Corruption is NOT the problem
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- Опубліковано 19 жов 2024
- Corruption is not the problem. The system is!
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I don't want the world to be ruled by "good" dictators, I want the world to be ruled by *no* dictators.
Based. I want absolute equality.
That is the objectively correct thing to want.
Yeah this is my main complaint I have had with most leftists as an outsider. It’s good to see that theirs some extremely reasonable people on the left
@@nova8091 I'm curious where you're at in political space
@@laurenpinschannels center libertarian kinda. I have a deep hatred authoritarianism there is really nothing I hate more.
if a system produces an outcome over and over again that's a feature not a bug
@@radancom1312 I love "ordinaire" lol
Yeah it is. We got laws, courts and lawyers. Legal fights are expensive, long and complicated. Unless you want to spend 10% of the freaking GDP on personnel for that, people will just clog up the system with what they want to see resolved.
The system is not corrupt; it is, in fact, functioning exactly as intended. It's just not intended to do what we've been told it was.
Yeah, it is, dangit. Stupid anarchists thinking their crap would work better than other's.
Yeah, its like trying to stop unfair treatment of slaves instead of abolishing slavery.
"The Problem is not the abuse of power but The Power To Abuse"
The demagogue argument is essentially "don't let people be in charge because they'll put some suave individual in charge instead. So rather than giving the people the power we will give it to some suave individual".
I think the point is the demagogue has a fast track without much vetting required at least in these contemporary paradigms.that seems to be the case.
@@anthonymorales842 allowing everyone the power to participate in the process to vet him somehow means there's LESS vetting? This only makes the argument more self contradictory.
Any system that requires good actors to be in positions of power will eventually and inevitably fail when, through deceit or cohesion or even dumb luck, bad actors gets in positions of power. Checks and balances can definitely slow that process, pitting the ambition of bad actors against each other. But that also fails once enough bad actors with aligned interests fill the positions intended to check power.
Yep. And all power centralising structures require good actors in positions of power. You want to slice and dice power. Some distance can help us think about the subject, so lets call about medieval guilds. Having a single guild that runs the entire city is obviously a bad idea: A baker does not know how to do the job of a blacksmith. So you split the guild in two: Food producers and goods producers. Alright, this is better. But a bowyer and a smith don't really share a lot of skills. So we should split the goods producer guild into a woodworker and metalworker guild. But now where do we leave the potters? Alright, let's add a clayworker guild. But making a pot and making a brick only share the material and the heat, other than that they've got very different optimisation options, so they need to be split too. And so on and so forth.
So far, every time you spread power out more, things get better. There will be a point where the benefits of centralisation outweighs the benefits of specialisation, but if given the choice you should err on the side of specialisation instead of centralisation, since when specialisation goes bad all you've got is inefficiencies, but when centralisation goes bad you end up in a dictatorship. When considering options you shouldn't only consider the upsides but also the failure states: When and how does it fail and is that acceptable?
It should be obvious to everyone but obviously it isn't.
I've found checks and balanced are more and more being exploited by the same bad actors.
in the uk "due process" has become a joke, used as a shield by the prime minister, enabling him to protect his cronies until the press gets bored. The only people who see any form are the ones the opposition don't let then forget
We can't keep slowing the rot with sticking plasters trying to fix something inherintly flawed
And anarchism doesn't stop bad actors at all. If they gain the leverage or majority in a city, there is no law they have to skirt, no police force they have to evade, they have the power and it is theirs. They can follow their morbid ambitions as they please.
@@tachobrennerSo we have to stop bad actors with more bad actors in power? Gotcha.
"The political arena leaves one no alternative, one must either be a dunce or a rogue." ~ Emma Goldman
"Great Man" Theory is the most utopian viewpoint possible.
Great video. Corruption isn't the disease, it's a symptom.
Amen
The way that I communicate this point to laymen that I interact with is to simply say the following: Power belongs in the hands of the people.
thats what a communist would say
People seemingly cant wrap their head around this idea- they dont know what this governance looks like yknow. Its very simply, the people, together, must hold the reins of their society and destiny.
@@ahrims7 Agreed and it’s especially embarrassing when other black people have a hard time with this given our history.
people who say corruption is the primary problem are those who can't see the forest through the trees and yes I know I slightly butchered that saying because corruption is a problem but not "THE" problem. Corruption is a symptom of the true problem which is that our systems are just plain bad and incentivize that very corruption. I don't care how many times you think you've uprooted it, as long as we have the same incentive structures, it'll always come back. The structures of power we have now pull in the types that are either already corrupted or are themselves easily corrupted. Power in general attracts those who only want it in order to abuse it, so systems need to be set up to protect people from the abuse of power as well as ways to remove people from the seat of power if the person is abusing said power. The easiest way to prevent this is to spread the power as widely as possible without crippling the group by spreading it so far that the group can't act as a united whole.
