How would an anarchist society avoid recreating government?

[Lumpy]

@Hypno-Toad

In the view of my more libertarian friends, every person is (or should be) responsible for their own defense. if people don’t want Bob raiding, raping and pillaging, then they should shoot him when he gets to their door. This is essentially the “polite society” argument that gun advocates use. Problems like Bob would not exist if everyone was armed and willing to shoot him.

I personally hate this view since it assumes that all problems can be handled by an individual and that the individual would only use his guns for personal defense. What if Bob controls a band of forty bandits? How is any individual or household going to fight him? It makes all those Heston-esque tough guy posturings look a bit ridiculous.

It may be hard to tell at what point mutual interest becomes de facto government. But it seems that if a village got a posse together to hunt down and kill Bob, that would not be government per se, but a one-time community action to solve a specific problem.

How a libertarian/anarchist/whaddeveryoucallit society could successfully defend itself against organized aggression is a major sticking point. An army of 10,000 can easily enslave a million people if it only has to fight them a thousand at a time. The very fact that states have been ubiquitous since the dawn of agriculture is pretty much a testament to this principle. Libertarianism/anarchy/whatever is clearly not the default outcome of human society.

Proponents of a stateless, non-compulsory society can only postulate that it would have to be a place where “there are no laws but there are rules”. In particular, it would have to have as an extremely strong cultural value the idea that organized aggression was an existential threat. For example, some proponents of libertarian statelessness envision a society where dueling between individuals to settle differences would be permissable. But if anyone banded together to gang up on people, they would be everyone’s enemy. Of course this would mean that a primordial trait of humanity- tribalism, the idea of Us over everyone else- would have to be actively opposed by whatever cultural values would make a stateless society possible in the first place. Indeed some theorize that only an industrial or post-industrial society, where individuals could exist within a sea of millions or billions of strangers, could BE stateless.

[Blake]

@psychonaut

Blake, have you read Cohen’s work? The description of hunter-gatherer societies it gives is quite at odds with yours.

No I haven’t read it.

Perhaps you could just answer the question and name one of these societies.

You’ve made two posts addressing this question at length without ever actually answering the simple question.

If the name is in one of these works, then tell me what it is so I can confirm it against my books and the journal articles. If it isn’t in the book then “Have you read the book” is non responsive.

Why are you being so coy with such a simple question?

[erislover]

@Strassia

What would stop it?

I’m not a huge anti-government type, but I think you have it backwards. “Effective government” is only possible when people have already decided to not riot and kill people wantonly.

If everyone is armed, all it would take is more guns than the group you want to terrorize and you are in business.

I’m not saying this has never happened, but if it were necessarily so government would be impossible, because there’s always some group with more guns than another group. Yet we aren’t in a state of continuous military coups, or police coups, or etc.

[grude]

@Blake

You’ve made two posts addressing this question at length without ever actually answering the simple question.

This is very common among anarchism proponents in general, and dropping meaningless terms (WTF is a syndicalist framework anyway?) and author and book names.

Even libertarianism which has some similarities with some flavors of anarchism is easier to understand.

[MrDibble]

@Chronos

Then you’re using the word “anarchy” to mean something completely different from what most people mean by that word.

:rolleyes: I never used the word “anarchy” at all.

[MrDibble]

@Grumman

I don’t know what the “syndicalist framework” refers to, but I agree that anarchism would devolve into “direct democracy”, meaning mob rule without the protections of a constitution to curtail its power.

That’s not what “direct democracy” means, nor does anarchism preclude having a constitution nor a Bill of Rights.

[MrDibble]

@grude

dropping meaningless terms (WTF is a syndicalist framework anyway?)

:rolleyes: Here, let me help you: http://lmgtfy.com/?q=syndicalist
I take it you don’t need “framework” explained as well?

[grude]

@MrDibble

:rolleyes: Here, let me help you: http://lmgtfy.com/?q=syndicalist
I take it you don’t need “framework” explained as well?

I do have a dictionary thank you, but it appears to refer to a anarchist system almost like trade guilds or labor unions which would not typically be thought of as government per se.

[psychonaut]

@Blake

Why are you being so coy with such a simple question?

I’m not being coy. I gave you a reference to a book which names and describes the tribes. I would look them up for you but my copy is several thousand kilometres away, and for some reason when I originally read it I didn’t think to memorize such details in anticipation of your question.

[grude]

@psychonaut

I’m not being coy. I gave you a reference to a book which names and describes the tribes. I would look them up for you but my copy is several thousand kilometres away, and for some reason when I originally read it I didn’t think to memorize such details in anticipation of your question.

