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I have never believed in anarchism, as I don't believe that "human beings are capable of behaving in a reasonable fashion without having to be forced to". But w

I have never believed in anarchism, as I don't believe that "human beings are capable of behaving in a reasonable fashion without having to be forced to". But with COVID-19, I am seeing more proof than ever. In my country (but I guess it's the same in most, except perhaps some Nordic countries) bars, pubs and discos only reduce seating or close indoor spaces when forced to by law, in spite of the evidence that they cause lots of outbreaks. A large chunk of people only started wearing masks when forced to by law, and take any chance the law allows to remove them. The government recommended remote work whenever possible but many companies just ignored it in spite of having many workers that could perfectly work remotely, and just implement it when forced by law. And so on. Tell me again that "human beings are capable of behaving in a reasonable fashion without having to be forced to"... it's not that "most politicians are selfish, egotistical swine", it's that many people are. I'd rather have a politician mandate masks or restrict bar/pub capacity (not because politicians are any better than the average person, but because they tend to have at least a bare minimum of education, access to advisors, some positive incentives -the next election- and no high stakes on the decision like, say, a bar owner) than have mask deniers and careless people spread the virus around by gathering in closed spaces without masks.

seibelj 6y ago
In Boston the majority of everyone I saw wore a mask before it was mandatory. The shame was (and still is) very strong for those who don’t wear one. I see junkies (drug addicts) who don’t give a fuck but I assume that’s because they have given up on life. All normal people are wearing masks that I can see.
- kotojo 6y ago
  And for a counter observation I saw lines out of nail/hair salons and bars in Atlanta the day Kemp dropped shelter in place at the beginning of May. I'd say I see 1 in 8 people wearing a mask anywhere that doesn't explicitly require it, and then people mostly wearing them improperly otherwise.
  - Nbox9 6y ago
    I live in a place where mask rules are not enforced. There is a growing split between places people gather without masks and places people gather with masks. Unless completely unavoidable I only go to places where everyone is wearing a mask. I think there is a similar filtering mechanism happening with everyone that prefers being around mask wearers, and those that prefer not wearing masks. Seeing one place where people are not wearing masks is not a reasonable sample, and doesn’t show a complex story that is happening.
- cma 6y ago
  In the south, at some chains, even grocery store employees weren't allowed to wear them until the day after Trump said a mask or even a scarf would be ok: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i96408t-Xb4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i96408t-Xb4 I think that was March 31st or so. Up until then, the owners were worried it would drive customers away to let employees wear them.
waihtis 6y ago
Yeah, I thought this was funny too. I literally read the same sentence and thought to myself: "ok, I am definitely not an anarchist.
- boomboomsubban 6y ago
  So you only make reasonable choices because you are forced to?
  - erinnh 6y ago
    Some times, yes. And some times multiplied by however many people there are results in a lot of some times that people wouldn't be forced to in an anarchy.
    - boomboomsubban 6y ago
      It's not a "some times" statement, it posits that humans are capable of living reasonably without being forced. That people sometimes behave unreasonably is a different matter.
      - erinnh 6y ago
        Not really. It is very relevant. You only need someone to behave unreasonable even once to destroy multiple peoples lives. There are enough psychopaths in the world to fuck up any kind of system that's not completely based on separation of powers. I would posit that communism would probably also be pretty nice for most people, if it actually worked. So far it hasn't, and its pretty unrealistic that it ever will. That's also my stance on anarchy. Idealist, but unrealistic.
        boomboomsubban 6y ago
        >Not really. It is very relevant. You only need someone to behave unreasonable even once to destroy multiple peoples lives These things are true whether or not you believe humans are capable of living reasonably without being forced. Forcing people isn't stopping these psychopaths from destroying lives, and there's at least reason to believe it helps push them to action.
kiliantics 6y ago
I think this argument loses a lot of nuance. The idea behind anarchism, I think, is that people will generally be good to each other and support each other when left to their own devices. In fact, if you think about it, the capacity for doing harm is only very large when you have highly centralised power structures. The fact that people aren't perfect and can do harm at all means, to anarchists, that we should not give the power to cause widespread harm to any individual or small group. As for the COVID example, we are being told that the disease is spreading because of irresponsible people congregating in bars and salons etc. But if you look at the numbers, the main places that the disease is spreading is in workplaces like meat factories. People are not going to work in these places and spread the disease because of some "selfish, egotistical" inclinations. They are doing so because the society we live in has selfish people with a lot of power that are willing to get others infected for the sake of profit -- i.e. the business owners who are forcing people to work in unsafe conditions if they want to keep their jobs. I think this is further evidence that anarchism is a better approach.
- username90 6y ago
  > people will generally be good to each other and support each other when left to their own devices. Yeah, and when doing so they create organizations with quid pro quo behavior and ultimately form new countries. Anarchy is therefore impossible. Not because we can't handle being left on our own but because we handle being left on our own by creating new organizations.
- elindbe2 6y ago
  "the capacity for doing harm is only very large when you have highly centralised power structures" I don't think this is true. Look at the Mongols. A few nomadic tribes got together and conquered most of Asia. They created a highly centralized power center by force but they didn't start out with one.
  - tdeck 6y ago
    I'm not sure that's a good example because these tribes themselves were autocratic in governance before they conquered other nations.
baddox 6y ago
How are the human beings in government able to behave in a reasonable fashion without being forced to?
- yenwodyah 6y ago
  They are being forced to - by the threat of being voted out of office.
  - baddox 6y ago
