I honestly think anarchism is a stupid idea, in the sense of true "There are no laws, everybody is truly 100 percent free to do whatever the fuck they want." Anarcism. I'm not familiar with social anarchism, and I'm sure it has it's specifics and good and bad parts, but real Anarcism will destroy society. There is no anarchist society, it's not possible really. Then we just go back to being animals. Again, no idea on specifics of social anarchist, but I've heard many anarchist people talking about how everything would work out with no laws or regulations, and that just sounds like an apocalyptic scenario, and it denies the thousands of years of civilization building we as humans have had. I'm sure you are a reasonable person and I respect your opinion (even if I don't know specifics) but anarcisms to me is just plain fucking dumb.

Anarchism has worked once before, in Spain back in 1936 there was a counter-revolution to the fascist revolt in the north. People created collectives in the workplace where everyone would benefit from, a voucher system was created, and worker patrols replaced the police. George Orwell actually wrote about Barcelona during these times in "Homage to Catalonia", when he visited while joining the socialist militia the POUM. There were several anarchist militias called columns that went off to fight on the front line, these militias were the most fierce fighting force that the Popular Front had to offer, they fought the fascists back all the way to Madrid and almost cleared it out. Sadly, Nazi Germany and Italy were supporting the fascist revolt and eventually they regained strength and poured into southern Spain. But it took them 3 years to do so. When the revolution was crushed, Franco's regime executed around 200,000 anarchists and imprisoned and sent to labor camps even more. The reason it may be hard for you to grasp the idea of anarchism may be rested in your culture, our civilization itself is anti-anarchistic, but if you read my other post it may be easier to understand.

More of an anarcho-primitivist here but I'll give you my thoughts.. Civilization itself is a rather anti-anarchistic ideal. With civilization came the abuse of nature we know as domestication, domestication of plant and animal life led to a sedentary lifestyle based on agriculture, otherwise unheard of to this point in history. With a sedentary lifestyle came organized hierarchies, division of labor, and surplus and shortage(economy), which lead to wealth, property, and a class society. This happened between 30-10,000 years ago. Before the introduction of domestication, humans lived anarchistic lifestyles, traveling, working together collectively; There is no question, that humans are supposed to live like this, this is our nature, but people don't look back to before we became domesticated ourselves, they look at the pitiful existence we call modern life and call this our nature.

As far as our post-industrial existence goes today, were coming to a peak where afterwards we will never see growth as high as it once was. But that is the nature of this world, it has limits, it has a carrying capacity and we have denied to believe this for the last 100 years as we have drilled and mined the hell out of the earth, and grown in numbers like a fucking cancer. I'm not going to attempt a prediction of what will happen but somethings gonna change, it has to. I used to call myself a working-class anarchist, I read up on Syndicalism and understood the workings of collectives and unions, but after reading up on criticisms of civilization itself, I felt like there will never be such motivation and revolutionary spirit as was in Spain in '36, or that it would even make much of a change. No one cares for the ideas of solidarity and community anymore, everyone is out chasing after money and pleasure. Fucking decadence.

Why don't you define it for me then I'll formulate an opinion :D

Social anarchy is based in the belief that no man is better than another. As an individual, you have the right to chase any passion you should want. We live in an age that all menial labor jobs will soon stop being important, as they will be replaced with technology that can do it faster and more profitably than any person. So, when we have an ability to no longer need menial jobs to feed, clothe, and house the entire population, why should we not seize that and allow people to chase their dreams. No money, so no fighting for a job, rather, fighting to be the best you want to be. When the world is free, crime drops because most of crime today stems from the want of money and power. It's hard to describe entirely in a paragraph, but it's based on personal responsibility. And the idea that authority will always either dissipate, or reach a totalitarian moment where a few are leading the many

So no government?

No government, no money, and no laws

I think people would tend towards groups and form their own society's and governments. Who would produce food?

We have technology of producing food as needed. And I think if everyone's happy, there's no need to form groups, aside from social groups

Ah. I think that man is by nature political, and will always seek something of that nature.

Fun video on anarchy.

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I believe we look to Government for food, but we're at a point where our nation is wealthy enough that we can afford to abandon the leaders before they overpower us.
I love WKUK, and it's funny, but everything they say jokingly, I actually believe in. The idea that you keep doing your job, and making/getting food, you equalize it by giving out your surplus as needed.

