I was being pithy. I think it’s a bit absurd to say that corruption is impossible under anarchism because no one has power.
Power disparity is an unavoidable fact in every society, no matter the structure (or lack thereof). Some will be popular and some unpopular. Some will be physically strong and others physically weak. Some will seek to build up community and some will seek to tear it down.
And any amount of power disparity is prone to corruption. Surely I don’t need to point out examples of an absolute asshole getting popular and then using that popularity to take advantage of or hurt other people.
Anarchism, if it has one thing going for it, is that these problems tend to stay fairly local. But it also doesn’t give any solutions to these problems other than lynchmobs. So its a bit of a tradeoff. But it absolutely isn’t immune from corruption.
Well, technically it is immune to corruption. It isn’t immune to people being terrible and exploitative, but that’s technically not corruption. To be corrupt, you’d have to be given legitimate power, and then misuse it. The popular asshole created their power from scratch.
A system without legitimized power isn’t immune to bad people creating power, but it is technically immune to corruption since there’s nothing to corrupt.
Anarchism is not the lack of government. It’s the lack of hierarchy. There can (and practically must) still be government and cooperation. Anarchism is not chaos, like the media portrays it.
There’s a lot of resources online if you want to learn more.
I didn’t find anarchic rhetoric to be very compelling because it seems like endless layers of “Actually,”, not unlike libertarianism. We wind up reinventing the thing discarded.
I’m a systems guy. When I have conversations with politically idealistic individuals, I ask them questions about their proposed system. Every anarchist I talk to at length about infrastructure and industry either refuses to imagine that people wouldn’t spontaneously cooperate out of the goodness of their hearts, or winds up reinventing hierarchies. But different hierarchies, which aren’t the same things for some reason.
I’m also a systems guy. It isn’t that people will spontaneously cooperate and just build roads or whatever. It’s about creating systems that can solve these problems, but systems that listen to everyone’s voices. Yes, there will be disagreement on some things, but the solution with the most agreement will be enacted.
Also yes, not everyone can be involved in everything, so you need groups in charge of certain tasks. However, again, this does not need to be hierarchical. It just needs to be cooperative. Those groups will handle those tasks, and they’re accountable to the people. They aren’t above them. They’re just filling a role for now, as everyone is also doing.
I thought the same thing as you about anarchism for a while too. I thought it seemed stupid and that it couldn’t work, and they’re just reinventing the same things with different names. I don’t believe that anymore though. It turns out the structures we have in place lead us to a very poor understanding of alternative systems of governance, for some very mystifying reason.
I’m not even specifically talking about systems of governance, just systems of decision and production.
It’s about creating systems that can solve these problems, but systems that listen to everyone’s voices.
How, tho? Once we get into the nitty gritty of implementation, how do you build that system? How do you defend that system from roving hooligans? From popular tyrants? When the people agree on basic laws, how are they enforced? Are they just supposed to meet in the town square to hunt down thieves and killers?
This is what I’m talking about. You either have to assume that in an anarchist utopia, greed and malice will somehow spontaneously disappear from all humanity, or you have to have to devise a way to handle that.
Logistically, getting the whole town together to make every decision just doesn’t work. There are too many little fiddly conflicts for total democracy, no one would have time to do any of the important stuff, they’d be in councils all day. So we assign representatives (legislators, judges, police, etc) with cumulative referred power to enforce the democratic will of the people. Follow that process a few steps and you wind up right at a modern liberal democracy.
The structures we have in place are flawed, but not by lack of trying. The founding fathers seemed to have made a sincere attempt at developing
systems that can solve these problems, but systems that listen to everyone’s voices. Yes, there will be disagreement on some things, but the solution with the most agreement will be enacted.
It turns out that getting parasocial apex predators to coexist peacefully is actually pretty difficult, and every system has to make compromises. I don’t see anarchism as a mature system that has taken these difficulties seriously. It hand-waves the difficult parts with “We’ll figure it out through cooperation”, without serious consideration given to how that cooperation manifests in implementation.
The difficulty isn’t in the cooperation part. It’s with the not having an authority. Some corrupt assholes will always try to take charge and be an authority.
I am an anarchist, but I am also not naive. The only way an anarchist utopia could ever truly exist is if people were completely free of greed and desire to have power over others. Which is extremely unlikely.
Those countries are headed towards that circus at varying paces, so that argument doesn’t work anymore. I mean Germany? France? Sweden? Britain? Italy?
it sure does with small government.
remember there are countries that enjoy capitalism without the 5 ring circus shitshow we have going on in the states
So far, but corruption is always the end result.
i’m not trying to simp for capitalism, but corruption can and does happen under any system
Anarchy. Can’t be corrupt if nobody has power. 😤
unironically this
mitual aid for the win
Roving bands of bandits would disagree.
