By Zerdo Sio (Own work) [CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

I was once an Anarchist. It was a phase I went through during my college years. Anarchy just has a certain allure to it. How much do we really need state coercion anyway? And just think of the new institutions we could build by doing away with government.

In fact, I think that’s Anarchism’s fatal flaw. I don’t think many people love the idea of government, and it probably wouldn’t take much convincing to get people to overthrow it with a good enough reason. But what then?

Anarchy in and of itself isn’t a belief. It’s a lack of belief in government. Show me a hundred anarchists and I’ll show you a hundred different political views that involve overthrowing the government. Some Anarchists called the “Counterforce” just got together and managed to agree that they also are against capitalism, but then again we don’t know that for sure. The interview I linked to only represents the opinion of “about half the present group.” There are certainly a large number of Anarchists who do support capitalism, were any of them in the Counterforce?

As far as I know, that group is now on hiatus. Is it surprising given that the group’s decision-making structure for giving a simple interview can be held up by “a sewage leak, the beach, work and other preoccupations”? If anarchists do truly believe in pure democracy, you can only imagine how much time they spend making decisions on the simplest of questions.

And besides that, how much do Anarchists really believe in a lack of government anyway? It sounds to me like Anarchists really just believe in changing the form of government and then claiming they’ve done away with government. Once you have purely democratic structures, how do you enforce their decisions? At least we won’t have police! And once you have democractic structures with an enforcement mechanism, how do you ensure they have the resources they need to enforce the law? Just don’t call it a “tax” and everything will be ok.

But this also presents Anarchism’s greatest strength: institutional reset. I don’t think that lack of government is sustainable. But it does mean that once we’ve gotten rid of our government, we’ll be able to build new institutions to replace them. Taken from this perspective, Anarchism is basically a political doomsday cult. It’s a belief that our present form of government is inherently corrupt and that its demise is imminent.

Ok, sure our government has its flaws, but I think it’s premature to call our government done. Consider all the violence and bloodshed that would be needed to bring about its demise. Just remember: the organs of the state are the true perpetrators of violence.