.</span></p><hr><details><summary>Referenced by:</summary><ahref="/garden/individualism/index.md">Individualism</a><ahref="/garden/local-communities/index.md">Local Communities</a><ahref="/garden/representative-democracy/index.md">Representative Democracy</a></details><p>I'm not a full-blown anarchist, but closely align to anarchist values and would like to see them influence policy. Anarchists believe that states are inherently immoral, and societies should be structured to have as minimal of a hierarchy as possible. This entails focusing on <ahref="/garden/local-communities/">Local Communities</a> and spreading power as thinly as possible, to avoid the possibility of individuals becoming corrupt and abusing their power.</p><p>Anarchism is anti-authoritarian, and explicitly denounces any use of violence to enforce rules, thus requiring <ahref="/garden/abolitionism/">Police Abolition</a>. By similar logic, anarchists tend to oppose imperialism and capitalism and the respective hierarchies they create. There are those who consider themselves "anarcho-capitalists" without realizing (or are ignoring) the hierarchies created by wealth inequality. These are incompatible views, and the person is likely actually authoritarian.</p><p>Democracy is a form of electoralism that is typically compatible with Anarchism, although some definitions of anarchism disallow any form of rules, even when agreed upon unanimously. There are different forms of democracy, with <ahref="/garden/direct-democracy/">Direct Democracy</a> and <ahref="/garden/consensus-democracy/">Consensus Democracy</a> being the most popular variants that are compatible with anarchism. The US government is a <ahref="/garden/representative-democracy/">Representative Democracy</a>, which is NOT anarchistic. Representatives abstract policy making from the views of the people. If we're supposed to vote on the representative that will most closely vote to how we feel on all issues, then the theoretical perfect representative would just be ourselves - and at that point, we should just be voting on the issues directly. Therefore if striving for anarchism, you should not use a representative democracy as in its theoretical ideal its still only just as good as any other variant of Democracy, and in practice will be much worse.</p><p>Anarchistic organizations can still appoint roles to people. For example, if a nation like America were to be made anarchistic, it would likely maintain some roles of the President, such as that of Commander-In-Chief. It is primarily the law making and enforcing that would need to be democratized, and of course making sure those appointed roles are elected democratically.</p><p>Anarchism relies on the idea that there are enough individuals motivated to systemically fix problems that they will do so without direct personal gain (beyond the problem being solved), and that others will not block those efforts, even if the policy won't help them in particular. I believe this would and does hold true. I believe our society being filled with greedy individuals is primarily caused by our society rewarding greed. Without the profit motive and returning to a culture of collaboration and mutual aid, greed would for the most part become a non-factor in policy making. Those who are already at the top of the hierarchy don't want to lose their position, and have thus been propagandizing that hierarchies are necessary/inevitable, and even just. This concept gets discussed in <ahref="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=agzNANfNlTs"target="_blank"rel="noreferrer">The Alt-Right Playbook: Always a Bigger Fish</a>.</p><p>Democracies where the people vote on individual issues are often criticized by citing the US' current low turnout rates during elections. I believe the rates are more indicative of a lack of faith in electoralism, and in any case its not a reason to be alarmed that policies would be dictated by a minority of the population. The low turnout can work in favor of direct and consensus democracies, as it means it only take
