The basic philosophy behind Anarcho-Capitalism

Great Debates
81

Look, anyone can give lip service to some idealistic-sounding jargon (be it “anarchy”, “utopia”, “workers’ paradise”, “freedom and liberty” or what have you) and then use it as an excuse to string barbed wire and coerce people into saying and doing what they want said and done.

But if there is coercion it isn’t anarchy.

It sounds to me like you aren’t objecting to anarchy, or to people like me trying to implement it; you’re just worried that some authoritarian schmuck with lots of barbed wire is going to attract a mindless cultish following by saying the word anarchy.

Didn’t I just say I wish to hell it was a fuckload less goddam romantic? Yeah, <sigh>, like “democracy” and “freedom” and “holy” and several other highly romanticized phrases, anarchy perhaps lends itself to that kind of rhetorical abuse. But if you’ll pardon me for saying so, casting such worries into this thread is kind of an “argument ad hominem” — “You anarchists must be up to no good because I know the kind of people who talk of ‘anarchy’ and they like barbed wire” — and you should know better!

Nope. You can have systems. You can have structures. You can even have hierarchical structures, insofar as you can have hierarchies of elements other than the authority-level of the people within the system. You can, for example, have hierarchies of how many people attend meetings (smaller groups which, in conjunction with other smaller groups, comprise a larger group and so on), or hierarchies of how often something transpires (some x event occurs regularly, and every nth time some y superevent coincides and extends x), or how permanent a collective-consensus decision is considered to be (think of promoting a decision rather than promoting a person, mm?)…

Not from me, you won’t.

Anyone goes around trying to smash what we’ve got, I’m right there beside you defending it.

Og smash. :mad: Anarchy no smash. :wink:

Seriously: while no system can absolutely eliminate violence, anarchy is, by definition, the farthest you can get from a system intrinsically based on violence. Which means you can no more establish anarchy via violence than you can rape someone to turn them into a virgin.

In descending order:

• Immediate coercion. I get you to do what I want you to do by forcing your limbs to go through the motions, literally wrestling your body into performing the acts I want it to.

• Immediate intimidation. I get you to do what I want you to do by standing within striking distance of you and I strike you until you begin doing my bidding, and I strike you if you stop. But the decision to avoid being struck is actually yours.

•General intimidation. I don’t watch you all the time, and you may get away with ceasing to do my bidding, but when I come around I better see signs of a lot of my bidding having been accomplished in my absence, and I also better not find you not doing my bidding at the exact time I do come around. You are intimidated into doing as I bid even in my absence, but the decision to take or not take the risk of getting caught is actually yours.

• Hierarchical intimidation. I promote some of you to watch the rest of you, giving them privileges including but not limited to their authority over the rest of you; meanwhile I still intimidate the promoted ones, who must obey me or be demoted, struck, whatever. The promoted ones watch and/or intimidate the rest of you. Ultimately, it is the decision of each of the promoted ones, as well as the rest of you, to take or not take the risk of disobedience. And I take the risk of the promoted intimidators deciding to take me on and demote me. (A possibility with the previous levels, but more markedly so from this point).

• Non-absolute hierarchical intimidation. Same as above but a structured and/or traditional procedure for allowing the promoted intimidators to give ideas, feedback, and give assent to my orders is put into place, and perhaps a similar mechanism for the rest of you to interact with the promoted ones. More egalitarian, less coercive; Participants other than me now have more of a “stake” in the system but may also have an increased expectation of a sentiment widely shared by folks at their level being heard and respected, and may become less cooperative when such is not the case.

•Consensual hierarchy. In my position I still have authority to demand that those under me do my bidding, and they in turn the authority to demand that of those below them; but to some extent I occupy my position via the choice or ratification of those I have authority over (and so on down), and/or my decisions are formally, not just loosely, subject to approval and participatory critique by those that I reign over.

