Anarchy for Conservatives

If you follow me around the internet you will know that my anti-government rhetoric is not received well by most conservatives.  It seems that every week I find myself caught up in explaining my stance to another conservative who in turn resorts to ad-hominem attacks, even here on the site.  They often only oppose the welfare programs and call themselves anti-government.  Many are blind to the government they defend. Maybe I was not completely clear on this before so I will attempt to be as clear as possible. I do not support any government at all. That’s right, the absence of government is what I am preaching. Not anti-democrat party rhetoric, not anti-capitalist rhetoric, not anti-socialism rhetoric but outright no government.

This is where the conservative says either: “People are evil and the lack of government is the presence of chaos” or they will say “I like the idea but it is a dream of utopia.”  And to both I say NO. This is not a belief in utopia, it is the acceptance of the flaws of humans. This also rejects the thought that utopia can be obtained. This means that I also do not buy any of the promises for Utopian futures made by politicians on the left and the right as the statist do. I know all are just fiction like any other fantasy world I can imagine. I simply accept that utopia will not be achieved even by killing or caging the people a state assumes prevents utopia. I am not preaching a crime free system. We have never seen that. I simply propose a system where criminals have committed actual criminal acts and not the abstract deviations of the legal norm.

Now to the charge of chaos. I realize that government is not the answer to all the problems of the world. I also admit that anarchism provides no answer. Anarchism is to embrace the reality of the unethical nature of governments. Governments are simply companies who function with coercive means by demanding what they want by threat of force through  military or police forces. I choose to look to structure society in ways outside of government. This is not chaos, this is where most conservatives see the complete hypocrisy of what they preach in my belief.

The conservatives screamed about Health Care saying it was evil socialism. This is just an example of a government assuming power over an industry and maintaining a monopoly with force. The fact is that government has maintained those same coercive monopolies over many industries such as defense. The conservatives are fine with socializing the violence just not the welfare programs.   Some go as far as promoting government power over migration.  I challenge this in that we should have a free market in everything. Any service that is needed from Armies or Police would naturally present opportunity on a free market.  If the conservative truly believes that services are provided better in a free market for a lower price as opposed to state socialism; then why would they ever want their government to socialize violence, force and their safety? This is the true hypocrisy of the American Right. They will seldom stand for Free Markets and will favor many functions they claim the state has a right to socialize. It is often just the ones they feel they will not benefit from like welfare programs that they oppose.

The conservative often becomes confused at this point and starts pointing to the state’s excuse for it’s own existence. The fear mongering comes in and many will preach the need for Police and Military monopolies to be coercively maintained. The conservative often attacks me with some stance that says that people will be killing me and that I am foolish while completely missing the point of all this. Yes! I know people like you exist that focus on hurting others and initiating fights and wars they are often called conservatives (Bush).  I have not claimed I want a world where I would have no defense or safety.  I have simply stated that it should be done on a free market and voluntarily not through coercion.  We must look at concepts of Dispute Resolution Organizations, and such functions being handled as businesses or through voluntary syndicates. If one holds a free market belief then I fail to see how it would be negative to put our safety in the hands of a free market. The conservatives tried to take this stance on health care, but the fact is that they will often find they only use the term “free market” when it suits their stance.  If they truly embraced a ‘free market’ we would have an anarchist party not a conservative party. If we receive a better product on a free market with further advancements then why would our safety be something we would want to keep out of the free market? That seems like the most dangerous thing one could do if the free market truly renders better services than the states’ socialism or the states’ corporatist monopoly.

Much of this is over simplification, and I would strongly suggest looking into further readings on free markets and market anarchism:

The Ludwig VonMises Institute
The Molinari Institute
Agorism