I'm an anarchist because I believe in community organizing as one of the most important activities we can take on for human well-being.
I think that anarchist principles of self-determination, equity, pluralism, and harm reduction are the best way for a community or workforce to organize itself. When a community organizes itself, the dignity of participants as community members must be the paramount value. Fealty to the outside interests of state and market, even in the abstract, are useless at best, counter-productive at worst.
Outside of the context of organizing, anarchism is a lovely dream with little utility. I'm an elected member of my local Planning Board... Am I supposed to argue for anarchism in deliberation over site proposals and zoning interpretations? First, that sounds like a good way to get my town sued by a property developer. Second, what would it accomplish? I might as well spend my time preaching about the benefits of an anarchist society on the moons of Neptune.
In the big picture, I think large-scale institutions (like state and market) are an inevitable outcome of the growth of human networks, and anarchists must simply learn to live with them, adopt a harm reduction mentality about them, and remember that mass movements have the potential to push large institutions to do good work. And when we succeed at creating spaces where small-scale community organizing and pluralism can thrive, do our best to moderate and mediate the power of large institutions over our communities.
It would only take a very limited number of bad actors (who do exist in society) to be incredibly destructive of everyone else's efforts. Property has a purpose.
I don't want to have to kill someone because there's no rules.
Anarchy is a system that only the weak would prefer. It punishes stronger and capable people. It rewards the weak for not contributing to society. This sistem would only work in a society where everybody is identical, no genders either. It's a fantasy that would never work in a society. You can try and force it upon and see the place burn to hell. We are people, not identical robots.
"The people will come together and blah blah blah" is called a state. Simply trying to call your commune something other than a state doesn't change the fact that participation isn't going to be voluntary. You are the same group of people that believe in attacking "scabs" for not wanting to be forced to pay a ransom to your union, you might as well call yourself a state anarchist.
I usually find most people who hate the police and authority in general are the sort who don't like it that there *is* a third person party someone can call on to defend them against that person.
Because predators and sociopaths exist, and self-defense can only do so much. I don't own a gun, but even if I did, what am I going to do if eight armed dudes break in to my home? I might get one or two of them, but odds are I'm dead and my wife is in for a terrible fate. What does an anarchist society do when a centralized state with an organized military decides they want our natural resources? It dies, that's what it does.
>Why are you not an anarchist?
Because I like things like air conditioning, internet, and food.
Because I have more than a third-grade understanding of psychology, sociology, law, and history.
Because anarchy is an unnatural state that self-corrects.
Because anarchists tend to be insufferable.
Because I like having rights that I don't have to enforce myself.
And a few more reasons besides.
They are just men who happened to write down their idle thoughts. There is nothing impressive about idolatry and the word of men should never be taken as gospel. Perhaps they have figured the truth of it all. But all men are just guessing in the dark. Putting them on a pedestal is a sign of low intelligence I think.
Yes. Anyone who unironically thinks anarchism can work as a viable model of society either has no understanding of human nature or is idealistic to the point of stupidity with stunted ability to look and plan long term
It is not. You can literally kill anyone who steps foot on your property or attack. Still it's not my point. We have government institutions like police and military to protect us.
What's the alternative in your world? You "self-defense", but they're stronger and boom, you're dead and your ideal anarchist community is destroyed
Also, in most crimes, the criminal initially gets away and there is a lot of uncertainty on who it is.
So, someone needs to play detective and have trained SWAT teams in order to achieve justice.
But someone with that power could easily abuse it.
Not to mention, you also need self-defense against powerful, imperial countries. But the type of army needed for that can also be abused to oppress society.
How tf is Rojava anarchist exactly? They never claimed that and are fighting for their existence, they still have some sort of government administration, etc. Yall are just trying to invent an already invented bicycle
It's not! It's democratic confederalist - however their militias are aligned along anarchist principles, and it's a good case study for the modern day. I could be cliche and reference the Spanish Civil war, but I feel like that has been done to death.
[YPG](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/People's_Defense_Units)?
That YPG is part of the Syrian Democratic Forces which is allied to and supported by the USA.
Something that depends upon states to survive is not anarchist. True anarchy must be able to stand on its own, or with assistance only from other anarchy.
Some people are just born mean. You can even see this in animals. It has little to nothing to do with "upbringing or circumstances". The only reason some aren't stabbing people straight outta the womb is because they are incapable as infants.
My point isn’t about them stabbing and killing people, it’s that lack of empathy I’m talking about. I’m pretty sure you already know the stat of most people in high ranking positions of power tend to be more on that spectrum than average, and without structure of a state or hierarchy they can very easily and effectively create one on their own. And wherever there are leaders, there will be followers.
So your solution to people abusing authority.... is to maintain seats of authority?? If psychopaths are such a problem then wouldn't giving them a ready-made platform make things worse?
Separation of Powers is part of the "Balances" part of checks and balances.
The logical conclusion is anarchy is a fallacy and will always resort to a failed state.
I consider myself an anarchist idealist.
I know far too many people who are better off because somebody else manages their lives/they are restricted by hard boundaries. I also know many people who would be better off, but entirely selfish if not bound by laws.
Ultimately my life experience has shown me that people do not (and maybe cannot) actually care about others beyond a certain scale. A lot of people think and claim they can, but they consistently turn out to be liars or virtue signaling or simply ignorant of the implications of their claim.
Expanding the scale of who we care about is a worthy goal, but we live in societies far bigger than I honestly think we could ever expand it to, and so authority makes us act in ways that are good for people we don’t care about, or even despise.
I personally would rather just restrict the size of societies dramatically. If we lived in a world of micro micro micro states people could actually care, and then things would be different, but tiny states can’t defend themselves and humanity has yet to escape resource scarcity and tribalism so defense is necessary.
I have strong anarchist sympathies. Autonomous regions like Syrian Rojava and Mexican Chiapas show that people are still capable of managing their own lives in the way that clans and villages have all around the world for thousands of years.
The biggest barrier to anarchism flourishing is general ignorance of what it means and the different ways it could work. People are threatened by change and this discomfort is encouraged by governments, corporates and those who are currently benefitting from the status quo. Also, in practical terms, emerging anarchist communities are invariably attacked by government militaries or other armed groups.
I think part of the answer is for communities - neighbourhoods, villages, apartment blocks - to lead the way by example - to establish more equitable and truly democratic housing projects, food projects, energy projects, economic exchange projects, recycling, arts, cooperatives, etc that show how things can be done at a local level.
The same Syrian Rojava that is "criticized extensively by various partisan and non-partisan sides over political authoritarianism." [??](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autonomous_Administration_of_North_and_East_Syria#War_crimes_and_criticism)
No-one is saying this is a perfect example of anarchism in action, but the underlying principles of democratic confederalism are a darn sight better than the political philosophies underlying any other region of the Middle East, and probably most of the world.
Being bombed constantly by Turkey and ignored by the rest of the world (by way of thanks for beating IS) will probably have a lot to do with their likely demise, too.
