Educating people about Anarchy. Your views?

In the Main Stream Media, Anarchy is depicted as disorder chaos and bad in general.. This is because Government influences Media and they obviously oppose Anarchy..

This is a very enlightening video on what Anarchy really is. And it helped me understand anarchy in more depth than that i have learned from the MSM



Id rather live in Anarchia... Would you?

Can you tell me more about anarchy while I'm waiting for the video to buffer ? I'm downloading 3 movies...

a reply to: GallopingFish

A mod here at ATS created an awesome thread on anarchy and it's ideology. I'd link it but I'm on a cell.

You might want to search for it.

a reply to: GallopingFish

There's a recent great thread on anarchy here but i dont know which forum its in.
Search for it you'll be glad you did

Part of the problem is that there are many different strains of anarchy. I would say that the most common similarity is the lack of an organized government. Without a ruler, as the original Greek supposedly means. I think that a society could function without a government, but one of the largest problems that one would run into is that of having to designate bodies of people to perform certain tasks, which inevitably will lead to what is basically a government. Take one of the most common problems: lawlessness. Without laws I suppose there can be no lawlessness, but in any society there are going to have to be rules. You will not want people going around killing and stealing from everyone else. Without some semblance of government to protect the people, eventually what will happen is that one group will form their own government via brutality.

They will subjugate all of the other people. You could have individuals taking care of themselves and defending themselves, but this makes it incredibly easy for any organized group to conquer the people, who are already divided. Thus, without law and order there can be no order. And what will happen is that those who seize power WILL form a government of their own choosing, probably a dictatorship or something towards that end of the spectrum.

One of the greatest forms of government is to deter people from seizing power for themselves, which is in human nature. At the very least there will always be people willing to make such an effort. What deters people who would take such action today is the fact that the opportunity is not there, and the fact that the state is well-functioning, at least where solidifying its power is concerned. But if the government were to disappear, this power vacuum would present the perfect opportunity and various people would form groups and all would take action in an attempt to place themselves in power.

I am attempting to establish that some form of government is necessary, as the most common definition for anarchy is the lack of organized government. So I postulate that it is impossible to have a state without a government or someone to create and/or enforce rules, because such a society will last only a very short time, and there is nothing that could be done to protect it. And as soon as you must start creating and enforcing laws over other people, you have what is essentially a government, and government interference in the lives of the citizenry...Even if you are only just protecting them, you have to have laws to enforce to protect the people from those who would break such laws.

a reply to: Iamthatbish

Ok il just type a couple sentences from the video, but id really suggest watching it after you have downloaded your 3 movies lol!

Many people when they hear the word Anarchy think of Chaos and Mayhem so they assume that an Anarchist must be in favor of disorder and violence. That is the complete opposite of the truth.
Most objections and complaints about the Anarchist or the Volunteerist philosophy are not actually about the philosophy itself, but result from people misunderstanding about what the philosophy is all about.

Anarchy does NOT mean. No Co-operation or Organisation. No protection from thugs or thieves. No disincentive or bad behavior. No such thing as Right or Wrong.

The video depicts 2 islands, Anarchia and Authoritania and goes on to describe the diffences.

hope that helps

a reply to: AnteBellum

Thanks i'll search it up now. I just thought this video i pretty cool lol.

Pretty tough to educate people about its true definition when Hollywood and the government constantly redefine it in an extremely negative and violent light, which the average person would shy away from instinctively if unaware of the real meaning.

Same mechanism, but the opposite is true of democracy... which gets promoted as the most evolved form of government (at least in the West) yet it is rife with corruption and inefficiency. A society that votes on puppets/figureheads/parties and not issues is not truly democratic, but people can't think outside the box if they have been brainwashed to believe they're the luckiest sods in the world to live in that democratic box and that outside thinking is unnecessary and therefore inaccessible.

Both cases are propaganda at work and I am starting to see propaganda as a tool to make people worship what they have rather than curtail any creative thinking/rebuilding. It's ironic that people have to break through to see it.

a reply to: igloo

Democratic systems aren't the best, but they're better than alternatives
you'll get them whether you like it or not, in some manner or fashion, without a strong devotion to democratic principles.

you think we live in a democracy? We don't, we live in a democratic republic assuming you live in the US. Switzerland has democracy, (as in citizens directly vote in town square in some cantons)

what bothers me is when people see the government as the only problem or entity with power, and don't see property rights as merely an extension of force protected by government power. I guess it's just a sign of how dead the working class.

