Why wouldn't anarchy work?

Reading through this thread makes one thing abundantly clear - we aren't all operating from the same definition of "anarchy". So could those of you who SUPPORT anarchy please explain what an anarchistic society would look like? Please include how the society would deal with conflict, crime, protection, infrastructure and the like. This way we could all see just what you have in mind when you talk about an anarchistic society.

faithful_servant said:

How does progress work in an anarchy?? If I put a massive effort into producing something that benefits everyone and someone else can come along and take it from me, what's my motivation for busting my ass??

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There is no evidence that copyright law is needed for people in society to invent new things to make their life better. If that is what you mean anyway.

faithful_servant said:

If you think that society will simply rise up and stop them, you're wrong.

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Well, they kinda did: it's how government started. Society would just create more of these in their absence.

faithful_servant said:

How does progress work in an anarchy?? If I put a massive effort into producing something that benefits everyone and someone else can come along and take it from me, what's my motivation for busting my ass??

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Why would your community allow that to happen if it means the same thing could happen to them?

There's also this silly idea that if you give people a chance they will all be good little citizens, yet that ignores a multi-millennia long trend of there being people who are good little citizens. How do you deal with the people who are going to harm others?? If you think that society will simply rise up and stop them, you're wrong. These kind of people will band together and force their will on the general population because they are willing to far more harm to you than you are willing to do to them. If you have kids, they'll kill them. If they have kids, you won't. That's how things work int he real world. Either you form a cooperative societal structure for mutual benefit and protection (a government) or you end up a slave to those who are willing to do the evil that you won't do.

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You can have a cooperative societal structure without it being hierarchical, which is what anarchists oppose.

grip said:

I think you're comparing the absolutes of the two terms below. There probably have been historical, states of disorder comparable to anarchy for periods of time.


Anarchy: a state of disorder due to absence or nonrecognition of authority.

Hierarchy: a system or organization in which people or groups are ranked one above the other according to status or authority.

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Not for any extended period of time, no. Even in places like Somalia, there are leaders. Maybe not for the whole country, but individual pockets of order in the chaos. People simply do not operate without rules and rule-enforcers.

Henrin said:

There is no evidence that copyright law is needed for people in society to invent new things to make their life better. If that is what you mean anyway.

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And that will work right up until people realize that others are stealing their designs and making money off their own hard work. Then you'll get copyright back.

Cephus said:

And that will work right up until people realize that others are stealing their designs and making money off their own hard work. Then you'll get copyright back.

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Perhaps people would demand it's return, but history shows that it is not necessary.

Henrin said:

Perhaps people would demand it's return, but history shows that it is not necessary.

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If it's not necessary, it wouldn't exist. What do you do when someone steals your design and starts producing your product cheaper than you can? Kill them?

Cephus said:

If it's not necessary, it wouldn't exist. What do you do when someone steals your design and starts producing your product cheaper than you can? Kill them?

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That is an absurd standard. Public education is not necessary and yet it exists, government built roads are not necessary and yet they build them none the less, the internet is not necessary and yet here it is, war is not necessary and wars occur all the time, a great deal of products you can buy at the store are not necessary and yet they exist all the same, etc, etc, etc. The fact it exists has nothing to do with it being necessary or not.

The ideas that you have are yours as long as they stay inside your mind. Once you act on them, create something and then release it into the world it is no longer yours. Telling me I can not create something because you took ownership of the idea for however long the copyright exists is limiting my property rights and my liberty by extension to do with my property as I see fit. It is limiting my rights to use my pen and paper, my metal in my factory, or what have you to do with it as I please. There is no merit to you stepping on my rights and acting as if your already released ideas are yours now and forever. You are limiting competition on the market and thus restraining competitive forces and could very create yourself a powerful monopoly that crushes and mistreats all with nothing to stop you. You are limiting the power of capitalism to make all our lives better by restraining the free exchange of ideas. There is no risk that is actually real to ending copyright law, but a potential for a better life for all.

faithful_servant said:

Reading through this thread makes one thing abundantly clear - we aren't all operating from the same definition of "anarchy". So could those of you who SUPPORT anarchy please explain what an anarchistic society would look like? Please include how the society would deal with conflict, crime, protection, infrastructure and the like. This way we could all see just what you have in mind when you talk about an anarchistic society.

