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[Servant Corps]

Alright, a few weeks ago, my class had a special...uh...project. Basically, the whole class would be randomly assigned into different groups to come up with proposals to decide the grades for the class. Each group was given a quota of points, and was told to assign it in such a matter as to gain the consent of everyone in the class. One person can veto the entire disturbition of grades. The teacher stated that nobody has ever done it before in his class. This sort of system is called particpatory democracy, but it is also a system of consensus that I think anarchists prefer (it was actually detailed in detail in a book we read afterwards In Defense of Anarachism), and the whole excerise is to showcase the problems of this sort of democracy.

But at the begining of the project, one person in my group have already came up with a excel spreadsheet to allow for grade distrubtion. It seemed that people like him was in the other groups as well, and so that all those people came together and worked on how to distribute the points. It seemed that a few people wasn't able to come to class on that day, and thus those few people came up with a way to distribute the points in such a way that everyone currently in the class gets an A while everyone who didn't attend a class failed. There were a few excess points after the distrubtion, and these excess points were given to the teacher to use as he see fits.

There were however one problem with this proposal: The teacher stated that if the proposal was approved, then the people make a commitment to attend every single class afterwards, and if they miss one class (without a legit excuse), that person automatically fail. There were many who wanted this proposal to be passed though (including the few people that made the proposal to begin with), and they made speeches trying to persuade people to approve. Finally, it went to a vote, everyone approved, the proposal was passed. A few people aftewards claimed that the whole 'one-objection' system made the proposal easier to pass: nobody wanted to be the sole person preventing change, and thereby earning the ire of the rest of the class.

What I'm wondering is this. Is this situation common in most anarchial communities, where you had these few people that came up with this proposal that beniefted everyone; and everybody else was passively accepting it. And if so, is that good or bad?

[Grakelin]

There is only one country in the modern world that is in anarchy, and sociologists and political scientists flock to it for research.

That doesn't sound like an anarchy at all, to be honest. It sounds more like an oligarchy made up of the intellectual elite.

[fenrif]

Anarchy is the absence of government. So this isn't indicitive of an anarchic society. You cant have democracy AND anarchy, they are mutually exclusive.

[Grakelin]

This is truth. In fact, you should mention this to your teacher. If they try to debate this, don't move an inch. In fact, just straw man until they get flustered and tell you "Damnit, this classroom is NOT a democracy!", at which point you should nod your head and say "Thank you, I'm glad that's settled".

[Servant Corps]

Well, I'm the one calling it an anarchy. I don't think he did, he preferred a term that I don't remember but can recall it to mean "consensus democracy".

But the teacher wasn't running the show, that's for sure. The teacher was laying down rules by which the class has to follow, yes, but he said that those rules are just basic limitations. He was playing Mother Nature, not a dictator.

[Aqizzar]

Nature is not an anarchy either.  Rules = Not Anarchy.  Doesn't matter where they come from.

In a sense, there's really no such thing as true political anarchy.  Throw a bunch of people into a room with no political rules, and sooner or later some people will come to dominate discussion and action.  "Anarchy" is what you have for a few minutes before you have "Warlordism", be it in Somalia or verbal control of a classroom.

[Grakelin]

You can call it anarchism if you like, but it isn't anarchism. It's a form of direct democracy, similar to what was practiced in Athens. In an Anarchy, the individual does not give up any power to anybody else, not even the collective, the way that the students do in this case.

[Kebooo]

There are actually multiple ways of looking at anarchy.

One - The absence of being governed whatsoever by any group, by choice or not.

Two - No enforced government.

In the case of two, you can still govern through voluntary social structure.  Often times people forget there's more than one meaning to the word anarchy.  For example, many political anarchists believe this (this is taken directly from Webster's):

a theory that regards the absence of all direct or coercive government as a political ideal and that proposes the cooperative and voluntary association of individuals and groups as the principal mode of organized society.

