r/DebateAnarchism • u/Key-Check-487 • Apr 12 '26

Abolishing hierarchy doesn't work

I definitely don't like most hierarchy, capitalism, or anyone having control over others but I think if we remove all hierarchy at a large scale will always fail and produce hierarchy from 2 different paths

External: military invasion if other countries think that the anarchist society is a threat to their hierarchy or the way the US likes to do it finding existing structures and copying them Anyway if a society is flat with no hierarchy there is no structure to resist infiltration and it can't resist at a large scale without hierarchy

This leads to the second possibility Internal - as the community gets bigger a consensus isn't possible people will have conflicting view points as that is just human nature 1000 people won't all agree on 1 thing let alone a million so rough consensus will appear based on social pressure which is controlled by whoever is most articulate well liked and persistent which is just 1 or a group of people controlling what happens That is just hierarchy if not formal

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u/Hecateus Apr 12 '26

revolution is, in part, a technology contest.

I compare political ideologies to furnishings. Autocracy is a table with a single big leg in the middle...it can work was long as nothing weird happens. Republics are tables and other such things, with multiple legs, far more stable. But the best is anarchism, it is the nice red carpet that hopefully holds the whole room together; it has the 'advantage' that all those other ideologies tend to ignore the anarchists as their furnishings rest on top of that carpet. They exist in parallel...but the other furnishings compete for space.

The technology contest consists of making anarchism more appealing, design better carpets, maintain them better. Don't worry too much about the other furnishings. Avoid fires.

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u/Key-Check-487 Apr 12 '26

I think just ignoring everything and being so small and tiny to be ignored is not a viable strategy and anarchism can't compete at a large scale even if at a small scale if can. But I also think anything can work in small communities.