8 ms·

All the services they say they want are provided by the municipal government. How are they going to provide all the services of the government without the gover

All the services they say they want are provided by the municipal government. How are they going to provide all the services of the government without the government?

thechao 9y ago
All the anarchists I’ve met think citizens will spontaneously combust^W form committees, chosen by their peers using the Australian method, and those committees will cause work to happen by raising funds from interested peers. Like Mad Max, but with smiles.
- logfromblammo 9y ago
  Committees in anarchism are more like the PTA, band boosters, rotary club, or your HOA--everything that has no statutory authority, and no power to tax. They form whenever someone thinks it might be even worse to not have one, everyone hates attending the meetings, and they are almost entirely dependent on one to five people devoting too much of their own energy to holding it all together. There might be a contract in place, and it might mandate that dues be paid. In lieu of mandatory dues, they will always be strapped for cash and either begging for donations or coming up with annoying fundraiser ideas. They might fork, and one or both parts of the fork will fail, because some of the critical support went to the other part of the fork. And some of them will actually be more like organized crime families or street gangs than the PTA. In other words, anarchy is happening right now, and you can see how it works right now. A bunch of crazies devoted to renegade pothole repair is a perfect example. They come together because of potholes. They fix potholes. People pay attention to them as long as they care about potholes. When the pothole problem is fixed, everyone forgets they ever existed, then stop paying attention and giving money. They either drift away to find something else to do, or become the lonely, ignored crusaders against potholes that people remember hearing about that one time, but had no idea they were still around and still fixing potholes. It doesn't scale, though. Anarchy can only exist at the local level because governments tackle many of the big problems and force people to pay for the solutions with taxes. Imagine if your city government operated like the mafia (Chicago!), or if your state government operated like a giant PTA meeting. It might get as far as agreeing to set a budget of $500 for the spring graduation party before removing someone from the gallery for shouting about invading foreign armies, and would still be answering stupid questions about the dress code for service dogs when the soldiers started dragging everyone out. Mr. Humungus (a reasonable feller) is president of the Juicetakers Committee, Toecutter vice president, Feral Kid as secretary, Gyropilot as treasurer, and someone that looks exactly like your Mom covered in warpaint as the member-at-large. The president has advanced a proposal that you just walk away and give us your juice. We took a vote, and it passed unanimously. We are also selling cookie dough as part of our fall fundraiser. So give us the juice, and please buy some cookies on your way out into the desert. I'd prefer it if they were shooting guns at me.
dbingham 9y ago
That is always the question asked. They would argue that things could be voluntarily self organized, instead of structured in coercive heirarchies. In other words, they would say that people who are capable of being doctors should provide medical care, and organize themselves in a way to make sure that care gets provided sensibly. When potholes need fixing the community should meet and figure out how to get it done. They believe we can do all of these things with out needing an organized state that gets to dictate anything, money to incentivize, or police as coercive enforcement. I'm sure I'm butchering it a bit. It might not be quite that simple, but it's along those lines. And yes, it's idealistic as hell. That said, I know a lot of anarchist activists and damn, do those guys know how to get shit done.
- jschwartzi 9y ago
  The rub is that your need leaders in the sense of initiating things, but that you're without an organized class of people who are paid to lead.
  - dbingham 9y ago
    You actually don't need leaders. I've been part of plenty of leaderless flat heirarchies that self organized pretty damned well. People just stepped up to do things that needed doing. The problem isn't that people can't function with out leaders. The issue is more that, those sorts of flat heirarchies don't tend to scale well. But that doesn't necessarily mean they couldn't, if we put some effort and education into training people how to operate in them better. I'm less skeptical of the idea that we could operate in self organized non-heirarchies than I am of the idea that would could do away with the money and all formal organizations. The idea that we could do everything by informal agreement just seems really unstable to me. Like you'd never quite know what the rules were and like they could change at any moment.
- eeZah7Ux 9y ago
  > And yes, it's idealistic as hell. Not really. In countless rural societies, throughout the world and through history, it's been commonplace for people to help each other with building their homes, making dirt roads and small bridges, making food and many other tasks - without charging each other for money or bartering. Essentially a small village can work much like a very large family and people would use money almost only when interacting with strangers in a different village.
wz1000 9y ago
From the article: “There can be no ethical services provided by the government because they are facilitated through the power of the gun,” writes PARC, presumably while flipping the bird like in the top photo. “Don’t get us wrong, we believe that many of these services are crucial for society, like healthcare, education, and maintained roadways, but we believe that the way to achieve access for all is by deconstructing the state and capitalism, as well as other coercive hierarchies that exist in our society. It is this driving philosophy that motivates our actions, not only to fix the potholes, but to take power back from the state, into the hands of the people.”
- nailer 9y ago
  > facilitated through the power of the gun Fascinating, seeing as many people's experience of self-identified 'anarchism' is through the power of the fist.
  - icebraining 9y ago
    Isn't using your fists just self-defense when someone is pointing a gun at you?
    - nailer 9y ago
      Sure, but in most cases anarchism is 'bash the fash' with 'fascist' being defined as 'anyone we don't like' including unarmed people. Fists or makeshift weapons are typically used as they can't be traced. It's odd: anarchists openly justify violence in defense from 'fascism', whereas fascism is correctly defined as obtaining and maintaining power through violence, without seeing the irony.
      - icebraining 9y ago
        Are you sure it's "most cases", or just the ones you hear about in the news? How many do you know personally? Beware of the availability bias. As an anecdote, I live near a left-wing anarchist group called the Center of Libertarian Culture, and I can assure you they're all pacific people. It's odd: anarchists openly justify violence in defense from 'fascism', whereas fascism is correctly defined as obtaining and maintaining power through violence, without seeing the irony. There's no irony; anarchists don't want to obtain and maintain power, just to prevent others from doing so.
icebraining 9y ago
They are provided by the government now, but do they have to be? An anarchist would say "no". Much as been written about the organization of anti-capitalist anarchist societies. One work on that is An Anarchist FAQ[1], but beware that like any other political group - an especially on the left - there will certainly be other anarchists decrying that text as nonsense and false anarchism and such. [1] https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/the-anarchist-faq-editorial-collective-an-anarchist-faq-10-17 https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/the-anarchist-faq-ed...
Zak 9y ago
They are currently providing one of the services that the municipal government is expected to provide. Presumably, they would like to expand that and provide the rest using the same volunteer model.

