Atheism and Anarchism:

Two Incompatible Concepts

By W. J. Whitman

There are certain anarchists who hold that the belief in God is inherently incompatible
with anarchy. So, I would like to do two things here: first, I want to demonstrate that religion and
anarchy are compatible, and, second, I want to prove that atheism and anarchism are not
compatible. Atheism logically leads to political chaos, rather than to an anarchistic social order.
Anarchism does not mean “no rules.” In the strictest sense, it doesn’t even mean “no
government.” It simply means “no violence,” or “no state.” In political theory, a state is defined
as “an institution that attempts to maintain a monopoly on the use of coercion in a particular
geographical region.” A state is always a “government” but a government is not necessarily a
state. Take an Amish community, for example: each community has an ordnung (a set of
rules/laws) that its members have to obey. There is an orderly system in the community, but
there is nothing like a state; there’s no coercive apparatus. The same goes for millions of
monasteries and communes all over the world. In Ireland, they had law and order under the
Brehon Code long before they ever had a centralized “government.” Ancient Israel had law and
order under the Mosaic Law long before they ever had a king or an institution of human
“government.” Law and order are necessary for an anarchist community. Pierre-Joseph Proudhon
spoke of anarchy as a “social order” based on voluntary transactions, and he even referred to
anarchy as “a form of government” at times. One of his most famous quotes is this: “Anarchy is
order without violence.” Murray Rothbard and other anarchists have devoted much time to
explaining how law and order can be provided without the state. Anarchy does not mean chaos!
Anarchy means that government must abide by the same rules as everyone else. Anarchy means
that government does not have the right to steal, murder, coerce, etc. An anarchistic government
is a government that abides by the same rules as its citizens.
The fact that God is a law-giver according to various religions does not mean that these
religions are necessarily incompatible with anarchy. Anarchism affirms the need for law, as I
have shown above. God is a King in the sense that He is the divine law-giver. He has given us
certain moral rules that we are supposed to abide by. He tells us what we ought to do, but He is
not a coercive tyrant that strikes down everyone that disobeys Him. It is generally believed that
the first anarchists were the Taoist philosophers Laozi and Zhuangzi, back in the 6th century BC.
And anarchism was common among early Christians. Atheistic anarchism, on the other hand, did
not come into being until the 19th century. So, there is no inherent incompatibility between the
notion of God and the philosophy of anarchism.
In fact, the main argument for anarchy only makes sense upon theistic (religious)
presuppositions. The Christian, for example, presupposes that there is a God, and that this God
has created a universally binding and absolute moral law. In this law, God has decreed that
violence and coercion are wrong. From these presuppositions, the Christian can conclude that the
state (as a social apparatus of coercion, with a monopoly on violence) is incompatible with
God’s law. God says that violence and coercion (the threat of violence) are wrong. The state
bases its entire livelihood on the violation of God’s law: it sustains itself through theft (taxation)
and counterfeiting (inflation/debasing the currency), it protects itself through kidnapping and
slavery (conscription/the draft), and it constantly commits murder in its aggressive wars. The
state is an institution that exists, and can only exist, through the constant violation of God’s
commandments.1 I cannot think of a single thing that the “government” does that does not violate
God’s law! It is precisely for this reason that I am an anarchist. Religion doesn’t contradict
anarchy: it establishes it!
How about the atheistic anarchist? He says that violence is wrong. He says that
“government” is evil. But the atheist really has no basis for saying such a thing. The religious
person can simply reply, “By what standard?” That is: “By what standard do you judge that
violence (archy) is wrong and an-archy (non-violence) is good?” The truth is that the atheist has
no real standard. He judges by his own arbitrary humanistic standard. It is merely his personal
opinion that anarchy is good and statism is evil, but his opinion is totally arbitrary. It is based
entirely upon his conscience, his subjective feelings and whims! From an atheistic perspective,
there is no absolute morality—there’s no real, definite, and absolute distinction between good
and evil. There is really only moral relativism. At best, the atheist-anarchist can only say that he
prefers anarchism to statism. He cannot claim that the one is morally superior to the other. He
has no real basis for saying that the one is good and the other is bad. You cannot argue for
anarchism on principle from an atheistic perspective. The atheist cannot really be an anarchist—
he cannot say that anarchy is ethically superior to statism! All he can say is that he likes anarchy
better.

1
Cf. Exodus 20:13, 15; Exodus 21:16; Leviticus 19:35-36; Deuteronomy 25:13-16; Proverbs 20:10, 23