    Then you have an endless circle of force, which doesn’t really explain why governments can work but other systems couldn’t work. Because of course other systems would also contain circles of force.
- Retric 6y ago
  Who said they they aren’t forced to. Specific individuals clearly can act reasonably on their own. It’s groups where you need control and systems of government influence those in power. Democracy’s clearly force winning some elections, but even dictatorship means relying on the military, police, and taxation etc.
  - baddox 6y ago
    Who says systems of anarchy wouldn’t also force certain people to do certain things?
- dTal 6y ago
  Parent addresses this explicitly: >not because politicians are any better than the average person, but because they tend to have at least a bare minimum of education, access to advisors, some positive incentives -the next election- and no high stakes on the decision like, say, a bar owner
  - baddox 6y ago
    The “no high stakes” part is what’s the most interesting to me, but unfortunately in US national politics I think it tends to not be true. For a single bar, sure, but for massive corporations and industries there is far too much intermingling of private and political incentives.
surfpel 6y ago
While I’m also not an anarchist, I don’t believe these are good examples. In fact, they could be an argument for anarchism. With a lack of stimulus or even just in this economic system, bars and businesses in general are incentivized to stay open. They are being ‘coerced’ to stay open. People started rejecting masks and shutdowns en masse after astroturfing and media convinced them to. There are countries where orders were followed voluntarily and good results followed.
- solipsism 6y ago
  > With a lack of stimulus or even just in this economic system, bars and businesses in general are incentivized to stay open. They are being ‘coerced’ to stay open. You could say this about any thief in any economic system, including the economy of survival (stealing food, shelter, etc). This is not a thing anarchy could solve. > People started rejecting masks and shutdowns en masse after astroturfing and media convinced them to. These aren't laws or government, and they would still exist in an anarchistic system. > There are countries where orders were followed voluntarily and good results followed. Yes, and there are no countries where no orders were required because people self-regulated.
- zanny 6y ago
  Capitalism is fundamentally built on competition, it pits all participants against one another. It stratifies social bonds and breaks people apart because any cooperation represents unrealized exploitation. Its why people are so miserable en masse, hostile, and chomping at the bit for targets to attack and hate. Its worse in America because theres almost no socialism at all to raise the floor of society - the country is buried in homeless and something like 1 in 5 persons is food insecure (probably higher now in the pandemic). If you fail in "winning" at capitalism to some degree you are supposed to feel fortunate shelters and soup kitchens exist. Sometimes. Society has broadly rejected them as the socialism they are and underfunds or destroys them where able. Its also why drug addiction is totally out of control. Desperation and social isolation by our culture creates whole populations of people to be exploited by drug profiteers. Many other nations don't do this by catching people before they get that despondent or miserable and by helping (rehabilitation) rather than hurting (prosecution) those that get that bad. The process is cyclic. The desperation feeds into the hate feeds into the predation feeds into the exploitation feeds into the desperation. But breaking out of it requires class consciousness that is opposed at every level - at the bottom by the animosity and inability to trust and at the top by the profits and power reaped through the harm done.
GrantSolar 6y ago
>In my country (but I guess it's the same in most, except perhaps some Nordic countries) bars, pubs and discos only reduce seating or close indoor spaces when forced to by law, in spite of the evidence that they cause lots of outbreaks. >The government recommended remote work whenever possible but many companies just ignored it in spite of having many workers that could perfectly work remotely, and just implement it when forced by law. I believe an anarchist response to this would be these examples are not so much cases of people (generally speaking) going against expert advice out of choice, more that it is a few individuals in positions of power (pub landlords, business owners) exerting their will (for personal gain) on many other people who are not in a position to push back. Employees who heed expert advice risk their job security and healthcare in doing so. By removing hierarchies and power we may well see better outcomes than we do at present. That is, the behavior you are seeing is the effect of a political system and it is not necessarily true that these same behaviors will exist by changing to a different political system. If Anarchism in practice would not entirely end the behavior, it removes the innate incentivization of the behavior
- luckylion 6y ago
  What would the anarchist alternative be, provided everybody still needs to eat. Let's keep money as a simple placeholder for value. If the reasonable people wouldn't open the clubs, how would they make money? Okay, their landlords are reasonable as well, and don't charge rent. And their grocery store gives them food for free? How would they determine who is so reasonable they get the reason-treatment of free food even if they provide no value themselves (no parties in their club etc). A lot of anarchism sounds like some magical communism, where everything just works out, there's no conflict whatsoever and the (in communist countries) usually authoritarian governments wouldn't be required. If only one would let the people be free, they'd be happy, sharing, caring and all around nice people by themselves. I get the fundamental appeal, I'm sure it can work in very small, very homogeneous groups (like a religious sect, or maybe a tribal group that has not or only been recently contacted). But at scale, and in the real world, it sounds naive.
  - aarpmcgee 6y ago
badmeasure99 6y ago