I think it's useful to point out to those people that corruption is the primary problem _because the system was built by corrupt people for themselves_ and a self serving system is MADE to be re-corrupted easily so the people who built it keep a hand on the steering wheel at all times.
Usually once you get it through to them that it's corrupt people who invented those systems you can get them to realize its corruptibility is the creators' backdoor into controlling the system even if they're pushed out for a bit.
@@neoqwertymany don't, or refuse to take that step though. It's so much easier to think "if I can get in there I'll fix it..." or "my elected politician will fix it if I just elect the right person," because breaking away from this system is the actual correct path and as we all know, change is often resisted most harshly by those who would benefit the most from it. Humans are unfortunately emotionally driven creatures who tend to throw out logic and facts when they don't produce those "feel good" chemicals in our brains, and unfortunately the hardships that come with breaking down the old system to form the new are just too high for most to want to deal with. They'd rather sit comfortably in this broken system with the failed hopes for tomorrow because that requires less effort and somehow produces more feel good chemicals, mostly due to the corruption of values and views onset by these greedy individuals.
The language of "corruption" and "broken" systems and this myth that "bad" people are at fault and "good" people would do better are rampant in political thought and it's very common on the left.
Just like identifying heavily with the person's state of their country of birth (this is obviously much worse in the so-called US and similar cultures) is also mad common. And you'll know it by the way they say "we" and "us" when they talk about state action, even when it's topics like bombing civilians and funding atrocities, or the idea of something like "American".
It's all very different from how I approach these things so it's been kinda hard to empathize. But I do think it's things we should address cause it's subtle ways that the status quo has colonized our thought. Language is very effective weaponry but so much of the left ignores that fact.
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Wait, we need to deny the existence of "good" or "bad" people? Why so? Just because illegetimate heirarchies cause harm?
I dont really see the cause and effect...
Whatever system has the most compassion, that’s the right one.
I remember when we were citizens and community members, not just consumers.
When did that happen?
I never lived in something like that so it must be nice to be able to remember such a life
I've always heard people complaining about corruption without making a radical critique of the systems that motivates corruption in the first place.
So why is it that corruption exists in all kinds of systems?
Came for the theory, stayed for the sweater.
The same folks who believe in the Great Man Theory are the first to call anarchists Utopian.
They also call them liberals for opposing their own liberal prescriptions.
I appear to be an anarchist almost by birth, so to speak. I was never exposed to leftist ideology as a child, but since my earliest memories (around 4yo) I've had ideas about society that I had no language to properly communicate.
Then as a teen at 14 I was your typical cringy pop-punk kid who called himself "anarchist" without really knowing anything about the ideology, and people told me I was an idiot and would change my mind as soon as I 'experienced the real world'.
It has been funny to constantly discover at every single turn that, since I've actually started digging into political philosophy (I'm 30 now), every single time I encounter a new anarchistic concept, it turns out to be one of those unnamable ideas I've been having since my earliest childhood.
Including the concept you talk about here, which has always seemed abundantly obvious to me.
Then, ironically (considering what older people used to tell me), in my adult life I've experienced so many negative things purely as a consequence of the way society is organised, that I'd never even dreamed were possible, which has done nothing but confirm the opinions that I've had since kindergarten.
Guess 'experiencing the real world' did the literal opposite of making me change my mind. Every day I see more proof that I'd always been right all along, and that my willingness to accept liberal bullshit during my late teens and early twenties had been unwarranted, and more a consequence of reigning social narratives being constantly pushed on me and any open dissent leading to shame and ridicule, rather than any rational considerations like the ones that had led to my initial anarchistic positions to begin with.
Turns out I've literally been a legitimate anarchist since age 4, despite not knowing anything about, having reached identical conclusions to anarchism purely through the process of thinking logically about the world.
I'd like to point out that the "demagogues" and tyrants of Greek "democracy" often arose from how undemocratic it actually was, causing people to turn towards those who spoke to the people's actually will.
I like that point about "law abiders" or naive people will be pushed out of the system by whoever is ready to act more in bad faith.
This is actually one thing that annoys me about a lot of Batman stories, even some of the more progressive Batman stories like, say, The Batman (the 2022 movie), which is still my favorite Batman movie ever made. But, like, Batman stories as a whole have a tendency to say "corruption is the real problem, it's not capitalism, policing or the various systems in general, no, it's just corruption".
Batman is the villian. Billionaire would rather play dress up and beat up mentally ill people rather pay more taxes/donate his wealth. He has always been a reactionary.
