How an anarchist society can work without police. To me the example of Makhno’s movement shows that it can work if most people are armed and willing to keep order, without delegating that task to anyone. (In this case they were armed because they were coming out of a world war.) Once people start saying “eh, I’m peaceful, I’ll delegate the task of keeping order to someone else”, you eventually end up with police.
Is police inherently bad. I think no, it depends mostly on what kind of laws it’s enforcing and how fairly. Traffic laws, alright. Drug laws, worse. Laws against political dissent, oh no. So it makes more sense to focus on improving the laws and courts.
Prisons. I think prisons should be abolished, because keeping someone locked up is a long psychological torture. The best alternative is probably exile to designated “penal” territories (but without forced labor). Either overseas, or designated territories within the country itself.
Exile can either be administered by the state, in which case it’s an open air prison, or by emergent criminal gangs. Forced labor emerges either way I think.
Even under the idealistic assumption that the exile-location develops some organized society that is kind and friendly and would never engaged in forced labor, at that point it is effectively a separate country and you are exporting your criminals to them. This is not so much solving the problem of handling criminals as delegating it to someone else.
Exile makes sense as a punishment when you have an unpopulated wilderness area and the person is going to live in isolation. It stops making sense when all habitable land is already being used.
Administered by the state, of course. Open air prison where you can choose where to live, when to go to bed and wake up, what to eat, who to work with and so on, would feel a lot less constraining to the spirit than the prisons we have now.
I think that’s the key factor to me. It’s a bit hard to define. A punishment should punish, but not constrain the spirit. For example, a physical ball and chain (though it looks old-fashioned and barbaric) seems like an okay punishment to me, because it’s very clear that it only limits the body. The spirit stays free, you can still talk to people, look at clouds and so on. Or in case of informational crimes, a virtual ball and chain that limits the bandwidth of your online interactions, or something like that.
The problem is that crowds are not known to be the coolest minds. When people talk about “community policing” they should acknowledge they have a position more akin to the NRA’s on guns: “we think it is really important to keep this power in the hands of the people and we think a few more dead are a price worth paying for it”. The idea that community policing won’t ever result in injustice, accidental panicked shootings or lynching is nonsense. There are issues with professionalisation, but people who think that you can just have the best of both worlds by achieving some kind of grand societal enlightenment are deluded (and I expect would actually end up at the head of the lynch mobs, because they usually are the ones who lack self awareness the most and can’t see how they could be wrong).
About 2: I think there are certain typical ideological malaises that are a risk for professionalised police and military forces regardless of the specifics of their job. “We are the only bastion against chaos, civvies can only afford to live peacefully because we make the hard calls, they should be more grateful and shut up” etc. Every category can develop an inflated sense of self importance, but of course if your job is to wield a monopoly on violence that’s much more dangerous. In addition, there’s the typical “if all you have is a hammer every problem looks like a nail” issue. But it’s not like community policing would be free from its own malaises, so whichever way one goes, control mechanisms have to be in place. I doubt there’s some inherently stable system not at risk from people getting a little crazy, especially when violence is involved.
Just my opinions.
How an anarchist society can work without police. To me the example of Makhno’s movement shows that it can work if most people are armed and willing to keep order, without delegating that task to anyone. (In this case they were armed because they were coming out of a world war.) Once people start saying “eh, I’m peaceful, I’ll delegate the task of keeping order to someone else”, you eventually end up with police.
Is police inherently bad. I think no, it depends mostly on what kind of laws it’s enforcing and how fairly. Traffic laws, alright. Drug laws, worse. Laws against political dissent, oh no. So it makes more sense to focus on improving the laws and courts.
Prisons. I think prisons should be abolished, because keeping someone locked up is a long psychological torture. The best alternative is probably exile to designated “penal” territories (but without forced labor). Either overseas, or designated territories within the country itself.
Exile can either be administered by the state, in which case it’s an open air prison, or by emergent criminal gangs. Forced labor emerges either way I think.
Even under the idealistic assumption that the exile-location develops some organized society that is kind and friendly and would never engaged in forced labor, at that point it is effectively a separate country and you are exporting your criminals to them. This is not so much solving the problem of handling criminals as delegating it to someone else.
Exile makes sense as a punishment when you have an unpopulated wilderness area and the person is going to live in isolation. It stops making sense when all habitable land is already being used.
Administered by the state, of course. Open air prison where you can choose where to live, when to go to bed and wake up, what to eat, who to work with and so on, would feel a lot less constraining to the spirit than the prisons we have now.
I think that’s the key factor to me. It’s a bit hard to define. A punishment should punish, but not constrain the spirit. For example, a physical ball and chain (though it looks old-fashioned and barbaric) seems like an okay punishment to me, because it’s very clear that it only limits the body. The spirit stays free, you can still talk to people, look at clouds and so on. Or in case of informational crimes, a virtual ball and chain that limits the bandwidth of your online interactions, or something like that.
My impression is this surprisingly didn’t happen in Australia? But not sure about other instances.
Forced labor was definitely a thing, though it’s hard to find much detail https://kids.britannica.com/students/article/Australian-convict-settlements/628970
(This kids article was a lot more concise than other sources that focused on wildly different aspects)
I’m a fan of corporal punishment as an alternative to prison for most crimes
The problem is that crowds are not known to be the coolest minds. When people talk about “community policing” they should acknowledge they have a position more akin to the NRA’s on guns: “we think it is really important to keep this power in the hands of the people and we think a few more dead are a price worth paying for it”. The idea that community policing won’t ever result in injustice, accidental panicked shootings or lynching is nonsense. There are issues with professionalisation, but people who think that you can just have the best of both worlds by achieving some kind of grand societal enlightenment are deluded (and I expect would actually end up at the head of the lynch mobs, because they usually are the ones who lack self awareness the most and can’t see how they could be wrong).
About 2: I think there are certain typical ideological malaises that are a risk for professionalised police and military forces regardless of the specifics of their job. “We are the only bastion against chaos, civvies can only afford to live peacefully because we make the hard calls, they should be more grateful and shut up” etc. Every category can develop an inflated sense of self importance, but of course if your job is to wield a monopoly on violence that’s much more dangerous. In addition, there’s the typical “if all you have is a hammer every problem looks like a nail” issue. But it’s not like community policing would be free from its own malaises, so whichever way one goes, control mechanisms have to be in place. I doubt there’s some inherently stable system not at risk from people getting a little crazy, especially when violence is involved.