Let's talk about anarchy!

[z31maniac]

^I would like to hear your parallel between anarchism and libertarianism.

[decay]

However, what happens when people don't have that benevolence? Or if they disagree on how the community should operate?

within my local community? they're outed by their own actions and shunned, typically. those of us who've lived in small towns don't need explanation on how word gets around.
disagreements are handled in the open via discourse that hopefully stays civil.

however, how does that translate outside of a small group of people? How do you get people from Alaska to agree with people from Texas when they largely don't share similar interests? Beyond that, how do large-scale infrastructures remain intact and maintained? Highways, sewers, gas lines, etc? Essentially, the crowd-sourcing that was described earlier is actually a lot like the taxes that people pay within the current government, people are still banding together to support the entire community, it just happens to be on a much bigger scale than a surgery for a cat. So the reality here isn't that there is a disagreement over the need to provide services for a community, it's just how those services are being provided (or lack thereof).

Seems more like utopianism to me, which has been shown to work on the small scale, but fails when you get outside of a group of like-minded individuals.

scalability is an issue with any political model, and you're not at all wrong for pointing out that the ideals involved in social anarchy have a lower limit to community size than... whatever the fuck you want to call what we have now, i'm having trouble coming up with words to describe this mess. it's starting to smell like "fascist capitalism" to me.

i think the reasons that posters in this thread have described what the local community has adopted as "not true anarchism" is that in some ways, yes, the community aspect is very similar to what you see anywhere in small-town USA; but adapted in to work within the context of larger cities, in our current socioeconomic climate.

i'd go so far as to say that "true anarchism" doesn't really scale beyond the family-unit level. anyone who really wants to live that way needs to go build a cabin in the woods and be good at hunting, fishing, and maintaining a garden, and have a like-minded partner if they don't want to spend the rest of their life fapping.

And I think that's the problem I always see, that the desire for complete freedom and individuality means that it's impossible to manage on a large scale.

it absolutely does, and this is why i think that a country consisting of smaller and more decentralized communities, even ones that exist within areas that have higher population density, are a good thing.

to reiterate; where i live now, this is happening out of necessity, not desire.
the police won't prioritize any incident not involving a gun, domestic violence, or danger to/neglect of a child. that's straight from the mouth of the cop i dated.
my friend eva is a civil engineer working for EBMUD (the local utility that provides water/power/gas) and she is massively frustrated that you really should use a brita to filter what comes out of the tap.
how do we deal with these issues? given the two examples:
for security, you watch out for yourself and your neighbors, and if you see some guy walking down the street looking in every car window, you convince him to leave the area.
for water, we've got community classes on how to build your own rainwater collection system.
hell, if you want to come to my commune house, you'll get fed for free because we have a huge garden growing food (rather than decorative plants) and 4 chickens in the backyard. i make a mean fucking omelette for breakfast or won-ton soup for dinner, yo.

anyway, i'm digressing. if i can draw a parallel between anarchism and libertarianism again; i wonder if people might find the idea more palatable if it was described as a further extension of the states'-rights argument, down to the community level.

thank you for discussing this with me calmly.

[marshallnoise]

Z31, you can give me shit for throwing a definition of terms on the page so we can actually have a conversation, but what you can't call it is an argument in semantics when the definition of anarchy being used here is not even remotely related to what anarchy actually is. The gap isn't merely nuance that you can call semantics. We aren't discussing shades of blue here.

It's pointless to discuss when you can't even agree on the basic definition of what you are discussing.

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[mbonder]

I've been sitting on the sidelines to this point because it's fun to watch you guys yell at each other.

But here's the question that I've always had for people that take the viewpoint that no government/anarchism would be better than having our current government:

Inherently, in the anarchistic system that has been described (take in the cat example from earlier) it appears as though it CAN work as long as all people involved have a similar mindset of benevolence towards all other members of the community. However, what happens when people don't have that benevolence? Or if they disagree on how the community should operate?

This has always been my issue with complete and total individual freedom, the reality that one person's view of right and wrong and how to operate might run contrary to what another person's views are and that contradiction can't be readily solved on a larger scale.

I'm not saying the crowd-sourcing idea doesn't work, or that individual communities can't operate outside of a traditional government to get things done (someone mentioned religious institutions that accomplish this largely outside of government), however, how does that translate outside of a small group of people? How do you get people from Alaska to agree with people from Texas when they largely don't share similar interests?

