Anarchism and anarcho-syndicalism

[Tidus44]

The only country I was ever in and I was aware anarchy was the rule was Somalia. Wonder how they fared out in that little experiment. Anyone know? Probably has near absolute freedom for all, and voluntary association and organization.

[zegh8578]

The only country I was ever in and I was aware anarchy was the rule was Somalia. Wonder how they fared out in that little experiment. Anyone know? Probably has near absolute freedom for all, and voluntary association and organization.

 

somalia isnt "ruled by anarchy". they simply lack the centralized government that is meant to unify the whole country under one. its not "an experiment"... its the result of absolutely devastating civil war.

 

most of somalian territory is indeed ruled by organized powers, these being warlords, tribes if you will.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d7/Fedmap4.png

^these are all organized territories, none of them are "anarchies". chaotis yes, but still ruled by organizations.

[Aurielius]

Anarchy despite what some have proposed is not a form of government but rather simply a rather undesired phase between one governmental system and another. No one but an ideologue or an opportunist desires it's presence, it provides neither safety or stability which in the long run is what most sane populations desire. During the most active period of real anarchists which was in the late 1800's -early 1900's it was simply a revolutionary tool to depose imperial control so that some form of nationalism could take over. The most salient examples were in the anarchist movement of the Balkans under the Austro Hungarian Empire and their goal was independence and nationalism. The salon anarchists of the bourgeois were more posers than anything else, something akin to the modern fondness for Che Guevara which is fashionable unless of course you are in the country that is being ripped apart or one of his or their (anarchist) victims.

[TheFourthHorse]

I view the argument as a dead end.

 

History has shown that human survival favors a structure of rules and order. In a simple society this can mean an open government, which some might view as anarchy, while advances in society require a governing body to organize and direct various resources. Our industrial society is just such an example of an advanced society and to claim such a society could continue with no government would be like saying a train could operate without tracks. One simply cannot exist without the other…

 

The real question is which type of society would humans naturally favor more. I think if anything has answered that question with more certainty, it would be history. We now live in a governed society because we thrive best in one. But if that’s not enough lets speak hypothetically… in my opinion, anarchy is nothing more than a return to natural law and natural law represents the most basic of human needs. What would it take for anarchy to suit those needs better than in a governed society?

 

For one, a governed society would have to fail to meet the expectations of its intended purpose and the fact that it could somehow no longer be reestablished. This would mean a collapse of civilization which is obviously a return to anarchy. Secondly, humans would have to be able to survive solely by their own power. This would require a knowledge and a biological propensity for survival that out favors the pros and cons of governed society in a scale that would make a government impractical and unwanted by the majority. Since most humans cant so much as go camping without a trip to Walmart, I don’t see this happening. Thirdly, the danger of a governed society would have to be so great that the prospect of "survival of the fittest" would be safer in comparison. This too, however, seems unlikely because of the very nature of a government. When a government has either failed to do its job or become too corrupt and overbearing, it collapses or is overthrow and eventually gets rebuilt or absorbed into another .

 

All the theoretical reasons I see for favoring an anarchic society over a governed society either suggest a complete collapse of society (which would have to be without choice) or would simply lead to the creation of a new governed society. Looking at the structural tendencies of the societies of lesser animals also favors a governing body over anarchy. Even those without such societies have good reason for it; bears for example can't live in a society because they would need to eat more than their environment would allow and they would collapse.

 

In conclusion I would have to say that such a society would only be favorable if in a world that simply could not support a human population large or able enough to form a governed society.

Edited February 18, 2012 by TheFourthHorse

[imperistan]

An anarchistic system will fail miserably because it will leave a hole in the human heart ... the hole being the desire for order, humans cannot survive or thrive without order

and control gives us a sense of stability.

However, control taken to the extreme is like Winston Smith the character in George Orwell's novel 1984, he hated the Party and Big Brother with a passion but ultimately ended up the most satisfied when he was under the most control.

But, Control needs to be tempered, a binding Constituition to enforce your freedom while under control is the only solution and way forward to survival ... everything else has been tried and found wanting.

 

People will never change, and will rebel against the rebellion of anarchy ... freedom in the human heart is not freedom unless their is control.

