Any Anarchists Here?

[angrysoba]

As much as I like Orwell, that's bull. I've read many passages on "anarchist" communities in Russia and other Eastern European communities around the turn of the century (Lev Aleshker is a good example) but all these communities have, at least, informal codes, customs, behavioral expectations, and a communal method for deciding which goals to pursue and how to pursue them. It's government in everything but name.

I think you're conflating what anarchy is supposed to be according to its proponents and what it inevitably ends up being. However, I don't agree with you that "customs" amounts to "informal laws" as you said earlier.

Once there is a political system, you establish order. Order is incompatible with anarchy.

Sure, this is often the case in practice but the point I am making is that in theory anarchism is indeed a political system (or set of doctrines if you prefer) in which people follow certain principles because they want to. Let me just reiterate so that there is no confusion. This is according to anarchist theory. Not anarchism in practice.

Anarchists however dispute the inference "IF you have a political system THEN you must have an enforced order". I agree with you that in practice it is surely impossible and that was the purpose of my question to anarchists.

I've never had this fundamental problem of what anarchists do with those who don't want to be anarchists or who won't co-operate answered satisfactorily. They seem to wave the question away with some bland assurance that everyone would be happy in an anarchist community so there would be no reason not to co-operate or that a new way of thinking would "evolve".

When you say that "political systems", "order", "communities" are fundamentally incompatible with anarchy you seem to miss the point. They believe that such things are not incompatible; they simply believe that such things come about by mutual consent and NOT through coercion. All I'm asking is how they guarantee that. I would argue that they can't. You seem to be arguing that anarchist theorists have no interest in a community or in customs, political systems or order because that would be anti-thetical to anarchist principles. I don't agree with that.

It doesn't matter what they call themselves, their actions matter. These communities are the inevitable result of anarchy - people come together, establish a semblance of order to achieve common goals, social contracts to achieve behavioral expectations, etc... that there are no formal "laws" doesn't matter.

Two things.

1) If we imagine anarchism and totalitarianism being at different ends of the same spectrum then we could argue that there has never been a perfect instantiation of either. It wouldn't mean that the theory or the concept is without meaning. It could simply be that one anarchist community is as close as is humanly possible to true anarchy and is worthy of the name just as Stalin's Soviet Union was as close as is humanly possible to perfect totalitarianism and so can be called totalitarian without any serious quibbles.

2) I don't agree that "community", "customs", "common goals", "co-operation", "collectivism" or even "order" are necessarily anti-thetical to anarchism, as I've said.

 

[WildCat]

I honestly think "Anarchism" is kind of a misnomer. Mosts anarchists do not advocate for a society completely devoid of hierarchy and laws. They simply want it on a very low-level...such as tribal and community based.

Mostly, they just want to dress in black and break things while living off of mommy and daddy.

 

[Thunder]

and they love to run around waving this flag:

though I'm sure that if the authors of Anarcho-syndicalism today saw the rifraf, losers, and morons that were running around with it today, they spit and roll in their graves.

 

[Virus]

Just to avoid the strawmen, this is what anarchists believe:

http://www.infoshop.org/page/AnAnarchistFAQ

 

[Thunder]

Just to avoid the strawmen, this is what anarchists believe:

http://www.infoshop.org/page/AnAnarchistFAQ

No, Virus. There is not only one kind of Anarchist.

 

[geni]

Just to avoid the strawmen, this is what anarchists believe:

http://www.infoshop.org/page/AnAnarchistFAQ

I somehow doubt that the anarcho-capitalists have enough in common with the anarcho-communists for that statement to have any validity

 

[angrysoba]

No, Virus. There is not only one kind of Anarchist.

But the link certainly squares with my idea of what anarchism is.

