10 Misconceptions About Anarchists

in #anarchists8 years ago (edited)

Many of the assumptions people make about anarchists are entirely fallacious. I'd like to clear some of that stuff up.

Disclaimer: This article is primarily written from the anarcho-capitalist (free market anarchist) perspective – the most common flavor of anarchism - and does not necessarily represent the views of anarcho-communists, anarcho-syndicalists, or many of the other ideologies found within the anti-government community. Absolutely no disrespect is intended towards those schools of thought.

-1- "Anarchists want chaos and mayhem!"

You got me, I am a bloodthirsty bandit bent on destruction and havoc. I want to watch the world burn, and I want the children to suffer, mwuhahahahaaa!

No, we most certainly do not want chaos and mayhem. Most anarchists, myself included, find that the concentration of coercive authority, service monopolization and wealth reallocation – all aspects of government - are the source of most of the chaos, mayhem, violence, poverty and turmoil in our society. We find that without government, there would be far less ability, opportunity, and incentive for people to commit crimes against one another. We picture a government-free society as a more peaceful, orderly and prosperous one. I’ll delve further into this momentarily.

-2- "Anarchists are against roads and schools."

Boy, I sure do hate roads. They're very large and sexually intimidating.

Roads ain’t going anywhere, government or not. If roads or schools are needed, then private companies will build roads and schools. Supply and demand, baby. Where there is a profitable will, there is a profitable way. The means to travel is in oh-so-high demand. The roads could be funded any number of ways, such as by drivers paying directly for road membership, or perhaps advertisers putting up billboards, or even just the businesses that are on each road. For any service a small group of political rulers can provide, or rather pay others to provide with money they stole from you; the market ingenuity of all of mankind is most likely going to provide a solution that better meets the consumer’s needs, in the name competitive profiteering. Doesn’t matter if it’s roads, schools, firefighters, public safety, emergency services, or whatever. The more needed the service is, the better the quality and pricing of that service will be provided by the competitive market.

-3- "In a nation of anarchy, nothing stops people from robbing, raping and murdering other people."

Oh come on, chill out, stop oppressing me with your anti-murderer discrimination.

Truthfully, nothing seems to be effectively stopping violence now; as indicated by the fact that violence is everywhere we look. Violence is likely more omnipotent now than it would be naturally because our prisons are like crime schools, our government’s drug war turns millions into criminals, and our state-suppressed job market creates financial and cultural desperation. The current system is ineffective; so why not think outside the box to find a new, more effective solution – or perhaps a bunch of them?

Why do we have most services, such as pizza delivery? Is it because we all have money forcibly taken from us to fund a big centralized pizza company? No, of course not, that would be silly. Pizza shops make pizza – a service that isn’t even a basic necessity – because people often want it, and where there is a want, there is a buck to be made. Where there is a need, there are a LOT of bucks to be made. Anarchists believe that without government, and the security of society being competitive and accountable to the people, criminals would actually have to think twice before imposing on somebody else. There’s a zillion ways this could work. Perhaps you sign up for a crime protection company that you can call whenever you’re in danger. Perhaps your neighborhood’s security patrol is funded by your rent. Perhaps the private roads keep themselves patrolled because nobody wants to drive on unsafe roads – rendering security a profitable investment. I don’t know, I’m not the grand-planner of society, but it stands to reason that the collective idea-pools of all of society’s innovators and consumer-demands are going to provide better solutions than a central gang of politicians funding their ideas simply by taking money from you by force – with no incentive to innovate or save. With government, you have pretty much one choice in who is protecting your neighborhood, whereas without government, you have unlimited choices to pick from. That generally produces a better product at a lower price.

-4- "Without government, major corporations would take charge."

I’m picturing Ronald McDonald on a podium surrounded by secret service, declaring a war on vegans, executing the Burger King as the McAudience is applauding and lovin’ it. Yeah, that’s what we want.

Without government, the consumer is in charge. Big major corporations practically NEED government to retain cronyistic dominance over the small business sector. Without their weapon of government to pass the laws, tax statutes, and regulations that the corporate “elite class” needs, nothing is stopping the small-business sector from absorbing the entire consumer base AND employee supply. For a major corporation to stay wealthy without a government, that corporation would have to provide superior products at superior prices in comparison to its competitors. In such a case, no harm no foul. For a corporation to effectively dominate the population by force, one of 2 things would have to happen: that corporation would have to have more money than everybody else put together, or the people would need to see the corporation as a legitimate authority. The former is pretty much impossible without a state, and the latter generally only applies to religions and governments. The idea that McDonalds can enslave you is absurd because nobody would see it as legitimate and accept Ronald's authority.

-5- "Anarchists are violent.”

Say it to my face and I’ll have you arrested & executed.

Are we violent? News to me. Most anarchists I’ve met are SO uncompromisingly peaceful that they find taxation - taking money under threat of arrest - to be too violent to be considered tolerable in a civilized society. At the core of anarchism is the Non-Aggression Principle; the idea that no person should initiate force against the body or property of another. Taxation is theft, and we're against all forms of theft.

-6- "Anarchists are on drugs."

