Anarchy could never work.

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why does everybody seem convinced that anarchism implies disorder and chaos?

Anarchy is (as I understand it) the complete lack of any government or laws.

Such a situation will ALWAYS leads to chaos, or at least until governments come back.

Custom can do some of the things law can. The rub comes in the use of force. Government is regarded as a legitimate wielder for force (as in armed forces and law enforcement). There has to be some institution which is capable of maintaining public order, even if it is not a tax collecting government.

ruveyn

Not on such a large scale, unless you want to be strong armed by warlords.

more accurately, it is the lack of an authoritarian, coercive state.

Basically yes. Humans without laws = f**king chaos.

i thought this was an interesting statement to make. i completely disagree with it. heirarchy has not always existed and it is not a natural part of human existence or organisation of society. historically it can be seen to have come about with the introduction of private property. with private property came heirarchy and then came competition between those that owned property. also organisation with leaders does not necessarily indicate heirarchy. should those leaders come from the same class and be elected by the people then they will not be considered above them. should they remain in that class and not be disconnected from the struggle that defines it then they cannot distance themselves from that class, loose sympathy for it and its needs and be considered higher up in the heirarchy. (i'm talking about the working class by the way. just in case it wasn't clear...)


what peebo said is the denotation. saying that it will lead to chaos is the connotation that unfortunately people associate it with and saying we need governments to control & keep us savage humans in check is rather misanthropic. people should govern themselves(govern not control). the state perpetuates more barbarities than ordinary humans have ever done. it is responsible for wars and genocides and aparthied and the destruction of surpluss food and the razing of old growth forests and sending refugees back to countries that are dangerous for them and taken land away from its indigenous inhabitants and their children away from them too. the state did that. the government did that. not people. they are the real perpetuators of chaos in this world because it is in their class interests to do so. anything to effectively compete for property ownership. ordinary people(working class) would be a whole lot better at running the show than they. their class interests are not the interests of the capitalist class. people before profits as opposed to profits before people.

There are laws and there are laws. Some laws simply assert commonly held values and customs. Other laws are enforced by violent means.

There never was a human society without some rules of behavior.

ruveyn

Warlordism is the natural result of a power vacuum. One need only look at any failed state for evidence of that. Some warlords have legitimated themselves by become the new government--but others live in a constant civil war with their rivals until one emerges with the political and military skills to conquer the others.

Anarchy's great in a world of one. Any more than that and bargaining starts happening. Once the bargaining starts - its over.

Sounds like the same logic used for religion. People are evil and must be in fear of some punishment for 'bad' behavior. If that is truly how it is then why should any of us humans feel good about ourselves anyways?

Bingo.

Your post confuses me. What do you mean by "bargaining"?

I had gotten the impression (from TV documentaries) that the concensus amongst anthropologists was the complete opposite; the biggest advantage the african humans had was that they were far more social than the neanderthals - when different groups met up they would share information, ideas and technological advancement etc. By contrast the neanderthals were insular and comparatively asocial, knowledge and inventions could live and die with the small group that discovered them.

You could argue that the african humans had a very different style of hunting, but again; their skill and technology (eg spear-launchers) was only widespread because they had co-operated and shared that knowledge amongst the whole species. And there you have the anarchist tenet of mutual aid



ok. the bit ive highlighted.... is the definition of anarchism! as its defined by its proponents and political theorists

That's also what I learned in my sociology class.

Any agreement of trust, whether on paper or simply a handshake.

To translate that from my own language into English (I think I can do this, not sure but I'll warm my fingers up and give it my best try).... I'm really saying that the whole concept of anarchy is vacuous - its a conceptual idea, a descriptor, but describes something that literally doesn't and cannot exist. The moment you have any kind of written, verbal, or even nonverbal agreement you have law. There's such a thing as two states of existence for global culture - good law and crappy law, no law isn't an option unless a person has literally no one else to interact with.