In the first part of this series on anarchism, I addressed the common understanding of it, what it isn’t, and a brief history. It’s not a prerequisite for this article, but it’ll help remove some of your prejudice towards anarchism before going forward.

First of all, let’s re-state again what anarchism actually is. Rather than being a form of government, it’s a philosophical ideology that condemns authoritarian structures like government, church, police and anything that takes the power and freedom of one individual and transfers it to another. This seems simple, but there are some subtle implications that aren’t interpreted well and need clarification.

1. Humans Can’t Operate Without Authority

Let’s first clarify what authority and your right to self-governance means. Authority happens when someone imposes their will on you at the expense of your own free will and obligates you to obey. That obligation can be enforced directly through the use of force or punishment, or indirectly by withholding your means of living. Nearly all types of authority in the eyes of an anarchist are bad and not worth having.

Not having authority doesn’t mean that people can’t organize, assign tasks, or obey others. What it does mean is that you shouldn’t force someone against their will to do these things. It needs to be consensual. Luckily, most people realize that cooperation and following proper social customs will get themselves much further. However, if you really disagree, you can say “no.” You should always be able to say “no” and have that respected. If that’s not the case, than your humanity is being raped. The phrase “no means no!” should be applicable to more than just sexual domination.

There are obviously a few very clear exceptions that should briefly be mentioned. For example, If time prohibits and you have to make a split second act to save someone from harm using physical, or otherwise, force without their consent, yes this is authoritarian; and yes, it’s acceptable. Common sense is common for a reason, we don’t have to agree on things like this.

You may be thinking, “OK, so authority isn’t always good and it may take away freedoms, but it’s a necessary evil in order for us to live better and ultimately freeer lives.” Touche, Mr. Common Argument. It certainly seems this way. But how do you know? Have you ever experienced non-authoritarian structures to come to this conclusion? Chances are you haven’t, and so this argument is mostly an assumption when approached on a personal level. So to address this properly, we have to resort to our friends: history and science.

Historically

Historically, as mentioned in An Intro to Anarchism, authority often arises to a certain level. It’s only natural. Does that mean it should be the cornerstone of humanity? Absolutely not. It’s a primitive urge that demonstrates lack of maturity in a social environment.

Let’s go back to where authoritarianism was minimal and examine whether an authoritarian system was necessary or beneficial. Today, we are mostly governed by official governments put in place by democracy, dictatorship, revolution, socialism, or through empires. How they got there doesn’t really matter – it’s all authoritarian nowadays. So let’s go back further. The Middle Ages, Roman Era and even Ancient Greece all had authoritarian governments. It may be thought that Ancient Greece was governed through direct democracy with little authoritarian structures, but this isn’t accurate. It had many governments and a class dominated attitude. Even if the Aristocrats overtook local Kings, it was still dictatorship for the people who often didn’t get a say. Later on, Athens invented democracy which gave some say to citizens (except women, children, slaves, and foreigners). Still pretty authoritative. To see truly liberal societies, we need to look at indigenous cultures. There’s obviously a lot of variance within different tribes, so I’ll be making generalized statements here.

A tribe is just another word for community. In these communities, life is simple. There is no organized structure for government. People cooperate, help each other and exist happily in their environment. Still, decisions have to be made on a communal level, and in this respect, tribes are often aristocratic. The wisest, Chief, makes the final decision. However, on such a small scale, opinions are actually heard. So it looks like there’s authority. But here’s the kicker, if you don’t like the decision that was made, you’re free to leave. The consequence is that your communal support is cut off and you have a harder time living. However, unlike today, each individual had the means of survival due to being intimately familiar with their environment. They weren’t a slave to their tribe. There’s no reason to impose any authority in a system like this. And it works just fine. Humanity is preserved and flourishes.

Scientifically

Hobbes once said, life in the state of nature would be “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.” That isn’t necessarily the case if you own the means of survival, as you should, like we saw in the tribal example. But what Hobbes was actually referring to by “a state of nature” is life without societal constructs. What he failed to realize, is that societal constructs are built into nature! Humans are inherently social animals. It is to our benefit, on an individual level and evolutionary level, to help each other. In a state of nature, unlike the solitary existence we live in today, humans operate as a group, not as competing individuals.

As social animals that naturally want to coordinate to help further the existence of the community, an external authoritative force that makes sure we do such is redundant and dangerous. At a very fundamental, biological level, we don’t need authority to survive, or to write social contracts, nor to enforce consequences of being anti-social.

