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1938 lines
89 KiB
Plaintext
1938 lines
89 KiB
Plaintext
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An Introduction to the Anarchist Movement ۲
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- by Brian Crabtree - ۲
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Anti-Copyright 1993:
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This work may be freely reproduced, by any means, in
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whole or in part, but may not be copyrighted by
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any other individual or corporate entity.
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Contents:
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1. Introduction
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2. Anarchist Principles
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2.1 Anarchist Ideals
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3. Anarchist Society
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3.1 A Model of an Anarchist Community?
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3.2 Technology and Anarchy
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4. The Case For Anarchism
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4.1 The Problem Exists
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4.2 The Problem Is Inherent
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4.3 Anarchy Will Solve the Problem
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5. The History of Anarchism
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5.1 Proudhon and the Mutualists
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5.2 Bakunin and Collectivism
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5.3 Peter Kropotkin
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5.4 The Anarchist Movement
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6. Anarchy As a Way of Life
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6.1 Civil Disobedience
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6.2 D-I-Y
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7. Modern Anarchist Activism
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7.1 Direct Action
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7.2 Propaganda
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7.3 Anarchist Networking
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7.31 The Zine Network
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7.32 Electronic Networking
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8. Conclusion
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9. Appendices: Getting Connected
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9.1 Anarchist Periodicals
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9.2 Anarchist Organizations
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9.3 Anarchist Publishing and Distribution
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9.4 Anarchist Electronic Contacts
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9.5 Sources For Further Information About Anarchism
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9.6 Contacting the Author
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Introduction
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What comes to mind when you hear the word "anarchy"? Chaos and
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disorder? Bomb throwers and assassins? Wearing black clothes and combat
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boots? None of these popular conceptions adequately describes anarchism or the
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anarchist movement.
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Over the years, there have probably been more nonsense and
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misconceptions about anarchism than about any other political theory or
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ideology. To this very day, if you look up "anarchism" in the Reader's Guide
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to Periodical Literature, you will be told to "See also: Terrorism". Anarchism
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is not terrorism, nor is it a fad or style of dress, nor is it necessarily
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chaotic or violent. Anarchy is a viable system of non-hierarchical
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organization - a method of voluntary human interaction. The words "anarchy",
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"anarchism", and "anarchist" should be used to refer to this, not to be used as
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a catch-all term for "people and ideas that the government doesn't like".
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Dissenters have always been persecuted by the majority. In this book I
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will attempt to resolve some of the fears, misconceptions, and outright lies
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that have been propagated about anarchism. This is in no way an attempt to
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speak for all anarchists. It has been said that there as many definitions of
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anarchy as there are anarchists, and I want this book to reflect that. As you
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read this, be careful not to fall into the trap of classifying people with
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labels. Everyone has their own ideas and morals, and will behave differently.
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The purpose of this book is to promote a better understanding of anarchism.
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Anarchist Principles
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Government is an evil and unnecessary institution. The utilization of
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government as a control device for the population of an area is immoral and
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inefficient. Anarchy is the alternative to this artificially imposed order.
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Anarchists envision a libertarian and egalitarian society in which
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participation is voluntary and mutual aid replaces coercion as the binding
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force between individuals. Everyone must be allowed to judge for themselves
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wwhat is right and wrong, and act according to reason and ethics instead of
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laws and pre-packaged morality. Whose ethics? Each person's conscience. My
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ethics are: If what you do infringes the rights of someone else, then it is
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wrong. Anything else is acceptable.
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Some anarchists believe that anarchy is not disorderly - that it is a
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much more complex form of organization than the simple hierarchical structure
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imposed on us by government. Still others view organization as just another
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tool used my the state to control us.
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- Anarchist Ideals -
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Liberty. Freedom. Freedom of conscience, or as Thomas Jefferson said
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it, the right to "the persuit of happiness", is said to be the basis for all
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other freedoms; freedom is the highest ideal of anarchists. With liberty comes
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equality. Liberty does not truly exist unless it exists for everyone,
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regardless of race, age, gender, sexual preference, or ideology. All people
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are born equal, it is existing society that forces us into groups and classes.
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Government takes away rights. If it did any less it would not be
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government. Our government takes away our right to bear arms, our right to
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persue happiness in whatever form we find it, our freedom of expression, and
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our freedom to choose what is best for ourselves. Government takes away our
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liberty. Government also denies us equality, another fundamental freedom, by
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separating us into classes and discouraging interaction between the classes.
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If you are born into a poor family, you will probably stay poor; if you are
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born into a rich family, you will probably be no worse off than your parents.
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The rich stay in control, and the workers continue to sell their lives to the
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system.
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Government also prevents free association by placing arbitrary
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political barriers between members of different countries as well
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as economic barriers between members of the same country. Militarism is a
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tragic example of the barriers between countries. If countries would spend as
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much effort trying to get along with each other as they spend trying to keep
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their own affairs in order, there would be much less war. There would also be
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less war if we settled disagreements between countries by putting the leaders
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of the countries in the ring and let them fight it out themselves. I'm sure
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all of us would agree that that method of war is absolutely absurd, but this is
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almost exactly what we are doing by fighting wars in the first place. Brute
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strength is no way to settle an argument. By what logic is the more powerful
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country correct? More often than not, the citizens of one country have no
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grudge against the citizens of the opposing country, but their governments turn
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them against each other with propaganda and lies. Soldiers don't stop to think
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that they are actually taking a human life. If every soldier in the world woke
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up one morning and decided that how many people one has killed is not really
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the best way to keep score, we'd all be a lot better off.
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Anarchist Society
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There are many differing points of view concerning how an anarchist
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society should be organized, including communist anarchy, collectivist anarchy,
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Proudhon's anarchy (which consisted of a federal system of autonomous
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villages), and even capitalist anarchy (an oxymoron in itself).
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In a communist anarchy, all property is owned by everyone. Theft is
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therefore eliminated because everyone owns everything; everyone shares common
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property.
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Some anarchists criticize all order and restraint, and that all
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interaction is good because good and evil are arbitrarily defined. Ontological
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anarchists believe that chaos is the solution - that the hidden order inherent
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in human interaction will emerge when artificial barriers are completely
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eliminated.
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I feel that the most probable and the most truly anarchic of all the
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systems is individualist anarchy. Individualist anarchists often criticize the
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tendency to place people into groups, such as blacks, whites, women, men,
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anarchist, feminists, homosexuals, etc., and expecting that all of the members
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of a defined group will think or behave in the same way. In fact, everyone is
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unique and no system will be right for everyone. In an individualist anarchy,
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people can form whatever kind of community suits them best. An anarchy in
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which every community was identical would be almost as coercive as majority
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rule.
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- A Model of an Anarchist Community? -
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There is no set model of an anarchist community. In an individualist
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anarchy, there could be many different systems. If you ask most anarchists,
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however, they will reply with words like "mutual aid" and "voluntary
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association". The idea is that people should work with each other instead of
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for each other, and that an anarchist society would be organized in a more
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complex way than modern society. Instead of some people being leaders and
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others followers, people cooperate. Attempts to model anarchist communities
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before-the-fact cannot be only theoretical, so I will instead answer some
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questions about an anarchist society which will help to define what an
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anarchist society could be. The following is taken from Objections to
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Anarchism, by George Barrett, which appeares in The Raven (#12), an anarchist
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journal published by Freedom Press in London. Freedom Press can be reached at
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84B Whitechapel High Street, London E1 7QX.
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- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
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1. What will you do with the man who will not work?
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First of all, let us notice that this question belongs to a class to which
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many others belong. All social theories must obviously be based on the
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assumption that men are social: that is, that they will live and work
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together naturally, because by so doing they can individually better enjoy
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their lives. Therefore all such difficulties, which are really based on the
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supposition that men are not social, can be raised not against anarchism
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alone, but against any system of society that one chooses to suggest.
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Questions 11, 12, 13 and 15 belong to this class, which are merely
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based on supposition. My opponents will realise how futile they are if I
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use a similar kind of argument against their system of government. Suppose,
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I argue, that having sent your representatives into the House of Commons
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they will not sit down and legislate but that they will just play the fool,
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or, perhaps, vote themselves comfortable incomes, instead of looking after
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your welfare. It will be answered to this that they are sent there to
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legislate, and that in all human probability they will do so. Quite so; but
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we may still say 'Yes, but suppose they don't?' and whatever arguments are
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brought forward in favour of government they can always, by simply
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supposing, be rendered quite useless, since those who oppose us would never
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be able to actually guarantee that our governors would govern. Such an
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argument would be absurd, it is quite true; for though it may happen that
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occasionally legislators will sit down and vote themselves incomes instead
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of attending to the affairs of the nation, yet we could not use this as a
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logical argument against the government system.
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Similarly, when we are putting forward our ideas of free
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co-operation of anarchism, it is not good enough to argue, 'Yes, but
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suppose your co-operators will not co-operate?' for that is what questions
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of this class amount to.
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It is because we claim to be able to show that it is wrong in
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principle that we, as anarchists, are against government. In the same way,
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then, those who oppose anarchism ought not to do so by simply supposing
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that a man will do this, or won't do that, but they ought to set themselves
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to show that anarchism is in principle opposed to the welfare of mankind.
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The second interesting point to notice about the question is that
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it is generally asked by a Socialist. Behind the question there is
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obviously the implication that he who asks it has in his mind some way of
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forcing men to work. Now the most obvious of all those who will not work is
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the man who is on strike, and if you have a method of dealing with the man
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who will not work it simply means that you are going to organise a system
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of society where the government will be so all-powerful that the rebel and
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the striker will be completely crushed out. You will have a government
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class dictating to a working class the conditions under which it must
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labour, which is exactly what both anarchists and Socialists are supposed
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to be struggling against to-day.
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In a free society the man who will not work, if he should exist at
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all, is at least brought on equal terms with the man who will. He is not
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placed in a position of privilege so that he need not work, but on the
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contrary the argument which is so often used against anarchism comes very
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neatly into play here in its favour. It is often urged that it is necessary
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to organise in order to live. Quite so, and for this reason the struggle
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for life compels us to organise, and there is no need for any further
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compulsion on the part of the government. Since to organise in society is
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really to work in society, it is the law of life which constantly tends to
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make men work, whilst it is the artificial laws of privilege which put men
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in such a position that they need not work. Anarchism would do away with
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these artificial laws, and thus it is the only system which constantly
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tends to eliminate the man who will not work.
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We might perhaps here quote John Stuart Mill's answer to this objection:
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The objection ordinarily made to a system of community of property and
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equal distribution of produce-'that each person would be incessantly
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occupied in evading his share of the work'-is, I think, in general,
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considerably overstated . . . Neither in a rude nor in a civilised society
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has the supposed difficulty been experienced. In no community has idleness
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ever been a cause of failure. [1]
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...
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4. It is necessary to organise in order to live, and to organise means
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Government; therefore anarchism is impossible.
