A 150 Person Anarchist Town?
Hi, in this post by HightImpactFlix I offered up a *comment which I'll paste below offering up a scenario which I think could be a model for a new society.
Before we get into it, though, I'll post a link here which lists ten historical anarchist communities.
First, my general thoughts on anarchists. They seem to want their own planet to live on by themselves which would be fine if such planets existed; until such a time, anarchists, I'm afraid, are stuck with this one which has a lot of people on it. I believe, as audacious as it sounds, that anarchists will inevitably have to live in a community! It seems, though, at this present juncture in history, that most people espousing anarchy have no such desire. They seem to be either lone-wolf hippies giving up on the system and going to find some hole to hide in within present totalitarian nation-states (I don't really mean that as mean as it sounds) but it's more than less true, IMO. A Tiny House parked somewhere is cool and all for any given person but I hardly see it as a model for a community. Then there are the suit type business entrepreneurs who seem not to want their ventures subject to any rules, regulations, authorities, or taxes. I'm not necessarily knocking this but I hardly see such thinking as a template for a community.
I'm reluctant to put this in here but I think we must as it's all too likely. The government today has become about lining its own pockets; that is to say, the political system is now run by those who use public money to line their own pockets--that IS the political system today--near every policy is aimed towards enriching government agents and their affiliates while promoting austerity for the masses as far as where public money is spent. It would be all too consistent, then, that there would be many hired government agents posing and acting as anarchists espousing that people do not ask the government for a cent because the government wants every cent for themselves!!! Typical...
So my challenge in this post would be to see if I can get anyone to envision what an anarchist community of 150 people would look like. The first premise is that there would be no force used to get anyone to live in this community--it would be voluntary. Again, I'll link my vision below as an example. Here are some general thoughts on this community: it can be premised on private property notions (mine is) or not, but please argue for why your community is better depending on which model you use. Please factor in these issues: human criminal pathology (2% of the population), uneven distribution of skills and talent and production (Pareto's Law), human infirmity such as mental illness, physical disability, old age, etc. Please feel free to factor in any other important issues that I've missed--should it be an armed community or disarmed? And such...Oh, yes, what should be the meams of exchange? Should one person control and charge the other 149 people interest to use it or should the means of exchange be divided equally to all at creation without debt?
Here was my post outlining a model for a new model of community; again, the first premise is that it's voluntary:
*I agree with the premise but here are the difficulties: as soon as there are more than 3-people in a community there are going to have to be rules as humans, in general, disagree about pretty much everything and anything.
Let's work some numbers in a community of 150 with the fact that every community above 150 will become more and more complex ( we'll leave that issue aside for now).
Within the 150 it is estimated that around 3 of them will be prone to sociopathy and psychopathic behavior and these 3 will do everything possible to manipulate any agreements in their favor. Then we need to factor in that we are not created equally and a small number of people will be more productive than others and will generate more wealth. Some will be weak and infirm and some will hardly be able to produce at all--perhaps because they are mentally ill.
As far as I can tell the only way this community will survive and prosper is if everyone's basic needs of food and housing are met. It should be agreed by the faculties of common sense that each person only needs one home and that each person could be taught to grow their own food on their one piece of private property. All education would be geared towards becoming self-sustaining with one's food supply and education would teach the fundamental economics of trading goods and services within the group at a very young age while at the same time instilling ethical constructs within the trading blocks. All people's basic needs being met combined with an education system focused on achieving one's highest potential within an ethos of attaining mastery within in any given field of interest as long as that interest doesn't interfere with the rights of others ( mastery of theft and murder wouldn't be tolerated).
This might be a very healthy community with everyone's shelter needs being met, along with food and a new education model, which only leaves the basic need of healthcare which would be quite minimal in such a community. I call these the 4-pillars of a Global Commons civilization.
All 150 people would have the potential to create and become the best they could be. There would still be problems but this community would be far better equipped to handle them compared to the ones run by psychos who have rigged every system to their benefit who unnecessarily exploit and coerce with force every other member, not in their chosen clique!
OK. I guess I will take my system that is kinda of based on Anarchism.
First off I think no matter how you manage a community there will always be those who want to do it another way. Therefore people need to have the right to leave the community in a proper way and additionally every man and woman should have the right to claim land to found a new community. Of course the seize and place need to be reasonable.
