What I Mean When I Say Anarchy

There was a time when like you I thought Anarchy was a concept held by morons, who drew funny looking 'A's on buildings in sharpies and really just enjoyed a masochistic obsession with being beat up by cops at protests.

Like you I would scoff and guffaw at jokes about 'I was talking to this Anarchist and I asked him if I could purchase some video footage he had captured at a demonstration and he said to me "I'll have to run that by the treasurer" an Anarchist with a treasurer.'

But now I think I was wrong, you are wrong and Anarchy is actually a pretty good idea. When I say Anarchy I mean something along the lines of Abraham Lincoln when he says "What I do say is that no man is good enough to govern another man without that other's consent." or what I mean is what Republicans don't mean when they talk about 'Small Government'.

I believe (but could well be wrong) that its a fallacy to believe that Anarchy is an absence of any form of organisation. I just believe that it is an absence of in-groups and thus by the laws of symmetry an absence of out-groups.

It is for me the observation that I would never shoot my Japanese friends in the face (or back) to protect the interests of a stranger Australian. It is for me the observation that the loss of an Australian's Job that lives up to his eyeballs in debt in a suburban home with Plasma Screen TV's and Playstation 3's solicits no real sympathy in the light that the function he used to perform is now performed more efficiently by someone in another country that for the first time can eat his daily calorie requirement (as opposed to 3 times his recommended intake).

That said, jobs going offshore happens for a reason, and that is to minimise the wage overheads of same said Australian shareholders. To increase profits and set their transfer prices to minimise tax obligations. So I'm not necessarily for 'Globalisation' as such, given it tends to degrade the achievements of the Labor movement.

I simply mean by Anarchy that you achieve 'governance by consent' by removing all the barriers to 'in' and 'out' groups.

'But isn't that democracy tohm?'

Democracy often is dubbed 'governance by the people' but the terms 'the people' are often loosely defined. What you have is a gang in essence that has laid claim to a piece of territory. That gang defines membership, often in the banal and innocuous form of citizenship. Then after that you pick and choose how the gang is governed, hence you can have multiple levels, gangs within gangs but in essence you always have the interests of your members over those of your non-members.

So whilst democracy can (and often isn't) good as a way to resolve issues that concern in entirety the members of the Gang, it is more often than not terrible when it comes to issues that are larger in impact than the members of the Gang.

For example, if Australian Citizens were truly interested in maximising the welfare not only of itself but its neighbours, why not allow parliamentary representation from New Zealand and Indonesia to vote on issues concerning foreign affairs? Particularly issues concerning them, like for example tariffs and subsidies? Invading Iraq? etc. etc.

Or alternatively imagine if in Australia you could elect a local representative to go to the New Zealand parliament to represent your district, even though New Zealand is out of the legal jurisdiction of the Australian territory.

Chances are the issues your local representative would campaign on, would probably not be the issues regarding what the legal driving age should be in Auckland, but rather issues concerning immigration, trade, the environment etc. There would probably be little to no impact rolling out parliamentary representation between New Zealand and Australia (New Zealand would probably just become more conservative) but consider the differences of pacific nations if they had seats in Parliament to vote on the ETS.

For one they probably wouldn't give a shit about the plight of Farmers in Queenslands heartland when their 2020 forecasts have them up to their ankles in seawater. The stance on 'boatpeople' would probably be a lot more sympathetic (and factual) when they are quickly becoming candidates for the worlds first ever environmental refugees.

Consider that if every state of every country in the world had its own senator and congressman in Washington, the Republican party would simply not exist (however there would be some conservative god-fearing party, it just wouldn't be so damn nationalistic).

There! Its really easy to see how things would be better or much improved if the World got to vote on US foreign policy, but it always seems hard to project the same principle on your own back yard.

Perhaps one of the best demonstrations of 'in-group/out-group' policy is the fallout from the Mexican v United States war, where in signing the treaty Mexico gave up almost half of its land. Texas, California, Nevada, Utah and parts of New Mexico, Colorado, Arizona and Wyoming. Once these lands where in U.S. Hands they got looked after like U.S. Citizens (presumably the mexican inhabitants were largely pushed back into what remains of (and constitutes present day) Mexico.

If the U.S. Had pushed on and subjugated ALL of Mexico, Mexico would simply be part of 'the South' today, it would be that much harder for a Democrat to get in the white house, and 'Mexicans' would have much, much, much better living standards than they have today, (albeit there probably would have been teething problems long before that). Furthermore the rest of the U.S. would have been changed by extending its membership to Mexico. The Democrats to survive would likely had to have attempted to annex Canada (again) but actually succeed.

Right or wrong of annexation doesn't concern me, so much as illustarting that gangs look after their members. Democracy's only real advantage over tyrany is the scale of the gang, if you took say, China, you would find an 'in-group' being 'the party' that looks after the interests of its own members and widely disregards the interests of the out-group 'the people' except where their welfare gets addressed as a byproduct of in-group interests (i.e. not being killed by the worlds largest mob) or in preference to the outer-group (relative to the out-group) being non Han Chinese or the outer-most group being non-Chinese.

But the outermost group is no more disregarded in consideration than any democracies outer-group which is non-Australians, non-Americans, non-British, non-English etc.

Of course rolling out parliamentary representation to every region of the world is kind of harder than just rolling down the boarders over time. And easier yet again is just adopting a moral universalism, that is to say, treating others as we expect to be treated ourselves.

When I say Anarchy, I mean primarily an equivalent term to 'atheism' only for 'nationalism' but then to all forms of gangs, even extending to family structures. I don't really believe in 'heads of households' as 'heads of state' which doesn't throw out parenting, doesn't throw out law and order.

In exactly the same way that Dawkins will say that nobody has ever needed the bible to teach them to be good, I would say nobody has ever needed the police to teach them not to be civil.

If I say I'm religious, I'm told I can swear an oath on a holy text in a matter of minutes and proceed with my induction to Asio, if not I'm told I would have to go through 3-4 days of paper work signing declarations and substantiating my character. If I'm Japanese I ruise through Japan's customs. If I'm Australian I will be fingerprinted and have my retina scanned.

Neither treatments are universally moral, or even, moral. They serve only to elevate some while degrading others.

So when I say Anarchy, don't assume I'm talking about how I love riots and beating up cops while listening to Pennywise, I'm talking about how I think everyone should have a say in decisions that effect them regardless of where they stand on the world.