Gotta link my friend?

You'll find in in various archives. Crib notes at Wired.com:

https://www.wired.com/beyond-the-beyond/2018/02/poppers-poverty-historicism

It seems to me that Poppers critique in the poverty of historicism would apply more to something like dialectical materialism and Marxism, than Michels thesis about how organisations tend to oligarchy... because Marxism is much more a prediction of where the totality of society goes.

Maybe more importantly, I wonder where that leaves us? If we want to demand the same methodological standards like in the exact sciences, it seems to me very little can be said that would stand that test, and so we are just left with competing ideologies without any real justification in past events? That doesn't seem right to me, the world does seem to put constraints on what is possible.

I wanna say maybe Poppers critique is itself ideological, as a progressive you would want the future to be unconstrained from the past, so it can be whatever we want it to be.

I've read The Poverty of Historicism and am confident that Popper would approve of Michels' theory and methodology. I think it falls under what Popper called a technological social science, which he distinguished from historicist methodology.

Somewhere in between discussing individuals and groups — both of which exist just as much as the other — stop and ask yourself about the downstream political decisions.

If they lead to defending Donald Trump to the bitter end, denying anthropogenic climate change, cheering neoliberal policies, and generally aligning exactly with ruling class interests, then that tells you almost everything you need to know about how seriously to take them.

The brainwashing came first. The beliefs about “individuals” came later.

I think, in a practical manner, you're right. This tells me what I need to know in choosing a particular group -- what are they doing, rather than just what are they saying? Most of my criticism of the institutions that be run along those lines.

But here we're just talking about ideas, and concretely that's all we can do -- here. That's the purpose of this space. And we all have ideas that came from a Background, as I'd call it, sometimes which is formed by brainwashing. Hell, in our propaganda-rich environment, our Background beliefs are almost certainly at least partially the result of undergoing techniques meant to create beliefs. It's little wonder that we don't trust institutions when we look at what they do.

The downside is that we don't have much of a choice in the matter when it comes to politics. It's either us, the random, brainwashed, and at times irritating shmucks we happened to be born around, or no one.

From what I can see of the iron law the downstream decision is to cut out, to be on your own, to be an individual -- or, if you're into politics, to become an oligarch. If it's an Iron Law then there's no in between: There are oligarchs and there are the people at the bottom of the pedestal, and the people who want to change the pedestal are just would-be oligarchs. Which is why I thought calling it defeatist made sense -- it paints a picture that is cynical.

And, on top of that, it's well constructed in that it latches onto a truth to be persuasive. Oligarchs certainly exist, and we certainly have the problem of dealing with oligarchs.

But to keep beating the dead horse until it's heard, the only way to push against oligarchs is organizing. So, to me, it seems Michel's beliefs are not just wrong, but the downstream decisions lead to the perpetuation of oligarchy through cynical apathy or cynical manipulation.

If Michels’ ideas are wrong there should be cases where he is. All it takes is some examples and the theory is essentially falsified. Wherever it is falsified democracy is possible. Wherever it is not falsified democracy is not.

But so far it’s nothing, at least as far as organizations are concerned. So why should someone like me or anyone else sit around and wait for political parties and organizers to bring us democracy, when it is more than likely they’ll bring us oligarchy? If they actually cared for democracy they might try something different. If they cared for others they might actually make an effort to do so.

But they don’t. It’s obvious to me it’s the power they are after, and nothing besides. Their advocacy of policies and laws does little more than puts a veil over the fact they want government employees to do the work they refuse to do themselves.

Yes yes, it always comes down to this, we don't like the consequence of an idea, so it can't be true... as if the consequences of an idea have anything to do with it's veracity.

If Michels’ ideas are wrong there should be cases where he is. — NOS4A2

How about the Quakers? They run their organization on the basis of consensus. Not just consensus building, but 100% consensus.

There's a lot of groups out there which don't follow this purported law.

But so far it’s nothing, at least as far as organizations are concerned. So why should someone like me or anyone else sit around and wait for political parties and organizers to bring us democracy, when it is more than likely they’ll bring us oligarchy? — NOS4A2

This is confusing to me.

If you're organized you aren't sitting around waiting for some group to do something for you. You're actively participating in the process of politics, regardless of the form of government. And if you want a democratic group then you form the group around democratic practices.

And there's where you'll find, outside of the books and ideas, your counter-examples -- democracy doesn't just happen, it's built, and many groups utilize democratic practices.