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It is true that it is necessary to organise in order to live, and since we
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all wish to live we shall all of our own free will organise, and do not
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need the compulsion of government to make us do so. Organisation does not
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mean government. All through our ordinary daily work we are organising
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without government. If two of us lift a table from one side of the room to
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the other, we naturally take hold one at each end, and we need no
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government to tell us that we must not overbalance it by both rushing to
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the same end; the reason why we agree silently, and organise ourselves to
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the correct positions, is because we both have a common purpose: we both
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wish to see the table moved. In more complex organisations the same thing
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takes place. So long as organisations are held together only by a common
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purpose they will automatically do their work smoothly. But when, in spite
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of conflicting interests, you have people held together in a common
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organisation, internal conflict results, and some outside force becomes
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necessary to preserve order; you have, in fact, governmental society. It is
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the anarchist's purpose to so organise society that the conflict of
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interests will cease, and men will co-operate and work together simply
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because they have interests in common. In such a society the organisations
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or institutions which they will form will be exactly in accordance with
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their needs; in fact, it will be a representative society.
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Free organisation is more fully discussed in answer to Questions 5 and 23.
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5. How would you regulate the traffic?
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We should not regulate it. It would be left to those whose business it was
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to concern themselves in the matter. It would pay those who use the roads
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(and therefore had, in the main, interests in common in the matter) to come
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together and discuss and make agreements as to the rules of the road. Such
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rules in fact which at present exist have been established by custom and
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not by law, though the law may sometimes take it on itself to enforce them.
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This question we see very practically answered to-day by the great
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motor clubs, which are entered voluntarily, and which study the interest of
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this portion of the traffic. At dangerous or busy corners a sentry is
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stationed who with a wave of the hand signals if the coast is clear, or if
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it is necessary to go slowly. First-aid boxes and repair shops are
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established all along the road, and arrangements are made for conveying
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home motorists whose cars are broken down.
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A very different section of road users, the carters, have found an
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equally practical answer to the question. There are, even to-day, all kinds
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of understandings and agreements amongst these men as to which goes first,
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and as to the position each shall take up in the yards and buildings where
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they work. Amongst the cabmen and taxi-drivers the same written and
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unwritten agreements exist, which are as rigidly maintained by free
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understandings as they would be by the penalties of law.
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Suppose now the influence of government were withdrawn from our
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drivers. Does anyone believe that the result would be chaos? Is it not
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infinitely more likely that the free agreements at present existing would
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extend to cover the whole necessary field? And those few useful duties now
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undertaken by the government in the matter: would they not be much more
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effectively carried out by free organisation among the drivers?
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This question has been much more fully answered by Kropotkin in The
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Conquest of Bread. In this he shows how on the canals in Holland the
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traffic (so vital to the life of that nation) is controlled by free
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agreements, to the perfect satisfaction of all concerned. The railways of
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Europe, he points out, also, are brought into co-operation with one another
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and thus welded into one system, not by a centralised administration, but
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by agreements and counter-agreements between the various companies.
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If free agreement is able to do so much even now, in a system of
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competition and government, how much more could it do when competition
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disappears, and when we trust to our own organisation instead of to that of
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a paternal government.
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...
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7. If you abolish competition you abolish the incentive to work.
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One of the strangest things about society to-day is that whilst we show a
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wonderful power to produce abundant wealth and luxury, we fail to bring
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forth the simplest necessities. Everyone, no matter what his political,
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religious or social opinions may be, will agree in this. It is too obvious
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to be disputed. On the one hand there are children without boots; on the
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other hand are the boot-makers crying out that they cannot sell their
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stock. On the one hand there are people starving or living upon unwholesome
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food, and on the other hand provision merchants complain of bad trade. Here
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are homeless men and women sleeping on the pavements and wandering nightly
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through our great cities, and here again are property-owners complaining
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that no one will come and live in their houses. And in all these cases
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production is held up because there is no demand. Is not this an
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intolerable state of affairs? What now shall we say about the incentive to
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work? Is it not obvious that the present incentive is wrong and mischievous
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up to the point of starvation and ruination. That which induces us to
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produce silks and diamonds and dreadnoughts and toy pomeranians, whilst
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bread and boots and houses are needed, is wholly and absolutely wrong.
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To-day the scramble is to compete for the greatest profits. If
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there is more profit to be made in satisfying my lady's passing whim than
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there is in feeding hungry children, then competition brings us in feverish
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haste to supply the former, whilst cold charity or the poor law can supply
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the latter, or leave it unsupplied, just as it feels disposed. That is how
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it works out. This is the reason: the producer and the consumer are the two
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essentials; a constant flow of wealth passes from one to the other, but
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between them stands the profit-maker and his competition system, and he is
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able to divert that stream into what channel best pleases him. Sweep him
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away and the producer and the consumer are brought into direct relationship
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with one another. When he and his competitive system are gone there will
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still remain the only useful incentive to work, and that will be the needs
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of the people. The need for the common necessities and the highest luxuries
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of life will be not only fundamental as it is to-day, but the direct motive
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power behind all production and distribution. It is obvious, I think, that
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this is the ideal to be aimed at, for it is only in such circumstances that
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production and distribution will be carried on for its legitimate
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purpose-to satisfy the needs of the people; and for no other reason.
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...
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9. Under anarchism the country would be invaded by a foreign enemy.
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At present the country is held by that which we consider to be an enemy
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-the landlord and capitalist class. If we are able to free ourselves from
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this, which is well established and at home on the land, surely we should
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be able to make shift against a foreign invading force of men, who are
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fighting, not for their own country, but for their weekly wage.
|
||
|
It must be remembered, too, that anarchism is an international
|
||
|
movement, and if we do establish a revolution in this country, in other
|
||
|
countries the people would have become at least sufficiently rebellious for
|
||
|
their master class to consider it advisable to keep their armies at home.
|
||
|
...
|
||
|
|
||
|
11. If two people want the same piece of land under anarchism, how will you
|
||
|
settle the dispute?
|
||
|
|
||
|
First of all, it is well to notice here that Questions 11, 12 and 13 all
|
||
|
belong to the same class. No. 11, at least, is based upon a fallacy. If
|
||
|
there are two persons who want the exclusive right to the same thing, it is
|
||
|
quite obvious that there is no satisfactory solution to the problem. It
|
||
|
does not matter in the least what system of society you suggest, you cannot
|
||
|
possibly satisfy that position. It is exactly as if I were suggesting a new
|
||
|
system of mathematics, and someone asked me: 'Yes, but under this new
|
||
|
system suppose you want to make ten go into one hundred eleven times?' The
|
||
|
truth is that if you do a problem by arithmetic, or if you do it by
|
||
|
algebra, or trigonometry, or by any other method, the same answer must be
|
||
|
produced for the given problem; and just as you cannot make ten go into one
|
||
|
hundred more than ten times, so you cannot make more than one person have
|
||
|
the exclusive right to one thing. If two people want it, then at least one
|
||
|
must remain in want, whatever may be the form of society in which they are
|
||
|
living. Therefore, to begin with, we see that there cannot be a
|
||
|
satisfactory way of settling this trouble, for the objection has been
|
||
|
raised by simply supposing an unsatisfactory state of affairs.
|
||
|
All that we can say is that such disputes are very much better
|
||
|
settled without the interference of authority. If the two were reasonable,
|
||
|
they would probably mutually agree to allow their dispute to be settled by
|
||
|
some mutual friend whose judgement they could trust. But if instead of
|
||
|
taking this sane course they decide to set up a fixed authority, disaster
|
||
|
will be the inevitable result. In the first place, this authority will have
|
||
|
to be given power wherewith to enforce its judgement in such matters. What
|
||
|
will then take place? The answer is quite simple. Feeling it is a superior
|
||
|
force, it will naturally in each case take to itself the best of what is
|
||
|
disputed, and allot the rest to its friends.
|
||
|
What a strange question is this. It supposes that two people who
|
||
|
meet on terms of equality and disagree could not be reasonable or just.
|
||
|
But, on the other hand, it supposes that a third party, starting with an
|
||
|
unfair advantage, and backed up by violence, will be the incarnation of
|
||
|
justice itself. Commonsense should certainly warn us against such a
|
||
|
supposition, and if we are lacking in this commodity, then we may learn the
|
||
|
lesson by turning to the facts of life. There we see everywhere Authority
|
||
|
standing by, and in the name of justice and fair play using its organised
|
||
|
violence in order to take the lion's share of the world's wealth for the
|
||
|
governmental class.
|
||
|
We can only say, then, in answer to such a question, that if people
|
||
|
are going to be quarrelsome and constantly disagree then, of course, no
|
||
|
state of society will suit them, for they are unsocial animals. If they are
|
||
|
only occasionally so, then each case must stand on its merits and be
|
||
|
settled by those concerned.
|
||
|
...
|
||
|
|
||
|
12. Suppose one district wants to construct a railway to pass through a
|
||
|
neighbouring community, which opposes it. How would you settle this?
|
||
|
|
||
|
It is curious that this question is not only asked by those who support the
|
||
|
present system, but it is also frequently put by the Socialists. Yet surely
|
||
|
it implies at once the aggressive spirit of Capitalism, for is it not the
|
||
|
capitalist who talks of opening up the various countries of the world, and
|
||
|
does he not do this in the very first instance by having a war in order
|
||
|
that he may run his railways through, in spite of the local opposition by
|
||
|
the natives? Now, if you have a country in which there are various
|
||
|
communes, it stands to reason that the people in those communes will want
|
||
|
facilities for travelling, and for receiving and sending their goods. That
|
||
|
will not be much more true of one little community than of another. This,
|
||
|
then, not only implies a local railway, but a continuous railway running
|
||
|
from one end of the country to the other. If a certain district, then, is
|
||
|
going to object to have such a valuable asset given to it, it will surely
|
||
|
be that there is some reason for such an objection. That being so, would it
|
||
|
not be folly to have an authority to force that community to submit to the
|
||
|
railway passing through?
|
||
|
If this reason does not exist, we are simply supposing a society of
|
||
|
unreasonable people and asking how they should co-operate together. The
|
||
|
truth is that they could not co-operate together, and it is quite useless
|
||
|
to look for any state of society which will suit such a people. The
|
||
|
objection, therefore, need not be raised against anarchism, hut against
|
||
|
society itself. What would a government society propose to do? Would it
|
||
|
start a civil war over the matter? Would it build a prison large enough to
|
||
|
enclose this community, and imprison all the people for resisting the law?
|
||
|
In fact, what power has any authority to deal with the matter which the
|
||
|
anarchists have not got?
|
||
|
The question is childish. It is simply based on the supposition
|
||
|
that people are unreasonable, and if such suppositions are allowed to pass
|
||
|
as arguments, then any proposed state of society may be easily argued out
|
||
|
of existence. I must repeat that many of these questions are of this type,
|
||
|
and a reader with a due sense of logic will be able to see how worthless
|
||
|
they are, and will not need to read the particular answers I have given to
|
||
|
them.
|
||
|
|
||
|
|
||
|
13. Suppose your free people want to build a bridge across a river, but
|
||
|
they disagree as to position. How will you settle it?
