Ask an Anarchist

[Flying Pig]

I'm not sure that retribution per se has anything to do with it. While I accept that a great deal of crimes would be reduced if social justice were increased - for example, people would be less inclined to steal if everybody had a decent standard of living - it's surely also the case that some people will inevitably commit crimes. There will always be a subset of the population who steal, or drive dangerously, or drink too much and start fights simply because they enjoy it. In an anarchist society, who, if anyone, takes hold of these people after the fact, what, if anything, is done to deter them or other people from doing such things, and how does such a body differ from a state?

 

[Terxpahseyton]

I have to ask again (not sure where, but I am sure I already asked this somewhere)
Do you trust the judgment of people so much that horrible cases of mob rule is not a concern for you?
Or do you view it as a prize which has to be paid by the view so the many may enjoy life?

 

[Traitorfish]

I'm not sure that retribution per se has anything to do with it. While I accept that a great deal of crimes would be reduced if social justice were increased - for example, people would be less inclined to steal if everybody had a decent standard of living - it's surely also the case that some people will inevitably commit crimes. There will always be a subset of the population who steal, or drive dangerously, or drink too much and start fights simply because they enjoy it. In an anarchist society, who, if anyone, takes hold of these people after the fact, what, if anything, is done to deter them or other people from doing such things, and how does such a body differ from a state?

I don't imagine the absence of a state means the absence of sanctions, just of their application in a centralised, systematic way. People who engage in anti-social behaviour may be refused socialisation, forcefully if necessary. If they drink and drive, refuse them access to either drink or a car. If they steal, take the stuff back and don't let them have any more. Maybe not the most straightforward way of going about it compared to the whole nightsticks-and-jail cells approach, but it's a lot more human. Only if they're suffering from some deep-set pathologically is that going to fail to deter them, and if that's the case, they should never be allowed to get to the point where they represent that sort of threat to themselves or others.

I have to ask again (not sure where, but I am sure I already asked this somewhere)
Do you trust the judgment of people so much that horrible cases of mob rule is not a concern for you?
Or do you view it as a prize which has to be paid by the view so the many may enjoy life?

"Mobs", I would contend, are expressions of authoritarian society, not simply of human nature, so I don't regard them as a concern. They're something formed by people with very little control over their lives, who find themselves able to exert their will only through . Free people, people who run the their own lives, would have no obvious need to resort to that sort of practice, and indeed would find it quite puzzling. The mob represents only a temporary absence of authority, given in a strange way license by the expectation that authority (even a resented authority) will return when the fires have burned out. People faced with the simple non-existence of authority have to find some more constructive way to engage with each other, or they simply die.

Maybe people will make wrong decisions. Maybe justice will not always be done. But that happens now, and with the added bonus that we're forced to accept an even greater fleet of injustices. It's not clear to me how "occasional mistrial" is worse than "occasioal mistrial + systematic oppression and exploitation of majority of global population", except that in the former case its not given license by a brightly-coloured rectangle of fabric.

 

[Takhisis]

"Mobs", I would contend, are expressions of authoritarian society, not simply of human nature,

I disagree. Mobs can form under quite varied sets of circumstances. Also, the amny can oppress the few… and the other way around.

 

[Traitorfish]

You're certainly free to disagree. But that is how I, as an anarchist, see things, and why I do not share the Hobbesian fear of "the mob"- nor, for that matter, the insurrectionists' romanticisation of it.

 

[Takhisis]

Well, if I wasn't free then the premise of this thread would be a sham.

Mobs can form everywhere, and just because there isn't a state in the modern, 'Western' sense doesn't mean that there won't be other forms of concentration of power.

 

[timtofly]

If mobs are reactionary though, why purposely set off the reaction?

 

[Traitorfish]

Mobs can form everywhere

I don't think that's self-evident. Despite the current fashionableness of Hobbesian social philosophy, pessimism is not the same thing as truthfulness.

and just because there isn't a state in the modern, 'Western' sense doesn't mean that there won't be other forms of concentration of power.

No, but I don't believe I've suggested as much. I'm very much with Clastres on this one, that anti-authoritarian societies represent not simply the absence of political power, but the dominance of counter-power, of an active and at least half-concious resistance to the accumulation of power. That's a large part of why I place so much emphasis on agents rather than results, on people and communities capable of self-government, rather than the simple absence of the state.

 

[AvalancheMaster]

Kinda broad question, but how does anarchism view feminism, especially third-wave one?

