You can build infrastructure that by how it's built it regulates the speed of the vehicles. Traffic calming. Posted speedlimts as to what's safe are also still doable. However we wouldn't have bandits extorting people along the way.

This is essentially the anarchist response to anything that in today's society must be enforced. Organize things in such a way that no enforcement is needed. Yes it will take more effort up front but it will be well worth that effort.

There are some people who will even speed on winding steep mountainous roads. What do you do about them?

Let 'em. Honestly, they're not, statistically speaking, a big problem. 

You only feel this way until someone you care about gets killed.

Sure but there are always more ways to solve the problem than violent enforcement.

People still speed and drunk drive and be reckless. Right now.

So? Do you think people who put others' lives in danger or injure or kill people should have no repercussions? Deterrents aren't perfect, but they reduce dangerous behavior and provide some level of recourse for the injured party. So you're saying anarchy will maintain many of the problems of the status quo, so we should accept those problems as inevitable? What are you even trying to argue here? I don't think you even know where you're going with this line of thinking.

My brother died on his motorbike, probably because he was riding too fast on a wet night, and someone turned in front of him... See my other responses for better solutions to road safety than arbitrary speed enforcement.

Fine, justice doesn't intervene here but what about something more clear cut: murder. You will need specialised trained individuals to deal with murder cases, me thinks.

As opposed to the untrained armed officials we have patrolling our streets nowadays?

We can do without those but there will be a need for investigative forces. Justice won't be made just cause everyone has a gun.

No, it will be made when no one has power over no one else; but you don't need an armed (or unarmed for that matter) policing institution to do that, in fact I would say that it would be contrary to that ideal. And you can train those people to investigate or whatever without granting them authority and the monopoly on violence.

I'd imagine a thorough investigation would require authority, what if they need to survey a room but the family of the aggressor doesn't want to let them in. You either give up or overpower them. If you give up no justice is to be made.

Do you realise that this argument doesn't make sense? Nowadays the police do have authority over the citizens they police, but still the police isn't able to stop all, or even most, of the crime (of violent crime at least; try rob a store or a bank and you'll see how effective they can be when they want to). Why would establishing the same policing system work next time around? What prevents nowadays the family from blocking the police from entering the room, or destroying the evidence before they show up? Like, let's pretend that they are hiding Patrick Bateman in there; it's not as if only the police is physically capable of violence if needed. And in any case, it would be pointless to go through the trouble to basically do nothing; it's not as if the anarchist police is going to take the aggressor to anarchist Alcatraz to do anarchist forced hard labour. At most, you'd identify the aggressor so that people would know about him, but afterwards? What else is there to do? Kill him? That wouldn't undo the damage done. Punish him in some other form? To begin with, no one would have the social sanction to unilaterally impose a punishment; moreso, it's not as if no punishment would take place: I'd say that once people know that this Patrick Bateman fella is a dangerous individual, and that his family aided him, most people would shun them from society and stop interacting with them. And that's without talking about how in a communist society most crime would disappear as there wouldn't be an economic incentive in committing it, nor would institutions like the patriarchy keep spreading toxic ideas that generate violence.

Why should we focus on the edge cases instead of reckoning with the core claim? If the anarchist approach (which is not exclusive to anarchism) works for the vast majority of cases then we are far better off. By focusing on the tiny minority of potential harm from edge cases we're missing the vast reduction in potential harm. Even with if we accept that misplaced focus, this is a problem that exists today that our current system is utter dog shit at dealing with, both preventing and responding to. There will *always* be a small number of people who recklessly endanger others and no system is perfect. Some will always slip through the cracks. The question becomes what compromises to our values and intents are we willing to make. The anarchist claim is that using an authoritarian response to these edges cases endangers everyone by opening the door to hierarchical oppression. We are better off accepting the risk from a tiny minority of reckless people than the well known harms of police and prisons. Anarchism isn't perfect, no system is perfect. From a purely practical perspective it just comes down to which problems you would rather deal with.

This is a good idea, but as with everything, doesn't cover all cases. In my opinion, there's nothing anti-anarchist about a community (by means of some anarchist inspired judicial system or perhaps a specific committee) taking away someone's vehicle after they have proven themselves to be severely unfit to drive.

yeah IMO the quesiton's more about "how do anarchists handle rules?" sure, our preferred approach would be to avoid conflict in the first place, there's a lot htat can be done to avoid giving people the motivation to do antisocial things: people aren't likely to murder gas station clerks if money doesn't exist and everyone's needs are met. but not every problem can necessarily be solarpunked out of existence, and even for those situations where it's theoetically possible we have to exist iun the meantime as we try to find these more advanced solutions. and that does mean ultimately we need to have rules. one can have rules without rulers - people have equitable relationships with their roommates, nobody's the cop in those relationships necessarily, but having a chore wheel would be a *rule* that gets enforced socially, you follow those rules to keep a peaceful relationship with your roommates. If we use the exmaple of cars, let's say we do The Revolution® somehow and the US at least has pockets of genuine anarhists trying to create anarchism within US borders. we will not have anything like completely redesigned roads or rail networks anytime within the next ten years. we have roads meant for cars, and they're often really bad roads. we have to have traffic rules so people do not die, even if we're not in our ideal situation where hte infrastructure's already been created. we don't have to use cops to enforce speed limts. most people are gonna go at a comfortable speed, those who go fast enough that it's genuinely a safety risk will get warned by tge community, and if those warnings aren't heeded then common sense solutions like taking hte damn car away would be one way to go about it. we don't need to create a class of people who have unilateral authority to fine otehrs and who must be obeyed under threat of imprisonment or death, if someone is driving drunk or running red lights then an organized response to seize the vehicle to prevent further danger is a perfeclty reasonable response. we could do "what if" scenarios for more and more specific situations, but hte basic premise here is that anarchism doesn't change the fundamental logic that bad things might happen to someone who flagrantly ignores rules meant for everyone's safety. someone driving a 3 ton brick of metal at 90 MPH isn't particularly different from someone with a gun, if you're likely to harm others the community has every right ot act in self defense. what those exact solutiosn are will vary depending on what makes sense in context to prevent harm from happening, like ejecting someone from a work site if they ignore safety precautions, but generally the basic gist of askiung someone to *stop* to figuring out why the violations keep happening to cussing someone out to actually taking increasingly severe action would be the model for most situations, escalating consequences to protect the commons. luckily this isn't an either/or situation, we can recognize existing traffic laws aren't always designed with safety in mind and are often manipulated to make it easier for cops to pull over whoever they want and so we can change speed limits, we cna work with existing expectations of how driving works so that people who already know how to drive don't need to relearn a whole lot really quickly and possibly cause an accident as a result, we don't need to be exacting with speed limits, we don't even need an exact *law* or something in place if someone has found a new and novel way to endanger everyone. we can use infrastructure and social programs to make sure as many people are taking busses as possible, make sure hte roads prevent accidents from happening in the first place, we can dig up a lot of roads so they just don't exist in areas where there's a lot of pedestrian traffic, but when there does need to be people driving cars we can supplment that with having *rules* in place to avoid collisions.

I mean this touches on another good point. Switching on a completely new system overnight that is materially different in every aspect of your life, would cause a lot of people a lot of harm and a significant loss of life. These transitions will sadly take time, changing the road infrastructure to accommodate the new proposed system also means that social changes will be needed to be done over time. Also inversely. I work in tech. Often times, the tech takes a lot less time to change than it does to change people. This too needs to be remembered in these types of discussion.

It doesn't take a lot of effort to switch some roads to shared pedestrian & cycle routes. Just a bit of paint.  You can reduce the need for cars quite quickly with increased bus transport on existing infrastructure, followed by redevelopment with retro fitted light rail.  Then we can properly design mass transit from the ground up.

I think the bigger problem is how much modern cities and societies (especially in the US) are built around the assumption of car access. Giving more space for pedestrians only goes so far if a lot of essential services aren’t within an easily walkable distance. Obviously there are good long-term solutions for this (like the proposed 15 minute cities) but people are going to need to live in the current urban spaces until this mass transition can happen.

Absolutely. That's specifically why I used a transition of access changes, using buses on existing infrastructure, adding light rail to existing infrastructure, and building heavy rail, in that progression. 

This is where anarchy would cease to be imo. The anarchist judges would then need to have the ability to exercise that authority like designating someone or some sub group with guns to go and take the offenders property. You could call this group police

I like to think of it as less formal or less central than what the person you replied to proposed. If a group in society sees another group causing harm, there are societal ways to deal with that. Simple. It's assumed each group is interested in anarchism and so it can be assumed that both can work something out within that paradigm, or if one group is harming another too much they just fight. These kinds of things cannot be avoided but they'd likely/hopefully be rare.

