This isn’t a ‘gotcha’ game. I’m giving you an opportunity to explain the words you’re using, so I can better understand how you have come to an apparently self-refuting conclusion. I’m glad that my assumption was correct that you must be using a words in ways they weren’t intended. Are you just posting to ‘dunk’ on anarchism, or do you want to be understood?
You are a ‘statist’ then. What functions would a minarchist state perform?
Pretty much exactly what their state performed. War, courts, police.
I’m looking to form my worldview better. I started out more Chomsky-esc, believing in the elimination of unjust hierarchies. But I’m told he’s more minarchist because all hierarchy is unjust. But it’s obvious that the elimination of hierarchy historically just leads to the creation of new hierarchy’s, and I think this article is a microcosm of that. I’ve never even been able to run a public interest group without a constitution for the group, excommunication of troublemakers, etc. That’s called a state.
So my intention isn’t to argue what I personally believe the state to do. It’s to say that they are minarchists whether they want to be or not. They formed a council (court), formed a mob to kick out a member (police), and participated in a war with a neighbor (military). Even as a small society that was unavoidable, imagine doing it with a city.
Chomsky self-identifies as an ‘libertarian socialist’, which is widely regarded as a synonym for or category of anarchist, I don’t know what authoritative source told you he’s a minarchist. I’ve usually heard ‘minarchism’ used as a synonym for capitalists of the Libertarian Party persuasion. There’s a lot of disagreement about where the ontological borders of anarchism are, and it sound like someone who disagrees with Chomsky is trying to metaphorically push him outside of those borders rather than engage with his ideas.
Okay, in your own words, how would you summarize each of those articles? If you want to discuss them perhaps putting each in their own thread would be convenient.
The first one basically says that Chomsky is a minarchist. He starts with basic definitions of an-archy meaning “not” an “archy” which means state. That Chomsky has redefined anarchy to suit a liberal white middle class reader (hey that was me!) to just mean “less government” or “less hierarchy” which is functionally libertarianism which exaggerated would be minarchy. He makes a good point that there’s almost no difference between that view and classical liberalism. He quotes some 1800s anarchist book that inspired Chomsky and chews into it.
Ziq seems to be primarily a prominent poster on raddle.me. I don’t want to say he’s not a significant anarchist thinker, but it makes me wonder if some of the posts the decade+ I’ve been posting about anarchism on internet forums maybe belong in the Anarchist Library also.
I’m not super familiar with his work, but he sounds like someone from the anti-civ branch of anarchism. It’s very popular in this branch to represent themselves as the only true exemplars of anarchism, so a forum personality denying Chomsky his due is pretty on message. Franklin López of The Stimulator fame came up from this trend, but it also includes Deep Green Resistance and Derek Jensen; there’s some troubling concordances with eco-fascism, ‘bio-truth’, and trans-exclusionary philosophies.
Unlike the C4SS article this looks like something worth analyzing, as they seem to have done some research. I don’t have time now, but might come back to it later, especially if there’s interest.
I do find the use of ‘minarchist’ here unusual also. Contrary to the C4SS article, minarchist is a bad thing in context. Ziq does seem to be using minarchist to mean a kind of authoritarian or capitalist, but it’s strange language to use. It seems like a rhetorical trick in that calling Chomsky this very specific, underutilized word that usually means capitalist sounds less ridiculous on the face of it than saying plainly that Chomsky is an authoritarian or capitalist, actually.
Sorry your original question sounded like a gotcha because the answer to any question “How would a X solve the problem of another X group using violence to impose a patriarchal system on their group?” Is always exactly the same. Court, police, war.
Sometimes people are creative in coming up with alternatives to court, police, or war, though those alternatives aren’t guaranteed to succeed.
I admit I skimmed the article, but I got the impression that their response to ‘war’ was writing a zine. War usually involves two belligerent groups; a ‘war’ where there is only one group engaging in violence I think is more accurately called a massacre, an extermination, a holocaust.
