> when there isn't those built hierarchies bad/selfish people don't amass power so everyone else can actually handle them on equal terms.

This doesn't really ring true to me. In a society where hierarchy is removed, the bad people will form a hierarchy to create power. It being "not allowed" in that society doesn't mean it won't still happen, due again to the people being "bad" in the first place. Two bad people will form a group and use that to derive power over any non-grouped individuals. Or 10 bad people over smaller groups, etc..

This is the problem with much of the spectrum of political rhetoric in America, they're almost all somehow unrealistic in their basic, shared presumption of a world without some over-determining Other (a black box concept that is somehow causal of all social woes) is the goal: feminists, a world without patriarchy, anarchists, a world without hierarchy, Nazis and White Supremacists, a world without racial degeneration, so on and so forth).

Socio-political issues tend to be more complex in causal factors than political rhetoric can possibly bare.

Look at how conservatives re-evaluate the value of "BLM" at every opportunity since it represents all Black politics to them even though Official BLM is a distinct political group in the Black community of whom not every Black person agrees with the stated manifesto on their website, there being more than enough easily searchable YouTube videos to learn the opinion of various Black commentators.

> This is the problem with much of the spectrum of political rhetoric in America, they're almost all somehow unrealistic in their basic, shared presumption of a world without some over-determining Other

I mean, you can essentially formulate any world view that takes any clearcut stance into the in-group and out-group dynamic. People who are pro democracy are looking for a world without oligarchy/monarchy, making those who want to consolidate power around a few people as the out group. Etc..

Your argument can be applied in the same way to the current economic system in the US (capitalism). The free market capitalist system has the shared presumption that free markets are efficient and will allocate resources effectively. This shared presumption is unrealistic in that same fashion, since entirely free markets are not possible (market manipulation, monopoly, etc...). No reasonable anarchist will say their solution solves all problems, but they would argue their ideal society would be better and would solve problems we are faced with today.

Monopolies may happen because of superior technology (or better placement, in short, it's much better for the consumers) or because of politics. If it's for superior technology, I think the monetary gain is justified. Also, in a world without patents or copyright, everyone is free to reproduce the technology, if they can.

For the market to be manipulated, you would need something that lives outside of market rules, namely politicians who can use violent threats to shape the market to benefit them and their friends.

In both cases, if we get rid of a government and we move law making and law enforcement in the hands of the free market, we end up with a system which is the closest representation of what citizens want. It may not fair or just according to someone's ideals, but it would be a close reflection of what people wants and it would remove the form of violence which is most commonly perpetrated in the world: state initiated violence.

You tell me the rules and I’ll show you how your free market can be manipulated from within the rules. How do you propose to prevent things such as collusion (free association) and price manipulation.

All systems of economics are also systems of power. If the only system of power is the economic one than your economy is your de facto government.

If a structure for “governmental“ power is identical to the economic structure you have zero ability to fix abusive power imbalances when they eventually arise. It’s the same reason it’s good to have many checks and balances within government itself. Every structure has flaws, and any singular structure of power will have it’s flaws exploited unchecked.

The difference is that in practice, most "pro-capitalism" individuals are actually okay with the state taking on a wide variety of tasks on some level: military, police, roads, public schools, environmental regulations, labor and health codes, zoning, etc. Sure, GOP-controlled (or your local right-wing equivalent) areas tend to have less of these things, but less isn't the same thing as none.

In contrast, anarchists are usually opposed to having any state whatsoever. The ideology tends towards being far more extreme and uncompromising.

Actual feminists and anarchists have more nuanced views than you present here. (I confess I don't know enough "Nazis and White Supremacists" to say; perhaps they are just that simplistic. Nice implicit comparison, though!) It seems that upon hearing "let's have less X", you can't get past your instinct that X is the basis of all imaginable human life.

It is to your credit that you haven't had a similar reaction to those who oppose racism.

