I love it when people talk about anarchy or anarchism. Anarchy, they cry, the strong controlling the weak, people doing whatever they can get away with, dogs and cats, living together! Well, guess what people, that’s exactly what we have. Anarchy has always been the rule. It isn’t a matter of whether you endorse it. It’s the way it is, and always has been.
Why do most people obey the government? Because the government has guns, and uniformed thugs using those guns, and bombs and tanks, and prisons, and they will use them against you if you don’t obey. Would you pay taxes if there were no threat of violence (including financial violence) against those who refuse? Probably not. And about the financial violence–would you pay the fines if there were no threat of prison, or worse? Probably not. The government controls us not because it is wise or right, but because it is strong. If you had the means to collect a bunch of weapons and people to wield them, you could control a government too. You could be your own government. All it takes is money–lots of it. Best gathered in the form of taxes, which is more convenient if you use guns and prisons as a threat against those who refuse to pay. And guns and prisons can be had by anyone with enough money. There is no moral authority in government–only power.
What most people don’t think about is that anarchy is simply the strong doing what they want, without consideration for the desires of the weak. In anarchy, the only authority is that which the strong imposes on the weak by means of force. Well, hello! That’s the world we live in! It’s the world we’ve always lived in.
Of course there are many kinds of power. Some power comes from numbers, some comes from money, some comes from what lies just north of the hemline of a short skirt. Anarchy is doing whatever you have the power to do, and there are many kinds of power. But don’t be fooled: no government ever had any authority that it didn’t get from violence or threats of violence, real or imagined.
Democracy works fairly well without using too much obvious violence, but it works because people revolt, sometimes in large numbers, against excessive violence. Democratic governments protect the rights of their citizens to exercise free speech only because it is expedient to do so. Rebels are tolerated by intelligent governments because they provide a relief valve for the pressure that builds up in society. “Democratic” governments know that they can suck more tax money from people who are allowed to believe that they have some control over their destinies. So they allow the people to believe that. But what we see as government is nothing more than the natural consequence of anarchy, the natural anarchy that has always ruled the world.
Imagine that all government was suddenly disbanded. All the politicians and police officers were laid off, all the soldiers were discharged. Anything you want to do, you can do. No laws. Within a few hours, neighborhoods would organize into vigilante bands of people armed with shotguns and baseball bats, to protect themselves against “criminals.” Within a day or two, they would be organized at the city level, and provided with uniforms. Soon the organization would spread to larger levels, and we would call it–government. That’s exactly what we have.
It’s not all bad. The government does try to protect us from thieves and rapists, but only because if it didn’t, we wouldn’t pay the taxes that facilitate the lavish lifestyles of the governors. If it didn’t do anything for us, we wouldn’t continue to feed the bloated egos of those who govern us. But it is still anarchy. Anarchy isn’t very pretty, but it isn’t so bad. It’s the world we live in. The strong eat the weak, and weak feed the strong. Might as well get used to it, and get comfortable with your position on the food chain.
Actually, I don’t approve of anarchy. I would prefer that kindness and logic and fun ruled the world, but that just ain’t the way it is. You got the muscle, you can do whatever you want, whether I like it or not.
Jeez, it’s much too late to be thinking about all this, and nobody cares anyway. It doesn’t matter, and even if it does matter, that doesn’t matter. (Astroboy was right!) My only point was that I find it funny that people get so freaked out when they hear the word “anarchy.” As if there were ever anything else!
