My concern about Anarchism is that it will just replace formal power with social power, and I don’t think that’s really a step up.
Yuuuup. I started getting suspicious about how many Anarchists are people who (think they) have social power but lack formal power.
Since you mentioned this in the other thread, I thought I should round up some of my comments and thoughts on anarchism.
Whenever you have a highly controversial word, go to the root. Anarchy means “without hierarchy.” It should not be about the lack of government, but about the lack of levels of power altogether.
Some anarchists do just see it as a lack of government (or rather, the State.) I think they are blisteringly wrong. This would be particularly dumb for anyone who shares normal social justice concerns, because can’t they see right now that women and racial minorities have formal equality before the government, but massively lack social and soft power, such that they get exploited? For all the many problems with the current Left, it is at least aware of the existence of social power in most of its critiques. I can’t see why they’d simply want to do away with the cops and laws and hope… everything works out.
I guess it makes sense for the AnCaps, but they’re just really wrong and would make a Hellworld.
Lack of hierarchy would be better than that, and address the concerns in my Unfreedom essay.
However, I subscribe to anarchism as a lack of coercion, where no one is coerced to do something they don’t want to by any means (well, socially at least.) Coercion is still possible under flat, egalitarian systems after all, and so are many problems of the state, like a cruel justice system.
It’s a long way to get there, which involves everyone’s norms getting on the page of genuinely caring about the well-being of others (and not throwing a wrench in the works of every consensus because of self-interestedness or fear), but I think it’s possible and better than any of the alternatives. Coercion is just terrible, and begets terribleness.
Right now of course in social terms, anarchist is just an edgelord word for social justice liberals who found their own intentional communities and political action groups, suffused with a great deal of judgmentalism and disregard for the cultural norms of society around them. This disregard includes norms like “Christian charity” and “innocent until proven guilty” so I don’t really give two fucks about them as allies.
Simply: I don’t think this alternative is possible, and the path attempting to get there will just result in social power dominating.
I don’t think it’s actually feasible to get everyone to care about each other like that without massive violations which involve large amounts of coercion to begin with. Brainwashing techniques and probably literally mind-altering invasive procedures would be required. Social power is natural and organic, and will arise in almost any system among humans. People are born unequal before society even gets its hold on them.
Like, are you just going to cancel introverts or something? Or are you going to get rid of extroversion? Because if you don’t unify the preferences, then extroverts will have more social power even if they have equal material resources, without even attempting to do so.