Was the credit cut? Bc Existential Comics really be a classic
Don't know is EC has that signed in the image tbh. I just crossposted in this case.
If I recall correctly, a lot of the comics (at least early ones, I haven't gotten very far) don't have credit on them.
ah ok, I did not know that
Was the credit cut?
Is that not allowed?
It shouldn't be. Cutting the credit is not a cool move.
Doesn’t sound much like anarchy to me!
*laughs in capital*
Not specifically (yet), it's just good practice to credit someones work. Especially when it's such a good (and dare I say based) webcomic series
It's super shitty. I'm not one to make generalizations, but people who crop out credits probably rape their moms
As much as I abhor the state and wish we live like the state of Cheran (ironic of me to say state in this case, I know), anarchy will only work in a very small group, where everyone knows each other, are like-minded enough to not abuse each other's goodwill, and respect each other's personal boundaries.
So have a lot of small groups
Free trade and mutual cooperation between collectives, I thought this was considered the standard anarchic model?
Yes, our massive population and current way of life are not natural tendencies of our species, they are organizational forms put into place by rulers for more effecient exploitation.
And then what stops one small group from slowly becoming a giant group again?
Like...? I really miss the point. Do you mean villages or genocide?
how could what they wrote mean genocide?
It's one way to ensure there's only a small group of people, same as suicide is the most reliable way to get rid of hiccups.
I didn't say a small group, i said lots of small groups
That's just lots of geno's for the cideing.
If you want to genocide them, thats on you
Definitely not genocide. Not sure if villages is the exact way to say it, but it's a lot closer lol
So have a lot of small groups
Holy shit guys he solved the whole problem. Where should we send the check to?
Obviously does not solve the whole problem. Imo, smaller, self-governing groups are better able to apply democratic policies, as there are not likely to be as many different ideas within the group.
As for the check, you can send it to my balls
I also wonder what happens as new generations start to become prominent, they might not have the same ideals as their parents and either move away or change the dynamics of the group.
Yeah, that's not my favorite. I don't really want to rely on people or be part of a close community like that. And I really like having personal property. I probably contribute the bare minimum to society outside of my taxes. Not part of any organizations, don't give to charity. Definitely don't give to the homeless. Don't volunteer. I just want to work and come home to my house with my family and all my stuff. I'd make a terrible anarchist.
Why do you mention personal property? Anarchism and communism still allow ownership of personal property, but collective ownership of the means of production such as factories and schools. You could do everything you do now in a socialist or anarchist society.
What's the alternative that works?
That's what we're all trying to figure out.
Anti-anarchist pretty much think
Anarchy = chaos
This is heavily promoted by mainstream media and language
Anarchists are pacifist
Many people seem unable to comprehend how a community might defend itself without a standing military and so assume we must be unwilling to defend ourselves.
Nothing can be accomplished without coercion
Because most of us have grown up within strict hierarchies coerced to do things we don't want, we have trouble imagining any other way.
Everyone is inherently a selfish asshole
This is probably projection in most cases
How do you keep an Anarchic Utopia then? What stops Dickie McDickerson and his thugs from establishing a state on top of you?
The same that stops them from taking over a democracy. Sometimes.
If a society became anarchist enough to abolish state structures, there obviously had to exist a reason - there had to exist popular support.
Thus, someone attempting to recreate a state would face questions and opposition. People would try to persuade them of their error. If they declared a state, anarchists would not recognize it. If it claimed sovereignity above a territory, anarchists might not recognize that either.
The new state might encounter problems - unwilling residents would leave and be accepted in anarchy, annoyed anarchists would organize trade boycotts and sanctions, ultimately it could go badly and armed confrontation could follow. In some scenarios, the state might remain and attract people who want to live there. In some scenarios, war would follow - and if the majority really was anarchist, the state would lose and disappear.
Oh no, you misunderstand. They're not giving you a choice. They aren't proponents of democracy or any kind of representative government. You have to go from an Anarchic state to resisting an organized group while they are grabbing community leaders in the middle of the night and taking young men and women to work camps.
To resist an organized group, you communicate the problem (in an anarchist society, communicating the problem of a nascent state seems like the easy part), present evidence of the nature and severity of the problem, and ask people and existing organizations to mobilize.
Whether the next step is obstructing the state peacefully or mass production of munitions, would already depend on how bad the state has got.
Well you're already adding violence back in, but honestly that's fine. I didn't buy that pacifism would work anyways. It's good to practice in regards to starting stuff, but you'd have to be ready to end stuff.
And honestly I hope what you're saying would work but now you've got 3 more problems to solve. You're starting from standing and they're already going. So they're going to have a head start in every way. You're asking for volunteers and you have to deal with the bystander effect. They're coercing people to fight for them. And third, you've now created an army and at least some infrastructure to support it. There's more than a few times through history that the defending army just decided it was in charge now.
And just so you know where I'm coming from I've always thought you need at least some of the state institutions we have for a leftist state to work. Like education, enough military to make invading too costly, enough police to tackle organized crime, a tax system to provide help in disasters and keep infrastructure working, and a civil government to manage that infrastructure. Having it all in place negates the Dicky McDickerson problem from the outset. What we really need is to scale back a lot of what we have and to classify much of what people do to get rich as organized crime.
For the US specifically we'll also need a plan to deal with Christian Conservatives who will attempt to institute a theocracy pretty much right away.
Anarchism wouldn't get that far in the first place lmao
Heck the state
The state (could and idealistically) be the will of the people via proper democratic systems. It's just that right now most aren't that democratic, and unelected corporations have too much influence. (So under capitalism, I do think actual democracy isn't super meaningful)
I think if you want to have a functional civilisation (rather than just small communes, which with today's population is a pipe-dream) you need some kind of taxes, and now we've already arrived back at needing a state.
Collective spending is required for a civilisation, end of story. Anarchy is never going to build continent spanning infrastructure, ever.
Someone trying to accumulate wealth or power is going to ruin it for you. Sold you food with lead in it? Okay, what are ya gonna do about it? At a small, community scale this is easy, at civilisation scale, forget about it. You need some court system.
If you want to go live in a commune, be my guest, that's the only place anarchy can work.
If Putin's and Bezos didn't arise in every society, you wouldn't need a government.
But they always do.
