If there was no government, church, or any sort of ruling council formed, how would we all live? Would we kill only in necessity, like animals, or would we kill each other without thinking twice?
It is not the government which stops me from killing people.
Well if it’s religion, then it’s most likely related to the church. If there was no church, I doubt you would’ve come up with the concept of religion/afterlife for yourself.
And if it’s just your personal morals that keep you from killing people, well then what about for those that do kill people?
Well first of all, pure anarchy is an inherently unstable state so it can’t last:
- Once two or more people decide that they are better off cooperating with each other and make a few rules to define appropriate interaction, you basically have a society again.
-The roving bandit business does not pay well in the long term. Soon as a group of armed bandits will realize that instead of roaming around killing people and taking all their stuff, they are better off taking a little bit each year while staying in one place. Once they realize that they have to defend their “people” against other bandits, you esentially have a government again. A primitive fuedal warlord government but you have to start somewhere.
So in other words the only way you could have true anarchy would be if the population density was so low that contact with other humans was few and far between.
We don’t know if anarchy is an unstable state or not. Don’t confuse “absence of a system” with “absence of a hierarchy of power over other people”.
To answer the OP, I would imagine that we would kill only under rather rarefied circumstances and only in response to individuals with whom we could not establish terms under which they would cease assaulting us etc. Well, obviously the individual in question might be killing, which could lead to that kind of situation, and I suppose we ought to include that individual when we speak of “we”, although it is failure to include the individual in “we” in the practical everyday sense that is causing the problem.
In addition to a good reliable structure-system for establishing communication and a format for making collective decisions (w/o people having power over other people), a functional anarchy would require some collective attitude. An occasional randomly violent nut could be coped with (and as I said–if necessary, killed) but if you had too many people who remained undisposed towards getting what they want from others via voluntary cooperation you’d never be able to dispense with pre-anarchic systems of control and rule enforcement and would therefore not have a full-blown anarchy, just an anarchic system coexisting with non-anarchic systems.
To an anarchist, a government is a permanent and formal power structure. To me, that form of government isn’t deductively necessary. Just because two people agree on something doesn’t mean they must have a contract, even if it is implicit. That belies a tendency to view the problem from the way we live today, where there is a legal binding in existence to begin with, and a permanent power structure there to enforce it.
I live most of my life independent of thought about or action involving the government. So it is said: yeah, but if the government weren’t there then all this crap would happen because there will always be theives and so on. Well, who is denying that? An anarchist will at least deny formal power structures, perhaps stating that they are fundamentally immoral.
I don’t see how. I am not a government of one in self defense, and should you and I be jumped and we retaliate we wouldn’t have formed a subculture or society. Even if we planned a response ahead of time.
I tend to agree with msmith537, that pure anarchy can’t last. In fact, though I know I’m playing a little fast and loose with definitions, I think of anarchy simply as the absence of rules that we must follow: a world in which people can do anything they have the power to do, and the only consequences are those that others have the power to impose. In other words, this world. We have rules, but there are no rules saying that we have to follow the rules. We can do anything we want, if we’re willing to accept the fact that everyone else can too, and what everyone else wants to do is to keep us in line. And collectively, they have the power to do it.
I think this is anarchy: we can do whatever we have the strength to do. Of course, there are many kinds of strength. In a cave-dwelling society, strength comes from numbers, or from big muscles and clubs. In a more modern society, it also comes from numbers, and from guns and bombs, uniforms, reward and punishment systems, technological skills, beauty, charisma, etc. Of course I anticipate the objection that if these things are systematized, then it isn’t anarchy, and I agree, if we follow the commonly accepted definitions. But we are free to challenge these systems, to replace them with others. If I had enough guns and aircraft carriers, and the persuasive power (through words or money, for example) to make others follow me, I could take over any government in the world.
Again, if I took over a government and replaced it with myself, that wouldn’t be pure anarchy. But the fact that governments can be toppled says to me that there is an element of anarchy in society that can never be eradicated. It can only be covered up and forgotten.
In other words, pure anarchy is just a theory. Or, if you see it the way I do, this world and its current social condition is the result of pure anarchy, the natural outgrowth of the fundamental anarchy that our cooperation keeps hidden.
Also, as erislover mentioned, it isn’t the government that keeps me in line, at least not primarily. I never wanted to kill anyone.
So basically the world as a whole is anarchy, since there isn’t one ruling body that dictates what to do?
The way I see it, even if there were one ruling body, as long as that body could be overthrown, whether replaced or not, the world would still be fundamentally anarchic.
Anarchy just means that we can do whatever we want, or rather, whatever we can. It does not imply that others are so stupid that they won’t stop us from doing the things they don’t want us to do, if they can. Since people often agree on what they don’t want others to do, we have laws, and people generally cooperate on enforcing those laws.
I realize that anarchy technically means political disorder and absence of authority. My point is just that in any such situation, people will get together and replace or create authority. Some of those who assume authority are more scrupulous than others, of course.
It’s amusing to imagine an instance of anarchy in which some big, strong neanderthal walks down the sidewalk beating people up at random while others stand and stare like cows in a feedlot. That just wouldn’t happen. People cooperate–not very well sometimes, but to an extent. That aspect of human nature isn’t likely to disappear. My little theory about anarchy being fundamental doesn’t mean that chaos is just around the corner, because most people don’t like chaos.
I was thinking more along the lines of living in somewhat peace. As natural enemies share a watering hole when they are thirsty, not killing each other just because they can.
