the anarchist answer

[Monks Aflame]

Some anarchist theory makes sense, but I do pose a few questions:
1) What happens to the military? Does it exist?
2) Is religion accepted?
3) If there is no government, no law, will there not be people who want to seize power and take advantage of the pacified society?

[Hegemonicretribution]

1)If people organised, and wanted yes. Although not really as you know it. You would not have ranks etc, not giving any man the oppurtunity to oppress anorther.

2)Each to his own. Thats kind of the point.

3)People might take advantage, survival of the fittest, not the one who has the richest family. People are given the cance to progress. Treat others as you would like to be treated yourself, because in anarchy this would be more important. Actually many values that we hide away in our society would be.

[Som]

The military would likely be whatever sort of force used to achieve this state, usually its some sort of workers militia.

When its unnecesary, it will likely shrink or so, besides of course plenty who choose to train on their own, and there would likely be some sort of armed general populace for all of this. Sort of an average mans democratic army.

Think of things along the lines of the american colonial militia during the revolutionary war, the minutemen. A whole army of unnofficial soldiers.

You call the society 'pacified', which is quite a mistake. I think it would be just the opposite, its a society of people that don't expect others to rule for them so likewise, they won't take kindly to that idea.
Those who attempt to sieze power will be well.. stopped, by whatever institutions are in place, and likely the general populace. The authority to stop authority a bit.

[Umoja]

I believe in more "centralized" communal anarchy anyway so:
1.) Millitia would serve as the millitary, and police force. Of course, there is the threat of revenge being a dividing point. Which does prove the danger of having individual families.
2.) Despite the fact I am one of the rare believers in so called "Religious Anarchy" I think, it'd be up to the community to decide what they thought of religion.
3.) I'm sure if people enjoy not being controlled, then few people would rally behind a person who was trying to gain control.

[Valkyrie]

Here's my vision of your questions.

1. There would not be a standing army or military. That whole military infrastructure would be dismantled along with WMD and all firearms in general. Anarchist society would cease warfare against humanity and would extend a peace treaty towards every individual person.

2. Organized Religion wouldn't exist with hierarchy and power structures. and there would be no persecution or suppression of people's individual beliefs.

3. People who wouldn't cooperate within society would probably either expatriate from the collective, or become self-imposedly ostracized from it to their disadvantage. Trying to seize power then would become secondary to the preoccupation of survival. The collective would not share their fruits with a spoiler..
Anyway, it would be hard to do considering #1, however, they are free to dissent & ***** and complain as much as they want.

the people would defend the revolution as hard as they have fought for it.



(Edited by Paris at 8:37 am on Mar. 24, 2003)

[Valkyrie]

I also think all the other replies are great viable possibilties. Anarchism listen to all ideas.

Also, it's not really a society without laws. It's a society without coerced laws put upon humanity.

[Umoja]

I think that tottally disarming a population brings more danger to their welfare, then it does good.

[Pete]

I agree that the community would be almost permanately militarized, that they would be able and willing to stand up for their way of life if threatened. The military would exist and not exist at the same time.

Religion is personal choice.

Many people claim this to be a flaw of anarchy. That some one will always take power and declare themselves emperor and everyone would have to follow them. It is the essense of anarchy to have no structure of this sort, so the people would not follow anyone they did not want to, if anyone. Power comes from the bottom. To topple a government all that need sto be done to have the people stop listening to it, since they only follow the rules becuase they want to. They may be conditioned to want to, or feel compelled (a result of the conditioning) but you can not be forced, short of death, to follow someone if you do not want to. And death ends it, you are no longer following.

I wrote somewhere about this. A few poems on the subject.

[Monks Aflame]

1) hmm, it seems the majority of people agree with the colonial milita idea as the structure of the military for an anarchist society. but if two cities, towns, or states dissented, would they get into milita battles? if so, how is the problem resolved?

2) I always thought religion was looked down upon under anarchist beliefs as a method of placating the people. Would some zealot following such people gain support and carry out purges throughout the area s/he occupies?

3) same as above, what if it isn't just complete take over for power, but rather, different beliefs on an issue. say, there's a revolutionary against the anarchist society, similar to many of us here with the US. if he gains underground support, could he not take villages one by one through a military supplied by an outside country that doesn't see eye-to-eye with the anarchist society?

[Som]

1)With the first example your taking it as way too statist an attitude. You said yourself 'towns, cities, or states', statist organizations.
Your missing the attitudes and buildup of these militias, they are not offensive militias and they are not full of people that simply take orders.

Its too simplistic to simply attribute an armed populace to regional and local interests that would go to the statist method of using people as pawns of their petty interests.

