Anarchy just says that order must not emerge from authority but from solidarity. You can disagree, but saying that anarchy is disorder by definition is a mislabeling.
This is just a semantic deflection. You’re appealing to a niche theoretical definition of anarchy while ignoring how the term functions in political discourse. The phrase “order over anarchy” reflects a real world tension between structured authority and the absence of it. You can argue that anarchist theory envisions a different kind of order, but that’s an ideal, not a demonstrated reality. In practice, large scale societies without centralized authority have consistently struggled to maintain stability. So no, it’s not a mislabeling, it’s a recognition of the risks that come with power vacuums.
It is common to see any form of violence as radical, and i’ve seen this logic used by tenants of authority themselves under the saying “Violence is never a solution”. Adding distinction of organized/disorganized violence is an arbitrary choice, and there is no logical imperative of doing so : holding all types of violence accountable, no matter their positive potential, is not a mislabel, it is a take on violence.
You’re collapsing moral judgment with structural analysis. Calling all violence “radical” might feel principled, but it flattens critical distinctions. The difference between a lynch mob and a court ordered arrest isn’t arbitrary, it’s the difference between chaos and legitimacy. The state’s monopoly on violence isn’t radical, it’s foundational to modern governance. You can critique how that power is used, but denying the distinction between regulated and unregulated force is intellectually lazy. And yes, pre-state societies existed, but they weren’t peaceful utopias. Sedentarization brought war, but it also brought law, infrastructure, and medicine. Romanticizing statelessness doesn’t make it viable
Labeling something as “universal” without involuntary hyperbole is blatantly false. Humanity is made from diversity, and there are very few affirmations outside of physics that can correctly be applied to all of humanity.
You’re nitpicking language. “Universal” in this context clearly refers to the widespread nature of pride and belonging, not a literal claim about every human being. Patriotism taps into those emotions, which is why it’s so politically potent. The fact that some people reject patriotism doesn’t disprove its cultural force, it proves that it’s significant enough to be worth rejecting. If you want to critique patriotism, start by acknowledging its emotional appeal, not pretending it’s some fringe anomaly.
I’m just refering to anarchy as it is defined in politics, not in common talk. Anarchy as disorder is not politics, it’s something wider (a chaotic room could be called anarchy in that sense). Anarchy as politics is a system minimizing authority. You cannot say in good faith that disorder is the concept of political anarchy, it is (in your opinion) a consequence of it.
that’s an ideal, not a demonstrated reality
Anarchist societies of modern times are short lived indeed, but if you take a close look at them it’s always because of states intervention (Paris commune, Ukrainian revolution, Spain libertarian communists, and nowadays Chiapas and Rojava).
it flattens critical distinction. […] isn’t arbitrary.
Distinction is arbitrary in essence. You choose on which axis to operate the distinction. You can differentiate violences based on their organization, on their legitimacy, on their targets, on their respect of any arbitrary moral values, etc.
The state’s monopoly on violence isn’t radical, it’s foundational to modern governance.
Governance is a monopoly on violence. You can precisely not govern without enforcing it through monopoly of violence. It’s like saying “X is not radical, because it’s necessary for X”.
denying the distinction between regulated and unregulated force is intellectually lazy.
I’m not as much denying the distinction as denying its actual positive impact. If you want another way to put it than “all violence is bad”, see it this way : organized violence is easier to hold back but far worse when unleashed, disorganized is the opposite. I’m not denying their difference, i’m saying in the end the amount of violence is the same, so the difference does not matter here.
pre-state societies existed, but they weren’t peaceful utopias.
Neither are states. My goal is not to romanticize either past stateless societies or current states, it’s to get the best of both. I don’t like the “All we’ve known was bad one way or another so why bother making something better ?” argument.
“Universal” in this context clearly refers to the widespread nature
Well mb, you were actually making a involuntary hyperbole. Just to be clear, “universal” is used to mean “literally all”. You also used expressions “that everybody has” and “All people share” which makes me think that you are of bad faith here, and were clearly meaning to encapsulate everyone, but anyway, let’s say that’s not the case.
I then stand by my take : most anarchists i know do not feel patriotism, especially as in “pride to belong to a nation”, and more generally as in “pride to belong to something greater”. I certainly do not. I can not say much more since your claim is both vague (assimilating patriotism to simple pride makes it even less definable) and not verifiable (you cannot point out every people feeling patriotism, and i can only say i know people that do not feel patriotism but you can always say that’s exceptions).
Anyway, this discussion is beginning to be very splitted in subdiscussions, and i see that you engaged in a similar fashion with other people, so i’d guess it would be useful to sum up. I think all our points can be moved under those respective banners : it seems that your more important value is stability of a civilization, from which you conclude that current states are good, and therefore patriotism, monopoly of violence are too. You also seem to deduce from lack of stable alternatives that current states are the only good option, and therefore anarchism and anti-state theories necessary leads to disorder. My take is to start from solidarity rather than stability, making monopoly of violence and by extension patriotism bad, and therefore current states too. I deduce from lack of stable alternatives that current states are a dangerous form of organization for anything else, and therefore state theories, from fascism to authoritarian socialism along with bourgeois oligarchies, necessary leads to violence.
If i’m not mistaken on your position, since we start from different values, we will always disagree on what comes after. I’d propose to stop there if we cannot bring anything useful other than “there are multiple opinions here”.
You cannot say in good faith that disorder is the concept of political anarchy, it is (in your opinion) a consequence of it.
So your argument here isn’t about the actual application of anarchy, it’s just that on meaninglessly theoretical version of political anarchy, it is technically not defined as disorder, right? If so, then yeah, sure I guess, but like I said that’s quite meaningless since it doesn’t reflect reality.
Anarchist societies of modern times are short lived indeed, but if you take a close look at them it’s always because of states intervention (Paris commune, Ukrainian revolution, Spain libertarian communists, and nowadays Chiapas and Rojava).
They’re short lived because anarchy is flawed as an ideology and it always collapses in on itself. The world doesn’t exist in a vacuum. The rest of the world is not going coddle some anarchist ideologues so they can play with their political anarchist fantasies in practice. We live in a world where people want stability and order, where states exist out of necessity for self defense, where resources are scarce and competition for them can get violent, where evil actors who pry on the weak do exist. This is our reality, any ideology that ignores it is not one to be taken seriously.
You choose on which axis to operate the distinction. You can differentiate violences based on their organization, on their legitimacy, on their targets, on their respect of any arbitrary moral values, etc.
The critical difference is the source where all of these things are derived from. A normal state derives these things from society as collective while in anarchy they’re derived from individuals. In a normal society, violence is monopolized, streamlined, and it’s application is utilized to make sure society is stable and orderly enough to be functional. In an anarchist society, there is no such monopoly or centralization as there is no government. Thus, without a central authority things like crime, fairness, and safety are up to individuals to come up with and enforce. This will inevitably end up in bloodshed, disorder, and injustice as different people with different opinions are going to be acting on their own and competing with each other to enforce different standards. That’s an incredibly stupid idea that will result in a lot of unnecessary violence and dysfunction. You can’t leave things like justice in the hands of individuals, it never works.
You can precisely not govern without enforcing it through monopoly of violence. It’s like saying “X is not radical, because it’s necessary for X”.
Yes, that’s the point. It’s not radical because it’s necessary for something essential and always has been. For something to be radical it has to be extreme and a drastic shift from the ordinary. Governance through monopolized violence is the norm. Simply labeling as radical anyway doesn’t make it bad or any less necessary.
organized violence is easier to hold back but far worse when unleashed, disorganized is the opposite. I’m not denying their difference, i’m saying in the end the amount of violence is the same, so the difference does not matter here.
This is just false. The amount of violence is not the same because you never get stability or order at any point in an anarchist society. Self righteous individuals and bad actors will always be fighting each other and amongst themselves because they want to take advantage of the chaos and take matter into their own hands. There’s a reason why through 10,000 years of human civilization, anarchy has never come out on top even once. Keep in mind, you’re not arguing against tyranny here, you’re arguing against the monopolization of violence as a means to govern in general. Well, as history shows us, anarchy is just as bad tyranny.
My goal is not to romanticize either past stateless societies or current states, it’s to get the best of both. I don’t like the “All we’ve known was bad one way or another so why bother making something better ?” argument.
Anarchy isn’t a better solution. It’s one of the bad ways that we collectively moved past as a species. As it turns out, there IS something better than complete anarchy or complete tyranny, it’s called liberal democracy. Checks and balances in the government, direct citizen participation in governance, establishing liberal values such as freedom of speech as rights, a society gets to enjoy both structure AND liberty.
Just to be clear, “universal” is used to mean “literally all”
Oh come on, don’t be pedantic and argue semantics. You knew exactly what I meant. My statement was painfully obvious, true, and straightforward. If you’re actually willing to sit here and tell me that humans as a collective lack pride as an emotion, then you’re just engaging in bad faith.
most anarchists i know do not feel patriotism, especially as in “pride to belong to a nation”, and more generally as in “pride to belong to something greater”. I certainly do not.
This is anecdotal though. Humans feel pride in being a part of a greater collective, we’re tribal creatures. Just because you have a negative view of patriotism as a label, that doesn’t mean that you don’t feel this emotion under a different one.
I can not say much more since your claim is both vague (assimilating patriotism to simple pride makes it even less definable) and not verifiable (you cannot point out every people feeling patriotism, and i can only say i know people that do not feel patriotism but you can always say that’s exceptions).
Well, how would you define patriotism if not taking pride in your nation? You’re right that patriotism is vague and hard to verify because it’s an inherently subjective concept. The only thing that’s objective about is the underlying emotions. Things like a desire to see your group do better, pride in belonging to something greater, and a sense of responsibility to your people.
it seems that your more important value is stability of a civilization, from which you conclude that current states are good, and therefore patriotism, monopoly of violence are too.
Not quite.
I’m not saying I personally value stability, I’m saying that this is what humanity favors given our history and the trajectory it has led us to.
2 I don’t think current states are good, I’m saying that having a state in general is necessary.
I’m saying that patriotism is a reflection of human nature, it’s not an entirely artificial concept.
You also seem to deduce from lack of stable alternatives that current states are the only good option, and therefore anarchism and anti-state theories necessary leads to disorder.
Can this even be considered an opinion? I see it as an observation of something objective in human history.
My take is to start from solidarity rather than stability, making monopoly of violence and by extension patriotism bad, and therefore current states too. I deduce from lack of stable alternatives that current states are a dangerous form of organization for anything else, and therefore state theories, from fascism to authoritarian socialism along with bourgeois oligarchies, necessary leads to violence.
Let me ask you a simple question. If you’re not up to replying to everything else, you can skip it all and just reply to this. I’ll bold so you’ll find it easier.
Let’s suppose, for the sake of argument, that the US government has collapsed in favor anarchy. In this scenario, you have the country in it’s current state but just without the US government (federal, state, and local) or any of the American state apparatus. So that means no military, no federal reserve, no public schools, no police, no FDA, no CDC, no NOAA, nothing. The state has completely collapsed.** How would an anarchist society take place and how would it function in practice in this situation? **
Walk me through your logic step by step. For example, what “solidarity means”? How a society can function without a government? How would justice be enforced? How would you deal with people who reject this idea and want to reestablish a central authority? How would the economy function (as in, how would people get their new smartphones)?
If i’m not mistaken on your position, since we start from different values, we will always disagree on what comes after.
Of course we have different values, why else would be arguing? I’m not here to change your mind nor do I expect you to change mine. I’m having this discussion with you because I see value in talking to people who see things differently than I do. Challenging the views of others and having yours challenged is what makes to debates fun imo.
Hey there ! Thanks for your reply. Thanks also for making the discussion centered around a specific question, i indeed tried to reply quote by quote and found myself pointing out the same flaws over and over.
