How Would Anarchism Defend Itself?
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- Опубліковано 19 жов 2024
- In this video I'm going to talk about anarchist defense and military arrangements.
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Hi, Anarch. For context, I was in the U.S. Marines for about ten years, and I served as an intelligence analyst and sergeant.
I broadly believe the structure you have suggested is effective. I have a few comparatively minor critiques that might be worth considering, though they are truly minor.
Firstly, as to delegated commanders, which I agree nearly in totality with your prescriptions, I would add specific command and leadership training or education to run for those positions. To put it bluntly, I would not trust a new militia member to make decisions about the risks toward others in the militia. It isn’t that they would be incompetent, but rather they would make mistakes that training can prevent. I believe that the specific requirements should be established by the units that make up that command, and should be additive in nature. So for a squad sized element, one course, for a company one plus whatever requirements of the squad leader position, and so on.
My second critique concerns how that delegated commander can be withdrawn. To be clear, I don’t disagree that they should be able to be removed, but that should be balanced with the urgency of a situation. For example, if a squad is in contact (facing direct fire, maneuvering, etc.) then in that moment, obeying a tactical directive is a matter of life and death. Mistakes should be addressed once that combat has completed, or before it begins during the planning phases of an operation. Of course, this is subject to autonomy for the base militias, and I am in no way suggesting that I commander who has made poor tactical, operational, or strategic choices should not face consequences, only that in specific situations, it doesn’t benefit anyone to disobey instructions.
I do think that the decentralized nature of this structure enables a more proactive and efficient force, but will need increased levels of training and support to achieve success.
For the first critique, I agree, and nothing about anarchism would stipulate that military academies would cease to exist.
As for the second critique, I think in the heat of the battle soldiers would rarely refuse to do something asked of them when they have bullets hurling past their head and adrenaline is running high. I believe anarchists should also implement as "humbling" procedure, where commanders and soldiers are brought up on stage to be criticized by the community for any grievances they may have committed, and the soldiers themselves should regularly assemble to discuss the performance and merits of the person they've delegated to be their leader. The purpose of this is to humble leaders and shut down power-hungry individuals.
This is really cool and interesting! For the critique about in the heat of battle etc…, my understanding of how that was done in historical anarchist militias is you couldn’t generally recall the commander while you were actively in combat- although there should probably be exceptions to that like if your commander tells you to commit war crimes or something, you can disobey their orders etc…
The other situation I can imagine where you’d need to recall a commander in the heat of battle is if the commander is doing something obviously incompetent that everyone knows is going to get a lot of people killed for no reason, like freezing up or ordering people to human wave charge machine guns or something.
For the first critic, I would agree, but I guess it would be determined by the scale of the delagated leadership, a squad would probably need a diligent leader that can keep a level head under extreme circumstances and direct his men in a war zone, at that point some level of orientation is necessary, but the types of people with these criteria can be determined by the squad itself, but for higher levels of command much more stratigy, tactics, and general intelligence is needed, so ther could be a "training period" of sorts to teach the new delegate different strategies, tactics, ect ect, and any other information necessary for that delegate duties, there could even be a "council of advisors", this would be a council of people that have really good strategies, but are dsliked by the militias members, so are hired by the higher delegates and councils to give insight on disicion but ultimately have the final verdict on said decisions lay in the hands of the elected delegate.
For the second critic, things would probably work like how things worked on pirateships long ago, basically the Capitan was elected by the crew members before or during a voyage and would take sole command of the crew during battle, where he had complete immunity from election durring the battle, but after it was over the Capitan`s power could be reaffirmed or ousted by the crew determining on the effectiveness of the Capitan, so a squad leader would have an immunity during active conflict with the enemy, (though the punishments for insubordination from the battle commanders orders would be decided by the whole squad instead of just the commander), but in between conflict then the power of the commander can be called in to question, there of course can be exceptions to this rule, if the commander is giving REALLY blatantly bad orders, (like telling them to charge into enemy fire without any adequate protection causing them to get mowed down before they could do anything) then disobeying those orders to on site power redirection is acceptable, and of course if the commander is incapacitated or killed a new commander could be quickly decided.
the Kurdish militias have this it is called Tekmil - only after an operation is completed they sit around and break down what they did right or wrong and make adjustments
@@JohnDoe-xs5gv
Anark can you talk about anarchist geopolitics
baked into the idea that anarchism couldn't defend itself is the assumption that we need people to boss us around ,
surely you need to learn how to march in a straight line. you wouldn't have a "boss", but a sergeant or officer. left is best
so true estradiol gaming
That's not necessarily true.
It could be that a coercive authoritarian will always emerge naturally in any human population and find effective means to build authoritarian, vertical structures.
These types don't just co-opt structures, they actively create them. Relentlessly.
We might not need a boss, but someone will relentlessly seek to boss us around, anyway. I don't think a robust enough system *could* eliminate that modality of human behavior. Suppress it, perhaps?
I'm just saying, people are afraid of a real thing. Whether their pessimism is misplaced is another discussion.
The idea that we need a boss is a post hoc rationalization from authoritarians used to instill such pessimism, of course. Authoritarian types love the idea of forcing surrender and hopelessness. Feeds their ego driven desire to feel powerful.
While that's a pithy quip, the real concern is leadership from delegation tipping into authoritarianism.
If someone wins the hearts and minds of a majority of the group, then the dissenters can be removed from decision making.
If any one entity controls a critical resource, then they have powerful incentives to leverage their advantage.
Maybe a larger neighbor that's more federated takes advantage of a hyperlocal spat and sweeps through, asserting domination, or even political leverage and tribute.
Also: There's a structural arms race at play in early state city-formation.
Nothing this man is talking about can occur without adjusting the material conditions like grain/annual agriculture that incentivize imperial growth.
@@trenomas1 found the gigachad
In “Armed Defense of The Black Commune and Community” by Black Autonomy Federation it mentions the idea of Black Peoples’ Militias and “Black Community Response to Vigilante and Police Violence” by Black Autonomy Federation mentions building Black Partisan Militias to patrol our communities as well as organizing self-defense to protect the Black Community and its organizations.
