Communism depends on the people on top not being greedy fucks who will just keep the power instead of distributing it. Humans aren’t like that. We’re greedy for power and we won’t share it from the top down.
Socialism is much better as it works within the confines of the established system and just wants to alter it. Communism work on paper but humans are the part of the plan that doesn’t work. By the way I say this as a survivor of a murderous, Communist regime.
The workers run things. The crazy idea is thinking that society can’t run without trust fund brats who contribute nothing while siphoning away 90% of the resources.
Millions of people can’t run things? It seems pretty clear by now that small groups of people especially can’t be trusted to run things. You’ve got to hear about this thing they call democracy. It’s the tits. It can balance precariously, but it’s the most free way to live.
The idea isn’t to have too many cooks. If management is required, workers elect them from among their ranks. They serve for a term or two, then get replaced and go back to being workers. The workers can impeach them by vote. Wouldn’t it be nice to be able to fire your lousy boss? Doesn’t that make a lot of sense? The point is that nobody should ever be allowed on top for too long. Management should not be a position considered on top of others. The workers must have the final say in how a company and a government are run.
The only reason a few people are allowed to become fabulously wealthy and powerful is because we never established democracy in the workplace. The workers owning the means of production is the most basic principle of communism. Communism cannot exist as a dictatorship, it’s antithetical to it. Communism is radical democracy at all levels.
Well 90 to 95 percent of us would be. The other 5-10 percent would be afraid to have their wealth redistributed, and would do anything they could to not let it happen. Kind of like what they do now.
I’ll preface this by saying I self identify as a socialist (I say self-identity, as I have not read specific books on the topics of communism and socialism. Think what you will of this), and believe in from each according to their ability, to each according to their needs.
However, communism has become a bit of a loaded word where I feel myself both defending it from people on the right, and feeling weird about communists calling for communism (well, especially the two things below).
This is because of some of the variants I think are a bit generous in their belief that people won’t act selfishly:
Anarcho-communism? Sure, if you believe in fairies and that every single self-governing group will uphold the social contract with every single other self-governing group and not raid their shit. I hate to say, but I think at our current population levels, we need some kind of state to have a monopoly on violence, which the people as a collective have meaningful control over. Anarchism was only possible when there weren’t as many people, and let’s be real, I’d prefer not to worry that another group might attack us…
No money?
I think this is just a recipe for corruption where managers wield influence over the production they oversee for personal gain. Money is just a useful symbol for value which can be exchanged. I’m for “no money” in the sense things which ought to be subsidised should be free, public transport, healthcare etc. However I think it would be truly dumb to make everything free, because it would reduce people’s choices, in a world where we have finite resources but unlimited desires.
If we are each given equitable money (i.e. I’m not entirely against people earning more or less, for example if you have to work a job where you necessarily need to be away from friends and family) then some things ought to cost money so that the people who want something most will pay more. And prices could be guided partially by demand, or public policy as appropriate. The profit would be redistributed to the people.
Else you’re left with a system where you’re waiting years to get a car, it’s a lottery, or more likely corruptly given to some over others.
I think I do want communism, in general, but the specifics, remains to be seen. I don’t agree that everyone would be a communist if they knew what communism is, because communists themselves also don’t agree on the specifics, it would seem.
As an Anarchist I’m irresistibly compelled to respond to this in order to spread propaganda. (Sorry for the ramble I don’t know how to write concisely.)
To start I don’t use communism, democracy or even socialism to refer to my beliefs. I use anarchy. That’s because anarchy in my mind is concrete. no-archy. against hierarchy. Even though anarchy does follow the classical definition of communism, and is socialism, as in worker-owned means of production. These words are unnecessary as anarchy does the trick. And communism has too much bloody history to most people, me included.
Anarchy is not possible in the current cultural space. Anarchy requires a complete transformation of all parts of society,
including culture. A lot of your problems come from having underlying archic (hierarchical/capitalist) beliefs. For an anarchist society to succeed these beliefs must be abandoned.
