196

So if you ask a group of 5 leftists of any sort how they imagine society might be structured you'll get 6 answers. Anarchists are no different, it's difficult because it's off the map yeah?

The common thread is a society with no involuntary impositions of power and authority. That isn't no rules, many societies in the past and present have varying degrees of hierarchy and even within the same society the degree of hierarchy can change depending on what groups of people are doing.

you know how when you organise a family gathering nobody is "in charge" exactly? people select tasks they are suited to or feel it's their turn to do and go about doing them. People might choose to defer decisions to another person but always retain the ability to withdraw that consent and so on?

Anarchists imagine a society more like that, where when a person wants something done they assemble a group of people, communicate their ideas, reach a consensus on whether it should or shouldn't be done, if people agree then they organise themselves into a group to accomplish the task.

It's really not so different from how you probably conduct yourself most of the time. It's actually kinda rare for people to use coercive violence to get people to cooperate. Anarchists think we can all just take a few more steps towards being anarchists all the time.

As to why would it be better? well what feels better: cooking at a community gathering or working at a restaurant with your boss breathing down your neck?

Most people have a very flaws understanding of anarchism. It absolutely is NOT a society without rules, that's chaos and where the most physically powerful will rule, which is objectively a terrible thing and a big step backwards.

Anarchism is not really a system of government, but the philosophical belief that there should not be a heiarchy in societal laws. It can be applied in many different forms of goverment, most commonly with democracy but there are plenty of anarcho-communist out there. The gist is that systems that promote one group being shown favor, especially at the expense of another, should be dismantled. And what replaces it should be set up to serve and protect all people evenly.

This usually means police abolition and refocusing that energy on the underlining reasons people break "the law". Like providing a minimum level of housing, income and food to all.

I can't summerize the books succiently, but if you are interested The Dispossed and The Conquest of Bread deals with more examples.

Restructuring society around principles of Mutual Aid and other forms of Cooperative systems. Participatory Economics, for example, is a promising idea.

The chief philosophy is a rejection of all hierarchy, but not a rejection of order or society.

Looking at the replies it seems anarchism is about having strong yet diverging opinions on the definition of anarchism

I don't actually know all that much about it, but the anarchists that I know are all about communities and mutual support and stuff. So I guess they think government is bad and communities supporting each other is good.

Personally I wonder what they'd call it when a community gets really good at providing a particular type of support and they agree to pool their resources to efficiently provide said support to all members of the community.

Different

Some people are so negatively affected by society and its structures, literally anything would be better.

See: Brodie in Dogma.

Most people talking about anarchy just want to f*** some s*** up because they feel powerless or threatened or boxed in. But that's not what anarchy is or how it functions as a community structure.

A good way to think about anarchism as an actual community structure, as a commune, is to think about the native Americans pre colonization.

Anarchism is not the absence of societal or authority structures, it's freedom to create your own rules within your community and exist separately from other communities.

So each native American tribe had their own rules and their own territory and within that territory their rules were absolute, but 20 mi over other tribe had their own rules and territory and their rules were absolute.

It's actually pretty similar to the idea of having separate states that get to make their own laws in the United States(guns and prostitutes are fine in one state but get you years of prison in another), except that anarchy has only worked in small groups because unless you have strict rules within each community, one bad actor can spoil an entire community of 200 people.

So after your tribe grows too large(a state) it's unsustainable without smaller communities(towns) within your tribe using bureaucracy/authority to keep people in line.

A dismantling of hierarchies of all kinds. No rulers, no masters. The people would manage themselves.

It's better because it's a society based on mutual aid instead of exploitation. There are different theories about how exactly it will look like or how you get there. But overall most agree that it's a non-hierarchical society, based on self-management and federalism. Decisions are made through direct democracy. If you want to read more there is a good chapter about it here Final Objectives: Social Revolution and Libertarian Socialism.

I think some anarchists are just angry. But "anarchy" as a type of government, means a society without leaders. (Anarchos means "without kings") just people living peacefully, helping each other, without anyone really needing to be in charge.

For more info read V for Vendetta. The movie didn't really cover this well, but the book makes it feel like the next stage of human evolution.

Lol, I was also curious about the soup. Thank you for explaining.