Mr O:
Mr O is mostly correct within the limitations of his definition. (There is something to be said for the “realness” of being confronted with a plurality of people with a shared belief system that dictates behavior, but social structures don’t exist apart from interaction and individual belief systems, so in an important and revolutionary sense Mr O is right, anarchy is where you invent it).
However, even though a great many people would buy into this definition–absence of rules we must follow–that definition isn’t sufficient and what we have is not, in fact, anarchy. Anarchy is more accurately described as “that situation, structure, or arrangement under which it is practical and possible for a society to function without rules that individuals must follow”. Absent such a social system, such rules are still necessary.
The error that everyone makes is the “naturalistic fallacy” – of thinking of anarchy as a cute primitive less-developed system than archistic systems that depend on power of people over other people. It isn’t. The archistic systems are the less developed ones.
An anarchy is a presence, not merely an absence. It is the presence of some organized system of communication, some format for decision-making, and so forth. It differs from other organized systems of social structure in that all individual participation and cooperation is voluntary; the behavior of individual humans is affected by other humans not through coercion but purely through persuasion.
Don’t let Dubya hear you say that. 
A system can not exist without a hierarchy of power over the components of that system.
Only the truly naive would equate anarchy to freedom…except for maybe freedom for the strong to dominate the weak.
Cite? Supporting argument?
My folks share belong to a condo-swapping group. They set up a decision-making structure in about 30 minutes that does not involve a hierarchy of people over other people (even temporarily).
I’ve spent perhaps a bit more than 30 minutes playing with structures and conventions that would allow decision-making and policy-making in an anarchic state. I don’t think my ideas are necessariy the be-all and end-all of anarchic structures.
I’d be happy to discuss them with people if the general tone were “what systems would be most likely to facilitate a functioning anarchy”, and I suppose I’m fine with putting them out here even when the general tone is “here is why anarchy could never work”, but is anyone interested?
Perhaps you could explain why you are so fervently asserting that such structures cannot exist. You don’t sound very open-minded about the issue.
It should be pretty intuitive. Anything the requires complex organization (building a building, filming a movie, running a factory, etc) requires some way of making sure that the right people are working on the right job. I have seen projects where there a few controls and they are usually very ineficcient or even complete disasters. Someone has to have final say in what gets done and when.
Talmudic statement on the matter:
Avos 3:2
Zev Steinhardt
I’d like to hear what you have to say, honestly. (At the moment I tend to (weakly)think that society and government would gradually evolve all over again, but I promise I’ll read your words with an open mind)
OK, first of all, I think a hierarchy of permanence of decisions would go far. If you’ve ever participated in one of those neo-left “total equality / consensus” model organizations, you know how frustrating it is to never be able to say “We decided that already. We spent 5 hours working towards consensus on that issue last Tuesday” because the moment someone brings it up again consensus is once again not entirely present and we get to do it all over again. So…suppose we have a hierarchy. Not a hierarchy of people, but of decision-permanence, and some procedures for “promoting” and “demoting” a decision. At the bottom level are subjects that appear to affect only those currently present, which have been brought up for discussion for the first time, and a pretty much unanimous decision was reached with no emphatic dissenters. Consider that decision made, but it could be called back up later if someone had a problem with it. Farther up the hierarchy, let’s say something gets proposed and generates a fair amount of discussion back and forth, and it’s also obvious that some subsequent decisions or actions will be based on what is decided. Someone asks that the decision be “promoted” to a higher level. An announcement is posted that the decision will be formally re-addressed at a designated date. People do research as interest and necessity dictate. A more formal procedure is used to poll everyone present and explore all areas of dissent, differing perspective, misgivings, (enthusiasms too), and these are documented in a log in the process of reaching a consensus. Once the decision is reached, it takes a longer and equally documented and announced process to officially consider reversing it too.
As a social worker in a small organization that officially functioned as an anarchy (really), to bring an end to what I called “but I wasn’t really in agreement so we have to do it all again” syndrome, I once designed a formal seven level hierarchy of this nature.
Let’s discuss this notion a bit by itself. I know that I’m not addressing the other main issue for anarchy yet – the “OK how are you gonna get 6 billion 240 million people into the town hall to attend your meeting” problem, if you will – but I think before we go on to that it is important to play with an anarchic decision-making model that would work for a number of people that could fit into a meeting-hall. And fit into it over and over again to make decisions and set policies and thus have some decently reliable notion regarding what to expect from other people and what they expect from you. The ability to handle this for a couple dozen or hundred people doesn’t mean the same system would work as a global social system, and I know that as well as you do, but if you can’t design a system that would work for a smaller sample like this, adding a few billion more people to the model isn’t likely to improve it much – agreed?
Now, if any of you read this and find yourself thinking, “Oh, I know an even better way”, (assuming it is anarchic, of course ), add your model.
Almost verbatum on what i was going to say. Even in ‘anarchic’ countries like somalia there is still a government. You can’t remove government, because people will always realize cooperation leads to more power & safety than rugged individualism.
You’d have to have a society where people had no means of cooperation or communication, and a fluid society where people left every few months to start anew.
Somalia is no anarchy. Somalia per se may not have a centralized government, but all of its little fiefdoms and chieftaindoms or whatever they call them are each individually centralized.
[mini-rant]
It’s really starting to burn my ass that so many people feel the urge to chime in and say that anarchy cannot exist or anarchy cannot last, followed by statements that indicate that they have very little comprehension of what anarchy means and have spent very little time thinking about it.
It’s kind of like someone saying a government without a ruling monarch is impossible because if you deposed the monarch one of the families of the nobility would simply take over. And, besides, there would be no one to issue Proclamations of the Crown and therefore no one would know what to do and havoc would ensue.
[/mini-rant]