Anarchy is a Cool Idea…But can it Actually Work?

For the mainstream ANARCHY = CHAOS. Most people can’t get their head around the idea that we might not need a governing authority. After all, who will protect our safety? If we have Anarchy then won’t people just go around killing each other? In my adult life I have always been a Libertarian, but since coming to STEEM I have been wrestling with this idea that Anarchy might be possible and STEEM might just be the social experiment that could prove it.

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If we have a look at dictionary.com it has two distinct definitions for Anarchy that really do starkly contrast the views for and against Anarchy. Check it out :-

#1. a state of disorder due to absence or non-recognition of authority or other controlling systems.

#2. absence of government and absolute freedom of the individual, regarded as a political ideal.

So #1 defines it as a State of Disorder. Sounds like chaos to me and that is how I would label the mainstream view. #2 defines it as a political Ideal. It’s an ideal that seems to be quite prevalent among many users here on STEEM which is possibly the greatest Anarchic social experiment of the modern age. But can Anarchy ever be more than an ideal? Can Anarchy actually work? Even just here on STEEM? Well, finding the answers to those questions is one of the main reasons why I am still here.

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As a Libertarian I have been pretty anti-government and anti-authority for a long time, so I do have a lot in common with some of these Anarchist idealists, but I’ve always felt there needs to be something to save us from the utter lawlessness and chaos that historically has come from Anarchy. We have seen Anarchy in action in the real world where governments have collapsed. It has been very common in Africa and parts of the Middle-East where Anarchy has given rise to warlords, who exploit the lack of authority to kill and maim, then establish fiefdoms and go on to create brutal dictatorships or corrupt systems of government, so Anarchy never seems to survive for long before it turns into something else. So why would STEEM be any different?

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I always seem to come back to Culture and Social Norms. Let me give an example. Say you walk into a shop and there are 10 people in the shop already. What do you do? Do you form a line and wait your turn? There is no law that states that you need to line up and wait. There is no law against pushing your way through and cutting in front of others. But if you do it in the West, someone will probably call you out on it. Maybe even all 10 of the others will have a go at you. The shopkeeper might even refuse to serve you for being a dick. It is within the shopkeepers rights after all. My point is that there is no law at play here. There is no authority. What is happening is the people in that shop have established (via common culture) what is considered acceptable social behaviour and they respect it and, more importantly, they DEFEND it. This is what self-governance looks like to me. You are still free to not enter the shop, or even walk out of it, but if you want to opt-in to this community of people and transact in the shop then you need to respect the cultural norm and behave yourself.

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So we come back to STEEM. On the blockchain, the only law is the code. If you want to self-vote or sell votes or abuse the platform with spam or shit posts. Well, there is no law against that. But is it considered acceptable behaviour culturally within STEEM? Most would agree that if everyone just abused the platform and tried to extract as much value as they can then it will fail. So if it really is a free-for-all here and nobody cares then this great Anarchic experiment is already doomed.

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We have already seen that there are some powerful would-be Warlords here with big guns (STEEM POWER) who would seek to use the threat of force to coerce others into doing their will. We’ve seen these would-be Warlords beat the bid bots into submission and they have forced a 3.5 day minimum post age as a requirement for buying a vote. I am quite certain this was just one of the opening salvos but it shows where we might be headed if we don’t get it together. This is not Anarchy and it’s not Voluntarism either. It is the same path that Anarchism has been down in the real world so many times. It is the emergence of new authoritarians from the lawlessness that Anarchy allows.

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So where am I going with this? I wish I knew for sure. But for now I believe it comes down to us raising the standards for the culture of STEEM, having higher expectations on each other as to what is the social norm and what is considered acceptable behaviour – especially within our Voluntarist communities. Do we have the foresight and the strength to actually do this? Or are we too busy chasing a fast buck ourselves? I am going to try and write a bit of a series to outline a few of the “Grey Areas” that we see on STEEM to try and figure out where that consensus might be about what IS acceptable behaviour. From there maybe we can have a go at collectively trying to defend that behaviour – just like those people in the shop. Maybe together we can even lift the bar a little bit and promote a culture on STEEM that we could really be proud of. I don’t believe that we need an authority to fix problems. We can do it ourselves within our communities, but we need to get our act together.