someone help understand Anarchy. How does it work as a government? Is it just libertarianism?

[Bucky]

I was reading up on the Spanish Civil War and apparently the Anarchists were a significant faction, even taking control of the Barcelona area for a while. But there's precious little explanation of how it's supposed to work and, frankly, the Wikipedia page degenerates into a bunch of in-speak gibberish.

Is it a left so left it's governmentless? Is it opposed to any form of human cooperative organization? Does it bust unions?

[Dr Hobbitstein]

1. Anarchists don't respect any authority.

So unions would be right out. It's a libertarian paradise.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarchy

[DetlefK]

2. It means that there is no ruler (e.g. no government) and no hierarchy.

No king, no aristocrats, no elected government... Nobody.

But there are quasi-anarchic tribal societies where decisions are made on a basis of everybody being equal. The elders are valued counselors, but they do not have more rights than others.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acephalous_society

[Starry Messenger]

3. Mutual aid.

Workers cooperatives, etc. It usually presupposes that there isn't any sort of outside interference though, that an actual state would need to deal with, which is the reason I have always been dubious about it.

A Franco is a bigger threat than the moderate wing of your own government, imo.

[trumad]

4. A secret society of Glass Repairmen.

[arcane1]

27. .

Good one

[AgerolanAmerican]

5. It doesn't work

it's a philosophy for spoiled, arrogant juveniles who universally believe that, in the savage, every-man-for-himself world that would be the reality under anarchism (whether they admit it or not), they would end up as the top dogs.

[Wounded Bear]

7. Pretty much this....^^^

Which, of course, evolves into a warlord society based on local strong men, which will evolve into a monarchical form of governance and feudalism.

There has never been a time when humans did not have some kind of governance, be it local, regional, national, continental, or world-wide. Anarchy is a step on the path to some form of organized government. Given human history, it would most likely be authoritarian in nature.

[sofa king]

6. Real anarchy goes hand-in-hand with war and disaster.

I think anarchy is best described as a power vacuum, rather than a form of government. People as groups are not inherently good, nor democratic, nor satisfied. Anarchy means nobody is reliably redistributing critical goods and services, which merely means that some gang of assholes is about to take over.

Thus anarchy can be viewed as the inevitable prelude to tyranny.

[Warren DeMontague]

21. Whatever you say, Hobbes

[sofa king]

42. And for you here's "Hobbes' corollary to anarchy":

The duration of anarchy in the life of any nation is solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short.

This is because anarchy usually gives way to despotism and/or reptile aliens from the time dimension, and the memory of anarchy is so powerfully painful that people will resign themselves to live under the yoke of a single, unified tyrant rather than the madness of hundreds of competing tyrants.

There is one existing and highly notable exception to this, but I won't go to that well when I'm trying to tell a cynical joke.

[jwirr]

25. Good explanation. Definitely the weakest members of a

country would suffer as they are not even considered in this. Just thinking further. Anarchy used to be called lawlessness. There is no body of laws.

[TreasonousBastard]

8. It doesn't, and it isn't...

It goes back to the Greeks and kind of stuck around through all of our experiments with government. It basically says that all forms of government are useless. Dangerous, even. More extreme than libertarians would ever want-- no realistic provision for interstate highways, maritime law, criminal law, military defense...

It was big in the 18th Century when the Enlightenment allowed people to question the natural order of things. It popped up again big time in the early 20th when the royals fell, capitalism was failing and socialism/communism lost their luster as alternatives.

I really don't know if it ever had any practical value and was any more than some babbling theory. Humans seem to require some order, and that order ends up as a government. To claim all government is unnecessary would seem to say that anarchy itself, whatever actual form it takes, is also unnecessary.

Now, as far as unions, go, I can't see why it would, since union busting is partly a government function and people are free to form their own associations. However, if there is no government, there wouldn't be any overarching power to stop the bosses from union busting.

