Anarchy and Tyranny
As we mentioned in an earlier post called "The Heretical Roots of Libertarianism", Christopher Ferrara wrote in his essay that:
To use the words of Peter Maurin, co-founder of the Catholic Worker Movement, we are to aim for the "Good Society". That is, a society where it is easier to obey the Ten Commandments and the Gospels in every facet of life, rather than difficult as it is today. In an ideal Distributist State, it would be de-centralized as much as possible, with decisions occuring at the local level. That is, by the local city or town or village authorities, as it used to be in many countries long ago, including early America.
When State power is either grown or shrunk to extremes, chaos erupts and lives are shattered. The following - an essay and a book review - give poignant examples of that truth.
This article is from the BBC's website, written by Joseph Winter from Mogadishu, Somalia, on how life there is in a shambles after years of anarchy and poverty. This report also has links to other essays on how Somalia stumbles on as the only nation without a government.
On the other side of the scale, there is a book review by Johnathan Mirsky of the British newspaper The Independent, sent via the controversial news website Rense.com. It is a review of the latest biography of the tyrant Mao Zedong, called "Mao: The Unknown Story", which will come out October 18th in the US by Knopf Publishing Group. The book shatters the facade still held by many that Mao was a "great man". Like Lenin, Hitler, Stalin and Pol Pot, as well as many a dictator before him, Mao is exposed in great detail as ruthless, heartless, vindictive and cruel.
Neither too little government nor too much. Balance is always needed here, just as in so many other aspects of life. Let us learn from the bitter experiences of Somalis and Chinese and avoid either extreme.
And, in turn, aim for the Distributist Ideal.
NOTE: Congratulations to the French on voting NO to the European Union constitution. Holland's turn comes up Wednesday. We at the DR encourage them to follow in France's footsteps and, like their French neighbors, vote NO also.
1 comments:
Well the fact of the matter is that Somalia is a bad example of true anarchism. Remember: political anarchy in fact is not chaos. This is just the ridiculous presumption made by apologists for the State. Somalia is not a great example of political anarchism as it is being run by criminal rogue elements -referred to as " war lords" in the West- who are perpetuating the State an a micro level complete with inter competition among the various competing entities & rouge elements.
The absence of the State including the absence of " war lords" would render a truer form of anarchism. Remember: anarchism is the absence of a centralized State as well as the absence of any form of hierarchal control.
This does not necessarily lead to chaos as people all throughout history have shown that they can self organize without a State or be saddled with chaos. Anarchism also does not mean disorder as anarchism allows for an organized society but along more equitable lines without coercive force or control.
A few examples of anarchistic type societies which have worked without the cliched expected social breakdown -as Statist apologists like to assert- are the San / Bushmen of the Northern Cape & Namibia & the Boers of the Voortrekker era in southern Africa.
The Boers have been noted by a number of historians to have been living in a state of Stateless anarchism on the eastern Cape frontier & during the Great Trek before the establishment of formal -though minimalist- republics. They were certainly still able to organize & maintain a degree of order through their commandos.
The fact of the matter is that anarchism is the natural & earliest political state (as in state of affairs not the coercive hierarchal monstrosity formal apparatus) of the human race.
When all is said & done people tend to prefer to make their own decisions regarding political matters as well as personal choices which is why anarchism is the only real choice as as the other ideologies require some form of State sanctioned coercion.
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