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)

There was a debate on this subreddit about whether or not an anarchist can believe in the concept of evil and the responses led me to conclude that anarchists don't believe that human nature exists.

In other words, anarchists don't believe that the majority of people are born with a specific personality trait (a set of emotional predispositions) that limits the human species' behavior and its capacity to change for better or worse.

If people are not born evil or good or to be more precise, mostly good (inherently good) or mostly evil (inherently evil), then human nature probably doesn't exist. Likewise, if no one is born a serial killer or psychopath and no one is born an angel, then human morality cannot be an innate tendency and, therefore, human nature probably doesn't exist.

Do anarchists have to adopt the social constructionist view that human values and perhaps human nature itself are socially constructed? If morality is socially constructed and depends upon environmental conditions, then morality, however it may be defined, is not an innate human tendency.

For the purpose of this debate, I'm going to define morality as a social norm for harm reduction i.e. the idea that moral actions are actions that seek to minimize the emotional or physical harm caused to others.

Let's debate the idea that humans have an innate tendency to reduce harm in other humans and nonhuman animals rather than debate what the correct definition of morality is. This is not a debate about semantics.

Is human nature so infinitely malleable by environmental constraints (or material conditions) that it practically doesn't exist?

When I use the term "human nature", I'm not referring to basic human needs and desires such as thirst, hunger, and sexual arousal. I've not seen anyone dispute the idea that humans generally dislike bitter-tasting food, but in some cultures bitter-tasting foods are popular. I've also not seen anyone dispute the idea that most cultures will eat whatever foods are readily available in their natural environment even if that means eating bugs. I've also not seen anyone dispute the idea that humans have evolved to not eat their own or other animal's bodily waste and that coprophagia in humans is not a medical disorder. And lastly, even though there are debates about whether or not humans evolved to be carnivores, herbivores, or omnivores, I've not seen anyone argue that human nutritional needs are socially constructed. So, all of these variables are not what this OP is about.

It may well be the case that most anarchists believe that humans are born to be carnivores or omnivores, but must strive to be vegans to fully align their behavior with their anarchist principles. This too is not what we seek to debate in this OP.

What s a matter of contention and what social constructionists actually argue is that things such as gender relations, gender norms, religion and spirituality or the lack thereof, sexual promiscuity, sexual preferences and sexual fetishes, marriage traditions or the lack thereof, the practice of incest, the choice between hunting and gathering or agriculture or horticulture, the structure of a nation's or culture's economy, and its legal system or lack thereof, are all socially constructed and are not innate human tendencies.

Psychologists have formulated theories that presuppose that human nature exists and that all humans have innate psychological tendencies that are not directly related to human biology such as Social Identity Theory, Social Dominance Orientation, and System Justification. If human nature does not exist, then all these psychological theories are wrong and the social constructionist theory of human nature is correct.

Another theory of human nature aligned with the anarchist rejection of human nature is the psychological theory of behaviorism.

Do anarchists reject the psychological theories of innate human behavior in favor of social constructionism and behaviorism?

And if so, is anarchism more in line with social constructionism or behaviorism, or would it be best described as some kind of cultural materialism - the theory advocated for by the Anthropologist, Marvin Harris?

Religions also presuppose that human nature exists. Even religions that espouse the idea that free will exists are still interpreted in such a way as to promote the idea that human nature exists. For example, the Bible says that homosexuality is a sin, therefore, most Christians assume that homosexuality must a be choice for God to consider such behavior a sin. They believe God only punishes humans for wrong choices, but not for innate tendencies or preordained desires crafted by God because they believe God is omnibenevolent.

Does anarchism, as a political ideology, reject all religions because all religions assume that humans have some sort of fixed human nature that is not malleable?

Do anarchists believe sexual orientation is a choice? And do anarchists believe that gender and racial identities are choices?

Does anarchism or anarchist literature have a coherent theory of what set of human values are choices and what set of human values are innate and non-malleable human tendencies?

I believe human nature does exist and I believe in a mixture of theories: Social Dominance Orientation and Cultural Materialism.

While I am not an anarcho-primitivist, it's worth pointing out the falsehood in the widely held idea (even amongst anarchists) that humanity could not live without some form of mass-adopted agriculture given the projected peak population (10.4 billion within this century).

