This sounds a whole lot like the indigenous peoples of various lands until the imperial machines of war rolled them over. These days, I don’t think you need a military budget rivaling America’s, but I think some form of military defensive structures would need to remain in place to protect your massive hippie nation-state from opportunistic neighbors.
Ultimately this is the core problem as I see it - a hierarchical society will always be militarily stronger, practically by definition - and if history has taught us anything, it’s that weak neighbors get eaten by their stronger neighbors.
Additionally I think most of these idealized community structures are overly optimistic about the likelihood of a charismatic leader coming along and getting people to follow them, and then not letting them withdraw that power. Anarchists talk about hierarchies without formal power structures, but what is actually stopping someone whose already effectively in charge from turning that power into something more permanent, especially if they’ve convinced the populace that they want that?
Its happened an endless amount of times all throughout history, and I really don’t see why it wouldn’t here. Ultimately it just seems like a fragile system that relies mostly on every single individual being perfectly rational and immune to the draw of populist leaders. Aka - completely unlike actual humans
Anarchists aren’t unaware of these problems, if you’re interested then there is a lot of ink spilled on the subject. Either from the perspective of actually existing anarchists or theoretical books.
Anarchists don’t imagine some perfect static society but rather a set of evolving practices to guard against precisely what you’re talking about. The less centralised things are the less vulnerable they are, and even if someone manages to start concentrating power that doesn’t mean they’re guaranteed to hold on to it for very long.
The history of the Spanish civil war might be quite interesting to you, as the anarchists had to fight the strongly backed fascists, obviously eventually they lost but they did pretty damn well! lots to learn there.
The less centralised things are the less vulnerable they are
I’m sorry, but how do you arrive at that conclusion? If I roll in with a giant, powerful military from my centralized state, how does being less centralized make your position easier to defend? The less centralized you are, the less capable of a coordinated defense you are, and the more likely it is that your territory will be conquered without being able to present a meaningful resistance.
And if you were referring to an internal threat from a populist leader, then that’s assuming that the individuals involved don’t let said populist leader make them more centralized for easier control - if you’re just relying on the individuals always making the right decisions, then frankly you’re doomed.
they’re guaranteed to hold on to it for very long
Absolutely, and judging by history the typically dont. But a wannabe tyrant can do a lot of damage through their rise and fall, and tyrants have descendants.
, if you’re interested then there is a lot of ink spilled on the subject. Either from the perspective of actually existing anarchists or theoretical books.
And I’m sorry but “just devoted weeks/months of your life to read anarchist literature” isn’t a replacement for an actual rebuttal to my points, I have done some reading on anarchism, hence why I understand the concepts well enough to talk about them, but of course I’m not going to spend huge amounts of time reading up on a political system that I think is fundamentally flawed, and I’ve yet to come across any argument in your comments or others that actually negates any of what I’ve already said, most of it boils down to “we’ll just figure it out bro, trust us”
The history of the Spanish civil war might be quite interesting to you, as the anarchists had to fight the strongly backed fascists, obviously eventually they lost but they did pretty damn well! lots to learn there.
Completely irrelavent scenario (and if it was relavent, the fact that they lost would support my point), the Republicans of the Spanish Civil War weren’t from an anarchist society (nor were they all anarchists). They were residents of a non anarchist society who rebelled, using existing infrastructure created by the existing non-anarchist society.
The closest real analogue is what happened to the native Americans during the colonization (though even that is a very loose analogue, as many tribes were very very far from anarchic, though some were very very close to it), and we all know how that ended from our history books.
oh yes, defensive militias are necessary. Communities need to be able to protect themselves.
Fortunately if we’ve learned one thing recently it’s that modern nation states are extremely bad at fighting decentralised resistance. So you don’t necessary need a giant mechanised army in order to be enough of a pain to make invading you infeasible.
The problem with this isn’t military, it’s that it doesn’t work at scale. Even within a family unit it’s hard enough getting six people to agree on anything, and that’s when two of them hold power over the other four.
Of those tribes you mentioned that work how you describe, how many had more than, oh, 50 members?
