Anarchy is a political structure where there’s basically no one in charge, right? But wouldn’t that just create a power vacuum that would filled by organized crime, corporations, etc.? Then, after that power vacuum is filled, we’re right back at square one, and someone is in charge.
Are there any political theorists that have come up with a solution to this problem?
Yep. That’s what I meant before. You cannot take our current world and “swap” a random constitution of a state towards something written by anarchists. That doesn’t work.
That’s why I pointed as an example to groups which, knowingly or unknowingly, implement anarchy in one way or the other. And I fail to see how they always transform to some hierarchical system like you wrote.
I mean, the anarchical experience that a lot of people share is a shared flat. Most wouldn’t consider themselves an “anarchist flat collective”, but that is what they are observed through the lense of political science. In all my shared flats we did not have any “boss”, we talked about problems, found agreeable solutions for everybody by consensus and so on and so forth. That is anarchy, everybody had a say, everybody’s opinion was heard and considered, agreements were formed without a powerful entity which enforced it.
And a lot of larger groups employ the same principles.
What if one your flat mates decided to start pissing on the couch instead of the toilet lol are you going to do
How come that just never happens, lol?
People generally have a harder time to be assholes to people they know. That’s where this “I want to deport every brown person, except that one person I know, he’s fine” mentality comes from.
What would you do if a flatmate starts pissing on the couch? Basically at one point you would decide to kick him out of your “flat society”, yes. And if my flat mates all decide it is better to piss onto the couch I can decide to leave my “flat society” as well, yes.
So yes. You and your flat mates have now formed a hierarchy lol you and your flat mates on the top. Couch pisser on the bottom. It’s an obtuse example but I think it reflects reality.
Your example of “I want to deport every brown person” is an perfect example of a real life couch pisser lol.
People will decide to enact their will onto others based on their personal morals. If enough people come together with the same morals they will as a group decide to form a hierarchy.
It’s like if you dispersed a bunch of dust into space evenly. It’ll start to clump eventually.
Any system that effectively minimize the ability for one will to destabilize the group as a whole is probably best.
Anarchism just isn’t that. Its like the libertarian version of leftist policy.
Structure must exist because not everyone’s wants to play fairly and not everyone needs to be worrying about that.
A group deciding that one member is not welcome anymore is no hierarchy. It doesn’t structurally exploit the person “on the bottom”.
It only becomes a problem where the “anarchist” shared flat meets our current society. Exiling him might not be as easy, because of outside forces (true hierarchy). He has a contract and can enforce it with outside help. Maybe he ends up homeless because he cannot afford rent, or nobody gives him another flat.
In “perfect anarchist utopia” he would go into the “couch pisser flat” and be welcomed with open arms. And why wouldn’t he do it willingly? He is bound to be way happier with other couch pissers than being miserable with us, who don’t want to piss onto couches.
But the example is oc mood, because once again: did that ever happen to you? As I said, people tend to follow the rules of their group. I did never encounter a couch pisser or someone like it in shared flats or other groups organized without hierarchies. And usually, once again, if I heard of those stories, it was because of outside forces. People disagreeing about means of power like money.
The concept of intrinsic shame carries far in circles, where people know each other. I mean, read up on current anthropologic research about hunter-gatherer societies. For all we know “anarchy” is the default organizational form for small groups of humans.
That all works until “couch pisser” is “murderer” or those “entrepreneur” types or someone who wants to be a “king”. Or is a “manipulator”
Then you have several thousand people who like the idea of having a “king” and now you have a hierarchy.
Irrational people are more numerous then you think.
And a group that does decided a member isn’t welcome anymore is a hierarchy. It doesn’t require you to be exploiting the person at the bottom. I’ll be it a fairly flat one but hey.
My example is extremely simple and that’s on purpose. my point is you will never be able to get enough people to form little in groups where they all work together because without incentive people will just do whatever the hell they want and that small group of people can disproportionately affect the larger whole even if they are playing by your rules.
Anarchism works in small groups. But it falls apart as you scale up, by nature of the limited resources of our world some order must be kept or things will slide into chaos. Some amorphous blob of a group isn’t going to be able to do that.
We departed from
and arrived at
I like that and we even agree on it 👍