 

[Borachio]

This place is interesting.

http://www.newleftproject.org/index.php/site/article_comments/a_utopia_towards_peace_notes_on_marinaleda

While the rest of Spain experiences 27% unemployment, Marinaleda has only 5%.

For over 30 years the mayor of Marinaleda has been Juan Manuel Sánchez Gordillo of the United Left Party. Gordillo has annoited Marinaleda a "utopia for peace", which has no municipal police (saving $350,000 a year). Additionally, political murals and revolutionary slogans adorn the town’s whitewashed walls and streets are named after Latin American leftists. Every few weeks, the town hall declares a Red Sunday over a bullhorn and volunteers clean the streets or do odd jobs.[2]

"They all thought that the market was God, who made everything work with his invisible hand. Before, it was a mortal sin to talk about the government having a role in the economy. Now, we see we have to put the economy at the service of man."
— Mayor Juan Manuel Sánchez Gordillo, May 2009 remarks about Spain’s real estate bust and rampant unemployment [2]

Marinaleda has a long tradition of sociopolitical struggle by agricultural laborers, which has influenced decisively the attainment of diverse political and social advances. Marinaleda has been ruled by CUT-BAI (Collective for the Unity of Workers - Andalusian Left Bloc) since 1979 until 1986 when CUT joined United Left that has since then been the ruling party (whilst most of the composition of IU's Local branch is basically members of CUT-BAI).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marinaleda,_Spain

Without the mayor, though, this "experiment" probably would never have happened; and there's concern now over what will happen when he retires.

 

[AvalancheMaster]

This place is interesting.

http://www.newleftproject.org/index.php/site/article_comments/a_utopia_towards_peace_notes_on_marinaleda

While the rest of Spain experiences 27% unemployment, Marinaleda has only 5%.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marinaleda,_Spain

Without the mayor, though, this "experiment" probably would never have happened; and there's concern now over what will happen when he retires.

I want to address those statements not as an anarchist, but as the person on the political right spectrum:

First, unemployment is a BS statistic. Lowering unemployment does not always lead to better economy, better living conditions and even does not fix poverty. Quite honestly, it seems to me that this place's governor suffers from the broken window fallacy. Also, revolutionary "slogans" on the walls? As somebody who comes from Eastern Europe, I can classify this only as "extremely disturbing". There are no "revolutionary slogans" that are written on walls by government officials (or at least being written by citizens, encouraged by government officials to write them). I call this propaganda, and an extremely worrying one as well.

I'm extremely interested how much money does this town receive out of the government budget. You can't claim you've achieved success if you're still dependent on somebody else paying your bills.

 

[Traitorfish]

Kinda broad question, but how does anarchism view feminism, especially third-wave one?

To the extent that it's possible to generalise about two enormously diverse categories, positively. Anarchists will of course make all the usual qualifications about the deficiencies of liberal feminism, bourgeois feminism, etc., along more or less the same lines as Marxists. (A lot of anarchist thought on gender is, as in a lot of regards, Marxist thought given a black paint job. Not that this is necessarily a bad thing, mind you.)

Often anarchists will make some appeal to "anarcha-feminism", which variously seems to mean "anarchism done by feminists" or "feminism done by anarchists", depending on who's talking. (I suppose the ideal would be "anarcha-feminism done by anarcha-feminists", but in practice the conceptual distinctions are never really overcome.) Third wave feminism, which tends to explicitly emphasise the multitude of oppression in contemporary society, tends to fit particularly well with this outlook, because it naturally encourages engagement between different tendencies of radical thought.

This place is interesting.

http://www.newleftproject.org/index.php/site/article_comments/a_utopia_towards_peace_notes_on_marinaleda

While the rest of Spain experiences 27% unemployment, Marinaleda has only 5%.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marinaleda,_Spain

Without the mayor, though, this "experiment" probably would never have happened; and there's concern now over what will happen when he retires.

I've read about this place, yeah. It's certainly interesting, but I don't think it's a model of post-capitalism, really, so much as a a peculiarly libertarian example of municipal socialism-and-mutualism. Its significance is more as a response to the wage-system, rather than as a solution to it.

I want to address those statements not as an anarchist, but as the person on the political right spectrum:

Please don't. The thread is for questions and answers, and introducing tangential discussions just tends to clutter up the place. If you want to discuss the site Borachio links to, we'd prefer you start a new thread, or perhaps in a more appropriate serial thread.

