Not One, but Three “Ask an Anarchist” Questions!

To be honest, I’d been thinking that feature had outlived its usefulness, since it’s been a very long while since we’ve gotten any questions. I’m glad to be shown wrong. The questions come from an anonymous individual, whom I don’t think was being facetious with the questions posed via email:

When will the best of the anarchy theorists accept that the bulk of humanity will no more give up their State than their religion, as they both generate feelings of safety? And once accepted, switch strategies from converting the world, to inventing technological and cultural mechanisms by which a permanently small anarchist minority can avoid the grasp of the bulk of humanity? How can the anarchists duplicate the state-rejecting successes of the Amish?

I’ll take on each in turn; and, as usual, others are welcome to provide their answers or engage as preferred on the subjects in the comments.

When will the best of the anarchy theorists accept that the bulk of humanity will no more give up their State than their religion, as they both generate feelings of safety?

I’m not sure who our questioner has in mind when specifying “the best of the anarchy theorists”, so I’m not going to try to speak for those individuals (and yes, I doubt that I am among them; a theorist I am not). But I will answer for myself: I had thought that my scribblings here demonstrated that I understand this point; moreover, as a result of that grokking my focus has shifted from broadband education and agitation, so to speak, to focusing on living my life as freely as possible, and thereby possibly serving as an example to some others. Mostly an example of how not to do things, but those examples can be pretty effective too ...

Anyway, it does seem clear that many (if not most) individuals need something to believe in, if not for feelings of safety then for hope, or a reason to keep going in a life that’s overfilled with routines and fences and shallowness instead of substance. I understand that because that’s certainly true of me. There are many ideas about how to live one’s life, including those that assert that one should not live it [thanks to Brian N. for that astounding revelation]. I think freedom is the best idea I’ve encountered for many reasons ... but it’s indisputably true that others disagree. Anarchists can agree to disagree with the statists and go off on our own, leaving them to their own devices—but because collectivists do not agree with the “live and let live” approach to varying degrees, the reverse is not true. And thus, any truce between two such societies would always be an uneasy one ... more like a standoff than genuine peace. Of course, to my mind the only way to get around such situations is to completely segregate such societies (a very difficult proposition unless we actually colonize space; but it’s still a tenuous solution at best). While I do think and believe that if the machinery of coercive government were to somehow crash, a nontrivial number of people would come to see that the resulting freedom and responsibility is an improvement on coercion, some would not accept that. Could they be forced to live as free beings? Perhaps, to some degree, but that would be the antithesis of true liberty ... and thus the wrangling never ends.

And once accepted, switch strategies from converting the world, to inventing technological and cultural mechanisms by which a permanently small anarchist minority can avoid the grasp of the bulk of humanity?

As my previous answer bled into this territory some, my position is probably fairly clear: I’m not sure that technological and cultural mechanisms (whatever the latter might be) can successfully keep the differing ideologies apart. While I have no illusions that an anarchist society would be utopian, I do think it would be demonstrably richer in many ways, and that seeing that would set the statist society’s members to salivating ... Perhaps someone with a better imagination than I has a better answer for this question.

How can the anarchists duplicate the state-rejecting successes of the Amish?

This is a very intriguing question for me, in part because I’ve been trying to seriously consider it for quite some time now. So far, my answer has been that anarchists and Amish are considerably different groups, and what has worked for them will probably not work for us. It seems to be the case that many states which have Amish communities are becoming less tolerant of some of their practices—midwifery being just one. I also recall a recent case where an Amish farmer was set up for a bust for “selling” raw milk ... so looking to their example probably isn’t going to serve us very well.

In short, the Amish are culturally quite insular, and very distinct from us “English”, as they tend to refer to Americans. I’ve only been in a handful of Amish communities across a few states, but in each, they spoke a different language amongst themselves (generally referred to as Pennsylvania Dutch, as far as I know). They seem to embrace the concept of frith in their communities, which form small nodes in a sea of Americans. They dress distinctively and work under a set of rules that also distinguishes them from their English neighbors.

Anarchists do none of these things—to varying degrees, we are immersed in American society even in our gulches. We buy the same cars, drink the same colas, rely on the same internet and clothing stores and grocers as the statists. If we make our own clothing and grow our own food, we do it via the same fabric stores and using the same technology (or lack thereof) as agribusiness or organic farmers. We speak the same language, worship (for those of us who do worship) the same Gods, and are visibly and culturally indistinguishable from statists. And, perhaps most importantly, at least some of us seem to take great delight in arguing amongst our would-be frithsteaders: some Objectivists and Rothbardians and Miseans and Georgists and Tuckerites and so forth are probably at each other’s throats at least as much as they are at statists’.

We are distinct ideologically, but that isn’t a visible difference. By and large it doesn’t create behavioral differences, as anarchocapitalists and agorist anarchists wouldn’t look all that different from traditional entrepreneurs and co-op organizers. Many anarchists even cooperate to some degree with state-mandated pieces of paper (marriage licenses, business/professional licenses, etc.), participate in its educational systems, and use coercion to discipline their children.

Thus, I don’t think we can duplicate the Amish success—at least not without wholesale change. Anarchists aren’t in any meaningful way distinctive from mainstream American society and culture, and we are fractious amongst ourselves to boot. This doesn’t mean I’m as bearish on freedom as the above may seem—far from it, actually. Probably the bulk of our history goes against the current state-adoring zeitgeist—we were nomads and herders long before we became serfs and citizens. I don’t know what it will take to break free of the current infatuation with large, coercive institutions, nor when they’ll really start to break apart ... but it could be soon. That said, it will not be easy, nor quick. And I don’t think a return to freer interactions will be permanent. Like so much on this planet, the pendulum between free and unfree swings slowly back and forth.