They arise because they capture that state
They arise because there will always be a small percentage of humans who are sociopaths. Simplified, this means they are willing to harm others, not just because they are starving and NEED to harm someone to get their basic needs met (which I'd argue most people are capable of), but even to take things they don't actually need. Since most people are not willing to hurt others to take things they don't actually need (usually even willing to bend rather than fight), sociopaths have a leg up on the rest of us. They were able to rise to power way back when the first cities were being built, and have maintained a sociopathic society ever since. Sociopathic tendencies are lauded amongst the corporate elites, and without them it is unlikely one will make it in the corporate world.
Sociopaths are incentivized only in the capitalist system. In an anarchist system, sociopathy isn't rewarded.
Sociopaths are people who take what they want and are willing to harm others to do so. These people do and will exist in literally every system anywhere literally ever.
These people become kings. They become tyrants. They do what they want and everyone else suffers.
Maybe eventually you'll have a peasant revolt. And what can the peasants do to establish a system that mitigates this possibility in the future?
They arise because the capture that economy. A state is not required to capture an economy. However, a state is required to have any hope of even remotely controlling the people controlling the economy.
Ah yes the comic that deprogrammed me on anarchism
This is so cringe.
I don't see how anyone would be safe from thieves in anarchy.
Stealing, when it is done by most regular people is out of desperation. Decomodification of things necessary to live, and change in the socioeconomic system from a hierarchical one to a cooperative one would very likely lead to reduction in such crimes.
I have a gun. (/s)
You are misunderstanding why people become thieves in the first place, and how comparatively uncommon pure thievery is. The majority of theft is legal and is done in the name of capitalist profiteering. Not that break ins don't happen, nor that everyone will be a good person and accept a society of mutual aid.
Genuine theft will still occur. The consequences of something being stolen would not be the same within an anarchist society built on mutual aid. It is much easier to recover from theft when shelter, food, water, are all guaranteed things that you don't have to fret over. So the consequences will largely be interpersonal, grudges and disputes between people over less consequential things like valuables of some particular nature.
I am not of the opinion that violence of the community need be used on such a situation either. We aren't the police for Christ's sake. We can actually settle disputes in a proactive way that attempts to rectify the situation that precipitated the theft (maybe someone needs mental health help, maybe there are interpersonal issues) without kicking the shit out of anyone.
Violent crimes can be handled however the community sees fit. But things like theft or destroying someone's clothes should be handled proactively to ensure lasting solutions for everyone involved. Violence is a pretty bad deterrent for this kind of behavior.
The state doesn't keep you safe from thieves now. The police are a reactionary force that shows up after you've been robbed and then do nothing to help you. The most you get is a police report to refer your insurance company to, if your stolen belongings were insured.
A very real risk of punishment by the state if you happen to get caught is what prevents theft. Your argument conveniently left that important part out and presented a straw man argument.
The rest of these comments talk about unenforced theft like white collar crimes and other class war-like theft. Which just reinforces the idea that only state-executed enforcement of law is actually any good at preventing theft.
Not needing to steal is what keeps most people from stealing, not fear of punishment.
Do you think the homeless and hungry are the only people who steal?
High end crime happens ALL the time, and it's not out of necessity, it's out of the human condition of greed. Theft happens more often by rich individuals than it does by poor.
It's a good thing the state takes that "high end" crime as seriously as smoking weed.
mob justice did that before states existed or even humans. Now the state protects one class and loots the other. And guess what? thieves fear a mob more than the state. Things change, bad people find loopholes. How laws work needs to keep changing
Your first argument works in a perfect state, which will never exist. Your second paragraph makes no fucking sense.
Because witch hunts have never gone wrong and were always justified.
"This man loves other men, that's weird, let's kill him." - apparently no one ever
Also relevant meme:
"justice is not handed down from above and is therefore unfair" < words of the utterly deranged
You mean the process, that is democratically decided by elections with a bunch of checks and balances in the process?
Just lol. Is that why there's billionaires hoarding all the wealth while billions starve? Is that why Palestine is being genocided? Is that why we're headed full-steam for a climate apocalypse?
There's no "democracy" nor "checks and balances". There's only a sad farce.
Yes, because the democratic nations have democratically decided, that we want to consume more than is wise, that we want to retaliate for Oct 7 and that private property is cool, even if a few have more.
I agree, that mob-rule would remove billionaires, but how would it stop climate change, if there are no regulations against emissions?
Palestinians idk. In nationless anarchy it would not be a structured military, but let's not pretend there wouldn't be massive amounts of bloodshed.
None of that is "democratically elected". Those elections are a farce and I would go as far as to argue that no democracy which decides to kill 30.000 children and perform genocide is legitimate.
And nobody is talking about "mob rule". We're talking about anarchism.
Idk, what to tell you m8, but your idea of what's happening in the middle east seems way off.
Among Jewish interviewees, 88% give a positive assessment of the performance of IDF forces in the war until now.
Which is why this "democracy" is a farce. Thanks for proving my point.
Half elected officials with power are appointed not elected. The Supreme Court took away women's bodily autonomy. There was no popular vote for any of them not a single one. Also just because I vote someone in doesn't mean I agree with everything they do. Wouldn't it be more expedient to just use direct democracy so I can actually have a say?
"Your options are conservative A or B, and whatever actions they take are necessarily ones you voted for and agree with!"
OK, that's some US issues.
But if enough people want something, it'll happen. It's just that 50% of the US hates the other 50% and vice versa.
Abortion has long been a contentious issue and will probably be a big part of the election. Republicans are currently shooting themselves in the foot with that.
If enough people want something it'll happen... how? Like no seriously how? Is there some reason that the people shouldn't be allowed to directly vote on things? Are you saying that elected officials are reliable in implementing the needs of their constituents? Why is politics so contentious then?
I don't think there is a moral reason against direct democracy. You just need enough people to get on board with the idea. But in america the Republicans would loose a lot of power, so they won't vote for it.
Elected officials are relatively reliable. Maybe not for needs, but for wants. Biden for example made increasing demands of Israel, as popular opinion (of his voterbase) shifted. Sadly nobody cares about smaller issues, so there isn't really pressure to change e.g. right to repair. Maybe on local level smaller stuff can change.
Politics is so contentious, because the algorithms feed us different realities. If I was reading conservative news 24/7 I might also start thinking that climate change doesn't exist, the gays are coming for my children etc.
