My Ascendant Kingdoms Saga books (Ice Forged, Reign of Ash—coming 2014) takes place in a post-apocalyptic medieval world where anarchy has become the norm. A disastrous war has left the Continent in ruins and destroyed the magic upon which Donderath and its neighboring kingdoms relied.
The kings and the ruling nobility are dead, the infrastructure has largely burned or been destroyed by the out-of-control weather after the battle mages’ attack went horribly wrong. The armies of both sides are reduced to a wounded remnant. Trade has stopped. Agriculture is struggling and famine is likely since fields and livestock burned in the Great Fire, much of the work force was either killed in the war or has been displaced, and the violent storms, unchecked brigands and lack of magic have drastically reduced the crop yields that are possible.
Although my work is fiction, there are plenty of historical analogies, times when war or natural disaster destroyed a country, kingdom or large geographic area. There’s a period of shock in the immediate aftermath when the affected area is also vulnerable to the predations of unfriendly neighbors, then there is a regrouping, followed by rebuilding. Often, the status quo changes, either because of a shift in the availability of labor (for example, in the aftermath of plague), or because the old ruling class has been killed and old wealth has been wiped out.
While money creates power in an established society, once the infrastructure has been destroyed, “wealth” and “power” arise from having what’s needed to survive and rebuild. That might mean natural resources, labor, water access, mineral rights, technology and knowledge, arable land, and other essentials. It’s also interesting that anarchy doesn’t last long before someone begins to solidify power and create some form of government. It might be a different form than what went before, but it quickly becomes apparent to survivors that anarchy yields its own “government” in the form of warring warlords, marauders and robbers. In the absence of a rule of law, might makes right. Sooner or later, that goes badly.
It’s fashionable in some circles today for people to dislike government, but I suspect that those who feel that way would quickly change their tune if they found themselves in a true state of anarchy. As a historian and author, I am always fascinated by the arguments of people who seem opposed to government as a concept. They’re against government, but they expect police protection and fire departments and city water and a military watching over the borders. They don’t like taxes, but there’s the expectation that roads will be repaired, bridges won’t collapse, the air will remain breathable and schools will remain open—somehow.
The truth is, over the centuries we’ve discovered that we can have more when we work together than when we remain in isolated armed camps. We can live in greater safety, support more robust trade, group together in larger cities, benefit from economies of scale and a larger and more complex infrastructure when we work together. There’s a reason why, even when one government is deposed, another rises in its stead rather than devolving into anarchy as a preferred, long-term choice.
I understand the struggle between autonomy and authority—after all, I’ve raised three teenagers. And every time I hear the “we don’t need no stinkin’ government” argument it reminds me of the story about the angry kid who makes it clear that he needs no parental meddling, is able to fend for himself and make his own decisions—and can you please drive him to the mall? I suspect that anyone who has ever lived in a war zone or been part of the on-the-scene rebuilding after a natural disaster sees the value not only in the rule of law, and of a governing body to do on a large scale what cannot be done efficiently by separate individuals.
My characters in Ice Forged have been exiled to a prison colony in the arctic overseen by a brutal military governor. Yet even there, when civilization collapses, it’s not a day for jubilation. There will be no more supply ships from home with the necessities that can’t be grown or made in the bare-bones, hard-scrabble colony. That means famine and death. Disgraced lord, Blaine McFadden, was exiled for murder. When he learns that he might just be the only one who can restore the magic that undergirded their civilization, Blaine has hard choices to make.
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Reign of Ash, book two in the Ascendant Kingdoms Saga launches in April, 2014 from Orbit Books. My new urban fantasy, Deadly Curiosities, comes out in July, 2014 from Solaris Books. I bring out two series of ebook short stories with a new story every month for just .99 on Kindle, Kobo and Nook—check out the Jonmarc Vahanian Adventures or the Deadly Curiosities Adventures.
Julia Kitvaria Sarene
Jennie Ivins
A well-written, well-thought-out piece, and I agree that we will probably always tend towards rule of law in preference to anarchy (Hobbes makes pretty much the same argument, after all). But I wonder if it’s a bit over-simplistic of the anarchist tradition to say that “they’re against government, but they expect police protection and fire departments and city water…” etc. Perhaps this is true of some who claim to be anarchists or anti-government in a vague, romantic (or “fashionable”) sense, but I think there are those who realize you can’t have your cake and eat it, too–who realize the cost of true anarchism, and still prefer it to a social-contract system.
Anyway, I love fantasy that explores political theory. Thanks for writing this!
Excellent points, and a wonderful article! I highly recommend Isaac Asimov’s “Nightfall”, for a great sci-fi story on the subject.
As a history geek, I agree that as soon as a large government breaks down, if no other government moves in, new smaller powers immediately rise to replace them. Ironically, self-reliant people who claim they’re ‘prepared for anarchy/apocalypse’ are often the first victims, because a swarm of hungry, panicked people will easily overtake any single ‘survivor’ for their supplies. After people, the next most important resource is weapons, to defend against the aforementioned mobs, and to fight as a group for other necessary supplies. After that, the new powers/leaders just have to focus on staying in control.
All that remind you of anything? How about ‘Prison’. Anarchy is basically like living in an understaffed prison filled with violent offenders, and not enough food/water to go around. I can’t speak for teenagers, but that certainly doesn’t sound fun to me.
Sorry but I feel the need to defend anarchy.
Warlordism is a form of government, not anarchy. For an example of anarchy, it’s better to look at Barcelona during the resistance to Franco in WWII-era Spain (see Orwell’s “Homage to Catalonia”) or hippy communes in Vermont.
The idea that human nature is somehow inherently greedy goes back as far as Hobbes, who wrote the Leviathan to unapologetically legitimize the state at a time when kings were consolidating power from aristocratic city-states. This was always about war: historical sociologist Charles Tilly (see “War Making and State Making as Organized Crime”) examines the process as a protection racket, wrapping peasants into more centralized (and unequal) feudal networks. At any rate, Hobbes’s “war of all against all” has permeated not only Western “common sense” but Malthusian re-interpretations of Darwin, Smithian economics, and Freudian psychology. Recently, biologist Frans de Waal’s work on cooperation in nature has effectively disproven the idea that competition rules nature, but an alternative proposal goes back to the early 1900s with anarchist (and zoologist) Kropotkin’s “Mutual Aid.”
That said, anarchy isn’t necessarily seen as some disorderd state of nature: Proudhon (considered the father of anarchy), defined anarchy in his book “Anarchy is Order without Power”, the circle surrounding the A in the symbol for anarchism is an O for Order. Proudhon developed anarchism with the goal of eliminating power and inequality together in contrast to Marxism, which sought to resolve inequalities by taking state power, and there were great disagreements between anarchist and Marxist factions at the time of Marx.
As for police and prisons– prisons generate their own expectations of human behavior that subjects internalize (see Zimbardo’s prison experiments) and police vary from neighborhood to neighborhood (the Black Panthers were actually founded to protect citizens from the police, who in poor neighborhoods were a greater threat than criminals)