You might be able to pay militias but why would loosely connected militias be as good as a well organized standing army, especially on a large scale vs a local community? Then also what stops the militias from turning on the people and making a new state? The mob? What stops local areas from fighting each other? What stops a delegative democracy from becoming a republic again? Do you believe people will stay vigilant and resist influence from psychopaths to stop this from happening?

What if one area wants to pollute a lot and another one tells them to stop because they're getting sick and there's no state to step in. Do they go to war?

Some areas decide to have a gift economy and some have mutualism or whatever and they all use many different currencies. How do you organize large scale economy? The economy is so complex that it needs resources from around the world. I don't want primitive conditions. How do we make big decisions effecting the world without a central body?

Anarchists oppose law and government. There shall be no police, no prisons, no courts, and no trials of any sort in a society worth calling anarchic.

But there’s a fear of things like vigilantism, lynchings, and violent cycles of revenge taking the place of the formal justice system.

One big argument in favour of legal and penal order is rooted in the belief that you can never get rid of law, that informal social norms will just stand in for the law of the state, so we never get to real anarchy in the first place.

We need to think a bit more deeply about the concept of punishment in general. Do we really need a society built upon retribution for transgressions of morality?

Suppose that we take a leap of faith, and throw out all the norms and morals. We decide never to punish anyone for anything, and we reject altogether the notion that there’s even such a thing as right and wrong.

Even with such a radical, even nihilistic stance, we still have practical problems that need to be solved.

For example, imagine that your local community is invaded by a tiger. The tiger is eating your neighbours, your loved ones, and even your pets.

The tiger isn’t a criminal in need of punishment, nor are they evil. But you do need to do something about the tiger. This is not avoidable.

We may find ourselves, more or less, forced to make an unjustifiable physical imposition, simply out of our own safety. Hopefully, whatever temporary measures of physical violence we engage in will not become a recurring habit, or a normalised, institutionalised, and socially-sanctioned practice.

We are radicals. As radicals, we have no precedent to rely upon. We are uprooting the foundations of the old order and starting from scratch.

We should begin by not building our society upon punishment. Not in the economy, nor in our families and households. Childrearing and education will have to be substantially transformed to align with the new normal.

How exactly anarchy will look like in detail is still very much an open question. It’s likely that we’ll only know for sure once we’ve established the new order.

But I think we at least have a good start when we are willing to take the leap of faith, or the plunge into the unknown. We must become comfortable with uncertainty.

One of the biggest criticisms on my part and my biggest apprehension in believing anarchist ideologies is the argument, similar to Hobbes' account of the state of nature being one of war. The only response I've seen is that the sort of social-contract theory account is incorrect and the state of nature is not actually that bad. However, is any primitivist argument not simply on the path to becoming at minimum a sort of Nozick-like minarchy? In any case, if the absolute state of nature is one of war and anything after that inevitably leads to the formation of some kind of centralized authority, how can anarchism be successful? I do believe in a lot of the egalitarian beliefs at the core of anarchism, so I wanted to know what kind of responses anarchism had.

For most of human history, legal order was built upon religion and custom.

Somali clans have Xeer (customary law), and Australian Aboriginals have their Dreamtime mythology and oral tradition.

Abolishing the formal institutions of police, prisons, and courts, will not be enough to get us to anarchy. We need to eliminate even informal sorts of authority and hierarchy.

If we just get rid of the state, but we have vigilantes or lynch mobs enforcing the “community’s norms”, we haven’t actually reached a situation in which there is no legal order.

To rid ourselves of legal order entirely, we have to radically reshape our thinking.

We need to break from our conventional archic habits and norms, and rethink our very notions of “justice”, “punishment”, and perhaps even “good and evil” in general.

Anarchy is unprecedented and uncharted territory. If you think you understand it, you’re probably wrong.

We must take a leap of faith and plunge headfirst into the unknown, for better or for worse.

Jain ethics were the first ethics I encountered whose metaphysical underpinning was compelling and which does a good job of uniting self-interest with ethical behavior. Jain ethics is rationally derived from its metaphysics and therefore avoids much of the fundamental arbitrariness of the principles of other kinds of ethical philosophies.

