Every time the conversation turns to freedom, self-organization, and rejecting the state boot on one’s neck, a skeptic inevitably emerges in the comments. They believe that such ideas are mere idealism, since in nature, the strongest male always rules. The alpha keeps the pack in fear, and if you remove the leader, the wolves will tear each other apart. After all, man is a wolf to man!
But for now, let’s set aside politico-economic treatises and speak the language of biologists. Because the main biological trump card of “strong hand” supporters is not just a misconception, but a grand scientific myth that people have blindly believed for half a century.
Where did this myth of the vicious alpha male, who growls at his peers, dominates, and holds power through violence, even come from? In 1970, American biologist L. David Mech released the book “Alpha: His Essential Role in the Wolf Pack,” where he described the brutal hierarchy of predators. The book instantly became a bestseller, and the “alpha” image was plucked for management textbooks, movies, and political speeches. It sounds like the perfect justification for authoritarianism: males fight for status, the strong subjugate the weak, and order is maintained through fear.
However, there was one tiny but extremely important nuance. Mech conducted his observations in a cramped zoo enclosure. Adult wolves from different places, who did not know each other, were herded there and locked behind bars. The scientists essentially created a prison barrack, observed the camp-style bullying that emerged in the confined space with its local “overseers,” and with a knowledgeable look, declared that this was the natural order of things.
When that same researcher ventured into the wild years later to observe real, free wolves, he was appalled. There were no bloody tyrants there. A wolf pack in the wild is simply a cohesive family. The “alphas” are just an ordinary mom and dad. They don’t oppress their peers for self-assertion; instead, they teach the young how to hunt, care for the wounded, share prey, and coordinate the pack through care and authority.
Mech then spent thirty years unsuccessfully begging publishers to stop printing his old book. But authoritarians fell so in love with the fairy tale of the “right of the strong” that the alpha male myth remains more alive than ever.
Of course, a lover of dictatorship might concede that things are that way with wolves. However, we are primates, which means the most vicious one should definitely rule us. But even that is not the case.
The eminent primatologist Frans de Waal studied chimpanzees for decades and proved: the leader among primates is far from the most muscular and aggressive male. Stupid tyrants at the top of the hierarchy do not live long. If an alpha begins to act like a banana dictator—beating the weak and seizing food—their peers quickly unite into a coalition, lie in wait for the bully, and stage an early impeachment (with a possible lethal outcome).
A true leader among chimpanzees is a subtle politician and diplomat. He regularly shares delicious food, grooms allies, protects females with offspring, and, most importantly, breaks up fights. His status is maintained not by the animal terror of those around him, but by trust, respect, and mutual benefit. This is a voluntary recognition of leadership, not submission under the lash.
Do you see the irony? The entire pseudo-scientific concept of “natural tyranny” was born from observations of animals that were forcibly placed in a cage. Statists of all stripes love this trick: first, lock people in an artificial cage of prohibitions, taxes, regulations, and redistribution of wealth; then wait for an angry struggle for resources and status to begin on the soil of artificial scarcity and lack of freedom; and finally, step onto the podium in a white tie and solemnly announce the vicious and wild nature of man, whom only a guard with a baton can save from mutual destruction.
Market relations, horizontal connections, mutual aid, and voluntary communities—this is what is truly woven into our nature. Violence, the cult of the leader, and coercion are systemic failures that arise where people are deprived of freedom and driven into an enclosure. So stop confusing the laws of nature with the routine of a prison cell block!
