| anarchy (abbrieviated) | anarchy (full text) | back to bio |
Q: How will people deal with crime, resolve disputes, reach agreements and set standards if the government and laws are abolished?
A: The main purpose of governments and laws are to keep most of us under control so that we can be efficiently milked, like a herd of cows. With the exception of a small proportion of anti-social people, most of us are able to avoid harming others and resolve our disputes without resorting to the authorities. The legal system we have now puts the full force of the state behind the party that manages to win its favor. Many disputes are already resolved through arbitration and mediation, outside of the courts and the legal system. The laws are written and enforced in such a way that the poor are always held accountable for petty crimes such as writing bad checks to pay for groceries, while the authorities can literally get away with murder.
If allowed to, people will always act to protect themselves from violent criminals. This is an involuntary reflex, like raising your hand to deflect a blow. People may decide to form special, recallable groups who are firmly under community control to perform that task as the need arises, or they may choose to do it on a neighborhood by neighborhood basis. But the police, courts and government we currently have are only accountable to the people in the most roundabout way, and they have clearly become a threat to our freedom. They are literally out of control. Self perpetuating elites have appointed themselves to perform our civic duties in our behalf. The amount of crime should drop sharply as soon as productive activity becomes less difficult and oppressive, and people begin to have a sense of belonging to a social unit. To protect the rights of unpopular individuals who are guilty of no real crime, it would be necessary for the community to agree that only acts that cause actual harm to others are subject to the justice of the community. Each community can debate the issue of "actual harm" for itself, and people can relocate according to their preference. People would need to work out a fair and open procedure for resolving disputes and for treating predatory individuals. There is the danger of a community oppressing its members, who would lack recourse to existing laws designed to protect them. We would hope that communities would incorporate respect for the rights of individuals into their processes; we do not expect this important value to mysteriously vanish from social consciousness. On the contrary, personal freedom should actually be respected even more than it presently is if we are successful in spreading our ideas more widely. It is hard to imagine an autonomous community expending the same level of resources on coercion that current governments do. There is an unavoidable tension between the good of the community and individual rights, but anarchists do not feel that one must be sacrificed to increase the other.
If written contracts prevented fraud, we would not have "fine print" or a legal profession. In a free society it is of the utmost importance that people show real compassion and fairness in their dealings with others, or else it won't last very long. Living together in peaceful cooperation is a powerful form of protest against government and police.
Concerning technical standards, these are best agreed upon by the people who do the work and who use the products involved, instead of being decided by corporate officers or government bureaucrats. Many standards are already set by professional associations. If you've ever tried to repair an automobile or link computers you understand how necessary, and how lacking, industry-wide standards are. If a product lacks a trusted "seal of approval" from consumer organizations, consumers can avoid it. Educated consumers can influence what is produced and how it is produced if they act together in large numbers.
Q: How will we defend ourselves from invasion by foreign governments without a government?
A: We could have a truly volunteer and community controlled military, concerned strictly with defending our liberty and not with imposing our will on people in foreign countries. If volunteers want to participate in foreign wars, that would be up to them. We would soon find the world a less dangerous place when other societies no longer fear being attacked by our government and when we stop exporting arms for profit. The absence of government does not mean the absence of organization. It means the absence of coercion.
Q: The situations in places like Lebanon, Somalia, and the former Yugoslavia have often been referred to as "anarchy". Is this accurate?
