Anarchism and Social EcologyWhy anarchism is always only utopia? The question itself is strange imo. Why I cannot share the anarchist view and just ask for more federalization instead of centralization, ask for more workers cooperative ownership instead of private ownership, ask for support the community militia instead of militarization of police, ask to replace professional politicians by delegates with binding mandate, and ao fourth and so on? Why is it always dichotomy "complete anarchy or nothing"?
“But”, interjected van Paasen, “You will be sitting on a pile of ruins.”
“We have always lived in slums and holes in the wall. We will know how to accommodate ourselves for a time. For, you must not forget, we can also build. It is we the workers who built these palaces and cities here in Spain and in America and everywhere. We, the workers, can build others to take their place. And better ones! We are not in the least afraid of ruins. We are going to inherit the earth; there is not the slightest doubt about that. The bourgeoisie may blast and burn its own world before it finally leaves the stage of history. We are not afraid of ruins. We who ploughed the prairies and built the cities can build again, only better next time. We carry a new world, here in our hearts. The world is growing this minute.”
—Buenaventura Durruti, interview with Pierre van Paassen (1936-07-24)
what have you gentlemen accomplished?
I mean the highest standard of living in human history and arguably a system whose current problems are mostly fixable, but moreover, "your shit's not working right so clearly [thing] is better" isn't an argument. Humans have this bizarre cognitive bias of "this thing isn't working, so clearly my idea is the future". See: the far-right.
> highest standards of living in human history
> checks inside
> highest suicide rates in human history, extreme loneliness, people aren't having children because they feel there is no point bringing them into this world
Definitely nothing to do with massive advances in science, medicine, and socialist thinking in the 19th and 20th centuries... No, it must be the hierarchies!
Forget that science is fundamentally based upon peer review and rational authority, which is a rejection of traditional hierarchy. That definitely has nothing to do with it.
Standard of living is just a made up metric that only increases because it exludes so many things from it. When I read about it on Wikipedia it becomes clear to me that its a capitalist inventiom or atleast serves really well as capitalist propaganda.
Things that somehow dont get included but definitely reduce my "standard of living":
- extinxtion of plant and animal species that I will never be able to wittness, also knowing others will also never be able to wittness
- steady increase of armed conflict and yearly rrlated deaths in recent years
- fucking cars everywhere
- increased control of the state and billionaires of every part of my life
- continued colonial exploitation
- absolute inaction of " those gentleman" when it comes to stopping the current genocides happening world wide
- ...
- feels free to add to the list
Okay, if you want to be exceedingly pedantic and call me on using "standard of living" in place of its hypernym "quality of life", then by all means. I'm glad your 15-second glance at Wikipedia has enlightened you that one of the main concepts in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (which measures things like access to social services, food, clothing, etc.) is filthy capitalist propaganda; I meant quality of life.
Edit: If I had to add to the list, it'd be animal agriculture destroying the environment and torturing and murdering billions of sentient, emotional creatures across the world (let alone commercial fishing) for superfluous human enjoyment. Something you statistically take part in for no good reason, although I'm proud of you if you don't.
the highest standard of living in human history
for how many? and at whose expense?
and at whose expense?
If you think anarchy is some kind of substantial deterrent to an underclass when we're talking about the same people with functionally the same underlying morality that create and enforce them in democratic systems, I have a bridge you can barter for. More equal e.g. economic systems can thrive under democracy; democracy is not the problem.
for how many?
Difficult to quantify given it's difficult if not impossible to decouple life-changing advances in quality of living from the nations and systems that facilitated them. For how many, though, compared to before? For near-basically everyone. Life is still unbelievably shit in major swaths of the world, and yet human life overall is still improving in most areas, still has obvious room for betterment, and is still markedly better than before. There's still plenty of Return to Eros shit we need to fix and C-suites to jail, but we obviously can fix it under democracy. We of course have minimal data for actual anarchy, which leaves a convenient argument from ignorance for anarchists to cling onto.
I guess what I was getting at earlier, come to think of it, is a subtype of the argument from ignorance. "Well we've just never tried it, which is why it's way better than this thing that's tested and has problems."
