this post was submitted on 05 Mar 2026
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Why would Johnsonville as a group wish to continue poisoning Tablesville's water supply if the Tablesville community makes it clear to them that they are being harmed by Johnsonville's lack of adequate treatment? Johnsonville would likely be receiving mutual aid from Tablesville due to their close proximity, so it'd be really weird of them to willfully screw over their downstream neighbors whom they often exchange help or supplies with?
It would make sense why Johnsonville would want to skimp on water treatment under a capitalist society, as perhaps there are some corporations that don't want to deal with treating their waste water, so they lobby the local government to allow it. Profit motive can often overcome cooperative goodwill and empathy for others.
But in an anarchist society where there is no profit motive? Not saying it'd be impossible (perhaps Johnsonville is weirdly anti-science for some reason and won't listen to reason?), but it'd be a damn sight less likely than the same scenario under Capitalism.
Easy. They don't believe it. They think Tablesville is exaggerating. They think Tablesville is confusing what is causing the polluted water. They think that pollution isn't that bad. They think that their need to spend more time with their kids in their very short and mortal lives is worth more than Tablesville's need to reside on a very specific piece of land that Johnsonville can't even see the point in inhabiting. They don't care about Tablesville. Take your pick.
That presumes that the level of mutual aid is substantial and bidirectional. If Johnsonville is in a good position and largely helps, rather than is helped, while Tablesville is a barren little scrap of swamp, what need does Johnsonville have of Tablesville's good will?
Bruh, people will put other lives at risk to end a job - not a capitalist job, but everything from volunteer work to self-improvement - a fucking hour early.
You don't need capitalism to provide a motive for overcoming goodwill and empathy.
You could make that argument, but that presumes that this is a binary choice between anarchism (in this distinctly non-enforcement sense rather than libertarian socialist sense) and anarcho-capitalism, and that's not the case.
A democratic socialist state has the obligation to enforce the laws made by common agreement upon all members of the polity, even those that disagree. Even a libertarian socialist polity has that same obligation, it just has more layers of decentralization which prolongs how long a problem must linger at low-level resolution before the central polity comes in.
So that's assuming that Johnsville is naturally deeply uneducated, unwilling to listen to any evidence presented, won't test their own waste treatment output, or are majority sociopathic (lacking empathy for others), or a combination of all the above.
I could see perhaps a very insular and small religious fundamentalist town perhaps being capable of totally ignoring the problem, but any larger settlement tends to attract more education amongst the population. Our current system usually puts the sociopaths in leadership positions which can then override a community's wishes, but under an Anarchist system it would be highly unusual that the majority care so little about others to the point of not wanting to help whatsoever.
In an Anarchist society, people would only really need to contribute about 2 to 3 months of work per year to have a functioning society that is able to provide everyone's basic needs for free. That would leave 10 to 9 months out of the year as completely free time for everyone to do with as they please, which would make it even more difficult to justify not spending a little extra time to treat your waste water properly for the sake not actively poisoning others.
If they become so uncooperative and hostile to their neighbors, than they could receive negative perception or treatment from other federating communities near them, which would probably go a long way to encouraging them to just treat their waste water better.
People are desperate to stop working an hour early because our current society gives them virtually no free time to enjoy life, to rest properly, or to not worry about needing to make ends meat just to survive and not become homeless. Most of their waking hours they are exploited with the majority of their effort going to the benefit of a few undeserving folk.
Would they be so desperate not to help if they were now afforded most of the year to themselves? I think many would find meaning in helping out in some of their spare time, since it is not longer exploitative or coerced.
It's doing the heavily lifting for most of society.
A society of self governing communes could still federate with each other, and with that federation agree to some standards to become a part of that federation, such as adequate waste water treatment.
No, man, people are very capable of being blinkered without needing to be uneducated or sociopathic.
... would it? Man, every one of us on here chooses our own comfort and entertainment over the lives of others every day of our lives. What makes you think we'd act differently under an anarchist system?
Have you ever been involved in local government? Genuine question.
That's extremely questionable, especially if you get into issues of distribution/access, that what people regard as basic needs change, etc.
Fuck, people have ample free time now and choose to poison others rather than take on a little extra burden.