Jain Metaphysics basically contends that the soul (can be thought of as a synonym for mind - including conscious and unconscious elements) reincarnates and adopts a new physical form each time (can be human or non-human), until it achieves enlightenment (a state of clarity in thought/wisdom/understanding and inner tranquility, which is thought to result in freedom from the cycle of reincarnation). Enlightenment is achieved once the soul has minimized its karmic attachments (to things like greed, hate, anxiety, sadness, specific obsessions, etc…).

I found reincarnation metaphysics sufficiently compelling in light of publications like this (https://med.virginia.edu/perceptual-studies/wp-content/uploads/sites/360/2017/04/REI42-Tucker-James-LeiningerPIIS1550830716000331.pdf). Even if I take an extremely conservative approach to Jain metaphysics such that I only take seriously the parts that seem to coincide with modern academic research done on psychology and Tucker's case reports (like that of James Leininger)... this provides a strong enough reason to conclude that, at the very least:

1.) Reincarnation probably does occur (even if we can't say with certainty that accumulated karmic attachments have a strong influence in the placement of reincarnated souls into their new lives).

2.) Our emotional/verbal/physical responses to things in our lives fundamentally shape our psyche, such that avoiding excesses with regard to these sentiments/responses is rationally beneficial in enabling us to feel tranquil and content. (This is true regardless of whether reincarnation is real or not.) This entails thinking, speaking, and acting in accordance with Jain principles like ahimsa, aparigraha (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-possession#Jainism), etc. Also, Jain epistemology, via the concept of Anekantavada (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anekantavada), facilitates a non-dogmatic and practical approach to our use of principles to guide our lives.

“Neo-Jainism" is how I describe my overall guiding philosophy. It is a genuine re-emphasis on fundamental principles of Jainism as an attempted defiance of global capitalism and as a psychological tool to better enable anti-capitalist praxis.

“Ahimsa" can be more accurately translated as "avoidance of karmic attachment" (to one’s soul) rather than "non-violence" (which is not a very philosophically accurate/robust translation). Attachment (either to commodities, particular sentiments, specific desires, or other things) is a form of himsa (the opposite of Ahimsa), because it results in accumulation of karmic attachment to one’s soul that makes it harder to achieve enlightenment. For this reason, Jainism promotes aparigraha (non-possession & non-possessiveness) as well - a principle that is quite fundamentally and obviously incompatible with property norms. One of the best ways to approach the goal of Ahimsa is through Abhayadana - the minimization of karmic attachment risk to all living beings. In minimizing karmic attachment risk to all living beings, one also minimizes the karmic attachment risk to oneself that would otherwise result from the psychological, cognitively dissonant justification of unethical living that we make to ourselves in our minds and to others in our actions. By looking at this in depth, it seems clear that Ahimsa is incompatible with capitalism and that a truly committed Abhayadana approach would include a strong emphasis on anti-capitalist praxis.

As an anarchist, I would further assert that the principle of aparigraha specifically supports anarcho-communism (rather than market anarchism).

I have found Jainism useful in my own anti-capitalist thought/praxis as well as personally/psychologically/behaviorally helpful.

I think Jainism can be a useful ethics for anarchists and particularly for AnComs for the reasons I outlined above.

I’m happy to share more for those interested.

Let's say, hypothetically, that an anarchist revolution has toppled a nuclearly-armed state and seized its nuclear arsenal. How would anarchist society deal with captured nuclear weapons? Would it:

1. Dismantle said weapons, eliminating the danger of their misuse at the cost of losing nuclear deterrence against hostile, nuclearly-armed states?
2. Keep the weapons and the deterrence they provide?

In case of the former, how could anarchist society reliably defend itself against invasion by a nuclearly-armed state?

Scoring victories in conventional warfare against such an invader would likely not be sufficient, as the state in question could nuke some anarchist cities with no fear of retaliation, in order to terrorise the rest into surrendering (like the US did against Japan in WWII).

In case of the latter, how would nukes be managed in terms of logistics and decision-making, in the face of divergent opinions on the subject?

Would the nuclear arsenal be partitioned between regional federations comprising anarchic territory, each with its own nuclear policy?

Would there be councils of delegates trying to work out a shared, anarchy-wide policy?

Would there be referenda to settle differences of opinion over how the nuclear arsenal, in whole or in part, should be applied?

