Anarchism adjacent to Jeffersonianism?

[Boss Hawg]

Is Jeffersonian Democracy more closely related to Anarchism (anarch-pluralism) rather than the modern American state? Is a return to Jeffersonianism or Anarchism (anarcho-pluralism) preferable to the modern state?

 

[Breadbassket]

Jeffersonian Democracy has a central government with strong state rights, if you want states in the USA to have more power its for you.

Wouldn't the plan of the Articles of Confederation be closer to anarchism? The central government was designed to be very weak, states had their own money systems, the Articles Congress only had one chamber, in which each state only had one vote, the Confederation relied on the voluntary efforts of the states to send tax money to the central government, there was no judicial branch and no executive branch.

 

[ShahOfIran1979]

Jeffersonian Democracy has a central government with strong state rights, if you want states in the USA to have more power its for you.

Wouldn't the plan of the Articles of Confederation be closer to anarchism? The central government was designed to be very weak, states had their own money systems, the Articles Congress only had one chamber, in which each state only had one vote, the Confederation relied on the voluntary efforts of the states to send tax money to the central government, there was no judicial branch and no executive branch.

Even then, you still have a somewhat strong state governments. It only scales down the size of the Government, not necessarily the power.

 

[Breadbassket]

Even then, you still have a somewhat strong state governments. It only scales down the size of the Government, not necessarily the power.

Neither system really aimed to be anarchist in nature though in theory the one established by the Articles of Confederation would be closer to it ideologically.

 

[Boss Hawg]

Even then, you still have a somewhat strong state governments. It only scales down the size of the Government, not necessarily the power.

So a decentralization into more regional governments would allow the regional government will reflect the ideas of the people better than the mass society we have today?

Neither system really aimed to be anarchist in nature though in theory the one established by the Articles of Confederation would be closer to it ideologically.

Perhaps…

 

[Breadbassket]

So a decentralization into more regional governments would allow the regional government will reflect the ideas of the people better than the mass society we have today?

Power would be localized though it might lead to the United States breaking down and being controlled by powerful states throwing their weight around. If the state governments remain republican in nature though then at the very least statistically the voters have more power to shape the direction it takes as they wouldn't have to worry about people from out of state effecting the direction it takes with the power of an executive or judicial branch.

Historically what shattered the Articles of Confederation as an idea was when a tax protest in Massachusetts couldn't be put down by the central government. It had to rely on a state militia and another privately funded local militia to deal with the issue. With no money, the central government couldn't act to protect the "perpetual union." That's why it had to be replaced.

 

[Frederica Bernkastel]

Anarchism is eclectic, like all of philosophy, so it depends on what "anarchist" you're talking to. I do recall during the Spanish Civil War, the areas that had the strongest support for anarchist organizations were the rurals. This was also the case in the early days of the Russian Revolution as many peasants already lived in communal, anarchic structures called obshchina. One of the reasons why Marx failed to finish the final volume of Capital was because he was obsessed with them. He believed they could form the basis of communism in Russia. Russian anarchists were obsessed with them too for this very reason.

 

[Boss Hawg]

Anarchism is eclectic, like all of philosophy, so it depends on what "anarchist" you're talking to. I do recall during the Spanish Civil War, the areas that had the strongest support for anarchist organizations were the rurals. This was also the case in the early days of the Russian Revolution as many peasants already lived in communal, anarchic structures called obshchina. One of the reasons why Marx failed to finish the final volume of Capital was because he was obsessed with them. He believed they could form the basis of communism in Russia. Russian anarchists were obsessed with them too for this very reason.

It makes sense that agrarian communities are more predisposed to an anarchic society. Much like how agrarian socialism/communism flourishes in non-industrialized countries. How does one reconcile post-modern America to a more (agrarian) anarchic view of the world? People are so beholden to the current power structures that it’s too crazy to think of non-hierarchical governance. The libertarian/an-cap or the anarcho-socialist are the only two that many Americans even consider.

