Nothing wrong with classes in functional programming though. Just return a new instance of the class from your method, rather than mutating an existing instance.
this post was submitted on 28 Feb 2025
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Right, I think the two aren't as different as they appear. You can think of a closure as an object with just one method.
If OO programming is fundamentally about objects sending messages to each other, then there are many ways to approach that. Some of those ways are totally compatible with functional programming.
The legacy of C++ has dominated what OOP is "supposed" to be, but it doesn't have to work like that.
Javascript:
I heard you like mutating class data so I'm mutating the data you can put in your class data, dawg.
JavaScript: a language for mutants.
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Do anarchists think anarchy will result in a system with no classes?
Yes, because anarchism is against all hierarchies and the class system is a form of hierarchy. Instead, decisions should me made collectively, for example in councils open for everyone
@lugal @danc4498 Anarchism is against specifically unjust hierarchies, it can permit certain ones to exist within individual communities should the community find it justified, but still strongly favours not having any where possible.
There are a group of anarchists who would still believe in the idea of an adult > child hierarchy as they struggle to imagine an alternative world without it.
Parents have natural bootmaker authority and if you want to be a good parent then you realise that the kids also have it: They, or maybe better put their genome, know how they need to be raised, and try to teach you, as well as (with increasing age) seek out the exact bootmakers that seem sensible. Worst thing you can do as a parent is to think that learning is a one-way street.
I honestly hate the concept of "bootmaker authority", because it's exactly the same wrong conflation that Engels makes. Not every inequality is a form of authority. Expertise is not authority, it is expertise.
Authority is the socially-recognised power to dominate. Getting a bootmaker to advise on or perform bootmaking tasks is not domination. The bootmaker can't hold you at gunpoint and command you to wear a certain kind of boot, nobody would allow that. There aren't bootmaking cops.
Like what exactly does the bootmaker's "authority" entail in this theory? Giving consent does not confer authority. Authority operates regardless of consent, that's what makes it bad.
Knowledge is power, thus with a knowledge gap we have a power gap. As a bootmaker's apprentice, my capacity to judge whether or not I'm getting taught proper technique is limited, I can alleviate that disparity by consulting more than one bootmaker, but ultimately that gap won't vanish until I, myself, have mastered the craft.
Authority is the socially-recognised power to dominate.
...unnatural authority. Natural authority aka the bootmaker's does not require social recognition. The bootmaker knows more than the apprentice no matter what society thinks, the imbalance is not socially caused.
If you don't want to call it authority, fine, but saying "as bad as Engels" is going too far IMO. While bootmaker's authority does not rely on (wider) social recognition it is still a thing that happens in a social relationship, and not in the relationship of a worker to their alarm clock or whatnot. Though arguably in the modern world that line is also blurring, see technological paternalism, OTOH it's just a reification of the relationship between the producer and consumer of a technology. It's an unavoidable (unless you're a primitivist) side-effect of increased division of labour in a technologically advancing society.
Heck I'm myself on the page of "the state is a people, a territory, and organisation", simply because the classical anarchist definition drifted miles and miles from the dictionary and the lived experience of people in liberal democracies, when you say "abolish the state" they hear "abolish garbage collection". We can re-do terminology once in a while, it's a good idea.
I need you to define the word "authority" in that case. I've given my definition, so what is yours and how does it differ, please? Because I already addressed the fact that an imbalance doesn't create a hierarchy, and your description of imbalance does not fit my definition of authority.
Power imbalance doesn't automatically create the conditions for domination. For that you would need both expertise and monopoly.
And the solution to a misunderstanding isn't to concede the definition of the word "state" but to educate. The state is any entity that has a monopoly of the legitimate use of violence in a region. That applies regardless of the system of government that rules it.
Your definition isn't a definition, it's just a collection of categories that gives no useful information.
We don't need to be dominated in order to clean up our garbage. And the state is often really bad at collecting garbage, so just teach people that.
Authority is a power imbalance in a social relationship. It does not, in itself, imply domination or monopoly or expertise it happens each time two people are not on eye level regarding something, cannot, for whatever reason, relate to each other as complete equals. If you find yourself having it and are keen on proper praxis then you take on the responsibility to lift the other up as you are capable to do. I think for that reason alone I think it's important to recognise it as authority, so that we are careful when using it, which, in the end, is unavoidable.