|
||
|
|
||
|
To begin with, it is obvious, but important, to notice that it is not I,
|
||
|
but they, who would settle it. The way it would work out, I imagine, is
|
||
|
something like this:
|
||
|
We will call the two groups who differ A and B. Then-
|
||
|
1 A may be of opinion that the B scheme would be utterly useless to it,
|
||
|
and that the only possible position for the bridge is where it has
|
||
|
suggested. In which case it will say: 'Help our scheme, or don't co-operate
|
||
|
at all.'
|
||
|
2 A may be of opinion that the B scheme is useless, but, recognising
|
||
|
the value of B's help, it may be willing to budge a few yards, and so
|
||
|
effect a compromise with B.
|
||
|
3 A, finding it can get no help from B unless it gives way altogether, may
|
||
|
do so, believing that the help thus obtained is worth more than the
|
||
|
sacrifice of position.
|
||
|
These are, I think, the three courses open to A. The same three are open to
|
||
|
B. I will leave it to the reader to combine the two, and I think he will
|
||
|
find the result will be either:
|
||
|
1 That the bridge is built in the A position, with, we will say, the
|
||
|
half-hearted support of B;
|
||
|
or
|
||
|
2 The same thing, but with letters A and B reversed;
|
||
|
or
|
||
|
3 The bridge is built somewhere between, with the partial support of
|
||
|
both parties;
|
||
|
or
|
||
|
4 Each party pursues its own course, independent of the other.
|
||
|
In any case it will be seen, I hope, that the final structure will
|
||
|
be representative, and that, on the other hand, if one party was able to
|
||
|
force the other to pay for what it did not want, the result would not be
|
||
|
representative or just.
|
||
|
The usefulness of this somewhat dreary argument will be seen if it
|
||
|
be applied not merely to bridge-building but to all the activities of life.
|
||
|
By so doing we are able to imagine growing into existence a state of
|
||
|
society where groups of people work together so far as they agree, and work
|
||
|
separately when they do not. The institutions they construct will be in
|
||
|
accord with their wishes and needs. It will indeed be representative. How
|
||
|
different is this from the politician's view of things, who always wants to
|
||
|
force the people to co-operate in running his idea of society!
|
||
|
|
||
|
|
||
|
14. What would you do with the criminal?
|
||
|
|
||
|
There is an important question which should come before this, but which our
|
||
|
opponents never seem to care to ask. First of all, we have to decide who
|
||
|
are the criminals, or rather, even before this, we have to come to an
|
||
|
understanding as to who is to decide who are the criminals? To-day the rich
|
||
|
man says to the poor man: 'If we were not here as your guardians you would
|
||
|
be beset by robbers who would take away from you all your possessions.' But
|
||
|
the rich man has all the wealth and luxury that the poor man has produced,
|
||
|
and whilst he claims to have protected the people from robbery he has
|
||
|
secured for himself the lion's share in the name of the law. Surely then it
|
||
|
becomes a question for the poor man which he has occasion to dread most-the
|
||
|
robber, who is very unlikely to take anything from him, or the law, which
|
||
|
allows the rich man to take all the best of that which is manufactured.
|
||
|
To the majority of people the criminals in society are not to be
|
||
|
very much dreaded even to-day, for they are for the most part people who
|
||
|
are at war with those who own the land and have captured all the means of
|
||
|
life. In a free society, where no such ownership existed, and where all
|
||
|
that is necessary could be obtained by all that have any need, the criminal
|
||
|
will always tend to die out. To-day, under our present system, he is always
|
||
|
tending to become more numerous.
|
||
|
|
||
|
|
||
|
15. It is necessary for every great town to have a drainage. Suppose
|
||
|
someone refuses to connect up, what would you do with him?
|
||
|
|
||
|
This objection is another of the 'supposition' class, all of which have
|
||
|
really been answered in dealing with question No. 1. It is based on the
|
||
|
unsocial man, whereas all systems of society must be organised for social
|
||
|
people. The truth, of course, is that in a free society the experts on
|
||
|
sanitation would get together and organise our drainage system, and the
|
||
|
people who lived in the district would be only too glad to find these
|
||
|
convenient arrangements made for them. But still it is possible to suppose
|
||
|
that somebody will not agree to this; what then will you do with him? What
|
||
|
do our government friends suggest?
|
||
|
The only thing that they can do which in our anarchist society we
|
||
|
would not do, is to put him in prison, for we can use all the arguments to
|
||
|
persuade him that they can. How much would the town gain by doing this?
|
||
|
Here is a description of an up-to-date prison cell into which he might be
|
||
|
thrown:
|
||
|
|
||
|
I slept in one of the ordinary cells, which have sliding panes, leaving at
|
||
|
the best two openings about six inches square. The windows are set in the
|
||
|
wall high up and are 3 by I l/2 or 2 feet area. Added to this they are very
|
||
|
dirty, so that the light in the cell is always dim. After the prisoner has
|
||
|
been locked in the cell all night the air is unbearable, and its
|
||
|
unhealthiness is increased by damp.
|
||
|
The 'convenience' supplied in the cell is totally inadequate, and
|
||
|
even if it be of a proper size and does not leak, the fact that it remains
|
||
|
unemptied from evening till morning is, in case of illness especially, very
|
||
|
insanitary and dangerous to health. 'Lavatory time' is permitted only at a
|
||
|
fixed hour twice a day, only one water-closet being provided for twenty
|
||
|
three cells. [2]
|
||
|
|
||
|
Thus we see that whilst we are going to guarantee this man being cleanly by
|
||
|
means of violence, we have no guarantee that the very violence itself which
|
||
|
we use will not be filthy.
|
||
|
But there is another way of looking at this question. Mr Charles
|
||
|
Mayl, MB (Bachelor of Medicine) of New College, Oxford, after an outbreak
|
||
|
of typhoid fever, was asked to examine the drainage of Windsor; he stated
|
||
|
that:
|
||
|
|
||
|
In a previous visitation of typhoid fever the poorest and lowest parts of
|
||
|
the town had entirely escaped, whilst the epidemic had been very fatal in
|
||
|
good houses. The difference was that whilst the better houses were all
|
||
|
connected with sewers the poor part of the town had not drains, but made
|
||
|
use of cesspools in the gardens. And this is by no means an isolated
|
||
|
instance.
|
||
|
|
||
|
It would not be out of place to quote Herbert Spencer here:
|
||
|
|
||
|
One part of our Sanitary Administration having insisted upon a drainage
|
||
|
system by which Oxford, Reading, Maidenhead, Windsor, etc, pollute the
|
||
|
water which Londoners have to drink, another part of our Sanitary
|
||
|
Administration makes loud protests against the impurity of water which he
|
||
|
charges with causing diseases -not remarking, however, that law-enforced
|
||
|
arrangements have produced the impurity.
|
||
|
|
||
|
We begin to see therefore that the man who objected to connecting
|
||
|
his house with the drains would probably be a man who is interested in the
|
||
|
subject, and who knows something about sanitation. It would be of the
|
||
|
utmost importance that he should be listened to and his objections removed,
|
||
|
instead of shutting him up in an unhealthy prison. The fact is, the rebel
|
||
|
is here just as important as he is in other matters, and he can only
|
||
|
profitably be eliminated by giving him satisfaction, not by trying to crush
|
||
|
him out.
|
||
|
As the man of the drains has only been taken as an example by our
|
||
|
objector, it would be interesting here to quote a similar case where the
|
||
|
regulations for stamping out cattle diseases were objected to by someone
|
||
|
who was importing cattle. In a letter to the Times, signed 'Landowner',
|
||
|
dated 2nd August, 1872, the writer tells how he bought 'ten fine young
|
||
|
steers, perfectly free from any symptom of disease, and passed sound by the
|
||
|
inspector of foreign stock'. Soon after their arrival in England they were
|
||
|
attacked by foot and mouth disease. On inquiry he found that foreign stock,
|
||
|
however healthy, 'mostly all go down with it after the passage'. The
|
||
|
government regulations for stamping out this disease were that the stock
|
||
|
should be driven from the steamer into the pens for a limited number of
|
||
|
hours. There seems therefore very little doubt that it was in this
|
||
|
quarantine that the healthy animals contracted the disease and spread it
|
||
|
among the English cattle. [3]
|
||
|
|
||
|
Every new drove of cattle is kept for hours in an infected pen. Unless the
|
||
|
successive droves have been all healthy (which the very institution of the
|
||
|
quarantine implies that they have not been) some of them have left in the
|
||
|
pen disease matter from their mouths and feet. Even if disinfectants are
|
||
|
used after each occupation, the risk is great-the disinfectant is almost
|
||
|
certain to be inadequate. Nay, even if the pen is adequately disinfected
|
||
|
every time, yet if there is not also a complete disinfection of the landing
|
||
|
appliances, the landing-stage and the track to the pen, the disease will be
|
||
|
communicated . . . The quarantine regulations . . . might properly be
|
||
|
called regulations for the better diffusion of cattle diseases'.
|
||
|
|
||
|
Would our objector to anarchism suggest that the man who refuses to put his
|
||
|
cattle in these pens should be sent to prison?
|
||
|
...
|
||
|
|
||
|
18. We cannot all agree and think alike and be perfect, and therefore laws
|
||
|
are necessary, or we shall have chaos.
|
||
|
|
||
|
It is because we cannot all agree that anarchism becomes necessary. If we
|
||
|
all thought alike it would not matter in the least if we had one common law
|
||
|
to which we must all submit. But as many of us think differently, it
|
||
|
becomes absurd to try to force us to act the same by means of the
|
||
|
government which we are silly enough to call representative.
|
||
|
A very important point is touched upon here. It is because
|
||
|
anarchists recognise the absolute necessity of allowing for this difference
|
||
|
among men that they are anarchists. The truth is that all progress is
|
||
|
accompanied by a process of differentiation, or of the increasing
|
||
|
difference of parts. If we take the most primitive organism we can find it
|
||
|
is simply a tiny globule of plasm, that is, of living substance. It is
|
||
|
entirely undifferentiated: that is to say, all its parts are alike. An
|
||
|
organism next above this in the evolutionary scale will be found to have
|
||
|
developed a nucleus. And now the tiny living thing is composed of two
|
||
|
distinctly different parts, the cell-body and its nucleus. If we went on
|
||
|
comparing various organisms we should find that all those of a more complex
|
||
|
nature were made up of clusters of these tiny organisms or cells. In the
|
||
|
most primitive of these clusters there would be very little difference
|
||
|
between one cell and another. As we get a little higher we find that
|
||
|
certain cells in the clusters have taken upon themselves certain duties,
|
||
|
and for this purpose have arranged themselves in special ways. By and by,
|
||
|
when we get to the higher animals, we shall find that this process has
|
||
|
advanced so far that some cells have grouped together to form the breathing
|
||
|
apparatus, that is, the lungs; others are responsible for the circulation
|
||
|
of the blood; others make up the nervous tissue; and so on, so that we say
|
||
|
they form the various 'organs' of the body. The point we have to notice is
|
||
|
that the higher we get in the animal or vegetable kingdom, the more
|
||
|
difference we find between the tiny units or cells which compose the body
|
||
|
or organism. Applying this argument to the social body or organism which we
|
||
|
call society, it is clear that the more highly developed that organism
|
||
|
becomes, the more different will be the units (ie the people) and organs
|
||
|
(ie institutions and clubs) which compose it.
