[MRRiley]

No need to.
We are not monarchists under a dynasty or religious people under one god (although there are some christian and muslim anarchists, go figure ), we can work and strive with people who don't share an homogeneous credo but have some basic principles in common.
There are so many kinds of anarchists: Stirnerian, collectivists, comunists, ecologists, religious, sindicalists,...I could go on and on That's one of the differences with the "far left" groupuscules wich hate and despise each other as revisionists and heterodox "scum" (just attend to a Troskist meeting...they spend more time dissing other "marxists" than trying to build something XD).

The funny thing is, every one of the forms of anarchy you are describing is just another form of social cooperative (aka: government) which in its own way controls and manages the lifes of it's citizens. As i said before, any sufficiently complex society requires a government, which is functionally opposite of a true anarchy which by it's nature is every man for himself.

Humans, by nature are social animals, and even our simplist social groups serve the basic functions of government... no matter what organizational or phjilosophical shape they take. Why, because we know we are stronger as a group than as individuals. The sum is greater than the parts...

[Coeurdechene]

libertarian

If you mean those anti-state capitalists...they don't criticize the authority derived from property, they don't see the problem of someone hiring others and keeping the added value, they don't challenge and condemn the hierarchical organization of economic groups...
In Spain Libertarian refers to the anti-authoritarian wing of the working class movements of the XIX and XX century...how it came to mean something entirely different in english is something that has always surprised me.

Individuals might get entrepreneurial--they might distill alcohol in their basements, for instance, and sell it for a profit.

In a society of collective management people can still have their autonomy, work the parcel they are able to work, keep the result for the sustaining of their association (may it be family or just coleagues). What can't be is that the goods get stored and perish if not "sold"... and since one of the pillars of the alternative organization is solidarity, apoyo mutuo, then such waste would be socially condemned.

What if they become lazy? What if a surgeon comes to the belief that his work is too strenuous compared to the work of a gardener?

That is in some way a very pessimistic view of individuals...i'm no naive optimist but reality, even in an alienating system as this one, tends to refute those pessimistic views.
Lots of things are done as a hobby, very complex things like linux have been built on their free time by people who enjoy creating, programming, designing...all for free, for the common good. I've spent enough time in "comunes" to say that there ain't more hard working people that the ones who do it for their own growth and enjoyment.
But let's assume what you postulate...what if some individuals turn lazy? society isn't an ankylosed structure, in that case the association can be dissolved and the lazy thrown out ...of course we're no calvinists so in the comunes i've been to you usually enjoy so much yourself and the company of the rest that you don't have the temptation to be "lazy", everyone contributes may it be through cooking, or music, or brewing, or mechanical works so usually the flaws and shortcomings in other areas are tolerated. I believe, based on my experience, that everyone can be stimulated and that in a place where you decide and grow, instead of obeying and doing what you hate there aren't many braindead lazy people.
The oppression does not come when someone creates something and passes it on but when the land and infrastructure can be owned and inherited and exploited by the hiring of people less fortunate than you regarding his ancestors.

Finally if a group of people decides to live in a different manner they are free to do it...only one condition they cannot pretend to impose on others their views and practises and they cannot claim a place as inherently their's to dispose of. they can live and use the things they are able to operate without wage earning personnel...if not the seed of new hierachical and opressive societies grows again.
I'm pretty sure no one wants to surrender his capacity of deciding once they've lived in a horizontal society so i'm pretty confident about the capacity of such society to be stable and live on.

[redrockcoulee]

Mike, thanks for you thoughts. If I may, could I ask you to clarify what you mean when you use the word anarchy?

I think it's interesting that you believe in the absence of government that the weak would face grim lives at the hands of the strong. The people who are government are strong, not you or I. They help themselves to as much of what is yours or mine with no regard to our wishes. They subject us to whatever rules they decide upon regardless of any objections we might have. The visions I think you have of a world absent government are actually only possible because of government. In the absence of government, who would stop you from acquiring or contracting with someone else for the means to defend yourself or your property from aggression? In the absence of a certain class of people having the self declared so called right to boss you around and take your stuff, and having enough people believe that certain class has a right to do so, how long would it be until enough people banded together to prevent that? If there were a free market for defending yourself and your property, don't you think that someone, some company, would recognize a need in the market and the opportunity to profit from providing you and your property defense?

