Yes, because anarchism is against all hierarchies and the class system is a form of hierarchy. Instead, decisions should me made collectively, for example in councils open for everyone
@lugal@danc4498 Anarchism is against specifically unjust hierarchies, it can permit certain ones to exist within individual communities should the community find it justified, but still strongly favours not having any where possible.
There are a group of anarchists who would still believe in the idea of an adult > child hierarchy as they struggle to imagine an alternative world without it.
Anarchism thus becomes meaningless as anyone who defends certain hierarchies obviously does so because they believe they are just. Literally everyone on earth is against “unjust hierarchies” at least in their own personal evaluation of said hierarchies. People who support capitalism do so because they believe the exploitative systems it engenders are justifiable and will usually immediately tell you what those justifications are. Sure, you and I might not agree with their argument, but that’s not the point. To say your ideology is to oppose “unjust hierarchies” is to not say anything at all, because even the capitalist, hell, even the fascist would probably agree that they oppose “unjust hierarchies” because in their minds the hierarchies they promote are indeed justified by whatever twisted logic they have in their head.
Telling me you oppose “unjust hierarchies” thus tells me nothing about what you actually believe, it does not tell me anything at all. It is as vague as saying “I oppose bad things.” It’s a meaningless statement on its own without clarifying what is meant by “bad” in this case. Similarly, “I oppose unjust hierarchies” is meaningless statement without clarifying what qualifies “just” and “unjust,” and once you tell me that, it would make more sense you label you based on your answer to that question. Anarchism thus becomes a meaningless word that tells me nothing about you. For example, you might tell me one unjust hierarchy you want to abolish is prison. It would make more sense for me to call you a prison abolitionist than an anarchist since that term at least carries meaning, and there are plenty of prison abolitionists who don’t identify as anarchist.
Parents have natural bootmaker authority and if you want to be a good parent then you realise that the kids also have it: They, or maybe better put their genome, know how they need to be raised, and try to teach you, as well as (with increasing age) seek out the exact bootmakers that seem sensible. Worst thing you can do as a parent is to think that learning is a one-way street.
I honestly hate the concept of “bootmaker authority”, because it’s exactly the same wrong conflation that Engels makes. Not every inequality is a form of authority. Expertise is not authority, it is expertise.
Authority is the socially-recognised power to dominate. Getting a bootmaker to advise on or perform bootmaking tasks is not domination. The bootmaker can’t hold you at gunpoint and command you to wear a certain kind of boot, nobody would allow that. There aren’t bootmaking cops.
Like what exactly does the bootmaker’s “authority” entail in this theory? Giving consent does not confer authority. Authority operates regardless of consent, that’s what makes it bad.
Knowledge is power, thus with a knowledge gap we have a power gap. As a bootmaker’s apprentice, my capacity to judge whether or not I’m getting taught proper technique is limited, I can alleviate that disparity by consulting more than one bootmaker, but ultimately that gap won’t vanish until I, myself, have mastered the craft.
Authority is the socially-recognised power to dominate.
…unnatural authority. Natural authority aka the bootmaker’s does not require social recognition. The bootmaker knows more than the apprentice no matter what society thinks, the imbalance is not socially caused.
If you don’t want to call it authority, fine, but saying “as bad as Engels” is going too far IMO. While bootmaker’s authority does not rely on (wider) social recognition it is still a thing that happens in a social relationship, and not in the relationship of a worker to their alarm clock or whatnot. Though arguably in the modern world that line is also blurring, see technological paternalism, OTOH it’s just a reification of the relationship between the producer and consumer of a technology. It’s an unavoidable (unless you’re a primitivist) side-effect of increased division of labour in a technologically advancing society.
Heck I’m myself on the page of “the state is a people, a territory, and organisation”, simply because the classical anarchist definition drifted miles and miles from the dictionary and the lived experience of people in liberal democracies, when you say “abolish the state” they hear “abolish garbage collection”. We can re-do terminology once in a while, it’s a good idea.
I need you to define the word “authority” in that case. I’ve given my definition, so what is yours and how does it differ, please? Because I already addressed the fact that an imbalance doesn’t create a hierarchy, and your description of imbalance does not fit my definition of authority.
