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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 v

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?
  - clairity 6y ago
    but ideologies, including anarchism, aren't roads to nirvana, they're far-flung points in a multidimensional mental space that map wholly inadequately to an even higher dimensional social space. they also systematically tend to lose nuance to fervor and identity. for instance, while i agree that institutions (concentrations of power) can be dangerous, they've also done some amazingly good (and bad) things because of the power they coalesce. anarchism would say dismantle (large) institutions, and capitalism (or whatever) would say build 'em bigger and bolder! but the practical says do both in a chaotic, highly dynamic system of competing and cooperating interests, reaching a dynamic balance that's hard to rationalize beforehand. yes, let's talk about these ideas and put forth observations and arguments, but in no case should be go all in on any one of them, including capitalism (which is also impractical in a pure, ideological form).

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?
- clairity 6y ago
  but ideologies, including anarchism, aren't roads to nirvana, they're far-flung points in a multidimensional mental space that map wholly inadequately to an even higher dimensional social space. they also systematically tend to lose nuance to fervor and identity. for instance, while i agree that institutions (concentrations of power) can be dangerous, they've also done some amazingly good (and bad) things because of the power they coalesce. anarchism would say dismantle (large) institutions, and capitalism (or whatever) would say build 'em bigger and bolder! but the practical says do both in a chaotic, highly dynamic system of competing and cooperating interests, reaching a dynamic balance that's hard to rationalize beforehand. yes, let's talk about these ideas and put forth observations and arguments, but in no case should be go all in on any one of them, including capitalism (which is also impractical in a pure, ideological form).