@Palmyrene
How is it similar to vigilantes at all?
Vigilantes deal out punishments for crimes while anarchist volunteers would only apprehend criminals.
Aren't they civilians?
And these volunteer detectives would be professional and trained to apprehend criminals. They have an entire federation for God's sake.
How will they be professional and trained?
If they're going to be regular people, then they're not professionals nor have high level of training.
And if they're trained professionals, then they're not regular people but a special class of people with such training.
How is that state? There is no hierarchy. A hierarchy is necessary for a state.
Organizers> Staff (Professionals)> trainees.
Simple hierarchy.
You're just proposing a decentralized state.
There are neighborhoods and generally people know everyone in their neighborhood and all the potential "darkspots" there. They can manage themselves.
So each "neighborhood" would have its own services and businesses and everything?
So, a cluster of towns basically.
If it was in cities, then the size population alone would prevent everyone from knowing each other.
Furthermore, the idea that in a city, there wont be dark isolated spots where someone could do a crime is fictional.
Is Amber Alert a state? Are news stations a state? This federation wouldn't even be hierarchial so there isn't a state by default. So you have a better argument towards saying the media is a state than this federation.
They're part of a state.
A state is made up of many networks, but a limited mini state can be made up of a couple of networks.
Remember, these volunteers are just that, volunteers. Everyone has the capability to do investigations and deal with criminals ad hoc (like the bar example I gave initially). The only difference between them and volunteer detectives is that the volunteers make it their job.
If they're volunteers, then they're not trained professionals.
And if they're trained professionals, then they're not regular volunteers.
And if you want to solve crimes, you need the evidence; Untrained volunteers could damage, contaminate, or destroy evidence simply due to lack of experience and training in handling it.
As such, in a system where criminal investigations are done by volunteers, solving crimes and achieving justice would be incredibly difficult and pretty much based on luck.
Ah yes, the stereotypical notion of "anarchy as chaos". Do you have so little arguments that you have to rely on a misconception to make a meaningful retort?
Anarchism, just like libertarianism and other anti-state ideologies are idealistic. They assume the best of people's nature.
Can you give a reason why everyone would suddenly kill each other? Would you start murdering everyone you didn't like if the law didn't tell to? And if everyone is just dying to kill each other why would you think that a man on a pedestal saying "no" would stop them.
When there is no state or authority in general enforcing order, disputes quickly escalate, and violence ensues.
Simply because there is no barriers in place.
Not only psychopaths and sadists, but even regular people would indeed kill each other routinely.
Just look at any event where state authorities are weak or aren't present, crime immediately skyrockets because killing that person you hate and have a grudge with can suddenly be done without consequences.
If you were in a bar and had a fight, that could quickly escalate to murder because, remember, no rules.
Why do think threatening someone who going to kill someone with death would deter them from doing so? If they're really so adamant about killing that person, they'll do it any way and just hide the body; just like they do now.
While the majority are peaceful, it just takes those wreckless ones or the ones with anger issues or any other reason for killing to spread chaos.
Those need a deterrent.
Heck. Domestic violence would spread, because now there is no law. Corrupt and predatory business practices would become the norm because there is no deterrent. I mean, even with a state, and it's hard to stop people's greed from taking over.
So you have a system where you don't prevent murder from happening and you give a specific group of people legal power to do anything they want (i.e. cops). Great! What an amazing solution! Not only is the murder rate still high, but now cops can get in on the murdering! Yay!
If there is a deterrent, in a democratic state where the cops are accountable by law themselves (i.e. like in most developed countries.), the murder rate won't be high and the cops won't have a free license to kill.
In anarchy, everything is permitted but everything is prohibited too. If someone is beating or murdering someone on the street, people will be more likely to step in because there is no authority. If a person is murdered the whole community will come together to help investigate who did it, because there is no authority.
Why?
People are selfish, why would anyone risk their own lives to help a stranger?
Even now only few do such selfless things, you want to count on these few in everything?
The existence of a murderer or dangerous individual directly effects them and their life. They can no longer just rely on an authority to deal with things for them, people need to come together and deal with things themselves.
And they do just that, through establishing defense patrols and forces to ensure this security lasts (i.e. police) instead of counting on random people to help if they happened to be around, and also counting on these random strangers to be selfless enough to risk their own lives to help.
