Quote:
Originally Posted by Boromir88
On a separate, but related to the topic note. Would anyone say The Shire is an anarchy? Or at least, the closest example of an anarchy that one might find? Or is it not, because The Shire is under the protection of the High King, and in a general sense follows the King's laws? The elected Mayor has no political power. There is the hereditary titles of the Thain and Master of Buckland, but they don't hold any political power. I suppose if the High Kings had chosen to do so, they could have exercised their authority over the Shire.
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It would depend on the definition of anarchy.
To my mind it doesn't quite answer the definition because there are laws (great faithfulness, in fact, to statutes handed down in a time long since past), there is some degree of law-enforcement at least in form, and there is a political sense of the Shire in that in the minds of the inhabitants there are areas that are clearly the Shire and areas that clearly are not.
That being said, the hobbits certainly operate their society on the basis of a far greater level of self-regulation and self-control that human beings regrettably seem unable (or in some cases unallowed) to exercise.