Hmmm, no, it's a false equivocation. What do you do with really bad / evil people who got caught doing evil things (there's enough evidence to put them in prison). I never heard a good answer from an anarchist.

You have to realize there are truly evil people out there. People who will assault innocent people, who will torture, who will rape, who will murder, who will do all of the above to a toddler. And will force the parents to watch. I don't want to live in a society where such people are simply let go, or get some bullshit therapy and let go.

I mean, do you like that those people get off now if they’re powerful? Or if a cop decides to do that either nothing happens or they get let go with a million dollar pension?

At least in a flat society you’d have an equal say to advocate for w/e you thought is just.

Personally for me, and many others who lean left, prison or death doesn’t sit right because it doesn’t address the root of the problem and it’s often used to quash dissent. This is perhaps what you find unsatisfying but if you were magically placed into an anarchist community you’d have more ability to advocate for what you thought was fair.

Who are these people who we have evidence for such crimes and are let go?

Just don't pretend like killings of career criminals resisting arrest (like George Floyd) is what we're talking about.

Holy whataboutism!

With no laws, no police, no jails, no courts, and no justice system, everyone on of those incredibly evil people mention in the prior comment goes 100% free to continue their reign of terror.

Yet, of course, that's exactly the same as some people who slip through the cracks of a justice system that catches many such people a year. Prosecutes them with attempts to be fair. Puts them in jail so they can't hurt others.

Yup. Because someone might slip through the cracks, well.. that's precisely the same as what the prior poster said!

What a false equivalency.

I mean sure in a society where no one holds anyone accountable that would happen. That’s not what anyone is actually advocating for.

You cannot just give people stern looks.

The end result is, you need to be able to use violence, against those willing to use it against you. Note, that can be a last step, but without it?

Those who care not about stern looks, "talking tos", or cold shoulders will literally take everything you have, and kill everyone.

So now you fall to mob rule, lynchings, and what? Power of the strong man?

As soon as you organize, to provide for a response to organized thugs/criminals/rapists/murderers, you now have a government. That's how governments came into creation ; shared defense.

And you need that 24x7. And the people doing it for the community need to be paid. And you need a way to judge, and sentence, and on and on and on.

You cannot simply wave this away.

Thank you. Government is the logical conclusion of anarchy. The minute you have two people who want to do something together, you need rules.

Why can't they establish their cooperation rules between them, using existing static material (contract templates...) if they want to, without any third-party (for example a government) being mandatory?

First, who enforces the contract?

Second, it doesn't really matter. Two people working together is pretty much politics. It's government. It leads there. Cooperation requires coordination.

> who enforces the contract?

In any healthy small community everyone tries to, in order to keep a good reputation. In case of misunderstanding any third party appreciated by both parties may act as a judge/referee. The need for a government, especially central, only arises when the group isn't anymore a community but a large set of (on average) loosely related and interacting persons.

> Two people working together is pretty much politics. It's government. It leads there. Cooperation requires coordination

Coordination nor politics doesn't imply any government.

And thus you invented government. As soon as you have an independent third party deciding who is right, that's your judicial branch. And then you will need the police to enforce the decisions of that judge/referee.

And then when you start having insane judges who rule that raping a child is perfectly fine, you will want to stop it, and thus you will invent your standardized laws.

> As soon as you have an independent third party deciding who is right, that's your judicial branch

There IMHO is major differences between "a single government, dedicated to regulate" (which attracts people willing to control others, often letting the most unscrupulous gain power) and "any chosen third party".

Where most people are most of the time reasonable they will oppose insanity, if necessary forcefully.

People who are reasonable most of the time don't need that much laws to govern them. It's the cases of conflict, violence, murder, property ownership, property destruction, and other negative things that inevitably lead to the invention of government, judges, police, prisons. Every country in the world has them, and for multiple reasons.

Is it just the names that bother you?

Anarchy is the "I can do it over the weekend" of politics. It glosses over so many details.