A couple examples of non-agricultural approaches that would provide ample food for humanity are the following (listed in no particular order):

Mass Microalgae Production is quite capable of satisfying the protein needs of humanity (and several micronutrient needs as well), with a relatively minimal ecological footprint. Furthermore, microalgae production can help mitigate global warming via mass production in a carbon-negative manner.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2213453018301435#bib0055

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2666833522000454#sec0005

https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/nutrition/articles/10.3389/fnut.2020.565996/full

https://ecommons.cornell.edu/items/4db4ef95-26a0-42d1-8284-810c2309e580

https://academic.oup.com/bioscience/article/60/9/722/238034

Mass Re-wilding + Hunting/Gathering is quite capable of satisfying the fat, carbohydrate, and protein needs of humanity (as well as several micronutrient needs). One example could be proliferating the Mongongo tree across all viable semi-arid habitats on the planet via nomadic horticultural practices, which could provide 328,418 kcal per person per year for a population of 10.4 billion humans (this is with a relatively conservative estimate of 250kg of mongongo nuts produced per hectare). To put this figure in perspective... Assuming the average human consumes 2000 kcal/day, 328,418 kcal per person per year is enough to satisfy the caloric needs of all 10.4 billion humans for 164 days per year (just from one food source!). To be clear, I am not advocating or suggesting that it would be healthy for anyone to eat nothing but Mongongo everyday for almost half the year. I am just presenting the figures in this way to convey just how ample a source of kcal (and micronutrients) Mongongo can be as one (of multiple) pillars of a non-agricultural food system.

https://journals.co.za/doi/pdf/10.10520/AJA20785135_33576

https://www.cabidigitallibrary.org/doi/abs/10.1079/cabicompendium.48788#:~:text=In%20addition%2C%20the%20fruit%20contains,ha%20in%20Angola%20and%20Namibia

https://www.naturalhub.com/natural_food_guide_nuts_uncommon_ricinodendron_rautanenii.htm

https://docsbay.net/doc/825739/arid-lands-challenges-and-hopes

https://ourworldindata.org/land-use#:~:text=The%20land%20area%20of%20the,%25%20of%20the%20land%20area

I am a democratic socialist and although I sympathise with anarchists, I do not consider anarchy to be the best possible alternative to current political systems. That is mainly because of four issues with anarchism which I have identified from my non-scholarly perspective. I would love to see said criticisms adressed by members of this subreddit, whom I assume to be more knowledgeable on the subject that I am.

Throughout this post, I will be contrasting my concept of state-based democratic socialism with my concept of anarchy in order to explain why I think the former is preferable. I acknowledge that the world is full of dire political systems that are vastly inferior to anarchy. I am simply interested in figuring out which leftist alternative is the best option.

1. The problem of provision

One thing that states seem to excel at at is mustering and redirecting huge quantities of resources, mainly in the form of tax money and to a lesser extent, goods and services provided by state-owned companies. While in deeply-corrupt capitalist states such the US, a double-digit percentage of these resources gets wasted on things like big business subsidies or imperialist wars, it doesn't have to be this way. In social democracies such as Denmark, the redistributive fuction of the state takes the form of a robust welfare system, which provides people unable to provide for themselves (parents with small children, the unemployed, the disabled) with the means to live a decent life in spite of their circumstances. Public healthcare and education, including highly expensive and specialised university education, are likewise fuelled by redirected taxes.

A democratic socialist state could retain and expand upon this beneficial form of mass redistribution, futher reducing poverty and eliminating homelessness. A prosperous state could even redirect a significant portion resources abroad, to less-developed regions of the world, not in the form of weapons but, for example, technology, construction materials and hired specialists needed to carry out energy transition away from fossil fuels. Democracy, itself safeguarded by anti-lobbying laws, frequent referendums and replacement of capitalist corporations with worker cooperatives, would make it difficult for any small clique of malignant actors to hijack the stream of redistributed wealth, as to do so, they would have to convince the majority of the population to their policy proposals.

In contrast, anarchy, as far as I undestand it based on descriptions by popular anarchists Anark and Andrewism, entails the abolition of taxation and bureaucracy, without which the redistribution of resources on a scale comparable to that carried out by states seems impossible. I understand that some anarchists emphasize sharing of resources on a person-to-person basis, but I am not sold on the proposition that cumulative acts of local charity would be sufficient to compensate for the dismantlement of the welfare state - frankly, I find such notion disturbingly similar to a libertarian argument against state provision for the needy.

I would challenge any willing anarchists to provide me with either examples of mass provision carried out by non-state, non-hierarchical entities, or a compelling justification for the view that such provision would be unnecessary in an anarchy.

2. The problem of conflict resolution

From my observation, people often have fierce disagreements about matters such as child custody, access to personal property (as distinguished from private property) and person-to-person business deals (understood as local exchanges of goods and services, as distinguished from advanced, multi-million-dollar corporate lawfare). Sometimes these disagreements can be resolved via diplomacy, but in many other cases diplomacy, even when it's prolonged and involves a mediator, simply fails. In a state, the opposing parties have an option to resolve their conflict of interests through the judicial system, based on a set of pre-determined and publicly-accessible laws dictating exactly who is entitled to what in which circumstances. Said laws, while not infallibly just and usually not approved in a referendum, are at least passed by a majority vote of democratically-elected officials and may be rewritten based on popular demand to better suit the public's interest (assuming that the state in question is actually a representative democracy, not an elective plutocracy masquerading as one).

I believe that in a democratic socialist state, the judicial system could be reformed out of pathologies such as elitism, systemic racism and sexism, turning it into a rather effective instrument of justice. Greater restrictions on slapp-suits, coupled with free legal representation, would even the ground between conflicted parties of varying material status, while a greater representation of minority groups among judges and members of the jury would counteract discrimination on the basis of identity.

