Or, if you'd like, think of it as a team at your workplace -- but rather than having a boss all the workers set the rules for the workplace. This would be a workers collective. — Moliere

What is the difference between this and the trade unions that have been popular for a hundred years or so?

But, really, I'd emphasize doing some of the readings rather than listening to me. You'll get ideas of your own that way and the theorists explain themselves in better detail than these little maps I'm trying to make :) — Moliere

I am doing both. Reading source material and discussing in tandem.

Aha! The proof is in the pudding...

I just read in The Conquest of Bread some of what has been discussed here where it states that rather than collectivist systems of State Socialists the writer rather espouses small territories but with federation between them.

I am not saying you are full of it...yet, :) but if you are going to make such claims I think they should be backed up by real examples rather than to just say 'oh all the evidence is burned' but it is definitely right and if you don't believe me that's your problem.

PS Thanks for the welcome. :)

The basic unit of society for an anarchist is the collective, in terms of the day-to-day. One joins a collective and shares the benefits of cooperation with its members while negotaiting with other collectives. — Moliere

I would be terrified if the lowest common denominator were making decisions. Look at the Trump situation.

Then again maybe if it was on a smaller scale it would not be like that? For example like decision making in small towns rather than the lumbering hive mind you might see on a place like reddit.

Maybe in an anarchist state you would not longer have such idiots which is just a product of the diseased capitalist system. Not that I am proposing an old boy's club either but how does one ward against the least qualified person having as much say as the most qualified?

Example an anti-science climate change denier having as much say on policy as a career climate scientist?

This sounds like the stereotyped view of anarchy that capitalists would say who have done no reading on it and just taking the cliche pop culture idea of anarchy = destroy stuff. Like how communism = automatically bad and the biggest evil of earth according to the US government.

Not read anything like what you say there in the readings I have done on anarchy so far.

Of course, in a decentralized anarchist community power based system, there would be analogues to accomplish all the same tasks you mention, but mostly on the smaller scale, whether the label institution is retained or not, the answer to who has the authority is always people in genuine equality and deliberation. For example, hopefully we can still afford to have medical doctors in such a decentralized world and communities see to ensure that happens in one way or another and make the resources available to maintain the health of the community. And similarly for anything of genuine utility. — boethius

Ok, I am on board with this. I despise the mega corporations where you not able to get in touch with a human and only get automated responses.

What you write pretty much is what I had hoped anarchism would be. I am ready to sign up.

I am also a big advocate of open source technology which seems along the same lines of decentralization and power to the people.

Grass roots projects that work a million times better than the 'too big to fail' bloat of most capitalist garbage.

Anarchists, by and large, appreciate this analysis but tend to reject industrialism wholesale. If anarchists had our way (i.e. everyone woke up suddenly with a penchant for anarchism) the entire industrial system would be dismantled and production localized and power decentralized as much as possible. — boethius

Can you answer the question I posed earlier: how do anarchists propose to manage things like law enforcement, healthcare and the like if there is no government or is there government just only local government so it would be just all grass roots, cottage industry type of companies locally for all human public services?

EDIT: Also there has been talk of anarchy being about decentralization. I recently learned, when I asking whether cryptocurrency could be thought of as communist at its roots, that crypto is squarely in the realm of Libertarianism. So with that in mind, how does Libertarianism and Anarchism differ bearing in mind both want decentralization and general agreement for small government?

We have a good debate going now and I am learning a lot and it is good to have different minds chiming in on the subject.

Now these bitesize chunks are more manageable for my puny brain to compute.

On gardens, I was having a discussion at one time about that with someone I used to volunteer with, on a garden.

I think we were discussing communes and the positives of alternative communities and I suggested they would be pleased at someone buying a piece of land and working on it but then he said on the contrary they would not like it as they rather want communal living centralized to save on resources and that a self-sufficient person would be deemed as wasteful compared to collectivism.

Ok I have started intoThe Conquest of Bread and right from the preface it is chock full of historical references, so far of socialism and communism and much talk of the French Revolution and adjacent episodes, so it is easy to get a better idea of its placement in the grand scheme.

It does root it a lot better now right out the gate and can now have a better foothold of which avenues to further my research.

Indeed. Aka the map is not the territory.

Ok so I will add The Conquest of Bread and Utopia to the reading list.

With all the talk of the differences where then where does this mixing of anarchist communism come from? Maybe it will naturally reveal itself as I read more about the roots of these movements but perhaps a preface?

