Anarchy as a Philosophy and The Feasibility of Its Functionality

[Pariahprose]

Anarchy as most people know, is the idea of a society absent of any government,law, or authority. Philosophically, the idea seems like it would be very sound and most beneficial to the individual, allowing each person to do as they wish. However, upon deeper inspection, anarchy can be revealed as a utopian idea IMO. Utopian ideas can only function in perfect conditions absent of any variables. As we all know, the world is less than perfect and is far from being absent of variables, with the most extreme variable being mankind and our nature. It is in the nature of mankind to form some sort of social structure and is ignorant to assume that everyone in the world conform to the idea of lawlessness. Eventually, another government would form and be ran by whoever had the best means to establish one, making any existence of anything close to anarchy short lived. What is everyone's Else's view on anarchy and the likelihood that it could ever possibly function as a sustainable philosophy?

 

[Yeagerx]

Anarchy would fail because we still can't get along. Some group would have "ideals" and want everyone to live that way. More War. Oh and if you want a society like this to work, you'd need to think of another system besides money. These are just a couple scattered, poorly explained points.

 

[ebola?]

Humans seem capable of constructing a variety of social systems through which they organize all domains of power and activity. Given that some social forms under current arrangements are quite non-hierarchical, I don't see why this couldn't be extended to a vast array of domains; I consider the anarchist impulse to remain valid and promising, but we need to experiment more socially, putting it to further tests. Insofar as such experiments present success, perhaps we could construct a social system that is quite generally anti-hierarchical.

ebola

 

[rickolasnice]

Part of a good documentary..

Anarchism can work..

Until some fascist kills it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VUig0lFHDDw

 

[rickolasnice]

Humans seem capable of constructing a variety of social systems through which they organize all domains of power and activity. Given that some social forms under current arrangements are quite non-hierarchical, I don't see why this couldn't be extended to a vast array of domains; I consider the anarchist impulse to remain valid and promising, but we need to experiment more socially, putting it to further tests. Insofar as such experiments present success, perhaps we could construct a social system that is quite generally anti-hierarchical.

ebola

The powers that be would never allow it

My friends and I are planning on buying a plot of land in or near some woods where we are going to build our own little anarchist home(s).. Growing crops and generally getting all we need from nature (My friend has looked into it a lot more than i have.. he's been taking courses to help with the whole thing)

 

[MyDoorsAreOpen]

Like many throughout time who are deeply enmeshed in society and thus firmly under the thumb of its various institutions of power, I have a morbid fascination with the fringes and people who live on them, essentially outside the jurisdiction of government. This is where true anarchy is to be found -- places and scenes that just don't lend themselves to being policed or governed, and whose constituents are usually more than happy to go unnoticed by government and polite society. If you like reading stories set in the wild West, the ancient Chinese marshlands, or any band of thieves or criminals, you might be one of these people too.

It's not that anarchist social orders are better or worse than ones that do what they do with respect to the law and government, they just operate on very different social rules. I think you have to project a tougher and more wily air to survive in them, because it's truly every man for himself. If you let someone take advantage of you and others see and hear about it, pretty soon you're everybody's bitch. Trust is a costly thing on the fringes, and many are stingy with it. I personally know that I would not be happier under an anarchist sort of system, because I don't think having to watch my back all the time would give me the time or energy to do what I do best. I can see how some (a minority, IME) prefer to actually live that way, rather than just fantasize about from our cushy, "civil" lives. I am not one of them.

This isn't really saying anything profound. People like power structures and central leadership in all situations that naturally lend themselves to this. They don't, so much, in situations that don't. What you do not see, IME, are groups that are anarchist ad hoc, that is, the people got together to do something that is compatible with central leadership and a chain of command for decision making, but just choose on principle not to have either.

 

[xx001]

I am an anarchist for ethical reasons, but I also believe that it superior from a practical perspective, though utilitarianism is not a valid justification for anarchism, simply an explanation of it.

