A common objection to anarchist proposals is that they postulate society
without the State, that is, anarchy in one of the two literal senses of
the word. But men, it is objected, need to be governed. Such criticism
may take a naive form, as when it is implied that but for the government
we would all be murdered in our beds. We are to believe that it was to
escape this fate that the citizens assembled and appointed some of their
number to rule the rest, thus instituting the State.
But criticism of the anarchist postulate may take a sophisticated form,
as in the writings of the Italian conservative, Gaetano Mosca. Mosca's
general theme, which he shares with a group of writers who sometimes go
under the collective label of "Machiavellians", is the
perennial domination of majorities by minorities. Ruling minorities may
come and go (Pareto: "History is a graveyard of
aristocracies"), but always there are ruling minorities. This
permanent feature of society is obscured, but not altered, by ideological
slogans, such as "government by the people" and "majority
rule". Anarchism is powerless to abrogate this social law. In
Mosca's words:
"But suppose we assume that the anarchist hypothesis has come
about in the fact, that the present type of social organization has been
destroyed, that nations and governments have ceased to exist, and that
standing armies, bureaucrats, parliaments and especially policeman and
jails have been swept away. Unfortunately people would still have to
live, and therefore use the land and other instruments of production.
Unfortunately again, arms and weapons would still be there, and
enterprising, courageous characters would be ready to use them in order
to make others their servants or slaves. Given those elements, little
social groups would at once form, and in them the many would toil while
the few, armed and organized, would either be robbing them or protecting
them from other robbers, but living on their toil in any event. In other
words, we should be going back to the simple, primitive type of social
organization in which each group of armed men is absolute master of some
plot of ground and of those who cultivate it, so long as the group can
conquer the plot of ground and hold it with its own strength" (The
Ruling Class, 1939, p. 295)
.
Some of the writers advancing this general type of criticism, while
calling into question the soundness of anarchist theories, manage to pay
the anarchists what looks like a compliment. Thus, Robert Michels speaks
of anarchism as "a movement on behalf of liberty, founded on the
inalienable right of the human being over his own person" (Political
parties, 1915, p. 360). George Molnar speaks of anarchism as "the
only radical movement whose principal avowed concern was with
freedom" (Libertarian Society's Broadsheet, No. 30).
Now in examining the issues we must distinguish two notions, which it has
been usual to confuse. We must separate the concept of anarchy, meaning
society without the State, from the concept of free society, meaning
society in which no group has any of its activities subjected to
authority or coercion.
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