this post was submitted on 28 Feb 2025
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Yes, because anarchism is against all hierarchies and the class system is a form of hierarchy. Instead, decisions should me made collectively, for example in councils open for everyone
@lugal @danc4498 Anarchism is against specifically unjust hierarchies, it can permit certain ones to exist within individual communities should the community find it justified, but still strongly favours not having any where possible.
There are a group of anarchists who would still believe in the idea of an adult > child hierarchy as they struggle to imagine an alternative world without it.
Parents have natural bootmaker authority and if you want to be a good parent then you realise that the kids also have it: They, or maybe better put their genome, know how they need to be raised, and try to teach you, as well as (with increasing age) seek out the exact bootmakers that seem sensible. Worst thing you can do as a parent is to think that learning is a one-way street.
I honestly hate the concept of "bootmaker authority", because it's exactly the same wrong conflation that Engels makes. Not every inequality is a form of authority. Expertise is not authority, it is expertise.
Authority is the socially-recognised power to dominate. Getting a bootmaker to advise on or perform bootmaking tasks is not domination. The bootmaker can't hold you at gunpoint and command you to wear a certain kind of boot, nobody would allow that. There aren't bootmaking cops.
Like what exactly does the bootmaker's "authority" entail in this theory? Giving consent does not confer authority. Authority operates regardless of consent, that's what makes it bad.
Knowledge is power, thus with a knowledge gap we have a power gap. As a bootmaker's apprentice, my capacity to judge whether or not I'm getting taught proper technique is limited, I can alleviate that disparity by consulting more than one bootmaker, but ultimately that gap won't vanish until I, myself, have mastered the craft.
...unnatural authority. Natural authority aka the bootmaker's does not require social recognition. The bootmaker knows more than the apprentice no matter what society thinks, the imbalance is not socially caused.
If you don't want to call it authority, fine, but saying "as bad as Engels" is going too far IMO. While bootmaker's authority does not rely on (wider) social recognition it is still a thing that happens in a social relationship, and not in the relationship of a worker to their alarm clock or whatnot. Though arguably in the modern world that line is also blurring, see technological paternalism, OTOH it's just a reification of the relationship between the producer and consumer of a technology. It's an unavoidable (unless you're a primitivist) side-effect of increased division of labour in a technologically advancing society.
Heck I'm myself on the page of "the state is a people, a territory, and organisation", simply because the classical anarchist definition drifted miles and miles from the dictionary and the lived experience of people in liberal democracies, when you say "abolish the state" they hear "abolish garbage collection". We can re-do terminology once in a while, it's a good idea.
I need you to define the word "authority" in that case. I've given my definition, so what is yours and how does it differ, please? Because I already addressed the fact that an imbalance doesn't create a hierarchy, and your description of imbalance does not fit my definition of authority.
Power imbalance doesn't automatically create the conditions for domination. For that you would need both expertise and monopoly.
And the solution to a misunderstanding isn't to concede the definition of the word "state" but to educate. The state is any entity that has a monopoly of the legitimate use of violence in a region. That applies regardless of the system of government that rules it.
Your definition isn't a definition, it's just a collection of categories that gives no useful information.
We don't need to be dominated in order to clean up our garbage. And the state is often really bad at collecting garbage, so just teach people that.
Authority is a power imbalance in a social relationship. It does not, in itself, imply domination or monopoly or expertise it happens each time two people are not on eye level regarding something, cannot, for whatever reason, relate to each other as complete equals. If you find yourself having it and are keen on proper praxis then you take on the responsibility to lift the other up as you are capable to do. I think for that reason alone I think it's important to recognise it as authority, so that we are careful when using it, which, in the end, is unavoidable.
Garbage collection is a non-issue over here, it just works. Couple of neighbouring municipalities own the company and it's run on an at-cost basis with decent wages. If, suddenly, an anarchist revolution were to happen I'm quite sure the general arrangement would carry over.
