Anarchism 2010-style

They don't wear black masks, and they don't trash police cars. They go to rallies and hold up signs against Obamacare, or Guvmint, or claim Obama is a Muslim. Yes, the Tea Party.

It's not as if the Tea Party doesn't have sponsors. Again, it's not like those masked vandals, who eschew money, itself. The Tea Party anarchists, are for dissolving all government, eventually. Just follow their logic--and their sponsors.

Government isn't supposed to be doing all the things it does now, because, well, maybe they can point to mis-interpretations of our 18th Century Constitution, but really they just insist (against a good deal of evidence to the contrary) that government can do nothing right.

Logically, that will eventually extend to the police and the military. In both cases, private corporations are taking over increasing shares of these functions: private prison corporations and Blackwater/Xie come to mind.

So, the new anarchism hands over all power to huge corporations. Governments wither away. If we could do without government, I'd be happy too, but given the size of our population, and the complexity of our society, government functions would be taken over by corporations: not an improvement.

We cannot do without government functions, collective goods, and a whole host of services we just take for granted, like insuring clean, healthy food, reliable weights and measures, information about the economy, about the people in it. Everyone gains when more people are healthy, so public health is necessary: plagues and epidemics are really bad for business.

The Tea Party opposition to "Obamacare," is generated by vast amounts of money from healthcare corporations that want to keep the best parts--like guaranteed new markets (required by the individual mandate)--while jettisoning costly regulations like no pre-existing conditions. It's also opposed by wealthy ideologues like the Koch brothers.

There is a logical path from one to the other, however: it is empowering corporations and disempowering everyone else. In other words, the new anarchism could eventually usher in a world in which Google provides the economic data--it's attempting to, right now, with the price index--and Xie fights unending, profitable wars.

Do you remember Newt Gingrich proposing that Visa could collect taxes much more efficiently than the IRS?

And who would make the decisions? Why, the Senators and Congressmen and Presidents, who are elected by corporate campaign funds, of course. And they'll do the bidding of the corporations, perhaps meeting informally when disagreements do crop up.

People would only be necessary to pay the bills and provide the underpaid muscle and intellect needed for the corporations to make even greater profits. Corporate owners, i.e. the fewer and fewer people who really own them, would have unlimited wealth. And power.

Voila, Anarchism 2010! Just like Rome circa 477, after its "fall," before wandering marauders finish off most of the Romans. By 500, Rome had shrunk to 20-30,000 people (from over 1 million).