> That's pretty much the central principle of anarchism (the political philosophy and practice, not the colloquial slur). Dismissing it as "impractical" is a bit premature - it's a concept well grounded in ethnological examples, and there have been plenty of very cool modern social experiments.
Would those examples entail a large reduction in social/technological complexity? The world has billions more people than would allow a return to hunter-gatherer or small-scale agriculture type societies.
Also I don't think something being a "central principle" of a political philosophy necessarily means it shouldn't be dismissed. I read some article about anarcho-capitalism once, and the whole thing struck me as something that may be conceivable or even realizable in principle, like Oganesson [1], bit simultaneously so impractically unstable that it might as well be treated as impossible.
> In any case, it's conceptually useful to orient vis a vis hierarchy in this more general way, even if the "full realization" is difficult to imagine achieving.
Yeah, it makes more sense to me to use it as a yardstick than as a map to someplace you can actually go.
Anarcho-capitalism as a phrase was basically Rothbard trolling. What ever merits it may have, it shouldn't be lumped in with the rest of anarchist philosophy.
(also to be clear I think ancap has approximately zero merit)
Anarcho capitalism is an oxymoron because capitalism is heavily based around centralization and inevitably leads to monopolies. Corporations are less democratic than the government and the competition argument doesn't work for monopolies.
Ancap is an oxymoron because it's predicated on strong abstract property rights, and you really need a fairly large government to enforce them. And if you take those away, you end up with something more like mutualism.
Would those examples entail a large reduction in social/technological complexity? The world has billions more people than would allow a return to hunter-gatherer or small-scale agriculture type societies.
Also I don't think something being a "central principle" of a political philosophy necessarily means it shouldn't be dismissed. I read some article about anarcho-capitalism once, and the whole thing struck me as something that may be conceivable or even realizable in principle, like Oganesson [1], bit simultaneously so impractically unstable that it might as well be treated as impossible.
> In any case, it's conceptually useful to orient vis a vis hierarchy in this more general way, even if the "full realization" is difficult to imagine achieving.
Yeah, it makes more sense to me to use it as a yardstick than as a map to someplace you can actually go.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oganesson