I for one recognize that the present government is problematic, and the cure is to root out monied interests. To bring elections to the people, to prevent elections from being obscured by way of well-off financiers.

then again, I see anarcho-capitalism as an oxymoron.

I would imagine that after years of flat out killing anyone that stole or did anybody any wrong there would be very little harmful lawlessness about.

a reply to: GallopingFish

Hi OP let me educate you a little bit also..........



The Political spectrum is easy to understand when you look at it this way. The left is for more control or laws like socialism and communism when you have total control it is called fascism but in fact it is actually always an oligarchy.


The right is for less laws and regulations until you reach anarchy which is no laws or regulations. Under anarchy only the strongest most ruthless will survive and that is why anarchy never,never,never works. Man will always steer away from it because it always leads to destruction and death. Under anarchy you could never raise a family or fall in love or live any sort of peaceful life.


I find it is always the young or foolish romantics who say Anarchy is the answer. I always say show me that great anarchy society we should all wish for from the past...........Ya.

a reply to: GallopingFish

volunteerism might work on a small-scale on an unsettled land, but it will devolve quickly into violence and consolidation of power.

I'm going to go realist here... screw idealism, idealism is a bunch of useless hippie-crap.
I'm a leftist and I recognize idealism and utopianism as pie-in-the-sky thinking.
The power of the state is enforced by violence.
Violence and the control of it, IS why we have the state.
We have the state to do harm to those who mean us harm or who have done us harm, ^in the hopes of deterring or preventing further harm to ourselves.

We have an advanced form of this "violence control" in the 21st century, whereby, in ideal circumstances, the control of violence is given to democratically elected representatives. who, in an effort to keep their jobs, ideally vote in place of constituents on issues both broad and far reaching, and incredibly narrow. Oftentimes there is a document that details procedure and processes these representatives are supposed to adhere to.

The presently existing problem is that big money interests are being over-represented in our system, while everyone else is comparatively under-represented. Thus there is a system for controlling, or limiting violence, but it's presently in the interests of big money who seek to use this violence to protect primarily themselves



Edit: excuse me: I believe I should have refered to "violence control" as "monopoly on the legitimate use of force"

a reply to: SubTruth

nope you'd be mistaken, that's not how anyone who knows what he's talking about describes the spectrum. there is an additional axis

that's a lovely meme though.



left is for overthrowing social order = communist revolutionaries killing the czar, forcing industrialists/capitalists/landlords out of country(cuba, china, russia). Totalitarian rule to stamp out the old-ways/old-order, obliterate it from face of the earth.

right is for preserving social order = spanish civil war, the forces that won were right-wing fascists who preserved the spanish monarchy and position of the catholic church, mussolini's italy also worked to preserve established interests italy actually had a figurehead king during ww2. Totalitarian rule to preserve old-ways/old-order.

obviously old-order and new order are relative terms.

originally posted by: SubTruth
a reply to: GallopingFish

Hi OP let me educate you a little bit also..........



The Political spectrum is easy to understand when you look at it this way. The left is for more control or laws like socialism and communism when you have total control it is called fascism but in fact it is actually always an oligarchy.


The right is for less laws and regulations until you reach anarchy which is no laws or regulations. Under anarchy only the strongest most ruthless will survive and that is why anarchy never,never,never works. Man will always steer away from it because it always leads to destruction and death. Under anarchy you could never raise a family or fall in love or live any sort of peaceful life.


I find it is always the young or foolish romantics who say Anarchy is the answer. I always say show me that great anarchy society we should all wish for from the past...........Ya.

Thanks for your input, most of this was addressed in the video.

"Under anarchy only the strongest most ruthless will survive and that is why anarchy never,never,never works. Man will always steer away from it because it always leads to destruction and death. Under anarchy you could never raise a family or fall in love or live any sort of peaceful life. "

This definatley was addressed. In every society you will encounter sociopaths and if groups emerge though organisation to kill and hurt others surely this is a sociopathic organisation which is bad, everyone has a built in conscience of good and bad and Most people are good. Why couldn't All these good normal folk organize a defense to cooperate and deal with the sociopaths.

Anarchy does work because Most people are good and Most people have a grasp on right or wrong regardless if there is a Government or not. Remember even with Government now there is still organised crime and murders all over the show, what stops criminals from commiting the crime is the threat of harm to themselves if they are caught. Not a law or rule or a flash badge.

a reply to: GallopingFish

Did I just hear you correctly?

