this post was submitted on 29 Sep 2023
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When did a stateless society commit genocide?
Bosnia, Rwanda, and multiple acts carried out by the Janjaweed to name some of the more recent ones. Most of the other more recent ones were perpetrated by states against stateless peoples which also shouldn't speak too kindly to your narrative.
Well, it speaks to my narrative that states are evil.
Correct me if I'm wrong but weren't these nationalist movements on their way to build a state? Not the kind of stateless society Kropotkin imagined
Yes, they were trying to build a state. Building systems is a natural progression within human nature. You can try to decentralize it all you want but it just enables optimism. Anything that counts that would require centralized education, aka requiring a state to function and enforce.
When I'm talking about states, I'm especially referring to nation states, hence my focus on nationalists. Sure, you can use a very broad definition, but than "state" barely means anything.
Centralization is a core aspect of states, true. I don't see how "centralized education" is so inevitable for you? Why not a decentralized education system that focuses more on voluntariness and empowering that on enforcement?
Last but not least: Building systems in not the same as sates building. And human nature isn't as straight forward as it seems to be. You haven't seen any other system in your life I assume, and neither have I. So it's easy to think that's just how it is. The great David Graeber once said in an interview that anthropologists have an affinity to anarchism since they know it works.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
interview
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I'm open-source; check me out at GitHub.
Your first step is to educate literally everyone on how a stateless society works for it to work. Next you have to convince them it will work. I've known a lot more anarchists than you think. If you cannot convince literally everyone to play along, anarchy fails. You've already failed because you cannot convince me and likely will always fail for roughly 30% of the population about any topic. Counter culture will always exist. If your system does not allow for it, you have set yourself up for failure. You have set us all up for failure.
The USSR attempted to decentralize initially and it failed miserably by their own metrics. The CCP looked at what they became and said they didn't do it right because they centralized. They starved and then centralized planning. Now you are telling me that there's never been an attempt. I'm good thanks.
You are actively hurting people by sabotaging liberal systems that do work in favor of radical change towards a system that has absolutely literally been tried at scale. It fails and then becomes oppressive against minorities and inefficient due to not allowing dissent.
I'm perfectly happy in a liberal mixed system where capital is owned privately and profits are shared amongst those who buy in. If you want to start an organization that shares value equally, start a co-op. Unlike anarchist systems, liberal ones allow for you to do that. Just don't expect to use the power of the state to force it on everyone else.
How does a stateless society protect anyone?
Today, the whole world is divided into states but state abolismists want concepts like transformative justice that tries to undo the root of a problem, not just the symptoms.
Also: stateless doesn't mean no order at all, but it's about hierarchy free systems
Good luck keeping order without an entity for keeping order.
There is an entity for keeping order. Its called a community. Everyone protects everyone because everyone knows everyone because everyone needs everyone. If you step out of line people won't protect you.
Stateless societies existed for millennia before all the states came along and enslaved them. They had order because strong personal relationships maintain order without leaders.
Surprise: as soon as you form a community, the most dependable members become a governing core. What the fuck do you think a "village elder" is?
Also, what happens when village A decides their neighbours B don't deserve all of their land? There's no governing body to mediate, so village A simply attacks B.
Yes, and that governing core does not have complete authority over the village, They are trusted members of the community and if they abuse their powers they get removed.
This is exactly the kind of order you want. The people that have put the most effort into the community naturally want what's best for that community, and if they are trusted that means they are more likely to be kind and nice people and not greedy.
The best option is for village A to send a delegation to B and voice their concerns. After which village B decides what to do.
Just like people do not need to be governed, groups (in this conversation villages) do not as well. They should have enough common sense to do things peacefully because if they become hostile all the other groups band together to oppose them. The same dynamics are at play.
And then the fluffy unicorns join the care bears in a happy dance
What are you trying to say here?
That it'd be great if we lived in a fluffy world of perfection, but in the real world, things aren't quite as simple. You can never assume an actor is or even desires do be logical, nor that people will gladly behave with others' interest at heart
Do you only act out of your own interests? Why do you think every one else does?
David Graeber once said in an interview that anthropologists have an affinity to anarchism because they know it works.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
David Graeber once said in an interview that anthropologists have an affinity to anarchism because they know it works.
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I'm open-source; check me out at GitHub.
What happens when the governing core says no? For this system to work, you need an almost perfect level of education and reprogramming. That same level of education and reprogramming would also theoretically solve all problems in the current system and power structure. You have the same power to help people now as you magically would under your proposed system. You just refuse to play by the same rules because you think they are rigged against you when they aren't. You just refuse to play.
