Anarchy Defined By W. J. Whitman

Transcription

1 Anarchy Defined By W. J. Whitman This brings us to Anarchism, which may be described as the doctrine that all the affairs of men should be managed by individuals or voluntary associations, and that the State should be abolished. Benjamin Tucker 1 As a variety of the liberal regime I have mentioned anarchy the government of each by himself, self-government. politically, the idea of anarchy is quite as rational and concrete as any other. What it means is that political functions have been reduced to industrial functions, and that social order arises from nothing but transactions and exchanges. Each may then say that he is the absolute ruler of himself, the polar opposite of monarchical absolutism. anarchy is the ideal of the economists, who attempt strenuously to put an end to all governmental institutions and to rest society upon the foundations of property and free labour alone. Pierre-Joseph Proudhon 2 The term anarchy does not mean no government. It means no rulers. Anarchy is a form of government wherein there are no rulers no legislators, no authorities that are above the law. The only legitimate rule of law is that which is based on voluntary agreements and contracts. Legitimate government rests upon the consent of the governed through a social contract. This notion is the cornerstone of democracy, and its logical consequence is that anarchy is the only legitimate form of government. In a statist system, the law is arbitrarily created by legislators, enforced by officers, and the people are governed whether or not they ever consented to being governed. In so-called Liberal Democracy, the social contract is a sham, a myth. There is no such thing! The state is not based upon voluntary association but upon aggression and imposition. No one in a statist society really volunteers to be governed by a social contract that he has been given the option to reject. A contractual obligation is only valid if the parties involved had the opportunity to freely refuse to accept the agreement beforehand. If the contract is imposed by force without the consent of one of the parties concerned, then it is no contract at all! In 1776, Thomas Jefferson penned these words: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain 1 Benjamin Tucker, Individual Liberty, Ch. 1 2 Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, The Principle of Federation, Part 1, 2, 4

2 unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it 3 By the end of his life, Jefferson was virtually an anarchist. If Jefferson is not to be credited as the founder of modern anarchism, then he is at least to be regarded as a proto-anarchist. His followers would carry his doctrine to its logical conclusion. One of these followers was Benjamin Tucker, who wrote the following: If the individual has the right to govern himself, all external government is tyranny. Hence the necessity of abolishing the State. This was the logical conclusion to which Warren and Proudhon were forced, and it became the fundamental article of their political philosophy. It is the doctrine which Proudhon named An-archism, a word derived from the Greek, and meaning, not necessarily absence of order, as is generally supposed, but absence of rule. The Anarchists are simply unterrified Jeffersonian Democrats. 4 The state is a coercive institution within society that is based on the violent imposition of arbitrary rules and regulations. Its authority rests solely on violence or the threat of violence. It has no basis in the consent of the governed no basis in a social contract. States are nothing more than criminal organizations, syndicates of terrorism and organized crime. The state is not the enforcer of the law, but the violator of all laws. The masses have been hypnotized by the state-sponsored media. The people have been brainwashed and deluded by statist propaganda. They have been led to believe that the state is their benefactor. They have come to the point where they falsely believe that the government is necessary. The people have become so accustomed to statism that they refuse to believe that any of the functions of the state could possibly be provided if the state were abolished. It reminds me of the old story of two Russians standing outside of a government office in the Soviet Union, waiting in line to get their food. 3 Thomas Jefferson, The Declaration of Independence 4 Benjamin Tucker, Individual Liberty, Ch. 1

