Can anarchy truly exist?

[C_Felix]

Not a current event, but it could be a social issue.

This thread (below) made me think of this question: Can anarchy truly exist?

http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=239002

I'm going with the definition of "no rules". Yes, there are other definitions, but can a society with no rules exist (and function?)
Yes, I know that "no rules" is just scratching the surface of what anarchy can be, but the everyday usage I've encountered means "no rules"

From The Breakfast Club, "Hey, how come Andrew gets to get up? If he gets up, we'll all get up, it'll be anarchy. "

How long can a society without rules exist before cooler heads prevail?
You have something I want, a nice big HDTV (since I, at the moment don't have a 1080p TV.)
I take it because there are no rules/authority to punish me for doing so.
You get pissed that I take it and take it back.
I get a friend to help me take it back after you took it back.
Now, you come by with three friends to stomp my face in and take the television.
After I gain vision in my right eye again, giving me proper depth perception, I get my gun and shoot you, taking the TV back yet again.

How long until others step up and put an end to this chain of events-which would probably include my being killed by one of your kin?

How long until society steps up and lays down a law along the lines of, "Don't take anything that isn't yours."

I feel the need to reference the Coke bottle in The Gods Must Be Crazy, so here goes, "The Coke bottle in The Gods Must Be Crazy."

[crimresearch]

Survival of the fittest as anarchy fails, because there just aren't that many supremely 'fittest' anarchists around.

[SimonD]

In the graphic novel ‘V for Vendetta’ there is a point when the government collapses and everyone in looting the shops, taking what they can. Evey turns to V and asks him “Is this Anarchy?”, his response “No, this is chaos”.

Anarchy is not about having ‘no rules’. It is about having no government. It’s about saying “we will do these things because they are right, not because we have to”. It’s a bit like the argument I see around here about whether you can have morality without the Bible. Of course you then get the same types of responses like ‘who defines what is good’ and "how do you enforce these ideas", etc.

[Mehdimentio]

I hold the view that a society that starts with anarchy as premise either will revert to survival of the fittest, or give rise to a self emergent authoritarian structure, something we would call a state. The dichotomy may be false, though.

[NewtonTrino]

In a society with any kind of population density you would see rules appearing quickly.

If it's a low population spread across a large area you'll still get rules but they will be localized to tribes or families.

Pure anarchy can't exist for long IMHO. People tend to self organize quickly. Of course this doesn't imply there is anything like a government we have now. Warlords, dictators, kings etc. seem to be the first common form of government that appears (me ugg, my club biggest!)

[Mike!]

And in the end you get this guy in charge.

[Loss Leader]

No. Anarchy cannot exist.

[JJM 777]

Originally Posted by C_Felix

Can anarchy truly exist?

No, because practically everyone is part of a small inner circle which is not anarchistic itself (domestically, so to say): a core family, the larger family, a workplace, a gang, a network of friendships. These are not anarchistic within themselves, and never will be, so there can be no total anarchism. And these will defend their rights againts transgressors under any circumstances and under any government.

Anarchism is a utopia that fits poorly to human reality.

[Bikewer]

I recall that the Chinese, during the heyday of the Cultural Revolution, declared that the people's army would henceforth be free of ranks, as such structures were not properly Communist.
Didn't last long, as you might imagine.

The Anarchist dream, of an orderly society free of structure and authority is much the same as the Libertarian dream. Utopian wish-fulfillment.

[MG1962]

During the Spanish Civil war Anarchistic actually gained control of a couple of villages.

They did absolutely nothing.....................................

[Vim Razz]

Originally Posted by C_Felix

I'm going with the definition of "no rules". Yes, there are other definitions, but can a society with no rules exist (and function?)
Yes, I know that "no rules" is just scratching the surface of what anarchy can be, but the everyday usage I've encountered means "no rules"

The basic problem with accepting this definition if you want a serious discussion is that is, and always has been, a straw man promoted by factions whose social dominance was directly threatened by the notion of anarchism.

Anarchism doesn't mean "no rules", it means "no kings" (or more explicitly: no Archons). It developed out of the idea that no one has divine right -- or divine privilege -- to rule over any other. It was a rejection of the then-dominant (and arguably still-dominant to some degree) dictatorial authority of church, hereditary nobility, hereditary monarchy, or otherwise monied aristocracy.

