Quote from: jeff37923Thank you for the link and I'll check it out, but I'd like to hear from the anarchy advocates as well to get a better understanding.

Ok, after reading up on "philosophical" anarchy, I'm changing my tune: the various forms of anarchy *could* work on a smaller scale, just like communism. However, they require the active, voluntary participation of every member of the community, which makes them -- like communism -- nothing more than a pipe dream.

Quote from: PseudoephedrineThe two most successful anarchist societies that I'm familiar with were a long-lasting form in Iceland during the mediaeval period, and anarcho-syndicalism in Spain in the 30's (which continues today in the form of the Mondragon cooperatives).

"Where is your king?"

"We don't HAVE a king! We're an anarcho-syndicalist commune."

Quote from: jeff37923OK, are you talking about the Icelandic Commonwealth (930 - 1230 AD)? I've found some papers on that which I'm looking at now.

Once I'm done reading these I'll take a look at the anarco-syndicalism of 1930's Spain and its evolution into the Mondragon cooperatives.

Oh, and thanks.

No worries. And yeah, it is the Icelandic Commonwealth that I'm referring to.

Quote from: Werekoala"Where is your king?"

"We don't HAVE a king! We're an anarcho-syndicalist commune."

"Listen. Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government. Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony."

"Be quiet!"

"Well, but you can't expect to wield supreme executive power just 'cause some watery tart threw a sword at you!"

"Shut up!"

"I mean, if I went 'round saying I was an emperor just because some moistened bint had lobbed a scimitar at me, they'd put me away!"

"Shut up, will you? Shut up!"
 
"Ah, now we see the violence inherent in the system.'

"Shut up!"

"Oh! Come and see the violence inherent in the system! Help! Help! I'm being repressed!"

"Bloody peasant!"

"Oh, what a give-away. Did you hear that? Did you hear that, eh? That's what I'm on about. Did you see him repressing me? You saw it, didn't you?"

Quote from: KoltarOkay time to put some BABYON 5 DVDs on...or make some NPcs.

- Ed C.

Easier just to drown thought out with a loud noise, yes? It gets old, after a while. If you don't want to talk about it, why do you bother dicking around?

Koltar's a pugnacious cretin. He doesn't have a thought in his head, and he'll be damned if anyone else should either.

Quote from: KoltarLaughing out Loud.  (WTF?) Oh my fucking God...!

Anarchy?
 Different forms?
 Best joke I've seen on the internet.

Okay time to put some BABYON 5 DVDs on...or make some NPcs.

- Ed C.

Actually, Pseudo-P that meant quite the opposite.

 One of the things about BABYLON 5 is that it had an ongoing pro-democracy message throughout the 4th and 5th seasons of the show.  Especially during the 5th season.

 If you're goiung to quote - you should do the whole comment in context.  Anarchy is basically a suicidal form of govervment, actually its a non-government.

- Ed C.

Larry Niven's "Cloak of Anarchy" summed up my feelings on anarchy nicely.

True, total anarchy does not work.  People eventually set themselves up as tinpot dictators and fascists over what territory they can protect, and it ceases to be anarchy.  The anarchy in the story was an illusion - as the young college students who advocated it came to understand.  They were protected - they could express themselves freely, but commit violence upon another, and you are ejected.  In that case - it wasn't anarchy.  Again, as they soon discovered when the park was plunged into true anarchy.

In reality, all things are about balance and moderation.  Citizens can't have total and utter freedom - everything devolves into chaos, which is no way to run a world.  So, you give up SOME freedom to live in a "supposedly) peaceful and just society.  How MUCH freedom, and what kinds of freedoms, are what the debate is about.

Just like total, free market capitalism - with no laws restricting business in any way, shape or form - is also undesirable.  With no recourse or action available against a powerful corporation, nothing is beholden unto them to act in the best interests of anything but their bottom line.  So, you place some limitations on business.  How much, again, depends on where you live.

Capitalism, communism, anarchy, democracy - the utter extreme of each never works for any one.  Just as a benevolent dictator may be the most efficient form of government, with nothing forcing him to ACT benevolent, quite often he will not do so.

Anarchy, like communism, is an interesting theoretical and philisophical discussion, but nothing more than that.

Quote from: HackmastergeneralJust like total, free market capitalism - with no laws restricting business in any way, shape or form - is also undesirable.  With no recourse or action available against a powerful corporation, nothing is beholden unto them to act in the best interests of anything but their bottom line.  So, you place some limitations on business.  How much, again, depends on where you live.

A moment.  It could well be that you understand that this ideology you describe is utterly unsupported by economic theory, but I think it is worth it to remove any confusion on this matter.

Economics is not the Cult of the Market; it is the Cult of Efficiency.

Even in the case of perfect competition -- which cannot exist in the real world -- there are cases where government intervention is required to avoid market failure.  Even under impossibly perfect conditions, government regulation is still required to minimize inefficiency.

People claiming otherwise are either ignorant, telling self-serving lies, or (in a rare few cases) have plausible alternative theories that nevertheless are not accepted by mainstream economics.

Quote from: hgjsA moment.  It could well be that you understand that this ideology you describe is utterly unsupported by economic theory, but I think it is worth it to remove any confusion on this matter.

