TVTropes Now available in the app store!
Open

Follow TV Tropes

Following

Can somebody explain Anarchy to me?

Go To

Ramidel Since: Jan, 2001
#126: May 27th 2013 at 8:35:24 PM

@deathpigeon: Proudhon doesn't really qualify as an anarchist, though; his philosophy is the Unbuilt Trope of anarchism, and his form of proto-mutualism was probably closer to anarcho-capitalism than anarchism (as anarchists describe it).

This is the same guy who said "property is theft" and "property is liberty," so right there you know that his views aren't going to be easy to pack into a box.

edited 27th May '13 8:41:56 PM by Ramidel

deathpigeon Since: Jan, 2001 Relationship Status: One True Dodecahedron
#127: May 27th 2013 at 8:43:39 PM

Fair enough. Proudhon is weird. He's simultaneously considered, by many, the father of anarchism and the father of fascism, two political philosophies that could NOT be more different. Like, he supported mandatory military service for every man.

...Part of the confusion with the property is theft and liberty thing is that he was writing before the socialist versions of the terms private property and personal property were developed. He was referring to private property with the first and personal property with the second.

edited 27th May '13 8:45:48 PM by deathpigeon

Ramidel Since: Jan, 2001
#128: May 27th 2013 at 8:56:35 PM

Not quite. He considered the product of one's own labor to be "personal property," as modern anarchists put it, even if it was a capital good. Of course, he was writing pre-Marx, so he can be forgiven for not seeing that that will lead to rent-seeking behavior. (Even as he noted that that had already happened!)

This is generally the mutualist position; so long as you remove unconditional land ownership and police power to enforce monopolies, private ownership of capital won't lead to feudalism.

edited 27th May '13 9:01:28 PM by Ramidel

deathpigeon Since: Jan, 2001 Relationship Status: One True Dodecahedron
#129: May 27th 2013 at 9:12:03 PM

Yeah. And all the things you remove sort of add up to proto-fascism. As I said, Proudhon was weird.

Ringsea He Who Got Gud from Fly-Over Country,USA Since: Aug, 2012 Relationship Status: Above such petty unnecessities
He Who Got Gud
#130: May 27th 2013 at 9:33:58 PM

How would ideal anarchism even be applied, if we decided to apply it tommorow? Thats something I've always wondered.

The most edgy person on the Internet.
Ramidel Since: Jan, 2001
#131: May 27th 2013 at 9:34:15 PM

[up][up]Yeah.

That said, I do think that Kevin Carson's point is valid to an extent. You can have a capitalist anarchist ideology, so long as you strip out the form of capitalism that currently exists and demand an actual free market, but the Rothbardian "anarcho-capitalists" are not anarchists.

[up] With difficulty. Most anarchists nowadays want to start it gradually, by establishing their own communes where property is held in common and where rules are decided by direct democracy; say, a bunch of friends get together to buy land and build a bicycle factory. Once the meme catches on, people will prefer to work for cooperatives instead of capitalist-owned enterprises, and the latter will either fail due to being unable to attract workers, or become indistinguishable from the cooperatives through trying to compete for labor. The dissolution of the state is usually the last step in any road map.

Some syndicalists advocate getting the ball rolling by starting with a general strike, then by taking over existing factories once they stop producing. This was popular during the Depression, but is kind of out of favor among the practical side of the anarchist movement right now.

edited 27th May '13 9:41:08 PM by Ramidel

deathpigeon Since: Jan, 2001 Relationship Status: One True Dodecahedron
#132: May 27th 2013 at 9:46:26 PM

[up][up] The short answer is that it couldn't. The slightly longer answer is we need to have some cultural changes before anarchy is achievable. This is known as the social revolution. The full answer is that hierarchies don't exist merely as institutions, but as concepts. One could make the system anarchic, but if everyone believes in, say, the patriarchy, it wouldn't be anarchy, or if people think they need a leader, a leader would appear. Thus, in order to achieve anarchy, we need to fight against the authoritarian memes with anarchic memes before implementing anarchism fully. Thus we need to eliminate or greatly reduce sexism, homophobia, racism, and things like them before we can implement anarchy.

Now, how it would be applied in a situation where anarchic memes have gained prominence, then how it would be implemented is that each community or commune (which I'd say would probably be self-defining) would vote on things that affect those communities via direct democracy, possibly with each vote being proportional to how much each issue affects each person. For things that would affect multiple communes, then these communes would communicate and collectively have votes in each of the communities with them collated to determine what the group of communes would do. This sort of federation would go all the way up to the global level with stuff affecting every commune. These are probable ways, but, while it's important to have a plan, we shouldn't restrict ourselves to them and be flexible about things.

