this post was submitted on 05 Mar 2026
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The part where people with better material positions consolidate power and influence, and exercise that power over the meek.
Or the part where greedy fucks "make their own decisions" that don't factor in externalities or the impact they have to the common good. Resulting in things like the destruction of our natural environment and ecosystem.
This take is like when people try to shit on communism by describing capitalism
That’s not anarchy, it’s chaos. You’re maybe thinking of warlordism, aka ‘ancap’ or market libertarianism?
Anarchy is a lot of work for its participants. If you aren’t outsourcing management decisions about your life, neighbourhood, region, etc., you have to collaborate in making those decisions. If power is allowed to concentrate, your self-determined governing system collapses and anarchy, by definition, is lost. It’s a life of constant renegotiation.
Rojava is illustrative, as it’s established in a self-conscious anarchic process, and by all reports it’s great in many ways but a lot of daily effort, and is under direct assault currently.
There is no true anarchy because government emerges spontaneously from human interaction. "Anarchists" start to add these structures and fail to realize that what they are creating is just an idyllic state without using the word "state" because they don't like it.
There is no true democracy, no true totalitarianism… no true scotsman?
No one on the inside of these systems thinks it’s idyllic, I can assure you, once they realize how much work and commitment it requires, and governance does not require privileged classes wielding centralized power to be a government.
You are conflating State with Government. They are synonymous but only similar, not the same. Self-governance requires a great deal of education along the way, and a constant flow of meetings and chores.
The first generation in restructuring both economy and governance makes a lot of mistakes. Propagandists point at this as though it proves non-viability, but that’s just deception.
Okay, fine, you got me, we're just creating an idyllic state that is objectively better than capitalism or state communism.
So, you've got me to confess, what's the next step in your master plan?
Rojava also directly dictates the structure of local councils and delineates their power within its confederal structure.
This is not meant as a 'jab' at Rojava, which I deeply admire, but that even libertarian socialist polities do make decisions for other people, even local majorities which may not agree with the confederation's central positions.
Well yes, power is never cleanly distributed and autonomy always hits a boundary, usually one of causing harm to others.
In most situations the possible solutions to a problem cause other problems. Management skill requires minimizing harm, while not crossing red lines. Rules can only be an attempt to be fair.
A functional anarchy needs federation based on rules negotiated with other polities of the same scale or order. Common principles of anarchism such as mutual aid glue things together. Enforcement and expulsion would be part of a much larger collaboration on justice.
While I agree with you completely, isn't that also what we currently have and all of it is being done for the purpose of profit chasing which wouldn't exist in a society without a government imposed system of value?
Profit chasing would not only exist, but would be allowed to run rampant and unchecked without government oversight.
Governing structures are a naturally emergent phenomenon of not only humanity, but all life.
Imagine what Bezos and Musk would do without any sort of government restriction at all? Historically speaking, those people under "anarchy" become warlords, chiefs, kings. In its simplist form, the power is held by those who are the best at violence. That is what biases almost every culture towards patriarchy in the first place. Eventually more cunning ambitious people emerge and find ways to form alliances and engage in politics. This has happened throughout all of human history and pre-dates concepts like nationalism or statehood. An example would be that the Congo was colonized by King Leopold personally, not the kingdom of Belgium.
If we dissolved every state in the world today, the world would instantly re-form into new states: X, Meta, Google, Microsoft, Amazon. Palantir might be their own state. Then you have the defense contractors.
So in my estimation if we are going to have states, those states should recognize their power comes from the people in a democratic process, not money or land. The state should be used to regulate out greed: the most successful states are the ones that remove profit incentives through regulation. The problem with pretty much every state is that we allowed money to centralize decades ago, to the point where that money can use its power to take control of the state. Eventually this leads to revolution, though whether it's a matter of days or decades is up for debate.
The system of value is imposed by the people, otnthe government. The government is an attempt to model that system of values.
Yes, but if you're bowling with the bumpers up and can't hit the pins, removing the bumpers will not help. And instead of having to go through the government beaurocracy they could just do it directly.
Compare how much environmental damage is done by anarchist societies versus governed societies.
It's illegal for us to defend ourselves.
It's impressive how they can both destroy the environment and also not exist.
