1 Political authority and obligation Political authority and obligation

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24 Keith Hyams we should not obey the law because obedience to the law requires us to neglect our primary obligation to act autonomously. Th is obligation requires us to act on the basis of our own moral judgements about situations, and not to let the state decide right and wrong on our behalf. In order to fulfi l this obligation, we must refuse to surrender any part of our autonomy to the state. Yet Wolff does not defend his claim that our primary obligation is to act autonomously and a number of theorists have rejected the claim. So even if Wolff is right that a duty to act autonomously is incompatible with a duty to obey the law, it nevertheless remains an open question whether we should therefore choose autonomy over obedience to the law. KEY TEXTS Wolff, In Defense of Anarchism (1970) In one of the boldest and most widely read statements of philosophical anarchism, Robert Paul Wolff argues that submission to political authority is incompatible with the duty that we are all under to maintain our moral autonomy to the maximum degree possible. Wolff argues that unanimous direct democracy—within which everyone participates in decision-making and decisions are all made by unanimous consensus—would allow us to cooperate while retaining our autonomy. He suggests, however, that such a system will be impractical, given that just one vote against a decision can defeat consensus. In the final part of his book, Wolff explores how a society that does not rely on state coercion could function. Not all anarchists, of course, are as reluctant as the philosophical anarchists to put their anarchy into practice. Th e anarchist vision of a w orld that is f ree from state coercion has attracted revolutionaries from the nineteenth century—when the great anarchist theorists Stirner, Proudhon, Bakunin, and Kropotkin held sway—to the present day. While anarchy is oft en portrayed as a chaotic, violent form of society, anarchists themselves have argued that an anarchist society could be more peaceful and harmonious than a statist society—a society KEY CONCEPTS Anarchy Anarchy—literally ‘without rulers’—is a society in which the state has been abolished, or, more widely, in which all forms of hierarchy or oppression have been abolished. Some people associate anarchy with a utopian vision of society in which everyone lives in blissful harmony, realizing their full potential as human beings. Others associate anarchy with a dystopian vision of society, in which order breaks down, warlords come to dominate, and each person is left to fight for his or her own survival. Most anarchists adopt a more pragmatic approach, arguing that an anarchic society could work better or worse depending on how well we cope with the problems that it throws up. Either way, they argue, anarchy is a necessary prerequisite to ending the exploitation and injustice that is intrinsic to the current order.
Political authority and obligation 25 governed by a state—can ever be. Th e modern anarchist theorist Colin Ward (1996) goes as far as to claim that ‘war is the expression of the state in its most perfect form: it is its fi nest hour’. Among the key issues at stake between anarchists and statists are beliefs about human nature. Anarchists adopt more optimistic beliefs about the possibilities for cooperative behaviour in the absence of a state, whereas statists are more pessimistic. One way in which anarchists have tried to lend credence to their view of human nature is by pointing to anarchist experiments that have been, and continue to be, tried in various localities. Two of the most notable anarchist experiments include the Paris Commune of 1871 and the Spanish Revolution of 1936. Critics of anarchism oft en respond to such examples by arguing that even if anarchy is feasible on a small scale, it could not be made to work on a large scale. Taking on this response in his book Anarchy in Action (1996), Ward powerfully argues that there is no need to ask whether anarchy could work, because anarchy is already all around us. Whether or not we realize it, the modes of organization that structure our lives are, Ward argues, largely anarchic. Nevertheless, there remain worries about the possibility of achieving widespread coordination in an anarchic society, and for avoiding freeriding and other collective action problems. Perhaps the philosophical arguments point towards a middle path, with some level of state control combined with more devolved local power than citizens of most states presently enjoy. BOX 1.4 THE PARIS COMMUNE The Paris Commune of 1871 was a short-lived council that ran Paris in the aftermath of the Franco-Prussian war. The delegates to the council could be recalled by the electorate at any time, thereby ensuring that ultimate control over the city remained with the people of Paris. Many of the delegates were political activists steeped in anarchism or communism. The delegates quickly enacted a number of radical changes, including the right of women to vote, the separation of church and state, the postponement of debts and the abolition of interest on debts, the right of employees to take over deserted firms, and the abolition of night work in the bakeries. The Paris Commune was brought to a bloody end just two months after its formation, with the invasion of the city by the National Army. KEY POINTS ● Philosophical anarchists argue that political authority and obligation is not justifi ed, but that, for prudential reasons, we should not actually abolish the state—at least for the time being. ● Positive arguments for philosophical anarchism point to reasons not to obey the law. R. P. Wolff argues that we should not obey the law, because we have a primary duty to act autonomously. ● Anarchism as a vision for society has attracted followers since the nineteenth century. Anarchists point to successful experiments with anarchy throughout history and to the role of anarchic modes of organization in everyday life.
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