Why Anarchism, Communism and Libertarianism are Pipe Dreams: My Response

I recently came across an article at www.opednews.com titled Why Anarchism, Communism and Libertarianism are Pipe Dreams, by Michael Bonanno. He criticizes my blog post where I explain why I am an anarchist. I'd like to thank Mr. Bonanno for writing this piece as I'm always grateful of criticism since it's sometimes our critics who can spot holes in our arguments and help to lead us to greater knowledge and understanding. Unfortunately, I do not think his piece accomplishes this. I'm going to reply to his criticism in this piece and explain why it doesn't hold water.

Mr. Bonanno begins his piece with much I largely agree with:

I've been following a blogger who calls himself The Arizona Atheist. I agree with his belief that man created god to explain things that couldn't easily be explained, like rain. Unfortunately, too many of us haven't grown out of it yet.

The post I'm referring to however is a post entitled "Why I'm an Anarchist".

It was always a crap shoot with government.

I belong to The Socialist Party of the United States. However, I'm not so naïve as to not know that Germany was a Socialist/socialist nation during the Hitler administration. If government was a crap shoot, socialist government is a crap shoot writ large.

So, I agree, government can really suck. The governments of The Former United States of America have mostly been strong arming bullies, both to the people who inhabited this land and to people who inhabit other lands.

This confuses me, because while Mr. Bonanno criticizes Communism, he is himself a Socialist.

However, in my humble opinion, the struggle between economic systems was what started an already conquering people on a downward spiral and the economic system that ultimately won out has done away with government altogether, especially any semblance of government that the pretty words of the wealthy founders expressed.

The founders wanted a democratic republic which included a House of Lords and, until the early 20th century, pretty much got their way. Senators were not elected by the people until the 17th Amendment to The Constitution passed in 1913. Many of the founders, especially people like John Adams, probably did an interred 360 when that happened.

Common people, and only a small percentage of the common people, had the opportunity to vote for representatives and could only hope that those representatives represented them the way in which they said that they would represent them during election campaigns. Of course, it's the Senate that has all the rules and "flexible" guidelines to overcome anything that "the people's house" might pass.

Today, thirty years after our Democratic Republic was terminated, even members of The House of Representatives have finally become wholly owned subsidiaries of "the private sector". I began calling our government a Corporacracy some years back, not knowing that Ralph Nader had already coined that word. Further, I didn't realize that the term Corporatocracy was already in use, coined, I believe, by Benito Mussolini. So I guess from now on I'll just use the word Corporatocracy so as not to confuse the matter.

The Corporatocracy is really not a government as such, though. It doesn't govern. No one governs. The Corporatocracy tells those who are in positions that hold the titles that those in government once held what to do; where to go to war; how to distribute health care; who cleans up oil spills; who gets to create wealth on the backs of formerly solvent Americans and squalor entrenched citizens of third world "nations". The quotes indicate that The Corporatocracy recognizes no "nation". It is the nation and it expands from Beijing to Madrid and from Kabul to Pretoria and from Helsinki to Phoenix and from Reykjavik to Seoul. There is no part of this global nation that The Corporatocracy doesn't own, although Latin America is once again showing to be the only place on earth with enough balls to, yet, again, fight its intrusive death grip.

I agree with much of what he has to say about the corporations who run things; that is completely right, and I couldn’t agree more.

But then he begins his discussion of Anarchism:

So, anarchy? No one governs and the private sector runs things. Sounds a lot like what Ayn Rand and Milton Friedman said would be the saving grace for those who would be so lucky as to be saved. As Orwell wrote in his exceptional microcosm of the macrocosm, Animal Farm, "All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others."

Well, Animal Farm was a government, you say, and, indeed, that's right. The Soviet Republic was a government, but the rulers of The Party were no more and no less than Chief Executive Officers of a nation state. They did to the poor in Russia and the satellite nations what The Corporatocracy is doing today. They hoarded and left those who actually created value with little or nothing. Only, to repeat once again, today we're doing it with no government.

Later on he says,

Anarchy is a bit like what I envision "pure communism" to be. One great big commune in which everyone gives what they can and no one takes more than they need. We know that's a paraphrase of one of the most important premises of pure communism.

Here is the same unfounded strawman that I’ve come across before. Anarchism is not Communism. Libertarianism is neither Anarchism or Communism.

Libertarianism is an approach that does not wish to do away with government entirely, but tries to make it smaller, more manageable by the people, and makes it so it has less control over our lives. Like my friend Bob Clapp likes to say, “Libertarianism is one cop and one judge.” It is the smallest form of government you can possibly have. Now, he doesn’t mean this literally, but just to illustrate the kind of very small government that Libertarians wish for.

Communism was, in its intended form, to be a society that was run by the people and all production and ownership was held by all equally (not the power mad lunatics who ran Russia).

Anarchism is a belief that a society without rulers is the desired form of social organization. All people are free to live as they wish, do as they wish with no restrictions so long as they do no harm to another.

