Anarchy

[scule]

The closest thing to an anarchistic society that has ever existed in human history (and don’t bring up the Paris Commune or any of that crap, I mean sustained, long-term societies) are hunter-gatherer tribes. No significant laws, no serious hierarchy, most decisions made on a communal level.

Read Jared Diamond’s “Guns, Germs and Steel” (Pulitzer Prize winner, btw), and you will see that hunter-gatherer societies are by no means utopian dreamlands where everyone agrees and gets along. In fact, they tend to be quite violent, and murder is very frequent in tribal confrontations. This is easily observable today, in the communes in New Guinea, Tasmania, some remote regions of Africa and the Arctic.

Now you may say, “But we have progressed beyond that primitive stage.” But there is no other basis for believing that any ridiculous anachy system would work any other way. It is inherent in the human psyche to follow a leader (I don’t have immediate cites, but have read enough psychology and anthropology to know). Humans naturally form hierarchical structures where one or a few have power over many, at least once we progress in population density beyond a few dozen people.

The riduculous assertation that all humans are equal units ignores facts. Some people are taller than others, some are more attractive (and there is a well-defined science behind attraction, just read Desmond Morris), some are more charismatic, some can run faster, some are stronger, etc. There is a reason why some individuals progress in skill and ability and achievement beyond average humans, and in a free society in particular it is because they have more going for them. I know that isn’t nice to say, but it is true. It is the classic case of haves, and have nots. This alone is the main reason why anarchy can’t work. The moment an egalitarian system is set up, someone will rise above the rest and show more skill or ability, then you have a leader. In truth, most people just don’t have what it takes to truly lead themselves. We beg for direction. Find one business, government, or organization of more than a handful of people (I’m thinking maybe a dozen or two) that works without a hierarhy. I can’t think of one.

Anarchy is a pipe dream, ignores basic human nature, and relies heavily on rhetoric and quotations without giving much in the way of practical ideas. There is a reason why most anarchists are college students, living on their own for the first time and easily influenced by idealism (in Canada anyway - I am very in to political discussion and the only place I have ever encountered anarchists is on university campuses). And Jojo, I’m not interested in any more fluff. Save your dogma for sermons in the campus commons, and post something of substance, because you sound like little more than a wannabe cult leader.

[AHunter3]

There’s a difference between following a charismatic person who has leadership qualities and embracing an organizational structure that establishes a hierarchy of rule-making and rule-enforcing authority.

I laid out some practical ideas. You got anything useful to say, or did you just drop by to stick your fingers in your ears while singing “pipe dream, pipe dream, na na na na na, na”?

[Soup_du_jour]

From AHunter3:
I laid out some practical ideas. You got anything useful to say, or did you just drop by to stick your fingers in your ears while singing “pipe dream, pipe dream, na na na na na, na”?

You’re not talking to me, are you? I think your system could possibly work, perhaps with the whole crime thing ironed out later. I just wouldn’t define it as “anarchy.”

[AHunter3]

Soup, I think I could live with people who were occasionally violent for reasons like waking up with a bad headache or romantic jealousies & stuff. It’s not organized, systemic violence, it’s just adults having temper tantrums. Give me a door through which I could leave this social system and go there and I’d happily take my chances, risking being on the receiving end of that kind of treatment (and perhaps getting killed) without the presence of any kind of organized protection or punishment.

People keep asking “well what about this hypothetical person who does these actively shitty things and also fails to keep promises?” Folks – in the absence of specific reciprocity systems like barter or the money system, the way you get cooperation from your fellow anarchist peoples is through reputation. Reputation is your currency. Everyone is a politician and your reputation is your political capital. I’m not saying no one would ever act like an asshole, but in our current system the structure actively rewards that kind of behavior when directed downhill or sideways at your direct competitors, and sometimes even uphill strategically outmaneuvering your boss to look good in front of your boss’s boss; whereas in an anarchic social system, there would be very few ancillary rewards for behaving that way, and most often high costs in terms of the number of people who would put chipping in to participate in projects you want help with pretty low on their priority list.