We don’t need to be dominated in order to clean up our garbage. And the state is often really bad at collecting garbage, so just teach people that.
Garbage collection is a non-issue over here, it just works. Couple of neighbouring municipalities own the company and it's run on an at-cost basis with decent wages. If, suddenly, an anarchist revolution were to happen I'm quite sure the general arrangement would carry over.
...and I took that as an example precisely because (over here) it just works, it's a baby you wouldn't want to throw out with the bathwater. I'm reasonably sure that wherever you're living, you can think of such an example.
Anarchism thus becomes meaningless as anyone who defends certain hierarchies obviously does so because they believe they are just. Literally everyone on earth is against "unjust hierarchies" at least in their own personal evaluation of said hierarchies. People who support capitalism do so because they believe the exploitative systems it engenders are justifiable and will usually immediately tell you what those justifications are. Sure, you and I might not agree with their argument, but that's not the point. To say your ideology is to oppose "unjust hierarchies" is to not say anything at all, because even the capitalist, hell, even the fascist would probably agree that they oppose "unjust hierarchies" because in their minds the hierarchies they promote are indeed justified by whatever twisted logic they have in their head.
Telling me you oppose "unjust hierarchies" thus tells me nothing about what you actually believe, it does not tell me anything at all. It is as vague as saying "I oppose bad things." It's a meaningless statement on its own without clarifying what is meant by "bad" in this case. Similarly, "I oppose unjust hierarchies" is meaningless statement without clarifying what qualifies "just" and "unjust," and once you tell me that, it would make more sense you label you based on your answer to that question. Anarchism thus becomes a meaningless word that tells me nothing about you. For example, you might tell me one unjust hierarchy you want to abolish is prison. It would make more sense for me to call you a prison abolitionist than an anarchist since that term at least carries meaning, and there are plenty of prison abolitionists who don't identify as anarchist.
Isn't anarchy just against imposed hierarchy? Most anarchists I've met are okay with heirarchies that form naturally, and believe those hierarchies to be enough for society to function, hence why they call themselves anarchists, not minarchists.
I have never heard the term minarchist. Many anarchists say, we need structures against the building of hierarchies, like avoiding knowledge hierarchies by doing skillshares.
Natural authorities are a different topic. I think Kropotkin was an example of a leader who was accepted because everyone agreed with him. Once he said something people didn't like, they rejected him as a leader. You can call this a hierarchy if you like. I wouldn't because he couldn't coerce his followers but this is pure terminology.
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Depends on the anarchist. Many would focus on seeking the absence of involuntary power hierarchies. A manager who distributes work and does performance evaluations isn't intrinsically a problem, it's when people doing the work can't say "no, they're a terrible manager and they're gone", or you can't walk away from the job without risking your well-being.
Anarchists and communists/socialists have a lot of overlap. There's also overlap with libertarians, except libertarians often focus on coercion from the government and don't give much regard to economic coercion. An anarchist will often not see much difference between "do this or I hit you" and "do this or starve": they both are coercive power hierarchies.
Some anarchists are more focused on removing sources of coercion. Others are more focused on creating relief from it. The "tear it down" crowd are more visible, but you see anarchists in the mutual aid and community organization crowds as well.
Anarchists recognize class as a social construct rather than a biological imperative or a free market condition. As a result, they will often make a point of transgressing or undermining the pageantry that class-centric organizations cling to.
Its not that they think "no classes" will be a result so much as they think "explicitly defying class" is a political act.
Anarchism is not the thing you're told about in the media. It isn't a total lack of all government. It's a removal of hierarchical systems and exploitation. There still needs to be systems to protect people from these. They'd just be done through concensus.
This page has more information if you want to learn. https://anarchistfaq.org/afaq/sectionA.html#seca1
They define anarchy differently from the common definition. Anarchists believe in creating community organizations to serve the needs of society, but they refrain from calling it a state because they believe a state requires a monopoly on the acceptable use of violence.
