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Hey all, I was wondering if you could point to any anarchist system in the history of humanity that can actually work. From what I can gather Anarchism is a system doomed to fail, it has never worked in the history of humanity. I would argue that it contradicts human nature. also, people who claim to love anarchism, love to use the thing and services from the non-anarchist system. can anyone else see the hypocrisy in that?

Title says it all. This stems from a discussion in a different place where I stated that I think that anarchists today are among and for The Left, and a friend (rhetorically) disagreed.

It seems to me that a perfect anarchist society would last about ten minutes before someone went "I want that" and took it because they knew they could get away with it. Without laws and a state to enforce them, what is to keep this from happening?

I'd describe myself as a right leaning libertarian and I really don't understand the left libertarian ideas. Socialism seems inherently statist to me. I'm sure I could warm up to Anarchism as it's anti-state but I get oppresionist vibes from it.

Unless of course we don't want to bring up the "voluntary associations" story.

Which is cool for me, but then this leads to another question: where are you going, should your ideal village/town/city stop to be bearable for you?

Assuming that the answer is "somewhere else" (can't logically think to a more generic one) then we have two possibilities:

• the piece of land you'd like to live is already "taken" (in which case you'd be violating somebody else property/rights)

• the piece of land you'd like to live is either wild or forsaken (aka available, empty, free), but this actually seems the very definition of inefficiency

Then of course we can always assume an arbitrary population size for this problem not to even present, but with no authority whatsoever to enforce or at least influence this (and no expectable shared right values/ideas) that just sidesteps the possible issue.

^EDIT: ^case ^in ^point

"A trolley is on course to run over five completely innocent industrialists who are tied to the track. However, if you pull the lever it will change tracks and kill no-one but in so-doing enter private property who's owner has expressly forbidden trolleys thus it would violate the NAP."

what do you do?

How does anarchism deal with the power vacuums generally caused when a statist organization is overthrown?

The government is simply the monopolized use of force on a population. If there is no government to use force to keep people from using force, then what is there to stop a group of people from using force to enforce their rules on a population? Just because a government is dissolved it doesnt mean the use of force has been eradicated. What do we do when a new group uses force to acheive their goals?

S/t

First of all, I'd like to thank you for being available to share your view. Im interested in developing my own worldview and I've found that a lot of political groups are not very approachable.

Anyway, I lean anarcho-capitalist - at least at the moment. Capitalism seems like a natural extension of complete freedom to me. How is it seen as an authoritarian system?

Also, when you talk about "capitalists" are you referring to business owners? Just to be clear, I feel that in an ideal world everybody would own their own business.

I'm really curious as I can't imagine a way in which society can exist and humans work together without there being a power structure.

Edit: For anyone the least bit interested in the rant below, I came across some answers today after a conversation with a teacher of mine. When talking about anarchy (left-winged) we do assume it is utilitarian (I apologize for my ignorance in my rant; from my perspective I thought happiness was more individualist, but that's for right-winged anarchy) Furthermore, we also assume that under anarchy, communes will form in order to respectfully address everyone's beliefs and thus do away with private property in these communes. (I find this very similar to the Kibbutz) however private property still exists in right-winged anarchy (yet is in virtually impossible to have a lot of private property) Therefore, happiness will be achieved as so desired within a commune. Private property doesn't exist and neither does government which would, in theory, eradicate desire and greed because it is the government and private property that brews inhuman attributes in a human-being. With this said, I'm hoping an anarchist will help verify this! Additionally, will an anarchist please explain how these communes will interact? If they do interact or how an individual eventually finds him/herself with a new belief or quest for happiness and thus wants to go to another commune, how can he/she do so? How does innovation occur? Thanks!

I've been obsessing over left-wing ideologies for quite some time the past few months and have been toying with many questions to ask Reddit. I wouldn't call myself an anarchist, socialist, libertarian , or a communist, but I believe in equality, freedom, and happiness, and I don't believe in a corrupt capitalist system where private wealth is brewed by exploiting impoverished and unprivileged populations. So, I'm here at "debate an anarchist" where I'm hoping someone may help me out. I should begin by saying I'm not well educated in all of the literature that exists on left-winged ideologies. I watch debates, read excerpts, essays, articles, blogs, and listen to quite a bit of folk punk, so hopefully I won't get brutally attacked for any of my ignorance.
With my understanding, anarchism is the polar end of the spectrum for left beliefs (although others wouldn't place anarchism on a political compass at all). I understand that anarchism fosters atheism and is essentially nihilistic. Government doesn't exist and individuals will have (in theory) maximum freedom to partake in activities that would promote happiness (outside of basic necessities) due to an absence of a hierarchy. I have a perspective that happiness should be achieved by everyone; however, not in a utilitarian way, but a more individualistic approach, which I think can be achieved through anarchy (I'm pretty sure this is the whole foundation of anarchy). So here, anarchy would work in theory if every individual took responsibility for his/hers actions. So I'm confused on a few things. --Please prepare yourself for a wave of ignorance.-- How can we be sure that another mans freedom won't infringe upon another mans freedoms? And how do you approach this question through a nihilistic lens Education? Please explain how to ensure equality (if education still existed in schools) ex. Tolstoy experimental school or Goodman's belief on an external schooling I like to say I'm an agnostic atheist (I don't believe that God created the us, but that we created God and that it would be selfish for me to deny the existence of something more intelligent than me thus I believe another life-form could be more intelligent and therefore God) however, I do believe that man invented God out of necessity and for some people religion is necessary. I've read a bit about this and there are certainly some individuals who are religious and anarchist, but wouldn't religion in anarchy go against the whole theory? And once we introduce new beliefs aren't we going against theory and potentially bringing in new dilemmas that could infringe upon another persons freedom?

