Excellent find. I too have been going through anarchist literature to find some choice citations for the conversation.

I am not sure I am buying their premise police only came about at the time of colonialism? — unimportant

Police as we know it today is not an extension of feudal systems of justice. Why you rarely see "police" in anything to do with the medieval period (history, movies, fantasy, literature, whatever) but instead protagonists would interact with people like "the watchmen".

Before police, communities ensured their own basic security shared among community members, such as regular and changing watchmen duty.

Likewise, your medieval fantasy protagonists may also interact with "inspectors" or "detective" or "investigators" of some kind in a medieval setting, which is another system completely distinct from the watchmen to investigate crime.

Investigators of crime were also often also not similar to police but a position of some wise distinction. For example, Isaac Newton was asked to investigate a counterfeiting conspiracy.

The church (priests often being the only people who could read until the next church) also did a lot of investigating.

Nearly all crime in society was community crime and would be resolved at the community level, often by some feat of strength. A crime would need to be against some Lord or church in someway or then particularly serious to be resolved outside the community. Keep in mind people dueling to the death was often a dispute resolution mechanism during most of this time which requires no investigation at all.

The most common form of justice process was simply taking one's case to the local chief or lord who would hear out whatever anyone had to say and decide the issue.

Point is there is a complex system of justice (with certainly a lot to criticize) but for the vast majority of people and the vast majority of both security needs and dealing with some sort of offence it was community based involving members of the community and in the interests of the community.

Police is an entirely different system of justice than what existed in feudal times and emerges out of colonialization as an occupation army needing to pacify the local population. Police are not members of the community with duties to and interest in the community but a garrison force imposed on the local population to serve the interests of a distant power.

In this colonial setting of dealing with insurgencies or simply forcing cultural changes on local populations that are not easy, a whole host of methods needed to be developed.

The foundation of this system is that the police officer is not a member of the community and has no meaningful community ties and has no reason to form sympathies with the community they are policing. The overall objective of an occupation force is to suppress any sort of mass uprising, hence "justice" is mostly arbitrary and severe and entirely concerned with the protection of the occupying states "property" (such as whatever they are pillaging and looting) and not the health of the community.

Now, this system then spreads in Europe through a series of stages, including Napoleon's conquest and spreading "the code" that was a state power based substitute to "liberty, equality, fraternity" of the revolution that Napoleon was protecting by being an emperor.

The justification that police are not members of the community and imposed by the state and working for the centre of power (i.e. the same relation between colonized people and an occupying army) is that justice is therefore "impartial" and "blind". Of course, it's not impartial but works for the central state and represents the interests of the central state.

Methods that are natural in occupation (that occupation soldiers are not members of the community) were discovered could be simulated, such as just sending police from one part of a country to another part where they have no community ties.

Another critical part of pacification of a population is disarming ordinary citizens and therefore the use of arms becoming a specialized occupation on behalf of the state. The state becomes the paternal figure and citizens essentially children who need to be supervised by police.

So that is the short version.

Of course, you can have community based and involved security and justice systems. Since police don't do a good job (and are specifically selected for their lower-than-average IQ so as not to be able to think for themselves and follow orders) such systems natural arise in any case.

Was just reading Emma Goldman's essay on the police and prison system and will be positing some citations shortly.

A lot of Emma Goldman's writing are available for free at the gutenberg.org

https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/2162

Is a link to "Anarchism and Other Essays".