These authorities claimed (and often continue to claim) divine right to determine the rules which other people must live by, but which they don't have to follow themselves because they're "special", donch'ya know. Anarchism, at it's core, is the rejection of that kind of organized hypocrisy.

Accepting the definition of anarchy as "no rules", is essentially the same as accepting arguments like "without God's authority, everyone would be immoral animals". It's an an implicitly deceptive straw man designed to turn people away from the debate without critical thinking.

Invested power structures don't want people to understand that they don't need Big Daddy (either God or government) telling them what to do with every moment of their lives. It's how they make their living.

And the strategy frequently works. Just look at this thread: the majority of respondents have accepted and responded to the straw man and declared their ~expert~opinions~ on the basis of it without bothering to check into the accuracy of the characterization. Human nature is human nature -- while an interest in critical thinking may improve one's awareness of logical fallacy, it does not provide magical immunity against it.


The effectiveness of anarchism in modern society is a complex question, often muddled by promoters of explicitly collectivist forms of Anarcho-Syndicalism who loudly proclaim that anarchists who reject socialism are No True Scotsmen, as it were.

The founding principles of modern democracy, for example, (where governors and presidents are governed by the same basic laws as everybody else, at least in theory) are inherently anarchist in classical form. The community itself determines the rules that they choose to live by (again, in theory). Those rules are not dictated or passed down by an elite class whose ~inherent~superiority~ provides them exemption to those same rules.

While it's easy to argue that democracies frequently fall short of anarchistic ideal in practice, would you rather return to monarchy, oligarchy, or theocracy? I wouldn't.

Originally Posted by Bikewer

I recall that the Chinese, during the heyday of the Cultural Revolution, declared that the people's army would henceforth be free of ranks, as such structures were not properly Communist.
Didn't last long, as you might imagine.

Communism has always espoused Anarchist ideals as part of it's bait-and-switch propaganda strategy, dating back the work of Marx himself.

It's not until you read the fine print that you see that Marx's "Community Control by the Workers'" actually meant "dictatorial control of the Community by a centrally appointed representative of the ~Worker's Party~".

This is a commentary on the nature of Communism, not on Anarchism.

Originally Posted by MG1962

During the Spanish Civil war Anarchistic actually gained control of a couple of villages.

They did absolutely nothing.....................................

On the contrary, they were surprisingly effective despite operating under significant disadvantages. They managed to hold the Catelonian front against Franco with almost no tactical support until they were literally stabbed in the back.

How effective they could have been in the long term is a historical experiment we were denied the opportunity of witnessing, and anyone who claims to ~know~ the answer is only speculating. There's no historical analog anywhere to provide empirical insight into the question.


As for "accomplishing nothing", one great legacy we did get from the experience was the later work of George Orwell, whose direct experiences with the hypocrisy of the Communist regime in their treatment of the Anarchists, despite claiming to share many of the same basic principles, marked a turning point in his political philosophy -- sharpening and focusing his criticism of Communism's forced-collectivization ideology.

"What if..." games are always sketchy, but I doubt that Animal Farm or 1984 would have been as powerful or insightful as they were if Orwell hadn't had the first-hand experience with Communist politicking and hypocrisy that he got in Catalonia.

[Bikewer]

My comment about the Chinese military experiment had nothing to do with Marx or Communism...Rather about the problems attendant to running a large organization without any...Organization.

My contention is that we human beings are, by dint of our evolutionary heritage, heirarchichal creatures. For most all of our history as modern humans, we have lived under hetmen, "strong men" chiefs, warlords, kings, emperors, or whatever you like.
The very few attempts to form leaderless, egalatarian societies worked only to the extent that they stayed very small...And most would maintain that they still had de facto leaders even if they were not named to some post.
Nearly every aspect of human interaction works this way; even the most egalatarian business meeting of unrelated strangers will have a "facilitator" or those present will defer to those in upper management.
It's in our genes.

