[KlassWar]

By turning the entirety of the revolutionary working class into a part-time militia, and keeping a permanent core of highly-trained, highly-disciplined anarchist cadre ready to take center stage in combat operations.

An anarchist revolution, like a communist one, will have to spread and keep spreading in order to be successful: Stagnation is extinction. To succeed, the victorious anarchists will have to wage merciless class war both inside their liberated territory and in the territory they have not yet liberated.

[Someone5]

The biggest hurdle for the left-anarchist camp however, is that military discipline and cohesion requires adhesion to a strict hierarchy, which runs counter to anarchist principles. I would argue that hierarchy simply cannot be done away with anywhere in society, but I'll humor them for a moment since in this matter it is quite obvious that a hierarchy is necessary.

It's not quite obvious at all. The anarchist option does involve a lot more explanation and justification, but in some ways such a strategy of peer review means that a militia would be less subject to communications disruptions (because there would be a much larger number of people cognizant of the "plan") and high-level strategic oversights (because people at every level would be involved in making the decisions).

As was noted by observers in the Spanish Civil War, this is not altogether a bad method of organizing a militia. It's different to be sure, but that doesn't necessarily imply worse. There are also broader strategic advantages to anarchist organization (like attracting significant numbers of defectors--the relative prosperity and freedom of an anarchist society would be attractive to the other side in a long-term conflict).

Common people are not very capable of advanced military strategy (even some uncommon people are incapable of it, such as myself ), which is why militaries have never been democratic.

Millitaries have never been democratic because there is no way the ruling class could never convince the common part-time soldier of early armies to go out and die for the profit of their ruling elites otherwise. If militaries were democratic they would never be anything but defensive.

Normal people are not capable of planning large-scale heavy industrial production either. Representative worker democracy is somewhat workable, but horizontal worker democracy is not, In a normal setting workers are too busy working to manage.

That analysis is wrong for two reasons;

A) They are certainly capable, if given the opportunity and training. An anarchist industrial organization would likely have a very cross-trained workforce, and would probably find it highly advantageous to provide extensive education to their workforce. After all, worker education would directly translate into better planning. Elites aren't magical, they're just people put in a situation where they have the opportunity to act rather than take orders.

B) The assumption that groups cannot self-manage is a fundamentally flawed one that stems mainly from people who haven't observed small group management within larger organizations. Groups do self-manage, all the time, and often in ways contradictory to the established formal hierarchy. For the most part people are perfectly capable of intelligent self-management given an overall plan established by group consensus--which is often how groups actually behave even under hierarchies.

[Someone5]

Double post merged

[houndred]

When I was at Military Academy we were taught that Modern armies always train to fight the last war and never the next one.

The trouble with Anarchists is that they talk about fighting a war of 70 years ago with tactics that caused them to lose because they hadn't even learned the lessons of the Paris commune.

In 1848 The Parisians held off the French government forces for almost a year by forming barricades. They repeteated the same tactic in 1870/1 during the Paris commune but the government troops had already trained for it and merely bypassed the barricades by smashing through the houses on either side. Anarchists still talk about manning barricades.

A modern regular army would blow a peoples militia off the map in a matter of days.

[Someone5]

A modern regular army would blow a peoples militia off the map in a matter of days.

Very doubtful. The tactics required to do so would simply facilitate the people's militia's ultimate aims. A modern regular army would be able to do so only if the militia fought like a modern regular army. Modern regular armies don't have such a hot record when it comes to insurgencies--only through significant external investment is it even possible for regular armies to win such a war and keep a victory afterwards. I mean, hell, look at the US in Afghanistan. If the US were forced to fight a similar war in its own territory it would be entirely fucked--every year of continued insurgency fighting would reduce the resources it could bring to bear against the insurgents, and that overwhelming force is ultimately the only way they're going to be able to win. Seriously; modern regular armies have a hard enough time fighting people equipped with 30-40 year old weapons used by people of rather limited or mixed military experience. They certainly don't win when it comes to cost/benefits; it takes huge investment to be able to fight such a war, and that alone is why so many insurgencies end up winning. It's just not worth the cost of fighting.

The problem with this is, ultimately, that regular professional armies simply lack the manpower, cost-effectiveness, and the wherewithal to fight against the majority of a nation's population without resorting to extreme measures that will;
A) Turn the population even further against them.
B) Destroy that which they hoped to gain.

I would also add that you're talking tactics, and the anarchists are talking organizational methodology. They're not even equivalent.

[Daktoria]

Anarchy already exists.

You just have two choices:

Total anarchy where might makes right...

...or market anarchy where people can unite under common values.

Defending anarchy depends on what you're up against.

[Suska]

Dak if that's your understanding of what Anarchy is I think you need to stop using the word.

[Someone5]

Anarchy already exists.

You just have two choices:

Total anarchy where might makes right...

Which, incidentally, is not anarchism. If "might makes right", you are establishing hierarchies--fundamentally anti-anarchist.