3 One man turns to the other and says, I hate this government. We should abolish it! The other man retorts, But if we abolish the government, then there won t be any more food! It is forgotten that food originated in nature and was traded in the marketplace for millennia without the state s involvement. After 50 years of a state monopoly on food, Russian people came to believe that the state was necessary for the production of food. The same thing has happened here in America. People have become so accustomed to our omnipotent state; they actually believe that the state is necessary for the production of roads, to supply a medium of exchange (money), to maintain law and order, to provide defense and security, etc. All of these functions of the state, however, are functions that can be (and have been, at various times) provided by voluntary associations and the free market. Is it necessary for the state to maintain a monopoly on the issue of money? Certainly not! Money was not created by the state. Money is a medium of exchange within an economic system. Money developed on the free market as a spontaneous social convention. Carl Menger s tract The Origin of Money clearly demonstrates this fact. In ancient times, people began trading their excess produce through barter. If person x has extra eggs but needs bacon, while person y has extra bacon but needs eggs, it is natural for x and y to make a trade. However, if person x has extra eggs and needs bacon, but person y who has extra bacon does not need eggs, then person x must trade his eggs for something else in order to acquire something that person y will be willing to take in exchange for his bacon. As you can imagine, it could easily become quite a hassle to buy bacon in such an economy. As a result, the market furnished a medium of exchange (money) in order to make trade easier. There were certain commodities gold and silver, for example that everyone in the market was willing to accept as a form of payment. These commodities naturally developed into a medium of exchange. People began minting silver and gold into coins of a particular weight, thus making it easier to measure for purposes of exchange. It was not until much later that the state would take over the function of minting coins in order to establish a monopoly on the production of money. The dollar was historically a unit of measurement. The dollar bill was a warehouse receipt, indicating that the holder of the bill had exactly 1 dollar, a specific amount, of gold on reserve at the bank. Whoever had that dollar bill could take the receipt to the warehouse/bank and exchange it for the gold from the vault. When we realize what money is its historical origin and function, then we can understand that the state s monopoly

4 on money is totally unjustified. (See my article on The Illegality of American Money.) According to Benjamin Tucker, anarchists propose to abolish the money monopoly. First in importance of its evil influence they considered the money monopoly, which consists of the privilege given by the government to certain individuals, or to individuals holding certain kinds of property, of issuing the circulating medium, a privilege which is now enforced by State laws making it a criminal offense to issue notes as currency. It is claimed that the holders of this privilege control the rate of interest, the rate of rent of houses and buildings, and the prices of goods. 5 If a particular group of bankers and bureaucrats are granted a monopoly on the issue of currency, then those bankers and bureaucrats control the entire market. By increasing or decreasing the amount of money that they issue, they change the value of the unit of currency in accordance with the law of supply-and-demand. If they create more money, then the value of the unit of currency will drop. As a result, the price of goods and the cost of rent will increase. Additionally, those who have a monopoly on the issue of currency can also control the interest rate. By increasing the amount of excess money available to be lent out to borrowers, the banking monopoly can decrease the rate of interest. They can increase the rate of interest by contracting or decreasing the amount of money that they will allow to be lent out. The bankocrats who control the money supply literally control the entire economy. Every recession or depression in the economy is the result of their actions. Anarchists hold that since money originated on the market, it can still be provided by the market apart from the state. The state-sponsored monopolies on money are illegitimate and unnecessary. The abolition of the monopoly on money is the first goal of anarchy. The abolition of the money monopoly is the first step in the abolition of the state, as a great deal of the state s power rests upon this monopoly. When the government controls the money, it controls the people. Is it necessary for the state to provide us with laws? Certainly not! Law originated according to custom. The existence of law precedes the existence of the state. There were certain rules of fair play that people within primitive societies came to recognize as universally valid. 5 Benjamin Tucker, Individual Liberty, Ch. 1

5 These rules were recognized and applied prior to the existence of the state. On the subject of law, Peter Kropotkin writes: In existing States a fresh law is looked upon as a remedy for evil. Instead of themselves altering what is bad, people begin by demanding a law to alter it. If the road between two villages is impassible, the peasant says: There should be a law about parish roads. If a park-keeper takes advantage of the want of spirit in those who follow him with servile obedience and insults one of them, the insulted man says, There should be a law to enjoin more politeness upon park-keepers. If there is stagnation in agriculture or commerce, the husbandman, cattle-breeder, or corn speculator argues, It is protective legislation that we require. Down to the old clothesman there is not one who does not demand a law to protect his own little trade. If the employer lowers wages or increases the hours of labor, the politician in embryo exclaims, We must have a law to put all that to rights. In short, a law everywhere and for everything! A law about fashions, a law about mad dogs, a law about virtue, a law to put a stop to all the vices and all the evils which result from human indolence and cowardice. 6 Once we begin to regard a law as something that can be created by government fiat and imposed upon us without our consent, then there is no limit to the number of laws that will be imposed upon us. Once people begin to recognize the legitimacy of these arbitrary rules, there is nothing left but for the masses to become slaves. But is a law really something that can just be created by fiat? Some legislators got together and drafted a bill, voted it into law, and told their officers to enforce it through violence and the threat thereof. Does that necessarily mean that the law is legitimate? If so, then there is no limit to what the government can do. If so, then all laws even unjust ones are legitimate and must be obeyed: if the law says you are to be a slave, then you must submit yourself to slavery! This is the logical conclusion, is it not? Kropotkin continues: 6 Peter Kropotkin, Law and Authority, 1 (in Anarchism: A Collection of Revolutionary Writings)