I’ll first talk about these flaws, which i think can be summed up to one : you do not argue (at least not here). I think i’m right to say it’s not an argument
because you use circular reasoning to say “There are only states, therefore they are necessary” and then “they are necessary, therefore there are only states”. If you don’t see the problem here, it will be hard to discuss, as it already has been.
you make an continuous use of the “general statement” argument that i talked about in my previous comment. You say something universal if taken as is, then claim it’s hyperbole, and then say that examples i give are “anecdotal”. This makes your argument pointless since no one can either prove it (it has no universal value), either disprove it (every counter example is discarded as anecdotal). I’m sorry if i sounded pedantic to you, but this is the way i debate, and i think the basis for every proper logical debate : we cannot just state vague facts about humanity as proof of our arguments, since their value comes from how common they are, and there is no way to prove this. We either have to take universal takes that enables proper counter-argument, either accept that the fact does not apply to a possibly large number of people.
because you jump from theory to practice and vice-versa. When talking about political theory, its “Then why don’t we see anarchists societies”. When it’s about examples of anarchist societies, its “They failed because anarchy is flawed as an ideology”. More generally, you do not answer directly to the passages you quote. You choose on which axis to operate the distinction. : you did not explained why the legitimity of violence is not an abritrary choice, you explained why state is legitimate. You strawman my points : on pride, i didn’t push that “humanity as a collective lack pride as an emotion” (= most people lack pride), i said some people lack it, most anarchists lack it, i lack it.
You ignore historical facts. you never get stability ororderatany point in an anarchist society is plain wrong, look at the examples i gave (we needed more than a century to get back some of the social advances of the Commune, factories were more productive in Spanish War anarchist territories, ukrainian anarchist communes were functional). The reason you give for their short duration is not the one given by history : it’s not an expression when i say that each of them resulted in a massacre by a state, it is the actual case. You also contradicted yourself on this point : “[anarchy] always collapses on itself” cannot be true at the same time than “The rest of the world is not going to coddle some anarchists ideologues” : either it collapses on itself, either it is some external intervention (spoiler alert : it was the second option).
About your question, i’ll answer it in a more general fashion than just about the US, because 1) i don’t know the US that well and 2) the case of a state and its branches suddenly disappearing is quite a fantasy.
How a society can function without a government?
Most anarchists and (left) libertarians base their theories on federalism. This idea, existing already in a weak shape in a lot of state-linked organization (including the states of US), is that entities can band and disband together. The idea is to create different groups on an individual basis (you can be part of multiple groups, such as the group of your neighbourhood, of your workingplace, of your political expression, etc.), and those groups can form greater groups (like the council of multiple neighbourhoods for a city, the association of multiple factories of the same sector, etc.). This network of groups is meant to replace the main advantage of state-like organization, which really is organization itself : communication and exchanges on great distances, optimization of knowledge, ressources, etc.
This can seem very complicated, but it’s akin to what already exist : there are councils for my building, my neighbourhood, my city. My boss works in a cooperative, which regroups around 15 winemakers, and this cooperative is part of a broader network which includes around 15 cooperatives. This stratification already exists in a rich way, the only question is to make it go from bottom rather than from the top.
You can have people dedicated to help those organizations work. They can be viewed as administrative/representative, but there are some differences anarchists promotes : people are delegated tasks, they do not represent you. The difference is that they cannot take any decision, they have one or more task to complete but can’t act outside. Yeah, but what if they do, you ask ? The other important part of anarchist delegation of tasks is immediate recall : mandate for people can be ended by a simple vote. What if people abuse this to prevent someone to be effectively mandated ? It’s probably the sign that either this person is not the right one, either there is a profound fracture in the group, which should encourage the creation of a new group (which is a good thing under anarchist ideas, each groups having their rules means that more groups means more chances for you to find or create the right one).
Really, you should be quite familiar with federalism since we’re having this discussion on the Fediverse, from different servers with different softwares.
How would the economy function ?
One of the question you can have is : how to make sure everyone gets a house, food, clothes, etc? Well, there are workers and workplaces for those, and each group can produce and give according to people’s needs. If you really need people to have an interest to believe this will work, it is mutual aid viewed in a negative way : if you don’t give food to the carpenter, they won’t build your house (the positive way is, you give food to whoever needs it, and the carpenter builds houses for whoever needs it). Note this is close to what we have in capitalist states : you got to work if you want food or house. The only thing is, in our current societies, money and state enables people to do nothing or stuff we don’t need/want (banks, administration, mines, etc.).
How would justice be enforced?
There are two things here : the justice part, and the enforced part. The justice definition from a state perspective is easy, it’s what says the law. Anarchist societies propose to see it from the individuals perspectives : the goal is not to find a victim and a culprit to punish, nor to get to the “state of balance” where the society was before the unjustice, it is to bring the society to a point which everyones agrees to, ideally to prevent the unjustice from happening again. Now comes the enforce part : once an agreement is reached, it is far easier to enforce since everyone agrees to it. For the situations where this does not apply (before the argument is concluded, if it is not respected), it either comes from the good faith of everyone included, either falls back to forms of violence/authority, ideally limited (such as imprisonment until argument is reached for dangerous persons, etc.).
How would you deal with people who reject this idea and want to reestablish a central authority?
This is quite a hard question. Since everyone is asked to participate in multiple groups, one part of the answer is people could recreate groups that federate in a more central way. The difference with what we have currently, is they could be able to leave them at any time to build something else.
The other part of the answer is for people that want to impose central authority to everyone (which is a common will through most states, and is to my eyes the cause of states hegemony : they need people to provide the services they promise, so they cannot accept people outside of them. In the worst form, you get imperialism, when state not only feed on their people, but try to feed on other states’ peoples). I don’t have a good answer for that, the movment is quite divided between accepting agreements with states and fighting against the imposition of central authority (this is the weapon/bombs part of anarchy)). Neither is satisfying to my eyes, probably both will have to be used anyway.
Thanks again for this final question which, i’m happy to admit, resets the debate and will, i hope, show that every flaw i listed were only relative to our previous discussion.
Reading what you wrote as an answer to this question, it sounds like you’re just an advocate for true direct democracy. I mean that’s fine, but the point is that what you’re advocating for isn’t true anarchy. You’re still in favor of a central authority, just one that’s structured differently. Now direct democracy does have it’s strengths and drawbacks, and we can discuss the merits of that later, but for now I want to focus on a particular concept, and that’s the idea of entirely voluntary governance.
The idea of an entirely voluntary government sounds very appealing, however, I think it’s one of those ideas that sounds better than it actually is. Let’s think about it from a fundamental level, in order for something to be voluntary, there needs to be a person with free will making consensual decisions. However, consent is an inherently subjective concept and thus the standard for who can consent will always be arbitrary… and if that’s the case who gets to decide the standard? This is something that has to be established at the very start.
Well who can consent? Can children consent? Where is the cutoff, and who decides it? If a community is split on whether or not 16 year olds can consent, do the 16 year olds get a vote in this discussion or are they sidelined? What if they don’t like the decision, can children disassociate and join other groups that say they can consent or not? How about disabled people, can they consent or do they not get a vote? Do they perhaps have someone else be their representative and make decisions on their behalf? But if that’s the case, and decision making can be outsourced for kids and the disabled, can consenting adults also outsource this power? Let’s suppose people want to have a representative, is that allowed or is individual participation mandatory? If it’s mandatory then who is enforcing this rule?
I hope you catch what I’m trying to demonstrate here. This is a concept that’s vague, and its implementation is rather complicated.
How would the economy function?
Economics is definitely not your forte lol
You’re trying to combine standard market capitalism with the Marixst resource distribution… but these two ideas contradict each other. Marxist socialism requires a strong, central, and authoritarian government in order to seize and collectivize all the means of production, property, wealth, and resources and then to centrally plan every single aspect of the economy to properly distribute the resources from ability to need. However, market capitalism is literally the opposite. It requires government to allow the markets to have some autonomy so they can function independently. Capitalist economies are decentralized and unplanned, and resource distribution is done through the markets on the basis of supply and demand. You can’t combine the two.
It seem your idea of economics is not based in reality. This isn’t the 1500s, our modern economies aren’t based on a bunch of framers and craftsmen who open up little shops to sell their labor and crafts. A carpenter building a house? Lol. Do you understand just how much labor goes into building a modern house? Not to mention that there are things that require way more labor, way more resources, and insane global supply chains to produce like cars, planes, and smartphones. These are not things that you can build without strong multinational corporate structures, and you can’t get them trade them through bartering.
Also, you think things like administration, banks, and mines aren’t necessary? Lmao, you can’t be serious. I’ll just say this, capitalism is a system that favors efficiency above all else for better or for worse, and it’s really good at it. Everything that industry that exists and every product you see on sale exists because there are people out there who buy them. The demand exists, and so the companies provide. Things like banks provide value to the economy as they fill a niche, and that’s the reason why they exist.
How would justice be enforced?
Bring society to a point where everybody ideally agrees to prevent injustice? What does that even mean? The point you’re talking about is an ideal, it’s literally a fantasy by definition. How can you possibly govern a society when your concept of justice hinges on the realization of something imaginary? Is an anarchist society just going to remain lawless until this ideal point?
The enforcement part is equally ridiculous. You can only enforce laws once everybody has agreed to the punishments? Why would any criminal or wannabe criminal ever agree to implementing any punishments against themselves? Good faith? Lmao, if criminals were operating in good faith then they wouldn’t be criminals. I think you understand the absurdity of this notion, which is why you acknowledged that prisons and authority might make a come back in an anarchist society… but if that’s the case then doesn’t that defeat the whole point of the anarchy experiment?
How would you deal with people who reject this idea and want to reestablish a central authority?
Ah ha! Finally stumbled you good, didn’t I? I think this is the core issue with anarchy and I think it’s an inherently flawed ideology. Everything you said here relies on good faith whether it’s governance, economics, law, justice, or self defense. However, we don’t live in an ideal world, we live in a flawed world, and in our flawed world good faith is a rather scarce resource. There are a lot of people in our society who are greedy, egotistical, selfish, jealous, hateful, evil, violent, and contrarian. We’ll always have murders, pedos, rapists, bigots, thieves, morons, frauds, and zealots. These are people who exploit the good faith of others for their personal benefit at the expense of others.
In a normal society, these bad faith actors are either deterred by the entity that has monopoly on violence or they’re squashed by it. However, in an anarchist society, there is no monopoly on violence and so bad faith actors have no filters and are set loose. These people have no issue with violence or forcing others to do what they want, and so they will use violence to enforce their standards on to normal people and onto each other. Because each group or individual will have their own values, morals, and ideals there will be a competition of violence on who gets to enforce their standard. This type of chaos, disorder, instability, and violence is the reason why anarchy mostly exists as a fun thought exercise rather than a practical, viable ideology.
Thanks again for this final question which, i’m happy to admit, resets the debate and will, i hope, show that every flaw i listed were only relative to our previous discussion.
it sounds like you’re just an advocate for true direct democracy.
I equate true direct democracy with anarchism. If there is a central authority, as in someone making decisions about me without me being able to either oppose their mandate either switch to another federation, then it’s not direct democracy.
You’re still in favor of a central authority, just one that’s structured differently.
As far as i’m aware, there is no central authority in what i described.
Consent
This is a very good question, and has multiple answers, as multiple groups can have multiple standards. Handling kids is an especially tricky part, but you could suppose having different schools with different systems, allowing kids to vote or not, and kids could choose where to go.
Economics
Your first paragraph is just you not understanding i guess ? You just seem to be unable to think outside of capitalism or marxism. Ultimately, you don’t give any reason as to why decentralized distribution of ressources is impossible, other that it is not either capitalism, either marxism ?
We also clearly miss eachother on a point, as i deduce from the cars, planes, and smartphones.. My view of anarchism is coupled with an anyway necessary degrowth. Complicated objects like cars, planes and smartphones can obviously not be obtained on the same scale as current capitalist system. They could be obtain in a much much little number though, and then be distributed to people needing it most, and the repair/reuse system would fill in the rest (which would be the majority i guess). We’d also need less cars since you would be more free to choose where you live and work.
On the how much labor goes into building a modern house i clearly think it could be done in a communal way. I mean, the trickiest part are the spread of knowledge meaning many people have to intervene, and the machines used to accelerate the process, which could ultimately be transformed in either time or workforce. Sure, it’s a long thing to do, not saying the opposite. But in the end, it’s all made by workers, not by money or organization.
Your talk about capitalism shows that capitalism favors profit, not efficiency. Those two aspects may intersect, but not all the time. For example, having multiple intermediaries in the process of selling food is good for profit, but is clearly not efficient.
