Does Anarchy lead to "Chaos?"
If we abolish all government programs, won't that lead to "chaos?"
If there is no "government," won't criminals "take over?"
Without the military-industrial complex, won't the Communists or the Muslims invade our shores and enslave us?
Doesn't "anarchy" mean widespread violence, theft, and murder?
The "anarchy leads to chaos" argument is easily answered. The question is, "What led to anarchy?" That is, "How did today's
small number of anarchists persuade our society to abolish all government programs?"
This depends on what kind of "anarchy" our society chooses.
Why would our society choose to abolish "the government?"
I see only two possible reasons:
- Our society is made up of Secular Humanists, and we don't want government telling us what to do.
- Our society is made up of Christian Theocrats, and we want God telling us what to do.
There are only two worldviews: Autonomy or Theonomy.
Autonomy = self-invented law [auto, "self" + nomos,
"law"]
Theonomy = God-invented law [theos,
"God" + nomos, "law"]
It is Critical to Understand that There Are Two Kinds of Libertarians:
There are libertarians who say,
“You can't tell me what to do.”
Government schools and the mainstream media have brainwashed most Americans to believe that an "anarchist" is a bomb-throwing assassin
who rejects private property and foments chaos and civil war in order to abolish government and let everyone be his own god, do what is right in his own eyes, and
let criminals run rampant. People don't think of followers of Jesus Christ as "anarchists." |
There are those who say
“I've been commanded not to initiate force against others.”
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The "anarchy" of widespread autonomy is the chaos created when everyone is his own god, and nobody considers himself obligated
to care for others. The "zero-aggression principle" means nobody tolerates aggression against himself,
but everyone feels the right to aggress against others. The heart of Autonomy is service of self -- even at the expense of others. |
The heart of Christian Theonomy is service of others in obedience
to God. In Mark 10:42-45 Jesus says that the kings of the gentiles love to be "archists"
(check the Greek, "archein"), but followers of Christ are not
to be archists.
However, Christian non-archists obey the next thing Jesus said: be SERVANTS instead. |
| "Anarchism" (abolition of archists) based on Theonomic service is completely different
from "anarchism" based on autonomy and self-worship. |
We are put on earth to serve others.
If we don't do so voluntarily, God will compel us.
I am a Christian Theocrat. I am a Christian Anarchist.
I admit I'm an extremist. I want to abolish all civil governments. Those who advocate anarcho-capitalism
must ask themselves,
- What is the content of our campaigns, propaganda, media-blitzes, and agitation that will persuade the majority of a society to abolish "the State?"
- What do people have to believe before we can have "anarchy?"
Our society generally agrees that murder, theft, and enslavement are bad. Our society would never vote to allow murder, theft, and enslavement to occur, and if
"anarchy" is perceived to be the fountain of murder, theft, and enslavement, our society will never choose "anarchy."
The biggest problem in the world today is the myth that a small group of people calling themselves "the government" have the right (some would say a
"God ordained" right) to steal, enslave, and kill other human beings.
During the 20th century,
Hundreds of millions of people were murdered.
Billions of people were enslaved.
Trillions of dollars worth of private property was confiscated or destroyed.
By "Governments."
And yet a majority of people believe that without these same "governments," we would have "anarchy," by which they mean "chaos" --
theft, murder, and enslavement.
If it could be shown that the abolition of "civil governments" would result in less theft, less murder, less violence, less
enslavement, people might be open to change.
But there would only be less violence if there were a general social consensus that violence was immoral.
The belief that violence is immoral is an expression of the belief in moral duty. An orderly anarcho-capitalist
society can only exist when it is built on a foundation of moral duty. If it is built on a foundation of selfish autonomy, it will collapse.
But Jesus called them to Himself and
said to them, “You know that those who are considered rulers over the Gentiles lord it
over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them. {43}
Yet it shall not be so among you; but whoever desires to become great among
you shall be your servant. {44}
And whoever of you desires to be first shall be slave of all. {45}
For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many.”
Mark 10:42-45
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When a society is dominated by Christian Theonomy, the result is the widespread service of others, and the
disappearance of archists ("an-archy"), who repent of archism.
