Willful, Yet Necessary
on the evils of governance
In my heart I am and always will be an anarchist.
Yet in my real world politics and in the policies I support I am a statist. A reluctant, cautious one, but a statist nevertheless.
To some – indeed, to many – this would be a matter of contradiction and hypocrisy. However, I would – and will – argue that it's really a matter of maturity and necessity. Principles and ideals are one thing. The way they interact with the physical reality is another. Just because something is theoretically true and supported by hard logic does not mean that it may be implemented, because the material world does not care about our ideals. The very biological nature of animals does not care about those.
[ THE ESSENCE ]
Let's be perfectly clear about this. Political systems and social structures are downstream from biology – from the nature of the beast in question. Ants and bees have certain systems and structures that cannot be re-engineered without re-engineering the species themselves. It's just how they are. The same is the case for canines or equines. They cannot be trained, educated or manipulated into different social structures – only forced into them by violence or selectively bred until those patterns are altered. Canines will have packs, equines will have herds, snakes will be asocial individualists, and humans... humans will have tribes. That's what lies in our biology.
Granted, there is a great deal of variance in humans compared to the other species. Virtually none of us are perfect individualists and it's most certain that not a single human in existence is or ever has been a perfect collectivist without any sense of ego. Generally we fall somewhere on the spectrum between those two points – and yes, the differences can be quite extreme, both between various ethnic groups and within them. Some are on average deeply liberal in their nature and attempt to spread liberalism everywhere they go. Others have always – for all of recorded history – lived in authoritarian societies and do so to this very day, also attempting to spread them wherever they go, because such is their nature.
It may seem as though I am attempting to make a certain specific point there about different systems for different people, but I am actually not. That would indeed be tribalism. Mankind shattering into thousands of tiny societies of similar-enough individuals, who wish to do things in a similar way. And that is no utopia. History has seen such periods and they were full of war, bloodshed and atrocities, because disparate tribes don't coexist well. We can see that even today – tribal societies, such as in Afghanistan, are not stable or harmonious. They are characterized by constant internal conflict. Never in the history of Mankind has there ever been a prosperous, peaceful land, where dozens and dozens of wildly different tribes lived next to each other without any uniting authority over them.
That is the harsh truth of the matter and that is the actual point I am trying to raise. Regardless of what the specific politics of a human tribe are – whether they be deeply libertarian or secular fascist / socialist or hardcore theocratic or enlightened monarchist – the one common feature is that the humans themselves are still at their core violent, tribal primates. And they are prone to act as such. We are prone to act as such. That is the actual problem with anarchism.
No, it's not "who will build the roads" or "who will police the streets" or "who will take care of the poor" or "who will provide healthcare" – those are all the most trivial, surface-level objections. I won't even address them in detail, because they are genuinely that irrelevant and many others have talked at length about them before me. It doesn't matter. If there is no central government, there will be roads and there will be medicine – they may not operate the way they do now, but they will exist. To be exact, they would likely get much more polarized, with extremely high quality toll-roads in high traffic areas and badly maintained dirt roads in rural areas. And the same general pattern with medicine and other things.
However, what most certainly would not exist without centralized governments presiding over large territories, would be lasting social and political stability. That's the one unique thing they genuinely do bring to the table, and it's undeniable. Within the Roman empire there was a relative peace and stability, which did not exist prior to all the disparate nations being conquered and integrated into the same system. And such is the case with most empires, which is precisely why they always find so many staunch supporters. Empires do bring stability, which is absent in fractured, tribal societies. That is, indeed, why for all of recorded history the tendency of civilized humans has been towards larger and larger empires. For all of their faults and deficiencies, they have provided something superior to that, which had come before them.
Any anarchist, would would seriously attempt to deny that, is completely and utterly delusional. There's no other way to put that. This isn't a black and white issue, empires aren't just some malevolent monstrosities, who make everything worse for the common person. Despite the things they take, there's a lot they provide as well – at least in the magnitude of importance. Yes, things like economic prosperity are the products of the private sector, however only the most rabid ideologue would deny that the private sector is only able to function in such a way due to the relative geopolitical stability created by the empire. In other words, yes, the actual fruits of prosperity are all provided by private people and organizations, but the fertile ground is provided and protected by the empire. Because if you have a near-constant tribal warfare over resources, then they may never be utilized efficiently and to their full potential. Just as there may never be a true free trade and movement of people, if the land is divided into countless tiny mutually belligerent domains.
