ELI5 why is anarchy not "the guy with the bigger stick" making the rules?
ELI5 why is anarchy not "the guy with the bigger stick" making the rules?
I'm politically agnostic and have moved from a slightly conservative stance to a vastly more progressive stance (european). i still dont get the more niche things like tankies and anarchists at this point but I would like to, without spending 10 hours reading endless manifests (which do have merit, no doubt, but still).
Can someone explain to me why anarchy isnt the guy (or gal, or gang, or entity) with the bigger stick making the rules?
Anarchism understood as a proper model and not just "chaos" is about horizontal and distributed power structures.
The whole idea is that no single person or group has a monopoly on power. Now if you are asking how do anarchist societies prevent people or groups like that from rising up and forming monopolies of power, there are a bunch of different answers. Ultimately it's about collective action and proper structure.
If your organization's rules allow for a single person to rise up and take over, it isn't formed correctly. It's like the Fediverse, no one server or person gets to make the rules for all the other servers or developers.
Everything is federated by the choice of the instances and ultimately the users. If they don't agree with how any instance is being run, they can start their own and run it how they want, federating with who they want assuming it is mutual.
Anybody can fork the project at any time, build it different, start a new instance, run it how they want, etc.
You build into your society, mechanisms that resist monopolies of power. It's like how your body's immune system has layers of protection against all kinds of germs.
Another example, in typical small company the structure is top-down with the owner usually being a single person with universal power over all their employees. They can hire and fire whoever they want whenever they want. They can shut down the company or change how any part of it operates whenever they want. Nothing in that company structure protects the employees from abuse by the owner.
There is no magic bullet to protect against everything, just like how your body despite being healthy and strong can still succumb to cancer, infection, poison, etc. That isn't a reason to just give up on being fit and healthy, because it is about improving your odds and trying to make your life on the average better.
Because no one knows anything whatsoever about actual anarchist political theory.
Largely due to it being heavily suppressed and propagandized against by States, capitalist or 'Communist', and their adherents.
Anarchy as thought of by the wide and vast majority of people is simply a state of chaos and violence with no clear rulers.
What Anarchy actually is is fairly simple.
Root words derive from Greek.
An- Prefix: Without
Archon: Tyrant/Cruel and Ruthless Ruler/Undefiable Authority
Non insane Anarchists are always critics of the state, corporate structures of organizing the work place, most forms of organized religion, oppressive social norms and anything that creates and maintains any kind of hierarchy in society that results in oppression, impoverishment or cruelty to any particular group of people for illegitimate reasons.
Anarchy is essentially very similar in many ways to communism as Marx envisioned it, in that it is an idealized, as yet not perfectly defined goal of a just, egalitarian and democratic society that heavily emphasizes people being adequately represented economically in their daily lives as workers, as opposed to the standard liberal capitalist model where your boss essentially has authoritarian power over you in the workplace.
Both Marxism and Anarchism are highly critical of the profit motive and the ability of a very small number of people to own all or much of the capital (means of production such as factories) of a society, for very lengthy and detailed reasons.
A very common misunderstanding is what is truly meant by 'private property': most people unfamiliar with Marxism or Anarchism believe that Marxists and Anarchists believe that no one should be allowed to singly, individually own /anything/.
This is false. While many different adherents have different precise definitions, generally speaking private possessions are just fine until they get to the point of owning something directly and singly that has a massive impact on the lives of others should you choose to unilateraly use your 'property rights' in a way that is beneficial to you personally, but harmful to a large number of other people.
Further, Marxists and Anarchists both generally agree that 'property rights' as we currently conceive of them really only functionally exist for the rich and powerful, and are enforced via the power of the state.
Anarchism significantly differs from many later Marxist derived theories such as Leninism, Stalinism and Maoism that generally emphasize that in order to actually achieve an ideal, non capitalist society, one must create a massive state structure (or subvert an existing one) and place all power to reorganize a capitalist economy into a class of totalitarian economic organizers and planners, and that during this process the state is entirely justified in basically any means of crushing dissent it deems necessary.
This is of course heinous to Anarchists, who view a totalitarian state as essentially criminal.
What modern Anarchists, who are, again, not insane, usually support are working both within and outside of existing norms and government structures to meaningfully improve peoples lives amd expand their rights:
Mutual Aid: Direct Involvement in you local community to feed the hungry, house the unhoused, provide aid to the sick and displaced.
Advocacy: Doing what you can to promote ideas and views that will be beneficial to the masses, or to protect at risk minorities, both within existing formal societal structures like governments and businesses, and also within society generally.
Many modern Anarchists are also very concerned about the power if states and corporations to abuse the environment and curtail freedom of expression.
