Anarchists want more of that, and less of power imposed from above.
Proudhon, the father anarchism, was a mutualist - he wanted most functions of society to be contracted between people,the way a convention goer agrees to terms when entering a convention.
It's not no rules and no enforcement, but voluntary association and consent and stripping away coercion wherever possible.
Aka "we don't need law enforcement, we can become law enforcement ourselves". And then you have law enforcement. Sounds like a reset more than an alternative.
That would most likely quickly lead to massive segregation by any major criteria available, as "community policing" essentially means "no written laws, no recourse, we'll apply them as we see fit", ergo if you're not tightly aligned with the majority in your specific area, you're going to have a terrible time - so you leave for a place where they are more like you. Presumably while leaving your stuff behind to provide valuable "community resources".
I'm not saying that that couldn't be a good thing (homogeneity = less conflict), but I always get the feeling that there's a lot of magic involved ("we will find ways to come to consensus", "once we are free, all disagreement vanishes", which often sounds like wink wink and a few mass graves somewhere) and a lot of what is hand-waved away will present extremely large problems that will quickly make most people long for the stable, predictable and relatively tolerant society we have today.
IMO that’s an overly pessimistic view of those who push for community policing. In reality, it’s more like “we want people with stakes in the community’s wellness to police it, not those who see it as their daytime stomping ground.”
> That would most likely quickly lead to massive segregation
Really? Community policing = “no written laws”? You don’t think there’s a middle ground between “friendly neighborhood policemen” and Judge Dredd?
> if you're not tightly aligned with the majority in your specific area, you're going to have a terrible time
Right, because we currently live in a society that’s totally not segregated by wealth, race, culture, religion, sexuality, or political views. And clearly, the police system has been our bulwark against non-aligning minorities being persecuted! That’s what the protests are all about, right?
If local majorities set the rules and aren't constrained by the state in what they can do, you'll think back to these days as the glory when everything was (in comparison) diverse and people tolerated each other. Balkanization describes the effect of that kind of community policing. And you better be ready to adjust to local laws when traveling through the different zones.
Under an anarchist society, the folks tasked with handling these sorts of things would be volunteers elected by the community (in a con they're instead volunteers screened by the con committee). There would also be an expectation that, in public spaces, it's everyone's job to step in and stop a problem like, say, sexual harassment (which some cons also expect).
Having seen these principles in action at CHOP, I think it really does provide a better and more equitable outcome. However, anarchist systems do suffer from moving very slowly at times.
Playing the devils advocate here, but I really would like to know why this is not an example of anarchy; of course answers like people will behave differently if there is no capitalism I find hard to accept without evidence.
Anarchists are on the opposite end of the inclusion spectrum, even including the wrongdoer in the decision process for what the punishment is, when possible.
So, say you live in an anarchist commune, but do not believe in anarchy yourself. You're still invited to the meetings where policy is decided, and while you're not forced to, there's a lot of peer pressure to attend. You're still subject to the group's decisions.
Say you completely disagree with this and want to go do something else. The commune tries to get you to attend a meeting about how to respect your wishes to be excluded, possibly sends a delegate if you refuse to participate in even that. They do their best to accommodate whatever it is you're trying to do, within reason (and anarchists are usually very accommodating). People who are extremely stubborn and to the point of being borderline hypothetical are a problem for the anarchist system, but in the end the solution is chosen by a bunch of humans thinking about the situation, and it's not like any other system has a better source of reasoning than humans.
This is starting to sound less like good-faith questions than it did when it started. Are you trying to poke holes, or are you trying to understand how this is something someone could actually believe would work? Are you asking yourself how your questions are resolved in existing power structures?
I generally found the idea of self governance very appealing, and didnt think much about it, since I thought people have figured out some good ideas how to make it work. When I was getting older, I got more doubts. My biggest doubt/worry currently is that these kind of ideas can actually prepare the grounds for (local) genocide. I am trying to figure out if these worries are justified and this concept has to be rejected for the good of minorities, or if the concepts are advanced enough and take human nature into account.
I do not know if this constitutes bad faith questioning.
If you concentrate power then only a few get to decide on the matter of genocide. Don't you want a direct say against genocide?
Currently the people bear no responsibility for the actions of their government. They can always say "I just voted for him I didn't know he was going to do that." They are never culpable, never responsible. How can society learn under such conditions?
It's easy for many to ask "What if someone does bad?" under a proposed alternate political system while over looking that representative Democracy is just rebranded tyranny.
Instead of one king we have thousands. Kings of law, kings of the court, kings of action. The people who decide the system have no checks on their power. Once elected we have no hold on them, we can only say "Well we won't elect you again." But only after unjust law had been created. How can any person claim to speak for another? Don't you deserve a direct hand in shaping the rules and priorities of the society you live in? Why should you surrender that power to some random person? How much would you pay someone to undertake a complex and critical task for you without a contract? Would you pay them all of your share of power that is rightfully yours to shape the order of the world you live in-- receiving no guarantees in turn?
In our current society, littering is a problem in public spaces: streets, rivers, sea, etc. In other words: is a problem created by the government.
The main mistake of non-anarchist people is to believe that there are no rules in anarchy, or that it equates chaos or extreme individualism. But there are: the rules that people gives to themselves. An example: religions form anarchic structures. You can join and leave a religion at will, but they have a tight set of rules their members should follow. A power structure exists, but you can accept or leave it.
You might argue that a religion has a government, and thus it isn't "anarchy" according to the definition. But as I said, you can accept or reject the rules, and live under other religion rules, create your own religion or without religion at all. Anarchy equates to "stateless society based on voluntary associations".
