How Anarchy Works
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 13 มิ.ย. 2024
- Anarchism is the political philosophy and practice that opposes all hierarchies along with their “justifying” dogmas and proposes the unending pursuit of anarchy, where free association, self-determination, and mutual aid form the basis of our society. But what does that mean? Let's explore how we might organise anarchy.
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Introduction - 0:00
Preface - 2:44
Defining Anarchy - 3:35
Opposing Authority - 4:43
Dissecting Authority - 6:05
Organising Anarchy - 10:14
Transcending Democracy - 16:48
Revisiting Consensus - 27:24
Exploring Alternatives - 34:42
Librarying Economies - 39:16
Pursuing Anarchy - 43:36
Conclusion - 50:36
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Sources & Resources:
A New Glossary (of Anarchism) by Shawn Wilbur www.libertarian-labyrinth.org...
Are We Good Enough by Peter Kropotkin
Anarchy vs Archy: No Justified Authority by ziq
Words of a Rebel by Peter Kropotkin
Anarchy by Errico Malatesta
Anarchism and Democracy by Zoe Baker: theanarchistlibrary.org/libra...
Reflections for the US Occupy Movement by Peter Gelderloos: theanarchistlibrary.org/libra...
From Democracy to Freedom by Crimethinc: crimethinc.com/2016/04/29/fea... / cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/boo...
Anarchism as Extreme Democracy by Wayne Price theanarchistlibrary.org/libra...
Majorities and Minorities by Errico Malatesta theanarchistlibrary.org/libra...
About the Platform by Errico Malatesta and Nestor Makhno theanarchistlibrary.org/libra...
Anarchy and Democracy by C4SS theanarchistlibrary.org/libra...
Democracy and Anarchy by Errico Malatesta: theanarchistlibrary.org/libra...
Anarchists Against Democracy by Various Authors: theanarchistlibrary.org/libra...
Debunking Democracy by Bob Black: theanarchistlibrary.org/libra...
The Abolition of Rulership by William Gillis: humaniterations.net/2017/06/1...
Worshiping Power by Peter Gelderloos
Antinomies of Democracy by Shawn Wilbur - theanarchistlibrary.org/libra...
Archy vs Anarchy by Shawn Wilbur - www.libertarian-labyrinth.org...
Authority, Liberty and the Federative Principle by Shawn Wilbur - www.libertarian-labyrinth.org...
Governing the Commons by Elinor Ostrom
Prefigurative Politics by Paul Raekstad and Sofa Saio Gradin
The Russian Counterrevolution by Crimethinc cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/art...
Anarchy Works by Peter Gelderloos
Towards Anarchism by Errico Malatesta - theanarchistlibrary.org/libra...
Your Politics Are Boring As Fuck - crimethinc.com/1997/04/11/you...
Life Without Law - theanarchistlibrary.org/libra...
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My grandfather was an anarchist in the spanish civil war. He was a poor farmer and in the thirties found a group of like minded individuals that was based on mutual aid. That's how he learned how to read, got essential resources and picked up boxing. When war broke out he was captured in combat and became a POW, where he met my grandma. Cool guy
pt. 2 in the comments
Straight up sounds like a protagonist in a Hemingway story
@@writingsurreal3584 theres waaaaaay more to it
@@writingsurreal3584 if i get 50 likes i will write part two
commenting to get notified
@@Pablo-hq2ni We want part 2!
Hmm... We are lacking anarchist youtubers, you really do make a difference
There are probably plenty, but the algorithms push shorts from tiktok & whatever else is the flavor of the moment instead of content that might actually improve the world
@@blackdaylightbut he isnt wrong
Anarchist content compared to others is lacking
@@blackdaylight Shoutout to @Anark his videos are excellent
@@Bleilock1 word, I'm not saying they were wrong, just there is a ton of good anarchist content & analysis on here now, when it used to essentially just be submedia or bust
Beau of the Fifth Column is ancom and he's got a huge following
When he's not covering current topics, he's often literally teaching things Kropotkin advocated for :D
It is so sad to me how much anxiety I and many people feel at the idea of "not knowing what to do" in an anarchic system. We are trained to look to an authority for guidance and permission before acting. The idea of a group of people going to fix a sewer without permission or central planning blew my mind. I am a teacher and in my classroom I have seen my students follow their impulses to solve problems. I hate how many times a day I stop students from doing so. I even stop them from helping each other. I have so much pressure to fit all that they need to learn into the school day and I don't have time for five kids to all dive to collect one student's fallen papers. But it's awful. I ask myself "how would the people in an anarchic society know what to do each day and what needs to get done?" But I know even within myself that I feel impulses to do things a certain way, like organize my class a certain way, but I'm constantly looking over my shoulder, checking in with my superiors, making sure I'm doing it the Right Way. I have lost the ability to trust my own judgement and I fear that my job is only to perpetuate the cycle to the next generation.
Worse yet, many treat the absence of permission from authority or central planning as the absence of organisation or planning in general. They treat hierarchy as synonymous with society. It's unfortunate, and your observation of your role as a teacher under the current system rings true, but there's a vibrant history of anarchism and education that I intend to explore soon. Stay tuned!
If we're just talking about what people would do in a civil engineering sense, there could be some natural turnover process like for most production work. Even if people are discouraged from forming a chain of command, there would at least have to be some sort of tracking for what work was or wasn't done to avoid duplicate or needlessly destructive work. Someone could literally compile a list of what was done and hand that over to whoever comes by next. Intuitive problem solving on your own will always be a thing unless you just need someone to hold your hand through a job due to a lack of competency in that specific job, but it wouldn't be that safe for people to just walk up out of nowhere and just start doing maintenance on something like a plane or train with no relevant context 100% of the time.
Most workers, from what I've noticed, are capable of huddling together and deciding who can take care of what, but there's also less that could possibly lost in translation in terms of what does or doesn't actually need to be done when at least one person is specifically tasked to gather that information so that it can be dispersed the same way it was received. If I use my PTO to come in later for a work day, it's much more effective for me to just ask the floor lead what the status of the shop is instead of talking to 5 different people all focused on their specific task. That floor lead could still be out on the floor working as well if we absolutely can't have a leader of any sort, but I'm naturally going to go to them first since they will objectively know more than me in that moment about what tasks they were left with as the person with the role of information gathering that day.
Some people may not even want that role as well. I personally know that all I feel like doing at work is my job and clocking out at the end of the day. I'll gladly stand aside and wait for whatever the group feels like doing because I'm virtually on autopilot when I show up to work.
@@normandy2501 A floor lead doesn't need to have authority in order to keep track of what's going on. A group of people can recognize "Oh, Jim always seems to know what everyone is doing, hey thanks Jim". And Jim can be like "Yeah, I can do a better job of that if you want; come tell me when you start a task, and I won't have to run around as much."
Honestly I think anarchy is already in use way more than people seem to think. What work people do at their jobs is a blend between what they're ordered to do, and the things they alone recognize need done and then put in the effort to make happen. At my workplace at least there's plenty of spontaneous stuff-doing followed by "oh hey, thanks for doing that, it made a big difference". Businesses seek out employees who can set their own goals and take initiative on stuff ("spearhead"). The main non-anarchic thing is that of course, the benefits of this work are distributed by those in charge. But even then -- not all businesses run on tightly controlled, top-down budgets as we seem to imagine. Small businesses are improvisational.
Also, there are people who go around voluntarily repairing public drinking fountains or even highway signs. But that kind of anarchy is not common.
@@normandy2501 Having a central contact for floor related info is just delegation, it doesn't become hierarchist until that floor lead gets followers, bigger awards, and a bigger vote on who should have his role. A delegate that can be easily replaced is anarchist, a delegate that cannot be easily replaced is hierarchist.
That's the crux of it. We _evolved_ to collaborate and work together, the instincts your children show are integral to our humanity.
Yet they are instincts that the owning class needs trained out of people, if they are to continue to rule. We are all far more brainwashed and indoctrinated into dependence on authorities than we think, and it has beggared both our imaginations, and our collective confidence in our own skills and problem-solving capacities.
53 minutes on anarchy? Oh what a gift.
A'men !I know little about Anarchy & are there any cross section with Libertarianm 🤔
@@SimSetSoPalestineA little? Both oppose authority, but anarchists tend to be left wing and/or communist
@@lilpwnage36what do you mean by "left wing and/or communist", communism is left wing so how could someone not be left wing but be communist
more like what a GRIFT amiright
@@SimSetSoPalestine left libertarianism, yes. Right libertarianism (ancaps) no.
Thanks for tackling all these 'radical' ideas with thought and measure. It's refreshing to hear people genuinely think about a better way.
My pleasure!
@@Andrewism
A world without rule is at risk of self-destruction.... if there is no one to enforce any rule, then what stops one individual from commiting an atrocity against orders.....
Freedom does not guarantee peace and peace does not guarantee freedom...
So anarchy needs a compromise.... but this compromise comes at the cost of anarchy loosing its meaning and purpose....
What most of us consider Anarchy to be can only exist in an ideal world were everybody can tolerate and trust each other.... realism always kicks in in the end and people fall back to archy.....
