anarchy who me? Yes! You! equals freedom. But at what price? 000106 ... silentbob chaos. humanity is not responsible enough for no government and no police right now. we'd destroy ourselves. although, then we'd see the real natural selection. if its survival of the fattest it will be a true test to see who the strongest is. 000803 ... MollyCule I once had a 3 hour long discussion with my boss at work (it was a mall store, which means we didn't do a whole hell of a lot) about the pros and cons of anarchy. He was against, I was for. The thing is, he was 30 and had a degree in Political Science, and I'm a strikingly brilliant yet under educated 20 year old, and I do believe he ended up winning . . . his opinion seemed to be that I was young and un-jaded enough to still believe in anarchy as a viable system of government, while he was older and had seen enough to discard it entirely. Perhaps he's right. I suppose I won't know until I'm older and more jaded. 001014 ... tourist If we had a planet of Altruistic Visionaries I'd jump right on board the Anarchy band wagon. Unfortunatly We live on an overcrowded world full of the self centered, and the aggressive individualists. The present level of comfort we enjoy is fragile. And if there was no government at all I doubt we would have food water electricity telecommunication, or anything but a hardscrbble existance. You may rid yourselves of a central government, but I assure you that something Will Fill The Void. It would be the new Feudalism, warlords. bandit kings. Knights of the Klan. Something would seize control, but only over small areas. We would be cut off from the rest of the world,people would become stupid-er and more prone to superstition. We might stay in this state for generations, or longer. Scatching out an existance from under a yoke of oppression till a wayward asteroid snuffs us like the Dinosaurs. Anarchy and Freedom are not nessesarily the same thing. 001110 ... daanuh think for a moment if we did have anarchy... the second we abandoned all other forms of governing by the heirarchy, the smaller "parties" (for lack of a better word) would suddenly rise up. i feel alot safer with a politician who talks alot of shit and doesnt really make much progress, than id feel with a big street gang member who bears arms 001116 ... splinken let's split up into small bands. we can roam around, foraging and frolicking. i wanna be the Big Man of my band. 001116 ... blithe are not mothers the original anarchists? popping out babies with no plan 010330 ... psychobabe yes, you can blame certain people for the whole anarchy thing, but really its just a bunch of people going all out on chaos! Order leads to chaos, and it stays there, as in us if you look at it. We lead from order, as in being alive, liveing our days till we die, until we die where our bodys decompose into fucking worms meat. Chaos. I love it, i want it, i need it. Its like i said before you can blame people for your mistakes, but really, in the end it will all end in pure, hard-core ANARCHY!!!!!! 010419 ... The Truth anarchy is the word needed to describe what we DON'T want. Somehow, some people thought it was a good idea, (probably because they don't like getting into trouble) without taking the time to thouroughly think this concept through. I quietly snicker when I see punks demanding anarchy, I think ignorance is funny. 010420 ... pogo stix i have never waved that flag anarchy is impossible some sort of order ALWAYS imposes itself 010420 ... faith anarchy isn't chaos.. it comes after it. it is voluntary self-gov't the definition has been shifted to a more chaotic outlook. 010420 ... psychobabe if you have such a strong belief that anarchy isnt pure chaos, then show me and tell me, because i'm not changeing my mind till anyone does 010420 ... Effingham Fish The power went out across several blocks in and around this town's most popular commercial sector, today. However, it's high noon on a nice, sunny day, so that's not where the anarchy comes in. Bear with me. The power outage, of course, included the traffic lights. So, police were stationed where the outage intersected with the main throughfare, directing the traffic. To be suddenly called out to do a thankless, possibly dangerous job, even with the weather so pleasant... I kind of felt sorry for the guy. But, I digress. I turned off of the main road, and went down parallel to the university, on my way back home. Whether the police didn't know that the power was out that far away, or they didn't think it would be quite as busy, is unimportant; what is important is that it was out, and it was as busy as on the main road. People, in cars, and on foot, crossed in and out of the university at a steady pace, but it was all good. The people in cars waited patiently for the people on foot to cross safely, and vice versa. They turned and passed without a single sudden braking or horn blow for as long as I was in earshot. No light, no cop, but it worked. Amazing, I thought as I drove away. All the prepared, thought-out arguments I'd heard for anarchy in my life, and all it took was one tiny, random event to convince me that it could work. 011030 ... Subterranean Visions anarchy is a good idea. it would drive everything into complete chaos and martial law. but i believe this would give birth to a new, better system of life. tribalism, or something similar. 011030 ... jestification any radical change in the system would be met with 'problems' because of the insane social conditioning we go through..... that's no reason to dismiss new ideas, it is a reason to discuss new ideas. i'm an anarchist at heart, but i'm still exploring my head. they might agree on something one day..... all i'm sure of is that i choose to meantally resist this fastly globalizing consumer society where everything is (or will soon be) a commodity........ & complacency is a motherfucker. 011207 ... cube to all those describing anarchy as a FORM of government - hello, the definition of anarchy is NO government. most of us wouldn't live to see week's end if dropped into true anarchy... 011207 ... bijou "Anarchism does not mean bloodshed; it does not mean robbery, arson, etc. These monstrosities are, on the contrary, the characteristic features of capitalism. Anarchism means peace and tranquility to all." - August_Spies, Haymarket_Anarchist 011212 ... flogging birdmad the scourge of every sea 011213 ... girl_jane If only it were possible. If everybody was able to take care of themselves and not go around killing people and other destructive, chaotic acts, I'm definitely all for anarchy. Natural selection, yes, I wonder how many of the people I really don't like would be around if natural selection had worked for the human population. Look at a few of the indian tribes. They were fine and dandy before we came. We had to leave were we were originally from because of government. Then, we come here and treat the people that were here before us like crap-the reason for us leaving. Wow, our ancestors were a bunch of hypocritical bastards. Look at us now, we have a leader who calls terrorists 'folks' as if he's going to invite them to a barbeque. Riiiight. Hurray for government. {insert eye roll here} 020212 ... reitoei most anarchists are posers. they just dont want a government to tell them they cant go deer hunting in their front yard. anarchy is not chaos since rules will always develop. anarchy is lack of government not lack of culture. i met this crazy gay scotch anarchist in a public library today. he was born on feb 29. the people you meet. 020212 ... silentbob none of the anarchists I'VE ever met were deer hunters. 020213 ... Casey Is it possible for the dick of anarchey or break the hymen of democracy? 020213 ... silentbob oh, i think democracy was devirginized and raped long ago, not by anarchy but capitalism and bi-partisan tyrany. class war. and in jello's words A Two Party State Masquerading As A Two Party State 020530 ... bell sessions read it in the books, in the crannies and the nooks there are books to read... chorus. 020530 ... ms money poor lil' anarchist posers, wishing they could just steal their punk pop from the mall where they hang out. 020530 ... kerry is the dumbest concept i have ever heard of in my entire life. the world is just too immature to handle responsibility. the way things are now, if we were anarchists we'd all be running around killing each other. =utter chaos 020530 ... kerry by the way in that last blathe i messed up the last part, 'scuse me! 020530 ... Rockstar who came up with that anyway? novel I suppose, but naive nonetheless. 021007 ... hi we're running around killing each other now 021007 ... Open Minded What is anarchism? Anarchism is a political theory which aims to create a society in which individuals freely co-operate together as equals without political, economic or social hierarchies. Anarchism essentially seeks to create a classless, stateless society, free of oppression and exploitation, that is organized and held together by the four principles; individual freedom, social and economic equality, free association, and mutual aid (i.e. cooperation and solidarity). What isn't anarchism? Anarchy does not mean chaos, crime, destruction or havoc. To the contrary, these have been the characteristics of political and economic hierarchies throughout history. One of the most common critiques of anarchism is that people "naturally" require hierarchal structures to govern society. However, every single hierarchal structure throughout history has burned to rubble. Not a single government nor empire has lasted more than a few hundred years. People have always rebelled against governments and hierarchal structures. Perhaps this is an obvious indication that people cannot sustain a natural equilibrium within society as long as hierarchy exists because as history has shown us, people will ALWAYS naturally rebel against them. What type of society does Anarchism advocate? Anarchism sees to create a society in which individuals can live independently from government and all top-down structures. We believe in mutual aid and cooperation. Anarchists believe in anti-authoritarian decision making, such as direct democracy. Direct democracy works off of consensus and more involves people expressing their ideas, opinions, concerns, criticism and suggestions about certain issues that effect that group of people. This is what makes direct democracy different than representative democracy. It eliminates all top-down hierarchical means of decision making. Many believe using consensus is naturally how humans work. For example, when you go out to see a movie with your friends you work on consensus.. You make a proposal by asking everyone, "what do you want to see?", and everyone decides. If there's a conflicting decision people usually talk about it. That's direct democracy. We do the same thing when we want to go out and eat for example. All these decisions effect us directly thus we engage in a format of a consensus decision making process so the decision can best fit our needs without excluding anyone's opinion or concerns from the group. This insures that everybody's voice is heard. Direct democracy also eliminates the top-down hierarchical in decision making format. People usually don't like it when another has the authority to make all decisions and boss everyone else around, therefore we naturally engage