Yeah, that will work out. Im certain of it.😂
@@enemymind7988 To ignore historical example such as the Deacons for Defense is stupid of you to do….
@@BlackAnarchist1992 you should hire NFAC. Is grand master J out of prison yet?
@@enemymind7988 Just shut up….
@@enemymind7988Your name is apt.
I'm glad channels like this exist that remind me I'm not alone nor stupid for being a socialist but being highly skeptical of Leninism and other forms of authoritarian "socialism." I've consistently held the baseline belief that people are fully capable of autonomy and collective democratic decision making without some higher authority needing to dictate the terms of that, and it's clear Marxist-Leninists take a huge issue with that belief. Of course same goes for liberals and social democrats (who are really just liberals too) who while masking with language of liberation have no actual intention of liberating the people and creating real democracy.
Didn't even realize until today that Rojava is a true libertarian socialist movement too. That's hella based and clearly successful. The region controlled by Rojava is the most prosperous region of Syria and they've consistently defended their autonomy from the authoritarian Syrian and Turkish governments as well as from extremist reactionary groups like ISIL.
People who love power are never going to make the best decisions for the ones they have power over, no matter how smart or educated they are. I'd favor an oligarchy if a craving for power always came with a love for helping others, and level headedness, but that never seems to be the case.
I didn’t think many people took Leninists seriously I thought most of us were in agreement that they’re looney
The problem of the military exposes the fault lines of the struggle we have before us. The only way to prevent the military from attaining social dominance over the mass of humanity is a massive campaign of education. We need to get people to care enough not to let local dominators win. This is the essential struggle.
Mass education and the creation of horizontal structures like co-ops should be the number one priority of any serious libertarian socialist in modern-day America given the current political climate because those are more likely to create a long-lasting impact then joining an affinity group or going to protests
I get asked about this sort of thing all the time. Thanks for posting this!
This video is valid. The future of structures has to be imagined first.
But it doesn't tackle the authoritarian impulse that occurs in (a decidedly few) humans. If there is an opportunity to flip this dispersed system into a heirarchical one, then eventually it will occur and perpetuate itself.
If a neighboring group gathers enough surplus grain to support a lazy class, then the lazy authoritarians will use force to grab that surplus and begin the process of empire-building.
If your neighbor is an empire, your dispersed militia will still be fighting between each other when the ranks of the oppressed start burning down cities.
It has happened so very many times.
The underlying agriculture. That's what matters.
A good example of this (& something to learn from & use for the upcoming future) actually comes fron the US; continental militias formed mini-armies which managed to outsmart British & Royalist forces; the same can be said for the Natives, from their clashes against early English colonials to out in the far west during the long 19th century.
Why it's simple. After you beat the nationalists and carlists you liberate Portugal and form the global defense council. From there you can either go for the middle east or if youre feeling ballsy go for one of the chinese warlords and get them sweet cores for manpower.
(Nerdy hoi4 sarcasm aside, this is a great video)
Nah this is the same energy as a 16 year old conquering the world as Germany stop hoi4 larping 😭
@@Lucretia916 hence the note at the end. I was an anarchist years before I played hearts of iron.
I think ensuring children are raised right should be the highest priority of any population.
People who possess the traits of the dark triad (narcissism, sociopathy, and Machiavellianism) are the main ones who crave to be a the top of a hierarchy, maintain control of others, and behave antagonistically. Those personality disorders typically start in childhood due to bad parenting.
Thank you - this video answered questions I had on the topic.
One question about anarchist armed forces that I find myself asking is "Why are there so many examples of hierarchical militaries and so few examples of horizontal militaries? Doesn't that indicate the former is better than the latter?" Setting aside the obvious institutional biases of our media and academia, are there structural benefits to hierarchical militaries that make them more effective than horizontal ones?
The hypothesis I came to, and I am by no means an expert or even all that knowledgeable, is that both military structures are quite effective at what they are designed to do, but they are designed to do very different things. In other words, hierarchical militaries are built for one specific purpose above all else, taking and controlling territory. Traditional militaries, with their fancy dress men in rooms with big maps giving orders down the chain to thousands of peons who are expected to follow orders without question or hesitation, are very good at invading and occupying dirt that someone else has control of.
Conquering land isn't something an anarchistic military would be good at, because it is inherently imperial. But that isn't what an anarchistic military is really designed for, at least in the way how my amateur brain envisions it. As I see it, an anarchist military would function more like a guerilla resistance movement. Isolated cells that communicate with each other and have the same overall goal, but operate largely independently of each other. This kind of asymmetrical warfare is very effective against traditional militaries operating as an invading and occupying force. It is great for defending territory, but not very good at claiming territory.
But why would anarchist militias want to claim territory? They are a defensive force, not an offensive one. They don't want to claim territory, they want to free territory, which they can't do by becoming the new oppressors. If anarchists want to take control away from the controlling forces in a territory, they don't use direct force. Instead, they educate, inspire, empower and support the people living in that territory to free themselves. Because anarchism is about freeing people, not controlling land.
Or I could be wrong. I'm a some random white online leftist who has never thrown a punch outside of a karate dojo. This is just theory-crafting. Take all this with a truckload of salt and feel free to correct me on anything I said here. Believe me, I do not know what I'm talking about.
I think aside from effectiveness questions, the simplest answer is that hierarchical militaries are good for supporting hierarchical states, whereas horizontal militaries would not be. And most militaries in recorded history have unfortunately been organized by hierarchical states- even if it made soldiers more effective, I doubt they would experiment too much with horizontal decision making beyond what they already have, with devolving a lot of decisions to NCOs etc… It would be a threat to the state if the state’s military got too egalitarian.
So I guess the real question is why did hierarchical states become the hegemonic social form, and that’s a much more complicated question than the effectiveness of different military structures.
@@Spruce319 I hypothesize that federalism is not natural for horizontal structures. Without it they are too atomized and they slowly get conquered. That's why I think it's crucial to actually establish those federated links between various anarchist initiatives, not only in theory but in practice. This is something that we don't really do enough in the real world.
