In discussion and debate, I have come to the conclusion that “anarchist” is a terrible label to use to describe the position pointing out the inefficiency/unnecessaryness/immorality of ideologically monopolized institutions of proactive physical coercion (de facto “states”).
-
To most adherents, it means collectivism.
-
To most people, it means chaos and lawlessness.
-
To serious academics, it means pseudo-intellectuals.
-
To most businessmen, it means juveniles and delinquents.
-
To most leaders, it means the overthrow of peace and stability.
-
To society, it means a marginal subculture of punks and social rejects.
-
To America, it means terrorism, aggression, and the only political movement that ever murdered the president.
-
To history, it means a confused set of philosophies advanced largely by communists, pacifists, utopians, objectivist moralizers, and dilettantes.
“The term anarchist is mostly used to mean someone who believes that if the state and law are gotten rid of, all property would become collectively owned.”
- Lew Rockwell
“If I were the only “anarchist,” I would be very happy to wear the title. What embarrasses me about it is the few other “anarchists” - many of them are crazy - and I don’t feel like being identified with them.”
- Anthony de Jasay
“We must therefore turn to history for enlightenment; here we find that none of the proclaimed anarchist groups correspond to the libertarian position, that even the best of them have unrealistic and socialistic elements in their doctrines. Furthermore, we find that all of the current anarchists are irrational collectivists, and therefore at opposite poles from our position. We must therefore conclude that we are not anarchists, and that those who call us anarchists are not on firm etymological ground, and are being completely unhistorical.”
So I implore those intelligent among you who understand economics and science to abandon the word. It is a loaded term with enormous baggage. It is a liability. It distracts from the substance of the position. Why associate yourself with violence and chaos and communists and murderers and social rejects when you don’t have to?
Keep in mind, there is no ‘ultimate objective meaning’ of any word - language is dynamic. If most people think “anarchy” means chaos, it effectively does mean chaos. You and I use it to mean statelessness, but the question is whether it makes sense to use a word that the vast majority of people associate with chaos/violence/collectivism to mean statelessness? It hinders communication and you then end up arguing with collectivist “anarchists” about some stupid word, instead of ideas.
Additionally, while the word anarchism itself obvious has enormous historical baggage and cultural stigma above and beyond its serious substance, much of the substance of the movement of “anarchism” is collectivist or utopian piffle. And, I would argue that serious libertarians need to do less talking about how ‘taxes are theft’ or how evil governments are. It’s a very negative framework. Emergence is a positive framework - it’s not saying “smash the state” or “kill capitalism” or “governments are evil,” it’s saying “here’s how human order flourishes.. and by the way the traditional state may not be necessary and in fact is counterproductive.”
Now, some point out that intelligent anarchists can build relationships and then personally communicate the most intelligent case for anti-statism. Unfortunately, building relationships with people is slow and limited compared to other means of spreading ideas - academia, media, press, blogs, books, casual conversation, aesthetics, fashionability, memes, etc. Using the word “anarchy” will turn the vast majority of people off automatically (for good reason - anarchy does mean chaos and historically many “anarchists” were violent collectivists, terrorists, and juveniles).
Finally, there are a few more problems I’ve found with the term “anarchism.” First, if you use it, you inevitably end up arguing about the word with that majority of people who claim it for themselves (juveniles, collectivists). Secondly, once someone starts calling themselves “anarchist,” they tend to look to the works of traditional “anarchists” as authoritative. This is a problem (A) because you then end up arguing about what certain dead people would think about a certain issue instead of thinking yourself about issues via current science and (B) because virtually all of the traditional “anarchists” were - as Rothbard points out - irrational collectivists or at least unrealistic or socialistic.
I’ve seen a few people become “anarchists” because they thought the state was unnecessary, then they read traditional “anarchists” like Proudhon, Tucker, Goldman, Bakunin, etc. and because they take them as authoritative they then adopt stupid ideas (usually because they confuse old terminology with modern definitions) and some even become the “irrational collectivists” that most self identified “anarchists” have been.
This all makes communicating the intelligent, intellectual, scientific case against statism much more difficult and is part of the reason why the intelligent anti-statist movement has gone largely nowhere for the last 30 years. These are good ideas, dammit, I want them to spread.
So if and when the term “anarchist” comes up, I’m going to accurately point out that I’m not one of them.
Alternative terms:
post-statist
libertarian
abolitionist
voluntaryist
voluntarist
panarchist
polyarchist
personarchist
individualist
humanitarian consequentialist
pluralist
free marketeer
emergentist
classical liberal
realist
free market capitalist
ie. actually social socialist
humanist
apolitical
post-political
anti-statist
