By Brandon Roark
If there ever was a successful society, someone found a way to perpetuate a power-building scam to feed off of it. Sometimes these emerge as emails from a Nigerian prince, a multi-level marketing scheme, a conventional religion, or as the acquisition of “authority” by the revolving door for sociopaths we call the state. As such, anarchists hope for the failure of states, that’s true; but we certainly do not hope for the empirically correlated failure of society as has been alleged, a la “Somalia”.
The critic of anarchy on an empirical basis is assuming the nature of causation between the absence or failure of a state and the absence or failure of society. He thinks that because the anarchist hopes for statelessness, that he must therefore be advocating its current empirical corollary: a failing society. Of course, causation cannot be derived from correlation alone. We need to know more about how cause and effect work in human society.
Healthy, functional cultures yield civilization, trade, the division of labor, the ability of its members to save and invest, and a lot more wealth. Warring, racist, religiously divided or previously conquered societies are, by comparison, much poorer. Even very clever, popular con artists with the weight of gods and kings on their side can only extract so much from a broken, impoverished people. Those states that attempt to exploit such a populace are doomed to insignificance so long as their host stays weak.
If we view the state as subject to economic reality like it actually is, the characteristic activities of a state – taxation, fraudulent borrowing, wars, redistribution programs, compulsory monopolization of industries, et cetera – can only be afforded by a particularly wealthy society. The state is a net parasite by virtue of its basic operational structure; that is, the use of force to achieve unilaterally determined ends, including funding. Its host society must be net productive from the perspective of consumers for the scam of statism to be even remotely credible.
The failing states we’ve so far witnessed in poor, dysfunctional societies were not the victims of a philosophical renaissance among the people, who came to reading economics and exposing statism for the lie it is, unfortunately. Instead, it has so far been the reality of scarcity and economic conditions that made it impossible for these societies to afford a state any longer. It was in fact the poverty created by central planning that extinguished the scam called “communism” under the USSR. Whatever a society’s problems were or are, even the freshest, most enlightened new state will only add to them.
Plugging the state’s drain on resources is a good thing for a society, no matter the context. Whatever the reason a society might be in a poor condition, the loss of the state can only be good thing for everyone who lives in that society, especially in the long run. The loss of a state in a developed, industrial society would be just as great, if not even better, for the people who live there and for anyone anywhere else they might trade. A state presiding over a wealthy society would predictably be all the larger, releasing all the more wealth back to productive uses once the gig is up.
So why didn’t Somalia turn into Singapore after their state collapsed? As an anarchist, I can still admit that Somalia is very likely a terrible place to live, and yeah, it didn’t have a state for a while and what it has now is pitiful. However, it is intellectually irresponsible to just assume “no state means no society”, when the alternative is also possible: “no society means no state”. With reason applied, the latter is actually a much better explanation, leading to further good questions such as what the real reasons might be for Somalia’s condition, if indeed it is so bad.
The critic might concede that a state might be too costly for certain economies to support, but might still ask: If society would be so much better off without a government, why does every successful society have a big, active government? Short answer: no lion would throw himself off a cliff for the sake of the gazelle he might have killed. Likewise, no human wealth-cannibalizing sociopath – politicians and their friends – would permit the dissolution of the state on the grounds that society would benefit. They might keep their hands off certain parts of the economy to keep in good political standing, but by no means do they work for “the people” like all their propaganda suggests.
They can only ever be working on behalf of their own interests, as the reality of motivation dictates. Even if everyone exploiting the general belief in the state’s authority accepted that the best possible society lacks a state; 50% of society’s pie today looks better to him than what he thinks he might get if he had to earn it honestly, even in a thriving, free society. Thus, there is a natural tendency for those in control of states not to relinquish profitable power whether or not it would be the right decision.
In summary, yes, anarchists can safely contend that statelessness leads to societal improvement while accounting for the existence of states around the globe. Here’s how: first, functional, wealthy societies can afford to maintain even universal scams like a state…for a while. Second, there is no reason to think state officials and beneficiaries who actually could dissolve the state tomorrow would ever willingly relinquish their privilege as long as it were possible to keep it. Finally, there is ample reason to think they’d cling ever more desperately to their control, the fatter the host.
After receiving a mechanical engineering degree, Brandon pursued graduate studies in engineering management – an MBA for engineers. There, he took a lively interest in contract ethics and business economics, devoting precious time to independent study. This led him to the Mises University conference at the Ludwig von Mises Institute, where he studied Austrian economics with esteemed scholars in a variety of disciplines. Since, he has been dabbling in engineering work, developing assisted living centers with his father, and writing on philosophy, ethics, and economics.
