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site/garden/a-plea-to-organize/index.md

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 <h1 class="p-name">A Plea to Organize</h1>
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 If you take one message from this letter, let it be this: **Organize!** Seek out a local mutual aid group via [Mutual Aid Hub](https://www.mutualaidhub.org/) or join a progressive political organization like the [DSA](https://www.dsausa.org/). Whether you're providing aid, receiving it, or working alongside fellow progressives, solidarity is our strongest tool.
@@ -66,7 +66,7 @@ America's political system, with its electoral college, first-past-the-post voti
 > When I gave food to the poor, they called me a saint. When I asked why the poor have no food, they called me a Communist.   
 > \- Dom Helder Camara
 
-Mainstream media, owned by the capitalist class, will frame progressive issues as divisive or fringe. They will cover our failures but not our successes, and certainly not report on when we need your help. To break out from this bias, use news sources like[Jacobin](https://jacobin.com/), [Current Affairs](https://www.currentaffairs.org/), and [The Intercept](https://theintercept.com/). Educate yourself via accessible resources such as [Second Thought](https://youtube.com/@secondthought) and [Our Changing Climate](https://youtube.com/@ourchangingclimate). And if you have the time, reading political theory and understanding class struggle empowers us to cut through propaganda and equip ourselves for the fight ahead. In a world of influencers and culture war politics, improving our political literacy and seeing beyond the Republican vs Democrat dichotomy is imperative.
+Mainstream media, owned by the capitalist class, will frame progressive issues as divisive or fringe. They will cover our failures but not our successes, and certainly not report on when we need your help. To break out from this bias, use news sources like [Jacobin](https://jacobin.com/), [Current Affairs](https://www.currentaffairs.org/), and [The Intercept](https://theintercept.com/). Check out [FAIR](https://fair.org/), a progressive news source that tackles corporate bias in media. Educate yourself on progressive causes via accessible resources such as [Second Thought](https://youtube.com/@secondthought) and [Our Changing Climate](https://youtube.com/@ourchangingclimate). And if you have the time, reading political theory and understanding class struggle empowers us to cut through propaganda and equip ourselves for the fight ahead. In a world of influencers and culture war politics, improving our political literacy and seeing beyond the Republican vs Democrat dichotomy is imperative.
 
 > The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to 
     strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow 

site/garden/anarchism/index.md

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 <h1 class="p-name">Anarchism</h1>
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 <hr/>
 
 <details><summary>Referenced by:</summary><a href="/garden/individualism/index.md">Individualism</a><a href="/garden/local-communities/index.md">Local Communities</a><a href="/garden/my-political-beliefs/index.md">My Political Beliefs</a><a href="/garden/representative-democracy/index.md">Representative Democracy</a></details>
 
-Anarchism is a political philosophy centered around the idea that authoritative hierarchies are unjust, and aim for a society completely devoid of a state. Marx described how socialism, as it approaches its end goal of communism, would see the state naturally wither away, reaching anarcho-communism, just one of the flavors of anarchism.
+Anarchism is a political philosophy centered around the idea that authoritative hierarchies are unjust, and aim for a society completely devoid of a state. Marx described how socialism, as it approaches its end goal of communism, would see the state [naturally wither away](https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/staterev/ch05.htm), reaching anarcho-communism, just one of the flavors of anarchism.
 
 Broadly speaking, flavors of anarchism can fall into 3 categories: collectivist anarchism, which includes the aforementioned anarcho-communism; individualist anarchism, which are right-wing versions of anarchism based on [Individualism](/garden/individualism/index.md); and modern anarchism, which are adaptations of collectivist communism to include additional hierarchies, such as anarcha-feminism which seeks to abolish the patriarchy in addition to class hierarchy. I'm personally biased against individualist anarchism but align with the values present in many collectivist and modern flavors of anarchism. I believe an ideal society is one with strong [Local Communities](/garden/local-communities/index.md) that operate as a collective; spreading power as thinly as possible to avoid the possibility of any individuals becoming corrupt and abusing their power.
 
