Is the State like a computer operating system?

The State must go. But how? It’s rather entrenched. Eric Laursen tries to answer this question by focusing on the why instead of the how. In The Operating System, he tries to compare the State to a Microsoft Windows or an Apple iOS framework. Unfortunately, this does not help much, and the vast bulk of the book has nothing whatever to do with OSs, because no decisions can be made from their similarities that would affect the State. Nothing about an OS foretells what might befall a State.

Nonetheless, The Operating System, as an exhaustive argument for the value of anarchy, is a powerfully written and always challenging read. It is well organized, thoroughly annotated, peppered with pop cultural references and even the some mild shots of humor.

Getting rid of the State means anarchy, ie. no structure. It’s what defunding the police, eliminating the military and ditching the two party system would look like. “Anarchism is the only theoretical approach that fully recognizes the connection between capitalism and the State and completely denies the assertion that there is no alternative to either,” he says. So readers should be looking for the details of that alternative.

He says there are three reasons for the State. It provides a degree of personal security, a shared identity, including a sense that one’s voice us…