Can somebody explain Anarchy to me?

The misconception is on what anarchists believe. Whether or not the beliefs are relevant to reality is an entirely separate issue.

The communists didn't aim for a totalitarian state either, did they? And yet that's what they got. Just because your ideal is admirable doesn't mean it will survive first contact with the harsh, harsh reality of life. Anarchy is exactly like communism: something which simply does not work with our social reality.

I am now known as Flyboy.

It's still a bare assertion, and still a pointless thing to say in a thread about asking what something is.

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The communists didn't aim for a totalitarian state either, did they?

That is because you can't really enforce communism without an iron fist.

If you don't like a single Frank Ocean song, you have no soul.

Well, you can talk about theoretical systems all day. Anarchy is a theoretically good system. So is Objectivism, and Communism, and hardline Socialism, and even things like dictatorship. Everything has an "ideal" form. There is a such thing as an "ideal" criminal, or an "ideal" genocidal maniac. "Ideal" in the sociological sense of "does what something in its capacity should do to be the best at doing whatever that capacity is" is not the same as "ideal" meaning "is a good thing."

Reality does not treat most of the things I mentioned very kindly at all.

I am now known as Flyboy.

To me anything that isn't liberal democracy is theoretically bad. So that argument bothers me.

edited 15th Nov '11 6:33:07 PM by Erock

If you don't like a single Frank Ocean song, you have no soul.

I think sometimes the blue texting happens without intention. Or something. *shrug*

Anyway, the point is still valid because anarchy hinges on much the same premise as communism; that people somehow will always choose not to be greedy, aggressive fucks. Or, even when they're not that at all, that they always behave in a rational way that doesn't somehow harm others. (Which can happen entirely without that being an individual's intention.) Or that one of the behaviors that they can so freely engage in (like getting high or drunk) doesn't have negative consequences because your judgment is clouded. (Like killing someone because you drove drunk and were unfortunately not caught before the harm occurred. If this is an unsatisfactory example, use whichever scenario you prefer.) And that lastly, none of those situations causes you to act in an extremely emotional and not rational manner and do some revengin' of the wrongs done to you or someone you care about because any of the above or other scenarios.

Basically, you'd have to behave like an emotionless robot all the time. Laws, and trained police to enforce them (because no way in hell am I trusting an untrained 'militia' to regulate my society) are necessary because people quite often act in irrational manners. It also helps to keep things as fair as possible across a society as large as the ones we have today. Anarchy falls apart as soon as anything bigger than a small village is involved, and quite often not even then.

And Savage's supposed utopia in particular is particularly scary. (He's described it in other threads.) It basically comes down to a tyranny of who owns the guns, with him apparently okay because he has some. In action, he would be a dictator because he'd willingly hold a gun to the head of some local law enforcer because he'd been enforcing whatever rules the rest of the locality decided on.

FFFF, ninjae'd.

edited 15th Nov '11 6:36:45 PM by AceofSpades

Great, now could you use your understanding to explain what anarchism is?

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It breaches the right to not be mandated to own a gun.

edited 15th Nov '11 6:38:31 PM by Erock

If you don't like a single Frank Ocean song, you have no soul.

Well, when I say theoretically good, I meant as in, "good at doing whatever it is intended to do." It really should say theoretically ideal, but...

I mean, in theory, yes, an anarchic system could efficiently and reliably work as a form of social organization. Then again, so could National Socialism, or Soviet-style "Communism," or any other failed system of the past. So, no, it's not really that great in reality, and I agree, pretty much everything but liberal democracy is bad, in terms of value judgement (though that's just an opinion).

Democracy, after all, is the worst system ever devised by man—except for all the others that have been tried.

I am now known as Flyboy.

You messed up the Churchill quote. You must die.

If you don't like a single Frank Ocean song, you have no soul.

It's the idea that we can exist without leaders or anyone to enforce the rules. Somehow we will all magically not get angry (or at least control our anger) and not violate each other's space. Depending on the person you ask, we will either continue to maintain the current level of technology and general lifestyle (impossible without the government's current ability to gather taxes and distribute resources) or we'll go back to some kind of tribal style government of locals that somehow all get along without fighting over the resources.