Justice
You still think of laws as general object, the whole point that i made was to have no general laws, and rather local rules and decisions specific to each case, to adapt at best to every situation. This is precisely the more down-to-earth approach, rather than thinking that applying the same rule to thousands is going to have the same positive effect, we try to get the best result according to each situation.
Yes, there are criminals that acknowledge they did bad things, and are cooperative with people, even outside of people doing bad things out of emotions or other situation where they do not control themselves. They have an interest in doing so, since it would appease everything and enable them to live a normal life again. Ultimately, their main interest can be that if they are not cooperative, then the whole process gets stuck and they could be de facto kept in prison by their own choice, which is more ridiculous that what you describe.
People who […] want to reestablish a central authority ?
You take a huge step in a wrong direction here. Anarchist societies do not need everyone to be of good faith, they need everyone to partipate. There is room for greedy, egoistical, selfish, healous, contrarian people, even hateful, evil and violent in some contained ways. We don’t need everyone to be nice, we need everyone to participate to groups where they feel confident, which i think you’ll agree is a way more common trait than just good faith. There is of course still room for a lot of problems, but it’s not based on good faith.
It’s also wrong to say that in anarchy bad faith actors have no filters andareset loose.. They also face consequences as people will try to stop them : the difference is that they know they won’t have to face an arbitrary punishment, but a kind of repayment that they’ll accept. You can’t say that there won’t be consequences, you can say though that there won’t be forced consequences.
And in the end, states do not prevent such violence either : once again, wars, genocides, arbitrary violences and murders, organized crime, mafia, pedos etc. also exist, and worse than that, they may be amplified by state itself. So, while it will probably exist in anarchy, it exists in states too, in a different way, sometimes better, sometimes worse. Amusingly, These people have no issue with violence or forcing others todo what they want, and so they will use violence to enforce their standards onto normal people and onto each other. is like the exact definition of monopoly of violence.
Let me ask you a question, let’s suppose you committed a crime and your community wants you to face consequences for it, but you disagree with their terms… do you just disassociate and go to another federation to escape the consequences? This sounds like a very flawed system.
kids consenting
Is this not highly exploitable? If a bunch of pedos create a federation where they promote the idea of kids consenting, could they just not draw kids to associate with them? That sounds like an easy way for kids to get groomed and abused. Giving kids the ability to consent sounds like deeply flawed idea unless you have some mechanism that resolves this issue.
economics
There are 4 main points that I want to address:
Decentralized distribution - Capitalism and Marxism are not everything in economics, but the two ideas you drew upon are free markets and Marxist style resource redistribution, and these two contradict each other on a fundamental level. Decentralized distribution CAN work but not on a grand scale like a society. People can choose to pool their resources together, others can choose to donate some of their wealth to charity, however, to manage an entire economy in this way, you need to be able to control everything otherwise you’re going to face a lot of dysfunction due to lack of participation. For example, let’s suppose a bunch of farmers unite and refuse to partake in the redistribution efforts because selling their crops to the highest bidder is in their best interest. In your system, these people can voluntarily disassociate, but if that’s the case then your system is left with a huge shortage of food unless you buy from them the way they want or you find some magical way to replace their farms. If the former is allowed, then why would anybody with any sort of wealth participate? The only people who would are the needy, and so you will always be operating in a deficit of resources. Compulsion via taxes or property seizure have to be necessary at some point to make this idea work properly.
Degrowth - That’s going to be a very hard sell for most people. If you’re critical of the infinite growth model we have under capitalism, that’s perfectly fair. However, economic growth does correlate with higher standards of living. Things like cars, planes, and smartphones might not be necessary, but they are luxuries that we want to have because they make our lives easier. Washing machines, for example, aren’t a necessity either, but nobody wants to spend all day washing clothes by hand anymore. Washing machines are one of the biggest reasons why the suffragette movements took off, it’s because a lot of women had more free time to focus on other things, like their rights. The point is that technology enables progress, and technology is a byproduct of economic growth. Asking people to forgo modern conveniences to live under harsher economic conditions is a recipe for violent revolution.
Money and labor - Of course money and organization don’t build things, that’s just silly. They serve different roles in the economy than labor. Money is just a tool that helps facility trade so we don’t have to barter like in the stone ages. There is this common misunderstanding in far left ideologies that labor is the source of ALL value in an economy and that money is inherently bad, but money is just a tool like no other and it has no morals or intentions. As for workers, they’re just one component of the economy, an essential component, but component nonetheless. Things like capital, entrepreneurship, technology, consumption, government, trade, and markets are also essential parts to an economy. An economy can’t run purely on the labor of workers. You need to have all these things for an economy to run. You need to at least have organization for better coordination, hierarchies for accountability, and specialization for expertise.
Work - In any economy, there are jobs that are necessary but not pleasant like garbage collectors, janitors, and sewer workers. In Fascist or Marxist societies, these jobs are filled by force. The government assigns people to work them whether they like or not. In capitalist societies, these jobs are filled with incentives like a handsome salary or good benefits package. In anarchist society, how would these jobs be filled? You’re opposed to both compulsion and financial incentives like profit. Do you have another idea to get people to do these jobs? Because I can tell you nobody wants to voluntarily go into a sewer to clear blockages.
justice
The reason why laws exist in the first place is because they set an objective standard for society. Sure, all laws are arbitrary in nature, however, they still provide a point of reference, and that’s vital for both prosecution and self defense. You’re right that every case is different, however, that’s what courts are for. Courts exist to provide the nuanced judgement needed for each individual case. That being said, the courts still have to work within the confines of the law, otherwise judgement is left entirely to the personal whims of certain individuals. If there are no general laws, then there’s no standard. If a criminal killed somebody but is friends with the people who are casting judgement on him, then there’s nothing stopping them for ruling in his favor even if he objectively did something wrong since they get decide the standard on a whim.
Criminals
I’m not gonna lie to you, that sounds like a really bad idea. Think about it from the point of view of the criminal. Let’s say suppose some guy is a religious nut who beheaded a person for criticizing his religion. He’s clearly guilty, and he has zero remorse for what he did. In your system of justice, this person has the choice to avoid consequences or stay in a prison unless he decides to be cooperative. Unless the criminal is brain dead, they’ll always choose to say they’ll be cooperative every time whether they mean it or not. Now let’s suppose this criminal is now back out on the streets facing zero consequences, and he comes across the family members of the person he murdered. The family members try to hold him accountable by telling everybody he’s a murderer, and this criminal gets annoyed and kills them as well. Again, no remorse. He’s now back in prison facing the same choice of staying in prison or being cooperative… what’s stopping the cycle from repeating again? Is there a 3 strikes and you’re out rule? Do you just keep repeating the cycle in hopes this criminal will eventually change? Do individuals have to kill him or imprison him themselves to get justice and a peace of mind?
good faith vs participation
I’m having a really hard time understanding your logic. You want a system that’s entirely based on voluntary decision making at every step… however, there’s no mechanism to enforce laws or contracts AND you’re also not operating under assumption that people are going to participate in good faith, that’s just an inherently flawed system. Having participation to feel “confident” as the foundation of a society is completely ridiculous. Since you acknowledge that bad people exist and will exist in an anarchist society, then you must also understand that these people feeling confident is NOT a good thing. There’s nothing worse than bad people feeling enabled to do whatever they want. Having federations of islamists or nazis or marxists or white supremacists running around doing whatever they feel like with no recourse, as there are no laws or a greater authority, is as dystopian as it gets. These are people who follow ideologies that fundamentally disagree, hate, and actively seek to undermine your system and the freedoms it enables. It’s a prime example of the paradox of tolerance.
bad faith actors
You seem to have a weird view of what is arbitrary and what is not. How can you possibly call laws arbitrary but the lack of them not? Similar to what I said in the justice paragraphs, calling laws as a concept arbitrary is undeniably true, however, they also exist to provide an objective standard. Their objectiveness, and thus their legitimacy, derive their establishment by the state, which is usually seen as the collective will of the people. This doesn’t mean every is perfect, but the idea of laws providing a common standard removes arbitrary prosecution and punishment. Laws allow everybody in a society to understand what is deemed wrong, why it’s considered wrong, and what the consequences for it are. Without laws, there is no standard. People can be persecuted for any time and for any reason, and they can be punished in any way. All these decisions fall to the whims of select individuals who have the ability to change the standards as feel like. How is that not arbitrary? If anything that’s as arbitrary as it gets.
anarchy vs states
Not all states are equal, and it’s wrong to assume states are a monolith. Norway and Afghanistan are both states, but they’re clearly VERY different from each other. Norway is one of the safest, most peaceful, most prosperous, most free, and most educated societies in the history. Afghanistan is the opposite. There’s clearly good models and bad models for states. Yes, there are broken, tyrannical, and violent states. I’m against those too. However, there are functional, free, and peaceful states. I’m in favor of those. Just because some states are bad that doesn’t mean the entire concept of a state is as well. Your logic seems faulty to me, it’s like saying because malpractice happens, we should get rid of medicine and rely on self healing.
Also in case, we’re not on the same page. I think monopoly of violence is inevitable. I disagree with your notion that it’s a choice. I think it’s a apart of nature and humanity. Since it’s a part of our reality regardless, the discussion should about how we can best control and regulate violence to minimize it’s negative affects.
I’m going to split my response into two separate comments as I feel like we’re having two conversations at the same time, and I don’t want to mix them up. I’ll reply to your criticisms in this reply, and then reply to your answers in another. I originally didn’t want to respond to your criticisms at all as our previous conversation is no longer relevant, however, there’s a lot that you said that doesn’t sit right with me and I just want to set the record straight before I move on. You don’t have to reply to this comment if you don’t want to, it’s just here to voice my disagreements with your criticisms. You can just read and move on to my other comment.
Anyway, my response:
You’re conflating two separate statements. I said that if you look at the evolution of human history, you’ll quickly find out that states have won out over their alternatives. I think we can both agree (hopefully) that this is an objective statement. My point here is that there have to be reasons why things turned out the way they did, perhaps it’s best to understand those reasons instead of dismissing them. My second statement is that states are necessary because they are the most efficient answer we have to govern on a large scale. States provide an institutional framework that allow for stability, order, justice, and large scale organization. Our disagreement on the second statement is the root of our debate. However, as you can see, these two statements aren’t used to justify each other, and thus combining the two and calling it circular reasoning is just a misunderstanding on your part.
I take big issue with this criticism specifically because you’re being dishonest. My original statement was that “pride is a universal human emotion”. That’s an objectively true statement. People express pride differently, people are proud of different things, and different cultures have different ideas about it. However, all humans have it. You have it, I have it, we all do. It’s like happiness, sadness, or anger. The entire reason why I said this in the first place is to make the point that patriotism is a reflection of a universal human emotion. Keep in mind, I am not saying that patriotism is a universal trait, just that it’s a form in which an actual universal trait, pride, manifests itself.
If you disagreed with the notion that patriotism is a reflection of pride, then that’s fine, we could have had a discussion about it. However, you chose to sideline my point in favor of taking up the position that pride is not a universal emotion, and specifically focusing on the literal meaning “universal”. However, this focus was just the red herring fallacy. You were focusing on a minor detail to distract from the point being made. If you actually want to double down on the notion that pride is not a universal human emotion then we’re moving past political opinions and entering the realm of science, and that means that you have to actually show me an academic study that counters the established science (example). It’s why I pointed out that your anecdotes don’t mean much in this case.
Now, I don’t think it’s that deep and I don’t think you’re going to double down on this position, but I do think our exchange about this specific point up until now has been particularly frustrating because it’s unnecessary. I’m sure you understood what I meant from the beginning because it was a very simple point.
Theory and practice are intertwined. Anarchy is a failure in practice because it’s a flawed ideology in theory. It’s like talking to a islamists. They’ll tell you that islamic rule produces utopias… so you point out examples of it being a complete failure… then they start talking about that’s not “real” islam and how the quran is perfect… so you start pointing out the flaws in the quran to explain the connection. I’m not saying you’re doing this, but I’m just pointing out that trying to pretend that theory and practice and are two entirely separate categories is silly.
