Yeah, down with the violence of the state! Although, to prevent bad actors and armed gangs we do need to have some sort of militia to protect the vulnerable from the greedy and cruel, human nature being what it is. And to prevent said militia from turning into the very thing it was supposed to protect us from, we need some sort of oversight, preferably from a democratically elected body, that tells the militia how to act and prevent them from violating the rights of the people. Oh wait I just reinvented violence of the state hehe.
People in Somalia hearing that America has a 1.8% homelessness rate: “wow. Things are really just as bad over there.”
A common anarchist definition of the state is: The institutionized power structure which alienates people from the businesses of their daily lives.
So not the government at all, right? Because they aren’t responsible for hardly any alienating in my experience. I would attribute any alienating I feel to corporations.
What would happen to those corporations without the government enforcing their property? Have you ever tried to seize a McDonalds to distribute food to the homeless?
People have property rights too. I wouldn’t want someone seizing the food in my fridge to feed the homeless. Property rights are a good thing actually. The problem isn’t the government “protecting” corporations. It’s that wealth grants a greater degree of control over government due to corruption.
Ultimately though it’s a pointless discussion since anarchists are never going to see what they envision implemented beyond weirdo hippie commune towns because their ideas don’t scale up.
I wouldn’t want anyone to seize the food in your fridge. Unless with “seize” you mean “fill up unprompted” because people know you need to eat and that’s enough reason to give you food, and maybe you’re busy all the time with constructing bridges or whatnot so they also cook for you.
And while corruption is an issue, it’s not the only issue: The very act of having lots of capital to throw around allows companies to direct policy, you e.g. don’t need to grease hands to get different municipalities to overbid each other with tax breaks for your new fidget spinner factory. The BS is inherent in the system.
As to scaling: Possibly. Possibly not. I’d argue that it can’t yet be envisioned, not even by anarchists themselves (and we’re aware of that, hence all the gradualism)… but as you acknowledged that it can work in the small, what happens if all the municipalities we have turn into hippie communes? Would they elect, among themselves, an Emperor Commune to rule over them? I don’t think so. They’d find ways to cooperate at eye level. How that will look in detail, as said, I have no idea, it’s probably going to involve federation and plenty of subsidiarity.
Practically, right now, it makes no difference as most of us are not living in hippie commune towns. First step would be to get there, then we can think about luxury gay space anarchism.
Yeah, down with the violence of the state! Although, to prevent bad actors and armed gangs we do need to have some sort of militia to protect the vulnerable from the greedy and cruel, human nature being what it is. And to prevent said militia from turning into the very thing it was supposed to protect us from, we need some sort of oversight, preferably from a democratically elected body, that tells the militia how to act and prevent them from violating the rights of the people. Oh wait I just reinvented violence of the state hehe.
People in Somalia hearing that America has a 1.8% homelessness rate: “wow. Things are really just as bad over there.”
Except if the state is a community voting on how they should be policed, it isn’t really violence, is it?
That’s not what anarchists refer to as a state.
A common anarchist definition of the state is: The institutionized power structure which alienates people from the businesses of their daily lives.
If the whole constituency of the community that the militia protects is involved in controlling that militia, that’s not state violence anymore.
So not the government at all, right? Because they aren’t responsible for hardly any alienating in my experience. I would attribute any alienating I feel to corporations.
What would happen to those corporations without the government enforcing their property? Have you ever tried to seize a McDonalds to distribute food to the homeless?
People have property rights too. I wouldn’t want someone seizing the food in my fridge to feed the homeless. Property rights are a good thing actually. The problem isn’t the government “protecting” corporations. It’s that wealth grants a greater degree of control over government due to corruption.
Ultimately though it’s a pointless discussion since anarchists are never going to see what they envision implemented beyond weirdo hippie commune towns because their ideas don’t scale up.
I wouldn’t want anyone to seize the food in your fridge. Unless with “seize” you mean “fill up unprompted” because people know you need to eat and that’s enough reason to give you food, and maybe you’re busy all the time with constructing bridges or whatnot so they also cook for you.
And while corruption is an issue, it’s not the only issue: The very act of having lots of capital to throw around allows companies to direct policy, you e.g. don’t need to grease hands to get different municipalities to overbid each other with tax breaks for your new fidget spinner factory. The BS is inherent in the system.
As to scaling: Possibly. Possibly not. I’d argue that it can’t yet be envisioned, not even by anarchists themselves (and we’re aware of that, hence all the gradualism)… but as you acknowledged that it can work in the small, what happens if all the municipalities we have turn into hippie communes? Would they elect, among themselves, an Emperor Commune to rule over them? I don’t think so. They’d find ways to cooperate at eye level. How that will look in detail, as said, I have no idea, it’s probably going to involve federation and plenty of subsidiarity.
Practically, right now, it makes no difference as most of us are not living in hippie commune towns. First step would be to get there, then we can think about luxury gay space anarchism.
Like having the militia answer to a democratically-elected government?
No, to councils, not representatives with a free mandate.
Representatives don’t have a free mandate in a democracy, they’re bound by laws and by their constituency.
How are your councils formed and what restricts their power?