All Bets Are Off - 2/04/2002

Life In Anarchy
By Jon, Conval High School

I think it is a little strange that people insist on saying that they hate our
government when it helps them so much. They don’t seem to realize what life 
would be like without a government. Many kids consider themselves “anarchists,” but  truly few of them would really want to live in anarchy. Every day we take advantage of the freedoms we are entitled to in our country. Our government does a lot for its people and gives us many things. There are many different types of government systems in our world, but only one has no leaders; does not give its people anything and allows disputes to end in
death. That system is called anarchy, or the absence of government. Things 
would be a lot different living in anarchy rather than a democracy. So what would life in anarchy really be like, and would anybody really want it?

Life in anarchy would be very difficult. There are many things that our government provides us that people could not get living in anarchy. Our 
government provides its citizens with social services for instance, which would be difficult to get living in anarchy. A country without a government would take much longer to advance technologically. Governments provide funding for many projects such as NASA that would not be possible otherwise. Privately owned organizations would not have the equipment to do research or develop new technologies without a government to give others money to make them. It would be difficult to keep a business up and running without government, especially without regulations and tax breaks. The people living in an anarchist country would have to make all their own clothes, grow their own food and
obtain other resources like water because it would be difficult for stores  to stay open without a government’s support. It would be almost impossible for a country to have any kind of economy without a government to hold it all together.

Governments do a lot more than provide funding for organizations and keep 
the economy together. They also keep social order. Without government, there 
would be nobody to solve arguments. There would be no laws against violence, so many disagreements would end in fights, which would not always be one by the “right” person.  The stronger or more powerful person would always win. One of the biggest reasons why a business in anarchy could not stay open long is that there would be nothing to stop people from robbing them or taking them over. Many fights would break out over the ownership of buildings. In anarchy there is no police to break up fights and no courts to settle disagreements. There is also nobody to provide fire stations, so citizens would have to put out fires themselves, without any equipment. After living in anarchy 
for a little while, people would realize that there was a need for hospitals to care for people. Any hospitals that were created would either die fast or would not be very effective because they would have no technology to help them heal people. Many people would die because there would not be government funded labs researching cures, so things like common colds could be deadly. Without a government a country would not have any laws or law enforcement, which would mean that the crime level would be very high and there would be nobody to stop it from rising. The strong, smart people would always win fights and there would be complete chaos everywhere.

Another thing that would be bad about living in anarchy would be that there
would be no form of economy. The businesses that did manage to survive would not have any good way of doing business because there would be no currency. People would either have to get everything for themselves or they would have to trade with each other. If there was only one person who was good at something, they could make others give them a lot in order to pass out what they make, which could result in arguments and fights. If people were not willing to trade, everyone would have to fend for themselves, which would be difficult because not everybody could provide themselves with everything they
would need to survive. Many people would die of starvation if they were not 
good farmers, and some people would freeze to death if they were not good at 
making houses.  Life would be completely unorganized and chaotic.


As you can see, life would be very difficult in anarchy. There would be not
structure without a government and nobody to make laws. The land would be 
filled with dead bodies because nobody would want to bury them, there would be many sick people because hospitals would not be good enough to help them and citizens would not be able to get all the resources they need. It would be a life filled with death and violence. There would be no schools, so everyone would be uneducated and there would be no army to protect from outside invasions. So what would life be like in anarchy? It would be very
hard because there would be no organization and nothing to prevent everyone 
from killing each other. Only the strong people would survive. There would also 
be no government to provide the things that we have today. The people would have all the power and there would be nothing to control their power. Life in anarchy would be much different from what we see in a democracy. It would be very hard to do well and the ones who managed to would control everything. Anarchy is not a good government system because it is very unorganized. If I lived in anarchy, I would flee to another country as soon as possible. Anarchy is not something I would want to be a part of and I don’t think that anyone else does either. That is why few or no countries have an anarchist government. So maybe some of those kids who don’t stand up for the Pledge of Allegiance at school should have some kind of clew as to what there life would be like
without our government, because they probably don’t really know how much it 
helps them.

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