Reminds me of the car brained people and their "just more one lane bro, and problem solved" mentality. It is a state of perpetual "just one tier of oversight above, bro" and "just one more term with the good guys, bro", it is quite literally chasing an abstract, like infinite or a god that is literally perfect and perfectly benevolent (which is what the system would need to work for everyone all the time). "Infinity" is a great direction to chase, always trying to improve. The problem with setting a system that sets infinity (in this case the rule by "good" rulers, and good rulers only for all time) not merely as a direction of movement but as a goal to move towards is that it is not just impossible, no matter how much progress you think you've made in that road, you're literally as infinitelly far alway from it as someone who has done absolutely no apparent progress in that road, who at least has not wasted time, resources and people lives chasing nonsense.
i heard that argument a lot, and always kinda knew that corruption is more of a symptom than a problem, but its hard to convince (good hearted) people that their holy grail just wouldn't actually help
It is hard. And I'm still not quite sure how to approach those people best. But I'm glad I'm not the only one trying o7
Maybe you have to convince them how your holy grail would actually help. It isnt enough to just state your vision of the problem, just to say evil is caused by heirarchy. You have to show how horizontal systems would actually prevent bad actors from cauaing harm...
Another certified hood classic from Anark 👍
The man cannot be stopped 🙌
eloquent and convincing, thanks for another banger.
no matter the industry, once a hierarchy is introduced, Corruption is sure to follow, its the nature of the beast
Really? So how about the family unit? Clearly heirarchical but not all families are corrupt, not all parents abuse the power they have over their children.
@@LexyBackyard Really?
@@anthonymorales842 Well yeah. Some parents are good to their kids, they love them, they take care of them. Other parents dont. It's the people involved, it's not the heirarchy. Their is variation within the same structure, so heirarchy doesnt necessarily lead to corruption...
Thank you! Phenomenal video. For years I've felt so frustrated, everyone espouses we need "the right person" ignoring the fact that ANY one person is temporary - what happens when they are no longer in power? Since I was a young teen I realized that any power that the party I affiliate with has, will eventually be held by a party that I disagree with; and when that time comes - would I want them to have that power? If not, then I shouldn't have it either. Not out of some moral or ethical obligation or anything, but because if it is possible to be abused, then there will be someone who will abuse it. All we can do is try to minimize the harm that any actor can cause with their power, rather than limiting who can have the power.
We almost had it with the internet in the early days; where likeminded communities could gather together, and those who disagreed with their opinions could allow them to exist on their own - now though we have 5 "different" websites and so if you can't co-habitate with the users of one site, you have now lost 1/5th of the global community, which becomes a much more threatening feeling, than being banned from one of 10 trillion websites. If you don't agree with the opinions of this one message board; there are thousands nearly identical out there for you to find your niche, but when it is all consolidated - losing access means losing your entire community; not just being able to avoid those assholes who think the earth is flat or whatever nonsense you were avoiding.
There will always be people who will abuse the system. Don't remove the people; remove the opportunities for abuse. In this case; the system in and of itself is what allows the abuse.
The hierarchical systems themselves are inherently problematic. They encourage the accumulation of power and wealth of a small minority. It is not only corruption within the system that is an issue for the adherents of hierarchical systems but the corruption of the very ideologies that propagate these systems. Examples are:
- (Neo)liberal capitalists who reject what they regard as 'crony' capitalism
- Libertarians who claim to defend 'true' libertarianism
- Authoritarian socialists who reject intersectionalism and emancipation struggles as a distraction from 'true' class war politics
I'm going to donate soon enough, your videos are absolutely top quality, I even show your videos to other people and spread them around, I even created a playlist with a lot of your videos on it.
Showing these vids to others is incredibly helpful. Even when it's taxing or stressful. Thanks for doing it fam
Ooo, this will function as a good summary of my anti-hieracal views
Idk if its too simplistic that it doesn't fully cover the full work you put in here Anark, but a quick layman's statement to summarize the idea.
Because people who seek to hoard power out compete others or force them to do the same, corruption is a feature not a bug of hierarchy
Institutions of power seek to further their own power and actors within that system either seek to do the same or lose out to those who are willing to do so by any means necessary over a long period of time.
One of my favorite series. Great topic, thank you!
The biggest challenge for an anarchist system of power is survival, and not being overthrown by a competing hierarchical system.
Creating a new anarchist system in a world that has other hierarchical power systems becomes exponentially more difficult the more hierarchical power systems there are surrounding it: as you mention hierarchical power systems tend to cooperate to create more concentrated bases of power. The easiest targets for creating concentrated power is where there currently isn't concentrated power, so hierarchical power systems tend to target them first.
you know what they say about hammers, when you only have a hammer...
And there are no nails in society or humans.
No matter what any action from power over will harm people and have unintended effects and even without corruption you can only get the perspectives of so many people before doing something forceably to everyone.
I would like to thank you for making this video and introducing me to to educated takes on anarchism, as it's led me to develop some actual knowledge of a philosphy I was previously only exposed to in the form of ancaps and somebody who had never thought it through beyond 'everyone will get along if you just abolish all institutions.'
On the not so bright side, now my recommendations are being flooded by ancaps who's video titles should be classified as cognito-hazards.
I recommend watching Zoe Baker, Andrewism, and Red Plateaus if you want more channels covering these topics!
The point about demagogues is really important!
