

The following is the introductory book chapter from one of the best

introductory books on anarchism, which is unfortunately out of print.  This

is excerpted from *Reinventing Anarchy: What are the anarchists thinking

these days?* edited by Howard J. and Carol Ehrlich and others, and

published by Routledge & Kegan Paul in 1979.  



Questions and answers about anarchism



The editors





1 How would an anarchist revolution come about?



For social anarchists revolution is a process, a process leading to the

total deflation of state authority. That process entails self- and

collective education and the building of alternative institutions as

mechanisms of survival, of training and as models of a new society.

Continuing parts of that process are repeated symbolic protests and direct

assaults on ruling class institutions.

As more and more people regard the anarchist alternatives as preferable to

the status quo, state power begins to be deflated. When the state can no

longer maintain the confidence of substantial segments of the population,

its agents will have to rely increasingly on the mobilization of the police

and the military. Of course, that increase in force has multiple possible

outcomes, ranging from the total repression of the Left to the further

leftward mobilization of the population that regards this increased use of

force illegitimate.

Our scenario does not rule out guerrilla warfare and armed struggle. But in

the United States, for example, with its mammoth police apparatus,

extensive files and surveillance of radicals, and its over 3,600

underground 'emergency operating centers' for ruling-class and military

retreats, the idea of a primarily military revolution is an atavistic

Marxist fantasy.

So where do we go from here? The next act in the revolutionary drama

remains to be written. Drawing a battle plan today seems pointless. The

overthrow of the state - the building of anarchist societies - will be an

overwhelming majoritarian act. It cannot be otherwise. When, say, 5-10 per

cent of the population identify themselves as anarchists, it is our guess

that there would be a range of contingencies available that we could not

possibly anticipate today.



2 Who will make the anarchist revolution?



Everyone. Every day in their daily lives.





3 How can an anarchist society prevent the development of informal elites,

new bureaucracies and a reconcentration of power?



There is nothing integral to the nature of human social organization that

makes hierarchy, centralization and elitism inescapable. These

organizational forms persist, in part because they serve the interests of

those at the top. They persist, too, because we have learned to accept

roles of leadership and followership; we have come to define hierarchy as

necessary, and centralization as efficient. All of this is to say that we

learned the ideological justifications for elite organizational forms quite

well.

We could dismiss the question by pointing out that social motivations to

power, elites and elitism and bureaucracy would not exist in an anarchist

society. The question should not be dismissed, however, when we talk about

building an anarchist society in the shell of another. In

such a context we will inevitably be struggling against the life-denying

values of our socialization. Hierarchy, dominance and submission,

repression and power - these are facts of everyday life. Revolution is a

process. and even the eradication of coercive institutions will not

automatically create a liberatory society. We create that society by

building new institutions, by changing the character of our social

relationships. by changing ourselves - and throughout that process by

changing the distribution of power in society. It is by the constant

building of new forms of organization, by the continual critical evaluation

of our successes and failures, that we prevent old ideas and old forms of

organization from re-emerging.

If we cannot begin this revolutionary project here and now, then we cannot

make a revolution.





4 How will decisions be made? by consensus? by majority?



Groups will make decisions by consensus because majority rule is

unacceptable for people who think that everyone should run his or her own

life. Decision-making by majority rule means that the minority voluntarily

gives up control over the policies that affect them.

To operate by consensus, groups will discuss an issue until it is resolved

to the satisfaction of everyone. This doesn't mean that there's only one

way of doing things. People must accept that many ways can coexist. They

also must realize that there can be multiple policies on most issues with

people free to choose which policy they want.

The principle of consensus can be effective because membership in a

community is voluntary and because that membership entails agreements on

its basic goals and values.

The workings of consensual decisions have many advantages. It is the only

way to prevent a permanent minority from developing. It takes into

consideration the strength of feelings. It is more efficient for group

action because people are genuinely involved in achieving consensus and are

therefore more likely to act on their decisions.

One of the things people have difficulty understanding about group

consensus is that it does take into account the strength of feelings and

differences in perspectives of all of the people involved. In a social

anarchist meeting the process of decision-making is as important as the

outcome itself.

Of course, people will have to learn to recognize what they want and to

express their desires in a constructive way. If they do not know what they

want a false consensus develops because people are just trying to go along

with the group so as not to make trouble. If decisions are reached this way

people remain unhappy about the outcome; their

participation may drop to a low level and they may ultimately feel that

they have to leave the group.





5 How can people be motivated to participate in decisions that affect them

if they don't want to participate?



In the kinds of societies in which we live now, this is a pseudo-question.

People are managed; they are rarely asked to participate. The unmotivated

citizen of the capitalist/socialist state has sized up the situation

correctly, and has concluded that non-participation is the only realistic

choice .

What about an anarchist community, where everyone would have genuine

control over his or her life? We would assume that nonparticipants would be

few - but if they existed, we would have to ask why. This is no idle

question: if it wished to survive, an anarchist community would have to

solve this problem. If it failed to do so, the community would be on the

road back to social inequality. And it would no longer be anarchist.

