Talk:Anarchism/Archive2

This is an archive page, last updated 31 December 2021. Please do not make edits to this page.

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Vote in Draft

I created a new version of the ideology list, replacing the eye searing version with one that is concise and straightfoward. You can vote on the draft talk page. –Tuxer (talk) 21:11, 18 August 2020 (UTC)

@Tuxer Given the number of drafts for this page, would you mind linking to yours in this thread? ☭Comrade GC☭^{Ministry of Praise} 03:18, 19 August 2020 (UTC)

Actually it's Ravens' draft which he finally opened to editing to everyone.–Tuxer (talk) 08:50, 19 August 2020 (UTC)

"Finally"? It was open for a long time. https://rationalwiki.org/w/index.php?title=Draft:Anarchism&action=history — Godless Raven ^talk_stalk^walk_balk 🌹 09:33, 19 August 2020 (UTC)

Wrong

The Zapatistas have lasted for 30 odd years and are doing remarkably well, and while they'd balk at being called anarchists, they still operate on anarchist principles: ie participatory democracy with horizontal organization. Catalonia actually DOUBLED food production and industrial output during the Spanish Revolution, and only buckled under the weight of sustained military pressure after YEARS of fighting. — Oxyaena ^Harass 04:42, 2 April 2021 (UTC)

Hell, Wikipedia has an entire list of active anarchist communities. Either way this section is an active strawman of anarchism, and is demonstrably false. Anarchists advocate for decentralization and confederalization, we don't advocate for mass society like our critics paint as us doing. The strawmans presented in this section are neatly refuted by this Thought Slime video, and by this document by Sam Dolgoff. — Oxyaena ^Harass 06:27, 2 April 2021 (UTC)

Large-scale galaxy brain argument

The argument that large scale is a problem is hilarious as it would render representative democracy, capital-L Liberalism and social democracy impossible. After all, concerns with popular sovereignity, civil liberties or seeking to eliminate inequality is impossible unless you can form a close intimate friendship with all single 7 billion individuals on earth. I am going to delete that part. Tuxer (talk) 21:52, 2 April 2021 (UTC)

No? The point is that factions and hierarchies are inevitable, not that Democracy means you are friends with everyone. CorruptUser 23:17, 2 April 2021 (UTC)

I think this seems like a substantial pragmatic critique. I would support re-adding the section. Serene (talk) 23:26, 2 April 2021 (UTC)

Actually, not as much was removed as I though. It could perhaps be more explicit about the essence of the issue, but I would support re-adding Dunbar's number. I also think the section could use a citation for the claim that the overwhelming majority of anarchist experiments have collapsed back into hierarchy. Assuming it is overwhelming, evidence shouldn't be too hard to find. Serene (talk) 23:30, 2 April 2021 (UTC)

There's to much to be had about when too much decentralization is harmful but the argument being made is one based on the cliché that anarchy is a form of chaos with no coordination and cooperation, a "rugged individualism" where everyone goes their own way. Now to be fair, practically all existing models for anarchism would suffer crippling problems of supply chains and logistics but those strong arguments are never invoked when it comes to anarchism, only clichés. By the way, the numbers argument can also be used against democracy which makes it suspicious considering that democracy is clearly not a pipe-dream. 00:49, 3 April 2021 (UTC)Tuxer (talk)

Dunbar's Number is not about how big "society" can be, it's about how big "our circle of friends" can be. It's relatively easy to form a society made up of nothing but friends who all know who is competent at what and who's a braggart and who is a jagoff, but once you go beyond this number, well, not everyone is friends with everyone else, and conflict resolution is no longer a trivial affair.

Society doesn't require everyone to be friends with everyone else, it just requires everyone to get along with minimal amounts of strife, and we've historically accomplished this through various institutions such as knights and barons, the police force, the military, the mafia (yes, really!), and so forth. You provide a security force a portion of your income, and they provide protection and a dispute resolution system. The monopoly on violence, whatever you want to call it. But these solutions have, on the large scale, always had some sort of hierarchy. Universally, with little exception, this devolved in feudalism and nobility. Nobles were not just a European phenomena, they were in virtually every civilization from Japan and Africa to the Americas. The idea behind Democracy is that while there's still a police force that reports to a Chief who reports to Da Mayor, this hierarchical structure is circular; the Ruler is elected by the public at large, and therefore is not the top rung. Obviously this isn't quite how it works, but it's quite rare to find someone who will tell you that an Absolute Monarchy is a better system than a Representative Republic.

Anarchism, however, relies on the assumption that we can minimize this strife without forming any hierarchical structures in the first place. It's a nice thought and all, but in practice, well, there's not much evidence for it beyond the niche communities.CorruptUser 01:30, 3 April 2021 (UTC)

As for Anarchism success/failure, wikipedia has a list of Anarchist societies, note that most of them collapsed in a matter of months, let alone an entire generation, and of the ones that are still ongoing, most of them are Anarchist organizations that are still a subset of likeminded individuals existing within a larger, hierarchical society rather than their own independent polities. A few aren't even Anarchist to begin with; rather, they have Anarchist sympathies. It may sound like arguing over the definitions in the dictionary, but the distinctions are important. The Zapatistas, for instance, are semi-autonomous within Mexico, and while on the surface they have a Libertarian-Socialist ideology, they themselves outright defy any political classification, and they still have leaders and lieutenants; there is still a hierarchy, even if the hierarchy is flatter and more fluid than the rest of Mexico.