EDIT: Oh I see that anarchism seems to be labelled by default as anarchist communism is that right? in that vanilla anarchism is interchangeable with anarchist communism? as I have just downloaded The Conquest of Bread and it is labelled as anarchist communism.

EDIT2: Oh no, it seems by chance this book just happens to be about anarchist communism, with other flavours also existing. From the wikipedia:

The publication of the text was a watershed moment in anarchist history, being the first time that a completed and in-depth theoretical work of anarchist communism was available to the public.[2] The publication of the text shifted the focus of anarchism from individualist, mutualist and collectivist strains to social and communist tendencies.[2] This shift would prove to be one of the most enduring changes in the history of anarchism as anarchism developed throughout the 20th century with Kropotkin and The Conquest of Bread as firm reference points.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Conquest_of_Bread

A beginner won’t have the time to get through Marx if they feel obliged to read your rambling mega-posts. — Jamal

:smile:

I realize it's popular today to perceive oneself to be an intellectual without having read anything concerning the topics at hand, but that's really not how it works. — boethius

Ok, seems you did take umbrage with that passive aggressive quip at the end.

I said in my OP I was eager to know what to read and never implied to be an intellectual. I bore my soul that I know nothing and want to learn more about the topics.

You may have a vast knowledge in the subject matter but perhaps not the best skill to impart it. That was all I meant by the comments.

Of course you can just say 'gtfo, do your own research and come back to me' if you want. No one is paying anyone for professional services. Those are just my comments.

But a rough-and-ready differentiation I could provide would be -- both are radical political philosophies. By "radical" I mean that they posit some underlying mechanism that is the result of many problems within current society. For Marx that radical center to society is the mode of production of a given society, which in turn is defined by ownership relationships to wealth production through labor-time, and so changing this mode of production is its goal for a classless society. For anarchy the radical center to society are hierarchical social relationships, so in order to develop an anarchist society we change our social relations such that we no longer hold hierarchical positions towards others. — Moliere

Ok reading this on a new day I see this looks to be a good summation and what Boethius also echoed.

So marxism the revolution is economic and the rest sorts itself out and anarchism is social structure and the rest sorts itself out?

It is interesting to question which is 'right', perhaps there are more than one way to skin a cat? I have often thought much of the ills of society are the product of rapacious greed and self centeredness, only think of number one, which I feel is a product of the underlying model capitalism.

Capitalism is only really discussed as an economic model yet clearly has effects on social structure. Most people are only interested in helping out those who can do something for them or otherwise in their small network of allies.

If thinking of the remedy, from your description above, I could imagine either could ameliorate it. Perhaps the question on which is better is which would bring least ills of their own once enacted.

The general goal of most anarchists, such as myself, is genuinely accountable and decentralized governance. — boethius

Indeed, this is what led me to an interest in anarchy over communism, where the thought of communism being centralized control, albeit by the proletariat, seemed less than ideal.

How are things like law enforcement or everyday services like roads and healthcare handled under this system?

I appreciate the effort but respectfully there is too much here in one, or several, mind dump/s to be able to work with and is not accessible for me.

Looking up and unpacking all the points would take days which stymies an active back and forth debate.

We were taught in essay writing to make one point and hammer it home well. Not trying to tell you how to write, and hope it does not sound preachy, just that it is my experience that that is easier to digest.

Again not trying to be ungrateful as it is clearly a well written reply but I am just saying that it is a wall of information and would take me a long time to climb it!

Hopefully it does not come off as disrespectful, I was just saying it was very challenging and puts the brakes on active debate, which was my intent of the thread.

I treat anarchism as left libertarianism unless it's otherwise qualified. Even though the word 'anarchy' literally just means without a leader or without government, the historical actuality is that anarchism as a political tradition is left-wing. — Jamal

Thanks for the welcome and other replies so far. I will give more fulsome comments to the others in due course but this naturally leads me to another question I have posed around this same subject:

What are the differences between libertarianism and anarchism as prima facie they seem to be aiming at a similar target of 'do not interfere with me!' but I think upon inspection they would quickly part ways? similar to how far left and far right extremes of the spectrum might both have a hatred of government but that may be where the similarities end.

From the little I have read, especially some of the snips I have read where is does seem much more than the childish (punk) rebellion for rebellion's sake it is make out to be in pop culture, it does seem to 'vibe' well on the far Left, even though anarchists might say they are nothing to do with that common axis. Again, I cannot qualify that statement properly, yet. :)

Anyway late in the evening now so don't feel I have the capacity to do things justice at this time. Will come back afresh to this thread on the morrow. A good start though! Cheers.