On the other hand, sometimes people will describe a situation of chaos, where force (thugs, bandits, and so forth) rules as anarchy.  They can't entirely be reconciled, because a band of thugs enforcing their choices and their laws (I want your money and land because I'm strong) on another, that did not enter into this social relationship by voluntary association, would fit under a definition of government or being governed.  Think mini-Stalins that roam around and rule through force.  So a political anarchist would not use Somalia as a good example of political anarchy, due to the fact there is a lot of coercion.

I would argue one can voluntarily associate with a group or membership, say, bay12games forum, which is 'governed' by admins and moderators.  This group could also come to conclusions by democratic decisions, as well, for example, to edit my posts and put pictures of divine unicorns in.  But, at any time, an individual could opt out, and could never be forced or coerced into participating in bay12games (unlike a true democracy, where the democratic rule is the law all must obey, so we could force you to participate in bay12games).

What you've described could be anarchy or not.  One, you've voluntarily associated yourself with a class.  Anarchy does not entail every decision must be entirely agreed upon at all times, that would simply be absolute consensus.  If your class were forcing these decisions on you, that is, you must come to the class or you will be harmed, punished or jailed, even if you never signed up for the class, then it would be by no means anarchist. 

The method by which they made their conclusion (the one-objection rule) doesn't quite fit under the idea of anarchy.  Suppose everyone on bay12games wants to outlaw drinking beer for its members.  I could simply say, I don't agree to this rule.  The rest will still agree to live by that rule and it will apply to them, just not me.  But perhaps one of the founding rules to voluntarily associate with bay12games is to obey the rules that are decided upon.  If your class were to exactly resemble political anarchy, people would have the choice to opt out of the decided grade system, but it gets confusing because you have the choice to opt out of the class.  So my point...political anarchy is not such a clear cut concept.  Basically, your classroom is not being anarchist in nature, but it could fit within a political anarchist system, if that makes sense.

[piecewise]

No matter what the supposed style of government is the end result is always the same: An elite few, usually very rich, controls everything either through subtle manipulation or outright dictatorship. No matter the system someone always finds a way to bend and abuse the rules and rise to power.

The difference here is that an anarchy will quickly disintegrate into nothing while other forms of government will slowly stagnate and die.

[Kebooo]

In political anarchy they would be unable to bend and abuse the rules because the only rule would be that you cannot force participation.  At this point their only form of power would be through social pressure or propaganda, something that's just as effective whether it comes from the common masses or the rich elite.  And as soon as it disintegrated into thuggery and coercion, it would cease to be political anarchy and become just plain chaotic anarchy.

[fenrif]

Anarchy as defined by the oxford english dictionary:
noun 1 a state of disorder due to lack of government or control. 2 a society founded on the principles of anarchism.

There are only multiple ways of looking at it if you misunderstand the concept.

Often times people forget anarchy has one meaning, and try to infer other meanings to it. You cant have a state of disorder due to lack of control, and have people governing through voluntary social structure. Anarchy and any form of governance are mutually exclusive. That is the entire concept of anarchy.

Sometimes people describe a group of thugs ruling by force as anarchy because they don't know what anarchy is. As aquizzar said, anarchy is what you'd have before the thugs took power. Once there is someone in power, in any fashion, it ceases being anarchy.

You also cant opt in or out of anarchy. Its either there or it isn't. If you are living in anarchy, then there is no power structure for you to opt into. If there is then it isn't anarchy.

Sorry if that sounded antagonistic, it isn't meant too. I've just had to explain to far too many people wearing the stylized anarchy A on their t-shirt what it actually means. Far too many people see anarchy and think "cool, that means rebellion" or something silly like that.

[Muz]

The Internet is a good form of anarchy. Too bad it rarely happens, even on /b/ because someone moderates the Internet. I'd say Omegle is the best example of anarchy, and some IRC channels. Eventually, you get a lot of perverts who walk around with no pants. It then degenerates to the point where people are unfazed by others asking for child porn and "can i tuch ur boobs".

Also, HellMOO does a good simulation of what anarchy would look like. There'd be a lot of nice people giving you things and helping you for some reason. And there'd be the people who go around killing and raping just because they can. Those people do get hunted down, but there's enough of them to make it annoying.