Also, I find it weird how you’re accusing me of engaging in bad faith by saying I’m turning your arguments into strawmans, when the first example you gave is just you not following the chain of responses. You said that I didn’t answer why the legitimacy of violence isn’t an arbitrary choice. Well, let’s find out why:
Original topic: whether or not someone supporting their country is radical.
Your response: someone supporting their country means supporting the monopoly of violence and that’s radical
Me: monopoly of violence isn’t inherently radical as it exists to regulate force which prevents chaos
You: all types of violence is radical and adding the distinction between regulated and unregulated force is arbitrary
Me: the distinction is the point, and the difference between regulated and unregulated violence is the difference between chaos and stability
You: distinctions in general are arbitrary in nature
Me: the distinction is critical as not all violence is equal, regulated violence by a society helps establish order which prevents unnecessary violence while unregulated violence by individuals does the opposite
And that was the last direct reply. Notice how the my responses directly respond to your responses? Notice how the conversation got specific but didn’t go off topic? Notice how you never asked me why the legitimacy of violence is not an arbitrary choice nor was that ever brought up? That means I didn’t misinterpret what you said, therefore I didn’t strawman you. If you felt like you need to add clarification or nuance or ask that either of me then just do that, but don’t call my direct responses to your points as strawman arguments when they’re not.
There’s three parts to this. First, you’re trying to pass off your opinions as facts. What you define as stable and orderly and what I define as stable and orderly are clearly different, and that’s fine, but we still have to acknowledge that they’re opinions. Take the Spanish anarchists as an example, the whole experiment lasted a granted total of 3 years. During this time, there was A LOT of internal fighting between the different types of anarchists as well as communists and republicans. A lot of people tried to enforce their own justice and take governance into their own hands and thousands of people died because of this. A lot of anarchist leaders ended up joining the republican government which undermined the very movement they led. The lack of centralization led to piss poor coordination which led to the anarchists to get absolutely crushed by Franco’s fascist troops. If this is what you define as stable and orderly then I don’t want to know what you consider to be unstable and disorderly.
Second, Makhnovshchina was not truly anarchist. They had an actual government that was backed by a military. So they had a full monopolization of violence and everything. The Revolutionary Insurgent Army of Ukraine stayed as the de facto government for 5 years until the bolsheviks took over. That’s the reason why they were more functional than their anarchist counterparts elsewhere, like in Spain for example.
Third, similar to the point I made earlier, the failures of anarchy are intertwined. Anarchy collapses on itself because it lacks the means to do what a functional government can, and that is to maintain order, organize the people to do large scale projects, and defend itself and it’s people. Because of this, anarchy will always result in another, more centralized form of government from crushing it and taking its place. The only way anarchy can work in the real world is if everybody in the world magically agreed to leave the anarchists alone, if some major power decided to protect them for some reason, or if there’s extreme levels of chaos and dysfunction in a society. Since none of these options are realistic or sustainable, anarchy is simply not capable of being a viable alternative to a state. I don’t think that’s a contradictory position.
Thanks for the splitted answer, it is a very nice choice. So here we go on the meta-discussion, cuz i think we still have disagreements on the nature of what we both said.
A - The circular reasoning
We indeed agree on the fact that human history shows that states have won out over their alternatives during the last 5 000 years, approximatively.
You seem to pretend that i dismiss the causes of this. As i said two comments ago in the summary, i simply hold a different explanation : you think states dominate because they’re efficcient for stability, i think states dominate because they prey on other forms of organization. If you really think i dismiss this, i just give another explanation.
I maintain the circular reasoning part : to sum up how you turned it in your last answer, you say 1) states are the norm because states are necessary, and 2) states are necessary because they have advantages. But why do they have advantages that the other forms of governement do not have ? Your proof before that was “there is only states that succeed, the other forms disappear”. So you just add one step, but in the end it’s the same thing : on one hand, you explain the dominance of state by their necessity, on the other you explain their necessity by their advantages, which are prooved by their dominance. Either i misunderstand some part of your position, either it is circular.
B - The pride & the pride of being part of something greater
I owe you an apology here, as my last comment taken as is was indeed focusing on pure pride. I should have added that not only did i claim only some people lack it and not humanity as a collective, but more than that, i did not talk about pure pride, but “pride of being part of something greater”, which we both agree is less common than pride itself. I don’t know why i didnt, probably just skipped to another part. This makes my strawmaning complaint stronger though.
C - Practice and theory
I dont say that practice and theory are entirely separate categories. They are different level of debate though, and you cannot answer one with the other. You can support one with the other, but not answer one with the other. To explain better, in your example of anarchy being a failure, there should be an actual problem (misorganization, miscommunication, etc) that leads to anarchy failure, and this problem could be linked to theory. Exactly as you said in your islamists example, the actual problems of islamists systems can be linked to qoran theory.
Funnily enough, the point i criticize you for is exactly what you criticize islamists for : when you give an answer on the practical side, they jump to the theoric side, and vice-versa. It’s strange that you can see that for them, but not for you.
D - Strawmaning
There is a misunderstanding here. My accusation of strawmaning is on the pride part, not on the arbitrary distinction of how to classify violence.
E - On historical matters
Thanks for acknowledging the historical examples. We indeed have a very different definition of stability and order (especially on political unstability, and internal fighting), but it’s not the only explanation to our difference of explanation here.
One of them is the way you attribute the causes of events. When you say “Anarchists were crushed by Franco’s fascist troops”, it seems that you take it as a proof that anarchy leads to unstability. But to my eyes, the people responsible for unstability here are the state troops. I guess the first one is true on a broader sense, and the second one on this specific situation.
Another one is on the knowledge we have of it : i’m not sure what you mean by A lot of people tried to enforce their own justice andtake governance into their own hands and thousands of people died because of this.. If it’s about war, yes, anarchist armies are as other armies, they cause a lot of useless death. If it’s about something else, i’d be glad to learn about it !
Last one is a bit of nuance, especially on the Ukrainian part : there was indeed a system of governement backed by an active military, and this leads to a form of monopolization of violence. But i would not call it a full monopolization of violence, as the military government did not take every decision, and let the regional committees take a lot of decisions, and the local soviets organize freely. Also, all of those systems (both military and governement) were organized along anarchist principles : direct election of delegates, immediate recall, autodiscipline (this one specific to army). To be clear, what i challenge precisely is : the extent of centralization of power (it existed, but it was quite diminished compared to actual state), the extent of monopolization of violence (it existed, but as there were fewer decision to enforce, the monopolization was less important), the non-anarchist aspect of the movement (it is clearly an anarchist movement using partially non-anarchist methods (but not only non-anarchist methods)).
Lastly, and i’m sorry to bring the language part again, but here you’re giving good examples that the examples i gave were far from perfect. But the point you made before was that you never get stability ororderatany point. I claim that you did, during a few months in the Commune, a few years in some regions of Spain, and by short intermittences during the Ukrainian revolution. Sure, it’s not much. And the reason why it’s such little is another topic we discussed. But not much is not the same as nothing. This is, i think, the main explanation of our disagreement here, beyond slight adjustments (causes, knowledge, nuances). In the end, we are saying the same thing : i say “there is a little bit of stability and order”, you say “there is not much stability and order”.
The argument in question doesn’t rely on circular reasoning because it presents two distinct claims that serve different purposes. First, it observes that states have historically outlasted alternative systems, suggesting this dominance may reflect functional advantages. Second, it asserts that states are necessary because they provide stability, order, and large scale governance. These aren’t self reinforcing statements; rather, they work together inductively: one offers historical evidence, the other draws a normative conclusion. Dismissing this framework as circular misunderstands the logic, it’s not assuming what it sets out to prove but reasoning from historical prevalence to present utility.
If I said “states are necessary because they exist” then that would indeed be circular logic because the conclusion is essentially assumed in the premise, and you would be correct in your critique. However, that’s not what I’m doing. I said “The historical dominance of states suggests they serve functional advantages, which is why they are necessary.” That’s not circular, that’s inductive reasoning. I’m using historical evidence to support my claims.
Pride
I think we’re mostly on the same page here, so I think we can just move on. I’m glad we’re on the same page.
Practice and theory
It seems we both agree that theory and practice are connected, but we might be framing that relationship differently. My aim wasn’t to suggest that practice alone answers theory, but that repeated failures in practice can point to deeper issues in the ideology itself, especially when those failures are consistent across different contexts.
You’re right that analyzing practical failure should involve identifying specific problems like disorganization or poor communication. That is exactly where theory becomes relevant. Many of these issues stem from key anarchist principles, such as a rejection of hierarchy or centralized coordination. In this case, I am not shifting between unrelated levels. I am showing how the theoretical framework can produce structural vulnerabilities.
Similarly, in the example involving Islamism, pointing out widespread governance issues can reasonably lead to a closer inspection of the ideological foundations that might contribute to those outcomes.
Strawmanning
It’s interesting because I felt like a lot of your arguments were strawmans of my arguements. For example, when you summarized my positions, you gave me different stances from what I held. I thought it was intentional like I did with your pride arguments, however, I’m understanding now that it’s not intentional. I feel like it’s the same for me. I probably did mischaracterized a few of your arguments, so I am going to concede this point. However, I would like to point out that any misrepresentation comes from a point of misunderstanding rather than malice.
History
Franco - My point with the anarchist getting destroyed isn’t about responsibility, the nationalists were clearly responsible for destroying the anarchist. We’re in agreement on that part. My point is that anarchy lacks the means of self preservation because it fundamentally opposes the mechanisms that provide for common defense like a centralized organization and monopoly of violence. Because of this, anarchy is inherently prone to getting destroyed by external forces compared to other ideologies and systems.
Anarchy related deaths - I’m mostly referring to the Red Terror in Spain. I understand that the Anarchists were not the only groups in the Republican faction, however, they were still a significant part of it like the FAI and CNT for example. I also understand that there was a lot of infighting amongst the Republican faction between Stalinists, republicans, socialists, and anarchists. However, specifically in the the anarchist controlled portions of Spain, there was still a lot of violence caused by mobs and individuals carrying out their own justice, and that led to the deaths of thousands.
Ukraine - I mean what you’re describing to me here sounds like a textbook de facto state. States exist in a spectrum where one extreme end is defined by totalitarian authoritarianism where the states controls every aspect of life and society and the other extreme end is anarchy where there is no state. Most states, operate somewhere between the two extremes. Ukraine at this time was a state that leaned closer to anarchy on the spectrum without actually being anarchy. We both agree that Ukraine at this time had state like attributes like a military, a system of governance, and common law. My point isn’t that Ukraine under the RIAU wasn’t influenced by anarchist principles, it clearly was, but I’m saying that using this an example of anarchy being functional isn’t accurate because it wasn’t actually anarchist and it’s sustained functionality can be directly attributed to its state like apparatus.
Language - I mean that’s a fair point actually, I’ll concede this point because we are essentially arguing the same thing from different ends. I suppose a few years, months, or even weeks is still not nothing, and so I suppose you’re right in this sense. However, I still stand by the notion that previous anarchist attempts in history have not demonstrated enough sustainability to be considered a viable alternative to the state.
It’s probably the last point of disagreement we have, so it’s quite sad to start with it. Anyway, though it was badly presented before, i think i’m still legitimate to maintain my circular reasoning claim, even or especially after your explanation.
I agree that throughout our discussion, you made those two separate points.
D->S : Domination of states implies Stability of states.
S->N : Stability of states implies Necessity of states. (or, as you put it, necessity of states because of advantages of states).
What’s missing here, and that i have confused with Necessity of states (N) previously, is the People desire for stability (P), alognside with the assumption that what what people desire is necessary. Effectively, Stability does not imply necessity, it needs something else that says “X is necessary” and “X needs stability”. I assume this X to be what the people desires, from the part We live in a world where people want stability and order. This is the proposition that makes the thing circular : People desire for stability (P) both needs to imply Domination (D) (as in We live in a world where people want stability and order.), and to be implied by D (as in stability [...] is what humanity favors givenour history). D->P gives the strength of D to P, but for that it needs P->S->D to show the Domination is linked with people desires and not just another variable.