Also, you do realize that what you're proposing is essentially mobs of people with torches right?
I expect that people would deal with crime before it happens. If a community knows someone is a mean drunk, they may try to help him find help to stop it before it gets too late and he hurts someone. If a community knows a teenager whose a shut in and is socially isolated, they may try to bring him out of his shell.
So basically, to get this project to succeed, people will have to be constantly vigilant and worries about everything and looking behind their shoulders for any possible threat around the clock?
Instead of just outsourcing these responsibilities to a democratic state they elect to take care of these issues so they can focus on more important things?
The system you propose would stop progress completely because no one will have time to do anything since they'll be busy taking care of the very basic tasks around the clock.
If there is a psychopathic murderer in your town and there is no cop or authority to help you, you and the rest of your community are going to get ready to deal with them.
We do, by pooling up and hiring a specialized task force to ensure our safety from that person or group.
That task force is what we call the police force.
Simply because we all would come to the conclusion that hey, maybe instead of constantly having to worry about these individuals, we can put a little advanced payment and get someone who knows what he\she is doing to take care of it.
i.e. the logical thing to do.
Explain how my education system is "random". Because the compulsory schooling system does not educate everyone nor does it ensure the maximum spread of information. Some schools in the South aren't even taught that slavery is the cause of the civil war.
Because it's voluntary. If it's voluntary, then there would be a good slice that elects not to attend. And furthermore, the teaching is also voluntary which means some days the math teacher simply doesn't feel like showing up.
Hell, in Sudan and other third world countries, schools aren't even funded enough to give students the right education. In America, some black schools aren't given enough funding for a good enough education.
And?
So to solve lack of funding, instead of introducing productive economic policies and regulations to increase state revenues and by extension increase funding, we just abolish schools.
Great idea.
It's like some of these Republicans in the US whose solution to health care is to simply abolish it.
This is your "guarantee that everyone is educated"? This is "ensures the maximum spread of information"?
Yes actually, if you establish a schooling system that can take everyone, you ensure optimal results.
If you establish (or more accurately not establish but just leave things to chance) a system where schools don't exist to begin with and kids (noting that there are over 7 billion people on the planet) can choose to go to circles where one guy or girl teaches them about a certain topic and then go to another, and occasionally not learn entirely because the "teacher" who's a random person doesn't feel like teaching, then you ensure illiteracy.
We can easily look at the level of literacy before schools became a thing to know how that'd be like you know.
The lack of funding isn't a problem with the concept of schools, it's a flaw in the economic policy in the given country at hand. '
Well it's the fault of the master for not telling the helper to not touch that or making sure that certain equipment is off limits. If the helper goes against the wishes of the master than you may have a point but I don't expect all helpers to touch things they aren't allowed to and the benefits of such a system would outweigh these small cases.
Or, there can be classes where they're taught the basics before hand.
Organizers or leaders isn't indicative of a hierarchy or state. Remember the definition of a hierarchy:
An organizer or a leader would tell people he\she is organizing or leading what to do. If they don't follow, then there won't be any order or organization, therefore they'd have to listen and follow.
Informal leaders and temporary coordinators aren't rulers. And their "authority" only goes as far as people listening to them. Once they stop listening, they lose "authority".
So, basically, like how government officials are elected?
And amber alert itself is not a state. Because you specifically said that a network with organizers is a state. Does this mean amber alert is a state within a state?
The amber alert system and its likes, depending on the country, are ran by the police force, which is part of a larger ministry or department that handles several networks in criminal justice, intelligence, courts, etc to ensure security.
Therefore it is a part of a state.
The amber alert system in the US is not a network on itself, it is a service that an existing network provides.
What system?
The anarchist system you're proposing.
The idea of community itself is ambiguous. What is a community anyways? How is it defined? Forcing people to pay money for living in a "community" whose borders are defined by you is ridiculous.
If they live in a particular area and want to benefit from the services, infrastructure, etc provided in that area, then they should contribute to it.
And industrialization happened without taxation or state funding so clearly not.
Industrialization started by states and was driven by capitalistic consumerism.
It was incredibly limited due to how limited communications and interconnectedness was back then. When the first modern schools were built they were just as limited due to a lack of transportation and availability.
