So if you ask a group of 5 leftists of any sort how they imagine society might be structured you’ll get 6 answers. Anarchists are no different, it’s difficult because it’s off the map yeah?
The common thread is a society with no involuntary impositions of power and authority. That isn’t no rules, many societies in the past and present have varying degrees of hierarchy and even within the same society the degree of hierarchy can change depending on what groups of people are doing.
you know how when you organise a family gathering nobody is “in charge” exactly? people select tasks they are suited to or feel it’s their turn to do and go about doing them. People might choose to defer decisions to another person but always retain the ability to withdraw that consent and so on?
Anarchists imagine a society more like that, where when a person wants something done they assemble a group of people, communicate their ideas, reach a consensus on whether it should or shouldn’t be done, if people agree then they organise themselves into a group to accomplish the task.
It’s really not so different from how you probably conduct yourself most of the time. It’s actually kinda rare for people to use coercive violence to get people to cooperate. Anarchists think we can all just take a few more steps towards being anarchists all the time.
As to why would it be better? well what feels better: cooking at a community gathering or working at a restaurant with your boss breathing down your neck?
This sounds a whole lot like the indigenous peoples of various lands until the imperial machines of war rolled them over. These days, I don’t think you need a military budget rivaling America’s, but I think some form of military defensive structures would need to remain in place to protect your massive hippie nation-state from opportunistic neighbors.
No involuntary impositions of power and authority is the centrist position. The anarchist position should be no impositions of power and authority even if they are voluntary. A perfect example of voluntary power and authority is wage labor. By any usable standard, wage labor is voluntary. Anarchists should object to wage labor because it involves a hierarchy of alienation. This violates workers’ inalienable rights, which are rights that can’t be given up even with consent
So if you ask a group of 5 leftists of any sort how they imagine society might be structured you’ll get 6 answers. Anarchists are no different, it’s difficult because it’s off the map yeah?
The common thread is a society with no involuntary impositions of power and authority. That isn’t no rules, many societies in the past and present have varying degrees of hierarchy and even within the same society the degree of hierarchy can change depending on what groups of people are doing.
you know how when you organise a family gathering nobody is “in charge” exactly? people select tasks they are suited to or feel it’s their turn to do and go about doing them. People might choose to defer decisions to another person but always retain the ability to withdraw that consent and so on?
Anarchists imagine a society more like that, where when a person wants something done they assemble a group of people, communicate their ideas, reach a consensus on whether it should or shouldn’t be done, if people agree then they organise themselves into a group to accomplish the task.
It’s really not so different from how you probably conduct yourself most of the time. It’s actually kinda rare for people to use coercive violence to get people to cooperate. Anarchists think we can all just take a few more steps towards being anarchists all the time.
As to why would it be better? well what feels better: cooking at a community gathering or working at a restaurant with your boss breathing down your neck?
This sounds a whole lot like the indigenous peoples of various lands until the imperial machines of war rolled them over. These days, I don’t think you need a military budget rivaling America’s, but I think some form of military defensive structures would need to remain in place to protect your massive hippie nation-state from opportunistic neighbors.
No involuntary impositions of power and authority is the centrist position. The anarchist position should be no impositions of power and authority even if they are voluntary. A perfect example of voluntary power and authority is wage labor. By any usable standard, wage labor is voluntary. Anarchists should object to wage labor because it involves a hierarchy of alienation. This violates workers’ inalienable rights, which are rights that can’t be given up even with consent
When somebody asks for an intro to anarchism I generally don’t feel it’s super useful to get deep into the weeds of definitions.
The salient point is no “I’m your boss do what I say or you starve” maybe “You asked me to teach you, practice these tasks or find another teacher”