Anarchism is less a system of functions to be implemented, and more of a governing philosophy on how we build other systems. That philosophy focuses heavily on the expansion of democracy and the elimination of hierarchy wherever possible in order to create the most total freedom in the system. It is not inherently opposed to the concepts of governance or laws as many believe. It usually means focusing on smaller governing units, preferring local governance wherever possible, to give people the most direct control over their own lives. Self-sufficient communities are a major goal here.
The meaning of freedom to an anarchist is wholistic; not just freedom to, but also freedom from. Freedom to pursue your life on your terms, freedom from any obligation or inhibition that would prevent or detract from that goal. This includes, for example, unconditional freedom for all people from starvation, homelessness, or the inability to access medical care. It is an intentionally utopian ideal, that we should strive for something that may not even be possible, because that is how we’ll create the best possible world.
Once upon a time, anarchism was effectively synonymous with libertarianism. That word was bastardized in America to the point that it is unrecognizable now.
Well. That’s a wholly different picture than the word itself paints.
It’s almost sad, as anarchist has such a negative connotation that, to me, it feels what you’re describing may deserve a new name to relieve it of the baggage associated with the name. It will be awfully hard to get people to listen in America when it’s so saturated with the idea that anarchism is, well… anarchic, ungoverned chaos.
The broader tradition of political thought that anarchism falls under is libertarianism. That one also doesn’t have great connotations for obvious reasons, unfortunately. If you’re interested in learning more about anarchism ;Zoe Baker, Anark, Andrewism are great YouTube channels with very comprehensive videos on history, theory, and praxis. Be warned, Zoe bakers delivery is dryer than a saltine and anark is very theory focused and many of his videos are 90 min+
Zoe Baker is a PhD in anarchist history. Anark has several videos on revolutionary politics and theory. His most recent series is a synthesis of many strains of anarchism to form a modern iteration of anarchism. Kind of “bringing it all together”. Andrewism is focused on black anarchism, pan-africanism, degrowth, solar punk and a lot of other praxis, lifestyle, and activism. Between the three of them I doubt there’s a question on anarchism and liberatory politics that couldn’t be answered
This is a complex question difficult to answer in a comment. I also see others who call themselves anarchist say it’s about smaller governing units and isn’t without law. I disagree.
Anarchism is about not having rulers, at any level, whether that’s a country or an HOA. It’s about being free from coerced decisions (therefore democracy is inherently non-anarchist – because those who didn’t win the vote will be coerced). But this doesn’t mean that it’s chaos. Order does not require authority or coercion, it only requires people who want to work together and make decisions together.
I’m of the opinion that actual sustainable anarcho-communism isn’t something that can work with 8 billion people on Earth (no that does not mean I want to genocide anyone), it’s not something we should expect to attain while retaining all the hallmarks of our current world, e.g. massive population, cars, skyscrapers, air travel for pleasure, and cities with tens of millions of people.
Our current population level is pathological - Earth will fail with numbers in this range regardless of whether we can create enough nitrogen fertilizer or build enough houses. Our numbers grew so large because greedy people realized they could use authority and tools like capitalism to extract the wealth of others, and the more others the more wealth.
For those that disagree, view a human population growth over 1000 years and tell me that’s sustainable. The methods that can work in 2023 with 8 billion people and what methods that are actually tenable for a sustainable human population are not necessarily the same (anarchism/anarcho-communism IMHO could not function on a scale as grand as we are now - and that’s not a flaw of anarchism, it’s a problem with our numbers).
Also, I don’t think anarcho-communism is something we could move into quickly, it would require at like a generation of cultural change. All of us have been born and raised in an exploitative system and can hardly imagine a world where exploitation was not the norm (thus your question) and if it were dropped on us it would quickly devolve into chaos and warlords.
IMHO, we get to anarchism not via revolution, but by evolving culturally to where we no longer need a state.
My brother lent me “The History of Everything” and it’s appealing, but in the end i couldn’t go along with it because a) it billed itself as an academic work but was a polemic and b) the privilege of the authors screamed across every page, as much as they stated that they weren’t.
IMO, anarchism fails to confront the fact that there are malignant psychopathic in the world. As much as they claim not to fall into the Noble Savage trap, that was the essence of the book.
There will always be exploitative people, and assuming that a Return to Nature (regardless of the many other benefits to sustainability that I in no way want to impugn) will eliminate that is, in my view, somewhat naive.
IMO, anarchism fails to confront the fact that there are malignant psychopathic in the world. As much as they claim not to fall into the Noble Savage trap, that was the essence of the book.
There will always be exploitative people, and assuming that a Return to Nature (regardless of the many other benefits to sustainability that I in no way want to impugn) will eliminate that is, in my view, somewhat naive.