While each of these ideas have some things in common, they do have their differences and I do not think should be lumped together.

Mr. Bonanno’s argument seems to criticize my belief that private companies can replace government as he lists several examples of private companies screwing people over and doing unethical things.

In part, he says,

Today, the difference in pay between CEOs and those still fortunate enough to work for a manufacturing corporation in The FUSA is upwards of 500-1. Top executives no longer talk about beating the competition with good service and quality products. Today if the competition gets too close for comfort, they simply buy the competition. Of course this leads to less and less competition which could lead to monopoly capital once again and we'll have to hope for the second coming of Teddy Roosevelt.

Protective tariffs, which leveled the playing field between the deservedly advancing American worker and the squalor entrenched Chinese, Indian, Vietnamese (yes, Vietnamese, those who "aggressively" obliterated our destroyers with their sail boats in the Gulf Of Tonkin and who lived in the land in which 58,000 Americans died), Korean, Taiwanese, Malaysian, etc., etc., those tariffs were Hiroshimaed and the patriotic American private sector tossed aside those "important" American production workers for the more "accommodating" Chinese workers. They found the Chinese acceptance of $1.44/hour much more to their liking as well as the devil may care Chinese attitude towards the Orb which we continue to rape and continue to choke to death. They can literally work Asian and African workers to death without improving their standards of living and flaunt their newly found freedom to bring the sh*t that was produced back into The FUSA.

At first, people loved it, right? Wal-Mart sold shoes that used to cost $40 or $50 at 2 pair for .99 sales. All this because there were no workers to include in work decisions, to whom to pay a living wage, to whom to give a reasonable amount of paid time off to rest and recuperate and these are just the workers who man the stores in The FUSA.

I don't know when the last time was that I walked into a Wal-Mart, but I am sure, judging by his professionalism and demeanor that the older man, not old man, who said "Welcome to Wal-Mart", had an important job with Monsanto or Dow Chemical in his recent past. I can only assume that he was paid at least $60,000 to $75,000 a year for that position when they downsized, rightsized, delayered or otherwise corporate sweet talked him into the unemployment line.

I agree that there are no guarantees (I am not proposing some utopian dream). I am proposing breaking up these large powerful companies and organizing a society around the social contract. Private companies compete with one another (and there will be no government to hand over our money to help a failing company out!) and the ones that provide the best services and treat people the best will obviously win in a free market economy. The idea of natural selection at work. In this way, the best companies will thrive and the ones that partake in unethical acts and treat it’s employees and customers unfairly will die out. The very problem is government, who often is in bed with these powerful companies and keeps them afloat despite their failings. Remember the government’s multi-billion dollar bailout of Fannie Mae, several auto companies, and AIG?

It must also be shown that privatized companies are not always as the author would have you believe. There are several examples of highly effective, cheaper and less bloated (in contrast to the government) privatized services.

In Reminderville, Ohio, the city receives complete police protection from a private firm run by Arthur Robataille. Because of this, the people of Reminderville pay only half of what they originally paid the sheriff's office, and the service level is a lot higher. They contract for 90,000 per year calls for Corporate Security, Inc. to provide the service of seven officers, two patrol cars, and a six minute response time. One of the outcomes of this is that burglary rates in one 3.5 square mile area dropped from 14% to 0.7% per month and remained there. [1]

Another city is Oro Valley, Arizona, which privatized its police services. The town hired a private firm to replace the County Sheriff's department. Even though the private firm gave higher quality service, cut a substantial amount of the cost, and had the complete support of all the citizens, the arrangement was challenged in court by the state law enforcement officer's association. Due to legal expenses, the private firm decided not to fight. Today, Oro Valley's government run police department costs four times as much in inflated-adjusted dollars. [2]

That is an excellent example of what happens when the government senses competition: it wants to extinguish it. Despite it's claims of wanting to help its citizens, what this proves is the monopoly the government wants on everything. I think the reason is clear. The more it forces its way into peoples' lives, the more power it will ultimately gain over those people.

In San Francisco, at least at one point; I’m not sure about the current situation, the entire north section of the city has/had eighty "private police beats" and are/were owned by private specialists. Business owners, homeowners, and landlords pay them. Each patrolman purchases a beat and negotiates the contract with each property owner. The costs for the service has produced a per annum savings in theft and damages in excess of four times that of the contracted costs, and nearly ten times that of when the local government "protected" them. [3]

Other than the above examples, other services across the U.S. have been successfully privatized and operated more effectively and at a greatly reduced cost. [4]

Refuse Collection........................... 489
Water Supply.................................. 286
Street Construction/Maintenance... 206
Hospitals......................................... 107
Libraries............................................ 88
Fire Services..................................... 65
Full and Partial Police Services........ 28

In fact, there have been 66 services that have been available by contract from private firms. Everything from traffic-signal maintenance, zoning & subdivision control, to welfare have been privatized in at least one location. [5]

He also draws from the age old argument against Anarchism, that of peoples’ often bad natures:

And don't tell Libertarians because they'd be pissed, but they count on the same safety net that anarchy and communism count on; the innate goodness of human kind.

