Q. E. D. regarding the confusion I was talking about.
Damn, now I can’t get him to explain what he meant by that.
That should be quite irelevant to the anarchists. There are places so little effective taxation - including right here in the U. S. of A. - that I’d be happy to pay for the next century’s worth personally. That should be plenty of time to create your anarchist society and demonstrate its complete superiority.
The existence of other power structures shouldn’t matter; in fact, that would be a perfect test. If anarchists can’t survive in the rpesence of neutral power structures, that generally don’t give a damn, it can’t survive at all. And God help you once you find a hostile power structure.
I think we’re finished here. You’re talking about a utopia not an actual workable society.
An Anarchist FAQ answer to the question: Is the law required to protect individual rights?
except for those times when it has worked…
When has anarchism worked on a actual societal level? I do not speak of things like the open source movement; I mean an actual state.
So - those “rules of thumb” (or “custom”) that replace the laws - does someone enforce them? If so, do they enforce them using gentle persuasion or force? And those who enforce them - do they just take it on themselves to do it or do they get appointed/elected somehow?
See the previously-cited example of Revolutionary Spain, esp. Catalonia.
You cannot rape my wife. It is not the custom!
Oh, sorry about that. My bad!
No worries, mate.
ya dude, your demands on us to explain specific areas to you have been reasonably met, if you were locked in to think of the concept as fantasy land from the beginning nothing we said was going to convince you of anything.
Nothing about Anarchism supposes it would a utopia, it would be run by people with people’s failings. I believe it would create better results in most or all areas of of human life and be far more legitimate as it would be much closer to rule by the people and with their consent than anything that now exists.
I could be wrong but the idea that what we have now is full of absolutely necessary evils and that the only way to have democracy work are through vast impediments to democracy is an old lie with a lot of self serving intellectuals leading the train of thought.
I think the best chance an Anarchist revolution could have to defend would be to possess nuclear weapons. Honestly, all they would probably need is one. They could detonate it in a remote location as a demonstration of their power, and then bluff the rest of the world into thinking they have more and are willing to use it. The deterrent value alone would probably be enough to discourage outside invaders.
Well, that about does it for us anarcho-pacifists, then…
Part of the problem with these discussions is that anarchists and statists are discussing anarchy in different contexts. The statist usually wants the anarchist to defend how things would work if we suddenly switched to anarchy tomorrow. The problem is that I don’t know of any thoughtful anarchists who think it would be a good idea to suddenly eliminate the state and start an anarchist society tomorrow.
Typically, the idea is to “build a new society in the shell of the old”. I have also heard that anarchy requires evolution, not revolution. Obviously, things would go to hell if we eliminated government tomorrow. Part of the reason is that the society we live in stresses competition over cooperation, consumption over temperance, and selfishness over generosity. Both sides of these dichotomies are present in people, but only one side really has a chance to flourish in a capitalist system. Before anarchy can exist, the other, more communal, side of humanity needs to be strengthened.
So, we might not be able to institute anarchy tomorrow, but there are small steps we can take to create the type of society we want. Buying locally, helping your neighbors, volunteering in your community, creating local currencies…all of these things are steps in the right direction. Things that foster cooperation, temperance, and generosity over competition, consumption and selfishness. Only after the more communal side of people is allowed to develop can we start to think about a society with no rulers. But it seems like a worthy goal to me…
Except that by using loaded terms, you beg the question. One could equally say that collectivist ideologies stress regimentation over innovation, asceticism over prosperity, and confiscation over legitimate self-interest. And in the only societies we’ve seen so far that abolished property- Communist collectivism- the actual results were this negative version rather than a humanitarian utopia. As I said upthread, there are two ways for people to be unselfish: either because they genuinely choose to love and care about other people, or because they’ve been assimilated into the Hive. Both collectivists and individualists would like to see a society with no rulers, but in answer to the question “but who rules then?” collectivists say “everybody” and individualists say “nobody”. It ain’t a utopia if loners aren’t allowed to be curmudginous hermits if they so choose.
I see what you are saying, but I do not think most anarchists see the individual and the collective as opposed to one another. Rather, they are related. No person can blossom as an individual without a larger collective society to grow in. There is a decent explanation of this here:
I don’t think it will be an easy processing finding the best balance of individual and community, but as we live now, there is little chance given to allow people to really develop a community. That is why I think small steps in a collectivist direction make sense. We can move slowly toward the balancing point and stop to pause as needed.