Tell that to ... *breathes in* ... nobel prize winning economist Elinor Ostrom, the Piaroa, the Tiv, the inhabitants of Highland Madagascar (C19th - present day), the Bororo, the Baining, the Onondaga, the Wintu, the Ema, the Tallensi, the Vezo, employees of Mondragon, Linux user groups, the Paris Commune, Republican Spain, the Makhnovista, and Israel's kibbutzim ... *breathes out*
WI an anarcho-communist country was established?
- Thread starter TheCrow__
- Start date
Tell that to ... *breathes in* ... nobel prize winning economist Elinor Ostrom, the Piaroa, the Tiv, the inhabitants of Highland Madagascar (C19th - present day), the Bororo, the Baining, the Onondaga, the Wintu, the Ema, the Tallensi, the Vezo, employees of Mondragon, Linux user groups, the Paris Commune, Republican Spain, the Makhnovista, and Israel's kibbutzim ... *breathes out*
Jaded_Railman
Banned
Just to note, Ostrom's work is about how people solve collective action problems. It has about as much to do with communism as, say, a school soccer team.
Communism does not have a monopoly on 'people working together for a common goal'.
Jaded_Railman
Banned
If you admit that to those you trust they won't trust you with any power.
And yet somehow it keeps happening. Cromwell. Napoleon. Lenin and Stalin. Hitler.
Massive social instability gets most people to be desperate for a dose of the opposite, and they start being willing to trust some pretty shady characters to get it.
It is about institutional, but non-governmental, responses to collective action problems, if only as they relate to the allocation of scarce resources accessible to all.
Indeed it doesn't, but this example does disprove Licoln's objections.
I don't get why things would "eventually" go wrong. Things could go wrong, but things can always go wrong, no matter if the political system is an anarchy, monarchy, democracy. But I agree with you in the fact, that most people look for a "strong man" during a crisis, but that is also true for every society.
Still you need people to trust you to make things better, otherwise you can't build up a powerbase unless you're somehow strong enough to take about the whole society. If no one or not enough people trust you to make things better, you won't be able to secure power.
Jaded_Railman
Banned
No, it doesn't. In fact, such a vague claim as his would require a lot more than one line to properly refute, if such a real refutation is actually possible.
All it does is show that we're capable of rule making and tradition setting when those things become necessary. After all, where does government itself come from?
However, it's hardly about how the, "Let's all share everything and be nice to each other", philosophy will work in the real world, except in the most tangental, broadest sense.
Jaded_Railman
Banned
Because, like it or not, and completely ignoring whether it's really possible or not, the transition to this kind of society would be neither quick nor painless. In fact, the two are sort of a trade-off: The quicker it happens, the more painful it is. Because of the nature of these transitions, in addition, the longer you keep it going before the final 'fruit' is borne, the better entrenched counter-revolutionary and reactionary political forces become.
So, in other words, the longer you take the more time the old order has to fight back and rebuild a power base, and the quicker you take it the more you risk general social chaos and collapse of your regime.
The idea that people are able to make accurate judgments about whether they can trust people they don't know and cannot realistically meet (distant politicians, who would have to implement this kind of thing) is flawed. In truth, people would use the information gradient that exists between them and everybody else to regain power. That's how it always works.
I mean, seriously guys. If the question in the OP is, "What would happen if some country magically transitioned into one big anarcho-communist paradise?", then the obvious answer is, "Then everyone lives happily ever after". The problem is that you cannot just ignore that implementation problem. Trying to 'play it by the wing' and plan as you go has led to disaster after disaster in the past and cost more human lives than any other system which people have rebelled against.
TheCrow__
Banned
honestly if people just thought rationaly which is why the human race is on top we could figure out that our existence will cease if we continue to think that we cannot be equal if we just work together instead of killing each other meaninglessly than we can survive and adapt to keep our existence
I know there are a lot of political realists and liberal theorists on this board. I am not an anarchist, but a problem you'd find with an "Anarcho-communist" "country" is that no other country is going to be anarcho-communist but that "country" (and the whole point of anarch-communism is no state, but I get what you mean). For the purposes of discussion, I'll just refer to it as an anarcho-communist society.
This region would likely be faced by a number of problems. Notwithstanding all sorts of issues with the actual theory itself, in terms of international relations if you're placing this in the post-1900s, but pre-1950s-ish a lot of states are totalitarian and expansionist. It's a lot harder for an anarcho-communist society to get a trustworthy milita capable of defending against hostile attacks. For a society like this to function, you need to basically isolate it from the rest of the world imo. The problem is, few places in the world that are isolated have the means to support large populations. At best, in my opinion- without writing a whole damn essay on it, you're going to get an odd state the size of Luxembourgh in a place like the Himalayan Mountains, obscure islands in Melanesia or Micronesia or a far northern commune in Canada or far southern commune in Argentina. This society is likely to not be a "state", but simply an incorporated commune in territory claimed (perhaps even administered) by another state.