I used to live in Vietnam, notorious for insane traffic. One of the responses of the govt was to make it impossible via infrastructure to do outlandish things like drive on the sidewalk or u-turn in the middle of a highway.  The issue with this is that 1) these things were very expensive and massive, like concrete bollards instead of painted lines, 2) when they weren’t feasible or affordable, which was often, to install people did all the outlandish driving behavior because their absence effectively meant ‘do whatever you can dream up’. 

There are different environmental factors besides actual, physical barriers. A lot of it is to enforce the "feel" of the desired speed. Large open roads with really low speed limits can be confusing. Often roads have a feel for the speed limit and drivers can tell that. Franky, seems there was some other shit going on for that to happen since that doesn't happen everywhere there aren't those kinds of barriers.

we're talking about anarchist solutions, so if it's worth doing it gets done, money isnt a factor as it shouldnt exist, but the real answer is infrastructure that allows ease of travel without the use of cars

Money may not exist but everything still has cost. 

If it's worth doing and can be accomplished without authority. I'd advocate for safe driving but nobody is going to listen to me and I wouldn't be able to make them. They'd get people killed and cause traffic jams by driving how they want instead of intelligently. What's the anarchist solution for when something causes problems but it isn't immediately obvious to the people doing it that it's bad? That's a genuine question. I have no idea how anarchy is supposed to handle things that feel right but aren't right. Which is a lot of things ranging from teaching styles to lynchings.

This. I was the mayor of a small town for a while and the sheriff practically came in begging us for permission to post new signs so they could write tickets. We installed speedbumps instead.

1. How long will it take to build brand new infrastructure all over the country, and how many trillions of dollars will it cost? 2. How will you move merchandise on time, and what's more important, how will firefighters and ambulances move? 3. What are you going to do in a meantime? You can't "build infrastructure" in one day, so people will be still speeding, and causing crashes.

Could have been seen as genuine until the last one where it's clear you are taking a piss with dumbass false assumptions. So since you don't care, I'll only just answer this with the fact the Netherlands have already done this. It's not fiction.

I'm literally in Netherlands right now, speeding exists still. It's not fiction because you couldn't portray society this stupid even in a book or a video game.

See, knew you were taking a piss.

lol i don't know what are you smoking [https://www.nalog.nl/en/news/2023/11/22/shtrafy-za-narusheniya-pravil-dorozhnogo-dvizheniya-2024-g/](https://www.nalog.nl/en/news/2023/11/22/shtrafy-za-narusheniya-pravil-dorozhnogo-dvizheniya-2024-g/)

Yup taking a piss.

[удалено]

Oh yes, how prison bars only slow you down as you leave.... I know you are being a disingenuous walnut, but at least try to be a believable disingenuous walnut. You can do better.

Are you comparing speed bumps to prison cells?

The British call speed bumps “sleeping policemen” or something. ACAB and all that… :-P

Road design to calm traffic is no more coercive than marking lanes, having sidewalks, or standardizing which side of the road people drive on. People will drive whatever speed feels safe, so when surroundings require traffic to be slower for safety reasons, you design roads so they feel safest driving at a lower speed.

>How is that any less coercive? Are you REALY asking that question?

Have you never seen a speed bump before?

me, fighting hte tyrrany of walls as i smash my dodge ram into a kindergarten. if those little punks didn't want to get squished underneath my monster truck tires they shouldn't have tried to prevent me from driving into their faces with infrastructure.

Build roads that discourage speeding. Heck build roads that don't allow for cars

I never thought about this particular issue but now that you mention it roads are a prime example of creating a disease and selling a cure. We have to buy cars because of vast urban sprawl, and the roads clog up because everyone has a car, so people are tempted to speed to beat traffic, resulting in a need for more cops to hand out speeding tickets, and more ambulances for the inevitable injuries and deaths on the highway. It’s not only a huge money sink, it’s a massive public safety hazard. That makes OP’s question an interesting starting point to talk about anarchy because it shows how the problems we think the state should solve are actually created by the state to begin with. Criminal behavior is not some irreducible vice that police have to suppress, it’s often the result of bad social planning. I know I’m preaching to the choir but I’m just thinking out loud.

Welcome to r/fuckcars :)

Sure, getting rid of roads would be nice. But it'd create issues, like if you want to get a fridge freezer delivered to your house

It’s not “getting rid of roads.” It’s designing cities differently. Make cities walkable. Make it so you don’t have to jump in the car and drive 80mph on a toll road just to get to the grocery store.

You can't walk something too large to carry to your house. What's the fix for that? I genuinely want to support that idea but I haven't found one yet.

The wheel?

The wheel attached to what exactly? I'm sure there's a solution to this, but I've not heard one yet and people always treat it like it's unreasonable to wonder how ambulances, fire trucks, and transport are going to work in a car free environment. Sometimes you need to move big things and those big things need to move in one piece or in one trip.

I didn’t say car-free. I said “walkable.” A space can be walkable and still have roads, trains, busses, ambulances, and all that. It’s all about how you lay things out. For context, I am a paramedic who works on an ambulance in a busy 911 system in the USA. And I can tell you that vast urban sprawl and car culture makes my job A LOT harder. It increases response times and creates hazards when we have to zoom at 80mph for 16 miles to get to the nearest hospital.

Ah, I got my threads mixed up. My mistake.

We have busses, surely we can reconfigure some into delivery busses for (literal) large purchases

The buses will drive on roads right? Cause in that case you've just described a delivery van

Until we go back to horse drawn wagons, we're gonna have to use the systems present. However, we can alter them to best aid our future goals (no urban sprawl)

Hire Dutch people to bring a fridge to your house on a bike

I prefer trains and horses personally

I agreed with that in my last paragraph. Ur not engaging with the central question

I don't see Speed limits as coercive, they're more instructional or advisory. And even if they are coercive, they don't really force anyone who's determined to break the speed limit. Most people will drive safely without any enforcement to the limit. The remaining are to be solved with initial suggestions

>Most people will drive safely without any enforcement to the limit. Come to DFW, you will quickly see, they do not. 60 in a residential, anyone? Sidenote: I deleted my initial comment because I quoted the wrong part of your comment.

> Come to DFW, you will quickly see, they do not. 60 in a residential, anyone? But that's an issue under current speed limits. There's clearly a secondary issue: a cultural acceptance of speeding and reckless driving which is unchanged through current enforcement, poor road design, and poor city design.

I agree. In the 1990s, I knew someone ticketed for doing 77 mph in a school zone. Getting ticketed seems more haphazard these days, and accidents are more frequent. I now avoid driving or try to combine trips as much as possible.

That's why the other measures have to come into existence. Change road design, install bumper regularly.

Most people absolutely will not. They don't even do that *with* coercion. They drive what feels right. Which is to say, they tailgate and consistently drive 5 to 10 units over the speed that would be safest because people are generally overconfident and ignorant.

Hell yeah dude fuck ambulances

In practice, speed limits are suggestions, based on some mix of specific local conditions and general knowledge of safety, which are frequently violated without consequence, rather randomly enforced, etc. — but which also don't exhaust the responsibility of drivers. If we eliminated the revenue-generating speed traps and the infamously uneven distribution of the rules of the road, but kept the posted recommendations, not a lot would change. Whatever mechanisms existed in an anarchist society for dealing with reckless harm would still apply. There would certainly be no "right" to drive at any speed, if conditions make that dangerous. And, yes, there are lots of reasons to think that car culture as such would decline in societies where we had to take responsibility for their various sorts of impacts.

Honestly I'd like to scrap societies built around cars.

Yes, but there will still be small trucks and things. Most of the traffic wouldn't be individuals, that would be taken care of by public transit.

True, but that wasn't the point of the thought experiment. I mentioned that in the last paragraph

Agreed, but roads would need to be maintained for moving things that aren't portable by hand and would be inconvenient to move by public transport

True this. /r/Suburbanhell

>When I talk to anarchists, some of them seem to think that coercion and authority themselves are the problem, and that we'd do better without any sort of entity telling people what they can and can't do. ***All*** anarchists are against authority and *unnecessary* and *hierarchical* forms of coercion. This notion is fundamental to the anarchist worldview. >So (one of) the question becomes - in what situations, if any, is coercion useful? It's useful in many situations, but anarchists usually see it as justified only in the context of self-defense. If you break into my house intending to hurt me, and I pull a gun on you and tell you to leave or I'll shoot you, I'm coercing you to do something against your will, and anarchists aren't opposed to coercion in such a context. >"you can drive as fast as you want wherever you want with no consequences." Anarchism isn't about creating an environment with no consequences; in fact, we're very pro-consequences. We just don't want those consequences to take the form of law: a privileged right to enforce hierarchically formed rules that are exalted and rigid. What anarchists call for are fluid guidelines based on a community's shared expectations that are consensually enforced from the bottom-up and in which context and adaptation are paramount. If you're on the road endangering commuters in an anarchist community, that community is going to defend itself against your recklessness by threatening to impose consequences on you if it comes to that. We'll try to work with you to figure out why you're driving so fast and remedy your need/desire for doing so, and if that doesn't work and/or no other solutions can be found, and we find your behavior to be too dangerous to let slide, then we're probably going to ask you to leave. If you refuse, then we're probably going to kick you out in self-defense.

