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What is Anarchism

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Comments

  • #182
    Zombrex
    Closed Accounts Posts: 25,848 ✭✭✭✭Zombrex


    FionnMatthew wrote:
    It actually appears as if you're insecure about the existence of a discussion of the hypothetical benefits of an alternative system of social organization.
    I'm insecure about a large number of things, but I assure you that that isn't one of them
    FionnMatthew wrote:
    It's a discussion that's happening here, not a revolution.
    Yes I was aware of that fact. Anarchists organizing a revolution is in itself an oxymoron.

    FionnMatthew wrote:
    That interpretation of Russian history only exists to act as a prop for the ideology in which it springs up.
    Christ, I was wondering how long this could go without post modernism coming into it :rolleyes:

    That "interpretation of Russian history" exists because it was Russian history.

    Its very easy to argue what ever you want to argue when you simply dismiss everything you don't agree with as just a flawed interpretation created to push an agenda.

    Are you going to argue that E=Mc2 is a sexed equation now? :rolleyes:

    FionnMatthew wrote:
    Do you know why? Because anarchism doesn't put faith in "the State". The citizens don't need to be protected against "the government" in an anarchistic society. Because there isn't any government.

    Seriously how naive are you Fionn?

    There is ALWAYS a government. There is always tribe, always a system of organization. Even if you don't realise there is, there is. It doesn't matter if it is a house hold, a group of friends, a tribe or a country.

    Humans instinctively organise themselves into units of task or purpose. How they do this defines the governance of the unit. You keep mentioning "communities" you think they won't have systems of government? It will just be a free for all?
    FionnMatthew wrote:
    What power? There is no centralized power structure. There are no positions of power.
    As I asked, how naive are you?

    There are always position of power. Your wife is sick. Someone else has produced medicine that can cure your wife. That person is in a position of power over you, and anyone else who needs the medicine (replace medicine with food/oil/electricity/transport/information)

    How do you get that medicine? How do you get that medicine if there is 2 women sick and only enough for one of them. As you say, no governance. So do you take it? Do you let your wife die? Do you form a tribal meeting to decide who gets the medicine. All of a sudden you have a government, that has power over you. Do you put faith in this government system to do best for you and society. Why? What protections do you put in place to make sure that this actually happens, or do you just assume they will?

    All of a sudden you have an elected government. You are no longer in an anarchist system.

    FionnMatthew wrote:
    With lower population and proper, elective management of resources, a proper utopia will be a post-scarcity society.
    Groan .. I could write an essay on what is wrong with that sentence :rolleyes:

    In an "elective management society resources" will be scarcer because there is no over all coordination of what is required over the large population. If New York is producing apples and LA needs them how does that work? New York will simply produce enough apples for themselves. Swap apples for medicine and you start to see the problem.
    FionnMatthew wrote:
    They'll use their superior number to divest him of his apples, and redistribute the apples properly

    Oh, and you were doing so well. But as I imagined you would you have just wandered straight into Stalinist hell.

    Replay that situation above and now imagine that the child was innocent but the two children believed he was guilty. Or heck imagine that one of the children is lying and he stole the apple but said the other one did.

    You have now just stolen the child's apples and given them to the rest of the community. Replace "apples" with property and home.

    There is absolutely no part of your answer that isn't open to wide abuse and corruption.

    But of course in an anarchist society no one would ever wish ill towards another :rolleyes:
    FionnMatthew wrote:
    It'd be functional suicide to absent himself from the community of sharing by refusing to share. He simply won't have unadulterated access to any apple supply in future.

    Seriously can you not see the problem. What if the child didn't steal the apple. Now he cannot get food or supplies from the community. His family are shunned as well. No one will do business with them and with no centralised government to regulate business it is up to everyone to simply turn this innocent child away. While the child that convinced the rest that the child was guilty is riding high. He after all caught a thief.

    Everyone that Stalin send to the prison camps was sent there for a "legitimate" crime against the State. And Stalin was praised at the time for protecting the State against those who would could not live by the principles of the revolution.


  • #183
    Zombrex
    Closed Accounts Posts: 25,848 ✭✭✭✭Zombrex


    Akrasia wrote:
    What gives the police their power? The fact that they're given 'legitimacy' from a state and the fact that people will obey them. A respect for 'authority'.
    I would say the fact that they have guns.
    Akrasia wrote:
    In an anarchist society, any force who tried to violently oppress the people would face fierce resistance and would have no 'state' to protect them.

    Again, they would have the guns.

    Lets say an anarchist town faces a band of 50 armed men at the gates. What happens?

    Who defends the town? Well you haven't assigned official protectors because you don't have a police force. So while the armed men are riding into town you have to decide who is going to risk their lives to stop them.

    Then how are you going to stop them. You don't have any guns. Why? Because your town doesn't make guns. Why would it? So what do you use to protect yourself from these men? Tools and farming equipment.

    The small few that decide to risk their lives to protect the town rather than just fleeing with their family out of the town into the woods, get slaughtered. Now the remaining members of the town have a choice. Flee or return to the town and live under the rule of the the 50 men.

    Please explain to me what part of this is an improvement on the current system?


  • #184
    Akrasia
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2, Paid Member Posts: 23,563 ✭✭✭✭Akrasia


    Wicknight wrote:
    I would say the fact that they have guns.
    Irish cops dont have guns on routine patrol, and certainly not enough guns to suppress the entire population or even a significant minority if they chose to rise up.

    Criminals also have guns, but they don't have any power (other than during individual criminal acts)

    Again, they would have the guns.
    You watch too much Mad Max
    Lets say an anarchist town faces a band of 50 armed men at the gates. What happens?

    Who defends the town? Well you haven't assigned official protectors because you don't have a police force. So while the armed men are riding into town you have to decide who is going to risk their lives to stop them.
    Each town would have organised defence militia or another self defence mechanism
    Then how are you going to stop them. You don't have any guns. Why? Because your town doesn't make guns. Why would it? So what do you use to protect yourself from these men? Tools and farming equipment.
    here you demonstrate a complete lack of understanding about everything I've being saying. Have you even read the thread? There is nothing in anarchism that means people wouldn't trade or cooperate with outside societies. There is nothing to say Anarchists wouldn't have guns to defend themselves with.
    The small few that decide to risk their lives to protect the town rather than just fleeing with their family out of the town into the woods, get slaughtered. Now the remaining members of the town have a choice. Flee or return to the town and live under the rule of the the 50 men.
    really? So anarchists are all cowards and wouldn't defend their homes, unlike, lets say, capitalists. The motivation of money is greater than the motivation to protect their families and communities? get real would you,

    In the Spanish Civil war, the anarchists held the lines against franco for years with very little resources while the spanish regular army was training in the rear. They did this out of duty and because it was necessary, not for money.