Power imbalance doesn’t automatically create the conditions for domination. For that you would need both expertise and monopoly.
And the solution to a misunderstanding isn’t to concede the definition of the word “state” but to educate. The state is any entity that has a monopoly of the legitimate use of violence in a region. That applies regardless of the system of government that rules it.
Your definition isn’t a definition, it’s just a collection of categories that gives no useful information.
We don’t need to be dominated in order to clean up our garbage. And the state is often really bad at collecting garbage, so just teach people that.
Authority is a power imbalance in a social relationship. It does not, in itself, imply domination or monopoly or expertise it happens each time two people are not on eye level regarding something, cannot, for whatever reason, relate to each other as complete equals. If you find yourself having it and are keen on proper praxis then you take on the responsibility to lift the other up as you are capable to do. I think for that reason alone I think it’s important to recognise it as authority, so that we are careful when using it, which, in the end, is unavoidable.
We don’t need to be dominated in order to clean up our garbage. And the state is often really bad at collecting garbage, so just teach people that.
Garbage collection is a non-issue over here, it just works. Couple of neighbouring municipalities own the company and it’s run on an at-cost basis with decent wages. If, suddenly, an anarchist revolution were to happen I’m quite sure the general arrangement would carry over.
…and I took that as an example precisely because (over here) it just works, it’s a baby you wouldn’t want to throw out with the bathwater. I’m reasonably sure that wherever you’re living, you can think of such an example.
That definition of authority is so immediately, obviously wrong that I don’t even know where to start dealing with it.
It’s so uselessly broad. I literally said at the start that authority isn’t just any inqeuality, and you didn’t address it. You should have if you thought that was wrong, because that’s literally the definition of the thing that we’re talking about.
I would like to see you justify this incrsdibly broad definition. If you want to see my justification for my definition, I would invite you to look it up in any dictionary.
I literally said at the start that authority isn’t just any inqeuality, and you didn’t address it.
First of all that condition is as arbitrary as any other and you have no more authority to impose it than I do imposing mine. Secondly, I did address it: I limited the term authority specifically to social relations. Between people. Engels doesn’t.
I would like to see you justify this incrsdibly broad definition.
I already did:
If you find yourself having it and are keen on proper praxis then you take on the responsibility to lift the other up as you are capable to do. I think for that reason alone I think it’s important to recognise it as authority, so that we are careful when using it, which, in the end, is unavoidable.
In other words: It’s important to call bootmaker’s authority authority so that anarchists, bootmakers or apprentices or passers-by, are careful around that topic. Like a candle it’s not a thing that’s bad per se, but a thing which should not be left unattended. Eyes need to be on it.
Isn’t anarchy just against imposed hierarchy? Most anarchists I’ve met are okay with heirarchies that form naturally, and believe those hierarchies to be enough for society to function, hence why they call themselves anarchists, not minarchists.
I have never heard the term minarchist. Many anarchists say, we need structures against the building of hierarchies, like avoiding knowledge hierarchies by doing skillshares.
Natural authorities are a different topic. I think Kropotkin was an example of a leader who was accepted because everyone agreed with him. Once he said something people didn’t like, they rejected him as a leader. You can call this a hierarchy if you like. I wouldn’t because he couldn’t coerce his followers but this is pure terminology.
So, do the anarchists not think that capitalism will just prevail and bring along with it the classes of the haves and have nots? Anarchy won’t solve the problem of wealth inequality, will it? I have genuinely never understood this aspect of anarchism.
Hoarding resources will be banned. If you start doing it, we’ll beat you up before you can get enough to hire a private army. Also, only the most corrupt people would go work as a private soldier, because everyone’s needs are met so there’s no poverty to drive people to do bad things. You’d have to promise private security a lot of money to betray their nation for basically no reason.
So this anarchy is a self contained commune where nobody is allowed in that doesn’t agree with the rules. And if somebody breaks the rules, they must leave. This sums it up? It can’t apply to a country because that would never work. But to a small village, sure.
Also, hopefully the people outside the village don’t find ways of fucking with them (such as redirecting waterways that affect the downstream village).