I watch Anark for the intelligence and the shirt/sweater drip. Good job Daniel 🫡
Hey Anark. I would love to hear about family from an anarchist perspective. Does family have a purpose within an anarchist world? Can families be horizontal? If so, what about babies and small children, can parents have "moral authority" over their children? How is that authority given back to children as they grow? If that logic applies for children, why doesn't it apply to adults (e.g., adults with cognitive/intellectual impairments)? All that kind of stuff.
I've been loving your stuff. I've never felt completely in line with socialism as it is usually discussed, but anarchism/leftist libertarianism clicks so much, I love the idea of distributing power horizontally, I believe every single human being should participate in the decision-making process. Thank you for such an great channel.
Andrewism has a great video on that exact topic.
@@jacobkassiou6466 thank you!
Don't discuss family! It's an obvious example of a heirarchical system which proves power doesn't necessarily corrupt individuals.
For example, try telling someone who was abused by their parents that they were abused because of the heirarchical nature of the family unit, rather than the fact that their parents were bstrds...
one of the main way people dismiss me when i talk about anarchism is by saying, " it wouldn't work on a large scale"
thinking they found the flaw in the naïve theory that is anarchism.
the thing i do then is point out that it's not a flaw, it's the point
what would you tell them?
It does work on large scales. Rojava has a polity of several million people. The Zapatistas in Chiapas are a polity of hundreds of thousands. The Free Territories of Ukraine were enormous and the CNT i. Spain controlled basically all of Catalonia. So the response is that anarchism actually scales up quite well.
@@samm9184 when i point that out they move the goal post.
it's a bad faith argument,
so they go for "i ment lage like all of europe or all of the usa".
some may even go as far as world wide when they say large scale.
Because they think it can only be a success if it does bigger that what's already in place.
All systems essentially are broken up into smaller and smaller pieces to be managed currently. In an authoritarian statist system, those smaller pieces are managed top down. In an anarchist system they'd obviously be managed from the bottom up. So if they believe anarchism can't be scaled, they don't believe people can manage themselves, which essentially means they don't believe in freedom, democracy, or self determination.
It’s hard to get people to understand this.
It sure is. But I'm glad to know I'm not the only one trying.
In any system, on a long enough timescale, power will concentrate into the hands of a few especially greedy & ruthless individuals. Our current system *facilitates* that, *rewards* people for stepping on each other. We need to create a new system that makes it as hard as possible for individuals to accumulate undue power, and socially punishes/frowns upon its pursuit. Anarchist modes of thought and work will help create systems of incentives toward compassionate living, but I strongly suspect we also need something more informal to reinforce it at the level of core values. We need to laud cooperative, selfless behaviors, and remember we are small parts of an ecosystem. We must instill in each other an enduring love for the world and all its beings, so we will want, intrinsically, to uphold anarchist ideals and stave off power hoarding. We need to create a culture of nurturers and quiet heroes.
Well articulated and wisely said
i would say corruption is a problem, it is a symptom not the rood cause but still a problem. if a person gets killed by a fever the fever was the lethal problem, however the cause of the fever was e.g. a bacterial or viral infection. without this infection you wouldn’t have died. a hierarchical system is analogous to this infection. corruption is still a problem just not „The“ problem.
But that is exactly what he is getting at. To avoid any misunderstanding it would probably have been better to only have put 'the' in capitals in the header.
@@Attack_is_the_Best_Defense i know, I am just a bit too pedantic about the title/ wording it as corruption is not the problem. but thinking about it it is a catchy title. and also comments are good for the algorithm :)
Anark I would love to see you do a specific deep dive into how power systems worked in Neolithic societies and early agrarian societies
Read the dawn of everything by wenrow and graeber.. long story short, tons of variety.
Pretty difficult topic but the other commenter made a fantastic recommendation: The Dawn of Everything. I'd also maybe recommend Worshipping Power by Peter Gelderloos
Hey, hey 🎉
So the worst case cenario of horizontal systems is the best case of vertical systems
thank you so much we need to be able to debunk this bunker banker game
Great sweater!
The idea that putting the cliques, factions, and disproportionately influential people that appear in direct democracy into official formal groups and positions of power will make them more accountable and less likely to be tyrannical because the "rules" of who is in charge and what they can do are now explicit and official has always struck me as totally bizarre and naive
Pretty good video! All I can give now is this robot food (algortihm stuff) but I hope you get your ideas more and more spread out so people can see that we are not lunatics. Thank you very much.
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I would like to add to the existential allure of buying into hierarchical systems via great man theory at least from an Asian perspective. Some of my peers feel disempowered and subsequently jaded with political systems, and therefore wish for a "great man" saviour to make everything right on their behalf (whether this person arrives and assumes the necessary position and makes good on their promises is another thing altogether) . Self-governance is tiring business, and i imagine few people actually look forward to collective duties like jury duty or national service.
Someone finally said it
I've been saying this for years. The system are the rules of the game and if the rules are shit then so is the system and so will be the outcomes.