[up] I think that the only way to make truly anarchic capitalism would be to remove its most defining feature, private property. However, actually capitalistic libertarianism could happen... it would just look nothing like the current right "libertarianism" that exists here in the US.

edited 27th May '13 9:48:36 PM by deathpigeon

Ringsea He Who Got Gud from Fly-Over Country,USA Since: Aug, 2012 Relationship Status: Above such petty unnecessities
He Who Got Gud
#133: May 27th 2013 at 9:52:45 PM

Shouldn't private property AGREE with anarchism? The whole point of it is being free, and what's more free than owning land you worked for?

The most edgy person on the Internet.
deathpigeon Since: Jan, 2001 Relationship Status: One True Dodecahedron
#134: May 27th 2013 at 10:04:00 PM

But that's not really private property. Private property is having land other people worked for. I mean, if you pay some guy to work your farm and you sell the things on the farm for a profit, did you really work for it? Plus, we're all for liberty, which is generally defined as individual autonomy or the freedom to do anything that doesn't restrict the freedom of others. Private property restricts other people's freedom. If you control the materials that other people labor with, you can control what others do with it, especially if you pay them for it, so you interfere with the freedoms of the workers with it.

So, to answer your question, what's more free than owning the land you worked for is not having a boss tell you how to work on their land.

Silasw A procrastination in of itself from A handcart to hell (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: And they all lived happily ever after <3
A procrastination in of itself
#135: May 27th 2013 at 10:09:29 PM

@DP, the running of shops wasn't a big thing, it was simply something I did that turned out very successfully. Hell it first came about as a way to get people to actually come visit my room. Plus limits existed strongly, student's couldn't be allowed to owe a shop without the permission of the community (via the meeting), shops couldn't be run as competition to the fund-raising shops (that were run to pay for half term and end of term parties) and the money people were spending wasn't (after the first few weeks) money that was bought in by them, it was money that was distributed weekly via the school. The running of shops wasn't particularly encouraged, it simply wasn't discouraged.

Also, all money fines levied against students would go into a pot, that was used to pay for certain school improvements (like a new trampoline).

Actually, the one person who defiantly broke the anarchism to make a profit without production business will have been the guy who lent money and charged interest, who happened to be a Swiss Jew...

edited 27th May '13 10:10:37 PM by Silasw

“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ Cyran
Ringsea He Who Got Gud from Fly-Over Country,USA Since: Aug, 2012 Relationship Status: Above such petty unnecessities
He Who Got Gud
#136: May 27th 2013 at 10:10:15 PM

[up]So I can be totally free in my private property, as in me and my family built and own it, but if someone tells us "grow corn" we are not free?

I'm genuinely trying to learn, not refute you.

The most edgy person on the Internet.
Silasw A procrastination in of itself from A handcart to hell (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: And they all lived happily ever after <3
A procrastination in of itself
#137: May 27th 2013 at 10:12:49 PM

[up]I think you've hit against the same problem that I did. There is a difference between "private property" and "personal property". Private property is something that you own and profit from without using (for its primary purpose), while personal property is stuff that you own and use, like actually stuff, or a house.

“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ Cyran
Ringsea He Who Got Gud from Fly-Over Country,USA Since: Aug, 2012 Relationship Status: Above such petty unnecessities
He Who Got Gud
#138: May 27th 2013 at 10:14:07 PM

Ooooooooh. Silly language with it's tiny differences.

The most edgy person on the Internet.
deathpigeon Since: Jan, 2001 Relationship Status: One True Dodecahedron
#139: May 27th 2013 at 10:17:47 PM

[up][up][up][up] Yes, but, if it were anarcho-communist, there would be no money. Most likely, it was collectivist anarchist.

[up][up][up] Sort of, yes. The thing is, the first one isn't private property. That would, more accurately, personal property. Private property, as I mentioned above, is property that one does not use and others do, with the owner benefiting. The thing is, it's never telling you "grow corn". It's "grow corn for me and give me the corn you grow and grow it the way I ask you to grow it." However, even just "grow corn" is controlling you. Not controlling you would be "grow corn if you want how you want for yourself," and, if that's really what one is doing, is that really private property?

Also, [up][up] that.

Ramidel Since: Jan, 2001
#140: May 27th 2013 at 10:38:40 PM

@deathpigeon: Some anarchists, subscribing to the labor theory of value, define personal property as "that developed by your own labor, or freely exchanged," instead of "that which you're personally using." Combined with credit unions and factory cooperatives, you have a free-market system that remains nonetheless anarchic. It only de-anarchizes when people start taking advantage of the right of free association to indenture themselves (which is unlikely as long as mutualist entities remain competitive and profitable, and as long as the prevailing memes don't discourage free cooperation or otherwise create opportunities for sharp dealing), or when sharp dealing leads to individuals gaining enough wealth to acquire capital goods and charge rent (the more likely failure mode, though again, as long as the mutualists maintain competitive and the memes disdain landlords, the system will likely be able to wade over the few would-be landlords).

