I am no proponent of anarchy, but for the sake of interesting discussion I can play devils advocate here to clear up a misconception here. The key point to realize with anarchy, is that it does not actually specify “no government” so much as it specifies “no system of hierarchy”. There is thus many different ways to implement anarchy which stretch from the chaos you outline here to VERY big government systems so long as they do not create systems of hierarchy. For instance Noam Chomsky is socialist who believes in direct democracy and thus an anarchist who believes in very big government. The key is to create a government where no one is anyone else’s boss, everyone does what their job description is (without a master) and are free to change jobs as they see fit. State decisions, including the passing and repeal of laws, can only be made by popular vote available to everyone. No hierarchy = anarchy even with big government that has lots of laws and regulations.
Don’t ask me about the details of implementation or hypothetical questions about how things would hold together “if ____ happened”, because, again, I am not a proponent of anarchy and probably have the same question myself. I am just supplying some info for a correction on a common misconception about what anarchy may actually mean for the people who do support or advocate it.
“Someone” is right. Anarchism is not and has never been a right-wing theory.
The Tea Party nuts aren’t for “small government.” They are for a strong, hierarchical state that upholds corporate capitalism, just as states have upheld feudalism and slavery over the centuries. When they complain about “big government” environmentalist measures, they are in fact endorsing (de facto) state protection of corporate polluters.
The “small government” talk is all just a load of bs and I wish more people would point it out.
wow ted, this is disappointing.. kinda a bummer cause i just found the site today..
“someone” just above me did a pretty good job of wondering about ‘anarchist’ regardless whether he is an advocate of the form or not.. thank you ‘someone’, all of that ‘can be’ true..
but i wanted to pipe in because i actually DO advocate for anarchism.. if you review the literature you will find not so many complaints referencing ‘government’.. the primary focus you might be thinking of is the STATE,.. the ARMED MALES (mostly) who must be imposed on a population to legalize private property rights,..anywhere in the world where capital relations have gone,.. they have had to be first deployed, then enforced, by men with guns.. these men have the legal monopoly on the threat and use of violence.
but as ‘someone’ pointed out.. ‘the state’ is NOT government.. the state is a form of capture.
most of what the right wing complains about when they “complain” about government.. they are usually complaining about the anarchist parts.. the ‘mutual aid’ parts,.. welfare, unemployment insurance, the post office, but you must understand that they resent these ‘mutual aid’ parts.. ‘attachments’ to the state,.. because the right wing,.. wealth,.. invented the state (those armed men) to dismantle JUST EXACTLY those ‘mutual aid’ elements,.. because NOT having systems of mutual aid (that we had all enjoyed very much for free for a few hundred thousands years.) is exactly what HAS to be done to a human being.. the ONLY thing that will make a human being submit themselves to the command of others, despite their adulthood.. you see,.. if people are not desperate,.. they will not rent themselves,.. so the ‘desperate’ part has to be built into the mix,… but then the left came along and began using the established framework of the ‘state’ to RE-establish the mutual aid once enjoyed by all.. this is in direct opposition to the original intent of “the state”,.. and you had better believe that wealth knows that.
“hierarchy hierarchy hierarchy”.. is the anarchist complaint, NOT organization,.. not peace, not joy, NOT mutual aid,.
so,.. anarchism in afghanistan.
an anarchist could be very very busy in afghanistan,.. afghanistan is RIFE with ‘archy’s to ‘an-‘..
first off,.. there is NOT ‘zero’ “states” in afghanistan.. there are many,.. the coalition forces,.. the afghan police forces, the afghan military,.. the warlords,.. (and that is just ONE hierarchal form) how about the domination of religious hierarchies,..patriarchy? (there is a big one..) and neverminding powers i have no idea about in afghanistan (the state of youth liberation in afgha.? gay and lesbian rights? etc.)
alright, that’s enough.. but i bet a LOT of your fans, your regular readers.. people who laugh particularly heartily when it is AUTHORITY who is being poked and dissembled,.. when it is authoritarian power that is being mocked and dismantled (generallissimo!).. are anarchist..
i have never owned a beret OR a turtleneck. i am a 37 year old carpenter who works in the south where the word ‘union’ dare not be whispered.. i have had to work harder than ever to keep my aging parent in shelter.
shelter.
i have known many anarchists to be ted rall fans,.. i really hope they just miss this one,.. kinda like a kick in the gut for those who appreciate YOUR contribution to dismantling illegitimate systems of power.