That doesn't mean the system itself is bad or limited. It was limited due to other factors at play.
Ooh, ok.
So to establish this system, you just need the internet (which needs massive infrastructure and servers to exist) and an advanced transportation system (also requires massive amounts of resources and infrastructure to exist).
How will you establish those exactly?
Like I said, you can establish boundaries. Tell the helpers what they can or cannot do. Only use the helpers for low intensity tasks. Do a screening process; test the potential helper to see if they are capable of the tasks they'll encounter.
There are ways to deal with this.
No, that doesn't work.
Advanced sciences require lots of study and learning before you get anywhere near a research lab or facility.
Practical training comes at the last stage of a scientific education because it's incredibly difficult to manage in such an environment without this basic info.
The workers would make the plans themselves. They have an intimate understanding of how to operate the machinery, at what time they'd finish, and how to organize themselves since they understand their roles and jobs. And additional resources would be obtained by the workers who produce those resources
Organizers are trained on organization, workers are trained to run specialized tasks.
There are many many tasks involved in these industries and requires all sorts of people from all sorts of specializations to cooperate, and they do that successfully because someone (managers) is there to organize this cooperation.
If that doesn't exist, then production would be incredibly low or simply stops.
And industries would be massively scaled back since complex systems would no longer be operational due to lack of organizers.
Money won't be an issue and capital investment would be nonexistent. People will transfer and exchange resources far more directly than in capitalism.
Barter you mean?
How will the division of value work if currency no longer exists?
Networks do arise spontaneously though. Look into complex networks. Networks aren't organized, they are very messy and intertwined.
Not really.
Complex networks of production don't happen randomly.
If you mean social networks, then sure those aren't organized, messy, and chaotic in general; But those don't produce anything and nothing is reliant on them.
If you want to produce a car, you need an organized complex network, not a random one.
That would be readily available too and there is still some kind of individual reward. But from the scientists I've seen, doing science is it's own reward.
How? Who will provide these rewards?
If they're only there for the money and they no longer need money, they wouldn't be scientists at all.
Exactly, which means far fewer scientists because most people in these fields are there for the high paying jobs and prestigious positions these jobs give, which they happened to be good at (the jobs).
Regardless the scientists there for the money, like I've shown in my other post, only make things more difficult for legitimate scientists and only create fake science thus putting us backwards not forwards.
Ooh, so anyone who wants money and prestige is a "fake" scientist now?
Turns out, forcing people to do science for money ends up with worse science not better science. I would rather have 50 good scientists than 100 bad ones who do fake research to get more money.
1- it's more like 1 for every 1000 or more who is there purely for the science and doesn't care about prestige or reward.
2- Those "bad scientists" do the bulk of the work.
Major scientific advances are usually made by thousands gathering data and all, then one genius making a discovery then thousands filling up the details and fine-tuning the resulting equation or theory.
Basic needs are on the bottom of the pyramid. People have hobbies, goals, dreams, things they want to do. They don't just get food and water and turn into zombies.
Regardless, like you said, people want luxuries. They want skateboards and cool clothes and video games. They want to go on cruises and travel to different parts of the world.
And in an anarchist society, this'll all be cheaper or even free (in the case of crusies and traveling) compared to a hierarchial society.
How will it be free or cheaper when everything is slower and harder to produce?
If the supply is down, the price goes way up.
These mass production networks are what makes things cheap, and your model doesn't produce these highly complex fine tunned mass production networks.
Yeah Einstein was just in it for the money. So was Newton.
Both of these people literally lived like they were poor even though they were rich.
And as said before, 10s of thousands of scientists fine tunned their work and turned it from writing on a paper to actual technologies that benefit everyone.
If you want just those wonder geniuses, then you wont get any technology, you'll just get lots of papers talking about potential technologies.
It's made by scientists not states.
In fact most technology in the world was made by individuals who discovered it. The only significant technology made by states is the internet.
Almost every technology that we have today, including these computers and cellphones and everything, was directed, funded, and pushed for by states. And to be even more specific, it was done by states developing military technology that simply turned out useful in civilian industries as well.
Heck, if you traced back the Iphone where every technology in it came from, pretty much all of them were made during the cold war for the purpose of nuclear warfare.