Anarchism requires a precisely-machined set of memes, though, and this goes double if you're trying for free-market anarchism (which involves the least amount of coercion). If sex can be commodified, for example (which is likely to happen wherever sex is seen as shameful), that commodification will be a powerful pressure towards hierarchy.

edited 27th May '13 10:42:05 PM by Ramidel

CaptainKatsura Decoy from    Poland    Since: Jul, 2011
Decoy
#141: May 28th 2013 at 2:02:10 AM

I'll post here what I find in anarchist views as utopian and unpragmatic. One issue per post.

- monetary systems as temporary solution or their outright abolishment:

Monetary system is the best what we've got when it comes to means of payment for goods and services. Barter exchange and other non-monetary systems of payment have huge flaw that they are not feasible to introduce on national and global scale, and it is easier and more accurate to render the value of goods and services in currency, even if on global scale there is no single one. Eliminate currency and economy grinds to halt. By currency, I mean both classic monetary systems and e-currency, and I expect the latter to play larger and larger role due to rapid development of e-commerce.

My President is Funny Valentine.
deathpigeon Since: Jan, 2001 Relationship Status: One True Dodecahedron
#142: May 28th 2013 at 6:59:46 AM

[up][up] Which is the basics of individualist anarchism, though most individualists spend a lot more time than you did talking about the evils of what they call usury: interest (the traditional usury), rent, and profit.

[up] Even accepting that premise, that's hardly a complaint about anarchism AS A WHOLE as only the communists want to eliminate it completely and only the collectivists see money as a temporary situation. The rest (individualists, mutualists, syndicalists) have money. (Well, except the parecons, who sort of have money, but not really.)

RavenWilder Since: Apr, 2009
#143: May 28th 2013 at 10:00:47 AM

How is owning private property controlling people? True, you've got people in your employ, but it's not like you can keep them there against their will or punish them if they don't do what you say.

CaptainKatsura Decoy from    Poland    Since: Jul, 2011
Decoy
#144: May 28th 2013 at 10:45:16 AM

[up]And there are state regulations like minimum wages and work safety regulations that prevent any potential exploitation in case employer is immoral.

My President is Funny Valentine.
deathpigeon Since: Jan, 2001 Relationship Status: One True Dodecahedron
#145: May 28th 2013 at 6:26:45 PM

[up][up] Because you're telling them what to do and how to do it. If they don't do it how you want them to like you want them to, then you fire them and they are forced to find another job or starve if they can't, which is likely since getting fired makes you less likely to be hired, again. If you're renting their private property, they can evict you if you do something they don't like and, if you have a debt to them, they can get you sent to jail. All of those are ways that people can be controlled through private property.

RadicalTaoist scratching at .8, just hopin' from the #GUniverse Since: Jan, 2001
scratching at .8, just hopin'
#146: May 28th 2013 at 6:36:46 PM

Is denying people an income by firing them a form of control if everyone is guaranteed enough to survive?

Share it so that people can get into this conversation, 'cause we're not the only ones who think like this.
deathpigeon Since: Jan, 2001 Relationship Status: One True Dodecahedron
#147: May 28th 2013 at 6:40:49 PM

It is less so. There will still be benefits from having a job, but there would no longer be a choice between wage slavery and death like there currently is. Your boss would still have control over you while you're working, though. It would just get rid of one of the biggest forms of discipline that exists today.

Ramidel Since: Jan, 2001
#148: May 28th 2013 at 8:28:34 PM

@deathpigeon: Right. I focused more on the "how" of stopping said things than railing against them. Mostly because I take it as a given that someone will at least try to develop a capital asset (say, a tractor) and sit on it until someone makes him an offer he likes. Collectivists and communists would, of course, say "thanks for the tractor, we'll be taking it now," but individualists tend to frown on that, so they need an alternate solution (which probably needs to come from the memetic level).

RavenWilder Since: Apr, 2009
#149: May 28th 2013 at 9:42:41 PM

@deathpigeon: You can apply that logic to any form of commerce, though. I mean, if I go into a restaurant, I can only get food if I do what the restaurant demands of me (give them money, sit at the table they assign me, adhere to their dress code, etc.) If I refuse, they'll kick me out, and I won't get to eat. I could go somewhere else to get food, but anywhere I go is likely to force the same restrictions on me. Even soup kitchens require you to wait in line before you can eat.

edited 28th May '13 9:44:10 PM by RavenWilder

CaptainKatsura Decoy from    Poland    Since: Jul, 2011
Decoy
#150: May 29th 2013 at 3:22:05 AM

It's natural that debts are punished by the law. It's fair to pay off money you took from other person in mutual agreement. And it's only fair that employer has to decide what people work for him. People are not equal in capabilities, and some employees are more efficient and qualified than others.

Also nobody forces you into relationship between employer and employee. One can become employer him/herself.

edited 29th May '13 3:25:27 AM by CaptainKatsura

My President is Funny Valentine.

Total posts: 512
Top