Personally, I do believe that hierarchies should be as flat as possible, with as much social mobility between hierarchies and SES and so forth as possible, but that does not mean I think that they can be made completely flat. I also do support the idea of "workers owning the means of production". Do you know what another term for "worker that owns their own business" is? Small Business Owner. The Mom'n'Pop Shops. Just because I think we should work in a Capitalist framework does not mean I don't also have a seething hatred of unregulated monopolies. CorruptUser 02:05, 3 April 2021 (UTC)

The largest society that I know of that called themselves "anarchist" is the anarcho-syndicalism of the Confederación Nacional del Trabajo in Catalonia etc. However, from my reading, anarcho-syndicalism has some degree of structure and hierarchy (at least in practice) and seems to mix both the labor movement and Marxism in its philosophy. From my viewpoint, any area organized more on a small scale communal level (ie, most anarchist societies today) will probably find it difficult to do any sort of large scale infrastructure, transportation, trading and commerce, and defense (without some serious regression, eg bartering instead of currency). Dispute resolution is another thing that (MHO) gets pussyfooted around without great answers in anarchist communities as far as I can see (I mean, the default animal behavior for dispute resolution is violent conflict; as we see around the world, humans aren't much different in that regard, and it would be naive to think otherwise). If one actually adds the structure to manage scale and disputes, it would seem strange to continue to insist that it is "anarchist", at least to me. PanGalacticGargleBlaster (talk) 02:14, 3 April 2021 (UTC)

(EC)I suppose the rejoinder is "leaders are elected by the community so they are okay," but that leads to another problem with anarchism-hairsplitting over what hierarchy actually is.-Flandres (talk) 02:16, 3 April 2021 (UTC)

@CorruptUser I think part of that was directed at me. Your WP link was a bit broken, but I think I found what you were talking about. I linked to it in the relevant section, feel free to revert if you think it is unnecessary. Serene (talk) 03:10, 3 April 2021 (UTC)

Setting aside time frame, I've noticed most Anarchist societies in practice tend to overstretch themselves. Now, I don't have an anarchist society in a petri dish I can study under semi-controlled conditions. However, I would strongly suspect if I did, I'd find that a severely decentralized social structure has issues forming a stable bloc the size of say... Texas. It might however be able to form a stable bloc the size of say... Rode Island. Whether or not hierarchies are inevitable is irrelevant to some degree, as we can safely say that the social structures proposed by anarchism, while they have some success in small regions, do have issues with massive landmasses. Again, we don't really have that many anarchist societies to study under semi-controlled conditions, which kind of sucks to be honest. ☭Comrade GC☭^{Ministry of Praise} 03:59, 3 April 2021 (UTC)

That is an issue with judging a model which usually seeks to come to power in a armed revolution. Since it only comes to the fore in very troubled circumstances (when you could get support for a revolution), you can't really paint a secure picture of "what the average day in a happy/healthy anarchist society" even looks like.-Flandres (talk) 04:06, 3 April 2021 (UTC)

That would be my point with the "semi-controlled conditions", i.e. not in a war zone. We can speculate to some degree what such an anarchist society would look like based on what data we have, but that's all it is, speculation. National governments aren't exactly going to be keen to hand over land for experiments in social structures, etc, etc. So we aren't given the ability to gather conditions on anarchist states under favorable conditions. That being said, what data we currently do have indicates lateral organization has problems with large scale administration. This isn't insurmountable, (one obvious solution would be to have lots of small administrative structures rather than simply one or a handful), but it is a problem to be considered. ☭Comrade GC☭^{Ministry of Praise} 13:29, 3 April 2021 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ I see this as sort of a game theoretic question. Even if you could form a series of small administrative structures, this might be an inherently unstable situation. If a hierarchical society can organize better and manage more people, then it threatens the power to coerce smaller administrative structures and force them into the hierarchy. For anarchism to be stable in the long term, it not only has to give rise to administrative structures, it also has be to be able to compete with hierarchical societies of a comparable size and squash spontaneously emerging hierarchies. I see no justification for assuming that hierarchical societies would not form spontaneously, especially given that they obviously did so already at least once in history, and the fact that hierarchical societies have taken control over pretty much the entire world is prima facie evidence that they are able to exert disproportionate coercive force. My suspicion is that hierarchical society is a Nash equilibrium, even if in principle it would be better on average to eliminate all hierarchy. Obviously, as you say, this is largely speculation, but I don't think it is any more speculative than the claims made by anarchists. To add to this, I'm also concerned that problematic hierarchy would emerge even in the absence of advantageous effects. A community wherein a majority share some characteristic which a minority lacks threatens to produce prejudicial attitudes toward the minority which culminate in the establishment of hierarchy, along the lines of discrimination based on race, sex, religion, etc. It would be impossible to establish a community without some such characteristic, and it isn't clear to me that there is anything inherent to anarchism that would prevent or dissuade the development of such prejudices. Serene (talk) 14:02, 3 April 2021 (UTC)

So you would have to first make the world a "federation of very small communes," and then make sure every member of the federation remains a commune.-Flandres (talk)

@Serene I was arguing that there flaws in anarchist thought, not that it would work per se. @Flandres Or a landmass or region. But basically yes, that's the general idea. (Keep in mind that that's one proposed solution and itself may have unforeseen flaws, etc,etc,etc.) To both of you, I feel like you haven't quite grasped my stance on anarchist thought. I'm neutral, as I believe more hard data is needed to say one way or the other whether an anarchist society would be able to maintain its existence in the long run. ☭Comrade GC☭^{Ministry of Praise} 16:52, 3 April 2021 (UTC)

Actually, I was trying to express agreement with that, and then add some of my own observations. In particular, I was saying if a state emerged in a area surrounded by anarchistic communes, it would have an advantage it might be tempted to abuse. Of course all of this is hypothetical and given that anarchists are fairly minor in the grand scheme of things I think it will always remain hypothetical.-Flandres (talk) 16:56, 3 April 2021 (UTC)

@GrammarCommie I don't mean to try to make you defend a position you don't endorse. I think we're approaching largely the same issue, just from different angles. I do agree that limited data is an issue, and I admit that the stance I outlined above is fairly speculative. One thing I wish I had more knowledge of is how the favorability faced by past anarchist experiments compares to that faced by societies that experienced long-term success. I can hardly dispute taking a neutral position.

