To anarchists

[Subversive Pessimist]

How would peace be kept in an anarchist society? What's to keep the mob or gangs from ruling?

What if the majority of people want to limit the freedom of others?

How would you keep every institution free without a big government there?

[Don't Change Your Name]

Originally posted by [email protected] 24 2004, 09:28 AM
How would peace be kept in an anarchist society? What's to keep the mob or gangs from ruling?
Why do you assume that mobs and gangs will appear and try to rule?
I want to make something clear, which many comrades forget to do: when someone tries to impose violence or authority over other people, then it's justified to do the same to them.


What if the majority of people want to limit the freedom of others?

I'd need an example for that. Nobody should force you to lose your freedom (unless you call "freedom" to go around killing others).

[Anarcho-Commie]

if a "big government" oversees a so called free institution it is not really free.

[RebeldePorLaPAZ]

Community controll

--Paz

[Abbie]

Interesting questions, and obviously ones that the Anarchist movement has recognized as being central to the validity of an Anarchic society.

How would peace be kept in an anarchist society? What's to keep the mob or gangs from ruling?

The simplest solution is the most popular: The idea is that the state relies on violence for all its activities to ensure its own survival, for example taxation and compliance with the laws of state. If a large portion of society were to simply stop participating, ceasing to provide the means of violence and oppression, than the state would collapse, producing an Anarchic society. Of course, in this new society, the large majority of the population would have rejected violence, so it would cease to be an issue. The aim of Anarchists, then, becomes not to construct mechanisms or institutions to control violence, but simply to convince a large portion of society to reject it altogether.

Other Anarchists have concluded that violence is simply a part of human nature, and would have to be contended with even in an Anarchic society. The majority believe that violence is only justified in self-defence, and would therefore seek the community to intervene on behalf of the wronged person, in an effort to mediate the problem. The ultimate belief here is that, in a society willing to accept anarchic communal ideals, the threat of mobs or gangs, alternatively referred to as warlordism, wouldn't be a problem as it would be contrary to the ideals of a large majority of the population.

What if the majority of people want to limit the freedom of others?

Again, this wouldn't be much of a problem. Number one, any society which would actively seek to limit the freedoms of others would no longer become an Anarchic society. It would become tyranny by majority, a sort of social equivalent to economic Communism.

Secondly, there would be no institutions in place to limit the freedom of others. A society wherein these mechanisms exist would, again, cease to be Anarchic.

How would you keep every institution free without a big government there?

I'm afraid I don't completely understand the question. The ideas of free institutions and big government are contradictory, although I might be misunderstanding what you're asking.