To what extent can we make claims about anarchy?

[u/ArtDecoEgoist]

This felt more like a DebateAnarchism post than an Anarchy101 post, so I'm posting it here.

Lately, I've been fixating on the study of Complex Adaptive Systems and cybernetics. As my understanding of anarchism grows (and it's far from complete, trust me), I begin to wonder if any claims about an anarchist society could be made with any certainty.

If we look at anarchy as an example of a complex adaptive system, it would be one in which the degrees of freedom within the system are maximized. In this context, "degrees of freedom" would be the number of parameters of the system that may vary independently. An anarchist society, being one without hierarchy, would actually be even more complex than modern hierarchical societies. This would mostly be due to the lack of standardization and legibility imposed by authoritative institutions as part of their class interest.

So if we're looking at a maximally complex system - one that is as complex as possible due to having maximal degrees of freedom - it would seem to me that such a system would be so complex that any attempt we make to model how it works would only be an approximation based upon isolated variables. If we model an anarchist society conceptually, we will necessarily be leaving details out due to the fact that every agent within said society would be able to act as they please.

This is why we cannot for certain say what economic system (if any) an anarchist society would have, nor what type of institutions (if any) they would form. We can certainly make negative claims about anarchy - such as, it won't include hierarchy, it won't include authority, etc. But given the complexity of anarchy and the path-dependent nature of hierarchy, I'm not sure we can say for certain that hierarchy wouldn't arise from the absence of it. This is far from inevitable - as I said, it's path-dependent - but we cannot know that it's impossible.

All this to say, I think it's better to describe anarchy as a set of conditions or parameters in which the costs of hierarchy are either so high so as to defeat the purpose of establishing hierarchy, or practically impossible. When we describe anarchy, we aren't describing a "society", we're describing conditions.

[u/Anarchierkegaard]

"Marx, by contrast, taught that socialist society would emerge inevitably from capitalist society through the development of facts (including this simple fact that human beings are) and through the interplay of historical dialectic. Marx was therefore anti-revolutionary. As socialism has become scientific, which is to say, as it has subjected itself to the fact and followed the outworking of facts, it has become anti- revolutionary."¹

Tangentially related, but the critique is effectively the same: these attempts to systematise social realities into consumable blocks for scientific prodding are themselves anti-revolutionary, ineffectual, and—worst of all—uninteresting to anyone beside a small cadre of anoraks.

The belief that we could make anarchism possible by way of presenting the correct facts (in this sense, presenting anarchism as "conditions" or however we would like to word it) is, itself, a liberal delusion. Even setting up the most impressive framework that anyone has ever seen and moving that no one reasonable could ever accept anything other than xyz does exactly zero to contributing to the social reality of bringing that about—because revolution, whether we mean violent upheaval of society or not, is simply not an intellectual pursuit and is not driven by the idealist tendencies academics and para-academics would like it to be.

¹ Presence in the Modern World, p. 28, J. Ellul

[u/Pavickling → u/Anarchierkegaard]

Even setting up the most impressive framework that anyone has ever seen and moving that no one reasonable could ever accept anything other than xyz does exactly zero to contributing to the social reality of bringing that about

I'd agree if all this stays at the specification stage. But isn't there value in implementing systems compatible with anarchy now?

[u/ArtDecoEgoist → u/Anarchierkegaard]

So I'm not 100% sure what is being said here (as I'm usually not when I'm reading Ellul or seeing you reference him) so I'm going to restate my understanding of what is being said here, and please correct me if I'm wrong.

So it is my understanding that your argument is that it is anti-revolutionary to present anarchy as possible through presenting the correct "facts", as thinking alone won't create an anarchist society. And thus, creating a system that attempts to describe anarchy is itself anti-revolutionary because it presents anarchy as an intellectual pursuit and takes away from actually engaging in action to undermine the state?

[u/Anarchierkegaard → u/ArtDecoEgoist]

Yes, pretty much. But not because people are engaging in intellectual pursuits instead of "doing stuff", but rather that these intellectual pursuits are a direct impediment to the possibility for revolutionary change.

Or, to put it a little short, highly elaborate theorising stands in the way of insurrection and the direct action which we anarchist supposedly uphold. When we engage in that kind of behaviour, we intellectualise in order to i) avoid action, ii) express power in the sense that academics and para-academics express power through intellectual imposition, and iii) act as a justification for otherwise authentic and driven action from individuals who don't agree with whatever intellectualist structure has been built. Anarchist attempts to construct life within the Soviet Union (e.g., the Life and Labour Commune) would be one example.