When a society is dominated by autonomy, everyone is his own lawmaker. Everyone is his own archist. Nobody needs to obey all the other archists. When a
society is dominated by autonomy, everybody is an archist. Everybody says "YOU
CAN'T TELL ME WHAT TO DO!" When archists refuse to obey other archists, "the State" may vanish (because it is centralized archism), but the
absence of "the State" is not true anarchy. The absence of "the State" under autonomy might be called "anarchy," but it is not. Under
autonomy, where everyone is his own god, society exists in a condition of multi-archy, poly-archy, or omni-archy.
What most people think of as "anarchy" is not the absence of archists, but it is
chaos. And when "the State" is abolished but poly-archy remains, those who made their living regulating and taxing
others as part of "the government" will say, "See what happens when there is no State? CHAOS!"
But the real problem is, everyone is his own State. Everyone is his own jack-booted thug. Everyone is his own god.
True anarcho-capitalism can only exist when the Crown
Rights of King Jesus, the True Archist, are acknowledged, human beings become servants, and God's Law, the
blueprint for prosperity and freedom, is obeyed.
Repentance or Revolution?
Does "anarchy" (absence of "the State") mean "chaos?" Only if "the State" is eliminated in the quest for widespread autonomous
aggression.
Revolution: If everyone in society wants to aggress against everyone else, but "the State" allows only aggression by the State and
suppresses aggression against the State and the interests of the State, then the State will be abolished in an act of autonomous revolution. The
masses overthrow the State in an act of aggression against the State in order to eliminate all restrictions on aggression. This would be "chaos," that is,
widespread theft, murder, and enslavement.
The question is, would decentralized aggression be worse than centralized aggression committed out of patriotic
"duty" and funded by taxes or government-printed "money?"
Repentance: On the other hand, if everyone in society is opposed to aggression, and the State is abolished because it is viewed as systematic,
institutionalized aggression, then the State is abolished in an act of Theonomic Repentance. If society repents, the
amount of theft, murder, and enslavement will go down, not up, when "the State" is abolished.
In an "anarchist" society, there are two classes of people: "archists" and non-archists; aggressors and
non-aggressors.
In an "archist" society, there are three classes of people: "archists" are divided into two
classes: "public servants" and "criminals"; those who commit aggression as agents of "the State," and non-state aggressors. The third
class of people are "voters" or "taxpayers."
Remember, the person described by the word "archist" is a person who believes he has the right
to impose his will on others by force or aggression. "Anarchists" do not believe anyone has this right. If you took a carefully-worded poll right
now, I believe you would find that the vast majority of people are anarchists when they view human beings as individuals. That is, they do not believe any individual
has the right to impose his will on other people by force. Tragically, most people today believe that some people have the right to transcend
individuality and form a collective ("the State") which does have the right to impose its collective will on others by force. In an anarchist
society, people reject this violent fiction.
Therefore, if we move from an "archist" society (dominated or democratically subservient to an aggressive collective) to an "anarchist" society
(where aggression is rejected by voters and by repentant politicians who no longer engage in aggression through "public service") there will be less theft,
murder, enslavement, and chaos than we have now.
| If a society abolished "the State" by repenting of aggression -- |
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• voters no longer voted for politicians who
promise to steal, "regulate," or kill |
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• and all soldiers, bureaucrats, and politicians
resigned because they acknowledged that their acts of "taxation," "regulation" and "foreign policy" were immoral acts of
aggression |
| -- "criminals" would not "take over." |
There will always be "archists" in every society: people who believe they have a right to impose their will on others by force or aggression. But if the
vast majority of society believes this aggression is immoral, then archists will always be "outlaws." They will be
the "fringe" and the "underground." They will eventually be excommunicated by society until they repent
of their archist ways. An anarchist society -- where criminals are marginalized -- will have less crime than a society which "votes" for aggression, funds it
with taxes and monetary printing presses, dons a uniform to carry out state-mandated aggression, and praises and exalts state aggression with patriotic huzzahs.
There is no way that marginalized social outcasts could develop weapons of mass destruction and top the record of "the State" for aggression. During the
20th century:
• Hundreds of millions of people were murdered.
• Billions of people were enslaved.
• Trillions of dollars worth of private property was confiscated or destroyed.
By "Governments."
This would not be possible in an anarchist world. This would not be possible if the vast majority of people rejected aggression and abolished "the State"
through Theonomic Repentance.
Objections to Theonomy
Advocating social Theonomy is met with the greatest boogeyman-word of our era: "Theocracy!" "You're trying to impose a
Theocracy!"