@CorruptUser Your new version looks better than the old one; the problem is more immediately clear. Your Guardian source isn't a link, though, and I can't figure out why. Serene (talk) 21:46, 3 April 2021 (UTC)

Yeah that is weird, it won't link for some reason CorruptUser 21:54, 3 April 2021 (UTC)

I figured it out, it wanted it to have an https:// at the start. Serene (talk) 21:59, 3 April 2021 (UTC)

Anarchist Library

I'm not sure if these are quality citation, they read more like Hagiographies rather than actual Academic studies, but I don't want an edit war. How much of this article, and which, should be linked to The Anarchist Library? CorruptUser 21:19, 3 April 2021 (UTC)

Well, we can at least link to them in discussion of what anarchists think of themselves. I can cite Fox News if I am describing the views of a politician who writes op/eds there.-Flandres (talk) 21:27, 3 April 2021 (UTC)

That's pretty much my stance on them as well. For all the various splinter groups of The Judean People's Front Anarchism, sure, it's useful. CorruptUser 21:31, 3 April 2021 (UTC)

Dunbar's Number

the 'monkeysphere' article doesn't understand what dunbar's number is, which makes sense since it's just a comedy article. dunbar's number is just a proposed number to describe the number of stable, mutual relationships people can maintain without effort. it does not mean you can't see other people as human. you can objectively and verifiably see strangers as human beings--Menace (talk) 19:56, 4 April 2021 (UTC)

Yeah, I'm pretty sure Dunbar's number is more of a theoretical number rather than something that has been experimentally verified. Plus, I think many Fire Emblem fans would disagree with you if you said that you can't see a 151st person as anything more than just another creature. Plutocow (talk) 20:36, 4 April 2021 (UTC)

Dunbar's number was first put forward in 1992 in this paper, and is based on extrapolation of data indicating a correlation between brain size and social network size among primates. Dunbar has continued to research this, and other research has linked social group size to more specific structures in the brain. It might not be any quantum mechanics, but this is the kind of research that is limited by ethical constraints: you can't just force people into social groups of particular sizes and see what happens. Given that the correlation holds for other primates, there is reason to think that it will hold for humans. The issue is not that it is physically impossible to see more than 150 people as human beings, the issue is that there are limits on how many relationships of a certain character you can maintain, which has implications for the long-term stability of a non-hierarchical social order. In a community where 95% of people are, say, evangelical Christians, it's easier to pin problems on the sinful minority group if the community has 1500 or 15000 people than if it had 15 or 150, because in a small enough community, everybody can form relationships that are close enough for it to be difficult to persecute people for prejudicial reasons. The larger communities are thus at greater risk of devolving into hierarchy. In a way, while with a lot of people you can still see strangers as people, it nevertheless becomes easier to demonize and dehumanize them, especially if they belong to a group with salient "Other" features. Serene (talk) 22:36, 4 April 2021 (UTC)

It's much more than that. 150 people are able to see everyone else as the close-knit group, and are willing to share and so forth. If you receive a call from your sister saying she's stuck at the airport, you'll drive over to pick her up, but if you receive a call from a random number and they say they need a lift, you are hanging the phone up. If your friend needs $500 to post bail you are probably going to help him out, but you would never simply walk into a jail and post bail for people you've never met. When a stranger claims to need something, you are more likely to be suspicious; for all you know they are a grifter or sponger. CorruptUser 22:51, 4 April 2021 (UTC)

@CorruptUser "but you would never simply walk into a jail and post bail for people you've never met." That absolute shouldn't be there. While it's unlikely, it's still possible. ☭Comrade GC☭^{Ministry of Praise} 22:55, 4 April 2021 (UTC)

I'm quite sure those people are so few and far between that they would have an insufficient impact on how society itself can be structured. What is the "best" social system for humans depends on what humans are; if at some point our phones and twitter accounts became sentient enough that it'd be impossible to commit crimes (I actually half-heartedly believe this is what social media will do to us in the near future), police and courts might become obsolete and we could potentially be Anarchist. Or something else. Until then, well, we work with humans as we have them now. Heck, the systems we have now might not have been possible millenia ago; the reason for Feudalism's near-ubiquitous state wasn't because of a giant conspiracy, but because when food was limited, the tribe that gave extra food/resources to a small group of professional soldier-rulers at the expense of having slightly weaker peasants was able to steamroll over the tribe entirely made up of slightly less malnourished peasants. We no longer live in the world where food is limited, and everyone can be fed enough to grow to their full potential height, strength, mental fortitude, etc, and so nobility is obsolete. CorruptUser 00:15, 5 April 2021 (UTC)

Again, those absolutes. We're talking populations here Cory, meaning we should favor odds over absolutes. I'm sorry for pressing this point, but it's sort of a hangup for me since any population makeup will have outliers. Hell, even in a socialist, anarchist, or communist (the end stage version) society these problems would still exist. ☭Comrade GC☭^{Ministry of Praise} 15:43, 5 April 2021 (UTC)