Economics is not the Cult of the Market; it is the Cult of Efficiency.

Even in the case of perfect competition -- which cannot exist in the real world -- there are cases where government intervention is required to avoid market failure.  Even under impossibly perfect conditions, government regulation is still required to minimize inefficiency.

People claiming otherwise are either ignorant, telling self-serving lies, or (in a rare few cases) have plausible alternative theories that nevertheless are not accepted by mainstream economics.

Really? If someone disagrees they are ignorant or lying?  Wow, that's a lock on objective truth if I ever heard one.

But I'm not disagreeing as I don't think I'm quite clear on an example of when a perfect competition woudl require government intervention and to what extent.  Could you provide some examples?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_monopoly

There is less debate amongst economists about the sheer existence of natural monopolies than Wikipedia wants to pretend. However, there is a great deal of debate about what specific industries are "natural monopolies" and which aren't, especially as the rate of technological innovation continues to increase.

I am not fond of government regulation, but I do enjoy seeing corporate and state interests fight tooth and nail with one another. If anything, I wish their conflicts were fatal to themselves and one another more often.

Quote from: Werekoala"Where is your king?"

"We don't HAVE a king! We're an anarcho-syndicalist commune."

Actually, from what I've read about the 1930's Spainards and anarcho-syndicalism, they didn't have a king, but had a company president. The factories were abandoned by their owners, the workers came in and took over the factories, then  managers were chosen to run the factory in day-to-day operations, but the entire company (or cooperative, depending on your favored semantics) voted on decisions which affected the entire factory. This sounds less like anarchy and more like a democracy, actually it sounds most like the Demarchy of Joan D. Vinge's Heaven Belt stories.

I'm still reading up on the Icelandic Commonwealth.

And just a note, whether you agree or disagree with the term "anarchy", it does make some great adventure ideas when you do the research.

Oh, and Hackmastergeneral, its nice to see another Larry Niven fan on the board. He's one of my favorite authors.

Anarchy and direct democracy are often paired together by anarchist theorists, especially on the left. "Democracy" is so vague a term that it can mean just about anything one wants it to, from the regular majoritarian selection of nearly-unaccountable executives by a group of civil servants not technically beholden to the ostensible "voters" (American presidential elections) to selection from a board of nominated candidates by drawing lots to people marching in the street and smashing the face of anyone who tries to get in their way.

In the case of anarcho-syndicalism, it generally uses a majoritarian form of voting by all workers to nominate provisional coordinators and direct the activity of the workers as a group. This is a kind of democracy, but it's a kind of democracy that is anarchic, rather than one that tends to create and legitimise authorities.

Quote from: PseudoephedrineAnarchy and direct democracy are often paired together by anarchist theorists, especially on the left. "Democracy" is so vague a term that it can mean just about anything one wants it to, from the regular majoritarian selection of nearly-unaccountable executives by a group of civil servants not technically beholden to the ostensible "voters" (American presidential elections) to selection from a board of nominated candidates by drawing lots to people marching in the street and smashing the face of anyone who tries to get in their way.

In the case of anarcho-syndicalism, it generally uses a majoritarian form of voting by all workers to nominate provisional coordinators and direct the activity of the workers as a group. This is a kind of democracy, but it's a kind of democracy that is anarchic, rather than one that tends to create and legitimise authorities.

Wait a minute, are you suggesting that anarchy theorists on the left are attaching the word "anarchy" to their theory of government to make that theory look more palatable? That they are using the word "anarchy" to make their ideas sexier (to use an advertising term) to those the theories are directed at?

And what does "majoritarian" mean? I can't find it in the dictionary.

It's in Merriam Webster and the Oxford Shorter. "Majoritarian" is what the heirs to the Anglo-Saxon liberal democratic tradition tend to think of as "democracy" - every qualified person votes and whoever gets the most votes "wins" by having their position adopted, or their candidate take office or whatever the goal was supposed to be. I used the term because I was trying to point out that this is not "ordinary" democracy or how it "normally" works, but rather is a historically-situated artifact.

And I'm not suggesting that left-wing anarchist theorists are using the term "anarchy" to make their ideas more exciting or attention-grabbing.

It's that most people who do not investigate political philosophy and political science tend to have a partial or limited understanding of what many terms, like "anarchism", "democracy" and "freedom" (to name only three), mean, and so think of idiosyncratic and often unnecessarily narrow meanings of those terms.

For example, in this discussion many people have been using the word "Democracy" to mean "Representative democracy of the sort practised in America" or "The system of constitutional monarchy and representative parliamentary democracy of the sort practised in the Commonwealth," or just "Any system where people elect someone to be the boss and make rules for everyone else". These are kinds of democracy, it's true, but no one of them exhausts the term "democracy".

Similarly, it's not that anarchism and democracy are opposed forms of government which compete with one another as to which will be in charge (though some of the previously-mentioned systems cannot co-exist with anarchism). Rather, many of the most popular kinds of anarchism claim to best realise the ideals of an egalitarian and free society, and to do so through ways of political decision making that they also call "democratic". From the standpoint of a political philosopher or historian, they are just as justified in doing so as people who refer to presidential elections as "democratic".