[JJM 777]

Originally Posted by Vim Razz

Anarchism doesn't mean "no rules", it means "no kings"

Wikipedia defines it in this way:

Anarchism is generally defined as the political philosophy which holds the state to be undesirable, unnecessary, and harmful,[1][2] or alternatively as opposing authority and hierarchical organization in the conduct of human relations.[3][4][5][6][7][8] Proponents of anarchism, known as "anarchists", advocate stateless societies based on non-hierarchical[3][9][10] voluntary associations.[11][12]

Communication is effective only if we use words whose meaning will be reliably understood by the audience. If there is unclarity about the meaning of the word Anarchism, then let us drop the term and use words whose meaning is less ambiguous. As the OP did, by defining an unambiguous topic to discuss: "can a society exists with no rules".

Originally Posted by Vim Razz

power structures don't want people to understand that they don't need Big Daddy (either God or government) telling them what to do with every moment of their lives.

This sounds like what is popularly understood as "anarchism": the idea that we should make fewer or less strict laws, if any, in a national democratic lawmaking process.

My personal opinion is quite the contrary: we need more laws, and more waterproofly defined laws.

[Manopolus]

Originally Posted by C_Felix

Not a current event, but it could be a social issue.

This thread (below) made me think of this question: Can anarchy truly exist?

http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=239002

I'm going with the definition of "no rules". Yes, there are other definitions, but can a society with no rules exist (and function?)
Yes, I know that "no rules" is just scratching the surface of what anarchy can be, but the everyday usage I've encountered means "no rules"

From The Breakfast Club, "Hey, how come Andrew gets to get up? If he gets up, we'll all get up, it'll be anarchy. "

How long can a society without rules exist before cooler heads prevail?
You have something I want, a nice big HDTV (since I, at the moment don't have a 1080p TV.)
I take it because there are no rules/authority to punish me for doing so.
You get pissed that I take it and take it back.
I get a friend to help me take it back after you took it back.
Now, you come by with three friends to stomp my face in and take the television.
After I gain vision in my right eye again, giving me proper depth perception, I get my gun and shoot you, taking the TV back yet again.

How long until others step up and put an end to this chain of events-which would probably include my being killed by one of your kin?

How long until society steps up and lays down a law along the lines of, "Don't take anything that isn't yours."

I feel the need to reference the Coke bottle in The Gods Must Be Crazy, so here goes, "The Coke bottle in The Gods Must Be Crazy."

The television thing is antithetical to the way that most anarchists think of anarchy. It actually tends to be thought of more like communism, oddly enough, with no property ownership whatsoever.

Anarchists tend to believe that most people are decent enough that they wouldn't engage in the type of behavior you've described, and as a group would take care of the bad apples as needed. The idea is that people would avoid participating in antisocial behavior because -well- people need other people, you see, and behavior is guided by mutual respect rather than rules.

It certainly works in small groups, but someone will always be the bully.

[Alt+F4]

Originally Posted by C_Felix

...but can a society with no rules exist (and function?)

Yes my friend, it can. Have you ever had bleacher seats at a Yankees game?

[crimresearch]

Originally Posted by Vim Razz

The basic problem with accepting this definition if you want a serious discussion is that is, and always has been, a straw man promoted by factions whose social dominance was directly threatened by the notion of anarchism.

Anarchism doesn't mean "no rules", it means "no kings" (or more explicitly: no Archons). It developed out of the idea that no one has divine right -- or divine privilege -- to rule over any other. It was a rejection of the then-dominant (and arguably still-dominant to some degree) dictatorial authority of church, hereditary nobility, hereditary monarchy, or otherwise monied aristocracy.

These authorities claimed (and often continue to claim) divine right to determine the rules which other people must live by, but which they don't have to follow themselves because they're "special", donch'ya know. Anarchism, at it's core, is the rejection of that kind of organized hypocrisy.

Accepting the definition of anarchy as "no rules", is essentially the same as accepting arguments like "without God's authority, everyone would be immoral animals". It's an an implicitly deceptive straw man designed to turn people away from the debate without critical thinking.

Invested power structures don't want people to understand that they don't need Big Daddy (either God or government) telling them what to do with every moment of their lives. It's how they make their living.

And the strategy frequently works. Just look at this thread: the majority of respondents have accepted and responded to the straw man and declared their ~expert~opinions~ on the basis of it without bothering to check into the accuracy of the characterization. Human nature is human nature -- while an interest in critical thinking may improve one's awareness of logical fallacy, it does not provide magical immunity against it.