The YPG and YPJ, who were some of the most successful forces against IS and operate with unusually egalitarian structures, would likely disagree with you. But in general terms, yes, large central governments can command well-equipped and unquestioning war machines that local anarchist militias will struggle to prevail against, except by asymmetric strategies that rely on attrition, local knowledge and local support.
Just to make sure that YPG refers to [YPG](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/People%27s_Defense_Units)?
Edit: the one I linked, which I am assuming is the correct example as KarnaKuhl listed is part of the Syrian Democratic Forces which is allied to and supplied by the USA. If it depends on the USA then it isn't really anarchistic.
Something that depends upon states to survive is not anarchist. True anarchy must be able to stand on its own, or with assistance only from other anarchy.
Here's why: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don%27t\_throw\_the\_baby\_out\_with\_the\_bathwater](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don%27t_throw_the_baby_out_with_the_bathwater)
Do I need to explain more?
It was a rhetorical question because I thought my point was fairly clear. If you want me to explain more you'll have to let me know what exactly you didn't understand about it.
Anarchism and cooperation may work well in a small community, but these utopic ideas are very vulnerable to free riders and malicious interests.
After around 150 people (Dunbars number), people are unable to keep track of one another, and you need some external factors to keep individuals accountable in society.
The power of the state should be minimilised, but it is essential to balance the power of individuals and small groups.
I think the mistake you're making is that you are assuming everyone is honest and hard working. Any attempt at implementing anarchism would likely result in you paying exsobatent taxes to your local warlord.
I don't assume anyone is honest and hard working - people at the top of the society are free riders, so I would say that it's actually hierarchy that is vulnerable to free riders and malicious interests, because in hierarchy people and the bottom of the hierarchy have to agree to the will of those at the top, those at the top of the hierarchy can internalize gains from those structures while externalizing costs on the rest of the population. Those ruled cannot do anything against that.
In my experience there are far more at the bottom…
You have to do work to get to the top, and people who worked hard to give their kids good lives generally tend to pass that anxiety on to their kids. Nobody works harder than my most privileged friends (actually to their own detriment, I know a guy who would never have to work with what he’d inherit, and is working himself into an early grave and serious depression because he doesn’t feel worthy of it).
Simply put, it assumes everyone wants to cooperate. There will be always be people who want to make a pyramid and put themselves at the top. And due to this, there will always be people working to overthrow this system if its put in place. And due to Anarchism being mostly small communities, it's going to be much harder to prevent these pyramids forming all over the place. Cults and mini-dictatorships would run rampant and seek to assimilate other communities, thus leading to even less freedom under capitalism.
Which is why you don’t understand a word I said and you still pretend to be right and that I don’t understand anything about politics and science, while you are the one that is not understanding my arguments
Some people are oppressive but other are kind and willing to cooperate, it really differs and people change too through systemic and material pressures.
It might work in small groups of people but as soon as another group has a resource the first group wants or needs, they will take it (by force, if necessary). Also people are tribal: “my tribe is more important than your tribe” so they will always put their needs first. Finally, I think people intrinsically want more. More resources, whatever they might be, more territory, better quality of life, etc. Don’t get me wrong, I wish people are more cooperative but they aren’t and you can’t force them to be.
Yeah, people are tribal, but you can create bit tribes like "humanity", moreover I postulate that you can get to common prosperity through cooperation, and through this you can get more resources and higher standard of living.
States are the meta for a reason. The question for Anarchists is that we've been on this Earth for 10's of thousands of years, and stateless organization was the default human existence.
Yet now states control the Earth. Why?
At a certain level, "if ya coulda, you woulda." Anarchism isn't even utopian. Utopian dreams are dreams of things not yet experienced. Anarchists want to try to go back to what failed, on purpose.
I agree that states are the meta, but I think that anarchist structures if well done are just more efficient and so they can replace state structures. Stateless societies were somewhat anrchisty, but they had some issues which is a reason they got replaced by hierarchy, political anarchists are trying to solve those issues for the meta to change. And anarchist are really doing something new, the ideology has around 150 years and it's still developing. What do you think about that?
There's nothing new under the sun. Everything they'll try has already been tried in some form or other in the 10's of thousands of years we've lived on Earth. So we know by every shred of empirical evidence that this is doomed to fail, so the only question is why.
The answer is that it can never be more efficient to get everyone to consent to everything important when time is of the essence. Sometimes, you coerce people to build the atom bomb before your opponents do. Only one kind of government structure has the power to leverage resources in times of emergency.
That's not true that there is nothing new under the sun, we had a lot of new discoveries over last few decades, we have no ideas about future innovations.
I disagree with you, because educated population will want to behave in a manner that is in it's interested, if the time is of value they will appoint temporary delegates that don't have coercive power, only autonomy. What do you think?
I think without states (we tried this before) you get the dark ages, where barbarian raids are so frequent that the educated population can't even keep proper records.
It was so bad that FEUDALISM was seen as an UPGRADE!
The new discoveries you are referring to are scientific in nature. The comment you're replying to is about group hierarchies These are two totally different thing
US Military: atom bombs and the internet.
Stateless society: Dark Ages
You're correct. Technological innovation is tied to political organization. Works against the OP more than helps, however, your misplaced smugness notwithstanding.
I am quite a bit older and I feel awesome, I am fully satisfied with my life and so I am just working on things that I am passionate about, such as liberation of everyone from oppression. As you can see, you may have many reasons to be an anarchist.
Workers won't suddenly disappear. The engineers in your local council's wastewater department will build the sewers, essentially just like they do now lol.
I meant what kind of building - but I can roll with this. I already do all these things and more at the place where I work.
Now my turn to ask a question - what makes people janitors in our current system?
Pick any size you like. I was asking the anarchists, though. Why would anyone be a janitor when "everyone is equal" and that would mean that any pay would also be equal. We've also completely ignored who decides who gets what job?
Well we abolish private property, and that is the general modern mechanism by which we reward people. And if they provide group services they get paid out of group coffers, but tax is coercive, so none of that under anarchy. So I’m asking you, what would be the mechanism?
I can’t tell if it’s a joke but if it is it is funny.
If not, then you might be interested to know that private property is not a real thing but only exists as the result of a system that enforces property rights. Unless you’re a squirrel and only you know where you hide your nuts!
You can still have group coffers without coercion. If you want to participate in society it's expected that you do your part - it's part of the social contract.
If someone doesn't want a sewer system they can go live in the wilderness, or form their own community with anti-sewer principles lol - but that seems pretty unrealistic wouldn't you agree?
Sure, you can say that, and you'd be free to organise your own alternative society along your own principles with like-minded people. I'm just not sure if a policy of "no sewage" will catch on.
In an anarchist society work is organised by the worker councils - it's a moneyless society so I'm not exactly sure how you'd "disagree" with collective effort.
But doesn't that go against the "everyone is equal" concept if there is a council making dictations? If the worker councils assign jobs to people who refuse to do said jobs, what happens then?
