Practical Anarchy Part 3 - FAQs

ISN’T ANARCHY BAD?

Unfortunately the idea of Anarchy has been degraded to mean simply “A world without rules,” usually marked by some post-apocalyptic style clothing and a well-armed motorcycle. This is not anarchy. Anarchy is the principle that the initiation of violence is wrong is applied to all elements of human society. If violence is a bad way to solve problems, then government is by definition bad, since it solves every single problem through violence.

BUT IF THERE IS NO GOVERNMENT, HOW CAN THE INEVITABLE PROBLEMS BETWEEN INDIVIDUALS BE RESOLVED?

This makes a tremendous assumption – that the government resolves conflicts between people. The government does not resolve conflicts. It does not persuade, reason, motivate, or encourage. It is an agency of force. The government coerces. Governments have no more power to resolve disputes of morality than rape has to create love. A gun is a tool of self-defense; it cannot be used to create virtue.

FOR SOMEONE WHO DOESN’T BELIEVE IN GOVERNMENT, YOU SURE SOUND LIKE A POLITICIAN. YOU COMPLETELY DODGED THAT QUESTION!

Indeed! I’m sorry. So, I will now introduce you to how an anarchist society can resolve disputes without the use of violence. They are private businesses called Dispute Resolution Organizations. The concept of DROs probably can’t answer every single question you will ever have about how a stateless society can resolve disputes, but it can act as a framework for you to reference in answering the questions yourself.

DROs are businesses which profit by insuring contracts and agreements between individuals. For instance, if I borrow $1,000 from you, I may have to pay the DRO $10 to insure my loan. If I fail to pay you back the money, the DRO will pay you instead, and my rating with the DRO will decline significantly and my membership and contracting fees will rise. In this way it is similar to a credit rating with banks.

The DRO theory is as complex as any free market theory, particularly in reference to massive international contracts, etc. We will discuss it in detail later.

WHAT ABOUT ROADS?!

Anarchism is a moral theory which cannot be judged by consequences alone. For instance, the abolition of slavery was a moral imperative. If the abolition of slavery resulted in less comfortable and more expensive cotton shirts, would you have opposed it? When something is morally corrupt, it is not necessary to justify how every single action will take place without it; rather its continued existence must be justified. Anarchic theory does not need to explain every conceivable legal, social, and economic transaction that may take place in the absence of a coercive government. What IS important to understand is that the initiation of the use of force is morally wrong and must be eliminated from the world. That being understood, we can discuss roads.

Without violence, roads will be built like anything else – by housing developers, mall builders, those constructing schools and towns – just as they were before governments took them over in the 19th century. They will be paid for by those who benefit from their being constructed - nearby businesses, homeowners/developers, groups of people with a common interest, or investors who wish to profit off a lengthy highway. For more on this, see “Roads” in a later chapter.

OK, HERE’S A SCENARIO FOR YOU: A GUY BUILDS A ROAD THAT COMPLETELY ENCIRCLES A NEIGHBORHOOD, AND THEN CHARGES $1 MILLION FOR ANYONE TO CROSS THAT ROAD. ISN’T HE HOLDING EVERYONE WHO LIVES IN THAT NEIGHBORHOOD HOSTAGE?

Well, yes, but your scenario is impossible. First of all, no one is going to buy a house in a neighborhood unless they have a contract guaranteeing the existence of affordable roads. Thus it is completely impossible for anyone to acquire such a monopoly over a neighborhood’s roads. Of course, even if it WAS possible, it would be a very risky investment. Can you imagine going to investors with a business plan saying, “I’m going to try to buy all the land that surrounds a neighborhood, and then charge exorbitant rates for anyone to cross my land.” No sane investor would invest in such a plan. The risk of failure would be too great, and even if you could find investors, no DRO would enforce such a ridiculous contract. DROs, unlike governments, will only exist so long as they appeal to the general population. If a DRO became involved with imprisoning a neighborhood, they would become enormously unpopular and probably go out of business.

ALRIGHT, I GOT ANOTHER ONE! THE COMPANY THAT SUPPLIES WATER TO A NEIGHBORHOOD SUDDENLY DECIDES TO INCREASE ITS RATES TEN-FOLD. PEOPLE WILL BE FORCED TO PAY ENORMOUS RATES TO SURVIVE!

First of all, if you’re so concerned with people paying exorbitant rates for resources, as well as monopolies on resources, why are you in favor of governments? Taxes have risen several hundred percent over the past century, and services have gotten worse.