There is similar stuff on the left, just not as widespread. Democratic voters are on average moderate CNN-watching boomers.
No idea how to fix this. Similar issues are starting here in Germany, but a bit less. I think the "Tagesschau" and similar news are probably a big reason Germany is relatively moderate compared to others.
Yes, because the democratic nations have democratically decided, that we want to consume more than is wise, that we want to retaliate for Oct 7 and that private property is cool, even if a few have more.
Which party is against this? I live in a blue state in America and will gladly vote for them.
Homophobia comes mainly from the will to govern over other people, by shaming their natural and harmless sexual behavior, and is often dictated by some religion. As power structures like to cooperate, be they corporations, states, or churches; sometimes they like to push each others.
Before you ask: yes, some corporations are doing pride shit to appeal to a wider audience and legitimize their power in the modern world. But others like Xitter are helping state and church powers, as they have a common interest in keeping and expanding their own power.
If you also ask: many churches flourish when the state defunds social safety networks, as they can step in to replace them with church-based charities. I work in a state-owned retirement home, and I can first-hand experience it. Secularism is very compromised as churches had to step in to donate stuff, but that was never a charity, as they demanded the secular state of the institution to slowly eroding, because "religion provides comfort to the soul", and thus mental health care gets the axe first.
Authoritarians in general are excel in giving simple answers to complicated questions. Science? No, god did it. Our economical system is inherently flawed? No, a cabal of evil Jews that don't want to go back to the holy land did it. An anti-authoritarian project failed due to complicated reasons? No, they simply weren't authoritarian, and didn't have a good tyrant to stop the bad tyrants.
Theivery is a result of material needs unfulfilled, not some random genetic drive to go stealing.
Some people are born evil. More than most of us would care to think too hard about.
"The greatest crimes are not those committed for the sake of necessity but those committed for the sake of superfluity. One does not become a tyrant to avoid exposure to the cold." -- Aristotle
"Slavery is both expedient and right" - Aristotle
Probably a bad idea to quote Aristotle as a moral authority on anything but the rules of rhetoric.
Clearly he was wrong sometimes.
Was he wrong about the magnitude of crimes committed for the sake of excess being greater than crimes committed for survival? Who steals more - the capitalist class, or the Jean ValJeans of the world?
Said the guy arguing that some people are "born evil" and pretending they can't follow the logical chain from that assumption.
How do you believe anyone is "born evil"? What does that mean? Would you support eugenics if this 'evil gene' could be identified?
What an idealistic, immaterial look at the world. No, people are not born evil with an addiction to stealing, lol.
Does the billionaire that steals the excess production of the working class do so out of necessity?
Does the cop who steals cash from motorists and lies about smelling drugs do so because that cop is underprivileged and disenfranchised by the system?
Not all humans have working moral compasses. Its an unpleasant reality that can be hard for some people to come to grips with and integrate into their worldview, but failure to understand a problem is unlikely to lead to effective solutions.
People are products of their environment and their material conditions, exactly. You aren't genetically a billionaire or a cop, lmao.
What empty, vague idealism.
You're really not wrong, and I'm not entirely sure why you're being downvoted. Thievery is largely a product of unfulfilled needs or unchecked hoarding of wealth, one could even argue that the latter is just a reaction to living through or fear of the former. An anarchist society solves both of those problems inherently. How do you steal what can be gotten as a matter of course? I feel like the smallest outlier doing such things in a community would just be a mild inconvenience and caught pretty quickly.
Because shitlibs are on Lemmy now.
You are free to steal. And the rest of the community is free to beat the shit out of you.
If that's how it works, then a stable anarchist society is impossible. The first asshole that comes along with a bigger gun than everyone else will have it right back to a dictatorship.
The community will band against the dictator as much as the thief
They most likely follow the dictator, at the very least to sate their blood thirst.
Their "blood thirst" of not wanting thieves and murderers in their society? You realize that our current society is orders more "blood thirsty" than what we describe but only that you hide the violence through the police and the brutal wars and genocides against other nations?
You’re making their point for them
And you'd rather have mobs kill criminals themselves? Enact the death penalty for petty thieves while they celebrate billionaires like they do today?
No?
Curious, because that's the most likely scenario.
The free market will regulate itself! We’ll all have open and fair access
wtf are you on about?
You’re at the magical thinking “And then of course we will all…” crutch that a lot of philosophies lean on
Capitalism: We’ll deregulate and open the market to everyone, and then there will be “perfect competition” in a “free market”
Communism: We have state socialism until society is prepared, and then transition to communism
Anarchism: We won't have a central authority to prevent aggression, obviously we will work together as mutual interest aligns. And 100% no roving bands of raiders or warlords will ever ruin our society!
We won’t have a central authority to prevent aggression, obviously we will work together as mutual interest aligns.
Yes, by definition that's how anarchism works. If if wasn't like this, it wouldn't be anarchism. Not sure why this is a difficult concept to handle.
And 100% no roving bands of raiders or warlords will ever ruin our society!
Nobody said that external dangers are not a potential issue, but the plan is to oppose them. Not a difficult concept to grasp either.
I have fringe anarcho-syndicalist politics, I understand the theory. I also understand that nothing exists in a vacuum, and while our happy anarchy-commune/whatever of 3,000 aligned people may build mutual aid tranquillity in our area, others may not. And those others may choose banditry, and your stuff instead of working for food.
So our commune/syndicate/etc form a defensive structure/organization to stop/prevent them - you just created a military/police class of “most equals”. Who will need a command structure for doing the ‘gun/bat meet aggressor’ functions, and some kind of special remit from the community.
Or we say no dedicated force and the classes it brings, and use the irregulars/militia model instead. Which has so many issues on so many different aspects that’s it’s not worth me typing out.
Ffs go read Hobbes’ Leviathan
That's true for all types of society. But it also means that a completely anarchist society is more stable than the rest because the means of self defence are equally distributed and that everyone would rise against such authoritarian attack.
the means of self defence are equally distributed
That has never been, and will never be true. You could magically eliminate all weapons on the planet simultaneously and it still won't be true, since some people are bigger and stronger than others.
