The only sense in which anarchy at any level seems possibly to me is a town or group, that has such quickly switching alliances, power struggles, fights and so forth that switched the issue of balance back and forth back and forth. Even in practice these places tend to obey a whole massive list of unspoken rules/concepts/actions that just don’t happen at all period, or the person gets their throat cut.
So still in this anarchistic society, theres a massive social hiearchy always at play (even if constantly shifting) roles/regulations that are followed due to that social hiearchy and etc.
A civil war’s not a good time to make a case for anarchy krossie. The anarchists were all mixed with the Communists and socialists, and it wasn’t anarchy in the western teenager’s idealist view, it was more of a utopian freedom than a “do whatever you feel like, man” system. and it was also a fight against elements clearly supported by foreign governments. And well, the militias lost.
In reality, it’s every man for himself no matter under whatever government or law system to hide this truth. It’s when we come to the breaking point of honesty and brotherly love that we’ll come to see that we’ve been anarchist all along, but we’ve been playing games. If we ever reach that point, there will always be some people who want to control others but at smaller levels. The government does what it wants to everyone else who believes that there’s some super powered aura around them that makes them superior. Judges are liars and hypocrites. Cops are gangsters with badges. Average people are dumb, and papers keep them quiet.
Pre-historic living could be summarised as being anarchistic and let’s face it us as hunter gatherers lasted much longer in a time period compared to our present short lived sight of civilization.
We were hunting and gathering primates much longer than being “civilized” beings if we were to make a historical comparison.
This is beyond ignorant. Aspects of hunter-gatherer life would be hard to call anarchistic let alone it being summarized as such. A tightly knit social stucture/hiearchyh, the people inside the in-group obey a set of laws and rules, enforce fairness in trade and etc. They protect/defend as a group against people who would seek to do them harm or who may threaten their resources. Once more, religion is inseperable from policy and they engage in attacks/wars based on religious/political ideas (they all do, against each other).
couldn’t be any closer to a state, theres for every purpose general laws/rules that have to be obeyed, you do your fucking part or you don’t get meat, its a close-knit group that works complexly together, enforces ‘laws’, outcasts individuals or kill the ones who don’t obey, attacks other groups based on ideaology.
Take your ignorant bullshit out the window because hunter-gatherer groups are not anarchistic.
Rouzbeh I think you’re actually proving me point! Yes the anarchists had to fight fascists backed by Germany and Italy. Yes they also had to contend with communists and republicans from their own side and still, crucially, the collectives did not “collapse†there was little evidence of what Cyrene terms “a massive social hiearchy always at play (even if constantly shifting) roles/regulations that are followed due to that social hiearchy and etc.â€
in anarchist controlled areas.
They were able to build collectives and fight a war – they were overwhelmed militarily but not through any sort of massive internal social collapse – the anarchist part worked quite well
See also Gaston Levell’s collectives in the Spanish Civil War
I’d have to take issue with this - the CNT was a mass organinisation of hundreds of thousands which had spent 40 or 50 years “selling” anarchist ideas and building support. The collectives were voluntary and federated up but well organised. The internal conflict on the republican side was a deep one to do with the future organisation of society and far from everyone doing “what you feel”
(I’d have to agree with Cyrene though on prehistoric society NOT being some how automatically anarchist)
Skirmishes with OUTSIDE groups, never ending power feuds isn’t exactly accurate, people striving for status in a complex social hiearchy with complex rules/etc.
Its violent, its highly organized and coherent so exactly the opposite.
No one said it was ideal.
general concepts/laws/fairness were enforced with brutality if things got out of line, higher murder rates then modern societies, but ingroup murders are still verylow.Outgroup murders/raids are very high.
Just look up the statistics about raids.
religion is inseperable from policy of these tribes and they engage in war against each other based on those ideas. If you really think that in most groups the religious belief systems are changing over night and shit like that, you haven’t studied any modern-day hunter-gatherer groups.
