This is mostly a serious question. Also, not for the tankies/MLs. I already know what your answer to that question is. I may not always agree with you on everything, but you do have an answer that if the conditions became right, could actually work.

No, this is for the type of anarchist completely against the wall, gulags, seemingly any amount of getting hands dirty. What is the solution to those types of people? There are so many of them in the US, a lot of which are heavily armed, that they could easily topple a socialist system, and even if they didn't do that, their existence would be incompatible with any marginalized group living their lives, since they love to harass them at best, outright murder them at worse. So what's the solution? Anarchists often seem to avoid this, seemingly believing that if there was a socialist or communist society, they would just say "aw shucks, guess I was wrong about that. Guess I'll no longer be racist or xenophobic!"

So am I missing something, what's the answer?

  • Mardoniush [she/her]
    2·
    4 years ago

    Ok. Not an Anarchist but feel the need to defend the Anarchist toolkit.

    Anarchists aren't against Hierarchy, they're against unjustified, un-democratic, un-provisional Heirachy.

    Temporary, democratically supported commanders in combat situations are absolutely justified and have been proven effective in combat over 100s of years.

    In other situations the same applies, anarchists are happy for collaborative workplace discipline and administative control, but not at the expense of free association or democratic control .

    In many ways anarchist methods are different from ML by degree and how provisional the control is, that's all.

    • weshallovercum [any]
      1·
      4 years ago

      Well actually I wanted practical answers to those questions, not general answers. I think you would find that virtually everyone in the world would be against unjustified hierarchy. The problem is that "unjustified" is based on moralism rather than materialism. We already live in a democracy, so anarchists should have no problem with our current political system. Also

      Temporary, democratically supported commanders in combat situations are absolutely justified and have been proven effective in combat over 100s of years.

      Can you give me some examples of such armies. Also, you still have commanders who exert their authority even if they are democratically elected. You get shot if you disobey your commander. Isn't that a coercive form of hierarchy?

      In many ways anarchist methods are different from ML by degree and how provisional the control is, that’s all.

      You need to explain what anarchist methods are in a very concrete way. Once you do so, you will find that in most cases, you will have to implement some form of authority, and most MLs would actually agree with your methods.

      • infuziSporg [e/em/eir]
        ·
        4 years ago

        You get shot if you disobey your commander.

        That's a bit of a reach. You get reprimanded and possibly dismissed if you disobey your commanding officer.

        I know I told myself years ago I'd stop playing this infantile game of debating the best way for things to work in an idealized Revolutionary future... but I feel like the concept of "we shouldn't have a class of people who have permanent, structural, and total power over other classes of people" should not be controversial to any socialist. Ex.: You are elected to a military tactical command post; you are subject to recall by those you command; your authority does not extend outside of combat engagements, you are not particularly valued more than the doctor you go to see.

        I'm not going to go into worldbuilding and paint it all out for you, there will inevitably be a wide variety of forms, some of which are more worth adhering to than others.