To be sure, I think you’d still get sufficient cooperation to get by, and some folks would probably feel sorry for you that you were so frustrated and irritated and pent up about something that you were running around acting like an asshole. After all, considering the amount of empathy and forgiveness we have in the world as it is, I can only assume there’d be considerably more of it if there were considerably less violence and abrasive behavior and intentional coercion going on. This is the opposite of what many people say about anarchy – that in order to have it you’d first have to change everyone and make them selfless compassionate nongreedy people “and that’ll never happen”. The truth of the matter is that if you had an anarchic system, the environment would reward cooperation and negotiation considerably more and competition and aggression considerably less; and people, like puppies, tend to respond to reinforcers like that. People would be better people because it would be practical to be better people. Because it would be more functional for them in the most greedy self-serving sense of the word, in fact.

[AHunter3]

Soup, my “na na na” post above was aimed at scule, not you.

[Shodan]

Remember one human=one unit and all units are equal.

I’m sorry, but this is not true.

OK - you’re one unit, and I’m another. But we are not equal - I’m bigger. So when I walk up to you, smack you hard and steal your stuff, there is nothing you can do about it alone.

So you group together with other people who sympathize with you - probably family. And you all come over to me, smack me, and get your stuff back.

You have just re-invented hierarchy. Anyone who is part of your group is higher up in the hierarchy than I am. And you have set up the same structure as many primitive societies, in which family is paramount. But almost by definition, families are hierarchial, where the parent (usually the biggest member of the family - the father) is the head, and the others are subordinate to him.

You can arbitrarily repeat, “No no - the individual human is the fundamental unit, and they are all equal”, but this makes no difference to anyone else. Anyone else is either part of a family structure, and therefore has status, or is not part, and has none.

AHunter3 -

I still don’t understand how your theoretical society deals with those who disregard its decisions. Everyone else wants a swimming pool, except Joe. So the decision gets referred up to a higher level. They propose a swimming pool, reach consensus. Joe says “No” again. It goes up to the national level, and the national Assembly says a swimming pool is a great idea. Joe says “No”. How have you progressed?

As long as it is just a pool, I suppose you can survive. Suppose the consensus decision is that Joe should stop throwing his garbage into the street. The neighborhood committee goes to Joe and tells him to stop throwing his garbage into the street. He tells them all to fuck off.

I guess the neighborhood could clean the street in front of Joe’s house. Then the other lazier elements in the neighborhood sees that Joe is throwing his garbage into the street without consequence, and starts doing the same. Now the street looks like a cesspool. The decision for Joe to stop throwing his garbage into the street keeps getting referred up to higher and higher levels, but Joe keeps ignoring what they say.

You also mentioned:

Folks – in the absence of specific reciprocity systems like barter or the money system, the way you get cooperation from your fellow anarchist peoples is through reputation. Reputation is your currency.

Actually, I can think of another way of getting other people to do what you want. First, you get a shotgun, and load it. Then you point it at someone, and tell them to hold still while you put leg irons on them. Then you beat them with a whip whenever they don’t do as you say. It is generally referred to as “slavery”, and it has existed far longer than any anarchist society.

The only way to prevent or to stop it, would be to get the best weapons you can, and organize into the largest group you can manage to train into acting cooperatively. Whoever has such a group tends to be in charge. Such a group is often referred to as an “army”.

And again, you have re-invented modern society.

I don’t see how this can be avoided. Anarchism is a nice theory, like a lot of other theories. And -

In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice. But in practice, there is.

Regards,
Shodan

[occ]

*Originally posted by AHunter3 *
**No one said anything about the absence of government. You can have government by the people of themselves through a hierarchy of permanence of decisions that have been made. You do not need to put people in a hierarchy of authority over other people in order to have government.
**

How are these decisions to be enforced, other than something along the vague lines of “the will of the people”? What exactly is this “hierarchy of permanence of decisions”? It sounds like our concept of “laws”, to me, the only difference being that your hierarchy has no method of enforcement. If it does have a method of enforcement, how is it any different from present-day societies?

