could anarchy work, under any conditions?

[Slarti]

As the election approaches, i hear people talking politics everywhere- school, TV, internet, the dinner table....  And when i here people talking about whether bush should win, or whether kerry could win, i always want to (and sometimes do) speak up and say 'who cares who wins, the government is still in the hands of the corporations'.

of course then some prick will say 'okay genius? what's the alternative? ANARCHY? how'd you like anarchy? i bet you'd love it when i bust into your house, beat the crap out of you, and steal all your stuff. anarchy, yeah right' etc etc etc.

and i can't come up with a good response. could anarchy work? or would it always fail as long as humans remain greedy and selfish?

[gnimbley]

No two anarchists will give you the same answer.

Will anarchy work? Well, we could ask, would anything work? Their
question does assume that something works, doesn't it? Their question
also assumes that anarchy and thug rule are the same thing.

Anarchist collectives have been tried, on small scales, and for the most
part have failed when the larger world has intruded, or the internal
dynamics have been overwhelmed by politics. So the track record
for anarchy is dismal. But then, so is the track record for everything
else.

I do not believe that anarchy will work on a large scale. There are just
too many people, and not enough resources, for it to succeed.
There are more people than there are resources available for all of us
to enjoy an "American Dream" life style. There must be some
mechanism to distribute the resources unfairly amongst us, if some of us
are going to enjoy "the good life." That requires a system which
discriminates against some people arbitrarily. (Currently the
mechanisms are race, sex, nationality, parents, brains, athletic or
artistic talent, etc.) An anarchist utopia can not survive in such an
environment where some people have to settle for substantially less.

Sorry.

I see anarchy as a philosophy which helps direct your decisions. You
can not achieve an anarchistic utopia (or any other utopia for that
matter.) However, you can, when confronted with a decision, use
an utopian vision as a guide to help you decide which option would be
best. When confronted with a decision concerning the US Presidential
election, you can choose to vote for Bush or Kerry, or for someone who
will not win, or not to vote at all. Which choice would most impact
your life? Which choice would most move your world towards the
anarchist ideal, that is a world where you are free to make your own
choices without an authoritarian government monitoring you and
imposing its choices upon you.

You are right when you say that the candidates of the two major US
political parties are tools of competing corporate interests, and regardless
of who is elected, very little will change. However, you are wrong when
you allow the pricks to frame the argument into strict "black and
white" terms. They force the decision to be "the system" or "anarchy."
The possible choices are much greater than that. You need to read more
about all kinds of political systems. And make up your own mind.

As for the prick who says, "How would you like it is I came into your
house and beat you up?" Tell him, "I'd just blow your head off with my
AK-47." or " All the farmers would get together and refuse
to sell you assholes any food. You'd have to work for a living and be
nice to everyone else, or we would shove you out on the street and
refuse to let you have anything." Or, well, you get the idea. There are
more choices available. Don't let them box you into an either-or
decision matrix. That's what Bush has succeeded in doing to the "terror"
question in this election, which is why there are so many people who
dislike him, but will vote for him anyway. Because they see the choices
as two dimensional.

Free your mind.

[Penumbral]

yeah it could work. I think there would be as much order as there is now exsept insted of in the gov't it would be in personal life.
Chaos and order have a tendinsy to to balance out.

If someone says that to you again just reply.
"So if you could get away with it you would beat me up and steal my stuff? Shows how lovely a person you are"

And besides it won't be the people beating people up and stealing stuff that will be succesfull in an anachy anyway.

[Delusion]

As the election approaches, i hear people talking politics everywhere- school, TV, internet, the dinner table....  And when i here people talking about whether bush should win, or whether kerry could win, i always want to (and sometimes do) speak up and say 'who cares who wins, the government is still in the hands of the corporations'.

of course then some prick will say 'okay genius? what's the alternative? ANARCHY? how'd you like anarchy? i bet you'd love it when i bust into your house, beat the crap out of you, and steal all your stuff. anarchy, yeah right' etc etc etc.

and i can't come up with a good response. could anarchy work? or would it always fail as long as humans remain greedy and selfish?

I can burst into your house, beat your stuff, steal you, and eat your curtains *now*.  So can various governments, organizations, and chaosations.

There are also many, many non-anarchy alternatives to corporate industrial feudalism, some of which may be better or worse than CIF.  Pure feudalism, theocracy, hierarchy, democracy, republicanism, militarism, lottery, and some communist sects come to mind, though theocracy has not been implemented in recorded human history.

I think some anarchic systems could work reasonably well; culture is an important element in maintaining them, however.  If any competent group decides to adopt a given worldview, they will be able to enforce it on a number of people who oppose it.  Just ask anyone who lives near corporations, biker gangs, or evangelists.

[Bob the Mediocre]

I think anarchy might work short term, but it wouldn't last. Ideally it would be a situation where a balance of power exists between all people. But eventually individuals and groups would build power, and essentially become governments. I guess a group of people could impose anarchy by always killing the developing rulers off, but they'd have to have no interest in ruling...

[BADGE OF HONOR]

Humans are herd animals.

