The Problem With Anarchism - An Open-Minded Challenge
Why Am I Posting This Article?
In the past, I have voiced my concern for the pervasive anarchist sentiment on this platform. While, for the most part, the pro-anarchists have presented educated arguments, there have been a few posts that have bordered on extremism. I am all for the free expression of thoughts and ideas, but I fear that it may affect the branding of Steemit. If this platform becomes known as an "anarchist community", it could potentially turn off those that are proponents for other government systems. Additionally, there may be some great content creators that shy away from the platform because of the sentiment and we, as a community, could potentially miss out on some new genres and the resulting expansion of the platform that they would bring. Having said that, I would certainly not want users who are producing great, informational content on anarchism to stop. I do feel that we need to bring some balancing views to the platform, quickly. It is imperative to our continued growth that we bring some diversity in thought to the community. How much longer can we continue to produce articles almost solely on steemit and anarchy? It seems that, unless @stellabelle, @heiditravels or the occasional photography post (which I am happy to see is gaining popularity), the trending page is chock full of reiterations of the White Paper or the beliefs of the anarchos. Having said that, I am writing this article not to be combative, but to play devil's advocate. I don't feel that there has been a sufficient challenge to the anarchos and I am going to attempt to address some of the issues that I see in the system. What follows are a few issues I see with anarchy, and I would strongly encourage feedback from the community. This is not a drive-by pot shot at the ancaps, but hopefully the start of a productive conversation that in turn will open the doors for proponents of other systems to take part.
The Problem Of Violence
To me this is the biggest problem with an anarchist system. Yes, in an ideal world everyone would be peaceful and nice; and we could all live together, without a referee to step in when things get hairy. That's not how the real world works. There are people in this world that would see us harmed or killed because of the color of our skin, our personal beliefs or simply because we were born in a certain part of the world. These people cannot be reasoned with. In fact, in an anarchist society, provided they are properly equipped, it would seem that people like this would thrive. Now, before somebody jumps on this argument saying, "Anarchy is not chaos and disorder! How dare you!" I understand that anarchism is not chaos and disorder (ideally), but I am simply questioning the mechanism to control chaotic elements that are outside of societal norms.
Private Police/Militias
I have seen the argument that private militias and policing organizations would be formed based on need, and because anarchism would be the prevailing governmental system, citizens would not be required to pay taxes to support these organizations. This is great, but let's look at this hypothetical situation: A woman in the community gets raped. Now, under anarchism, the possibilities for investigation and reaction are endless. You don't dial 911 anymore. Inevitably, somebody in the community will emerge as being the most capable of dealing with the perpetrator. This person will likely (through no fault of their own) become a leader in the community, a protector. What if the community has a problem with an invading militia from another community? Again, leaders will emerge to deal with the problem. It is human nature. What is to prevent these leaders from abusing their newfound power? Now they are armed and likely have a command structure. This is how society started. We didn't have rules or laws or forms of government, and then to combat problems the strongest, meanest and most capable were given leadership. These private militias and police forces kept power and eventually led to larger militias and police forces and governments formed to organize these institutions. Now this obviously an over-simplification and generalization, but I simply don't see a viable solution under an anarchist system.
Due Process
Going back to deviant behavior, what is to prevent false accusations being levied by a (seemingly) reputable member of a community and the accused being punished based on public opinion and mob mentality? How are minorities (in this case being defined not by race, gender, etc. but more broadly as individuals or groups that do not fall into the societal norms of a specific community) protected from abuses of community sentiment? In an anarchist system there are no checks and balances on herd behavior.
Private Property
Under an anarchist system, how is private property held? Other than the threat of violence, there is no system to protect private property. What is to prevent me from organizing a bunch of big mean friends with guns, taking land, cattle, and food from those that are less fortunate and organized and splitting the plunder? There is all the incentive in the world, and an organized crime ring could take property and belongings as they pleased.
Swindlers, Con Artists, and Tricksters
The harsh reality is that under an anarchist system, it will be increasingly easy for unsavory characters to take advantage of demographics that are at risk of being cheated: such as elderly, mentally disabled, or otherwise disabled individuals. What is to protect the vulnerable elements of a community from the less-than-honorable members? Especially in an increasingly technical world, where it is increasingly easy for these swindlers to steal or cheat people out of their money.
Yes, I understand that caveat emptor is in play here, but the fact is that there are people who, through no fault of their own, are vulnerable to being cheated and, under an anarchist system, there is nothing in place to prevent this.
Socio-Economic Issues
To be clear, I am beyond frustrated with the way welfare and other entitlement systems are functioning in the United States. Having said that, there are socio-economic issues that, in my mind, anarchism would exasperate. Under an anarchist system, those that are most capable or have the most resources are able to operate in their daily lives most effectively. Those who do not have the same abilities or societal standing will not see an improvement in their quality of life by removing a system of governance.
