Date: Mon, 05 Jul 1999 14:57:35 -0700
From: Dave Hayman <dhayman-AT-igc.org>
Subject: Re: The next best thing...


Anarch666-AT-aol.com wrote:
> 
> since there seems to be talk of precursors to anarchy, I thought now would be
> a good time to ask this question: What do you think the next best thing to
> anarchy is?

I'd say socialism or syndicalism (is that rule by unions?) would both be
an improvement, and would enable people to grow in ways that would make
anarchism more possible. Altho socialism still has a state, that state
would recognize the basic rights of people to food, shelter, education
etc., which would be a huge improvement over capitalism. (If it didn't,
it wouldn't qualify as socialist.) People who can't believe that a
complex, hi-tech-capable society would be possible without a state
(that's the majority now), would learn to trust others more, would feel
less need to rip others off, etc. The state would surely try to grow and
overstep its bounds, and that would prod people to have more
independence from it, more control over their own lives, less state
power. At some point, with luck & hard work & lots of mutual aid, the
state would become so small it would effectively be anarchism.

OOTSONATI wrote:
> Any given system could succeed or fail depending on how it was 
> implemented. Lets suppose that Americas founding fathers had created a 
> socialist society. What would lead us to believe things would have been much 
> different? It has been the American people that let things get into a mess , 
> not an abstract notion. Whatever system you propose you will need a huge
> majority working together to make it work, else you end up no better than 
> before. Maybe instead of shooting for the perfect society we should aim
> for a  mediocre society. That way our expectations could be easier met and
> possibly  eventually lead to the perfect society.

If they had created a socialist society, things would've been much
better, even if it had been a racist, sexist socialist society. And if
people were able to resist the various diseases of power, we might have
some sort of anarchism over much of the globe. If, might, maybe, hmmm...

> I have a pet idea that power is a conceptual virus.  It uses us as a means to
> replicate and multiply itself independent of how we like to think we can use
> it.  It's natural tendancy is to collect itself into a smaller and smaller
> group of hosts, and like biological viruses, it doesn't know that it can
> overcome and kill it's hosts and be destroyed along with them. Unfortunately
> for us, it's also a symbiotic virus, in that without some power, the power of
> our individual hands and minds, nothing can happen, there can be no communes,
> no poems, no houses.  Since we can't wipe out power all together without
> taking us with it, the best we can do is live in constant struggle to keep it
> as spread and diminished as possible.  And at times, societies, groups will
> be more up to the challenge than at others, but the challenge, the struggle
> will always remain, and there doesn't seem to be room for that struggle in
> any of the Utopias I've been informed about.
> 
An interesting idea, but I wouldn't recommend it because it tends to
reify power as something external to us humans. Better for us to keep un
mind that potentials for happiness and horror are within each and all of
us.