Measuring our capacity for anarchist living in a cutthroat capitalist society is sort of like comparing an apple with a black hole. You can come up with some vague emotional colors where they can seem similar, I mean they both exist, can be represented on paper starting with base geometrical shapes, but further analysis of their composition and parts reveals a lot of differences. It’s not a given that bars and salons are a normal feature of a non-tiered trade society where finding efficiency has generally meant extreme division of labor (at the cost of labor market resiliency IMO). Would we have loans and leases on bars and salons if society isn’t being reminded by media and their neighbors trading fiat currency “is the way”? Would we have the same economic dread foisted upon us? Why not brew communally, or otherwise, like in a maker space and share knowledge of the processes and experiences we enjoy individually rather than fetishize dead relatives more limited view of sound fiscal policies, and social pecking order? Why do I need to care that somehow through some Machiavellian mind game there’s a monetary flow back to some investor across the world in me? Dead people lacking an eother ignorant of, or severely lacking strong evidence, for things like economic success is coupled to skill (when obviously we can also see social governance prop up failed elites). A PhD in physics means putting forth an idea that the world works a way it would given the absence of human existence. Please explain then how PhDs in economics should be given the same esteem since they rely on a heavily indoctrinated by media, human society abiding social norms of police states that have only existed for a couple hundred years? Where’s the free market when we’ve been willing to send in men with guns to protect the way since the beginning of the nation (Whiskey Rebellion?) Can we do better without the coercion? We don’t know cause it’s always been there.
- clairity 6y ago
  there's no world with humans in it that's devoid of power and coercion, so the premise of anarchism is irretrievably flawed. can it inform how we live in a power-filled and coercive world? yes, but not to any extreme.
  - notso00 6y ago
    True but also not true. Anarchism isn’t devoid of understanding of reality. Anarchisms goal as a broad social meme is to not allow an official body that coerces the public towards further erecting of tent pole power structures within society. Like we have a Constitution and abdicate legislative work to a mythical free market, where an Amazon size entity can manipulate the labor and retail markets on a whim. It seeks to establish a tent pole hierarchy based, at least the sources I agree with offer it something like this, and then within that it’s local communal rules. No influencers from DC enforcing proper life in collusion with their moneyed brethren on this coast, regardless of how the masses would spend their time. But yes at the top it’s a tent pole like any other. Trying to set aside physics itself isn’t the goal of anarchism. Don’t be ridiculous. Pre-Columbus America’s are often mythologized as all hippie, but they were probably the purest anarchist society we can study. Those who lived by the water fished and maintained the coast. Those inland made tools for doing that. And we’re talking communities that could rival them contemporary Europe. How complex we all think it is to change when really it’s just doing away with European notion of proper social hierarchy always leading back to a council of especially wise men whose wisdom was point guns first. It’s an emotional attitude like capitalism. Neither are laws of physics. Just a personal attitude that one will not be a social control freak nor kowtow to them. We have none of the old problems of logistical distribution. Why do we their old tenets and rules?
nickthemagicman 6y ago
What you mean is people need to be forced to do what you think is reasonable. As you think their reasons for doing things are irrelevant. This kind of thinking leads down a scary road because who is the arbiter if what is reasonable? 10 years ago it would have been reasonable to consider that marijuana is dangerous as all the experts and legal system backed that up. They were wrong. So you have to leave room for people to be unreasonable because sometimes they turn out to actually be the reasonable ones.
- wholepicture 6y ago
  'No! I don't remember that nobody is better than anyone else' ? um P-:
  - nickthemagicman 6y ago
    That is definitely the debate that the Democratic side of the aisle seems to be making as well with the same amount of clarity and nuance.
brobdingnagians 6y ago
> it's not that "most politicians are selfish, egotistical swine", it's that many people are. But you are saying this because you _agree_ with the politicians. You believe your preferred course of action is better than most peoples'. There are different viewpoints and pilosophies on what would work out best. There is disagreement on what course of action will get society through it and optimize future outcomes. It is egotistical, and poisoning the well, to call everyone else egotistical and selfish because they disagree with you and the politicians you support. I think that people left to themselves _will_ disagree with one another, but will make decisions based on personal reasons, such as trying to get their business to survive, or to gain an advantage, or just because they don't particularly fear death, or any of thousands of other reasons. I may disagree with their decisions, but I'm careful about my own judgement of "what is rational" in someone else's circumstances, or even about my own knowledge of how they should optimally behave. There are too many politicians who believe they know how everyone else should do things. Certainty in knowledge is rarely real. The compromise is to let people decide for themselves.
- HoveringOrb 6y ago
  >There are different viewpoints and pilosophies on what would work out best. In this case, it mostly seems to be a difference between what Joe Blow says and what actual epidemiologists say. One of these is decidedly more valid than the other. I'm sure the experts disagree on some points, but these are details compared to the difference between the overall message they offer and what some self-centered goob or conspiracy theorist wants.
  - brobdingnagians 6y ago
    Even experts disagree. Countries have taken different actions precisely because of that. And even then, it can quickly devolve to "rule by experts" in every area of our life. I can listen to experts, I can learn from them, and I can make my own judgement call. > difference between what Joe Blow says and what actual epidemiologists say That's my point. It is a radical step to let Joe Blow, however silly or stupid I may think he is, to decide his own way of living. Maybe Joe Blow thinks I'm an idiot too for living the way I choose to do it.
komali2 6y ago
Ok, I will tell you again. In my community, people wear masks and social distance without being forced or told to. They do it for the same reason they wait in line at the bus.
- mrmonkeyman 6y ago
  Granted lots of cultures find waiting in line to be a repulsive and/or alien concept. Italy is a good example..
- srtjstjsj 6y ago
  What's the reason?
  - komali2 6y ago
    Because we're keeping each other safe from coronavirus. But I guess you caught me: we've replaced law and police with a virus that enforces our behavior on pain of death, lol.
kempbellt 6y ago