@@thequarterhalfThat was always the case. What stops those at the top from commiting any atrocity? Nothing, it's worse now even given the amount of power a single individual can hold and the caste systems isolating them from others.
@@kkounal974 true... as humans, we are complex and our complexity makes it hard for us to unite and agree on one idea...
Hey @@Andrewism ever heard of commonism(with o not u)...
... Here are some sources to start:
Capital redefined
A commonist value theory for liberating life.
Commonist tendencies
Mutual aid beyond communism.
Commonism
A new astetics of the real.
Holy Hell, here I was thinking that I'm not political, turns out pop-culture depictions of anarchism made me misunderstand the concept so badly I never looked closer into it, and thus didn't have the right framework to express my political beliefs. Thank you for giving me that Framework
Isn't it crazy how misinformative, impersonal media limits our thoughts? When we're told something, it's easy to take at face value until we're confronted with a contradiction. Something which informs a lot of my current beliefs is that I always strive to learn about a group from those that belong to it. Even if a group is not the most _reliable_ source of information on themselves, there is innate value in firsthand accounts. When a person speaks from the heart, they undoubtedly mean what they're saying, and they tend to come from a pretty well informed position!
This is very similar to how I feel. I didn’t relate to anyone around me whenever “political discussions” came up. Very glad to have found my way in this realm of ideas. Glad for you as well!
hell, i've been a socialist for a long time now & while i superficially
loved my anarchist allies, i believed they were to politics as satanists are to religion: mostly focused on themselves or being (said lovingly) edge lords who also are super direct-action oriented with community gardens/support.
for whatever reason, i finally did a deep dive the past two weeks & didn't realize how closely they were related. i was already decidedly not MLM, & seems i fall a lot more in love with anarcho-syndicalism; but knowing both socialist & anarchists have socialism as the end goal, im all for it - i also like the anarchic feelings towards hierarchies & focus on being anti-state.
can't believe it took this long for me, but here we are.
real talk, no two annarchist agree what a anarcy based society would look like.
Yeah me too! The popular conception of anarchism is really really bad lol
with the sheer amount of (quality) content focused primarily or entirely on what is _wrong_ (which is necessary information, if a bit depressing) it is refreshing to take an hour out to consider what would be _right._ i struggle to find good content that gives me what to chew on in terms of building the world i want to see, and i very much appreciate the time, energy, and heart you put in to these pieces.
Thank you 🫶🏽
Me: "I dunno about this whole 'Anarchy' business."
10 minutes later: "Wait... wait-wait-wait... there is a distinction between 'Issuing Orders' and 'Giving Instructions'?" Mind = Blown!!
I'm so happy to hear about your learning! Keep it up! 😎
Anarchy is a wonderful idea, yet has a quite a few hardcore weaknesses! These ones do need some consideration before it can ever have a kind of success, I fear.
1. Anarchists I met had often the most judgemental attitudes towards others, 'be part of the culture of be out' and no sense of humour. For me goes: If I can't play in it, I don't want to be part of the revolution. ;)
2.Freedom from state influence is often abused by big corporations or gangs. There's always people who'll consciously try the abuse the system and will exploit weaknesses. 3. This is a sad one, masculinity. The philosophy is too much a mental developed ideology that will only work when we all play along. Get it, anarchy demands playing along to work. Maybe not with authorities, but with the model, and everyone feeling able to judge others for breaking some rule.
I support collaborative anarchy, or even better collaborative forms of regenerative design, as part of looking for a more human organic way to how people already love to organise and according to what nature needs. For if we fail to restore nature, or make space for it, all human squabble about how we should organise is a distraction, unless it seeks to help. For this is the one big indicator: are you seeking to help the bigger whole with your actions?
And yes, democracy is sick and barbaric. It's ritual tribal warfare, with a lot of cheats. Yet how to grow above and beyond? Anarchy? For there is one last huge obstacle: convenience. A supermarket offers convenience. Run my own gardens, fruit orchard and have weekly meetings to make it work is just way too much fuzz. Nobody wants fuzz, and most are also caught in the abusive lie, that we don't have time for this, especially those caught in bullshit jobs.
And at the same time, I love this channel, and its search for answers to huge social questions.
Yeah a warlord coming into your land and pointing a gun at you is just "giving instructions"
@@KootFlorisanarchism is when no grocery stores
@@Ben-jj4pl as a solution or as the problem?
Anarchy is so misunderstood, even by those on the left. We need more accessible videos like this to help people understand what anarchy really means (hint: it's not chaos) and what it can look like. Thank you for your valuable work!
I don't think anarchy is only a left wing idea
Truth!!
@@treboleekem499 Anarchy is only a left wing idea. Anarchy means, simply, no rulers. Under "Anarcho-Capitalism" CEO's and the wealthy are the rulers, therefore it is not an anarchist ideology. They merely adopt the aesthetics of Anarchy as an attempt to cheapen true Anarchism, in much the same way as Libertarianism was stolen from the Left by American right wingers.
@@treboleekem499Are you suggesting Anarchism is a right wing idea or are you suggesting that Anarchy transcends the concept of "the left".
@@RD-oj4jw I think it depends on your definition of left and right but I will say neither.
I see anarchism as without government but it also doesn’t endorse a specific economic ideology. So like hypothetically if people chose for a more capitalist based economic system that would be fine. Or a socialist one is fine too. As long as the people can choose it. Like localized communities with their own sets of economic experimentation.
To be super clear I came to anarchist by my own but when I got into it I was introduced to the “anarcho-capitalist” side of it. So my background was different. I cant stand ancaps tho because they have no motive to try to come to a general understanding with the left wing anarchists. And to be fair the left wing ones can be aholes too.
But yeah basically anarchism is neither.
As a burnt-out, tired audhd person, I appreciate so much that you are breaking down these concepts for us in a clear, concise way, with further readings suggested. I can’t do all the reading and studying that I wish right now, but these videos still help me learn and keep me in touch with my interests. The concepts in anarchy make me feel more human and more hopeful than anything else I’ve experienced and I appreciate that you make this videos, I can access different affirming ideas in a way that works for my disabilities
As another burnt-out, tired audhd person, I can really relate to that whole not reading as much as I want to and having to watch videos like these. I used to read audiobooks while doing other stuff but now I do nothing. It really does feel like the hierarchies of today are the only reason we are disordered (Which is a word I like because it's sort of like we oppose the current order) and our conflicts with society's mold are the symptoms, so anarchy gives me a lot of hope too. I hope we both find ways to cope and liberate ourselves even if there is no revolution in our time.
Hope you all feel better. Remember, it’s not the ADHD that slows you down. It’s the burn out. I tell ADHD people all the time- you can read and enjoy studying books just as much as the next person. You’re not dumb. It’s about overcoming burn out and depression. If I told myself, “I have ADHD, so I can’t read,” then I might as well say I can’t read because I’m too dumb.
@@wellesradio ADHD is very often comorbid with dyslexia. Also have you tried reading a book while also having an argument with the author/yourself? I know reading is not passive for anyone, but it is a maze of off-ramps for anyone with ADHD.
{edit} I should have said minefield instead of maze.
For what it's worth.
More interesting == more off-ramps. Better writing == fewer off-ramps.
yes
@@thumper8684 Definitely relate to getting "off-ramped" as you say when reading. Honestly looking into dyslexia I relate pretty well, I just managed it well enough to not notice it was a problem. Story of my life, add that to the list of comorbidities!
thank you for the language around expertise. for years ive been saying "deferring is not the same as obeying" to describe the difference between taking direction from someone who has important skills or knowledge versus going along with an authority's demands.
this is a much more concise way to describe it. we are forever in your debt. thank you.
The necessity of hierarchy have been so ingrained on all of us, that it is so difficult for people to imagine a world without it. Every time I talk to people about this, they say "But then nothing will get done!". We are so used to having other people tell us what to do, that we cannot imagine a world without someone leading us. I think that the problem is that having a leader actually comforts a lot of people, because it means they do not have to take responsibility for their actions in particular or for the state of the world in general. I think that is why hierarchical structures appeal to people that are not leaders themselves.
My gut instinct is kind of the opposite of "nothing will get done!". I think "nobody will get paid!" People are often very willing to do work they see needs done, and much less willing to ask for some form of compensation.
It's something that Daniel Baryon (Anark) calls hierarchical realism
Are those all the kind of people who have been socialized to do nothing but work and binge watch garbage? Have they never met people with hobbies or causes? Nothing will get done? These are people who have never been to a makerspace or volunteered at a shelter or a food bank or taken their kids to a neighbourhood play group- I know a ton of people who "Get more done" outside the realm of paid labour than inside it. And none of them need anyone to tell them what to do. They see a thing, and they do it.
@@FunkyLittlePoptartwhat about people who cant get stuff done such as the disabled, elderly, children, etc.? Sure, theres no guarantee they get taken care of in current societies, but I'm still concerned about their chances in an anarchy.
