Takapapatapaka

Most people here have insightful answers to your question, viewed from a US perspective. As awmwrites@lemmy.cafe pointed out, the notion of libertarianism is quite different between Europe and USA. It originated in Europe (i believe the first use was to criticize Proudhon’s misogyny, so a dispute between some of the first anarchists). It was then used as a synonym to anarchism, due to laws criminalizing anarchism.

Then some (relatively) anti-State american conservatives used the word for themselves, and successfully made it so that it now defines their philosophy rather than anarchism in US. In Europe (at least in France), both ideas coexist (here we have two words, libertaire for libertarian socialisms and libertarien for libertarian capitalism). As people pointed out, the main difference is seeing economical hierarchies as good or bad.

Nowadays in french, libertaire is not a strict synonym for anarchist, it’s rather a wide umbrella term to gather all anti-authoritarian leftist.

I mostly agree with this, especially the fact that anarchy may lead to implicit charisma-based hierarchies, whereas current systems relies on explicit hierarchies filled with implicit hierarchies.

I say may because, while you’re right to point out that this has realistic chances to happen, anarchism is also the best tool to point out and attack those hierarchies, even implicit. History of left libertarian groups (at least in France) is mostly a drama of constant scissions and mergings of little groups : while some mock it as a proof of militant puritanism and useless bickering, I see it as a sign that anarchists have a sane tendency to oppose situations where a group could impose onto others, even in most implicit/vague situations.

Interesting, thanks for sharing ! I didnt know much about db0 system, i get from this post that db0 themselves consider it not to be a perfect system (both for the fact that they are the sysadmin and it is still based on their goodwill and the fact that they have to restrict to people donating to prevent manipulation from fake accounts). So to my eyes, there still is bigger problems than just the fact that mods and admins are vocal about their opinions, but I admit that i was too quick to judge that “physical servers = no possibility for anarchy”, there probably is a way to have far closer to anarchism organization than i thought. How does quokk.au works about that ?

Ah yes, their efficiency is very questionable. I still prefer an army less likely to murder civilians over a classic army, but I have to admit the latter are more likely to survive, precisely because of their violence. (SDF may be a more nuanced thing, i’ve read reports of bad civilians and prisoners treatments. But you’re right to say “Anarchist” with quotes, it’s effectively close without being strictly anarchism).

On people giving without taking : Someone taking without giving would be someone sitting around without doing anything. It does not exist, people do things, and most of them are useful to the community. But let’s admit some people just sleep and eat, or let’s admit that you consider people that give less than they take a problem (which it isn’t in anarchy, it is not a meritocratic system) : if that’s just a few (closest to reality), probably not a problem. If it is more than the community can support, then it’s a problem the community has to solve with anarchic means : try talking to get some of them to do stuff, try getting help from other communities,etc. If in a very weird world, it does not change anything, then you just have the possibility to provide help and resources for participative people first.

Anarchism relies on self-interest magically aligning with collective good. No, that’s precisely the point i’m trying to make. You are not helping selflessly : you are helping each others, so that they are able to help you. You can be selfish in an anarchist community : just do the bare minimum, and not help for collective actions. It does not break the system. Even if everyone does it, as long as everyone do the minimum, everyone get the minimum. This is something that works out of the box for everyone : whenever you do stuff with friends, family, neighbours, be it playing football, repairing something, preparing a party, in an informal manner, then people organize by themselves. Some do more, some do less, almost everyone does something. Unless there is a strict hierarchy in the group, when the popular friend or patriarch might then do nothing.

On preventing power : Your point is that armed struggle is necessary to prevent power, and you then equate prevent power to make the system work. Again, preventing power is not about how the system works, it’s about how the system survives. The difference between current systems and anarchy is that coercion is not needed to make the system work day to day, it is needed in its most primitive force when the system is threatened. Also, you directly skipped all the solutions to try beforehand (educating the people to what power is and how and why to prevent it, watching out symptoms of power, etc.) to just sum it up to “violence”, which is the last resort option. Another difference from the current systems.

On capitalism : it’s all good, i get your point of “it’s the more likely regime to survive, so be it”, and i’m fine with it, it’s a valid point of view, especially nowadays. I’m just struggling with why you need to establish that anarchy has to fail on its own (rather than against power/capitalism) to prove it.

On “pure” anarchism : You could be right to call out “purity” behaviours, they are common in far left movments, i acknowledge that, especially for myself. But here that’s not the case : they are clearly not functioning with anarchist principles, like i explained it’s simply impossible to do because of the concept of server. They are anarchists using non-anarchists means, just like some royalist parties take part in republican systems.