To deny that would indeed be to deny reality itself. A matter of pure ideology detached from anything tangible.
[ THE IDEALS ]
With that said, however, let there be no mistake. In the matter of logic, principles and morality, the anarchist is absolutely correct and will always be correct. In terms of timeless ideals, there is nothing more moral than purely voluntary interactions. Or rather, to be exact, the only truly moral interactions are those, which are totally voluntary. Everything else is shades and degrees of immorality.
This isn't by some foreign, alien standards, but by the very standards and values of our Western civilization. If you take those values to their ultimate logical conclusion, you end up with anarchism and it cannot be any other way. That is to say, the final end-product of individual rights as the center-piece of morality is always – without exceptions - anarchism. If the individual with his will is sacred and inviolable, then no state can ever be a moral entity, because all states by definition use the force of violence to compel their subjects.
Once again, as with the question of animals, it comes down to the fact, that at the core of our civilizational worldview lies a constant pursuit of both logical consistency and individual rights as a deeply held value. We see theft as evil because it's not consensual – the individual has the right to his property and someone else taking it by force against his will is immoral in our eyes. And if you take this dynamic to its logical conclusion you must invariably arrive at the position that taxation itself is a form of theft, because it is the government taking resources from others by force.
It doesn't matter than the government then uses a part of that money to provide services to those, who are being taxed. If a robber takes $1000 from you at gunpoint, then adds $200 of his own on top, buys something that is worth $1200, and gives it to you... it's still an act of theft. It's still criminal, because you were robbed. You had property taken from you against your will and used in a way you didn't consent to.
And so it is with all aspects of governance. For someone, who genuinely values individual rights and moral consistency - and is intellectually brave enough to think clearly and pursue logic and truth regardless of where it leads – the only moral society is ever going to be one, which engages in no forceful compulsion towards those, who do not forcefully compel others themselves. A society, where those, who mind their own business, are left entirely alone by everyone else. A society, where "freedom" isn't just an empty phrase, but everyone's lived reality. Which is, by definition, anarchism.
Whether they admit it or not, this is the ultimate highest ideal of all Westerners, who hold classical Western values. They may claim they just want a liberal democracy or a classical liberal "nightwatchman state", however that is their realism, conditioning, ignorance or a combination thereof speaking – not their deepest convictions or desires. You may notice that when they argue against anarchism, it's never, NEVER from the position of it being intrinsically immoral by its philosophical nature. They always cite practical concerns and nothing else. Because ideologically and morally, they love anarchy as a concept. They merely believe that it's utopian and impossible to implement. And that should be quite revealing.
Regardless of what people say or believe, we actually do have the ideal of perfect individual freedom – that is to say, of anarchy - as a common underlying value. It's what we aspire towards one way or another, even if we don't believe that the ideal itself may ever be reached. Westerners don't believe that the absence of government is evil, they just think it's outlandish and can never possibly work in practice. And because regular people aren't intellectuals and don't spend a great deal of time thinking about these matters, they simply don't realize that at their core their values are aligned with anarchism. They would recoil if you suggest it to them, but that doesn't make it any less true.
In every liberal individualist - who values freedom and peaceful, voluntary interactions above all else - there lies an anarchist, for that is the final destination of that particular train of reasoning. It doesn't matter if you try to slow it down or prevent it from moving – that's where it wants to go, because that is where the underlying logic points and will forever keep pointing.
There will never be a time, when anarchism isn't the highest moral ideal. And yet...
...as is often the case, the nature of the human animal and of its environments and circumstances end up getting in the way of that ideal.
[ THE REALITY ]
Given the current physical reality of human life even in the first world - let alone everywhere else - genuine anarchism is quite literally impossible to implement. Not only that, but all attempts at implementing it are bound to only wreak havoc on the society in question, and to pave way for a totalitarian regime in the wake of their failure. This is not because of "roads" or "infrastructure" or "healthcare" – all of these are very surmountable issues.
What is completely and utterly insurmountable, however, are the twin siblings of eternal war – tribalism and power vacuum. Let there be no ambiguity here. For as long as there is even a single would-be warlord in the population and a small fraction of people willing to follow him, there cannot be a sustained power vacuum. It will ALWAYS be filled by a state structure of some description. There's simply no other way. A genuine power vacuum attracts the worst elements of any population the way blood attracts piranhas. The moment they see an opportunity to assert themselves over others and to take control over their lives, they will fight tooth and nail to secure that position for themselves.
