Max, I love your attitude and vision. I don't knownwhat kind of anarchist I might be. At first I thought that a government based on Living Systems could only arise after a total collapse of our current system, which is not scalable to the planetary level. But then I began to see ways in which it might be applied here and there to at least make our governments less bad. Anyway, I do believe that I have an over-arching strategy to arrive at the goal of a truly functional way to organize our human collective at all scales, from local to planetary. I've been thinking out loud about it on my own substack. I am heartened, almost daily, by finding kindred spirits trying to find a way forward out of the mess we made of our nest.
Assuming we have the same idea of living systems, I absolutely agree. The 'a' word can be scary, so I hesitate to use it. That said, when we take a living systems view (and not a 'systems thinker' view) we will find greater humility and try to set up protocols for the emergence of a more organic society. High modernists think of society as being like a machine.
Excellent point, which begs the question: what are the indisputable evidence based principles of organic structures and processes? Fractal, partly decentralized power and decision making, positive and negative feedback loops, flexible membranes, polarized brain hemispheres, and Heart.....what else?
Interesting piece, and a better case than I usually see in the "abolitionist vs. incrementalist" argument.
I do tend to find the "gnostic anarchist" descriptor something of a strawman, though, and believe that "directional anarchists" who DISMISS the less compromising sorts suffer from a calculation problem:
Your distinction between gnostic and directional anarchists maps cleanly onto a divide I’ve watched for years: some libertarians treat the ideal end-state of complete exit as the only legitimate political condition and collapse all real-world jurisdictions into “not-A,” refusing to distinguish between degrees of freedom, adjacent possibilities, or the strategic value of incremental improvements. To them, every government is equally illegitimate, every tradeoff equally compromised, and every step short of perfection equally meaningless. By contrast, others keep the same destination in view but operate on real terrain, recognizing that some institutional arrangements widen the space for future exit while others close it, and that the climb has a topography requiring tradeoffs, sequencing, and adjacent-possible moves. One mindset keeps its principles spotless by never touching the ground; the other moves the needle by understanding the slope.
You say: "most libertarian anarchists are gnostics." I'm curious what you base that on. From my own experience, I don't find that most libertarians are gnostics. But perhaps that's because I mostly hear from people who develop policy and work within the system (Cato, Pacific Policy Institute, etc.)
Anarchy is an extremely scary word to me. I listened to your podcast about subscription government, and while I understand where you’re coming from, I think what you’re really making an argument for is the smallest possible government. That's because, practically speaking, government is almost by definition a monopoly for many of its functions, and since monopolies are at best a necessary evil to be resorted to only when necessary, the fewer things that government does, the fewer monopolies we’ll endure.
To me, the private sector is the ideal place for competition. There are many situations and challenges that, almost by necessity, must be relegated to the public sector, which practically have to be monopolies—for example, police and fire protection and national defense. I don’t see how it would be feasible to have competition for, say, national defense, because the duplication, inefficiency, and ineffectiveness would be overwhelming. Public transportation is a classic case. It began with multiple private sector competitors, but as the rise of the automobile took hold, private companies weren’t able to make it financially, so there was a market failure, and now public transportation has taken over things like rapid transit and passenger trains that we as a society consider necessary but cannot be profitably provided by the private sector.
The bottom line is that in cases of
market failure or if it’s impractical for there to be multiple providers, public monopolies are a necessary evil, but we should try to minimize that, and therein lies the wisdom of conservative philosophy, which treasures free markets and free people.
When it comes to choice in government in the United States, we have 50 states; some red, some blue. Blue states have bigger, more expensive government; red states have smaller, less expensive government. People in the US are free to choose between the two.
Maximizing freedom of choice in the cost and extent of government is a good argument for federalism and states' rights. The federal government in the US, by definition, has monopolies in certain public sector functions, so the fewer that are resident in the federal government and left to the states, the more freedom of choice US residents have in picking their government, freedom exercised by voting with their feet.
When it comes to nation-states, the dominant form of global governance since the 17th century, people aren’t necessarily completely free to move from country to country, but in fact all the nations are competing for human resources and capital, and that’s really why we don't have a global public sector monopoly. That's probably for the best, since people can and do vote with their feet through emigration, although such international mobility is not as frictionless as intrastate mobility is in the US. Those who want one world government would argue to the contrary, and there are upsides to a world government in theory (e.g., world peace), but I think the downsides pose some pretty significant trade-offs. We do have the UN, but it’s pretty weak and ineffectual.
So, I agree with you on the desirability of public sector competition, but I think realistically it’s between states in the US and nation states in the world. I find it hard to envision how competition for government services within any particular jurisdiction would actually be practical.
I understand that one finds it "hard to envision" yet arguing from incredulity strikes me as arguing from a failure of imagination. Even, for example, with national defense, polycentric defense is not only possible but has some precedent:
I used to have my hangups about it as well. I had a kind of A-Ha moment many years ago and I'm firmly in the anarchist camp now.
