Why I Am An Anarchist

ESRs historical analysis is possibly one of the few things less compelling that the rest of achievements whether coding or writing. I couldn't bring myself to read his Oral Sex Guide, so perhaps I'm being unfair.

The year before, the Nazi Party couldn't round up more than about 45% of the vote; it's worth noting that these 90% numbers (both the later 1933 election after all the other parties were banned, and the referendum) came after the Nazis controlled pretty much everything. Reporting this as the logical and inevitable failure of the democratic process is like concluding the same thing when various pseudo-democracies around the world report 99% YES votes for their glorious leader ("we can do better"!).

The rest of it then meanders into the weeds of childish libertarian lunacy, standard territory for ESR.

So governments are dangerous and not to be blindly trusted. Agreed. That does not mean that we'll be better off with zero government. Human organizations do not scale beyond tens or hundreds without government. The root problem is the flawed nature of people, their "short-sightedness and moral blindness" as the author correctly points out.

Anyway, the author needs a lesson in logic and logical fallacy.

I myself am an anarchist at heart (in the vain of Tolstoy), but a realist in my brain.

His argument is basically that all governments can become corrupted, so we should have no government. The first part of his argument is obviously true, but is far from sufficient justification for his conclusion. It completely ignores all the good things that come from government (social services, police, military defense). It also ignores that the lack of government can also become corrupted. In places like Somalis, where there was effectively no government, pseudo-governments form (like the various warlords, the Islamic Courts Union, and Al-Shabaab).

This article is riddled with fallacies.

1) Because a government can implement a genocide, a region with no government won't be subject to genocide. (See historical territorial annexations.)

2) Because the Wiemar Republic's constitution was based on the U.S. constitution and fell victim to fascism, all nation's whose constitutions were based on the U.S. constitution may fall victim to fascism.

3) Winston Churchill's defines democracy [as]..eight times better than any other.

4) Because "democracy" is eight times better than any other government, and democracy is vulnerable to morph into fascism, any form of government may morph into fascism.

5) Similarly, because Nazi Germany was fascist and committed genocide, all fascist governments will commit genocide.

There may be arguments for anarchism, but this one isn't very solid.

I am reminded of a quote from an article[1] by Mark Bowden, author of Black Hawk Down. It's not a nuanced response by any means, but it illustrates the consequences of a total lack of government authority.

"I spent some time in Somalia in 1997, a country with no government, and encourage anarchists longing for the experience to check it out. Don't carry with you anything of value."

[1] http://www.salon.com/news/politics/feature/2000/08/09/bowden

I'm personally a minarchist. From Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minarchism):

> Minarchism (sometimes called minimal statism, small government, or limited-government libertarianism) is a libertarian political ideology which maintains that the state's only legitimate function is the protection of individuals from aggression, theft, breach of contract, and fraud.

This article explain why the author calls himself an anarchist, but not what he defines "anarchist" to mean. It is simply someone who opposes any form of state government? Even if the majority of the people want state government? If so, by what means would the author seek to impose anarchy against the will of people, and how would that be better than the problems of democracy that he rails against?

I've never understood anarchism. As long as there are weapons capable of coercion, and groups of people willing to work together to coerce there will be 'government' of some sort or another. Well, at least in the long term. There could be several groups, without monopoly control (otherwise known as 'war'), but this isn't a stable state.

So as I see it, anarchism is only possible if everyone's an anarchist.

I see this kind of position as just another reactionary form of idealism. Just like Karl Marx reacted against class inequality, just as Ayn Rand reacted against communism, so anarchists react against bad things that happen under governments.

But if there is no central authority, who is to say that society won't degenerate into something worse? Left to its own devices, society is a system that makes no guarantees. It may cause an oligarchy of bloodthirsty warlords to arise, or worse. Ultimately forms of government will form one way or another. The only question is, what can we do to stop atrocities and increase welfare for everyone?

There are lots of conservatives and libertarians calling for smaller government. I can appreciate their point of view. I personally think that government has one role: to ensure the minimum expectations of its citizens. We want clean water, healthy food, functioning roads, safe infrastructure, a thriving economy, and so on. On a local level, we have zoning laws, licenses and other regulations. The idea is, if a group of intelligent citizens were exposed to the information, they would see why the decisions are made the way they were made. The government actions which should be checked are those that wouldn't pass this test. Thus, greater transparency and feedback is needed.

A representative democracy is slow to change and fix its problems. We elect some people and then regret it when they can't do everything they promised. Still, I am happy that Obama started http://data.gov and http://recovery.gov and published http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/TransparencyandOp...

I think that among the steps we can take are to increase the efficiency of the feedback loop between the government, and websites publishing the data, experts analyzing the data and blogging, journalists publicizing the data, and the government understanding the public reaction directly or indirectly, more often than once every 4 years.

But what is going to keep us safe? Why do I feel safer in the United States today than I would have felt in the past? CULTURE. No matter how powerful the government is, it's only one part of the larger picture. The overall culture of the society is what causes it to be prone to one thing or another. It is far stronger than any government.

Our culture today is one that points out racism and discrimination where it exists, and tries to shame it out of the public policy. It is one that is permeated by greater knowledge and understanding, thanks to the internet, than any previous generation has had. I am a big believer in the power of tools to shape culture. (Look at facebook, etc.) And ultimately that is what causes real change (look at the middle east revolutions thanks to the new tools on the internet).

Finally, I would encourage everyone to watch the BBC documentary "A Century of the Self". It speaks about the PR industry and one Edward Burnays, nephew of Sigmund Freud, who ironically we know today thanks to Burnays. Propaganda, the tool of governments, was turned into an industry that helps corporations influence the public via images that appeal to our psychology. Commercials started to appeal to our inner drives. For Freud, the collective expression of our unconscious desires (for sex, power, etc.) was a dangerous thing. It would cause mass revolutions, mass violence. In today's United States, if we feel anger at something we go buy an ikea set or a new Nintendo Wii and feel much better. Video games, social media, and even the entire internet satisfies our desires for sex, information, and socializing without ever picking up a gun. It's a new world, but it's a safer world.

I view social media as an extension of PR, taking its first steps trying to insert itself into conversations. Personally I'm working on tools that I hope will help the world communicate in more authentic ways than they do today using Facebook, etc. And I think it will ultimately make a difference in the social lives of many people, and probably will make a positive difference for society as well. If I make it, I will honestly be very proud of having played a part in helping people live happier lives.

Shoes are bad, you know who wore shoes? Nazis!