Every so often, a person who dabbles in political philosophy (i.e., took the political compass test) encounters an odd far left ideology: anarchism. The usual (and rightfully knee-jerk) conclusion is that anarchism is bollocks. Let’s go over, in detail, exactly why anarchism is such complete bull.

Right off the bat, the name is a huge red herring. Why would you name your movement after a common expression for disorder? It is painfully obvious that the public can only take in one definition for any given word. Well, granted that the “peaceful”, “pro liberty” anarchists are so very loud, eventually one gets to understand what anarchism is all about.

It seems the main tenet of anarchism is “dismantlement of all hierarchies” (a mouthful, doesn’t roll off the tongue). I will try to explain it. Basically, anarchists say nobody should have any authority over anyone else, that is, every interaction between people should be a (utopian) “free association”. It may sound reasonable at first, but take a look at one thing anarchists consider to be, in their own words, “a giant hierarchy”: the state. But they don’t mean just to shrink the government (as we know, taxation is theft but someone gotta build them roads), but rather remove it completely! Think about everything the state takes care of: education, laws, use of force, etc. Even the trash is picked up by the government. If we abolish it, who’s gonna do it all? Ourselves? How those in power are going to be protected if there is no police? How do you intend to have politicians if there are no voters? How anybody thinks that making decisions by themselves is preferable to choosing a third party to possibly represent their interests is beyond me.

Another big thing for anarchists is how the current economical system (another so called “hierarchy”), instead of benefiting the workers, fosters social inequality by accumulating wealth in the hands of a few, thereby giving them enormous power over the rest of the population. While most people just haven’t pulled themselves up by their bootstraps hard enough (if you work 12 hours a day for peanuts with no opportunity of education, the onus is on you for not flying somewhere else), I do concede that our economy today is shaping up more and more like crony capitalist than the liberating laissez faire capitalism advocated by Ayn Rand. That being said, anarchist’s proposed solution (they actually use a dirty word I’d rather not reproduce here) is naive at best, laughable at worst. According to them, it is a fact that profits of a given something go to the person who owns whatever- be it places, machines, tools- needed to produce that something. Simple enough, I guess, the owners of a company do keep the profits of the companies they own. So, again their words not mine, by this logic, if everybody owned these whatever, shall we call it means of production, then them profits will also belong to everybody… It is hard to fathom how dangerous such idea is. I mean, abolish private companies? Think about the thousands of jobs- marketers, middle managers, upper managers, sexy secretaries, salespeople, insurancepeople- that will disappear overnight because we no longer need to force people to buy stuff! I am sure innovation would sink if, instead of having to make a profit, people had the time to work on what they love to. Obviously, if a McDonald’s worker doesn’t need to innovate over Burger King anymore, they will surely feel lost with all this extra free time. Not to say that such- what is the word for something done through a commune?- ideas mean the extinction of money. This impacts our freedom greatly. To put it in another way, how free is my “free association” if I don’t have the option to starve? The current system offers me more options (meaning: freedom): while in anarchism I may only work for the good of society, capitalism gives me the chance to make money for Company A, Company B, or very likely, Company C.

And don’t get me started on how “dismantlement of all hierarchies” implies “gender equality”, “ethnic and racial equality”, and such other nonsense.

All in all, I hope by now we are equipped to accurately tell why anarchism is bullshit, and laugh at any political opponents while pointing out how the status quo is preferable and greatly superior.