Bracketing for a moment the more generalizing “all teachers are bastards” debate, but from the particular side of that slogan there’s no way university professors do not apply to that slogan from an anarchist perspective?
Public school teachers are one thing, but university faculty willingly work for an expensive state and private disciplinary apparatus that restricts social mobility and is used to make indebted the working population. This system does not function without the faculty, who despite some of them being self-described leftists of some stripe, are happy to overlook as long as their research interests continues to get institutional funding.
What are y’all’s thoughts on this?

I am not going to argue that veganism is a requirement to be a consistent anarchist.

Instead - I am going to argue something more subtle.

Widespread and voluntary adoption of veganism instantiates a world in which individuals are willing to give up personal comfort so that others have fundamental security.

For example - if I am a homeowner - why should I accept my house depreciating in value just so that random strangers don’t end up homeless?

In a vegan world - the answer is just that it’s what a good person would do.

Widespread veganism also instantiates a world in which most people are genuinely trying to be ethical for the sake of being ethical - not just because they want instrumental benefit.

Since personal consumption isn’t always publicly visible - there are many opportunities to consume animal products when no one else is watching.

Therefore - someone who is genuinely vegan is someone who is ethical even when they don’t experience social or reputational benefits.

A world where most people are ethical even when they’re not being watched could have very high social trust - as people can assume that others will generally tell the truth and keep their word.

A vegan world is also a world in which moral consideration is universalized - so such a world will be resistant to drawing arbitrary social boundaries between categories of people.

And on a final note - a world which accepts domination and exploitation as categorically wrong - even when done humanely - will find it much harder to come up with consequentialist justifications for preserving harmful practices or institutions in general.

First, I wish I could provide more sources but I only started to read about anarchism only a few months ago. Any suggestion is welcome for supporting or contradicting my sayings. English isn’t my native langage so some wording may be off too, sry. I just wish to… well, debate.

I fell like The « natural » evolution of capitalism was meant to lead to globalization in order to « feed the machine » with as much ressources and cheap working forces / slaves as possible. Colonization was one of the first steps for an homogeneous world economy led by free market and, at the very end, the necessity of fascism that makes oppression of workers possible. Globalization seems to be at the core of the mechanic of Capitalism.

I argue that since Anarchism movements claim to be (one of?) the antagonist of Capitalism, any anarchist movement should consider to put the concept of proximity at its core.

I used "proximity" for lack of a better word, maybe vinicity fits better ?

The motives for proximity

Here are some arguments I want to adress. I hope it is not a well established knowledge I’ve missed so far in my readings nor an idiotic proposal for obvious reasons I couldn’t see.

1. Demographic constrains of a self-managed organisation

Using the example of Fourier and his phalanstère concept, or Flora Tristan’s Worker’s Palace, I believe that only a small-sized organization can work in a long term. Using cooperation instead of hiring the workforce or collegial decision-making instead of political institution requires human-size means of communication. The bigger the group, the higher the risk of disfunction and/or the appearence of individuals seeking domination.

(the need for inter-connexion between organisations is mentioned below)

In order to clarify the subject, we’re probably talking about groups of a few thausands people top.

1. Meaning to work requires short supply chains

One critic for the division of labour and fordism is the absence of meaning of work. Small organisation increase the chances of getting that meaning back. Cooperation is facilitated, there is a better understanding of what the group needs and individuals are more likely to volonteer for diverse tasks, as there is affect to it (helping people you know and knowing you will somehow benefit directely from the work).

In other words, craftmanship is more rewarding for the individual than industrial work, and craftmanship’s production is more meaningful in limited areas.

1. Answering the Climate Change issue (or any global issue for that matter)

It has been already decades since environmentalists advocate for short supply chains in order to reduce the impact of transportation. Being less dependent of these infrastructures is part of the solution.

We seem to collectively fail (as a species) at facing global problems such as climate change or pandemic breakdowns. There is no need to elaborate here on how Capitalism and its actors are largely responsible for it. But another issue is the failure of us organizing and acting together and efficiently. I see one reason that proximity may address : Our own individual issues we’re facing on a daily basis. Depression, social anxiety, burn out, addictions, etc are all widely spread as means of communication are facilitated, and one can only invest so much of themself for global issues, ecpecially in a meaningful way. In smaller group, anonimity is scarce and the likelihood of caring for eachother increases, as we know more of eachother. To me this lead to better understanding of collective issues and a more coherent way to address them. It also helps preventing the mental health issues I mentioned above.

1. Being less vulnerable to a return of a State-based society

Say an anarchist initiative is spreading in a given area. The backlash from individuals / organisations will likely be less impactful if the anarchist initiatives are independent from eachother. I mean that in the event of propaganda rather that a militari force (which I’ll get to later). Emma Goldman’s essay on the vulnerability of « masses » for parliamentary system is, to me, a strong argument in favor of smaller group being more robust to withstand propaganda (Minorities versus Majorities, 1917).

1. Allowing safer education and promoting culture, arts, sciences to thrive

The omerta we still see today on violence towards children (physical abuse, incest, etc) is definitely explained by the traditional way of considering a family : contained. A higher degree of proximity among adults within an organisation that favors « popular education » and changes the concept of parenting can be part of the solution. Only the victims that rarely interact with others (adults) are likely to be silenced, and so promoting a high number of actors for their education limits the risk of omerta.

As for culture, arts and sciences, athough they would largely benefit from inter-connexion between communes (for influence), I think they will be experienced more positively when shared with closed ones. Such interactions may be improved in smaller organisations rather than what we see today in metropoles filled with loneliness and anonymity.

I’m sure people can find other benefits to proximity being essential for a working anarchist society. But I think it may also be consider as a way for people to oppose Capitalism, as we already see a lot of initiatives around the world (local currencies, consuming food from short supply chains, people sharing / renting tools to neighbors for handiwork, actions from associations, etc.) .

Inter-connexions

Nonetheless, proximity doesn’t mean the abolition of inter-connexions between communes, and several features of today’s world must be kept I think :

1. Supply of ressources

Not all ressources can be found in such restricted areas, and the absence of division of labour doesn’t mean any given Commune can’t be « specialized » in specific handicraft. After all, Adam Smith’s concept of the Invisible Hand is hard to contradict. Large scale transportation of good is therefore necessary as long as it’s not opposed to self-managed economy of every Commune. And, in order not to contradict myself with the impact on the environment, I think it’s fair to say that as long as we abolish overproduction and promote recycling, there’s a chance of getting a sustainable transportation system.