An example of a choice quote mentioned:

If, then, the States can be instrumental in robbing their helpless victims of such tremendous profits, is it not high time for organized labor to stop its idle howl, and to insist on decent remuneration for the convict, even as labor organizations claim for themselves? In that way workingmen would kill the germ which makes of the prisoner an enemy to the interests of labor. I have said elsewhere that thousands of convicts, incompetent and without a trade, without means of subsistence, are yearly turned back into the social fold. These men and women must live, for even an ex-convict has needs. Prison life has made them anti-social beings, and the rigidly closed doors that meet them on their release are not likely to decrease their bitterness. The inevitable result is that they form a favorable nucleus out of which scabs, blacklegs, detectives, and policemen are drawn, only too willing to do the master's bidding. Thus organized labor, by its foolish opposition to work in prison, defeats its own ends. It helps to create poisonous fumes that stifle every attempt for economic betterment. If the workingman wants to avoid these effects, he should INSIST on the right of the convict to work, he should meet him as a brother, take him into his organization, and WITH HIS AID TURN AGAINST THE SYSTEM WHICH GRINDS THEM BOTH. — Anarchism and Other Essays

Of course the main evil of police is the whole justice system of essentially disappearing citizens from the community and imprisoning them without possibility of work, generally in a process without any effective rights for the poor.

Also an example of one historic difference between socialism and anarchism is that unions, of a more socialist bent, were against paid convict labour, more or less out of prejudice, even though convicts then generally work for free anyways, which is an even worse source of competition.

But Emma Goldman's main concern (other than the injustice and brutality of the system) is how can society possibly expect convicts to have a law abiding life after prison if they can't work and save up some money.

Anarchist ideas that eventually get implemented in placed like Scandinavia.

Also this issue of police is a good example of Anarchism being more of a framework covering a lot more moral and political issues than socialism, which is more focused on the ownership of the means of production. Socialists would argue that's because that's what's most important and therefore should be essentially the only focus. At least in the 19th century; today it's more a difference in style and connotation; a self described anarchist could easily have far more in common with a self-described socialist or Marxist then fellow self-described anarchists, and likewise for the socialists.

Ok your explanation of pre industrial/pre policing makes it make more sense. Does that mean that the watchmen style of dispute settlement, being community driven, was more along the anarchist model?

Does that mean that the watchmen style of dispute settlement, being community driven, was more along the anarchist model? — unimportant

Exactly, and it also highlights that basic community security is not even the same category as the investigation of crime, it's very much two different things.

Everyone who is able in a community could volunteer to guard and provide security and general assistance, break up bar fights etc. People in the community can also provide much better assistance due to knowing people and community bonds and so on. And where there is simply no resources for police that's what happens! Bunch of citizens get deputized.

Of course doesn't mean some specialists aren't still required such as firemen and paramedics, but the watchmen model is A. super cheap as people volunteer time B. more effective because people have community bonds that are relevant to emergency / security assistance C. have interest in whatever they are guarding (people, animal, property etc. in a healthy community where everyone has a stake) and D. whatever problems arise in such a system it is by definition focused on the interests of the community due to simply being made of members of the community and cannot possibly be carried out in the interests of a distant power.

Why people correctly understood when external police started to show up that this was the same as an occupying army (it's just the soldiers of some lord or state far away guarding their interests in your community).

As for criminal investigation, that is actually another category of activity and of course in that context often does make sense for someone external to the community to come and investigate. However, in local systems of justice before escalating to an external investigation (of course outside things like murder) communities left to their own devices naturally first try to find consensus solutions. "The elders talk" sort of process that results in proposals that all parties the conflict may accept.

As disputes often are a longer term process of bad blood essentially that then culminates in some crisis, and in most cases there is some reconciliation process capable of healing the community rift.

Which brings up the necessity in the police model of criminalizing normal activity that communities generally have zero problem with, like smoking weed. There needs to be justification for constant police presence to constantly surveil and intimidate local populations, so normal things are always criminalized in order to then justify the whole system. When this system was put in place in order to control and suppress industrial workers, simply not having a job was criminalized.

All that being said, there is a faction of anarchism that I put in the "speculative anarchism" category which is a debate of what would happen if there was real anarchism, and this faction argues crime disappear completely.

I don't think many serious thinkers entertain the idea today, but when this movement started in Europe there was only one governing model of feudalism people were familiar with so there really wasn't any experience (from anthropology or archeology or then making new systems) on which to judge "what would happen" questions.