What we call anarchy these days, like maybe Somalia, is nothing like what the political theorists thought it should be. But it is most likely what their version would end up as.

[The2ndWheel]

9. The human mind is a weird place

http://www.context.org/iclib/ic07/schmoklr/

In nature, all pursue survival for themselves and their kind. But they can do so only within biologically evolved limits. The living order of nature, though it has no ruler, is not in the least anarchic. Each pursues a kind of self- interest, each is a law unto itself, but the separate interests and laws have been formed over aeons of selection to form part of a tightly ordered harmonious system. Although the state of nature involves struggle, the struggle is part of an order. Each component of the living system has a defined place out of which no ambition can extricate it. Hunting- gathering societies were to a very great extent likewise contained by natural limits.

With the rise of civilization, the limits fall away. The natural self-interest and pursuit of survival remain, but they are no longer governed by any order. The new civilized forms of society, with more complex social and political structures, created the new possibility of indefinite social expansion: more and more people organized over more and more territory. All other forms of life had always found inevitable limits placed upon their growth by scarcity and consequent death. But civilized society was developing the unprecedented capacity for unlimited growth as an entity. (The limitlessness of this possibility does not emerge fully at the outset, but rather becomes progressively more realized over the course of history as people invent methods of transportation, communication, and governance which extend the range within which coherence and order can be maintained.) Out of the living order there emerged a living entity with no defined place.

As people stepped across the threshold into civilization, they inadvertently stumbled into a chaos that had never before existed. The relations among societies were uncontrolled and virtually uncontrollable. Such an ungoverned system imposes unchosen necessities: civilized people were compelled to enter a struggle for power.

[bemildred]

10. Anarchy means local rule, no ruling class.

No class separation between the people and their government.

In fact it only works well when population levels are low. Crowding leads to behavioral decay, people stop following social norms, which is why slums are full of bad behavior.

But with enough space, it works fine, hunter gatherers have been doing it for most of human history, governments are what's recent.

When you crowd a bunch of people together, there have to be rules. The question is how do you implement that in such a way that everybody still has the same rights and powers? How do you compel without compelling? We haven't figured that one out yet. But I'm pretty sure you have to do something about the dogmatic selfishness that pollutes much of our business establishment.

[Bucky]

16. sounds like Feudalism

[bemildred]

17. No it doesn't, feudal societies were very class-ridden and structured.

Everybody had a place and they better stay in it.

[jwirr]

29. The lack of resources has a lot to do with what you are saying.

[bemildred]

30. Yes. Competition for resources is at the root of it.

Crowding is much easier to deal with if you have security in your person, you feel safe, you have food, water, a bit of comfort.

On the other hand you can't expect people to starve quietly.

Crowding still causes trouble, even then, when everything is well organized, but it's a lot more manageable if everybody feels safe and respected, so to speak. Like in the better parts of the city.

[jwirr]

31. With the kind of problems we are facing in our world today

This is what the rich need to understand.

[bemildred]

36. Some of the smarter ones seem to get it, but that doesn't seem the way to bet. nt

[Old Union Guy]

11. Not "anarchy" -- Anarchism

The classical left Anarchist believed that with no centralized government messing things up, workers would spontaneously organize locally along socialistic lines.

Not bad people really, but with a very unrealistic view of human nature.

The libertarian anarcho-capitalists are another matter.

[Oneironaut]

12. The one fundamental flaw in anarchism is human nature.

What if groups ally and form a gigantic corporation, which decides to kill anyone or anything in it's way? An anarchist would probably say, "That's not anarchy, then! That's a centralized form of power!" Well then, it's not like there's anything to stop that from happening. How is anarchy enforced when it can so easily be ruined?

[TampaAnimusVortex]

43. Not possible...

A corporation is a legal entity. Without governments, they don't exist.... It would be very difficult for a normal company to grow to the size of some of these mega-corps without the "limited liability" protection of the government.

As for human nature, if people are unable to rule themselves, what makes you think putting a small group in charge of everyone else is any better? Were all humans you know?