There are two reasons why a person might not participate in making

decisions. The first would be lack of time. But if a person is too busy,

then either s/he has voluntarily taken on too much work, or the others are

shirking. In neither case is the community functioning on genuine social

anarchist principles.

The second reason is quite different. Non-participation would be due not to

working too much out of a misplaced sense of priorities, but to failure to

see the linkage between personal autonomy and community functioning. Some

people may feel that community decision-making is beneath them; this 'star'

mentality needs to be effectively challenged every time it occurs. Others

may genuinely believe that the community affords them everything they need

for their physical and psychological well-being, so they are perfectly

happy letting others make the decisions. Still others may feel alienated,

or lack confidence in their ability to make competent decisions.

All of these people are handicapped by 'old ideas.' These are well suited

to a stratified society in which a few run the lives of everyone, but they

are severely damaging to an anarchist community. People who think in these

ways need loving support from others, a feeling of being an essential part

of the community, and gentle (but firm) pressure to participate. This may

take time, but it can be done.





6 When does a community become too large to operate with direct

participation by everyone? Is a system of representation ever justified?



We do not really know the maximum or optimum size of a community that would

still allow effective participation, but there are numerous examples of

communities, some as large as 8,000 people, where all the people actively

participated in self-government. For example, during the Spanish Revolution

self-governed villages all over Spain formed into federations to

co-ordinate decisions affecting all of them. In Denmark in 1971 about 600

people occupied an army camp and set up a viable functioning community that

not only lasted for years but was able to defend itself nonviolently from

attacks by the government.

In these examples everyone made decisions about the goals of the community

and how to achieve them. Then the people who were actually doing the

particular tasks were able to work in their own way.

In a decentralized society that is composed of many communities the lines

of communication go in multiple directions. Two-way television and other

technological improvements make direct democracy possible in larger groups,

but there will probably still be times when representatives will be

necessary. Selection procedures for these representatives would no doubt

vary. Sometimes representatives could be drawn by lot and other times on

the basis of task-specific skills or abilities.

The system of representation, however, must meet certain criteria.

Representatives must come from the group of people whom they represent and

they must be accountable to that group. To make them accountable,

representatives should be assigned for a brief period of time or to do a

specific task. In an anarchist society nobody could make a career of

'politics.' The role of representative could be rotated among members of

the community. All important decisions would be made by the group as a

whole; the representatives would just communicate the decisions of their

group to the larger group. Representatives must also be subject to

immediate recall.

The decisions about what functions best for one community or one group will

have to be made by that group at the time depending upon the circumstances.

But there is every reason to believe that people can effectively

participate in managing their own lives.





7 Will there still be experts and specialization? If so, how will experts

be trained? How will we know they are competent? Can we have experts in a

non-hierarchical society?



Differences in skill and knowledge will continue to exist. Such differences

are compatible with a free and egalitarian society. People may also want to

develop their abilities in their own way. And this too is compatible with

social anarchism.

Much of the work that is now done by specialists can be learned in

a relatively short time so that it could be done by nearly everyone. One

problem with specialists in our society is that they restrain the number of

people who are trained. Obviously there is some work, such as surgery or

architecture, that requires a high degree of skill acquired through lengthy

training. No one wants to be operated on by someone who has only two weeks

of training, and few people would feel comfortable in a five-story building

assembled without blueprints. The real problem becomes training specialists

who will be accountable to the people they serve. We want co-operation

between specialist and 'client,' not solidarity among specialists. To

ensure this there could be no positions of privilege for specialists, and

they must be committed to sharing their knowledge with everyone.

In a decentralized or small society, judging the competence of someone

whose labor is highly visible, such as a carpenter, is not difficult. In

somewhat more complex cases, say in judging the competence of a surgeon,

one possibility is to have the people who work with the surgeon along with

those from the community be the judge of the quality of work .

Expertise and non-hierarchy can co-exist only if specialization does not

convey special privileges: only if people who are experts do not monopolize

or control resources or information; and only if people are committed to

co-operative and collective work rather than destructive competition.





8 Who will do the dirty work?



We all will. In an anarchist community, people wouldn't categorize work as

'dirty' or clean,' as 'white-collar' or 'blue-collar.' That way of thinking

can exist only in a class-stratified society - one that teaches its members

that maintenance tasks are undignified, demeaning, and to be avoided if

possible. For anarchists, all socially useful work has dignity. and

everyone would co-operate to sustain the community at a mutually

agreed-upon level of health, comfort and beauty. Those who refuse to

collect the garbage, clean streets and buildings, trim the grass, provide a

clean water supply and so on would be acting in a most irresponsible

fashion. It they continued to refuse, they would be asked to leave.

Does this seem coercive? A successfully self-governed community must be

comprised of people who voluntarily live and work together, who agree on

the necessary tasks, and who have the self-discipline to carry out their

share of these tasks (no more and no less). Those who refuse are coercing

others; they are implicitly saying that their time is to be spent doing

more important things; that they are above such menial tasks. In an

anarchist community no one is 'above' anyone else; no one is more important

than anyone else. To think so will destroy both equality and freedom.