Here, ethics is a system of rights that human possess as derived from two principles. One is the principle of self-ownership. You own your body and mind and can own property external to yourself. The second is the non-aggression principle, that it is ethically illegitimate to use force against others, violating their rights. From these two principles, we deduce all rights as property rights. Contracts are voluntary agreements handling the rights of multiple people. Within this framework, only individual actions can be justified as ethical or unethical. An ethical action is one that does not violate the rights of another, either by having nothing to do with another person, or if the action involves multiple people, by being voluntary. An unethical action is one that is not voluntary and violates a person's rights. Examples of unethical actions are murder, theft, assault, rape, fraud, breaking a valid contract, etc.

The state is, by definition, incompatible with rights. This is because the state is a monopoly on force in a certain area. It is not a voluntary institution. You must do as the state commands, regardless of ethicality, or force will be used against you. Your property can be stolen, you can be put in a prison, or even executed even though you violated nobody's rights. This makes government inherently unethical.

An anarchist of this type, usually referred to as a voluntarist or anarcho-capitalist, is not simply in opposition to government, but in opposition to all force, and the state is simply the most powerful, organized form of force.

This is not to say I am a pacifist or that I do not believe in justice. If a person threatens you or attacks you, you have the right to defend yourself, with lethal force if necessary. If someone violates your rights in some way, you have the right to seek restitution.

I believe that government is evil because it is the worst offender against rights. The common justification for government is that it is put in place to protect the rights of its subjects. This is a flawed justification because the state does so by using force. It must violate the rights of its subjects. We are attempting to protect rights by violating them, so the state is in no way ethically justified.



This is the ethical justification for anarchism. One concerned with these or other problems may see the state as necessary to have a functional society and advocate a minimal government. These people, in contrast to ANarchists, are MINarchists. Minarchists often accept that for practical reasons, private, voluntary organizations are always preferred to government organizations. This is central to the economic arguments made by libertarians advocating for a smaller government. They accept that the market functions better than the government. The anarchist simply takes this a step further and applies the same principle to all government functions, including police, courts, security, law.

The specifics on how such a society might function are not necessary to the argument, though various proposals are often made. The reality is that we cannot know exactly how such a society would function or how many different ways it can function. This, like everything else, is left to the voluntary market to decide.

 

[jpgrdnr]

The reality is that we cannot know exactly how such a society would function or how many different ways it can function.

I think this is why I dismiss it, is that its mostly a philosophical consideration on a utopia, like people have suggested. Again, money is why it won't work. And people, or rather the number of people. Its interesting that say a city, LA or Tokyo - 20 million people - how could it function if the system of order placed on it did not exist?. I think its a large problem with density vs. order. I've seen documentaries on parts of Africa where its basically no man's land. Yet, there is still a humanistic order. Not much. And still violence plays an important part in a sort of absurdist way, without factions there would be nothing. I guess where I'm going with this is that a logical part of civilization is a military, both to protect itself from invasion, its unity (rebellion), and to support its people. In return the military remains unified and doesn't become simply a band of murderous thugs ruling over people based in fear (if the people are weak? there's a lot of countries where the people are basically the military, or in the US armed).

I like the idea of anti-government, in that a government needs to fear its people. Its a check-balance in case the government is in severe error.

But I think the concept of state is old. The dependency is too great. As you've said, the market must decide.

From my point of view I think government isn't refined enough. We need to become the government. But its all sort of thrown to the wind on density and money. consumerist drive is the engine. I just don't see any change in either direction, less government or more government.

 

[L2R]

we, you and i, are all poisoned by the society in which we are living. it is the poison of capitalism, individualism and nationalism which prevents our capabilities from entertaining such notions. even if we managed to overthrow the status quo, it would take generations of social therapy to remove this poison from our memetic make-up, and we would inevitably end up in a similarly hierarchical structure.

imo

 

[xx001]

I don't have much time to respond at the moment but I will make a short bit here.

To jpgrdnr, the reason I say that we cannot know with total certainty how such a society will work is the same reason you cannot know whether Company A or Company B will be a better investment, or which of two technologies will turn out to be the best method of manufacturing a certain good. It is impossible for a single actor to know what is best for the economy. This is the entire purpose of having a market and why centrally planned economies suffer in comparison. I actually do think we can have a fairly good idea of what an anarchist, or at least market-anarchist, society would look like but I will save that for later.

