I never implied it was pacifist, but only that it’s ineffective. Without some form of a legal heirarchy where a group is empowered to use force to deal with bad actors those bad actors would run amok because normal people are, by and large, bystanders.
Do you know why we have a professional army that dedicates all their time to training and readiness? Because that’s what it takes to not be steamrolled by your fascist neighbor state who wants what you have. You can’t have some lackadaisical ad hoc minute men arrangement, there are too many humans and too many competing interests for that to work in the modern world. We aren’t jungle tribes, we’re not all going to go live in communial farming homesteads or whatever. So where do I live? In a city with housing? Who makes sure my lights stay on and that my landlord didn’t use asbestos and lead pipes when building the place? Who has the authority to say water must be safe to drink? If everyone else in my building doesn’t believe lead pipes are dangerous am I just shit out of luck if I don’t replace the pipes in the facility myself?
You can’t just have mob justice or random individuals deciding based on their own arbitrary, subjective opinion how to carry out justice at any given moment. If I see a guy shoplifting and just shoot him, who is in a position to tell me that I was wrong and what gives them the right under a system of anarchy? Does that person’s wife or brother now get to shoot me?
I’ve never once met an anarchist who can coherently explain how, in a practical sense, you ensure justice and order at a large scale without a state, legal framework and a system in which individuals (whether they be democratic representatives, judges, cops, military members etc.) are granted power by the collective to make judgements and decisions based on an agreed upon legally binding code of law. When you press them on any given specific issue they basically just start describing the organs of a state.
You speak as if we’re in a functional system where people are safe, getting here was smooth sailing, and I’m proposing a preposterous idea. Our system currently does not work and billions have died to get to this fucked up place. Why would you think a different system will fail because it is not like just the current failing system?
If I see a guy shoplifting and just shoot him, who is in a position to tell me that I was wrong
The community, a functional anarchist community wouldn’t tolerate this, it would become a crime in itself. A functional anarchist community would defend itself and have members ready to do so. If somebody shot another person for something like shoplifting (which wouldn’t be a thing in anarchism duh) that would be murder and that person would now be at risk of termination as a mortal threat to the community. People don’t usually desire to escalate things though, so contrived examples like this are silly.
You can’t have some lackadaisical ad hoc minute men arrangement, there are too many humans and too many competing interests for that to work in the modern world.
I’m not one of those that thinks anarchism is a drop-in replacement for capitalism or that anarchism can come from violent revolution. If anything close to anarchism could ever happen it would take at least a couple generations (of cultural change) and co-occur with degrowth. We know that our current system is unsustainable, so we’re either going to end up with something like anarcho-communism + degrowth or we won’t exist anymore. There is no way a hierarchical system that exploits that planet to support billions will be able to exist beyond the next decades, can’t happen. Even socialism just makes things more equal while we destroy the planet.
I’ve never once met an anarchist who can coherently explain how, in a practical sense, you ensure justice and order at a large scale without a state, legal framework
The scale and ways of life now are the result of an exploitative economic system. Without that it’s not our nature to form into efficiently exploitable structures. We’d form into manageable communities as humans have done for hundreds of thousands of years prior to the appearance of the state.
Who makes sure my lights stay on and that my landlord didn’t use asbestos and lead pipes when…
You and your community work to keep the lights on and other needs met. For asbestos and lead pipes, the motivations to do these things come from an exploitative economic system. In anarchism, if someone sells you poison, you can defend yourself. There won’t be many people selling lead pipes when their life is on the line rather than a fine or job loss.
You can’t just have mob justice or random individuals deciding based on their own arbitrary, subjective opinion how to carry out justice at any given
So instead we should have the opinion of the rich powerful racist people enforced by people with a license to kill and who use in inordinately more often on vulnerable populations who cannot legally protect themselves?
Does that person’s wife or brother now get to shoot me?
Yes, and the community might say, “well, he deserved it, have a taco”. Our current system basically allows most men to rape women and the woman has no recourse because the state protects the rapist. This is not a working system.
I never implied it was pacifist, but only that it’s ineffective. Without some form of a legal heirarchy where a group is empowered to use force to deal with bad actors those bad actors would run amok because normal people are, by and large, bystanders.
Do you know why we have a professional army that dedicates all their time to training and readiness? Because that’s what it takes to not be steamrolled by your fascist neighbor state who wants what you have. You can’t have some lackadaisical ad hoc minute men arrangement, there are too many humans and too many competing interests for that to work in the modern world. We aren’t jungle tribes, we’re not all going to go live in communial farming homesteads or whatever. So where do I live? In a city with housing? Who makes sure my lights stay on and that my landlord didn’t use asbestos and lead pipes when building the place? Who has the authority to say water must be safe to drink? If everyone else in my building doesn’t believe lead pipes are dangerous am I just shit out of luck if I don’t replace the pipes in the facility myself?
You can’t just have mob justice or random individuals deciding based on their own arbitrary, subjective opinion how to carry out justice at any given moment. If I see a guy shoplifting and just shoot him, who is in a position to tell me that I was wrong and what gives them the right under a system of anarchy? Does that person’s wife or brother now get to shoot me?
I’ve never once met an anarchist who can coherently explain how, in a practical sense, you ensure justice and order at a large scale without a state, legal framework and a system in which individuals (whether they be democratic representatives, judges, cops, military members etc.) are granted power by the collective to make judgements and decisions based on an agreed upon legally binding code of law. When you press them on any given specific issue they basically just start describing the organs of a state.
You speak as if we’re in a functional system where people are safe, getting here was smooth sailing, and I’m proposing a preposterous idea. Our system currently does not work and billions have died to get to this fucked up place. Why would you think a different system will fail because it is not like just the current failing system?
The community, a functional anarchist community wouldn’t tolerate this, it would become a crime in itself. A functional anarchist community would defend itself and have members ready to do so. If somebody shot another person for something like shoplifting (which wouldn’t be a thing in anarchism duh) that would be murder and that person would now be at risk of termination as a mortal threat to the community. People don’t usually desire to escalate things though, so contrived examples like this are silly.
I’m not one of those that thinks anarchism is a drop-in replacement for capitalism or that anarchism can come from violent revolution. If anything close to anarchism could ever happen it would take at least a couple generations (of cultural change) and co-occur with degrowth. We know that our current system is unsustainable, so we’re either going to end up with something like anarcho-communism + degrowth or we won’t exist anymore. There is no way a hierarchical system that exploits that planet to support billions will be able to exist beyond the next decades, can’t happen. Even socialism just makes things more equal while we destroy the planet.
The scale and ways of life now are the result of an exploitative economic system. Without that it’s not our nature to form into efficiently exploitable structures. We’d form into manageable communities as humans have done for hundreds of thousands of years prior to the appearance of the state.
You and your community work to keep the lights on and other needs met. For asbestos and lead pipes, the motivations to do these things come from an exploitative economic system. In anarchism, if someone sells you poison, you can defend yourself. There won’t be many people selling lead pipes when their life is on the line rather than a fine or job loss.
So instead we should have the opinion of the rich powerful racist people enforced by people with a license to kill and who use in inordinately more often on vulnerable populations who cannot legally protect themselves?
Yes, and the community might say, “well, he deserved it, have a taco”. Our current system basically allows most men to rape women and the woman has no recourse because the state protects the rapist. This is not a working system.