Can we get an Anark Abridged about criticisms of consensus vs majority democracy? There’s some interesting Bookchin quotes on An Anarchist FAQ and some FARJ ones on their Social Anarchism and Organization
would be really cool to see more scientific, empirical demonstration of the fundamentals of anarchism. I suspect we could put together really cool simulation videos like Primer does, which show the dynamics of different systems under different conditions.
It would be really difficult. Even in mainstream economics models are essentially made and then fine tuned until they match reality. You can make a model that is technically empirically valid when tested but is built upon complete falsities as underlying assumptions. There's a cool paper I have somewhere on this and if you're interested I can find it.
Now you can have theoretical dynamics, in fact before the academic shift towards empiricism this was very common, but it also led to its own set of issues.
Unfortunately I think any empirical test of some of the anarcho systems would require some really complex math and some shaky assumptions. Maybe it can be done. Some Marxian economists have definitely built models tracking some of this stuff, but primarily with labor and production.
Which fundamentals would you like to see demonstrated.
Fire as always
Corruption power incompetence hierarchy is Corruption
Hey Anark, I know you probably are not reading this, but I just wanted to say that you produce some of the highest quality anarchist content on this app, or even on the internet altogether. I have a question, also - could you help me to get involved somehow? Im 14, so I still can't do a lot, but I'd really like to. Maybe some books? Or ways to get involved at my age? Thanks.
Develop student organizations in your high school. You can start this by either forming a club or trying to set up a reading group. Look for like minded people in school or try to talk to your friends about organizing. Right now, it would make a lot of sense to read about Palestine and check out texts on liberation. It might be a good idea to read Ocalan in that case. Autonomy is in our hearts is another good text on the Zapatistas. But if you want to start smaller, you could organize a group to read short texts that you can find in the anarchist library. From there, I'd suggest checking to see if Black Rose/Rosa Negra has a local in your area. You might want to contact them if not. You can also check to see if there is anything in the Symbiosis network (such as cooperation tulsa or Cooperation Milwaukee) in your area. BRRN has different politics than these, but you can do your research to see what suits you and your group best.
Go on the internet and start twitter and instagram pages to promote building an anarchist group in your area. This might attract potential allies.
This is like a mishmash of possible routes. Not all need be taken.
@@otherperson im not from the states, so those organizations dont really work in my area. I am involved locally, though because of school and, well, age, I cant really go to the meetings, since they are very late. But I will keep your book reccomendations in mind. Thanks!
I can't help you fam, but good luck and solidarity
I wonder where this disdain for Utopianism comes? Isn't it the prerogative of every ideology to push forward a manifestation of the society they seek to build? It seems as if picturing a more just world has become... worthy of contempt, somehow. If even anarchists sneer at the very concept of Utopia, then I fear we have lost our way. We're never going to have a perfect world, obviously; but if we collectively have lost the desire to even try? The idea of the utopia captures the imagination. It gives people hope, and that hope puts a spark of ambition into them to try seizing it.
If we have nothing left to hope for, then we just have nothing. I do believe there is a reason that mainstream political discourse has demonized the concept. It feels obvious in hindsight that the powers-that-be don't want us to dream beyond what they desire, what they have wrought.
Because "Utopian" at this point means someone whose politics are basically "perfect justice or bust" if not "perfection at any cost". A better world is a good goal to strive towards, a perfect one, while tempting when facing the despair of the one we live in, is a brain-breaking one
Question: What writings would you suggest to propose to people as the most fundamental (and basal) for the purpose of instructing or illuminating someone who hasn't any idea of anarchism to why this system is better than those we have been mainly living under for millennia? It should provide convincing arguments and reasons both to uncover the (obvious) detriments of hierarchical systems while giving rudiments for the establishment of anarchic systems. If we are going to 'spread the word' and make this more known then we need to whet the appetite of those most affected. Response much appreciated!
16:00 I think this example needs expansion
In todays system it is not difficult to convince 10,000 people to let you do their bidding, in fact we already do this with voting
I'd argue that the meaning of your own power, and what it means would be different in a horizontal structure, and therefore it'd be harder to have someone convince you to give it away
Wouldn't it also be ways so that this can be recalled?
Maybe also because of a structure being based on consensus this makes it more difficult to wanna give power away, and then also explain briefly how consensus works and point them to your other video also?
I don't have any practical examples, I wish there were in the context of the video and this point of demagog debunking so to speak
Great video, keep it up!
Makes sense
Truly masterful 'roll 👏
heyyyyyy Anark. i would love to see a video distinguishing authoritarian leftist's vanguard conception and the especifismo of Anarchism. i think it would be valuable!! at least for me lol
Crony capitalism and revisionism instead of just capitalism and bureaucracy
hello anark, could you explain me more prescisly why the hierarchy will be brought to fight the horizental system? not because of the people inside it but because of structual workings. good day!
I recommend watching Power and then A Modern Anarchism.
We already have what you describe. It is called Federalism.
