Are there any anarchists here? If so, could you explain why you feel that anarchy would work better than any other form of government? (I was debating this with someone and I had trouble explaining it, so I was hoping someone else might be able to do a better job.)
I’m a new-sorelian syndicalist at times. That count?
No?
Ok, I’ll just slink off then.
check out http://www.anarchy.org
I consider myself an anarchist.
Can I explain why anarchism would be better than government rule? Well, it depends on what you call “better”, and what you want out of life (most people seem to want stability and long life, something which anarchy cannot accomidate in my oppinion). For me freedom matters more than anything else, and I feel that if I can’t hold my own among total anarchy, it’s only natural selection that I die. But that’s me, and I’m weird by all accounts.
The truth is that there is no one true system that will fit everyone, to me anarchy is the only true system, for other fascism, communism or whathave you is the only thing on the planet that works. Personally, I think a dead government is the only good government, a view I feel is especially justifiable in the wake of the recent U.S. elections. Democracy, indeed
It would no doubt be possible for us to chat endlessly about the virtues of anarchism, but that doesn’t mean we can convince others, no more than you can convince me that your favorite food is the best in the world. Let’s just face it, people are different, but we are as alike, politically, as you can get! Your best bet is to get in touch with other anarchists, we’ll never convince anyone of our views unless he/she is predisposed to thinking along our lines.
At least that’s my view, since I’ve been called a Nihilist too, I guess it’s no more true or false than anything else in the universe!
Anarchy forever !
I like anarchy. But only under the rule of a benevolent and wise anarch.
Seriously, I guess I’m closest to Libertarian, but anarchy has a strong lure. I believe that I’m one of the most fit, “survival of the”-wise, and seeing all those stupid people out there finally have to actually suffer for their stupidity would be great.
When I was younger and idealistic-er, I liked the idea of peaceful anarchy (no government, John Galt-ian type utopia of respectful & self-sustaining intellects…not the Mad Max type of anarchy). But, having seen the “real-world”, now I believe that, in order for a large population to be successfully civilized (so it’s not Mad-Max-gang-rules), some ground rules are needed and someone needs to tend to them. That said…I wouldn’t mind taking a Libertarian hammer to a lot of the current governments of the world.
At the very core I’m an anarchist. I do not trust government in any form. As someone once said to me, I have a real problem with authority. That being said, I think that mankind is too stupid and selfish for anarchy to work. For anarchy to work there needs to be mutual cooperation for a higher goal than yourself, and that rarly happens. There are always going to be bottom feaders. The next best thing is a benovolent dictator, preferably me being the dictator But that rarely happens as well. So that then leaves us with limited government. I tend to like Thomas Jefferson’s view of a government which I believe is most reflected in the current Libertarian party, if I had to choose a political party.
I am in favor of what I think of as controlled anarchy. Rules and punishments are not organized, but society makes the decisions; i.e. should a murder be committed, those pissed off by it would wreak vengeance. It would put a Darwin-esque spin on it all. Failing that, I would happily weild the Libertarian hammer suggested by Phobos.
Anarchy would basically come down to rule by strength. It would be a brutal world.
Anarchy in its highest form sounds wonderful. A full taking of responsibility for one’s own actions and life coupled with a deeply held respect for the right of others to do the same for themselves. But as has been pointed out above, there will always be those whose intent is to prey, both mentally and physically on others perceived as weaker or somehow less deserving. And as a result, the word anarchy most often brings to mind the thought of chaos.
With the number of people in the world, and the common desire for security, consistency, and comfort often afforded by governmental structure, anarchy it seems will always be more of a philosophical excercise then a societal reality.
Sorry, couldn’t resist.
I am a genuine anarchist, in the sense that it is the system of government I want to live in, and I think it can be done and is practical.
Anarchy means no one rules (over others), i.e., any structure that exists must not place decision-making power disproportionately in the hands of one or a few when it rightly belongs to all.
The problem with anarchy is that it is difficult to launch, since so much of it depends on conditions that are far easier to establish once it is already in motion and working.
Be that as it may, the general structure of a functioning anarchy is a way of concentrating decision-making power in the smallest group possible by decentralizing authority as much as possible, and having people meet in groups that (except for the smallest useful group) each contain smaller groups like a set of Chinese boxes, where the smallest functional groups meet most often, the composite of several of these meet somewhat less often, the composite of several of THOSE meet somewhat less often still, and so on.
