Mastodawn

HeavenlyPossum Nov 14, 2023

It’s often the case that critics of anarchism will demand to know how we might obtain public goods without the state, because their entire frame of reference for public goods is in the context of state monopolies.

And I might reply that all sorts of public goods predate the state by thousands of years or more. Neolithic peoples were building trackway roads and monumental architecture and all kinds of neat things.

And critics of anarchism will often gleefully seize upon this as if it presents some clever gotcha. They think this means that *the best* we can hope to achieve without the state is a Neolithic-level of technology and cooperation.

And I find that response to be…so immensely sad. They see a dead-end; I see incredible achievements with only the barest of technologies and available knowledge, and can only wonder at the marvels we’d be able to achieve together now.

@HeavenlyPossum

A critic of anarchism looks around at a country with no healthcare, sewage in the water and crumbling roads.

"But without a state, how would you ensure healthcare, clean water and usable roads?" they ask.

Steve Randy Waldman Nov 14, 2023

@passenger @HeavenlyPossum we do also see states like the Scandinavians, that provide all of those goods, and a degree of general security nearly unheard of in human history as a universal public good as well.

all states are imperfect, and even some very proud states might deserve the moniker "failed". it's unfair to compare only the worst thought-experiment outcomes under anarchy to only the best states. but there are and have been some remarkable states!

HeavenlyPossum Nov 14, 2023

@interfluidity @passenger

No, there haven’t.

Steve Randy Waldman Nov 14, 2023

@HeavenlyPossum @passenger agree to disagree, we must, i'm afraid.

HeavenlyPossum Nov 14, 2023

@passenger @interfluidity

States compelled to provide public goods—at public expense—by the threat of worker militancy do not somehow prove the goodness of states.

Steve Randy Waldman Nov 14, 2023

@HeavenlyPossum @passenger "the goodness of states" is a phrase like "the goodness of people"—too broad to be meaningful. Under some circumstances many people are good. All people have the potential to behave badly.

the Nordic states exist and have endured for some time with a political economy—that includes the threat of worker militancy, thank goodness—that has vouchsafed a remarkable quality of life for a remarkably broad share of their populations. it's an existence proof, not a guarantee.

HeavenlyPossum Nov 14, 2023

@passenger @interfluidity

I think you’re drawing the wrong lesson—not that states provide a high quality of life, but rather that states can, under duress, be persuaded to exploit less.

Steve Randy Waldman Nov 14, 2023

@HeavenlyPossum @passenger I'd argue the Nordics don't merely exploit less, but provide more and better public goods than literally any societies in all of human history. No state need exploit me in order for me to die in the wilderness. They are doing something more than nonexploiting.

Of course it is possible that stateless forms of coordination could provide the same. I'd love to see an example.

HeavenlyPossum Nov 14, 2023

@interfluidity @passenger

You’re begging the question that states “provide” these public goods, rather than just monopolizing access.

The Nordics merely exploit less. All of those public services the state mediates are provided by the public itself.

Steve Randy Waldman Nov 14, 2023

@HeavenlyPossum @passenger publics don't provide them in very many elsewheres though. those states seem like a part of a coordination arrangement that works remarkably well. i'm certainly open to other coordination arrangements that might work better, but so far those strike me as the most appealing demostrably feasible models.

HeavenlyPossum Nov 14, 2023

@interfluidity @passenger

Publics don’t provide them because they’re coercive prevented from doing so.

Don’t mistake correlation with causation.

Steve Randy Waldman Nov 14, 2023

@HeavenlyPossum @passenger It's possible that in the absense of things that exist basically everywhere, everything would be great. We can't observe that condition. It does suggest that, even if that were the case, it might be a condition difficult to sustain, given the places we have fallen to, pretty much everywhere. (not everywhere has a meaningful state, but the places that don't don't seem admirable. perhaps bc of the meddling of states! but we can't really say, or prevent that.)

HeavenlyPossum Nov 14, 2023

@interfluidity @passenger

I don’t understand what you’re saying here

Fabio G.Nov 15, 2023

@HeavenlyPossum @interfluidity @passenger

What they seem to be saying is that we can't know that the public everywhere would freely provide all those public goods if there we no states, because we can't observe the “there are no states” condition to tell, because there are states (and their influence is pretty much everywhere).

Violet Madder Nov 14, 2023

@interfluidity @HeavenlyPossum @passenger

The Nordic states, unfortunately, are all following the same trajectory as the rest-- their social safety nets are eroding, inequality and fascism are rising, and meanwhile they've been profiting off of the exploitation of the global south this entire time. Norway is a major offender in environmental destruction and continuing fossil fuel extraction. Finland just signed an enthusiastic alliance with Israel's genocidal leadership. They all have often overlooked issues with racism, too. Just because they've been doing certain things better than the US doesn't mean they got it right, or that they aren't subject to the same inherent corruption.

I used to passionately long for democratic socialism. After being confronted too many times with the undercurrents of hypocrisy, elitism, and tyranny it carries, I no longer trust that it is enough. Especially not when capitalism (which is to say, corporate feudalism) is what's truly at the helm.

Steve Randy Waldman Nov 14, 2023

@violetmadder @HeavenlyPossum @passenger Everything is terrible. We are grading on a curve. What is best among feasible alternatives? We can always imagine nearly perfect, but the further we jump from things that exist, the greater the risk of simple collapse to ugly forms of disorder.