I am most satisfied with my life when order prevails and this usually means that I have goals and goals mean planning and resources and they don't just fall on you.

Anarchy is a rebellion against the human spirit and it will never succeed ... you will always have control.

In a society where every vestige of government has been removed you will have the law of the jungle ... the strongest will survive and the strongest will not neccessarily be

the most compassionate or humane.

 

What you will get is a dictatorship where you have no say, because you gave up that right when you abolished the government and now the strongest has arisen and taken control

rather fit's better you shape the current lauthority at the polls and live than hand over your freedom which you gain under control to a mob or a dictator.

Anarchy is like driving at a 150miles an hour and taking your hands from the steering wheel.

Anarchy is misery, anarchy is control without freedom, anarchy is death.

 

Nice appeal to emotion but I contend that calling control a necessity to humanity is a stagnation in our development. Suppression of certain parts human nature via coercive control will never allow us to overcome that nature. We will not be able to transcend the classification of "ape' if we are not free to push past that of our own will.

 

Egoism does not become rampant in anarchy less we are talking of chaotic anarchy, and that is an entirely different animal from what we are discussing here. Might does not make right. Might will not translate into power unless society fails to uphold the ultimate horizontality of power (via failing to defend against the barbaric Egotists) that that society is based upon.

 

Yep. Trouble is, that's the way it would end up in any event. Whomever could come up with the most friends..... would be boss. Kinda like the feudal system

 

Except they wouldn't. Power does not work this way in anarchy.

 

That doesn't sound like anarchism at all – especially the part about limiting individual freedoms to protect the majority's rights and welfare. Really, you seem to be describing an ordinary liberal state with maybe a tinge of libertarian socialism.

 

So you're suggesting that people should be free to murder or rape? That the criminal justice system, a necessary function of any society, shouldn't be able to have the power it would need to carry out its duties when it actually needs to?

 

I'm sorry, but I must facepalm at that. You do not have a right to murder or rape. Period. The entire point of an anarchistic criminal justice system is to respond to when these things happen on the understanding that they inevitably will when all of humanity has not yet reached a point where we could all naturally agree to not do such things. When we have naturally given up causing such harm against ourselves.

 

I mean, the bit about "flexible horizontalism," which you claim to have invented? We already have that, even in the US – it's the Fourth Amendment and the warrant system. How is your idea fundamentally different?

 

Because it extends beyond just the criminal justice system and takes effect in virtually every system where you would otherwise see a vertical power structure. The point is that no one has power, and when they finally get power, it is only temporary until such a time that their duties requiring that power are completed, at which time they lose that power.

 

Anarchy despite what some have proposed is not a form of government but rather simply a rather undesired phase between one governmental system and another

 

Anarchism has the misfortune of sharing a name with a form of chaos that comes after the total collapse of all order. That is why I make the distinction between organized anarchy (in effect, anarchism), and chaotic anarchy (which is just a total collapse of order, ie, pure chaos).

 

Unless I say otherwise, whenever I say anarchy I refer to it in terms of anarchism, not chaos. Anarchy is simply easier and faster to say than "anarchistic society" or whatever variation of anarchism you can come up with.

 

History has shown that human survival favors a structure of rules and order

 

History relies on what humans both are and were. Anarchism makes a point of helping humanity finally evolve past its current stagnation. We haven't actually changed much as a species over our existence. Technology has moved forward, but technology isn't going to change our fundamental nature.

 

Our industrial society is just such an example of an advanced society and to claim such a society could continue with no government would be like saying a train could operate without tracks. One simply cannot exist without the other…

 

No one here is suggesting that "no government" is a feasible option. Government =/= Statism. A state is a government, but a government does not have to be a state.

 

Again, chaotic anarchy is very different from what is being discussed here.

 

Since most humans cant so much as go camping without a trip to Walmart, I don’t see this happening

 

Most humans are not the intended audience of anarchism at this time.

 

Thirdly, the danger of a governed society would have to be so great that the prospect of "survival of the fittest" would be safer in comparison.

 

Survival of the fittest is not the intended point of anarchism either. Or at least, not the intended point of the most feasible theories of anarchism. Individual freedom is guaranteed, but freely supporting each other within that society is encouraged and in fact ideal for the sake of maintaining that individual freedom. You would still be free to free yourself of those responsibilities but you would do so on the understanding that you can easily support yourself. And these sorts of people are not going to be the majority.