You can organise without a government, using the free market. Having competing law enforcement firms would bring competition to a state monopoly that does little to nothing to prevent actual crime and persecute tons of innocent people.

Most laws govern interaction between two or more people, how exactly are you going to have that work with privately selected sets of laws? Is everyone going to have a little glowing icon above their head so I know what agency I'm dealing with? For N law sets, will we have N * N law set combinations when people from two different law sets interact? What about if there's three or four or five different ones at once?

Since 2001 we've spent $7T killing a million people and turning millions more into refugees. The only result is that the money was spent and the people are dead and in exile. This evil folly didn't make us any safer. The "really evil people" I can think of were the ones who did that. I don't want to live in their society, but what choice have I been given?

In an anarchic society with no government to protect people, the people would pay whoever likes this line of work to protect them. A system of private law enforcememt could emerge out of anarchy. The interactions between different law enforcement agencies (whether with simple agreements or third party private arbitration courts) and the different internal rules would create a market in which consumers are free to choose what laws make sense for them, or at least where laws converge towards what all people want. "The Machinery of Freedom" contains a more in depth description.

As an addendum, in an anarchic society victimless crimes wouldn't be crimes so there would be significantly less people to imprison / execute / send to force labour camps.

So we end up in Feudalism, because what prevents those agencies from establishing their power over territories and demanding payment for protection?

> What do you do with really bad / evil people who got caught doing evil things (there's enough evidence to put them in prison). I never heard a good answer from an anarchist.

I think most anarchists believe in self defense. So in that sense the really bad people are self-eliminating -- they try to kill and instead they get dead, and then they don't bother anybody anymore.

Obviously this is imperfect, but it doesn't seem dramatically more imperfect than the status quo.

As a guy who doesn't want to have to fight to the death, your version seems much worse than the status quo. As a guy who doesn't want his wife and daughters to have to fight to the death, your version seems even worse.

You don't actually have to do the fight to the death, all you need is a society in which people are willing to do it. Because that provides deterrence, which eliminates most of the would-be murderers, the same as the existing system except that you don't have to deal with getting it wrong based on second hand accounts or corruption because the people handing out the consequences are the witnesses.

Notice that for the would-be murderers who aren't deterred by the threat of death, you have to do the fight to the death even under the existing system.

Anyone in any society will try to defend themselves from murder by any means available to them.

So if that's all the defense Anarchism has from murderers, it will definitely have more murderers than any society that adds any extra countermeasures.

Not necessarily. In a society where people are expected to run away and rely on the police to catch them later, more murderers may get away, because more of the victims run away instead of defending themselves but then the police never catch them.

It's obviously easier to "catch" a murderer while you're still in the room with them than after they have a ten hour head start and you have to depend on unreliable third party testimony to even identify them.

> is that when there isn't those built hierarchies bad/selfish people don't amass power so everyone else can actually handle them on equal terms

But how do you stop a bad person from amassing power in an anarchist system?

As a simple example, how would you deal with highway robbers? Those were omnipresent in societies before states gained strength.

I mean, did they rob peasants or the lords of the land with their amassed stolen wealth...?

A community can decide to cast someone out, reprimand them, imprison them, etc. The whole idea of restorative justice can actually exist when a community is able to address it.

....any travellers. And the point is they were outside communities. Right now we take for granted that we can travel from point a to point b without worrying about such threats.

What the? A "community" which makes "communal decisions" is a form of government, not anarchism! How can you cast someone out, without gates? Guards? Walls?

How can you throw them out? Prevent them from returning?

Do you think the robbers will just stop, because you said "Stop!". I feel like you're trolling here. I could of course be wrong, but it feels that way.

Anarchism is a form of self-governance.

Which has nothing to do with a government.

But it has everything to do with "A "community" which makes "communal decisions"", whatever you call it.