Is this the innate goodness that drives people to force place holders for former government positions to send men and women to their deaths for the purpose of stealing riches and minerals and fossil fuels from nations who really want the revenues from those riches to improve the lives of the people in their own countries? Is this the innate goodness which drives the top officers of corporations to send American jobs to third world slave nations, sending once seemingly stable Americans into the throes of poverty? Is this the innate goodness that drives Corporatists to force place holders for former government positions to send the CIA into Latin America to assassinate people like Salvador Allende and to threaten and demonize Hugo Chávez? Is this the same innate goodness that whips up hate against brown skinned people coming to what was once their country anyway and taking jobs offered them by those very same instigators?

I would definitely agree that human beings are not always the most charitable but many often are and that seems to be forgotten by many who criticize Anarchism. There still must be rules put in place, which is the purpose of the social contract. The only difference is that people individually will agree or not to a law they must live under so as to stop any form of mob rule (which is what democracy ultimately is anyway; for example, the vote).

Aside from the social contract to help govern behavior hopefully society will continue marching along that moral continuum where we gain ever greater moral insights. Just as societies once saw slavery as just another part of life, now it is seen as one of the greatest evils. Hopefully in time, humanity will see that treating others fairly is also an excellent moral principle to follow. It seems, however, that not all corporations are as greedy as those in America. In several countries, such as Britain and France, the ratios of the salaries paid to top-tier CEO’s and those paid to the same firms’ average employees is 24:1 in Britian; 15:1 in France; and 31:1 in Sweden. [6] Hopefully this country will follow suit. Regardless, this data does show that corporations are not always greedy and humanity can move towards a society that treats others fairly and with respect. Regardless of what CEO’s average pay is, the fact is that the social contract can be used to set standards of behavior and anarchism does not assume that all people are good. There are methods of dealing with trouble makers, thieves, etc.

Near the end, the author says the following.

How can a 5'2" man who makes sense get to a large audience to teach them that we indeed need a government, one that's elected directly by the people; one that's made up of people who engage in very short political campaigns; one which is made up of people who don't have to mortgage their first born just for the privilege of losing in a primary; one which is made up of people who are not only not beholden to The Corporatocracy, but also not beholden to any political party; one which is made up of people who want to govern and govern well, not get a good paying job with a lot of perks; one which is made up of people who think that a government salary will make them comfortable albeit not necessarily in a position to purchase an original Renoir and consequently one which is made up of people who could care less how much money liars, murderers and thieves wave under their noses.

Who can make the changes that need to be made to reform our political system so we can get such a government? They are the very place holders who sit in The House of Representatives, The Senate, The White House and on The Supreme Court today, that's who they are.

They are The Corporatocracy.

Sorry 'bout that.

I’m not familiar with this author and his writing style and whether or not he is contradicting himself, but it seems he is arguing that only government will be able to change itself. I’m sorry, but as he just said in his article earlier, the corporations run the government! Why do you think all those lobbyists are there? I believe that “the people” have never truly run their governments. It’s always been the rich and powerful who have the money to run for office and they in turn line their own pockets and make decisions that help themselves and those who pay them. Sure, in some cases “the people” can effect some change, but very little and ultimately the government does what it wants regardless of the peoples’ desires.

The last two lines confuse me. Is the author saying that it’s The Corporatocracy that will effect this change? And he says, “Sorry 'bout that” almost as if he is saying that even though government isn’t always what we wish it was it’s all we've got and it’s still a necessary institution.

If that’s the case, I disagree completely. As I’ve shown, there are many options for privatization and the smaller the organizations the more easily we all can manage these institutions that are there to help us in our daily lives. That is, after all the sole purpose of government; to help and protect the people. And as the founders argued (for what it’s worth anyway), they felt that any government that failed to help people and “secure rights,” not take them away and abuse people, should be abolished.Why are so many against this very acceptable principle that was one of the foundations of this very country? I believe those in power have indoctrinated it’s citizens to believe falsely that any form of rebellion against government is wrong, even though it was a basis of the founding of this country. Those in power want to keep their power. It’s that simple. Why do so many feel they must protect and defend such an immoral and destructive force? I still am not entirely sure.

Again, I thank Mr. Bonanno for responding to my piece, but I believe he has failed to rebut my arguments in favor of anarchism; a real chance at true freedom.

References

1. Every Man and Woman an Island: The Individual Human Being as Prime in the Universe, by Robert Clapp, Trafford, 2004; 117

2. Ibid.; 118

3. Ibid.; 118

4. Ibid.; 119

5. How to Shrink Government: Privatizing the Public Sector, by E.S. Savas, Chatham House Publishers, Inc., 1982, 62-64

6. Letter to a Christian Nation, by Sam Harris, Alfred A. Knopf, 2006; 46