The issue with your premise is in defining "behaving in a reasonable fashion". This is incredibly subjective. It also speaks to the ignorance that privileged people have in regards to assuming everyone else must also have. In many cases, "Just close shop for two weeks (or maybe a year? Who knows...), and also you have to wear a mask all the time now" is not a reasonable ask. People have mouths to feed and bills to pay. Telling them to just shut off their income is a non-starter. And no, a $1200 stimulus check doesn't cut it. Banks still want their money. "Okay fine, but why isn't everyone just wearing a mask? It's simple! insert judgmental angry emoji here" Well, a lot of places ran out of masks (and toilet paper for some reason...) early on (thank you sensationalism + news) making it impossible to get one. Someone tried refusing me access to a grocery store that I went to to buy a mask because, guess what, I didn't have a mask (after multiple repeated attempts to buy one in my area). Tell me how this is reasonable? Since then, it's really been a crapshoot for what you think the rules are for wearing one in public. Where I am, if you are outside, you don't need one, and no one is expected to wear one, but you keep your distance physically. If you go inside, you wear a mask - unless you are sitting at a table, then you don't need one, sometimes...? Every news outlet/friend/family member you hear from on the matter has a different take on what is standard procedure now. A lot of the "reasonable asks" of people surrounding COVID are not actually as reasonable as they sound in a one sentence, "You have to close shop and wear masks now!" mandate from a politician. It's hard for me to believe that a "fuck it.." mentality wouldn't evolve around the issue.
- zanny 6y ago
  "Leaders" told everyone to stay home. People, largely, listened for a while. When the money ran out (or never existed to begin with) and no support came to sustain the situation but the messaging remained "stay at home" thats when people got mad and stopped listening. Since the same leaders also said wear a mask, it went from "health experts trying to save lives" to "politicians trying to leave me destitute and homeless". The US failed, as it always does, to provide for the needs of its citizens. So as the citizens usually do, they stopped listening. And in practice absolutely nobody gives a real shit - the people don't care and capital is eating future generations by the trillion. Everyones happy in the most perverted definition of happy.
ericmay 6y ago
Eh I’m not sure politicians am have proved in recent times to be much better. And to that point, if you don’t trust your fellow person, why would you trust them to vote, or hold office? Why would you want them to wield real power? We need to fix this country. It starts with us. Vote. Run for office. Stop accepting mediocre government.
- zanny 6y ago
  The system is stacked against fundamental change. Its why for going on 200 years there has always been a movement to "fix" society through government that never actually seems to get much of anywhere. The only time, in the US at least, anything has led to long term appreciable change in society for the betterment of the working class was when capitalism was in legitimate fear for survival in the face of communist revolutions the world over aside the great depression. The FDR generation didn't go from effectively total labor exploitation unbounded to 40 hour work weeks, unions, paid vacation, and safety regulations because the collective bourgeois woke up one day thinking their time had come by happenstance. Concessions were made to preserve the power structures that gave immense power to few at the cost of the many. The civil rights movement was comparable where the most popular speaker in the country was espousing socialism and class consciousness and had to be assassinated to stop his movement adjourning organized aggression by the Black Panthers who also were mass murdered. But all that blood only managed to move the dial a hairs breadth toward liberty. We will all be good citizens voting for one of the two choices presented us by our rulers this November, many of us going into the polls knowing the structural organization of said process means our vote is totally meaningless - first past the post, winner take all races down a scorecard of positions 90% of which you know nothing about but the letters aside the names, names you probably only heard in TV or radio ads inundating you for two months prior. Its a mockery of actual democracy and largely always has been - there is a reason the US was founded to have an electorate of white, land owning men.
  - ericmay 6y ago
    > Its why for going on 200 years there has always been a movement to "fix" society through government that never actually seems to get much of anywhere. I'd say this is just a convincing argument that we can't leave it to government to fix society then. With respect to your points about capitalism. Yea sure. I think that to create a society that better respects the rights of workers and ensures that people live good lives. You'll see countries that are considered even more capitalistic than the US like the Nordics have really good government that they vote for and participate in, and they have great protections for workers. But they also pay for those things with higher taxes. The issue in the US is just that we don't believe the government can effectively do those things (and for decent enough reasons) so we just sit in this vicious cycle. Nobody wants to fix things. > there is a reason the US was founded to have an electorate of white, land owning men. Well there's a few reasons, but part of why we have a republic instead of a direct democracy is because the founders were worried about mobs of uneducated voters causing the government to do really dumb things. At the time the only educated people were white, land-owning men. If you can't trust your fellow citizens right now to vote, then I'm not sure why you'd trust them with even more power. To me it seems day in and day out I'm more and more convinced Americans shouldn't even be allowed to vote on account of how many dumb decisions we make. We don't deserve a republic or democracy. Fat, lazy, entitlement mentality for far too many.
mynameishere 6y ago
So tell us, how many months of mask wearing would be "reasonable"? We're up to about six in my locale. Would twelve be reasonable? Eighteen? Until the virus is gone? That would require, most likely, eternal mask wearing, even with a vaccine. Why don't you lecture us about "reasonable" behavior some more.
- solipsism 6y ago
  The same amount is reasonable as the requirement to wear clothes.
pravus 6y ago
So if you were emperor of the world, would you throw the political class and supporters in Sweden in prison for their unreasonable response to Covid as compared to the rest of the world? Or would you throw the rest of world's leader's and supporters in prison as the opposite of that argument? Are you personally willing to do this? If you ask a man with a gun to do it for you are you ever worried he will turn the gun on you?
agumonkey 6y ago
I'm not far from your thinking but as sad as people's behavior was during covid, I wouldn't use it as a general case, it's a weird and wide crisis. Also human groups of various scales differ. Some 20 people companies self organized.. larger group may not be able to do so. This brings the question of the influence of education (both technical and emotional). A group a wiser and well balanced emotionally would behave very differently under a pandemic than a group of medium skilled in both.