All the services they say they want are provided by the municipal government. How are they going to provide all the services of the government without the government?

thechao 9y ago

All the anarchists I’ve met think citizens will spontaneously combust^W form committees, chosen by their peers using the Australian method, and those committees will cause work to happen by raising funds from interested peers. Like Mad Max, but with smiles.

logfromblammo 9y ago
Committees in anarchism are more like the PTA, band boosters, rotary club, or your HOA--everything that has no statutory authority, and no power to tax. They form whenever someone thinks it might be even worse to not have one, everyone hates attending the meetings, and they are almost entirely dependent on one to five people devoting too much of their own energy to holding it all together. There might be a contract in place, and it might mandate that dues be paid. In lieu of mandatory dues, they will always be strapped for cash and either begging for donations or coming up with annoying fundraiser ideas. They might fork, and one or both parts of the fork will fail, because some of the critical support went to the other part of the fork. And some of them will actually be more like organized crime families or street gangs than the PTA. In other words, anarchy is happening right now, and you can see how it works right now. A bunch of crazies devoted to renegade pothole repair is a perfect example. They come together because of potholes. They fix potholes. People pay attention to them as long as they care about potholes. When the pothole problem is fixed, everyone forgets they ever existed, then stop paying attention and giving money. They either drift away to find something else to do, or become the lonely, ignored crusaders against potholes that people remember hearing about that one time, but had no idea they were still around and still fixing potholes. It doesn't scale, though. Anarchy can only exist at the local level because governments tackle many of the big problems and force people to pay for the solutions with taxes. Imagine if your city government operated like the mafia (Chicago!), or if your state government operated like a giant PTA meeting. It might get as far as agreeing to set a budget of $500 for the spring graduation party before removing someone from the gallery for shouting about invading foreign armies, and would still be answering stupid questions about the dress code for service dogs when the soldiers started dragging everyone out. Mr. Humungus (a reasonable feller) is president of the Juicetakers Committee, Toecutter vice president, Feral Kid as secretary, Gyropilot as treasurer, and someone that looks exactly like your Mom covered in warpaint as the member-at-large. The president has advanced a proposal that you just walk away and give us your juice. We took a vote, and it passed unanimously. We are also selling cookie dough as part of our fall fundraiser. So give us the juice, and please buy some cookies on your way out into the desert. I'd prefer it if they were shooting guns at me.

