When has there ever been a libertarian anarchist country?

Why are people so afraid of ruling themselves? Do you need to be lead? What can a government(a group of people) do that normal local citizens in localized community collectives can't do?

I seems people have been conditioned to accept commands from a master. People that are not susceptible to this conditioning are marginalized,imprisoned,villainized for "not being compliant" with societal "norms".

Somalia has a central government and has a few regional governing bodies. There has been massive international intervention by communists that wrecked that country.

Somalia

reply to post by John_Rodger_Cornman


Isn't there a massive famine going on in Somalia at the moment.

I would hardly use it as a bright example .

Originally posted by John_Rodger_Cornman
Why are people so afraid of ruling themselves? Do you need to be lead? What can a government(a group of people) do that normal local citizens in localized community collectives can't do?

I seems people have been conditioned to accept commands from a master. People that are not susceptible to this conditioning are marginalized,imprisoned,villainized for "not being compliant" with societal "norms".

Somalia has a central government and has a few regional governing bodies. There has been massive international intervention by communists that wrecked that country.

Somalia

the Vikings operated a society based on criminal freedom, would that count?

reply to post by woodwardjnr


I believe he's stating why Somalia is not a good example. Because the other nations of the world raped it and abused it to no end.

You cant take a moment out of time, exclude all context and circumstance, and say "look, it doesnt work!" Likewise you cant do the same and proclaim "Look, it does work!"

Just like that stupid ABC special where they put a gun in the hands of some kid who had never before handled one or seen one outside of movies and video games then concluded to the world that "kids and guns dont mix."

reply to post by John_Rodger_Cornman


Man’s fundamental nature is to be ruled or to be solitary. While very few people can break that mold rules aren’t made for the exception (except in organic chemistry). People have pointed to Catalonia as an example of a viable Anarchic society, but soon after taking power these “libertarian” anarchists put together lists of “rightsists” and clergymen and put many thousands of them to death. While it seems antithetical to the theory of libertarian anarchy to murder political opponents, especially the thousands of unarmed clergy members who were killed, it goes to show the tyrannical nature at the heart of all forms of anarchy.

Maybe you might want to mention the "nation" of Israel as depicted in the Old Testament prior to the establishment of its monarchy:

Judges 21:25
25. In those days there was no king in Israel: every man did that which was right in his own eyes.


Israel was established for the purpose of having a true theocracy, in which the laws that God had given them would govern their day-to-day activities. Unfortunately, it degraded into a 'godless', more libertarian, situation in which everyone did things according to their own desires. Reading through that particular book shows how their society eventually fell apart as they were not able to create a more unified nation to defend their own borders and even ended up breaking into familial factions fighting among themselves.

In Somalia, can it truly be called a country, when there are some many that run their own groups without any sense of unity with other groups within the borders?

reply to post by SirMike


The tyrannical nature of anarchy?

Please tell me you're not serious. No one can be that intellectually retarded.

The whole "acting in your own self interests dream" of the libertarians is flawed.. Which of your neighbors would you trust in a survival of the fittest situation. Half of the self labeled libertarians are stocking food and amo in preparation for armageddon and most of thier fantasy revolve around their defensible fortress in the woods. Civilizations can't grow in that environment.

reply to post by NthOther


Maria Ochoa's testimony as told in the Blood of Spain: An Oral History of the Spanish Civil War

At home her father talked more about local politics than the war, not that the latter was forgotten, but local politics seemed more important. He was particularly hostile to the masses of people flocking to join the UGT - "opportunists without any political background" he called them. Soon, however a black cloud appeared over the festival. A workers patrol set up in a house on the corner of the street. It was guarded by two militia women. Each night a car drew up and sounded its horn. We soon discovered what it meant. People were being taken to be shot on the other side of Mount Tibidabo. It was horrifying, oppressive, The car would begin to grind up the hill and we knew the fate of the occupants. My father did not like it. He thought it quite normal that half a dozen big bourgeois exploiters should be liquidated, but not that all these others were being taken to their deaths.

More from Blood in Spain this time from an Esquerra representative on the militia committee protesting the murdering that the committe was sanctioning.

Day after day we found ourselves on the committee repeating "why these assassinations?" A man was killed because his sister was a nun. They called a man a fascist simply because he went to mass. President Companys said "you are drowning the revolution in blood" "Tell Companys not to come here again" Durutti said to me and Tarradelas. "If he does I will fill him full of bullet holes."