For example:

Anarchism is a political theory which aims to create anarchy, "the absence of a master, of a sovereign." [P-J Proudhon, What is Property , p. 264] In other words, anarchism is a political theory which aims to create a society within which individuals freely co-operate together as equals. As such anarchism opposes all forms of hierarchical control - be that control by the state or a capitalist - as harmful to the individual and their individuality as well as unnecessary.

since it was thought that government was necessary and that without government there could only be disorder and confusion, it was natural and logical that anarchy, which means absence of government, should sound like absence of order.

So, Malatesta doesn't argue for an "absence of order" but rather the absence of a government to enforce a particular order.

"Change opinion, convince the public that government is not only unnecessary, but extremely harmful, and then the word anarchy, just because it means absence of government, will come to mean for everybody: natural order, unity of human needs and the interests of all, complete freedom within complete solidarity."

As I understand it, anarchists believe that governments and heirachical structures are there to impose an "unnatural order" whereas if there were no government people would revert back to some kind of natural form of co-operation [the flaw I see in this thinking is that if anarchy were a natural state then heirachical, capitalist society must still have risen out of it. What guarantees are there in an anarchist society to stop this happening again?]

The term anarchy comes from the Greek, and essentially means 'no ruler.' Anarchists are people who reject all forms of government or coercive authority, all forms of hierarchy and domination. They are therefore opposed to what the Mexican anarchist Flores Magon called the 'sombre trinity' -- state, capital and the church. Anarchists are thus opposed to both capitalism and to the state, as well as to all forms of religious authority. anarchists also seek to establish or bring about by varying means, a condition of anarchy, that is, a decentralised society without coercive institutions, a society organised through a federation of voluntary associations."

So anarchists do believe in society but not a coercive one.

Anarchism, then, really stands for the liberation of the human mind from the dominion of religion; the liberation of the human body from the dominion of property; liberation from the shackles and restraint of government. Anarchism stands for a social order based on the free grouping of individuals for the purpose of producing real social wealth; an order that will guarantee to every human being free access to the earth and full enjoyment of the necessities of life, according to individual desires, tastes, and inclinations.

Again, anti-power-structures but not anti-community or anti-order.

In fact, the example you used, IchabodPlain, was this, "If I want to co-operate or trade, sure - but I can just as easily murder you to get what I want. There's no system in place to address grievances or enforce punishment."

Many anarchists would think you are beginning from Hobbesian principles that life in a "state of nature is nasty, brutish and short" and in which individuals sacrifice some of their liberty for security through a social contract arbitrated by rulers. But if I understand correctly, Kropotkin believed that Darwinism had shown humans (or possibly all animals) to be basically co-operative animals whose co-operative behaviour was a product of evolution. Thus, some anarchists like him thought that a state of nature was encouraged altruism for the purpose of self-preservation.

 

[IchabodPlain]

I think you're conflating what anarchy is supposed to be according to its proponents and what it inevitably ends up being.

There is no "what it's supposed to be" - that is a utopian farce propelled by people who would like to see society organized differently, but they want order. Either way, it's not anarchy.

However, I don't agree with you that "customs" amounts to "informal laws" as you said earlier.

Sure they do - they are actions which promote (or spurn) certain behaviors which are deemed desirable/undesirable by those who promote them.

Sure, this is often the case in practice but the point I am making is that in theory anarchism is indeed a political system (or set of doctrines if you prefer) in which people follow certain principles because they want to. Let me just reiterate so that there is no confusion. This is according to anarchist theory. Not anarchism in practice.

Then it isn't anarchy. Anarchy implies no power structure, not merely a decentralized power structure. What you are referring to are people who want to organize society differently, not remove the organization altogether.

Because people do not want to be left without a power structure or organization of some kind, as such, anarchy inevitably leads to reorganization.

Anarchists however dispute the inference "IF you have a political system THEN you must have an enforced order". I agree with you that in practice it is surely impossible and that was the purpose of my question to anarchists.

That is not logical, as political systems are methods of enforcing order - whether it's tribal rule, collectivist or community rule, it doesn't matter. All of the above seek to establish some order between groups of people to attain desired goals.