• Representative consensual hierarchy. Same as above but I only have authority to issue orders that fulfill a larger agenda set with the participation of those over whom I have authority, and if I step beyond my bounds I can be removed by them and replaced with another. My authority is mostly one of expedience and convenience (i.e., “Let’s pick someone to make the details decisions on behalf of the rest of us, in lieu of being able to figure out how to hash things out without such a leader”).

(these are loose and floppy general categories, each of which would subdivide into additional layers, not to mention hybrid-systems with elements from here and other elements from there etc, but you get the general idea)

Real anarchy will arise not from people shouting lofty phrases but from diagrams and proposed starting-rules for structuring the flow of communications so as to allow populations larger than the easy dozen-or-so to try decision-making as an anarchic group.

The logical way is not to try to do it with all 6-7 billion of us, but with tiny little test-pockets. (I wasn’t kidding when I said baby-sitting cooperative). With the understanding that it’s not gonna spread and take off and threaten jack shit unless it begins working to the satisfaction of the people involved to the point that doing things this way is productive, efficient, and more fun than electing a Board or a Governing Council or whatever.

82

sniff

That was a beautiful post.

83

Nonsense. I have as much influence over the decisions my elected representatives make as the next person. The information I need to decide who represents me is readily available. It’s my choice as to how I interract with and respond to that information.

Now, because of other people’s varying opinions and levels of involvement, my representatives don’t always make the decisions I like, and sometimes they don’t even agree with me that those decisions should result in that person’s loss of that position. Them’s the breaks. It’s called compromise.

Again, I see nothing in the serious anarchist’s position that suggests to me anything other than a childish, petulant desire to get rid of “someone else telling me what to do”. They seem to imagine some world where what they say goes, and it will be wonderful because everyone else gets to fell like they live in that world, too. I’m here to tell you that everyone can’t be lord of all they survey.

The anarchists’ Utopia will be no less free of compromise than any other system of having people live together, if it ever appears.

Heck, as far as I can tell, trying to organize anything as simple as a babysitting collective would bring your brand of anarchy to its knees.

Suppose Suzy changes her mind about agreeing that it’s her turn to babysit, as she said she would last week. Who’s to tell her she’s wrong? You talk of people gathering together informally, impermanently, to teach some manners as you put it. So the mob (and yes, that’s what it is) teaches Suzy a lesson. She appears, bruised, to babysit as promised. Of course she’s been coerced, so your anarchy breaks down right there. Unless of course, you also recognize Suzy’s right to organize other malcontents to teach each of the first mob a lesson in manners as well. And thusly anarchy, even as you envision it, justly gains its current popular connotation.

So maybe you gather everyone together instead, and unanimously pass a rule that says you have to take your fair share of babysitting duties. What happens when the babysat generation grows up, having spent their formative years being told not to listen to what they’re told, and decides that this crap about babysitting rules was invented without their being consulted, and they abandon it. Once again, anarchy descends into chaos, as it is always destined to do.

It’s not a question of “structured anarchy” is thought impractical or too difficult to implement, it’s that ou can no more implement “stuctured anarchy” than you can implement eternal rule by the Tooth Fairy. You can’t run a society based on something that doesn’t exist.

84

scotandersn:

Must be nice. Every few years I step into a voting booth and pick which of (generally) two blithering idiots I want to make my decisions for me at that level until next election day. When some issue or concern is of interest to me, I write a letter and FAX, send, or email it to my elected [del]blith[/del] representatives, who either ignore it entirely or have their staff respond with a form letter. The most local level of government available (since we don’t have neighborhood councils or anything) is like this, with the upper reaches certainly no better.

Meanwhile —
You have some valid concerns that should be of concern to anyone ideologically fond of the notion of anarchy (i.e., “we should all be totally free and absolutely equal”, etc):

I’ve been in an organization in which decisions were officially anarchic. And in which there was, very spectacularly, no structure. Just “we will make all decisions by consensus”. And man alive, did it ever resemble what you’re describing! Hour after hour after hour rehashing the same shit before managing to bang out some wording that all people present nodded to and conceded was, if not quite the wording they really wanted, was acceptable to them insofar as it was acceptable to the others. Whew, damn, we actually decided something. And then at the very next meeting, two of the folks who had been there for that were of the opinion that we had not, in fact, attained consensus, and that the decision had not, in fact, really been made. Not to mention the couple people who had not made it to the meetings!