And as to what they perpetrated against religious people, from Edward Knoblaugh

I made a tour of the Barcelona churches and Rightist centers which the Left extremists had pillaged and burned since my previous visit. A large number of churches and convents had been destroyed during the demonstrations following the Left election victory in February. The work of destruction had been completed during the week preceding my arrival. Only the blackened walls remained of the historic religious buildings. The statues and paintings had been destroyed or removed, the altars ripped out, the stained-glass windows broken. The burial vaults in the floors of some of the churches had been forced open and the century-old mummified bodies of nuns and priests had been removed from their mouldy resting-places. On the steps of the Carmelite church were arrayed a dozen or more of the skeletons of nuns in standing and reclining postures.

The red and black flag of the Anarchists was everywhere - hung from balconies, suspended from cords strung across the thoroughfares and fastened to sticks wired to the fronts of commandeered automobiles. No attempt was being made to police the city. Scowling through their week-old beards, the militia, dressed in blue overalls or simply in denim trousers and dirty shirts, with red and black neckerchiefs about their throats, were as thick as flies. Lounging here and there or speeding through the streets in their requisitioned private cars with the black snouts of submachine guns protruding over the window sills, these Catalonian Anarchists looked fierce enough to startle even the directors of a Hollywood mob scene. Occasionally a shot was heard as a rifle in inexperienced hands was discharged.

The non tyrannical nature of anarchy?

Please tell me you're not serious. No one can be that ignorant.

Whenever any fanatic is given a taste of power and authority and that taste is coupled with a perception that there will be no consequences for his actions, the fanatic turns into a savage.

Thats why I smile when I hear jamokes like you wax deamily about Anarchy as some kind or real socio-political philosophy demanding to be taken seriously. Its also why I smile every time I see some Black Block maggot take a baton to the dome.

reply to post by SirMike


It should be taken seriously because it can work, and it has worked.

In Spain the workers ran the country for about 2 years on Anarchist Socialist principles. They collectivized industry and farms, creating jobs for all that could work, production rose 20%. They re-built the cities infrastructures that had been neglected. They re-built the tram system and made them free to ride.

They did that while a war was being fought, they were being bombed daily by the Nazis. Obviously the power of government won in the end, but it was not a failure because of the workers. If allowed Spain would have continued as an Anarchist Libertarian country, and it would have spread across Europe and the world. This is the real reason WWII was started. We now have a world wide fascist system that controls through psychology instead of force.

The anarchists played a central role in the fight against Franco during the Spanish Civil War. At the same time, a far-reaching social revolution spread throughout Spain, where land and factories were collectivized and controlled by the workers. The revolution ended with the victory of Francisco Franco in 1939, who had thousands of anarchists executed. Resistance to his rule never died, with resilient militants participating in acts of sabotage and other direct action, and making several attempts on the ruler's life.

wiki.infoshop.org...

Just because the fascists won it doesn't mean they have a better system, they just have the power to control. Spain was a good attempt but not enough people were involved because too many are like you, afraid of change, afraid of the consequences of real freedom, real personal responsibility.

reply to post by ANOK


What an amazingly sanitized version of the Spanish Republic .. but then again consider the source.

I also see that your more sanitized version omits the wide scale atrocities committed by the anarchists … once again, not surprising.

Had the republicans defeated the nationalists the anarchist experiment would not have continued .. not even for a day. With respect to the POUM, the anarchists were the ultimate "usefull idiots". The POUM was far more organized and even more vicious to its enemies (both real and imagined) and only tolerated the anarchists because they wanted to defeat Franco. Spain would have tuned into a Soviet puppet state, the POUM would have seen to that.

Originally posted by John_Rodger_Cornman
Why are people so afraid of ruling themselves? Do you need to be lead? What can a government(a group of people) do that normal local citizens in localized community collectives can't do?

I seems people have been conditioned to accept commands from a master. People that are not susceptible to this conditioning are marginalized,imprisoned,villainized for "not being compliant" with societal "norms".

Somalia has a central government and has a few regional governing bodies. There has been massive international intervention by communists that wrecked that country.

Somalia

There was. It was called France. and it started in 1789 with the Estates General and the common and middle class peoples combining together in a group called The Third Estate.
The Monarchy and nobles were the First Estate.
The church was the Second Estate.

The actual French Revolution ended in 1793 when a dictator rose up from the ashes and initiated a police state known as the Reign Of Terror that lasted another 6 years until a charismatic general named Napoleon took over and created a new code of laws to appease the people, and started a great military campaign to distract them.