I hope Merriam-Webster clears that up:

"Definition of government

1 : the body of persons that constitutes the governing authority of a political unit or organization"

I specifically said that "community" which makes "communal decisions" is not anarchy. You've simply claimed it does, then mentioned "governing authority", which is not entirely in line, now is it?

You're right on the strength of my argument, but you're wrong on anarchy not being able to create governments (in the M-W definition above). But I'm not going to argue this any more.

Oh I know basics. It's gibberish, built upon mad fantasy.

Yet, I said no such thing. I did not say humans would stop dreaming, nor that humans will always behave the same.

I did say that a specific political system was madness. If you want to discuss "What about in 1000 years", yeah -- OK.

But we're talking about now, humans today.

And anarchy does not, and will not, work. It ignores significant human behaviour.

It doesn't work for everyone, no. But just like in 1800s Europe, when monarchists died off suddenly republics were obvious. I suspect much of the same will come to pass regarding systems of government tending towards anarchism and boomers.

Just because some political ideologies have their day, doesn't mean they all will. Representative democracies of the 19th century had been preceded by proto-representative democracies like the Parliament of England, they weren't a fully new thing at that point by any means, even at the large state level: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parliament_of_England

There have been attempts at large, nation-scale anarchist communities, like revolutionary Catalonia, or Makhnovia, but the most fundamental problem they have isn't functioning well, but simply continuing to exist. Without a strong state, they seem to just fall over to competing states or forces. And this isn't very easily fixed within anarchism, because the whole point is to not have a state, and certainly not a strong one.

The most fundamental flaw for a large anarchist, state-equivalent community, is the inability to resist state or state-like forces both internally (revolution/civil war) and externally (other states invading or taking territory). While certainly anarchists theorycraft on how this issue can be fixed, out in the real world, well, it hasn't happened yet, so it remains theorycraft.

Even some of the real-life examples anarchists point to, like Rojava, aren't really very anarchist; Rojava still has plenty of police, for example, which is a very un-anarchist thing to have around.

This response has put me firmly in the "you need to think about this a bit, bantunes" camp.

Why?

The second you mentioned 'boomers', you mentioned what is very specifically an American phenomenon. It certainly isn't a Chinese, Russian, Japanese, South African, or, well, the "rest of the world" phenomenon. To me, this makes me think you are viewing the world from a US perspective, without any attempt to see things from outside that prism.

On top of that, the wild assertion that "boomers" somehow created an authoritarian government is beyond incomprehensible. While every generation has its flaws, yes every single generation, boomers were the hippie generation.

Yes, hippies. The "free love" movement, anti-authoritarian counter culture that quite literally existed in highly conservative Western post-war cultures. The level of protest, anti-materialism, anti-corporate stance which hippies took, particularly in the US, far, far, far outweighs anything seen in the decades since.

Of course, like every other generation since, for thousands and thousands of years, once they aged they became just like those they wanted to replace.

But, let's walk away from the fact that boomers = hippies, and hippies protested, fought, and died in protests en mass, and even enacted some real change. Let's look at the overall assertion here.

You're claiming republics were "obvious", and that this somehow sparked an instantaneous move from feudal, to republic. Yet in many places, these changes took literally centuries. And the powers of Kings were very gradually eroded, sometimes with blood, and other times with threat of blood.

Even "revolutionary" moments in most Western cultures were smaller stepping stones, each effecting smaller sections of culture about governing, and self-governing.

And really, suffrage for the "common person", for example, is less than 100 years old in many democracies. Like the UK, Canada, the US. In fact, for many cases, less than 50 years!

And this change was gradual too. For example, in the UK with Lords challenging the King's right to tax, creating the "House of Lords", or the modern Senate. Or, the allowance of freemen with significant land, or land rental, being allowed to vote.

It wasn't until 1918 that all white men in the UK could vote, and women/everyone else at 1928.

This was a gradual, step by step change, each transformative, but each fought for.