I agree. Before I was in my current job I thought management and bosses were useless. But now being in that position I’ve realized that most people haven’t been taught how to lead themselves and be self directed. It would take a whole re-education for most people because everyone grows up without the responsibility of thinking for themselves because of our school system. I didn’t realize how deep that went for a long time because i was homeschooled. I think under the current mindset a boss is necessary, but I think mindsets could be changed
i found this channel after someone posted a comment that Aaron Bushnell made on a Reddit thread naming this channel as one very educational source that he loved and recommended. i’ve fallen in love with this content, because it has given me the hope that the world will be brighter one day. the seeds of revolution have been sowed, we will not be crushed. long live the resistance ✊
I also found Andrewism through Aaron Bushnell ❤
I'm sad Aaron is gone, but I am happy you found this channel because of Aaron.
I am also here because of Aaron. May he rest in peace and power. Ive been a longtime anarchist. I have complex feelings about everything happening and that has happened over the last few months, but am happy to be in good company with Aaron and Andrew and many others.
I've been here for a bit longer than that, but this is super sweet to hear that Aaron brought you here.
I also recommend Zoe Baker and Anark. They are also anarchist youtubers
@@jessica_s9651 i did find Anark when his videos came up in my recommended! i will absolutely look into Zoe Baker as well though :) thank you for the recommendation
As I get older I find myself moving closer and closer to an Anarchic need.
I love that you used the word need, cause that's how I've been feeling as I age
Interesting. I was an anarchist as a child, now I want to restore the monarchy.
Gotta love anarchism and its inherent social elements
A world without rule is at risk of self-destruction.... if there is no one to enforce any rule, then what stops one individual from commiting an atrocity against orders.....
Freedom does not guarantee peace and peace does not guarantee freedom...
So anarchy needs a compromise.... but this compromise comes at the cost of anarchy loosing its meaning and purpose....
What most of us consider Anarchy to be can only exist in an ideal world were everybody can tolerate and trust each other.... realism always kicks in in the end and people fall back to archy.....
@@thequarterhalf The threat of retaliation usually is what stops them. Same reason we don't use atomic bombs. We could use them technically but it would also likely be the last time we use them haha!
I'm pretty sure that this isn't what was meant (since you do talk about intentional organizing), but the repeated emphasis on things being "organic" felt reminiscent of how some activists will have a romantic ideal of movements developing spontaneously and thus neglect to put in the long-term, methodical work of active organizing that's necessary for movements to not just fizzle out or be co-opted.
Regardless, I enjoyed the video and your perspective, as always.
Anachy is beautiful. It gives to human kind the maximum of dignity and realisation.
Then go live in Alaska in the woods and you'll have your Anarchy.
@Scolecite You haven't actually watched the video
@Scolecite I prefer Cordova, Andalusia. The weather is crazy down there, can you believe that there's a church INSIDE a mosque?
A world without rule is at risk of self-destruction.... if there is no one to enforce any rule, then what stops one individual from commiting an atrocity against orders.....
Freedom does not guarantee peace and peace does not guarantee freedom...
So anarchy needs a compromise.... but this compromise comes at the cost of anarchy loosing its meaning and purpose....
What most of us consider Anarchy to be can only exist in an ideal world were everybody can tolerate and trust each other.... realism always kicks in in the end and people fall back to archy.....
@@thequarterhalf If you were in front of me i'll like to talk about it. But on the internet i believe it's quite impossibile to make a point that's not misunderstood in five seconds.
I'm just curious: what do you think a just, fair world would look like? What is "good control"?
this is a really good video, both rhetorically, artistically and theoretically. ive always supposed anarchic ideals to be the ultimate form of liberation, but have been dubious of the practicality of such and this video begins to help show that.
Thank you for your kind words
Interesting video. I have one slightly pedantic point and I hope I don't come across as aggressive. You claim at 23:00 that "early in his politics anarchist Errico Malatesta was in favour of majority voting within anarchist organisations when there was no consensus. Yet he still conceded that decisions should only be binding on those who favour them. Later on he would reject the rule of the majority entirely."
I'm not aware of any evidence to support this interpretation. In the quote you cite Malatesta is just making a point he'd been making since he became an anarchist and which was just a standard position among anarchists within the 1st international and beyond: anarchism is against all forms of government, including democractic government/majority rule, and advocates free association. Italian anarchism emerged within the revolutionary republican movement and so was full of people who had initially been supporters of a democratic republic but now rejected it in favour of anarchy. So Malatesta rejected majority rule when he abandoned republicanism and became an anarchist at the age of 17/18.
Malatesta consistently advocates the same position on anarchist decision-making over and over again: unanimous agreement/majority voting + decisions are only binding for those who vote in favour of them + free association. In 1884, when he was 31, he wrote, "in practice one would do what one could; everything is done to reach unanimity, and when this is impossible, one would vote and do what the majority wanted, or else put the decision in the hands of a third party who would act as arbitrator, respecting the inviolability of the principles of equality and justice which the society is based on." (Malatesta 1884) I wouldn't call this early in his politics.
Elsewhere he clarified that he advocated majority voting under two circumstances. He explained in 1907 in response to anarchists who rejected all forms of voting: "the vote used to record opinions certainly has nothing anti-anarchist about it, just as the vote is not anti-anarchist when it is only a practical and freely accepted means to resolve practical issues that do not allow for multiple solutions at the same time, and when the minority is not obliged to submit to the majority, if this does not suit or please them" (Malatesta 2023, 258-9). In other words, majority voting as polling and as decision-making when one decision must be made and multiple solutions cannot co-exist eg if a person should be made editor of a newspaper or not. He did not regard either form of majority voting as a form of majority rule providing it occurs within a free association and does not consist of relations of domination.
Compare the following quotes:
1897: "If a railroad, for instance, were under consideration, there would be a thousand questions as to the line of the road, the grade, the material, the type of the engines, the location of the stations, etc., etc., and opinions on all these subjects would change from day to day, but if we wish to finish the railroad we certainly cannot go on changing everything from day to day, and if it is impossible to exactly suit everybody, it is certainly better to suit the greatest possible number; always, of course, with the understanding that the minority has all possible opportunity to advocate its ideas, to afford them all possible facilities and materials to experiment, to demonstrate, and to try to become a majority. So in all matters not amenable to several solutions running simultaneously, or where differences of opinion are not so great as to make it worthwhile parting company, with each faction doing as it will, or where the duty of solidarity imposes unity, it is reasonable, fair, and necessary for the minority to defer to the majority. But the submission of the minority must be the effect of free will determined by a consciousness of necessity, must never be made a principle, a law, which must, therefore, be applied in all cases, even when there is no necessity for it. And just here is the difference between Anarchy and any kind of government" (Malatesta 2016, 18-19).
1927: "Certainly anarchists recognise that where life is lived in common it is often necessary for the minority to come to accept the opinion of the majority. When there is an obvious need or usefulness in doing something and, to do it requires the agreement of all, the few should feel the need to adapt to the wishes of the many. And usually, in the interests of living peacefully together and under conditions of equality, it is necessary for everyone to be motivated by a spirit of concord, tolerance and compromise. But such adaptation on the one hand by one group must on the other be reciprocal, voluntary and must stem from an awareness of need and from goodwill to prevent the running of social affairs from being paralysed by obstinacy. It cannot be imposed as a principle and statutory norm. This is an ideal which, perhaps, in daily life in general, is difficult to attain in entirety, but it is a fact that in every human grouping anarchy is that much nearer where agreement between majority and minority is free and spontaneous and exempt from any imposition that does not derive from the natural order of things." (Malatesta 2014, 488).
Notice that the points are exactly the same and expressed in almost the same words. This includes the position you emphasize when citing the quote from his platformism critique: "the submission of the minority must be the effect of free will determined by a consciousness of necessity, must never be made a principle, a law, which must, therefore, be applied in all cases, even when there is no necessity for it."
Malatesta, Errico. 1884. Between Peasants.
Malatesta, Errico. 2014. The Method of Freedom: An Errico Malatesta Reader. Edited by Davide Turcato. Oakland, CA: AK Press.
Malatesta, Errico. 2016. A Long and Patient Work: The Anarchist Socialism of L’Agitazione 1897-1898. Edited by Davide Turcato. Chico, CA: AK Press.
Malatesta, Errico. 2023. The Armed Strike: The Long London Exile of 1900-1913. Edited by Davide Turcato. Chico, CA: AK Press.
You wrote a whole essay with a works cited page 😭
No shade, though. I get the point that you're making. I love your videos btw. I also bought and read your book. It helped me better understand the concept of means and ends unity. You do great work :)
Thank you for this contribution, it's definitely appreciated!
I love both your work. @anarchozoe is your personal position the same as Malatesta? I also wonder if free association has limitations where there is large disagreement especially over things like allocation of resources and projects that affect an entire society, etc?
@@sharkythegw7843zoe type of girl to read the terms and agreements, hit decline, and then make a 20 page rebuttal to the terms and agreements
Hey.. just a little thing…
PROCEEDS TO WRITE AN ENTIRE DOCUMENTARY SCRIPT ON THE LITTLE THING
Can you talk about how people who inflict serious harm will be able to freely associate without people just deciding to lynch them? Can you talk about how bouncers are different to cops? Can you also talk about how food production, raw materials collection, distribution of food and materials, and water distribution can and or is being made more anarchic?