I couldn't remember the specific quote and didn't feel like looking it up. Hence why it's not in quotation marks to begin with. I figure most people know what I'm referring to without having to have the actual quotation.

I am now known as Flyboy.

O.o How would that work? Even as an idealist, I know that humans wouldn't get along too well (for an extended period of time) without an established system of rules keeping them in check. (Really wish I could articulate this better...)

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You're thinking of anomie (or, in the simplest terms I can give it as, when members of society cease to follow society's rules—good or bad—as personal freedom reaches either end on the sliding scale of libertarian to authoritarian social controls).

Anarchy represents a state where society has basically maxed out on the libertarian end of the scale—i.e. there are no real, systematically enforced social controls—and thus represents a situation where anomie will run rampant, and you'll get things like large, armed groups going on a Rape, Pillage, and Burn binge, merchants price gouging anyone and everyone until angry mobs steal all their stuff and (probably) kill them, things are broken and destroyed, nothing is maintained, etc.

In other words, a situation that is not conducive to orderly and safe operation of an effective economy, which is the bedrock foundation of working society...

I am now known as Flyboy.

Well, see, it's not that anarchism doesn't have rules, it just doesn't have rulers or any kind of law enforcement. It's no government at all, with a militia that magically appears should any place or people need defending from other people. (Nevermind that the folks that took the time to plan an assault in this case would have the upperhand over a bunch of people that weren't organized before being attacked.) Whether or not rules exist is another matter.

It's a sort of "rational self interest" philosophy. Depending on the individual (again) there may or may not be rules. I'd imagine that Christian anarchists would have at least the Ten Commandments as rules they should generally follow to live a good life. But there's no one around to enforce rules in an anarchic society, so rules would pretty damn useless unless all people turn into robots.

There's no entrenched government, but you have leadership, those two are different concepts.

In the anarchist world, let's say someone wants to run a research project to cure MS. Then the community goes, "Person A is the best organiser for medical research, she should lead" and the people nod in agreement and then a bunch of medical scientists works under her, the project comes to fruition and then it is done and then disbanded. Then later, someone goes "Okay next project is to cure ALS", and then people say "Well in this case, we think Person B is a better organiser for this project" and so people work under Person B, including the previous leader.

That is, you have ad-hoc, non-entrenched leadership.

So like someone said something about religion. Everybody could be Christian today, tomorrow they figure they'd try out Shinto Buddhism. Yay. Point is that there is nobody there to enforce a religion via monopoly use of force. And the other point is that once the Christian religious leaders lose their sway, the Shinto Buddhists come to power, and the hand off is seamless and peaceful.

I'm not so sure religions would be universally agreed upon or transitioned between peacefully or completely. I'm skeptical about the leadership example as well.

edited 15th Nov '11 10:08:59 PM by Firebert

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Well, the whole point is that reality works nothing at all like the anarchic ideal, so, that's to be expected...

I am now known as Flyboy.

It works well in tribal situations, and I'm just explaining the expectations of anarchism... so whether it'd work on a national scale is rather... you know implausible.

@Savage: Is freedom to you just "Nobody tells you what to do?" in that case, you will never feel free even if goverments and laws would disappear.

I'd like to point out that having religious beliefs do not work that way. If it did, then it could not be called real faith or belief. There is no true Christian or true Buddhist that wakes up and goes "Oh hey, I think I'll try out a different religion today."

The point of free association in anarchism is that no one can rightfully stop you from doing that, or from converting in an actual serious manner. But then again, people can't legally do that now, and there's no way to prevent such a violation in an anarchic society because its dependence on the local community has pretty much guaranteed that any person trying to get away has absolutely no escape route.

I was more making the point that apostasy wouldn't be a crime, I just being facetious.

Hmm... Actually there is one way to sustain an anarchy. It might actually be the only way too...

They never travel alone.

Simply put: organization gives people (or at least whoever's in charge) greater power. Since people are naturally inclined to abuse power, removing peoples ability to organize properly prevents abuse of said power.

Fight smart, not fair.

I'd explain, but Breadloaf already did it, so I'll just drop in to say:

1. Democracy isn't mutually exclusive with anarchism or communism.

2. If it's not perfect we should keep trying.

edited 16th Nov '11 4:08:29 AM by Qeise

Laws are made to be broken. You're next, thermodynamics.