Theres a steep irony in someone doing government controlled work idealizing a system where the work they do would likely not exist. Who exactly would be mandating/funding the existence, operation, or regular testing of a sewage plant in an anarchist society?

Society is poorly designed in the general sense, sure. It could be vastly improved and people could have more liberty wrt a lot of things. But left to their own devices people on average would not choose to mandate water treatment. Even if they somehow did, providing no central system of oversight for making sure that it happens would all but guarantee it doesnt get accomplished.

Its ridiculous how many people take critical aspects of society for granted and assume they would continue to exist in a world where everyone does whatever the fuck they want without any central planning or control. In many places around the world people already dont have access to fresh/clean water for this exact reason…

Look at the libertarian experiments that have all failed spectacularly, like Grafton, NH. Mfs couldnt even agree to not feed the bears or dispose of their trash appropriately. And that doesnt require some massive infrastructure project to accomplish. The greater good often necessitates protecting people at large from their own stupidity, otherwise your liberties are quickly diminished by your neighbor’s negligence

Precisely. The original post shows there could still be labor willing to do the work, but it does does not address how that work would be funded. Even if the labor was free there are resources required to build and maintain that plant that are not free. Where do those resources come from?

Wait till you hear about the anarchist that loves going into the mines with toxic gases and all to get the resources for the sewage maintainer guy.

If it’s necessary, someone will do it. If that can’t be counted on, we’re kinda fucked.

Will you? Because I know I won’t

If all that stands between me and the beginning of a society with no oppression is strapping some gear on and doing some manual labor, then fuck it gimme a pickaxe I’m going down there.

Am I suited for it? Absolutely the fuck not, but I’m willing, and I’m sure many others are as well, especially if they know that whatever happens, their safety and health comes before profit, and they’ll always come back to a good place.

Yeah that’s cool. You and sewage guy will make a great duo. But the 5 dudes over there organized themselves, acquired a weapon and killed the other guy. They’re waiting for you to come out of the mine with all those resources and you don’t even know it.

Is that freedom from oppression?

Anarchism is the absence of hierarchy, not organization. The means of the people to use force against violent attempts at theft for personal gain are neither eliminated nor lessened.

So you’re saying that you and sewage treatment plant guy will successfully defend against 5 armed men that ambushed you while you were working?

Remember: this is not an action film, this is real life we’re talking about.

You seem to be consistently misunderstanding me. Did you seriously think what I meant was “me and this sewage guy are gonna singlehandedly fight off 5 armed men”? That’s fucking absurd. What I actually meant was we would obviously have armed guards protecting valuables vulnerable to theft, like any other organized society.

Well. You could’ve said that if you wanted to say that.

Now it’s not 5 dudes. Your land is valuable and the neighbouring state wants to invade you. How do you stop it?

We… Fight a war?

With what army? How do maintain a military without a hierarchy. Without central commands that everyone must follow

I never said that, either. I would say smaller, more specialized units like classrooms, search parties, and militaries benefit from adhering to an authority. It’s just general society that cannot have a deemed authority.

Let me illustrate the difference via an example: There is a math class. The class obeys the teacher. Why? Because the teacher is known, in some reliable way, to have the knowledge necessary to teach a class on the subject. They derive their authority from that. The students listen to them because they wanted to learn from them.

So if a math teacher can have authority, derived from possessing the most knowledge about the subject at hand, how does, say, an executive or a legislator or a judge derive their authority? By being the most knowledgeable about… Everything? Just, fucking everything? It should stand to reason, because that’s what they want to have authority over! But it doesn’t, officials are NOT experts on literally everything. That’s the difference.

So in your vision of anarchy there are leaders and hierarchies. There is just no central power that orchestrates them all. Ok.

Now. What is stopping the leader of the military from saying: “you know what? We’ve got all the weapons, why don’t we subjugate our own population and live rich lives?”. Resulting in a central authority, which would end the anarchy.

As it turns out rule by the people demands that the people are actually smart and kind to work well. You know, like rule by any other force.

How are those demands going to be enforced?

In most other political systems there is a central authority with a monopoly of violence that can enforce rules via violence.

If your political system only works if everyone acts in the interests of society over their own, then it’s not a political system. It’s a failure. Because there are plenty of selfish people, and you can’t change that.

If your political system relies on people with a monopoly on violence just deciding to be nice about it, what does that mean?

Then that means it’s shit.

In a democracy, governments derive their power from the legitimacy that the support of their voters give them. If someone in government decides to “not be nice about it”, then most likely the rest of the government would stop it. Remember, the government is made up of a LOT of people. If an entire political party goes nuts, then the opposition would get votes and reclaim the monopoly of violence.

“the rest of the government would stop it” HAHAHAHAHAH HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA LMAO

Sincerely, an American

First of all, the US is a flawed democracy, not even a real one. And those genocides are done to people outside the US. None of my arguments are about what is morally correct or not.

What I’m saying is that anarchy is not a stable system, it will eventually evolve into a stable one.

In fact, the US right now is a perfect example of what I’m saying. You guys voted an openly fascist imbecile twice to the top power. And the other branches of government gave him even more power. And still, he has only openly killed like <10 citizens out of 330 million. And you guys still have elections. Sure, democracy has eroded a lot. But it’s still technically a democracy.

If someone like trump obtained that amount of power in an anarchic society, he would’ve just killed every democrat in the country.

In a democracy (even if a shitty one), with a good chunk of the population backing him, he still does not have absolute power. More than 5 years in, he hasn’t yet managed to end democracy.