Anarchy?

The first philosophy club meeting of the semester took place last night. The topic was Anarchy. In colloquial usage, anarchy is equivalent to chaos, but that's not the philosophical/political version. There seem to be various formulations, but the common thread is a belief that the government does not have many (or any) rights to actually compel people to carry out or avoid certain actions. That is, the State of itself has no actual authority.

The most frequently referenced book was Wolff's In Defense of Anarchism (not sure if the entire book is there or just excerpts). We spent most of the time discussing his question of the nature of authority and autonomy. In essence, if the State has legitimate authority, then people do not have full autonomy. They have given up at least some of their autonomy. Wolff rejects this notion.

One example that was cited (probably from Wolff's book) was that of passengers on a sinking ship. The Captain bellows out orders to "Man the Lifeboat!" Wolff argues that people do not obey because he is the captain, but because it is an action that makes sense to do when the boat is sinking, and that they would "obey" whether it was the Captain or some random passenger giving the order. Okay, I would agree with that. But that's a somewhat specialized circumstance where not "obeying" puts your life in immediate danger.

So what about a no smoking sign on the deck of the ship? Whence comes its authority? That is, would we say that the sign has authority over us? Probably not. What about the person who put the sign there? Again, probably not; it was probably just a hired worker. Nor would the authority come from the person who made the sign. So, if there is any authority, it must come from the person who had the sign made and ordered it to be put up. Where does that authority derive, though?

One possibility is that this person owns the ship. It's her property. By entering onto the ship, you are implicitly accepting her hospitality, and thus her rules. If you do not accept her rules, she can have you removed from her property. Yes, I'm assuming there is such a thing as "right to property" for the moment.

Now suppose instead that the State has a rule that no commercial vessel may permit smoking. Then the one who resulted in the sign has no direct connection to the ship. What gives the State the right to place rules on a vessel that it does not own? I think the usual answer falls along the lines of "protection of the greater good," but that's not even well-defined. Another common argument uses "consent of the governed." We consented to this government and so we must also consent to its rules. I can't really make sense of either line of reasoning.

First, to clarify, I do not smoke. I think it's a rather nasty habit, and it is what ultimately killed my Grandad. However, I don't think it's the State's place to dictate where people can and cannot smoke. If a restaurant bans smoking because the owner doesn't like it, fine. If the State strongly suggests establishments that do allow smoking have this prominently posted for those of us who prefer to avoid it, again, fine. But to tell people that they cannot smoke on their own property just boggles my mind. It says that the State itself does not recognize the right to property.

Admittedly, there are mitigating factors. If people smoke outside, the smoke can be blown onto someone else's property, thus interfering with that person's right to property. It's certainly easier to ban outdoor smoking than to make smokers responsible for where their smoke winds up, but I still don't like it. Individual responsibility matters too much to me. The State diminishes individual responsibility and autonomy every time it enforces a rule for the sake of the rule itself.

So... I guess I'm an anarchist. I do not follow rules, laws and regulations because they are rules, laws and regulations. If they make sense to follow, I follow them. If it's too much bother to fight over, I generally follow them. If I fundamentally disagree with something, I do not follow that particular rule. If there are consequences, I choose to take them rather than violate my own principles. And that is the core of anarchy: taking responsibility for your own actions rather than blindly following someone else's rules.