Thank god. Someone here who is capable of thinking critically about our proposed system, that being Anarchism. It’s not a complete echo chamber then. Thank you for typing out at length the same objections i have put forward in the past. Just don’t expect them to actually address your argument, they will probably just avoid it and start citing historical examples of how great guerrilla armies are again…
🙄🫸😑
Claiming territory is not the right terminology. You're defending the ground you stand on. To avoid the contradiction you're concerned with, anarchist militias would have to levitate instead of marching.
Hey dude; I'd like to see you tackle Reactionary forms of Anarchism/Socialism (like the NazBol, Strasserists, National Anarchism, Anarcho-Conservatives etc...) along with MAGA Communism & how sus they all are.
Most of these cats are straight up fascist
Simple. Nationalism by definition requires a state, thus it isn't anarchist.
Nationalist anarchists are just fascists who realizes that they wont be in government after the revolution and realize they don't wanna live under a dictatorship.
I know of some one who says they are national anarchist had have may to much unironic holocaust denial essentially insinuating that Jews exaggerate the holocaust
NAM is based, not sus.
@@anarcho-savagery2097 It kinda is tho; wanting Anarchy just for YOUR people (and not ALL peoples as most anarchists would emphasise) is highly unusual.
Few things make me more irrationally angry than a smug authoritarian saying "wElL, yEs, AnArKiTtEn, AnArChY iS nIcE oN pApEr BuT hOw WiLl It DeFeNd ItSeLf¿!"
Best answer: Don't ever trust Leninists again cause that's been our downfall most times. Our "comrades" 🤦🏽♂️ Plus all the stuff Anark said, among other things.
The hypocrisy is amazing though. Cause every Leninist/Maoist project has been so incredibly compromised by it's inability to defend itself from liberalism it's not even funny. Most never got off the ground, the majority that were established no longer exist, and what exists today is a joke. They couldn't defend themselves.
Liberals also have a problem where all the things they claim to find superior in Liberalism is non-existent cause the state and capitalism have found it inconvenient to power, profit, and expansion. But we're supposed to go with Liberalism cause those things, like freedom, equality, efficiency, security, etc, are "possible" under Liberalism.
Talking to my dad about Anarchism: BUT HOW WILL THEY DISTRIBUTE RESOURCES ??!1?
@@mlijah2730 and here's one my 62 dad said (and he's definitely a left-wing guy Just not a revolutionary yet) " If people aren't given profit incentive, what will incentivize them for labor or work?"
@@matroid10They will get good food wine
Anark, I have been watching you for a little over 3 years now and much has changed since then, mainly the whole war situation in Ukraine has got things very riled up here in the Caucasus and in this part of the world generally.
You make really nice and informative, and honestly, videos that are almost too easy to digest. It is hard to believe that we get all of this on UA-cam. You are pretty much the only leftist content creator that i watch apart from Zoe who makes specifically anarchist content. There may not be many anarchists from Georgia, but I'm one of them and I'm really glad you present the history that you presented in the state is counter revolutionary series so well spokenly and informatively.
The free world will be ours one day if people like you stand with us. I am sure of that.
BRO IS PULLING OUT THE DIAGRAM????
You know shit gets serious when he pulls out the diagram.
@@Ash-Winchester ong lmao
Just a question because I've heard it before and made me wonder. What do we do with nukes? I've had some ideas about disarmament, but then remember how you can uninvent something. How would we handle this during and after the revolution?
It takes a massive industrial effort, this industrial base can only in a small part be used for power generation (and then it is going to be expensive power, though it definitely has benefits on the stability and consistency front). So if we get rid of the existing nukes, the chance of new ones being made is low-ish. Not impossible, but low. If you want to lower that chance, then export your ideals instead of building your own nukes.
@@bramvanduijn8086 can you use it for fuel on nucleal reaction?
Plenty of things have been uninvented in the past. Most often not because these technologies were "lost" in any way, shape, or form, but because conditions had changed.
@@helginator not a nuclear physicist or anything, but as far as I have understood nuke payload is comparatively pretty damn poor for heat/electricity production, and reactor fuel is insufficient for a nuke. They're different enough that you wouldn't like accidentally end up with materials for nuclear weapons no matter what your power generation looks like.
...and yet I still don't know if we could (with lowered efficiency) repurpose our warheads for energy production so I guess I'm not directly answering your question
In terms of modern warfare, I do not see this form of organisation you laid out as viable. For one thing, the basis for the military is infantry units, that's not where modern warfare is heading. You can't organise a loose network of militia and hope to have a good outcome against long range missiles from submarines, drones, and satellite recognisance. It also concerns me that this form of organisation would blur the lines between military and civilian target and increase the odds of war crimes being committed on your population. If it were to win against a modern state with a modern military, it would be a war of attrition where huge swathes of your population would die. During that form of war, you wouldn't just need to fight the opposing state but also against non-anarchist movements within your own forces that would undoubtedly be funded by the opposing state. All of which leaves me concerned this would more likely result in turning this hypothetical anarchist country into the next Afghanistan.
I love this outline. Do you have any links to the sources you used to lay it all out like this?
It's based a lot on theory I developed in A Modern Anarchism, parts 1-3. You may find those videos informative!
@@Anark awesome thank you! I actually just started watching that series last night, so I'm excited to get to that section. The structure you laid out has some similarities to some of the things I read about Rojava and the YPG, but so much of that information is in a different language and very obscure, so it's really hard to get step by step breakdowns.
Thank you for your response, and all of the awesome work you have done over the years.
Please make a video of how you believe future potential anarchist revolution would not necessarily lose their battles again (like by not trusting statists and only striking first once their numbers get high enough... unless they would be left with no choice)
I know you’ve released reading lists but any recommendations to read about Rojava?
thank you
great video
Hi Anark, thanks for the video! I have a question: given such a military structure, how to prevent it from ceasing power within the anarchist structure?
Further, delegation allows the flow of power and prevents it to be concentrated in a group or individual, but given that these people would be trained and armed: what would stop them from coercing other members of their community if they suddenly get power-greedy?