There is a misunderstanding about what "anarchy" actually means. I will quote John Hasnas here:

Anarchy refers to a society without a central political authority. But it is also
used to refer to disorder or chaos. This constitutes a textbook example of Orwellian
newspeak in which assigning the same name to two different concepts effectively
narrows the range of thought. For if lack of government is identified with the lack of
order, no one will ask whether lack of government actually results in a lack of order.
And this uninquisitive mental attitude is absolutely essential to the case for the state.
For if people were ever to seriously question whether government is really productive
of order, popular support for government would almost instantly collapse.

Anarchy does not mean a lack of order. Order does not require violence or any type of top-down administration so it is not that LA or Tokyo would not have any order without a government. The government is not the main organizer of society as it is now. The market is the administrator. People working specifically for their own interests find the most efficient solution to a problem on their own. I have my own gripes about Adam Smith but the "invisible hand" is an appropriate analogy here.

To L2R, I'm not entirely sure what you mean by us being "poisoned by the society". We are certainly influenced by capitalism, individualism, and nationalism, though I would only suggest that the latter of the three is a harmful influence. I would like to know what you really mean by "capitalism" and "individualism". People often make the mistake of assuming that capitalism is simply whatever the system the Western world, specifically, the USA currently has. Hong Kong and Singapore are the closest thing the world has to actual capitalism at present. America has corporatism, the economic tendency of fascism, and Europe has a form of state-socialism. Neither are anything close to a free market. As far as needing generations of therapy, this is mostly true, though I don't think it has to do much with the influence of culture as much as inherent flaws in human psychology, and it need not apply simply to government. Religion, race, gender are additional topics to consider here.

 

[Pariahprose]

we, you and i, are all poisoned by the society in which we are living. it is the poison of capitalism, individualism and nationalism which prevents our capabilities from entertaining such notions. even if we managed to overthrow the status quo, it would take generations of social therapy to remove this poison from our memetic make-up, and we would inevitably end up in a similarly hierarchical structure.

imo

Isnt it ironic though how it is this poison that sustains us all? Much like drugs sustain many. Guess drugs are the poison to sustain the realization that there is no escaping the poison of society. Whats even sadder is that those of us who realize this are utterly powerless and tied. Society is like a car wreck in slow motion, you see the wreck coming and do everything you can to prepare but you are moving in even slower motion.

A good example of Anarchy failing on a smaller level than society as a whole can be witnessed in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. New Orleans was utterly destroyed, filled with criminals taking advantage of a horrible situation,and utter lawlessness,as close to Anarchy as I know of to have occured in the United States,IMO. Maybe only a few other times in modern society that something close to Anarchy has happened.

Pariahprose

 

[Bardeaux]

Anarchy as most people know, is the idea of a society absent of any government,law, or authority.

This is incorrect. This is anarchy as a descriptive noun, not as a philosophical school of thought. Government and law aren't mutually exclusive with anarchism. Anarchist beliefs vary from collectivist ideas with the very same goal as marxian concepts; a classless, moneyless, marketless and stateless society ruled by direct democratic participation inside a non-hierarchical government. The opposite end of the anarchist spectrum idealizes a stateless society with individual participation in a market structure.

An anarchist of this type, usually referred to as a voluntarist or anarcho-capitalist, is not simply in opposition to government, but in opposition to all force, and the state is simply the most powerful, organized form of force.

To play devil's advocate, what about private ownership of productive means and capital? Unless everyone owns an equal share of both property and capital, hierarchy and force cannot be removed. The haves will always hold sway over the have-nots as the poor and those without property are still in some way dependent on those with capital and property. For this reason, I can't accept anarcho-capitaism as an anarchist ideology.

 

[ebola?]

I'll just note to clarify that most anarchists aren't anarcho-capitalists, and even most market-anarchists desire only markets do not tie together individuals in capitalist social relations or any other set of class-relations.

ebola

 

[RedRum OG]

I'm not sure how I feel about true anarchy (once you get past the fact "true" anarchy isn't really possible, as adhering to anarchy defies anarchy)

But I can tell you one thing, if the government were to suddenly disappear from this modern capitalist world, things would go to shit really quick, who knows where it'd end up though.

