What are your thoughts on anarchy?

[clouds]

Do you think anarchy is the best way for humanity?

Do you think we are, in fact, living in anarchy disguised as democracy?

Do you think we should fight to make this world a more anarchist place?

Note to everyone: Anarchy, capitalism and psychedelics are not in conflict with each other.

 

[benzyme]

we're living in a corporate republic, it's not even really a democratic republic anymore.
when lobbyists quit escorting these sluts in congress, which are nothing more than federal lawyers, then we may actually have a taste of real democracy. I just don't see that happening,

 

[jimm]

Theres no mention of democracy in our bill of rights or our constitution.

We are supposed to be a constitutional republic.
There not supposed to be ANY titles here. Esquire (lawyer) is one of those. Thats unconstitutional.

Article I, Section 9, Clause 8:

No title of nobility shall be granted by the United States: and no person holding any office of profit or trust under them, shall, without the consent of the Congress, accept of any present, emolument, office, or title, of any kind whatever, from any king, prince, or foreign state.

BAR > British Accredited Registry

Anarchy in the UK plays in my head now

 

[SnozzleBerry]

Note to everyone: Anarchy [and] capitalism...are not in conflict with each other.

Ok, then I think you are going to have to present your definitions of anarchy and capitalism, because by definition, these two terms are at odds.

Outside of the US, and by most individuals that self-identify as anarchists, even in the US, the term ”anarchy” implies a system of governance that goes to lengths to avoid the use of coercion, violence, force and authority, while still producing a productive and desirable society

Coercion/violence/force/authority are built-in to the capitalist framework.

 

[endlessness]

democracy

:lol:


Anyways, anybody care to enlighten me on a working example of "anarchy" ?

How's it supposed to work in terms of rules, or guidelines for behavior/coexistence, no rules at all? (because you do know that in every human interaction there are rules, just that the may be implicit or explicit). Or is it just not centralized, and if its not centralized, then how does it work, in practice? Again, where do guidelines for coexistance come from?

What prevents people from killing/robbing/raping, because certainly the desire for these things will be there unless youre talking about a fiction group of enlightened people.

 

[Vodsel]

Do you think we are, in fact, living in anarchy disguised as democracy?

wat :surprised

Do you think we should fight to make this world a more anarchist place?

Bad rules make people want to abolish them. Abusive structures make people want to demolish them. That does not mean the solution is no rules and no structures.

Anarchism/sindicalism might work in small community cells, somehow isolated, with small population density, and decentralized organization. Given our demographics and the current state of things I cannot see how that might be a present solution in large scales, unless you postulate a cataclysm before.

 

[polytrip]

democracy

:lol:


Anyways, anybody care to enlighten me on a working example of "anarchy" ?

How's it supposed to work in terms of rules, or guidelines for behavior/coexistence, no rules at all? (because you do know that in every human interaction there are rules, just that the may be implicit or explicit). Or is it just not centralized, and if its not centralized, then how does it work, in practice? Again, where do guidelines for coexistance come from?

What prevents people from killing/robbing/raping, because certainly the desire for these things will be there unless youre talking about a fiction group of enlightened people.

I agree with endlessness here.

One persons´s freedom can be another person´s prisoncell. If there would be no laws, you´d be free to enslave people if you could. So society could end up with this paradox: most people living as slaves in a totally free society.

 

[Pup Tentacle]

Sudan is currently probably the one existing nation that is the closest to "anarchy". Looks to be working out poorly for them.

Anarchy seems like a great ideal (like communism) but may not find the same greatness in practice.

In practice, it always seems to most empower in the "might makes right" crowd.

While governments should be minimal, I'm a GIANT FAN of the rule of law.

 

[jamie]

seems most people im this thread dont really understand what traditional anarchy is/means.

Go read Emma Goldman. Anrachy really has not much at all to do with what you people are talking about here..these examples are just based on the common misinterpretation of anarchy. It has nothing to do with kids in walmart t shirts with anarchy signs on them getting f-ed up and disobeying the law.

If it were not for anarchists there would never have been any unions durring a time when unions were needed..of course unions of today have become tainted and are a far cry from what they origionally were.

If you dont believe in traditional anarchy to some degree you believe in workers having no rights and the gov/corperate monopoly royally screwing all the little people. Anarchy is something that is needed temporarily from time to time otherwise centralized power structures become far to powerful and greedy. It was the anarchists who origionally reset that balance and gave workers their rights and security back.

It pays to get facts strait and know some history. I am sure our governments and large corperations love people believing in a stereotype of anarchy.

 

[polytrip]

seems most people im this thread dont really understand what traditional anarchy is/means.

Go read Emma Goldman. Anrachy really has not much at all to do with what you people are talking about here..these examples are just based on the common misinterpretation of anarchy. It has nothing to do with kids in walmart t shirts with anarchy signs on them getting f-ed up and disobeying the law.