    Chomsky(2017) on the Republican party

    "Has there ever been an organisation in human history that is dedicated, with such commitment, to the destruction of organised human life on Earth?"



  • #185
    Akrasia
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2, Paid Member Posts: 23,563 ✭✭✭✭Akrasia


    Wicknight wrote:
    Yes I was aware of that fact. Anarchists organizing a revolution is in itself an oxymoron.

    This one statement alone sums up in total either your complete lack of understanding of the subject, or your refusal to engage.

    Anarchism does not mean 'lack of organisation'. Anarchists are in favour of highly organised societies. This has been said probably at least once on every page of this thread


    There is ALWAYS a government. There is always tribe, always a system of organization. Even if you don't realise there is, there is. It doesn't matter if it is a house hold, a group of friends, a tribe or a country.
    You're confusing government with governance.
    There is always governance of some form or another, but government is a very new invention. Anarchism favour a participatory direct democracy as our preferred form of governance. We reject top down hierarchical authoritarian forms of governance.
    Humans instinctively organise themselves into units of task or purpose. How they do this defines the governance of the unit. You keep mentioning "communities" you think they won't have systems of government? It will just be a free for all?
    Anarchists are not opposed to organisation. Communities will organise according to the principles of direct democracy and solidarity.
    There are always position of power. Your wife is sick. Someone else has produced medicine that can cure your wife. That person is in a position of power over you, and anyone else who needs the medicine (replace medicine with food/oil/electricity/transport/information)
    That person can't survive on medicine or Oil or whatever alone. He/she needs to work within the framework of the existing society to secure his/her other needs. In capitalism, that's sell the resource to whoever will pay the most for it. In a society that values solidarity more than individual property rights, the ability to extort others would be severely reduced. It would never be eliminated, but rather than be rewarded for sociopathic behaviour (as is what happens in capitalism) they would be stigmatised such selfish behaviour would have negative consequences.
    How do you get that medicine? How do you get that medicine if there is 2 women sick and only enough for one of them. As you say, no governance.
    You still don't know what governance is. How is that problem solved in capitalism anyway?
    Here's how. There are 10 women sick and enough medicine to cure 20 women. The person who controls the supply hoards 18 doses and makes the sick women bid for the cure, selling it to the 2 richest at an inflated price and lets the other 8 women die.

    Chomsky(2017) on the Republican party

    "Has there ever been an organisation in human history that is dedicated, with such commitment, to the destruction of organised human life on Earth?"



  • #186
    FionnMatthew
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 644 ✭✭✭FionnMatthew


    You can just walk away from all of this, Wicknight. Nobody's going to be sorry to see you leave, but it's always an option.
    Wicknight wrote:
    Christ, I was wondering how long this could go without post modernism coming into it :rolleyes:
    Postmodernism???? What???

    Do you even know what postmodernism is?

    Because it's got nothing to do with the interpretation of history. Or, if you want, it has as much to do with the susceptibility of the interpretation of history to political bias as it has to do with just about anything else you care to mention.

    You might be better placed examining 19th century German hermeneutics, or philology, but then, I suppose, that line of thought might have too much to do with actual idealists for you to manage it.

    Postmodernism!
    That "interpretation of Russian history" exists because it was Russian history.
    Aaah! I see. You were, perhaps, there? And also, omniscient?
    Its very easy to argue what ever you want to argue when you simply dismiss everything you don't agree with as just a flawed interpretation created to push an agenda.
    It is perhaps a little more sophisticated than just dismissing everything you can't understand as "beyond ridiculous".
    Are you going to argue that E=Mc2 is a sexed equation now? :rolleyes:
    Nope. I'm going to point out that it doesn't apply at the quantum level.
    Seriously how naive are you Fionn?
    I suppose I'll be as "naive" as you want me to be, as long as you're making up your own conversation.

    RE: Goverment and sick wives: I refer you to Akrasia's rather excellent post. I'd say it doesn't need to be repeated, but seeing as it actually has been for 10 pages now, and you still don't seem to have taken it in, I'll just say I want to economize on time spent explaining simple ideas to idiots.
    Groan .. I could write an essay on what is wrong with that sentence :rolleyes:

    In an "elective management society resources" will be scarcer because there is no over all coordination of what is required over the large population. If New York is producing apples and LA needs them how does that work? New York will simply produce enough apples for themselves. Swap apples for medicine and you start to see the problem.

    There is no LA. There is no New York. Areas of that kind of population density don't any longer exist. All communities are supplied locally for basic necessities.

    You're not imagining a world radically different enough from our own. Every time you humor the idea, you carry over yet another prejudice. It's easy to poke holes in anarchism if you do that. You're supposed to be doing this the other way around - imagining how an anarchistic society could be made to work. You could do this yourself, but you don't want to.
    Oh, and you were doing so well. But as I imagined you would you have just wandered straight into Stalinist hell.
    I haven't walked into Stalinist hell. You'll notice that the child has not been executed, or sent to a Gulag. He's still being fed, and his peers are worried for his mental health, and are about to do everything they can to aid him in rehabilitation.

    That's pretty far from Stalinist hell, if you ask me.
    Replay that situation above and now imagine that the child was innocent but the two children believed he was guilty. Or heck imagine that one of the children is lying and he stole the apple but said the other one did.
    No. I won't do that. Because the way you presented the situation implied that the child did it in front of everyone, and that it was an unequivocal matter of fact about what had happened, and that we didn't have to take into account any doubt as to whether he had done it. We were, after all, talking about a drastically simplified, almost figurative situation. If you want to start introducing uncertainty factors without prior warning, you're just guilty of sleight of hand.

    I should note that if he were found with three apples, when he was only rationally entitled to one, and could only give acceptable argument for having one, then we know he took them. But wait! We don't need to. Because we're not going to punish him. He's still going to be given an apple.


    If this all sounds silly, it's because it's a silly thought experiment.
    You have now just stolen the child's apples and given them to the rest of the community. Replace "apples" with property and home.
    No I haven't. I've left him with the one apple he was entitled to, and redistributed the other two apples to the remaining two, hungry boys.
    There is absolutely no part of your answer that isn't open to wide abuse and corruption.
    I disagree. Unless you mean that the two boys would take the third boy's apple and divide it between them, as "revenge". But they won't. Because to do so would be to contravene the very ideology which ensures that they had the apples in the first place, which ensures that they were provided for, and they understand this - because they were educated quite well. They make a conscious, volitional choice to uphold the pattern of behavior which underpins this form of social organization, because they believe in it, because they know how it works, because they have felt its benefits, because they are not sociopathic, because they've never know anything else. And because of this, it works.