**
C’mon. We’re adults here. We know you can’t have 10 billion people running around as absolute equals and have a functioning society unless you have a structure. We’re just proposing that structure need not make some people subservient to others. **

Historically, in human interaction, some attempt to impose their will on others. These concepts are also viewable in innumerable other animal species, to varying degrees. If this is to be prevented, presumably some “outside force” (the state, most likely) is required in order to prevent individuals from gaining authority over others through various means (say, by posessing objects of value and bartering those objects to those without them in exchange for labor). How is this different than any other “centrally planned” system of government or economy? How is this superior to current systems?

[occ]

*Originally posted by AHunter3 *
**erislover:

Seems to me like a good portion of the motivation for murders has to do with fights over money or power struggles, and that the source of the problem (the existing system) goes hand in hand with the continued existence of the existing solution (such as it is). I don’t mean the world would be a rosy violence-free world if it were an anarchy, but I think a lot of the really adversarial stuff would not be a factor because the world would no longer be organized around coercion and adversarial relationships.
**

I don’t think the nature of most murder is as you describe. Most murders are crimes of passion; that is, intense emotion overrules an individual’s reasoning processes. The reason that this is so makes a good amount of sense; the cold-blooded, “pragmatic” killings you describe require an individual with little or no sense of empathy, who only desire to further their own position. Most people are not like this. Murders in detective fiction and such tend to be of the cold-blooded type, as it usually makes for a more interesting story than “Jim found his wife in bed with another man, freaked out, and shot the guy.”. IMO, then, murder would exist with or without the hierarchies in question.

[occ]

*Originally posted by Jojo *
**It’s not up to me to convince you that anarchy is right. **

Actually, if you intend on participating in, I don’t know, a Great Debate, it is up to you to convince us that anarchy is right. You have yet to make a single point in your defense of anarchy, in any of your lengthy posts in this thread. Rather than addressing many of the excellent points made by other posters, you simply state that their points are irrelevant, and all will be made clear once we are “ready” for anarchy – which, according to you, we are not.

No offense, but put up or shut up. Why keep posting rhetoric? It adds nothing to the debate.

[AHunter3]

(quoting me):

Folks – in the absence of specific reciprocity systems like barter or the money system, the way you get cooperation from your fellow anarchist peoples is through reputation. Reputation is your currency.

Actually, I can think of another way of getting other people to do what you want. First, you get a shotgun, and load it. Then you point it at someone, and tell them to hold still while you put leg irons on them. Then you beat them with a whip whenever they don’t do as you say. It is generally referred to as “slavery”, and it has existed far longer than any anarchist society.

You could – a situation that neither anarchy nor any other social system can fix or eliminate – but it’s less efficient for you, actually. So why bother?

Power is a process, a dynamic interaction. To have power really means to have entry to a network of relationships in which one can influence, persuade, threaten, or cajole others to do what one wants or needs them to do. Although no other syntax is available to us, it is in fact false to speak of “having power”. One does not possess power: it is granted to the dominator by hosts of other people and that grant is not unretractable…

Coercion seems a simpler, less time-consuming method of creating order than any other; yet it is just as time-consuming and tedious and far more expensive than personal encounter, persuasion, listening, and participating in bringing a group into harmony.

(p. 509, Marilyn French, Beyond Power, 1985

[AHunter3]

Umm, the poster I was quoting without attribution above was Shodan.

[Roger_Mexico]

*Originally posted by Priceguy *
**“Distilled pearls of wisdom”? Please.

Meaningless assertion.

Cite?

Meaningless assertion.

Meaningless assertion.

Meaningless assertion.

Small-minded irrelevant jab. Has no pertinence to the subject matter.

