In defense of anarchy

I read today that Iraq is threatening to fall into anarchy, and also that if Mussharef is assassinated that Pakistan could succumb to anarchy. It was suggested last week that Even the Church of England faces anarchy.

This would great news, if only the true concept of anarchy were what was meant by those using the term.

The term ‘anarchist’ has been plagued by centuries of bad press. Back in the early 19th century, a few bomb-throwing revolutionaries usurped this wonderful word. Now, not a week goes by that George Bush or some other politician doesn’t accuse terrorists of being anarchists. Wrong. Terrorists aren’t anarchists--they’re not demanding freedom from government—they want to become the government. Terrorists are micro-governments that want to become macro-governments.

Calling a terrorist an anarchist is a slur on anarchists. The correct definition and history of the word can be found in The Encyclopedia of Philosophy:

“ANARCHISM, a social philosophy that rejects authoritarian government and maintains that voluntary institutions are best suited to express man’s natural social tendencies. Historically, the word “anarchist” derives from the Greek an archos, meaning “no government.”…Pierre Joseph Proudhon (What is Property?, Paris, 1840) described himself as an anarchist because he believed that political organization based on authority should be replaced by social and economic organization based on voluntary contractual agreement [emphasis added].

“[T]here is no necessary connection between anarchism, which is a social philosophy, and terrorism, which is a political means occasionally used by…actionists belonging to a wide variety of movements that have nothing in common with anarchism.”

Anarchism is a philosophy of freedom. True anarchists believe that authoritarian government the problem, and that voluntary cooperation is the answer. The Encyclopedia of Philosophy agrees:

“Anarchism in general rejects the state. It denies the value of democratic procedures because they are based on majority rule and on the delegation of the responsibility that the individual should retain.

“The main difference between the anarchists and the socialists, including the Marxists, lies in the fact that while the socialists maintain that the state must be taken over as the first step toward its dissolution, the anarchists argue that, since power corrupts, any seizure of the existing structure of authority can only lead to its perpetuation.”

Power corrupts, and that explains what’s going on in Gaza, the decades of genocide in Darfur, the millions slaughtered by warlords in the Congo, in Rwanda, in China under Mao, and in Cambodia under Pol Pot. These places didn't suffer from  anarchy, they suffered from the opposite: government.

Perhaps some of the confusion stems from the concept of government. What is a government? The word is derived from the Greek kybernan, which means “to steer.” You and I can be governed by someone else, or we can govern ourselves. There can be an external ‘sovereign,’ or we can be sovereign individuals. Those who would control us and our property by force (including every petty thief, terrorist, and political party) are simply different manifestations of government... the complete antithesis to anarchism.

What a tragedy that “anarchism,” a word that concisely describes individual sovereignty, has been co-opted by authoritarian governments to mean just the opposite. In the correct sense of the word, I’m an anarchist and proud of it. I don’t want to govern you, nor do I want you to govern me. If you believe that you should have the sovereign authority over your own life and assets, and ‘steer’ your own future…then, surprise! You’re an anarchist, too.