Which is the best argument for Anarchism? - Page 2 - Politics Forum.org | PoFo

Wandering the information superhighway, he came upon the last refuge of civilization, PoFo, the only forum on the internet ...

The 'no government' movement.
Forum rules: No one line posts please.
#14538877
quetzalcoatl wrote:This is the thing. You can't go back. It would require you to kill or starve 99% of the existing population in order to return to pre-agrarian tribal statelessness. Even this would be fruitless in the long run, as the evolution towards the state would simply repeat itself.


I've met many primitivists, and not one has ever advocated killing off 99% of the population. Primitivists aren't about imposing our political ideology on the world, like the other political schools do. If anything, primitivism is more about practical and personal solutions (ie rewilding) which can't be said for most other political ideologies. Primitivist ideology merely believes that the best political arrangement is in hunter-gatherer society. That doesn't mean that all of us advocate a plan to turn the planet back to that state. The short term suicidal greed of civilization is already doing all the work for us really. Just as every other civilization has collapsed in the past, this one is looking towards the same trajectory (at least according to a recent NASA funded study).

Now, in regards to your point that there will always be an evolution towards the state. How can you be absolutely sure in predicting the future? A large swath of the folks who will survive the next civilizational collapse already have a culture of contempt towards civilization and it's byproducts. So who's to say they wouldn't be able to suppress it? Throughout history there have been many occasions where tribal people have resisted civilization.
Last edited by Solastalgia on 22 Mar 2015 21:47, edited 2 times in total.
#14538881
taxizen wrote:Hunter-gatherers are like isolated extended families. For being small groups they don't have much potential for steep hierarchies though there is hierarchy:
elders, wisemen, heros
v
other men
v
women
v
children
v
animals (dogs)


Well, first off, there's a difference between institutionalized hierarchy and familial hierarchy. Which really isn't "hierarchy" in the the truest sense of the word. Hunter-gatherer society had great reverence and respect for the grandparents, elders, wisemen, and whatnot, but that doesn't mean that they are hierarchically positioned above them in society. In fact, the role of elders in most indigenous groups was to stifle hierarchy and inequality. They've always been known as the role of putting any cocky and possibly power hungry youngsters in check. Also, even in today's world - many look towards a grandparent with respect because of their longer experience in life. But would you describe that relationship as hierarchical really? Now, in terms of men having higher status than women, it's been shown countless times in anthropology that hunter-gatherer's are - as the famed anthropologist Jared Diamond famously said - "fiercely egalitarian." In fact, the term hunter-gatherer is somewhat of a misnomer because it's in fact the women who are providing food mostly (so it really should be gatherer-hunters). Even between men there is a shunning of any notion that one man is better than the other. If you read some anthropological accounts of how hunting is done. Usually the person who made the kill never brings back the food. Someone else does, and there's no conversation of who killed what. Also, if someone talks about how big the kill was in comparison to others, everyone jokes on them. This is what many anthropologists call forced egalitarianism due to the environment. There is no other option. Hunter-gatherers aren't advocates of egalitarianism on some fluffy hippy-dippy notion. They simply need it to survive in that society.

As far as parents vs children go, obviously parents nurture and teach children. But to describe that relationship as a hierarchy seems a bit nonsensical to me. Also, if you look into hunter-gatherer parenting techniques, you'll find that they're as hands off as can be. I'm sure you could describe many families in this country as having a hierarchy in terms of the way strict parenting is approached. But hunter-gatherer's are the farthest from that.

Lastly, when you say children vs pets, you're also off on that. Just look at the Awa of Brazil. To this day they are the most glaring example of a pet keeping hunter-gatherer society. Stray animals are often adopted into the tribe and even breast fed by women constantly. So the idea that pets are lower than children seems bizarre to me if you've researched any of these things...

Spoiler: show
Image


taxizen wrote:They are communal only in the sense that they have nothing to own at all except food.


Um... no.... They are communal in the sense that they share absolutely everything out of necessity (not some planned hippy dippy sharing party). Your notion of ownership over food doesn't even mean anything. Private property and ownership are foreign concepts to not just hunter-gatherers, but many indigenous people around the world (look at the american indian view of "private property"). This is why it has been so easy for civilizations with conquering. The europeans used pointless pieces of paper to legitimize and legalize mass killings...

taxizen wrote:They are "anarchist" only to the extent that they are not territorial which they usually are.


