Hi,
Words have definitions and they have emotional baggage attached to them. "Anarchy" is one where the emotional baggage is very heavy.
The definition of "anarchy" is simply "without government". If you examine what the essential function of government is, you'll see that it is to protect us from each other -- from enemies foreign and domestic. If no such enemies existed, then government would not be needed, although some associations for mutual advantage, such as schools, fire protection, but no police, because we've assumed no "domestic enemies" which means no criminals. Thus, one of my favorite cynical statements: "Anarchy only works if everyone follows the rules."
The fact is that humanity is composed of imperfect people, people who through greed, stupidity, or just plain cussedness cause propblems for others. Thus, "anarchy" picks up its connotations. And so, in the mind of the average person who has never looked "anarchy" up and thought of the implications of what the word both means and implies, "anarchy" becomes "chaos". Instead of a good but probably impossible condition, it is seen as bad. And that is probably the more realistic view.
However, most self styled "anarchists" and especially the "rational anarchists" are using the word in its more restricted meaning.
[EDIT]For the fun of it, I looked "anarchy" un in the online MW dictionary. What I found was:
a : absence of government
b : a state of lawlessness or political disorder due to the absence of governmental authority
c : a utopian society of individuals who enjoy complete freedom without government
I found this quite humerous. The first definition is the denotation of "anarchy", the other two are the results expected by a pessimist and an optimist respectively
--Pete
