Anarchy

Anarchy Ⓐ (from Greek: ἀναρχίᾱ anarchíā, "without ruler") may refer to any of the following:

• "No rulership or enforced authority."^[1]
• "A social state in which there is no governing person or group of people, but each individual has absolute liberty (without the implication of disorder.) But is bound by a social code ."^[2]
• "Absence of government; a state of lawlessness due to the absence or inefficiency of the supreme power; political disorder."^[3]
• "Absence or non-recognition of authority and order in any given sphere."^[4]
• "Acting without waiting for instructions or official permission... The root of anarchism is the single impulse to do it yourself: everything else follows from this." ^[5]

Cases of anarchy after the collapse of a state

English Civil War

The tumult of the English Civil War (1641–1651) led to the term to be taken up in political philosophy. Anarchy was one of the issues at the Putney Debates of 1647:

Thomas Rainsborough: I shall now be a little more free and open with you than I was before. I wish we were all true-hearted, and that we did all carry ourselves with integrity. If I did mistrust you I would not use such asseverations. I think it doth go on mistrust, and things are thought too readily matters of reflection, that were never intended. For my part, as I think, you forgot something that was in my speech, and you do not only yourselves believe that some men are inclining to anarchy, but you would make all men believe that. And, sir, to say because a man pleads that every man hath a voice by right of nature, that therefore it destroys by the same argument all property -- this is to forget the Law of God. That there’s a property, the Law of God says it; else why hath God made that law, Thou shalt not steal? I am a poor man, therefore I must be oppressed: if I have no interest in the kingdom, I must suffer by all their laws be they right or wrong. Nay thus: a gentleman lives in a country and hath three or four lordships, as some men have (God knows how they got them); and when a Parliament is called he must be a Parliament-man; and it may be he sees some poor men, they live near this man, he can crush them -- I have known an invasion to make sure he hath turned the poor men out of doors; and I would fain know whether the potency of rich men do not this, and so keep them under the greatest tyranny that was ever thought of in the world. And therefore I think that to that it is fully answered: God hath set down that thing as to propriety with this law of his, Thou shalt not steal. And for my part I am against any such thought, and, as for yourselves, I wish you would not make the world believe that we are for anarchy.

Oliver Cromwell: I know nothing but this, that they that are the most yielding have the greatest wisdom; but really, sir, this is not right as it should be. No man says that you have a mind to anarchy, but that the consequence of this rule tends to anarchy, must end in anarchy; for where is there any bound or limit set if you take away this limit , that men that have no interest but the interest of breathing shall have no voice in elections? Therefore I am confident on 't, we should not be so hot one with another.^[6]

As people began to theorize about the English Civil War, "anarchy" came to be more sharply defined, albeit from differing political perspectives:

• 1651 – Thomas Hobbes (Leviathan) describes the natural condition of mankind as a war of all against all, where man lives a brutish existence. "For the savage people in many places of America, except the government of small families, the concord whereof dependeth on natural lust, have no government at all, and live at this day in that brutish manner."^[7] Hobbes finds three basic causes of the conflict in this state of nature: competition, diffidence and glory, "The first maketh men invade for gain; the second, for safety; and the third, for reputation". His first law of nature is that "that every man ought to endeavour peace, as far as he has hope of obtaining it; and when he cannot obtain it, that he may seek and use all helps and advantages of war". In the state of nature, "every man has a right to every thing, even to then go for one another's body" but the second law is that, in order to secure the advantages of peace, "that a man be willing, when others are so too… to lay down this right to all things; and be contented with so much liberty against other men as he would allow other men against himself". This is the beginning of contracts/covenants; performing of which is the third law of nature. "Injustice," therefore, is failure to perform in a covenant; all else is just.
• 1656 – James Harrington (The Commonwealth of Oceana) uses the term to describe a situation where the people use force to impose a government on an economic base composed of either solitary land ownership (absolute monarchy), or land in the ownership of a few (mixed monarchy). He distinguishes it from commonwealth, the situation when both land ownership and governance shared by the population at large, seeing it as a temporary situation arising from an imbalance between the form of government and the form of property relations.

French Revolution

The storming of the Bastille, 14 July 1789

Thomas Carlyle, Scottish essayist of the Victorian era known foremost for his widely influential work of history, The French Revolution, wrote that the French Revolution was a war against both aristocracy and anarchy:

Meanwhile, we will hate Anarchy as Death, which it is; and the things worse than Anarchy shall be hated more! Surely Peace alone is fruitful. Anarchy is destruction: a burning up, say, of Shams and Insupportabilities; but which leaves Vacancy behind. Know this also, that out of a world of Unwise nothing but an Unwisdom can be made. Arrange it, Constitution-build it, sift it through Ballot-Boxes as thou wilt, it is and remains an Unwisdom,-- the new prey of new quacks and unclean things, the latter end of it slightly better than the beginning. Who can bring a wise thing out of men unwise? Not one. And so Vacancy and general Abolition having come for this France, what can Anarchy do more? Let there be Order, were it under the Soldier's Sword; let there be Peace, that the bounty of the Heavens be not spilt; that what of Wisdom they do send us bring fruit in its season!-- It remains to be seen how the quellers of Sansculottism were themselves quelled, and sacred right of Insurrection was blown away by gunpowder: wherewith this singular eventful History called French Revolution ends.^[8]

