The responses that troubled me most were the ones that couldn’t wrap their head around the connection between Anarchy and putting away your shopping cart because you are a decent human being. The worst responses being along the lines of Anarchy wont work because:
- Feudalism will happen (Ok, LibertyHangout chill.)
- Anarchy has been tried and failed (Wrong)
- Military Dictators will take over (As if they hadn’t already)
- Liberty and Anarchy have no relation (Absurd!)
The truth is that if you are focusing on the shopping cart or Anarchy as whole then you missed the point. This meme goes much deeper than the surface reading would suggest. Most people will consider something like putting back a shopping cart as trivial. Its meaningless. However, this analogy gives us a perfect moral and principle test for anarchy.
As the post explains, putting away your shopping carts presents no positive or negative consequences in either private or legal matters. Whether you do or don’t only results two outcomes: If you do, then its because you recognized that it was the right thing to do. As the post says “out of the goodness of your own heart”. If you don’t put it away, then nothing happens but it does say something about you.
You see its about morals and principles. Let me frame it in some questions, which you should answer for yourself:
Do you return the shopping cart?
Why do you return?
If you don’t return it, why don’t you?
Is it right to return it?
Is wrong to return it?
Is wrong not to return it?
Its likely that if you do return the shopping cart its because you know its the right thing to do. I would wager to guess that most people who return it, only do it because its common courtesy. However you might be still wondering what this has to do with Anarchy. First off, my caption Why Anarchy will work, implies nothing about scale, time frame or anything like that. Secondly, anarchy will not be installed overnight, tomorrow and it won’t be easy either. Anarchy has to come into place by voluntary agreement of all individuals in a given community. The scale of anarchy could be just neighborhood up to whole continents, even the world. But none of this matters if people cannot self govern.
The meme introduces the analogy under the premise of testing for self governing. Anarchy is quite literally self governing. Anarchy means without rulers therefore making self governing a necessary skill. If self governing is the primary skill need for anarchy then what is the foundation of self governance? How does one become adept at self governance? Morality and Principles.
Its inherent by the nature of mankind that humans know right and know wrong. It is a presupposition. God, or a higher power has given us this knowledge. Nobody invented this, we all just know. (See this post for on Transcendental Argument for God) So if we accept this absolute truth, that all humans inherent know right from wrong, then we can talk about morality. Morality can be divided into two distinct types subjective and objective. You can read about Objective Morality here. Morality is how you judge situations and make decisions based on right and wrong. In some cases, you choose the ‘wrong’ even if you know what is right. Does it make you a bad person? No. So if you don’t put away the shopping cart and you know its right then doesn’t automatically make you terrible.
Some people argued, correctly that shopping cart gathers provide jobs for many. Of course this doesn’t change the morality of the decision. It is still common courtesy to put away your cart. The free market will create jobs especially for those who are disabled. Also its quite delusional to think that everyone will eventually put away the cart. Anyway, the point that I want to make is that if your moral compass tells you to put away the shopping cart, then you are ready to self govern. If you are able to do such a trivial task without any positive or negative reward, then I would trust you not to violate or infringe other’s rights.
I find that with anarchy, many people will argue, wrongly, that laws effectively deter people doing wrong. Here is the issue with laws: laws are written by man, laws are arbitrary and don’t necessarily represent right and wrong. Another assumption about anarchy which persists is the fight for power because of a lack of government. This would be fair if suddenly the government just collapses. However, when I say Anarchy, I don’t mean instantly. Anarchy must be installed slowly by getting everyone to agree to live peacefully without government.
I’m just as guilty as anyone of Gate-keeping. I often shit on minarchy but I think that Anarchy will be a step by step process. Unfortunately minarchy, which is a small government consisting only of basic public services will have to exist in some form before we can attain full anarchy. I address the topic of gate keeping quite often on other platforms. The message is the same here: Please, Please don’t shit on others valid paths to liberty. We don’t know what will actually bring us to our goal. We have to support and educate everyone that we can.
A big part of self governance and anarchy is restraint and charity. I think these two traits are underrated. Restraint refers to being able to keep yourself from infringing on other’s natural rights. It also refers to not overreacting if someone does happen to infringe. Punishment should fit the crime. Charity is another very important aspect. Charity is the voluntary donating of money, goods or services. Charity is what will take care of the poor, take care of the sick. Society needs YOUR help.
In conclusion, its the principle of doing what’s right even when nobody is looking. That is what the analogy of putting away the shopping cart brings to the table for anarchy. Anarchy will work by ALL of us putting away our shopping cart. It will work by all of us self governing by not infringing on other’s rights. Anarchy will not be tomorrow, will not be overnight, not be on scale of nations, but it does start with you.
“Anarchy amongst honorable men is better than democracy amongst thieves”
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