57
The answer to misleading information about USSR had issues feeding its population. source : https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/document/cia-rdp84b00274r000300150009-5
this post was submitted on 24 Aug 2023
57 points (77.1% liked)
Socialism
5193 readers
62 users here now
Rules TBD.
founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
You are not understanding the essence of stateless society.
The ideal entails no objection against organizational bodies at a scale above the level of the community.
Do you know what those "organizational bodies at a scale above the level of the community" are called? They're called governments. i.e. the State.
The simple truth is that the whole "stateless society" falls apart the second you have communities larger than 150 people, because our brains literally can't handle it. We have physiological limits to the number of relationships that we can maintain.
And spoiler, humans like to live in cities that have vastly more than 150 people.
Now, think about all the people who have full time jobs maintaining the infrastructure to keep a city going. Do you think "the community" could come together and do all that? No, they've got shit to do. I personally can't sit in hours of planning meetings per day to schedule sewer maintenance so that the entire city doesn't get cholera and die.
Which is why I vote for people who do have time for that shit. And then I trust that the people I vote for will have the power needed to close streets as needed to get things done.
Now, I have issues with the process of voting. But that's because First Past the Post is flawed and easily abused. I have notes, and would like a better voting system, but I still want a voting system.
No, a regional or even international body is not necessarily a government in the sense of your objection, as a state power that asserts authority through coercion.
I am sorry, but you are conflating various distinct concepts as one. You have not adequately understood the ideas against which you are asserting strong objections.
And you've not actually put forward anything different beyond “organizational bodies at a scale above the level of the community”, which is a government.
Yes, these bodies will have the power of coercion, because that's how you get shit done at scale.
Imagine a farm or factory is dumping chemicals into a watershed. There are very few options for stopping that shit without some sort of coercion, and I prefer my coercion to not be in the form of mob justice, which requires a functional government.
But that's just me. Why don't you enlighten me on how the above scenario would work in your dream of a stateless society.
Stateless society is not a dream, but rather an objective, or an ideal toward which to struggle.
If you want to understand how it might be structured, then I encourage you to investigate and to discover.
At the moment, however, you are engaged in shifting of the burden of proof.
You have also entered into several instances of a false dichotomy, including through your insinuation that all societies are either disordered, or must be kept orderly by a coercive authority.
I feel you are more likely to benefit from explanation of certain ideas if you are not encumbered by such kinds of fallacious reasoning.
So you have no clue how a stateless society would actually function. Thank you for clearing that up.
There is not only a single way a stateless society may function, just as there is not only a single way a state may function.
A member of a hunter-gatherer group might lack knowledge of states, but they still occur, in all their variations.
The topic of stateless society is obviously large, just like the topic of states, or any other topic in politics. It is not suitable to be expounded in a discussion thread.
Again, if you genuinely are interested, then I encourage you to seek resources from which you might gain meaningful understanding.
Meanwhile, please stop whining that actual possibilities are somehow limited by your own personal frame of experience, knowledge, or imagination.
The fact that you're unable to link to any of these "resources" says that you don't know them.
The only stateless societies you can point to seem to have less than 150 people (hunter-gatherers) Because that's all that the human brain can support. Anything more requires bureaucracy. And that is the beginnings of government.
Have you made any attempts to learn about the subject yet, or are you still just arguing and whining?
You're the one who can't back up your position.
All my research says that it's biologically not possible to have a stateless society of more than 150 people. You've given me literally nothing to refute this.
You've answered none of my questions about infrastructure or handling inter-community disputes, or really anything at all.
All you've put forward is that you think that the entire concept of representative democracy is flawed for reasons.
Reasons that rely on a very specific verbiage that you never bothered to explain, because you likely cannot.
At this point, I can conclude that you have no clue at all about anything. The only links you've provided have been to Wikipedia articles on logical fallacies that you seem to be engaging in.
Perhaps one useful starting point for you would be learning about tribal societies.
Tribes are non-state sociopolitical structures that unify bands or villages. Bands and villages are local groups that typically have less than a few hundred members.
Again, tribes almost always consist of less than 150 individuals.
You don't seem to understand this one simple fact. I can point to about a dozen examples of small communities that are effectively stateless. They all contain less than 150 people, because that's the number of relationships that a human brain can maintain before it breaks down.
And a news flash for you, most cities and towns have more than 150 people.
No. As I explained, the local groups that are limited in size to several hundred individuals are called bands or villages. Tribes are structures that unify bands or villages.
You are not engaging the discussion or refining your understanding.
You consistently have exhibited sloppy reasoning and have adhered to inaccurate terminology.
I suggest stepping away for a few days.
Then, when your head is clear, you might read about tribal structures. Once you have opened to a broadened understanding of the structure for various past and extant stateless societies, if you are still interested in the subject, then you might begin to review some of the materials in libcom.org and The Anarchist Library. Since literature on the subject reaches back about two hundred years, I doubt you will struggle due to a poverty of sources.
If you later have doubts about material you have read, then you might present them on discussion boards. I think your asking sincere and informed questions, after some background reading, would be more productive than the present course.
Good luck.