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Questions for Anarchists

CplFerro

Graduate Poster
CplFerro
Joined
Jul 30, 2005
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So, I've met an Anarchist and she's quite convinced that Anarchy is viable. By Anarchy she means the socialist, cooperative variety, rather than the capitalist, competitive one. But, I'm hard pressed to come up with the sort of cutting questions that this political philosophy should have to face if it were ever to develop into a serious competitor of the current political arrangement.

What questions for Anarchists can you come up with that will put an Anarchist on her toes?
 
I don't think it's as much a matter of finding some trick question, as a matter of her coming to understand why humans can't work like that. Anarchy of that kind is based on the idea that, basically, people will care about each other and work for the common good and all, and at least work together well enough to isolate anyone who doesn't play nice like that and is a, you know,
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There are very few things that that can't answer _and_ can be packed in a short trick question. The way to dismantle it is to make her understand why humans can't work like that on a large scale, i.e., that that answer is in itself wrong.

I think that at least for me the Revelation Of St Hans ;) came when reading about Dunbar's number. Essentially anarchy does work in small groups -- as in, below 150 -- just because everyone knows everyone and is in a meaningful relationship with everyone. Above that, well, you need some form of "archy" just because you get a lot of cliques who don't give a rat's ass about each other. And more importantly have no idea what the other groups even want or need.

At any rate, what made it possible at all to rise above the level of 150-people tribes was, basically, inventing some form of "archy" that enforced some kind of working together above the biological limits.

Of course, if you have a proponent of primitive tribal anarchy... well, good luck there.
 
Doesn't anarchy preclude any form of government at all? Because if it does, a socialism is right out.
Somalia is currently a nice example of anarchy in action. And the result seems to be that people would prefer an extreme theocracy over total anarchy. Pretty much the same as what led the taliban to power in afghanistan in the first place.
The concept would only work if everyone is a nice person, willing to share and share alike without ever willfully harming another for any reason. So not with humans.
 
Peaceful, cooperative, self-reproducing anarchist societies face a grave outside threat: some other, less enlightened people will inevitably organize a government -- historically the most violent, murderous, oppressive institution in human history -- and take over the good guys for reasons of glory, greed, or God.
 
The error is that anybody is allowed to pick up a club and take things which don't belong to them. It has nothing to do with the "wisdom" of the takers in using the taken things.
 
Lukraak_Sisser said:
The concept would only work if everyone is a nice person, willing to share and share alike without ever willfully harming another for any reason.
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And there you have summarized the world view of everyone who believes in any kind of cooperative anarchy. They actually think that most people are like that and would work like that, and somehow could be brought to ostracize a-holes instead of following them.
 
CplFerro said:
What questions for Anarchists can you come up with that will put an Anarchist on her toes?
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The best question I can think of is how much time non-wonky people would really spend going to meetings. If there is to be no sub-group of rulers making rules for everyone, how long will the entire population be willing to keep participating in rule-making? I expect a lot of burnout, and would be interested to hear how she thinks this problem would be dealt with.

(By the way, has this ever been investigated in the social science literature?)

You could also ask her if she supports a recallable delegate system for cooperative organization between communities, or some other method. Or is she the kind of anarchist who wants a decentralization so radical as to preclude cooperation between communities?

Finally, what kind of "judicial" system would she favor? For example, when people violate community rules (which they will) or there is a dispute between two or more members (which there will be), would her model's courts consist of the entire community, or just randomly-selected people from a pool of volunteers, or what?

These are questions she should consider if she hasn't already. But they aren't "gotcha" challenges.

I would also ask her if she has read An Anarchist FAQ by Iain McKay, et al? (No, not the guy from Fugazi.) Where is she learning about anarchism?
 
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Anarchy would quickly devolve into tyranny as the strongest and/or the smartest take advantage of there being no checks and balances.
 
