EquALLity wrote:
At least not the ones I read about, not if you're comparing them to societies with governments. Feel free to educate.
Anarchist societies fail by their own standards, because they always form authoritative structures of some kind (usually based on shunning and exile, or some cult leader who usually goes crazy and manipulates people or locks them up until they behave).
Which do you think were a success?
EquALLity wrote:
Are you saying that peaceful societies cannot exist when built only on people working together?
That's pretty close.
Basically, it can work only if all of the forces precisely cancel- the social analogy would be if every person were precisely the same as to level of satisfaction, power, etc., with no variance.
That turns out to be impossible, because there are always minor perturbances, and as soon as the levitated object (in this case, capitalism being suspended) leans in one direction the smallest bit, there's an increased attraction from that direction which causes it to lean more, which increases the attraction more, etc.
Power magnifies in capitalism, which is what makes it inherently unstable. Capitalism always results in concentration of power until monopoly is reached, which can only be fixed by an outside stabilizing force acting on it.
If you're levitating things with magnets, that can be a small string tying it down, or an active system that controls electromagnets that keep it balanced.
All of these things represent some kind of authority in government, keeping the unchecked growth and injustice of capitalism in-check.
It turns out that government acts similarly- whereby in any system power tends to collect and corrupt. That's why authority within authority was established, with different branches of government having checks and balances against each other to seek a form of stability. And some form of democratic accountability to override the worst forms of opaque corruption. Even our best forms of government aren't perfectly stable, but so far they come close.
Your 'pure' Anarchism is absolute instability. Either capitalism takes over, or an authority forms to prevent it. Set it into balance, and as soon as you take your finger off it, it begins to decay.
Communism is a thing. Government is used to suppress capitalism and keep that system stable- but the means of stabilizing it turned out to be impractical (today, there might be ways to make it practical, but that's all theoretical).
Anarcho-capitalism is a thing- government is removed and capitalism is allowed to run wild and do whatever it was inclined to do (the levitating object just gets smashed into some magnet and stays there in a state of injustice). The idea that the rich would help the poor and make everything OK after that is the matter of contention.
Anarcho-communism isn't even a thing. It's not a coherent position you can hold.
EquALLity wrote:
I could apply that to any random nonsense. It doesn't automatically make the point being argued true.
All you are doing is negating, that you don't believe something- my point is that your disbelief is not an argument.
EquALLity wrote:
I wasn't just like, "zomg, anarchism? so kool!!! #yolo #nogawdsnomasters #anarchist4life #rebel"
That's what it looks like. That's what all anarcho-communists look like. Because they're advocating an impossible system.
You'r advocating square-circleism.
I'm sorry if calling an absurd thing absurd offends you, but it's true.
EquALLity wrote:
I actually thought and learned about it. Ok?
If you think it could actually work, you did no such thing. That's like a Christian saying they've thought about how logical god is, and that it makes so much sense and must be through because they have reasoned this. At the very most you
felt about it, or daydreamed about it, but you didn't really think about it.
You can't really think about square circles in any coherent way. Things that are logically incoherent do not bear thinking.
EquALLity wrote:
I didn't just switch from liberalism to anarcho communism. I don't even fully identify that way yet. I'm still kinda on the fence.
That's good then.
Then you can learn why it can't possibly work.
EquALLity wrote:
Capitalism is oppressive, what you're saying is like a very religious anti-gay marriage person saying that by allowing gay marriage, we are oppressing him because gay marriage is against his religion. It reminds me of something I saw a long time ago... "How dare you oppress my right to oppress others!"
You didn't understand my argument at all.
I'm not saying capitalism is good. I'm saying it's a natural consequence. Natural does not equal right.
In order to suppress something that's natural- whether that natural thing is good or bad- you have to use an equal and opposite force to do so, and use means to stabilize it (authority of some kind) to hold it in balance.
EquALLity wrote:
I just disagree. I don't think that people are as stupid as you make them out to be.
You have a lot of reading to do. Look at elevatorgate.
Even the seemingly most rational people can be incredibly irrational. It's human nature.
That's why we need checks and balances. That's why we need adversarial politics. That's why we need Judges, juries, and opposing counsels in courts. That's why we need criticism, and peer review.
We are creatures of bias, ego, and cognitive dissonance. This is basic psychology, and it's the foundation of the scientific method.
When we are rational, and it's rare enough, we force each other to be rational through a delicate system of interconnected shared social authority which has hard rules, limits, and the ability to enforce them.
Why aren't hollow earthers and flat earthers allowed equal voices in geophysics? Authority. They're not allowed into the classrooms, they aren't permitted to teach those things in universities. Not only are they not taken seriously, they're physically locked out of the building if they try, they aren't allowed in the scientific journals.
Science has formed a collective authority which is hostile to pseudoscience and has a monopoly on grants and government funding to pursue its ends. This only works through meritocratic authority. You can't just tear down those barriers and imagine that everything just keeps working.
Wiki summarizes a couple of the criticisms well, which are some of the things I have said.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticisms_of_anarchism
Notice that the rebuttals to criticism amount to renouncing anarchism. Add them all up, and Anarchism that solves the problems of anarchism is no longer anarchism at all.
Anarchism isn't a political stance, it's a dogma that has no basis in reality.