Though there might often be militias associated with specific confederations, like the anarcho-syndicalist trade union, none of these militia members are under any obligation to follow orders, so I think you'd have a tough time turning these people to fire on their neighbors.

Overall though, I think any militia, would simply be to...unofficial to function as anything but a defense force except in a time of desperate need.

2)Yes religion is generally looked downed by most anarchists as an authoritarian institution. best shown with the sentiment 'no gods, no masters'. But overall the point is that people will be to believe as they wish.

3) This seems to be the the most repetitive argument against anarchism, had a thread awile back where we had to do this for a few pages, hell, you've used it twice.
If theres merely different beliefs on an issue, theres no problem at all, and they each go their own way.
Like I've said, this is not a society thats simply going to be walked over. There are organizations of popular power, there will be delegations called, their will be organizing if all of this is necesary. If someone tries to institute authority, they will fight back for their freedom.

You could keep going on like this, but its really sort of useless, no society is invincible, and no society will ever be, though we should hope that in are anarchist society it will be alot harder for someone to go from no power at all and turn into an authoritarian institution, and the conditions for support of that type of institution won't really be there. The same applies to states, its obvious no state lasts forever and generally the state creates the conditions of its own demise, a problem not seen in an anarchist society.

[Monks Aflame]

1) in that case, I'll put forth the question of, what's a non-statist hierarchy of living space? You can't just take over every square inch of land and proclaim the entire thing a country and not divide it up, can you? Dealing with an entire mass would be more difficult and less efficient that smaller parts, right?

[Som]

What are you talking about 'hierarchy of living space'?

Hierarchy? theres none, thats the point a bit.

No ones proclaiming a country here, wherever a society frees itself and retains that freedom is the anarchist country.

Whats all this about division? You sound like your talking about property or something or something in that nature. Theres no property in anarchism. Property is theft, it is a coercive institution that used to steal, deprive and control.

Its no problem at all not to divide it up, thats half the game, It's a socialist society, its a society for everyone, by everyone. Occupation and use are the closest things to property and division of things.

Who's dealing with this entire mass of land? The people involved, people will organize as they choose. A voluntary form of commune will likely be very prevalent which would be the closest thing to some sort of division. Again, this is a voluntary association based on those involved with... whatever it is your dealing with.

Overall I'm not entirely sure what your getting at, though it seems your sort of reverting back to the set institutions of country, state, and town. The institutions are far more open than that.

[MiNdGaMe]

1) Military doesn't exist. Violence is somewhat eliminated. Worker militia's voluntary when in need, defend etc..
2) Organized religion is eliminated. Faith and beliefs are accepted by all and not persecuted. Religion restricts individuals freedom and liberty.
3) The majority of the society wish to keep the anarchist society, their will if any a small number of oppossers. Its simply a oppressive minority is over-powered by the majority.

[Monks Aflame]

no, som. sorry if I'm unclear. I meant, hierarchy as in nation, state, county, city, as the United States has. I was wondering if an anarchist society still had such structure.

[Pete]

I believe they would still have a semblance of structure, but an anarchist society would make Switzerland look over organized.

[Moondog]

I think anarchy leads to a form of dictatorship, like what Mohammed Farrah Aidid did in Somalia. If a charismatic person can influence the weak, or people who want a quick solution, he can gain power in a state of anarchy in Hitler-esque fashion. I'm not implying that post world war 1 Germany was in a state of anarchy, but very close to something of that effect. Cows are led to slaughter because they cant understand the consequences. Anarchy can not work in society, and I do not know of anywhere which it has.

[Som]

Ah, nation, state, and town sort of hierarchy.

Well, I suppose this would occur, though it would be quite a bit different.

The rough 'hierarchy' would be the individual, the commune, federation, confederation, and maybe eventually biofederation. Though keep in mind this isn't a 'hierarchy' at all. This is a bottom up organization, those at the 'top' have absolutly no power over those at the bottom. This bottom-up federalism basically works that the commune, municipality, collective, whatever unit of direct democracy, remeniscient of town meetings and such, they vote on a recallable delegate to be sent to a federation of communes, this federation of communes would elect a similiarly complelty recallable delegate to the confederation.

The confederation has absolutly no power over the federation, the federation has absolutly no power over the commune, and the commune probably doesn't have any power over the individual.

I'd expect these federations not to be solid institutions and change often. So overall these federations don't serve in the same function or context as cities, states and so on. Instead of methods of governing they are simply methods of coordination and organization.

I think anarchy leads to a form of dictatorship, like what Mohammed Farrah Aidid did in Somalia. If a charismatic person can influence the weak, or people who want a quick solution, he can gain power in a state of anarchy in Hitler-esque fashion. I'm not implying that post world war 1 Germany was in a state of anarchy, but very close to something of that effect.