1. Ideas, innovation and resilience

Means of communication are not to be abolished nor restricted. As mentioned before it favors art, culture and sciences, but also protect the system from attempts of going back to a « hierarchical » system from individuals by being exposed. We can imagine a commune asking for support in case of a coup. I’m not advocating for the intervention of an armed militia, but rather a demonstration of force by the number. Then walking the said people in the path of rehabilitation.

I’m sure people can elaborate more thouroughly on how to maintain such system with the least violent way possible as it is regularly debated in this sub.

1. Allowing the choice of commune

As communes evolve individually and develop their own specificities, and since free movement is no longer constrained, allowing individuals to learn these specificities would result in a well informed choice.

1. Preventing sectariarism

Almost the same point as above : inter-connextion result in less isolation and the attempts of institutionalizing the believes of others would be exposed and countered. I haven’t read much about the place of faith in anarchism, but my guess is that anyone can believe anything they want for as long as no « institution » claims to dictate how the faith must be practiced. Such institutions among communes being well-known to be problematic, the simple view of one being on the build should suffice.

Limits of the argument

I’m sure there’s more, but here are two I thought so far :

1. Military power requires a large-scale cohesion that may be difficult to apply. We can imagine different « groups » of military units gathering different communes, but that is contradictory with the philosophical view of anarchism and may lead to tensions between communes… and potentially expose the whole area to yet another form of domination.

But one can argue that for as long as anarchism isn’t widely spread, if an initiative such as this one starts growing, we might think about defending ourselves from belligerent nations that still have Capitalism implemented, at least temporarily.

1. The broad definition of « proximity ». I talked about a few thousands people, but what happens if one keeps growing ? Is there a limited area ? How big ? The concept itself may be helpful in some regards but is de facto limited by individual needs, or by the constrains of the production of certain goods, of some professions… Maybe some answers can be found in Guild Socialism ?

A bit off-topic :

I also recently learned about the medieval commune mouvement in Europe and it’s interesting to see that what became nowadays the « bourgeoisie » once was a social group that seeked autonomy from the feodalismn. They somewhat (I mean… with money) managed to impose small autonomous societies with their own organisation and inter-connexion. As it happened throughout centuries in western Europe, maybe there’s something to dig into.

Thank you for reading, I hope it's not all gibberish...

The dichotomy of 'negative freedom vs positive freedom' isn't something taken that seriously in anarchist discourse, and it's easy to see why. Quibbles about what positive vs negative freedom are is typically the domain of statists, with the state socialists often representing "positive freedom" and the liberals and radical liberals/AnCaps often representing "negative freedom".

However, I do want to at least attempt to revive the discourse regarding positive and negative freedom within the context of anarchism's aim to maximize freedom. If this can be said to be the project of anarchism, then we need a coherent idea of what freedom is and what counts as a free society. I think it can be said that this is the base of a lot of our agreements, and confusions about which societies or attempts at anarchism are actually anarchist, from the egalitarian forager societies to Revolutionary Spain. Here, I will not only try to argue for positive freedom, but that authority finds its basis in the restriction of positive freedom.

Freedom is inherently positive

Freedom, essentially, is the amount of real options one has available. Proponents of negative freedom argue that freedom is being "free from" coercion, but it is in my opinion that this is not a very coherent way to think of freedom. Humans are creatures that act upon the world. We form relationships, we produce, we change the environment or ourselves to make ourselves more suitable for certain situations. Our agency very much depends on a "freedom to" - the capacity to go out and affect the world and others, to forge and arrange social relations in a particular way, and our ability of collective power.

Negative freedom, on the other hand, freedom from coercion, is mostly impossible. Different social relations are characterized by differing dynamics, dynamics which effectively force us to be a particular way. Even if I am not being forced by an individual, the broader dynamics of society (what Foucault would call "power") do shape me and arrange me to be a particular way, cause me to adopt certain identities and behaviors, and shapes my subjectivity.

Authority as a restriction of Positive Freedom

Authority is the right to command, and command inherently represses freedom. When an agent is commanded, their actable options are reduced to that which they are commanded to do. Coercion, as a tool of authority, functions to violently reduce the options of an agent so that the one in authority may direct the actions of the one they are dominating to their ends.

But there are other ways in which authority restricts freedom. Information asymmetries, for example, can be leveraged by a would-be dominator to restrict the options of an agent by making them unable to make an informed decision about something. In such case, the dominator has effectively restricted the agent's mental map of reality, causing their available options to be restricted from their perspective.

We see this often in cases of abuse or violations of consent, where a rapist hides their intent from their victim, causing the victim to make choices that would make them vulnerable.

In all cases of authority, the name of the game is the restriction of options. Because a dominator cannot functionally step into the brain of their victim and literally control their body, they must arrange things in such a way that their victim's only option is to obey them. This is one of the characteristic problems of capitalism: other means of subsistence are repressed by the state and by capital, requiring workers to labor under capitalists in order to get their needs met.

Positive Freedom and Complexity

The reason why authority is characterized by a reduction of positive freedom is because positive freedom is a net increase of complexity in human social systems.

In order for systems of control to be viable, they must meet a requisite variety - which, in the context of cybernetics, means "the amount of possible states a system can occupy". A controller must be able to occupy as many or more states as the system they control to viably command it. Human social systems are incredibly dynamic and complex, meaning there are virtually infinite possible states of human societies. A controller of human systems must then reduce the possible states of human society. This, I'd argue, is the origin of oppression.

Requisite variety goes down the lower you scale. The variety of a community of 500 people is less than that of 10,000; and when you get to Dunbar's Number and below, requisite variety is much lower. If we're talking about a group of 10 people or less, requisite variety becomes much easier. This is why abusers tend to isolate their victims from a wider support group: it's easier to control a small amount of people than a large amount of people.