Armand II, duke of Aiguillon came before the National Assembly (French Revolution) in 1789 and shared his views on the anarchy:

I may be permitted here to express my personal opinion. I shall no doubt not be accused of not loving liberty, but I know that not all movements of peoples lead to liberty. But I know that great anarchy quickly leads to great exhaustion and that despotism, which is a kind of rest, has almost always been the necessary result of great anarchy. It is therefore much more important than we think to end the disorder under which we suffer. If we can achieve this only through the use of force by authorities, then it would be thoughtless to keep refraining from using such force.^[9]

Armand II was later exiled because he was viewed as being opposed to the revolution's violent tactics.

Professor Chris Bossche commented on the role of anarchy in the revolution:

In The French Revolution, the narrative of increasing anarchy undermined the narrative in which the revolutionaries were striving to create a new social order by writing a constitution.^[10]

Jamaica 1720

Sir Nicholas Lawes, Governor of Jamaica, wrote to John Robinson, the Bishop of London, in 1720:

"As to thse Englishmen that came as mechanics hither, very young and have now acquired good estates in Sugar Plantations and Indigo& co., of course they know no better than what maxims they learn in the Country. To be now short & plain Your Lordship will see that they have no maxims of Church and State but what are absolutely anarchical."

In the letter Lawes goes on to complain that these "estated men now are like Jonah's gourd" and details the humble origins of the "creolians" largely lacking an education and flouting the rules of church and state. In particular, he cites their refusal to abide by the Deficiency Act, which required slave owners to procure from England one white person for every 40 enslaved Africans, thereby hoping to expand their own estates and inhibit further English/Irish immigration. Lawes describes the government as being "anarchical, but nearest to any form of Aristocracy". "Must the King's good subjects at home who are as capable to begin plantations, as their Fathers, and themselves were, be excluded from their Liberty of settling Plantations in this noble Island, for ever and the King and Nation at home be deprived of so much riches, to make a few upstart Gentlemen Princes?"^[11]

Spain 1936

After General Francisco Franco declared war on the Spanish government in 1936 (Spanish Civil War) the government lost control over much of Spain. Resistance to the rebels was often organized through the confederation of anarcho-syndicalist trade unions, the Confederación Nacional del Trabajo (CNT) and the Iberian Anarchist Federation, the Federación Anarquista Ibérica (FAI). The Spanish Revolution occurred almost immediately after the failed coup of Franco, leading to the formation of worker's collectives all over Republican Spain. This has been hailed as the best example of a functioning anarchist system. The government was subsequently defeated by Franco, leading to 40 years of Francoist dictatorship in Spain.

Albania 1997

In the mid-1990s, Albania was becoming a liberalized economy after years under a controlled economy; the rudimentary financial system became dominated by Ponzi schemes, and government officials endorsed a series of pyramid investment funds. Many Albanians, approximately two-thirds of the population, invested in them. By 1997 the inevitable end came, and the people of Albania, who had lost $1.2 billion (out of a small population of 3 million), took their protest to the streets where uncontained rioting, fueled by their discontent at the state's failure to protect them from the fraud, led to the toppling of the government and the country descended into anarchy in which some 2,000 people were killed.

Beginning in February, thousands of citizens gathered daily, demanding reimbursement by the government, which they suspected of profiting from the schemes. By March 1997, the protests had turned violent in the south, especially around the port city of Vlora, where numerous residents armed themselves with weapons looted from army barracks. On March 2, president Sali Berisha declared a state of emergency, but rioting and destruction spread throughout the country, gripping the capital, Tirana, for two weeks. Although the government quelled revolts in the north, the government and military establishments began to scatter and anarchy swept across the country, the southern half of Albania falling under the control of rebels and criminal gangs.

Somalia

Before the Islamic Courts Union took control, large parts of southern Somalia were effectively functioning without a central government. However, an economic survey by the World Bank found that distribution of wealth in the country was more equitable, and the extent of extreme poverty was lower than that found in nominally more stable West African nations. According to the same paper, although southern Somalia was effectively operating without a federal government before the rise to prominence of the Islamic Courts Union, it was not an anarchist society in the sense that society was more or less chaotic than organized non-coercively.^[12] Despite this, a libertarian think tank reported that living standards in Somalia increased – in absolute terms, relative to the pre-Somali Civil War era, and relative to other nations in Africa – during this period.^[13] Economist Peter Leeson attributes the rather astounding increase in economic activity^[14] since the rise of statelessness to the security in life, liberty and property provided by Somali customary law — the Xeer — in most parts of Somalia, which insures for a relative free market.

