Submitted by Pash in Anarchism

I keep seeing this misconception.

People seem to imagine a stateless society as growing vegetables, raising children, maybe putting up wood-and-mud buildings as a community. But their imagination doesn't stretch to violent defense and enforcement.

Oh shit what'll we do if there's a serial killer or rapist within our community? Surely our model will fall apart then!

The problem with this is that there's no evidence for it. Stateless societies have always organised force, just as they've organised education. Take the two contemporary examples: the Zapatista autonomous region and Rojava. They both are pretty heavily armed and enforce their social norms with community councils.

Pre-state societies had ways of dealing with destructive behavior. Neighbours (not a specialised class of police) brought the person acting harmfully to a community council where they were judged perhaps by a jury or perhaps by elders, and given a chance to atone for their crime and restore good standing. There was no concept of a criminal record; once the tort is set right, that is that.

You see variations on this model in Somalian Xeer, Norse Udal law, Irish Brehon law, Indian ācāra, Haudenosaunee law, etc.

Free people still have muscle, and still despise murderers, that's not an innovation of the state.

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ziq wrote

a stateless society isn't stateless when it has community councils (states), elder councils (states), laws & law enforcement (upheld by a state)

what you're describing is a quite literal monopoly on violence

you're a minarchist just fyi

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Pash OP wrote (edited )

It's not the smolitude that's the key feature; it's the fact that the force is wielded by mutual aid groups rather than one individual or a few.

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Pash OP wrote

And:

At the far end of the justice concept, we have multiple examples of restorative justice. Without any institutions of policing, imprisonment, or even anything properly characterized as punishment or a legal code, numerous human societies have arbitrated social conflict. In the system used traditionally by the Navajo, a system that survived a period of legal prohibition by the US government and is in official use today, elders seen as neutral act as specialized arbiters in trials that take place in the public eye. Non-specialized members of the society bring forth the conflict voluntarily, and encouraged by the arbiter they tell their stories. The emphasis is on discovering the root of the discord and mobilizing social support to restore harmony (Tifft and Sullivan, 2001). In comparison to Euro/ American justice systems, the Navajo practice is beautifully humane, but a number of elements are familiar.

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d4rk wrote

In my opinion, we shouldn't. leaving judgement, law & retaliation behind is the key to anarchism. Mercy and Compassion means no prisons, no courts, no police. Evaluate their condition yes, but to punish them for it, in my belief something only G-d can do, we have no authority under Anarchism to punish.

Even destructive behavior can be fine in a social framework[1]. For "capital crimes" such as murder, rape & other crimes, it should be the subject of Mercy, if they keep on doing it, probably lessen the population or if ever we have better healthcare it's fine. But to change them, let them understand their faults and change, is a long process not something that hot heads can deal with. Anarchists are not hot headed people. We love people.

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d4rk wrote (edited )

rehabilitation you mean, not mercy.

Mercy is a rare and very unpopular thing that a state exercises. What do you think is the clemency:incarceration ratio in the united states minus the Thanksgiving turkey?

[EDIT: I checked it's 53/2.3M which is 0.0023%]

something that "shouldn't be used often" should be practiced all the time especially under Anarchism.

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Pash OP wrote (edited )

Mercy is a rare and very unpopular thing that a state exercises. What do you think is the clemency:incarceration ratio in the united states minus the Thanksgiving turkey?

The United States?

If I'm understanding right, your argument is "Mercy can't be/won't be/isn't integrated into any justice system because it isn't in the contemporary USA's justice system?"

That's poor inference.

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Pash OP wrote (edited )

Self-defense from torts is normal mutual aid, and an important part of any community. Where I grew up, if you scream "thief!" half the neighborhood will rush over with machetes to check it out. Similar all over the world. Nothing to do with a state or cops.

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d4rk wrote (edited )

My Argument would be

  1. Premise: if mercy is forbearance shown especially to an offender.
  2. Premise: if not rehabilitation, which is the process of re-educating and retraining those who commit crime with the goal of re-integrating offenders back into society.
  3. Premise: if Clemency is an act of mercy and incarceration is an act of rehabilitation.
  4. Premise: if the ratio between Clemency and incarceration in the United States is 0.0023%
  5. Conclusion: Therefore, States in general have an institutional interest in preventing or a bias against mercy.
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Pash OP wrote (edited )

The first three points are just standard/common definitions. You're still making the same logical error that you cite a single example (in point 4) and conclude, therefore, in point 5 that it applies to the whole class.

