A completely stateless society is something of a long lost tradition, but with the creation of the “civilized” people’s and their governing bodies, it is nothing more than downgrade to those who grew up in such sheltered conditions.
What solutions do we have for a completly MODERN stateless society?
Will we organize as a group of people in hopes to establish a territory for ourselves? Or do we simply live and let live regardless of what government we currently live under, making do with what we we have? If by organizing in the current world, wouldn’t we involuntarily create a border by itself (If we are allowed to exist)? How will we interact with other states and their societies?
These are some questions i ask myself when looking at the current state of the world, and if the idea of a stateless society should exist in practice, how can we replicate the idea in the most pure form?
Do we become pirates? Underground black market criminals? Wreckless revolutionaries?
In a place without the state, how can we ensure the state remains without governance? After all, we can see that even without government, hiearchy can still exist and take a foothold within certain communities which leads to disruption, how do we ensure ourselves that we won’t let this happen?
Even with power, can one be truly responsible to hold it? Even if collectively? Is government innevitable? By definition, yes, but i mean truly… is there no way around it? Is Anarchy nothing more than a lifestyle as they say?
What is the ideal Anarchist stance on life and how it could be lived (not should)? Is it true to the definition of Anarchy? Every person for themselves, or each person for one another?
(please let this be an opportunity to roughdraft in ways we could create a vast and large mutual aid system with a cross continental community in mind, this is something that is often ignored -at least in my perspective- in the anarchist community, what would the mid game of revolution look like? and how can we ensure our people have what they need in times of persecution? Is all i’m asking.)
maybe i’m missing something too, if anyone is willing to provide any material that may answer my questions, all i need is a title, but a link would suffice too.
and for the potential Anprim advocates out there, what are you doing on a computer? 😑
Even with power, can one be truly responsible to hold it? Even if collectively?
It’s not about being responsible enough… it’s about being as responsible as possible. And only collective means passes muster at being that.
is there no way around it?
Why should there be? Collective governance is still governance. One would think that the collective use of power would be something anarchists pay a lot of attention to as opposed to merely attempting to find ways of shirking such a responsibility.
Is Anarchy nothing more than a lifestyle as they say?
It never used to be.
What is the ideal Anarchist stance on life
Do anarchists need a stance on life? That’s a job for philosophers… not revolutionaries.
The only difference between a philospher and a revolutionary is the action. Both serve a purpose in the collective building of social norms.
For a large scale, permanent anarchist society to form, (like hundreds of thousands to millions of people), a seismic shift in mentality must happen. On the scale of people moving from monarchism to democracy, and feudalism to capitalism.
For most of human history, slavery was considered a foundational aspect of society, people couldn’t even imagine society without it. An average ancient person would have thought you were absolutely crazy to suggest that a large scale civilization could work well and be prosperous without slavery. Same with a monarch, same with changing a feudalistic system to a market-based capitalistic system.
My dream is that one day, people will look back at current the era of statism in the same way that we look back at the days of slavery or absolute monarchism. That one day people would be shocked that the average person believed statism was the only way to organize a society.
The best we can hope for right now is to keep educating people, and work to act out anarchism in our daily lives with others. Participate in mutual aid networks. If nothing like that exists in your area, find a few like-minded folks and form one. Support open source, decentralized software and forms of media. Oppose hierarchical systems around you, subvert capitalistic markets and companies, protest and fight alongside fellow leftists and try to sway them to our side.
We will likely never enjoy the shade of the tree we are planting, but if it grows and blossoms one day into a great canopy, our efforts will have been forever worth it. And if not, then at least we can say we lived our lives true and free, fighting for the way things ought to be.
a seismic shift in mentality must happen.
Not really - I think you underestimate society.
It did not require a “seismic shift” to convince people that a monarchy-less society was possible - merely the judicious application of a guillotine.
No, it happened due to decades of pre-configurative actions being conducted at local levels, all across the existing kingdoms of that time, teaching people that alternatives were possible and building their own power structures under the nose of the existing system.
The only reason people brought out the guillotine was because they had already experienced that shift in mentality due to the tireless work of those who decided to do something different.