If, indeed, democracy is worth building. If the Iron Law holds, then it wouldn't be possible to build, so why not let the oligarchs run the show?

The only thing is -- tomorrow isn't like yesterday, when you keep looking back. And the part you've yet to address is that oligarchs fall. So what's so iron about the law if the form continues to fail due to a lack of trust that such a social form tends to breed?

Oligarchies fail eventually, even Michels himself says as much, because oligarchs tend to always push inequalities to far, and so it breeds discontent, and eventually revolutions... at which point you get new organisation and things can start again.

The point is not that oligarchy is a good system, or even that one shouldn't even try to do something about it, tensions and struggle against oligarchy is just as inevitable... the point, I think, is rather that we never arrive at some perfect static system, at some utopia, but that these things are in perpetual motion.

There are two thoughts I've yet to express that I'm uncertain even how to --

But I keep coming back to Aristotle's Politics, and the second formulation of the Categorical Imperative.

(1) In the Politics even Aristotle* makes a distinction between Oligarchy and Aristocracy -- and he happens to like Aristocracy over Oligarchy. Naturalized politics is kind of his whole thing and gets along with the idea that we can falsify such stuff, I think.

(2) The second formulation of the CI pretty explicitly points out how one would organize with someone: by treating them as not merely a means, but as an end unto themselves.

1: Given that we're looking at all societies due to the law-formluation, I'd take Aristotle's Politics as evidence that many constitutions exist, and someone smart back then knew about these tendencies but didn't generalize oligarchy to all organizations. If we're looking for textual counter-examples then he counts.

2: This points to how we can collectively organize on ethical grounds even from a libertarian individualist stance. It's not inevitable, from that perspective, because we all make choices based upon some commitment, and here is a commitment which harmonizes collective action rather than pits all individuals against one another. Even on rational grounds.

the point, I think, is rather that we never arrive at some perfect static system, at some utopia, but that these things are in perpetual motion. — ChatteringMonkey

I'm gathering that there are more points people pick up than this from Michel :D -- yes?

I agree that there's no static system or utopia, and that social lives are in perpetual motion. That's not the point I saw in Michel, but hey, we agree there.

*That is, the guy who, in writing, wrote about how slavery is good. That guy. Slaves? OK. Oligarchy? Fuck that shit. That guy.

, Neither of you gave reasons for your view. SO here are a few of the argument sot be found in Popper, applied to the case in hand.

The supposition that democratic institutions will become oligarchies gives no time frame. Suppose a given institution remains democratic after a year, is that a falsification of the "Law"? Perhaps we shoudl wait ten years? If an institution remains democratic after a hundred years, do we consider the law falsified? Any institution that remains democratic is not a falsification, since it can be claimed that it still will become an oligarchy. Hence the supposed law is inherently unfalsifiable.

While studies of the history of such institutions might reveal a trend, there is no reason to suppose that such trends are inevitable. Trends can only tell us what happened in the past, not what will happen in the future. This is a result of the problem of induction, addressed by Popper in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions and resolved by fablsificationism. Inductions of the form that are used to justify the supposed "iron law" are logical invalid. Even in physical sciences, the statements sometimes called "Laws" are for fablsificationism only as-yet unfalsified generalisations, to be further tested. Historicism will oft mistake such a trend for a supposed universal law.

Social laws are not causal, and future human and social consequences are not necessitated by the past. At the extreme, humans can choose to act in opposition to such predictions. It is logically impossible to know what someone will do in the future, since even given that they know, it remains that they might do otherwise. I can predict that you stop reading this post here, but it remains that you may choose to read on.

Individual human actions cannot be predicted with certainty, and certainly not by institutions. This of course is Nos' individualist thesis, which must be set aside if this supposed "iron law" were true. The vagaries of individual actions themselves render such social ultimatums as the "law" inoperable.

What constitutes an oligarchy is left ambiguous by the Law. As a result the supposed trend towards oligarchy is left to interpretation, so any mooted historian may find or falsify the trend as they see fit - based on their ideology, as it where. Ideology is written into the very structure of the "Law". Hence it is disingenuous to insist that responses avoid ideology. A better response would be to openly admit the ideologic base of both the supposed "Law" and the responses.

So putting it simply, even if we accept that there is a trend in democratic institutions towards centralisation of power, humans can choose to work against that trend.

Thank you for that! Cheers!