in consensus. Many anarchists believe that such behavior indicates that deep down inside we are all anarchists. Our behavior is so naturally anarchistic, that we don't even realize it. So what do you want? Utopia? That's a dream. Nothing can be perfect! Anarchism doesn't see to create the 'perfect society', but rather to achieve liberation by creating equality, education, and mutual cooperation. A community can achieve anarchism by declaring independence from statist capitalist forces by collectively organizing to form co-op networks to provide food, clothes and housing to the community. The Black Panthers and american Indian Movement demonstrated this in the late 60's and 70's. The only reason why they failed is because the FBI/CIA' cointelpro (counterintelligence program) neutralized revolutionary communities by means of chemical warfare.. and that today is one of the biggest problems we still face in our communities because of cointelpro. *taken from http://www.raisethefist.com/news.cgi?artical=anarchy* I dont understand why people wont acknowledge their own intellectual capabilities to know right from wrong. "What would you do without a polive force?" We, not only as a society but a country, would never tolerate murder, rape, or any other violent attack. We dont need people telling us not to, its in our own nature not to. The only thing keeping us from having anarchy are people who are misinformed on what anarchy truly is. It does NOT mean NO RULES it means NO LEADER! Some people in society believe that chaos would occur without a government to prevent it. But government DOESNT prevent it. You only have to read the newspaper to realize this. Violence occurs when the government is strong and when the government is weak. The most a functioning government can do is punishment NOT prevention-when of course it finds out who did it(sometimes wrongly accuse or not at all). The cure is worse than the disease. And here is a little background I got off of a Anarchist TImeline website. 1886: On May 3rd 1886, polive fired into a crowd of strikers at the McCormick Reaper Works Factory, killing four and wounding many. Anarchists called for a mass meeting the next day in Haymarket Square to protest the brutality. The meeting proceeded without incident, and by the time the last speaker was on the platform, the rainy gathering was already breaking up, with only a few hundred people remaining. It was then that 180 cops marched into the square and ordered the meeting to disperse. As the speakers climbed down from the platform a bomb was thrown at the police, killing one and injuring seventy. Police responded by firing into the crowd, killing one worker and injuring many others. Although it was NEVER determined who threw the bomb, the incident was used as an excuse to attack the entire Left and labor movement. Police ransacked the homes and offices of suspected radicals, and hundreds were arrested without charge! Anarchists in particular were harrassed, and eight of Chicago's most active were charged with conspiracy to murder in connection with the Haymarket bombing. A kangaroo court found all eight guilty, DESPITE LACK OF EVIDENCE CONNECTING ANY OF THEM to the bomb thrower (only ONE was even present at the meeting and he was on the speakers platform) and they were sentenced to die. Albert Parsons, August Spies, Adolf Fischer, and George Engel were hanged on November 11, 1887. Louis Lingg commited suicide in prison, and the remaining three were finally pardoned in 1893. This should show you how police officers do more wrong than right. Those anarchists were unjustly killed. Not only that, but the innocent others that were shot at when the police shot into the crowd. Anarchy may not be a bad idea-and how will we ever know-if we never try it. And before you attack Anarchy-it helps to know exactly what you are attacking. So educate yourself, dont just say you dont want it based on others opinions. Form your own opinions and discuss it with others. A good site to go to is http://www.spunk.ord/library/writers/meltzer/sp001500.html That helped me understand alot about anarchy. 021013 ... distorted tendencies Cannot exist. 021013 ... Sam Vaknin The recent spate of accounting fraud scandals signals the end of an era. Disillusionment and disenchantment with American capitalism may yet lead to a tectonic ideological shift from laissez faire and self regulation to state intervention and regulation. This would be the reversal of a trend dating back to Thatcher in Britain and Reagan in the USA. It would also cast some fundamental - and way more ancient - tenets of free-marketry in grave doubt. Markets are perceived as self-organizing, self-assembling, exchanges of information, goods, and services. Adam Smith's "invisible hand" is the sum of all the mechanisms whose interaction gives rise to the optimal allocation of economic resources. The market's great advantages over central planning are precisely its randomness and its lack of self-awareness. Market participants go about their egoistic business, trying to maximize their utility, oblivious of the interests and action of all, bar those they interact with directly. Somehow, out of the chaos and clamor, a structure emerges of order and efficiency unmatched. Man is incapable of intentionally producing better outcomes. Thus, any intervention and interference are deemed to be detrimental to the proper functioning of the economy. It is a minor step from this idealized worldview back to the Physiocrats, who preceded Adam Smith, and who propounded the doctrine of "laissez faire, laissez passer" - the hands-off battle cry. Theirs was a natural religion. The market, as an agglomeration of individuals, they