Yes, my understanding is that Anarchists want to break down governments into smaller and smaller bits in order to allow for more and more direct democracy and cooperation.
Anarchism is opposition to power hierarchies, specifically non-consensual or coercive ones. Wealth inequality without safety networks is a coercive power hierarchy, and so needs to be fought. Capitalism as a whole is almost always incompatible with anarchy, at least in the way we tend to do it now. In a system with strong social safety networks the choice to work for someone can actually be a choice, and so some schools of thought would view it as compatible.
Others view exclusive ownership of property as someone asserting power over someone else’s ability to use said property, and therefore wrong. Needless to say, abolition of private property is not compatible with capitalism.
Capitalism as a whole is almost always incompatible with anarchy, at least in the way we tend to do it now.
That last part is really important. Many anarchists, socialists, and whatnot recognize that capitalism can be fine. It’s just that humans really suck at doing capitalism, we keep doing pseudo-feudalism instead
How would you reach consensus between hundreds of millions of people?
Look, I am sympathetic to the cause behind anarchism but it doesn’t work because it insists on ignoring biological realities. We need to look no further than our ape cousins to see how some hierarchical structure is inherent to our society. Only through the existence of a state can we reduce hierarchy and increase equality.
A stateless society wouldn’t last 10 minutes before establishing a state.
If might makes right a state will end up forming anyways. A populist commune is still a state. Anarchy is not possible in any sense of what one might describe as a functional society. As soon as there’s a society a state will form.
But that’s also not how chimpanzee society works anyways, since mostly it’s an alpha challenged by a younger stronger chimp who takes their place and makes sure everyone else follows the rules. They even have something like a police force.
It’s a government, but it isn’t necessarily a state. Regardless, Anarchists aren’t against all forms of government. The media’s version of total chaos is not what Anarchists are trying to create.
There is a huge difference between how things should work and how they will though. Without any system of enforcement, I would call it nothing but wishful thinking.
Yes, because anarchism is against all hierarchies and the class system is a form of hierarchy. Instead, decisions should me made collectively, for example in councils open for everyone
@lugal @danc4498 Anarchism is against specifically unjust hierarchies, it can permit certain ones to exist within individual communities should the community find it justified, but still strongly favours not having any where possible.
There are a group of anarchists who would still believe in the idea of an adult > child hierarchy as they struggle to imagine an alternative world without it.
Anarchism thus becomes meaningless as anyone who defends certain hierarchies obviously does so because they believe they are just. Literally everyone on earth is against “unjust hierarchies” at least in their own personal evaluation of said hierarchies. People who support capitalism do so because they believe the exploitative systems it engenders are justifiable and will usually immediately tell you what those justifications are. Sure, you and I might not agree with their argument, but that’s not the point. To say your ideology is to oppose “unjust hierarchies” is to not say anything at all, because even the capitalist, hell, even the fascist would probably agree that they oppose “unjust hierarchies” because in their minds the hierarchies they promote are indeed justified by whatever twisted logic they have in their head.
Telling me you oppose “unjust hierarchies” thus tells me nothing about what you actually believe, it does not tell me anything at all. It is as vague as saying “I oppose bad things.” It’s a meaningless statement on its own without clarifying what is meant by “bad” in this case. Similarly, “I oppose unjust hierarchies” is meaningless statement without clarifying what qualifies “just” and “unjust,” and once you tell me that, it would make more sense you label you based on your answer to that question. Anarchism thus becomes a meaningless word that tells me nothing about you. For example, you might tell me one unjust hierarchy you want to abolish is prison. It would make more sense for me to call you a prison abolitionist than an anarchist since that term at least carries meaning, and there are plenty of prison abolitionists who don’t identify as anarchist.
Parents have natural bootmaker authority and if you want to be a good parent then you realise that the kids also have it: They, or maybe better put their genome, know how they need to be raised, and try to teach you, as well as (with increasing age) seek out the exact bootmakers that seem sensible. Worst thing you can do as a parent is to think that learning is a one-way street.
I honestly hate the concept of “bootmaker authority”, because it’s exactly the same wrong conflation that Engels makes. Not every inequality is a form of authority. Expertise is not authority, it is expertise.
