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The trouble with anarchismJames BlackPage 1 ¦ Page 2 ¦ Page 3 ¦ Printer-friendly version THREE.The trouble with anarchism is that many people have a deeply ingrained belief that only through the imposition of hierarchy or authority will anything get done effectively. This belief has been termed "hierarchism", and "holds that to act together successfully in the world necessarily entails a hierarchy of command, centralised control and the institutionalisaion of roles of expertise and leadership.... it relies heavily on the division of labour, the systematisation of tasks and the immunisation of elite decision-makers against input from those defined as lacking expertise" [8]. In other words, that without authority people will spend their time arguing rather than acting and "unqualified" people should not be entrusted with decisions. However, this belief is simply not borne out by reality. In fact, both (non-human) nature and (human) society are characterised by active collaboration, which emerges without the conscious direction of "leaders" or "rulers". In 1902, the anarchist scientist Peter Kropotkin published Mutual Aid, a comprehensive refutation of Herbert Spencer's Social Darwinism. It was Spencer who coined the term "survival of the fittest", applying it to human (capitalist) society as well as to nature. Social Darwinists believed that nature, society and the marketplace were all perpetual struggles in which only the strongest or meanest survived and thrived. Kropotkin did not deny that "survival of the fittest" had some basis in fact, but he totally dismissed ideas that "fitness" was based on conflict. On the contrary, he listed hundreds of examples from nature and human society (from primitive times to the present) to show that "fitness" was in fact more a function of collaboration and co-operation, whether within a species/society or between them. No species or society which expended all its energy in constant conflict would thrive. Rather, the benefits of spotaneous union were so strong that this could, indeed, be considered a law of nature. In fact, it was only things which had been fixed by no authority that could truly be considered "natural". [9] Some of Kropotkin's examples seem a little naïve now, but that is only because he did not have access to later developments from physics and other discplines. For instance, he suggested that the flocking of birds derived from a conscious, social impulse [10]. But even if his explanations are misguided, his conclusions are in fact reinforced by developments such as chaos theory and complexity theory, which show how patterns and order can arise from "chaos" (in fact, from a state which is on the boundary between true chaos and rigid structure) even without conscious direction or arrangement. In the weather, in animal behaviour, in human organisations, in economies, structure, patterns and direction are constantly emerging without the need for leadership [11]. Ward writes that "people used to smile at Kropotkin when he instanced the lifeboat institution as an example of the kind of organisation envisaged by anarchists, but he did so simply to illustrate that voluntary and completely non-coercive institutions could provide a complex network of services without the principle of authority intervening" [12]. Anarchy is not "unnatural" then - in fact it is hierarchy which has usurped a collaborative "state of nature". Large hierarchies such as nation-states are not things which have spontaneously emerged, but all have been imposed by small, powerful groups on the mass of a population. The products of collaborative action (whether these be material goods, or the less tangible benefits of "community") are expropriated by elites who are not themselves productive: the Church hierarchy, funded through tithes; a state hierarchy funded through taxes and given specious "validity" through a corruption of community bonds into nationalism; a corporate hierarchy, funded through non-voluntary labour. Sometimes this imposition is made on one's "fellow" people (e.g. the British state, which was created by and for the aristocracy, and in which "universal" suffrage had to be struggled for), or on a conquered or colonised people (e.g. the British Empire). All states, once formalised, have done their best to restrict activities such as nomadism and to absorb and colonise other mutual support networks through processes such as taxation, control over education, welfare, and so on. Dissenters to the state were co-opted into governing it, marginalised or eliminated [13]. Of course, the anarchist must still explain why hierarchies emerge and are so durable if they are so clearly morally illegitimate. The temptation is often to see hierarchs as expressing a will-to-power, or to be part of some global conspiracy of power. This does not have to be the case. Hierarchy is perhaps best seen as a particular kind of system which is very effective at self-perpetuation, and does so mainly by drawing energy from other systems. If it is threatened, certain defence mechanisms can come into play; for example, the "knee-jerk" (but in fact automatic) media vilification of autonomous political actors. But just because something is durable and powerful does not make it inevitable; and hierarchy can also be rejected, despite its temptations. When the revolutionary Pierre-Joseph Proudhon was co-opted into the French Assembly in 1848, he recognised that government was an "isolator"; absorbed by the everyday processes of administration, he entirely lost touch with both abstract "public opinion" and the more concrete reality of what it is like actually to live under a particular government, set of laws and so on [14]. Once again, there is abstraction from reality rather than an acceptance of the reality and autonomy of individual human beings. But this abstraction is not at all a necessary condition for effective action on behalf of -- or by -- these beings. The normal activities of life do not need external motivation by some abstract "power" [15]. Produhon's