What is Anarchism?

[joe1776]

And you can count me out! In this utopia of yours, I imagine agorism (counter economies, black markets) would be very popular. Circumventing the State and starving it of resources by not participating in it entirely. I definitely would partake in this type of action. Just an unintended consequence to think about ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

What would be sold on the black market? Food, shelter, the basics, would be provided. What would be used for money?

 

[Revoltingest]

You said it is an emergent property of being human. That insinuates dehumanizing nomadic humans. That's what I wanted corrected.

No one is being de-humanized.
Nay, tis about recognizing human tendencies,
in this case forming countries with governments.

 

[Revoltingest]

OK, Amigo. You win.

I didn't know it was a contest.

So, your argument then is that we already have uses for the computer thus we don't need any more?

You inferred that?

You'd be asked to give up bargaining not sex. And the benefits would more than compensate most people.

A tyranny of the majority, eh.
But I don't think people will want your system.

You're worried that people would have to give up their freedom of dealing with the crappy, unfair world we now have?

I wouldn't put it that way.

You are jumping to convulsions. With all citizens trained in work they're good at, the eventual product would be a much fairer and better world.

Train people to conform to your system?
Sounds dystopian.

 

[Kooky]

You'll notice that permanent settlements are the norm.

And there was a time when they weren't.

Claiming eternity and permanence is trying to bamboozle people into not recognizing contingent situations and into assuming man-made structures must be natural and god-given.

 

[Revoltingest]

And there was a time when they weren't.

Then humans learned to bang the rocks together.

Claiming eternity and permanence is trying to bamboozle people into not recognizing contingent situations and into assuming man-made structures must be natural and god-given.

Perhaps you are, but I'm not into sky fairies.
I observe what happens, eg, countries, governments.
To pretend those things don't tend to occur is....special.

 

[Kooky]

Then humans learned to bang the rocks together.

It is fascinating - though not surprising considering the usual quality of your arguments - how confident you are in a position that is based on nothing but mind-boggling ignorance of the entirety of human history up to now. Humans spent the overwhelming majority of their existence as a species as nomadic hunter gatherers without any kind of state structures. Even with the development of agriculture, it took humanity thousands of years to develop the proto-state structures apparent in archaeological evidence at e.g. Jericho or Catal Hüyük.

This statist fantasy that states have always existed and are therefore an inherent feature of human society is nothing but that, a fantasy, built on ignorance or wishful thinking, take your pick.

Perhaps you are, but I'm not into sky fairies.
I observe what happens, eg, countries, governments.
To pretend those things don't tend to occur is....special.

And it staggeringly common to claim that comparatively recent features of society have always existed, in spite of all the facts to the contrary. It is in fact so common that an entire political ideology (conservativism) has developed around it.

 

[Revoltingest]

It is fascinating - though not surprising considering the usual quality of your arguments - how confident you are in a position that is based on nothing but mind-boggling ignorance....

Well, wasn't that a special beginning to a post.
I skipped the rest.

 

[Kooky]

I skipped the rest.

Whether intentional or not, that made me genuinely laugh out loud. Thank you!

 

[Heyo]

Then humans learned to bang the rocks together.

Nope. You are about 200,000 year off. That is YEC levels.

Perhaps you are, but I'm not into sky fairies.
I observe what happens, eg, countries, governments.
To pretend those things don't tend to occur is....special.

To mix up human with city dweller is ...

 

[Revoltingest]

Whether intentional or not....

Ditto.

 

[Revoltingest]

Nope. You are about 200,000 year off. That is YEC levels.

You didn't get my literary reference?

 

[Heyo]

You didn't get my literary reference?

Yes.

 

[Revoltingest]

Yes.

Yes, you did, or yes, you dint?

The left is hard to figure out. They seem to be claiming
that human societies will eschew having countries.
governments, & technology. Yet they propose that
computers will run our new command economy.
And that with an iron fist to prevent accumulating
any wealth. Socialists....they'll say anything & everything.
Except for admission that human nature is what it is.

