That is, again, exactly what I reorganized to do. Instead of starting off with attacks, I start off with the most boring uncontroversial common sense that almost everybody probably already agrees with, and the promise that after elaborating on the implications of that I expect to arrive at a position that almost everybody probably already disagrees with. — Pfhorrest

There is basically nothing uncontroversial in philosophy. If you're purpose is to do serious philosophy then you need to seek out the opposing point of view. provides stylistic reasons for doing so, but there is also the philosophical reason for actually knowing who you're criticizing.

This is the main problem with your book, in my opinion. You make brief sketches of "isms" and reject one and accept another, without demonstrating you really know the content of those systems, schools and authors.

For instance, my first critique on your question of "what's new here" was to point out core ideas that went back to ancient Greece. You responded to my criticism by first arguing with it (which you have done with everyone offering you advice, which is just tiresome), then eventually you accepted it and integrated it by mentioning "oh, some Greeks thought about these things"; but that's simply not serious: which Greeks? what did they say? what did they get right, wrong, miss entirely?.

If you want to carry out your "this ism vs that ism" program, you need to demonstrate real expertise with all the authors involved and their critics (assuming your goal is to be taken seriously by "philosophers").

You need to seek out the best representation of every opposing view and point to where exactly you differ. This takes citing authors. Citing is the only way to make your approach serious, as it not only demonstrates you've read the key authors who represent these opposing views best, but also shows you've found the critical difference in their own words. In short, that you've done a serious amount of work that I can now benefit from. As it is, you're book simply asks the reader to go find out for themselves that your representation of different isms checks out.

Your entire approach on this forum betrays that you don't have this expertise. It should not be us that tells you what ideas you have that are totally novel, it should be you the author that has more knowledge of your subject than we the reader, and so can just tell us what's new and explain why it's new (why previous thinkers got so far but no further).

Why you're in this position, if I had to guess, is that you've gotten "the gist" of a lot of philosophies and you've elaborated your own series of opinions on these world views and parsing all this is quite impressive to the people you know; so, you have extended this experience to the expectation that we here on the forum will likewise be impressed. However, the small group of people you know that are impressed or then are opponents you feel "like, I have no problem arguing with", is not representative of the entire history of philosophy. To contend with "philosophers" is to address the greatest thinkers that have ever lived of all humanity of all history that we have a record of. It's not comparable to people you feel clever discussing with.

If you think university is a "smart place" and that therefore if you can hold your ground among students then you can hold your ground among philosophers, quickly calculate how many university students have existed and compare that to the list of people humanity has decided are "philosophers", or then at least contenders for such a title. In writing a "philosophy book" it is this small list of people you are replying to and addressing; it is unlikely you have encountered anyone remotely close in thinking and arguing capacity, and building up the understanding to be able to image how these philosophers would criticize you if they were in the room is not a trivial task easily dispensed with lines like " I start off with the most boring uncontroversial common sense that almost everybody probably already agrees with".

Underestimating your opponents isn't how serious philosophical arguments are elaborated, but rather much closer to how dating profiles are written of explaining what you're into, in hopes those that already agree want to get even closer to you and like you, even love you.

To be serious, you need to "get into those opposing world views" and really appreciate their subtle brilliance, agility and cunning, give them the respect they are due, understand why reasonable and learned people adopt these views, then study their history and stock their every move—perhaps even flatter them as Possibility suggests to draw them closer—only to lunge, suddenly, and deal the precise and fatal blow from which there is no recovery. But do not think for a second that there will be no reposte, equally quick, equally sharp, equally daring, and it may be you that is mortally stabbed in the critical moment, left wondering what went wrong as you lay on the floor clenching your heart while your spirit fades from you; or, sadly more often, too frightened to carry out the deed when the danger gets close, and so slink off into a corner to nurse your play things, certain that had you made the engagement you would have certainly prevailed.

But if you persist, then after, usually a long series of defeats, these philosophical bodies may start to pile up around you and you can cry into the desert: "Is there no one else!", and then maybe, maybe you could condescend to write a book about your adventure.

If you aren't interested in such a commitment, then just call your book "diaries of a freshman" and call it a day.

That may be so, but I don't see the relevance of bringing up the fact that some philosophers did not write well as an objection to an admonition for philosophers to write well. — SophistiCat

You're not getting my point. Writing well according to whom?

It seems pretty obvious to me that the general goal in writing and the audience must be specified to start to give advice as what is writing well and what's not.

All you're doing is deciding you know what good philosophy is and good writing.

I am simply pointing out there is a large variation in how people self-evaluate as well as what "philosophy as such" has decided to label important philosophy.

Yeah, no, I have zero respect for this snobbery. — SophistiCat

Again, all you're saying is you don't like obscurantist or mystical leaning philosophy and styles.

I'm simply pointing out those styles exist and presumably the writers of those styles thought it was a good idea, and presumably, for them, "writing better" would have been writing even more obscuristly and mystically.

If the OP said "all I like and respect is dry analysis, how should I write in the analytical tradition" then I think "simple, concise and disambiguated" is good advice. The OP does not say so, just talking about philosophy in general, and so some goals and audience need to be specified. The OP doesn't even specify "proper, philosophical prose" and so philology, biography, poetry, theater, screen play, journalism and genres of fiction are all forms and varying styles to consider if the intent is to reach an audience.

If no goal and audience is specified, then I'll simply sit here and point out the rich diversity of styles in philosophy: from the way of the old master to not even writing anything but having inspired dialogues to long complicated tomes to novels.

Many famous philosophers were miserable communicators" is not an argument against good writing tips (unless you want to argue that they were great because they were miserable communicators). — SophistiCat

This definitely warrants discussion too, but my main point is that many philosophers have been pretty clear that their goal isn't to be "concise and simple", some wrote for themselves, some a select few, others embraced different degrees of obscurantism, mysticism and "make you think" provocation.

Then there is all the fictional forms as well, that can certainly be argued is a more effective means to "reach the people" even if there is no "novel philosophy" in it; a la Voltaire, Hesse, et al.

Transposing philosophical ideas into a fictional work is a pretty standard writing method, precisely to free oneself from the burden of "disambiguating" everything so as to make something more readable.

Regardless of the genre ("philosophy", philology or fiction), several counter considerations can be made to "simple and concise".

If we interpret "simple and concise" as a sort of analytic "aloof and emotionless" then the argument can easily be made that it's not only a counter productive style to reach a wide audience, as the work is boring, but the philosophical argument can also be made that the human experience as well as human capacity to reason is simply not analytic in an abstract sense but very emotional and intuitive; therefore, trying to remove emotion and intuition is simply off the mark.

If we interpret "simple and concise" to mean "not challenging", then we may not only fail to rouse the curiosity of the reader but also fail to convey the argument. If an argument is not completely clear (due to complicated sentences, qualifications and diction), it requires serious thinking to "get it", and that experience is richer and more memorable than a "pre-chewed" version of the same thing.

But it is at least good to write like that sometimes in philosophy, say in academia; or here on the forum, as you obviously attempt to do yourself; or when writing for non-specialists. — jamalrob

Yes, definitely the advice makes sense for many purposes.

However, without the purpose the advice is putting the cart before the horse, especially if we're talking about a book, and even more if we don't even have the goal to write something that will become "philosophy".

For instance, a work of fiction is a popular place writers use to hash out their own ideas or introduce new ideas to a broad audience, precisely to avoid the context of heavy intellectual debate of exhaustive disambiguated pedantry.

Could it be that you have misunderstood this topic? It looks like it. The advice to assume your readers are stupid, lazy, and mean, is merely an arresting, memorable way of saying you should write clearly, concisely, and should argue carefully. — jamalrob

I address this:

Even interpreted generously as "simple and concise", many of "the great philosophers" are not in such a category. — boethius

I am aware of this interpretation of the words.

The OP uses these terms, so I don't see why I won't use the terms of the OP to refer to the same thing as the OP.

As you say, the saying is supposed to be provocative, so if people then use the saying to debate it's merits it seems natural that it will stay provocative.

I am arguing against "simple, clear and concise" as well. Many philosophers simply don't do this. We can debate if it served their purpose, we can also debate their purpose, but I don't think it's a controversial point that many philosophers were and are very much unclear and not simple and purposefully left many things up to the reader to contemplate.

"

In philosophy we are taught a mnemonic to help ensure our writing will be as clear, concise, and unambiguous as possible — Pfhorrest

I have issue with. It's certainly good advice for writing papers in the classes of the professors making this statement, but it can't simply be generalized to "philosophy" in general. Many philosophers are famously the opposite of "clear, concise, and unambiguous".

OP has not stated what the goal is (get published? political revolution? enlighten the intrepid few?), and so defined his audience.

In the context of the other threads and comments, it seems to be that there is reticence to perform such a task and this thread is at the "negotiation" phase of the process. It is a positive step, but the "goal and the audience" is still required for the advice of the OP to be constructively debated.

As it is, the OP is just generally applied to all of philosophy, so I am arguing against such a position.

I make a second argument that for mainstream media propaganda purposes, this nominal advice really is taken literally to setup straw-men that must be relentlessly rooted out and flogged as well as really is the spirit of such writing. For instance, take the recent kerfuffle around Joe Biden allegations; the mainstream media first choice was to be stupid (just ignore the hypocrisy), lazy (not bother to interview anyone or ask any uncomfortable questions to Joe Biden or anyone else), and mean (viciously attack anyone bringing the subject up as supporting Trump).