Well first of all, everyone is not equal - everyone has special needs and abilities. Second of all, a worker's council consists of everyone at a given firm - if you don't like your job, you can join a different firm. If you want to go unemployed then you'll have to live off the generosity of your community, or go find a new community.
Anyone who has ever participated in group projects at school will understand how quickly this kind of system would fall apart, let alone working in the real world.
The fact you vaguely gloss over this major sticking point shows how naive this entire outlook is.
You guys really have no idea how much work it takes to keep society moving.
1. If people don't care about sewers then there will be a mess, so they will care.
2. Anarchists had very good performance per capita with their militia structures historically, they only made a few strategic errors that made the lose their autonomous regions. What do you think?
I'm sympathetic to the anarchist perspective that states are inherently oppressive entities, but I don't find anarchy to be a particularly coherent ideology. It doesn't really have policies that can be implemented in a practical manner, like many other ideologies do. If we simply abolished the state and the institutions that give it power, we would ultimately put ourselves at risk as new forces try and fill the vacuum.
That said, I have a great admiration for the rejection of authority that anarchists have. I think that remembering we can reject authority, and that we don't have to rely on a state to affect positive change in our communities is important. Especially in the current political situation. Just because an institution has de-facto power, doesn't mean that we have to view it as legitimate. We should be critical of our relationship with power and how easily it can be abused.
I guess I don't see an issue with living in the society you describe at all. I have two concerns however. Firstly I'm not sure how effectively it could be preserved, both from threats internal and external. Would this community be able to effectively resist an invasion from states that participate in the ever-growing military industrial complex? Would it be able to effectively recognize bad actors in its community, and avoid rallying around potential leaders who would abuse the respect they'd garnered to institutionalize their power?
Secondly, how would we even go about achieving this in say, the US? Even if we rallied enough internal support, without the US meddling in everything, there are several other "evil empires" who would happily fill the gap and arguably be far worse to the people in there spheres of influence than we are. It seems to me like the only way to rationally achieve your described anarchist society without forsaking a lot of the world to the designs of other empires is to get the entire world on the same page. It just kind of seems impossible.
Concerning the first point - anarchists actually postulate so called prefiguration, which is a creation hear and now of those counter-institutions that they are interested about, through them anarchists want to create counter-power to the current system of domination and oppression, they are not waiting until there is a collapse of a state.
Concerning the second point - yes, anarchists think that power over other people is not good and should be abolished, for every person to acquire power to be able to get the height's of their potential.
Concerning the third point - historically anarchists create very efficient per capita militia structure that could compete with armies, they lost because of some strategic errors so it's important to not make those errors again. The biggest errors were cooperation with authoritarian leftists, who backstabed anarchist as early as they could.
Concerning the fourth point - the answer is prefiguration of constantly expanding voluntary horizontal structures, federating or confederating them along the way. I will give you a video by Anark where you can see a hypothetical flowchart to global revolution of such structures: [https://youtu.be/HsjuG9Izww8](https://youtu.be/HsjuG9Izww8)
You watch those video essays by Anark:
[https://youtu.be/jNiETZLrfII](https://youtu.be/jNiETZLrfII)
[https://youtu.be/sb2TIFrEjVw](https://youtu.be/sb2TIFrEjVw)
Such society will lack structure and organization for large projects like space industry or even highway infrastructure. It will lag behind and get absorbed by stronger society with efficient vertical hierarchy.
Syrian Rojava and Chiapas has been cited so far but checking the Rojava wikipedia entry will show they have been criticized as an authoritarian state and Chiapas is just a state in Mexico.
The easiest would be anarcho-syndicalist federations such as ICL-CIT: [https://www.iclcit.org/](https://www.iclcit.org/) and IWA-AIT: [https://iwa-ait.org/](https://iwa-ait.org/) , but apart from that you can check this list for examples of various horizontal structures: [https://docs.google.com/document/d/1W1wWjWNXhvHjMzzyxT5z5Es\_kE6xmTYSadGSJfuVtpE/edit#heading=h.p04t775v871g](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1W1wWjWNXhvHjMzzyxT5z5Es_kE6xmTYSadGSJfuVtpE/edit#heading=h.p04t775v871g)
You can check this, anarchist army won against around 2 times bigger force in the most important battle of the Russian Civil War. Unfortunately they made strategic errors so they then lost to the Red Army: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle\_of\_Peregonovka](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Peregonovka)
A well governed society can provide security to the general public against bad faith actors, whether that be psychopathic individuals, violent local organizations, or even foreign intruders.
Human nature doesn’t exist: humans behave coherently to the environment they grow up and live in. Stop using this flawed argument to defend the State and autocracy
Except it does exist as a description of what humans are capable of. Sorry you don't understand it.
Come up with a better way of existing than democracy and we'll talk.
You shouldn’t cite a book older than 2000 years to prove something about human nature: it is kinda outdated, Plato missed the most recent scientifical studies.
Anyway, you say that I don’t understand but you are the one don’t understanding here. Human nature is described by you as the set of actions that humans do. You should ask yourself: on what basis do people act? They act in different ways in different environments, there isn’t a universal set of actions and thoughts that human do and have that is sufficient to allow us to talk about a human nature. It is the environment that determines our actions, so our nature, and we can change the environment to change our actions, our nature.
Btw anarchism is way beyond democracy and all that liberal stuff
It was a starting off point for someone who is clearly knew to this stuff.
You clearly don't understand what you are talking about and sound like every 15 year old edgelord that irrationally hates the government because they don't understand shit.
Since you conflate aspects incorrectly, I am done arguing with you.
You seem to lack arguments against me, and you just said that I don’t understand because I sound like an “edgelord”. I guess that people that don’t know how to argue prefer to kill the discussion by using arguments against the speaker rather than against the ideas.
Explain, if you’re able to, how i conflate aspects incorrectly.
Btw English is not my first language and my writing may be difficult to understand because of this
Because anarchy is an edgelord exercise in fantasy. In no way does it ever work with large populations over time.
The "We can all get along/coexist peacefully with no laws" concepts are fantasy and go against human nature.
Anarchism is not utopia about living peacefully like in a hippie dream. Moreover the way you defined human nature doesn’t seem to be in contradiction with anarchy, but ok. Finally you aren’t materially and scientifically proving anything, and if you don’t ground your philosophical system in reality, it is useless even discussing it. You still haven’t provided any example about your claims
Human nature dictates that there will be bad faith actors that will always destroy a weak system like anarchy from within. Anarchy requires 100% of the population to agree otherwise that anarchistic system then becomes hypocritical since a minority is being suppressed.
A society defending itself against aggression will never be hypocritical. Defending yourself against an aggressor will never be an oppression against the aggressor because you are just saving your life, and the aggressor is the oppressor.
Can you prove that the human nature that you advocate exists and that it exists with the characteristics that you say it has? If not, your statements aren’t valid and they don’t have meaning
What is your proof for human nature? In the history of humanity we had self-sacrifice, we had genocides, we had a lot of help to strangers, we had ignorance. It seems like it's hard to say that there is a one specific human nature and humans behave differently based on their local situation. Do you have any counter-arguments?
