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That's just one way to look at it. Another point of view is that elections are way to make people believe they are represented and therefore won't fight a stat

That's just one way to look at it. Another point of view is that elections are way to make people believe they are represented and therefore won't fight a state that maintains the monopoly of force, which can impose taxation, arbitrary laws, and a lot of other attacks to individual freedoms that people wouldn't be keen to accept naturally.

Iv 7y ago
Yes, that's a common view among several schools of anarchism. Reading Makhno's criticism of democracy, and his alternate proposals, which to my eyes seemed to be a railroad towards dictatorship, made me realize that I was not an anarchist but a social-democrat. Which is often a slur in anarchist circles. A society where democracy can not work because it would be "corrupted by bourgeoisie" has even lower chances of making anarchism work IMHO. We HAVE to make democracy work.
- int_19h 7y ago
  Anarchists generally criticize representative democracy, not democracy in general. Makno's own experiments in the territory that his forces controlled were basically a form of very distributed and localized council democracy.
  - Iv 7y ago
    Having read the proposals he made after his defeat, his "Organizational Platform of the General Union of Anarchists" [1] I disagree. He just talks about democracy, indeed talking mostly about representative democracy, but the system he proposes has no voting of any sort. Actually, reading it reminded me of another such book I had read a while ago. Qaddafi's Green Book, where he lays down his ideal system, the Jamahiriya. On paper, it is pretty cool: every matters of state are decided by local assemblies that can call for a higher level assembly when deemed necessary. But devil is in the detail. The Guide has a final say, in a bit of an unspecified way, exactly how Maknho stays pretty vague on the whole decision process. I am sure that if Qaddafi had been defeated in his youth, many anarchists would be musing about this system in the way we do Makhno's. [1] http://www.nestormakhno.info/english/newplatform/org_plat.htm http://www.nestormakhno.info/english/newplatform/org_plat.ht... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Green_Book_(Muammar_Gaddafi) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Green_Book_(Muammar_Gaddaf...
    - int_19h 7y ago
      Note that I was referring to the actual practices in the Free Territory, not Makhno's theorizing. The local councils did run things in most communities. Qaddafi's green book is just a rehash of the council democracy. But yes, it can certainly be implemented differently - just as you can have a multi-party representative democracy on paper that is a totalitarian dictatorship in practice, as in e.g. DPRK. I think better examples of functional democracy along these lines can be seen in the Zapatista-controlled areas in Mexico, and especially in Rojava/AANES. Rojava is interesting because they have an actual written social contract that captures the details of the electoral system, which is not very typical for such forms of governance: https://www.scribd.com/document/441234886/Social-Contract-of-the-Democratic-Federation-of-Northern-Syria https://www.scribd.com/document/441234886/Social-Contract-of...
- _0ffh 7y ago
  I think Anarchism is ultimately but radical direct democracy with strong emphathis on the principle of subsidiarity. A paraphrase of a bit from the Makhno article on Wikipedia: """ The first Congress of the Confederation of Anarchists Groups issued five main principles: 1) Rejection of all political parties 2) Rejection of all forms of dictatorships (including the dictatorship of the proletariat, viewed by Makhnovists and many anarchists of the day as a term synonymous with the dictatorship of the Bolshevik communist party) 3) Negation of any concept of a central state 4) Rejection of a so-called "transitional period" necessitating a temporary dictatorship of the proletariat 5) Self-management of all workers through free local workers' councils """ There may be a discussion to be had about these principles, but they certainly do not sound like "a railroad towards dictatorship" to me. Edit: Minor fixups
  - Iv 7y ago
    "Democracy is one of the forms of bourgeois capitalist society. [...] As a result, democracy is merely one variety of bourgeois dictatorship, its fictitious political freedoms and democratic guarantees are a smokescreen designed to conceal its true identity. " [1] In his "constructive part" [2] he carefully avoids talking about assemblies or votes. It is clear he does not know really how to solve conflicts and just hope none will arise. He also mentions the need of an army to have a unity of command, but just specifies this must be decided quickly, without giving clear advice on how to do that without dreaded centralization nor democracy. [1] http://www.nestormakhno.info/english/newplatform/general.htm http://www.nestormakhno.info/english/newplatform/general.htm [2] http://www.nestormakhno.info/english/newplatform/constructive.htm http://www.nestormakhno.info/english/newplatform/constructiv...
    - _0ffh 7y ago
      I'd say it stands to reason that in these quotes the word "democracy" is used as a stand in for "(centralised) representative democracy".
      - Iv 7y ago
        Yes, but he does not explicit that, equaling if with "democracy", something he proposes to reject altogether. The words "democracy" "vote" "majority" appear nowhere else in his proposal.
- sovietcattle 7y ago
  Democracies can't work, as they're managed by politicians with low time preferences, which means that in order to get elected they'll promise and pass laws and regulations that make the government always spend more than what they make through taxes, disregarding long-term effects. That process generates debt. Democracies inevitably end up achieving state bankruptcy through excessive debt. Regardless, that debt has to be paid by the population, so in that perspective democracy is a poverty generation engine. For more on that topic: https://www.amazon.com/Democracy-Economics-Politics-Perspectives-Democratic/dp/0765808684/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=hoppe+democracy+god+that+failed&qid=1577497505&sr=8-1 https://www.amazon.com/Democracy-Economics-Politics-Perspect...
