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Oh no, Anarchists!
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this post was submitted on 17 Apr 2024
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Lefty Memes
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I don't see how anyone would be safe from thieves in anarchy.
You are misunderstanding why people become thieves in the first place, and how comparatively uncommon pure thievery is. The majority of theft is legal and is done in the name of capitalist profiteering. Not that break ins don't happen, nor that everyone will be a good person and accept a society of mutual aid.
Genuine theft will still occur. The consequences of something being stolen would not be the same within an anarchist society built on mutual aid. It is much easier to recover from theft when shelter, food, water, are all guaranteed things that you don't have to fret over. So the consequences will largely be interpersonal, grudges and disputes between people over less consequential things like valuables of some particular nature.
I am not of the opinion that violence of the community need be used on such a situation either. We aren't the police for Christ's sake. We can actually settle disputes in a proactive way that attempts to rectify the situation that precipitated the theft (maybe someone needs mental health help, maybe there are interpersonal issues) without kicking the shit out of anyone.
Violent crimes can be handled however the community sees fit. But things like theft or destroying someone's clothes should be handled proactively to ensure lasting solutions for everyone involved. Violence is a pretty bad deterrent for this kind of behavior.
The state doesn't keep you safe from thieves now. The police are a reactionary force that shows up after you've been robbed and then do nothing to help you. The most you get is a police report to refer your insurance company to, if your stolen belongings were insured.
A very real risk of punishment by the state if you happen to get caught is what prevents theft. Your argument conveniently left that important part out and presented a straw man argument.
The rest of these comments talk about unenforced theft like white collar crimes and other class war-like theft. Which just reinforces the idea that only state-executed enforcement of law is actually any good at preventing theft.
Not needing to steal is what keeps most people from stealing, not fear of punishment.
Do you think the homeless and hungry are the only people who steal?
High end crime happens ALL the time, and it's not out of necessity, it's out of the human condition of greed. Theft happens more often by rich individuals than it does by poor.
It's a good thing the state takes that "high end" crime as seriously as smoking weed.
https://www.anarchistfaq.org/afaq/sectionI.html#seci58
So basically mob-justice.
Because witch hunts have never gone wrong and were always justified.
"This man loves other men, that's weird, let's kill him." - apparently no one ever
Also relevant meme:
"justice is not handed down from above and is therefore unfair" < words of the utterly deranged
You mean the process, that is democratically decided by elections with a bunch of checks and balances in the process?
Just lol. Is that why there's billionaires hoarding all the wealth while billions starve? Is that why Palestine is being genocided? Is that why we're headed full-steam for a climate apocalypse?
There's no "democracy" nor "checks and balances". There's only a sad farce.
Yes, because the democratic nations have democratically decided, that we want to consume more than is wise, that we want to retaliate for Oct 7 and that private property is cool, even if a few have more.
I agree, that mob-rule would remove billionaires, but how would it stop climate change, if there are no regulations against emissions?
Palestinians idk. In nationless anarchy it would not be a structured military, but let's not pretend there wouldn't be massive amounts of bloodshed.
None of that is "democratically elected". Those elections are a farce and I would go as far as to argue that no democracy which decides to kill 30.000 children and perform genocide is legitimate.
And nobody is talking about "mob rule". We're talking about anarchism.
Half elected officials with power are appointed not elected. The Supreme Court took away women's bodily autonomy. There was no popular vote for any of them not a single one. Also just because I vote someone in doesn't mean I agree with everything they do. Wouldn't it be more expedient to just use direct democracy so I can actually have a say?
"Your options are conservative A or B, and whatever actions they take are necessarily ones you voted for and agree with!"
Which party is against this? I live in a blue state in America and will gladly vote for them.
Homophobia comes mainly from the will to govern over other people, by shaming their natural and harmless sexual behavior, and is often dictated by some religion. As power structures like to cooperate, be they corporations, states, or churches; sometimes they like to push each others.
Before you ask: yes, some corporations are doing pride shit to appeal to a wider audience and legitimize their power in the modern world. But others like Xitter are helping state and church powers, as they have a common interest in keeping and expanding their own power.
If you also ask: many churches flourish when the state defunds social safety networks, as they can step in to replace them with church-based charities. I work in a state-owned retirement home, and I can first-hand experience it. Secularism is very compromised as churches had to step in to donate stuff, but that was never a charity, as they demanded the secular state of the institution to slowly eroding, because "religion provides comfort to the soul", and thus mental health care gets the axe first.
Authoritarians in general are excel in giving simple answers to complicated questions. Science? No, god did it. Our economical system is inherently flawed? No, a cabal of evil Jews that don't want to go back to the holy land did it. An anti-authoritarian project failed due to complicated reasons? No, they simply weren't authoritarian, and didn't have a good tyrant to stop the bad tyrants.
Theivery is a result of material needs unfulfilled, not some random genetic drive to go stealing.
Some people are born evil. More than most of us would care to think too hard about.
"The greatest crimes are not those committed for the sake of necessity but those committed for the sake of superfluity. One does not become a tyrant to avoid exposure to the cold." -- Aristotle
What an idealistic, immaterial look at the world. No, people are not born evil with an addiction to stealing, lol.
Does the billionaire that steals the excess production of the working class do so out of necessity?
Does the cop who steals cash from motorists and lies about smelling drugs do so because that cop is underprivileged and disenfranchised by the system?