However, I am not implying that @Pfhorrest wants to do this, only pointing out that academia puts people on such a path with the certainly harmless "mnemonics" of thinking of people as "stupid, lazy and mean" as a hapless luck-charm to remember to be "simple, concise and disambiguate" for the purposes of institutional writing. But this is only a thematic connection to the OP.

From what you say, the OP seems to be following on from another conversation ?
I've been out of the loop for a while... — Amity

Yes, from I can tell, this post is in response to criticism from @I like sushi of @Pfhorrest's book; in particular deciding an audience (which I like sushi points out could be just oneself, but an adviser clearly needs to know, is all).

@jkg20 and @Baden also had good followup explanations of why this this basic point is critical.

This thread seems to be motivated out of frustration with this audience identification process; a sort of "fine! I'll dumb myself down to the stupid, lazy and mean level of the internet troll!".

Now, what the OP states is correct, for a certain kind of commercial writing where the job is essentially to bully around the populace into being a tad bit less deplorable from the kleptocratic point of view, but this isn't the only option. Many "heretics" of political analysis still manage to subsist somehow and get their stuff out. Granted, with a woefully inadequate supply of cocktails, if any at all, and so "real writers" can just spit on them from the top Manhattan boulevard, a small gift of blessed cocktail residue falling from the sky -- but, still, no matter how dry they may become in the vast desert of not having a Pulitzer and Times column, these heretical writers aren't dead; they may even sell books and some are pretty famous on the internet affecting the culture in big ways that are best to ignore.

Anyways, the advice I found pretty good, and topical to the subject here, so I'll re-post it.

When I said ‘high-school’ I meant that in such essays you are writing to show comprehension. If you’re writing a book/essay you’re writing for your audience and given the subject matter you have to address the audience differently because the audience is different.

I’m still unsure what your aim is. You seem to be writing something that is an introduction to philosophy, an educational resource, your own personal philosophical view, and a critique of philosophy in general. If it’s educational (textbook) then terms like ‘I’/‘we’/‘us’ should be avoided as much as possible. I don’t need to know about your personal story or journey; I don’t care (in terms of a educational piece of writing.

If you’re going for something more like ‘Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance’ though, I’d certainly go into more personal detail.

The thrust of what I’m saying is that I don’t know who this is for and I not convinced you do yet either. I’m getting mixed messages due to how it is lain out. The ‘set up’ matters a lot because people like to know what they are getting themselves into.

My own critique of my critique here would be to say I should really give positive feedback too. I like a lot of the content because I’ve looked at your essays before. I judged you to be someone less concerned with compliments and more likely to take criticism seriously if it was straight up - if you were a student it would be a different matter and I’d likely use a more ‘encouraging’ tone. — I like sushi

I like sushi has a point Pfhorrest. From experience of my own, here is some advice about seeking feedback on your writing;
1. Do not expect useful literary criticism from anybody close to you emotionally. There are reasons why they have that connection to you, all of them sincere, and that are likely to bias their approach to your writing whether they are aware of that bias or not. That bias may, of course, be negative or positive.
2. Find someone close enough to your target audience as you can and who has no, or very little, vested interest in your emotional wellbeing, and ask them to devote some time to reading your work. You will no doubt have a clear picture of that kind of individual, so you can perhaps identify a suitable person or some suitable people within your circle of loose acquaintances. You might find such a person on this board, but I have my doubts. When you do find that person, ask that they be brutally honest and convince them that you have a thick skin, even if you don't. Do not expect that person to advise you what to do to improve the book, you are writing it, not them. When they do come back to you with a list of problems, and from personal experience with following this advice myself, they are likely to have quite a number of them, address those issues yourself and try to convince them to reread your work to see if they believe it has improved.

On a different note, if you goal is to see this book in print and to be published by someone other than yourself, you need to be able to convince a literay agent that you have a target audience that is crystal clear from a marketing point of view, and sufficiently large to give a chance that there will be some profit to be made. Agents and publishers are in it for the money, although perhaps not exclusively. What you have said about your target audience seems to me to be too nebulous to meet those commercial requirements. — jkg20

Sushi made it obvious from the start he didn't give a shit about your feelings and was just going to say what he was going to say. Which is exactly what you should ideally expect (and hope for) in criticism.

As an aside, I've just finished re-editing and relaunching a book of short stories, which I put a lot a lot of work into and which I've been highly emotionally invested in. But it took me over a year to go back and see some of the fuckups in there because it can take that long away from a creative project to divest yourself of bias and look on it in a way similar to a detached critic. Of course, you'll never be fully objective, but you'll get nowhere without giving yourself time to be so. Your reaction to Sushi suggests you're not there yet. But if you want your work to be better, you need to get there. That's just the way it is.

Also, you're not even supposed to be promoting your own work here or getting feedback on it. Normally, I delete that kind of stuff as self-promotion/advertising. And now I've got another good reason, which is people getting pissed off that everyone doesn't love their stuff as much as they do. — Baden

Absolutely! But that is not necessarily a point in their favour. Just because something is great, doesn't mean it couldn't have been better. — Pantagruel

Certainly few authors view their work as perfect, but it's up for debate what they would view as potential improvement.

For instance, Aristotle was elitist and viewed slaves as necessary to provide the leisure time for some to philosophize. So, if "simple and concise" is meant as "understandable by the commoner and slave" we can surmise Aristotle would not care. However, even considering that, the Organon seems to be lecture notes and so not meant to be self-explanatory without additional explanations. Indeed, even among non-elitists, some philosophical texts are written not to be assisted by their own commentary but assumes summary and commentary will be written by someone else and ideas will eventually get to the common person through the arts. Some philosophers write both theoretical texts for advanced students and theater and novels for common people. Some had only disdain for theory and so wrote only popular literature. Wittgenstein introduces his book with a "maybe", maybe one single person may understand him, which even that he doesn't really care about. Some philosophers were clear they write in a purposefully complicated and challenging, borderline incorrect, way to rouse the spirit of their reader. We can also easily view mysticism as a general school of philosophy, typified as being as far from simple and clear as one can possibly go while still being intelligible at all.

There is not a general convergence of writing style among the great philosophers.

Writing advice presupposes knowing what the goal is, as @I like sushi suggested @Pfhorrest try to decide, which, from what I understand, led to this post.

I don't necessarily endorse the implied ad hominen here, — Pantagruel

Good thing you don't necessarily disagree, as it's not an ad hominen.

Ad hominen must be in the structure "This person is an idiot, therefore what this person says is wrong or can be dismissed". However, saying "this person is wrong and therefore an idiot", is perfectly valid if the idiocy is commensurate with the wrongness.

Eventually I realized that readability was, in itself, a philosophical virtue. — Pantagruel

Well, this is up for debate. What's one's purpose in writing? is that purpose justified? what method attains that purpose? are valid questions. Readability, be it one definition or another, may or may not be useful to one's project.

Why I am so confident that whoever is teaching this "stupid, lazy, mean" maxim in philosophy is an idiot, is because so much of the very normal philosophical cannon is clearly not written in this way, in any sense.

Even interpreted generously as "simple and concise", many of "the great philosophers" are not in such a category. Organon, Plutarch's Moralia, Proslogium, Spinoza's Ethics, The Meditations, Critique of Pure Reason, Being and Time, Tractatus Logico Philosophicus, are all pretty standard and famous philosophical texts but few would say any are "simple and concise" and fewer still written based on the assumption the reader is "stupid, lazy and mean", and these difficult readings are fairly typical in philosophy, not the glaring exceptions.

"Writing advice", or a heuristic as you say, presupposes a lot of things; the history of philosophy does not show any consensus on such advice, other than at least someone able to understand and talk about you (which itself we could debate philosophically as a worthy goal; for instance, we could imagine ourselves debating with someone who holds the view that only concrete political actions are meaningful and inspiring communication and writing about philosophical theory serves no purpose at all and is counter productive).

Thank you for these explanations, appreciated. — TheArchitectOfTheGods

Thanks for asking and curiosity about anarchism.

As a general point, anarchist view that coercive authority structures corrupt moral and political language, so that "common sense" becomes the same as "obedience to the state and / or church".

Obviously "submission to the will of god", for the kind of theist that likes such a saying, is not supposed to be in practice "submission to the whims of a corrupt preacher". Likewise, "collective defense" is not supposed to be simply protecting the interests of the elite in practice. That things turn out this way is, for anarchists, reflects a very deep corruption (much deeper than other leftists are willing to consider).

Lot's of anarchists arguments are pointing out what abstract reasoning actually means in practice. Another example, most arguments justifying "law and order" you encounter are meant to be understood to justify the state. Anarchists usually want to deconstruct that sort of argument insofar as it justifies the state; however, usually anarchists then drop that terminology for something that is neutral; such as "cooperation", "organization" or "harmony" as a substitute for "law and order", which in the most abstract interpretation can mean the same thing.

