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Title: Objections to Anarchism
Author: Michael E. Coughlin
Date: 1977
Language: en
Topics: anti-anarchy, individualist
Source: Retrieved on June 29, 2012 from http://flag.blackened.net/daver/anarchism/objections.html
Notes: Originally published in serial form in the dandelion between Summer 1977 and Summer 1979. Back issues of this small magazine can be obtained from the publisher: Michael E. Coughlin 1985 Selby Avenue St. Paul, Minnesota 55104

Michael E. Coughlin

Objections to Anarchism

From time to time we will deal with some of the more common objections

to anarchism, giving both the criticisms and our answers. Neither

critique nor answer can be comprehensive or exhaustive, but they will

attempt to outline the problem and suggest an anarchist’s approach to

answering it. Readers are invited to contribute both critiques and

answers.

Objection #1:

In a state of nature man lived in ruthless and uncontrolled competition

with his neighbors. Government was formed to combat this destructive

tendency, to bring order out of chaos, to provide the minimum order

required for social stability.

Answer: Philosophers have long speculated on the origins of human social

life and political life. Some have pictured the ancient condition of man

as one of total chaos where people went about plundering everything and

murdering everyone they could find. Only government, they say, brought

order and peace to this world of conflict. Others have argued with some

force that people joined together basically for economic reasons — it

simply was the only practical way to survive. They have further argued

that this need for physical survival ultimately brought government into

being since people needed an organization to settle their personal

disputes and to protect them from rapacious outsiders. Both theories are

based on benevolent views of government and they form the basis for many

people’s idea of what government is today, or at least what they think

government should be today.

Neither theory, however, offers an historically realistic appraisal of

the origin and nature of government. A third and much more promising

theory was advanced by Franz Oppenheimer, who argued that the state is

formed from conquest.

It is, however, difficult to determine how men actually lived in “a

state of nature” because we have few records of how social life was then

organized. Since we can know little of the primeval beginnings of the

human race, it is best that we look at man as we see him every day

around us.

It takes little discernment to realize that all modern governments are

the result not of benevolent policemenship, as many political scientists

would like us to believe, but of conquest, of intrigue and power

struggles, and of a desire to gain advantage over others through the

creation of the state.

Modern governments were not formed by a social contract, not even one

remotely resembling Rousseau’s ideal. Rather, some of them are the

result of revolutions which merely exchanged one set of rulers for

another, while others are the children of ancient governments that have

passed down the lordship they gained centuries ago through conquest from

one generation of political class to another.

Man could not possibly live as a social animal if he lived in a world of

universal antagonism. Social life is made possible by our knowledge that

most people most of the time are not going to hurt each other or steal

from each other. Without that assurance all social life would come to a

standstill and there would be no agency or organization of any kind that

could bring peace and order out of such a situation.

Man is a social animal and for the most part he will live in

cooperative, peaceful relations with his neighbors. It is in this fact

of nature, and not some supposed magical power of government, that we

discover the essential ingredient for understanding social stability.

People by their nature get along with each other. Government doesn’t

bring them together or keep them together. People live social lives

because it is to their advantage to do so. Government doesn’t create

order out of chaos. The order of social life is already here.

Objection #2:

There will always be disputes between people. This is the nature of man.

We need someone to arbitrate those disputes and peacefully and justly

reach a settlement of them.

Answer: In every age and among all people there will arise some

disagreements which will be impossible for the disputants to settle

peacefully themselves. This is a fact of nature which no anarchist or

any other reasonable person will deny.

Though recognizing that there will be disputes and conflict between some

people, we must not make the mistake of assuming that most social

relationships will be of this nature. Most dealings between people are

peaceful and those that involve some conflict are generally resolved

satisfactorily and peacefully by the parties actually involved in the

disagreement. Only a few such conflicts must be arbitrated by outside

parties.

Any dispute that goes to the point of outside arbitration or settlement

involves a conflict which will not be settled to the complete

satisfaction of both parties.

As George Barrett explained it in his classic pamphlet Objections to

Anarchism: “If there are two persons who want the exclusive right to the

same thing, it is quite obvious that there is no satisfactory solution

to the problem. It does not matter in the least what system of society

you suggest, you cannot possibly satisfy that position.”

This is as much a fact of nature as is the reality that some people will

sometimes get involved in conflict. To assume, as the objection does,

that governmentally imposed verdict will be a “peaceful” and a “just”

one acceptable to both parties involved, is an unwarrented assumption.

It has no fact in nature and no standing in experience. The only thing

that “resolves” the conflict is the state’s power to enforce its

verdict. This ability to club one or both parties into submission to its

command is called “justice.” It’s the only kind of “justice” the state

knows and can administer.

It’s through this system of “justice” that every state has used its

power to favor its friends and to punish its enemies and, in every case,

to increase its power over the people.

As anarchists, we say with George Barrett, “such disputes are very much

better settled without the interference of authority.”

But if it is argued that leaving disputes to be settled voluntarily and

without the interference of some ultimate and powerful authority will

lead to the eventual domination of the strong over the weak, we answer

that today this precisely what you have. The government’s strength

insures that its will will be done, whether the ends of true justice are

served or not.

Perhaps the most socially destructive and far reaching influence this

system of “justice via the club” has, lies in what it does to people

themselves. It accustoms them to violent settlements of their

differences instead of forcing them to rely on the sometimes more

difficult but ultimately more peaceful system of arbitrating their

problems. In the long run a people’s dependence on governmentally

established procedures for settling disputes leads to a crippling of

that people’s ability to settle their own disputes. It accustoms them to

look to power for a settlement of all their difficulties and ultimately

to confuse real justice with justice brought by the club. It leads in

the end to more conflict as people grapple for the reigns of power in

order to impose their desires on their neighbors. A lust for power is

created and rewarded. The natural tendency of people to peacefully and

voluntarily settle their problems is replaced by a system that neither

honors nor respects nor tolerates our neighbors.

At the heart of our answer to the second objection are two observations

anarchists have long made:

that disputes between individuals will neither be common nor

long-lived and will not be as destructive to life and property and as

hurtful to innocent and uninvolved third parties as are disputes that

arise between peoples when they are ruled by governments.

that free people, though far from perfect, will be more likely to find

reasonable and just solutions to human problems than will ever be found

through the exercise of the state’s power to intervene in all disputes.

Objection #3:

The use of force, even retaliatory force, cannot be left to the

discretion of individuals. Peaceful co-existence is impossible if people

have to worry constantly about their neighbors clubbing them at any

moment.

Answer: There are several implied fallacies in this objection:

that in a system of non-coercive or natural justice, that is, in an

anarchist world, people will naturally degenerate into vile creatures

and turn on their neighbors. There will be a war of all against all.

(See Objection #4.)

that people will quite naturally turn to the club as the foundation of

all their social relationships. Violence is viewed as the most effective

method of securing valuable human relationships.

Leaving retaliatory force in the government’s hands will insure that

it will be used only as retaliatory force, and when it is administered,

it will be done so justly.

As anarchists, we say with Benjamin Tucker: “the State takes advantage

of its monopoly of defence to furnish invasion instead of protection.”

Because we rightly fear power in anyone’s hands, we recognize the

foolhardiness of establishing a government with a monopoly of power and

then expecting that government not to abuse that power. If it’s

dangerous to allow individuals to protect themselves, how much more

dangerous it is to give that power to government.

Objection #4:

Anarchism must ultimately lead to violence, to a war of all against all.

Without some institution to define the rules of social life and enforce

those rules, there will be chaos.

Answer: This objection rests upon a basic but always recurring fallacy —

the notion that men are by nature anti-social and anti-cooperative. And

just as wrongly, it proposes government as the solution to man’s

supposed inclination to destroy or injure all of his fellow humans. This

is a positively absurd concept of man’s nature and is topped only by the

even more absurd faith government preachers have in an assumed

benevolent nature of government.

Government does not spring from some fancied weakness in human nature

that demands it exist to protect us from each other. Rather, it is

created by conquest and is a tool used by a ruling clique to rule and

exploit others.

The idea that government springs from man’s wickedness, yet itself

somehow remaining immune to that wickedness, has been rumbling around in

the heads of government apologists for centuries. But, how can imperfect

men be given power over their fellow men and be expected to use the

power in any but an imperfect way? The mystique of the state apparently

makes that question unnecessary for government believers to answer.

Imperfect men driven by imperfect motives somehow, by the theory of

government apologists, create perfect or near perfect mechanisms for

settling the most pressing problems that afflict men. If there is any

theory that qualifies for the land of make-believe, it is this faith in

the wisdom, justice, and benevolence of government.

We can, and as anarchists, we do recognize that some people, regardless

of the social system involved, will take advantage of others. We deny

that this exploitation will be widespread and we can point to solid

social evidence to prove our position. What violence there is will be

sporadic and short-lived and will have no relation to the bogeyman of

“war of all against all” preached by anti-anarchists. Though disputes

will not be widespread, or numerous, they will, however, occur.