 

[XL xQgg?QcQCaTYDMjqoDnYpG]

Is Jeffersonian Democracy more closely related to Anarchism (anarch-pluralism) rather than the modern American state? Is a return to Jeffersonianism or Anarchism (anarcho-pluralism) preferable to the modern state?

The only coherent and consistent anarchism that exists is anarcho-capitalism aka radical libertarianism. That is indeed preferable to all states. Any historical "anarchism" is typically just communism with extra steps.

 

[Chuckwagon]

Anarchism is eclectic, like all of philosophy, so it depends on what "anarchist" you're talking to. I do recall during the Spanish Civil War, the areas that had the strongest support for anarchist organizations were the rurals. This was also the case in the early days of the Russian Revolution as many peasants already lived in communal, anarchic structures called obshchina. One of the reasons why Marx failed to finish the final volume of Capital was because he was obsessed with them. He believed they could form the basis of communism in Russia. Russian anarchists were obsessed with them too for this very reason.

IIRC the Spanish anarchists were strongest in the cities and their backbone were the urban workers' unions, whose main powerbase was Barcelona, although they did of course have a rural component (primarily the poorest peasants who were really happy to seize upon the excuse to expropriate the land of big & small landholders alike). The 'Black' anarchist faction of Nestor Makhno in Russian Civil War-era eastern Ukraine was the majority peasant-backed anarchist movement, IIRC. Not coincidentally both left-wing anarchist factions were huge fans of 'bottom-up collectivization', ie. peasant mobs seizing the landowner estates they had seized and converting those into agrarian communes, and terrorizing Christians; the Spanish anarchists' brutality toward Catholic clergy and monks/nuns is well-documented, but what's less well-known is that the Ukrainian Blacks, while massive philosemites (they executed even potential allies for engaging in pogroms, ex. the bandit warlord Nikifor Grigoriev, and their high command the 'Military Revolutionary Council' literally declared war against the concept of antisemitism), also managed to be such massive cunts to the local Mennonites that they abandoned their vows of pacifism and formed self-defense militias which eventually became units of the Southern White armies.

As to Jeffersonian thought, I would define it as minarchic rather than anarchistically-inclined. As the other posters stated Jefferson and his ideological descendants believed in decentralized government, with most affairs being handled locally and excluding oversight/interference from the higher tiers of gov't, not the abolition of gov't in its totality. In my years on the Internet I've found a surprisingly high number of self-proclaimed Jeffersonians and states' rights libertarian types arguing that actually segregation was 100% fine, even if it extended to the point of forcing business owners to not do business with certain people because one party's got the wrong skin color (IOW, direct interference by the state in private business transactions), just as long as it's the state government passing the laws forbidding different races from doing business together rather than the federal one. Also Jeffersonians tend to be huge on private property, and so would obviously have loathed left-wing anarchists like the Spanish anarcho-syndicalists and the Ukrainian Blacks for collectivizing farmland & factories (nothing less than robbery of the original property-owners in their eyes) alike.

 

[Frederica Bernkastel]

while massive philosemites (they executed even potential allies for engaging in pogroms, ex. the bandit warlord Nikifor Grigoriev, and their high command the 'Military Revolutionary Council' literally declared war against the concept of antisemitism), also managed to be such massive cunts to the local Mennonites that they abandoned their vows of pacifism and formed self-defense militias which eventually became units of the Southern White armies.

I mean the biggest criticism of the Ukrainian anarchists is the fact they worked with the Bolsheviks against the Ukrainian nationalists; only to be betrayed by them. Then they did it a second time in Spain with the same result. Their experiments were filled with contradictions like the use of money, and the use of forced conscription but you can't really fault people for things when its not possible to preconfigure a society out of scratch and in war.

Even as someone sympathetic to Franco; terror happened on both sides of the conflict. Revolutionary terror in war is to be expected.Its impossible in war to avoid dumb shit like that. Terror against Christians was always a tactic by communists to abolish religion (especially across the Warsaw Pact), but Marx himself supported gradual means, like education, as opposed to violence.