I have no idea what anarchism has to do with territoriality. But to say that hunter-gatherers are territorial is complete nonsense. For the vast majority of human history as hunter-gatherers we have been nomadic peoples moving from place to place. You can only really be territorial if you are sedentary, and the most isolated of hunter-gatherers still around today continue to be nomadic. While those who've been contacted by civilization and pushed onto reservations are a different story. The only "territorial" hunter-gatherer's and indigenous people you will find today are a machination of civilization conquering them. It wasn't the choice of the american indian to be moved onto exclusive reservations. So to say that it's really indians that are territorial seems stupid to me. This "territory" was imposed by conquerors who have moved in and built their big buildings that need massive amounts of resources from traditional hunting/gathering grounds usually. So, yeah, put indians into tiny reservations and say that it's the really just the indians who are non-inclusive. Fucking stupidity.

taxizen wrote:Anyway even if hunter gatherers are paragons of anarchism that is still a shitty argument for anarchism for anyone that lives in a technological, highly populous and geographically extensive polity. Who wants to ditch their cars, doctors, computers, central heating and supermarket food in favour of squatting naked in the mud dying of malaria?


Of course you don't want to ditch the comforts of civilization. That's the environment you grew up in and you don't see anything past it, and of course are willing to embody all the racist propaganda of civilization against indigenous people. I'm sure you believe in the whole ridiculously antiquated Hobbesian "nasty brutish" notion of indigenous people. Not knowing that this was from a political scientist (no anthropologist) who had never been to an indigenous community in his life, and was merely pushing propaganda to justify conquest and mass genocide at the time.
Last edited by Solastalgia on 22 Mar 2015 21:57, edited 1 time in total.
#14538891
Regardless of where one is on this issue, the fact is is that the present situation of the Modern Age is simply unsustainable, for anyone. Therefore, there is bound to be a collapse coming, in which everything will settle to a more Human-friendly and Earth-friendly way of life.

I myself will not argue a return to the hunter-gatherer by the majority of the survivors, but I do imagine that Civilization will have slipped to roughly the level of the 7th century AD in most places in a few centuries (maybe decades....) from now.
#14538892
My citystates will arise from the rubble as people attempt to find new solutions.
They will no longer desire nation states and they will only resort to tribalism out of necessity.
This leaves rebuilding a fairly modern society at a local level.
#14538910
There is really no argument for anarcchism that makes sense. Once a state and their mode of production are removed, it will lead to a power vaccum the likes of which have only been seen in the most brutal civil wars. Whats more, there will be nothing to stop institutions like the military and private militias from either terrorizing the stateless society to put themselves at the head, or offering their services to the highest bidder.
#14538924
Once a state and their mode of production are removed, it will lead to a power vaccum the likes of which have only been seen in the most brutal civil wars.


The most powerful anarchist traditions advocate working from the ground up in order to make the state superfluous--not instant explosion of the state.
#14540143
kobe wrote:There is really no argument for anarcchism that makes sense. Once a state and their mode of production are removed, it will lead to a power vaccum the likes of which have only been seen in the most brutal civil wars. Whats more, there will be nothing to stop institutions like the military and private militias from either terrorizing the stateless society to put themselves at the head, or offering their services to the highest bidder.


you don't realize it, but you're describing the state.
#14540147
Yes, without an international revolution that completely removes all traces of statehood everywhere, there will always be states and quasi-states like corporations, private armies, organized crimes, well-organized political groups, hierchical tribes, right-wing counterrevolutionaries, churches, and yes even threats from leftists, traditional socialists, and communists.

That doesn't even answer the question of what you're going to do with all the nukes, aircraft, ships, how you're going to control airspace, infrastructure, and free oceans. What you'll do when charismatic leaders begin to organize the outcasts of society. Like I said, huge power vacuum that anarchists want to leave open.
#14540159
Like I said, huge power vacuum that anarchists want to leave open.


You are treating anarchism as if it is an invasion into a stable foreign country--like the US into Iraq--when it has never been theorized, or even practiced as such. Like I said before, it requires much ground work creating stable and organized means of self-governance that can ultimately lead to dismantling unjustified power structures. Anarchists don't want a new society to fall from the sky. They want it to grow from the ground up. The Spanish anarchist revolution took a quarter of a century, if not more, to prepare. By creating stable networks of communication, solidarity, and prepared workers ready to take over factories they were able to create several decentralized autonomous spheres.

hat doesn't even answer the question of what you're going to do with all the nukes, aircraft, ships, how you're going to control airspace, infrastructure, and free oceans. What you'll do when charismatic leaders begin to organize the outcasts of society.