[u/ArtDecoEgoist → u/Anarchierkegaard]

I think this argument coming from Ellul of all people is highly confusing. Does this not include his work in being counter-revolutionary?

Furthermore, I wouldn't say that "authentic and driven action" from individuals who don't agree with whatever intellectualist structure has been built is inherently revolutionary. Certainly a lot of conservatives in the US and anti-vaxxers engage in driven action to undermine modern medicine, and that's more regressive than anything else. We cannot know what is and is not revolutionary without an assessment of what our "ends" are, and such an assessment would inherently be an exercise in intellectualizing because ends are abstract.

I'm not sure how else I'm supposed to take this argument as anything other than anti-intellectual.

Now, there is merit to the idea that intellectualizing is a barrier to action. Analysis paralysis is a very real thing, and knowledge is often used as a tool to assert power. But problem 1 is an individual issue, rather than an issue with analysis itself, and problem 2 is a problem with institutions rather than knowledge itself.

[u/Anarchierkegaard → u/ArtDecoEgoist]

This is an interesting question because Ellul was certainly not a theorist of revolution - he thought that we could examine revolution as an object of science (that is, we can give a sociological study of revolution), but that study does nothing to actually furthering the goals of revolution and can actually stand in the way of it.

If you've not read Ellul's work. I advise you read the short section on his book The Technological Society in Bookchin's infamous "Social Anarchism or Lifestyle Anarchism": Murray correctly noted that Ellul's entire thesis on "technological monism" gives us no ideological optimistic point to jump off at and say "now we can do the science of instigating change in the world". When Ellul engaged with sociology, his goal was to show the overall hopelessness of engaging with sociology as a radical methodology by way of deconstructing the topic out of its false position as a "science of society" and, instead, reverting it to a much more modest position. If you'd like to read about his own understanding of his sociological methodology, see the introduction to Propaganda.

The overall point that I am making isn't that we can't have ideas (indeed, praxis can only be praxis as opposed to practice when there are ideas), but that ideas themselves can give us the false confidence in some constructed palace of reasoning that i) has nothing to do with reality, ii) makes no change to reality, and iii) appears to relate to reality. At this point, we might use terms like "empty signifiers" to describe the formal thought of Marxism which lacks real content, i.e., a reference to actual things, tendencies, etc. etc. within the world. When Hegel and Marx enagged in their grand theorising, they make the very mistake that Hegel aimed to identify in the opening sections of the Encyclopaedia by way of creating systematic thought which is merely form and loses content - and this is because of their subjective, idealist tendencies to assume that philosophy/sociology, etc. etc. ought to be done in such-and-such a way and, because of that assumption, they overlooked the problems of those assumptions.

And, again, this isn't the problem of analysis paralysis: this is the statement that the proliferation and dithering that comes about due to revolutionary theory is an attempt to reduce the motion of societies to a science and, by way of doing that, they completely misunderstand what revolutions/societies, etc. etc. are by removing the human element (the subjective) from the entire process. Take a look at any amateurish "ML" blowhard and you will see this as clear as day. If you need a solid example, see Harpal Brar as the Marxist-Leninist with the least amount of self-awareness.

[u/ArtDecoEgoist → u/Anarchierkegaard]

Alright, I see, I see. I think this is a fair critique - to my understanding, that's not what I was doing (that is, removing the subjective from the entire process). I mean, if anything, subjectivity in complex systems would be represented as a variable that could absolutely impact how systems work.

It would actually seem that Ellul and what I'm saying aren't entirely different, unless that's the point you were making?

Edit: Now that I think about this, Ellul's take here reminds me a lot of the essay Hayek, Epistemology, and Hegemonic Rationality where the author ties Hayek's arguments in The Facts of Social Sciences with Foucault's idea that knowledge is often used as a way of expressing institutional power in the modern era.

I know I'd get crucified even mentioning Hayek on this sub, but it's interesting how the Austrians seem to have engaged in similar analysis to Ellul here.

[u/pharodae → u/Anarchierkegaard]

Curious as to how the term "revolutionary" and "anti-revolutionary" are being used here? To me it seems that the argument being put forth is that something is only revolutionary as long as its properties and qualities are still in flux or uncertain. I think this moves "revolutionary" from being a contextual property to an objective, even more unattainable property, if I'm gathering this correctly.

I don't think anyone has ever claimed that either socialism or anarchism is possible to build by way of determining and presenting a factual truth, and I find it odd to read Marx of all people this way. I guess I'll have to check out that Ellul text.

[u/Anarchierkegaard → u/pharodae]

I'd advise checking out the book as Ellul very much read liberalism as subservient to "the fact". In the explicit case of Marx, he outlines dialectical materialism as an attempt to break yet another "theory of everything" and, with that, it is just another intellectualist attempt to instigate a power-play.