 

[Heyo]

Yes, you did, or yes, you dint?

What was your question again? You asked if I didn't get the reference.
So, when I answer "yes", then it is logical to conclude that I meant "yes, I didn't get your reference". But you are excused, I know that logic is hard for most humans.

The left is hard to figure out. They seem to be claiming
that human societies will eschew having countries.
governments, & technology.

You are mistaken here. "All history is the history of class struggle." - Karl Marx
For the dogmatic left, capitalism is an inevitable result of being human - as well as the downfall of capitalism will be. And they are as wrong as you are.

Yet they propose that
computers will run our new command economy.
And that with an iron fist to prevent accumulating
any wealth. Socialists....they'll say anything & everything.
Except for admission that human nature is what it is.

Human nature is more diverse than you (or the socialists) think. And it is malleable.

 

[Revoltingest]

What was your question again? You asked if I didn't get the reference.
So, when I answer "yes", then it is logical to conclude that I meant "yes, I didn't get your reference". But you are excused, I know that logic is hard for most humans.

Language is imprecise. Lesser educated ferriners
might not understand that such an answer is ambiguous.
Language isn't always logical. So to be sure, I asked.
The reference...
Quote by Douglas Adams: “We'll be saying a big hello to all intelligent ...”

You are mistaken here. "All history is the history of class struggle." - Karl Marx

Marx's pronouncement isn't "true".
It's simply his personal perspective, which was
later adopted as gospel truth by his acolytes.

For the dogmatic left, capitalism is an inevitable result of being human - as well as the downfall of capitalism will be. And they are as wrong as you are.
Human nature is more diverse than you (or the socialists) think. And it is malleable.

If we examine any country where capitalism is legal,
people engage in it. Even in socialist countries where
it's illegal, we observe that black markets emerge.
So to deny that capitalism is an emergent property
(along with governments & countries) of human
interaction would require support. You've offered none.

 

[Heyo]

Quote by Douglas Adams: “We'll be saying a big hello to all intelligent ...”

Thanks, I somehow forgot about that. Shame on me, especially since it's my favourite philosopher.

So to deny that capitalism is an emergent property
(along with governments & countries) of human
interaction would require support. You've offered none.

@Kooky did.

"Humans spent the overwhelming majority of their existence as a species as nomadic hunter gatherers without any kind of state structures. Even with the development of agriculture, it took humanity thousands of years to develop the proto-state structures apparent in archaeological evidence at e.g. Jericho or Catal Hüyük."

So states are not a result of human nature (alone). Otherwise they would have appeared much earlier in human development.

 

[Kooky]

I just realized I misspelled Çatalhöyük in my earlier post. My bad!
Çatalhöyük - Wikipedia

Çatalhöyük was a very large Neolithic and Chalcolithic proto-city settlement in southern Anatolia, which existed from approximately 7500 BC to 6400 BC, and flourished around 7000 BC.

Neolithic Revolution - Wikipedia

The Neolithic Revolution, or the (First) Agricultural Revolution, was the wide-scale transition of many human cultures during the Neolithic period from a lifestyle of hunting and gathering to one of agriculture and settlement, making an increasingly large population possible.[1] These settled communities permitted humans to observe and experiment with plants, learning how they grew and developed.[2] This new knowledge led to the domestication of plants.

Archaeological data indicates that the domestication of various types of plants and animals happened in separate locations worldwide, starting in the geological epoch of the Holocene 11,700 years ago.[4] It was the world's first historically verifiable revolution in agriculture.

The Neolithic Revolution involved far more than the adoption of a limited set of food-producing techniques. During the next millennia it transformed the small and mobile groups of hunter-gatherers that had hitherto dominated human pre-history into sedentary (non-nomadic) societies based in built-up villages and towns. These societies radically modified their natural environment by means of specialized food-crop cultivation, with activities such as irrigation and deforestation which allowed the production of surplus food. Other developments that are found very widely during this era are the domestication of animals, pottery, polished stone tools, and rectangular houses. In many regions, the adoption of agriculture by prehistoric societies caused episodes of rapid population growth, a phenomenon known as the Neolithic demographic transition.

