How to actually start an anarchy?

[altoidmintz]

I got 5 ways...what did I miss?
http://caeconomics.wordpress.com/2013/08/24/5-routes-to-anarchy/

from the article:
1 seasteading
2 seasteading with docking
3 cryptoanarchy
4 space anarchy
5 subversive anarchy

and here's one not in the article, maybe the best choice yet: competitive and/or voluntary social contracting

[Chet]

Interesting title, how do 'start' nothing? Ok its not exactly nothing but most definitions of anarchy deal primarily with the absence of X,Y and or Z. Starting the absence of things seems a bit contradictory.

[altoidmintz]

While it's true that a good definition of anarchy would be "no centralized government" that hardly means "no government."
Instead it means something like competitive, voluntary, distributed and/or decentralized governance.

Another definition of government of anarchy is a lack of monopoly on the use of force. Does that mean no one has any weapons? No. It means weapons are widespread, competitive, distributed, etc.

[justusranvier]

"Anarchy" means "without rulers".

So you can create anarchy by simply refraining from any attempt to rule over other people. Interact with other people via negotiations and mutually beneficial exchanges and you've created anarchy in your personal sphere.

That's all there is to it; it's not hard at all. The problem for most people is they really have problems with consistency. There's some group of people out there they just can't accept not ruling over with threats and/or violence.

[altoidmintz]

"Anarchy" means "without rulers".

So you can create anarchy by simply refraining from any attempt to rule over other people. Interact with other people via negotiations and mutually beneficial exchanges and you've created anarchy in your personal sphere.

That's all there is to it; it's not hard at all. The problem for most people is they really have problems with consistency. There's some group of people out there they just can't accept not ruling over with threats and/or violence.

Point 1: That is one way to do anarchy, not the only way. The way you describe amounts to ignoring national/state law and everyone simply choosing to live a certain way. A cultural revolution type of thing. That fits in with #5 subversive anarchy in the article I mention above.

Point 2: Cultural anarchy is not a very resilient form of anarchy for reasons you mention. Certain people just don't want to engage in it. This usually breaks down the larger system very quickly. I'm interested in resilient, functional anarchy.

Point 3: There are ways to create an anarchy despite bad actors, but unfortunately they are not as simple as "simply refraining from any attempt to rule..." They involve networks of distributed legal and enforcement systems to check bad actors. A bit like traditional government, but decentralized. Like bitcoin is to money. In fact, the bitcoin protocol can be used to create competitive social contracts.

Point 4: "Anarchy" may semantically mean "without rulers," but what is a ruler? Under the DIYL mindset, my mindset, it doesn't matter what a ruler is in theory or by semantics, but in practice. Depending on what you are referring to as a ruler it might be desirable. Managers, judges, even people wielding physical force to enforce a contract can all be economically, socially and otherwise beneficial. They key behind the power of libertarianism and anarchism is, imho, decentralization of power, not absence of power. Opposition to monopolies on power, law, force...Not opposition to power, law, force...

[justusranvier]

There are no shortcuts, but I wish you the best of luck with your endeavour.

[countryfree]

Anarchy starts with anarchists. Stop paying taxes, burn your social security card, dump your TV, and take your money out of the banks. If most people were to do that, we would get something close to anarchy.

[Kyle91]

not gonna happen

[Loozik]

"Anarchy" means "without rulers".

I agree.

For my personal use while talking to people I use the following analogy:

An atheist = a person who does not believe in an existence of the magical object called ''god''. Noone ever proved the existence of the so called god (a piece of paper called bible proves nothing). what are clergy then? - a gang of pedos, idiots, etc. that just use the uneducated masses.

An anarchist = a person who does not believe in an existence of the magical object called ''state''. Noone ever proved the existence of the so called state (a piece of paper called constitution proves nothing). What are governments then? - a gang of thieves, liars, etc that use the uneducated masses.

[Zarathustra]

"Anarchy" means "without rulers".

Yes, that's why the history of humankind knows of only one type of anarchic organisation: it is the self-sufficient, non-patriarchal, matrilineal organised nuclear community beyond the state, the church and the market.

[Mike Christ]

How do you start an anarchy?  You cannot start an anarchy; the anarchy is always there, just as you cannot create the cold, you can only remove the heat.  Without people, there is anarchy, for the only rulers left of the universe are the various laws we use to explain why things react in which ways to what, and if we can define a ruler as someone with the free will to rule, we cannot accurately call those things rulers.

Rather, to return to the natural anarchy that began at the dawn of time, there would have to be no rulers--or, more accurately, no rulers by coercion, for, it is in my belief, there will always be voluntarily followed people of our world; parents who lead their children; the head of businesses who lead the people they pay for their time; teachers who lead their students; and so forth.