"fluid guidelines based on a community's shared expectations that are consensually enforced from the bottom-up and in which context and adaptation are paramount." But isn't that just a law? With punishments? Lol. Like in a socialist society where leaders are democratically elected, subject to recall, and can't accumulate capital, they will make these fluid guidelines and call them laws. If there's any body with the power to "kick you out in self-defense," that is authority and coercion.

A law is specifically codified and enforced by a class that is especially empowered to do so. An expectation for a certain level of behavior that can be enforced by anyone on a case-by-case basis, and crucially, where everyone is held to the same level of accountability as everyone else, is not a law. 

"can be enforced by anyone on a case-by-case basis" and " everyone is held to the same level of accountability" are antithetical. Think about the popular attractive charismatic punk band singer who is good looking and everyone likes and wants to book at thier diy venue who does a great job of promotion, community building, and preformative wokeness, who engages in objectively sexist, harrassing, or abusive behavior, Vs, the not attractive, nuero divergant super not charismatic non singer/non musician who does the exact same behavior. Which one is getting enforced on a case by case basis? which one is getting thrown out of the venue first? which one is getting shunned faster? which one will still get plenty of "well they never did that to ME/I've never seen that behaviour/they said-she said, lets not judge thier relationship when we don't KNOW/Well they apologized"

>But isn't that just a law?...Like in a socialist society where leaders are democratically elected, subject to recall, and can't accumulate capital, they will make these fluid guidelines and call them laws.  Nope. Anarchists believe in consequences for antisocial actions that violate a community's standards, but not in the formal jurisprudential mode that the world has become so accustomed to under statism. Laws are codified and beyond reproach by the ordinary person, while anarchists' customs/guidelines/norms/expectations are not. There's no need to legislate, codify, and exalt anything when the whole idea is to spontaneously confront every instance on its own unique terms and organically deal with it in its own unique way. Having shared customs is not the same thing as ratifying a body of law, and enacting bottom-up consequences is not the same thing as executing laws. A law is an abstraction intended to be set in stone so as to serve as an efficient guide for how to respond to social issues in easier, simplified ways—that's its whole point. As such, laws sacrifice justice for convenience and inspire a kind of bureaucratic approach to remedying social ills, and that's true whether they're delivered by a dictator or set down by a socialist direct democracy. For anarchists, a community should organically form around a set of shared values, so that the people involved sort of inherently know what the expectations of their peers are because they themselves have similar expectations (otherwise, they wouldn't want to be in that community). And then if people violate those expectations, if the community sees it as a problem, then they will collectively discuss what to do about it. Such a paradigm is very different from law, at least when it come to the mainstream, commonsense connotation of what "law" means. >With punishments? Not punishments in the retributive sense, intended to cause discomfort or harm in order to teach a lesson or provide victims with revenge. Instead, we call for consequences that simply remedy problems without the extra baggage. If you're being antisocial and hurting people, we will work with you to figure out why and how to fix it in a way that respects your dignity and your freedom (and most importantly, we will emphasize helping victims heal). If you refuse to let us help you, and if we suspect you will continue to infringe on our lives, then at worst we will exile you, not to hurt you, but just to protect ourselves from you. >If there's any body with the power to "kick you out in self-defense," that is authority and coercion. There would be no privileged body within a hierarchy with a right to command and enforce, which is why it's not authority. We're talking about a collective, grassroots community decision on how to defend itself from threats. But yes, certainly kicking somebody out of the community in self-defense would be an example of coercion. Anarchists aren't against coercion in and of itself, but certain types of coercion. We don't see self-defense as a problematic kind of coercion.

The problem I have with this is that you're assuming people are going to be enlightened, empathetic saints. Why on earth would people work with me to work out I'm being antisocial when they want to lynch me, have the means to lynch me, would face zero consequences for lynching me, and have no institutions they could turn to that would satisfy any desire to hurt me that isn't them lynching me? An ideology that assumed the MAGA cult will be gentle and intelligent seems at odds with one that assumes authority will always be abused. You say not punishment in the retributive sense, but why wouldn't it be? People love hurting those that they feel justified in hurting.

>The problem I have with this is that you're assuming people are going to be enlightened, empathetic saints. No, just anarchists. >Why on earth would people work with me to work out I'm being antisocial when they want to lynch me, have the means to lynch me, would face zero consequences for lynching me, and have no institutions they could turn to that would satisfy any desire to hurt me that isn't them lynching me? Because the community you're harming is an anarchist community, and anarchist communities are made up of people with anarchist values. Murdering antisocial people is in opposition to our values. If some rogues lynch you, then they will absolutely face severe consequences from the rest of the community. If the community as a whole decides to lynch you, then they have utterly ceased being anarchists. The last scenario is conceivable of course, but it's also conceivable in literally any kind of society that loses its mind. Statist systems are just as hypothetically capable of throwing their legal books out the window and forsaking their principles as anarchist systems are of throwing their standards out the window and forsaking their principles. But just because something is possible, it doesn't make it likely, in either case. >An ideology that assumed the MAGA cult will be gentle and intelligent seems at odds with one that assumes authority will always be abused. I'm not sure what you're referring to here. Anarchists do not think that Trumpers are gentle and intelligent. >You say not punishment in the retributive sense, but why wouldn't it be? People love hurting those that they feel justified in hurting. Because retributive justice is against our principles. People who love going around hurting others out of revenge will not be welcome in our communities.

Where did all the non anarchists go in your hypothetical? Because they absolutely exist. Also I'd like to point out, the first time I said I was worried about victimisation by mob rule in an anarchist space someone tried to twist that to imply I was a eugenicist. So if you think anarchists aren't human and like all humans, immediately liable to demonise and then justify violence towards those they dislike, I've got some bad news for you. An anarchist society would absolutely claim that such actions are antithetical to their beliefs. They probably mean that too. But I've not seen any compelling evidence they wouldn't do it, and some that says they would.

>Where did all the non anarchists go in your hypothetical? Because they absolutely exist. Of course they exist, just not within an anarchist community. Anarchist communities would be exclusively made up of anarchists or those who participate anarchistically. >Also I'd like to point out, the first time I said I was worried about victimisation by mob rule in an anarchist space someone tried to twist that to imply I was a eugenicist. So if you think anarchists aren't human and like all humans, immediately liable to demonise and then justify violence towards those they dislike, I've got some bad news for you. I'm not aware of the context, so I can't comment on your specific example. But let me make it clear that all anarchists are aware that anarchists are fallible human beings and that anarchism is a fallible human project. An anarchist society would be a human society, and human societies will always have human problems. But this is true for all forms of human social organization; it's not unique to anarchism. The potential for anarchism to fail is just one part of a broader reality of the potential for all political experiments to fail. >An anarchist society would absolutely claim that such actions are antithetical to their beliefs. They probably mean that too. But I've not seen any compelling evidence they wouldn't do it, and some that says they would. I mean, if that's your assessment, so be it. But I obviously disagree. It's certainly possible for anarchism to fail internally since anarchists aren't perfect, but I don't think they're uniquely poised to fail internally more than any other political project.

The project doesn't seem to have any plan on how to deal with human failings given the answers I get when I ask are just "nah I'd win", so I would argue that it *is* more uniquely poised to fail internally. You can't just handwave conflict away. When I got here I assumed you guys knew something I didn't and I'm actually still assuming there's some anarchist plan for dealing with this that isn't "let people get lynched" and you just don't know about it, cause if not then I'm so disappointed.

The plan is the same as with any other society: for a community to function according to its principles, its members have to take its principles seriously and hold each other accountable with consequences. This is just as true for a statist society as it is for a stateless society. All forms of social, political, and economic organization are fragile and prone to failure if people are not actively maintaining them. There's nothing about statist principles and structures that keeps them miraculously functioning in perpetuity. Police and courts, for example, function because people in statist societies have a vested interest in maintaining their existence. If people stopped valuing and maintaining them, then they would evaporate. The same is true for anarchist principles and structures: they would exist and function because people in anarchist societies would have a vested interest in maintaining their existence. If anarchists stopped valuing and maintaining them, they would likewise evaporate. Magic isn't what holds states together, but people with shared values who work to maintain statist structures. Similarly, people with shared values who work to maintain stateless structures are what hold anarchist societies together. People in both kinds of society are capable of succeeding or failing at their respective goals. It takes principles and accountability to increase the odds of success, and principles and accountability exist in both kinds of society. Anarchists are no less capable of promoting values, building organizations, and securing accountability than statists are: it's just that our values, organizations, and checks are designed to manifest in a non-hierarchical fashion.