Thank you for your work Andrew, it is truly aspiring. Great timing too with International Worker's Day, and the recent Pro-Palestine protests at American Universities. You all give us all hope, and we can all work together to achieve a better work
Oh my god Andrew. I've been studying anarchism and engaging in anarchist projects for close to two decades now, and still you've taught me something new here. You've made some space for me to reevaluate some of my own ways of thinking. Well done and thank you!
my mother is an anarchist and watching my communities shift to more anarcho-adjacent ideas is so refreshing
Watching this video made me realize that I had no idea what anarchy and anarchism was until just now.
I can't help but feel you've overlooked something major in trying to explain how these organisations will manifest under anarchy while remaining non-hierarchical or non-demanding of subordination from one party to another. Put another way, what, by your ideas or principles, will actually motivate a person to form an association or relationship that is constraining even if it has some utility?
The hard truth seems to be that you can't definitively map what incites the opposite human tendencies toward individualism or collectivism in a given situation, and are instead just presupposing that in a void of authoritarian power things will just shake out as you perscribe so long as people consistently forego the temptation to accrute some form of power and others can consistently refuse to defer to it. You've essentially just created a hierarchy of your own where the rule of anarchy best fits your presuppositions and be construed as different enough from existing orders that the problem (or should I say persistent feature) of individual inequity is something that might just be paved overwith the "absolute freedom" of socialist anarchy.
I could go on, but my query is chiefly these two - how will an individual decide when to reach out to associate or withdraw into their own agency? And will it be just for others to regard that choice as right or wrong?
As a Marxist, I love your videos; your personal experiences used as examples for well-researched and thought out points that I can never disagree with. A problem I’ve often despised from my camp has been an obsession with beating capitalism at its own game - raving about the explosion of industrial productivity in the USSR for example instead of focusing on what that goal that was done for. A true revolutionary is fueled by love for mankind and I think you embody that completely. When Revolution comes I wish it looks like yours.
And the Caribbean accent is always great to listen to lol
Isn't it natural for Marxists to want to point out how successful socialism irl has been?
@@thatguyyouhatealot by being better capitalists?
@@AL-lh2ht By materially improving the lives of people via revolution. Isn't that the point of left politics?
I feel like the strong combination of prioritizing community connection/gathering, and self reflection/self inquiry, would gradually materialize anarchy as the common way of life.
In a vacuum
Yes, it definitely requires cultural homogeneity and a shared worldview to work.
I thought I had a pretty good grasp on Anarchist thought until I watched this video. Now I realize I have so much more to learn.
Thank you for your work and voice!
Anarchy might be able to exist, but only in a world with a much much smaller population. It’s naive to think millions of people who live on top of each other would all just get along without a social contract enshrined in law.
it would splinter into factions, clans and families. Due to inefficiencies of smaller scale industries and production, ressources will be limited. these Groups will then compete and war for these ressources. Anarchy never really existed. even if implemented other systems will grow to supplant it. Ingroup, outgroup. those better at violence will exploit those worse skilled.
A social contract and so-called law are just words on paper, when those in power get on top, they rarely abide by them. And it’s just their way to keep the people imprisoned. Anarchy is the only option for even billions because it increases individualism, voluntarism, personal empowerment, and it means that all people are equal there are no involuntary and abusive hierarchies such as government and Lords. It appeals to first principles and the golden rule which is “Do unto others as you would have done unto you”, basically anarchism is the philosophy of do no harm, but take no shit, that is something all people can live by.
Troubling challenge for free association: hasn't the Internet shown us that people will use this ability to isolate themselves from ideas that they find problematic? Is this an artifact of the technology, or otherwise explicable in ways other than an anti-anarchist natural tendency?
conspiracy theorists have been secluded in information silos for as long as conspiracy theorists have been a thing. the tech doesn't promote it, merely acknowledging the ease with which it can happen.
The internet is not decentralized as it was when it was created.
people do crap like that no matter what system it is. hopefully when pre-enforced stigmas and stereotypes are preached less, more people will have an open mind and be willing to learn things from different perspectives.
@sillyspider That's like saying "Once human beings stop stealing from each other, we won't have to lock our doors".
Communication and innovation are just as important for social structures as it is for technological advancement. Love your work, always gets me to see things in new ways!
We could do it. I really truly believe that it is our fear of the danger of change that holds us back, But We could do it. We've always been able to do it. Stand up, And be true.
Regarding democracy, my views against it were really solidified when I read about how democratic bodies and populations are almost always formed through political actors centralizing and consolidating power within a particular sphere. It is through the centralizing efforts of monarchs in Europe that bodies and identities were created that later went on to struggle against monarchs but within the polity that they created. Same applies to the democracy of the Greeks, and so on. And when these bodies are threatened, figures with remarkably undemocratic central powers come back into the fold (think dictators, etc). Democracy has always revolved around significant centralization around an abstract view of "the people", which is sometimes said to be "represented" by representatives, which in good times might be less centralized but in worse times under figures like dictators. This is inescapable because the priority and authority is given to an abstract representation of people, not real relationships and people.
"Democracy of the Greek" 🤡🤢🤮
seems like you're talking about what Marxists would call bourgeois democracy. it's narrowly defined societally as the one true Democracy by the west but I think small-d democracy could come in many forms/technologies (social and otherwise)
You're heavily generalizing bourgeois representative democracy as democracy broadly. Anarchism cannot exist or meaningfully function without democratic organization of society.
You characterization of democracy is true within the context of capitalism. Your reference to democracy's new formation under monarchic rule is accurate, however its formation was precipitated by the bourgeoisie - take England during the 17th and 18th centuries for example. Thus, I think your characterization of democracy, while true historically, is only true within the context of capitalism's formation within the historic revolutions of the bourgeoisie in Europe. I think that context is important to analyze if we, the *working class*, want to actualize democracy as it *should* exist (as it was conceptualized by Engels and Marx, rather), but I don't think democracy is worth writing off entirely because of that context. As Andrew said at the end of this video: anarchism has a troubled past and has yet to actualize in the forms theorized or hoped for by anarchists - Spain in the early 20th century, Ukraine, the European and American communes of the 19th century, etc.. That does not mean Anarchism should be forgotten or discounted because of those past failures, and I think the same applies to democracy.
@@ThePi314Man a democratic organization of society is nebulous, even if we had a direct democracy there will always be laws supported by a majority and not supported by the minority creating a system of domination and subordination. instead an anarchistic world would exist in a system of free association where anyone can help their community through organizations that can band together and separate whenever they please removing systems of domination and subordination.
I really really really want to believe in this. But listening to this gave me a 1000 more questions than it answered. And raised some serious concerns. I dont say that from malice but genuine concern and desire to find common ground
Honestly, that is something I love about anarchism. I'm never in full agreement and I am very skeptical of a lot of the concepts I hear about- but pulling thst discomfort, disagreement, and skepticism apart is fascinating. I find even completely outside of ideological anarchism, in a society with a state and everything, anarchist concepts have so much value and that's what motivates me to learn more and explore those differences and questions, rather than finding an ideology that I 100% agree with or anything
I was going to ask if you had any books I could read about anarchy, but then I looked at your notes and, uh, wow.
Just when I’ve been realizing that being at my painfully centrist college has almost deradicalized me by just not having other anarchists there, you come out with this banger, perfect timing (they do have a pro-Palestine movement though but it’s very small and outnumbered and forced by the college to be more moderate than it is, I do give them a ton of credit for existing here though)
I just hope they're not pro-Terrorist... there's a fine line to be tread here.
@@N1ghthavvk "i just hope the south african and algerian resistance arent pro terrorist"
"i just hope the slaves revolting chattel slavery dont cross my liberal sensibilities"
@@af8828 I'm sorry, but were you actually there, on the ground in Gaza? I am basing my opinion on the facts I've been told by people who actually experienced what happened.
And consequently there's only one side that I can reasonably empathize with: The civilian population victimized by both of their respective rulers.
Anything else and you're falling for propaganda and lies by people who like to choose their truths.
Hamas and Netanyahu (rightwing Israeli politics) have to go, if there's to be lasting peace.
I recommend "Tom David Frey" here on YT, if you'd like to have some insight into ordinary perspectives (you don't need to understand the language - just watch).
@@N1ghthavvk people who experienced which event? Over 120 years of colonialism, multiple mass expulsions and 75 years of apartheid? Ohh or do you mean the literal extreme-right settlers (keyword: settlers, not civilians) squatting on kibbutzes attained illegally by violation of international law and immense violence, who were peft unprotected? Settlers who actively serve in the colonial occupation force? Riight.
@@N1ghthavvk you may have trouble defining terrorism without it including the united states, israel, and most other "first-world" nations; it is more useful to look at this conflict as oppression and resistance. we dont have to like the full set of values the resistance holds as individuals or as an organization, we just have to acknowledge that they are the ones resisting the oppressive power. when the oppression ends, we can address the problematic values that arise afterwards, but today our focus must remain on the oppression.
anarchy is needed for a solar punk world. there is no fascist solar punk, or capitalistic solar punk, there is only anarchist solar punk
But how is all the advanced technology required to create a solar punk world going to be made in a anarchic world? Things like solar panels, wind turbines and batteries are complicated to make and require a variety of resources that most likely cannot be sourced completely local anywhere on earth.
