Post by KlingonKommandPhaidros figures
Post by PhaidrosEven Pirates need some sort of
control by the state that helps them prevent their self-destruction.
If they lived a true anarchy they would not build any government
centers nor rely on a militia on a base to keep their members' rowdy
behaviour in check.
So the anarchists fighting for the Republicans in the Spanish Civil War
could never have formed those militias...
Political terms tend to get hijacked and meanings imposed on them by
others. Anarchists are not anti-government per se. In the Spanish Civil
War, which started when Franco decided to overthrow the (democratically
elected) communist government, they were originally trade unions and
suchlike, and nearer what we would call Communism. They were doing OK,
but luckily for Franco, the Soviet-backed Communists turned on them
because they opposed the increasingly totalitarian system the
communist-dominated Spanish government was in favour of. (Perhaps some
of our Spanish readers will correct me on details here but I think
that's generally what happened.)
"In an anarchy, it is possible to have rules (laws), however, these must
be agreed upon by the participants in the system, and not imposed from
above" - Wikipedia
--
KlingonKommand
Franco led an army, the Republic relied on ragtag militias from all
over the world. The resulting outcome I deeply deplore.
The Wikipedia definition gives the definition of how anarchy is
supposed to work in an ideal world. However, nobody has shown so far
that this ideal is empirically attainable. And even less so in times
of war, in which warfare organized on a large scale by one side to the
best of my knowledge has always beaten the more 'anarchic'-like forms
of warfare, which taking the ideal means a strategy reached by
consensus of the group or taking the empirical view meant a more or
less randomly guided warfare by various groups that had been unable to
obtain an overall consensus on ways and means.
Direct democracy doesn't seem to work well in times of war. One reason
may be that the alternatives you have to collectively decide upon are
too extreme (survival vs. death): "Err, we have just collectively
decided that you, you and you will stand in our first line of fire."
"Hey, that's not fair. We have been to the toilet when you did the
vote. Let's have another vote first!"
BTW who are the best-known Pirates? The ones who excelled in
(draconian) leadership.
Phaidros