• Anarchism
    250 replies, posted
[QUOTE=Emperorconor;41645340]So ultimately you are dependent on everybody becoming an anarchist if you don't want states to re-emerge?[/QUOTE] isnt that what a society is in the first place? society itself is just an agreement between a group of people to follow certain rules and philosophies regarding their interactions with others.
I keep being told that states and such are coercive, and so do not need to rely on that. What would anarchists do to bring about their society as long as some people support the idea of the state?
states need to rely on a large portion of the population to at least passively accept the coercive nature of the state. if that population resisted state coercion, the state would be unable to function. that's sorta the point of mobilizing the population.
[QUOTE=Emperorconor;41665928]I keep being told that states and such are coercive, and so do not need to rely on that. What would anarchists do to bring about their society as long as some people support the idea of the state?[/QUOTE] The state needs the majority of people to accept it in order to hold any power. The authority we give the state is a completely artificial. If most people agree with anarchism, then there would be no state. Thats kinda the point of anarchist propaganda (like this thread); to spread the ideas and values of anarchism.
However, most states in world history tended to appear as semi-religious organizations founded in areas of high population densities, often in response to inter-group conflicts as a means of trying to protect people collectively by maintaining a monopoly on the legitimate use of coercive force. In what ways does an anarchist society better control and reduce violence than a state? (When empirically most states have reported long term trends in a decline of violence). Essentially all examples of workable anarchist societies I have seen are either anarcho-primitivist ones (which are so isolated and small in population that they cannot even form states) or ones which existed inside of states (such as communes which do not need militaries because an external state protects them), or those which existed in vacuums in politically unstable countries. (Inside former Imperial Russia, Spain, former Spanish colonies, etc). And in most of those cases in those politically unstable countries, those countries had a long and deep history of unresolved social and economic problems, widespread oppression, and widespread emigration. It seems more likely to me that these anarchist societies were formed by the most desperate and poorest members of semi-feudal societies whose only experience of the state was being taxed into poverty and conscripted into pointless wars, and didn't even use capitalism because even the prerequisites for a capitalist society (banking, stable business climate, good information and infrastructure links, relatively low taxes, a weakened monarch/republic, etc) had yet to emerge, with most economic production being heavily grounded in subsistence agriculture or the states military-industrial complex.
[QUOTE=Emperorconor;41673643] In what ways does an anarchist society better control and reduce violence than a state? (When empirically most states have reported long term trends in a decline of violence).[/quote] i don't quite understand what you are even saying here. what do you mean by a "decline of violence"? what do you mean by "long term"? one could make the claim that the creation of the state, and by extension, the need for large scale warfare, has been the main cause of violence in the world. a long term decline in violence doesn't mean the state is good for violence, but that over time other factors have reduced violence(probably technology, industrialization, and cultural mixing). anarchism reduces violence better than the state because the state is, by nature, a form of violence. by getting rid of the state you get rid of the source of the majority of violence that average people encounter in their day-to-day routines. hierarchy, and the inherent inequality that comes with it, can only result in further violence.
[QUOTE=yawmwen;41677046]i don't quite understand what you are even saying here. what do you mean by a "decline of violence"? what do you mean by "long term"? one could make the claim that the creation of the state, and by extension, the need for large scale warfare, has been the main cause of violence in the world. a long term decline in violence doesn't mean the state is good for violence, but that over time other factors have reduced violence(probably technology, industrialization, and cultural mixing). anarchism reduces violence better than the state because the state is, by nature, a form of violence. by getting rid of the state you get rid of the source of the majority of violence that average people encounter in their day-to-day routines. hierarchy, and the inherent inequality that comes with it, can only result in further violence.[/QUOTE] By violence, I refer to the situation in pre-agrarian societies. Most violence was interpersonal or on a small scale (such as raids over resources). It's not so much that the state formed and caused violence, but the state formed in response to violence as a means of trying to control it. Once populations grow to sufficient densities, engage in economic activities, and meet other peoples, naturally disagreements and conflicts emerge, especially over land and resources in short supply. The result is that in the neolithic, these farming societies were forced to engage in collective activities in order to ensure their own survival. You would be raided by other peoples. This necessitated the construction of defensive works, the forming of a military, and introduction of taxation and social organization in order to ensure the community would operate (willing or unwilling) as a whole in order to ward off external threats. The state forms in response to violence, and so by its very nature ends up reducing it. Most non-state societies tend to become violent once competition over scarce resources arises.
[QUOTE=soccerskyman;41656943]Just like how you have to rely on everyone being a capitalist in a capitalistic society. Once again, this is not a flaw with anarchism, but happens with EVERY type of society. You really aren't getting this, are you?[/quote] uh no, you can have noncapitalist enclaves within capitalist societies.
[QUOTE=soccerskyman;41656943]Anarchists promote democracy[/QUOTE] Thats kind of a broad sweep right there.
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