Now ... I have no doubt change will come, for there is nothing that ever remains static.

However, what you are suggesting is that people will simply "all get along". Literally, that is what anarchism suggests. For, you cannot compel people to leave, or stop them from doing things you don't want, if you do not use violence as an end tool.

If you have a counter to this, a realistic, logical, sensible counter to the idea that people will just all be nice to one another? I'd love to hear it.

I really would.

> The second you mentioned 'boomers', you mentioned what is very specifically an American phenomenon.

I used boomer as a shorthand for "person rooted in the old ways" all over the world, not just US older citizens.

> Of course, like every other generation since, for thousands and thousands of years, once they aged they became just like those they wanted to replace.

Yes, they both sold out and are watching from the bleachers as things get progressively worse (rate of home ownership, food stamp usage, life expectancy). Don't tell me what they did in their early teens/twenties absolves them from criticism.

> However, what you are suggesting is that people will simply "all get along".

OK, this response has put me firmly in the "you need to really read about anarchism a bit, bbarnett" camp. Anarchism doesn't magically will away human tendencies to lie, cheat and want to have power over others. It simply turns the tables on illegitimate authority.

A 2 min browse over Wikipedia could have netted you:

"anarchists are opposed to irrational (e.g., illegitimate) authority, in other words, hierarchy – hierarchy being the institutionalization of authority within a society."

For anarchists, the centralization of political power is the cause of cronyism and ineffective representative democracy. Practical solutions include decentralization and strengthening of local power. As for police work, community policing and other proposals are part of anarchist manifestos.

It doesn't take a genius to realize democracy as it stands today has failed us. Stricter gun control, for example, is something the overwhelming majority of US voters want and yet it will probably never be enacted. The problem is centralization, the problem is authority without legitimacy. Anarchism doesn't want to abolish the rule of law, it aims to humanize it.

It has nothing to do with a mythical need to change human nature - in fact, it gels with it much more than the current status quo. Of course, like socialism, the word has been tainted over the years. But before you criticize it further as a "mad fantasy", you should probably know what it is you're criticizing. This is a good book to get you started https://www.amazon.com/Fragments-Anarchist-Anthropology-Para...

If you've read my other posts, and several others around here, then I think you'll see a consistent theme. That is, for anarchism to work, you need people to simply "all get along".

You do. You really, honestly do.

All of the methods which anarchists list to deal with rapists, murderers, or even just a guy that stands up and says "OK, the 10 of us have decided we're going to form a democratic government, and you're all part of it", don't seem to hold water.

For example, that last one. You live in a community with 100 people, under anarchism. Those 10 stand up. They state that they run the place. They have guns. Now what? And what if that number is 40 out of 60?

I've heard "shunning", "banishment", and I've heard "hired guns". I've also heard of "local police power", yet that involves government, in that, you need to pay and organize and on and on and on. And all your concerns leak therein.

I think you need to be honest with yourself. The "old ways" you speak of, are pretty much accepted by people 10 to 100. If you think that "most people under (what?) 30? 40? 25? believe in anarchism, you are sadly mistaken.

And there is a reason for that.

I've listed them, others have, but all you care to espouse is that "I don't like the current governmental system" and "we'll just handle it without organized government".

Your failure to see past your preconceived notions in this is a bit baffling.

> That is, for anarchism to work, you need people to simply "all get along".

For current society to work, we all also have to get along, right? I walk down the street nobody robs or kills me, my boss pays me at the end of the month, the power company supplies me with a service as long as I pay for it... aren't we all "getting along"? Of course, there are fringe players, but they are fringe. Anarchism doesn't magically assume everyone everywhere is a well-intentioned player for it to work, no more than capitalism.

> You live in a community with 100 people, under anarchism. Those 10 stand up. They state that they run the place. They have guns. Now what?

