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Experience of Practical Anarchy (also here) by Stefan Molyneux

It took me a long time to get around to reading Practical Anarchy. It wasn’t because I thought I knew everything there was to know in the book… it was just never “the right time.” I just never felt like it.

I had actually almost completed the book but had stopped at some point before the conclusion. In listening to the audio book to completion last night, I discovered that I had stopped only very shortly before the conclusion.

I didn’t ask myself why I was avoiding it, and there might be reasonable excuses why: I’m still processing (and will be for some time) the breakup of a 4+ year relationship; I want to get into therapy soon but haven’t found a therapist yet; I have concerns about my job, my career, my weight… I have a very, very hard time thinking about creating the sort of job I actually want, content instead to spend my evenings wasting my time instead of working.

After a conversation with Stefan about what FDR is compared to how I currently behave in relation to FDR, I began to think more about what it is that’s missing for me. I realized that I feel completely hollowed out–not quite that I don’t have any value, but that I don’t ever create value for others, in others, through what I do.

The followup to this was a conversation with a friend of mine who has had his own issues this past week and was very, very down on himself. I felt that, as my friend, I either “owed” him the feedback he requested or, at least, “owed” him an honest response as to why I wasn’t providing it.

It was after that conversation that I finally got back to Practical Anarchy.

The book is full of brilliant and insightful responses to the many questions and criticisms about how anarchy can work in the myriad practical contexts we find ourselves in. Questions about the roads, healthcare, crime, and so on are all given a treatment, with regular reminders that we should compare anarchy to the current situation, not to some unattainable ideal.

However, the soul of the book is in the conclusion.

Providing possible answers to the questions of anarchy is an interesting and, I would argue, essential intellectual exercise, for if alternatives are at least provided, that can help some people get over the intellectual challenges of anarchy, even if the alternatives themselves never quite pan out. This, however, is not what Practical Anarchy is about, not at its core.

To really understand what it is that makes the title of the book mean more than “How Anarchy Can Be Practical in a Society Ages Away,” I strongly urge you to read the book through and pay close attention to the conclusion. I highly recommend the free audio book, but there is also a free PDF version and, at the time of this writing, a paperback copy for $18.98 at lulu.com.