This is because of some of the variants I think are a bit generous in their belief that people won’t act selfishly:
This entire paragraph is based in tribalism. An inherent idea that people belong to distinct groups that compete with each-other. It is one of those archic beliefs that I mentioned. There are many different responses to this but I believe in federation (Thanks to this video: https://youtu.be/lrTzjaXskUU timestamp 36:44). This system envisions the anarchist society not as distinct groups but a large number of intersecting groups. No group would “raid” other groups because they have friends in all those groups. On top of that everyone in an anarchist society should be educated enough to understand that everyone in the society has a role to play and hurting them is hurting the society which is in turn hurting them.
On your opinions on money. It seems you do not understand how an anarchist economy would function. In anarchy you wouldn’t buy something, you would order it from the person or co-op who makes those things. Generally used items like food and clothes would probably be available for free, but anything requiring construction would be ordered. This allows you to receive a completely personalized item. Otherwise people would just work for no reason and end up with things they don’t need. I don’t see any point in producing an item just so it would sit on a shelf somewhere. There might be a small storage for conveyor-produced items in order to reduce order times, but in general retail wouldn’t need to exist.
Also due to your usage of “managers wield influence” I can see you haven’t read any socialist theory as in socialism and anarchism the managers are responsible to the workers. If they are acting in corrupt ways that’s because the workers don’t care enough to uncover it and change the manager. And when it comes to “oversee production for their own personal gain” I am left wondering what personal gain would that be. without money there is no incentive to hoard and if that personal gain is abusive then it will be discovered and the manager changed.
Else you’re left with a system where you’re waiting years to get a car,
The fact that you think cars are a thing in a socialist society again reveals your inexperience. Cars are a fundamentally capitalist construct that have no use in socialist societies.
finite resources but unlimited desires.
The unlimited desires (that I’m interpreting as material as spiritual and mental desires don’t need resources) are exactly the thing that anarchy seeks to destroy. It is a poisonous mindset cultivated by capitalism that leads to catastrophe (for example look out the window). It is incompatible with continued existence and the destruction of it in an individual is the first step towards anarchism. It was made with the specific need to fuel the hyper-consumerism of the modern age. You get told from everywhere that you need more stuff. Understanding that you don’t is fundamental to all anti-capitalist thought.
I want to suffix this post with a point that if any of this comes across as rude then that was not my intention. The points made reflect my own ideas and opinions and other anarchist will have their own. I hope you consider what I wrote (and again sorry for the rambling.)
I appreciate your response, and will respond fully later. Edit before I post: turns out later is immediately when I started typing. (Again, very much appreciate your engagement)
But just quickly wanted to get in that I very much dislike cars, just a convenient example because of cars being notoriously long to get in the Soviet union.
Which I recognise was not a anarchist project.
I want to preface this, this is all with the assumption that any system has successfully met all the fundamental basic needs of health, shelter and food, and is no longer capitalist.
Your proposed system isn’t even anarchy to me though, a federalised system? Smells a lot like a an archy to me. Freely associated groups, who set rules amongst themselves? Doesn’t sound very anarchist at all, sounds quick democratic if you ask me, though that might be my bias talking.
Sure, Europeans states are free to do what they want, with certain restrictions they agree to by being part of the EU. This reeeeealy doesn’t scream anarchy to me (replacing states for freely associated smaller groups). Plus, I don’t really think being able to up and leave it a great way to run a overall society anyway, as sometimes disagreements will not be settled by the groups in question, and the rest of the larger federated group will need to enforce the consensus. Is this anarchy? Really feels like some kind of democracy to me.
(I invite you to correct misconceptions, in your view, as I am cognisant I may be straw-manning you here due to misunderstanding. I have no yet read the long FAQ you linked)
No group would “raid” other groups because they have friends in all those groups.