Public Infrastructure
Their ability and standing does not change, but systems that are in place (such as public education and infrastructure like road systems, public transit, public utilities, and waste disposal) that assist in providing necessities to poverty-stricken communities would go away. Impoverished communities will simply not have the resources to maintain their infrastructures and their existing problems will compound.
Branding
Quite simply, anarchism suffers from bad branding. I would even venture to say that the general American public would trust socialism over anarchy. I'm not saying it's justified, but the perception of anarchy is overwhelmingly negative. The term anarchy conjures images of violence, chaos and dystopia. In order for a system of government to be feasible, the general public will need to be on board. With the current branding, that just isn't possible.
Conclusion
Again, I want to reiterate that I have seen some very well-educated arguments for anarchism. The above issues are practical issues that I see with the system. My hope is that this will lead to a positive and civil discussion on the topic. While I do not necessarily agree with the system, I am keeping an open mind and hope that commenters and readers will do the same.
This is a great post for encouraging the free flow of ideas in an open-minded way. I would say that I idealize anarchy in many ways, but at the same time recognize many of the oversimplification and logical fallacies made in many anarchist arguments. Particularly, many of the posts seem to be demagoguery circle-jerking rants without much deep critical thinking analysis.
One topic that anarchists seem to avoid is externalities in network economics game theory. The world is made up of highly complex networks with countless variables that incentivize all kinds of different behaviors and interactions among different people. You can't just blindly follow a reductionist non-aggression principle.
The non-aggression principle is the 1st Law of Robotics according to Isaac Asimov, but he realized its incompleteness and had to add the 0th Law. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Laws_of_Robotics
I also highly recommend listening to Professor Thaddeus Russell's criticisms of the NAP here: http://lionsofliberty.com/2016/08/17/237/
The Decline of the West Podcast is also pure gold for understanding the complexity of many of the issues involved. http://www.declinecast.com/
I would like to see anarchists come up with real intellectual solutions for many of the problems we face rather than simply circle-jerking about how much the world sucks from a reductionist point of view while avoiding the hard questions. I agree with many of the points of anarchists, but also recognize the naivety of futile idealism without any real world actions.
Eventually, when I have the time, I will get around to a post about an analysis based on dynamic networks and game theory.
Good reply. I rant a lot about anarchism/libertarianism, but I respect people like you. I've just encountered a lot of real asseholes, calling themselves anarchist but being real heartless bastards. So, sorry if I come over as intolerant in some of my comments. It needs more guys like you who can stay critical why endorsing some parts of it. Thanks
If we don't destroy ourselves, we will progress closer and closer to anarchy. I'm probably more critical of government than most anarchists who I'd almost consider as false statists. @kyriakos has some good posts critiquing other anarchists.
I just think that most posts about anarchism are naive and repeating the same arguments without any real insights.
I've written about how the decline of the state and anarchy on Mars might look: https://steemit.com/politics/@limitless/my-predictions-from-the-collapse-of-the-eu-to-the-crowdbased-government-on-mars
Thanks for joining the discussion and sharing the resources! I am following you now and am looking forward to your post on game theory.
I'm afraid you are correct. The current public, as a whole, wants socialism. They have no motivation to change until it is too late. Funny thing about motivation, it comes whether you are ready or not. Good post.
I upvoted this one because I really appreciate the candor and honesty in approaching this. While I disagree with the premise, it's a needed discussion and was initiated quite well.
I read through and had comments, but they've been handled quite ably by others here. So I'll take my anarchy somewhere else and play. :)
Really, thanks for your polite interaction @jaredcwillis. It's greatly needed in these discussions.
Anarchism, as most advocates will point out, doesn't mean 'no laws', it means 'no rulers'.
Most of your questions above are answered very simply, by the fact the the true law always exists, and an anarchist society, like any, would only thrive if the real natural law was observed.
The (basic) common-law, as it's known, would still be the framework of law under anarchism. This is law that was natural to the people - and was written and enacted by them, not by government or by lawyers (until later on).
An anarchist society would still have to have the laws of contract, trust, tort and so on - because these are the laws of morality, and morality is what makes humanity human.
An anarchist society would still have juries to make collective decisions (e.g. infrastructure) because that's the only way to make lawful decisions. It' s all just natural law, and it's very logical and well established.
The only thing such a society would lack is people who claim the right to break the law, under the guise of 'government'.
Anarchism isn't a fringe-belief, it's basic morality and adulthood... It could be better understood though...
Sure, I agree with most of the points of anarchism; I don't want rulers, but how do you get rid of them in the real world? Someone will always rise up in power to coerce others to fit their own vision of the world. Yeah theoretically I want a society with no rulers and have the code = law, but even in such scenarios, due to network effects, there will always be inequality of power distribution, allowing a few people at the top to effectively become the rulers of everyone else. We see it here on Steemit. Explain to me the difference between "whales" and "rulers".