In contrast, anarchists tend to advocate wholesale abolition of the judicial system, together with the legal order said system is meant to enforce. While doing so would immediately dispose of the biases embedded in those institutions, I am anxious that many interpersonal conflicts would continue into perpetuity or get resolved through violence as a result. One alternative I can think of would be to resolve such conflicts via local vote, but doing so runs the risk of granting whoever is more popular in a given community a privileged status in all their disputes.

Another detrimental consequence of abolishing the shared, nation-wide legal order in favour of fully decentralized lawmaking that I foresee would be the creation of a patchwork of greatly diverse local legal systems, which would impede the exchange of goods and services between regions, by coercing everyone involved to adhere to wildly different standards throughout their journey.

I would challenge any willing anarchists to elaborate how conflict resolution in cases where mere diplomacy fails would look like in an anarchy, and why it would be better than a judicial system improved upon with progressive reforms.

3. The problem of violence

This particular criticism applies exclusively to anarchist revolutions in a democratic or semi-democratic states, a.k.a. states where it is realistically possible to implement democratic socialism through peaceful reforms of the dominant political system, providing the majority of the population is convinced to said reforms. I acknowledge that a reformist approach is not viable in places like North Korea, where the masses are fully disenfranchised and the only possible path to liberation is a violent one.

While democratic socialism and anarchism both rely on construction of a mass movement, on swaying the majority of the population to leftist politics, only the former has the capacity to reach its end goal through peaceful, electoral means, with minimal explicitly violent interactions between the state and the movement along the way. Such means are greatly preferable to a violent revolution, given both the reduced need for militarism within the socialist movement and the avoidance of a civil war that, given the realities of modern military technology and practice, would result in hundreds of thousands or even millions of deaths.

In contrast, anarchy, as far as I am aware, can only emerge from underneath a state through mass violence. States are malleable and, in case of (semi)democracies, come with built-in mechanisms facilitating peaceful systemic change, but I don't think any extant state could be wholly dissolved without an all-out conflict with its military. Moreover, a violent destruction of a state would likely frighten a large portion of the population into defending state institutions more effectively than legal reforms would, presenting an additional problem for an anarchist movement.

Given both the practical difficulty of tearing down the state and the high humanitarian cost of doing so, it is not enough for anarchy to be somewhat better than democratic socialism in order for me to consider the former a preferable option. The superiority of anarchy over democratic socialism would have to be so profound as to justify the cost of implementing the former.

I would challenge any willing anarchists to prove such superiority of their prefered political system, or to provide me with evidence that achieving socialism through reforms under a (semi)democratic state is impossible. I would not consider the low voter support of contemporary socialist parties as sufficient evidence for the latter any more than I would consider the rarity of anarchic societies to be a damning indictment of anarchism, as in both cases we are dealing with mass-oriented movements whose popularity is yet to be built.

4. The problem of participation

This criticism of mine is probably the least severe of the four. Simply put, an anarchic society would require a far greater political involvement from its members in order to work than a democratic socialist one would. The latter may make use of elected officials as a form of power delegation, while the former seems to rely solely on consensus and/or direct democracy for decision-making. While the anarchic approach is likely the more democratic of the two, said approach could only function with a population deeply commited to partaking in decision-making on a regular basis.

In my country, getting two thirds of eligible voters to partake in an election once every four years is quite a struggle. I am concerned that if all the decisions currently made by elected officials would have to be made by the people directly, most people wouldn't even show up to most voting sessions, thus either enabling an organised, malicious minority to impose its poicies on the silent majority, or paralysing the decision-making process entirely.

I consider this problem the least severe of the four because I already know a potential solution to it, namely the creation of a new, anarchist culture, emphasizing public participation as a key virtue. The problem with this solution is that implementing it would be, in and of itself, a monumental task that a democratic socialist movement wouldn't have to contend with to the same extent.

I would challenge any willing anarchists to share their thoughts on enacting such a cultural shift, or to provide an alternative solution to the problem of participation.

I’ve observed this tendency way too often in anarchist and leftist circles to conflate hierarchy with coercion.

For example, many leftists will argue that the reason to abolish prisons is because prisons involuntarily hold people captive, rather than because prisons are a tool to enforce the law.

This position leads to nonsensical conclusions, such as an obligation to tolerate violent behaviour and never forcefully intervene, out of fear of being inconsistent anarchists.

Voluntaryists or “anarcho”-capitalists also use this anti-coercion reasoning to justify “voluntary hierarchy”, but of course, using their own special definition of coercion that conveniently excludes the enforcement of property rights.

I think the root of this conflation comes from the fact that coercion is often used to enforce hierarchy, so the coercion and the hierarchy get mixed up together in people’s minds.

But to be clear, these are different things.

You can have unenforced laws that are technically still on the books, but you can also have force which doesn’t enforce any law (such as armed robbery or mugging).

