Anarchy

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Just wanted to see a good anarchy debate. People have been trying for hundreds of years, and I believe we're just on the edge of being able to try again, technologically and culturally speaking.

Now the question is, is it possible? Should we even try? Or would it just exponentially compound our problems, because humans can't reliably handle the responsibility of equality of freedom?

If an anarchy was the best way to run things, we would not need moderators.

And if capitalism was the best way to run things, there wouldn't be a single slave in the world.

There IS no "best way to run things". It's just an ever-evolving system of cooperation. The ones we have now, actually encourage divisive behavior, lies, and callous self-interest. Which is detrimental to overall human cooperation, and therefore, hurts the entire species. I'm just saying, isn't it time we tried to rise above the need for money, cops, and laws?

I as an anarchist believe in minimizing authority as much as possible, I believe some level of authority will always be needed. But authority needs to be consistently challenged and needs very good justification.

Your question contains the answer to why anarchy couldn't possibly work.

Your question admits the need for humans to organize in order to eliminate the hierarchy. The problem is that any form of organization requires some sort of a power hierarchy to exist. Without the hierarchy, everybody battles equally to control how everybody should be organized, thus preventing the organizing from actually ever being able to occur.

Amen bro.

The point is not to dissolve a hierarchy of authority, it is only to make this hierarchy representative and self-determined -- actual self-government instead of the illusion of it. The practical result would be that magistrates would be normal citizens who happen to hold office at the moment, not a separate group of professional politicians, and would be actually accountable to the population, not restricted by occasionnal elections. It requires a smaller unit of administration than what we have at the moment, but it can be done. Another problem is that nation-states have a practical monopoly of sovereignty at the moment.

To be honest, the difference between anarchism and a good system of direct democracy is actually rather small, at least with regards to the politics.

Why should a hierarchy be required for organization? And, even if some kind of power is required to reorganize the clusterf**k we've gotten into, the goal would be to massively reduce or remove the need for it.

If modern technology has given us anything, it's the ability to rapidly disperse ideas and information. With just a few more years advancement, it seems to me that we should be able to coordinate ourselves in such a way that doesn't end in violence. The kinds of technology we're discovering and inventing these days - never before seen possibilities arise. If we could find it in ourselves to stop - just for a few years - burning trillions of dollars each year killing each other and arresting pot smokers, maybe we could, I dunno, solve world hunger? Solve the energy crisis? Make the world a f*****g utopia, maybe?? Why do we need to fight if everyone in the world can eat, drink, smoke weed and watch some TV everyday, instead of just "first-world" citizens? Why should anybody in the world be living in deplorable conditions? Because a single missile costs 10 million dollars. Dont you fact check me either, you know what I mean, you've seen the figures! So SOME form of hierarchy may be necessary in transition. So what? Let's see small-scale hierarchy start, organize ourselves from the very bottom up. Clearly the people in charge aren't planning to solve this moral crisis anytime soon.

Sorry, I tend to go on crazy rants sometimes. Hopefully you get my point. Bear in mind, I'm still sure that it's ultimately impossible for true ideal anarchy to come about anytime soon. Just. I dunno. Watering the seeds, I guess. You know - for the future.

A resource based economy, where all jobs are automated and no money exists, products are made on an as needed basis instead of mass production. Anarchy is no government + no education RBE is nover government + great education. Anarchy is worse than a dictatorship and will undoubtedly hasten our extinction by quite a lot. But a well educated society is a free society.

Anarchy has so many different definitions.

I'm not going to go into what exactly it means to me, that would take hours. To answer... yes, but not overnight. We would need to create a society of anarchists to have an anarchist society, if that makes any sense. Some sort of structure, people working group to group and supporting that society. We need to have enough anarchists to rely on one another and a lot of us are working on that. It's just... well it's as difficult as it can be but yes, I think someday we can.

Anarchy means no central government or State.

ruveyn

You can still have cooperative factories if you want though.

That is a private voluntary arrangement.

ruveyn

I think you can not have anarchy with property rights.
Like I we were talking about in that other thread.
So egalitarian anarchy possible (as in we have examples) capitalist anarchy not so much.

An egalitarian system will not remain egalitarian for long.

ruveyn

They are remarkably stable in-group (lifetimes counted in millenia)
although they do have a bad track record in holding their own against outsiders.

In-group stability vs. out-group fragility.