still).
Can someone explain to me why anarchy isnt the guy (or gal, or gang, or entity) with the bigger stick making the rules?
I’ve got the perfect podcast for you Philosophize this. This topic is covered in the last two episodes.
well then link it! :) thanks in advance
I actually came here to comment the same thing. For any philosophy question, be it a person, or an ideology ‘Philosophize This’ is one of my first stops every time. Stephen West (i thonk thats hos name) explains things so well, and respectfully no matter who he’s talking about.
And i’ve only caught one of his episodes on Anarchism, but it was packed full of really useful information for an initial basis for understanding.
Very cool indeed! I might check out more of his stuff.
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Anarchy is not the absence of rules but the absence of authority.
And without authority to back up the rules- the rules are easily dismissed without consequence. And easily dismissed rules with no consequence is anarchy.
Therefore- rules negate anarchy.
Anarchists tend to think that fear of the state is not the main reason why we don’t murder each other. In other words, following rules that are understood does not require the stick. Anarchists also tend to think that authority mostly enforce rules to maintain itself, and that the common good actually relies on something else.
How does an anarchy society enforce the rules? Say, murders.
Let’s say you risk nothing if you murder. Would you start right away going on a killing spree ? Chances you think “I won’t but others will” and others actually think the same. An anarchist would probably analyse this by saying that destroying trust between indivuals living together is a basic tool power use to justify its domination. A pedantic anarchist would get his Latin out at this point. Divide et impera.
You misunderstood my question. I did not mean to ask why there would be no murderers. My question is this:
- If anarchism is not against rules but rather authority, how would you deal with murderers? If there is no authority to sentence them, would they remain free individuals?
Anarchy, in it’s purest sense, is to a system what darkness is to light. Darkness is the absence of light, not a thing in-and-of itself. Anarchy is the lack of an establishment or system, rather than a system in itself.
What this means, in practical application, is that most anarchists are simply opposed to whatever system exists currently. Human nature dictates that SOME system will exist as long as we do, so true anarchy can only exist when there are no longer humans around to perceive it.
In historical context, this almost always means that when anarchy “takes over,” what it creates is a “systemic void” which - like any vacuum - quickly gets filled. Usually by the guy with the biggest stick.
One thing to keep in mind is that any kind of government is at risk of being the the group with the bigger stick. A dictatorship only works because the group that supports the dictator keeps them in power. A democracy can still treat some of its citizens terribly, and the structure of the government makes is harder to oppose than “the guy with the bigger stick”.
Organized labor is the biggest stick. If workers organize themselves based on an anarchist basis, they can potentially wield this stick very gracefully to ward off or even preclude the entities that would dominate and exploit them.
The end goal is basically the same as Marxism: a stateless, classless society. It’s a fair question as to whether the anarchist route that forgoes an interim worker state is viable.
Huh? Organized labor can only exist when laws protect them. Otherwise companies will always find scabs, and eventually, willing long term workers.
If organized labor is the law, then they are government all over again.
Not saying positing labor as a governmental body is a bad idea.
For most of the history of capitalism, and in many cases still to this day, organized labor and various labor actions have been illegal, but it still happens.
True, but what organized labor does exist is supported by, and validated by government.
No. Organized labor exists in spite of the government. For example, in the US, sympathy strikes are illegal. Many jurisdictions have so called right-to-work laws which weaken unions. A union is its members, not the laws to which it’s subjugated.
Lol sure. Any examples of organized labor existing in the absence of government, where that group themselves does not become the enforcing, power projecting government?
What you’re describing are the symptoms of imperfect government.
The absence of government is a power vacuum that will be filled. Things like labor organization require structure, and if they have to do not have it, if they persist, they become government. (Enforcement, power projection, etc.)
What are laws other than agreed upon tenets to live one’s life by? We write them down and have a big grandiose way of announcing new legislation currently, all anarchists would do is make sure that those are baked into the social contract. Anarchists and Marxists would be the first group of people to enshrine worker protections into their society.
My point is that a governmental body, an enforcer of the social contract (whatever social contract the group wants) is required. I.e. someone with a stick.
We have a better word for that. Dictatorship.
A lot of political theory is written in the societal equivalent of an airless room with a frictionless floor. It doesn’t take into account how humans work within the system, especially bad actors.
Which is why the only systems that have ever worked are mixed systems that account for human nature.
A 100% democratic system would have problems because nobody would have any experience or expertise, so people would govern based on ignorance. A 100% communist system doesn’t work because we don’t have a fair system to allocate resources, and as soon as someone becomes in charge of allocating resources, they allocate more for themselves. Even 100% authoritarian systems don’t work because a dictator has to sleep sometime. There may be a figurehead / leader in an authoritarian system, but unless that person delegates some power and control, they’ll be killed and replaced pretty quickly.
Historically the dictator one hasn’t worked well is because every last one has been an actual troglodyte, making moronic decisions after moronic decision. At this point I’m fairly sure only the people with a room temperature IQ want to be dictators. Like I’m sure they would get deposed if they gave out that power but that just hasn’t happened much.
I hope we get more discussions like this on Lemmy. Awesome!
Same here! :)
My take on anarchism is that it’s valuable as a criticism of any form of social organization, but not valuable as its own form of organization. I would never vote for an anarchist or join an anarchist movement because I don’t want to put criticism first. Something must exist before it can be criticized. But anarchists offer truly great insight into out social structures
https://open.spotify.com/episode/262vW4junObOATj8j9KAxO?si=4ij18zgzTHq4b1qYrZCijQ
From Spotify if you use it
The current status quo is the guy with the bigger stick making the rules. You’re asking how that would be different under an anarchistic society? Anarchy works best with small to medium groups of like minded individuals. The idea is that nobody in your village has authority over anyone else, and that you’ve struck a social contract to help each other out with each other’s individual skills ie. the guy who’s really good at baking bakes bread for the village, the person who’s really good at building tables builds tables for the village etc. Of course, if a violent antisocial person wanted to, they could threaten that balance, hence why it’s a good idea for anarchistic societies to of course still protect themselves.
Sounds like a great place :)
I would just like to point out that it’s not possible to be politically agnostic. Besides political stances or ideologies not being religions, everyone has some point of view on at least some issues, be they societal, financial, etc.
Generally, it’s envisioned as being a lot like now, but with no classes, and people making and remaking the rules on the fly rather than having set laws and set authorities. No laws, no government, but not no rules.
This sounds like a much faster and more flexible system. Might be volatile but I cant say.
Full disclosure, I’m not convinced personally; I need more evidence it can work.
I mean are you looking for theory or actual anarchist practice?
Because in practice the best anarchism has done is war communism but less organized, less democratic, and less efficient than the communists, and the worst they’ve done is basically a military dictatorship that accidentally empowered kulaks to do pogroms, and if you ask modern anarchists the takeaways from these programs and what to do better in the future, 9/10 times(being generous) they’ll just repeat a “stabbed in the back by tankies” narrative which shows they really haven’t learned from their history.
Oh wow. Now we’re getting into interesting waters. I probably need to read a lot.
To add a disclaimer, I am specifically talking about the largest and more stable projects, anarchosyndicalism during the Spanish civil war and the free ukrainian state during the Russian Revolution
Every now and then Lemmy has an actual discussion like this that gives me hope that it can become more than just an idiotic link aggregator. Thanks!
