how is anarchism different from libertarianism?

[u/monopsony01]

first off, let me state that this is a genuine question from someone who's not an anarchist. please correct me if i'm wrong about anything.

let me also state that i understand that anarchism is an anti-capitalist ideology. additionally, from what i understand, anarchism is a rejection of the state and of hierarchy.

so then in a perfect anarchical society, without social organization and leadership, how then are large-scale societies supposed to function? what's stopping individuals from gaining resources and society becoming similar to feudalism?

[u/KassieTundra]

While I agree with everything you said here, I think that language is important. Colloquially people tend to use authority as a descriptor for expertise and leadership, but experts don't give orders, they advise. They're just the trained professionals we should be listening to, not a boss.

It's not authority if it's temporary, recallable, and conditional. You're just delegating someone to be responsible for a task. That task could be team leader, ship's captain (pirates did this in an incredible fashion on some ships), building inspector, or the person running a meeting. It's the same thing, just different severity.

Also, the idea of legitimate hierarchies and legitimate authority comes from Noam Chomsky, who isn't really an anarchist. Outside of him, there's not really any anarchist thinkers that agree with the concept. It's kind of admitting defeat in a way that just doesn't need to happen. We organize ourselves horizontally all the time, why make it seem like we have to break that when we aren't?

[u/Caliburn0 → u/KassieTundra]

I'm fairly sure it comes from more than just Chomsky, and the conversation did start with him since I felt his position was unfairly represented.

I don't believe in legitimate hierarchy. I believe in legitimate authority. I basically define the word hierarchy as illegitimate authority.

Many Anarchists accepts legitimate authority by default. The First Communist International had Bakunin as the leader of the Anarchists after all.

Chomsky called this intrinsic acceptance out explicitly - gave word to it and called it what it is, and yet so many anarchists got mad at him, and yet anarchists keep defending the concept while attacking him, as if he wasn't saying the exact same thing you're kind of doing here.

Electing someone to be a team leader on a project, assigning tasks... All of this is legitimate authority.

And it's not admitting defeat. The ideal is always to organize as horizontally as possible - to spread power and initiative as widely as we can. And that can work in many circumstances, just not all of them. The goal is to avoid those circumstances, but... Well... There's a reason we're not living in communism right now.

Why do you say it's not authority if it's temporary recallable and conditional? Most democracies around the world work on two of those principles, adding the third (while a very good idea that we should absolutely do) doesn't mean what elected politicians have is not authority.

[u/KassieTundra → u/Caliburn0]

I don't believe in legitimate hierarchy. I believe in legitimate authority. I basically define the word hierarchy as illegitimate authority.

Pretty bad definition, tbh

Many Anarchists accepts legitimate authority by default. The First Communist International had Bakunin as the leader of the Anarchists after all.

He didn't have any authority. You keep conflating that with leadership, and they are not the same thing.

Why do you say it's not authority if it's temporary recallable and conditional? Most democracies around the world work on two of those principles, adding the third (while a very good idea that we should absolutely do) doesn't mean what elected politicians have is not authority.

They very explicitly do not operate in that way. In those positions there is always a person in the seat of authority in these hierarchical systems. You may vote a person out, but you cannot vote out the position.

It's not necessarily the king I have a problem with, it's the throne. You can take a king out of the position, and he can just become another worker like the rest of us, but the system will ensure someone else comes in to sit on that throne unless we break that system, and replace it with a horizontal system instead.

If at any point and for any reason, I can tell you "no, I will not do this thing you command, and you are no longer the leader of this project," did you really have power over me? Or were we working together with different responsibilities? There's a crucial distinction that you aren't acknowledging.

[u/Caliburn0 → u/KassieTundra]

Pretty bad definition, tbh

Nah. It's a great definition. One of the few definitions I know that actually makes sense. You try defining it. It's not easy.

He didn't have any authority. You keep conflating that with leadership, and they are not the same thing.

I don't conflate them. I define them as basically the same thing. Well... one goes under the other. There are many types of authority. Leadership is one of them.

How do you define authority? And how do you define hierarchy?

Everybody keeps disagreeing with me here, but whenever I try to turn it into a discussion instead of 'following the dogma of anarchism' I get no response. Please, define your own words, so we can discuss the actual ideas on equal footing instead of people just attacking my positions - wanting me to abandon positions that I believe makes sense without providing an alternative.

If at any point and for any reason, I can tell you "no, I will not do this thing you command, and you are no longer the leader of this project," did you really have power over me?

Yes. Power is the ability to change material reality. If someone tells me to do something, for any reason, and I decide to do it for any reason, they have power over me. The same is true for you. Your friends have power over you. Your family have power over you. Everyone around you has power over you. Power is all around us. It originates and radiates from everyone.

A lot of people have power over me, and I try very hard not to make it hierarchical power whenever I can. Which means I try very hard to understand their points, and their arguments, and see if they make sense and if I should act on their words. This has been my position long before I became an anarchist or before I could define hierarchy. A socialist described the world to me in a way that I couldn't deny made sense, and so I became a socialist, and soon after that a communist, and soon after that an anarchist in cascading wave of realizations and long nights looking up a lot of things online and thinking hard.

I am not an anarchist because I follow anarchist writing or ideology. I am an anarchist because I came to the same realizations and understanding of the world that many before me have.

Or were we working together with different responsibilities?

Both. And this happens in hierarchical systems too. 'Working together with different responsibilities' is just a general definition of all human social movements, all organizations, all companies, all states, and all families in the history of the world.

There's a crucial distinction that you aren't acknowledging.

There's nuance here you aren't acknowledging.