anarchy is stupid

Under anarchist atheists, anarchy would do North America justice. PPl would see more liberty than ever before. I see this nation moving toward anarchy anyway. Just wait and see. Once Wash D.C. is taken off the map the anarchism will occur next rather than some other form of government. Cool anarchy is lesser gov, not no gov, but not the crrent gov at all. Abolishing capitaliism would be the bomb inexchange for equil payments based on North America's total in profits. That's right, it would be called just North America because it would be free from the U.S. (making it the former U.S. at then) for more liberty.

 

How are you going to feed everyone?

 

tecnology, not hierarchy, makes possible the survival of excessive human population levels now. granted infrastructure in any form requires some degree of social organization WITHIN ITS OWN CONTEXT, though not the kind of overall hierarchism which currently typifies both political and economic interests.

bind faith in the bennificence of formalized hierarchy IS just as "stupid" (i.e.; absurd and unrealistic, as expecting a lack of organization to sustain current population levels).

=^^=
.../\...

 

are you the guy that would get rid of freedom of religion? i'm sorry if i'm confusing you with someone else, but you sound like him.
Anarchy is what happens between governments, it's the peasant's revolt. during this time there would be no money (no government equals no banks equals no cash), so divvying up all our total profits would be an exercise in futility. and distributing them equally is also silly, cause then people wouldn't work hard, or try to get ahead, because there is no reward for doing so.
and that's why anarchy is stupid.

 

Money is a good thing. And it doesn't have to come from governments - it can come from private banks, anybody that people trust to back it in gold, etc.

 

i disagree. but just for the record, i'm not what you would call an anarchist. i just like the idea. =)

 

who would really want anarchy?
we need leaders otherwise the whole world would fall into shit...what we need is a form of direct democracy in which everyone gets an input into the way they want their country to be run...can you imagine anarchy with everyone wanting what they want and no one mediating?
fair enough it's a nice idea in theory...but so was communism and that didnt really do much good...
it is stupid...sorry but it is
x x x

 

i think so...unless participation in the state is entirely voluntary by everybody...maybe we could start with NO COMPULSORY TAXATION!!

 

Anarchism would not result in total chaos. If we eliminate government, spontaneous order would result and a new system would be put into place..likely a feudal one.

There have been many stateless societies (ie anarchist) both in the past and quite recently. Somalia is a good example.

Sounds like you people need to get off the interweb and travel a bit. Expand your horizons a bit and see how other societies live.

Lastly, anarchism isn't stupid. It's a perfectly valid system as any other. People are entitled to their own opinion and allowed to live as they wish. That would be my ideal utopia. Others find communism and socialism a utopia. Saying that 'anarchism is stupid' is not an opinion. It's merely a tactic to start a flame war on the Internet.

 

I can't speak for the entirety of the United States, but I think that it would take very little effort to maintain an Anarchistic society on what we currently have, especially in rural and suburban areas. This will be even more true once we end our addiction to oil.

The key is in making sure that there are enough decent gun(-or-other-less-lethal-weapon)-bearing adults to keep an eye out for gangs and other political groups with weapons. All of the current infrastructures could continue to be used except for those that exist purely by force (Those which most of us would like to see removed or reformed anyway). The only thing required to keep people doing the jobs they already do is the promise of food and shelter or the freedom thereof. Forms of work that are made obsolete by an end to the previous systems would free people up to do other things, specifically (coming to my mind) they could either assist in the useful jobs, educate, get educated, or retire. And so long as the scientific community continues to be interested in science, technology would continue to advance.

It is my strong suspicion that one of the leading reasons that a great deal of humanity's "grunt work" hasn't been fully automated is the supposed effect the loss of jobs would cause. With proper application of already available technology, combined with further developments in the fields of 'green' energy (my hopes laying particularly in the field of solar energy), we could easily bring the necessity of human work so low, that the leading worry for society would be what happens when people get bored.

But until that point is reached, I think the main thing that would keep things moving, is the fact that people who have skills that are in demand and/or rare tend to be perfectly happy to use them to help their fellow man, so long as they're not under pressure. This is easily made doubly effective once the person with said skills is made properly aware of where their work lays in the chain of how food and shelter are made free, safe, and available, not to mention that in direct human to human situations the person they're dealing with may have an important place in the chain. And in the case of skills that are in a high enough demand to put pressure on those that have them, the sheer amount of unskilled people, at least some percentage of which would inevitably enter the now free system of education and fill the much needed roles of those whose skills are under pressure.