These developments, sometimes called the Neolithic package, provided the basis for centralized administrations and political structures, hierarchical ideologies, depersonalized systems of knowledge (e.g. writing), densely populated settlements, specialization and division of labour, more trade, the development of non-portable art and architecture, and greater property ownership. The earliest known civilization developed in Sumer in southern Mesopotamia (c.  6,500 BP); its emergence also heralded the beginning of the Bronze Age.

Here is how things developed in Jericho, probably the earliest known signs of private property:

Pre-Pottery Neolithic A - Wikipedia

Sedentism of this time allowed for the cultivation of local grains, such as barley and wild oats, and for storage in granaries. Sites such as Dhra′ and Jericho retained a hunting lifestyle until the PPNB period, but granaries allowed for year-round occupation.

This period of cultivation is considered "pre-domestication", but may have begun to develop plant species into the domesticated forms they are today. Deliberate, extended-period storage was made possible by the use of "suspended floors for air circulation and protection from rodents". This practice "precedes the emergence of domestication and large-scale sedentary communities by at least 1,000 years".[2]

Granaries are positioned in places between other buildings early on c. 11,500 BP, however, beginning around 10,500 BP, they were moved inside houses, and by 9,500 BP storage occurred in special rooms.[2] This change might reflect changing systems of ownership and property as granaries shifted from communal use and ownership to become under the control of households or individuals.

 

[Left Coast]

I don't think anyone really denies that 10,000+ years ago when there were vastly fewer humans and they were much less technologically advanced and lived in small hunter-gatherer tribes, they organized themselves in ways that are less complex than they are now. Now that the toothpaste has been out of the tube for several thousand years, I don't really see the vast majority of humanity going back to anything like that, unless some cataclysmic event cuts the world's population by 90+% and the world's infrastructure is somehow wiped out. The transition to agrarian, and eventually city and state-based societies, provided us with benefits we didn't have as nomads. Personally I'm not eager to give those up, despite the negative aspects of large-scale government.

 

[Revoltingest]

"Humans spent the overwhelming majority of their existence as a species as nomadic hunter gatherers without any kind of state structures. Even with the development of agriculture, it took humanity thousands of years to develop the proto-state structures apparent in archaeological evidence at e.g. Jericho or Catal Hüyük."

The Earth spent billions of years without life.
Yet it arose. Consider that emergent properties
can be the result of lengthy stochastic processes,
with stages of properties. Just as single cell organisms
preceded multi-cellular life, hunter gatherer nomads
preceded countries with governments & capitalism.

You & he can argue that there's no tendency towards
capitalism because long ago there was none, but
that would be to ignore current reality.
Socialism has the emergent property of oppression
& poor economic outcome. This is another reality
worth being aware of.

 

[Heyo]

The Earth spent billions of years without life.

Nope. Hardly one.

Yet it arose. Consider that emergent properties
can be the result of lengthy stochastic processes,
with stages of properties. Just as single cell organisms
preceded multi-cellular life, hunter gatherer nomads
preceded countries with governments & capitalism.

So we can say that nations are a result of life?
Or of gravity? Or that god planned them right
before the beginning of the universe?
Yes, we can trace all things human also back to the
Chicxulub asteroid, but is that what you'd call a
reasonable and/or parsimonious connection?
Is everything that happened something that must have
happened?
Is war always a result of capitalism just because some
(well, almost all) capitalist nations at one time in their
history start a war?

You & he can argue that there's no tendency towards
capitalism because long ago there was none, but
that would be to ignore current reality.
Socialism has the emergent property of oppression
& poor economic outcome. This is another reality
worth being aware of.

Correlation is not causation.
When you can't explain the mechanism that lead
from B to C and that that mechanism is inevitable,
you don't really have a case.