Thank you for your response. I think I disagree with the general picture you paint though. A lot of historians do indeed view human history and future as fundamentally unpredictable. There are others though who do think there are patterns we can discern and use to make predictions about the direction of human societies, like say Peter Turcin. Turcin started as a biologist predicting behaviours of groups of other animal species, with some success, and he saw no reason why this couldn't be tried with "human populations" as he became a historian.

One reason I think there is much resistance to this idea, we'd like to think we have a lot agency in determining the direction of our societies, it's a problem for our treasured notion of free will if we don't.

So putting it simply, even if we accept that there is a trend in democratic institutions towards centralisation of power, humans can choose to work against that trend. — Banno

Yes human can (and will) work against it, that's not the point I don't think, the point is that humans on aggregate won't keep working against it hard enough over time. It's more like say the second law of thermodynamics in that way... even tough locally entropy can decrease, on aggregate the total entropy of the system will always increase over time. Roll enough dice and you will tend to the mean.

The supposition that democratic institutions will become oligarchies gives no time frame. Suppose a given institution remains democratic after a year, is that a falsification of the "Law"? Perhaps we shoudl wait ten years? If an institution remains democratic after a hundred years, do we consider the law falsified? Any institution that remains democratic is not a falsification, since it can be claimed that it still will become an oligarchy. Hence the supposed law is inherently unfalsifiable.

While studies of the history of such institutions might reveal a trend, there is no reason to suppose that such trends are inevitable. Trends can only tell us what happened in the past, not what will happen in the future. This is a result of the problem of induction, addressed by Popper in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions and resolved by fablsificationism. Inductions of the form that are used to justify the supposed "iron law" are logical invalid. Even in physical sciences, the statements sometimes called "Laws" are for fablsificationism only as-yet unfalsified generalisations, to be further tested. Historicism will oft mistake such a trend for a supposed universal law.

Social laws are not causal, and future human and social consequences are not necessitated by the past. At the extreme, humans can choose to act in opposition to such predictions. It is logically impossible to know what someone will do in the future, since even given that they know, it remains that they might do otherwise. I can predict that you stop reading this post here, but it remains that you may choose to read on. — Banno

It's hard to argue this point because this seems like a variation of Hume's problem of induction, and I think ultimately Hume was right, there is no reason to believe the future will resemble the past. But you can use that objection against science as a whole, and all we are left with is some form of absolute scepticism. Scientist haven't cared all to much about this lack of epistemological foundation and just went with what seemed to work.

Specifically about the social sciences, as you are probably well aware, there has been a replication crisis , starting a good decade or so ago... and I would argue they haven't really recovered since. Either results of research cannot be replicated or the research is so trivial truism to be of little use... I think there are issues with trying to use the same methodology as the exact science in the social sciences. It's just a lot harder to isolate phenomena and have all other variables remain the same so empirical test can be run that can be compared with eachother.

So, again, where does that leave us?

We can just throw our hands up into the air, and give up on the endeavour altogether. I would be fine with that, I wouldn't say Michels theory is a scientific theory, but I still do think there is something there, even if not scientifically proven. We believe a lot of things that strictly can't be proven.

Or we can try to devise better methodologies that do try and address these concern, like Peter Turcin. Maybe that will be successful, maybe not, we will have to see.

What constitutes an oligarchy is left ambiguous by the Law. As a result the supposed trend towards oligarchy is left to interpretation, so any mooted historian may find or falsify the trend as they see fit - based on their ideology, as it where. Ideology is written into the very structure of the "Law". Hence it is disingenuous to insist that responses avoid ideology. A better response would be to openly admit the ideologic base of both the supposed "Law" and the responses. — Banno

What I object to is the all to common dismissal out of hand, because it doesn't fit our ideology. You were the first one in this thread to post something that actually dealt with the substance. I would like to think that the purpose of a philosophy board is to question our beliefs rather than to have them confirmed and echoed all the time.

I'm gathering that there are more points people pick up than this from Michel :D -- yes?

I agree that there's no static system or utopia, and that social lives are in perpetual motion. That's not the point I saw in Michel, but hey, we agree there.

*That is, the guy who, in writing, wrote about how slavery is good. That guy. Slaves? OK. Oligarchy? Fuck that shit. That guy. — Moliere

Yes, it is what I take away from it I guess.

