"If you believe human nature is naturally irresponsible, selfish, and greedy, then we should shift to a new political and economic system that does not encourage and enable those negative tendencies." Yeah I'm going to be using that quote 10/10. Recently discovered this channel and am loving it. Here's a comment for the engagement algorithms ✌

i long believed that parents hold justified authority over their children until I heard of egalitarian hunter gatherer tribes in which children have great independence from a young age. I've also noticed how fascists are obsessed with maintaining hierarchy within the family. They know that if people are not trained to obey from a young age, many won't accept the rule of their leader, the conceptual father of the country.

Strange that opposition to hierarchy is considered "radical" to so many people.

Thank you for this! I've been trying to understand why some self-declared "anarchist" youtubers are pushing "justified hierarchy", and I have to assume it's because they think they would rank well.

Comment for the algorithm.

I have never considered myself an anarchist because of the negative connotations that the term has taken over the years but i agree entirely with the points you made. We are taught from our birth that we must respect hyerarchy or rank. At home we're taught to revere and obey our family (and especially our elders) just for being older than us regardless of how shitty or toxic it can be, at school we're taught to revere and obey the teachers regardless of how actually educated they are or how they do their job, at work we're taught to revere and obey our bosses because they own us regardless of how abusive and unjust that is, we're taught to revere and obey the police because they "keep the peace" regardless of how well they do their job (we've all seen the leaked videos from Uvalde), we're taught to revere and obey the government because they "run the country" regardless of how corrupt and unjust it is, we're told to respect these institutions because otherwise, hyerarchical society doesn't run, because the powerful aren't able to control us.

I heard an example before where, temporary authority is set up in times of emergency, like natural disaster relief, because it's very time sensitive. Having a previously agreed upon ruleset/chain of command using consensus discussion, can help in making the process more streamlined. Then that chain of command is immediately disposed of once it has outlived its usefulness. What do people think about that?

Bro I swear you could make the most prolix subject sound poetic and exciting

Finally! The Chomsky misconception annoys me because it gives newcomers to Anarchist philosophy a wrong idea and premise. There’s way better way to let people know that organization and order can be, if not only be, done by voluntary and free association and horizontal relations.

I really appreciate the commentary on hierarchy in child-parent relationships. This is something that's incredibly underemphasized in western culture

Andrew, love your content. I would really appreciate hearing your thoughts on how anarchist societies can actually resist hierarchical ones. It seems like the only way anarchy could survive is if the whole world became anarchy at once. Otherwise, if anarchy only sprung up in, say, a single country, then it's hierachical neighbors would see this 'power vacuum' as an excuse to claim interventionism and send their military to take over the anarchic society, which by it's very nature would find difficulty in resisting the hierachical military invasion. If there is a flaw in this reasoning, I would greatly appreciate learning more. It's the sticking point that keeps me from subscribing wholeheartedly to anarchism, though I am greatly sympathetic to it as an ethos.

This is amazing!!!! Coincidentally I also released a video breaking down hierarchy just yesterday, and I loooove that more people are talking about the semantics and commons misconceptions behind usage of the term. Your expertise blended with the warm self-assured style of your content is so valuable when it comes to hot topics like this.

Thank you for making this. I am going to share it with many people in the future

You touched on socialist critiques of anarchism briefly in this video. Could you do a whole video about Marxist-Lenininist critique of anarchism and point out its flaws?

2:08 the shade at Leninists is just delicious!

I may be a fool, but I've always interpreted Chomsky's "That is what I have always understood to be the essence of anarchism: the conviction that the burden of proof has to be placed on authority, and that it should be dismantled if that burden cannot be met" to mean the same thing you mean: in the end, no authority can rightly justify itself/be justified. While it seems that Chomsky leaves the possibility that some authority is justified, or it may even imply that there really is such a thing as justified authority, I've always interpreted that as merely an invitation to critically think about the justifiability of authority, instead of asking us to dogmatically accept, without prior thinking, that "no authority can be justified". In other words, the conclusion is the same: indeed, no authority can be justified, but in one case you took someone's word for it and in the other, you came to that conclusion yourself. It's reminiscent of the socratic method to me, leaving people with the "possibility" that they may know something, but ultimately letting them realize for themselves that they know nothing.

Saw the notification and had to watch. 🤘 Edit: You took me to _class_ and I didn't just learn, I enjoyed it.

