The rules of the “City” in Anthem are used to keep its citizens at bay and to keep total control of its inhabitants with an iron grip going so far as publicly executing its citizens like when Equality 7-2521 watched “The Saint of The Pyre” get his tongue cut out and burned at a stake because he said the unspeakable word (ego) another example of the “City’s” rules is how it treats it’s citizens at one point in the book Equality says how one day while he “prepares himself for sleep, he looks around at his "brothers" and realizes that their eyes are dull, their bodies are hunched, and they never make eye contact. They're all afraid.” Showing how the Council uses fear to keep a strong control on its citizens and keep its citizens at bay so that none of them try to do what Equality does during the whole book by sneaking away and exploring and experimenting with strange things in the mine shaft which he discovers one day while street sweeping with International 4-8818 they use fear as a way to enforce there laws because everyone is so scared all the time that they will do everything you can to not be caught or to do anything illegal. The purpose of the laws are to keep all citizens at bay so they will not do anything illegal or they start this process of enforcing fear when kids are very young going so far as lashing if they are not equal or if they are better then there classmates the rules of the city always push for equality and make sure that everyone is the same this is shown when Equality 7-2521 was lashed because he was better than his classmates at school showing how their purpose of the rules are to keep everything equal and everyone conformed by forcing everyone to stay the same and to stay equal going so far as banning the letter “I” so that everything is together and everyone is working as a continuous unit instead of people being by themselves and singular and by learning from a young age from the counsel and by separating men and women with only time they see each other is when the yearly Time of Mating occurs and when Equality meets Liberty one day while he is street sweeping. Equality dislikes the “City’s” rules even going so far as saying how he will “I  shall steal one day, for the last time, into the cursed City of my birth. I shall call to me my friend who has no name save International 4-8818, and all those like him, Fraternity 2-5503, who cries without reason, and Solidarity 9-6347 who calls for help in the night, and a few others” so he does not agree with the “City’s” rules and laws especially how the laws have treated him, he was lashed in school when he was less then ten because he wasn’t equal compared to his classmates which in the “City” everyone has to be equal and later in life after he discovers the shaft underground and is discovered sneaking away every time they go to the theater he caught and taken to a dungeon where he is whipped repeatedly but he doesn’t crack and tell them about the lightbulb he makes because his strong willpower another example of the law messing up Equality’s was when he was being chosen for his job by the council he belived he would get put in a high ranking job like the House of Scholars but he was put in as a Street Sweeper instead of the House of Scholars which he would be perfect in but instead he’s a street sweeper because he’s smarter then everyone else so they picked a job to suppress his intelligence.