A hierarchy is a social system or organisation in which individuals or groups are granted different rights, privileges, or status.

Coercion can be used to enforce hierarchies or to resist hierarchies.

Hopefully this post clears up any misconceptions.

First of all, let me disclose that I'm not really familiar with any literature or thinkers advocating for anarchism so please forgive me if I'm being ignorant or simply not aware of some concepts. I watched a couple of videos explaining the ideas behind anarchism just so that I would get at least the gist of the main ideas.

If my understanding is correct, there is no single well established coherent proposal of how the society should work under anarchism, rather there seem to be 3 different streams of thought: anarcho-capitalism, anarcho-syndicalism and anarcho-communism. Out of these 3 only anarcho-capitalism seems not contradicting itself.

However, anarcho-capitalism seems to necessarily enhance the negative effects of capitalism. Dismantling of the state means dismantling all of the breaks, regulations, customer and employee protections that we currently impose on private companies. Anarcho-capitalism just seems like a more extreme version of some libertarian utopia.

Anarcho-communism and anarcho-syndicalism seem to be self-contradicting. At least the "anarcho-" part of the word sounds like a misnomer. There is nothing anarchical about it and it seems to propose even more hierarchies and very opinionated and restrictive way how to structure society as opposed to liberal democracy. You can make an argument that anarcho-syndicalism gives you more of a say and power to an individual because it gives more decisioning power to local communities. However, I'm not sure if that's necessarily a good thing. Imagine a small rural conservative community. Wouldn't it be highly probable that such community would be discriminatory towards LGBT people?

To summarize my point: only anarcho-capitalism seems to be not contradicting itself, but necessarily leads to more capitalism. Trying to mitigate the negative outcomes of it leads to reinventing institutions which already exist in liberal democracy. Other forms of anarchy seems to be even more hierarchical and lead to less human rights.

BTW, kudos for being open for a debate. Much respect!

I have several disagreements with veganism, but I will list the following as some of the main ones (in no particular order):

• The humanism (i.e. the belief that humans are superior to non-human nature on account of their cognitive/ethical capacities) behind ethical veganism appears to contradict the very “anti-speciesism” that ethical veganism purports to fight against. The belief that humans are superior to non-human nature on account of their cognitive/ethical capacities, appears to be the basis by which ethical veganism asserts that we (as humans) have some duty to act ethically towards animals (even though we do not attempt to require animals to behave toward each other according to said ethical standards – which is why vegans don’t propose interfering with non-consensual sexual practices among wild animals, predatory-prey interactions, etc.) However, this belief itself appears fundamentally speciesist.
• The environmentalist arguments for veganism appear to focus almost exclusively on the consumption end of the equation (based on reasoning from the trophic pyramid), and ignores the need for soil regeneration practices in any properly sustainable food system. As such, both soil regeneration and avoiding overconsumption of ecological resources are essential to sustainable food systems for humans. Agriculture (whether vegan or non-vegan) is unsustainable as a food system due to its one-way relationship with soil (use of soil, but grossly inadequate regeneration of soil: https://news.un.org/en/story/2022/07/1123462). A sustainable approach to food for humanity would likely have to involve a combination of massive rewilding (using grazing, rootling, and manuring animals – in order to regenerate soil effectively) + permaculture practices. This would involve eating an omnivorous diet, which would include adopting a role for ourselves as general purpose apex predators (which would help prevent overpopulation and overconsumption of flora by said animals, thus appropriately sustaining the rewilded ecosystems).
• Ethical veganism’s focus on harm reduction of sentient life, dogmatically excludes plants simply because they lack a brain. However, there is no scientific basis for the belief that a brain is necessary for consciousness. It is merely an assumption to believe this, on the basis of assuming consciousness in any other form of life has to be similar to its form in our lives as humans. Plants have a phenomenal experience of the world. They don't have brains, but the root system is their neural network. The root neural network makes use of neurotransmitters like serotonin, GABA, dopamine, melatonin, etc. that the human central nervous system uses as well, in order to adaptively respond to their environment to optimize survive. Plants show signs of physiological shock when uprooted. And anesthetics that were developed for humans have been shown to work on plants, by diminishing the shock response they exhibit when being uprooted for example. Whether or not this can be equated to the subjective sensation of "suffering" isn't entirely clear. But we have no basis to write off the possibility. We don't know whether the root neural network results in an experience of consciousness (if it did, it may be a collective consciousness rather than an individuated one), but we have no basis to write off that possibility either. My point is simply as follows: Our only basis for believing animals are sentient is based on their empirically observable responses to various kinds of stimuli (which we assume to be responses to  sensations of suffering, excitement, etc. – this assumption is necessary, because we cannot empirically detect qualia itself). If that is the basis for our recognizing sentience, then we cannot exclude the possibility of plant sentience simply on the basis that plants don’t have brains or that their responses to stimuli are not as recognizable as those of animals in terms of their similarity to our own responses. In fact, we’re able to measure responses among plants to various kinds of stimuli (e.g. recognizing self apart from others, self-preservation behaviors in the face of hostile/changing environmental conditions, altruism to protect one’s kin, physiologic signs of distress when harmed, complex decision making that employs logic and mathematics, etc. - https://www.esalq.usp.br/lepse/imgs/conteudo\_thumb/Plant-Consciousness---The-Fascinating-Evidence-Showing-Plants-Have-Human-Level-Intelligence--Feelings--Pain-and-More.pdf) that clearly indicate various empirical correlates for sentience that we would give recognition to among humans/animals. From the standpoint of ethical veganism, recognizing the possibility of plant sentience would require including plant wellbeing in the moral calculus of vegan ethical decisions. This raises the question of whether agriculture itself is ethical from a vegan standpoint.  