Many, if not most, right-wingers who adhere to some variation of what they call “anarchy”—ancaps, US-style “libertarians,” etc—are interested in justifying and establishing private tyranny.

But I also encounter plenty who genuinely seem to view their ideology as liberatory in a general sense.

I’ve come to suspect that the appeal of right “anarchism” to them isn’t the promise of unrestricted personal power, but rather a simplified set of rules for managing the complex problem of living freely with other human beings.

People are complex, messy, and often unpredictable. Anarchism is not utopian, and living together with other free people requires a lot of work. There is no state to order us to behave according to predictable rules.

But some people struggle with complexity, nuance, and ambiguity, and right “anarchism” tends to promise simplified rules. Praxeology, argument ethics, the NAP, and natural law deontology all offer their adherents the promise of a shortcut through complexity. Just follow these simple rules, adhere to this simple principle, believe in this simple axiom, and all of it will make sense.

In what is no coincidence, all of these shortcuts and cheat codes also happen to justify and reproduce hierarchies of power and exploitation. But the appeal, at least to some of these folks, is in their simplicity.

I don’t have a good solution to the problem of people genuinely interested in liberation but scared off by complexity and nuance. David Graeber argued that giving people a taste of participatory consensus-building often helped them realize that an entirely different way of social existence was possible, so perhaps some “propaganda of the deed” in the nonviolent sense is needed?

Admittedly I was very doubtful about the possibility of order in any way without some kind of person to guide them. However, I was watching a YouTube video and came to a really odd realization.

The video in question was about old board games equating to video games. The first one was a Pacman board game, which seemed nonsensical to me, as everything had to be manually moved. However, my true realization was when he started playing a Mario board game, as it was very absurd to me; it shouldn't work like it should, it was a card game of enemies and not a platformer. He was not genuinely playing these as much as he was showcasing, but it really dawned on me how the average Joe would've felt the same as the platformer if he was geniunely playing it. This arises something i've never realized. Before this, I thought structured anarchism was impossible. However, I have realized that board games are an anarchy. In an ordinary board game session, it is egalitarian, with no monopoly on violence; everyone can mutually reinforce the rules of the game and cheaters usually will be ostracized without any need for hierarchies. So, this could be an argument for something like an anarchy with a constitution to outline the structure of the commune. Thoughts?

Examples:

1. bodily autonomy: people have justified, legitimate power -- aka authority -- over our own bodies that overrides other people's 'freedom' or desires regarding our bodies.. Iow lack of consent creates a hard limit on what other people can or ought to be able to do to us. At the end of the day this is power, iow the ability to get another person to do what you want or need against their will.

2. smashing the state & ending capitalism: both of these systems of domination & oppression have people who stubbornly cling to these institutions & want one or more frequently both to continue. In order to end them anarchists will need to use coercive power to force these people to give up the state & capitalism. This will need to happen over & over, systematically, and anarchists will need to win repeatedly. This systemic, top down power over & against our enemies has a name: hierarchy. To the extent that society views this power as legitimate it has another name: authority.

3. protecting vulnerable people from their own actions: the classic example is stopping a kid from running into traffic.

4. deplatforming fascists & other bigots: this interferes with their freedom of speech (the general principle not the legal doctrine) against their will.

A common thread with 1., 2. & 4. is that the legitimate power is used to stop people from violating other people's freedom & safety. Number 3. is about protecting people from violating their own future freedom. In the #3 example if you allow the kid maximum freedom, including the freedom to run into a busy street, they are very likely to permanently lose their freedom to do anything by getting run over.

I know that many anarchists aren't going to like this framing. Most of us like to think that we're consistently 100% against hierarchy, domination & authority. But not even in a future anarchist society under the best possible conditions can we avoid the existence of conflicting, incompatible interests which therefore can't be reconciled. Iow there will be some people who turn out to have more power than others in certain instances. One way to think about this is to create an analogy to Karl Popper's paradox of tolerance. In this case it's a paradox of freedom:

" ...he argued that a truly [free] society must retain the right to deny [freedom] to those who promote [unfreedom]. P̶o̶p̶p̶e̶r̶ posited that if [hierarchical] ideologies are allowed unchecked expression, they could exploit [anarchist] values to erode or destroy [anarchism] itself through authoritarian or oppressive practices."¹

