The Problem with Anarchism

I’ve studied political theory and political systems for more than thirty years. I’ve reached only one conclusion: Utopia is barred to us. We humans are imperfect; therefore whatever we do will be imperfect. That includes any and every scheme of government we concoct.
The State is inherently imperfect. A certain Mohandas K. Gandhi captured the reason in an immortal quote:

The State represents violence in a concentrated and organized form. The individual has a soul, but as the State is a soulless machine, it can never be weaned from the violence to which it owes its very existence.

The great Leo Tolstoy drove the nail home:

In order to obtain and hold power, a man must love it. Thus the effort to get it is not likely to be coupled with goodness, but with the opposite qualities of pride, craft, and cruelty.

There is no escape from that condition.
But anarchism would not bring Utopia, for the very same reason that government would not: We are imperfect. We seek advantages at others’ expense. We chisel at the margins of the rules, regardless of what they are. Why else would Our Lord have told us to “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you” — ? Why did He need to emphasize that we must “Love your neighbor as you love yourself” — ? If it came naturally, He would not have had to say it!
There is a practical optimum — a state of affairs in which persons are able to distance themselves from whatever displeases them, which would exist if there were an open frontier — but there is no perfection on this side of the Veil of Time.