And so is the interminable inefficiency of reaching solutions by talking to each other. I have frequently encountered people repulsed by the idea of having meetings, of talking to and negotiating with other people with equal agency, of having to do the boring and tedious work of anarchist direct democracy.
And there’s an element of truth to that! Reaching decisions through conversation and consensus building can indeed be difficult, tedious, boring, and without certainty of resolution.
But the costs of the alternative—aside from the pain and horror of state violence—are immense. The police, the surveillance, the rules and courts that adjudicate them, the military and the industry that arms them, the prisons and border fences, the internment camps and tax collectors and intelligence agencies—these are vast and crushing burdens on society. They are immensely costly and deeply inefficient.
Of course states fail and collapse all the time! How could they not? Control is very expensive and deeply inefficient.