Well, I'm giving this another shot. I plan to have more than just thoughts on theory here. Hopefully I can write about anarchist theory, how to put anarchy in practice, perspective on current events, along with liberty-oriented images, songs, and movie reviews. Along with these things, I hope to build more community with guest posts by fellow bloggers. To celebrate, I'm doing a bit of all of the above in this post(without a guest post of course, but please shoot me an email if you'd like to guest post next week).
For those unaccustomed to anarchy, allow me to detail this beautiful political philosophy. I believe I may have a few of you remaining on notification for this blog.
Anarchism has a diverse crowd of beliefs and there is often division within the thought. One shouldn't expect to meet two anarchists with identical beliefs. It would be like proclaiming statists are all uniform in their beliefs; there are many diverse beliefs within statism such as republicanism and monarchism.
However, anarchists do agree on a relatively simple philosophy: no government. They find government to be unethical and/or inefficient. The ideas on what will exist in place of government is where the sharpest divides occur. Beliefs range from older socialist ideas to newer, though with still quite a history, free market ideas. In between there are numerous groups but mutualists tend to blend both elements well. I am a free market anarchist, but I wouldn't force the free market on anyone. I just believe it will be the naturally arising system. Socialists can form their own societies within anarchy. I oppose socialism being forced upon people though and I find that to be another government, not anarchy.
Many people say that anarchy is chaos and reference numerous dictionary definitions. But that is nothing more than propaganda. The dictionary used to define atheism as immoral, but we do not accept that definition anymore. I don't mind discussing whether anarchy can result in chaos or not, but to define anarchy as chaos is quite inaccurate and would be akin to defining sex as rape. They may result in that attribute, but they are not inherently that attribute.
How does one practice anarchy? There are various levels of practice beginning with daily interactions with others. Notice that many actions are based on voluntaryist interactions. When you have a barbeque with your neighbor you do not force him with threats of violence to operate the grill. You invite him and ask him if he can help you with managing the grill. There are those who limit their activities to internet evasion of laws through torrenting, email encryption, and proxies and circumventers. Then there are people who evade taxes, dodge drafts, or become stateless. There are even communities of growing anarchist demographics.
How does anarchy relate to current events? In the U.S. there is the economic meltdown. Anarchists propose the end of the federal reserve while mocking the hypocrisy of Bush saying he is free market when he is one of the more regulatory presidents. In Greece, anarchists are rioting and protesting against the murder of a 15-year-old by state-sponsored murderers(cops). There are likely many more places involved with anarchy around the world, but at the time and due to my location these are the most known by me.
And to finish, I offer you a song about how the U.S. government stole a people's way of life.
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The Relentless Misery of 1.6 Gallons
17 hours ago
7 comments:
Hi,
while I've got nothing against the idea of anarchy and the idea of voluntary interaction, I don't think this can work unless in a perfect world. Why? Not only is cooperation typical of human nature, but conflicts are too. And not only conflicts between individuals that could be solved rather easily, but also conflicts between nations.
I did however enjoy this post, and actually learn quite a lot about anarchism, and will surely check up on this blog later.
You are very correct that conflict is typical. In fact, how to resolve conflicts is the basis of political theory.
Anarchists believe that government is only creating more, unnecessary conflict through their actions while anarchy lessens and solve the conflicts more efficiently and ethically. In anarchy, there is no conflict between nations, only individuals(and their groups).
Thank you. I hope to be an enjoyable source of thought-provoking material.
Perhaps that's true as people can get into conflict with yet another organization, but mainly the government is there to make sure these conflicts don't run out of control.
However, this is exactly what I mean with this perfect world - when the whole world is in anarchy. Only then can one not have conflicts with nations.
I think that our law-system - in the western democratic countries - is actually quite fair and based on an efficient and ethical judgement. Of course it is not as efficient or ethical as it covers a much larger area and population as any anarchistic judicial system could ever do. But it is based on the common spirit of it's population and is only therefore widely accepted by the people.
The problem has always been who watches the watchmen? And anarchy doesn't solve that completely, but it does allow there to be competition between different forms of justice. This system is quite small and hard to find contemporarily though forms of it have throughout history.
I disagree that our current system is either efficient or ethical. You yourself said government is neither of those things and surely you realize our justice system is run by government? I would say its not based on the common spirit but by pitting one majority against a minority as I covered in a previous post(A Response to Epistemological Anarchy).
You never have explained to me how a justice system can exist in a society where coercion, or even the threat of coercion, are considered socially unacceptable.
Therefore, I still have not seen an effective way to practice anarchy (other than in brief spurts or extremely narrow-minded, close-knite communities) without almost immediately degrading into a feudal state, where whoever is most willing to get their hands dirty in terms of morality are going to come out on top.
From our talks, I am sympathetic with the free-market concept, and agree that it would naturally arise - However it still leaves ridiculously large openings for what I mentioned earlier (That is why anti-trust laws exist.) Once a company gains a massive market share (Whether through good business or unethical behaviour), what would be in place to stop them using their influence and assets to shoulder out any semblance of competition, and, once they have done that, what is to stop them from becoming unethical, except for their own personal values?
I believe our current system allows for real control on the different governments. The separation of powers is what keeps our government in check and doesn't let them get out of control.
So I must disagree that our justice system is run by the government, at least it's not where I live. My government just fell because members of it tried to influence the judiciary power. I think that illustrates enough how powerless a government can be.
I think the idea of checks and balances(the American Experiment) was a nice one that has failed. Instead of being opposing forces, they've worked together, with a facade of disagreement, to increase governmental power. I covered this a bit in A Response to Epistemological Anarchy.
You don't believe justice is run by government? I'd say in most countries it is because government controls the police force, court system, prison system, and regulates admission into joining the ranks of the lawyers.
I'm waiting eagerly to see how Belgium turns out with regard to its government.
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