    If everyone believed in such a form of social organization the way the common individual unquestioningly believes in the present one, it would work. It would have to. The present system too only works because we make it work.
    But of course in an anarchist society no one would ever wish ill towards another :rolleyes:
    Less people would have a very good reason to wish ill towards another.
    Seriously can you not see the problem. What if the child didn't steal the apple.
    If he stole three apples and had them repossessed, he still gets one apple.
    If he didn't steal three apples (if, for example, the three apples that were found on his person were planted on him) he still gets one apple.
    If he didn't even have apples planted on him, and appears to have no apples at all, he'll be given an apple.

    All of the outcomes look the same to me.
    Now he cannot get food or supplies from the community.
    Yes, he can. You'll notice I said "unadulterated" access. He's still given the food he's entitled to if he asks for it. He just might not be trusted with too much responsibility in handling the food.
    His family are shunned as well.
    That's just stupid. Why would his family be shunned too?
    Everyone that Stalin send to the prison camps was sent there for a "legitimate" crime against the State. And Stalin was praised at the time for protecting the State against those who would could not live by the principles of the revolution.
    There are no Gulags in our apple scenario. There is no retributive justice in our apple scenario. There is no actual punishment in our apple scenario. Just an alteration of the distribution of the apples, to ensure against abuse by someone who is deemed ill-equipped to function in society, and an initiative in place to help and rehabilitate him.

    This situation is completely disanalogous to Stalinist political consolidation tactics.


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  • #187
    oscarBravo
    Technology & Internet Moderators Posts: 28,859 Mod ✭✭✭✭oscarBravo


    FionnMatthew, the next time you call someone an idiot you'll be taking a break from this forum.

    Wicknight, calling someone naive isn't exactly polite either.

    Everyone: if you can't make a point without insulting someone, you don't have much of a point to make.

    On with the show.


  • #188
    Zombrex
    Closed Accounts Posts: 25,848 ✭✭✭✭Zombrex


    Akrasia wrote:
    Irish cops dont have guns on routine patrol, and certainly not enough guns to suppress the entire population or even a significant minority if they chose to rise up.
    No, that would be the army. You do remember we had a civil war in this country that was suppressed by the army.
    Akrasia wrote:
    Criminals also have guns, but they don't have any power (other than during individual criminal acts)
    I'm pretty sure that the people who they have shot would disagree.
    Akrasia wrote:
    You watch too much Mad Max
    I notice you still haven't answered the question.
    Akrasia wrote:
    Each town would have organised defence militia or another self defence mechanism
    Would they now. Run by who exactly, and where would each town get its weapons and training?
    Akrasia wrote:
    There is nothing in anarchism that means people wouldn't trade or cooperate with outside societies. There is nothing to say Anarchists wouldn't have guns to defend themselves with.
    Its all very well saying "Oh, well of course we would have guns and a well trained police force" But you completely ignore the question of how you would have this in the first place. You cannot just wish it into existence when you suddenly decide you need it.

    Where would these guns come from. Is each town going to make their own guns. Where is the raw material for these guns going to come from? Is each town going to have its own mine, refinery, workshop, trained personal.

    Is each town going to get the guns from some where else? Where exactly, and what would they trade for these guns? Skills? That makes no sense if the town that produces the guns is 200 miles away. Money, are they going to trade money. Well now this is just common of garden capitalism.

    Any scenario that goes beyond the very naive simple examples you guys come up with falls completely flat on its face. Human civilisation did all this about 10,000 years ago, and grew beyond it pretty quickly because it simply does not work in the long term.
    Akrasia wrote:
    really? So anarchists are all cowards and wouldn't defend their homes, unlike, lets say, capitalists.
    Defend their homes with what exactly?
    Akrasia wrote:
    The motivation of money is greater than the motivation to protect their families and communities? get real would you,
    No the motivation for survival is greater than the motivation for suicide. I would have thought that would be obvious.
    Akrasia wrote:
    In the Spanish Civil war, the anarchists held the lines against franco for years with very little resources while the spanish regular army was training in the rear. They did this out of duty and because it was necessary, not for money.

    4 years actually. And then they imploded with infighting and disagreement. Clearly a model for us all.
    Akrasia wrote:
    You're confusing government with governance.
    There is always governance of some form or another, but government is a very new invention.
    Government is not a new invention, it is has been around for thousands of years, precisely to solve the problems of the impractical nature of the type of direct democracy that you subscribe to.

    Are you honestly suggesting that every time there is a single decision to be made about anything happening in the community all 4 million people get together and have it out in a big hall for a week?
    Akrasia wrote:
    Anarchists are not opposed to organisation. Communities will organise according to the principles of direct democracy and solidarity.
    Will they now :rolleyes:

    What is the largest size you think that will actually work? 100 people? 1,000 people? 10,000 people?
    Akrasia wrote:
    That person can't survive on medicine or Oil or whatever alone. He/she needs to work within the framework of the existing society to secure his/her other needs.
    And ... ?

    Are you saying that Bill the baker who lives 300 miles away will with hold bread from him unless he gives your wife medicine?
    Akrasia wrote:
    It would never be eliminated, but rather than be rewarded for sociopathic behaviour (as is what happens in capitalism) they would be stigmatised such selfish behaviour would have negative consequences.
    How would they have negative consequences? Who would enforce these negative consequences?
    Akrasia wrote:
    How is that problem solved in capitalism anyway?
    You solve it by the state paying for the medicine in an organised fashion. The state collects taxes from everyone, turns the tax into produces and then distributes these to those that need it most in society. It is called Social Democracy, and it is a system that has actually worked for more than 4 years at a time ...


  • #189
    Zombrex
    Closed Accounts Posts: 25,848 ✭✭✭✭Zombrex


    FionnMatthew wrote:
    Do you even know what postmodernism is?

    Because it's got nothing to do with the interpretation of history.
    I do know what post-modernism is, but clearly you don't, since post-modernism has directly effected the interpretation of history since the 1960s. Thankfully this rather ridiculous period seems to be drawing to an end.
    FionnMatthew wrote:
    I suppose I'll be as "naive" as you want me to be, as long as you're making up your own conversation.
    Should I make up someone else's :rolleyes:
    FionnMatthew wrote:
    There is no LA. There is no New York. Areas of that kind of population density don't any longer exist. All communities are supplied locally for basic necessities.

    All communities are supplied locally for basic necessities. Are you serious?

    Ok, so none of these communities have modern electronics, modern communication systems, modern power or energy systems, any methods of producing mass energy (oil, gas, sun, hydro and wave are out), any access to raw materials such as iron or wood, access to food supplies, or access to modern medicine or hospitals. If it doesn't grow or sit in the vicinity of the community you basically don't have it.

