This house believes that Anarchism is a valuable political ideology

Even if the state is never overthrown anarchism will always have something important to say. Anarchist groups were at the forefront of resistance groups in world war two, and today they are at the forefront of protests against the state whenever it tries to take even more from the worst off in society, for example in anti cuts protests in the UK.[1]

Anarchist communities like Freetown Christiana in Copenhagen exist as centres of peace and culture, by standing outside of society it provides a useful commentary on society as well as being an example for how people can live more freely without a state.

[1]http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/8409048/TUC-protest-march-anarchists-on-the-rampage-in-London.html

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Anarchists in fact often have a negative effect on protests, they regularly use far more extreme measures than any other protester at the demonstration and this can often distract from and distort the message behind the protests. Anarchist groups are infamous for trying to hijack protests that were not about anarchism; trying to use extreme and often violent measures to get an anarchist message across when the original protesters have no interest in anarchism whatsoever. Even Christiana cited by the proposition has seen violence in 2009 when 1500 people were arrested after setting fire to barricades and throwing fire bombs at police.[1] Anarchist groups have their own ideology, not the interests of oppressed groups at heart.

[1]http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/apr/28/christiania-copenhagen-squat-last-stand

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There is nothing that states provide for us that we cannot provide for ourselves by working together as communities. All the state seeks to do is oppress the people, forcing us to obey laws and pay taxes we did not consent to. In many cases the state goes out of its way to deprive people of their basic needs, for instance when the state evicts squatters from houses that were being left unused, the UK for example is moving to criminalize squatting[1]; or when the state has property laws that keep wealth in the hands of the few whilst the many struggle to survive as has been the case in the United States, particularly in the 19^thCentury when President Hayes argued “There can be no republican institutions with vast masses of property permanently in a few hands, and large masses of voters without property”.[2]

[1]http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2011/08/21/plans-to-criminalise-squa_n_932333.html

[2]

States may not be perfect but they are better than a stateless society.

Whilst states do not have a perfect track record a stateless society would have all sorts of negative consequences. The laws in modern countries are designed to protect the weak from theft and harm. Property laws protect people's property that, in the case of houses they may have worked for 20 years or more to acquire. A stateless society is one that cannot enforce these laws and must always be more unjust than a society with a state.

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Even if we ignore all of the totalitarian regimes in the world, democracies do not truly represent the people. Politicians all too often promise progressive changes and then fail to deliver, for example Obama’s failure to close Guantanamo Bay[1] and Nick Clegg breaking his promises over tuition fees[2]

The interests of politicians in democracies are far too often tied to the interests of the rich and powerful; people like Rupert Murdoch have unprecedented access to politicians which is quite simply not available to the average person[3]

Demographically heads of state are very rarely representative, The USA has never had a female or Hispanic president, the UK has never had a non white Prime Minister and 66% of UK ministers have been privately educated[4]. These people can never truly have the people’s interests at heart.

[1]http://www.spectator.co.uk/alexmassie/6842054/obamas-guantanamo-failure.thtml

[2]http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/spending-review/8078454/Spending-review-David-Cameron-and-Nick-Clegg-apologise-for-broken-promises.html

[3]http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politic

Democracies are not perfect but they are better than the other options.

Whilst democracies are not perfect they are the best way we have of aggregating the interests of society. People might not always get what they want but this is inevitable where there are differences in opinion and one course of action must be taken.

Heads of state may not be demographically representative at the moment but we are seeing an increase in the numbers of minority groups in positions of power in many countries. Removing the state to solve this problem is using a sledgehammer to crack a n

The state has, throughout history, been responsible for an immeasurable amount of violence and destruction. From ancient times where states were the primary instrument of enforcing laws so that people could keep slaves, to the actions of imperial nations like Britain, to the holocaust to all of the pointless wars fought throughout history, states have a long record of slaughtering and ruining the lives of countless numbers of their own and other states people. William Eckhardt estimates battle deaths since 3000 BC at 151million while Beer came out with a much higher figure of 1.1 billion battle deaths (NB both use dodgy calculations and of course in either case the total military deaths let alone civilian would be much higher).¹

These actions are always taken because they are in the interest of the ruling class, but the ruling classes are never the ones directly involved in these conflicts, they instead use the state as an instrument to coerce other people to fight their battles for them. In a stateless society the people might need to fight against oppression but they would never be forced to fight for causes that have nothing to do with them. 

[1] http://sdi.sagepub.com/content/22/4/437.extract

States have done much good as well; World War Two was fought because states wanted to prevent Nazi conquest; states intervened in the Kosovo war to prevent ethnic cleansing; and the American Civil War was fought to stop slavery, it is clear that states use their military power for good as well as bad, in a stateless world there would be no actors who would be there to prevent people from taking advantage of their fellow man.