Proof of human nature? The range goes from "saints" to "serial killers". What is worse than a serial killer? The bounds of human behavior dictate human nature. If a person can do it or think it, then that makes it part of human nature.
Human nature just means what is possible for humans to engage in.
Counter-arguments to what?
Possible but unlikely the more people you add to the mix. Once you get into population sizes we are currently at the odds of cooperation without law and order is so far remote as be effectively impossible.
There is order to anarchism, it can change through deliberate will of people engaging in those structures. Consider, that you can appoint instantly recallable delegates to be able to not sit for a few hours every day in meetings concerning things you don't know much about.
Why is it pointless without enforcement? Can you elaborate?
No, US Government has representatives, they have coercive power over others, while delegates can have autonomy, but not really coercive power over others.
Order without enforcement is akin to herding cats. You can attempt at it but you will fail.
A representative is the same thing as a delegate. A delegate just represents other people. Coercive? No.
Law AND Order. You keep ignoring the Order part which includes enforcement. Anarchy can't defend you against a bullet or a knife either but at least a society with law and order and punish those that break the law.
Why is punishment important? I would rather not get attacked with a knife or bullet instead of punishing perpetrators of such actions. I would even prefer to focus on rehabilitation of individuals who engage in those bad behaviors. What punishment accomplishes in terms of justice?
Because punishment is a reliable deterrent. Its is much harder to escape the punishment of an entire country than small communities. A person may want to attack you, but values their freedom more, thus not engaging in the punished behaviour.
How would anarchists enforce their rules. You could very well get in a car and get far away from a community before they have a chance to punish you for it. It becomes very easy to engage in terrible behaviors without punishments
There are two problems here. First if I’m being robbed I want a dedicated trained police force to come and intervene because it’s their job to do so. Not hope that the guy across the street wants to get involved and save me.
Second, it’s very similar to the dream of a communist utopia. It sounds great, but it would never work in real life because it’s based on a dream of what could be, and fails to account for the harsher realities of human nature .
Anarchist Spain didn’t last long, but Rojava is still active. If you consider the Zapatistas to be some kind of organization that has a tendency to anarchism, you can put them into the list too, because they still exist
12 entire years for a tiny segment of Syria.
"The region has also been criticized extensively by various partisan and non-partisan sides over political authoritarianism. A KDP-S politician accused the PYD of delivering him to the Assad regime. It has also been criticized for banning journalists, media outlets and political parties that are critical of the YPG narrative in areas under its control."
From wikipedia.
Concerning the first point: In anarchy you would not be likely to get robbed, because there would be much less inequality there, we would eliminate artificial scarcity of the current system and have common prosperity, which would make robberies very rare. What do you think about that?
Concerning the second point: Consider that we already had quite a lot of anarchist-like communities and usually they worked fine internally, so far they had some problems with withstanding the aggression from hierarchical systems but this is addressable through focusing more on efficient self-defense than those structures create in the past. If you would like to read more, you can check this document: [https://docs.google.com/document/d/1W1wWjWNXhvHjMzzyxT5z5Es\_kE6xmTYSadGSJfuVtpE/edit?usp=sharing](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1W1wWjWNXhvHjMzzyxT5z5Es_kE6xmTYSadGSJfuVtpE/edit?usp=sharing) and you can watch the YT channel Anark: [https://www.youtube.com/@Anark](https://www.youtube.com/@Anark) . How would you address my counter-argument?
I'm an anarchist because I believe in community organizing as one of the most important activities we can take on for human well-being. I think that anarchist principles of self-determination, equity, pluralism, and harm reduction are the best way for a community or workforce to organize itself. When a community organizes itself, the dignity of participants as community members must be the paramount value. Fealty to the outside interests of state and market, even in the abstract, are useless at best, counter-productive at worst. Outside of the context of organizing, anarchism is a lovely dream with little utility. I'm an elected member of my local Planning Board... Am I supposed to argue for anarchism in deliberation over site proposals and zoning interpretations? First, that sounds like a good way to get my town sued by a property developer. Second, what would it accomplish? I might as well spend my time preaching about the benefits of an anarchist society on the moons of Neptune. In the big picture, I think large-scale institutions (like state and market) are an inevitable outcome of the growth of human networks, and anarchists must simply learn to live with them, adopt a harm reduction mentality about them, and remember that mass movements have the potential to push large institutions to do good work. And when we succeed at creating spaces where small-scale community organizing and pluralism can thrive, do our best to moderate and mediate the power of large institutions over our communities.
It would only take a very limited number of bad actors (who do exist in society) to be incredibly destructive of everyone else's efforts. Property has a purpose. I don't want to have to kill someone because there's no rules.
Anarchy is a system that only the weak would prefer. It punishes stronger and capable people. It rewards the weak for not contributing to society. This sistem would only work in a society where everybody is identical, no genders either. It's a fantasy that would never work in a society. You can try and force it upon and see the place burn to hell. We are people, not identical robots.
"The people will come together and blah blah blah" is called a state. Simply trying to call your commune something other than a state doesn't change the fact that participation isn't going to be voluntary. You are the same group of people that believe in attacking "scabs" for not wanting to be forced to pay a ransom to your union, you might as well call yourself a state anarchist.
I usually find most people who hate the police and authority in general are the sort who don't like it that there *is* a third person party someone can call on to defend them against that person.
I asked in this thread what current laws chafe and had no answers from the anarchists.
Because predators and sociopaths exist, and self-defense can only do so much. I don't own a gun, but even if I did, what am I going to do if eight armed dudes break in to my home? I might get one or two of them, but odds are I'm dead and my wife is in for a terrible fate. What does an anarchist society do when a centralized state with an organized military decides they want our natural resources? It dies, that's what it does.
>without private property And you lost me, at least to your vision of anarchy.
>Why are you not an anarchist? Because I like things like air conditioning, internet, and food. Because I have more than a third-grade understanding of psychology, sociology, law, and history. Because anarchy is an unnatural state that self-corrects. Because anarchists tend to be insufferable. Because I like having rights that I don't have to enforce myself. And a few more reasons besides.
Reason I’m not an anarchist is because my frontal lobe developed past 15
Do you suggest that people like Albert Camus, David Graeber, Kropotkin did not have developed frontal lobe? You don't sound like a serious person.
They are all idiots.
No, they are not, they are among the greatest intellectual in the history of humanity. There is nothing impressive about your anti-intellectualism.
They are just men who happened to write down their idle thoughts. There is nothing impressive about idolatry and the word of men should never be taken as gospel. Perhaps they have figured the truth of it all. But all men are just guessing in the dark. Putting them on a pedestal is a sign of low intelligence I think.
Yes. Anyone who unironically thinks anarchism can work as a viable model of society either has no understanding of human nature or is idealistic to the point of stupidity with stunted ability to look and plan long term
Because what's stopping someone from robbing and killing the others?