A: No, these are examples of competing elites struggling against one another for power. The result is chaos. Anarchy is the absence of a controlling elite. A government is the strongest gang of aggressors in a particular area at a particular time. Civil war is what happens when the dominant group is challenged. Anarchy has been a rare occurrence in recent history, since there is usually an elite willing to impose itself whenever it sees the opportunity. Emiliano Zapata, one of the major figures in the Mexican Revolution of 1911-1918, was influenced by anarchist ideas, especially those of the brothers Ricardo and Enrique Flores Magon. He temporarily liberated large parts of Mexico with his army of indian peasants. Following the Russian Revolution of 1917, a mostly peasant, anarchist army led by Nestor Makhno temporarily liberated various parts of what is now Ukraine in battles against several different armies; White, Red, Nationalist and foreign. Korean anarchists established an autonomous zone in Shimin province in northern Manchuria between 1929 and 1931, but were crushed by the Japanese army and Chinese/Russian Communists. During the Spanish Civil War and Revolution of 1936, anarchists liberated areas of Aragon, Catalonia and other parts of Spain. They entered into an uneasy, anti-Nationalist alliance with the Republican government, but were pressured and then forced to abandon their gains. They were then persecuted by both Republicans and Nationalists.
Q: Are people really so good that they can live without government?
A: Are people really so good that they can be trusted to direct a government? Governments have killed far more people than all the criminals, bandit gangs and mass murderers in history, who look like hobbyists in comparison. Anarchists consider governments to be a very powerful form of organized crime. Some governments are worse than others, of course, but they all have the potential for committing atrocities.
Q: Don't anarchists advocate the violent overthrow of the existing authorities?
A: Some anarchists do advocate this, in the hope that people will spontaneously organize themselves once the power of the elite has been broken. However, the contradiction between revolutionary social change and the anarchist ideal of voluntary social relations has always been troubling to some anarchists. In the absence of unanimous opposition to the elite, revolutions always involve coercion against the supporters and sympathizers of the elite, which may be a large proportion of a society. The most coercion is required when a minority attempts to implement radical social change on an unconvinced public. Not only does the old regime need to be defeated without the support of the population, but the new elite must also impose its program on society. The least coercion is required when a revolution is the result of demands made by large sectors of the general public. If the old elite resists, after a brief skirmish it can be pushed aside. Even the government's own troops cannot be relied upon to suppress a popular revolution, since the soldiers themselves come from the same public. Revolutionary violence occurs when demands for change are ignored or suppressed. But many elites are crafty enough to make concessions which split the public and weaken people's resolve. Demands for change within the structure of the existing system lead to compromise and ultimately to broader political support for the system. Demands that the state reform itself in a fundamental way are hopeless, because the very nature of the state is to forever expand its power and its autonomy from its subjects.
Revolutionary anarchists argue that violence against tyranny is a duty and that coercion in the name of a better world is justified. They argue that it is very unlikely that many people, if given the choice, would choose to remain slaves. But after the emancipation of the slaves in the U.S. and of the peasants in Russia, many did just that, and instead of fleeing their masters, remained employed on the same estates. This is why some anarchists prefer a strategy of working to transform society gradually, through education and self organization, so that people will be less and less dependent on employers and the government, and more and more able to organize themselves in non-coercive ways. This point of view sees the current social system continuing mainly due to the absence of practical alternatives and to the comfort of inertia. Most of us are compelled to sell our labor to capitalist employers since workers' and consumers' cooperatives aren't widely established. Likewise, if people hear someone breaking into a neighbor's house, they call the police, since there are no neighborhood based organizations to deal with crime. With an evolutionary strategy, "the new society is built within the shell of the old," which makes for a slow, but smooth, transition. The revolutionary strategy, which promises quicker results, would leave a dangerous vacuum during the period immediately following the revolution, when most revolutions are defeated or else lapse back into a modified version of the old system. Unless a large majority of the population actively supports anarchism, coercion will likely be necessary to abolish the old social order, since people would not yet be convinced that this is desirable. The political struggle, convincing people of the need for change in an anarchist direction, must be won before the old order can be successfully abolished.
