Extreme ideas are entertaining to entertain, especially if they can be defended. I was introduced to anarchism through Michael Malice, a level-headed intellectual that I would call the de-facto public anarchist for any wanderer in the anarchist internet. His sober discussion of anarchist ideas prompted me to wonder if I could ever equip myself with the weapons needed to defend the ideology properly. I dove through much of his online content, hoping to come to the fantastical moment of knowing an idea that most of my peers deem insane is actually quite sensible. Through all of my searching, I couldn’t find a piece where he defends anarchism in the context of surrounding war-making states. All of the anarchist literature I found was focused on criticizing the state, never offering a scenario where anarchy could work in today’s world. I stood unarmed, and my interest dwindled.
My attention then went to Moloch, more specifically, an article in Slate Star Codex titled “Meditations on Moloch.” It revived my interest in anarchism, because the article check-mates it, especially when combined with the American Revolution.
The American Revolution is a great example to focus on because the United States was founded on the idea of decentralized power. During and after the war, the US found itself in the multi-polar trap all anarchist utopias would and will find themselves in. Moloch forced it to drop one of its core values – decentralization.
Moloch & Multi-Polar Traps
Moloch is an ancient Canaanite god primarily associated with the sacrifice of the juvenile variety. Recently we’ve come to synonymize him with multi-polar traps. The way to understand multi-polar traps is through examples. I’ll give three of them here, but you can find many more in the Slate Star Codex article.
Stadium Seating
You are sitting in the middle row of a stadium. The people in the front want a better view, so they stand, obstructing the view of the people behind them. The people in the second row now have to stand, then the third, the fourth, until the entire section is left standing. Now, everyone (except for the people in the front) has the same view they had while sitting, but their chairs may as well be gone.
Before giving more examples, we can try to generalize this a bit. From a top-down perspective, it is better if everyone remains seated in their chairs. From within the stadium, though, a viewer gets an advantage while standing. Without the command of a centralized power, if one viewer stands, the rest will stand, resulting in a sub-optimal configuration.
The Fish Farming Story
Scott Alexander put this best, I will quote him.
“As a thought experiment, let’s consider aquaculture (fish farming) in a lake. Imagine a lake with a thousand identical fish farms owned by a thousand competing companies. Each fish farm earns a profit of $1000/month. For a while, all is well.
But each fish farm produces waste, which fouls the water in the lake. Let’s say each fish farm produces enough pollution to lower productivity in the lake by $1/month.
A thousand fish farms produce enough waste to lower productivity by $1000/month, meaning none of the fish farms are making any money. Capitalism to the rescue: someone invents a complex filtering system that removes waste products. It costs $300/month to operate. All fish farms voluntarily install it, the pollution ends, and the fish farms are now making a profit of $700/month – still a respectable sum.
But one farmer (let’s call him Steve) gets tired of spending the money to operate his filter. Now one fish farm worth of waste is polluting the lake, lowering productivity by $1. Steve earns $999 profit, and everyone else earns $699 profit.
Everyone else sees Steve is much more profitable than they are, because he’s not spending the maintenance costs on his filter. They disconnect their filters too.
Once four hundred people disconnect their filters, Steve is earning $600/month – less than he would be if he and everyone else had kept their filters on! And the poor virtuous filter users are only making $300. Steve goes around to everyone, saying “Wait! We all need to make a voluntary pact to use filters! Otherwise, everyone’s productivity goes down.”
Everyone agrees with him, and they all sign the Filter Pact, except one person who is sort of a jerk. Let’s call him Mike. Now everyone is back using filters again, except Mike. Mike earns $999/month, and everyone else earns $699/month. Slowly, people start thinking they too should be getting big bucks like Mike, and disconnect their filter for $300 extra profit…
A self-interested person never has any incentive to use a filter. A self-interested person has some incentive to sign a pact to make everyone use a filter, but in many cases has a stronger incentive to wait for everyone else to sign such a pact but opt out himself. This can lead to an undesirable equilibrium in which no one will sign such a pact.”
Moloch – A Summary
Scott summarizes multi-polar traps quite well. This should solidify your understanding of them.
“A basic principle unites all of the multipolar traps above. In some competition optimizing for X, the opportunity arises to throw some other value under the bus for improved X. Those who take it prosper. Those who don’t take it die out. Eventually, everyone’s relative status is about the same as before, but everyone’s absolute status is worse than before. The process continues until all other values that can be traded off have been – in other words, until human ingenuity cannot possibly figure out a way to make things any worse.”
The American Revolution – A Quasi-Anarchist Experiment that Fell to Moloch
George Washington and the Continental army were forced to fight with pitiful resources. Washington was pleading with the Continental Congress for funds and soldiers, and wasn’t even able to get the bare necessities. The Continental Congress refused to fund the military properly, as colonies eschewed centralized power, thereby eschewing centralized taxation. The Continental army survived on inhumane funds, leaving many soldiers without proper shoes and clothing, with many starving or freezing to death in the cold northeast winter.
We all know how this story ends, though, the Continental Army defeated the British and won independence. This wasn’t without many strokes of luck. The British made several military strategy blunders, their best admiral was out sick for the final consequential battle of the war, and the French came for aid. Without these gifts from the anti-British god, could the colonies have defeated Britain?
So the Continental Army prevailed despite the ailments that come with radical decentralization. But after independence the United States was finally forced to reckon with the multi-polar trap it found itself in. Now it is an independent nation no longer protected by the strongest fighting force in the world. What could it do now? Leave the Continental Army in shambles as it was? What if France decided to invade? Spain? Both? It simply had no choice but to centralize power and create the federal government that many of the founding fathers scoffed at. It switched from an ideologically united confederacy of colonies to a compromising union of states under a centralized, federal power. Decentralization in a theater of centralized war-making machines can only exist in our imagination.
Only if there were an anarchist god controlling the actions of states could an anarchist society exist. The god, let’s call him Michael, would prevent any defense spending and prohibit any invasions. He could also have to prevent any violence, coercion, or power-grabbing by people within each state. Michael would prevent any individual state from following its own incentives at the expense of another (invading for more land, more resources, to spread religion, etc). Alas, Michael does not exist, and since one state may have an incentive to invade, all others must protect themselves.
So… anarchists. You create your utopia, and come to find yourselves not in the hands of Michael, but of Moloch. Tell me, how can you escape?
Teddy Holappa 