thundered, was surely entitled to enjoy the rights and freedoms accorded to each and every person. John Stuart Mill weighed against the state's involvement in the economy in his influential and exquisitely-timed "Principles of Political Economy", published in 1848. Undaunted by mounting evidence of market failures - for instance to provide affordable and plentiful public goods - this flawed theory returned with a vengeance in the last two decades of the past century. Privatization, deregulation, and self-regulation became faddish buzzwords and part of a global consensus propagated by both commercial banks and multilateral lenders. As applied to the professions - to accountants, stock brokers, lawyers, bankers, insurers, and so on - self-regulation was premised on the belief in long-term self-preservation. Rational economic players and moral agents are supposed to maximize their utility in the long-run by observing the rules and regulations of a level playing field. This noble propensity seemed, alas, to have been tampered by avarice and narcissism and by the immature inability to postpone gratification. Self-regulation failed so spectacularly to conquer human nature that its demise gave rise to the most intrusive statal stratagems ever devised. In both the UK and the USA, the government is much more heavily and pervasively involved in the minutia of accountancy, stock dealing, and banking than it was only two years ago. But the ethos and myth of "order out of chaos" - with its proponents in the exact sciences as well - ran deeper than that. The very culture of commerce was thoroughly permeated and transformed. It is not surprising that the Internet - a chaotic network with an anarchic modus operandi - flourished at these times. The dotcom revolution was less about technology than about new ways of doing business - mixing umpteen irreconcilable ingredients, stirring well, and hoping for the best. No one, for instance, offered a linear revenue model of how to translate "eyeballs" - i.e., the number of visitors to a Web site - to money ("monetizing"). It was dogmatically held to be true that, miraculously, traffic - a chaotic phenomenon - will translate to profit - hitherto the outcome of painstaking labour. Privatization itself was such a leap of faith. State owned assets - including utilities and suppliers of public goods such as health and education - were transferred wholesale to the hands of profit maximizers. The implicit belief was that the price mechanism will provide the missing planning and regulation. In other words, higher prices were supposed to guarantee an uninterrupted service. Predictably, failure ensued - from electricity utilities in California to railway operators in Britain. The simultaneous crumbling of these urban legends - the liberating power of the Net, the self-regulating markets, the unbridled merits of privatization - inevitably gave rise to a backlash. The state has acquired monstrous proportions in the decades since the Second world War. It is about to grow further and to digest the few sectors hitherto left untouched. To say the least, these are not good news. But we libertarians - proponents of both individual freedom and individual responsibility - have brought it on ourselves by thwarting the work of that invisible regulator - the market. 031014 ... oldephebe sam - that was brilliant! 031014 ... oldephebe open minded - very passionate and informative..although i am convinced that any sort of egalitarian ethos cannot be statutorially imposed..and ah any sort of self-governance based upon altruistic or egalitarian aims nomatter how noble or well intended will eventually curdle in the rot of humanities natural state..meritocrasy..me..what about..me i found your elucidation extremely enlightening.. i have tried to bridge the chasm in my ventures between commerce and compassion..and every transaction was tainted by that avaristic itch.. ... 031014 ... a thimble in time SV- Have you ever considered the idea that the explosion of democratic institutions and governments in the modern era are the products of free-market systems and not the other way around? In 1776 the United States declared its independence, that same year Adam Smith published "The Wealth of Nations". In a free-market system, laisez-faire economists insist that self-preservation will ensure that businesses adopt a long-term outlook. Who are you trying to kid!? With every thing we know about global warming, pollution, third world poverty and disease, how many billion-dollar corporations out there are trying to become "Sustainable Businesses"? The daunting challenge of preserving global markets and protecting the liberties of individuals should not be left to an elite group of CEO's. Such an outlook paves the way to monarchy revisited. To control the free exchange of goods, services, and ideas, self-preservation certainly does come into play, in the form of democracy. 031015 ... oldephebe a thimble in time...more food for thought..thankyou for adding yourself to this discussion.. 