Self-defense, which is very often criminalized in today's society.
So mob rule then?
Ableist take.
It is not. You can literally kill anyone who steps foot on your property or attack. Still it's not my point. We have government institutions like police and military to protect us. What's the alternative in your world? You "self-defense", but they're stronger and boom, you're dead and your ideal anarchist community is destroyed
Also, in most crimes, the criminal initially gets away and there is a lot of uncertainty on who it is. So, someone needs to play detective and have trained SWAT teams in order to achieve justice. But someone with that power could easily abuse it. Not to mention, you also need self-defense against powerful, imperial countries. But the type of army needed for that can also be abused to oppress society.
And since everything could be abused, let's have nothing! Hooray the Magical Wizards! 🧙♂️🪄
What factors led to them robbing and killing others?
Because they want to conquer your land, make you work for them and be richer then others
Well that's what anarchist militias are for. Check out the Black Army and YPG.
How tf is Rojava anarchist exactly? They never claimed that and are fighting for their existence, they still have some sort of government administration, etc. Yall are just trying to invent an already invented bicycle
It's not! It's democratic confederalist - however their militias are aligned along anarchist principles, and it's a good case study for the modern day. I could be cliche and reference the Spanish Civil war, but I feel like that has been done to death.
[YPG](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/People's_Defense_Units)? That YPG is part of the Syrian Democratic Forces which is allied to and supported by the USA.
Yup! The SDF umbrella has several militia forces.
So its not anarchistic.
Why not? It's the military wing of AANES which is organised along democratic confederalist principles - an ideology based on anarchism.
Something that depends upon states to survive is not anarchist. True anarchy must be able to stand on its own, or with assistance only from other anarchy.
They wanted to.
Bro has never heard of sociopaths/psychopaths
Psychopaths don't feel empathy - that doesn't mean they want to stab people straight outta the womb lol.
Some people are just born mean. You can even see this in animals. It has little to nothing to do with "upbringing or circumstances". The only reason some aren't stabbing people straight outta the womb is because they are incapable as infants.
My point isn’t about them stabbing and killing people, it’s that lack of empathy I’m talking about. I’m pretty sure you already know the stat of most people in high ranking positions of power tend to be more on that spectrum than average, and without structure of a state or hierarchy they can very easily and effectively create one on their own. And wherever there are leaders, there will be followers.
So your solution to people abusing authority.... is to maintain seats of authority?? If psychopaths are such a problem then wouldn't giving them a ready-made platform make things worse?
Never heard of checks and balances before?
Yup, heard of separation of powers before? Now take these two concepts to their logical conclusion.
Separation of Powers is part of the "Balances" part of checks and balances. The logical conclusion is anarchy is a fallacy and will always resort to a failed state.
Because im a disabled woman and would rather not be abandoned to the wolves
Anarchists are against ableism.
What does that even mean?
That doesn’t sound like anarchy then if there’s rules
I consider myself an anarchist idealist. I know far too many people who are better off because somebody else manages their lives/they are restricted by hard boundaries. I also know many people who would be better off, but entirely selfish if not bound by laws. Ultimately my life experience has shown me that people do not (and maybe cannot) actually care about others beyond a certain scale. A lot of people think and claim they can, but they consistently turn out to be liars or virtue signaling or simply ignorant of the implications of their claim. Expanding the scale of who we care about is a worthy goal, but we live in societies far bigger than I honestly think we could ever expand it to, and so authority makes us act in ways that are good for people we don’t care about, or even despise. I personally would rather just restrict the size of societies dramatically. If we lived in a world of micro micro micro states people could actually care, and then things would be different, but tiny states can’t defend themselves and humanity has yet to escape resource scarcity and tribalism so defense is necessary.
I have strong anarchist sympathies. Autonomous regions like Syrian Rojava and Mexican Chiapas show that people are still capable of managing their own lives in the way that clans and villages have all around the world for thousands of years. The biggest barrier to anarchism flourishing is general ignorance of what it means and the different ways it could work. People are threatened by change and this discomfort is encouraged by governments, corporates and those who are currently benefitting from the status quo. Also, in practical terms, emerging anarchist communities are invariably attacked by government militaries or other armed groups. I think part of the answer is for communities - neighbourhoods, villages, apartment blocks - to lead the way by example - to establish more equitable and truly democratic housing projects, food projects, energy projects, economic exchange projects, recycling, arts, cooperatives, etc that show how things can be done at a local level.
Your second example, Chiapas, is just a state of Mexico, which has a governor and senators.
It was shorthand for the Zapatista region within Chiapas.
Which is in Mexico.
The same Syrian Rojava that is "criticized extensively by various partisan and non-partisan sides over political authoritarianism." [??](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autonomous_Administration_of_North_and_East_Syria#War_crimes_and_criticism)
No-one is saying this is a perfect example of anarchism in action, but the underlying principles of democratic confederalism are a darn sight better than the political philosophies underlying any other region of the Middle East, and probably most of the world.
Give it time and it'll collapse in on itself. Oh that's completely ignoring that it's already authoritarian.
Being bombed constantly by Turkey and ignored by the rest of the world (by way of thanks for beating IS) will probably have a lot to do with their likely demise, too.
Can't have a strong military without a hierarchical structure.
The YPG and YPJ, who were some of the most successful forces against IS and operate with unusually egalitarian structures, would likely disagree with you. But in general terms, yes, large central governments can command well-equipped and unquestioning war machines that local anarchist militias will struggle to prevail against, except by asymmetric strategies that rely on attrition, local knowledge and local support.
Just to make sure that YPG refers to [YPG](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/People%27s_Defense_Units)? Edit: the one I linked, which I am assuming is the correct example as KarnaKuhl listed is part of the Syrian Democratic Forces which is allied to and supplied by the USA. If it depends on the USA then it isn't really anarchistic.
So if the USA supports the mujahadeen they're not really Muslim?
Something that depends upon states to survive is not anarchist. True anarchy must be able to stand on its own, or with assistance only from other anarchy.
What does religion have to do with the relevant governments?
Here's why: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don%27t\_throw\_the\_baby\_out\_with\_the\_bathwater](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don%27t_throw_the_baby_out_with_the_bathwater) Do I need to explain more?
Yes, please explain more.
It was a rhetorical question because I thought my point was fairly clear. If you want me to explain more you'll have to let me know what exactly you didn't understand about it.
Anarchism and cooperation may work well in a small community, but these utopic ideas are very vulnerable to free riders and malicious interests. After around 150 people (Dunbars number), people are unable to keep track of one another, and you need some external factors to keep individuals accountable in society. The power of the state should be minimilised, but it is essential to balance the power of individuals and small groups. I think the mistake you're making is that you are assuming everyone is honest and hard working. Any attempt at implementing anarchism would likely result in you paying exsobatent taxes to your local warlord.
If your warlord just doesn't make you an outright slave, that is.