All you have to do is try to get public school teachers to teach public school students that the Declaration of
Independence is really true and you'll be accused of trying to "impose a theocracy on America!" (By today's atheistic standards, the
Declaration of Independence is "theocratic.")
"The Anarchists are right in everything; in the negation of the existing order, and in the assertion that, without
Authority, there could not be worse violence than that of Authority under existing conditions. They are mistaken only in thinking that Anarchy
can be instituted by a revolution. But it will be instituted only by there being more and more people who do not require the protection of
governmental power
This alone is needed, will certainly be successful.
And this is the will of God, the teaching of Christ. There can be only one permanent revolution — a
moral one: the regeneration of the inner man.
How is this revolution to take place? Nobody knows how it will take place in humanity, but every man
feels it clearly in himself. And yet in our world everybody thinks of changing humanity, and nobody thinks of changing himself."
-- Leo Tolstoy, "On Anarchy" (1900) |
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The answer to this accusation is simple: the word "theocracy" does not mean "rule by priests," it means "rule by God." It is not a
church-state. It can be a churchless, stateless society that acknowledges the right of God to govern all, and the duty of all
to be governed by God.
To be honest, Christian anarchists want everyone to obey "the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God,"
which Blackstone said could be found "only in Holy Scripture." America's Founders correctly declared that this
is the only source of our liberties or "rights." But we cannot "impose" faithfulness (obedience)
to God by force or threats of violence.
Although we live in the world, we don’t fight our battles with human methods. Our weapons that we fight with aren’t human, but instead they are powered by God
for the destruction of fortresses. They destroy arguments, and every defense that is raised up to oppose the knowledge of God. They capture every thought to make it
obedient to Christ.
2 Corinthians 10:3-5 (CEB)
"Theocracy" is an inescapable concept.
Some people say, "You can't legislate morality."
All legislation is legislated morality.
All legislation is "Thou shalt ____" or "Thou shalt not ____."
All laws reflect someone's morality, and the source of morality in a society is the "god" of
that society. It can be the True God, or a false
god.
Every society is a theocracy. The question is, WHO is the "theos" in your "theocracy?" A statist muslim theocracy
(where everyone obeys the muslim god) is very different from a Christian anarchist/servant Theocracy, just as a truly Christian Theocracy is different from a secular
theocracy (where every man is his own god, but the State inevitably represents "the popular will" as "god
walking on the earth" [Hegel]).
The question is not WHETHER we will have a theocracy or not, the question is, WHOSE theocracy?
Secular theocracies murdered half a billion human beings in the 20th century, through war and "democide."
Some secular theocrats contend many more times as many people must be eradicated in the 21st century --
as many as half a million people per day.
Moving to a global Christian Theocracy will not lead to chaos and mass death. It is the only way to avoid it.
There are only two options in a universe created by the God of the Bible: Autonomy or Theonomy. The only valid option
for a Christian is that of becoming a better Theonomist.
If "libertarian" is defined as "not subject to God's Law," then obviously a Theonomist cannot be such a "libertarian."
If "libertarian" is defined as "moving to greater
liberty and a smaller state," then Theonomists are more libertarian than secularists and other antinomians.
A Theonomic society is more libertarian than a secular self-anointed "libertarian" society, and even more libertarian than secular "anarchy,"
because secularism -- where every man in his own god -- inescapably leads to a more powerful State, and Theonomy is the most philosophically consistent opponent of Statism.
Sure, you can have a handful of isolationist atheists who don't care about anyone else, avoid contact with all other people, and live as hermits. They are no threat to
your liberty. (Neither are they a guardian of your liberty.) But an entire population of secularists is a population of would-be gods, and for every secular hermit
there are a dozen aggressive secular jackbooted thugs: either "private sector criminals" or public sector tyrants. Secularism can never produce true anarchy.
Secularism always mutates into many possible (and deadly) forms of poly-archy.
Christian Theonomy acknowledges only one legitimate Archist, and denounces all creaturely pretenders. Theocracy is the only path to libertarianism (or "anarcho-capitalism").
The essential government comes from the self-government of the Christian man. The U.S. was best governed when it was least governed, not because less control from
the state was the essential ingredient but because Christian self-government was central in the eras of good government. Without strong, self-governing Christians
taking back self-government under Christ in health, welfare,
education, and more, we cannot return by politics to less statism.
Rushdoony, Systematic Theology, 2:1142