I don’t have a copy of your book to check but reading other anarchist references online it appears what is being referred to is social pressure and ostracism for infractions. So there is a dispute in a HG tribe between two members, they will both feel heavy pressure to resolve it from family and community, they may seek the aid of elders or wise mediators. Should they not resolve the conflict but escalate it or do things which go against tribe norms they will be ostracized socially to the point they will not be able to participate in society. They also will know how difficult or impossible it is to just jump up and go join another tribe, so they have the choice of bowing the community pressure or leaving and living on their own(very dangerous).

Do I have this correct?

[Blake]

@MrDibble

That’s not what “direct democracy” means, nor does anarchism preclude having a constitution nor a Bill of Rights.

In theory, no. In practice, yes. A Bill of Rights only has real existence if its standards are upheld by a court system that can rule on its meanings and a military that can violently enforce those rulings. In an anarchist state, there can be no effective court system, nor can there be any effective army.

It’s all very nice to pretend that everybody is just going to play fair and voluntarily abide by the bill of rights, but in th real world we know that isn’t going to happen. If one single person cheats, then they will need to be dealt with via punishment. And if they resist that punishment then ultimately they will need to be dealt with violently, to the point of forced incarceration at the very least. So you are going to need an army, whether you choose to call that army a police force or otherwise, it is a group of armed, trained men with a rigid command structure.

It’s also all very well to think that you can select Judges at random from the crowd, but such an idea is as ludicrous as saying that you can pick engineers or neurosurgeons at random from the crowd. Being a judge is a highly specialised skill that requires decades of training and experience. It’s not a role that can be filled by people selected out of the crowd. So you are going to need full-time judges, and they will need to be paid for their work.

So now we have an “Anarchist state” with a standing army and full-time judges. That’s not an anarchist state at all.

Of course we have been over this before. In an earlier thread I asked you where you would even get basic the basic public servants needed to undertake necessary public works. Never mind judges, where are you going to get town planners?

Let’s use the example of a necessary standing public institution: roads. In my local area there are plans underway to have the national highway, which currently runs literally down the main street, bypass the city.

In order to perform just the preliminary stages of that task they have needed to spend about 50 million dollars on engineers, surveyors, economists, ecologists, geologists, hydrologists, quantity surveyors, furturists, agronomists and many more professional civil-service bureaucrats.

Can you explain how your system would handle such a project? Would every child be trained in childhood for fields as diverse as ecology, economics and hydrology? Or do you think that basic education in generic “civil service” will enable randomly selected individuals to handle such a gargantuan project.

How would random individuals even know which of these professionals to seek advice from? Despite being a civil servant myself for over 15 years, I would not have the foggiest notion where to start on a project like this. So why do you believe that a few years of “civil service” education in childhood would enable me to manage this project?

With the current system, when a problem is perceived elected politicians can call up civil servants and say “There is too much traffic in this city, what can we do about it, what will the ramifications of this action be?” and the bureaucracy goes to work answering those questions. The politician then gives one solution the green light, and the bureaucracy goes to work implementing it.

But in your world there is no bureaucracy.

So will people like me, but without 15 years training as a civil servant, just get a call one day from someone and be told there is a problem and asked how to deal with it? This is a problem with multiple possible solutions, and the chosen solution, bypassing the city, itself has dozens of major challenges across a wide variety of fields. Without a bureaucracy behind me, how could I possibly even begin to deal with this problem?

I honestly don’t see how this sort of road work would be possible without a standing bureaucracy. The idea that people with some training in civil service during childhood could do it seems utterly implausible. Never mind the legal aspects; the ecological, sociological, economic, hydrological and engineering problems are all significant enough.

So can you explain how a person with “some training in civil service during childhood” would be able to undertake this project? If possible, start from the day when somebody representing the community phones up and says “we have a traffic problem” then take it from there, showing how these random individuals would evaluate options, present options to the community leaders, then implement the chosen option avoiding ecological, sociological and engineering catastrophe as well as budget overrun.

[MrDibble]

@grude

I do have a dictionary thank you, but it appears to refer to a anarchist system almost like trade guilds or labor unions which would not typically be thought of as government per se.

Unions aren’t organised? Unions don’t have votes and representatives and “taxes”(dues)? They’re not national governments, but they work on the same lines. The syndicalist framework takes the labour union model of people electing reps from their own membership, and extends that to the rest of society. It also embeds the principle that all economic action is overtly political action, and hence a fundamentally undemocratic and hierarchical economic structure embedded in an otherwise (supposedly) democratic political one makes a mockery of any claims to democracy from the latter.

[Blake]

@MrDibble

The syndicalist framework takes the labour union model of people electing reps from their own membership, and extends that to the rest of society.

So, pretty much identical to a democracy, where people elect reps from their own membership.

