What the heck is anarchism?

[CJvR]

Also, all the large-scale examples mentioned in the wiki article fell due to external forces, but they all put up a pretty good fight. The Spanish anarchists were central to the fight against Franco (who was much better armed) despite the fact they weren't supported by the Soviet Union like the Spanish communists were.

Actually I think the external pressure probably helped to keep them going somewhat effectively longer that they would have otherwise. Knowing that the Falangist are coming to blow your head of will keep even the most rabid radical somewhat focused on keeping things running so that the armed forces can continue the fight.

[Shroom Man 777]

How the hell is killing people for a longer time a testament to the goodness of anarchism, anyway?

[wjs7744]

There should be a debate on anarchism in the colliseum soon, right? That is, if Volly ever gets round to opening. Say, Mike, what is the official position on combatants posting in the commentary thread? Seems a little off to me.

[K. A. Pital]

How the hell is killing people for a longer time a testament to the goodness of anarchism, anyway?

You'll note that anarchic control of territory is essentially warlordism, and is only evident in situations like large civil wars, revolutions, military intervention and breakdown of central government.

Warlordism is the most common form of anarchy - primitive anarchy doesn't work in larger, more urbanized collectives like most nations. And warlordism usually exist with, well, war.

[Shroom Man 777]

And anarchists never acknowledge that fact. Ya gotta love that, eh?

Mohammad Farrah Aidid!

[Wyrm]

In my experience, most people take pretty much every positive in their life for granted. I can't begin to count the number of arguments I've had with people who insist that modern society is worse than mediaeval society, because despite the rampant disease, oppression and starvation, people back then were "a lot less stressed". (Yes, that last bit is a direct quote.)

I would think the shadow of rampant disease, oppression and starvation would itself be a significant source of stress. The argument virtually destroys itself.

[Shroom Man 777]

Yeah, I mean, disease and deprivation stalked the land like two...big...stalking things. Where people have children so they can find an alternative to turkey for Thanksgiving.

[Darth Smiley]

How would anarchism cope with regional issues?

Maybe there's subtleties I'm missing, but it seems to me like anarchy is a very insular model.

I think that that's a problem inherent in most of the extreme philosophies, from communism to anarchy. Some of the idea would work...on a really small scale (about 150 people). The problem being that as there are a tad more than 150 people, such ideas tend to fail in truly epic fashion. And of course we can't simply separate human societies into smaller, more isolated, self-regulated communes because we don't have the space and you need more than 150 people to maintain all the skill sets that make technology possible.

[Darth Wong]

If "anarcho-syndicalism" works within the framework of a larger state government in order to perform state functions such as national defense or infrastructure, then how does it deserve the "anarcho" prefix?

I might as well say that I am an anarchistic society of one person, but I work within the framework of municipal, state, and federal governments.

[TheKwas]

The mechanism, according to anarchists, would be the collective as represented by the Unions. Or to put it in another way, one big union that would function like a government, except incorporating direct democracy and all that grand anarchist stuff. In the case of Spain, the example would be the CNT union, or in the hypothetical example of an anarchist world, the International Workers Association (which the CNT is affiliated with).

Really, it's the same as a government, but rather structured around a complex system of workplace direct democracy instead of representative democracy.

And how does it respond to immediate needs which won't allow for the delay of gathering all the collectives to vote on issues? Or enforce the laws of the land universally?

I can't say exactly how any future society would work or be structured, but it's pretty easy to imagine a simple system where a manager/speaker, or a group of managers, of the 'big union' can take on emergency powers for a single issue and have the decision ratified by the collective after the fact. If the decision was ill-conceived, the collective will rotate the manager prematurely as punishment.

Who cares if they "put up a good fight"? They lost.

This is like saying "Communism can never work because the FARC can't take power in Columbia". Whether or not the FARC is strong enough to take power in Columbia is a seperate question completely from whether Communism in Columbia would work. All it means is that communism most likely won't be implemented in Columbia.

Now, if you made the argument that anarchy will never be implemented in the modern world because there's no force than bring about that change, I would agree. However, that has nothing to do with whether anarchy works.

A comparison with Mao's Peoples' Liberation Army answers that question.

How so? You think that the PLA was a much better military force simply because they won and the Spanish anarchists didn't? The situation is hardly comparable.