If you are actually interested, you can read about the french revolution and see that the over taxing and burdening of the middle class and lower class, and a constant state of unfunded war is what actually lead to the full blown revolution and the public be-headings of the wealthy and the entitled.

In my opinion, human reality is bound to the same set of laws as physical reality. And in any case of full blown chaos, long term observation will always show there is an order, and thus a structure underlying the chaos.

So any anarchic society that springs up, will eventually build itself into an ordered bureaucracy. It's just inevitable.

Anarchy is not the same as freedom. Anarchy is simply a lack of consequences.

Anarchy doesn't work for a nation because it can't work, by definition.

–noun
1. a state of society without government or law.
2. political and social disorder due to the absence of governmental control: The death of the king was followed by a year of anarchy.
3. a theory that regards the absence of all direct or coercive government as a political ideal and that proposes the cooperative and voluntary association of individuals and groups as the principal mode of organized society.

The instant you have disagreement you have a need to prioritize values. If the disagreement is strong enough, you need a way to seperate the disputants and keep them from harming the whole.

Government is a necessity of large, complex societies, which is what we are stuck with. We could move to small, simple societies, but I'm pretty sure most of us would dislike the transition and vehemently object to it.

Anarchy is suitable only for relatively homogenous groups of under 100 people, not nations.

Originally posted by SirMike

I also see that your more sanitized version omits the wide scale atrocities committed by the anarchists … once again, not surprising.

What? You need to provide a source for that claim. How can you guarantee your source is not biased? Because you agree with it?

I find that anything that supports the establishment is far more likely to be biased than alternative systems. The establishment lies all the time in order to keep the population exploited.

Had the republicans defeated the nationalists the anarchist experiment would not have continued .. not even for a day. With respect to the POUM, the anarchists were the ultimate "usefull idiots". The POUM was far more organized and even more vicious to its enemies (both real and imagined) and only tolerated the anarchists because they wanted to defeat Franco. Spain would have tuned into a Soviet puppet state, the POUM would have seen to that.

That's just your opinion. You have to realise no system is perfect, there will always be those who want more power. This is where we have to be vigilant and not allow that to happen. In a system where we are taught cooperation instead of competition our mindset would change for the better, as we realise most of our struggles were the result of the private ownership of production.

What? You need to provide a source for that claim. How can you guarantee your source is not biased? Because you agree with it?

A source for what claim … that the Spanish anarchists engaged in a murderous rampage matched in magnitude only by Franco? I did provide a source and if you need more do your own research, its widely reported and hardly controversial.

I find that anything that supports the establishment is far more likely to be biased than alternative systems. The establishment lies all the time in order to keep the population exploited.

Ahhh yes, the perennial excuse for ignoring uncomfortable information .. TPTB made it all up.

That's just your opinion. You have to realise no system is perfect, there will always be those who want more power. This is where we have to be vigilant and not allow that to happen. In a system where we are taught cooperation instead of competition our mindset would change for the better, as we realise most of our struggles were the result of the private ownership of production.

Not only my opinion but the opinion of George Orwell (read Homage to Catalonia and its part of his inspiration for Animal Farm) and many others. Organization beats disorganization every time. Which is exactly why the Spanish anarchists committed such widespread atrocities and eventually fell apart, they wanted more power once they had their taste.

Originally posted by SirMike
reply to post by NthOther

 

The non tyrannical nature of anarchy?

Please tell me you're not serious. No one can be that ignorant.

Whenever any fanatic is given a taste of power and authority and that taste is coupled with a perception that there will be no consequences for his actions, the fanatic turns into a savage.

Thats why I smile when I hear jamokes like you wax deamily about Anarchy as some kind or real socio-political philosophy demanding to be taken seriously. Its also why I smile every time I see some Black Block maggot take a baton to the dome.

The Black Bloc people are not anarchists. They're a bunch of thugs running around in stupid costumes trying to burn things. They're idiotic comic book villains.

That being said, if you find joy in one of them being assaulted, who's really the tyrant? Are you seriously going to claim anarchists are tyrants while those of your ilk take satisfaction in brutalizing them for their beliefs?

Anarchists claim absolute freedom, and acknowledge the same for everyone else. Political idealogues who have no problem with people being beaten in the head, and in fact "makes them smile" when it happens, are the tyrants.

I'm an anarchist. I don't want you to be hurt by anybody. You seem to have no problem with the prospect of me getting hurt. Again, I ask: who's the tyrant?

Originally posted by SirMike
A source for what claim … that the Spanish anarchists engaged in a murderous rampage matched in magnitude only by Franco? I did provide a source and if you need more do your own research, its widely reported and hardly controversial.