While states can do bad things the solution is not to dismantle states, we need a better international court system to help prevent atrocities and hold those responsible accountable for their actions.

improve this

Forcing people into community action, as the state tries to do, detracts from real community action. People naturally try to help one another out and do what they can for their communities but when the state tries to undertake this action itself it always wastes a huge amount or resources and sends the message that the job is done. In a stateless society people would know that they have a responsibility to care for their fellow man and take all the steps they possibly can to do so. This action will be more direct, enthusiastic and relevant than any taken by the government because those organising it will inevitably be in closer contact and have more of a stake with the problems they are trying to solve.

Community action is good, but the state is always necessary. Community can make a big difference but it can make a bigger difference with state help, states fund many organisations which would not be able to operate.

Organisations like state health services would not be able to function as community projects; they require a huge amount of funding, specialist training and facilities and organisation that would simply not be available without the state. 

improve this

Even if the state is never overthrown anarchism will always have something important to say. Anarchist groups were at the forefront of resistance groups in world war two, and today they are at the forefront of protests against the state whenever it tries to take even more from the worst off in society, for example in anti cuts protests in the UK.[1]

Anarchist communities like Freetown Christiana in Copenhagen exist as centres of peace and culture, by standing outside of society it provides a useful commentary on society as well as being an example for how people can live more freely without a state.

[1]http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/8409048/TUC-protest-march-anarchists-on-the-rampage-in-London.html

improve this

Anarchists in fact often have a negative effect on protests, they regularly use far more extreme measures than any other protester at the demonstration and this can often distract from and distort the message behind the protests. Anarchist groups are infamous for trying to hijack protests that were not about anarchism; trying to use extreme and often violent measures to get an anarchist message across when the original protesters have no interest in anarchism whatsoever. Even Christiana cited by the proposition has seen violence in 2009 when 1500 people were arrested after setting fire to barricades and throwing fire bombs at police.[1] Anarchist groups have their own ideology, not the interests of oppressed groups at heart.

[1]http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/apr/28/christiania-copenhagen-squat-last-stand

improve this

There is nothing that states provide for us that we cannot provide for ourselves by working together as communities. All the state seeks to do is oppress the people, forcing us to obey laws and pay taxes we did not consent to. In many cases the state goes out of its way to deprive people of their basic needs, for instance when the state evicts squatters from houses that were being left unused, the UK for example is moving to criminalize squatting[1]; or when the state has property laws that keep wealth in the hands of the few whilst the many struggle to survive as has been the case in the United States, particularly in the 19^thCentury when President Hayes argued “There can be no republican institutions with vast masses of property permanently in a few hands, and large masses of voters without property”.[2]

[1]http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2011/08/21/plans-to-criminalise-squa_n_932333.html

[2]

States may not be perfect but they are better than a stateless society.

Whilst states do not have a perfect track record a stateless society would have all sorts of negative consequences. The laws in modern countries are designed to protect the weak from theft and harm. Property laws protect people's property that, in the case of houses they may have worked for 20 years or more to acquire. A stateless society is one that cannot enforce these laws and must always be more unjust than a society with a state.

improve this

Even if we ignore all of the totalitarian regimes in the world, democracies do not truly represent the people. Politicians all too often promise progressive changes and then fail to deliver, for example Obama’s failure to close Guantanamo Bay[1] and Nick Clegg breaking his promises over tuition fees[2]

The interests of politicians in democracies are far too often tied to the interests of the rich and powerful; people like Rupert Murdoch have unprecedented access to politicians which is quite simply not available to the average person[3]

Demographically heads of state are very rarely representative, The USA has never had a female or Hispanic president, the UK has never had a non white Prime Minister and 66% of UK ministers have been privately educated[4]. These people can never truly have the people’s interests at heart.

[1]http://www.spectator.co.uk/alexmassie/6842054/obamas-guantanamo-failure.thtml

[2]http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/spending-review/8078454/Spending-review-David-Cameron-and-Nick-Clegg-apologise-for-broken-promises.html

[3]http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politic

Democracies are not perfect but they are better than the other options.

Whilst democracies are not perfect they are the best way we have of aggregating the interests of society. People might not always get what they want but this is inevitable where there are differences in opinion and one course of action must be taken.

