[Arminius]

I wonder how an anarchist society would deal with pollution. As there's no state enforcing rules, lakes etc would likely be polluted by short-sighted individuals. Human nature is what it is...

[Phred]

An Anarchist society could of course not deal with pollution, just as an Anarchist society could not deal with any other aggression, such as theft, rape, murder, fraud, playing one's stereo system at earsplitting volumes at all hours of the day or night, etc.

Anarchists recognize there is no such thing as a perfect society. Anarchists have never proclaimed an Anarchist society would be perfect, they merely assert that living in a society unable to effectively deal with those who steal, murder, rape, assault, pollute, etc. is a worthwhile tradeoff in exchange for being protected from the dominance of the proponents of hierarchy who would cunningly offer you employment in the hopes you would choose to accept it.





Phred

[DDave3]

As there's no state enforcing rules, lakes etc would likely be polluted by short-sighted individuals

By a system of self-regulation I would imagine, considering that there is no cental state to enforce regulation.

[HoniSoit]

Phred - at least you should read some books on anarchism before speaking on behalf anarchists.

Anarchism as a political tradition has never said that there should be no rule or no enforcement of rules, nor had anarchism rejected social organisation (no top-down coercive state apparatus does not mean no government). What anarchism seeks is to replace as much as possible the hierarchical and undemocratic forms of social, political and economic organisations with non-hierarchical and democratic forms of organisations built from the bottom-up, namely built through grassroots organisations rooted in the community.

[Sephardi]

Anarchism as a political tradition has never said that there should be no rule or no enforcement of rules, nor had anarchism rejected social organisation (no top-down coercive state apparatus does not mean no government). What anarchism seeks is to replace as much as possible the hierarchical and undemocratic forms of social, political and economic organisations with non-hierarchical and democratic forms of organisations built from the bottom-up, namely built through grassroots organisations rooted in the community.

That's not Anarchism.

Anarchism = no government.

[HoniSoit]

That's not Anarchism.

Anarchism = no government

Read some serious book on anarchism as a political ideology.

[Sephardi]

Read some serious book on anarchism as a political ideology.

As long as you change your ideology from "Anarchism" to "Faux-Anarchism" since that's what it really is.

[HoniSoit]

As long as you change your ideology from "Anarchism" to "Faux-Anarchism" since that's what it really is.

Look, it's easy to refute me - just refer me to any serious study of anarchism that says anarchism means no rule.

[Sephardi]

An = no; Archism = Government. An-Archism = No government.

[HoniSoit]

Even on the superficial linguistic level, you are wrong:

The term anarchism derives from the Greek ἀναρχος, anarchos, meaning "without rulers".

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarchism#Origins)

For more information, please read the the Anarchist FAQ: http://www.infoshop.org/faq/secAcon.html.

[Phred]

HoniSoit, I have read far more on the Anarchist way of thought than you would imagine, from Bakunin and Proudhon to Rothbard and Nozick.

The fact remains that Anarchist societies - lacking a standing military, a universal and objectively-applied legal code, a standing judiciary/penal system, and a professional police force - are extremely vulnerable to malefactors, whether those malefactors intend invasion and subjugation (in the case of foreign invaders), robber, rapine and murder (in the case of domestic hoodlums) or environmental despoiling (in the case of those too lazy and/or ignorant to operate cleanly).

That is why I stopped reading about it while I was till a teenager. Any organizational model for a society which cannot illustrate how that society can protect itself from the first few thugs who stumble across it is a fundamentally silly model and deserves no more attention. There is so much knowledge of actual value out there to be absorbed that to waste any of one's very short time on earth musing over such silliness is a crime against one's own best interest.





Phred

[HoniSoit]

The fact remains that Anarchist societies - lacking a standing military, a universal and objectively-applied legal code, a standing judiciary/penal system, and a professional police force

The issue of military is complicated in the anarchist tradition but I don't know anarchists would oppose organised defense.

Regarding legal code, of course there will be rules and regulations and a democratic judiciary system.

About police force, while anarchism is opposed to the form of police force as it is today it doesn't mean there would be no one enforcing rules and regulations that are democratically made.

from Bakunin and Proudhon to Rothbard and Nozick

You are now assuming anarchists today have to follow exactly what anarchist thinkers have prescribed going back to 150 years ago.

Of course anarchists today would analyse and then decide how best to organise a society that takes into account our present conditions.

[Dave]

Of course anarchists today would analyse and then decide how best to organise a society that takes into account our present conditions.

so you mean a government?