I think a topic you should touch on in one of your next videos is how to deal with loyalists. And when I say loyalists, I mean people who don't see anarchism as a sustainable economic system and will actively fight against us revolutionaries in order to maintain the current system because they see it as "all we have" and won't even bother with an alternative. People like the patriots or people who are loyal to the system even if they're the ones who are being exploited.
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That sounds exactly like something a charismatic person would say. 🤔
10:00 I would also add that the “lawabiders” (those who try to change the system from within) will also be shaped by their position of power and become the same as everyone else. Various social democrats have had their views watered down, and sold themselves out to the establishment, becoming exactly the same as all the other politicians.
First thing that has to be done is get a truly fair least-gamble currency system(one that tries to minimize its role over time). Without that the heads of hierarchies will always use the corrupted money system to gain more and more power at the exponential cost to everyone else.
Have you played the board game Go?
I feel as if it represents anarchism and strategic holism well.
Yess, but at the same time it is important to remember, that the powerstructures are partially in the people. A horizontal decision structure will still be hierarchical as long as people in it are not gender and race abolitionist for example, because these 2 categories will inevitably recreate sexism and racism in one form or another, if not deconstructed.
I may be misunderstanding or misattributing something here, but is power itself not inherently hierarchical? If hierarchy can be defined as social strata in which some have greater power than and over others in society, then doesn't the very existence of power kind of necessitate that some people will inherently hold power over others? How exactly could power exist/be distributed in such a way that certain people wouldn't be able to have power over others?
You should watch the video Power next
What kind of power over others? Because that seems rather vague. I might have greater power over my family than you since I'm part of the family and they trust me, or I might have greater power over my women co-workers in the workplace because I'm a man living in patriarchy, or I might have greater power over my boss because I'm a member of an incredibly competent/proactive union... these are all forms of power. But not every relationship of power is based on domination, or even hierarchy.
Really cute sweater🫶
2:27 that's not anything I've heard from them either, at least not the ones that seem well read. They seem to favour vanguards simply because it is a way of coordinating and protecting the gains of revolutionary movements. That is what they tend to say anyway and I am inclined to take them at their word.
What they claim and what they practice are very different. Criticize their vanguards or their Great Men and watch as their claims fall to pieces.
Bad faith is pernicious, and a lacking-checks-and-balances hierarchy, is its elevator. I love the sentiments being put forth here, I'm just wondering if politics as a whole is an anachronism. I'm wondering if techno-anarchism is the most demonstrably clean way to recognize and triage human misery for remedy. If double blind studies could be paired to outstanding issues, and bayesian inference adjusted to confounding variables, the infrastructure could learn on an abstract good faith actors behalf. Something like we already perform with stop lights.
Despite my earlier gripes, the latter part of this video is the most poignant arguments I have seen from you so far. However the difficulty that anarchist revolutions have had relative to their more state centred counterparts with regards to longevity makes me worry for the wisdom of calling myself an anarchist, as I aim to be practical with my desire to end capitalism and frankly changing the whole global economy is going to take time and require a lot of massive scale organisation and coordination. I'll never preclude myself from working with anarchists on this account because their critiques of hierarchy seem very cogent and important to me but I will withhold calling myself one for now.
What does "corruption" mean here that has to do with great man theory? Corruption seems very much a systemic problem that can vary greatly in various countries or organisations. It seems here that corruption has come to mean "bad actors within the system" which isn't how corruption is used as a word
Hey brother can u use more photos. Or videos
Would be cool. But editing and collecting all these little videos takes a lot of time. But yeah, if Anark wants to grow he should probably make the videos more engaging and less theory heavy. I'm not saying the videos are too boring, but if he wants to compete, he should try to make them more relatable with more emphasis on editing and more structured videos with nice sections so people can tell what is going to be talked about.
@@zonger5537
I support Anark primarily because of his message and style of messaging.
@@badger1296I support the message and I don't hate the format but I feel that if Anark's videos are to reach a wider audience they need to adapt. Maybe a variety of content can be made for those unfamiliar with anarchism, and other styles intended for those more experienced with 1 hour+ video essays with little editing. Personally, I only got into anarchism through my own disagreement with auth leftists. I could hardly find content from lib socs and I actually got pushed more content from people like Hakim. I believe other new socialists will find the same problem and will fall into the same trap I nearly did.
We need to adapt and compete with the much louder auth leftists. Their views are the ones people attack because they have become more mainstream. We can't keep doing what we are doing. I'm liking the new short 15 mins ish videos, but I also believe we can do more. We just need to set our agenda straight, make sure it is CLEAR to otgers what we believe and make it easy to understand. There are loads of people out there who 100% agree with us, but are just afraid of anarchism, don't hear about it or fall into other ideologies too early. Let's step up our game.
What do you think of democratic socliasm? Something that Gorbachev or Allende tried. Thanks!
Bad.