We must find ways to protect ourselves from predators. But we suggest

that the way to do that is not to give people naturally bent toward

predation (politicians and other power seekers) a sanctioned means to

control us.

In addition to recognizing that there will be no general “war of all

against all” in an anarchist world, it is important to note, in dealing

with this objection, that between anarchists and statists there is a

fundamental difference in their approach to dealing with human problems.

It was outlined well by Fred Woodworth in his interesting pamphlet on

“Anarchism,” when he wrote:

Whereas ordinary people will normally rank interpersonal violence as a

last resort of social breakdown or crisis, government operates with

violence as its immediate priority; determined course of action are

decreed, not voluntarily decided upon; ordered, not freely accepted. If

the principle of government were extended consistently and uniformly

throughout society, true chaos would result — every civilized

relationship would give way to the gun or knife; force, not persuasion.

We have only the principle of Anarchy operating — the principle of no

compulsion — to thank for the fact that the present social condition is

not as faulty as it might be. Numerous social interactions even today

still taKe place with an absence of compulsion, although State-ordained

procedures are of course increasing daily. In the remaining spontaneous

relationships between persons there is no ubiquitous policeman

interceding (yet); nonetheless, most transactions, conversations, even

quarrels, are accomplished without resort to coercion. Government’s

standard operating procedure is to use coercion first and discuss

matters afterward: “Under penalty of three years in the federal

penitentiary or $10,000 fine, or both, you are herewith required to..”

etc. This reversal of proper order, and exaggerated tendency to resort

to force, is completely typical of governments; the tendency to place

social compulsion uppermost is certainly not natural or justified. It

should be noted that even those people who defend government get along

fine without it in their relations with friends or neighbors, most of

the time, and woud think a person rude, insulting, and violent who

behaved privately as governments do publicly.

Without government and the power government has to deliver a regimented

“justice,” people would have no effective or sustained means of

dominating their neighbors. Without government they would have to deal

with each other as equals and use persuasion and compromise as the basic

tools of their social relationships.

But with government, they can short-circuit all the natural social bonds

people create to peacefully settle problems. They don’t need to

persuade; they can club you into submission. They don’t need to deal

with you directly, they can manipulate a third party to do their

bullying for them. Neighbors are driven apart by government. When there

is force involved, the ties developed by natural society are crushed.

Left to themselves, people will develop their own rules of social life.

These rules need not be uniform in all places, and there need be no one

special method of enforcing them. People will naturally find their own

solutions to problems and their own ways of establishing and defining

the rules of their social life. As anarchists we do not dictate what

social institutions will be used to deal with crime. People will have to

discover them for themselves.

It’s not anarchism that breeds chaos. To government belongs that

responsibility. It is not the anarchists who are the violent members of

society — it’s the government rulers that hold that distinction.

Objection #5:

If you propose private protection and defense agencies, as some

libertarians do, then what is to keep them from becoming coercive

governments themselves?

Answer: I don’t propose any system of social organization. Whether

people would establish agencies for defense purposes or would keep that

responsibility for themselves, makes no difference. So long as they did

it without coercion, whatever form it took, it would be anarchistic.

Anarchist philosophy doesn’t dictate what system of protection would be

best; that is a practical problem that must be solved again and again by

people everywhere.

If tomorrow all police functions were turned over to private police

forces, we would have no libertarian society. We would just exchange one

set of masters for another. Private police forces are no guarantee of a

libertarian society, only the people are. And the people will do it only

when they are properly disposed to creating a truly free world. Benjamin

Tucker explained it thus: “The moment one abandons the idea that he was

born to discover what is right and enforce it upon the rest of the

world, he begins to feel an increasing disposition to let others alone

and to refrain even from retaliation or resistance except in those

emergencies which immediately and imperatively require it.” When enough

people feel this way, we will have an anarchist society.

Anarchism is a social revolution that will occur only from the bottom

up, never from the top down. It must be a people’s movement, not a

leaders’ movement.

To talk about private police forces without realizing that they are not

an essential element in creating a libertarian world, but might be a

natural outgrowth of that world, is to confuse cause with effect. Such

police forces won’t bring anarchism, but anarchism might create such

police forces. There are no formulas for creating a libertarian social

order, and there is, likewise, no way of knowing what shapes social

institutions will take in a libertarian society. The future must be free

to make its own arrangements. We are not here to design blueprints for

society. We are proposing no utopia.

Objection #6:

What will we do with criminals in an anarchist world?

Answer: Most “criminals” in our government-controlled world are victims

of the law. They are criminals not because they have injured someone

else, but because they have violated some government commandment. They

have broken some victimless crime law or some edict the state proclaimed

to promote its own welfare, e.g., the draft law or income tax law.

Abolish the state and these people will no longer be criminals.

There are some individuals who are genuine criminals — the robber,

rapist, murderer — who will have to be dealt with. Whether we protect

ourselves individually from these ruffians, or by organizing private

defense agencies; whether we try them in courts or at the scene of the

crime; whether we imprison them or make them pay restitution to their

victims, are all issues that must be settled by anarchist societies when

they are faced with the problems. Free people will find ways to secure

protection and justice for themselves. The point to be understood is

that they will do it for themselves when the need arises. It’s not for

us to program how they must do it.

There is yet another type of criminal, the institutional criminal, that

poses the greatest danger to the health, safety, and welfare of people.

He, too, is created by the law, but he has this advantage over all other

criminals; he is also the law-maker and the judge of his laws. He is the

government.

It is government itself that has been the world’s greatest criminal. In

the name of patriotism or national defense or manifest destiny or just

plain greed, he has slaughtered more people, stolen more money, and

terrorized more individuals than have all the criminals throughout all

the centuries of human history. It is government that wages war,

operates concentration camps and taxes the people. It’s government that

used the rack, operated the guillotine, and dropped the atom bomb. Not

anarchists. It’s not an anarchist world that is chaotic and full of

conflict — it’s the one in which the state exists. And it’s because of

the state, not in spite of it, htat we have all these.

What do we do with criminals in an anarchist world? We get rid of the

biggest one and try to deal with the rest as best we can.

Objection #7:

We grant that government has grown too big and with that growth has come

admitted problems. But the answer lies in limiting the scope of the

government, not eliminating it. We must make it our servant, not our

master.

Answer: This is the plaintive cry of the “limited government” preachers.

To this Benjamin Tucker replied: “If limited government is good, the

perfection of government is no government.”

Somehow, somewhere, given a properly intelligent, some say, “objective”

populace, the limited government buff suggests that it will be possible

to create a machinery of government that will be controllable. Some of

these little-government people may even go so far as to tell you how

they will do it. But for most it is pure dream and hope out of which

they build their plans for a utopian government.

In many instances this thing they want to create and call a limited

government has no relationship and none of the essential

characteristics, of any government that has ever existed. Generally,

these model states have no power to tax and no absolute jurisdiction

over a given territory. Without these essential powers there can be no

government.

Government grows; that is its nature. Government is a power broker and

an instrument for creating privilege. It must continually take on new

functions in order to survive.

Not even the most holy Ayn Rand, followed as she might be with an army

of the most objective of objectivists, can change this. It is a fact; it

is history. It is the very nature of government.

Regardless of the lessons of history, these limited governmentalists

assure us that it is within their power to create a limited government.

And these are people who insist on calling anarchists “dreamers” and

“utopians.”

Objection #8:

You anarchists are utopians. You don’t really understand the nature of

man. You put too much faith and trust in him to do good. Your dreams are

fine, given perfect men, but in a real world they just won’t work.

Answer: It’s not the anarchist who doesn’t understand the nature of man.

It’s not the anarchist who refuses to learn the lessons history has

repeatedly taught. It’s not the anarchist who continually puts his hopes

in new promises of some nirvana ruled by a “limited” government.

The anarchist cannot be blamed for the world’s chaos and terror — for

its wars and prison camps and execution chambers, for its surveillance

of citizens, for the confiscations of people’s property and for the

ever-present threat of world-wide nuclear annihilation.

Because we give man credit for being a social animal, we are willing to

trust him to deal peaceably with his neighbors — at least most of the

time. But we are also wise enough to realize that if we don’t want men

to abuse power, then we must not give them power. We are realists who

recognize man has a social nature, and realists who also know that man,

when tempted by power, will be corrupted by it. We say, let man’s social

nature be the bond that ties men to each other. Yet we warn at the same

time that it is because of man’s imperfect nature that we must not

create government and then trust him to use it peacefully.

Anarchists live in the real world undeluded by dreams of perfect

governments, and by hopes that government can reduce crime and eliminate

war. We gave up those illusions years ago.