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Anarchism doesn't say how any particular community would set itself up. A thousand different communities could be structured completely differently.

But in general anarchist oppose hierarchical organizations such as current governments in which certain people at the top tell everyone at the bottom what to do. While a Republic like the US may allow people to elect these people, They are still just picking new rulers every few years.

To me anarchism would be democracy in its purest form. One person one vote on everything, not just picking your rulers. The community would vote on any new rules passed. A community may choose to elect security personnel to prevent theft and violence but those people could be recalled at any time by the community. If you didn't want to follow the rules of the community then there are various ways it could be handled. The community could stop providing services to you or even expel you. And yes, some communities may opt for execution if the trespasses are severe enough, though I would likely disagree with such a tactic.

Multiple communities could join up in federations for specific purposes, like building highways, or large scientific endeavors. Each community would elect a delegate to represent them in the federation with a very narrow set of administrative powers. Any substantive decisions would still have to go to the community for a vote. And the delegate could be recalled at any time. Such federations could also provide security in the lands between communities.

Anarchism did exist in various forms for the bulk of human history. If it didn't work at all we wouldn't be here now. But the technological world we live in now is very different. I don't think anarchism can be pulled on off in only a few places, it would have to be global to work. Anarchist Catalonia showed promise until the fascists overpowered them.

But as I said, humanity is not currently ready for it and I am under no allusions it will be in my lifetime.





I personally don't think anarchism would or should work on a large scale such as the US. I think it would work best in smaller communities, no larger than the typical city, if that.

Henrin said:

Depends on how you approach the subject of anarchy. One solution is to have private police forces to handle such things that are open to competition. Of course, there is other solutions to the problem as well that I'm sure CPS01 knows about.

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Private police forces will just morph into private militias.

CPS01 said:

Hi

I'm looking for reasoned arguments for that anarchy won't work.

Please state your personal ideological standpoint along your comment, thanks.

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I guess you'd have to define "work". Compared to what?

Would you say that Somalia exists in a state of anarchy?

My opinion.....When people don't agree to some kind of social contract most things become a race to the bottom.

CPS01 said:

Hi

I'm looking for reasoned arguments for that anarchy won't work.

Please state your personal ideological standpoint along your comment, thanks.

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It depends on what you mean by 'work'.

Henrin said:

What is your proof that we are talking of chaos? What makes you think that any of your arguments don't apply to government and what makes you think they apply to a system of anarchy?

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i can't believe that any libertarian would even flirt with the idea of anarchy. anarchy is a guaranteed road to everything that libertarians hate the most.

first off, there would be no entity to ensure that corporations don't just buy up all of the competition / participate in anti-competitive behavior. the result will be a couple of mammoth entities controlling everything and the death of competitive capitalism. there'd be little impetus for innovation, and absolutely no motivation to treat workers well or to control pollution. and this assumes large scale commerce could even work in an anarchist dynamic. you'd have to have some kind of currency backed by something. probably there would be competing private currencies for a while, and then the biggest player wins and controls all of it.

secondly, that power void isn't going to just remain a void, and the power won't be returning to you, either. it will instead be survival of the strongest. your area will end up being ruled by the jackass who can drum up the most support, and the power would be taken by force. regional strongmen would end up fighting each other for control of larger regions, and we'd probably end up with some kind of dictator who would promise order and protection from ****ing warlords. either that or the largest corporation with the biggest private army would become the new government. and that's pretty much the best case scenario. the reestablishment of consolidation of power would be long and bloody. **** that.

i mean, seriously, man. look at ****ing Somalia.

i understand that libertarians live in this vacuum which is the only place that a lot of these theories work, but anarchy? you can't really be entertaining the idea that it could work, can you? seriously? it's a sure fire road to tyranny.

