Anarchy, Democracy and the Foundations of Order
Political ideals often shine brightest on paper, and anarchy is no exception. Its vision of voluntary cooperation and non-hierarchical community is compelling, but difficult to sustain once human nature, scale, and competing values enter the equation. In its purest form, anarchism shares many of the same foundational ideals as democracy. Yet what works in theory often falters in practice. What follows is a reflection on why anarchist systems struggle to endure. And, a cautionary word about how these same pressures threaten democratic self-governance.
Anarchy is rarely understood on its own terms. It is often framed as chaos, disorder, or the rejection of structure, but this caricature misses the point entirely. At its core, anarchism is not anti-order but grounded in the belief that order emerges organically when individuals cooperate freely. In an anarchist framework, a community’s values and goals arise from voluntary consensus rather than authority. People are free to dissent, advocate change, or leave to form a new community if disagreement becomes too deep. This vision is built on the conviction that human beings, left to their own devices, will naturally develop functional norms without coercive power.
But the viability of anarchism has limits. What works in small communities tends to erode as scale increases. Bureaucracy, specialization, and assigned leadership inevitably begin to appear. Once a group becomes large enough to require formal coordination, written codes, or designated roles, hierarchy takes root. These structural necessities undermine the anarchist ideal because they introduce positive authority; someone who decides, someone who enforces, and someone who benefits. At that point, the system is no longer anarchist in any meaningful sense.
This distinction aligns closely with Ferdinand Tönnies’s concepts of Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft. Gemeinschaft communities are small, face-to-face, bound by shared norms and organic relationships. They can sustain non-hierarchical structures because cohesion emerges naturally. People know one another, and values are transmitted through shared histories and shared experiences rather than formal rules. Gesellschaft communities, however, arise when societies become large, specialized, and integrated. Relationships become contractual, roles become differentiated, and governance shifts from shared values to formal authority. In such environments, both anarchy and pure democracy struggle, because the scale of social complexity demands mechanisms of coordination that informal norms can no longer provide.
This breakdown raises a deeper question: From where do the shared values of a community originate? If anarchism specifically, and democratic governance in general depend on organic agreement, what ensures that agreement remains stable and coherent?
This is where the tension between natural and positive law enters. Anarchist philosophy and democratic principles implicitly rely on natural law; the idea that certain rights, norms, or moral truths exist independently of human institutions. Positive law, by contrast, is created, enforced, and modified by people in positions of authority. It requires a hierarchy to define and implement the rules. In a positive-law system, shared values are whatever the rule-makers say they are, not what emerges from the community itself. As soon as positive law becomes dominant, the organic structure dissolves, and the hierarchy expands.
Natural law, however, is notoriously difficult to define. Enlightenment thinkers framed it in terms of life, liberty, and property. These broad principles are meant to anchor society without micromanaging it. But they are vague formulations, and modern interpretive frameworks often bend them toward positivistic ends. Others, like Aquinas, grounded natural law in divine authority: rights bestowed upon humans by God and thus beyond the reach of earthly power. This framework gives natural law a stable, non-negotiable foundation. However, it also assumes a shared religious ethic that no longer exists in modern pluralistic democracies.
If natural law varies across religious traditions, cultures, and philosophies, what anchors a community once those metaphysical foundations are removed? Interpretations of what is “natural” varies. In many Eastern traditions, for example, suffering is part of the spiritual cycle toward enlightenment, making “intervention” a more complex moral question. The moral order still exists, but the implications differ from the Judeo-Christian understanding of inherent, inviolable rights. Each tradition articulates a natural order, yet the conclusions vary enough that shared values cannot be assumed.
This is precisely the problem faced by contemporary Western societies. The traditional sources that grounded natural law such as religion, shared moral frameworks, metaphysical beliefs have largely been rejected or privatized. What remains is a vacuum. And vacuums never stay empty. Into that void step individuals and institutions eager to define a new source of values through positive law. These new systems are not organic; they are imposed. They do not arise from voluntary consensus but from power. That is the very thing both anarchism and classical liberalism sought to limit.
The same dynamic plays out within anarchist and democratic systems. Without a common foundation of meaning, someone will inevitably attempt to provide one. The moment a single person or group positions themselves as the interpreter of values, anarchism gives way to positivism. The organic order collapses, replaced by rule-making and enforcement. What began as a cooperative community becomes another hierarchy, driven not by shared convictions but by the will of those who assert authority.
In the absence of a shared moral foundation, alternative belief systems emerge that treat the individual’s will as the ultimate source of meaning. Aleister Crowley’s maxim, “Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law,” is often interpreted this way. This is not natural law but the inversion of it. It establishes a framework in which values are generated solely by personal preference rather than emerging from a shared moral order. While this kind of hyper-individualism appears liberating, it undermines the very conditions that make freedom sustainable. If every person’s will defines its own moral universe, no stable norms can develop, no organic cooperation can take shape, and conflicts cannot be resolved through shared principles. The end result is not a flourishing anarchist community but a demand for hierarchy to impose order where no common foundation exists.
If there is a unifying insight in all of this, it is that neither anarchism nor democracy can survive without some form of natural law. Some shared understanding of human dignity, boundaries, and moral limits that does not depend on authority to exist is essential. When those foundations erode, the system drifts toward imposed norms and expanding hierarchy. In the absence of an anchor, power fills the space.
This essay began as a set of loosely connected reflections, but the basic idea is simple: freedom cannot sustain itself without a common moral foundation, and a community cannot remain non-hierarchical unless its values rest on something deeper than human will and the shifting force of positive law. Without that deeper grounding, both anarchist and democratic ideals degrade into a struggle over who gets to define the rules.
There is a lot of dialogue in contemporary society about “saving democracy” or “threats to democracy.” The problem is that most of this dialogue is veiled advocacy for ideological power and control. The fact is, democracy and anarchism share a lot of the same core principles; rejection of centralized power and the expression of individuality within a community structure. This is a desirable, but fragile social structure.
Even so, democracy remains the most workable and humane system we have. Its failures arise not from the idea of democratic governance, but from the loss of a shared moral foundation strong enough to check ambition. When that foundation breaks down, democracy becomes vulnerable to those who seek, enjoy, and profit from power. This is not a left-right issue; the power-hungry thrive at both ends of the spectrum. The remedy is modest but essential: recover enough shared meaning, enough common moral language, to make self-government something more than a contest for control.
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About the Author
Rod Price has spent his career in human services, supporting mental health and addiction recovery, and teaching courses on human behavior. A lifelong seeker of meaning through music, reflection, and quiet insight, he created Quiet Frontier as a space for thoughtful conversation in a noisy world.