All About Anarchism

I Can’t Believe It’s Not Chaos!

Introduction and Problems

Every political ideology since the dawn of time has suffered from exaggerations and false impressions, either from a layman’s innocent confusion or through strategic deception by rival ideologies seeking to discredit it. Perhaps no political idea has ever been more falsely understood, so hopelessly marginalized, and so pretentiously reprimanded than that of anarchy.

From the instant anyone hears the word, they exhibits a predictable, almost instinctive response. The establishment media and pop culture have all conditioned the same response in all but the wisest individuals: the word is a mere synonym for violence, chaos, and societal upheaval. Some people may even think of cartoonish masked men carrying little black bombs or armed biker gangs fighting over a post-apocalyptic tract of desert.

Common dictionary definitions of anarchy yield only a modest improvement: absence of government, a state of lawlessness or political disorder due to the absence of governmental authority, a utopian society of individuals who enjoy complete freedom without government, absence or denial of any authority or established order, etc.

While certain definitions may obviously be more kind to anarchic theory than others, collectively, all the typical definitions evoke two main connotations:

The first, what we may deem the subjective “popular” sentiment that anarchy evokes is a visceral vision of violence, disorder, and bloody chaos. With the ever-present help of Hollywood and establishment propaganda, the word “anarchy” is used in a pejorative sense, connoting a moral, social, or political failure of society and the orgiastic triumph of human vice.

The second, a more objectively “political” sentiment is simply envisioning a world without government. However, the wails of so called “pragmatist” men and women frequently decry the “impracticality” of any attempt to establish such a society, and the reasons cited often devolve back into the previous connotation. In addition, some definitions of anarchy may tend to imply that there would be social disorder with the lack of a State present per se.

The real problem with any definition of anarchy is simply that nobody realizes the idea has philosophical significance and that it represents much more than an entertaining thought-experiment. Even though some people mistakenly call themselves “anarchists” merely to vent pent-up feelings of anger or frustration at what they call “the system” or “the man” or “society,” or whatever, the truth is that these “emotive anarchists,” have little to no connection with anarchism proper.

Simply expressing your distaste for the status quo is not sufficient in order to call yourself a true anarchist. While anarchists do of course criticize present society, they do not do so without a purpose, or without an alternative in mind. In the words of Peter Kropotkin:

Even the theoretical criticism of the existing conditions is impossible, unless the critic has in mind a more or less distinct picture of what he would have in place of the existing state. Consciously or unconsciously, the ideal, the conception of something better is forming in the mind of everyone who criticizes social institutions.

As such, to correct another common fallacy, anarchism is not a blind rejection of order and an embracement of chaos. Anarchists do not deny that order or law is necessary to maintaining a society – society cannot function without law. Instead anarchists simply attack the legitimacy of the institutions that currently maintain law and order in an unjust way, namely, the State. Indeed, order results from anarchism, and is not a monopolized creation of State. Pierre Joseph Proudhon correctly wrote that, “Liberty is the Mother, not the Daughter of Order.”

The Anarchist Premises

So then what exactly is anarchism? Although it is a critical component of many others, anarchism by itself is not a political philosophy. Anarchism is first and foremost an ethical judgment. While like any political opinion there are many divergent strands of thought, anarchists as a whole tend to believe two things, and only two things:

1. That aggression is in all cases unjustified.

2. That the State is inherently aggressive.

The first premise needs almost no elaboration. By aggression here, we specifically mean the initiation of force. Most anarchists are not against force per se, as many will grant the right to the use of force strictly in self-defense of person and property, but only against an unjust aggression against innocents. A minority of society may claim that even aggression is justified (such as through the mental delusions of a sociopathic murderer, for sinister political purposes, or even in a utilitarian “ends justify the means” calculus), however on an ethical level, it is virtually incontrovertible. Then again, if criminals don’t feel the need to justify their aggression, why should statists?