Authority is the socially-recognised power to dominate. Getting a bootmaker to advise on or perform bootmaking tasks is not domination. The bootmaker can’t hold you at gunpoint and command you to wear a certain kind of boot, nobody would allow that. There aren’t bootmaking cops.
Like what exactly does the bootmaker’s “authority” entail in this theory? Giving consent does not confer authority. Authority operates regardless of consent, that’s what makes it bad.
Knowledge is power, thus with a knowledge gap we have a power gap. As a bootmaker’s apprentice, my capacity to judge whether or not I’m getting taught proper technique is limited, I can alleviate that disparity by consulting more than one bootmaker, but ultimately that gap won’t vanish until I, myself, have mastered the craft.
…unnatural authority. Natural authority aka the bootmaker’s does not require social recognition. The bootmaker knows more than the apprentice no matter what society thinks, the imbalance is not socially caused.
If you don’t want to call it authority, fine, but saying “as bad as Engels” is going too far IMO. While bootmaker’s authority does not rely on (wider) social recognition it is still a thing that happens in a social relationship, and not in the relationship of a worker to their alarm clock or whatnot. Though arguably in the modern world that line is also blurring, see technological paternalism, OTOH it’s just a reification of the relationship between the producer and consumer of a technology. It’s an unavoidable (unless you’re a primitivist) side-effect of increased division of labour in a technologically advancing society.
Heck I’m myself on the page of “the state is a people, a territory, and organisation”, simply because the classical anarchist definition drifted miles and miles from the dictionary and the lived experience of people in liberal democracies, when you say “abolish the state” they hear “abolish garbage collection”. We can re-do terminology once in a while, it’s a good idea.
I need you to define the word “authority” in that case. I’ve given my definition, so what is yours and how does it differ, please? Because I already addressed the fact that an imbalance doesn’t create a hierarchy, and your description of imbalance does not fit my definition of authority.
Power imbalance doesn’t automatically create the conditions for domination. For that you would need both expertise and monopoly.
And the solution to a misunderstanding isn’t to concede the definition of the word “state” but to educate. The state is any entity that has a monopoly of the legitimate use of violence in a region. That applies regardless of the system of government that rules it.
Your definition isn’t a definition, it’s just a collection of categories that gives no useful information.
We don’t need to be dominated in order to clean up our garbage. And the state is often really bad at collecting garbage, so just teach people that.
Authority is a power imbalance in a social relationship. It does not, in itself, imply domination or monopoly or expertise it happens each time two people are not on eye level regarding something, cannot, for whatever reason, relate to each other as complete equals. If you find yourself having it and are keen on proper praxis then you take on the responsibility to lift the other up as you are capable to do. I think for that reason alone I think it’s important to recognise it as authority, so that we are careful when using it, which, in the end, is unavoidable.
Garbage collection is a non-issue over here, it just works. Couple of neighbouring municipalities own the company and it’s run on an at-cost basis with decent wages. If, suddenly, an anarchist revolution were to happen I’m quite sure the general arrangement would carry over.
…and I took that as an example precisely because (over here) it just works, it’s a baby you wouldn’t want to throw out with the bathwater. I’m reasonably sure that wherever you’re living, you can think of such an example.
That definition of authority is so immediately, obviously wrong that I don’t even know where to start dealing with it.
It’s so uselessly broad. I literally said at the start that authority isn’t just any inqeuality, and you didn’t address it. You should have if you thought that was wrong, because that’s literally the definition of the thing that we’re talking about.
I would like to see you justify this incrsdibly broad definition. If you want to see my justification for my definition, I would invite you to look it up in any dictionary.
First of all that condition is as arbitrary as any other and you have no more authority to impose it than I do imposing mine. Secondly, I did address it: I limited the term authority specifically to social relations. Between people. Engels doesn’t.
I already did:
In other words: It’s important to call bootmaker’s authority authority so that anarchists, bootmakers or apprentices or passers-by, are careful around that topic. Like a candle it’s not a thing that’s bad per se, but a thing which should not be left unattended. Eyes need to be on it.