 

[xx001]

I'll just note to clarify that most anarchists aren't anarcho-capitalists, and even most market-anarchists desire only markets do not tie together individuals in capitalist social relations or any other set of class-relations.

ebola

This is a semantic/naming issue that a lot of us tend to be uneasy about. "Voluntarism" is another good alternative for those that want a different name. Calling it "anarcho-capitalism" can be misleading for people who have different ideas about what capitalism is. Fortunately for the collectivist anarchists, it's perfectly ok to set up a commune of some sort or start an anarcho-syndicalist thing within a larger an-cap society. Just don't mess with anyone else.

The only reasonable class theory to me is one that distinguishes how people going about meeting their needs in life. One class is the people who support their lives by engaging in voluntary trade with others. The contrary class is of those people who use non-voluntary means(violence, threats, fraud, theft, etc.) to support themselves.

 

[ebola?]

Fortunately for the collectivist anarchists, it's perfectly ok to set up a commune of some sort or start an anarcho-syndicalist thing within a larger an-cap society.

Or it would rather be viable for two such anarchic social units to work along side each other in wider federation (I'm not even sure whether such social units would need map to unique geographical areas...Perhaps insofar as they do, one would risk such social units coming to function a bit like nation-states). I'm not sure that it would be viable for one social approach to 'subsume' the other (or rather for advocates of this approach to claim that their approach subsumes the other), as this this opens the door to those who have adopted one of the two social ethics to dominate the other.

The only reasonable class theory to me is one that distinguishes how people going about meeting their needs in life. One class is the people who support their lives by engaging in voluntary trade with others. The contrary class is of those people who use non-voluntary means(violence, threats, fraud, theft, etc.) to support themselves.

I mean something pretty different and a bit more specific by "social class". Instead, classes emerge insofar as groups are set in class-relations, such relations dictating how social groups interact in processes of production and distribution, heretofore entailing that one group dominates and exploits another. I don't quite see how either of the groups described above are set in necessary class-relations (indeed, we can think of examples where these two groups don't interrelate at all). Instead, you introduce two sorts of 'meta-classes', describing types of social relations that various social classes engage in, but also strategies for acquisition that can cross-cut classes set in relation in multiple given social systems.

ebola

 

[xx001]

To be honest, I don't really like the idea of class theory at all, as it is the individuals that matter and have actual traits, not groups. That is not to say that there aren't certain widespread fundamental traits that shape how society functions.

Instead, classes emerge insofar as groups are set in class-relations, such relations dictating how social groups interact in processes of production and distribution, heretofore entailing that one group dominates and exploits another.

Do you mind elaborating here? The word "exploitation" gets thrown around a lot without its users explaining what they actually mean by it. It has become sort of a socialist buzz-word in many instances, not carrying meaning as to the implications of its presence.

But yes, people are always going to have different roles in the process of production or distribution as people have varying skills, resources, values, personalities, and relations with the law.

 

[ebola?]

To be honest, I don't really like the idea of class theory at all, as it is the individuals that matter and have actual traits, not groups.

Well, individuals do not develop and draw together into social relations ex nihilo, and relations of socio-economic class play a tremendously large role in disparately allocating freedoms to individuals. Thus, any serious social or economic account of inter-individual dynamics needs explain the function of socio-economic class pertinent to this account.

Do you mind elaborating here? The word "exploitation" gets thrown around a lot without its users explaining what they actually mean by it. It has become sort of a socialist buzz-word in many instances, not carrying meaning as to the implications of its presence.

Sure thing. I am using "exploitation" in a relatively straight-forward, Marxian sense--exploitation: the ability to claim a higher proportion of what is produced in a collaborative laboring 'project' than another individual at the cost of what the latter individual receives. Eg, capitalist social relations are exploitative insofar as capitalists are able to claim the 'surplus' of what laborers working collaboratively produce beyond their own means of subsistence.

ebola

 

[xx001]

As in the following example?

Employee x is a factory worker. He produces a good that the factory owner sells for $20. Employee x is compensated $10 in wages for producing the good.

And that it is wrong that the good is sold to a customer for more than employee x's labor was sold to the factory owner?

 

[ebola?]

And that it is wrong that the good is sold to a customer for more than employee x's labor was sold to the factory owner?

In terms of sum impact on social justice, I would say so, particularly if the employer contributes little to the enterprise in terms of innovating production while yielding the 'surplus product' of numerous employees. In terms of whether anyone involved did anything ethically unscrupulous? Not necessarily. . .

ebola