This article doesn’t refute what he is saying.

“For anarchists, such arguments are strange. Society already is run by thugs and/or the off-spring of thugs.”

That’s the point.. in essence we came from an anarchic society until hierarchies and social order were developed and used to mobilize and collective people for imperialism resulting in what we have today. Returning to disorder isn’t a sustainable solution.

Maybe it’ll work for a lone village in Spain but for a country - no.

Feds watching

@Nightmares
I just watched the video. I agree with a lot of it. I like the idea of no rulers or social hierarchy. These two things not only make people think those in power. People get fooled all the time believing the upper class actually want to help the lower. The fact that the elite run the state it makes no sense as they are the most disconnected from the people.

Workers rights is also a big issue im for. The disconnect between owners and the actual workers can be appalling. They always say “work hard and you can be in that position” but that’s simply not true for many factors. You work hard to not get replaced not move up. Capitalism has been abused far too long.

It’s funny how all these problems are due to social hierarchy being skewed so greatly.

Tho I do have a question.
I wouldn’t be opposed to community leaders. But do you think they too would get corrupted with power? Or would we simply not let them get corrupted?
It’d even cause segregation I think but at this point it I don’t think that even matters

Best thread on KTT yet. In.

Conformist 🐷

In

I think to me anarchism is socialism of the heart while "state socialism" is by force, shoveled down people's throats. People will never understand why it is necessary until there is a socio-cultural need for it. As long as the liberal, social democratic and conservative governments provide basic necessities to fan that flame inside of people's heart to revolt, they will never come to realize what false consciousness is. They will never come to realize what they can achieve as long as they are financially, culturally, socially and thus psychologically dependent on their government. Just look at the replies in this thread. Entire generations of people who just can't imagine a society without artificial hierarchy. Sad!

It is impossible for any societal structure to remain permenant.

My biggest gripes with socialists are

1. That they don't even realize that the solutions they propose are based on the same false principles and arguments that capitalism is using. Everything is seen in economic terms, around what workers want. But not everyone wants to work. Getting everyone a f***ing manufacturing job is not going to solve our problems. It's not going to address things like inflation, deficiency of effective demand, exploitation/destruction of the environment, military-industrial complex, and how we deal with products and services that are clearly beneficial to society but not economically feasible. All of these things were even worse under the Soviet command economy and if you want to consider China and North Korea "socialist", they have huge issues with those same things too.

2. Socialists can't understand that shifting the means and ownership of production from the private elite to the political elite ain't gonna do s*** but make things worse. Just think of the US. Instead of a 18.6 million millionaires being in charge of the economy you would have just 535 people in charge of a $28 trillion economy. Imagine thinking that those politicians wouldn't abuse their power at some point. Everyone pursuing their own dreams and sharing/exchanging their experiences is yielding better results than having everyone just do the same thing. The sum of all bad decisions made by individuals is still less bad and easier to counteract than one gigantic f***up by a centralized government. There are many viable alternatives outside of the same ol boring capitalism vs planned command economy that move control over the economy from the rich to regular people without having the state as a middleman that can easily be bribed by the rich. Next.

3. Y'all completely ignore the socio-cultural aspect of transitioning to whatever y'all fantasizing about. As if people are just going to give up their ways of life and ideas of individualism, freedoms and property for some fat politicians. Nobody is about to give up their own dreams for some one-size fits all program. The social trend over the past 500+ years has been a gradual rejection of all forms of collectivism in social, cultural and political life in favor of the idea of the individual and we as human civilization have made more progress in societies where individualism is big than in collectivist societies. It's not even close. The more individualistic a society is the richer it is in all aspects. Social, cultural and political. All the collectivist societies are lagging far behind and sometimes in orders of magnitude. The linear relationship is obvious but while I'm not about to say that it's cause and effect, it's definitely one of the biggest factors that comes into play. It's not the rich who made these countries richer, but the average consumer and their drive towards more individualism and being willing to pay more, to work harder, to protest more in order to express that desire for individuality. People in Socialism Thread are living in their own bubble when it comes to this topic. Nobody in their right mind would give up who they are for another man's benefit (except K-Pop singers) because the psychological/emotional price is too high even for those K-Pop stars. It drives people into suicide. Suicide rates in collectivist societies are significantly higher than individualist societies (including the USSR).

Man I could go on and on on my left-wing take of why socialism sucks.

Nah I don't think a true Anarchist would get corrupted given how everything would be worked out.

Like for instance, one of the active anarchist communities has a military "leader" but all he really does is aid in protection tactics after the entire community has voted in because he has a military background. I believe this is one of the communities in Spain. If there's any signs of trying to force anything they get the boot and dealt with after the community has taken a vote for action. That's so far in practice, in theory this would never happen because any Anarchist wouldn't want to hold power over another; we want individual freedom but mutual aid. Collective power.

The gap in power wouldn't ever grow that big, and personally I'm not an anarcho-pacifist so if it really got extreme in my branch self-defense against a forming of a state would be an option.