However, most, if not all, anarchists today would argue that with a healthy system in which people have effective equal power (or close to it) then crime would be much, much, much less. And in the places in the world that have followed many of Emma Goldman's recommendations (such as in the Nordics where I live) crime is significantly reduced. In particular, what has the greatest impact, is rehabilitation based sentencing where people can work (even go to work outside the prison), prisons are coed as to be more socially normal, and significant effort is placed into stopping the cycle of crime where prisons produce more and more hardened criminals and networks.

This is a super good talk of the cop problem in contemporary times:



Of particular interest is not only what's criminalized (such as completely normal social activity such as smoking weed and eating magic mushrooms that's been going on since prehistoric times and actual communities don't have a problem with so creating a justification for omnipresent policing) but also what's not criminalized such as wage theft. You steal 100 dollars from your employer: straight to jail. Employer steal thousands of dollars from employees: zero consequence, likely never ever have to pay anything.

Now, an apologist for the system with some technical understanding will explain the difference between criminal issues and civil issues (and unpaid debts is a civil issue), however, nearly all wage theft also involves fraud and extortion, namely claiming there is nothing owed and various forms of coercion to dissuade from seeking what's owed, which are criminal issues and are simply ignored by the system.

Why? Because police act on behalf of the interests of the state and the state represents the interests of the upper class which are employers. Police are simply mafia goons of the biggest mafia. You may say police also sometimes do good things too ... but so too mafia goons.

Another important topic is the trauma the system inflicts on wide segments of the lower class. Trauma that directly harms individuals and communities making them less effective political actors as well as dissuades any political actions for fear of police inflicted trauma.

An example brought up the the "Copaganda" author is a guy he met in jail who was there due to not being able to pay 100 dollars and while he's there his beloved dog dies due to no one being able to feed it. This sort of trauma is absolutely what cops, wardens, prosecutors, judges and prison guards love to inflict (does that mean they're all bad people who are going to burn in hell? A topic for the theology section, but I'm going with yes), and is completely natural to the system, but would be incredibly rare in a community based justice system (or even if there was some sort of community structure that cared for community members so as to mitigate harms from the state). If a community was dealing with someone who really did owe 100 dollars ... would anyone with any actual social bonds to the person be in favour of letting his dog die of starvation while they dealt with the issue? Very unlikely, and if it did happen most everyone else would just view that as animal abuse of knowing letting an animal starve to death. However, police, prosecutors, wardens, guards and judges can have in our system the exact same state of knowledge and do the exact same crime of animal abuse, but most people in our society will still lick their boots. Does that make people therefore mostly pathetic and have no worth whatsoever, that they could be thrown into the abyss tomorrow and existence would be none the less for it; don't know, going with yes.

Yup -- that'd be the utopian version of both, but in terms of differentiating them and trying to wrap your mind around it that's a good simplification. — Moliere

Even more simpler, the difference between anarchy and Marxism is similar to the difference between the social order of cats and the social order of ants/bees.

You're going to have to expand on this cats / bees hypotheses.

You're going to have to expand on this cats / bees hypotheses. — boethius

You're telling me I need to tell you about the cats and the bees?

AI's response to the above question:
Cats are generally solitary hunters but can form social groups, particularly in feral conditions. These groups, often consisting of related females and their offspring, are not based on a strict hierarchy like dog packs. Instead, social bonds and affiliations between cats are more flexible and can shift based on individual preferences and resource availability.

Ants live in complex, hierarchical colonies where different roles are assigned based on caste, a term referring to job class. The social structure is characterized by a queen, workers, soldiers, and males, each with distinct functions crucial to the colony's survival.

Kinda-sorta, if we squint. As metaphor, but not reality.

The danger there is that anarchists are more organized than cats, and Marxists are less organized than ants. Further, ants only look like they have a hierarchy -- a queen ant and the workers -- but that's our hierarchical prejudices being projected upon the social form of ants. Ants are far more invested in the collective than any human ever has been.

