Worshipping Power: An Anarchist View of Early State Formation - Peter Gelderloos
Worshipping Power: An Anarchist View of Early State Formation - Peter Gelderloos
Peter Gelderloos Worshipping Power An Anarchist View of Early State Formation January 10, 2017
One of the most enlightening moments for me recently has been when a sociology researcher attempted an experiment on youtube to prove that we can organize without hierarchy. His main point was not what was interesting to me.
His experiment was actually flawed in a major way: he proposed a task to a group of 100 that was doable even by a single person. In such a case, organization is easy. But what I found interesting is that even in such a setting hierarchies emerged: people took some organizational power and others followed. Even if that was clearly unnecessary. And the crowd following his channel are probably less authoritarian than average.
It was a revelation to me: to have flat structures, you not only need to make it possible to organize without hierarchy, but you also need a process to constantly weed out emerging hierarchies. Another theory is that you should rather explicit some lesser-evil hierarchies to prevent the emergence of others, in the same way you may let one weed grow to prevent the emergence of other less desirable ones.
I still don't have a theory or a praxis that goes with it, but that has been good food for thought.
It was a revelation to me: to have flat structures, you not only need to make it possible to organize without hierarchy, but you also need a process to constantly weed out emerging hierarchies.
i've noticed this is a common source of disagreement i keep having with nonanarchists.
where someone thinks that i'm advocating purely for the organisational aspects of anarchism, but not also materially, socially, culturally, and politically. they'll dismiss my criticisms of the current system or proposals for alternatives as 'that would never work today', and instead cite monolithic, mythological essentialisms like 'human nature' at me which is just their opportunity to mansplain capitalist logic to me and throw down some 'might makes right' moral argument. people who think tool libraries would never work because one time their underpaid coworkers kept stealing other persons' food from the breakroom fridge or something and well that's proof of the greed inherent to all human beings and no we will not interrogate what leads them to stealing food. material conditions? what's that?
anarchism to me isn't simply a worldview or a form of organisation: it's a lifestance, a lifestyle, a way of being, a way of thinking and a way of acting — and i believe it works best when it is all of those things. social change is cultural change is political change. when i advocate for change, i'm advocating to change both the system and the people who recreate it.
'but how will you prevent [insert consequence of hierarchical conditioning] from happening under anarchism?'
and no we will not interrogate what leads them to stealing food. material conditions? what’s that?
Some people are just assholes. They can be in the same general situation as you, but not respect boundaries, and in the absence of consequence they'll be downright sociopathic.
Anyone generalizing from those assholes to absolutely everyone is not being serious. But that's not an excuse to ignore those exceptions and insist absolutely everyone is reasonable.