A structured anarchy is

• possible
• different
• way way way less frustrating but still egalitarian and nonauthoritatian
But you haven’t asked me what structures I had in mind. You just assert that I can’t possibly have any!

It appears to me that you have no particular interest or curiosity, having already decided “It won’t work, can’t work, no such thing, I can’t hear you, la la la la la”.

85

I’m sure your words are ringing true in someone’s ears, but mine are deaf to them.

My US Representative, Lucille Roybal-Allard, has made her local office available to my neighborhood organizaton, providing support and information. She (through her local workers, but with her knowledge and consent) has smoothed many a bureaucratic path for us in getting what we are lookign for to improve our neighborhood. In addition, when we wanted to obtain a US flag to fly on the disused flagpole in our park, she arranged to fly one over the US Capitol Building and then ship it to us.

She is a Democrat, the daughter of a celebreated (and recently deceased) Latino politician. Gerrymandered redistricting has placed the bulk of her district in heavily Latino, Democratic neighborhoods. My town is largely white Republicans. She could easily ignore my neighbors’ requests for help, and the retributive ire would probably hurt her chances not one whit. She chooses to use her office to assist instead.

My state reps, at the time, Betty Karnette and Alan Lowenthal, both showed up at 7:30 on a Saturday morning for a park clean-up, and not only said some lovely words and shook hands for photos, which is all anyone would have expected them to do, but picked up trash at a rate on par with everyone else who was there.

Shitty politicians only thrive in an atmosphere where no one is paying attention, or where people are foolish enought to believe they are effectively protesting when they “withhold their vote”. I’m sorry to hear you are not satisfied.

What you are calling anarchy strikes me more as democracy with a necessary vote of 100%. The likelihood of anything getting accomplished on a human time scale decreases witht the size of the electorate.

I don’t recall declaring it impossible. I have doubts that such a thing as “structured anarchy” exists, but I wouldn’t go so far as to declare it impossible. I AM a declared agnostic, after all.

I simply treat your claims about workable anarchic structures the same way I treated Gary Hart’s claims about “new ideas” during his presidential campaigns. If you had them, you’d say something in detail about them. No one’s stopping you.

86

Details (Part One):

PREFACE

• The following is implemented as a “project” or “experiment”. Participants are voluntary. What the volunteers initially agree to is to utilize the initial structure; it is explained to them that the goal of the experiment is to try out the structure as a possible mechanism for group organization & decision-making. (Therefore, kindly do not post things like “But if this is an ‘anarchy’ what if they don’t want to use the structure, huh?” I will grant that a person could volunteer to be in such a project, agreeing to the terms, and then act contrary to that. But that’s not a risk intrinsic to an anarchy experiment).

• The experimental group is given an initial “task” or “focus”. What the folks are organized for. In this thread I’ve mentioned a baby-sitting cooperative a couple times, that will do. It could also be the management of a block of apartment houses, occupied for the duration of the experiment by the participants (i.e., communal living). Or it could be the operation of a community health care center.

• The structure is described to them as containing the means of changing the structure itself, just as (for instance) the US Constitution provides the tools for its own Amendments. Participants are asked to address any insufficiencies of the structure by using those tools to effect changes to the system from within the system.

GENERALITIES
• Anarchy is loosely described as refraining from participating in decision-making that constrains or compels the behavior of others who were not participants in the decision-making, and refraining from embracing a decision that any participant states opposition to.

• it is understood by everyone that decisions and policies are not yes-no or on-off like a light bulb, but rather come in increments of tentativeness and permanence. There is a specific structure for creating each of several increments of decision, so that a new idea can be adopted tentatively and implemented while still being open to constant evaluation and reappraisal and process. Ideas that demonstrate practicality and widespread acceptance are gradually ratified into more permanent categories via a similarly specific structure. The adoption of the structures will greatly reduce misunderstandings between people as to the degree of organizational commitment to an idea that some may not feel any too sure about.