Chomsky also advanced a minimalist account of antiauthoritianism which specifically allows for justified authority:

"The basic principle I would like to see communicated to people is the idea that every form of authority and domination and hierarchy has to prove that its justified - it has no prior justification...the burden of proof for any exercise of authority is always on the person exercising it - invariably. And when you look, most of the time those authority structures have no justification: they have no moral justification, they have no justification in the interests of the person lower in the hierarchy, or in the interests of other people, or the environment, or the future, or the society, or anything else - they are just there in order to preserve certain structures of power and domination, and the people at the top."²

Keep in mind though that Chomsky's³ 'proof' & 'justification' are extremely unlikely to convince the people who are forced to do or not do something against their will. In addition the justification is going to look like a rationalization to anyone who doesn't agree with the action.

Finally I've seen people try to claim that 'force' somehow avoids being a form of hierarchical power or domination etc. Force is just another word for power though and successful force means prevailing over people, against their will. Succesfully justifying that use of force only makes it authority in the sense of "legitimate power." Successful self-defense = legitimate power/force over an attacker. etc. etc.

¹my edits in brackets; original quote from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance

²https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/9505294-the-basic-principle-i-would-like-to-see-communicated-to

³I agree with lots of criticisms that correctly point out how Chomsky is a liberal. One example is his Voltaire-like / ACLU style free speech absolutism. There are many other examples. But his account of antiauthoritianism (quoted above) is much better able to survive scrutiny than the impossible idea that anarchism is or can be 100% free of authority or hierarchy.

Hey guys I consider myself a libertarian socialist, but I still have a few questions on how it could function after a revolution particularly.

I've contacted solidarity federation in the UK but still got no response so I'm just wondering if you could help before I join?

1. Anarchism states that the majority is needed for it to work, my question is do you really think they're gonna let you get to a majority?

History shows that when radicals poll around 30% the capitalists always, ALWAYS initiate dictatorship to crush us. So what you gonna do then?

2. But okay, best case scenario, what if regions disagreed with the vote of the majority at federal conference? Or what if the majority starts calling for capitulation to capitalism because of the suffering?

(Like in Baku, Kronstadt and other cities the Bolsheviks had rebel where we know they're going to turn capitalist or allow capitalists in? Or like some farmers/collectivised factories that the CNT had to replace with bosses because of the same?) You need to remember, the capitalist world is going to do the most horrific shit they can to make us suffer. People are going to be tired, desperate, hungry and hopeless, what will you do when they want to capitulate?

3. Would we implement conscription to protect the revolution if we're attacked?

Revolutions show that while most people can be sympathetic, they will not fight, only the most conscious fight, sadly they're usually the first to die because of this.

4. What about defeatists who undermine morale? Do we arrest them?

5. After a revolution what if we're isolated (i.e France goes fascist), what do we do about nukes? What if people vote in capitalism so they stop blockading us?

That would mean our certain death btw, the capitalists aren't going to let us just stand down from power.

A lot of my fellow radicals are de-facto voluntaryists (anti-coercion), rather than true anarchists (anti-hierarchy).

Now, the reason I subscribe to the anti-hierarchy principle, but not the anti-coercion principle, is because it’s impossible to eliminate all coercion.

Even in a totally non-hierarchical society, unauthorised and unjustified acts of coercion, taken on our own responsibility without right or permission, are sometimes going to be a necessary evil.

For example, suppose a pregnant woman is in a coma. We have no idea whether she wants to be pregnant or not.

One solution would be to ask her family, but there’s a risk that her family could be lying. Perhaps they’re seriously anti-abortion, so they falsely claim that the woman wishes to be pregnant, to protect the foetus at the expense of the woman’s interests.

Personally, I think an unwanted pregnancy is worse than an unwanted abortion, so I would support abortion in the woman’s best interests.

This is undeniably a form of reproductive coercion, but we’re forced into a situation where it’s simply impossible to actually get consent either way. We have to pick our poison, or choose the lesser of two evils.

Another problem for voluntaryists, besides the fact that eliminating all coercion is an impossible goal, is that even “voluntary hierarchy” still seems to be a bad thing.