The first anarchistic hunter-gatherer group would get wiped out by the closet one that had the slightest bit more social cohesion, that group would be wiped out by the next group that worked the slightest bit better together, etc.
I don’t like internet information or youtube videos for actual facts. About anything, at all, especially if the name of the site is spunk and is a specifically anarchist site. Orwell’s Homage to Catalonia is a hands on approach to the war that I found fairly interesting. No the collectives didn’t collapse due to a social hierarchy but then again that’s not my argument. Hierarchies had to exist because the leaders of the POUM/CNT/etc were specifically sought after, captured and probably executed. Although the militias didn’t have the same hierarchy that is seen in professional armies, and as nice as that is, officers still commanded. True anarchy, even then, during a war (when everyone is generally more generous and giving) against an enemy many hated, was impossible. Someone has to organize, someone always has to lead. It’s human nature. The reason the Spanish civil war’s not a good time to make a case for anarchy is because everyone was fighting against the fascists. And, it was war. War’s the common uniter.
Anarchism is simply impractical. You start an anarchy with an entire nation. All parts of the nation separate to film little groups where they all share common interests/goals. Another nation comes and conquers this land due to the absence of organized resistance or in time, due to absence of progress and industry. The Spanish revolution still made use of capitalistic buildings, weaponry and technology. The case for anarchism is weak in that it requires a widespread interest in anarchy when none exists.
anarchists are expendable pawns in the struggle against capitalism and fascism
anarchy is impossible to last, if it “breaks out”. equilibrium must be reached, which is reached with the entering into the social contract. and the solutions provided by anarchist political philosophers are vague and unfeasible.
To clarify: the “strugglers” are revolutionary communists, the capitalists are law abiding con artists that live in an exclusive anarchist society for exploitation of the puppets who actually believe that they’re “free” and being treated fairly, and fascism is the extremity of a concentrated governmental control over very, very brainwashed and weakened people.
Most anarchists aren’t very bright and want to rebel against authority for the sake of it. They’ll join a riot of high schoolers downtown and put a sticker on their skateboard. The real ones understand, on a higher level, what it means. Despite their naivety, though, they’re quite useful in the cause.
Anarchy is the raw nature of humans without invisible boundaries that make us civil and proper little sheeplings that do what we’re told. Governmental forces start out a lie that everyone agrees with because lies always sound better than reality. Yeah, capitalism sounds great, Mr. Washington. I’ll start a happy house on the prairie of the land of the free. I’ll go to church every Sunday and worship what you tell me to, but of course what I’m doing is completely my decision because all religions are allowed in the melting pot. I just happened to be indoctrinated all my life but still make this decision to accept God as my personal savior. America is so wonderful and blessed by God. I’m going to tell everyone to believe or they’re going to hell. God says you have to be married and be fruitful and work hard and not become rich. Eventually this will lead to an overpopulation of every person being born, being wed, and having many children who work like dogs for jack shit because their reward is in heaven while others are allowed to scam and steal our money as hypocritical christians who are following their natural desires while we suppress ours because the more we’re cheated out of our money the more we’ll have to work to make more people rich with basic expenses we pay for to merely survive and as they become richer, they pay higher taxes, and the more taxes they pay makes the government richer and the richer the government the more powerful the country and the more powerful the country the more powerful the person in the white house operating the machine feels over the entire world because he can’t get enough of that rush. He can’t watch enough foreigners starve and people in his homeland starving them because they trade for cheap because they have to be able to afford to buy the food that’s sold at high prices by the tax paying hypocritical christians. The problem with capitalism is that it will not stop at any cost. Greed is devouring the planet and we can thank capitalism for the people who don’t know it.
So we’re all being used by the boss but the levels rise and fall, except for the boss who will never be brought to his knees until there is not one living being he could possibly suck dry left on the face of the earth.
I clashed that into a giant paragraph above for the purpose being that you see how capitalism, and most governments overall, operate from a to z. I left no blank spots (that I can think of thus far). It can all be made into a cute pyramid of one big fat liar atop billions of blubbering idiots for allowing it to evolve into such a hideous monster.