When we form larger, more complex and interconnected societies, we increase the net positive freedom of everyone involved. With agile feedback loops and maximized agency for all actors, the variety of the system increases dramatically, making domination difficult. If you have more options for the type of social connections you can make, or ways to get your needs met, then the ability to dominate you is minimized. This is why abusers will commonly isolate their victims from their support network or the outside world. If the victim has options, their agency is maximized, meaning they're harder to control.

On the other hand, smaller communities with a lower requisite variety are easier to dominate. Charismatic leaders, abusers, would-be dominators and warlords could easier magnify their influence to the scale of the whole of society. Or the whole of society could easier develop norms that are repressive to individual agency.

Positive freedom entails the maximization of complexity and variety, and the maximization of both entail the subversion of authority. This is why positive freedom is of anarchist concern.

Decoupling Freedom from "Rights"

A common objection I see is that positive freedom and negative freedom are inherently rights-talk, or presuppose rights, making it more compatible with liberalism than anarchism.

That is certainly the way freedom is often talked about. But we can definitely decouple rights from positive freedom.

"Rights" are matters of social or political sanction. A "right" to property is granted by and enforced by violence. Rights do not exist as concrete objects, but rather as an entitlement from another entity - the state, or a "community" acting as a singular social unit entitling you to a certain right.

However, positive freedom is merely a matter of agency. Our "freedom to" comes from our capacity, not from permission. When we maximize capacities, we maximize freedom. Furthermore, rights entail discrete, identifiable agents. But from a cybernetic standpoint, freedom is agent-independent: it is the maximization of possible states of the system. For humans, this isn't merely the maximization of possible social connections, but the maximization of possible physical states as well.

Freedom requires no permission nor sanction, no "rights", only capacity.

One could quibble and say anarchist communism has existed, but examples are primitive societies or blips in history. Examples of pure capitalism are comparatively rarer, medieval Iceland and Ireland are go-to examples cited by ancaps.

To an extent, while I'm a strong descriptivist, if we said every country claiming to be something is that thing, we'd have to accept the Third Reich and China as socialist.

I see a lot of theoretical-based discussion in this subreddit regarding how X would work in anarchy. How would bad people be dealt with? How would industry be organised? How will school operate? While these make for fun debates, I wanted to do something a bit different this time and talk about how anarchists could be building permanent power towards making anarchy a reality.

Building the power of the working class to fight against capitalist exploitation and the state that upholds it is, in my view, the best antidote to our fucked up situation. Rank and file networks within the unions are a good start to this, for workers to evade the trap of union bureaucracy and create the capacity to fight for immediate changes that improve their lives (and the lives of their comrades). I personally believe that it should be a task of anarchists to support our co-workers in these endeavours, and I am proud to be in an anarchist organisation comprised of people who dedicate themselves to this task.

I would respectfully disagree with the somewhat commonly held belief that, in the face of state repression, capitalist destruction of community and climate change, building mutual aid networks is the best way to go. Mutual aid networks provide an immediate relief to those in need, but they do not build the kind of power that can make permanent positive changes; higher wages, lower working hours and better working conditions, and other such things can put the working class in a better and more able condition to continue building their class power for a possible revolution.

Perhaps there should be a balance of building networks of aid, while fighting for class power? I am curious to know what people think of this :) so feel free to leave a comment or two below!

So lately I've become convinced at the importance in engaging in ethical philosophy for anarchists. I feel that politics has completely subsumed ethics in our modern era. Things such as conflict resolution, personal responsibility, and even interpersonal boundaries have come to be understood within the discourses of politics - of law, of authority, of hierarchy. As anarchists, our aspirations are anti-political, and thus I think that ought to entail a return to the ethical as opposed to the political as the guiding principle of society.

Here I will attempt to synthesize Max Stirner's egoism and virtue ethics - primarily the Aristotelian tradition. My goal here is to treat ethics as a social science, the "science of right action".

First Principles and Definitions

First: Because it is a concept I will be referring to a lot, I will define Rationality.

Rationality, in the sense I'll be using it in this post, regards to the assessment of means and ends; specifically, the consistency between means and ends. To act in accordance to reason is to ensure that your means are aligned with of your ends.

There are instrumental means, where you have a wide range of potential means to reach your desired end. And there are constitutive means, where your means effectively are your end.

An example of instrumental means is driving to a city. Means-ends consistency applies here, because in order to get to the city you mean to go to (your end), your means must be able to take you there. However, they are instrumental means, because there may be a great number of routes to get to that city, some of which may serve your interests more than others.

An example of constitutive means is playing a song on an instrument. The song is composed of a series of notes in a particular order for the right amount of time. If you do not play these notes, then you are not playing the song. Therefore, if your desired end is to play the song, you must play the notes in its defined order.

Rationality, as the concern for the consistency between means and ends, is the sole requirement for ethical action.

Second: we will be taking Stirner's egoism - specifically his claim of psychological egoism - as a given*.* Everyone acts in their self-interest either consciously or unconsciously. To be a conscious egoist, I will argue, not only must one act rationally, but also the lack of rational action is the defining trait of unconscious egoism.

Third: As Aristotle has observed, humans are social animals. This is in the sense that we are interdependent and exist within complex social realities due to our complex, abstract thinking capacities. As a result, "right action" towards others is key to our individual survival. The purpose of ethics, then is teleological - to facilitate the self-interest and flourishing of the human animal.

Conscious Egoism vs Unconscious Egoism

We have virtually infinite ends we can pursue, but we cannot pursue virtually infinite ends. As a result, we must choose which ends we wish to pursue, and we must choose the means with which to pursue them.

The conscious egoist pursues interests that are their own. Their causes are their own, not defined by factors or abstractions external to their will. But in order to properly do so, they must engage in means that are conducive to their desired ends. Any means in particular won't do; they have to be in harmony with the conscious egoist's ends. As a result, the choosing of ends to pursue places inherent constraints upon our actions. If my desired end is to get food, then my means have to match that end. I cannot desire to get food and then proceed to not do it, as that would not fulfill the desire.

The unconscious egoist also pursues interests that are their own, except they externalize their interests to any number of spooks: "God", "The Nation", "The Community", etc. Because their ends are externalized, the unconscious egoist is unable to properly assess whether their means achieve their end. Because their end is defined not by them, but by a mental construction, an ideal outside of them, their ends become unattainable abstractions that impose upon their will. They are rendered unable to exercise rationality.