The Transitional Federal Government, internationally recognized as the government of Somalia, is allied with the Islamic Courts Union and the Alliance for the Re-liberation of Somalia, and backed by the United Nations, the African Union and the United States. It is currently battling various insurgent groups to regain control of the southern half of the country and restore national institutions.

List of ungoverned communities

The Free Territory was a region where an attempt was made to form a stateless, anarchist society. Its approximated location (in red) was in part of the territory of modern Ukraine during the Ukrainian Revolution.

• Icelandic Commonwealth (930 - 1262, CE)
• Gaelic Ireland
• Libertatia (late 1600s)
• The Free Territory (January 1919 – August 1921)
• Shinmin Free Province (1929–1932)
• Anarchist Catalonia, Spain, (July 21, 1936 – June 14, 1937)
• Anarchist Aragon (October 6, 1936 – August 10, 1937)
• Freetown Christiania, Denmark, (September 26, 1971–2004)

Political philosophy

Anarchism

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Anarchism Portal Politics portal

Anarchists are those who advocate the absence of the state, arguing that common sense would allow people to come together in agreement to form a functional society allowing for the participants to freely develop their own sense of morality, ethics or principled behaviour. The rise of anarchism as a philosophical movement occurred in the mid 19th century, with its idea of freedom as being based upon political and economic self-rule. This occurred alongside the rise of the nation-state and large-scale industrial state capitalism or state-sponsored corporatism, and the political corruption that came with their successes.

Although anarchists share a rejection of the state, they differ about economic arrangements and possible rules that would prevail in a stateless society, ranging from no ownership, to complete common ownership, to supporters of private property and capitalist free market competition. For example, some forms of anarchism, such as that of anarcho-collectivism, anarcho-communism or anarcho-syndicalism not only seek rejection of the state, but also other systems which they perceive as authoritarian, which include capitalism, capitalist markets, and title-based property ownership. In opposition, a political philosophy known as free-market anarchism, contemporary individualist anarchism or anarcho-capitalism, argues that a society without a state is a free market capitalist system that is voluntarist in nature.

The word "anarchy" is often used by non-anarchists as a pejorative term, intended to connote a lack of control and a negatively chaotic environment. However, anarchists still argue that anarchy does not imply nihilism, anomie, or the total absence of rules, but rather an anti-statist society that is based on the spontaneous order of free individuals in autonomous communities.

Anthropology

Some anarchist anthropologists, such as David Graeber and Pierre Clastres, consider societies such as those of the Bushmen, Tiv and the Piaroa to be anarchies in the sense that they explicitly reject the idea of centralized political authority.^[15]

Some more recent anthropologists, such as Marshall Sahlins and Richard Borshay Lee, have repudiated the idea of hunter-gatherer societies being a source of scarcity and brutalization; describing them as "affluent societies".^[16]

The evolutionary psychologist Steven Pinker writes:

Adjudication by an armed authority appears to be the most effective violence-reduction technique ever invented. Though we debate whether tweaks in criminal policy, such as executing murderers versus locking them up for life, can reduce violence by a few percentage points, there can be no debate on the massive effects of having a criminal justice system as opposed to living in anarchy. The shockingly high homicide rates of pre-state societies, with 10 to 60 percent of the men dying at the hands of other men, provide one kind of evidence. Another is the emergence of a violent culture of honor in just about any corner of the world that is beyond the reach of law. ..The generalization that anarchy in the sense of a lack of government leads to anarchy in the sense of violent chaos may seem banal, but it is often over-looked in today's still-romantic climate.^[17]

Some authors, such as Montague David Eder, question this view of evolution, where humanity was able to reinvent itself in the last ten thousand years, to better fulfill its needs (see Myth of Progress).

Some Anarcho-primitivists believe that this concept is used to justify the values of modern industrial society and move individuals further from their natural necessities.^[18][19] John Zerzan has noted the existence of tribal societies with less violence than "advanced" societies.^[20] Zerzan and Theodore Kaczynski have talked about other forms of violence against the individual in advanced societies, generally expressed by the term "social anomie", that result from the system of monopolized security.^[21] These authors do not dismiss the fact that humanity is changing while adapting to its different social realities,^[22] but consider the situation anomalous. The two results are (1) that we either disappear or (2) become something very different from what we have come to value in our nature. It has been suggested that this shift towards civilization, through domestication, has caused an increase in diseases, labor, and psychological disorders.^[23][24][25] In contrast, Pierre Clastres maintains that violence in primitive societies is a natural way for each community to maintain its political independence, while dismissing the state as a natural outcome of the evolution of human societies.^[26]

See also

• Liberty
• Monopoly on violence
• Social order
• Voluntary association

References

External links

• Who Needs Government? Pirates, Collapsed States, and the Possibility of Anarchy, August 2007 issue of Cato Unbound focusing on Somali anarchy.
• "Historical Examples of Anarchy without Chaos", a list of essays hosted by Libertarian Nation.org.
• On the Steppes of Central Asia, by Matt Stone. Online version of book, hosted by Anarchism.net.
• Chrystal City Free online virtual simulation of anarchy.