“we’ve already done all that. We were small groups of people that gathered and helped each other out. We did come up with ways to grow our food and power our communities. We took matters into our own hands and came up with our own systems for handling violence. We came up with systems that protected us from more violent neighbors.”
This passage made me have a thought I hadn’t considered before. Maybe our ancestors did, but WE (today, in America especially) haven’t. And most of us that aren’t writing or reading about this don’t have the notion that our current way of doing things isn’t just the way things have always been, let alone aren’t aware of the reasoning behind why our ancestors chose these arrangements in the first place (and personally, the more I learn the history of our current arrangements, the less I can buy into the fact that they came out of rational, enlightened thinking versus being put in place to facilitate subjugation).
Our collective muscle for proactively and directly designing and redesigning our society has atrophied, and of course we feel powerless as our world seemingly devolves into dystopia before our very eyes. I’m not for going “primitive” again, but what’s exciting about anarchism is the invitation to stop outsourcing our role as citizens and self-governors.
I think calling it a muscle is a great analogy. We are allowed few chances to determine how our lives are run, compared to what we could have, and what we have had in other times and places. Defining the "we" is so important, because it clarifies who exactly made the decisions we're living with now, and where exactly our agency lies.
Ps. The “we’ve done that” sentiment also carries with it the assumption that all this only needs to be done once versus it being a constant, endless practice that adapts to change and flux.
I would disagree. We are drastically upgrading these systems with every generation. The capitalist systems we have now are much better than the ones a hundred years ago! Our justice and energy systems are far superior than they were 100 years ago. We are constantly iterating. My argument here is that we should continue iterating, rather than blow it up and start from scratch and hope we will come up with something different and better!
In the anarchist series, there was mention of using societal shame as a better means of achieving desired behaviour. Well, I've just listened to a talk about violence, she quoted research showing that shame increases violence not decreases it. Ref: Search for BBC Reith Lectures: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m0025cmg?partner=uk.co.bbc&origin=share-mobile
I was wondering about this. A lot of the countries I’m currently traveling in have a strong belief in karma, which should theoretically keep people from harming others, but it doesn’t seem to affect crime rate.
This series of exchanges reminds me very much of the philosophy-related letters which form the core of Jostein Gaarder's book, 'Sophie's World'. They're also just as educational, thoughtful and mind-opening.
I think it’s wrong to think of these isms as destinations, they are more like magnetic fields that help orient in the right direction for action and choice.
Sitting in a work meeting with a frustrating colleague, the magnetic field of anarchism would direct me to trust and negotiation. It would make me see what I could sacrifice for the betterment of the team or organization. The magnetic field of capitalism would orient me to dominance and an outcome that benefited myself first and the others after. Perhaps socialism compass would point us both to a common enemy in our boss.
I choose my worldview because it enables me to act more than I choose its destination.
The work is small and intimate at times, it’s winning people over one at a time. It’s talking about the sharing economy with a colleague, it’s small acts of kindness with a neighbour.
To make these open societies that we dream of, first we have create proof that they can exist in the spaces we live.
Griffin, you expressed the elemental crux of anarchism in the first letters with the "Might Makes Right" comment and questions.
However you let him rationalize this away by accepting the typical anarchist claims and false examples, that "good people will do the right thing".
This is true -- IN A MORAL SOCIETY.
The issue which he and all anarchists dodge is the question of WHERE does those values come from? The Social Contract establishes our moral framework and basis of values. Without that social fabric instilling those morals there can be no morality in society -- only laws.
I said false examples because any and all examples of people acting in the collective or individual to protect or assist others around them has always been done within the framework of a Moral Society.
Today we are many generations removed from when our ancestral family, worker, religious units instilled those values in us as individuals. We rely on the institutionalization of those morals - regardless of how the individual may or not have had them instilled during childhood. We call this the Rule of Law.
However the anarchist view is to extol the myth of individuality at the expense of ensuring that the greater population is protected from that individual which does not have the same morals by eradicating their protections via Law as well as eradicating the cohesive social fabric of Society on the false hope that individuals will somehow all be raised in different ways that nonetheless ensure they have the same morals as those around them.
