this post was submitted on 12 Jan 2024
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I'm not an expert, nor do I claim to be even moderately smart about things, but I would think anarchy devolves to other labels once there's a bigger stick being used.
Edit: it might be a dictatorship, or a monarchy if the stick is jewel encrusted
This is correct. If society becomes a place where a few people are running everything by force it is not anarchy, even if technically there are no written down laws. A lot of anarchist philosophy is about how to achieve and maintain anarchy without it devolving back into hierarchical power structures. There are a lot of different ideas that have spawned their own subgenre of anarchy. I personally think some checks and balances combination of unions and community councils is the most likely to succeed. This is anarcho-syndicalism.
Yes, anarchy is an interrim state in which no power mechanic has yet taken hold. But naturally it will, in one way or another.
That is a misconception. Anarchism is a equal distribution of power among all participants. This will not change "naturally". It can be changed by either efforts from within to establish a single individual or group as a ruler over the rest, or by outside forces. Neither I would classify as happening just naturally.
There is a lot of confusion around anarchism, because it is a negative description: It's a collective without leader, without governing institutions. It doesn't say much about how this collective organizes instead. So you could call the chaotic state after a government coup Anarchy. But that isn't what anarchists are talking about and I don't think that is what OP meant either.
Anarchy as a deliberate system is when a group of people decides to work or live together without selecting a leader or any other form of government, instead resolving decisions that affect everyone together. In that sense it is not an interim state, a leadership-vacuum just waiting to be filled. Although of course Anarchy can transition into another system by various means, but so can every other system as well.
It is natural. Any particular individual's actions are not natural - but the fact that, amongst a large, diverse group of people, there will be someone who would try to establish themselves or their group as rulers - is just a statistical property. So any anarchic system needs a mechanism to counter that.
Not necessarily. Anarchy doesn't imply chaos or complete absence of societal structures.
It mostly means no central ruling group/class or individual holds the monopoly on violence and government.
i'm also not super educated on this but this much i know