    Sounds lovely Fionn, where do I sign up. I always wanted to live in the stone age :rolleyes:
    FionnMatthew wrote:
    imagining how an anarchistic society could be made to work.
    Why would one want to. The problems vastly out way any perceived benefits. For a start I like having modern medicine and access to clean water.
    FionnMatthew wrote:
    He's still being fed, and his peers are worried for his mental health, and are about to do everything they can to aid him in rehabilitation.
    Except he didn't do anything. So now he is being kept alive on the bear essentials and forced to rehabilitate for something he didn't do. Sounds pretty Stalinist to me.
    FionnMatthew wrote:
    No. I won't do that. Because the way you presented the situation implied that the child did it in front of everyone, and that it was an unequivocal matter of fact about what had happened, and that we didn't have to take into account any doubt as to whether he had done it.
    There is always doubt Fionn. The 2 boys say that the kid did it in front of them. Are they lying? Is the kid lying. Lets call in the police force. I'm sure the 3 guys who have actually volunteered to be police and have absolutely no training in how to handle crime will be able to figure this one out.
    FionnMatthew wrote:
    We were, after all, talking about a drastically simplified, almost figurative situation. If you want to start introducing uncertainty factors without prior warning, you're just guilty of sleight of hand.

    That is the whole point Fionn.

    Your system ignores the complex nature of human reality, and pretend that all problems have simple clear cut solutions. In reality nothing is simple. If all crime and fraud took place in front of 50 witnesses the criminal system in Ireland would work a lot better than it currently does.

    You have gone through what you would do if this person was caught stealing apples. At no point did you mention how anyone would actually determine if he was guilty or not. It was just assumed he was guilty, and he was punished.
    FionnMatthew wrote:
    I should note that if he were found with three apples, when he was only rationally entitled to one, and could only give acceptable argument for having one, then we know he took them. But wait! We don't need to. Because we're not going to punish him.
    You are not going to punish him. So basically anyone can do what they like and nothing will happen to him? Sounds like a great idea. Bit contradictory to what you have already said about how the system will balance because people will shun those who do not conform. But I appreciate that you are making this up as you go along.
    FionnMatthew wrote:
    If this all sounds silly, it's because it's a silly thought experiment.
    They are often the best at finding holds in what on the surface appear like a good idea.
    FionnMatthew wrote:
    They make a conscious, volitional choice to uphold the pattern of behavior which underpins this form of social organization, because they believe in it, because they know how it works, because they have felt its benefits, because they are not sociopathic, because they've never know anything else. And because of this, it works.

    And when someone doesn't, what then?
    FionnMatthew wrote:
    If everyone believed in such a form of social organization the way the common individual unquestioningly believes in the present one, it would work.
    That is what the communists said. Of course it never happened, but the problem was they kept believing it had happened. And they got screwed by this faith.

    Explain to me how you would know that everyone does believe, and will always believe?

    If you admit that for anarchism to work everyone, absolutely everyone, must subscribe to the notions fully, with no possibility of ever experiencing the negative emotions of the human condition (ie robots), how would you ever know this had been achieved. And if you didn't know how could you ever proceed.
    FionnMatthew wrote:
    Less people would have a very good reason to wish ill towards another.
    Actually they would have far more reason to wish ill towards another because they are no being restricted by society as to what they can and cannot do. If you want 2 apples screw you you can only have 1.
    FionnMatthew wrote:
    If he stole three apples and had them repossessed, he still gets one apple.
    So there is no down side to stealing the apples? Surely then he will just keep trying over and over, playing the odds that he won't get caught

    Is there a down side to shooting you in the face? Or raping your wife?
    FionnMatthew wrote:
    He's still given the food he's entitled to if he asks for it.
    What if the person doesn't want to give him the food?
    FionnMatthew wrote:
    That's just stupid. Why would his family be shunned too?
    Because people get pretty sick and tired of criminals, obviously.
    FionnMatthew wrote:
    and an initiative in place to help and rehabilitate him.
    Run by who?

    Its all very well to say "Well we would fix him so he doesn't do it again". How would you do this?


  • #190
    Zombrex
    Closed Accounts Posts: 25,848 ✭✭✭✭Zombrex


    This discussion, if one could call it that (I find it rather ironic that an anarchist who believes in the over whelming desire of humanity to cooperate with each other would spend most of his time getting very worked up and calling other posters "idiots", clearly he isn't read for this Utopia), reminds me of a conversation I had with a friend of mine about starting an internet company.

    I asked my friend what he thought we should do, and he said we should start a online credit card handling company, for handling online shops.

    I pointed out to my friend that we actually don't know anything about credit card processing.

    Not to worry he told me. We would simply hire people who did know this stuff.

    I looked at him for a minute to see if he was taking the piss. But he appeared serious.

    I tried a different tact and pointed out that we had no money. Not to worry he said again, we should have no trouble attracting investors and grants from the government.

    Again I looked at him. I posed the obvious question. If it were that simple to set up a company, if it was just a case of hiring staff who know everything, and getting money off the government and investors for everything, why doesn't everyone just do it.

    He wasn't quite sure how to respond to that, but mumbled something about people not having the vision or the know how. It didn't seem to occur to him that we had neither vision or know how.

    That conversation kept running through my mind while I've been reading these posts. All I seem to be getting in reply is vague answers that such and such will just be done.

    Have a problem with crime in an anarchist society? Simple, rehabilitate the person. Problem solved.

    Have a problem with distribution? Simple, "educate" people so that they understand the needs of society as a whole and they never want more than they need, and they never need more than society as a whole can give them.

    Have a problem with democracy? Simple, decentralise democracy. Everyone will form into orderly communities of small numbers and they will vote on every decision. And those that lose the vote will abide by the decision willingly. Everyone will want to do this because of the education program above

    Have a problem with security. Simple, every one of these communities will have a well stocked and trained militia group that can defend the community against all threats, and when faced with a major threat everyone will take up arms to defined their own family and home. They will of course never use these arms against the community because of the mythical education program above.

    Reading all this I can only stare with the same bewilderment as I stared at my friend and his "simple" answers to all the problems of starting a business. If it was that simple everyone would already be doing it.

    Its all very well to simply say "Oh, well, we would do this, or this wouldn't be necessary because that wouldn't happen or this would happen".

    Anyone can do that. You can do that about capitalism (as those who preach corporate responsibility lead by the market as the answer to corporate abuse do). You can do it about any system.

    The point is that just because you say something will happen doesn't mean it will or that it even can happen.

    There is nothing that has been describe here that is in any way practical. Its all very well saying "We would do this" but when actually challenge these ideas all fall part.


  • #191
    eoin5
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,141 ✭✭✭eoin5


    Wicknight whats wrong with explaining theory at that level? To go any deeper is to explain detailed implementation.