Hey, a fellow solarpunk anarchist.
@TheKillbot555 I believe this is included in their freedom of association with those of similar wills. Specifically those who are interesting in this tech will work with others to make it happen.
Still listening to the video, but I find the expectation of individual volition and cooperation far to optimistic.
direct democracy + free association. it is not supposed to impose control, it is a method of egalitarian social decision making. the term democracy has been usurped by aristocracy, renaming democracy as true democracy or direct democracy or classic democracy, a huge hint concerning the corruption of the term.
consensus is the ultimate outcome of democracy, however it is not always achievable, and instead of forcing compliance, we rely on free association, which has the advantage of avoiding cultural homogenization and enhancing diversity.
the use of democratic social decision making under anarchy is to help us do more than possible individually or with small assemblies, voluntarily. it is also a means to grow closer communally.
as long as we desire society there will be a need for social decision making, and that process and its outcome should be anarchic, without hierarchy or coercion.
Oh hey, didn't know Bookchin is alive and has a burner account to further democratic nonsense.
Good luck enforcing direct democracy without a state of any kind...
you cant have free association and direct democracy as a minority voter will have to listen to those laws set in place which establishes forms of domination and subordination, instead we need full free association where someone joins a group for its ideas not its policies that can leave and join when you want.
@@Anita.Cox.You absolutely can. It’s simple: When you feel like your voice isn’t being heard or your needs aren’t being met, you leave. Free association. That doesn’t mean direct democracy and consensus aren’t useful for helping a community meet those needs of the individual. If you just up and leave whenever things aren’t done your way, then nothing gets done. Compromise is a key component of Anarchism.
@@confusedpozole406 that's not direct democracy at that point that's as you mention free association that's leading to consensus.
First thought on the title was bjork's line "I thought I could organize freedom."
how Scandinavian of you.
I've always felt that Anarchy as you define it, Andrew, is exactly as our world is supposed to be. It's how our ancestors in the deep past lived. I may concede to living in the world today as society demands, but in every corner of my life I practice anarchist principles.
Religion as a topic is missing. Yet religion has been a huge tool to exert power over others (men over women, clergy over flock).
God above man
Man above woman
Adult above child
Human above animal.
Except we are all animals except god who isn't real.
I do think there’s more nuance here depending on how you define religion. Spiritual beliefs and practices have been some of the strongest ways of holding communities together, and resisting the continuous assault of capitalism. Obviously top down hierarchical religion that exerts control and limits freedom are bad.
Yea it was crazy when the Crusades happened and all the men stayed home cooking food and raising the kids and the women went to die in a foreign land, right?
@@Scolecite deliberately misunderstanding my point doesn’t look good on you.
@@PhantasmalBlast I’m not aware of any current religions that work without hierarchy of some form. Religion inevitably turns into a tool to abuse and gain power over people.
Right on International Workers Day, beautiful.
You should do a colab with Zoe Baker, she rocks.
I could imagine an anarchic system working, but there's a few issues I see that I can't seem to get ... solved. Perhaps somebody has ideas:
* The transition from a globalized economy seems very hard, considering that we rely on specialized goods from parts of the world very far away, especially so if those parts are not yet anarchist too. How do you continue trading with them, when they want money, but an anarchist society doesn't use it? It may still be there, accessible for use if necessary to interact with the other parts of the world, but then...
* How do you prevent bad actors from just taking all or most of the money and fleeing to a capitalist part of the world? The issue with free association is that a reaction to such a "crime" is presumably not immediate and would be too late to prevent the damage to the local society. Maybe somebody would be alerted if it was a heist, but whati f it was just social engineering, where the guardian of the money was tricked into handing it over, and would not expect it back anyways, on promise of some goods being delivered later, for somebody else, who'd only realize it too late? Effectively, you'd require people to do work in very similar "jobs" as before, but you can't prevent people from leaving, in an anarchist society, can you?
* On a similar note, what about bad actors in different contexts? What if conflict escalates? What if a neighbouring empire decides to invade? Presumably the reaction would be too late to prevent entry, and would end in a guerilla warfare, where the attacker will presumably retreat, but only at the cost of way too many lives. This WILL definitely happen to the first bigger experiment. It might not to the next few, when it is established fact that invading would not be profitable, but some national actor will come for the "undefended" and "unrepresented" resources first.
* How do you transition from a "call to arms" utilizing the follower-effect, to a truly anarchist movement? It feels impossible. Media will interview some person, claiming to be able to present the ideas (and there will be people like that, maybe somebody like you with the gift of communication). But such attention will naturally lead to more and more interviews, and more and more power ending up attributed to that person, even against them rejecting it as an anarchist.
* Even in the actual event of an anarchist "region" establishing itself, communication to neighbouring political entities will be strained from the beginning: "What do you mean, you can't guarantee this treaty being upheld? But it's the Genova Convention! You're not a real country! We'll have to send blue-helmed troops to establish order until a new government is elected!" You may argue that this issue could be solved by free association, and I'd believe you, but the other countries wouldn't. You could send some (possibly) constantly changing people to represent the region in supra-national entities, but even if these people were to do their best, and the society as a whole would do their best too, it will be a struggle that I can't imagine anybody winning in the current political situation. No way, any of the main actors would allow an anarchist society to establish itself. It'd be much too unstable in their eyes.
I think we won't see an actual anarchist society experiment succeed in our lifetimes. And I couldn't imagine myself defending it against the big guns. To be completely honest: I'm much too comfortable in my current and very privileged situation to consider radical change "worth it".
I'm open to the small changes, and try to do my best to point any groups I'm a part of into the right direction, but that is all inside a casual athmosphere, where people are willing to listen. It's not inside of the workplace, or politics, where entrenched ideas are the established rule.
I’m in a similar boat. It is clear to me, for many of the reasons you listed, that the establishment of an anarchic society within the current international order is impossible on a large scale. No society or organization exists in a vacuum.
As long as states (or hierarchies in general) exist anywhere, anarchy will never be able to be sustained.
Not going to reply to all of that but to point 2: If a group of people in an anarchist society rounded up all the money in the area and left... what would that do that you think merits a response? they leave with some bags of paper that have no value anymore now that the state that backed that currency isn't in power, and the community that's left has no need of money whatsoever, let alone the money backed by the state that just stopped existing, and they don't need or want the people who obviously very much didn't want to live in that community. So.. cool they escaped to capitalistville, hope they have good, long, and fulfilling lives there.
@@JuniperHatesTwitterlikeHandles Did you completely miss the point about money being necessary in a transition period, to keep up trade with other nations? It is not useless. Sure, you won't have your own money, but you'll need dollars to keep buying oil or whatever else the society might need. Or do you want to regress to the dark ages?
You guys are almost communists already. Read Lenin, Marx and Engels, you'll see something that makes sense to you that's for sure. All these concerns are actually the things they wrote about a lot.
There's a reason anarchist societies don't last long or only last at the largesse of a greater power. If resources are valuable and there's no established power structure to defend or exploit them, someone will figure out a way to do that. The reason that global capitalism is the dominant system is because it outcompeted the other ones, both on merits of function and merits of stomping the other ones out of existence. Not a moral or ethical judgment, but just sort of a historical fact.
Thank you for always being accessible with your videos and always putting in real captions. It means a lot.
Glad it's helpful! Honestly I'm not sure why most scripted TH-camrs don't just auto upload their script as captions.
@Andrewism you know, i never really thought of that being an option either! 😯
I love the variety of art used here, and how much is credited! It's a passive thing, but it helps to show how traditional precepts of art, similar to society, need not be adhered to so rigidly. I think a lot of people can shed off the idea that abstract and modern art are just confusing red, yellow, and blue shapes on a canvas once they get a little exposure to different pieces; there's a lot to appreciate about the pieces featured in this video. I'm glad to learn the names and be able to look for their other works, too. Furthermore, I'm glad it's not only abstract and modern art! We should get used to seeing vastly different artworks side by side, and comparing their worth according to consistent standards. There are things easily achieved in realistic and abstract art alike, as well as things better conveyed in one over the other: both have immense, different value! You made great use of these and more, in ways that hierarchists (who apply their social values to art) could never. Keep shining a light on beauty in the world!
How do you have checks and balances for incompetency or malace in a system of only free association? In the sewage system repair example in your revisiting consensus chapter. What if the people who choose to repair the sewage plant are incompetent, fail to repair the facility properly, and end up allowing a lethal pandemic to spread amongst the community? It might only take one incompetent individual to create such a catastrophy in many applications. How do you ensure competency? How do you maintain accountability towards individuals who may sabotage such a facility through deception and malice? Do you have free associating bands of vigilantes who hold such groups accountable? If so how would those vigilante groups be held accountable?
Bit vague, but the answer is collectively - people will choose to do so because people care about it being done.
@@rolfnodukbut like op said, if they are incompetent, what then?
