But How Will It Work?

Submitted by Bill St. Clair on Thu, 13 Sep 2007 09:41:22 GMT  <== Politics ==> 

I've been remiss in keeping up with Larken Rose's posts to the TMDS list (The Most Dangerous Superstition: the belief in imposed authority). Here are the essays since I last updated:

31 Aug 2007: Hooray For Our Side!
31 Aug 2007: Just How Stupid Are We?
01 Sep 2007: Thought Control For Sale
08 Sep 2007: Message from Tessa
11 Sep 2007: There Have To Be Rules!
12 Sep 2007: From Tessa (2 of 2)
13 Sep 2007: But How Will it Work?

From the last one:

When faced with the suggestion of society without an authoritarian command structure (i.e., "government"), most people--having been indoctrinated into the bogus idea that obedience to authority prevents mass chaos, mayhem, death and destruction--instinctively react by asking how things will work without "government."

The reason I rarely address that question is quite simple: because it is logically 100% irrelevant to WHY I believe in a stateless society. Most anarchists I've heard reached their beliefs by deciding that society would work better without a ruling class. That is NOT how I got here. I ended up where I am by realizing that "government" is NEVER legitimate; it cannot have the right to rule me, any more than my neighbor has the right to rule me. It's "authority" is completely mythical, and the idea that anyone has a moral obligation to obey its "laws" is nothing but an irrational superstition.

...

There's another reason why I don't usually bother with such discussions. In the authoritarian mindset, there are constantly top-down, micro-managed, legislated "solutions" to all kinds of things. They rarely if ever WORK, but at least an authoritarian can say, "Here is the plan I want to impose on all of you!" An anarchist, by definition, can do nothing of the sort. If you ask me how some aspect of society will work without "government," I could GUESS, or I could make SUGGESTIONS, but I couldn't say "Here is the solution which will be imposed under my system." Why? Because there would BE no "system" of centralized control. Ironically, lots of people ask me questions which begin with, "Under your system, how would...?" I'm not suggesting a system. I'm not running for the position of Emperor of Anarchy. I'm suggesting we rid ourselves of an insane, horribly destructive delusion. That's all. I have no new and improved delusion to replace it with. How people will deal with life without the delusion is up to six billion individuals to decide. No one, including me, will be imposing any system on them, and I highly doubt they're all going to come to ME to ask how to do everything. (I hope they don't, because I have neither the desire, nor the ability, to figure out how to make all of society work.)

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