Anarchism

2276 readers

39 users here now

Discuss anarchist praxis and philosophy. Don't take yourselves too seriously.

Other anarchist comms

Join the matrix room for some real-time discussion.

founded 2 years ago

MODERATORS

db0@lemmy.dbzer0.com

A thought experiment. (lemmy.dbzer0.com)

submitted 1 week ago by anaVal@lemmy.dbzer0.com to c/anarchism@lemmy.dbzer0.com

38 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Imagine you are a person fighting in an anarchist revolt. You have captured a sizeable chunk of land but the front line has grown too large and you can't progress further. The state that you have been fighting approaches you with an offer: They recognise you as a sovereign (however that would look like) entity but you have to give away most of the land you've captured. They will leave you with the primary city and enough surrounding land to feed everyone.

What would be your position? Would you be willing to make a deal with the state?

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] punkisundead@slrpnk.net 3 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Well in the best case the participants of the revolt already have a clear framework of actions for these kind of situations. So we would just follow those. Examples might be things like "never make deals with the state" or "prefer peaceful solutions" etc.

If not, this would be a really good point to start doing this as a community via meetings and discussions. And from the sounds of it, the opponent is willing to give us that time via a ceasefire etc.

Personally, looking at the stae of the world right now, I would think a ceasefire would be benificial to to our side because we could rally global solidarity and invite folks to live on our land and in this way raising our collective power.

[–] ScoffingLizard@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 6 days ago

Make a deal with the state. Have a secret society blend in with them. For decades, plant enough traitors everywhere to destroy the state. Perform psyops so they all attack each other and then be the savior with your promise of anti-establishment freedom. Enable the traitors to destroy everything in the state so you can take power. If you're truly evil, you can even make scapegoats out of those you find undesirable or easy to ignore to create a sense of furious unity and finaticism. Oh wait...

[–] anaVal@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Weird that yours is the only comment willing to take the deal, justifying it with the same point as I.

Obviously this would be something decided by a collective meeting. I like to imagine that this post is that.

[–] punkisundead@slrpnk.net 2 points 1 week ago

Weird that yours is the only comment willing to take the deal,

Maybe I could have been more clear, but I would be willing to negotiate. Of course you dont take the first offer and especially not when other alternatives (limited or unlimited) ceasefires are possible. I think a state recognizing an insurgent force and also granting it land is something that shows how good the conditions for negotiations actually are. State usually do everything to not have to do that.

Obviously this would be something decided by a collective meeting.

For sure, I just wanted to point that out because not everyone reading this post will have that in the back of their head / have much experience with anarchist thinking and decisionmaking