/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.5296254]

Is an anarchist society possible?

[Anonymous No.5296259]

>>5296254
sure

[Anonymous No.5296265]

the same way that any other kind of society is "possible"

[Anonymous No.5296285]

>>5296254
it wouldnt be a society

[Anonymous No.5296294]

>>5296254
You have 10 seconds to justify this threads existence on /lit/ or I'm calling the police

[Anonymous No.5296296]

>>5296285
What would it be then?

[Anonymous No.5296301]

>>5296294
>bakunin was an anarchist writer
>thread is about discussing anarchist societies
Done.

[Anonymous No.5296307]

>>5296296
a shithole

[Anonymous No.5296310]

What's some good introduction to anarchism literature?

A lot of the people I know won't shut up about anarchy and I want to understand.

[Anonymous No.5296324]

>>5296254
It could be problematic, as there will always be a form of power that would rule over one given "anarchistic" society. And when people have grown in on it, they will forget what kind of society they are and the word changes meaning.

[Anonymous No.5296333]

>>5296310
Start with Proudhon, Stirner and Bekunin and go from there. The anthology of "No Gods, No Masters" is a good start.

[Anonymous No.5296334]

>>5296254
I'll tell you something OP...on the real...
it would be possible if we could exert benign and wellwishing mind control on all the members to know in thier heart they are good.....
you know why? because I am a good person. this is all that matters...what is fair and just, what is equal and what is wrong...deep down we know what is good, what it means to treat our fellow man with respect and love...if we had a nation full of these types...progressives intent on bringing man into a new era, never to fall into war, greed, fear again....that is when control ceases to be needed...........

[Anonymous No.5296340]

if you handpicked everyone after years of research into their personalities and then sectioned them off in a secluded segment of land far from the g-man, yeah probably
better invest in time travel first though so you can go back and get'em while they're young

[Anonymous No.5296345]

>>5296307
loving every laugh

[Anonymous No.5296518]

Was at a bookstore today and wanted to buy a book on anarchism. No one was working the counter and then I noticed a basement. Went down there and bunch a anarco-feminists making anarchist propaganda. "d-does anyone work here? i'm trying to buy a book." Nice woman comes up and checks me out. Cant help but to think that I should of stolen that book. The anarchists downstairs would of supported it.

Did I do right, wrong, or does it not even matter because there still is a class struggle?

[Anonymous No.5296721]

>>5296518
buying into the whole notion of "books" and "reading", you completely miss the point of anarchism. you should have knocked her to the ground, shit on her face and then set fire to the shop while screaming at the top of your lungs in an improvised, imaginary language.

[Anonymous No.5296726]

>anarchist
>society

[Anonymous No.5296738]

>>5296296
Individuals who choose to live near each other and work together when it benefits them.

[Anonymous No.5296740]

Anarchy is for fish.

[Anonymous No.5296763]

>>5296334
>>5296340
I don't see why everyone would have to necessarily be a saint for anarchy to work. There just needs to be a heightened focus of social organization at the most local levels.

[Anonymous No.5296799]

Read Murray Rothbard

[Anonymous No.5296824]

>>5296310
Mutual Aid by Kropotkin
What is Property by Proudhon
and The Situationist International was hardly anarchist, but I still like them a lot. check out Guy Debord's correspondence if you want!

[Anonymous No.5296828]

>>5296254
You on 4chan, and you still don't believe how utterly retarded people are without some form of guidance?

[Anonymous No.5296829]

Somalia makes it work.

[Anonymous No.5296836]

instead of trying to envision an anarchist utopia, consider the anarchist's interactions with society as it is. anarchists interacting with other anarchists makes anarchist society. anarchists engaging with the world around them makes anarchist society.

[Anonymous No.5296884]

>>5296254
No, because humans are inherently selfish and genetically programmed to put self preservation above all else

[Anonymous No.5296887]

>>5296333
Where should I start with Stirner?

[Anonymous No.5296892]

If men were angels, no government would be necessary.

[Anonymous No.5296983]

>>5296884
If men were inherently selfish, then there would be no government. Need for one would be entirely academic.

Capitalism and Democracy in particular (but all other forms of government) require a great deal of self-sacrifice to make them function. One has to sacrifice their right to take all manner of things in order for property to exist. The current regime (as all regimes have) does as much as possible to make the sacrifices it demands invisible, but they are still demands of self-sacrifice.

The problem with an anarchist society is not how to prevent dictators from rising up, but how to break people of their habits of following. Put a hundred Hitlers on an island, and you'll get a hundred independent nation-states, put a hundred Eichmanns on an island, and you'll get a single state slaughtering a handful of people for not doing their part for the glorious Reich.

[Anonymous No.5296987]

why would it be?

[Anonymous No.5296993]

Not until everyone takes up the task of individual transformation.

[Anonymous No.5296999]

>>5296310
Ignore every suggestion in this thread and read pic related.

[Anonymous No.5297007]

>>5296983
Government arose because of agriculture not selflessness ya fucking moron. The people in charge wanted to be because they were selfish and the people not in charge stayed because it was safer than the alternative. Greed and fear motherfucker that's all it is.

