Can anarchy work among non-anarchists? Who is the third party?

Question

For anarchy to work, it must assume that there will be a large faction, if not a majority, of people who oppose anarchy and want government (initially, at least). To assume that anarchy would work when there are only anarchists is meaningless - any system would work if everyone believes in it, which is why small, homogeneous societies throughout history have experienced very little social conflict. How can this be resolved without force? All revolutions have its dissenters, and dissenters are usually put down by institutions such as military or police. They keep order. The flaw in anarchy, to me, seems to be that there is no third party to mediate disagreements or serve as an 'objective' look on the conflict (enforced system of laws) when there are conflicts. No one has any right to impose one's own will over another individual, or another group. I'm not saying I believe that we have that right inherently, not philosophically speaking, anyway. But one must admit that it makes things very convenient and streamlines the conflicts that inevitably rise when groups don't see eye to eye with one another. How can this be resolved?

Answer 1

To answer your first question - yes it can work, you can live in a social context without hierarchy without identifying as an anarchist, non-hierarchal communities and societies existed well before anarchism arose as an ideology.

As for the second - no, there can be no third party, not in form that you seem to suggest, which leads me to the larger issue here - your question doesn't engage with anarchism on it's own terms.  You're bringing a lot of assumptions to the table that have their origins in caricatures of anarchism, not in anarchist ideas and conceptions of social roles and organisation/ethics/morality.

Here are some of the assumptions I'm taking about:

"For anarchy to work, it must assume that there will be a large faction, if not a majority, of people who oppose anarchy and want government (initially, at least)."

- From the outset you're speaking to an 'after the revolution' scenario, which just isn't relevant to a lot of anarchists.  You're assuming that anarchists have a prescriptive vision for society that involves 'the revolution' overthrowing the social, economic and political establishment, and replacing it with their own structures, which are imposed on everyone.  Not all (and I doubt even most) anarchists subscribe to any of that.  Not only are there many different models for resistance/attack against the state and other forms of hierarchy (such as insurrectionary anarchism), but there are also many different perspectives on the idea of a prescriptive vision for society - from what one should look like to whether it's useful to have a prescriptive vision at all.

"To assume that anarchy would work when there are only anarchists is meaningless"

- Following on from the last point; it may be meaningless to you, but for anarchists who instead of trying to foment global revolution focus their energy on creating anarchic social conditions around themselves, specifically with friends who hold similar values, desires and politics (ie. anarchists), the project of creating functioning anarchist communities populated by anarchists is far from meaningless, it's ongoing lived experience.

"No one has any right to impose one's own will over another individual, or another group."

- Yes, insofar as no one has any right to or from anything.  What you've appealed to here is the 'non-aggression principle', or 'the harm principle', and you've couched it in the language of natural rights.  The assumption anarchism is predicated on both of these is in my experience very common, maybe because liberalism occupies such a place of influence in our political culture, and the harm principle and natural rights constitute the framework within which liberalism conceptualizes 'liberty'.  Nonetheless, that assumption is deeply inaccurate - while liberalism has influenced anarchism (particularly very early anglophone anarchism and certain strands of individualist anarchism), the non-aggression principle and natural rights are far from being univerally accepted amongst anarchists, and many reject both completely.  For a detailed argument against the non-aggression principle and natural rights I highly recommend Feral Faun's essay 'The Cops In Our Heads' (link below), it's quite thorough and very readible.

"But one must admit that it makes things very convenient and streamlines the conflicts that inevitably rise when groups don't see eye to eye with one another."

No, I strongly disagree.  Take a moment to consider the 'objective' 'third party' that currently exists in western societies - the judiciary and legal system.  When disputes arise between individuals or more abstract agents like businesses, going to court is usually the last (or first, in cases of 'corporate bullying') resort because of the enormous costs in time and money for both parties.  Once disputes are taken up by the legal system, convenience and streamlined conflict resolution are thrown out the window.  Conflict resolution is usually a grueling, tedious, frustrating and painstaking process, regardless of what from the process takes, and imposing a supposedly objective authority on the process, or appealing to a supposedly objective authority only fucks shit up further - it complicates everything and subordinates both parties to an arbitrary judgment that they have little reason to submit to if they don't come out on top, which is why we have police and prisons - to coerce them into submission.  Part of the problem is that in order to claim objectivity, especially for an institutional third party that is persistant beyond any one dispute, the set of rules and consequences for breaking them has to be arbitrary, it has to be insensitive to the wider context, immediate situation and differing perspectives, to preserve the legitimacy of its own objectivity.  To me it seems that any appeal to objectivity is inherently hierarchical as it places an external above both the appealer's own being and sovereignty* and the being and sovereignty of whoever is on the receiving end.