So OK. We got 150 people. First off we need water and since we are human settlers I would guess that we are near to a water source (lake or river). Water and food providing would be a necessity that needs to be provided on a stable basis before we can do anything else. I will take 50 people for that. The people are free to provide their own food and water services. The state will keep lowering the production accordingly, but will at bare minimum keep a water and food storage for 3 months.
In general I would set a state work force for things like a sewer system, healthcare, roads and housing, (I am running out of people, help!) but everybody is free to build alternatives and not join the state force. You are also free to take (and pay) any service offered by the state. If you don't need the sewer system because you are fine shitting in your vegetable garden, that's cool with me.
The State work force is ofc run be an old school (not Stalinist) communist system where the workers manage their production.
Currency is set in an distributed, open-transparent ledger like blockchain. Some people might not like to have their finances disclosed to the public, but this is a condition to live in my community.
The Leader is selected per vote. The leader decides and plans new project. Being the leader is not a job and not paid by the state. It also shouldn't take too much time since most things should self manage via communism.
Thanks for your thoughtful response! I'll reply in point form:
-it sounds like an argument for open borders? Man would I love to able to leave the prison that is my nation-state!
-in a way, you are agreeing with me that basic needs are primary and a necessity. It leaves me to wonder why soooo many in the anarchist community deny and dismiss this incredibly important foundation.
-yes, I agree, as soon as more than 3-people agree to do something in this community they are in fact forming a government.
-I'm not understanding the 4th paragraph.
-agreed and fiat currency is the crime of the century.
-leadership is unavoidable and would best be served in by councils kind of like in The Matrix movies.
The council system is the communist system. Communism classically meant that you would have councils for every work cooperation and factory. Comparably to an open, self organizing democratic guild with a lot of voting involved. It is often considered by many lefties as the real form of democracy. However the Sowjet Union just claimed to have a bottom-to-top organized Council Sytem, while it was much more reminiscent of a top-down Dictaturship.
Communism is rooted in Anarchistic Communes (ie French Communes during the Revolution). I think Barcelona also used a communist system when they had an Anarcho-Communist Government pre WW2. It is considered the only successful implementation of Anarchism in Europe.
The LSD probably made me less prone to reactionary attitudes when it comes to the capitalist/communist control grid. What I've done in this post and community is to try and unite what I think are the best ideas of both systems.
Yes, libertarians in Europe were in reaction against dominator hierarchies and the socialist part was simply workers attempting to own their means of production. It's interesting how the American capitalist twisted these two congruent ideas into extreme antithesis.. Well, they are cunning.
the libertery movement backstabbed the socialist movement and the socialists backstabbed the anarchists. I think we are quit.
Liberty and Sociality have never been mutually exclusive even though many try to advocate for one side bigger than the other. I also tried to combine them by leaving them the opportunity to create a private service or take the state service, If nobody takes a state service we would have anarcho-capitalism. If everybody is happy with how the state is managing things and there is no need for private alternatives then we have anracho-communism.
I should mention that by dividing the people into small communities you already full-filled my main goal which is localism or loci for short. As long as the most important decisions are made locally I think it is a fair system since you can actually just go to the next community/city/piece of land if you dont like it.
You should check out Peter Kropotkin and Murray Bookchin (and Abdullah Öcalan). I think most anarchists are actually community-oriented. If you go to your local Food Not Bombs share or IWW meeting, you'll probably run into some social anarchists.
The OG anarchists, Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, Mikhail Bakunin, and Peter Kropotkin, emphasized the importance of the commune (municipality) and advocated communal ownership of land and resources, with directly democratic systems of governance. You would have local assemblies, then have councils at the level of towns, and even vast confederations with delegative democracy. A couple of the anarchists' biggest ideas were the "imperative mandate" (mandating that politicians can't vote contrary to the will of their constituents) and "recallable delegates" (the idea that any representative should be able to be removed for any reason at any time). The two big successful experiments in anarchism are the Spanish Anarchists (in the 1930s) and the Kurds in Rojava (going on right now); both of these groups follow a communalist sort of approach.