Yes you need to supply a source because I have read quite extensively on the Spanish revolution, and civil war, and nowhere did Anarchists do anything but protect themselves from the fascists. They were at war you know, as well as trying to create a successful revolution. You never mentioned that they were being bombed daily by Nazi Stuka dive bombers, I guess that isn't murderous rampage huh?

Ahhh yes, the perennial excuse for ignoring uncomfortable information .. TPTB made it all up.

Most of the time they actually do, and is something I have seen and experienced first hand.

Not only my opinion but the opinion of George Orwell (read Homage to Catalonia and its part of his inspiration for Animal Farm) and many others. Organization beats disorganization every time. Which is exactly why the Spanish anarchists committed such widespread atrocities and eventually fell apart, they wanted more power once they had their taste.

I have read both those books, and I think you misunderstand there points. Orwell was a socialist. The Anarchists in Spain were organized, that was the point. The left organized to run the country themselves in an Anarchist Socialist way. The revolution failed because of the civil war, and the communist party, not because the Anarchists did anything wrong. Orwell's books are about the State and it's evils, not socialism, or communism, or Anarchism, which are all stateless systems. That is a common misconception. It was written around the Stalinist revolution. Stalinists, like Marxists, were pro-state, Orwell was an anti-state socialist (anarchist, or libertarian socialist). He supported a worker controlled economy, not state controlled.

That was a major split in the left between supporters of the state, Marxists, Stalinists, and those that apposed the state, Anarchists (who were also socialist, or communist).

There was internal fighting, the communist party wanted to postpone the revolution to focus on the war. The state supporting communist party sabotaged the revolution...

in Orwell's words 'by a series of small moves--a policy of pin pricks, as somebody called it--and on the whole very cleverly'. There had taken place the 'deliberate destruction of the equalitarian spirit of the first few months of the revolution'. It happened so swiftly 'that people making successive visits to Spain at intervals of a few months have declared that they scarcely seemed to be visiting the same country'. What had been to all appearances a workers' state had changed 'before one's eyes into an ordinary bourgeois republic with the normal division between rich and poor'. As Orwell recalled, he had grasped that the Communists had 'set their faces against allowing the revolution to go forward,' but only now was he to realise 'that they might be capable of swinging it back'. This is a crucial point for understanding the development of his political ideas. Orwell accepted much of the argument in favour of postponing the completion of the revolutionary process, but what he found in practice was that the Communists were actually engaged in reversing it in dismantling the bastions of working class power and in handing back to the bourgeoisie the revolutionary gains that the working class had already won. He was completely opposed to this. It was not the Communists' refusal to complete the revolution during the war that alienated him, it was the effective counter-revolution that they carried out behind the Republican lines.

pubs.socialistreviewindex.org.uk...

Anarchy is a joke. Both of them.

Capitalist anarchy cant work since its only a matter of time before the biggest entity becomes strong enough to supress the other others and create kingdom/dictatorship. If it works, its only temporary, its inherently unstable. Thats why there never was in history any long term anarchic society on a large scale. Also, IMHO its against modern human rights, since there is no mechanism to ensure everyone will have basic necessities like food and healthcare. And sorry, voluntary charity with no guaranties wont cut it in such an important matter.

Lelt-wing socialist anarchy is a contradicition is terms. Without the state, private property is default and natural, there cant be collectivism on a larger scale with no external forcing, its human nature (which cannot be changed). Again if it works, its only temporary, and using wealth taken from previous private property establishment. Wealth is born in private hands.

Instead of fantasies about anarchic utopias, we will do better to focus on gradual improvement of the most successfull and longterm working system to date - social capitalism - which has the best of both worlds.

for heavens sake,

there is always a leader in a country.

well unless you are a hunter gatherer society.

and good luck developing nukes.


or pyramids or microwave ovens.


then you would be living in another country.

reply to post by fooks


Exactly. Its called Dunbar's number

Theoretical cognitive limit to the number of people with whom one can maintain stable social relationships. These are relationships in which an individual knows who each person is, and how each person relates to every other person.[1] Proponents assert that numbers larger than this generally require more restrictive rules, laws, and enforced norms to maintain a stable, cohesive group.

This is a hardwired limitation in our brain, and beyond this number, all societies require a leadership to function properly. Effective tribal and collectivist societies where there is no leader and everyone is equal are possible only in numbers less than cca 300. Trying to implement it on the level of nation states is thus always destined to result in bloody failure.