I feel that equating the morality of organized groups to the morality of states reduces important complexity in the concept of the state. I also feel the devil is in the details. Perhaps a both liberal democracy and a monarchy (I understand you are a supporter of neither) would use tools described as ‘courts, police, and war’ – but I would prefer to face the courts and police of a liberal democracy than those of a monarchy.
Yea the devil is in the details, but the binary between state and no state is my main concern with the previous conversation. I think it’d actually be great if the police and military were rotated through the general population so we didn’t have a perpetual bully class and had people who could defend themselves. I think we should throw away representatives as a political class as equally trash as the buisnesses capitalist class and return to direct democracy with constitutional limits. Courts with a jury of your peers who need unanimous consent and a trained defendant is actually a pretty good system if the laws weren’t trash.
I think we’re on the same page being turned off by the anti-civ representatives of anarchist thought. Anarchism didn’t start on Usenet – it represents a much older, deeper, and inclusive tradition than some of its modern proponents give it credit for.
Anti-civ is so obsessed with authority over Anarchism’s boundaries because Anarchism historically has defined itself as an alternative form of organizing civilization, and Anarchism’s enemies were the ones claiming it was the enemy of civilization. I will admit though, the story of a person, faced with the horrors of capitalist civilization and capitalism’s propaganda of Anarchism, choosing the propaganda version of Anarchism, is anarchist as fuck. Kind of like Winston Smith embracing The Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism in George Orwell’s 1984.
You might find more affinity with the police abolition movement. They’re not focused so much on gatekeeping Anarchism as achieving a distinctly anarchist goal. In practice they are repealing unjust laws, eliminating unequal and racist enforcement of those laws, and reforming the job of police until it no longer qualifies as a capitalist enforcer class. Instead they are replaced by mental health professionals, de-escalation specialists, mobile notary publics, crisis investigators, and many other specialties that perform all of the social functions of police without the culture of violence and perverse incentives for incarceration.
How would a monarchist solve the problem of another monarchist group using violence to impose a patriarchal system on their group?
Im just saying they are already statist. They are doing everything states do. So your question isn’t really much of a gotcha.
This isn’t a ‘gotcha’ game. I’m giving you an opportunity to explain the words you’re using, so I can better understand how you have come to an apparently self-refuting conclusion. I’m glad that my assumption was correct that you must be using a words in ways they weren’t intended. Are you just posting to ‘dunk’ on anarchism, or do you want to be understood?
You are a ‘statist’ then. What functions would a minarchist state perform?
Pretty much exactly what their state performed. War, courts, police.
I’m looking to form my worldview better. I started out more Chomsky-esc, believing in the elimination of unjust hierarchies. But I’m told he’s more minarchist because all hierarchy is unjust. But it’s obvious that the elimination of hierarchy historically just leads to the creation of new hierarchy’s, and I think this article is a microcosm of that. I’ve never even been able to run a public interest group without a constitution for the group, excommunication of troublemakers, etc. That’s called a state.
So my intention isn’t to argue what I personally believe the state to do. It’s to say that they are minarchists whether they want to be or not. They formed a council (court), formed a mob to kick out a member (police), and participated in a war with a neighbor (military). Even as a small society that was unavoidable, imagine doing it with a city.
Chomsky self-identifies as an ‘libertarian socialist’, which is widely regarded as a synonym for or category of anarchist, I don’t know what authoritative source told you he’s a minarchist. I’ve usually heard ‘minarchism’ used as a synonym for capitalists of the Libertarian Party persuasion. There’s a lot of disagreement about where the ontological borders of anarchism are, and it sound like someone who disagrees with Chomsky is trying to metaphorically push him outside of those borders rather than engage with his ideas.
https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/ziq-anarchy-vs-archy-no-justified-authority
Idk this seems pretty persuasive.
https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/logan-marie-glitterbomb-demystifying-left-minarchism
I read these before posting.
Okay, in your own words, how would you summarize each of those articles? If you want to discuss them perhaps putting each in their own thread would be convenient.