I would suggest groups wouldn’t necessarily need to stay in one place, of course no one wants to hurt friends. Go a couple hundred kms down the road, steal some shit. Yes, most people won’t, I wouldn’t. Even fewer people would if hypothetically their needs have been met. But there will be people who will. How will we deal with this?
Let’s say I accept federated groups are “anarchist”, which I don’t, what is to stop other federated groups coming to raid your federated groups stuff. (Yes this is tribalism, but let’s be real here, if your system relies on everyone letting go of tribalism, and being educated you’re never going to achieve it, there will be dumb people, there will be some subset of tribally minded people, or people who have different aims that the majority. A hypothetical: you’re from a federated group from an area with fewer natural resources (more on how I think a moneyless ordering system would not work, and would fail to adequately distribute finite resources later), you’re having a laugh if you there’s no chance they would organise an army to get more resources.
If they do, is your group gonna organise an army in time? Else, you already have standing army? How are you going to play your part as the federated group, by sending someone from your collective? What if your collective has no one willing to be a soldier, hmmm wouldn’t it be great if we had some way to compensate people for their time so that you can specialise in a large federated group of people. If you have a standing, paid army, and all the other groups are keeping all the other groups to their word and pulling their weight, this does not feel like anarchy to me. That’s a federated democratic state.
On ordering things. I’m not capitalist, it’s a stupid system, but supply and demand aren’t made up things we can leave behind in a post capitalist world. There will be stuff that is more desirable and people will want it more. How exactly do anarchists propose allocating these things fairly. First in best dressed? That will mean long waits for some things, and none for others. This is silly because people have different wants, and value things differently.
Money is great. It’s just accounting, and allows for greater personal choice (in a hypothetical post-capitalist world where amassing wealth is made impossible).
I have $x, I’m gonna spend most it on dance classes, because I really like that, and barely any on clothes, because I’m not a fashionista. Others might spend more on nicer food, but hate dancing.
Some options with moneyless ordering the things you need, without money
Everyone orders more of something than there is to go around, lots of waiting for high demand stuff :/
You limit how much someone can order in total value (this is money, in my view)
Each group decides what they feel like making for others (this sounds like social debt, to me, which ultimately is money without the accounting, it’s money by feeling rather than numbers). Sucks, because what if I want something from some random group across the world. Boy, wouldn’t it be great if we had some medium of exchange people would accept in place of debt :O
Money also seems necessary, because while there are many jobs (including mine, I’d do mine) which are fine to do, I think there are some jobs who should get paid more. Working unsocialable hours at a bar? I think you ought to get paid more for that. Air traffic control at 3 AM. Yep more money. Working in sewer work? Yeah, I think you should get paid more.
How, exactly, are you gonna deal with that without money? Just hope people are willing to do the necessary jobs? Let people work however much they want, okay, now we have a worker shortage in XYZ undesirable area. Nah, pay them more, enough so there are enough people to do the job. Sounds like your federated group needs to get together and decide how to fairly pay these people hmmmm. Gonna need to enforce that, smells a lot like regulation :O
Small freely associating groups are no longer possible we have cities of millions. And people will disagree, absolutely no doubt about that. Are you suggesting breaking those up into smaller groups to be managed entirely separately? Sounds like a nightmare at city scale. And if you hand wave it away to say, oh we can set up larger structures to freely associate city wide rules, well, again this doesn’t exactly smell like anarchy to me, unless any part of the city can just go, nah, we don’t want to associate with you, we want our lovely park to ourselves now, if you’re then enforcing them to do something when they don’t want to (not blocking off their neighbourhood), it doesn’t really feel like anarchism, (to me) it feels like democracy.
If you’re suggesting keeping groups of millions, are you seriously suggesting not having a police force? Not having courts? Like, I’m not in the US, and I get how bad cops are there (and somewhat generally elsewhere), but what, you think crimes are only committed by people in poverty (which is a large part, sure).
