[gghh]

Right. "Anarchists are simply people who believe human beings are capable of behaving in a reasonable fashion without having to be forced to. It is really a very simple notion."

From: "Are You An Anarchist? The Answer May Surprise You!", David Graeber, 2009, https://davidgraeber.org/articles/are-you-an-anarchist-the-a...

[hallole]

That's one of those definitions that's so broad as to make the word being defined meaningless. It's always silly when one re-phrases their position into something trivial that no one would disagree with.

[wredcoll]

I agree 100%, but it makes a mildly interesting jumping off point.

My first question is: but what if they don't?

[wccrawford]

Exactly. Of course they're capable of it. That doesn't mean they will. They have a lot of incentives to behave badly, and there's no way to eliminate them all.

[hallole]

Even under our decidedly non-anarchic regime, people STILL find reasons to behave poorly. I can't imagine removing the disincentive of state punishment would benefit society very much.

[rexpop]

> Even under our decidedly raging conflagration, people STILL find reasons to burn to a crisp.

The argument—to which I'm quite sympathetic—is that these non-anarchic institutions perpetuate the environment which incentizes "bad behavior."

[hallole]

By "bad behavior," I mean robbing and murdering and the like, so no need for scare-quotes. Framing the average criminal as the victim of their own circumstances -- which seems to really be in vogue -- is entirely unconvincing to me.

> people STILL find reasons to burn to a crisp.

You make it sound as if turning to crime is less the criminal's decision and moreso nature's.

[gghh]

As the person who posted the quote, gonna be direct: no idea.

I have to say, I don't identify myself as a anarchist (maybe a bit of a sympathizer), yet I'm middle aged and finding myself a little dissatisfied by many things I see around me, so if I see people making the equation anarchist = degenerate, my immediate reaction is "yeah let's slow it down shall we."

[gghh]

Fair. But I think that statement isn't meant as a strict and precise definition (eg. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy or whatever), more like a "gateway" description directed at those who associate anarchism only with utter chaos and "burn the house down" kinda attitudes.

Now, I'm aware that when you need to say something is "gateway" that's a bit of a red flag, i.e. "milk before meat" (describing something as friendly and innocent at first, then only later showing the more aggressive indoctrination) is exactly what cults do. Having said that, I'd grant that the late David Graeber is quite the straight shooter so I think he's in the clear here.

[hallole]

When I recognize this pattern (reducing one's beliefs to a line of common sense) in someone's writing, I usually take that to be evidence that they're not a quality thinker. I've skimmed the rest of the article you linked from Graeber, and I think my first impression holds up. Like, take this snippet:

> Everyone believes they are capable of behaving reasonably themselves. If they think laws and police are necessary, it is only because they don’t believe that other people are. But if you think about it, don’t those people all feel exactly the same way about you?

Woah, mindblown! If you think about it, aren't you kind of a huge hypocrite and elitist for doubting that others can control themselves? Well, no! We know that plenty of people do, in fact, decide to act criminally and selfishly of their own accord. This line, and many others in Graeber's article, are goofy and I wouldn't take him seriously on this topic.

[keybored]

> into something trivial that no one would disagree with.

Start a topic on democracy here and at least a handful will argue against regular people governing society and their own lives.

That’s more than no-one.

[victorbjorklund]

Isn’t that all political movements when described in general terms?

[hallole]

The same is true of all political movements when described dishonestly and over-simplistically, yes.

[jancsika]

> "Anarchists are simply people who believe human beings are capable of behaving in a reasonable fashion without having to be forced to. It is really a very simple notion."

If it were that simple, then every FOSS project would be considered to operate under Anarchists principles. After all, the license and software forkability made it so that no one is forced to conform to whatever social structure is used to maintain a given project. But in real life, Anarchists will still argue that a Benevolent-Dictator-For-Life governance approach is wrong, even if it applies to digital artifacts that have zero marginal cost.

There may be plenty of good reasons for them to argue that, but none of them are "very simple notions" as your definition would imply.

[arcxi]

> But in real life, Anarchists will still argue that a Benevolent-Dictator-For-Life governance approach is wrong, even if it applies to digital artifacts that have zero marginal cost.

no they won't, FOSS project's governance model has no relevance to anarchist discussion. anarchists are against coercive authority, not leadership in general, and FOSS does operate under anarchist principles, which is why anarchist community is a strict subset of FOSS community.

[jancsika]

Anarchist developers have argued that, a lot, on public FOSS mailing lists.

I strongly suspect if you asked ChatGPT to pretend to be an anarchist FOSS developer, it would argue about your FOSS governance model because that's the data it was trained on.

[BurningFrog]

A core thing you should expect from anarchists is disagreement.

Some anarchists agree with Graeber's definition. A majority probably disagrees, in many different ways.

I expect this post will be met with disagreement. Wouldn't want it any other way!

[throwway120385]

If we define "leader" as "someone who commands by force or by some other means the obedience of a group of people" then Anarchy is a society without leaders. It doesn't mean a society without order, but it presupposes that people can behave reasonably and that that is enough to ensure order.

[donkey_brains]

That’s a narrow definition of a leader. Seems to me that a leader can be someone who others _choose_ to follow.

[lazyasciiart]

That’s “other means”

[wredcoll]

Whats the difference, from an anarchist perspective, of a leader making a rule or a group voting on a rule?

[kaikai]

Consent

[red_admiral]

Your "Other means" could almost be an essay prompt.

There's distinctions between power and violence (see Hannah Arendt), between social and structural power (see The Tyranny of Structurelessness).

And then there's this ancient Chinese text that has been slopified for a million management manuals:

The best leaders are those their people hardly know exist. The next best is a leader who is loved and praised. Next comes the one who is feared. The worst one is the leader that is despised.

The best leaders value their words, and use them sparingly. When they have accomplished their task, the people say, "Amazing! We did it, all by ourselves!"

[the_af]

> The Tyranny of Structurelessness

To me this essay was an eye-opener, both because it's well argued and also because it's so obvious once you read it. Even outside the specific niche of feminist groups in the US, who hasn't witnessed this phenomenon in action? Those supposedly flat groups where everyone has a voice, yet it's always the same subset of people who are heard and ultimately influence or direct all decisions? And the unwritten rules who are both invisible and "the law".

[verve_rat]

But to bring it back to the topic at hand, the people doing this are forced to by the BLM, so not very Anarchistic.

[smsm42]

It sounds great until you see what kind of actual people operate under the banner of anarchism. Then it might turn out their definition of reasonable fashion may be quite different from yours.

[dizhn]

Here's another excellent piece. Ignore the site please.

https://www.lewrockwell.com/2005/03/butler-shaffer/lx-what-i...

> almost all of your daily behavior is an anarchistic expression. How you deal with your neighbors, coworkers, fellow customers in shopping malls or grocery stores, is often determined by subtle processes of negotiation and cooperation.