What is anarchy?

Simple question.

 

Hatred of the government, authority and of the general system.

That's what I always thought? Prob's I'm wrong

 

its greek for without rulers

 

yep, thats pretty much it

 

More please. How is the world supposed to function without rulers?

 

hows it functioning now with them ?real good ? or plagued by war missery and famine ?

 

couch potatoe !!

 

I didn't mean that in a "My god...no rulers?!?!? How will we cope?!?!" kinda way. I actually want to hear more about the viable alternatives.

 

It depends entirely on your flavour of anarchism. Most anarchists are no such thing, IMHO. They're actually anarcho-syndicalists, which to my mind is just another variety of communism. It's all about workers co-operatives taking control back from the bosses blah blah blah. In effect, you still have laws and control and people telling you what to do, because there's no other way such a model could work. It's just the people making the laws who'd change.

The only flavour of anarchism that ever sounded remotely workable to me was green anarchism. Of course this is such a minority within a minority that it probably has about ten supporters in the entire country. But still.... the idea (last time I checked) was basically a return to small, self-sufficient, eco-friendly communities. The benefit of such a model is that 'laws' as such aren't strictly necessary. Social pressure should be sufficient to keep most peoples' behaviour within sensible boundaries, and the dysfunctional problems created by a large, industrialised society would no longer be present. Of course the huge flaw in this model is how we get from here to there. But then if you assume our current society is pretty much doomed anyway, then we'll inevitably get there eventually!

But if you want a model for anarchism (or any other political system) that's viable in today's world, then forget it. Unfortunately, centralised control is essential for keeping a large-scale industrialised society functioning. Which is yet another reason why it's probably doomed.

 

Federations is the key.

Street by street, community by community, town by town etc, all working for the benefit of each other.

Very similar to communism but without the leaders.

 

Anarchy is rejecting established society and taking 100% responsibility for yourself

not as easy (or as cool) as it first sounds

 

AND taking responsibility for others!

 

yeah, but communism is about submission, while anarchy is about freedom.

 

Yes but as Oz just pointed out with Freedom comes responsibility...

 

yeah, that's clear..

 

Lovely idea. Wouldn't work in practice though. For a start, production and manufacturing is now trans-global. Laws, regulations and co-ordination are required to keep the economy functioning. If you want to go back to a pre-industrial revolution model, then fair enough. But if you want anything ressembling a modern lifestyle, then forget it.

On another note, you'd need such a system to be adopted globally, simultaneously. That's not about to happen. Unless you're suggesting that a world revolution is just around the corner?

With your system in place, who gathers taxes? No taxes? OK, so who pays to monitor and control existing supplies of nuclear waste, for example?

And then what about the fact that most people are cunts? The majority of people back the death penalty. Where do we stand on the issue of public executions in your street-by-street communities? And what about the racist streets that start burning black people?

Like I said.... lovely idea, but it'll never work in practice. At least not for hundreds of years. Maybe one day we'll have evolved beyond the need for laws, but then an anarchistic society would arise through natural evolution. It's not an idea that you can force into being through revolution before we're ready for it.

 

I dunno if I'd go as far as saying responsibility (but i just have an inbuilt feeling that i don't have to be responsible for anyone but me), but respect for others is indeed a paramount....people too often confuse anarchist ideals with anti-social traits

 

yeah, those people mostly have no clue what they're talking about.

 

Indeed. As a practicing anarchist I'm under no illusions about the struggle ahead. But little by little.....

Rome didn't collapse in a day!

 

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