This one can sometimes have a tint of truth to it. Sure, many of us get high from time to time, just like how folks from pretty much any other community may also get high from time to time. It does make sense though, that the sort of people that no longer believe what they were taught about government, would also be skeptical about the “all drugs are evil” campaign.

Many of us are experimenters, with all things in life, and we stick to what works. Logically, anarchism works for us. For many, marijuana – for instance - may also work, whether medicinally or just to mellow out after a long day of working and political ranting. Many other anarchists are completely clean and serene, detesting all drug use. Anarchism attracts thinkers from all walks of life. That said, the idea that we are all – or even mostly - a bunch of high burnouts, is entirely false.

-7- "Anarchists aren't serious, they just don't know anything about politics."

This one just couldn't be further from accurate.

Anarchists, of all people, tend to be some of the most politically educated – and often obsessed - people you'll ever meet, and we are dead serious about the future of humanity. That's why we're anarchists; because we see the patterns of history and we see government objectively for what it is; a violent, monopolistic, for-profit mafia, rather than this collective “we” deity of “society” that we’ve all been taught – mostly by the government school system – to see it as. Ask an anarchist about any political issue; odds are that they can rant about it for hours – and they will.

-8- "Nobody would protect us from foreign invaders."

Yeah, we all base our entire ideology on weakness and defenselessness. Brilliant.

Nah. In a stateless society, even more people would probably be protecting us, doing a competitively better job at it, as explained in questions 3 and 7. Instead of one monopolistic military of several million troops funded by theft, there would be no limit to the number of militant protection services, funded solely by customer satisfaction. For one to take over, they’d have to go to war with thousands of other companies. Defense is profitable because people want to be safe. War, on the other hand, is only profitable when you have tax streams to exploit. Our military defense would improve, and our personal defense would too. Just try invading a country in which 318 million people can buy machine guns from the grocery store with no screening process.

Besides, the main reason the people of other countries hate Americans in the first place is because our government is constantly fucking them up the ass.

-9- "Anarchists think they know everything."

See, that's just it; we don't. Unlike Republicans, Democrats, etc., we DON'T pretend to know what's best for you and how you should live your life. We think you should live however you deem fit for yourself, so long as you do not aggress against somebody else. We have theories as to how society might function, but the only “master plan” we have for society is that there should be no aggression, which equates to no government, as government is an innately aggressive entity. Nobody should get an exemption from the same morality that everybody else is held to; other than that, let society function however it wants.

-10- "Anarchy means no rules."

The fact that the corner store discriminates against me just for wearing a ski mask into the store is a nothing short of oppression.

No, anarchy does not mean no rules, or even no laws. Anarchy simply means "no rulers." You're still held accountable to your actions by whomever they effect, or whoever’s property you are on. In a stateless society, the laws within Wal-Mart are decided by Wal-Mart. Your apartment complex decides the laws of your apartment complex. Perhaps you live in a quiet, family-friendly housing row that doesn’t allow ruckus, and a mile down the street is a noise-friendly, drug-tolerating, pro-partying apartment complex where all the college kids move. Additionally, the road company writes the rules of their road. A Home Owners Association might decide the laws within a neighborhood of houses. The rules could be enforced by private security contractors or even just the business’s own employees. These rules would likely be whatever is profitable to have as rules posted for the business. It would probably be against the rules of Wal-Mart to sexually molest the customers; otherwise most people wouldn’t shop at Wal-Mart anymore. Unlike governments, businesses aren’t likely to impose unreasonable or ridiculous rules on people, because they’d lose all their customers if they did. With decentralized law, you have complete personal choice in what rules are and are not a part of your life.
When there is a dispute about who owns what, or what rules have/haven’t been broken, or a crime that may have been committed, or whatever, there can be arbitration companies (private courts) that settle the disputes. Such companies would have to gain success based on a reputation for fair rulings, rather than imposing a near-monopoly on arbitration by force, like the government courts do, enabling no shortage of corruption.

These are just a handful of ideas, but the fact is, I am not as clever as the sum of the rest of society’s creative minds. People will always look for ways to get ahead, and we as a society could be using this to our collective and individual benefit. There will be rules wherever there are people that want rules, because satisfying consumer demands is the only stable way to continuously gain money if you are not a government.

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Great write up. My biggest criticism is that government is inevitable; it's just the biggest gang or company that gets formed in a region. Pre-civilization, there was no government, then somebody decided to create a government to assert control over other people. There are no practical solutions to keep these people under check. While personally, I might want to practice the NAP, there are people who gain tremendously from initiation of aggression.

You've got it backwards. Humans become less civilized when governments becomes more powerful. Most just give themselves a moral pass on the violence because they're one step removed via taxation(theft). Governments, funded by their own people, are always responsible for the most atrocious, immoral acts. Pearl Harbor is a great example. History is filled with hundreds more.

Haha, I guess it is true that people become less civilized with the growth of government. I agree with much of anarchism in ideals, but I don't think it is possible to implement currently due to the nature of human greed, the corruption of current governments, and the ROI of aggression.