The effectiveness of anarchism in modern society is a complex question, often muddled by promoters of explicitly collectivist forms of Anarcho-Syndicalism who loudly proclaim that anarchists who reject socialism are No True Scotsmen, as it were.

The founding principles of modern democracy, for example, (where governors and presidents are governed by the same basic laws as everybody else, at least in theory) are inherently anarchist in classical form. The community itself determines the rules that they choose to live by (again, in theory). Those rules are not dictated or passed down by an elite class whose ~inherent~superiority~ provides them exemption to those same rules.

While it's easy to argue that democracies frequently fall short of anarchistic ideal in practice, would you rather return to monarchy, oligarchy, or theocracy? I wouldn't.


Communism has always espoused Anarchist ideals as part of it's bait-and-switch propaganda strategy, dating back the work of Marx himself.

It's not until you read the fine print that you see that Marx's "Community Control by the Workers'" actually meant "dictatorial control of the Community by a centrally appointed representative of the ~Worker's Party~".

This is a commentary on the nature of Communism, not on Anarchism.



On the contrary, they were surprisingly effective despite operating under significant disadvantages. They managed to hold the Catelonian front against Franco with almost no tactical support until they were literally stabbed in the back.

How effective they could have been in the long term is a historical experiment we were denied the opportunity of witnessing, and anyone who claims to ~know~ the answer is only speculating. There's no historical analog anywhere to provide empirical insight into the question.


As for "accomplishing nothing", one great legacy we did get from the experience was the later work of George Orwell, whose direct experiences with the hypocrisy of the Communist regime in their treatment of the Anarchists, despite claiming to share many of the same basic principles, marked a turning point in his political philosophy -- sharpening and focusing his criticism of Communism's forced-collectivization ideology.

"What if..." games are always sketchy, but I doubt that Animal Farm or 1984 would have been as powerful or insightful as they were if Orwell hadn't had the first-hand experience with Communist politicking and hypocrisy that he got in Catalonia.

Anarchy as in no rulers, isn't merely about the heads of state, it is about removing government from society. Proceeding down a semantically quibbled rabbit hole isn't going to handwave that away.

[Vim Razz]

Originally Posted by Bikewer

My comment about the Chinese military experiment had nothing to do with Marx or Communism...Rather about the problems attendant to running a large organization without any...Organization.

Fair enough. I appreciate the intent and understand what you're getting at, but I think the specific example you chose wasn't a great one for that particular purpose.

Mao's Cultural Revolution had everything to do with Communism, and you can't invoke it without also raising the issue of the strategic hypocrisy that Communism exploits in it's propaganda. It may have been a few ideological generations removed from Marx, but it still maintained the same basic strategy and political structure.

The fact that Mao couldn't establish a uni-polar, totalitarian state without maintaining the structural mechanisms of authoritarianism (despite his propaganda) is hardly surprising.

Although it you want to examine the issue from a purely organizational and military context, it's worth taking a closer look at Catalonian conflict discussed earlier. It's a rather unique and fascinating episode in human history.

Quote:

The very few attempts to form leaderless, egalatarian societies worked only to the extent that they stayed very small...And most would maintain that they still had de facto leaders even if they were not named to some post.

Of course! But you still run into the question of cooperative vs coercive organization. Are your leaders the leaders because of broad social support and because they're recognized by their peers as having strong leadership abilities?

Or are they leaders because they maintain and exploit systematic mechanisms of coercive control?

How much of the later do you ~really~ need for a society to function, and how much can you get away with without it?

Groups develop rules and conventions for interaction every single day in order to function. The question is whether they do so voluntarily, or whether they do so because a guy with a gun will take their stuff or put them in jail if they disobey.

Originally Posted by JJM 777

Communication is effective only if we use words whose meaning will be reliably understood by the audience. If there is unclarity about the meaning of the word Anarchism, then let us drop the term and use words whose meaning is less ambiguous. As the OP did, by defining an unambiguous topic to discuss: "can a society exists with no rules".

The OP, probably unknowingly -- I'm not accusing them of any ill intent -- chose a very loaded definition of the term with which to frame the discussion. That is precisely what I was responding to with my comment.

The situation is rather akin to starting a discussion about the viability of Atheism by defining Atheism as "the willful rejection of God".