I was gonna say the same thing about Somalia, but TLW beat me to it. Congrats to both for echoing Nicholas Kristoff and similar dolts in the MSM.
Joking aside, everybody knows how a political system as Ted seems to favor would work in real life: we’ve seen them collapse in the late 80’s. someone, Chomsky is no anarchist no matter how he sweet talks his politics. He’s just yet another socialist who wants to distance himself from all the real life experiments of the 20th century. I’ve never seen him disavow the soon to be ex-Socialist Cuban regime, for instance.
@bucephalus Chomsky believes in: direct democracy + massive socialization = anarcho-syndicalistism. Big government without hierarchy is still anarchy if only by the most technical definition of anarchy.
Similarly Hanns Herman Hopp (probably misspelled) is an anarcho-capitalist. Which is also anarchy only by technicality, and certainly not in practice, as (at least in my opinion) anarcho-capitalism should quickly collapse into all out fascism (there still won’t technically be a hierarchy though, because there would be no publicly sanctioned hierarchy.)
In Cuba, there’s no such thing as getting “laid off”. What the Castro brothers are referring to is what can be more accurately called “job transference”. Meaning, they’re transferring a million jobs from one sector to another. They have too many pencil-pushers and not enough miners and hotel workers.
It would be stupid beyond belief to deprive one million people of an income when there are only eleven million people in Cuba altogether. The Castros wouldn’t last a year in power if they did that.
Someone, there’s no way to achieve “massive socialization” without an overbearing, totalitarian state which will be oppressive, hierarchy notwithstanding. The People’s Liberation Army in China didn’t have lots of hierarchy for a long time under Chairman Mao. It didn’t stop them putting the jackboot on the people’s throat. More telling, like I said, is that Chomsky doesn’t really dissociate himself from oppressive regimes like Castro’s (and others, historically). No anarchist he.
Susan, I don’t know where the BBC got the one million quote, all the Latin American sources I’ve read quote 500,000, which is consistent with the Cuban government weasel talk (hope you’re able to read Spanish). Oh, wait, that is the government controlled one and only union’s weasel talk. No matter how much you sweet talk it, it seems reforms are finally coming out. Cuba is broke, and so is its latest patron, Venezuela. IMHO, they’re trying a Chinese gerontocracy way out: remain in power, open up the economy, appease the mundanes. Not going to fly with nuestros hermanos cubanos, I’m afraid. I think they’ll be able to hold on to power only until El Comandante eventually kicks the bucket.
Which, I hope, happens sooner than later.
@Bucephalus, I not trying to antagonize you, and it is hard for me to argue someone else’s viewpoint to their satisfaction (anarchists), but I think you are missing his point. Chomsky does not support communism intrinsically, for instance, I don’t think he supports Maoist communism. “Chairman” Mao he would argue is part of the problem because he has created a hierarchy in society. Chomsky is against ALL hierarchy and is unsurprised about the awful human conditions in China precisely because it has a VERY strict and layered hierarchy. This is what makes anarcho-syndicalistis different from regular communists. Whenever a new communist regime starts up somewhere in the world, the first thing anarcho-syndicalistis point out is that it is doomed to failure because it is lacking direct democracy and has a hierarchy. To date, no government system that an anarcho-syndicalist, such as Chompsky, would support has ever been tried. That doesn’t mean that they are right, or even that they are not completely wrong. Personally I respect the view point but I don’t think it will work. That being said the one thing anarcho-syndicalistis claim and are correct about is that whether their idea is a horrible one, a great one, or anywhere in between it hasn’t actually been tried. Communism is as different from anarcho-sydicalism as a democracy with capitalism is from anarcho-sydicalism. While both Communism and anarcho-sydicalism share similarities in terms of large government and mass socialization, anarcho-sydicalism shares just as many similarities with a democracy as both have democratic process, unlike Castro, Stalin, or Maoist communism. Similarly anarcho-sydicalism and capitalism both have a free market unlike Castro, Stalin, or Maoist communism, although it is important to admit that the free-market is partially regulated (by popular public mandate) and thus much less free then most libertarians would like, but no where near as regulated as out and out communism which has NO free market at all. I think most anarcho-syndicalistis would say the closest aproximation to what they are looking for is the highly socialized democracies found in places like Sweeden and Denmark. To their credit these places have very high standards of living including some of the highest levels of health, education, and general happiness of countries world wide.
