What system do you think they are referring to as an anarchist? Anarchism is simply opposition to hierarchies that allow control over others, such as the control capitalists have over workers by owning the means of production and political forces. The system that anarchists advance in place of that can take an unlimited number of forms.
Anarchism is simply opposition to hierarchies that allow control over others, such as the control capitalists have over workers
Or the control the hierarchical entity (state) must have over a populous to stop thievery and violence. Even in a perfectly idealized world, anarchism only just barely gets to work, teetering on the brink of collapse.
We have a state now though, has thievery and violence been stopped? How many thousands are in poverty, how many are killed in global wars waged in the name of profits? There are states where theft and murder are extremely rare, and states where it is common. What is the difference between the conditions where it is common and uncommon? Is a top-down control and manipulation the only way to reduce violence?
Anarchism works all the time. It’s more than a political structure, it’s an idea about how to organize relations between people, and there already are many groups that are active that function on anarchist principles.
Any group that collects itself in the modern world as anarchist, like anarchist groups in the Spanish Civil War, are heavily repressed by state forces. Capitalist states work together to discourage anarchist ideals even more so than communism because of the possibility it has for threatening traditional power structures.
the possibility it has for threatening traditional power structures.
You mean the possibility of completely collapsing civilization as a whole.
We have a state now though, has thievery and violence been stopped?
Fallacious reasoning, and pretty obvious at that. I give you a cup of water - some water has been poisoned by heavy metals. If you drink the cup of water, will you get metal poisoning? The only intellectually honest answer is: the question is flawed. The same way it doesn’t follow that
Some water is poisoned ⇏ All water is poisoned
It also doesn’t follow that
The suppression of violence begets control ⇏ All control suppresses violence.
This is further proven by your following statement
What is the difference between the conditions where it is common and uncommon?
You said a state must have control to stop thievery and murder, but I’ve never heard of a state that successfully stopped those things, is what I was getting at. The point about conditions where violence is common or less common is that there are more primary factors to violence than whether or not someone will be punished by state forces for that violence. There are more effective ways to combat violence and theft than a police state.
Or the control the hierarchical entity (state) must have over a populous to stop thievery and violence.
You’ll find that the vast majority of anarchists nowadays are gradualists (short of the usual vocal minority), precisely because Anarchy depends on a populace sticking to social norms and rules, and that shit takes time to develop, and definitely can’t be instituted by force. Or its final form be predicted from our position in time. Sure, if you live in tyranny a revolution is the way to go, but if you have a half-way decent liberal and social democracy pushing it further towards all three things is the way to go.
To paraphrase Kerry Thornley: With progressing enlightenment the state is going to wither away, or, that failing, it won’t annoy anyone, any more.
Little tidbit, though: The internet is a quite proper anarchy, actually. I don’t mean the web I mean the way ISPs, hosters, IXPs, etc, all interact on an infrastructure level. The internet has no government, what it does have is lots of technocrats writing requests for comments turning into consensus and a moral baseline (tolerate spam or CSAM and you’re out). The ICANN is the pinnacle when it comes to centralisation, there (if DNS can even be considered to be basic infrastructure. The RIR are certainly more important).
Instead you’d want everyone to adopt a system that literally can’t possibly work. Genius.
What system do you think they are referring to as an anarchist? Anarchism is simply opposition to hierarchies that allow control over others, such as the control capitalists have over workers by owning the means of production and political forces. The system that anarchists advance in place of that can take an unlimited number of forms.
Or the control the hierarchical entity (state) must have over a populous to stop thievery and violence. Even in a perfectly idealized world, anarchism only just barely gets to work, teetering on the brink of collapse.
We have a state now though, has thievery and violence been stopped? How many thousands are in poverty, how many are killed in global wars waged in the name of profits? There are states where theft and murder are extremely rare, and states where it is common. What is the difference between the conditions where it is common and uncommon? Is a top-down control and manipulation the only way to reduce violence?
Anarchism works all the time. It’s more than a political structure, it’s an idea about how to organize relations between people, and there already are many groups that are active that function on anarchist principles.
Any group that collects itself in the modern world as anarchist, like anarchist groups in the Spanish Civil War, are heavily repressed by state forces. Capitalist states work together to discourage anarchist ideals even more so than communism because of the possibility it has for threatening traditional power structures.
You mean the possibility of completely collapsing civilization as a whole.
Fallacious reasoning, and pretty obvious at that. I give you a cup of water - some water has been poisoned by heavy metals. If you drink the cup of water, will you get metal poisoning? The only intellectually honest answer is: the question is flawed. The same way it doesn’t follow that
Some water is poisoned ⇏ All water is poisoned
It also doesn’t follow that
The suppression of violence begets control ⇏ All control suppresses violence.
This is further proven by your following statement
Which opposes your own argumentation.
You said a state must have control to stop thievery and murder, but I’ve never heard of a state that successfully stopped those things, is what I was getting at. The point about conditions where violence is common or less common is that there are more primary factors to violence than whether or not someone will be punished by state forces for that violence. There are more effective ways to combat violence and theft than a police state.
Sure – state healthcare, state infrastructure, state base income all help.
You’ll find that the vast majority of anarchists nowadays are gradualists (short of the usual vocal minority), precisely because Anarchy depends on a populace sticking to social norms and rules, and that shit takes time to develop, and definitely can’t be instituted by force. Or its final form be predicted from our position in time. Sure, if you live in tyranny a revolution is the way to go, but if you have a half-way decent liberal and social democracy pushing it further towards all three things is the way to go.
To paraphrase Kerry Thornley: With progressing enlightenment the state is going to wither away, or, that failing, it won’t annoy anyone, any more.
Little tidbit, though: The internet is a quite proper anarchy, actually. I don’t mean the web I mean the way ISPs, hosters, IXPs, etc, all interact on an infrastructure level. The internet has no government, what it does have is lots of technocrats writing requests for comments turning into consensus and a moral baseline (tolerate spam or CSAM and you’re out). The ICANN is the pinnacle when it comes to centralisation, there (if DNS can even be considered to be basic infrastructure. The RIR are certainly more important).