Introduction to Anarchy

Author unknown

The Definition of anarchism

'...many commentators dismiss anarchism as utopian, formless, primitive, or otherwise incompatible with the realities of a complex society. One might, however, argue rather differently: that at every stage of history our concern must be to dismantle those forms of authority and oppression that survive from an era when they might have been justified in terms of the need for security or survival or economic development, but that now contribute to -- rather than alleviate -- material and cultural deficit.'

-- Noam Chomsky

Anarchism is both a simple idea and a very subtle political and sociological philosophy. It has existed for hundreds, possibly thousands of years, not merely as a historical curiosity or an arcane theory for lunatic fringe intellectuals, but as a powerful, influential, and occasionally dynamic force in human society.

Anarchism, in its many incarnations andpermutations, has long existed both outside our 'civilization' among some of the older cultures of the world, as well as within it, as an important component of resistance to both political and economic repression over the years.

Government

"when men rule governments, men won't need governments; until then we are screwed"

-- Charles Bukowski, notes of a dirty old man, 1969

Anarchism basically boils down to the idea thatpeople can live and prosper without a paternal, authoritarian, centralized government telling them what to do. It means, quite simply, self government, self management. Organization from the ground up instead of from the top down, real, not 'representative' democracy, the sort of thing that is often rather condescendingly referred to as 'grass-roots' in the mainstream press.

The basic philosophy central to most anarchist movements is simply that you don't have to fuck each other over to survive, that cooperation and mutual aid is in everyone's self interest, and that a lifestyle which incorporates these philosophies is both practical and desirable.

Dog eat Dog

'In the practice of Mutual Aid, which we can retraceto the earliest beginnings of evolution, we thus findthe positive and undoubted origin of ethicalconceptions; and we can affirm that in the ethicalprogress of man, mutual support -- not mutualstruggle -- has had the leading part.'

-- Peter Kropotkin, from his pamphlet Mutual Aid

Many Americans scribe to the popular Darwinistmentality that it is a dog-eat-dog world, only the strong survive and all that crap. They believe that people are inherently greedy and they admire capitalism because it seems to take advantage of the wicked side of human nature to compel people to produce and work.

'Competition is the law of the jungle, and Cooperation is the Law of Civilization.'

-- Eldridge Cleaver, Soul on Ice, 1968

The anarchists however insist that human beings prospered in nature not because we were stronger than other animals, nor even because we learned to create and use weapons; that rather humanity survived and succeeded because we were capable of co-operation and communication to a degree that no other animal could match. In other words, individually, a man with a spear or a flint knife certainly wasnt any more deadly than say a bear or a crocodile, but anorganized group of human beings, cooperating, are more powerful than anything else in the Jungle... This isn't difficult to understand.

The common objection to anarchy isn't that it's not a nice idea, but that it's not practical because it doesn't incorporate, or 'capitalize' upon the uglier realities of human nature. People think societies have to be organized like a school classroom or an army platoon, or a prison, in order to be stable. People think its silly to say that societies can be organized like a block-party, or a volunteer fire brigade, or an Indian tribe, or a Swiss Canton, or the internet.

Freedom

"Virtue and intelligence belong to human beings as individuals freely associating with other individuals in small groups."

-- Aldous Huxley, from Brave New World Revisited

But anarchists point out that there are numerous examples, both historical and recent, which indicate quite the opposite: that freedom from authority not only agrees with human nature, increased autonomy and liberty in fact stimulate it to much greater efficiency and productivity than any form of slavery, including the wage slavery of capitalism. Anarchists believe that it is the natural state of human beings to live in a truly democratic society, in a free federation of local communities or productive syndicates that understand and interact with the individual in a sane manner.

They do not believe in the Pyramidal centralized state in which power is concentrated in the hands of the distant (and necessarily unsympathetic, incompetent, and in fact almost invariably hostile) few -- and individuals are artificially segregated, and isolated, and culturally and socially asphyxiated.

Anarchists believe that the State works poorly because it is an inherently inefficient structure, not just because of the innate wickedness of the people who live in it and under it. They believe that people are made the way they are because the "system" is the way it is, as much as the other way around.

Revolution

"A strong people do not need a strong leader."

-- Emiliano Zapata, 1910

Anarchism does not advocate the violent overthrow of the government (like communism, fascism, Nazism and so many other 'isms' do). Instead of overthrowing the government, anarchists believe in undermining it, in creating grass-roots organizations from the ground up which can join together in free solidarity, and cast off the oppressors chains.