For example, people could freely associate in a bigoted or discriminatory way, choosing to shun or ostracise people based on race, religion, disability, or gender/sexuality.

This would be hierarchical, but not coercive. I personally think that bigotry is fundamentally incompatible with anarchy, and I find it morally repulsive at a basic level.

I’m an anarchist because I believe in equality, which I find to be a good-in-itself. Voluntaryism, unlike anarchism, isn’t rooted in egalitarian principles, so it doesn’t align with my fundamental values.

But perhaps the voluntaryists might just have different ethical foundations than I do, in which case, our differences are irreconcilable.

So, I’ve been thinking a lot about anarchism recently and thought about something which I feel is crucial to its success. How do we prevent a “might makes right” situation from unfolding by which organised, well-armed groups establish in order to achieve a particular goal. For example, say I particularly disliked a specific group of people/community; I could quite easily hop online and organise an armed militia of like-minded individuals to carry out attacks on said community. We have seen this in the past with groups such as the Ku Klux Klan, surpassing well over 3,000,000 members. And in a society without a state military/police, how could anyone feasibly stop a 100,000+ member armed group from rampaging around the nation committing terrible acts? Bear in mind that due to the abolition of the military, these groups could easily salvage armoured cars, tanks, aircraft, drones, missile systems etc. Sort of like the Taliban after the US military left tonnes of equipment behind while evacuating Afghanistan, except on a MUCH larger scale. Unfortunately, I cannot think of a good way of preventing such an outcome from eventually unfolding. Especially in a more disconnected society comprised of individual communes/groups.  

A market is a formal place of exchange or in other senses an abstracted idea of a place owning resources and exchanging them with another place. Usually markets do exchange through currency (because barter is horrendously inefficient). Usually currency is earned, not given. You have to do a task to get a compensated currency. Usually there is an assumption of private ownership; you have to own the things you are exchanging.

Markets are not capitalist. They do not necessitate private ownership of the means of production. Production can work collectively, while goods are still exchanged through a market.

With all that said, I simply can not see how markets are worthwhile in an anarchist society. Assuming that the goal of anarchism is to liberate people from systems that keep them from living truly fulfilled lives, then the market will only prevent this from being completely realised.

It's not so much about how good markets can work to exchange things, they obviously do well at this task. It's more about the reliance on money and the necessary condition that you have to do tasks to get that money. And it is necessary. If money was simply given out to people, it completely defeats the purpose of the market. Rhetorically speaking, anyone can simply buy anything they want. So why are people selling things to begin with? So the alternative is that people Must work to be able to earn whatever currency it is to be able to live.

And let's assume that basic necessities are not on the market, housing, food, water are all given. The only thing on the market are luxuries or less necessary goods. While yes you won't be forced to work to survive anymore, you will now simply be stuck at a simple standard of living and have to accept that. Or be forced to do work if you want anything else.
And this opens the doors pretty clearly to wealth inequality. Some people will have more money than others. Some people will have more of an ability to get what they want compared to others. Now you're surrounded by people who have a better standard of living, but you're just told to suck it up and force yourself to work if you want all of that too.

Doesn't it just sound so awful? And sure, I'm biased against markets in the first place but I don't think I'm being terribly unfair.

The alternative to currency is barter and thats convoluted. Simply understand the problem of wanting a good but not having a good the other person wants to exchange with. And the long fetch quest you'll have to go on to find a good they want that also you can exchange for.

So, Why would this system that forces you to work and clearly just creates wealth inequality be better than an alternative economic system that simply produces things and then distributes those things where they're needed? Where local communities don't own anything and you don't own anything (besides respecting personal property). Where we all simply share things amongst each other and not expect there to be some kind of exchange. Like some hub of goods where people can go to simply get what they want or give things they don't want, so that others can take it if they want it.

This, I believe, refocuses life to be about Actually living life (as opposed to playing a money game and being forced to work). You can spend less time thinking about how you're going to get what you want and more time thinking about how you want to spend your unique human life. And there will be other systems and beliefs in place to ensure that people help each other and collectively maintain society too. We are talking about anarchism here after all.

This sounds immensely more simple. And immensely more respectful to human life. Exchange simply doesn't need to exist. Money simply doesn't need to exist. A life focused on work and production doesn't need to be our focus. So we simply do not need markets.

