Are you
- left
- right
- socialist
- (classical) liberal
- libertarian
- an anarchist
- all of the above
- none of the above?
When I talk to someone about politics, I sometimes get such questions. The questioner then would like to assign a label to me. Since I do not like to be classified, my answer is "I am a (classical) liberally thinking person". I have all of the attributes mentioned above or none of them. It depends on the definition of these terms. Especially the terms "left" and "right" are very unclear terms that try to squeeze the 3-dimensional world into one dimension.
Some see the left as "socialist" or "communist", others see the left as "anti-authoritarian" (which is somewhat contradictory to communist). The political left was originally the bourgeoisie, which sat opposite to the "right" nobility.
Today I would like to briefly present my view of the term anarchy:
- Linguistically speaking, anarchy is derived from ancient Greek an-archia (absence of ruler). Then the question arises as to what exactly rule means.
- According to the sociologist Max Weber: Rule/dominion/domination means the chance to find obedience for a command of certain content among specifiable people."
- According to Dieter Nohlen's lexicon of politics, rule is an "asymmetrical social relationship with stabilized behavior expectations, according to which the orders of a higher authority are followed by its addressees". (https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herrschaft#cite_note-Wei%C3%9F_2004:249-2)
The mere use of terms such as "command", "obedience", "asymmetrical social relationship" and "orders from a higher authority" shows me that I don't like rule.
What does "an asymmetrical social relationship" mean? Do I want to have asymmetrical social relationships in my life? I see two possible forms of such a relationship:
- I am superior to another person and can give orders and expect obedience. I am not interested in that because I am not a sociopath.
- I am subordinate to another person. I have at least as little interest in that.
I conclude that "rule" is something inherently negative. So I find the "absence of rule" to be something positive. From this perspective, I am an anarchist and suspect that people who reject anarchy implicitly want rule/domination (i.e. asymmetrical social relationships and obedience). Such people are suspect to me.
What is your point of view? ;-)
P.S. I focused here on the meaning of the word "anarchy". How anarchy can be achieved or implemented is secondary and not subject of this post.