When you say that "political systems", "order", "communities" are fundamentally incompatible with anarchy you seem to miss the point. They believe that such things are not incompatible; they simply believe that such things come about by mutual consent and NOT through coercion.

Well, that surely depends of which "anarchist" you speak with. An anarcho-capitalist and an anarcho-communist can be shown to be quite incompatible. Anarcho-communists have no problem with coercion, and frankly, when you have anarchy, what's stopping coercion? If there is no system to address grievances or enforce punishment, coercion is surely possible.

All I'm asking is how they guarantee that. I would argue that they can't. You seem to be arguing that anarchist theorists have no interest in a community or in customs, political systems or order because that would be anti-thetical to anarchist principles. I don't agree with that.

No. What I'm saying is that those theories have no interest in anarchy. Rather, they are interested in a reorganization of society which changes political systems but does not remove them.

1) If we imagine anarchism and totalitarianism being at different ends of the same spectrum then we could argue that there has never been a perfect instantiation of either. It wouldn't mean that the theory or the concept is without meaning. It could simply be that one anarchist community is as close as is humanly possible to true anarchy and is worthy of the name just as Stalin's Soviet Union was as close as is humanly possible to perfect totalitarianism and so can be called totalitarian without any serious quibbles.

Could be, but I haven't seen it. Anarchy isn't a political system or theory, it's the absence thereof.

2) I don't agree that "community", "customs", "common goals", "co-operation", "collectivism" or even "order" are necessarily anti-thetical to anarchism, as I've said.

Your opinion aside, I don't think you've shown that.

 

[Sword_Of_Truth]

Anarchists inform me that every ideology gets to control its own little area.

We kinda have that already.

 

[angrysoba]

There is no "what it's supposed to be" - that is a utopian farce propelled by people who would like to see society organized differently, but they want order. Either way, it's not anarchy.



Sure they do - they are actions which promote (or spurn) certain behaviors which are deemed desirable/undesirable by those who promote them.



Then it isn't anarchy. Anarchy implies no power structure, not merely a decentralized power structure. What you are referring to are people who want to organize society differently, not remove the organization altogether.

Because people do not want to be left without a power structure or organization of some kind, as such, anarchy inevitably leads to reorganization.



That is not logical, as political systems are methods of enforcing order - whether it's tribal rule, collectivist or community rule, it doesn't matter. All of the above seek to establish some order between groups of people to attain desired goals.



Well, that surely depends of which "anarchist" you speak with. An anarcho-capitalist and an anarcho-communist can be shown to be quite incompatible. Anarcho-communists have no problem with coercion, and frankly, when you have anarchy, what's stopping coercion? If there is no system to address grievances or enforce punishment, coercion is surely possible.



No. What I'm saying is that those theories have no interest in anarchy. Rather, they are interested in a reorganization of society which changes political systems but does not remove them.



Could be, but I haven't seen it. Anarchy isn't a political system or theory, it's the absence thereof.



Your opinion aside, I don't think you've shown that.

I think you should read the link that Virus has put up. Your explanation is one long exercise in question-begging.

You keep saying: That's not what anarchy is. Anarchy means no social order because order requires enforcement. and "Anarchy isn't a political system or theory, it's the absence thereof."

I am saying this is incorrect and the quotes from the various anarchist thinkers above bear this out. Anarchism is the belief that there is some sort of natural social order than would be voluntarily assented to were it not for existing power structures such as government, religion, capitalism etc... coercing people into unnatural social orders through enforcement.

I'm not suggesting they are correct but I am suggesting you are defining anarchism incorrectly. If you don't work with the correct definition of anarchism then it is pointless discussing it.

 

[IchabodPlain]

But the link certainly squares with my idea of what anarchism is.

For example:





So, Malatesta doesn't argue for an "absence of order" but rather the absence of a government to enforce a particular order.



As I understand it, anarchists believe that governments and heirachical structures are there to impose an "unnatural order" whereas if there were no government people would revert back to some kind of natural form of co-operation [the flaw I see in this thinking is that if anarchy were a natural state then heirachical, capitalist society must still have risen out of it. What guarantees are there in an anarchist society to stop this happening again?]



