How would an anarchist society help the poor?

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I am sympathetic to anti-authority ideals of anarchist philosophy, but I'm not sure how it would be able to prevent poverty and inequality to the extent a socialist state, or a modern welfare state could.

An answer more nuanced than "it can't" would be much appreciated.

If there was no authority no laws and nobody to enforce laws, I'd imagine it would be survival of the fittest. At the bottom of the social ladder would be people working the land for food and at the top would be armed gangs who went around stealing the food and raping the women; moving from village to village. If there were no taxes collected for a common good there wouldn't be any roads (other than dirt tracks), no hospitals or universities (except for the rich). I think it would be pretty much like pre-medieval times. Slavery/serfdom would also likely return. It is also difficult to envisage how technology could also (a) be invented / developed and (b) manufactured without any contract law or means of enforcing contracts, so you could say goodbye to modern medical technology, drugs, computers, cars, the internet, distributed electricity and so on.

In other words, Planet Somalia.

Yes!

One thing is for sure; without any laws to protect the common man, gangs and overlords will make up their own "laws" and enforce them and collect punitive "taxes" like the old days. So the poor would be even worse off than under almost any form of organised government with the possible exception of dictatorships like North Korea today or Cambodia under Pol Pot.

Gee, when you put it that way, and given that humanity answers to no higher power, anarchy doesn't sound too different from the world as it is right now.

Anarchy as a social system isn't stable -- it'll just lead directly back to enforced monopolies on violence.

The key difference in most (western) countries is that you can vote out the "gang" and "overlords" and agree to substitute new ones who are in better accord with the values of the masses. Under anarchy, there is no accountability, so the fiercest gangs will be in control... probably like some of those drug gangs that inhabit parts of America - just imagine those without any police or legal constraints to stop them... but then you are back to your Somalia example.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2G6kf7XM9Nk[/youtube]

This is an interesting read about living in Somalia under anarchy. The article is ten years old but I don't know how/if much has changed since. It pretty much mirrors what I suggested anarchy would turn into in my first post in this thread.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/4017147.stm

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4lzi_3SM9-o[/youtube]

Anarchism is more than just anti-statism. Anarchy in practice would be a society primarily composed of non-hierarchical free associations. And anarchists are not against rules and principles. We do not want conditions that give rise to despotism.

Then why is Somalia (the only extant example of "anarchy in practice") such a s**thole?

Even being a minarchist libertarian and largely on board with the general spirit of anarchism myself, I think that left-anarchism's intentions and expectations count for nothing, and humans, when separated from the moral and legal consequences of their actions, will be as absolutely depraved, greedy, and barbaric as they can physically get away with.

Equivocation.

Rush is talking about libertarian socialism, a kind of political anarchism. The kind of anarchism that operates in Somalia is anarchism as defined by disorder and lawlessness. These are two different definitions of anarchism.

Last edited by Stannis on 07 Jun 2014, 2:05 am, edited 1 time in total.

I have been to a place in Arizona (Indian reservation) without any state law enforcement, and we didn't run around and kill each other. This argument is also easily refuted by basic anthropology. Our species would be extinct if we were hard-wired to act that way toward each other.

Somalia is not anarchy in practice. And we are not against rules and principles.

In an anarcho-communist setup, members of the community would take care of each other, obviously. An AnCom society would likely be a series of small villages where everyone knows each other. After all, that would be the best way to avoid "leadership" popping up. If you had a market-oriented setup (Mutualism), the 'poor' wouldn't have to worry about landlords. Not only that, but they wouldn't lose any of their work earnings to 'profit'. I would recommend reading "What is Mutualism?" by Clarence Lee Swartz if you want a more in-depth explanation of that.

As for "anarcho-capitalism", that's not really anarchism, because they still require a state apparatus (even if they don't refer to it as such).

Yes... because it's absolutely impossible for people to band together and defend themselves against invaders, right?

It isn't easy for villagers to defend themselves, especially if they are poorly trained and ill-equipped with munitions. They also have more to fear from intimidation and reprisals against their families if they don't comply with the demands of the gangs. When the German military machine invaded France in WW2 they were well trained and equipped fighting what were largely just farmers. Plus the border between Germany and France is so long as to be impossible to defend. Once in place the Germans reinforced their dominance through brutality: If someone killed a German soldier, ten villagers were taken out and shot. I live near a memorial in France dedicated to such a group of people. Resist the demands of the Germans and you could find your wife or daughter raped and killed.

If an anarchic society doesn't have a military to defend itself, there is nothing to stop a well armed neighbouring country from seizing power. I'm not saying France was anarchic, it just didn't have a large military machine at the outbreak of WW2. My argument is that without a police force enforcing a legal system or a military to protect from external aggression, an anarchist society is wide open to gangs taking control internally or foreign powers taking control.