Sir this is not a video game.
I was being pithy. I think it’s a bit absurd to say that corruption is impossible under anarchism because no one has power.
Power disparity is an unavoidable fact in every society, no matter the structure (or lack thereof). Some will be popular and some unpopular. Some will be physically strong and others physically weak. Some will seek to build up community and some will seek to tear it down.
And any amount of power disparity is prone to corruption. Surely I don’t need to point out examples of an absolute asshole getting popular and then using that popularity to take advantage of or hurt other people.
Anarchism, if it has one thing going for it, is that these problems tend to stay fairly local. But it also doesn’t give any solutions to these problems other than lynchmobs. So its a bit of a tradeoff. But it absolutely isn’t immune from corruption.
Well, technically it is immune to corruption. It isn’t immune to people being terrible and exploitative, but that’s technically not corruption. To be corrupt, you’d have to be given legitimate power, and then misuse it. The popular asshole created their power from scratch.
A system without legitimized power isn’t immune to bad people creating power, but it is technically immune to corruption since there’s nothing to corrupt.
But I like roads and hospitals and fire stations and no purge.
Anarchism is not the lack of government. It’s the lack of hierarchy. There can (and practically must) still be government and cooperation. Anarchism is not chaos, like the media portrays it.
There’s a lot of resources online if you want to learn more.
I didn’t find anarchic rhetoric to be very compelling because it seems like endless layers of “Actually,”, not unlike libertarianism. We wind up reinventing the thing discarded.
I’m a systems guy. When I have conversations with politically idealistic individuals, I ask them questions about their proposed system. Every anarchist I talk to at length about infrastructure and industry either refuses to imagine that people wouldn’t spontaneously cooperate out of the goodness of their hearts, or winds up reinventing hierarchies. But different hierarchies, which aren’t the same things for some reason.
I’m also a systems guy. It isn’t that people will spontaneously cooperate and just build roads or whatever. It’s about creating systems that can solve these problems, but systems that listen to everyone’s voices. Yes, there will be disagreement on some things, but the solution with the most agreement will be enacted.
Also yes, not everyone can be involved in everything, so you need groups in charge of certain tasks. However, again, this does not need to be hierarchical. It just needs to be cooperative. Those groups will handle those tasks, and they’re accountable to the people. They aren’t above them. They’re just filling a role for now, as everyone is also doing.
I thought the same thing as you about anarchism for a while too. I thought it seemed stupid and that it couldn’t work, and they’re just reinventing the same things with different names. I don’t believe that anymore though. It turns out the structures we have in place lead us to a very poor understanding of alternative systems of governance, for some very mystifying reason.
I’m not even specifically talking about systems of governance, just systems of decision and production.
How, tho? Once we get into the nitty gritty of implementation, how do you build that system? How do you defend that system from roving hooligans? From popular tyrants? When the people agree on basic laws, how are they enforced? Are they just supposed to meet in the town square to hunt down thieves and killers?
This is what I’m talking about. You either have to assume that in an anarchist utopia, greed and malice will somehow spontaneously disappear from all humanity, or you have to have to devise a way to handle that.
Logistically, getting the whole town together to make every decision just doesn’t work. There are too many little fiddly conflicts for total democracy, no one would have time to do any of the important stuff, they’d be in councils all day. So we assign representatives (legislators, judges, police, etc) with cumulative referred power to enforce the democratic will of the people. Follow that process a few steps and you wind up right at a modern liberal democracy.
The structures we have in place are flawed, but not by lack of trying. The founding fathers seemed to have made a sincere attempt at developing
It turns out that getting parasocial apex predators to coexist peacefully is actually pretty difficult, and every system has to make compromises. I don’t see anarchism as a mature system that has taken these difficulties seriously. It hand-waves the difficult parts with “We’ll figure it out through cooperation”, without serious consideration given to how that cooperation manifests in implementation.
Cooperation can still exist without authority.
The difficulty isn’t in the cooperation part. It’s with the not having an authority. Some corrupt assholes will always try to take charge and be an authority.
I feel like the logical endpoint of “corruption in a system of anarchy” then is just bandit gangs.
I have a hard time saying those are worse for society than rich capitalists these days. But they’re not good.
I am an anarchist, but I am also not naive. The only way an anarchist utopia could ever truly exist is if people were completely free of greed and desire to have power over others. Which is extremely unlikely.
That doesn’t mean I don’t want it, tho. 😔
Give Europe a bit more time. They’ll get there.
Those countries are headed towards that circus at varying paces, so that argument doesn’t work anymore. I mean Germany? France? Sweden? Britain? Italy?