I know these thoughts challenge what is held to be conventional wisdom, honestly I do. But that makes them no less true. After all, conventional wisdom once held that the world was flat, that man would never fly, that the sound barrier would never be broken, that the atom could never be split, and so on and so on and so on. I think it's time for conventional wisdom about the necessity of doing evil to everyone in the name of keeping them safe from evil to go to the same place that those once common mistaken beliefs went; into the past of human history.

And what would happen to those who could not afford protection in the free market? This usually is the poor and the weak, those who need it the most.

When was conventional wisdom that the world was flat? I read that it originated in California. The Greeks had a pretty accurate estimate of the circumference of the earth and the Church during the Medieval period did not lose this knowledge. The criticism of Columbus was he was underestimating the distance of his proposed voyage.

And even if people thought the earth was flat does not mean that it is the existence of governments that cause people to rob, rape or murder others.
Free market works great for producing a product but I would hate to depend on it for my civil rights, justice or freedom. Why worship corporations and think they are better than governments? There are responsible only to shareholders. It takes regulations to keep them honest and if you do not belief this check out the differences in what happened to the banks in countries with tight regulations and enforced them and those that did not. What would stop a corporation from taking your protection money and then not delivering the protection or worse take you as a slave? You do realize that corporations just like governments have people in them making the decisions? Trust BP or Wal-Mart or the sweat shops in Polynesia if you want but do not expect others to jump aboard.

[Coeurdechene]

The funny thing is, every one of the forms of anarchy you are describing is just another form of social cooperative (aka: government) which in its own way controls and manages the lifes of it's citizens. As i said before, any sufficiently complex society requires a government, which is functionally opposite of a true anarchy which by it's nature is every man for himself.

Humans, by nature are social animals, and even our simplist social groups serve the basic functions of government... no matter what organizational or phjilosophical shape they take. Why, because we know we are stronger as a group than as individuals. The sum is greater than the parts...

Of course! Anarchy is a form of social cooperation, based on entirely different principles...the difference, the capital difference lies in the importance of the individual inside that whole, it lies on the shaping of that society around cooperation and not competition, around personal responsibility and decision inside every level of that political community (decision in the political and economical areas).
"True" anarchy, that's your definition of anarchy...but it's not what Anarchy means for all the different schools of thought that have taken that word as a concise representation of several moral and philosofical principles.
Being cooperative animals you cannot assume that without the state and this particular form of economy we would "revert" to that "true anarchy" state that never really existed and it's only used as a myth to justify some of the worst dominance centred social systems.
The An- stands not for lack of social organization but lack of hierarchical organization where power is exerted by someone (or a dinasty like in an absolute MON-archy), or by a specific social group like in a plutocracy or a bureaucracy. The fact that some people assume that anarchy means lack of any social organization and the rule of the strong like in some king of jungle law, comes from the prejudice that the reality we live is the only possible thing...and that any alternative is worse.

[causey]

I can't talk about everything in detail, but I'll point out what I take to be the two major problematic aspects your views.

An essential trait of your conception of anarchy is that it is based on a certain view of human nature--or on a certain model of humanity, in conformity with which there is no room for greed, envy, competitiveness (as an impulse), entrepreneurship (as an inclination), etc. You suggest an idea of humanity that includes these attributes is a very pessimistic view of individuals; I say, God spare us another revolutionary application of a "new man". No political project that aims to attain its purposes by uprooting the bad quality of humanity can be non-violent.

Capitalism doesn't prevent people from manifesting their good nature: they can resolve to give everything they have (or whatever they don't need to live) to charities, to the ones in need. They can leave this rotten society, they can cease to want a bigger house and a second car, they can even abandon their expensive photo equipment) If your presuppositions regarding human nature were right, anarchy would become reality without any kind of political projects, simply by the choice of individuals. (Admittedly, there would have to be unanimity in choosing to manifest one's good nature.)