I'd love a video on anarchist parenting. Whenever I ask an anarchist to explain how parenting would work without heirarchy they always seem to say that a relationship isn't heirarcical if it is based on love and effection, even if it involves one party making decisions for another. To me this just comes across as dismissing rather than justifying heirarchy which is worse because it doesn't recognize the situation for what it is.

4:34 "but Andrew, what about Engels?" is a missed opportunity for a Batman slap meme lol. Thank you for the amazing videos Andrew.

Why do i feel like I had this discussion on r/Anarchism just a few days ago? Great video,you always make them enjoyable

I think how I think of the idea of anarchism as "opposition to all hierarchy" is that it feels like it needs so much explanation in order to justify it. Hierarchy has such a different definition from its original use and the anarchist definition is so different from how it's colloquially used that I feel like it's reckless not to include qualifiers to make it clear how anarchists see it. I do think "justified hierarchy" isn't a good qualifier, but at the same time, it's a good attempt. I think "violently-enforced hierarchy" would be a little more clear, though violence would need to be expanded upon, but I feel like it's easier to explain how violence doesn't have to be physically striking someone and can be more indirect or more material rather than physical than it is to explain how hierarchy doesn't mean vertical organization in general

Something about your voice always makes me fell energised. Thank you for all your videos, you're very informative

Wonderfully put! I always encourage people to say, and argue for, the idea of 'being against hierarchies" rather than "unjustified ones" because everyone is against unjust things, as you said.

My favorite channel

"You give the authority power, and power has an appetite. Authoritarian power is a license to do harm, even if that wasn't your initial intention." This is an interesting statement to me. What is it about power that transforms a non-violent person into a violent person? What exactly do you define 'power' as?

I have a few questions, namely: How would an anarchic system sustain the complex systems that make modern technology and life possible without breaking down into new hierarchal systems? Certain systems like electronics manufacturing require a vast network of collaboration requiring a division of labor and knowledge that would likely form hierarchal power dynamics, as no individual could possibly know or implement all the specialized tasks associated with say for example, silicon chip manufacturing. Silicon chip manufacturing requires a vast network of institutions which themselves can be hierarchal or become part of a bigger multi-institutional hierarchy. How do anarchic systems avoid forming cliques or favoritism that may also serve as a catalyst for hierarchal systems? How does an anarchic system stop individuals from taking power for themselves without a degree of coordination that itself may paradoxically become hierarchal, especially when not everyone can chip in equally to find and stop power grabs or other community transgressions? How does an anarchic system sustain true egalitarianism if there's an inadvertent power/social dynamic between the student and teacher; the helper and the helped; between generations; the transgressors and their punishers; and the connections we have between friends vs strangers, among others. Perhaps this can be done by letting everyone be a teacher, helper, enforcer, etc. in some way or another, but there's a degree of complexity needed to maintain true egalitarian social dynamics between all parties, which becomes more complicated the more people you add to that system. Could you detail more about how anarchic parenting works? I feel like that's a good video topic I'd want to learn more about.

Great video! Also what bothers me most about supposed "just" hierarchies is that they devolve pretty fast into the other sort at the sight of the slightest disagreement coming from the subordinate side, haha.

Societies wouldn't work without hierarchy. In every endeavor that requires some degree of sophistication, you need someone to coordinate things; while no autonomy leads to stagnation, complete autonomy leads to endless debate and gridlock. They both have the same result; for a healthy society you need something in between the two extremes. This is why modern representative democracies work so well, it's a decent compromise between tyranny and anarchy.

Here I was thinking I was more socialist/communist leaning, but in reality my thinking aligns with anarchy. Wow.

I don't really understand conceptually how abolishing of hierarchy would work

I can't count how many times I resisted someone framing of anarchism as being against "unjustified" hierarchies, especially in anglophone world. It's frustrating that Chomsky's definition caught up in so many spaces. I was written so many times mini-essays to explain exactly that what this video is all about, but scattering forms of current internet made it lost somewhere. Thankfully now I can point people to this video. It is curious that many people who identify with that definition of anarchism, when asked what is justified hierarchy, very often automatically start with parent-child relationship. But this shows how it obscure rich history of anarchism around pedagogy and child-rearing. Maybe it's trivial to be bothered by technical aspect of definition, but it very often make people interested in anarchism fall back into generic views - especially so common ones as how parent-child relationship should look like.