And in case you haven't been paying attention to history; authoritarians very rarely just show up out of nowhere and take over. They are usually installed as leader after some form of revolution, then the title just gets transferred once the authoritarian system is in place. It's usually far more insidious than just some guy the village has to band together to fight off.
It doesn't mean that every person has equal ability to physically defend themselves, but that society has the mechanisms to defend everyone that is being attacked.
A grandma doesn't need to be able to self defend against a thug in the street if the people nearby do it for her.
The second paragraph is not relevant as there are no historical examples of a dictator getting into power from within an anarchist society.
Are there any historical examples of a large-scale anarchist society in the first place?
This, but much more importantly - when everyone's needs are met, and there is no hierarchy to try and get to the top of at the expense of others, people will have no reason to do shit like steal in the first place.
And what about the long road it takes to get to everyone’s needs being met? How will you ever get to that point? It doesn’t just happen overnight.
That may be no reason to do shit like that once everyone’s needs are being met, but there will be until you get to that point, and because of that, there’s no reason to think you would.
You do realise ambition and greed are two sides of the same coin. Yes, resource scarcity effects this, but there will ALWAYS be people who want more
Thats why were actually in a “anarchy always has been” meme.
We are free to ignore the law and to object any direct order.
We are free to join a police force and protect the state, to join a police force and kill a civilian, free to take a firearm and kill a police officer, free to be killed by a police officer
We are free to organize institutions and support those.
You are free to join a line of thinking which brings you to a state of servitude.
You are free to comply, others are free to hurt you based on but also regardless of what you do.
Anarchy always has been, always will be.
Sooner we realize how inevitable it is the quicker we can overcome the hurdle and to accept that: Only by also helping others can we truly better ourselves.
A thief is safer under a state because the state can punish those who defend themselves. The point of the state is to be the only ones able to dispense justice.
If someone stole from me, me or my community can dispense justice without fear of the state. Communities tend to not fuck with each other too much lest they start battles, which nobody wants. Humans lived for hundreds of thousands of years without states.
The age of tribes was fucking brutal. They attacked and extinguished each other regularly.
There's just as much or more evidence for groups living mostly peacefully also.
There is no perfect world where nobody dies. We are just way more efficient at at now and at keeping the mess in places where there are mostly non-wealthy people. Is that an improvement?
Ah, so fair process only lynch mops? Great.
Anarchism is the result of controlled opposition brainworms that the bourgeoisie spread to prevent socialism from taking hold
Because everybody knows, anarchism is complete dog shit
Also, modern age anarchists suspiciously rant more about "red fash" than they ever stand up to actual fascism
I doubt that. I think the pushback starts when you threaten somebody's cash flow. The women thing is a red herring.
So... as soon as the society based on mutual aid starts?
Speaking entirely seriously, the reduction of societal relations in a capitalist economy to purely or even primarily material concerns conceals and denies the very real and very prominent place personal and cultural biases have. Oftentimes materially damaging movements are ignored until they begin to threaten cultural norms.
It's supposed to be funny bc the failed idealism of the Narodniks later lead to the individual terrorist approach of the "Narodnaya Volya" ("Peoples Will")
(this is not meant to be a jab at anarchists btw, just thought it was midly relevant and funny/ironic)
I thought the last sentence was "Rich you are"
BUT... think about the PROOOfits
What is the best example of something built by anarchists?
For the sake of curiosity I'd leave this quite broad. Buildings, institutions, inventions, art. What's the showcase example of what anarchy has created for us?
40 hour work week. 8 hour day.
I thought credit for both of those usually goes to unions. Which anarchists or groups of anarchists made the most significant contributions to the 40 hour work week or 8 hour days?
How did a philosophy of minimized government involvement contribute to the regulations and enforcement mechanisms around our labor laws?
honey who the fuck do you think started the IWW?
syndicalism is a tendency of libertarian socialism. it was anarchists engaging in — typically violent — direct action that bred the popular labour movement, women's suffrage, the abolition of racial segregation, and others.
How did a philosophy of minimized government involvement contribute to the regulations and enforcement mechanisms around our labor laws?
… because we live in a society? the State needs labour, but if all the labourers refuse to sell themselves until labour-buyers stop X, then the State may decide very graciously to abolish the practise of X. so the theory of syndicalism goes: rinse and repeat till you have eroded all the power of labour-buyers, and you can seize the workplace and cut out the State.
… because we live in a society?
I FUCKING KNEW IT
I... Don't think you have an idea what anarchism is, so there's really no point in discussing here until you do
That'd be unions. I can't think of anything less anarchy-y.
Lol a whole goddamn branch of anarchism is about unions. Goes to show you have no fucking idea what you're talking about.
The Confederación Nacional del Trabajo (English: National Confederation of Labor; CNT) is a Spanish confederation of anarcho-syndicalist labor unions
much of the basic technique in photography and film? not being a chattel slave? OSHA? there not being a cop city in atlanta just yet? several major art movements; really most of them at least since radio became a thing? the personal computer? FOSS(what about Lemmy, originally? was that anarchists?)? a major chunk of the muscle behind the positive parts of the early internet and trying to keep it free? modern shadow archives? most (by a very small very arguable margin) of the Russian revolution, before the Bolsheviks killed all the communists? organized labor? curry burritos? LOTR? the entire genre of science fiction?
Let’s think of fun comparison for a second. Mods/admins are government, judges and police at the same time. This is equivalent of an authoritarian regime.
Now if the mods would be elected by users that would be a democracy. Then if there would be no mods - there we have - anarchism.
In authoritarian regime views of government dictate everything. In democracy people decide who will dictate a lot with various safe guards. In anarchy people directly decide what views are popular and what is a crime, sometimes by groupthink.
What it tells me is that among many anarchists groups some will be absolutely terrible place you wouldn’t want to be in for even a second and some will be amazing but it isn’t a rule but it depends on the people that make up the given group. Obviously if you are POC you would hardly want to be in a racist community, I mean they would probably kill you on sight with their views being very white centered to say the least. So you keep going to find your community assuming you luckily got away.
Then you meet community of religious gun freaks flat earthers that you may want to skip as well. Finally you find your dream group but it was raided by some barbarians
Let’s think of fun comparison for a second. Mods/admins are government, judges and police at the same time. This is equivalent of an authoritarian regime. Now if the mods would be elected by users that would be a democracy. Then if there would be no mods - there we have - anarchism.