The governing core is the society. If they say no then that society changes. That is how the system works. The people decide how to live their life and if they don't want to live a certain way they change. As long as the people stay skeptical of all authority the system works. If they don't it collapses into a class based society.
You don't need perfect reprogramming. You just need a couple of people who want to live this way and let them live.
Anarchism works. The systems that I am describing have been successfully implemented and work.
Anarchism does absolutely nothing to oppose oppressive systems of power but hopes and dreams. Good luck changing people's minds when communications are restricted in non-liberal societies. Your core tenants are that you reject the power structures required to defend against them. The only difference between you and the original communist revolutions is that you reject the soviets that allowed them to organize a revolution and consolidate power.
This is not the first time I have been sent that source. Your source only proves that it can work in addition to existing power structures or at a smaller scale. If you cannot convince the majority to shift, a couple people are not going to lead a general strike which is commonly held to be a requirement for societal change towards anarchism. You are not arguing the actual ideology of anarchism.
There's so much that anarchism fails at but ultimately its inability to sustain itself as an ideology means that it will always fail, regardless of if it could work at scale(It cannot) Thus, you are only hurting people with attempts at radical change because the only societies that allow it are liberal ones. What naturally results is opposition in the forms of fascism or a shift to actual communism and oppression. All this while less liberal societies take advantage of free peoples. It is either an unethical ideology or you are proposing it with malicious intent.
I am not against hierarchies if they are justified. The hierarchies that are democratic and non-coercive are acceptable.
Power should not be consolidated, it should be distributed among the population. Any sort of consolidation of power opens the door for people to create systems and hierarchies that maintain power unjustly.
I think that if a society is capable of working in a smaller scale it can be scaled up. Especially with the technology that we have today.
I don't think that anarchism is unsustainable. all attempts to create anarchist societies have ended because of outside factors (invasions). I don't see these as shortcomings of anarchism but instead as shortcomings of other systems to tolerate alternate political systems. Also if an anarchist society descends into fascism (red or otherwise) then that is because the people didn't do enough to oppose it.
I also apologize if some of these statements are short. You can't unbind ctrl+w to close the window on firefox and I use it to delete the last word so I accidentally deleted my previous two attempts to answer this comment.
Also I appreciate this conversation as it requires me to think through my ideology.
All societies have ended due to a combination of internal and outside factors. That is the test of a society. To claim that anarchist societies do not have internal issues is intellectually dishonest. All capitalist societies that have failed have done so due to outside factors. So too have all monarchist and communist if the true believers are to be listened to. When the USSR and the CCP started it was economically anarchist so I do not accept the claim that all anarchist systems ended due to outside factors. They also naturally consolidate.
The key difference is how much suffering is caused along the way. Anarchist society ascends into fascism so easily because it already controls the resources and is a single-party system that does not allow dissent. All the elements are there minus the natural rhetoric and for people to vote themselves a better position (tyranny of the majority). You cannot stop that. It is going to happen because it is human nature.
I honestly don't expect to change your mind in this conversation. That's not how it works. I was once a radical thinker. I do hope that I've instilled some nuggets of thought that eventually turn into a worldview that is less likely to cause harm. Very few radicals that actually implement change survive it and they tend to cause a lot of pain along the way. The rest end up in teaching.
I did not claim that anarchist societies did not have internal problems, I said that anarchist societies have ended because of external problems. Internal problems exists but they aren't fatal. The USSR and CCP were not anarchist. The economy may have functioned anarchically for a couple of months but the people were not anarchists and the ones that took power were vanguardists (because they usurped the previous state and used it to repress the population).
Also I am interested to know how anarchy, the system that is inherently based on dissent, does not allow dissent. Anarchy is only dissent. There isn't a single anarchist ideology. Anarchy is a way of thought that rejects the idea of conformity and it being a "single party system" is an insane thing to suggest.
The last thing I want to do is cause harm. I belie this society is possible but I do not want it implemented unless I know it can survive in a humane way. This is ideology it is the long term goals that we set for ourselves so we have something to strive for. This change should only happen if the people are ready for it. If they believe it. I think that any society that humans can imagine can exists as long as all the individuals in that society want it to.
My worldview does not cause less harm than any of the current ones. All of the points that you but forward come from the lack of faith in the system, or more accurately the people that make up the system. My ideology is based on the fact that people can be good, kind and selfless and the only thing stopping entire society from being those things is because our natural kindness gets destroyed by the current culture. I understand that this might be a naive thing to think but the world is currently ending (because of the "less harmful ideologies") so being naive and hopeful is the best thing I can do.