Anarchists do not believe in killing Pharaoh and capturing his throne, taking up his scepter in the name of 'the people'. They say people should simply teach each other to stop following his orders and listen instead to our neighbors' much wiser council, to the voices of our mother, nature, and to the suppressed thoughts of our sisters and brothers, which have been silent far, far too long. They say that a thousand Vaticans, Legislatures, Kremlin's, White Houses, Boardrooms, Ziggurats, and Mad Avenues can't do any harm to any of us if we learn this heretical concept: the Emperor has no clothes, that all we need to do is unite in our defiance and their power will be broken like a maelific curse.

Traditions of Autonomy

'Freedom is the precondition for acquiring the maturity for freedom.'

-- Kan

History shows us that some ancient and modern indigenous peoples such as certain of the "Indian" Nations who preceded us on this continent and some of our African, Asian and European ancestors in the old country- were able to form prosperous egalitarian societies, without all-powerful kings or emperors or high priests... complex, dynamic societies based on mutual cooperation and consensus rather than competition or subjugation, with no leaders, and yet prosperous and highly productive...

Attempts have also been made to achieve this state of human existance in modern times, and despite every effort of the many opponents of revolution in general and anarchism in particular, there has been enough time and space to demonstrate that the idea is viable. The Black Flag has left a mark on history, which, despite the strident efforts to obscure the issue, has begun to take seed in the minds of the world, and as the millions of faux ideas flow through the fickle consciousness of the masses and fade away to be replaced by other flimsy lies, the fundamental truth of the anarchist message insures that the idea will grow each time it is discovered...

"Democracy"

'I am a fanatic lover of liberty, considering it as the unique condition under which intelligence, dignity and human happiness can develop and grow; [But] not the purely formal liberty conceded, measured out and regulated by the State, an eternal lie which in reality represents nothing more than the privilege of some founded on the slavery of the rest; [nor] the individualistic, egoistic, shabby, and fictitious liberty extolled by the School of ... bourgeois liberalism, which considers the would-be rights of all men, represented by the State which limits the rights of each -- an idea that leads inevitably to the reduction of the rights of each to zero.'

-- Michael Bakunin

The anarchist sees the so-called 'Democracies' of today much as the socialist does: most anarchists view capitalism as another form of dictatorship -- an economic dictatorship where the rich hold all the cards and the poor are dominated, manipulated, and subjugated, albeit in a more subtle manner than in an overt autocracy or a so-called "Communist" state, but nevertheless just as completely.

Additionally, to the anarchist, no real democracy is taking place simply because the sullen, intentionally misinformed masses are allowed to periodically indicate their approval or disapproval of their distant leaders with no real effect on anything at all. The anarchist insists that real democracy has meaning only when it exists at the local level, and can only exist when people are directly involved in the management of their own lives.

Power and Independence

"Asking a politician to give up power is like asking a gorrilla to give up bananas..."

-- a thoughtful anarchist biologist

If people are offered a parody of freedom, much as a Donkey is falsely tempted by a diet of Carrots instead of the rancid hay it's really going to get in order to make it work harder, they are only wasting their lives in pursuit of a mirage ... anarchists believe that the ends never justify the means, the lesser of two evils is evil, and no government is good government. Anarchism means government by the people, directly, period. The anarchists say that democracy, real democracy not the Political Machine majority rule procedural gimmick sound-byte farce we have in the U.S., is the only road to a sane society.

Anarchism sees the individual as a member of a community, a community in which individuals can freely choose to participate with one another... in which the communities themselves can associate into larger groups, or remain separate, in a dynamic system which can and will change and readjust itself according to the wishes if it's members.

The anarchist understands that true freedom and individual liberty are essential to the maintenance of a stable and rational society, and the passionate belief in individual liberties has always distinguished anarchists over the years, but they do not entertain a childish fantasy of infinite freedom in the tradition of fanatics like the Marquis de Sade or the Society of the Golden Dawn, as popular myth might suggest after all: "Your right to swing that frying-pan ends at the tip of my nose."

Individuals vs. Institutions

"The great are great only because we are on our knees, let us rise!"