However, the anarchist tradition is often to write for normal people that are currently oppressed and so don't have so much time to go into every theoretical nuance. Kropotkin, for instance, often doesn't make theoretical sense if not interpreted in a colloquial way. However, if interpreted in a colloquial way (such as what average person thinks of as "the government") then it not only makes theoretical sense but is actually readable by the people Kropotkin wants to help. Not that he's unaware of these issues, and he sometimes writes whole pamphlets disambiguating things.

When you take a starting point at Weber's definition of relative Power as the probability (chance) to achieve ones own will even against the resistance of others, regardless of the underlying causes of this probability, then it is hard to see how Power could exist without a means of being enforced / coerced. Logically, a power that cannot be enforced is not a power at all, but I am happy to hear further arguments to the contrary. — TheArchitectOfTheGods

Yes, anarchists have no issue with self defense nor with people voting against "rape and murder" and then voting for a system that would deal with when it happens.

People unwilling to use violence even in self defense, are best called radical pacifists. Of course, radical pacifists are also generally in agreement with anarchists on how things "should be", but anarchists as a tradition are not very close to radical pacifism.

Indeed, that anarchists are "not pacifist enough", too violent and too ready to take justice into their own hands, not just letting this task to the state, is often the first criticism of anarchism. So, it's a sort of propaganda tour de force that the second rebuke is that anarchists are not violent enough to be willing to deal with murderers and imagine a world where murderers and rapists run rampant.

Anarchists are not principled pacifist unwilling to use violence.

Anarchists critique the state in creating far more violence than free people would create and, above all, requiring coercive violence to maintain the state, but they do not argue that violence would simply never happen in an anarchist society.

There is a key difference with coercion and violence in self defense.

Coercion is manipulative whereas violence can be honest and direct "if you try to rape me, I'll try to kill you". The latter self-defense statement is not intrinsically manipulative, just saying what one is going to do.

When anarchists talk of free association of individuals they don't mean somehow to exclude free association for self-defense purposes. Indeed, when anarchists associate, how best to defend against agents of the state is a primary concern; but this does not somehow exclude the need to deal with violence between members of their free association.

Of course, if we go "abstract enough" we can view "I will try to kill you if you try to kill me or anyone else here" as a form of coercion and manipulation to dissuade the murderer. Moreso if the would-be-murderer is captured; "Put down the gun!" can be interpreted in such a manipulative way.

The major difference is that without genuine political participation the state is simply no longer a collective self defense pact, but the main threat to (the people who run) the state becomes the general population. The state claims the same collective self defense justification, but is not; and using state power to make people believe that is clearly a far more extreme form of coercion than "put down the gun!".

Just as an example, in such a society, how exactly would a murderer be punished if not by coercion of the collective power? — TheArchitectOfTheGods

There is no need to mentally manipulate the murderer. This would be the critical difference.

The large majority of anarchists do not have a problem killing a murderer to prevent murder, and if possible capturing the murderer if killing them isn't necessary.

This is just stating what will be done about murder, it is not mental manipulation. It is giving the murderer a choice and making clear what actions will be met with what choice. True, capturing the murderer requires coercive force, but is preferable to killing them outright if that's unnecessary.

Anarchists argue that "punishment" as a deterrent is however mentally manipulative; such as executions and physical and emotionally painful imprisonment.

Making this difference between physical and mental coercion, then anarchism can be best described as wanting to minimize physical coercion (the force needed to deal with violence sufficiently) and not use mental coercion at all.

Anarchists make the argument these deterrence can be taken away and the result would be less criminals rather than more; rehabilitation based justice systems is an implementation of this anarchists theory, and simply work. Constrained freedom of the murderer in such systems is not argued to be punishment in the sense of an unpleasant experience to deter more murders from the same person as well as others but a precautionary measure justified by self defense of the community in which the goal is reintegration of the criminal as soon as responsibly feasible.

For instance, in Scandinavia you can murder someone and then go to what US criminals would consider a vacation resort, yet there is not a rampant murdering problem due to a lack of painful deterrents; "prisons" often do not have walls, are co-ed (as single sex environments are not mentally healthy), and prisoners can generally go into town during the day to work. Rehabilitation programs are also not forced, but based on the moral agency of the prisoner to want to free-associate with society and learn to manage whatever went wrong in that regard and other new skills to re-integrate in the community. Scandinavian prisons and schools follow plans, principles and theories developed by anarchists; they don't say so, but it's easy to verify the anarchist school were central to these developments.

So, there is a large difference between forced labour (i.e. slavery) as practiced in the US and the Scandinavian justice system. There is clearly a difference of degree of coercion as well as type of coercion. Indeed, it is now common wisdom in the US that US prisons "make more and hardened criminals at war with society"; this is exactly the argument of the anarchist school (which was certainly not common wisdom when first proposed).

It was literally taught by many of my philosophy professors — Pfhorrest

I have zero qualms calling your philosophy professors idiots.

Let them come here to defend this adage themselves if you are certain of their authority on this subject.

If they do not, let them know it's a stupid, lazy and mean thing to leave you hanging like this, and indeed everyone else here that could benefit from their wisdom.

But if you think carefully, you may find that they are following the same commercial imperative I describe, both dreaming of success in the mainstream media as well as navigating similar commercial imperatives within the academic system (i.e. what commercial value is philosophy? to get a writing job! how do you do that? Being stupid, lazy and mean enough to shoo away people from the small cracks in the echo chamber you've been posted to guard).

You seemed to miss the part where I was sucking it up and trying to heed his advice anyway despite being advised by ithers not to, until he commented not on the work, but on me personally. — Pfhorrest

I did not miss it, that is why I say you are in an uncomfortable position. You know what you must do, to advance in philosophy, but you do not know if you have the strength to do it.

I don’t expect to be coddled, but I expect not to be personally attacked. — Pfhorrest

This is why I point out that there is no clear separation between yourself and your arguments; therefore, you should expect to be personally attacked in this sense. There is no way to differentiate between an attack on yourself and your argument, unless you already know that your argument is really true apart from your own satisfaction with it, in which case you feel nothing about the agitation of fools.

In philosophy we are taught a mnemonic to help ensure our writing will be as clear, concise, and unambiguous as possible: to write for an audience assumed to be “stupid, lazy, and mean”. — Pfhorrest

Whoever taught you this is an idiot.

Essentially all of the philosophical cannon, however you want to define it, does not assume the audience is stupid, lazy and mean, nor any combination. Which of the philosophers implemented such maxims?

You are referring to advice intended for commercial writing, not philosophical writing.

Furthermore, it is only good advice for commercial writing because mainstream news works for advertisers and not readers, and advertisers do not want any critical analysis of their practices nor the corrupt status quo and so it's safest to simply not have anyone capable of critical analysis on the payroll. When writers and journalists are fired for saying something "controversial" (such as noting the propaganda model of how the mainstream media operates stands up to scrutiny) it is not the case that their readers lost interest in them.

It is more accurate to say "if you want to be hired by a mainstream and historically prestigious media institution -- with that prestige built up before the advertiser imperative and almost gone now -- then you should yourself be stupid, lazy and mean, as that's the basis of a 'proper' career in writing".

I've been following your exchange with on your book and here as well.

I like sushi is providing you useful advice.

To make any advance in philosophical understanding requires subjecting one's thoughts to the harshest possible criticism. I like sushi is providing this sort of value to you for free; there exists no onus to bundle that value with other kinds such as encouragement or accolades.

Crafting good arguments is a destructive testing process. Since they are within us and not at a distance behind a barrier, it is a intrinsically painful task and it is impossible to know ahead of time which arguments can withstand the conditions asked of it and which cannot. Therefore, to engage in authentic philosophical reflection and debate is to gamble with one's very self. I like sushi can only show you the door, it is you that must walk through it. Your recent comments seem to reflect a discomfort with such a position, but it is what it is.

I am talking about the kind of socialism that Marx and Engels propounded that sees the state as, in effect, an executive committee for the management of the affairs of the bourgeoisie, and the disappearance of which is a necessary step to reach the final goal of human freedom. — jkg20

Anarchists generally differentiate themselves with any self-described "Marxist communist", most vehemently on the statist compatibility. All historical anarchists I'm aware of reject capturing the state to build the new society (Soviet Union confirms this criticism for Anarchists), and a key them in anarchism is the "evolutionary" principle of needing to work with people as they are and change institutions as they are towards an anarchist direction (the Welfare states of Switzerland, Scandinavia, Canada, etc. being an anarchist achievement, just not solely due to anarchists who view it as only one step and want to go further).

I'm not aware of any anarchists school that agreed with the idea a "strong state is needed to protect the revolution". Though of course what Marx himself would think of this theory is highly debatable.

What's a more clear difference with Marx himself, is that anarchists were more skeptical of revolutionary theory, historical materialism, historical dialectic.

Revolutionary anarchists seem in complete agreement with revolutionary Marxists (take down the state and large private property holdings), but precisely because the revolution is not some historical guarantee it will only happen if revolutionary acts are undertaken to make it happen.

Anarchists also tend to criticize the Marxist wing of socialism as too abstract for normal people. Anarchists want to get to a society where everyone is politically equal and no one coerced and exploited, but also want to help people as best they can along the way due to this same concern. For instance, Russel's main critique of Marx was not on any particular logical point, but rather that Marx's motivation was too much hatred for the bourgeoisie and not enough "positive emotion", which is why Russel identifies with anarchism, which brings this positivity (about human nature, about a moral foundation for society).