This shows a clear lack of understanding of all the concepts of anarchy, I'd suggest you do some reading on it.
A collapse in government does NOT mean anarchy. A chaotic state of power struggle does NOT mean anarchy.
In somilia, there was never any challenge to authority at all, merely rival warlords.
Likewise in germany, there was never anything remotely comparable to anarchy, there was simply the immense failure of capitalism, which lead to the 'capitalism in decay' of fascism.

Anarchism is not purely a negative outlook, just because the state isn't necesarily intact, doesn't make it anarchy in the slightest. For it to be anarchy a society free of illigitimate authority and coercion must be built.

To quote emma goldman on it "Liberty can not descend on a people, a people must raise themselves to liberty"

... Didn't I respond to the concept of someone raising to power twice already? perhaps you should.. pay attention more

Anarchy can not work in society, and I do not know of anywhere which it has.

I don't think it should exactly be a suprise to you that anarchist history is conviently left out of the textbooks.

Everytime anarchy has been attempted it has worked. It has only been crushed from the outside.
For two years in Catalonia and Barcelona in Spain during the spanish civil war it worked wonderfully.
For a short period of time in the Ukraine between 1917 and 1921 anarchist ideals had much strength and implication.
Theres plenty of other less notable instances of anarchist societies coming into play. The zapatista rebellion in the chiapas Mexico for instance, ran and runs on anarchist principles, though they don't say it that way.

Bah, that post was like a trap.

[Moondog]

I never claimed to have any huge amount of knowledge on anarchy, just what I learned in high school. I specifically mentioned that Germany was not in a state of total anarchy. I learned in high school that anarchy is the lack of law, government, etc. I certainly didn't see any form of law in somalia, nor do I recognize feuding warlords as some sort of political system. It's very possible I'm wrong, granted my limited knowledge on the topic. I was merely trying to contribute to the conversation, and I thank you for your opinion on the matter. After all, that's what this is all about, opinions, right?

[Pete]

Yes it is about opinions, and opinions, with enough support, cannot be wrong. But you can be wrong in defining a system. Although I tend to claim to be Anachro-Communist, I do not know as much as others on the theorys. Yet I do recongize warlords as government. People follow them out of fear/respect whatever. That is a hierarchy, even if it is a tyranny (in the Greek sense). Anarchy is where each individual is equal, and is pure democracy, in the greek sense again.

Warlords, the Riechstag during the 20's, and the governmental breakdown of any nation, while still having semblance of authority, is chaos, no anarchy. It is just a learned bais against lack of government, which is pertrebuted from the top down. That is all. No offense.

[Valkyrie]

If you want to know more about anarchism, I'd suggest the Anarchist FAQ. specifically section I.2-5.
http://www.infoshop.org/faq/secIcon.html

http://www.infoshop.org/faq/index.html

Keep in mind though, that it's not a hammered out ideology. There's many diverse opinions of how it might work in actual practice. This is a germinazation of but one.



(Edited by Paris at 8:21 pm on Mar. 26, 2003)

[Som]

I learned in high school that anarchy is the lack of law, government, etc. I certainly didn't see any form of law in somalia, nor do I recognize feuding warlords as some sort of political system.

And in high school they tell you that communism is a totalitarian system, that socialism is impossible, and that the collapse of the USSR proved it doesn't work.
Should know not to trust what they tell you in high school.

Anarchy means no authority.

Therefore, a society of warlords can't be considered an anarchist society. The law of a warlord is you follow orders or be killed isn't it? 'a political system' hardly has to be a government, the warlord gives orders to his commanders, they give orders, so on and downward, this would be a system of authority and governing.

Didn't mean to sound hostile.


(Edited by Som at 2:12 am on Mar. 27, 2003)

[Monks Aflame]

Anarchy is based upon people doing what they want as opposed to being oppressed upon by a government, right? But I imagine there are certain restrictions, that are put forth by the communes? how did the society after the spanish civil war function?

[Som]

A good source on the spanish civil war:
http://flag.blackened.net/revolt/spain/pam_intro.html

Anarchy is based on no authority, the authority of capitalism and the boss being oppressive like the government.

It really depends on what you mean by restrictions, theres the obvious pillar of no authority, and the practicality of everyday life.

[Pete]

Do not htink people will murder or steal from eachother. Some things are wrong everywhere because they are universal. And note, keeping food from a starving man when you are well fed is considered theft.

[Valkyrie]

Also note: Property not being used is also theft. So, is a landlord/tenant relationship.

An additional site of anarchists in the Spanish Civil war:

http://flag.blackened.net/revolt/spaindx.html

[MiNdGaMe]

Its basically a moral prinicple: don't oppress others, or collectively they will voluntarily imprision/punish you.