-- Max Stirner

Some modern Conservatives like to ape libertarian theories as an excuse for laissez-faire Capitalism and the unrestricted predations of billionaires and enormous corporations, but the anarchists who pioneered the doctrines of civil liberty had nothing of the sort in mind. For example, the doctrines of individualism which are so often cited as the basis for a lot of right wing ideologies were invented in the defence of the civil liberties of individuals, that is to say, of individual human beings, not enormous institutions or gilded aristocracies. (1)

To anarchists, General Electric is no more of an "individual" than the BATF is, they are both impersonalinstitutions that are neither democratic or even natural human associations, in fact anarchists see all such institutions as predatory toward individual humans, whether they are designed to supress political dissension like the FBI, to infect and corrupt our imaginations like Mad avenue, or to fleece us of our money and natural resources like every single company on the New York Stock Exchange.

Ultimately perhaps, the State is the more immediate threat to individual liberty, but while life in one of Rockafellers Company mining towns might be measurably preferable to a lethal stint in one of Stalin's Siberian goulags, anarchists would prefer to eliminate the possibilities of either of those hellish environments from the range of the human condition. Power, after all, does not only exist in Governments, but also in corporate boardrooms, printing presses, stock exchanges, and angry mobs, to name a few. Ultimately, the anarchists aren't convinced that the real seat of power is necesarily really in Government at all these days...

The Perils of Liberty

"Organization is indispensable; for liberty arises and has meaning only within a self-regulating community of freely co-operating individuals."

-- Aldous Huxley, Brave New World Revisited

The truth is in fact that the right-wing "Libertarians" actually fear liberty and depend on the State they claim to despise, for what they actually mean by "liberty" is nothing more than free reign for big corporations and the rich to pillage, dominate, and loot society to their hearts' content within the context of a State, smaller perhaps than todays model but just as brutal and corrupt, feudal. The collapse of the State would be a disaster for any and all Capitalists, after all, without the State in place to enforce their priveleged position in society, who will protect them from the mob they fear so much?

If there were real individual liberty in this world, who could claim to "own" a whole forest, or a mountain, or a river, or an appartment building or even a factory, just because of some "deed" they hold and may have inherited or acquired through some dubious means? Will free men and women starve while certain individuals walk among them sipping champagne and nibbling Caviar? (2)

Constitutional Authority

"Whenever the people are well informed they can be trusted with their own government ... whenever things get so far wrong as to attract their notice, they may be relied on to set them to rights ... A little rebellion ... is a medicine necessary for the sound health of government."

-- Thomas Jefferson

The more idealistic of the original framers of the United States Constitution understood something about the nature of power, not just the power of the State but the power of all of the institutions and forces that existed in society as they knew it, (such as organized religion) and well knew that laws in and of themselves are meaningless unless society is willing to enforce them, that an oligarchy of any sort, whether "Socialist" or Capitalist, will only do so at the whim of the ruling elite. Which is why they tried to build in a balance of adverserial forces into our system of government, to at least preserve the status-quo of a marginal Republic rather than to simply let the super rich rule with an iron fist, as some of our other "Founding Fathers" intended. (3)

Economic Justice

However, anarchists insist that only through increased democracy it is possible for people to live in harmony, rather than in some carefully balanced struggle in opposition to one another. Constitutional safeguards, no matter how cleverly designed, can only postpone the inevitable collapse of "Democracy" into Empire, as we saw in Rome 2,000 years ago and are seeing in the United States today.

But to achieve this type of more effective, decentralised democracy, the anarchists assert that the last and greatest impediments to it, economic and social injustice, must be overcome. They insist that only by first eliminating privelege can we achieve true harmony, a prospect which was not feasable for Jefferson and Tom Paine, but has been accomplished to some degree at certain other points in history.

By this reasoning, only when politicial and economic power is no longer concentrated in the hands of tiny minorities, whether they be of Tycoons, Generals, Aristocrats or Bureaucracies, only then will Humanity breathe free of the yoke of oppression.

By seeking out those certain rare examples of this very unusual form of revolution, one can begin to understand the possibilities of a society in democratic harmony, where the independent sovereignty of strong freely associated groups joined together for mutual support at the base, can insure exactly the kind of social stability that the ruthless competition between minority interests at the pinnacle never can, no matter how many safeguards are built into their interractions.

Libertarian Socialism?

"Freedom without socialism is privelege, injustice, Socialism without Freedom is Slavery, Brutality."

-- Michael Bakunin

Anarchism is really two things, a cultural, philosophical, social, political, artistic, and even theological tendency toward liberty, and also an actual historical revolutionary movement... both components of anarchism are very important. Still, some confusion remains about the difference between them, which should be cleared up.

