this post was submitted on 29 Jan 2024
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Well I hear a lot of revolutionary LARPers so I do tend to get exhausted hearing about Anarchy and how it's the solution to all our problems. Elected politicians still have a good degree of power, we still elect them to power, so I feel like there's still a lot more we can do within the system before burning it down becomes a serious solution.
If you want to burn down the Supreme Court, okay. Congress? Hell yeah. Two party voting? Absolutely. But the entire system, top to bottom, definitely doesn't need a full restart. The things we want are hard, will be slow, but I've never thought "Man, we'd get a lot more done if there was more civil unrest."
Except marxists also believe in revolution and aren't anarchists. Not all revolutions or revolutionaries are anarchists.
Capitalism was founded on overthrowing the monarchy in many countries including France and England. In the US the entire country was founded by revolt against the British. Large political changes are often accompanied by violence and civil war. That's how things have always happened. It's not a uniquely anarchist idea.
You do see how unappealing it is to say "Hey, we need to start a bloodbath on the level of a civil war before you can be paid a livable wage. If we decide to do wages. We're not entirely sure what we want just yet but it isn't this. We're also going to do this in one of the heaviest armed countries with the most deadly weapons on the face of the Earth against people who would rather die than be poor." right?..
Back in the day you just needed a big 'ol blade and some civil unrest but to overthrow a government and reestablish an entire economic system overnight? I think the last decade have been eventful enough..
100% understand what you mean. Can honestly say I am glad I don't live in the USA. It's a depressing reality to face but this is what history tells us unfortunately. If you can find another way that would actually work go for it! Good chance you can't though...
Honestly though the USA has been bullying other countries for decades now. It's the reason why lots of other regimes and revolutions failed. Not because they were bad inherently, but because of USA interference. The USA collapsing would be helpful to some parts of the world, and would definitely make things interesting for sure.
I've actually seen marxists say pretty much this. I think anarchists are actually the better of the two in this regard as they believe in building up communities, co-ops, and mutual aid networks before you start overthrowing governments. There actually are some solid ideas on how you could run a non-capitalist society out there. They don't get talked about enough honestly as people seem to think it's a boring detail rather than a critical issue for some reason. I think choosing which is best is probably the most difficult part. I can link you to introductory videos on some of these systems if you want.
How has "changing things slowly from within the bounds of the system" been working out for America so far? Just saying but democrats won the last election and civil rights, women's rights, and cost of living have all gotten worse, and America's boundless support for imperialism hasn't really changed at all. Is the status quo forever fine in your view? Do you think that there will just somehow never be another republican president, and that by continually voting in whoever the DNC decides should represent their interests next, you'll somehow stave off the descent into American Christian fascism? How about all the times that Republicans and fascists blatantly break the law and are entirely unpunished (judicially) for doing so? What power do lawmakers supposedly wield to better the system if they can't even punish Republicans for breaking the laws that already exist and blatantly, openly, talking about turning the country into a dictatorship?
Anyone who says anarchy is a solution is a grade A moron. Anarchy by definition isn't even a system. It's just a bunch of people doing what they want. The best case scenario is that anarchy results in a bunch of smaller, more community catered systems. Which at that point it's not anarchy anymore. Even then, every smaller system is vulnerable to the very human tendency of being swallowed up by the guy with the bigger stick.
In fact, if anything, anarchy would slip into fascism as soon as it becomes clear what coalition has the bigger guns.
So feel better knowing that anarchy larpers are really just getting their rocks off on how they imagine it would be, when in reality most everyone would just end up yeilding to the biggest guns because we fear for our lives.
You don't seem to understand what anarchy is or what anarchist politics is. You should know what you're talking about before you speak with confident derision.
Want to enlighten me? Because based on the raw definition, what I said is consistent. But please do explain to me how anarchy is supposed to work for 350 million people
That second definition is really weird. An organization on the basis of voluntary cooperation is a government.
Really this just highlights the absurdity of anarchy. It's more of a libertarian myth than anything else.
Dictatorships are a form of government that isn't based on voluntary cooperation. In fact almost no government has 100% support of it's citizens. That's why we have things like the police and military. You've just shown you don't see any of the threats or violence involved in state craft, or are pretending not to.
What kind of libertarian are you talking about specifically? The word has become very muddied and represents very different groups and ideologies.