We continue looking into the necessity of government in part two of our series. If you haven’t already, please skim through part one, as I will gloss over some terms (and foundational concepts) used to set the roadmap for all these consecutive sections.
Before we dig in, Iet’s review our thesis: government is a necessary societal entity for the preservation of mankind, to provide mutual protection amongst citizens, dispense justice, and to guard against anarchy. We have looked (albeit briefly) on how the state of nature can be defined, we described anarchy itself, and how it differs from lawlessness. Then we ended by posing the following question: is anarchy without lawlessness possible? We then demonstrated that this is an exclusive either/or proposition (i.e., it may be yes, or no, but not both). Here, let’s attempt to answer the question by stating that it is possible to have anarchy without introducing lawlessness.
I think it worth noting one final thought here. If you skimmed the footnotes, you will have noticed a syllogism. Syllogisms are the result of two or more premises from which a conclusion may be drawn. It is a form of induction (or deductive reasoning). The syllogism presented does not prove anything – it is merely a way to logically order one’s thoughts. In other words, a syllogism may be correctly formulated, but logically invalid. For example: All dogs are blue. Noodles is a dog. ∴ Noodles is blue. However, walking into the living room, we quickly discover (to our horror) that Noodles is in fact not blue – she is brown. Our syllogism, while syntactically and logically correct, is semantically false. The same is applicable with our syllogism, which is as follows: The absence of government equals anarchy. Anarchy equals lawlessness. ∴ The absence of government equals lawlessness.
The sentence above is formulated logically. However, we must ask – is it false? Let’s start with that premise – that the absence of government does not equal lawlessness. Remember, anarchists believe in the dissolution of power hierarchies – defined as the absence of any and all governmental structures and institutions). There is a disagreement, however, on what exactly a “state of anarchy” entails. There appear to be four streams of thought. The first stream would argue that a “state of anarchy” is a state that is a self-governed society based on voluntary institutions. The second crowd (individualist anarchists) take the stance that the “state of anarchy” consists of a group of autonomous individuals (or the so-called sovereign citizen concept) with no power structures – voluntary or otherwise that can supersede the autonomous individual. The third group – the collectivist anarchists, believe that ownership of all means of production be forcefully collectivized, and workers paid for the amount of time they contribute for their production. The final group are the mutualists. Mutualism is murky, as it nails together both elements of individualism and collectivism – in a quasi-socialistic libertarianism. While it has a long history, it is marred logically due to its continued attempt to marry Marxism with Libertarianism (normally these terms are mutually exclusive and don’t make sense logically when paired).
| Theories of Anarchy | |||
| Government by Voluntary Association | Individualistic/Sovereign Anarchists | Collectivist Anarchy | Mutualistic Anarchy |
A drawn-out discussion on the rabbit trails of various forms of anarchy isn’t going to be propounded on here – however we may draw a couple of conclusions. 1. Anarchism comes in many diverse forms and is very incoherent in its messaging. This shouldn’t be surprising as (by the definition) anarchism is predicated on the ascension of the individual citizen at the expense of everything else – hence a wide variety of ideas exist regarding what exactly is the correct anarchist formulation. 2. Most people have never heard of the streams of anarchy mentioned. This is because it is a niche idea (perhaps because it is unworkable?) – let’s not make that value judgment at the moment. But, as good scholars, we must hypothesize through all scenarios. The idea of anarchy has been around for over two centuries, and has found little support – which is, perhaps, telling for an idea as aged as this one.
In order to answer our question without rambling too much, let’s focus on the forms of anarchy above, and examine whether each is capable of sustaining a population on its own terms – and avoiding a degenerative decline into lawlessness. First however, let’s have a quick discussion on the state of man for the purposes of this discussion.
If you recall, we had postulated that man, in a “state of nature” may be evil, good, or a mixture of both. We proved the latter logically fallacious. I have spent some time thinking on this, because an argument on whether man is inherently evil or good is really a whole different topic. So, let’s take man in his current state. What do I mean by this? Well, it is obvious that the world is degenerating (i.e. Newton’s 2nd Law of Thermodynamics, etc. etc.), and that some form of ill-will and evil are present – what its origins are, and how it manifests itself, let’s put aside for now. All we can conclude is that the world, in its present state, is seemingly imperfect (for example, war, disease, depression, homicides, theft, anger, etc.). Working off this presumption, let’s attempt to answer our question.