...or market anarchy where people can unite under common values.

Market "anarchy" also isn't anarchist, since it revolves around coercion and force by way of property.

Defending anarchy depends on what you're up against.

Neither of these are examples of anarchist models, so it's not really very useful. Ultimately the anarchist goal is to do away with hierarchies; neither of your proposed models do so.

[Daktoria]

Dak if that's your understanding of what Anarchy is I think you need to stop using the word.

My understanding of anarchy is a society without authority. It doesn't matter if you have de facto hierarchy or not. The bottomline is relationships are left in flux, and that means everyone is vulnerable to interaction without consent.

Therefore, interaction happens from natural magnitude or artificial direction.

[Suska]

anarchy is a society without authority

Yeah that's wrong. Anarchy doesn't achieve equality by eliminating specialization, but by eliminating abstract authority - hierarchy. People are welcome to have differing levels of ability and usefulness, it just doesn't give them a claim to superiority. Teachers don't have authority they have education and they have education to teach children who's need supports the teacher's profession. There is no room in that relationship for superiority. Teachers need students, students need teachers.

[Daktoria]

Sounds like you're enslaving supply to demand.

You should also review those words "abstract authority". It's like you're denying the existence of meaning behind words.

[Suska]

There was a quote I heard ages ago, something about abstract authority and arbitrary justice. I mean it socially - that authority that legitimizes itself without rationale. The main problem is hubris and how ego thrives in inequality. The question you have to ask yourself is what is it that thrives in equality.

Sounds like you're enslaving supply to demand.

Please explain.

[Daktoria]

There was a quote I heard ages ago, something about abstract authority and arbitrary justice. I mean it socially - that authority that legitimizes itself without rationale. The main problem is hubris and how ego thrives in inequality. The question you have to ask yourself is what is it that thrives in equality.

Nothing thrives in equality. Literally, action takes disequilibrium to happen.

Aside from that, equilibrium involves incapacitation. You're proposing Harrison Bergeron without the government.

Please explain.

You said those with differing levels of ability aren't entitled to superiority.

Just because a student is hungry for knowledge doesn't mean a teacher has to feed one. That exposes a teacher to being taken for granted.

[mikema63]

Market "anarchy" also isn't anarchist, since it revolves around coercion and force by way of property.

it has yet to be explained to me how having a claim to the things i produce and use* and excluding others from what i produce and use makes me better than someone else.

*note that i assume that the things i use i have either produced or traded for with someone else who produced them.

[Someone5]

it has yet to be explained to me how having a claim to the things i produce and use* and excluding others from what i produce and use makes me better than someone else.

When you entitle yourself to exclusive control over the factors of production, you make yourself into the gatekeeper who has the power to deny others the ability to perform labor. That is an inherently coercive relationship, and inescapable under any system that uses property.

The coercion does not occur with the things you "produce and use," but with the resources that you have fixed in capital, and over which you claim exclusive control.

[mikema63]

if you have produced said capital or traded something you've produced to someone who did produce that capital i fail to see how its not justifiable to do so. capital is just another type of good that is produced, the difference is in how its used, a net is a consumer good if you use it to decorate and its a capital good if you fish with it. i understand the logic you guys come with about why you thin capital goods exploit workers and all but i have yet to see the justification of taking it when you yourselves allow personal property rights of some kind for the things people produce with their own labor, i dont see how its not extended to capital goods that are produced by your own labor or capital goods that are freely traded.

i can also see how you justify confiscating current capital goods that have been mostly accumulated though illegitimate means but i dont see how you would be able to continue this and prevent accumulation of capital when all capital is legitamatly produced or traded as personal property.

[Someone5]

if you have produced said capital or traded something you've produced to someone who did produce that capital i fail to see how its not justifiable to do so.

There are many forms of coercion that are justifiable. I'm sure if you thought hard enough you could also come up with reasons to justify, say, abusive sexual relationships, muggings, or, most historically meaningful, slavery and serfdom. Note that for centuries feudalism was considered justifiable.

Just because something is "justifiable" does not mean that it is right.

capital is just another type of good that is produced,

No, it isn't, as is obvious by the special rights granted by its possession. Even your own capitalist system acknowledges that ownership of capital entitles one to the right to collect rent from its use.

i understand the logic you guys come with about why you thin capital goods exploit workers and all but i have yet to see the justification of taking it when you yourselves allow personal property rights of some kind for the things people produce with their own labor, i dont see how its not extended to capital goods that are produced by your own labor or capital goods that are freely traded.

A possession does not entitle a person to collect rent from its use; anyone who uses it "owns" a possession. Not so with property. I know I've written a more proper explanation of the difference for you before. You cannot collect rent on possessions; you cannot extend durable claims of ownership over a possession. It is yours only so long as you use it. Property is fundamentally different in this respect, because you can express a durable claim of ownership that exists beyond your own use of it. That very fundamental difference is the origin of many problematic aspects of capitalism, most essentially the ability to collect rent from others for their labor, or the ability to deny others the ability to perform whole categories of labor.

i can also see how you justify confiscating current capital goods that have been mostly accumulated though illegitimate means but i dont see how you would be able to continue this and prevent accumulation of capital when all capital is legitamatly produced or traded as personal property.