The first one basically says that Chomsky is a minarchist. He starts with basic definitions of an-archy meaning “not” an “archy” which means state. That Chomsky has redefined anarchy to suit a liberal white middle class reader (hey that was me!) to just mean “less government” or “less hierarchy” which is functionally libertarianism which exaggerated would be minarchy. He makes a good point that there’s almost no difference between that view and classical liberalism. He quotes some 1800s anarchist book that inspired Chomsky and chews into it.
Ziq seems to be primarily a prominent poster on raddle.me. I don’t want to say he’s not a significant anarchist thinker, but it makes me wonder if some of the posts the decade+ I’ve been posting about anarchism on internet forums maybe belong in the Anarchist Library also.
I’m not super familiar with his work, but he sounds like someone from the anti-civ branch of anarchism. It’s very popular in this branch to represent themselves as the only true exemplars of anarchism, so a forum personality denying Chomsky his due is pretty on message. Franklin López of The Stimulator fame came up from this trend, but it also includes Deep Green Resistance and Derek Jensen; there’s some troubling concordances with eco-fascism, ‘bio-truth’, and trans-exclusionary philosophies.
Unlike the C4SS article this looks like something worth analyzing, as they seem to have done some research. I don’t have time now, but might come back to it later, especially if there’s interest.
I do find the use of ‘minarchist’ here unusual also. Contrary to the C4SS article, minarchist is a bad thing in context. Ziq does seem to be using minarchist to mean a kind of authoritarian or capitalist, but it’s strange language to use. It seems like a rhetorical trick in that calling Chomsky this very specific, underutilized word that usually means capitalist sounds less ridiculous on the face of it than saying plainly that Chomsky is an authoritarian or capitalist, actually.
Sorry your original question sounded like a gotcha because the answer to any question “How would a X solve the problem of another X group using violence to impose a patriarchal system on their group?” Is always exactly the same. Court, police, war.
Sometimes people are creative in coming up with alternatives to court, police, or war, though those alternatives aren’t guaranteed to succeed.
I admit I skimmed the article, but I got the impression that their response to ‘war’ was writing a zine. War usually involves two belligerent groups; a ‘war’ where there is only one group engaging in violence I think is more accurately called a massacre, an extermination, a holocaust.
I feel that equating the morality of organized groups to the morality of states reduces important complexity in the concept of the state. I also feel the devil is in the details. Perhaps a both liberal democracy and a monarchy (I understand you are a supporter of neither) would use tools described as ‘courts, police, and war’ – but I would prefer to face the courts and police of a liberal democracy than those of a monarchy.
Yea the devil is in the details, but the binary between state and no state is my main concern with the previous conversation. I think it’d actually be great if the police and military were rotated through the general population so we didn’t have a perpetual bully class and had people who could defend themselves. I think we should throw away representatives as a political class as equally trash as the buisnesses capitalist class and return to direct democracy with constitutional limits. Courts with a jury of your peers who need unanimous consent and a trained defendant is actually a pretty good system if the laws weren’t trash.
I think we’re on the same page being turned off by the anti-civ representatives of anarchist thought. Anarchism didn’t start on Usenet – it represents a much older, deeper, and inclusive tradition than some of its modern proponents give it credit for.
Anti-civ is so obsessed with authority over Anarchism’s boundaries because Anarchism historically has defined itself as an alternative form of organizing civilization, and Anarchism’s enemies were the ones claiming it was the enemy of civilization. I will admit though, the story of a person, faced with the horrors of capitalist civilization and capitalism’s propaganda of Anarchism, choosing the propaganda version of Anarchism, is anarchist as fuck. Kind of like Winston Smith embracing The Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism in George Orwell’s 1984.
You might find more affinity with the police abolition movement. They’re not focused so much on gatekeeping Anarchism as achieving a distinctly anarchist goal. In practice they are repealing unjust laws, eliminating unequal and racist enforcement of those laws, and reforming the job of police until it no longer qualifies as a capitalist enforcer class. Instead they are replaced by mental health professionals, de-escalation specialists, mobile notary publics, crisis investigators, and many other specialties that perform all of the social functions of police without the culture of violence and perverse incentives for incarceration.