@@ -25,7 +25,7 @@ Broadly speaking, flavors of anarchism can fall into 3 categories: collectivist
 
 Flavors of anarchy will differ on whether decision making should exist at all. Egoism, an individualist flavor of anarchism, argues against not only any kind of collective decision making, but against society itself. Collectivist flavors of anarchism typically allow for group decision making in some form.
 
-Group decision making under anarchism is typically modeled after a flavor of democracy. Majoritarian democracy, or [Direct Democracy](/garden/direct-democracy/index.md) , is the idea that everyone gets a single vote and a measure passes if most people are in favor of it. A [Consensus Democracy](/garden/consensus-democracy/index.md) is the idea that measures should only pass if nobody is opposed to it. This typically means in lieu of voting, individuals can "block" a measure by saying they disagree with it in part of in whole, and the polity must then decide to drop the measure or tweak it until it can pass without any blocks. Some forms of consensus democracy will also allow for measures to pass despite a small number of blocks, for the sake of making it feasible without constant gridlock when scaling up.
+Group decision making under anarchism is typically modeled after a flavor of democracy. Majoritarian democracy, or [Direct Democracy](/garden/direct-democracy/index.md) , is the idea that everyone gets a single vote and a measure passes if most people are in favor of it. A [Consensus Democracy](/garden/consensus-democracy/index.md) as described in [Consensus](https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/peter-gelderloos-consensus) is the idea that measures should only pass if nobody is opposed to it. This typically means in lieu of voting, individuals can "block" a measure by saying they disagree with it in part of in whole, and the polity must then decide to drop the measure or tweak it until it can pass without any blocks. Some forms of consensus democracy will also allow for measures to pass despite a small number of blocks, for the sake of making it feasible without constant gridlock when scaling up.
 
 There are criticism of group decision making as anti-anarchistic in any form. In both of these versions of democracy, the polity is collectively agreeing to have some form of rule or agreement in place, and once agreed to, an individual typically cannot rescind their consent to that rule or agreement. In majoritarian democracy, up to half the polity may have never even given consent for that rule in the first place. Even in consensus democracy, discussions will often break down into compromise and eventual resignation in order to get measures passed, which is not a "true" version of consent. Typically supporters of these decision making processes will justify them as necessary of a society to function.
 
@@ -33,7 +33,7 @@ I'm personally a fan of consensus democracy. I agree with the justification that
 
 ### Democracy in Statist Society
 
-As a quick aside, some anarchists are critical of the term "democracy" here, as it may carry baggage of how democracy is implemented in a statist society, or disingenuously try to copy over the positive associations democracy has within western society. An anarchist would typically flat out reject any form of [Representative Democracy](/garden/representative-democracy/index.md) due to representatives inherently imperfectly abstracting the will of their constituency. They would argue representative democracy strictly gets better the closer you get to everyone having a representative that perfectly matches their positions on all issues, which is of course then equivalent to a direct democracy.
+As a quick aside, some anarchists are critical of the term "democracy" here, as it may carry baggage of how democracy is implemented in a statist society, or disingenuously try to copy over the positive associations democracy has within western society. An anarchist would typically [flat out reject](https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/james-herod-making-decisions-amongst-assemblies) any form of [Representative Democracy](/garden/representative-democracy/index.md) due to representatives inherently imperfectly abstracting the will of their constituency. They would argue representative democracy strictly gets better the closer you get to everyone having a representative that perfectly matches their positions on all issues, which is of course then equivalent to a direct democracy.
 
 ### Assigning Roles in Anarchy
 
@@ -41,11 +41,11 @@ A flavor of anarchism that allows for group decision making typically also allow
 
 ## Motivation Under Anarchy
 
-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 (see [Social Construct](/garden/social-constructs/index.md)s and Materialism). 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 [The Alt-Right Playbook: Always a Bigger Fish](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=agzNANfNlTs).
+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 (see [Social Construct](/garden/social-constructs/index.md)s and Materialism). [Anarchy Works](https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/peter-gelderloos-anarchy-works#toc7) starts by addressing this argument. Without the profit motive and returning to a culture of collaboration and [mutual aid](https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/dean-spade-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 [The Alt-Right Playbook: Always a Bigger Fish](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=agzNANfNlTs).
 
