Anarchy

[saysmydoctor]

I really don't much about this and would love to learn. Where are some good starting points? And what are the different kinds? I've heard terms like syndica-anarchism or whatever. Discuss.

[shit stroll]

"what is anarchism " by alexander berkman would probably be the best place to start.
also, check out http://www.akpress.org/

[shit stroll]

Let me be the first of many to say that while it sounds okay it wouldn't work out in real life.
so what are some alternatives to capitalism and state socialism?

[Nevuk]

Let me be the first of many to say that while it sounds okay it wouldn't work out in real life.
While many theories of anarchy do claim utopia, I don't actually think of it as that. No system or association of people is going to be what we idealize as a utopia, as whoever it was got it right by naming it after "no place". I don't think anarchy would be utopia, I just think it a better system than what we have now, and as I think that, I must work towards it.

Places to start with anarchy: if you want an introduction to its philosophical texts, Bakunin is a starting point.
Specifically, the pamphlet God and the State, while being very anti-christian also is one of the more focused examples of anarchist philosophy being used. http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/Anarchist_archives/bakunin/godandstate/godandstate_ch1.html (Most important anarchist texts are available for free online pretty much everywhere). It also kind of indicates the difference between anarchy and marxism as well. (If pressed, I'll admit that marxism is a kind of anarchy, albeit somewhat hypocritical)

Kropotkin, Proudhon, and Goldman are the other three I've read a decent amount of, but none of them have a quite as standout work as God and the State.
(Matt Nettlau has my favorite anarchist theory of all time, Panarchy)

If you want a more modern, less biased take on it, Orwell's Homage to Catalonia is good overview of the Spanish Civil War.

And thanks to Love as arson for the next one, David Graeber's Fragments of an Anarchist Anthropology is a very good, very broad work on a ton of subjects from a modern anarchist POV.
(http://www.prickly-paradigm.com/paradigm14.pdf ). For a starting point, I'd dive right into this or God and the State. Reading an article describing the different kinds of anarchists will introduce you to their differences in opinions, without really describing what it is each of them actually believes in, but its up to you.

[Nevuk]

"what is anarchism " by alexander berkman would probably be the best place to start.
also, check out http://www.akpress.org/
Thanks for the link, I've been looking for something like that.

[bung]

Contrary to what anyone says, if you want basic info about stuff just wikipedia it. If it sounds to your liking, then go to more in-depth sources. That's what I do, and, personally, I feel like all my beliefs are infallible.

[MADSTA]

Ask this guy (http://absolutepunk.net/member.php?u=80671).

[open mind]

i don't see communism or anarchy as viable in todays world.
both have worked out wonderfully in smaller communities in the past though.

[jds10912]

i don't see communism or anarchy as viable in todays world.
both have worked out wonderfully in smaller communities in the past though.

what are some examples of this, if you don't mind me asking?

[andrew4045]

Most of the people that want anarchy would be the first to die.

[shit stroll]

Most of the people that want anarchy would be the first to die.
and why is that? do you even know what anarchism is?

[open mind]

what are some examples of this, if you don't mind me asking?

alot of communal religious communities (monastaries and what have you) are examples of communism working......although they obviously wouldn't call it that.
some small tribal communities are examples of anarchy working.

[shit stroll]

the anarcho-syndicalist in the spanish civil war would probably be the best example.

[open mind]

the anarcho-syndicalist in the spanish civil war would probably be the best example.

i dunno about that because it wasn't able to sustain itself for nearly as long as the systems of various communal religious communities or as long as alot of tribes lived under a system of anarchy.

[Nevuk]

i dunno about that because it wasn't able to sustain itself for nearly as long as the systems of various communal religious communities or as long as alot of tribes lived under a system of anarchy.
The catalonian thing was just the largest in scale, and outside forces were responsible for much of its failure. Tribes an example of longevity, but that's usually not what people even question concerning it.