How would this be different under capitalism, if 10% of a community rose up with guns? Answer is the same as with anarchism: people would fight back. I don't understand how this is hard to comprehend. It's called Anarchism, not Pacifism. Do you really think anarchists just roll with the punches with everything bad thrown at them? How can you even think that's possible to propose as a system?

Anarchists don't believe, however, in a lap-dog class of the system as the Police exist today. Individuals can be chosen to serve or volunteer as community defense agents, since as I've mentioned _illegitimate_ authority is what Anarchism rails against.

> yet that involves government, in that, you need to pay and organize and on and on and on.

Anarchism is not 100% opposed to systems of governance - it only mandates they are fairer than the current ones. Community councils, if agreed upon by said community, are valid. Just not imposed on them.

> The "old ways" you speak of, are pretty much accepted by people 10 to 100

So was Feudalism - your point?

> If you think that "most people under (what?) 30? 40? 25? believe in anarchism, you are sadly mistaken.

Have I said that? I said as conservatives give away to newer generations, those will be more amenable to different systems of government (precisely because the current one isn't working for them).

> I've listed them, others have, but all you care to espouse is that "I don't like the current governmental system" and "we'll just handle it without organized government".

I don't think you can vote the Anarchists in and from Sunday to Monday we go from late-state capitalism to anarchism. It's a process, all deep change is - we're seeing the end of a neoliberalization process that started in the 70s.

But to think we're living in the best system we can because "it's accepted by people" is really poor, and a capitulation to a system that is visibly cracking. But don't mind me, keep hoping for incremental improvement and see where that gets us...

Look, I've read the above, and I doubt you're surprised that I do not agree. I don't think we'll ever convince each other of anything, really. Too far apart on basic concepts.

But I wanted to do you the courtesy of saying I'm done discussing, instead of just ghosting this thread.

Have a good one.

They robbed anyone and everyone.

Some people just give 0 fucks about anyone besides themselves.

Most people give 0 fucks about anyone outside of a moderate group of acquaintances and friends.

I honestly don't understand how that is unique at all. It sounds like every government that has ever existed. Once you define the community, its mechanism of decision, and the reprimands and punishments, I'm not sure what's less government about this than current government.

Governments replaced those robbers, you just cannot escape nor defend yourself :-)

Most people couldn't escape or defend themselve from robbers if they wanted to, let alone vote against them. That's why governments replaced them.

AFAIK (at least in most European countries) such robbers didn't attack villages, and people willing to travel tried hard to do it in groups (pilgrims, merchants).

You now have nearly no way to escape your (Occidental) government. Wherever you go, whatever you do, whoever you associate with.

If you really believe you can change the power-that-be by voting let's say we disagree.

Escaping your government is easy. There are plenty of places on Earth you could go that have essentially no (functional) government. People tend to run from these places, not to them.

> Escaping your government is easy.

It isn't, and technical progress (transport and communication means) made it more and more difficult.

> People tend to run from these places, not to them.

It depends. Historically see for example the Zomia ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southeast_Asian_Massif#Zomia ) , and some Spanish cities during the civil war ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarchism_in_Spain#Anarchist_p... ). For an ongoing case take a look at Rojava ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autonomous_Administration_of_N... )

How do you amass power in an anarchist system? In capitalism you generally amass power by amassing capital. What's the equivalent under anarchism?

Anarchism and capitalism are compatible, see anarcho-capitalism. You may be interested in checking out this explanation: https://www.politicalcompass.org/analysis2

That said, I agree with your criticism of communism / anarcho-syndacalism: if you remove capitalism, you are moving power into party politics, which creates even greater inequality to what we have today and explains the horror of communism we've seen in the past century.

They most certainly are not. Some right-libertarians have convinced themselves that they are anarchists so that they can pretend to be radicals but that does not make it so. Anarchism and capitalism are incompatible, anarchism is a left-wing ideology that among other things, seeks the end of capitalism.