Revolutionaries will argue that any significant gradual efforts will be violently suppressed. Perhaps, but if the gradual efforts involve no violence or coercion, it would be politically risky for the government to suppress them. They would have to crack down on people's liberties to such an extent that they would be illustrating to the public exactly the point we are trying to make. We risk less by trying persuasion, including our ideals. There are also practical reasons to avoid the use of violence (with the possible exception of self-defense). The party that resorts to violence first is almost always blamed by the public for causing the conflict. A violent attack on the government would give it another excuse to justify its own existence, the excuse it would need to eliminate us. Armed struggle encourages the formation of a conspiratorial directing elite, which may not be controlled by its supporters (as Fidel Castro said recently, "Revolutionaries do not resign"). Successful armed struggle relies on the use of treachery and violence, and these strategies may carry over even after the original enemy is defeated. And victory does not go to the most worthy, but to the most powerful. Some anarchists simply believe that violence and coercion are morally wrong, and would not use these means, even if there were hope of achieving the desired end.
Historically, violent revolution has achieved modest results at a staggering cost in death and suffering. France, Mexico, the U.S., Russia, China and Cuba have all experienced "successful" revolutions, yet these societies are not substantially freer nor is the working class substantially better off than in Great Britain, Sweden or Canada. But, you may protest, these were not true social revolutions. Conceded. But true social revolutions require the conscious, enthusiastic support of the general public. This support can only be won on the political or educational front and not on the military front. Once there is popular support for anarchist ideas, the only force required will be to disband any government forces which refuse to disperse. You can't win the public's support militarily. You can only frighten people into passivity or rouse them to lash out in a confused, unorganized manner. The case for revolution directed by a vanguard group or party on behalf of the oppressed requires us to argue that the public has either been brainwashed, that they are too ignorant to understand their own self interest, or that they have been beaten into passivity. If any combination of these are true, what good will it do to use armed struggle on their behalf, if they do not consciously support social change? They will either fight against us or passively watch us die. Com plex, voluntary, and cooperative social arrangements are unlikely to appear spontaneously. As the anarchists in Spain discovered during the social revolution and civil war there in the 1930's, you cannot direct society and not direct society at the same time. If people do not organize themselves, they will either flounder in chaos and be unable to resist the forces of reaction, or they will allow themselves to be led by politicians. Significant numbers of workers did organize themselves in Spain, but the working class as a whole was not able to achieve the level of self organization necessary for it to do away with the leadership of the revolutionary parties. There can be no revolutionary government that serves anarchist purposes or which can lead to anarchy. The only way to avoid the creation of a new elite is if the mass of society is consciously aware of what it is trying to accomplish.
As the anonymous authors of "You Can't Blow Up a Social Relationship" pointed out, "The total collapse of this society would provide no guarantee about what replaced it. Unless a majority of people had the ideas and organization sufficient for the creation of an alternative society, we would see the old world reassert itself because it is what people would be used to, what they believed in, what existed unchallenged in their own personalities."3 Alexander Berkman wrote, "As [people's] minds broaden and develop, as they advance to new ideas and lose faith in their former beliefs, institutions begin to change and are ultimately done away with. The people grow to understand that their former views were false, and that they were not truth, but prejudice and superstition.... The social revolution, therefore, is not an accident, not a sudden happening. There is nothing sudden about it, for ideas don't change suddenly. They grow slowly, gradually, like the plant or flower.... It develops to the point when considerable numbers of people have embraced the new ideas and are determined to put them into practice. When they attempt to do so and meet with opposition, then the slow, quiet, and peaceful social evolution becomes quick, militant, and violent. Evolution becomes revolution. Bear in mind, then, that evolution and revolution are not two separate and distinct things. Still less are they opposites as some people wrongly believe. Revolution is merely the boiling point of evolution. Because revolution is evolution at its boiling point you cannot "make" a real revolution any more than you can hasten the boiling of a tea kettle. It is the fire underneath that makes it boil: how quickly it will come to the boiling point will depend on how strong the fire is. The economic and political conditions of a country are the fire under the evolutionary pot. The worse the oppression, the greater the dissatisfaction of the people, the stronger the flame.... But pressure from above, though hastening revolution, may also cause its failure, because such a revolution is apt to break out before the evolutionary process has been sufficiently advanced. Coming prematurely, as it were, it will fizzle out in mere rebelling; that is, without clear, conscious aim and purpose."4 The recent riots in Los Angeles are an example of mere rebelling, without a conscious aim beyond venting anger and looting. The uprising in Chiapas, Mexico is an example of a much more developed, but still premature, rebellion. Both of these rebellions were quickly isolated and contained in the absence of widespread popular support. We must work to build the functioning parts of a new society, while maintaining a clear vision of our alternatives. We must not be co-opted by the State on the one hand, nor recklessly overestimate our support on the other. Through education, interaction, and example we can work to gradually rid humanity of statism, nationalism, deprivation, racism, sexism, violence, child and animal abuse, and all the other evils humanity is afflicted with. But we have to get our own act together if we expect people to take us seriously.