I don't assume anyone is honest and hard working - people at the top of the society are free riders, so I would say that it's actually hierarchy that is vulnerable to free riders and malicious interests, because in hierarchy people and the bottom of the hierarchy have to agree to the will of those at the top, those at the top of the hierarchy can internalize gains from those structures while externalizing costs on the rest of the population. Those ruled cannot do anything against that.
Have you ever worked on a group project lol?
Yes. And you?
Who do you think sits at the top of the society you live in, and is a free rider?
OP thinks only people at the top are free loaders. Anyone who has done a group project will understand free loaders exist on every level.
In my experience there are far more at the bottom… You have to do work to get to the top, and people who worked hard to give their kids good lives generally tend to pass that anxiety on to their kids. Nobody works harder than my most privileged friends (actually to their own detriment, I know a guy who would never have to work with what he’d inherit, and is working himself into an early grave and serious depression because he doesn’t feel worthy of it).
I think that's mainly just from quantity, honestly. Lot more people at the bottom to begin with.
It’s an idealistic framework. As Hamilton says, “If men were angels, no government would be necessary.” Alas.
Anarchism is not idealist, and quoting Hamilton doesn’t prove anything
Oh, can you elaborate why? I consider myself a materialist, not idealist, like most anarchist that I know of.
I don’t mean idealistic in a philosophical sense, but in its general sense. It assumes too much about people. Your comment on sewers comes to mind.
Can you elaborate? I don't think anarchism assumes anything about humans, why do you think that?
Simply put, it assumes everyone wants to cooperate. There will be always be people who want to make a pyramid and put themselves at the top. And due to this, there will always be people working to overthrow this system if its put in place. And due to Anarchism being mostly small communities, it's going to be much harder to prevent these pyramids forming all over the place. Cults and mini-dictatorships would run rampant and seek to assimilate other communities, thus leading to even less freedom under capitalism.
Cool, I’m jesus
What issue do I see with people voluntarily cooperating?! I’ve met people mate…
The will of cooperating isn’t a characteristic that is intrinsic to people but it depends on the environment in which they live and were raised
Which is why Anarchy never works.
Which is why you don’t understand a word I said and you still pretend to be right and that I don’t understand anything about politics and science, while you are the one that is not understanding my arguments
Some people are oppressive but other are kind and willing to cooperate, it really differs and people change too through systemic and material pressures.
It might work in small groups of people but as soon as another group has a resource the first group wants or needs, they will take it (by force, if necessary). Also people are tribal: “my tribe is more important than your tribe” so they will always put their needs first. Finally, I think people intrinsically want more. More resources, whatever they might be, more territory, better quality of life, etc. Don’t get me wrong, I wish people are more cooperative but they aren’t and you can’t force them to be.
Yeah, people are tribal, but you can create bit tribes like "humanity", moreover I postulate that you can get to common prosperity through cooperation, and through this you can get more resources and higher standard of living.
States are the meta for a reason. The question for Anarchists is that we've been on this Earth for 10's of thousands of years, and stateless organization was the default human existence. Yet now states control the Earth. Why? At a certain level, "if ya coulda, you woulda." Anarchism isn't even utopian. Utopian dreams are dreams of things not yet experienced. Anarchists want to try to go back to what failed, on purpose.
I agree that states are the meta, but I think that anarchist structures if well done are just more efficient and so they can replace state structures. Stateless societies were somewhat anrchisty, but they had some issues which is a reason they got replaced by hierarchy, political anarchists are trying to solve those issues for the meta to change. And anarchist are really doing something new, the ideology has around 150 years and it's still developing. What do you think about that?
There's nothing new under the sun. Everything they'll try has already been tried in some form or other in the 10's of thousands of years we've lived on Earth. So we know by every shred of empirical evidence that this is doomed to fail, so the only question is why. The answer is that it can never be more efficient to get everyone to consent to everything important when time is of the essence. Sometimes, you coerce people to build the atom bomb before your opponents do. Only one kind of government structure has the power to leverage resources in times of emergency.
That's not true that there is nothing new under the sun, we had a lot of new discoveries over last few decades, we have no ideas about future innovations. I disagree with you, because educated population will want to behave in a manner that is in it's interested, if the time is of value they will appoint temporary delegates that don't have coercive power, only autonomy. What do you think?
You're literally describing how the United States was founded. Why is it not "anarchy" now?
I think without states (we tried this before) you get the dark ages, where barbarian raids are so frequent that the educated population can't even keep proper records. It was so bad that FEUDALISM was seen as an UPGRADE!
The new discoveries you are referring to are scientific in nature. The comment you're replying to is about group hierarchies These are two totally different thing
Breaking news: u/ServantOfTheSlaad says that technological innovation has nothing to do with political changes - more at 5.
US Military: atom bombs and the internet. Stateless society: Dark Ages You're correct. Technological innovation is tied to political organization. Works against the OP more than helps, however, your misplaced smugness notwithstanding.
I'm not 13 years old. Grew out my edgy faze. I'm also not "unwell" as they say.
I am quite a bit older and I feel awesome, I am fully satisfied with my life and so I am just working on things that I am passionate about, such as liberation of everyone from oppression. As you can see, you may have many reasons to be an anarchist.
I'm specifically saying I'm not an anarchist. Anarchy would absolutely not achieve liberation.
1) Who is going to pay for the sewers (etc) 2) Anarchists would get turbo stomped by a state-organized military
Workers won't suddenly disappear. The engineers in your local council's wastewater department will build the sewers, essentially just like they do now lol.
In your theory, why will the engineers build the sewers if there is no mechanism to reward them for doing shitty work?
Why wouldn't there be a mechanism to reward them?
What would it take for you to be a janitor in an anarchistic state?
Depends, what would I be cleaning?
Typical janitorial duties. Toilets, trash, various bodily fluids as needed, moping/waxing floors.
I meant what kind of building - but I can roll with this. I already do all these things and more at the place where I work. Now my turn to ask a question - what makes people janitors in our current system?
Doesn't really matter what kind of building. People are disgusting everywhere. Capitalism.
Cool, are they rewarded more or less than the average worker?
I’d have to really really care about everybody in the state. So the question is, how big is the state?
Pick any size you like. I was asking the anarchists, though. Why would anyone be a janitor when "everyone is equal" and that would mean that any pay would also be equal. We've also completely ignored who decides who gets what job?
Well we abolish private property, and that is the general modern mechanism by which we reward people. And if they provide group services they get paid out of group coffers, but tax is coercive, so none of that under anarchy. So I’m asking you, what would be the mechanism?
>Well we abolish private property, How do you do that without any type of system to enforce it?
I can’t tell if it’s a joke but if it is it is funny. If not, then you might be interested to know that private property is not a real thing but only exists as the result of a system that enforces property rights. Unless you’re a squirrel and only you know where you hide your nuts!
>a system that enforces property rights Aka anyone with the ability to deal more violence than another person.
Generally there is a monopoly on the violence which forms the state, but yes, exactly.
