I'd like to dispel the "anarchy == chaos" sentiment. Anarchy as a political philosophy has a long history of deep thought behind it. I personally see it more as a direction than an end goal. Anarchism is a desire to abolish all unnecessary and/or involuntary hierarchies. As Noam Chomsky puts it in [this interview][1], "it’s not at all the general image that you described — people running around the streets, you know, breaking store windows — but anarchism is a conception of a very organized society, but organized from below by direct participation at every level, with as little control and domination as is feasible, maybe none."
In fact, a functioning anarchist polity exists in the world right now: the [Democratic Federation of Northern Syria][2]. Other such political arrangements have existed for brief periods in the past (one other example is [Revolutionary Catalonia][3]). Why have none of them lasted? It seems more to do with traditional hierarchical nation-states attacking and re-subverting them than any internal failing.
I don't know of the Thomas Hobbes studies that you reference when you say that _people want government_, but I would question it. I find it self-evident that "shared resources require _governance_", but I see no reason that such governance needs to look like a traditional nation-state. People don't want _chaos_, people don't want _mob rule_. But again, the problems of chaos and mob rule can be solved without traditional nation-states. I'm sure societies that trend toward anarchism could also find (voluntary, non-coercive) ways to fund basic research.
So yes, I say. Let's find ways to build economies without governments. Let's find ways to offload some of the centralized work of governments to decentralized technologies. Money, for example. Keeping official ledgers, for example. Let's think about how we can restructure society so that power is more diffuse, rather than being so concentrated. Governments already exist, and will continue to be a useful (if fraught) tool for governing many things, but maybe they don't need to micromanage all of it anymore.
I am familiar with Rojava (which in my opinion is not a good showcase if you want people to reevaluate anarchy, since it is still an active warzone with a common uniting foe, teters dangerously close towards cult of personality and has yet to prove that it would retain it's anarchic qualities after the survival struggle) and anarchic political theory. I'm mainly interested in understanding perspectives. So already thank you for sharing yours.
>Why have none of them lasted? It seems more to do with traditional hierarchical nation-states attacking and re-subverting them than any internal failing.
Different perspective(slightly provocative): people in a competing anarchic polity who had chosen to centralise more to be more efficient wiped out a competitor. It just looks like a nation state to you, because you frame it that way. Really it's people acting in what they perceive to be their best interest.
>But again, the problems of chaos and mob rule can be solved without traditional nation-states.
Sure, I mainly agree. But I think the next step is scaling the swiss model upwards, or making organizations like the EU more democratic. Anarchy is basically the equivalent "rewriting the whole codebase from scratch" in software: simpler in execution, but throws out the baby with the bathwater(and then not thinking through things properly and relying on "charity" and other notions).
>So yes, I say. Let's find ways to build economies without governments. Let's find ways to offload some of the centralized work of governments to decentralized technologies. Money, for example. Keeping official ledgers, for example. Let's think about how we can restructure society so that power is more diffuse, rather than being so concentrated. Governments already exist, and will continue to be a useful (if fraught) tool for governing many things, but maybe they don't need to micromanage all of it anymore.
Agreed. How do we deal with taxation? This is the elephant in the room: lots of people don't like taxes (even though they payed for starting almost everything good in this world, including the transistor and the internet), so how do we replace that system for funding common goods in our decentralized world?
I'd like to dispel the "anarchy == chaos" sentiment. Anarchy as a political philosophy has a long history of deep thought behind it. I personally see it more as a direction than an end goal. Anarchism is a desire to abolish all unnecessary and/or involuntary hierarchies. As Noam Chomsky puts it in [this interview][1], "it’s not at all the general image that you described — people running around the streets, you know, breaking store windows — but anarchism is a conception of a very organized society, but organized from below by direct participation at every level, with as little control and domination as is feasible, maybe none."
In fact, a functioning anarchist polity exists in the world right now: the [Democratic Federation of Northern Syria][2]. Other such political arrangements have existed for brief periods in the past (one other example is [Revolutionary Catalonia][3]). Why have none of them lasted? It seems more to do with traditional hierarchical nation-states attacking and re-subverting them than any internal failing.
I don't know of the Thomas Hobbes studies that you reference when you say that _people want government_, but I would question it. I find it self-evident that "shared resources require _governance_", but I see no reason that such governance needs to look like a traditional nation-state. People don't want _chaos_, people don't want _mob rule_. But again, the problems of chaos and mob rule can be solved without traditional nation-states. I'm sure societies that trend toward anarchism could also find (voluntary, non-coercive) ways to fund basic research.
So yes, I say. Let's find ways to build economies without governments. Let's find ways to offload some of the centralized work of governments to decentralized technologies. Money, for example. Keeping official ledgers, for example. Let's think about how we can restructure society so that power is more diffuse, rather than being so concentrated. Governments already exist, and will continue to be a useful (if fraught) tool for governing many things, but maybe they don't need to micromanage all of it anymore.