this post was submitted on 31 Aug 2023
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imagine there is a evil capitalist who makes your fav social network unfree. and there is a anarchisticly organized fediverse that gives you a save haven from it.
Lemmy is not anarchy. The fedivierse is not anarchy.
Anarchism is not the absense of rules, it's about free association, cooperation and avoiding unjust hierarchies.
That is not the definition of anarchy. Anarchy is defined by the absence of laws and structure in a society. What you are describing is uptopian, or the wikipedia definition of anarchy, which is completely incorrect.
Errico Malatesta, Anarchy - "The word Anarchy comes from the Greek and its literal meaning is without government: the condition of a people who live without a constituted authority, without government"
Peter Kropotkin, Anarchism - "Anarchism is the name given to a principle or theory of life and conduct under which society is conceived without government - harmony in such a society being obtained, not by submission to law, or by obedience to any authority, but by free agreements concluded between the various groups [...]"
The main point is a lack of vertical hierarchy, that nobody is being subjugated or forced. For a society to function, it needs cooperation, and anarchical coorperation means that it's done willingly by all the parties involved, without any compulsion. You can still have structures (as in roles people play in a society). Orwelll wrote in "Homage to Catalonia" how the army he was in had regular soldiers and officers, but the officers couldn't "order" the soldiers to do anything, and they often argued and explained why they needed the soldiers to do whatever. A wild free-for-all where some strong and brutish people can form a gang and do whatever they want with others is how some anarchists see governments.
So it's technically true that there are no "laws" because there is no government to punish you if you don't follow them, and there's no vertical structure where someone is your boss who you must obey, but people might get a wrong picture with just that, so I provided a bit more context. I'm not an expert on anarchist theory by any means, but it's not Hobbes' natural condition of mankind.
Anarchism and anarchy are not the same thing.
Well technically each user could have their own instance if they choose to do so. They'd be free to interact with who they choose to interact with and block who they wouldn't want to interact with. They'd be free from any outside hierarchy. Many user choose not to do this, but that doesn't mean the system is inherently hierarchical.
(I'm excluding the fact that not every user has the capital to host an instance)
Its still not anarchy, its federation. Anarchy is 8chan or any of the random TOR image boards. Lemmy is still a clearnet site and is subject to the overarching clearnet rules. If it wasnt, lemmy would be a very different place.
I think you're describing anomy, the absence of norms and rules?
No, the wikipedia definition of anarchy is completely wrong and is edited by actors who seek to change its definition. It honestly reads like some cope. Anomie is defined by the breakdown of society, it wouldnt fit the defition of unregulated by default society that is non-clearnet forums. The classical definition of anarchy, which is the most correct definition, is what I am describing here. The absence of rules and societal structure, pure lawlessness.
So, who's in charge?
Anarchy has a well defined meaning.
This is my biggest problem with your phrasing, and I know that it just boils down to semantics - and that feels like absurd reductionism, is that "anarchisticly organized" is essentially a matter/antimatter reaction of a phrase that leaves the reader with nothing of substance.
Now for something truly controversial:
Capitalism is the purest form of anarchy.
Mate... i have to wonder if you've read anything at all. In your life.
Probably the most common thing said among anarchists is "organise, organise!!" Anarchists are all about people organising.
Controversial doesn't mean stupid. Capitalism is antithetical to anarchy. It inevitably and irresistibly trends toward monopoly, no matter how you slice it.
It also cannot exist without a coercive state apparatus, and in absence of one, will make itself the state, essentially reinventing feudalism.
Not to gloss over anything you said, but I'm going to address the core of it.
Capitalism is an emergent property of human behavior. It didn't fall out of the sky, we invented, of our own will, and to the peril of many. How can any collection of humans, however organized they may be, prevent whatever their ideal state of anarchy is from changing into capitalism over time? I feel that it's a very important question for anarchy because if any society wishes to have its members enjoy max freedom, the very first question that should be asked is "are we defining a cap on freedoms, or are we not? If we do, should we enforce it, and if so, how?", the subtext being how to execute the answers without immediately establishing a state. (This you stated, essentially, and we agree)
And keep in mind that what I may or may not know doesn't impact the question at all. The question stands on its own. How does anarchy survive the human condition, and humanity's predispositions?
