We must all understand that good government comes only from self-government, and that any authority (including self), excepting God, has the potential for tyranny and chaos within itself, without the appropriate restraint, virtue, and respect of the freedom of others.
Anarchism has been given a bad name. Most equate this simplest form of government with chaos, with insecurity, and with rampaging mobs. However, the word defined at its roots is nothing of the type. Indeed it may be something to aspire to.
Anarchy, as defined from its Greek roots, means “The absence of all political government.” Often, “by extension, it signifies confusion in government.” In other words, anarchy can lead to chaos and confusion.
However, Edmund Burke made an interesting observation in his speech before Parliament in support of the American colonists. While discussing the methods that England had used to force the colonies to submit in 1774-5, primarily the removal of the colonial government of Massachusetts, he wrote:
Pursuing the same plan of punishing by the denial of the exercise of government to still greater lengths, we wholly abrogated the ancient government of Massachusetts. We were confident that the first feeling, if not the very prospect of anarchy, would instantly enforce a complete submission. The experiment was tried. A new, strange, unexpected face of things appeared. Anarchy is found tolerable. A vast province has now subsisted, and subsisted in a considerable degree of health and vigour, for near a twelvemonth, without governor, without public council, without judges, without executive magistrates.
What? “Anarchy is found tolerable”Â? This is unique wording to describe government in the colonies. Can it help us promote the ideals of liberty? I deeply believe that it can.
What was it about colonial Massachusetts that allowed it to continue to function after Britain eliminated its government, hoping to generate chaos? What was this anarchy that Burke recognizes as being tolerable, and why was it tolerable?
Anarchy does not necessitate chaos. It will, however, result in chaos without one thing: self-government. The ultimate in anarchy is that one must govern oneself. Because of the accustomed freedom and virtue, of the citizens of Massachusetts, they were able to operate without a significant government at the colonial level.
Perhaps human nature is such that as more true freedom is preserved in oneself and respected in others, more virtue develops. If so, we should all be anarchists!
We must all understand that good government comes only from self-government, and that any authority (including self), excepting God, has the potential for tyranny and chaos within itself, without the appropriate restraint, virtue, and respect of the freedom of others.
Originally posted at The Cause of Liberty.
Mike received his B.S. degree in Chemistry from Brigham Young University and pursued graduate work at the University of California, San Diego, where he earned a M.S. degree in Biomedical Sciences prior to obtaining his M.D. at the UCSD School of Medicine. He lives in Cedar City, Utah with his wife Jenni and their six children and practices emergency medicine in St. George, Utah while working on a Ph.D. in Constitutional Law at George Wythe University. He is also an Associate Mentor at GWU. Mike is a regular contributor to The Cause of Liberty as well as runs his own blog The Idealist.
