The topic of anarchism surfaced in an earlier thread. Dmitri and Hector introduced us to David Graeber. But let's go back a century or so for a bit of historical perspective. Herewith, a brief examination of Emma Goldman's definition of anarchism.
ANARCHISM: the philosophy of a new social order based on liberty unrestricted by man-made law; the theory that all forms of government rest on violence, and are therefore wrong and harmful, as well as unnecessary. ("Anarchism: What it Really Stands For" in Anarchism and Other Essays, Dover, 1969. p. 50. The Dover edition is a republication of the third revised edition originally published in 1917)
Goldman is advancing five claims, either explicitly or tacitly. By 'government' she means "the State." (p. 52) That's what I mean by it too. She does not mean a mutually beneficial form of social order that arises spontaneously and thus without coercion or authoritarian regulation. One could mean that by 'government.' The word is ambiguous as between those two meanings. (See Richard Sylvan, "Anarchism" in A Companion to Contemporary Political Philosophy, Blackwell 1993, pp. 216-217.)
I will now state and comment on five assertions I extract from the passage quoted:
1) Anarchism aspires to promotes the liberty of the individual.
So far, so good. I'm all in! Liberty is a very high value. "Give me liberty, or give me death!" (Patrick Henry)
2) Liberty is unrestricted by man-made law.
Our anarchist is telling us that liberty cannot exist under man-made law, that liberty and law are mutually exclusive. Here is where she begins to go off the rails. What she is saying would be true only in an ideal world, which is to say, a world that does not actually exist. In the world that actually exists, with human being as they actually are, (2) is false. It is blindingly evident that her ideal world does not exist, which is not to say that it cannot exist. But if her ideal world cannot exist, then her (2) is impossible. Now I cannot prove (demonstrate, conclusively establish) that her ideal world is impossible, but there is nothing in our past experience to show that it is possible. In fact, all of our past experience suggests the opposite.
I say that liberty, to be liberty, must be (i) attainable, and (ii) attainable for all. Attainable liberty is possible society-wide, or for all, only under man-made laws. This is because people inevitably come into conflict, for all sorts of reasons (scarcity of resources, innate bellicosity, etc.) and there can be no conflict resolution without laws. Now laws are laws only if they are enforceable and enforced. (The mere possibility of enforcement is insufficient.) There is therefore need for agents of enforcement. The practical necessity of the state follows from the need for agents of enforcement who will equitably enforce the laws.
3) All forms of government rest on violence.
This is in the vicinity of a truth, but one better expressed as follows: there cannot be government without coercion. What this means is that to countenance government is to countenance situations in which some people will be compelled to do things they don't want to do, and compelled to desist from doing things that they want to do. This coercion, without which there cannot be government (a state), will involve either violence or the credible threat of violence, violence which in many if not most cases will be physical, e.g., throwing a man to the ground and handcuffing him.
In sum: No attainable liberty for the greatest number without man-made (positive) laws that are both enforceable and enforced. No enforcement without enforcers. No enforcers without a state apparatus. No state apparatus without allowance of the possibility of coercion. No possibility of coercion without the credible threat of violence, which, given the stupidity, ignorance, selfishness, and bellicosity of human beings in the state of nature, will inevitable result in the actual use of violence against malefactors.
4) Governments, since they "rest on violence" are "wrong and harmful."
Goldman thinks they are "wrong and harmful" presumably because governments cannot exist without coercion, and thus cannot exist without the threat if not the execution of violence, where all violence, whether threatened or actual, is deemed morally wrong.
To my way of thinking, however, (4) is obviously false. While is is true that governments "rest on violence," the violence that they sometimes mete out is not "wrong and harmful," but right and helpful. The state is a 'necessary evil.' A necessary (needed) evil is not something evil, full stop, but something that it would be better not to need, but something we do need given the actual state of things. For example, a cancer treatment consisting of chemotherapy and radiation that partially destroys one's salivary glands and taste buds is a necessary evil. That partial destruction is evil, but it is necessary (needed) to prevent a worse evil, namely, death. A rational man, such as your humble correspondent, will in such a predicament choose to undergo the nasty protocol despite its being nasty. He is rational in the means-ends sense: he chooses means conducive to his end in view, namely, to live a few more years. This is all predicated upon the actual state of things which a rational man takes into account.
5) Government is unnecessary, which is to say, not needed for human flourishing.
This too is plainly false. It would be true if men were angels. But men are not angels. They are not demons either. They are beings capable of great good and of great evil. And some are better than others, both intellectually and morally (and in other ways too). And the same goes for governments: some are better than others, both in their form and in their matter (the people who wield power). Formally, the U.S. system of government is the best the mind of man has yet devised, but materially, the current regime, headed by Biden and Harris and their appointees and hidden puppet-masters is arguably the worst in the history of our great republic. But the times they are a'changin.
So we need the state. We need government, limited government. For we of the Coalition of the Sane and the Reasonable, who love liberty and hate tyranny, want only as much government as is necessary to secure ordered liberty, domestic tranquillity, and international peace. And note: we need government whether or not we can solve the problem of its moral justifiability. The state is practically necessary whether or not anyone can show on the theoretical plane that it is morally justifiable.
To understand the justifiability question, see my Substack articles on Robert Paul Wolff:
Notes on Anarchism I
Notes on Anarchism II
Notes on Anarchism III
Robert Paul Wolff on Anarchism and Marxism
