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Yeah, down with the violence of the state! Although, to prevent bad actors and armed gangs we do need to have some sort of militia to protect the vulnerable from the greedy and cruel, human nature being what it is. And to prevent said militia from turning into the very thing it was supposed to protect us from, we need some sort of oversight, preferably from a democratically elected body, that tells the militia how to act and prevent them from violating the rights of the people. Oh wait I just reinvented violence of the state hehe.
People in Somalia hearing that America has a 1.8% homelessness rate: "wow. Things are really just as bad over there."
That's not what anarchists refer to as a state.
A common anarchist definition of the state is: The institutionized power structure which alienates people from the businesses of their daily lives.
If the whole constituency of the community that the militia protects is involved in controlling that militia, that's not state violence anymore.
If the whole constituency of the community that the militia protects is involved in controlling that militia,
Like having the militia answer to a democratically-elected government?
No, to councils, not representatives with a free mandate.
"We've changed the names of our institutions! That totally justifies burning society to the ground."
Nice strawman, homie.
"I don't understand something even after being given the answer, I'll make fun of it instead!"
A handful of meaningless jargon is not an answer.
To be fair, your explanations have been pretty shit, so
Sounds like a cross-over episode with libertarianism to me.
Yeah... libertarian socialism. It's *older that right-wing so-called "libertarianism"/anarcho-capitalism.
Representatives don't have a free mandate in a democracy, they're bound by laws and by their constituency.
How are your councils formed and what restricts their power?
Please read up on what a free mandate is. Especially compared to an imperative mandate.
The gouncils are made up of the people. Their power is restricted by a breathing constitution based on consensus.
A common anarchist definition of the state is: The institutionized power structure which alienates people from the businesses of their daily lives.
So not the government at all, right? Because they aren't responsible for hardly any alienating in my experience. I would attribute any alienating I feel to corporations.
What would happen to those corporations without the government enforcing their property? Have you ever tried to seize a McDonalds to distribute food to the homeless?
People have property rights too. I wouldn't want someone seizing the food in my fridge to feed the homeless. Property rights are a good thing actually. The problem isn't the government "protecting" corporations. It's that wealth grants a greater degree of control over government due to corruption.
Ultimately though it's a pointless discussion since anarchists are never going to see what they envision implemented beyond weirdo hippie commune towns because their ideas don't scale up.
I wouldn't want anyone to seize the food in your fridge. Unless with "seize" you mean "fill up unprompted" because people know you need to eat and that's enough reason to give you food, and maybe you're busy all the time with constructing bridges or whatnot so they also cook for you.
And while corruption is an issue, it's not the only issue: The very act of having lots of capital to throw around allows companies to direct policy, you e.g. don't need to grease hands to get different municipalities to overbid each other with tax breaks for your new fidget spinner factory. The BS is inherent in the system.
As to scaling: Possibly. Possibly not. I'd argue that it can't yet be envisioned, not even by anarchists themselves (and we're aware of that, hence all the gradualism)... but as you acknowledged that it can work in the small, what happens if all the municipalities we have turn into hippie communes? Would they elect, among themselves, an Emperor Commune to rule over them? I don't think so. They'd find ways to cooperate at eye level. How that will look in detail, as said, I have no idea, it's probably going to involve federation and plenty of subsidiarity.
Practically, right now, it makes no difference as most of us are not living in hippie commune towns. First step would be to get there, then we can think about luxury gay space anarchism.
Those small communes only work because everyone is opting in for the anarchist model. Most people have no interest in that model, and so it will never scale beyond such small communities where everyone opts in.
It especially isn't going to work as soon as you reach the scale where tribalism sets in. That's a natural human behaviour and cannot be eliminated. The human brain craves an "us versus them" narrative. You know this to be true, because your brain does it too, even if you suppress that part of your brain, it's still there and you're aware of it. Some of us can rise above it, but we all know that especially in large groups, humans revert to their more base instincts. The only way to prevent that tendency from dominating society is with the structure imposed by a government.
