this post was submitted on 11 Dec 2023
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Problems of hierarchy that we don’t have a solution for, unfortunately; and I say that honestly.
No system of society I have ever seen proposed truly eliminates the issues of power hierarchy. Sometimes, they even make them worse.
Wouldnt a communist society not have a hierarchy because its classless, moneyless and stateless
It declares itself to be classless, moneyless, and stateless. Just like terrorists call themselves rebels, and dictatorships call themselves democracies.
Ultimately, I’m looking for a lot more than a declaration or wish, a napkin blueprint that reads “This machine grants wishes!”. I’m looking for a proven track record of success.
How does one design something that hasn't been built before?
That's not the question. The question is "How does one BUILD something that hasn't been built before?"
No matter how detailed the designs, any project manager can tell you that a plan ends up changing as it hits certain realities, and a system of governance, even for a small country, is going to be many times more complicated than anything most people have ever worked on. We've already seen several examples of the results, and they failed spectacularly. You don't get to look at them and say "They don't count" or "They're not TRUE scotsmen."
I'm not doing a no true Scotsman, or saying things don't count. I'm saying that you cannot claim something to be a failure wholesale without analyzing what broke.
If you have a plane, and it fails because the screws became loose on the wing, you know what went wrong and have an idea of how to fix it, even if the results were catastrophic. You cannot then say that planes cannot exist.
I'm not claiming planes cannot exist. I'm saying that (assuming this is pre-wright-brothers) there's no proof yet (metaphorical) planes can exist, so it's foolish to criticize our current methods of travel via cars and horses. By deepening the critiques of capitalism (a system I know to have flaws), you're making the claim "It's SO stupid to drive from Ohio to New York, when you could FLY" in a world that hasn't yet established flying is even possible.
It could be that the solution is "Tighten the wing screws a bit more", or it could be that the screws will always come apart from the tension, and it's simply a doomed invention. Ultimately, we'd still need a better proof of concept to devote ANY mental energy to it.
Not quite analogous. We know many problems with Capitalism, and we know many aspects of leftist organization absolutely work. We know what parts historically did not, and we also know that these issues are far from necessary for building a leftist structure.
You're arguing that there's no point in improving the plane and fixing what is broken when we still have cars and horses.
For your point that it could be that the screws can never be tightened, or a solution without screws cannot be found, is not an argument against tightening the screws or coming up with an alternative method, despite pretending that's a valid reason alone. In fact, in Engineering, it can be known what forces will be applied to screws in flight and as such it can be predicted what is required.
Essentially, you can use previous knowns to solve for unknowns, rather than assuming everything is simply a blind guess.
Facts not in evidence. Don’t invent assertions as truth.
I’m going to expect an apology for deliberately putting words in my mouth. You know very well I didn’t say this.
The Wright brothers did not pull commuters into their untested inventions. If you can test and refine without harming or harassing people, do so; otherwise, keep it to yourself.
There are mountains of papers written on the success of Socialist and Socialist-adjacent structures. Worker Co-operatives are more stable and provide greater happiness to the Workers within, for example. Democracy within the workplace also has great levels of success when tried, and we've found that liberal democracy surrounding 2 party systems is far less democratic than multiparty, ranked choice systems.
You deliberately argued that you must wait for something to exist before you are willing to adopt it, rather than change any given situation.
Now we reach the pinnacle of your argument: "I'm personally okay in the given system, so I don't care if other people wish to change it." It's fine if everyone agrees with you, but what happens if you get out voted? Are you still going to argue for maintaining the status quo as disparity rises and climate change dooms us all?
Yes, we do. It's called anarchism. It's literally what it is for.
Under anarchism, whoever holds the most guns and food, and is the most ruthless, holds the power. Try to create a vacuum by destroying government, and someone else will claim it.
That is what anarcho capitalism is. But in this case some people, who hold the most gun and food, have more power than the others. So there is hierachy again. True Anarchism wants to prevent that. A lot of good explanations here :) https://www.anarchistfaq.org/afaq/
I'm no Anarchist, but that's not what Anarchism is. Anarchism is a fully developed horizontal system, rather than vertical. The idea that Anarchism is simply "no rules" is an unfounded stereotype, there's lots of Anarchist theory.
While I personally think it's very difficult to achieve, it wouldn't be for the reasons you've listed. Simply destroying government isn't an Anarchist ideal, building up parallel structures like networks of Mutual Aid to replace the state and make it redundant is Anarchist praxis.
And what precisely prevents people from organizing into hierarchies again?
Anarchists believe that if horizontal power structures are in place, it becomes difficult to go against that current. Ie, if everyone has power, in order to gain more power than another, one must require people willing to give up their power to submit to them in order to push against others. This theoretical group would also have to be strong enough to go against the rest of the public.
It's similar to why Communists believe once Communism is globally achieved, there wouldn't be mechanisms for Capitalism to come back, just like Monarchism is almost nonexistant today.
Yet, that's not how real world actually works is it. Humanity grew out of small scale societies that operate the way you described, and then inevitably every large society ends up creating hierarchies. And societies that have hierarchies appear to consistently outcompete those that do not. It's not like this is a hypothetical discussion, we have thousands of years of human history to look at and see what forms of organization work in practice. Communists believe that there need to be explicit mechanisms that allow the working class to hold power and prevent regressions into capitalism.
I'm not an Anarchist, I'm just explaining misconceptions about Anarchism. You ironically lack Materialism in your analysis, with several instances of you claiming hierarchy simply appears, without analyzing the mechanisms of why.
Additionally, society has never been organized historically the way modern Anarchists desire it to be, primitive Communism is not what Anarchists, except for the fringe Anarcho-Primitivists, argue for. Again, they want strong horizontal organization, filled with decentralization. It isn't an arbitrary rejection of organization period.
