[CTRL] Objections to Anarchism

[eric stewart]

-Caveat Lector-

Objections to Anarchism

The Principles of Anarchism are Timeless Truths
By Michael E. Coughlin

The following was 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


-------------------------------------------------------

>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:

1) 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.

2) 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:

1) 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.)

2) 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.

3) 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:

1) 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.

2) 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.

3) 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.

1) 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:

2) 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 thefta 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 th 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.

1) 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.

2) 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:

1) 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.

2) 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.


3) 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."
1) 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.

2) 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.

3) 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.

3a) First, I ask - what is the "state"? We must define
the term.

3b) 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.

4) 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?

4a) Is it OK if he enlists several of his neighbors to
do so? If one man doens'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?

5) 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."

6) 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.

7) 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: 1) 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
creat 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.

2) 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.

3) 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 lieve 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.

3a) 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."

3b) 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.

4) For a more detailed discussion of this, see
Objection #10 in Vol. 2, No. 7, of the dandelion.

4a) 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.

5) 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.

6) 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.

7) 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."

http://flag.blackened.net/daver/anarchism/objections.html



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