[TheFourthHorse]

I believe I must not have made myself clear. I’m well aware of this concept but disagree with its core principles as an unrealistic pipedream. In my opinion, it’s no more valid a concept than a medieval fair. All it sounds like is a colony that expects to be left alone while the rest of the world covers it like a warm blanket.

 

 

Where would this concept be without governments controlling all the variables outside it?

 

Where is your proof that such a concept could even work beyond isolated groups?

 

Can you conceptualize this working on a global scale without even considering the idea of chaos that I put forward?

 

What’s being done differently here than what every civilization has tried to do in the past?

 

 

It's not a new theory but just one reintroduced.

Edited February 18, 2012 by TheFourthHorse

[JimboUK]

Humans don't do real anarchy full stop, Somalia is an excellent example of this. Humans are social animals, we naturally form into groups and those groups have leaders. The absence of government in Somalia hasn't led to true anarchy, people have become part of groups, groups with leaders. Anarchy can't work properly because like communism it denies human nature.

[Nintii]

And when you go on to mention having a dictatorship, If I am grasping this anarchism business, then I think we have strayed out of the realm of its domain. Having a dictator would mean there is a hierarchical pyramid and would be placing someone at the top, in power over everyone else. Doesn't that break the whole point of it?

 

I hope I'm understanding you on your response .... the very idea of anarchism in practice whereby everyone respects each other's rights, space, property and independance, that is,

each individuals right to govern themselves not needing an authority over them ... this very idea, falls flat in the face of the concept of "Family".

This basic fundamental ground level foundational bedrock of life willl stick through the heart of anarchism like a spear through a bug ... big, loud and a huge slap in the face of human independance.

Because here there is order, a hierarchy of authority ... this concept of family and it's structure will undermine anarchy and therefore anarchy will need to defeat this in order to be truly "anarchistic" in nature ... but as it's well known many a theory like communism or marxism which sounds so pretty on paper is a disasterous failure in reality.

As Jim_UK states, " ... because it denies human nature" ... so simple yet so true.

 

Now I said all of that to say this ... seeing then that anarchism will fail in it's nature the next thing that will arise is an authority figure - because that's what we as humans know - and this

person will step into this vacuum of "no-authority" and human nature being what it essentially is - wanting security and power - will seize control of the " ... "staganant social mobility" as HeyYou states, because people will be directionless and create an authority ... and the more this person can control the bigger the dictatorship ... and yes, now we move out of the realm of anarchism.

 

@ Imperistan ... you call my post "emotional", hah read it again sweety it's called fact ... tried and tested.

 

@ Grannywils ... I have you to thank for being a bit more "normal" ... yay women.

 

 

Ok, so I just had a crazy thought ... seeing that we are on about freedom from authority, what if they said - you know the famous unknown "they" - well what if they said "The richer you are the more freedom we'll give you" ... would the world become a place of crime or a place of ingenuity ?

Edited February 18, 2012 by Nintii

[WizardOfAtlantis]

This idea of "horizontalism" is a self-admitted illusion, for anytime anything ever needs to be done, recourse must be given over to the vertical, proving that it is essentially and at its core, flawed as a concept. One could even say non-existent for that reason.

Need bread? Go to the guy who is better than you at making bread. Murderer on the loose? Better go get the guy who is an authority (verticality) to reprehend the criminal, which is a very clear example of someone's power over (verticality) someone else.

The idea that this verticality is or can be only temporary is an illusion. Even in a small group, decisions have to be made, at the minimum a council must needs be set up, and once again, you have the imposition of verticality and verticality's "getting things done" over horizontalism's "nobody's achieving much of anything" (as achieving implies putting yourself forward of where you were before you achieved, you have "bettered" yourself, "gone ahead", all uses that prove even linguistically that verticality is our chosen way of viewing the world).

I think a lot of the problems here come with the desire to use cool words like "anarchy", which is in my opinion, very short-sighted as anarchy goes against human nature unless used in the dissolution of an old order to impose another. Being better at something is what we as a species are all about. That is evolution as applied to a group (which we are): having enough individuals who are better at many different things so we can all do what needs to be done in the best way possible, things done by the experts in their fields.

