Social Anarchism or Lifestyle Anarchism (1995)
&quot;Anarchism’s failure to resolve this tension, to articulate the relationship of the individual to the collective, and to enunciate the historical circumstances that would make possible a stateless anarchic society produced problems in anarchist thought that remain unresolved to this day.&quot;<p>Its resolved for me.  And no doubt for you - think of a family gathering - you didn&#x27;t need the police (or the state) there to manage things for you.  All you need to do is apply the golden rule (from wiki):<p>* Treat others as you would like others to treat you (positive or directive form)<p>* Do not treat others in ways that you would not like to be treated (negative or prohibitive form)<p>The negative form is better.  So, no one has a right to cause harm to another.  (Of course they can cause harm, but its not right.)  A group of people that think the same thing, also do not have the right to cause harm to others (where &#x27;cause&#x27; = &#x27;initiate&#x27;.)<p>This isn&#x27;t to say that if harm is caused to you, you don&#x27;t have the right to respond - you have the right to defend yourself.<p>Now consider - despite the general impression - how many times has another individual harmed you?  Now, contrast that with how many times has the government initiated violence against you (forcible payment of tax, jay walking, drinking beer in public, or whatever, parking fines, licenses, etc).  When force is there as a threat, even if it is not being overtly used, it is still the use of force.  If I don&#x27;t do something I want to do, that doesn&#x27;t harm another, because of the threat of force (fines, imprisonment, etc) that is violence being inflicted on me.<p>So, the governance structure will have you believe that without policemen etc the world would descend into chaos.  But government itself is the worst abuser!  It initiates harm and violence everywhere, all day, every day.  And it has convinced individuals to do this for it (policemen, soldiers, doctors, teachers) by calling it &#x27;right&#x27; in its courts (regardless of the golden rule).  The governance structure says it IS ok to initiate harm (if it says so) for money (that it prints).<p>Its a trick - and it has resulted in misguided order-followers who do wrong all day (but call it right), for the benefit of an elite group.<p>Such is life.  If people followed their conscience and heart, we wouldn&#x27;t be in this mess.