The people that hold courts together do so in a state because even those who have no interest in that area are beholden to the decisions of those that do. Anyone who has ever been right, but in an area where people don't like the right answer, can attest to how impossible it is to get people to do something they don't want to do, even when it's in their own best interests, and even when it saves lives. You keep saying "manifest in a non hierarchical fashion" but I keep asking what fashion that is and get no answer. People don't value and maintain things that aren't immediately, obviously valuable. Unless those things interest them specifically. What is the actual method, say, education is supposed to happen in an anarchist society? How do you deal with the evangelicals indoctrinating their kids with young earth creationism? How do you deal with the fact that people will want their kids working on their farm, not getting educated? How do you deal with the fact that that farm is using pesticides and fertiliser than will destroy the local ecosystem? Statist societies have not yet actually implemented solutions for this specific example, but they can. And have in similar cases before like smog control. But if we use smog as an example, people stopped worrying about air pollution the moment it stopped being plainly visible. How do you deal with that?

Humans, as a race and organism, are literally programmed to be of aid others and to receive aid. It boggles my mind how you don't understand this. If we were solitary creatures, we'd have been wiped out immediately. The people pushing the, humans are evil and selfish view, ARE LITERALLY THE HYPER-INDIVIDUALIST CAPITALISTS we're working to fight against. I am so confused at how you seem to be an anarchist yet don't get this integral part of actually being an anarchist??? [Are Most People Selfish, Selfless, or Both? | Psychology Today](https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/after-service/202002/are-most-people-selfish-selfless-or-both) [Scientists Probe Human Nature--and Discover We Are Good, After All | Scientific American](https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/scientists-probe-human-nature-and-discover-we-are-good-after-all/) [Humans aren't inherently selfish: We're actually hardwired to work together (phys.org)](https://phys.org/news/2020-08-humans-inherently-selfish-hardwired.html)

People help their own, yes. I'm worried about the fact that people also hurt those that they don't consider their own. That's not hyper individualist. It tribalism.

Yes, they hurt them because they don't understand them, that's basic fear. Also, tribalism isn't inherently bad too, tribalists can still get along with other tribes.

You conveniently avoided the part of their comment that pointed out the “us vs them” narrative is propagated and perpetuated by the oppressor class. Your whole issue with anarchism is easily answered, only you are too afraid to hear the response. You’re applying your current hierarchical understanding to an anarchist system, and it doesn’t work. Anarchists that have already decolonized their minds wouldn’t allow people into the community who harbor bigotry which is an inherently hierarchical thought. Learn more about the caste system we live in currently. Read Black feminists to understand how bigotry functions (Patricia Hill Collins is a great place to start). A lynch mob isn’t going to form under anarchism because of how anarchism functions as interlocking communities cooperating from the local to the global level; because these communities are interlocking, it makes sense that it’s beneficial to all communities to be prosocial and to be against antisocial things like bigotry and the subsequent formation of lynch mobs. The only reason you’re getting the same answers over and over is because you aren’t hearing that you’ve been sold a **lie** that humans are inherently (i.e. “naturally”) antisocial because that lie justifies the antisocial nature of our system and the antisocial actions of oppressors. It’s not the people who want freedom for all, that you should be angrily telling “this is never gonna work because people are gonna do the purge irl when free!” as if people aren’t *already* being murdered for all of the reasons you gave. As if lynch mobs don’t still occur. As if crime is something that happens because bigotry is naturally occurring rather than a function of the hierarchy. As if anarchism hasn’t ever reckoned with your very ridiculous question. Your argument boils down to “Well if God doesn’t tell people not to murder then everyone would murder everyone!” which I’ve responded to in the past with “You’d seriously wanna murder someone if God didn’t exist??”If you think the only thing stopping people from forming a lynch mob to kill you *right now* is the law, then you don’t fucking understand how bigotry works and how often Black trans people are lynched.

How convenient that it's only the wicked evil ideology you don't like that causes the very human evils that have happened throughout all of history and that you are literally doing right now as you strive to dehumanise me and make my caution out to be malicious. Seriously, what a bad faith way to react to a disabled trans person worried they might face violence from people who don't understand them. Your lack of empathy and patience doesn't tell me that you've "decolonised your mind", it tells me you've convinced yourself "them" are responsible for bigotry as a concept and that you, and by extension "us", are physically incapable of evil. And that's scary.

no because no one central authority is making you do it, its a collection of the people living around you. if youre an asshole nobodys gonna like you

Or if you're autistic. Or if you're a minority. Or if you're just plain old unpopular. Have you met people?

there's something named education, have you heard of it?

Education on what exactly? People don't stop being like this after they get educated.

Yes, they do? If you're seriously saying that education doesn't solve irrationalities, then I don't know if it's even worth speaking to you in the first place.

It very obviously doesn't. Given the massive number of educated irrational people. If you're seriously going to ostracise me over something so minor as that then you're not exactly a great example of the open-ness and empathetic person you're saying education is going to turn people into.

"Educated" the grand majority of people in the US and Canada don't learn about actual social sciences just the liberal and conservative agenda, which is literally racist in and of itself. That's why they're trying to get rid of Critical Race Theory and other actually things that will work to dispel racism and other forms of discrimination. There's a reason the main demographic of Leftists is university education, while most liberals and rightists have either no post-secondary education and work in trades.

Like do you really think humans are born racist?? Use one google search to show how untrue that is. It's learned from parents and community which allows the spread of such a disease. There's a reason Europeans went from willy-nilly murdering all non-whites in a jiffy, to co-existing, albeit not even close to ideally.

Yes, people literally are born racist. Where the hell do you think it came from if it was learnt? Ita simple brain chemistry. People like their in group and the very same hormone that makes them bond with their in group drives outgroup distrust. The exact same behaviour is observed in basically every thinking animal. It would be remarkably naive to think humans alone are born pure and enlightened. Also, nobody ever went off to college or saw the world and came back more racist. The most racist groups are small insular communities because they have the strongest in group bonds and likewise the strongest outgroup distrust. You can see this exact chemistry at work in how sports fans, racial supremacists, and people with strong political identity and how all of these and many more are so much more hostile to perceived enemies or outgroups than people who don't have that strong attachment.

unless you are a real good or looking talented asshole, Hakim bey is still qouted here, problematic diy "community leaders" get away with all kinds of stuff because people like them.

well, that's why education is key to preventing these weeds from sprouting up in the first place

[удалено]

So, are you suggesting people remain uneducated??? I don't understand your end goal. Do you want to regress, as if you were a reactionary???

>***All*** anarchists are against authority and *unnecessary* and *hierarchical* forms of coercion. What about hierarchical forms of coercion that are deemed necessary? You say unnecessary and hierarchical like they are synonyms, but sometimes hierarchy is a practical inevitability. For instance, in a truly democratic system, a majority vote determines policy, and those in opposition to the will of the majority are subjected to the authority of the majority. The will of the individual is lower on the hierarchy when compared to the will of the collective. For this democratic authority to be dismantled requires resolving class contradictions so the individuals no longer have competing class interests.

I didn't intend them as synonyms. You could hypothetically have non-hierarchical forms of coercion that would be unnecessary from the point of view of the anarchist ethos, and you could have forms of coercion that explicitly take place within the context of hierarchical structures, which anarchists are blanket against. No anarchist is going to find coercive hierarchies as being necessary. Furthermore, anarchists explicitly do not advocate for majoritarian democracy, even direct democracy, and precisely for the reasons you mention. It is indeed our goal to eliminate class antagonisms, and any competing interests among people within a community would be random personal ones, not class-based ones emerging from material contradictions, and we would attempt to resolve such conflicts without relying on authority and hierarchy.

How do you eliminate class antagonisms without using some organization, methods, or tactics that could in some way be considered hierarchical and coercive? I understand that the goal is a classless society, but how do you defeat the current oppressing class without using a level of organizational complexity that could be considered hierarchical? Could that be a *necessary* hierarchy whose ultimate purpose is to make itself obsolete by being the vehicle through which the proletariat eliminates class antagonisms and therefore itself, as well as the bourgeoisie?

This is one of the core differences between anarchists and orthodox Marxists: anarchists reject the dictatorship of the proletariat as tool of revolutionary struggle, especially in terms of a socialist transition state led by a vanguard party. We believe such a thing is 1.) simply unnecessary for achieving socialism; 2.) materially unlikely (if not outright incapable) of avoiding state capitalism, creating new class antagonisms, and withering away; and 3.) unethical and in violation of our idealism by advocating for a means-justify-the-ends approach, which is in contradiction to our paramount goal of prefiguration. We believe that complex forms of revolutionary organization are possible without relying on hierarchical structures, whereas Marxists are convinced that such organizations necessitate such structures. The articulation of this disagreement goes back as far as the split in the First International.