It also embeds the principle that all economic action is overtly political action, and hence a fundamentally undemocratic and hierarchical economic structure embedded in an otherwise (supposedly) democratic political one makes a mockery of any claims to democracy from the latter.

So your Syndacalist Anarchy requires that there be no economic activity whatsoever?

[MrDibble]

@Blake

In theory, no. In practice, yes. A Bill of Rights only has real existence if its standards are upheld by a court system that can rule on its meanings and a military that can violently enforce those rulings. In an anarchist state, there can be no effective court system, nor can there be any effective army.

Citizen’s courts and citizen militia can’t exist?

So you are going to need an army, whether you choose to call that army a police force or otherwise, it is a group of armed, trained men with a rigid command structure.

I disagree that a rigid command structure is necessary for an effective police force. Elected officials can, and do, do an effective job for commanding a police force. Nor does anarchism (excluding the pacifist strands) have a problem with trained police as such (as long as they are subject to the same recall procedures as any other syndicalist membership) Nothing in anarchism precludes specialist professionals for the other stuff like forensics or K9 officers or the like.

It’s also all very well to think that you can select Judges at random from the crowd

No-one’s saying you can’t have professional judges in an anarchist state. But they have to be elected to the actual position and just as easily capable of recall.

So you are going to need full-time judges

I wouldn’t say necessarily full-time, but trained judges, sure.

, and they will need to be paid for their work.

Of course. I doubt money as a medium of exchange is going away anytime soon, but even if it does, they will still need more than just the goodness of their hearts, agreed.

Of course we have been over this before. In an earlier thread I asked you where you would even get basic the basic public servants needed to undertake necessary public works.

And as I said before, people volunteer for that sort of thing all the time in large volunteer organizations, so why would an anarchist state be any different?

Never mind judges, where are you going to get town planners?

Are you under the impression that anarchists are against university education or something?

Can you explain how your system would handle such a project? Would every child be trained in childhood for fields as diverse as ecology, economics and hydrology? Or do you think that basic education in generic “civil service” will enable randomly selected individuals to handle such a gargantuan project.

No, I think people will specialize in the fields that interest them, just like today. Why would this be any different in an anarchist state?

But in your world there is no bureaucracy.

Where have I said that? I fully expect there to be a bureaucracy, but answerable to a different structure from the current one. I expect there to be career public officials. I just think in an anarchist society they’d be structured somewhat differently - much more democratic basis for the structure of bureaux, for instance - e.g. public officials electing their own HODs, that sort of thing. It’s career politicians this anarchist has a problem with, not career bureaucrats.

[MrDibble]

@Blake

So, pretty much identical to a democracy, where people elect reps from their own membership.

Democracy is one model for how an anarchist society would work, yes. Not the current Western sham-democracy, of course.

So your Syndacalist Anarchy requires that there be no economic activity whatsoever?

:rolleyes: Sure, capitalism is the only form of economic activity that exists.

[Blake]

@MrDibble

Citizen’s courts and citizen militia can’t exist?

No, for the reasons I outlined. You can’t learn to be a judge on your coffee break. And if these are full time judges and full time militiamen then they are no more citizen’s courts and citizen militia than the courts and police forces of any western democracy.

Nor does anarchism (excluding the pacifist strands) have a problem with trained police as such (as long as they are subject to the same recall procedures and any other syndicalist membership) Nothing in anarchism precludes specialist professionals for the other stuff like forensics or K9 officers or the like.No-one’s saying you can’t have professional judges in an anarchist state.

So you have a professional Bureaucracy and a professional Judiciary.

That isn’t any kind of Anarchism at all. It’s just democratic government like any other.

I doubt money as a medium of exchange is going away anytime soon, but even if it does, they will still need more than just the goodness of their hearts, agreed.

And since *all *economic action is both political and hierarchical you now have a professional Bureaucracy and a professional Judiciary as part of a hierarchical governance structure.

I would be interested in seeing any other person’s defintion of Anarchism that would include such a system.

And as I said before, people volunteer for that sort of thing all the time in large volunteer organizations, so why would an anarchist state be any different?

Can you please give me an example of a volounteer organisation where people volounteer to be the overseeing engineer on major roadway construction?

Are you under the impression that anarchists are against university education or something?No, I think people will specialize in the fields that interest them, just like today. Why would this be any different in an anarchist state?

Because there can not be any jobs for such people in an anarchist state. If these people have paid, full time jobs as health inspectors, judges, police officers and lawmakers then you don’t have anything that could possibly be called Anarchism. you have a full-time professional bureaucracy, full-time professional police force, full-time professional politicians and full-time professional judges, all enforcing laws upon people by means of coercion and threat of violence. That utterly precludes any description as anarchism.