Isn’t anarchy just against imposed hierarchy? Most anarchists I’ve met are okay with heirarchies that form naturally, and believe those hierarchies to be enough for society to function, hence why they call themselves anarchists, not minarchists.
I have never heard the term minarchist. Many anarchists say, we need structures against the building of hierarchies, like avoiding knowledge hierarchies by doing skillshares.
Natural authorities are a different topic. I think Kropotkin was an example of a leader who was accepted because everyone agreed with him. Once he said something people didn’t like, they rejected him as a leader. You can call this a hierarchy if you like. I wouldn’t because he couldn’t coerce his followers but this is pure terminology.
So, do the anarchists not think that capitalism will just prevail and bring along with it the classes of the haves and have nots? Anarchy won’t solve the problem of wealth inequality, will it? I have genuinely never understood this aspect of anarchism.
We’re gonna beat up the capitalists
You don’t think the capitalists would have the resources to defend themselves?
Hoarding resources will be banned. If you start doing it, we’ll beat you up before you can get enough to hire a private army. Also, only the most corrupt people would go work as a private soldier, because everyone’s needs are met so there’s no poverty to drive people to do bad things. You’d have to promise private security a lot of money to betray their nation for basically no reason.
So this anarchy is a self contained commune where nobody is allowed in that doesn’t agree with the rules. And if somebody breaks the rules, they must leave. This sums it up? It can’t apply to a country because that would never work. But to a small village, sure.
Also, hopefully the people outside the village don’t find ways of fucking with them (such as redirecting waterways that affect the downstream village).
Yes, my understanding is that Anarchists want to break down governments into smaller and smaller bits in order to allow for more and more direct democracy and cooperation.
This sounds interesting, and not at all what I would have thought of as anarchy. It definitely requires solidarity among its people.
I should say, that’s not how all Anarchists view it, but as far as I identify as an anarchist, that’s what Anarchism is.
Anarchism is opposition to power hierarchies, specifically non-consensual or coercive ones. Wealth inequality without safety networks is a coercive power hierarchy, and so needs to be fought. Capitalism as a whole is almost always incompatible with anarchy, at least in the way we tend to do it now. In a system with strong social safety networks the choice to work for someone can actually be a choice, and so some schools of thought would view it as compatible.
Others view exclusive ownership of property as someone asserting power over someone else’s ability to use said property, and therefore wrong. Needless to say, abolition of private property is not compatible with capitalism.
That last part is really important. Many anarchists, socialists, and whatnot recognize that capitalism can be fine. It’s just that humans really suck at doing capitalism, we keep doing pseudo-feudalism instead
I actually really like this analysis
How would you reach consensus between hundreds of millions of people?
Look, I am sympathetic to the cause behind anarchism but it doesn’t work because it insists on ignoring biological realities. We need to look no further than our ape cousins to see how some hierarchical structure is inherent to our society. Only through the existence of a state can we reduce hierarchy and increase equality.
A stateless society wouldn’t last 10 minutes before establishing a state.
When a monkey hoards all the bananas, the other monkeys kill him and share the bananas. Anarchy is natural.
If might makes right a state will end up forming anyways. A populist commune is still a state. Anarchy is not possible in any sense of what one might describe as a functional society. As soon as there’s a society a state will form.
But that’s also not how chimpanzee society works anyways, since mostly it’s an alpha challenged by a younger stronger chimp who takes their place and makes sure everyone else follows the rules. They even have something like a police force.
It’s a government, but it isn’t necessarily a state. Regardless, Anarchists aren’t against all forms of government. The media’s version of total chaos is not what Anarchists are trying to create.
Here’s some more information if you want it: https://anarchistfaq.org/afaq/sectionA.html#seca1
This is why I like to distinguish between Anarchy (Chaos) and Anarchism (Not Chaos, but no Hierarchies.)
There is a huge difference between how things should work and how they will though. Without any system of enforcement, I would call it nothing but wishful thinking.
In fairness, democracy was a kind of wishful thinking too, which is why I would propose a new form of monarchy instead: https://arendjr.nl/blog/2025/02/new-monarchy/
Kings are bad