That is the truth of life. For as long as mankind produces individuals, who desire to be tyrants lording over others instead of merely minding their own business, a stateless society on any appreciable scale will be simply impossible to sustain, especially when combined with the other hard-coded human characteristic... tribalism.
Because when it's not individual warlords trying to seize power for themselves and for their children and companions, it's actually entire tribes attempting to fill that power vacuum and to rule over other tribes. Sometimes even to exterminate or enslave those tribes, whom they dislike the most. Everything is ultimately tribal. Our politics, our culture, our sports and hobbies, everything down to which car manufacturer people prefer.
Yes, there are those among us, who deliberately struggle against this phenomenon and try to build bridges instead of stoking the perpetually smouldering flames of conflict, but the underlying pattern cannot be denied. Examine our social landscape and you will see countless mutually belligerent tribes. Whether it be progressives and conservatives, or different ethnic groups that dislike each other, or theists and anti-theists, or different competing religions and cults, or even the fans of rival football clubs. People are willing to get into brawls over something as utterly petty and inane as sports... and you're going to tell me that you can make anarchism work?
No, the way humans currently are makes it impossible. Unless human nature changes dramatically – whether through natural breeding patterns, through intentional selective breeding or through genetic engineering – this will remain just a distant ideal that cannot be captured. Because social order is always downstream from the biology of the animal in question, and our species is rife with tendencies both tyrannical and tribal.
Therefore, the only option is to essentially fight fire with fire. All rulers are tyrants, but tyrants most certainly aren't made equal, nor are the systems, within which they have to operate. Thus the greatest amount of peace and prosperity can be attained by having the correct kind of tyrant in charge in order to ward off the others, both from within and from without. The core purpose of the state is to provide order and security, everything else is just a bloating and corruption of the system.
The "ideal state" – if a state can ever be called "ideal" – is essentially a benevolent vampire, who protects the human population from other vampires and different kinds of monsters in exchange for a blood-tax. You may hate him for forcefully taking transfusions from you every year, but if you depose him and leave the throne vacant, your land will turn into a warzone, where all the monsters fight each other for dominance. And in the end, chances are that someone much worse will take control.
By the same token, it's simply not possible to rule without being a vampire. Whether you are one at the point of your ascension to the throne or not, the position itself will invariably turn you into a vampire. Governance is a matter of necessary evils and you shall never be able to govern whilst trying to remain pure. That is why all the idealistic revolutionaries always fail to implement their visions and become that, which they once so despised. To rule in good faith is to commit evils in order to prevent greater evils. It is to temperately partake in evil in order to prevent those, who would shamelessly indulge in it, from seizing control over society. That's the absolute best a ruler can do and it only gets worse from there.
Which is indeed why many choose to simply hate all governance... not realizing that by toppling the soft tyrants and leaving the throne vacant they are inviting the worst, most depraved monsters to claim it.
Yes, all governments are indeed immoral to one degree or another. They all commit evils on a daily basis as a fact of their operation. Not only that, but the individuals drawn to those positions of power are usually compelled by their own selfish desires – that is to say, the evils they commit are at least to some extent willful and only presented to the subjects as noble causes. And yet, despite all of that, we would all realistically be worse off without that system. Because for all of its ugliness it does create some semblance of stability and unity, which is the fertile ground necessary for the private sector to produce prosperity.
I want to be perfectly honest about my own ideological allegiance: I am ultimately religious at heart and I do believe that eventually, perhaps several millennia in the future, Mankind will usher in the Kingdom of Heaven. The empire of the vacant throne, where only the Divine is the king and all individuals peacefully follow His guidance of their own accord, interacting with each other on a strictly voluntary basis. I do believe that this is possible and governance may become wholly unnecessary one day. And I don't care whether you see it the same way or don't – my point is that despite my views, I recognize that this vision cannot be implemented at the current point in history or anywhere in the near future. If this will ever happen, it is still far, far away.
And for the time being, we have no other options but to make do with what we have. Trying to abolish governments now is like trying to abolish slavery in the Roman times, the labour of horses in the medieval times, or the steam engine during the industrial revolution. It cannot be forced. But when the time comes, it will happen whether anyone likes it or not. Just as we don't rely on human or animal slave labour today, and don't shovel coal into boilers to power everything, we shall one day stop governing each other.
But until then, this is one of the burdens we have to bear. A truly necessary evil.
