Anarchy and Turkey Bacon

So what exactly is the opposite of anarchy? The consensus in class seemed to be a hierarchy but I don’t think that this necessarily gets rid of anarchy. The argument that a higher power will force all the smaller actors to follow its will is not true. Ultimately the only rules that apply to an actor are the rules that they place upon themselves, or the ones that are applied by others with force. That is the problem with the UN; its only authority comes if a state decides to listen to it, or if the UN votes to use force which almost never happens.

Ultimately this same idea applies to more local levels. The state only has authority over the actions of its citizens if they decided to give it to them, or if the state has bigger and better guns. Robbery was outlawed many years ago in the United States, yet people are still robed. Clearly just making a law doesn’t mean that everyone will follow it, even if there is a strong and recognized hierarchy in place. The only way that you can be punished for breaking a law, is if you decided to give yourself up or if the government has more power than you. I would be willing to bet that if I had a nuclear weapon the cops wouldn’t try to arrest me for robbery. Or if they wanted to it would require that they use quite a lot of their power.

Think of the rent-a-cops at AU. Theoretically they have authority over me in the university hierarchy, but they cannot stop by from breaking the rules that I don’t want to follow. I would give examples but I know better than to brag about committing crimes on-line. And even if they catch me the only reason that they can ultimately punish me is because they have more power than I do. They have the ability to expel me, and I pretty much have nothing on my side. But if I didn’t go to school they loose all their power and they can’t punish me. The only authority that they have is the power that they are willing to use against me. Thus their is no authority, only power.

IT’S ANARCHY BABY!!!!!!
The strong do what they can,
The weak suffer what they must.

Thus anarchy is always there even on the smallest of scales. Thus the only way to ever truly be free of it is if there is only one actor. The only way to get rid of anarchy in the international system is for there to only be one state, and thus no international system. As long as there is more than one actor each actor can ultimately do whatever they want and it all comes down to who has more power. There are no rules, just the limitations of our own power and our ability to harness that power.

Matt Bank