"Political scientist Elinor Ostrom, who was awarded 2009's Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences for her work on the issue, and others revisited Hardin's work in 1999.[45] They found the tragedy of the commons not as prevalent or as difficult to solve as Hardin maintained, since locals have often come up with solutions to the commons problem themselves.[46] For example, it was found that a commons in the Swiss Alps has been run by a collective of farmers there to their mutual and individual benefit since 1517, in spite of the farmers also having access to their own farmland. In general, it is in the interest of the users of a commons to keep them functioning and so complex social schemes are often invented by the users for maintaining them at optimum efficiency.[47][48]"
While it's true that there exists some societies that have been able to overcome the tragedy of the commons (it's usually extremely small homogeneous societies), I don't think we have any evidence to suggest that it can provably be replicated to the rest of the world.
It's like suggesting that there exists some companies that are able to sustain themselves by being 100% WFH/remote, and therefore all companies should be able to sustainably do that.
As for the tragedy of the commons being only transcended in small homogenous groups, that's stretching the definition of small and you can still have norms for larger groups without introducing tons of authority.
As for as some companies being able to WFH and others not, there are reasons that can be anaylized and propagated.
I'm not sure what's more of a stretch: defining "farmers in the Swiss Alps" as as "small" community, or suggesting that what works for farmers in the remote Swiss Alps necessarily works for New York City or London or Amsterdam. What happens when people leave their cars parked on the sidewalk? What happens when people litter their dockless bike/scooter-share wherever they please, with no repercussions? What happens when a bicyclist in Brooklyn gets run over by an SUV? What happens if I decide that I like your house, and take it from you by force with my big gun along with my big goon friends, or perhaps even kill you for it? Hell, I live in Brooklyn where there are actual laws and policing RIGHT NOW, and there's still trash littered on the ground, dog walkers occasionally leaving their poop un-picked, and cars sometimes parked on the sidewalk: https://www.google.com/maps/@40.681231,-73.974329,3a,75y,334...
The devil is in the details, and the circumstances that make something work in the Swiss Alps are important, confounding variables. At best, the evidence suggests that minimal order can work in rural agrarian communities, and we see a lot of that play out in rural parts of the US and the EU already.
> If authority turns out to be absolutely necessary, that's okay. It just has to be limited and kept in check.
The vast majority of people agree with this. The contention is at what point this actually turns out to be "absolutely necessary", that's where reasonable people disagree. In an increasingly urbanized and globalized world, the point at which that happens has long since passed. The argument that the GP commenter made can probably rephrased as "anarchy doesn't scale".
The very idea of "property" assumes a government, along with property laws, courts and police to enforce those laws, taxes to fund them, and so on.
Ironically, the more well-off are more likely to engage in explicitly anti-social behavior[1]...I'd hate to live in a world of anarchist Gordon Gekkos without an SEC.
[1] A quick article with various linked studies: https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2016/10/wealth-can-make-us-se...
As for a tiny minority of assholes, they have been dealt with for millions of years using social norms and communal existence.
This was my problem with the article. Yes, most people do act exactly as you say. But what if you get that entitled asshole who does actually cut in line? Because there are people out there who will do that. Now what do you do? Resort to mob justice?
There's a segment of the population that won't act that way towards others, and that segment is WHY we have those laws in place.
Are laws preventing mass shooters? Sociopathic killers?
How many mass shooters are there in the US? How many in the UK? Much less (there are mass murders, terrorist attacks etc. but not very many mass shooters). The difference? Gun laws.
I'll never understand why so many people believe that if something isn't perfect, it's broken.
All one has to do is read a single article discussing law enforcement finding and preventing a bomb or a shooter to know that our laws are, in fact, preventing these scenarios. They're just not preventing all of the them.
And you know what? That's good. Freedom has inherent risk. I don't want to live in a society where we're so unfree that our laws are able to prevent all crime.
I don't find articles like this very often. I do find many articles of cia and fbi failure, of the nsa trampling constitutional freedoms, of tsa failing 98% of audits though.
That's just how logic works.
I'm not interested in going on a tangent because you had a political agenda behind your question.
The question has been answered.
To try to wade into this discussion with an absolute refusal to look at a broad picture of small pieces is nonsensical. How can you talk about preventing mass shootings with a simple statement of "yes, obviously laws and police prevent mass shootings?" You know what else does? A lack of guns. Or, maybe, really good mental health care and social welfare. Or, common sense gun control laws. Or... Etc.
By the way, I reject the notion that the FBI actually prevents these things. You look into the story and it's like, they found some vet with PTSD ranting about Jewish conspiracy theories on obscure web forums, then they reach out to the guy and foment him into a terrorist, then arrest him when he tries to buy a gun. Meanwhile 3 schools have been shot up by kids with guns.
Political agenda, come on. What an obnoxious thing to have said to me on this forum.
I would almost bet your next post will include a comparison to either hitler or nazi's.
Either way, I'm certainly done engaging. Not of fan of escalation because you lost the point.
Another example: I regularly volunteer at conventions. Somewhere between 90 and 95% of people follow the rules without much prompting. 5-10% of people don't... but I sincerely believe that without volunteers watching, that number would go up sharply. Another reason people behave is the threat of their badge being revoked.
> "For thousands of years people lived without governments. In many parts of the world people live outside of the control of governments today. They do not all kill each other."
Hahaha no. Just no. People may not have lived under the control of formal governments, but there is always some sort of power structure. They may not have killed each other with systematic warfare, but small raids and personal violence killed a lot of people per capita.
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Having said all that, I do think that internalizing the rules of society does far more than overt displays of power, like police or military parades; but I also think that the police play an important role in decreasing public crime. However, I also do not think that simply adding more police or increasing the harshness of enforcement will decrease public crime further.
It's all Pareto Principle.