There's actually some historical answers to your question though: theanarchistlibrary.org/library/peter-gelderloos-anarchy-works#toc50

Anarchism is not disorder.

Maybe read some stuff in OP lol what I linked even says how an Anarchist society would defend itself from threats.

A s*** load of countries that aren't Anarchist societies failed fighting against imperialism but you stick to their ideology. Have some consistency instead of trying to delegitimize Anarchism because it doesn't have a state. A state doesn't need to exist for self-defense.

The state is as much the oppressor as capitalism.

Wanting to keep the state but get rid of capitalism is a half-assed solution (ironically, as people pointing out and anarchist society would never last) to oppression. It's like halfway pulling a piece of splinter out of your arm while leaving the other half in for some masochistic reasoning.

All I'll say to this, is that you seem very misinformed.

Spains Anarchist history

libcom.org/history/remembering-spain-italian-anarchist-volunteers-spanish-civil-war-second-edition

The Tragic Week in May: the May Days Barcelona 1937 - Augustin Souchy

An account of the fighting in Barcelona in May 1937 when the Communists consolidated their hold on power and turned decisively against the anarchists and revolutionary workers

libcom.org/library/tragic-week-may-days-barcelona-1937-souchy

The seminal history of Spanish anarchism: from its earliest inception to the organizations that claimed over two million members on the eve of the 1936 Revolution. It has been hailed as a masterpiece.

libcom.org/library/spanish-anarchists-heroic-years-1868-1936

The Spanish Revolution page has been online for more than a decade and contains dozens of articles on the Spanish Civil War from an anarchist perspective as well as links to many photographs of the civil war. Anarchists seldom use the phrase 'civil war' in relation to the events because it hides the revolutionary nature of the struggle within the republican side, a revolution in which some seven million workers on the land and in industry took over their workplaces. This page has been updated as of late 2007 to fix the many broken links that had accumulated and to add extra explanatory text and links to good books and video on the revolution that are not otherwise available online.

struggle.ws/spaindx.html

The state is a result of class conflict, and you can't do away with it while class conflict still exists.

For anarchists the state, government, means "the delegation of power, that is the abdication of initiative and sovereignty of all into the hands of a few." Malatesta, Anarchy, p. 41 For Marxists, the state is "an organ of class rule, an organ for the oppression of one class by another." Lenin, Op. Cit., p. 274 That these definitions are in conflict is clear and unless this difference is made explicit, anarchist opposition to the "dictatorship of the proletariat" cannot be clearly understood.

The idea that anarchists, by rejecting the "dictatorship of the proletariat," also reject defending a revolution is false. We do not equate the "dictatorship of the proletariat" with the need to defend a revolution or expropriating the capitalist class, ending capitalism and building socialism.

Ahh ok thanks

And I’ll be sure to stick around the thread. I’m not sure how much I’ll be able to contribute to it but I’m always up for new knowledge.

does anyone here look at people with a straight face and tell them youre an anarchist?

If someone asked what my political stance/ideology is why would I not have a "straight face" when I say I'm an anarchist...?

19th century radical liberal critique of capitalism from the petty bourgeoisie; outdated, poorly organized, kinda worthless. also the anti-semitism at the ideological core can't be denied.

Bakunin especially.

A lot of ex Black Panthers "converted" to Anarchism, with some that did stating the BPP would've been more successful had they been Anarchist.

I feel the Black Panther Party partially failed because of the authoritarian leadership style of Huey P. Newton, Bobby Seale and others on the Central Committee . . . Many errors were made because the national leadership was so divorced from the chapters in cities all over the country, and therefore engaged in “commandism” or forced work dictated by leaders . . . There was not a lot of inner-party democracy, and when contradictions came up, it was the leaders who decided on their resolution, not the members

--

*This is not to say that the people of the Soviet Union, the People’s Republic of China, Zimbabwe or Cuba aren’t better off Because of the struggles they endured. It is to say that the only way to make a dictatorship of the proletariat Is to elevate everyone to being proletariat and deflate all the advantages of power that translate into the wills of a few dictating to the majority the possibility must be prevented of any individual or group of individuals being able to enforce their wills over any other individual’s private life Or to extract social consequences for behavior preferences or ideas.

Only an anarchist revolution has on its agenda to deal with these goals. This Would seem to galvanize the working class, déclassé intellectuals, colonized third world nations and some members of the petty bourgeois and alright bourgeoise.*

theanarchistlibrary.org/library/kuwasi-balagoon-anarchy-can-t-fight-alone

You missed my point and nitpicked my use of disorder and you’re telling me to read more? What if I said relative disorder? Would you still say that’s not an accurate depiction of anarchy in relation to the state? Yeah other countries that aren’t anarchist failed too... what’s your point?

Build an anarchist community and stop paying your taxes and see how that goes then tell me how defending yourself went.

Ever since I made that thread criticizing communism, I’ve just seen myself admire anarchism more and more