Pintrest

Part 3: Everything You Know About Anarchism Is Wrong

“Anarchy” is commonly used as an acronym for “chaos” or “violence.” As such, when most people think of anarchy, they often think of movies such as The Purge or Mad Max. This reveals how much the mainstream media has influenced our assumptions about anarchy, and it’s often an assumption that rarely goes unchallenged — because if it were, it would reveal how contradictory those assumptions are: Anarchy is depicted as violent and chaotic by movies such as The Purge because that’s allegedly what anarchy really is, and that’s what anarchy really is because that’s how movies such as The Purge depict it. (Circular reasoning? What’s that?!)

As such, to properly define “anarchy” — or rather, “anarchism” — we must first define what it isn’t. We must first dispel our initial myths and misconceptions about it. Contrary to popular belief, anarchism is not about roving bands of masked marauders rioting and pillaging. It isn’t about warlords racing around with monster trucks in an apocalyptic wasteland. It isn’t about violent thugs tossing Molotov cocktails or smashing windows with baseball bats. It isn’t about violence or chaos or disorder. Basically, everything you know about anarchism is wrong.

Now properly defining and examining anarchism as a whole would require an essay in and of itself. So if you want a more in-depth yet condensed explanation of the philosophy, I’d recommend watching this video as part of Leon Thomas’ Renegade Cut review series. The video serves as both a summary of the tenants of anarchism and specifically how they relate to the movie V For Vendetta. As for my own essay, I’ll try to offer a brief synopsis.

Funologist

Anarchism, as defined by Merriam Webster, is a political philosophy that opposes “government authority” and instead advocates for societal organization through “voluntary cooperation and free association.” In other words, anarchists do not believe society should be ruled and organized by government, but instead organized through the self-rule of the people. The very word “anarchy” comes from the Greek word meaning “without rulers.” As such, an anarchist opposes authority by rulers — specifically, government authority.

Anarchism is often considered to be an extremist or radical position, and is often associated with the left-wing, specifically, the far-left. However, not only is it a philosophy with a rich history spanning several hundred years, but it also spans across the political spectrum, with anarcho-syndicalism and anarcho-socialism on the left, and anarcho-capitalism on the right. However, in spite of their differences, all schools of anarchism share a single position: their opposition towards government authority.

Now anarchists are opposed to authority, not because they’re whiney teenagers who want to smoke weed and don’t want to be told what to do, but because they oppose such authority being imposed within society through violent and coercive force. They believe that the government, as an institution, maintains a monopoly on the use of such force and coercion, and that such violence has historically done more harm than good towards the people. As such, anarchists believe in organizing society, not through government authority, but rather through more voluntary, democratic, and egalitarian means.

While anarchists are often associated with violence, the reality is that their entire philosophy is focused on the opposition towards violence, especially violence committed by the state. Anarchists are often pacifists, but in instances when they have committed violence, as has been the case with black bloc anarchists, it has often been in protest of and opposition towards government violence such a police brutality and war crimes. Anarchists often resort towards opposing the state through violence because the state itself is based upon the use of violence.

As Leon Thomas explains in his video:

“For anarchists, the state is a powerful institution that monopolizes the use of violence and marks out territory for which it can exercise and maintain said violence…The police can arrest us and shoot us. We, obviously, are not allowed to arrest the state or shoot the state, meaning, the police. The military is allowed to invade the borders of other states and kill people who are under the rule of that state. We are not. So the state monopolizes violence by claiming exclusive ownership of it…In contrast to what popular culture and dictionary illiteracy contends, anarchists do not want chaos…Anarchists want there to be laws, but they want those laws to be based upon consensus. An anarchist society is horizontal, not vertical, meaning that it would diminish or outright dismantle social and economic hierarchies.”

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The biggest and most common criticism of anarchism is that it’s allegedly never worked. After all, all societies throughout history have been run by government. No society has ever been run without a government. Therefore, society can never be run without a government. And since anarchism has never been implemented, it should never be attempted. This makes sense, right?

Ironically enough, the real-life implications of anarchy are often derided through fictional examples such as The Purge or Mad Max. These examples are often cited because they sound correct, but when you think about them for more than two seconds, they’re not. As we previously explained, The Purge is a government coverup for genocide against the lower classes. As for Mad Max, its post-apocalyptic setting was created through the nuclear fallout of war waged by various governments. If anything, these examples reveal the failure of government, not anarchism.

Whenever a real-world example is cited, it’s most often the African country of Somalia. It’s a common joke. “But if we didn’t have government, we’d be like Somalia!” Now explaining why Somalia isn’t real anarchism would take an entire essay in and of itself, but for the sake of this essay, this example can be succinctly debunked twofold:

First, Somalia’s current statelessness wasn’t the result of anarchist philosophy, but rather the collapse of a totalitarian government. Somalia is like “anarchy” the same way burning down a church is atheism. It isn’t! And second, even within its statelessness, Somalia tends to do better than its neighboring countries. Essentially, Somalia is doing better without a state than other countries are doing with one.

As for real life examples of anarchism, contrary to popular belief, they do exist. While there haven’t been any large-scale anarchist countries, there have been small-scale anarchist societies and communities across the world and throughout history. These span from ancient civilizations such as medieval Iceland and Ireland, to more modern examples such as Revolutionary Catalonia, and even present day examples such as Freetown Christiania, a society that has remained stateless for nearly 40 years and which is faring much better than Somalia.

One could argue that these examples don’t count as they’re small-scale societies, and thus can’t be compared to larger-scale countries with states. While such an argument is fair, it’s also one of the few good arguments against anarchism.

Bastiat Institute

Most anti-anarchism arguments tend to be little less than knee-jerk reactions (“A society without government? That’s would never work!”) and thought-terminating clichés (“There has never been a society without government so why bother trying?”).

In fact, the best counter-arguments to arguments against anarchism are the very arguments themselves, as they’re so contradictory that they serve better as arguments against the very concept of government they’re trying to defend:

“But without government, we’d all be helpless against roving gangs of criminal thugs!” You mean like how our law enforcement is allowed to get away with acts of brutality and violence without consequence?

“But without government, we’d be taken over by war lords!” You mean like defense contractors and how they control our military-industrial complex?

“But without government, we’d be at the mercy of the rich!” The rich have been in control of this country since wealthy landowners over here declared independence from the wealthy landowners of Great Britain.

“But without government, who’d build the roads?” You mean the same roads that our current government is failing to maintain to the point where they’re some of the worst in the world?

“But if we get rid of government, we’d return to feudalism!” This one is my personal favorite! The irony is that feudalism is a form of government. They’re literally arguing that getting rid of government would lead to more government!

As demonstrated, most arguments against getting rid of government make for better criticisms of government itself. Simply put, what you fear will happen under anarchism is already happening under the state.

As Hobbes couldn’t comprehend a society ruled without kings, so too many people cannot imagine a society ruled without government. As such, they run into the same problem most defenders of the status quo have: they assume this is the way things have always been, they can’t imagine things being any other way, so they believe this is the way things should always be. Because why bother questioning assumptions or trying new things?