Again, voluntary "authority", like that of an employer, is not what's being challenged here. No anarchist believes that a baseball team should just run wildly around the field because "authority" is invalid.
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Well yes a true anarchist would, they would never think to agree with baseball rules. This is why I labeled you anarchy lite. You are down with authority as long as it is not labeled “government”.
And what you're describing is people in a depraved state. I already granted that as an aspect of human nature, but you are ignoring the incredibly influential factor of conditions.
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This has been mankind’s state since the beginning of time. In the beginning there were no governments and no laws and rules and yet mankind’s nature was the same.
If pure freedom brings this utopia you speak of, why did things change?
The condition of freedom is essential to the expression of human potential. What you have seen are not human beings as they should or would be under different circumstances.
You have a Pollyanna view of humans, and there is not a single bit of evidence to suggest your view had even the smallest amount of reality.
This should be obvious, as in this country we have enjoyed less debilitating slavery (what many would erroneously call "freedom"), and have thrived in many ways because of it. Our poor would be considered well-off by the standards of many other countries.
They thrive because the authority keeps their exploitation to a minimum by those with greater means.
That is why those people in our grocery stores are not the people you're talking about - because of conditions. I'm not saying they're not capable of it, I'm saying they're not that way because of law, they're that way because their chains are light compared to much of the world. The closer to freedom we move, the more prosperous, and moral we will be.
But they are the same people in your grocery store. The Marines that threw the MREs are now the people walking next to you. The people that will riot and burn cars when their team wins a championship are the people in the car next to you. The people that will loot the BestBuy because someone got shot are the people eating dinner next to you at the local diner. The people that will trample you to get to the $10 mixer on Black Friday are the people you think will have your back when there is no actual authority.
You kid yourself if you think that mankind is at its core good and peaceful.
To deny this is to suggest that more oppression breeds better people, which is not the case. If it was, prisons would represent an exemplary society, and those people are throwing shit on each other as we speak.
It does not have to be one or the other, it does not have to be no authority or ultimate authority. Extremes are rarely the right answer.
I am not saying that more oppression is good. I am an amateur chef and I love the spice nutmeg. A pinch of nutmeg can be the difference between a good meal and a great meal. Too much nutmeg will kill you. This is the way government is, none at all ruins the meal, too much kills you but just the right amount is wonderful.
But nutmeg is not evil! There is no "proper balance" of good and evil. Like darkness to light, evil is merely the absence of good, it contributes no quality of its own. Where the analogy ends is that In the context of light, we may have "too much" for our purposes, whereas with good, more is always better. We don't want a balance of good and "not good", we want as much good as we can get. This is why I say that you fundamentally misunderstand what government IS if you think it can provide any good at all.
Government is an exploitation. It is an evil (the lack of freedom). There is no part of it designed to benefit you. Let's think of this in another setting...
Consider employment. The employer pays an employee a salary of 50k per year. This employee's labor must create
more than 50k per year in value, in order to justify his presence in the company. The employee, by definition, is receiving compensation for his labor
below that which it is worth - he is being devalued, to the expressed benefit of the employer. The employer, in effect, would be stealing that portion of the labor, if not for the consent of the employee, which makes it a gift (whether he realizes this or not). No part of this system is designed for the employee's benefit. When he ceases to produce benefit for the employer, his presence is no longer justified, despite any benefit he is creating for himself.
This works just like slavery, but on a
voluntary basis, which is why it is not a matter of concern for the anarchist; at least not at this time. The level of consciousness required to fully embrace this understanding of employment as devaluation is beyond that which is required to embrace the moral necessity of consent (which almost everyone already does in matters of rape, etc., but they have an indoctrinated blind spot as it relates to government). So, first things first. Learn to crawl toward freedom (the accurate valuation of the self), then learn to walk.
Government is a master. Its purpose is to enslave you. A democratic republic is a con. Its purpose is to make slavery seem like freedom. Evil is nothing if not deceptive. It creates nothing, only perverts. The perversion of freedom is what you are heralding as freedom itself. All power-grabs require an enemy, the protection against which is cited as the necessity for control. That enemy can be a foreign power, poverty, or "anarchy" as chaos. Anarchy is not really a substantive position; it is an apophatic proposition - it is defined by what it is
not. What it is not, is slavery. It has no qualities of its own. However, it is propped up as having the properties of danger, disorder, and destruction; and protection against it is what justifies government. This too, is a sham, as I have just illustrated.