|
||
|
(For an answer to the argument based on the supposed need of a
|
||
|
controlling centre for the 'social organism', see Objection No. 21.)
|
||
|
When, therefore, we want progress we must allow people to differ.
|
||
|
This is the very essential difference between the anarchists and the
|
||
|
governmentalists. The government is always endeavouring to make men
|
||
|
uniform. So literally true is this that in most countries it actually
|
||
|
forces them into the uniform of the soldier or the convict. Thus government
|
||
|
shows itself as the great reactionary tendency. The anarchist, on the other
|
||
|
hand, would break down this and would allow always for the development of
|
||
|
new ideas, new growth, and new institutions; so that society would be
|
||
|
responsive always to the influence of its really greatest men, and to the
|
||
|
surrounding influences, whatever they may be.
|
||
|
It would be easier to get at this argument from a simpler
|
||
|
standpoint. It is really quite clear that if we were all agreed, or if we
|
||
|
were forced to act as if we did agree, we could not have any progress
|
||
|
whatever. Change can take place only when someone disagrees with what is,
|
||
|
and with the help of a small minority succeeds in putting that disagreement
|
||
|
into practice. No government makes allowance for this fact, and
|
||
|
consequently all progress which is made has to come in spite of
|
||
|
governments, not by their agency.
|
||
|
I am tempted to touch upon yet another argument here, although I
|
||
|
have already given this question too much space. Let me add just one
|
||
|
example of the findings of modern science. Everyone knows that there is sex
|
||
|
relationship and sex romance in plant life just as there is in the animal
|
||
|
world, and it is the hasty conclusion with most of us that sex has been
|
||
|
evolved for the purposes of reproduction of the species. A study of the
|
||
|
subject, however, proves that plants were amply provided with the means of
|
||
|
reproduction before the first signs of sex appeared. Science then has had
|
||
|
to ask itself: what was the utility of sex evolution? The answer to this
|
||
|
conundrum it has been found lies in the fact that 'the sexual method of
|
||
|
reproduction multiplies variation as no other method of reproduction can.'
|
||
|
[4]
|
||
|
If I have over-elaborated this answer it is because I have wished
|
||
|
to interest (but by no means to satisfy) anyone who may see the importance
|
||
|
of the subject. A useful work is waiting to be accomplished by some
|
||
|
enthusiast who will study differentiation scientifically, and show the
|
||
|
bearing of the facts on the organisation of human society.
|
||
|
|
||
|
|
||
|
19. If you abolish government, you will do away with the marriage laws.
|
||
|
|
||
|
We shall.
|
||
|
|
||
|
|
||
|
20. How will you regulate sexual relationship and family affairs?
|
||
|
|
||
|
It is curious that sentimental people will declare that love is our
|
||
|
greatest attribute, and that freedom is the highest possible condition. Yet
|
||
|
if we propose that love shall go free they are shocked and horrified.
|
||
|
There is one really genuine difficulty, however, which people do
|
||
|
meet in regard to this question. With a very limited understanding they
|
||
|
look at things as they are to-day, and see all kinds of repulsive
|
||
|
happenings: unwanted children, husbands longing to be free from their
|
||
|
wives, and-there is no need to enumerate them. For all this, the sincere
|
||
|
thinker is able to see the marriage law is no remedy; but, on the other
|
||
|
hand, he sees also that the abolition of that law would also in itself be
|
||
|
no remedy.
|
||
|
This is true, no doubt. We cannot expect a well-balanced humanity
|
||
|
if we give freedom on one point and slavery on the remainder. The movement
|
||
|
towards free love is only logical and useful if it takes its place as part
|
||
|
of the general movement towards emancipation.
|
||
|
Love will only come to a normal and healthy condition when it is
|
||
|
set in a world without slums and poverty, and without all the incentives to
|
||
|
crime which exist to-day. When such a condition is reached it will be folly
|
||
|
to bind men and women together, or keep them apart, by laws. Liberty and
|
||
|
free agreement must be the basis of this most essential relationship as
|
||
|
surely as it must be of all others.
|
||
|
...
|
||
|
|
||
|
22. You can't change human nature.
|
||
|
|
||
|
To begin with, let me point out that I am a part of human nature, and by
|
||
|
all my own development I am contributing to and helping in the development
|
||
|
and modification of human nature.
|
||
|
If the argument is that I cannot change human nature and mould it
|
||
|
into any form at will, then, of course, it is quite true. If, on the other
|
||
|
hand, it is intended to suggest that human nature remains ever the same,
|
||
|
then the argument is hopelessly unsound. Change seems to be one of the
|
||
|
fundamental laws of existence, and especially of organic nature. Man has
|
||
|
developed from the lowest animals, and who can say that he has reached the
|
||
|
limits of his possibilities?
|
||
|
However, as it so happens, social reformers and revolutionists do
|
||
|
not so much rely on the fact that human nature will change as they do upon
|
||
|
the theory that the same nature will act differently under different
|
||
|
circumstances.
|
||
|
A man becomes an outlaw and a criminal to-day because he steals to
|
||
|
feed his family. In a free society there would be no such reason for theft,
|
||
|
and consequently this same criminal born into such a world might become a
|
||
|
respectable family man. A change for the worse? Possibly; but the point is
|
||
|
that it is a change. The same character acts differently under the new
|
||
|
circumstances.
|
||
|
To sum up, then:
|
||
|
1 Human nature does change and develop along certain lines, the
|
||
|
direction of which we may influence;
|
||
|
2 The fundamental fact is that nature acts according to the condition in
|
||
|
which it finds itself.
|
||
|
The latter part of the next answer (No. 23) will be found to apply
|
||
|
equally here.
|
||
|
|
||
|
|
||
|
23. Who would do the dirty work under anarchism?
|
||
|
|
||
|
To-day machinery is introduced to replace, as far as possible, the highly
|
||
|
paid man. It can only do this very partially, but it is obvious that since
|
||
|
machinery is to save the cost of production it will be applied to those
|
||
|
things where the cost is considerable. In those branches where labour is
|
||
|
very cheap there is not the same incentive to supersede it by machines.
|
||
|
Now things are so strangely organised at present that it is just
|
||
|
the dirty and disagreeable work that men will do cheaply, and consequently
|
||
|
there is no great rush to invent machines to take their place. In a free
|
||
|
society, on the other hand, it is clear that the disagreeable work will be
|
||
|
one of the first things that machinery will be called upon to eliminate. It
|
||
|
is quite fair to argue, therefore, that the disagreeable work will, to a
|
||
|
large extent, disappear in a state of anarchism.
|
||
|
This, however, leaves the question only partially answered. Some
|
||
|
time ago, during a strike at Leeds, the roadmen and scavengers refused to
|
||
|
do their work. The respectable inhabitants of Leeds recognised the danger
|
||
|
of this state of affairs, and organised themselves to do the dirty work.
|
||
|
University students were sweeping the streets and carrying boxes of refuse.
|
||
|
They answered the question better than I can. They have taught us that a
|
||
|
free people would recognise the necessity of such work being done, and
|
||
|
would one way or another organise to do it.
|
||
|
Let me give another example more interesting than this and widely
|
||
|
differing from it, thus showing how universally true is my answer.
|
||
|
Within civilised society probably it would be difficult to find two
|
||
|
classes differing more widely than the University student of to-day and the
|
||
|
labourer of Western Ireland nearly a hundred years ago. At Ralahine in 1830
|
||
|
was started the most successful of the many Co-operative or Communist
|
||
|
experiments for which that period was remarkable. There, on the poorest of
|
||
|
bog-soil, amongst 'the lowest order of Irish poor, discontented, disorderly
|
||
|
and vicious, and under the worst circumstances imaginable', an ideal little
|
||
|
experimental community was formed. Among the agreements entered into by
|
||
|
these practical impossibilists was one which said that 'no member be
|
||
|
expected to perform any service or work but such as is agreeable to his or
|
||
|
her feelings', yet certain it is that the disagreeable work was daily
|
||
|
performed. The following dialogue between a passing stage-coach passenger
|
||
|
and a member of the community, whom he found working in water which reached
|
||
|
his middle, is recorded:
|
||
|
|
||
|
'Are you working by yourself?' inquired the traveller. 'Yes', was the
|
||
|
answer. 'Where is your steward?' 'We have no steward.' 'Who is your
|
||
|
master?' 'We have no master. We are on a new system.' 'Then who sent you to
|
||
|
do this work?' 'The committee', replied the man in the dam. 'Who is the
|
||
|
committee?' asked the mail-coach visitor. 'Some of the members.' 'What
|
||
|
members do you mean?' 'The ploughmen and labourers who are appointed by us
|
||
|
as a committee. I belong to the new systemites.'
|
||
|
|
||
|
Members of this community were elected by ballot among the peasants
|
||
|
of Ralahine. 'There was no inequality established among them', says G. J.
|
||
|
Holyoake, [5] to whom I am indebted for the above description. He adds: 'It
|
||
|
seems incredible that this simple and reasonable form of government [6]
|
||
|
should supersede the government of the bludgeon and the blunderbuss-the
|
||
|
customary mode by which Irish labourers of that day regulated their
|
||
|
industrial affairs. Yet peace and prosperity prevailed through an
|
||
|
arrangement of equity.'
|
||
|
The community was successful for three and a half years, and then
|
||
|
its end was brought about by causes entirely external. The man who had
|
||
|
given his land up for the purposes of the experiment lost his money by
|
||
|
gambling, and the colony of 618 acres had to be forfeited. This example of
|
||
|
the introduction of a new system among such unpromising circumstances might
|
||
|
well have been used in answer to Objection No. 22 -'You can't change human
|
||
|
nature'.
|
||
|
|
||
|
1. J. S. Mill, Political Economy Vol. I, p.251.
|
||
|
2. Women end Prisons Fabian Tract No. 16.
|
||
|
3. The typhoid and the cattle disease cases are both quoted in the notes to
|
||
|
Herbert Spencer's The Study of Sociology.
|
||
|
4. The Evolution of Sex in Plants by Professor J. Merle Coulter. It is
|
||
|
interesting to add that he closes his book with these words: 'Its
|
||
|
[sexuality's] significance lies in the fact that it makes organic evolution
|
||
|
more rapid and far more varied. '
|
||
|
5. History of Co-operation.
|
||
|
6. I need not, I think, stay to explain the sense in which this word is
|
||
|
used. The committee were workers, not specialised advisers; above all, they
|
||
|
had no authority and could only suggest and not issue orders. They were,
|
||
|
therefore, not a Government.