I first became aware of Anoma on an episode from the "Blockchain Socialist" podcast (see here: https://theblockchainsocialist.com/anoma-undefininig-money-and-scaling-anarchism-with-christopher-goes-cer/ ), after which I read the vision paper and white paper. The vision paper is helpful in explaining the potential utility of Anoma from an anti-capitalist perspective: https://anoma.net/vision-paper.pdf (section 4 starts on page 35, describing Anoma itself in detail, though I recommending the rest of the vision paper as well in order to understand the context/motivations behind Anoma's design).

Basically, Anoma can make multiparty, multivariate exchange feasible in such a way as to make numeraires/exchange mediums (such as currency or credit) obsolete.

I'm interested to hear your thoughts.

According to this source, microchips manufacture is divided among 1000's of specialized firms spread among 8 nations. How would anarchist systems that make use of gift-economies facilitate/obviate/replace this?

Let's say that I am a full time artist. I want to contribute to the community with my art.
But, no one in the community likes or wants it. Then what?

What if I live in a very areligious community and I've had a personal revelation and I want my contribution to the community to be my teaching of the words of Christ? I want to dedicate every second of my life to studying the bible and preaching God's word. But, the community has ZERO interest in this? Then what?

In both instances I would be willing to freely contribute to the community, but in a way that the community doesn't value. What would happen?

-------------------

EDIT:

Thanks to everyone that responded. It seems that there is no general agreement on the answer to this question.

Some say,

"You would still have access to the same housing, grocery centers, and hospitals that you already had access to . Anarchism doesn't hold people's lives hostage by demanding "you have contribute what I want you to contribute before you can 'earn a living'."

others says,

"The community would likely simply not count the person's personal endeavors as a contribution. From there, they can simply take corrective measures until the person agrees to start contributing in ways that the community wants."

Ok so lets assume (since anarchists are anti-prison) that they would allow all inmates to leave assuming the state where abolished. Now the majority of people who are imprisoned aren't a danger to wider society, hence they wouldn't be too much of an issue to set free. However, how do you deal with those who are? e.g mass shooters, terrorists and the like. The main reason such people have life setences in the first place; is because they would likley seek to cause harm as soon as they where freed. Now before anyone says "rehabilitation", I have done some research into this issue and the general consensus was that not all people can be rehabilitated; regardless of how hard you try. Hence I'm asking today how anarchists can effectively abolish prisons while keeping the rest of society safe from such dangerous individuals?

Let's say, hypothetically, an anarchist revolution has toppled a developed nation-state somewhere in Europe. Its neighbouring capitalist states now have a vested interest in seizing and partitioning newly-redistributed wealth, installing a dependend regime and pre-empting a threat to themselves under the guise of "restoring order" and "enforcing international law". Some of said states have decided to pursue this interest through military means, deploying their well-funded professional armed forces, with willingness to sustain grevious losses before backing down.

How would an anarchist society effectively defend itself from this threat?

How would it manage production and distribution of advanced military hardware, such as tanks and aircraft?

How would it ensure its fighters and strategists are skilled enough to compete with people who have spent years preparing for war? I imagine that any anarchist revolution that would have made it that far would have also won over some soldiers and generals of its host country, but that's not a sustainable way of acquiring trained personnel.

How would an anarchy do all of that without re-establishing a dictatorial military structure that would threaten to end the anarchic project from within?

I don't think that defeating one state from within, through years or decades of revolution-building would in-and-of-itself render an anarchy greatly adept at winning wars with other states, as these are quite different feats.

In every case of authority, one party holds the right to punish another.

Parents are allowed to smack their children. Bosses are allowed to fire their workers. Landlords are allowed to evict their tenants. Governments are allowed to imprison their citizens.

But this right is always asymmetrical. The punishment is unidirectional, from the dominant party to the subordinate.

If a slave was to beat or kill their master, they would be challenging authority, rather than asserting it. The slave would almost certainly suffer severe consequences for their act of rebellion.

The right to punish can be easily distinguished from random acts of revenge or retaliation, which occur without social sanction and can even cross the line into criminal territory.

Acts of force or coercion, whether morally justifiable or not, do not actually constitute authority by themselves.