Voluntarily.
I guess one question i would have is how do we keep militias from using their power to take over and exploit communities?
this is my main concern if we assume we actuallly get to a point where the primary security forces are decentralized autonomous militias, how do we prevent those from autonomously violating the rights and autonomy of civilians? How do we prevent them from beefing w each other?
@@breadconqueror27 education from early age on the purpose of security forces in horizontal societies. For all citizens. Make the incentive to be security something other than the chance to hold a gun.
Spoken to somebody who ultimately believes that security forces should be unnecessary. But when surrounding societies are hegemonic and imperialists, there has to be some type of defense set up.
This is the best possible response everybody needs to see this
I know how.. I seen the guys with the rainbow kitty cat gaiters and S&W sport 2s.. Im not convinced we would be very safe.
🎉
Could you recommend contemporary works that go into more detail on the issue of self-defense?
Yes.
Very brave of you to take on a difficult question. Orwell pointed out the strong points of anarchist militia, the plan was talked through by the unit beforehand so much better understanding, better commitment in the troops etc. I can see it has advantages in defense, especially of the militias home area.
What i have more difficulties with is attack. Let's say Anarkia has been invaded by Hierarchia. Hierarchia has captured the capital city then the offensive has been ground down by the militias. I think autonomous units make the task of recapturing the town insanely hard.
The structure of the militias as sketched seems built for guerrilla war but if anything that's harder without co-ordination and control. The Vietnamese were in no way autonomous, that was one of the things Le Duan did not like.
Sup anark Jamaican Anarcho communist here can you talk about how anarchist fight in various environments urban,rural, mountain jungles and costal regions
You can find pamphlets floating around regarding guerilla warfare in the South African conflicts, along with ones created by U.S. defense forces both using and fighting against guerilla warfare. That's the main utility in things like militias versus common militaries, and goes back to movements like the Black Army in Ukraine and the CNT-FAI in Spain.
What happens if and when group politics break the cohesion of these militias?
What happens if a strongman is able to maneuver the systens to hold onto the reigns of power and hold a monopoly of force?
What happens if militia A refuses to help militia B due to rivalries or disagreements?
Watch After the Revolution and When Consensus Fails.
My concern with having military elections, especially delegations for officers and NCOs, is that they will turn into popularity contests wherein unqualified individuals reach high ranks through charisma
How do we combat the highly centralised form of governance within the current power structures. The thing about centralised structures is that they are able to act almost instantly. So how does a revolution compete with such systems without being centralised.
I honestly, highly recommend anark's vid from a few years ago on this channel: "Constructing the Revolution" as a really decent, pretty comprehensive, starting point.
Safe bet that even after this video got uploaded people will still ask this question
I mean its a concept, not proof
at the end of the day the only real way to answer the question is to have a revolution and defend it
and then you have to continue asking the question constantly because warfare and geopolitics are constantly evolving and so too must the militia structures
generally though, this falls more under defense economics. hierarchy aside once you get to territories and productive forces on the scale of nation-states you're also gonna have to look at logistics and defense on the same scale. Which is to say it becomes increasingly about economics and logistics as opposed to tactics
@@sabotabby3372 Ok? I think you misunderstand my comment. It was poking fun at something that is bound to happen, IE people ask something that was already answered
@@sabotabby3372 thanks for this former neocon here the militia structure is great and all but the is bare bones analysis of defense of anarchism. this also doesn't go into the specifics on how to procure weapons (steal buy or making them because of limited resources. how anarchist militia groups will operated in many environments .eg liberating costal and mountainous regions, defending these revolutionary gains and how to operate in urban areas.
militarized anarchism my beloved
:p
Vanguard Anarchism go brrrrrrrrrrrrrrr
how would the top or mid delegates be elected during war time? would it need an assambly of soldier or lower delegates or anything different?
But how do you get that many soldiers without something like conscription? There's absolutely no way you'd get enough volunteers for that
Just us 2 chads uploading epic videos a few hours apart
Dont they use umbrellas and fireworks?
Molotov cocktails and bike locks?
Yes, very useful video. The discussions always end up in this questions
@Anark worker coops are not inherently Socialist
Most co-ops operate for profit within a capitalist economy, and that reason alone precludes them from being socialist in nature (even though they might be founded with socialist principles in mind). While their structures could form the basis of a revolutionary worker's organization, they do not tend to be revolutionary in and of themselves. Just as common trade unions do not further revolutionary goals but serve to divide workers and encourage capitalistic competition, the standard worker co-op under capitalism that simply uses the model as an alternative form of business organization and does not seek to build systems that challenge capitalism will not further anti-capitalist goals.
Just as there is a difference between a revolutionary syndicate and a capitalist trade union, there is a difference between a revolutionary co-op and a capitalist co-op.
Uh... bruh. thats not the topic of this video... like at all... and I dont think Anark would disagree with you.
How are the militias getting paid and how are they getting bombs, jets, arms, air craft carriers and warships radar Satellites? It seems to me you need a centralized gov to get the tax to pay for it.
I think the question of an effective anarchist military is how small and how long the operative hierarchy should be. The suspension of full democracy in a unit should be as short as action is necessary, and the size of the unit, small enough that if someone power trips and goes rogue other units can form an effective resistance. There should be a bunch of mechanism that allows for dismentlement without losing competency during down time. Maybe a regular shuffling of soldiers to prevent too much loyalty to a commander. Though, that might allow a power trip commander to deploy spies and provocateurs.
You are hitting on a lot of important points. Anarchists definitely need to think very carefully about this topic.
Soldiers, security and militaries have been the tools of authoritarian societies for basically as long as human writing systems have existed.
But we must acknowledge that the art of war does not care which side is weaker or stronger or which side is authoritarian or horizontal. It only cares about which side is more intelligent in the art of war.
So start studying up and learning about military history and combat tactics from actual soldiers and police.
That might sound weird. I know as it left wing anarchists we don't want to associate with cops, but I'm telling you right now that the best martial arts on the planet and the best firearms training on the planet is given by military and police, so do whatever you can to learn about their training from them without actually becoming a cop or a soldier. This is much easier than you might think in the United States.