The fact is unless one lives in a society without ANY laws (anarco-capatalism as I mentioned in my previous post in this thread) there is inherently some regulation of the free market. Societies that have laws preventing rape, murder, and fraud are regulating the free market because in the absence of those laws multibilion dollar industries would form around each of those activities. Most people just agree that they would rather have the slightly reduced job market that comes from loosing these industries by banning them when they come together to found a society. As a result unless one is talking about Somalia or the equivalent then one is talking about a country that has some sort of regulations on the free market. Any non-communist and non-libertarian would agree that over regulation of the free market is just as bad as under regulation including anarcho-syndicalistis. Most people look for a society that has the right balance of regulation and deregulation to maximize the economy the economy within the bounds of social activities they refuse to accept such as fraud, rape, and murder.
First of I would like to congradulate Ted on a funny comic. The last panel was very funny I almost fell out of my chair. It reminds me of “The Moon is a Harsh Mistres” by Heinlin.
That being said Now to try and dive into the Anarchism debate. Now most references to an anarchist society that is in place today use Somalia and Afghanistan as modernday examples.
The problem with using them in this context is they are bolth warzones right now and you would have to compare them with other countries that are warzones.
The complant about no one picking up the trash is actually a complaint about undeveloped countries. Here in South America they don´t always pick up the trash and the sewage just drains strait into the river. There are no toilets in most places people just shit in the woods. Where they do have toilets in the city they use western style toilets but the pipes are too small for toilet paper and so you have a wastepaper basket full of soiled newspapers and book pages atracting flies.
This is in non anarchist countries with a strong central government.
10 Comments.
You forgot to mention that other great test case for Anarchism-in-action; Somalia.
And might I say the last panel was a laff riot.
I am no proponent of anarchy, but for the sake of interesting discussion I can play devils advocate here to clear up a misconception here. The key point to realize with anarchy, is that it does not actually specify “no government” so much as it specifies “no system of hierarchy”. There is thus many different ways to implement anarchy which stretch from the chaos you outline here to VERY big government systems so long as they do not create systems of hierarchy. For instance Noam Chomsky is socialist who believes in direct democracy and thus an anarchist who believes in very big government. The key is to create a government where no one is anyone else’s boss, everyone does what their job description is (without a master) and are free to change jobs as they see fit. State decisions, including the passing and repeal of laws, can only be made by popular vote available to everyone. No hierarchy = anarchy even with big government that has lots of laws and regulations.
Don’t ask me about the details of implementation or hypothetical questions about how things would hold together “if ____ happened”, because, again, I am not a proponent of anarchy and probably have the same question myself. I am just supplying some info for a correction on a common misconception about what anarchy may actually mean for the people who do support or advocate it.
“Someone” is right. Anarchism is not and has never been a right-wing theory.
The Tea Party nuts aren’t for “small government.” They are for a strong, hierarchical state that upholds corporate capitalism, just as states have upheld feudalism and slavery over the centuries. When they complain about “big government” environmentalist measures, they are in fact endorsing (de facto) state protection of corporate polluters.
The “small government” talk is all just a load of bs and I wish more people would point it out.
wow ted, this is disappointing.. kinda a bummer cause i just found the site today..