They don't think that we should just dissolve society and let everyone fend for themselves to eliminate class, unless they're an edgy teenager.
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Anarchy means "without hierarchy". Classes are a hierarchy, so by definition it wouldn't be anarchy if you don't dissolve class.
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Revolution is a monad
wow, there are some really steaming takes on anarchism in the comments here.
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This one does not spark joy.
Protest anonymously, function anonymously.
Dunno how accurate this is but if you like doing those quizzes see where you fall on leftist values. https://leftvalues.github.io/index.html
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All libertarian ideologies (including left and right wing anarchism) are anti-social and primitivist.
It is anti-social because it arises from a hatred of working in a large groups. It's impossible to have any sort of large-scale institution without having rules that people want to follow, and libertarian ideology arises out of people hating to have to follow rules, i.e. to be a respectable member of society, i.e. they hate society and don't want to be social. They thus desire very small institutions with limited rules and restrictions. Right-wing libertarians envision a society dominated by small private businesses while left-wing libertarians imagine a society dominated by either small worker-cooperative, communes, or some sort of community council.
Of course, everyone of all ideologies opposes submitting to hierarchies they find unjust, but hatred of submitting to hierarchies at all is just anti-social, as any society will have rules, people who write the rules, people who enforce the rules. It is necessary for any social institution to function. It is part of being an adult and learning to live in a society to learn to obey the rules, such as traffic rules. Sometimes it is annoying or inconvenient, but you do it because you are a respectable member of society and not a rebellious edgelord who makes things harder on everyone else because they don't obey basic rules.
It is primitivist because some institutions simply only work if they are very large. You cannot have something like NASA that builds rocket ships operated by five people. You are going to always need an enormous institution which will have a ton of people, a lot of different levels of command ("hierarchy"), strict rules for everyone to follow, etc. If you tried to "bust up" something like NASA or SpaceX to be small businesses they simply would lose their ability to build rocket ships at all.
Of course, anarchists don't mind, they will say, "who cares about rockets? They're not important." It reminds me of the old meme that spread around where someone asked anarchists how their tiny communes would be able to organize current massive supply chains in our modern societies and they responded by saying that the supply chain would be reduced to just people growing beans in their backyard and eating it, like a feudal peasant. They won't even defend that their system could function as well as our modern economy but just says modern marvels of human engineering don't even matter, because they are ultimately primitivists at heart.
I never understood the popularity of libertarian and anarchist beliefs in programming circles. We would never have entered the Information Age if we had an anarchism or libertarian system. No matter how much they might pretend these are the ideal systems, they don't even believe it themselves. If a libertarian has a serious medical illness, they are either going to seek medical help at a public hospital or a corporate hospital. Nobody is going to seek medical help at a "hospital small business" ran out of someone's garage. We all intuitively and implicitly understand that large swathes of economy that we all take advantage of simply cannot feasibly be ran by small organizations, but libertarians are just in denial.
Well, I don't understand why you think anarchist means no rules.
It means no hierarchy.
It's even the whole word itself.
An-Archy. Hier-archy.
So your thesis is based on wrong assumptions and is a word salad from my point of view.
You did not read what I wrote, so it is unironic you call it "word salad" when you are not even aware of the words I wrote since you had an emotional response and wrote this reply without actually addressing what I argued. I stated that it is impossible to have an very large institution without strict rules that people follow, and this requires also the enforcement of the rules, and that means a hierarchy as you will have rule-enforcers.
Also, you are insisting your personal definition of anarchism is the one true definition that I am somehow stupid for disagreeing with, yet anyone can just scroll through the same comments on this thread and see there are other people disagreeing with you while also defending anarchism. A lot of anarchists do not believe anarchism means "no hierarchy," like, seriously, do you unironically believe in entirely abolishing all hierarchies? Do you think a medical doctor should have as much authority on how to treat an injured patient as the janitor of the same hospital? Most anarchists aren't even "no hierarchy" they are "no unjustified hierarchy."
The fact you are entirely opposed to hierarchy makes your position even more silly than what I was criticizing.
I never said anything like that. I never said i beleived in anarchy. You just are factually wrong on all counts.