It is legitimate to make such a move, since there is a need to put a cause for domination of states, because if it was a bad one (like states are a predatory and self-perpetuating form of organization), then the consequences of it would inherit this bad foundation. My point is that the cause for domination that you can give are also deduced from this domination.
Pride
Not sure we actually are on the exact same page, but anyway we would be close enough. Thanks for expressing your content, it is shared.
Practice/Theory
To be fair, my point on practice/theory has been dismissed by your further comments, and only applies to what you said before. I should have pointed it out, my bad on this point too. Though i disagree with your linking of anarchists problems of coordination/communication and anarchist theory, i admit it is not unfounded and is a proper example of linking theory and practice properly. It was missing before, i think you’ll convene of this. Therefore, i think we can also say we’re on the same page now on this point too !
Strawmanning
I agree with most of your paragraph, especially on the misunderstanding rather than malice. The bad faith accusation i have made were pointing out a (alleged) lack of will to understand properly rather than a will to misrepresent. I have made similar errors, like my summarization, though if i recall correctly, it was not that wrong (some errors were minor, bigger errors like “current states” instead of “states in general” were a formulation error that didn’t matter much for argumentation). I apologize for this one along others : if it’s something you’d like to do, i’d be glad to have a list of the points i strawmaned. I’ll try to refrain myself for discussing if they are strwman or not, i’d just like to see what i misunderstood.
History
This is an excellent summary of your point. I think it kinda misses mine, which was the cause/consequences rather than the responsability. When confronted about fascists destroying anarchists, the causation is for you that anarchists lack the mechanisms to resist, and is for me that states structures are dangerous. Both can be (and probably are) true at the same time, the question is on which to put the emphasis., and that’s where we differ.
I also disagree on the association of actual problems in Spain with necessary flaws in theory, reporting them on the practical difficulties that were to face (urgency of the situation, lack of international support, chaos inherited from the failed coup d’état, etc.). That said, i concede that your deduction from the Spanish case of anarchist flaws remains legitimate and well-founded.
On the Red Terror, i thank you for bringing this to my knowledge, i did not know the detail of it. Your summary is very good, and i would just add that from what i just learned, it seems that those violences existed on the Nationalist side too, directed at reds, and that the Red Terror on the Republican side ultimately was turned against anarchist and non-stalinist themselves. We both agree that anarchists committed and failed to prevent atrocities.
I think we both agree that if Revolutionary Ukraine was a state, it would be the form of state closest to anarchy, and if it was anarchy, it would be the form of anarchy closest to state. The nitpicking would be about whether or not it crossed the line. I support that it did, and my arguments are that i do not have example of organizations defined as state with a military based on volunteering, election of officers and autodiscipline, and with a decision system based on federalism and immediate recall of mandatees. But in the end it really is nitpicking, and if we agree on the first part, it’s more than okay i think.
Thanks for expressing the concession. I note and accept your stance that the low level of stability of anarchists experiments is not enough for you.
This is just a semantic deflection. You’re appealing to a niche theoretical definition of anarchy while ignoring how the term functions in political discourse. The phrase “order over anarchy” reflects a real world tension between structured authority and the absence of it. You can argue that anarchist theory envisions a different kind of order, but that’s an ideal, not a demonstrated reality. In practice, large scale societies without centralized authority have consistently struggled to maintain stability. So no, it’s not a mislabeling, it’s a recognition of the risks that come with power vacuums.
You’re collapsing moral judgment with structural analysis. Calling all violence “radical” might feel principled, but it flattens critical distinctions. The difference between a lynch mob and a court ordered arrest isn’t arbitrary, it’s the difference between chaos and legitimacy. The state’s monopoly on violence isn’t radical, it’s foundational to modern governance. You can critique how that power is used, but denying the distinction between regulated and unregulated force is intellectually lazy. And yes, pre-state societies existed, but they weren’t peaceful utopias. Sedentarization brought war, but it also brought law, infrastructure, and medicine. Romanticizing statelessness doesn’t make it viable
You’re nitpicking language. “Universal” in this context clearly refers to the widespread nature of pride and belonging, not a literal claim about every human being. Patriotism taps into those emotions, which is why it’s so politically potent. The fact that some people reject patriotism doesn’t disprove its cultural force, it proves that it’s significant enough to be worth rejecting. If you want to critique patriotism, start by acknowledging its emotional appeal, not pretending it’s some fringe anomaly.
I’m just refering to anarchy as it is defined in politics, not in common talk. Anarchy as disorder is not politics, it’s something wider (a chaotic room could be called anarchy in that sense). Anarchy as politics is a system minimizing authority. You cannot say in good faith that disorder is the concept of political anarchy, it is (in your opinion) a consequence of it.
Anarchist societies of modern times are short lived indeed, but if you take a close look at them it’s always because of states intervention (Paris commune, Ukrainian revolution, Spain libertarian communists, and nowadays Chiapas and Rojava).
Distinction is arbitrary in essence. You choose on which axis to operate the distinction. You can differentiate violences based on their organization, on their legitimacy, on their targets, on their respect of any arbitrary moral values, etc.
Governance is a monopoly on violence. You can precisely not govern without enforcing it through monopoly of violence. It’s like saying “X is not radical, because it’s necessary for X”.
I’m not as much denying the distinction as denying its actual positive impact. If you want another way to put it than “all violence is bad”, see it this way : organized violence is easier to hold back but far worse when unleashed, disorganized is the opposite. I’m not denying their difference, i’m saying in the end the amount of violence is the same, so the difference does not matter here.
Neither are states. My goal is not to romanticize either past stateless societies or current states, it’s to get the best of both. I don’t like the “All we’ve known was bad one way or another so why bother making something better ?” argument.
Well mb, you were actually making a involuntary hyperbole. Just to be clear, “universal” is used to mean “literally all”. You also used expressions “that everybody has” and “All people share” which makes me think that you are of bad faith here, and were clearly meaning to encapsulate everyone, but anyway, let’s say that’s not the case.
I then stand by my take : most anarchists i know do not feel patriotism, especially as in “pride to belong to a nation”, and more generally as in “pride to belong to something greater”. I certainly do not. I can not say much more since your claim is both vague (assimilating patriotism to simple pride makes it even less definable) and not verifiable (you cannot point out every people feeling patriotism, and i can only say i know people that do not feel patriotism but you can always say that’s exceptions).
Anyway, this discussion is beginning to be very splitted in subdiscussions, and i see that you engaged in a similar fashion with other people, so i’d guess it would be useful to sum up. I think all our points can be moved under those respective banners : it seems that your more important value is stability of a civilization, from which you conclude that current states are good, and therefore patriotism, monopoly of violence are too. You also seem to deduce from lack of stable alternatives that current states are the only good option, and therefore anarchism and anti-state theories necessary leads to disorder. My take is to start from solidarity rather than stability, making monopoly of violence and by extension patriotism bad, and therefore current states too. I deduce from lack of stable alternatives that current states are a dangerous form of organization for anything else, and therefore state theories, from fascism to authoritarian socialism along with bourgeois oligarchies, necessary leads to violence.
If i’m not mistaken on your position, since we start from different values, we will always disagree on what comes after. I’d propose to stop there if we cannot bring anything useful other than “there are multiple opinions here”.
So your argument here isn’t about the actual application of anarchy, it’s just that on meaninglessly theoretical version of political anarchy, it is technically not defined as disorder, right? If so, then yeah, sure I guess, but like I said that’s quite meaningless since it doesn’t reflect reality.
They’re short lived because anarchy is flawed as an ideology and it always collapses in on itself. The world doesn’t exist in a vacuum. The rest of the world is not going coddle some anarchist ideologues so they can play with their political anarchist fantasies in practice. We live in a world where people want stability and order, where states exist out of necessity for self defense, where resources are scarce and competition for them can get violent, where evil actors who pry on the weak do exist. This is our reality, any ideology that ignores it is not one to be taken seriously.
The critical difference is the source where all of these things are derived from. A normal state derives these things from society as collective while in anarchy they’re derived from individuals. In a normal society, violence is monopolized, streamlined, and it’s application is utilized to make sure society is stable and orderly enough to be functional. In an anarchist society, there is no such monopoly or centralization as there is no government. Thus, without a central authority things like crime, fairness, and safety are up to individuals to come up with and enforce. This will inevitably end up in bloodshed, disorder, and injustice as different people with different opinions are going to be acting on their own and competing with each other to enforce different standards. That’s an incredibly stupid idea that will result in a lot of unnecessary violence and dysfunction. You can’t leave things like justice in the hands of individuals, it never works.
Yes, that’s the point. It’s not radical because it’s necessary for something essential and always has been. For something to be radical it has to be extreme and a drastic shift from the ordinary. Governance through monopolized violence is the norm. Simply labeling as radical anyway doesn’t make it bad or any less necessary.
This is just false. The amount of violence is not the same because you never get stability or order at any point in an anarchist society. Self righteous individuals and bad actors will always be fighting each other and amongst themselves because they want to take advantage of the chaos and take matter into their own hands. There’s a reason why through 10,000 years of human civilization, anarchy has never come out on top even once. Keep in mind, you’re not arguing against tyranny here, you’re arguing against the monopolization of violence as a means to govern in general. Well, as history shows us, anarchy is just as bad tyranny.
Anarchy isn’t a better solution. It’s one of the bad ways that we collectively moved past as a species. As it turns out, there IS something better than complete anarchy or complete tyranny, it’s called liberal democracy. Checks and balances in the government, direct citizen participation in governance, establishing liberal values such as freedom of speech as rights, a society gets to enjoy both structure AND liberty.
Oh come on, don’t be pedantic and argue semantics. You knew exactly what I meant. My statement was painfully obvious, true, and straightforward. If you’re actually willing to sit here and tell me that humans as a collective lack pride as an emotion, then you’re just engaging in bad faith.
This is anecdotal though. Humans feel pride in being a part of a greater collective, we’re tribal creatures. Just because you have a negative view of patriotism as a label, that doesn’t mean that you don’t feel this emotion under a different one.
Well, how would you define patriotism if not taking pride in your nation? You’re right that patriotism is vague and hard to verify because it’s an inherently subjective concept. The only thing that’s objective about is the underlying emotions. Things like a desire to see your group do better, pride in belonging to something greater, and a sense of responsibility to your people.
Not quite.
Can this even be considered an opinion? I see it as an observation of something objective in human history.
Let me ask you a simple question. If you’re not up to replying to everything else, you can skip it all and just reply to this. I’ll bold so you’ll find it easier.
Let’s suppose, for the sake of argument, that the US government has collapsed in favor anarchy. In this scenario, you have the country in it’s current state but just without the US government (federal, state, and local) or any of the American state apparatus. So that means no military, no federal reserve, no public schools, no police, no FDA, no CDC, no NOAA, nothing. The state has completely collapsed.** How would an anarchist society take place and how would it function in practice in this situation? **
Walk me through your logic step by step. For example, what “solidarity means”? How a society can function without a government? How would justice be enforced? How would you deal with people who reject this idea and want to reestablish a central authority? How would the economy function (as in, how would people get their new smartphones)?
Of course we have different values, why else would be arguing? I’m not here to change your mind nor do I expect you to change mine. I’m having this discussion with you because I see value in talking to people who see things differently than I do. Challenging the views of others and having yours challenged is what makes to debates fun imo.
Hey there ! Thanks for your reply. Thanks also for making the discussion centered around a specific question, i indeed tried to reply quote by quote and found myself pointing out the same flaws over and over.
I’ll first talk about these flaws, which i think can be summed up to one : you do not argue (at least not here). I think i’m right to say it’s not an argument
because you use circular reasoning to say “There are only states, therefore they are necessary” and then “they are necessary, therefore there are only states”. If you don’t see the problem here, it will be hard to discuss, as it already has been.
you make an continuous use of the “general statement” argument that i talked about in my previous comment. You say something universal if taken as is, then claim it’s hyperbole, and then say that examples i give are “anecdotal”. This makes your argument pointless since no one can either prove it (it has no universal value), either disprove it (every counter example is discarded as anecdotal). I’m sorry if i sounded pedantic to you, but this is the way i debate, and i think the basis for every proper logical debate : we cannot just state vague facts about humanity as proof of our arguments, since their value comes from how common they are, and there is no way to prove this. We either have to take universal takes that enables proper counter-argument, either accept that the fact does not apply to a possibly large number of people.
because you jump from theory to practice and vice-versa. When talking about political theory, its “Then why don’t we see anarchists societies”. When it’s about examples of anarchist societies, its “They failed because anarchy is flawed as an ideology”. More generally, you do not answer directly to the passages you quote.
