this post was submitted on 17 Apr 2024

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Oh no, Anarchists! (slrpnk.net)

submitted 7 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 51 points 7 months ago (4 children)

Anarchy is not by nature disorganized. Lack of hierarchy doesn't mean lack of organization. Probably a well-functioning anarchist organization is better organized than most hierarchical ones.

If friends are not there to defend the group of three, mutual aid is missing. That's why it failed.

[+] [email protected] 15 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (4 children)

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[–] [email protected] 15 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Actually, there seems to be a bit of a mix-up. Let me clarify.

In an anarchist group, enforcing anything goes against its fundamental principles.

If personal gain is the motive, one isn't truly aligned with the group's social contract and isn't considered part of it.

Decisions are made collectively, without hierarchy. Voting or delegating organisational tasks to sub-groups is the norm.

I won't go into words like "attacking," "defense," or "threats" as they are military terms, far from the anarchist ethos.

And I won't call you "bro" or make you read theory. I feel you won't.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 7 months ago

Anarchism is really against coercion, that's what is meant by hierarchy. Hierarchy only makes sense if it's used for coercion of other's behavior.

There is no reason a group of people can't organize in a voluntary hierarchy to complete a task without the use of coercion.

Imagine a group of 10 anarchist making pizza for the homeless. Two of them make pizza for a living and 8 are there for the week to help out. There is nothing preventing those 8 people from taking instruction from the two that know how to make pizza. Nobody is coerced to be there or to do anything.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 7 months ago (1 children)

We don't need to incentivse not selling people out. Heirarchy creates a set of incentives TO sell people out. Remove those incentives and people will for the most part not sell people out. You've got it exactly backwards.

Ask your buddy mao about anarchist fighting forces. He literally took anarchist tactics around decentralized militias and used them to great success. The Vietnamese as well. Or have a look at the Spanish revolution, rojava, the Ukrainian black army, or the zapatistas if you need more proof that decentralized militant forces are effective and capable. It doesn't warrant an in detail explanation because "but how fight if democracy???" is weak as fuck.

[+] [email protected] 6 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (3 children)

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 7 months ago

Spain was not part of WW2. Facists won before that, though.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Zapitista, Makhnovshchina, Rojava, Zomia, etc. didn't all descend into mass crime and slaughter.

What we've seen is these movements benefit the people living there.

[+] [email protected] 6 points 7 months ago (1 children)

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

YPG, the militia formed during the seperation of Rojava from the Syrian government, have been accused by Human Rights groups of using Child Soldiers.

Correct... and notably, unlike the other forces around them (Syrian dictatorship, Turkish-sponsored islamists, ISIS, etc) they responded to the accusation within a month:

In June 2020, United Nations reported the YPG/YPJ as the largest faction in the Syrian civil war by the number of recruited child soldiers with 283 child soldiers followed by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham with 245 child soldiers.[141]

On 15 July 2020, SDF issued a new military order prohibiting child recruitment. The NGO Fight For Humanity conducted multiple training sessions with hundreds of SDF commanders about the UN-SDF Action Plan To Prevent Child Recruitment, and distributed informational posters and flyers about it written in both Arabic and Kurdish, as part of an ongoing educational process. Syria-based researcher Thomas McClure observed that “SDF are less likely to engage in such practices than any of the other forces in Syria, but seek to hold themselves to a higher standard of accountability and human rights.”[142]

On 29 August 2020, SDF announced the creation of a new system that anyone can use to confidentially report to specialized Child Protection offices any suspected case of child recruitment, in accordance with the action plan that the SDF signed with the United Nations in the summer of 2019.[143][144]

[–] [email protected] 3 points 7 months ago (1 children)

What's your plan to "remove those incentives" because think we've got more than enough sample data on what happens when a government falls and the disappearance of all crime and hostility is not part of it.

Are you the one that said not to say "go read theory"? Because the urge to tell you to go read theory is pretty fuckin strong. I'm not going to summarize 200 years of political philosophy and history for you. Especially because I know you're just gonna go "no you're wrong and my heirarchical realism is right" no matter how compelling my points are. I'll give you a couple of places to start, I guess.

Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution. E-book/PDF version. Audiobook version.

Anarchy Works, Peter Gelderloos. PDF/E-book version Audiobook version

Seeing Like a State, James C. Scott, pdf version

An Anarchist FAQ

On YouTube: Anark (Theory essays), Andrewism (Theory and Praxis), Zoe Baker (PhD in anarchist history).

Also, the Spanish revolution is a lot more complicated than "the fascists won btw". Your tone again suggests it's not worth the effort of breaking it down for.you. I don't have any specific recommendations on that other than to open a book. Have a good day and go fuck yourself

[–] [email protected] 4 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

They said x and you're somehow reading y.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 7 months ago

Yes, and that mutual aid relies on people all voluntarily helping when there is a problem, rather than having people who are tasked with ensuring people are protected, which is the same reason libertarianism fails; it's an ideology that doesn't acknowledge human self-interest and selfishness, instead it assumes everyone will just agree to abide by a communal philosophy. Many people do not, for all kinds of reasons.

If you are going to create laws and codes of conduct and a means to enforce those laws that's just a normal state with extra steps.

You can maybe do anarchy at a small scale and in specific contexts but not at the scale needed to make a society function and do things like protect minorities the larger community doesn't give a shit about.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago

What does a well-functioning anarchist organization look like, though? How does one of any size prevent from fracturing into competing factions over time? If such organizations are limited to tight-knit community scales, I can't see how it's not eventual feudalism with extra steps.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

Hierarchy isn't the opposite of anarchy.

It's just a type of rule. As in "an-archy", without ruler.

There's also "synarchy", meaning "joint rule or government by two or more individuals or parties", which I feel is far more what people here are advocating in the name of anarchism.