The second premise will likely require further elaboration: Herbert Spencer once said, “Be it or be it not true that Man is shapen in iniquity and conceived in sin, it is unquestionably true that [the State] is begotton of aggression by aggression.” Whether they are “actively” intervening in their citizens’ affairs or are “passive” (such as the minarchist “night watchman state”), States can only act in an aggressive manner. For any entity to be considered a State, it must (a) tax its citizens – a coerced and mandatory confiscation (or “tribute”) of a subject’s property to the government (from which, any government “services” are “paid for,” or simply transferred from one group of individuals to another group that the present government likes more), and (b) confer a monopoly of violence (police protection, court systems, lawmaking ability) to itself and outlaw all others with threat of severe punishment. By their very nature, States are a hegemonic relationship between the rulers and the ruled regardless of any subsequent State action or lack thereof.

Now, there are several valid conclusions the logically follow from these two premises. The two most obvious, and the only ones that all anarchists unanimously agree on is that (1) the State ought to be abolished and (2) that all actions in society ought to be voluntary. If there is ever to be a just society, it is one without a State. Until that day is reached, all present States can never be considered legitimate, and thus do not merit our obedience and subjection. Everyone who is not an anarchist must therefore necessarily believe either that aggression is justified or that States do not use aggressive means, or both.

From there onward, anarchists splinter into various schools of thought, with each drawing the line of where aggression begins and ends in different places. Some anarchists believe that private property under the capitalist system itself constitutes aggression against the communal rights of all, whereas others believe that it is the very root of a free and just society, and still others place higher emphasis on certain groups of individuals such as industrial workers.

A brief empirical observation is relevant to our discussion here: The greatest perpetrator of crimes in the history of mankind has consistently been the State. In the 20^th Century alone, States across the world killed over 260,000,000 of their own subjects through various measures such as wars, “ethnic cleansings,” and most drastically, artificial famines. Most people who would consider any act of murder, slavery, or theft a reprehensible crime fail to recognize that the State has invented a legal license for itself to commit these same crimes with impunity en masse simply by masquerading them as “war,” “conscription,” and “taxation,” in the “public service.” The anarchist is (s)he who does not allow such an obscene double standard, and holds those who have the effrontery to call themselves “our government” as accountable as the petty thief. In the words of Stefan Molyneux, “The greatest danger to human life is not private vice, but public ‘virtue’.”

Of History and Hyphens

In the context of history, anarchism has been primarily associated with the political “left,” and also has a strong affiliation with Marxist philosophy. However, there also existed right-individualist strains of anarchist thought, especially in 19^th century America, with modern “libertarianism” as the direct descendant today. Anarchism has since become a broad term and is tragically “hyphenated” into many political philosophies (anarcho-communism, anarcho-syndicalism, anarcho-socialism, anarcho-capitalism, anarcho-feminism, green-anarchism, mutualist-anarchism…), breeding much infighting, with rampant claims that “anarcho-x is not true anarchism!” The spectrum of anarchy, unlike the false paradigm of “left and right,” digs deep into the primordial rift at the core of all political philosophy—the struggle between the individual and the collective for absolute sovereignty.

The very etymology of the word “an-archy,” Greek for “without rulers”, should give a clue as to its true meaning. All forms of society refer to the Greek root “archos” (ruler) in hierarchy, monarchy, oligarchy, etc. In truth, the “anarchist” is more of an “anti-archist” than anything, for he or she believes that no one has the right to ethically rule over anybody else.

It must be repeated: Anarchism by itself is not a political philosophy, is not about left or right, is not socialist or capitalist, but is an ethical position. If there were a better term to use, one untarnished from centuries of abuse, it might be “voluntaryism.” The core belief, however, remains timeless: that every man and woman has the right to govern himself or herself at their own liberty, but no other.

But Is It Practical?

“But it won’t work!” cry the pragmatists, the realists, and the utilitarians. Again, these objectors who cannot grasp principles of justice or ethics in their cold analyses fail to comprehend anarchy as a value judgment, a statement of ethics. An objection of this kind merely doesn’t make any sense! To judge that an ethical position can “work” or “is feasible” is to make a severe category mistake in logic. One is confusing “bad” with “impossible,” two different concepts.