If I were to use animal metaphors I'd say that anarchy expresses our bonobo side and marxism expresses our chimpanzee side, with the intent of dismantling the chimpanzee side. In order to topple hierarchies hierarchies are necessary evils simply because that's always what's worked before. But for the anarchist in order to topple hierarchies we have to start living like they aren't there, and learn how to chill out and have sex all the time without exploiting one another.

Please do.

Or am I to understand that the promiscuous relationship between birds and bees is preserved over a wide range of different taxonomic categories?

News to me, but I'm intrigued

But for the anarchist in order to topple hierarchies we have to start living like they aren't there, and learn how to chill out and have sex all the time without exploiting one another. — Moliere

Indeed you are wise in the ways of science.

The danger there is that anarchists are more organized than cats, and Marxists are less organized than ants. Further, ants only look like they have a hierarchy -- a queen ant and the workers -- but that's our hierarchical prejudices being projected upon the social form of ants. Ant's are far more invested in the collective than any human ever has been. — Moliere

I guess that depends on which definition of "anarchy" and "hierarchy" you are using.

If I were to use animal metaphors I'd say that anarchy expresses our bonobo side and marxism expresses our chimpanzee side, with the intent of dismantling the chimpanzee side. In order to topple hierarchies hierarchies are necessary evils simply because that's always what's worked before. But for the anarchist in order to topple hierarchies we have to start living like they aren't there, and learn how to chill out and have sex all the time without exploiting one another. — Moliere

Again, the AI response:
Bonobos live in matriarchal, female-dominated societies, where females lead the group and maintain strong bonds with each other. They are known for their peaceful and tolerant interactions, often resolving conflicts through socio-sexual behavior like "gg rubbing". In contrast, chimpanzees have a more hierarchical social structure, with males holding a dominant position and engaging in aggressive behaviors, including territorial defense and intergroup conflicts.

It seems to me that you are saying that a social structure is only hierarchical if it is male-dominated. If only the females were in charge, us men would get more sex? Somehow I doubt that would be the case. More likely, only some men would get more sex and all the others would be left limp.

It seems to me that you are saying that a social structure is only hierarchical if it is male-dominated. — Harry Hindu

That's interesting.

It's not what I think.

I think there is a history of patriarchal hierarchy within human culture that continues on into today, but I'd be hesitant to apply that to all hierarchies ever. The sci-fi scenario of a matriarchy but like a patriarchy where the women rule in a hierarchy would be an obvious counter-example that we can think of as a possibility so I wouldn't say "only".

Rather, I'm using closer cousins to get at a metaphor for two sides of human nature -- not that nature is fixed in some sense, but these are two strategies which species like us employ in resolving differences within the social organism.

However, on the topic of the two strategies, there is a strategically compatible version between the forms of anarchism and socialism / marxism you describe.

Both groups want to push on the doors of power in order to effect deep social change that despite different emphasis and other differences there can be fundamental agreement, such as effective equality in decision making, abolition / curtailing the impacts of the current system of private property, and devolution. Maybe differences in preferred policy, but agreement on the foundational goals.

Now, as you say:

In order to topple hierarchies hierarchies are necessary evils simply because that's always what's worked before. — Moliere

Is a logical conclusion. Coercive hierarchies rarely just "give up" and they usually only change through toppling due to one method of pressuring the system or another; obviously existing democratic mechanism, no matter how flawed, is one method.

So, to use the metaphor of pushing on the doors of power the socialists strategy is to always be pushing, doesn't matter how unlikely it seems it will move in the foreseeable future. When enough people come to push to make a difference is chaotic and unpredictable so they are always pushing on that door in case others join and suddenly reach crucial mass. Both their pushing back prevents losing ground and also leads by example.

But for the anarchist in order to topple hierarchies we have to start living like they aren't there, and learn how to chill out and have sex all the time without exploiting one another. — Moliere

The anarchists see that the door isn't moving ... also not exactly clear what would happen if it did move and the socialists got through. Of course, that results aren't guaranteed doesn't justify not doing anything, as the status quo cannot be justified simply because change is unpredictable. There's a learning process going on.

