I'm fully aware of the different flavors of anarchism like the syndicalists and communists that exist out there but in the end, it's only in the environment in which anarcho-capitalism can these other flavors exist because under this "version" can variety flourish. The other flavors require everyone to think the same. This is because capitalism takes into account the things that make the individual unique - in other words subjective value.
But let's focus on the word 'anarchy' for a moment. Most people associate the word with chaos and no rules but that is a mistaken concept. The other thing about that association is that it fails to evaluate the concept based on first principles. Let me explain. All anarchy means is the lack of a coercive, central government. The initial reaction to this definition is to transition from the statist present to the proposed anarchical structure and examine the results. Of course, people draw on experience which is mainly what they hear in the news when a government has been toppled. The result is a vacuum in power and inevitable chaos that ensues. People then use those effects as reasoning to mount an argument against anarchy. But that is no different than a drug-addict saying sobriety won't work because they experienced withdrawal symptoms in the past and it sucks. Simply examining the effects of an ideology without discounting the warped conditions in which it is evaluated is not adhering to first principles. The merits of the ideology must be evaluated alone with no preconditions. Sobriety must be evaluated against drug abuse without looking at the effects it has on the drug user.
Even after I get past the above argument and the definition has been accepted and we can finally, move on, most people will then say a bunch of people who get together and form a "government" and use this as a counter-example. Sure it's a counter-example when they conveniently omit the coercive portion of the definition. If a group of 50-100 people decide to form a council to make decisions, they're all voluntarily joining the group. This is hardly the same type of government where if I don't pay my "dues" or taxes, I get incarcerated. This is the type of opposition people have with statists - "Let me accept your definition and then change it" argument style.
I have no problems with people, on their own, organizing into some self-governing body where people can come and go as they please. If this group wants to try to organize into some socialist utopia, go for it. What matters are the following principles any real anarchist must hold to the highest degree:
- The non-aggression principle
- The respect for property rights
The two principles work very tightly with one another and one could make the case that the non-aggression principle is just a corollary to the respect for property rights.
If you've read my blog long enough, you know what I mean by property rights. To briefly sum it up, property rights is another way of saying that you own the effects of your actions. That not only applies to the human mind/body experience (self-ownership) but extends to the physical world. Through science, we gain a deeper understanding of cause-and-effect and leverage that knowledge to own the effects of the actions we put out into the world. So a simple example is through the knowledge of farming, we know if we plant a seed into the ground, the effect would be the raising of crops. Therefore, the crops are the effect of our actions (planting a seed) and property rights would imply that the rightful owner of the crops is the planter.
The non-aggression principle is the idea that the initiation of force is immoral. People like to ignore the word "initiation" and attack the concept that goes something like, "I'll initiate force in self-defense."
Again, the word initiation doesn't mean that brain synapses are fired that "initiate" a muscle contraction to hit a person. It's the basic schoolyard principle that reads "Don't be the first one to throw a punch." Too many a time will someone try to say the equivalent of, "I'll throw the first punch when someone else throws the first punch." Doesn't make a whole lot of sense when you frame it to them like that.
When we marry these two concepts, what we have is a respect for property rights and to exercise our right to self-defense. This is the core of anarchism. This is how we can frame a social interface with other people that promotes peace that is both internally and externally consistent from principle to practice. I'm not saying that this creates a utopia because humans aren't built perfect. We are a learning species that evolves and with that changes what it values. Since all humans don't learn at the same pace, we are going to continually have problems in interaction but if people can, today, view democracy as a viable solution because they mistakenly believe voting is peaceful, there is no reason a different framework in which property rights is upheld as the peaceful, moral solution that social problems can work themselves out.