I'd be sympathetic to your conclusion generally, but that doesn't excuse getting there by blatant illogic.

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OdiousOutlaw wrote

If you want to keep what you consider to be the main function of police, then you don't want to get rid of police.

If you want an established territory to have laws, you want a legal system as well as borders.

If you want borders and laws as well as people to enforce them, you want a state.

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Pash OP wrote (edited )

Well what would you say is the main function of police? I was asked and I answered.

Nobody mentioned borders or territory.

If you want to keep what you consider to be the main function of police, then you don't want to get rid of police.

If you want to keep what you consider to be the main function of SUVs (i.e. transport), then you don't want to get rid of SUVs.

If you want to keep what you consider to be the main function of factory farms (i.e. producing food), then you don't want to get rid of factory farms.

If you want to keep what you consider to be the main function of Kardashians (i.e. sex tapes), then you don't want to get rid of Kardashians.

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OdiousOutlaw wrote (edited )

We're agreed on the main function of police; I even said you were correct when you answered me.

The real difference is that I don't want anything to have that function.

Nobody mentioned borders or territory.

You don't have to mention anything, you didn't object to my comment about how large, sedentary societies mutate into states with anything to imply that you didn't want a sedentary society. And since your whole back and forth with ziq really started because of your query about railways, one could reasonably deduce that you're thinking primarily about sedentary societies because those are the only types to build, maintain, operate, and use railways. And a sedentary society with laws and law enforcement has de facto established territory/borders by virtue of the fact that the reach of a set of laws and that law enforcement doesn't extend to every corner of the world.

EDIT:

If you want to keep what you consider to be the main function of SUVs (i.e. transport), then you don't want to get rid of SUVs.

I want to get rid vehicular transport.

If you want to keep what you consider to be the main function of factory farms (i.e. producing food), then you don't want to get rid of factory farms.

There are other reasons to want to get rid of factory forms that have nothing to do with them producing food.

If you want to keep what you consider to be the main function of Kardashians (i.e. sex tapes), then you don't want to get rid of Kardashians.

Pretty weird and gross of you to designate a group of human beings the main function of making sex tapes by virtue of sharing a name, but okay.

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Pash OP wrote (edited )

You don't have to mention anything, you didn't object to my comment about how large, sedentary societies mutate into states with anything to imply that you didn't want a sedentary society.

What I want is irrelevant; it's not like I'm some magic-wand-waver who can create entire societies by wishing.

Most societies have been patchworks of sedentism and nomadism. In North America, you find nomadic hunting tribes and sedentary people of the corn, and these two trade and intermarry. (Sedentary-in-winter-nomadic-in-summer is a pretty common pattern too.)

And since your whole back and forth with ziq really started because of your query about railways

The railways were an example; it was a query about coördinated action.

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OdiousOutlaw wrote

You need a group of people to enforce laws to defend you from murderers and thieves?

I've never need laws for self defense.

I don't need law enforcement for it either.

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OdiousOutlaw wrote

Take the two contemporary examples: the Zapatista autonomous region and Rojava. They both are pretty heavily armed and enforce their social norms with community councils.

Not if you agree with this.

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OdiousOutlaw wrote (edited )

I'm an anarchist.

Why should the democratic methods of granting power from a territory that has explicitly stated that they are not anarchists sway me?

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OdiousOutlaw wrote (edited )

idgaf about labels

If a group of people explicitly state that they don't share the same values that I do, then I have no reason to care about how they organize themselves.

The key distinction is whether enforcement is done by a specialised class or mutually.

Doesn't matter in either case, enforcing laws and social norms makes you cop.

If you can't see the difference between enforcing laws/social norms and exercising self defense, then we have nothing to talk about.

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Pash OP wrote

What's mutual aid then? Education and building wattle-and-daub?

What you're voicing is exactly the misconception I made the post to address. Mutual aid is absolutely about groups wielding force. The book Mutual Aid is largely about that, rather than about agriculture or childcare or anything.

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Bezotcovschina wrote

Violence not equal state

Law and violence always equal state

When you delegate the choice of punishment for "misbehavior" to any third party - you are creating a state and classes

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Pash OP wrote

When you delegate the choice of punishment for "misbehavior" to any third party - you are creating a state and classes

That's exactly my point: law and violence ≠ third party law and class violence

There are many examples of it being done by a peer group.

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AnarcheAmor wrote

I would go even further by saying that violence doesn't equal state but it does equal a form of hierarchy. It combined with laws essentially creates a feedback loop of authority where acts in continuous justification for and by the other.

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