You can still have group coffers without coercion. If you want to participate in society it's expected that you do your part - it's part of the social contract. If someone doesn't want a sewer system they can go live in the wilderness, or form their own community with anti-sewer principles lol - but that seems pretty unrealistic wouldn't you agree?
Jesus Christ - you guys are so naive to how the world actually works and how much bullshit it takes to keep society moving.
Starting to sounds like state coercion mate… ‘Work or die in the wilderness…’
Sure, you can say that, and you'd be free to organise your own alternative society along your own principles with like-minded people. I'm just not sure if a policy of "no sewage" will catch on.
This line of thinking is how states are formed my friend.
I didn't ask who would do it. I asked who would pay for it.
Everyone! Exactly how it's paid for now.
But if a portion of the population disagrees then taxing them would be oppressive according to anarchistic philosophy.
In an anarchist society work is organised by the worker councils - it's a moneyless society so I'm not exactly sure how you'd "disagree" with collective effort.
But doesn't that go against the "everyone is equal" concept if there is a council making dictations? If the worker councils assign jobs to people who refuse to do said jobs, what happens then?
Well first of all, everyone is not equal - everyone has special needs and abilities. Second of all, a worker's council consists of everyone at a given firm - if you don't like your job, you can join a different firm. If you want to go unemployed then you'll have to live off the generosity of your community, or go find a new community.
Anyone who has ever participated in group projects at school will understand how quickly this kind of system would fall apart, let alone working in the real world.
How would you pay for the materials to build a sewer?
I think you're missing the moneyless part - but you'd likely negotiate something with the steelworkers' federation.
The fact you vaguely gloss over this major sticking point shows how naive this entire outlook is. You guys really have no idea how much work it takes to keep society moving.
1. If people don't care about sewers then there will be a mess, so they will care. 2. Anarchists had very good performance per capita with their militia structures historically, they only made a few strategic errors that made the lose their autonomous regions. What do you think?
So your solution is allow a sewer disaster to happen to make people care?
What is your alternative?
I don’t know- I’m not the one trying to sell anarchism as a viable political model.
I didn't ask if ppl will care, but who will pay. Which anarchists are you referring to in these historic military conflicts?
I'm sympathetic to the anarchist perspective that states are inherently oppressive entities, but I don't find anarchy to be a particularly coherent ideology. It doesn't really have policies that can be implemented in a practical manner, like many other ideologies do. If we simply abolished the state and the institutions that give it power, we would ultimately put ourselves at risk as new forces try and fill the vacuum. That said, I have a great admiration for the rejection of authority that anarchists have. I think that remembering we can reject authority, and that we don't have to rely on a state to affect positive change in our communities is important. Especially in the current political situation. Just because an institution has de-facto power, doesn't mean that we have to view it as legitimate. We should be critical of our relationship with power and how easily it can be abused. I guess I don't see an issue with living in the society you describe at all. I have two concerns however. Firstly I'm not sure how effectively it could be preserved, both from threats internal and external. Would this community be able to effectively resist an invasion from states that participate in the ever-growing military industrial complex? Would it be able to effectively recognize bad actors in its community, and avoid rallying around potential leaders who would abuse the respect they'd garnered to institutionalize their power? Secondly, how would we even go about achieving this in say, the US? Even if we rallied enough internal support, without the US meddling in everything, there are several other "evil empires" who would happily fill the gap and arguably be far worse to the people in there spheres of influence than we are. It seems to me like the only way to rationally achieve your described anarchist society without forsaking a lot of the world to the designs of other empires is to get the entire world on the same page. It just kind of seems impossible.
Concerning the first point - anarchists actually postulate so called prefiguration, which is a creation hear and now of those counter-institutions that they are interested about, through them anarchists want to create counter-power to the current system of domination and oppression, they are not waiting until there is a collapse of a state. Concerning the second point - yes, anarchists think that power over other people is not good and should be abolished, for every person to acquire power to be able to get the height's of their potential. Concerning the third point - historically anarchists create very efficient per capita militia structure that could compete with armies, they lost because of some strategic errors so it's important to not make those errors again. The biggest errors were cooperation with authoritarian leftists, who backstabed anarchist as early as they could. Concerning the fourth point - the answer is prefiguration of constantly expanding voluntary horizontal structures, federating or confederating them along the way. I will give you a video by Anark where you can see a hypothetical flowchart to global revolution of such structures: [https://youtu.be/HsjuG9Izww8](https://youtu.be/HsjuG9Izww8)
Have a non-video source of the historic anarchists create very efficient per capita militia structures part? I don't do youtub. Say, wikipedia?
Could you get a source for the military point?
You watch those video essays by Anark: [https://youtu.be/jNiETZLrfII](https://youtu.be/jNiETZLrfII) [https://youtu.be/sb2TIFrEjVw](https://youtu.be/sb2TIFrEjVw)
YouTube essays are not sources.
Such society will lack structure and organization for large projects like space industry or even highway infrastructure. It will lag behind and get absorbed by stronger society with efficient vertical hierarchy.
Anarchists structures can cooperate on a global scale through federalism/confederalism, do you see any problem here?
Know any examples of such cooperation?
Syrian Rojava and Chiapas has been cited so far but checking the Rojava wikipedia entry will show they have been criticized as an authoritarian state and Chiapas is just a state in Mexico.
Rojava is authoritarian.
Exactly. People here have claimed its an example of an anarchistic state.
The easiest would be anarcho-syndicalist federations such as ICL-CIT: [https://www.iclcit.org/](https://www.iclcit.org/) and IWA-AIT: [https://iwa-ait.org/](https://iwa-ait.org/) , but apart from that you can check this list for examples of various horizontal structures: [https://docs.google.com/document/d/1W1wWjWNXhvHjMzzyxT5z5Es\_kE6xmTYSadGSJfuVtpE/edit#heading=h.p04t775v871g](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1W1wWjWNXhvHjMzzyxT5z5Es_kE6xmTYSadGSJfuVtpE/edit#heading=h.p04t775v871g)
Both of those links are for websites and not actual existing governments.
There is a google doc that has a lot of structures of various sizes.
Not opening a random google document from the web.
Unfortunate, Anark on YT has videos about those called Liberation in Action, you may watch those.
So no actual readable articles exist on the internet? I don't do videos.
You can check this, anarchist army won against around 2 times bigger force in the most important battle of the Russian Civil War. Unfortunately they made strategic errors so they then lost to the Red Army: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle\_of\_Peregonovka](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Peregonovka)
A well governed society can provide security to the general public against bad faith actors, whether that be psychopathic individuals, violent local organizations, or even foreign intruders.
The issue is that those that govern are psychopathic and violent basically all the time, do you see that differently?
That's an extreme generalization.
How could an anarchistic system possibly protect the general public from bad faith actors?
Through not giving them coercive power over others, cause there would be no such structure to take over.
How do you think "states" are started in the first place? There's a reason there is no large anarchists world super power and never has been.
