is one of the most common responses I get when I talk to people (usually liberals) about horizontal power structures. It comes down to some version of "Well, that sounds nice, but what about the bad actors?" I think the logic that follows from that fact is backwards. The standard response to this issue is to build vertical power structures. To appoint a ruling class that can supposedly "manage" the bad actors. But this ignores the obvious: vertical power structures are magnets for narcissists. They don’t neutralize those people. They empower them. They give them legitimacy and insulation from consequences. They concentrate power precisely where it’s most dangerous. Horizontal societies have always had ways of handling antisocial behavior. (Highly recommend Hierarchy in the Forest: The Evolution of Egalitarian Behavior by Christopher Boehm. He studied hundreds of forager societies, overall done amazing work.) Exile, public shaming, revocable leadership, and distributed decision-making all worked and often worked better than what we do now. Pre-civilized societies didn’t let power-hungry individuals take over. They stopped them. We used to know how to deal with bad actors. The idea of a "power vacuum" only makes sense if you believe power must be held at the top. If you diffuse power horizontally, there is no vacuum to fill. There’s just shared responsibility. That may feel unfamiliar, but it’s not impossible. We’ve done it before. Most of human history was built on it. The real question isn't whether bad actors exist. It's how we choose to deal with them. Do we build systems that make it harder for them to dominate others, or ones that practically roll out the red carpet? I think this opens up a more useful conversation.
What if we started seriously discussing tactics for dealing with domination-seeking behavior?
What mechanisms help us identify and isolate that kind of behavior without reproducing the same old coercive structures?
How do we build systems that are resilient to sabotage without falling into authoritarian logic?
I’d love to hear your guys’ thoughts.
I think it's rather simple, honestly. I like the ideas of anarchism, it sounds good in theory, but has already proven to be impossible
Humans started without governments or societies. We were anarchist already, and moved on to having societies and governments not just because of bad actors but many, many, many, many reasons. Whatever system out there that works the best is likely a monstrous hybrid system of many schools of thought, and likely needs to be fluid and changeable to work
I hear you because I've had the same exact thoughts, but I think you may be committing the classic blunder of conflating rules with rulers.
You can still have rules, norms, mores, leaders, even I believe laws under anarchism -- you just can't have absolute, unrevocable authority.
Rules, laws, and leaders sounds an awful lot like a state.
A state is a hierarchy where the top dictates what you will ultimately be subjected to.
Imagine if rules and laws were directly voted on and decided by the people themselves, instead of by a corporate captured elite. Imagine if you and your community directly elected who would enforce those rules upon themselves, with possibility of immediate removal if they abuse that power or perform badly.
Anarchism is making it to where power is coming from the bottom, not the top, and where the power that does exist is more distributed and decentralized so that it cannot grow into authoritarian centralized power, as always seems occurs in centralized power structures throughout history without fail.
That's democracy, not anarchism.
I'm not suggesting voting in a centralized government, but a small community either voting or coming to consensus on matters that directly effect them.
That's just federal democracy, right? :)
They might want to organize into federated groups as an option, for sure. Critically the lack of coercive dominance hierarchies and horizontal power structures is what would make them Anarchist.
Yeah, the term for that is "Democracy." Democracy does not require power be put in to a centralized government.
Democracy is a form of government in which political power is vested in the people or the population of a state.
I think I should ask at this point what your definition of Anarchism is.
I use its actual definition.
"Anarchism is a political philosophy and movement that seeks to abolish all institutions that perpetuate authority, coercion, or hierarchy, primarily targeting the state and capitalism. Anarchism advocates for the replacement of the state with stateless societies and voluntary free associations."
I like that one too.
A community deciding on issues collectively and without coercive dominance hierarchies sounds like it'd fit right in there.
Sure, and Atlantis would fit right in the middle of the Pacific. The point is: Anarchy requires there be no hierarchy. If you are voting as a community, and you lose the vote- you are now under the rule of a majority, and no longer in an Anarchistic group/commune/whatever. Can't have someone telling you what to do as an anarchist- even multiple someones.
For the last 300,000 years humans have existed, we spent 290000 living according to our nature in anarchy. For the last 10,000 years we've been trying and failing at non-anarchy, causing mass death from war, starvation, and disease.
Tribes (not anarchy) has been far more common
Anarchy doesn't mean no rules or no organization, it means no rulers.
There's a bit more to it than that. For the last 10,000 years we've had comparative abundance, constant technological advances, a population explosion, and globalization.
Yeah and to act like we weren't bashing each other's heads in with clubs for access to the better fruit trees during those 290,000 years is nonsense. It was just less organized. But scarcity was a thing and the concept of morals and ethics weren't a thing - so head bashing to steal land and the raping of women and the taking of slaves were probably the norm.
That form of anarchy today with the advent of small arms would be basically the same if we were to remove all the militaries from the world. And whoever stole the best fruit trees would amass a bigger group to go steal more fruit trees and you can see where this is going.
Militias and other forms of organized violence are really hard to reconcile as an anarchist. Even from an academic view - how does anyone defend against an antagonistic, coercive power imbalance? They can't just be exiled because they'll kill you for whatever resources they want and then you'll be the one exiled from your lands/life.