That stronger force had the national government and the national army to back it up, along with its ideological as well as its practical political strength. The Makhnoists evidently failed because they were never able to take control of the revolution or offer a more viable governing structure than the Bolshies could.

They never managed to take control of the revolution because they entered the game late with few resources. They were limited to Ukraine and had to fight a two front war against both the Bolshies and the Whites.

Again, the fact they lost doesn't indicate much about the governing structure itself. The grandest and most spectacular free democracy can be crushed by a much bigger force, but that doesn't indicate we should not strive for open and free democracies.

The Kibbutzes, according to the article cited, were (are) far more socialistic than anarchistic and encouraged by the quasi-socialist Israeli government. Also, they existed within the context of the Jewish State.

Anarcho-syndicalism is socialist. Indeed, many anarchists actually prefer the term 'libertarian socialist'. There's no private property in anarco-syndicalism. If you look at the actual structure of the Kibbutz, many of them are pretty anarchist.

See wiki article:

Although kibbutzniks practiced a form of communism themselves, they did not believe that it could work for everyone; for example, the Kibbutz political parties never called for the abolition of private property. Kibbutzniks saw their kibbutzim as collective enterprises within a free market system. Kibbutzim also practise active democracy in organisation: periodic elections are held for Kibbutz functions as well as an active participation in national elections. Kibbutzim today could even been seen as modeled upon a localized form of anarcho-syndicalist or libertarian socialist philosophy.

Kibbutzim were not the only contemporary communal enterprises: pre-war Palestine also saw the development of communal villages called Moshavim (singular: Moshav). In a moshav, marketing and major farm purchases would be done collectively, but personal lives were entirely private. Although much less famous than kibbutzim, moshavim have always been more numerous and popular than kibbutzim.

...

Although major decisions about the future of the kibbutz were made by consensus or by voting, day-to-day decisions about where people would work were made by elected leaders. Typically, kibbutzniks would learn their assignments by consulting the duty sheet at the dining hall.

Kibbutz memoirs from the Pioneer era report that kibbutz meetings varied from heated arguments to free-flowing philosophical discussions, whereas memoirs and accounts from kibbutz observers from the 1950s and 1960s report that kibbutz meetings were businesslike but poorly attended.

Kibbutzim attempted to rotate people into different jobs. One week a person might work in planting, the next with livestock, the week after in the kibbutz factory and the following week in the laundry. Even managers would have to work in menial jobs. Through rotation, people took part in every kind of work, but it interfered with any process of specialization.

Link

The Zapatistas continue to exist at the indulgence of the Mexican government. Were that situation to change, they would not win against the army if it came down to actual conflict, as in 1994.

Obviously, since the Zapatistas are a tiny minority in Mexico. Oddly enough, Nicaragua couldn't win if the Mexican government invaded either. Cuba couldn't survive is America invaded. Of course, the fact that they aren't a military power doesn't mean that the government structures of Nicaragua and Cuba don't work, which is the issue at hand.

How would anarchism cope with regional issues?

Example: Hydroelectric dams on the Columbia river kill a number of fish each year. Conservation measures can include not running the turbines at full-tilt all the time so as to reduce the number of fish killed. In the current system, the federal government has authority over the dams to regulate and decide how to balance electrical needs with environmental needs and with the needs of people who are more dependent on harvesting salmon for their livelihood.

In an anarchist system, how would two physically separate communities, both with interests linked to the dam, be able to peacefully resolve a dispute concerning the use of the dam?


Maybe there's subtleties I'm missing, but it seems to me like anarchy is a very insular model.

I would imagine that, generally speaking, the issue would be resolved the same way they are now in federal systems. By balancing different levels of government. A general principal of anarchism is that you make decisions at the level where those who are affected decide, and if possible, you give those who are affected most a bigger say (almost impossible to implement, however). If this Dam is affecting the collective at large, then probably the collective at large should make the decision. Or, there could be some sort of legal system and pre-existing agreement (a constitution) that would determine what level of governance controls what, in order to speed up the process.

Actually I think the external pressure probably helped to keep them going somewhat effectively longer that they would have otherwise. Knowing that the Falangist are coming to blow your head of will keep even the most rabid radical somewhat focused on keeping things running so that the armed forces can continue the fight.