You are technically correct, which is the best kind of correct. Point is these outliers are outliers, and yes, society has to account for outliers such as "murderers", "terrorists" or "juggalos", they aren't going to make up the bulk of your day to day interactions. A society made up entirely of Mr Rogers is probably going to have different needs for laws and rules than a society made up entirely of Gordon Gekkos. We could try to turn the Gekkos into Rogers, but if you've ever been in public, you can be convinced that literally 3% of people are irredeemable rat-bastards who if given any advantage, no matter what the circumstances, will try to screw you over. Those people can not be fixed, and will always exist in any system you create. CorSock (talk) 16:00, 5 April 2021 (UTC)

The Large-Scale Problem, paragraph three

This is oversimplifying the issue. As I have stated in the past, the results of historical attempts at anarchism are at best inconclusive, with many of them suffering from external hostile forces as well as growing pains, hardly ideal conditions for a radical change in socio-economic administration. This is not to say that these examples were success stories however, merely that they were insufficient as to whether such models would work in practice in the long term. As the paragraph itself notes, these models were dependent on the consent of the governed, something all governing models are subject to. My issue therefore is that the paragraph commits too heavily to an absolutist conclusion of a complex subject with many unknown variables. ☭Comrade GC☭^{Ministry of Praise} 15:55, 23 May 2021 (UTC)

Fix'd for you, feel free to tweak further. Regardless of reasons why, there still haven;t been successful large Anarchist societies. Even Catalonia is basically propaganda, considering that before being crushed by external forces, the reality on the ground was one of the Red Terror, as self-appointed death squads killed tens of thousands throughout Spain and literally a quarter of those were in Catalonia alone. If that is what Anarchism looks like in practice, and what Anarchists actually hold up as an ideal, they are so utterly bankrupt that the words "they can go fuck themselves with a cactus and lemon juice" simply do not have enough power to express my contempt. CorSock (talk) 02:39, 24 May 2021 (UTC)

@SockPup "Regardless of reasons why, there still haven;t been successful large Anarchist societies." I never said there were. I'd like to direct your attention to the above section where I actually argued against that idea. As for Catalonia, it's one of the "better" examples due to how long it lasted, not because of the conduct of its membership. And on the flip side of that coin, I'd like to point to the first French revolution as an example of attempts at democratic republicanism gone awry. Not to discount your point mind you, but to broaden it to show that other systems have had similar horrors wrought during early attempts at turning theory into practice. ☭Comrade GC☭^{Ministry of Praise} 16:55, 27 May 2021 (UTC)

Haven't been on my sock for a while...

@GrammarCommie That's fair enough. CorruptUser 19:15, 21 June 2021 (UTC)

Mostly cleaned up

Alright, I think I cleaned up the bulk of the problems in the article. It's no longer a puff-piece, and now shows some of the warts of the movement in general. There's always more that can be done, of course. Thoughts? CorSock (talk) 17:15, 9 April 2021 (UTC)

@SockPup Seems good, though I think the AnCap section should highlight the differences between AnCaps and the majority of anarchist factions a bit more. ☭Comrade GC☭^{Ministry of Praise} 17:30, 9 April 2021 (UTC)

It's a significant improvement on the previous version. Minor style quibble re. mid-sentence capitalisation of Anarchist(s), Anarchism, and other ideologies: I wouldn't, it isn't common in print, and needs to be consistent throughout.

As for the ancap section, this line from the dedicated article probably deserves recycling: Ancaps have proven to be one of the greatest tools for anarchist unity in living memory, as more or less every single major anarchist group and tendency stands united in despising them.

It's not my work and I can't vouch for its accuracy, but it's always got a laugh when ancaps have come up in conversation. Helena Bonham Carter (talk) 20:21, 9 April 2021 (UTC)

Very impressed with the improvements. Techpriest ^{(I am Alpharius! / / / )} 20:43, 9 April 2021 (UTC)

Improvements? I've gone over in depth with GC on Discord why the "improvements" to this article are anything but. One of them being on Catalonia. It says Catalonia failed, but industrial productivity and food production actually doubled during the Catalonian Revolution. The only reason Catalonia "fell" was because of the betrayal by the Stalinists. They still held out for years. — Oxyaena ^Harass 08:47, 4 July 2021 (UTC)

Anarcho-primitivism as peak leftism?

According to my interpretation of the texts of John Zeran and Derrik Jensen (especially the last one, who needs his own article), AnPrim ideology is the final goal of every moonbat left ideology. It seems to join in a melting pot almost every struggle (class, gender, race and other identities) of the left, with hard green, radical anti-speceism (anti-taxonomy), radical luddism and post-left anti/post-civ principles. Personally I fear an upcoming hyper-luddite insurrection by the growing AnPrim movement targeting scientists, engineers and other STEM professionals to exterminate us almost like in People´s Republic of Kampuchea under Khmer Rouge rule, so I wish I am wrong... Meanwhile, I´m not able to open my mailbox. ^{— Unsigned, by: Nitrato de Chile / talk / contribs}

Ok boomer. Tuxer (talk) 00:14, 14 May 2021 (UTC)

Why? Nitrato de Chile (talk) 09:39, 14 May 2021 (UTC)

Because your "interpretation" of the anarchist texts you cite is far-right-wing propaganda that has no relationship whatsoever to any philosophy of the left. Ianbrettcooper (talk) 14:35, 23 May 2021 (UTC)

Alt-right propaganda? Those frogged biggots are starting to praise Unabomber as well (or, at least, the youngest ones), and they´re getting luddites too (especially neo-pagans). No relationship with any post-Marcusse leftist philosophy? Isn´t the contemporary (far)-left trying to unify itself around Kimberlé Crenshaw´s principles, rejecting even Marxism in essentialist identitarian grounds? Have you gone recently to any art exhibition at main modern museums or galleries? Those places have been the real main platform to express marcussian left positions (despite the existence of the art market), that´s it, undefined and fuzzy anarcho-primitivism.