So, although these key differences aren't on economic questions, it does I think point to the "difference in style" usually found between historical anarchism and Marxist-communism.

People can have property under socialism and anarchism, that I understand, after all, who would want to share my toothbrush with me? So perhaps we need to distinguish also between what we might call personal property, on the one hand, and private property on the other. — jkg20

Yes, this is where there would be agreement what Marx got very right. The key focus being "means of production". If I have a thing that gets produced, it's not a problem that it remains mine if society owns the means of producing that thing and can ensure other get one too.

The most critical means of production is of course land and resources.

The distinction is a little difficult to define, particularly in boundary cases, but for a socialist the key idea would be that with the idea of private property comes the idea of private ownership of the means of production in a society, which includes arable land as much as it does nuclear power plants, and it is private ownership of those means of production that is anathematic to socialism. — jkg20

Yes, anarchists are much more open to markets than Marxist-communists. Marxists-communists, certainly in the Lennon-Stalin direction, believed the the bourgeoisie would basically pop out of any market relations whatsoever.

Anarchists have usually a more positive view of human nature and tend to believe that free political equals could manage a market responsibly; though usually as a step towards a local sharing economy type situation as we learn to do more and more things without markets (and as society simply gets wealthier, and good things accumulate). Marxist-communists would tend to argue that such a step would not go anywhere and just get rolled backwards (the accumulation tendency of private capital would overwhelm regulation).

From what you say, private ownerhip of means of production is compatible with anarchism. — jkg20

It's compatible in the sense that politically equal people may choose such an arrangement for a wide range of things.

Anarchists would argue equal people wouldn't choose to do so for anything important (health-care, education, etc.) and would eventually lose more and more market relations in favour of community relations.

However, since the so called left wing of any movement covers a much broader church than the right wing, I wonder if there is room within anarchism for the rejection of the principle of private property as well? Or is it on that specific point that you think we really boil down to the essential difference between socialism and all forms of anarchism? — jkg20

Do you mean rejection of "personal property"?

But definitely many anarchists, especially early anarchists, had a vision of taking down the state, abolishing all property and then everyone suddenly just accessing what they need when they need it.

Anarchists can also be essentially in line with the socialists in this regard, just have differences such as the why, how and skeptical of historical-materialism as determined without human individual agency.

Marx saw this naivety of the socialists before him and solved it by simply stating capitalism will solve all the problems of production first, and only then workers can unite to take over.

However, anarchists also started to try to solve this economic problem without needing capitalists (anarchists usually view the entire capitalist enterprise as a fundamental mistake that hurled humanity towards the abyss), and so some anarchists view communal living as immediately practical whereas others are open to markets regulated in the right way (after taking over all privately owned land and monopolies) -- it's usually this question that produces the large variations in anarchist theory; where anarchists stay united is the belief that humanity can figure out what works best given equal uncoerced participation, and so a lot of differences are therefore simply speculative about what such people would do.

The question “Which anarchist proposes this formula?“. — NOS4A2

Yes, so my question in the context of how was using "government", so answering my question would have required addressing the meaning of the word as relevant to my question and used by Bukanin, and not just the meaning in English in the 19th century but also in Russian.

Well, but then why not call it by its name and call it direct democracy instead of anarchy? — TheArchitectOfTheGods

Anarchy advocates direct-democracy, of one form or another, but is not reducible to direct democracy. There is more moral and political content to anarchy than simply how it is proposed decisions be made.

After all, there is power / might and decisions to be managed, as you are admitting. — TheArchitectOfTheGods

Yes, if anarchists get together and vote on some objective or some rule then they would presumably vote on how to implement that at the same time or then some later time. So, they would need the power to accomplish their goal, and we would hope their plan takes that into account.

However, this is not the same as a moral claim "might is right".

The difference between "state power" and an "anarchist collective power of political equals" is that state power (as it was seen in the 19th century, 20th century, and today) is coercive, whereas anarchist power is not coercive. It is the coercive nature of the state that anarchists have issue with, not any of it's legitimate functions. Statist argue that the legitimate functions of the state cannot be carried out without the coercive nature of the state, whereas anarchists argue there is another way to get things done.

And what would then be a correct label for the current political organization of the world, if not 'Anarchy' (no-rule)? No-rule and collective decision making (I assume this includes collective enforcement of the rules) are not the same. — TheArchitectOfTheGods

As points out, it is the propaganda of various states that has made the association of "anarchy" with either "chaos" or "no organization".

Political theorists usually refer to the international order between states today as "multi-polar", not anarchy.

There are political lessons to take from the international order, such as freely entered agreements that parties can freely exit (Brexit being a good example).

However, the issue of using the failure of states to competently organize to solve problems (as we see with Coronavirus, over fishing, global warming, soil depletion, famines, poverty, on-top of the preventable wars) anarchists would argue is a failure precisely due to the corrupt nature of the state. That states tend to be bad-faith actors when dealing with other states (acting precisely in the greedy and bad faith way statists argue individuals act without the state to coerce them into being productive!) and so problems don't get solved, anarchists would argue as further evidence states are fundamentally corrupt and incompetent. Anarchists would argue, when the same kind of structures (UN discussions, free-agreements, etc.) are built from the bottom up then you would see good-faith actors and problems actually solved.

My question to you?

Well, thanks for going and reading an anarchist text.

Kropotkin also says literally "we want no government", so it is a point worth discussing, just not worth it with someone who hasn't read or even bothered to web searched any anarchists.

However, it's a fairly trivial detail, the word "government" is clearly used interchangeably with "the state" in such passages from anarchists from this period; and it seems to me, in particular Russian anarchists.

The meaning of "government" as is used today in philosophical discussion has become more abstract to refer to basically any collective decision making process whatsoever.

Bakunin clearly states anarchy is about "social organization from the bottom up" not "no organization whatsoever: might is right" as is using the word.

If you cite passages written 150 years ago, you need to check that they are using the word in the same way.

Moreover, Bakunin is writing in Russian, so there must be pause for thought of the impact of translation.

However, in this case, clearly government is not being used as an abstract term for collective decision making, but as an equivalent of "the state".

The fact the book your citing is literally has "statism" in the title, may also be a clue that he is referring to "government" in the form of a "state".

Kropotkin also uses the phrase in English writing (I believe), but whether this is an error on his part, again, clearly interchangeable with "the state", and goes to some length to explain that anarchism is not about people just doing what they want without rules, but collective decision making between equals (decision on things like rules). Kropotkin talks a lot about people holding congresses all the time to decide on this or that; so, with how the word "government" is used in philosophy today, we would say Kropotkin is describing "a form of government" and we might inquire further about it.

Anarchy = no government. — TheArchitectOfTheGods

Which anarchist proposes this formula?

The reason to have government is to create a monopoly on power, in order to be able to enforce the laws. — TheArchitectOfTheGods

Anarchist organization would also have just as much tendency towards a de facto monopoly of force as any other. What anarchists want to avoid is a central monopoly of power that can simply ignore the wishes of it's constituent members and communities.

Anarchist communities also enforce their laws. The anarchist contention is that the more people do not effectively participate in making those laws, the worse those laws are and the less reason people have for following them, increasing crime; in other words, the incompetence and inefficiency of the state breeds the problem of rampant crime that the state then claims it's necessary to solve.

You can also observe the effects of an anarchical system in the current world order. — TheArchitectOfTheGods

Anarchy doesn't want states, so to claim that interactions of states in absence of even more extreme concentration of power is somehow analogous to interactions between individuals is disingenuous at best and simply foolish at worst.

Fair enough. Does it create any other authority/ imperatives then? — Echarmion

Voting creates no imperatives.

As for authority, voting for anarchists does not create authority in the statist sense of people with essentially all the power.

Being a political equal means there is no authority in the sense we usually understand it.

Genuine democracy for anarchists means that a deliberative body never hands over all the power to some small executive team that then run everything.

Certainly anarchist's also need to elect people for specialized tasks, but they retain the ability to recall them at any moment so the authority did not move away from the members in a practical sense. If such a manager "went rogue" anarchists would be organized in such a way as to immediately take their power away in a practical sense of whatever resources this person was using.

The authority remains in the voting itself, and no new authority is created through voting; the people concerned could at any moment do something else.

Things get implemented because the people who vote for it see to it that it gets implemented, which, yes, may require violence. Anarchists maintain that deliberation and decisions between political equals does not give rise to such divisive differences as to lead to many occasions of violence; however, anarchists propose no system that would "force people to not be violent", things can, in principle, get out of hand at any moment (just as with any social system; other social systems merely claim it is otherwise; such as representing an order created and maintained by god, or simply claiming that a institutions with the most force, for now, collaborating are therefore unassailable, and so cannot be undermined and changed or even turned against each other -- that monopoly is absolute and forever and there is no epistemological alternative to submission).

This is why I mention in a previous comment anarchism is easiest in a rural context.

I am more and more puzzled about what anarchism is supposed to be. — Phil Devine

Which anarchists have you read? Maybe we can help with better understanding them.

