this post was submitted on 22 Apr 2026
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No no no, I'll do it, but it doesn't really seem fair. I mean, if I'm gonna be spending all day up at the reactor, how am gonna scavange and farm the land to provide food for my family?
https://anarwiki.org/wiki/Tightly-Coupled_Systems_Claim
That's not the criticism that's being made here. The criticism is not in how the power plant is organized, which the sketch doesn't talk about that at all. The criticism is that you'd need people in the plant and if that work isn't rewarded or paid in some way, they're not going to be able to provide for themselves.
https://anarwiki.org/wiki/Motivations
https://youtu.be/cLBospQs9Hk
Yeah I know, I watched it.
So what is your answer to the problems it raises?
Mutual aid is already acknowledged in the sketch. I don't see any answer to the problem of doing it at scale.
If you need to provide hundreds of people with mutual aid for decades, then you're probably going to have to have some sort of system to ensure people contribute to it and it goes to the right people. Congratulations, you just reinvented government, and contradicted the meme.
Mutual aid networks can be scaled up indefinitly tho
How? What's to stop anybody from coming up and saying, "I work with Dicknose up at the power plant, give me a food?"
The fact that they're considering denying access to basic human necessities like food indicates that they aren't anarchists. That would constitute a form of hierarchical authority, which is not permissable.
Unless of course they're all anarcho-primitivists and don't believe in large-scale agriculture, without which you couldn't feed everyone. In that case, they're just stupid :P
Help me out here.
Adam grows enough food for himself, eats said food, then spends the rest of his time watching movies. Bob and Charlie don't grow any food, Bob spends his time keeping the reactor from melting down, and Charlie spends all his time at the movies.
Who exactly is exercising "hierarchal authority" over who? Is Adam exercising hierarchal authority over Bob and Charlie for not growing enough food for them? Are Bob and Charlie exercising hierarchal authority over each other by not providing each other with food? How does this work exactly?
Would it be exerting heirarchal authority for me to go out right now and plant some potatoes in my backyard and then eat them once they're grown? Am I exerting heirarchal authority right now by posting, rather than spending this time growing food to give to the hungry?
Depends on which economic model the people choose. Anarchism is not a system, its a framework under which new systems can be freely developed.
OK, and can you provide one economic model that's consistent with anarchism that provides an actual answer to my question?
Like I said. Anarchism is not a system. Its a tool to create new systems beneath it.
https://margaretkilljoy.substack.com/p/anarchism-and-its-misunderstanders
So, no, you have no answer to that problem at all.
I have absolutely no interest in hearing, "Well, there are dozens of possible economic systems that could be implemented under anarchism that might answer your question." I want to know about one economic system that does answer it. I don't care how many there are that don't.
You cant make a wardrobe out of hammers, but you can use a hammer to create a wardrobe.
You're not talking about making a wardrobe with a hammer, you're talking about making a perpetual motion machine with a hammer, and when I ask to see the design of that perpetual motion machine, or how it resolves the fundamental problems with making a perpetual motion machine, you're telling me, "Well, there's not just one design, there's lots of designs out there so one of them probably works."
I mean, does it really matter at the end of the day? We could argue all day about our ideological differences. When it comes to climate change odds are we already hit the point of no return. We can sort out our differences if humanity survives.
It doesn't really matter? So then you're not actually serious about your ideology at all.
If I'm going to ask people to risk life and limb fighting to establish a new system then I kinda think it does matter whether that system has fundamental, unanswerable flaws that can be exposed in four minute comedy sketch.
Which specific economic model will scale globally and is better at distribution of scarce resources than capitalism?
Literally every ideology-driven argument falls apart when it's time to talk implementation. Theory is nice for winning Internet arguments with incels. The real challenge is making it work in the real world.
I submit that, if we normalized the notion of ethical capitalism - a capitalism that intelligently recognized all systems have limits, and eternal growth is impossible and pursuing profit at any cost is inhuman. Governments can put necessary checks in place, but society needs to change its values. Ethical capitalism requires a population willing to go without when the real costs of convenience sets the world on fire.
Now show me a society with values that supports delayed gratification as a moral value. I'll wait.
This strikes me as just wish-casting, and falls to your own observation about implementation. Yes, it would be nice if people were angels, but unless you have a clear strategy to make that change happen, that's nothing but a wish.
Jimmy Carter tried to make this pitch, as he was implementing neoliberalism. He tried to sell the lower wages with this idea of not being so preoccupied with material wealth. He lost in a devastating landslide to Reagan, who doubled down on neoliberalism but focused on lower prices while ignoring the lower wages, and threw on a different aesthetic about how indulgent it would be. Not that this has stopped Democrats since then from taking similar approaches and getting similar results.
So given that there have been significant political forces advocating for what you're saying, and people have resoundingly rejected them, where does that leave you? What's your plan for getting everyone to stop being the way they are?
Also, the fact is that this idea of a system of "ethical capitalism" hasn't happened is not a point in favor, it's a point against. Generally, you want to have some sort of evidence or proof of concept behind the thing you're advocating for.
Egalitarian societies with complex technology did exist in the past