The word “anarchist” has been thrown around lately in reference to a candidate in the race for Santa Cruz City Council. I have no horse in that race — all candidates seem to be citizens who want to serve the community honorably, and they say they share many of the same goals: good water management, a healthy economy, public safety, adequate housing, a clean environment.

What bothers me in the political discourse — or more precisely, rhetoric — is the casual use of an inflammatory word (sounds a little like “anti-Christ”) whose meaning few people seem to understand. Included in this group of the uncomprehending are not only those with a “conservative” agenda and a fear of anything left of center, but many self-styled “anarchists” themselves who seem to believe that anarchism means the promotion of chaos and disorder in the service of some muddle-headed political agenda.

But anarchism as a political philosophy has nothing to do with chaos and everything to do with voluntary cooperation, with democratic equality and with self-management for the collective good. It is a utopian philosophy whose application can be useful for organizing small groups — a household of roommates, for example, or a political demonstration — but generally ineffective for larger social units, like cities, states or nations.

So-called anarchists who go around smashing windows are really just vandals blowing off steam. The Occupy movement of a few years back, organized on anarchist principles — leaderlessness, egalitarianism, collective decision-making — failed in part precisely because it was incoherent and without clear legislative or policy goals. The tea party has been much more effective politically, not only in getting elected to Congress but in gumming up the federal government.

I doubt any anarchist would run for Congress, since anarcho-fundamentalists scorn elections. Certainly no American politician, even at the municipal level, would admit to holding an anarchist philosophy. But in principle I see no contradiction between anarchism and democracy.

Just as libertarians on the right are committed to individual freedom and are sometimes willing to engage in the business of government in order to get government off their backs, so anarchists on the left should be willing to use their rational powers of persuasion to work toward consensus in solving political problems. “Anarchy” in such a reasonable political context would mean cooperative order self-organized from below (as in spontaneous response to a natural disaster) rather than imposed from above by coercive powers that be.

While in the ideal world I find this aspect of anarchism appealing, it is difficult to put into practice in a real world of people who not only disagree politically but are deeply imperfect in various ways and often victims of their own ignorance, ideological agendas and personality disorders, not to mention various kinds of corruption.

Since the Santa Cruz City Council is supposedly nonpartisan, perhaps it would be best for everyone to set aside rhetorically loaded labels and consider how the candidates as independent-thinking individuals committed to a democratic process — which means in part being able to articulate their policy positions and argue for their implementation — are capable of solving problems cooperatively through reasoned acts of persuasion.

Even a supposed anarchist, if he or she really believes in consensus, should be able as well as anyone else to work constructively with others.

Stephen Kessler is a Santa Cruz resident who votes in every election.