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Stoic q&a: are Stoics anarchists?
D. writes: I was just reading an essay by Mikhail Bakunin in which he criticizes Marx, and specifically his support for the idea of a State. As an anarchist, Bakunin believes the State will always be unfair because it is inevitably based on minority rule. He also believes the idea of nation states is harmful because it incentivizes competition and conflict, often leading to war. Suffering becomes justified in the name of State’s morality, i.e., patriotism. What I wanted to ask you is: are Stoics anarchists? Taking the Stoic notion of cosmopolitanism, would they believe the idea of State to be a bad one? Would they say government divides and dominates people by way of the morality of patriotism? Or would they be in favor of countries and borders like the ones we have today?
Very good question! And the answer is complicated… Ideally, yes, Stoics would be anarchists. Zeno of Citium, in his Republic, describes what amounts to an anarchic society of sages. Everything is in common and there is no need for laws or temples, because people use reason to resolve their differences. Here is how Plutarch describes what Zeno writes:
The much admired Republic of Zeno, the founder of the Stoic sect, is aimed at this one main point, that our household arrangements should not be based on cities or parishes, each one marked out by its own legal system, but we should regard all humans as our fellow citizens and local residents. (De Alex. fort. 329a–b)
As John Sellars points out in a scholarly paper on the subject, though, Zeno’s ideal was not a concrete political program. It was, however, based on the Stoic notion of cosmopolitanism, which could be made concreted by way of appropriate social and political structures.
We see the outlines of an actual political program in the middle Stoics, particularly Panaetius, who greatly influenced Cicero (see his On Duty). For these authors, we can’t wait until everyone is a sage, and we ought to use our shared ability to reason about things, however imperfectly, to move forward. As Marcus says:
Set yourself in motion, if it is…
