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). — Moliere

Do real anarchists have meetings? Honestly, I don't know what their goal is. But I have the same problem with Marxists.

Do real anarchists have meetings? — frank

Endless meetings, meetings that continue on communication media afterwards, that get revisited the next social, then talked about at the next meeting.

Oh yeah.

How else would you organize if you didn't communicate?

The general anarchist thrust is that it is a radical politics, in the sense that there is thought to be a root cause of problems, and the root cause of problems for anarchists is hierarchy. So anarchist practice is all about how to organize without hierarchy or to minimize hierarchy -- which usually ends up meaning lots of communication and intentionally implementing practices which spread power, be it over a household or workplace or whatever bit of property or decision is under discussion.

The cartoon picture is more or less the opposite of the reality. One of the advantages to anarchic organizing, like the conversational model I proposed, is that organizations don't outlive their use.

But that advantage is also it's downside: organizations with staying power will outlast them. Organizations like warlords and gangsters, for instance, who don't tend to care too much about how they treat other people to get their way (unlike anarchists).

One of the advantages to anarchic organizing, like the conversational model I proposed, is that organizations don't outlive their use. — Moliere

What would be an example of an organization outliving its use?

:D Yup.

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. — NOS4A2

Care to spell out the argument more? I don't see how you reconcile your notion of everyday social life with seeing oligarchy everywhere, unless for some reason political organizations are outside of everyday social life -- which is just not true. People often prefer not to think of the political organizations which constitute their lives, but that environment is still there influencing the everyday lives of people.

Not that a reformer couldn't do something, but that wouldn't be radical politics -- but the first one that popped to my mind was the AFL-CIO.

In general it's when it's time for an organization to die because it no longer fulfills its function.

I can’t remember the last time I’ve spoken to someone in authority or any leaders but I interact with people every day for work and pleasure. Imagine that: people just getting along with some pushy organization telling them what to do. If I was in an organization, though, that would be quite different in virtue of its structure.

I’ve actually spent a few months in a supposed anarchist community, believe it or not. No leaders, elders, or anything of the sort. The only meetings we had were surfing and fishing and the odd celebration.

I can’t remember the last time I’ve spoken to someone in authority or any leaders but I interact with people every day for work and pleasure. Imagine that: people just getting along with some pushy organization telling them what to do. If I was in an organization, though, that would be quite different in virtue of its structure. — NOS4A2

The way I look at organization -- work is already an organization, even of the more traditional sort. It's a legal entity with property claims and contracts. It requires a state to function. It's a space which is already organized with its own hierarchies and rules around property and propriety. People obey the rules, and are subject to discipline for disobeying the rules, and there are people who aren't even allowed in.

I’ve actually spent a few months in a supposed anarchist community, believe it or not. No leaders, elders, or anything of the sort. The only meetings we had were surfing and fishing and the odd celebration.

I believe you. Heh, no point in disputing what real anarchy is.

Not all of them work like that, as you might imagine.

The way I look at organization -- work is already an organization, even of the more traditional sort. It's a legal entity with property claims and contracts. It requires a state to function. It's a space which is already organized with its own hierarchies and rules around property and propriety. People obey the rules, and are subject to discipline for disobeying the rules, and there are people who aren't even allowed in.

Not if you’re a sole-proprietor and self-employed.

I believe you. Heh, no point in disputing what real anarchy is.

Not all of them work like that, as you might imagine.

It didn’t last long. The Gov burned down their makeshift homes and sent them packing. I wouldn’t even say they were anarchists, to be honest, though a few were.

Not if you’re a sole-proprietor and self-employed. — NOS4A2

Even the rare self-employed sole-proprietor requires a state to enforce contracts and tender.

Would you say that such a state, where everyone is a sole-proprietor and self-employed but there is a state, is somehow oligarchy free?

It didn’t last long. The Gov burned down their makeshift homes and sent them packing. I wouldn’t even say they were anarchists, to be honest, though a few were. — NOS4A2

It's the way of things.

Now, if they were organized and communicating they might have been able to push back. :D

Even the rare self-employed sole-proprietor requires a state to enforce contracts and tender.

Would you say that such a state, where everyone is a sole-proprietor and self-employed but there is a state, is somehow oligarchy free?

I think it’s a superstition that only man in the form of a state employee can enforce contracts and tender and pave roads. That being said my own statism does go that far. I fear that by now people are so inured to government doing these things for them, that without it, they wouldn’t be able to come up with any other reasons to abide by contracts. No government for them = no contracts, as if people couldn’t abide by them and enforce them on principle and morality alone.

As for your state, I would not say it is somehow oligarchy free. People love oligarchy, apparently.

I think it’s a superstition that only man in the form of a state employee can enforce contracts and tender and pave roads. — NOS4A2

I can go halfsies here. I agree, in a universal sense. There have been many social organizations that are not in the form of the state. I wouldn't flirt with anarchy if I didn't see that. I don't think the state is a final form.

But to call a sole proprietor a counter-example is a bit of an idealization, is all I mean. The tender, the law, the courts, the education system -- it's all there to make people behave in a certain way. Of course people behave when they have learned the rules. But what taught them the rules? And isn't the sole proprietorship designation a rule specifically designed for people who just like being on their own? Isn't it a rule to accommodate the desire to be an individual?

School, work, the state, the people around them -- it all forms a system of rewards and punishments which influence how people behave. Because there are claims on property through the state, and everything is basically owned, we need each other not just in the gregarious sense but in an industrial sense too. That's the economy which allows us to continue on right now, and has even shaped us such that we can't really live outside of an industrial economy. A sole proprietor needs the farmers to keep growing things after all. They aren't self-sufficient in that sense, though they are self-sufficient in the social rules sense, the simulation of individuality that is individual rights and property.

As for your state, I would not say it is somehow oligarchy free. People love oligarchy, apparently. — NOS4A2

Maybe.

I think people like hierarchy more than they ought.

But it's not inevitable.

Yeah, I have some difficulty in understanding an account that has all social institutions tending towards oligarchy while denying that there are any social institutions. But that seems to be what @NOS4A2 has in mind.

:cool:

I’m not sure why. It doesn’t follow that because I reject abstract entities I ought not to use abstract language. I remain aware the term ‘organization’ refers to nothing in particular, so I’m not troubled by any dissonance. It’s just that it would take too much effort to find every particular entity involved in any given organization and furnish each with its proper noun. It’s enough to just recognize the limits of language and move on.

Nonetheless among the people who organize themselves under a common banner and around a common code, there are a minority who hold authority and status above the rest.

That’s how one can have an account that has all social institutions tending towards oligarchy while denying that there are any social institutions.