 

[Takhisis]

Unemplyoment isn't a BS statistic. It's a fact. You can make BS arguments based on it and do a lot of spinning but the statistic itself isn't BS.

 

[Borachio]

I've read about this place, yeah. It's certainly interesting, but I don't think it's a model of post-capitalism, really, so much as a a peculiarly libertarian example of municipal socialism-and-mutualism. Its significance is more as a response to the wage-system, rather than as a solution to it.

It's new to me.

It seems it's come out of the long Spanish tradition of anarchism. Which is no surprise, I suppose.

Isn't it just an example of communalism? And isn't there a tradition of this too in the UK? Say, through the Cooperative Movement?

And is it true that Anarchism will always be doomed to localism? That it doesn't wish, and couldn't if it did, to engage on a global level?

 

[Traitorfish]

It's new to me.

It seems it's come out of the long Spanish tradition of anarchism. Which is no surprise, I suppose.

Isn't it just an example of communalism? And isn't there a tradition of this too in the UK? Say, through the Cooperative Movement?

I think that's about right. The Spanish labour movement has always had an anarchist thread, but in practice what this means is a more libertarian, localised inflection on a more mainstream syndicalism-mutualism. (Especially post-Franco, Spanish "anarchism" often seems to denote a basically subcultural affiliation, hence the mayor of this place being a representative of United Left, a coalition dominated by the Communist Party, which would have baffled the anarchists of the '30s.) As you say, something similar exists in the UK, as represented by the Cooperative Movement. So I think it needs to be understood on those terms, as a particular response to life under capitalism, rather than a blueprint for an alternative to it.

And is it true that Anarchism will always be doomed to localism? That it doesn't wish, and couldn't if it did, to engage on a global level?

I think it can. But I don't think this gives us any particular clues as to how it might. This sort of project, admirable as it is, suggests a defensive posture, a concern for surviving wage-labour rather than challenging with it. Engaging on a wider and eventually global level is something that I think has to emerge out of social conflict, which for better or worse tends to develop independently of the ambitions of self-concious anarchists, or anybody else.

 

[Takhisis]

I think that's about right. The Spanish labour movement has always had an anarchist thread, but in practice what this means is a more libertarian, localised inflection on a more mainstream syndicalism-mutualism. (Especially post-Franco, Spanish "anarchism" often seems to denote a basically subcultural affiliation, hence the mayor of this place being a representative of United Left, a coalition dominated by the Communist Party, which would have baffled the anarchists of the '30s.) As you say, something similar exists in the UK, as represented by the Cooperative Movement. So I think it needs to be understood on those terms, as a particular response to life under capitalism, rather than a blueprint for an alternative to it.

What would the difference be between "pure" Anarchism and Anarcho-Syndicalism?

btw the Spanish labour movement's anarchist thread… what forum is it in?

 

[timtofly]

All of them.

 

[Traitorfish]

What would the difference be between "pure" Anarchism and Anarcho-Syndicalism?

I don't think there is any "pure" anarchism, really, and it'd be a mistake to imagine that "anarchism without adjectives" (as it's called) represents a more anarchist-y anarchism simply because it eschews labelling, even if a lot of its proponents seem to imagine it does.

It'd tend to think of anarcho-syndicalism is a particular mode of anarchism, rather than a qualification by or hybridisation with syndicalism. And, ideally, a suppose, a particular mode of syndicalism, rather than a qualification by anarchism.

My personally feeling is that, historically and today, a lot of anarchists put too much weight on the label "anarchist", as if it were some binding ideal rather than a simple descriptor, which means they spend far too much of their time listening to the ideas of bomb-lobbers, gutter-punks and postmodernists (and which is worse?) simply because "we're all anarchists",, while remaining closed off to useful thought that happens to carry an over-strong whiff of Marxism. But, that's not always the case, and since 2008, anarchists seem to be taking class seriously again- which in practice often means, people are coming to anarchism fresh, without the patience for the old hobby-horses ("well, sure, they're striking, but are they vegan?"), or for that matter with the archaic theories of the paleo-Marxist sects.

 

[Hojsimpson]

What do you think of people who are crazy?
Should they be imprisoned in asylum? They´re innocents, and deciding the life of another person is against anarchism. But they are danger for society.

 

[Traitorfish]

I don't know what "crazy" means, as conventionally used. Nothing much, I suspect. Psychologically atypical, I suppose, but who isn't? So it's hard to have an opinion.