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  • #192
    Zombrex
    Closed Accounts Posts: 25,848 ✭✭✭✭Zombrex


    eoin5 wrote:
    Wicknight whats wrong with explaining theory at that level? To go any deeper is to explain detailed implementation.

    The problem is that you talk about the theory as if it can be implemented. You are assuming something will work (everyone will want to be co-operative because of this "education" they will be given) and you then move on to the next bit that is founded upon that original assumption. You then build a house of cards.

    "Capitalism", which you guys all throw up as the source of all evil, would work perfectly fine if you kept it that level, making anarchism completely unnecessary.

    We will simple educate people to respect each other so no one will feel greed. There problem of capitalism solved. We can now enjoy the benefits, such as long distance transactions and economy. But because of "education" people will put society first and no one will grow too rich while some are too poor. Wonderful.

    Of course you guys would be the first to point out that that is ridiculous, within the system you cannot simply educate all the people to not abuse the system. If you could we no doubt would have tried already.

    At the high level abstract "Oh sure we will just do this, this and this" level that you guys discuss anarchism any political system looks rosy. It is only when you start considering "Ok, what if can't actually do this, this and this" that one starts to see how totally impractical the entire idea is.

    Anarchism removes the scaffolding of modern society that holds the systems together when things go wrong, scaffolding that was 6,000 years in the making.

    It justifies this by simply planning that things will never go wrong.


  • #193
    Zombrex
    Closed Accounts Posts: 25,848 ✭✭✭✭Zombrex


    Akrasia wrote:
    It would never be eliminated, but rather than be rewarded for sociopathic behaviour (as is what happens in capitalism) they would be stigmatised such selfish behaviour would have negative consequences.

    Come back to this point. How would they be "stigmatised"

    Foinn has already explained that if a person steals something, or commits a crime nothing happens to them beyond attempt to rehabilitate them.

    What in your mind is the correct "negative consequence" of not playing by the rules. Say I go looking to get bread. Leaving aside the nonsense of unlimited resources, say the baker has bread but doesn't give me any because I can't offer him nothing useful in return. And I got his daughter pregnant. What happens to the baker?


  • #194
    Akrasia
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2, Paid Member Posts: 23,563 ✭✭✭✭Akrasia


    Wicknight wrote:
    No, that would be the army. You do remember we had a civil war in this country that was suppressed by the army.


    I'm pretty sure that the people who they have shot would disagree.


    I notice you still haven't answered the question.


    Would they now. Run by who exactly, and where would each town get its weapons and training?


    Its all very well saying "Oh, well of course we would have guns and a well trained police force" But you completely ignore the question of how you would have this in the first place. You cannot just wish it into existence when you suddenly decide you need it.

    Where would these guns come from. Is each town going to make their own guns. Where is the raw material for these guns going to come from? Is each town going to have its own mine, refinery, workshop, trained personal.

    Is each town going to get the guns from some where else? Where exactly, and what would they trade for these guns? Skills? That makes no sense if the town that produces the guns is 200 miles away. Money, are they going to trade money. Well now this is just common of garden capitalism.

    Any scenario that goes beyond the very naive simple examples you guys come up with falls completely flat on its face. Human civilisation did all this about 10,000 years ago, and grew beyond it pretty quickly because it simply does not work in the long term.


    Defend their homes with what exactly?
    This entire portion of your response is based on the false assumption that anarchist communities wouldn't have weapons and are all supposed to be self sufficient. Nowhere anywhere did I say that, and I have already explained some of the ways different communities, syndicates, cooperatives and federations would trade with each other. There are several different models they could adopt that would facilitate this.
    No the motivation for survival is greater than the motivation for suicide. I would have thought that would be obvious.
    What is that supposed to mean? It makes no sense in any context of this discussion.
    4 years actually. And then they imploded with infighting and disagreement. Clearly a model for us all.
    Actually, the anarchist collectives prospered until Franco's army overwhelmed their defences. (and only with massive support from outside) The infighting you refer to is probably related to the subversive activities of the Russian communist party who were trying to destroy the anarchists in Spain. This is a failure of authoritarianism, not anarchism.
    Government is not a new invention, it is has been around for thousands of years, precisely to solve the problems of the impractical nature of the type of direct democracy that you subscribe to.
    Human civilisation has existed for millions of years. Government was only invented 2000 years ago and then only for a short while before it collapsed and was only reborn in the 18th century. The dominant form of governance by a massive margin was and is dictatorship.
    Are you honestly suggesting that every time there is a single decision to be made about anything happening in the community all 4 million people get together and have it out in a big hall for a week?
    No of course I'm not. First of all, the vast majority of decisions wouldn't affect all 4 million people. Decisions would always be made at the lowest effective level. Secondly. For bigger policy decisions that affect wider areas, Anarchists typically favour a delegates system, where local communities hold meetings and vote on proposals, then send a delegate to a delegates meeting with a strict mandate to communicate the decision of the group and the delegates negotiate a compromise between the various proposals and then return back to the community to ratify or amend the proposals. The more people affected by the decision, the more levels of democracy there would need to be.

    This is different from representative democracy in several key reasons.
    firstly because the proposals originate from the ordinary people and are only ratified by the delegates, and not the other way around

    The delegates are immediately recallable and have no mandate to deviate from the wishes of the community

    This is an effective way of organising and is used by the Zapatistas in the Chiapas region of Mexico
    What is the largest size you think that will actually work? 100 people? 1,000 people? 10,000 people?
    what is the population of the planet? 6 billion people? that number


    And ... ?

    Are you saying that Bill the baker who lives 300 miles away will with hold bread from him unless he gives your wife medicine? [/quote]
    Bill the baker, unless he is a hermit, lives in a community who would help him to secure the much needed medicine for his sick wife. You have a terribly hard time departing from the current individualist mindset (which is a modern late 20th century invention)
    How would they have negative consequences? Who would enforce these negative consequences?
    Shame, Loss of trust, damage to reputation and status.

    In capitalism, you can buy status, in anarchism you would have to earn it

    Chomsky(2017) on the Republican party

    "Has there ever been an organisation in human history that is dedicated, with such commitment, to the destruction of organised human life on Earth?"



  • #195
    Akrasia
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2, Paid Member Posts: 23,563 ✭✭✭✭Akrasia


    Wicknight wrote:
    Come back to this point. How would they be "stigmatised"

    Foinn has already explained that if a person steals something, or commits a crime nothing happens to them beyond attempt to rehabilitate them.

    What in your mind is the correct "negative consequence" of not playing by the rules. Say I go looking to get bread. Leaving aside the nonsense of unlimited resources, say the baker has bread but doesn't give me any because I can't offer him nothing useful in return. And I got his daughter pregnant. What happens to the baker?

