Hierarchy must justify its existence, or it must be dismantled.
I like this definition. It makes sense to have one or a small selection of elected officials to make decisions that need to be made quickly or that it’s difficult to come to a clear consensus on. But if those requirements aren’t met its very likely a decision made by public consensus.
One thing to point out: it doesn’t say “elected”.
In theory it might be just the best leading person for a role.
That in itself is the most complex issue in my opinion: where do leaders come from and how do you make sure that they don’t overstay their need? It’s an unresolved issue and democracy is our best answer yet, in my opinion.
Opposition to hierarchy.
From Greek for without rulers. Anarchism is rooted in opposition to forms of domination and coercion; historically, its three main opponents have been the Church, the State, and capitalism. The main Western tradition of anarchism dates back to the advent of socialism, although there have been many anarchic societies and philosophers the world over for pretty much as long as people have existed.
There are lots of forms of anarchism, generally relating to either different visions of an ideal horizontal social structure, or just boiling down to what that particular activist focuses on (anarcho-feminists are mostly concerned with patriarchy, for instance). Mostly, anarchists aren’t prescriptivist - as long as people are trying to take power into their own lives, anarchists are for it.
What counts as hierarchy? Like, if I pay a plumber to fix my plumbing problems because I don’t know how to, does that imply some hierarchy between us?
No, because the plumber doesn’t have power over you.
Your boss has power over you - he can decide to remove your source of income, and uses that as leverage to get you to do what he wants.
Your government has power over you - they have a monopoly on the use of violence and use it to maintain control.
Your preacher has power over you - by making you afraid for your soul, he can manipulate you unwillingly, or severely impact your social status.
Your plumber is someone providing a service, that’s completely different.
It doesn’t seem that different, in essence. He could withhold his service and let my bathroom flood.
And you call a different plumber.
But that’s what people say about bosses. You don’t like this one, go get a different one. I’m not understanding the difference in terms of hierarchy and power and so on.
If you don’t understand the difference between a boss and a tradesman that you called, then I’m out. Either you’re too dense to understand, which would make explaining a waste of time, OR you’re just sealioning, as i suspect, which would make explaining a waste of time.
exchange AFAIK isn’t considered hierarchy, a trade of goods (in your example money for service) is equal
Politically they want smaller and more local government. There are anarchists on the right who want freer markets and anarchists on the left who want stronger unions.
Anarchists want government?
They want changes to the government. It’s like I said bro wants fewer oranges and you said bro wants oranges?
You can’t handle the logistics of a modern civilization without some kind of administration. Someone has to collect, allocate, and distribute resources to the various public services necessary for a functioning society.
There are “anarcho-capitalists” who might claim to want to dismantle all government in favor of totally unregulated capitalism, but that’s just trading out elected officials for the private boards of massive companies. Else they temper that private power with “citizen advocacy boards” which, after a long enough conversation with an an-cap willing to earnestly answer questions, eventually develop into something indistinguishable from government.
Government is necessary, anarchists want government without oppressive hierarchies. I say oppressive, because organizational hierarchies are really the only way to quickly and efficiently handle large projects. The problem arises with authoritarian hierarchies, when the scope of hierarchical power expands from clerical to tyrannical.
Political anarchism is a lie. Anarchism isn’t political. Anarchy is life. It’s fair.