As for how would anything be enforced, there are plenty of theories on that - depending which branch of anarchism you happen to support.

[Oneironaut]

44. The correct term, I suppose, would be an alliance.

What if multiple collectives in a society of anarchy decide to ally and start harassing other collectives? What entity would stop them? Also, what if a collective blatantly violates human rights?

Also, what is going to stop industries from dumping nuclear waste, for example, in a river that people drink from?

A government is preferable because it's a large entity. There is strength in numbers and tradition. It would be very hard for a crackpot to overthrow the U.S. Government. In a small collective, you just need to be the one with the most guns.

[Xithras]

13. No, it's not libertarianism. In fact, it can be quite socialist.

Before I even start, I should mention that anarchism has a LOT of different branches, some with radically different belief systems than others.

Social anarchism is basically socialism melded with direct democracy. It can be summed up as: "You are free to do with yourself whatever you would like, as long as it only impacts you. Things that impact everyone are decided by the community as a whole." This extends beyond simple governance, and into things like the production of goods, courts, the management of trade, and the ownership of resources. Everything is owned communally, and the community chooses how things get run.

The core of anarchism is the anti-statist position. It sees formal government as inherently oppressive, because the threat of violence can be found behind everything the government does. It also acknowledges that anyone can opt out of the system, but in doing so they lose their voice in society (it is beneficial to the individual to contribute to the society).

[pnwmom]

24. Anarchism is much closer to libertarianism than to socialism. If you say "everything that impacts

everyone is decided by the community as a whole" that is NOT anarchism.

But there are many things that affect more than one person but not the community as a whole.

[Rex]

14. Where on the left have you ever seen a non-governing system?

You need to go to the other end to get your answer, wasting time out in left field is the reason you are asking questions. You got it right in the title, it is the ultimate expression of libertarianism. Or as some call it ultra-libertarianism.

Just because 'liber' (the Free Father) is in the word - gots nuthing to do with it being related to liberalism. Maybe distant cousins at best. It is just the part about freedom that is the same...the method liberals and libertarians want to reach freedom are what sets them worlds apart.

[MillennialDem]

33. I disagree. The right is always about government daddy statism.

[tralala]

38. Maybe the state is nothing but a machine for the oppression of one class by another

[skypilot]

15. I never got the whole anarchy/anarchism thing.

It was one of those things that literally 15 seconds of thought would cause me to dismiss out of hand. But the anarchy symbol looked cool on the back of leather jackets back in the day.

[Major Nikon]

18. It's really more of a political philosophy

Libertarianism at least as far as the term is defined in the US is the right-wing version of anarchism. Anarchism has a number of different threads defined in very different ways, but essentially all of them involve the dismantling of all systems of state hierarchical control which can't be sufficiently justified. Anarchism also often tends to be very much anti-capitalistic while libertarianism tends to be the exact opposite.

[pokerfan]

19. Anarcho-syndicalism?

ARTHUR: Who lives in that castle?
WOMAN: No one live there.
ARTHUR: Then who is your lord?
WOMAN: We don't have a lord.
ARTHUR: What?
DENNIS: I told you. We're an anarcho-syndicalist commune. We take it in turns to act as a sort of executive officer for the week.
ARTHUR: Yes.
DENNIS: But all the decisions of that officer have to be ratified at a special biweekly meeting.
ARTHUR: Yes, I see.
DENNIS: By a simple majority in the case of purely internal affairs—
ARTHUR: Be quiet!
DENNIS: ...but by a two-thirds majority in the case of more—
ARTHUR: Be quiet! I order you to be quiet!
WOMAN: Order, eh? Who does he think he is?
ARTHUR: I am your king!
WOMAN: Well, I didn't vote for you.
ARTHUR: You don't vote for kings.

