Kevin Carson on Anarchism and Democracy
Via the Left Libertarian Yahoo group, Kevin Carson on Anarchism and Democracy
The difference between anarchism and democracy, at least when the latter is taken to its logical conclusion, isn’t all that great. Arguably, anarchism is the ultimate development of the Jeffersonian democratic principle, in the same sense that Thoreau’s government that governs not at all is the ultimate example of the best government governing least. The heart of the Jeffersonian/anglo-republican understanding of democracy was government by consent. And the smaller the unit of government, the closer that consent approached to unanimity, the better. Majority rule was not the defining feature–majority rule was just a proxy for consent, an imperfect way to simulate it when genuinely unanimous consent was impossible. So devolving all government to direct democratic town meetings and neighborhood assemblies is a big step in the right direction. And going a step further, depriving the town meetings of the power to collect payment for services from unwilling clients and allowing competing service providers, takes us the rest of the way: we’re at the point where anarchism and radical democracy coincide.
I’m surprised Kevin didn’t take the opportunity to trot out my favorite Benjamin Tucker quote:
Share This“The Anarchists are simply unterrified Jeffersonian Democrats. They believe that ‘the best government is that which governs least,’ and that which governs least is no government at all.”
[...] MDM over at Upaya has some more great commentary on the theme of Anarchism and Democracy that I posted on here (mainly quoting Kevin Carson). [...]
Thanks, Brad. I probably would have included that if I wasn’t too lazy to track it down and paste it in! Also thrown in a reference to De Cleyre on “Anarchism and American Traditions.”