 While the esalq pdf above summarizes some of the empirical points well, it's embedded links are weird and don't provide good references. See the below references instead for support related to my arguments about plants:

https://www.mdpi.com/2223-7747/12/9/1799

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s40626-023-00281-5?fromPaywallRec=true

https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-030-84985-6_1

https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-030-54478-2#:\~:text=Plant%2Dbased%20neurotransmitters%20(serotonin%2C,chemical%20nature%20and%20biochemical%20pathways.

https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-319-75596-0_11?fromPaywallRec=false

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4497361/

https://nautil.us/plants-feel-pain-and-might-even-see-238257/

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/scientists-record-stressed-out-plants-emitting-ultrasonic-squeals-180973716/

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/how-knocking-out-plants-solving-mystery-anesthesia-180968035/

Since states are not going anywhere for now, what do you think about the different approaches we see?

How should we try to improve them? Which things do they do well enough?

I've made a post about this before on r/Anarchy101, asking about the difference between true anarchy and direct democracy, and the answers seemed helpful—but after thinking about it for some time, I can't help but believe even stronger that the difference is semantic. Or rather, that anarchy necessarily becomes direct democracy in practice.

The explanation I got was that direct democracy doesn't truly get rid of the state, that tyranny of majority is still tyranny—while anarchy is truly free.

In direct democracy, people vote on what should be binding to others, while in anarchy people just do what they want. Direct Democracy has laws, Anarchy doesn't.

Simple and defined difference, right? I'm not so sure.

When I asked what happens in an anarchist society when someone murders or rapes or something, I received the answer that—while there are no laws to stop or punish these things, there is also nothing to stop the people from voluntarily fighting back against the (for lack of a better word) criminal.

Sure, but how is that any different from a direct democracy?

In a direct democratic community, let's say most people agree rape isn't allowed. A small minority of people disagree, so they do it, and people come together and punish them for it.

In an anarchist community, let's say most people agree rape isn't allowed. A small minority of people disagree, so they do it, and people come together and punish them for it.

Tyranny of majority applies just the same under anarchy as it does under direct democracy, as "the majority" will always be the most powerful group.

In anarchy, there would be a respect for persons, and a respect for their possessions.

If you are socially recognised as the owner of what you use and occupy, then we have a use-and-occupancy property norm.

However, if the “property” in question is actually a person, then, by definition, this is slavery.

Since anarchists must be anti-speciesists, and must oppose slavery, we cannot possibly justify any sort of recognition of animals as property, or of restricting personhood to only humans.

But if animals aren’t recognised as property, then stealing someone’s livestock would be socially tolerated, since that’s what it means for animals to not be property.

Which means non-hierarchical livestock farming is simply impossible, since it strictly requires the property status (aka slavery) of animals to be feasible in practice.

EDIT: I really want Shawn or DecoDecoMan to either make a proper refutation of my reasoning, or concede that opposing animal farming is a requirement for anarchism.

I don’t care if I “win” or “lose” this debate, but I do want a full resolution of this conflict either way.

The majority of people aren’t even willing to accept the basic anarchist rejection of legal order, let alone support a total liberation movement that rejects even adult supremacy.

Since people are irrational and unable to be convinced by argument, I have given up on the masses.

Instead, anarchism should become a more exclusionary, even “elitist” movement, and focus on building quality over quantity of support.

We don’t need more anarchists, we need a small, dedicated minority of consistent radicals who are willing to sacrifice everything for the cause.

For example, instead of convincing everyone to go vegan, we should just sabotage slaughterhouses and factory farms, to drive up the prices of animal products and force people to cut them out of their lifestyle to save money.

The main question, which is still an open question, is how we could destroy the state without public support.

Maybe anarchists should infiltrate the police and military, to break the state apparatus apart from the inside out.

What is clear to me is that we should stop even trying to debate non-anarchists, and just focus solely on internal discussions.

We need to work with the anarchists we already have, instead of trying to create more of them.

I randomly had this thought while I was looking at my election ballot, and contemplated how I don't like the American election system, but still vote since there is no feasible alternative I needed to to "protect my rights," and It got me thinking about calling the police. I can think of all of the reasons I wouldn't call the police, but at the same time I feel like there would be circumstances where it would be the only option.

does anyone have any experience with this?