In every society you will encounter sociopaths and if groups emerge though organisation to kill and hurt others surely this is a sociopathic organisation which is bad, everyone has a built in conscience of good and bad and Most people are good. Why couldn't All these good normal folk organize a defense to cooperate and deal with the sociopaths.

What incredible ignorance. So anarchy works because you're assuming people are "mostly good"?. The mafia is a great example of what would happen under an Anarchist settlement. No laws or governing body means whoever creates a controlling interest in the settlement first, wins. Who do you think is going to get greedy first? The "mostly good" people? Or the sociopaths?

I can't believe what I'm reading, I really can't. You do realize that the reason we have a government, with laws, is to set a baseline for order. You do also realize that before there were governments, there were simple settlements who chose leaders to set the standards that were agreed upon by the people. In the beginning, there was no "ruling class". It took decades, possibly even centuries to subjugate the people into mindless sheep. Once the people were lulled under that supreme authority, it was exponentially easier to extort them with more regulation.

Just look at the Indians for the perfect example. Not modern ones clearly, but the tribes which still hold true to their original traditions. A leader is always necessary to sustain a baseline of order for their people. I think Indians live the most peaceful of lives that can be imagined today. It would be tantamount to a small white-picket-fence town (where everyone knows everyone) pooling their resources together, relishing in their connection with each other and their surroundings.

Anarchy is the opposite of that. Lawlessness does not beget order. Under an Anarchist system, children would not have to obey their parents. No one would have to take any responsibility for their actions. All of this hinging on the single greatest misconception of all, that people are "mostly good". If good people were the majority, we wouldn't have the problems we have today. Let's just make the distinction that most people are not "evil", but NO ONE is good.

"A house divided against itself, can not stand"

a reply to: GallopingFish
The difference between tyranny and anarchy is this;
Tyranny is a state in which the strong and powerful boss over the weak and take things away from them, because there is nobody to stop them.
Anarchy is a state in which the strong and powerful boss over the weak and take things away from them because (by the definition of anarchy) there is no-one to stop them.

If you think that people in a state of anarchy would live in complete love and harmony, then you haven't begun to observe humanity in action.

Yeah, you heard me correctly. Did you watch the video on what anarchy means because your post is a misconception of what anarchy is.

Children would not have to obey their parents?? Really hahaha

Yeah without government my love for my family would all of a sudden leave me... Not.

And yes the majority of people are good, co-operqtive and kind... I don't know where you live but good luck.

Not one person here has lived in an environment without a ruling class so to claim such knowledge on what would actually happen is a guess. I'd like to see what would happen in reality.

a reply to: GallopingFish

Found it:

ATS Link by Wrabbit2000

originally posted by: GallopingFish
Yeah, you heard me correctly. Did you watch the video on what anarchy means because your post is a misconception of what anarchy is.

Children would not have to obey their parents?? Really hahaha

Yeah without government my love for my family would all of a sudden leave me... Not.

And yes the majority of people are good, co-operqtive and kind... I don't know where you live but good luck.

Not one person here has lived in an environment without a ruling class so to claim such knowledge on what would actually happen is a guess. I'd like to see what would happen in reality.

I want to worship god X and see my neighbors worship of god Y as an affront. I don't want their ideals in my neighborhood. I attempt to kill them to appease my god and my beliefs.

That is what happens when there is no social order. Different people have different beliefs, to some raping a woman is perfectly legal such a thing can't even be committed, because she was asking for it if it happened to her. To others children are assets to be auctioned off to labor camps for money. To others a specific interpretation of the Bible is the only way others or themselves are allowed to live life. To others the Jews and the gypsies or maybe the Irish are untrustworthy thieves.

In anarchy one of two things will happen. Either someone uses enough force to rise to the top and create compliance among the rest or each group splinters into others like them and creates societal rules based on that groups collective thinking, otherwise known as a government. When groups splinter this way however they tend to view other groups which have done such with distrust which then leads to war creating even more need for government.

Your belief that people are mostly good is rooted in the idea that everyone thinks like you do. Everyone thinks of their own ideology as good and tends to view competing ones as varying degrees of bad. The whole point of a government is to create an authority over individual ideologies by which society can work together.

"In debates between anarchists and statists, the burden of proof clearly should rest on those who place their trust in the state. Anarchy's mayhem is wholly conjectural; the states mayhem is undeniably, factually horrendous."

-Robert Higgs