I am trying to write a simple faq about anarchism. One of the question is “Why do anarchist want to abolish hierarchies?”. This question sounds so obvious to me I cannot write something convincing enough.
For know I got the following:
First, it is necessary to indicate what kind of authority anarchism challenges. While anarchists have, on occasion, stated their opposition to “all authority” a closer reading quickly shows that anarchists reject only one specific form of authority, what we tend to call hierarchy.
Hierarchy is a social, religious, economic or political system or organization in which people or groups of people are ranked with some superior to others based on their status, authority or some other trait.
Authority is the power to enforce rules and give orders.
But why do we need a such authority? Why would they be more accountable for doing this job than anybody else? For example, in a factory, why would the boss be necessary? Workers could just organize themselves and do the same function.
You never agreed to respect hierarchies like the state, the police, the companies, etc. When you born you never signed a contract saying you agreed with all of this, so why should you respect it?
What do you think about it? What would you add to it?
Sorry but this notion that “power corrupts” is very idealist and not necessarily true in all cases. Being afraid of power is a detriment to all movements because without power you can’t think to ever gain anything. Power is merely a tool, nothing more.
“We must cease once and for all to describe the effects of power in negative terms: it ‘excludes’, it ‘represses’, it ‘censors’, it ‘abstracts’, it ‘masks’, it ‘conceals’. In fact, power produces; it produces reality; it produces domains of objects and rituals of truth.” - Foucault in Discipline and Punish
What’s the difference between power and authority? Also, the idea that nobody can be trusted with power over another person sounds pretty accurate (at least power that is involuntary and unjustified)
I think we are getting into a difference of definitions here. I am specifically talking about political power; that of legislators, governors, judges, police officers, bosses, managers, clergy, landlords, etc. which gives them specialized responsibility for managing the lives of other people. Instead, people should have the generalized shared responsibility for the management of public society and full control of their private lives. When someone does have such specialized responsibility of management (“power” in my usage) it corrupts them in multiple ways. Just a few examples:
Power, in the sense you are using it, is more like a synonym for potential or capability. If I understood you correctly, we are actually in agreement and are just using the word in different ways.
That is correct. Power is either understood as a synonym of capacity (power to achieve something), or as a synonym of authority (power over others), not sure why some folks would downvote you.
Apparently two people downvoted without replying… did I say something unconstructive? I thought we were having a good conversation.