18 Comments

I'm stuck on 3 issues:

(1) the scale issue you mention tangentially in this letter as one of Ellie's issues. Does Anarchy scale beyond Dunbar's Number? Or is Anarchy a state we can only return to once our current technological society collapses due to resource exhaustion?

(2) the problem of "defectors". This is the old "tragedy of the commons", "prisoners' dilemma" and the "free rider problem" stuff. What happens when someone doesn't want to follow the "rules" and wants to impose hierarchy again? Fine back in the Blackfoot days when Mr Colt's "equaliser" wasn't as widely available, but firearms and other modern force-multipliers make it was too easy for a small minority to exert disproportionate force. Assuming the universal perfectability of human nature flies in the face of our lived experiences. Some people are violent, power-hungry, domineering a*sholes.

(3) Does anarchy assume a "post-scarcity" society (a la "The Culture" in Iain M. Bank's novels)? If not, how does it deal with other aspects of human nature, specifically parental drives? If you ask most parents would they prioritise the needs of their children over the needs of a stranger or other tribe member most would say "yes". Without getting all Dawkins and "selfish gene" and genetic kinship percentages, many people would generally agree that their "circles of priority" would be children > spouse > siblings > parents > close friends > other friends > neighbours > co-religionists > State > Country > "Allies". Sure, you can quibble about the order of some of them, but most people would generally agree on the first 4 or 5. So, in times of resource scarcity, how

Expand full comment

What a lovely series of thoughtful comments! You're asking all the questions I am, tbh.

I hope to explore these topics in depth in future pieces, but to jumpstart that brainstorming, let me attempt a response here:

1) The issue of scale is a big one, as it's the major roadblock I've noticed people seem to have in terms of imagining what anarchy looks like.

Firstly, I think it's important to distinguish an anarchist society from a nation-state. Graeber addresses this thoroughly in his Fragments, but in summary, people want to see an anarchist society exist within a nation-state. Of course, that would never happen. But once we remove the nation-state framing from the picture, people assume the alternative is primitive agrarian life. This only shows how deeply the state has permeated our imagination, and how difficult it is to imagine anything else.

But secondly, I actually don't know if anarchy is possible alongside technological civilization. I haven't resolved the debate btwn the deep ecologists and the syndicalists myself yet. It might well be that once we went all in on the combustion engine, we were officially on the wrong track. That still feels too simplistic, and by god I hope to be wrong, but for me the jury is still out. Like it's hard to imagine airplanes existing within a fully sustainable ecology. Anyway, I guess we'll see as the collapse you mentioned is already underway. How far we fall along with our dependence on fossil fuels is up to us.

Expand full comment

3) The question about parental drives is interesting. Firstly, capitalism pits the family against everyone else, by centering economic reproduction on the nuclear family and the unpaid labor of homemaking and child-rearing. In reality of course, we're all interdependent, especially in a technologically advanced society.

So in a freer world, those circles of priority would be more interwoven. They already are, but it would be clearer and easier to act on. Making sure the whole community has access to everything they need means your family is safe and provided for. The work that ensues those needs are meet can foster a shared culture that enriches everyone.

It already doesn't work to hoard resources and stay isolated. We know it takes a village, and we know we keep us safe. Dismantling the systems of control that keep us alienated can only help.

Expand full comment

I have thought for some time if we in the nuclear family West are overdue for a return to multi-generational households but the challenge (at least here in the UK) is that the atomised families model is baked into the housing stock. Modern UK housing is barely big enough for a family of 4, and certainly not for grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, etc however transient their tenancy. It didn't used to be that way though, even as recently as the 50s or 60s it was very common to have pseudo-multi-generational housing in that you'd have a row of terraced housing where pretty much the entire street was related in some way or another. If you needed to go out you just sent the kids next door to their grandparents or aunts/uncles to play with their cousins.

I wonder perhaps if that's part of the answer to the "pathways from here to there" question... Do we build a different type of housing stock that supports multiple generations in a way that blends communal living with a degree of privacy when needed. Communal spaces and private spaces linked together. Or is it multiple dwellings on a single plot, or around a cul-de-sac that share not just outdoor spaces but other shared facilities like shared laundries, shared solar arrays, shared communal spaces etc.

The problem, of course, is that Hollywood has done a great job of equating communal living with hippies, survivalists, and abusive sex cults.

Which is kinda funny when you think about it... that 3 wildly different worldviews, philosophies, and attitudes to social relations such as hippies, survivalists, and abusive sex cults have all coalesced around the SAME group way of living. Definitely worth thinking about...

Expand full comment

I think you're exactly right about our built environment. That's something I've been thinking about a lot recently, but I haven't gotten around to writing about housing in particular yet. Maybe this is a good starting point to do so!

Expand full comment

2) Your second point about defectors is also essential. I no longer believe in original sin, but plain old violence and anti-social tendencies are easy to see.

It would be easy to say anarchy would radically change the social environment in which people are raised, resulting in fewer bad apples, and I do stand by that. But I don't want to brush away the problem. I think instead it's important to remember how folks are able to do so much evil and destruction today. Capitalist nation-states, and the alienated cultures they create, seem like an absolute petri dish of corruption, coercion, and consumption. Positions of power, and the money that upholds them, facilitate the worst in human nature.