Criticism of anarchism off the top of my head:

a) It's never existed and never will.

b) It has no plan on how society should be organized.

c) It has no plan on how to run an economy.

d) We've already got a system that provides the benefits of organization and tempers or eliminates the worst aspects of pre-democratic governments.

e) The government doesn't bother me one bit. Laws aren't repressive or vindictive where I live and abuses of power are kept to a minimum.

f) I have a standard of living unmatched in history. Society is progressing under the current model. There's less war, less famine and less violence in the world than there's ever been. Why should I take up arms and man the barricades for someone's vague promises that everything will be better once the rubble clears? Serious burden of proof there.

g) Attempts to radically transform society have a dismal track record in history. They tend to mutate into psychotic cults of death.

h) Fringe lefty movements attract weirdos. Like Truthers. And these people: http://zombietime.com/anarchist_bookfair_march_18_2006/

i) With no government, the only way to keep a society of disparate, conflicting interests together would be through a cult-like group think that would end up as one of the worst forms of totalitarianism in history. The pressure to conform and toe the anarchist line would be crushingly brutal and I don't like being made to conform.

j) Command economies don't work. Even if you replaced central planning by committee with central planning by some sort of democratic method, it's still central planning.
 
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Cain said:
Peaceful, cooperative, self-reproducing anarchist societies
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No doubt the lakes of this society are filled with kraken, unicorns graze peacefully in the fields, Bigfoot roams the forests, and there's a leprechaun with a pot of gold at the end of every rainbow.
 
Just thought of two more things;

k) Stay away from people who think they know more about **** than people who study ****. Don't study economics? Then you probably don't know **** about economics.

l) They smash windows and act like twits. Yeah right, I'm really going to listen to you because of that.
 
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Humans are essentially hierarchical. They like to have strong leaders and organization. Freewheeling, structureless societies can work on small scales; there are still various communes around the country that have been in existence for years.
But I'll wager they all have a hierarchical social structure, though it may not be apparent at first.
 
GreyArea said:
The best question I can think of is how much time non-wonky people would really spend going to meetings. If there is to be no sub-group of rulers making rules for everyone, how long will the entire population be willing to keep participating in rule-making? I expect a lot of burnout, and would be interested to hear how she thinks this problem would be dealt with.
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This is a very string point against anarchism. It's inefficient because time is taken away from work to attend meetings, which will be rendered less efficient by everyone sticking their oar in.

Politics isn't glamorous. It's a lot of listening to people drone on about "the proposed changes to sub-clause seventeen of the amendment ..." very few people actually want to sit though hours and hours of that. World leaders are very exhausted people. They work long hours and get little sleep. Politics also requires expertise on a number of fields such as economics and law which not everyone has and not everyone has an interest in.

You could ask her why anarchists, who claim to have solutions to societies problems, are relegated to an insignificantly tiny fringe lifestyle movement that nobody listens to. Nobody is stopping them from showing us a better example.

Peaceful, cooperative, self-reproducing anarchist societies face a grave outside threat: some other, less enlightened people will inevitably organize a government -- historically the most violent, murderous, oppressive institution in human history -- and take over the good guys for reasons of glory, greed, or God
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That's true. How do they plan to stop the Islamic jihad? They don't believe in things like the FBI. They also claim that nations can be defended by militias instead of a professional military, which is BS because militias tend to be... well, crap. Professional militaries always stomp militias because they're disorganized and tend to shoot in the air. They're only good for hit-and-run harassment or as auxiliaries to larger forces.
 
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I'll give anarchists this: some good criticisms of communism were written by anarchists, such as Alexander Berkman's The Russian Tragedy, and Voline's The Unknown Revolution.
 
All the above criticisms assume that stability is the aim.
Since when were anarchists interested in stability?
 
Virus said:
I'll give anarchists this: some good criticisms of communism were written by anarchists, such as Alexander Berkman's The Russian Tragedy, and Voline's The Unknown Revolution.
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This just goes to show you what a crap idea communism is, if even anarchists can come up with good criticisms of it.
 
CplFerro said:
What questions for Anarchists can you come up with that will put an Anarchist on her toes?
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The obvious concern is, what some opportunistic or criminal people will do to others, and who will take care of the numerous people who cannot cope on their own, when the society stops controlling anyone or anything.

This will not put an Anarchist on her toes, they imagine that people are basically good and will do good to each other. There really is no way to win the debate, without actually putting the Anarchist into the said circumstances with some really nasty people.
 
JJM 777 said:
This will not put an Anarchist on her toes, they imagine that people are basically good and will do good to each other.
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Aren't these the same guys who like to destroy other people's property? :boggled:
 
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