The speaker starts off with claiming that the definition of anarchy is propaganda and that you can have order without having a ruler. The definition specifically stated that it was an absence of authority or controlling systems. The controlling system does not have to be structured in a way that there is a hierarchy where people are punished for not adhering to the person at the top. Controlling systems can instead be community based like how our social system is. It is not illegal to say profanities in public if there are kids around but society tends to look down on people who do, resulting in a form of social control. Humans innate want to interact with other humans in some fashion and being ostracized causes us great mental harm. Thus saying that just because his view doesn’t have a ruler makes it anarchism is in of itself a form of propaganda. Other things he incorrectly states are social customs like the side of pavement you walk on. Many of the social practices we use in our everyday life have resulted or been impacted by law and order in some way or fashion. The perfect example is that people walk on the right side because it is the law to drive on the right side of the road. This causes us to naturally transfer that to other parts of our lives to give us some semblance of order and shared rules. Many people think that politics and government don’t have much effect on their life without fully realizing the extent that politics reaches. A saying that I love on the topic is ‘you may not fuck with politics, but politics will fuck with you’.
Dr. Bylund mentions a point that human Hobbes makes where claims that without a ruler humanity will devolve into war. He counters this by saying the solution of the United States is to simply give all the power to one person to watch over everyone else. I want to push back on this slightly as the core tenants of the Constitution and Bill of Rights strive to ensure that even if we give the power to a single person there are certain things you can’t do to another person no matter what. However this is not the system we live in. While yes a single group gets to make the laws for the entire country, they must make some laws and choices that are desired by a large portion of the voting population otherwise they would not get elected again. Then a new person that promised to undo the changes could be voted in and fix everything wrong that their predecessor did. This is a form of control on the controller as while they can stop a single or couple disorderly people that are acting against the good of society, they can’t stop the general population if they unite to stop an authority abusing force.
A major point of Dr. Bylund is on the fact that a state can impose its own ideals and policies on the people with force without regard to the wishes or desires of the population, but that an anarchist society would be unable to as by definition they don’t have the power to. To me this is actually a critical weakness rather than the boon he seems to think it is. While there are some laws that have been made to restrict the freedoms of some that should absolutely be repealed, there are also laws that force a form of acceptance into society to protect vulnerable groups. A perfect example is the civil rights movement and that it took a law passed by congress and enforced by the police to protect african americans from violent racists who wanted to do nothing but harm those that looked slightly different from themselves. A less violent example of why a central power of some capacity is a good idea is the articles of confederation and the constitution. The articles of confederation were somewhat similar to what Dr. Bylund is stating it on the scale of states rather than individual people. No state had the power to impose upon other states and there was no real central authority that could impose any kind of power on anyone. This turned out to be a major flaw as there was no central power to mediate between states and lay down a common law that they all agreed to and would abide by through threat of reparations. Humanity at its core will try to take the easiest path forward. Some may be more comfortable than others doing more morally dubious actions but it does not change that the only security we have is that we support a central power that will act as our shield against those stronger than us. If humans would naturally get along with each other there would be no reason to have laws against murder or rape as we would just not do it if not pushed to do so. This is not the case however. The weak have always banded together to pool their resources into a single strong force that could protect them from individually stronger opponents that wished them harm.