Not all humans have working moral compasses. Its an unpleasant reality that can be hard for some people to come to grips with and integrate into their worldview, but failure to understand a problem is unlikely to lead to effective solutions.
People are products of their environment and their material conditions, exactly. You aren't genetically a billionaire or a cop, lmao.
What empty, vague idealism.
You're really not wrong, and I'm not entirely sure why you're being downvoted. Thievery is largely a product of unfulfilled needs or unchecked hoarding of wealth, one could even argue that the latter is just a reaction to living through or fear of the former. An anarchist society solves both of those problems inherently. How do you steal what can be gotten as a matter of course? I feel like the smallest outlier doing such things in a community would just be a mild inconvenience and caught pretty quickly.
How do you believe anyone is "born evil"? What does that mean? Would you support eugenics if this 'evil gene' could be identified?
"Slavery is both expedient and right" - Aristotle
Probably a bad idea to quote Aristotle as a moral authority on anything but the rules of rhetoric.
You are free to steal. And the rest of the community is free to beat the shit out of you.
If that's how it works, then a stable anarchist society is impossible. The first asshole that comes along with a bigger gun than everyone else will have it right back to a dictatorship.
The community will band against the dictator as much as the thief
They most likely follow the dictator, at the very least to sate their blood thirst.
Their "blood thirst" of not wanting thieves and murderers in their society? You realize that our current society is orders more "blood thirsty" than what we describe but only that you hide the violence through the police and the brutal wars and genocides against other nations?
wtf are you on about?
You’re at the magical thinking “And then of course we will all…” crutch that a lot of philosophies lean on
Capitalism: We’ll deregulate and open the market to everyone, and then there will be “perfect competition” in a “free market”
Communism: We have state socialism until society is prepared, and then transition to communism
Anarchism: We won't have a central authority to prevent aggression, obviously we will work together as mutual interest aligns. And 100% no roving bands of raiders or warlords will ever ruin our society!
Yes, by definition that's how anarchism works. If if wasn't like this, it wouldn't be anarchism. Not sure why this is a difficult concept to handle.
Nobody said that external dangers are not a potential issue, but the plan is to oppose them. Not a difficult concept to grasp either.
I have fringe anarcho-syndicalist politics, I understand the theory. I also understand that nothing exists in a vacuum, and while our happy anarchy-commune/whatever of 3,000 aligned people may build mutual aid tranquillity in our area, others may not. And those others may choose banditry, and your stuff instead of working for food.
So our commune/syndicate/etc form a defensive structure/organization to stop/prevent them - you just created a military/police class of “most equals”. Who will need a command structure for doing the ‘gun/bat meet aggressor’ functions, and some kind of special remit from the community. Or we say no dedicated force and the classes it brings, and use the irregulars/militia model instead. Which has so many issues on so many different aspects that’s it’s not worth me typing out.
Ffs go read Hobbes’ Leviathan
That's true for all types of society. But it also means that a completely anarchist society is more stable than the rest because the means of self defence are equally distributed and that everyone would rise against such authoritarian attack.
That has never been, and will never be true. You could magically eliminate all weapons on the planet simultaneously and it still won't be true, since some people are bigger and stronger than others.
And in case you haven't been paying attention to history; authoritarians very rarely just show up out of nowhere and take over. They are usually installed as leader after some form of revolution, then the title just gets transferred once the authoritarian system is in place. It's usually far more insidious than just some guy the village has to band together to fight off.
It doesn't mean that every person has equal ability to physically defend themselves, but that society has the mechanisms to defend everyone that is being attacked. A grandma doesn't need to be able to self defend against a thug in the street if the people nearby do it for her.
The second paragraph is not relevant as there are no historical examples of a dictator getting into power from within an anarchist society.
Are there any historical examples of a large-scale anarchist society in the first place?
Thats why were actually in a “anarchy always has been” meme.
We are free to ignore the law and to object any direct order.
We are free to join a police force and protect the state, to join a police force and kill a civilian, free to take a firearm and kill a police officer, free to be killed by a police officer
We are free to organize institutions and support those.
You are free to join a line of thinking which brings you to a state of servitude.
You are free to comply, others are free to hurt you based on but also regardless of what you do.
Anarchy always has been, always will be.
Sooner we realize how inevitable it is the quicker we can overcome the hurdle and to accept that: Only by also helping others can we truly better ourselves.
This, but much more importantly - when everyone's needs are met, and there is no hierarchy to try and get to the top of at the expense of others, people will have no reason to do shit like steal in the first place.
You do realise ambition and greed are two sides of the same coin. Yes, resource scarcity effects this, but there will ALWAYS be people who want more
Anarchism is the result of controlled opposition brainworms that the bourgeoisie spread to prevent socialism from taking hold
Because everybody knows, anarchism is complete dog shit
Also, modern age anarchists suspiciously rant more about "red fash" than they ever stand up to actual fascism
Fuck them lol
A thief is safer under a state because the state can punish those who defend themselves. The point of the state is to be the only ones able to dispense justice.
If someone stole from me, me or my community can dispense justice without fear of the state. Communities tend to not fuck with each other too much lest they start battles, which nobody wants. Humans lived for hundreds of thousands of years without states.
The age of tribes was fucking brutal. They attacked and extinguished each other regularly.