Consider an analogy: Most everyone would agree that murder is bad, and that it “shouldn’t” happen. No matter how civilized and sophisticated mankind will get, there will always be murder. Now, it is of course conceivable that murder will cease to occur – it is only a matter of willpower; if all mankind could restrain their primal urges and treat one another with mutual respect, all murder would cease. However, given the experience of history, it’s a safe to wager that as long as man exists, so will murder. Nevertheless, both as individuals and as a society we continue to combat this morally wrong practice and discourage it as best we can despite the fact that it probably will never go away. The rebuttal to the objection then becomes “why don’t we give up fighting murder then?”

Similarly, it would be disingenuous to refute the anarchist claim that fighting the State and the aggression it begets is “impractical.” “Impracticality” does not refute an ethical argument: we do not donate to charity and promote doing so because it is “convenient” for us, in fact, it can be rather inconvenient at times.

The State vs. the Market

Never satiated, the relentless attacker next argues “why we need a State.” Often this consists of rattling off a list of services that the government currently provides: police services, court systems, education, roads, electricity, trash pick-up, national defense, etc. All of these arguments are mere fallacious appeals to tradition and confusions of “is” and “ought;” just because something is does not mean it ought to be. “Tradition” is merely a historical record of past trials and errors; it is by no means an objective standard or a mandate. There’s a reason why civilized nations no longer practice human sacrifice.

Likewise, there is no reason that the State must provide public highways or education, only the large stack of evidence that the State has provided these services in recent history. Before even considering the necessary economic arguments of whether the State or the market ought to manage a certain industry, the burden of proof is on the State to answer two vital questions:

1. Is there a non-arbitrary method for choosing which industries to run?

2. Is the state of an industry so exceptional that it warrants a monopoly?

For the first question, it is relevant to note the simple empirical observation that there are infinite multitudes of products and services that the State does not provide to the public. These are in fact left to the market to produce and allocate. Why must the State provide some goods but not others? Why not all? There is simply no non-arbitrary way of choosing, the State can only choose what industries to intervene in according the current personal whims of the government, or, by the unfortunate norm, accepting bribes from specific industries. The only logical solutions to the economic problem are for the State to provide all goods and services, or for the State to provide no goods and services. Without entering into any economic argument over the sustainability of complete and utter socialism, suffice it to say that the former option is inconceivable.

For the second question, there are many economic arguments to consider, however, for the sake of brevity, simply consider the following: In managing any industry, the State necessarily confers upon itself the monopoly privilege of acting as the sole provider of a good or service. The State, unlike every business in the market, is not concerned with making profits— the signals that consumers are being rightly satisfied—and it is sheltered from enormous losses solely by the fact that it finances itself with a virtually endless supply of taxpayer funds (which of course were collected by fiat and force). In addition, the source of revenue is not from providing the service itself, but from the general public till, crucially avoiding any sort of feedback mechanism. “Furthermore, the consumer, instead of being courted and wooed for his favor, becomes a mere annoyance to the government, someone who is “wasting” the government’s scarce resources.” Thus, the State has absolutely no incentive to ever serve its constituents. The economic results, without fail, are lackluster quality of service and shortages failing to meet the necessary demand. Milton Friedman once declared, “If you put the federal government in charge of the Sahara Desert, in 5 years there would be a shortage of sand.”

Perhaps it is even more worthwhile to consider that in granting itself a monopoly, the State necessarily denies all other businesses and individuals from competing in that industry. Without even considering whether those others could have better provided the consumers with the product, the government prohibits them by “legal” threats of violence. Surely there is something unjust and inefficient in that on an intuitive level, to say nothing of economics.

Examples of Functioning Anarchies

But return for a moment to the argument that a Stateless society is impractical. Many anarchists point to vague empirical episodes scattered across history to point out that there in fact were “anarchist” societies—Medieval Iceland and Ireland, the Catalonia during the Spanish Civil War, even Colonial America, for examples. However, there are two examples of anarchy in practice—successful, stable societies that lack a coercive State entity—that are so ubiquitous, that are hidden in plain sight, and that occur each and every day and are experienced by everyone:

The first is rather obvious, and political scientists have analyzed its implications for ages—there is no World State. There is not, nor has there ever has been, any political authority in the world higher than each individual nation-state, in other words, there is international anarchy. While citizens living in their respective country are under the subjugation of their local State, laws and edicts of other States do not affect them. In addition, each nation does not fall under dominion of any other.