One of the things that makes 'dirty' work so onerous is that only some

people do it, and they work at it full-time. Very few maintenance tasks

would seem totally awful if they were rotated, and each person knew s/he

would be doing it for a short period of time. Short work periods on the

garbage truck, or cleaning public bathrooms or fertilizing fields would

seem - well. not ,fun of course (anarchists aren't stupid) but would be

tolerable if each person knew they would end soon.





9 Will any people have more money and property than others? Who will

control the means of production and how will profits be distributed?



In an anarchist society everyone will have an equal right to the basic

liberties and material goods. which is consistent with a similar right for

others. People would, of course, maintain personal possessions, but we

would expect that the matter of the accumulation of property and property

rights would be very different. Certainly the meaning of money and property

would be quite different in an egalitarian and nonhierarchical society.

It is hard to conceive of a serious alternative to a market economy.

However, unlike the capitalist market place, the anarchist economy would

not be based on the maximization of control and profit. Therefore, there

would be no need to monopolize resources, expand markets or create useless

products and/or consumer demands. Worker and community control of the

workplace would be the organizational form for regulating productivity and

profits in keeping with the needs of the community .

While an anarchist economic theory remains to be written. its theorems will

all have to be derived from principles of social justice, from principles

that claim the maximum values of freedom and equality for all people.





10 Aren't anarchists ignoring the complexity of urban life? Aren't they

rejecting technology and industrial development? Don't they really

want to go back to a simpler society?



Any anarchists who ignore the complexities of modern urban-industrial

societies are wrong. A return to a 'simpler' society' is a fantasy of

escapists, not of persons seriously committed to building a new society.

The underlying issue for us as social anarchists is the determination of

the optimum size for urban settlements. The equation for an optimum

size would doubtless have to balance factors of self-sufficiency, self

governance and the minimizing of damage to the ecosystem.

The related technological problems must be taken seriously by all

anarchists. Can we satisfy our energy requirements with technologies that

do minimal environmental damage? Can we develop a technology that can be

comprehended by most people? Can we develop a technology that is a genuine

substitute for human labor? The answer to these questions is yes. The

technology and knowledge are already here: the issue is their

implementation.

The result of implementing such technological changes and building

self-governing and relatively self-sufficient communities would probably

bring about substantial differences in urban settlements. We suspect that

these differences would yield even more 'complex' urban arrangements than

we now have. We suspect, too, that they would result in more genuinely

humane cities.



11 How will an anarchist society meet the threat of foreign invasion?



Paradoxically, the more successfully it meets the threat of armed force,

the more likely it is to move away from anarchist principles. War always

seems to turn relatively free and open societies into repressive ones. Why?

Because war is irrational: it fosters fear and hopelessness in the gentle;

it brings out aggression, hatred and brutality in the truculent; it

destroys the balance between people and nature; it shrinks the sense of

community down to one's immediately endangered group; and under conditions

of starvation and deprivation it pits neighbor against neighbor in the

fight for survival. If a besieged anarchist community did successfully

resist foreign invasion, then it should immediately work to reestablish the

interrelationships of trust, mutual aid, equality and freedom that have

probably been damaged. 'War is the health of the state;' but it can be a

fatal disease for an anarchist community.

If war came, however, how would the society organize to defend itself? Let

us assume that the anarchist federation of North America is invaded by

troops of the Chinese, Swedish, Saudi Arabian or Brazilian government. What

would happen? There would be no state apparatus to seize; instead, the

invaders would have to conquer a network of small communities, one by one.

There would be no single army to defeat, but an entire, armed population.

The people would challenge the invasion with resistance - strikes,

psychological warfare, and non-co-operation as well as with guerrilla

tactics and larger armed actions. Under these circumstances, it is unlikely

that the invaders would conquer the federation .



12 What about crime?



Much of what is now defined as crime would no longer exist. The

communalization of property and an ethic of mutual aid would reduce both

the necessity and the motivation for property crimes. Crimes against people

seem more complex, but we reject the idea that they are rooted in 'original

sin' or 'human nature.' To the degree that such crimes stem from societally

based disorders of personality, we can only anticipate that their incidence

- as well as their actual form - would be radically altered .

In a social anarchist society, crime would be defined solely as an act

harmful to the liberties of others. It would not be a crime to be different

from other people, but it would be a crime to harm someone. Such hostile

acts against the community could be prevented, above all, by inculcating a

respect for the dignity of each person. Anarchist values would be

reinforced with the strongest of human bonds, those of affection and

self-respect.

Remaining crimes would not be administered by masses of lawyers, police and

judges; and criminals would not be tossed into prisons, which Kropotkin

once labeled 'universities of crime.' Common law and regularly rotated

juries could decide whether a particular act was a crime, and could

criticize, censure, ostracize or even banish the criminal. However, in most

cases we anticipate that criminals would be placed in the care and guidance

of members of the community.





13 How shall public health issues be handled?



Public health issues would be handled like all other issues. This means

that decisions about inoculations and other health issues would be made at

the local level by the people who would be affected by the decision. This

would result in a very different type of health care. Health care workers

would be members of the community where they worked. Their function would

be to provide day-to-day care and advice to people on how to remain

healthy. People would have a chance to talk frequently with these workers

and would know that they were really concerned about health and not about

making money or gaining status in the community.