So anarchists do believe in society but not a coercive one.



Again, anti-power-structures but not anti-community or anti-order.

In fact, the example you used, IchabodPlain, was this, "If I want to co-operate or trade, sure - but I can just as easily murder you to get what I want. There's no system in place to address grievances or enforce punishment."

Many anarchists would think you are beginning from Hobbesian principles that life in a "state of nature is nasty, brutish and short" and in which individuals sacrifice some of their liberty for security through a social contract arbitrated by rulers. But if I understand correctly, Kropotkin believed that Darwinism had shown humans (or possibly all animals) to be basically co-operative animals whose co-operative behaviour was a product of evolution. Thus, some anarchists like him thought that a state of nature was encouraged altruism for the purpose of self-preservation.

I'm sorry, but your patchwork of quotes spoken by people who themselves disagree about what this "natural order" is only reinforces my point: there isn't one. Some kill because they have no regard for others. Some want to work within a community as equals. Some say damn the community because I only really care for myself. There is no one, monolithic "natural order". It's transcendental hogwash. People promoting their own syndicalist or capitalist views use anarchy as a banner because it is a sort of blank page that one can promote "how things would really be if only we didn't have imposed order". The fact is that "natural order" is what we have now - otherwise known as "order".

Hobbes, in this case, is right: We sacrifice liberty for security. We give up certain freedoms in social contracts. We adopt measures to ascertain between peoples what is socially desirable, what are our goals as a people, how do we achieve these goals.

 

[angrysoba]

I'm sorry, but your patchwork of quotes spoken by people who themselves disagree about what this "natural order" is only reinforces my point: there isn't one. Some kill because they have no regard for others. Some want to work within a community as equals. Some say damn the community because I only really care for myself. There is no one, monolithic "natural order". It's transcendental hogwash. People promoting their own syndicalist or capitalist views use anarchy as a banner because it is a sort of blank page that one can promote "how things would really be if only we didn't have imposed order". The fact is that "natural order" is what we have now - otherwise known as "order".

Hobbes, in this case, is right: We sacrifice liberty for security. We give up certain freedoms in social contracts. We adopt measures to ascertain between peoples what is socially desirable, what are our goals as a people, how do we achieve these goals.

I agree that Hobbes is largely correct and I agree that anarchism is utopian hogwash.*

Where I disagree with you is your definition of anarchism.

They think the Hobbesian analysis of human nature is wrong.

Do you remember the teacher in Pink Floyd's The Wall who says:

"If you don't eat your meat you can't have any pudding. How can you have any pudding if you don't eat your meat?"

This is the perfect expression of a question-begging argument.

You say:

"If you don't have enforcement you can't have a social order. How can you have a social order if you don't have enforcement."

They believe, and this is my major problem with anarchism, that you can have a social order without enforcement. I find their attempts to explain how to be utterly unconvincing to say the least.


* I think Hobbes overstated his case though as human beings have evolved to be social animals. Hobbes was writing long before Darwin, though, so he can't be completely blamed for not knowing about his theories. I think Kropotkin, on the other hand, extrapolated too much from Darwin and came up with a kind of pseudo-Darwinist explanation for how communities could exist without enforcement.

 

[Virus]

No, Virus. There is not only one kind of Anarchist.

Feel free to link to a better summary of their views. I'm aware there are capitalist libertarian anarchists which are a different animal to the left anarchism that the opening post was asking about.

 

[IchabodPlain]

"If you don't have enforcement you can't have a social order. How can you have a social order if you don't have enforcement."

They believe, and this is my major problem with anarchism, that you can have a social order without enforcement. I find their attempts to explain how to be utterly unconvincing to say the least.

It's not that there can't be a social order, it's that they have no more say about where that social order will lead than does a psychopath. What I said, is that there is not one, monolithic "natural" order. This is easily confirmed when you read how one anarchist's views are internally inconsistent with another when they speak of the natural order of things. Any system which promotes social order does not promote anarchy. They merely promote changing the current social order to something else, and that's fine. What they don't want is chaos, which anarchy is, almost by definition.