Hmmm, I suppose I don't think there was a time in the past when we were somehow much more moral and thus more able to act in an anarchist manner. There was a time, however, when we were much smaller groups of people, and thus had less cause for friction?
ah, sorry ... I wasn't saying "people were more moral" ... I was saying that Society is *why* we have morals as individuals, and without the structure of society creating moral individuals then we need a society which reigns in individuals via law ... anarchism falsely believes they can do without both.
There is something so amazingly cathartic about reading these back-and-forth letter style "political" discussions—the civility is so refreshing.
One broad question I have for either side is, What happens to Bad Countries if "people [...] flee bad countries for good ones."
Or another way, How to we avoid more North Koreas?
When all the "good" people leave because of bad leadership or culture, that leaves behind the worst to inevitably take charge—what system could be in place to prevent or fix this kind of issue, especially in a world where modern weapons make a little bad guy a big problem for the wider nation-state alliance?
Our best example would be to look at the EU, which has had open borders between EU countries since 1985-1990. After that, many living in Eastern Europe (the communist countries) migrated to countries that had better governments and better economies and a better quality of life. Communist parties in Eastern Europe lost people and thus power, and large companies moved in to take advantage of cheaper labor, bringing jobs and opportunity to those areas that were previously impoverished. Eastern Europe is still behind some of the stronger governments and economies in Western Europe, but their people have fared much better ever since. And the bigger economies have become even stronger for increasing their labor pools.
North Korea is a unique case because they don't let people in or out. Most borders are closed to people entering, but not to people leaving, so theirs is a very unique case and I think it's highly unlikely we'll be able to create another one of those!
I find your point that instead of an uprising or restart, we need continued iterative improvements upon our current systems utilizing all 3 major forms of political ideology to be very aligned with what is written about in The Palladium Magazine. They are essentially trying to scrap together a new political ideology that altogether outperforms the current major ideologies, using bits and pieces of each but also implementing more novel modern ideologies and tools.
I think technology has never better empowered a decentralized world. From cryptocurrency, to satellite internet, to efficient micro scale power generation devices, to the overarching internet.
The reason I have fallen so in love with the cooperative model like Mondragon is that it scales equitably, even before all the modern technological advancements. Also because it can be implemented incrementally instead of requiring some critical mass adoption or catastrophic bloodshed. Also because it competes viciously with the other paradigms. The list goes on though.
I think Anarchy is too idealistic in a variety of ways, but one main point that most anarchist intellectuals disregard or overlook is how simple and reactive the average person is. When trying to scale a sociopolitical ideology, it has to work when you consider the intelligence of the average human across the globe. When I think about anarchy with this in mind, it is a non starter.
The cooperatist model compassionately holds a place for every level of intellectual or physical ability within a society, in my opinion.
The one thing I am very curious about with the cooperatist model is what place spirituality holds within or alongside it? I recall the founder of Mondragon was a priest or something like that. We as humans need something to nurture our souls. Perhaps this simply coexists with a federated corporation of cooperatives, agnostic of religious or spiritual beliefs.
As always, thanks for your writings! Such a joy to think about these concepts. I am very grateful to have discovered your writing.
I love Palladium! And I'm with you that there is an incremental approach that borrows from all the good ones while also innovating them as we go. Mondragon is absolutely one model we could use to do that and I'd love to see how that could scale internationally. I also have a piece coming out soon about how Mozi created a moral foundation that became a political one, so I'll be curious to hear what you think about that unique integration of the spiritual/political!
Employee owned businesses and turning every nation into a federation of city states might be the best near term solution. Both of these would decentralise power.
As much as I like the end goal of what anarchist thinkers describe as their utopia, I don't think we'll ever achieve it through anarchy. I'm more inclined to think like you that an evolution of our current capitalist and nation-state + super state (i.e. UN or EU) system is more likely to get us there.
"Charity" has nothing to do with money, even according to the Prohet Mohammed. Only when a religion wants to rule people, they will tell us that giving them a percentage of our income is charity.
“we’ve already done all that. We were small groups of people that gathered and helped each other out. We did come up with ways to grow our food and power our communities. We took matters into our own hands and came up with our own systems for handling violence. We came up with systems that protected us from more violent neighbors.”
This passage made me have a thought I hadn’t considered before. Maybe our ancestors did, but WE (today, in America especially) haven’t. And most of us that aren’t writing or reading about this don’t have the notion that our current way of doing things isn’t just the way things have always been, let alone aren’t aware of the reasoning behind why our ancestors chose these arrangements in the first place (and personally, the more I learn the history of our current arrangements, the less I can buy into the fact that they came out of rational, enlightened thinking versus being put in place to facilitate subjugation).