Objection #9:

I have appreciated getting the dandelion from time to time, and I must

say I feel a bit guilty for not being able to subscribe to it. It’s not

for financial reasons, it’s just that I find libertarian views

upsetting. Maybe it’s because without a government such as the one in

this country I’d be a miserable hunchback, out of work, or, perhaps

worse than that, I’d probably be pushing daisies in a cemetary

somewhere.

When I had polio my folks were too poor to afford all of the medical

bills without assistance from the government. The operations I had in

later years, my education, my rehabilitation, and my current employment

are all the result of government financing. I believe the U.S.

government has been exemplary in providing assistance to the

underprivileged, the down-and-out.

Sure, I’m the first to realize the problems in this country, economic,

social, etc., but to tout another way by continual criticism of what is,

is counterproductive. Give me concrete, workable ways a libertarian

based society would protect civil rights, keep the peace, help the

economically, physically and mentally disadvantaged of this world. Show

me how it would provide food for all of its citizens, stop the

exploitation of the “have nots” by the “haves” and maybe I’ll begin to

take the libertarian views seriously.

True, the current U.S. government hasn’t done all of the abovementioned

tasks all that well, but at least there is a vehicle which the

government can work with to solve the problems that exist today. All

I’ve read in your magazine is what’s wrong with the current governmental

systems and a bunch of quotes from libertarians or anarchists talking in

generalities. Try taking a specific example of some kind of problem and

then state in specific terms how a libertarian society at least would

attempt to come to grips with it, e.g., helping victims of a polio

epidemic who were unable to help themselves.

As far as I know, no civilization has survived for any appreciable

amount of time in an anarchist state. I think of the old west and what a

mess it was with bandits robbing trains and gun duels in the street and

so on. Set up a society from its roots and project how you see it would

be in 100 years under anarchy.

I think we’re in a sad state of affairs when we think of ourselves first

so much we lose track of others and of the sense of mankind that John

Dunne so aptly wrote about. I hate governmental corruption and

injustices as much as you do, but I just don’t think libertarianism is

the right way to go. I think it’s a step in the wrong direction — 180

degrees wrong.

Answer: This objection typifies some people’s fears that anarchist

societies will not work. In time we will take each of the ideas inherent

in your objection, lay them out individually so they can be properly

understood and then shall answer them. But in the beginning we must

understand the underlying philosophy on which this objection rests.

It is this: government introduces an element to human society that makes

it possible for people, particularly the disadvantaged, to live in

society. It tempers the rough edges of human life, giving protection and

justice to those who otherwise would be crushed in the rush for

survival. You are saying that people, left untouched by governmental

control, cannot be relied upon to treat with mercy and generosity and

fairness those who are weaker or who have fallen on unfortunate

circumstances.

Government alone, according to your objection, brings to society the one

power that is capable of civilizing human relationships and you suggest

that without government we would be cast into a hopeless abyss of

bandits and gun duels.

In sum, then, your objection assumes that:

people left to themselves will not take care of their unfortunate

neighbors. People will not freely help anyone, particularly those who

can in no way return the favor. Their only concern is themselves and the

whole of natural human society is rooted in the reality that only the

strong will survive.

government alone can correct this human deficiency. Government and

governors apparently are immune from the human failing detailed in the

first point. From this we must conclude that the governing class is made

up of a specially endowed race of human beings who are possessed of

characteristics of generosity and mercy unknown anywhere else in the

human family.

government has a moral claim nobody else has that authorizes it to

coercively redistribute wealth from those who produce it to those who

cannot take care of themselves. The unfortunate have a claim on others

to support them and that if this support isn’t voluntarily forthcoming

it can be wrenched by force from those who do not freely choose to give

it.

Deserve Discussion

Each of these premises, to say the least, is highly questionable, but

because they are implicit in your objection they deserve to be

discussed.

Apparently you have grown up in a much different world than I have

because all around me I meet people helping other people and not asking

anything in return. And this is in spite of all the government programs

that discourage this kind of voluntary neighborliness. The thousands of

private charitable organizations in this country give an irrefutable

answer to your assumption that only government can and will help the

disadvantaged. In addition to the many formal institutions of charity,

there are an untold number of private acts of charity that escape public

attention altogether but which, nevertheless, add a most humanizing

element to social life.

Only by ignoring altogether the multitude of non-coercive acts of

charity that exist all around us can you begin to believe your

assumption that the government was the only institution that would have

helped You and your folks through your severe health problem.

Admittedly, the government did come to your help, but that doesn’t prove

no one else would have. All it demonstrates for sure is that no one else

needed to.

Your second assumption springs quite naturally from your first. If

people will not voluntarily assist their neighbors, then the only way to

get them to do so is to force them into it.

Who is to do the forcing? If all people are naturally uncaring and

selfish then we cannot hope to find anyone possessing the qualities of

mercy and generosity needed to care for the unfortunate. Any who step

forward for the task must immediately be suspect for their true motives.

However, if you now deny your first proposition and allow that there

indeed are people possessed of the qualities needed to unselfishly aid

their brothers, then there are two questions that need be asked.

Why is a coercive power needed to force people to pay for this charity

if there are people who will voluntarily shoulder the burden of their

less fortunate neighbors? If you answer that it is because there aren’t

enough of these people around with enough money to adequately take care

of the needs of the disadvantaged, then:

Where do those who use government to force others to pay the bill for

this coerced “charity” get the privilege of playing Robin Hood? Were do

they get the right to take the products of one persons labor and

forcibly redistribute it to someone else who has not earned it? You are

ignoring the one person in this highwayman’s game who is always a victim

— the taxpayer. When you tax him you have admitted that he wouldn’t

freely have given you his money, so where do you get the right to reach

into his pocket to take what you want from him? You may try to excuse

this act of theft as being necessary for a noble purpose, but don’t hide

its nature as an act of plunder. Who is there that will protect the

producer from the ravishing raids of the politically powerful who have

set upon their course of plunder wrapped behind a cloak of

humanitarianism?

No Divine Right

Long ago we should have given up the notion that there is som kind of

divine right among rulers, that these political masters are cut from a

different cloth than the rest of humankind. This fairy tale just doesn’t

wash. The presence of such jewels as Richard Nixon and Co. should cause

even the most believing of today’s believers to question the notion that

members of the political class have particularly noble and generous

characters and are possessed of angelic qualities lacking in the rest of

humanity. The governing class is not an elite arising from the people

ordained to save mankind from itself. If history should teach us

anything, it is that the political class is composed basically of

self-servers who thirst for power and privilege and who have found in

government the perfect vehicle to achieve their purpose. They are not

the noble denizens of this earth that you picture them to be.

You have suggested that an anarchist world would be one full of bandits

and gun duels. But the truth is quite contrary. It’s a world in which

states exist that is full of banditry and gun duels. Governments are

virtually unable to check the acts of individual violence that abound in

this country and in many cases are directly and indirectly involved in

causing them. Throw in a hopelessly outdated court system that doesn’t

dispense justice and hardly even gets around to dispensing the law, and

you have a system that fails miserably to operate the one service

government defenders always claim government alone is capable of

providing.

But beyond that there is one fact that government defenders often choose

to ignore. That is: The biggest and most aggressive bandits and

murderers are the governments themselves. Whatever violence there would

be in anarchist societies could only pale in comparison to the violence

governments through wars and persecutions have brought to human history.

The legalized murder and plunder that go under the name of war are the

creations of your beloved government. All the broken lives, destroyed

homes, mained individuals and slaughtered peoples that war leaves in its

wake are the children of that state that you so unhesitatingly turn to

to be the defender of the downtrodden and helpless.

For everyone like you who has benefitted from the state’s system of

organized theft, there are dozens whose lives have been ruined or

destroyed by that same state. Government stands condemned by it own

record as an institution that for centuries has been responsible for

massive terror, torture, and slaughter. Government has no equal in this

grizzly busines — and never will.

What I have written so far has largely been a negative response to your

remarks. Let me for a bit approach this subject from the positive aspect

of anarchism. Anarchism is not a dead or negative philosophy as you

suggest — it is very much alive with a positive message for humankind.

Far from being solely bent on trying to tear down government, anarchists

are a people of peace who ask nothing more than that people respect the

humanity and individuality of each other and reject coercion as a way of

life. Of course we condemn government every opportunity we get because

we recognize it as the single greatest threat there is to human peace

and well being. But our attacks on the state are rooted not only in our

knowledge that government by its very nature is destructive of true

society, but also in our conviction that the full benefits of social

life can come only to free people, and, conversely, that only free

people can create a climate where true society can flourish.

Individuals Responsible

Anarchist societies will place responsibility for order directly on free

individuals, not on formal government. As William Reichert pointed out

so well in his book Partisans of Freedom, authoritarians place their

faith in the repressive state while anarchists put their trust in social

man.