Ha it isn’t the easiest or quick read if one really wants to understand the topic. I will need few days to digest it properly before I can make up my mind about it
Was the credit cut? Bc Existential Comics really be a classic
Don't know is EC has that signed in the image tbh. I just crossposted in this case.
If I recall correctly, a lot of the comics (at least early ones, I haven't gotten very far) don't have credit on them.
ah ok, I did not know that
Is that not allowed?
It shouldn't be. Cutting the credit is not a cool move.
Doesn’t sound much like anarchy to me!
*laughs in capital*
Not specifically (yet), it's just good practice to credit someones work. Especially when it's such a good (and dare I say based) webcomic series
It's super shitty. I'm not one to make generalizations, but people who crop out credits probably rape their moms
As much as I abhor the state and wish we live like the state of Cheran (ironic of me to say state in this case, I know), anarchy will only work in a very small group, where everyone knows each other, are like-minded enough to not abuse each other's goodwill, and respect each other's personal boundaries.
So have a lot of small groups
Free trade and mutual cooperation between collectives, I thought this was considered the standard anarchic model?
Yes, our massive population and current way of life are not natural tendencies of our species, they are organizational forms put into place by rulers for more effecient exploitation.
And then what stops one small group from slowly becoming a giant group again?
Like...? I really miss the point. Do you mean villages or genocide?
how could what they wrote mean genocide?
It's one way to ensure there's only a small group of people, same as suicide is the most reliable way to get rid of hiccups.
I didn't say a small group, i said lots of small groups
That's just lots of geno's for the cideing.
If you want to genocide them, thats on you
Definitely not genocide. Not sure if villages is the exact way to say it, but it's a lot closer lol
Holy shit guys he solved the whole problem. Where should we send the check to?
Obviously does not solve the whole problem. Imo, smaller, self-governing groups are better able to apply democratic policies, as there are not likely to be as many different ideas within the group.
As for the check, you can send it to my balls
I also wonder what happens as new generations start to become prominent, they might not have the same ideals as their parents and either move away or change the dynamics of the group.
Yeah, that's not my favorite. I don't really want to rely on people or be part of a close community like that. And I really like having personal property. I probably contribute the bare minimum to society outside of my taxes. Not part of any organizations, don't give to charity. Definitely don't give to the homeless. Don't volunteer. I just want to work and come home to my house with my family and all my stuff. I'd make a terrible anarchist.
Why do you mention personal property? Anarchism and communism still allow ownership of personal property, but collective ownership of the means of production such as factories and schools. You could do everything you do now in a socialist or anarchist society.
What's the alternative that works?
That's what we're all trying to figure out.
Anti-anarchist pretty much think
This is heavily promoted by mainstream media and language
Many people seem unable to comprehend how a community might defend itself without a standing military and so assume we must be unwilling to defend ourselves.
Because most of us have grown up within strict hierarchies coerced to do things we don't want, we have trouble imagining any other way.
This is probably projection in most cases
How do you keep an Anarchic Utopia then? What stops Dickie McDickerson and his thugs from establishing a state on top of you?
The same that stops them from taking over a democracy. Sometimes.
If a society became anarchist enough to abolish state structures, there obviously had to exist a reason - there had to exist popular support.
Thus, someone attempting to recreate a state would face questions and opposition. People would try to persuade them of their error. If they declared a state, anarchists would not recognize it. If it claimed sovereignity above a territory, anarchists might not recognize that either.
The new state might encounter problems - unwilling residents would leave and be accepted in anarchy, annoyed anarchists would organize trade boycotts and sanctions, ultimately it could go badly and armed confrontation could follow. In some scenarios, the state might remain and attract people who want to live there. In some scenarios, war would follow - and if the majority really was anarchist, the state would lose and disappear.
Oh no, you misunderstand. They're not giving you a choice. They aren't proponents of democracy or any kind of representative government. You have to go from an Anarchic state to resisting an organized group while they are grabbing community leaders in the middle of the night and taking young men and women to work camps.
To resist an organized group, you communicate the problem (in an anarchist society, communicating the problem of a nascent state seems like the easy part), present evidence of the nature and severity of the problem, and ask people and existing organizations to mobilize.
Whether the next step is obstructing the state peacefully or mass production of munitions, would already depend on how bad the state has got.
Well you're already adding violence back in, but honestly that's fine. I didn't buy that pacifism would work anyways. It's good to practice in regards to starting stuff, but you'd have to be ready to end stuff.
And honestly I hope what you're saying would work but now you've got 3 more problems to solve. You're starting from standing and they're already going. So they're going to have a head start in every way. You're asking for volunteers and you have to deal with the bystander effect. They're coercing people to fight for them. And third, you've now created an army and at least some infrastructure to support it. There's more than a few times through history that the defending army just decided it was in charge now.
And just so you know where I'm coming from I've always thought you need at least some of the state institutions we have for a leftist state to work. Like education, enough military to make invading too costly, enough police to tackle organized crime, a tax system to provide help in disasters and keep infrastructure working, and a civil government to manage that infrastructure. Having it all in place negates the Dicky McDickerson problem from the outset. What we really need is to scale back a lot of what we have and to classify much of what people do to get rich as organized crime.
For the US specifically we'll also need a plan to deal with Christian Conservatives who will attempt to institute a theocracy pretty much right away.
Will there be downsides?
The answer actually did surprise me!
https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/david-graeber-are-you-an-anarchist-the-answer-may-surprise-you
Anarchism wouldn't get that far in the first place lmao
Heck the state
The state (could and idealistically) be the will of the people via proper democratic systems. It's just that right now most aren't that democratic, and unelected corporations have too much influence. (So under capitalism, I do think actual democracy isn't super meaningful)
I think if you want to have a functional civilisation (rather than just small communes, which with today's population is a pipe-dream) you need some kind of taxes, and now we've already arrived back at needing a state.
Collective spending is required for a civilisation, end of story. Anarchy is never going to build continent spanning infrastructure, ever.
Someone trying to accumulate wealth or power is going to ruin it for you. Sold you food with lead in it? Okay, what are ya gonna do about it? At a small, community scale this is easy, at civilisation scale, forget about it. You need some court system.
If you want to go live in a commune, be my guest, that's the only place anarchy can work.