 ## Accountability under Anarchy
 
-Anarchy requires [Police Abolition](/garden/police-abolition/index.md), as a carceral state is, obviously, a state. There is no state sanctioned violence in a state-less society. With that in mind, if someone breaks a rule or otherwise acts anti-socially, the anarchist society will have to rely on other methods of accountability.
+Anarchy requires [Police Abolition](/garden/police-abolition/index.md), as a carceral state is, obviously, a state. Emma Goldman's essays on anarchism include a chapter on [Prisons: A Social Crime and Failure](https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/emma-goldman-anarchism-and-other-essays#toc6). Suffice to say, there is no state sanctioned violence in a state-less society. With that in mind, if someone breaks a rule or otherwise acts anti-socially, the anarchist society will have to rely on other methods of accountability.
 
 Like prison abolitionists, anarchists would prefer systemic solutions to problems. If someone had to steal food from another at risk of starving, the solution is to ensure food (and other needs like shelter and healthcare) are accessible to all. Technology has made it trivial to provide for everyone; In America, there is more food waste than it would take to feed all the hungry, and enough vacant houses to shelter all the homeless. The scarcity is artificial, created by and maintained by those at the top of the hierarchy.
 
@@ -57,17 +57,19 @@ A core principle of anarchism is "free association", referring to how individual
 
 One thing to be wary of with free association, is that it can incidentally support segregation. It's therefore important for communities to encourage diversity as much as they can, and refuse to associate with bigoted communities, theoretically discouraging those bigoted views through social and material isolation.
 
+There is an organizational concept called sociocracy that has roots in several proto-anarchist thinkers. Sociocracy For All describes it as "one particular way to put anarchist values into practice" in [Sociocracy and Anarchism](https://www.sociocracyforall.org/sociocracy-and-anarchism/). Their structure closely resembles what I've described and advocated for here, and they've provided guides enabling many organizations to uphold anarchist values.
+
 ## Anarchy and Capitalism
 
-The definition of individualist anarchism, one of the three categories defined in the introduction, is quite contested amongst anarchists. Some deny that its distinct from collectivist socialism, others claim it includes anarcho-capitalism, and yet others deny the capitalism is even compatible with anarchism at all. As the broad categories are just a [Social Construct](/garden/social-constructs/index.md) trying to make it easier to analyze different flavors of anarchism, I think its sufficient to say individualist anarchism is not really a useful term, as it typically needs clarification upon use of what individualist anarchism means to that author specifically.
+The definition of individualist anarchism, one of the three categories defined in the introduction, is quite contested amongst anarchists. Some deny that its [distinct from collectivist socialism and worth consideration](https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/joe-peacott-individualism-reconsidered), others claim it [includes anarcho-capitalism,](https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/geoffrey-ostergaard-anarchism-blackwell-dictionary) and yet others deny that capitalism [is even compatible with anarchism](https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/the-anarchist-faq-editorial-collective-an-anarchist-faq-full#text-amuse-label-secf0) at all. As the broad categories are just a [Social Construct](/garden/social-constructs/index.md) trying to make it easier to analyze different flavors of anarchism, I think its sufficient to say individualist anarchism is not really a useful term, as it typically needs clarification upon use of what individualist anarchism means to that author specifically.
 
 I will take a strong position in favor of the argument that capitalism is inherently incompatible with anarchism, though. Capitalism inherently forms hierarchies by introducing currency as a coercive force that is then required for continued survival. Anarcho-capitalism, the theoretical blending of capitalism and anarchism, argues for a stateless society with a market economy, effectively instituting laissez-faire economics. Anarcho-capitalism argues this market would regulate itself naturally due to the exchange of goods being purely voluntary, however this ignores capitalist incentives that would trend the economy towards wealth accumulating in the hands of the few. This creates a coercive hierarchy, which is not voluntary due to people's need for food, water, and shelter. The only way to avoid this unjust hierarchy would be with a form of regulatory body that would be nothing short of a state. Therefore, anarcho-capitalism is not compatible with anarchism, because despite their shared antipathy towards states, they do not share the underlying antipathy towards hierarchy.
 