@@matroid10 I think that discussion also goes for institutions in general, despite there authoritarian roots, they're weirdly a democratizing force in liberal societies since they're only loyal to themselves and their function.
How responsive to democracy do we want our institutions to be, it only takes a very charismatic individual to convince people to give up their rights and hijack democracies.
Institutions are very slow to change that's why they're oppressive but also stabilizing. We should learn from them to find out if we can have more of the later with less oppression.
Maybe what we need is a bunch of red buttons "incase of massive oppressive emergency, press here to reset".
Current oppressive structures are still great wells of knowledge and expertise we shouldn't hastily throw away but recycle like evolution does. But maybe I just lack imagination.
We're fighting a set of thinking that has a 12 thousand years head start and success that has only been chipped away a little in the last 300 years after all.
There is a fundamental flaw with the question itself. Not in the sense that Anarchism wouldn't need to defend itself but the
implication that comes along with the question that Anarchism could never exist because " there's always a bigger fish".
What I mean is that the argument for authoritative systems over anarchist systems is "there's always a bigger fish".
The idea that one tribe of people is always going to want what another tribe has and will inevitably use force to steal it
and that bigger and bigger tribes will form and unite as bigger and bigger "fish" eventually leading to totalitarianism.
The reason why this is a flawed argument is because the bigger fish isn't actually the totalitarian leadership as many think.
Rather it is the military which supports the regime of the totalitarian leadership and this is the very reason why rather than
totalitarianism being the inevitable end goal it is actually the opposite. Authoritative systems are doomed to collapse. Why?
Because they require large a large military power however a large military power doesn't appear out of thin air.
It comes from the people that are ruled over by the Totalitarian system. The dictator has to somehow convince
the people it rules over that their neighbor is a bigger threat to their life and livelihood then the dictator ruling over them.
There is only one possible way to do this and that is through Propaganda.
This will probably upset a lot of people but nevertheless the Truth must be said.
The reason why we live under authoritative rule is due to Propaganda.
The reason why there is Propaganda is literally because of Roman Catholicism. Aka The Beast.
Now yes, obviously there has been propaganda before Roman Catholicism but it is the Roman Catholic Beast which
established the Propaganda Fide or "The Sacred Office for the Propagation of the Faith" Faith here meaning "Roman Catholicism" as a way to counter the Protestant Reformation and hide what every reformer knew to be prophetic fact: The Pope is Antichrist.
You might think that to say that the Pope is Antichrist is a distraction from your fight against Capitalism. It is the opposite.
For it is the Papacy which rules over the kings of the earth as a counterfeit of Christ who according to Scripture is King of Kings.
Obviously not everyone believes in Christ but if you don't then you should be opposed to the Pope who claims to be
Christ's earthly representative. What that means is that the Pope claims to have the same ultimate authority as Christ.
And if you do believe in Christ then you should be opposed to the Pope for the very same reason.
The only reason to NOT oppose the Papacy is if you are either ignorant of what the Papacy actually is or just a liar.
Of course this is where someone will say but that's just what Catholics believe. It doesn't affect me. I just want to be free.
This is an extremely naive and ignorant if not dishonest view because the Pope and the Roman Catholic Beast is antithetical
to freedom. You cannot have a truly free anarchist society and also accept the existence of the Papacy which seeks to
rule through both subterfuge and if need be through overwhelming violence which it has used throughout history and a
lot more recently then what most people believe and the reason why people underestimate just how violent the Vatican is
is because of Roman Catholic Propaganda which has convinced the majority of the world that the Devil is a messenger of light.
So why then are authoritative systems doomed to collapse. Well I could just say that because the Pope is Antichrist and
the Antichrist is the ultimate authoritative system which rules over all other authoritative systems which is prophesied
to be destroyed then the entire system of hierarchical rule is doomed to eventually collapse upon itself.
But it's more than that. It is the fact that because the system is built on lies it will collapse under the weight of the truth.
As more people learn that these authoritative structures and ultimately the authoritative structure of Popery is at odds
with their natural God given desire to be free then the more people who will refuse to fight for the system that oppresses them.
Without people fighting for abusive hierarchies then abusive hierarchies cannot exist at large.
There is such a thing as natural hierarchies. But rather then being abusive they are voluntary.
There will always be leaders and the people who choose to follow them. The key here is choice.
How do you set up and equip a militia Air Force or missile defense system or blue-water navy? Militias can definitely work for infantry, and work moderately for armored/mechanized forces, for sure but how do you make it work for more advanced forces?
Or is Anarchism going to just cede control of the air and sea to its enemies?
For that matter, how would Anarchist militias have effective intelligence collection or encrypted communications if everything has to be decentralized and horizontally accessible by everyone?
Statist militaries require money to function, which is a weakness, while anarchist militaries are motivated by ideology. Part of the strategy is to encourage general strikes to disrupt the cash flow to the bourgeoisie. No money = no fighter jets.
And while having air and naval supremacy helps, war is still won by putting boots on the ground and taking land.
Regardless, an air force and navy can still exist in an anarchy.
honestly, a lot of insurgent forces have their own air force, and out of all the things you brought up that would prolly be the easiest one to address. Navy would prolly be way harder than an air force to maintain, tho even in history there have been irregular/unprofessional navies, tho I can't speak on that. As for missle defense I wouldn't know enough about that. These are good questions to ask tbh.
@@JohnDoe-xs5gv
And if you are being attacked by a foreign dictatorship that effectively control the workers in its country through repression and propaganda and you can’t get their workers to rise up?
And air support to those boots on the ground is a devastatingly powerful force multiplier. Ceding control of the air to your enemies is death in modern warfare. You might win the win in the end, but it will be a Pyrrhic victory with all the losses and destruction of infrastructure you will incur.
And I don’t doubt that an anarchy could have an Air Force or Navy, what I doubt is that they could be militias and still be effective.
