Even if we are all doomed to live under the state, it doesn't follow that there is, or even can be, such a thing as a good state.
Joseph Sobran, The State: Evil and Idol
I've been getting this question a lot recently, in one form or another. I'll address myself to it in the form of a Q&A -- where I have paraphrased "Questions" I've been receiving in email (not always phrased as questions in the original messages), and include as "Answers" the replies I sent.
bkMarcus
The world is a "real" muddle; anarchism, freedom, non-coercion ... aren't these imaginary clarities?
I think you're making a sort of map/territory confusion.
There are two conflicting uses of the word 'muddle' here:
a clear description of someone's unclear understanding;
an unclear understanding of a potentially clear situation.
You say that the the world is a "real" muddle, whereas anarchism is an imaginary clarity.
I agree with the first half of your statement so long as you mean muddle1, above, and not at all if you mean muddle2. In other words, I agree that people in the world are very confused about issues that aren't necessarily confusing. I do not agree that the issues are necessarily confusing.
I also believe you conflate the terms 'anarchism' and 'anarchy': AnarchY might be imaginary -- meaning that we don't now and may never have a society without coercive rulers -- but anarchISM is a Value Set, like pacifism, or Christian love, or Buddhist empathy. It is not a description of the world, but a standard for judging situations within the world.
And what about the nature of the human animal? If aggression is programmed into us (as I think it may well be), if communalism (of some kind) is also programmed into us (which I also think is true), is not some form of "statism" also programmed into us.
"Poor human nature, what horrible crimes have been committed in thy name! Every fool, from king to policeman, from the flatheaded parson to the visionless dabbler in science, presumes to speak authoritatively of human nature. The greater the mental charlatan, the more definite his insistence on the wickedness and weaknesses of human nature."
Emma Goldman, "What is Anarchy?"
"John Burroughs has stated that experimental study of animals in captivity is absolutely useless. Their character, their habits, their appetites undergo a complete transformation when torn from their soil in field and forest. With human nature caged in a narrow space, whipped daily into submission, how can we speak of its potentialities?"
Ibid.
OK, here's something more of an answer that doesn't involve quoting other anarchists.
It seems to me your question can be translated either as
or
As usual, we have to be explicit in defining our terms if we don't want more noise than signal in the communication.
The State -- as I define it -- is "That organization that claims a monopoly on the legitimate use of force within a given geographic region."
Benjamin Tucker's definition of 'government' is "the subjection of the noninvasive individual to an external will."
Do you define The State or Government differently? Certainly you'd agree that both terms denote an organization that uses proactive coercion.
So the question "Isn't the State necessary?" translates for me to Isn't it necessary to coerce peaceful people?
Well, yes, that is the Statist position. But I ask, Necessary for what? Toward what end? Order? Peace? Freedom? Survival? I have to know your goals before I can implement toward them. My goal is individual liberty, and I claim not only that the State is not necessary for maintaining liberty, it is thoroughly incompatible with that goal.
And for me, the question "Isn't some form of State inevitable?" is like saying We will never get rid of rape and robbery, murder and torture, so what sense does it make to take a principled stance against these things? They will always be with us.
It's sad to me that such a basic thing as the principled opposition to coercion is considered to be extremist, unreasonable, unrealistic. Why do I have to believe in permanent peace to oppose war? How is it utopian to denounce force?
I share your confidence that force and fraud will always be with us, and I will always oppose them. But Statism is more than the prediction of "the subjection of the noninvasive individual to an external will." Statism is the claim that institutionalized proactive coercion is justified. Anarchism rejects that conclusion.
-- laissez faire, bk --------------------------- http://www.BlackCrayon.com/ ---------------------------
Maybe we're stuck with it. But do we have to worship it? Joseph Sobran, The State: Evil and Idol
William Lloyd Garrison
Ibid.
Murray Rothbard, The Libertarian Manifesto
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For a much better treatment of this question than I have managed, please read the excellent essay by Brian Miklethwait, called Why I Call Myself A Free Market Anarchist And Why I Am One, available in PDF and in HTML.