If Putin's and Bezos didn't arise in every society, you wouldn't need a government.
But they always do.
They arise because they capture that state
They arise because there will always be a small percentage of humans who are sociopaths. Simplified, this means they are willing to harm others, not just because they are starving and NEED to harm someone to get their basic needs met (which I'd argue most people are capable of), but even to take things they don't actually need. Since most people are not willing to hurt others to take things they don't actually need (usually even willing to bend rather than fight), sociopaths have a leg up on the rest of us. They were able to rise to power way back when the first cities were being built, and have maintained a sociopathic society ever since. Sociopathic tendencies are lauded amongst the corporate elites, and without them it is unlikely one will make it in the corporate world.
Sociopaths are incentivized only in the capitalist system. In an anarchist system, sociopathy isn't rewarded.
Sociopaths are people who take what they want and are willing to harm others to do so. These people do and will exist in literally every system anywhere literally ever.
These people become kings. They become tyrants. They do what they want and everyone else suffers.
Maybe eventually you'll have a peasant revolt. And what can the peasants do to establish a system that mitigates this possibility in the future?
They arise because the capture that economy. A state is not required to capture an economy. However, a state is required to have any hope of even remotely controlling the people controlling the economy.
Ah yes the comic that deprogrammed me on anarchism
This is so cringe.
I don't see how anyone would be safe from thieves in anarchy.
You are misunderstanding why people become thieves in the first place, and how comparatively uncommon pure thievery is. The majority of theft is legal and is done in the name of capitalist profiteering. Not that break ins don't happen, nor that everyone will be a good person and accept a society of mutual aid.
Genuine theft will still occur. The consequences of something being stolen would not be the same within an anarchist society built on mutual aid. It is much easier to recover from theft when shelter, food, water, are all guaranteed things that you don't have to fret over. So the consequences will largely be interpersonal, grudges and disputes between people over less consequential things like valuables of some particular nature.
I am not of the opinion that violence of the community need be used on such a situation either. We aren't the police for Christ's sake. We can actually settle disputes in a proactive way that attempts to rectify the situation that precipitated the theft (maybe someone needs mental health help, maybe there are interpersonal issues) without kicking the shit out of anyone.
Violent crimes can be handled however the community sees fit. But things like theft or destroying someone's clothes should be handled proactively to ensure lasting solutions for everyone involved. Violence is a pretty bad deterrent for this kind of behavior.
The state doesn't keep you safe from thieves now. The police are a reactionary force that shows up after you've been robbed and then do nothing to help you. The most you get is a police report to refer your insurance company to, if your stolen belongings were insured.
A very real risk of punishment by the state if you happen to get caught is what prevents theft. Your argument conveniently left that important part out and presented a straw man argument.
The rest of these comments talk about unenforced theft like white collar crimes and other class war-like theft. Which just reinforces the idea that only state-executed enforcement of law is actually any good at preventing theft.
Not needing to steal is what keeps most people from stealing, not fear of punishment.
Do you think the homeless and hungry are the only people who steal?
High end crime happens ALL the time, and it's not out of necessity, it's out of the human condition of greed. Theft happens more often by rich individuals than it does by poor.
It's a good thing the state takes that "high end" crime as seriously as smoking weed.
mob justice did that before states existed or even humans. Now the state protects one class and loots the other. And guess what? thieves fear a mob more than the state. Things change, bad people find loopholes. How laws work needs to keep changing
Your first argument works in a perfect state, which will never exist. Your second paragraph makes no fucking sense.
https://www.anarchistfaq.org/afaq/sectionI.html#seci58
So basically mob-justice.
Because witch hunts have never gone wrong and were always justified.
"This man loves other men, that's weird, let's kill him." - apparently no one ever
Also relevant meme:
"justice is not handed down from above and is therefore unfair" < words of the utterly deranged
You mean the process, that is democratically decided by elections with a bunch of checks and balances in the process?
Just lol. Is that why there's billionaires hoarding all the wealth while billions starve? Is that why Palestine is being genocided? Is that why we're headed full-steam for a climate apocalypse?
There's no "democracy" nor "checks and balances". There's only a sad farce.
Yes, because the democratic nations have democratically decided, that we want to consume more than is wise, that we want to retaliate for Oct 7 and that private property is cool, even if a few have more.
I agree, that mob-rule would remove billionaires, but how would it stop climate change, if there are no regulations against emissions?
Palestinians idk. In nationless anarchy it would not be a structured military, but let's not pretend there wouldn't be massive amounts of bloodshed.
None of that is "democratically elected". Those elections are a farce and I would go as far as to argue that no democracy which decides to kill 30.000 children and perform genocide is legitimate.
And nobody is talking about "mob rule". We're talking about anarchism.
Idk, what to tell you m8, but your idea of what's happening in the middle east seems way off.
source
The majority of Israelis want the war.
Which is why this "democracy" is a farce. Thanks for proving my point.
Half elected officials with power are appointed not elected. The Supreme Court took away women's bodily autonomy. There was no popular vote for any of them not a single one. Also just because I vote someone in doesn't mean I agree with everything they do. Wouldn't it be more expedient to just use direct democracy so I can actually have a say?
"Your options are conservative A or B, and whatever actions they take are necessarily ones you voted for and agree with!"
OK, that's some US issues.
But if enough people want something, it'll happen. It's just that 50% of the US hates the other 50% and vice versa.
Abortion has long been a contentious issue and will probably be a big part of the election. Republicans are currently shooting themselves in the foot with that.
If enough people want something it'll happen... how? Like no seriously how? Is there some reason that the people shouldn't be allowed to directly vote on things? Are you saying that elected officials are reliable in implementing the needs of their constituents? Why is politics so contentious then?
I don't think there is a moral reason against direct democracy. You just need enough people to get on board with the idea. But in america the Republicans would loose a lot of power, so they won't vote for it.
Elected officials are relatively reliable. Maybe not for needs, but for wants. Biden for example made increasing demands of Israel, as popular opinion (of his voterbase) shifted. Sadly nobody cares about smaller issues, so there isn't really pressure to change e.g. right to repair. Maybe on local level smaller stuff can change.
Politics is so contentious, because the algorithms feed us different realities. If I was reading conservative news 24/7 I might also start thinking that climate change doesn't exist, the gays are coming for my children etc.