The second important issue. You think that things of a high degree of complexity can be produced outside of a market system. I'm no fan of the market, but I can acknowledge the creative role of entrepreneurs (without which there can be no technological progress) and I (believe I) realize an economy without market would be a very primitive (mostly agricultural)--which is fine with me, since I'm no fan of technology, either. Think of the complexity of medical research... ships, planes, atomic plants... Linux is indeed a nice example of community cooperation which, however, could not have been possible without the knowledge brought about by competing private enterprises. But think, for example, of the advances made in the automobile industry: incremental progress concerning the safety features of the car, the lightness of the metals used in construction, the engine's efficiency, etc. Now, imagine that in a free, anarchic community someone invented a primitive car (the first car ever invented): why would anyone try to make it better? Entrepreneurs have a powerful incentive to anticipate preferences and to risk investing in something new that might make them richer. Many of them fail; still, the incentive is their. In a sense they also create new preferences, but without new preferences we would not be surrounded by items of an enormous technological complexity. Which isn't to say people cannot live without the technology we have today--they could, if they had to.

Would creating something completely new, which does not directly relate to the immediate, basic needs of the individual (clothing, food, housing), be even considered work? Would the making of a movie or the writing of a novel be considered work? (What about writing books that question the foundational principles of the anarchic community?) Communists viewed intellectuals as traitors, and they sent most of them off to forced labor camps. What reason would the members of "your" community have to allow, say, artists be artists when the majority of the other guys need to take care of the hard and unpleasant works?

A third (supplemental) question, and I'm done: how is the distribution going to be made when there are less resources than demand (for instance, less chemotherapy treatment resources than cancer patients)? Isn't such a challenge going to spur animosity within the group?

In a society of collective management people can still have their autonomy, work the parcel they are able to work, keep the result for the sustaining of their association (may it be family or just coleagues). What can't be is that the goods get stored and perish if not "sold"... and since one of the pillars of the alternative organization is solidarity, apoyo mutuo, then such waste would be socially condemned.


That is in some way a very pessimistic view of individuals...i'm no naive optimist but reality, even in an alienating system as this one, tends to refute those pessimistic views.
Lots of things are done as a hobby, very complex things like linux have been built on their free time by people who enjoy creating, programming, designing...all for free, for the common good. I've spent enough time in "comunes" to say that there ain't more hard working people that the ones who do it for their own growth and enjoyment.
But let's assume what you postulate...what if some individuals turn lazy? society isn't an ankylosed structure, in that case the association can be dissolved and the lazy thrown out ...of course we're no calvinists so in the comunes i've been to you usually enjoy so much yourself and the company of the rest that you don't have the temptation to be "lazy", everyone contributes may it be through cooking, or music, or brewing, or mechanical works so usually the flaws and shortcomings in other areas are tolerated. I believe, based on my experience, that everyone can be stimulated and that in a place where you decide and grow, instead of obeying and doing what you hate there aren't many braindead lazy people.
The oppression does not come when someone creates something and passes it on but when the land and infrastructure can be owned and inherited and exploited by the hiring of people less fortunate than you regarding his ancestors.

Finally if a group of people decides to live in a different manner they are free to do it...only one condition they cannot pretend to impose on others their views and practises and they cannot claim a place as inherently their's to dispose of. they can live and use the things they are able to operate without wage earning personnel...if not the seed of new hierachical and opressive societies grows again.
I'm pretty sure no one wants to surrender his capacity of deciding once they've lived in a horizontal society so i'm pretty confident about the capacity of such society to be stable and live on.

[Coeurdechene]

there is no room for greed, envy, competitiveness (as an impulse), entrepreneurship (as an inclination), etc.

Oh THERE IS place for it...i'm no fool who believes human are good by nature. Humans are very capable beings, capable of both good and bad, every individual is at some point virtuous and at other times vile. I don't believe in "forging" men as the stalinists did. I believe that in a cooperative medium those impulses are not the ones that drive us (they will appear and generate conflict to be dealt with but they won't be society's motor). A big part of how those "bad" impulses materialize is the outcome of social values...
I know places where jealousy does not usually expresses by the hate of the third who has appeared in the relationship, or by aggressive stances toward the other partner, but as an alarm to understand what makes us insecure, what fear makes us behave jealously and then the effort to eliminate those fears in us. That's because in those places the other alternative conducts, so normal in our societies, are frown upon, and people are invited to behave differently without aggression. If the person in question does not want to behave in those socially recommended ways he gets his time to deal with it and the group only intervenes again if he expresses violence (which rarely occurs...it occurs though sometimes, but conflict does not scare us).

If your presuppositions regarding human nature were right, anarchy would become reality without any kind of political projects, simply by the choice of individuals.