Nowadays, if any leftist intellectual rejects the logical conclusion of neo-primitivism, it´ll be because not being far-left enough (due to intellectual cowardice, hiding of personal "privileges" or the embracement of a whimsically undefined utopia) or just plain doomerism (collapsitarianism, defeatism, casual essentialist misantrophy...) Nitrato de Chile (talk) 10:41, 27 June 2021 (UTC) Nitrato de Chile

No successful experiment of anarchism?

Article states... "There has been no successful "experiment" of Anarchists running a large city for an extended period of time, let alone an entire country." Catalonia's physical area is larger than Belgium, and it was run successfully as an anarchist confederation (including allied communist and socialist organizations) for 3 years. This confederation successfully implemented anarchism and communism longer than any supposedly communist-oriented state ever has. It was the largest successful experiment of anarchism in history. Even after it came under attack from fascist forces, it held out longer than the liberal Spanish Republic. The idea that it was not successful is complete nonsense. Ianbrettcooper (talk) 15:11, 23 May 2021 (UTC)

I'd like to see evidence that Anarchist Catalonia successfully implemented Higher Stage Communism. As for "successful", that would really depend on your definition of the word. Personally, I'd define a "successful" social, political, and economic system as one which not only meets its ideological goals but is also able to survive the pressures of practical existence. As such, it is my view that while Catalonia was one of the better samples, it was not the best. ☭Comrade GC☭^{Ministry of Praise} 13:54, 23 May 2021 (UTC)

This isn't a question of whether my interpretation is 100% right. My interpretation isn't in the article, so that's not the issue here. The question is, is the article correct? I suggest it is not, for reasons I've stated. Ianbrettcooper (talk) 14:38, 23 May 2021 (UTC)

You made claims, defend them or redract them. ☭Comrade GC☭^{Ministry of Praise} 15:39, 23 May 2021 (UTC)

Catalonia also murdered thousands of people by lynch mobs. It's only "Anarchist" to dumbass college kids who never had to suffer through the reality. Or if they are fully aware of the reality, well, those ones can go play in Reactor 4 of Pripyat. CorSock (talk) 02:45, 24 May 2021 (UTC)

CNT's Catalonia was not real anarchism... just a headless sindicalism with trotskyist characteristics.

They even forced some kind of law by mobocratic ways.

Honestly, real anarchism is nowadays impossible to achieve, and I'm not sure so called «primitive societies» were that. Nitrato de Chile (talk) 21:21, 3 July 2021 (UTC) Nitrato de Chile ^{— Unsigned, by: Nitrato de Chile / talk / contribs}

You obviously have no clue what you're talking about here lol. Catalonia was anarcho-syndicalist. Yes, it was proper anarchism. What do you think anarchism even is? — Oxyaena ^Harass 03:16, 4 July 2021 (UTC)

I insist: Anarcho-syndicalism and other similar ideologies aren´t really anarchist. Ask Max Striner, Bob Black or Jason McQuinn about what´s anarchism actually about... Real anarchism is not only about throwing away the capital and the state, but about abolishing ANY hierarchy (even the most justifiable, such as labour division) and, as a consequence, any form of civilization or even organized society. Proudhon, Bakunin, Kropotkin, Goldman, Bookchin, Ukraine free-STATE, Catalonia, Rojava, Neo-Zapatistas... were more about a mixture of council communism, libertarian municipalism or just decentralised maoism. Real anarchist were ideologies such as Egoism, Post-Left Anarchism, Insurrectionary Anarchism, Anarcho-nihilism and maybe AnPrims and Deep Ecologists. Nitrato de Chile (talk) 11:53, 4 July 2021 (UTC) Nitrato de Chile 10:53, 4 July 2021 (UTC) Nitrato de Chile

No True Scotsman, eh? You throw out these terms without actually knowing what they mean. — Oxyaena ^Harass 11:12, 4 July 2021 (UTC)

Well, according to you, what do they mean actually? Those real anarchist I´ve mentioned reject the other ideologies as "commodified pseudo-radical ideologies in a saturated marketplace". Nitrato de Chile (talk) 11:53, 4 July 2021 (UTC) Nitrato de Chile

You're still engaging in the No True Scotsman fallacy. — Oxyaena ^Harass 20:19, 4 July 2021 (UTC)

And you haven´t explained me what´s the real meaning of Anarchism and how to distinguish its variants from clearly fake anarchisms (such as AnCraps); or even more important: What´s the ultimate variant we have to take? This one? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Total_liberation Nitrato de Chile (talk) 11:17, 5 July 2021 (UTC) Nitrato de Chile

Oxy, could you explain what anarchism is in say, three sentences (avoiding jargon and vague terms?). ShabiDOO 01:28, 6 July 2021 (UTC)

Oxy. Might you answer that question? ShabiDOO 17:17, 12 July 2021 (UTC)

Anarchism is a political philosophy that is skeptical of authority and rejects coercive hierarchies as harmful and oppressive. You happy? — Oxyaena ^Harass 00:51, 14 July 2021 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ That's just the first sentence on Wikipedia's article, so lazily edited that it still fits the legal definition of plagiarism. Is this the first time you've been reading about anarchism? CorruptUser 02:40, 14 July 2021 (UTC)

No, but it's clearly your first time. — Oxyaena ^Harass 05:08, 14 July 2021 (UTC)