Perhaps, but without getting into a totally off-topic debate, this justification was used primarily by the communists in order to target the anarchists. The communists, with direction from Stalin--who didn't want a communist/socialist Spain because he still thought he would need Britain and France to counter-balance the German threat--tried to suppress anarchist activities by claiming that the revolution can wait until after the war (the anarchists and the POUM, a trot communist group, argued that the war and revolution were the same thing). Of course, that led to inner-fighting and only harmed the war effort in the long run.

It's really impossible to say what would happen to the anarchist society in the long run if they didn't lose. A good argument can be made that all anarchist societies will evolve back into normal societies, but there's very little empirical evidence either way.

How the hell is killing people for a longer time a testament to the goodness of anarchism, anyway?

The Logistics of operating a massive war are much more complex than the logistics of making a highway.

You'll note that anarchic control of territory is essentially warlordism, and is only evident in situations like large civil wars, revolutions, military intervention and breakdown of central government.

Warlordism is the most common form of anarchy - primitive anarchy doesn't work in larger, more urbanized collectives like most nations. And warlordism usually exist with, well, war.

Warlordism, by definition, isn't anarchism. Atleast not in the political philosophy interpretation of the word.

[Darth Wong]

How can you use examples of small anarcho-syndicalist communities within larger conventional nation-states as proof of the viability of anarchism? The larger conventional nation-state takes care of the weaknesses of the system, but it also eliminates the "anarchism" part.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

How can you use examples of small anarcho-syndicalist communities within larger conventional nation-states as proof of the viability of anarchism? The larger conventional nation-state takes care of the weaknesses of the system, but it also eliminates the "anarchism" part.

I'm not sure either, which is why I call myself a state-syndicalist.

[K. A. Pital]

Warlordism, by definition, isn't anarchism.

Please.

Makhno, the anarchist poster boy, was nothing more than a glorified warlord. He lost exactly because he didn't have a god damn clue about how to run civil service - even if he was adept at warfare. "Logistics of running a war" are remarkably different from the policies of running a peacetime society. You know, a total mobilization economy cannot exist for 40 years long - and even if it can, it won't be all that good.

Many "anarchist" societies are in fact just large nationstates devolved into warlordism.

I don't know where you got the concept there are "levels of goverment" in anarchism, since that's even more alien to the concept.

[Patrick Degan]

The mechanism, according to anarchists, would be the collective as represented by the Unions. Or to put it in another way, one big union that would function like a government, except incorporating direct democracy and all that grand anarchist stuff. In the case of Spain, the example would be the CNT union, or in the hypothetical example of an anarchist world, the International Workers Association (which the CNT is affiliated with).

Really, it's the same as a government, but rather structured around a complex system of workplace direct democracy instead of representative democracy.

And how does it respond to immediate needs which won't allow for the delay of gathering all the collectives to vote on issues? Or enforce the laws of the land universally?

I can't say exactly how any future society would work or be structured, but it's pretty easy to imagine a simple system where a manager/speaker, or a group of managers, of the 'big union' can take on emergency powers for a single issue and have the decision ratified by the collective after the fact. If the decision was ill-conceived, the collective will rotate the manager prematurely as punishment.

Then why bother with dividing up the executive power in the first place? What you propose here is no different than a current governmental structure under the Westminster system with a prime minister.

Who cares if they "put up a good fight"? They lost.

This is like saying "Communism can never work because the FARC can't take power in Columbia". Whether or not the FARC is strong enough to take power in Columbia is a seperate question completely from whether Communism in Columbia would work. All it means is that communism most likely won't be implemented in Columbia.

We already know the reasons why communism can't work and are irrelevant to this discussion. The FARC can't win because they simply do not have the military power or the organisational strength to successfully challenge the central government.

Now, if you made the argument that anarchy will never be implemented in the modern world because there's no force than bring about that change, I would agree. However, that has nothing to do with whether anarchy works.

If it cannot succeed enough to be implemented and/or last long enough to cement itself in place as a working nation-state which can endure, then it's fairly clear that anarchy can't work on a large scale.

A comparison with Mao's Peoples' Liberation Army answers that question.

How so? You think that the PLA was a much better military force simply because they won and the Spanish anarchists didn't? The situation is hardly comparable.

The PLA was a much better military and political force because it was far more organised and disciplined than the Spanish anarchists ever managed. Which is why Mao won in China and the anarchists lost in Spain. The situations are comparable whether you like it or not, and the sad fact is that it takes strong organisation to win a revolution, which means a hierarchical command structure, strictly enforced discipline in the ranks, and ideological unity to the party line as much as to the military strategy.