@@rolfnoduk it just seems ripe for abuse. How does the collective prevent that small armed minority from overreach? A vague how, while great for the armchair philosopher, doesn't hold up when talking about conflicts with a high probability of violence is present in the physical and social world. How does anarchy prevent major problems like warlordism from such a self appointed vigilante group? How does anarchy handle whose responsible for trimming the hedges between two households? Who enforces the 'collective' decision? What if the losing party obstinately refuses to accept the consensus? How does anarchy prevent a socially powerful individual like a cult leader from reestablishing hierarchy? Even within a society of equals, without some system to maintain that equality, disparity will inevitably come back; likely mirroring the disparity that came about within our prehistorical time transitioning between the stone and bronze age.
I'm glad that other rational people are coming in here to question this. This seems like a pipe dream that sounds good on paper where everyone is free, but as soon as you try to put any of this into practice, Human nature would destroy it as he has admitted has happened each and every time it was attempted.
Other people would be smart enough to recognise the incompetence and go fix it amazing how simple that is
Thank you so much for spreading the word of libertarian communism! Many people, even "anarchists" seem to believe that anarchy=chaos, but the truth is, anarchy is the only realistic - and historically successful - way to achieve the abolishment of oppression, in all its forms.
Not all anarchisms are communism: There are mutualist tendencies, neo-Proudhonian anarchism prominent among them.
To box the whole of "anarchism" into one single category you like (libertarian communism) is to ignore other tendencies that don't wish to belong to the category, and to monopolize term "anarchism."
As for the boogeyman of chaos, the way you're using that word is so clearly a scare-tactic that I couldn't help myself. You're using 'chaos' the way governmentalists use largely that same word to describe anarchy.
Anarchy can certainly be thought as a positive non-pejorative chaos.
By putting anarchists who are sympathetic to chaotic forms of organization in scare quotes, you're implying that insurrectionist anarchists aren't anarchists, and neither is the anarchist writer Peter Gelderloos. His book, Worshipping Power, has a chapter dedicated to the idea that that anarchists challenge people to view chaotic ways of organizing and chaotic ways of decision-making as not inherently pejorative.
"The reasoning is simple. Hierarchical societies are easier to control, and hierarchies cannot defend themselves from more powerful hierarchies. Officials from a state cannot easily communicate with members of a society in which decisions are made in open assemblies, or societies with chaotic rather than unitary decision-making.
As an important aside, I would challenge the reader to accept chaotic organization as a superior form, even though we are usually only presented with a pejorative vision of chaos. In unitary decision-making, an entire polity must abide by a single decision, or there must be a clear hierarchy to govern and rank the decisions made at different levels, whether in a bureaucratic or federalistic system. All governments, from fascist dictatorships to direct formal democracies, share the principle of unitary decision-making and disseminate the assumptions on which such decision-making is based. Chaotic decision-making fosters the recognition that society can function spontaneously as a decentralized network, permits conflict as a healthy force in our lives, encourages a multiplicity of decision-making spaces pervading all moments of life, well beyond the formal, masculine sphere of the congress or the dictat, and allows different, even conflicting, decisions to be made at different points in the human network, while encouraging a collective consciousness so all decision-makers can maximize their intelligence and accordingly harmonize. Humans have an evolutionarily tested ability to utilize chaotic decision-making at a macro scale, and the only people who dispute this are those who wish to permanently infantilize their compatriots so as to control them by monopolizing decision-making in unitary structures."
* Worshiping Power, Take Me to Your Leader: The Politics of Alien Invasion
@@Grundrisse indeed it is true that i used libertarian communism as a broader term, so thank you for clarifying that! As a person who has been in plenty protests (Greece), it is important to distinguish true, educated nihilists and the such from the uneducated, reactionary teens who just want to mindlessly smash things up; of course violence is important, but unorganised, uncoordinated violence is detrimental to everyone
There's a reason the A is entirely inside the O in the anarchist symbol.
What is to stop a group with more power than you demanding things you can not provide? What happens when that group imposes their will upon you because you do not have the means to defend yourself?
Historically successful? 😂 cite the History then
this video is changing my views slightly and my definitions heavily and i actually dont think ill be calling myself pro democracy any longer
great video!
What im having trouble wrapping my head around is how we would deal with problems that cannot be solved by disassociating like what to plant in a specific spot. what if i want to plant corn and you want to plant tomatoes? there is no consensus needed for action, so discussion should lead to consensus. that can still be entirely freely associated, but what if i agreed to plant tomatoes if i could have my corn next year, but when the time comes you disregard that decision? I obviously dont want to force you to abide by a decision you made last years, but i also dont want to be forced to move somewhere that i could have my corn.
I think space might break the ideal of free association sometimes
Okay like literally your next paragraph states that solving something like this could be called consensus. Disregard
If you want to plant corn or tomatoes in your own garden, then do it.
@@normandy2501 dawg ownership wont exist in anarchy, youre a liberal if you think otherweise
A world without rule is at risk of self-destruction.... if there is no one to enforce any rule, then what stops one individual from commiting an atrocity against orders.....
Freedom does not guarantee peace and peace does not guarantee freedom...
So anarchy needs a compromise.... but this compromise comes at the cost of anarchy loosing its meaning and purpose....
What most of us consider Anarchy to be can only exist in an ideal world were everybody can tolerate and trust each other.... realism always kicks in in the end and people fall back to archy.....
What an excellent intro to anarchism, especially appreciate the helpful definition of authority! This video will change some minds.
Ps that section on democracy was illuminating as well
No bosses, no masters! This is a really great video, thanks comrade.
This video could also be titled "Anarchy: what it actually is and how to build it"
Too many people think Anarchy is The Joker (TM) or Zaheer from the worst Avatar series, and that therefore, as a political ideology, should be mocked and dismissed, while clinging to the exploitative ways of capital and its enslaving nature.
I hope your vid changes many minds, and helps people break out of the neo-liberal mind prison.
Anarchy isn't political. If politics is the mode by which society is organized and by which power is distributed or the science of governmentalism, the art of alienation; then anarchy would certainly seem to be a type of anti-politics or even apolitics when you take that into account.
Anarchists posit that anarchy is inherently anti-political, but in more recent years contemporary anarchists have become pre-occupied with remodeling and replacing institutions of power rather than rejecting them entirely. This phenomena is what I sometimes call "anarcho-leftism." Since anarchists are implicitly and explicitly opposed to having to subject to institutions of authority, they are also anti-electoralism. No voting, no participating in party politics, etc. They see that as ultimately inconsequential and has to be annihilated.
The problem with that, of course, is that "anti-political" and especially "apolitical" are words that are more often than not tied up with political aloofness and intentionally being disengaged when it comes to the happenings of statist Society. Even up to the point of being disengaged from the consequences of political decisions made by people in power. And I really can't think of a people more concerned and opinionated on the happenings of politics than anarchists, as that kind of comes with the territory of wanting to annihilate all that is "political."
This confusion of terms almost always makes identifying with anti-politics uncomfortable, as anarchists are put in a position where they have to clarify that they're not trying to communicate the idea that they don't watch the news, and have nothing but boring moderate opinions on politics.
When Bakunin said that "It is not true then to say that we treat politics abstractly. We make no abstraction of it, since we wish positively to kill it. And here is the essential point upon which we separate ourselves absolutely from politicians and radical bourgeois Socialists (now functioning as social or radical democracy which is only a facade for capitalistic democracy,). Their policy consists in the transformation of State politics, their use and reform. Our policy, the only policy we admit, consists in the total abolition of the State, and of politics, which is its necessary manifestation" (POLITICS AND THE STATE
), he is not at all making a concession to ignore the sufferings and events generated by the statist Society.
Anarchy is not what I'd call "an ideology" either, but an anti-ideology, a critique of ideology itself.
NOTE that I'm talking about anarchY and not anarch-"ism."
Anarchy most certainly should be mocked and dismissed. It has no feasible way of actually developing in the world and even less of a chance of remaining on any large scale. It is a pipe dream at best for those who want to be their own boss while disregarding everyone else.
@brandonmercado8438
Democacy should be mocked and dismissed. The "great image" of the large-scale Society (Capital S) you're touting builds itself on the backs of the proletarians (capitalism), patriarchy, settler-colonialism, needless destruction of environments and the animals living there, etc. etc. etc.
I feel “force” in the context of Anarchism is used to mean the opposite of consent, rather than literally using physical force. Thus placing it at the core of what Anarchy opposes.
Anarchists are opposed to authority, and anarchists generally do not equate force with authority
Something I right now think a lot about is this idea that expertise should give you chances to decide certain things - because in a lot of cases expertise currently is mostly bound to existing systems of power. I am lying in hospital right now, and I am very well read in regards to medical knowledge. So well read that in fact I correctly identified my health condition before any doctor did. However, for the simple reason that I do not have a medical degree, I was not listened too. Which in my case has been leading to more and more frustration, because the doctors will go: "Oh, but it also could be this very rare disease." While I am sitting there like: "Yeah, or it is the thing that the blood tests tell us, that secondary symptoms tell us and everything."
do you think your situation is more or less common than someone being completely wrong about such a self-diagnosis? How many people took horse dewormer rather than getting a vaccine?