Our collective muscle for proactively and directly designing and redesigning our society has atrophied, and of course we feel powerless as our world seemingly devolves into dystopia before our very eyes. I’m not for going “primitive” again, but what’s exciting about anarchism is the invitation to stop outsourcing our role as citizens and self-governors.
I think calling it a muscle is a great analogy. We are allowed few chances to determine how our lives are run, compared to what we could have, and what we have had in other times and places. Defining the "we" is so important, because it clarifies who exactly made the decisions we're living with now, and where exactly our agency lies.
Ps. The “we’ve done that” sentiment also carries with it the assumption that all this only needs to be done once versus it being a constant, endless practice that adapts to change and flux.
I would disagree. We are drastically upgrading these systems with every generation. The capitalist systems we have now are much better than the ones a hundred years ago! Our justice and energy systems are far superior than they were 100 years ago. We are constantly iterating. My argument here is that we should continue iterating, rather than blow it up and start from scratch and hope we will come up with something different and better!
In the anarchist series, there was mention of using societal shame as a better means of achieving desired behaviour. Well, I've just listened to a talk about violence, she quoted research showing that shame increases violence not decreases it. Ref: Search for BBC Reith Lectures: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m0025cmg?partner=uk.co.bbc&origin=share-mobile
I was wondering about this. A lot of the countries I’m currently traveling in have a strong belief in karma, which should theoretically keep people from harming others, but it doesn’t seem to affect crime rate.
This series of exchanges reminds me very much of the philosophy-related letters which form the core of Jostein Gaarder's book, 'Sophie's World'. They're also just as educational, thoughtful and mind-opening.
> And would we call any of our current systems anarchist?
nope.
I think it’s wrong to think of these isms as destinations, they are more like magnetic fields that help orient in the right direction for action and choice.
Sitting in a work meeting with a frustrating colleague, the magnetic field of anarchism would direct me to trust and negotiation. It would make me see what I could sacrifice for the betterment of the team or organization. The magnetic field of capitalism would orient me to dominance and an outcome that benefited myself first and the others after. Perhaps socialism compass would point us both to a common enemy in our boss.
I choose my worldview because it enables me to act more than I choose its destination.
I think that’s how it works, how we get there.
The work is small and intimate at times, it’s winning people over one at a time. It’s talking about the sharing economy with a colleague, it’s small acts of kindness with a neighbour.
To make these open societies that we dream of, first we have create proof that they can exist in the spaces we live.
That's an interesting way to think about it, as a personal orientation rather than a societal one?
Griffin, you expressed the elemental crux of anarchism in the first letters with the "Might Makes Right" comment and questions.
However you let him rationalize this away by accepting the typical anarchist claims and false examples, that "good people will do the right thing".
This is true -- IN A MORAL SOCIETY.
The issue which he and all anarchists dodge is the question of WHERE does those values come from? The Social Contract establishes our moral framework and basis of values. Without that social fabric instilling those morals there can be no morality in society -- only laws.
I said false examples because any and all examples of people acting in the collective or individual to protect or assist others around them has always been done within the framework of a Moral Society.
Today we are many generations removed from when our ancestral family, worker, religious units instilled those values in us as individuals. We rely on the institutionalization of those morals - regardless of how the individual may or not have had them instilled during childhood. We call this the Rule of Law.
However the anarchist view is to extol the myth of individuality at the expense of ensuring that the greater population is protected from that individual which does not have the same morals by eradicating their protections via Law as well as eradicating the cohesive social fabric of Society on the false hope that individuals will somehow all be raised in different ways that nonetheless ensure they have the same morals as those around them.
Hmmm, I suppose I don't think there was a time in the past when we were somehow much more moral and thus more able to act in an anarchist manner. There was a time, however, when we were much smaller groups of people, and thus had less cause for friction?
ah, sorry ... I wasn't saying "people were more moral" ... I was saying that Society is *why* we have morals as individuals, and without the structure of society creating moral individuals then we need a society which reigns in individuals via law ... anarchism falsely believes they can do without both.
Ahhhhhhh, yes ok I very much agree with you there!