[anigbrowl]

20. It doesn't work outside of very small groups

I've always thought one of the major failures of the Occupy movement was the rule they had in place from the outset that you needed a 90% consensus for the General Assembly to adopt anything as policy. As soon as I heard that I knew the whole enterprise was doomed to be nothing more than a talking shop. Indeed, I've often wondered just who put that requirement in place because it was so obviously going to lead to organizational paralysis that it looked like sabotage to me. Even the Wobblies had a 2/3 majority for decision-making, and the Wobblies weren't exactly famed for their pragmatism.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industrial_Workers_of_the_World

I have little respect for anarchists. Their diagnosis of the problems that come with group organization are often spot-on but they would rather sit around and talk than get anything done, unless you count flyposting as an agenda. Also they all seem to listen to punk rock which is reason enough to dislike them by itself.

[Major Nikon]

28. ...by design

I have more respect for anarchists than I do for authoritarians. There's too much of one and not enough of the other.

[anigbrowl]

37. I'm sure there's a point in here but I'm not sure what it is

I don't like authoritarians either and I didn't say anything about there being a necessity for leaders or hierarchical structure; just that a rule requiring a 90% consensus to adopt any resolution made failure pretty inevitable. I'm not sure why you brought authoritarians into the discussion.

[Major Nikon]

39. The antithesis to anarchism is authoritarianism

I thought that much might be obvious, but perhaps not.

I'm not sure where the point was in bringing up the occupy movement as a representative for all of anarchism either, but there you have it.

[Warren DeMontague]

22. The basic idea, as I understand it, is that left to their own devices small groups of people

Behave cooperatively and self-organize around principles of mutual aid and benefit.

There is actually some anecdotal evidence to back it up, at least in terms of how people behave in disaster situations. Instead of the chaotic free for all envisioned by those who posit the need for a strong daddy state, usually- but not always- humans organize organically and tend to help each other out.

Certainly like many absolutist philosophical or sociopolitical positions, it presupposes both certain basic conditions and fundamental structural change in the way people look at reality and relate to each other, to ever have a chance of "working" on a large scale.

But i would say it is no more of a pipe dream than the orwellian fantasies of the authoritarians among us who spend all day thinking they are just a few more laws away from getting their neighbors to stop blaspheming, eating meat, having gay sex, using birth control, looking at porn, smoking pot, etc etc.

[Hekate]

23. So far, this is one of the better and more adult threads we've had here in quite some time.

Thank to all who have participated.

[Major Nikon]

35. Chaos is more of a feature of authoritarianism

Something anti-anarchists don't seem to get.

[MillennialDem]

32. Libertarianism is the OPPOSITE of anarchy. Libertarianism is getting government thugs to

enforce contracts and not allow you to retaliate in BS deals except in very handicapped ways through courts.

[Yo_Mama]

34. After that, the Mafia. n/t

[jmowreader]

40. It is very easy to understand Anarchy

Go to the nearest video store, right now, and buy a copy of "Escape from New York."

The "ideal anarchic society" is called Voluntaryism. It basically works under the Golden Rule: all interactions between people are voluntary and no government is needed to mediate them.

The "reality anarchic society" is called Somalia. With no government to mediate interactions between people, the meanest bastard in town gathers together all the scumbags and forms a government of his own...but he does whatever the hell he wants and everyone else has to take it, or kill the bastard and start a new anarchic government.

There's an old book called "Inside the Soviet Army" that contains a truism: someone will always take charge. The author gives the example of a bunch of little kids on the playground: eventually one of them will lead the rest of them.

[BainsBane]

41. It's the absence of government

It doesn't bust unions. Before about the mid- 1920s-1930s, many labor leaders were anarchists. Communists displaced them after the Russian Revolution took hold. The problem with anarchism is that it doesn't offer a means of governing or even very effective organizing, which is why Communism came to displace it among workers and peasant movements.

I took a college course on anarchism many moons ago, and we read a science fiction novel about an anarchist utopia by Ursula Le Guin called the Dispossessed. You might like it.