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I think that if humanity can manage to survive long enough, anarchism is inevitable.
It's essentially the adult stage of human society - the point at which humans collectively and consistently, rather than just individually and situationally, can be trusted to generally do the right thing simply because it's the right thing and therefore the most reasonable thing to do.
For the time being and the foreseeable future though, humanity is nowhere even close to that. Through the course of history, human society has managed to advance to about the equivalent of adolescence. There's still a long way to go.
In spite of that, I do identify as an anarchist, but my advocacy is focused on the ideal and the steps humanity as a whole has to take to achieve it. I think it's plainly obvious that it cannot be implemented, since any mechanism by which it might be inplemented would necessarily violate the very principles that define it. It can only be willingly adopted by each and all (or close enough as makes no meaningful difference), and that point will come whenever (if) it comes.
Even when people will do the right thing in 99.99% of situations, there will still need to be rules.
Just take a look at how game theory works. Anyone exploiting those mechanism in a group even if only one in a thousand, could devastate a society in no time , if it's naive enough to not have rules and norms for correct behavior, even when they are not usually needed.I do like your thinking though, and I also have dreams of a future society where criminals are not punished but nurtured. Because it must have been awful to have been in a state of mind, to want to do something to hurt others.
I'm not sure it's possible though. But it is the ideal we should hopefully at some point strive for. But there still needs to be standards or "rules" for when people need help to be readjusted to functioning normally in society, if they get "confused".
But I still don't think anarchy will work, because so many things will need to be structured, and societies are getting bigger and more complex, which increases the need for rules to make societies work. So instead of anarchy I think we must expect more rules not fewer.
But probably in the future, many rules will be for machines and not for humans?
Anarchy doesn't mean no rules, it means no rulers.
OK so how are the rules upheld?
A democracy is a rule by the people who are ruled. What function would make anarchy better?
Who is this ruler that isn't present? How are rules decided? Who enforces those rules?
The only way I see to perform these functions rationally is by democracy.Democracy (proper democracy) is literally a social contract my dude. Anarchism uses democracy and consensus to make decisions. Are laws the only thing keeping you from not doing things??
Yes laws are the reason I drive on the right for instance. It is very practical that we all use the same laws in traffic.
Now you may think this is obvious, but compared to many other things, traffic is dead simple. Without regulations it will be chaos, and meaningful form of anarchy is chaos.You can't have consensus on everything in any society, it's impossible, so if Anarchy is merely democracy, why than call it anarchy?
You can’t have consensus on everything in any society, it’s impossible, so if Anarchy is merely democracy, why than call it anarchy?
- That's why you default to a vote in cases where consensus is impossible
- because it's about the abolishment of unjust heirarchy, please read the work of proudhon, bakunin, or kropotkin before giving your opinions on anarchism.
next you'll say "but there are so many laws and so little time for normal people, how can we vote and do consensus on everything?"
to which I will respond, can you point me to a historical example of this being a problem?
You may then say, there's never been any anarchist societies
Oh boy I love how the Freetown Christiania is first on that list. Since that's a place I actually know very well.
You list is bullshit, that's like saying 5 friends are an anarchist society. Those are NOT self governing societies. They are under the rules of countries.
If any are not, they are probably just very small cult like communities.They do not run factories power-plants, electricity grids, infrastructure or anything of any serious scale, and are in no way models for how to run a country.
Freetown Christiania had lots of problems with crime, and they also had huge problem of elitism as in very few people actually decided everything, the power structure is/was very much based on who had lived there from the beginning.
All this anarchy idealism/ideology is bullshit that doesn't work in real self governing societies. Of course it can work for small groups, like what the fuck, just because I live in a street where we help each other, we don't form a government and police for that!
Christiana may have called themselves autonomous, but they never where in any meaningful sense of the word. And the truth is they needed help from criminal rocker gangs to get rid of widespread sales of hard drugs. And later they chose to legalize according to Danish law, and called on help from the real police to get rid of the remaining drug sales. Christiana today a mostly normal part of Copenhagen today, but maybe still influenced more than average by the 70's flower power roots, although there was never any flower power in the way that society was run.
Christiania was always 100% depending on the normal society they existed within, the dependence wasn't superficial either but for EVERYTHING, Jobs, hospitals, doctors, sewage, electricity. Christiania was never much more than a football club deciding to play by their own rules. They can do that, but they still live in a society where everything is governed by the rules of the country and the city.I'm sorry, but your dream is an impossible lie. And you just proved your complete inability to demonstrate any self governing society of any significant size that function by a system of anarchy. By significant size, I'd say it needs to be at least 50000 people, to have any significance to show it as a working model at a scale above a tiny tribal community where everybody mostly know each other.
Because anarchy isn't chaos my dude. And funny you should bring up traffic laws considering many countries have different traffic laws - and yet no one has an issue with that. Hasn't disturbed anyone.
Anarchy isn't just democracy (which technically, democracy is a no-cracy since the "power" being in the hands of the people - aka everyone - makes it obsolete, so there isn't really a -cracy). Anarchism looks at existing systems and unravels them little by little and pinpoints which aspects of our behaviour and our lives have been dictated by what - and how they would be different if no one forced them to be so. In an anarchist society there wouldn't be much to agree on concerning traffic safety because, simply put, it would follow the standard method of figuring out what works, like how traffic laws are mostly made now. Only difference is if a rule was deemed unhelpful or harmful, the people could contest it a lot more easily because they give a shit about their loved one's safety
funny you should bring up traffic laws considering many countries have different traffic laws - and yet no one has an issue with that. Hasn’t disturbed anyone.
Oh boy maybe I should just rest my case here. Who claimed the rules had to be the same in different countries? Choosing to drive on the left or right is completely arbitrary, which is why a decision needs to be made to improve the flow of traffic and lower accidents. Without rules for traffic it would be chaotic.
Your response is arguing a complete strawman, why the fuck would I have a problem with a tiny island like Japan and Great Britain drive on the left?
What I DO have an issue with is ghost drivers on the Autobahn that drive in the wrong side of the road at high speed. How is that not obvious? ... Well I guess it's not obvious in much the same way it's not obvious to you that anarchy can't work at scale much beyond small tribal groups.Large systems still depend on small ones. This is just a fundamental disagreement on how systems work and our understanding of them. You think anarchism means "yeehaw do whatever". I don't. This conversation is pointless. And I only talked about traffic for a second, responding to your example.
Anarchy was our first system and it'll probably be our last. And for a lot of groups of people who have been forgotten and abandoned by the rest of the world, it's all they have. It's not about "driving on the other side of the Autobahn", tf? We understand that anarchism isn't something you can revolution your way into. It's the principles and way of life of caring for others and collectively dragging the boot off of people's necks without depending on/outside of a system that's designed to marginalize and exploit people.
So you can take your "but muh rules" to someone who cares.
Anarchism uses democracy and consensus to make decisions
Genuine question: Is that not a democracy?
It could be? Being a democracy or using democracy as a tool for decision making doesn't mean it has to happen through government. If you've ever made a decision with a friend group via popular vote, does that make you a government? Or did you exercise authority over your friends when they all agreed popular vote was okay to decide where to eat out? I wager neither
And fyi, you're thinking of a representative democracy, which is rarely ever truly fair, especially considering the scale it's supposedly applied to.
No, as there are no leaders
In a democracy you give your vote and have no say afterwards.
In an anarchy people need to work out their social rules together.
There could also be Anarchist societies with a police force, that ensures the basic democratically created roles of that society are followed - like protecting people from just more muscle who want to rape or steal from them.In a democracy you give your vote and have no say afterwards.
You're restricting democracy to mean representative democracy?