Anarchy also has another useful definition in the context of a world of nation-states:
Anarchy is that same common understanding of a world without rules and chaos, but the realization that this simply describes our current world given the history of actions of and between nation states, who often engage in many harmful acts against other nation-states and their populations, and rarely actually follow any rules or norms which are supposed, but i actuality rarely do, govern affairs between states. States will often do whatever they believe they can get away with that will benefit themselves, even if it means massively harming another state or group of people.
Finally, if you want to also be a modern technologically savvy anarchist, aka a cyberpunk, you can realize that the advent of computer and digital technology means there no longer exist any actually valid reasons, in very many cases, to actually pay for software, and that you should be an advocate of open source software.
So, in summary, Anarchy is not a state of chaos, without rules.
It is a very complex and nuanced political theory of advocacy for a more equitable and more just society.
No serious Anarchist believes that the world would be better if everyone was free to rum around and do literally whatever they want on an individual scale.
What exact kind of society do they propose?
Well unfortunately that differs wildly from Anarchist to Anarchist, but again, as with how Marxist socialism is but a /process/ of transforming from a capitalist society into an as of yet not perfectly defined communism, Anarchism is a /process/ and /method of analysis/ of how to transform into a better society for everyone.
People tend to think of anarchism as a power vacuum. As soon as a charismatic person comes in they'll start gaining more and more following. But that's not really how it works. Anarchy is about filling that vacuum with everyone. If a decision needs to be made you bring in everyone the situation effects to make it. You start at the level of a household to neighborhood to watershed to biosphere. A charismatic wanabe tyrant will be frustrated every step they take towards getting more power.
Anarchists develop structures and agreements that discourage concentration of power. They enable people to guide their own lives and improve their communities. When violence occurs, when agreements are broken the community decided what is too be done.
All that assumes you're already there. One of the primary differences between anarchists and MLMs (Marxist Leninist Maoists) isn't necessarily their longest term goals, it's the means by which they reach them. MLMs believe that they must use the state, capitalism, and by extension coercive control in order to reach those goals. That brings the risk of capture and co-option of those structures. They've also accomplished incredible feats of human uplift so I wouldn't say their position is without merit.
Anarchists see the revolution coming about through a unity of means and ends. They create a better society by building it while the old one still stands. Their groups are horizontally organized. They create organizations to replace food production and distribution; and devlop strategies for housing distribution (squatting).
What most of the replies are missing is that there are several different conceptions of what anarchy and anarchism is, even between so-called anarchists.
Anarchy, when boiled down to most basic component, is the rejection of hierarchy. What constitutes a hierarchy is also a big matter of debate. Every political system is about the guy with the bigger stick making the rules. The difference is who holds the stick (and why). Anarchy is the rejection of the stick. I think it is a disservice to look at anarchy through the same terms as those political systems, because anarchy is not a political system. Anarchy is the rejection of political systems. Anarchy is about the possibility of change. The possibility of freedom.
I can assure you that any so-called anarchists who claim to have a plan for how society will function after the revolution are lying to both you and themselves. There will be no anarchist society after the revolution. A revolution is a fight over the stick. Somebody will be holding it when the dust clears. Anarchy, in truth, is not about the future. It is about the now. It's about the real, existing struggle for a better present instead of the dream of a better future.
It's important to recognize our place in the world. I live in America. My country, right now, is committing genocide. Everybody in this country is responsible for that genocide. Anarchy is about doing something to stop the genocide because I want no responsibility in what is happening. Anarchy is about doing something about the police murdering innocent people on a daily basis because there can be no justification for what is happening. It's about providing food for people who can't feed themselves because people don't have to starve. Anarchy is about doing all of those things even when faced with legal consequences. Anarchy is about protecting people from the guy with the stick. That's why it's not a political system.
Because if it is true that for anarchists there is no difference between theory and action, as soon as the idea of social justice lights up in us, illuminates our brain even for a split second, it will never be able to extinguish itself again. Because no matter what we think we will feel guilty, will feel we are accomplices, accomplices to a process of discrimination, repression, genocide, death, a process we will never be able to feel detached from again. How could we define ourselves revolutionaries and anarchists otherwise? What freedom would we be supporting if we were to give our complicity to the assassins in power?
You see how different and critical the situation is for whoever succeeds, through deep analysis of reality or simply by chance or misfortune, in letting an idea as clear as the idea of justice penetrate their brain? There are many such ideas. For example, the idea of freedom is similar. Anyone who thinks about what freedom actually is even for a moment will never again be able to content themselves by simply doing something to slightly extend the freedom of the situations they are living in. From that moment on they will feel guilty and will try to do something to alleviate their sense of suffering. They will fear they have done wrong by not having done anything till now, and from that moment on their lives will change completely.
