Steelmanning Anarchism

Menu & Fee:

Sous vide beef ribeye & scrambled eggs with crème fraîche.
$20

Payment can be either in cash or by bank deposit to the account 12-3150-0079141-00.

Agenda:

6.15pm: 15 minute pre-meet. Those more than 15 minutes late will not be able to enter. This will be counted as a no-show, and will be refunded any pre-payments. Those with three no-shows will be blocked from joining these events for an indefinite time.

6.30pm: Meal & Discussion

8.00pm: Official ending; unofficial 'after-party' discussion.

Topic Briefing:

Following on from our previous event about Cultivating a Citizenry , perhaps we should brainstorm the best possible reasons a flourishing society could (and possibly should?) be achieved without the 'state' at all.

To not have 'citizens' of a 'place', but simply voluntary relationships between people, each individual being their own authority, rather than anyone else's subject.

In the views of some who called themselves 'socialists', anarchism was simply a variety of socialism, since they belong to a family of traditions which ask how to best deal with monopolies. State socialism avoids many monopolies by having the state be the only monopoly. And anarchism makes every individual their own monopoly, without any state at all.

People have proposed different forms of anarchism. The anarcho-capitalists (ancap) advocate capitalism without government, while the anarcho-communists (ancom) advocate communism without government. Which do you prefer, and why?

Let us "steelman" anarchism, recognising that many of the arguments made against it can also be levied at the systems we already have. If you don't feel familiar enough with the idea, consider this [food for thought: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oTrgX6s21WE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oTrgX6s21WE)

What are your thoughts on Mikhail Bakunin's remarking that:
Nothing is more dangerous for man's private morality than the habit of command. The best man, the most intelligent, disinterested, generous, pure, will infallibly and always be spoiled at this trade. Two sentiments inherent in power never fail to produce this demoralization; they are: contempt for the masses and the overestimation of one's own merits.

"The masses," a man says to himself, "recognizing their incapacity to govern on their own account, have elected me their chief. By that act they have publicly proclaimed their inferiority and my superiority. Among this crowd of men, recognizing hardly any equals of myself, I am alone capable of directing public affairs. The people have need of me; they cannot do without my services, while I, on the contrary, can get along all right by myself: they, therefore, must obey me for their own security, and in condescending to command them, I am doing them a good turn."

Is not there something in all that to make a man lose his head and his heart as well, and become mad with pride? It is thus that power and the habit of command become for even the most intelligent and virtuous men, a source of aberration, both intellectual and moral."

(from Chapter 7 of The Anarchist Handbook, by Michael Malice)

Is it morally wrong for governments to refuse to provide avenues for people to relinquish the rights and obligations due to citizenship?