I am an anarchist because It is a society build on human interaction, kindness, friendliness, acceptance and tolerance. That is what my anarchy is. people existing for the sake of their friends and neighbors. If you can show me another ideology that has all of that I am eager to listen. because those things are antithetical to capitalism, and if you remove all of the things from capitalism that make it incompatible you will end up with anarchy.
How do you define a system where decisions are made decentrally at a communal level and the owners of capital are the workers? Any serious study of early attempts at economic decentralization of the early Soviet and CCP systems should result in the conclusion that it was effectively an attempt at economic anarchy by its very definition. Just because it is not your prefered anarchy does not mean it was not anarchy.
Capitalism is compatible with kindness and, in fact, works better with it. Capitalism also allows for anarchist structures. Just because people do not throw resources at your system does not mean that it is not allowed. Any system that refuses to allow capitalist structures is one that does not allow dissent. Any anarchist system that does allow for capitalism bleeds skilled labor and capital over time. Any education system that promotes kindness and humanity is just as effective at bettering a capitalist system as it would be an anarchist one but good luck controlling the educational system with anarchist structures. We cannot even keep religious dogma out of our current ones with the strongest and most rigid structures.
Economics is the study of how best to allocate the resources within society. Anarchism does not allow for any of the economic structures that allow for resource allocation at scale. A command economy can but is inefficient the more centralized it is. Capitalism can but it is less human the larger it is. If you take out the scale of a command economy, people starve. If you make capitalist systems smaller, they become more human. There is a clearly preferred system which is smaller capitalism. That is my answer to you on a system that has all that.
Beyond the simple answer, it requires a few other things as a roadmap to get there (which Anarchism does not have in any form beyond attempts at general strikes and generally degrading the system in the hope that fascism would not be the natural response)
All of the above are interlinked and require each other to be most effective. All of them can be done in your community right now and don't require interjection by a higher government than your local town/city.
It honestly sounds to me like you do not understand capitalism if you think there is not a human element that comes into play. Reducing suffering enables better human interaction, excess kindness, leisure time, friendliness, and absolutely requires tolerance and acceptance. An efficient system is not one that allows for discrimination based on any human factors and that would be present in any system. Tribalism is in our nature. You see it in class with how people sit and between groups when they are at odds for goals. The only thing that can affect it is education and awareness. Only after that can we talk about resourcing solutions. It sounds to me like you just want a kinder world. I recommend finding a place that supports that in your life. They do exist and it requires compassion and probably moving on your part to find them. No one is going to force it on you.
I thank you for the detailed answer. It is going to take me time to properly think about everything you have said. I will get back to you when I have finished thinking about it. You have definitely given me lots to think about and I thank you for it.
But one thing I will say is that I am talking about cultural anarchism instead of economical one. such a culture needs time to grow and a few months of economic decentralization is a god start anarchism requires a lot more than that.
EDIT: You just might have triggered a massive change in how I perceive politics. Thank You!
Okay, how to I even begin. I'm going to start with a Thank You! This comment has made me think about a lot of different aspects of my Ideology and I am genuinely grateful that your comment initiated that. Ensuring clearer understanding of my ideology is very important to me.
Let's start with the easy response. The final statement of my previous comment was very absolute.
I now see that was a mistake. What I should have said instead was that it would make it more anarchistic, and you have confirmed this by suggesting methods that I believe are anarchistic. All the steps have the purpose of lessening the power structures of current society and if I would have to think about how to transition a capitalist society into an anarchist society I imagine I would come up with similar steps.
Therefor I support this "small capitalism". I see it as a stepping stone towards anarchism, because it is moving in the right direction. It just doesn't go far enough. You seem to be okay with money as a concept (and maybe wage slavery unless it falls under "equity of at the lowest levels"), I am not. I think that as long as money is a necessity to live you have the means through witch you can coerce others and remove these freedoms and safeguards put in place so in the end you will have just capitalism. Cruel, unjust and uncaring capitalism.
Removing money does not prevent against this, because anarchism also requires a lot of oversight to prevent collapsing. Money is just another vector of collapse that capitalism has. Also unlike anarchism, capitalism also does not have oversight of society by all members of society. This is the cultural anarchism I am talking about. Anarchists have no representative democracy, No political laziness. Everyone has a voice and you can't give your voice to someone else. All the individuals are collectively in charge of everything that happens in their commune, and the society is nothing more than a collection of communes.
I also believe both can coexist. Nothing about anarchism prevents collaboration with other political systems. In fact I believe that an anarchist society must have good relations with a neighboring capitalist system to survive, because otherwise the capitalists in the system have nowhere to go and will rebel, the other society functions like an overflow pipe. Also the effect works reversed as well.