In the event that the existing order collapses on its own, people would be free to organize themselves into groups regardless of what the majority is doing. As long as a group is large enough to be economically viable and to defend its autonomy, even relatively small groups could set up new social relations. The issue of violence only arises because of the ruthless suppression of secessionist movements by the world's governments.
Q: What if some people really do prefer having a government?
A: As long as the relationships are strictly voluntary, and not enforced by poverty or force, it would be hard for anarchists to justify suppressing any voluntary association, just as it would be difficult to justify suppressing religions, superstitions or vices. Under what conditions is the use of force justified? Only in response to the prior use of force. But governments, by definition, are institutions of coercion and control, so only if a government supported itself through voluntary donations, or enforced its will by merely asking for compliance, could it conceivably function without coercion, in which case it would not really be a government at all.
"Panarchy" is the name for a society made up of a multitude of diverse but peacefully coexisting forms of social relations. The theory of panarchy is that people have different ideas and preferences about how to organize themselves. Instead of each group trying to achieve the power to impose its ideas and preferences on everyone, each group organizes itself and allows other groups to do likewise. One variant even has people sharing the same geographic space, with each individual acting according to his or her own conscience, in much the same way that different religions coexist in societies that allow some religious freedom. The difference would be the absence of a supreme authority setting rules that all must obey. Of course this would require everyone to respect the choices of others, and to refrain from using coercion or violence. Anarchists would do their thing, and those who wanted to continue to voluntarily submit to a particular type of government could do so. Why won't the statists allow us this same freedom today? Panarchy should appeal to everyone, because as it is now, no one really gets what they want. We all must live under a mish-mash of strictly enforced rules that come out of battles fought on the elite turf of the official political process. Panarchy is letting people "do their own thing".
Q: How do you propose to achieve anarchist social relations?
A: We argue that the proper course for the anarchist movement is to concentrate its efforts on two tasks: educating the public and organizing our own social relations here and now as much as possible. Our objective should not be to overthrow the existing social relations, because those social relations are not viewed as intolerable by most of the public. We need to inform people about our ideas and demonstrate to them that anarchist social relations can actually function. Gustav Landauer suggested that when people saw functioning villages based on voluntary cooperation, the public's envy would result in more and more villages being formed. These voluntary organizations will eventually render the old, coercive institutions useless, and they will be done away with or rendered powerless, like the monarchy and the Church have been in the past. By combining our efforts with other non-statists in a panarchist federation, we could greatly hasten the pace of non-coercive social change.
Q: Is anarchy a goal that can actually be reached, or is it only an ideal to be approximated?
A: If you approximate your ideal well enough, eventually you reach your goal.
3. "You Can't Blow Up a Social Relationship", p. 20, 1989 See Sharp Press reprint of a pamphlet originally published by anonymous Australian anarchists in 1979.
4. "ABC of Anarchism" also known as "What is Communist Anarchism" by Alexander Berkman, p. 36-38, 1977 Freedom Press reprint of a book first published by the Vanguard Press in 1929.