Like, how exactly would you envision anarchism working in NYC, with the current population of NYC? Not some hypothetical group of people who've all drunk the anarchism Kool aid. Literally just how does it work in a city that big with regular people who haven't read your anarchist newsletter? Because you will never get everyone to agree that anarchism is the way to go. So you're going to have to come up with a model that works for people even if they don't want to be part of it.
Most people have no interest in that model,
Why? Would it not be in their self-interest? Enlightened self-interest, that is. If it is, and they still have no interest, what makes them choose otherwise? How do we free them from that kind of conditioning?
It especially isn’t going to work as soon as you reach the scale where tribalism sets in. That’s a natural human behaviour and cannot be eliminated.
That is true but also overstated. Over here in Europe we're tribalist AF going down to the village level, doesn't mean that we're at each other's throats. At least off the football pitch, that is.
The only way to prevent that tendency from dominating society is with the structure imposed by a government.
You're overstating the power that governments have -- they all, by necessity, even the likes of North Korea, govern by assent or acquiescence from the governed it's a simple numbers game. It is a question of culture, not of having police at every corner. Who, btw, in many places do the exact opposite of reducing tribal tensions.
Like, how exactly would you envision anarchism working in NYC, with the current population of NYC?
NYC isn't a good place to start moving towards an anarchist municipality. Plenty of anarchists in NYC, doing their neigbourhood thing, but capturing Manhattan is pretty much impossible without full smaller cities haven gotten the bug first. It's like starting a D&D campaign as low-level character and saying "but this is pointless, I can't even slay ancient dragons".
Attempting the impossible is a sure-fire way to be disappointed. To feel disheartened, powerless, fatalist. To then fail to achieve the possible. Consider Anarchism not as a vision that is to be realised, or even provable in your lifetime, but as a compass to guide your direction: Can you take a step? Then what's stopping you? Let things yet beyond the horizon be things beyond the horizon, they might not even exist any more once you get there. What's the worst that can happen, that you made the world a bit of a better place? I'd take that risk.
Over here in Europe we're tribalist AF going down to the village level, doesn't mean that we're at each other's throats. At least off the football pitch, that is.
Europe was in a state of constant war until they began to form larger, more federal power structures like the EU. This example supports my point.
Why? Would it not be in their self-interest? Enlightened self-interest, that is. If it is, and they still have no interest, what makes them choose otherwise? How do we free them from that kind of conditioning?
It's not in people's interest to participate in the anarchist model because it sounds like a huge hassle, an incredibly inefficient way of running a society. Like I would much rather elect someone to make laws on my behalf. I realize that system doesn't always work in practice, but what the hell, if you're allowed to speak in hyper-idealized terms, then I am too.
It's not conditioning. It's completely rational to not want such large numbers of people to be involved in every little decision. We've learned over human history that mob rule is not good. Representative democracy is a natural consequence of that.
As someone who works in an office environment, I can tell you the decision making process has seriously diminishing returns as you add more people. A meeting with 4 people will usually make the same decision as one with 30, and will do it in a quarter the time. And yeah sometimes the 4 person meeting will make a mistake that the 30 person meeting would have caught, but it's still worth having decisions be a bit more error prone to not have quite so much time wasted on the natural bickering and bikeshedding that humans tend toward when trying to make decisions as a group. Go watch the TV show Parks and Rec, pay attention to the scenes where they consult the public about their decisions. That's what anarchism is going to look like (in fact, it's a pretty accurate depiction of real world public consultations). Most people are not going to be capable of participating in public administration in good faith.
You ask how we can "break the conditioning" but the thing you're responding to is human nature. So what you're actually asking is how to brainwash people into all adhering to one system.
Europe was in a state of constant war until they began to form larger, more federal power structures like the EU. This example supports my point.
