this post was submitted on 19 Apr 2024
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[–] [email protected] 15 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

As far as I understand, Anarchism doesn't mean no rules, it means no rulers. No hierarchy of people.

The rules would be set up in such a way to actively discourage individual accumulation of power as much as possible. But a system like that could still have rules, just enforced collectively instead of power being parceled out to individuals. I think there are a lot of practical ways you can try to reduce power accumulation, like term limits is a very obvious example that is a concept we are familiar with. Or like ways of reducing wealth inequality can also be seen as a way of trying to reduce hierarchy.

I don't know all the theory, I honestly feel like that kinda shit isn't always the most useful anyways. But there are obvious things we can do now to reduce hierarchy and they seem like things that would be good. Having an ideological stance that hierarchy is bad, and we should reduce it as much as possible.. that's Anarchism.

[–] BombOmOm 2 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (2 children)

The rules would be set up in such a way to actively discourage individual accumulation of power as much as possible.

When the state nextdoor rolls in with tanks, aircraft, and warships, how do you push them back? Is the 'collective enforcement' armed with such weapons as well, trains together, and has a solid command structure to coordinate and fight back the invader? How do you organize the command structure of your military defense force such that it fits within the 'collective enforcement' model, without instantly devolving into a free for all?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

first off, rigidly vertical command structures basically always lose to structures with more devolved authority. its a pattern borne out by 20th century warfare. this isn't some fringe anarchist theory; you'll learn this in a military academy. theres math behind why this works.

second: organized ≠ hierarchal. just because you can't imagine what this would look like doesn't mean there aren't volumes and volumes about it, and history going back to at least the ancient world in a military context.

third: aside from extermination, which tends to put people opposing you on the same page; try a military occupation of a population with as many guns and as rough terrain as the american empire. it can't be done. sure, maybe you take DC, but no way in hell do you hold Appalachia or Chicago, if you even penetrate in the first place. even Florida or Los Angeles would be a blood bath for any would-be occupier. it literally can't be done. if you think otherwise, you're missing multiple entire categories of things about how wars and armies work. if you doubt this, ask why Afghanistan and Vietnam aren't us colonies right now.

[–] daltotron -3 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Probably you do what they did in Afghanistan and use IEDs

[–] BombOmOm 2 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

Sucks to be a civilian or one of said militants in Afghanistan though. You die at much higher rates than your occupier and your people are completely at their mercy. Normally one would want to stop an invasion before it is an occupation, not just weather an occupation, while taking dizzying losses, for decades.

[–] daltotron 1 points 7 months ago

I mean more seriously the basic question you're asking is just how an anarchist community would fight off an outside force, and that's kind of a really complicated question, to ask, which probably doesn't have that much to do with the overall structure of a country's governance. If you want a more in depth answer, then the distinct advantage of a decentralized structure in that kind of context is the ability to be hardier, while maybe being less coordinated, caveat, this isn't necessarily the case, or maybe being able to make snap judgements less effectively, which, also maybe is not an advantage.

We've also not really seen many peer or near peer conflicts in the modern era, with maybe the major exception being Ukraine. Everything else has been proxy wars waged by larger colonial powers, and there's not any level of organization that's going to really help out against drone strikes.

The larger thing that you're maybe getting at here is that centralization and hierarchy is kind of an easier short-term gain specifically because of it's authoritarian nature, so everyone kind of, is automatically more likely to lean into it. Especially at larger scales, as those larger scales kind of, select for those more authoritarian structures automatically. We're more likely to have those power structures at large scales, basically. So we don't have a whole lot of examples to go on, and especially not at large scales or from peer conflict. The things we see the most are anti-colonial struggles. I dunno, you could try looking at the ezln, but there's not much good documentation in English. that I've seen.