As you are very cautious about what your intentions are, i should be too, my bad if it comes late in the discussion : i’m not saying anarchy is the best system for every one, i’m not saying it’s viable as it is, i’m not saying it is a perfect thing that hurts no one. I think it is the best for me, would be the best for most people weren’t they born under capitalism, and that’s it’s one of the less dangerous form of politics. I understand it has to face powers far more violent and dangerous and therefore far more likely to survive, and i also understand that it has to be conceived from within societies full of capitalist and pro-state assumptions. My main goal is to get you and people to a nuanced take on anarchy, notably that it does not fail inevitably on its own, but is very likely to fail because of capitalism, and is likely to fail on its own if you want (but not inevitably, that’s the absolute i’m trying to fight here).

Well, those armies are not 100% pure anarchist systems, and my phrasing was misleading if you understood that. They were conventional armies, with some anarchist principles included. Most notables principles i knew of were self-discipline (soldiers were expected to watch their behaviours and their officers/comrades too) and election of officers (so they could be revoked and changed when soldiers lost trust).

The efficiency of such armies is very discuted : ukrainian anarchist were quite effective against nationalist armies (a fight in which they were partly helped by bolcheviks armies), but were half-destroyed, half-integrated by the Red Army once Ukraine was freed. Other than that, the military activities of the EZLN show a relative efficiency, but they struggle to prevent cartel violence. And the efficiency of anarchist in Spanish resistance (1936) is quite disputed, some stalinists blaming them for the defeat in the civil war against fascism, while other blame the stalinists who ended up arresting/disbanding anarchists (anyway, the massive help from nazi Germany and fascist Italy and the lack of support from France/UK / weak support of USSR probably was one main reason).

On a purely speculative side, I personnaly feel much safe about armies with some anarchist principles not seizing control of local communities, since the soldiers would be encouraged to disband/oppose in those cases. The anarchist army in Ukraine, the Makhnovchtchina, was known for executing its soldiers caught looting or iniating pogroms. So it shows that those armies had the same problems than the others (giving power to people), but they also had some drastic approach about it (you have to fight abuse of power strictly). Clearly a rather bad thing overall, but a bit better than other armies to my eyes, especially at the time.

1st point : how to motivate people to do useful things ?

Because as i stated, they have an interest to do so. If they help, they get help in return. You have an interest to do your job and voluntary work because in return people will help you, either because you give them money or because they help people as volunteers.

Also people do things in their lives, mostly things helpful to themselves or others. They don’t sit there waiting unless they are forced to do stuff. This point of view is obviously false, and is a premise used by bourgeois propaganda to legitimate exploitation.

2nd point : what if people try to recreate power ?

This is a whole debate, it can come to education, groups looking out for power situations like ngos do with corruption, and if need be armed struggle. But this falls under the “how to destroy power” problem rather than “how to live when there is no power”, and you’re right to point it out, this is one of the big problem. It’s even bigger than what you point out, because we have to get rid of actual existing powers, which we’ll agree is far harder than preventing new ones to emerge.

3rd point : corruption/weakness against power

I agree that anarchy is weak against power, because power is predatory and anarchy is not or is less. Preventing rise of authoritarianism would be one of the big problems, we agree. Now, again you make it seem quite absolute, like “one dude using violence would make the whole system fall” : this is not that easy, violence can be in the hands in the anarchists too if it’s used against them. If one dude wants to use violence to take power, you can simply stop them with a bunch of people. Now, if they armed themselves or got a bunch of people to follow them, you get a semblance of power again, and it calls for struggle against it : either discussion to find a common ground, either violent struggle if previous is not possible.

Again, your comments make me think that you don’t think that anarchy does not work, you think it does not stand against power, which is different, and which i perfectly understand.

4th point : on db0

OK, my bad for mistaking your point. Indeed, the db0 admins are quite intense about their positions, but i do think that it is fine. The problem is that they hold power over the instance, not that they state their opinion. But it has to do with how tech works rather than anything else.

You cannot have anarchy when someone or a group physically has the system, and/or the ability to do whatever to do with it. If it was an anarchist system, they would be mandated, they could be revoked, etc., and people submitting an idea to assembly vote could be very vocal for it, to defend it (and typically would not be part of the mandated organizing people). db0 is indeed not that, it is a anarchist-themed or anarchist-leaning instance functioning by non-anarchist means. So the problem you identified has to do with power, not with anarchy. Eventually with power used by people promoting anarchy, but not anarchy itself.

I disagree, but for different reasons depending on what you call hierarchy.

If it is trusting some people more than yourself, then i would have called it authority it is not exclusive of anarchy. Of course anarchy wants to abolish power, and therefore some authority. But it also recognizes everyone’s freedom to follow someone they think is more knowledgeable or skilled, which would fall under this definition of authority. Like trust the architect when building the house, but not the town mayor saying they don’t like the house.

If it is pyramidal social structure, then historical clues tend to show it wrong. For most of its history, humanity was nomadic so if you disliked some system you could probably just leave, or be abandoned if people disliked you. Not the most stable basis to build power structures. Also, i believe traces found of care and cooperation are much older than those of violence and murder.

And overall i really dislike the idea of such advanced things being baked in humans. Because it mostly reflect actual state of things rather than actual natural instincts, and even if it were true, it wouldn’t open the possibility for people who do not have it baked in them. Just like monogamy or sedentariness : sure it’s widespread, but it’s not actually baked in and it excludes people living differently.