Until we have a crowdsourced and crowdfunded decentralized blockchain based trustless system of laws on a Martian colony, government is inevitable. It's just the biggest gang that takes control. No matter how much you believe in anarchism personally, that doesn't stop someone else from forming a government to assert their influence onto others.

The ROI on aggression is far less than it is with voluntary exchange. Aggression creates win-lose situations; voluntary exchanges are win-win. People are naturally incentivized to engage in voluntary exchange whenever it is less burdensome than plunder. Plunder is unsustainable long term because your victims grow resentful and unproductive. By contrast, environments where people keep what they earn fosters productivity and happiness. The delusion that some people should be able to force other people to pay them for no other reason than that they call themselves government is what makes plunder less burdensome at present. So not only is government not inevitable, it's just an "emperor has no clothes" moment or two away from disappearing from the world completely. "Government" is just a euphemism for men and women who force people to pay them. That's it. Nothing more. No magic to it. Calling the reemergence of government inevitable would be a self fulfilling prophecy. History isn't going to repeat itself forever. The existence of the internet should be proof enough of that

What you say is true in the long run future if we don't destroy ourselves first. There are very strong incentives for the corrupt elites to stay in control currently, and not only that, billions of people still suffer everyday. I can see an anarcho-capitalist society working inside the microcosm of Silicon Valley and other hubs of technology, but when people have to steal to feed their children and have absolutely nothing to trade in war torn countries, you can't just magically set up an anarcho-capitalist society and make people magically happy. I can see this as a long run goal to strive towards, but it's ineffective as a short run solution. Also, take a look at the prisoner's dilemma: in most cases, in win-lose scenarios, the winner wins more than in win-win situations.

You aren't explaining anything that I didn't already know. I'm very much in favor of anarcho-capitalism, but I also recognize that there are many obstacles to overcome to make such a society even remotely possible. Everyone would need to receive some sort of basic income to root out survival instincts before we can even ponder it. Humans have evolved for survival, not accurate perception of reality. Most people don't do what's optimal for humanity in the long run; they do what they perceive as the most important thing to survive into the next moment. It's like the Stanford Marshmallow experiment: people would rather receive 1 unit of reward now rather than 2 units after waiting for 15 minutes. Most humans don't understand the concept of delayed gratification, and that is the root of many problems today. Strong preference of delayed gratification + basic income are necessary in the majority of the population before we could fully get rid of government. Currently, low IQ people reproduce far more than high IQ people, so there are some high obstacles if you want to get to a completely decentralized and free society.

The problem with most anarchists is that they only focus on spreading the theoretical news of positives without tackling the hard problems of how to actually get from our current system to there. You can't wish the current power structures away; you will have to take action to incentivize it to evolve in the right direction.

"In a nation of anarchy, nothing stops people from robbing, raping and murdering other people."

Humans are selfish by nature and wouldn't be providing defense for the greater good, they would be providing it because it would be in their own self interest to have a defense mechanism. People who know what they are doing, will provide defense (or anything else) if anyone wants to pay for it. If people want those things, they will pay for them. There is no need to force people to fund things at gunpoint, godfather style, "giving them an offer they can't refuse".

Very well done. Good mixture of facts and humor.

Agreed. The writing is a great combination of the two.

On a side note - doesn't it get tedious having to address the same nonsense criticisms all the time? You're a saint for tackling it like you do. Thanks for the article, Jake.

Excellent article, Jake! I shared this one on another social media platform to not only raise more awareness of the Steemit platform being another available option for others to use but also because it's important to me that people truly understand the meaning of anarchy. I think the word has gotten a pretty bad rep from people who deliberately misconstrue defintions . Ha, maybe statists, even?! Although, I do not consider myself as an "AnCap", more of an Individualist - Anarchist, this article caught my eye!

Thanks for bringing more clarity to the subject-matter.

Thank you, I really appreciate these explanations. I have found myself drifting further and further away from my Republican roots as the Party has changed, toward a more libertarian perspective, but I have never really understood what the 'neo-anarchists' (my term because the philosophy described here seems very different from that of the anarchists of my youth in the 1970s) are all about. I hope to see more posts from you and other anarchists in the future. I am a new member (of just a few days), but this is already one of the things I love about SteemIt!

Great read. Funny and thought provoking.

Most anarchists just want to live in peace and be left alone.

When you are writing, that the anarcho-capitalist perspective is "the most common flavor of anarchism", then you're surely from the US. Here in Europe, the most common flavor of anarchism is the communist one of Proudhon and Bakunin. European, or especially german anarchists are strongly against capitalism. European anarchists hate capitalism and admire communists.

I find the distinction interesting... and once had a very long chat with a very smart anarcho-communist.

After days (and page upon page) of discussion, we realized that so long as neither of us is willing to resort to force or violence to impose our property views on each other then it really doesn't matter. We will just tend to form our own communities.

Most people I meet that are against capitalism are against what I'd call crony-capitalism and not true free trade.

Most people I meet that are against communism are against centrally controlled communism and not shared property.

As for me, I dropped the ancap label a while back simply because as long as we agree on (a) no rulers and (b) no force then any other differences we might have probably aren't worth worrying about... at least not until we live in a free world.