I've come across quite a growing number of anarchists on the internet and i've always been left confused after conversing with them. According to the dictionary (www.dictionary.reference.com) anarchy is defined as a "state of society without government or law".
Debating/Conversing with an anarchist is fairly simple especially over the internet. When encountering one a key tool in your arsenal is to ask them to provide an example of an anarchist society that has ever functioned on a regional or local level, of course I have been provided with numerous examples in fact today several people defending the principles of anarchy have given me around three examples of an apparent anarchist state but of course when delving into these examples you often find issues with their defence.
The Icelandic Commonwealth was handed to me as an example of an apparent anarchist state yet the very second this country was scrutinized the example was blown out of the water for being completely and utterly false. The Icelandic Commonwealth was divided into numerous communities called goðorð and whilst this may be similar to certain anarchists principles of a voluntary communities these communities could only be created by certain land owners or people that had gained their title ancestrally these Chieftains would them meet in the Althing (early national assembly) when a dispute rose between different communities or if someone wanted to appeal a decision made by a Chieftain, something that would be decided by the collective leadership. These examples of regional and state-wide leadership and even collective leadership turn the notion that the Icelandic Commonwealth was an anarchy or even close to once to be pure fantasy.
Examples aside the very idea of a functioning anarchist state is pure fantasy to me. Any region without basic laws and governance would collapse into a state of complete destitution, an example of the failure of this system is fairly easy to find and will provide you with a wealth of ammunition to use against any anarchist you stumble upon the internet or in real life.
Your communities drinking supply is being heavily polluted by several large industrial factories that have no qualms with dumping their highly toxic chemicals down stream, the result of the dumping is having an horrific impact on the health and economy of your anarchic community as current filtration techniques cannot filter the vast amount of chemicals in the water and local wildlife has either left the region entirely or completely been killed off by the toxic sludge, attempts to peacefully negotiate with the owners of the factory have completely failed and they posses enough weapons to make any attack against them completely fruitless and once that would most likely end up in the complete destruction of your community. What is the solution? Move into another area? What if the same problem is repeated across the state or even the entire country? Where will you be forced to move then? Could you even move such a large swathe of supplies across such a large distance without being victim to raiders and other criminal elements within the non-functioning society?
It's the problem that most anarchists face, in this situation their is no solution to the problem and the only winners are those with the financial and military clout to do as they wish whilst in a system with a functioning system of governance and regulation, a member of the town could make a simple complaint to the necessary regulatory authority, the Environmental Agency (in the UK) and the Environmental Protection Agency (in the US) etc etc.
So now we see what a true anarchist system would be like, those with sufficient monetary and military capital would rule over those communities who lack the financial or military power to ensure their own quality of living (river pollution example). The entire idea reminds me of Feudalism when the powerful land-owners controlled the entire life of the less powerful (although more numerous) plebs and serfs.
This a nice way to place it.
ReplyDeleteAfter all anarchism is a strange concept which easily becomes what we saw in China, such as the Guangxi military cliques in the end.
Anarchism, is indeed going to make it even easier for elite classes to take over.
Indeed.
DeleteI don't think many anarchists understand what their society will create. Look at Somalia for an example, all those warlords dictating large areas of land and contributing to the suffering of the people by stealing humanitarian aid and generally mismanaging the local infrastructure.
That... combined with how most nations with utter disorder such as Afghanistan have the same Somalian problem.
DeleteIt is also ironic as to how the United States in itself keeps sending aid to some of the most horrid governments of all time. Plus, on an unrelated note it treats its allies (such as we in Japan) like its puppets, wanting us to follow almost everything they want to pursue in terms of foreign policy.
Returning on topic however, anarchists simply do not understand there is a major difference between now to the prehistoric times. Prehistoric humans are not as sapient or sentient as we are today, they did not have economics, money, education, nor did they have true science, not even understanding in mathematics. Additionally Earth's conditions forced them to practise virtually nomadic lives, whilst their small communities were manageable enough.
Imagine having an anarchy in the mess we call the modern world. Imagine how this would turn out (already democracies have enough problems as it is; compared to say the Ancient Greeks which had small manageable populations) if it were implemented on a large scale. Do they expect a peaceful lively Earth where everything will work well? Unfortunately that is nigh impossible.
Correct,
ReplyDeleteAttending to the needs of a modern day society with some sort of battering system would be fairly impossible, without currency I don't see how my family could purchase needed supplies like the weekly food shopping and that's even without going into the basic fact that my family could not afford private healthcare if the NHS was completely privatized.