[Delusion]

I think anarchy might work short term, but it wouldn't last. Ideally it would be a situation where a balance of power exists between all people. But eventually individuals and groups would build power, and essentially become governments. I guess a group of people could impose anarchy by always killing the developing rulers off, but they'd have to have no interest in ruling...

Which is why one should always select one's rulers against their will.

[gnimbley]

I think anarchy might work short term, but it wouldn't last. Ideally it would be a situation where a balance of power exists between all people. But eventually individuals and groups would build power, and essentially become governments. I guess a group of people could impose anarchy by always killing the developing rulers off, but they'd have to have no interest in ruling...

Which is why one should always select one's rulers against their will.

Power attracts people who want power. It is people who want power that
impose their will on others. That is the attraction and flaw of anarchy: to
eliminate the abuse of power by eliminating power. But it can't be
eliminated. Catch-22.

[Z³]

Humans are herd animals.

I feel that we are closer to being a hive collective. Still, the vast majority of humanity are little more than worker drones.

[Horab Fibslager]

.  Pure feudalism, theocracy, hierarchy, democracy, republicanism, militarism, lottery, and some communist sects come to mind, though theocracy has not been implemented in recorded human history.

the taliban was a theocracy. i'm sure there have been others., in fact i'm pretty sure iran is democratic theocracy(that is, it has a democratic(elected by popular vote of citizens) element which quti eremsebles western deomcracy models which is subservant to the dominant council.

btu no, while i liks eomse aspects of soem the forms of anarchism i've seen, i dont; think any system with the name of anrchiy or wahtever would workl. in fact, sorry to say it this way but it's the stupidest thin g i;ve ever heard. i knew an otherwise inteligent man who argued with me rather badly over the ridculaous notion that non central government system knwon as syndicalism, was anarchism. except anarchy Init's TrueForm, is oppsoed to all cooperative systems, except possibly outright slavery. but hen again that's nto qutie anarchism either.

generally, i have the prejudice that that people callign themselves anarchist are either the type of people that get all worked up and break stuff for fun (or angst as it were) or the type of fool that think the plmbers are simpyl going to fix everyone's plumbign because it needs to be done.

and so anarchy sucks. and doesn't work. because people like me , and peopel liek you. and people like my neighbor who between her two kids and her full time job, doesn't have time to sit in on the realistically 100 hour a week meetings that would realistically nbe needed to coem to a consensus agreement on everything, in order to avoid tyranny at all costs, at the cost of becoming a tyranny in and of itself.

in fact he whoel anarchist ideal(on the brighter side of it) has really coem to erode my own ideals as i wander into teh opposite there off in contemplation of a somewhere that works without teh corruption seen ni both elected and absolute or near asbolute power structures.

[B23.77]

I could speel about how a society of people where everybody can vote about everything would be a good thing but I'm afraid I'd become a burnt communist for my way of thinking, therefore I'm just a republican with democratic leanings who has no thoughts whatsoever about communicrats except maybe the thoughts that anti-communists tell me to think.  Shhh.  The FIFTH I plead the FIFTH!!!!

[EraPassing]

When people don't have governments, they MAKE governments, of one form or another.  It's been that way since we came down from the trees.  I don't see it stopping any time soon.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

As the election approaches, i hear people talking politics everywhere- school, TV, internet, the dinner table....  And when i here people talking about whether bush should win, or whether kerry could win, i always want to (and sometimes do) speak up and say 'who cares who wins, the government is still in the hands of the corporations'.

of course then some prick will say 'okay genius? what's the alternative? ANARCHY? how'd you like anarchy? i bet you'd love it when i bust into your house, beat the crap out of you, and steal all your stuff. anarchy, yeah right' etc etc etc.

and i can't come up with a good response. could anarchy work? or would it always fail as long as humans remain greedy and selfish?

You want to see the world under anarchy?

Google "Liberia", and "Nigeria".

No time for Haiku games THERE, pal.  Just an ocean of blood.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

When people don't have governments, they MAKE governments, of one form or another.  It's been that way since we came down from the trees.  I don't see it stopping any time soon.

To quote a farmer who spoke before congress during the federalist debates:

"People will take tyranny over anarchy."

Course, that's when congress would listen to a farmer.

[namu]

Take 6 rats.
Put the rats in a cage connected to a submerged hall ending with a food distributor.

Come back the next day, you will find the rats organized as follows:
1 free rat that goes and take food and eats it
2 exploiter rats that steal the food from the rats that go fetch it
2 slave rats that go take food for the government rats then for themselves
1 rat that get the crumbs and kicks

You can take the exploiter rats from three cages and put them together, and you'll get the same organisation spontaneously the next day. Same with 6 "free" rats. Same with SOD rats. Same with slave rats.

It's kinda the same with humans. Put too many anarchists together and some will subdue others and form an organised government within the group, forcing the remaining anarchists to fight for their own sake.

A sizeable portion of the population prefers a master and instructions on how to enjoy life, and another portion likes to get more than it deserves and to rule over the others.

I like to think that we're the free ones, but it'd be a mistake to think that everyone would agree to embrace the Ways of Eris.