Anarchism

I find there is a lot of intellectualizing and circlejerking around what anarchism 'is' and 'isnt', which is super weird to be because its pretty much antithetical to the philosophy. I've always found it extremely off putting and pretty reminiscent of the kind of circle jerking that happens in online libertarian or online tankie circles. It seems to come from people with no lived experience whose entire perspective is based on the kinds of conditions set up by modern social media (identifying with, describing ones self as, talking and presenting rather than doing or being).

My experience of anarchism is that of free association. Its people doing for themselves and choosing to do so for those around them as well. Its the idea that we don't need some intellectual, political, or authority to tell us how to form social systems or community. Community and society are emergent properties of the human species, not some a tautology described in some text-book or pamphlet. Its not an intellectual exercise, but a physical process. Its digging a garden with your friends to feed yourselves because you don't want to be hungry and you don't want them to be hungry either. Its free association. Its some one in your community learning to do small engine repair because if not the elephant grass is going to take over. Its making art because art is beautiful and amazing and it doesn't need to have any other purpose than that. Its a recognition that for the moment, you are alive, and thats enough.

Anarchism is that idea that we are enough and that is plenty. I'm abhorent to the idea of intellectual anarchism. Its not the thing, but a copy of it. If you want to be anarchist, live it.

I think Le Guins Dispossessed is a good material description of what a lived anarchism ends up looking like. When you read it you know that Le Guin has lived parts of this as well. Its scraping the earth for some calories. Its often times not having much, but having enough. Its taking responsibility for yourself and those around you. Its doing the work yourself and not expecting others to do it for you. If you want to find out what anarchism is, go to the places where it is happening and grab a shovel and do your part to make it a reality.

From my perspective "necessary authority" is a meaningless phrase. Authority is always justified to those who support it, and unjustified to those suffering under it. For example, the authority of a particular country to enforce it's borders is "justified" in order to preserve those borders. The authority of a catholic priest is "necessary" to uphold the values of the church against sin and pollution of the faith. But if you don't believe in those institutions then the justification is very silly! Anarchists just take this one step further and realize there is no single true authorized power structure.

Anarchists can do away with authority and just act directly. If some of us agreed to live a certain way it's us deciding that we want to do that. We don't need to hit others over the head with a magic scroll or manifesto to prove we are justified, and we don't need to ask their permission first. Likewise, if someone wants to push us around we don't give them the benefit of the doubt through authority. They're just another person trying to push us around, whether they're a government agent or a highway bandit.

How you approach others is what makes your world the way it is. If you want to treat others as equals, directly, and engage with them without an intermediary we could say you're an anarchist. If you think you need government (an authority, legitimate justified power) to push others around, i'd say you're not.

Modern Anarchists usually accept that there can be a multitude of community structures (like a community bank for example) that temporarily and voluntarily fulfil certain roles of a current government, and if you have a set of those it can seem like there is something like an government I suppose. But the vital difference is that a government always has implicit or not so implicit coercion and violence built in and is not something you can voluntarily choose to participate in, but you are rather forced to conform to.

What you are describing sounds to me like a pre-Proudhonian proto-anarchism; not yet fully formed to advocate for a totally horizontal non-hierarchical social structure. In modern political philosophy anarchism rejects all forms of authority, intrinsic or otherwise, and seeks to abolish all institutions that maintain authority over people such as governments and capitalism. So anarchism does absolutely mean “no government”, but this is an oversimplification and in no way a complete definition of anarchism.

no unnecessary relationships of authority

All relationships of authority are unnecessary.

The economic system with employers, employees and relationships of authority is capitalism. So would a free market system qualify as anarchism if the relationships are voluntary? No, it wouldn't. Not even if by magic employers and employees have the same market power. It would just be magical capitalism.

Actually, there's a very simple test for whether or not you're getting the concept.

Essentially, you're saying that you advocate for "government" with some significant constraints - that you don't believe that it should be "no government." It doesn't really matter what form the "government" might take or what the constraints might be - it's sufficient to the point that that's broadly what you want.

And you recognize that there are other people who believe that anarchism means no government at all - who want to be entirely free from any and all authority.

So the question is - would those people ever be subject to your "government"?

The only answer that's compatible with anarchism is "no."

In an anarchistic system, you would be entirely free to enter into whatever relationship you wanted with snyone else who was also willing. Were you so inclined, you could even appoint "royalty" to rule over you. It's your choice.

The thing that you could not do - not because it would somehow be prohibited but because the instant that you actually did it, the system would no longer be anarchistic - is make somebody else subject to the rule of your government contrary to their own will.