Beyond that, how do large-scale infrastructures remain intact and maintained? Highways, sewers, gas lines, etc? Essentially, the crowd-sourcing that was described earlier is actually a lot like the taxes that people pay within the current government, people are still banding together to support the entire community, it just happens to be on a much bigger scale than a surgery for a cat.

So the reality here isn't that there is a disagreement over the need to provide services for a community, it's just how those services are being provided (or lack thereof).

Seems more like utopianism to me, which has been shown to work on the small scale, but fails when you get outside of a group of like-minded individuals. And I think that's the problem I always see, that the desire for complete freedom and individuality means that it's impossible to manage on a large scale.

Hopefully that made some sense and adds to this discussion, if not I'll go back to the bench and sit quietly.

[z31maniac]

The socio- thing applied to anarchist has no real meaning though.

What is anarchist about crowd sourcing funds for veterinarian bills?

Squatting can be an anarchist act though.

According to the great Google:
an·ar·chy
ˈanərkē/
noun
noun: anarchy

1. a state of disorder due to absence or nonrecognition of authority.
   "he must ensure public order in a country threatened with anarchy"
   synonyms:lawlessness, nihilism, mobocracy, revolution, insurrection, disorder, chaos, mayhem, tumult, turmoil "conditions are dangerously ripe for anarchy"
   
   
   
   antonyms:government, order
   
   
   • absence of government and absolute freedom of the individual, regarded as a political ideal.
     
     
   
   
   
   
   

Hey, high five! You can use Google! Do you think that's impressive? If you kids want to play semantics, let's go.


I didn't start this thread to bash on decay, I started it to get honest, genuine opinions from someone in the movement.

Stop with the partisan bullshit and the 'gotchas' it's boring.

[decay]

you are *again* ignoring the difference between what anarchism looks like in theory vs in practice, and again, those were anecdotal examples indicative of a larger trend. we & i don't care if we are satisfying what you consider a dictionary definition of anarchism.

but i'm sick of your constant contrarianism, to the point where you'll contradict yourself just to find something else to disagree with me about, so i think for everyone's benefit it's best we stop.

[marshallnoise]

that statement is in direct conflict with where you agreed like this:

Wtf? Anarchy is a lawless, government less existence by which every man is for himself. "Nailed it" was referring to the description of this.

What you cited as anarchy was people rallying to pay a friend's vet bill for their cat. That isn't anarchy. That is neighbors being good neighbors.

The only thing in common with each other is the fact that government is absent. And anarchy is not merely the absence of government; but chaos due to the absence of government order. Otherwise, anytime a church fed the homeless you could call it an anarchist event.

Thinking like that is just plain warped.

[decay]

that statement is in direct conflict with where you agreed like this:

Nailed it.

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[marshallnoise]

Right, it's not anarchy. It's neighbors being neighbors.

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[decay]

you cannot hang your hat on a wikipedia cite. try harder

you fucking idiot.

read the goddamned thread; i've been explaining my ideology the entire time.

posting the wiki page was a response to marshall's disbelief that what i'm talking about is actually a thing.

[2761377]

wrong. it's an idea older than both of us put together.

wrong. socialism involves a central governing entity, which is antithetical to the idea of anarchism.

have you listened to a single fucking thing i've said in this thread?

can you either start listening, or at least stop presenting straw-men that don't actually represent my ideology?

you cannot hang your hat on a wikipedia cite. try harder

[2761377]

ugh, another MRA shitbag

cant you keep your terrible views on whatever subreddit you normally post on

what a perceptive rejoinder. what it lacks in intellectual rectitude it more than makes up for with brute arrogance.

[decay]

wrong. it's an idea older than both of us put together.

wrong. socialism involves a central governing entity, which is antithetical to the idea of anarchism.

have you listened to a single fucking thing i've said in this thread?

can you either start listening, or at least stop presenting straw-men that don't actually represent my ideology?

[marshallnoise]

yes it fucking does, there's a wikipedia page about it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_anarchism

Quick read proves "social anarchism" as merely socialism without borders. Its a made up term. Fine.

[decay]

The socio- thing applied to anarchist has no real meaning though.

yes it fucking does, there's a wikipedia page about it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_anarchism