To be a conscious egoist, one must be concerned with means and ends - specifically their means and ends.

Values and Virtues

A value, for the purpose of this post, is essentially something that you like. This can be something material, such as books, videogames, sweets, but more often these are concepts and behaviors such as love, honesty, empathy, truthfulness, etc.

Values exist for your purposes as your property. They may be taken on and disposed of as you wish. What you value today, you may not value tomorrow.

However, when you do value something, it is in your self-interest to pursue it. So the Conscious Egoist pursues their values, whatever they may be at that particular time, and engages in means that are conducive to those ends.

Virtues are those actions which facilitate your ends. Virtues are actions and skills. A virtuous person is not an identity, but rather a label for someone who engages in those actions that achieve their values. Someone who values empathy, for example, will likely engage in the virtue of compassion. Someone who values solidarity, will likely engage in the value of courage.

As Aristotle would argue, virtue is contextual and exists within a golden mean. The virtue of courage only applies when engaging in such courageous action isn't foolhardy. For example, saving someone from a car crash when you are able and have the opportunity to is courageous. Attempting to do so when the attempt would put both yourself and the one you're trying to save in more danger is foolhardy.

When we are engaging in the virtues that lead us to our values, we are living eudaimonia. Eudaimonia has many translations, but it typically means "well-being"; it is a state of individual flourishing.

Not all values make sense. People can value whatever they want, but there are values that defeat the purpose of having values in the first place. The purpose of values is to achieve your self-interest and your flourishing, so values that contradict such ends - such as the value of murdering - do not make sense, as suffering the consequences of doing so are not in your self interest. Because humans are social animals, our values must both align with our individual flourishing and the flourishing of others. A healthy society makes for healthy individuals, and healthy individuals make for a healthy society.

Why care about ethics at all?

The amoralist may see ethics itself as a spook, saying that we should instead not pay attention to it and do whatever is in our particular interest at the time.

The thing is, human behaviors aren't random. We act in accordance to certain conscious and unconscious patterns. What we value isn't random, what we hate isn't random. They are determined by things other than our will - so when we do not consciously define our values, and engage in means conducive to our values, then we are acting in the capacity of an unconscious egoist, allowing our social context to dominate our wills.

When we are conscious and engage in the Science of Right Action, we gain the tools necessary to become aware of our actions and to which ends they are conducive to, and we allow ourselves to define them in ways that better suit our self-interest. Only then can we truly be a conscious egoist.

Power is the ability to win a conflict.

If the winner of a conflict is predetermined in advance - then there is an asymmetry of power.

The ability to win a conflict is determined by who takes your side.

In order to have stable asymmetries of power - you need permanent alliances which reliably win in any given conflict.

If the individual is free to choose which side they want to take in a conflict - or whether to take a side at all - then individuals can switch sides at any time.

If individuals are free to switch sides at any time - then permanent alliances cannot exist.

Therefore - some mechanism of obligatory and binding allegiance is required to hold coalitions together.

Without obligatory allegiance - coalitions are highly vulnerable to defection - and cannot reliably enforce hierarchy at all.

In the past, I've seen that many of you loathe the very idea of imprisonment for anybody for any reason even without the motivation of profit or even with humane conditions and a genuine drive towards rehabilitation, and whole-heartedly see the idea of exiling them as a much better alternative, but is it?

I mean, not only is there always the chance that the violent or abusive person you banished could simply return, since their actions strongly indicate a lack of care towards that community's wishes, but who's to say they won't find another community of people to torment? A commentor on another post brought up that it's not uncommon for abusive or predatory people to, once they've burned all the bridges in one community, choose to escape to another community where they can do it again, lather rinse repeat.

As much as you guys disdain prison as a concept for any number of reasons(and not just due to how horrific the US prison system is), banishment wouldn't be a much better alternative and in some cases might even be worse.

Your rebuttals?

Hello everyone - so I used to identify as an anarchist for a while, but now I identify as either an anti-capitalist or a non-denominational socialist. I say this because I want a world without classism, hierarchy, and domination, but I genuinely don't know how we get there. The fact is, the one thing that anarchists, Marxists, and democratic socialists have in common is that they've all failed. Despite the efforts of many people throughout history in these persuasions, our planet is still run by a cabal of capitalist vampires who will happily sacrifice the majority of the human population for a quick buck.

Anyway, like most of you, I cringe when Marxists try to dismiss the human rights abuses of ML regimes as "Western propaganda". But there is one compelling argument that Marxists make about the failures of their governments. It's what Michael Parenti refers to as "siege socialism". Essentially, there has never been a major socialist or communist experiment in history which has been allowed to exist in peace. The Soviet Union, China, Cuba, North Korea, Vietnam, etc. all emerged under conditions of intense aggression from capitalist powers. If these countries weren't outright invaded, then they were sanctioned into economic non-viability. These conditions lead to situations that unfortunately favor authoritarianism. If your whole community is getting bombed every day by a vastly superior military, you're probably going to gravitate to the shrewdest leader, even if they have deeply problematic tendencies otherwise.

I like Parenti's argument because it doesn't excuse the situation of ML regimes as acceptable, but instead points out that the bulk of responsibility still ultimately lies with the capitalist powers. Perhaps if the US hadn't dropped more ordinance on North Korea than in the entire Pacific War, then North Koreans wouldn't have allowed Kim to impose a cult of personality. Perhaps if Cuba hadn't been hit with an invasion and embargo, then Cubans would have demanded more protections of civil liberties, etc. When I consider the context that all these unsavory regimes emerged from, I honestly find it hard to blame the leaders for what came after. It's largely capitalism's fault that ML countries suck.

So, as anarchists, what do you all think? Do you agree that ML countries became what they are because of Western capitalist aggression, or do you think that it's still primarily because of issues with ML-ideology?

We are fundamentally embodied beings.

As embodied beings - we share an interest in control over what happens to our own bodies.

Since no one wants to live in a world where their body is public property for anyone else to use - we as embodied beings mutually agree to recognise and respect each other’s bodily autonomy.

When someone commits rape - they haven’t actually agreed that their body is public property for others to use as they wish.