The irony of this statement is that these are all very real and serious problems with states in global capitalism.

I suspect that in a world without such structures of domination and inequality, the need for nukes and military apparatuses greatly decreases. So rather than massive resources being put towards endless war and accumulation of capital for the rich, they would likely be shifted towards the needs of people for safe air travel, infrastructure, and helping the marginalized to become productive members of society.

An anarchist world does not mean there is no organization--it means that organization is not centrally controlled.
#14540166
anticlimacus wrote:You are treating anarchism as if it is an invasion into a stable foreign country--like the US into Iraq--when it has never been theorized, or even practiced as such. Like I said before, it requires much ground work creating stable and organized means of self-governance that can ultimately lead to dismantling unjustified power structures. Anarchists don't want a new society to fall from the sky. They want it to grow from the ground up.

I totally understand what you are saying, that you would like it to be organic and organized, that you would eliminate the need for the state and the hierarchy that props the state up and that the state props up. Here is my problem though: you have not specified a geographic location. As soon as you do then we can analyze the interests of the area and who you will have to contend with. As of now my hypothetical is more compelling than yours, I think. It is easy to see that there are hierarchical structures and entities that exist, both states and non-states, and they will all have interest in destroying your organic community. Then you are right back where you started, because the democratic institutions are only in place until someone tries to take them apart, then all bets are off.

The Spanish anarchist revolution took a quarter of a century, if not more, to prepare. By creating stable networks of communication, solidarity, and prepared workers ready to take over factories they were able to create several decentralized autonomous spheres.

Interesting, and then what happened next?

The irony of this statement is that these are all very real and serious problems with states in global capitalism.

No irony at all, since I would freely acknowledge those issues and further agree that they arose in large part because of capitalism.

I suspect that in a world without such structures of domination and inequality, the need for nukes and military apparatuses greatly decreases. And an anarchist world does not mean there is no organization--it means that organization is not centrally controlled.

Forgive me if I'm not as optimistic as you are. Certainly these powerful tools of social control are there precisely to keep the current dynamic. Deconstructing the power structures sounds so easy in theory.
#14540204
Solastalgia wrote:
I've met many primitivists, and not one has ever advocated killing off 99% of the population.
More the worse for them, as that is a logical pre-requisite for re-wilding on any large scale. Wilding is land intensive in the same way that industry is capital intensive. Wilded land would of necessity be subtracted from the arable land required for the industrial production of food sufficient to feed most of the 7 billion souls who inhabit this globe.
#14540249
I totally understand what you are saying, that you would like it to be organic and organized, that you would eliminate the need for the state and the hierarchy that props the state up and that the state props up. Here is my problem though: you have not specified a geographic location. As soon as you do then we can analyze the interests of the area and who you will have to contend with. As of now my hypothetical is more compelling than yours, I think. It is easy to see that there are hierarchical structures and entities that exist, both states and non-states, and they will all have interest in destroying your organic community. Then you are right back where you started, because the democratic institutions are only in place until someone tries to take them apart, then all bets are off.


And as of right now, anarchism is not a possibility in most places--and I don't think many contend that it is. But that does not mean that anarchists cannot be political and fight for causes they believe in, such as equality, better quality of life, community self-sufficiency, ending racism, sexism, etc. These all go within a broader goal of a free society.

Yes, institutions of power would naturally want to destroy any kind of anarchism--just like they want to destroy even the political measures that better the standards of living for people within their own regime. Nevertheless, we still fight for them, organize, and prepare for the backlash. That is something we do now, and presumably something anarchists would do if they had gotten to a point of realizing an anarchist society.

Interesting, and then what happened next?

Ultimately the Spanish Anarchists took the strategy of not overthrowing the government, which they could have done.

Forgive me if I'm not as optimistic as you are. Certainly these powerful tools of social control are there precisely to keep the current dynamic. Deconstructing the power structures sounds so easy in theory.


Theory is theory, no doubt. But the discussion has primarily been about the idea of anarchism. In practice, I think we should not underestimate the potential of popular and workers movements, they have had successes in a variety of forms, and anarchist strategies--such as sit down strikes and direct action--have been vital to many of these. My aim really has been to dispel the notion that the an anarchist society leads to the disasters you mentioned (power vacuum, etc).
#14540423
quetzalcoatl wrote:More the worse for them, as that is a logical pre-requisite for re-wilding on any large scale. Wilding is land intensive in the same way that industry is capital intensive. Wilded land would of necessity be subtracted from the arable land required for the industrial production of food sufficient to feed most of the 7 billion souls who inhabit this globe.


