Anarchy, Thomas Hobbes and capitalism

[lvatt]

Hello everyone

I'm writing this topic hoping to learn a lot about what anarchy is, because I only have a very limited understanding of it.

Thomas Hobbes as you know wrote quite a large criticism of anarchy in his Leviathan. Much of the book analyses the bible to oppose theocracies, but there is also a long essay on human nature and the formation of a social contract. A human society without government for him was a perpetual war and worse to live in than any form of despotism

Now I must admit that my understanding of anarchy is not very good. I am personally in favor of a communist state that regulates most aspects of commerce to protect workers unions against the large corporate employers and fights exploitation. I also support the use of taxation as a means to insure a mandatory reinvestment of capital for socialist interests (free health care, free education, etc, for the people who would normally not be able to afford it)

In any case, it is difficult not to admit that human nature has indeed done some very ugly things (Stalin's massacres, japanese ww2 intervention in China - Nanking and Unit 731 for instance -, nazi germany, the a-bombs of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, etc.). In my mind, free market capitalism represents one of the most dehumanized forms of 'ugliness' by essentially creating an atmosphere in which the working mass is constantly targeted to have all their advantages taken away (just look at how the largest corporations fight workers unions, pension, minimum wage, etc)

In my understanding, the natural state of men is that the strong are made to exploit the weak. And such, the role of the state is to alter the balance of power between people to allow, for instance, a worker earning minimum wage to have at least a certain amount of freedom when negotiating with a billionaire employer. So through the state, legal protections are given in order to help the proletariat. A random example would be the quebec labor code provision that prevents employers of provincial businesses to hire scabs during a strike (thus allowing the workers to create a much stronger economical pressure to gain advantages such as early retirement, etc). It seems to me that every time there is an occasion for exploitation, the exploitation occurs with the greatest power permissible under the law. Wouldn't removing the law effectively remove the limits of exploitation and allow slavery?

This is where I have trouble associating anarchy with socialism. I have always thought (perhaps wrongfully) that anarchy is essentially a form of capitalism. Seeking the abolition of the state--doesn't that argument sound similar to capitalists fighting to prevent the state from meddling in the economy? A vivid example of what I have in mind is the series of supreme court decisions during a period called the Lochner Era (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lochner_era)
If the role of the state in preventing the abuses of capitalism is to give as much protection and rights as possible to the working class to prevent abuse, the Lochner era can be seen as the consecration by the Supreme Court of an extreme form of capitalism that advocates child labor and other forms of exploitation for private interests.

Where I am getting at is that in my mind, I have a hard time seeing how true equality can be achieved without the power of a government to ensure the protection of the people. If the natural form of humanity, as Thomas Hobbes says, is for the strong to exploit the weak, who else than a government can help the weak protect themselves in ways that they would be unable to by their own means? How can we make sure that capitalism is abolished when there is no government control to prevent the richest and most powerful to exploit others? If a man is subservient to another man because of economic deeds, can we truly talk of a egalitarian society?

Please excuse me if I'm not making much sense. I feel strongly for the need to help maintain a society where everyone has a chance to live their lives without being forced in the service of the elite. Yet, everywhere I look around me people are suffering under the exploitation of dehumanized corporations who think of nothing but make their shareholders happy while not giving much of a damn about the human suffering they cause. Is human nature truly as ugly as Thomas Hobbes says it is? Can there truly be a way to prevent humans from being subservient to others without the collaboration of a government? I have recently read Sheldon Harris's book on the Japanese biological warfare, and some of the stories he tells are beyond horrible... human beings slaughtering other human beings without any form of compassion. It seems that murder and exploitation come so easily...

I'm sorry for the very long post. Please excuse my ignorance :blush:

[Everyday Anarchy]

Human nature is thrown around in such a careless manner by so many who oppose anarchism and communism. For one, what is human nature? Can you put a definition to it?

Also, the things you listed as the horrible effects of "human nature" are all actually the horrible effects of the State. Wars are fought between States, and everyone else is caught in their crossfire.

In anarchism, there would be no State to manipulate. Anti-social beings, such as Hitler, were only capable of committing their crimes on such a large scale because they were in control of the State.

In anarchy, there very well may be anti-social humans still who insist on harming others. However, their crimes will be nearly pointless in comparison to the times when those people were able to control an entire military. Also, the community of free people will be able to control the man in whichever way they find most suitable.