Obviously, we live under a system where we can be forced to do things we are ideologically opposed to.

Moneyless, classless, stateless society. What kind of hierarchies are left over?

The goal of voting for an anarchist should be to delay societal collapse into outright fascism until they can build a community or system that can act counter to or against systemic collapse. That doesn't exist yet, because authoritarian fascists are about 80 years ahead of you on the most important group of people if everything goes to hell in a handbasket, farmers. Until you have the backing or support required you should absolutely vote in the interest of buying yourself time if nothing else. Let alone the amount of freedom and knowledge you risk losing by abstaining.

All options are bad, that's easy to agree on, but one is usually significantly worse for the kind of work you wanna do. See revolution is like a fire, you need to prepare the fuel, if you start it with no fuel, it's gonna burn out quick. The kindling is all around you, now you need to create actual fuel for a sustained systemic change. The other reason to look at political outcomes is that it is the easiest way to survey a huge number of people. Who they vote for is what they are concerned about, it's incredibly important knowledge for community building. Ignoring such easily accessible information is foolish at best.

There's a lot of historical evidence that not voting has been the downfall of numerous anarchist movements. Spain in the 1930s being the most obvious. You can't make change by putting your hope in the lesser of two evils but you can stagnate the evils. Which is where I think a lot of people come undone in these kinds of movements, the momentum starts, people get overzealous and move too quickly. Then you shoot yourself in the foot denying everyone the opportunity for change.

Way too often, I see anarchists treating anarchism as a moral philosophy.

But the problem with moralism is that the focus on principles gets in the way of structural analysis of hierarchy.

As an example, I see many anarchists claiming that certain types of force constitute authority.

The moralists will argue that defensive force is anti-authoritarian, but that aggression is the imposition of authority.

The flaw in this argument is that “aggression” is subjective, and people can easily disagree over what constitutes provocation.

If the moralist gets into a debate with a Marxist, then quite rightly, their opponent will point out that this is just a totally subjective and idealistic perspective.

No. Anarchism should be grounded in materialism, with an objective, structural analysis of hierarchical social systems.

Rather than arguing over whether this or that act constitutes authority, we should instead focus our attention on systems and institutions.

The divide between the moralists and the materialists, or the utopian and scientific tendencies of anarchism, is possibly the biggest fracture in our movement.

We are not even capable of deciding whether, say, democracy, constitutes a hierarchy, unless we have a consensus on materialism as the basis for our anarchism.

As a materialist anarchist, I declare that we, the materialists, shall officially and explicitly secede from the moralists, and identify ourselves openly as a distinct tendency.

Does your fnb chapter share meat and/or animal products?

Does your chapter go shopping at grocery stores?

Does your chapter offer a tax ID number to stores so their donations can be written off?

I’m really struggling with the number of chapters that have chosen to disregard core Food Not Bombs principles.

So far the most common response to asking why is something along the lines of, “we need to feed as many people as possible any way we can.”

If we don’t have principles what are we really even doing?

I want to ssee you all convince me to be anarchist.

Alright, so this is something I've been thinking about for a while. I'm very much into leftist ideologies and politics, though I do have a dislike for liberals, and I have a hatred for far-right organisations, but I can empathise with moderate organisations. Now, enough talking on my part. I have been having a question rattling around in my mind for a while now, and I'd like to share with y'all.

Can anarchism work outside of hippie communes for an extended period of time, or should we be focusing on more plausible forms of governing ourselves, such as socialism, Trotskyism, or even implementing a kakistrocracy?

I was an anarchist for almost two decades. I am now a Marxist-Leninist. My point is that neither I nor my former comrades ever believed in true anarchism, and I have never met anyone who did. Why? A true anarchist cannot believe in courts, prisons, laws, etc. Yet all anarchists tend to believe in some prison or prison substitute. As anarcho-syndicalists, we believed in laws imposed by a 'workers' militia' (i.e. a police force.) Other anarchists like Godwin suggested exiling violent people to islands (which was pretty much what happened anyway, albeit deportation to Australia.) The 'libertarian' Rothbard believed in slave labour for prisoners to compensate their victims and the death penalty for murderers-which is what happens in the USA today, although victims don't get the proceeds of the slave labour.

When I was an anarchist, I was partly motivated by the awfulness of the legal system that seemed to punish the innocent time and time again. Think the Tottenham Three, the Birmingham Six, and the Central Park Five.

To me, the only true anarchism is a very unfair, libertarian system that would be liberal, unlike the above, but would be very unequal.

In true libertarian style, there is no free health care, education, or unemployment benefits. You either pay for it yourself or if you can't, you hope charities, churches/mosques, and so on will help you. If that doesn't happen, that's anarchy!

Civil property disputes would not be needed because all transactions could be done using a blockchain smart contract. It would be up to the parties to put in place the protections necessary to prevent themselves froms being scammed.

It would have no laws, courts, prisons, vigilantes, or savage punishments.