[Phred]

You are now assuming anarchists today have to follow exactly what anarchist thinkers have prescribed going back to 150 years ago.

No, I am merely informing you that your belief that I say what I say about Anarchism because I haven't read enough about Anarchism to understand it, is a mistaken belief. I say what I say about Anarchism not because I haven't read extensively at the website you linked (for example) or at many other similar websites, but because Anarchism has no way to effectively deal with malefactors. I am certainly not the first to point this out, by the way.

Of course anarchists today would analyse and then decide how best to organise a society that takes into account our present conditions.

But that's the whole point - Anarchists don't analyze. Instead they dream. Present conditions (in the context of malefactors) differ not a whit from conditions a century and a half ago. If anything, the problem is even worse today than it was back then - foreign invaders come equipped these days with weapons considerably more sophisticated than muzzle-loading muskets and cannon, for one.

The plain fact of the matter is that if you don't have a standing army, your society is defenseless against any halfway competent foreign invader who does. The days of Joe Farmer dropping his hoe and marching off to the battlefield with his trusty saber and musket are long gone.

Same with criminals - with no police, no court system, no penal system, the only way to deal with domestic predators in an Anarchist society is through ad hoc posses. I personally don't have any problem with posses stringing up rapists from the nearest tree, but if I'm not mistaken, most of the folks to whom the fantasy of Anarchy has appeal are the same folks I see going to the "Free Mumia!" rallies. Posses of locals formed on an as-needed basis tend not to be disinterested parties, and are not overly concerned with making absolutely sure they captured the right guy.



Phred

[Mikolaj]

I.5.5 Aren't participatory communities and confederations just new states?

No. As we have seen in section B.2, a state can be defined both by its structure and its function. As far as structure is concerned, a state involves the politico-military and economic domination of a certain geographical territory by a ruling elite, based on the delegation of power into the hands of the few, resulting in hierarchy (centralised authority). As Kropotkin argued, "the word 'State' . . . should be reserved for those societies with the hierarchical system and centralisation." [Ethics, p. 317f]

In a system of federated participatory communities, however, there is no ruling elite, and thus no hierarchy, because power is retained by the lowest-level units of confederation through their use of direct democracy and mandated, rotating, and recallable delegates to meetings of higher-level confederal bodies. This eliminates the problem in "representative" democratic systems of the delegation of power leading to the elected officials becoming isolated from and beyond the control of the mass of people who elected them. As Kropotkin pointed out, an anarchist society would make decisions by "means of congresses, composed of delegates, who discuss among themselves, and submit proposals, not laws, to their constituents", and so is based on self-government, not representative government (i.e. statism). [The Conquest of Bread, p. 135]

[quote=Malatesta]The liberty we seek, for ourselves and for others, is not that absolute, abstract, metaphysical liberty which, in practice, inevitably translates into oppression of the weak, but rather, real liberty, the achievable liberty represented by conscious community of interests and willing solidarity. We proclaim the maxim: 'Do what you will,' [because] we are convinced that in a harmonious society, in a society without government and without property, 'each will want what will be his duty[/quote]

[Sephardi]

Regarding legal code, of course there will be rules and regulations and a democratic judiciary system.

So you mean they would create a government?

[HoniSoit]

So you mean they would create a government?

I don't think it's particularly useful except to create confusion to engage in a debate over semantics.

The point is that generally speaking, left anarchism advocates social organisation built from the bottom-up. Whether you call the system we end up a government or otherwise is not so important.

[ninurta]

Back on topic, How would an anarchist society deal with pollution. Here is a scenario:

If your pollution starts bothering enough people. Then alot of people can gather just to demand the pollution be fixed/ended/stopped or the polluters must pollute where they aren't bothering anyone. If not, better hope there is enough people who like the pollution, because the people angry with you polluting are coming after you.

[Figlio di Moros]

Back on topic, How would an anarchist society deal with pollution. Here is a scenario:

If your pollution starts bothering enough people. Then alot of people can gather just to demand the pollution be fixed/ended/stopped or the polluters must pollute where they aren't bothering anyone. If not, better hope there is enough people who like the pollution, because the people angry with you polluting are coming after you.

So, you hope they ask nicely but they could form a mob and stab the polluter with pitchforks? How very civil of your society.

[Wolfman]

By a system of self-regulation I would imagine, considering that there is no cental state to enforce regulation

So, it would work on the honor system?