Haha. Indeed...
The only way I can imagine it really working is in a world full of much better educated people.
With decent training, 99% of people would flourish. But today's crop of whiney, infantile, irrational morons... Well, shit.
It's theoretically possible, and all the mechanism's there with common-law, but most people are too well domesticated by their masters... They will overplay their hand though, evil always does.
"The only thing such a society would lack is people who claim the right to break the law, under the guise of 'government'."
This is where I find the biggest logical problem. You can't say that definitively. There will always be people who break the law. How is it then enforced? Who carries out the sentence of the juries?
Another aspect, in regards to infrastructure, is funding. Where do the funds come from? The majority of people will not likely pay for infrastructure improvements that don't affect them. Impoverished communities that need these improvements will lack the ability to do it themselves. Philanthropy can only go so far, and there is indeed a limit to charitable funds available.
I think, largely, that the fallacy is the same as that of socialism. It relies on people unselfishly seeking the best for society. The problem is that people are not that inherently unselfish, and many people are downright evil. From what I've seen, anarchism does not have a good control for those elements. Thoughts?
By the way, thank you for contribution constructively!
Hi Jared,
There will always be people who break the law, agreed, but under anarchy, no one can claim it's their right to do so. That's the difference. Claiming the right to break the law is the essence of government, and that's what is morally repugnant.
Before we had permanent governments, professional lawyers, and professional politicians, we the people upheld the law. We were the police, the jury and the judge. We organised ourselves into communities with trusted elders, and all the facilities a government could offer. The difference was - there was no coercion.
Funding: the only lawful way to fund any community project is by donation. There's no other way. Coercion is a criminal act. If something can't be funded, then it doesn't happen. People cannot be forced into debt against their will - that's immoral.
I hear what you're saying about philanthropy only going so far - but that is immaterial - the law dictates that coercion is crime. And it's a crime because it only leads to inequality and harm.
People are actually primarily cooperative, not competitive. The truly evil are the latter of course, but they're in the minority. Most babies are born with loving generous spirits, it's only their parents who turn them into lost souls.
People have actually lived without money for the vast majority of history (it's a recent invention) living in cooperative egalitarian communities, where merit confers respect. In many societies the culture was to 'out gift' your neighbors - because generosity was tied to social standing. It was their culture to give. To offer something in return for a gift would be an insult.
This society / cult is an aberration. It's not natural at all...
I don't think any sane anarchist would reject the leadership of a wise elder, unless they were wrong. We don't reject all leadership, only that which is forced on us. I personally would love to have someone to follow, it'd be so much easier, but the world's full of people who can't even lead themselves, so we have to just do it ourselves...
To be fair, having to do it ourselves is how we grow up... And that's why all members of the community should be involved in local justice, and learning the law, so they can learn to be moral and just people.
:)
I understand what you're saying here, but I think it's irrelevant whether a person claims the right to break the law. The important factor is whether they break it or not, the consequences that follow and the mechanisms for preventing deviant behavior; which I don't feel that anarchy addresses sufficiently.
This is where we fundamentally disagree. I just don't think people are born with loving generous spirits. Have you ever held a hungry baby? There is nothing loving or generous about it. That being said, I think that is where I philosophically disagree with anarchists. I don't trust that the people in my community are that generous and unselfish. I also don't think that a competitive spirit implies evil.
Anarchy starts in the everyday life, where you buy your food, what you do for a living, what kind of information you are reflecting to your social contacts, the people you surround yourself with. Its about individual consciousness and responsibility, not about some punks wrecking a mansion they just squatted.
Thanks for contributing! Can you elaborate? How would one buy food, work and use social media as an anarchist? Additionally, are you saying that a more effective form of anarchy is at the individual level v. the state level?
Most people when thrown into the freedom of choice, first don't know what to do with it and what it all means and what the consequences are for their own lives. Its usually starting a chain of events. Setting up your own rules, which fit positively in a bigger context, and creating consciousness for the fact. First step is often the punker's way, simple to follow no rules and wreck it all up. Its silly if it stops there. But in many cases such groups of punks develop a deep understanding of the context they are living in, where the real boundaries are and what they can do to live free and become valuable members of the sub-society they are living in. You got to live it every day, without a level of general abstraction, straight from the heart.
