What do you think of anarchism?

It rules!

Its interesting idea but i wonder if humans are capable of running it beyond so small groups that it wouldnt matter. It would require huge amount of planning and creative thinking to get anarchy working in such way it would benefit everyone and to mitigate its problems.

Then there is also the problem of our current system influencing the new system. Lets say we manage somehow overthrow the current opression and start implementing somekind of anarchy that has been planned in such way it functions beneficially for everyone. By its nature, there couldnt be any authority that defines what anarchy is by its core since it would be up to the people themselves.

I can imagine anarchy easily fragmenting into pieces and then some pieces gaining more support than others and then we would have several competing ideas. Ultimately one would win and others might or might not survive too. And then we would have new ruling system that is probably not anarchy. I dont mean this would happen immediately but eventually. So there would need to be somekind of defensive system against that that would prevent harmful ideas from gaining power, but how to make something like that without it becoming oppressive? And how do you restrict anarchy in the first place since the whole point is there is no central authority? And if you try to have authority that isnt central, you end up with multiple ones that become central authority within their area of influence.

Maybe i'm not as well versed on anarchy as i should to be throwing these thoughts around, but these are some thoughts i have on the subject. As far as i know, anarchism is that people make the rules themselves instead of there being central authority that tells them what to do.

So ultimately anarchism is idea that would require a lot of planning and researching to be even considered worth trying if you want to implement it in controlled way. And i dont see any government allowing such planning to happen since it would be direct threat to them if you manage to create something that is worth trying. And very likely if they still were to allow it, they would just want to influence your work in such way they gain more power from it at the expense of others. And if we had some government that would want it because they want what is good for everyone, then wouldnt that government type be what you wanted to have with anarchy in the first place? Anarchy for sake of itself doesnt seem very useful.

And if you want to implement it "naturally" by just removing all authorities and allowing people to settle things by themselves, i think we can all imagine how that would go.

When I think about it that way, anarchism seems more like "initialization" or starting point where you start building something more complex. Everything we currently have is founded on anarchism afterall, at least i dont think first humans could have had any other system. You cant really hold on to it because it will change either by the people or by the power that wants to preserve it.

Now this turned into kind of an essay

• What led to the Haymarket Massacre, which might have been the main catalyst behind the 8-hour workday... So I cannot hate it out of principle
• Seems reasonable but I don't know how to actually implement it
• For some reason is more associated with Anarcho-Capitalism rather than the other variants, which I thought was... Interesting

At its best it would be the most well functioning democracy possible, at its worst it would give way into centralisation (and infighting)

I don't think anarchist states are impossible, but I do think it wouldn't be as comfortable of a life compared to something more centralised.

Anarchy sounds good to me then someone asks "Who'd fix the sewers?"

edit: This is lyrics from The Dead Kennedy’s “Where Do You Draw the Line?”

A lot of people think it means total chaos, but it really just means an opposition to hierarchy.

People living comfortable lives will rationalize any critique of the system away, even if that comfort is built upon emiseration and exploitation.

ITT: Nobody has any idea what any anarchist philosopher ever said or believed and simply thinks it means no rules

They then strut victoriously, thinking they are smarter than every anarchist philosopher who has ever existed because they know that rules matter in a society, not realizing that no anarchist thinker has ever said "let's just have no rules or organization and just see how it goes based on the vibes"

When I was younger, I believed that it was an ideal worth striving for. Now I don't have that much faith in people anymore and I think that the best you can ask for is to try to live life your way and stay true to your beliefs and morals as best you can, according to whatever circumstances that you've been given.

People calling themselves anarchists seem to reliably be less of a red flag than when they call themselves communists.

I think there's a lot of sentiment to sympathize with and a lot of ideas to learn about.

Implementation of anarchism seems hard and maybe sometimes a bit naïve, but on the other hand I don't actually understand the specifics nor is there any one opinion.

Anarvhism refers to a vlass of ideologies moreso than any one in specific.

It seems foolish and young to me. Same as libertarian rules or rule by religious doctrine. None of that shit works. Just shiny little playthings to keep people distracted from real and genuine problems that cause an existential threat to all species living on earth.

I think liberals don't even know what it means, but insist their opinions on it need to be heard anyways, because all opinions are valid, right?

Quite literally impossible to implement. Same as true "Libertarianism". Can't actually exist.

Look at it this way. You and your neighbours want no government. No taxes. No laws. No "authority" telling you what to do and how to do it. Great!

What happens when the road needs to be fixed? Do you fix just the road in front of your house? Or do you negotiate with your neighbours for you all to pay a fair share to get the entire road done? Congratulations...you just invented government.

So now the road is getting done, but the people doing the work really don't want to deal with every individual for every particular decision. It's a much better idea to elect one person to do the communicating. Congratulations...you just invented civics and beaurocracy

This person that you all agreed to handle all of this stuff doesn't have time anymore to support himself or his family because he's dealing with your shit, so he demands that each of you pay an amount to keep in able to feed himself while he administrates your "anarchic society." Congratulations...you just invented taxes

Replace "roads" with literally anything else in a community and the end result is the same. Both Libertarians and Anarchists are fucking morons.