And if it's just towards Tablesville? What incentive does everyone else have to get involved and degrade their own quality of life and their own relationships with people in Johnsonville for the sake of Tablesville? What makes you think that prejudices won't cause people to agree with Johnsonville? People tend to make decisions based on their pre-existing relationships; if Johnsonville is a 'giver' and adamant on this point, the natural tendency will be for many of those Johnsonville 'gives' to to side with them on the issue from an emotional standpoint.
Do you understand just how little it would take to live at a lowered standard of living for most people?
We work ourselves like dogs and normalize it because previous standards aren't good enough. What was idyllic in 90 AD is torture in 1990 AD. And this is good! It encourages society to ever move onward, to not be satisfied with what it has.
... but the reason why people are overworked is not because society 'gives' us too little to not work ourselves to death; it's because people value things other than free time. I grew up in a poor area, in a poor family - "People are hard-put upon" and "People are not working simply to keep themselves full, clothed, and with a roof over their head" are not mutually exclusive.
Many find meaning now in helping out in their spare time, yet still will shirk other work - or even cut corners during their volunteer work, as I previously pointed out - to the detriment of others. We are creatures with very limited lifespans, and every hour becomes precious when considered.
So how does it enforce that?
I think a big issue here is that you're operating under the assumption that humanity as a whole is incredibly selfish, uncaring, and unable to operate cooperatively without a centralized force that is able to adequately threaten people to cooperate against their natural instincts. If that is your base assumption, then you will have to conclude that Anarchism isn't viable because it doesn't have enough threats or sticks to keep people from reverting to some base-level of antagonism, laziness, or self interest.
Where on the other end, due to the evidence I've seen of how humans organized in egalitarian societies as the norm until around 8000 years ago (from compelling evidence put forward in David Graeber's and David Wengrow's The Dawn of Everything), as well as the success of the Anarchist Society in Catalonia during the Spanish Civil war, I believe that humans would demonstrate their true nature is cooperation and egalitarianism if finally provided a society that does not actively incentivize our worst traits like our current one does.
Most people in the US are barely able to afford basic food, housing, and transportation. They are working harder now than they did in the 1970's without any meaningful wage growth since that period, despite their actual productive capacity increasing tremendously since that time.
You really think most would choose to continue struggling with bills, or to be two paychecks away from homelessness vs. a society where all of your basic material concerns are guaranteed as a human right?
And you realize those people can choose to do whatever they want with the those 9 months of free time? They can still choose to become doctors, or engineers, or scientists, or to create the things that give meaning to their lives? They just won't have the threat of homelessness weighing above their heads if they don't instead choose to work for someone else to make them richer.
All the more reason to question the utility of capitalism, if only a minority are able to achieve the fruits of all the time spent doing things we'd rather not be doing, if every hour is so to be considered.
If you truly believe that, then our entire worldviews are completely incompatible. I don't mean this as an insult, but from my perspective your judgements on why people work so hard are quite detached from reality.
No, man, I'm assuming that humanity as a whole operates as it has since the beginning of recorded history - with limited resources, including limited time, energy, motivation, and perspective. Unless your proposal for anarchism is radically transhumanist, you aren't going to get rid of that issue. This isn't a question about "What if people don't care about each other???"; this entire scenario presumes that the polities in question are functioning along anarchist lines. The question that is being brought here is, "Do you really expect people to value those they don't know over those they personally know and care about, themselves included?"
And if your answer is 'yes', I invite you to talk to some parents sometime.
Other than my own extreme issues with The Dawn of Everything, which would lead to a much broader discussion...
Anarchist Catalonia is a prime example of what I mean in multiple ways.
First off, it was not shy about enforcement. In the least.
Second, it was commonly observed that regionalism of the sort described was a problem that caused severe issues for them.
Third, many of its structures were oriented around war necessity; I don't know if you would find the same willingness of people to submit to seizure and arbitrary justice if literal warfare was not a stone's throw away.
... have you ever actually lived in the USA?
That's true. Wages have been largely stagnant, in terms of buying power and relative income distribution, since the 1970s. But in the 1970s, most people weren't barely able to afford subsistence-level living. In the 1970s, most people struggled because, as in the modern day, they want more. And as I said, they are not incorrect in wanting this, and it is good that they want this, but it is an issue you have to think about when considering a complete reorganization of society.
