On the Allure of Anarchism

The first anarchist theoretician, Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, formulated his brainchild: to abolish the centralised government altogether and to establish what he called his state of anarchy. This, though, would not bring the chaos with which the word anarchy is often considered synonymous. On the contrary, a sort of harmonious order would ensue; where the state would be replaced by a system of autonomous groups and communities, glued together by contract and mutual interest in place of laws. In other words, he based his ideas on well-informed, rational people who could be trusted to govern themselves. Justice, argued this essentially non-violent man, was the "central star" governing society. Many such societies cannot be enumerated as instances, even when the utopia of an anarchist state may seem plausible in theory. This is largely because the unanimous rationality of all people at best is only an assumption and the trust endowed by the state upon every individual to act responsibly (without the necessary laws) is far too great a burden for anyone to carry. Without the helmsman at the head of the ship, societal welfare in the country will not be ensured and thus it cannot prevail. Thus the anarchist principle would most likely be the reverse gear towards the tyranny of the primitive monarchist civilisations.

The internet is a wonderful tool, a marvellous creation and a very helpful invention. In spite of its anarchist premise of construction, it must be said that the world wide web is an extremely useful platform. At first glance it may seem that it is one among the many geniuses of the twentieth century inventors, but many don't realise that the internet remains as an exception in the usual depredation of its anarchist counterparts (the instances of anarchist attempts to destroy governmental power). The advent of internet is so far the best example of the anarchist ideology in practise. Although it seems to be very useful and important in the lives of every global citizen, it must be said that the absence of proper rules, laws and regulations have been a significant problem faced by many internet users. When the anarchist ideology is implemented in the real world, such lawlessness will prevail, and such instances will be discussed in the later part of this essay. A classical government or hierarchical power cannot be pinpointed of being above the users of the internet; this is the idea of self-governance with the assumption of having rational individuals involved in pragmatic actions. However, the internet, as we all know it still allows for cyber-crime, theft, hacking, cheating, lying and many other immoral, unjust activities. If people are trusted to govern themselves, and if this were accepted as a proper form of state governance, an antecedent of a much greater degree would well follow like the crime already existent on the internet.

Anarchists understand that the "government is not only unnecessary, but extremely harmful." And their idea of the anarchy revolution is for "the word anarchy, (even though it means absence of government) will come to mean for everybody: natural order, unity of human needs and the interests of all, complete freedom within complete solidarity" The idea of self-governance is based on the oppression of the government, and the promised ideal of liberty and support when anarchy is established. However, the classical sense of the word, governance, is the organization that functions and exercises authority by making laws, to adjudicate disputes and issue administrative decisions with the idea of maximising societal welfare. Succinctly, without proper governance of a state, there would be diminishing societal welfare, due to various issues such as crime and lack of economical efficiency. In the absence of a democratically elected government, there will not only be lack of freedom, but also great discord in external issues. Lack of freedom will be a sure bet; since people below the poverty line will not have any inhibition to just take (steal) from the rich. This may, at first glance, seem legitimate; but when we assume ourselves in the shoes of the "rich" (afore mentioned), the painful reality of the situation will begin to dawn. Moreover, the cost of everyday goods would soar to ludicrous magnitudes. Since there would be no decisive figure to settle trade and external issues which ensure the prices of goods are kept low, the market based on laissez-faire alone seems unfeasible without government policies to establish rules. Even with well-informed, rational people, the inevitable prospect of crime and decisive trade policies show that the idea of self-governance is not a very good alternative to the democracy that we have now.

The attitude of leadership is innate in every human being. Everyone wishes to be a form of leader controlling groups of people, preferably the bigger the better. When speaking of the anarchist, self-governance ideal, it shows itself as an unstable ideology. The absence of leaders in a state would inevitably invoke individuals to fight for power to capture the position of ultimate leader of the state. Even in the so called egalitarian communist state, there are dictators who uphold the leftist ideology, such as Putin, Lenin, Castro, Chavez and so on. When there are no leaders controlling the state, the system tends to be unstable and finally a leader would end up forming a government which establishes control over the people. In China, during the 1930s (when the communists were rising to power) where the vast kingdom was under perpetually no proper ruler, it cannot be forgotten that there were many warlords who were vying for power in the country. The communist had a difficult time eradicating the warlords, who collected advance taxes up till the year 1960 from the people. Such instances of lawless periods, demands a proper government. The long history of governance, beginning before the Egyptians, shows us that the absence of governance spells pandemonium; and that anarchy isn’t a viable option.

Even when the assumption of complete rationality by the people is turned into reality, rational behaviour by well-informed people may not result in solidarity but rather in violence and upheaval. The rational behaviour of people may also result in violence and other forms of amoral behaviour mentioned above. Reasons such as poverty and oppression by groups of people may result in unintended repercussions, which may result in actions which diminish societal welfare. Even so, the innuendo of leftist ideology in the anarchist system is undeniably one of the main reasons for it being unnatural and unpopular amongst politicians and people. The richer people in the populace will be unhappy about this form anarchist ideology as the poorer people will demand a share of their wealth. The affluent will have to conform to their demands and they would be unwilling to heed the ways of the new anarchist society. Either ways there will be illegitimate and unlawful behaviour without the proper law enforcement. Both sides of society, the affluent and the poor, will crumble under the cracks of the anarchist ideology. Self-governance cannot be carried out in the true sense of the word due to such a glaring flaw in the system. It cannot be advocated without the suffering and the problems encountered by the society.

The spasm of anarchist violence that was at its most convulsive in the 1880s and 1890s was felt, if indirectly, in every continent. It claimed hundreds of lives, including those of several heads of government, aroused widespread fear and prompted quantities of new laws and restrictions. But it passed. The flaws of each government cannot be overcome by having anarchism. In fact the reasons why anarchists ideology frequently fails to capture the attention of people is because, self-governance and the goodness of the ideology is already being felt in many of the developed countries. The system of democracy and the elected government is symbolically the people choosing people to rule themselves; in other words this is self-government in action. Hence, when the rationality of the people is ensured, they can be trusted to govern themselves; however, by means of a form of proper government, legislation, rules and regulations which they themselves have to abide by. This may not lead to ultimate liberty and freedom which the anarchists wish to pursue, but the system of conservative democratic governance followed by many countries in the world, aims to ensure safety, development and most of all maximum welfare for its entire people.