You choose on which axis to operate the distinction.: you did not explained why the legitimity of violence is not an abritrary choice, you explained why state is legitimate. You strawman my points : on pride, i didn’t push that “humanity as a collective lack pride as an emotion” (= most people lack pride), i said some people lack it, most anarchists lack it, i lack it.You ignore historical facts.
you never get stability or order at any point in an anarchist societyis plain wrong, look at the examples i gave (we needed more than a century to get back some of the social advances of the Commune, factories were more productive in Spanish War anarchist territories, ukrainian anarchist communes were functional). The reason you give for their short duration is not the one given by history : it’s not an expression when i say that each of them resulted in a massacre by a state, it is the actual case. You also contradicted yourself on this point : “[anarchy] always collapses on itself” cannot be true at the same time than “The rest of the world is not going to coddle some anarchists ideologues” : either it collapses on itself, either it is some external intervention (spoiler alert : it was the second option).About your question, i’ll answer it in a more general fashion than just about the US, because 1) i don’t know the US that well and 2) the case of a state and its branches suddenly disappearing is quite a fantasy.
Most anarchists and (left) libertarians base their theories on federalism. This idea, existing already in a weak shape in a lot of state-linked organization (including the states of US), is that entities can band and disband together. The idea is to create different groups on an individual basis (you can be part of multiple groups, such as the group of your neighbourhood, of your workingplace, of your political expression, etc.), and those groups can form greater groups (like the council of multiple neighbourhoods for a city, the association of multiple factories of the same sector, etc.). This network of groups is meant to replace the main advantage of state-like organization, which really is organization itself : communication and exchanges on great distances, optimization of knowledge, ressources, etc.
This can seem very complicated, but it’s akin to what already exist : there are councils for my building, my neighbourhood, my city. My boss works in a cooperative, which regroups around 15 winemakers, and this cooperative is part of a broader network which includes around 15 cooperatives. This stratification already exists in a rich way, the only question is to make it go from bottom rather than from the top.
You can have people dedicated to help those organizations work. They can be viewed as administrative/representative, but there are some differences anarchists promotes : people are delegated tasks, they do not represent you. The difference is that they cannot take any decision, they have one or more task to complete but can’t act outside. Yeah, but what if they do, you ask ? The other important part of anarchist delegation of tasks is immediate recall : mandate for people can be ended by a simple vote. What if people abuse this to prevent someone to be effectively mandated ? It’s probably the sign that either this person is not the right one, either there is a profound fracture in the group, which should encourage the creation of a new group (which is a good thing under anarchist ideas, each groups having their rules means that more groups means more chances for you to find or create the right one).
Really, you should be quite familiar with federalism since we’re having this discussion on the Fediverse, from different servers with different softwares.
One of the question you can have is : how to make sure everyone gets a house, food, clothes, etc? Well, there are workers and workplaces for those, and each group can produce and give according to people’s needs. If you really need people to have an interest to believe this will work, it is mutual aid viewed in a negative way : if you don’t give food to the carpenter, they won’t build your house (the positive way is, you give food to whoever needs it, and the carpenter builds houses for whoever needs it). Note this is close to what we have in capitalist states : you got to work if you want food or house. The only thing is, in our current societies, money and state enables people to do nothing or stuff we don’t need/want (banks, administration, mines, etc.).
There are two things here : the justice part, and the enforced part. The justice definition from a state perspective is easy, it’s what says the law. Anarchist societies propose to see it from the individuals perspectives : the goal is not to find a victim and a culprit to punish, nor to get to the “state of balance” where the society was before the unjustice, it is to bring the society to a point which everyones agrees to, ideally to prevent the unjustice from happening again. Now comes the enforce part : once an agreement is reached, it is far easier to enforce since everyone agrees to it. For the situations where this does not apply (before the argument is concluded, if it is not respected), it either comes from the good faith of everyone included, either falls back to forms of violence/authority, ideally limited (such as imprisonment until argument is reached for dangerous persons, etc.).
This is quite a hard question. Since everyone is asked to participate in multiple groups, one part of the answer is people could recreate groups that federate in a more central way. The difference with what we have currently, is they could be able to leave them at any time to build something else.
The other part of the answer is for people that want to impose central authority to everyone (which is a common will through most states, and is to my eyes the cause of states hegemony : they need people to provide the services they promise, so they cannot accept people outside of them. In the worst form, you get imperialism, when state not only feed on their people, but try to feed on other states’ peoples). I don’t have a good answer for that, the movment is quite divided between accepting agreements with states and fighting against the imposition of central authority (this is the weapon/bombs part of anarchy)). Neither is satisfying to my eyes, probably both will have to be used anyway.
Thanks again for this final question which, i’m happy to admit, resets the debate and will, i hope, show that every flaw i listed were only relative to our previous discussion.
Reading what you wrote as an answer to this question, it sounds like you’re just an advocate for true direct democracy. I mean that’s fine, but the point is that what you’re advocating for isn’t true anarchy. You’re still in favor of a central authority, just one that’s structured differently. Now direct democracy does have it’s strengths and drawbacks, and we can discuss the merits of that later, but for now I want to focus on a particular concept, and that’s the idea of entirely voluntary governance.
The idea of an entirely voluntary government sounds very appealing, however, I think it’s one of those ideas that sounds better than it actually is. Let’s think about it from a fundamental level, in order for something to be voluntary, there needs to be a person with free will making consensual decisions. However, consent is an inherently subjective concept and thus the standard for who can consent will always be arbitrary… and if that’s the case who gets to decide the standard? This is something that has to be established at the very start.
Well who can consent? Can children consent? Where is the cutoff, and who decides it? If a community is split on whether or not 16 year olds can consent, do the 16 year olds get a vote in this discussion or are they sidelined? What if they don’t like the decision, can children disassociate and join other groups that say they can consent or not? How about disabled people, can they consent or do they not get a vote? Do they perhaps have someone else be their representative and make decisions on their behalf? But if that’s the case, and decision making can be outsourced for kids and the disabled, can consenting adults also outsource this power? Let’s suppose people want to have a representative, is that allowed or is individual participation mandatory? If it’s mandatory then who is enforcing this rule?
I hope you catch what I’m trying to demonstrate here. This is a concept that’s vague, and its implementation is rather complicated.
Economics is definitely not your forte lol
You’re trying to combine standard market capitalism with the Marixst resource distribution… but these two ideas contradict each other. Marxist socialism requires a strong, central, and authoritarian government in order to seize and collectivize all the means of production, property, wealth, and resources and then to centrally plan every single aspect of the economy to properly distribute the resources from ability to need. However, market capitalism is literally the opposite. It requires government to allow the markets to have some autonomy so they can function independently. Capitalist economies are decentralized and unplanned, and resource distribution is done through the markets on the basis of supply and demand. You can’t combine the two.
It seem your idea of economics is not based in reality. This isn’t the 1500s, our modern economies aren’t based on a bunch of framers and craftsmen who open up little shops to sell their labor and crafts. A carpenter building a house? Lol. Do you understand just how much labor goes into building a modern house? Not to mention that there are things that require way more labor, way more resources, and insane global supply chains to produce like cars, planes, and smartphones. These are not things that you can build without strong multinational corporate structures, and you can’t get them trade them through bartering.
Also, you think things like administration, banks, and mines aren’t necessary? Lmao, you can’t be serious. I’ll just say this, capitalism is a system that favors efficiency above all else for better or for worse, and it’s really good at it. Everything that industry that exists and every product you see on sale exists because there are people out there who buy them. The demand exists, and so the companies provide. Things like banks provide value to the economy as they fill a niche, and that’s the reason why they exist.
Bring society to a point where everybody ideally agrees to prevent injustice? What does that even mean? The point you’re talking about is an ideal, it’s literally a fantasy by definition. How can you possibly govern a society when your concept of justice hinges on the realization of something imaginary? Is an anarchist society just going to remain lawless until this ideal point?
The enforcement part is equally ridiculous. You can only enforce laws once everybody has agreed to the punishments? Why would any criminal or wannabe criminal ever agree to implementing any punishments against themselves? Good faith? Lmao, if criminals were operating in good faith then they wouldn’t be criminals. I think you understand the absurdity of this notion, which is why you acknowledged that prisons and authority might make a come back in an anarchist society… but if that’s the case then doesn’t that defeat the whole point of the anarchy experiment?
Ah ha! Finally stumbled you good, didn’t I? I think this is the core issue with anarchy and I think it’s an inherently flawed ideology. Everything you said here relies on good faith whether it’s governance, economics, law, justice, or self defense. However, we don’t live in an ideal world, we live in a flawed world, and in our flawed world good faith is a rather scarce resource. There are a lot of people in our society who are greedy, egotistical, selfish, jealous, hateful, evil, violent, and contrarian. We’ll always have murders, pedos, rapists, bigots, thieves, morons, frauds, and zealots. These are people who exploit the good faith of others for their personal benefit at the expense of others.
In a normal society, these bad faith actors are either deterred by the entity that has monopoly on violence or they’re squashed by it. However, in an anarchist society, there is no monopoly on violence and so bad faith actors have no filters and are set loose. These people have no issue with violence or forcing others to do what they want, and so they will use violence to enforce their standards on to normal people and onto each other. Because each group or individual will have their own values, morals, and ideals there will be a competition of violence on who gets to enforce their standard. This type of chaos, disorder, instability, and violence is the reason why anarchy mostly exists as a fun thought exercise rather than a practical, viable ideology.
It’s all good.
I equate true direct democracy with anarchism. If there is a central authority, as in someone making decisions about me without me being able to either oppose their mandate either switch to another federation, then it’s not direct democracy.
As far as i’m aware, there is no central authority in what i described.
This is a very good question, and has multiple answers, as multiple groups can have multiple standards. Handling kids is an especially tricky part, but you could suppose having different schools with different systems, allowing kids to vote or not, and kids could choose where to go.
Your first paragraph is just you not understanding i guess ? You just seem to be unable to think outside of capitalism or marxism. Ultimately, you don’t give any reason as to why decentralized distribution of ressources is impossible, other that it is not either capitalism, either marxism ?
We also clearly miss eachother on a point, as i deduce from the
cars, planes, and smartphones.. My view of anarchism is coupled with an anyway necessary degrowth. Complicated objects like cars, planes and smartphones can obviously not be obtained on the same scale as current capitalist system. They could be obtain in a much much little number though, and then be distributed to people needing it most, and the repair/reuse system would fill in the rest (which would be the majority i guess). We’d also need less cars since you would be more free to choose where you live and work.On the
how much labor goes into building a modern housei clearly think it could be done in a communal way. I mean, the trickiest part are the spread of knowledge meaning many people have to intervene, and the machines used to accelerate the process, which could ultimately be transformed in either time or workforce. Sure, it’s a long thing to do, not saying the opposite. But in the end, it’s all made by workers, not by money or organization.Your talk about capitalism shows that capitalism favors profit, not efficiency. Those two aspects may intersect, but not all the time. For example, having multiple intermediaries in the process of selling food is good for profit, but is clearly not efficient.
You still think of laws as general object, the whole point that i made was to have no general laws, and rather local rules and decisions specific to each case, to adapt at best to every situation. This is precisely the more down-to-earth approach, rather than thinking that applying the same rule to thousands is going to have the same positive effect, we try to get the best result according to each situation.
Yes, there are criminals that acknowledge they did bad things, and are cooperative with people, even outside of people doing bad things out of emotions or other situation where they do not control themselves. They have an interest in doing so, since it would appease everything and enable them to live a normal life again. Ultimately, their main interest can be that if they are not cooperative, then the whole process gets stuck and they could be de facto kept in prison by their own choice, which is more ridiculous that what you describe.
