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Comment by rand846633 | Hacker News Reader

While there are many good answers to your question, here is mine, trying to answer as generic as possible:

Anarchy doesn't mean "everybody for themselves" in a chaotic sense. It advocates for the absence of a formal, hierarchical government, aiming for self-managed societies based on voluntary, cooperative institutions.

Here are key points:

1. Mutual Aid: Anarchists believe in mutual aid and voluntary cooperation rather than competition and individualism.

2. Horizontal Structures: They support horizontal organization without hierarchies, promoting collective decision-making.

3. Community Defense: Anarchist communities often organize collective defense mechanisms to protect individuals from oppression.

The concern about groups oppressing individuals is valid, but anarchists argue that decentralized, community-based approaches can mitigate this better than centralized power structures, which often lead to greater systemic oppression.

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What's important to add on here is that Chomsky wasn't a revolutionary anarchist. He talked a lot about changes within the existing framework [1] - such as increased power of labor - which were consistent with anarchist principles.

In general, it's important to generalize this. Most political philosophies are better understood and judged by the directions they demand existing societies move in rather than the final destination, which might never be achieved.

[1] EDIT: of the society he was living in, or see better comment below.

I think you're misstating it.

Chomsky has always been focused on pragmatic actions within the situation you are in. If that's Spain in the 1920s, he would be a Revolutionary Anarchist.

But most of the time he's speaking, it's not about Spain in the 1920s, so the specifics of actions that are pragmatic are different.

Similar to what you are saying, and I agree with some of what you're saying, but it would be incorrect to define Chomsky based on the tactics he feels are valid in a given situation.

That's fair. I have edited appropriately.

This is where conversations about anarchism often break down.

Forgetting the language about everyone being for themselves, parent’s question boils down to “what happens when people don’t cooperate?”. The answer to that can’t be “people will cooperate”.

I think when you’re thinking about social structures of all kinds a useful perspective is to ask whether you’re creating a prisoner’s dilemma, and what the consequences of that could be.

The answer to any philosophy containing "If everyone would just XYZ" is "No."

Anarchism doesn't require everyone to cooperate.

Anarchism requires identifying justifiable authority, and dismantling it.

Certainly unjustifiable authority won't cooperate.

Trying to figure out if that really leaves any room for non-cooperation.

It sounds a lot like "cooperation is voluntary but you will be dismantled if you don't"

It leaves room for non-cooperation. Although we really must define what non-cooperation means in this context.

Ending Slavery didn't leave room for the decision to non-cooperate with it, by continuing to own Slaves, or to be a Slave. Certainly depends on the specifics.

Just like Slavery was dismantled with no choice for those who wished it to continue.

Can it tolerate someone having private property?

This is a very difficult question to answer. Because it's a gradient.

Certainly it could tolerate it within a transition. You could imagine Worker controlled corporations entirely, however with private property still existing.

I also think it depends heavily on the definition of private property, which is a specific set of rules in every locality. Certainly some of those rules would be different.

But I think what you're getting at is, "What's the ideal?", and the answer I think would not tolerate private property.

But honestly, I'm not sure I believe that. Again, I can think of definitions I think work.

And if some communities wish to be anarcho-capitalist, would they be permitted, or would other communities try to interfere?

Problem is, we had these kinds of societies in the past, and they mostly got taken over and incorporated into societies with hierarchal structures, because those had militaries and were aggressive. Maybe I'm overstating that a little bit, but there was still plenty of conquest, and I don't see how a return to decentralized communities prevents that from playing out again.

Or alternatively, stops some communities from being raiders and pirates, and the eventual desire to have a stronger response that a hierarchy can bring to bear. At any rate, the current global order is very far from anarchy, and it's extremely difficult to see how it could be come about in part of the world without being taken over by countries with imperialistic ambitions. Imagine what Russia and China would do if somehow Europe and the US became anarchistic.

Thanks for the answer. I realize that the “everybody for themselves” part was not a correct assumption.

Are there any well working anarchic societies today?

No. There is one corporation that sort of followed the idea. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mondragon_Corporation

Recently people working there however have said it's moving further away from the core principals though.

The most successful Anarchist society was Spain, which is what the article is discussing.

Not sure about well working, but when visiting years ago, these villages here seemed more happy and prosperous than their “normal” neighbors: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zapatista_Army_of_National_L...

I mean this is great in theory, but in practice the first group that centralizes use of its resources quickly destroys each of the small groups in succession forcing the remaining groups to centralize. The centralized enemies will spend a massive amount in convincing your citizens that mutual/voluntary cooperation is bad (see Russia vs NATO).

Anarchists suffer the same problems as (actual) communists, fascist power seeking dickheads ruin reality for everyone. Power seeking behaviors have to be actively countered lest they pass an infection point they become self sustaining which requires a massive amount of coordination between parties.