Dunbar's Number

Why the hell is this shit still on the article? To use the logic of this article, Dunbar's Number should also render liberal democracy impossible, but it clearly doesn't. — Oxyaena ^Harass 16:25, 12 July 2021 (UTC)

Liberal-Democracy also allows for a police force, state coercion, and a hierarchy. CorruptUser 17:36, 12 July 2021 (UTC)

Except that coercion is not the argument being used. The argument being used is that there's a Magic Number™ of people you care about deeply. To everyone else you're a complete sociopath. Such an argument would render liberalism, social democracy and social justice impossible ideologies. There are far better arguments and the scientific status of Dunbar's number is dubious anyway Tuxer (talk) 19:26, 12 July 2021 (UTC)

But it is, it's arguing that beyond this number societies require some form of coercion and hierarchy to function. And if you think people play nice in public just because they are good-natured and not because they won't face consequences for being a jackass, please look up Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory. CorruptUser 20:07, 12 July 2021 (UTC)

Given that Dunbar's Number's credibility as scientific is dubious at best, your argument rings hollow. I took the liberty of deleting the large wall of inane text you decided to pollute this article with. — Oxyaena ^Harass 20:25, 12 July 2021 (UTC)

@Oxyaena@Tuxer There's some similar concepts that are supposed to have better data behind them. @CorruptUser You're over-applying the concept. It isn't about "goodness" or "niceness" but how large a network of social connections can get before it starts suffering from apathy. We actually don't care about everyone in aggregate, more we care about abstracted group entities, and even then only insofar as they relate to our social and emotional connections. ☭Comrade GC☭^{Ministry of Praise} 20:26, 12 July 2021 (UTC)

Find a better argument to use than Dunbar's Number, Cory. Better yet: leave this article alone and let someone actually competent in the subject write it. — Oxyaena ^Harass 20:28, 12 July 2021 (UTC)

I see that everyone is just going to act like ideologues and ignore me... ☭Comrade GC☭^{Ministry of Praise} 20:32, 12 July 2021 (UTC)

(EC)

Yes, someone who knows so much about Anarchism they don't know how to even define it. /snark.

@GrammarCommie, I'll concede that point. At the risk of starting an edit war, can I revert Oxy's vandalism? CorruptUser 20:35, 12 July 2021 (UTC)

Vandalism my ass, your bullshit addition of shoddy pseudoscience into the article was vandalism. — Oxyaena ^Harass 20:36, 12 July 2021 (UTC)

Shabi asked you a question above. You have a nasty habit of refusing to answer questions. Could you answer it? CorruptUser 20:37, 12 July 2021 (UTC)

I don't know how many times I have to say this: I have executive dysfunction, answering questions on the spot isn't easy for me. Either way, that still doesn't change the fact you shoved a bunch of pseudoscience and strawmen into an otherwise perfectly fine article. — Oxyaena ^Harass 20:39, 12 July 2021 (UTC)

I've never seen you mention that before. We don't need you to answer it right this second, but we would like an answer at some point. CorruptUser 20:42, 12 July 2021 (UTC)

Oxy, while I am EXTREMELY dubious about this executive disfunction that hinders you from answering questions on the spot, not least of all because in the past you have quickly answered questions which you actually had the answer to, and in the past you have also engaged in multiple techniques for avoiding answering simple questions or challenges to what you say...I will give you the benefit of the doubt on this. None the less...that excuse is TOTAL BULLSHIT as I asked you this question several times over the span of months, and in this very talk page I asked you a few days ago to answer the question. All of this has given you AMPLE time to formulate an answer. I, and I am sure other users, are fed up of you telling people what anarchism is NOT but NEVER telling us what it is. I agree, none of this is an excuse for adding speudo science, but that doesn't excuse you dismissing many other valid claims or criticisms of anarchy. I will give you 10 more days to answer the question. That is more than enough time to accommodate your "executive dysfunction". Please, do not yet again avoid this extremely reasonable request. At this point I simply don't believe you have a clear idea what anarchy actually is except for some vague jargon loaded soundbites. Prove me wrong or admit this. ShabiDOO 08:16, 13 July 2021 (UTC)

Anarchism is a method of analysis first and foremost, and to be fair my own ideas and opinions have evolved over the years, so an answer I would've given a year ago isn't the same one I would give now. Anarchism is a method of analysis, anarchy is the ideal, but one in which I don't think I will see in my lifetime. I believe in human emancipation first and foremost, and any method capable of delivering that I support. I oppose coercive hierarchies and the like because they directly inhibit emancipation and enable exploitation and oppression. — Oxyaena ^Harass 10:47, 13 July 2021 (UTC)

That is even worse than no answer. Cutting away the irrelevant text...your definition is: anarchy is a form of analysis. A political ideology cannot be reduced to an analysis. An analysis, like in say, Marxism, may be an essential part of it that doesn't provide me with any answers to how it is implemented. To show you how absurd your answer is, if someone proposed they replace a university management or a business management with radical new plan X and the answer to "what is plan X" was: Plan X is an analysis. I don't like y and z but I do like a and b. It's hard to imagine anyone going: By god you are right let's do plan X. How does plan X work Oxy? By what mechanism does it resolve problems? By what mechanism are important policies made and changed? How are important things like safety, basic freedoms and the necessities of life ensured? I haven't the slightest idea. Please explain any of this to me. "Let's just try it with no clear plan, a vague goal and hope it all works out" is an extremely foolish thing to do when it comes to organising society. ShabiDOO 11:54, 13 July 2021 (UTC)

I'm a post-leftist so I'm not a typical anarchist. I don't really care for "society" one way or another, it's a meaningless abstraction I feel no particular loyalty to. All sorts of atrocities have been committed in the name of "society," I consider solidarity to be much more relevant to any forms of social struggle than meaningless abstractions. — Oxyaena ^Harass 12:01, 13 July 2021 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ Okay Oxy. So now Anarchy is a form of analysis AND a meaningless abstraction. I asked for "no jargon" and nothing "vague", but that was clearly asking for too much. ShabiDOO 13:25, 13 July 2021 (UTC)

If you need things dumbed down for you, then what the hell are you doing discussing political philosophy? — Oxyaena ^Harass 15:54, 13 July 2021 (UTC)

And if you can't explain your ideas in simple terms, without jargon or being vague, what the hell are you doing discussing political philosophy?

