"Anarchists" for "Total Government" (Glenn Beck Corrected)
Glenn Beck recently described a political schema of his own devising which places "anarchists" among those who favor "total government", along with progressives, communists, fascists, Nazis, birthers, and 9/11 truthers. This column corrects this falsehood and briefly explains anarchism. by Dan Clore
(libertarian)
Wednesday, March 3, 2010
"Anarchists" for "Total Government"
by Dan Clore
(Welcome to the many viewers who have arrived at Nolan Chart due to Glenn Beck's recent recommendation of the site! In addition to taking the test here, you might also like to take the test at The Political Compass, which uses a different two-dimensional schema.)
During a recent talk (video at The Daily Paul, from about 8:50 forward [the video is no longer publically available, but another containing the relevant portion can be found at the Ludwig von Mises Institute]), Glenn Beck described a political schema that places "anarchists" among those who favor "total government":
"Okay, remember I showed you this chart yesterday and I said, this is you, kind of in the middle, the vast majority of people are on the middle, conservatives are over here, progressives are over here, and the fringe elements, and the birthers and 9/11 truthers are over here with the progressives, and the birthers and the 9/11 truthers are over here, with the conservatives as well, but there is also something else over, in fact, let me flip this, let me flip this over if I can, and show you, is it on this side here, and show you what's on the other side here, because it's not really right, I was thinking about it last night, and it's really not, it's really not a straight line like that, it's more of a circle, okay, here are the total government people, right here, they meet here, you've got the progressives, over here, and you've got the anarchists, and I don't even know, the fascists, the people who are hiding in the hills, with their Nazi signs, I don't even know who those people are, but here they are, they're here, on the left and the right, the crazy people, who don't really like America, got it? In this group, you have communists, like Van Jones, you have, he's a 9/11 truther, you have Medina, she's not a communist, she's not an anarchist, she's really more of a, uh, this is a woman that's running for Texas governor, but she is a 9/11, uh, truther, or at least thinks that there are some good questions that haven't been answered, I agree with you, but one of them is not did George Bush blow up the World Trade Center, here's Alan Keyes, he's a birther, this guy, what is this guy's name again, he's a Democrat, he's one of the original birthers, what's his name, Philip Berg, he's a Democrat, he was the first birther, or one of the first ones [video ends]." (emphasis added)
As an anarchist, I'll leave it to the progressives, communists, fascists, Nazis, birthers, 9/11 truthers, candidates for governor of Texas, and crazy people to explain their own views -- or to dispute the accuracy of Beck's application of these labels to them. I just want to point out that Beck's assertion that anarchists favor "total government" could not stray further from the facts.
Anarchists oppose illegitimate authority and hierarchy, and therefore oppose capitalism and the state; anarchists do not oppose all organization: anarchists favor voluntary, non-hierarchical, self-organization. Anarchists do not oppose all rules and laws; anarchists oppose rules and laws imposed involuntarily by illegitimate authorities, such as the state, and favor voluntarily-agreed upon rules and laws.
In short, anarchists definitely do not favor total government, they want to abolish government to the greatest extent practicable, and preferably, entirely.
As Beck has reportedly at times described himself as a "libertarian", one should note that originally the term was synonymous with anarchist; it later became extended in reference to various other minimal-state and limited-government political philosophies. In general, however, the more libertarian your views, the closer you come to outright anarchism. So why not go the whole hog and pay the postage to boot?
Some readers have responded, claiming that Beck did not conflate anarchists with other alleged "total government" types. However, if you watch the video, he indisputably places anarchists at the same point of his circle, just slightly to the left of the "total government" top, where he puts the "communist" Van Jones. (This conflation might not be too surprising, given that Beck has also characterized Van Jones as a "communist-anarchist radical".)
Beck may have described anarchism/anarchy differently some other time, but on this occasion he definitely did claim that anarchists favor "total government". So, I see no need to issue a correction to my statements above.
For those interested in anarchism and libertarianism, I run the Smygo news-list which carries news and opinion pieces of interest to anarchists and activists.
The views expressed
in this article are those of Dan Clore only and
do not represent the views of Nolan Chart, LLC or its affiliates.
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Posted By: No Name Supplied
Date: 2010-03-03 17:15:53
Like Ahov was saying Beck was talking about the extremes in government. But let me say what the Chart was about. At the top of the circle you have the raticals. On the extreme left you have marxist, communist, fascist, ect... He was saying these people our for total government. On the extreme right you have Anarchist who our for no government. Okay, now you go down to the middle of the circle. On the right you have the republicans, on the left you have the democrats. At the bottom of the circle is were most people in America are. Now if you have watched his recent episodes on Fox you will see that he has updated his chart. Instead of a circle he has a line. And he has stopped using the terms Left and Right.