There is similar stuff on the left, just not as widespread. Democratic voters are on average moderate CNN-watching boomers.
No idea how to fix this. Similar issues are starting here in Germany, but a bit less. I think the "Tagesschau" and similar news are probably a big reason Germany is relatively moderate compared to others.
Which party is against this? I live in a blue state in America and will gladly vote for them.
Homophobia comes mainly from the will to govern over other people, by shaming their natural and harmless sexual behavior, and is often dictated by some religion. As power structures like to cooperate, be they corporations, states, or churches; sometimes they like to push each others.
Before you ask: yes, some corporations are doing pride shit to appeal to a wider audience and legitimize their power in the modern world. But others like Xitter are helping state and church powers, as they have a common interest in keeping and expanding their own power.
If you also ask: many churches flourish when the state defunds social safety networks, as they can step in to replace them with church-based charities. I work in a state-owned retirement home, and I can first-hand experience it. Secularism is very compromised as churches had to step in to donate stuff, but that was never a charity, as they demanded the secular state of the institution to slowly eroding, because "religion provides comfort to the soul", and thus mental health care gets the axe first.
Authoritarians in general are excel in giving simple answers to complicated questions. Science? No, god did it. Our economical system is inherently flawed? No, a cabal of evil Jews that don't want to go back to the holy land did it. An anti-authoritarian project failed due to complicated reasons? No, they simply weren't authoritarian, and didn't have a good tyrant to stop the bad tyrants.
Theivery is a result of material needs unfulfilled, not some random genetic drive to go stealing.
Some people are born evil. More than most of us would care to think too hard about.
"The greatest crimes are not those committed for the sake of necessity but those committed for the sake of superfluity. One does not become a tyrant to avoid exposure to the cold." -- Aristotle
"Slavery is both expedient and right" - Aristotle
Probably a bad idea to quote Aristotle as a moral authority on anything but the rules of rhetoric.
Clearly he was wrong sometimes.
Was he wrong about the magnitude of crimes committed for the sake of excess being greater than crimes committed for survival? Who steals more - the capitalist class, or the Jean ValJeans of the world?
Said the guy arguing that some people are "born evil" and pretending they can't follow the logical chain from that assumption.
How do you believe anyone is "born evil"? What does that mean? Would you support eugenics if this 'evil gene' could be identified?
What an idealistic, immaterial look at the world. No, people are not born evil with an addiction to stealing, lol.
Does the billionaire that steals the excess production of the working class do so out of necessity?
Does the cop who steals cash from motorists and lies about smelling drugs do so because that cop is underprivileged and disenfranchised by the system?
Not all humans have working moral compasses. Its an unpleasant reality that can be hard for some people to come to grips with and integrate into their worldview, but failure to understand a problem is unlikely to lead to effective solutions.
People are products of their environment and their material conditions, exactly. You aren't genetically a billionaire or a cop, lmao.
What empty, vague idealism.
You're really not wrong, and I'm not entirely sure why you're being downvoted. Thievery is largely a product of unfulfilled needs or unchecked hoarding of wealth, one could even argue that the latter is just a reaction to living through or fear of the former. An anarchist society solves both of those problems inherently. How do you steal what can be gotten as a matter of course? I feel like the smallest outlier doing such things in a community would just be a mild inconvenience and caught pretty quickly.
Because shitlibs are on Lemmy now.
You are free to steal. And the rest of the community is free to beat the shit out of you.
If that's how it works, then a stable anarchist society is impossible. The first asshole that comes along with a bigger gun than everyone else will have it right back to a dictatorship.
The community will band against the dictator as much as the thief
They most likely follow the dictator, at the very least to sate their blood thirst.
Their "blood thirst" of not wanting thieves and murderers in their society? You realize that our current society is orders more "blood thirsty" than what we describe but only that you hide the violence through the police and the brutal wars and genocides against other nations?
You’re making their point for them
And you'd rather have mobs kill criminals themselves? Enact the death penalty for petty thieves while they celebrate billionaires like they do today?
No?
Curious, because that's the most likely scenario.
wtf are you on about?
You’re at the magical thinking “And then of course we will all…” crutch that a lot of philosophies lean on
Capitalism: We’ll deregulate and open the market to everyone, and then there will be “perfect competition” in a “free market”
Communism: We have state socialism until society is prepared, and then transition to communism
Anarchism: We won't have a central authority to prevent aggression, obviously we will work together as mutual interest aligns. And 100% no roving bands of raiders or warlords will ever ruin our society!
Yes, by definition that's how anarchism works. If if wasn't like this, it wouldn't be anarchism. Not sure why this is a difficult concept to handle.
Nobody said that external dangers are not a potential issue, but the plan is to oppose them. Not a difficult concept to grasp either.
I have fringe anarcho-syndicalist politics, I understand the theory. I also understand that nothing exists in a vacuum, and while our happy anarchy-commune/whatever of 3,000 aligned people may build mutual aid tranquillity in our area, others may not. And those others may choose banditry, and your stuff instead of working for food.
So our commune/syndicate/etc form a defensive structure/organization to stop/prevent them - you just created a military/police class of “most equals”. Who will need a command structure for doing the ‘gun/bat meet aggressor’ functions, and some kind of special remit from the community. Or we say no dedicated force and the classes it brings, and use the irregulars/militia model instead. Which has so many issues on so many different aspects that’s it’s not worth me typing out.
Ffs go read Hobbes’ Leviathan
That's true for all types of society. But it also means that a completely anarchist society is more stable than the rest because the means of self defence are equally distributed and that everyone would rise against such authoritarian attack.
That has never been, and will never be true. You could magically eliminate all weapons on the planet simultaneously and it still won't be true, since some people are bigger and stronger than others.
And in case you haven't been paying attention to history; authoritarians very rarely just show up out of nowhere and take over. They are usually installed as leader after some form of revolution, then the title just gets transferred once the authoritarian system is in place. It's usually far more insidious than just some guy the village has to band together to fight off.
It doesn't mean that every person has equal ability to physically defend themselves, but that society has the mechanisms to defend everyone that is being attacked. A grandma doesn't need to be able to self defend against a thug in the street if the people nearby do it for her.
The second paragraph is not relevant as there are no historical examples of a dictator getting into power from within an anarchist society.
Are there any historical examples of a large-scale anarchist society in the first place?
