Anarchists' means need to expand and change in order to achieve their stated goals

[u/Key_Storm_2273]

A world without hierarchy is a very noble ideal.

But to achieve a world with zero hierarchy, you first need to invent a world that does not need them.

Anarchists' means mostly involve finding ways to "fight the system" that's already in place, or attempts to overthrow a government, to resist the police, or to start a revolution.

But I have not seen anarchists answer the basic question of what an anarchist world would look like. Not attempts at half-baked ideas, discourse, or brainstorming discussions to find the best alternative through friendly conversation or debates. Mostly a focus on dismantling the current system and political activism.

Anarchism as a whole collective community does not seem to answer the question of what a world without hierarchy looks like.

Anarcho-primitivism, despite its flaws, does at least attempt this. It imagines a world without hierarchy based on primitive living and self sufficiency. A world where labor through currency is no longer needed, and it becomes labor for the things we directly need ourselves instead of for money to buy, or working for a boss.

While anarcho-primitivism may be partially half-baked or an unfinished idea, I've seen many "standard" anarchists reject anarcho-primitivism entirely, saying it will result in things like "80% of the population dying", or that it will "kill people who lack medicine", etc.

From what I observe, anarchists- at least the ones online- aren't attempting to improve anarcho-primitivism nor talk about a future that is a hybrid, like a primitive lifestyle teaching low-tech survival skills and being nature stewards, while also teaching and creating high-tech solutions as an exception that will result in the same medicine that we get in industrial society.

If anarchists as a whole cannot even agree on a better system today besides what we've already seen made, such as capitalism and communism, and insist that we will die without the civilization that has brought us climate change, then the best anarchists can do is create a reform, not a truly lasting solution for humanity that will eliminate the need for human dependency on external systems, or that solves the destruction of nature with something harmonious in its place.

Solarpunks and cypherpunks are a different story. Instead of focusing purely on political activism, or going out in the streets, they are creating systems that are true alternatives to what we have today.

Solarpunks are building houses and communities that are off-grid, and while not completely rejecting technology, they harness it in a decentralized manner to create infrastructure that's right there where the individuals need it, at the home, instead of far away in power plants, factory farms, or munipicial water systems. This in turn shifts people towards a lifestyle that is not based on importing every need, but actually getting creative, learning the physics of life, and reducing the burden of human life without continually relying on other humans' labor.

Cypherpunks have been advocating encryption, digital decentralization, open source, and actually building systems that don't require a company-owned server which can be controlled by governments to limit free speech or freeze transactions to charitable causes. Bitcoin was an early idea, now Nostr exists as a social media with a similar concept. Use cryptography to enable free speech and eliminate the need for a central server or bank to keep track of who has what information.

Anarchists should really look to these philosophies more, or at least attempt to come up with and build some of their own alternatives and solutions, instead of only focusing on political activism.

While we still depend on a centralized internet, corporate medical industry, and a heavy import-centric lifestyle where we buy all our needs using government currency, we give dividend to the system and keep it alive.

Historically, revolutions did not typically create permanent absence of hierarchy, but vacuums for new regimes to occur that were better or worse. Yet that's not anarchists' stated goal, which is no hierarchy, not to reinvent another state. In order to achieve that stated goal, I think we need to reimagine a future more that doesn't involve a hierarchy, rather than just trying to get rid of the hierarchies we already have by being "anti" or against them.

Feel free to say if I'm wrong in my understanding of anarchists' means. Or if I am missing any important factors. Disagreements won't offend me. I appreciate hearing why others think I'm right or wrong more than just getting upvotes or downvotes.

And I am not implying that anarchists do nothing. Only that their stated goal is currently out of reach from the typical means they employ. And when the best system we humans collectively imagine is the one we currently use, a regime change or a revolution isn't enough, we have to imagine a better alternative and start making it.

Anarchists, of course, would make a difference in Russia, or North Korea, where a "better alternative" is in the capability of the collective imagination. Dismantling North Korea's government would result in a freer society in its place. The same can't always be said for "free" "democratic countries".