[shit stroll]

VUig0lFHDDw

[open mind]

The catalonian thing was just the largest in scale, and outside forces were responsible for much of its failure. Tribes an example of longevity, but that's usually not what people even question concerning it.

yeah i know outside forces led to the movements collapse (same thing happened with almost all tribes on earth)....and those forces haven't gone anywhere, and i'd go so far as to say that they're even more in control then back then, which is one reason why i don't believe it's possible to have a large scale system of anarchy in todays world.

[Nevuk]

yeah i know outside forces led to the movements collapse (same thing happened with almost all tribes on earth)....and those forces haven't gone anywhere, and i'd go so far as to say that they're even more in control then back then, which is one reason why i don't believe it's possible to have a large scale system of anarchy in todays world.
All systems fall. And if they don't... well, humanity is a system too.


I'm just in a dark mood, but that's pretty much my pessimistic explanation for why the argument that its impossible to acquire doesn't really affect me. I don't think it likely that the human race is going to be around form for long enough for it to matter.

[x0sosahley]

In my opinion, there is no fair system, none of them ever work.
At different times and in different places around the globe, communism could work out better than capitalism or some other form of government. It just depends on what that country needs at the moment.

[chaosB4storm]

Let me be the first of many to say that while it sounds okay it wouldn't work out in real life.

Fascism lol.

There is no perfect way to run things because the world is not a fair place.

Agreed.

[saysmydoctor]

Agreed.
For the record, this thread is for people willing to learn or who know what they are talking about.

[Matthew]

Anarchy, in my opinion, is not just the absence of government but the absence of hierarchy. I am sympathetic to that goal, because I like freedom as much as anyone. A lot of hierarchies - like the power of the rich over the poor, the power of whites over minorities, men over women, straights over queers, etc. - are nothing but pure domination. And that's unpleasant.

But some hierarchies are good. When a judge sentences a criminal or when the state can make rich people pony up some money to fix inner city schools, I'm down with that. But those actions would be impossible without legal and political hierarchies.

The key to me, is that hierarchies be democratically maintained. That they can be changed or challenged. At that they are not arbitrary. We can call hierarchies like this hierarchies of subordination; hierarchies that are undemocratic, permanent, or arbitrary are hierarchies of domination. Unfortunately, even the hierarchies I like often start out as the former and lapse into systems of domination; I think our society ought to be much more democratic than it is.

In the end, I part ways with anarchist because I think being an anarchist means having to oppose all hierarchies, not just the dominating ones. I find that both unfeasible and not even ideal. Which is why I identify not as an anarchist but as a radical democrat (small 'd', mind you).

[chaosB4storm]

For the record, this thread is for people willing to learn or who know what they are talking about.

How do you know I don't fit into either of those categories?

[saysmydoctor]

How do you know I don't fit into either of those categories?
I've seen you post.

[chaosB4storm]

I've seen you post.

For obvious reasons, you should have kept your Joker avatar.

[AnarchyintheUS]

I really don't much about this and would love to learn. Where are some good starting points? And what are the different kinds? I've heard terms like syndica-anarchism or whatever. Discuss.

Are you calling me out?

[shit stroll]

it was only a matter of time before you showed up.

[open mind]

All systems fall. And if they don't... well, humanity is a system too.


I'm just in a dark mood, but that's pretty much my pessimistic explanation for why the argument that its impossible to acquire doesn't really affect me. I don't think it likely that the human race is going to be around form for long enough for it to matter.

i think that humanity will be around for quite a long while, but we're just much more likely to regress then progress.....things like massive conflict, natural disasters, mutating viruses, climate change, and mass extinctions (with the breakdown of important ecosystems following) will all take thier toll on government systems that are already starting to crack.

[saysmydoctor]

For obvious reasons, you should have kept your Joker avatar.
Mmhmm.
Are you calling me out?
Don't post either.

My only concept that is anarchial, if that's even a word, is the belief that geopolitical barriers cause...stress. The only alternatives I see to this is globalization or anarchy.

[saysmydoctor]

I thought this might interest you, Nevuk, an email with my sociology professor.