Generally, most people are good, would have little to no reason to commit violent crimes in a socialist/communist world, but, there will be some level of violent crime, for which you would need some system to deal with fairly. And you will need to enforce it on those who don’t agree. Else what, dude across the city negligently caused my friends death, but doesn’t think it’s his fault, and his group also doesn’t think so.
What are we going to do, politely agree to disagree? Or, is it then gonna have to be taken to some justice system all the groups agreed to. What if the group really decides not to play ball, and they control vital infrastructure? Threaten to leave the federation if they don’t get their way?
Hate to tell you, family is a kind of tribe, and you cannot be claiming people won’t be tribal in the future.
I would say, it’s something to be managed and controlled for, and I don’t think anarchy would do it.
This was a ramble, I will get around to reading the FAQ haha, hope you enjoy rebutting my not very well laid out arguments!
I really appreciate this thread and I feel inspired to reply. I think a lot of why anarchism is difficult to understand is because it is hard for us to imagine anything other than the “capitalist realism” that has spread to the entire world. As they say, it is the air you breathe, the water you swim in, so it can be hard to see.
So if you want to understand how anarchism can possibly work, really what you have to do is look at places where it is, in fact, actually working. Find the edges of society where affinity groups are actually doing real work in supporting the unhoused, defending marginalized and vulnerable communities, feeding and empowering one-another without any hierarchy. Look closely at the actions of Block Cop City for instance, or the Zapatistas, or Rojava. Look at how things worked in the Spanish Civil War, or Occupy Wall Street. As an added exercise, find some other examples of non-hierarchical activities and actions in your own life (you may be surprised how many there are).
Lots of hierarchy-apologists will decry these things always fail, or are only applicable in very specific contexts, but judge for yourself. There are obviously autonomous tactics that clearly work within these examples, but can you imagine them working in other contexts? How are they organizing themselves if it isn’t by way of hierarchy? How are they getting things accomplished without rules and punishments? Keep an open mind, use your imagination, and you may just find yourself thinking that anarchy is indeed possible beyond these given examples.
In all fairness, no one actually teaches what communism is because then everyone would be a communist.
Communism depends on the people on top not being greedy fucks who will just keep the power instead of distributing it. Humans aren’t like that. We’re greedy for power and we won’t share it from the top down.
Socialism is much better as it works within the confines of the established system and just wants to alter it. Communism work on paper but humans are the part of the plan that doesn’t work. By the way I say this as a survivor of a murderous, Communist regime.
Correct, which is why communism is a bottom up system.
Sorry you’ve been propagandized to believe otherwise.
I was raised under a communist regime, so it’s not propaganda but reality that showed me humans make communism impossible.
Communism depends on nobody being allowed on top.
Then who runs things? You can’t govern as a committee of millions
The workers run things. The crazy idea is thinking that society can’t run without trust fund brats who contribute nothing while siphoning away 90% of the resources.
Millions of people can’t run things? It seems pretty clear by now that small groups of people especially can’t be trusted to run things. You’ve got to hear about this thing they call democracy. It’s the tits. It can balance precariously, but it’s the most free way to live.
The idea isn’t to have too many cooks. If management is required, workers elect them from among their ranks. They serve for a term or two, then get replaced and go back to being workers. The workers can impeach them by vote. Wouldn’t it be nice to be able to fire your lousy boss? Doesn’t that make a lot of sense? The point is that nobody should ever be allowed on top for too long. Management should not be a position considered on top of others. The workers must have the final say in how a company and a government are run.
The only reason a few people are allowed to become fabulously wealthy and powerful is because we never established democracy in the workplace. The workers owning the means of production is the most basic principle of communism. Communism cannot exist as a dictatorship, it’s antithetical to it. Communism is radical democracy at all levels.
Well 90 to 95 percent of us would be. The other 5-10 percent would be afraid to have their wealth redistributed, and would do anything they could to not let it happen. Kind of like what they do now.