* (in theory, although what is appealed to as objective is often a direct reflection of the the appealer's subjective perspective)

The Cops In Our Heads:
http://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/feral-faun-essays#toc7

Comments

Reading that article
"Since the anarchic situation is amoral, the idea of an anarchist morality is highly suspect. Morality is a system of principles defining what constitutes right and wrong behavior. It implies some absolute outside of individuals by which they are to define themselves, a commonality of all people that makes certain principles applicable to everyone."
He assumes that the reader/anarchist is a moral objectivist. If morality is understood as a subjective understanding of "right" and "wrong" (which is how I think about it) the whole problem he has with an "anarchist morality" disappears. "Anarchist morality" then is the personal expression of behavioural preferences.

I get the feeling he is one of the people who conflates anarchy and anomy.

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From what I've read from Wolfi/Feral Faun, I get the impression that the idea that morality is subjective forms part of the basis for her/his argument, and that (s)he'd be supportive of a conception of morality centered on subjective understandings of right and wrong, or rather as subjectively morally good or bad/desirable or undesirable/useful or not useful, expressed as a form of assertion of the self.  That's just my impression though and I can't claim any kind of certainty over it.  I read the linked article assuming that (s)he was critiquing the concept of objective morality because (s)he's speaking to a western audience, and (even among anarchists) the word 'morality' more often implies an objective understanding than a subjective one in western cultures; hence his advocacy of 'amorality'.

>"I get the feeling he is one of the people who conflates anarchy and anomy"
This statement has really piqued my interest, I'll probably post a question regarding anarchy and anomy once I've figured out how I want to frame it.

Edited for clarity.

Answer 2

to address your points out of order...
you're right. the kind of change that anarchists are looking for is extremely radical, requiring people to think a different way. but it's also true that it isn't foreign to us, and we all do it every day, we just take it for granted. when you have a fight with your friends, you don't appeal to outside parties (usually, and if you do, it's not as authorities who will "break it up", but as other concerned people who care about those engaged in the conflict).
i don't talk about rights, but anarchy won't mean that people don't throw their weight around, get into violent conflict with others, make stupid mistakes, etc. it *does* mean that those people won't be able to control huge amounts of resources; hire people to kill, lie, etc for them; lay waste to huge areas of land, etc.  the scale is perhaps the most significant thing that will change.
there will always be people and/or groups of people who will be more diplomatic and will serve as bridges between groups. that doesn't usually require the threat of, or actual, coercion.

as for how anarchists would deal with people who insist on government, it would probably depend on the situation, but only pacifist anarchists refuse to use force, and force can be defined in various ways. removing someone's capacity to rule over others might not be defined as force at all, depending on the circumstances.
 
(the idea that anything and anyone is objective is a myth. but that isn't that relevant for this response.)

Answer 3

1. true "objectivity" is not possible. those that claim to be objective are typically those that have or want power over others (law, religion, science, etc). 86'ed from planet anarchy.

2. unless a third party was asked specifically by the disputing parties to serve that particular function for that specific situation (and ONLY that situation), the entire concept of an individual or institution imbued with the general authority to "mediate disputes" would by definition be in conflict with my anarchist perspective. the former scenario is just individuals acting freely, dealing with the resolution of a specific situation. see other q/a's on "power" etc. fixed roles, especially those with any kind of authority - 86'ed from planet anarchy.

you seem to be of the opinion that individual humans cannot resolve their own disputes without some authority ("mediator"). an anarchist that believes that stands on some pretty thin ice, imo.

Comments

"those that claim to be objective are typically those that have or want power over others (law, religion, science, etc)"
Scientists who claim to be objective or claim science to be objective are usually not that well received, if I remember that correctly.

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that is definitely NOT my experience. a recent example is the "new atheists", or as my good friend calls them, the "pious atheists". they seem to be pretty well accepted based on how many people believe and agree with them. their claims to objective truth/knowledge is the basis for their religious adherence to both Science and atheism. you may disagree, but i stand by my previous statement.

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Never heard of the "New Atheist" and I doubt that they are in any way representative of how science works. "Claims to objective truth/knowledge" is pretty much *the* sign for quacks.