seibelj 6y ago

In Boston the majority of everyone I saw wore a mask before it was mandatory. The shame was (and still is) very strong for those who don’t wear one. I see junkies (drug addicts) who don’t give a fuck but I assume that’s because they have given up on life. All normal people are wearing masks that I can see.

kotojo 6y ago
And for a counter observation I saw lines out of nail/hair salons and bars in Atlanta the day Kemp dropped shelter in place at the beginning of May. I'd say I see 1 in 8 people wearing a mask anywhere that doesn't explicitly require it, and then people mostly wearing them improperly otherwise.
- Nbox9 6y ago
  I live in a place where mask rules are not enforced. There is a growing split between places people gather without masks and places people gather with masks. Unless completely unavoidable I only go to places where everyone is wearing a mask. I think there is a similar filtering mechanism happening with everyone that prefers being around mask wearers, and those that prefer not wearing masks. Seeing one place where people are not wearing masks is not a reasonable sample, and doesn’t show a complex story that is happening.
cma 6y ago
In the south, at some chains, even grocery store employees weren't allowed to wear them until the day after Trump said a mask or even a scarf would be ok: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i96408t-Xb4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i96408t-Xb4 I think that was March 31st or so. Up until then, the owners were worried it would drive customers away to let employees wear them.

waihtis 6y ago

Yeah, I thought this was funny too. I literally read the same sentence and thought to myself: "ok, I am definitely not an anarchist.

boomboomsubban 6y ago
So you only make reasonable choices because you are forced to?
- erinnh 6y ago
  Some times, yes. And some times multiplied by however many people there are results in a lot of some times that people wouldn't be forced to in an anarchy.
  - boomboomsubban 6y ago
    It's not a "some times" statement, it posits that humans are capable of living reasonably without being forced. That people sometimes behave unreasonably is a different matter.
    - erinnh 6y ago
      Not really. It is very relevant. You only need someone to behave unreasonable even once to destroy multiple peoples lives. There are enough psychopaths in the world to fuck up any kind of system that's not completely based on separation of powers. I would posit that communism would probably also be pretty nice for most people, if it actually worked. So far it hasn't, and its pretty unrealistic that it ever will. That's also my stance on anarchy. Idealist, but unrealistic.
      - boomboomsubban 6y ago
        >Not really. It is very relevant. You only need someone to behave unreasonable even once to destroy multiple peoples lives These things are true whether or not you believe humans are capable of living reasonably without being forced. Forcing people isn't stopping these psychopaths from destroying lives, and there's at least reason to believe it helps push them to action.

kiliantics 6y ago

I think this argument loses a lot of nuance. The idea behind anarchism, I think, is that people will generally be good to each other and support each other when left to their own devices. In fact, if you think about it, the capacity for doing harm is only very large when you have highly centralised power structures. The fact that people aren't perfect and can do harm at all means, to anarchists, that we should not give the power to cause widespread harm to any individual or small group. As for the COVID example, we are being told that the disease is spreading because of irresponsible people congregating in bars and salons etc. But if you look at the numbers, the main places that the disease is spreading is in workplaces like meat factories. People are not going to work in these places and spread the disease because of some "selfish, egotistical" inclinations. They are doing so because the society we live in has selfish people with a lot of power that are willing to get others infected for the sake of profit -- i.e. the business owners who are forcing people to work in unsafe conditions if they want to keep their jobs. I think this is further evidence that anarchism is a better approach.

username90 6y ago
> people will generally be good to each other and support each other when left to their own devices. Yeah, and when doing so they create organizations with quid pro quo behavior and ultimately form new countries. Anarchy is therefore impossible. Not because we can't handle being left on our own but because we handle being left on our own by creating new organizations.
elindbe2 6y ago
"the capacity for doing harm is only very large when you have highly centralised power structures" I don't think this is true. Look at the Mongols. A few nomadic tribes got together and conquered most of Asia. They created a highly centralized power center by force but they didn't start out with one.
- tdeck 6y ago
  I'm not sure that's a good example because these tribes themselves were autocratic in governance before they conquered other nations.

baddox 6y ago

How are the human beings in government able to behave in a reasonable fashion without being forced to?

yenwodyah 6y ago
They are being forced to - by the threat of being voted out of office.
- baddox 6y ago
  Then you have an endless circle of force, which doesn’t really explain why governments can work but other systems couldn’t work. Because of course other systems would also contain circles of force.
Retric 6y ago
Who said they they aren’t forced to. Specific individuals clearly can act reasonably on their own. It’s groups where you need control and systems of government influence those in power. Democracy’s clearly force winning some elections, but even dictatorship means relying on the military, police, and taxation etc.
- baddox 6y ago
  Who says systems of anarchy wouldn’t also force certain people to do certain things?
dTal 6y ago
Parent addresses this explicitly: >not because politicians are any better than the average person, but because they tend to have at least a bare minimum of education, access to advisors, some positive incentives -the next election- and no high stakes on the decision like, say, a bar owner
- baddox 6y ago
  The “no high stakes” part is what’s the most interesting to me, but unfortunately in US national politics I think it tends to not be true. For a single bar, sure, but for massive corporations and industries there is far too much intermingling of private and political incentives.