Trade as I think you mean it has no real meaning in a society that recognizes possession to the exclusion of property. There's no ability to extract compensation from others in exchange for a good if you don't have a property claim, and mere possession would not entitle you to such a claim.

[mikema63]

The hardest part of grasping all this is that you have no way to prevent me and all the other ancaps doing all this anyway. At least not without attacking us outright which seems to completely destroy any credibility you would have as an anarchist.

how is it coercion that you own your own labor? how is it coercion if you prevent people from appropriating the results of your labor? dont you often argue that labor is the source of value? if it is how can you justify taking the value that other people have created for yourself if they aren't willing to give it to you?

You guys often complain about capitalists extracting surplus labor, how is taking the results of someones labor against their will any different than a capitalist taking surplus labor in your view? even in your theories at least the capitalist has the veneer of choice, there is no choice when you simply take it no matter what.

from my point of view this is a major inconsistency in your theories and the roadblock to my understanding, how is your neighbors taking the products of your labor for themselves fundamentally any different than a capitalist doing the same?

[Someone5]

The hardest part of grasping all this is that you have no way to prevent me and all the other ancaps doing all this anyway.

Sure, but by the same token you would have no means by which to stop me from just taking your "property" without you resorting to force. There would be no way for ancaps to operate in such a society without force; we anarchists would just "steal" your things, and you would merely be entitled to the same right in return.

At least not without attacking us outright which seems to completely destroy any credibility you would have as an anarchist.

I don't think it's really very hypocritical for an anarchist society to violently defend its principles. If ancaps were roaming around threatening folks with guns and stealing the public resources by force, I think it would be well within the bounds of good sense to reply in kind. But I don't think that's required at all--why would anyone be crazy enough to be an ancap in an anarchist society? It would be like wanting to be a serf in a capitalist society. People would look at you funny and suggest you get mental treatment. I mean aside from the minority of mentally unbalanced people, it wouldn't really be a very significant problem. No one would pay any attention to the crazy ancaps unless they start waving their guns around. Just like no one really pays much attention to neo-nazis until they start murdering folks.

Hence my repeated assertions that anarcho-capitalists and genuine anarchists could never coexist without total separation by lethal hazard.

how is it coercion that you own your own labor?

If you expend your own labor to, say, produce your own hammer, and you use that hammer for your own use, that is not capital.

how is it coercion if you prevent people from appropriating the results of your labor?

Because you can only do so by threatening them. It's coercion by definition. You may be able to justify it within your own worldview, but it is still coercion.

dont you often argue that labor is the source of value? if it is how can you justify taking the value that other people have created for yourself if they aren't willing to give it to you?

If you want to live in a coercion-free society, the price of that is that you must be willing to share the products of your own labor. With anyone. You know how lots of people insist that freedom must be paid for in the lives of those who die in its defense? A non-coercive society has to be paid for with a negative balance on labor. Which is where the insistence on labor being enjoyable in its own right comes from; the only way such a society makes sense is if you enjoy producing things for their own sake. The alternative is literally to put yourself at the mercies of others in a coercive society. Even ancaps are dependent on that threat of force to prevent others from stealing "their property."

You guys often complain about capitalists extracting surplus labor, how is taking the results of someones labor against their will any different than a capitalist taking surplus labor in your view?

You are not being forced by circumstance to work in an anarchist society; you can always opt not to produce. But I don't think that would be an option often exercised. Doing nothing is very boring.

even in your theories at least the capitalist has the veneer of choice, there is no choice when you simply take it no matter what.

There is of course a choice; you can opt not to work. I'm not sure why you would choose that option, but it is there. Presumably, however, you can find something that you enjoy doing merely for the sake of doing it, or because you want to, or because you don't like seeing people live in the cold, or for some reason that makes sense to you other than the right to extract their surplus labor.

from my point of view this is a major inconsistency in your theories and the roadblock to my understanding, how is your neighbors taking the products of your labor for themselves fundamentally any different than a capitalist doing the same?

The capitalist leaves you no choice but to produce and have it stolen from you; the anarchist gives you the option not to produce.

[mikema63]

seriously your entire defense that i have a choice in not being stolen from is that i can just not do anything?

also if you justify using force to defend the values of your society by killing ancaps then how are ancaps unjustified in defending their values from you guys by killing you when you try to take our stuff? the only way anarchy would work is if each group agrees to not interfering with the values of another group, ancaps cant take stuff from your community and you cant take stuff from ours, there would be such a large variety of groups with different values you must either accept them or kill everyone and create a state to prevent them from cropping up again.

also producing your own hammer and using it to produce more things most certainly does make it capital, that's what capital is you cant change the definition of capital just so you can feel better about people having hammers.