anarchist philosophy rejects unjust hierarchy. The general consensus is that hierarchies established democratically can be just if their goals are for the general good. There are many branches of anarchism that advocate for different standards for how to determine what is just and for the general good.
Personally, I advocate for self-determinism and mutuality. Anarchists can still have a kind of "state" but they will tend to be small and localized. Laws would be democratically established inside those small communities and valid when inside that comunity.
Anarchists can still have a kind of “state” but they will tend to be small and localized. Laws would be democratically established inside those small communities and valid when inside that comunity.
Would there be a baseline of overarching rules that are valid between communities?
I ask because I sometimes think about how an anarchist society would deal with something like ISIS. If they set up shop and "voted" to stone gay people to death and oppress women, would there be any action against them beyond shunning? Or what if a group of Nazis set up and voted to kill all the non-whites in an area. Is there a baseline of human rights attaching to the resident of an anarchist territory?
As a ML, my answer would be to wield the dictatorship of the proletariat against such reactionary elements, but I'm genuinely curious as to what anarchist theory proposes as a solution.
Thank you in advance to any anarchist comrades who can help me learn.
If you want to be an anarchist, your conception of democracy can't just be limited to voting. If I envisioned an anarchist society in the way I'd like to see it, there would be much better processes of decision-making that don't to lead "let's stone someone" coming to a vote.
It's important to understand that oppression and hatred of minority groups is, well, oppressive. If your political system gives you the opportunity to stomp on someone, that almost certainly means that that person's needs/desires/wants were not being taken into account in the decision to stomp on them; hence we have a problem with voting. Here's a bit of theory from The Democracy Project:
One of the reasons it is easy for political scientists to ignore such local associations and assemblies when speaking of the history of democracy is that in most such assemblies, things never come down to a vote. The idea that democracy is simply a matter of voting — which the Founders, too, assumed — also allows one to think of it as an innovation, some sort of conceptual breakthrough: as if it had never occurred to anyone in previous epochs to test support for a proposal by asking people to all put up their hands, scratch something on a potsherd, or have everyone supporting a proposal stand on one side of a public square. But even if people throughout history have always known how to count, there are good reasons why counting has often been avoided as a means of reaching group decisions. Voting is divisive. If a community lacks means to compel its members to obey a collective decision, then probably the stupidest thing one could do is to stage a series of public contests in which one side will, necessarily, be seen to lose; this would not only allow decisions that as many as 49 percent of the community strongly oppose, it would also maximize the possibility of hard feelings among that part of the community one most needs to convince to go along despite their opposition. A process of consensus finding, of mutual accommodation and compromise to reach a collective decision everyone at least does not find strongly objectionable, is far more suited to situations where those who have to carry out a decision lack the sort of centralized bureaucracy, and particularly, the means of systematic coercion, that would be required to force an angry minority to comply with decisions they found stupid, obnoxious, or unfair.
Historically, it is extremely unusual to find both of these together. Throughout most of human history, egalitarian societies were precisely those that did not have some military or police apparatus to force people to do things they did not wish to do (all those sekas and ayllus referred to above); where the means of compulsion did exist, it never occurred to anyone that ordinary people’s opinions were in any way important.
Where do we find voting, then? Sometimes in societies where spectacles of public competition are considered normal — such as ancient Greece (ancient Greeks would make a contest out of anything) — but mainly in situations where everyone taking part in an assembly is armed or, at least, trained in the use of weapons. In the ancient world, voting occurred mainly within armies. Aristotle was well aware of this: the constitution of a Greek state, he observed, largely depends on the chief arm of its military: if it’s a cavalry, one can expect an aristocracy, if it’s heavy infantry, voting rights will be extended to those wealthy men who can afford armor, if it’s light troops, archers, slingers, or a navy (as in Athens), one can expect democracy. Similarly, in Rome, popular assemblies that also relied on majority vote were based directly on military units of one hundred men, called centuries. Underlying the institution was the rather commonsensical idea that if a man was armed, his opinions had to be taken into account. Ancient military units often elected their own officers. It’s also easy to see why majority voting would make sense in a military unit: even if a vote was 60–40, both sides are armed; if it did come down to a fight, one could see immediately who was most likely to win. And this pattern applies, broadly, more or less across the historical record: in the 1600s, for instance, Six Nations councils — which were primarily engaged in peacemaking — operated by consensus, but pirate ships, which were military operations, used majority vote.