surfpel 6y ago

While I’m also not an anarchist, I don’t believe these are good examples. In fact, they could be an argument for anarchism. With a lack of stimulus or even just in this economic system, bars and businesses in general are incentivized to stay open. They are being ‘coerced’ to stay open. People started rejecting masks and shutdowns en masse after astroturfing and media convinced them to. There are countries where orders were followed voluntarily and good results followed.

solipsism 6y ago
> With a lack of stimulus or even just in this economic system, bars and businesses in general are incentivized to stay open. They are being ‘coerced’ to stay open. You could say this about any thief in any economic system, including the economy of survival (stealing food, shelter, etc). This is not a thing anarchy could solve. > People started rejecting masks and shutdowns en masse after astroturfing and media convinced them to. These aren't laws or government, and they would still exist in an anarchistic system. > There are countries where orders were followed voluntarily and good results followed. Yes, and there are no countries where no orders were required because people self-regulated.
zanny 6y ago
Capitalism is fundamentally built on competition, it pits all participants against one another. It stratifies social bonds and breaks people apart because any cooperation represents unrealized exploitation. Its why people are so miserable en masse, hostile, and chomping at the bit for targets to attack and hate. Its worse in America because theres almost no socialism at all to raise the floor of society - the country is buried in homeless and something like 1 in 5 persons is food insecure (probably higher now in the pandemic). If you fail in "winning" at capitalism to some degree you are supposed to feel fortunate shelters and soup kitchens exist. Sometimes. Society has broadly rejected them as the socialism they are and underfunds or destroys them where able. Its also why drug addiction is totally out of control. Desperation and social isolation by our culture creates whole populations of people to be exploited by drug profiteers. Many other nations don't do this by catching people before they get that despondent or miserable and by helping (rehabilitation) rather than hurting (prosecution) those that get that bad. The process is cyclic. The desperation feeds into the hate feeds into the predation feeds into the exploitation feeds into the desperation. But breaking out of it requires class consciousness that is opposed at every level - at the bottom by the animosity and inability to trust and at the top by the profits and power reaped through the harm done.

GrantSolar 6y ago

>In my country (but I guess it's the same in most, except perhaps some Nordic countries) bars, pubs and discos only reduce seating or close indoor spaces when forced to by law, in spite of the evidence that they cause lots of outbreaks. >The government recommended remote work whenever possible but many companies just ignored it in spite of having many workers that could perfectly work remotely, and just implement it when forced by law. I believe an anarchist response to this would be these examples are not so much cases of people (generally speaking) going against expert advice out of choice, more that it is a few individuals in positions of power (pub landlords, business owners) exerting their will (for personal gain) on many other people who are not in a position to push back. Employees who heed expert advice risk their job security and healthcare in doing so. By removing hierarchies and power we may well see better outcomes than we do at present. That is, the behavior you are seeing is the effect of a political system and it is not necessarily true that these same behaviors will exist by changing to a different political system. If Anarchism in practice would not entirely end the behavior, it removes the innate incentivization of the behavior

luckylion 6y ago
What would the anarchist alternative be, provided everybody still needs to eat. Let's keep money as a simple placeholder for value. If the reasonable people wouldn't open the clubs, how would they make money? Okay, their landlords are reasonable as well, and don't charge rent. And their grocery store gives them food for free? How would they determine who is so reasonable they get the reason-treatment of free food even if they provide no value themselves (no parties in their club etc). A lot of anarchism sounds like some magical communism, where everything just works out, there's no conflict whatsoever and the (in communist countries) usually authoritarian governments wouldn't be required. If only one would let the people be free, they'd be happy, sharing, caring and all around nice people by themselves. I get the fundamental appeal, I'm sure it can work in very small, very homogeneous groups (like a religious sect, or maybe a tribal group that has not or only been recently contacted). But at scale, and in the real world, it sounds naive.
- aarpmcgee 6y ago

badmeasure99 6y ago

Measuring our capacity for anarchist living in a cutthroat capitalist society is sort of like comparing an apple with a black hole. You can come up with some vague emotional colors where they can seem similar, I mean they both exist, can be represented on paper starting with base geometrical shapes, but further analysis of their composition and parts reveals a lot of differences. It’s not a given that bars and salons are a normal feature of a non-tiered trade society where finding efficiency has generally meant extreme division of labor (at the cost of labor market resiliency IMO). Would we have loans and leases on bars and salons if society isn’t being reminded by media and their neighbors trading fiat currency “is the way”? Would we have the same economic dread foisted upon us? Why not brew communally, or otherwise, like in a maker space and share knowledge of the processes and experiences we enjoy individually rather than fetishize dead relatives more limited view of sound fiscal policies, and social pecking order? Why do I need to care that somehow through some Machiavellian mind game there’s a monetary flow back to some investor across the world in me? Dead people lacking an eother ignorant of, or severely lacking strong evidence, for things like economic success is coupled to skill (when obviously we can also see social governance prop up failed elites). A PhD in physics means putting forth an idea that the world works a way it would given the absence of human existence. Please explain then how PhDs in economics should be given the same esteem since they rely on a heavily indoctrinated by media, human society abiding social norms of police states that have only existed for a couple hundred years? Where’s the free market when we’ve been willing to send in men with guns to protect the way since the beginning of the nation (Whiskey Rebellion?) Can we do better without the coercion? We don’t know cause it’s always been there.