So kind of just do away with government but everything else stays relatively the same?

Get rid of government and money. By getting rid of money we create a system where sharing is encouraged, as it isn't a race to the top, but a chance to keep everyone happy

What would keep people from quitting whatever they do and living off others?

Why do you believe in an ideology would disrupt any chance at achieving a commonwealth, man's second foremost desire? Why do you believe that success should be determined only by birthright and that inequality is acceptable?

I have no response for the inequality comment, as that's not true in Social-Anarchy. With no money and no permanent personal property, why would anyone have an advantage? As to the commonwealth, why does Anarchy eliminate that? Many people would still work in the profession of their choosing, as in scientists and doctors and the like.

>Real Anarchism: No laws

People will still trade items. As such, there is still a concept of money. Look at a society like Egypt that was built upon this trade system. People can still be paid in goods. As such, you'd be able to employ people to enforce the notion that a certain boundary is your property. As such, personal and private (objects and territory) exist.

As such, whoever has access to whatever goods people want most has an advantage.

And since there's such a hierarchical system, there cannot be equality, and there cannot be commonwealth.

And of course people would still work in occupations of their choosing, but with no laws enforcing standards of care, scientists and doctors could have no qualifications. And those that do obtain such qualifications would be more scarce and would demand more. So what about the poor people who won't have access to professional doctors?

Individual freedom is a good concept, but it has no relation to equality, fairness and justice.

Same as communism and socialism everyone paints a beautiful picture of it but in the end it will fail.
My problem is that people doing what ever they want when ever they want would look like "Mad Max" if you want to live in that society go ahead and move to mexico that's the closest you can get right now.

There's a lot of reasons it wouldn't fail. And money still exists in Mexico, so it's riddled with violence.

So anarchism has no money?

It depends on the kind of Anarchism. Kropotkin, and any modern day situ-inspired or anarcho communist do away with it. Very few anarchists keep capitalism as an economic system.

Do you even READ anything about Anarchism before saying things about it? Or do you just reject something solely based on your previous presumptions on the subject?

I've read about it but never have I read that there would be no monetary system. Yeah I know the dollar won't be around but people would use some type of currency

No, they wouldn't. Maybe in Anarcho -ollectivism or some pseudo socialist forms of anarchism, but not traditional anarchism.

I'm not an anarchist, I'm a Marxist; however, the many misconceptions of Marxism are pretty much the antonym of Anarchism, but since I assume you're an educated gentleman you know that this isn't really the case.

I find that Marxists and Anarchists generally work well together and should collaborate much more. I read a lot of stuff published by the Situationist International and I despise the likes of Stalin, Lenin, Trotsky, Mao, etc. Marx's ideas are much more similar to Kropotkin's than those of Lenin or Stalin.

So long as you don't read Bakunin, I'm cool with you. I find that Marxism and Anarchism are extremely similar, with differences being in things such as historical and dialectical materialism; I am not a Marxist JUST for the reasons that you are most likely an anarchist. I still hold the Paris Commune and Free Territory as victories of the proletariat more than the disgrace of the Bolshevik revolution and any other subsequent soviet-supported coup.

I always thought that the goal of every nation should be to work towards Socialism, then Communism (possibly marxism), and then the next progression was to Anarchy. When you are all well fed and support each other, I feel there's a loss for a need of law.

Just saying, you'd make a good Marxist. I suggest reading some of his stuff, even if you're an Anarchist. The more you know, you know?

Marxism and Anarchy have the same ends. Like I said, the only REAL difference is the abstract; things like dialectical and historical materialism: Marx's justifications for all of his theories.

The only reason people think communists and anarchists hate each other is because they think communism is essentially a totalitarian utopia, which is completely false. Most of those state socialists are not communists, let lone true Marxists.

Others think Marx hated anarchists because of his feud with Bakunin. However, if you look into the matter more seriously, you'll notice that Marx was critical of Bakunin suggesting that the wage system was not necessarily destroyed, which is outrageous.

I've been meaning to read more, so I definitely will. I never thought they were at war, I just always thought one was a means to the other. And if I can't get an Anarchist society, my next hope is Marxism