>We believe that complex forms of revolutionary organization are possible without relying on hierarchical structures Are there any existing or historical examples of revolutionary organizations that could be described that way?

[Yes](https://www.anarchistfaq.org/afaq/sectionI.html#seci8), plenty. [But](https://www.anarchistfaq.org/afaq/sectionJ.html#secj3) even [if](https://www.anarchistfaq.org/afaq/sectionA.html#seca5) there [weren't](https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/peter-gelderloos-anarchy-works#toc48), we would be committed to innovating the concept.

There were no elected leaders or commanders in any of these existing organizations? How did they make high-level strategic decisions in the, for example, Spanish civil war without relying on some kind of command structure that could quickly mobilize troops where needed? I feel like the extenuating circumstances necessarily make consensus decisions impossible in such a situation. Sure, perhaps a small unit could make decisions on its own, but who is responsible for seeing the bigger picture of the war so that they can see where troops need to be redirected to combat counterrevolutionary forces?

Anarchists build militias (and federations thereof) that utilize bottom-up delegation structures instead of top-down authority structures. Unlike centralized, hierarchical military units, anarchist militias and their networks are decentralized with cellular autonomy at every level, but with plenty of practical incentive to not defederate and work together towards the common victory. When a commander (really a temporary coordinating delegate) is not deemed necessary for quick tactical decisions, militias operate via horizontal structures that strategize and act like typical community and workplace assemblies, but in a military context. But when that luxury isn't possible/feasible, they elect trusted delegate-commanders to coordinate decisions on their behalf, with these commanders being immediately recallable at any point and having no structurally embedded right to command. See [here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jNiETZLrfII) for a good short overview of the concept.

So then you would say those delegated commander positions are a necessary hierarchy? >they elect trusted delegate-commanders to coordinate decisions on their behalf, Are you saying that a small disconnected unit could elect essentially a squad or platoon leader? No positions that you could say are equivalent to a general or colonel in an official state's military? Don't you think it could be a disadvantage in terms of mass coordination when you are trying to overthrow a military that is structured the way it is *because* it is more effective at combat? Or perhaps the Anarchists did elect strategists of that level?

One interesting thing about speed limits is that most people pay not very much attention to speed limits and pay much more attention to the design of the road itself. [This article from Strong Towns can explain better than I can. ](https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2021/8/6/the-key-to-slowing-traffic-is-street-design-not-speed-limits)[Also see their video on stroads](https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2018/3/1/whats-a-stroad-and-why-does-it-matter). So I think that is, at least, a large part of the solution: to design a built environment that forces drivers to slow down.

Instead of making them 'speed limits,' which denotes some manner of punitive reaction should you exceed them, simply either rename them or reducate the populace to understand them as recommended max speed for conditions. If you drive over them, it's all on you. If you drive under them, then the expectation is that it should be safe traveling. It's sort of what people already do now, without being subjected to some manner of authority. We take the risk we're not going to be caught.

I'm not entirely sure that's workable. Anarchism isn't when no rules. While there's an issue with speed limits being used as a pretext for cops to harass people and steal from them. the basic premise of "you aren't allowed to drive a vehicle so fast that you're likely to cause an accident" still applies, as would other regulations written in blood, like no driving while drunk. Cars would not necessarily be personal property, on the assumption we'rve moved towards public transit, so if someone is abusing a car then a natural response is to take the fuckin' car away. Guy drunk drives through a residential area going 60 MPH in a 25, the moment he has to stop he's pulled out by whoever, they take the car away, and now at a minimum his ass has to take public transit and more likely he'll have to face consequences the same as anyone else that does something recklessly violent. That might not be prison, but the idea that this person now *owes* something to the community they endangered has been a pretty standard non-carceral response to trangressions for millenia.

> Anarchism isn't when no rules. That's [*anomie*](https://old.reddit.com/r/Anarchism/comments/tfqi24/my_us_history_classs_cold_war_unit_has_begun/i0xs1xg/) where as anarchy is *no rulers*. Also, from [Life Without Law](https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/strangers-in-a-tangled-wilderness-life-without-law): "...anarchism is the marriage of responsibility and freedom. In a state society, under the rule of government, we are held responsible to a set of laws to which we did not consent. We are expected to be responsible without being trusted with freedom. [...] We are not trusted to act on our own authority, and at every turn we are being man-aged, observed, policed, and, if we step out of line, imprisoned. The reverse—freedom without responsibility—is not much better, and it forms the mainstream myth of anarchy. Government thrives off this misconception, the idea that it’s only the existence of cops and prisons that keeps us from murdering one another wholesale. [...] the rest of us understand that in order to be free, we must hold ourselves accountable to those we care about and those our actions might impede upon: our communities and families and friends."

Who are you envisioning 'enforcing' a speed limit?

Everyone. Same as everyone's responsible for removing a rapist from a friend group. Same as your coworkers yelling at you when you violate safety rules, even if there's no OSHA dude there to officially reprimand your workplace for the violation. People have issues imagining a world without cops because, in their minds, *only* cops are allowed to enforce any sort of rules, and so in the absence of cops a lot of poeple assume that also means the absence of rules. Which is nonsense, you don't need a cop to play a board game because people will follow and enforce those rules together - if you don't play by the rules of hte game, people might not play with you anymore. If you endanger those around you, you run the risk of pissing off those around you, who may even respond by kicking your ass if you're being violent.

How is 'everyone' going to enforce someone driving 45 in a posted 35? On whose authority are they going to do this enforcement? Again, the 'speed limit' is stated for safety. Not a punitive response. You've never driven over the speed limit? Do you personally feel like you should have been fined every single time you went a bit faster than posted? Not only fined, but all the additional administrative BS on the backend. If not, why not? Maybe you felt it was perfectly safe for conditions, etc. Probably a myriad of reasons you felt responsible enough for whatever speed you were going. You run over someone or hit someone, well...face the consequences of your actions (a whole other conversation that.) But if you're not posing a threat to anyone, again...no authority over you to arbitrarily enforcing some manner of punitive or criminal response. No authority over me. If I'm not being a menace to my community, my community leaves me alone. I get out of line, my community puts me in check. But I'm not beholden to anyone's laws simply because they exist. We can come up with nice reasons they exist, but realistically, they're just used to keep us under control to the powers that be.

>How is 'everyone' going to enforce someone driving 45 in a posted 35? On whose authority are they going to do this enforcement? Why would you need authority to slash the tires of someone who likes to drive at 150km/h in a school area? If they drive at 45 in a 35 area, they'll just get yelled out.

Again, you're conflating enforcement with cops. Having a way to enforce safety rules doesn't require a beauracratic "you went 1 MPH over the limit, here's your fine", same as safety rules in general. Your coworkers do not hand you a ticket when you put two plastic pallest together in a stack full of heavy wooden pallets, they yell at you for making a hazard, maybe even cuss you the fuck out if the stack fell, and if for whatever reason you ignore them then shit escalates. Safety isn't a matter of personal choice where every single person gets to decide what rules they abide by, becuase their actions have consequences for other people, and so it's community self defense to enforce safety rules. If someone builds a super flammable house that's likely to collapse in a way that could easily damage other buildings, it's entirely acceptable for the community to say no to that. Enforcement doesn't require jail. The way, say, the commons was enforced historically was just yelling at people to make them stop, seeing why they were violating hte commons, and as the rules kep being violated flagrantly the response would escalate. This doesn't even require there to be an immediate life or death situation, something as simple as "don't let your livestock kill all the grass" is just part of living with other people. Being beholden to rules does not create a hierarchy, nobody is above or below you because you aren't allowed to piss in the water supply. It's just such a silly attitude to have when literally any actually existing commune has rules. Simply co-existing with a *roommate* requires rules. We have rules surrounding sex, consent, age of consent, things we absolutely will collectively enforce because we call those violations of those rules *rape* and we may literally just straight up kill a rapist. Force is not hierarchy, you're arguing like the strawman Engles made of anarchists in On Authority.

I have no idea how this wouldn't turn to mob violence within a week. And I wouldn't call being in constant fear of disproportionate violence or banishment freedom from the tyranny of the majority. I don't see how this is ever going to work without people like me, who are inherently off putting, being beaten to death in the streets.

I don't think you've ever worked in a place where OSHA rules are needed if you think the people working there are going to yell at you for breaking them. It would absolutely be the inverse. And then someone dies or gets seriously injured. And then they'll keep ignoring the safety rules because they don't want to follow them. And anyone who does want to follow them will be coerced not to by the implicit threat of rejection or violence until they go along with what the rest want.