You take a huge step in a wrong direction here. Anarchist societies do not need everyone to be of good faith, they need everyone to partipate. There is room for greedy, egoistical, selfish, healous, contrarian people, even hateful, evil and violent in some contained ways. We don’t need everyone to be nice, we need everyone to participate to groups where they feel confident, which i think you’ll agree is a way more common trait than just good faith. There is of course still room for a lot of problems, but it’s not based on good faith.
It’s also wrong to say that in anarchy
bad faith actors have no filters and are set loose.. They also face consequences as people will try to stop them : the difference is that they know they won’t have to face an arbitrary punishment, but a kind of repayment that they’ll accept. You can’t say that there won’t be consequences, you can say though that there won’t be forced consequences.And in the end, states do not prevent such violence either : once again, wars, genocides, arbitrary violences and murders, organized crime, mafia, pedos etc. also exist, and worse than that, they may be amplified by state itself. So, while it will probably exist in anarchy, it exists in states too, in a different way, sometimes better, sometimes worse. Amusingly,
These people have no issue with violence or forcing others to do what they want, and so they will use violence to enforce their standards on to normal people and onto each other.is like the exact definition of monopoly of violence.Let me ask you a question, let’s suppose you committed a crime and your community wants you to face consequences for it, but you disagree with their terms… do you just disassociate and go to another federation to escape the consequences? This sounds like a very flawed system.
Is this not highly exploitable? If a bunch of pedos create a federation where they promote the idea of kids consenting, could they just not draw kids to associate with them? That sounds like an easy way for kids to get groomed and abused. Giving kids the ability to consent sounds like deeply flawed idea unless you have some mechanism that resolves this issue.
There are 4 main points that I want to address:
Decentralized distribution - Capitalism and Marxism are not everything in economics, but the two ideas you drew upon are free markets and Marxist style resource redistribution, and these two contradict each other on a fundamental level. Decentralized distribution CAN work but not on a grand scale like a society. People can choose to pool their resources together, others can choose to donate some of their wealth to charity, however, to manage an entire economy in this way, you need to be able to control everything otherwise you’re going to face a lot of dysfunction due to lack of participation. For example, let’s suppose a bunch of farmers unite and refuse to partake in the redistribution efforts because selling their crops to the highest bidder is in their best interest. In your system, these people can voluntarily disassociate, but if that’s the case then your system is left with a huge shortage of food unless you buy from them the way they want or you find some magical way to replace their farms. If the former is allowed, then why would anybody with any sort of wealth participate? The only people who would are the needy, and so you will always be operating in a deficit of resources. Compulsion via taxes or property seizure have to be necessary at some point to make this idea work properly.
Degrowth - That’s going to be a very hard sell for most people. If you’re critical of the infinite growth model we have under capitalism, that’s perfectly fair. However, economic growth does correlate with higher standards of living. Things like cars, planes, and smartphones might not be necessary, but they are luxuries that we want to have because they make our lives easier. Washing machines, for example, aren’t a necessity either, but nobody wants to spend all day washing clothes by hand anymore. Washing machines are one of the biggest reasons why the suffragette movements took off, it’s because a lot of women had more free time to focus on other things, like their rights. The point is that technology enables progress, and technology is a byproduct of economic growth. Asking people to forgo modern conveniences to live under harsher economic conditions is a recipe for violent revolution.
Money and labor - Of course money and organization don’t build things, that’s just silly. They serve different roles in the economy than labor. Money is just a tool that helps facility trade so we don’t have to barter like in the stone ages. There is this common misunderstanding in far left ideologies that labor is the source of ALL value in an economy and that money is inherently bad, but money is just a tool like no other and it has no morals or intentions. As for workers, they’re just one component of the economy, an essential component, but component nonetheless. Things like capital, entrepreneurship, technology, consumption, government, trade, and markets are also essential parts to an economy. An economy can’t run purely on the labor of workers. You need to have all these things for an economy to run. You need to at least have organization for better coordination, hierarchies for accountability, and specialization for expertise.
Work - In any economy, there are jobs that are necessary but not pleasant like garbage collectors, janitors, and sewer workers. In Fascist or Marxist societies, these jobs are filled by force. The government assigns people to work them whether they like or not. In capitalist societies, these jobs are filled with incentives like a handsome salary or good benefits package. In anarchist society, how would these jobs be filled? You’re opposed to both compulsion and financial incentives like profit. Do you have another idea to get people to do these jobs? Because I can tell you nobody wants to voluntarily go into a sewer to clear blockages.
The reason why laws exist in the first place is because they set an objective standard for society. Sure, all laws are arbitrary in nature, however, they still provide a point of reference, and that’s vital for both prosecution and self defense. You’re right that every case is different, however, that’s what courts are for. Courts exist to provide the nuanced judgement needed for each individual case. That being said, the courts still have to work within the confines of the law, otherwise judgement is left entirely to the personal whims of certain individuals. If there are no general laws, then there’s no standard. If a criminal killed somebody but is friends with the people who are casting judgement on him, then there’s nothing stopping them for ruling in his favor even if he objectively did something wrong since they get decide the standard on a whim.
I’m not gonna lie to you, that sounds like a really bad idea. Think about it from the point of view of the criminal. Let’s say suppose some guy is a religious nut who beheaded a person for criticizing his religion. He’s clearly guilty, and he has zero remorse for what he did. In your system of justice, this person has the choice to avoid consequences or stay in a prison unless he decides to be cooperative. Unless the criminal is brain dead, they’ll always choose to say they’ll be cooperative every time whether they mean it or not. Now let’s suppose this criminal is now back out on the streets facing zero consequences, and he comes across the family members of the person he murdered. The family members try to hold him accountable by telling everybody he’s a murderer, and this criminal gets annoyed and kills them as well. Again, no remorse. He’s now back in prison facing the same choice of staying in prison or being cooperative… what’s stopping the cycle from repeating again? Is there a 3 strikes and you’re out rule? Do you just keep repeating the cycle in hopes this criminal will eventually change? Do individuals have to kill him or imprison him themselves to get justice and a peace of mind?
I’m having a really hard time understanding your logic. You want a system that’s entirely based on voluntary decision making at every step… however, there’s no mechanism to enforce laws or contracts AND you’re also not operating under assumption that people are going to participate in good faith, that’s just an inherently flawed system. Having participation to feel “confident” as the foundation of a society is completely ridiculous. Since you acknowledge that bad people exist and will exist in an anarchist society, then you must also understand that these people feeling confident is NOT a good thing. There’s nothing worse than bad people feeling enabled to do whatever they want. Having federations of islamists or nazis or marxists or white supremacists running around doing whatever they feel like with no recourse, as there are no laws or a greater authority, is as dystopian as it gets. These are people who follow ideologies that fundamentally disagree, hate, and actively seek to undermine your system and the freedoms it enables. It’s a prime example of the paradox of tolerance.
You seem to have a weird view of what is arbitrary and what is not. How can you possibly call laws arbitrary but the lack of them not? Similar to what I said in the justice paragraphs, calling laws as a concept arbitrary is undeniably true, however, they also exist to provide an objective standard. Their objectiveness, and thus their legitimacy, derive their establishment by the state, which is usually seen as the collective will of the people. This doesn’t mean every is perfect, but the idea of laws providing a common standard removes arbitrary prosecution and punishment. Laws allow everybody in a society to understand what is deemed wrong, why it’s considered wrong, and what the consequences for it are. Without laws, there is no standard. People can be persecuted for any time and for any reason, and they can be punished in any way. All these decisions fall to the whims of select individuals who have the ability to change the standards as feel like. How is that not arbitrary? If anything that’s as arbitrary as it gets.
Not all states are equal, and it’s wrong to assume states are a monolith. Norway and Afghanistan are both states, but they’re clearly VERY different from each other. Norway is one of the safest, most peaceful, most prosperous, most free, and most educated societies in the history. Afghanistan is the opposite. There’s clearly good models and bad models for states. Yes, there are broken, tyrannical, and violent states. I’m against those too. However, there are functional, free, and peaceful states. I’m in favor of those. Just because some states are bad that doesn’t mean the entire concept of a state is as well. Your logic seems faulty to me, it’s like saying because malpractice happens, we should get rid of medicine and rely on self healing.
Also in case, we’re not on the same page. I think monopoly of violence is inevitable. I disagree with your notion that it’s a choice. I think it’s a apart of nature and humanity. Since it’s a part of our reality regardless, the discussion should about how we can best control and regulate violence to minimize it’s negative affects.
I’m going to split my response into two separate comments as I feel like we’re having two conversations at the same time, and I don’t want to mix them up. I’ll reply to your criticisms in this reply, and then reply to your answers in another. I originally didn’t want to respond to your criticisms at all as our previous conversation is no longer relevant, however, there’s a lot that you said that doesn’t sit right with me and I just want to set the record straight before I move on. You don’t have to reply to this comment if you don’t want to, it’s just here to voice my disagreements with your criticisms. You can just read and move on to my other comment.
Anyway, my response:
You’re conflating two separate statements. I said that if you look at the evolution of human history, you’ll quickly find out that states have won out over their alternatives. I think we can both agree (hopefully) that this is an objective statement. My point here is that there have to be reasons why things turned out the way they did, perhaps it’s best to understand those reasons instead of dismissing them. My second statement is that states are necessary because they are the most efficient answer we have to govern on a large scale. States provide an institutional framework that allow for stability, order, justice, and large scale organization. Our disagreement on the second statement is the root of our debate. However, as you can see, these two statements aren’t used to justify each other, and thus combining the two and calling it circular reasoning is just a misunderstanding on your part.
I take big issue with this criticism specifically because you’re being dishonest. My original statement was that “pride is a universal human emotion”. That’s an objectively true statement. People express pride differently, people are proud of different things, and different cultures have different ideas about it. However, all humans have it. You have it, I have it, we all do. It’s like happiness, sadness, or anger. The entire reason why I said this in the first place is to make the point that patriotism is a reflection of a universal human emotion. Keep in mind, I am not saying that patriotism is a universal trait, just that it’s a form in which an actual universal trait, pride, manifests itself.
If you disagreed with the notion that patriotism is a reflection of pride, then that’s fine, we could have had a discussion about it. However, you chose to sideline my point in favor of taking up the position that pride is not a universal emotion, and specifically focusing on the literal meaning “universal”. However, this focus was just the red herring fallacy. You were focusing on a minor detail to distract from the point being made. If you actually want to double down on the notion that pride is not a universal human emotion then we’re moving past political opinions and entering the realm of science, and that means that you have to actually show me an academic study that counters the established science (example). It’s why I pointed out that your anecdotes don’t mean much in this case.
Now, I don’t think it’s that deep and I don’t think you’re going to double down on this position, but I do think our exchange about this specific point up until now has been particularly frustrating because it’s unnecessary. I’m sure you understood what I meant from the beginning because it was a very simple point.
Also, I find it weird how you’re accusing me of engaging in bad faith by saying I’m turning your arguments into strawmans, when the first example you gave is just you not following the chain of responses. You said that I didn’t answer why the legitimacy of violence isn’t an arbitrary choice. Well, let’s find out why:
Original topic: whether or not someone supporting their country is radical.
Your response: someone supporting their country means supporting the monopoly of violence and that’s radical
Me: monopoly of violence isn’t inherently radical as it exists to regulate force which prevents chaos
You: all types of violence is radical and adding the distinction between regulated and unregulated force is arbitrary
Me: the distinction is the point, and the difference between regulated and unregulated violence is the difference between chaos and stability
You: distinctions in general are arbitrary in nature
Me: the distinction is critical as not all violence is equal, regulated violence by a society helps establish order which prevents unnecessary violence while unregulated violence by individuals does the opposite
And that was the last direct reply. Notice how the my responses directly respond to your responses? Notice how the conversation got specific but didn’t go off topic? Notice how you never asked me why the legitimacy of violence is not an arbitrary choice nor was that ever brought up? That means I didn’t misinterpret what you said, therefore I didn’t strawman you. If you felt like you need to add clarification or nuance or ask that either of me then just do that, but don’t call my direct responses to your points as strawman arguments when they’re not.
Second, Makhnovshchina was not truly anarchist. They had an actual government that was backed by a military. So they had a full monopolization of violence and everything. The Revolutionary Insurgent Army of Ukraine stayed as the de facto government for 5 years until the bolsheviks took over. That’s the reason why they were more functional than their anarchist counterparts elsewhere, like in Spain for example.
