Anarchists in Portland, Oregon. Note masks, cartridge belt, and black hammer and sickle on flag at right.
Anarchy and libertarianism have one common ostensible goal: no government or very little government. Both see themselves as victims of the government; anarchists broaden out the circle of their oppressors to include bosses, landlords, and anyone else with authority over others.
The only redeeming feature of libertarianism is that it is transparent hypocrisy, and “hypocrisy is the tribute that vice pays to virtue.”
The anarchist fantasy.
Like libertarianism, anarchy imagines that the human race once began in a sort of Paradise where people simply joined together for so long as they wished, and performed such tasks within a group as they wished, and simply drifted off whenever they wished.
Such a society probably never existed, or if it did, it didn’t last very long. And, as Lenin and Stalin proved, the effort to realize such a society would require mass enslavement and murder.
Anarchism would remain confined to university campuses, and oddball blogs, except for a small but visible group of anarchists carrying out “direct action” against their perceived oppressors, skipping inconvenience of voting, elections, law, and the rights of other people.
A test case for anarchism.
Take what appears to be a simple event.
I took the bus to work.
This only appears simple. The bus must be designed, manufactured, and operated. This requires engineers, transportation planners, accountants, and all the personnel of an economic enterprise.
Educational institutions must be established to train those personnel for their tasks in the enterprise that produces the buses.
Only mass production, combined with development of markets for the buses, permits the bus to be manufactured at a reasonable cost.
Once the bus is delivered, its operation requires a local private or public authority to plan the bus routes, hire the drivers, set the fares, and plan the budget.
Public buses are often subsidized by tax revenue, this must be organized, set and collected, and involves an elected body overseeing the agency, and an administrative corps to collect and disburse the tax revenue.
I haven’t even begin to discuss the construction and maintenance of the roads, bridges, and tunnels necessary for the bus to operate. Nor have I mentioned the complex economy necessary to generate a destination with economic opportunity at the end of the bus ride.
The need for authority.
Bus transportation requires an extraordinarily high degree of social organization. There is authority all along the way. Important tasks, such as highway safety, proper vehicle design, and so forth must be carried out by responsible persons. These persons are given authority over others to the extent necessary to discharge their responsibilities.
Beyond buses, consider how much authority and responsibility is necessary to run a hospital, a construction enterprise, a university, or any other enterprise involving more than a single person.
And even a one person enterprise, such as an artist, an attorney will require some sort of business space for the task, which must be built or maintained, leased or purchased, etc., all of which requires social organization and authority.
Even novelists and street performers need a place to work undisturbed by criminals or an overpowerful state, which requires both police and constitutional protection.
Politics are essential.
Politics decide is how much authority should exist, who should hold it over whom, and how it should be exercised. This why we have elections, constitutions, laws, and courts. Politics, malodorous as they often are, are necessary for a modern society to exist.
Progressivism and its goals
Despite its many flaws, progressivism attempts to use politics to insure that all of society benefits from the vast economic engine that has been created. Progressivism does not reject authority, but seeks instead to control it, again so that all persons in society are treated with appropriate respect. Progressivism rejects violence as a means of social change.
Au fond progressivism requires convincing people to (a) vote and (b) vote for progressives; all other progressive goals depend on this.
Anarchists want none of this, rejecting all authority. Politics are irrelevant. The only acceptable form of social organization is a voluntary (and therefore transient) association of otherwise completely free individuals.
Anarchism’s threat to progressivism.
In this age of instant video communication, the tiny number anarchists pose a real threat to progressivism, because like lampreys on a larger fish, they associate themselves with progressive causes.
Like progressives, anarchists are opposed of course to President Trump and the combination of the corruption, ignorance, incompetence, and treachery for which he stands. There the similarity ends.
Anarchists taint the legitimacy of opposition to Trump. Their violence, their rejection of democracy (necessary to achieve the classless society), their disregard of the rights of others, are something that no society, even a progressive one, can be built upon.
Anarchists in their own words.
Whatever the theoretical merits of anarchism might be, anarchism in practice celebrates dishonor, laziness, violence, and cowardice.
On stealing:
Stealing from capitalist stores is totally chill. Property is made-up, but also the capitalist class loots the planet, steals worker’s potential, exploits the poor, and is largely responsible for the hell-scape of condos and social-death plaguing Seattle … We’ve also found that the criminal element is a key part of maximizing what we can do and what we get out of this trajectory.
On work :
… many anarchists are somewhere between critical and antagonistic to the concept of work. To be clear, this is hardly a new or groundbreaking development in the spheres of anarchist thinking,
On stealing from work :
April 15: “Steal Something from Work Day.”
On voting :
Anarchists are opposed to voting in elections and participating in election campaigns. Anarchists think that direct action and other alternatives are more likely to result in a better society than electing Candidate X to political office.
On courage :
Wear black and cover your face.
On civil liberties and on violence:
… Your camera means nothing to me compared to my freedom, or my friend’s freedom. Frankly, if someone’s getting in our face, being obnoxious, or filming dangerously when they’ve been told to stop, they’ve made their choice.
All of this is not so very different from Trumpism.