That stronger force had the national government and the national army to back it up, along with its ideological as well as its practical political strength. The Makhnoists evidently failed because they were never able to take control of the revolution or offer a more viable governing structure than the Bolshies could.

They never managed to take control of the revolution because they entered the game late with few resources. They were limited to Ukraine and had to fight a two front war against both the Bolshies and the Whites.

Again, the fact they lost doesn't indicate much about the governing structure itself. The grandest and most spectacular free democracy can be crushed by a much bigger force, but that doesn't indicate we should not strive for open and free democracies.

And the Bolshies initially entered the game with almost no resources. Once again, they had the superior organisation and stronger political mechanism, from which a winning army was built. Which is why they won.

The Kibbutzes, according to the article cited, were (are) far more socialistic than anarchistic and encouraged by the quasi-socialist Israeli government. Also, they existed within the context of the Jewish State.

Anarcho-syndicalism is socialist. Indeed, many anarchists actually prefer the term 'libertarian socialist'. There's no private property in anarco-syndicalism. If you look at the actual structure of the Kibbutz, many of them are pretty anarchist.

Many anarchists take pains to make a distinction between the two political philosophies. Anarcho-syndicalists/libertarian socialists will make the claim to have the "purer" form of socialism for rejecting centralised state organisation. It is certain that many socialists would not agree with the argument that anarcho-syndicalism is socialist or that it would be a viable principle to base a national sociopolitical order upon.

As for the Kibbutzim, what's described there is little different from any typical co-op. Furthermore, this is still a phenomenon which exists within the sociopolitical structure of a larger nation-state with a central government and constitutes a very small minority of the population. This hardly offers a model for whether or not anarchism could work on a larger scale.

The Zapatistas continue to exist at the indulgence of the Mexican government. Were that situation to change, they would not win against the army if it came down to actual conflict, as in 1994.

Obviously, since the Zapatistas are a tiny minority in Mexico. Oddly enough, Nicaragua couldn't win if the Mexican government invaded either. Cuba couldn't survive is America invaded.

I know you think you're making a point but sadly you've missed it altogether. The argument is not "what small nation could survive invasion from a larger and more militarily powerful nation" but "what sort of movement can succeed in overthrowing an established government and assuming its place as a new working political order".

Of course, the fact that they aren't a military power doesn't mean that the government structures of Nicaragua and Cuba don't work, which is the issue at hand.

No, it's not actually. You're arguing a red herring here.

[Darth Wong]

Hey wait, I just thought of a happy anarcho-syndicalist commune which existed without the benefit of a larger nation-state! It's the driller community in The Road Warrior!

Mind you, they had to deal with Lord Humongous.

[TheKwas]

How can you use examples of small anarcho-syndicalist communities within larger conventional nation-states as proof of the viability of anarchism? The larger conventional nation-state takes care of the weaknesses of the system, but it also eliminates the "anarchism" part.

The Kibbutz have proven a relative success at what it does. They have constructed and ran profitable factories, farms, and even hi-tech research centers, while producing a disproportionate amount of intellectuals and scientists and continually re-investing in the kibbutz. Up until the 80s or so, I believe the kibbutzniks were significantly richer than the average Israeli due to the economic success of the kibbutz. All this while retaining an impressive level of self-management and direct democracy that is characteristic of anarcho-syndicalism.

This serves the purpose of illustrating that some of the common criticisms leveled at anarchism (syndicates don't work, no incentives to work hard, No incentive to invest and promote future growth, people don't co-operate with each other, direct democracy leads to inefficiency and idiots making idiotic decisions, direct democracy leads to chaos, ect) are not completely valid. Furthermore, it's not that hard to imagine a society where the kibbutz model is the model for every economic sector (generally speaking, the kibbutz has already succeeded in just about every sector) all the time. It hasn't happened, but the kibbutzniks indicate that it is atleast possible on a theoretical level.

Once every economic sector is controlled by syndicates, all one has to imagine is a system of co-operation and interaction between the syndicates themselves, which probably wouldn't be that different from modern governments. Besides, the 'weaknesses' of the Kibbutzniks was primarily initial investment for the establishment of a new kibbutz (this was before the days of electronic investment), and it's not alone in that weakness, nor is it a hard one to deal with. Nuclear Power has a similar weakness.

Even without the over-arching government, simply accepting the syndicate model as ideal is a big step forward for anarchism.