All in all, I do think you can do better. Rather than simply saying things "appear to organize in certain manners," question the material conditions that changed organizational structures, and analyze why you think specific examples of horizontal organization posited by Anarchists would regress into hierarchy.
I'm well familiar with the argument Anarchists make, I'm just pointing out that it appears to be divorced from reality. I'm also not claiming that hierarchy simply appears. I even provided a link in a different comment explaining why hierarchies become necessary for any complex organization https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1872/10/authority.htm
My argument is basically that hierarchies appear because they are effective, and if the current system was somehow overthrown, and this flat society was created, then we'd see hierarchies start forming because like minded people would recognize their value. Once that process starts people who choose to organize in this fashion would have competitive advantage over those who do not. This is just a process of natural selection at work.
If you're taking a materialist approach, you would recognize that hierarchy was more effective than primitive communism, not Anarchism. You'd have to argue against modern propositions of flat organization, not just anarcho-primitivism. I'm sure many Anarchists would agree with you that hierarchical forms of structure are generally more effective than Anarcho-Primitivism, but would disagree that hierarchy is necessary or even better than modern Anarchist theory.
I'm well aware of Marx's rejections of Anarchism, I just think that since Marx is a human and could not predict modern Anarchist theory, modern Marxists should argue against modern Anarchism, rather than historical.
I am arguing against modern propositions of flat organization because they run into the same problems. The onus to demonstrate viable alternatives to hierarchies is on the people who disagree with hierarchies being necessary. So far, we don't have any functional examples of the kinds of approach anarchists promote, nor is there any reason to believe it would work.
Furthermore, given that the current system is organized in a hierarchical fashion, dismantling this system would require an equivalent level of organization. Hence why all the actual successful revolutions we've seen have been centrally organized. Marxists have actually put their theories into practice and have achieved tangible results. Anarchists have so far failed to achieve much of anything other than acting as a roach motel for the left.
You have to prove why they would run into the same problems, you're still making vague accusations of Anarcho-Primitivism being the same as Modern Anarchist structure. The lack of existing structure disproving the possible existence of said structure is the same argument Anti-Communists and Anti-Socialists make with regularity, and is similarly an incomplete argument.
I, again, am not an Anarchist, but your method of argumentation is fundamentally flawed and won't convince any Anarchist to join a Marxist movement. It lacks Materialism in its analysis and is of the same quality as generic Anti-Leftist argumentation. Instead, you should argue against concepts like ParEcon, Mutual Aid, and other Anarchist theory, without arguing against Primitive Communism.
No, it's very much the people who are advocating for this theory who have to prove that it works and not the other way around. Communists have put their ideas into action, we know that this approach works, and we know that it results in many tangible improvements over the current capitalist system.
The argument I'm making is against the ways of organization that Anarchists promote, and these are fundamental to the ideology regardless of what specific branch we're talking about. I simply gave primitivist version as an example that actually existed. The others are even more hypothetical. Meanwhile, not sure why you'd bring up talking about Materialism in an argument about organization.
You can't prove something that hasn't existed. You're arguing against theory by saying it hasn't been put into practice, disallowing it from being put into practice to be tested. This is the same anti-leftist, anti-development argument. The theory itself needs to be discounted.
You're not making any sort of analysis, just sticking your head in the sand and pretending that primitive anarchism is the same as modern anarchism, and moreover are taking a mystical approach, rather than a practical approach. That's why I'm saying you ignore Materialism, rather than arguing on the basis that humans are driven by material conditions, you instead argue that since one unrelated tangential structure turned into another, that Anarchism itself is bunk.
We aren't going to agree here, clearly.
Putting theory into practice is literally what Materialism is. Thanks for confirming that you're the one lacking Materialist position in this argument.
That's literally the opposite of the facts. I'm advocating for an approach based on a theory that has been successfully put into practice and has demonstrated results. You are the one who is sticking your head in the sand and talking about some hypotheticals that have never been tested or put into practice. You need to learn what Materialism is if you're going to keep using this word.
Materialism is doing away with the idea that history is shaped by ideas and will, rather than material conditions. It isn't going against proposed theory by targeting unrelated theory.
You're arguing that you cannot make predictions or try new things, despite validity of the theoretical basis, on the grounds that it hasn't yet been done.
You're definitely not getting it.
No, Materialism does not in fact do away with ideas, what it says is that there is a dialectical relationship between ideas and material reality, between theory and practice. I'm arguing that any theory that hasn't been put into practice does not have much value. Materialism means coming up with an idea, trying it out, seeing the results, integrating that into the theory, and trying again. Continuous dialectical process of improving the theory and testing it is what Materialism actually is.
You've made it abundantly clear that you don't actually understand the subject you're attempting to debate here. Maybe spend some time educating yourself instead of telling other people they're not getting it.
Materialism is quite literally the position that history is shaped by physical, material conditions, and reality, rather than the will or thoughts of individuals.
Claiming that I don't understand what Materialism is when you've been arguing against Primitive Communism as though it's Modern Anarchism is absurd.
All you do is just misrepresent what I'm saying never addressing the actual points being made. Bya.
You just described neofeudalism and "anarcho"-capitalism. Those don't have anything to do with anarchism, just americans muddying the waters by trying to confuse semantics.
Nothing would prevent people with anarcho-capitalist mindset from doing these things under anarchism. That's the whole problem with the idea. Anarchists make this fundamental assumption that vast majority of people think just like them, and if the state was somehow destroyed then it's all magically just ponies and rainbows.
People peddling anarchism need to explain why hierarchies keep arising in human societies over and over again. Anarchism is where humanity started and how small tribal societies live. However, we have yet to see any large society function that way for obvious reasons https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1872/10/authority.htm