If there were a threatened epidemic of some deadly flu and a vaccine were

developed the people in the community would be able to get together to

discuss the risks and benefits of the inoculations. Once the group decided

that inoculations would benefit the community they would try to persuade

everyone to be inoculated because the more people who were protected the

less likelihood there would be of an epidemic. If there were a clear case

of people being a danger to the health of the entire community then they

would be asked to make a choice between being vaccinated and remaining in

the community, or leaving to find another group that was more compatible.





14 There are times when the state takes care of the sick and elderly, or

protects individuals against coercion (for example, children brutalized

by parents; blacks attacked by whites). If the state disappears, who will

take over these functions?



People who look at the world this way believe that there are only two

possibilities: either there is state regulation and an orderly society, or

there is a stateless chaos in which life is nasty, brutish and short. In

fact, even when the state functions in a benevolent or protective manner,

it is capricious: sometimes it helps the helpless; other times it doesn't.

Sometimes social welfare workers remove a child from a vicious environment

- and other times the child is left at home, perhaps to be further

brutalized, even killed. Sometimes the state protects the civil rights of

oppressed minorities; other times it ignores these rights, or even joins in

the persecution. We cannot count on the state to do anything to protect us.

It is, after all, the major task of the agents of the state to protect the

distribution of power. Social justice is a secondary concern.

In fact, we can only count on ourselves, or on those with whom we are

freely associated in community. This means that helping functions will be

performed by those groups that have always done them, with or without the

state: voluntary associations. However, in an anarchist community, the need

for such services will be less frequent. For example, if there is no longer

systematic poisoning of the environment, diseases caused by this pollution

(pesticide poisoning, asbestosis, Minimata disease) won t happen; if there

are no longer extremes of wealth and poverty, diseases caused by lack of

adequate food, shelter, and medical care will not exist; if children and

adults can freely choose whether or not to live together, much violence

against loved ones will disappear; if racism is systematically attacked,

then the majority ethnic group won't harass minorities. There will, of

course, still be a need for mutual aid and protection - but this will be

provided by the community, for all its members.





15 Would an anarchist society be less likely to be sexist? racist?



Anarchists usually talk about the illegitimacy of authority, basing their

arguments on the premise that no person should have power over another. A

logical extension of this argument is to attack the power relationships in

which men dominate women and some racial and ethnic groups dominate others.

Thus anarchism creates the preconditions for abolishing sexism and racism

Anarchism is philosophically opposed to all manifestations of racism and

sexism. Equally important as its philosophical commitments is the fact that

with anarchism there would be no economic basis to support racist or sexist

ideas or practices. Work and income would be divided equitably, so there

would be no need to subordinate a class of people to do the dirty work or

to work at low pay to support the dominant class.

Sexism and racism would not automatically disappear in the process of

building an anarchist society. A conscious effort would have to be made to

change old behavior and attitudes.





16 What do anarchists think about sex, monogamy, and family?



Anarchists believe that how you live your daily life is an important

political statement. Most people in industrialized societies spend a

significant portion of their lives in what may be the last bulwark of

capitalism and state socialism - the monogamous nuclear family. The family

serves as the primary agent for reproducing the dominant values of the

society, both through the socialization of children and the social control

of its members. Within the family all of the pathologies of the larger

society are reproduced: privatized social relations escapism patriarchal

dominance, economic dependency (in capitalist society), consumerism, and

the treatment of people as property.

In an anarchist society, social relations will be based on trust, mutual

aid, friendship and love. These may occur in the context of the family (if

people choose to live in a family setting), but they certainly do not have

to. Indeed, these conditions may be more easily achieved outside the

family.

Will there be monogamous relations in an anarchist society? Clearly people

will have the option to choose how they want to live with whom, and how

long they want to live in these relationships. This will of course include

the option of monogamy. However, without a system based on patriarchy.

economic insecurity and religious or state authority, we doubt that

monogamy would be anything more than an anachronism If and when people did

elect to live monogamously. it presumably would be seen as a choice made by

both persons. Today, of course, monogamy is considered far more important

for women than for men. This is called the double standard: and it has no

place in a society of free and equal women and men.

The family? The nuclear family is not universal, but social systems for the

rearing of the young, the care of the elderly, and companionate relations

are. We think that whole new forms of communal and collective living

arrangements will grow to replace the traditional family system .

Sex? Of course. But this does not mean that all kinds of sexual behavior

would be condoned. We cannot imagine a truly anarchist society condoning

rape, sexual exploitation of children, or sex that inflicts pain or

humiliation, or involves dominance and submission. In sexual behavior, as

in all other forms of behavior, social anarchism is based on freedom, trust

and respect for the dignity of others. In fact, in an anarchist society

sexuality would lose all the inegalitarian and oppressive meanings it now

has.





17 Is it coercive to require education for children? What should its

content and structure be?