I depends what you mean in particular.
I’ll preface this by saying I self identify as a socialist (I say self-identity, as I have not read specific books on the topics of communism and socialism. Think what you will of this), and believe in from each according to their ability, to each according to their needs.
However, communism has become a bit of a loaded word where I feel myself both defending it from people on the right, and feeling weird about communists calling for communism (well, especially the two things below).
This is because of some of the variants I think are a bit generous in their belief that people won’t act selfishly:
Anarcho-communism? Sure, if you believe in fairies and that every single self-governing group will uphold the social contract with every single other self-governing group and not raid their shit. I hate to say, but I think at our current population levels, we need some kind of state to have a monopoly on violence, which the people as a collective have meaningful control over. Anarchism was only possible when there weren’t as many people, and let’s be real, I’d prefer not to worry that another group might attack us…
No money? I think this is just a recipe for corruption where managers wield influence over the production they oversee for personal gain. Money is just a useful symbol for value which can be exchanged. I’m for “no money” in the sense things which ought to be subsidised should be free, public transport, healthcare etc. However I think it would be truly dumb to make everything free, because it would reduce people’s choices, in a world where we have finite resources but unlimited desires.
If we are each given equitable money (i.e. I’m not entirely against people earning more or less, for example if you have to work a job where you necessarily need to be away from friends and family) then some things ought to cost money so that the people who want something most will pay more. And prices could be guided partially by demand, or public policy as appropriate. The profit would be redistributed to the people.
Else you’re left with a system where you’re waiting years to get a car, it’s a lottery, or more likely corruptly given to some over others.
I think I do want communism, in general, but the specifics, remains to be seen. I don’t agree that everyone would be a communist if they knew what communism is, because communists themselves also don’t agree on the specifics, it would seem.
As an Anarchist I’m irresistibly compelled to respond to this in order to spread propaganda. (Sorry for the ramble I don’t know how to write concisely.)
To start I don’t use communism, democracy or even socialism to refer to my beliefs. I use anarchy. That’s because anarchy in my mind is concrete. no-archy. against hierarchy. Even though anarchy does follow the classical definition of communism, and is socialism, as in worker-owned means of production. These words are unnecessary as anarchy does the trick. And communism has too much bloody history to most people, me included.
Anarchy is not possible in the current cultural space. Anarchy requires a complete transformation of all parts of society, including culture. A lot of your problems come from having underlying archic (hierarchical/capitalist) beliefs. For an anarchist society to succeed these beliefs must be abandoned.
This is a comprehensive answer on a popular FAQ: https://anarchistfaq.org/afaq/sectionA.html#seca215
This entire paragraph is based in tribalism. An inherent idea that people belong to distinct groups that compete with each-other. It is one of those archic beliefs that I mentioned. There are many different responses to this but I believe in federation (Thanks to this video: https://youtu.be/lrTzjaXskUU timestamp 36:44). This system envisions the anarchist society not as distinct groups but a large number of intersecting groups. No group would “raid” other groups because they have friends in all those groups. On top of that everyone in an anarchist society should be educated enough to understand that everyone in the society has a role to play and hurting them is hurting the society which is in turn hurting them.
On your opinions on money. It seems you do not understand how an anarchist economy would function. In anarchy you wouldn’t buy something, you would order it from the person or co-op who makes those things. Generally used items like food and clothes would probably be available for free, but anything requiring construction would be ordered. This allows you to receive a completely personalized item. Otherwise people would just work for no reason and end up with things they don’t need. I don’t see any point in producing an item just so it would sit on a shelf somewhere. There might be a small storage for conveyor-produced items in order to reduce order times, but in general retail wouldn’t need to exist.
Also due to your usage of “managers wield influence” I can see you haven’t read any socialist theory as in socialism and anarchism the managers are responsible to the workers. If they are acting in corrupt ways that’s because the workers don’t care enough to uncover it and change the manager. And when it comes to “oversee production for their own personal gain” I am left wondering what personal gain would that be. without money there is no incentive to hoard and if that personal gain is abusive then it will be discovered and the manager changed.
