Let's say for example someone hits your only vehicle and you need it to survive. Totals it and runs. How are you gonna get paid for your car if there is no law? You expect the guy that just totalled your shit and ran off to bring you $5000?
Or are you gonna play detective and show up to his house with weapons and bully the bully out of bullying you?

You don’t understand what anarchists propose. It’s preventing exactly what you predict in your OP.

Hopefully someone else will fill you in before I get the time.

There are many different layers and flavours of what ‘anarchy’ means. You seem to be presenting a combination of nihilism and anarchism?

Straight from wiki:

Anarchism is an anti-authoritarian political and social philosophy that rejects hierarchies deemed unjust and advocates their replacement with self-managed, self-governed societies based on voluntary, cooperative institutions.

As anarchism does not offer a fixed body of doctrine from a single particular worldview, many anarchist types and traditions exist and varieties of anarchy diverge widely.

Of course, implementing such ideas in society is another thing. It is certainly a worthy perspective to consider. I would suggest you present a better outline of what you mean rather than some strange hypothetical about someone destroying a car and running away - in many anarchic societies the perpetrator would be caught and then made to pay (which would inevitably lead to ‘kangaroo courts’ and is certainly a flaw if we view this political idea superficially - there are positives though).

The basic philosophical notion of anarchy doesn’t mean anyone can do anything without repercussions. At an extreme level it would end in witch hunts and vigilante activity (obviously that isn’t a great outcome). Either way it is a counter position to centralised power where complete strangers dictate what you ‘should’ or ‘shouldn’t’ do and punish/reward accordingly to those views.

I’m more for a ‘happy’ medium with more inclination to being ‘anarchical’ when it comes to questioning authority rather than blindly accepting rules and regulations because it’s ‘easier’ to just go along with pointless, impractical, and possibly dangerous rules/laws. The problem embedded here to is whether you are in a position to question authority without worrying about possible kickback simply from voicing concerns.

A society in which there is no law.

Anarchy can turn into hell if everyone only thinks about themselves. If people care about one another because that's what they want and not because some law forces them to, anarchy can work well.

You’re against an imaginary world or exploring the limits of anarchism? I don’t really understand what your post is about but it seems to hold to a rigid definition that you’re syruggling to make explicit.

Maybe a comparative analysis between other -isms and anarchism would help outline the benefits and deficits regarding what your view is?

that's the problem. The whole system is contingent on upholding moral values without regulation. The exploitation of which results in those who are forceful taking the upper hand.

So you prefer to have others tell you what is and isn’t ‘moral’. The reverse problem is, well, a problem too. What is your point?

that for an anarchist to claim that his stance is more logical than a statist is a stupid claim, especially considering that anarchy forms a state regardless. That there is no such thing as a lawless land where laws dont exist. There can be a revolt of law, but that isn't lawlessness.

This is due to the natural cycle of leadership. Why do I have to keep explaining the same thing

The reverse argument works just as well. Again, what is your point? Is it that you believe everyone thinks everything is black and white or that you just happen to prefer your own position as the ‘middle ground’?

All I can see here is a rather superficial analysis of two political poles with a strange need to cling to one and dismiss the other.

Don’t you see that you’re setting out the ‘anarchist’ stall as ‘completely lawless’ and the ‘statist’ stall as ‘libertarian’ rather than ‘authoritarian’? There are ‘anarchic’ political models that are more than happy to accept state laws, the issue being with the decentralisation of power not the complete obliteration of law/rules.

Basically you’re setting up a strawman argument here against imaginary opponents - that said maybe there is someone on this forum who likes the idea of a ‘lawless’ society where murder, rape and theft are not considered ‘immoral’ due to there being no ‘law’. See the problem?

yeah I do see the problem and that's my point. You obviously get my point, but you are belittling it as insignificant when in reality I know people who are under the impression that lawlessness is acceptable, and this is why I disagree. I didnt ask you to reply to me, so if it's not important enough for you, why are you wasting the time telling me that?

Give that you’ve edited the first two posts I’d say I‘ve done you favour. I’ll leave you to it.

that's the problem. The whole system is contingent on upholding moral values without regulation. The exploitation of which results in those who are forceful taking the upper hand. — Lif3r

Same with the law, those who create the laws force them on those who don't want to follow them.

Yes if you remove laws some will try to take power by force and to impose their own will onto others. But other people won't like that and will fight that power, then eventually there will be a revolution of some sort and so on. So how do we break out of that cycle?