Babe wake up new Andrewism post

Amazing video as always 😌

Honestly I tend to use the "Unjustified Hierarchy" thing to shift conversations slightly more in the direction I want. I mean, who likes an unjust hierarchy? You don't want that. Of course I'm still learning and growing myself and I thing internalizing the concept that Authority is bad actually is an important one. I had viewed it as a thing to be used and removed freely, but I understand what was being said so I'll need to sit with this a bit. I mean, creating a local council to that locals elected to do certain tasks that those same locals can meet to remove easily does not necessarily mean that you are giving them Authority as defined.

Isolating hierarchical criticism to the sociological context is the reason the term is so misunderstood in the first place. Hierarchy exists not just in human social structures but also exists in nature. The issue that people have been having over millennia is not the existence of hierarchies, but the fact that our concept of power corrupts all hierarchies. The very computer system we use to share our opinions is based on hierarchies for data management, storage and processing. The issue is not with the hierarchy it is with the minds constructing and maintaining them. The various nodes in the network simply run on outdated operating systems. This mean that hierarchies within then network are not as effective as they could be. Simply put we can examine how hierarchies are formed in two sets on organisms from a similar specie. Let us take wolves. It was long held that wolves organize into packs with the strongest male at the top and the weaker runts at the bottom. However, this observation was only made in wolves being held in captivity. The wolves when observed in nature still very much had hierarchies, but these were based on who is the oldest "family" member at the time. That means a weak old female may be the leader of a pack in the wild, or in a wolves more favoured habitat, but in captivity the wolves will organize in a military style. This would make sense as the wolves would perceive the environment itself as a threat. The wolves in their natural environment however, organize themselves according to the family structure. The reason hierarchies exist is because of data management, and the fact that with larger and larger amounts of data, the need for parallel processing becomes exponentially greater. Hence, hierarchic structures can be found throughout nature wherever there is sign of data processing. These structures allow for efficient data processing within a brain or computer, or a network of either like a community of people or the internet. The fact is that the physical hierarchy is a benefit, but the data that it is processing may not be good. Again go back to the case of the pack of wolves. In the wild, the experience of the eldest pack member has benefits in two folds. One, it can save the pack time and energy by sharing survival information that might otherwise have to be gained through many games of trial and error. Also the ability to pass on experience in and of itself is important in this context. So the second strength of experience is that the oldest member of the pack being at the top of a hierarchy create a situation where there is a higher probability of majority of the skills a wolf needs to survive will be learned early on in life as this would be the priority of such leadership. So not only does the pack benefit from knowledge of old leaders, but individuals benefit as they become more skillful much faster and their survival as an individual is greatly increased. Now contrast the captured wolves who abandon the idea of using the eldest wolf as a leader and instead go for strength. This benefits the wolves in that more time is spent on training and competing for resources, so that the number of wolves in captivity will be low as the weakest won't be able to survive. There is no skill transfer to help the pack survive, but there is brutal training for the stronger members as they constantly look to sway power in their favour. This means that wolves that can survive the harshness of the pack are those willing to fight back against their captives. Their is a higher chance of escape and lower chance of recapture in this scenario. The behaviours mentioned above can be seen clearly in the contrast between the narratives of pre-Islamic Africa and post colonization Africa and the many epochs in between serve as points of excitation along the spectrum of deeply spiritual and community based to dictatorships and civil wars. The many dictatorships that rose in many countries were a direct result to being exploited and out of shock the population reverting to the military style of governance to give a sense of animalistic security. As I said before, outdated minds working with new methods of exploitation will always respond in a predictable manner, because at the end of the day you cannot exploit an unpredictable resource. The ideas of anarchism are too small and localized to deal with issues that affect billions. There are too many problems that travel faster than the reactions speed of anarchic societies. The true weakness lies in the same predictability of resources versus unpredictability. In other words, there are resources like water and food that can be very unpredictable in certain regions, or periods in time, but the people themselves are predictable. Eventually exploitation will set in as humans are not intellectually equal. This disparity in intellect is probably genetic and cannot be overcome through just education. To compound the issue, the problem is intellectual disparity is dynamic. In one generation you might be smarter than me, but in the next generation my kid is smarter than yours. Hence, there is no true way to predict who will be exploited and who will be doing the exploitation. If we simply rely on social bias, we are playing into the same traps that lead to tribalism, or military rule taking over the pack of wolves who were once traditionalists. The best thing we people in the developing world can do is strive to become better than the Europeans. This is done by playing their game. Add their strengths to your artillery. Don't run from their powerful weapons of deception, separation and propaganda. We mut incorporate these tools into our narrative instead of letting those tools scoop up hopeless INDIVIDUALS into the exploitation barrel of Interest slavery.

another banger like always, Andrew! :D

Thank you so much for all your videos which I discovered today.