I was in the punk rock scene when I was young and I observed a lot of fucked up shit happening among the people. If course the use of drugs was part of the problem. The structure that emerged, seemed as dysfunctional to me, as what I see in big society but with variations. Of course there is some punk rock codex of honor, which one might adhere to or not, but there was definitely an underlayer of the " lord of the flies" scenario. I've seen people getting beat up, and folks just standing around laughing and getting off on a weak person bleeding on the floor. It looked like animals picking on a sick member of the pack. I've also been in political groups "Anarchos against Fascism", (I'm from Germany), and I have seen the disfunctional dynamics in those groups. The people where deeply divided and fascist against each other. My last experience was a community garden; There are always some great people who do their work and give a lot to the community, and then there are the arse holes, who steal and piggy bag on others hard work. There was no unity in the garden on how to handle this, so I tried to at least catch the thiefs, who where garden members. My fellow gardeners disapproved highly and I was ridiculed and lectured. Those people actually enabled the bad behavior. Now, this was not an anarchist garden, but just to show how fast the dynamic sets in because there is no unity about how to handle things and if you act alone you get voted down. I have since retreated into doing my own thing and stay away from groups altogether. I deal with situations individually and only answer to myself. Good enough for now. People are difficult! Anarchism would require a certain set of reality to at least work out to some degree, but the world and many people are far from being that just and honorable and honest with themselves and others.
I like your last sentence in this post:
"You got to live it every day, without a level of general abstraction, straight from the heart."
That's what I try to do.
I'm from Hamburg, the scene was not my home, never been a member, but somehow well received for sarcasm, open mindedness, and the ability to party like them, I enjoyed to hang around in the vicinity early, Kaffeestube, Marktstube, Subito, Hafenstraße
Right on. I agree that figuring out how to control violence is the problem that anarchism doesn't address. I think it is better to figure out how to create state based non-violent police forces, no small task either, but something that seems to me to have a better shot for something that we could create in the long run.
Agreed, I do agree with the sentiment that a federal military force is not in our best interests and we would be better served by military forces at the state (as in the United States) level.
You start off your article claiming that articles about anarchy will not drive traffic to the site, and may drive traffic away. Instead of presenting numbers or evidence of such. You cite your feelings, which does not show anything. I feel that people would prefer to go to an uncensored site as opposed to a censored one. I just made an argument as convincing as yours.
You then make up words words like anarchos, right before you say that you're not trying to be combative. I'm not trying to be combative, but I'm going to call you a feeler. You then claim to be playing devil's advocate which means that you don't really believe what you're writing.
Some of your article says we need to do this or we need to do that. It's not clear who this we is.
The meat of your post then is an argument against anarchy, which provides no barring on your original claim. For example, horoscopes are invalid, but I see no reason why they would take away from use of steemit. Steemit is set up to make sure that the exposure that horoscopes see will be proportional to people's interest. It also is clear from your writing style that you have just read people's posts on the internet, and as such don't know what you are talking about.
I'm not being condescending, but I want to put things in terms you understand. I feel that feelers need to read more books.
I see a slew of strawman arguments based on your observations without facts supporting them. There isn't much to argue here, as you really haven't presented any arguments.
My arguments are not hard and fast arguments, but personal observations based on historical precedent. I am not seeking to refute anarchism, but to present my own objections to anarchism and ideally to get feedback from those who have more experience with the subject.
There are a lot of things about anarchy that I find myself agreeing with. That being said, I also can agree with some of the questions you posit in your article. Sometimes when I'm reading anarchists talking about the subject, I see an underlying belief that people are generally good, or at least that the large majority of folks are altruistic.
I think the truth is that the average person is NOT these things. We as a society look at elite athletes, people who are courageous and brave, and we honor them because it's not normal behavior. If the self-discipline and dedication required to be an elite athlete were normal, it wouldn't be seen as special, and we wouldn't watch sports events to see them do what they do. We hold up the guy who jumped in to save a drowning child or we remark about how in the Midwest people stop to help those stranded on the side of the road because those aren't "normal," they're above and beyond.
At some point, those who want liberty really want to just be left alone to live. A lot of people don't necessarily plan to hurt others, but they'll take advantage if it helps them. They'll steal if they can get away with it. They'll cheat if they can do it without getting caught. And that's not even counting how the actual predators in society will act.
I think where the disconnect happens, though, is that people tend to think, "Who will protect us? How will we deal with criminals?" Perhaps the focus should be on personal responsibility for things such as safety and self-defense. When someone asks the question "What happens if a woman is raped?" I don't start thinking about who's going to punish the rapist. I think, "Why does anyone need to be in a position where they CAN be victimized? Why not teach people to stand up and protect themselves?" Not everyone agrees with the idea that an armed society is a polite one, but as a woman, I carry a gun, I train with it, and I am situationally aware. I don't expect anyone else to be responsible for protecting me, I protect myself. Perhaps the key is personal responsibility in a lot of areas that we've been conditioned to depend on the State for.
Of course...personal responsibility is work. It requires discipline and effort, and those are also things that many people aren't interested in doing...which is why I'd also have to agree that people will take socialism over anything else because the average person is..let's face it...lazy. ;)
Then again, I don't have all the answers. I'm just thinking out loud here. Great discussion going on.