Objection #12

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 doesn'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 create 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 live 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.
Anarhists, 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 blueprints 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 inObjection #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 believe 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) Individually, 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 associations 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.

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