@@hardesthardcoregamer
The only insurgent forces with air forces I’m aware of either operate a handful of helicopters or modified civilian prop aircraft like the “Biafra Babies”. You aren’t going to be achieving air superiority or conduct interdiction strikes against a modern military with those.
What do you mean *would*?
ok but as a maybe anarchist i still have one question: you use language that could indicate a sort of hierarchy, but since there would be no hierarchy in anarchy, would the military be an exception? it seems as though as some things in life are exceptions to the no hierarchy rule. could anybody respond? id love to learn.
A voluntary service, in which the "leadership/command" is chosen by consensus and immediately revokable is the opposite of a hierarchy.
really anarchists use a very narrow definitition of "hierarchy" where it is almost always involuntary and systematic. Technically a scoreboard or a squad leader commanding a militia group of volunteers are hierarchies we have no problem with
The issue is how do you stop your hierarchies from transforming into those of corrupted fasco-capitalistic types of hierarchies? Any time you build a power structure of any type you are setting up the inevitable consequence that the structure will transform in to a pure power hierarchy which defeats the initial purpose setting up something that opposes that.
Without having constraints on such a system that are immutable and invulnerable to corruption/decay you are not ultimately achieving any true solution to the problem. Am I missing something?
All systems function perfectly in when operating in their ideal environment. You must assume that what ever structure built operates in the worst possible environment. Any federation will be corrupted over time either through natural causes or through intentional divide and conquer techniques. Since there will always be hostiles working to undermine your system what are the mechanisms you have in place to protect it from them?
Which hierarchies are you referring to here?
@@Anark I haven't had time to respond to your other comment but I will point out here that we are using two slightly different definitions of hierarchy. For me I am talking about the abstract structure of hierarchical design. You can understand my definition of hierarchy by looking for Hierarchy & Tree_Structure.
I believe what you call hierarchy I would call a power hierarchy or more appropriately a human based hierarchical rules system.
For me, the issues as I see it is that 1. "capitalism" will always undermine any other system and attempt to extract whatever "power" that system has. 2. You are setting up a military power based hierarchical system for "Defense" but seem not to realize that such a system will eventually be compromised by the very people that ultimately run the system.
All rules based systems REQUIRE that the humans playing the "game" "play by the rules". If they do not play by the rules either due to ignorance or intentionally then the game fails.
E.g., military men typically will, by their nature, be more ignorant, more prone to violence, more fear based, that the general population as this is the nature of combat. These men, as they build up military systems for "defense" can be prone to psychopathic attacks either internally or externally.
E.g., even simple issues such as accidents can be, due to innate ignorance of the conditions creating the event, attributed to "the enemy" causing paranoia and hate which will then grow in to psychopathic acts which further undermine the system in the long run.
It is the very nature of power to become evil. Why? It has to do with the psychology of men. All humans are vulnerable to psychopathic acts. These can be caused by age, disease, catastrophes, etc. You can't predict or control such things(to some degree but not completely).
This is the issue with all organizations that have some men in control of others(which ultimately are power hierarchies in some form or fashion).
You have to take in to account the psychological factors involved which is the real source of the issue. It is power that amplifies the psychopathy in men that cause all the destruction we see. Even capitalism, if humans were completely benevolent, would work well. Of course in such a world capitalism wouldn't exist as we know it.
So when you are creating your militias(which has power due to it being able to control and abuse other humans) and then your coordination structures so that you can mount a proper defense. What are your rules that prevent those systems from going rogue and ultimately undermining the entire system?
From best I can tell it looks like you assume that in such a system all men participating in it will act with good intentions and work to support the desired purpose of the overarching system. This is an invalid assumption("all"systems will function well with that assumption). All failures of past systems have been due to failures of men. Yes, the system is the problem... but because no systems have ever actually taken in to account the psychology of man and how psychopathy can effect him.
[Also, likely you do not understand psychopathy in the same way I do but the idea is all men have an innate disposition to becoming or doing evil/destructive things(not necessarily directly but can incite through their words or actions)]
@@MDNQ-ud1ty I think, bearing in mind our different understanding of these terms, I would agree with your general assessment here. However, it should be said that this failure mode you mention is called a coup and every system which could conceivably be built will be susceptible to it, because those who have the power of violence inherently have the ability to overturn all rule systems. So I don't think there is anything here that is uniquely susceptible to the issue you discuss. Indeed, there are no known examples of a coup being carried out in a horizontal system. All known coups have been carried out in hierarchical systems. However, I will concede that this could be just a bias created due to how *many* hierarchical systems have been built, such that this failure mode, rare as it is in any system, has occurred more in hierarchical powers.
Nonetheless, I think the real answer to your question lies elsewhere than this video. It takes a few forms:
1) Militia confederations have dispersed power, meaning that coup is harder. Any militia that wanted to rebel would have to actually get hold of all the other militias and get them to agree. In a hierarchical military, all one has to do is grab hold of the center of command (which is, in my opinion, the real reason why coup happens more often in hierarchical systems, but I digress). This means that coups would generally be isolated and able to be suppressed by the rest of the confederation of militias.
2) Militia confederations would serve at the behest of the council confederations of society. This means that people can be removed from these confederations at the whim of those council bodies. However, I will not belabor this aspect, given that a coup is inherently a rejection of constraint by rule structures and thus they could simply reject the decisions of the councils as such.
3) Militias *are* the people. This is to say, they are not a separate class of military men. They are agglomerations of members of the populace and the idea is that you train up vast swaths of the populace, even if they are not always in active duty. The default militias would consist of everyone in a given municipality and then exceptions would be made for production or social maintenance (this is what we saw in the CNT-FAI controlled regions of Spain for example). This is a major controlling factor to the coup, because it means there is not a strict separation between the councils and the fighters. If a militia locally rebelled, it would be roughly equivalent to the council itself rebelling, which then becomes a problem for the confederation rather than the local council.
Nonetheless, I consider the problem of who wields violence to be an open problem for every system and anarchism is not unique in this. These are the systemic checks that are naturally in place within a horizontal system, though it is possible more and better ones could be devised.