Makhno, the anarchist poster boy, was nothing more than a glorified warlord. He lost exactly because he didn't have a god damn clue about how to run civil service - even if he was adept at warfare. "Logistics of running a war" are remarkably different from the policies of running a peacetime society. You know, a total mobilization economy cannot exist for 40 years long - and even if it can, it won't be all that good.

I admittingly know very little about Makhno, so I can't really comment on him any more than the Wiki article states (which is obviously a bad source for such a partisan topic).

I don't know where you got the concept there are "levels of goverment" in anarchism, since that's even more alien to the concept.

Have you ever heard of the Industrial Workers of the World (Wobblies)? They are an international union that is famous for promoting an anarchist workshop model.

But more to the point, of course there are levels of government in anarchism. A central tenet of anarcho-syndicalism (and a point that makes it distinct from just plain old syndicalism) is that a person gets a say in an issue to the degree that the person is affected by the potential outcome of that decision. Naturally, this implies multiple levels of government.

If I'm in an anarcho-syndicate workplace, where I work in my own office, the decision to put a picture of my wife on my wall affects only myself (productivity aside). Therefore, no one can demand that I must not have a picture of my wife in my office. I am Stalin in that regard. However, if I put a stereo in my office and start blaring music, that affects everyone around me. Therefore, we should come to a consensus concerning whether I am allowed to play music, how loud I can play it, and if I can play it loud, what music am I allowed to play. Obviously, such levels of governance will have to be fluid and non-structural at such a micro-economic level, but if we take the same anarchist principal and move it upward to the marco level, we naturally have multiple levels of government for tasks of difference intensity (and naturally, the relationship between individuals will have to become more institutionalized).

Then why bother with dividing up the executive power in the first place? What you propose here is no different than a current governmental structure under the Westminster system with a prime minister.

Well, generally speaking I would imagine power to be less centralized in non-emergency times (I'm thinking of the Zapatistas as an example). But the major differences between modern society and an anarchist society would be at the economic and community levels of government, where there would be major changes in how things operate.

We already know the reasons why communism can't work and are irrelevant to this discussion. The FARC can't win because they simply do not have the military power or the organisational strength to successfully challenge the central government.

Thanks for agreeing?

If it cannot succeed enough to be implemented and/or last long enough to cement itself in place as a working nation-state which can endure, then it's fairly clear that anarchy can't work on a large scale.

Anarchism has very few followers, and even fewer that are in any position to actually change society. You haven't actually provided an argument indicating that the problem lies with the structure of anarchism itself rather than a problem of man-power, technology and opportunity.
Just look at my clever word switching: "If the Green Party cannot succeed enough to be implemented and/or last long enough to cement itself in place as a working provincial/state government which can endure, then it's fairly clear that the Green Party's ideals and platform can't work on a federal scale."

Many anarchists take pains to make a distinction between the two political philosophies. Anarcho-syndicalists/libertarian socialists will make the claim to have the "purer" form of socialism for rejecting centralised state organisation. It is certain that many socialists would not agree with the argument that anarcho-syndicalism is socialist or that it would be a viable principle to base a national sociopolitical order upon.

You must talk with alot of dick-headed anarchists. Generally speaking, socialism is any political philosophy that advocates the collective ownership of capital and land (with more extreme versions including personal property in there as well, but those people can generally be ignored). Anarcho-syndicalism obviously fits under that broad umbrella, and its complete reliance on worker unions to remain even slightly relevant is a testament to it's left-wing/socialist roots. Syndicate is actually french for labour union, which is why I first described anarcho-syndicalism as a society with the Unions in control.

The difference between anarchism and other brands of socialism is the degree of hiearchy present in the society, with anarchists arguing for the least amount possible.

As for the Kibbutzim, what's described there is little different from any typical co-op.

Agreed. A syndicate workplace is infact, a worker's co-op. An Anarchist economy is simply co-operative economics implemented in all areas of the economy. The over-arching collective government that I was talking about before would more or less be a cooperative federation.

Does that make the point more clear?

And the Bolshies initially entered the game with almost no resources. Once again, they had the superior organisation and stronger political mechanism, from which a winning army was built. Which is why they won.

The Bolshies were always stronger thant the Mahknovists.

The PLA was a much better military and political force because it was far more organised and disciplined than the Spanish anarchists ever managed. Which is why Mao won in China and the anarchists lost in Spain. The situations are comparable whether you like it or not,

Well, if you say so it must be true!

