Post
Topic
Board Politics & Society
Re: How long would it take for Anarchy to start working?
by
Mike Christ
on 06/12/2013, 07:02:55 UTC
According to Merriam-Webster Online, anarchy is "a situation of confusion and wild behavior in which the people in a country, group, organization, etc., are not controlled by rules or laws"

By that definition, I feel like it would be impossible to call a working thing "anarchy."

Yes, semantics are fickle; one word can hold a hundred different meanings.  In the context we're speaking of here, we refer to the political philosophy of anarchism, not the synonym of chaos, which can be briefly summed up as a society revolving around voluntary interaction:

Quote from: Wikipedia
Anarchism is a political philosophy that advocates stateless societies often defined as self-governed voluntary institutions, but that several authors have defined as more specific institutions based on non-hierarchical free associations.

This is why I don't like anarchism; not because I disagree with the philosophy, but the word is beyond repair, so much so common dictionaries fail to define it properly; here's dictionary.com's take on it:

Quote
an·ar·chism  [an-er-kiz-uhm]  Show IPA
noun
1.
a doctrine urging the abolition of government or governmental restraint as the indispensable condition for full social and political liberty.
2.
the methods or practices of anarchists, as the use of violence to undermine government.