[lbo-talk] anarchist/commie soccer results

Gar Lipow garlists at comcast.net
Mon Sep 22 14:49:24 PDT 2003


On Mon, 22 Sep 2003 13:52:20 -0700 "Devine, James" <jdevine at lmu.edu> wrote:
>
> if "coercive rules" are imposed from above (by some authority), maybe non-coercive rules would be imposed by mutual consent (democracy). But that's democracy, not anarchy.
>

I think there are many people who call themselves anarchist who actually are small d democrats. That is they believe in laws, majority rule, even police to enforce those laws. But they insist that this democracy have a very flat structure with delegates, representatives, polices and so forth having very little more power than ordinary citizens. Chomskys variation is I think to have no professional politicians or government officials - - all government functions are by citizen volunteers either unpaid, or taking a few years of paid leave from normal works to take their turn as government functions. I tend more towards the first than the second, because I think the functions of politity require a great deal of expertise - I just think there are a lot of ways to use the services of experts without giving them overwhelming amounts of power.

What I don't understand is why this is called anarchism. I tend to think that once you allow a polity with coercive power, it is not anarchy. I guess a democracy with a very flat power structure is in line with the spirit of the old time anarchists, but I honestly don't think it is anrachism; this is one reason I don't call myself an anarchist, even though people with a very similar viewpoint apply this term to themselves.



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