Dotoar

An interesting topic indeed. I don't consider myself an anarchist, but a libertarian (which is not a very popular thing to be in Sweden, I tell you), which bears many resemblances with an anarchist bar the existence of the state. That, however, makes the difference between night and day.

First of all, let's not forget that political systems eventually apply to the practice of social manners and not ethics and/or morals of the individual. Why did I emphasize this? Because under the banner of anarchy lies a multitude of possible systems of interpersonal relations, ranging from anarcho-capitalism to mutualism to individual anarchy to social anarchism, all claiming to be the one "true" kind of anarchy. As has already been pointed out, the very term refers to the absence of the state and one assumption or another that the human is capable of "sorting things out on her own". This kind of argument, however, has nothing to do with the justification or rebuttal of anarcy according to its own standards.

What we need to examine is the necessity of the state as an institution, as well as the justification of its scope. The absence of a control function is arbirtrary; If man doesn't need to be prohibited there is no need for prohibition. (May seem banally self-evident, but I've experienced enough arguments through the years to feel the need of pointing that out). So the next question would be wether or not there is ever any need for prohibiting man from doing whatever he wants. Simply put I'd say that as soon as you're practicing your freedom to do what you want so far that it's intruding on another man's equal freedom to do what he wants, that's where you're freedom ends. I think that the no-harm-principle can be accepted by most people as it solves the dilemma of the social darwinism many people - righfully - fear would be the result of lacking a system of violence prohibition.

Of course, many anarchists promote free-market juridical instances, but I believe that such systems undermine the very premise under which everyone are free to act albeit under the prohibition of inflicting compulsion/threat/violence upon others. That is, it would mean the juridical system would be operating on an arbirtary basis (much like it does in basically all countries today, what with all the special interest-oriented legislations and all). Well, the argument goes, if you're not happy with the judgement of one juridical institution then you're free to turn to another for a different review. But that doesn't solve the arbitrary problem; Juridical decisions are not for making people feeling satisfied, they are for identifying crime, compensating the victims of it and hopefully reduce further crime by showcasing the consequences. And I'm yet to read/hear a justified argument from any anarchist how the actual system of jurisdiction is supposed to work in order to preserve the freedom of the individual.

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