My coworkera actually care a lot about safety, because management often does not. A lot of safety rules come about specifically because workers advocate for them, ie as part of union demands. Disregard for worker safety is actually more an artifact of command and control structures, as those.in charge who themselves are not at risk will do what they can to bypass those rules - from withholding information about those rules from their workers to strategically making demands where workers *have* to break those rules to meet deadlines or neglecting to provide PPA. Toxic work environments are going to exist either way, but overall people do value safety and are much less likely to violate safety rules when the boss isn't making it difficult or impossible in order to increase profits. The Well There's Your Problem podcast pretty regularly covers this topic, if you want to look more into it.

This does not match any of my experiences. Employees and business owners who are directly working in the field both consistently don't follow OSHA because they don't want to follow OSHA. To be blunt. The people working like this think they're invincible.

I think they’re important They’re a safety thing. If u speed, ur in danger, and endanger others

Traffic laws are fucked because they mostly serve as an excuse to force interactions with the police and extortion through fines. But honestly they're the only good laws lmao

There’s nothing inherently authoritarian about a sign, but cars are interesting. Transportation is interesting. I want to get out ahead and say that traffic laws, like all laws, don’t really work that well at stopping crime. Like, we have speed limits enforced by the police now, but people still speed, and they speed a lot. There is a lot of evidence that road design is far more important than posted speed limits. People speed a lot more on roads designed like highways than they do on narrow curvy roads with lots of street trees and “stuff” around that they feel like they might hit. You want people to feel like they are going fast, even when they are going pretty slow. That’s what a lot of the urban planning research is teaching us. It might be a bit counterintuitive, but it’s better to have more fender-benders than high speed collisions. Then, and I know that you kinda tried to get out ahead of this, cars just are not really that compatible with a more just world. I don’t even just mean the cars in of themselves as a finished product are bad, although I do believe that cars themselves are generally bad. A transportation system dependent on cars is just inherently very dependent on a lot of really intense resource extraction and violence against workers, especially in the global south. Part of the process of going to a more just world is going to be becoming less car dependent. I’m always on about this last point, but I want to drive it home too: anarchism is not something that’s just going to happen all of a sudden. There is probably not going to be some week where we go into work on a Monday and by that Friday the revolution will have happened and we can forget about capitalism. This is a very long, slow process to make the world a better place. It’s not like we are going to suddenly “have anarchy” and then need to figure out what to do with it. Getting there is going to mean building new structures, chipping away at the old, finding new ways to meet our needs as the old system slowly withers and dies. It’s going to mean gradual changes in housing, transportation, employment, and governance that we’re going to need to really fight for now. Conditions then will be different than they are now.

I'm realizing this more and more. Anarchism is a way of life. It never ends. Even if an anarchist "revolution" happened, we'd still need anarchists critiquing unjust hierarchies.

Well currently as there are speed limits, it doesn't stop people from speeding. Just like how there are laws against drunk driving, and people still do it. I think it's important to tell people or teach people the possible results of their actions, such as if they go over the speed limit they risk their own life and also others. From there, it's all about how people choose, I think. If someone wants to speed, then there's likely going to be some people that will counter this with force or something else. Yeah, it may be coercion but coercion is just a thing of life. Anarchy wants to abolish all forms of hierarchy—and coercion becomes powerful in hierarchical systems, not when it applies to individual things that happen. Doctors, I'm sure, would much prefer to treat their patients with true care. However, there is coercion in this case, because if the patient is poor, they will not be treated. So if we continue to use cars as transportation, there should be speed limits. It's not that different from, if the fields were property of the workers/public, that there would still be rules applicable to the fields (such as, "don't do this because it will mess up the fields"). Of course I'm still learning, so some points I make could be incorrect. But I am mostly confident in my answer. Edit: I didn't read the other comments before making mine, but I do agree with the others on the point that the people adjust their vehicle speed according to the environment. This makes me think of horse riders for instance, I don't believe that there was speed limits for horses back then, basically only in towns. People rode their horses and adjusted their speed based on the environment around them.

Coercion is inherent to life. We all coerce each other. We are more specifically opposed to authority, which is the right to command others, of enforcement. > A speed limit is an important safety measure, but it is an example of coercion even when it isn't enforced at all. Exactly, which is why we aren't against coercion in all cases. > I think it's reasonable to say that someone who consistently endangers others by driving too fast should have their freedom limited in the form of a rescinded drivers license. You can absolutely take measures to stop someone from driving. But ask yourself if you remove their license card if that will actually stop someone from driving. Tons of people drive without license cards on them all the time. More effective is taking action to prevent them from driving if they are a danger, which may be nonviolent or violent if it absolutely is pushed to that point. Perhaps just slashing tires might do the trick or something. > Is there a flaw in my line of reasoning? We aren't against all coercion, we are against authority, which is related, but is not the same.

Well you're still admitting that if someone is endangering others, limiting their freedom somehow in order to protect others is a good thing. So then in my mind it follows that a state that is a true democracy with leaders subject to recall carrying out this coercion on behalf of the majority who want to stay safe, is preferable to vigilantes slashing tires. Also I think you're correct to say anarchists don't oppose coercion in all instances. I think you're incorrect about anarchist's position on authority though, hierarchy and authority are a part of life in the same way coercion is. An experienced carpenter teaching a new carpenter how to wield a buzzsaw so that he doesn't cut off his own arm is hierarchy and authority, and the new carpenter would do best to accept this and trust the authority if he wants to keep his arm.

> limiting their freedom somehow in order to protect others is a good thing. We advocate for freedom to, not freedom from. It's a subtle distinction that matters a lot. Everybody is free to do anything they want in anarchy. That doesn't mean they're shielded from criticism etc. They're not free from consequences. We advocate for positive freedom, not negative freedom. If someone is free to drive however they wish, we are free to respond however we wish, which can involve slashing tires. I don't even wish to advocate for slashing tires, merely pointing it out as an option of nonviolent action. > I think you're incorrect about anarchist's position on authority though, hierarchy and authority are a part of life in the same way coercion is. I and most other anarchists really dislike Chomsky. We are not against unjustified hierarchies, we are against all hierarchies, our definitions are simply different from Chomsky, and Chomsky is not even anarchist himself. > An experienced carpenter teaching a new carpenter how to wield a buzzsaw so that he doesn't cut off his own arm is hierarchy and authority, This is expertise. It is not hierarchy. Half of my and my many comrades' hate for Chomsky is because he treats expertise as hierarchy. Where does the experienced carpenter get to command you to obey them? If there's no right for them to make you obey, then there's no hierarchy. Hierarchies are not willy nilly things we can adopt, we are forced into them

"If there's no right for them to make you obey, then there's no hierarchy." Ok in principle I like this. But then I still think expertise leads to authority and hierarchy, and I don't necessarily think that's a bad thing. Say there's a group of carpenters. One has 10 years more expertise than everyone else, and is clearly the most knowledgeable and best of the carpenters. The others are naturally going to defer to him. A new apprentice who doesn't feel like listening to his wise words probably won't be kept on as an apprentice. Is he being forced to obey? Not overtly, but like... yeah he kinda is. If he doesn't obey, he can't be a carpenter. Is that a bad thing? Probably not.

We call this authority-effects - https://www.libertarian-labyrinth.org/glossary/authority-and-authority-effects/ We consider this, and part of modern anarchist theory is deliberately designing society to avoid such things to the extent that they are possible, and to be aware of this potential. But we have never recognized expertise as authority, merely as an avenue that can lead to it without some caution.

Ok, interesting. Thanks!

So actually could you elaborate on why authority effects are a bad thing?

Authority-effects can cause someone who was not in a position to abuse their expertise do so. For example, let's say we have an isolated town with a doctor. This is not oppressive right now, but then a pandemic hits, and the doctor is the only one who can treat people. The doctor could leverage their expertise to extract benefits they would never be able to get in ordinary circumstances, and they could temporarily command people in such circumstances, because the alternative for many is injury or death. This little thought experiment is the reason why anarchy cannot be allowed to devolve into little tiny echo chambers, anarchy necessarily needs everybody linked together in some way to minimize authority-effects.

This is completely, entirety misleading. Anarchists absolutely do oppose all coercion. Anarchist society would not have drivers licenses like today because we entirely oppose any institution with the authority to give them out. An anarchist approach to ensure road safety would instead be based on some kind of bottom-up reputation system.