[Anonymous No.5297028]

>>5296983
you're an idiot if you think government officials took their jobs because they wanted to sacrifice

[Anonymous No.5297037]

>>5297007
Tribes existed before agriculture, and they had leaders. People who had excess to burn came to be in charge because they had excess and were ready to sacrifice it or give it away.
The entire nature of society is based upon self-immolation and the gift. Your Smithian and/or Hobbesian ideas are simply conservative attempts to justify what was currently in place by imagining some ridiculous historical narrative.

Just examine the basic idea. Why would someone who was more proficient at producing bows or pins bother to produce an excess of those things (in the absence of a capitalist economy) unless he intended to give the excess away?
Why would the peasant Hobbes imagines trust one man over another, unless the protector had already volunteered himself as a protector for no reason other than that he could?

[Anonymous No.5297045]

>>5297007
Have you ever read any political philosophy post-Rousseau?

[Anonymous No.5297052]

>>5297037
I've heard it suggested that agriculture was actually a response to warfare (and thus government) rather than the other way around.

In order to protect themselves from raids, people lived in larger groups with a dedicated warrior class, and to support those population densities, they needed to cultivate farmland.

[Anonymous No.5297057]

>>5297037
>>5297045
We live in tribes because our simian ancestors lived in tribes. Ever seen chimps, they live in tribes more or less. Selflessness is a luxury.

[Anonymous No.5297063]

>>5297037
These people "sacrifice" or give away their extra possessions because it ultimately benefits them, regardless of whether they are receiving physical compensation
Trust, power, influence, and respect all come from these transactions and ultimately result in some sort of gain in 'fitness' of the individual
Despite the illusion of sacrifice, the benefits outweigh the costs, and selfishness prevails

[Anonymous No.5297064]

>>5297028
Many do end up wrapped around to selfish ends, but they start seeking an ideal.
In any case, my point was that the only reason that a phrase like "government official" or "property owner" means anything is because the vast majority of people (who are not either) decide to let that phrase have some moral imperative. An entirely selfish populace would be completely ungovernable. People would wander away and go back to their own business as soon as you stopped directly looking at them.

[Anonymous No.5297076]

>>5297052
The most credible sources I've read are that agriculture was a reaction to the extinction of the large mammals our paleolithic ancestors used to hunt. It was farm or starve.

>>5297057
And the ability to waste oneself on luxuries demonstrates one's supremacy. Look at peacocks and their huge, stupid feathers. Being able to waste all that energy, being able to endure that much additional danger for no reason whatsoever, it shows oneself as superior to the one who hides from risk.
Explosive, ridiculous selflessness is in our genes. It is how we prove our fitness as mates.

>>5297063
Yeah, ok. That just rephrases what I said with more emphasis on the gains of being able to waste.

[Anonymous No.5297078]

>>5297064
who here is arguing that people are solely motivated by selfishness? the egoist faggots? nobody with a real understanding of humans would argue that point, OR for the idea that it can be stamped out, OR that people are inherently good.

[Anonymous No.5297090]

>>5297076
Being aggressive when trying to get a mate does not show selflessness or risk. It's the safe naturally occurring option. Humans can be selfless but only in rare circumstances and it is definitely not how governments form and the all evidence shows it.

[Anonymous No.5297097]

>>5296884
Oh boy...

[Anonymous No.5297127]

>>5297090
Getting a mate inherently entails risk.
That is why it is Friday night and we are here on 4chins chilling with our adult beverages and not out somewhere doing whatnot.

>>5297078
I don't know who is arguing that.
I just said that the problem with anarchy is getting rid of the instinct to destroy oneself at the behest of another, and provided an example.
Everyone is inherently selfish, to the extent that they can know nothing outside themselves, and they're choosing something that will advance that self's ideas to some extent.
The problem with modern society is that people have lost contact with their own selfishness. They have come to assume that the selflessness involved in sacrificing to government and property are inherent things, when they are not.

[Anonymous No.5297335]

>>5296993
Best response in this thread

[Anonymous No.5297370]

>>5296740
>>5296829
>>5296892

wow

much stiff

very brief

tell-it-like-it-is

wow

[Anonymous No.5297429]

>>5296254
if your grandmother spreads bald eagle on me, yeah it could be possible

[Anonymous No.5297433]

>>5296993

thats wishful thinking, very idealistic of you and Tolstoy

lets be honest, nothing is going to change dramatically

[Anonymous No.5297441]

>>5296301
>bakunin has curly hair
>let's talk about how curly his hair influenced his writings

[Anonymous No.5297456]

>>5296324
1st point: the question of whether there are people in charge is not a qualitative one, its not a question of a society with rulers vs a society with no rulers, its a quantitative question. Anarchists want to reduce the concentration of power as much as is humanly possible - even if afterwards some people are slightly more powerful than others, the majority will still be in control democratically.

Your second point is literally meaningless.

[Anonymous No.5297457]

>>5296721
hurr

[Anonymous No.5298065]

>>5296726
> implying there's a contradiction here


anarchy is defined as the absence of /government/, not the absence of society.

[Anonymous No.5298070]

Of course. It works out perfectly fine in Sudan, Somalia, Sierra Leone and Afghanistan.

[Anonymous No.5298100]

>>5296254
Is an anarchist society relevant?