|
||
|
|
||
|
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
|
||
|
|
||
|
- Technology and Anarchy -
|
||
|
|
||
|
Some anachists, such as "anarcho-primitivists", denounce technology as
|
||
|
slavery. I firmly believe that technology - using tools to improve quality of
|
||
|
life - is a basic characteristic of all human beings. While we must not
|
||
|
completely rely on technology and government-funded research for survival,
|
||
|
technology and its advancement are important parts of any society. Government
|
||
|
is not responsible for scientific advancement. Almost all of the great
|
||
|
historical scientific discoveries were made without the "benefit" of government
|
||
|
grants. Government funding only allows scientists to be exploited and made to
|
||
|
do science to suit the state's purposes. Science should be done for the good
|
||
|
of humanity, not the good of the government - you can always depend on
|
||
|
government to find a way to make a weapon out of any new technology. When
|
||
|
resources are readily accessible to everyone, technology will be free to
|
||
|
advance as rapidly as it does now.
|
||
|
|
||
|
|
||
|
|
||
|
|
||
|
The Case For Anarchism
|
||
|
|
||
|
To prove a need for change, one must prove that a problem exists with
|
||
|
the status quo, that the problem is inherent in the status quo, that the harm
|
||
|
is sufficient to cause concern, and that the proposed change will solve the
|
||
|
problem and eliminate the harm. In the following paragraphs I will show that a
|
||
|
change to anarchy is preferable to the status quo: coercion.
|
||
|
|
||
|
- The Problem Exists -
|
||
|
|
||
|
There are many problems with government as a foundation of society.
|
||
|
Aside from coercion being unethical, there are many practical reasons why
|
||
|
anarchy will work better.
|
||
|
#1: Power corrupts. Anyone put in a position of power is highly likely
|
||
|
to use that power to use that power to their own ends, and will not be able to
|
||
|
fairly represent the interests of everyone that he or she is supposed to
|
||
|
"represent".
|
||
|
#2: The majority does not necessarily know better than the minority.
|
||
|
Truth does not change simply because 51% of the people think differently. The
|
||
|
majority, who simply think along with the most popular opinion of the day,
|
||
|
cannot possibly be placed in charge and expected to look after the rights of
|
||
|
the minority. The only way everyone's rights can be protected is if every
|
||
|
person is his or her own government, and be restrained only by conscience and
|
||
|
reason. We are perfectly capable of making our own conscious choices, and have
|
||
|
our decisions made for us by someone else. In this age we have been
|
||
|
conditioned to blindly accept coercion as the only way of life.
|
||
|
#3: The class system restrains the rights of indivisuals by forcing
|
||
|
them into positions in society that they may not be best suited for. Someone
|
||
|
who is born into the working class will, in all likelyhood, do no better than
|
||
|
their parents. People born into the upper class can afford to do no work at
|
||
|
all while depending upon the exploitation of the working class to support them.
|
||
|
#4: Capitalism is a zero-sum game. Capitalism is a pyramid sceme,
|
||
|
based on the assumption that property accumulated by the rich will "trickle
|
||
|
down", eventually reaching the even the poorest citizen. it is also based on
|
||
|
the assumption that people are by nature competitive, and that a community will
|
||
|
be better off if everyone is continually fighting everyone else and no one
|
||
|
cares about anyone but him or her self. This is about as foolish as putting
|
||
|
thirty people into a locked room with thirty baseball bats and telling them
|
||
|
that to "win", they have to hit everyone else harder than they get hit. It
|
||
|
won't take them long to realize that they would really all win if no one hit
|
||
|
anyone else at all: if they cooperate rather than compete. Capitalism assumes
|
||
|
that for one person to be happy (by a capitalist definition, read: rich and
|
||
|
powerful), someone else must be made miserable (read: poor and powerless). For
|
||
|
the anarchist, happiness does not come from having the most money (dollars,
|
||
|
gold, cattle) or having the most control over others. In an anarchist society,
|
||
|
no one has to be stepped on in order for everyone to profit. In a capitalist
|
||
|
society, everyone does as little work as they possibly can - time is money,
|
||
|
after all. An anarchist society, in which everyone is equal and no one can
|
||
|
profit from the slavery of others, would be much more efficient.
|
||
|
#5. Government is a wasteful bureaucracy. Government and the ruling
|
||
|
class waste the products of the working class's labor, through taxes,
|
||
|
enforcement of unnecessary laws, and the rich living in luxury while the poor
|
||
|
suffer. The American government pays social security to old rich people, while
|
||
|
young poor children are dying on the streets of easily treatable illnesses.
|
||
|
#6. Supply/demand economics doesn't work. The pyramid scheme must
|
||
|
eventually collapse. If capitalism works, then why are there people struggling
|
||
|
to earn or steal enough to buy enough shoes for all of their children when shoe
|
||
|
store owners are complaining that they can't sell enough shoes?
|
||
|
#7. Government creates crime. The government prohibits, and
|
||
|
prohibition creates crime. The status quo creates poverty and poverty creates
|
||
|
crime. The government artificially increases the prices of drugs by
|
||
|
criminalizing them. As Emma Goldman said, "The most absurd apology for
|
||
|
authority and law is that they serve to diminish crime. Aside from the fact
|
||
|
that the state itself is the greatest criminal, breaking every written and
|
||
|
natural law, stealing in the form of taxes, killing in the form of war and
|
||
|
capital punishment, it has come to an absolute standstill in coping with crime.
|
||
|
It has failed utterly to destroy or even minimize the terrible scourge of its
|
||
|
own creation." The government only protects those in control, and cares little
|
||
|
about the lower classes. Do you feel that you are protected when you walk
|
||
|
through the streets in the "bad" part of town? The government places little
|
||
|
value in the poor and inner-city youth.
|
||
|
|
||
|
There is harm in the status quo, and certainly they are enough to cause
|
||
|
concern. Society is degrading every day because of classism, racism, ageism,
|
||
|
sexism, and innumerable other -isms. Every day, the government seizes more
|
||
|
power, supposedly for our own protection. We don't need to be protected from
|
||
|
ourselves and we don't need to be protected from each other.
|
||
|
|
||
|
- The Problem Is Inherent -
|
||
|
|
||
|
These problems are inherent in any system based on coercion or
|
||
|
competition. They cannot be solved within the present system, partly because
|
||
|
of people's attitudes and partly because of the structure of authoritarian
|
||
|
government itself.
|
||
|
#1. Power is always corruptive, no matter if the power is in the hands
|
||
|
of a dictator, a congress, or a majority.
|
||
|
#2. While we agree that the majority does not have any more right to
|
||
|
rule than the minority, a system of minority rule would still by tyranny. No
|
||
|
individual or group should be given the right to control any other.
|
||
|
#3. The class system does not have to be imposed directly. Under a
|
||
|
capitalist, democratic, "free" society, classes are imposed more subtly, by
|
||
|
allowing certain people to accumulate more property than others and allowing
|
||
|
them to use it to exploit the rest of the people.
|
||
|
#4. Not just capitalism, but any money economy is based on the passing
|
||
|
around of a fixed amount of money. Even if the value of a country's monetary
|
||
|
unit gains value, that money is coming from somewhere. Specifically, the money
|
||
|
is either coming from other countries or people are doing more work for less
|
||
|
money. Any time anyone makes money, they are indirectly taking it away from
|
||
|
someone else.
|
||
|
#5. All governments require the expenditure of wealth to operate: to
|
||
|
feed their armies, to build killing machines, and to hire police to control
|
||
|
their citizens and extort money from them. In an anarchist society, the
|
||
|
workers get to reap all the benefits of their labor, without their employers
|
||
|
and government taking it away from them.
|
||
|
#6. Poverty is a problem in every country. In an anarchist community,
|
||
|
people would trade freely with each other and with the local shoe-makers, and
|
||
|
every person would have everything he or she needs. When money and the
|
||
|
accumulation of property have been abolished, so too will poverty.
|
||
|
#7. Crime is created by government because all authority causes us to
|
||
|
substitute laws for ethics and act only according to what is legal rather than
|
||
|
what is acceptable by our conscience.
|
||
|
|
||
|
- Anarchy Will Solve the Problem -
|
||
|
|
||
|
Will anarchy solve these problems? Yes. Power will not be corruptive
|
||
|
because power will not exist. Neither the majority nor the minority will rule
|
||
|
because each person will govern themselves. Class will finally be eliminated
|
||
|
forever, and equality will finally be realized. Political and economic slavery
|
||
|
will be abolished. A capitalist society would not simply spring up again
|
||
|
because the only people who would want to become members of such a society are
|
||
|
the rich, and a capitalist society depends on the exploitation of the working
|
||
|
class for its survival. Poverty would be resolved. There are enough goods to
|
||
|
go around; the problem not is that the upper 1% of households control more of
|
||
|
it than the lower 90%. In an anarchist society, people would not have to be
|
||
|
exploited in order for people to profit and society to advance. Voluntary
|
||
|
association and mutual aid are certainly preferable to force. Humanity's full
|
||
|
potential may finally be realized if we only stop fighting each other and
|
||
|
trying to control one another. Anarchy will solve the problems of the status
|
||
|
quo, eliminate the harm, and open up immeasurable possibilities.
|
||
|
|
||
|
|
||
|
|
||
|
|
||
|
The History of Anarchism
|
||
|
|
||
|
The rejection of authority dates back to the Stoics and Cynics, and
|
||
|
has been around for millenia. However, the terms anarchist, anarchism, and
|
||
|
anarchy, from the Greek "an archos" (without a rule), were used entirely in a
|
||
|
negative manner before the nineteenth century.
|
||
|
|
||
|
- Proudhon and the Mutualists -
|
||
|
|
||
|
In 1840, in his controversial "What Is Property", French political
|
||
|
writer and socialist Pierre-Joseph Proudhon became the first person to call
|
||
|
himself an anarchist. In this book, Proudhon stated that the real laws of
|
||
|
society have nothing to do with authority, but stem instead from the nature of
|
||
|
society itself. He also predicted the eventual dissolve of authority and the
|
||
|
appearence of a natural social order. "As man seeks justice in equality, so
|
||
|
society seeks justice in anarchy. Anarchy - the absence of a sovereign - such
|
||
|
is the form of government to which we are every day approximating." He was a
|
||
|
'peaceful anarchist'; he believed that within existing society, the
|
||
|
organizations could be created that would eventually replace it. Proudhon was
|
||
|
born in 1809, originally a peasant, the son of a brewer. His "What Is Property"
|
||
|
and "System of Economic Contradictions" established him in the socialist
|
||
|
community. Later he went on to write "The Federal Principle" and "The
|
||
|
Political Capability of the Working Class".
|
||
|
|
||
|
Although he declared in "What Is Property" that "property is theft",
|
||
|
he did not support communism, and regarded the right of workers to control the
|
||
|
means of production as an important part of freedom. He never considered
|
||
|
himself the originator of a movement, but he did propose a federal system of
|
||
|
autonomous communes. He had many followers, but they preferred the title
|
||
|
'Mutualists' to 'Anarchists'; anarchism still bore a negative connotation.