Putting words in /u/paultimate14@lemmy.world 's mouth, I'm guessing they are referring to Libertarian de-regulation type stuff, where we have seen that Capitalists will always choose to pollute or do other external harms as long as they don't pay the cost. That's not the same as Anarchism, of course, but as someone not well read on either ideology it feels like the outcome would be similar.
"As someone who has no idea what I'm talking about, this is what I would think would happen." Is what you and basically everyone else shitting on anarchism is saying. You are all talking about anarchism like capitalism would still exist, which it wouldnt. "Anarcho"-capitalism is what most of you are talking about and it is almost universally ostracized by the anarchist community.
It is nearly impossible to talk to non-anarchists about anarchism I have found because it feels like yall can only look at one part of the picture at a time, and have then forget what you were just looking at when you change focus. Genuinely just read theory and learn about actual experiments into anarchism. I recommend "At the Cafe" by Malatesta, and the documentary "Living in Utopia" on Zoe Baker's youtube channel. Those are what took me from being a communist to an anarcho-communist. "Conquest of Bread" by Kropotkin is also a great start. But I genuinely feel like it is impossible to argue with non-anarchists about anarchists unless they actually understand what anarchism is and the logic behind it. Something that can't be properly outlined in a meme or comment thread.
Chief, I only suggested what I thought the other person meant. I didn't make any statements of my own on the subject in question.
I am actually reading Kropotkin just now and I've perused the FAQ that is often posted here, but I'm happy for your other recommendations. I'm not sure of my specific leftist identity yet, but that's something I'm working on.
Almost everyone in the world has lived under capitalism their whole lives, and the only other major economic philosophy we westerners really learn about in school is feudalism. It's only natural that they (we) don't immediately grasp other systems of living. Thinking about Anarchism or Communism or Socialism etc as an alternative in the abstract is one thing, but it's not strange to me that that it's easier for the student to think about one piece of society at a time. By default I think that would be by comparison to the familiar system.
I wrote too much again - a common problem for me.
Anyway, just chiming in to empathize but suggest patience for the 99% of humans that haven't put as much thought into economic and political systems as you have.
Have a good one, or don't. I don't claim any authority over you! Lol.
I apologize for coming off as a agitated. Its hard to read a lot of these comments and not come away feeling that way. I am super happy to hear you are reading and educating yourself, and apologize for interpreting your comment the way I did. It is hard to keep track of who says what and that is where my confusion began.
I agree that socialism/communism is already a leap for people to understand as it breaks away from everything they have ever known, and anarchism is even worse in that regard. My frustration comes from the lack of good faith from most people when arguing in the first place. I can be patient with ignorance. I have a much harder time being patient with arrogance (which ironically ends up making me respond arrogantly). Like I said in another comment, it often feels like arguing with anti-vaccers or MAGAs because they both argue in bad faith and from a place of ignorance. Pair that with seeing it every day in almost every comment thread related to anarchism and it becomes very hard to not become bitter.
This is all to say I appreciate your response and I am sorry for the way I reacted to your comment. You are here in good faith and I let the negativity assume you weren't.
Totally get it! I didn't and don't take any offense, just sort of got caught in the crossfire this time. I don't have many opportunities to talk to sealions, or maybe I am just bad at detecting them. I have no doubt that that would get frustrating.
I know I'm ignorant on this and many other topics, but I'm slowly chipping away at some of the edges. I've seen a lot that feels right in Aism, Sism, and Cism, but they can't ALL be right about everything! I think I would most benefit from a more formal process of thinking about the kind of world I want to see and which ideas might bridge that gap but it's hard to find the time alongside actually living on this stupid rock.
Cheers! LLAP
Be sure those societies are reduced to almost no people, usually in lands that are deficient in natural resources in the first place.
Just look up for a counter-example. The Earth's atmosphere is full of space junk now because for decades no regulatory body had the balls to tell private companies not to leave their shit up there.
Your issue is once again with capitalism, not anarchism
Dude is effectively arguing that capitalism is a natural phenomenon that emerged from human interaction. Itd be funny if it weren’t so sad
Another failure of the education system to put on the board lol
There is a regulatory body; if you try to defend everyone from these private companies, then the police will arrest you. The regulation protects them from us, but not vice versa.
Ironically, space junk doesn't happen in a vacuum. 😜