“someone” just above me did a pretty good job of wondering about ‘anarchist’ regardless whether he is an advocate of the form or not.. thank you ‘someone’, all of that ‘can be’ true..
but i wanted to pipe in because i actually DO advocate for anarchism.. if you review the literature you will find not so many complaints referencing ‘government’.. the primary focus you might be thinking of is the STATE,.. the ARMED MALES (mostly) who must be imposed on a population to legalize private property rights,..anywhere in the world where capital relations have gone,.. they have had to be first deployed, then enforced, by men with guns.. these men have the legal monopoly on the threat and use of violence.
but as ‘someone’ pointed out.. ‘the state’ is NOT government.. the state is a form of capture.
most of what the right wing complains about when they “complain” about government.. they are usually complaining about the anarchist parts.. the ‘mutual aid’ parts,.. welfare, unemployment insurance, the post office, but you must understand that they resent these ‘mutual aid’ parts.. ‘attachments’ to the state,.. because the right wing,.. wealth,.. invented the state (those armed men) to dismantle JUST EXACTLY those ‘mutual aid’ elements,.. because NOT having systems of mutual aid (that we had all enjoyed very much for free for a few hundred thousands years.) is exactly what HAS to be done to a human being.. the ONLY thing that will make a human being submit themselves to the command of others, despite their adulthood.. you see,.. if people are not desperate,.. they will not rent themselves,.. so the ‘desperate’ part has to be built into the mix,… but then the left came along and began using the established framework of the ‘state’ to RE-establish the mutual aid once enjoyed by all.. this is in direct opposition to the original intent of “the state”,.. and you had better believe that wealth knows that.
“hierarchy hierarchy hierarchy”.. is the anarchist complaint, NOT organization,.. not peace, not joy, NOT mutual aid,.
so,.. anarchism in afghanistan.
an anarchist could be very very busy in afghanistan,.. afghanistan is RIFE with ‘archy’s to ‘an-‘..
first off,.. there is NOT ‘zero’ “states” in afghanistan.. there are many,.. the coalition forces,.. the afghan police forces, the afghan military,.. the warlords,.. (and that is just ONE hierarchal form) how about the domination of religious hierarchies,..patriarchy? (there is a big one..) and neverminding powers i have no idea about in afghanistan (the state of youth liberation in afgha.? gay and lesbian rights? etc.)
alright, that’s enough.. but i bet a LOT of your fans, your regular readers.. people who laugh particularly heartily when it is AUTHORITY who is being poked and dissembled,.. when it is authoritarian power that is being mocked and dismantled (generallissimo!).. are anarchist..
i have never owned a beret OR a turtleneck. i am a 37 year old carpenter who works in the south where the word ‘union’ dare not be whispered.. i have had to work harder than ever to keep my aging parent in shelter.
shelter.
i have known many anarchists to be ted rall fans,.. i really hope they just miss this one,.. kinda like a kick in the gut for those who appreciate YOUR contribution to dismantling illegitimate systems of power.
I was gonna say the same thing about Somalia, but TLW beat me to it. Congrats to both for echoing Nicholas Kristoff and similar dolts in the MSM.
Joking aside, everybody knows how a political system as Ted seems to favor would work in real life: we’ve seen them collapse in the late 80’s.
someone, Chomsky is no anarchist no matter how he sweet talks his politics. He’s just yet another socialist who wants to distance himself from all the real life experiments of the 20th century. I’ve never seen him disavow the soon to be ex-Socialist Cuban regime, for instance.
@bucephalus Chomsky believes in: direct democracy + massive socialization = anarcho-syndicalistism. Big government without hierarchy is still anarchy if only by the most technical definition of anarchy.
Similarly Hanns Herman Hopp (probably misspelled) is an anarcho-capitalist. Which is also anarchy only by technicality, and certainly not in practice, as (at least in my opinion) anarcho-capitalism should quickly collapse into all out fascism (there still won’t technically be a hierarchy though, because there would be no publicly sanctioned hierarchy.)
Bucephalus,
In Cuba, there’s no such thing as getting “laid off”. What the Castro brothers are referring to is what can be more accurately called “job transference”. Meaning, they’re transferring a million jobs from one sector to another. They have too many pencil-pushers and not enough miners and hotel workers.
It would be stupid beyond belief to deprive one million people of an income when there are only eleven million people in Cuba altogether. The Castros wouldn’t last a year in power if they did that.
Someone, there’s no way to achieve “massive socialization” without an overbearing, totalitarian state which will be oppressive, hierarchy notwithstanding. The People’s Liberation Army in China didn’t have lots of hierarchy for a long time under Chairman Mao. It didn’t stop them putting the jackboot on the people’s throat. More telling, like I said, is that Chomsky doesn’t really dissociate himself from oppressive regimes like Castro’s (and others, historically). No anarchist he.