Paraphrasing David T. Wieck, Reichert writes: “Anarchism is not opposed

to organization that depends upon the authoritarian principle of command

and compulsion for its success. An anarchist society, building upon the

social responsibility and initiative of primary groups acting

voluntarily, will gradually develop the libertarian social foundations

essential for a truly free society.”

Anarchism doesn’t pretend to offer answers to all the social, economic,

and political problems that confront us. It’s no grand blueprint that

attempts to spell out in detail how anarchist societies of the future

will be organized and will solve the problems that confront them.

You challenge me to “set up a society from its roots and project how you

see it would be in 100 years under anarchy.” In doing so you approach

anarchist political philosophy with the same premises you have borrowed

from statist ideology. You suggest by such a comment that it is in the

power of an anarchist to dream up some social model and program how

people would exist in that sort of world. Statists have been trying to

do that for centuries and they’ve always failed.

We don’t view people as clay to be shaped and moulded according to our

schemes and we have no desire to create models for the future. It’s not

because our imaginations lack the vitality possessed by other mortals.

Rather, it’s due to our belief that people know what they want out of

life, know how best to achieve it for themselves, and, if left alone,

will do so in an orderly and peaceful manner.

We’re no afflicted by the urge to create grand designs and then pretend

somehow that these visions bear any relationship to what is or could be.

In sum, then, the question is not whether anarchist societies will take

care of those who are unable to provide for themselves, but rather

whether the aid some few have received from the government isn’t greatly

overbalanced by the misery, destruction and chaos that governments have

always wreaked on the human community.

Objection #10:

Some libertarians have defined libertarianism as based on the premise

that it is illegitimate to engage in aggression against non-aggressors.

As far as it goes, this is fine, but you can do all sorts of damage as

well as intolerable annoyance without any physical aggression whatever.

Suppose my neighbor didn’t enjoy having me for a neighbor so he held

meetings outside my door making as much noise as possible at all hours

of the day and night. In this case there is no physical aggression, an

so I assume that in a libertarian society I would have to put up with

the annoyance. Or suppose a young lady is approached by a man who

persistently desires to engage in sexual adventures with her, but she

has no interest in such doings. He has a right to free speech and he

keeps pestering her with his solicitations, much to her displeasure.

Where would you draw the line? When does one person’s behavior, which in

moderation may be offensive, become something you can reasonably defend

yourself from?

William J. Boyer

Answer: You are right, of course. There are all sorts of “aggressions”

such as you suggest in your objection.

One of the homes in my neighborhood, for example, is peopled by college

kids who on occasion enjoy sharing their music with everyone within a

100-mile radius. Again, the other day when riding the bus to work one

woman got on who was proudly displaying a grossly pornographic magazine.

Some of us whose sexual interests don’t lie in such directions could

have been offended by the picture.

In the first case, where does the pleasure these college students get

from being deafened by their music end and my love for tranquility

begin? In the second, where does the woman’s pleasure in pornography end

before it begins infringing on my desire not to look at such material?

Obviously, in the cases cited both in the question and above, there is

conflict. Whether it’s resolvable or not is another matter. In beginning

our consideration of this issue it will be helpful to recognize a couple

points.

These problems exist today in a world full of government. They will

exist in an anarchist world, too. But let’s not suppose that they will

in any way be peculiar to an anarchist society. The objection’s

implication is that today there are ways to deal with these problems —

effective ways — that will not be available in an anarchist setting.

Which brings us to a second point.

Since these problems will always exist, how are they to be handled?

Herein lies the difference between the anarchist approach and the

approach taken by those who choose to use coercion.

The statist argues that coercion is the only historically tried and

proven method available for resolving problems arising between people.

Because coercion is used and because it “works” (someone eventually is

clubbed into submission), no further defense of their position is

required, the argument goes. By implication they assume that the

argument for or against their position is closed and that the only

things about which there need to be discussion are the proposals offered

as alternatives to coercion. No other method has been tried, they argue,

and so those who propose other ways must satisfactorily (to their

satisfaction, that is) prove that those other ways “will work.” It’s

interesting to note here that the statists who raise this point will

often insist that a libertarian be able to prove beyond question that in

a free society any and all possible problems will be settled perfectly

to everyone’s complete satisfaction. Furthermore, these problems must be

able to be settled before they ever arise — that is, we must have a

patent perfect answer for “solving” every imaginable hypothetical

example thrown at us. If we are unable to do so — to their complete

satisfaction — then our approach toward dealing with social problems is

discarded out of hand as “useless,” “idealistic,” “unworkable.” Ask

their “system to withstand the same rigid interrogation and they will

cry that we are being unreasonable. Certainly their system has flaws,

they answer, but it’s better than something that hasn’s been tried,

isn’t it they ask rhetorically.

It’s not without reason that statists have long employed this line of

argument. By so doing they can put their position beyond dispute and

throw the whole weight of the argument on the shoulders of their

opponents.

Since some social problems by their very nature are unsolvable to all

parties’ satisfaction, then, given the conditions the statists impose on

the argument, whatever anarchists suggest as ways to approach handling

such problems will be vehemently criticized as “impractical” and

discarded as “idealistic.”

In due course we will consider what, if anything, might be done in

anarchist societies to deal with difficult social conflicts, but first

we must consider the prevailing notion that coercion is a useful method

for settling social problems.

One of the first things to note is that state-administered coercion

doesn’t settle social conflicts, as its proponents would like us to

believe. Rather, it causes these conflicts to smoulder as the parties to

the disputes chafe under the injustice they feel has been done to them,

and it creates a whole new set of conflicts as the disputants struggle

to control the state mechanism itself. This latter fact is something

statists wish us to ignore because herein lies the real cancer of their

system. The struggle for power, for the opportunity to dominate and

dictate what shall and shall not be done lies at the heart of our

condemnation of their whole system. It is precisely this struggle for

power that leads to the major social ills we face today.

Conflicts between individuals or small groups of people historically

pale in comparison to the massive social disruption the state has

caused. The statists cannot deny the wars, concentration camps, and

torture that have been such an ugly part of history, but they attempt to

put the blame for them on “human nature,” a bogey man they for centuries

have carried in their closet of arguments against freedom. They say that

it is an evil human nature that causes these terrible things and that it

is government that really holds this perverse nature in check. Without

government we would all fall on each other in an orgy of theft,

slaughter, and mayhem, or, at any rate, so their litany goes.

Anarchists reply that it isn’t “human nature” that is responsible for

these ills. Rather, it is the very system of government that creates the

worst of the problems and perpetuates them and provides a

“justification” for them.

Blatant personal use of violence (murder, theft, extortion, etc.) is

recognized by the common mass of human kind as wrong. It’s an

undesirable and unwanted part of life and in our everyday life we would

no sooner think of using it than we would wish that it was used on us.

The bully, that is the person who resorts to coercion and violence in

his dealings with others, is recognized for what he is. There is no

moral justification for a bully’s acts and, given the opportunity, no

one would have the slightest qualm of conscience about resisting a

bully’s aggression.

The above is obvious. Obvious, that is, until the bully is the

government. Government claimsa special moral legitimacy for its

existence and its actions. All too sadly for human history, people

traditionally have been trained to support these claims.

Rudolf Rocker describes this process in Nationalism and Culture:

Thus gradually a separate class evolved whose occupation was war and

rulership over others. But no power can in the long run rely on brute

force alone. Brutal force may be the immediate means for the subjugation

of men, but alone it is incapable of maintaining the rule of the

individual or of a special caste over whole groups of humanity. For that

more is needed; the belief of man in the inevitability of such power,

the belief in its divinely willed mission. [“We’re on a mission from

Gad!” — Elwood Blues.] Such a belief is rooted deeply in man’s religious

feelings and gains power with tradition, for above the traditional

hovers the radiance of religious concepts and mystical obligation.

Over the centuries the rationale for this legitimacy has changed, but

it’s there nonetheless. From being the will of the gods, to being

something sanctioned by divine right, form an expression of democracy to

the product of an historical dialectic, governments have grasped onto

whatever fashionable political theology was current to excuse and defend

their existence. Particular governments might fall, but government

itself as an institution stood bedrock-solid.

Anarchists, however, challenge the whole structure of government itself,

recognizing in it the chief cause of the principal ills facing human

society. Our position strikes at the roots of the whole system, not just

at the people who temporarily hold power. We know that power corrupts

and that the solution is to eliminate the power structures that breed

social discord, not to find perfect humans who will be immune to the

tempting spell power casts over people.

Anarchists recognize that when coercion is used to settle disputes, the

conflicts, as often as not, expand, they don’t contract. Force by its

nature generates an excuse for more force. Whether the wielder of the

force be the individuals immediately involved in the dispute or whether

it be the government (through its police), the nature of force remains

the same and eventually the outcome of its use is disastrous.