Additionally, I think this would cause a drastic increase the use of the apprenticeship system, though with the continued maintenance of the internet as a system of information transfer, the validity of one's education (either through university or personal training) would still be about as verifiable as it would be now (not very).

There'd still be just as much 'crime' in a situation like this, but vastly less war. Also, with the demand being just as high for certain products that chiefly depend on corporations, the number of people seeking training in how to produce those goods, and access to those facilities would sky-rocket, preventing the supposed reversion to nature that so many claim anarchism invariably aims for. I think this could be a great non-country... My other favorite option would be the government from the second book of the Schrodinger's Cat trilogy, The Trick Top Hat, by Robert Anton Wilson.

 

Anarchy needs to be given an entirely new name because people seem to freak out once they hear it and have very strange opinions on the matter when they only have seen the standard thesaurus descriptions and heard "total chaos and anarchy is ruling the streets" in the media.

Anarchy will always be a question of degree. The degree of democracy may be measured using different factors, such as the degree of personal freedom; freedom of speech, expression, freedom from suppression et cetera. I could go on and on about what makes you free, but I think you know what I mean. Freedom from being ruled by someone would be a state of anarchy, if the primitive system of hierarchy was replaced by the right and the use of this right to participate in the policy-making on issues that would affect you.

Decentralization and co-operation are key-words in an anarchy. And here's my main idea: The highest form of democracy is anarchy.
Laws are a necessity in an anarchy. You can make all kinds of laws. laws may extend the freedom of the indivduals, protect animals, support organic produced foods, all things positive but thay can ALSO kill prisoners, punish people way too hard for committing minor offenses, give rapists too mild punishment et cetera.

It seems that people mostly associate laws with rulers, and later, governments. Somehow these governments work. At least they propose laws and do things. It's a system. People tend to think that anarchy isn't a system. - that it's chaos. but then again, they are wrong. Chaos is an authoritarian condition. For example, there can be chaos within a government. Chaos breakes out when a country is invaded by military forces. Chaos is always provoked by someone who is in position of or is trying to gain more power. It is not always easy to find this "provoker". However, we may form an image on who is ruled or forced by whom. Who has power and who has not. Once again, as said with laws, power may used for good or bad purposes.

 

Anarchy Is Completely Unrealistic.

 

People need to stop thinking of anarchy as a political system or a power structure. Anarchists are merely believers in the idea that no one is more capable to make decisions than yourself. How far you take this belief is up to the individual. Anarchy is misrepresented in modern society. If you're a member of the counter culture, you're an anarchist. If you jay walk, that's an act of anarchy. When you smoke pot, when you slack off at work, when you break any stupid rule enforced by others you're committing acts of anarchy. You're putting yourself in the position of control rather than just submitting.

I personally think that capitalism itself is stupid. Money is power, and capitalism distributes that power unevenly. If you are living with in the capitalist society you can never be truly free except in rare cases(president, movie star, CEO, ect). Mostly people end up working for the benefit of others. Being an anarchist is really just the notion that humanity can do better. Is creating a utopian society unlikely? Of course, but what if we could? Would you really rather live life in a system which you saw as imperfect without even trying to make a better one? I wouldn't.

 

I'm posting on a computer. I'm such an anarchist.

 

Any system other than the one we have and are building in to (read: facism) is unrealistic, but we can try for the unrealistic or let the realistic go about its business of driving us to extinction.

 

but what would you rather do? Let the current distribution of power drive the Earth into disaster, or actually try and think of something new?

 

Well actually, money is really just based in the good faith of those that exchange it. The old Iraqi currency technically became worthless after the collapse of Saddam's regime (the value of fiat currency being derived from the government that endorses it) and yet Iraqis continued to trade in it unpeturbed.

But the fact that your comment has been proved wrong by history is only really a sideline matter of interest,
Money is a representation of wealth, it isn't magic. Wealth doesn't disappear by magic when money disappears. Wealth is produce etc.

Many people actually enjoy their jobs, and would happily work in them without money provided their material needs are taken care of. All the farmers I know enjoy farming.
People without money would work for the same reason as people with money. Because they need the products of the labour, and because they like to work.

If society needed money to function, it would never have come into existence in the first place, since society and trade predate the existence of money.

An anarchist might respond that the world has fallen to shit, and that leaders cause more of these problems than they solve.
Humans are social creatures, we get along without leaders all the time in informal contexts.
You don't need "leaders" to mediate a conflict of interests with another person.