Somalia is not an example of anarchism. Anarchism means "without rulers". There are many rulers in Somalia.

apoState said:

To me anarchism would be democracy in its purest form. One person one vote on everything

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Not only would that bog down on anything large scale, but it also kinda implies that everyone's opinions on everything are equal- something I know the internet has helped kinda subconsciously promulgate, but certainly can't be true.

OldWorldOrder said:

Not only would that bog down on anything large scale, but it also kinda implies that everyone's opinions on everything are equal- something I know the internet has helped kinda subconsciously promulgate, but certainly can't be true.

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I don't believe anarchist communites would work on a large scale, such as the size of a typical nation. But really, why should people in DC be telling people who live a thousand miles away how to live? No, I think anarchist communities wouldn't likely be bigger than what we currently view as cities. Superficially it would probably look like a world of city states.

apoState said:

I don't believe anarchist communites would work on a large scale, such as the size of a typical nation. But really, why should people in DC be telling people who live a thousand miles away how to live? No, I think anarchist communities wouldn't likely be bigger than what we currently view as cities. Superficially it would probably look like a world of city states.

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Why does it matter where someone lives?

Anyway, city-states would result in a pretty large scale drop in Western standards of living, simply due to divisions of labor being skewed and organizational production being comparatively unvaried. A more robust trade system would allay that, but I can't imagine thousands of anarchist city-states resulting in a more efficient trade framework.

apoState said:

I don't believe anarchist communites would work on a large scale, such as the size of a typical nation. But really, why should people in DC be telling people who live a thousand miles away how to live? No, I think anarchist communities wouldn't likely be bigger than what we currently view as cities. Superficially it would probably look like a world of city states.

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Any political system can work in a small community.
City sized anarchy will degenerate into some kind of dictatorship. Then maybe (if you are lucky) it might morph into something better. Best not to bother with it at all and avoid the problems

OldWorldOrder said:

Why does it matter where someone lives?

Anyway, city-states would result in a pretty large scale drop in Western standards of living, simply due to divisions of labor being skewed and organizational production being comparatively unvaried. A more robust trade system would allay that, but I can't imagine thousands of anarchist city-states resulting in a more efficient trade framework.

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It would never get that far before all cities could become anarchistic some of them would already have been taken over by criminal elements (or destroyed by those fighting to do so)

apoState said:

Somalia is not an example of anarchism. Anarchism means "without rulers". There are many rulers in Somalia.

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In Somalia there is no government so the people are left to their own devices without a social contract, I'd call that anarchy....The advocates of anarchism can't possibly be so naive to think that a state could exist where no one would attempt to claim any power, would they? You would need a social agreement not to claim power and a centralized authority to make sure that those that violated the agreement were prosecuted.

A state without a central authority where everyone agreed not to claim power out of their own goodwill, that's not anarchy, that's utopia...

Because people have a propensity to impose their will on others.

apoState said:

To me anarchism would be democracy in its purest form. One person one vote on everything, not just picking your rulers.

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Which, of course, is nonsense. In anarchy, there is absolutely no democracy, the only ones getting a "vote" are the strong. The weak get trampled. The guy with the biggest gun makes the rules, nobody gets to vote on who gets the gun this week.

I'll never understand how rational people can think any of this makes sense.

Cephus said:

Which, of course, is nonsense. In anarchy, there is absolutely no democracy, the only ones getting a "vote" are the strong. The weak get trampled. The guy with the biggest gun makes the rules, nobody gets to vote on who gets the gun this week.

I'll never understand how rational people can think any of this makes sense.

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I think you hit the nail on the head there.
Some people just aren't rational

Do the following test:

Visit an internet forum with no rules or moderators (or with lax and rules and limited moderation). The comment section of cnn.com will do for these purposes.

Next, visit an internet forum with firm rules and plenty of moderators (such as this one).

Now, ask yourself wich one you would rather live in.