The PLA relied mostly on guerilla tactics and fluid on-the-move tactics throughout it's existance (indeed, much of Maoist literature is on how to conduct proper guerilla warfare in a peasant context). The level of organization and logistics that these tactics required were nothing compared to the WWI-style conventional warfare that the Spanish anarchists had to fight for the most part. Don't get me wrong, the PLA tactics were most certainly effective, as shown by the Korean war, but they didn't exactly require the same level of organization.

Furthermore, the PLA was always more of a professional force throughout it's existance, where members were self-selected for action and where they had the time and ability to train. The Spanish anarchists were literally workers who woke up one day and dicovered the military attempting a coup, and set out to the trenches to fight them without a day of training under their belts. The fact they manage to last as long as they did despite facing an actual military supported by both Germany and Italy in conventional warfare (something the PLA never had to do to any great extent, as the KMT did most of the conventional warfare), and communist agression in the cities is nothing short of a miracle.

Besides, Stas already admitted that Mahkno was an effective military leader who sucked at a civil service (the spanish anarchists actually increased economic output in all sectors during their time in power. If Mahkno's army is anything like what Wikipedia and other sources are telling me, they were generally anarchistic in their organization.

If Mahkno's anarchists were good fighters, and the Spanish were good civil servants, then it's probable that the problems in either section were due to reasons other than the structure of anarchism.

I know you think you're making a point but sadly you've missed it altogether. The argument is not "what small nation could survive invasion from a larger and more militarily powerful nation" but "what sort of movement can succeed in overthrowing an established government and assuming its place as a new working political order".

You missed the point. You say that all of these anarchist movement failed because of lack of organization and military prowlness, yet you constantly neglect other factors, such as man-power, that must factor in to any military victory. I can easily make similar points about other societies that don't have significant militaries: Ignore other reasons for their miliary abilities and declare that the problem must be organization.

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

So how different is anarcho-syndicalism different from communism? It sounds awfully similar.

[Adrian Laguna]

Hey wait, I just thought of a happy anarcho-syndicalist commune which existed without the benefit of a larger nation-state! It's the driller community in The Road Warrior!

Mind you, they had to deal with Lord Humongous.

And came dammed close to being annihilated. Had Lord Humongous stumbled upon an artillery piece and some ammo, or had a bigger gang, they would have been pwnt.

[Darth Wong]

How can you use examples of small anarcho-syndicalist communities within larger conventional nation-states as proof of the viability of anarchism? The larger conventional nation-state takes care of the weaknesses of the system, but it also eliminates the "anarchism" part.

The Kibbutz have proven a relative success at what it does. They have constructed and ran profitable factories, farms, and even hi-tech research centers, while producing a disproportionate amount of intellectuals and scientists and continually re-investing in the kibbutz. Up until the 80s or so, I believe the kibbutzniks were significantly richer than the average Israeli due to the economic success of the kibbutz. All this while retaining an impressive level of self-management and direct democracy that is characteristic of anarcho-syndicalism.

This serves the purpose of illustrating that some of the common criticisms leveled at anarchism (syndicates don't work, no incentives to work hard, No incentive to invest and promote future growth, people don't co-operate with each other, direct democracy leads to inefficiency and idiots making idiotic decisions, direct democracy leads to chaos, ect) are not completely valid. Furthermore, it's not that hard to imagine a society where the kibbutz model is the model for every economic sector (generally speaking, the kibbutz has already succeeded in just about every sector) all the time. It hasn't happened, but the kibbutzniks indicate that it is atleast possible on a theoretical level.

Once every economic sector is controlled by syndicates, all one has to imagine is a system of co-operation and interaction between the syndicates themselves, which probably wouldn't be that different from modern governments. Besides, the 'weaknesses' of the Kibbutzniks was primarily initial investment for the establishment of a new kibbutz (this was before the days of electronic investment), and it's not alone in that weakness, nor is it a hard one to deal with. Nuclear Power has a similar weakness.

Even without the over-arching government, simply accepting the syndicate model as ideal is a big step forward for anarchism.

Wow. You totally ignored my question.

[CJvR]

So how different is anarcho-syndicalism different from communism? It sounds awfully similar.

They want to reach the promised land without first spending forty years in the desert under the dictatorship of the proletariat.