This only happend after a long line of other revolutions against the local aristocracy which always ended in an appeal to the monarch as people couldn’t imagine a society without one. Of course the monarch always gave only temporary concessions and later backstabbed them…
we are very much products of our environment, it is not our place to say what anarchy will look like to those who will wield the tools of direct democracy like breathing but simply to plant those trees whose shade we will never sit in. Point out the hierarchy and power structures and oppose them at every turn but realise this is a generational project and the state will not give up without a bitter fight.
also Ted Kaczynski used technology to attack the system, just because someone is Anprim doesn’t mean they don’t have an email address.
Understandable, it’s still against the true morals of Anprim ideology, although i guess there is no good way to practice unless you have the land.
As for the argument above, why isn’t it our place to say what anarchy would look like in the future? Sure, we may not be the final voice of the movement, but we sure as hell can’t go in blind unless we intend to be completely secessionist insurrectionists.
If we have no active place of residence as a people, how can we ensure anarchy stays alive? I mean that in the sense of anarchist action, I know very well that ideas can live on for as long as they are taught. But, what if not everyone likes anarchy, and they are not specifically a governing body? We must ally if not everyone is okay with living without a state, right? How can we expect ourselves to be able to rely on ourselves when our opposition outweighs our numbers? How would an anarchist society interact with say, a passive capitalist nation? An authoritave socialist nation? Are we to be gullible and accept the enemy of our enemies as friends? or do we be rational and treat our allies like accomplices?
We must plan so that the fight won’t be as bitter, why stop and drop everything at the whim of “the anarchists perfected plan; improvise and follow the rule.” Not to completely deconstruct your entire argument into a simple statement, but it is exactly what you describe, this is not how we progress as a people.
“Point out the hiearchy and power structures, and oppose them at every turn.” Is a pretty good standpoint for the basic idea of revolt, but HOW do we oppose an entire nation? HOW do we point out power structures in systems we don’t participate in? HOW will we be able to define the hiearchy of other states? The big picture is there, but in order to actually understand what’s in it, we need to analyze the smaller parts first.
When i say “How?” i really mean, “What?”
For example, In what ways do we oppose an entire nation? As stated in the original post, what kind of role will we play in revolution? Do we become pirates? Underground black market criminals? Wreckless revolutionaries? What are the possible choices we have, and how do those choices benefit us?
I’m sorry to be so hostile with this response, but what you give me just doesn’t cut it, you can’t tell a person “Hey paint that fence.” and expect them how to paint that fence if they don’t know what the tools for painting are, if they don’t know what fence to paint, and even more so, if they don’t even know how to paint in the first place.
So a vague call to action definitely is not enough to establish a game plan for generations to carry on, it’s definitely good to keep a statement like that in the back of your mind, but it doesn’t carry much confidence when the very practice itself isn’t being implemented into real world circumstances on a scale that is as signifigant enough.
So obviously the people need some help, I made this post for those very same people, so let’s help eachother out please, the time for discussion is over!
you can’t tell a person “Hey paint that fence.” and expect them how to paint that fence if they don’t know what the tools for painting are, if they don’t know what fence to paint, and even more so, if they don’t even know how to paint in the first place.
You wouldn’t be able to order people around like that in the first place 🤷
The actual way would be to say “Hey, lets paint that fence together” and the problems you mention solve themselves. The theoretical term for that is “prefiguration”.
you didn’t come across as hostile at all.
thinking that we need to meet power with power is exactly what I’m talking about though when I say we’re products of our environment.
we won’t be pirates or criminals or revolutionaries we’ll just be people.
Anarchy is anti-fragile precisely because we’re not a unified front and treating people as equals is a profoundly simple and powerful idea at the end of the day and you can’t fight an idea with bullets.
Sorry to be so snarky but this is essentially the neolib talking point of “new technologies will solve climate change” while vaguely gesturing at a future utopia.
If we cannot imagine the kind of change in our environment, then there won’t be people who “breathe” the anarchist revolution. Every single change in human history had to be thought first and then turned into a reality.
let’s walk it back a minute then.
We have Rojava as a current modern blueprint for functional anarchy but I tend to believe it will be less about dealing with nation states on their own terms than creating a new paradigm that the nation state simply cannot function within.
Every single change in human history had to be thought first and then turned into a reality.
Merchantilism subverted Feudalism. Feudal lords didn’t think they where inventing capitalism, they just wanted their debts to be decoupled from their land so they could shake down their Serfs even when the land didn’t provide a harvest. History is far less intentional than you seem to believe.