The territory of the Earth is carved up among the two-hundred-or-so sovereign States. Each State reigns supreme over its tract of land and country of citizens, and it interacts (either cooperatively or violently) with other sovereign States. All States mutually respect each other’s sovereignty and claim to that sovereignty. They contract with each other often for mutual benefit, and sometimes in exploitative relationships. Granted, there are violent conflicts and wars from time to time between States, but all are resolved by the partied States themselves – there is not a global judge or policeman to enforce. Now, this is not a perfect example of anarchism in all its respects – for States themselves are illegitimate and violent. In addition, “countries” can never be anthropomorphized as “individuals” – for they are mere aggregations of individuals and not sentient beings of their own.

The second instance may come as more of a surprise. The greatest example of well-functioning anarchy on a day-to-day basis all over the world and in perfect sight of the common man is the State itself! Consider that within the inner workings of government and State operations there are individuals working for the State yet serving their own interests simultaneously. Within the federal government, there are Congressmen, a President, judges, and an army of lower officials and bureaucrats all working together to pass and enforce legislation that all citizens below them are coerced to obey by force of law. Yet, within the government itself, there is no law for the rulers! Each member necessarily competes with the others for scarce government resources and administers their own department, but there is no third party that they are all bound to obey! Even the Supreme Court, a mere branch of government, is subject to pressures from the other branches and does not have final say in any governmental matter. Government policy is the result of spontaneous enforcement of secret contracts, without the use of a central coercive authority.

Consider what happens when a Congressman takes a bribe. A special interest group contributes to his campaign in return for a political favor of some sort. This is a “contract” that is completely unenforceable (not to mention illegal!) that occurs in secret behind closed doors. Yet democratic politicians across the world do this on a daily basis – government policy is a mere aggregation of secret quid pro quos between legislators and lobbyists. And, of course, if he is caught, rarely does he go before a court to be punished (if the bribe leaks to the public at all) – the “remedy” that results instead is a flurry of backroom deals, secret agreements, and some lackeys end up serving minor sentences.

The State functions according to voluntarily-made and enforced contracts without the need for violence from an authoritative third party. These are anarchic principles! It is horribly ironic that the greatest example of anarchy working wonderfully in practice is within the State itself. “In short, society is always in anarchy. A government only abolishes anarchy among what are called “subjects” or “citizens,” but among those who rule, anarchy prevails.”

Parting Notes

There is a natural order to all things in the universe. Human society is no different. It is organized from the bottom up, and not top down. Atoms combine to form molecules, which combine to form cells, which combine to form tissues, and onward to tissues, organs, systems, and complete organisms. Likewise, society is arranged simply according to an aggregation of voluntary exchanges between pairs of individuals. It is not, as the State would have it, an artificially “designed” chain of command of particular subordinate people submitting to particular superior people. That is merely the delusion of narcissists and megalomaniacs who yearn to sit at the apex of that command structure at any cost.

Is anarchism utopian? Everyone experiences anarchism every day—exchanging money for a Starbucks Coffee, labor for wages, covering someone’s extra shift for tickets to the baseball game, all of these actions are made for the benefit of both parties, are done without violence, and are done without the need for a third party to come in and violently enforce rules. “All of your personal relationships are voluntary, and do not involve the use of force. You are an anarchic microcosm – to see how a stateless society works, all you have to do is look in the mirror.” Anarchy is the only form of society consistent with a respect for man’s free will and moral nature. Anything less is an unjust system treating sovereign human beings as children or animals who are incapable of bettering themselves (always under some completely arbitrary definition of “better”) without violent coercion. A better question to ask would be how giving all authority, weapons, and decision-making ability into the hands of the State and then telling it to “please limit yourself,” is not utopian.

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Notes: