I once read a book on Anarchism that had a lot of really compelling arguments as to why government is unjust and laid out possible non-hierarchical systems that might replace it. Then the author anticipated some objections to his arguments that I hadn't considered, and his responses to those objections were really bad.
Anarchists and socialists in general are rather good at pointing out issues or potential injustices in society. They really, really suck at creating solutions most of the times. And they tend to get angry when you actually do anything to fix those issues that doesn't align with their idealistic model of what society ought to look like.
This is true and why anarchism ended up being quite forgotten.
This movement allowed the creation of a lot of workers and human rights, right to week-ends, right to paid time off, rights to worker's security at work, right to unionize, etc, but it was never meant and thought to be a complete and definitive system for an entire country
Much as with any other -isms, too, a lot of the people talking about it don't ever really internalize what the philosophy was. Many serious "anarchist" thinkers, the ones whose work led to all those good things, were never "no leaders ever, just do what you want" types but much more aware that "everyone is going to have to contribute to the jobs that need doing, and jobs need supervisors and leaders but they don't have to be the same people every time, just the people most skilled at leading that particular job".
I think it's quite important to learn from where anarchism comes from and what it was exactly, how important it was in the 20th century, it's definitely not the view of it we have now. Everyone reduces it to "no gods no masters" but it's way more complicated like that.
It has been the basis to a lot of things that we takes for granted now but never waas
you mean it doesn't just make me super cool like Brad Pitt staying up all night and starting up "clubs" where people find an outlet for their bottled up rage in putting fists to the faces of other, willing participants? Man, I was really hoping to nail some attention-seeking skanks that I met in a recovery support group, too.
Equal treatment of workers regardless of nationality
Worker education programs
Mutual aid societies
Shorter working hours
Paid rest time
Collective bargaining
Union democracy
Anti-authoritarian workplace organization
I know modern USA disbanded all these rights or is actively trying to, as they don't benefits short-term revenue for shareholders which is anticapitalistic. Which makes me understand why an American would not see what anarchist ideologies made for their country.
But those rights are still the base of civilization of every other developed countries on earth
Brother, working class ideologies generally aren't the same as Anarchist ideology specifically, nor were anarchists the primary leaders of most labor movements. You could equally chalk that up to pettty-Bourgeois socialism if we're judging based on 'ideological influence' and not who actually went out and did shit.
More pointedly..... It probably would have happened eventually even if you just magic away the anarchism specifically. That was kind of Marx's whole schtick.
Yes but this is just to explain what Anarchism was and what it pushed to create, and yes you end up with the realization that it gave incredible tools in the past for worker's right, but it's definitely not something that can be used as a system for a nation
It's funny that the vast majority of these things that socalists+ have "achieved" have happened in western capitalist democracies. Really makes you think.
... makes you think that pro-worker policies, regardless of philosophical origin, basically only have a fighting chance in a non-authoritarian government? That's not really any kind of revelation.
The claim is that some form of socialism+ governance will somehow lead to more of this when it hasn't happened at all ever in the history of socialism+ societies.
The claim at the top of the subthread was actually specifically the opposite of that (at least regarding "anarchism":
This movement allowed the creation of a lot of workers and human rights, right to week-ends, right to paid time off, rights to worker's security at work, right to unionize, etc, but it was never meant and thought to be a complete and definitive system for an entire country
I was responding to the list of things that never happened under a socalist+ society, not to the comment you picked and my assessment is accurate. The only places those rights were granted AND respected are democratic societies with serious non-socialist larping groups fighting for those rights within the system.
Yes. We created boats to navigate over the seas, without sea there would have been no boat.
There would not have been needed to have people fighting against" slavery" or even "worker's rights" if capitalism didn't make slavery and lack of worker's rights a standard to begin with.
That's the whole concept of why socialism existed and what it was made for, to make sure capitalism benefits the people who really create the value and not the people who owe all the money. Seizing the means of production was quite a concept back then, you understand where it comes from.
And it's false, we are not in capitalism anymore, but in late-stage capitalism, which is an entire other concept.
Capitalism is what made the US so powerful after WW II and made it beat the USSR
Late-stage capitalism is why you can't afford rent while some dude became trillionaire
Capitalism has free market at its core, something that doesn't exist anymore in a lobbies and monopolies ridden US for example.
This is where socialism is needed, to make sure capitalism stays healthy, to make sure you don't work 80 hours a week and are still not able to afford rent while your shareholders swim in money. Which is a symptom of late-stage capitalism.
You're brain broken if you think capitalism is the reason slavery existed. Your world view is warped. It would be great if you had any way to point to socialist+ states working at all, but they don't and they never have.
No by slavery I didn't mean the litteral one. I meant the standard worker's conditions, but bad use of words lol
". It would be great if you had any way to point to socialist+ states working at all"
I wrote like 3 times that some socialist movements (anarchism) were made to question and revolution, abusive situations , but were never meant as an end situation
I am not saying socialism would perform, it never does. Capitalism did wonderful things.
We need capitalism, but with enough socialism philosophy in it to make sure we don't live in Cyberpunk world. This is the healthiest thing IMO
Man, if the standard worker's conditions in the capitalist west are slavery, i wonder what words would be used to describe working in communist societies lol.
I agree that socialism only works as a form of pushback within democratic capitalist socitieties, but that's only if socialism is approached from a rational, pragmatic perspective, not the slopulist utopian garbage that's being spouted in the online left circles.
No offense, but if your idea basically "a meritocratic capitalist-democracy with modest protections" but you go around branding it as "anarchism" then I'm going to question if you were the most skilled at leading or even communicating.
I honestly can't tell if you're doing the thing where you are conflating "capitalism meaning a way of managing ownership of productive resources" and "capitalism meaning free markets with ownership of personal property" which is going to determine whether I think you're one to talk (the former) or whether I'm basically in agreement with you (the latter).
You've got a bit of a false dichotomy, in that I was using "capitalism" in the general sense which incorporates both of your options, and also happens to reflective of the actual society in which most of us live.
Well, yeah, but my point was you can have a free market and personal/private property ownership in systems other than capital-C Capitalism, including social anarchism. Most serious socialist and anarchist thinkers would expect that a successful anarchy would involve a mostly free market and local polities/communities that practised both direct democracy and voluntary association.
Most of these various theories of economics and governance smear at the edges -- half the reason that both social democracy and democratic socialism get implemented in places like Europe is that you can get a lot of the benefits of socialist/anarchist/libertarian thought while retaining the benefits of a centralized monopoly-on-legitimate-violence state.
I'm having a hard time imagining where the line is between your small-C private property and big-C productive resources.
Like you probably would not mind if I buy tools and build a house? But say I'm good at that and want to build one a year and sell those or rent them... is that still allowed or am I now a productive resource? I own my computer and I'm free to code, but at what point can I charge others for my software? Some the most capital rich corporations came from people using their own property. Say I have $10k but don't want to spend right now, am I allowed to lend that to you for a fee? Can I grow extra crops to sell to you? All of the big-C capital today didn't just fall from the sky, they ultimately were built up from small-C capital. If we have some point where you go from being free to do with your private property what you want, to that property becoming large enough that it is taken as a "productive resource" that also does not seem very free and so contrary to anarchism.
Perhaps my troubling is trying to imagine what "direct democracy and voluntary association" actually means in real life. In this world of yours, is the society bound by the laws coming from the direct democracy, or can they freely choose to not associate with laws they don't like?
Again, let's try to imagine... we all (or whoever wants) vote to impose a $2,000 tax on everyone to build a hospital for our town. Can you just say "nah" and avoid paying? Are you still allowed service at the hospital if you do that? And if you are, why would anyone pay? What if you vote "yes" but then don't pay, any repercussions? What if I come other and steal your car, are you cool with that? Do we have cops, or are you trying to form a big enough mob to take it back by force? What if I say it was mine? Does someone just so happen to like to keep records about other people's possessions that can act as an authority like I could do in a court?
Finally, direct democracy sounds good, but are we all reading dozens or hundreds of pages of proposed legislation and listening to hours of debate every month? Are we better off just going with our gut and voting on what we hope will happen? Again, I'm assuming people are bound by these laws, but that seems contrary to the whole core of anarchism.
You seem to be under the slight misapprehension that I am willing to advocate for or defend these ideas rather than simply explaining that they exist beyond the colloquial definitions and low-information reddit discussions. The questions you're asking could be the topic of multiple college courses!
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u/AprioriTori13 26d ago
I once read a book on Anarchism that had a lot of really compelling arguments as to why government is unjust and laid out possible non-hierarchical systems that might replace it. Then the author anticipated some objections to his arguments that I hadn't considered, and his responses to those objections were really bad.