So, to hedge against the possibility that toppling the hierarchy is not effective or leads to something even worse, the anarchist leaves the door and seeks to teach people a better way of living through mostly example (such as not beating your kids, gardening and other local economy activity, helping the poor, building local decision making structures and so on).

On a surface level this seems to be a disinterest in the toppling the hierarchy but from this anarchist perspective, and easily part of the socialist perspective also, part of the same strategy. As demonstrating alternatives to the system undermines faith in the system.

Yes, if power is doing evil shit people should push back on that. However, if there are no better ideas on how to live out there (such as proving organic agriculture is viable) there is no practical vision of a better society to build if and when the current power structure fails.

At the same time, if no one's pushing back there's no seed of social opposition that can grow into a critical mass to change power structures. For, we're dealing with exponential processes.

So if there's no one constantly pushing at the door there's no seed of an exponential process that suddenly results in masses of people pushing on the door. At the same time, if no one's out there trying to demonstrate better forms of social structure, then there's no motivation to change things if it's not clear what the change can be.

From this perspective, therefore, contemporary socialism and anarchism are simply two roles in the same social movement. The uniting foundation is if there is agreement on democratic principles which would resolve other differences.

Rather, I'm using closer cousins to get at a metaphor for two sides of human nature -- not that nature is fixed in some sense, but these are two strategies which species like us employ in resolving differences within the social organism. — Moliere

I don't think limiting ourselves to our closer cousins is the way to go. If you want to exclude some species because you claim that they are not what they appear to be (hierarchical), then I will disagree and just say that all social structures are strategies for resolving differences within the social organism and should be taken into account and compared with each other. When you do that, the social structure of ants/bees more closely resembles the utopia Marx envisioned where the resources are owned by the entire society.

Cats only like to share their resources with close family and friends.

Sure, if I squint I see that. But analogies are more pedagogical or helps us to orient ourselves -- the thing itself isn't either of the animal metaphors, but human social organization. So it will differ from our closer cousins, even, it's just a metaphor for thinking through things.

Is that really true though?

Ants and bees in a colony are all brothers / sisters so are essentially a nuclear family and won't share with other colonies more genetically distant. Fun fact, too small a genetic pool of an invasive ant species resulted in a mega-colony (where new colonies don't compete with other colonies as they identity as siblings) in California.

It's also not clear how this relates to differences in anarchism and socialism, as both, generally speaking, want shared resources over the whole of humanity.

Anarchists tend to make small projects to develop and exemplify best practices that could be scaled up through revolution of one form or another (such as toppling corporate control of agriculture).

My own focus has been on local and open source solar thermal technology. Anarchists of this school tend to want to seed such ideas and practices all over the place, and not stay isolated in some analogue of the family. Both socialists and anarchists try to form networks and groups of mutual support generally speaking.

Yeah I see a sort of "dialectic" between them -- in some way it feels like the two "fill out" one another, and by keeping that tension in a single political philosophy we build in some kind of way for people to make appeals which curb each philosophies excesses.

That's why I think on how to make anarcho-Marxism coherent: there's something there, but people will immediately balk at it if they don't know much about either. And it's not like we live in a world that rewards people for knowing about radical political theory, so it's understandable why people believe what they do: this adds to the challenge of making it coherent due to the multitude of perspectives that one has to appeal to.

↪boethius Yeah I see a sort of "dialectic" between them -- in some way it feels like the two "fill out" one another, and by keeping that tension in a single political philosophy we build in some kind of way for people to make appeals which curb each philosophies excesses. — Moliere

Exactly if you did start out with 10 socialists with the same ideology pushing on that door of state power and no one else in society gives a shit (at the moment) a logical conclusion of their strategic deliberations would be that it would be more efficient for 5 to stay and keep fighting the battle against the state but for 5 to go out there and try to spread the message of the cause and develop examples of how things could be different.

Likewise, if you had 10 anarchists doing anarchist things and they saw that state power was gaining significant ground as no one was pushing back, they may conclude that 5 of them need to go and resist so that things don't get too bad and that there's a seed of resistance if social conscience suddenly changes as they are aiming to do.