While coercion, no matter who uses it, is destructive, there is a

crucial distinction between the private use of coercion as it is wielded

by the state. To illustrate this fact, let’s return briefly to one of

the examples cited earlier.

Suppose that my patience with the loud music coming from a neighbor’s

home has reached its end and I physically restrain them from playing the

music. Whether my other neighbors agree with what I did or not, they

would recognize my action simply as a violent reprisal for which I am

accountable. The rightness or wrongness of my action will be judged on

the merits of the case itself.

Suppose, instead, that I call on a policeman to do the coercing for me.

Once the uniformed coercer intervenes, the public will no longer judge

the issue solely on its merits. Rather, it now becomes a question of

“was the law broken?” As a result, people become more interested in

controlling the lawmaking and interpreting machinery than they are with

establishing systems for justly settling their conflicts.

Law relieves people of the need to find ways for peacefully negotiating

solutions to their problems. It gives them a club with which they crush

their neighbor into submission, and having the club, they use it. In the

name of the “law” government can do all sorts of legally attrocious

things and with confidence proclaim, “we had a right to do what we did.”

Because government exists, my college-age neighbors and I can struggle

to dominate each other behind the shield of the policeman. We can deal

with each other violently and righteously and that’s a fact that has far

broader implications than statists wish to recognize.

Among those ignored consequences of state-administered coercion are

these:

By using the policeman we can remain anonymous in our acts of violence

against our neighbors. No one ever need know who “complained” to the

police and, consequently, all the neighbors become suspect in the eyes

of the one accused of violating the law. It’s hardly a way to foster

strong community bonds.

By resorting to the government we mask the nature of coercion behind a

shield of respectability. We have hidden from ourselves the genuine

brutality of the act itself. We ignore the essential nature of the act,

uncritically excusing it as something the government has a right to do

simply because it is the government.

We give to the political machine a power and “right” to act under a

set of moral guidelines quite unlike any that are applicable to the rest

of the human community. Where it would be blatantly wrong for an

individual to use force and violence against another, the wrongness of

that violence is obscured when it is used by the state. For me to steal

from my neighbors is wrong. Without exception I couldn’t find a neighbor

who would disagree with me on that. But if I “authorize” a third party

(the tax collector) to do my robbing for me, my neighbors become

confused about their right to defend themselves from the thievery. This

whole mental subservience makes us perfect targets for most anything the

government wants to do to us.

In conclusion, then, I argue that coercion, and in particular

institutionalized coercion administered by the state, is a socially

destructive way of handling disputes. I also challenge the idea that

legislated violence is a time-tested means for achieving peace among

people.

But having argued that, the original question still remains unanswered:

“in anarchist societies can people protect themselves from offensive

behavior?”

Let me answer this in two ways. First, by referring you to an article

that appeared in Liberty, an American anarchist journal published by

Benjamin R. Tucker. The article appears at the [at this location]. The

article is an exchange between Wordsworth Donisthorpe and Tucker. It

covers the same issue we are discussing here and in outline form

presents Tucker’s answer to this objection.

Second, in addition to Tucker’s answer, let me add that the foundation

on which an anarchist society will be built is toleration. There will be

no anarchist world unless people are genuinely tolerant of the things

that make their neighbors different from them. Sometimes these

differences are offensive to us, but unless we are willing to bear with

them until they become threateningly oppressive, we will never see a

world built on peace through a respect for individual freedom. This

doesn’t mean that we can’t let our neighbors know we don’t appreciate

their quirks or outrageous behavior, but it does mean we will first

search for every means other than coercion to deal with the conflict. If

we become totally frustrated, having exhausted every peaceful means we

could, and, we finaly resort to coercion, we must recognize it as a

collapse of a better way of dealing with problems and not, as it is

today, as something we have a “right” to do.

When there really is no socially sanctioned alternative — when people

can no longer rely on the police to do their bidding — then people will

begin dealing with problems personally and peacefully.

Being an anarchist, I had to respect my neighbors’ wish to listen to

loud music. I can assure you I didn’t enjoy it. Fortunately, those

neighbors have since moved and the problem resolved itself. But if the

problem had become unbearable my first responsibility would have been to

talk with them about it. If that had failed, then I would have had to

look for other, non-violent means of handling the situation. I could

have suggested to their landlord that he ask them to turn their music

down, or I could have bought some earplugs and shut the noise out

totally. There are other things that could have been done before I ever

turned to coercion.

The point is that when people are committed to finding non-coercive

means of dealing with the things that annoy us, then we will have made

our first major step toward a peaceful world. Violence may still erupt

sporadically, but it will not be the institutionalized violence so

widespread today. In a libertarian society it will no longer be a matter

of trying to minutely define and determine where our “rights” end and

another begin. The emphasis will be on toleration and it will create an

entirely different approach to dealing with problems.

When violence does flare up I suggest that one means of trying to handle

such situations would be through community juries. Such juries would

have a full range of responsibility for dealing not only with whether

the parties to the confLict were justified in resorting to violence, but

also what if any punishment should be inflicted for a wrongful use of

force. Lysander Spooner detailed the powers and responsibilities such

juries might have, so I refer you to his An Essay on the Trial By Jury

for further reading.

But community juries are only one possibility. Free people have been

ingenious in finding ways for overcoming their problems — and they will

be equally ingenious in this area of administrative justice. It would be

foolish for us to define and limit those possibilities now. The future

must be free to make itself. There is no single way for handling all

problems and I trust that in a libertarian world people would discover

many effective ways for peacefully and constructively dealing with the

social difficulties they encounter.

Since government-dominated society has led us repeatedly to gross

injustice, to wars, and to other massive violence, the libertarian

alternative is certainly worth considering.

Objection #11:

The trouble with anarchism is anarchists. They are verbalists,

voluntarists, and romantics. They do not understand the problem and they

don’t want to. They do not know how to solve the problem and they don’t

want to. They are dreamers, not doers.

What prompts these remarks is the preposterous article in your Spring,

1978 issue. Ron Classen challenges you there to be specific and

concrete, and you respond with some general and vague reasons for being

general and vague. Good grief!

Let me suggest that there is a specific and concrete method for

penetrating to the root of political government and destroying it. For

lack of a better name, let’s call this method “direct democracy.” The

idea behind direct democracy is that as soon as governments must entice

customers to support their services rather than being able to coerce

them into supporting them, then governments will begin behaving pretty

much like any other industry and a host of ancient problems

traditionally associated with government will vanish. This is not an

overnight project, but it can be accomplished gradually and it is the

only feasible approach there is.

I don’t really expect romantic anarchists to accept this approach. Given

their utopian attitudes it is certainly no surprise that they fail to

see the importance of consumer sovereignty. Every practical man however

knows the power of the pursestring, yet this reality seems to have

escaped anarchists. Which leads me to predict that anarchism, when it

comes, will not be achieved by anarchists, or at least not by romantic

anarchists.

I have yet to see a single anarchist document that evidences the

slightest awareness or understanding of what is, really, a very simple

and obvious defect in the government industry. At first glance you’d

suppose that everybody who took Economis 101 would fully understand the

problem.

Consumer sovereignty means that each consumer only has his share of

control over industry’s total revenues. to the extent that an industry

insists on doing what customers don’t want, under consumer sovereignty

it shrivels and eventually goes broke. End of problem. To the extent

that it does what its paying customers want, they give it the revenues

it needs and everyone is happy. No problem.

But when any industry finds itself able to enjoy supplier sovereignty

(supplier sovereignty is the ability of the supplier to conrol its own

total revenue) it goes unstable and flagrantly acts contrary to its

customers’ desires. Government is just another industry. Remember, an

industry is defined in terms of its products, and governments are firms

engaged in supplying certain kinds of products (sweeping streets,

killing crooks, pushing papers).

But all existing governments are political governments. Politics, the

acme of supplier sovereignty, is counterproductive wherever it exists.

The government problem exists because political governments enjoy

supplier sovereignty. Similar problems would exist with any industry

that enjoyed the same. This problem can be solved only by eliminating

supplier sovereignty and establishing consumer sovereignty. In doing so

no utopia will be created. Governments will become no better than other

kinds of firms. But they will be no worse, which is the important thing.

What is needed is for citizens themselves to directly and continually be

able to determine the total revenues and how these revenues are spent of

each and every taxing agency to which each citizen is liable. It’s that

simple. He who controls the pursestrings holds the final reins of power.

[At this point, there is described in some detail a system for

establishing and conducting “preliminary budgetary ballots.” These, the

writer says, could be incorporated into the official, annual election

process — MEC]

Elected officials, who naturally desire to be reelected, will stray

little from their constituents’ expressed desires. Eventually the

process can be made binding as a fiduciary duty upon all elected and

appointed officers of government. At which point political government

will have been exterminated.