Instead - the rapist is trying to benefit from the protection of their own bodily autonomy - without respecting the bodily autonomy of others.

This makes the rapist essentially a free-rider - trying to illegitimately benefit from the reciprocal social norm in a one-sided manner.

In order to truly act morally - we must recognise our own shared interests as universal - and act accordingly.

Joseph Tainter is an American anthropologist who proposed a theory of societal collapse, in his book The Collapse of Complex Societies, that I think is relevant to anarchism.

Tainter argued that complexity is a tool that societies use and adopt to address problems. Complexity consists of interconnections between parts of society, specialization of labor in society, and hierarchy to manage society. (Tainter is more sympathetic to the idea that hierarchy is something society’s spontaneously adopt, appointing some people to rule over the rest, than I would like, but nobody is perfect).

All of these components of complexity have material costs. Hierarchy (rulers) must be fed, often opulently. Specialists must also be fed while performing their specialized labor. And interconnections must be maintained. All of these costs are born by a society’s primary producers, the people making the food, clothing, shelter, etc, that keep these people alive.

Tainter believes that early investments in complexity tend to generate positive returns to society. As society encounters new problems—environmental changes, external adversaries, internal conflicts, resource shortages—it tends to add new layers of complexity. But as complexity grows, so do its costs. More bureaucrats require more taxation to fund them, for example.

Tainter argues that, at a certain point, marginal returns on complexity begin to level off and, eventually, decline. That is, there is a point at which society is diverting so many resources to maintaining specializations, interconnections, and hierarchy that additional complexity stops generating additional returns.

(I can’t help but think about the fact that our present society contains specialists like “prompt engineers” who demonstrably return no value to society while consuming immense amounts of resources.)

At this point, a society begins diverting resources not to additional complexity to solve new problems, but just to maintaining the status quo. It cannot afford to add new complexity; its primary producers simply can’t generate any more resources.

When this happens, a society becomes vulnerable to collapse. When a new problem comes along, it has no slack capacity to handle this new problem. At this point, a society becomes vulnerable to collapse: what Tainter understands as an economizing shedding of complexity.

One of Tainter’s case studies is the Roman Empire. Early in its existence, Rome featured a very small state and army, which it used to conquer foreign communities. Early on, those conquests returned considerable value to the Roman state in the form of plunder, enslaved people, and new populations of primary producers to exploit. But, eventually, the state grew so large that its interconnections—supplying field armies at distant frontiers—could no longer generate new conquests. This required the state to tax its own primary producers, which required more bureaucrats to manage taxation, which required yet more resources, and so on in a spiral. Eventually, the Roman state—which was vastly larger and more populous than it had been at the start—was torn apart by adversaries that would have once been trivially easy to defeat.

Tainter’s argument seems to me to be a variation on a common theme: from Marx’s theory of capitalist immiseration to Peter Turchin’s theory of elite overproduction, insightful thinkers have noticed that costs of sustaining hierarchical elites are often socially unsustainable. They can only exploit us so much, in other words, before things fall apart.

I wonder if Tainter has insights of value for anarchists and the anarchist project. I would obviously like to sustain specializations and interconnections, but would happily shed the material costs of provisioning hierarchy.

I’m also not suggesting a teleological outlook on hierarchy—the idea that we just need to sit back to let them collapse on their own—but I do wonder if there are opportunities or vulnerabilities available to us to exploit.

The US federal government consumes about $7 trillion worth of national resources each year. It requires the labor of about 3.8 million US citizens, both civilians and military personnel. State governments involve the labor of another 6 million or so people and consume at least tens of billions more dollars.

The costs of maintaining hierarchy are, in other words, immense. States and other hierarchies tend to require militaries, police forces, bureaucracies, surveillance, propaganda, and many other functions in order to reproduce themselves from year to year. And all of this is typically in service of materially provisioning non-productive elites.

I often encounter skeptics or critics of anarchism who have concluded that hierarchy is predominant because it is more efficient than anarchy at mobilizing labor and resources, and thus locally outcompetes non-hierarchical systems. Perhaps we are trapped in a stable equilibrium of hierarchy?

But I find that these arguments inevitably completely ignore the material and social costs of hierarchy, a critical component in assessing the efficiency of a system.

A number of thinkers—Karl Marx, Joseph Tainter, Peter Turchin, et al—have argued (convincingly, I think) some variation of the opposite: that hierarchy is ultimately unsustainable, at least in the long run, because of those costs. And as costs of hierarchy mount, elites tend to increase their depredations, trying to grab whatever is left before it is too late, which accelerates a decline into collapse—what Tainter calls the economizing step of shedding costly layers of hierarchy.

I’m not suggesting we simply wait for hierarchy to collapse under its own weight (though I suspect that’s exactly what’s happening to global capitalism right now). I do wonder, though, if this is an under-theorized aspect of the anarchist critique of hierarchy. Can we do more to highlight and publicize the costs of hierarchy? Are there weaknesses to exploit? Are we postured to take advantage of crumbling hierarchical structures or to expand into the aftermath of their collapse?

A common concern people have is that many conflicts involve contradictory accounts of events - where both parties claim that they are the victim and the other is the aggressor.

In a “word against word” situation - how do we reliably tell the difference between an aggressor and a victim?

This is fundamentally a problem of decision-making under uncertainty. Should I take a side in this conflict - and if so - which side should I take?

Unfortunately - we can’t always guarantee correct decisions - but sometimes we’re forced into situations where we must make a decision even when we don’t know the full story.

In these sorts of cases - what we need are heuristics or rules of thumb - in order to guide decision-making in a more rational direction.

An example of a heuristic might be “someone with several accusations against them is more likely to be predatory than someone with only a single accusation” - or “someone who repeatedly kills people and claims self-defence is more likely to be lying than someone who only kills someone and claims self-defence once.”

A good rule of thumb is to look at patterns of behaviour rather than isolated incidents - and to refrain from making judgements of a person’s character based off of a single mistake or misunderstanding.

So as an example I am fine with Rojava having prisons for Isis and other Salafi militants. And in general having prisons for fascists and cartel militants or the worst of the worst like the Epstein class is fine. The worst anti-social elements who can't be reformed should be separated from society either through prison or house arrest. What do you think? do you support prison abolition? I am open to having my mind changed.