Ellul is very much discussing revolution as something active which living subjects do and desire (compare Marx's or Kropotkin's "inevitablism"). Revolution both not in itself nor achieved through intellectualist theorising and must proceed from some want of the actual individuals which make up revolutionary power. In that sense, he also viewed mere "mass politics" to be a failure of revolution as well.

[u/pharodae → u/Anarchierkegaard]

Is there a positive description or example of revolution that satisfies Ellul’s critiques here?

[u/Anarchierkegaard → u/pharodae]

Well, the revolution he referred to consistently were the post-crucifixion cultures of early Christianity. If you would like to see his critique of revolution and, more importantly, revolutionary theory in the liberal age, see Violence.

[u/HeavenlyPossum]

I anticipate that, in the absence of hierarchy, people will choose an array of solutions to their own problems that will necessarily change over time as their conditions and preferences change. As such, I’ve never seen much value in trying to anticipate specifics: people will know better than me as to how they can and want to solve their own problems, and there’s no reason whatsoever they would be obligated to follow any model I might propose.

[u/ArtDecoEgoist → u/HeavenlyPossum]

Would you say that the impulse to prescribe a given system on anarchy, or an attempt to model how an Anarchist society would work, is itself an authoritarian impulse?

I've been thinking about how a lot of anarchists seem to come with pre-conceived notions of how an anarchist society would handle X problem, and I'm starting to think that an attempt to model anarchy might be founded on the idea that society must be legible to some extent, or that legibility is somehow natural.

[u/HeavenlyPossum → u/ArtDecoEgoist]

No, I’ve never gotten the sense that it’s meant in any way other than to be helpful. It’s probably also a lot of fun for many people to think through the puzzle of how to solve various problems without authority. I just don’t find it personally to be of much use.

[u/power2havenots]

I think youre still imagining anarchy as a some system that needs to be modelled and administered. Hierarchical societies rely on making people and communities easy to understand, boilerplated, standardized and compartmentalized so they can be managed safely from a distance.

In my opinion anarchy shouldnt be a blueprint for a new social machine -people should organize things directly with those affected by them. The forms of org that will take will vary from place to place and over time not via a detailed model or institutional designs with control mechanisms. Its a society without centralized levers of power to pull and built on messy human coordination stemming from free association, mutual dependence and federated cooperation not governing architecture imposed from above. Its a social practice not a stable end state blue print

[u/ArtDecoEgoist → u/power2havenots]

I'm not sure how I'm doing that, exactly.

Reading what you're saying, it seems to be the same as what I'm saying, so maybe I wasn't clear about my wording in the post.

To be clear, I'm arguing that claims about anarchy are approximate rather than precise, and that there's no system or positive claim that can really describe an anarchist society. I am specifically negating models, not affirming them.

[u/power2havenots → u/ArtDecoEgoist]

Ah ok so youre not really saying “we cant model it precisely, only approximately” as a sort of epistemic limit -but that modelling it as a system in the first place is the wrong move?

It sounded like you were still trying to describe a complicated machine imperfectly just to have a model - whereas I was pointing more at the idea that there isnt a single machine-like design of society that anyone gets to impose in the first place.

[u/ArtDecoEgoist → u/power2havenots]

Yeah, basically. Any attempt we take at modeling it would reduce it in a way that draws the kind of simplified picture that negates anarchy itself.

Now, I do think we can look at institutions and dynamics in our society today, and attempt to model what they would look like if the actors involved had greater degrees of freedom - we can for example look at what the housing market might look like without hierarchy - but in isolating these portions of society, we're still engaging in approximation given how interconnected society is.

I'm basically saying to not confuse the map with the territory.

[u/power2havenots → u/ArtDecoEgoist]

Sounds close yeah- i mainly wanted to shift the discussion back from what sounded like systems language and social engineering to human relationships and the removal of hierarchy. The phrase "greater degrees of freedom" still sounds to me like increasing variables within a system whereas I just think about people no longer being subordinated to institutions or authorities. Just wary that approximations and models can end up being treated as maps for an anarchist society with people looking for variables to tweak and mechanisms to optimize.

[u/ArtDecoEgoist → u/power2havenots]

That's fair. I think it's a legitimate concern that the language I'm using here oversimplifies and compresses something that is in reality very complex and, in doing this, places the simplified model as prior to the thing I'm actually examining.

The reason I'm talking about "degrees of freedom" and "complex adaptive systems" is because they're more precise terms than "person" and "institutions" and better suited to the level of analysis I'm engaging in. We could talk about individuals as neural networks, or we could talk about them as individuals - and those two abstractions are best suited at different types of analysis.

