Anarchy could never work.

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That seems to me...more like the opposite of anarchism. If they organize or commune or congress for the purpose of discussing a dispute between two parties, and if they do so in an effective manner, they will reach an agreement or at the very least a reasonable compromise determined by a third party. If they do this successfully at some point, they will return to this method of interaction and problem-solving in the future. If they return to this method in the future, they will use past disputes and their resolutions as precedent for resolving future disputes. If they find certain examples in past disputes which seem especially useful, they will give more weight to them in debate than other, lesser precedents. If certain precedents have extreme success, especially if they come up frequently and in grave or relevant situations, they would effectively become laws.

At what point in the process I just described does anarchy end and government begin? To give no precedence to useful conclusions of the past (which, religion notwithstanding, is the source of all law and morality) is to learn nothing from the past and to senselessly repeat mistakes.

You're talking about anti-statism.

Pierre Joseph Proudhon was the first person to call himself an anarchist and he was a socialist, then later in life decided he was a federalist. He described Anarchy as order without power. Anarchy and anti-statism are often confused, from what I've seen and heard. You're effectively arguing against the possibility of anti-statism.

Anarchy isn't about a free for all, it's about not having a business-like nation-state like we have in the USA and pretty much every other country.

to meems:



anarchism is by definition anti-statist. proudhon's endorsement of federalism doesn't imply he endorsed the state, in fact he was very much against it.

federalism as a concept has historically been supported by numerous within the wider anarchist movement. james guillaume, for example, wrote of the paris comune:



however, he also wrote:





the only form of governance supported by anarchists is direct, self-governance. again, this does not imply every-man-for-himself-chaos and lack of order.

Yeah, I'm half asleep but I feel mostly dead. I accidentally cut out most of the first sentence in my post. I don't really know what my point was, maybe that anti-statism is a part of anarchism but anarchism isn't strictly anti-statism.

I do think anarchism is misinterpreted as being... well, chaos.

I probably sound like I'm off my rocker, I haven't been able to sleep all night and I'm sitting up waiting for two more hours to pass so I can call the veterinary clinic and see what's up with my dog.

To be fair, I shouldn't be posting at all when I'm kind of sleep deprived on on edge about something totally unrelated to the board.

Don't worry, I'll probably read this once I have gotten proper sleep and feel like a moron.

the abolition of the state is one of the key tenets of anarchism. maybe would be better to say that anarchism is not nati-order or anti-civilisation.

but don't worry either way. hope your dog is okay.

Many people are reasonable and prefer to solve disputes in rational and peaceful ways (for no one wishes for open conflict if it can be avoided). However, there are unreasonable people who are unwilling to compromise their goals or desires for the benefit of others. There will inevitably be unreasonable people who will refuse to negotiate or budge on an issue, and, if the matter is serious enough to either party involved, violence is almost an inevitability. There are no laws beyond personal codes of conduct, morality, and ethics which prevent people from resorting to unnecessary and selfish violence. There will always be people who will refuse to concede on some issues.
People will always prefer definitive, agreed-upon rules and laws by which to live and will always be wary around those who do not adhere to their own rules and laws. Why do you think so much conflict arises from religion?
Anarchy inevitably undoes itself. Cooperation without coercion cannot exist because people are not always reasonable and people are always ultimately self-serving.
...That statement is not as pessimistic as it appears--I swear.

if the goals and desires of such people involve the coercion of others, the power of the collective will be brought to bear upon them. the ultimate human right is the right to live free of coercion and dominance. would you agree with this? for if you do, then reasoning must surely dictate that anarchism is indeed the only way forward for humanity. better to live in a society where the vast majority are free and equal and those who wish to dominate others are kept in line by a direct authority of the populace based upon self defence than for all to live under the boot of the authoritarian state.




but this is actually the basis of anarchism. agreed upon and definitive being the key points.




the interest of the the individual is more often than not intertwined with the interest of the collective. have a read at proudhon and kropotkin if you would like further food for thought on this point.

"Brought to bear upon them"? I fail to see how this is not itself coercion.



The entire populace would not agree on everything, so who exactly would determine the will of the people? Would we be going with the will of the majority? Entrusting such responsibility with the masses seems very foolish. If the majority of Americans dictated policy, I would not have learned about evolution in biology class : |
The will of the majority is important, but it should not be acted on by "government" unless it follows logic. Furthermore, the average person is not always informed-enough to completely address the complex issues of economics and politics. As the average person is not qualified to perform surgery, so too is the average person not qualified to (directly) govern.



I agree. Selfishness isn't inherently bad or good, it just kinda is.

I'll try to be a bit less absurdly absolute. Like many words we use anarchy describes a polarity, I doubt most would claim it 'actually' exists in the fullest sense at all but, like many economic and governmental 'isms' it defines a polarity, even if reality's relationship to that pole is asymptotal.

It seems to me still that when people come back together and have a society of any kind, even small groups, you have rules set in place. If we're talking about anarchy as simply being broad-brush common law with no states or federal governments, it could happen for a short time but ultimately I don't think people want it. Pretty much it ensures a lot of redundancy, people don't get to specialise, rather than having a national defense you need everyone to be self-defense experts with all the tools of the trade, rather than having hospitals everyone would need to be a doctor, rather than having judges everyone would need to be a lawyer, if you need houses most people need to know how to build as well. Yes, I get that its not that black and white either - people would cap out where their own abilities to be everything and anything end in a genetic capability sense and that in and of itself would yield diversity, but then again IMO that would send us right back on to understanding that rather than each person needing to be everything and having a crap quality of product, service, and general accomplishment we'd be better off just having people specialize at what they do best. To even have hospitals, schools, towns, etc. you're getting into having local governments. When you get commerce disputes or issues of water rights or sewage you're getting right back into counties and states, and when states have issues with one another and need a higher authority you're right back where you started.

it's self defence. aggression can only be justified if it is being used defensively as a necessity against an agent who is infringing the rights and freedoms of others. you could technically call it coercion if you wanted, but i personally think it is not. i feel coercion requires a vulnerable victim, in this case the victim of reasonable aggressive self-defence is actually the perpetrator of coercion.



i know that the entire population won't agree on everything. but do you really think that this fact justifies the existence of a brutal, violent coercive state to keep us all in line and to make decisions for us? really, this line of reasoning is to me deeply flawed.

many decisions would be reached at a local level and all decisions would involve co-operation and negotiation, and would be reached directly by the population rather than by a ruling elite.

someone earlier in this post made a good point. but i can't find it...

Complete lack of awareness of basic human nature.

on the part of whom?

i would also like to ask, am i, and many others, completely immune to this so called human nature? i, for one, have no compulsion to kill, rob, rape, pillage, steal, burn, maraud, destroy or coerce. so how does that work?

Lol, well if you don't then it settled.

You're autistic.