21A006 Lawn Order by Jim Davies, 2/9/2021

One of the obstacles we anarchists face when suggesting that all would be much better off without government is that folk have a hard time visualizing how a peaceful society could operate without rules, and police etc to enforce them. Mr Trump for example, who is no libertarian (as noted here in March 2016) is full of admiration for the supposed preservers of "Law and Order"; one of the first things he did when elected was to throw a party for Police Chiefs, and at his big rally in Minneapolis he was surrounded by admirers from "Cops for Trump."

That's a great pity. Fact is, if you really want order, you need to start with chaos.

Here, there might be a picture of a lawn to help make that key point (and to fill in my titular play on words) but that would draw the reasonable objection that lawns have gardeners who impose order upon them. So instead the photo shows a small corner of nature in the raw. It's beautiful, yes? - but also orderly, in every pixel. Not a twig nor a pine needle is out of place. Balanced perfection; yet it resulted from not a single command by any authority, not one line in any plan (no offense intended to theist readers.)

Everything growing in that scene was pursuing its own interests exclusively, according to its own nature, taking such advantage of soil, water flow and sunshine as it could, for its own advantage without reference to the interests of neighbors. That is: total chaos, disorder, absence of management or rule. Anarchy.

In his fabulous book Liberty, Dicta & Force, Louis Carabini brilliantly explains how this natural, universal principle applies also in human affairs, especially in its eighth chapter - in which he develops this theme:

Examples in that chapter abound; one is that without a shred of planning by any State Matchmaker Commission, men and women form couples, get married, have children and advance the human race; all spontaneously, by ourselves. Carabini notices that very often in so doing, 10s couple up with 10s, 7s with 7s and so on; there is in effect a market, in which boys and girls offer what they have and are, in exchange for what they want, in a partner. Order springs from chaos, not the other way around. This is how the whole natural world exists and functions. Any and every interference in that natural process, any attempt to impose "order" by Authority, necessarily produces a sub-optimal result at best.

Laws are attempts to do that; to codify behavior and restrict individual choice. What they actually produce is chaos of the bad kind; disorder, disharmony, dissatisfaction. The few laws that happen to coincide with good morality are superfluous; we all already know that murder, rape, theft etc. are evil and that if we do such things we shall suffer disastrous loss of reputation and so of the ability to trade, to earn a living. And all the other laws (scores of thousands of them) which do not so coincide are expressly destructive.

Although Conservatives (like Trump) are usually known as "Law & Order" advocates, it's often the Left who actually restrict and regulate behavior more rigorously; but the principle is used by all colors of government. Regulation of people is exactly and always what government does; the regulators get a "high" from the enjoyment of power. Government is a law-enforcing entity, that's what it does. Its members form their opinions (to their own advantage) and then impose those opinions on everyone else, using violence or the threat of it.

Never, ever work for such a disruptive outfit.