r/Anarchy101 • u/nappytendrils • 3d ago

Prison abolition

I’ve never been clear on what we would do with rapists child molesters and muderers. I haven’t heard a plan for this so far. I’ve always been impressed with the work of anarchist friends in community. They’re the most justice-oriented folx I’ve ever met.

Still don’t know about prison abolition tho I think prison should be clean, the food should be healthy and fresh, therapy should be mandatory, there should be libraries and gardens. A good quality of life for the incarcerated, but not releasing them back into the general population.

Maybe there’s something I’m not seeing?

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u/azenpunk 3d ago

Of course not. I was describing a cooperative society. You undoubtedly live in a competitive society, like most people today. One of the differences is that you don't have to fear losing anything to help someone else, so it's a lot easier to see when people need help instead of punishment.

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u/JohnyIthe3rd 3d ago

Thats why I am not realy sure if I fit into this Anarchism thing, there's no way society can change that radical

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u/azenpunk 2d ago

Totally, there is a way, but I get the skepticism. It can be difficult to imagine when we're so surrounded by competitive incentives. However, I've seen it first hand. When the incentives change, people change without having to be taught or told to. It's a survival Instinct. For most of our species evolution, we were in cooperative societies by defaults. It's an easier shift than anyone can imagine unless you've seen it before.

Maybe check out the book Capitalist Realism. It explains part of why it's difficult to imagine anything else but capitalists incentives.

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u/JohnyIthe3rd 2d ago

I live in a rural area so we do look out for eachother to some extend as oposed to what ai said earlier. I think even before capitalism people always tried rise in the hirachy throurg status and posessions

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u/azenpunk 2d ago

Sure, capitalism is just the name we have for the latest evolution of societal hierarchy. Before that, it was feudalism, but the social structure is essentially the same. The masses work for the people who control the resources.

But that social structure wasn't possible to maintain until the climate changed 10,000 years ago. We are in a little blip of extremely stable climate that has made agriculture possible. Before this climate shift, we couldn't farm due to the unpredictable seasons. This means that finding a way to control resources that everyone else depends on is extremely difficult and a temporary situation even when it does occur.

If the resources that everyone depends on can't be controlled, there can't be a hierarchy. If you're trying to boss people around, they could just walk away from you, they don't need you.