Anyway.. people, and even animals actually love some order. Take a very simple example. You stay in a house with a bunch of friends. You guys think that having a clean house would be fun. But nobody really wants to clean the toilets. Or anything. Because cleaning is boring.

Under an anarchy, everyone would clean the house whenever they feel like it. Some of you will do it, but then you realize it's more fun to have someone else do it. Eventually only one of you will be cleaning the house.. and that person will realize that it's just not worth the effort. Eventually, your house will be filthy and all of you will get leprosy.

Under some kind of limited tribal council, you could all agree that everyone takes turns cleaning up the house. This is where government/management begins. Push it a little forward and you could have someone smarter than all of you deciding who should clean. Then you get a form of monarchy.

Anarchy doesn't work.. it just deteriorates into another form of government. Lol, it goes directly against the laws of Entropy... you actually have to actively enforce anarchy.

[Kebooo]

I agree with the general conclusion of your post, but not on the specifics.  Why do people want to be a janitor now?  Because it pays money, and money is a voluntary exchange.  Political anarchy can have voluntary order.

The problem, as you say, is that it must be enforced, and without a cohesive police and judiciary, it would come down to "he said, she said" retribution of justice based on each others' claims or rejection of these claims.  It's better to have a central authority, if not for, at the very least, enforcement of freedom from coercion and force (freedom from rape, theft, being assaulted, and so forth).  But in anarchy, they do not want this central state in any form.  That's why a lot of people identify as minarchist (I tend to lean this way in terms of idealism, but I don't believe we're ready for it just yet), which is basically an anarchist that accepts a very limited state as necessary to protect rights.

Anarchy would be possible if everyone was naturally non-coercive and peaceful.  But since we're not that...it just ends up going from political anarchy to chaotic anarchy.

[piecewise]

In political anarchy they would be unable to bend and abuse the rules because the only rule would be that you cannot force participation.  At this point their only form of power would be through social pressure or propaganda, something that's just as effective whether it comes from the common masses or the rich elite.  And as soon as it disintegrated into thuggery and coercion, it would cease to be political anarchy and become just plain chaotic anarchy.

Problem is that political anarchy is basically nothing more then this insanely naive idea that everyone can do anything they want but that shit will actually get done and it won't collapse into utter chaos. Of course in a true lawless society half the people (specifically the strong, able bodied ones) would quickly decide that they like having rape for breakfast and murder for lunch while the less physically fit will spend most of their time in abject terror or simply screaming.

[fenrif]

Anyway.. people, and even animals actually love some order. Take a very simple example. You stay in a house with a bunch of friends. You guys think that having a clean house would be fun. But nobody really wants to clean the toilets. Or anything. Because cleaning is boring.

Under an anarchy, everyone would clean the house whenever they feel like it. Some of you will do it, but then you realize it's more fun to have someone else do it. Eventually only one of you will be cleaning the house.. and that person will realize that it's just not worth the effort. Eventually, your house will be filthy and all of you will get leprosy.

Throwing out a completely anecdotal example here, but my house at uni was lived in by 7 different people at a time. We had no rota or agreement for cleaning, or any other sort of rules really. And yeah, shit got filthy, but someone would always clean it up. Always.

Some people just have different tolerances for stuff like that. Some people have friends or girlfriends who have much different tolerances. (We had our entire house cleaned top to bottom about 5 or 6 times by various girlfriends who didnt even live there). Everyone handles things differently. Some people dont mind living in an ankle-high sea of rubbish while some would rather clean up other people's mess than deal with that on a daily basis.

Not sayin that anarchy would ever work (or that my house was anything close to anarchy), just that in that specific metaphoric example it can. I don't think it was remotely fair, but noone got leprosy, and noone moved out or burned the house down in disgust.

Also keboo: an anarchist taht accepts limited state is not an anarchist. You just want a small government. Its like saying you are a vegitarian but eat beef. Mutually exclusive.