All this is important because it shows that the aristocratic fears of the wealthy early Patriots — who when they thought of their nightmare vision “democracy” thought of an armed populace making decisions by majority show of hands — were not entirely unfounded.
Democracy, then, is not necessarily defined by majority voting: it is, rather, the process of collective deliberation on the principle of full and equal participation. Democratic creativity, in turn, is most likely to occur when one has a diverse collection of participants, drawn from very divergent traditions, with an urgent need to improvise some means to regulate their common affairs, free of a preexisting overarching authority.
That was very interesting and though provoking theory, comrade. Thank you for taking the time to enlighten me.
an anarchist reaction would be largely the same. the difference is that the "dictatorship of the proletariat" would be established only when and as needed and when there was no threat, it would be dismantled at all other times.
The US structures of city -> county -> state -> nation would be a good example of a functional anarchistic structure if not for the supremacy doctrine that reverses the priority of power.
TBH I'm not sure what the right move would be if a neighboring community started being oppressive and reactionary, my instinct is that the neighbors band together and stomp it out. but if it started happening under a participatory democratic system (not just voting on everything but real consensus discussion) I think it may just be that anarchism has failed.
I did not know that (some?) Anarchists also support the dictatorship of the proletariat. Thank you for taking the time to explain.
I don't get the concept of anti-unjust hierarchy being the basis of anarchism, like doesn't every political model advocate for what the consider a just amount of hierarchy? the concept of an unjust hierarchy is subjective and doesn't that open the door for literally all politcal concepts to be anarchistic by that definition? I mean obviously they aren't in reality but they would be based on that definition
You're right! I mean, that's the common anarchist sensibility that I think is in everyone other than explicit reactionaries. Anyone with a reasonable head on their shoulders wants a more equal, just world, with fewer hierarchies, and the debate mostly remains around how many of these hierarchies can be eliminated.
Where I'd draw the difference is that anarchists are aware of the complicated nature of power. The use of power, and being in a position of power, are not nearly as advantages or productive, for the entity using it or for anyone else, as many people would believe. I don't have time to defend this point and it'll just dissolve into sectarian squabbling; it's just a crucial piece of information that will help you understand the perspective. So anarchists drastically adjust their threshold for when they think it's appropriate to use power (and step into or continue a hierarchy).
For example of a similar principle, a poor soul might be convinced to support a US invasion of a country with egregious and horrifying human rights abuses without much pushing. We won't be, because we've seen this line so so many times before, and even when almost all the evidence that's reaching our ears clearly says "we need to invade to stop this", we have a strong enough counter that's willing to question the validity of that evidence and the epistemological skewing that happens when you're in the imperial core. It's the same with power - when all signs point to the necessity of a particular hierarchical relationship, anarchists have a little voice in their head that says "be more skeptical of this than you think you need to".
Anarchists also tend to much prefer the exercise of collective power. For example the state can raise wages or a union striking can raise wages, but the latter is preferable because it manifests the real value of that labour to the rest of society and changes the material conditions - it now simply costs that much to produce that commodity - instead of relying on the state's method of inspection and enforcement (the material conditions aren't forcing you to pay your workers, you just have to pretend to pay them for the guy with the big stick).
EDIT: I should also say your point is why I don't like the just/unjust distinction. We're all going to draw those lines in different places so it's less a matter of finding the precise splitting point and more a matter of pushing in the right direction relative to the reigning ideology in our society.
yeah, the just/unjust distinction is a poor way to phrase it. it's more than all hierarchy is unjust but some "hierarchy" can be temporarily and justly created in the process of enacting the consensus will but it is removed once the need for it goes away. the assumption is to question the need at every step.
in a way. a parent/child analogy still has an implicit assumption of who will take up that authority role. it's more like a group of friends who pull the drinks and drag the outrageously drunk asshole friend home.
I would recommend https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/james-c-scott-seeing-like-a-state
I think when most anarchist say they are against the State, that doesn't mean being against all forms of government. No matter what, there is going to be someone who has to do the organizing. Whether that's one person or up to the whole community, will still be a governing body. Sometimes that body is going to decide things that a signicant, but minority, amount of people will disagree with. A State is what a government can use to as coercion against such opposition. A government toolset that includes hammers, screwdrivers and such, but those same tools can be used in variety of way, including ways not intended.
No rulers not no rules.
There are examples of customary law systems that exist by the consent of the governed and are enforced by the peer group.
I think most anarchists would agree that murder, theft, and driving on the wrong side should be taboo.