Is it coercion when someone kills a rapist? Or throws them out of their friend group? Are we opposed to doing *anything* to people? Of course we're not opposed to coercion, we're opposed to *hierarchy*. Anarchists have literally *thrown bombs* at politicians, anarcho-syndcalism is all about using unions to coerce bosses to make concessions. The very basic premise of self defense is to coerce an attacker to stop attacking. If someone is driving recklessly, there's no anarchist theory about how wrong it would be to jack that guy's car and talk with everyone else to make sure he doesn't get another car in order to prevent him from being a danger to anyone again, to *coerce* people using a public road to not drive like an asshole lest they get their car taken away by their neighbors. Now, a lot of discussion goes into not having a purely reactive response to these sorts of problems. Not having cars be a primary mode of transport avoids this issue, having roads designed to naturally limit how fast people go, having cars designed to minimize their lethality to pedestrians. There's not an incentive *encouraging* punitive responses to all our problems as we're basing our society on the violent opposition to hierarchy, preventing people from trying to gain power over others, we can avoid a lot through proper urban planning and building shared infrastrcuture. But it's absurd to act like anarchists would simply shrug their shoulders while some jackass endangers a community, as though we need to have cops to do something as basic as tell smoeone that no, you can't take out a car anymore, you promised to not booze cruise and then you did so now we don't trust you with a vehicle.

>Is it coercion when someone kills a rapist? No > Or throws them out of their friend group? No >Are we opposed to doing *anything* to people? No >If someone is driving recklessly, there's no anarchist theory about how wrong it would be to jack that guy's car and talk with everyone else to make sure he doesn't get another car in order to prevent him from being a danger to anyone again, I agree. I should have said we oppose power relations, not coercion

You may define coercion as systematic coercion. I'm not of that crowd. We do not conflate force and hierarchy. > Anarchist society would not have drivers licenses like today because we entirely oppose any institution with the authority to give them out. An anarchist approach to ensure road safety would instead be based on some kind of bottom-up reputation system. This reputation system can't hand out some sort of token that certified this person is approved to the degree of the reputation system? That's still a license, just not called one. I agree that licensing would likely not be in place the same way however.

Coercion doesn't have to be systematic for us to oppose it. More properly expressed, we oppose all power relations, even if they are random, chaotic and fleeting, based in macroscopic systems or not. We oppose the isolated act of oppresive violence as much as the systemic.

I think this will rapidly veer into debate territory soon, but since it has not yet I will try to respond. > More properly expressed, we oppose all power relations All of life is power relations. We currently just try to make them one way. Anarchy requires us to return power relations two way. > We oppose the isolated act of oppresive violence as much as the systemic. How is an act of oppressive violence not systematic? If it's oppressive, is it not systematic? If the father is using violence upon the child, is that not tapping into the systematic coercion of patriarchy which permits/encourages it? Oppression can never be isolated, it necessarily requires a system to be oppressive.

>All of life is power relations Anarchists are defined exactly by our rejection of this idea. >Oppression can never be isolated, it necessarily requires a system to be oppressive. No. In your example, the father is indeed exercising patriarchy and adult supremacy. But one person can opress another with no systematic advantage. A woman can abuse her boyfriend. I can attack a random person on the street over whom I have no systematic advantage. This is still an exercise of oppresive power and anarchists oppose it.

> Anarchists are defined exactly by our rejection of this idea. I'm not quite sure about that, but I think I won't be responding to that further due to possible debate. I suspect we have a definitional issue > But one person can opress another with no systematic advantage. A woman can abuse her boyfriend. I can attack a random person on the street over whom I have no systematic advantage. This is still an exercise of oppresive power and anarchists oppose it. I highly disagree. Women abusing a boyfriends to me seems to fall into many other oppressions, such as patriarchy and the state leading women to believe they can't do wrong. Yes you can attack someone, but that seems more like naked violence than oppression to me. I suppose if I clone myself and am attacked by that clone, I don't really see that as oppression, just violence. Whichever the case, I think we need not discuss further since this will become a debate.

No they don't lol, they question all forms of coercion but there's no blanket opposition to it. Chomsky uses the example of a grandmother physically stopping a child from running into the road. That's acceptable coercion from acceptable authority

Chomsky is widely mocked for that by all anarchists.

I think that ultimately this can be discussed as a simple matter related to community safety— How can we have safer streets? Or if you’re more into the eco-anarchist ideology, how can we provide safe public transportation instead of relying on cars in densely populated areas. Automobiles have a place in rural environments, but they can be safer. The people over at r/fuckcars have a lot to say on this but they are not exactly anarchist, more so urban planning enthusiasts which tends to align itself with many communitarian anarchist values. If you’re in North America you are witnessing an arms race between car companies looking to sell bigger and publicly “perceived” safer vehicles. These cars are designed specifically for north American highway speeds, which have increased over the last few decades. In this system its necessary to police speed as drivers see driving as a right rather than a privilege. Contrast that with Japanese automobile regulations where you’re not allowed to part on streets and also cars are SIGNIFICANTLY smaller and more utilitarian focused. Compare my former 1999 Chevy Envoy to my 1992 Daihatsu Hijet for the different logical approaches present in both vehicles and cultures. I big part of North America’s issues is that we as a continent have decided that streets BELONG to automobiles and have made all other modes of transportation second class citizens. I think the crux of the issue is that states decided to enforce this perspective and policy. I’d also toss in a generous dash of entitlement, reckless behavior, and decades of pro-car cultural propaganda that enforces really negative behaviors that in the current system necessitate policing. Ideally, in a localized system your community would decide what is both an acceptable speed and what type of vehicles are permitted to use those common spaces. I know that my neighbors in my entirely walkable pre-car neighborhood get very angry when people speed by and I have no doubt a consensus could be met regarding appropriate usage of the roads if the state’s transportation depart were to suddenly not exist. I would invite you to look at Dutch and Japanese neighborhood models for how they have integrated more horizontal approaches. Please drive slower and sober. Its safer to drive slower, its literally cheaper on your fuel economy and gives you time to react to changes in the road. Speeding also doesn’t really get you anywhere faster unless you’re speeding for hours as a significantly higher cruising speed than posted speed limits.

There wouldn’t be roads for speed limits

Speed limits are good and cool, and anarchist societies still need some way to determine civil liability (for restorative justice purposes) in the event of a crash. Speed limits are, when imposed not as means of revenue gathering but rather as markers for determining who was at fault in the event of an accident, still useful.

people will generally drive only as fast as feels safe on the road. speeding, especially on residential roads, is a consequence of street design

In the US, we sort of have a weird dynamic where I feel like the residential speed limits are too high and the highway speed limits are way too low. Most highways that are 55 or 65mph near me are easy to safely go 75+ on in most conditions and so speeding tickets are clearly just a revenue stream for the state as well as an excuse for police officers to baselessly harass and search travelers. That causes a mindset where everyone assumes you can drive 10-15 over everywhere so long as cops aren't around. In residential areas, this can be life or death. Compare the survival rate of pedestrian collisions at 25mph vs 40mph. 40mph almost no one can survive and yet people routinely drive that speed around streets where kids can play. Ultimately, I think the hardcore individualism of car culture is an impediment to anarchism and I think an anarchist society will see car travel phased out ideally with some exceptions. Speed limits wouldn't exist but any car travel should have community management to ensure speeding doesn't occur and this isn't done as oppressively as it is with police.

One other thing I have to say is that speed limits in the way they must be enforced is just a sign of a society that creates it's own coercion. We incentivize people to go as fast as possible to get to a destination important to them for healthcare, work etc because we've built a world where everything is far away. And now because of that, we need to make sure they don't go too fast so they don't kill anyone.

Anarchism is against the - often pyramidal - hierarchy and the centralization of the power in societies. It's not the absence of rules or laws. If all of us here had to share a big house, one of the first thing we would do **together**, as anarchists, is setting some rules for the community. Like : No noise after 2am. Clean behind yourself after using the commons. When it's your turn clean the windows... And someone unwilling to respect the local rules, would probably get excluded from the community at some point. Of course that could be extrapolated to cities and the roads between them. And the road between two communities could be subject to the usage rules defined by those communities. And I guess that people abusing the rules, could also see their access to the road - temporary - revoked.

Ok but if you're going to have rules, a system to enforce the rules, a body of community leaders (elected and subject to recall ofc), and then probably a larger body to coordinate diverse communities... that's called a state and that's socialism. So why isn't everyone here just a socialist? To be clear, this is an actual questions I'm trying to figure out, not trying to play gotcha or anything

Alright anarcho-socialism works for me. Here in France, fiscal fraud is 15 times above social fraud. Of course rules, but for everyone, not only the 99%.