Now if your point was to say that people have learned to live with hierarchy and it would be hard to change that, then 100% agree.

I really dislike the idea that anarchy doesnt work because people follow their own interest, because i think it is based on a bad understanding of what anarchy is. It is not a system based on simple good will and sacrificing yourself for others. It is a system where you share help, you give it and you receive it : one grows food, one builds houses and at the end of a day, everyone get a house with food. So you have an interest in helping people, so that they help you. It works the same way as our current societies, skipping the part where someone forces you to do so or where you add the step of giving money to each other for this. If people don’t play nice, either it’s a few people and that’s no big deal, either it’s a lot and they’re defederating and that’s a valid possibility, anarchist systems are precisely adaptable.

Now, I perfectly understands the fear that it’s not stable enough to compete with states, but it’s not the same thing. It does not mean that anarchy fails by itself, it means that it fails when a state destroys it, those are two very different points. Your concluding paragraph makes me think that you are actually thinking the 2nd point, while stating the 1st as an opening.

Also i don’t really understand what is the big deal with db0 defederation. I mean db0 has issues, and this was a debatable and debated action, but defederation itself is not really bad is it? You make it sound like a definitive failure, and i don’t really see the bad part of it. Or is it something else alongside defederation?

Most anarchist attempts had armies, built around anarchist principles : self-discipline, electing officers, more equal pays, etc. Some argue that this is state-like, i’d say it depends on what happens when the war is over. And i prefer an army where soldiers are inclined to criticize and change their officers, it’s more likely to disband.

The idea is that once you’re organized in more or less little entities, you may still have the need for things your entity cannot provide (that’s one of the common first argument against anarchism) : tools, resources, craftsmanship, etc. To answer this, the most obvious solution is to federate with other close communities to share what’s needed : you get together (or send delegates) and establish what the needs are and what can be provided. The same principle can be replicated to those federation to create wide networks.

In Ukraine, which was very rural, they organized in little agricultural communes, as well as workers committees in factory and district assemblies for self governance. They then gathered in a common Congress to discuss matters for the whole region, to make propositions that were then discussed in the local councils. The anarchist army also played a big practical role, taking decisions for logistics in between Congresses, though they were not free to do what they wanted, and they tried to intervene in Congresses only as advisors. Their actual role is discussed, mainly by pro-state people claiming that they were the centralized entity that kept everything alive.

In Chiapas, i don’t know that much, but i believe they organize in villages, grouped in Communes, grouped in local governments (Caracoles if i’m not mistaken). Each level has some people elected to organize votes and debates with each assembly. The upper level need agreements of lower levels to apply things. Imagine if every town needed to vote for decisions applied to a region, and there was no mayors in the towns. Same thing here, there is an army alongside the movment, and it’s not 100% clear if they, as they claim, have no say in the political decisions, or if they unofficially have some form of governance. Though i have not seen much claims that they do such things, and it’s also one of the most devoted to peoole army that i know of.

To add a bit more context, there is an army in both cases because of the very violent context : nationalist and then bolchevik armies in Ukraine, state violence and cartels in Chiapas. Both are relatively short (few years for ukraine, few decades for Chiapas). And also, zapatistas in Chiapas reject the notion and term of anarchism, though they are relatively close in pure theory.

When we say “in charge”, it can mean two very different things : either in charge for anything (like a leader), either in charge of a specific thing (like a worker). Most anarchist theories aim at getting rid of the former, arguing that only the latter produces anything directly. So there would/could be people in charge, but for specific tasks : that could be handling a single repair, managing a field of crops, or organizing the shipment of food across a region (depending on the anarchist system, some may or may not make sense). Those people would be chosen by various systems, mostly direct “democracy”, where assemblies of most people mandates them. The main difference between mandating and voting is that mandating is limited to a predefined task to accomplish. Also, in most anarchist systems, it has to be short and/or revocable, though that could be applied to voting too. A common point is also federation : most system advocate for little communities where you can establish rules as close as possible to what people desire. And then those communities can federate together for purposes that require or work best at large scale. This principle of little communities getting together for bigger problems is what has been established in anarchist Ukraine and autonomous Chiapas, though in two different ways.

So, there is no necessary power vacuum, as in the lack of power does not imply chaos which would imply need for power.

Now, of course there is the risk of power-hungry people aiming at recreating power : but I’d say if you managed to get rid of a state, you have the militant basis and strength required to get rid of mafias or other states, right? And if need be, anarchist armies existed with anarchist principles : elected officers, self-discipline, etc.

I guess you mean “without rule” as in “without people ruling” and not as “without norms”, and it is indeed correct. There is a word for “without norms”, which is anomie (at least in french).

Also, i’d argue that states and governance inherently require permanently elevated authority, but if you meant more general meaning for those, like state as organization of masses of people and governance as common decisions for those masses, then i see your point.