...and I took that as an example precisely because (over here) it just works, it's a baby you wouldn't want to throw out with the bathwater. I'm reasonably sure that wherever you're living, you can think of such an example.
Anarchism thus becomes meaningless as anyone who defends certain hierarchies obviously does so because they believe they are just. Literally everyone on earth is against "unjust hierarchies" at least in their own personal evaluation of said hierarchies. People who support capitalism do so because they believe the exploitative systems it engenders are justifiable and will usually immediately tell you what those justifications are. Sure, you and I might not agree with their argument, but that's not the point. To say your ideology is to oppose "unjust hierarchies" is to not say anything at all, because even the capitalist, hell, even the fascist would probably agree that they oppose "unjust hierarchies" because in their minds the hierarchies they promote are indeed justified by whatever twisted logic they have in their head.
Telling me you oppose "unjust hierarchies" thus tells me nothing about what you actually believe, it does not tell me anything at all. It is as vague as saying "I oppose bad things." It's a meaningless statement on its own without clarifying what is meant by "bad" in this case. Similarly, "I oppose unjust hierarchies" is meaningless statement without clarifying what qualifies "just" and "unjust," and once you tell me that, it would make more sense you label you based on your answer to that question. Anarchism thus becomes a meaningless word that tells me nothing about you. For example, you might tell me one unjust hierarchy you want to abolish is prison. It would make more sense for me to call you a prison abolitionist than an anarchist since that term at least carries meaning, and there are plenty of prison abolitionists who don't identify as anarchist.
Isn't anarchy just against imposed hierarchy? Most anarchists I've met are okay with heirarchies that form naturally, and believe those hierarchies to be enough for society to function, hence why they call themselves anarchists, not minarchists.
I have never heard the term minarchist. Many anarchists say, we need structures against the building of hierarchies, like avoiding knowledge hierarchies by doing skillshares.
Natural authorities are a different topic. I think Kropotkin was an example of a leader who was accepted because everyone agreed with him. Once he said something people didn't like, they rejected him as a leader. You can call this a hierarchy if you like. I wouldn't because he couldn't coerce his followers but this is pure terminology.
So, do the anarchists not think that capitalism will just prevail and bring along with it the classes of the haves and have nots? Anarchy won’t solve the problem of wealth inequality, will it? I have genuinely never understood this aspect of anarchism.
The system where someone monopolizes a essential good and leverages that to gain power is called anarcho-capitalism and is a whole different thing. In anarchy, ownership on that level does not exist. Neither a company nor a person can own a factory, or a farm, or the power grid. Employment doesn't exist. People can band together and distribute tasks for a common goal (such as producing a certain good) but they all hold equal stake in all decisions.
Of course a group of people could use violence to oppress other people. But then you no longer have anarchy. The same way a democracy stops beeing a democracy once a group seizes power and doesn't allow fair elections anymore.
And who is going to stop a company from owning a factory or a farm? It wouldn’t even require violence for a company to do so. It just requires them to have enough resources to pay people to do it.
I guess I don’t see what you call “anarchy” as a system that would ever exist more than a year. The end result would always be “anarcho-capitalism”. That, or, people would have to form their own government to prevent that system.
The company would need violence. There's no reason for workers to work in a factory for less money than their goods are sold for, and there's no reason for the company to pay workers more than the goods are sold for. Without violence the workers could just produce and sell the goods themselves and ignore the company.
Is this a society without computers and other modern day electronics? Or do you think workers will be able to handle developing technology on their own?
Well, it's unlikely the entire world will turn anarchist all at once, and the modern supply chain is global, so the anarchist community would trade for what they need from outside the community. Or they may choose to go anarcho-primitivism I guess. I think some remote indigenous tribes we have now could be considered anarcho-primitivist. The most successful anarcho-socialist community would probably be the Zapatistas.
The community. With hockey sticks.