dbingham 9y ago

That is always the question asked. They would argue that things could be voluntarily self organized, instead of structured in coercive heirarchies. In other words, they would say that people who are capable of being doctors should provide medical care, and organize themselves in a way to make sure that care gets provided sensibly. When potholes need fixing the community should meet and figure out how to get it done. They believe we can do all of these things with out needing an organized state that gets to dictate anything, money to incentivize, or police as coercive enforcement. I'm sure I'm butchering it a bit. It might not be quite that simple, but it's along those lines. And yes, it's idealistic as hell. That said, I know a lot of anarchist activists and damn, do those guys know how to get shit done.

jschwartzi 9y ago
The rub is that your need leaders in the sense of initiating things, but that you're without an organized class of people who are paid to lead.
- dbingham 9y ago
  You actually don't need leaders. I've been part of plenty of leaderless flat heirarchies that self organized pretty damned well. People just stepped up to do things that needed doing. The problem isn't that people can't function with out leaders. The issue is more that, those sorts of flat heirarchies don't tend to scale well. But that doesn't necessarily mean they couldn't, if we put some effort and education into training people how to operate in them better. I'm less skeptical of the idea that we could operate in self organized non-heirarchies than I am of the idea that would could do away with the money and all formal organizations. The idea that we could do everything by informal agreement just seems really unstable to me. Like you'd never quite know what the rules were and like they could change at any moment.
eeZah7Ux 9y ago
> And yes, it's idealistic as hell. Not really. In countless rural societies, throughout the world and through history, it's been commonplace for people to help each other with building their homes, making dirt roads and small bridges, making food and many other tasks - without charging each other for money or bartering. Essentially a small village can work much like a very large family and people would use money almost only when interacting with strangers in a different village.

wz1000 9y ago

From the article: “There can be no ethical services provided by the government because they are facilitated through the power of the gun,” writes PARC, presumably while flipping the bird like in the top photo. “Don’t get us wrong, we believe that many of these services are crucial for society, like healthcare, education, and maintained roadways, but we believe that the way to achieve access for all is by deconstructing the state and capitalism, as well as other coercive hierarchies that exist in our society. It is this driving philosophy that motivates our actions, not only to fix the potholes, but to take power back from the state, into the hands of the people.”

nailer 9y ago
> facilitated through the power of the gun Fascinating, seeing as many people's experience of self-identified 'anarchism' is through the power of the fist.
- icebraining 9y ago
  Isn't using your fists just self-defense when someone is pointing a gun at you?
  - nailer 9y ago
    Sure, but in most cases anarchism is 'bash the fash' with 'fascist' being defined as 'anyone we don't like' including unarmed people. Fists or makeshift weapons are typically used as they can't be traced. It's odd: anarchists openly justify violence in defense from 'fascism', whereas fascism is correctly defined as obtaining and maintaining power through violence, without seeing the irony.
    - icebraining 9y ago
      Are you sure it's "most cases", or just the ones you hear about in the news? How many do you know personally? Beware of the availability bias. As an anecdote, I live near a left-wing anarchist group called the Center of Libertarian Culture, and I can assure you they're all pacific people. It's odd: anarchists openly justify violence in defense from 'fascism', whereas fascism is correctly defined as obtaining and maintaining power through violence, without seeing the irony. There's no irony; anarchists don't want to obtain and maintain power, just to prevent others from doing so.

icebraining 9y ago

They are provided by the government now, but do they have to be? An anarchist would say "no". Much as been written about the organization of anti-capitalist anarchist societies. One work on that is An Anarchist FAQ[1], but beware that like any other political group - an especially on the left - there will certainly be other anarchists decrying that text as nonsense and false anarchism and such. [1] https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/the-anarchist-faq-editorial-collective-an-anarchist-faq-10-17 https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/the-anarchist-faq-ed...

Zak 9y ago

They are currently providing one of the services that the municipal government is expected to provide. Presumably, they would like to expand that and provide the rest using the same volunteer model.