Four Definitions of the Word 'Anarchy'

No one wants chaos. (Well, almost no one…)

One of my failings—one I suspect is shared by plenty of my fellow humans—is the occasional loss of perspective. No matter what is going on, there is always the possibility of losing track of the 36,000-foot view and just getting caught up in what is going on at that moment. The quintessential example is getting flustered by some little setback while forgetting how good one’s life is overall.

So I will quickly confess to an occasional loss of perspective on the subject of anarchism. Caught up in the discussion of the moment, I forget the past. I forget that there was a time not only before I became an “anarchist,” but indeed before I even knew all the definitions of that word.

And so I sometimes get frustrated when, in discussion with commenters, I am told that when I say I am an “anarchist,” it can only mean that I am calling for chaos—a grim, violent, every-man-for-himself Hobbesian disorder. I have to remember that not everyone knows the other definitions of anarchy/anarchist/anarchism.

The most commonly known definition is reasonably well summed up by my Oxford Dictionary: a state of disorder due to absence or nonrecognition of authority. So let’s start with that.

Absence of authority…

As I noted yesterday, “If all you do is collapse a government without anything to replace it, then chaos is the likely outcome. [But that is not what anarcho-libertarians are talking about.]”

The Oxford Dictionary definition doesn’t quite have it right. It is not really the absence of authority that is the problem in such a scenario. It is the absence of effective protective force. When people do not choose to respect the rights of others, protective force is the necessary solution. Governments imposing nonconsensual authority is one way to generate protective force, but that is not the only way. (We’ll get to that.)

Nonrecognition of authority…

This is the second most-common understanding of the word “anarchy,” anthropomorphized today by kids wearing black bandanas and throwing rocks at various protests. In the United States, Portland and Seattle have experienced quite a bit of this phenomenon, but it is everywhere to one extent or another.

Twenty years ago, I thought that these kids—covering their faces like urban highwaymen and calling themselves “anarchists”—were the only kind of anarchists there were. I even started writing about it in a very early draft of my book. Then I started studying libertarianism and discovered that these kids are not anarchists at all.

Basically, they are dark-side hippies. They don’t want to work, but rather than being filled with visions of harmony and looking for beauty in life, the way hippies do, some combination of bitterness, laziness, and nihilism compels them to an angry, marginal existence. Their cheap and tawdry “anarchism” is just a way of acting out. A way of joining something without having to say that they’ve joined something.

In essence, they are leftists with fewer ideals.

I have spoken with a number of people who have spent time among them. They will confirm every word of this. These people do not have any philosophy or plan. They’re just bitter jackasses who live in squalid flophouses, or bitter posers who live in their parents’ basements.

When I discovered that these weren’t the real anarchists—that an entirely different definition of that word existed about which I knew nothing—I was beyond embarrassed. I was mortified. I was about to start writing a book and there was a gap in my knowledge broader than the Grand Canyon. I am glad that at least my ignorance on that subject did not last long.

For thousands of years, intellectuals—supping at the tables of kings and commissars—have told us that without our glorious leaders, all would be chaos.¹ This is where we get much of the widespread belief that our choice is binary: government or Hobbesian disorder.

Some of these intellectuals no doubt believed what they were peddling. Others had simply discovered that using their smarts to make arguments on behalf of the state was easier than having to till the soil all day (like virtually everyone else on the planet had to do for nearly all of the last 10,000 years).

Over the last couple of thousand years or so, another crop of intellectuals arose. They did NOT tell the state what it wanted to hear. The said the opposite:

Power is dangerous.
The king does not actually have a divine right to rule.
Rights are natural, rather than being granted by authorities.
The state should be limited.

These were the classical liberals. There were no turkey legs at the king’s table for these intellectuals. No nights with comely courtesans. For most of the last 2,000 years, there was little benefit in being an anti-state intellectual, and a great deal of risk. Cicero lost his head for it in 43 B.C., as did Algernon Sidney nearly 1700 years later. John Locke wrote anonymously. Even today, classical liberals are shut out of most mainstream opportunities.

This, of course, adds an extra ring of truth to their already-strong arguments. There is always a place in the halls of power for intellectual apologists for that power. Classical liberals, by contrast, have had nothing to gain and a great deal to lose.

In the more recent centuries, a subset of the latter group—men like Lysander Spooner, Auberon Herbert, and others—took classical-liberal arguments to their logical conclusions and discovered that the state cannot be justified in any form. They were the early anarchists (though Herbert called himself a voluntaryist, and there are many other names, as we shall discuss).

This discovery—that the state cannot be justified in any form—has been discussed a thousand different ways in these pages, and we will continue to do so. But for now, we will set that aside in favor of our current purpose, which is…

To find anyone who still believes that the only definition of “anarchy” is “chaos” and to disabuse them of that notion.

If you believe that, stop. Right now. Not because I want you to, but because you are believing something that is factually incorrect.

It is an unfortunate artifact of language that “anarchism” can mean so many different things. It is unfortunate that Herbert’s “voluntaryism” or some other less freighted term did not catch on earlier and to a greater degree. That way, people who are unaware of the libertarian flavor of anarchism would not be so confused (and often frightened) by the word.

I have made a quick chart (below) to help out. At the bottom, in the Venn diagram, are some updated items from an earlier piece, What Kind of a World Do You Want?. We can discuss those later. For now, I just want us to concentrate on the flow chart up through the items in the big grey rectangle. Inside the rectangle are four major definitions of the word “anarchy.”

I came up with a quick, rough-and-ready definition for each:

anarcho-tyranny
A temporary or targeted condition of chaos imposed and fomented by a government in order to serve some purpose of that government

anti-government anarchy
A condition of chaos and disorder fomented by activists opposed to the government or seeking to create chaos for the sake of chaos

chaotic anarchy
A condition of Hobbesian chaos that exists in the temporary or unintentional absence of government authority or any other type of effective protective force

intentional/libertarian anarchy
A condition in which order and protective force are generated through consensual, market-based, and decentralized mechanisms rather than being imposed by a single state monopoly

Chaotic anarchy is what most people think of when they hear the word, followed quickly by anti-government anarchy. We can discuss anarcho-tyranny in more depth at a later time.

When I use the word “anarchy,” I am talking about intentional/libertarian anarchy. If we are in a discussion, or if you are reading an article of mine, and you see me use the word “anarchy,” that is what I mean (unless I specify otherwise).

And since I tend personally to lean toward market anarchism (a.k.a. anarcho-capitalism¹), I am usually referring to this slightly more refined description of a condition wherein

Instead of a single entity claiming a monopoly to forcibly impose security and justice within a given territory and upon a captive people, private agencies will peacefully compete in a free and open market to provide security and justice to willing customers.

So here, for now, is the bottom line:

You may not have known about this particular meaning of the word. To borrow from Biggie Smalls…If you don’t know…well now you know.

You may know a little bit about it, but not a whole lot. I am happy to answer questions or point you in the right direction.

You may be truly anarcho-curious at this point, which is fantastic!

You may know all about it and still believe it cannot work. We can talk or agree to disagree.

But if you just learned about this form of anarchism five minutes ago, you cannot possibly have an informed opinion on whether or not it might be able to work. So I encourage you to stick around and start exploring on your own.

You might find your mind will be blown in ways you never expected!

1. This revelation isn’t mine; it comes from Rothbard, Hoppe, and others.