You also need a structure of permanency of decisions that have been made. In an environment totally dependent on consensus where even majority does not rule, you need at a minimum a set of “This We Have Agreed Upon”, and in practice a hierarchy of permanence that allows you to make some decisions easily (and challenge and un-make them with roughly similar ease), and others that have withstood the test of time and demonstrated lasting appeal to folks so that it takes a long process to even call them into question, and only then to consider repealing them.
Locally, you need reputation. Your reputation as a cooperator who jumps in to help out others becomes in practice the currency with which you obtain help from others (anarchies cannot coexist with a market economy, or for that matter a redistributivist economy such as socialism or communism). This economic system is known as “general reciprocity”, influenced strongly by local (specific reciprocity) factors on an informal plane.
Psychologically, you (each of you) need a sense of self that readily encompasses the plural; you need to feel an “us” rather than an “it” when it comes to society.
(for the spiritually/religiously inclined: this helps immensely when it comes to comprehending a self that can transcend the death of the individual, and a sense of responsibility for one’s actions that transcends the repercussions of one’s lifetime).
A good kickoff requires a shared vision and some social-experimentation capital. Capital is, of course, a capitalist/traditionalist word and concept and reality. Why should anyone with capital invest in a process that could bring about the irrelevancy of capital?
a) Because it can’t overturn anything until and unless it is more efficient. As long as traditional hegemonic (non-anarchic) structures WORK better, they will prevail. More democratic decision-making structures have historically shown that, at least over time, they have a majestic efficiency curve that outstrips that of totalitarian systems. The conservative in me says “Don’t trash what works until its replacement proves it works better”. Hope you agree. In practice, anarchy can ONLY progress along such lines.
b) Because efficiency (see above) floats your profit margin. Corporate thinking will embrace increasingly anarchic structures when and if and only when and if they contribute to corporate success. On the other hand, if anarchic mechanisms do bring such success, corporations that fail to adopt such structures will be gradually out-competed and lose revenue, and capitalist Darwinism will do them in while rewarding those those who adopt such measures.\
c) Vision, being so important, will have to infect the general thinking of either traditional religious organizations or else supplant them with alternative visionary movements. The leftover longhair 60s rebel in me wants to see the existing religious structures undermined by something far more exciting and relevant to the people that has to do with re-examining the legacy of such visionaries as Jesus of Nazareth and Lao-tse and Mohammed of Mecca and claiming in a new cloth that the anarchist collectivity is the realization of their vision; the conservative revolutionary neohippie in me says the Catholic Church will do, and could do, despite their continuing and historical reverence for hierarchical power structure within the church. I don’t trust the church as institution; the devil is always in the place where he has no business being, namely in the pulpit claiming to speak for the will of God; but established churches, even officially and institutionally conservative ones, depend on dedicated spiritual seekers who adopted it, and sometimes they make revolution as they go.
d) You still have to attend meetings and you still have responsibilities. Or you can choose not to attend, but it will be the equivalent of playing hooky on payday, always. You will regret it.
e) Anything that is genuinely, innately evil about human nature in group process will be something you’ll have to worry about. It won’t have many fetters here. If you are of the sort that has residual worries about human nature in the absence of organized restrictions, this could be your nightmare.
f) Intelligence could rule. Sort of. You still have to communicate. Yes with them, unless you expect us and us alone to help you build your dream house, and think of the travel expenses. Still, by and large, no brilliance, no reputation.
g) Certain personality types could rule. Sort of. Shy thoughtful folk could come into their own over time. But early money is on the outspoken willful unconventional folk who do their own thinking. Certainly if you aren’t inclined to develop an opinion on your own, you aren’t likely to lead.
h) "I hate you!-- Personality is political. See above. Think about it. Suddenly it matters. Of course, it matters for THEM (whoever THEM is for you) too…maybe a good thing?
Stay tuned for further details. I’m a revolutionary, albeit a slow-motion one. I’m very stubborn.
to the person who sent the http://www.anarchy.org link: Thanks, but a larger and much more informative site that I’ve found is http://www.infoshop.org.