While some of the more dynamic, vital elements of the Right-wing "Libertarian" groups may call themselves anarchists, for example, the only real anarchist movements- the only ones who ever actually accomplished anything concrete so far, were the anti-authoritarian left-wing labor and revolutionary groups: the libertarian socialists and the syndicalists; the workers and farmers and the few rare intellectuals who were influenced by men and women such as Pierre Joseph Prudhoun, Henri David Thorreau, Mikhail Bakunin, Emma Goldmann, Prince Pyotor Kropotkin, Errico Malatesta, Flores Magon, Rosa Luxemburg, Leo Tolstoy, Joe Hill, Emiliano Zapata, Willliam Godwin, and so many others...

The real anarchist movement arose out of the radical fringes of the 19th Century Labor movement, from the grass-roots of socialism, anarchism was in fact the popular interpretation of 'socialism' by rank and file revolutionaries, just as it's bitter rival Marxism, which appeared at the same time and indeed as part of the same Labor conferences, was the model of socialism invented by the intellectual elite.

As such, the history and philosophy of anarchism was rejected by the intellectuals and the academic world, and even as Marx was being virtually canonised as a saint among the leftist elite, knowlege of anarchism has had to sneak through back alleys and subcultural refuges, and has finally reappeared from the underground, through the efforts of the radical rebels and iconoclasts themselves (4). Anarchism exists in human knowledge only due to the force of it's own energies, no great Nations have been pushing it, no prestigious Universities sing it's praises, no expensive Public Relations campaign has been launched on it's behalf, and yet though thought long-dead, it keeps popping up among angry workers and farmers like some kind of demented politicial jack in the box...

Neither East nor West!

"Government is an association of men who do violence to the rest of us."

-- Leo Tolstoy

Anarchists reject the insidious lies of both the East and West. In each case, vulgar parodies of the truth are presented as justifications for oppressive parasitic structures which enslave and corrupt their constituent members. Believe it or not, most anarchists are practical (if often weird) folks: they don't support one idea over another because of some philosophical fashion, or out of blind faith in intangible theories, they stand by their ethical standards and their political ideals because they understand it is in their own self-interest to do so, and especially because they begin to see it work in their own life as they apply these ideas to reality.

Anarchism offers us both a surprisingly rational and uniquely consistent critique of the current system, and a little known but very compelling alternative to it. Anarchy claims to be the only valid solution to the eternal dilemma of social reform, it says that if we have had enough of swinging hopelessly from the left or right wing versions of the same corrupt scam, from one version of the same vicious lie to another, then it is high time we shook off the shackles of the ancient Babylonian con, and began to take responsibility for our own lives ... what do you think?

Footnotes:

(1) Many right-wing "Libertarians" do a great job of criticising the evils of the State, but turn an opaque eye toward all the incredible villany commited by themany other various entities that wield power in our society. Anarchists don't make this simplistic distinction, that if State = evil then "Private" (Capitalist) = good.Just because an institution doesn't have it's own national anthem don't mean it can't make life into hell on earth for you, me and Ralph Nader.

Anarchists may hate and fear the FBI, the IRS, the NSA and the World Bank every bit as much as the most rabid survivalist in the Michigan Militia, but they also worry about the chilling threat to individual liberty posed by a bunch of sinister Private institutions running the gamut from Chase Manhattan Bank, Madison Avenue, and Standard Oil, to the Deveers Diamond syndicate, the KKK, the Vatican, the Crips, the Church of Scientology, and the Cosa Nostra.

(2) How carefully they will have to be convinced that Mr. Forbes, say, should own dozens of mansions, islands, factories, office buildings, and jet airplanes, while Jane Q. Sixpack can't have nothing but the rented space in some grimy trailer! You would have to do some fast-talking indeed to explain to an angry crowd why your inheritance entitles you to luxuries that would stagger the imagination of a Roman Emperor while a lifetime of hard-work won't even rate most people the minimum requirements of comfort and security needed to survive!

(3) But today, modern Conservatives are critical of key founders such as Thomas Jefferson, not because he owned slaves or because he bypassed the Constitution during the Louisiana purchase, but because he wrote too much Democracy into the system. The Conservatives actively and quite blatantly express their fear of what they call the Lex Majoris Partis, the majority, "the mob", because they understand very clearly the realities of the Human Condition, even if the peoplethemselves don't, the sweet dreams of the Rich are often marred by lurid visions of class war.

(4) Which is why you are reading this here, instead of in the Utne Reader or Mother Jones.