The concept of anarchy as absolute freedom is rather difficult to embrace. As a result, the subject matter is often conflated with the notion of chaos, which does not represent the phenomenon of anarchy properly. Anarchy is the political ideology that entitles every citizen to absolute freedom thus absolving them from the necessity to conform to specific rules and standards (Murray, 2016). Because of the repudiation of government as a notion, the ideology of anarchy suggests the absence of order, gives most of the power to individuals, and suggests that an individual perspective should be the key source of justice.
Anarchism is an unusual ideology when viewed through the prism of political power. In anarchy, legal and established sources of power are deemed as illegitimate, with the greatest amount of agency being given to individuals (Stringham, 2017). Any authority outside of one’s own perception and political beliefs is dismissed as ill-conceived and unjustified, which leads to power being granted to everyone.
The subversion of the traditional interpretation of power entails a change in the perception of justice. Since legal authorities and standards can no longer be regarded as the source of justice, the meaning thereof is transformed into the principles of social idealism (Stringham, 2017). Thus, anarchism encourages citizens to develop a justice system based on mutual agreement rather than on preconceived notions of legal and illegal.
Similarly, anarchy does not have any semblance of order in its system due to the active repudiation of the political authority. The concept of order is nonexistent in the political framework of anarchism (Murray, 2016). As a result, establishing any modicum of orderliness is impossible in the context of anarchism, which leads to a range of political and social issues and reduces the level of the public good. The principle of the natural order, which the philosophy of anarchism vi9ews as a suitable substitution, is only functional once every member of the target society has the same concept of order.
Refusing to establish any form of government and implying that the entirety of state power should be given to individuals, anarchy suggests the complete absence of order and is guided by a very vague system of justice. Therefore, anarchy is typically viewed as one of the extremes in the existing taxonomy of political ideologies. Although the idea of power given to individuals is not entirely absurd, it requires the presence of equal responsibility and sense of justice in all members of a target society, which I barely possible. Thus, as a political system, anarchism does not seem to be a legitimate approach that could promote the public good.
References
Murray, R. W. (Ed.). (2016). Seeking order in anarchy: Multilateralism as state strategy. Edmonton, Canada: University of Alberta Press.
Stringham, E. P. (Ed.). (2017). Anarchy and the law: The political economy of choice. New York, NY: Routledge.