For example, a lot of anarchists view voting as a betrayal or as a reluctant compromise, and generally view campaigning for a party with suspicion.
Do egoists have a different view? As I understand it egoism is more pragmatic, if a party winning might benefit you then there is no reason not to campaign for them I would have thought, even if the ideal society would be a union of individuals.
Anarchist friends from the subreddit, could you offer me recommendations such as books, articles, videos about anarchism? I've become quite interested in the subject and today I almost see myself as one but I would like to have some knowledge.
Was thinking about a piece from crimethinc earlier (i think it's to change everything, i can't remember the title exactly) and i'm curious as to if there's any good writings on deconstructing capitalist and industrialist views on purpose and work.
I'll preface this by stating that I'm probably not an anarchist but I think that there's a fair bit of crossover with my views and you'll probably have an interesting viewpoint.
We were driving back from school and ended up in a discussion around violence, where I stated that the state maintains a monopoly on violence because ultimately that's how the will of the state is enforced.
I was hit with an excellent question of "why should we do what you say?" which is a surprisingly difficult question to answer to a seven year old. Especially as we'd just agreed I couldn't use violence to get him to do something.
My hastily thought out answer was that his brain wasn't fully developed and as such we as parents had a responsibility to set boundaries, limit actions, enforce behaviour etc.
It made me curious as to what you believe and practice on a day to day basis.
I’ve been struggling with something and wanted to get perspectives from people who take anarchism seriously.
A lot of the criticisms around large-scale coordination, crisis response, and things like the economic calculation problem feel overwhelming. It makes anarchism seem very difficult to defend as a full system, even if I agree with its values.
At the same time, alternatives like capitalism seem more “practically viable,” even if they have major flaws.
How do you reconcile that? Do you see anarchism as something that can actually function at scale, or more as a framework for critique and smaller-scale organization?
I’m trying to understand how people who believe in this actually deal with these criticisms.
I know people have tried to help me and tried their best and I feel embarrassed to still not fully commit yet despite people trying like is there any way I can get out of the spiral into capitalist realism and ‘there is no alternative
I just feel overwhelmed hearing all the amounts of criticism
etymologically speaking, hierarchy was first
> from Greek hierarkhia "rule of a high priest," from hierarkhēs "high priest, leader of sacred rites"
then around 1400
> "rank in the sacred order; one of the three divisions of the nine orders of angels;" loosely, "rule, dominion," from Old French ierarchie (14c., Modern French hiérarchie), from Medieval Latin hierarchia "ranked division of angels" (in the system of Dionysius the Areopagite).
and finally, in the modern sense
> "ranked organization of persons or things" is recorded in English by 1610s, initially of clergy, and probably influenced or reinforced by resemblance to unrelated higher.
On this sub, this word seems to be used as a catch all for all rule (and that is not what this word means), we are anarchists, not anhierachists, and I think the usage of hierarchy as indicative of all archies makes for poor communication and understanding.
Can we leave hierarchy to be indicative of explicitly ranked orderings so that we may better understand all archy? Using specifics in reference to the general is ultimately the degradation of our ability to talk about things.
I’ll try to keep the question short and clear. Today, urban planning in a state (I’m speaking from a European perspective) is effectively hierarchical: first the nation-state, then the capital, then regions, provinces, regional capitals, cities, and finally districts and neighborhoods.
Now, how could urban planning be reorganized in a less hierarchical way? It’s undeniable that the current hierarchical organization works fairly well (although there are discrepancies in resource distribution between regions and provinces). That said, how could something like this be made less hierarchical? Would each municipality be independent, without regions or a state?
And for transport or infrastructure that spans large territories, how could that be managed? (For example, railways and transportation systems in general.)
Finally, for decisions that would affect large areas (such as routing a train line through one municipality rather than another), how would assemblies be organized? Calling together the population of an entire region would be very complicated. Would each municipality send some representatives? That might be one idea.
Thanks to anyone who contributes to the discussion.
have a lot of free time so have been reading a lot. completed the entirety (skipped the parts about ancap) of AFAQ, Ecology of Freedom and some other stuff and it sounds dope but idk revolution doesn’t seem around the corner nor perhaps possible.
aside from doing the dual power stuff right here right now, libertarian socialism itself seems to only happen and take over in unique circumstances where there’s a big enough space for it to fit in amongst the chaos (mexico spain Syria etc).
i know for a fact that there is no hope in marxism-Leninism and all of that mess but idk if there is hope in socialism period, even though I think for it to succeed it would have to be libertarian.
What are your perspectives? would you be satisfied if you died without a revolution and all your free time off of work trying to build it was the equivalent of flies buzzing around the snout of a lion?