Jokes on you, the local trap council has been paid off (by me) and all your traps are disabled

There's actually two kinds of hierarchies (as defined by Graeber). There's the authority based hierarchies that anarchists argue against, and 'self-resolving' hierarchies, like Parent-Child, Teacher-Student, or Doctor-Patient that are inevitable and unproblematic. The difference is that the role of the parent is to raise the child, once the child is an adult the parent need not raise them more. They have become equals, and the hierarchy is dissolved. The student becomes educated and outgrows the teacher, the patient becomes well. These self-resolving hierarchies are fundamentally different than those based on continued authority and domination.

The local defense council would be a group of people elected or appointed by the community who are responsible for training, arming and organizing members in the community. How specific are you asking? Like what level of detail would convince you?

What stops you from doing that in hierarchical societies? I mean, powerful people in our society use their wealth and power to inflict terrible pain and misery on the poor. So, what's stopping them?

The mistake is that many people consider anarchism as inherently anti hierarchical, as opposed to anti coercive.

I listen to my doctor's advice because he knows more than me, creating a natural hierarchy, but I wouldn't allow him to make decisions without my consent, as that would be coercive.

Hierarchical relationships are completely compatible with anarchy, so long as they are voluntary to both enter and leave.

The Kibbutz is a very interesting read, but i'd agree it's only "kind of" anarchistic. As for the rest, I actually got to meet some EZLN members on a trip down to southern Mexico one time, got a shirt from them of Subcomandante Marcos

I think at the end of the day they're not purely anarchist though. And I'd argue hunter gatherers were not anarchist by choice. Hunter gatherers were not saying "ah, we could all form a democracy right now but things are working fine lets keep it this way"--it's just how it worked. Modern anarchists seek to reject state institutions. You cannot reject what is not there, and hunter gatherers were by that definition not really anarchist.

I also respectfully think some of these arguments miss the point that anarchy has had its chance. I really am trying to see how anarchy may exist in the future given some serious modifications in human behavior. But as you mention, democracy didn't exist for thousands of years and was even brutally suppressed. But anarchy has existed for thousands of years. Hasn't anarchy been "trying to work", or overcome the inception of other younger systems, for the entirety of life on earth? It seems misplaced to think there is a distant future where anarchy works when it's been the tried method for most of human history. How has anarchy not already had a chance to work? I'm open to a suggestion that it hasn't had a chance yet, but I personally can't come up with reasons to say it like that. It may be still trying but I think it's a stretch of reason to say anarchism hasn't already had a chance.

From a creature comfort standpoint, yes I think there would be some envy. From a standpoint of individual autonomy and leisure time, though, they would overwhelmingly consider working people to be slaves and not want to be us.

Plato would consider our souls too corrupted for geometry or philosophy. Roman law wouldn't consider us freemen. Even medieval serfs had more leisure time and access to more public spaces and common land.

It's not as simple as "things are better now". Some things, like comforts and the forms of escapism have improved, but other things are much worse. We don't really have privacy anymore. Our personal property has been replaced with the private property of those we are made dependent on. We have little to no public space or natural environment. It's more polluted. Our existential threats are worse than ever before.

I think it would be very hard to make the case that a historical tyrant would look at the average retail or office worker with any degree of envy.

I think you can get a good idea of the philosophy behind post modern anarchism from Ursula K LeGuin's-The Dispossessed and The Left Hand of Darkness.

Well then I'll put a trap and hide it very well so you wouldn't be able to detect it and fall into it 100% if you ever try to steal my stuff. And it would not matter how many people you'd bring because I'd just put as many traps +1

In many areas of modern intellectual thought, the concept of nature has shifted from the old victorian framework of 'red in tooth and claw' to 'nigh-perfect, beautifully optimized clockwork masterpiece of creation that is the ideal state of all things.'

The irony of course is that this newer perception of nature can exist in great part because we as westerners are so shielded from its full fury. We often interact with it in very controlled settings, Toiling away in a suburban garden; taking a pleasant hike through a local park with upkept nature trails and no predators bigger than the occasional skittish coyote; gawking at exotic beasts at the zoo behind the safety of glass and concrete. Every so often we get an unwelcome reminder when a tornado rips through a town or a mountain lion decides to snack on some pets, but otherwise we really don't deal with it in the way our ancestors (or even a sizeable chunk of the world population living in poor rural areas) did/do.