Please don't use the phrase "authorisation left". It is literally an oxymoron! Authoritarianism is inherently and unavoidably hierarchical, that is the entire utility of the division between political right and left. Those who believe in hierarchy are on the right those who believe in egality are on the left. If one allows that meaning to mutate one looses the ability to advocate anarchy and the atrocities of the Cultural Revolution or the Killing Fields become inexplicable.
It was not the egalitarians that carried out those acts of dismissal. In short, the left believes in pluralism the right believes in authority. See the excellent UA-camrs "1Dime" and "what is politics".
P.S. I recommend this channel too ❤
Authoritarian vs libertarian are useless dichotomies, true, but so is the left-right dichotomy. It doesn't make sense and yet social democracy and democratic socialism exist as well we all know what it refers to... though tbh we could do with a better word.
Stop asserting things without citing sources. Regardless of how many books you've read, this video means absolutely nothing because it's all your own opinion.
The nice thing about someone who asserts a universal is that all you have to do is find exceptions. I invite you to try.
@@AnarkThere is one thing I don't really understand. Please tell me what i'm missing here.
So how exactly is there more accountability in a horizontal/leaderless structure?
Surely in a heirarchical system, however corrupt or ugly it may be, there is, at least, widespread knowledge as to WHO is at the top of the heirarchy. Therefore, there is accountability. As you said so yourself eventually this type of structure will collapse due to rottenness, so the people at the top of the structure will eventually be held accountable.
However, in a horizontal structure no one is in power, therefore no one can be held accountable. How is a structure like this less suseptable to the influence of bad actors? In fact the bad actors can remain hidden and completely unaccountable. They can manipulate the structure to get what they want and most will remain unaware that this has even happened. Where are the checks and balances? How can we monitor/control bad actors/power if it is hidden within a horizontal structure???
Also, do you not see how claiming "corruption is not the problem" can be incredibly offensive and frustrating to actual real world victims of corruption?
Like, telling a family in Sicily that corruption isnt the cause of their lives being made a living hell when the new police chief has been protecting the mafia which forces them into prostitution? Do you really think they would believe that there problem is caused by heirarchical vs horizontal structure rather than the bad actor actually ruining their lives?
Hey Anark, have you done a video on post anarchism? I have seen different reference to post anarchism but do not understand what it is all about?
Its a weird phenomena that mostly came out of the malaise of the 90's. In its worst versions its a cover for racists, fash sympathizers, or Ted K post civ types. In its more benign forms its closer to bookchinites and folks from the same era that got frusterated with "lifestylism" (a critique Im not convinced has much merit personally).
@@samm9184 Thank you!
@Anark you have said in the past that in your vision of an Anarchist society there would still be markets, but why preserve markets instead of abolishing them? Doesnt Anarchism support getting rid of the commodity form?
My vision of an ideal society would not include markets. I am an anarcho-communist. Markets are going to be a feature in any transitional society, however, as we have to move from where we are to where we want to be.
@@Anark why is it okay to have a transition in an Anarchist society but not okay to have a transition in Marxism Leninism?
@JohnDoe-qd7dq It is. They just demonstrate no actual transitionary movement toward worker control.
@@Anark you can have socialism without anarchism
@@JohnDoe-qd7dq I'll believe it when I see it.
I totally agree with the problems you describe, but i don't see at all how a horizontal form of organisation could function at large scale without producing the same outcomes.
Demagogie doesn't have to be tied to any person.
The only way i can immagine how to keep bad actors away from power is to give it to completely random people instead.
*laughs in a federation of revokable delegates*
@@knowledgeanddefense1054 populism, propaganda and factionalism still exist in a "base democracy".
@@Krautkopf89 except MORE of that exists in capitalist and state capitalist structures because of how unbalanced and overly hierarchical they are, watch the video which literally goes over this and why that is the case.
@@knowledgeanddefense1054 but doesn't make a convincing argument why it would not be the case with base democracy and populist delegates.
Random selection leaves no room for carreer politicians.
@@Krautkopf89 except the argument is that it historically happened the least within them, even relative to the short amount of time Ukraine and Spain lasted for (due to trusting counter revolutionary tankies) and the Zapatistas and Rojava currently.
Someone asked here ans I must also ask: what if a militia attempts a coup? What means do we have for preventing that, and what do we do if , in the worst case,, it does happen?
The same thing that would happen if a contingent of any military structure tried to coup the rest of the structure in any society: the rest of the military structure would be marshalled to defend people from them.
Anarchism isn't a rigid system of governance which seeks to create a structural immunity from collapse. If a large enough number of anarchists were faced with a choice to ignore the lessons of anarchism and instead unnecessarily participate in a hierarchical military body for the sake of concentrating wealth/power, then hopefully they'd understand why it would be undesirable to themselves individually. If not, then it's no worse than the billions of people who CURRENTLY fail to understand that. Either way, it would be rather difficult for a small group to concentrate enough power to conquer the rest of society, especially when the rest of society is already so antagonistic towards that exact kind of concentrated power.
