If there are small syndicate groups of workers owning and running the means of production together, how do they create the collective power to defend against, say, a mass army of ISIS, or the chemical effects of Monsanto, or the undermining of economic value by big banks, or the monopolistic behaviours and damage to the environment of big corporations?
I'm only jut scratching the surface of reading about it. It seems all like and Ideal or theory to me, with no suggestions as to how it would work considering all the different tendencies of people around the world. We have some self-declared anarchists here, so I hope they will answer.
They won't.
Did you ever hear of the Romans? They conquered most of the known world, except the tribes on the east side of the Rhine River. They called them Germanicus, and it bugged the dickens out of the Romans because Germanicus had no central government. One day Herman The German lured one third of the Roman army into crossing the river. They never crossed back. Herman mailed the commander's head to the senate in Rome just to be sure they knew what was what.
Did you ever hear of the American colonies? They also had no central government until Thomas Paine became the ideological leader by publishing "Common Sense" in 1776.
Did you ever hear of the Dutch Empire? How about "Judges" in the bible? All anarchist societies. It was only when they created a central government that they got conquered.
There is no such thing as an anarchistic society. There may be a group of rebels. They are hardly an anarchistic society. There may be guerilla fighters. They are as close as you come to an anarchistic society.
Nothing is powerful enough to disband any huge conglomerate the size of ISIS. Don't kid yourself. They are the Anarchists not the societies that try and fight against them.
Monsanto is not a psychopathic anything just because their results ended in environmental mayhem. Even if it was done without conscience, it was not set up to deliberately decimate millions of people. They are simply oafs who broke the faith and the law.
And how do you throw big banks into that mix? They are motivated by greed, not psychopathy and the only anarchistic group that could thwart that band of rich pigs is publicity and the law.
The word anarchist is big in Ireland and they try bombing stuff, but it never gets them very far. They have a war torn country that no one wants to live in or care much about, much less emulate the behaviors of.
IF you are poor, if you are wealthy even, you can try anarchy all you wish, you will simply put yourself on the same level as ISIS. There is not an anarchistic society alive that can deal with a group as diversified and spread out as ISIS is. They ARE the anarchists.
What does this have to do with an anarchistic society? This guy was simply a conqueror like Alexander the Great.
Hardly an anarchist. If everyone who attacks us is an anarchist, then everyone is an anarchist that attacks us. What happened to enemy?
An enemy. That's all.
Germanicus (24 May 15 BC – 10 October AD 19) was a member of the Julio-Claudian dynasty and a prominent general of the early Roman Empire. He was born in Rome, Italia, to Nero Claudius Drusus and his wife Antonia Minor. His original name at birth was either Nero Claudius Drusus after his father, or Tiberius Claudius Nero after his uncle, the second Roman emperor Tiberius. The agnomen Germanicus was added to his full name in 9 BC when it was posthumously awarded to his father in honour of his victories in Germania. By AD 4 he was adopted as Tiberius' son and heir. As a result, Germanicus was adopted out of the Claudii and into the Julii. In accordance with Roman naming conventions, he adopted the name Germanicus Julius Caesar.
In addition to Germanicus' relation to Tiberius, he was also a close relative to the other four Julio-Claudian emperors. On his mother's side Germanicus was a great-nephew of Augustus, the first emperor of Rome. By marrying his maternal second cousin, Agrippina the Elder, he became Augustus' grandson-in-law. Gaius (also known as Caligula), the emperor who succeeded Tiberius, was the son of Germanicus. After Caligula the emperorship passed to Claudius, Germanicus' younger brother. Nero, the last emperor of Augustus' dynasty, was a grandson of Germanicus on the side of his mother, Agrippina the Younger.
Germanicus' own campaigns in Germania made him famous after avenging the defeat at the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest and retrieving two of the three legionary eagles that had been lost during the battle. Beloved by the people, he was widely considered to be the perfect Roman long after his death.[1] The Roman people for centuries would consider him as Rome's Alexander the Great due to the nature of his death at a young age, his virtuous character, his dashing physique and his military renown.[2]
By prayer, and doing good.
I'm not saying that I am an anarchist. I'm liberal, yes, and within that I support the value of limiting the behaviour of people who seek to harm others (and the environment.)
