What Honest Anarchists Are Grasping For: Rule of Law

Oct 11, 2019, 9:50 PM

Alain Dwight

Anarchy is a rhetorical illusion, it doesn’t exist in reality.

There is no rule without rulers, there are no active nouns (rules) without actors implementing them (rulers). Every method of interaction has rules that are set and enforced by rulers.

We want rule of law (suppressing free-riding of all forms regardless of rank/class) rather than discretionary rule (cherry picked application), and this is what honest anarchists are grasping for.

The rest are essentially libertarians peddling the non aggression principle, which amounts to advocacy for discretionary rule because only some impositions of costs are counted while others are ignored.

Most often, imposing costs by way of invading someone’s territory or subverting their social norms is permitted and so retaliation against such actions is considered “initiating aggression” while the initial imposition is not.

It’s a great recipe for demanding access to low corruption commons and then calling it aggression if there are any demands or conditions required in terms of sharing the cost to construct and maintain the commons. It’s coerced association – ghetto ethics.

NAP and anarchism generally permits blackmail too.