Sorry if i mislead someone somehow in previous posts, i'm no rousseaunian, social constructs are of capital importance because they determine in which
values the individual is socialized. Now we live in a culture that glorifies owning things as a way to be, consuming as a way to enjoy...for me that's a sickness that ties lots of people to this productive system.

Linux is indeed a nice example of community cooperation which, however, could not have been possible without the knowledge brought about by competing private enterprises.(...) Now, imagine that in a free, anarchic community someone invented a primitive car (the first car ever invented): why would anyone try to make it better?

I'm not sure about the need of "competing enterprises". C would still exist, just as language exists if there were machines involved, and someone like Stallman would have still made a compiler and text editor, and someone like Linus would have made the kernel, no enterprises in the birth of Linux.
And i firmly believe that in a sharing culture creation is stronger (that's why Linux is far superior to any Microsoft closed source contraption) since it's open to anyone curious about a particular field...with no patents, no proprietary, closed source type developments anyone can understand the workings of something and improve it. A big chunk of our culture has been created by people who enjoyed doing what they did. Sciences were something people explored because it was pleasurable, mechanical contraptions and advances were made by people who enjoyed it... So why would that change?
You assume that in another type of economy that drive we have in us would magically disappear...it'll still be there and there still be people who will enjoy those activities and explore those fields. People would better the car for the hell of it...because it's a good way to spend time (just as lots of people still do in their basements, experimenting, creating...).
I know a guy who is learning how to produce electricity...he can talk about Tesla for hours and spend a lot of time showing you his prototypes, wich work, he has all kinds of electrical contraptions and has installed several wind and water generators for people in the countryside...he doesn't get "paid" in the normal sense of the word but he can come and go in lots of this country places.

Maybe you are right about this level of "progress"...even if it was true i would give up most of it in a heartbeat to get a society where we don't exploit our peers.

Would creating something completely new, which does not directly relate to the immediate, basic needs of the individual (clothing, food, housing), be even considered work? Would the making of a movie or the writing of a novel be considered work? (What about writing books that question the foundational principles of the anarchic community?) Communists viewed intellectuals as traitors, and they sent most of them off to forced labor camps. What reason would the members of "your" community have to allow, say, artists be artists when the majority of the other guys need to take care of the hard and unpleasant works?

None of the activities would be considered...are considered work in a place like that...some are needed, others are welcomed. You speak from the separation point of view...in a place where that separation does not exist no one is charged with only the hard work while others are left idle to enjoy their inherited wealth. Everyone "works" and that is done with a light heart at the times when it pleases the people who do it.
The rest of the time, most of the time, you just pursue what pleasures you...may it be music, literature, sports.
I'm no communist, intellectual activities are as necessary to a community's wealth than physic labour. The thing is that in a place like i'm talking about everyone capable of is involved somehow in the community sustaining, and there is still left most of the day to enjoy other activities.

As for production and distribution in a complex society the anarchists managed to establish a way to manage it in the 30s...
The cancer example i'm not sure there are less resources than demand but even so if things were like that it wouldn't be wealth what would decide how those goods are managed and distributed but it would be the decisions of those who produce them together with those who consume them in a two way cooperative system.

[MRRiley]

Youtu.be

Youtu.be

[Coeurdechene]

Dennis: [interrupting] Listen, strange women lyin' in ponds distributin' swords is no basis for a system of government. Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony.

Dennis: Oh, but you can't expect to wield supreme executive power just because some watery tart threw a sword at you.


Just great!
Although my favourite python sketch is still is:

You Tube

You Tube

Maybe because of why and how i came to think as i do.

[Jeff_H]

Help, help...I'm Being Repressed

I was waiting for someone to post a clip to this... LOL! This clip has always made me laugh my A off, honestly.

I want to say, the responses and thoughts that have been shared here are fantastic. It took me a very long time to arrive at the conclusions I have, and those conclusions have not been arrived at lightly or without considerable thought and research.