Consumer sovereignty is a necessary condition for any industry to be

effective, efficient, and stable. But supplier sovereignty is a

sufficient condition for any industry to be destructive, predatory, and

unstable. Political government can be destroyed a few percent per year,

year by year. It’s the only feasible approach there is.

- J.G. Krol

Answer: Because of space limitations I had to condense considerably Mr.

Krol’s argument, but I hope I have sufficiently preserved the flavor and

content of his objection. Trusting that I have done so, I proceed with

an answer.

Mr. Krol makes the fundamental mistake of assuming that government is

just another industry providing a range of services. He couldn’t be more

wrong, and in his error misinterprets grossly the thrust of the

anarchist attack on government.

Government is not — cannot be — defined by the “services” it provides.

Historically, its unique characteristic has not been that it has made

roads, delivered mail, swept streets, pushed papers or killed crooks.

It’s fundamental characteristic has been the means it has used to exist,

not the things it has done.

Benjamin R. Tucker defined government as “the subjection of the

noninvasive individual to a will not his own.” Whether the person(s)

doing the subjecting are lone individuals, gangs of ruffians or

“legally” authorized representatives of the state, makes not the least

bit of difference. They are all acting as governments whenever they

force a non-invasive individual to do something that person doesn’t

freely choose to do. Coercion is the key ingredient of government. It is

its distinguishing characteristic. It is the thing that makes goverment

government.

If Mr. Krol doesn’t accept this definition, then let him show why the

anarchist definition of government is inadequate. Let him show us that

coercion is not the distinguishing characteristic of that institution

that throughout history has carried the name “government.” Otherwise, we

will be embroiled in a hopeless and purposeless semantic debate.

Like other mini-government people, Mr. Krol appears more to be

threatened by the word “anarchism” itself than by the actual philosophy

of anarchism. Like the rest of us he was raised with the idea that

government is a necessary part of social life. He hasn’t been able to

break the bonds of that indoctrination. He knows that coercion is evil,

so he fantasizes that somehow, somewhere a non-coercive “government” can

be organized that will be fully responsive to its constituents’ wishes.

It will keep the streets clean, carry away the garbage, and deliver the

mail and for all these services the people will voluntarily pay the

bill. Mr. Krol’s idea is that all we have to do is find a way to let the

people vote how much they want to be taxed and how they want their tax

money spent and we will have found the secret to non-violent government.

Any notion that government will let its victims (that is, the general

populace) determine how much tax money will be taken and how the tax

money will be spent is folly. By confining yourself to Economics 101,

you might think that Mr. Krol’s plan is realistic and workable. But a

glance at Political Science 101 will convince even the dullest-witted

that government isn’t going to allow any such thing to happen. After

all, what would be the purpose of governing if you couldn’t govern?

Without control of the pursestrings, as Mr. Krol so well points out, you

cannot rule. And ruling is the business of government.

Mr. Krol argues that we can have government (a coercive institution) by

“consumer sovereignty” (that is, through voluntary consent). He has

constructed a dream-world institution that has no relationship to any

government that has ever existed or ever can.

He refuses to understand the true nature of the enemy the anarchists are

really fighting.

By its nature government takes what it wants — it doesn’t ask for it.

The monies we pay into its coffers aren’t free will offerings any more

than the draft was voluntary service.

Using Mr. Krol’s guidelines we can reasonably imagine a group of people

voluntarily contributing money to form a pirate organization which is

designed to steal from others and to make slaves of people outside the

organization. Those inside the organization will not adversely feel the

theft or slavery. They could enjoy 100 percent “consumer sovereignty”

(the government does exactly what they want it to). For them “consumer

sovereignty” is working just fine. But for the exploited it’s still

exploitation. As much as Mr. Krol might like to ingnore it, “consumer

sovereignty” is no protection from the evils government forever creates.

The mafia and other “criminal” gangs are criminal not because of what

they do (because what they do really isn’t much different from what the

government does), but because a prevailing and more powerful gang of

thugs has “outlawed” them. If the mafia were able to overpower the now

dominating ring of governors and establish itself as the single coercive

agent in a given area, then it would assume the same status the

government enjoys today. It would “legitimate” its power and find all

manner of excuses why it should rule.

Whether a government wields its power democratically (by counting the

power of noses), or aristocratically (by assuming that some are better

than others and therefore ought to rule), or by simple conquest (might

makes right), it rules because it holds the balance of coercive power.

Mr. Krol suggests that anarchists are our own worst enemies. We are

visionaries and idealists who have no contact with reality, he says.

Perhaps to some extent he is right.

So long as a free world is kept from being because of a group of

government meddlers, then it must remain only a dream. So long as some

choose to coerce others, then to that extent we will not have an

anarchist society. Anarchists are not interested in perpetuating the

ugly scars created by government interference in the natural life of

society. We don’t want the wars and persecutions and terro government

for centuries has plagued us with. We believe in a social order built on

human cooperation and mutual aid.

If these be idealistic notions, then we are glad to be idealists. We

don’t offer detailed and grand plans for how a free society can be

achieved and held together. We are not interested in building systems

and then making people fit into them. We trust that when left to

ourselves we will freely find a multitude of ways for dealing with each

other and the problems that arise between us.

Mr. Krol seems annoyed that I won’t draw out plans for how a free

society will be organized. But in doing so he fails to understand the

very roots of anarchism. We are not system builders — that is, we are

not afflicted with governmentitis. Rather, we advocate letting people

find the free and peaceful systems that best handle their peculiar

problems. We don’t want to organize society, we want society to organize

itself.

Because of the length of this Objection to Anarchism and the several

points raised here, I felt it was necessary to divide the objection into

parts — each of which has been assigned a number. In responding to the

objection these numbers will be used as reference points.

the editor

Objection:

Enclosed is a page from the Chicago Tribune in which John Gardner

expresses that his new enemy is “apathy.” This, of course, is a symptom

of what you were talking about when 40 percent (or 60 percent) of the

people don’t vote. Gardner says “they don’t care enough — that they

should get involved and improve things.” You say, “Oh, they care all

right. It’s just that they don’t wish to actively impose their idea of

social justice onto others and wish that others would leave them alone.”

I say “Gardner’s wrong” and that “I wish you were right,” I believe

that many of the “non-actives” would like to boss everyone else around,

would like to be a supreme being. If a God Job opened up, many of us (me

first) would apply. Most people, however, are like the guy sent to drain

the swamp. At the end of the day, we’ve been so busy fighting alligators

that we forgot to pull the plug. We have our own daily problems to worry

about and leave world-saving to the others. The solution, of course, is

to get the “others” so busy watching out for their own hides that we

develop a society without world saviors.

Which leads me to the philosophy of limited government. With big

government we have a system that permits and even encourages the

existence of a class of people with enough power and money to start

imposing their will (no matter how benign their intent) on the rest.

With a truly limited government, one which has barely enough money,

manpower and authority to do the expressly delegated tasks of protection

from foreign armies and minimal policing of internal disputes, those

entrusted with the power won’t have the time or resources to expand

their influence.The flaw in my concept, of course, is keeping the

government “limited.” I haven’t really figured out how that might be

done.

In Vol. 2, No. 5 of the dandelion there was an article that said that

the State must justify itself. Since it can’t, then the “No State”

concept wins by default. Anarchists, I’m told, do not need to defend

their concept that the state has proved itself to be an evil and that

those who oppose it do not need to say what might fill the vacuum.First,

I ask — what is the “state”? We must define the term.If we say that no

man can impose his will on another, then what do we do with a situation,

for example, when one man, through sheer force of will power, is able to

dominate a less strong person? A domineering husband — a meek wife. A

father who orders his children to eat their food. These, I propose, are

natural and any philosophy which ignores them is utopian and not

defendable.

Suppose there was a man whose neighbor was a nuisance; e.g., played

his stereo so loud the first man could not sleep. Does not the first man

have the right to use reasonable force to stop the bad neighbor? Won’t

he do so anyway? If he does, isn’t it imposing his will on the second?

In doing so, does he not become, in a limited way, the state?Is it OK if

he enlists several of his neighbors to do so? If one man doesn’t have

the right to do so, how can several individuals acquire that right?

Frederic Bastiat builds a good case for the argument that if one doesn’t

have the right (e.g., to set up tariffs) then the many do not either. A

corollary: if the one person does have the right, then the many also do

have a right, collectively, to do so. Why cannot two people (or 100,000)

who have the right individually also have the right to pool their

resources to do what they want as a group?

Your view seems to be that if one person imposes, by force, his will

on another, then he is a despot... If enough do it, so many that there

is no power strong enough to stop them, then they becomE unaccountable

(and uncontrollable) and become “the state.”

In a sense, I agree. The “state” is a group powerful enough that their

actions are not controllable. But, I say, that the “state” becomes evil

only when what the group does is evil and that the “state” is OK when

the group only does what they, as individuals, have the right to do. The

problem, of course, is identifying what is OK and what isn’t.