|
||
|
Proudhon and the Mutualists, along with British tradeunionists and socialists,
|
||
|
formed the First International Workingmen's Association.
|
||
|
|
||
|
- Bakunin and Collectivism -
|
||
|
|
||
|
"The passion for destruction is also a creative passion" - These words
|
||
|
would accurately summarize the position of Mikail Bakunin and the
|
||
|
Collectivists. Bakunin believed that anarchy was only possible through a
|
||
|
violent revolution, obliterating all existing institutions. He was originally
|
||
|
a nobleman, but became a revolutionary and joined the International in the
|
||
|
1860's, after founding the Social Democratic Alliance and modifying Proudhon's
|
||
|
teachings into a new doctrine known as Collectivism. Bakunin taught that
|
||
|
property rights were impractical and that the means of production should be
|
||
|
owned collectively. He was strongly opposed to Karl Marx, also a member of
|
||
|
the International, and his ideas of a proletarian dictatorship. This conlict
|
||
|
eventually tore the International apart in 1872. He died in 1876, but the
|
||
|
next International that he and the Collectivists started in 1873 lasted for
|
||
|
another year. Later, his followers finally accepted the title of 'anarchist'.
|
||
|
|
||
|
- Peter Kropotkin -
|
||
|
|
||
|
In 1876, when he became a revolutionary, Peter Kropotkin renounced his
|
||
|
title of Prince and became successor to Mikail Bakunin. He developed the
|
||
|
theory of anarchist communism: not only should the means of production be owned
|
||
|
collectively, but the products should be completely communized as well. This
|
||
|
revised Thomas More's Utopian idea of storehouses, "From each according to his
|
||
|
means, to each according to his needs." Kropotkin wrote "The Conquest of
|
||
|
Bread" in 1892, in which he sketched his vision of a federation of free
|
||
|
Communist groups. In 1899 he wrote "Memoirs of a Revolutionist", an
|
||
|
autobiographical work, and "Fields, Factories, and Workshops", which put
|
||
|
forward ideas on the decentralization of industry necessary for an anarchist
|
||
|
society. He later proved by biological and sociological evidence that
|
||
|
cooperation is more natural than coercion ("Mutual Aid: A Factor in Evolution"
|
||
|
- 1902). Kropotkin's writings completed the vision of the Anarchist future,
|
||
|
and little new has been added since.
|
||
|
|
||
|
- The Anarchist Movement -
|
||
|
|
||
|
Even before Proudhon entered the scene, anarchist activism was going
|
||
|
on. The first plans for an anarchist commonwealth were made by an Englishman
|
||
|
named Gerrard Winstanley, who founded the tiny Digger movement. In his 1649
|
||
|
pamphlet, "Truth Lifting Up Its Head Above Scandals", he wrote that power
|
||
|
corrupts, that property is incompatible with freedom, and that men can only be
|
||
|
free and happy in a society without governmental interference, where work and
|
||
|
its products are shared (what was to become the foundation for anarchist
|
||
|
theory in the years to come). He led a group of followers to a hillside where
|
||
|
they established an anarchist village, but this experiment was quickly
|
||
|
destroyed by local opposition. Later another Englishman, William Godwin,
|
||
|
would write 'Political Justice', which said that authority was against nature,
|
||
|
and that social evils exist because men are not free to act according to
|
||
|
reason.
|
||
|
|
||
|
Among Italian anarchists, an active attitude was prevalent. Said
|
||
|
Errico Malatesta in 1876, "The insurrectionary deed, destined to affirm
|
||
|
socialist principles by acts, is the most efficacious means of propaganda."
|
||
|
The first acts were rural insurrections, meant to arouse the uneducated
|
||
|
citizens of the Italian countryside, but these were unsuccessful. Afterward
|
||
|
this activism tended to take the form of individual acts of protest by
|
||
|
'terrorists', who attempted to assassinate ruling figures in the hope of
|
||
|
demonstrating the vulnerability of the structure of authority and inspiring
|
||
|
others by their self-sacrifice. From 1890- 1901, a chain of assassinations
|
||
|
took place: King Umberto I, Italy; Empress Elizabeth, Austria; President
|
||
|
Carnot, France; President McKinley, United Stated; and Spanish Prime Minister
|
||
|
Antonio C novas del Castillo. Unfortunately, these acts had the opposite
|
||
|
effect of what was intended- they established the idea of the anarchist as a
|
||
|
mindless destroyer.
|
||
|
|
||
|
Also during the 1890's, many French painters, writers, and other
|
||
|
artists discovered anarchism, and were attracted to it because of its
|
||
|
individualist ideas. In England, writer Oscar Wilde became an anarchist, and
|
||
|
in 1891 wrote "The Soul of Man Under Socialism".
|
||
|
|
||
|
Anarchism was a strong movement Spain. The first anarchist journal,
|
||
|
"El Porvenir", was published in 1845, but was quickly silenced. Branches of
|
||
|
the International were established by Guiseppe Fanelli in Barcelona and
|
||
|
Madrid. By 1870, there were over 40,000 Spanish anarchists members; by 1873,
|
||
|
60,000, mostly organized in workingmen's associations, but in 1874 the
|
||
|
movement was forced underground. In the 1880's and '90's, the Spanish
|
||
|
anarchist movement tended toward terrorism and insurrections.
|
||
|
|
||
|
The Spanish civil war was the perfect opportunity to finally put ideas
|
||
|
into action on a large scale. Factories and railways were taken over. In
|
||
|
Andalusia, Catalonia, and Levante, peasents seized the land. Autonomous
|
||
|
libertarian villages were set up, like those described in Kropotkin's 'The
|
||
|
Conquest of Bread'. Internal use of money was abolished, the land was tilled
|
||
|
collectively, the village products were sold or exchanged on behalf of the
|
||
|
entire community, and each family recieved an equal share of necessities they
|
||
|
could not produce themselves. Many of these such communes were even more
|
||
|
efficient than the other villages. Although the Spanish anarchists failed
|
||
|
because they did not have the ability to carry out sustained warfare, they
|
||
|
succeeded in inspiring many and showing that anarchy can work efficiently.
|
||
|
|
||
|
Although two of the greatest anarchist leaders, Bakunin and Kropotkin,
|
||
|
were Russian, totalitarian censorship managed to supress most of the movement,
|
||
|
and it was never very strong in Russia. Only one revolutionary, N.I. Makhno, a
|
||
|
peasant, managed to raise an insurrectionary army and, by brilliant guerilla
|
||
|
tactics, took temporary control of a large part of the Ukraine from both Red
|
||
|
and White armies. His exile in 1921 marked the death of the anarchist
|
||
|
movement in Russia.
|
||
|
|
||
|
Throughout American history, there has been a tradition of both
|
||
|
violent and pacifist anarchism. Henry David Thoreau, a nonviolent Anarchist
|
||
|
writer, and Emma Goldman, an anarchist activist, are a couple of examples.
|
||
|
activist anarchism, however, was mainly sustained by immigrants from Europe.
|
||
|
In the late 1800's, anarchism was a part of life for many. In 1886, four
|
||
|
anarchists were wrongfully executed for alleged involvement in the Haymarket
|
||
|
bombing, in which seven policemen were killed. President McKinley was
|
||
|
assassinated in 1901 by Leon Czolgosz, a Polish Anarchist.
|
||
|
|
||
|
Especially since 1917, anarchism has appealed to intellectuals. In
|
||
|
1932, Aldous Huxley wrote "Brave New World", which warned of a mindless,
|
||
|
materialistic existence a modernized society could produce, and in the
|
||
|
'Foreword' of the 1946 edition, he said that he believed that only through
|
||
|
radical decentralization and a politics that was "Kropotkinesque and
|
||
|
cooperative" could the dangers of modern society be escaped. After World War
|
||
|
][, anarchist groups reappeared in almost all countries where they had once
|
||
|
existed, excepting Spain and the Soviet Union. In the 1970's, anarchism drew
|
||
|
much attention and interest, and rebellious students often started collectives.
|
||
|
Still published is a monthly British publication, called "Anarchy", which
|
||
|
applies anarchist principles to modern life.
|
||
|
|
||
|
Anarchism, although often mistakenly thought of a violent and
|
||
|
destructive, is not that at all. Anarchists, though some may advocate a
|
||
|
swift and violent revolution, envision a peaceful and harmonious society,
|
||
|
based on a natural order rather than an artificial system based on coercion.
|
||
|
|
||
|
|
||
|
|
||
|
|
||
|
Anarchy As a Way of Life
|
||
|
|
||
|
At first glance, you'd expect that people living in a society would be
|
||
|
happier if they agreed with the way they were being governed. Quite the
|
||
|
opposite is actually true, however - anarchists refuse to let the state get
|
||
|
them down. To prepare for the revolution, which can only be by changing
|
||
|
popular opinion, we must live anarchy every day.
|
||
|
We must remain committed to our ideals no matter what the
|
||
|
circumstances. Every time you laugh at a discriminatory joke, every time you
|
||
|
don't speak up when you should - you contribute to the problem.
|
||
|
Intellectual freedom - the freedom to think for one's self - is one of
|
||
|
the foundations for other freedoms. Freedom of expression is integral to art
|
||
|
and creativity. Anarchists should oppose the idea of intellectual property and
|
||
|
copyrights, as these only block the free flow of information. Express yourself
|
||
|
freely and don't copyright your work.
|
||
|
No one, least of all government, has any right to control you. Show
|
||
|
the anarchist spirit in your attitude and actions. Perhaps most importantly,
|
||
|
don't follow the crowd. Be yourself.
|
||
|
|
||
|
- Civil Disobedience -
|
||
|
|
||
|
Many laws are around todat because no one will stand up and break them
|
||
|
and say, "this law is unjust!" Practice civil disobedience in your daily life;
|
||
|
don't let the government's arbitrarily defined guidelines confine you.
|
||
|
|
||
|
- D-I-Y -
|
||
|
|
||
|
Do-it-yourself rather than relying on government or large corporations
|
||
|
whenever possible. If you are a musician, consider recording independently.
|
||
|
If you are a writer, consider publishing independently and not copyrighting
|
||
|
your work.
|
||
|
|
||
|
|
||
|
|
||
|
|
||
|
Modern Anarchist Activism
|
||
|
|
||
|
- Direct Action -
|
||
|
|
||
|
Anarchists, for the most part, are opposed to voting. Not only are
|
||
|
you, by voting, agreeing to having someone make your decisions for you, but you
|
||
|
are contributing to the illusion that voting actually makes a difference. The
|
||
|
best way to effect real change is by direct action. Direct action may take the
|
||
|
form of strikes, protests... anything that directly fights coercion. To quote
|
||
|
the I.W.W.: "It [the General Strike] debunks the myth that power flows
|
||
|
downward, and proves instead that all teal power still resides at the
|
||
|
grassroots level, if we only choose to excersize it."
|
||
|
Anarchists are often present at political marches and protests. The
|
||
|
gay/lesbian march for equal rights in Washington, D.C. drew about a hundred
|
||
|
marching with the anarchist contingent.