There is something so amazingly cathartic about reading these back-and-forth letter style "political" discussions—the civility is so refreshing.
One broad question I have for either side is, What happens to Bad Countries if "people [...] flee bad countries for good ones."
Or another way, How to we avoid more North Koreas?
When all the "good" people leave because of bad leadership or culture, that leaves behind the worst to inevitably take charge—what system could be in place to prevent or fix this kind of issue, especially in a world where modern weapons make a little bad guy a big problem for the wider nation-state alliance?
Our best example would be to look at the EU, which has had open borders between EU countries since 1985-1990. After that, many living in Eastern Europe (the communist countries) migrated to countries that had better governments and better economies and a better quality of life. Communist parties in Eastern Europe lost people and thus power, and large companies moved in to take advantage of cheaper labor, bringing jobs and opportunity to those areas that were previously impoverished. Eastern Europe is still behind some of the stronger governments and economies in Western Europe, but their people have fared much better ever since. And the bigger economies have become even stronger for increasing their labor pools.
North Korea is a unique case because they don't let people in or out. Most borders are closed to people entering, but not to people leaving, so theirs is a very unique case and I think it's highly unlikely we'll be able to create another one of those!
I find your point that instead of an uprising or restart, we need continued iterative improvements upon our current systems utilizing all 3 major forms of political ideology to be very aligned with what is written about in The Palladium Magazine. They are essentially trying to scrap together a new political ideology that altogether outperforms the current major ideologies, using bits and pieces of each but also implementing more novel modern ideologies and tools.
I think technology has never better empowered a decentralized world. From cryptocurrency, to satellite internet, to efficient micro scale power generation devices, to the overarching internet.
The reason I have fallen so in love with the cooperative model like Mondragon is that it scales equitably, even before all the modern technological advancements. Also because it can be implemented incrementally instead of requiring some critical mass adoption or catastrophic bloodshed. Also because it competes viciously with the other paradigms. The list goes on though.
I think Anarchy is too idealistic in a variety of ways, but one main point that most anarchist intellectuals disregard or overlook is how simple and reactive the average person is. When trying to scale a sociopolitical ideology, it has to work when you consider the intelligence of the average human across the globe. When I think about anarchy with this in mind, it is a non starter.
The cooperatist model compassionately holds a place for every level of intellectual or physical ability within a society, in my opinion.
The one thing I am very curious about with the cooperatist model is what place spirituality holds within or alongside it? I recall the founder of Mondragon was a priest or something like that. We as humans need something to nurture our souls. Perhaps this simply coexists with a federated corporation of cooperatives, agnostic of religious or spiritual beliefs.
As always, thanks for your writings! Such a joy to think about these concepts. I am very grateful to have discovered your writing.
I love Palladium! And I'm with you that there is an incremental approach that borrows from all the good ones while also innovating them as we go. Mondragon is absolutely one model we could use to do that and I'd love to see how that could scale internationally. I also have a piece coming out soon about how Mozi created a moral foundation that became a political one, so I'll be curious to hear what you think about that unique integration of the spiritual/political!
Looking forward to it!
Thanks for all your hard work, Elle!
Employee owned businesses and turning every nation into a federation of city states might be the best near term solution. Both of these would decentralise power.
You know I'm a big fan of that idea!
As much as I like the end goal of what anarchist thinkers describe as their utopia, I don't think we'll ever achieve it through anarchy. I'm more inclined to think like you that an evolution of our current capitalist and nation-state + super state (i.e. UN or EU) system is more likely to get us there.
Exactly.
Ideology: In the novel Dispossessed, another of my takeaway: they have an ideology that is indoctrinated from birth.
Anarchy is caring for the people around us.
It is so simple as to be mathematically demonstrable and for that reason just as utopian.
In this definition Islam is anarchy because one of the five main pillars is Zakat (Charitable Giving):
- including wealth zakat - annual giving of 2.5% of one's accumulated wealth
- Supports the poor and needy in the community
- A form of wealth purification and social responsibility
Right, so no religions are allowed in an anarchist society.
"Charity" has nothing to do with money, even according to the Prohet Mohammed. Only when a religion wants to rule people, they will tell us that giving them a percentage of our income is charity.
Religions, all religions, including the Islamic religion, are are many other things, all contradicting the postulate: caring for others.