• The corollary to the ability to have tentative decisions as described above is the organization-wide understanding that consensus does not mean enslavement of each individual to the approval of all of the others. An individual who really wants to do something proposes organization acceptance of an idea on a tentative level. Acceptance of the okayness of giving an idea a trial run should be denied only for a damn good reason. At the other end, adoption of an idea as permanent org policy would occur only with complete consensual no-reservations ratification by all involved personnel. The most tentative and temporary levels of approval of ideas that directly affect only a few people or only a specific branch of the organization could be granted without consulting all participants – and the rest of the organization would be involved later with the opportunity to “second-guess” it as a good or not-so-good idea when it is brought up at the next higher level of decision-making. The idea of trusting each other and each other’s judgment is therefore tied to the idea that tentative decisions are temporary, and that no one will be left out of decisions that are proposed for more long-term implementation.

• When an idea or a suggestion is tossed out for processing by the rest of the organization, there is a structured form in which it is presented, consisting of a quick overview of the understanding of what problem the suggestion or idea is designed to address, an overview of which values are involved in deciding to address that problem, and why the idea or suggestion is thought to be practical as a method of addressing it. In criticizing an idea or suggestion, other agency personnel will address each of their criticisms or questions to an aspect of the idea – disagreement with the understanding of the problem, disagreement with the priority given to the values in contrast with other values which may be “stepped on” by the idea, disagreement with the practicality of the proposed suggestion in terms of whether it would work or not or in terms of whether it would have dangerous side-effects on the org or not. The format of the criticisms would therefore also be structured in a formal sense.

Lest all of this formality give you the creeps, there would always be a category of “Other” comments or criticisms after the roster of formal categories have been gone through.
SPECIFICS
Decisions, ad hoc level (temporary, tentative, minor scope)

The overall experimental group shall be divided into thirds, each of which shall be subdivided into thirds, and those into thirds, and so on until the number of participants in the bottommost subgrouping is between 3 and 9. The smallest subgroups will begin meeting immediately to discuss the goals of the experimental group (babysitting coop, healthcare center, whatever). This meeting shall initially be scheduled for the morning to last 2 hours, with participants encouraged to plan how to present their ideas to a larger group. A second meeting of the same subgroup is scheduled for the afternoon of the same day, and a third for the following morning. That third meeting will take place in a larger room and two other subgroups will join, to create a meeting roughly 3 times the size meeting one third as often. Subsequent meeting schedules and durations will be set by the participants, except for the third meeting of the larger group, which is set to coincide with two other groups of that size, for which time and venue is initially set. (But after two meetings its participants can likewise discuss and modify scheduling and so forth).
Any subgroup of any size/level of the organization can consent as a group to implement the ideas of one or more members of that subgroup as if a larger-group consensus existed, provided that, at the next up-level meeting, the ideas and rationale behind them are brought up, the results described, and the decision is ratified up to the next level.

There is a level of decision below this one, the informal simple stuff that every participant naturally assumes her or himself to have the judgment to decide without consultation – should I tell the 4 year old girl in childcare that the mopped floor is fine & she can quit even though it isn’t? When you aren’t sure whether or not to decide informally and alone, but the ad hoc level described here seems right, use it. When the formality described here seems ridiculous, don’t. Trust your judgment.

Decisions, tentative trial level (okayed, still in process)

The organization participants, when presented with a participant’s idea and his or her request for an okay (to go ahead and implement it to try it out & explore it in practice as well as in theoretical discussion), either grants that okay or denies it.

Any single person has the authority to deny such an okay, but given the tentativeness of that okay, should put the proverbial foot down only for a good reason. The presumption should be “okay until demonstrated otherwise” (sort of like innocent until proven guilty). There should be a solid practical reason or a permanent level agency policy at the theoretical level, one or the other, for saying no way.

A decision at this level is automatically on the agenda for further processing and review at the next staff meeting.