The fact that you think cars are a thing in a socialist society again reveals your inexperience. Cars are a fundamentally capitalist construct that have no use in socialist societies.
The unlimited desires (that I’m interpreting as material as spiritual and mental desires don’t need resources) are exactly the thing that anarchy seeks to destroy. It is a poisonous mindset cultivated by capitalism that leads to catastrophe (for example look out the window). It is incompatible with continued existence and the destruction of it in an individual is the first step towards anarchism. It was made with the specific need to fuel the hyper-consumerism of the modern age. You get told from everywhere that you need more stuff. Understanding that you don’t is fundamental to all anti-capitalist thought.
I want to suffix this post with a point that if any of this comes across as rude then that was not my intention. The points made reflect my own ideas and opinions and other anarchist will have their own. I hope you consider what I wrote (and again sorry for the rambling.)
I appreciate your response, and will respond fully later. Edit before I post: turns out later is immediately when I started typing. (Again, very much appreciate your engagement)
But just quickly wanted to get in that I very much dislike cars, just a convenient example because of cars being notoriously long to get in the Soviet union.
Which I recognise was not a anarchist project.
I want to preface this, this is all with the assumption that any system has successfully met all the fundamental basic needs of health, shelter and food, and is no longer capitalist.
Your proposed system isn’t even anarchy to me though, a federalised system? Smells a lot like a an archy to me. Freely associated groups, who set rules amongst themselves? Doesn’t sound very anarchist at all, sounds quick democratic if you ask me, though that might be my bias talking.
Sure, Europeans states are free to do what they want, with certain restrictions they agree to by being part of the EU. This reeeeealy doesn’t scream anarchy to me (replacing states for freely associated smaller groups). Plus, I don’t really think being able to up and leave it a great way to run a overall society anyway, as sometimes disagreements will not be settled by the groups in question, and the rest of the larger federated group will need to enforce the consensus. Is this anarchy? Really feels like some kind of democracy to me.
(I invite you to correct misconceptions, in your view, as I am cognisant I may be straw-manning you here due to misunderstanding. I have no yet read the long FAQ you linked)
I would suggest groups wouldn’t necessarily need to stay in one place, of course no one wants to hurt friends. Go a couple hundred kms down the road, steal some shit. Yes, most people won’t, I wouldn’t. Even fewer people would if hypothetically their needs have been met. But there will be people who will. How will we deal with this?
Let’s say I accept federated groups are “anarchist”, which I don’t, what is to stop other federated groups coming to raid your federated groups stuff. (Yes this is tribalism, but let’s be real here, if your system relies on everyone letting go of tribalism, and being educated you’re never going to achieve it, there will be dumb people, there will be some subset of tribally minded people, or people who have different aims that the majority. A hypothetical: you’re from a federated group from an area with fewer natural resources (more on how I think a moneyless ordering system would not work, and would fail to adequately distribute finite resources later), you’re having a laugh if you there’s no chance they would organise an army to get more resources.
If they do, is your group gonna organise an army in time? Else, you already have standing army? How are you going to play your part as the federated group, by sending someone from your collective? What if your collective has no one willing to be a soldier, hmmm wouldn’t it be great if we had some way to compensate people for their time so that you can specialise in a large federated group of people. If you have a standing, paid army, and all the other groups are keeping all the other groups to their word and pulling their weight, this does not feel like anarchy to me. That’s a federated democratic state.
On ordering things. I’m not capitalist, it’s a stupid system, but supply and demand aren’t made up things we can leave behind in a post capitalist world. There will be stuff that is more desirable and people will want it more. How exactly do anarchists propose allocating these things fairly. First in best dressed? That will mean long waits for some things, and none for others. This is silly because people have different wants, and value things differently.