Wilbur actually talks about this in the context of expertise! I flash a footnote on it on screen but it might be missed. He calls it "authority-effect." Quote:
"Authority-effect: The infamous “authority of the bootmaker,” from Bakunin’s “God and the State,” is probably the most familiar example of an instance where the uneven distribution of expertise, together with the staple nature of the object of expertise, combine to create a condition of quasi-authority, where an expert may be capable of “commanding” a situation, not because they have any right to do so, but because they occupy an advantageous position in society, thanks to the division of labor. We may be forced to take the advice of a specialist, but the source of their power to influence our decision is as much our lack of expertise and whatever exigencies we face as it is their own knowledge and skill. In a medical crisis, a doctor may be able to wield considerable power over patients without medical expertise, while in a time of good health or under circumstances where the patient has medical expertise, that power melts away. Certainly, we don’t bow to bootmakers when we don’t need boots, even if sufficient need on our part may create real power that they can wield. Credentialing systems may create a slightly different sort of authority effect, particularly where they are faulty or corrupt, by increasing the possibility of the false appearance of expertise or by limiting the ability of capable practitioners to meet the needs of others.
Authority-effects are very real, in the sense that the combination of factors can compel obedience to just as great an extent as more formal authority, and they may continue to be a problem even under circumstances where the principle of authority has been rejected. But their ill effects will almost certainly be reduced as we move beyond a social model that treats authority as a foundational principle and learn to engage in anarchistic relations."
Dude literally thinks he is smart then a doctor on matters of health.
This might very well be your best analysis yet, from the point of discussion and debate among likeminded fellows and due to its easy to digest format, as an easy introduction to those unfamiliar to concepts of Anarchism
Hi Andrew! Thankyou so much for all your time and effort into this channel, not only has it articulated many tangled up feelings about society but has given me the resources and confidence to educate others in my community. I really love this video and was wondering if it exists in essay/transcript form. I have friends I want to deliver this information to who would not be able to dedicate an hour to a video but can read an essay! No worries though.
Engagement for the engagement god!
I just finished rewatching your degrowth video when i saw this upload. What a treat!
Thank you for making this, it was lovely.
Everyone else: Organizing Anarchy
Me: Organizing a Narchy
Hot damn, I've never seen a video on anarchism that's as good as this one. Some of the ideas that you put forward are incredibly complicated, so I'm wondering how we should set about explaining them to people that have absolutely zero knowledge of politics, or that are perhaps even unaware that they're living within a political economy? For me, this is the biggest challenge to anarchists moving forward--Our theories are sublime but the way that we educate people about those theories is not.
What prevents an anarchy society from becoming a libertarian society and eventually just becoming a hierarchy society again?
Intent
If a condition of anarchy has been achieved, I find it intuitive to believe that it would be as difficult to reestablish a hierarchical society as it has been to establish anti-hierarchical societies in a hierarchical one. Such counter-societies would be forced to engage with an anarchic world on anarchic terms, and convince people that subordination and acceptance of principles that enslaved and killed millions are preferable to it.
That doesn't mean it couldn't happen, but in that case anarchists still exist and are still opposed to the formation of authorities, and some would probably combat it violently.
@@kakroom3407 that is assuming there is no hierarchical societies around you, with obedient flesh weapons groomed to kill, at your doorsteps. Those societies know how to break others effectively, and we will go back to were we are today.
@@ununun9995 OP's question was about what would prevent an anarchic society from "just becoming" a hierarchy society again in time
If the question is what would keep an anarchist society from being invaded by a hierarchical one, the answer is as simple as it is tragic and difficult for any society, which is organizing a defence and shooting back
Absolutely nothing.
Great video! Greeting from Spain, one of the motherland of anarchism
A world without rule is at risk of self-destruction.... if there is no one to enforce any rule, then what stops one individual from commiting an atrocity against orders.....
Freedom does not guarantee peace and peace does not guarantee freedom...
So anarchy needs a compromise.... but this compromise comes at the cost of anarchy loosing its meaning and purpose....
What most of us consider Anarchy to be can only exist in an ideal world were everybody can tolerate and trust each other.... realism always kicks in in the end and people fall back to archy.....
@@thequarterhalf You can't have atrocities without blind obedience. You can have injustices, and bad experiences, but for atrocities you need centralized control.
@@bramvanduijn8086 ignorance exists... if you are not informed or are at risk of being harm, atrocities may occur...
Mass murderers commit atrocities without any control from anyone...
@@thequarterhalfexecpt all of them have reasons for what they did and ways in which it couldve been prevented
@@bramvanduijn8086 dude, I thinks acts of genocide because agreed about the genoicdes
Ty for these videos, I want to get more into theory and these really help!!!
Also, ty for listing your sources in the description, that’s really helpful as well!!!
Glad you like them and glad the resources help!
I think it’s beautiful that he only mentions the social effects and not the “economical” effects because at the end of the day, that’s what is important. We need to priorities human connection and cooperation. Humanity is more important than profit
I'm a leftist trying to learn more, this is a fantastic resource. Thank you for your labour in pursuit of a greater world.
It's great to see a video tackle the more practical aspects of anarchy, thank you. For more videos like this.! Keep up the good work
More to come! Check my back catalogue in the meantime😁
@@Andrewism you bet I will!
Andrew, your videos are a great breath of fresh air, even since I first stumbled upon them a few years ago. Really great anarchist content that TH-cam sorely was missing. And the videos have only gotten better; these two recent videos are among your best :)
Not a fan of most recommendations The Algorithm gives, but I've loved your episodes on It Could Happen Here and was thrilled to see this one.
Thank you and great work!
This channel seems to always have a informative perspective thanks for the content!
I don't get how you make sure that the fondamental rights of everyone are garantied if you don't take the policy form? = having laws, rules, and making them.
Thank's for the well documented and thought provoking vidéo!
I feel like anarchy accurately describes the natural state that the world already exists within, it seems like some people using their freedom of association use their group power to create authority over others, and they are fluid, they change over place, environments and time. All the other -archies are the flavors allowed by the fundamental anarchy.
Nonsense, child. Stop freely associating with tax authorities ..or try to give up ur citizenship and not take a new one in is place, see what happens.
@@newagain9964 obviously there are limitations to state hood, but it seems to me that people freely associate themselves into statehood. Sure the choice at time is prison or follow society rules, but I'm sure for violent or exploitative peo0le some sort of penal system would also apply in an anarchic system, it would just be diffrent associations than the ones we currently use but they would still be some rule of law even if you call it consensus.
Thank you for the great subtitles ✨
I dont see how the situation will stay the way you say it is unless it's forced to.
This "chaotic" decision system you propose seems deeply immoral. I don't think anyone should be able to try to repair a sewage system without seeking permission from the people who that sewage system services. What if they are more convinced of their competence than is reasonable, and flood my home with sewage? What if I tell them that I am concerned about this, and they tell me that they think my concerns are unfounded, and proceed to take actions that flood my home?
I understand your idea that 'consensus' is a bad mechanism for making decisions. It seems bad that everyone in society should have a veto on every decision. But to claim that no one needs permission to do anything? Even things that might ruin my life or kill me? That is a denial of my most fundamental rights.
Generally the idea i agree with is that everyone whom a decision affects should agree on the correct course of action (or agree on a compromise or a vote if necessary)
You are very much correct that the chaotic system that anarchists want adopted is certainly worse than what we currently have. Not only would it be more time consuming to deal with each issue without centralized structures, but people would be doing things with no regulations leading to wildly different outcomes that would negatively impact all involved. An example of this would be to go to countries or cities with little regulatory oversight and see what their infrastructure looks like. Spoiler, it is terrible.
@@brandonmercado8438 imagine trying to build a militia/army when the people in that said country hates authority. The Invading nation will have a very easy time against unorganized force
passively waiting and hoping that something gets fixed instead of taking initiative yourself never helps. the answer to a problem shouldn't be to just wait around and hope things turn out okay in the end.
@@sillyspiderYes, but we cannot reasonably apply that attitude to every situation. For one, expecting every individual to either be educated on nigh every societal issue that effects them to a degree where they can fix it is an extreme and unrealistic demand, and although you could argue that an individual could instead seek out expertise to handle such functions for them, this demands time and effort from the individual, far more than may be reasonable. Additionally, this doesn’t resolve the core issue. If there is a sewer system and a 60% majority believe it does not need renovation, while 40% minority do, how is that resolved effectively? Perhaps another sewer system could be made, but not only is that an unfeasible solution to all issues like this, and often impossible, but even deciding WHO needs the new system is rather difficult. As anarchists, rules would not be bound by authority, so the only real consequences may be mob rule (which has historically been terrible for minorities such as the queer and people of color, as well as generally).
Would it even be justifiable in an anarchic society to use force and deter the 40% sewer renovators, or hunt them down after the fact? Would that not be a form of authority, even if transient? If one defines authority as more of a demeaning , constant relationship but still allows for temporary rules or leaders in crisis, that seems to go against certain anarchic principles and leads to a sort of Cincinnatus problem, where there is little guarantee of such authorities loosening their grip on the community after the fact. Nevermind things like rocket science and surgery, which demand national standards and practices at the moment due to their immense risk and need of precision.