Anarchism does not allow for discrimination. All forms of discrimination are antithetical to anarchism.
Also I would like to address the in anarchism capitalism is dissent argument. Is fascism dissent? or theocracy? because from an anarchist point of view all those are coercive unjust power structures, that should be dismantled. They are authoritarian and oppressive. anarchy does not allow capitalism of this. It is the same logic as the paradox of tolerance, but also I do not believe alternative systems should not be allowed to exists. as long as they respect our right to independence and self-determination I have no problem with alternate political systems existing, only if they are unreasonably oppressive (including genocidal).
I could also talk about economics but I think this comment is already long enough.
The entire first two paragraphs of your statement is exactly what the CCP and USSR attempted to set up but it failed miserably due to efficiency issues, They then consolidated in to sudo fascism. How many attempts do you need to see that people in aggregate cannot form that level of trust in society or social engagement? The majority of people do not even use their power in the current West because they do not care and are happy with the status quo.
Anarchism does not provide robust power to protect minorities so it does not matter if it does not allow discrimination, it cannot prevent it. The same level of educational and social change that you would propose under an anarchist system would solve it in any other system. There are no solid controls in place to counteract tribalism. This is actually one of my strongest held beliefs on the topic having worked in this area on the government and private sector sides.
The issue with not allowing dissent is that anarchists have never been able to force their system on society if it was not wrapped in communism. It very quickly collapses into an authoritarian regime or reversion to the status quo having hurt a lot of people in the revolution.
Don't get me wrong, there are aspects of anarchism that do work within systems of power. Decentralization of power tends to provide a check on centralized power such as in a federal system. Private contracts (anarcho-capitalism) between people can be extremely efficient provided they are not the only form of sustenance for people. Rights backed by the higher power with no economic perverse incentives is an extremely effective form of equality and to a certain extent equity. Nonprofits provide an opportunity for people to actually support others and if we were all ready to be equal members in an anarchist society, it is all you would need and capitalism would not matter. You cannot claim that it is the owners of capital that are preventing it because they would be there in any other system, except with the power of the state or no state to stop them. If you solve them, you solve capitalism without any transition to a new system.
I talk this a lot with folks involved in higher education that conform to these ideals which is why I speak to your narratives instead of some bastardized version skewed by ignorance in a nationalist upbringing. People have not been taught what fascists, socialists, and/or anarchists actually believe so they have also forgotten the counter-narratives to them. They are susceptible to highly effective propaganda that works. Anarchists are tools used to degrade liberal democracies by fascist powers because it works. It is a playbook used countless times in the 20th century and forgotten because a liberal democracy won the so-called final war. Germany's release of Lenin successfully knocked Russia out of the First World War and it is in Russia's playbook right now to cause internal tensions in the West with political instability. A success on that front would not lead to a happy world but instead the next period of conflict and great power competition between totalitarian systems out of a wartime necessity just as in the great war.
I do not want an anarchist revolution that forces anarchy onto the entire society. That would not work. The people wouldn't accept it. I want a system where anarchism can be implemented alongside other systems so everyone, me included, can find their spot, their best way to live. I do not think everyone is an anarchist, and can live in an anarchist system. People have different values and those values impact their politics. I just want a space where anarchy can exist without being destroyed. If a person is fine working 9-5 for 5 days a week for just enough money to pay rent, buy food and maybe sometimes some clothes then that's fine. I would rather die.
I do not believe that's what the USSR was trying to do, but because I wasn't there I cannot say for certain. All I can say is that if they did try to do it they failed to stop authoritarians getting to power and that was on them, not on the ideology. If you try to force a bunch of people who do not care about running their own lives and give them the power to run their own lives they will walk up to the first person telling them what to do and mindlessly do it. This is why an anarchist revolution has to be cultural as well as political. People need to want it, otherwise they won't get it.
A hundred years have past since then. Humanity has gone from an agrarian society to a post-industrial (robots) society. I think the circumstances have changed enough to make any assumptions based on past revolutions inaccurate.
The community prevents it. If someone is acting like a dick people come together and deal with it. Together. Anarchism does not provide this power because it is up to the community to decide how it works.
It was what they were trying to do because the basis of communism is the commune. The USSR originally started out as a decentralized organization of communes and it did not work at scale.
What you describe as wanting literally exists in western society. There are communes all over and they fail all the time or simply survive chugging along as is. Maybe you should go live on one and see if you like it. I mean that as sincerely as possible.