The rule of anarchy

The most stupendous revolutionary poem ever written in English is Shelley’s Mask of Anarchy (www.artofeurope.com/shelley/she5.htm). Shelly wrote this after hearing of the Peterloo Massacre. The poem describes a vision of an evil masque in which a parade of ghouls (murder, fraud, hypocrisy and anarchy) appear wearing masks resembling the political leaders of the day. The most terrible ghoul is anarchy, who resembles King George IV.

Last came Anarchy: he rode
On a white horse, splashed with blood;
He was pale even to the lips,
Like Death in the Apocalypse.

And he wore a kingly crown;
And in his grasp a sceptre shone;
On his brow this mark I saw -
'I AM GOD, AND KING, AND LAW!'

With a pace stately and fast,
Over English land he passed,
Trampling to a mire of blood
The adoring multitude

Shelley’s association of anarchy with the supreme authority and power of the state differs from most popular uses of the word, in which ‘anarchy’ is used to designate a disorganised powerless multitude in which private appetites are fulfilled by force. Shelley’s view (and mine) is that most people, left to themselves, will organise their lives peacefully. The main causes of violence and hatred are the abuse of power and the love of power respectively. These are more likely to emerge from those who have already accumulated power, seek more, and fear its loss.

The control of the powerful has therefore become the major political and legal enterprise in any society. This takes the form of ensuring decision-making is shared with representatives of those affected by the decisions, that proper deliberative procedures are followed, and that decisions are implemented on the basis of clear rules rather than arbitrary favours to cronies and courtiers. Needless to say, societies which operate in this way tend to make better decisions which command greater consent. They also tend to be more prosperous: people will work to accumulate money if they can be assured it will not be seized from them by some arbitrary decision.

These principles are well-understood when people think of societies and governments, but not when they think of big organisations. Corporations, banks and universities can all experience the rule of anarchy. Rules may exist in the organisation, but they are by-passed by the powerful. Off-the-cuff decisions replace due process and the thorough discussion of options. Arbitrary favours are handed out to cronies and lovers. The central aim of the organisation becomes the accumulation of prestige, wealth and power for the small ruling junta. Such organisations, like some banks recently and many commercial organisations in the past, make increasingly grandiose and inept decisions, and crash to disaster. Commentators are then amazed that such apparently powerful and dominating figures - like Fred Goodwin (formerly of the Royal Bank of Scotland) or Kenneth Lay (formerly of Enron) - should fall so suddenly. To appreciate their achievements, we need to return to Shelley:

I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: "Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
`My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!'
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away"