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That book, more than anything, helped me to see anarchism as a viable organizational system and not just people “doing whatever they want”.
by erikpukinskis 5y ago
That book, more than anything, helped me to see anarchism as a viable organizational system and not just people “doing whatever they want”.
- ajmurmann 5y agoI really liked how balanced the view is the book takes. There was a point where I thought this was Ayn Rand in space, but it's definitely not. It's quite human and shows the inherent flaws that will come organizing humans either way.
- howfrontoage 5y agoHonestly I disagree they had anarchism. Seemed they had a sort of collectivism where they replaced some authority with "computers that hand out assignments" and pseudo-authority from the capital (Anares? I forgot). It looked like an odd system where presumably you were free but conditions were so hars and social pressure so strong that you did what was required. Sweden in space desert.
- sdenton4 5y agoAnarchism means 'without leaders,' not without society. Actual anarchists are generally interested in how to design a society that can function at a high level without leaders. This usually involves some mix of process and committees, with some serious thought about how to handle delegation of decision making without concentrating power in too few hands.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- howfrontoage 5y agoHonestly sounds like an extreme form of communism. One of the benefits of hierarchy is that decision comes with personal responsibility (skin in the game?). Diluting all responsibility onto the whole population mean no accountability and shadow power structures.
- KingOfCoders 5y agoI do think it is more about a form of Anarcho-syndicalism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarcho-syndicalism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarcho-syndicalism "social pressure so strong" Wasn't that one of the points of the book?
- howfrontoage 5y agoIndeed, due to the extreme conditions, social pressure and conditioning since a young age, they were free in name only.
- i_don_t_know 5y agoMy impression was that they had a form of communism on the moon, with all the associated problems. I didn’t see it as anarchic or libertarian. Quite the opposite, it felt unfree like communist societies in Eastern Europe.