Ah now I understand why this has gone for so long. Your reading comprehension skills are non-existent.

First of all, the US is a flawed democracy, not even a real one. And those genocides are done to people outside the US. None of my arguments are about what is morally correct or not.

What I’m saying is that anarchy is not a stable system, it will eventually evolve into a stable one.

In fact, the US right now is a perfect example of what I’m saying. You guys voted an openly fascist imbecile twice to the top power. And the other branches of government gave him even more power. And still, he has only openly killed like <10 citizens out of 330 million. And you guys still have elections. Sure, democracy has eroded a lot. But it’s still technically a democracy.

If someone like trump obtained that amount of power in an anarchic society, he would’ve just killed every democrat in the country.

In a democracy (even if a shitty one), with a good chunk of the population backing him, he still does not have absolute power. More than 5 years in, he hasn’t yet managed to end democracy.

Then that means it’s shit.

In a democracy, governments derive their power from the legitimacy that the support of their voters give them. If someone in government decides to “not be nice about it”, then most likely the rest of the government would stop it. Remember, the government is made up of a LOT of people. If an entire political party goes nuts, then the opposition would get votes and reclaim the monopoly of violence.

All of the examples you mention where anarchy works are small groups of <50 people. This post is talking about anarchy in the scope of an entire labor market. That is thousands of millions of people. The context is way different. Furthermore, all of those examples are small anarchic groups in the context of a non-anarchic society.

A family can be anarchic, but they still can call the police if a family member murders another one.

I won’t read a book just to argue with someone. Each word has thousands of definitions depending on who uses it. Each different person I’ve talked to in this thread has a different definition of what anarchy is. If I read a book about anarchy, I can only argue with the author. I won’t read 1 book per random person on the internet.

I ask a simple question: how is an anarchic system going to defend against foreign and inside enemies? In any other system this is a simple answer, yet for anarchy I’m encountering walls of text that either sidetrack the conversation or give an utopian answer of “everyone would come together and defend eachother” which has no basis in reality.

How are those demands going to be enforced?

In most other political systems there is a central authority with a monopoly of violence that can enforce rules via violence.

If your political system only works if everyone acts in the interests of society over their own, then it’s not a political system. It’s a failure. Because there are plenty of selfish people, and you can’t change that.

So in your vision of anarchy there are leaders and hierarchies. There is just no central power that orchestrates them all. Ok.

Now. What is stopping the leader of the military from saying: “you know what? We’ve got all the weapons, why don’t we subjugate our own population and live rich lives?”. Resulting in a central authority, which would end the anarchy.

If you at least tried to explain why I’m wrong instead of “you’re wrong, read a book”, maybe I could use your definition of anarchy instead of mine.

The definition I got from this post is “anarchy is when people do the work that they love and they don’t have to worry about being paid enough for that work”. And I don’t think that would result in a stable society, since the demand for some kinds of labor is very different to the amount of people that “love” to do that work.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tribe

Under “classifications” plenty of kinds of tribes. Many of them with leaders and hierarchies.

With what army? How do maintain a military without a hierarchy. Without central commands that everyone must follow

Well. You could’ve said that if you wanted to say that.

Now it’s not 5 dudes. Your land is valuable and the neighbouring state wants to invade you. How do you stop it?

When i say that there were sages in tribes, I don’t mean that there was just a wise guy. I mean that an elder would basically rule the tribe, because everyone would ask him for advice, and there could be consequences if that “advice” wasn’t followed.

Nah I’m not going to read a book to answer a simple question.

A government derives its power from its monopoly of violence. If there is no government, that means there is no monopoly of violence. If there is no monopoly of violence, there is no means to enforce rules or laws, since whoever is more powerful (that is, has “more” violence) can just ignore the rule/law.

Real world examples of anarchist societies do nothing more than prove my point. They are temporary. Anarchist “rule” in Barcelona did not survive the war. No anarchist societies do.

In order for a political system to stand the test of time, it has to be protected from both external and internal enemies. That is, you need a military and a police. The only way around it is to import your military (that is, have an ally with a strong military willing to protect you). But it doesn’t make much sense to import your police.

If you don’t protect from exterior enemies, the same as Barcelona happens, an enemy force just invades and asserts its political system. And if you don’t protect from internal enemies, then your own “citizens” can organize themselves and develop their own state that can just take over all the land that your anarchist society used to be in.

I find it hard to believe that you can have both a military and a police in a system where there are supposedly no rulers.

We’re not talking about capitalism. IDK where you’re getting that from.

I’m reading your argument as “the current system sucks, so this other that I propose is obviously better”.

Yes, you can keep mixing water and oil. That’s the point of my argument. But to do that, you need someone to enforce anarchy. But when you have someone enforcing a political system, you no longer have anarchy. Since that dude/organization is clearly above others, forming a hierarchy.

How is that different from a government?

So you’re saying that you and sewage treatment plant guy will successfully defend against 5 armed men that ambushed you while you were working?

Remember: this is not an action film, this is real life we’re talking about.

What happens is that different people have different options. For some people, they have options that are way better than mining. For some other people, the other options might not be as appealing because they might pay less or whatever. That is the market.

If nobody wants to be a miner, the pay/conditions of mining should go up enough so that there is someone that prefers mining over what they’re currently doing.

This encourages people to do jobs that are unappealing.

On the other side, if you are a bad fiction writer, you’re probably not earning enough money to survive. That’s because you’re spending resources but you’re not calming many people’s desires, so you’ll probably take up a job that you like less but pays way more, and is probably more healthy for the community.

Nobody is forcing them. But if those jobs were not done, we wouldn’t have the society we have today. Mining safety gear will probably not have been invented in an anarchy society. Water treatment plants wouldn’t either. All those things we have today is because we used our resources way more efficiently than “go do whatever you want, the guy over there that loves farming and the guy over there that loves cooking will keep you fed”.

You don’t need tyrants for hierarchies. Tribes had sages and leaders.

Yeah that’s cool. You and sewage guy will make a great duo. But the 5 dudes over there organized themselves, acquired a weapon and killed the other guy. They’re waiting for you to come out of the mine with all those resources and you don’t even know it.

Is that freedom from oppression?

No. The problem is that what people want is not the same as what the people need.

The central problem of economics is that humans have infinite desires, which need resources to be met, and resources are finite. Therefore, we should aim to efficiently allocate our resources to meet the most of our desires.

If in a population of 1000, there are 100 fiction writers, you’re gone get more fiction books than you can read, and you’re probably die of hunger, because now the other 900 have to sustain the 100 writers for basically no value. Since probably most people will only want to read the top 1-2 that are actually good.

If the other 99-98 other writers don’t have any pressure to change careers because the community provides for them, why would they? The thing they want to do most is writing!

And all that is assuming such a civilization exists. From my PoV, dreaming about anarchism makes no sense. Our world was born anarchic. There were no CEOs nor governments. And the people that lived in that world rapidly formed societies that had hierarchies, because that is the most efficient way.

The natural consequence of anarchy is non-anarchy. Anarchy is not a final state, it’s transitory. Anarchy is not a stable state.

Just like you can try mixing water and oil all you want, the moment you stop stirring, they will separate.

The only way to keep a non-stable state is by force. That is, if you want anarchy, there must be someone enforcing that there be anarchy. And if that’s the case, then it’s no longer anarchy, since there is a ruler.

Will you? Because I know I won’t