That's not even vaguely relevant to the question I proposed. The issue of whether they prefer a socialist system or a capitalist one is not relevant. The issue being disputed is the idea that provision for one's basic needs is enough to stop one from desiring more, with you saying, and I quote:
A-fucking-gain, I'm not at all disputing whether people prefer a socialist system to a capitalist one, assuming they weren't pig-brained morons. That's not the issue being disputed here. The issue being disputed here is the notion that people will no longer want more, more comfort, more success, more free time as in the core example used that you responded to, in an anarchist system.
I'm not a fucking capitalist. I largely tend towards democratic socialism. My issue being raised here is fundamentally one of conflict resolution, not economic orientation.
Man, I've fucking lived on flour and water for days at a time. My area of specialization is an era when people worked more hours for fewer material gains and in much more endangered scenarios.
People work more because they want more, because it's normalized to want more. Housing crisis aside, people by and large spend their money on things that are not strictly needed, but nonetheless, they desire - and should be entitled to. At no point do I dispute they're being exploited - my point is only that it is not their needs being unfulfilled which drive most people; it is a desire for more than their basic needs, which would not go away if they stopped being exploited.
You think most people wouldn't become homeless if they spent less time working?
That is not the argument I was making. People can still desire more even under an Anarchist society, the difference is that anything more they want they either have to make themselves, make it collectively under a worker cooperative, or trade with another person with something they acquired by their own means or as the fruit of a cooperative effort.
You can still create computers, build fancy chairs, make a cooperative factory to produce a desired good, etc, but you just wouldn't be able to hang food, housing, and healthcare over somebody else to effectively force them to do that stuff for you. Under an anarchist society, you could only convince someone to work with you on something if they felt it was a democratic endeavor where they had an equal say and an equal reward as you or anyone else who helps you gets.
That ensures that no one can effectively exploit anyone else, or create a power imbalance with a hierarchy. Everyone gets access to the same baseline for a happy life, and 9 months our of the year to do with as they please, whether that be to improve their house, make jewelry, paint, write, or spend time with their friends or family, they can personally decide what they want to spend that time doing, instead of laboring all year for just those basics.
I did specify 'housing crisis aside', but yes. 40% of Americans own their own paid off home; most renting households still spend around 33% of income on rent. 67% of income, then, is spent on things other than not becoming homeless - do you want to speculate on what amount of that is actually necessary?
But I never disputed any of that. The entire point originally raised was that people would still desire to do less work even if they had their needs fulfilled.
How does that follow? Some endeavors are more profitable than others. Hierarchies can be set up even without material differences (which, as we've established, certainly are not eradicated). Exploitation is often predicated not on material differences, but social manipulation, and result in material differences.
Peter Kropotkin provides a good counter-argument to the idea that everyone would skimp out on doing needed work if all their basic needs were met in The Conquest of Bread, under Chapter 12: Objections.
My point is not that needed work would not be done. My point is that people will still desire to do less work, which means your original objection to my scenario, that the workers would not desire that extra hour of free time once they had 'enough' time off, is not realistic.
Perhaps reread Chapter 9 of The Conquest Of Bread.
To reiterate, your argument was that people in an anarchist society will, as a whole, not take on an ounce of extra work even if it means helping not poisoning their neighboring towns.
My argument was that there are social and material benefits to taking on that extra work of cleaning their waste water, and I believe most people would not feel good poisoning their neighbors unless they were extremely uneducated or sociopathic.
You believe that the only solution to that scenario is to have a hierarchical government with a big stick to force that group to clean their waste water.
I believe that most places under an Anarchist society would, on the whole, not need the stick. There may be some infrequent specific scenarios where even under Anarchism, that a settlement acts as you suggest. In those cases, especially if the harm was severe or could not be mitigated, the community(s) effected down river may opt to resort to other means to resolve that conflict, such as social shaming, or potentially even sabotage. Then that population would have to decide between the extra time and work that defense against them would require, or just clean the damn water.
I don't see how it conflicts with what I've been suggesting?
No, my argument is that when an anarchist commune makes an anti-social decision based on very reasonable and universal human desires, you have no means of conflict resolution which can stop any intransigent community from acting selfishly at the expense of other communities without going back to the question of "Enforcement".