Authority is a very specific, and easily recognisable sort of social relationship, with real and material effects on people’s everyday lives.

Just wondering how many people here started out with a Marxist view before leaning into anarchism or other ideologies. Are you still on the fence or have you gone full anarchist? And for those who haven’t been involved with Marxism at all, what's your take on the whole spectrum of leftist thought?

on a funny note: I always think of the relationship between anarchists and communists as twins, who always fight but stand up for the other, if someone tries to attack them, do you agree with that?

I'l preface this post by aaying I've only recently gotten started reading any political theory in general, let alone anarchist writings (just started reading Anarchy Works). But one thought I keep coming back to is how the internet would operate and look like in a post-capitalist world.

The size and prevelance of the world wide web seems from an uneducated (my) view to be very deeply interlinked to the economy it's been built in, with companies having massive server farms for their high-traffic websites. So I'm curious as to what people think about the following questions: in what ways would the digital landscape change? How would the process of change even happen? Is it even feasable that it would still function at the same scale it does today, especially when it comes to things like social media websites that have become so interwoven in the day-to-day lives of people?

The foundational ideological myth of liberalism is that humanity began in a lawless state of nature, and developed systems of authority to solve conflicts in the initial anarchic state of affairs.

But the myth is just that, a myth.

Anarchy is the absence of all hierarchy and social stratification, not just the state. Pre-state societies are not representative of what an anarchist society would look like.

We can look at anthropological evidence to disprove this myth.

Australian Aboriginal cultures had a patriarchal clan-based social order, with elders wielding status and power over the youth. They had a whole tradition of oral customary law, backed by their Dreamtime religion, as well as a system of arranged marriages.

Since Australia was the only continent (besides Antarctica) that never went through the Neolithic Revolution, this kind of social structure would be the most representative of pre-state Palaeolithic human cultures.

Crushing the myth of the state of nature is the first step in deprogramming people away from liberalism.

Anarchism is not a return to how humans previously organised for the past 100,000 years, but a progressive movement that advocates a radical and unprecedented transformation of the old order.

We have never had anarchy before, and that’s okay. Innovation and change are good for human society.

Moral arguments are an attempt to rationalize sentiments that have no rational basis. For example: One's emotional distress and repulsion to witnessing an act of rape isn't the result of logical reasoning and a conscious selection of which sentiment to experience. Rather, such sentiments are outside of our control or conscious decision-making.

People retrospectively construct arguments to logically justify such sentiments, but these logical explanations aren't the real basis for said sentiments or for what kinds of actions people are/aren't okay with.

Furthermore, the recent empirical evidence (e.g. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3572111/) favoring determinism over free will appears to call moral agency into serious question. Since all moral arguments necessarily presuppose moral agency, a universal lack of moral agency would negate all moral arguments.

I am a moral nihilist, but I am curious how moral realist anarchists grapple with the issues raised above.

The ammount of suffering that animals in food Industries go through is inimaginable. Just try to think that since you being born, your whole life is already planned, for male chicks in egg industry it immidietly ends by gassing them or blending them ALIVE. For pigs for meat, their live ends when they are ONLY couple years old, often by electrocution or gassing them ALIVE again, they suffer, struggle for every breath before they pass out, to have a knife sliced across their throat, still often being concious, bc gass doesn't kill, only stuns for some time. Chicken body parts that you all see in KFC belonged to 6 week chicken baby at max, they were bread in horrible conditons similar to Nazi Death Camps, just scaled to chickens, when they walked they broke their bones due to being overweight by genetic modification, cows in dairy industry are regularly raped by farm workers to have babies, babies then are ripped from their mother and either made into another milk producing plant or sent to the slaughter house, if not immidietly murdered at the farm. That's a reality, reality that most of you probably take part in, you don't even have to be anarchist to recognize that it is the atrocity. We murder TRILLIONS (Including fish and sea animald) animals per year, if that is not an animal holocaust (term first used by the holocaust survivor) then I don't know what it is). There is no illness that prevents anyone from being vegan, in fact it's proven that going vegan can prevent some illnesses to occur.

Before you will say, that it's personal choice, just read it.