It's not about finding a plot of land somewhere, hoping and praying an invading nation stays out, because lets get real, nations always want more land, and if you wish to seastead, you must only wait for any government to stretch its law to include oceans.  Space is more plausible, but trying to exist around other people who do believe in states will inevitably get difficult (for, even in anarchistic societies, there will always be some society somewhere which believes your anarchy needs to be conquered, especially if those people outnumber you); this is all assuming the people who generally believe government is vital and necessary to life outnumber the ones who don't.

Therefor, to return to anarchy, the people who do not believe in government must outnumber at least the largest government, if not all people who believe in the state.  The revolution occurs first in the mind; the point is to change the minds of people, so they understand why anarchism is preferable.  If you're under the belief that this is impossible, and people will always believe in government, and separatism is the only way; you may as well give up now, because, as all previous attempts at anarchistic societies have ended, it will only fail, and you will be assimilated into the greater group of people who do believe in the state.  (Refer to this video for an example of the most recent anarchism attempt I know of.)  Only until most people of this planet believe in voluntarism will we see a decline in government, and eventually, none; this, I believe, is the only way to achieve a life of anarchy.  The sad truth is, it likely won't happen in our lifetimes, but perhaps our children, or their children, will have something better.

[justusranvier]

parents who lead their children;

Belief in the validity of government is nothing more or less than a consequence of bad parenting,

Virtually every person who has ever lived has experienced the use or threat of violence in order to compel obedience, typically from before their earliest memories. Because of those experiences they live the rest of their lives believing that it's good or necessary for some people to use extract obedience from other.

It's all just unexamined trauma from childhood, nothing more.

[Mike Christ]

parents who lead their children;

Belief in the validity of government is nothing more or less than a consequence of bad parenting,

Virtually every person who has ever lived has experienced the use or threat of violence in order to compel obedience, typically from before their earliest memories. Because of those experiences they live the rest of their lives believing that it's good or necessary for some people to use extract obedience from other.

It's all just unexamined trauma from childhood, nothing more.

I agree; many parents treat their children as property and otherwise abuse them, which teaches them the behavior to believe themselves lesser than some higher being, whether it's their parents, their God, their government, etc.  However, there will, no matter what society we speak of, be children who are cared for by someone, if not the ones who created them, and so the leader/follower relationship will always be there, even if this leadership is not actually voluntary; I believe Stefan has a lot of information about this, and he theorizes, for the shift to occur, it begins through children raised to believe in self-worth and freedom.  However, for this to happen, parents must first have this belief to pass on, so the change initially occurs through people who once believed in obedience through violence, and then changed to believe in the above, for them to pass those new beliefs to their children.  This does happen, but it happens very slowly, and it's surely not the primary source of people who believe in voluntarism; at least, I know this is not how it occurred with me, for I was the child who was beaten at least once a week, and yet I believe in just the opposite of one would expect.

As for now, our best bet is both to help adults understand, and to help our own children understand; if most of us agree that treating children as property is morally correct (as was treating women and "lesser" men from the biblical days to more recent times as slaves was once morally correct), then beating a person who is a child isn't accepted as wrong.  For the parenting to change, parents must first change, and it's these lengthy shifts in global ideology that affects why I believe it'll take such a long time for anarchism to come about.

[ErisDiscordia]

... What are governments then? ....

Government is a hallucination in the minds of politicians.

[Rival]

"The secret of change is to focus all of your energy, not on fighting the old, but on building the new" - Socrates

[ronimacarroni]

yeah okay.
Maybe you guys out to practice what you preach, stop voting, go live in your little communes and stop shoving your socialism down our throats, m'kay?

[Mike Christ]

yeah okay.
Maybe you guys out to practice what you preach, stop voting, go live in your little communes and stop shoving your socialism down our throats, m'kay?

Sweetheart, socialism is what you're sitting in right now.  Anarchism is the exact opposite of state socialism.  And, if you would read my very first post here, you'll understand what you're asking is impossible: there isn't even any land still in existence that isn't owned by government, and even if there was, the people who tried to develop an anarchistic society would be conquered quickly by the surrounding states.

[bogglns]

Interesting title

[ronimacarroni]

yeah okay.
Maybe you guys out to practice what you preach, stop voting, go live in your little communes and stop shoving your socialism down our throats, m'kay?

Sweetheart, socialism is what you're sitting in right now.  Anarchism is the exact opposite of state socialism.  And, if you would read my very first post here, you'll understand what you're asking is impossible: there isn't even any land still in existence that isn't owned by government, and even if there was, the people who tried to develop an anarchistic society would be conquered quickly by the surrounding states.

I'm sure you can find land nobody cares about in the US.
That or you can buy some for cheap from an evil land owner that inherited it from the ancestors of native american rapists imperialist white cis male cowboy.
/sarcasm

[Mike Christ]

I'm sure you can find land nobody cares about in the US.
That or you can buy some for cheap from an evil land owner that inherited it from the ancestors of native american rapists imperialist white cis male cowboy.
/sarcasm

Ha ha.

But seriously, no; not even land owners own their land, it's all owned by government.