In the absence of other power structures (political, legal, religious, economic, etc) whoever has the means and willingness to do violence will exert their will over others. Unstructured societies always devolve into might makes right.

I think that if humanity can manage to survive long enough, anarchism is inevitable.

It's essentially the adult stage of human society - the point at which humans collectively and consistently, rather than just individually and situationally, can be trusted to generally do the right thing simply because it's the right thing and therefore the most reasonable thing to do.

For the time being and the foreseeable future though, humanity is nowhere even close to that. Through the course of history, human society has managed to advance to about the equivalent of adolescence. There's still a long way to go.

In spite of that, I do identify as an anarchist, but my advocacy is focused on the ideal and the steps humanity as a whole has to take to achieve it. I think it's plainly obvious that it cannot be implemented, since any mechanism by which it might be inplemented would necessarily violate the very principles that define it. It can only be willingly adopted by each and all (or close enough as makes no meaningful difference), and that point will come whenever (if) it comes.

I thought it was quite cool when I was a teenager. Then I grew up.

That it's basically the lefty equivalent to a libertarian. Both of those philosophies seem juvenile to me in a "I don't want to, and you can't make me" kind of way. Call me old fashioned, but I like structure as long as it's not totalitarian. I'm happy to pay taxes as long as they're going toward the benefit of society. Granted, that largely hasn't been the case, but I don't think we need to throw the baby out with the bathwater either.

Recent events have also highlighted how much my taxes actually were going toward the betterment of society (though still not nearly enough), and that I had taken them for granted until they were recently axed/defunded.

Technically the whole world runs on pure anarchism. No rules, only those created by local groups. With agreements between some of the groups. Most of it enforced by violence.

Laws only exist because most people believe in them. For the rest they are enforced with violence. I believe that anarchy would result in a similar system. Most people would behave but some would not. To protect everyone eventually some kind of police and laws would form again.

It depends on the definition

The end goal of civilization.

Stateless, Egalitarian societies.

I think it's one gun away from a dictatorship.

For power to be safely devolved to the people there need to be resilient structures in place to prevent a bad actor from simply wresting control by force.

Also, I think that while it solves societal issues well for the most personal of personal liberties it fails to properly add in protections from the liberties of others that may be imposed on you... i.e. a spouse trying to escape an abusive relationship will find sparse services to support them.

Lastly, I like trains. Trains don't happen in a reasonable time-frame without a strong centralized government. In the UK a coop recently opened a new train line... I think it took them 30+ years.

I don’t think practically you could end up with a state of anarchism because it implies that humans can exist in a power vacuum. Something will always fill that vacuum. Now, the question is what is that thing? It can take a lot of forms. The goal should be to make it serve the qualitative needs of most people - food, shelter, well being, safety. People advocating for true anarchy are usually doing so from a naive idealism. Idealism is often good, but sometimes ignores other factors that make the ideal impossible to achieve.

Responsible anarchism is a good ideal to aim for, but in pure form it's utopian. Realistic way to get closer to this ideal is shifting to stateless/borderless societies that center around some alternative entities other than geopolitical nation-states.

Pls no anarcho capitalism. A good breakdown of the topic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HTN64g9lA2g&t=1

coupled with communism it's the real shit

I think it's great. We should fucking try it.

Seriously, though, I think it would be nice but it's going to be impossible unless you can fully get rid of greedy, corrupt, power hungry pieces of shit with zero empathy.

Honestly, I don't really understand what it is. I don't understand socialism, communism, hell I hardly understand capitalism and I'm living in it.

I know the "it's chaos" interpretation isn't really correct though

I see it as a guideline for how society could be structured after the elimination of class.

I consider myself an anarcho-pragmatist. It would be nice not to have any rulers or an hierarchy. But I also know people well enough to know that unless we defer any decision making to a supercomputer everyone trusts, we're going to need some form of societal structure.

There are already people living this lifestyle, unfortunately one only has the choice if you have lots of money.

Nestor Makhno and his Makhnovists weren't perfect but I think its probably the closest we're going to get to seeing a working anarchist society. It seemed like it worked for a short time.

Also note the mutial aid systems that spring up in the wake of some disasters could probably be considered temporary anarchist societies. Rebecca Solenit wrote a book about this but I haven't gotten a chance to read it yet. A Paradise Built in Hell. I hear its good but I can't say that with firsthand knowledge

Anarchy is the worst a society can devolve into.
And people who believe that certain anarchy "models" can work, know nothing about the psychology of larger groups.
When large groups of people need to live together there needs to be structure and rules that must be respected, and the rules need to be upheld by a governing body.
The best way we have to form that governing body is democracy.

I think there's a reason anarchists aren't migrating in droves to anarchies like Haiti or Somalia.