Hey Sean,
Thanks for your email. Let me respond at length.
By definition, anarchy is an absence of order, particularly political order. Anarchy would definitely entail the complete *absence* of political institutions, rules and norms. Interestingly, an alternate definition (at www.m-w.com) is "a utopian society of individuals who enjoy complete freedom without government." This can easily be confused with libertarian political beliefs, but is unique in the sense that libertarians believe that people can order themselves without organized government, whereas anarchists actively seek complete disorder - no "system" whatsoever, political or otherwise. It is unclear that society could exist in the latter case of anarchy; in the former case of libertarianism, there is a prospect for social institutions and norms, but they would not be controlled or ordered by government and politics. I would say libertarianism conveys the idea of "laissez-faire politics" (let people govern themselves) better than anarchy, which would be the "opposite of politics" (the intentional creation of disorder). I do not see the creation of disorder as particularly utopian, but some apparently do.
In response to the idea that "some people need boundaries," I would agree. Boundaries are what social norms provide. But who gets to decide them? This is the exact purpose of political forms - creating legitimate power to decide boundaries (of law and crime, deviance and normality). A democratic politics offers the best opportunity, in my opinion, for individuals to exert their own will and voice in this process of determining boundaries. This does NOT simply mean voting and then letting Congress, etc., take the reins. Rather, this means a constant and uninterrupted input of citizens into their own government. We do NOT typically see this in America, however, particularly in the past 50 years. We can discuss why at a later time if you like.
Thanks for your questions. Your email gets me thinking that I should create a blog/discussion group for this course. I'll work on that.,
Ciao,
Dr. K

-----Original Message-----
From: Collins, Sean Patric
Sent: Wed 9/3/2008 4:50 PM
To: Reymers, Kurt
Subject: Question

Hello,
I'm in your Sociology course, and we were discussing the Social Norms and Social Roles of Social Institutions. My question(s) is this:
1. Would anarchy be considered a social institution? Isn't that the whole point of anarchy? It's almost the laissez-faire of politics.
2. Do anarchists base their beliefs off the acceptance that eventually everyone would recognize their social roles and acclimatize to social norms? The most common argument to anarchy is the fact that some people need boundaries.



I didn't want to ask this in class, I figured it would take the class really off course.


-Sean

[Nevuk]

Hmmm. He's off a bit. Individualistic Anarchists could fall under that, but those are only the major strain in america. And even then, that's misunderstood. Individual Anarchism and Libertarianism are actually very strongly linked. Even individualist anarchists occasionally like the spirt of exchange of property. This is the most troubling thing about anarchism - there are enough varieties that if you come up with a crackpot definition, there is a philosophy and group out there calling themselves anarchists who do follow it. Fortunately, the choas type anarchists are rarely organized. If you've ever played DnD, think of it like this - a real anarchist is true neutral, not chaotic neutral. This is of course an oversimplification, but it works.

America has a strong misconcpetion of anarchists as nihilists. From here you get the idea that we just roam the streets destroying. There is an overlap- but there's an overlap with all fringe groups. This is due to early 1900s ANTI-anarchist propaganda which was put in place to defend leaders - there was a type of radical politics being practiced by anarchists known as "propaganda of the deed". Basically- you killed unpopular (or popular) leaders to inspire people. However, this was not chaos for chaos sake. It was meant as inspiration. Emma Goldman wrote a great essay on some of the reasons this tactic was employed, but it had a lot of limits. There were also the haymarket riots, and a few other things. Basically, anarchy was used as a scapegoat in that event, and it has proved a very convenient one to this day. To give you an idea, Emma Goldman was known as, THE most dangerous woman in america. After she died, she tended to vanish from history until recently. But she was the last great public figure of anarchy, a single speech of hers could cause a riot. Unfortunately she wasn't as great a writer as an orator.

Anarchy does not mean abscence of order. It literally means without rulers. The implication of this is without hierarchy. Systems are still allowed. As are rules.