Second, assume I am wrong. Assume that there should be no “state.” Say

we, in the USA, dissolve our government and its armies, judges, police,

etc. The dandelion said I do not have the right to demand to know what

will fill the vacuum. OK, but then you tell me what am I to do when the

Russians land their troops and take over? I do not choose to be a

martyr. I will not voluntarily submit to the Russians. Yet, as an

individual I don’t think I can stop them.

In essence, I do not believe in the inherent good will of my fellow man.

The Russians themselves cannot overcome their police state. How can I

(we?) when they land? If you say they won’t come merely because we don’t

want them, then go convince Czechoslovakians that they are free!

Answer:

You are most correct. There are always going to be volunteers for the

God Job. But more than that, we are also going to find people who want

to create God Jobs where there were none before. These are people we

have to be every bit as watchful for as for those who vie for already

existing power positions.The great mass of people, however, spend their

lives minding their own business, not only because they don’t have the

time to devote to interfering in other people’s lives, but, more

importantly, because they just don’t have an interest in doing so.Among

the power-hungry, you are quite correct, we will always find ready

volunteers for God Jobs. Our purpose shouldn’t be to find those who will

be efficient Gods or benevolent Gods, but to keep the God Job from ever

existing. If we will learn that there is no place for subservience, no

need to bow and scrape before others, we will have taken a first and

most important step toward freeing ourselves of government. We will have

liberated ourselves from the black magic idea that human society needs

government to exist. And if we don’t believe we need rulers, rulers will

have a most difficult chore forcing themselves on us. Most of us just

don’t want to get involved in politics — and that’s as it should be and

will be in a free society.If we refuse to play the game the God Job

applicants want us to play, then we will have spoiled their sport. They

can go off and play their game by themselves, if they choose, but we

will have nothing to do with them running our lives.The challenge facing

us is not just to keep everyone busy watching out for his own hide, but

to persuade the great bulk of humankind that the alligators of this

world don’t have any right to prey upon the rest of us.

At least you’re honest enough to admit that the limited government

concept suffers from a fatal flaw; that is, the inability to keep it

limited. The mini-government people will keep blowing their siren song

in the wind, but they will never be able to charm their cobra back into

its basket. Once born, government by its nature grows and grows and

grows. A limited government is the same old social poison, packaged only

in a smaller container — a container of which it itself determines the

boundaries.Governments would like us to believe otherwise. For centuries

they have fed people many excuses for their existence and by so doing

have duped people into submissive obedience and even active acceptance

of government. People, as a consequence, have come to believe that their

bondage not only is necessary, but is beneficial.

Assume that one day you return home to find your house on fire. You

aren’t going to stand around philosophizing about what you are going to

replace the fire with once the flames are extinguished. Being a

reasonable person you know the thing to do is to fight the fire and save

what you can of your home.The same holds true for other evils we face

during our lives. We keep looking for ways to get rid of them, trusting

that life without them will be better than life with them. Life, it is

true, may not be perfect, but at least to the extent that the evils are

eliminated, life will be better.Anarchists believe that getting rid of

government is much like getting rid of any other evil. We don’t propose

what life will be like after the evil is eliminated, but we do argue

that the elimination of the evil itself is a positive step. Life will be

better to the extent that we destroy the disease that government

inflicts on the body of society.I must repeat briefly one of the points

of anarchist philosophy that is crucial for understanding anarchism.

It’s a point some people seem to have great difficulty grasping. That

is, as anarchists we do not propose how people will organize the day to

day activities of their lives. To do so would be to attempt to program

the future, to dictate how people in a free society must live and relate

to one another. Doing so, of course, is folly. For anarchists to do so,

however, would not only be foolish but it would be a contradiction of

our basic principle. That is, people must be free to live their own

lives as they choose to live them.Anarchists, rightfully, have suggested

that there are many peaceful, noncoercive ways of organizing our

economic and social lives. While some have gone into great detail

imagining how people can socially settle problems which arise between

them, it should be emphasized that these are merely speculations about

the future. They are not blueprings for that future.What we do propose,

however, is that for society to function freely, anarchistically, it

must operate on certain basic principles. Among these principles are

justice — or a respect for what is “mine” and “thine” — and the

noninitiation of coercion. Founded on these and some root principles,

societies could be organized in a multitude of ways.The state has been

reasonably well defined by Benjamin R. Tucker. He wrote: “the state (is)

the embodiment of the principle of invasion in an individual, or a band

of individuals, assuming to act as representatives or masters of the

entire people within a given area.”This issue was discussed briefly in

Objection #10 (see Vol. 2, No. 7, of the dandelion.)But to briefly

consider the issue you raise here. You are correct when you say that

there are many social relationships in which coercion can be used by one

person to dominate another. The family, work situations, friendships,

etc., are all subject to occasional coercion. It’s unfortunate but true.

But that doesn’t mean that coercion is a justifiable method of relating

to each other. If anything, all it means is that people have failed,

they have let their tempers control them and have abandoned the peaceful

methods of persuasion in favor of violence.Of course, we must examine

all our social relationships, not merely our political ones. We should

be keenly aware that all to often there is only a fine line separating a

person’s ability to persuade and his ability to dominate and govern. For

this reason we must continually assess our relationships with others and

strive always to eliminate coercion from those relationships.But don’t

confuse violence and coercion with moral authority. And individual or an

organization exercising mere moral persuasion, that is, the ability to

peacefully convince others to a particular course of action, does not

act as a government or a state in so persuading another. People and

organizations, indeed, can and do influence others, but as long as there

is not coercion or threat of coercion there is no governing.You say that

domination is “natural.” Sure it is, if you mean by “natural” that it

actually does happen. So is murder and so are theft and child beating

and vandalism. That doesn’t mean, therefore, that we should condone them

or that there aren’t better ways peoplE can deal with each other. All it

means is that occasionally people resort to violence. Regardless, our

goal should be to root out violence and coercion. It may not always be

possible, but as anarchists we argue that it is a goal to work for so

that all our “natural” relationships can also be peaceful ones.

For a more detailed discussion of this, see Objection #10 in Vol. 2,

No. 7, of the dandelion.Naturally, if one person can justly do something

then a group of individuals acting together can justly take the same

action. Their groupness or individualness has nothing to do with the

issue. I beleive that Bastiat in The Law makes a most powerful case for

this position. But, again, don’t confuse a voluntary organization with a

government. One is formed by mutual need, the other is based on coercion

and exploitation. Their origins and natures are fundamentally different.

You imply here that the voluntary group you describe has some

relationship to government when in fact it doesn’t. Individuals don’t

have a claim to steal just as groups of individuals have no claim to the

legal thievery of taxation. We cannot multiply our prerogatives merely

by banding together.

A despot is a single ruling individual whose reign typically is marked

by horrible oppression. A state is the institutionalization of

government into an “official” organization and power structure. A mob

may be unstoppable, unaccountable and uncontrollable and if it uses

non-defensive violence it would be acting as a government. But it would

not be a state. When power is formalized and “legitimized,” then the

institution holding that power becomes the state.

I cannot agree with you on this issue at all. The rightness or

wrongness of an action doesn’t depend merely on what is done, but also

on how it is done. They very nature of the state is not principally

determined by what it does but rather by how it does what it does. This

is most important.For example, anarchists have no objection to

education. Quite the contrary. Many have long argued its merits. But we

object to coercive, compulsory “education” operated and financed by

state taxation. We don’t oppose the goal of having people educated, but

we object to the means used to achieve it.

Individuallly, you say, you can’t defend yourself from the Russian

hordes that you believe will swarm over the world if the United States

becomes an anarchist society. You suggest that voluntary means of

providing for self defense are not feasible.How do you propose, then,

that we resist the Russians? By drafting people into the military — like

the Russians do? By spending huge sums of money on defense — like the

Russians do? By spying on our people to discover the “traitors” in our

midst — like the Russians do? By encouraging people to hate selected

foreigners — like the Russians do?No thanks! If being free of foreign

domination means becoming slaves to domestic masters, what have we

gained?The Russian state, a monstrous wart on the Russian people, has

become a convenient bogeyman for the American state. My immediate

concern, however, is with the domestic monster that has grown up in our

midst. Remember, it’s a centuries old and proven tactic of the state to

use foreign “enemies” as excuses for domination and reasons for

extending their domestic power in every direction. At what cost do we

protect ourselves from the Russians without installing our own Kremlin

in Washington — if we already haven’t done so?Consider another point. If

we are so determined to be free that we won’t accept domestic-grown

masters, is it realistic to suppose that we would tolerate foreign-born

ones? the cost to a foreign state to dominate us would be enormous. If

such a state were forced to conquer and subjugate a land peopled by

individuals who prize their liberty as one of the chief goods of life,

imagine the continuing problem that state would have maintaining its

control. Do you believe that would be possible or feasible? Even if this

foreign state did conquer a free people, how long do you suppose it

could maintain its empire? The Russian state is plagued by internal

dissent and in the years to come that dissent is bound to grow. It would

multiply geometrically if the state extended its borders to the American

continent. It would be an empire doomed to dissolution as popular

resistance movements would tame, harness and finally rid the land of its

masters.In a free society there is no way of programming what social

organizations will arise to deal with problems — one of those problems

being the need for self defense from predators. I can’t know, therefore,

what will fill the “defense” vacuum you write about. Some have suggested

several options available to us — options free people have resorted to

throughout history in all parts of the world. Self-defense associatons

raised to meet crises and then disbanded are not uncommon occurrences

throughout history.

