We are learning that the Anarchist are not just against government, they are also against pretty much any large institution that would exert influence over others, such as, large corporations. From my study, it appears that the banks and financial centers are particular sore points with the anarchists. The picture above was taken in 1920, and shows a bombing that occurred on Wall Street. So apparently this group did not just throw bombs at their own rally, but also threw bombs at other people.
I was very excited to see we had an actual anarchist post on the site yesterday, a Mr. Lemuria. From the post it sounded like he was not a real anarchist, but more of a hobby-anarchist, or armchair anarchist, or to coin a term, a Gentleman Anarchist. I would guess that he likes to read books on the subject, and sit around the coffee shop with his friends and talk about throwing rocks through windows, but probably would not ever really throw a rock through a window. I am not being pejorative, but just summarizing my read on his musings.
I hope Mr. Lemuria will post again today, as I would really like to better understand how this movement thinks. I am not interested in winning an argument, I just want to understand what goes on in these people's minds.
OK, so let me describe a situation. I have this friend named Matt. Matt loves guns. Every time I see him he shows me the 27 guns he has bought since the last time I saw him. He buys guns, he shoots guns, he fixes guns, and in fact he can even make guns from scratch. If there is one thing he loves more than guns, it is coffee. The only thing better than coffee is free coffee. The only thing better than free coffee would be an evening of drinking free coffee and burning down anarchist book stores. Now Matt might dream of stealing coffee from an anarchist coffee shop, and then burning down an anarchist book store, but he would never actually do it because of the Rule of Law. He understands that if he were to do those things he would be thrown into prison, and would possibly become a love interest of a 350 pound Hell's Angel biker. So, Matt behaves himself because there is a government, and rule of law, and prisons, and bikers in prison.
If Mr. Lemuria and his friends achieve their Utopian vision of anarchy where there is no government and no large corporations, the issue is that my friend Matt does not go away, and his friends do not go away, and his guns do not go away. Even if you got rid of guns as you got rid of governments, Matt could build one from scrap metal in about a week. So, if we have Matt, guns, anarchist coffee shops, anarchist book stores, and no government, there will be raids where coffee is stolen and anarchist book stores are burned. Oh yes, there will be coffee raiders, and coffee raids.
Mr. Lemuria now has the choice of either organizing his friends and arming himself, or becoming the victim of Matt and his marauding band of bookstore burners. If Mr. Lemuria does organize and arm, then Matt and his group get into battles with Mr. Lemuria and his group. So, we got rid of government but did not get rid of war. Also, Matt then starts banding together with other marauding groups, and organizes, and chooses leaders. Now all the sudden it sounds like we have a new government emerging. Matt now has a lot more men to arm, and he does not have the time to make all the guns, so a company is formed to make guns, and Matt uses the proceeds from his coffee shop raids to purchase weapons from the company, which begins to grow in size. So, now we not only have emerging governments, we have emerging large corporations and defense contractors.
So, how can an anarchist society exist without wars breaking out, people organizing, and governments being formed.