031015 ... a thimble in time always a pleasure :-) 031015 ... bluten then the cost of this freedom is death. loss of rules is loss of control. we lose control of ourselves, of our faith, of our peace. order and chaos are opposites for a reason. anarchy is the opposite of life. 031026 ... neesh see the_death_of_language (we strayed off the topic a bit) 031026 ... Schitzo i think that anarchy is just a way of getting to skateboard wherever the hell you want!!!! 031118 ... quotree "You were right; you can't beat the system, but you sure can break it." -Malcolm {Malcolm in the Middle} 040412 ... Jairus Anarchy would be nice if everyone would just Fucking get a long!! 040608 ... old soul_ the democrats are on the inside, and bush is still president. what a shame 040716 ... old soul everyone needs to GET A-BONG alright 040716 ... hobbit_Anarchist if everyone knew what anarchy really meant, everyone would feel empowered, and embrace this idea. i'd like to start an information revoloution about anarchy, to educate our peoples, and empower them!! 041016 ... hobbit_Anarchist people who have no faith in anarchy, have no faith in themselves to be kind to their brothers and sisters for their own benefit. no faith in humanity, and no concept of socialization. it is helpful to people in power, to have the people below them be afraid of everyone, and need their presence to control and tell them how to live, and dicate their lives. so, it is helpful to support the progress of that which creates social "demons" because that helps them be needed. why do we build more prisions than schools? why not rehab centers? why not health care. why not give the people stealing and killing and fighting for life in hell some help? or just continue the revoloving door phenomenon, and keep people circulating thru jail. crime is extremely profitable for a goverment and people who want to be in control. maybe, just maybe, we are lead to belive that people are bad at heart, by people who are very mislead in their heart. i belive in the love between humans based on our reliance to eachother for surivial, wether we know it or not. anarchy is not NO government, it is self government. it is us, governing ourselves, because helping others is beneficial to ourselves. if we belive this is possible, then we spread that belife and strength of self to others and to our descendents, our childrens, our loved ones. and belive it or not, just like a family in a household can subsist and support eachother based on love, so can people. we are fully capable of love for everyone. we just need to stop buying the belief that its not possible becasue we are inherintly evile, and look inside ourselves and find out wether we ARE or NOT!! jesus. dont die to the idea of anarchy, the set up we are running on now, is running us, and our life support system into the ground. killing ourselves, our children, and our earth. this obviously isn't working. most of the money is in the hands of the few, and most of the work is distributed among the backs of the masses, all for a belife that money and possesions is life, and saftey. why the hell not give something so crazy as anarchy a try, and try to LOVE eachother, instead of trying to kill eachother. we expend all our energy on pulling others down, that we never move foreward ourselves. lets focus our energy in a supportive way, and i bet you'd be REALLY surprised at what can happen. god damn i love you people. 041016 ... the man with the plan anarchy is every corner of your country state and town we fight to do what they tell us andwe have thye right to go hungry while we feed our enemeys.we armed trained and suplied osoma binladen. our votes dont count the popular vote dont mean shit and if you could see the anarchey around you. you would have no use for words. words dont mean shit your action and your right to stand up in numbers to take the power back is everything 050326 ... jacobie im livin it 060810 ... pSyche so, I've been reading a lot lately. And it's fascinating. Totally surprising to me, based on what I knew, the actually concept was as almost on an entirely different side than I expected. It's a nice idea, but I'm too much of a pessimist to believe that it could ever exist. People are too selfish, too greedy. It's too nice to stay clean long. I'll make a difference regardless of the politics around me, thankyouverymuch. 070909 ... tyler Ok if your going to make a site on anarchy mabey some of you dumb fucks should know what your talking about 071106 ... See: Nature The original idea of anarchy was that people, if left to their own devices, are basically good and would respect others, and that any disrespect arising from material imbalances would be naturally "dealt with" and "rectified", thereby negating any need for externally imposed authority "~archy". 071106 ... Vicky S. I definintely think it won't work, as the world has been overpopulated for several thousand years now, but I believe it COULD work. I would have to agree that nature is borderline anarchical and one never sees bears or giraffes or wombats or spiders or archaea victimizing others of their kind. Man is fallen, but thinks he's risen, and I mean that in a secular sense. 071106 ... u24 it's total anarchy here. 150608 ... epitome of incomprehensibility Anarchy in the UK! How are you doing, u24? I was just being nostalgic about Europe some words ago (Italy, via an airport in Switzerland, almost ten years ago now). (Nations, nations, nations. I think nationalism gets taken far too seriously. I mean, what people call a piece of land doesn't greatly affect its shape, its climate, and all those external down-to-earth things. Culture is more what nations are about, but culture is quite fluid. I'm not sure if any of these views classify as anarchic. I haven't studied politics in any concentrated way.) 150608 ... dafremen ..it's like government for grown ups. 150610 ... u24 I'm doing well EoI, thank you :) On the brink of moving to a whole different part of the country. Since we met we've never stayed more than 3 years in the same city. It's good to shake things up. How about you? 151020 ... unhinged 'anarchy as a social philosophy has never meant 'chaos' -in fact, anarchists have typically believed in a highly organized society, just one that's organized democratically from below.' - noam chomsky 180124 what's it to you? who go blather from