The irony is that the amount of coordination needed to protect anarchism would no longer be called anarchism
You will always end up recreating some form of organizations to manage resources. The best you can do is ensure those organizations are structured with accountability to make sure they're fair to everybody
This is a common misunderstanding. While there are anti organisationist anarchists, others dream of a world while spanning confederation based on voluntary cooperation and mutual aid. Anarchism in general isn't the absence of organization but the absence of hierarchy and domination (therefore isn't anticapitalist in nature)
It is anticapitalist by nature in that capitalism is a system where a person can own the means of production and use that ownership to acquire profits. That ownership is a form of domination and creates an arbitrary hierarchy, who makes all the decisions: the owner, why do they make all the decisons: because they had the wealth to buy the company.
You can have organization and markets though without capitalism, such as with anarcho-syndaclism. Basically you have a bunch of coops that are run and controlled by elected workers councils that can trade with each other voluntarily.
That's more or less where anarcho-syndaclism goes. Get all the workers into unions who take over their companies and turn them into co-ops. Then the co-ops collaborate and you don't need the state or anything else.
Anarchism is anti capitalist in nature since capitalism entails hierarchies
I just don’t understand how people think an anarchy can protect itself from capitalism.
Let's take the most "conservative" form of anarchism: anarchosyndicalism. Every factory is organized in councils, confederated both with the import or mining council and the consumer council. Now a capitalist comes and asks how much this factory costs. Do you think the council will tell them a price or to fuck off?
Well, I don’t think a capitalist will call themselves a capitalist. I think they will have allies that get themselves appointed to the council and before we know it the factory is doing the bidding of the capitalists.
And yes, I am incredibly cynical (I blame the last 25 years), so I get that a less cynical perspective exists where this wouldn’t happen.
The council isn't elected. It's open for everyone to join in all decisions. It might delegate some tasks, even smaller decisions, but it can always recall them.
So in your scenario, the council would delegate the power to sell the factory to a group of people which is very unlikely. Now this group of people who are trusted by everyone would decide to sell the factory which might happen. But the council would most certainly recall them from this decision making power the never should have given away in the first place.
Maybe I should have stressed more that a council is really open for everyone to join. It's not an elected parliament or something
I gotcha. It just feels to me like there are so many opportunities for the capitalists to abuse this system for their own profit and power. People are easily manipulated, even when they think what they’re doing is for the good of the community.
Maybe the factory doesn’t sell, but it could still very much feed the capitalists through manipulation of the members of the council. My cynical view: It may not be immediate, but it will be inevitable.
By teaching history, including how capitalism killed millions of people, whole ecosystems and uncountable species.
Guns, tanks, bombs, drones, mostly.
Anarchism is opposition to power hierarchies, specifically non-consensual or coercive ones. Wealth inequality without safety networks is a coercive power hierarchy, and so needs to be fought. Capitalism as a whole is almost always incompatible with anarchy, at least in the way we tend to do it now. In a system with strong social safety networks the choice to work for someone can actually be a choice, and so some schools of thought would view it as compatible.
Others view exclusive ownership of property as someone asserting power over someone else's ability to use said property, and therefore wrong. Needless to say, abolition of private property is not compatible with capitalism.
That last part is really important. Many anarchists, socialists, and whatnot recognize that capitalism can be fine. It's just that humans really suck at doing capitalism, we keep doing pseudo-feudalism instead
We're gonna beat up the capitalists
You don’t think the capitalists would have the resources to defend themselves?
Hoarding resources will be banned. If you start doing it, we'll beat you up before you can get enough to hire a private army. Also, only the most corrupt people would go work as a private soldier, because everyone's needs are met so there's no poverty to drive people to do bad things. You'd have to promise private security a lot of money to betray their nation for basically no reason.
So this anarchy is a self contained commune where nobody is allowed in that doesn’t agree with the rules. And if somebody breaks the rules, they must leave. This sums it up? It can’t apply to a country because that would never work. But to a small village, sure.
Also, hopefully the people outside the village don’t find ways of fucking with them (such as redirecting waterways that affect the downstream village).