Saturday, October 02, 2010

Anarkitties don't come when you call them

"if confusing free markets with corporate capitalism isn’t grounds to disqualify anti-market anarchists (who often seem to commit the same error in the opposite direction), why should it be grounds to disqualify vulgar-libbers?" - Roderick Long, in this tasty little morsel: [link]
Which is the thing right there. Now this "error" does lead to some anarchists, both "socialistic" and "capitalistic", so called, to advocate a very state-like "non-state". My argument is, whether or not that is their goal, they cannot accomplish that because it would be like herding cats. Once a critical mass of people become anarchists, you can't re-establish totalitarianism because they won't let you, by definition. It's just un-possible. Or to put it another way, if people are susceptible to totalitarianism, they can't get out of the state to begin with.
The people who are anarchistic are the type that Solzhenitsyn wrote of "What would things have been like if every Security operative, when he went out at night to make an arrest, had been uncertain whether he would return alive and had to say goodbye to his family?"
They are also the type that will operate agoristically. In other words, they will simply leave an economic situation that's unsuitable, and form their own collectives, independent shops etc. You can't trap them inside of a wage labor situation or inside a particular syndicate.
If you're not an anarchist a lot of this won't make sense. Because you believe that states are more efficient and more functional than free communities. But if you are an anarchist you know the opposite. So even if someone tries to set up a "pocket state" in a larger society which is anarchistic, it simply won't succeed.
It took thousands of years to establish the current pattern of ownership in which a small elite has dominion over every piece of land on earth. Once that ownership is nullified, and people are free, how easily do you think you can re-establish that? Once you cut down the fence, how do you get the cats back on the ranch?
I don't think it's possible, because the very elements that allow anarchy to exist in the first place, will continuously nourish and sustain it.