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this post was submitted on 18 Aug 2024
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If it’s real anarchy, there can’t be billionaires. One of the central tenets that almost all anarchists agree upon is that capitalism and the state support one another, and so both need to be demolished simultaneously. Destroying one while preserving the other will, as you point out, lead right back to the old system. We see the similar but inverse situation in Russia and China, where attempts to destroy capitalism with a strong state also lead back to oligarchy.
You might be thinking of ancapism, which is widely rejected by most anarchists and not considered to be a real part of the movement.
Their point is that you'll find it difficult to "demolish both" the state and concentrations of wealth and power "simultaneously" when you're fighting through billionaire-owned militias. Good luck.
And?
Radical social change is always difficult. But if you’re implying that authoritarianism is more effective at defeating capitalism, I disagree, and I think there’s strong evidence from history that undermines such a hypothesis.
That said, I think for anarchism to succeed there does need to be a sort of balance and destructive competition between the existing powers of the state and private ownership (or foreign states as we see in Rojava). Anarchists should observe and act with this dynamic in mind to prevent the total domination of any one structure over society, as this will be much more difficult to overcome. But eventually the goal is to build social power that is greater than either of them put together.
So in an anarchist society, how do people settle disputes? There can't be a law without some form of governing body to enforce the law. Seems like a might makes right would bubble right back up to the top.
Well, the answer to this question depends somewhat on the specific strain of anarchism, but for social anarchism, which is the branch I’m most familiar with, the idea is that councils of local people at the scale of the conflict would settle it according to their own internal processes. One successful example of a process from our current society that would be compatible with anarchism is community mediation. But the exact process would in most cases be up to the local community based upon their needs and what works for them.
I think you are right that there is a bit of a tension in terms of governance vs. individual freedom, but this is inherent to all systems of human organization and life. There is a need for governance, but the idea is to make that governance as free from hierarchy and coercion as practically possible. How far one can take this idea is an open question, but I think it’s highly likely that a more liberated society than our current one is very achievable.
The true answer is "it depends". Each community may be slightly different.
The main thing is that there is no state that holds a monopoly on power. This reenforces the idea that anarchism probably won't come about from a quick revolution. It needs to be built over time and with trust and the understanding that we must work together.
An answer would be that the community uses some combination of restorative justice, therapy, arbitration, or in the worst cases exile or violence towards the offender.
It would be worth reading more about criminal justice on theanarchistlibrary.org.
The way some Australian anarchists solved disputes over a crime for 60,000 years was a concept called payback. The community would get together and decide on a punishment the wronged party can reasonably inflict upon the perpetrator of the crime. Payback serves to satisfy the victim's need for justice and prevent cycles of revenge. After the punishment is given, both sides of the conflict forgive each other and the community can continue to function in unity.
This is just one way a stateless, moneyless, classless society would settle disputes. There are many different ways to run an anarchist government.
Just leave that to your friendly local warlord to settle.
And the very far left anarchists, the soulists, reject reality itself, and don't believe in a real anything. But soulists also hate ancaps and recommend giving them all a radical headectomy.