There isn't a subject on Earth that can't be explained in Layman's terms by someone who actually understands the material. CorruptUser 18:06, 13 July 2021 (UTC)

Oxy, don't mask your intellectual fraud with intellectual superiority. You have nothing approaching a clear idea of what Anarchy is, are incapable of expressing anything beyond jargony drivel, employ multiple evasive tactics to answering simple questions and yet lecture others on how they get things wrong. This is the utter definition of a post-modern hack who critiques and types out claims that are phrased in such a way that they cannot be critiqued. Any intellectual statement that is not part of a cogent argument that can be scrutinised...is either poetry or garbage. A little poetry can be permitted...garbage should be avoided at all costs. There is nothing wrong with admitting you are unsure about something. ShabiDOO 18:13, 13 July 2021 (UTC)

Random topic break

Have you read those articles I've send you a few months ago on the Saloon, Cory? I think they make a stronger case than Dunbar's Number against against Anarchism in Large Scale. GeeJayK (talk) 20:43, 12 July 2021 (UTC)

Alright, how about this: You can readd the section with the caveat that Dunbar's Number isn't exactly proven science. Is that a fair compromise? I know I'm being a bit of a dick right now, and I apologize for that, but my criticisms of this section still remain accurate. — Oxyaena ^Harass 20:44, 12 July 2021 (UTC)

@GeeJayK, could you resend them, or better yet put them here? The youtube point from Hayek is right, and another criticism that can be added; we need to expect that everyone adheres to the same laws in an area, something that absolutely can't be done without some form of local government. CorruptUser 21:19, 12 July 2021 (UTC)

Ah yes, the neolibs simping to the neolib god. — Oxyaena ^Harass 21:21, 12 July 2021 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ So, Cory's just gonna shove his pseudoscientific editorializing back into the article? — Oxyaena ^Harass 21:28, 12 July 2021 (UTC)

Honestly the entire section could do with a complete rework, but I'm too lazy to do anything right now. — Oxyaena ^Harass 21:31, 12 July 2021 (UTC)

The main source was this article by Mancur Olson, political scientist from the University of Maryland. I'm not sure if this link works, if you don't have acess I can get it on JSTOR and upload it for you. GeeJayK (talk) 21:36, 12 July 2021 (UTC)

No, I'm redoing while adding some criticism of Dunbar. CorruptUser 21:39, 12 July 2021 (UTC)

Ok Oxy, explain how "not everyone is friends with everyone else" somehow makes the claim that social justice projects are impossible? Until then, that should go. CorruptUser 21:41, 12 July 2021 (UTC)

How does it make anarchy impossible? When you figure that out you get your answer. — Oxyaena ^Harass 22:14, 12 July 2021 (UTC)

Why do you answer a question with another question?

It makes Anarchism impossible because we are able to resolve disputes and share with our friends and family, but not the same way with strangers. A small group can do this without any problem if it wants. For large groups we need a government or hierarchical system to resolve disputes, doesn't matter if it's a secular police force, a religious order of priests or even a Mafia-run kleptocracy. When it comes to "social justice" or whatever, we can still do that so long as we have a means of establishing rules and maintaining the peace. Democracy doesn't require that we get along without a government or centralized structure, but Anarchism literally does. CorruptUser 22:23, 12 July 2021 (UTC)

(EC) Also, this article by Tyler Cowan and this one by Randall Holcombe. GeeJayK (talk) 21:42, 12 July 2021 (UTC)

Ok, the roving bandit one seems vaguely familiar. I think I had mentioned that that was pretty much an on the nose description of Organized Crime? Mafia comes in, and has every incentive to murder every other organized criminal and all of the petty crooks, instead collecting tribute each month, i.e. Taxes, but now that the Mafia had complete control, it'd be better if the shopkeepers kept a little bit more so they could reinvest or the Mafia could provide more services so the shopkeepers made more money they could pay in tribute each month...CorruptUser 22:04, 12 July 2021 (UTC)

Two of your sources are paywalled and I can only read the description text so I can't offer much regarding them. The other one starts by describing how Mises, Hayek and Friedman were "defenders of liberty" because nothing says "defending liberty" like (in Mises' case) defending historical fascism while in the case of the other two defend a tyranical bastard in Chile. For not speaking that their economic model is a "how to" guide for oligarchs. Tuxer (talk) 22:51, 12 July 2021 (UTC)

There are better arguments against anarchism such as logistics and communication, supply chains and the extraction-manufacturing pipeline. Unfortunately all my research has only provide ideology-ladden critique instead of based on something solid. Tuxer (talk) 22:54, 12 July 2021 (UTC)

You know, an ideology can have more than one criticism of it, right? Feel free to add in the logistics issues or whatever in a new section. CorruptUser 23:03, 12 July 2021 (UTC)