I've been reading a bit about anarchy and it looks like there are lots of different kinds of it. They are not necessarily soloists. many congregate and believe in syndicates of workers owning and running their own means of production. It's a form of left wing-ism, like communism-minus-the-tyranny-of-state.
I seem to be having no luck at drawing responses from the actual anarchists on this site, so I may have to give up on this series of questions.
I mentioned the banks because their behavior has been pathological ever since deregulation. They lend money that they do not have and never could have. They borrow what they can't afford to repay, to make it look as if they have the money to lend. It's a chain of Emperor's New Clothes that works only by trust. When something does go wrong, and it will, it will make the Lehman Bros and sub-prime debacle look like a holiday. Some of the world's top economists are trying to warn governments and business and very few are listening. When the Reserve Banks collapse because someone defaults on a major loan, the financial systems will go down like dominoes. And with it millions of people who rely on wages will be hurt the worst. That's pathological.
Monsanto has always known the dangers of its products. If you read the technical specifications and warnings, they're right there in the fine print.
I agree that most cannot stand up against a more powerful force - although good tactics can and do at times beat amazing odds.
I don't call ISIS anarchist because they work hierarchically and are trying to build a theocracy, which is the exact opposite of anarchy. However, some of their methods do appear similar to what some extremist anarchists propose - ie guerilla tactics of terror by ambush. They are trying, and sometimes succeeding, in recruiting disaffected and emotionally disturbed young people, and instructing them on how to attack as individuals or small groups. But this is still organised.
In the statements zone on this site, I posted the whole essay of an Australian expert on ISIS - in 5 parts. It's worth a read if you can find the time (maybe half an hour.)
ISIS does not have a clue about the combined power of the western world. The USA has a neutron bomb which could wipe out all life in an entire city without damaging one building - it could wipe out the central leaders of ISIS in one blow. It has means of surveillance which could undermine the whole Islamic Brotherhood, Al Quaeda, Boko Haram and ISIS together just by hacking. The only reason it hasn't already done so is that it hasn't decided to. There would be inevitable "collateral damage" which would lose the moral high ground. I think the US would have to have the collusion and agreement of Europe and possibly many others before it would make such a decision.
Looks like you're right.
Mmm. The Germans had leaders and clear hierarchies within their tribes and controlled areas of land, sometimes elected and sometimes inherited. They were quite experienced in wars against the Huns and used an excellent tactic with the bridge. I'm not sure that they would qualify as anarchists, unless anarchist syndicates would agree that they can appoint a leader and deputies - which they might well do.
The American colonies did seem to have rough forms of government - it seems to me that the smartest and most corrupt bullies manipulated and coerced their way into power - and that the rule of law and justice was partial and arbitrary. I'm not sure that this was anarchic either, although it certainly seems to have been chaotic.
If you can call the Dutch East and West India companies anarchic - maybe the colonies --- but no - companies have clear structures of leadership and rules and its employees do not have freedom of action. Maybe the individual entrepreneurs among the Dutch... mmm that would mean that personally owning a lot of money and capital gives you the freedom to act anarchically - there might be something in that - quite contrary to what anarchists espouse, but... ?
The judge-leader-chieftains of the Israelite tribes do seem to have co-operated at need for defence in war, and otherwise lived mostly independently with their tribes - yet the people lived under the laws of Moses, Yahweh, and the rabbis - so I'm not sure that was anarchy either.
But if we accepted that they were relatively loosely structured societies, especially compared with ours today, perhaps we could say that if a bunch of socialist anarchists got together to form a confederation, they might look something like these groups once did. The Jewish model certainly worked well to keep the people together all through the diaspora, and still works to varying degrees in different places.
I think what you might be implying is that an anarchist coalition could potentially hold big powers at bay for a time?
Is that what you are saying, Vern?
And there, with wonderful conciseness, you have perfectly expressed my main concerns about the notion of extremely individualised forms of anarchy - that it may provide the benefits of personal freedom for a lucky few, but it probably guarantees the subjugation of most others by the powerful organisations.
One alone is possibly the most vulnerable of all possible positions.
Correction, some have begun to.
