True, but the real world is about compromises and lesser evils.
Formal authority is quite often better than arbitrary, informal authority. And make no mistake, humans are social, their natural congregations are hierarchical.
I'm not sure this is true. Not only were humans very loosely hierarchical essentially until the invention of agriculture, but anarchism doesn't advocate for arbitrary and informal authority, but for limited in any authority at all unless absolutely necessary, in which case it must be directly kept in check.
> Not only were humans very loosely hierarchical essentially until the invention of agricultur
Even if they were both this and peaceful then, this would only imply that we merely need to dismantle agriculture and the civilization dependent on it to return to that state, which I submit is an unacceptable trade-off to most people.
And even if it was acceptable to most people, it would take only a small minority opting out to retain the power to subjugate everyone opting-in and ruin the whole effort.
That doesn't follow from the principle. We don't need to dismantle agriculture or anything else, you can also have technological anarchic societies and indeed they exist.
What it means is that hierarchies are not necessary for human organization.
The Zapatista-governed area is at best parasitically technological (it uses imported technology, but neither creates nor maintains much of a technical base).
It certainly might be legitimately viewed as a step up for the most systemically disenfranchised, exploited, impoverished communities, but it's not a demonstration of a way that a technological society can be maintained.
That hierarchical structures became dominant after the invention of agriculture does not imply that agriculture necessitates hierarchical structures.
> And even if it was acceptable to most people, it would take only a small minority opting out to retain the power to subjugate everyone opting-in and ruin the whole effort.
Regarding humans being organized very loosely until agriculture personally I wouldn't consider that as a plus.
We're on HN, just think about the pace of human development before agriculture and after. We were pretty much doing the same thing for half a million years and then in 10000 years: rockets in space! ;-)
> And there are ways to have agriculture and industry and compounding scientific advancements without having rigid hierarchies, are there not?
Sure, the absence of rigid heirarchies with strictly top-down authority in favor of fairly fluid ones with something like circular authority where the top of heirarchy is selected and changeable by the people subject to it is a hallmark of liberal society, realized to varying degrees throughout much of the world.
They are hierarchical. All primates are. Agriculture just revealed the need for a level of social structure no other species on Earth could achieve before.
Regarding your follow-up question, maybe there are ways to achieve the same thing with a radically different social structure. The problem with social changes on this scale is that they are extremely disruptive. I'd rather reform and improve iteratively than rewrite the whole code base ;-)
You should consider the issues of iteratively improving the same code base, pushing to prod for hundreds of years!
Primate dominance hierarchies are weak, accountable, and constantly challenged, and not even necessary in humans which exhibit other behaviors depending on nature. As a consequences, hierarchy is not necessary in humans and not inherent.
That being said, there are ways to move into anarchism that aren't that disruptive as long as the dominant power structure doesn't decide to violently repress it. Syndicalism into market socialism into anarchism is a common one.
But as I said, it's possible to transition to anarchy. You don't need to do it in one bit push. The issue is when the underlying code base is so bad that there is nothing else, but we can certainly try incrementalism.
In theory, there's no reason you couldn't go towards and anarchic society via a million small reforms, but in practice you get executed for using your already existing rights if you state that your goal is to do such reforms.
Is it possible to transition to anarchy in a geopolitical environment of competing nation-states? How would an anarchizing state in the process of gradual self-dismantlement outcompete more centralized states in economic and military terms?
The way most small countries have survived in the past century is to rely on the protection of a larger state with a powerful military and/or on international treaty organizations (UN, NATO, OAS, etc.) which derive their influence from those state militaries.
Actually it does, just better training required. I believe the police in Germany is pretty good, but you need at least 3 years (not month) of training.
That's funny, I see people behave badly even with the authority all the time.
In general though, most people behave mostly good. The ones that behave badly probably would under any social construct. The people I know that got into trouble with the law were the same ones with antisocial tendencies in grade school.
I don't believe that the threat of government enforcement really encourages a significant proportion of edge cases to behave better.
Due to some unique circumstances, I actually have had the opportunity to see what a relatively anarchist society looks like in low-density areas. It honestly works about the same as it does under more supervision. When the occasional real problems develop, people band together and act as their own police force. What there isn't is a bunch of technicality type laws banning you from doing things that don't affect others.
This is all about Dunbar's Number; the number of people you can "know" in the sense of having stable social relations with. Its about 150 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunbar%27s_number).
A society smaller than this can be effectively self-policing because everyone keeps track of how everyone else behaves. No money, police, laws or prisons are required because everyone knows what everyone else thinks of their behaviour and wants to stay on the good side of the community that they depend on. So its not a problem.
Once a society grows past Dunbar's number this system breaks down. You see people you don't know misbehaving, but they don't suffer any downside because nobody knows who they are. When you have to deal with people you don't know if you can trust them, but you do know that if they rip you off you won't have any comeback. So the communal trust breaks down and you start needing police, courts, laws and prisons.
In short, anarchism and "primitive socialism" are nice, but they don't scale.
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes - who polieces the authority? Mind you an authority includes medieval kings and cobstantly warrrying feudal lords - they were legitimate authority of their time.
I would argue thay society today involve s less tyrany, less authority, and is more peacefull.