The main problem is anarchy, as a political philosophy, is a product of the times: Romanticism and Darwinism. Anarchy is used as a window to how you view humanity philosophically - i.e. how would humanity behave in it's natural state without governments. As can be shown, humans in their natural state will create some semblance of government. The laughable part is that some anarchists breeze over this last part and call it a "community" which "decides" which customs to follow, and what goals to promote, and which not to promote.

Unencumbered tribes in various regions all over the world - who live in what could easily be called "our natural state" - have governments. This says enough that their view is flawed, and is not anarchy.

 

[mortimer]

I'm surprised BikerDruid hasn't chimed in, as he is an avowed anarchist and frequents this subforum.

 

[angrysoba]

Any system which promotes social order does not promote anarchy. They merely promote changing the current social order to something else, and that's fine. What they don't want is chaos, which anarchy is, almost by definition.

Okay, so we can infer from this that your definition of anarchy is chaos.

How do you back up this assertion given that most anarchist thinkers vehemently dispute this definition of anarchism? [Also, it is clear that from this that you think the link provided by Virus is completely wrong about what anarchism is because none of the people quoted there say that anarchism is "chaos". They go to pains to explain that that is emphatically NOT what anarchism is about.]

However, if you are correct, you should be able to show me how Kropotkin, Goldman, Malatesta and Proudhon were not anarchists.

 

[IchabodPlain]

Okay, so we can infer from this that your definition of anarchy is chaos.


How do you back up this assertion given that most anarchist thinkers vehemently dispute this definition of anarchism? [Also, it is clear that from this that you think the link provided by Virus is completely wrong about what anarchism is because none of the people quoted there say that anarchism is "chaos". They go to pains to explain that that is emphatically NOT what anarchism is about.]

I feel as if I've already covered this. To sum up:

There is chaos even between various anarchist theories. Anarcho-communists aren't going to like anarcho-capitalists much, as their theories are internally inconsistent with each other. Few anarchists (except those who actually agree with each other about how anarchy "should be") share the same Utopian world view, and thus, their views will conflict with others. None of them can possibly tell me why "communities" are ok and not government, but the band of thieves who rob them of life, property, and liberty are government. Anarchy is chaos because there is not one, monolithic "natural state" - the goals of the psychopath, the collectivist, and the individualist are in constant, unending conflict. This produces chaos or it produces government. The people/tribes in this world who could reasonably be called "humans living in their natural state/order" have governments, and it would be incorrect say they live in a state of anarchy.

Now, what of the above do you dispute?

However, if you are correct, you should be able to show me how Kropotkin, Goldman, Malatesta and Proudhon were not anarchists.

Again, I've done this. They (including Aleshker, who wasn't mentioned) call for a reorganization, a change of social order - none of them call for the removal of organization and order. That, as I've shown above, does not make them anarchists.

 

[Eddie Dane]

Anarchists inform me that every ideology gets to control its own little area.

Killer idea.

I'll move to the anarcho-capitalist bit. Within a decade this region will have a much bigger economy and a matching army then the leftist areas.

We can then move into the anarchist areas and enslave the population.
we will use the leftist women for breeding purposes (after shaving their armpits, of course).

In short: This is Spartaaaaaaaaaa!

 

[geni]

Killer idea.

I'll move to the anarcho-capitalist bit. Within a decade this region will have a much bigger economy and a matching army then the leftist areas.

Doubtful. The continuous civil wars well prevent the construction of any worthwhile infrastructure.

Expirence suggests that that under such conditions some form of religious group would probably do best. Getting wipped out by the anarcho-Mormonist mob would be embarrassing.

 

[bikerdruid]

I'm surprised BikerDruid hasn't chimed in, as he is an avowed anarchist and frequents this subforum.

i'm lurking...so far.