This is precisely why these kinds of movements only work at small scale, or only for a short time at large scale before evolving into a power structure (by necessity).

Large scale horizontal structures simply don't work once the population exceeds the human capacity to remember everyone and their relationships to each other (approx 100-110 people). That's why ancient human foraging clans were always splitting at around 80-100 people until agrarian societies provided enough concentrated food and energy for specialization and hierarchy.

It's why horizontally organized companies start to fray after they grow beyond 100 people.

But you can separate into smaller groups, who send representatives. That's really why all this stuff ended up organized at the level of the individual shop, the individual factory.

The problem is when representatives that you send can't be recalled easily. You can think of this as a technical problem, since elections have been expensive historically to run.

There are ideas in the vein of "liquid democracy" that consider how we could arrange things with instant recall: e.g. if democracy were an app on my phone, and I could remove my support from my representative between the time they cast a vote and the time the vote is finalized, and replace them with somebody who will vote properly. This could be done completely without anger; I could restore the my support to the previous person after the vote. What it does is make my representative someone who I trust with my will for the moment not someone who owns my will.

It's a different perspective.

Yes, a different perspective on a subject that's somehow failed to materialize in any way (beyond 100 people for any reasonable length of time) after over a century of philosophical thought, theory, and attempts...

Heh, instant recall would be great... just make some fake news and spread it around quickly and just get everyone recalled before they've had time to engage their brain.

Really at the end of this day all your voting system turns into is a popularity contest of stars and rabid attention seekers that can hold the average public attention for longer than everyone else. I'm not saying our current system is good, I'm saying yours is hilariously bad.

> your voting system turns into a popularity contest with rabid attention seekers that can hold the average public attention for longer than anyone else

What? This is of course what we already have in many western democracies. Adding the hypothetical ability to "recall representatives easily" as the parent describes doesn't cause this problem.

The root of the issue here is just representative vs direct democracy, and GP is obviously correct that technology could be allowing us to create/withdraw support closer to real-time than whatever the election cycle is. Not to mention just having more of a voice on more issues, like why do we need the representatives anyway?

Since in the limit direct democracy basically is anarchic, these types of discussions are IMO one of the best ways to ground otherwise theoretical discussions about anarchism and avoids the trigger word.

The truth is that most people on all sides of the political spectrum only want elections until their preferred king is in charge, then they become staunch royalists, supporters of dynasties/dictators/fascists, whatever you want to call it.

My paradoxical observation is that people who really believe in democracy are almost always anarchists, deep down. To test yourself, just ask whether you want the government to do things "in the interest of the public", regardless of whether the public agrees that it is desirable. If you "want to protect the public" from actually having their own preferences because "they don't know better", this paternalism is right next door to fascism. It doesn't matter much whether you're forcing them to pay for good things like education programs, or for bad things like an unjust war. When you go down the road that "representatives are necessary because the people can't make decisions" or that "term limits are necessary because the public is fickle", you're really saying you just want democracy until your preferred king is installed.

> like why do we need the representatives anyway?

Because it is a full time job that most of us want to do for free.

I don't even have the time or resources to properly evaluate ballot propositions that come around every couple years let alone all the decisions made by people I elect and those they delegate to.

The reason Spain didn't work, which was on a large scale, is not do with anything you mentioned.

It was brutally crushed by all major nations in the world. You can't say how it wouldn't work otherwise, because it did work, and was crushed with violence.

Ah yes... "It only failed because of the concentrated efforts of THE ENEMY, who couldn't bear to see it succeed."

Now where have I heard that one before? Oh right, it was Putin, explaining why communism turned into a monster, and communism was in fact inflicted upon poor Russia by the west to destroy their socialist paradise...

This is how zealots speak. Their philosophy and their people are pure and innocent. Therefore any time it fails, it can only be THE ENEMY's influence.

It literally failed due to the concentrated efforts of the world. That's historical fact.

That doesn't mean it wouldn't have failed for specific reasons if allowed to continue, however we don't know what that failure would be, and stating it as was done, is a ridiculous idea.

Welcome to the world that will gladly concentrate its efforts against you, reiterating the point of the post above you.

Which may be the answer to this entire thread, anarchism isn't going to work unless the world decides to let it work (hint, people in power aren't going to let this happen).

That is a central issue with a society based on something other than the Authority of Privately owned dictatorships.

How to reasonably change from a method of complete control, to one which opens the door for other paths.

I don't disagree with that. It has been, and always will be the central question on how to remove dictatorships.

"THE ENEMY" will never allow it to work.

That's what keeps the idealist dream alive (for the struggle!), and why I'm not worried that you'll make any progress.

This is such a superficial argument against.

You can make much more substantive arguments against Anarchism that are reasoned, and reasonable. Making things up instead of understanding the historical record is a choice.

And yet some like the swiss survive the whole world preparing to come down on them.it can be done .. nowadays with weapons of mass destruction more than ever.

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