Anyone who actually deeply studies and/or works with nature (myself included) is very aware that nature is absolutely beautiful and incredibly complex, but also devilishly brutal and uncaring in equal measure.

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>They would look on today's billionaires with an envy the rest of us couldn't imagine. Today's wealthy and powerful are like gods compared to history's tyrants.

By this logic, the wealthiest medieval emperor of all time would look on at a lower middle class American with intense envy; indoor plumbing, electricity, central air and heating year round, high quality food always available nearby, a combustion engine vehicle capable of speeds far in excess of any horse or carriage; but the distance between that emperor and the peasants of the day vs a modern billionaire and a middle class person, outside of the dollar amount of wealth, isn't nearly as great. Regular people have access to basically all the same comforts as a billionaire, it's just that the billionaire has more of those things and nicer versions.

>Anarchy in its most extreme theoretical form isn't possible.

Exactly. It's a fun thought experiment, but is equally as implausible in real life as it would be undesirable.

> Any political language is incredibly propagandized and you always have to balance the challenges of creating different words or redefinition from the popular usage

>The fact is nothing can be said in politics or philosophy without either creating local definition within your work or assuming your audience shares your personal language

That’s fair. While I do disagree on your first point, that may also be a difference in our personal language, and how we define value. If nothing else, I suppose it did at least lead to this discourse.

Voluntary market exchanges existed for thousands of years before the creation of private property and capital. It actually took an extreme amount of violence to create private property. It was absolutely not the result of some natural tendency.

Yeah, I agree actually. The article seems to conflate socialism with "when the government does stuff". Socialism is, instead, just the democratic organization of an economy. Thus it's incompatible with liberalism.

Take the Zapatistas in Mexico. They control an anarchist autonomous zone, and their economic system is socialist in structure. Socialism and anarchism are perfectly compatible, though socialism is not necessary. One could have a communist economy that functions as a sharing or gifting economy instead, for instance.

Or, look at the autonomous zone in Syria, Rojava. It is also founded on anarchist principles, and once again, its economic structure is socialist.

Basically, if you're going to take an anarchist stance, it's also going to be anti-capitalist. That's why anarchists universally don't consider anarcho-capitalism to be a form of anarchism, because that ideology (which is mostly a byproduct of online tests like the political compass which nobody should take seriously) doesn't actually apply the anarchist critique to capitalism (which is often its primary target).

> I'm considering context and intent.

By what means did you acquire necessarily accurate knowledge (as opposed to belief) about intent? Have you spoken with the author of this piece?

> You are the ones who want to run from the words, their context and her intent to what you feel from them.

I am here engaging in conversation with you, and speaking as truthfully as I can.

I am not running from anything.

I will great that his defense of caveats was poor but the rest has value

‘Genuine’ authoritarians. ‘Actual’ libertarians. ‘True’ Anarchists. They forego entire movements and ideologies if it doesn’t meet their own self-crafted definitions.

His usage is compatible with the early usage of those words

Any political language is incredibly propagandized and you always have to balance the challenges of creating different words or redefinition from the popular usage

The fact is nothing can be said in politics or philosophy without either creating local definition within your work or assuming your audience shares your personal language

People who avoid this often have propagandistic motives

In popular usage most political words mean everything and nothing

Reminds me of pure stoicism. The only thing necessary and compulsory for a good life is to live true to your virtues and character. Impossible in practice (mostly) but some great wisdom to hold.

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If we allow people to engage in voluntary market exchange, something looking like capitalism will organically emerge. It takes authoritarianism to disrupt that. You have to use force to stop it, or to rearrange it.

I’ll get an even BIGGER group of people to overwhelm the “local defense council” (whatever such a thing would actually, specifically look like in our modern context which anarchists never explain)

Yeah. But from the article I read, it seems to suggest that the answer to the problem is not really anarchism, but just better liberal democracy. That is a liberal democracy that is less influenced by special interests.

I would defend my stuff myself or get my neighbors to help me or call the local defense council, sure. I mean, what stops you from doing that now? I see shit get vandalized every day and cops don't seem to do anything about it.

I’ll wait until you get big and then sue you for stealing the name

Wait, can I even do that in anarchy world?

No. I'm considering context and intent. You are the ones who want to run from the words, their context and her intent to what you feel from them. As witnessed by your continual refusal to engage her words.