On the other hand, you have "anarcho-capitalists" (though I don't think AnCaps are really anarchist), their approach is different. They basically want exactly what we have now, only they want government to be totally privatized (privatize the military, police, and courts). Technically, that will work, and there's a few historically examples of societies like that, but that's a terrible idea in my opinion.
https://steemit.com/anarchism/@ekklesiagora/an-intro-to-anarchism-democratization-and-or-privatization-of-government
It's not the first time I've come across Proudhon and I very much like his thinking processes. I think, though, that he lived in a time where his focus would have been on libertarianism within the context of resisting monarchies, religious authority, etc. I think he may hold my views if he was living today when it comes to labor: the age of organizing under labor is coming to an end with A.I. I don't know how we can organize under the NOOS but if we could I think we should. It's ideas that matter now or should matter the most if we are to survive as a civilization into the next century.
I don't have much hope, though, as I believe we live under the religion of what I call MONOKA$HISM...Everything is now subordinate to the dictates of profit.
As far as I can tell the smartest folks on the earth right now are the preppers, and that is a sad indictment of liberalism and conservatism and where anarchism should have been able to intercede but hasn't been able to.
Oh, yes, I wanted to add that scale(population) and pollution are now the primary issues which Proudhon didn't necessarily need to address.
Fuck-off Ass-hole!
Ad hominem, sir! And not an argument and this isn't bloody YouTube! I want thoughtful considered responses and not those of zombie automata or the shilling of corporate agents!
Are you talking to yourself, my dear? Lol I hope you relax. 😊
There's not enough fun around here so I had to create some:)
They are just nothing but label and essays about anarchy lol. I'm sure some of them are still prisoners of their own system - paying taxes, voting, etc.
Just so'z ya Know: I don't necessarily see government as a problem. It's corruption that is the problem combined with pathological dominator hierarchies (those 3-i mentioned out of 150) and the real wrench in the real is when 1 of them is a religious fanatic! Undoubtedly, as my exp. shows: as soon as agreements are made there is government.
hello.
You write in your post here "It would be voluntary" If that's the case that's enough.
To be frank; It is probably the way you dictate ( what's in a word) in your reply starting with; All education would be geared toward...etc. Although it is maybe a good idea and lots of people agree, there are a lot of people who have other idea's. And those people are very allergic for masterplans, and no "they" do not need a planet of their own ;)
Some might even go live in a community like the one you are proposing here. But the whole point is/was; is it volutary. Because if it's not "we" end up the same.
Here is an example of some people trying to start up something, as voluntary as possible in this statist world.
Thank you for the replies.
edit; To clarify I'm not against your plan in particular, but if you say; this is how it must be done or else it's gonna fail or it will not be a good community etc. that's where you lose a lot of people, I guess.
You ask in this post for other idea's. Well how about homesteads not in community of 150 people but more fluid. I see @germandude talk about sewer. Well can you imagine there being a community who composts human "waste" to make their orchard fertile for instance by making terra preta. Because they live on marginal land.
And so I can imagine hundred thousand of things and differences. But It's not for me to decide I have to fill in my own live, and what I see as a good plan or a good live, you might find horrible idiotic or whatever.
Do you get what I mean with; There is no masterplan that is applicable for the whole world?
Maybe if you present you plan more as, just being that (your plan) you are able to find some people who agree, and you can start making plans for "your" community.
Thanks for the thoughtful reply. I think we need to give anarchist thinkers the benefit of the doubt that they are not proposing tyranny. What I'm getting at is that there needs to be more than lone-wolf dropouts whether hippies or business entrepreneurs. We need to think of ways to develop communities otherwise this whole mode of thought is pissing in the wind.
I think I've also proved in this post that government is unavoidable! As soon as 3-people make a plan they are forming government so I see this incessant mode of blaming the govment in anarchist circles as a strawman as the real issue is what kind of government and I would argue a non-coercive non-unnecessarily exploitive one which aims to put the community first(rather than serving the elites) while keeping the community as open and free as possible.
Interesting point on sewers: a mode of operation from Rome. I'm not at all opposed to alternatives...
One of the main points I'm trying to make here is what would this community of 150 look like if 20 to 30% of them are homeless and hungry? What will it look like if the 3 who are prone to pathology manipulate the community to their advantage? These are fundamental issues that need to be addressed by anarchist thinkers and deconstructing dominator hierarchies isn't enough, nor are lone individuals escaping these pathologies, ultimately we need reconstruction...