Fuck's sake, most of us poison our neighbors every fucking day we buy something we don't fucking need. You feel good about that? Do you think about it, even?
... my point here isn't to guilt you, fuck's sake, I do it too. My point is that these are not rare problems we are discussing. People are very good at closing their eyes, or focusing on their little corner of the world, or offering innumerable justifications for their own behavior or why the burden should fall on someone else.
If a community refuses to stop polluting, your only options are some form of enforcement, or letting it happen. Your only response here is "It wouldn't happen often enough to consider", which is utopian to the point of absurdity.
Oh, social shaming has a good record on that, does it?
And sabotage? What happens when someone gets fucking shot for sneaking around in the middle of the night - and don't fucking tell me "All anarchists will be completely calm and extremely disciplined gun owners who would never shoot anyone unless they were 100% sure that their life was immediately at risk :)" What if the sabotage creates much more damage than expected? What if the sabotage itself kills people? What if no one admits to the sabotage? Is the sabotage lawful by the downriver community's decision? What's the next step then?
It's not enough for a society to be able to operate day-to-day. A society must be able to operate in crisis, or it will be replaced by a society which can - no matter how much more ugly it is, day-to-day.
Considering how people tend to band closer together when they feel under attack by 'outsiders', even to their own material detriment? And especially within an ideology, or rather a very specific interpretation of anarchism, that rejects the notion that outsiders have the right to tell them what to do?
By insisting on no violence, you set the stage for mass violence. Endemic warfare. These are the exact fucking conditions that arise in pre-modern societies; these are the exact fucking conditions which predominant in international affairs.
I've responded that it could absolutely happen, I think you're bringing up a real issue that would need to be faced, but my point of view is that it probably wouldn't happen super frequently, which is to say, I don't think Anarchism should be dismissed as a viable way to structure society due to not having specifically a centralized way to wield a big stick against non-cooperative or harmful communities.
I am not a Utopian. Anarchism won't solve all our problems, and conflict will still arise. I just think it's the best option we currently have, and will at least reduce many of the problems we face, hopefully making it easier to tackle the problems that are left and cannot be solved with Anarchism.
As @Dippy@beehaw.org elsewhere in the comments here, a regulatory body could be created, which the different communities could then join. This doesn't entirely solve the issue if the troublesome community refuses to join or adhere to those regulations, but that body could at least collectively give the troublesome community some consequences for continued pollution.
It's something they could try, I didn't say it would be super effective. Against the type of populace of Johnsville, it likely wouldn't work.
If we're assuming that no other community wants to help Tableville, that Johnsville refuses to listen to the regulatory body, that the pollution is severe enough to make Tableville's way of life downstream nonviable, and they refuse to move elsewhere, then yes; Tableville's community may decide to opt for sabotage, which could escalate to armed conflict, such as guerrilla warfare if Tablesville is much smaller.
My point is in response to the idea of Tableville being so against additional work that doesn't benefit them directly, they'll avoid it even if it's obviously hurting people. If it really just comes down to not wanting to take on more work, then it follows they'd want to avoid the extra work of fighting Tableville, especially if Tableville is telling them that they are being left no other choice than violence (to be clear, I don't think Johnsville would actually weigh the potential hours needed to clean the water vs fighting in a meeting, that would be kind've absurd. I mean if they did get to that point, holy shit that place is fucked).
Would the same not also happen under a centralized government trying to force them to abide by waste water regulations? What if they saw that as an outsider force trying to impose upon them, and thus decided to militarily fight against it? This would put them in a similar situation to Slave owning states before the confederacy formed. If there were other communities who also didn't want to clean their waste water, they could join together and rebel against that centralized authority trying to clean up all the poop water.
If instead the regulating power is an overwhelming force that would result in sure destruction, only then might they simply relent without conflict. Which, I mean yeah that solves Tableville's problem, but under a centralized government we now have to hope that it does not corrupt at some point, which is what Anarchism is trying to avoid, as it assumes all centralized power structures will at some point become corrupt.
I mentioned before that even struggling people acquire luxuries to make the grind bearable. I didn't say they wouldn't still want luxuries on top of having their basic need met. I agree with Kropotkin's POV.