When people today worry about the coercive character of mandatory public

education, we think that their concern really stems from the authoritarian

character of schooling. Schools are an extension of the state; they

reproduce the class, sex, race and other divisions on which the state is

built. In an anarchist society, the social function of schools and the

potential of education would be quite different.

Even today, we think that the implications of withholding basic education

from young children are far more coercive than the requirement that they be

educated. Without at least a minimal level of literacy, people would be

much worse off than they already are. In an anarchist society education

would, of course, provide far more. Education would be fundamentally

liberating because it would help people learn how to learn; and it would

teach them much more than they could ever acquire on their own about the

physical world and the world of ideas. It would also help them learn to be

free and self-directed.

Such education is so important for young children that neither they nor

their parents should be able to decide that the child doesn't need it.

Bakunin stated the reason well:



Children do not constitute anyone's property . . . they belong only

   to their own future freedom. But in children this freedom is not yet

   real; it is only potential. For real freedom - . . . based upon a feeling

   of one's dignity and upon the genuine respect for someone else's

   freedom and dignity, i.e., upon justice - such freedom can develop in

   children only through the rational development of their minds,

character, and will.



What would anarchist education teach the young? Intellectual and physical

skills that help to develop literate, healthy and competent people should

be taught. Essential intellectual materials would include some that

children now learn, and some that they don't: reading and writing,

self-care (emotional and physical), farming and carpentry, cooking, and

physical education. Children in the upper elementary grades would be

introduced to literature and the other arts, crosscultural materials, and

the principles of anarchist community organization and economics. However,

the content of these materials should reflect anarchist values: it would be

senseless to teach the principles of capitalist politics and economics

(except perhaps as a horrible example), an acceptance of stratification, or

materials that advocate racist, sexist or other inegalitarian ideas.

Not only the content, but also the structure of anarchist education is

vitally important. It is difficult to develop liberatory modes of thought

and action in an atmosphere of intimidation, regimentation, boredom and

respect for authority. We do not mean to imply that children should devalue

teachers; but genuine respect must be based upon what someone knows and how

effectively s/he teaches it, not upon position, age or credentials. It will

be difficult to create an atmosphere of mutual respect and orderly process

without imposing discipline. But liberatory education cannot take place in

an authoritarian setting.

What else? Well, schools should be small, so that each child can get the

attention and stimulation s/he needs. Activities should be varied, and

distinctions between work and play narrowed as far as possible. Grading and

competition with each other would be eliminated. Students would learn to

set standards for themselves, and to try to meet them. (If they did not,

the child should not evaluate him/herself negatively. Guilt and

self-deprecation are enemies of autonomy and healthy functioning ) Teachers

would be selected on the basis of knowledge and interpersonal competence,

not upon the possession of formal

credentials. Probably few people would make a career of teaching, but many

members of the community (including some older children) would spend time

doing it. Schools would be integrated into the community, and everyone

would participate in the direction of the schools.

When would education end? Ideally, never. Instead of being a prison, which

inmates flee as soon as the guard's back is turned (which is what many

public schools are like today), the anarchist school would encourage people

to see education as a lifelong process. As the child becomes an adult,

education would increasingly become an informal self-directed activity

which would take place outside the school. But people would return for

further formal study as often, and as long, as they wish.





18 What is the relation of children to authority?



The line between nurturance and the authoritarian control of children is

difficult to draw. Perhaps in an anarchist society that boundary line will

be more clearly sketched.

Infants and young children are unquestionably dependent on others for their

survival. Perhaps the difference between nurturance and authoritarianism

arises when a child has acquired the skills for her or his own survival. If

we accept that boundary, then we will have to work at determining what

those skills minimally are. The skills themselves - once we go beyond the

acquisition of language - are not absolute. They are relative to the social

conditions under which people live. For example, under capitalism, where

income and work are tied together and where both are prerequisites for

food, housing, medical care and the like, survival training must last

longer. Partly because of this long period of dependency, there has been a

strong tradition in such settings to view the child (and young adult) as

property, hence at the disposal of the family or state. Certainly, the

political economy is one condition that fosters dependence on authority.

Fostering authoritarian dependence is, in fact, a major mechanism of social

control in capitalist and state socialist societies. Today it is easier to

catalog examples of dependence and authoritarian social conditions than it

is to provide examples of social conditions that encourage self-management

and autonomous behavior.

The quintessence of nurturant child-rearing in an anarchist community would

be the teaching of children to like themselves, to learn how to learn, and

how to set standards for self-evaluation.



19 Has there ever been a successful anarchist organization? If so, why

don't they last longer?



Yes, there has been. In fact, there have been many groups that have been

organized without centralized government, hierarchy, privilege and formal

authority. Some have been explicitly anarchist: perhaps the best-known

examples are the Spanish industrial and agricultural collectives, which

functioned quite successfully for several years until destroyed by the

combined forces of the authoritarian Left and the Right.

Most anarchist organizations are not called that - even by their members.

Anthropological literature is full of descriptions of human societies that

have existed without centralized government or institutionalized authority.

(However, as contemporary feminist anthropologists point Gut, many

so-called 'egalitarian' cultures are sexist.)