A region like this is also highly likely to see integration into a global capitalist market at some point. There are plenty of societies that are isolated and largely "anarchic" in nature (Mormons for instance). Not "anarchism" by any means, but don't participate in government, largely self-sufficient, communal, tend to have more de-centralized hierarchy (it's still there though). However they see a fair turnover every year of people wanting to leave and live elsewhere. In this anarcho-comunist society, I'd expect the same sort of thing to happen.
This region would likely be faced by a number of problems. Notwithstanding all sorts of issues with the actual theory itself, in terms of international relations if you're placing this in the post-1900s, but pre-1950s-ish a lot of states are totalitarian and expansionist. It's a lot harder for an anarcho-communist society to get a trustworthy milita capable of defending against hostile attacks. For a society like this to function, you need to basically isolate it from the rest of the world imo. The problem is, few places in the world that are isolated have the means to support large populations. At best, in my opinion- without writing a whole damn essay on it, you're going to get an odd state the size of Luxembourgh in a place like the Himalayan Mountains, obscure islands in Melanesia or Micronesia or a far northern commune in Canada or far southern commune in Argentina. This society is likely to not be a "state", but simply an incorporated commune in territory claimed (perhaps even administered) by another state.
A region like this is also highly likely to see integration into a global capitalist market at some point. There are plenty of societies that are isolated and largely "anarchic" in nature (Mormons for instance). Not "anarchism" by any means, but don't participate in government, largely self-sufficient, communal, tend to have more de-centralized hierarchy (it's still there though). However they see a fair turnover every year of people wanting to leave and live elsewhere. In this anarcho-comunist society, I'd expect the same sort of thing to happen.
Cook
Banned
Can you please learn how to put together a sentence?
Failing that use Microsoft Word and let it do the work for you?
Honestly I am not trying to be rude but trying to work out what you meant there is giving me a head ache.
Cook
Banned
I believe this was one of the main problems for the Anarchists during the Spanish Civil War.
Political Utopians are always saying how “If only we all…”
But we don’t all want to be in their Utopia and it doesn’t seem to work if we aren’t.
I wonder how many people who are vehemently stating that anarcho-communism wouldn't work consider themselves libertarians? I ask because another name for libertarianism would be anarcho-capitalism
Whilst it is true that an anarchist community of any economic structure could not operate on the scale of most modern countries it's important to note that the ideology itself recognises this. Indeed anarchism argues for the dismantlement of modern states but this does not mean the complete dismantlement of all forms of governance. Rather the monolithic governments that dominate life today more often than not in their own interests (and that includes the bureaucrats, not just the politicians) would be replaced by localised communes in which all members would be involved in running the commune. Any thing the commune could not produce would be traded for from other communes. That happens today, except we replace the word 'commune' with 'country'
The core issue with forming an anarchist commune would be defence. Multiple communes would have to operate a system of collective defence where an attack against one would be an attack against all. Hey, that sounds like modern military alliances doesn't it?
In short, the key difference between an anarchist world and our world would be the size of the sovereign communities and who holds sovereign power. In an anarchist world the communities would number a few thousand at most and probably far fewer. Sovereign power would truly rest with the people and not the politicians and bureaucrats as happens in the modern world
Whilst it is true that an anarchist community of any economic structure could not operate on the scale of most modern countries it's important to note that the ideology itself recognises this. Indeed anarchism argues for the dismantlement of modern states but this does not mean the complete dismantlement of all forms of governance. Rather the monolithic governments that dominate life today more often than not in their own interests (and that includes the bureaucrats, not just the politicians) would be replaced by localised communes in which all members would be involved in running the commune. Any thing the commune could not produce would be traded for from other communes. That happens today, except we replace the word 'commune' with 'country'
The core issue with forming an anarchist commune would be defence. Multiple communes would have to operate a system of collective defence where an attack against one would be an attack against all. Hey, that sounds like modern military alliances doesn't it?
In short, the key difference between an anarchist world and our world would be the size of the sovereign communities and who holds sovereign power. In an anarchist world the communities would number a few thousand at most and probably far fewer. Sovereign power would truly rest with the people and not the politicians and bureaucrats as happens in the modern world
TheCrow__
Banned
sorry I was having trouble writing it at the time was in a hurry but ok humanity is at the top of the food chain for several reasons we are rational, free thinkers, and we've adapted very well even though we are weak in comparison to other animals as we've adapted though we've began drifting away from the pride mentality and have become egotist and mainly concern for ourselves I believe though as a whole we must adapt again and see that killing each other over the many useless reasons we do is not gonna keep our existence alive and you say that humanity is always going to be that way I don't think so if we can just use this rationality that is which seperates us from the rest of fauna then we should be able to figure out that cooperation is needed
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Sachyriel
Banned
The American Society of Unionists (ASU
) would be good too. Does it have to be all of OTL America? TheCrow__
Banned
no I would'nt see that happening would you probally just somewhere out in the west maybe some more libertarain colonists decided that the US was eventually gonna end up being as authroritarian as the British govt and decided to start a commune we could then see them beginning to bring the Native Americans into the culture at first through trade and then eventually a merge because the anarcho-communist system could be compared to a tribal system