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I think they are anarchist in that they have a loose structure without formal laws. I think they inflict reputational damage to the concept of anarchy. Violent

I think they are anarchist in that they have a loose structure without formal laws. I think they inflict reputational damage to the concept of anarchy. Violent gangs are exactly what people are afraid of when they think of anarchy. I think in reality, if there was pervasive anarchy for everyone without any overarching state, there would be more opportunities and incentives for deal-making between gangs and violence would trend towards zero. Currently, it's illegal to make deals with gangs and they're almost 100% made up of people with criminal tendencies since honest people don't want to be associated with gangs. If every social group was a gang and there was no state, then people would have a strong incentive to join a gang for protection/support and so there would be a lot of good, honest people inside those gangs and this composition would make the gangs less violent.

zozbot234 3y ago
A cartel or gang that manages to hold power while dispensing with the routine use of violence (or "trend towards zero" to use your term) is just... a state. Of course it's a state in its most primitive and tyrannical form, since it has no institutional history of self-regulating its own use of power like most modern states do.
- jongjong 3y ago
  Good point. Though when people think of a state, they tend to expect clear geographical boundaries. I guess when we're advocating for anarchy, we're advocating for multiple voluntary, competing, potentially geographically overlapping states. I guess with this terminology, it sounds a lot more appealing than 'gangs' so I'm fully in favor.
  - zozbot234 3y ago
    The problem with geographically overlapping states is that they will always be incented to be violent towards each other, to some extent. At least, that's what we see in practice in gang dynamics. You can have overlapping organizations, perhaps politically connoted in some sense, whithin the context of some minimal "night watchman" state that regulates the use of violence and provides shared security against outside threats - and to some extent, our modern societies look a bit like that.
  - natmaka 3y ago
    In such a context isn't the word 'tribe' more adequate than 'gang'?
abdullahkhalids 3y ago
1. Cartels have strong hierarchies, imposed by violence, a system which would be roundly opposed by most anarchists. 2. But more importantly, most anarchists are not just against hierarchies. They are positively for society or the group to have features likes mutual aid, worker rights, democratic or consensus based decision making, etc. All of these are missing from cartels.

zozbot234 3y ago

A cartel or gang that manages to hold power while dispensing with the routine use of violence (or "trend towards zero" to use your term) is just... a state. Of course it's a state in its most primitive and tyrannical form, since it has no institutional history of self-regulating its own use of power like most modern states do.

jongjong 3y ago
Good point. Though when people think of a state, they tend to expect clear geographical boundaries. I guess when we're advocating for anarchy, we're advocating for multiple voluntary, competing, potentially geographically overlapping states. I guess with this terminology, it sounds a lot more appealing than 'gangs' so I'm fully in favor.
- zozbot234 3y ago
  The problem with geographically overlapping states is that they will always be incented to be violent towards each other, to some extent. At least, that's what we see in practice in gang dynamics. You can have overlapping organizations, perhaps politically connoted in some sense, whithin the context of some minimal "night watchman" state that regulates the use of violence and provides shared security against outside threats - and to some extent, our modern societies look a bit like that.
- natmaka 3y ago
  In such a context isn't the word 'tribe' more adequate than 'gang'?

abdullahkhalids 3y ago

1. Cartels have strong hierarchies, imposed by violence, a system which would be roundly opposed by most anarchists. 2. But more importantly, most anarchists are not just against hierarchies. They are positively for society or the group to have features likes mutual aid, worker rights, democratic or consensus based decision making, etc. All of these are missing from cartels.