In closing you say that you don’t believe in “the inherent good will of

my fellow man.” Neither do I. That’s why I argue that we can’t trust any

of them to govern us.

An Exchange Between Wordsworth Donisthorpe and Benjamin R. Tucker

This exchange anent the Objection to Anarchism #10 originally appeared

in Liberty, January 25, 1890. The first part is by Donisthorpe; the

second; by Tucker.

Sir:

That barrel-organ outside my window goes near to driving me mad (I mean

madder than I was before). What am I to do? I cannot ask the State, as

embodied in the person of a blue-coated gentleman at the corner, to move

him on; because I have given notice that I intend to move on the said

blue-coated gentleman himself. In other words, I have given the State

notice to quit. Ask the organ-grinder politely to carry his melody

elsewhere? I have tried that, but he only executes a double-shuffle and

puts out his tongue. Ought I to rush out and punch his head? But

firstly, that might be looked upon as an invasion of his personal

liberty; and, secondly, he might punch mine; and the last state of this

mand would be worse than the first. Ought I to move out of the way

myself? But I cannot conveniently take my house with me, or even my

library. I tried another plan. I took out my cornet, and, standing by

his side, executed a series of movements that would have moved the

bowels of Cerberus. The only effect produced was a polite note from a

neighbor (whom I respect) begging me to postpone my solo, as it

interfered with the pleasing harmonies of the organ. Now Fate forbid

that I should curtail the happiness of an esteemed fellow-streetsman.

What then was I to do? I put on my hat and sallied forth into the

streets with a heavy heart full of the difficulties of my individualist

creed. The first person I met was a tramp who accosted me and exposed a

tongue white with cancer — whether real or artificial I do not know. It

nearly made me sick, and I really do not think that persons ought to go

about exposing disgusting objects with a view to gain. I did not hand

him the expected penny, but I briefly — very briefly — expressed a hope

that an infinite being would be pleased to consign him to infinite

torture, and passed on. I wandered through street after street, all full

of houses painted in different shades of custard-color, toned with

London fog, and all just sufficiently like one another to make one wish

that they were either quite alike or very different. And I wondered

whether something might not be done to compel all the owners to paint at

the same time and with the same tints...

Beginning to feel hungry, I made tracks for the nearest village, where I

knew I should find an inn... When I reached the inn, I ordered a chop

and potatoes and a pint of bitter, and was surprised to find that some

other persons were served before me, although they had come in later.

Presently I observed one of them in the act of tipping the waiter.

“Excuse me, sir,” said I, “but that is not fair; you are bribing that

man to give you an undue share of attention. I presume you also tip

porters at a railway station, and perhaps custom-house officers.” “Of

course I do; what’s that to you? Mind your own business,” was the reply

I received. I had evidently made myself unpopular with these gentlemen.

One of them was chewing a quid and spitting about the floor. One was

walking up and down the room in a pair of creaking boots, and taking

snuff the while; and third was voraciously tackling a steak, and

removing lumps of gristle from his mouth to his plate in the palm of his

hand. After each gulp of porter, he seemed to take a positive pride in

yielding to the influences of flatulence in a series of reports which

might have raised Lazarus. My own rations appeared at last, and I

congratulated myself that, by the delay, I had been spared the torture

of feeding in company with Aeolus, who was already busy with the

toothpick, when to my dismay he produced a small black clay pipe and

proceeded to stuff it with black shag. “There is, I believe, a

smoking-room in the house,” I remarked depreciatingly; “otherwise I

would not ask you to allow me to finish my chop before lighting your

pipe here; don’t you think tobacco rather spoils one’s appetite?” I

thought I had spoken politely, but all the answer I got was this, “Look

‘ere, governor, if this ‘ere shanty ain’t good for the like of you,

you’d better walk on to the Star and Garter.” And, awaiting my reply

with an expression of mingled contempt and defiance, he proceeded to

emphasize his argument by boisterously coughing across the table without

so much as raising his hand. I am not particularly squeamish, but I draw

the line at victuals that have been coughed over. To all practical

purposes, my lunch was one — stolen. I looked round for sympathy, but

the feeling of the company was clearly against me. The gentleman in the

creaking boots laughed, and, walking up to the table, laid his hand upon

it in the manner of an orator in labor. He paused to marshal his

thoughts, and I had an opportunity of observing him with several sense

at once. His nails were in deep mourning, his clothes reeked of stale

tobacco and perspiration, and his breath of onions and beer. His face

was broad and rubicund, but not ill-featured, and his expression bore

the stamp of honesty and independence. No one could mistake him for

other than he was — a sturdy British farmer. After about half a minute’s

incubation, his ideas found utterance. “I’ll tell you what it is, sir,”

he said, “I don’t know who you are, but this is a free country, and it’s

market day an’ all.” I could not well dispute any of these propositions,

and, inasmuch as they appeared to be conclusive to the minds of the

company, my position was a difficult one. “I do not question your

rights, friend,” I ventured to say at last, “but I think a little

consideration for other people’s feelings...eh? “Folks shouldn’t have

feelings that isn’t usual and proper, and if they has, they should go

where their feelings is usual and proper, that’s me,” was the reply; and

it is not without philosophy. The same idea had already dimly shimmered

in my own mind; besides, was I not an individualist? “You are right,

friend,” said I, “so I will wish you good morning and betake byself

elsewhere.” “Good morning,” said the farmer, offering his hand, and

“Good riddance,” added the gentleman with the toothpick...

I reached home at last, and the events of the day battled with one

another for precedence in my dreams. Freedom, order; order, freedom.

Which is it to be? When I arose in the morning, I tried to record the

previous day’s experiences just as they came to me, without offering any

dogmatic opinion as to the rights and the wrongs of the several cases

which arose. “I will send them,” I said, “to the organ of philosophic

Anarchy in America, and, perhaps, in spite of their trivial character,

they may be deemed to present points worthy of comment.” What a pity it

is that we cannot put our London fogs in a bag and send them by parcel

post to Boston for careful analysis!

Wordsworth Donisthorpe

London, England

Tucker’s reply in the same issue of Liberty:

The reader of Mr. Donisthorpe’s article in this issue on “The Woes of an

Anarhist” may rise from its perusal with a feeling of confusion equal to

that manifested by the author, but at least he will say to himself that

for genuine humor he has seldom read anything that equals it. For myself

I have read it twice in manuscript and twice in proof, and still wish

that I might prolong my life by the laughter that four more readings

would be sure to excite. Mr. Donisthorpe ought to write a novel. But

when he asks Liberty to comment on his woes and dissipate the fog he

condenses around himself, I am at a loss to know how to answer him. For

what is the moral of this article, in which a day’s events are made to

tell with equal vigor, now against State Socialism, now against

capitalism, now against Anarchism, and now against Individualism? Simply

this — that in the mess in which we find ourselves, and perhaps in any

state of things, all social theories involve their difficulties and

disadvantages, and that there are some troubles from which mankind can

never escape. Well, the Anarchists, despite the fact that Henry George

calls them optimists, are pessimistic enough to accept this moral fully.

They never have claimed that liberty will bring perfection; they simply

say that its results are vastly preferable to those that follow

authority...As a choice of blessings, liberty is the greater; as a

choice of evils, liberty is the smaller. Then liberty always, say the

Anarchists. No use of force, except against the invader; and in those

cases where it is difficult to tell whether the alleged offender is an

invader or not, still no use of force except where the necessity of

immediate solution is so imperative that we must use it to save

ourselves. And in these few cases wher we must use it, let us do so

frankly and squarely, acknowledging it as a matter of necessity, without

seeking to harmonize our actions with any political ideal or

constructing any far-fetched theory of a State or collectivity having

prerogatives and rights superior to those of individuals and

aggregations of individuals and exempted from the operation of the

ethical principles which individuals are expected to observe. But to say

all this to Mr. Donisthorpe is like carrying coals to Newcastle, despite

his catalogue of doubts and woes. He knows as well as I do that “liberty

is not the daughter, but the mother of order.”