Michels wasn't a static entity either ;-), he started out a socialist and when he wrote about the Iron law of of oligarchy he apparently was some kind of syndicalist revolutionary. He was not that extreme yet when he wrote that book. But yeah I do get your point, there's a lot not to like about the guy for sure.

The interesting thing to me is that he did come out of socialist milieus and the unions, people who are supposedly aware of and actively fighting against oligarchies, and yet turned oligarchy themselves. That is where he got the experiences that influenced his ideas about oligarchy.

(1) In the Politics even Aristotle* makes a distinction between Oligarchy and Aristocracy -- and he happens to like Aristocracy over Oligarchy. Naturalized politics is kind of his whole thing and gets along with the idea that we can falsify such stuff, I think.

1: Given that we're looking at all societies due to the law-formluation, I'd take Aristotle's Politics as evidence that many constitutions exist, and someone smart back then knew about these tendencies but didn't generalize oligarchy to all organizations. If we're looking for textual counter-examples then he counts. — Moliere

I'm not all that familiar with Aristotle... but even though he was in many ways more empirically minded, he was still a student of Plato and his academia. Isn't aristocracy akin to the Ideal form, how it is ideally conceived and intended originally, and oligarchy how it eventually ends up after special interests corrupt it over time. If that is the case, then this wouldn't exactly be a counterexample to the iron law, but rather a more general and broader theory about the eventual corruption of political organisations.

(2) The second formulation of the CI pretty explicitly points out how one would organize with someone: by treating them as not merely a means, but as an end unto themselves.

2: This points to how we can collectively organize on ethical grounds even from a libertarian individualist stance. It's not inevitable, from that perspective, because we all make choices based upon some commitment, and here is a commitment which harmonizes collective action rather than pits all individuals against one another. Even on rational grounds. — Moliere

I'm not sure how to address this because I don't think the CI works in practice. I don't mean this in a base or mean spirited way, but we do sometimes use people as a means, out of practical and psychological necessity... I would be hard if not impossible to live in total accordance with the CI.

I think I do agree that collective organisation around values is where it is at, I'm just not sure how we can do it in practice while at the same time avoiding all the known pitfalls. What you describe for instance functionally looks a lot like how religions or myths would organize communities around shared value systems, but then a lot can and historically has gone wrong with that.

I read the paper you presented earlier but thanks for the exposition. I do think quibbling about his use of the word “law” here and there is warranted but doesn’t say much about his central thesis or arguments, which need to be addressed as much as his choice of terminology.

It’s clear from the book what he means by “oligarchy”. Besides, I’m not sure the term has varied too much in the last millennia.

Social laws are not causal, and future human and social consequences are not necessitated by the past. At the extreme, humans can choose to act in opposition to such predictions. It is logically impossible to know what someone will do in the future, since even given that they know, it remains that they might do otherwise. I can predict that you stop reading this post here, but it remains that you may choose to read on — Banno

I didn't really address this particular point I feel.

The problem I have with this idea (that it is logically impossible to predict what humans will do because if they know it, they can always choose otherwise) is that these predictions don't necessarily concern individuals, but groups of people or the outcome of a lot of people interacting with eachother. Maybe individuals have some amount of agency, although I would probably argue about the extend of it, but groups of people don't necessarily have. Social outcomes are almost never the result of a single self-aware person make a decision, the impact of individuals is usually rather limited, and so I don't think it would be logically impossible to make predictions about the future of societies.

he started out a socialist and when he wrote about the Iron law of of oligarchy he apparently was some kind of syndicalist revolutionary. He was not that extreme yet when he wrote that book. But yeah I do get your point, there's a lot not to like about the guy for sure.

The interesting thing to me is that he did come out of socialist milieus and the unions, people who are supposedly aware of and actively fighting against oligarchies, and yet turned oligarchy themselves. That is where he got the experiences that influenced his ideas about oligarchy. — ChatteringMonkey

Right. And I'm not unaware of these things, either.

There's a truth in there -- it's the generalization that's being questioned, as well as the formulation. There's certainly the ideological differences that are being questioned, too.

"Ossification" is the word I like to use in thinking about organizations which form a core -- they function more like a bone structure does in a body. To keep things neutral I'd just say look at a workplace that's familiar to people, such as a kitchen. There's usually a core of people within a kitchen who function like the bones do -- they hold the structure together.

And you might gather that someone who plays the roles of the bone structure within an organization might have more influence than someone who plays the role of some other specialized function that's not holding the structure together.