Third, similar to the point I made earlier, the failures of anarchy are intertwined. Anarchy collapses on itself because it lacks the means to do what a functional government can, and that is to maintain order, organize the people to do large scale projects, and defend itself and it’s people. Because of this, anarchy will always result in another, more centralized form of government from crushing it and taking its place. The only way anarchy can work in the real world is if everybody in the world magically agreed to leave the anarchists alone, if some major power decided to protect them for some reason, or if there’s extreme levels of chaos and dysfunction in a society. Since none of these options are realistic or sustainable, anarchy is simply not capable of being a viable alternative to a state. I don’t think that’s a contradictory position.
Thanks for the splitted answer, it is a very nice choice. So here we go on the meta-discussion, cuz i think we still have disagreements on the nature of what we both said.
A - The circular reasoning
We indeed agree on the fact that human history shows that states have won out over their alternatives during the last 5 000 years, approximatively.
You seem to pretend that i dismiss the causes of this. As i said two comments ago in the summary, i simply hold a different explanation : you think states dominate because they’re efficcient for stability, i think states dominate because they prey on other forms of organization. If you really think i dismiss this, i just give another explanation.
I maintain the circular reasoning part : to sum up how you turned it in your last answer, you say 1) states are the norm because states are necessary, and 2) states are necessary because they have advantages. But why do they have advantages that the other forms of governement do not have ? Your proof before that was “there is only states that succeed, the other forms disappear”. So you just add one step, but in the end it’s the same thing : on one hand, you explain the dominance of state by their necessity, on the other you explain their necessity by their advantages, which are prooved by their dominance. Either i misunderstand some part of your position, either it is circular.
B - The pride & the pride of being part of something greater
I owe you an apology here, as my last comment taken as is was indeed focusing on pure pride. I should have added that not only did i claim only some people lack it and not humanity as a collective, but more than that, i did not talk about pure pride, but “pride of being part of something greater”, which we both agree is less common than pride itself. I don’t know why i didnt, probably just skipped to another part. This makes my strawmaning complaint stronger though.
C - Practice and theory
I dont say that practice and theory are entirely separate categories. They are different level of debate though, and you cannot answer one with the other. You can support one with the other, but not answer one with the other. To explain better, in your example of anarchy being a failure, there should be an actual problem (misorganization, miscommunication, etc) that leads to anarchy failure, and this problem could be linked to theory. Exactly as you said in your islamists example, the actual problems of islamists systems can be linked to qoran theory.
Funnily enough, the point i criticize you for is exactly what you criticize islamists for : when you give an answer on the practical side, they jump to the theoric side, and vice-versa. It’s strange that you can see that for them, but not for you.
D - Strawmaning
There is a misunderstanding here. My accusation of strawmaning is on the pride part, not on the arbitrary distinction of how to classify violence.
E - On historical matters
Thanks for acknowledging the historical examples. We indeed have a very different definition of stability and order (especially on political unstability, and internal fighting), but it’s not the only explanation to our difference of explanation here.
One of them is the way you attribute the causes of events. When you say “Anarchists were crushed by Franco’s fascist troops”, it seems that you take it as a proof that anarchy leads to unstability. But to my eyes, the people responsible for unstability here are the state troops. I guess the first one is true on a broader sense, and the second one on this specific situation.
Another one is on the knowledge we have of it : i’m not sure what you mean by
A lot of people tried to enforce their own justice and take governance into their own hands and thousands of people died because of this.. If it’s about war, yes, anarchist armies are as other armies, they cause a lot of useless death. If it’s about something else, i’d be glad to learn about it !Last one is a bit of nuance, especially on the Ukrainian part : there was indeed a system of governement backed by an active military, and this leads to a form of monopolization of violence. But i would not call it a full monopolization of violence, as the military government did not take every decision, and let the regional committees take a lot of decisions, and the local soviets organize freely. Also, all of those systems (both military and governement) were organized along anarchist principles : direct election of delegates, immediate recall, autodiscipline (this one specific to army). To be clear, what i challenge precisely is : the extent of centralization of power (it existed, but it was quite diminished compared to actual state), the extent of monopolization of violence (it existed, but as there were fewer decision to enforce, the monopolization was less important), the non-anarchist aspect of the movement (it is clearly an anarchist movement using partially non-anarchist methods (but not only non-anarchist methods)).
Lastly, and i’m sorry to bring the language part again, but here you’re giving good examples that the examples i gave were far from perfect. But the point you made before was that
you never get stability or order at any point. I claim that you did, during a few months in the Commune, a few years in some regions of Spain, and by short intermittences during the Ukrainian revolution. Sure, it’s not much. And the reason why it’s such little is another topic we discussed. But not much is not the same as nothing. This is, i think, the main explanation of our disagreement here, beyond slight adjustments (causes, knowledge, nuances). In the end, we are saying the same thing : i say “there is a little bit of stability and order”, you say “there is not much stability and order”.The argument in question doesn’t rely on circular reasoning because it presents two distinct claims that serve different purposes. First, it observes that states have historically outlasted alternative systems, suggesting this dominance may reflect functional advantages. Second, it asserts that states are necessary because they provide stability, order, and large scale governance. These aren’t self reinforcing statements; rather, they work together inductively: one offers historical evidence, the other draws a normative conclusion. Dismissing this framework as circular misunderstands the logic, it’s not assuming what it sets out to prove but reasoning from historical prevalence to present utility.
If I said “states are necessary because they exist” then that would indeed be circular logic because the conclusion is essentially assumed in the premise, and you would be correct in your critique. However, that’s not what I’m doing. I said “The historical dominance of states suggests they serve functional advantages, which is why they are necessary.” That’s not circular, that’s inductive reasoning. I’m using historical evidence to support my claims.
I think we’re mostly on the same page here, so I think we can just move on. I’m glad we’re on the same page.
It seems we both agree that theory and practice are connected, but we might be framing that relationship differently. My aim wasn’t to suggest that practice alone answers theory, but that repeated failures in practice can point to deeper issues in the ideology itself, especially when those failures are consistent across different contexts. You’re right that analyzing practical failure should involve identifying specific problems like disorganization or poor communication. That is exactly where theory becomes relevant. Many of these issues stem from key anarchist principles, such as a rejection of hierarchy or centralized coordination. In this case, I am not shifting between unrelated levels. I am showing how the theoretical framework can produce structural vulnerabilities. Similarly, in the example involving Islamism, pointing out widespread governance issues can reasonably lead to a closer inspection of the ideological foundations that might contribute to those outcomes.
It’s interesting because I felt like a lot of your arguments were strawmans of my arguements. For example, when you summarized my positions, you gave me different stances from what I held. I thought it was intentional like I did with your pride arguments, however, I’m understanding now that it’s not intentional. I feel like it’s the same for me. I probably did mischaracterized a few of your arguments, so I am going to concede this point. However, I would like to point out that any misrepresentation comes from a point of misunderstanding rather than malice.
Franco - My point with the anarchist getting destroyed isn’t about responsibility, the nationalists were clearly responsible for destroying the anarchist. We’re in agreement on that part. My point is that anarchy lacks the means of self preservation because it fundamentally opposes the mechanisms that provide for common defense like a centralized organization and monopoly of violence. Because of this, anarchy is inherently prone to getting destroyed by external forces compared to other ideologies and systems.
Anarchy related deaths - I’m mostly referring to the Red Terror in Spain. I understand that the Anarchists were not the only groups in the Republican faction, however, they were still a significant part of it like the FAI and CNT for example. I also understand that there was a lot of infighting amongst the Republican faction between Stalinists, republicans, socialists, and anarchists. However, specifically in the the anarchist controlled portions of Spain, there was still a lot of violence caused by mobs and individuals carrying out their own justice, and that led to the deaths of thousands.
Ukraine - I mean what you’re describing to me here sounds like a textbook de facto state. States exist in a spectrum where one extreme end is defined by totalitarian authoritarianism where the states controls every aspect of life and society and the other extreme end is anarchy where there is no state. Most states, operate somewhere between the two extremes. Ukraine at this time was a state that leaned closer to anarchy on the spectrum without actually being anarchy. We both agree that Ukraine at this time had state like attributes like a military, a system of governance, and common law. My point isn’t that Ukraine under the RIAU wasn’t influenced by anarchist principles, it clearly was, but I’m saying that using this an example of anarchy being functional isn’t accurate because it wasn’t actually anarchist and it’s sustained functionality can be directly attributed to its state like apparatus.
Language - I mean that’s a fair point actually, I’ll concede this point because we are essentially arguing the same thing from different ends. I suppose a few years, months, or even weeks is still not nothing, and so I suppose you’re right in this sense. However, I still stand by the notion that previous anarchist attempts in history have not demonstrated enough sustainability to be considered a viable alternative to the state.
It’s probably the last point of disagreement we have, so it’s quite sad to start with it. Anyway, though it was badly presented before, i think i’m still legitimate to maintain my circular reasoning claim, even or especially after your explanation.
I agree that throughout our discussion, you made those two separate points.
What’s missing here, and that i have confused with Necessity of states (N) previously, is the People desire for stability (P), alognside with the assumption that what what people desire is necessary. Effectively, Stability does not imply necessity, it needs something else that says “X is necessary” and “X needs stability”. I assume this X to be what the people desires, from the part
We live in a world where people want stability and order. This is the proposition that makes the thing circular : People desire for stability (P) both needs to imply Domination (D) (as inWe live in a world where people want stability and order.), and to be implied by D (as instability [...] is what humanity favors given our history). D->P gives the strength of D to P, but for that it needs P->S->D to show the Domination is linked with people desires and not just another variable.It is legitimate to make such a move, since there is a need to put a cause for domination of states, because if it was a bad one (like states are a predatory and self-perpetuating form of organization), then the consequences of it would inherit this bad foundation. My point is that the cause for domination that you can give are also deduced from this domination.
Not sure we actually are on the exact same page, but anyway we would be close enough. Thanks for expressing your content, it is shared.
To be fair, my point on practice/theory has been dismissed by your further comments, and only applies to what you said before. I should have pointed it out, my bad on this point too. Though i disagree with your linking of anarchists problems of coordination/communication and anarchist theory, i admit it is not unfounded and is a proper example of linking theory and practice properly. It was missing before, i think you’ll convene of this. Therefore, i think we can also say we’re on the same page now on this point too !
I agree with most of your paragraph, especially on the misunderstanding rather than malice. The bad faith accusation i have made were pointing out a (alleged) lack of will to understand properly rather than a will to misrepresent. I have made similar errors, like my summarization, though if i recall correctly, it was not that wrong (some errors were minor, bigger errors like “current states” instead of “states in general” were a formulation error that didn’t matter much for argumentation). I apologize for this one along others : if it’s something you’d like to do, i’d be glad to have a list of the points i strawmaned. I’ll try to refrain myself for discussing if they are strwman or not, i’d just like to see what i misunderstood.
I also disagree on the association of actual problems in Spain with necessary flaws in theory, reporting them on the practical difficulties that were to face (urgency of the situation, lack of international support, chaos inherited from the failed coup d’état, etc.). That said, i concede that your deduction from the Spanish case of anarchist flaws remains legitimate and well-founded.
On the Red Terror, i thank you for bringing this to my knowledge, i did not know the detail of it. Your summary is very good, and i would just add that from what i just learned, it seems that those violences existed on the Nationalist side too, directed at reds, and that the Red Terror on the Republican side ultimately was turned against anarchist and non-stalinist themselves. We both agree that anarchists committed and failed to prevent atrocities.
I think we both agree that if Revolutionary Ukraine was a state, it would be the form of state closest to anarchy, and if it was anarchy, it would be the form of anarchy closest to state. The nitpicking would be about whether or not it crossed the line. I support that it did, and my arguments are that i do not have example of organizations defined as state with a military based on volunteering, election of officers and autodiscipline, and with a decision system based on federalism and immediate recall of mandatees. But in the end it really is nitpicking, and if we agree on the first part, it’s more than okay i think.
Thanks for expressing the concession. I note and accept your stance that the low level of stability of anarchists experiments is not enough for you.