Do Anarchists Support Democracy?

Immediatism 101

This reading, Do Anarchists Support Democracy? comes from the excellent little book, To the Desertmaker & Other Writings for Malcontents, by ziq, published by Pistols Drawn and available from LittleBlackCart.com. Many people who self-identify as anarchists argue for forms of democracy and this essay explains how they are minarchists or other ists but not anarchists, and that the confusion lies in misunderstandings about what anarchism is at its core, as well as the possibilities therein. This is a follow-up to last episode, 100, on egoist and individualist thought and their non-relationship to the social anarchies. Between the two of these essays, you really drill down to what anarchism is.
Immediatism Episode 101 Do Anarchists Support Democracy?
https://immediatism.com/archives/podcast/101-do-anarchists-support-democ...
Immediatism Episode 100 Enemies of Society, Drawing First Blood
https://immediatism.com/archives/podcast/100-enemies-of-society-an-antho...

There are 21 Comments

Next time, ask the better title/question, like... "Why wouldn't anarchists support democracy?" or "Why democracy sucks equally."

Sooo, there are 3 people taking a vote on something and therefore 2 is a majority, and 1 person disagrees but has to act against their will if there is a prior agreement that the 3 must live and exist together as a community.
This produces the malcontent otherwise known as the disempowered individualist coersed to live in an environment which stifles and confines their free choice.
There are flexibilities within the democracy whereby the malcontent can live outside the law yet within the democratic community by developing tolerance and inner-contentedness, thus converting out of their disgruntled malcontented attitude, and possibly even regard democratic process as the lesser of evil options depending on the alternative lifestyles available, such as compared to living in a totalitarian police State like China.

Or, they could come to agreement on something other than the two options. Something that gets everybody's needs met. Voting isn't the way to do that.

Its not that easy, there will always be a stubborn and contrary person whose personal flaws will deny an agreeable outcome. It may be from personal greed and selfishness that thwarts the pursuit of an egalitarian harmony of desires and needs. The generous or weak person is left hungry and derelict. History informs us that even within a small utopia there still lurks the malcontent or exploited one. It is best to be the lone cynical individualist if one expects to sleep peacefully at night.

these are not 'personal flaws.' being a doormat is a personal flaw. why would you accept something you know is wrong? because it's 'the right thing to do?' Pathetic.

Oh no, I do not accept these stubborn and contrary leftists, I will give them my withering thousand yard nihilist glare and watch them cringe and shrivel before me!!!

*looking at rando citizens around as likely snitches for me not wearing a mask*

Ah yeah.. democracy's TOTALLY not totalitarian.

The problem with assemblies, self-managent, democratic decision making is the scale and the the form it takes. Those can be tools for the individual until they become a proto-government, mean peremptory and imposed as a center of power. So, not really a flag for anarchos, at best a temporary useful tool.

...is every assembly needs a headmaster stood at the front. anyone who calls for an assembly most likely fancies themselves as a bookchin or another little lenin ready to take the stage and lead the children. no whispering at the back, lifestylists!

Sophists would like a word with you, too. They were very good at that.

Nihilists would like a word with all those who say "%#$@&€#? would like a word with you" because like, all you $@%$@€#? assume that a majority of folk are "mwuhahahaa-evil ", even the bomb throwing anarchists are like the X-tian 8nquisition in the way they enforce and punish the herd majority, the uneducated peasant dullards who still built the infrastructure, the electric comforts, hot showers, supermarkets, lùxuries, all came from democratic civilization.
Only us ethical nihilists have the privilege to critique the hordes!

Looking back, democracy was seen as a solution to polarization within or between communities which ultimately led to the binary warfare mindset. As seperated institutions and national entities immerse themselves in parochial experimentations in democracy, there is something to admire in the tenacity of USA in trying to spread democracy globally during the Cold War era, otherwise we may all be now working in process factory labor camps and gulags. Remember anarchists, it was the democratic ethos which allowed you all to rant and protest in the streets without fear of being rounded up and placed in concentration camps. Inþelligence must go hand in hand with democracy or in the future there may be a situation wereby a majority of fools elect a malignant celebrity president such as Hitler.

wht the fuck are you talking about? are you just throwing out random words?
chisel's point was that greek assemblies didn't do what the preceding posters accused assemblies of doing. is your point that the greek assemblies are entirely different from what is being described in those previous posts and so shouldn't be compared with them?
why do you make your readers work so hard? why am i willing to give you so much time and energy? when will we all burn up in these over-due wildfires?

Let's just say that an anarchist community decides to reject democracy, then thay may aswell just all go back to living in a capitalist consumerist society.
For example, the anarchist community is offered a bartering opportunity by a nearby Paleo community who breed bison for meat to exchange writing ink from carbon black and writing quills the anarchists make out of porcupine quills for bulk bison steaks, but a minority of vegan anarchists are pushing for a ban on ALL MEAT PRODUCTS. Other anarchists are trying to mediate with them that the vegans don't have to eat it, but other anarchists like meat, and the growing anarchist kids grow strong from its protein. The vegans get all stubborn and go on strike and stop producing woven baskets for their community. The meat eating anarchist who manages the electric generator cuts off power to the vegan dwellings in retaliation. A riot ensures and one charismatic leader-type anarchist gets on the ranting and whining podium and suggests a vote by hand raising.
The bartering for meat import passes and the result is accepted, although the vegans retain resentful demeanours, and it is observed that the vegan children have BEEN INSTRUCTED by their parents to not play with the meat eating children. A meat eating anarchist gets drunk one night and compares the vegan anarchists to Hitler, and gets on the Ranting/Whining podium and asks for a vote by hand to evict the vegans from the commune for fascist behavior. The motion is passed, and the vegans are expelled the following day, ironically seeking refuge with the Paleo anarchists, who don't have electricity.
Some months later, a nomadic band of individualist anarchists are passing through and asked by the VeganPaleo anarchists if they would like to help them attack the meat eating anarchists to collect furniture and clothing they had lwft there. The individualists decline the offer, saying they do not get involved in binary politics or warfare, and hurriedly leave the area.

couldn't a democracy use concensus as its decision making, rather than majority/plurality voting?
concensus can only work on a smaller scale than current city/state/nation voting systems. which makes sense, since mass society has to go anyway.

if you have something to say, then say it. comments are for people to discuss things with each other, not proxy-fight through links.

"No useful references that address earnest questions are allowed here! Just shit-talking!"

Thares plenty o sensuble talkin here bout vegan BULLSHIT anarchists bannin vrything THATS RITE, THEY HYPOCRISIES an the VegAn na4chist are shit!!

On a different tangent, Reich proposed "work democracy", a self-managing form of social organization that would preserve the individual's freedom, independence, autonomy and encourage his/her responsibility and society would thus base itself on these principles:

Love, work and knowledge are the well-springs of our life. They should also govern it.
By work, he did not mean wage slavery or the drudgery of process line factory work, but enjoyable tasks and creative artisan activities without sexual repression and economic related anxiety.

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