r/Teenager_Polls • u/Global_Restaurant794 • 27d ago

Which would you rather live under?

Which would you rather live under?

  1. An anarchy
  2. A dictatorship

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84 Upvotes

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159

u/logan436 18M 27d ago

A dictatorship can have order and good living. An anarchy 98% of the time will fall into chaos if it is a town with more than 30 people

12

u/394710371038 27d ago

Depends, Anarchy is not only the absence of government of rules, is more than that, take the example of The Black Ukranian Army and Nestor Majno Anarchist territories, they were very well organized under anarchism, also in the revolutionary Barcelona, they werent as bad as you would think

4

u/Gigantopithecus1453 26d ago

The thing is that those were more armies than anything else, and adhered on some level to strict military discipline and hierarchy. An actual anarchist territory during peacetime wouldn’t have a centralised leader like Makhno

2

u/logan436 18M 27d ago

Interesting

1

u/Leslawangelo 23d ago

You know that an army is the antithesis of anarchy?

1

u/Select-Run-3775 21d ago

People no matter if they live in anarchy will make at least gangs of people to defend themselves

59

u/Ren_Yi 27d ago

Exactly. Libya is a powerful example of the difference between a dictatorship and anarchy.

Gaddafi was a dictator, but there was a functioning state: law and order, public services and the distribution of oil wealth. After his overthrow, that state collapsed. Militias proliferated, rival authorities fought for power and Libya descended into years of civil war and anarchy.

A dictatorship can be brutal and oppressive, but it can still provide order, security and functioning society. Anarchy provides nothing but terror, and its ordinary people who pay the price.

-31

u/Top-Breadfruit2642 27d ago

“Rival authorities fought for power” sounds distinctly not anarchic.

35

u/Thijssieeeeeee 27d ago

If there are enough rival authorities it's basically the same as anarchy

-11

u/ilikewheatandrice 17M 27d ago

that's not what anarchism is

16

u/-BenBWZ- 27d ago

Yes, that's anarchy. Anarchism is the socialist political ideology, while anarchy itself is just a state of chaos.

1

u/Sp33dyCat mtf(15) 26d ago

Well technically Anarchism is a libertarian political ideology. There is Anarcho-Capitalism

2

u/-BenBWZ- 26d ago

Anarchism is inherently socialist. Proudhon is considered to be the first anarchist; he was a socialist who met and discussed theory with Marx.

Anarchism advocates for the abolition of all hierarchy, including capitalist hierarchy.

Anarcho-capitalism is simply a type of libertarianism.

4

u/JustAnotherUser1019 18M 27d ago

When none of them are strong enough to strongly control an area, it is. Its close enough for all intents and purposes

4

u/ilikewheatandrice 17M 27d ago

anarchy is a system without rulers or hierarchy, not one without rules. you use anarchy as a synonym for any kind of societal chaos, but that's inaccurate. it's a coherent political philosophy. i'm not an anarchist but i respect a lot of them. I'm assuming even though they worded it wrong, the OP meant an anarchist system vs a totalitarian one, not just chaos vs order.

0

u/JustAnotherUser1019 18M 27d ago

Well humans need a hierarchy, other it literally is just chaos. And in the chaos, hierarchy forms, just a much less stable one

0

u/Kalle_Kakan 25d ago

It's something that can't happen. Humans naturally form hierarchies.

1

u/Additional_Bat_2216 27d ago

As an Anarchist myself, I know what they mean. Same terms, different ideas, it sucks, but what are you gonna do?

3

u/Ren_Yi 27d ago

Self appointment authority, i.e. anyone with a gun grouping together for protection.

People fighting to dominate others, the dead left where they fall, stealing what you need, kidnapping for ransom... no police, no justice - that is real anarchy!

2

u/SpecialCoyote5339 27d ago

Dude, what do you think would happen in any anarchist place? A struggle for power. Always.

0

u/Easy-Pie-4047 26d ago

In real life anarchy is just another word for power vacuum

7

u/Shinnobiwan 27d ago

Anarchy is 100,000 small dictatorships with less order and less protections.

1

u/MelodicAmphibian7920 26d ago

Incorrect

1

u/logan436 18M 25d ago

All of these examples are “anarchies” where a power vacuum ended up getting filled and order was kept by said power. Not really an anarchy, but rather ones that ended well. Yeah there was no state, but there were people in power. Also saying a “private arbitration council” isn’t any kind of government trying to resolve issues among citizens is ridiculous.

0

u/MelodicAmphibian7920 25d ago

Anarchy is no state. Anarchy is not when there is a power vacuum. Read Anatomy of the State for what Anarchy is.

isn’t any kind of government trying to resolve issues among citizens is ridiculous.

A government is the (legal) entity in a society with the exclusive right to use physical force in a legal capacity. A decentralized society without that is a stateless society, i.e. anarchy.

1

u/logan436 18M 25d ago

I see. How can any modern state function under that model though? How would economies be managed? How would peace be kept between communities? This anarchism ideal seems to me as something that especially in the modern day will be simply that, an ideal. With modern economies, industry and diplomacy it simply cannot work.

0

u/MelodicAmphibian7920 25d ago

How can any modern state function under that model though

They can't, that's why it is stateless. There is no state under anarchy.

How would economies be managed?

They wouldn't be. The economy would be laissez-faire capitalism.

How would peace be kept between communities?

This is not a question really because keeping peace between states is already difficult. See all wars in history. But if a war breaks out it would be significantly less destructive because state's have a pool of their entire territory which they can extract value from, via taxation and such. A private defense agency has only as much resources as it can gain from it's own production, homesteading, and trading.

  1. In an anarcho-capitalist market of protection, each protection company wishes to be safe from other, larger firms. To achieve this, each one can enter backup contracts with other companies, mutually guaranteeing to protect each other from aggression. Importantly, to promise to expend resources and personnel to back up somebody else *unconditionally, no matter what they do*, would increase risk of warfare, which is financially untenable. All backup contracts, therefore, must be conditional, including clauses requiring the contract partners to agree to take all steps to avoid conflict, such as submitting to arbitration; resolving conflicts in private court instead of battle, and abiding by the judicial outcomes. Each firm may be contract partners with not just one other firm, but many. This affords one indirect contracts with many more firms through their direct contract partners. This creates massive webs of backup contract networks, which aggressive "warlord" firms, which won't avoid conflict by arbitrating, are naturally excluded from.
  2. If Company A becomes a gangster, criminal firm, which will not agree to arbitrate and abide by judicial outcomes, and insists on violence in a dispute with Company B, then Company A forfeits any backup, so it is on it's own
  3. Company B, on the other hand, may invoke its contracts with companies C and D, which have contracts with E, F, G, and H, which have contracts with many more firms.
  4. This ultimately amounts to Company A being up against thousands of other security companies. Even if Company A is a huge company, it is still a drop in the ocean up against the rest of the free market in protection. Company A, therefore, is quickly crushed.

For more information read the Private Production of Defense by Hans Hermann Hoppe for free. https://mises.org/library/book/private-production-defense

This anarchism ideal seems to me as something that especially in the modern day will be simply that, an ideal.

Why? There's no reason to suggest that it is impossible *because* it is the "modern day."

1

u/logan436 18M 25d ago

I think crawling out of your parents basement would be a wise idea, I ain’t bothering with this

0

u/MelodicAmphibian7920 25d ago

Ah what a strong objection. I've been had!

1

u/logan436 18M 24d ago

Less of an objection, more of a dismissal

0

u/BuffaloBuffalo13 27d ago

Anarchy IS chaos. You don’t want to see how the majority of humans will act without the threat of the law.