Why do anarchists object to the establishment?

The establishment is the current system in place. It usually refers to the organised bodies of the state (e.g. the police), and concentrations of private power (e.g. corporations).

“It only makes sense to seek out structures of authority,” says Noam Chomsky “and to challenge them. Unless a justification for them can be given, they are illegitimate, and should be dismantled.”

This implies is that anarchists are not dogmatically anti-establishment – but that the onus is on the establishment to justify its authority. If the establishment cannot justify the reasons for its authority, then it should be dismantled. Thus, in the Chomskyan example, some instances of the use of authority and coercion – like pulling a child back from a road with heavy traffic – are justifiable. Most are not.

Anarchists generally believe that people are quite capable of fully participating in meaningful decisions which affect them, and the society. They pit themselves against the traditional conservative view (dating back to Plato) which argues that some kind of an elite is necessary to preserve the good of the society as a whole. To an anarchist, everyone who is involved in society must have an equal say in the way it is run.

In the U.K., as in other ‘polyarchial democracies’, the voter is presented with a selection of representatives to make decisions on their behalf. To an anarchist, this is the wrong way round. Anarchists would push for consensus decision-making, where no power is disproportionately vested in certain people.

Why do anarchists believe that the state is unnecessary?

One of the central themes running throughout anarchism is anti-statism. The state is a sovereign body that exercises supreme authority over all individuals and associations living within a defined geographical area. Either forcibly or by non violent means, the removal of the state plays a crucial role in defining anarchism against other ideologies that it can be related with, notably socialism and liberalism.

Sebastien Faure, in Encycopedie Anarchiste, defined anarchism as ‘the negation of the principle of Authority’. He saw ‘Authority’ as an offence against the principles of freedom and equality. By rejecting the state, anarchists endorse instead the principles of absolute freedom and unrestrained political equality. Authority with the right of one person or institution to influence the behaviour of others enslaves, oppresses and limits human life. It damages and corrupts both those who are subject to authority and those who are in authority.

The state is automatically a possessor of high authority. It is only by this concentration of authority that states could carry out the crimes of slavery, mass genocide and illegal occupation that are widely witnessed in both recent history and in the present day.

To be in authority is to acquire an appetite for prestige, control and eventually domination – giving rise to a ‘psychology of power’ of which Paul Goodman (1911-72) said, ‘many are ruthless and most live in fear’. This is especially true when political authority is backed by the machinery of the modern state.

Other ideologies, though they dislike its ill-effects, recognise the state as a necessary evil. Anarchists, in contrast, see it as a negative and destructive force embodied in institutions of law and government.

The ‘social contract’ is largely a myth, say anarchists. You become subject to a state by being born there, not out of free choice. And the massive coercion used to get you to obey the rules of the state does not constitute a fair contract, agreed to without duress. The state is a coercive body whose laws must be obeyed because they are backed by the threat of punishment. You can dress this up in the term ‘social contract’, but its essence doesn’t change. Since the advent of the state system (caused largely by the needs of European capital and constant fighting in Europe), point out anarchists, we have seen extreme ideologies of fascism and Stalinist communism run vast swathes of the world. We have seen every imaginable atrocity, genocide, and catastrophic war. We have come close to destroying every living thing on the planet – indeed, this possibility is still far from unlikely. Isn’t it time we lost trust in the state?