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This article is from the Anarchy FAQ, by Bryan Caplan with numerous contributions by others.

"We are already in a state of anarchy"

Under anarchy, it is conceivable that e.g. a brutal gang might use its superior might to coerce everyone else to do as they wish. With nothing more powerful than the gang, there would (definitionally) be nothing to stop them. But how does this differ from what we have now? Governments rule because they have the might to maintain their power; in short, because there is no superior agency to restrain them. Hence, reason some critics of anarchism, the goal of anarchists is futile because we are already in a state of anarchy.


This argument is confused on several levels.


First, it covertly defines anarchy as unrestrained rule of the strongest, which is hardly what most anarchists have in mind. (Moreover, it overlooks the definitional differences between government and other forms of organized aggression; Weber in particular noted that governments claim a monopoly over the legitimate use of force in a given geographical region.) In fact, while anarchism is logically compatible with any viewpoint which rejects the existence of the state, there have been extremely few (perhaps no) anarchists who combined their advocacy of anarchism with support for domination by those most skilled in violence.


Second, it seems to assume that all that particular anarchists advocate is the abolition of the state; but as we have seen, anarchism is normally combined with additional normative views about what ought to replace the state. Thus, most anarchist theorists believe more than merely that the state should not exist; they also believe that e.g. society should be based upon voluntary communes, or upon strict private property rights, etc.


Third, the argument sometimes confuses a definitional with a causal claim. It is one thing to argue that anarchy would lead to the rule by the strongest; this is a causal claim about the likely results of the attempt to create an anarchist society. It is another thing entirely to argue that anarchy means rule by the strongest. This is simply a linguistic confusion, best illustrated by noting that under this definition anarchy and the state are logically compatible.


A related but more sophisticated argument, generally leveled against anarcho- capitalists, runs as follows. If competing protection agencies could prevent the establishment of an abusive, dominant firm, while don't they do so now? In short, if market checks against the abuse of power actually worked, we wouldn't have a state in the first place.


There are two basic replies to this argument. First of all, it completely ignores the ideological factor. Anarcho- capitalists are thinking of how competing firms would prevent the rise of abusive protection monopolists in a society where most people don't support the existence of such a monopolist. It is one thing to suppress a "criminal firm" when it stands condemned by public opinion and the values internalized by that firm's employees; it is another thing entirely to suppress our current "criminal firms" (i.e., governments) when qua institution enjoy the overwhelming support of the populace and the state's enforcers believe in their own cause. When a governing class loses confidence in its own legitimacy -- from the Ancien Regime in France to the Communist Party in the USSR -- it becomes vulnerable and weak. Market checks on government could indeed establish an anarchist society if the self-confidence of the governing class were severely eroded by anarchist ideas.


Secondly, the critique ignores the possibility of multiple social equilibria. If everyone drives on the right side of the road, isolated attempts to switch to the left side will be dangerous and probably unsuccessful. But if everyone drives on the left side of the road, the same danger exists for those who believe that the right side is superior and plan to act on their believe. Similarly, it is quite possible that given that a government exists, the existence of government is a stable equilibrium; but if a system of competitive protection firms existed, that too would be a stable equilibrium. In short, just because one equilibrium exists and is stable doesn't mean that it is the only possible equilibrium. Why then is the state so pervasive if it is just one possible equilibrium? The superiority of this equilibrium is one possible explanation; but it could also be due to ideology, or an inheritance from our barbarous ancestors.