(Alfredo M. Bonanno, The Anarchist Tension)
Organized labor is the biggest stick. If workers organize themselves based on an anarchist basis, they can potentially wield this stick very gracefully to ward off or even preclude the entities that would dominate and exploit them.
The end goal is basically the same as Marxism: a stateless, classless society. It's a fair question as to whether the anarchist route that forgoes an interim worker state is viable.
Anarchy, in it's purest sense, is to a system what darkness is to light. Darkness is the absence of light, not a thing in-and-of itself. Anarchy is the lack of an establishment or system, rather than a system in itself.
What this means, in practical application, is that most anarchists are simply opposed to whatever system exists currently. Human nature dictates that SOME system will exist as long as we do, so true anarchy can only exist when there are no longer humans around to perceive it.
In historical context, this almost always means that when anarchy "takes over," what it creates is a "systemic void" which - like any vacuum - quickly gets filled. Usually by the guy with the biggest stick.
My impression from talking to and reading stuff by anarchists is that the idea is for culture to serve in the place of sticks and rules. As for the mechanics of how this works, what such a culture would need to achieve to succeed and how it could do so, frankly most of them seem to take it on faith that this will be the easy part and naturally fall into place as soon as their oppressors are no longer mucking things up.
Which is a shame because I think it could be totally plausible and worth seeking, if you worked through the game theory and sustainability-over-time issues, despite being a monumental challenge and being about something as crudely understood as collective psychology. Human society is a system, and systems can be designed lots of different ways. It could be possible to have a culture that is powerful or clever enough to allow for a large population to function without a controlling state beating people into line.
Not directly related to this comment but I also want to mention and recommend the book The Disposessed by Ursula K. Le Guin, really thoughtful novel about anarchism.
The current status quo is the guy with the bigger stick making the rules. You're asking how that would be different under an anarchistic society? Anarchy works best with small to medium groups of like minded individuals. The idea is that nobody in your village has authority over anyone else, and that you've struck a social contract to help each other out with each other's individual skills ie. the guy who's really good at baking bakes bread for the village, the person who's really good at building tables builds tables for the village etc. Of course, if a violent antisocial person wanted to, they could threaten that balance, hence why it's a good idea for anarchistic societies to of course still protect themselves.
In a "pure", transformed anarchistic society the large majority of people would subscribe to the idea of classless, stateless society where people act on their own responsibility or through voluntary associations and seek to reduce or even end violence and oppression. In such society only the minority would be willing to wield the big sticks of oppression.
Also in such society, the majority would obviously rise up against such attempts at pure fascism. Even though the basic ideology of anarchism is rooted in pacifism and non-violence, it doesn't mean anarchistic societies would simply give up the their ideology, roll on their back and surrender when faced with violence.
Also, I personally believe, that the way to the transformation from our current society to anarchism is only possible through means of revolution - and revolutions are very seldomly non-violent.
I know you didn't want to read long manifestos, but this is probably worth a read: https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/peter-gelderloos-how-nonviolence-protects-the-state
The real answer is of course far more nuanced than this post, but I tried to keep it short and readable
My take on anarchism is that it's valuable as a criticism of any form of social organization, but not valuable as its own form of organization. I would never vote for an anarchist or join an anarchist movement because I don't want to put criticism first. Something must exist before it can be criticized. But anarchists offer truly great insight into out social structures
This is a great question and there are a lot of good answers from people much better read than me, but I'd like to throw in that anarchy is the fact of life. Nobody has authority over anyone else unless that authority is given to them by the person. Authority over someone requires consent from the person (I'm talking about between 2 adults, not like authority over your kids). Yes, pointing a gun at someone's head is an excellent way to get their consent to have authority over them. So in any form of government, the power lies in those who give consent for the government to have authority and validity a.k.a. "the people". Normally this consent is extracted unwillingly through either threats of violence or some kind of hypnosis. It would be cool though to live in a society where citizens willingly and well-informedly (is that a word? I don't give you authority to tell me which are words and which aren't) give authority to a government to manage society so people can focus on living well in a sustainable, equitable, and peaceful system.
I mean are you looking for theory or actual anarchist practice?
Because in practice the best anarchism has done is war communism but less organized, less democratic, and less efficient than the communists, and the worst they've done is basically a military dictatorship that accidentally empowered kulaks to do pogroms, and if you ask modern anarchists the takeaways from these programs and what to do better in the future, 9/10 times(being generous) they'll just repeat a "stabbed in the back by tankies" narrative which shows they really haven't learned from their history.