If we are social by nature, a solitary existence would be punished by the laws of nature. Just as we saw with the rebellious tribesman that didn’t like the chief’s decision, he retained his freedom but was punished to a solitary existence. Maybe he made his own tribe and found his communal ways again, or maybe a lion ate him. The point is that without an external authority, order arose through nature. Since when has order necessitated a maker?

2. How can there be order without authority?

Order is not manufactured. This is another one of those egotistical human attitudes that thinks, “I order things in the world around me, therefore any order that arises must’ve been ordered by something else.” It’s the same reason we have those burning questions like “what made the Big Bang?” There’s this urge to know what made something so we can connect it with our own existence. So we tend to disregard anything that self assembles. We hate chaos, yet from chaos comes order. So we look for something else, because chaos isn’t a good enough answer.

Tell me something, who puts together atoms and molecules? How, from all of this chaos do they miraculously come together and make chemicals and cells and us? We keep looking for that guiding hand and come up with answers like, “well, there’s this strong and weak nuclear force that holds the atoms together and their consequent polarity attracts other atoms to make molecules and so on.” But that’s still kind of chaotic, there must be a reason for that behaviour? So we ask where these forces come from, and we get stumped. It’s that curiosity to know where order comes from that blinds us from the reality in front of us. I’m not saying it’s bad, it fuels scientific progress. But it also makes us forget that nature is chaos and the more chaotic something is the more chance we have for order to arise from the simplest random directives, or possibly no directives at all.

Atoms and molecules order themselves to form chemicals which order themselves to form the miracle of life. At any given moment we are alive due to an immensely complicated network of communication between different cells in our body, the majority of which don’t contain our own DNA – the supposed code for building who we are. Still we sit and think of where this order must’ve came from while we hurtle through the ordered chaos that is our solar system within a universe that knows no bounds. Chaotic order is not an oxymoron, it’s the mutually dependent parents of nature.

Whether or not we understand the simple rules that emerge from chaotic patterns, it’s been shown time and time again that you only need very simple rulesets to create incredibly complex and evolutionary products. Ever wonder how flocks of birds navigate so eloquently and coordinated without any one leading bird? Well it was replicated in 1986 by Craig Reynolds with only three simple rules. The same goes for our social evolution. Through very simple naturally occurring rules, we coordinate in all of our best interests to form societies. A society is not made by authority, it’s formed through its own internal mechanisms.

Look at where that attitude of not accepting the existence of self-order has brought us. We couldn’t figure out where we came from or what our purpose is and so that burning curiosity evoked ideas in people of Gods that filled the role of puzzle makers instead of the etherial chaotic order of the natural world. These Gods soothed the questions at the expense of reality. Then men (yes, explicitly men) came together to solidify this answer in the form of religion. By the nature of its conception, religion was the authoritarian excuse for the order around us. With the advancements of science, many of the original questions were answered and many of us have come to realize the inutility of religion and counter-productivity of these authoritarian structures dictating our lives. And yet, that attitude hasn’t seeped into the opinion on government even though it’s the natural extension to religion.

Religion became embodied by certain crafty individuals who “interpreted” and distributed the word of God. This is how Kings arose. They were people that provided the certainty of religion to others who ate it up to fill that curious void with a false fantasy. Kings eventually formed monarchies which accumulated wealth and resources due to their “divine right” as King, or God’s interpreter. Religion and government has always been closely tied and are basically the same thing. The attitude of a top down order of things, this false belief stemming from our active imagination, is what allows us to give up our natural self-ordered existence for a more concrete story. Our imagination creates these magical things like Gods, Mythical Creatures, and Good Government because it’s a nicer answer to why things have order.

One of the simple rules that has helped order society has been that all powerful term “self-interest.” It’s in our self-interest to form societies. This does not make us selfish, on the contrary it means we’re naturally altruistic. Unfortunately, religion and government arose from the very same self-interest principle in order to fill the gap we felt due to our overactive imagination. Ironically, it’s the same principle that means there can never be a Good Government since it exists to serve its own self-interest not ours. It will continually grow at the expense of the people that gave it life and power.