I imagine I do believe anarchy is the solution to happiness in a society ( I especially like spiritual anarchism) but it's a topic you will become quickly ostracized for mentioning. So I've mentioned some pretty basic questions here.

Instead of complaining that the state requires you to?

Someone will take complete power and you won't be able to do anything against it, because anything goes in anarchism. Nobody makes the rules, so there can't be a rule to maintain anarchy.

Hi guys,

So I asked this question about a year ago in anarchy101 when I was first being introduced to the concepts central to an anarchist system, but I don't think I had enough knowledge about said systems to really engage intellectually.

So what I'm wondering is this. Within a fully democratic anarchist world, would we be able to engage in large, multinational projects that impact a significant group of peoples? I'm thinking of projects like the LHC, or building high speed rails across large territories. I guess what it comes down to is I'm not convinced that a direct democratic process that required full consensus would ever be able to reach said consensus when the proposed project impacted millions of people.

I would like to add that I consider myself a leftist (not sure about the exact title), so I'm not saying that if we couldn't build these projects it'd be a deal breaker - I'm just wondering if they would end up a casualty of the new system.

Thanks in advance guys.

The quote is attributed to Oscar Wilde; the point is that having other people to make decisions i.e. bureaucrats and representatives, frees us up to live our lives.

Under a decentralised, non-hierarchical, democratic system our lives might be overburdened with meetings for every aspect of our lives:

e.g. factory council meetings, meetings for various consumer co-ops, political/activist meetings, housing co-op meetings, local commune/residential council meetings and so on...

Wouldn't this take away from our ability to live our lives and pursue our own goals plus waste a hell of a lot of time?

I've seen several people claim this, putting forward that "speciesism" is a form of hierarchy that should naturally be opposed by anarchists. What does everyone think?

I hear a lot from ancoms and some libertarian socialists that we've basically reached the end of resource scarcity for all but the needlessly greedy - there is enough food for everyone, now! In that case, is it right to praise state-capitalism for getting us to that point? Or should it have been achieved better under a socialist or other system so that so many people wouldn't have suffered (and continue to suffer) under the yoke of the state and the corporate interests it serves?

Ancaps: Was state intervention in capitalism ever necessary, in order to establish a footing for a true free market? Clearly the state arose from somewhere - some violent rights-violator was able to oppress others before competition in DROs took hold. Did we need the state as a holdover to get us to a point where we had the technology and social advancement to pave the way for the true free market? Or was it always an abomination to be reviled?

What does this question mean for historical materialism in your ideology? Ancaps: Do you think there's some truth in the idea that society has necessary phases through which to progress to a final utopian form? Ancoms: Do you stick by historical materialism (if, that is, you ever did agree with it) even if it means agreeing that state capitalism was a necessary and even positive step forward towards full communism?

The question everyone wants answered is 'what is capitalism? What does it do?. The problem henceforth has been that we have tried to understand capitalism by breaking it down into parts and watching them swirl about, tracking their motion. The defining feature of capitalism is not the motion, it is the Mass around which the motion orbits.

This Mass that draws into itself all human motions when mediated through capitalism's social relations is the Law of Value.

The Law of Value

What did Marx find so interesting about capitalist societies? It wasn’t just the freedom to buy or sell anything you wanted. It was the fact that in order to participate in the social life of a market society one has to buy and sell things. In order to survive, in order to participate in society, one has to enter the market to buy things and to sell the products of their own labor. This is a distinctly different organization of society than previous societies where working people largely supported themselves with their own labor- that is, they labored to make things for their own use. (Or more specifically, laboring classes supported themselves with their own labor and supported the ruling class.) In a capitalist society people don’t make things that have any use for themselves at all. They produce things in order to exchange them. Thus the coordination of the social labor process happens indirectly through exchange.

In a society of private producers, coordinated indirectly through the market, the social relations between these people take the form of relations between things, of commodity relations. The relations between people become value relations expressed in commodity prices. Economically, people can only relate to each other through money prices, through value. This world of commodity relations takes an independent form, outside of the control of individuals, that acts back upon and directs the flow of human affairs. Adam Smith called it the “hidden hand of the market.” Marx calls it “the law of value.”

What is the law of value? It is the impersonal, blind forces of the economy exerting their influence upon society. It is unique to a society in which the dominant form of labor is production for market exchange. The relations between people become value relations between commodities. And these value relations become impersonal forces which have unexpected consequences for society.

There is a spectre haunting our world, the spectre of the free market. Right-Libertarians believe that markets can operate without creating this massive black hole of Value. Many young ones are believing them, but at an age where they are still open to alternatives.

It should be a priority to show that exchange does not happen in isolation, but that every exchange is part of Social Body which develops its own gravity, the Law of Value.

Perhaps the strangest thing for people to understand is the idea of property, how it relates to possessions, and what we oppose.