    Again, you're confusing anarchism with some kind of primitive barter society.
    There are lots of different ways anarchists would organise food distribution.

    If someone has demonstrated severe character flaws, if he routinely tries to bully another person or extort him, his reputation in the community would be damaged and he/she would be less likely to be elected to any position of responsibility. If he has no responsibility, he will be less likely to be in a position to cause harm.

    Chomsky(2017) on the Republican party

    "Has there ever been an organisation in human history that is dedicated, with such commitment, to the destruction of organised human life on Earth?"



  • #196
    Akrasia
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2, Paid Member Posts: 23,563 ✭✭✭✭Akrasia


    Wicknight wrote:
    The problem is that you talk about the theory as if it can be implemented. You are assuming something will work (everyone will want to be co-operative because of this "education" they will be given) and you then move on to the next bit that is founded upon that original assumption. You then build a house of cards.
    Look, I know it's complicated, but you're missing a crucial point.

    With a few fundamental changes to the way we make decisions and organise our economy, we can engineer a society that rewards different kinds of behaviour. We do not need to rely on the 'good nature' of others and it is not a Utopia. Capitalism through its singular focus on competition rewards greed, individualism corruption and deception, so it is no surprise that a capitalist society is permeated with those qualities.
    Anarchism, through fundamental changes to private property and the decision making process, rewards cooperation, (capitalism actually forbids cooperation if it affects competition).
    If you change the rules to a game, the players will behave in a different way to maximise the benefit according to the new framework.
    "Capitalism", which you guys all throw up as the source of all evil, would work perfectly fine if you kept it that level, making anarchism completely unnecessary.
    Actually, capitalism, if it worked purely on the competitive market economy and there was no socialist element, would collapse very quickly under the weight of the enormous human suffering it would cause.
    We will simple educate people to respect each other so no one will feel greed. There problem of capitalism solved. We can now enjoy the benefits, such as long distance transactions and economy. But because of "education" people will put society first and no one will grow too rich while some are too poor. Wonderful.
    No, its not 'because of education'. You engineer the system to prevent some people from hoarding resources. Without property rights, it would be impossible for some people to be billionaires and the majority to live on less than a dollar a day.
    Greed is the biggest flaw in capitalism. It is going to result in it's eventual collapse because there are no measures to address it. Anarchism recognises the problem and designs a system to prevent greed from taking over.
    Anarchism removes the scaffolding of modern society that holds the systems together when things go wrong, scaffolding that was 6,000 years in the making.
    Eventually scaffolding is supposed to come down so the structure can stand by itself. What capitalism has done is build a leaning tower that can not stand, it is unsustainable and cruel and when it collapses it will fall and crush billions of people. But out of the rubble we are going to need an alternative and only a complete idiot would follow the same plans for the same leaning tower that has just fallen over.
    It justifies this by simply planning that things will never go wrong.
    I have never said this is a utopia, You're the one who keeps using that word. Fionn seems to be arguing this from a strictly theoretical framework. (and I don't agree with him on some points, particularly, that anarchist communities should be self sufficient, perhaps i have interpreted him wrong) But I actually think this is a viable system that could operate within a real world context and deal with the real problems it would need to address.
    (Although it would require certain conditions to exist before it would be viable)

    Chomsky(2017) on the Republican party

    "Has there ever been an organisation in human history that is dedicated, with such commitment, to the destruction of organised human life on Earth?"



  • #197
    FionnMatthew
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 644 ✭✭✭FionnMatthew


    Wicknight wrote:
    Why would one want to. The problems vastly out way any perceived benefits. For a start I like having modern medicine and access to clean water.
    Look at this sentence. Just look at it! You don't want to humor the idea of ironing out the problems in anarchism, because the problems outweigh the benefits?

    Again, those problems are exactly the kind of problems you should be trying to iron out of the theory instead of pointing gleefully at them and shouting "BOOM!"
    Wicknight wrote:
    Its all very well saying "Oh, well of course we would have guns and a well trained police force" But you completely ignore the question of how you would have this in the first place. You cannot just wish it into existence when you suddenly decide you need it.
    Actually, Wicknight, this is precisely what we can do. Unwittingly, you've pinpointed exactly where you're misunderstanding what's going on here.

    We're not running an experimental society here. We're running a hypothetical one.

    We imagined it into existence. It's part of the process of free association and imaginative experimentation that we can actually wish a part of an imaginary society into existence when we decide we need it.

    That is precisely what we're doing here.


  • #198
    Zombrex
    Closed Accounts Posts: 25,848 ✭✭✭✭Zombrex


    Akrasia wrote:
    If someone has demonstrated severe character flaws, if he routinely tries to bully another person or extort him, his reputation in the community would be damaged and he/she would be less likely to be elected to any position of responsibility. If he has no responsibility, he will be less likely to be in a position to cause harm.

    That doesn't work in the current system (Bev Copper Flynn anyone), what makes you think it will work in your system?


  • #199
    Zombrex
    Closed Accounts Posts: 25,848 ✭✭✭✭Zombrex


    Akrasia wrote:
    Bill the baker, unless he is a hermit, lives in a community who would help him to secure the much needed medicine for his sick wife. You have a terribly hard time departing from the current individualist mindset (which is a modern late 20th century invention)

    That easy is it :rolleyes:

    How exactly would they help him secure the much needed medicine for his sick wife? How much time does each person devote to your sick wife, and what happens to everything else they are supposed to be doing.

    You fail to realise that this is the problem that centralized government solves that anarchism doesn't. You just assume everyone will drop everything and help his sick wife. But there are millions of sick wives.And millions of other problems. As anyone who has been in a disaster knows that leads to chaos. You need central organization.


  • #200
    Zombrex
    Closed Accounts Posts: 25,848 ✭✭✭✭Zombrex


    Akrasia wrote:
    With a few fundamental changes to the way we make decisions and organise our economy, we can engineer a society that rewards different kinds of behaviour.
    You can say that over and over but just because you do doesn't mean it is actually true.
    Akrasia wrote:
    Capitalism through its singular focus on competition rewards greed, individualism corruption and deception, so it is no surprise that a capitalist society is permeated with those qualities.
    Greed and corruption are not products of capitalism. That is the singular point you are failing to realize.

    Systems such as capitalism and democratic representation were invented to solve the very problems anarchism doesn't solve, that being the fact that people neither have the ability nor the time to devote to managing the lives of everyone else.

    The goal of capitalism is not greed, nor does it produce it it exists already, so the idea that replacing capitalism will fix these problems doesn't work.

    The goal of democratic representation is not corruption, again replacing that will not fix the problem (in fact it will make it a lot worse)
    Akrasia wrote:
    No, its not 'because of education'. You engineer the system to prevent some people from hoarding resources. Without property rights, it would be impossible for some people to be billionaires and the majority to live on less than a dollar a day.