[lvatt]

Thanks for your reply my friend Everyday Anarchy

I think you're right to be suspicious of "human nature" arguments and I think I can get the gist of what you're saying. I think I can understand a bit the difference between leftist anarchism and anarcho-capitalism but it's all still a bit cloudy in my mind. Basically I would suppose your reasons of opposing the state are different in that you are opposing exploitation and manipulation on an economic level and they are opposing economic pressure and taxation (correct me if I'm wrong). I think I also understand what you mean by anti-social people using the state as a vehicle to commit their crimes.

Yet I'm curious as to how you would define a 'state' in anarchy? My formation has been in philosophy and law, but unfortunately not in political science so some of the concepts are still a bit hard for me to grasp. Yet please indulge me if you will. You talk about the 'community of free people' as (if I understand well) an uniform body composed of cooperative humans living together as some form of symbiosis. In some ways they would effectively police themselves to weed out the bad apples that threaten the order they have created, am I wrong?
Now, how would that not be considered, in effect, some form of state? Inside that community, would you oppose that a group of the people who form it to act as decision makers through means of representation?
Also, if inside the community (I'm not going to use the word 'state') two men have a disagreement about a deal they have with each other, how would their disagreement be arbitered without courts of law? Obviously they cannot be left to themselves because then they would try to use their own power to fight each other and the winner of the conflict may not necessarily be the one whose position is the most just (this is the first step to exploitation, when one person uses power to take advantage of another, then his own network grows). Would they be able to take their grievance to an independent authority? Or would the community itself, through its own initiative, correct the conflict by insuring a certain form of justice? This is important if we want to fight against exploitation (because I believe that is the common ground of most or all leftists).

Also I am curious to hear from an anarchist what they feel is the reason for the initial formation of a state inside a human ecosystem (other animals normally do not form the type of association we can call a 'state'). According to Thomas Hobbes (the concept of a 'state' was perhaps different in his time, I think back then people were subservient to an organ that functioned much as a modern corporation) the state (or civil society) is formed out of necessity from the hardships of the initial situation of a natural order in which people live in fear of their lives (in some ways, anarchy without any form of cooperation... at least that's why I believe he meant by it).

Another thing I'm curious of (please forgive my long posts) is whether anarchists believe their system could function on a large territorial scale. I mean, for example, could anarchy work well in a territory such as the United States with hundreds of millions of inhabitants or would it rather be many small communities that function independently? Also, what would you say the ideal size for an anarchist community be?

Thanks a lot

[IAmLeviathan]

(other animals normally do not form the type of association we can call a 'state').

your post is very interesting, and id love to be able to answer your questions. however, they are the exact same questions i have myself of Anarchy so i cant. As you can probably tell by my login i am a fan of Hobbes and the Leviathan, and think that given the time it was written in think it shows remarkable insight into society.

However, il have a stab at this one:

"Also I am curious to hear from an anarchist what they feel is the reason for the initial formation of a state inside a human ecosystem (other animals normally do not form the type of association we can call a 'state'). "

I believe the answer to this lies in our evolution as a species. We are not hunter-gatherer creatures as we once were - we have gone beyond that state, and now all our hunting-gathering is done for us. Other animals do not form a state because they have no need for one - their lives are consumed by feeding, eating sleeping. Our expanding conscience is responsible for the development of society... our imaginations developed and so our need to keep our over-active minds busy led to commerce, to government, to recreation, to rules, to laws, to courts, to order. The point in our evolution when we stopped being satisfied with sitting around scratching our arses after feeding, and started to get BORED - to ask questions like "why?", "how?" etc, is the single most important moment in human history and is the reason for the initial formation of primitive state. these questions led to an unease in our inability to have any real answers, so answers were created. God, Great Chain Of Being, Life, Death etc. Neitzsche claimed that the first primitive states we're developed by murderers to prevent from being murdered in return - our ancestors, in becoming self aware, realised that their power in the group was attained in the beating of the previous alpha male, and needed to prevent this from being done to them in return.

Also our ability to be able to express these thoughts, our ability to be able to do something about them, our collective imagination are all key factors. Maybe Dogs ask themselves these questions too, but they are biologically unable to do much beyond that which they do. No thumbs. Deep thinkers though.