(For those readers who may argue that the present time is not conducive – and anarchy may have worked had societies not had a chance to develop, (i.e., the primeval state mentioned in Part I) – nature is still degenerating (or at the very least we have mistakes in the genome, and calamities in nature). For the evolutionist here, this is perfectly logical as well – as regardless of societal structure, nature is moving forward based on mutations (which could potentially, and most certainly in some cases, damage its host). So even without societies, the likelihood of an accident (i.e., something as simple as a primeval man cutting down a tree in a forest and it accidentally falling and killing another – and a fight breaking out) has a high likelihood of occurring. The point here is, from what is around us, it appears there is a degeneration underway – regardless of whether it emits from man himself, or from man’s surroundings (nature), or another source).
The major problem with the “government as a voluntary institution” theory of anarchy is something that is fairly obvious. One can opt out. Given our state of nature, whatever the circumstances, we may rightly assume there will be individuals that find even government by voluntary association repulsive. What then? Are they to be given land and treated as a self-governing protectorate within the area controlled by the government? Are they to be left to their own devices – and barred from using roads, public transit, schools, healthcare, etc. etc. (a reasonable proposition seeing as they would not contribute into government coffers). However, those are of little concern to the bigger issue – suppose they decided to ally with a foreign hostile power? What then? The government then has a major security issue that jeopardizes those who wish to remain within governmental oversight.
Logically and realistically – this idea collapses with little debate. Governments would not let those who voluntarily leave stay within their jurisdictional boundaries. Migration into empty lands would occur – up until all lands were claimed (by force or otherwise) by a power with a governance structure. Or, until a group of people – having left by choice band together and become large enough to stop outside aggression (this is starting to eerily sound like a governing institution here – albeit simple and based solely on mutual protection). This also does not say anything about how a government can possibly function if people may come and go as they please. In short – it can’t. it would be impossible to collect revenues, dispense justice, or protect against foreign threats if citizens could leave without consequence. The governing structure would quickly become unworkable. (Not to say tyrannical as those in power quickly realize that using force is the best and most effective manner of keeping people “voluntarily” associated with the government).
Our second theory has potentially even deeper issues then the one above. The idea of a sovereign citizen living in independent fiefdoms peacefully is blatantly unrealistic. The Middle-Aged Germanic tribes are a good example of this concept miserably failing (among a whole myriad of other examples). One cannot live alone as a singular entity with the goal of occupying land in a peaceful manner without conflict. Remember – in this scenario there is no courts of arbitration or recourses for mediation – it is up to you and whoever your fellow sovereign citizen is to sort out. If there is a disagreement, your conflict resolution boils down to: 1. How physically strong you are, 2. How well defended you are, or 3. How intellectually astute you are to play mind games with others. You cannot control the amount of land necessary to sustain yourself, offer yourself protection in any meaningful way, expect to be a deal broker with third parties, and administer justice if you have been wronged.
In this state, there will be no weaker members of society – they will have been either killed, driven off to less fertile areas, or subdued. You yourself will grow old or sick, and there are those who will eagerly remove you from contention without hesitation. Again – even given the idea that man is inherently good – all it takes is the inevitable accident or misunderstanding, and flint will be touched to the stone with no return. (I should point out that if a successful resolution to a conflict were to be found – what is the motivation of the mediator or resolver themselves? One cannot but postulate that such a motivation might be grounded in the notion that the peace broker themselves is working to secure such a peace to use for their own advantageous schemes).
Finally, as it has often said, there will always be someone bigger, stronger, and more capable than you. Given our “state of nature” analysis, the current degenerative climate of the world would result in precisely what is occurring in Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, Northern DRC, and Haiti to name a few examples.
The third theory is a half-baked attempt by Marxists to drive the ethos of class struggle into a theory that has more similarities with Libertarianism then Marxism. I will be short on critiques here – mainly that it is common sense to ask the following question: To whom should the responsibility fall to forcefully collectivize the means of production? (And we can answer that by saying – why the politburo, or the Democratic Party of Kampuchea of course).
Finally, the mutualists. Again, this theory suffers the same fate as the one above – in that it too attempts to marry Marxism (albeit a different strain) with the extreme fringe ideologies of Libertarianism to achieve a coherent philosophy.
So, what can we conclude? Based on the explanations above, anarchy induces lawlessness, and that by having anarchy, lawlessness is sure to follow in some shape or form. Despite the attempts of anarchists to manoeuvrer around the logical pitfall (i.e., by introducing Marxism – or the idea of voluntary governance – which breaks the definition of anarchy itself), there is no way as of yet to build a logical case where introducing anarchy does anything short of breed lawlessness, and, as a consequence, bring out all the degradations of primeval man in the process.