Systems of authority, and the technological order that they
serve, impact virtually every domain of our lives. The anarchist view claims that these systems
are not legitimate, and I have yet to come across a compelling argument against
the anarchist perspective.
Cristpin Sartwell has written about how the social contract
notions espoused most notably by Hobbes and Rousseau cannot withstand even the
most basic logical critique. The idea
behind the social contract is that we need a powerful group of people (or
person, or some technological arrangement) in order to protect our freedoms and
to prevent other people from taking advantage of us as they would surely do if
they could get away with it, and that we have therefor agreed (if only tacitly)
to acquiesce to the power of these people (or person, or technological
arrangement).
One problem with this is that it smacks against the bald
fact that over 99% of the existence of our species has proceeded in the absence
of powerful systems of authority. How is
it that we were able to survive and flourish as a species for 2 million years
without these systems if they are essential for our survival and
flourishing? Note that it is very likely
the case that these systems are essential in a society that has been structured
in ways that support the need for these systems, but that’s a logical merry-go-round
that never stops.
Another problem is that virtually all of the conditions that
these systems of authority are supposed to counter, the evil conditions that we
need to contract against, exist even in the presence of these systems—and some are
clearly a product of the systems themselves. And, of course, social contract theory runs into the two inconvenient
facts that no historical society has ever come into existence as a function of
explicit contract, and that even if such a contract did serve as justification
for authority for the founders of such a mythical society, it would have to be
renewed with each new generation.
I
can’t speak for you, by I never agreed to relinquish any part of my autonomy
for any of the "protectionist" systems of oppression currently in operation.
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