Mischaracterizations of Anarchism

Recent news of Michael Badnarik's heart attack prompted both my best wishes for his speedy and complete recovery and some musings about common misperceptions about anarchism.

In a debate at Drexel University with Stefan Molyneux (I prefer the audio recording over the video, just cause the audio records more of the debate), Badnarik defended the existence of a minimal state on the grounds that we need recourse to defend ourselves and our property rights, among a few other things. He seemed to argue that without government there wouldn't be any shared notion of legitimate force or property or any social life whatsoever. Part of this is a misunderstanding of government, and some of it could have been that he was using the wrong words; but a lot of it is due to a misperception of anarchism that anarchists themselves are not guiltless in propagating. Below I'll go through some mischaracterizations that I hear almost every time I see someone react to anarchist ideas.

1. That anarchism demands everyone be hermits. No, anarchism does not demand that everyone wander off into the hills, build their own shacks, grow their own potatoes, and interact with other humans only for the purpose of procreating. Granted, some anarchists do that. And a few actually have espoused ideas similar to that. Some might have said we shouldn't even procreate. But as a set of political ideas, anarchism demands only that humans interact without violating each other's sovereignty; it does not condemn interaction outright. And if you think about it, anarchism is really pro-interaction. It condemns any threat or use of violence that prevents people from peacefully interacting with each other.

2. That anarchism demands non-resistance. It is true that if you are an all-out pacifist who believes that any force is morally reprehensible, then you have to be an anarchist. But anarchism as a set of political ideas does not condemn all force outright. What it condemns outright is the initiation of force, threat, or fraud. The anarchist's dogma is individual sovereignty (or at least, this is the individualist anarchist's dogma). Since you are entitled to remain whole against the intrusions of others onto your person and justly-acquired property, you have the right to use discriminate and proportionate force to maintain your control over what is yours. Granted, anarchists would condemn just about every modern war they could think of, and maybe every ancient war too, since almost every war involves the death and deprivation of noncombatants. But this is a far cry from "Thou shalt and may only persuade the rapist to stop raping thy daughter, and thou art a criminal if thou offend the dignity of the rapist by intervening in any way more physical than persuasion or distraction." This misunderstanding isn't helped much by the fact that many anti-war people who aren't practitioners of non-resistance still call themselves pacifists.

3. That anarchism means homemade bombs. This is a funny one, because libertarian anarchism can justify some acts that fit the dictionary definition of terrorism (and while we're on the dictionary definition, what is government but the organized use or threat of force against persons or their property to compel those persons or others to adhere to some politcal agenda?). You have the right to destroy the property of someone who actively aggresses against the property of others. The mere fact that the government bans it and calls it "terrorism" is irrelevant to whether you have a right to do it. And you have the right to kill people who are actively murdering others, or are presently making a living by murdering others. The mere fact that the government will most surely send you (or someone it confuses for you) to the gurney is irrelevant to whether you have the right to do it. I myself think that any violence that the establishment can put a spin on is very unwise, since it gives anarchism a bad name and provokes a retaliation that would further restrict liberty. But besides terrorism's imprudence, a lot of anarchist terrorism actually was illegitimate by libertarian anarchist standards. Some of Ted Kaczynski's projects caused the deaths of people who were flat out innocent, and it's very hard for me to imagine why Garfield deserved to die. If we look at anarchism as a set of ideas that demand the complete liberty of every individual over his or her own body and his or her own affairs, then a lot of "propaganda by the deed" doesn't even deserve to be called anarchist. It should instead be branded as the authoritarianism that it is.

4. That anarchism is anti-family. Well, it depends on what you call "family". If by "family" you mean a father's supposed right to beat his kids, lie to them to impel subservience, mutilate their bodies without their say-so, lock them in their rooms, and hunt them down and drag them back when they run away with express intent to not be under such authority, then yes - anarchism is very anti-family. But if by "family" you mean a father's right to pull his kid away from a hot stove, then no. Anarchists have a wide range of opinion on this, but those anarchists who have their ideological feet on the ground recognize that a parent has the right to restrict his or her very young child's movement in order to protect that kid from immanent harm. Parental authority becomes purely contractual, though, once the kid gets old enough to make his or her own decisions. What age that is is where all the disagreement happens.

5. That anarchism means debauchery. True, there are some anarchists that fervently exercise their right to wallow in their own vomit. But none of them would consider it an enforceable duty (unless, maybe, wallowing in one's own vomit were the prescribed restitution for some criminal wrongdoing, in which case I would still deny that it's enforceable). Most of the anarchists whose material I've viewed online (which I confess are overwhelmingly individualist anarchists) embrace some kind of egoist personal morality, where they abstain from any act they perceive to go against their rational self-interest. That would include unsupervised binge drinking, other kinds of substance abuse, unprotected sex, some other kinds of sexual promiscuity, and basically anything else that would likely have undesireable consequences. But that's a personal morality - it's about what you should and shouldn't do to yourself. It isn't about what you should and shouldn't do to others, which is primarily what anarchism is concerned with. All that anarchism demands regarding debauchery is that you let those enjoying it to continue enjoying it, and that you not force it onto those who don't want to partake. Whether you yourself should partake is an issue that anarchism as a set of political ideas just doesn't address.

6. That anarchism demands total chaos. Only if you march in the streets with revolutionary Marxists. Do read 1 and 3 again.

7. That anarchism is anti-religion. I am one of the few anarchists who readily admits that anarchism is a religion. It has its own scriptures, liturgy, prophets, and saints. Like any other religion, it has schisms between denominations. And like any other religion, it upholds a set of ideas which it supposes to be the Fundamentals on which everything else in that sphere must stand (yes, anarchists are fundamentalist libertarians). Saying that anarchism is anti-religion is like saying that apple pie is un-American. And there's no reason anarchists can't be bi-sect-ual. There are numerous Christian anarchists, there are some Buddhist anarchists, some anarchists find inspiration in the Tao Te Ching, a denomination of Hinduism was propagated in America by an anarchist missionary, there's at least one Muslim anarchist, the list could go on. So no - anarchism is not, never was, never will be, and cannot possibly be anti-religion. A noticeable number of anarchists, though, display anti-God sentiments which can be connected to their anti-authoritarian views. And there's nothing anti-religion about that.