The replacement for criminal law would follow the same 'protect yourself' principle. People could pay to live in communities where those regarded as a danger are excluded. The price of living in these communities would cover the cost of intelligence gathering and information sharing, which is necessary to find out who to exclude. As every community is someone's land and someone's private property, the owners can charge everyone for living there (as they own the freehold.) They would not want to exclude someone who can bid a market sum for a lease on their freehold, so they will not exclude people based on frivolous information. Someone who has committed less serious crimes can bid more to be allowed in, thus creating a financial incentive not to commit crimes. Note the freeholder cannot be 'sued' for allowing in criminals, no courts, but obviously tenants can move away if the landlord has no standards regarding this.

As for safety outside the communities, the roads and so on will all be owned by someone who can charge to provide safety and access on the same principle as the communities.

Usually, anarchists who believe in exile argue that serious violent criminals should be exiled from all society to some wilderness where they can all 'kill each other'. This might happen sometimes in my version of anarchy, but deliberately engineering it is not anarchism. Anarchism is meant to be liberal. Serious criminals excluded from communities can pay private protective agencies to protect themselves in their exile homes from other exiled criminals. If they cannot pay for this, they must hope charities and religious believers will help them with the cost. After all many charities exist today to help prisoners and people guilty of serious crimes. If they don't help you, though, then that's anarchy!

What if your exclusion from society is unfair? If you are unfairly accused of something like murder then you will have to pay a private investigator to gather the evidence necessary to show prospective landlords it's all rubbish so you don't get exiled. In less serious cases, promising to pay for community improvements might convince your neighbours to accept you and not complain to the freeholder about your presence.

Of course, nothing's fair about this- the rich can, within limits, buy their own justice. The poor end up relying on charity. But anarchists! I am trying to be fair to you. You want a world without laws and prisons. I have thought about this for many years, and this is the only type of anarchism I can think of that will work. Is this what you want or is anarchism just a bad idea?

I don’t feel compelled to be a vegan on the basis of my being an anarchist. Here’s why:

It is impossible to extend the concept of hierarchy to include relations involving animals without ultimately also concluding that many relations between animals constitute hierarchy as well (e.g. predator-prey relations, relations between alpha males and non-alpha males in species whose communities are controlled by the most dominant males, relations between males and females in species known to frequently have non-consensual sexual interactions as a result of community control by dominant males, etc.). And if we do that, then we have to conclude anarchy is impossible unless we have some way of intervening to stop these things from happening among animals without wrecking ecosystems. Are we gonna go break up male mammalian mating practices that don’t align with human standards on consensual sexual activity? Are we going to try interfering with the chimpanzees, bears, tigers, etc. all in an ill-perceived effort to make anarchy work in nature? It would be silly (and irresponsibly harmful to ecosystems) to attempt this, of course.

(To those who disagree with me that caring about human to animal hierarchies requires us to care about animal to animal hierarchies: The reason you are wrong is the same reason it makes no sense to say you are ethically opposed to raping someone yourself, but that you are okay with another person raping someone.

If you oppose hierarchy between humans and animals, on the basis that animals are ethical subjects - who are thus deserving of freedom from hierarchy - then you would have to oppose hierarchy between animals as well - it doesn’t make sense to only oppose human-made hierarchy that harms animals, if you believe animals are ethical subjects that deserve freedom from hierarchy.)

It is therefore impossible to deliver anarchic freedom to animals. It can only be delivered to humans.

Since it is impossible to deliver anarchic freedom to animals, it is silly to apply anarchist conceptual frameworks to analyze the suffering/experiences of animals.

If an anarchist wants to care about the suffering of animals, that is fine. But it makes no sense to say caring about their suffering has something to do with one’s commitment to anarchism.

———-

All of that being said, I (as an AnCom) oppose animal agriculture and vegan agriculture for the same reason: both involve the use of authority (in the form of property). I do not consider vegan agriculture “better” from the standpoint of anti-authority praxis.

This is my rationale for not being interested in veganism.

(As an aside, some good reading on the vegan industrial complex can be found here for those interested - see the download link on the right: https://journals.librarypublishing.arizona.edu/jpe/article/id/3052/)

Hierarchy is a broader concept than authority.

All forms of authority are forms of hierarchy, but not all forms of hierarchy are forms of authority.

For example, prejudice and discrimination can exist without relations of command or subordination, yet anarchists must still reject prejudice and discrimination.

However, this does not mean that every act of force or coercion is hierarchical.

Hierarchies are fundamentally social systems and therefore the domination must constitute a system of some sort to be considered an actual social hierarchy.

I would argue that animal agriculture falls into this category, where it may not be technically authority per se, but nevertheless constitutes systemic domination and is thus hierarchical.

First of all let me define what in my opinion constitutes a nation. A nation (defined by youtuber Andrew Sage owner of the youtube channel Andrewism) Is a large group of people who share the same culture language ethnicity and maybe religion. Thus the Hungarians, French and Zulu all are considered nations what i mean nations naturally create states is that a nation comes together and decides to be governed by a state. My point is a nation cannot function without a state. What if two different nations share one area and/or inhabit the same region theese two different nations cannot cooperate as their cultures and their societies are both different. The main solution that has worked many times before was to split the area up to be governed by different states mostly dominated by the majority nation. (Eg Yugoslavia, USSR, and maybe the United States in the form of native land reserves). And what if the economy of the nation is broken the state has the ability to step in and fix the problem. No nation can function without a state as states are formed by nations naturally.