Words are easy when you change them

I dunno, I tend to define and "anarchist parent" as "a leftist who doesn't have kids yet"...

I'm not Anarchist but still, I gotta give mad respect for just up and admitting that you're against all hierarchy instead of sticking with this incredibly dubious definition of "only the unjustified ones", no one is for unjust hierarchies, that's the entire point of politics

Great video! I also loved your solarpunk series. Doing some research on these two subjects (anarchism, and how we can self-organize for a future where science and nature can coexist), I found multiple awesome and rigorous papers about Complexity Sciences, and how we can study and comprehend life through its anarchist behaviors such as emergence, mutual aid, constant sesrch towards more degrees of freedom, autonomy, etc. They also offer an explanation of the world's necessity to overcome Western civilization and it's ideology and colonial imposition of hierarchical structures. Here's the name of one of the papers: "Anarchy and Complexity" by Carlos Eduardo Maldonado and Nathalie Mezza-Garcia.

This is one of the things that has confounded me a lot. Like, I'm all for leveling systems of power. The problem I face though in reconciling this is that I have found "hierarchy" too useful as a tool of organization. Like, having people who occupy certain areas of responsibility to fulfill, having other people who's responsibility is to coordinate a specific group of people, having another layer of people above that who's responsibility is to coordinate those disparate groups, and on and on as necessary in working toward the completion of a specific project. When there's a disagreement, matter that hits multiple areas of responsibility, or a need for extra support or resources, often that will be kicked up the "coordination chain" to a level where that decision can be made by someone who's area of responsibility involves taking a broader overall view toward the completion of the project. And when the project is fulfilled, the organization can be dissolved or re-organized (to greater or lesser degrees) to meet some new goal. Examples that benefit from this kind of organization are things like a work crew, a development and design team, a manufacturing center, large event planning, or a militant unit. That doesn't sound quite like "hierarchy" under the anarchist definition of the word that you've laid out here. But I don't quite have a word to describe a "report-to" style of organization other than "hierarchy". Is there some better kind of language that anarchists would use to describe this?

Fantastic video touching on misconceptions of hierarchy

Actually, you saying parenting *isn't* "thee" justified hierarchy makes me feel a lot better, not only in terms of the fact that children need more freedom and autonomy than they get in our society, but also makes me think about how people are "rethinking" dog (or animal) training. Because not only does positive reinforcement work better than negative (even if it's not considered "violent" negative reinforcement), but treating a dog as intelligent counterpart on a team, wildly, can make things go a lot more smoothly. And positive reinforcement with something like treats isn't just about a reward--it's about communicating that you're seeing the behaviors you want AND it's an exchange the dog can understand (okay, I will do this in exchange for that). Plus, a lot of my current training has just been to help my dog's anxiety and reactivity toward other people and dogs on walks, or making sure she can heel at least specifically when we cross the street--so it's prioritizing her needs (or safety) rather than my desire for her to be "obedient."

I wish I could like this more than once

All power to ALL the people!!!

Such a clear explanationn

Feel so refreshed with revolution after watching your videos!!

looks i've been an anarchist for some time without knowing lol

I'm curious about the teacher-student relationship and the organization of militias and other armed forces, like having a squad captain. Or things like the crew of a sailing ship or a spacecraft? Can anyone elaborate on these please? I'm trying to learn. What do anarchist approaches to the classroom, battlefield, bridge, or cockpit look like?

I love when a video puts into words things I've been thinking better than I ever could. Thanks for this and all your other videos!

All power to all the people!

How do we prevent autoritarian people to take power and impose hierarchies? This is a serious question, I would really try to find an anarchist way to prevent the seizing of power by antisocial people.

I feel like i understand anarchism enough to know that i believe it works, but i dont understand it enough to know how to argue every point made against it. I still fail to give anarchist answers to how an anarchist society/region would defend itself against a major world threat like a hostile nation. Still though, its incredible and beautiful to get to learn about it, as it feels like almost every anarchist creator or writer i learn from helps make education feel spiritually fulfilling! I deeply appreciate these videos

100% agree -love your channel.

