Commentary by Brandon Martinez
The anarchist scenario looks the worst when applied to modern roads and transportation, for example. How would you maintain order on the roads if there were no laws in place prohibiting certain behaviours on the road like speeding, drunk driving, running red lights, and other dangerous maneuvers? If nobody was obliged to follow modern road rules through the threat of fine or imprisonment, few would follow them. You’d basically have a chaotic situation where nobody is accountable for driving like a maniac and putting others in danger. You have those kinds of situations in very poor Southeast Asian countries. And if you are not obliged by law to register your vehicle and have insurance, then there’s no way – beyond physical intimidation and threats – to get compensation for being hit by another car on the road. They could just drive off and you’d never be able to identify them since license plates won’t be required linking cars to persons.
What would prevent chaos? Grounding in societal ethics–for all–has the possibility of creating harmony. Otherwise, disorderly, ignorant and unethical sheep need slave masters.
There are reasons why such laws are in place and an organized society is set up to create statues for all to agree on as basic principles of interaction and civil behavior. But placing the potential draconian “laws” due to a minority of drivers is the potential set up for tyranny. And so we have it. Car registration is one thing, check points for current automobile registrations in another. Drunk driving check points, is that a result of Mothers against Drunk Drivers or a way to naturally develop the frog boiled in hot water. It’s for our own good they say, right out of the Protocols number one, too much freedom gives the masses of men the opportunity to be savages. And so it is.
Obviously statism is imperfect so there’s always the potential for over-reach, like the examples you listed. But under anarchism there’s literally nothing preventing or punishing reckless behaviour on the road, so it would be far worse under that model.