Ad hoc decisions, the preceding level, can be described and okayed to this level by staff. This would usually be part and parcel of each staff member’s overview of what happened with you and you and you this week, which keeps us in touch with each other’s activities and builds agency continuity.

Decisions at this level are simple voice-vote. Reversals of such decisions will have the same status.

more to follow…

87

continued from above…

Decisions, Programmatic Trial level (okayed, can be opened for process at request, periodic review)

For policies such as they exist at any given group-of-x-participants: Ideas which are generally accepted as non-problematic after a tentative period (or bypassing tentative period if we are all comfortable with doing so) are made agency policy and need not be reviewed at every meeting. A person seeking to promote the acceptance of such a policy decision would make a motion at a regular org meeting, and all org members would be informed between that meeting and the next that such a policy motion would be under consideration at the next meeting. If someone has a problem with such a policy, that person can ask to have this subject placed on the agenda and discussion will ensue. If problem is not resolved, a person with major problems with such a decision can move, at such a meeting, for a reversal of such a policy, but the decision to reverse cannot be made at that meeting. Instead, the information that such a reversal has been proposed will be made available to all level-group participants, present and absent, who will arrive at the next meeting prepared to discuss the issue.

Once every so often, e.g., every six weeks for a group-of-27 level, a periodic review of such decisions should be placed on the agenda, at which point motions to make decision an Ongoing Policy level decision will be entertained.

The procedure for promotion to the next decision-making level, like the procedure for reversal, shall involve notification of all staff one meeting-interval in advance.

Decision, Ongoing Policy level (agency policy for the time being)

Here is a description of the procedure for making or reversing a decision at this semi -permanent level, again as it would apply for any given group-of-x-participants.

Someone or several someones would make a motion at a meeting that at the meeting following, there would be placed on the agenda the first of a minumum of three discussions of the merits of the decision versus the merits of criticisms of the decision (as outlined in the section on formal commentary).

The Information that such discussions have been proposed would go out to all agency staff one meeting-interval in advance of the first discussion.

The results of such a series of three discussions will be one of the following options as determined by 2/3 preference of staff. If 2/3 of staff cannot agree, insufficient consensus is indicated and by default option C, continuation of discussion, is indicated.

Option A: leave or promote decision to ongoing policy level; table discussion for a minimum of six weeks

Option B: demote decision to Programmatic Trial level and within that format consider reversal.

Option C: continue discussion without alteration of decision level.

Decision, permanent policy level (contractual or equivalent)

Primarily describes “decisions” such as the decision to operate as a babysitting cooperative in the first place or to swtich to lifelong communal childrearing or something, or to to seek formal incorporation as a commercial child-care facility offering services to the general public — i.e., changes in mission. Or changes to this decision-making structure itself. Previously established ideas or concepts or definitions of procedures could be concretized as the binding equivalent of this by a process that would create organizational by-laws, if we desire it.

If we don’t, the recognition of this level as a level that exists allows us to identify the source of other decisions that we make as stemming from these, and to discuss, however briefly and theoretically, what would have to change in order for us to seriously consider ideas or proposals which would, in essence, conflict with the bedrock of the organization and its identity.

At the same time, the implication of even listing such things as decision which were made on a level does imply their reversability, which means that we are not prevented from considering any line of thought if sufficient cause is indicated.

The method of promoting a decision to this level, or of demoting an idea from this level, would probably have to take the form of creating a meeting time at the highest level in our schedules for ongoing discussion of the merits of doing so; although a single meeting for the purpose of deciding whether or not to pretend, for the sake of opening dialogue and getting feelings out, that such decisions were more reversible than they actually are, could also be considered.

Formal Procedures for Proposing, Suggesting, Etc.

  1. First, the person or persons presenting the org with new ideas for consideration describes the rationale for the idea. What situation or problem is addressed by the idea? (Give the theoretical description of causes and context and so on when idea is being proposed for decisions as the more binding level; less formality is necessary when decisions under consideration are to be at more tentative levels).