Money is great. It’s just accounting, and allows for greater personal choice (in a hypothetical post-capitalist world where amassing wealth is made impossible).
I have $x, I’m gonna spend most it on dance classes, because I really like that, and barely any on clothes, because I’m not a fashionista. Others might spend more on nicer food, but hate dancing.
Some options with moneyless ordering the things you need, without money
Money also seems necessary, because while there are many jobs (including mine, I’d do mine) which are fine to do, I think there are some jobs who should get paid more. Working unsocialable hours at a bar? I think you ought to get paid more for that. Air traffic control at 3 AM. Yep more money. Working in sewer work? Yeah, I think you should get paid more.
How, exactly, are you gonna deal with that without money? Just hope people are willing to do the necessary jobs? Let people work however much they want, okay, now we have a worker shortage in XYZ undesirable area. Nah, pay them more, enough so there are enough people to do the job. Sounds like your federated group needs to get together and decide how to fairly pay these people hmmmm. Gonna need to enforce that, smells a lot like regulation :O
Small freely associating groups are no longer possible we have cities of millions. And people will disagree, absolutely no doubt about that. Are you suggesting breaking those up into smaller groups to be managed entirely separately? Sounds like a nightmare at city scale. And if you hand wave it away to say, oh we can set up larger structures to freely associate city wide rules, well, again this doesn’t exactly smell like anarchy to me, unless any part of the city can just go, nah, we don’t want to associate with you, we want our lovely park to ourselves now, if you’re then enforcing them to do something when they don’t want to (not blocking off their neighbourhood), it doesn’t really feel like anarchism, (to me) it feels like democracy.
If you’re suggesting keeping groups of millions, are you seriously suggesting not having a police force? Not having courts? Like, I’m not in the US, and I get how bad cops are there (and somewhat generally elsewhere), but what, you think crimes are only committed by people in poverty (which is a large part, sure).
Generally, most people are good, would have little to no reason to commit violent crimes in a socialist/communist world, but, there will be some level of violent crime, for which you would need some system to deal with fairly. And you will need to enforce it on those who don’t agree. Else what, dude across the city negligently caused my friends death, but doesn’t think it’s his fault, and his group also doesn’t think so. What are we going to do, politely agree to disagree? Or, is it then gonna have to be taken to some justice system all the groups agreed to. What if the group really decides not to play ball, and they control vital infrastructure? Threaten to leave the federation if they don’t get their way?
Hate to tell you, family is a kind of tribe, and you cannot be claiming people won’t be tribal in the future.
I would say, it’s something to be managed and controlled for, and I don’t think anarchy would do it.
This was a ramble, I will get around to reading the FAQ haha, hope you enjoy rebutting my not very well laid out arguments!
I really appreciate this thread and I feel inspired to reply. I think a lot of why anarchism is difficult to understand is because it is hard for us to imagine anything other than the “capitalist realism” that has spread to the entire world. As they say, it is the air you breathe, the water you swim in, so it can be hard to see.
So if you want to understand how anarchism can possibly work, really what you have to do is look at places where it is, in fact, actually working. Find the edges of society where affinity groups are actually doing real work in supporting the unhoused, defending marginalized and vulnerable communities, feeding and empowering one-another without any hierarchy. Look closely at the actions of Block Cop City for instance, or the Zapatistas, or Rojava. Look at how things worked in the Spanish Civil War, or Occupy Wall Street. As an added exercise, find some other examples of non-hierarchical activities and actions in your own life (you may be surprised how many there are).
Lots of hierarchy-apologists will decry these things always fail, or are only applicable in very specific contexts, but judge for yourself. There are obviously autonomous tactics that clearly work within these examples, but can you imagine them working in other contexts? How are they organizing themselves if it isn’t by way of hierarchy? How are they getting things accomplished without rules and punishments? Keep an open mind, use your imagination, and you may just find yourself thinking that anarchy is indeed possible beyond these given examples.