  - k__ 7y ago
    Isn't the goal of democracy to elect the average? Sure in the US or Russia this system is totally broken, but at least in countries with multiple political parties this seems to be the case.
    - sovietcattle 7y ago
      One can claim anything about the goal of a democracy. Politicians are particularly good at "selling" it to the public with all sorts of marketing strategies. In practice I think it's hard to fight that the ultimate goal of any form of government is to make the government itself persist.
  - wbronitsky 7y ago
    I’m very curious as to how you define “work[ing]” in the context of a currently operating government. It would seem that democracies all over the world “work” for quite a few more people by ratio than other forms of government. I’m also quite curious as to if you have alternatives; it’s all well and good to bash democracy, especially in the current moment, but are there better realistic alternatives? Are you advocating for revolution?
    - sovietcattle 7y ago
      They certainly don't work for me. I have to pay something between 20-80% of all my income and financial gains to governments despite the fact I don't agree with anything they do, or with their existence. I never signed a contract with them agreeing on that sort of taxation, and if I don't pay the taxes the government imposes on me I can have my property taken away from me, get arrested and even be assassinated. I also have to comply with laws that are created out of some old man's ass, "respect" the police and the military otherwise they will kidnap, torture, or kill me, etc. That said, I don't advocate for anything, nor I think revolutions or reforms would "fix" a centralized system that persists on the basis of the monopoly of force, such as the so-called "democratic" governments we have all over the world. What I think, however, is that those centralized systems will inevitably and progressively fail due to their own inefficiencies, and as the transaction costs [1] diminish. As that happens, the centralized state's functions will leak into the decentralized market, until the state loses its ability to hold a monopoly of force. I think we're a few decades away from seeing the end of the governments and states as we have today. The "alternative" will be a free, decentralized market that will emerge progressively as the governments disappear. We don't have to do anything "special" for that to happen. Just sit down and observe. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transaction_cost https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transaction_cost
jampekka 7y ago
It's telling of your bias that you lament imposing taxes but ignore imposing ownership. I guess the latter is included in "accepted naturally" for you but there's really nothing natural in ownership if you step outside the prevailing dogma.
- sovietcattle 7y ago
  Do you have "ownership" of your own consciousness? Do you "own" your own body? Is that dogma? Have some reading about argumentative ethics, it derives natural law based on private property through the means of logic: https://mises.org/wire/primer-hoppes-argumentation-ethics https://mises.org/wire/primer-hoppes-argumentation-ethics
  - Iv 7y ago
    Ownership is an abstract concept enforced by society. It recognize the right to "use and abuse" of a thing. Some societies will forbid you to do things to your body. Some will outlaw some opinions. It makes sense to say that in such cases, you do not own your mind or your body. I am of the opinion that it is good that individuals have total ownership over their mind and bodies, but it is just that: an opinion. I can't demonstrate it. If I could somehow infer it being a "natural law" it would not be a satisfying justification, it would just be a naturalistic fallacy. Most of human society's goals are to fight against "natural order" because we, collectively, aim at unnatural things like justice and fairness.
    - sovietcattle 7y ago
      I'd encourage you to read about the logic derivation of natural law based on private property through argumentative ethics, as described in the article I mentioned.
      - Iv 7y ago
        I have. I think they are bollocks. Have you read and understood them and are ready to defend steps and axioms of this thesis or are you just enamored with his conclusions? Specifically, I think this is nonsensical: "Second, it must be noted that argumentation does not consist of free-floating propositions but is a form of action requiring the employment of scarce means; and that the means which a person demonstrates as preferring by engaging in propositional exchanges are those of private property." It is a well accepted rule in logic and debate that propositions have merit on their own, therefore the way they are stated is irrelevant, whether they consume scarce means or not. The jump from scarce means to private property is laughable. Actually I have a hard time charitably following his reasoning. It is obvious the conclusion he wants to reach, but it is hard to understand where he sees an unfolding of logic arguments. Even if his claims were true, which are, if I understand correctly, that the mere fact of engaging in a moralistic discussion presupposes the speakers assume a kind of private property instinctively, it does not follow that this presupposition is correct. That's a naturalistic fallacy. It can be used to justify domination, sharing, violence, death of the weak. Using it to defend something as obviously artificial as private property is news to me, and I think pretty hard to defend, but even if it did, it presupposes we should care about "natural law", something most philosophers learned to dismiss since the 19th century.

