It wasn’t a joke in the first place, it was a point about the value, prevalence and possibility of freely given labour, so you’re quite right in being miserable about it all because your trapped in a sadomasochist society that exploits you rather than nurtures you.
Some bad news about societies - none of them last forever, they all fail, anarchist or not. Could be good news, depending on your attachments.
Anyway, thanks, bye.
Oh, goodie. A nihilist. We’ve not heard from one of those before!
Tell me, MrQwertyasd, what are you here for? A good argument? I don’t think so. Given how this and other threads you started have gone for you, and how often you bring up sadomasochism, I get the feeling you like the abuse.
See, this is what I’m talking about.
Do you know anything about the Spanish Revolution, and/or Anarchist Catalonia? There’s also the Ukraine Free Territory. Anarchism also plays/played a major part in the Kronstadt Rebellion, the Paris Commune, the recuperated enterprises in Argentina from 2001-present, the Zapatista Uprising, and much more.
Well yes. But those anarchic places were replaced, in many cases by totalitarian dictatorships, in fairly short order.
That’s the point I try to make about anarchy–unless you have a method of dealing with people who want to loot and enslave everyone else, then your anarchy lasts until someone realizes how easy it would be to loot and enslave everyone else.
In cases like the Ukrainian anarchists, it’s not hyperbole to say that they were enslaved in a pretty literal way by the Communists who had different ideas about the ideal society.
It certainly is true that non-state systems of social organization tend to become stronger when state level systems break down. The problem is that these systems either evolve into states or quasi-states on their own, or are swept away when a state level actor accumulates enough power to reassert control.
True, there’s not a great track record of resiliency. Is that really due to the characteristics of anarchism, though? In Spain, Franco won because he had access to much greater help than that received by the Republican forces. His victory was not primarily due to infighting among the Republicans, nor because some of them were anarchists. In the Russian Civil War, the Bolsheviks gained much strength and momentum (and support) in their victory over the Whites, and the former Russian Empire just didn’t have a large enough (and broad enough) anarchist movement to prevent the eventual crushing of the Free Territory, and so on and so forth.
Consider that the Mexican government has been unwilling to crush the Zapatistas the way they have crushed (or at least dispersed or marginalized) other movements, like the 2006 Oaxacan rebellion.
[QUOTE=MrQwertyasd]
Why not do away with borders in favour of anarchy zones ?
[/QUOTE]
Good idea - I hereby declare all of your property an anarchy zone. So I and a few of my friends will be stopping in and helping ourselves to whatever is available. Who’s to stop us?
Regards,
Shodan
Why, the anarchists he has hired to guard the community property he has on his private property, of course!
The capture and rule of anarchist regions by external forces is inherent in anarchism because anarchy lacks an effective mechanism to stop invaders. Almost by definition, anarchy lacks hierarchical command structures, while highly structured and disciplined forces comprise every effective military. Anarchists may make good guerrillas, but they’ll be crushed by a real military every time.
Hire? why, he won’t pay a dime! We’re not considering the “possibility of freely given labour”!
If there are no borders, which government collects property taxes?
Can the US government collect property taxes from someone living in a house in Tijuana?
Can the Mexican government collect property taxes from someone living in a house near Lake Michigan?
hey! Louisiana has a dead zone! AND it getting bigger almost every year…
But not by yours, eh ? Anarchy seem to be what’s left* after* the military have been in action, not before.
Hardly. The most common cause of anarchy is the collapse of the government, including the military.
So, if you are not living in an anarchy, I must presume you are a slave, or a slaver ?
Your comrades and superiors, who will remove your loot from you because you reside in a power hierarchy in which you have to suck ass or get beaten. Nice way of life if you’re completely desperate.
You know that thing in physics where they say “it’s not even wrong” ?
This isn’t even internally consistent, much less consistent with reality.
-
If we’re discussing a modern capitalist society, why do you use the word “comrade”, which is strongly associated with communism?
-
The people in power are the least desperate and the most likely to have a good way of life. The people who are the most desperate, by definition, have the lowest quality of life.
-
You seem to be saying that I cannot take your stuff because the oppressive police and government would stop me.
Well, the phrase comes from science, not physics, but I’ll let it slide.
anarchy as a function of governmental collapse is absolutely falsifiable, and can easily be proved or disproved by examining the cause of anarchies around the world.
There are three countries which can be plausibly classified as anarchist or having anarchist elements: Afghanistan, Somalia, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Afghanistan: Current conditions are a result of the collapse of the Taliban-led government in 2001, which itself barely managed to create a government out of the anarchy following the collapse of the Communist government in 1992.
Somalia: Current conditions are a result of the collapse of the Somali government in 1991 following the outbreak of the Somali Civil War.
DROC: Current conditions are a result of the effective collapse of the government following the outbreak of the First and Second Congo Wars in the mid 1990s.
The evidence strongly supports the idea that anarchies arise as a function of the collapse of government and their security forces.
This isn’t even internally consistent, much less consistent with reality.
- If we’re discussing a modern capitalist society, why do you use the word “comrade”, which is strongly associated with communism?
I don’t care if 70 years of cold war propaganda gives you a paranoid phobia for a word, Mr McCarthy
- The people in power are the least desperate and the most likely to have a good way of life. The people who are the most desperate, by definition, have the lowest quality of life.
I don’t see the relevance.
- You seem to be saying that I cannot take your stuff because the oppressive police and government would stop me.
You didn’t say how the power structure in your fantasy state worked, so I made one up for you - no fee.
Jesus, if you think the US and allied military had nothing to do with those anarchies and more then then we’re talking about two different worlds and I can’t really answer you.