[color=green]One is selfchosen, I wanted you (in this example a skilled doctor) to remove my appendix instead of Fred (local hardwarestore keeper), the other was forced upon me; You say your a Gov official which means I have to let you remove my appendix (or worse still, let Fred do it).</font color=green>
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<br>That is a common response from anarchists, including, for instance, Bakunin and Tucker. Unfortunately, if anyone were to think about it further, such a sentence can practically justify a democratic system of government. The distinction between voluntary and coercive authority can only go so far - and anarcho-capitalists enjoy seizing upon such a distinction since it allows them to
argue that their advocacy of "voluntary" employer-employee relationships is compatible with anarchism.
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<br>A more appropriate rejoinder is as follows:
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<br>Anarchists reject
hierarchical authority - i.e. rulers. A doctor with authority on medicine would hardly be considered to be hierarchically above a composer with authority on harmony. When we say that a doctor has authority on medicine, we are essentially saying that a doctor has authority over an abstract conception. When we say that a bootmaker has authority over boots (to use Bakunin's example), we are similarly saying that the bootmaker has authority over non-living entities of tools and raw materials.
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<br>The real distinction, then, lies between an authority of a skill, which entails the mastery or control of the "materials, the objects, the things, whatever it is that a specific skill is exercised upon" and a hierarchical authority of one individual or group of individuals over another.
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<br>Credit to where credit is due: Graeme Nicholson, "Authority and the State" in Dimitrios I. Roussopoulos (ed.), The Political Economy of the State [Montreal: Black Rose Books, 1973]
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<br>When we say that anarchism is "without authority", surely and clearly we are referring to this conception of authority between human beings over other human beings. Not abstract concepts or raw materials.
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<br>Of course, as many of you would know, some anarchists have extended the "without authority" ideal to other living things beyond human beings - most obviously, animals.
<br>And a small group of anarchists have extended the "without authority" ideal to abstract conceptions - this is precisely what is meant by internal authority [note, however, that I'm not sure if anomolous and myself are even talking about the same thing!]. Neither are essential aspects of anarchism and to consider either as being so would result in the expulsion of most historical anarchists from being considered anarchists. What is essential to anarchism - and which cannot be dispensed with - is the authority of human beings over other human beings.