I would argue that feminism is intrinsically implied in Anarchist principles-seeing as they seek to dissolve all power structures and return power to the autonomous individuals, this necessarily must include women and the sex class system. Emma Goldman, one of the founding writers and thinkers of modern Anarchism-was also one of the most radical feminist thinkers; highlighting that there can be no equality until women are freed from marriage, family, and the obligation to be reproductive chattel. Also it was Goldman (among others) that highlighted systems theory; she recognized that the sex industry, and subsequently the hated prostitute, were resultant of larger systems of oppression and exploitation. — Grre

Yes, I definitely agree with these statements.

Feminism appears complicated but it operates among the same lines as political ideologies, — Grre

Yes, I did not mean to imply the basic political argument is complicated. If people are equally free and exercising their moral autonomy as equal participants in the political process, so too women, clearly.

Rather, what I was referring to as complicated is the history of feminism understood as identity politics, the episodes of being co-opted and subverted wherever possible by the power structure, as you immediately get to, so I think we're on the same page.

Feminism appears complicated but it operates among the same lines as political ideologies, there is conservative (reactive) feminism that seems womens issues as "secretarian" and lesser to larger male/universal issues like war, the draft, ect. ect. First wave feminism got largely co opted by this line of thought. — Grre

I'm not certain I agree, but it's useful to clarify meanings of "feminism", and for my purposes, what it means for a movement to be "co-opted".

For instance, it is not necessarily the case that anyone who actually starts a social movement that gains momentum is themselves co-opted; indeed, this is rarely the case. Rather, what is being co-opted is the representation of the movement in the press and popular culture; these milieu being controlled by elite power structures anyway, it is not surprising that they can be made to say anything at all. It is the popular conception of the movement, usually a dissident view that effectively overcomes suppression and is suddenly a "issue", that slowly or quickly is transformed into something that is no longer disruptive but in fact supportive of the power structure. This process is with or without whoever started things off; indeed, people who "start" things are often unwavering radicals.

So, what makes analyzing identity based political movement complicated,firstly (precisely because it is so easily co-opted) is that the power structure gets pick and choose who to promote as authentically representing that identity; unsurprisingly, they choose to promote people that are not threatening in anyway to the power structure (are useful idiots or are aware of their part in the con).

Were "first wave feminists" co-opted? or were entirely new people branded "feminist" essentially fabricated by the media to represent first wave feminists and replace them in the general consciousness. We cannot assume anything simply because the word "feminism" pops up at different time and is assigned to different things.

A second important consideration is that people "in the movement" at any given time may not really know what it's about in any argumentative sense. Obviously, these are the marks of those doing the co-opting, but they also can create confusions entirely spontaneously all on their own.

Liberal feminism is what is largely exposed mainstream, it acts the same as other Liberal ideologies, attempting to address one-ticket issues that ultimately end up changing very little and obscure the larger systemic causes...examples of this are the whole Trans+ pronoun debate that the regressive right gets so up and arms about (haha theres 80 genders wow omg these libtards!) but Liberal campaigns frame as individual "Free choice" and not the result of some larger deconstuction of gender ideals more radically (which is where the Trans+ movement began, as a fierce critique of the genre binary). — Grre

So yes, in the context of what I wrote above, what I would maybe change is that "Liberal feminism" is what's allowed to broadcast on mainstream television.

Also lets not forget the ultimate co opting of previous (second and third wave) feminists attempts to critique beauty ideals and how those are used culturally to enslave women...Liberal campaigns have co opted this to be "look good for you" and equated (usually harmful) beauty practices with self care, self love, and independence, when really-as radical writers have shown, there can be no independence from the male gaze, you are not wearing makeup for "You" no matter how much you want to believe it. Hence once again Liberal ideology obscures larger systems-perhaps in more damaging ways than in economic or social policy... — Grre

I like to call this "commercial feminism" and it represents the vast majority of intellectual content about feminism most women actually encounter. Indeed, co-opting a social movement to sell something (cigarettes) started with feminism.

However, not only is the exact mechanism of co-opting complicated, both in abstract description and as they play out historically, but simply the presence of co-opting is not enough to conclude things are "counter-productive". The co-opting can be viewed also from the angle of "comes with the territory and is simply part of the battle", that power structures have so much influence on representation of movements (which then affect those movements, producing even more acceptable representations) and that this is a formidable weapon simply means it must be dealt with as best as possible, just as moving production oversees is a formidable weapon against the union movement. So to get into all the details to try to first define what we mean by "feminism" for the purposes of then arguing "feminism has this or that" is a very long task.

What I think is interesting for this thread is the general anarchist view that identity politics has the uncanny tendency of being always a fight for a place within the state; indeed, often identity groups try to emphasize how obedient they are for supporting their case that the state should grant them more comparable conditions of wage slavery as it grants other groups.

Definitely lot's of things worth discussing.

And that’s exactly what distinguishes it from being identical with democracy. Anarchy may sometimes use democratic methods, and when it does it uses direct democratic methods, but you said “direct democracy” was just a modern euphemism for anarchy, when it’s clear even you understand that that is not true. — Pfhorrest

Anarchism is not distinguishable from democracy in the abstract sense of "people power". In this sense, anarchism is simply standard democratic argument with some additional "decision efficiency arguments" as well as some economic argument representing what people may find works best in using their power.

Anarchism criticizes "representational democracy" as too easily a form of not-democracy: controlled by the rich resulting in what amounts to an aristocracy that merely calls itself a democracy.

However, anarchists do not view the basic principles of democracy, for instance that would be typically advanced to justify the US constitution, as erroneous, but rather the criticism is that those principles are not realized in practice and are not elaborated to a reasonable conclusion.

But if voting does not result in authority, then it's not collective decision making, either. — Echarmion

I used the term "moral authority", because I was talking about moral authority.

The outcome of a voting process does not create new moral imperatives.

If any actual compliance to the outcome of the vote is incidental rather than based on the actual voting process, one might as well dispense with the voting and just have a discussion. — Echarmion

Therefore, this does not follow from what I have wrote.

Again, such an issue of importance (in this case, recognizing the legitimacy, state or otherwise of homosexual relationships and ensuing social acceptance and normalization), is hailed as a "single-ticket" issue-which seems good and progressive, but really collaborates with larger systems of power-hence going unseen and ensuring the status quo (meaning nothing too radical) goes on. That is, bluntly speaking, the MO of most neo-liberal/centerists politics, bureaucratic acquiescence to soft issues. — Grre

Yes, I agree. I mentioned the "what does it look like when this doesn't happen" example of MLK to contrast with examples where these issues are clearly worked to maintain the status quo: create outrage about homosexual issues, abandon worker issues, fleece the workers and trade way protection of the black community franchise to "be tough on crime" to attract republican voters, declare victory. However, it gets messy when trying to disentangle the good-faith actors concerned about a legitimate single issue and the power structure that co-opts them; generally, they do not have the analytical capacity to understand what is going on, so can hardly be blamed for being used, though there are notable exceptions.

I'll try to collect my thoughts on what these identity politics things mean from an anarchist perspective. Feminism is definitely the most complicated.

Ok, we agree this is an ahistorical thought experiment.

If 51% of those people, all of them white, could decide that nonwhites should all be slaves again, then that is not anarchy. — Pfhorrest

I've already dealt with this issue if you read my comments.

But to put it another way, how would you stop 51% of people voting on something, in this case who's going to be slaves, in an anarchist way? What would be an "anarchist structure of power" that prevents this happening, that is not the elite state power anarchists are all about not wanting?

While you think about that, the anarchist view of 51% of people voting for something terrible is that anarchists (presumably on the side of "let's not have slaves") failed to convince enough people, the people failed to be moral, and that terrible thing must be resisted (such as Nazi Germany, even assuming 51% really did vote for Hitler).

Now, if we had a democratic system that is "anarchist approved", if 51% of people voted for something terrible, then the anarchists communities who didn't want that would not participate in it's implementation, they may even feel compelled to go and liberate slaves in the communities implementing such a policy.

People voting for stupid, even evil, things is not a theoretical problem for anarchists, as anarchists do not view voting in itself as the political ideal and feel the need to defend what a majority decides on any given occasion. Doesn't mean there's a better way to avoid violence that doesn't include voting, doesn't mean voting needs to be re-thought in a non-majoritarian way, nor does it mean voting is guaranteed to prevent violence on every occasion.

In other words, "voting" in anarchism is a tool of collective decision making, but not the only tool (one must have some moral system to decide what to vote on in the first place) and neither do votes create moral authority; people who vote maintain as much moral agency before and after voting, and they may or may not feel like continuing to participate in the organization they've been voting in if they disagree with a given decision (a majority being mistaken, in the anarchists view, maybe morally tolerable or intolerable, depends). Anarchists do not view it as a moral duty to carry out the wishes of the majority, depends what those wishes are, but they don't have a better way of collective decision making (such as a politburo or unaccountable supreme court "making sure people don't go out of bounds").

Anarchists believe they have better ways to organize society on many other dimensions, economic and political, but these do not substitute for voting as such; rather, they make voting better and more effective.

Anarchists who decide collaboration with the majority is no longer morally tolerable, would still try to organize to decide what to do about it, and need to vote on, for instance, if assassinating someone is going to help and who to assassinate and how (and depending on when and where we're talking about, people will react to this "keeping things open" with "ahh, dangerous idiots!" or then "yes, yes, would be great if someone killed Hitler"); and, again, if an anarchist finds the majority of anarchists in this meeting's decision to not assassinate someone morally intolerable, they may reject this majority decision as well and go and make their own meeting with people who do agree.

