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[Neonivek]

So yes, an anarchist society can have police. The police intervene to protect the rights and freedoms of individuals from oppressors. They are delegated to do so by the collective

Personally once you start to create a state structure, policing body, and impose it on the populous... it isn't anarchy... In fact it kind of runs contrary to the point (as you are going to end up legitimizing your government through force). In fact you are even going as far as to set up the downfall of your anarchist government as well once you start appointing... It almost becomes a sort of Athenian style democracy.

Though I cannot imagine Anarchy working on a larger scale. Except maybe through some sort of tribalism or feudalism.

[Reelya]

That's sort of a straw man. Anarchy doesn't mean "every man for himself", so that nobody can tell anyone else not to do something. e.g. if a child's being beaten as a slave worker right in front of you, it's not consistent with anarchist political ideas to just shrug and say "that's his right as a free man to enslave that child".

Yeah, so a lot of the time people complain "but that's not anarchism" without referencing what the various branches of anarchism actually advocate, so it becomes a straw man argument. Anarchists are not the same as pacifists. They believe in organizations and rules when required (e.g. murderers aren't a-o.k because anarchism), but with more direct-democratic controls and transparency.

[Neonivek]

That's sort of a straw man. Anarchy doesn't mean "every man for himself", so that nobody can tell anyone else not to do something.

Well... it CAN mean that. Anarchism is less a structure so much defined by a lack of structure... and the form we are talking about right now I'd probably use the term collectivism.

 

They believe in organizations and rules when required (e.g. murderers aren't a-o.k because anarchism), but with more direct-democratic controls and transparency.

It isn't that... It is that each level of organization begets another layer.

You have police, or rather members of the community volunteering or coerced to enforce a doctrine agreed upon by some members of the community. So, who organizes the police? Well we of course agree that we should have some sort of police captains, then a police chief.

But everyone can't organize all the time right? So we need people who are in charge of organizing society so the farmers don't have to take breaks from plowing the fields. So what if we represented farmers by some sort of agreed upon representative?

It is why I think there is a population cap on Anarchism... at least not without technology shoring it up (Tech we currently don't have)

---

Then again that might be because you said "Police" and not watch or militia. Some sort of rotating security by the people.

[Loud Whispers]

That's sort of a straw man. Anarchy doesn't mean "every man for himself", so that nobody can tell anyone else not to do something. e.g. if a child's being beaten as a slave worker right in front of you, it's not consistent with anarchist political ideas to just shrug and say "that's his right as a free man to enslave that child".

Yeah, so a lot of the time people complain "but that's not anarchism" without referencing what the various branches of anarchism actually advocate, so it becomes a straw man argument. Anarchists are not the same as pacifists. They believe in organizations and rules when required (e.g. murderers aren't a-o.k because anarchism), but with more direct-democratic controls and transparency.

That reminds me of those awesome lolbertarian paradise copypastas
My favourite one was the guy who uploaded the consciousness of his children into roombas so he could bypass child labour laws and have them serve him for eternity

[Phmcw]

Anarchism started with Proudhon, and then as usual, it took widely different forms.
In the same way, Christianity is the huge bunch of ideology that claim to be related to a being called Jesus Christ.


Now that this had been said, you can decide what exactly you want to discuss :

-The current beliefs of the different Anarchist movements
-Your own take on how it should go.
-...


That being said, it seems that a bunch of thinkers in the 1800's believed that self-organizing peacefully would lead to great things and scale easily. A bit like free software, but for the organization of all society.

[Neonivek]

That being said, it seems that a bunch of thinkers in the 1800's believed that self-organizing peacefully would lead to great things and scale easily. A bit like free software, but for the organization of all society.

How does it scale? (legit question)

Because the barriers I see is organization and the time a person has to organize themselves. I am ignoring it falling into tribalism or dictatorship, because that is a bit more outside.

Since once you start doing representatives you are moving towards an entirely different territory.

I mean as great as Athens was (to an extent, it has its flaws... such as mob mentality), I question if its government would have worked if it had even as few as two cities... or a population of a million.
-This is an example... Since it is VERY VERY similar to the suggest Anarchism, the only difference so far is that there is a lot more automatic mechanisms and collective responsibility.

[Reelya]

That's sort of a straw man. Anarchy doesn't mean "every man for himself", so that nobody can tell anyone else not to do something.

Well... it CAN mean that. Anarchism is less a structure so much defined by a lack of structure... and the form we are talking about right now I'd probably use the term collectivism.

Anything "can" mean whatever you want if you want to be deliberately obtuse and ignore what people clearly actually mean. "But X means Y, and Y is wrong, therefore your idea X is wrong" is a classic and obvious straw man. Clearly, the people proposing the idea have a different idea of what the word means than you do.