I believe it's possible to break out of it, but we have to do things differently, we have to learn to see things differently, if we keep behaving the same way we'll keep getting the same results. People have to understand that they're all in the same boat. That their survival and happiness depends on that of others. People have to learn to understand that fighting fire with fire doesn't kill fire, fighting fear with fear doesn't stop fear, fighting hate with hate doesn't stop hate, fighting oppression with oppression doesn't stop oppression. Cause that's what we do and have been doing for a long time now, and it simply doesn't work. Jesus and John Lennon and so on were more than hippies, they understood important things that most people still don't understand. So people have to wake up. In order for things to change people have to wake up. So let's work on helping people wake up, instead of forcing others to do what we want them to do, cause that never worked and that will never work.

without law there is no incentive to "stay woke" if you will.
There are no guidelines for morality. It's left to the individual, and I agree we should try to convince humanity to uphold morals and standards that help the world sustain itself, but let's face it we just can't trust people to do it on their own.

Let's take something incredibly simple for example: go outside in any town or city and just look around on the ground. Covered in trash. People are legally obligated not to litter, yet they regularly do it anyway. If they weren't legally obligated it would happen more because there would be no repercussions for the action.

The aim of anarchism is to figure out a way to enforce moral behavior without in the process of doing so committing immoral behavior by exercising unjust authority over people. It’s generally considered immoral to just make someone obey you on threat of violence, but that’s what all state laws are. So the challenge is to figure out how to stop people from doing things like that, without yourself doing things like that.

Never gonna happen unless people magically stop being shitbags.

And people aren't going to magically stop being shitbags. Not anytime soon. Allllllllll of history: shitbags exist and usually prevail dominance.

As many here have been quick to point out, positive flavours and fundamental aspects of anarchism are all in line with The Spirit of the law and justice theory but are obviously prone to as much error as any human endeavor in application. Its the root of civil disobedience though.

I try super hard to not be a shitbag. Doesn't change much, but it's the best I can do. We can all do this until we are blue in the face, but we are fallible beings and we don't always do the right thing and many of us intentionally do the wrong things that we all know and have decided are hindrance for progress, fairness, and well being for everyone.

Anarchists speak of the individuals policing themselves, but how can I possibly go to work and also play cops and robbers when I get jacked because there are no police so it's super easy to get away with and the likelyhood of robbery is higher?

I mean that's just one example, but you all get the point.

without law there is no incentive to "stay woke" if you will.
There are no guidelines for morality. It's left to the individual, and I agree we should try to convince humanity to uphold morals and standards that help the world sustain itself, but let's face it we just can't trust people to do it on their own.

Let's take something incredibly simple for example: go outside in any town or city and just look around on the ground. Covered in trash. People are legally obligated not to litter, yet they regularly do it anyway. If they weren't legally obligated it would happen more because there would be no repercussions for the action.

Because people would litter is not an indictment on anarchism, but an indictment on the morality of those who would litter. I know of many people, myself included, who refuse to litter because of many reasons that don’t involve its legality.

but you are missing the point. Under anarchy there is no incentive not to litter other than the individual's own moral compass

but you are missing the point. Under anarchy there is no incentive not to litter other than the individual's own moral compass

There a plenty of incentives not to litter. For one, garbage is ugly and damaging to the surroundings.

There are multiple examples explaining the same idea here. Hit and run, robbery, littering, but they are all based on the same premise. Crime is easier under anarchy, and there is less incentive to make moral decisions because there is no authority to provide these incentives. As a result, the people who naturally rise to leadership and become the new, perhaps "unofficial government" are the people who are willing to take advantage of their peers for a leg up in society; leaders of criminal organizations. Crime leadership boils down to who has the biggest guns, and who is willing to use them to retain or gain control.

just because you know that and I know that doesn't mean everyone else does. Even if they do understand what you say, that doesn't mean they care.

Let me ask you this:

Who keeps the criminals from being criminals in a society with no authority? The criminal themselves? Isn't that counterintuitive to being a criminal?

Who keeps the criminals from being criminals in a society with no authority? The criminal themselves? Isn't that counterintuitive to being a criminal?

I suppose it would have to be a force of volunteers.

well that's not anarchy, that's voluntarism.



vol·un·ta·rism

/ˈvälən(t)əˌrizəm/

noun

1.

the principle of relying on voluntary action (used especially with reference to the involvement of voluntary organizations in social welfare).

"some councils connected the twin themes of public spending cuts and the strong emphasis on voluntarism"

2.

PHILOSOPHY

the doctrine that the will is a fundamental or dominant factor in the individual or the universe.

I think the philosophy version is a short sighted attempt at some sort of ignorant "do what thou will" cliche, but I am referring to definition 1.