The EU has exactly zero capacity to put boots on the ground to stop countries from fighting each other. The only boots it has is FRONTEX, that is, border guards. They wouldn't stand a chance against the police force of a single larger city.
It’s not in people’s interest to participate in the anarchist model because it sounds like a huge hassle, an incredibly inefficient way of running a society. Like I would much rather elect someone to make laws on my behalf.
Noone's stopping you from doing that. There's generally plenty of delegation going on. Noone's putting considerations about the cement mixture used in lamp post foundations to the general council, everyone knows that it's best left to the engineers.
While they're probably not good examples for how things would look in the west because the conditions they operate in are quite different, I recommend looking at how Chiapas and Rojava do things. They don't get bogged down in meetings. Here's a couple of videos (also about other places).
That’s what anarchism is going to look like (in fact, it’s a pretty accurate depiction of real world public consultations).
That's what consultations look like if people use the little chance they have to ever get heard in person to air general grievances. Even just emotionally. Can't expect people to act sensibly in your "conservation of the red-footed sparkle toad" consultation while their community is getting demolished for a highway expansion -- without consultation. Replace whatever with whatever in that equation.
Meanwhile, there's plenty of studies surrounding sortition (which would be a great intermediate step in many areas) showing that if you take a random sample of people (actually randomised) and sit them together with a couple of experts for at least a couple of days to hash things out, they do come up with very very sensible stuff. More like juries.
You ask how we can “break the conditioning” but the thing you’re responding to is human nature. So what you’re actually asking is how to brainwash people into all adhering to one system.
Nah what I'm asking of you is to stop saying "this thing I'm thinking of won't work because human nature" and instead say "hmm maybe another thing could work" and "probably not perfect but it's better than we have now and we might learn from it". You're not in school, any more, incomplete and approximate answers earn full credit when it comes to catalysing societal change.
I beg your pardon? what is the whole justice system if not the alienation of the community to settle their disputes?
I don't feel alienated by the justice system. Maybe it's because I don't live in America. Corporations infringe on my enjoyment of my life a lot more than the government ever does. The only interactions I ever have with the justice system is when the police come to my neighborhood to shut up a domestic disturbance which is usually much appreciated on my part.
Also, the government provides all kinds of valuable services and benefits that I interact with every day. They build the roads that the corner shop across the street uses to get deliveries, they send out trash and recycling collectors every week, they run the clean water and power to my home, they maintain firefighting services and national free healthcare infrastructure. Sure they could be doing a bit better at some of these things, but I wouldn't say I feel alienated by them.
Meanwhile corporations are constantly worsening my interactions with them, bombarding me with new and innovative forms of psychological warfare designed to trick me into giving them my money in exchange for something I don't really need.
You're describing alienation. You give power to an entity alien to you/the community. You could have mitigated the disturbances in your neighborhood together with your community. Sending the cops wont fix the issue systemically, though. The best they can do is take someone away.
All these services don't need a hierarchical state.
The state is the entity protecting these corporations by enforcing their property rights.
So... If the police force is made of local people who are from your community and the sheriff is an elected official from the community...? It's not like the feds are coming for these purposes.
The cops are always around, and seems like a pretty systemic fix to me.
Then the cops/sherrif cease to be members of the community, since you've introduced a hierarchy. You always know that the cop has power over you or they wouldn't be a cop.
The "fix" is about as systemic as constantly taking pain meds for when you alway bonk your head on something. It adresses the symptom, not the underlying issue.
I guess I don't understand how hierarchy and community are mutually exclusive especially if hierarchy is granted by and from the community itself.
If this isn't the case, why respect family hierarchy either? At 16 if I'm bigger than my dad, fuck him it's my house now. Basically the only point of removing all hierarchy I can see is that we pass the "violence" part down to everyone instead of deciding to isolate it in the enforcement group.
