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| quote: | Originally posted by Tag
Thing about Anarchism and why I don;t think it would or ever should work is. First of all the majority of people are happy living with a government. Organising society is what humans do, it's what animals do you can;t change that fact of nature. People will always end up in some sort of organized society, for many reasons, mostly because people rather live in happy than in fear. With anarchy everyone would live in fear. We chose to live in an organized society with a government, thats just the way it is. Anarchist don;t loook at the entire picture of the world, the world is so over populated right now if we moved to anarchy it would be a complete disaster. Anyway, I most likely sound like I'm full of bs and I may be so I migth just go to that thing to learn a little more about how stupid anarchy is. |
Tag, let's not obfuscate matters here. I was not debating the merits of Anarchism as an ideology. I was clarifying the meaning of the word. Semantics if you will.
Whether Anarchism, as defined or conceived above, works or whether it fails is completely independent of this debate, which originated in Mike's use of the term oxymoron to refer to anarchist organizations, which clearly required an explanation at the level of semantics.
However, with regards to your opinion about the merits of Anarchism, I have to first point out that Anarchism, according to it's theory, does not entail a lack of organized society. Read the following:
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From The Encyclopaedia Britannica http://flag.blackened.net/daver/ana...defanarchy.html
ANARCHISM (from the Gr. an and archos, contrary to authority), the name given to a principle or theory of life and conduct under which society is conceived without government - harmony in such a society being obtained, not by submission to law, or by obedience to any authority, but by free agreements concluded between the various groups, territorial and professional, freely constituted for the sake of production and consumption, as also for the satisfaction of the infinite variety of needs and aspirations of a civilized being. In a society developed on these lines, the voluntary associations which already now begin to cover all the fields of human activity would take a still greater extension so as to substitute themselves for the state in all its functions. They would represent an interwoven network, composed of an infinite variety of groups and federations of all sizes and degrees, local, regional, national and international temporary or more or less permanent - for all possible purposes: production, consumption and exchange, communications, sanitary arrangements, education, mutual protection, defence of the territory, and so on; and, on the other side, for the satisfaction of an ever-increasing number of scientific, artistic, literary and sociable needs. Moreover, such a society would represent nothing immutable. On the contrary - as is seen in organic life at large - harmony would (it is contended) result from an ever-changing adjustment and readjustment of equilibrium between the multitudes of forces and influences, and this adjustment would be the easier to obtain as none of the forces would enjoy a special protection from the state. |
So on the contrary, it would be a society that is organized according to freely constituted agreements between various groups. The key to Anarchism is not no organization, but no coercing agent in the form of an imposed hierarchy, such as a government, a state or what have you.
Now the following question, of course, begs to be answered: if indeed we succeed at abolishing the state, will these "freely constituted agreements between various groups" form, or will they revert back to some form of autocratic hierarchical-like structures? The following is history's verdict (although note that history need not repeat itself, so the following is no "real" verdict as to whether Anarchism is possible or not):
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From http://www.gmu.edu/departments/econ...lan/anarfaq.htm
Have there been any historical examples of anarchist societies?
There have probably been no societies which fully satisfy any anarchists' ethical ideals, but there have been a number of suggestive examples.
Left-anarchists most often cite the anarchist communes of the Spanish Civil War as examples of viable anarchist societies. The role of the Spanish anarchists in the Spanish Civil War has perhaps generated more debate on alt.society.anarchy than any other historical issue. Since this FAQ is concerned primarily with theoretical rather than purely historical questions, the reader will have to search elsewhere for a detailed discussion. Suffice it to say that left-anarchists generally believe that: (a) The Spanish anarchist political organizations and unions began and remained democratic throughout the war; (b) That a majority of the citizenry in areas controlled by the anarchists was sympathetic to the anarchist movement; (c) That workers directly controlled factories and businesses that they expropriated, rather than being subject to strict control by anarchist leaders; and (d) That the farm collectives in the anarchist-controlled regions were largely voluntary, and rarely exerted coercive pressure against small farmers who refused to join. In contrast, anarcho-capitalist critics such as James Donald normally maintain that: (a) The Spanish anarchist political organizations and unions, even if they were initially democratic, quickly transformed into dictatorial oligarchies with democratic trappings once the war started; (b) That the Spanish anarchists, even if they initially enjoyed popular support, quickly forfeited it with their abuse of power; (c) That in many or most cases, "worker" control meant dictatorial control by the anarchist elite; and (d) That the farm collectivizations in anarchist-controlled regions were usually coercively formed, totalitarian for their duration, and marked by a purely nominal right to remain outside the collective (since non-joining farmers were seriously penalized in a number of ways). For a reply to James Donald's piece, click here.
For my own account of the controversy regarding the Spanish Anarchists, see The Anarcho-Statists of Spain: An Historical, Economic, and Philosophical Analysis of Spanish Anarchism. For a reply to my piece, click here.
Israeli kibbutzim have also been admired as working examples of voluntary socialism. Kropotkin and Bakunin held up the mir, the traditional communal farming system in rural Russia, as suggestive of the organization and values which would be expressed in an anarchist society. Various experimental communities have also laid claim to socialist anarchist credentials.
Anarcho-capitalists' favorite example, in contrast, is medieval Iceland. David Friedman has written extensively on the competitive supply of defense services and anarchistic character of a much-neglected period of Iceland's history. Left-anarchists have occasionally criticized Friedman's work on medieval Iceland, but overall this debate is much sketchier than the debate over the Spanish Civil War. See Is Medieval Iceland an example of "anarcho"-capitalism working in practice?; for David Friedman's reply to an earlier draft of this piece , click here.
A long stretch of medieval Irish history has also been claimed to have pronounced anarcho-capitalist features. Other anarcho-capitalists have argued that the American "Wild West" offers an excellent illustration of anarcho-capitalist institutions springing up only to be later suppressed and crowded out by government. Anarcho- capitalists also often note that while the United States has never been an anarchist society by any stretch of the imagination, that before the 20th-century the United States came closer to their pure laissez-faire ideals than any other society in history. America's colonial and revolutionary period especially interests them. Murray Rothbard in particular published a four-volume history of the colonial and revolutionary eras, finding delight in a brief period of Pennsylvania's history when the state government virtually dissolved itself due to lack of interest. (An unpublished fifth volume in the series defended the "weak" Articles of the Confederation against the strong, centralized state established by the U.S. Constitution.)
One case that has inspired both sorts of anarchists is that of the free cities of medieval Europe. The first weak link in the chain of feudalism, these free cities became Europe's centers of economic development, trade, art, and culture. They provided a haven for runaway serfs, who could often legally gain their freedom if they avoided re-capture for a year and a day. And they offer many examples of how people can form mutual-aid associations for protection, insurance, and community. Of course, left-anarchists and anarcho-capitalists take a somewhat different perspective on the free cities: the former emphasize the communitarian and egalitarian concerns of the free cities, while the latter point to the relatively unregulated nature of their markets and the wide range of services (often including defense, security, and legal services) which were provided privately or semi-privately. Kropotkin's Mutual Aid contains an extensive discussion of the free cities of medieval Europe; anarcho-capitalists have written less on the subject, but strongly praise the historical treatments in Henri Pirenne's Medieval Cities and Harold Berman's Law and Revolution.
The Enclopedia Brittanica article on Anarchism gives at best a cursory summary of anarchist theory, but does contain useful information on the history of left-anarchist political and labor movements. Click here to view the article.
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