Most people are still on a left-right basis of their thinking. I do believe Beck was just attempting to explain it in his own way. Was it correct and proper? No. Did I understand it regardless? Yes.
Posted By: Thomas L. Knapp
Date: 2010-03-03 19:38:10
"As Beck has reportedly at times described himself as a 'libertarian,' one should note that originally the term was synonymous with anarchist"
Actually, no. Originally the term referred to believers in free will (as opposed to predestination) in a Christian religious dispute. Then it came to refer to anarchists, and finally later to "limited government" types.
Posted By: VICTOR BERAJA
Date: 2010-03-03 19:57:21
Actually, I don't think Beck mixed them up. He placed anarchists on the right side of the spectrum (or no govt), then moving to the left the republic (little govt), then progressives (more govt), and then total govt or communism and fascism, which are basically the same to me, total govt power, except the power is held by different social class, but the means and the ends are the same, dictatorship.
But what do I know, I'm just another stupid viewer who doesn't know history or politics.
Posted By: Jahfre Fire Eater
Date: 2010-03-04 09:55:26
Hi Dan,
I can appreciate your being defensive of your chosen path to futility and self-marginalization. You obviously have a lot of personal credibility invested in it.
The similarity I see between many utopian visions of civilization, including anarchy and libertarian utopia that, as you pointed out, only differ by a matter of degree, is they depend on an impossible initial condition. In other words, they are logical and physical impossibilities...which reduces them to nothing more than just another faith-based religion.
These utopian academic exercises do a great disservice to the defense of liberty in the real world by luring would-be constructive political participants into your world of self-marginalization and political futility. As I detailed in my article, "Which Kind of Liberty do you Defend?" (http://www.nolanchart.com/article7281.html)
"Convincing the masses that their liberty is an ideological debate ensures they remain futile in their behavior."
All of those utopian examples of academic navel-gazing are impossible in the real world for one simple reason. They demand universal homogeniety. They can only work if every living human abandons their free will and submits to the demands of the academic gurus. Any paradigm that rests on the impossible starting condition: "If EVERYONE would just......." is a ridiculous waste of time and energy to pursue in the real world. Meanwhile those who waste their efforts on such folly deliberately abandon the most powerful political forces on the planet into the hands of the enemies of liberty. There is no world I can imagine where such a blatantly self-defeating strategy can ever muster more than a tiny fraction of individuals to its advocacy.
Just in case I've missed something obvious, please let me know how your anarchist utopia, or libertarian near utopia (no gov't versus and arbitrarily "small" gov't) would handle a situation where, after the utopia has been acheived, one community decides to establish a government. Oops, some government ruins the NO GOVERMENT utopia immediately. How would the anarchist or libertarian utiopian rulers deal with such illusion shattering exercises in free will? Those nasty government-forming enemies of anarchy are not conforming to the necessary condition!!!!
It is sad that otherwise intelligent individuals cannot grasp that only pervasive, relentless and overwhelming oppression is necessary to acheive and maintain the homogenous lack of individual free will that such academic fantasies demand. L.v.Mises summed up this fallacy in his magnum opus, Human Action. Human action is the thing that all utopian dreamers must elminate in order to attain the desired "freedom from" diversity and human history.
Your defense of your position is admirable but such rationalizations cannot nullify the real-world fact that the adoption of your position makes you the enemy of individual liberty. You and your peers cannot help those who man the trenches in the never-ending struggle for the defense of liberty. Instead, you give aid and succor to the enemies of liberty by your self-righteous rationalization of your pursuit of an impossible utopia.
Keep up the good work in making sure Beck doesn't tarnish your ever-so-carefully constructed illusions. As meaningless and useless as such work is, it always gives me this chance to expose the futility and fallacy underlying such academic nonsense.
Thanks for your comments. As I see that the Nolan Chart test places us at precisely the same position, perhaps we have more common ground than you realize.
I'm afraid that I cannot parse the sentence "Convincing the masses that their liberty is an ideological debate ensures that they remain futile in their behavior."
The fact that stateless societies (anarchy) have existed -- far longer in human history that societies with nation-states, in fact -- provides an empirical refutation of your assertion that they are "logical and physical impossibilities".
As to your question regarding how anarchist and libertarians would handle a situation where "one community decides to establish a government", that is quite simple:
So long as the individuals did not force this "government" on those who do not consent to its rule, anarchists and libertarians would confine their opposition to peaceful means to persuade them, perhaps including boycotting or ostracizing them.