I think that's undeniable.

But then what is oligarchy, in the thesis? @Banno already addressed this, and I've mostly been utilizing this ambiguity in attempting to come up with counter-examples: Not only is oligarchy fairly mushy, so is "organization" -- such that conversations might count (though they were unpersuasive here), but then even if we mean more traditional forms of organization then there are many which are not oligarchic right now, such as the political parties that aren't presently in charge. But the law is formulated in a way that we have to see these non-oligarchies as potential oligarchies, so it strikes me at least -- it really isn't a falsifiable idea.

But I haven't been pushing that as much because I don't pick up the falsifiability criterion for social theories, but I agree It's worth noting that the theory is not falsifiable, or is at least written in a manner that makes it easy to formulate a falsification as well as a verification, as the desire may be.

I'm not all that familiar with Aristotle... but even though he was in many ways more empirically minded, he was still a student of Plato and his academia. Isn't aristocracy akin to the Ideal form, how it is ideally conceived and intended originally, and oligarchy how it eventually ends up after special interests corrupt it over time. If that is the case, then this wouldn't exactly be a counterexample to the iron law, but rather a more general and broader theory about the eventual corruption of political organisations. — ChatteringMonkey

Yeah, you're right that this isn't exactly a counter-example. And we could certainly do more justice to the Politics than using his distinctions -- but that's enough for me, and can be found at the SEP. Scroll down a little from there to see the table of correct and deviant constitutions.

It's definitely a different theory! And it's richer. With respect to social theories that's often a good reason to adopt something.

But really I think it's important to look at questions from multiple perspectives, especially when it comes to social theories. You gave me just enough of an opportunity to lay out an alternative theory of oligarchy that recognizes these tendencies but explains them differently, and in a manner which is not some foregone conclusion. The theory acknowledges the things which the iron law does, while pointing out that these tendencies are not necessary -- it's not inevitable that an organization becomes an oligarchy. (and, interestingly and somewhat along the lines of what the iron law is getting at, it even terms democracy as a degenerate form)

With Aristotle's theory what you have is the beginnings of a solution, though -- you have to look at the constitutions which city-states are organized around. Some constitutions are better than others on the basis of whether they are in the correct or deviant form.

That's the sort of thing I think a good social theory does -- it doesn't just tell you "Don't bother", it attempts to get at what can be done about the problems.

I'm not sure how to address this because I don't think the CI works in practice. I don't mean this in a base or mean spirited way, but we do sometimes use people as a means, out of practical and psychological necessity... I would be hard if not impossible to live in total accordance with the CI. — ChatteringMonkey

There's a bit of a difference here worth noting, I think -- it's not that we cannot use others as means to an end. We're human, we have to! We are very much dependent upon one another. It's that the CI prohibits using others merely as a means to an end.

Also I want to say -- if democracy were an easy goal to achieve, given its popularity, it'd have been done by now. But we're still figuring it out. It's a project that takes participants rather than an ideal in the sky.

The second formulation points out how even an individualist can organize collectively without it being coercive. That's mostly what I think I'm trying to get at -- even if we be perfectly willing subjects there's a way in which we can build our social environment.

I think I do agree that collective organisation around values is where it is at, I'm just not sure how we can do it in practice while at the same time avoiding all the known pitfalls. What you describe for instance functionally looks a lot like how religions or myths would organize communities around shared value systems, but then a lot can and historically has gone wrong with that. — ChatteringMonkey

Yes. And a lot can and has gone well with it too. The future being open means we can also fuck it up, and there's no guarantee. Even if we do all the things right -- it's not a controlled experiment. And we're still pretty ignorant of how social forms "work" (if there be any way that they work at all), so even with the best of intentions we can mess things up along the way.

It's for these reasons I tend to favor democratic practices. I don't believe I have the answer, but I think we can probably come up with a better one together than we have so far.

How about the Quakers? They run their organization on the basis of consensus. Not just consensus building, but 100% consensus.

There's a lot of groups out there which don't follow this purported law.

After a brief look it appears the Quakers have clerks and elders and committees. Besides the belief that they are following God's will and not their own, Quakerism is a good example of oligarchy done right, in my opinion. Decentralized and largely volunteer authorities and administers, direct deliberation in how to apply God's will on even the most mundane of matters, active participation in governing affairs—should one wish to form an organization perhaps it would be a good idea to emulate them.

https://quaker.org/meeting-for-business/

I'm not sure oligarchy fails because I see it everywhere, I'm afraid. People keep instituting it, justifying it, and seeking to benefit from its fruits. Given the very structure of their organizations, it appears to me that everyone concerned with building democracy are really concerned with building a better oligarchy, especially one amenable to their tastes.