Personal choice is only a personal choice if there are no others involved in that choice, it's not a personal choice to go kick a dog just like it's not a personal choice to eat meat and eggs and dairy bc you actively take away non-human animals rights that anarchists claim to be for. Definition of freedom and self Determination (for what ALL anarchists stand for) is in direct conflict to take part in the biggest animal abuse on the planet.

And, before you say another thing like, "It's just HOW we do it is bad, not killing itself" let me ask you, does it matter if I kick my dog hard or soft? Does it matter if I only beat my child once a week or 7 days a week? Both of these things are bad, and shouldn't be accepted, so why is it accepted to murder these animals for no reason? No, making a living is not a reason to not abolish that thing, just like it wasn't when abolishing slavery, I care for real farmers not animal abusers. And again, look how it compares, just kicking a dog, most of the people would beat u up for it, but when it comes to MURDER of pigs, cows and chickens people will laugh when some want to protect them.

I don't call for people without means to go vegan, to go vegan, but dont treat it as if you are poor you can't be vegan, vegan diet is cheapest diet in the world if u eat whole foods, beans, grains, legumes etc.

That's a thing to think about, and act on what you can clearly see is better option. Go Vegan

https://veganuary.com/

https://www.dominionmovement.com/watch

Consider the following:

• In an anarchist society there is no authoritarian mechanism that would prevent an individual owning a variety of weapons. Feasibly an individual and their friends could own any collection of firearms, produce and own chemical warheads for mortars and artillery and a variety of military style vehicles as personal property - with the caveat that these are not actively being used to infringe on the personal freedoms of others. Accordingly a fascist could drive their personal APC to the socially owned grocery store, walk in with their fascist symbol on display, have their RPG slung over their shoulder and do their groceries.

• In an anarchist society there would be no authoritarian mechanism (via either force or beauracracy) to peacably manage or discourage unsavory ideological positions - like fascism or racism. It would be authoritarian to control people's political views or have any kind of legal system to prevent these views from being spread and actioned. A stateless system could not have an agreed social convention that could preventatively protect the interest of minority groups.

• In historical instances of fascism coming to power, individuals who disagreed with fascism but who were not the direct scapegoats that fascists identified as primary targets of oppression did not take any kind of action to prevent fascists from oppressing others. It was only after significant oppression had already occurred that actions, subversive or combative, began to take place.

With this in mind it seems that anarchism expressly enables intimidation and first action oppression by forbidding anarchist societies from enacting preventative measures against unsavory ideologies - directly impacting minority groups.

Why should this be taken seriously as a pragmatic solution to prevent coercion and hierarchy?

Should somebody do something that large numbers of others consider bad enough to look into, but it isn't obvious who did it, how, with no courts, will false accusations be kept to a minimum? Most anarchists accept that, without governments, large groups will get together to nonviolently shame those who overstep important cultural bounds into making up with those they've offended. But what will those interested do should there be no obvious culprit.

You might be tempted to point out the many miscarriages of justice in modern courts. However, courts specifically have mechanisms to keep this down. Jurors and judges have to lack vested interest, the jury's vote has to be unanimous, and both sides are guaranteed an advocate.

The biggest problems with the courts are rich people hiring the best lawyers, and jurymen being biased against certain groups, such as other races. However, these issues will likely be worse without courts. Instead of the rich hiring lawyers, we'll simply see the most charismatic people smooth talking their way out of trouble. And the other side won't be guaranteed a spokesman. Biased jurymen will just be biased neighbors.

And what of the actual gathering of evidence?

I'm still taking my first steps in truly learning about anarchy, and as I delve deeper, I keep asking myself: where are all the anarchists?

It seems pretty clear to most people in our society that socialists and communists are still quite present, but what about anarchists? When exactly did this beautiful word become almost synonymous with "chaos" or "disorder," while "communism" came to mean "dictatorship" or "autocracy", and "capitalism" "freedom"?

It's the struggles of anarchists that won us the 8-hour workday and other rights that workers today often overlook, forgetting how hard they were to achieve—and under which ideology?

It breaks my heart to know that many people have no idea what "anarchy" truly means, that searching for anarchist voices online yields only one or two (who probably don’t get much attention) compared to other ideologies.

How do we change this? How do we unite? How do we show people that this is real, this is our fight, this is freedom?

(As I said, I'm still learning so if I said any nonsense here, please tell me)