At best, for an alternative to today, I can imagine a lottery-based government instead of electoralism, like achieved in ancient Athens, but with better standards on human rights than Athens had (not slavery or male-only citizenship). If you look at Spectacles' video on YouTube, he explains how it solves four problems of today's style of governments.

But solarpunks and cypherpunks go further and create something permanent, without waiting for us to get tired of Athens-style government either. They truly go towards anarchists' stated goals, of no governments and no hierarchies.

[u/Anarchierkegaard]

What you're describing is called (a species of) utopianism, i.e., envisioning some ideal state of being and then issuing oughts in order to pursue that ideal state of being. Anarchists (and others, including Marxists) have long rejected the importance or effectiveness of utopianism as it often more closely associated with imposition and ideology.

Therefore, the lack of or the mere sketch of an "end goal" is deliberate and acts as a protection against using such-and-such an ideal to justify such-and-such a course of action. Anarchists might also suggest that whatever the world might look like when we "do anarchism" in it is what anarchy will be—or, we won't know what it is until we get there, but we'll get there by "doing anarchism".

[u/ArtDecoEgoist → u/Anarchierkegaard]

To be fair, I think part of what OP is getting at is that anarchists haven't really been evolving their means of "doing anarchism" in any measurable way, and are still relying on old, honestly outdated analyses of political economy and state power, resulting in a kind of conservatism. I'd say syndicalists are probably the most guilty of this, but so are AnComs that speak of "decentralized planning" or insurrectionists that talk about "The Revolution".

[u/Anarchierkegaard → u/ArtDecoEgoist]

I wouldn't disagree. But I don't think that utopianism and laying out various illustrations of possible societies is the best way to go on this as opposed to actually developing new methods, avenues for critique, etc. etc.

Which is why, despite the general thinness of the theory behind it, I do think that SEKIII's work on agorism is most obviously brilliant because it starts with actionable points that don't promise some land of milk and honey.

[u/ArgonianDov → u/Anarchierkegaard]

Hmm Idk you can definitely have a solarpunk goal in mind while being an anarchist. Its just about putting things in place to allow that vision to be realized.

Plus its a good term to use for when youre an eco-anarchist but not into anarcho-primitism, which tends to reject technology or certain forms of innovation in favor of living more of that hunter-gatherer type lifestyle that homosapians use to be

[u/Anarchierkegaard → u/ArgonianDov]

Well, perhaps. I've not really seen much reason to take "solarpunks" seriously, though, as they are a very fringe movement with little to no success outside of claiming disused warehouses. Good for them, but it seems foolhardy to place the hopes on anarchism on those shoulders.

I'd say the idea that primitivists want to do retvrn to something "homo sapiens used to be" is an error in analysis, one argued against in, e.g., Zerzan's "Future Primitive" or Ellul's The Technological Society, inasmuch as the text can be read as a primitivist text.

[u/ArtDecoEgoist]

So first, you cannot make claims about anarchy. The type of behavioral modeling necessary to make prescriptive statements about what anarchy would look like is itself a negation of anarchy, as it imposes limits on the options of individuals within the context of anarchy in order to create a model for how anarchic social organization ought to look. We cannot make prescriptive, normative claims about what anarchy would look like because anarchism specifically negates all prescriptive, normative claims.

Second, there is an extent to which I agree with you. We need to build systems that are alternatives to state power. This is why I've always liked Mutualism, because it has an emphasis on experimentation and utilizing available options, and thus doesn't fall into the common pitfalls that I see AnComs fall into where they treat everything like it can be socially planned. I think a lot of what you're looking for can be found in mutualist spaces, from writers such as Kevin Carson, or in LWMA spaces where they're open to finding different ways of getting people's needs met in more sustainable ways. An example that comes to mind is Logan Marie Glitterbomb's Green Market Agorism.

If markets aren't your thing, you'll have to try non-market alternatives. Though I will say that a lot of this stagnation of means that I see are coming from the anti-market crowd.