Roger_Mexico, Whereas rhetoric like this may score points in whatever schoolyard you usually do your debating in, it doesn’t work here. It only serves to lower the other posters’ respect for you and make them unwilling to listen to any points you’re actually making. Try making an intelligent, coherent argument rather than dispensing these, as you call them, “distilled pearls of wisdom”. **

Priceguy, I think you are having an ontological and/or epistemological crisis, where everything seems meaningless to you. Do you have suicide ideation? Have you tried Prozac or Zoloft?

As for my large-minded relevant jab, it is very pertinent. The world is an anarchy (in the bad sense) in the arena of international relations. There is no rule of law and we have a big bully, the US, going around murdering people at will. This is either an argument for an international justice system or an argument against anarchy. Take your pick.

[errata]

Is there some reason why anarchy must only be considered in it’s ideological extreme? Do Americans, for instance, live in a “true” democracy?

Anarchy is about the least necessary coercion, if we can achieve none then great. Anarchy is about the least possible hiearchy. If we can do away with it then great. The assertion that neither could be completely eliminated does not mean that those goals cannot be furthered and progress cannot be made under the aegis of Anarchy.

Anarchy is not a form of governance but a philosophy of least government. Anarchy is not too far from libertarianism, except I think that Anarchists value community and see that as the primary means of replacing government services.

*Originally posted by DSeid *
Others have used computer simulations to show that societies that have enforcers will be more successful than those without.

gee… how convincing.

Societies can exist because individuals accept a common core of axioms to guide behavior (whether these axioms are based on religious bases or secular ones matters not) and subsequently hold its individual members accountable to the rules that follow from those axioms by whatever force is felt needed to accomplish that goal.

And I would pose to you, is it not a valid goal to seek to minimize the amount of force necessary? And correspondingly, if we can live without a “boss” wouldn’t you want to? I don’t think we’ve answered the question of exactly how free a society can be yet.

Hierarchal structures are nature’s way in any social structure. From ants to lions.

This is misplaced anthropormorphism. Can you really say the “Queen” ant wields any authority?

Yes the male lion get’s the first dibs on food, but the female lions actually work very well to get the food without any direction from the male and without any hierarchy that I know of. The male lion is simply insuring his needs are met, he’s not dictating the society.

For the most part, this debate has been full of a lot of unproven assertions about human nature. I understand skepticism around talk of utopias, yet I think it is important to visualize the sort of society that you want and work towards it. Calling the end result unachievable does not mean it is worthless to approach the goal or that we can’t get closer.

[Shodan]

You could – a situation that neither anarchy nor any other social system can fix or eliminate – but it’s less efficient for you, actually. So why bother?

Which sounds sort of like an argument that the whole abolition movement was pointless.

How is it that systems of slavery persist throughout history? I find it hard to dismiss all that with a simple “why bother?”

Regards,
Shodan

[AHunter3]

Systems of slavery are not dramatic departures from the other hierarchical relationships that have characterized the social systems in which they occurred. They occurred for the same reason that armies occurred. It’s how we’ve been doing things. Vertical hierarchy. Power over.

I think you’re still missing the point. We don’t need the existing system to go away first before we are allowed to interact in anarchic fashion (remember the fishing trip example?). As long as people are running around enslaving people, I think it is safe to assume that systems other than anarchy are still in place. But let us now fast-forward to a hypothetical world in which all formally organized structures of any appreciable size are anarchic ones, i.e., for all practical purposes archic forms of government and social organization have disappeared. Quit hopping up and down, I said hypothetical. Pretend that such a world exists and that we can fast-forward to the time in which it does so. Now, in that context, why bother enslaving people? Other than a short-lived incident fueled by a bad temper, why bother going to the hassle of trying to coerce people, period? What’s the advantage?