This is a real definition. That people use. Not so long ago, historically speaking, it was the dominant definition. It's completely loaded, condescending, and misleading, but that didn't (and still doesn't) stop people from believing it and using it without any understanding of how loaded, condescending, or misleading it is.

Such definitions have specific implications and implicit characterizations that deserve to be examined and remarked upon.

Quote:

This sounds like what is popularly understood as "anarchism": the idea that we should make fewer or less strict laws, if any, in a national democratic lawmaking process.

It's not simply fewer or less strict laws, it goes to the foundations of how laws are made, adjusted, and enforced.

Quote:

My personal opinion is quite the contrary: we need more laws, and more waterproofly defined laws.

Ok, but laws for who? And by who? And what kind of laws? And how should those laws be made? And how should those laws be applied? Does anyone have a right to be exempt from those laws, no matter how individually powerful they are within the society?

These are not trivial questions.

Originally Posted by crimresearch

Anarchy as in no rulers, isn't merely about the heads of state, it is about removing government from society.

Correct. No Archons. This is an even broader concept than no rulers or no kings, and I stated it explicitly.

I even explicitly stated that I was stating it explicitly, while putting the "no kings" definition in "scare quotes", and then expanded on the topic. It's quoted right there in your post.

Quote:

Proceeding down a semantically quibbled rabbit hole isn't going to handwave that away.

Please specify said handwaving or semantic quibbling. I went out of my way to try and state my case as clearly and unequivocally as possible without writing a whole book.

If I failed in making sense, that'd be another problem. Blindly quoting the entire thing, though, makes me think you just didn't bother reading it.

[geni]

Originally Posted by Vim Razz

I even explicitly stated that I was stating it explicitly, while putting the "no kings" definition in "scare quotes", and then expanded on the topic. It's quoted right there in your post.

You appear to be operating under the impression that you know the one true definition of anarchy. Given the number of forms of anarchy floating around I find this claim questionable.

[sgtbaker]

It's just my musings on the topic and I am not trying to put forth a thesis but I feel that anarchy is somewhat of an illusion. Even without specific laws against certain behaviors, different societies create different expectations and shun those that don't adhere. If we were to remove governing bodies, there would probably be chaos and survival of the fittest but people crave order and predictability. There will always be the weaker, they just not be as weak as the ones that didn't survive. We would feel the need to protect those, thereby creating expectations and enforcers of those expectations. The strong will protect the weak and it will eventually become just another governing body.

[Vim Razz]

Originally Posted by geni

You appear to be operating under the impression that you know the one true definition of anarchy. Given the number of forms of anarchy floating around I find this claim questionable.

It's worth noting that I'm not the one in this thread who's confused Catalonian Anarcho-Syndicalism, with Byakirin's Anarcho-Socialism (mimicked as political cover by many of the early Communist movements, including Mao's), or with American Libertarian Anarchism (either in it's statist or anti-statist variants), and pretended they're all the same thing.

I'm also not the one in this thread who has pretended or implied that any of these movements believe in "no rules" or "no organization". If fact, they tend to believe very strongly in teamwork and cooperative action to protect themselves and their neighbors from coercive intrusion. A core element of many Anarchist philosophies is that it's in their best interest to do so.


It's not the "one true definition" of Anarchism, but it's the one philosophical element that the various Anarchist philosophies tend to agree on: that no man, god, or collective has any inherent right to coercively command society.

Where you go from there does vary quite a bit depending on political and philosophical orientation.


Anarchism as "no rules, social chaos" is a notion historically promoted by clerical or political factions who have a vested interest in centralized, dictatorial state authority.

(at least up to the invention of, like punk rawwk rebellion and stuff, dude! party hard!)

[Rufo]

It exists just fine as long as a sufficient amount of people have a mentality and culture that allows it to do so. Like anything else.

All anarchy does is demand more from people. Democracy demands more from people overall than totalitarianism, since it allows a majority decide rather than a small select group. If the majority does not want it or cannot implement it, it will collapse. Anarchy demands even more from an even greater portion of the people.

So does anarchy demand too much? Given that democracy was considered as demanding far too much for a very long time, I'm inclined to say no one really knows. I think the sort of mentality that makes a person benefit society without the pressure of rules is a worthy goal in either case, so pursuing that would seem to be the biggest favor we can do to anarchists and a pretty big favor to everyone else.