Quote from: ElectroKittyAnarchy is great -- if you have the guns and the charisma to form your own dictatorship.

Otherwise it sucks on every scale.

You're doing it wrong!

heh heh. But seriously, that's not how it works.

Like how I practice communism. I'm not really advocating it as a governmental system, but it's real close to how my friends and I interact.

I am an election judge in the city wherein I reside, and I was in the city wherein I formerly resided.  I sometimes assist in the local activities of a Congressman to whom I owe some gratitude and loyalty due to his being a good friend for many years to my father (and, by extension, my mother), despite political differences.  I attend town hall meetings held by my state-level legislators to keep track of my state government's doings.  That is the extent, in practical terms, of my political activity at this time.

Quote from: Thanatos02You're doing it wrong!

heh heh. But seriously, that's not how it works.

So how is anarchy supposed to work? I'm actually curious now, because from what I've read it looks like a dead end.

If you organize anarchy - then isn't the original idea out the window?


- Ed C.

Quote from: KoltarIf you organize anarchy - then isn't the original idea out the window?


- Ed C.

Anarchy as a political philosophy is not a synonym for chaos.  An anarchic state is one in which there are no rulers, not no rules.

You can think of it as being like GM-less roleplaying.

Quote from: hgjsAnarchy as a political philosophy is not a synonym for chaos.  An anarchic state is one in which there are no rulers, not no rules.

You can think of it as being like GM-less roleplaying.

So how does an anarchic state deal with its citizens who break the rules?

Quote from: jeff37923So how does an anarchic state deal with its citizens who break the rules?

I dunno.  Maybe everyone beats them to death.  Maybe they build race of perfectly just robots to keep the peace among them, but they rebel against humanity and trigger an apocalyptic war; and the son of the scientist who invented them -- using a suit of advanced armor built by his father -- becomes a champion of the struggle against the machines, evenually engaging the machine leader in a single combat that will decide the fate of the world, from which he emerges victorious, but not before the leader of the machines reveals that they had never rebelled against their original programming: the only way to make humanity perfectly peaceful was to enslave them.

Quote from: hgjsYou can think of it as being like GM-less roleplaying.

 I never thought much of that idea either....


{{{:-)


- Ed C.

Quote from: jeff37923So how does an anarchic state deal with its citizens who break the rules?

There's no such thing as an anarchic state, and no one would be a "citizen" in an anarchy. There also wouldn't be any rules, in the sense of written laws established by some authority through the systematic application of violence.. Acts like killing another person etc. can be dealt with through all sorts of ways - whatever is proper to the situation. It's contrary to anarchism to advocate a single, systematic way that everyone must deal with some event. Some options might be shunning, rehabilitation, the institution of better safety protocols to prevent accidents, banishment, or heck, back-slaps and a round at the bar. There are no doubt an infinity of others, and each of us would have to decide and work this problem out in the particular instance, rather than simply dealing with it as an instantiation of an abstract universal principle of some sort.

OK, now I've just heard two very different takes on anarchy. One a bit tongue-in-cheek, but both against any kind of centralised authority. One version said that there had to be rules in place to function while the other one didn't. It also seems like while a centralised authority is discouraged, one would be acceptable in times of crisis - be it a robot revolution or a natural disaster.

Are there different types of anarchy? If there are, how do they differ in their approach? Have any of these been used as a form of government in the real world? If so, how successful was it and what was the size of the population?

Quote from: jeff37923Are there different types of anarchy?

In this modern age, you can get a fast answer to your every idle question.

Wikipedia > Anarchism > Schools of anarchist thought

Quote from: hgjsIn this modern age, you can get a fast answer to your every idle question.

Wikipedia > Anarchism > Schools of anarchist thought

Thank you for the link and I'll check it out, but I'd like to hear from the anarchy advocates as well to get a better understanding.

There are different types of anarchy. Just like there are different kinds of democracy, and just about every other kind of political arrangement. Both different kinds of theory and different kinds of practice.

The two most successful anarchist societies that I'm familiar with were a long-lasting form in Iceland during the mediaeval period, and anarcho-syndicalism in Spain in the 30's (which continues today in the form of the Mondragon cooperatives).

As for a "centralised authority" it depends upon how you mean this term. There probably would be "project leaders" and people who coordinated other people when they needed to work together as a group, and people who were respected as experts in a particular field and thus had their ideas followed by others.

On the other hand, it'd be contrary to most anarchists and anarchist theory to have an "authority" as the term is usually used in anarchist theory - a person or group whose use of coercion is considered automatically legitimate by all others, and who do use that coercion to force others to do what they want (whether that coercion takes the form of violence, deprivation, or whatever else).

For the record, I don't belong to any particular school or group of anarchists.

Laughing out Loud.  (WTF?) Oh my fucking God...!

Anarchy?
 Different forms?
 Best joke I've seen on the internet.


Okay time to put some BABYON 5 DVDs on...or make some NPcs.

- Ed C.

Quote from: PseudoephedrineThe two most successful anarchist societies that I'm familiar with were a long-lasting form in Iceland during the mediaeval period, and anarcho-syndicalism in Spain in the 30's (which continues today in the form of the Mondragon cooperatives).

OK, are you talking about the Icelandic Commonwealth (930 - 1230 AD)? I've found some papers on that which I'm looking at now.

Once I'm done reading these I'll take a look at the anarco-syndicalism of 1930's Spain and its evolution into the Mondragon cooperatives.

Oh, and thanks.