Even if we accept your premise, it is easily solved by a stateless society. First of all, as with the roads, no one will buy a house without a contract guaranteeing affordable water. Secondly, if the water company starts charging obscenely high rates, there will suddenly be high demand in that town for other sources of water. It may be shipped by other water companies in the form of barrels, bottles, etc. Thus, raising prices permanently costs the water company its customers. Shareholders in the water company, realizing the management is shooting itself in the foot, will actively side with the population of the town and fire the water company CEOs. Given that this result will be known in advance, no CEO would, or would be allowed to, pursue this course to begin with. Only through the violence of the government can competition be eliminated, allowing this sort of scenario to take place.

WHAT IF TWO DROS HAVE DIFFERENT RULES? WON’T THIS RESULT IN A CIVIL WAR?

First of all, it is highly unlikely two DROs will have wildly different rules, because it would be economically inefficient. Cell phone companies use similar networking methods so they can easily use each others’ towers. Railroad companies tend to use the same gauge so their trains can travel anywhere. DROs do compete with each other, but they also benefit tremendously from cooperation. If a DRO wishes to create a new rule, it would be fairly useless unless many other DROs agreed to it as well, just as a new e-mail protocol would be useless unless multiple Internet Service Providers took measures to use it as well. The result will be the most economically efficient minimum number of rules imposed on the population as possible. Individuals will prefer the DROs with the broadest reciprocity agreements, just as people prefer credit card companies which are most widely accepted. New rules will also make running the DRO more expensive, which results in higher membership fees and more difficulty competing with other DROs.

WILL NOT THE MOST SUCCESSFUL DRO ARM ITSELF, VIOLENTLY OVERTHROW ALL OTHER DROS, AND EMERGE AS THE NEW GOVERNMENT?

First of all, if the emergence of a new government is of great concern, then getting rid of the current government is certainly imperative. If we have cancer, going through chemotherapy to eliminate the cancer is necessary, even if the cancer may one day return.

Second of all, unlike governments, DROs are not violent institutions. DROs will be primarily populated by white-collar workers – lawyers, accountants, executives, and so on. DROs are about as likely to become a government as your typical accounting firm is likely to become an elite squad of ninjas. Given the current possession of numerous nuclear weapons by world governments, I am willing to take that risk.

Thirdly, if a DRO attempts to become a government, the other DROs will certainly take action to prevent it. DROs would simply refuse to cooperate with any DRO that would not submit to regular weapons inspections. Furthermore, DRO customers would not take kindly to their DRO attempting to form an army, as their rates would no doubt skyrocket. Any DRO paying for goods and services their customers do not want – i.e. Blackhawk helicopters and RPGs, would quickly go out of business.

ARE THERE EXAMPLES OF ANARCHIC SOCIETIES THAT HAVE BEEN SUCCESSFUL IN THE PAST?

There are, but once again, that is not an essential aspect of the theory. The vital argument is that the initiation of the use of force is morally wrong, and governments are institutions based upon the initiation of the use of force.

That having been said, the best example I can give of a successful stateless society is YOU. I assume in your regular day to day life you do not use violence to achieve your ends. It seems likely you did not hold your employer hostage to get your job, nor do you keep your spouse locked in your basement. I doubt you threaten to shoot your friends if they refuse to spend time with you. In other words, you are a perfect example of the stateless society. All of your relationships are completely voluntary; you do not initiate the use of force to acquire them. You are an anarchic microcosm. To see how anarchy works, look in the mirror.

HOW CAN A SOCIETY WITHOUT A GOVERNMENT PAY FOR NATIONAL DEFENSE?

Many people cannot imagine how national defense can be funded without taxation. I discussed this somewhat in the last part, but here are a few points.

In any society, there are four possibilities in the realm of national defense.

1. Everyone wants to pay for collective defense.
2. A majority wants to pay for collective defense.
3. A minority wants to pay for collective defense.
4. No one wants to pay for collective defense.

Let’s see how these play out in a Democracy

1. If everyone wants to pay for collective defense, then it will be voted for, and defense will be funded.
2. If a majority wants to pay for collective defense, then it will be voted for, and defense will be funded.
3. If a minority wants to pay for collective defense, then those running on this platform will be defeated in voting, and national defense will go unfunded.
4. If no one wants to pay for collective defense, then it will go unfunded.

Thus, a Democracy produces almost the same outcome as a stateless society, except for #3, in which a stateless society would still be able to fund some collective defense.

There exists the possibility that people will only want to pay for collective defense so long as they know everyone else is too. This fails in many logical and empirical examples.

1. People tip waiters even though they know some people never do.
2. There is no reason why, in a stateless society, the names of the donors to public defense should not be made public knowledge. When you donate, you can receive a donor card, which many businesses may honor with discounts or other benefits.
3. When property is stripped from the citizens at the point of a gun through taxation, a basic moral value is violated. It is illogical to protect property rights by violating property rights.
4. When collective defense is paid for with the initiation of the use of force, there is no rational ceiling to costs, and no incentive for efficiency – thus guaranteeing that costs will escalate to a point where they are unsustainable, resulting in economic collapse, leaving the country vulnerable to attack.

WHAT ABOUT EDUCATION?

The case of education follows the same principles as the case for collective defense, but there are some additional points to mention.

First of all, it is important to point out that public education was not imposed because children were not being educated. Prior to the institution of government-run education in the 1860s, the functional literacy rate of the average American was 90% - higher than it is today. Before the government took over schools, there was hardly any school violence, including school shootings, assaults on teachers, and violent gangs at school. It did not take nearly two decades and hundreds of thousands of dollars to produce a well-educated adult. Most of the educational giants of the 18th and 19th centuries did not finish high school, much less attend a university.

Government education in the 19th century was instituted as a means of controlling the increasing number of Catholics entering the country, the “immigration” issue of the day.

There are many reasons why a government may wish to manipulate the minds of children. We will discuss only a couple here.

It is reasonable to assume that the majority of parents want to have their children educated. This education should include the teaching of values – or the relationship between ethics and real-world choices. In any multicultural society, however, a common curriculum cannot teach any kind of ethics whatsoever, in fear of offending particular cultural groups. Thus values must be stripped from education, turning its focus instead to rote memorization, technical skills, and neutral, propagandistic views of society and politics (“Government is good!” “Respect multiculturalism!” “Reduce, Reuse, Recycle!” etc.) This utterly kills the beautiful curiosity inherent to the young, turns school into a series of mind-numbing repetitive tasks, creates frustration among those needing stimulation, and engenders deep disrespect for the educational system and its teachers. Combine this hostility and frustration with the ease of money available through drug sales and welfare, and you wind up with a completely intellectually crippled generation. The costs of this are incalculable.

YES, BUT HOW WILL POOR CHILDREN GET AN EDUCATION IF IT IS NOT PAID FOR THROUGH TAXES?

Whenever I argue, “The government should not provide X,” the immediate response is, “Then how will X be provided?” It is reminiscent of an old political cartoon. Two old ladies in Soviet Russia are standing in line for bread. One comments “What a terribly long line!” and the second responds “Yes, but just think, in capitalist societies, the government doesn’t hand out bread at all!”

As mentioned in the case of roads and national defense, the answer is simple. “Since everyone is concerned that X will not be provided, then X will be provided by those who are concerned with its absence.” In other words, since everyone is afraid poor children will not be educated, then everyone will make sure poor children are educated!

Look, either you’re going to help poor children get educated, or you aren’t. If you WILL help poor children get educated, then you don’t have to worry about the issue. If you will NOT help poor children get educated, then it is pure hypocrisy to raise it as an issue you are concerned about.

That having been said, there are several ways a stateless society can provide a better education for the poor than is being provided now.

First of all, poor children are currently NOT getting any sort of decent education! If you take a look at the sorts of numbers of dropouts, test scores, and grades among the poor in modern schools, those arguing for educating the poor should be the ones most vocal about abolishing government. You must not compare anarchy to a Utopia, you must compare it to what we have today, and in terms of educating the poor, what we have today sucks.

Secondly, much like collective defense, the costs of educating in a free society are far lower than in a statist society. The $10,000-$15,000 per year per pupil currently being spent on education is ridiculously inflated. Year-round education, for one thing, would allow the student to graduate years earlier, allowing him or her to enter the workforce that much sooner. The resulting increase in earnings would more than pay for the costs of education, and many companies would scramble to offer loans to such children, as they would be virtually guaranteed of being paid back. Thus education would be more beneficial, and without the war on drugs or welfare, fewer self-destructive options would be available.

As for higher education, it is either recreational or vocational. If it is recreational, it is about as necessary as a hobby, and other people should not be asked to pay for it. If it is vocational, such as medicine, the additional earnings would more than pay for the education once again. Businesses need accountants, thus, they are quite willing to pay for talented young minds to study accounting. Talented but poor children will be sought after by schools, not only to show their benevolence for advertising purposes, but also because high-quality graduates raise the prestige of the school, allowing them to raise fees.

In a stateless society, a tiny minority of poor children may slip through the cracks, but this is FAR better than our current situation, where MOST poor children slip through the cracks and a permanent underclass is formed. The fact that some non-smokers get lung cancer doesn’t mean we should encourage smoking. A stateless society is not a Utopia; it is simply a Utopia compared to a society under a state.

Thank you for reading the FAQs portion of the discussion!