Industrialized societies also contain many groups that are anarchist in

practice. As the British anarchist Colin Ward says, 'an anarchist society,

a society which organizes itself without authority, is always in existence,

like a seed beneath the snow.' Examples include the leaderless small groups

developed by radical feminists, co-ops, clinics, learning networks, media

collectives, direct action organizations such as the Clamshell Alliance;

the spontaneous groupings that occur in response to disasters, strikes,

revolutions and emergencies; community-controlled day-care centers;

neighborhood groups; tenant and workplace organizing; and so on. Not all

such groups are anarchist, of course, but a surprising number function

without leadership and authority to provide mutual aid, resist the

government, and develop better ways of doing things.

Why don't they last longer? People who ask this question expect anarchist

organizations to meet standards of permanence that most anarchists, who

value flexibility and change, do not hold; and that most non-anarchist

groups cannot meet. There is, of course, another reason why many anarchist

organizations do not last longer than they do. Anarchists are enemies of

the state - and the state managers do not react kindly to enemies.

Anarchist organizations are blocked, harassed, and sometimes (as in the

case of Spain, and more recently Portugal) deliberately smashed. Under such

circumstances, it is a tribute to the persistence and capabilities of many

anarchists that their organizations last as long as they often do.







11 How will an anarchist society meet the threat of foreign invasion?



Paradoxically, the more successfully it meets the threat of armed force,

the more likely it is to move away from anarchist principles. War always

seems to turn relatively free and open societies into repressive ones. Why?

Because war is irrational: it fosters fear and hopelessness in the gentle;

it brings out aggression, hatred and brutality in the truculent; it

destroys the balance between people and nature; it shrinks the sense of

community down to one's immediately endangered group; and under conditions

of starvation and deprivation it pits neighbor against neighbor in the

fight for survival. If a besieged anarchist community did successfully

resist foreign invasion, then it should immediately work to reestablish the

interrelationships of trust, mutual aid, equality and freedom that have

probably been damaged. 'War is the health of the state;' but it can be a

fatal disease for an anarchist community.

If war came, however, how would the society organize to defend itself? Let

us assume that the anarchist federation of North America is invaded by

troops of the Chinese, Swedish, Saudi Arabian or Brazilian government. What

would happen? There would be no state apparatus to seize; instead, the

invaders would have to conquer a network of small communities, one by one.

There would be no single army to defeat, but an entire, armed population.

The people would challenge the invasion with resistance - strikes,

psychological warfare, and non-co-operation as well as with guerrilla

tactics and larger armed actions. Under these circumstances, it is unlikely

that the invaders would conquer the federation .



12 What about crime?



Much of what is now defined as crime would no longer exist. The

communalization of property and an ethic of mutual aid would reduce both

the necessity and the motivation for property crimes. Crimes against people

seem more complex, but we reject the idea that they are rooted in 'original

sin' or 'human nature.' To the degree that such crimes stem from societally

based disorders of personality, we can only anticipate that their incidence

- as well as their actual form - would be radically altered .

In a social anarchist society, crime would be defined solely as an act

harmful to the liberties of others. It would not be a crime to be different

from other people, but it would be a crime to harm someone. Such hostile

acts against the community could be prevented, above all, by inculcating a

respect for the dignity of each person. Anarchist values would be

reinforced with the strongest of human bonds, those of affection and

self-respect.

Remaining crimes would not be administered by masses of lawyers, police and

judges; and criminals would not be tossed into prisons, which Kropotkin

once labeled 'universities of crime.' Common law and regularly rotated

juries could decide whether a particular act was a crime, and could

criticize, censure, ostracize or even banish the criminal. However, in most

cases we anticipate that criminals would be placed in the care and guidance

of members of the community.





13 How shall public health issues be handled?



Public health issues would be handled like all other issues. This means

that decisions about inoculations and other health issues would be made at

the local level by the people who would be affected by the decision. This

would result in a very different type of health care. Health care workers

would be members of the community where they worked. Their function would

be to provide day-to-day care and advice to people on how to remain

healthy. People would have a chance to talk frequently with these workers

and would know that they were really concerned about health and not about

making money or gaining status in the community.

If there were a threatened epidemic of some deadly flu and a vaccine were

developed the people in the community would be able to get together to

discuss the risks and benefits of the inoculations. Once the group decided

that inoculations would benefit the community they would try to persuade

everyone to be inoculated because the more people who were protected the

less likelihood there would be of an epidemic. If there were a clear case

of people being a danger to the health of the entire community then they

would be asked to make a choice between being vaccinated and remaining in

the community, or leaving to find another group that was more compatible.





14 There are times when the state takes care of the sick and elderly, or

protects individuals against coercion (for example, children brutalized

by parents; blacks attacked by whites). If the state disappears, who will

take over these functions?



People who look at the world this way believe that there are only two

possibilities: either there is state regulation and an orderly society, or

there is a stateless chaos in which life is nasty, brutish and short. In

fact, even when the state functions in a benevolent or protective manner,

it is capricious: sometimes it helps the helpless; other times it doesn't.

