Mark,
It seems to me you’re expending a lot more effort in talking about what seems “semantically logical†or rhetorically useful to you, than you are in listening to what other folks are seeing we might find useful in different linguistic choices. For example, I pointed to the Encyclopedia Britannica article as one example of the anarchist meaning of “anarchy,†not as an attempt to prove something to you about whether you are allowed to use the word “government†in the way you want to use it. Use the word however you want to; but this insistence that everyone must make the same choices about diction that you do strikes me as wrong-headed, if your interest is in communication and not simply ranting.
If it’s unconventional, that’s only because the state is ubiquitous, but it doesn’t always have to be so.
That’s fine, but you can say exactly the same thing about our counter-conventional use of the term “anarchy,†to mean “consensual social order, without social control,†as opposed to both the violent social chaos of civil war, or the violent social control of the state. That people don’t see the middle term — order by means of consent rather than control — is no doubt due to the ubiquity of the state. But it doesn’t have to be so. Etc.
You can’t use the unconventionality of our favored usage, “less than one percent of people,†etc. as a decisive argument against it and then turn around and insist that your own completely unconventional, less-than-1%, etc. usage is O.K. Either challenging the convention is legitimate or it’s not. If it is, then both uses are potentially legitimate, and the decision is a matter of rhetorical choices and conversational trade-offs, not a matter of one being “illogical†and the other being “logical.â€
A non-hierarchical social structure is antithetical to human nature. … If I choose to voluntarily delegate authority to a person or an organization, what right do you have to prevent me from doing so if this organization commits no aggression?
Look, man, I never said I would “prevent†you from doing anything. You do seem to be suggesting that any form of coordination, mediation, deliberation, or decision-making involves hierarchical relationships of “management,†“government,†or “authority,†or “control†(even if it’s a voluntary relationship), and I think that is absolutely false. But even if consensual power-relationships aren’t the only way to get these things done, maybe you’re just into that kind of thing. Well, fine; as long as you keep it safe, sane and consensual I’m hardly going to interfere. But my point is that while you may be into that, I’m not; I think that this kind of structured power over others strikes me as needless, stifling, and often actively hurtful, and is something that I want nothing to do with (either with consensually controlling other people, or being consensually controlled by them). That’s not my bag, so I’m hardly going to identify myself with a set of terms that foregrounds and emphasizes the prospect of voluntary social control.
Since our concern is with civil management and control …
Maybe that’s your concern. It’s not mine. Perhaps you think that dispute-mediation and deliberation just are matters of “management and control;†I don’t. In any case, calling this “civil management and control†tells you exactly nothing to explain the need for a dedicated voluntary associations to deal with it. There are lots of things that happen in the life of a civitas and some of them may be dealt with by neighborhood associations, others by universities; some by lodges, others by labor unions or professional associations; some by churches, others by rating or certification boards; some by credit bureaus, some by insurance mutuals; a lot will no doubt be settled peaceably and informally within families or social circles; some will be handled more or less ad-hoc, by third-party mediators without any standing mandate, who are called in only at need, and those mediators may be either amateurs, or hired guns, without being kept on retainer. If there is something special here that needs to be done by a dedicated voluntary association called a “government,†as opposed to all the other voluntary associations in the society, which does nothing else with its time but the governing, I don’t know what that need is. Perhaps you could make it clearer than the catch-all term “civil management.â€
Ask any bomb throwing anarchist, political assassin or rioter….
It sounds like you believe in a lot of ridiculous statist calumnies against anarchists.
… the violence, chaos and disorder that accompanies the breakdown and failure of civil order.
It also sounds like you believe in a lot of fantastical statist propaganda about the breakdown and failure of civil order. While I am interested in promoting the breakdown of civil control, and in the emergence of spontaneous, uncontrolled social order, the fact is that breakdowns and failures of a coercive, State-imposed civil order (whether by acts of God or man) are not typically followed by catastrophe; rather, what follows is rarely any worse, and often substantially better, than the stable, orderly State violence that preceded them. Cf. this on “disaster areas†without effective government control for example.
… the use of “anarchy†as a classical liberal ideal.
I am not a classical liberal, and my use of the term “anarchy†has nothing to do with trying to promote “classical liberal ideals.â€
Anticopyright.