Heads of state may not be demographically representative at the moment but we are seeing an increase in the numbers of minority groups in positions of power in many countries. Removing the state to solve this problem is using a sledgehammer to crack a n

The state has, throughout history, been responsible for an immeasurable amount of violence and destruction. From ancient times where states were the primary instrument of enforcing laws so that people could keep slaves, to the actions of imperial nations like Britain, to the holocaust to all of the pointless wars fought throughout history, states have a long record of slaughtering and ruining the lives of countless numbers of their own and other states people. William Eckhardt estimates battle deaths since 3000 BC at 151million while Beer came out with a much higher figure of 1.1 billion battle deaths (NB both use dodgy calculations and of course in either case the total military deaths let alone civilian would be much higher).¹

These actions are always taken because they are in the interest of the ruling class, but the ruling classes are never the ones directly involved in these conflicts, they instead use the state as an instrument to coerce other people to fight their battles for them. In a stateless society the people might need to fight against oppression but they would never be forced to fight for causes that have nothing to do with them. 

[1] http://sdi.sagepub.com/content/22/4/437.extract

States have done much good as well; World War Two was fought because states wanted to prevent Nazi conquest; states intervened in the Kosovo war to prevent ethnic cleansing; and the American Civil War was fought to stop slavery, it is clear that states use their military power for good as well as bad, in a stateless world there would be no actors who would be there to prevent people from taking advantage of their fellow man.

While states can do bad things the solution is not to dismantle states, we need a better international court system to help prevent atrocities and hold those responsible accountable for their actions.

improve this

Forcing people into community action, as the state tries to do, detracts from real community action. People naturally try to help one another out and do what they can for their communities but when the state tries to undertake this action itself it always wastes a huge amount or resources and sends the message that the job is done. In a stateless society people would know that they have a responsibility to care for their fellow man and take all the steps they possibly can to do so. This action will be more direct, enthusiastic and relevant than any taken by the government because those organising it will inevitably be in closer contact and have more of a stake with the problems they are trying to solve.

Community action is good, but the state is always necessary. Community can make a big difference but it can make a bigger difference with state help, states fund many organisations which would not be able to operate.

Organisations like state health services would not be able to function as community projects; they require a huge amount of funding, specialist training and facilities and organisation that would simply not be available without the state. 

improve this

Anarchist groups are very naive in believing that we could survive without states, states provide a countless functions that would not exist otherwise. Things like the fire service would be very hard to organise as a community, it is likely that that very few people would volunteer to perform such a dangerous job. There are many vital services that require economies of scale to exist in order to provide the specialized services. This means that something larger than a local community is needed to provide it. For example communities could provide basic healthcare but could they provide the cutting edge research necessary to improve it, and then the expensive treatments to be able to take advantage of that research?

Legal systems are dependent on the state for their existence, without a centralised system of law and a state to appoint judges and organise and fund courts and the police. Under anarchy law and order is likely to look a lot more like mob justice. Without any sort of police force or judiciary it would be highly likely that a community would be able to prevent crime.

COUNTERPOINT

These could still be provided in a different way. These issues can be dealt with quite sufficiently within small communities, in the case of a fire people the whole community would likely assist in fire-fighting duties whilst equipment could be owned communally.

Anarchist communities do not necessarily have no rules, these rules can be adequately enforced by the community and the community can collectively decide what to do about rule breakers.

Anarchist groups may claim to contribute to political discussion and propose a viable alternative to states, but too regularly they contribute very little more than violence, they regularly hijack legitimate peaceful protests and by acting in a violent way detract from those protests.[1] In order to be able to contribute to society they need to be able to show that they have something to contribute. People will not listen if the movement is associated with violence so anarchism will never have an opportunity to contribute while it practices violence.

[1]http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23896753-what-went-wrong-at-the-millbank-riot.do

Violence is not intrinsic to Anarchy
Whilst there are many violent anarchists there is nothing about anarchy that means that violence need be a part of it. Many anarchists identify themselves as Anarchist-Pacifists and are against any and all violence.

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Without the state there is very little in the way of protection against immorality, if one looks at Freetown Christiana, supposedly an anarchist utopia, it has actually been a blight on Copenhagen society; it has only thrived because of the cannabis trade, and is a haven for biker gangs[1] where the police have been attacked with petrol bombs[2]. If a small community like Christiana cannot survive without becoming a hotbed of immorality then what hope is there for a totally stateless world?

[1] http://www.cphpost.dk/news/local/87-local/51345-fears-of-christiania-becoming-a-biker-gang-haven.html

[2]http://www.cphpost.dk/component/content/51421.html?task=view

This is an unfair portrayal of Freetown Christiana.  Soft drug use is something that the people of Christiana have decided is not immoral or illegal and is something that they tolerate in their society. They should not be criticised for people who do things which are totally within the rules of Freetown Christiana society.