The Anarchist FAQ, http://flag.blackened.net/intanark/faq/ , is a good source for information upon Anarchism. If you want to learn more also investigate the entire flag.blackened.net domain.
Also you might want to do some research on the !kung people of South Africa for an example of Anarchy in practice. Now, whether or not hunter/gatherers have a social/political structure that can be adapted to a more complex society is a mattter of debate, but this at least demonstrates that Anarchy is not a complete pipe dream.
Registered Anarchist here.
In philosophy, anyway.
In practice, though, I’m really not.
I perfectly understand that Anarchy would never work in our society, so I don’t advocate it. Neither do I support most of the blackflags or “family militias” out there.
I do advocate things that are helpful to the Anarchist ideals–methods of feeding thousands upon thousands of people being chief among them.
As the system now stands, I do what I can to make the established government work for the common good. I vote. I discuss and explain politics with those who are less informed than I, and with those who are more informed.
I do not campaign. I do not fundraise. I will, only on rare occasion, help with a petition drive.
My dream is for a nation governed by nothing more than individual morality and common courtesy.
But here in the real world…
-David
Ahunter3:
surely you realize that the society you describe is a far cry from the other posters who just hate to be told what to do.
I don’t see how your proposed social structure would be any easier or more efficient than what we’ve got. Your version of anarchy is some kind of radically co-operative society, socialism without government. It seems to me to be MORE structured while at the same time being LESS democratic than what we have now. No decisions without consensus? No actions without consensus? Good luck…I guess you haveing been to many left-wing political meetings lately.
But the problem of anarchy remains: given that there are no decision making rules, how do you keep the assholes from kicking you in the crotch? After all, they are merely acting according to their own vision, it’s just that their vision of the world includes you and me getting stomped.
No. It seems to me that most of you anarchists simply want to be able to kick me in the balls and get away with it. “I hate your rules!” “No rules!” Uh-huh. Well, just remember that the rules that prevent you from kicking me in the teeth are also what prevents me and the thousands of people like me from kicking YOU in the teeth. Then we’ll see how you punks like anarchy…
Understand, Lemur, that we are not talking about a bunch of kids wearing the Circled-A on their denim jacket.
Were this the beginning of an Anarchist society, I’d be one of the ones NOT kicking you in the balls–I’d be too busy finding ways to feed your hungry ass while the transportation and distribution systems were down.
Of course, anyone kicking ME in the balls would likely help the movement by unselfishly volunteering to become fertilizer for the crops.
-David
To the person who suggested an anarchist society with meetings, etc. where each desicion is made by a group:
you should check out the book The Dispossessed by Ursula K. LeGuin. It deals with an imaginary anarchist society where everyone works together to make desicions, but one man starts to realize that it is less of an “anarchy” than he thought.
I’m well aware of THE DISPOSSESSED, having assigned it to my students once as part of their sociology readings
I have also been to my share of those hideous lefty beansprout organizational meetings which had NO structure and where every decision required complete consensus. So on Tuesday, it takes 11 hours 43 minutes to reach a consensus on whether or not WE will fund the program and what OUR bylaws will say and what OUR official position on various subjects will be, and so on; and on Wednesday, Sheila, who wasn’t present Tuesday, says WE can’t do any of this until we hash it all out again this time with her participation, and George, who was only entirely too damn present all day Tuesday, says he does not agree that we did indeed reach consensus.
In other words, how NOT to have a functioning anarchy.
The model I proposed: go back and re-read the section on hierarchies of permanence of decisions-made. For the most part, you’d have the same degree of structure we have now, but its component parts (laws, rules, policies, if you will) will have come into being through far, far more democratic means.
No, anarchy doesn’t mean “Yay, NO RULES!” Not if you want it to function, it doesn’t! Anarchy means “no one rules”, meaning that there does not exist a hierarchy of people positioned over other people; that, instead, the structure is purely democratic in nature, such that the authority vested in you at any position in the structure is equal to the authority you would possess in any other position.
None of you are true Anarchists! We saw them in Seattle! Hide your identity behind a mask or bandana, put on your Nike’s and Levi’s, and go protest Corporate greed by smashing a few windows at Starbucks (while pausing to rip off some of the things you like, of course).
Talk about giving a movement a bad name!