We at the Center for a Stateless Society stand in solidarity with you, the Turkish protestors in your struggle that began with resistance to a particular instance of government cronyism but has widened into a revolt against police-state tactics, religious intolerance, and corporate privilege generally. Thank you for heroic and inspiring efforts!
The Center for a Stateless Society stands for left-wing market anarchism: anarchism, because we favor the establishment of a peaceful, free and orderly society without any state; market, because we defend market mechanisms as desirable and equitable means of non-state social coordination; left-wing, because we see the implementation of these ideals as crucial to combating subordination, exclusion, and deprivation, and giving ordinary people power over their own lives.
We know that many of you see a more secular and liberal constitutional republic as your final goal. We invite you to consider a society without a state as a more appropriate goal. After all, any state, by its nature as a coercive territorial monopoly, always acts, to greater or lesser extent, to impose its own vision by force on peaceful unconsenting people. Your recent and ongoing protests demonstrate the power and the beauty of human relationships that are voluntary rather than coercive, horizontal rather than hierarchical. Why not let those be a model for the society you seek?
Instead of police, have only security guards or neighborhood watch groups, responsible to their local communities.
Instead of statutory law, have only contracts and arbitration.
Instead of state monopolies to provide services, let many enterprises and voluntary associations of all kinds openly compete.
Instead of collecting taxes, let each person choose which services they want to pay for and whom to purchase those services from (or perhaps provide such services themselves, either individually or through local cooperatives).
We also know that some of you are anarchists already. But you who are anarchists tend to include not just the state, but private property and market competition, among the evils you combat. This is understandable, given the horrendous effects of policies that generally come wrapped in the free-market label. But we invite you to consider whether what are usually called free-market policies might not actually be violent interventions by the state on behalf of corporate interests terrified of the leveling effects of a genuinely freed market.
A world of only voluntary interaction without statist coercion is possible. The power of any state ultimately rests on the acquiescence of those it rules. Given the knowledge that a better world is possible, your creativity and courage can build it.
We look forward to an ongoing dialogue with you.
Thank you.