I guess you can say government was inevitable, but that’s why we exist. To learn from our mistakes and evolve as people. We seem to have figured it out with religion. There are growing numbers of atheists and anti-theists that realize its origin is in a false belief that limits our growth as humans. The same is true for government. The necessity of government is a false belief. Scientific advancement has discredited most of the need for religion by answering many of its previously unanswerable questions. So then it is with government that our realization in our natural ability to self-order should trump the need for top down order through government.

3. Justice in Anarchism is Impossible Because it’s Authoritative

No, justice is not inherently authoritative. You don’t need someone else to impose a punishment for there to be justice. Karma is one means for justice that is not authoritative. Here’s a practical example: There’s no law against being mean. So, presumably, there’s no reason why everyone isn’t mean, since our justice system is the only thing keeping people in order, right? Then how come very few people are out-right mean to your face? It’s because there are social consequences to being an asshole. If you’re mean to everyone, no one will want to associate with you, and you’ll be lonely. Humans don’t like being lonely and disliked and so that’s enough incentive for most of our population to be civil and amicable.

Being apart of a community is a privilege we all need (with the exception of psychopaths) and for which we should be thankful. Meaning, it can also be revoked without being authoritative. This type of karmic social justice can be very effectively used. In fact, there are tons of studies backing up its effectiveness versus our traditional prison and fining system. Social inclusion is a prime motivator for life and revoking some of its privileges are a powerful form of anti-authoritarian justice.

Justice consists of so many scenarios it would be impractical to address most of them here. However, I have a certain amount of trust in the anarchism’s self-regulation that stems from analyzing a few extreme cases. Just like our current justice system, it’s assumed that if it works for the extreme cases it can be applied down to the little things. These cases will be addressed in detail in future articles. Again, trust is necessary, because it would be naive to think that any system could produce perfect justice. It’s an impossibility, because people do not act rationally and/or predictably. The best we can do is find justice in a system that beneficially addresses as many scenarios as possible while not imposing justice through injustice and maintaining the humanity it’s there to support.

“Liberty can and must defend itself only through liberty.” – Bakunin

4. Anarchism Doesn’t Account for the “Bad Apples”

It shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone that there are bad apples in any society. People who take advantage of good will, who don’t pull their share, or commit crimes. How do we address that in anarchism?

One must realize there will always be bad apples in a society. There are two ways of addressing them: control them through the use of authority and/or prevent them. What must be realized too is that we’re a product of the system in which we’re raised. Capitalism, for example, actually breeds people to be selfish and criminal. It quite literally rewards people for taking advantage of others and emphasizes individualistic competition rather than community. Therefore capitalism must resort to mostly physical and psychological control in order to keep the bad apples in line. The bad apples are not natural, they’re a product of the dirty cesspool of a system we call capitalism. The numbers are clear: more capitalism equals more crime.

This is not building humanity, it’s tearing it down. When people are subject to social anarchism where cooperation and community are rewarded, where property doesn’t exist and resources are common, its people are raised to reflect these same attitudes. People don’t take advantage of each other because it would be a form of masochism when you synonymously associate yourself with your community. Hurting your community would be hurting yourself. Stealing isn’t even a concept since ownership doesn’t exist in anarchism.

Of course there are extreme exceptions like psychopaths, who by definition don’t have a concept of socialism or empathy. This is inevitable, but we mustn’t sacrifice the freedom of everyone else for the exceptions. Psychopaths are sick people. Putting them in prison does nothing for them or the community. If an attempt at helping them adapt to society doesn’t work and they can’t live among the rest of us without causing harm, exile would be an appropriate punishment. It isn’t authoritative, it simply revokes the privilege of societal living from those who don’t really want it to begin with.

“Bad apples” can also refer to the argument that, some people just aren’t bright enough to govern themselves. The argument that we need some sort of aristocracy to keep society advancing, or else stupid people will tear it down. The problem with this train of thought is that no one ever makes this argument against their self, because it’s not in their own self-interest. Meaning, nobody ever categorizes themselves as one of the stupid ones. No one ever says, “I’m too stupid to make my own decisions, please make them for me.” Nobody should be the judge of who is to determine who’s inadequate, no matter how short the bus they ride on is.

Another reason why this isn’t a valid concern is that people in a social anarchist society live in community. Community is an integral part of anarchism and consists of all sorts of skills, abilities and intelligence that ranges from both ends of the spectrum. As such, shortcomings in one area are made up for by strengths in another. The less logical decisions can be dissuaded by the better logic of another.

In the next part of this series, we’ll look at the more important question of why anarchism is essential to a good life.