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Have you ever noticed how anarchists being infantilized is a fairly recent phenomenon?
(lemmy.dbzer0.com)
this post was submitted on 04 Aug 2026
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My problem that hasn't been solved (except like "don't worry, it'll just work") is what happens when an enemy entity tries to take over, could be another country, could be the usual power hungry sociopathic narcissists from inside, etc.
For now only democracy (plus education, fairness etc) seems to have any power against that.
The same as any other, people resist and either win or lose.
Anarchism does not mean no organised self defense. We’ve seen such fighting in action in Ukraine and Spain, the issue is they were always smaller entities against much larger I.e. the Soviets.
What happens when an enemy entity tries to take over any group of people? If we go on that basis then every single form of government is a failure because an example of each has fallen to an enemy army. Small collectives having the termerity to govern themselves doesnt make them wrong because they lacked guns. Empires have fallen for the same reason. Anarchism to me is not violent revolution its building a system that makes the state obsolete.
Historically, that tends to be the Achilles' Heel of anarchist societies, from my layman's understanding. They don't tend to fall to peasant revolts, failing economies, population collapse, or insane leaders; once they get initial stability, things tend to run fairly smoothly until someone with more guns decides to stop them.
You're just describing an invasion. That's how all invasions work, state or none.
The reality of democracy would be closer to the ideal in an anarchistic society. Same goes for fairness. Education could be debated, but I don't really see a reason why it couldn't work just as it does in any other system.
Without education you have chaos.
What you teach is some matter of discussion IMO but not teaching itself.
Sorry if I was unclear. What I meant to say that all of the above could be better realized in an anarchistic society, except maybe education, but that's debatable since at least the for-profit aspect of it would be eliminated.
Okay, no problemo 😊! But how would an anarchist society deal with bad agents?
Edit: agents/actors
Force does not require hierarchy, and force is not authority; if someone is opposing or harming the collective group, the group can choose collectively how to respond, including with force. They can even decide these things beforehand.
Well I can only answer from a syndicalist perspective but in a horizontally organized direct democracy that practices delegation over representation there is no political power to be gained. So I guess my answer is "a fuckton better than a liberal non direct democracy ever could."
Anarchism isnt "no rules" its "no rulers" Shitheads still get put in their place.
Every time I've had a discussion with someone about anarchy, they just describe democracy but with a society that actually cares and participates, and they always think that, for some reason, the bad actors will stop acting badly. They don't understand that, regardless of intention, shitty authoritarian fascists would make short work of an anarchist society. They also don't seem to understand that anarchy was what we had before we had any semblance of government in the world. Governments of various kinds were created because Anarchy does not work.
Based on what history or anthropological theory/evidence? Sounds like a preconceived notion, rather than factual truth.
My reading of various sources is that egalitarian societies established material relations that turned into castes, and then one caste established dominance over the others and created a ruling class. That ruling class created the "governments" to effectively rule over the rest based on their own material class interests.
The nature of government has changed over time, at one time there were feudal relations, now we have capitalist states. At no time, and in now way were governments created because anarchy didn't work. On the contrary, egalitarian societies worked pretty well until divisions in labor and distribution of resources became concentrated and monopolized.
I'm not an anarchist, but I disagree with your framing and would like to know what it is based on, if anything
Anarchy is society without hierarchy. Anarchism, what ‘anarchists’ are a proponent of, is how you bring order to that society. You need to read up my friend and develop your simplistic derivative opinions.
Anarchy does work, but it doesn't scale. It's fine for a town of a few dozen people, though.
For 8 billion people? Never gonna happen. Star topologies are necessary at that level.
Sorry which government has proven itself at the 8 billion mark? Ah the scale arguement. Have you ever considered scale may not be a good thing? Can you think of any modern projects that required 50k people all having input into how to do it? Sounds like subtraction by addition to me. Do you think congress would be more effective with more members or less?
Maybe all those small communities vote on an issue and elect a delegate to pass on their vote to a larger body. Maybe that body also sends a delegate to a larger body. Maybe we do that across the nation. The cool thing about delegates is they only deliver your message instead of going rogue with their own. Sounds efficient to me and we get to keep our close communities.
That's called a representative democracy. You're just adding a significant amount of vertical heirarchy to it.
Delegate democracy. The delegate delivers the vote of the people they have no authority of their own. I specifically made this distinction please practice some reading comprehension.
It ends up the same either way. As you move up the chain, the chances that the delegate you're under isn't representing your sub groups best interests rises.