I don't know why you interpreted my comment as being a criticism of communism or anarcho-syndicalism (it was just a probing question to understand what somebody thought anarchism would look like), and neither does your criticism of those ideologies make much sense. I don't think you actually know what anarcho-syndicalism is if you think it involves party politics.

You still would amass capital. Guns, food, persons, other resources.

The destruction of fiat currency wouldn't prevent the accumulation of valuable goods/commodities.

I figure that you imply, that you are the real anarchist or at least familiar with their way of thinking? I have a question for you then and please disregard if you are not a real anarchist.

How is the current system of any consequence for you to live the anarchy dream? Why can't you just ignore it and do what you wanted to do in the hypothetical anarchy? If I had these beliefs (i.e. the lack of social hierarchy and organized violence to uphold it) I would be very happy as I could immediately live in my ideal society by just ignoring the existing hierarchy and organized violence since all I could do about it in the true anarchy I can do already (i.e. submit to the organized violence or die challenging it).

Any ideal model can be used to describe the current state of affairs as its pathological case. In the ancap paradigm, the existing government can be viewed as a really powerful corporation. In a left-flavored anarchist paradigm, the existing government is a large scale social contract. Or as you've said, an othered government is just a hostile group to be avoided. What matters is the overall heuristic of trying to shrink the structures to be more local and manageable. Anarchism in all its various flavors isn't a prescription, but rather a rebuke of prescriptivism.

Concretely, most anarchists still have a sense of justice, possibly even a stronger one. Murdering someone and then succumbing to (possibly organized) violence makes sense. Smoking a plant and then being attacked does not.

Well, everyone has a sense of justice. Some people think that murder for "dissing" them or being too rich/white/gay/smart/stupid/etc is just and some think that smoking evil plants like tobacco is abomination and kills everyone who gets a whiff of smoke. We already have a solution for reconciling individual views on justice that works much better than what anarchists managed to show in their CHAZ/CHOP, for example.

This does not answer my question though. Why anarchists are not happy? Why can't they live in their desired society right now?

The current geopolitical situation prevents anarchists from living in their desired society because there is zero (or practically zero) free land to create such a society without it existing within a state that is not anarchist. This should be obvious.

That's my question! How is "free" land is different from any other? It's just a convention established by the government i.e. if you try to settle on somebody's land then eventually armed people will show up and make you go. So how is it different from the anarchy? Who will provide the "freedom" of the land and is incapable to do it now?

Free land is a land where I can live without someone threatening me with violence if I don't share part of the profits I make with my labour.

The freedom can be provided by the inhabitants of such land, either by getting weapons themselves or by paying some members of this community.

By this definition all land is free as you can go ahead, inhabit it and get weapons or pay some members of the community.

I'm struggling to understand what you're trying to argue, to be honest.

Not the same poster, but I think his point is:

Consider a world where society lived by the anarchist principles. In that hypothetical world, most people self-organized in a large group where:

- They decided to democratically appoint representatives that flesh out large-scale agreements and called it law

- They decided it is necessary to have people dedicated to securing the lands where they live from both internal and external threats

... and so on and so forth, until they effectively self-organized into the equivalent of our current society.

Is there any difference between that world and ours? Why can't an anarchist assume that this is what actually happened (there's some merit to the idea) and be happy to live in an anarchist world, our world?

This is one explanation. The question I have is more of the "what are you going to do when some people will get together and apply concerted violence to you (not dissimilar to the way the government works right now)?". I have not seen a single attempt to answer this in the few hundred comments. It appears most anarchists do not even realize this possibility even exists.

Right-flavored anarchism (eg anarcho-capitalism, cryptoanarchism) addresses this question directly - a plurality of competing defense companies that would be incentivized away from actually fighting as it would be unprofitable.

If you don't mind me asking, what is the difference with feudalism where plurality of land lords provided the same service?

Peasants didn't have much mobility between lords, therefore they were seemingly coerced. Would anarcho-capitalism as stated necessarily play out similarly? Who knows.

