Which is worse?

[SingingAnalyst]

I vote Option 2. I think history shows rules who command absolute authority can do a lot of harm.

[Ronnie]

Anarchy means having no rulers, not no rules.  Pretty big difference.

[Chunk Yogurt for President!]

Anarchy means having no rulers, not no rules.  Pretty big difference.

Yeah, but the rules wouldn't last very long.

[RINO Tom]

Anarchy means having no rulers, not no rules.  Pretty big difference.

What's the functional difference?

[Person Man]

Anarchy means having no rulers, not no rules.  Pretty big difference.

What's the functional difference?

An example is "free market" capitalism, where rules are enforced through outcomes and feedbacks, not by rules, administrators, or courts.

[pbrower2a]

Humanity is good enough for near-anarchy (but one would still need a police force). Almost nobody is good enough to be a tyrant without being a monster.

[vanguard96]

While there are too many questions to advocate a full renouncement of the state actors at this time - but in the case of this question I would definitely say totalitarianism is worse.

In some ways the American West in the mid-to-late 1800's had aspects of anarchy. During the Gold & Silver Rushes in the 'Wild West' there were very few regulations. Yet an orderly system was set up and the rates of violence there were considerably less than in today's society. The main source of violence was the government's killing of Native Americans in the West.

The agents that enforced laws and rules did not hold the monopoly power - example private protection agencies, ranchers associations, mining camps could not force people to participate they could go elsewhere or look for other competitors. This is a vast difference vs an absolute power of totalitarianism as embodied in the former Soviet Union, Nazi Germany, and certain areas under Sharia law or strict Puritan laws & controls.

People view anarchy as Mad Max or Somalia. I don't think in certain situations decentralized power is a bad thing at all - provided a system of a means of exchange and private property rights can be maintained as they were for the most part maintained in the West.

While I think the theory has some things to work out such as how to work out some global externality questions, and the international division of labor those issues are a lot less disconcerting than the widespread destruction enacted by state or religious authoritarianism in the course of history.

[FEMA Camp Administrator]

"It depends" renders this poll meaningless.