So either anarchism has no power structures, thus implicitly admitting that it is fundamentally incapable of bringing about the political change that it advocates for, or it has a power structure and thus it is liable to be commandeered by power hungry psychopaths and used for their own gain like the rest of the power structures around the globe.
Anarchism is a network of smaller structures. Yes, a psychopath would be able to turn a tribe into a cult. However, the rest of the network would work a check on that psychopath’s power. Better that than a psychopath turning a nation into a cult.
Humankind has had many small structures before, they did not prove resilient to that problem. If anything, once someone you don’t want in charge takes over the first couple of groups, it’s incredibly easy for them to simply roll up the rest
Also note that all of the examples of states they would denounce could easily be described as a series of smaller networks.
I genuinely fail to see a quantifiable, material distinction between something like Revolutionary Catalonia (ostensibly made up of a series of smaller networks) and an example like Yugoslavia (verifiably made up of a series of smaller networks.) Although I know the path this discussion takes - we’re gonna defend one and denounce the other by playing goldilocks with an unquantifiable “size” of the networks and it’ll be that Tito had too much power and did bad things (unlike an anarchist leader such as Nestor Makhno who also had too much power and did some very, very bad things as documented in the historical record, but that’s different for unexplained reasons) and then we’re going to play at definitions and rely on a deep and abiding, yet extremely selective, skepticism.
So either anarchism has no power structures, thus implicitly admitting that it is fundamentally incapable of bringing about the political change that it advocates for, or it has a power structure and thus it is liable to be commandeered by power hungry psychopaths and used for their own gain like the rest of the power structures around the globe.
Which way, western anarchist?
Anarchism is a network of smaller structures. Yes, a psychopath would be able to turn a tribe into a cult. However, the rest of the network would work a check on that psychopath’s power. Better that than a psychopath turning a nation into a cult.
Humankind has had many small structures before, they did not prove resilient to that problem. If anything, once someone you don’t want in charge takes over the first couple of groups, it’s incredibly easy for them to simply roll up the rest
Also note that all of the examples of states they would denounce could easily be described as a series of smaller networks.
I genuinely fail to see a quantifiable, material distinction between something like Revolutionary Catalonia (ostensibly made up of a series of smaller networks) and an example like Yugoslavia (verifiably made up of a series of smaller networks.) Although I know the path this discussion takes - we’re gonna defend one and denounce the other by playing goldilocks with an unquantifiable “size” of the networks and it’ll be that Tito had too much power and did bad things (unlike an anarchist leader such as Nestor Makhno who also had too much power and did some very, very bad things as documented in the historical record, but that’s different for unexplained reasons) and then we’re going to play at definitions and rely on a deep and abiding, yet extremely selective, skepticism.
So we’re talking about the platonic ideal of anarchism and not the examples of anarchism in the real world then?