Susan, I don’t know where the BBC got the one million quote, all the Latin American sources I’ve read quote 500,000, which is consistent with the Cuban government weasel talk (hope you’re able to read Spanish). Oh, wait, that is the government controlled one and only union’s weasel talk. No matter how much you sweet talk it, it seems reforms are finally coming out. Cuba is broke, and so is its latest patron, Venezuela. IMHO, they’re trying a Chinese gerontocracy way out: remain in power, open up the economy, appease the mundanes. Not going to fly with nuestros hermanos cubanos, I’m afraid. I think they’ll be able to hold on to power only until El Comandante eventually kicks the bucket.
Which, I hope, happens sooner than later.
@Bucephalus, I not trying to antagonize you, and it is hard for me to argue someone else’s viewpoint to their satisfaction (anarchists), but I think you are missing his point. Chomsky does not support communism intrinsically, for instance, I don’t think he supports Maoist communism. “Chairman” Mao he would argue is part of the problem because he has created a hierarchy in society. Chomsky is against ALL hierarchy and is unsurprised about the awful human conditions in China precisely because it has a VERY strict and layered hierarchy. This is what makes anarcho-syndicalistis different from regular communists. Whenever a new communist regime starts up somewhere in the world, the first thing anarcho-syndicalistis point out is that it is doomed to failure because it is lacking direct democracy and has a hierarchy. To date, no government system that an anarcho-syndicalist, such as Chompsky, would support has ever been tried. That doesn’t mean that they are right, or even that they are not completely wrong. Personally I respect the view point but I don’t think it will work. That being said the one thing anarcho-syndicalistis claim and are correct about is that whether their idea is a horrible one, a great one, or anywhere in between it hasn’t actually been tried. Communism is as different from anarcho-sydicalism as a democracy with capitalism is from anarcho-sydicalism. While both Communism and anarcho-sydicalism share similarities in terms of large government and mass socialization, anarcho-sydicalism shares just as many similarities with a democracy as both have democratic process, unlike Castro, Stalin, or Maoist communism. Similarly anarcho-sydicalism and capitalism both have a free market unlike Castro, Stalin, or Maoist communism, although it is important to admit that the free-market is partially regulated (by popular public mandate) and thus much less free then most libertarians would like, but no where near as regulated as out and out communism which has NO free market at all. I think most anarcho-syndicalistis would say the closest aproximation to what they are looking for is the highly socialized democracies found in places like Sweeden and Denmark. To their credit these places have very high standards of living including some of the highest levels of health, education, and general happiness of countries world wide.
The fact is unless one lives in a society without ANY laws (anarco-capatalism as I mentioned in my previous post in this thread) there is inherently some regulation of the free market. Societies that have laws preventing rape, murder, and fraud are regulating the free market because in the absence of those laws multibilion dollar industries would form around each of those activities. Most people just agree that they would rather have the slightly reduced job market that comes from loosing these industries by banning them when they come together to found a society. As a result unless one is talking about Somalia or the equivalent then one is talking about a country that has some sort of regulations on the free market. Any non-communist and non-libertarian would agree that over regulation of the free market is just as bad as under regulation including anarcho-syndicalistis. Most people look for a society that has the right balance of regulation and deregulation to maximize the economy the economy within the bounds of social activities they refuse to accept such as fraud, rape, and murder.
First of I would like to congradulate Ted on a funny comic. The last panel was very funny I almost fell out of my chair. It reminds me of “The Moon is a Harsh Mistres” by Heinlin.
That being said Now to try and dive into the Anarchism debate. Now most references to an anarchist society that is in place today use Somalia and Afghanistan as modernday examples.
The problem with using them in this context is they are bolth warzones right now and you would have to compare them with other countries that are warzones.
The complant about no one picking up the trash is actually a complaint about undeveloped countries. Here in South America they don´t always pick up the trash and the sewage just drains strait into the river. There are no toilets in most places people just shit in the woods. Where they do have toilets in the city they use western style toilets but the pipes are too small for toilet paper and so you have a wastepaper basket full of soiled newspapers and book pages atracting flies.
This is in non anarchist countries with a strong central government.