Go read the anarchist philosophers, you'll see what I mean.
You are still writing word salad by the way... Really ... Touch grass, read a book about the subject you want to talk about and come back a changed person!
I wish you well!
You have not made any point at all. Your first reply to me entirely ignored the point of my post which you did not read followed with an attack, I reply pointing out you ignored the whole point of my post and just attacked me without actually respond to it, and now you respond again with literally nothing of substance at all just saying "you're wrong! touch grass! word salad!"
You have nothing of substance to say, nothing to contribute to the discussion. You are either a complete troll trying to rile me up, or you just have a weird emotional attachment to this topic and felt an emotional need to respond and attack me prior to actually thinking up a coherent thing to criticize me on. Didn't your momma ever teach you that "if you have nothing positive or constructive to say, don't say anything at all"? Learn some manners, boy. Blocked.
I don't feel like I have to discuss with someone who clearly is in bad faith.
Go learn about a subject before talking about it, that's it. All you said was petulant bullshit. Go read La conquete du pain or something before talking about anarchy, you clearly have no idea what you are talking about and instead are reugitating speudo-intellectual word salad.
If you're so fragile you feel you need to block me, i have no words for you other than : go touch grass, go read about your subjet and come back a better person.
I wish you well!
all well and good but there is one aspect which i disagree. Modern supply chains are an inefficient way to organize our economies. We are destroying flora and fauna at great speeds in the name of maintaining modern supply chains and convenience. We should not consume things which are not able to be produced sustainably and that means only having things that are produced locally.
World spanning supply chains are a symptom of greed, war-mongering, and anti-sustainability. they are world devouring activities.
They are incredibly efficient for short-term production, but very inefficient for long-term production. Destroying the environment is a long-term problem that doesn't have immediate consequences on the businesses that engage in it. Sustainable production in the long-term requires foresight, which requires a plan. It also requires a more stable production environment, i.e. it cannot be competitive because if you are competing for survival you will only be able to act in your immediate interests to avoid being destroyed in the competition.
Most economists are under a delusion known as neoclassical economics which is literally a nonphysical theory that treats the basis of the economy as not the material world we actually live in but abstract human ideas which are assumed to operate according to their own internal logic without any material causes or influences. They then derive from these imagined "laws" regarding human ideas (which no one has ever experimentally demonstrated but were just invented in some economists' armchair one day) that humans left to be completely free to make decisions without any regulations at all will maximize the "utils" of the population, making everyone as happy as possible.
With the complete failure of this policy leading to the US Great Depression, many economists recognized this was flawed and made some concessions, such as with Keynesianism, but they never abandoned the core idea. In fact, the core idea was just reformulated to be compatible with Keynesianism in what is called the neoclassical synthesis. It still exists as a fundamental belief to most every economist that completely unregulated market economy without any plan at all will automagically produce a society with maximal happiness, and while they will admit some caveats to this these days (such as the need for a central organization to manage currency in Keynesianism), these are treated as an exception and not the rule. Their beliefs are still incompatible with long-term sustainable planning because in their minds the success of markets from comes util-maximizing decisions built that are fundamental to the human psyche and so any long-term plan must contradict with this and lead to a bad economy that fails to maximize utils.
The rise of Popperism in western academia has also played a role here. A lot of material scientists have been rather skeptical of the social sciences and aren't really going to take arguments like those based in neoclassical economics which is based largely in mysticism about human free will seriously, and so a second argument against long-term planning was put forward by Karl Popper which has become rather popular in western academia. Popper argued that it is impossible to learn from history because it is too complicated with too many variables and you cannot control them all. You would need a science that studies how human societies develop in order to justify a long-term development plan into the future, but if it's impossible to study them to learn how they develop because they are too complicated, then it is impossible to have such a science, and thus impossible to justify any sort of long-term sustainable development plan. It would always be based on guesswork and so more likely to do more harm than good. Popper argued that instead of long-term development plans, the state should instead be purely ideological, what he called an "open society" operating purely on the ideology of liberalism rather getting involved in economics.
As long as both neoclassical economics and Popperism are dominate trends in western academia there will never be long-term sustainable planning because they are fundamentally incompatible ideas.
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