I don’t know whether the system you describe would be better or worse than any other democracy, but it in no way meets any description of Anarchsism. Just look at the Wikipedia definition:the political philosophy which holds the state to be undesirable, unnecessary, and harmful, or alternatively as opposing authority and hierarchical organization in the conduct of human relations.

Yet you are describing a hierarchical organisation. And the organisation has a professional judicary, executive and enforcement branches and full-time bureauracy. That is a state. You claim all you like that it is not a state, but it is. It is an organized political community, living under a system of legislators, administrators, and arbitrators in an administrative bureaucracy who control the community. A state.

I fully expect there to be a bureaucracy, but answerable to a different structure from the current one.

If you have an organised political system with legislators, administrators and an administrative bureaucracy then you are not describing any sort of Anarchism at all. You are simply describing a variety of capitalist democracy.

I expect there to be career public officials.

In other threads you have said that you would not. That’s fair enough, you’ve changed your mind, I had just assumed that you were still arguing for the same system.

But that then brings us back to the same problem. When your system has a professional judicary, executive and enforcement branches and full-time professional bureauracy, that is a state, It’s in any possible sense Anarchism.

From what little you’ve said, the state that you describe here actually sounds quite appealing. But it is incorrect to call it Anarchism when it is quite clearly a state.

[Blake]

@MrDibble

Democracy is one model for how an anarchist society would work, yes.

Then it is not Anarchist. It is a democratic state.

And that pretty much answers the OPs question: Anarchist society can’;t avoid recreating government. They just pretend it’s not, despite having a full-time professional bureaucracy, full-time professional police force, full-time professional politicians and full-time professional judges, all enforcing laws upon people by means of coercion and threat of violence.

:rolleyes: Sure, capitalism is the only form of economic activity that exists.

Who mentioned capitalism. You said that *all *economic action is both political and hierarchical. ALL.

So perhaps you should learn to write a little more clearly before you start with the sarcastic rolleyes. It’s not my fault that I assume you are being honest when you claim that you believe that ***all ***economic action is both political and hierarchical. :rolleyes:

[MrDibble]

@Blake

In other threads you have said that you would not. That’s fair enough, you’ve changed your mind, I had just assumed that you were still arguing for the same system.

Yes, I have. It’s not unusual (changed my mind on the Israeli apartheid analogy too). Basically, I’ve decided that when I said “a nested series of syndicates” I was describing a kind of bureaucracy anyway, so might as well admit that - but organised differently from the current model.

But that then brings us back to the same problem. When your system has a professional judicary, executive and enforcement branches and full-time professional bureauracy, that is a state, It’s in any possible sense Anarchism.

From what little you’ve said, the state that you describe here actually sounds quite appealing. But it is incorrect to call it Anarchism when it is quite clearly a state.

It’s one form of Anarchism - but most forms of Anarchism acknowledge that there must be some form of government structure. It’s the hierarchical and entrenched rulership class that all anarchisms should definitionally be opposed to, IMO.

[MrDibble]

@Blake

Then it is not Anarchist. It is a democratic state.

Anarchism depends on democracy, I would think it’s perfectly possible to have both.

And that pretty much answers the OPs question: Anarchist society can’;t avoid recreating government. They just pretend it’s not, despite having a full-time professional bureaucracy, full-time professional police force, full-time professional politicians and full-time professional judges, all enforcing laws upon people by means of coercion and threat of violence.

Once again, I never said anything had to be full-time.

Who mentioned capitalism.

I did, and you replied - or what do you think "a fundamentally undemocratic and hierarchical economic structure embedded in an otherwise (supposedly) democratic political one " was?

You said that *all *economic action is both political and hierarchical. ALL.

No, I didn’t.

So perhaps you should learn to write a little more clearly before you start with the sarcastic rolleyes. It’s not my fault that I assume you are being honest when you claim that you believe that ***all ***economic action is both political and hierarchical. :rolleyes:

Possibly you want to re-read what you quoted? I said all economic activity is political, I didn’t say it was all hierarchical. I referenced one that was, but that was in describing the status quo, not in the same context as I used “political”

[Blake]

@MrDibble

It’s the hierarchical and entrenched rulership class that all anarchisms should definitionally be opposed to, IMO.

First off, can you provide evidence that anybody but you considers a society anarchist when it has a full-time professional bureaucracy, full-time professional police force, full-time professional politicians and full-time professional judges, all enforcing laws upon people by means of coercion and threat of violence? Because that doesn’t meet any standard of Anarchism that i have ever seen.

And secondly, in what sense does the system you describe lack a hierarchical and entrenched rulership class any more than the USA? There are a class of people who make laws, a class of people who adjudicate those laws, a class that enforces them and so forth. In what sense does this system lack a hierarchical and entrenched rulership class?