Now THIS is an interesting topic! It’s also where I diverge from some who call themselves anarchist.
Anarchism itself says nothing on the topic. Anarchism is about society without rulers, that’s all. Everything else is some person’s POV, or some book, or some Redditor, etc.
I absolutely do not fail to confront the fact that there are malignant psychopathic people in the world. Here’s my views on this.
Humans as a species have evolved to be a cooperative species
Most humans are cooperative in most ways, if this were not true, leaving your house would be 1000x more frought with danger the world over.
The near complete lack of ability to experience empathy is the defining quality of psychopathy
Good and bad are actually easy to define in most cases. A bad act is one where someone causes suffering or is willing to cause suffering to others for gain. This is based only on 3 axioms – no religion or complex philosophy needed.
Life is desirable
Others can suffer just like I can
I don’t have any more right to cause suffering in others than they do to cause me suffering
Like any personality trait in any species, empathy probably follows a “normal distribution”, i.e. some people have too little empathy, others too much, most people have about the right amount needed to thrive in the groups we evolved in.
Effective anarchism (i.e. a lack of coercive rulers, not a lack of a respected non-coercive leader) was probably a common, maybe even the most common societal organization prior to “civilization”. Anarchism was the norm for thousands of years.
This effective anarchism way of life was sustainable for so long despite the existence of psychopaths – because these tribes probably dealt with their psychopaths as they were not prevented from doing so by a state.
A person who committed a serious offense against the tribe, or that got the tribe in trouble with another may have been killed, and that death seen as necessary for the well being of the tribe.
The problem with the state, being a monopoly on violence, is that it prevents people and groups from protecting themselves and often doesn’t itself hold offenders responsible. The psychopath that might have been killed in the past, maybe even by their own tribe for everyone’s well being is now often protected by the law. Instead of putting psychopaths in prison, the state typically puts people in prison that are just doing what’s needed to get by or have grown to be fucked up (nurture vs nature) because of the fucked up community they were forced to grow up in due to others hoarding resources and oppressing their population. That is to say, I don’t think your typical criminal is a bad person deep down, they’ve been put into a situation where being a “bad actor” is a logical position.
–> For anarchism to work, we have to realize that while 99% of people are good and cooperative enough to make things work, the 1% of psychopaths must be dealt with and prevented from gaining power or we end up where we are now. Currently, our system tends to put psychopaths in position as our leaders.
–> Any system or ideology that claims that a huge portion of humanity is bad, rather than mislead, is a non-starter. What are we gonna do, purge?
As a leftist/liberal who doesn’t know too much about polsci, how would anarchism function on a grand scale? Genuine curiosity.
Anarchism is less a system of functions to be implemented, and more of a governing philosophy on how we build other systems. That philosophy focuses heavily on the expansion of democracy and the elimination of hierarchy wherever possible in order to create the most total freedom in the system. It is not inherently opposed to the concepts of governance or laws as many believe. It usually means focusing on smaller governing units, preferring local governance wherever possible, to give people the most direct control over their own lives. Self-sufficient communities are a major goal here.
The meaning of freedom to an anarchist is wholistic; not just freedom to, but also freedom from. Freedom to pursue your life on your terms, freedom from any obligation or inhibition that would prevent or detract from that goal. This includes, for example, unconditional freedom for all people from starvation, homelessness, or the inability to access medical care. It is an intentionally utopian ideal, that we should strive for something that may not even be possible, because that is how we’ll create the best possible world.
Once upon a time, anarchism was effectively synonymous with libertarianism. That word was bastardized in America to the point that it is unrecognizable now.
Well. That’s a wholly different picture than the word itself paints.
It’s almost sad, as anarchist has such a negative connotation that, to me, it feels what you’re describing may deserve a new name to relieve it of the baggage associated with the name. It will be awfully hard to get people to listen in America when it’s so saturated with the idea that anarchism is, well… anarchic, ungoverned chaos.
The broader tradition of political thought that anarchism falls under is libertarianism. That one also doesn’t have great connotations for obvious reasons, unfortunately. If you’re interested in learning more about anarchism ;Zoe Baker, Anark, Andrewism are great YouTube channels with very comprehensive videos on history, theory, and praxis. Be warned, Zoe bakers delivery is dryer than a saltine and anark is very theory focused and many of his videos are 90 min+
Zoe Baker is a PhD in anarchist history. Anark has several videos on revolutionary politics and theory. His most recent series is a synthesis of many strains of anarchism to form a modern iteration of anarchism. Kind of “bringing it all together”. Andrewism is focused on black anarchism, pan-africanism, degrowth, solar punk and a lot of other praxis, lifestyle, and activism. Between the three of them I doubt there’s a question on anarchism and liberatory politics that couldn’t be answered
This is a complex question difficult to answer in a comment. I also see others who call themselves anarchist say it’s about smaller governing units and isn’t without law. I disagree.