Iv 7y ago

Yes, that's a common view among several schools of anarchism. Reading Makhno's criticism of democracy, and his alternate proposals, which to my eyes seemed to be a railroad towards dictatorship, made me realize that I was not an anarchist but a social-democrat. Which is often a slur in anarchist circles. A society where democracy can not work because it would be "corrupted by bourgeoisie" has even lower chances of making anarchism work IMHO. We HAVE to make democracy work.

int_19h 7y ago
Anarchists generally criticize representative democracy, not democracy in general. Makno's own experiments in the territory that his forces controlled were basically a form of very distributed and localized council democracy.
- Iv 7y ago
  Having read the proposals he made after his defeat, his "Organizational Platform of the General Union of Anarchists" [1] I disagree. He just talks about democracy, indeed talking mostly about representative democracy, but the system he proposes has no voting of any sort. Actually, reading it reminded me of another such book I had read a while ago. Qaddafi's Green Book, where he lays down his ideal system, the Jamahiriya. On paper, it is pretty cool: every matters of state are decided by local assemblies that can call for a higher level assembly when deemed necessary. But devil is in the detail. The Guide has a final say, in a bit of an unspecified way, exactly how Maknho stays pretty vague on the whole decision process. I am sure that if Qaddafi had been defeated in his youth, many anarchists would be musing about this system in the way we do Makhno's. [1] http://www.nestormakhno.info/english/newplatform/org_plat.htm http://www.nestormakhno.info/english/newplatform/org_plat.ht... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Green_Book_(Muammar_Gaddafi) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Green_Book_(Muammar_Gaddaf...
  - int_19h 7y ago
    Note that I was referring to the actual practices in the Free Territory, not Makhno's theorizing. The local councils did run things in most communities. Qaddafi's green book is just a rehash of the council democracy. But yes, it can certainly be implemented differently - just as you can have a multi-party representative democracy on paper that is a totalitarian dictatorship in practice, as in e.g. DPRK. I think better examples of functional democracy along these lines can be seen in the Zapatista-controlled areas in Mexico, and especially in Rojava/AANES. Rojava is interesting because they have an actual written social contract that captures the details of the electoral system, which is not very typical for such forms of governance: https://www.scribd.com/document/441234886/Social-Contract-of-the-Democratic-Federation-of-Northern-Syria https://www.scribd.com/document/441234886/Social-Contract-of...
_0ffh 7y ago
I think Anarchism is ultimately but radical direct democracy with strong emphathis on the principle of subsidiarity. A paraphrase of a bit from the Makhno article on Wikipedia: """ The first Congress of the Confederation of Anarchists Groups issued five main principles: 1) Rejection of all political parties 2) Rejection of all forms of dictatorships (including the dictatorship of the proletariat, viewed by Makhnovists and many anarchists of the day as a term synonymous with the dictatorship of the Bolshevik communist party) 3) Negation of any concept of a central state 4) Rejection of a so-called "transitional period" necessitating a temporary dictatorship of the proletariat 5) Self-management of all workers through free local workers' councils """ There may be a discussion to be had about these principles, but they certainly do not sound like "a railroad towards dictatorship" to me. Edit: Minor fixups
- Iv 7y ago
  "Democracy is one of the forms of bourgeois capitalist society. [...] As a result, democracy is merely one variety of bourgeois dictatorship, its fictitious political freedoms and democratic guarantees are a smokescreen designed to conceal its true identity. " [1] In his "constructive part" [2] he carefully avoids talking about assemblies or votes. It is clear he does not know really how to solve conflicts and just hope none will arise. He also mentions the need of an army to have a unity of command, but just specifies this must be decided quickly, without giving clear advice on how to do that without dreaded centralization nor democracy. [1] http://www.nestormakhno.info/english/newplatform/general.htm http://www.nestormakhno.info/english/newplatform/general.htm [2] http://www.nestormakhno.info/english/newplatform/constructive.htm http://www.nestormakhno.info/english/newplatform/constructiv...
  - _0ffh 7y ago
    I'd say it stands to reason that in these quotes the word "democracy" is used as a stand in for "(centralised) representative democracy".
    - Iv 7y ago
      Yes, but he does not explicit that, equaling if with "democracy", something he proposes to reject altogether. The words "democracy" "vote" "majority" appear nowhere else in his proposal.
sovietcattle 7y ago
Democracies can't work, as they're managed by politicians with low time preferences, which means that in order to get elected they'll promise and pass laws and regulations that make the government always spend more than what they make through taxes, disregarding long-term effects. That process generates debt. Democracies inevitably end up achieving state bankruptcy through excessive debt. Regardless, that debt has to be paid by the population, so in that perspective democracy is a poverty generation engine. For more on that topic: https://www.amazon.com/Democracy-Economics-Politics-Perspectives-Democratic/dp/0765808684/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=hoppe+democracy+god+that+failed&qid=1577497505&sr=8-1 https://www.amazon.com/Democracy-Economics-Politics-Perspect...
- k__ 7y ago
  Isn't the goal of democracy to elect the average? Sure in the US or Russia this system is totally broken, but at least in countries with multiple political parties this seems to be the case.
  - sovietcattle 7y ago
    One can claim anything about the goal of a democracy. Politicians are particularly good at "selling" it to the public with all sorts of marketing strategies. In practice I think it's hard to fight that the ultimate goal of any form of government is to make the government itself persist.
- wbronitsky 7y ago
  I’m very curious as to how you define “work[ing]” in the context of a currently operating government. It would seem that democracies all over the world “work” for quite a few more people by ratio than other forms of government. I’m also quite curious as to if you have alternatives; it’s all well and good to bash democracy, especially in the current moment, but are there better realistic alternatives? Are you advocating for revolution?
  - sovietcattle 7y ago
    They certainly don't work for me. I have to pay something between 20-80% of all my income and financial gains to governments despite the fact I don't agree with anything they do, or with their existence. I never signed a contract with them agreeing on that sort of taxation, and if I don't pay the taxes the government imposes on me I can have my property taken away from me, get arrested and even be assassinated. I also have to comply with laws that are created out of some old man's ass, "respect" the police and the military otherwise they will kidnap, torture, or kill me, etc. That said, I don't advocate for anything, nor I think revolutions or reforms would "fix" a centralized system that persists on the basis of the monopoly of force, such as the so-called "democratic" governments we have all over the world. What I think, however, is that those centralized systems will inevitably and progressively fail due to their own inefficiencies, and as the transaction costs [1] diminish. As that happens, the centralized state's functions will leak into the decentralized market, until the state loses its ability to hold a monopoly of force. I think we're a few decades away from seeing the end of the governments and states as we have today. The "alternative" will be a free, decentralized market that will emerge progressively as the governments disappear. We don't have to do anything "special" for that to happen. Just sit down and observe. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transaction_cost https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transaction_cost