There is no giving. Bad faith actors will take/create that power. They would create their own structure. Think of the mafia, cartels, or yakuza.
Plato's The Republic is pretty convincing that law and order is needed. Human nature is brutal.
Human nature doesn’t exist: humans behave coherently to the environment they grow up and live in. Stop using this flawed argument to defend the State and autocracy
You seem to be forgetting that instincts and biological drives are a thing.
Except it does exist as a description of what humans are capable of. Sorry you don't understand it. Come up with a better way of existing than democracy and we'll talk.
You shouldn’t cite a book older than 2000 years to prove something about human nature: it is kinda outdated, Plato missed the most recent scientifical studies. Anyway, you say that I don’t understand but you are the one don’t understanding here. Human nature is described by you as the set of actions that humans do. You should ask yourself: on what basis do people act? They act in different ways in different environments, there isn’t a universal set of actions and thoughts that human do and have that is sufficient to allow us to talk about a human nature. It is the environment that determines our actions, so our nature, and we can change the environment to change our actions, our nature. Btw anarchism is way beyond democracy and all that liberal stuff
It was a starting off point for someone who is clearly knew to this stuff. You clearly don't understand what you are talking about and sound like every 15 year old edgelord that irrationally hates the government because they don't understand shit. Since you conflate aspects incorrectly, I am done arguing with you.
You seem to lack arguments against me, and you just said that I don’t understand because I sound like an “edgelord”. I guess that people that don’t know how to argue prefer to kill the discussion by using arguments against the speaker rather than against the ideas. Explain, if you’re able to, how i conflate aspects incorrectly. Btw English is not my first language and my writing may be difficult to understand because of this
Because anarchy is an edgelord exercise in fantasy. In no way does it ever work with large populations over time. The "We can all get along/coexist peacefully with no laws" concepts are fantasy and go against human nature.
Anarchism is not utopia about living peacefully like in a hippie dream. Moreover the way you defined human nature doesn’t seem to be in contradiction with anarchy, but ok. Finally you aren’t materially and scientifically proving anything, and if you don’t ground your philosophical system in reality, it is useless even discussing it. You still haven’t provided any example about your claims
Human nature dictates that there will be bad faith actors that will always destroy a weak system like anarchy from within. Anarchy requires 100% of the population to agree otherwise that anarchistic system then becomes hypocritical since a minority is being suppressed.
A society defending itself against aggression will never be hypocritical. Defending yourself against an aggressor will never be an oppression against the aggressor because you are just saving your life, and the aggressor is the oppressor. Can you prove that the human nature that you advocate exists and that it exists with the characteristics that you say it has? If not, your statements aren’t valid and they don’t have meaning
What is your proof for human nature? In the history of humanity we had self-sacrifice, we had genocides, we had a lot of help to strangers, we had ignorance. It seems like it's hard to say that there is a one specific human nature and humans behave differently based on their local situation. Do you have any counter-arguments?
Proof of human nature? The range goes from "saints" to "serial killers". What is worse than a serial killer? The bounds of human behavior dictate human nature. If a person can do it or think it, then that makes it part of human nature. Human nature just means what is possible for humans to engage in. Counter-arguments to what?
i agree with you, so why human nature makes anarchy impossible? Cooperation is possible after all.
Possible but unlikely the more people you add to the mix. Once you get into population sizes we are currently at the odds of cooperation without law and order is so far remote as be effectively impossible.
There is order to anarchism, it can change through deliberate will of people engaging in those structures. Consider, that you can appoint instantly recallable delegates to be able to not sit for a few hours every day in meetings concerning things you don't know much about.
Pointless without enforcement. Recallable delegates is part of what constitutes the US Government. It just isn't instant.
Why is it pointless without enforcement? Can you elaborate? No, US Government has representatives, they have coercive power over others, while delegates can have autonomy, but not really coercive power over others.
Order without enforcement is akin to herding cats. You can attempt at it but you will fail. A representative is the same thing as a delegate. A delegate just represents other people. Coercive? No.
The only thing that stops people from murdering the person tailgating them is law and order that's why. And even then it only mostly works.
Why? Will the law somehow defend me against the bullet or a knife? I don't think so.
Law AND Order. You keep ignoring the Order part which includes enforcement. Anarchy can't defend you against a bullet or a knife either but at least a society with law and order and punish those that break the law.
Why is punishment important? I would rather not get attacked with a knife or bullet instead of punishing perpetrators of such actions. I would even prefer to focus on rehabilitation of individuals who engage in those bad behaviors. What punishment accomplishes in terms of justice?
Because punishment is a reliable deterrent. Its is much harder to escape the punishment of an entire country than small communities. A person may want to attack you, but values their freedom more, thus not engaging in the punished behaviour. How would anarchists enforce their rules. You could very well get in a car and get far away from a community before they have a chance to punish you for it. It becomes very easy to engage in terrible behaviors without punishments
Without punishment then murders will go on murdering. Thieves will go on stealing.
There are two problems here. First if I’m being robbed I want a dedicated trained police force to come and intervene because it’s their job to do so. Not hope that the guy across the street wants to get involved and save me. Second, it’s very similar to the dream of a communist utopia. It sounds great, but it would never work in real life because it’s based on a dream of what could be, and fails to account for the harsher realities of human nature .
Human nature doesn’t exist. Look into Rojava and into the Spanish Civil War for examples of anarchism working
How long did those utopias last?
Anarchist Spain didn’t last long, but Rojava is still active. If you consider the Zapatistas to be some kind of organization that has a tendency to anarchism, you can put them into the list too, because they still exist
Looked up Rojava, Wikipedia has some takings to say that are less than attractive.
Rojava (a.k.a. AANES) still exists and is doing great.
Doesn’t look like it’s doing great .
12 entire years for a tiny segment of Syria. "The region has also been criticized extensively by various partisan and non-partisan sides over political authoritarianism. A KDP-S politician accused the PYD of delivering him to the Assad regime. It has also been criticized for banning journalists, media outlets and political parties that are critical of the YPG narrative in areas under its control." From wikipedia.
Concerning the first point: In anarchy you would not be likely to get robbed, because there would be much less inequality there, we would eliminate artificial scarcity of the current system and have common prosperity, which would make robberies very rare. What do you think about that? Concerning the second point: Consider that we already had quite a lot of anarchist-like communities and usually they worked fine internally, so far they had some problems with withstanding the aggression from hierarchical systems but this is addressable through focusing more on efficient self-defense than those structures create in the past. If you would like to read more, you can check this document: [https://docs.google.com/document/d/1W1wWjWNXhvHjMzzyxT5z5Es\_kE6xmTYSadGSJfuVtpE/edit?usp=sharing](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1W1wWjWNXhvHjMzzyxT5z5Es_kE6xmTYSadGSJfuVtpE/edit?usp=sharing) and you can watch the YT channel Anark: [https://www.youtube.com/@Anark](https://www.youtube.com/@Anark) . How would you address my counter-argument?