I think we have different definitions of hierarchy here. To me, if I have a higher hierarchical position than you, then you ought to do what I tell you, due to my status. If a community delegates violence to a militia, it doesn't necessarily mean that the militia gets to issue commands on their own.
Are you highlighting the "ought" because it isn't mandatory to comply?
Maybe the difference is that you think a policing force makes their own rules or decisions because of the nature of the hierarchy? It sounds like a variant of "who polices the police" and that the answer is the police can never outnumber or overpower the full community from which they are derived. Which I mean yeah I guess that's fine.
I personally don't see the enforcement hierarchy (police or militia) as having power over anyone outside the granted scope of enforcement. That's bordering on the discussion of police misconduct and government that is too large, which are valid concerns but not really the core issues.
Okay, let's just let communities take justice into their own hands. I'm sure that's never had negative consequences in the past
You do realize that those were condoned by the state, right? That the state actively enabled racism in the so-called US?
No, they were extrajudicial killings, which by definition means not using the justice system. They were condoned by the communities who performed them. And yeah the state enabled them by not punishing them, but it was the community who made them happen. If the communities hadn't wanted to lynch people, people wouldn't have been getting lynched. You think things would have been different in those cases if those southern towns were self-governing collectives?
Hell, do you think that desegregation ever would have happened in southern towns if there hasn't been a hierarchical government? The US literally had to send the military to protect black schoolkids in southern towns when they desegregated schools. What do you think would have happened if those communities didn't have a hierarchical state governing them?
Wow, so today I learned anarchists and sov cits aren’t as discernible as I would have thought.
No, you've decided to learn nothing, today.
All these services don't need a hierarchical state.
You think people will just build roads out of the goodness of their hearts? Or pick up trash? Obviously not. Those services have to be performed by somebody who is getting paid, and in order to pay them, you need to levy taxes. Boom, hierarchical state. The rest is just details.
Like it or not, the world is too big and complicated for everyone to live in self-governing communities anymore. Like imagine applying what you're suggesting to a densely packed population centre like New York. It makes no sense.
You think people will just build roads out of the goodness of their hearts?
No, I think people build roads because they themselves decided in a council that roads needed to be built.
Or pick up trash?
You act as if there aren't whole histories of volunteer work in the world. If you get lost in the alps and mountain rescue saves you, pretty much none of them are getting paid, for example.
Those services have to be performed by somebody who is getting paid, and in order to pay them, you need to levy taxes.
I find you lack in societal creativety sad.
Like imagine applying what you're suggesting to a densely packed population centre like New York. It makes no sense.
Imagine trying to manage such a big society by giving decision power to fewer people who can't possibly fathom the complexity of the system they're trying to control.
Can you explain wtf a council is in your understanding? Because the way I see it there are two possibilities: either it would be literally every member of a community, in which case you're basically advocating for billions of people to have Jury duty every day for the rest of time, which most people are not going to want. Or else it's not literally everyone, in which case, congratulations you just reinvented representative democracy.
Like, most people, myself included, don't want to be involved in every little decision. So we vote for people to represent our interests in government. Obviously the voting system itself could stand to be improved, but that's a case for electoral reform and proportional representation, not anarchism.
Councils are made up of interest groups of the population. There are communal councils, work councils of coops, housing councils, garden councils, consumer councils, etc.
Attendance is not mandatory, put highly encouragen through the social structure surrounding these councils. My worker's council cohorts are my friends, my goworkers, etc.
Big decisions are decided on via federation. E.g. every communal council sends of delegates to regional council, which sends delegates to a national council, and so on.
The difference to parliamentary representation is the type of delegation: Representatives have what you call a "free mandate": they only are subject to their own conscience (and the law, of course). If I vote for a representative for their strong stance against puppy butchering, they're free to butcher as many puppies as they like, once they are elected.
Compare that with an imperative mandate (which social anarchists propose): Your position as a delegate depends on you carrying out the will of the body that elected you. If you defy that imperative, you lose your position as a delegate.