Sometimes social welfare workers remove a child from a vicious environment

- and other times the child is left at home, perhaps to be further

brutalized, even killed. Sometimes the state protects the civil rights of

oppressed minorities; other times it ignores these rights, or even joins in

the persecution. We cannot count on the state to do anything to protect us.

It is, after all, the major task of the agents of the state to protect the

distribution of power. Social justice is a secondary concern.

In fact, we can only count on ourselves, or on those with whom we are

freely associated in community. This means that helping functions will be

performed by those groups that have always done them, with or without the

state: voluntary associations. However, in an anarchist community, the need

for such services will be less frequent. For example, if there is no longer

systematic poisoning of the environment, diseases caused by this pollution

(pesticide poisoning, asbestosis, Minimata disease) won t happen; if there

are no longer extremes of wealth and poverty, diseases caused by lack of

adequate food, shelter, and medical care will not exist; if children and

adults can freely choose whether or not to live together, much violence

against loved ones will disappear; if racism is systematically attacked,

then the majority ethnic group won't harass minorities. There will, of

course, still be a need for mutual aid and protection - but this will be

provided by the community, for all its members.





15 Would an anarchist society be less likely to be sexist? racist?



Anarchists usually talk about the illegitimacy of authority, basing their

arguments on the premise that no person should have power over another. A

logical extension of this argument is to attack the power relationships in

which men dominate women and some racial and ethnic groups dominate others.

Thus anarchism creates the preconditions for abolishing sexism and racism

Anarchism is philosophically opposed to all manifestations of racism and

sexism. Equally important as its philosophical commitments is the fact that

with anarchism there would be no economic basis to support racist or sexist

ideas or practices. Work and income would be divided equitably, so there

would be no need to subordinate a class of people to do the dirty work or

to work at low pay to support the dominant class.

Sexism and racism would not automatically disappear in the process of

building an anarchist society. A conscious effort would have to be made to

change old behavior and attitudes.





16 What do anarchists think about sex, monogamy, and family?



Anarchists believe that how you live your daily life is an important

political statement. Most people in industrialized societies spend a

significant portion of their lives in what may be the last bulwark of

capitalism and state socialism - the monogamous nuclear family. The family

serves as the primary agent for reproducing the dominant values of the

society, both through the socialization of children and the social control

of its members. Within the family all of the pathologies of the larger

society are reproduced: privatized social relations escapism patriarchal

dominance, economic dependency (in capitalist society), consumerism, and

the treatment of people as property.

In an anarchist society, social relations will be based on trust, mutual

aid, friendship and love. These may occur in the context of the family (if

people choose to live in a family setting), but they certainly do not have

to. Indeed, these conditions may be more easily achieved outside the

family.

Will there be monogamous relations in an anarchist society? Clearly people

will have the option to choose how they want to live with whom, and how

long they want to live in these relationships. This will of course include

the option of monogamy. However, without a system based on patriarchy.

economic insecurity and religious or state authority, we doubt that

monogamy would be anything more than an anachronism If and when people did

elect to live monogamously. it presumably would be seen as a choice made by

both persons. Today, of course, monogamy is considered far more important

for women than for men. This is called the double standard: and it has no

place in a society of free and equal women and men.

The family? The nuclear family is not universal, but social systems for the

rearing of the young, the care of the elderly, and companionate relations

are. We think that whole new forms of communal and collective living

arrangements will grow to replace the traditional family system .

Sex? Of course. But this does not mean that all kinds of sexual behavior

would be condoned. We cannot imagine a truly anarchist society condoning

rape, sexual exploitation of children, or sex that inflicts pain or

humiliation, or involves dominance and submission. In sexual behavior, as

in all other forms of behavior, social anarchism is based on freedom, trust

and respect for the dignity of others. In fact, in an anarchist society

sexuality would lose all the inegalitarian and oppressive meanings it now

has.





17 Is it coercive to require education for children? What should its

content and structure be?



When people today worry about the coercive character of mandatory public

education, we think that their concern really stems from the authoritarian

character of schooling. Schools are an extension of the state; they

reproduce the class, sex, race and other divisions on which the state is

built. In an anarchist society, the social function of schools and the

potential of education would be quite different.

Even today, we think that the implications of withholding basic education

from young children are far more coercive than the requirement that they be

educated. Without at least a minimal level of literacy, people would be

much worse off than they already are. In an anarchist society education

would, of course, provide far more. Education would be fundamentally

liberating because it would help people learn how to learn; and it would

teach them much more than they could ever acquire on their own about the

physical world and the world of ideas. It would also help them learn to be

free and self-directed.

Such education is so important for young children that neither they nor

their parents should be able to decide that the child doesn't need it.

Bakunin stated the reason well:



Children do not constitute anyone's property . . . they belong only

   to their own future freedom. But in children this freedom is not yet

   real; it is only potential. For real freedom - . . . based upon a feeling

   of one's dignity and upon the genuine respect for someone else's

   freedom and dignity, i.e., upon justice - such freedom can develop in

   children only through the rational development of their minds,

character, and will.