This, but much more importantly - when everyone's needs are met, and there is no hierarchy to try and get to the top of at the expense of others, people will have no reason to do shit like steal in the first place.
And what about the long road it takes to get to everyone’s needs being met? How will you ever get to that point? It doesn’t just happen overnight.
That may be no reason to do shit like that once everyone’s needs are being met, but there will be until you get to that point, and because of that, there’s no reason to think you would.
You do realise ambition and greed are two sides of the same coin. Yes, resource scarcity effects this, but there will ALWAYS be people who want more
Thats why were actually in a “anarchy always has been” meme.
We are free to ignore the law and to object any direct order.
We are free to join a police force and protect the state, to join a police force and kill a civilian, free to take a firearm and kill a police officer, free to be killed by a police officer
We are free to organize institutions and support those.
You are free to join a line of thinking which brings you to a state of servitude.
You are free to comply, others are free to hurt you based on but also regardless of what you do.
Anarchy always has been, always will be.
Sooner we realize how inevitable it is the quicker we can overcome the hurdle and to accept that: Only by also helping others can we truly better ourselves.
A thief is safer under a state because the state can punish those who defend themselves. The point of the state is to be the only ones able to dispense justice.
If someone stole from me, me or my community can dispense justice without fear of the state. Communities tend to not fuck with each other too much lest they start battles, which nobody wants. Humans lived for hundreds of thousands of years without states.
The age of tribes was fucking brutal. They attacked and extinguished each other regularly.
There's just as much or more evidence for groups living mostly peacefully also.
There is no perfect world where nobody dies. We are just way more efficient at at now and at keeping the mess in places where there are mostly non-wealthy people. Is that an improvement?
Ah, so fair process only lynch mops? Great.
Anarchism is the result of controlled opposition brainworms that the bourgeoisie spread to prevent socialism from taking hold
Because everybody knows, anarchism is complete dog shit
Also, modern age anarchists suspiciously rant more about "red fash" than they ever stand up to actual fascism
Fuck them lol
I doubt that. I think the pushback starts when you threaten somebody's cash flow. The women thing is a red herring.
So... as soon as the society based on mutual aid starts?
Speaking entirely seriously, the reduction of societal relations in a capitalist economy to purely or even primarily material concerns conceals and denies the very real and very prominent place personal and cultural biases have. Oftentimes materially damaging movements are ignored until they begin to threaten cultural norms.
narodnics joined the chat
I don't get it
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narodniks
It's supposed to be funny bc the failed idealism of the Narodniks later lead to the individual terrorist approach of the "Narodnaya Volya" ("Peoples Will")
(this is not meant to be a jab at anarchists btw, just thought it was midly relevant and funny/ironic)
I thought the last sentence was "Rich you are"
BUT... think about the PROOOfits
What is the best example of something built by anarchists?
For the sake of curiosity I'd leave this quite broad. Buildings, institutions, inventions, art. What's the showcase example of what anarchy has created for us?
40 hour work week. 8 hour day.
I thought credit for both of those usually goes to unions. Which anarchists or groups of anarchists made the most significant contributions to the 40 hour work week or 8 hour days?
How did a philosophy of minimized government involvement contribute to the regulations and enforcement mechanisms around our labor laws?
honey who the fuck do you think started the IWW?
syndicalism is a tendency of libertarian socialism. it was anarchists engaging in — typically violent — direct action that bred the popular labour movement, women's suffrage, the abolition of racial segregation, and others.
… because we live in a society? the State needs labour, but if all the labourers refuse to sell themselves until labour-buyers stop X, then the State may decide very graciously to abolish the practise of X. so the theory of syndicalism goes: rinse and repeat till you have eroded all the power of labour-buyers, and you can seize the workplace and cut out the State.
I FUCKING KNEW IT
I... Don't think you have an idea what anarchism is, so there's really no point in discussing here until you do
That'd be unions. I can't think of anything less anarchy-y.
Lol a whole goddamn branch of anarchism is about unions. Goes to show you have no fucking idea what you're talking about.
To keep it classic and basic: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confederaci%C3%B3n_Nacional_del_Trabajo
much of the basic technique in photography and film? not being a chattel slave? OSHA? there not being a cop city in atlanta just yet? several major art movements; really most of them at least since radio became a thing? the personal computer? FOSS(what about Lemmy, originally? was that anarchists?)? a major chunk of the muscle behind the positive parts of the early internet and trying to keep it free? modern shadow archives? most (by a very small very arguable margin) of the Russian revolution, before the Bolsheviks killed all the communists? organized labor? curry burritos? LOTR? the entire genre of science fiction?
https://youtu.be/mBNi1XGirHg?si=hvkxB_pJ4kdH4F2j
Next stage:
::: spoiler Rule 85:
:::
Let’s think of fun comparison for a second. Mods/admins are government, judges and police at the same time. This is equivalent of an authoritarian regime. Now if the mods would be elected by users that would be a democracy. Then if there would be no mods - there we have - anarchism.
In authoritarian regime views of government dictate everything. In democracy people decide who will dictate a lot with various safe guards. In anarchy people directly decide what views are popular and what is a crime, sometimes by groupthink.
What it tells me is that among many anarchists groups some will be absolutely terrible place you wouldn’t want to be in for even a second and some will be amazing but it isn’t a rule but it depends on the people that make up the given group. Obviously if you are POC you would hardly want to be in a racist community, I mean they would probably kill you on sight with their views being very white centered to say the least. So you keep going to find your community assuming you luckily got away. Then you meet community of religious gun freaks flat earthers that you may want to skip as well. Finally you find your dream group but it was raided by some barbarians
That's not what anarchism is. I suggest you read first about what you're trying to refute
Do you have a pdf somewhere by chance, it’s really funky formatted for a phone at least
https://www.anarchistfaq.org/afaq/pdf/sectionA.pdf
Yay thanks!
My pleasure.
Ha it isn’t the easiest or quick read if one really wants to understand the topic. I will need few days to digest it properly before I can make up my mind about it
YouTube version
How Anarchists see themselves vs the actual result of Anarchy.
oh no protesting against institutional racism and murder??
By turning cities into slums and making a militia police force that guns down innocent civilians anyway? Yay anarchy.
Sources?
Posted one. Want a history book too?