6 Relatively speaking, law is a product of modern times. For ages and ages mankind lived without any written law, even that graved in symbols upon the entrance of a temple. During that period, human relations were simply regulated by customs, habits and usages, made sacred by constant repetition, and acquired by each person in childhood, exactly as he learned how to obtain his food by hunting, cattle-rearing, or agriculture. All human societies have passed through this primitive phase, and to this day a large proportion of mankind have no written law. Every tribe has its own manners and customs; customary law, as the jurists say. It has social habits, and that suffices to maintain cordial relations between the inhabitants of the village, the members of the tribe or community. Even among ourselves the civilized nations when we leave large towns, and go into the country, we see that there the mutual relations of the inhabitants are still regulated according to ancient and generally accepted customs, and not according to the written law of the legislators. The peasants of Russia, Italy and Spain, and even of a large part of France and England, have no conception of written law. It only meddles with their lives to regulate their relations with the State. As to relations between themselves, though these are sometimes very complex, they are simply regulated according to ancient custom. Formerly, this was the case with mankind in general. 7 It is possible for people to be governed primarily by some sort of natural law or common law. The existence of the state is not necessary for the development of law and order. Is it necessary for the state to provide us with national defense and security services? with police and soldiers? Certainly not! There are already countless private security agencies in existence. In the past, nations have defended themselves against invasion through the use of voluntary grassroots militias. It is possible for the military and police functions of the state to be 7 Peter Kropotkin, Law and Authority, 2 (in Anarchism: A Collection of Revolutionary Writings)

7 provided by voluntary associations and/or by businesses within the private sector. As Benjamin Tucker put it, There are many more than five or six insurance companies in England, and it is by no means uncommon for members of the same family to insure their lives and goods against accident or fire in different companies. Does any harm come of it? Why, then, should there not be a considerable number of defensive associations in England, in which people, even members of the same family, might insure their lives and goods against murderers or thieves? Though Mr. Read has grasped one idea of the voluntary taxationists, I fear that he sees another much less clearly, namely, the idea that defense is a service, like any other service; that it is labour both useful and desired, and therefore an economic commodity subject to the law of supply and demand; that in a free market this commodity would be furnished at the cost of production; that, competition prevailing, patronage would go to those who furnished the best article at the lowest price; that the production and sale of this commodity are now monopolized by the State; that the State, like almost all monopolists, charges exorbitant prices; that, like almost all monopolists, it supplies a worthless, or nearly worthless, article; that, just as the monopolist of a food product often furnishes poison instead of nutriment, so the State takes advantage of its monopoly of defense to furnish invasion instead of protection. 8 The state monopoly on defense and security is unnecessary. Moreover, state defense hardly ever qualifies as real defense. The state s definition of defense is aggression! The state may have a national guard but it will not employ them in guarding the nation from invasion; rather, it sends them abroad to attack foreign nations, employs them in aggressive wars, and has them engage in terrorism. The state s police and military services are not only unnecessary, but unjustified. More often than not, they are instruments of corruption. They do not usually serve 8 Benjamin Tucker, Individual Liberty, Ch. 2, Sect. 6

8 the purpose that they are supposedly intended to serve, and they often impede it. They do not provide us with liberty and justice, but restrict our liberty, endanger our freedom, and commit injustice. Every single function of the state can be provided and would be provided better in an anarchist system apart from the state. Anarchy is not the abolition of law, national defense, security, money, etc. Anarchy is not the abolition of government. On the contrary, anarchy is an alternative system of government government by voluntary associations and transactions, wherein every legitimate function of the state is provided without the existence of the state and its coercive and monopolistic powers. Anarchists do not propose to dismantle society. We do not advocate chaos. On the contrary, we advocate a better way of organizing society. Anarchy is a voluntary organization of society, wherein people are governed in a way that is not oppressive. Anarchy is not something that we should fear, but a goal to which we all must strive.