I've just simply arrived at the conclusion that the whole system is based on BS. People have been tricked for a long time by those in control of government, and unfortunately, I believe that people will continue to be tricked by those seeking control for some time to come. It's impossible for me to give my permission to someone else to do something I have no right to do for myself. If I can't make arbitrary rules for you to follow that you accept as moral or ethical, if I can't simply force you to give me part of your property o satisfy my desires or else and have it accepted as just by you, how in the world can I grant someone else some so called right to do those things? The short answer is I can't, and neither can you. That's it, it IS that simple. All the rest of it is smoke & mirrors, all BS designed to get people to buy into the idea that you can do those things. So called 'Social Contract' theory is nothing more than the same old notion that you are tied to the land upon which you are born; yet call it serfdom and most people freak out crying that it is not so.

So, while this is mostly a cerebral exercise at this time, in time I believe enough people will come to realize that they have no right to other peoples property, that they have no right to order others around, and that they have no right to grant someone else those rights either. Education is the key. After all, as Frederick Douglass once penned, 'education and slavery are incompatible with each other'.

[shooz]

That was perfectly unclear.
We are serfs not to the the government, but to the corporations that own and operate that government.

"If you want to get laid, go to school. If you want an education, go to the library."

-----Frank Zappa-----

[redrockcoulee]

Well Jeff do you drive on the right side of the road and stop for red lights? Those are arbitrary rules that no one other than governments decreed. What happens if there is no government or one that is ineffective? Look at Somalia, no strong government and then corporations came in and plundered the fish stock and with no source of food the people banded together to form groups of pirates and we seem to think that this is not a good idea.The citizens of Somalia did not give permission to the corporations to harvest fish in their waters and yet even if they yelled and screamed for the factory ships to stop did it work?

If you think that this is Africa and does not matter I wonder if you are aware of the fur trade in the American northern plains and into Canada as well as the trade practices of the Hudson's Bay Company. Without government and law the American free traders did just that, traded booze and all at the determent of their customers, often with very fatal results. It was only with NWMP and US Calvary that this stopped and often it was the victims who were punished as they were not white.

I think it is too easy to sit in one's safe home in a land governed by laws that your food is safe, the streets relatively sate that one can come to the conclusion that you did. The streets of Baghdad were not ones I would of wanted to live in after the fall of Hussein and yet they were just as you wished, no government, and people were free to join with other like minded ones for peace and prosperity (or for other reasons)

I would rather be the slave of a government that provides health and safety and that I can choose who they are and throw them out if they do other than what I want and that they also have to live and work within an agreed upon framework that rules them.

Perhaps I am just not the super enlightened person that you are but I am glad that my government does 'steal' property (taxes) from people so that they can assist my brother in looking after his mentally and physically handicapped daughter, so that my nieces are reasonably safe and that my nephews are not grabbed and made into slaves. Your view seems to be that if we could only get rid of all governments than human nature would change and we would treat others as we should and that for some reason resources will no longer be scarce so that nobody would want your property. Although I am not a student of American history was Douglass not a politician or statesman ?

If you use words like murder and steal for the government and slave for anyone who might choose to be part of a society which has rules (does any place without rules still be a society) I can see how you would expect others to some to your thinking. Myself I have no desire to be on my own protecting myself and my property from whomever wishes to take it from me, and that would cost a lot more of my funds and freedom than I give up in laws and taxes and I do think I get something of value in return for my taxes they are not stolen from me nor do I steal from others when I use streets and highways, when the fire department came and put out the fire or when the bank is not allowed to take my house because they can hire thugs.

[Ash]

OK, let's avoid getting too personal here.
It's undeniable whatever civil society we live in has innately provided many liberties that we take for granted as a result of government. This is more obvious in well-developed countries. The majority of African countries are plagued by corruption and lack of social welfare that is caused by selfish human behaviour, especially by those in places of influence, rather than the system of government.

[Jeff_H]

That was perfectly unclear.
We are serfs not to the the government, but to the corporations that own and operate that government."

In the absence of government, would you believe that (insert corporation of your choice here) could LEGITIMATELY lay claim to the future production and wealth of anyone based on the location of those particular anyone's birth(s)?

[shooz]

Many of these African nations are plutocracies.

I wonder why Jeff_H didn't answer my question, asked early in the thread?

As I said, he was perfectly unclear. very non-committal.

[shooz]

In the absence of government, would you believe that (insert corporation of your choice here) could LEGITIMATELY lay claim to the future production and wealth of anyone based on the location of those particular anyone's birth(s)?

They already do.
I'm surprised you didn't notice.
Is LEGITIMATE supposed to be trick question?