[brianeyci]

And came dammed close to being annihilated. Had Lord Humongous stumbled upon an artillery piece and some ammo, or had a bigger gang, they would have been pwnt.

I almost want to start a Mad Max vs Planet of the Apes vs Fallout Guy vs Jericho now.

Actually Jericho answers Mike's question. For those of you who don't know, Jericho is a CBS drama show, overhyped by its fans; small town America after nuclear war with Iran and North Korea destroys government. So if I had to answer the question of how can an anarchist society in a larger government framework be proof of effective anarchist society, it would obviously revolve around how effective the government was: whether they could tax, and how arms-length the government was from the society (where the credit belonged.)

Not that I know any successful anarchist societies.

[K. A. Pital]

Anarcho-syndicalism is similar to communism. The soviets (economic councils) were the organized form of labour control over production in the Revolution which generally most anarcho-syndicalist accept as a working example.

However, the problems started very soon after the Revolution and War. Contrary to what one may think, all enterprises were not brought under government control swiftly; there were quite a lot of them and all were run by individual Soviets.

Soon those individual Soviets demanded for their factories to be nationalized, and rather fervently, because the lack of over-arching management made it very hard to receive information about necessary production, new labour resources and so on.

Common ownership in something other than a planned economy, I fear, under the current technological level, cannot last much longer than those anarchic elements lasted in reality... a really short while.

A lot of stray communes without some over-arching institution will have a huge problem with interaction; they will either have to create a communal market (simply transform all capitalist enterprises into communes) which poses lots of problems on it's own, or create a planning institution which would coordinate their economic activity.

I doubt there's any real way around that; the Kwas himself admits that the syndicalist model would require a channel for interaction and it would probably be similar to the currently existing governments.

The problem with anarcho-syndicalism is that it severly curtails the speed of government action by introducing direct democracy; for example, even routine acts of government affect millions of people; if every time all of them got to voice a popular vote, the government would get bankrupt.

So even as anarcho-syndicalism isn't your flat out anarcho-libertarianism (DESTROY ALL GOVERNMENT!!!), it's a very problematic construction. I'd say on a large scale it's impossible right now.

[Oskuro]

Anarchism. Basically the ideological equivalent of a teenager who wants to stick it up to The Man, his parents, school, and stuff.

The sad part, as with any other political stance, is that a lot of those saying to follow the idea, do not understand it, and only work towards that fraction of the ideal they most like.

That's why you get a bunch of morons sporting Anarchistic logos on their clothing, and then causing utter chaos and disorder. They completely fail at recognizing that an important part of an Anarchic Ideal is that each person must be responsible for their actions, and strive to make things work (Wich, as has been richly elaborated on the Voluntaryst-bashing thread, is wildly utopic at best).

But then again, a lot of people think that Communism is only about taking money from the rich, that Democracy is about 51% of the population telling the other 49% to shut the fuck off, that Capitalism is about personal gain, or that Socialist intiatives (like universal healthcare) are just a means to screw-up the money-earning enterpeneurs.


An ideal Anarchy would be like Lennon's "Imagine", yet those claiming to be Anarchists listen to angry hard rock.

[Shroom Man 777]

At some point, when what TheKwas is espousing - those kibbutz or something - grow to such a point that it encompasses a really large area with a whole lot of people, won't this "anarchist society" be no different from other forms of government, anyway?

I mean, these solutions Kwas brings up to make anarchist society work sound very similar to the solutions brought up to make governments work.

So, what's the difference?

[Lusankya]

At some point, when what TheKwas is espousing - those kibbutz or something - grow to such a point that it encompasses a really large area with a whole lot of people, won't this "anarchist society" be no different from other forms of government, anyway?

I mean, these solutions Kwas brings up to make anarchist society work sound very similar to the solutions brought up to make governments work.

So, what's the difference?

Well, one's an anarco-sydicalist commune in which they take it in turns to be a sort of executive officer for the week, but all the decisions of that officer have to be ratified at a special bi-weekly meeting by a simple majority in the case of purely internal affairs, but by a two thirds majority in the case of external affairs. And the other is a self-perpetuating autocracy in which the working class is continually being repressed.

Do you see now?

Plus, the anarchist society puts different labels on things, so insead of "government", they would have a "representative committe", who would decide on actions based on what they feel the people they are representing would want. Or at least, they would when the anarchist society became too large for everyone to discuss every matter with everyone else.