A society that resembles anything close to anarchy would not have these positions for bad people to fill. Trump would not be president, in charge of nuclear codes, government appointments, and the military. Trump would be at most a nuisance to the people in his life, and anyone he was able to swindle thru lying. Violence would exist (altho much less) on an interpersonal and community level, but not the systemic violence we see today.

Any would be tyrant would be hard-pressed to create the systems he needed to actually control people and resources. There would be no preexisting scaffolding for him to take over. People would not be used to following orders, or doing things for money, or going along with the mandates of distant authorities when it affects their lives.

Also, any society capable of throwing off authority and establishing egalitarian relations would certainly be able to handle a few power-hungry individuals.

While these hypthethcals are pretty clear to me, what I need is greater familiarity with the historical and anthropological record to flesh out how people have already done this, so we can better imagine how we might do it ourselves.

Expand full comment

So not just "power corrupts", but "nation state capitalism corrupts" at a very fundamental level.

Expand full comment

Exactly

Expand full comment

I'd probably add a 4th one too... (4) assuming Anarchy does scale, we can deal with psychopaths and freeloaders, and we can deal with resource scarcity, human nature, etc.. We still need a pathway from "here" (Western technological society with very, very, uneven power and wealth distribution) to "there" (your Anarchist heterotopia) and I'm not sure there is one, short of the resources depletion collapse scenario discussed earlier. Is there a pathway in your opinion?

Expand full comment

This one I gotta think about more!

Expand full comment

Sorry, hit send too early... "so, in times of resource scarcity, eg famine, does anarchy break down as people prioritise their own family needs over those of the group?"?

Expand full comment

Once rabid followers of anthropogenic, monotheistic religions, narcissists and greedy or power-craving creatures are universally community-shamed, things will automatically get better.

It's a long trail humanity still has to cover ...

Non-state education would be paramount and the collective West should consider approaching Easern/Asian philosophies if it wants to survive.

Expand full comment
Nov 26Edited

> Rather than scapegoating individuals, we can diffuse norms throughout culture. The idea is to develop conscious taboos against anti-social behaviors, in the same way we teach our current society’s values to our children, with the aim of making it socially risky to try and accumulate power and control.

The good thing is that we don't even have to invent something new here, or rely on humans suddenly becoming better or more noble. These traits seem to have been pretty universal in human cultures all the way up to the introduction of agriculture.

Abraham Maslow originally had a theory explaining the world in terms of social hierarchies and dominance, but was recommended by his mentor Ruth Benedict to experience other cultures before he assumed it to be universal. He ended up living with the Blackfoot tribe for an extended period and it totally changed his perspective (ending up with him formulating his famous theory of the Hierarchy of Needs and the need for self-actualization):

> To most Blackfoot members, wealth was not important in terms of accumulating property and possessions: giving it away was what brought one the true status of prestige and security in the tribe.

> He was curious how the Blackfoot might deal with lawbreakers without the strategy of dominance that he’d seen in his own culture. He found that “when someone was deviant, [the Siksika] didn’t peg them as deviant. A person who was deviant could redeem themselves in society’s eyes if they left that behavior behind”

- from: https://gatherfor.medium.com/maslow-got-it-wrong-ae45d6217a8c

Most anthropologists agree that hunter-gatherers practiced a form of "reverse dominance" that prevented anyone from assuming power over others. They were not passively egalitarian; they were actively so. Indeed, in the words of anthropologist Richard Lee, they were fiercely egalitarian. - https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/blog/freedom-learn/201105/how-hunter-gatherers-maintained-their-egalitarian-ways

If this was in our past, there should be no fundamental reason for it to not also be possible in our future.

Expand full comment

This is everything I'm trying to say about changing culture. Thanks so much for this further reading and corroboration!

Expand full comment

This has been so much fun Peter, thank you! I agree with your assessment that I "believe government and capital are still essential pillars of a safe, secure society within which people can live freely in community," but I don't agree that that means we need to be "controlled" or that it needs to be "top-down."

You point out, for example, that we didn't write our constitution. But our previous ancestors did. And why couldn't we continue to rewrite it with every generation? And in smaller groups of people? Like cities and states rather than as the entire United States of America? But again, that would still involve some kind of state even if it’s a better one. 😆

Can't wait to talk with you on our call!!!

Expand full comment

I'm all here for iterative changes to preexisting legal documents! If we could approach them less as unalterable sacred texts and more as the general consensus of whoever was alive at that time, our decision-making would be much improved.

I've also really enjoyed this back-and-forth, and I'm looking forward to speaking about it in real time!

Expand full comment

Fantastic series, I’ll be doing a lot of rereading and comments browsing.

Who else should Elle and Peter talk to?

Expand full comment

Glad you liked it! I really want to do a "letters to a Republican" or "letters to a Democrat" series to show that we are more aligned than we think. I might post that one to the group and see what everyone thinks!

Expand full comment