If it were not for anarchists there would never have been any unions durring a time when unions were needed..of course unions of today have become tainted and are a far cry from what they origionally were.

If you dont believe in traditional anarchy to some degree you believe in workers having no rights and the gov/corperate monopoly royally screwing all the little people. Anarchy is something that is needed temporarily from time to time otherwise centralized power structures become far to powerful and greedy. It was the anarchists who origionally reset that balance and gave workers their rights and security back.

It pays to get facts strait and know some history. I am sure our governments and large corperations love people believing in a stereotype of anarchy.

There are multiple interpretations of the word 'anarchy'. Anarcho-capitalism for instance, is yet another form of anarchism (Ha, who would have thought that both obama and the bushes could be seen as anarchists?).

My response (and i think that of other posters) was based on what i thought that the intention of the OP was when using the word 'anarchy'.

 

[jamie]

yes but historically the anarchist movement has been a major driving force behind some of the rights we (at least did) have been able to enjoy as workers. You cannot really avoid this fact when the discussion of anarchy comes up reguardless of what someone else means when they say "anarchy". People simply asking for an example of a working model of anarchy seems pointless until these points are adressed..because anarchy has worked in the past to establish more balanced systems of equality amongst people. Anarchy is not something you can really live as a system IMO..it is something that is useful at certain times, and reguardless of how mush people wish to live in anarchy all the time I think it is evident that it's greatest use has always been as a tool durring times when it is required. This is why all those stupid punk kids breaking crap screaming anrchy are IMO just rediculous and do nothing really but make it easier for the real meaning of anarchy to be lost.

Typcially anarchy is not necessarily about no law and no rule really anyway..anarchy was birthed out of the enlightenment movement and was based on a system of thought that was opposed to the idea of forced hierarchys and centralized power structures and instead supported voluntary unions amongst people/establishments etc. Ideally the model put for by anarchy is far more enlightened than the model we currently have in place..but anarchy is based on idealism..we live in a world where those ideals will be taken advantage of again and again and this is why we do not live in such an ideal society. Still it is useful for people to hold those ideals and act on them when things become too unbalanced, and this has always been the most useful approach to anarchy IMO.

 

[SnozzleBerry]

I have to agree with jamie. pretty much entirely (perhaps minus the bit about only being necessary 'sometimes' ).

Anarcho-capitialism is an oxymoronic phrase of little to no practical value and has been thoroughly critiqued (debunked?) as such by Noam Chomsky, David Graeber, Iain McKay and others.

I stand by my initial statement in this thread; the question as presented lacks the context and definitions necessary for a meaningful discussion.

 

[dromedary]

a system of governance that goes to lengths to avoid the use of coercion, violence, force and authority, while still producing a productive and desirable society

Coercion/violence/force/authority are built-in to the capitalist framework.

What? Where? Which framework? I think you are deeply confused about what "capitalism" means, and more than a little bit confused about the meaning of anarchy.

Any government that does not directly feed, clothe, shelter, and put to work its citizens - that is, any government that allows the private sector to allocate those resources autonomously - is essentially presiding over a capitalist state. The defining features of capitalism from the government perspective is in fact its lack of coercion, violence, force and authority.

The real culprits in a capitalist economy are big corporations, but these are merely a product of letting people safely trade and organise amongst themselves. People end up in exploitative power structures just fine by themselves as long as people who want to spend more are allowed to borrow from those who wish to save more. By providing the court system and legally enforceable contracts, disagreements and broken promises (that would have happened anyway!) which may otherwise have resulted in violence or (worse) exclusion are given a channel for resolution.

The key point that I am trying to get across here is that the evils of capitalism pretty much happen anyway. They are human nature. Capitalism is one of few direct attempts to acknowledge and tame these forces that have always existed. If a government refuses to recognise massive corporations it will not be able to control them either. If a government tries to outlaw massive corporations it will merely push them underground, and make them even less accountable.

Anarchist action (as opposed to governance) has certainly achieved some good things by fighting against corporate exploitation. Jamie raised the example of trade unions - but the catch to remember here is that even these "voluntary unions" are just a special case of corporation - they are 'labour unions' as opposed to 'capital unions', and you'll find that many of the same principles of morality and law apply equally to both.

Overall I feel that anarchism as a system of governance is unrealistic, impractical, naive, arrogant, dangerous, inconsistent and generally insulting.

 

[SnozzleBerry]

a system of governance that goes to lengths to avoid the use of coercion, violence, force and authority, while still producing a productive and desirable society

Coercion/violence/force/authority are built-in to the capitalist framework.

What? Where? Which framework?

Show me one capitalist nation that did not engage in violence to accrue the starting capital of that capitalist nation.