jampekka 7y ago

It's telling of your bias that you lament imposing taxes but ignore imposing ownership. I guess the latter is included in "accepted naturally" for you but there's really nothing natural in ownership if you step outside the prevailing dogma.

sovietcattle 7y ago
Do you have "ownership" of your own consciousness? Do you "own" your own body? Is that dogma? Have some reading about argumentative ethics, it derives natural law based on private property through the means of logic: https://mises.org/wire/primer-hoppes-argumentation-ethics https://mises.org/wire/primer-hoppes-argumentation-ethics
- Iv 7y ago
  Ownership is an abstract concept enforced by society. It recognize the right to "use and abuse" of a thing. Some societies will forbid you to do things to your body. Some will outlaw some opinions. It makes sense to say that in such cases, you do not own your mind or your body. I am of the opinion that it is good that individuals have total ownership over their mind and bodies, but it is just that: an opinion. I can't demonstrate it. If I could somehow infer it being a "natural law" it would not be a satisfying justification, it would just be a naturalistic fallacy. Most of human society's goals are to fight against "natural order" because we, collectively, aim at unnatural things like justice and fairness.
  - sovietcattle 7y ago
    I'd encourage you to read about the logic derivation of natural law based on private property through argumentative ethics, as described in the article I mentioned.
    - Iv 7y ago
      I have. I think they are bollocks. Have you read and understood them and are ready to defend steps and axioms of this thesis or are you just enamored with his conclusions? Specifically, I think this is nonsensical: "Second, it must be noted that argumentation does not consist of free-floating propositions but is a form of action requiring the employment of scarce means; and that the means which a person demonstrates as preferring by engaging in propositional exchanges are those of private property." It is a well accepted rule in logic and debate that propositions have merit on their own, therefore the way they are stated is irrelevant, whether they consume scarce means or not. The jump from scarce means to private property is laughable. Actually I have a hard time charitably following his reasoning. It is obvious the conclusion he wants to reach, but it is hard to understand where he sees an unfolding of logic arguments. Even if his claims were true, which are, if I understand correctly, that the mere fact of engaging in a moralistic discussion presupposes the speakers assume a kind of private property instinctively, it does not follow that this presupposition is correct. That's a naturalistic fallacy. It can be used to justify domination, sharing, violence, death of the weak. Using it to defend something as obviously artificial as private property is news to me, and I think pretty hard to defend, but even if it did, it presupposes we should care about "natural law", something most philosophers learned to dismiss since the 19th century.