I don’t want to come in here to say that one or the other is better and be polarizing, because the infighting is evident enough of lack of progress in leftism. What I’m going to do is make aware of things that each party needs to work on or recognize.

For anarchists: Integrate eastern religion/philosophy.

I do think that although people want to put politics and religions apart, they ultimately are intertwined. The reason why I suggest eastern philosophy is because they do add to the anarchist discussion. There’s two practices that they bring to the table:

1. Non-dualism:

Though loosely described as monism, non-dualism insists that the true self is inseparable to every being. Religions such as Doaism, Buddhism, and Hinduism reach this conclusion distinctively. This contributes to the anarchists argument because non-dual realization sheds the individual ego (the catalyst of hierarchy) all of its significance, a perfection or significance that exploits others to feel whole. This non-dual realization is best cultivated by the yogas, which is why it’s important to understand the spiritual element of mutual aid because you are utilizing karma yoga to aid yourself essentially.

2. The strategy of desire

Buddhists are not quick to judge those that still rely on the consumption and dependence of corporate and institutions. Why? Because they understand that people have close relationships with them. The average population clings, making it harder to leave. Considering non-dualism, veganism is indeed integral to anarchism. However, it must be noted that this is a conflict in the sub because of how possessive the meat industry is. It’s apparent that about every action or purchase we cling to in this economy and government have unethical ties. The point is, we have to recognize that these systems don’t just simply work through violence, they work through attachment. If we can focus on the attachment part and utilize detachment philosophies such as the eightfold path or margas yogas, we can increase boycotts and make companies suffer. People always talk big about supply and demand yet always fall for the trick of it. If a majority of us drastically decreased demands, we bring capitalists to their knees. This is an angle that can steel man a persons struggle in the system, pointing out how it really demeans them.

For the Marxists: integrate some anarchist principles.

Let me emphasize, I’m not asking you to become an anarchist. I’m asking you to consider some of the principles they have, and adopt them. You could also just take what I said above about religion, and that would do but hear what I mean.

Mutual aid: In a hyperbolic way, I don’t think it’s efficient to tell your neighbor “your boss sucks, join the revolution.” What you study and stand for is materially conscious. When you provide food, contribute to some rent or emergency fund, you are materially communicating to them that you care and are reliable. Mutual aid is not an alternative to publicizing the means of production, it works best as a stepping stone to it. If you want to teach a man to fish, first give him fish.

Dual power: The right is ahead of us with this one. The kkk, along with cults and other hate groups, thrive off on these principles too. A good chunk of Marxists are doing this and understand the assignment, but instead of expecting the biased government to do something or attempting to overthrow it, creating a separate system would help people wean off government and capitalism.

Humility: Though I am a bigger fan of Cheran, Marinaleda is a decent communist town in Spain. I’ve heard a lot of great things about that town that reach similar harmony as Cheran. Their mayor from what I heard, was a former anarcho-communist. He still employs himself as a history teacher at the school there. I think what I’m trying to illustrate here is that a good amount of frustration comes down to the ambiguity of state transition. We need to make a stalwart doctrine on state transition that requires the leader not to simply be good at running a state, but to be a genuine humble figure that gives no desire for power.

I will admit, I am not the most informed person and there is probably lots of texts in leftist spaces that can add more to the conversation. I appreciate if have ideas that add more to the discussion.

After seeing multiple, regularly recurring posts arguing that Anarchists must necessarily be Vegans… I decided to try to clarify a few things:

Anarchy is simply about the absence of authority, with Anarchism being a political philosophy/project aimed at achieving that goal. The notion that Anarchists must be vegan is incorrect because it conflates authority (as it is conceptualized in anarchist political philosophy) with violence or force, which is simply false. Anyone using a definition of authority that is synonymous with violence or force, is simply not talking about the same thing as what anarchist political philosophy refers to as authority. It's similar to how the "hierarchy" of a grocery list isn't the same thing as the "hierarchy" anarchists seek to end.

From the standpoint of opposing authority, it doesn't make sense to argue that anarchists should all be vegans as a form of anarchist praxis. Just as the animal products industry under capitalism makes use of authority, so too does the vegan industry under capitalism. See here for further reading on the Vegan Industrial Complex (there's a download link to the full paper on the right): https://journals.librarypublishing.arizona.edu/jpe/article/id/3052/

Veganism is fundamentally a liberal ethical philosophy, as it is rooted in presuppositions about ethical consumerism that just aren’t shared by anti-capitalists. And it has nothing to do with anarchism, because veganism is not fundamentally anti-authority (at least with regard to “authority” as anarchist philosophy conceptualizes it).