I actually am empathetic to anarchism and do agree with some of its takes on authority and how ideologies (spooks) can control us, but I am unsure whether a society that abolishes ALL hierarchy is feasible or stable, especially in the face of alternatives and outside factors. It seems a bit naive, or at least optimistic to expect a society that seems to handwave issues by arguing for the general goodness inside man and pointing to instances of community cooperation. At the very least it reminds me of libertarianism and their views on how unchecked capitalism would be “totally great” because the market forces involved would result in speedy, beneficial deals for citizens.
If I have misrepresented anything, please tell me, however. I really like anarchism conceptually and if I am incorrect I’d like to see how and why!
The art pieces that you use throughout the whole video are so beautiful and perfectly in theme with the topics discussed wow
This is wonderful! It helped quell some of my own hesitations about anarchism and explained things in a simple, humble way. Thank you!!
Thank you once again for another upload 🥰💗
All Power to All People
🏴✊🚩
Then nothing happens, nothing will get done and society will collapse. Also you have no understanding of evolutionary biology.
@@Scolecite eVoLuTiOnArY bIoLoGy
Preach! People fear anarchy like they fear chaos. These are not the same. A world full of anarchists is a world full of people worthy and capable of governing themselves. If you fear anarchy, you cannot be trusted without being told what to do. And thus, you are part of the problem.
Maybe going into "anarchy mode" is like saying "let's abolish money" - in order to work/apply it perhaps we need to imagine or reshape the whole "society" we all go around.
Wow, really hope this video is going somewhere. I’m only 5 minutes in and so far it’s profoundly goofy, gonna keep watching because I’m trying to maintain an understanding of other people’s opinions but WOW.
Edit- This is… optimistic at least. On the bright side I no longer see anarchists as a threat.
dude, don't you knoow the sewee system can be build open source? its not like its one of the largest infrastructure project humanity has ever done.
@@AL-lh2ht Sir I don’t even know if you’re trolling or having a stroke.
You're doing really great work, thank you.
In my pondering of the anarchy I found at least 5 problems with it:
1) Violation of volition: anarchy is yet another way for society to work. It isn't a "one glove fits all" kind of situation. People not only need to understand the interconnection of our lives, but they all need to accept it as a governing principle. And what to do with those who don't? That is complicated by the fact that we have evolved for however long it took us to get here to seek power and the benefits it provides to the point some of us base our personalities on the concept of dominating. Yearning for power is hard-wired into our nature. In the end, humans are irrational creatures. We can be tempted by prospects of benefits. We can have different goals and ideals of what is right or wrong.
2) Ego. People tend to think that only they know the right way. And, given power, they would not hesitate to try to change the world to their image, fully convinced in that what they do is good.
3) Competition. Any way for our society to work needs to protect itself from outside forces, be they manmade or natural. Otherwise it is destroyed. This usually means giving a specific group of people, willing to combat these forces, some advantage over these forces, this gives them power.
4) Uneven spread of motivation and resources. Some tasks are bigger than others and there is always more piles than people who are willing to clean them up. Some tasks are bigger than the available amount of people who want to solve them. Some have already more than enough people. People's desires do not usually map onto the problems we face. This makes free association hard, if even possible.
5) Power and pressure. Any external source of motivation creates power, where having that source means having power, if you don't submit or take that power, someone else will. And if you don't like what that power does, then you have that power working against you. And you know it. That's pressure. Who has power, can create hierarchy, and whoever disagrees with their hierarchy, comes to face said power. That's basically prisoners dilema.
The problem is not that someone came and created the system. It was created as an emergent behavior from human nature interacting with the outside world and itself.
I could continue, but this will be long.
Disclaimer: never here I state my support for any kind of rule. I'm just stating the problems I have seen with this one in my years.
loved this. the examples helped my comprehension significantly. i could use a whole video of examples of possible practical applications. dozens of examples. drown me in examples.
barring that, more videos about anarchy are what im subscribing for
very thought provoking and well presented. thank you
I love your channel, it gives me hope, and I really like your speaking voice.
Excellent video! When you were listing the archic systems at the start, I squealed in delight when I saw democracy on the list since I don't see many anarchists with that viewpoint tbh ☺️ I was also thrilled to see Shawn Wilbur's work discussed in the video since he was a big influence on my anarchism 😎🔥
Keep up the great work, loving your videos so far! 😄
An extremely high-quality video and very thought-provoking, I can't say I agree but I am glad you made the video.
excellent video brother. thanks for everything you do. 💖🙏
I hate that feeling when you're reading or watching a thinker and they clearly have no understanding of Anarchy and see it as a punchline. It's ridiculously invalidating to the viewer and it makes the thinking seem quite uncritical and uninformed as well.
While I wholeheartedly agree with the sentiment of anarchism, I can’t seem to get past the practical steps of getting there from where we are now. Part of me feels that we will need an intermediary period of something like socialism or communism, in order to change the sentiments that people have about organizing as a collective. While I could see anarchy being achieved within a century or two, I don’t anticipate seeing it in our lifetime, based on current trends.
Old anarchist living in the forest loves your passion and work. Good on you brother
Thank you for the hope.
I was kind of thinking about this without even knowing it was anarchy. I was thinking, what if instead of states and governments there would be entirely separate entities for different purposes. For example, there might be a ‘government’ for providing education to people of a certain place, they have this goal but are not bound by a higher entity, overlayed with countless other ‘governments’ each with their own goal, interacting but not antagonizing each other. Another might be to defend or provide law to a certain region, but would not interfere with the affairs of any other structure. They wouldn’t have control over everything inside them and you could opt out. Or a completely separate system with the goal of providing food for people. Etc etc etc.
The problem I see with anarchy though is that without rules how would we stop states from forming again? They could simply proclaim their laws and arrest anyone in their borders who don’t agree.
Absolutely fantastic! Very thoughtful review and reflection.
Thank you, Andrew! I very much appreciate your insights. I always have questions, and it’s always nice to find more pieces to fill in the holes in my understanding. 😊
It's not much of a comment, but this is going to require a lot of thinking, hopefully not just with myself. I kept having to rewind the video because something you said prompted a question that I tried to answer myself, and then realized I hadn't listened to what you'd said for the previous 20 seconds. And that happened at least 5 or 6 times. And I still don't know if I satisfyingly answered those questions or whether or not I had more, I just realized I needed to stop asking them or answering them, otherwise I'd never finish the video!
And I finally finished the video. So much to think about. So many questions that can easily be hand-waved with "well, eventually..." but doesn't answer the question of immediate action. Not immediate _revolution,_ as you warned was often misconstued as the road to change, but literally, what can I do right now, and tomorrow, and always, as Malatesta said.
Yes, it's not necessary to have a blueprint for every day and I don't want to be submissive to someone else's thoughts and ideas and not thinking for myself, but who are the experts for slow transition. I ask not for who can authorize the change, but who (and how many?) can _lead_ such that the ball gets rolling and reaches critical mass.
My only answer right now is the need for a great fictional story that lays out the entire process. What people _would_ need to do today, tomorrow, and always (not a forever long book, obviously) and how, realistically, the world would respond? It would have to be damned critical of itself, making sure to attack those anarchists in the book with everything that can possibly happen. Terrible things. Horrendous things. Things that will likely happen since so much force and authority currently exist in the world and will likely not give up without a fight.
I don't know how to write such a book. And it'd need to be constantly revised, perhaps through methods used by Wikipedia.
I don't know. As said at the beginning, this is going to require a lot of thinking.
Thanks so much for this. If I were able, I'd be delighted to support you on Patreon, but right now it's just not possible.
I don't know, all of this as it often appears to be, seems something that can at best exist in optimal conditions... But systems that base themselves on optimal conditions are bound to remain utopias...
What if conditions aren't Ideal? Or good? Or even decent at best?
For example let us suppose the most banal problem this could run into a military or policing consultive association is very good at what it does, and growing amounts of people grow to like them more and more, One among them is very charismatic, some people, a growing amount of people that deal with their purviews, like to listen to them, to work with them.
People Simply gather and well these guys are good, very good, people that work with them feel growingly more comradery with them.
In time these people come out as fascists and decide that well... You know what, order and discipline don't sound that bad, and, after all, considering that a large amount of the people who deal with weapons and the military are already our Friends... Well... Let's implement order and discipline, who's going to stop us the bakers? The librarians?
Well you might say somewhere someone is going to come and restore anarchy, there's a whole world of anarchists and only One fascist insurgency, right? But this again is a best-case scenario...
What if this isn't the case? What if there are many of these, people have indeed a tendency to *like* giving up their responsibilities to a strongman, it's quite liberating being freed from the burden of responsibility... What of due to technology the amount of gunmen that these consultive Union has been able to reach is continent-sized or more...
Well, but these things have happened in hierarchies too so we are solid...
I mean, perhaps, but I am not sure it's a strong enough defence because It depends on how likely or unlikely these things can happen in either.
And this is the most unimaginative problem that such a system may run into.
Had to pause at one minute to say….
Wow!! That was an amazing introduction. I could imagine those words being part of a blockbuster movie scene. Well done.
Legitimately one of my favorite videos of all time, and definitely the best one I've seen on political theory.
Idk about politics but I love the shire.