This is why statists equate anarchism with chaos -- at no point do anarchists give up their moral autonomy and accept to serve the will of another person group, no matter how large, without being convinced its a good idea at every step; there is no theoretical clockwork mechanism of social stability and keeping still that statists crave. Statists will say "look, a majority of people have, at the least, acquiesced to state power, and so those anarchists are against democracy!" to which the anarchist's response (which is never allowed to be heard) is "well, first of all, just voting on something doesn't entail I should abandon my world view -- why would I? -- and second, acquiescence is not equal participation so the results are highly suspect.

Yes, we agree we agree on the terminology.

People can definitely call themselves "right wing anarchists", but it simply leads to confusion to talk about people who do not call themselves anarchists, such US libertarians, as if they are a form of anarchism, whether viewed historically or theoretically.

I have nothing against it, we can also discuss right-wing "anarcho-capitalists", but it wasn't clear if you wanted to got that way or refer to US libertarians.

In the end, anarchists and socialists want the same thing, the disappearance of the state, at least it is not unreasonable to make that suggestion. Socialists also want substantive economic equality, not just equality of economic opportunity, and see that as a necessary condition for human freedom, and human freedom is the final goal. So let me start with this question: Do anarchists care about economic equality in that way, or do they see it as a peripheral issue? I'm genuinely curious, by the way, I'm not just looking for a fight — jkg20

I would tend to agree with the broad statement that anarchists and socialists want the same thing.

The major difference, both theoretically and in practice, is in relation to the state. Anarchists want to avoid all collaboration with the state, always be in a position of either resistance, subversion or then indifference but never collaboration. Anarchists do not trust the state, even if it looks ok for the time being under consideration, nor would they ever trust another anarchist to run the state.

I use the term "central managerial process" above as to avoid the term "central authority". If you don't have a central authority, it's no longer clear what property means.

Within this context, most of what we easily ascent to as property cannot exist without state power to back it up. If we are talking about these forms of power and what it defines as belonging to who (large proprietary tracks of land the community is excluded from and the owner can permanently degrade so as to reinvest in the next exploitative venture or then large corporations that run the state with other elites such as their shareholders) then economic equality is in a theoretical sense a peripheral issue to the structure of power issue that then creates its own idea of property.

This is where libertarians usually simply don't get what anarchists are talking about. If we view property as some sort of fundamental physical attribute to objects, or then vaguely understand the social nature of property but only consider the status quo of what property means today, and furthermore view all political points of view as built up through a relations to this concept of property, then different movements on the left can be rendered intelligible from this point of view as wanting some differing degree or type of "economic equality".

So, that is one way to take the question: deconstructing what "economic equality" even means.

However, taken as an issue of difference between "leftists" generally construed, then there is a lot of variation of opinion. For instance, a mainstream social democrat in Europe may simply not think much about the issue, just be concerned about fixing "unfairness" when they see it in a pragmatic way, but also be willing to permit themselves to radically curtail property rights whenever it seems necessary but while somehow denying they hold that theoretical power to redefine what property means even while they are doing it. Anarchists seeing these sorts of things (environmental laws, limitations of money in politics, progressive taxes etc.) they are smiling from the window.

Where there is more well-informed debate, I would say the key dividing issue on the left is not in economic theory but rather the very practical issue of ruralism vs urbanism. The same principles in abstract agreement can lead to very different conception of society if you believe people should primarily live in a rural or urban setting. Anarchists are generally ruralists; sometimes an anarchist will become an urbanist, concluding that ruralism is an impossible dream, but then they usually have trouble squaring that with what anarchists usually want. However, the rural vs urban debate goes well beyond discussions of political organization in the abstract.

51% of people, all of them white, deciding that nonwhites may be enslaved, isn’t anarchic. That’s just tyranny of the majority. — Pfhorrest

Do the nonwhites get to vote in your example? Did African nations where the slaves are captured get to vote?

But, assuming we agree it's a-historical "what if" game, whatever scenario you're trying to construct, the problem is not solved for anarchists by some super-governing structure that can't be voted on at all. Yes, the majority of people can be wrong from the anarchists point of view, indeed so wrong that collaboration is no longer possible even. Anarchists don't have a problem with violent resistance movements to Nazi Germany, even if we assume 51% of German's and 51% of French approved of Hitler.

Lot's can be said from an anarchist point of view on democratic processes, but I know of know anarchist writer or movement that is against democratic ways of people making decisions (other than "right wing anarchists" who insist on calling themselves anarchists -- which, to be clear, they are free to do and I have no problem with that -- but who do not engage with anything that can be remotely called the anarchist school of thought). For most, perhaps all, "left" anarchists, the risk of centralized managerial structures is mitigated by local organization, not an even more centralized and non-democratically accountable power structure such as a supreme court or central bank.

especially "right wing" minimal state anarchists of the kind well represented by Nozick's Anarchy, State and Utopia, since economic equality is something that has to be ensured. — jkg20

It's best to just call these "right wing" anarchists libertarians, if that's your implication, as that's what they call themselves.

Someone simply writing a book with "Anarchy" in the title, having essentially nothing to do with with previous anarchist literature and no association or commentary on anarchist movements, and core ideas of which was immediately labeled something else, is not a good representation of historical anarchism. Not sure if your intention is to place "Anarchy, State and Utopia" in the anarchist tradition, or whether you would agree with the above.

In any case, it's interesting to point out the difference between "left wing" anarchists and US libertarians, whether you want to call them "right wing anarchists" or just US libertarians (the think tanks that created and keep this movement going generally avoid the term anarchism, or "ancho-capitalists" to avoid needing to bring up the subject of anarchism).

The key difference, is indeed that left anarchists do not view "political freedom" as distinct from "economic freedom". I completely agree.

The reasoning is of course the critical part. Insofar as economic freedom is maintained by institutions, backed by force, then it is simply a political issue. One can make a moral argument that certain social creations of property should be made and certain freedoms allowed within them, but this is not an argument that such a process is somehow apolitical, pre-political or has a sensical moral meaning outside a political process. If one has an argument justifying something is "really" someone's property but no argument that a political process should conclude the same, then for left anarchists it's simply a non-sensical opinion of property and, critically, even more non-sensical that the political process in question should nevertheless agree that such a notion of property is paramount despite not having any reason for doing so (i.e. yes, the majority has no reason to accept billionaires, lobbyist and astro-turf movements billions finance, and indeed society has every reason to dismantle such a power structure based on property deeds maintained by society, and ... therefore, society should never be allowed to deliberate on such an issue precisely because the majority may make the wrong decision, because despite it being a general harm to society it is a fundamental right to be able to collect such property deeds and insist society go to whatever lengths necessary to protect them, even risking its own destruction).

The uniting theme of libertarians is a fear of submitting definitions of property to an equal political process. Therefore, there must be political structures that the majority cannot change that guarantee property rights. For most anarchists, it's simply centralized statist elite aristocratic rule, with extra fuzzy sounding steps.

However, this is a distinct issue from "maintaining economic equality" in absolute terms. Anarchists are against being able to amass so much property as to be able to corrupt the political system and simply found a new aristocratic one (property being used to subvert political processes), but anarchists are not against property, and differences in property, as such (property is a result of political discourse and cooperation, not an a priori to it).

And direct democracy in the usual sense is normally functionally majoritarian. — Pfhorrest

Yes, anarchists usually like this sort of direct democratic participation; which is majoritarian.

If 51% of the electorate directly approve of something then it’s law, fuck the other 49% if they disagree and can’t persuade 2% more to change their minds. Anarchy isn’t “direct democracy” like that. — Pfhorrest

I don't know where you're trying to go.

Anarchists like democracy, votes happen in a democracy.

Anarchists do not end their political analysis with simply "majority decides", but that does not mean they are in disagreement with the principle of majority based decisions.

For instance, anarchists do not equate "voting" with "equal political participation". One definitely would be able to vote on an issue as an equal, and voting means that "the majority wins" the vote; that's simply what voting is and anarchists do not have some totally different way of making decisions in a group. However, anarchists do not view simply the presence of voting as a strong indication of equal political participation (equal agency to form society), as I've explained (they are against pointing to votes and saying "see, democracy, nothing more to discuss" but they are not against votes nor democracy).

As for voting itself, assuming it's a genuine system that empowers people "equally enough" to be preferred by anarchists over less empowering systems, then, yes, sometimes mistakes are made and hopefully society learns and reverses those mistakes through voting the other way. However, essentially no anarchist believes in a "super structure" of government that cannot be voted on or about that guarantees certain undiscussable conditions (such as deed rights to landed property).

Anarchists also don't believe that simply being able to vote (for now) about who manages a powerful centralized state is a stable situation likely to continue for long. Anarchists want to see local political units able to spontaneously organize outside of a central managerial structure (previously agreed about) to simply dismantle and replace such a structure if it went rogue (a variation on "state rights" but not racists nor stupidly appealing to constitutional originalism at the same time).