The differences between these schools was more extreme in the 19th century when it was possible for both to be far more naive. It was possible for socialist to believe if they just took over the sate they could usher in peace and prosperity for the working class, and it was possible for anarchists to believe that if you just ignored the state or then got rid of it directly by a campaign of random assassination, that people would naturally self organize in an entirely friendly and efficient way without the oppressive yoke of the state.

Obviously history has made those positions untenable, so with that learning both schools have converged on more nuanced and hedged thinking.

Indeed, the only people in this more general movement I have real difference with are anarchists who continue the 19th century ignore the state completely idea. The state has proven too powerful to simply ignore, so on that point I am in complete agreement with my socialist comrades. Of course what exactly we can do about it is a different question, but clearly state power cannot simply be ignored; mainly due to the damages to ecosystems of the current system, "eventually we'll get there" thinking isn't viable (due to planetary damages that were not so clear in the 19th century).

Sure, if I squint I see that. But analogies are more pedagogical or helps us to orient ourselves -- the thing itself isn't either of the animal metaphors, but human social organization. So it will differ from our closer cousins, even, it's just a metaphor for thinking through things. — Moliere

My point is that we need real world examples to map these ideas to. If we can't find real world examples, then they are just ideas untethered to reality.

Have there been any anarchist societies (seems like a contradiction to me), or societies that reflect Marx's vision in human history? If so, how does that compare to the other social structures that exist, like democracies, republics, libertarian's limited government, despotism, and monarchies? While there are similarities among them all, what are the key differences that make them separate?

Ants and bees in a colony are all brothers / sisters so are essentially a nuclear family and won't share with other colonies more genetically distant. — boethius

Good point.

My own focus has been on local and open source solar thermal technology. Anarchists of this school tend to want to seed such ideas and practices all over the place, and not stay isolated in some analogue of the family. Both socialists and anarchists try to form networks and groups of mutual support generally speaking. — boethius

But this can be said of many social structures so is not a defining property of anarchy.

Have there been any anarchist societies (seems like a contradiction to me), or societies that reflect Marx's vision in human history? — Harry Hindu

I'm willing to include some in those categories, yeah.

Let's say for Marx The Soviet Union, and for anarchists the Anarchism in Spain -- so not just theories but some historical examples.

But this can be said of many social structures so is not a defining property of anarchy. — Harry Hindu

My school of anarchy is more a framework of social analysis and not the positing of any particular social structure or set of policies.

This sort of "Kropotkin framework" takes the view people have been fighting for freedom, personal expression, healthy community bonds, since coercive social structure first emerged, and so this prehistorical idea of liberty and respect for others is not at all unique to anarchism.

Kropotkin and similar anarchists, including Bertrand Russel, are constantly pointing out that Jesus was this kind of anarchist and also the Buddha, and considering the power of coercive social structures there would not still be a battle for individual rights, liberty, creativity and participation in governance if this desire was not essentially innate in humans.

Therefore, in this framework it is not surprising that plenty of political-philosophies propose ideas Kropotkin anarchists are aligned with, as the goals are fairly universal (it's quite rare to find someone who actually wants others to suffer needless or for their enjoyment; they exist, but not the norm of humanity, and people who don't want others to suffer needlessly is not surprising will often come to the same ideas on how to do that).

In this sense Kropotkin anarchism is not espousing one particular social structure or one particular set of policies, but seeks to build a framework of analysis in order to add new things to the social conscience. By taking a deep look at history and the challenges people fighting for the ever present flame of effective equality, creative freedom and respect, very different challenges have been faced by very different people in very different circumstance and cultures. So there is a lot to learn form all the freedom fighters from all the world and from all the past.

Now, given that learning, the question the Kropotkin anarchist seeks to answer is what new idea could be useful where I am in my particular circumstance and culture, or then bring somewhere else or then from else to here etc. It's a sort of "think historically, act contemporanously" approach to political analysis and strategy.