|
||
|
The I.W.W., an anti-capitalist labor union, supports sabotage in the
|
||
|
workplace - not necessarily destructivem just a concious slowing down of
|
||
|
production.
|
||
|
The most direct for of direct action is shown in clinic defense (the
|
||
|
protection of women's clinics from anti-choice groups such as "Operation
|
||
|
Rescue") - actually, physicalls fighting coercion.
|
||
|
Food Not Bombs is another direct action group working for rights for
|
||
|
the poor in San Francisco. They distribute free, hot, vegetarian meals to the
|
||
|
homeless, and many of them were arrested because they had no permit (when in
|
||
|
fact it would have been impossible for them to get a permit in the first
|
||
|
place). Propositions have been introduced that would make Food Not Bombs
|
||
|
illegal. In October 1993, a ruling was made that allowed FNB to continue
|
||
|
distributing free food, but the individual charges against the members were not
|
||
|
dropped.
|
||
|
|
||
|
- Propaganda -
|
||
|
|
||
|
Propaganda is an important part of anarchist activism. Some anarchists
|
||
|
believe that a revolution now would be pointless - people today have been so
|
||
|
indoctrinated with authoritarian dogmas that a revolution now really would
|
||
|
cause chaos. A revolution can only take place when a significant portion of
|
||
|
the population are tired of being told what to do and decide that they aren't
|
||
|
going to obey the government anymore. As Bakunin said, "The end justifies the
|
||
|
means, but the means determine the end." An anarchist revolution must be by
|
||
|
the people and not by a vanguard. Others believe that freedom is a
|
||
|
precondition for the development of the maturity necessary for freedom. Either
|
||
|
way, one of the most revolutionary things we can do right now is to encourage
|
||
|
people to think for themselves. Posters, flyers, and articles about anarchism
|
||
|
help to spread the word and get people thinking. Effective flyers get the
|
||
|
point across as quickly as possible, but allow the reader to come to his/her
|
||
|
own conclusions, without forcing ideas on anyone. Here is the text of a
|
||
|
general purpose anarchist flyer I put together.
|
||
|
|
||
|
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
|
||
|
|
||
|
Are you a patriotic American?
|
||
|
Do you believe in the "American Way"?
|
||
|
|
||
|
Just what is the "American Way?" America supposely represents
|
||
|
freedom and equality. Patriots continually praise the American system for
|
||
|
giving rights to everyone. The fact is that basic human rights are the same
|
||
|
whether we have a government or not. All governments can do is try to take
|
||
|
rights away from us.
|
||
|
|
||
|
- The "American Way" -
|
||
|
|
||
|
What is free about democracy? Why should 51% of the people, who have
|
||
|
been almost completely brainwashed by the power elite, get to impose
|
||
|
their will on the remaining 49%, and have their views enforced by police and
|
||
|
the military? Truth is not dependent on whether or not the majority agrees
|
||
|
with it. To wish to think along with the majority, simply because the majority is the
|
||
|
majority, only proves that one is unable think for oneself. Democracy has been
|
||
|
compared to two wolves and a sheep trying to decide what's going to be for
|
||
|
dinner. It would be more accurate to compare it to two wolves, a sheep, a
|
||
|
bird, and a fish. The sheep can form a coalition with the fish and the bird to
|
||
|
beat the wolves, but there's really no reason they should all be eating the
|
||
|
same thing in the first place. Democracy is a way of giving citizens the
|
||
|
illusion that they have control while opressing them behind their backs.
|
||
|
|
||
|
- Class Struggle -
|
||
|
|
||
|
What does free market capitalism have to do with equality? "Free"
|
||
|
indeed. Capitalism is just as tyrannical as feudalism. Some ninty thousand
|
||
|
hours of your life will be sold to someone else - to someone who has
|
||
|
accumulated more wealth and property than you have and will use it to exploit
|
||
|
you every chance he/she gets. The working class does all the work and the
|
||
|
upper class profits. A member of the poorer class is only trying to survive,
|
||
|
while a member of the working class spends all of his/her time trying to become
|
||
|
a member of the upper class, so that s/he can in turn exploit his/her fellow
|
||
|
workers. All of this is presented to you as equality. If you still insist
|
||
|
that we are equal under democracy and capitalism, ask yourself: when was the
|
||
|
last time we had a poor president? A poor governor? A mayor? The reason for
|
||
|
this is that only the rich have the money to do the extensive campaigning
|
||
|
necessary to win an election, and many make a career out of politics. What's
|
||
|
more, the rich control the media, and have a great influence over the ideas of
|
||
|
the masses. If you don't think there is a definite ruling class in America,
|
||
|
think again.
|
||
|
|
||
|
- Where To From Here? -
|
||
|
|
||
|
What is the answer? Socialism? Communism? The problems of America are
|
||
|
the same problems that are inherent in any government system based on coercion
|
||
|
and enforcement by police. Simply put, power corrupts. No person should have
|
||
|
control over any other person. The solution is a completely new society, based
|
||
|
on mutual aid, cooperation, and voluntary association, rather than force and
|
||
|
government authority. Peaceful cooperation can only exist when people are free
|
||
|
to act according to reason - according to ethics instead of laws. Crime exists
|
||
|
only because the government prohibits. For example, how many thousands of
|
||
|
robberies, shootings, and deaths each year would be prevented if drugs were
|
||
|
legalized, normalizing their artificially inflated prices? The state is the
|
||
|
greatest criminal of all, violating our individual liberty by stealing in the
|
||
|
form of taxes and property seizures, and murdering in the form of execution and
|
||
|
war. Despite this fact, government has come to a complete standstill in coping
|
||
|
with crime. We don't need a government to protect us from ourselves and we
|
||
|
don't need a government to protect us from each other. Government is a
|
||
|
completely artificial institution which restricts human interaction.
|
||
|
|
||
|
- What You Can Do To Help -
|
||
|
|
||
|
We're not ready for a revolution yet. People have grown too accustommed
|
||
|
to having their decisions made for them. They don't know how to live without
|
||
|
government intervention. Government restrictions have caused them to
|
||
|
substitute laws for ethics. They've lost the ability to make their own
|
||
|
choices. The most revolutionary thing we can do right now is to encourage
|
||
|
people to think for themselves. Get involved. We are a Dallas-based group of
|
||
|
anarchists who want to get the word out and get people involved. If you want
|
||
|
to learn more or recieve anarchist literature by mail, write to:
|
||
|
|
||
|
Digital Revolution
|
||
|
11111-A N. Central Expwy
|
||
|
Dallas, TX 75243
|
||
|
|
||
|
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
|
||
|
|
||
|
- Anarchist Networking -
|
||
|
|
||
|
Unity among anarchists is not often emphasized because to unite, we
|
||
|
must, to some extent, sacrifice our individuality. There are, however, many
|
||
|
anarchist gatherings every year. To organize and exchange ideas, anarchists
|
||
|
must form loose connections through networks rather than getting involved in
|
||
|
hierarchical organizations. Some anarchists form collectives; others are just
|
||
|
part of affinity groups - small, non-hierarchical groups of individuals with
|
||
|
common interests.
|
||
|
|
||
|
The Zine Network
|
||
|
|
||
|
Zines are small, low-budget, independently published magazines.
|
||
|
Anarchist zines are usually specifically anti-copyright, to encourage
|
||
|
rprinting of articles. A lot of information gets traded around the global
|
||
|
anarchist community in this way. What makes the zine network so unique is that
|
||
|
you can't really tell the average zine editor from the average zine reader.
|
||
|
Anyone with time and a copier can do a zine.
|
||
|
|
||
|
Electronic Networking
|
||
|
|
||
|
Another useful tool for networking is the telecommunications network. With
|
||
|
only a few hundred dollars worth of computer equipment, anyone can tap into
|
||
|
immeasurable online resources. Electronic publishers can "print" zines in
|
||
|
text-file format without any costs for paper and stamps. Almost all electronic
|
||
|
magazines are free, since it is virtually impossible to curb their
|
||
|
distribution. There are also file transfer sites, such as SPUNK Press, which
|
||
|
are directly connected to the internet, and provide archives of electronic
|
||
|
magazines, articles, essays by anarchist writers, and even scanned-in books.
|
||
|
If you have an internet email account, you can subscribe to mailing lists,
|
||
|
which send all submissions to all subscribed accounts. Users who can get
|
||
|
usenet also probably have access to such newsgroups as alt.society.anarchy and
|
||
|
alt.society.revolution.
|
||
|
|
||
|
|
||
|
|
||
|
|
||
|
Conclusion
|
||
|
|
||
|
We're sick and tired of being pushed around by the ruling class. If
|
||
|
you want to get involved and start taking action to end coercion, see the
|
||
|
appendices for information and addresses useful to get connected with other
|
||
|
anarchists across the country and across the world.
|
||
|
|
||
|
|
||
|
|
||
|
|
||
|
Appendix 1
|
||
|
- Anarchist Periodicals -
|
||
|
|
||
|
Anarchy / POBox 1446 / Columbia, MO 65205-1446
|
||
|
Anti-Power / 1961 Pike Place #12-367 / Seattle, WA 98101
|
||
|
Bayou La Rose / POBox 5464 / Tacoma, WA 98415-0464
|
||
|
Beyond the Wall of Injustice / POBox 6188 / Fullerton, CA 92634
|
||
|
Class War / POBox 1021 / Edinburgh EH8 9PW / Scotland Britain
|
||
|
Fifth Estate / 4632 Second Ave. / Detroit, MI 48201
|
||
|
Free Society / POBox 7293 / Minneapolis, MN 55407
|
||
|
Green Anarchist / POBox H / 34 Crowley Rd. / Oxford OX4 1HZ / U.K.
|
||
|
Infinite Onion / POBox 263 / Colorado Springs, CO 80901-0263
|
||
|
Kaboom! / POBox 4472 / Long Beach, CA 90804-0472
|
||
|
Libertarian Labor Review / POBox 2824 / Champaign, IL 61825
|
||
|
Love and Rage / POBox 3 / Prince St. Station / New York, NY 10012
|
||
|
Madworld Survival Guide / POBox 791377 / New Orleans, LA 70179
|
||
|
Plain Words / POBox 832 / Haledon, NJ 0780-832
|
||
|
Practical Anarchy / POBox 173 / Madison, WI 3701-0173
|
||
|
Profane Existence / POBox 8722 / Minneapolis, MN 55408
|
||
|
Slingshot / 700 Eshleman Hall / Berkeley, CA 94720
|
||
|
Wind Chill Factor / POBox 2824 / Champaign, IL 60681
|
||
|
Workers' Solidarity / POBox 40400 / San Francisco, CA 94140
|
||
|
|
||
|
[Taken from Anarchism Everywhere: a contact list for the
|
||
|
revolutionary community, from the United Anarchist Front.]