That’s exactly what I mean by “not majoritarian”: just being the majority vote doesn’t make it right. — Pfhorrest

Agree, but that's not what almost anyone in political theory means by majoritarian. It goes without saying that the majority is not intrinsically morally right (leading the absurdity that they would be unable to know which vote was right before the cast it and saw the results); I know of no prominent philosopher or political theorist that has made such a claim, and certainly no prominent anarchist. The confusion around majoritarian rule is "what kind"; anarchists do not believe in "consent of the governed" but rather "governing by the governed", but both can be described as majoritarian rule, so the issue is not on that point of agreement (which to be clear, no American constitutionalist or whatever brand of status-quo'is is even in this little club of agreeing about majoritarian rule, just disagreeing about what is genuine, as the "losing side" in term of votes "winning" is not majoritarian rule, and yet happens in the US system; "losing the popular vote" just means "not democracy"; not to say you agree with the US system, just pointing out that if one group identified their system as "freedom and democracy" they may not understand the analysis of another group that does not make such an identification, and they can be very confused if they don't bother to understand the alternative point of view).

Socialists/communists largely believe in a collective organization-which is where the misconception that 'slavery under communism' comes from-ie. its totalitarian history-that people have no choice but participate and sacrifice themselves to this 'collective' — Grre

Only some communists were statists; there's an interesting history of anarchists first cooperating and then breaking with communists, but then some parts of the communist movement breaking with revolutionary theory and going towards anarchism.

Communists (mostly historical as there's not really any contemporary) were mostly social-democratic. The reason communist vanguardists who wanted to capture a state and run their experiments needed to do so in Russia, is because their ideas simply didn't get much attention in central Europe: trade unionism and democratization clearly made more sense, attracted more supporters and got results without crazy risks (creating ultimately the welfare states rather than the dystopian Soviet Union failed experiment that killed millions).

The more fundamental disagreement with historical communists is the view of industrialization as a good thing and the idea capitalism creates wealth that then communism can come later and takeover and redirect. Anarchists were deeply skeptical if not diametrically opposed to industrialization. Again forerunners of a hip idea: decentralized production.

However, most of the time in most places, communists and anarchists would be willing to agree to settle these theoretical differences through democratic process, and both were allied against fascists.

but its difference from the rest of what we would consider the Left (although some, like myself, see political theory not as linear so much as multidimensiona — Grre

The main thing that has stayed true in anarchism is a deep mistrust of schemes that seem to carry the clear risk of "being a useful fool".

Obviously, Stalin wasn't a communist in any recognizable sense of the communist theory of the time (and other leaders of the Russian revolution), but communists were useful fools for Stalin. Anarchists (correctly in my view) both at the time and since recognized that coercive state power can not be used for good (for instance to then "force" people to be good collectivist farmers or "force them to learn the truth").

However, anarchists view this fundamental learning required for genuine change as a long process, so at at given point in time things are multidimensional as you say. Anarchists can be all over the place doing what they see is clearly a good thing on a small scale, without bringing much attention to the word "anarchism". Theory is a tool for local actions, rather than a template for a new state. Acting locally requires cooperating with people at their current understanding of politics, but who want to go in a better direction; if an anarchist believes in equality, then an anarchist doesn't believe in insisting people accept they know the truth and should therefore make all the decisions.

All to say, that a nuanced multidimensional view of politics at any given time is not incompatible with:

Anarchists wish to return power to each individual as an autonomous agent. — Grre

Where we completely agree on what the foundation of anarchism is.

The Liberal/NeoLiberal (which is far from Left, more like middling centre) focuses on these one-issue campaigns (ie. abortion rights, gay marriage ect.) which, maybe slightly progressive in comparison to the more centre-rights (Republicans, Conservatives) ect. are pretty much ineffective in addressing the whole system, and in fact, some thinkers have argued that placing emphasis on these identity politic issues obscures the system even more so, a prime example is with regards to environmental movements. Sure, everyone should recycle, but placing the onus on a small minority of individual obscures the much larger systemic issue of an economic system based on consumerism, and the giant corporations that create tonnes more waste than one individual ever could in their lifetime. — Grre

This is definitely a good summary of most anarchists issue with single-issue left movement.

However, one this to add is that these movement are ineffective not because attaining those issues aren't worthwhile things, but if and when they collaborate with the dominant structure of power. As a counter-example to contemporary examples that have clearly contributed to giving us Trump vs Biden, desegregation was a single-issue leftist movement. Obviously it was good to desegregate. However, MLK clearly understood that desegregation simply to be poor didn't accomplish all that much, and also understood that the structure of poverty regardless of race was as important as the blight of slavery and segregation. MLK was assassinated before really getting into this second phase; the system praises his work on desegregation every year (insofar as it's presented in a way that doesn't challenge the power structure), but mentioning his thoughts on poverty makes one a dangerous pariah (an interesting example of long term double think the system can support).

Not so. Anarchism is not majoritarian. — Pfhorrest

Yes it is.

No anarchist writer has a belief that governing decisions could be based on minority votes. It makes no sense on the surface, nor at any other level.

Speaking on behalf of nearly every writer on anarchism that has read other writers discussing anarchism:

Where anarchists disagree with "majorities" is when the process is not equal to begin with; that majority does not equal democracy, other conditions are required to participate in a decision process as an equal.

For instance, an anarchist does not view the US system as genuinely democratic; however, the fact a minority of votes can elect the president is not one good point about the US system among many bad points, it's an even more absurd and terrible thing about it.

Likewise, anarchists do not believe that even when votes are genuinely majoritarian that they are somehow inherently moral; there's nothing upon which to decide if whatever the outcome is is correct. The majority can be wrong, hence the focus on education and knowledge as the primary force of liberation.

Anarchists are also deeply suspect of majority elected managers who are then not practically accountable and can easily corrupt the entire system of voting that is claimed to make them accountable from time to time (gerrymandering to straight vote rigging). Anarchists do not like first-past-the-post representational systems, precisely because they are only majoritarian in a plausible deniability way; anarchists prefer proportional representation where better representation, and more discussion and learning take place; but this too can be improved upon.

Anarchists believe strongly that political participation is best when done most, and this goes well beyond voting. That everyone is "co-creating", to translate an anarchist idea into woke corporate terminology, the political structure, not subservient to it. This is a radical change to what government would mean in practice to most people; almost so different as to be not recognizable as government, but to say this is no government or some sort of magical non-elite and non-majoritarian organization without any sensical way to make decisions as a society, is well off the mark.

Point being, none of these issues give rise to a belief that a good governing structure would be one that the majority of people would or could disagree with and that this good government therefore must have the power to continue to govern anyway (in a text-book definition of elite statist oppression that would lead anarchists directly to an obvious and silly contradiction with their most basic pretensions).

Thanks for self identifying as a high school student, as it's completely excusable to not know much about a philosophy that is essentially censored.

Anarchism is not about getting rid of all governing structures, it is about self governance without a privileged class, by birth, wealthy or aristocracy. "Direct democracy" is a modern euphemism for anarchism.

The word anarchism is simply a literal juxtaposition to hierarchy. Our modern conception of government and most social organization, such as in a business and most religions, is hierarchical, with superiors and inferiors; however, getting rid of this hierarchy does not mean getting rid of government nor the specialized management where needed. The foundation of an anarchist society would be equal political participation in forming decisions, the concept and goals of society, and participating in and choosing managerial specializations when necessary. This is in opposition to modern "market democracies" where democratic participation is mostly through token measures; it's not conceptually excluded that any given individual can participate in democracy as an "equal" by becoming rich and hiring lobbyists, keeping a coop of propagandists, and funding super pacs; so people are equal in this deboched and ludicrous sense in the imagination of said propagandists who create material for super-pacs (lobbyist and super-pac consultants do not generally believe this notion, but are simply sell their skills to the highest bidder out of contempt for the poor, who they generally view as human trash, if they bother to think of them at all), but such a system is not equal in any real sense for the vast majority who are not rich.

Anarchism is mostly associated with chaos due to the propagation of a false dichotomy by the above mentioned propagandists that government simply cannot function without the hierarchy and the subordination of the lazy poor to a system that forces them to work, and therefore, by whatever means are expedient, must be prevented from having any real say in the decisions of society. If the poor can be made to actually want their own subordination and truly love their rich overloads, so much the better; but whether a king is better loved or feared by the people is ageless debate the upper classes have between themselves.

A small, later groups of anarchists started blowing stuff up. In some cases it accelerated the right to vote (women who blew stuff up to vote saw the right to vote for women in their life time) ... in other cases it regressed democratization and ultimately contributed to a communist overthrow of the government and much more oppression than before as well as mass starvation and forced creation of hierarchical forms of farming that didn't even exist before. Anarchist union education and leading helped bring workers rights such as 40 hour work week (which we view as a lot of time today, but is not very close at all to how long someone can work in a week if they don't have a choice), safety laws, child labour laws and the entire concept of the welfare state as practiced in Europe to larger or lesser degrees, Switzerland, Japan, South Korea, Australia, New-Zealand, and Canada (so, most importantly free and equally funded education at all levels, or highly subsidized, and free health-care, which is the foundation for equal participation in democracy). The welfare states are the embodiment of this anarchist transitional idea of "the state fading away" (wealth does not buy much influence, managerial positions are help to account by both transparency and democratic processes), ultimately due to real education (and the welfare state was originally conceived of mostly by social democratic anarchists and communists). The foundational theory of this view of society is that once enough people understand an idea is simply true, they simply don't accept a government in contradiction to that idea very long; exactly how the government catches up to what people believe, or how people go about making their government change, does not really need to be attended to in a mechanical way, it just happens.

