If The Gov’t Doesn’t Protect Your Rights You’ll Need A Gang That Will
In an anarchist/libertarian society where the government won’t stop others from infringing your rights and extorting your money, your wealth and freedom will be limited to the power of the gang you belong to.
If you want to understand the fundamental political structures of human societies you have to simplify life down to a basic set of organizational models.
Fundamental Ways Societies Are Operated
At the most basic level, a lone individual can live without any rules entirely alone in the wilderness, but that all changes once you move from a single person to a group.
A Small Group
As soon as you have a few people you’re going to end up with a leader and he/she is going to impose rules.
Don’t even try to claim that a moderately-sized group of people can or ever will live without rules and without a leader, chief, or dictator. Humans never have and never will work that way. Leaders and rules always arise like weeds after a rain storm.
Every pack has a head wolf.
Somebody or some small group of somebodies will inevitably, always, tell the rest of the group, “I’m/We’re running things. Here’s how things are going to work.”
People in groups either pick a leader or, most often, leaders seize power and pick themselves. That is fundamental human nature and no matter how much you don’t like it, you can’t wish it away.
If you have a family or a group of families, a tribe, inevitably somebody is going to end up as chief of the tribe and he/she is going to make rules and everybody will be forced to abide by those rules or be kicked out the tribe or killed.
The experience of every society in the history of humankind has proven that this is true.
Cities
As the number of people in an area increases, multiple groups, let’s call them “gangs,” will form around a leader in each geographic territory or occupational or racial group.
Each gang will have their own rules and often these gangs be in conflict with each other. Eventually, some gang/tribe will come out on top and their leader will declare himself King and impose rules that his gang will enforce on everyone within their area of control.
Rulers Always Appear To Fill A Power Vacuum
If you think you’re going to have a group of several thousand humans, leastwise hundreds of thousands or millions of humans without somebody seizing power and making rules, if you think thousands of people are going to live in a contiguous geographical area with nobody in charge and nobody imposing rules then you have the common sense of a cockroach.
That has never happened for any group of a thousand or more people for any sustained period in all of human history, and it never will because that is not how human beings are built. Humans are fundamentally coded to pick and follower leaders and all leaders make rules which they enforce on their followers.
It’s in our blood.
Gangs Will Fill The Power Vacuum In A Lawless Society
The closest you can get to a no-rules, anarchist society is a multiple-gang society where, for self-protection and enrichment, everyone who can join a gang does, and your gang protects you from attack or exploitation by other gangs.
The more powerful gangs dominate the less powerful ones and all the gangs control or impoverish the unaffiliated individuals and regularly fight each other over territory and property.
You see this in prisons. You see it urban neighborhoods. You see it with crime syndicates. You see it in failed states like Somalia. It’s human nature to seize power, seize money and impose rules. It will always happen unless someone with even more power puts a stop to it.
Power Eventually Concentrates In One Group
Who stops it and how? It stops when one gang becomes so powerful that it defeats the other gangs and imposes its rules on everyone.
We saw this time and again when smaller geographical areas were conquered and consolidated under the rule of one group.
The Italian city states eventually became Italy. The regions of England eventually fell under the rule of one King. The American colonies became the United States.
If given the technological and military resources to impose and maintain control over a larger territory, smaller gangs will get swallowed up by a larger gang.
The Dictator/King Society
Beyond competing gangs is the Dictator/King societal model where the strongest gang imposes its rules on all the individuals and gangs in a geographical area. It then uses its power to take a share of everyone’s wealth and it imposes its rules on everyone.
This model has the benefit that it applies a uniform set of rules equally on all gangs and individuals instead of each individual gang fighting every other gang for wealth and dominance.
The problem with the one-gang, Dictator/King model is that it is likely to impose expensive, onerous, unfair and counter-productive rules on everyone whereas your gang, your tribe, or your city might impose other rules you might like better.
The Democracy Model
Beyond the Dictator/King model is the is the elected-ruling-gang model where all the other gangs and individuals periodically elevate a bunch of people into an elected gang which then imposes its own rules on everyone. We call this “democracy.”
Those rules and the fees collected by the elected ruling gang may be onerous or not, unfair or not, counter-productive or not, excessively expensive or not, but so long as the election process is followed the individuals and gangs will get to replace the members of the elected gang with new people whose rules they might like better.
Constitutional Democracy Model
Next is the limited-power elected-ruling-gang model, a constitutional democracy, where the gangs and individuals create a list of things that the members of the elected gang must do and things they cannot do so that the powers of the elected gang are limited based on the foundational rules imposed by the other gangs and individuals.
The Anarchist-Theory Model
Anarchists want a law of the jungle society where every gang can do whatever it can get away with and each individual will have to look to their own gang to protect them from the demands of all the other gangs.
The libertarian flavor of anarchism wants a society that has a limited-power elected-gang model where the gangs can do anything and everything they can get away with except for a few things like outright violence and theft which are labeled as crimes and are supposed to be prevented by the elected gang.
Short of protection from crimes, in their model society each person has to look to their individual gang to protect them from exploitation or domination by other gangs. Each individual is only as free and only as safe as his gang, if he has one, is able to make him.
In this the libertarian, “law of the jungle” society the Bank Gang and the Drug-Company Gang, the Insurance Gang, the Hates Blacks gang, Hates Jews gang etc. all seek to protect their own members, pursue their personal goals, collect as much wealth as possible and dominate the other gangs.
The law of the jungle, anarchist-libertarian model benefits the minority of the population who are members of gangs that are powerful enough to protect their freedom and wealth from the other gangs. The rest of the population is subject to the rules and takings of the Bank Gang, Insurance Gang, Pharmaceutical Gang, Manufacturing Gang, the Hates Blacks Gang, the Hates Jews Gang, the Hates Whatever Gang, etc.
The Paradox Of The Anarchist Model
But here’s the paradox — all people cannot have personal freedom and wealth unless there is an overriding gang, a government, that protects everyone’s freedom and wealth from infringement and seizure by any of the other gangs.
But if the government’s job is to stop gangs from infringing my freedom and taking my money then other people and gangs can’t be free to do whatever they want, and if other people and gangs are free to do whatever they want (other than theft and violence) then the government can’t stop them from infringing my freedom and taking my wealth.
A Real World That Is Populated With Real People Dooms The Fantasy Anarchy Model
Anarchists, libertarians and communists, please spare me your claims that in your theoretical fantasy world solely populated by idealists such as yourselves who will all act from the same motivations, principles, and beliefs you do will result in a society of perfect freedom for everyone to do whatever they want while not being dominated and impoverished by other people in the society who exercise their freedom to take away everyone else’s freedom and wealth.
In any world populated by real people — philanthropists, altruists, megalomaniacs, crooks, thieves, criminals, those consumed by greed and ego, bigots, racists, and normal people who just want to have a decent job, get up in the morning, go to work, come home and crash on the couch, beer in hand, in front of the TV without having anyone exploiting them, controlling them, abusing them or punishing them for their ideas or religion — none of your theoretical ideological fantasies would or could function effectively, efficiently or prosperously for even one single day.
You Can’t Have Your Cake And Eat It Too
Everyone can’t be free to do whatever they want and also be free from the oppression imposed on them by everyone else doing whatever they want. If I can swing my fist however I want I can’t also be assured that another person’s fist won’t break my nose.
You can’t have your cake and eat it too.
Right now most western countries operate under a constitutional democracy model.
There aren’t many law-of-the-jungle societies around except for a few lawless states like Somalia and the tribal regions of Afghanistan.
Good luck to you if you want to live in someplace like that.
–David Grace (www.DavidGraceAuthor.com)