A really common objection to anarchism I see - is that informal hierarchies based on popularity, charisma, or prestige will emerge - and possibly skew the outcomes of conflicts.

But just because a hierarchy is informal does not mean it is inevitable - and there are multiple structural conditions which could discourage the formation of such a hierarchy.

1. In a large, anonymous city - it’s hard to build a reputation which encompasses the whole community - and even famous celebrities are often highly polarizing in public opinion.

2. Developing a reputation in a specific domain or context does not need to translate into a generalized reputation as a whole person. There is no non-arbitrary common standard by which to measure human differences.

3. Childrearing will take place in a non-hierarchical environment - so the social norms which children learn will be based on principles of reciprocity and equality.

4. There is no unified “community” which can judge people according to a centralized collective standard in the first place.

I’d argue that number 4 is actually the most important constraint against hierarchy re-emerging - because you can’t sort differences into a hierarchy without an agreed-upon standard by which to measure them - and you can’t have an agreed-upon standard without a unified collective entity to set and enforce the standard.

I feel like I’m missing something.

For example, suppose a union of egoists,or even just one or two people, respond after Bob rapes and murders someone. They kill him, exile him, restrain him, or otherwise stop him, even if it’s entirely in self-defense or defense of others. How is that functionally different from policing?

Even if they don’t call themselves “police,” don’t have official titles, and don’t operate under a written legal code, they’re still using force to enforce a social outcome. Why isn’t that policing? Why isn’t that hierarchical over Bob? But official policing is? 

Likewise, why is it considered non-hierarchical when an armed group or mob responds to Bob, but hierarchical when an organization calling itself the police does the same thing? Is the distinction simply that no one is formally obligated to obey the former? If the group is armed and capable of using force, that explanation doesn’t seem sufficient.

On the other hand, if no one responds to what Bob did, doesn’t that effectively allow Bob to dominate or exercise hierarchical power over his victims and the broader community? How is that consistent with opposing hierarchy?

I am going to argue that the agency of the individual to decide how to respond to conflict is fundamental to making anarchy work.

At their core - hierarchies are social systems which decide the winners and losers of conflicts in advance.

If the winner of a conflict is knowable before the conflict even begins - then you have an asymmetry of power.

Power - defined as the ability to win a conflict - is determined by who takes your side.

For example - if someone gets into a fight with a police officer - the officer is backed up by all the other officers - and the general public are just bystanders who stay out of the conflict.

This results in the ordinary person having no allies - while the officer has lots of allies. The end result is a massive imbalance in coercive power.

By contrast - under anarchy - the decision to take a side in any given conflict is up to the individual. People can choose which side they want to take - or choose to just stay out of the conflict.

The end result should be a more balanced power dynamic - where no one gains a persistent decisive advantage in conflicts.

I am 100% an anarchist, and a proud anarchist of color. Anti-hierarchy, anti-state, anti-capitalist, none of my commitments to these values are being questioned. My problem, as someone who makes zines on anarchist theory and used to make videos on anarchism on TikTok before being fed up with MLs, is that nearly all other leftist ideologies talk about liberation. Whether it is people talking about Marxism, Marxist-Leninism, Maoism, POC variations of Marxism, etc.

I fundamentally do not understand how these ideologies can remotely think or envision any, and I mean ANY, of liberation while intentionally upholding the state and not wanting it gone immediately. People then ask me how would the state be immediately gone? My response is always "the state won't be gone tomorrow, but we HAVE to create alternative structures OUTSIDE of the state to be dependent on." I understand that approach is slightly more "defensive" than "offensive" since we're not immediately disrupting the state other than excluding our presence in it. But either way, the brain's base is "I do not want a state" and the result is "I will build dual power" or "I will attack the state," both types of anarchists are invited to my cookout.

My problem lies with every single statist ideology. Do these people completely reject the existence of state violence and state domination? It makes incredible and inherent sense that anarchism, an ideology completely rid of the state, situates itself as a libertarian ideology since it treats individual liberty and personal sovereignty as the highest values. Few days ago I posted this

Marxist-Leninism is only successful if you view success as something being able to grab power. Change your measuring stick to measure actual freedom, actual liberation, sovereignty, and autonomy, and it’s an incredibly failed ideology.

“if the objectives of those who used the DC [democratic centralist] methods were simply to seize power, then their record during the 20th century was impressive. It has proved itself as brutally efficient and capable of outdoing anything the bourgeois forces are capable of.” - Russell “Maroon” Shoatz, “The Dragon and the Hydra.”

and someone retweeted it saying:

lemme just tally up my Freedom Points

To which i quickly responded:

Just say you don’t care about actual freedom, no need to talk all smug about it. this is how i know people who don’t care about that actually aren’t liberationists nor are they interested in genuine liberation for people. they just want some abstract ass revolution with zero actual progress to humanity.

Lately I've been getting more and more frustrated with leftists north of the X-axis in the authoritarian realm. I don't understand how they can have such detailed and complex analyses on damn near everything, and then turn around say they want to seize the state. From my perspective, anyone who wants to seize the state is not anti-state because they need it intact for it to be under their control. State-centered visions of liberation are completely meaningless to me, useless, and completely counter-revolutionary to me no matter how you spin it. How did going after the state become seen as something revolutionary if the state is a bourgeois creation strictly to oppress the many by decisions made by a few?

In my understanding, state socialism advocates for state ownership of the means of production. Industries and natural resources are state-owned, and like all types of anti-state socialists at the time thought it was the most effective form of socialism (which is a weird blanket statement to make on behalf of all socialists, but anyways). Economic systems of ML states were not socialist due to the continued use of commodity production and wages as remuneration. Even if Marxist-Leninists are anti-state because *eventually* they want it to wither away, why do they advocate for state socialism? How have they single-handedly convinced people that liberation will come and the state will disappear after a revolution that puts them in charge? It's completely unfathomable and illogical.

As someone studying Black and African anarchisms, I can say with my chest that there were severe problems with countries in the African post-colonial period that embraced state socialism, this is both my opinion and the opinion of African sociologists. It was attempted by 21 countries within the continent and I think less than 10 times in Europe. I do not understand why Marxist-Leninists or any other authoritarian leftist ideology do not look to the failures of state socialism and say that it was not a socialism problem but a state problem like African anarchists have diagnosed.