(EC) @Tuxer My opinion on Hayek and Friedman is neutral at best, and in Mises is overall negative, but the mistakes of these authors on dictatorships were not related to Holcombe's article; that's just Tu quoque. Also, just for the record, Mises "support" on Fascism was actually a critique. By that time many people weren't aware of the horrors of fascism for two reasons: 1 the worst part of Fascism only happened 15 years after the release of Liberalism (by that time, Mises, a Jew, had already fled the neutral Switzerland afraid of the nazis) and 2: dictatorships are overall good at hiding their crimes. You can see, in the 1936 Olympics there were just a few complaints about racism even though the Dachau concentration camp was in full swing since 1933, and Charles Chaplin said he would never had released The Great Dictator if he was aware of what was going on in Europe by that time. Indeed, by that time most democracies had fascist parties and many other major liberal authors, like Benedetto Croce incurred on this mistake by that time. You can read for yourself here. It's a shitty book, just like most of what the man wrote, but he critized Fascism there. He also supported drugs legalization and open borders on this same book written almost 100 years ago. In Friedman's case, he stated many times that he had no sympathy for the Pinochet's political government, but he believe (he was wrong) that economic freedom would probably lead Chile to political liberty. If you want to read the other articles I can upload them somewhere else. GeeJayK (talk) 23:20, 12 July 2021 (UTC)

I'm not married to the Dunbar's Number itself, but rather that Anarchism has the fatal flaw in that it can't organize at the larger scale. People who are friends can organize without dispute, but beyond this, factions form and it's impossible to organize without a hierarchy and/or coercion of some form. CorruptUser 23:35, 12 July 2021 (UTC)

@GeeJayK I was not making a personal attack on you though I disagree with your opinion on Mises as it is obvious that the man saw fascists as useful idiots against communists, which is a position that is not at all critical of fascism. Also how could Pinochet "lead to political liberty" when that thug destroyed Chilean democracy in the first place. Also, yes if you can upload those docs I will give them a look.

Chilean Democracy was already in crisis, which is how Pinochet took over in the first place. Allende was in the middle of nationalizing everything, which pissed off the US for obvious reasons, but one of his major acts was the "land reform" which saw 60% of Chile's farmland "redistributed". While we don't know what would've been, it's not an extreme claim to say that Pinochet prevented things from being oh so much worse, and I say this fully aware that Pinochet was a sick fucker who trained dogs to rape people. CorruptUser 15:29, 13 July 2021 (UTC)

So what you're saying is attempting to address land inequality is a bad thing, now? Smfh. — Oxyaena ^Harass 15:51, 13 July 2021 (UTC)

Considering that "land reform" almost always results in mass deaths and famines, yes, it usually is a Very Bad Thing. See Soviet Ukraine, Great Leap Forward, Zimbabwe, etc. CorruptUser 15:55, 13 July 2021 (UTC)

Then what would you propose we do to address systemic inequities in land ownership? — Oxyaena ^Harass 15:58, 13 July 2021 (UTC)

Progressive income and inheritance taxes. CorruptUser 16:00, 13 July 2021 (UTC)

You just name-dropped two things, you didn't propose any actual concrete policies. The way I see it, we should treat land inequity like we do monopolies, or at least should treat monopolies. Break them up and distribute them more equitably. Material conditions are different everywhere, and there is no universal solution to address issues like these. With that in mind, the ideal for me is what I previously suggested. — Oxyaena ^Harass 16:03, 13 July 2021 (UTC)

Those are the policies. Progressive taxes bias the market towards smaller firms by creating an artificial inefficiency of scale. For example, you could exempt the first $40,000 in farm income from tax, then tax all income above that at 40%. If 100 small farmers could earn $50k for each of their personal 40 acre plots but due to efficiencies of scale a mega-farmer would earn $60k per plot, the result is that the small farms would earn $46k per plot after tax, but the mega-farm would only earn $36k per plot. This would make it more attractive for a Mom&Pop to own a farm than for a mega-corp. It's better to prevent the monopoly from forming than to break it up after the fact.

Inheritance taxes function as a bit of a reset every few decades, but the real problem is that the megacorps don't die. Sure, the shareholders themselves die off and then the heirs have to sell some of the shares to the public, but the megacorp itself keeps growing and merging until the entire industry is just a single company, and then the public gets screwed even if the shares change hands every so often. Again, better to use the tax system to bias against monopolization in the first place. CorruptUser 16:18, 13 July 2021 (UTC)

And what about their workers? They're the ones doing the actual heavy lifting, surely they should get a say in how things are run? Or is economic democracy too socialist for your liking? — Oxyaena ^Harass 05:15, 14 July 2021 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘@Tuxer I understood that you weren't attacking me. If anything, I'm sorry if my post was too aggressive, it wasn't my intention. First, about Friedman, as I said, I believe he was wrong about (although, as our own article on him mentions, Chile did became a democracy after 20 years of Pinochet, while Cuba is still a dictatorship after 60 years). Point is, people tend to think that he believe dictatorships were ok as long as they were capitalistic dictatoships. It's not what he believed. Hayek's mistake was far more complex and boring so I won't elaborate. Still regarding Mises' mistake on the Fascists, if you read the whole chapter you'll see that he disagrees with them. Far less than what we do today, it's true. But also far more than the average right-winger by that time (although Mises considered himself too progressive on the social aspects to be a right-winger he was one). Just like pretty much most of the left agreed with what the Comintern said by that time but now we all hate tankies that was the staple position even among classical liberals. I repeat, they were downright wrong. Mises was wrong and I don't think much of him as a political thinker (and indeed, even as an economist). But his views were advanced by that time at this point. GeeJayK (talk) 21:33, 14 July 2021 (UTC)