The core of anarchism is the heuristic of rejecting hierarchies and coercion. A negative doesn't make for a compelling mass movement, hence all the different flavors are attempts at imagining structures that could replace the current ones. They all have obvious potential failure modes, but the core remains - downsizing the structures of arbitrary authority.

This is exactly my impression too. E.g. the OP article begins with characterizing anarchists as out of touch dreamers: Anarchists are simply people who believe human beings are capable of behaving in a reasonable fashion without having to be forced to. Judging by the name of the site it appears to be a positive characteristic too, which adds to confusion.

Your comment isn't very coherent, and it's hard to assume good faith. Reading any anarchist philosophy will quickly lay out criteria for recognizing versions of justice that can actually be considered reasonable.

As for answering your question, that's exactly what my comment attempted but you didn't engage with what I said. You're effectively just arguing against straw men, and have invoked yet another with "their CHAZ/CHOP".

I get you, anarchists have some literature that describes their views on justice, I am fine with it. For all I care they might have some fashion magazines that provide guidelines on the reasonable attire for a sensible anarchist.

My question is still not answered by this and I don't see how is this related at all, to be frank. It's almost as if your answer is not quite coherent.

The reason I referenced anarchist definitions of justice is that you brought up a straw man version of justice that doesn't survive the slightest critique:

> Some people think that murder for "dissing" them or being too rich/white/gay/smart/stupid/etc is just

The problem with your initial "question" and subsequent replies is that they revolve around a sophomoric understanding that collapses the philosophy into meaninglessness.

What I said in my first reply:

> What matters is the overall heuristic of trying to shrink the structures to be more local and manageable. Anarchism in all its various flavors isn't a prescription, but rather a rebuke of prescriptivism.

You may have a hard time seeing this as the essence of anarchism, as it is a general desire shared among most people. But really, we've got lots of anarchist thought in our political discourse. Blue team: drugs, prisons, nondiscrimination. Red team: guns, taxes, business regulations. But we have very little anarchism in our actual political results, except for maybe ancap for big businesses.

If you read this thread, I am sure, you will find that you brought justice first. Neither I brought any straw men (is it some new trend on Tweeter because I have seen several people in the past couple months using "straw man" in some strange and unknown to me sense, all I know is a discussion technique of making a different argument for one's opponent and arguing it instead of the actual one. But nothing of this sort could be applicable here since I have not made any arguments, I am just asking a question).

So, to prevent any possibility of stramaning, are you now saying that anarchism is disagreement with some laws and not the rejection of the institute of government?

Every one of your "questions" has included your own caricature of anarchism. At this point I can no longer assume good faith. If you earnestly want to know the answer to your questions, then you need to do the work of understanding.

> I find it hard to believe you've talked to any real anarchists, or at least listened to them

True scotsman fallacy aside, what the top minds on anarchy think is not as relevant as what most people/anarchists understand of it, if we are talking about a non-hierarchical self-administering system, because performance of the system will approximate to the median (mis)understanding of them.

I've heard the reasoning, it just sounds like utter nonsense.

> when there isn't those built hierarchies bad/selfish people don't amass power

This is where the reasoning falls apart. What stops them from amassing power?

The responses to this question always sound really convoluted and 'reach-y', ala, "people just won't, like, do that, maaaan!" or "others will stop them, in a completely non-hierarchal way without any explicit use of force".

There are TONS of situations in real life where people are nominally equal, but in practice hideously unequal. The way anarchists talk just reminds me of what some feminist movements discovered in the twentieth century: removing explicit power structures and hierarchies didn't put everyone on equal terms, it just made the power differences less transparent and regulatable.

Of course, anarchists are free to say whatever they want: the very fact that there basically haven't been any state-equivalent anarchist communities existing for a long time in recent memory means they're free to theorycraft to their heart's content. You don't have to grapple with any flaws if your system doesn't actually exist.