As the blockades have shown, anarchy is usually bad for business

It seems pretty clear that even as a break from Ottawa mid-winter ennui, any thrill offered by wall-to-wall occupation of the streets around Parliament Hill got old very quickly.

After experiencing a state of what many, including at least one Conservative member of Parliament, have described as anarchy, there are no doubt many Canadians currently ruminating on the advantages of boring old parliamentary democracy, despite its many drawbacks.

"I ask that we clear the streets and that we stop this occupation controlled by radicals and anarchist groups," tweeted Quebec Conservative MP Pierre Paul-Hus in frustration.

Anarchism, like socialism and liberalism, means different things to different people — and shows up on both sides of the political spectrum.

The form we are seeing now, whether urban or at border crossing blockades, comes with an economic cost.

As truck blockades spread around the world and many people become furious with governments that can't or won't solve protesters' perceived problems, legally elected governments are facing an anarchic response.

"Freedom is constantly at war with those who want to limit it, and it must be defended," the Wall Street Journal quoted the Freedom Convoy manifesto approvingly. 

Certainly businesses in downtown Ottawa, and to a lesser extent in other cities facing blockades, are suffering. The Retail Council of Canada estimates the downtown Rideau Centre, the city's busiest shopping mall, lost nearly $20 million in the first week alone.

While there are businesses such as fast-food shops that have benefited from the Ottawa protests, the cost of border-crossing blockades, including auto-plant shutdowns and produce rotting in trucks, will clearly overshadow any small gains.

One estimate of the economic impact of the anarchic border blockades puts it as high as a billion dollars a day. Estimates from Export Development Canada are lower, at about $600 thousand US a day in trade delays at three blockaded crossings.

According to the Oxford dictionary, the word anarchy comes from ancient Greek, literally "without a chief," but is defined in its simplest form as "a state of political or social disorder resulting from the absence or disregard of government or the rule of law."

As with other "-isms," anarchism has competing contenders for their own definitions. The one from the left side of the political spectrum, celebrated in the Monty Python film The Holy Grail is the better known of the two.

"We don't have a lord," say filthy peasants to King Arthur. "I told, you, we're an anarcho-syndicalist commune."

According Sarah Fessenden, who lectures and writes about contemporary anarchism at Kwantlen Polytechnic University in Surrey, B.C., the modern anarchist ideal is less about smashing the state than finding economic alternatives to capitalism at a smaller scale. Traditional markets are replaced by things like mutual aid and different forms of sharing.