clairity 6y ago
there's no world with humans in it that's devoid of power and coercion, so the premise of anarchism is irretrievably flawed. can it inform how we live in a power-filled and coercive world? yes, but not to any extreme.
- notso00 6y ago
  True but also not true. Anarchism isn’t devoid of understanding of reality. Anarchisms goal as a broad social meme is to not allow an official body that coerces the public towards further erecting of tent pole power structures within society. Like we have a Constitution and abdicate legislative work to a mythical free market, where an Amazon size entity can manipulate the labor and retail markets on a whim. It seeks to establish a tent pole hierarchy based, at least the sources I agree with offer it something like this, and then within that it’s local communal rules. No influencers from DC enforcing proper life in collusion with their moneyed brethren on this coast, regardless of how the masses would spend their time. But yes at the top it’s a tent pole like any other. Trying to set aside physics itself isn’t the goal of anarchism. Don’t be ridiculous. Pre-Columbus America’s are often mythologized as all hippie, but they were probably the purest anarchist society we can study. Those who lived by the water fished and maintained the coast. Those inland made tools for doing that. And we’re talking communities that could rival them contemporary Europe. How complex we all think it is to change when really it’s just doing away with European notion of proper social hierarchy always leading back to a council of especially wise men whose wisdom was point guns first. It’s an emotional attitude like capitalism. Neither are laws of physics. Just a personal attitude that one will not be a social control freak nor kowtow to them. We have none of the old problems of logistical distribution. Why do we their old tenets and rules?

nickthemagicman 6y ago

What you mean is people need to be forced to do what you think is reasonable. As you think their reasons for doing things are irrelevant. This kind of thinking leads down a scary road because who is the arbiter if what is reasonable? 10 years ago it would have been reasonable to consider that marijuana is dangerous as all the experts and legal system backed that up. They were wrong. So you have to leave room for people to be unreasonable because sometimes they turn out to actually be the reasonable ones.

wholepicture 6y ago
'No! I don't remember that nobody is better than anyone else' ? um P-:
- nickthemagicman 6y ago
  That is definitely the debate that the Democratic side of the aisle seems to be making as well with the same amount of clarity and nuance.

brobdingnagians 6y ago

> it's not that "most politicians are selfish, egotistical swine", it's that many people are. But you are saying this because you _agree_ with the politicians. You believe your preferred course of action is better than most peoples'. There are different viewpoints and pilosophies on what would work out best. There is disagreement on what course of action will get society through it and optimize future outcomes. It is egotistical, and poisoning the well, to call everyone else egotistical and selfish because they disagree with you and the politicians you support. I think that people left to themselves _will_ disagree with one another, but will make decisions based on personal reasons, such as trying to get their business to survive, or to gain an advantage, or just because they don't particularly fear death, or any of thousands of other reasons. I may disagree with their decisions, but I'm careful about my own judgement of "what is rational" in someone else's circumstances, or even about my own knowledge of how they should optimally behave. There are too many politicians who believe they know how everyone else should do things. Certainty in knowledge is rarely real. The compromise is to let people decide for themselves.

HoveringOrb 6y ago
>There are different viewpoints and pilosophies on what would work out best. In this case, it mostly seems to be a difference between what Joe Blow says and what actual epidemiologists say. One of these is decidedly more valid than the other. I'm sure the experts disagree on some points, but these are details compared to the difference between the overall message they offer and what some self-centered goob or conspiracy theorist wants.
- brobdingnagians 6y ago
  Even experts disagree. Countries have taken different actions precisely because of that. And even then, it can quickly devolve to "rule by experts" in every area of our life. I can listen to experts, I can learn from them, and I can make my own judgement call. > difference between what Joe Blow says and what actual epidemiologists say That's my point. It is a radical step to let Joe Blow, however silly or stupid I may think he is, to decide his own way of living. Maybe Joe Blow thinks I'm an idiot too for living the way I choose to do it.

komali2 6y ago

Ok, I will tell you again. In my community, people wear masks and social distance without being forced or told to. They do it for the same reason they wait in line at the bus.

mrmonkeyman 6y ago
Granted lots of cultures find waiting in line to be a repulsive and/or alien concept. Italy is a good example..
srtjstjsj 6y ago
What's the reason?
- komali2 6y ago
  Because we're keeping each other safe from coronavirus. But I guess you caught me: we've replaced law and police with a virus that enforces our behavior on pain of death, lol.