States don't do that. It's a waste of funding and tax dollars to research technologies that may not even work.
The U.S. is already in hot water due to how much R&D money is put into the military or NASA (from liberals and conservatives respectively).
States, with their limited budgets, can only take fund projects to a certain extent.
And yet, regardless of how many screaming idiots there are on either side, those fundings done by the state in the military and in NASA gave rise to every aspect of modern consumer products through the technologies it developed.
1. What returns exactly?
Rewards for scientists.
2. Why would it be pending?
Because almost no one would do it, and even when someone does, all this person would do is produce scientific papers that pretty much no one (engineers) would turn it into functional technology.
Instead of having a new technology every few days, we'd be having a new technology every few years or even decades.
3. Why would they not have enough resources.
Because those things (advanced science and technology) requires massive funding to materialize.
Not a few thousands of dollars, but a few 100s of millions or even billions of dollars of investment and funding for it to go through.
If you remove a centralized entity with the capacity to gather and devote such funding, then you won't have these advancements.
In most of our conversations about anarchism, you make shitloads of assumptions.
Assumptions based on logical conclusions from abolishing the state and the things you propose.
You do know that industrialisation wasn't started by states right?
Industrialization, depending on the country, either started by large capitalist entities (centralized corporations) or states, and it was started to increase production in order to increase profits due to consumerism.
And in both the UK and the US, the industrial revolutions were partially government-run and partially corporate-run.
They aren't allowed to do whatever research they want. They have to get permission for funding and even then there's always the threat that this funding would get removed. In other words, there are strings attached.
Actually, people choose what topic they want to do their research on.
The major funding usually comes after they formulated and completed their initial research.
And after they complete their initial research, they can either pursue private funding to expand on it or do further research or can pursue government grants (most do this) to fund it, which usually has very little restrictions.
In an anarchist society, there would be no strings attached.
There won't be any strings attached because there wont be any funding to be given.
Scientists would obtain equipment and resources by collaborating with the producers of those resources. Thus, society as a whole chooses how much it values scientific research.
So people would come together to form production networks, to produce extremely expensive equipment, then give it away to any random scientist who wishes to do any random experiment which may or may not lead to results, and even if it did, it would probably take several years for these results to turn into technology. (since the scientific basis and the technological development are two different processes) And all of that will be done without any organizers or central direction.
And you don't see how much of a fantasy that looks like?
I don't think I'd call them "organizers"; they're more like messengers. They are people sent out to tell everyone what the group's thoughts or actions are. They're basically representatives that are recallable at any time. That isn't a "leader" in a traditional sense now is it?
Ok, so they're messengers who would go back and forth between different people or groups of people in a process similar to negotiations I assume?
So before every piece of road or stretch of wiring is built, there needs to be an entire process of negotiations that may or may not lead to agreement.
And this is just roads and basic electrical and water pipes. We haven't even begun talking about the internet, satellites (the ones in orbit BTW), cell coverage, phone lines, etc.
And people are putting in effort into the education system for themselves. Whether other people use it or join it is irrelevant. It is for the net benefit of the entire city and they're getting rewarded for it anyways so it doesn't even matter.
But you run into the same problem again. If there is no enforcement mechanism, then some people will choose not to participate knowing they'll get the benefits regardless.
Then you'll end up with a game theory dilemma.
Nothing in the system I described is anything resembling to chaos. Saying it's chaos over and over won't change how it's an intricately designed network based on egalitarianism. It's like saying "tribes are savages" over and over even though they aren't.
Except what you're describing is a "system" with no central authority, no organization and even when there is organization it'd be based on prolonged negotiations between people (which, considering the number of people there is it'd take forever for a middle ground to be reached), no laws or law enforcement, no complex production networks, etc.
It's in the name, anarchy. A stateless, orderless, society.
The state isn't always oppressive, states aren't all the same, there are different systems of governance, different types of states, etc.
Saying "anarchy is chaos" is such a stupid and easily rebutted argument. I can literally just use the etymology of the word to argue against it. Anarchy means "no rulers" not "chaos".
Definition of Anarchy:
a state of disorder due to absence or non-recognition of authority or other controlling systems.
absence of government and absolute freedom of the individual, regarded as a political ideal.
>>State of disorder<<