Your channel is so inspiring!!

That ending got me, ahh. Any time comrades talk about what the world would be like free of hierarchies, I get Big Emotions. But yes, fully agree here. I very much look for safer spaces, & the safest ones I have found are anarchist spaces (note: *safer*, not completely safe). Most people in my communities seem to understand this, & I'm grateful for them.

engagement! Great video yet again 👏

I do not identify as an anarchist, or left-wing, or anti-capitalist. I was recommended one of your videos and I clicked on this one because to me it looked like an opportunity to challenge one of my fundamental opinions that make me not hate capitalism. This video wasn't made for me. To me it comes across like you're arguing with people that already sympathize with anarchism, because you just say a lot of your opinions on hierarchies without explaining WHY you believe in these things. This video should be called "The Problem With Objections to Anti-Hierarchy", because I did not see any proper explanation as to why hierarchies are inherently bad. You just said that you don't believe in unjustified hierarchies and then tackled some common objections. And it's all a massive disappointment because the thumbnail really grabbed my attention with the sentence "no justified hierarchies". That was something I was looking forward to see you elaborate on, and I got nothing. Edit: I'm watching the video again just to make sure I'm not going insane, and your definition of hierarchies to me comes across as to not consider jobs a hierarchy. I recall Thought Slime trying to argue why jobs are a coercive hierarchy, so I know that opinion exists. But in your video, you don't address jobs at all, so I'm just left wondering what's your opinion on the idea of a hierarchy you could theoretically quit at any time if you wish.

I would disagree on one point , that authority is merely a social construct. If only it were that easy. A common critique of anarchism is that hierarchy is inevitable, because it is human nature. Referring to one of our closest relatives, chimpanzees, along with countless other social species, we can see that the constant striving for authority is not just our own burden to bear. Power grants authority exclusive access to a prosperous future, while providing some semblance of stability and security for the followers. Hierarchy is not ideal, but it is usually a good enough solution to the urgent problem of warring factions that arise in a power vacuum, which not only are a threat in of themselves, but disrupt the wider group's cohesion, leaving them vulnerable to predation, resource scarcity and damaged health from prolonged acute stress. When you hear dismissals of anarchism as a viable concept, this is what is feared. Such a view would be compelling, if it was not committing the naturalistic fallacy. Hierarchy *is* a part of human nature, but that doesn't mean we have to just live with it. As Graeber pointed out, all human sociability is based on primitive communism, and this too is as an intrinsic trait of human beings, albeit much younger than hierarchy. We are perfectly capable of living without hierarchy, because many of us do so every day with family, friends, neighbors, colleagues and comrades. We also have the inborn capacity to structure our relationships through mutual agreement, rather than domination. If anyone suggests that hierarchy is natural, they are right. If anyone suggests that we must be hierarchical because it is natural, they have either surrendered their will to a tyrant, or they wish to become a tyrant. Hierarchy is famine. It is disease. It is war. It is a force of nature and it is one we mush seek to banish from humanity, and it would be wise to suspect the motives of anyone who would suggest otherwise. The recognition of the naturality of hierarchy makes the job of anarchists both harder, and easier. Harder because a natural force is much harder to dispel than a mere social construct. Easier, because recognizing the problem for what the problem truly is: an affect common to all animals, the sense of power. Authority is the feeling of whether you could beat someone in a fight, physical or social, who is dominant, and who submits. Weirdly, I feel like the BDSM community would be a great ally in this respect, being so practiced as they are in using this emotion consensually and for mutual benefit. Another thing anarchists can do is sensitizing themselves to power dynamics in as many different contexts as possible. Anarchists can then use that sense to gather knowledge about how power dynamics play out, and use that knowledge to develop consent-based organizations that are more resilient to unwanted interference.

Love the video. I don't know a whole lot of anything (learning is an ongoing process) but I always want to tear my hair out when I hear the ol' "human nature" argument against anarchism and free association society. For starters, it's an incredibly cynical look at humanity as a whole and ignores the material conditions in which people are growing up in. Children aren't born selfish and bigoted - society can shape them into such things. Secondly, as you say, then anarchism is the ideal society for such a species. If people are such monsters then having a society which elevates them is no good for anyone. It's ironic that authoritarian folks use that argument because they talk about humanity as if they're not part of it and see themselves above all of us. They believe themselves our masters. They're exactly the kind of people we don't want in positions of power.

yea so knew some of that was a response to Engels before u namedropped him hehe 🖤🖤

Superb - admirably lucid presentation.... many thanks for this.

