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Comment by Synaesthesia | Hacker News Reader

Anarchism is something which ought discussed more. Essentially the elimination of all unnecessary hierarchy and domination. For example we can make the workplace a democratically run institution, with shared profits. I think it’s an ideal which we ought to strive towards, which might only be realised in some future century.

>The consistent anarchist, then, should be a socialist, but a socialist of a particular sort. He will not only oppose alienated and specialized labor and look forward to the appropriation of capital by the whole body of workers, but he will also insist that this appropriation be direct, not exercised by some elite force acting in the name of the proletariat.

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> For example we can make the workplace a democratically run institution

the history of yugoslav workers self-management might interest you

https://transversal.at/transversal/0805/kuljic/en

There are a number of cooperatives that are very successful. Not in a capitalist way but providing the workers a honest and good life with much more freedom them usual companies. There is a good example in Brazil https://www.researchgate.net/publication/344119511_Flasko_A_...

Unfortunately they have to compete under the conditions of capitalism, which don't favour workers or enterprises that make worker happiness a priority, making long-term sustainability a huge challenge.

No system makes worker happiness a priority. At least none that can actually exist for a meaningful amount of time in the real world.

The 'real world' is not immutable, and even the current system has not existed for a particularly meaningful amount of time.

This idea, sometimes called "capitalist realism", that there is no feasible alternative to capitalism is completely unsupported by evidence. It is an ideological position, not an immutable fact of nature.

I always bring up Mondragon corporation. They've been up and running in some capacity since 1956, 66 years.

There are some criticism lodged against their operations, in that some employees are not worker-owners, but simply workers. I'd call this "slack", and I'd suggest "slack" is largely an artifact of a lack of other cooperatives. There is of course the fact that buy-in does cost money, which I would argue would necessarily set a floor for "tenure" in many cases.

Having said that, they have evinced a certain special robustness in the face of crises - in the 80's (iirc) for example, rather than laying people off, they sent them into their education programs.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zaJ1hfVPUe8 https://vimeo.com/161252994

Mondragon is a great and promising example; I tend to feel that, considering all the headwinds, for any alternative structure - statewise, organization-wise, etc, to succeed in even a small way is to be celebrated - and studied.

> Essentially the elimination of all unnecessary hierarchy and domination.

Not necessarily. Please see my other top-level comment in this thread.

Anarchy has a lot of definitions and sub types. Anarchy as complete lack of structure is always used to attack and denigrate it by its opponents, but it's not an inherent characteristic of anarchism itself. Anarchy does not have to mean everybody decides and we put everything to a vote.

Anarchy means you can leave whenever you want. Nobody forces you. No one has the monopoly on violence.

Free software is anarchic. It might have strict rules, and a tyrannical maintainer than only merges what he wants, but it's still anarchic because you can fork it.

Most people tend to be in anarchic relationship with each other, because no one can force something upon the other. That's something only the government does.

In fact, making money and profit does not have to be anti-anarchic. It's certainly against anarcho-communism, but that's just a subbranch of a wider social theory.

> Anarchy as complete lack of structure is always used to attack and denigrate it by its opponents

And has been for 150 years. There's a treatment of it in the Conquest of Bread where you get the impression that Kropotkin was already tired of it at the time.

> Not necessarily. Please see my other top-level comment in this thread.

You missed the glaring modifier UNECESSARY.

> Anarchy has a lot of definitions and sub types. Anarchy as complete lack of structure is always used to attack and denigrate it by its opponents,

You are the one who is taking “hierarchy and domination” to be synonyms for “structure”. Indeed: that anarchy is without structure or order has been a way to denigrate it since basically forever.

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