Why Anarchy Will Not Work

This is a brief treatise on the subject of anarchy and its relationship to human nature. The purpose of this work is to show the reasons behind the fallacy of a utopia some people seem to think that anarchy can bring us. I intend to give various reasons for why anarchy will not work, even for a week.

The first reason may not seem apparent, but it concerns the most basic needs of humans, i.e. food and shelter. These two things take precedence over all other things because they are two things that will be in the most demand and in the shortest supply. These are the two basic needs that every human must have.

Food will be the first to go. Those who have food will hoard it and those without it will be forced into desperate measures to obtain it. This will begin the breakdown of any sort of peace that might be prevailing in the beginning. Farms will immediately be looted. Even if the farmer is successful in protecting what he has, he will have to devote so much time and effort to maintaining security for his farm that he will not have time to do the actual farming. Thus our current system of the few feeding the many will collapse.

The cities will quickly be abandoned because of this lack of food. The new refugees will need shelter and a place to plant their crops. Soon land squabbles will become frequent as city dwellers move out into the open land and try to scratch out a living.

Shelter will also be a prime commodity after anarchy takes hold. The abandonment of the cities will mean the need for new shelter to be built elsewhere. With no food and nothing but the clothes on their backs, hungry refugees will be wandering the countryside looking for any place to take refuge from weather, bugs, and other hungry refugees. Since there will be no laws and no penalties for bad deeds, violence will reign supreme as the ultimate authority.

So far anarchy sounds pretty bad does it not? I admit, these arguments might seem like a slippery slope. But I ask you, what other conclusions can I reach considering the conduct of those in our current society. It is not the fault of society that anarchy will fail, however. The fault lies in human nature itself.

Leaders have always been an important part of any society, and not just human society. To abandon leadership is to abandon society and to go against instincts that have helped humans and other animals to survive for millions of years. Even the dumbest of herbivores have an instinct to listen to their leaders for the good of the rest of the herd. I agree that our current method of selecting leaders leaves much to be desired, but that is no reason to throw the whole system of leadership out the door.

I do not think I have much to worry about in the department of anarchy however. At best anarchy will last two, maybe three days. The first charismatic person with food, shelter, and the ambition will have a following of hungry refugees in no time. Setting himself up as a leader will be no problem and thus the problem of anarchy goes away with the formation of the first group. The whole point of anarchy is the lack of authority, but when someone is providing you with shelter, food, and security, you will be more than willing to do their bidding and follow their rules. The alternative being hunger and total lack of safety, you will submit and anarchy is dead.