Another article to look at might be "The Obviousness of Anarchy" by John Hasnas. It's not hard to find. It's not long, good arguments with real world examples, and is sufficiently footnoted.
It may be that my imagination is limited, but I’m speaking from many decades of experience. If competition were practical in areas like national defense, public transit, police services, and fire protection, I would support it. Competition is generally preferable to monopoly. However, I remain unconvinced that it can work effectively in those particular functions.
That’s one reason I favor keeping government as small as possible and leaving everything that can be handled by the private sector to the private sector. The fewer monopolies, public or private, the better.
Ancient Rome experimented with private firefighting, but history also demonstrated the limitations of that approach.
I read the paper you kindly shared on polycentric defense, and I remain skeptical. To me, it sounds similar to vigilantism—private groups stepping in when government fails to provide security against crime or external threats. While that may sometimes occur out of necessity, it strikes me as a poor substitute for effective public institutions.
When it comes to core public safety functions—defense, policing, and firefighting—I believe a government monopoly is often the least bad option, provided it is well run and accountable.
That’s where democracy comes in. We don’t create competition by having multiple armies or police forces; we create it through competing political parties. If citizens don’t like how those services are being managed, they can vote for new leaders who will run them differently.
You might be right. What I'm trying to do with directional anarchy is to join with those like you who think our governments need we need a lot more decentralization. Our collaborations and our objectives will almost certainly be similar. For example, you seem quite comfortable with federalism. That would be a great start. If we got to the point that we had to argue about defense, that would be a good problem to have. That said, the Hanseatic League did a very good job of maintaining that arrangement, which involved coordination on defense, via treaties. In any case, I think you can agree we need to move toward A, even if our paths diverge further down the road.
I agree we have much common ground. I am not a happy customer of the government at this point, so anything that has the potential to improve the situation merits serious consideration, and I think competition is perhaps the best way to achieve excellence.
I think that also argues against the collectivist mentality of communism. My biggest concern right now politically within the US is the rise of the DSA, which seems quite hostile to the competition in meritocracy.
Max, I love your attitude and vision. I don't knownwhat kind of anarchist I might be. At first I thought that a government based on Living Systems could only arise after a total collapse of our current system, which is not scalable to the planetary level. But then I began to see ways in which it might be applied here and there to at least make our governments less bad. Anyway, I do believe that I have an over-arching strategy to arrive at the goal of a truly functional way to organize our human collective at all scales, from local to planetary. I've been thinking out loud about it on my own substack. I am heartened, almost daily, by finding kindred spirits trying to find a way forward out of the mess we made of our nest.
Assuming we have the same idea of living systems, I absolutely agree. The 'a' word can be scary, so I hesitate to use it. That said, when we take a living systems view (and not a 'systems thinker' view) we will find greater humility and try to set up protocols for the emergence of a more organic society. High modernists think of society as being like a machine.
Excellent point, which begs the question: what are the indisputable evidence based principles of organic structures and processes? Fractal, partly decentralized power and decision making, positive and negative feedback loops, flexible membranes, polarized brain hemispheres, and Heart.....what else?
One is reality based, the other is as lost to the real word as the most ardent socialist...and as dangerous...
Love the framing here.
Interesting piece, and a better case than I usually see in the "abolitionist vs. incrementalist" argument.
I do tend to find the "gnostic anarchist" descriptor something of a strawman, though, and believe that "directional anarchists" who DISMISS the less compromising sorts suffer from a calculation problem:
https://knappster.blogspot.com/2010/11/blast-from-past-without-net-compromise.html
Ooh, I'm excited to read this.
It's overly long and the prose gets pretty purple. These days I write to op-ed length and am always appalled at how verbose I get in my older stuff.
This is how every writer feels, I think.
Your distinction between gnostic and directional anarchists maps cleanly onto a divide I’ve watched for years: some libertarians treat the ideal end-state of complete exit as the only legitimate political condition and collapse all real-world jurisdictions into “not-A,” refusing to distinguish between degrees of freedom, adjacent possibilities, or the strategic value of incremental improvements. To them, every government is equally illegitimate, every tradeoff equally compromised, and every step short of perfection equally meaningless. By contrast, others keep the same destination in view but operate on real terrain, recognizing that some institutional arrangements widen the space for future exit while others close it, and that the climb has a topography requiring tradeoffs, sequencing, and adjacent-possible moves. One mindset keeps its principles spotless by never touching the ground; the other moves the needle by understanding the slope.
You say: "most libertarian anarchists are gnostics." I'm curious what you base that on. From my own experience, I don't find that most libertarians are gnostics. But perhaps that's because I mostly hear from people who develop policy and work within the system (Cato, Pacific Policy Institute, etc.)
Anarchy is an extremely scary word to me. I listened to your podcast about subscription government, and while I understand where you’re coming from, I think what you’re really making an argument for is the smallest possible government. That's because, practically speaking, government is almost by definition a monopoly for many of its functions, and since monopolies are at best a necessary evil to be resorted to only when necessary, the fewer things that government does, the fewer monopolies we’ll endure.