response was to abandon his belief that it was who ran a state that mattered, and direct all his actions against the state hierarchy itself. In short, he declared himself an anarchist. FOUR.The trouble with anarchism is that its emphasis on self-motivation and autonomy encourages in some the belief that it advocates action without any restrictions whatsoever; that any and all restrictions on action are "coercive" and therefore to be resisted. Some proponents of the "fuck you" school of pseudo-anarchism adopt this attitude because they have heard the famous quote from Proudhon's Confessions of a Revolutionary: "Whoever puts his hand on me to govern me is a usurper and a tyrant; I declare him my enemy." ...but have not properly thought through the implications of this, nor indeed read any of Proudhon's other work. Egoism/egotism also finds support in the work of Max Stirner (The Ego and His Own) who advocated an extremist position of self-absorption. Philosophically, there is some use for Stirner; conceptual extremes are always useful anchor points. But one can better assess the implications of the Stirnerite position by noting another possible situation in which one can act without any restrictions: when power gives one the ability to simply trample on those in one's way, to override their autonomy with a naked exercise of strength. Invariably this power is a function, at least in part, of wealth, and the access this brings to legal expertise or the corridors of government. In this particular "fuck you" politics, there is no longer a culture of mutual aid, but one of complete mutual indifference [16]. Certainly there is autonomy, but this is a travesty of autonomy which can only be asserted through economy and private property. If one seeks aid from another, one must buy it. This is the essence of the "libertarian" position. (For more discussion on the role of capital and private property in a productive anarchism, see section five.) The true anarchist recognises an absolute need to deal with others, because all authority is fallible: and this therefore includes oneself. Just as one should never listen to only one "expert", nor read only one perspective on any subject, so one should never fully trust one's own judgment. Of course, this does not mean that one should take advice from others about which way to travel to work in the morning, but what it does require is the mutual and reciprocal recognition of all other people as autonomous beings. The trick anarchism needs to pull off -- and it is the same trick as democracy must master -- is to preserve the autonomy of the individual within the collaborative efforts of the group. Group decisions are based on individual preferences, but they must transcend them. Reaching a consensus does not mean talking until one gets one's own way; a consensus is innately and irrevocably a group creation [17] which can only arise through a process of deliberation in which (ideally) all those affected by the decision under discussion have an equal chance to participate. If and when mutual respect is lost, however, the critical eye of the anarchist can easily turn inwards. Hierarchies may re-emerge within a group, all the more insidious now because their existence is denied or disbelieved [18]. They may now be based around experience within a group, "commitment" to a cause, ideological "soundness", appearance, or how "hardcore" one is or behaves. These are just as arbitrary a definition of legitimacy as how much money one has; the "ego-warrior" is just as dangerous as the libertarian to true, productive anarchy. The minute one starts to see oneself as the putative leader or designer of the future anarchist society, then one has succumbed to this temptation. Consensus is not about holding a veto over any decision one dislikes, nor is it about agreeing only with friends or sympathisers and dismissing more distant opinions out of hand. The point of anarchism is to dismantle all orthodoxy, not create a new one. The need to understand what consensus really means becomes vital if one seriously contemplates the abolition of government [19]. Too many people declare themselves to be committed to it, but have never made a conscious effort to study the obstacles which lie in the way, and the ways these are best avoided. [20] Footnotes8. Blaug, R. (1999), "The Tyranny of the Visible: Problems in the Evaluation of Anti-Institutional Radicalism", Organization 6/1, p. 35. return 9. Bakunin, M. (1910), Ouevres vol. 4: quoted in Woodcock, G. (1977), The Anarchist Reader, Brighton, Harvester, p. 85. return 10. M. Kropotkin (1902), Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution, London, Heinemann. return 11. see also Marion, R. (1999) Edge of Organization: Chaos and Complexity Theories of Formal Social Systems, London, Sage. return 12. Ward, C. (1973), Anarchy in Action, London, Allen & Unwin. return 13. see R. Wolff, op. cit., p. 28: Wolff, J. (1999), Robert Nozick: Property, Justice and the Minimal State, Cambridge, Polity, p. 49 return 14. Proudhon, P.-J. (1849 [1977]), "Parliamentary Isolation", in Woodcock, G. ed., The Anarchist Reader, Brighton, Harvester, pp. 110-11. return 15. Goodman, P. (1965), People and Personnel, in in Woodcock, G. ed., The Anarchist Reader, Brighton, Harvester. return 16. Geras, N. (1999), "Minimum Utopia: Ten Theses" in Panitch, L. and Leys, C. eds., Socialist Register 2000, Rendlesham, Merlin Press, pp. 41-52. return 17. Follett, M. P. (1920), The New State: Group Organization, the solution of popular government, New York, Longman Green. return 18. Freeman, J. (1970), The Tyranny of Structurelessness. return 19. cf. Woodcock, G. (1977), "Anarchism: A Historical Introduction", in Woodcock, G. ed., The Anarchist Reader, Brighton, Harvester, pp. 11-12. return 20. There are many books offering advice in this area: I believe the best single work here to be Gastil, J. (1993), Democracy in Small Groups: Participation, Decision Making and Communication, Philadelphia, New Society - although of course one should never read just one book... return | |