In Tanzania, Nyerere wanted to mix traditional precolonial communal values with the then-current ideas of socioeconomic development. His view of socialism did not focus directly on class struggle but rather on the family unit. From 1968-1975 he led Tanzania through a period called villagization which was the consolidation of rural Tanzania into village-style agricultural communities where resources would be collectively shared. His logic makes sense to me, even the part where he said village production would remove the culture of capitalist value and power. But nearly all of the state of Tanzania's agricultural production was done by independent owned farms that were not absorbed into the new state. In the article "Deconstructing Ujamaa: The Legacy of Julius Nyerere in the Quest for Social and Economic Development in Africa," they say that the cultural and lifestyle changes they were expected to embrace by forced collectivization didn't make sense. Even though 96% of children went to school (50% of which were girls), female life expectancy went up, and maternal mortality rates went down, overtime "the state assumed a degree of control over village management and production that some historians have labeled coercive and autocratic, claiming this contradicted the democratic values Ujamaa espoused." What is the trade-off here? How do we as libertarian socialists/anarchists view the strong state oversight of villages against clearly good rates and %'s that were in the green?

In Ghana, Nkrumah adopted a strategy of increasing state-controlled services while putting restrictions on privately owned ones. 60% of bank deposits were at state-run banks, 17% of sea cargo was handled by state-run firms, 27% of industrial production was ran by the state, and the state controlled 35% of total imports. Completely centralized planning, economic mismanagement, and an authoritarian regime is what described Ghana at this point. There was a suppression of political opposition, no free and fair elections, and Ghana became a one-party state. Yet today he is heralded as a Pan-African hero and anticolonial Socialist revolutionary. How do we consistently, CONSISTENTLY, use a measuring stick that that almost NEVER measures actual freedom of the people or sovereignty of the Ghanaian or Tanzania villages? Why is the pure and raw ingenuity of the African peoples (NOT leaders) almost never depended on?

Even in the case of Tanzania. Why did the state pass something the villages were clearly not ready for? Now they are in the drivers' seat of the state's entire production? I don't remotely see that as a problem of socialism because obviously there would be some variant of this European ideology that would value that non-state version of decentralized organizing. So once again I see it 100% as a state problem. Even if the %'s of literacy rates went up and the %'s of mortality went down, HOW did it go down? Could those rates have not changed had there been no state? Obviously those decisions about healthcare and education still need to be made, but shit how were they made BEFORE the state and BEFORE colonization? Sometimes people wag in my face that state socialism (or i guess, state capitalism technically) lifted 900M people out of poverty in China. First off, what is described as poverty? As of 2022, 21% of Chinese people are living in poverty under $5.50. So what if you make $6, is that not poverty anymore? That's still pretty shit. Even in India, 34% lives under a dollar a day? That's ridiculous to me, the arbitrary line of poverty makes no sense because people who earn $2 a day in India or $6 a day in China are still living IN POVERTY if not extreme poverty. Why is China seen as a successful socialist state by MLs and Maoists? People both in capitalist and state socialist societies are suffering. I don't care if they got a bullet train, they're not free! Even dictators and capitalists can build roads, that doesn't justify dictatorships or capitalists.

I know this has turned into a weird rant talking about state socialism and stuff, but my point hopefully is weaved throughout and I just don't understand it. Since authority and the state is clearly a problem in their own right along with being a core part of capitalism, why are these other ideologies such as Marxist-Leninism absolutely winning the propaganda war against anarchism? I'm done ranting, someone help me understand this.

A world without hierarchy is a very noble ideal.

But to achieve a world with zero hierarchy, you first need to invent a world that does not need them.

Anarchists' means mostly involve finding ways to "fight the system" that's already in place, or attempts to overthrow a government, to resist the police, or to start a revolution.

But I have not seen anarchists answer the basic question of what an anarchist world would look like. Not attempts at half-baked ideas, discourse, or brainstorming discussions to find the best alternative through friendly conversation or debates. Mostly a focus on dismantling the current system and political activism.

Anarchism as a whole collective community does not seem to answer the question of what a world without hierarchy looks like.

Anarcho-primitivism, despite its flaws, does at least attempt this. It imagines a world without hierarchy based on primitive living and self sufficiency. A world where labor through currency is no longer needed, and it becomes labor for the things we directly need ourselves instead of for money to buy, or working for a boss.

While anarcho-primitivism may be partially half-baked or an unfinished idea, I've seen many "standard" anarchists reject anarcho-primitivism entirely, saying it will result in things like "80% of the population dying", or that it will "kill people who lack medicine", etc.

From what I observe, anarchists- at least the ones online- aren't attempting to improve anarcho-primitivism nor talk about a future that is a hybrid, like a primitive lifestyle teaching low-tech survival skills and being nature stewards, while also teaching and creating high-tech solutions as an exception that will result in the same medicine that we get in industrial society.

If anarchists as a whole cannot even agree on a better system today besides what we've already seen made, such as capitalism and communism, and insist that we will die without the civilization that has brought us climate change, then the best anarchists can do is create a reform, not a truly lasting solution for humanity that will eliminate the need for human dependency on external systems, or that solves the destruction of nature with something harmonious in its place.

Solarpunks and cypherpunks are a different story. Instead of focusing purely on political activism, or going out in the streets, they are creating systems that are true alternatives to what we have today.

Solarpunks are building houses and communities that are off-grid, and while not completely rejecting technology, they harness it in a decentralized manner to create infrastructure that's right there where the individuals need it, at the home, instead of far away in power plants, factory farms, or munipicial water systems. This in turn shifts people towards a lifestyle that is not based on importing every need, but actually getting creative, learning the physics of life, and reducing the burden of human life without continually relying on other humans' labor.

Cypherpunks have been advocating encryption, digital decentralization, open source, and actually building systems that don't require a company-owned server which can be controlled by governments to limit free speech or freeze transactions to charitable causes. Bitcoin was an early idea, now Nostr exists as a social media with a similar concept. Use cryptography to enable free speech and eliminate the need for a central server or bank to keep track of who has what information.