Anarchism is about not having rulers, at any level, whether that’s a country or an HOA. It’s about being free from coerced decisions (therefore democracy is inherently non-anarchist – because those who didn’t win the vote will be coerced). But this doesn’t mean that it’s chaos. Order does not require authority or coercion, it only requires people who want to work together and make decisions together.
I’m of the opinion that actual sustainable anarcho-communism isn’t something that can work with 8 billion people on Earth (no that does not mean I want to genocide anyone), it’s not something we should expect to attain while retaining all the hallmarks of our current world, e.g. massive population, cars, skyscrapers, air travel for pleasure, and cities with tens of millions of people.
Our current population level is pathological - Earth will fail with numbers in this range regardless of whether we can create enough nitrogen fertilizer or build enough houses. Our numbers grew so large because greedy people realized they could use authority and tools like capitalism to extract the wealth of others, and the more others the more wealth.
For those that disagree, view a human population growth over 1000 years and tell me that’s sustainable. The methods that can work in 2023 with 8 billion people and what methods that are actually tenable for a sustainable human population are not necessarily the same (anarchism/anarcho-communism IMHO could not function on a scale as grand as we are now - and that’s not a flaw of anarchism, it’s a problem with our numbers).
Also, I don’t think anarcho-communism is something we could move into quickly, it would require at like a generation of cultural change. All of us have been born and raised in an exploitative system and can hardly imagine a world where exploitation was not the norm (thus your question) and if it were dropped on us it would quickly devolve into chaos and warlords.
IMHO, we get to anarchism not via revolution, but by evolving culturally to where we no longer need a state.
I recommend reading Kropotkin and David Graeber.
My brother lent me “The History of Everything” and it’s appealing, but in the end i couldn’t go along with it because a) it billed itself as an academic work but was a polemic and b) the privilege of the authors screamed across every page, as much as they stated that they weren’t.
IMO, anarchism fails to confront the fact that there are malignant psychopathic in the world. As much as they claim not to fall into the Noble Savage trap, that was the essence of the book.
There will always be exploitative people, and assuming that a Return to Nature (regardless of the many other benefits to sustainability that I in no way want to impugn) will eliminate that is, in my view, somewhat naive.
Sorry for the late reply…
Now THIS is an interesting topic! It’s also where I diverge from some who call themselves anarchist.
Anarchism itself says nothing on the topic. Anarchism is about society without rulers, that’s all. Everything else is some person’s POV, or some book, or some Redditor, etc.
I absolutely do not fail to confront the fact that there are malignant psychopathic people in the world. Here’s my views on this.
Humans as a species have evolved to be a cooperative species
Most humans are cooperative in most ways, if this were not true, leaving your house would be 1000x more frought with danger the world over.
The near complete lack of ability to experience empathy is the defining quality of psychopathy
Good and bad are actually easy to define in most cases. A bad act is one where someone causes suffering or is willing to cause suffering to others for gain. This is based only on 3 axioms – no religion or complex philosophy needed.
Like any personality trait in any species, empathy probably follows a “normal distribution”, i.e. some people have too little empathy, others too much, most people have about the right amount needed to thrive in the groups we evolved in.
Effective anarchism (i.e. a lack of coercive rulers, not a lack of a respected non-coercive leader) was probably a common, maybe even the most common societal organization prior to “civilization”. Anarchism was the norm for thousands of years.
This effective anarchism way of life was sustainable for so long despite the existence of psychopaths – because these tribes probably dealt with their psychopaths as they were not prevented from doing so by a state.
A person who committed a serious offense against the tribe, or that got the tribe in trouble with another may have been killed, and that death seen as necessary for the well being of the tribe.
The problem with the state, being a monopoly on violence, is that it prevents people and groups from protecting themselves and often doesn’t itself hold offenders responsible. The psychopath that might have been killed in the past, maybe even by their own tribe for everyone’s well being is now often protected by the law. Instead of putting psychopaths in prison, the state typically puts people in prison that are just doing what’s needed to get by or have grown to be fucked up (nurture vs nature) because of the fucked up community they were forced to grow up in due to others hoarding resources and oppressing their population. That is to say, I don’t think your typical criminal is a bad person deep down, they’ve been put into a situation where being a “bad actor” is a logical position.
–> For anarchism to work, we have to realize that while 99% of people are good and cooperative enough to make things work, the 1% of psychopaths must be dealt with and prevented from gaining power or we end up where we are now. Currently, our system tends to put psychopaths in position as our leaders.
–> Any system or ideology that claims that a huge portion of humanity is bad, rather than mislead, is a non-starter. What are we gonna do, purge?
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