I dunno, maybe you can come up with an explanation for why it would make sense from your standpoint to do so, even if it doesn’t make sense to me. But you came from “now”, a world in which coercion is a standard part of social organzation, which is based on “power over”. So…even if you would (i.e., largely because such ways of doing things is something you’re familiar with), why would someone try to implement such a thing as a systematic ongoing form of coercive power?

That’s what I mean by “why bother?”

[AHunter3]

errata:

Anarchy is about the least necessary coercion, if we can achieve none then great. Anarchy is about the least possible hiearchy. If we can do away with it then great. The assertion that neither could be completely eliminated does not mean that those goals cannot be furthered and progress cannot be made under the aegis of Anarchy.

Yeah, well put. Anarchy is about playing with ways of making and implementing decisions without using hierarchies of power over other people. You can use them even in a world where we continue to have dictators and police officers and gang chieftains. We could certainly use them for a lot more than we use them for now, and take them more seriously as organizational structure than we do now.

Is it only “anarchy” when from some point in time forward there is never again a single instance of coercion of one person by another? That ain’t gonna happen. Two year olds take toys away from each other without permission.

But we could have a world with no organized governments, no organized business corporations, and no organized police forces as we know them now, even if individual people still sometimes employed attempts to dominate other people coercively in their dealings with them. That could happen if effective systems that could accomplish the tasks of planning and implementation without vertical hierarchical authority were to prove capable of doing the job.

And even if it should turn out that some functions cannot be effectively performed by anarchic systems, that is a piss-poor reason for not trying to implement them everywhere that they can be made to work.

[Shodan]

*Originally posted by AHunter3 *
**
I think you’re still missing the point.
**

I sure am.

*Originally posted by AHunter3 *
**
But let us now fast-forward to a hypothetical world in which all formally organized structures of any appreciable size are anarchic ones, i.e., for all practical purposes archic forms of government and social organization have disappeared. Quit hopping up and down, I said hypothetical. Pretend that such a world exists and that we can fast-forward to the time in which it does so. Now, in that context, why bother enslaving people? Other than a short-lived incident fueled by a bad temper, why bother going to the hassle of trying to coerce people, period? What’s the advantage?
**

I still have dirty or unpleasant work that I want done, and I would rather not do it myself.

So it is easier to enslave someone else, and make them do it.

I understand that now I live in a world with no archic structures. What I am wondering is how to stop me from re-inventing them, just as they were invented in the first place.

I presume that when the first human first enslaved the second human, there were no nation-states. Why did he bother, and why did the practice persist?

Gotta go to church. Thanks for your thoughts.

Regards,
Shodan

[AHunter3]

I still have dirty or unpleasant work that I want done, and I would rather not do it myself.

I’ll do it for you, this time. I know what it’s like, I have some different unpleasant work that I hate to do and maybe some of it would not seem so unpleasant to you.
[/quote]

So it is easier to enslave someone else, and make them do it

Do xxx or you’ll shoot me? Well, you’re just gonna have to shoot me, I guess. Then I’ll be shot and you’ll still need xxx to be done.

We’re fanatics about coercion, us anarchists. Doing something that someone is trying to coerce us into doing is worse than death, see? We believe that the way seriously fanatical evangelical Christians are prepared to embrace martyrdom if you say you’ll kill them if they don’t renounce Christ.

I presume that when the first human first enslaved the second human, there were no nation-states

I presume otherwise.

Gotta go to church.

We only do that as a voluntary act.

[zwaldd]

*Originally posted by scule *
** There is a reason why most anarchists are college students, living on their own for the first time and easily influenced by idealism **

Maybe these guys should try anarchy.

[Shodan]

Do xxx or you’ll shoot me? Well, you’re just gonna have to shoot me, I guess. Then I’ll be shot and you’ll still need xxx to be done.

Right. But perhaps those who saw me shoot you will be encouraged to do xxx. And so on.

And then, eventually all the free-thinking anarchists will be dead, and we have not really advanced in our political development.

Come to think of it, that is pretty much like today.

Regards,
Shodan