I have some questions about anarchy: in an anarchist society, are there any laws or common rules that people agree on? If someone does another person harm, or is _accused_ of harming another person, how is that handled? What does an interaction with an anarchist justice system look like, both for genuine evildoers and the wrongfully accused?

Hierarchy itself is inescapable. Heirachies form organically in all realms of existence (not only society, but also in the biosphere and physiosphere, and even in one’s own psyche.) So forgive me if this is just semantics, but I would like to add that what it seems you are really talking about is a certain kind of hierarchy only; what some call the “dominator hierarchy” or “pathological hierarchy”. This can and should indeed be dealt with, but I would just suggest we don’t create misconceptions and misrepresentation that the goal is the impossible task of abolishing all hierarchies. The idea itself is misguided; some hierarchies are actually healthy, helpful, and good, such as mutually beneficial ones in the natural world that have evolved on their own, and hierarchical organizations of people that can and do function well without any need for domination (a mentor, mentee relationship for instance). Also, it’s a bit of a paradox to claim to be able to abolish hierarchy, because in doing so, you’d inevitably have to force a paradigm on others and declare it to be superior to theirs, aka, create a hierarchy. So yeah, end dominator hierarchies, absolutely. But hierarchy itself is not the enemy here. A healthy and sustainable hierarchy recognizes the equal importance and interdependence of all elements at all levels, and works for the mutual thriving of each element involved. There is no problem with that kind of system, and to attempt to dismantle it simply on the principle that “it’s a hierarchy” is needlessly destructive.

Hey, I just found your channel, its nice to see a fellow trini making well verse video essays, keep up the great work.

Is merit not hierarchical? If you're talking about it as a political system yes, but the concept permeates all levels of reality. The very real non-socialy constructed procces of natural selection that gave you the capacity to concieve the idea that hierarchies are intrinsically wrong is itself predicated on a hierarchy of genetic fitness.

Never saw it that way before, but hierarchy is such a pervasive fundament of STEM science. The work relations in STEM science are definitely oppressive. Postgrads work more than 10 hours a day, even 12 hours/7 days (obviously underpaid, or with a meager grant) when the experiment requires this attention. While the professor or ‘lead’ researcher gets (almost) all the credit for any discovery (gets invited to conferences to talk about ‘their’ work). Nice to see unionizing efforts in academia recently.

It's funny that after years of bread tube one of the best vids laying out what anarchism is finally arrives! (And hopefully undoes some of breadtubes damage)

A video about anarchic parenting would be interesting + what are your sources to say that the Mbuti and Hazda practice it?

Hmm, all of this is true! But I still have a point I feel I need to make: I live in Ukraine, and right now, it is actually conceviable to create a cooperative organisation built on resisting Russian dominance without needing to use potentially oppressive hierarchies and force. Although to organise the undertaking of creating a military without also creating a strict meritocratic hierarchy is something completely out of our ability, as we simply don`t know how to and don`t even have any examples to use. That is not the only problem. Sadly, there are people in our country that can be bribed to go scout out our positions for the enemy to bomb. There is no conceviable way to create a practical system that would deal with those people without using a hierarchy, force and oppression. Those people must be oppressed for the good on the nation, because they are criminals. The lesson I get from history isn't a nice one, and your video, as true as it is, did not tackle this: Anarchy always falls apart the same way, with a competent, organised invader. It is simply too susceptible to divide and conquer principles for it to succeed in reality. Btw, if people are naturally self-serving and selfish, doesn't that mean people in an anarchist society would just try to find a way to dominate everyone else through whatever means they can use? I see anarchists describe their ideal societies as places where people negotiate and organise everything without the use of coersion, but to me thats just as naive as a communist describing his ideal society where government cares for everybody. In both of these scenartios in the real world many people would look for ways to dominate and control each other.

Great vid as always! Hard to grasp some of these concepts on their own, but growing up in various social hierarchies - most of the time being somewhere near the bottom - makes it really difficult to imagine oneself free of hierarchies in general. A lot of your vids do a good job of bridging that gap in a non-authoritative way. Peace friend!