This point of view is more comfortable with multi-generational change, so what's going to be accomplished in our time maybe limited but we only have the tools and knowledge to be fighting for justice at all because our predecessors bequeathed us knowledge and tools so we are responsible to do the same for the next generation, at the least.

And what is particular to Kropotkin is that things are chaotic and developing and adapting. The coercive system adapts to any methods that prove effective, and therefore it is the task of the anarchist to likewise adapt and develop new methods.

Therefore, this kind of anarchist framework does not strive to agree (between such anarchists) on a particular set of policies today and build a particular party and try to take power and implement those policies (and call it anarchism). The goal is not to create a mass social movement called "anarchism" in this school. Does not mean one policy is not better than another, and one party is not better than another, nor mass movement for good particulars are not a good thing, but what's viable today in party politics hardly ever makes sense to call anarchism, but it can make perfect sense for anarchists to be involved in whatever party it is that is most effectively pushing back against state power and try to implement better social policy and push on that door of power when it seems the moment for it.

The social function of the word anarchism in this framework is as a signal between anarchists who are "in the know" to make clear however mad it seems their activity seems to be there could be something there to consider, while also inviting the curious to learn more about anarchism, and to everyone else it is just dismissed and "edge lord speak" and doesn't matter; I went around for a decade as a corporate chair and managing director calling myself an anarchist at every opportunity and other corporate executives either got the joke or ignore it, but it does I think help inspire the younger generation of corporate neophytes to demonstrate you can be good at your job and not speak and internalize banal corporate efficiency discourse; that was the basic point I was trying to make with the choice of diction in the corporate environment.

One way to understand this framework idea is that modern (uncorrupted) scientists are not bothered by disagreement on particular scientific issues; modern uncorrupted physicists do not view their goal as to come to an agreement on a particular set of physics ideas and then deliver that to society so that everyone else believes the same thing about physics too. Modern physics and cosmology is a framework in which you can have differences and debate. Of course, plenty of things have been resolved to be clearly true in a particular range of circumstances, and "doing physics" is a process involving exploration and error. When a physicist, or more likely mathematician let's be honest, discovered something new and profound that results eventually in new technology, people then implementing and using that technology do not then call themselves "physicists".

Likewise, if anarchists develop a new form of schooling called "not beating the children" and it happens to be an effective social technology, it does not then require to call, and makes little sense to do, anarchist everyone that then uses this novel social technology (novel in the Western context), just as it makes no sense to call yourself a mathematician simply due to using a computer. Likewise, if anarchists develop organic agriculture techniques, it does not require for all farmers that use those techniques to call themselves anarchists. And of course, anarchists are not the only people engaged in developing novel forms of social technology that can advance the cause of freedom, respect and harmony with the natural world, and so are as keen to learn from and work with others developing good things for whatever reason, as with fellow self-described anarchists.

"Anarchism" as such is only a Western intellectual label on a general "esprit" that goes deep into humanity's past and is cross cultural and manifest in nearly all spheres of human activity, if only in glimpses and sparks.

The profound version of the doctrine of the propaganda of the deed is that if something new and good gets developed then it should spread due to its inherent goodness regardless of what it is called and if anyone even remembers who started it.

I've made a thread proposing the basic theory of what I've been talking about solar thermal wise.

It is in the lounge: https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/16010/the-solar-socialist-revolution

As it's important it's therefore lounge business, but I mention here for those forum denizens that have not yet upgraded their critical thinking activity to mostly just lounging around.

However, on the topic of the two strategies, there is a strategically compatible version between the forms of anarchism and socialism / marxism you describe.

Both groups want to push on the doors of power in order to effect deep social change that despite different emphasis and other differences there can be fundamental agreement, such as effective equality in decision making, abolition / curtailing the impacts of the current system of private property, and devolution. Maybe differences in preferred policy, but agreement on the foundational goals. — boethius

I am glad the conversation has naturally come back to the comparing of the two as the communism part, queried in the OP, had fallen behind. I take responsibility for that though as I expressed increased interest in the anarchism due to my relative lack of understanding of that.