kempbellt 6y ago

The issue with your premise is in defining "behaving in a reasonable fashion". This is incredibly subjective. It also speaks to the ignorance that privileged people have in regards to assuming everyone else must also have. In many cases, "Just close shop for two weeks (or maybe a year? Who knows...), and also you have to wear a mask all the time now" is not a reasonable ask. People have mouths to feed and bills to pay. Telling them to just shut off their income is a non-starter. And no, a $1200 stimulus check doesn't cut it. Banks still want their money. "Okay fine, but why isn't everyone just wearing a mask? It's simple! insert judgmental angry emoji here" Well, a lot of places ran out of masks (and toilet paper for some reason...) early on (thank you sensationalism + news) making it impossible to get one. Someone tried refusing me access to a grocery store that I went to to buy a mask because, guess what, I didn't have a mask (after multiple repeated attempts to buy one in my area). Tell me how this is reasonable? Since then, it's really been a crapshoot for what you think the rules are for wearing one in public. Where I am, if you are outside, you don't need one, and no one is expected to wear one, but you keep your distance physically. If you go inside, you wear a mask - unless you are sitting at a table, then you don't need one, sometimes...? Every news outlet/friend/family member you hear from on the matter has a different take on what is standard procedure now. A lot of the "reasonable asks" of people surrounding COVID are not actually as reasonable as they sound in a one sentence, "You have to close shop and wear masks now!" mandate from a politician. It's hard for me to believe that a "fuck it.." mentality wouldn't evolve around the issue.

zanny 6y ago
"Leaders" told everyone to stay home. People, largely, listened for a while. When the money ran out (or never existed to begin with) and no support came to sustain the situation but the messaging remained "stay at home" thats when people got mad and stopped listening. Since the same leaders also said wear a mask, it went from "health experts trying to save lives" to "politicians trying to leave me destitute and homeless". The US failed, as it always does, to provide for the needs of its citizens. So as the citizens usually do, they stopped listening. And in practice absolutely nobody gives a real shit - the people don't care and capital is eating future generations by the trillion. Everyones happy in the most perverted definition of happy.

ericmay 6y ago

Eh I’m not sure politicians am have proved in recent times to be much better. And to that point, if you don’t trust your fellow person, why would you trust them to vote, or hold office? Why would you want them to wield real power? We need to fix this country. It starts with us. Vote. Run for office. Stop accepting mediocre government.

zanny 6y ago
The system is stacked against fundamental change. Its why for going on 200 years there has always been a movement to "fix" society through government that never actually seems to get much of anywhere. The only time, in the US at least, anything has led to long term appreciable change in society for the betterment of the working class was when capitalism was in legitimate fear for survival in the face of communist revolutions the world over aside the great depression. The FDR generation didn't go from effectively total labor exploitation unbounded to 40 hour work weeks, unions, paid vacation, and safety regulations because the collective bourgeois woke up one day thinking their time had come by happenstance. Concessions were made to preserve the power structures that gave immense power to few at the cost of the many. The civil rights movement was comparable where the most popular speaker in the country was espousing socialism and class consciousness and had to be assassinated to stop his movement adjourning organized aggression by the Black Panthers who also were mass murdered. But all that blood only managed to move the dial a hairs breadth toward liberty. We will all be good citizens voting for one of the two choices presented us by our rulers this November, many of us going into the polls knowing the structural organization of said process means our vote is totally meaningless - first past the post, winner take all races down a scorecard of positions 90% of which you know nothing about but the letters aside the names, names you probably only heard in TV or radio ads inundating you for two months prior. Its a mockery of actual democracy and largely always has been - there is a reason the US was founded to have an electorate of white, land owning men.
- ericmay 6y ago
  > Its why for going on 200 years there has always been a movement to "fix" society through government that never actually seems to get much of anywhere. I'd say this is just a convincing argument that we can't leave it to government to fix society then. With respect to your points about capitalism. Yea sure. I think that to create a society that better respects the rights of workers and ensures that people live good lives. You'll see countries that are considered even more capitalistic than the US like the Nordics have really good government that they vote for and participate in, and they have great protections for workers. But they also pay for those things with higher taxes. The issue in the US is just that we don't believe the government can effectively do those things (and for decent enough reasons) so we just sit in this vicious cycle. Nobody wants to fix things. > there is a reason the US was founded to have an electorate of white, land owning men. Well there's a few reasons, but part of why we have a republic instead of a direct democracy is because the founders were worried about mobs of uneducated voters causing the government to do really dumb things. At the time the only educated people were white, land-owning men. If you can't trust your fellow citizens right now to vote, then I'm not sure why you'd trust them with even more power. To me it seems day in and day out I'm more and more convinced Americans shouldn't even be allowed to vote on account of how many dumb decisions we make. We don't deserve a republic or democracy. Fat, lazy, entitlement mentality for far too many.

mynameishere 6y ago

So tell us, how many months of mask wearing would be "reasonable"? We're up to about six in my locale. Would twelve be reasonable? Eighteen? Until the virus is gone? That would require, most likely, eternal mask wearing, even with a vaccine. Why don't you lecture us about "reasonable" behavior some more.

solipsism 6y ago
The same amount is reasonable as the requirement to wear clothes.

pravus 6y ago

So if you were emperor of the world, would you throw the political class and supporters in Sweden in prison for their unreasonable response to Covid as compared to the rest of the world? Or would you throw the rest of world's leader's and supporters in prison as the opposite of that argument? Are you personally willing to do this? If you ask a man with a gun to do it for you are you ever worried he will turn the gun on you?

agumonkey 6y ago

I'm not far from your thinking but as sad as people's behavior was during covid, I wouldn't use it as a general case, it's a weird and wide crisis. Also human groups of various scales differ. Some 20 people companies self organized.. larger group may not be able to do so. This brings the question of the influence of education (both technical and emotional). A group a wiser and well balanced emotionally would behave very differently under a pandemic than a group of medium skilled in both.