    Yes, but it is also impossible to get anything done. Which you guys don't seem to mind.
    Akrasia wrote:
    Greed is the biggest flaw in capitalism. It is going to result in it's eventual collapse because there are no measures to address it.
    There are measures to address it, its called social democracy. You live in one.
    Akrasia wrote:
    Anarchism recognises the problem and designs a system to prevent greed from taking over.

    But you aren't eliminating greed! You are simply pretending that it won't exist any more.

    That isn't the same thing at all, as the Soviets found out.

    There is absolutely nothing in your system that stops people being greedy, beyond some vague notion that they will feel bad if they do.

    Clearly those who are greedy at the moment don't feel that bad, so why exactly do you think they will in your system?


  • #201
    Akrasia
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2, Paid Member Posts: 23,563 ✭✭✭✭Akrasia


    Wicknight wrote:
    That doesn't work in the current system (Bev Copper Flynn anyone), what makes you think it will work in your system?

    Completely different system.

    Political clientelism exists because the representatives have huge power, and even if they are corrupt, they can get re-elected because they deliver for their local community.
    In anarchism, the delegates don't have any power. If the delegates are corrupt, their corruption will be damaging to the people they represent, and people wont tolerate that.

    Chomsky(2017) on the Republican party

    "Has there ever been an organisation in human history that is dedicated, with such commitment, to the destruction of organised human life on Earth?"



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  • #202
    Zombrex
    Closed Accounts Posts: 25,848 ✭✭✭✭Zombrex


    FionnMatthew wrote:
    Look at this sentence. Just look at it! You don't want to humor the idea of ironing out the problems in anarchism, because the problems outweigh the benefits?
    Pretty much. Why would anyone push forward with a political system that is unworkable?
    FionnMatthew wrote:
    Again, those problems are exactly the kind of problems you should be trying to iron out of the theory instead of pointing gleefully at them and shouting "BOOM!"

    Why? What is so great about anarchism?

    The problem with anarchism is that it has been sit up from the very start by the idealists at "THE ANSWER" Anarchism will solve the problems of the world. We don't know how, but it will.

    Now you have no idea how it is actually practically going to do this, but you know it must because that is part of the definition. It is the solution, it is defined as being the solution.

    So you think that we must work on it, that the solution is there to be found and it will come through anarchism. So when I say that is pointless you throw your hands up and ask do I not want to find the best way for man kind to live, do I not want to find the solution.

    When you actually find the solution, get back to me. Until then I see nothing special about anarchism as a political system. It is very flawed and impractical. Why you waste time on it is beyond me. What exactly do you think it will achieve?


  • #203
    Akrasia
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2, Paid Member Posts: 23,563 ✭✭✭✭Akrasia


    Wicknight wrote:
    That easy is it :rolleyes:

    How exactly would they help him secure the much needed medicine for his sick wife? How much time does each person devote to your sick wife, and what happens to everything else they are supposed to be doing.

    You fail to realise that this is the problem that centralized government solves that anarchism doesn't. You just assume everyone will drop everything and help his sick wife. But there are millions of sick wives.And millions of other problems. As anyone who has been in a disaster knows that leads to chaos. You need central organization.
    There would be hospitals and pharmacies run on a cooperative basis. You're assuming that the sick person would stay in bed while the husband goes off to seek the medicine man.
    The medicines would be sourced in the same way as other raw materials are.

    There are various mechanisms that would work. I've already discussed them

    Chomsky(2017) on the Republican party

    "Has there ever been an organisation in human history that is dedicated, with such commitment, to the destruction of organised human life on Earth?"



  • #204
    Zombrex
    Closed Accounts Posts: 25,848 ✭✭✭✭Zombrex


    Akrasia wrote:
    In anarchism, the delegates don't have any power.
    Then what exactly do they do? Are you saying they do nothing?
    Akrasia wrote:
    If the delegates are corrupt, their corruption will be damaging to the people they represent, and people wont tolerate that.

    That doesn't hold, in modern democracy or anarchism. It won't be damaging to the people they represent, it will be damaging to someone else. That is the very nature of corruption.

    You might as well say Bev will be damaging to the area of Mayo and therefore the people won't vote for her. Except she wasn't, or at least when she was the people didn't even realise she was.


  • #205
    Thomas_S_Hunterson
    Closed Accounts Posts: 6,151 ✭✭✭Thomas_S_Hunterson


    This argument's getting a bit silly, having read the last couple of pages. It seems we've got two irreconcilable sides each trying to convince the other...but anywho.

    As much as anarchists may try and distance themselves from the Sex Pistols, it seems pretty clear that this whole concept of Anarchism is born out of naivety, teen angst and idealism, which you deperately try to legitamise and vindicate.

    The fact is, while a nice thought, it doesn't work.

    Why the hell would anyone settle for the same conditions as everyone else, when they could have it better? They wouldn't, ergo the system breaks down.


  • #206
    Akrasia
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2, Paid Member Posts: 23,563 ✭✭✭✭Akrasia


    Wicknight wrote:
    You can say that over and over but just because you do doesn't mean it is actually true.
    Of course its true.
    It happens all around you. Corporations are specifically designed economic machines with specific properties that are regulated by law. If you change the law so that instead of ordering them to 'maximise profit' they had to be democratically accountable or environmentally sustainable, then they would exhibit different characteristics.

    If you allow ownership of 95% of the worlds resources in the hands of 5% of the worlds people, the same 5% that happen to be the most greedy, then you are going to see a very different kind of economy and society than if you give control over those same resources to the ordinary people who have to live with the direct consequences of the production process.

    Greed and corruption are not products of capitalism. That is the singular point you are failing to realize.
    Did I say that? No. What I have said several times to you, is that Capitalism promotes this kind of behaviour.
    The goal of capitalism is not greed, nor does it produce it it exists already, so the idea that replacing capitalism will fix these problems doesn't work.
    It does not produce it, it encourages it. And the goal of capitalism IS greed. The whole system revolves around 'the profit incentive' and not just adequate profits, Maximum profits. Even if that means 100 million for the boss, and minimum wage for the workers. Capitalism actively discourages socialism or any kind of altruistic activity (unless it can be demonstrated to be a marketing activity that will increase profits in the medium term.)

    Anarchism does not pretend to 'fix' the problem of greed. But it does take measures to reduce its impact.
    The goal of democratic representation is not corruption, again replacing that will not fix the problem (in fact it will make it a lot worse)
    The system is so flawed that it amounts to a corrupt system. And anyway, it is not democratic. That is a fraud. It is a system designed to promote stability so that the capitalists can go about pursuing their profits.