  2. Second, those presenting ideas will try to anticipate conflicting perspectives that come from values, and priorities given to conflicting values, that the idea might have to be argued against. How have these possible conflicts already been considered? Which of them have been resolved with no “blood shed” so that they don’t conflict after all? Which of them are being proposed, by those presenting the ideas, as necessary casualties of more important values and priorities?

  3. Third, those presenting the ideas will describe how the idea addresses the situation or problem better than it is currently being addressed. How will the implementation look? Or if the idea being presented isn’t “fleshed out” to that point yet, and those presenting the ideas are seeking input as to how to implement, make this plain at this point. Likewise, if those presenting an idea do have specific and well-developed concepts of how the implementation of the idea would look, make that apparent. If those presenting an idea have some specific ideas, they may be committed to them or they may be very open to alternate suggestions. Make this apparent if strong feelings about specifics are involved. Strong feelings have validity, at least to an extent, and need not be disguised. Another aspect of this “specifics” part of an idea presentation should be a mention of the “therefore we have to’s”, the nuts and bolts of practical implementation decisions that would arise if the overall idea were approved – if these things have been thought out. Finally, if alternative routes towards implementation have already been considered and rejected in favor of the one or ones that the idea-presenters are the most fond of, it is useful at this point to give an overview of that process of consideration.

IN UPPER-LEVEL, MORE PERMANENT & SERIOUS DECISION PROPOSALS, THE ENTIRE PROPOSAL SHOULD BE PRESENTED AS THE PRESENTER DESIRES, with regards to whether or not questions should or should not be brought up as they occur. The formal process of waiting, and responding with criticism formalized as follows, is recommended for most efficient processing under most circumstances.

Formal Procedures for Criticizing an Idea or Proposal

One at a time, everyone has a chance to address the idea from the first category of criticism; then, one at a time, everyone has a chance to address the idea from the next category of criticism. And so on…

  1. First, criticisms of the operant problem definition. Is that really how things are? Is it really a problem if that is how things are?

  2. Second, criticisms of the priorities given to operant values at the expense of other values. Okay, if it is indeed a problem, as described, will addressing it as described not conflict with such and such other, perhaps more important, operant values? [do not include values pertaining to the continued survival of the agency at this point; that would be a practical. see below]

  3. Third, criticisms of the practicality of the proposed solution. If we did what has been suggested, would it really address the problem described? Can we, in fact, do what has been suggested? If we do indeed do it, will it result in serious agency problems that threaten the survival or viability of the agency? Will it result in serious employee problems that endanger our professional careers? And so on.

  4. Other criticisms of the proposed solution which do not seem to fit in any of the above categories.

NOTE: the word “criticism” is used here in the broader sense of affirmative as well as negative criticism.

FINALLY…

At structured intervals, meetings at the levels small enough to accomodate it should include non-specific, wide open go arounds, in which each person in turn says whatever is on her or his mind for a certain number of uninterrupted minutes, then the next person, etc. This increases the flexibility and completeness of our communication.

88

OK, that’s enough to get started with. If I were really doing this, I would be soliciting feedback before I really kicked this off, so have at it. (But please concentrate on the specifics of the structure rather than doing a global “Wouldn’t work, can’t have anarchy, naa na na naa naa”).

Oh, and if I tried it and it didn’t work in the sense of veering off into a non-anarchy org, I’d see where it didn’t work and I’d modify accordingly and get another group of volunteers and try again. If it didn’t work in any other sense, then as long as I had volunteers not all stomping off in disgust, we’d tweak and modify from outside the system and “reset” and start over, until we at least got a system robust enough to allow for tweaking from within, and at that point it would kind of be out of my hands and take on a life of its own.

89

Ah, so THIS is what you’ve been eager to have us ask you to present. I will honor your having coded all that in by actually reading it and evaluating it on a number of levels.

But not today. I must race home and deal with my bathroom remodel in progress. Talk about anarchy… :smack:

90

Well, it took you long enough! I practically had to dare you to dare me to put my money where my mouth is! :wink:

Good luck with the bathroom. (You keeping the old tiles & whatnot, or redoing from the ground up?)