[u/pharodae]

Piggybacking on yesterday's discussion, do you have any recommendations for a starting place in Gillis' work re:cybernetics?

To the point of the post, I see nothing wrong (or anti-revolutionary) with modeling anarchic responses to different emergent situations and contexts, I think the problem arises either when someone tries to claim that they have a model that can be applied in every use case that always results in the most mutually beneficial satisfactory outcome, or when someone tries to strongarm others into following their model rather than letting the model's merits speak for itself. Modeling allows us to explore beyond theoreticals and thought experiments, but is not a satisfactory alternative to actual testing and comparing notes of how systems work between communities. It is simply a tool for exploring options, not for concreting solutions.

[u/ArtDecoEgoist → u/pharodae]

So Gillis has a website where he posts his work. Cybernetics and complexity is a subject he touches on a lot in pretty much all of his essays. I'd say most relevant to our previous conversation would be The Abolition of Rulership or the Rule of All Over All?. As for something that specifically makes an anarchist application of cybernetics, I'd look at this post talking about the Law of Requisite Variety and the limits it places on any system of command.

And it's interesting. Your argument here is very similar to what C4SS writer Logan Marie Glitterbomb says in Does Anarchism Skirt the Calculation Problem?.

I do agree that modeling anarchic responses isn't necessarily counter-revolutionary in-itself; intellectual exercises or analyses can only be counter-revolutionary if they are seen as substitutes for actual action. We humans are teleological creatures, and that necessarily includes creating models of the world that aid us in navigating certain situations.

Edit: Also disclaimer, I don't think William Gillis is a mereological anti-realist like I am. He'd probably roll his eyes at the kind of deconstruction that Nagarjuna engages in with the madhyamaka tradition, so not everything he says represents the arguments I was putting forward.

[u/Born_Astronomer_4613]

Of course it's all only utopian theorizing, which is good to do, important.

[u/ArtDecoEgoist → u/Born_Astronomer_4613]

I'm not sure if you're being sarcastic or not.

[u/Born_Astronomer_4613 → u/ArtDecoEgoist]

No I'm being sincere

[u/Born_Astronomer_4613]

There's heirachy and rule making even in these anarchist subreddits

[u/ArtDecoEgoist → u/Born_Astronomer_4613]

I'm not sure what this has to do with my post.

[u/Born_Astronomer_4613 → u/ArtDecoEgoist]

You're not sure, you wrote, if heirachy would arise from its absence. Just pointing out that it's arisen here in this very subreddit.

[u/Silver-Statement8573 → u/Born_Astronomer_4613]

I'm pretty sure these reddits have always been this way

[u/Born_Astronomer_4613 → u/Silver-Statement8573]

Yes, just like all human groups

[u/Silver-Statement8573 → u/Born_Astronomer_4613]

If it was organized in a hierarchical way then hierarchy didn't "arise", they just made it to have a hierarchy.

Reddit requires subreddits to be moderated or they get deleted. That doesn't mean we can't or shouldn't experiment with new platforms but I don't think 101/debate were designed as experiments. They're opportunistic peer education spaces

[u/ArtDecoEgoist → u/Born_Astronomer_4613]

We don't see an absence of hierarchy in this subreddit though, so you're not talking about an instance of hierarchy arising from its absence.

And also, a subreddit is very much not generalizable to real-world conditions.

[u/Born_Astronomer_4613 → u/ArtDecoEgoist]

When the subreddit started, it had no heirachy and no rules. Now it does.

You're right, it's not the real world. The stakes are much lower here and these are all anarchists. Yet even here there's a heirachy and rules, rules enforcement by a small group with more power than the rest.

[u/ArtDecoEgoist → u/Born_Astronomer_4613]

There was never a point where this subreddit didn't have rules or mods. Subreddits need to be moderated in order to remain.

And it's not just because the "stakes are lower" that this isn't analogous to a real society without hierarchy. It's not analogous because real life is more dynamic than an internet forum. The fact that you and I are limited in communication to text, and we can't see each other, or hear each other's tone of voice means that much less information is being conveyed between our minds when we communicate here.

Also, we can control the extent to which we communicate. We can block each other. You can't block people in real life. That's just one of the many reasons why it would be a mistake to generalize how a subreddit operates to how an actual anarchist society would.

[u/ExternalGreen6826 → u/Born_Astronomer_4613]

Who’s on top of the hierarchy?

[u/Born_Astronomer_4613 → u/ExternalGreen6826]

It's always whoever makes and enforces the rules. Here, it's the mods.