What would anarchist education teach the young? Intellectual and physical

skills that help to develop literate, healthy and competent people should

be taught. Essential intellectual materials would include some that

children now learn, and some that they don't: reading and writing,

self-care (emotional and physical), farming and carpentry, cooking, and

physical education. Children in the upper elementary grades would be

introduced to literature and the other arts, crosscultural materials, and

the principles of anarchist community organization and economics. However,

the content of these materials should reflect anarchist values: it would be

senseless to teach the principles of capitalist politics and economics

(except perhaps as a horrible example), an acceptance of stratification, or

materials that advocate racist, sexist or other inegalitarian ideas.

Not only the content, but also the structure of anarchist education is

vitally important. It is difficult to develop liberatory modes of thought

and action in an atmosphere of intimidation, regimentation, boredom and

respect for authority. We do not mean to imply that children should devalue

teachers; but genuine respect must be based upon what someone knows and how

effectively s/he teaches it, not upon position, age or credentials. It will

be difficult to create an atmosphere of mutual respect and orderly process

without imposing discipline. But liberatory education cannot take place in

an authoritarian setting.

What else? Well, schools should be small, so that each child can get the

attention and stimulation s/he needs. Activities should be varied, and

distinctions between work and play narrowed as far as possible. Grading and

competition with each other would be eliminated. Students would learn to

set standards for themselves, and to try to meet them. (If they did not,

the child should not evaluate him/herself negatively. Guilt and

self-deprecation are enemies of autonomy and healthy functioning ) Teachers

would be selected on the basis of knowledge and interpersonal competence,

not upon the possession of formal

credentials. Probably few people would make a career of teaching, but many

members of the community (including some older children) would spend time

doing it. Schools would be integrated into the community, and everyone

would participate in the direction of the schools.

When would education end? Ideally, never. Instead of being a prison, which

inmates flee as soon as the guard's back is turned (which is what many

public schools are like today), the anarchist school would encourage people

to see education as a lifelong process. As the child becomes an adult,

education would increasingly become an informal self-directed activity

which would take place outside the school. But people would return for

further formal study as often, and as long, as they wish.





18 What is the relation of children to authority?



The line between nurturance and the authoritarian control of children is

difficult to draw. Perhaps in an anarchist society that boundary line will

be more clearly sketched.

Infants and young children are unquestionably dependent on others for their

survival. Perhaps the difference between nurturance and authoritarianism

arises when a child has acquired the skills for her or his own survival. If

we accept that boundary, then we will have to work at determining what

those skills minimally are. The skills themselves - once we go beyond the

acquisition of language - are not absolute. They are relative to the social

conditions under which people live. For example, under capitalism, where

income and work are tied together and where both are prerequisites for

food, housing, medical care and the like, survival training must last

longer. Partly because of this long period of dependency, there has been a

strong tradition in such settings to view the child (and young adult) as

property, hence at the disposal of the family or state. Certainly, the

political economy is one condition that fosters dependence on authority.

Fostering authoritarian dependence is, in fact, a major mechanism of social

control in capitalist and state socialist societies. Today it is easier to

catalog examples of dependence and authoritarian social conditions than it

is to provide examples of social conditions that encourage self-management

and autonomous behavior.

The quintessence of nurturant child-rearing in an anarchist community would

be the teaching of children to like themselves, to learn how to learn, and

how to set standards for self-evaluation.



19 Has there ever been a successful anarchist organization? If so, why

don't they last longer?



Yes, there has been. In fact, there have been many groups that have been

organized without centralized government, hierarchy, privilege and formal

authority. Some have been explicitly anarchist: perhaps the best-known

examples are the Spanish industrial and agricultural collectives, which

functioned quite successfully for several years until destroyed by the

combined forces of the authoritarian Left and the Right.

Most anarchist organizations are not called that - even by their members.

Anthropological literature is full of descriptions of human societies that

have existed without centralized government or institutionalized authority.

(However, as contemporary feminist anthropologists point Gut, many

so-called 'egalitarian' cultures are sexist.)

Industrialized societies also contain many groups that are anarchist in

practice. As the British anarchist Colin Ward says, 'an anarchist society,

a society which organizes itself without authority, is always in existence,

like a seed beneath the snow.' Examples include the leaderless small groups

developed by radical feminists, co-ops, clinics, learning networks, media

collectives, direct action organizations such as the Clamshell Alliance;

the spontaneous groupings that occur in response to disasters, strikes,

revolutions and emergencies; community-controlled day-care centers;

neighborhood groups; tenant and workplace organizing; and so on. Not all

such groups are anarchist, of course, but a surprising number function

without leadership and authority to provide mutual aid, resist the

government, and develop better ways of doing things.

Why don't they last longer? People who ask this question expect anarchist

organizations to meet standards of permanence that most anarchists, who

value flexibility and change, do not hold; and that most non-anarchist

groups cannot meet. There is, of course, another reason why many anarchist

organizations do not last longer than they do. Anarchists are enemies of

the state - and the state managers do not react kindly to enemies.

Anarchist organizations are blocked, harassed, and sometimes (as in the

case of Spain, and more recently Portugal) deliberately smashed. Under such

circumstances, it is a tribute to the persistence and capabilities of many

anarchists that their organizations last as long as they often do.