A brief argument against order and disorder - only a person from a western philosophical background would ever belief someone could truly follow disorder. Our binary syllogisms are all that permit this. Nothing is ever permanently chaotic, a system always emerges afterwords. Same goes for pure order. In fact, pure order and chaos are very similar. So basically some crazy people would agree with him, but even these people are following the distortions induced by popular culture. The closest any philosopher comes to this is Egoist, Amoralist Individualist Anarchists. However... these are the closest people to the Libertarians (american) he was referring to. Libertarian was originally used to refer to Anarchism. The two terms are interchangeable everywhere but america. Libertarian Socialism is still a KIND of anarchism. (You'd probably find it interesting, it's what I usually use to refer to myself, as if someone knows what it is, they know I mean anarchism, but if they don't they don't assume I'm going to rape them and beat them with bricks)

[Nevuk]

Other way to recognize that kind of anarchist is that they've never read an anarchist political thought book. It's like all the people calling themselves Libertarians just because they think Ron Paul sounds smart. They also tend to disdain the idea of organizing themselves in a group, or associating with even other anarchists. It's used as a shock statement, not much more. (Johnny Rotten's "I wanna be... anarchy" is likely the root of this)

[incredulous]

Hmmm. He's off a bit. Individualistic Anarchists could fall under that, but those are only the major strain in america. And even then, that's misunderstood. Individual Anarchism and Libertarianism are actually very strongly linked. Even individualist anarchists occasionally like the spirt of exchange of property. This is the most troubling thing about anarchism - there are enough varieties that if you come up with a crackpot definition, there is a philosophy and group out there calling themselves anarchists who do follow it. Fortunately, the choas type anarchists are rarely organized. If you've ever played DnD, think of it like this - a real anarchist is true neutral, not chaotic neutral. This is of course an oversimplification, but it works.

America has a strong misconcpetion of anarchists as nihilists. From here you get the idea that we just roam the streets destroying. There is an overlap- but there's an overlap with all fringe groups. This is due to early 1900s ANTI-anarchist propaganda which was put in place to defend leaders - there was a type of radical politics being practiced by anarchists known as "propaganda of the deed". Basically- you killed unpopular (or popular) leaders to inspire people. However, this was not chaos for chaos sake. It was meant as inspiration. Emma Goldman wrote a great essay on some of the reasons this tactic was employed, but it had a lot of limits. There were also the haymarket riots, and a few other things. Basically, anarchy was used as a scapegoat in that event, and it has proved a very convenient one to this day. To give you an idea, Emma Goldman was known as, THE most dangerous woman in america. After she died, she tended to vanish from history until recently. But she was the last great public figure of anarchy, a single speech of hers could cause a riot. Unfortunately she wasn't as great a writer as an orator.

Anarchy does not mean abscence of order. It literally means without ruler. The implication of this is without hierarchy. Systems are still allowed. As are rules.

A brief argument against order and disorder - only a person from a western philosophical background would ever belief someone could truly follow disorder. Our binary syllogisms are all that permit this. Nothing is ever permanently chaotic, a system always emerges afterwords. Same goes for pure order. In fact, pure order and chaos are very similar. So basically some crazy people would agree with him, but even these people are following the distortions induced by popular culture. The closest any philosopher comes to this is Egoist, Amoralist Individualist Anarchists. However... these are the closest people to the Libertarians (american) he was referring to. Libertarian was originally used to refer to Anarchism. The two terms are interchangeable everywhere but america. Libertarian Socialism is still a KIND of anarchism. (You'd probably find it interesting, it's what I usually use to refer to myself, as if someone knows what it is, they know I mean anarchism, but if they don't they don't assume I'm going to rape them and beat them with bricks)
But the republican form of government doesn't have a "ruler" per se--power is shared between branches that ultimately derive their power from the people. What kind of systems/rules would be applicable within anarchy? I don't know a lot about this.

[theESCO]

www.crimethinc.com

By far the best sit for modern, practical, Arnarchism. I orderd a few books from them (they're seriously DIRT cheap, and they send you all sorts of freebies (stickers, posters, bookmarks, etc), and a handwritten note, nice touch). I haven't gotten to most of them yet, but I gave Days of War, Nights of Love a read, twice, and it's a great piece for learning.