First off, I believe you're talking about the wrong kind of rewilding here. We're talking about the anarchist use of the term. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rewilding_%28anarchism%29

Second off, killing 99% of the population is most certainly not a logical pre-requisite for re-wilding on a large scale. In either use of the term, be it anarchism or conservation biology.

Thirdly, on the loss of agricultural land. Agriculturalists and in turn industrialists have done it to themselves. It is our own unsustainable actions as a civilization that are causing our own demise. We're already loosing agricultural production rapidly due to climate change. In California, farmers are now shutting down their fields and earning a living by selling water to richer farms. We're doing it to ourselves already. So there's no need to tell me about all these hypothetical actions that anarcho-primitivists would have to induce to make our political vision come true. It's already set for the future.
#14551363
quetzalcoatl wrote:This is the thing. You can't go back. It would require you to kill or starve 99% of the existing population in order to return to pre-agrarian tribal statelessness. Even this would be fruitless in the long run, as the evolution towards the state would simply repeat itself.


can you expound on that? why are states more necessary the more populated the world becomes?
#14551763
RedPillAger wrote:
can you expound on that? why are states more necessary the more populated the world becomes?


I was actually responding to a particular subset of anarchism that advocates re-wilding. My response is that industrial farming is required to support the planet's present population, and that nearly all potentially arable land will eventually succumb to intensive agriculture. I wasn't making a statement about other forms of anarchism.
#14572060
Solastalgia wrote:For the vast majority of human history we (as a species) have lived as gatherer-hunters in a communal, anarchist, and egalitarian society. This is anthropology 101 right here, yet when people hear it coming from the only true anarchists (primitivists) - they simply dismiss it. [*][*] It's only since agricultural society and subsequent civilizations that we have incorporated hierarchy and the eventual state.


Doesn't this reflect a somewhat romanticized view of the primitive hunter-gatherer society, and a sort of old-fashioned brand of anthropology? Of course the primitive hunter-gatherer society was stateless, as states and the conditions arguably prerequisite for their emergence had not emerged. The level of technology and work effort was low, there was little need for specialization of labor, there was not much in the way of property, and the population of social organizations was small.

I balk at the use of the term "egalitarian" for such societies, however, and also at the claim that there were no "hierarchies" or differences in status and power. There are differences in status even among bonobos and chimpanzees, and of course also among hunter-gatherer societies. Chagnon, for instance, claims that the status of an individual Yanomamo is influenced in part by the number of close male relatives.

I don't mean to suggest that we have nothing to learn from hunter-gatherers, but to suggest that to call that form of social order "egalitarian" is to overlook meaningful social differences and to judge an exotic way of life by our own standards. Relations of social inequality take a different form in hunter-gatherer life than they do in more technologically complex societies.

To misapply the term "equality" this way is to risk making it seem that human animals are at bottom all sweethearts, and that all our problems come from some special source -- technology, states, elites, whathaveyou. But it seems the life of a hunter-gatherer is in some respects like the life of a gangster -- and there is no "state", and no lack of hierarchy, among gangsters either.
#14603160
Some people will use the term "anarchy" to mean chaos. But if by anarchy we mean order without rule, I don't think it has ever been demonstrated. Certainly there have been groups and individuals who called themselves anarchists, but they have never achieved anything. Eventually, a leader emerges.

Humans are governed by the imperative of genetic perpetuation. We have built castles out of stone or finance to protect genetic dynasty. The State is an alliance of dynasties, large or small. Raising a down payment on a two bedroom flat is a part of an attempt to establish a genetic dynasty for the hopeful occupants. Even the roof of a shelter for the homeless is ultimately about the perpetuation of those unfortunate people's genetics. The State offers this possibility, anarchy offers no such possibility of protection and perpetuation of one's genes.

What Anarchy does offer is a posture for those enamored with the image of the romantic revolutionary idealist. Intelligent people grow out of it.

I'm surprised to see the genocide supporters (lik[…]

@JohnRawls What if your assumption is wrong???[…]

Sure, but they are too stupid to understand, Trum[…]

Israel-Palestinian War 2023

This is the issue. It is not changing. https://y[…]