The difference to parliamentary representation is the type of delegation: Representatives have what you call a "free mandate": they only are subject to their own conscience (and the law, of course). If I vote for a representative for their strong stance against puppy butchering, they're free to butcher as many puppies as they like, once they are elected.
IMO that free mandate is a good thing. Sometimes people need to adapt to changing circumstances. Like for example, if a government was reducing healthcare funding and then a pandemic broke out, I'd want them to make a snap decision. And most people don't want to have to participate in all aspects of governing. We elect people to represent us.
Again, everything you're describing is workable within representative democracy and that's significantly less of a hassle for the average person. You claim the state is alienating but then advocate for everyone to feel social pressure to participate in these councils? That sounds miserable.
You're just reinventing government but in a form where it's less efficient, more annoying, and can't get things done. The current system is so much better than what you're describing I can't fathom how someone could see it any other way. Especially as things scale up. Again, imagine if New York was operated in the way you're describing. You think millions of people are going to just harmoniously self-govern? No. That's why we elect municipal and higher levels of government to make decisions for us. And yeah they have a free mandate but they also have another election coming up, so if people don't like what they do they can elect someone else next time.
Sigh, it always ends up being a semantic issue because people hear "anarchist" and think "no government". When really, the political philosophy of anarchism is a little different.
And then, the confusion about everyday political terms like "state", "government", etc. arises, were most people havenothing, but vibes-based definitions at hand. 🙄
Oh wait I just reinvented violence of the state hehe
Except if the state is a community voting on how they should be policed, it isn't really violence, is it?
It is, that community will still have its marginalized groups that don't get representation, and if anything, on a smaller scale it's harder to form a group that would argue for necessary support for these people
on a smaller scale it’s harder to form a group that would argue for necessary support for these people
Idk, I kinda gotta disagree with that. Sure, mob violence against "undesirables" is always gonna be a problem, but communities know each other and are less likely to see different constituent groups as "outsiders"
But in this specific example, where we are talking about "how do we decide who gets to use violence to keep the peace," I think community-based democratic approaches are the best option.
I also gotta disagree with
that community will still have its marginalized groups that don’t get representation
because by definition, if there is a marginalized group, they are not part of that community, and instead would form their own peacekeepers, like Guardian Angels.
Obviously there is a benefit to federalization, I'm not arguing for nor do I support statelessness, but I think if democracy is emphasized from the ground up, those issues naturally tend to erode. Like I think the core problem which necessitates the federal government stepping in to ensure rights comes from a lack of democracy.
but communities know each other and are less likely to see different constituent groups as "outsiders"
Tell that to every gay kid who grew up in a small rural Christian town...
form their own peacekeepers
So you expect every marginalized group to have their own personal cops? What about cross-sectional minorities. I don't know how this works in your head but whatever you're trying to say here is not translating well.
So you expect every marginalized group to have their own personal cops?
That is so clearly not what I'm saying, have a good day.
So not the person you're replying to but maybe instead of disengaging you reevaluate and rephrase because following along that's sure as shit how I read it too and if that's not your idea, what is?
I don't think community policing is state violence.
No it's still definitely violence. Like, day to day, you try to use violence as little as possible but it is necessary for the laws of society to be backed by violence or people would ignore them. "Violence" doesn't have to refer to killing people, it means the use of force against somebody without their consent (killing them, arresting them, or evicting/exiling them).
The state we have right now in America and most of Europe is a community that decides how it wants to be policed (i.e. a democracy). Different jurisdictions make different policing decisions and have different outcomes, but they all follow that structure.
The point I was making was that any attempt by anarchists to "overthrow the state" is silly because the "state" will return in a new form as power reconsolidates. If you consider a recognized federal or state government to be a "state" but an armed "anarchist" militia that runs a city to not be a state, that's just a silly semantic argument.
Wow, that's an impressively large strawman you built! Did you do that all on your own or through the mutual cooperation of other parties?