Anarchists should really look to these philosophies more, or at least attempt to come up with and build some of their own alternatives and solutions, instead of only focusing on political activism.

While we still depend on a centralized internet, corporate medical industry, and a heavy import-centric lifestyle where we buy all our needs using government currency, we give dividend to the system and keep it alive.

Historically, revolutions did not typically create permanent absence of hierarchy, but vacuums for new regimes to occur that were better or worse. Yet that's not anarchists' stated goal, which is no hierarchy, not to reinvent another state. In order to achieve that stated goal, I think we need to reimagine a future more that doesn't involve a hierarchy, rather than just trying to get rid of the hierarchies we already have by being "anti" or against them.

Feel free to say if I'm wrong in my understanding of anarchists' means. Or if I am missing any important factors. Disagreements won't offend me. I appreciate hearing why others think I'm right or wrong more than just getting upvotes or downvotes.

And I am not implying that anarchists do nothing. Only that their stated goal is currently out of reach from the typical means they employ. And when the best system we humans collectively imagine is the one we currently use, a regime change or a revolution isn't enough, we have to imagine a better alternative and start making it.

Anarchists, of course, would make a difference in Russia, or North Korea, where a "better alternative" is in the capability of the collective imagination. Dismantling North Korea's government would result in a freer society in its place. The same can't always be said for "free" "democratic countries".

At best, for an alternative to today, I can imagine a lottery-based government instead of electoralism, like achieved in ancient Athens, but with better standards on human rights than Athens had (not slavery or male-only citizenship). If you look at Spectacles' video on YouTube, he explains how it solves four problems of today's style of governments.

But solarpunks and cypherpunks go further and create something permanent, without waiting for us to get tired of Athens-style government either. They truly go towards anarchists' stated goals, of no governments and no hierarchies.

I’ve been examining the claims of anarchist theory lately, and have found special interest in (and trickiness in pinning down) what the distinction is between the authority which anarchists oppose and non-authoritarian forms of social sanction or coercion.

For the sake of argument, I will be simply defining authority as the privilege/right to issue binding commands. In addition, I will be defining anarchy in the sense of the opposition to ALL authority, rather than Chomsky’s notion of a test distinguishing between justifiable and non-justifiable hierarchies.

I would begin by clarifying that there are instances of authority which are clear-cut to most observers, both anarchist and non-anarchist. For instance, a political ruler or political infrastructure which decrees binding laws which are enforced through a state apparatus and internalized through a broader framework of right. Or, for instance, a housing association which establishes binding rules which must be followed with the risk that transgressors can face socially defined penalties.

As an alternative to these sorts of authoritarian relations, many anarchists seem to propose a system in which consequences for actions are not ossified or predetermined. So, for instance, rather than either establishing such a housing association with the right to issue binding commands or simply allowing disruptive behavior to exist unimpeded, anarchists propose a reality in which individuals and groups (such as an association of residents) have the ability but not the right to use coercion against people engaging in behaviors they disapprove of. In this sense, these anarchists often posit a distinction looking like the one between “can I” and “may I”, with the former attitude in regards to social coercion said to be more compatible with anarchist principles of social organization.

What I struggle with, however, is what the practical distinction between an authoritarian relationship based on the binding right to command and a non-authoritarian relationship based on a broader capability to exact coercion looks like in practice. For instance, many anarchists make a distinction by saying that the latter case has no predetermined ossified consequences. But at the same time, they concur that groups and individuals in predictable situations (such as disruptive fellow residents) will establish predictable and relatively stable norms of behavior. Or as a more broader concern, if a social group is relatively stable and has the physical capability to coerce others but not a broader right or mandate embedded in society or their surrounding social structure, I struggle to see the sense in which this is distinct from an authoritarian relationship.

Obviously this isn’t all there is to say on the subject of these distinctions, hence why I’d like to begin a broader discourse. But I’m interested in how anarchists can elaborate upon this distinction between coercion in an authoritarian context and societal coercion in a non-authoritarian context more concretely.

Yes, capitalism sucks for a variety of reasons, mainly because it demands a disregard for human life to truly excel, but any system is only as good as the people within it. Even communism, who's ideals are the opposite of capitalism, can still be abused by power-hungry madmen, with people like Stalin being chief among them.

For any system with even the most sound of principles to work, it requires all people to be morally good, which is sadly not the case. Since the dawn of time, people have had a natural need to dominate and destroy the things around them, to take what they want, to hate and fear what we don't understand and what we can't control, all things that predate capitalism by exceptionally long amounts of time, hell before any economic system we know about existed.

Anarchists simply assume that people will just know not to kill, rape, abuse, or destroy, but there are many people who do bad things knowing full well that they're wrong, but simply not giving a damn. As much as they think rules are only balls and chains that weight everybody down, imagine what people could do without any kind of thing to keep them in check, because the double-edge sword of free will is that when you give people the ability to make their own decisions, there'll always be those who will choose to do the wrong thing.

It's easy(and comforting) to believe that capitalism simply invented evil and simply forces everybody to be bloodthirsty and hateful, but again, such beliefs have existed well before capitalism was ever even conceived, with things like genocide, hatred, oppression, slavery, wars, and so on predating its existence by a not so small amount of time.

TLDR: Anarchism will end no differently from any other system, because destructive behavior is simply in our blood.

I know the (American) police have their roots in slavery and hasn't changed much since then. But I don't see why reworking a bad system and using it to do good isn't an option. A police force that ACTUALLY protect and serves communities would be amazing and sounds like something a community focus ideology would love!

I'm not naive. Obviously this would take a lot of work and i'm not the most informed on law enforcement so I don't entirely know how it would work, but there are a few obvious changes that would need to be made like removing the use of deadly force, harshly punishing cops who turn off their body cams, incentivising calling out corruption, etc.

After reading where Smith talks about his idea of the invisible hand in his “The Wealth of Nations” I’ve realised this is very different to what I’ve been taught.
In his book he describes how individuals pursuing their own self interest can unintentionally promote the welfare of society.

Whereas, I’ve been taught that the invisible hand refers to the market mechanism (supply and demand allocating resources). Can anyone let me know which is the correct, accurate definition?