Anarchy, in any True sense, doesn't even exist on earth for very long because there will always be the desire to form units, impose order on some level, and therefore defy the very definition of anarchy (which is without rule/king). Saying Somalia is in anarchy is a point of view based upon a line/definition drawn by someone, since there are ordered groups controlling defined territories in that region of the world, and that implies order, if less order than one living in Europe is accustomed to.

Anarchy and Chaos are often used/misused as terms to describe freedom, or more correctly, the possibility to exercise freedom. That is where humans show the "lie" of anarchy, the essential conundrum: if anarchy is used to gain freedom, and freedom is the possibility of doing, doing implies creation, creation is the making of something where there wasn't before, which is order in action, therefore anarchy is its own and immediate death and resolution.

sorry, gotta run. http://forums.nexusmods.com/public/style_emoticons/dark/tongue.gif

[imperistan]

I hope I'm understanding you on your response .... the very idea of anarchism in practice whereby everyone respects each other's rights, space, property and independance, that is,

each individuals right to govern themselves not needing an authority over them ... this very idea, falls flat in the face of the concept of "Family".

This basic fundamental ground level foundational bedrock of life willl stick through the heart of anarchism like a spear through a bug ... big, loud and a huge slap in the face of human independance.

Because here there is order, a hierarchy of authority ... this concept of family and it's structure will undermine anarchy and therefore anarchy will need to defeat this in order to be truly "anarchistic" in nature ... but as it's well known many a theory like communism or marxism which sounds so pretty on paper is a disasterous failure in reality.

 

Family is a natural concept that formed well before statism ever did. Anarchism does not wish to change that. Children are at the authority of their parents until they reach adulthood themselves. This is a natural thing and is not incompatible with anarchy.

 

because people will be directionless and create an authority

 

This is false. Totally false. And if you want me to explain why then I suggest you explain yourself first. You assert things but you don't back them up.

 

@ Imperistan ... you call my post "emotional", hah read it again sweety it's called fact ... tried and tested.

 

No, it was a massive appeal to emotion that bases itself on nothing and totally ignores what I've already said.

 

well what if they said "The richer you are the more freedom we'll give you" ... would the world become a place of crime or a place of ingenuity ?

 

Crime. If a worthless concept like wealth is going to determine your level of freedom then only those who can cheat, lie, steal, kill, and do whatever else they can to achieve their wealth will actually be able to obtain any significant level of freedom.

 

And besides, you're little hypothetical is terrible anyway. That's a terrible dystopia is what that is.

 

The idea that this verticality is or can be only temporary is an illusion. Even in a small group, decisions have to be made, at the minimum a council must needs be set up, and once again, you have the imposition of verticality and verticality's "getting things done" over horizontalism's "nobody's achieving much of anything" (as achieving implies putting yourself forward of where you were before you achieved, you have "bettered" yourself, "gone ahead", all uses that prove even linguistically that verticality is our chosen way of viewing the world).

 

You seem to be applying horizontality to human action rather than government here. And that's just wrong.

 

Yes decisions have to be made, but not always. The point is that power cannot be used unless its absolutely necessary for function. And besides that, power like that would only be granted where it would be unfeasible to allow the society itself to decide on the matter. Mob Justice isn't a good thing, so power is given to an actual police officer to work in societies stead until his duty is done.

 

Another thing you have to realize is that leaders are not the same thing as rulers. You can lead a group without ruling over that group.

 

Anarchy, in any True sense, doesn't even exist on earth for very long because there will always be the desire to form units, impose order on some level, and therefore defy the very definition of anarchy (which is without rule/king)

 

There is a difference between organized anarchy and chaotic anarchy. Organized anarchy does not exclude order.

 

Seems to me that you're mashing up several separate concepts of anarchism into a form of anarchy that doesn't resemble anything that's being talked about here, nor anything under actual anarchism, except perhaps those egotistical types of anarchy, but the people who support those wouldn't form societies anyway, so they wouldn't apply to this discussion.

 

the essential conundrum: if anarchy is used to gain freedom, and freedom is the possibility of doing, doing implies creation, creation is the making of something where there wasn't before, which is order in action, therefore anarchy is its own and immediate death and resolution.

 

This makes zero sense.