I would now be interested in looking at the nuances of communism again.

Going back to the attempts of communism that have already gone before vein, how would you explain the seeming success of small scale communes of the 60s and 70s hippy movement, as well as your various examples going further back, mostly in the religious context, comparing those to the 'famous disasters' of china and russia et al that capitalist detractors are always so quick to jump to as being the only logical conclusion of communism.

I have seen it claimed many times that those hippy communes were 'based on communist values' but I am not sure how except general shared responsibility of labour and everyday concerns. Isn't that just how smallish units would work anyway, like a family? What makes them specifically 'communist inspired'?

Why did those small sects seem to putter along without much incident while the big state wide endeavours leave huge blots on human history? Is it just a matter of scale or other factors? I would like to explore this, as to why the big attempts have had, invariably, to my knowledge, big failures and what led that to happen? How to refute the claim that 'communism doesn't work just look at these examples'?

How could it work on a large nation/world scale, and what would be different if attempted again on that level to avoid the mistakes of the past?

It's also not clear how this relates to differences in anarchism and socialism, as both, generally speaking, want shared resources over the whole of humanity. — boethius

Yes I don't know why this getting hung up on the semantics of an analogy, which is, as is commonly understood of the term, not the thing in itself.

I point back to the map is not the territory as discussed earlier.

by a campaign of random assassination — boethius

Ok so it is not totally unfounded that anarchists have at some points in time sown discord in society. The mainstream view is not a total fabrication then. :sweat: Sure it is propagandized and the good point was made Christianity, the forerunner of capitalism, has far more blood on its hands than any other.

Come to think of it, how is capitalism tied to Christianity, when it can also be said, as you noted earlier, that plenty of communistic type of offshoots also arose out of it? Or is it just incidental in either case that Christianity was the dominant force?

Come to think of it, how is capitalism tied to Christianity, when it can also be said, as you noted earlier, that plenty of communistic type of offshoots also arose out of it? — unimportant

How could you be so dense? What is tied to every single name, claim, and refusal of such is one thing: human nature. People are liars. Natural opportunists. It's hard-coded into DNA and evolution.

No different than how even the least of us follow every single trend to a tee. No one wants to be left out. The outcast. So, in a society where Christianity is law of the land, if you're a good person, you're a Christian. And if you're a bad person, guess what? You're also a "Christian."

The same goes for any title or concept. Intelligent beings are opportunists, which means, if they have the capacity to speak, they will inevitably be liars. This isn't hard to understand. So why make it so?

Let's say for Marx The Soviet Union, and for anarchists the Anarchism in Spain -- so not just theories but some historical examples. — Moliere

Ok. Now what are the key differences between Marx The Soviet Union and anarchists in Spain?
I found this:

This group is known as the Battalion of Death, an Italian Anarchist group that fought in the Spanish Civil War. It reminds me of the Soviet and Fascist German propaganda posters. There are many more like this and images that appear to be marketing towards socialists and fascists when you Google "anarchists in spain" images.

So at what point does one cease being an anarchist and become a socialist or fascist? Is anarchy untenable in the long term and always evolves into socialism, fascism or libertarianism? It seems to me that there are some social structures that are not the ends, but the means to an end. One might say that communism is the means by which a society transitions from capitalism to socialism. The only problem is how can we trust those in power to give up their power and actually work to transition towards the end rather than make the means the end.

Ok. Now what are the key differences between Marx The Soviet Union and anarchists in Spain? — Harry Hindu

Man, I just listed a couple of examples to show that there's stuff out there to research -- that question you posed is a good question, but also huge and I wouldn't be able to answer it well without more work. I'd also note that they're just examples -- I'd include a lot of the socialist countries on the list, and I'd include a lot of the anarchist projects often mentioned if you go through the links provided in the thread. The point of the example was to note that we at least have real examples of humans doing this, so that the animal analogies really are just analogies.