Aidans' letter to Punk Johnny Cash

Friday night I received the following letter from one of our readers:

Im an anarchist…

I’ve just recently realized how wrong I was about things though…

I thought that when Obama came into office, real democracy would come into order…
Now i’m not so sure..
I can’t trust politicians, I can’t trust are hypocritical, bull!@#$ laws, and definitely cannot trust the police.

God, are country is one of ignorance… I’m personally, for liberalism, I think right now were STARTING to become a more liberal country….
Its good, but were still !@#$’ed at the moment… I personally don’t follow their laws, I follow mine, it just so happens that many of my rules agree with theirs. Basic one’s, like don’t kill, don’t steal, etc. but some don’t. I disagree with the illegalization of drugs highly, to the point were I would do them just to show my rebellion. Though Addiction would be something I would stay away from as hard as i could….

But I have a question… How exactly would a country with no laws work? It wouldn’t even be a country right? Im a little confused with this, could you shed some light?

- Aidan

Aidan, I am glad that you are seeking answers, and I can not say that you will ever stop finding them as you look. There is much to learn and much to discover that you may teach the anarchist community as a whole.The beauty of anarchism is that there is no one answer to your question. There are as many options as can be thought of. I am sure you would like some specifics though, so I will provide some for you. We must first realize that anarchism is not the collapse of society as many assume. It is the elimination of government. Government does many things that both business and communes would do which is provide services. The same services that are provided through government can be provided by other means. The difference between a government and other solutions is that a government focuses on maintaining monopolies of certain industries by coercive means. To obtain what I seek we must choose to embrace the non-aggression axiom. To embrace this we would see that most of the government functions as a criminal institution.

Would there be a country? There would be the land mass of North America, but no United States. If you define a country by the dictators that rule it then no, there would be no country. If you define it as the land mass or the culture that exists there then, yes there would be a country.

What we seek are competing voluntary systems. Some would take the form of smaller businesses or syndicates. Large corporations maintain their power because of the privileged they receive through the state, but some of those details can be looked deeper into with further readings and research of anarchist writers and theories. Some I tend to believe would be solved through socialist means and communist means. The difference between anarchism and the USSR or the US would be that these are now non-coercive so that these providers created or remaining from the state are now voluntary. This gives for options, it also leaves the systems that are defunct out to dry. People will migrate from broken systems to systems that work without a collapse of society. Unlike now if the systems collapse we are forced to suddenly find solutions. If a system is broken like a so-called justice system we are stuck with it and we have no alternative to turn to.  Holding to the non-aggression axiom as a fundamental ‘law’ or basis for society we have a basis for crime. I see the only crime in society being that which breaks the axiom. The axiom is:

that no man or group of men may aggress against the person or property of anyone else. This may be called the “nonagression axiom/” “Aggression” is defined as the initiation of the use or threat of physical violence against the person or property of anyone else. Aggression is therefore synonymous with invasion.

– Murray Rothbard

With this we have a basis to maintain safety and order essentially.  We move to ideas of dispute resolution organizations which tend to fit a more capitalist perspective, but the same structures could be held by syndicates or communes.  These are organizations that function for the few times that courts are truly needed for the resolution of disputes. This tends to look at restitution as an appropriate response to most crimes. As the state functions if your T.V. is stolen you often are just out of luck. In a DRO model your DRO would often be obliged to provide compensation which is the drive to find the perpetrator and seek the restitution from the theft from the individual responsible.  If there are injustices in this process or with the DRO we then move to the next one or next solution to find justice with the DRO that has acted unjustly and seek justice against they system that screwed you. This is not the case with a state that monopolizes such interactions. We finally have someone to turn to if that bully cop is pestering you or harassing you.

Many things in society are already in place that can alter with the elimination of the state. Many charities and non-profits focus on certain individual issues. They will not go away, but will be given more power in the areas with the absent of the state. Many that currently focus on lobbying politicians will find that they must turn resources away from feeding the greedy politicians and direct those resources directly to the problems, issues and individuals that exist. A state can never truly ‘fix’ a problem because it then eliminates the perceived need for the state, so a state just does enough to keep the problem slightly under control for it’s self justification and never creates a true solution.  Let us look at poverty as an example.

The state gives people just enough to barely survive. Many organizations exist that go further that function outside of the state. Look at places like Don Bosco or the catholic worker movement who help with meeting the needs of those that can not meet their needs.  By eliminating the state power and claim over wealth we begin to lift people out of poverty both by socialist means through syndicates and through capitalist means in freed markets. Look at the criminalization of the homeless. There are many abandoned buildings that sit in the city I live in. There is one huge one next door to me. These are often used as squats, but the state has criminalized this activity. A piece of paper is only a claim to property by the power and enforcement of the state. Through concepts of homesteading those without would be able to claim such properties and begin to build a better life for themselves.  Recently the police in Lawrence Kansas raided a commune of homeless that had emerged on ‘government owned land.’ If those individuals were able to continue to build their society we would be looking at the elimination of homelessness and the emergence of a communal system that was created voluntarily. one major key many conservatives may take issue with is that I believe community organizers will become more relevant to our society.

The basic concept that I hold to is that I oppose power over one another which is achieved by the breaking of the non-aggression axiom. This does not eliminate means of production and structures of society that can be found with freed markets, socialism, communism or mutualism. Some anarchists will look at capitalism as pure evil and some look at communism at pure evil. You can find your stance on that spectrum. I encourage independent thought on how you feel best suits society. In the free society we are working for I perceive all functioning side by side. We must remember to hold all the emerging systems accountable as we do the state under the axiom. They should not be exempt of the same scrutiny that we place the state under. This means we should challenge power held by corporations, gender, race, and class and hold them as equally accountable for their actions along the axiom.

I would like to address your belief in true democracy and the hope of Obama. I did not vote for Obama or McCain. I saw little difference. However, I did really like Obama. I watched the election on my computer and was thrilled to see the Republicans loose power. I was even more thrilled to see Obama win. I really liked him and secretly was rooting for him. He has done what I expected him to do. I still like him more than Bush, but this is the nature of the state. As for democracy, I can not condone it. It is majority rule. The problem with democracy is that the minority will be ruled by a majority. It is just another form of power over people, only a power that can oppress a minority like in Arizona. A voluntary democratic system that is on a smaller level may be less threatening, but I would be cautious of the statist rhetoric of the virtue of democracy.

What I have given here is brief and there is much more to learn, so I will suggest a few links for you to further your research and learning:

• The Center for a Stateless Society
• All-Left
• The Molinari Institute Has many writings from many Anarchists that will take a lifetime to read.
• The Agorism Wiki
• I strongly suggest this article on Anarchist Theory for a broad overview, it has many more helpful links.
• Many solutions can be found in the book Practical Anarchy available free online.

The one thing I want to leave you with is that Anarchism is not what many paint or perceive it to be. It is not Utopia and it is not Chaos. It is structuring society in a civilized manner free of force and coercion under voluntary means. Never avoid the problems that exist, even if the government has claimed to be the only solution, embrace them and confront those problems head on without the initiation of aggression for that is the way of the state. Do not become rigid like the state perspective of left and right on what solutions are available. If you have questions of other specifics someone has addressed them and in many cases they have been addressed by different opinions and solutions, so feel free to ask.

- Punk Johnny Cash