If they attempted to force this "government" on those who do not consent to its rule, on the other hand, anarchists and libertarians would consider forceful self-defense justified, and would likely aid in the efforts of the oppressed to free themselves.
Judging by the comments, you explanation of anarchy which i thought was very concise and accurate, was understood by no one!
I also agree that the ultimate libertarian is an anarchist. In fact, I believe their are two "camps" of anarchists, those who believe in complete and total freedom and what will be will be and those who believe in complete and total freedom with the exception of agressive action and reservation of the right to defend against those same acts. This would be more aligned with the libertarian position.
What anarchy is not is government. And that is any collective forceful application of one's own "way of life" on others.
So dan, are you going to correct your post above? He has clearly shown that Anarchists are on the other fringe of the spectrum and that he wants the government put back closer to your Anarchy then the Progresives Statist government.
Dan Clore, Anarchists are opposed to capitalism? Have you ever heard of anarcho-capitalism? Or do you refuse to recognize anarcho-capitalists as legitimate anarchists? Anarcho-capitalists would claim that the corporatist state, not capitalism is a major part of the problem and that free market solutions to replace the existing government structure would be the answer. ---------------------------------------------- Jahfre, As a disillusioned libertarian minarchist, I can plainly see that the corrupt system is rigged and that "voting the rascals out" and "writing nice letters begging to your congresscritter" in reality are clearly pointless exercises in futility! Diebold,other forms of vote rigging and corporate lobbyists with their huge campaign contributions trump the average Joe voter! I have come to the conclusion that the vast majority of Libertarian Party members are severely delusional, naive and in denial! They're every bit as gullible as the average Republicans and Democrats! They're all pie-in-the-sky utopians when it comes to elections and voting! And they keep falling for the lies of slick politicians and all of their empty promises! Members belonging to all these political parties seriously need to awake to the ugly political realities and the growing bipartisan tyranny!
Anarchists do not oppose capitalism, unless of course you're talking about communists who call themselves anarchists. It seems that Beck is not the only one who is confused here. Unfortunately, nowadays many people simply make up their own definitions for words like capitalism and anarchism, so you have to find out what principles of action they actually support as being ethical before you can understand and label such people.
Those who support capitalism and who are anti-statist mean by "capitalism" nothing more than an economic milieu of property rights and voluntary exchange - in other words, a free market. They obviously do not mean state intervention, corporatism, state-capitalism, etc. Since communists and socialists, even while claiming to be anti-statist, often deny property rights either outright or in part to various degrees, that tends to also confuse the matter.
To Jahfre (who made those confusing comments about libertarianism and utopia), you seem to be conflating "goverment" with "state." The libertarian non-aggression principle is an ethic which can be applied to everyone equally. It only proscribes behavior which initiates force against another, so people are free to form "governments" which are voluntary and suit the legitimate purposes of the members. Those groups, however, are not free to initiate force against otherwise peaceful people who are not members.So there is therefore no need to have everyone adopt the same ideals. They only have to adopt the same ethic - the non-aggression principle. And this is no different from passing laws against theft and murder in any conceivable society you might imagine. Obviously, no one requires the consent of thieves and murderers in order for society at large to proscribe and prosecute them! So, you are engaged in fallacious reasoning when you claim that anarchism requires everyone to agree. It doesn't. It's the only "system" which allows people the WIDEST disagreement. They only have to agree to not *initiate* violence against another, and this is akin to any legislation or common law anywhere at any time regarding the violation of person and property. There is no "impossibility" here at all. It's just that the concept of a free society is foreign to most of us at this point.
You say that working toward a free society is "utopian," but then you want people to engage in political action which is nothing if not utopian (in the pejorative sense)! You want to use brute force in order to impose the will of a select minority upon the rest of society. That is the very essence of the dystopian nighmare which is ever-present in fiction as well as the real-world history of the last century.It is the recipe for eternal strife within society since no one can ever be left alone to live their lives peacefully and voluntarily as they see fit. It sets up a goal of achieving "power" over others rather then encouraging civil disobedience and peaceful resistance to all such power.
Power, as such, is not a societal good. Establishing a monopoly of force by means of violence and/or the threat of violence is the very thing which inevitably destroys society. It is a far cry from a legitimate system of justice where only individual criminals who violate person and property would face retaliatory violence. All states, on the contrary, are organizations of inititaory and predatory violence - and that is what anarchists (those who deserve the name) oppose.
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