To me, the private sector is the ideal place for competition. There are many situations and challenges that, almost by necessity, must be relegated to the public sector, which practically have to be monopolies—for example, police and fire protection and national defense. I don’t see how it would be feasible to have competition for, say, national defense, because the duplication, inefficiency, and ineffectiveness would be overwhelming. Public transportation is a classic case. It began with multiple private sector competitors, but as the rise of the automobile took hold, private companies weren’t able to make it financially, so there was a market failure, and now public transportation has taken over things like rapid transit and passenger trains that we as a society consider necessary but cannot be profitably provided by the private sector.
The bottom line is that in cases of
market failure or if it’s impractical for there to be multiple providers, public monopolies are a necessary evil, but we should try to minimize that, and therein lies the wisdom of conservative philosophy, which treasures free markets and free people.
When it comes to choice in government in the United States, we have 50 states; some red, some blue. Blue states have bigger, more expensive government; red states have smaller, less expensive government. People in the US are free to choose between the two.
Maximizing freedom of choice in the cost and extent of government is a good argument for federalism and states' rights. The federal government in the US, by definition, has monopolies in certain public sector functions, so the fewer that are resident in the federal government and left to the states, the more freedom of choice US residents have in picking their government, freedom exercised by voting with their feet.
When it comes to nation-states, the dominant form of global governance since the 17th century, people aren’t necessarily completely free to move from country to country, but in fact all the nations are competing for human resources and capital, and that’s really why we don't have a global public sector monopoly. That's probably for the best, since people can and do vote with their feet through emigration, although such international mobility is not as frictionless as intrastate mobility is in the US. Those who want one world government would argue to the contrary, and there are upsides to a world government in theory (e.g., world peace), but I think the downsides pose some pretty significant trade-offs. We do have the UN, but it’s pretty weak and ineffectual.
So, I agree with you on the desirability of public sector competition, but I think realistically it’s between states in the US and nation states in the world. I find it hard to envision how competition for government services within any particular jurisdiction would actually be practical.
I understand that one finds it "hard to envision" yet arguing from incredulity strikes me as arguing from a failure of imagination. Even, for example, with national defense, polycentric defense is not only possible but has some precedent:
https://www.independent.org/wp-content/uploads/tir/2020/09/tir_25_2_08_coyne.pdf
Anyway, would you think it better if it were possible?
I used to have my hangups about it as well. I had a kind of A-Ha moment many years ago and I'm firmly in the anarchist camp now.
Another article to look at might be "The Obviousness of Anarchy" by John Hasnas. It's not hard to find. It's not long, good arguments with real world examples, and is sufficiently footnoted.
It may be that my imagination is limited, but I’m speaking from many decades of experience. If competition were practical in areas like national defense, public transit, police services, and fire protection, I would support it. Competition is generally preferable to monopoly. However, I remain unconvinced that it can work effectively in those particular functions.
That’s one reason I favor keeping government as small as possible and leaving everything that can be handled by the private sector to the private sector. The fewer monopolies, public or private, the better.
Ancient Rome experimented with private firefighting, but history also demonstrated the limitations of that approach.
I read the paper you kindly shared on polycentric defense, and I remain skeptical. To me, it sounds similar to vigilantism—private groups stepping in when government fails to provide security against crime or external threats. While that may sometimes occur out of necessity, it strikes me as a poor substitute for effective public institutions.
When it comes to core public safety functions—defense, policing, and firefighting—I believe a government monopoly is often the least bad option, provided it is well run and accountable.
That’s where democracy comes in. We don’t create competition by having multiple armies or police forces; we create it through competing political parties. If citizens don’t like how those services are being managed, they can vote for new leaders who will run them differently.
You might be right. What I'm trying to do with directional anarchy is to join with those like you who think our governments need we need a lot more decentralization. Our collaborations and our objectives will almost certainly be similar. For example, you seem quite comfortable with federalism. That would be a great start. If we got to the point that we had to argue about defense, that would be a good problem to have. That said, the Hanseatic League did a very good job of maintaining that arrangement, which involved coordination on defense, via treaties. In any case, I think you can agree we need to move toward A, even if our paths diverge further down the road.
I agree we have much common ground. I am not a happy customer of the government at this point, so anything that has the potential to improve the situation merits serious consideration, and I think competition is perhaps the best way to achieve excellence.
I think that also argues against the collectivist mentality of communism. My biggest concern right now politically within the US is the rise of the DSA, which seems quite hostile to the competition in meritocracy.
This is troubling me as well. It makes me sympathize with the Red Scare(s) much more.
Interesting that police services was one of the first examples given in the Hasnas piece I mentioned earlier.
Hasnas?
Yes, see my prior reply. "The Obviousness of Anarchy" by John Hasnas