You can point out that the idea of "lacking structure" is not tenable, therefore say that the anarchists ideas are not tenable, purely because of your word-definition game of defining "anarchism" as "lacking structure". But if someone else is using "anarchism" as their term to define their ideas, and that's not the same as your semantic definition, then your criticism has nothing to do with their ideas, merely an objection to the terminology.

[Neonivek]

That's sort of a straw man. Anarchy doesn't mean "every man for himself", so that nobody can tell anyone else not to do something.

Well... it CAN mean that. Anarchism is less a structure so much defined by a lack of structure... and the form we are talking about right now I'd probably use the term collectivism.

Anything "can" mean whatever you want if you want to be deliberately obtuse and ignore what people clearly actually mean. That's what a straw man is all about.

Except you know... I specifically state that while it is within the definition, it isn't what we are talking about.

So, not so much obtuse or ignoring.

[Reelya]

Well then don't derail the topic with what you already knew was irrelevant. It just makes it look like you don't want to learn, you just want to screw with people.

What you're doing is like critiquing a comment such as "this forum has a good energy", by pointing out the scientific definition of the word "energy" and pointing out how the statement is plain wrong based on that.

When someone is discussing a political theory such as syndicalism, which is within the framework of anarchist political thought (which is a specific historical/philosophical/political school of thought) bringing up a "dictionary" definition of "anarchy the word" is just a complete red herring which has nothing to add to the discussion. It's like butting into a discussion on Modernism by point out that it's "not really modern according to the dictionary".

[Neonivek]

What does that have to do with the organizing structure of anarchism and how it allows it to scale to nation size proportions?

[Reelya]

That's the point. Your argument was about the dictionary definition of the word, and you act like that's relevant to the discussion.

Anarchism is less a structure so much defined by a lack of structure.

That's your statement and it's clearly bullshit if you look at the history of the political movement. And you did say "anarchism" which is the political theory rather than just "anarchy" which could be a more general state.

[Neonivek]

That's the point. Your argument was about the dictionary definition of the word, and you act like that's relevant to the discussion.

It wasn't... that was an aside. My argument is that once you reach a certain level of organization an anarchist system breaks down into a typical governing body... the kind that anarchism seeks to avoid.

In fact not only was it an aside, but I even state it is unrelated to what we are talking about... a "technically correct".

[Neonivek]

That's the point. Your argument was about the dictionary definition of the word, and you act like that's relevant to the discussion.

Anarchism is less a structure so much defined by a lack of structure.

That's your statement and it's clearly bullshit if you look at the history of the political movement. And you did say "anarchism" which is the political theory rather than just "anarchy" which could be a more general state.

I am sorry, you are right.

[Cthulhu]

So what does or doesn't justify a hierarchy and why?

[Reelya]

I think a bit part of that question boils down to exactly what you mean by heirarchy. What anarchists mean when they're against heirarchy is that they're against a system in which one person (or people) can dictate orders to another person, on the basis of being a more important person, which the other person must carry out or face punishment.

But that's not exactly the same thing as a structure. An structure can exist which has layers - e.g. local democratic collectives send delegates to a regional forum, that forum debates events and policies, then each collective agrees to carry out different actions to achieve unified aims. Sure, the central forum could be called a "heirarchy" but it's not like the US federal government or anything: the apparatus through which it enacts action is the collectives themselves, so if the people in the collectives don't want to do what the forum says, they just don't do it, and probably change the people they're sending to be delegates.

e.g. a collective can have a president, as long as that president is fairly elected (and in most anarchist systems, can be recalled by popular vote at any time, so no set terms, which reduces the power of incumbency). The president can direct how the collective functions, because they've been delegated the authority to do so by the collective, but they don't have coercive authority: they only have personal authority. When leaders can be replaced at the snap of a finger for getting too bossy, the whole game changes. Think about a business comparison. Imagine you're in a work team, one that has a manager and workers, and the manager at any time can say "you're fired!". Compare that to another type of team, in which the team chooses a manager to follow, and can pick someone else at any time. The dynamic is completely different, even though someone could argue that superficially, they have the same roles and duties to perform, and that if you look at a business chart, you see the same "roles" as before. Sure, the tree structure of the company might appear the same, but it's going to be a completely different place to work, if at each level your subordinates can vote "no confidence" in your management.

So I think there are two main difference between an anarchist structure vs a typical one. In an authoritarian heirarchy, the higher-ups can order or replace the lower-downs. In an anarchist hierarchy, coercive authority flows from the bottom up: lower-level workers can order the replacement of managers because that's their right in the system. Job descriptions may be the same in each system, but you should be able to see that the outcomes would be different, despite having the same "heirarchy" of positions.

The other difference is a consequence of that: Authoritarian heirarchies usually have an enforcer arm that's separate from the main hierarchy, who's job is to discipline the main heirarchy and only answers directly to the leader. The need for such a separate enforcer team should be clear: if you only have a single heirarchy under your command then you're too beholden to them for your power, and can't expect them to just obey any order you give them.