-Anarcho-capitalists argue that their vision of anarchism is the only form that could possibly exist in reality, as any other form necessitates a state in order to handle things like the redistribution of private property. However, this argument itself implies the necessity of private property as a concept. Collectivist forms of anarchy such as anarcho-communism or mutualism demonstrate how economies can work without private property.
+Anarcho-capitalists argue that their vision of anarchism is the [only form that could possibly exist in reality](https://archive.lewrockwell.com/rothbard/rothbard103.html), as any other form necessitates a state in order to handle things like the redistribution of private property. However, this argument itself implies the necessity of private property as a concept. Collectivist forms of anarchy such as anarcho-communism or mutualism demonstrate how economies can work without private property.
 
 ## Anarchy in the Workplace
 
-Typical American corporations are very hierarchical, with a few hands at the top having ultimate say over the company - what it does, how much it pays its employees, who it fires, etc. Worker's co-operatives are alternatives to corporations that are entirely worker owned and operated, with a flat hierarchy.
+Typical American corporations are very hierarchical, with a few hands at the top having ultimate say over the company - what it does, how much it pays its employees, who it fires, etc. Worker's co-operatives are alternatives to corporations that are entirely worker owned and operated, with a flat hierarchy that meaningfully improve worker's rights and [help shift society more socialist](https://jacobin.com/2024/05/cooperatives-dsa-left-strategy-solidarity/).
 
 This dynamic means technological progress works in employees' favor, rather than owners' (since the employees are the owners). For example, lets say some technological innovation made employees twice as productive. Under a capitalist structure, the owners would have no reason to increase compensation based on the increased production, and in fact would be discouraged from doing so. They'd likely either use the increased productivity to sell more products, or half the workforce to cut down on significant expenditures. Under a socialist or anarchist structure, the needs and desires of the people are most important, so workers are likely to either see increased compensation due to their increased productivity, or reduced hours without a reduction in compensation. The co-operative could still decide to also just utilize the increased productivity without reducing hours nor increasing compensation, but the decision to do so would have been consensually made by the workers themselves, not their boss.
 

site/garden/police-abolition/index.md

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 <details><summary>Referenced by:</summary><a href="/garden/anarchism/index.md">Anarchism</a><a href="/garden/consensus-democracy/index.md">Consensus Democracy</a><a href="/garden/my-political-beliefs/index.md">My Political Beliefs</a></details>
@@ -91,6 +91,10 @@ With the police abolished, there are likely to still be cases where an individua
 
 Another criticism of _prison_ abolitionism specifically is [What do you do with the murderers and rapists?](https://medium.com/@amparker/what-about-the-rapists-and-murderers-7a81955b772c), but as that article describes: we already don't incarcerate many murderers and rapists, especially the significant amount of murderers and rapists who are also officers. It argues the incarceral system already fails in this regard, and focuses on punishing the perpetrator rather than helping the victims, which is something we could do without incarceration.
 
+### Consequences
+
+While punishments are not good deterrents, some consequences for crimes are still justified and can be enforced without requiring incarceration. A victim may be "made whole" (have the damage reversed to the best of our ability) at expense of the perpetrator, or the society itself (using resources its no longer spending on police or prison). If there's a material cause for the crime having taken place, e.g. a hungry person stealing food, those material conditions can be improved. For cases where the perpetrator is chronically exhibiting anti-social behavior, a trip to a rehabilitation facility, which would be operated significantly differently from the PIC, could be warranted. Stuff like anger management courses or resources to help kick addictions would naturally still be present in a society without prisons.
+
 ## Further reading
 
 I have not finished reading it yet myself, but I recommend [We Do This ‘Til We Free Us](https://www.haymarketbooks.org/books/1664-we-do-this-til-we-free-us) by Mariame Kaba based on [this NBC article on the book and author](https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/abolishing-police-prisons-lot-more-practical-critics-claim-ncna1258659).