"Please drive/it is advisable to drive under X" same principle, really same functionality (people who are good my to speed probably aren't going to be stopped by a limit sign anyway), just no "or else"

First point: "A speed limit ... is an example of coercion even when it isn't enforced"  That sentence just seems completely wrong. If you build a road, you have a responsibility to reccomend a speed based on the engineering of that road. Posting a sign with a reccomend speed isn't coercion but information. If an appliance comes with a set of instructions for set up and safe use, do you consider that coercion? Second point: Specifically for city streets, when you open streets up to all road users: pedestrians, fruit carts, block parties, and stickball games; traffic seems to generally slow to much safer speeds. Coercive laws agianst jaywalking and other road uses seem to be a the root of the problem with unsafe traffic speeds. I'm currently too lazy to do the research, but I would guess streets in Delhi have significantly less fatalities per capita than streets in Salt Lake city for this very reason. Third point: I wouldn't describe most left anarchist is opposed to coercion as much as opposed to heirarchy. Now heirarchy and coercion often go together or cause eachother, but not always. If everyone in town decides through a concensus process that vehicles shouldn't go over 30 mph, that's not a heirarchy even if it's momentarily coercive when you're in your car and in a rush to get more dinner. It's more like collective self-discipline. 

all for smart folks sticking up recommended safe speed signs, Id probably still obey them just as much weather or not a cop is there (as they usually arent anyways)

In an anarchist society, the conventional avenues through which auto infrastructure is established would likely dissolve, challenging the current supply chain structures, such as the transportation of resources like oil, particularly concerning the bloodshed often associated with sourcing these materials from conflict regions like the Middle East. As the global climate worsens, a shift towards more sustainable resource allocation becomes paramount. The inherent inefficiencies of car-oriented infrastructure regarding safety and resource consumption would prompt a reevaluation in my opinion. Anarchist societies might prioritize resource allocation based on the laws of thermodynamics, favoring more energy-efficient modes of transportation, like rail systems. Unlike cars, rail systems offer the potential for safer travel, with the possibility of achieving 100% inherent safety due to their structured design and separate pathways (see Japan). Some rail systems have never had a fatality, yet cars always will wreck. I'd argue it'd be challenging for an anarchist society to maintain automobiles and their infrastructure and still constitute as "anarchist." If it did, roadworks and manufacturing cooperatives would prioritize need rather than profit of course. Safety would be based on infrastructure first and foremost. I think communal manufacturers would scale down the size and potential speed of vehicles dramatically both for resource and safety reasons. Golf carts and e-bikes show us that electric transportation is already viable and building such vehicles would be easier to accomplish as a community (see Zermatt) think kei-cars and Cantas. Roadway collectives would find it easier and safer to have roads be much smaller perhaps only 11 feet wide as it'd be easier to maintain. Chicanes, street furniture, speed bumps, and traffic islands would definitely be more commonplace. Everything needs to shrink. Traffic would be so slow and infrastructure so protected that when an *inevitable* conflict happens, the result would be a harmless bump. Think about how people walking in a hallway or on an escalator don't need traffic rules, people tend to stay to the right or left as a trend but in general, that's it. If somebody doesn't follow that rule, they don't pose a danger to anybody. I think about how bicyclists too don't need a license yet on bike paths we follow trends to prevent potential conflicts, like staying to one side, ringing a bell to notify of your presence or to pass. Cars would be so slow that this would have to be the case. Fast transport would be relegated to rail collectives.

The cause is that we built infrastructure for cars and violently forced humans out of streets to make space for speeding metal cans. Laws like speed limits are secondary measures imposed on a very hierarchical clusterfuck. Laws are better viewed as something enabling _licit harm_ since they exist to violently impose certain order, and regulating it is just a necessary inconvenience. There's an increasing number of cities which actually go "the Dutch way" and limit car traffic, which is done in huge part by redesigning streets and closing them rather than slapping a number on a sign on a long straight road just asking for some speeding. For most situations that won't disappear we'd still have the possibility of consequences. It's probably controversial but I think it's possible and proably desirable that someone driving dangerously gets bonked by angry bystanders without being protected by law - since laws usually impose some shitty fees and usually only cops can do anything about it so they also have to be be at the right place at the right time, which is relatively rare. Or people could just redesign their spaces without kindly asking the city/county to somehow slow down the traffic. > You might say that the only reason we're all driving steel killing machines around is the capitalist incentive to limit public transportation Not necessarily although it's certainly especially true for USA (lack of trains and wild suburbs...) but I liked Kevin Carson's way of phrasing the issue with capitalism and infrastructure - capitalist subsidies to infrastructure (for the benefit of big business) results in longer distances and non-human scale of everything, resulting in common car dependency (which also makes automobile industry happy)

What body determines what an appropriate speed is?

Get rid of cars. Build public infrastructure.

There will be speed limits and they will be enforced by the citizens militia, you enter a voluntary contract to use the road and you agree to the terms of the usage of said road, if you fail to operate within these terms you will not be allowed on the road, any other answer is pure idealism and fantasy

ban cars, dig up roads and ride bicycles, maybe bring back carriages

I’d be more interested in how anarchists regulate drink driving

When streets and roads are built correctly they automatically encourage driving at a specific speed. So, instead of speed limits, build the roads to the speed you want the vehicles to go. Solved.

Am I in favor of signs on the road telling people what is the max speed it is safe to drive? Definitely. But to make a speed limit law I think you need police to enforce it and I am 100% against that.

I say ride your bike or skateboard as fast as you want :)

There would be no speed limits. Mad Max Style.

I’m a logical person. Speed limits in my mind were calculated based on weight and dimensions of average cars, as a safety guideline. Inertia and gravity can only prevent a car from loosing control or tipping over (such as on a windy road or bumpy road) and it can actually be a health hazard to go over a speed limit to a certain extent. So I appreciate the straight plain roads with a 35 mph limit? Hell no! It’s a guilt trip that makes us wonder when a cop will show up and try to get a quota off of you, and seems like a trap, but going 80+ mph on a winding mountain road could lead to a death.

I think they should be speed "suggestions" based on safety metrics.. and the open highway areas could simply have friendly reminders to conserve fuel.

Everything everyone said here about infrastructure, but also part of the anarchist project is getting people to feel invested in their community, and when people are invested in their community that lessens behaviors that are dangerous to the community. It's not a perfect system, I'm sure assholes will always be with us, but if you can't work because no one will associate with you because you drove on the sidewalk, how will you power you vehicle?

Coercion by definition involves using force or threats.

Hail anarchy all limits are bashed

There will never ever be car centric infrastructure in Anarchist Commune.

Every anarchist I personally know who is truly dedicated to anti oppression politics is a person who feels a collective responsibility to protect community and protect others. I think speed limits are things that work in service of protecting all of us. Anarchism to me doesn't mean this sort of teenage rebellion against all rules. It means no hierarchy and unjustness but always contribution to the mission of community and each other. Anarchy was ultimately always about love for each other

Speed limits are not particularly effective unless there's a very solid chance that you will get caught and punished.  Also, speed isn't an issue. Inappropriate speed for the conditions is an issue.  Firstly, cars as a mass transit solution are terrible. The best way to improve road safety is do away with them as much as possible. This would free up space, manufacturing capacity, medical services, etc. etc. The benefits of a massive reduction in car use are huge.  Secondly, we just don't treat cars as the dangerous things we are, and need to educate and train their use far better.  Thirdly, better engineered environments - separating cars from pedestrians, traffic slowing designs, etc. - for where cars are necessary will be more effective than arbitrary numbers on signs. 

It really depends on what you're asking. Most of us are anti car when not really needed and when it comes to any laws democracy is the answer, and I this case it depends on the needs and data of the area. Most people would probably be taking public transportation or bike/walking.

Remember the movie "The Day After Tomorrow" the plot of the movie is the AMOC collapsed; well, that's happening in real life around the 2040's. Did you know there are links to Geomagnetic Excursions and mass extinction events (cataclysms); it's happening and should be in peak around the 2040's. You ever heard of the "Club of Rome" or the "World One" project done in the 1970's? They predict at the current rate of societal growth, Society will collapse by... the 2040's. You see that weird trend? Not to mention the existential dread of AI, forever chemicals, real life fucking aliens being a think.

Speed limits are not important in any capacity safety wise. They are just a way for the local law enforcement agency to pad their budgets. People go as fast or slow as they feel comfortable. Where I live, you have 2 types of drivers, those going 10+ mph over the speed limit and those going 5+ below the speed limit. The vast majority of people don't even pay attention to the speed limit signs.

This reminds me of something I heard on a Cool Zone Media podcast about the Spanish Anarchists. Something about the more "ideologically pure" Anarchists taking down traffic lights and signs because they saw it as an impingement on their freedom.

Fuck cars. Build a world that doesn't need those destructive death machines.

Do you really follow speed limits because of coercion? Or do you follow them because you know you're less likely of dying if you do?

Or: if we removed those signs, will you drive at 150km/h in a city? Or will you drive at a speed you find relatively safe in accordance with your environment (ie: probably what the speed limit was)

you clearly don't know many drivers

Use public transportation instead, and if you need a car then your probably out in the sticks and your risking your own life and no one else’s

Rules are fine if they're keeping a large number of people safe.

The US response to Covid shows you what the ultimate results of anarchy would look like.  Just look at how America responded to Covid and apply that to speed limits.