[Nevuk]

www.crimethinc.com (http://www.crimethinc.com)

By far the best sit for modern, practical, Arnarchism. I orderd a few books from them (they're seriously DIRT cheap, and they send you all sorts of freebies (stickers, posters, bookmarks, etc), and a handwritten note, nice touch). I haven't gotten to most of them yet, but I gave Days of War, Nights of Love a read, twice, and it's a great piece for learning.
No. I disagree heavily with Crimethinc and it is strongly biased towards post-leftist forms of anarchism. It can be a decent starting point, but you have to disregard about 50% of the bullshit they spew (theft is a way to promote anarchy! apparently). It's pretty much the poster-child for anarchistic posing. There are merits to it, but it should not be considered anarchist any more than the Sex Pistols should.

[Nevuk]

But the republican form of government doesn't have a "ruler" per se--power is shared between branches that ultimately derive their power from the people. What kind of systems/rules would be applicable within anarchy? I don't know a lot about this.
Sorry, that was a typo. It should've been rulers. I and many others extend it to without hierarchy, and we have a deeply hierarchical system in the US based upon many factors. Chiefly wealth, but being white and protestant doesn't hurt. The power the US congress gets is not from the people, it is from the systems set in place to guarantee the government - the military, police, taxes, IRS, etc. If an overwhelming % of the country wanted to overthrow congress, it could happen. But it won't, and a good deal of this is due to the idea that their power comes from the people. This boils down to something simple - which is better, donating the maximum to a candidate or voting for them? It will almost always be the maximum here.

Basically we get a small (<.001% of the population) group to represent our views. If they do not agree with our views, that doesn't matter. We elect someone different 6 years later, and if they still don't agree with the average voter, still won't matter for another 6 years. This isn't against election terms, it's something else. There's also the concept of mob rule - anarchists are sort of breaking down concerning direct democracy and a few other items, but there is tyranny of the majority. The majority is imposing its will upon the rest of the country. And it isn't even the majority in our case, it is the small group the majority places into power.

You want change - get involved in politics at a local level. It tends to have more effect on your life than the federal government. But people like ignoring this fact.

[Tec Mason]

I suppose I should give some links as well.

The booklet that made me go from "Anarchism is a stupid pipe dream of idiots" to "Maybe anarchism is possible and a better alternative to statism" is (the deliciously tongue-in-cheek titled Chaos Theory by Robert Murphy.

Here is the whole book in pdf (its really short): http://mises.org/books/chaostheory.pdf
Here it is in audio form (right click chapters to download and put them on an ipod or something): http://mises.org/media.aspx?action=category&ID=215

The best book though that pretty much covers all aspects of anarchism is The Ethics of Liberty by Murray Rothbard. Note that he uses the terms Libertarian and Anarchy interchangeably (and gives reasons for it). Most libertarians today are in favor of minimal states, but he claims true libertarianism = anarchism.

Whole book in pdf for free: http://mises.org/rothbard/ethics.pdf
Whole Audio book for free: http://mises.org/media.aspx?action=category&ID=95

Hope that helps

EDIT: I should note that the anarchy referred to in both of these texts has historically been called other things as well. some call it market anarchy, other's anarcho-capitalism, other's call it libertarianism or austo-libertarianism. These names are arbitrary though, as the concepts are what the OP is interested in. The basic idea is that everyone has a right to their own bodies and anything in the natural world they mix their labor with. States violate this right, so the state should be abolished/opposed. Coincidentally, anarcho-syndicalists can organize and flourish inside a anarcho-capitalist society without violating natural rights, but not vice versa.

[EasySkankin]

the problem with debating on a political perspective like anarchism or capitalism or communism is that it's a broad concept. If you ask one anarchist how he thinks the country should be run, it will probably have some nuances to what another anarchist would say.

There has been successful anarchy especially in the spanish civil war as has already been mentioned, but it wasn't because of a lack of order. I'd say the basest definition of anarchism is the lack of any government, But when anarchism works effectively, it's nearly identical to socialism, because the people work together very democratically in an organized matter consequently acting like a government.

[Machu505]

Sometimes I wish I were an anarchist.