A friend of a friend of mine had some homework assignment that required him to interview people of various political persuasions.  My friend put him in touch with me to answer some questions about anarchism. Here are my responses, verbatim:

1.  What attracted you to the philosophy of anarchism?

Lots and lots of reading.  The more I read about politics, about history, about the world in general, the more I began to realize that the “State” is in every instance, an evil organization. Some people may argue that some States are “lesser of two evils”, but those States are still evil, aren’t they?  The broadest definition of a “State” when we strip away colorful words like “democracy” and “constitutions” and “civic duty” is this: The “State” is the judge, jury, and executioner (literally, and figuratively).  It is an organization which monopolizes the creation, interpretation, and enforcement of the law within a self-declared geographical boundary – in order to achieve the latter, it claims a monopoly on the use of unprovoked violence.

Furthermore, the State compels (with violence, or threats of violence) every man and woman within its boundary to pay for the “services” it provides with no regard for whether these individuals use, need or even want the services in the first place. In many (or most) areas, individuals are not allowed to organize in a manner which would compete with the government: you can buy supplemental health care, supplemental education (like private schools), supplemental protection (like private security guards, security systems, etc) but you can never opt-out of the programs which the state compels you to support. And if that wasn’t bad enough – you can never get a “refund” from the government when they fail to do their “civic duty”, and you don’t really have any choice about it. When Congress passes an unconsitutional law, what recourse do you have? When the police fail to protect your property from burglars, or your body from assault, or when they fail to apprehend the criminal, do you get your money back?

2.  What made you decide to become active within the anarchist movement?

I’m not particularly “active” – more on that below…

3.  How long have you been active within the movement, and what has prevented you from dropping out?

I think I really got turned on to it about 4 or 5 years ago. It wasn’t an overnight thing, it was a struggle really, because all your life you’ve been told (implicitly or explicitly) that this is just a stupid idea, or that anarchism = violence, etc.  There’s a lot of mental hurdles, a lot of de-programming that has to take place before you can kind of accept that a lot of what you’ve “learned” and accepted throughout the course of you lifetime is in many cases ignorantly wrong, and in a lot of cases its not ignorant, it’s outright lies.

4.  What types of activities have you been active in? (protests, direct action, etc)

Mostly I’m an armchair anarchist, so go ahead and revoke my membership if you want.  I’ve written extensively (but not scholarly) about the ideas of anarchism, and about current events and politics from that perspective. And I’ve maybe put together a YouTube video or two.  My personal strength, I think, is the ability to condense ideas, to write persuasively, etc.  I know I’ve opened some people’s eyes to the ideas; and though not everyone who reads my work is a full-blown “smash the state, power to the people” anarchist, I know a few of them who are certainly on the right path.  The more the merrier.

5.  What is the best and worst part of your experience?

Worst part is in-fighting.  There are as many schools of “anarchist” thought/philosophy as there are schools of competing thought in the State political arena. There are individualist anarchists, agorists, mutualist anarchists, collectivist anarchists, communist anarchists, free-market anarchists, primitivists, georgists, etc., and they all think they have the only true gospel of anarchism, and that all others are “fake” anarchists.  I’m an American libertarian anarchist; and so my background comes largely from Murray Rothbard, and Lysander Spooner. I’m sympathetic to parts of many other schools of thought, and tolerant, too. I’ve changed my mind on many occasions. I can’t say the same for many of the far-Left anarchists that I’ve encountered.  The differences usually boil down to what one considers “oppression” or “exploitation”.  In my personal opinion, the communists, who for example consider any form of wage-labor to be exploitative, and who have very subjective, very squishy definitions for “ownership” and their infatuation with “democracy” make a lot of arguments that I think are just reductio ad absurdum or straw-man logical fallacies.  On the other hand, there are a lot of libertarian anarchists who are really kind ignorant on the other end of the spectrum, too.

The best part, I suppose is that it’s given me a whole new perspective from which to view pretty much everything in the world. I know I don’t have the answer to all the world’s problems, but I find it’s a lot easier to identify the problems, or the root causes.  And it’s kept me reading theory, philosophy, history – all the shit that you put down when you graduate college and never pick up again as you rot your brain on TMZ and Glenn Beck and Survivor: Impossible Island! and it keeps me somewhat in-tune with current events. Keeps me from being apathetic to politics in general.

6.  How might someone get involved in the anarchist movement?

The internet I think is really beneficial to movements like anarchism, which have always been really grass-roots. And it’s helping a lot because anarchists have historically been prolific pamphleteers, too; the advent of self-publishing sites like Blogger and WordPress have given hundreds or thousands of people a voice, and a means to reach audiences which until very recently, they never would’ve been able to do.  If someone is interested, the internet is your friend.  It’s pretty easy to find people

7.  How would you frame the issue of anarchism to a potential recruit to ‘sell’ them on the idea?

It’s a position of non-violence. Not pacifism, per se, but non-violence. Obviously there is a place for legitimate defense of self.  But like I said above, it’s a really tough ‘sell’ because it can’t happen overnight. If it does, chances are the person really doesn’t get ‘anarchism’ and is just kind of enamored with the whole mohawks and molotovs idea that he’s heard all his life.  The best thing you can do is try to open the door, and get people thinking. Find something about which they’re passionate, and explain how the governments, or capitalism, or whatever, is totally screwing it up.  And it helps to be able to explain reasonable alternatives.  For instance with health care, we could look back to the fraternal organizations of the 19th century which promoted community. Or we can explain how government interference in the market (especially here in the US) has created this environment where people think of it as A) an entitlement and B) as something they don’t have to pay for. But also what happens is that health care is like 95% tied to your job, and if you lose your job, you’re pretty much screwed unless you can find a new one right away. I mean, this is a pretty elementary example of unintended consequences, but nobody ever talks about it. They just ask for goverment to get more and more involved…

8.  If I understand the philosophy of anarchism correctly as being one step further than Libertarianism, how would an anarchist deal with issues of force and fraud?  (Either generally or specifically?)

I like to try and stop focusing on the 1% of bad elements in society. Think about all the people whom you know and trust, and the others who they know and would vouch for, and who you could easily grow to trust.  This is like real community. Not this fake shit that government creates, which is really just a war of special interests, as each side tries to pit as many of us against the rest of us. The whole “winner takes all” aspect of electoral politics destroys community. In a society with real community, anyone who robs, cheats, steals, etc., is going to have a really tough time. Reputation rules, man, and when you break that unspoken rule you might be run out of town. And where do you go? Somewhere else, where nobody knows you.  So then what? You start all over again. Why would anyone trust you? You’ve got no references, and no history.

I think historically there is a lot of evidence supporting social ostracism as an effective deterrent. The Law Merchant governed international trade during the middle ages without the use of violence and without the backing of any Crown.  No honest anarchist believes that either force or fraud can be completely eradicated, but certainly the existence of an institution (such as government) which is able to perpetrate violence on an otherwise unimaginable magnitude.  Look at the USA, which imprisons more people than any other nation in the world, for using narcotics.  Or the entire 20th century, during which world governments killed an estimated 200-300 million people.  You want to ask about “force” and “fraud” and violence, let’s start by getting rid of those institutions which cause the most violence.