Better to remove the organization from power and politics. Organize for other reasons like cleaning up the neighborhood or helping a community member get on his feet.

. Suppose a given institution remains democratic after a year, is that a falsification of the "Law"? Perhaps we shoudl wait ten years? If an institution remains democratic after a hundred years, do we consider the law falsified? Any institution that remains democratic is not a falsification, since it can be claimed that it still will become an oligarchy. Hence the supposed law is inherently unfalsifiable. — Banno

If we say that there are strong forces in any democracy toward oligarchy (and I think there are), then that still serves NOS's purposes, which is to promote anarchy.

So putting it simply, even if we accept that there is a trend in democratic institutions towards centralisation of power, humans can choose to work against that trend. — Banno

People do work against that trend, but the greatest threat to any oligarchy is the habits of the ruling class, not voters. Oligarchs end up squeezing a society until some kind of breakdown occurs. The next phase isn't more democracy, it's dictatorship.

Or if you're in Russia, you just proceed from a fake democracy, through a fake oligarchy, straight to what the people really want: a monarchy.

I’m not so sure of anarchism yet but I definitely wish to promote self-government and the rule of people over their own lives. The problem with democracy, from Plato onward, is that the state is always assumed in its realization. It might be that democracy is a one-to-one ratio with anarchy, hence why Plato and later conservatives thought it would lead invariably to some kind of anarchy.

I’m not so sure of anarchism yet but I definitely wish to promote self-government and the rule of people over their own lives. The problem with democracy, from Plato onward, is that the state is always assumed in its realization. It might be that democracy is a one-to-one ratio with anarchy, hence why Plato and later conservatives thought it would lead invariably to some kind of anarchy. — NOS4A2

90% of the population of Athens were slaves. Plato didn't know shit about democracy.

But that thing you describe from time to time, where there's no government? That's anarchy. It's a time-honored position, though it's usually on the fringes. Anarchist sometimes influence events with the threat of violence, as during the Haymarket incident.

I'm not sure oligarchy fails because I see it everywhere, I'm afraid. People keep instituting it, justifying it, and seeking to benefit from its fruits. Given the very structure of their organizations, it appears to me that everyone concerned with building democracy are really concerned with building a better oligarchy, especially one amenable to their tastes.

Better to remove the organization from power and politics. Organize for other reasons like cleaning up the neighborhood or helping a community member get on his feet. — NOS4A2

If the Quakers even count as an oligarchy then I'm not surprised you see it everywhere :D.

I'd draw a distinction, of course. But I think it would be better for you to say a bit more on oligarchy at this point. When you say you see oligarchy, what is it you see? And, what isn't oligarchic that is also social, if there be any such entity in the set?

still serves NOS's purposes, which is to promote anarchy. — frank

Maybe in the abstract.

In practice, though -- most people hate anarchy not because it is exciting, but because actual democratic practices take work. Living anarchically is a form of organization unto itself, and is usually more about who is going to wash the toilets and take care of the chickens and buy the groceries and distributing out the tasks in a collective manner.

Basically it's more collective than what I gather @NOS4A2's preferences to be.

Oligarchy is the rule of the few. So I see a few people holding positions of power over the vast majority of human beings. I would argue that very little in everyday social life is oligarchic in character, that neither rule nor coercive power need apply to any of it, really. In most instances and in most interactions throughout history, self-rule is the norm.

Imagine pretending to care about freedom and democracy while vehemently defending Donald Trump and corporate America?

Living anarchically is a form of organization unto itself, and is usually more about who is going to wash the toilets and take care of the chickens and buy the groceries and distributing out the tasks in a collective manner. — Moliere

I suppose it would be. Seems like things would get bloody from time to time.

Imagine starting your arguments with “imagine” all the time.

If need be. Or there's the bad kind of anarchy -- but usually that's just warlords and gangsters rather than anarchists. (Not to say it's not a threat as well)

It's just funny to me comparing the reality of anarchy with anarchists (endless communication and meetings and collective decision making) to the picture (propaganda of the deed, revolution, CHAOS).