Im new to anarchism but is anyone able to help me understand why all hierarchies are "bad"? I understand that the abuse of power is bad but am a bit confused about how the concept of hierarchy is inherently flawed and must be changed. While I think the relationship between employee and employer should be changed, I come to that conclusion due to the materialist analysis of antagonism between the classes, and not at least from my understanding of anarchism now to be an absolutist belief based on arguments of morality. Also slightly unrelated but I am curious of what an anarchist "society" would look like free from hierarchy. Currently and historically (maybe aside from hunter and gathers) some levels of hierarchy have been used in society. If it be the hierarchy for a group of people or an institution to create laws to the hierarchy to collect taxes. How does an anarchist "society" address these issues? Specifically what gives a commune or other structure of organization the authority to make a law, enforce a law, make/enforce regulations, tax, etc... No one will voluntarily go to jail, making the act of enforcing laws nonconsensual. How is this remedied? (are hierarchies ok in this scenario or is there something else?) Again just some things I have been curious about. :)

Oooh~ I've been waiting on a new video! Thanks Andrew!

If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face - for ever.

Hierarchies of competence are completely justified

Good shit. Thank you.

Anarchist parents might be a ray of hope in these dark dark times

I'm very glad you mentioned this, Noam Chomsky constantly says parents are justly in charge of their children which is a bummer since he's written reviews for so many Alfie Kohn books

I love this. ❤

how do you learn about this stuff I would like to know so I can dive into this a bit more

The choice of artwork really helps the essay for me. Wish I could recognise all of them

lmao i saw this on recommended on my phone, and then searched 'heirachy' on my laptop to find it again. The first video I see is 'Why heirarchies are necessary' by Jordan Peterson

Thank you for the work you put in to these videos.

Great video, I am relatively new to your channel and I have know other knowledge of anarchy. I don't yet say I agree with your point but I am. Begining to understand them What did you mean by "effective" at 5:23? Is that what you belive or from the perspective of the person you where disputing moments before?

Best intro to anarchy video I've yet seen.

How would conflict resolution happen in such a society?

Yeah enabling one enables many. No one's above anyone. I hope things get easier and nicer. 🍀🍀🍀

Short, to the point, and still so very well explained!

Great video

As a parent, the question of my authority over my child is one I struggle to answer. I have coercive power over him, and "I know what is best for him better than he does". For example, if their underpants are full of poop and explaining and negotiation fails, I might have to forcibly clean him despite his protests. I do try to keep his will into consideration, I listen to his wants and desires, I do my best to talk things with him and see if there is any compromise, but sometimes none of these options work, and I am left only with coercion. I tell myself that mine is a "self-subverting hierarchy", ie if I coerce him is only so that he can become independent from my power over him, and this idea helps but it doesn't satisfy me entirely.

I agree with this video just wished you could have explained some of chomskys bad positions to illustrate your point about his lack of knowledge on the subject I personally don't know much of his problems specifically and it would have been cool to see.

Thank you! You've articulated something I've struggled with before. Much appreciated!

Funny people that oppose hierarchy, are always people that could never strive to be at the top of one, even a local one.

Great essay. Keep on comrades:)

Funny enough, I was just having this kind of conversation with a coworker, about how automation might mean less jobs for people. This would then require economic systems to change, as less and less people do jobs for wages. The question then became, what will folks do with all their jobless free time. We agreed people need purpose, in the form of some activities that give them fulfillment. We discussed how covid lockdowns demonstrated that, and he suggested that it's just human nature to not want to do anything, even if humans need to doing something to feel fulfilled. He gave the example of how Rome fell, and how the folks there had all their needs taken care of, so they could indulge in every debauchery they wished and became incompetent to care for their society. I suggested that maybe education would help. Not rote learning, mathematics, and test prep like we have today in primary schooling. Instead, encouraging the methods of critical thinking, introspection, and research that seems to be more of what I hear college graduates come away with. The networking and community building to work with others, and figure out what one's drive in life might be, so we avoid complacency and laziness that comes from not knowing what we really want to do and find fulfillment in.

i believe in one hierarchy. and that is - workers are always above the management / ruling class

I so wish I'd seen your videos a year ago 😅 the way you so concisely and pointedly get this info across would certainly have helped me formulate my own augments back then but I'm glad to be getting this learning in now

A Competence hierarchy is the purest form of hierarchy.

The whole point of anarchy is that each individual gets to make their own determination about which hierarchy to which they will submit (and that could be none). (Comment on the remark at 2:50)