This sounds deep at first, but upon thinking for a second is a truism on the lines of "that's just the way the world works". Everything humans have done as a society is an emergent property of human behaviour. Capitalism, mercantilism, fascism, communism, anarchism, feudalism, slave society, empire... and so on. These are all also emergent properties of human behaviour.
This also is just a truism. Yes, of course it was invented. It's a social system. These aren't inherent. I didn't claim otherwise.
...By being organised and connected and educated. A society that has managed to erode the state and revolutionise society to live without hierarchy would be fundamentally different to the one now. To extrapolate behaviour in that society based on any behaviour you see in this one is fraught and must undergo further analysis based on the material conditions. But, based on anarchist, communist etc theory I've been exposed to thus far, such a society would not even by tempted by capitalism because - what is the point? We've moved past that. It's in our history books and we look at it the same way that today we see feudalism.
This seems rather loaded. What do you mean by a "cap on freedoms"? Right after mentioning capitalism, it seems you're equating capitalism, or maybe the concept of private property, with freedom.
There is no need for a state. People can organise together and make decisions together, then disperse to execute those decisions.
Not sure what this means or how to address it.
Define for me the human condition, and what you mean by humanity's "predispositions". These are not solid concepts.
"anarchy has a well defined meaning" it does, and if you had read anything about it before posting this you would know what it is.
Quite the opposite. If you read more, you might be less inclined to believe that.
I've been reading anarchist literature for nearly 20 years. Please enlightened me on where you got this well established definition that you definitely didn't just make up on a whim.
Well that makes two of us, feel free to share yours.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarchism
That is most certainly a definition 👍
Bruh that is such a poor definition of anarchy lmao. Its been changed and molded to fit a utopian idealist view. In reality, anarchy is nothing like what the wikipedia article says, to say otherwise is willful ignorance
It's a nearly 200 year old political philosophy, what do you mean changed and molded? It's almost as old as the United States.
It's the first definition that comes up if you search on any search engine. You'll find it in hard copies of encyclopedias if you really want to. It's quite literally THE established definition.
No... Capitalism isn't... I'd say the underground/drug world is though... And if you've experienced that then you will quickly understand life is war above anything else.
That is literally unregulated capitalism.
Isn't that just freedom? Like ...no one ever is going to homogenize humanity into an ideology... Imo. (Without fascist actions)
That's why I just try to embrace chaos and maneuver with it... Like just be... Just exist...
I see faith in chaos as essentially being what religious people call faith in God. Except they misunderstand due to "God" being abused by the churches.
ok, some points, to define things:
Humans lived in stateless societies for longer than we've had recorded history.
States, social hierarchy, classes, money, religion, etc. are observed human behavior. They are the very result of humanity maneuvering with the chaos.
We use words like Capitalism as the names for models that describes some subset of human behavior.
(We see some groups of humans pooling the results of labor for redistribution and call the various forms of this different flavors of socialism.
We see other groups pooling the results of labor into separate pools fland segregating humans into groups defined by access to these various pools. We call these various forms of capitalism.)
We also see some groups force the behaviors described by various models directly on their members, (which are usually selected by physical proximity), through various means like manipulation, violence, coercion, enticement, etc. Sometimes this leads to a stable state, and we call these States, and sometimes it doesn't and we call these Failed States. When their collective commonality isn't geographic though, we have various names for them too (religion, for example).
So, although Freedom (the general human ability to make choices and act on them) is the default human state, "Unregulated Capitalism" is the model that most closely describes the behavior observed in underground/black markets. It is the state that emerges when humans make the choice to engage in commerce without regulation: capital gets allocated according to the laws of natural selection instead of supply and demand, but the system is still dependent on the supply and demand. To put it another way, this is Natural Capitalism: The "I have all the capital because no one is strong enough to take it away from me" kind of capitalism.
Yes.
No. Commerce without regulation existed for millennia, as you have correctly addressed here:
The black market is indeed commerce without regulation. That's the unregulated part. But it isn't just that. It is also a hierarchical system with privately accumulating capital at the tops of a steadily diminishing number of pyramids - that's the capitalism part - with no overarching authority to regulate it. In short, unregulated capitalism.
Great post! I literally think you might be the first person that's ever responded to my talk of chaos without offended defensiveness.
Well, you didn't post at me like an asshole, so, thank you right back you well mannered human!
And I didn't mean to be so wordy, but sometimes they just get away from me.
You're literally describing capitalism. America is not capitalist.