The trick is to stop the problem before violence is a possibility, for example rotate who is in control of the food supply, or ensure a distributed food surplus so that any interruptions can be dealt with in time. It's important though to also imagine a society where people can count on having their basic needs met and everyone is integrated into the social network, in which case wanting to order people around would be thought of as perverse, and someone taking over some vital resource for personal gain wouldn't be a problem you'd need to constantly prepare for.
> But it seems to me that centuries of experience have shown that those most effective at doing violence are very thoroughly organized, which seems to me to be kind of the opposite of anarchy.
I think this is a historical accident. We can name many centralized organizations today, companies and countries, with completely inept leadership. Conversely we can look at the history of trade unions, or the Republicans in the Spanish civil war, for flatter organizations that did well. Arguably the overthrow of the Tsarist government by the Bolsheviks is another example, in the sense that they accomplished their literal goal of taking over, not in the sense that the authoritarian rule that followed was good (it wasn't).
It may very well be that when push comes to shove centralized organizations outperform organizations with more decentralized leadership in certain crucial ways but I don't think we've had a good test yet to say either way. Nor, I hope we agree, should we say that just because a particular system is better at violence that it's a better system in general.
> I think that's a rather ahistorical perspective.
It's hard to say because it's the relatively recent flood of fossil fuels that have allowed for extreme wealth and thus extreme wealth differences. But today's society might be the first where only money matters. Even in historic actual empires, social rules could constrain the emperor and wealth generally. If nothing else anyone rich enough to rival the emperor or god-king might be killed.
The history of kings and rulers is full of horrifying anecdotes such as being buried with servants or mutilating political opponents. Crucially this brutality is associated with the rulers and not the everyday people. Were some better than others, sure, but I think that we'd find every king or emperor with a non-trivial reign routinely used means to maintain their rule that both we and their contemporary subjects would consider terrible.
> I'm in an ultimate frisbee group where there's some fairly clear distinctions in skill level. It's not quite a strict hierarchy, because skill has multiple axes - someone could be slower but have a better handle. Still, there are definitely better players and worse players. But we just divide into approximately equal-strength teams, and go have fun.
Thank you for sharing. I'll point out though that even though you're happy with the situation, the skill discrepancies are something that you are working around and not seeking out. Maybe it would be easier if everyone was roughly the same and people could group off in any old random way.
> Well, others here do it sometimes with malice, or at least with manipulative intent, so I've become rather sensitive to it. Sorry if I jumped on you.
No problem, in fact I'm trying to work on speaking more plainly so I appreciate the call-out.
Yes, I agree, it's never just one person. And yes, there's probably going to be violence when someone threatens the food supply. But that's exactly one of the things that bugs me about anarchy. It seems to me that it is vulnerable to a group that is willing to use violence in greater intensity (or with greater organization) than the anarchy is able to employ in return.
And if you're going to say that anarchy can decide to do violence, yes, I agree. But it seems to me that centuries of experience have shown that those most effective at doing violence are very thoroughly organized, which seems to me to be kind of the opposite of anarchy.
> So if we're counting up societies that permit extreme wealth differences and those that don't, in the first group we have: today's global society and a handful of historical and invariably brutal kingdoms and empires; in the second group we have: all "small" societies today and the vast majority of human societies before encountering early modern European expansion.
I think that's a rather ahistorical perspective. Take, for example, China or India around 1000. Or Mali, whose emperor Mansa Musa is believed to have been the wealthiest individual in history. Or the Aztec or Inca empires. Or...
I'll give you that the Aztecs and Incas were brutal. I don't know about Mali. But if you're going to say that China and India were brutal, then you're going to have to say that most of history was brutal.
> But do you think that many people prefer associating with people with much different skill, intelligence, education or income? For example, would you like to be on a programming team where you could clearly rank skill from worst to best? If so, I'd be interested in having you walk me through why you think that.
I'm in an ultimate frisbee group where there's some fairly clear distinctions in skill level. It's not quite a strict hierarchy, because skill has multiple axes - someone could be slower but have a better handle. Still, there are definitely better players and worse players. But we just divide into approximately equal-strength teams, and go have fun.
> > Don't put words in my mouth (or reactions in my emotions), especially ones I don't agree with.
> That was a rhetorical statement, a more cutesy way of saying "A, therefore B." I'm sorry if it bothered you.
Well, others here do it sometimes with malice, or at least with manipulative intent, so I've become rather sensitive to it. Sorry if I jumped on you.