 

The definition of Anarchy is a state that has no law or order/rules or; any type of government official enforcing laws "individual freedom and liberty". I believe that Anarchy is a concept that is both impossible yet exists. To clarify the latter statement; Anarchy is an imaginary concept used to balance the real world of law and order (much like an imaginary number used to solve some mathematical equations - for any mathematicians here). The universe runs on balance eg: poor and rich, light and dark. One cannot exist without the other as does the idea of poltical leadership and non-politcal leadership. Overall the idea of Anarchy is an impractical philosophy that provides humans a balance of ideas.

So why is Anarchy impossible? From a retrospective view of Human history there has never been a state or a group without a leader. Even animals have a dominant male or female within a group. Sure there have been humans who lived alone or animals that do live alone, but what do they accomplish? Even in a family or a love couple there's always the dominant figure who lays down laws or rules to abide by or they both come up with rules. The Greek riot is another example of how Anarchism cannot exist, the students/rioters take refuge in the University campus because the police cannot enter the campus site - rules protect them. A world without rules or regulations will be chaotic. Furthermore the idea of Anarchy draws close to chaos - something that cannot exist in the universe.

Therefore, without leaders, laws and order humans cannot survive ie: the idea of Anarchy is impossible (rather than stupid).

 

Well an Anarchist may not be opposed to a leader par se.
We're opposed to involuntary leaders, installed from above.

At work, I always heed to advice and commands of our engineer, because if I don't the machine I'm using will break and hurt me, and likewise he tends to listen to me when their is math to do, because he is able to add 18 to 80 and get 106.

It is leadership based on pragmatism and expertise, neither of us has to listen to the other, but it would be foolish not to.

Compare the UK government. Once every 4 years I'm allowed to vote. If I vote for the Greens, they'll take approximately 6% of the vote, but receive 0% of the seats in parliament Ipso Facto despite having participated democratically, despite paying out my earnings to support the government, I have absolutely no representation or no say in how my money is spent. If I write to my (Tory) MP, I am given the brush-off and ignored.

And is it expertise that sways an election? of course not, it is the ability to sway the majority of voters, a game of rhetoric and PR. As a means of choosing a good leader, it has the same basic level of efficiency as picking a name out of a hat every 4 years (so long as limit entry into the hat to educated members of the upper-middle class, the majority of MP candidates).

The "Leaders" we have do not represent order in my view, they represent pure havoc, chaos in its most pure and unbridled form.
The result is corruption, frivolous wasting of public money, wars, useless and incompetent police.

For me, Anarchy would bring balance to a system tipped heavily and unnaturally in favour of chaos. It would bring the proper mix of the two into fruition.

 

I appreciate your efforts to debate constructively, but I have to say I disagree with several of your points.
First of all, fuck the dictionary. The idea that we're talking about here has nothing to do with chaos, lack of law, or lack of leadership. The concept of anarchism, as I understand it, signifies the questioning and challenging of power, authority, and hierarchy, guided by the belief that in 90-99% of cases, these elements only cause more harm than good.
I agree that humanity cannot survive without rules, just like any other creature. Every culture has its own set of rules and ways of living, depending on what works best for its environment. However, it's important to note that, what may work perfectly for one culture, may very well be disastrous for another. This is where anarchy comes in, by promoting the idea that every individual or culture knows what works best for itself and should be free to make its own decisions and its own rules as opposed to another individual or culture.
I also agree that leadership is a natural occurence among humans. But remember: leadership and authority are two different concepts. You can certainly have someone act as a figure of leadership without becoming a figure of authority. Example: Jesus was a figure of spiritual leadership, but he never decided how people should live their lives, or prohibit people from living another way. On the other hand, a prison warden makes decisions for a large group of people, but I seriously doubt any prisoners would ever call him/her their leader. See what I mean?

You also stated that throughout human history there has never been a state or a group without a leader. While I would certainly agree that this is true for states, since by their very nature states are organized hierarchically, to say so for any group of people would be a highly ignorant statement. Even if we refused to examine the Stone Age, which was roughly 3 to 5 million years of human history during which I would say 99% of humans lived in egalitarian tribes with no formal form of authority or hierarchy, the last century has seen numerous anarchic societies or gatherings in which police and authority have been totally absent. I'm thinking of Ukraine during the Russian Revolution, Catalonia during the Spanish Revolution, Woodstock during the 60's, Israeli Kibbutzes...
The list goes on and on.
On the other hand, 10 000 years of statism has so far resulted only in the question of whether humanity (and the rest of the planet) is going to even make it to the next century. That doesn't seem like balance to me.