@@Anark
A coup is just one form. You don't seem to be taking in to account outside influences. Do you consider a coup that was fomented by outside actors to undermine the system a technically a coup or an outside attack(that just happen to take the form of a coup)?
From my limited understanding your approach to the problem it seems that you are simply trying to make a more resilient system as you essentially admit this with accepting that "everything eventually fails".
What I argue from is not which system is "starts off better" or is "best for the longest". In fact, to argue such things we have to precisely define what better is.
That is, I don't disagree with your ideas in the since that just about anything is better than what we currently have. Rather, what you are describing as your systems of confederation(a structural hierarchy in my view) does a better job a distributing and balancing power through the system than our representative democracies and such(but I also see them very similar structurally so maybe you could address the differences in detail. I do see there are some fundamental differences in how power flows through the system and there are more "dispersion points" that prevent upward flow and concentration such as what we have in America).
The approach I argue is from the long term "limit" or "steady state"(in mathematics the steady state is what happens after everything(the transient state) has taken place and settled down. E.g., what happens after 1000 years, or 10000 years, or a billion years. Obviously in reality science tells us everything goes to hell so we can't hold to strict "to the limit". So to sum it up "I care about how the systems behave in the long term on the people they act on".
E.g., Marx "proved" that capitalism's "limit" is that it is a self-destructing system(and this forces society to adopt new systems). One could say that capitalists limit is some new system but this isn't a very helpful way to think about it IMO.
So what is most important for me in any "new" system is how it deals with it's long term structural integrity issues.
Engineering a society is much like engineering any complex system such as a sky scrapper, a rocket, or whatever. If we were building the tallest building my "job" is to make sure the thing doesn't fall over in "100 years". In fact, that should be everyone's "job" because else what is the point? Yes, it may eventually fail... and we must take that in to account too since we do not want the failure modes to be that it kills everyone(e.g., in a sudden collapse which, say, is a typical failure mode of most societies humans build).
@@Anark
So I won't bother going over issues I see in your confederation as you do agree there exists "open problems"(these will be contradictions in the system/rules that are exploited by "the universe").
I will only say that, to me, I see that over time the militias will be undermined in some fashion similar to what has happened with the militias in the US. Even though they may be somewhat different in design the same "decay" will act on them. E.g., an iron chair and an iron bench, if not properly engineered to not become rusty, will become rusty over time. It doesn't matter their form because their inherent nature is to rust. (Hence the system, the iron, is the problem)
For me, these issues of how the system is "attacked" by outside "forces"(I mean anything that acts to changes the system) is of utmost importance because it is those that will eventually undermine any "good" system which works to turn it bad which defeats the point of creating the good system in the first place. I see the prime directive, of course, to create a good system that lasts the longest and enables humans to maximize their happiness collectively and individually while reducing all the ills we know about and do not know about. (it is known as a minmax problem in mathematics and these problems typically can be solved and computers be used to find these solutions if the problem is "digitized")
So, if it's not clear, these are the two main issues I'd be interested in you discussing: 1. how you see the decay/aging of the system and how it transforms in to a "new" system. 2. How the system collapses/dies.
Every system from the moment of inception is in a constant state of change and transforming in to new variations. In mathematics one, for example, may want to get a "bound" on this change(e.g., see Bounded_Variation). The goal here would be to have a design that limits its ability to transform in to something that was not intended(e.g., a nice iron chair in to a pile of junk vs a nice iron chair in to a nice iron chair(no variation)). This "bounded variation" comes out of the design of the system. Poorly designed systems(such as capitalism) are not bounded and can transform and flux quite rapidly.
So in your design of your confederations, as you build the skeleton, what means do you have that prevent the skeleton from collapsing? E.g., the "founding fathers" put in a few checks and balances and a "revolution"(that is the 1 and 2 I ask about above). They did a pretty shitty job. Look where it got us. Once those checks and balances failed(and they have) then the only option is a revolution(which is worse case and which no one wants to do).
E.g., If we were designing an airplane we would want the plane to not decay in such a way that it would lead to a failure mode of just blowing up. Such systems usually require a large numbers of checks and balances and ways to property correct imbalances.
E.g., the Japanese have learned to build their buildings so that they deal with earthquakes but they have not learned how to build their houses to deal with Tsunamis.
Over time any system will die from "1000 cuts" unless it explicitly is designed to not time from them. I personally believe the "universe" has devised it's system so that everything eventually dies. So for us humans there is nothing we can do to create the "perfect society". So at best all we can do is try to create a society that its decay and failure modes are well understood and that when the system is decaying and predictably going to fail that those living in it have the ability to transform it to something new. One of the key underpinnings of any successful system is having a truly intelligent population and not to have power hoarded to a small section(who then will use it to resist change).
Hopefully I'm making some sense here. It basically all boils down to understand how your "ideal" society deals with the actual issues it will experience in reality. It's one thing to design something on paper or in ones mind but things typically come out very different when actually implemented.
And when a big, centralized power will attack you, you will be defeated. Case and point, CHAZ.
CHAZ isn't an example of a horizontal power structure. Look at the Zapatistas and Rojava instead.
m193 out of a 20"
14:54 Stopped watching
So you just presented a worse organized, worse equipped, worse trained and worse paid (0$?) version of what we know as a professional military army. Why go step backwards instead forward?
How could we avoid the local chain of command from being coopted by the dominating impulse, in the same way that the mass democracies were? All that has to happen is for a few people to get some sort of psychological power over those around them.
Because the local chain of command is not only subject to the militia members consensus but are themselves delegates of the council structure they originate from and revokable in both instances.
@@samm9184 And you can throw people out of office too.
The big issue I have with a militia based military as someone who considers themselves an AnSoc is summed up by your line about militias being “very effective at *ousting* imperialist forces”. It’s the ousting part that is the problem. Militias and insurgents have never once prevented the invasion and occupation of a country, they have only every ousted the occupiers, usually after millions of civilian deaths and years of conflict and the destruction of much of the infrastructure that exists.
So long as hostile foreign states exist, I think any anarchist federation would be required to have some sort of professional standing military to deter invasion, not just a militia to force invaders out after the fact.