Beyond that, in a capitalist system, you are coerced to work within the system to acquire basic human needs (food/clothes/shelter). Within a capitalist framework, everything humans need is arranged into coercive relationships governed by authority figures and underscored with the implicit threat of violence/force.

Don’t believe me?

Try feeding/clothing/sheltering yourself without money in a capitalist society and see how long it takes before an armed agent, authorized by the state, coerces you to actions you would not have freely engaged in otherwise.

As to the commentary on corporations...corporations are not some aberration of capitalism, they are a logical product of capitalism and are no more divorced from some abstracted ’pure’ capitalism than ’crony capitalism’ is...they are both inherent to the system. When the basic tenet of your system is everything is for sale to the highest bidder, rights and regulations get bought up just as easily as goods and services and accumulate in the hands of those that can pay for them.

As I said in another capitalism thread on the subject of ’crony capitalism’ (and could have said just as easily about ’corporate capitalism’ or ’corporatocracies’):

For me, theory loses validity when the circumstances it requires cannot manifest in the real world. Imo, capitalism cannot exist independently of crony capitalism because of how it is structured. Regulating agencies or other protective barriers against capitalism 'degrading' into *crony* capitalism are nonsensical to me as, according to capitalist logic, they will inevitably wind up being 'for sale'. Therefore, (just as with trickle-down theories of economics) while someone may be able to write entire dissertations on why such theory is valid, in the real world such theories are not viable as we have repeatedly observed their failure (due to simple mechanics that are, imo, readily apparent).

And, fwiw, imo, capitalism is clearly not "human nature" as capitalist societies have existed for but a fraction of human history.

 

[jamie]

"And, fwiw, imo, capitalism is clearly not "human nature" as capitalist societies have existed for but a fraction of human history."

^this.

 

[Eliyahu]

WOW....Jamie and SnozzleBerry...CNN and PBS have nothing on you guys...

Those are some very lucid and really well worded comments about capatalism and anarchy...you two should have like a Sunday morning "meet the press" kind of political Q&A show or something, maybe you you call it..."meet the nexus".

I opt for a tribal system myself...

(once I considered that it might be a good idea to separate the blue states from the red states so maybe they could stop fighting...but then I realized..if we allow the red states to become their own nation....then they would just attack the blue states using military force in order to conquer them.).....:?

 

[d*l*b]

Whilst my political views are anarchist of a kind I believe it is a beautiful yet unworkable [group of] framework on a large scale over an extended time period. I think anarchy works very well in small groups, but like other utopian concepts like communism it is bound to be abused with time when used on a larger scale.

Whilst my view is very pessimistic I think anyone can create their own bubble and live in it. We can live in the system presented by larger society and still carry on pretty much as we want in the most part. Society is not one group, and we work in the subcultures we find ourselves in in different ways.

 

[hixidom]

My biggest beef with the idea of government (as it currently exists) is that you can't opt out. The idea of a social contract is all well and good, but a contract is something that you mindfully agree to. Being born into a contract undermines the basic concept behind the use of contracts which is consent. So I think the idea of the social contract is completely valid if you ignore the fact that you are forced into it and cannot opt out.

http://anarchyinyourhead.com/2009/08/10/ticket-for-swearing/

 

[clouds]

Anarchy: "I respect your rights, you respect my rights. We can help each other, we don't need a government. But I might fuck you up, so don't let your guard down." Note: This doesn't mean there is no leadership.

I agree with whoever said that anarchy is an idealist system. (These are not idealistic times, of course. These are times of greed).

 

[polytrip]

My biggest beef with the idea of government (as it currently exists) is that you can't opt out. The idea of a social contract is all well and good, but a contract is something that you mindfully agree to. Being born into a contract undermines the basic concept behind the use of contracts which is consent. So I think the idea of the social contract is completely valid if you ignore the fact that you are forced into it and cannot opt out.

http://anarchyinyourhead.com/2009/08/10/ticket-for-swearing/

I don´t think this is entirely true: the ultimate justification for a social contract would be it´s rationality.

It´s rational to expect people to agree with certain expectations you have towards them and thus to expect people to have certain expectations towards you.

I don´t know the laws of brazil, for instance. But i can reasonably expect, if i´d go there, that the people over there would not accept it if i would steal (negative duty). or, if a child would be drowning in a shallow pond and i would do nothing to safe it because i don´t want to get my feet wet (positive duty).

It´s just reasonable to have these expectations. And therefore it´s also reasonable, nessecary even, to expect people to punish me if i would break these laws, since that would undermine the social order of reasonable expectations that we all benefit from.

If you could opt-out, that would undermine the whole order. But humans are social animals, so we can NOT opt-out of living next to one-another.

Imagine that you could opt-out every time it would fit you...would be like saying:" you are not allow to steal, but if you´d want, you can skip this rule".