Philosophize This has just started a podcast series on Anarchy that I'm finding informative. The podcasts are short and all have transcripts. The first episode is here: https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/anarchism-part-one.
The second part just came out this past week.
There's a whole lot of different takes here already, so I'm just going to plug this very excellent book: Practical Anarchism: A Guide for Daily Life and bounce.
It is, a lot of people just have pseudo mystical beliefs about how people will act when there is no state. They like to imagine everything bad about humans is capitalism/the state/insert Boogeyman, not that the state and laws exist because we tried the alternative and no system at all always does work out to might makes right. A warlord always moves in to fill the power vacuum.
Some people are bastards and any system you create has to be created with the explicit assumptions that people are bastards. Some people just want to believe no one is a bastard or that there are not enough bastards to hurt the reasonable people. I think those people are wildly optimistic, and removing power structures does not remove the temptation to exert power or the ability, only one specific means.
One thing to keep in mind is that any kind of government is at risk of being the the group with the bigger stick. A dictatorship only works because the group that supports the dictator keeps them in power. A democracy can still treat some of its citizens terribly, and the structure of the government makes is harder to oppose than "the guy with the bigger stick".
It basically is that. People WANT organization and rules, that's how humans evolved. By working together you become much more efficient. This is why countries form and why nearly any inhabited land has A government. Of course there is always one willing to be leader.
Even with the countries themselves, globalisation has prevented rogue states from doing whatever they want and a clear world order has formed.
Other than civil wars there are no real representations of anarchy, let alone "peaceful" or "utopian".
Saving this for later, as I want to hear responses as well.
https://youtu.be/fibDNwF8bjs?si=bIMz9kq2831lWgbD
Relevant wkuk
Anarchy is generally assumes that people will naturally cooperate without arbitrary distinctions. In practice most anarchists are mostly anti centralization. The smaller the political entities are the better (singular persons if you take it to the extremes).
The world itself is anarchistic. Each counties has its rules but international politics have no governing body (the UN doesn't really rule over every state, just serve to mediate discussion). The country with the biggest stick would probably be the US, but they haven't conquered Canada or Mexico, let alone everyone else. Other players like Russia or China have influence too.
While the US does have a lot of soft power in influencing nations, they certainly aren't making the rules for other countries and puppeting them.
https://open.spotify.com/episode/262vW4junObOATj8j9KAxO?si=4ij18zgzTHq4b1qYrZCijQ
From Spotify if you use it
I feel this is relevant:
...proponents of communism have postulated that within the new society of pure communism and the social conditions therein, a New Man and New Woman would develop with qualities reflecting surrounding circumstances of post-scarcity and unprecedented scientific developmen ... Among the major traits of a new Soviet man was selfless collectivism. The selfless new man was willing to sacrifice his life for good causes ...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Soviet_man#Selflessness
Of course, arguably the soviet project failed to this new man, so much so that 'homo Sovieticus' is now a pejorative:
Homo Sovieticus (cod Latin for 'Soviet Man') is a pejorative term coined to describe the average conformist individual in the Soviet Union and other Eastern Bloc countries. Popularized by Soviet writer Aleksandr Zinovyev, it gained negative connotations and represented the perceived outcome of Soviet policies. ... Homo Sovieticus (cod Latin for 'Soviet Man') is a pejorative term coined to describe the average conformist individual in the Soviet Union and other Eastern Bloc countries. ... Characteristics of Homo Sovieticus included indifference to work results, lack of initiative, indifference to common property, chauvinism, obedience to government, and a tendency to drink heavily. ... traits like indifference, theft, lack of initiative, and submission to authority ... Some argued that the disappointment of intellectuals in the Soviet project had negative consequences, contributing to elitism and an anti-populist stance.
I would just like to point out that it's not possible to be politically agnostic. Besides political stances or ideologies not being religions, everyone has some point of view on at least some issues, be they societal, financial, etc.
That's why anarchy isn't stable, it's a state between governments but eventually some kind of rule will emerge, and you're correct in that "bigger stick" is likely to be the first.
The short of it is "power to the people".
Anarchy in our reality is basically just warlordism. But when people talk about being an anarchist, they usually mean something like anarcho-syndicalism or anarcho-capitalism.
I’m not an anarchist so I’m not going to do well explaining it but usually, the “anarchy” part is a step towards a larger transformational goal. No one is an “anarchist” in the sense of wanting society to collapse. The “anarcho-“ part is them saying a layer of power (like the nation state, for instance) is unnecessary.
We have a better word for that. Dictatorship.