A thought about Anarchism

Anarchism does one thing very well: individual freedom and responsibility. Anarchism says what ever state you live in, regardless your circumstances you are free to chose what you do next. This means you do not need to obey authority or expectations and can just get on with your life. There is no politics because ultimately what you do is your choice, no amount of membership or grouping can change that so no point in joining any groups or working for a collective identity.

Often this is criticised and deliberately misunderstood to mean that Anarchism tells you to do whatever you want. This is wrong, Anarchism doesn't tell you anything, it simply reminds you that you have the final choice. So it doesn't say that if you see someone with lots of money you should just take it from them, it simply says use your head, think and do what you think is right. Which is probably what you are doing anyway.

But a problem. Anarchism is so individual that it doesn't allow any room for group effects at all. It works fine with small items of private property but what about parks? I love the example of parks, or commons, they are a great political play ground. Consider one with a lake and a football pitch. Anarchists could just divide the park into little blocks of land one for each person. But who gets the pond, and how do you play football once it is divided up. To solve this people need to agree on a collective ownership, or give the park to a private trustee.

Now people can continue to be anarchist, but sooner or later a compromise will be needed. Suppose half the people play football and the other half play rugby. The pitch will be booked at weekends for football games and rugby games and if you don't like rugby you will not be able to play some weekends. Suddenly your life is looking exactly like it would under any system, full of compromise and respect for social and group level events.

Now Anarchism as a reminder of personal responsibility and freedom is always valuable. But as a lesson in social and political organisation it doesn't actually contribute anything.