The counter to this line of thinking would be the examples of the EZLN with the Zapatistas as well as to even the form of the swiss confederacy style militia.
@@BigFormula93
It’s true that there is no guarantee that a standing army can deter/prevent an invasion, but any percent chance is better than the zero percent chance militias have had.
@@samm9184
I love the Zapatistas, but they aren’t an independent country. If they tried to declare themselves one, there isn’t much they could do to prevent a Mexican military invasion.
And the Swiss Confederacy never had to deal with an HRE Air Force.
@@BigFormula93
Because they wouldn’t gain anything from an invasion under the current circumstances. But if Chiapas were to declare independence, that would change. It would be a direct threat/challenge to Mexican state sovereignty.
@@BigFormula93
No militia in history has ever prevented the invasion of a country. Not once. They have only ever ousted an invader after they have already invaded, usually after years of occupation, millions of civilian deaths, and destruction of much of the country’s infrastructure.
A disdain for settlers on behalf of the global south through the Catholic church
Hahahaa! This is where your ideas fall apart.
Unless I missed it, you don't really address the flaw of having a volunteer army when trying to fight professionally trained forces. While I do think military officers should be elected (that's why it's called democratic socialism, we like a lot of democracy), it's probably better to have soldiers that are employed and trained full time, as well as an officer education program. That requires a body to set standards, and that body requires people to be in it, so we elect those representatives and BAM there's a state. The state is not the problem, rather the issue is with framing all states as equal entities. In reality only a democratic state has a legitimate authority, and only in limited areas. In a democratic society the politicians are servants of the people, in an authoritarian society the politicians are aristocrats that own the people.
You missed it.
@@samm9184 Given that you didn't want to tell me what I missed... I'm guessing I didn't.
@Anark i always here you say that the Soviet Union was "State Capitalist" but Marx was NOT against the state owning the means of production, these quotes by Marx proves it
The proletariat will use its political supremacy to wrest, by degree, all capital from the bourgeoisie, to centralize all instruments of production in the hands of the State, i.e., of the proletariat organised as the ruling class; and to increase the total productive forces as rapidly as possible.
- Manifesto of the Communist Party (1848)
Between capitalist and communist society there lies the period of the revolutionary transformation of the one into the other. Corresponding to this is also a political transition period in which the state can be nothing but the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat.
- Critique of the Gotha Programme (1875)
The former was in Marx's social democratic phase. The latter is using the state to mean "the proletariat empowered to suppress the bourgeois," which has no correspondence to state capitalism. State capitalism is just another form of rulership over the proletariat.
@@Anark your redefining what the State is, when Marx says the State he means the STATE, and also capitalism by the dictionary definition, is the PRIVATE ownership of the means of production, the Soviet Union (after Lenin) did not have a market economy, they had a planned economy, you can't have Capitalism if there are no private capitalists.
@@kajalkajalkujirnupurru In Marxism, the state is the body which imposes the will of one class over another. He did not use the dictionary definition. Also, no, capitalism is not only defined by private ownership. It is defined by commodity production, wage labor, and alienation of the masses from control over the means of production. The USSR was state capitalist; the state became the monopoly owner of the means of production. Also, the state planned economy (state capitalism) was extremely short-lived and was both preceded and proceeded by a traditional market economy where the state owned a great deal of the enterprise.
@@Anark commodity production is not unique to capitalism, it existed before capitalism
And also one more thing, Marx said that in the early phase of Socialism there would still be vestiges of capitalism, that is what he meant when he said every society is "stamped with the birthmarks" of the old society
@@kajalkajalkujirnupurrufirst your argument was that Marx wasn't against the use of state capitalism, then it was that state capitalism didn't exist in the USSR. And now it is state capitalism was a necessary vestige of the old society and also this one thing existed prior to capitalism, which somehow means it can no longer be a criteria for capitalism. Think about the lengths you're having to go in order to justify a system that failed to develop even the most elementary aspects of socialism (worker control and social ownership of the means of production). Doesn't that sort of bother you? Doesn't it bother you that every day you have to play defense for a state that committed cultural genocide, that led to the collapse of dozens of Siberian languages and lifeways, that forcibly moved entire populations, that implemented Taylorism in its factories, that collaborated with Nazi Germany? And for what? Sputnik? Rapid industrialization--as though that were the litmus test of a socialist society? Isn't that frustrating?
So the next step in cultural evolution is that of collapsing the private space and collectivising the young into warbands..
Realize that when ever we are operating out of contract rather then compulsion we are of the private space which is a privileged position
the military is only necessary because existing states want to either eliminate this system questioning their power and/or like to take control over further territory.
and the wording feels very exaggerated.
(i don’t understand the second paragraph)
Your the most dogmatic Anarchist i have ever seen, Anarchism has only worked on a small scale, the U.S. has a population of 300 million people, Anarchism has never been tested on a population that size
Anarchism has already worked with hundreds of thousands of people. There is nothing preventing it from scaling up. Not sure what you mean about being "dogmatic." I am an anarchist and advocate anarchism.
@@Anarkwhat I mean by dogmatic is you think Anarchism is the ONLY true form of Socialism when there are many different forms of Socialism, some hierarchical some not
@JohnDoe-ht9lm I don't think anarchism is the only form of socialism. I think experiment has demonstrated that horizontal methods are the only ones that make any material progress toward socialism. Hierarchical methods are thus idealist, as they posit possibilities with no accordant realities, even contrary to reality.
@@AnarkAre you aware that China has lifted hundreds of millions of people out of poverty, there is objectively no case of Anarchism lifting that many people out of poverty
"Lifting people out of poverty" is not socialism. This is the metric of a social democrat, not a revolutionary.
I think a republic is superior to an anarchy
no one asked you.
@@samm9184 maybe they just wanted to discuss it no need to be mean here
Hi Anark, thanks for the video! I have a question: given such a military structure, how to prevent it from ceasing power within the anarchist structure?
Further, delegation allows the flow of power and prevents it to be concentrated in a group or individual, but given that these people would be trained and armed: what would stop them from coercing other members of their community if they suddenly get power-greedy?