The Problem with Government and the Truth About Care
Or, why Anarchism is the path of love
Care, like love, is a verb. It is a behavior — a thing that you do. It is not an adjective like happy or sad — a description of a state of being. Care is not an emotion. It is an action.
This is why, no matter how much, say, U.S. military intervention in Libya may have made me feel bad, I cannot say that I care about it. I cannot say that I care, because I have never done anything about it. I’ve been vaguely educated on it primarily by accident, and have not put any of my intentional time towards learning more or taking any steps towards remedying the situation. If I said I cared about suffering and civil war in Libya, what I’d mean is, “I would prefer for that not to happen.” I would not be saying, “I am doing anything to change it.”
The fundamental problem of government is one of hierarchy: some small group of individuals has power over others, and the ability to make decisions on behalf of others without their direct input or consent. Democracy is allegedly supposed to fix this by creating structures of mutual accountability between the government and the governed. Representative democracy is, of course, not real democracy — real democracy is the process of individuals making decisions together towards their individual and collective…
