<story><title>Are you an anarchist? The answer may surprise you (2000)</title><url>https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/david-graeber-are-you-an-anarchist-the-answer-may-surprise-you</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>marricks</author><text>I find it hard to believe you&amp;#x27;ve talked to any real anarchists, or at least listened to them. People like Noam Chomsky deal with that question extremely head on. Below is what I said on another comment...&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt;  Absolutely no form of government or system (anarchist 1000% included) will solve the problem of people being selfish or bad, all that anarchists contend (that I have seen) is that when there isn&amp;#x27;t those built hierarchies bad&amp;#x2F;selfish people don&amp;#x27;t amass power so everyone else can actually handle them on equal terms.&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; Considering how Epstein was able to morph the whole political landscape to defend himself for over a decade, uh, any alternative can seem pretty reasonable.&lt;p&gt;Like half the comments on this thread are variations of &amp;quot;well bad people exist&amp;quot; and it&amp;#x27;s maddening because bad people exist in this system! And they&amp;#x27;re extremely powerful! We 100% do not deal with them largely because of the systems that are in place.</text></item><item><author>TulliusCicero</author><text>&amp;gt; Anarchists are simply people who believe human beings are capable of behaving in a reasonable fashion without having to be forced to. It is really a very simple notion.&lt;p&gt;This can sound reasonable when you think of it in terms of, &amp;quot;&lt;i&gt;most&lt;/i&gt; people behaving in a reasonable fashion, &lt;i&gt;most&lt;/i&gt; of the time&amp;quot;. But anarchists don&amp;#x27;t want to eliminate hierarchical use of force for &lt;i&gt;most&lt;/i&gt; cases, but for &lt;i&gt;all&lt;/i&gt; of them.&lt;p&gt;Any time I&amp;#x27;ve heard anarchists try to explain how they would deal with the subset of people who are just real shitty in various ways, the responses have been either, a) in our utopia, you wouldn&amp;#x27;t have those problems, because hierarchy causes all of them, or b) increasingly convoluted and implausible-sounding ways to deal with crazy assholes without using force.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>noodle</author><text> &amp;gt; when there isn&amp;#x27;t those built hierarchies bad&amp;#x2F;selfish people don&amp;#x27;t amass power so everyone else can actually handle them on equal terms.&lt;p&gt;This doesn&amp;#x27;t really ring true to me.  In a society where hierarchy is removed, the bad people will form a hierarchy to create power.  It being &amp;quot;not allowed&amp;quot; in that society doesn&amp;#x27;t mean it won&amp;#x27;t still happen, due again to the people being &amp;quot;bad&amp;quot; in the first place.  Two bad people will form a group and use that to derive power over any non-grouped individuals.  Or 10 bad people over smaller groups, etc..</text></comment>
<story><title>Are you an anarchist? The answer may surprise you (2000)</title><url>https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/david-graeber-are-you-an-anarchist-the-answer-may-surprise-you</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>marricks</author><text>I find it hard to believe you&amp;#x27;ve talked to any real anarchists, or at least listened to them. People like Noam Chomsky deal with that question extremely head on. Below is what I said on another comment...&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt;  Absolutely no form of government or system (anarchist 1000% included) will solve the problem of people being selfish or bad, all that anarchists contend (that I have seen) is that when there isn&amp;#x27;t those built hierarchies bad&amp;#x2F;selfish people don&amp;#x27;t amass power so everyone else can actually handle them on equal terms.&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; Considering how Epstein was able to morph the whole political landscape to defend himself for over a decade, uh, any alternative can seem pretty reasonable.&lt;p&gt;Like half the comments on this thread are variations of &amp;quot;well bad people exist&amp;quot; and it&amp;#x27;s maddening because bad people exist in this system! And they&amp;#x27;re extremely powerful! We 100% do not deal with them largely because of the systems that are in place.</text></item><item><author>TulliusCicero</author><text>&amp;gt; Anarchists are simply people who believe human beings are capable of behaving in a reasonable fashion without having to be forced to. It is really a very simple notion.&lt;p&gt;This can sound reasonable when you think of it in terms of, &amp;quot;&lt;i&gt;most&lt;/i&gt; people behaving in a reasonable fashion, &lt;i&gt;most&lt;/i&gt; of the time&amp;quot;. But anarchists don&amp;#x27;t want to eliminate hierarchical use of force for &lt;i&gt;most&lt;/i&gt; cases, but for &lt;i&gt;all&lt;/i&gt; of them.&lt;p&gt;Any time I&amp;#x27;ve heard anarchists try to explain how they would deal with the subset of people who are just real shitty in various ways, the responses have been either, a) in our utopia, you wouldn&amp;#x27;t have those problems, because hierarchy causes all of them, or b) increasingly convoluted and implausible-sounding ways to deal with crazy assholes without using force.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>bufferoverflow</author><text>Hmmm, no, it&amp;#x27;s a false equivocation. What do you do with really bad &amp;#x2F; evil people who got caught doing evil things (there&amp;#x27;s enough evidence to put them in prison). I never heard a good answer from an anarchist.&lt;p&gt;You have to realize there are truly evil people out there. People who will assault innocent people, who will torture, who will rape, who will murder, who will do all of the above to a toddler. And will force the parents to watch. I don&amp;#x27;t want to live in a society where such people are simply let go, or get some bullshit therapy and let go.</text></comment>