Violet Madder Nov 14, 2023

@interfluidity @HeavenlyPossum @passenger

Don't let the "everything is terrible, this is the best we can hope for" narrative resign you to the inevitability of the intolerable shit we're expected to swallow.

Don't define your assumptions about what's "feasible" by the heavily propagandized standards of the dominant hegemony.

We have to crack open the prison in our heads to see outside this box. Then, and only then, can we work on building the alternatives.

Steve Randy Waldman Nov 14, 2023

@violetmadder @HeavenlyPossum @passenger I'm really glad to consider alternatives! But I think they have to be positive constructions — what should we do, and how, and this is why people are going to live and act together in ways that lead to good outcomes — rather than negative proscriptions (this is what we dislike, we just won't do that). I don't think eliminating what is bad is a sufficient path to creating what might be good.

Violet Madder Nov 14, 2023

@interfluidity @HeavenlyPossum @passenger

Yes exactly!

This is really important-- the best way to tear down a system that isn't working, is to start building something better and just render the bad stuff obsolete. It's crucial to focus on constructive, hopeful things we can get excited about instead of hostility and destruction. One of my biggest problems with the media etc today is how little attention is paid to solutions, cultivating despair and helplessness instead of courage.

That's why my main focus these days is working on my social skills, mental health stuff, studying worker co-ops and intentional communities and the like to get better acquainted with what works.

Violet Madder Nov 14, 2023

@interfluidity @HeavenlyPossum @passenger

One of THE biggest problems our current society has, is an obsession with blame and punishment. People are treated as if we have no positive intrinsic motivations, and must be hounded into being productive under constant threats instead of being trusted to make our own decisions or find our own ambitions. We run away, instead of towards.

In working on my own depression and anxiety it's been key to try to discover any positive reinforcement I can-- one of the nastiest symptoms of depression is anhedonia, an inability to feel good feelings, and I think what that does to individuals reflects our entire culture's tendencies to mock and squash the fragile, personal vulnerabilities that are our passions, hopes, and internal motivation. We internalize it and help the system by oppressing ourselves. Fixing it on an individual level works on the same dynamics as the systemic level.

When visiting a garden or helping a friend or learning something brings me a good feeling, I have to hang on to that fiercely and use it to build myself before I can build anything else.

When I think about this stuff I see little steps adding up, links in a chain of dominos that stack into something big.

Passenger Nov 14, 2023

This. This this this this this.

Steve Randy Waldman Nov 15, 2023

@violetmadder @HeavenlyPossum @passenger absolutely. much of how we’ve fucked up the world is by normalizing use of extrinsic, venal motivations for excellences and kindnesses that can only thrive when derived from intrinsic motivation. no “incentivizer” can make kindness profitable in ways that won’t be gamed and subverted.

Violet Madder Nov 15, 2023

@interfluidity @HeavenlyPossum @passenger

You've got it.

We can start by believing something better is not only feasible, but MORE feasible than continuing these dysfunctional systems that put us on a doomed path towards total environmental destruction.

What exact form the new systems will take, we don't entirely know yet-- it's new. But we know it has to be built from cooperation and compassion. It's going to take direct action, mutual aid, labor organizing, and a whole lot of landscape rehabilitation. Anything that can be organized and accomplished without coercive, oppressive control is a win and a building block.

Fluke McHappenstance

@interfluidity @HeavenlyPossum @passenger the goodness of sand. The goodness of things that exist. The goodness of transmission mediums

Passenger Nov 14, 2023

@interfluidity @HeavenlyPossum

That's a fair point. Some states are certainly better than others. The one I live in has some of the wealthiest and most educated people in the world, as well as some of the best infrastructure, but this is largely a legacy thing - the state has become a mix of paralysis and capricious cruelty, has been unable to face modern challenges, and is letting things decay. Not all have fucked it to this degree.

There are two-hundred-ish states in the world, depending on how you personally recognise them. Of those two hundred, how many would you class as successful? How many have mobilised the resources within their borders to face their current challenges (or whatever you personally define as "successful"; this is something that nobody's going to define precisely, so some subjectivity is fine)?

Of those successful states, how many are superficially fine but building up to a rupture? Lebanon, for example, was the great Middle East success story, until it suddenly fell apart under the weight of the corruption and inequality it had been accumulating during the good years.

Of those successful states, how many are only successful because other states or other peoples exist in a less-successful situation? South Korea and Taiwan, for example, are wealthy but very dependent on their electronics industries, which depend on rare metals extracted by slave labour in Africa and elsewhere.

Steve Randy Waldman Nov 15, 2023

@passenger @HeavenlyPossum i think analyzing these questions — why beyond our gauzy fairy tales do some states seem to succeed for a while? what part of that success represents genuine virtue, what part of it is due to awfulnesses we paper over? how can we sustain the success while increasing the virtues and mitigating the awfulness? — these are the crucial questions. 1/

Steve Randy Waldman Nov 15, 2023

@passenger @HeavenlyPossum what i don’t think is sufficient is to say, well, just don’t do the awful stuff and everything will be great. to the degree the apparent success depends on the awful stuff, things won’t be great if you just stop. you have to actually figure out what you can do to make thriving consistent with less exploitation and subordination. and that’s hard, but i don’t think impossible. 2/

Steve Randy Waldman Nov 15, 2023

@passenger @HeavenlyPossum when you analyze the world in functional terms, what is functional and what is moral don’t magically coincide. our work is to figure out how to make goods that contain strong tensions and contradictions between them able to coexist. /fin