    Yes, but it is also impossible to get anything done. Which you guys don't seem to mind.
    More rubbish. Co-operative forms of production are extremely efficient. There have been studies that show that they are more efficient than the alternative capitalist version.
    There are measures to address it, its called social democracy. You live in one.
    Ireland has done nothing to address the problem of greed. the richest 1% of the irish population controls 40% of all the resources, and we have one of the lowest levels of socialist redistribution of anywhere in the OECD

    But you aren't eliminating greed! You are simply pretending that it won't exist any more.


    That isn't the same thing at all, as the Soviets found out.

    There is absolutely nothing in your system that stops people being greedy, beyond some vague notion that they will feel bad if they do.

    Clearly those who are greedy at the moment don't feel that bad, so why exactly do you think they will in your system?
    [/quote] Again, I never said I was eliminating it. You can be as greedy as you like in an anarchist society, but without the ability to own investment property or control labour other than your own, you're never going to be able to accumulate as much as someone in a capitalist system. Sure, You might have a nicer home than someone else, but that's a huge improvement over the economic and political power wealth gives in capitalism

    Chomsky(2017) on the Republican party

    "Has there ever been an organisation in human history that is dedicated, with such commitment, to the destruction of organised human life on Earth?"



  • #207
    Akrasia
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2, Paid Member Posts: 23,563 ✭✭✭✭Akrasia


    Sean_K wrote:
    This argument's getting a bit silly, having read the last couple of pages. It seems we've got two irreconcilable sides each trying to convince the other...but anywho.

    As much as anarchists may try and distance themselves from the Sex Pistols, it seems pretty clear that this whole concept of Anarchism is born out of naivety, teen angst and idealism, which you deperately try to legitamise and vindicate.

    The fact is, while a nice thought, it doesn't work.

    Why the hell would anyone settle for the same conditions as everyone else, when they could have it better? They wouldn't, ergo the system breaks down.
    the sex pistols have nothing to do with anarchism.

    Chomsky(2017) on the Republican party

    "Has there ever been an organisation in human history that is dedicated, with such commitment, to the destruction of organised human life on Earth?"



  • #208
    FionnMatthew
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 644 ✭✭✭FionnMatthew


    The problem with anarchism is that it has been sit up from the very start by the idealists at "THE ANSWER" Anarchism will solve the problems of the world. We don't know how, but it will.

    Now you have no idea how it is actually practically going to do this, but you know it must because that is part of the definition. It is the solution, it is defined as being the solution.

    So you think that we must work on it, that the solution is there to be found and it will come through anarchism. So when I say that is pointless you throw your hands up and ask do I not want to find the best way for man kind to live, do I not want to find the solution.

    When you actually find the solution, get back to me. Until then I see nothing special about anarchism as a political system. It is very flawed and impractical. Why you waste time on it is beyond me. What exactly do you think it will achieve?
    I'm going to put this in nice big letters for you. Please read it at least five times, and give yourself at least a half hour to mull over it, before you post again.

    I haven't said it's a solution. I haven't said any of those things. The person you are talking about in that paragraph is not me, it's just your own prejudices about anyone who might talk in anything but a negative way about "the way things might otherwise be."

    All I've done is entertain the notion that there could be society without a government, entertain the notion that this, in itself might not be a bad thing, and attempt to imagine what that would be like.

    Whether or not this society will be a good society or not, comparatively, is a matter for consideration at the final reckoning, not before any consideration of what such a society could be like.

    The implicit question in all intelligent discussion of alternative social organizations is:
    How might an anarchistic society be functional? Discuss.
    and not:
    Anarchism is the only good political system! HIT ME.

    So in answer to your question:
    Why? What is so great about anarchism?
    Nothing! Nothing is so great about anarchism. Not yet. And we'll never know, if you keep trying to topple the whole discussion with irrelevant objections to straw-man versions of the theory that you wouldn't even bother with if you'd read this thread from the beginning, because a great deal of your "pithy, salt-of-the-earth" style questions have already been answered, pages back.

    But I do know one thing. It's not bad just because it's called "anarchism", or because it's associated, randomly, in your diseased, clockwork reckoning, with the word "idealism".

    To prematurely squawk, "IT'S A FLAWED SYSTEM, SO I'M NOT BUYING IT", is to completely misinterpret the fundamental premise of why such a discussion is taking place. And I'm sorry, OscarBravo, but at this point it can't be ignored. It's either stupid, or deliberately antagonistic, or both.
    Wicknight wrote:
    Pretty much. Why would anyone push forward with a political system that is unworkable?
    Push forward??? We're theorizing here. It's an imaginative exercise.

    You don't know it's unworkable until you explore the theory as far as you can, charitably. If that's not up your alley, you are now manifestly in the wrong alley, because that's this alley, and you sitting in it, and snorting rudely at everyone who tries to get around you.


  • #209
    FionnMatthew
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 644 ✭✭✭FionnMatthew


    Akrasia wrote:
    Yes, but it is also impossible to get anything done. Which you guys don't seem to mind.
    More rubbish. Co-operative forms of production are extremely efficient. There have been studies that show that they are more efficient than the alternative capitalist version.
    Linux, for instance.


  • #210
    Akrasia
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2, Paid Member Posts: 23,563 ✭✭✭✭Akrasia


    Wicknight wrote:
    Then what exactly do they do? Are you saying they do nothing?
    They carry proposals forward and present them at a meeting of delegates, and then carry the results of that meeting back to the community. They are diplomats essentially. They have no power to make decisions, they can only communicate policies back and forth.

    Its not that hard to understand.
    That doesn't hold, in modern democracy or anarchism. It won't be damaging to the people they represent, it will be damaging to someone else. That is the very nature of corruption.

    You might as well say Bev will be damaging to the area of Mayo and therefore the people won't vote for her. Except she wasn't, or at least when she was the people didn't even realise she was.

    look try and concentrate. In representative democracy, Bev Flynn was elected by Mayo to legislate for the whole country. A significant proportion of the voters of Mayo dont care if she sells out the people of Kerry, as long as she gains concessions for Mayo.

    In Anarchism, the delegates only represent concrete wishes of the communities they are from. They have no power to make any decisions on their own and they certainly have no power to make decisions on behalf of other communities. Therefore, if they are corrupt, it will be to betray their own community and if that happens they will be found out and replaced immediately.

    They don't get to make back room deals, they have one clearly defined purpose, and that is it.

    Chomsky(2017) on the Republican party

    "Has there ever been an organisation in human history that is dedicated, with such commitment, to the destruction of organised human life on Earth?"



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  • #211
    eoin5
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,141 ✭✭✭eoin5


    Lads this is like making a map of Ireland including everything deeper and deeper until youve named all the atoms. Its a big waste of time and effort at this stage, someone should call time on it.


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