1:16 I dont agree with you about the state socialists endorsing great man theory. Everything I've ever heard from those sorts has been flatly opposed to the idea of great man theory because it ignores material conditions/historical context.
They're in denial and "material conditions" is just an inconsistent excuse.
This video was pretty good, but I feel like the point it was trying to make was pretty muddy.
1st: you mention great man theory which isn't really relevant here. Great Man theory is the idea that history is made by a very small handful of individuals who rise above the masses, you mentioned it when describing what you might call a "change of the guard" where new politicians are elected.
2nd: while I obviously agree that changing the people in power doesn't change anything because the problem is the system, I feel like it was weird to use that as an argument that corruption isn't the problem. Because corruption isn't necessarily "non-systemic." It felt weird that this entire video treated the practice of corruption as just a way of saying "some individuals in power are bad."
There are people who believe that corruption is systemic in the form of things like Lobbying and Campaign financing, I think it would have been nice to see a video about corruption take aim at those ideas more directly.
3rd: I feel like the idea that power structures necessarily devolve into authoritarianism hasn't really born out.
I'm opposed to hierarchy because I don't believe it works, and because I believe top-down authority creates more problems than it solves, but I don't necessarily think power structures inevitably concentrate.
Take Democracy in the U.S. for example, is it hierarchical? Yes. Is it deeply oppressive and dysfunctional? Yes. But has it turned from a democracy to a dictatorship? No.
It's been a democracy right along. I do believe that it is possible to set up hierarchical systems such that they continuously maintain the same level of hierarchy they were designed to maintain. (Like the way the U.S. government while it has changed a lot over the years, remains very much a liberal democracy. In fact it's debateably gotten more Democratic as it's expanded the franchise.)
I think that the idea that positions of power naturally seek people who are attracted to power arguments is probably the least powerful of anarchist critiques of Hierarchy.
And there's so many better points we could make:
-Politicians are responding to the flow of capital: even if our politicians aren't corrupt, they want to see investment enter our communities, multinational corporations have the option of "polity shopping" meaning looking for what governments they want to set up shop under. Inevitably they choose the ones with the least regulation and fewest standards for workers. This is true internationally but also within this country between local areas. And this pressure is likely to have more influence over politicians than explicit political corruption. If China has more investment because they have fewer environmental regulations (don't know if thats true it's just an example) that creates pressure in the u.s. to loosen its environmental regulations to bring that investment back here.
-or we could make the same kinds of criticisms that Libertarians make. We don't have to favor privatization or markets in order to agree with the aspects of the right-libertarian tradition that emphasize the role of tacit knowledge within functional systems, and they have a long history of criticisms of Democracy everything from their theories about special interests dominating legislation by pooling together their numbers for big pushes (similar to the tactic of swarming in a protest, getting people from out of town to show up all at once on one day to demonstrate numbers) or the tyranny of the majority, or we could argue that communal autonomy is valuable in its own right. That when people make decisions about things that affect them more directly we're better off as a society.
These would all be more effective criticisms of the system and of the discourse surrounding corruption than arguing that power seekers in government inevitably concentrate authority
Just pointing to one small part of this critique. US representational democracy has 100% concentrated power over time. In the era of the Articles of Confederation, power was much more broadly distributed. It was concentrated further by the constitution, and overtime, different preseidents have concentrated more and more executive power within the presidency. Some notable examples would be Andrew Jackson's personal crusade against the Second Bank of the United States, resulting in what was widely seen as a stronger executive branch, Lincoln's suspension of habeas corpus, creating a new precedent, Bush's war in Iraq, Obama's drone strike policy, and Trump's flagrant use of executive orders. All of these things (among older examples that I'm just too far from my US history classes to remember) has absolutely concentrated much power into the hands of the executive branch of government. We have definitely seen a concentration of power in the US since its founding.
@@otherperson ehhhhh, I mean you're not wrong, I definitely think everything you said is true. But I still think that the truth in what your saying coexists alongside the truth in what I'm saying: that if it takes 300 years for power to concentrate then obviously there is a degree of systemic safeguard in place against this concentration. Plus, I think you could write a similar history going in the opposite direction: like I said we've gradually enfranchised groups that were previously left out of decision-making, that is a form of distributing power.
There are two counter-histories I think one could reasonably write: one where power in US democracy concentrates over time, and one where it disperses over time. That's part of why I think it's not the best argument to lead with, because it's only half-true. That said I'm definitely in favor of reversing many of the policies that concentrated power in this country over time that you described
I just want to inform you that your videos "a modern anarchism" have been blocked, at least in France.
Round and round said nothing
In anarchocapitalism coorruption is not problem as well...
Dogma alert ⚠️🚨
Bro, you obviously didn't watch the video.
"Anarcho"capitalism is an oxymoron
@@santeri-leinonenwhy? anarchism is synonymus to capitalism. In capitalism all meanings of production are owned by private entities, so as in anarchism
Source?
@@pavelvodnar3206 private and public lack a strong distinction within Anarchism. Try again.