Great! I see Grre wrote an informative post with complimentary information to the above as various nuances of anarchist theory and direction and the main authors.

General point being, anarchists to not believe some experiment should be run where there is no rules of government, but believe in getting rid of structures of oppression.

Anarchists disagree with other "leftist" movements in terms of what exactly is oppressive (obviously slavery is oppressive and every kind of "left" world view would agree, but under what conditions and to what extent market forces are oppressive or then would lead to oppressive structures re-emerging would be a point of disagreement) and, assuming agreement on what's oppressive, how best to change those oppressive structures (anarchists generally don't like identity politics where token or ornamental things are fought fiercely over but don't change oppressive structures much, and so end up being mostly a distraction and a sort of trap because such movements are allowed to flourish precisely because they don't threaten the powerful in any meaningful way, indeed the powerful can play at "fighting the oppressor" in these movements; other leftists that agree with identity politics sometimes have a "one-battle-at-a-time" world view, though often don't really have any theoretical idea of politics precisely because such a theory must be excised from the movement to be able to appear in mainstream news and thus "win"). Anarchists disagree with the right (obviously starting on the point of slavery, vis-a-vis the extreme right) not in "how to achieve the goal" ways, but on the fundamental issue of both hierarchy (many "right" movements want submission to authority, be it the church, the boss or a "strong political leader") as well as what would happen without hierarchy ("right" economics is usually based on the idea that poor people are simply lazy and need to be coerced to work one way or another, whereas anarchists view this characteristic of the working class, especially the poor working class, as an expression of the understanding-by-living that they do not really benefit from their work, they do not participate in forming the vision society they are contributing to, precisely due to these coercive structures they're trapped in they have no time for real political discussion, participation and agency; hence, they always seek to be free from these oppressive structure, which logically expresses in a first step of wishing not to work hard and longing for little under an abusive boss and doing so whenever they can -- sometimes constructively, like starting a pottery business, and sometimes destructively, like cooking meth in a trailer; the emotional element to anarchism is not blame the oppressed for self-destructive reactions to oppression, but rather to have a general compassion for these behaviours as chronic psychological oppression injury little different than the black lung, and to blame the oppressors, and the wealthier professional classes that act as a sort of side kick and have the access to information to know better, for maintaining such structures).

I wasn't sure how we are to compute the importance of human life versus making money. Maybe it's just we hate the coronavirus so much we want to kill it regardless of the cost. — Hanover

There are several issues.

The first is that Covonavirus, although doesn't kill enough people to be an existential threat, does kill enough people to overwhelm medical systems. Wealthy countries simply can't function without a medical system; and, keep in mind, medical systems and global medical supplies are stretching resources to limits even in this situation of massive lock-downs all over the world. Without the lock-downs it would rapidly progress to total medical system collapse. The vast majority of people do not view that as acceptable, to just not have a medical system; the people protesting rely on baseless ideas that the disease is made-up, "not so bad" or simply don't understand that "freedom" from the lock-downs would mean rapidly medical system collapse. In medical system collapse, deaths from Coronavirus would be much higher as treatment quality plummets, and deaths would be much higher from people needing any other medical care, as treatment quality plummets.

There's not really any controversy that this unmitigated scenario is somehow acceptable in any analysis.

Second issue is, assuming the virus is brought under control and the medical system can deal acceptably with not only coronavirus cases but other medical issues in society, then is "easing the lockdowns" reasonable. There's not much controversy on this topic either. The central issue is "is it true coronavirus is under control?" and "what easing measures would keep it under control?".

For instance, Sweden considers they have things "under control" and pursued an "eased social distancing" policy from the beginning. Mostly the issue is whether this will work or not. There's little debate about whether it's reasonable assuming it will work.

However, there's is some room to debate. Although few, maybe no one, criticizing Sweden's approach is advocating society be shut down indefinitely to avoid most deaths (even assuming that wasn't counter-productive, which it obviously is), the assumptions that lead to a different conclusion are the possibility a cure is found relatively soon, so in that case people were maybe dead that could have been cured (there's some merit to this argument, but depends heavily on "likelihood of a super cure" soon, which I would bet against, but could easily be proven wrong -- the mobilization of resources to find a cure is pretty high, so difficult to dismiss).

The third issue is more specific the US. Countries like Sweden have few car accident deaths, and people have the choice to not drive and use public transportation that has even lower death rates.

Whereas, in the US there are lot's of policies that increase deaths so that some corporations can make more money (such as having no effective public transportation, no cautionary principle to chemicals, anti union laws, few worker protections etc.), so coronavirus is revealing the hypocrisy of politicians and institutions that normally don't care about people's lives, but are forced to in this situation due to the first point above. Countries that don't have such a hypocritical political and bureaucratic class don't encounter these analytical problems: they've already done a lot of work reducing car accident deaths (I believe Sweden achieved their goal of 0 child car deaths a year recently) and no one's really forced to drive anyways: in other words, these countries don't already have plenty of "money in exchange for some lives" policies so coronavirus does not reveal a inconsistent governing ideology of the ruling class, where "suddenly they care about poor people".

I will give your thoughts more thought as I only see large numbers of vague(in the sense of being unknown this early in the pandemic) and wide ranging thoughts across all the factors involved in this crisis. — Punshhh

The numbers unknown in the sense we don't know exactly what they are, but they aren't unknown or vague from the point of view of my argument.

1. We know there's some new phenomenon that's killing people, clearly above the level of noise in the medical system.

2. The phenomenon has been reproduced all over the world with the same effects of lock-downs once a certain point is reached.

3. We know doctors have not found a good predictor of outcome (and we know they are highly motivated to do so, and such good predictors, if based on health history, become obvious with enough data; if not based on health history, but for instance random otherwise benign genetic variation, then it's not "unhealthiness" that is that good predictor).

4. We know actuary tables of risk-of-death groups are well motivated (actuary and medical science conclude based on statistics and an understanding of "how life works" there is not hidden groups that are not known to be very likely to die within a year, but will actually die within a year due to causes that existed at the start of the year).

You can conclude there is not going be a large amount of overlap with "people who would otherwise die this year" and people who die of the phenomenon, based on these pieces of knowledge; you do not even need to postulate Covid is causing these deaths.

The statistical situation can be the same as a war; sure, "unhealthy soldiers" and "unhealthy civilians" are a bit more likely to die than the faster and stronger ones, but no war has been close to balanced out with an overlap of "those people who otherwise die anyways within one year". No general says "this battle will be deadly, but we need to consider the idea all the dead would have died within one year and therefore we will not need to recruit more to replenish these fallen". It's so incredibly unlikely as not worth consideration. In the case of a disease, it's of course potentially true it only kills the terminally ill, but we know that is not true in the current pandemic.

I'm not sure if this helps, but these are the key concepts.

I would also like to note, that in applied mathematics (where I work) the main job of the applied mathematics person is to carry out these sorts of reasoning to avoid doing long and difficult calculations in the first place. If everything needs to be justified by exhaustive research and nuanced model building using the largest computers available, nothing would ever get done.

We simply don't need a model to tell us Covid deaths are not displacing near-future deaths. We do need a model to inform us what sorts of damage we're talking about in unmitigated spread as well as what policy actions to avoid unmitigated spread are likely to work (and how well). It's these latter question Prof Ferguson built a model to try to answer, not the overlap question (paper available here: Impact of non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) to reduce COVID-19 mortality and healthcare demand).

Also I am inclined to return to the political and socio economic developments of the crisis, which is more my area. — Punshhh

Yes, I am too interested in these questions.

Looking at a demographics chart can be really useful to get a sense of what's going on:



Yes, 80-90 year old's have a higher likelihood of dying of Covid (if they get Covid), but they are a small group. They are also not only a small group, but most not "going to die within 1 year" (an even smaller group within the +80 group). They mostly have 10-20% chance of death this year.

Further ordering by risk -- you can visualize as taking very sick people out of younger cohorts and placing them with people in the +80 cohort -- doesn't significantly alter the picture, no where close enough people would be moving around cohorts to turn this sort by age into sort by risk, to arrive at "people who would die of Covid" and "people who would die in 2020" overlapping significantly (more than a numerically small amount), unless Covid was a disease of the terminally ill (which we would know by now; such diseases simply cannot bring medical systems to their knees, they can clear out hospitals of critical patients, which is unfortunate, but the outbreak then ends).

Regarding group 2 your wall of text suggests to me that you disagree with my 60% of those infected? Where would you estimate the figure? Or do you think it can't be estimated for the reasons you give? — Punshhh

Yes, I realized I didn't directly answer your question after posting, but have already fixed that:

The basic pattern is Covid doubles your risk of death this year. Most people who have a risk of death "within 10 years" don't have 30% risk of death this year and therefore 60% risk of death with Covid this year (which is still not 60% chance of death from Covid). If a person of high risk of death with in 10 years has 5% risk of death this year, then their risk of death of Covid seems to be also 5% (therefore 10% within the year). — boethius

(The wall of text has all the critical elements to understand the statistical situation. Statistical reasoning is hard precisely because there are usually no short answers for any real world situation.)