|
||
|
|
||
|
|
||
|
|
||
|
|
||
|
Appendix 2
|
||
|
- Anarchist Organizations -
|
||
|
|
||
|
Amor y Rabia Apartado Postal / 11-351 C.P. / 06101 Mexico D.F. / Mexico
|
||
|
Anarchist Black Cross / POBox ABC / 121 Raiton Rd. / London, SE24 OLR UK
|
||
|
Anarchist Youth Federation / POBox 365 / New York, NY 10013-0365
|
||
|
AWOL / POBox 7293 / Minneapolis, MN / 55407
|
||
|
Bloomington Anarchist Union / POBox 3207 / Bloomington, IN 47042
|
||
|
The Germinal UCSD Student Coop Center / B-0323-Z / La Jolla, CA 92093
|
||
|
Impulse / Route 1 / Redwing, MN 55066
|
||
|
Midwest Eco-Anarchist Network/ POBox 7511 / Minneapolis, MN 55407
|
||
|
Neither East nor West / 528 5th St. / Brooklyn, NY 11215
|
||
|
Patterson Anarchist Collective / POBox 8532 Haledon, NJ 07508
|
||
|
United Anarchist Front / POBox 1115 / Whittier, CA 90609
|
||
|
United Anarchist Front / POBox 3941 / Fullerton, CA 92634
|
||
|
The Web Collective / POBox 40890 / San Francisco, CA 94117
|
||
|
Worker's Solidarity Alliance / 339 Lafayette St. Rm 202 / New York, NY 10012
|
||
|
|
||
|
[Taken from Anarchism Everywhere: a contact list for the
|
||
|
revolutionary community, from the United Anarchist Front.]
|
||
|
|
||
|
|
||
|
|
||
|
|
||
|
Appendix 3
|
||
|
- Anarchist Publishing and Distribution -
|
||
|
|
||
|
AK Distribution / 3 Balmoral Place / Stirling FK8 2RD / Scotland
|
||
|
Anarchist Archives Project / POBox 1323 / Cambridge, MA 02238
|
||
|
@ Distribution / POBox 021835 / Brooklyn, NY 11012
|
||
|
Anok and Peace Collective / 3332 Peachtree Place / Lima, OH 45805
|
||
|
Bound Together Books / 1369 Haight St. / San Francisco, CA 94117
|
||
|
Collective Chaos Distribution / POBox 81961 / Chicago, IL 60681
|
||
|
Left Bank Books / 92 Pike St. / Seattle, WA 98101
|
||
|
Librarie Alternative / 2035 Boulevard St. Laurent /
|
||
|
Montreal, Quebec H2X 2T3 Canada
|
||
|
Never Ending Vegetable / POBox 263 / Colorado Springs, CO 80901
|
||
|
Profane Existence Mailorder / POBox 8722 / Minneapolis, MN 55408
|
||
|
Silid Aklatan / POBox 187 / N. Hollywood, CA 91603
|
||
|
|
||
|
[Taken from Anarchism Everywhere: a contact list for the
|
||
|
revolutionary community, from the United Anarchist Front.]
|
||
|
|
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|
||
|
Appendix 4
|
||
|
- Anarchist Electronic Contact List v1.7 -
|
||
|
|
||
|
Newsgroups:
|
||
|
|
||
|
alt.society.anarchy
|
||
|
alt.politics.radical-left
|
||
|
alt.society.revolution
|
||
|
talk.politics.theory
|
||
|
talk.philosophy.misc
|
||
|
alt.postmodern
|
||
|
alt.amateur-comp
|
||
|
|
||
|
|
||
|
Anonymous ftp sites:
|
||
|
|
||
|
Site: Contact: Paul Southworth(pauls@umich.edu)
|
||
|
|
||
|
This site carries most, if not all,
|
||
|
of the electrnonic newsletters and other
|
||
|
material listed below.
|
||
|
|
||
|
|
||
|
Electronic newsletters and distribution:
|
||
|
|
||
|
Autonome Forum (Various)
|
||
|
aforum@moose.uvm.edu
|
||
|
|
||
|
Practical Anarchy Online (electronic newsletter)
|
||
|
cmunson@macc.wisc.edu
|
||
|
cardell@lysator.liu.se
|
||
|
|
||
|
Spunk Press Distribution List (Anarchist Literature)
|
||
|
spunk-info-request@lysator.liu.se
|
||
|
|
||
|
Love & Rage: (electronic newsletter)
|
||
|
loveandrage@org.igc (Todd Prane)
|
||
|
|
||
|
Baklava Autonomist Collective, WIND CHILL FACTOR paper/zine
|
||
|
thak@midway.uchicago.edu
|
||
|
|
||
|
Mailing lists:
|
||
|
|
||
|
Anarchy mailing list:
|
||
|
Organiser: jack@cwi.nl
|
||
|
List address: anarchy-list-request@cwi.nl
|
||
|
|
||
|
1-Union Mailing List (Syndicalist)
|
||
|
Organizer: mlepore@mcimail.com
|
||
|
List address: 1-union-request@uvmvm.bitnet
|
||
|
|
||
|
Non Serviam mailing list
|
||
|
solan@math.uio.no
|
||
|
|
||
|
Libertarian mailing list
|
||
|
Coordinators: Barry Fagin <fagin@ELEAZAR.DARTMOUTH.EDU>
|
||
|
June Genis <GA.JRG@FORSYTHE.STANFORD.EDU>
|
||
|
List Address:LIBERNET@DARTMOUTH.EDU
|
||
|
|
||
|
Anarchocapitalists mailing lists
|
||
|
extropians-request@gnu.ai.mit.edu
|
||
|
|
||
|
pnews Mailing List
|
||
|
Organise:odin@world.std.com
|
||
|
pnews-request@world.std.com
|
||
|
|
||
|
|
||
|
Magazines:
|
||
|
|
||
|
Processed World
|
||
|
pwmag@well.sf.ca
|
||
|
|
||
|
2600 Magazine (The Hacker Quarterly)
|
||
|
2600@well.sf.ca.us
|
||
|
|
||
|
Here and Now (Leeds, U.K.)
|
||
|
Alastair Dickson <alastair.dickson@almac.co.uk>
|
||
|
|
||
|
Contacts:
|
||
|
|
||
|
San Francisco IWW
|
||
|
iww@igc.apc.org (Mike Ballard)
|
||
|
BEKKENJ@snycorva.bitnet (Jon Bekken)
|
||
|
|
||
|
Chicago Anarchist Black Cross
|
||
|
74230.1540@compuserve.com (Tony Atoms)
|
||
|
|
||
|
Boston Anarchists' Drinking Brigade
|
||
|
bbrigade@world.std.com.
|
||
|
|
||
|
Worker's Solidarity Movement (Ireland)
|
||
|
Andrew Flood <anflood@ollamh.ucd.ie>
|
||
|
|
||
|
Omega (contact for infoshops in Berlin)
|
||
|
omega@ibb.berlinet.in-berlin.de
|
||
|
|
||
|
Anarchist Communist Federation (U.K.)
|
||
|
is_s425@ceres.king.ac.uk (Chris Hutchinson)
|
||
|
|
||
|
Edinburgh Class War (U.K.)
|
||
|
rar@castle.ed.ac.uk
|
||
|
|
||
|
Glasgow Anarchists (U.K.)
|
||
|
Ian Heavens <ian@spider.co.uk>
|
||
|
|
||
|
Miscellaneous:
|
||
|
|
||
|
Jerry Mintz
|
||
|
jmintz@igc.apc.org
|
||
|
|
||
|
|
||
|
|
||
|
|
||
|
Appendix 5
|
||
|
- Sources For Further Information About Anarchism -
|
||
|
|
||
|
General:
|
||
|
|
||
|
'Anarchism Today', David E. Apter and James Joll, MacMillan (ISBN 333 12041
|
||
|
8), has chapters on various movements and a bibliography of Anarchism in
|
||
|
print. George Woodcock's Anarchist Reader and Anarchism also have useful
|
||
|
bibliographies. Daniel Guerin's 'Anarchism' (Monthly Review Press,
|
||
|
ISBN 85345-175-3) takes an anarchosyndicalist point of view (and has
|
||
|
a bibliography).
|
||
|
|
||
|
'Classics':
|
||
|
|
||
|
'The ABC of Anarchism' - Alexander Berkman
|
||
|
'Civil Disobedience' - Thoreau
|
||
|
'Anarchy' - Malatesta
|
||
|
Anything by Kropotkin, Bakunin, Proudhon.
|
||
|
'Enquiry Concerning Political Justice' - William Godwin.
|
||
|
|
||
|
On individualism: Max Stirner's 'The Ego And His Own'
|
||
|
|
||
|
On the situationists:
|
||
|
|
||
|
BAMN:By Any Means Necessary, Penguin (out of print, cannot remember the
|
||
|
author - I'd like to get hold of a copy of this).
|
||
|
|
||
|
Raoul Vaneigem's 'The Revolution of Everyday Life'
|
||
|
Guy Debord's 'The Society of the Spectacle'
|
||
|
|
||
|
Also, 'The Situationist Anthology' (editor??)
|
||
|
|
||
|
On the squatters' movement:
|
||
|
|
||
|
'The Squatters' by Ron Bailey.
|
||
|
|
||
|
- Visions of utopia:
|
||
|
|
||
|
'Journey to Utopia' by Marie Bernelli (an anthology)
|
||
|
'News from Nowhere' by William Morris
|
||
|
'The Dispossessed' - Ursula Le Guin
|
||
|
|
||
|
Anarchosyndicalism:
|
||
|
|
||
|
IWW:
|
||
|
|
||
|
'The Living Spirit of the Wobblies' by Len de Caux, International
|
||
|
Publishers, 381 Park Avenue South, New York 10016, ISBN. This has
|
||
|
an extensive bibliography on the IWW.
|
||
|
|
||
|
Also, 'The Case of Joe Hill', Philip S.Foner, same publisher.
|
||
|
|
||
|
|
||
|
Spain:
|
||
|
|
||
|
Books published outside the anarchist press on the Spanish revolution
|
||
|
are in the above bibliographies. George Orwell's 'Homage to Catalonia'
|
||
|
is a good introduction to the Civil War.
|
||
|
|
||
|
The definitive work is 'Anarchists in the Spanish Revolution' Jose
|
||
|
Peirats, Freedom Press (ISBN 0 900 384 53 0), also see 'Collectives in the
|
||
|
Spanish Revolution', Gaston Leval, Freedom Press (ISBN 0 900384 11 5),
|
||
|
'Anarchist Organisation:the History of the F.A.I', by Juan Gomez Casas,
|
||
|
Black Rose Books (Quebec), (ISBN 0-920057-38-1), plus others by
|
||
|
Freedom Press and Black Rose Books, e.g.
|
||
|
'Spain 1936-1939:Social Revolution-Counter Revolution', Freedom Press
|
||
|
(ISBN 0 900384 54-9)
|
||
|
|
||
|
[ NB Freedom Press titles are nice and cheap, and only 10% for
|
||
|
overseas postage; they're at 84B Whitechapel High Street, London E1 7QX
|
||
|
(Tel 081-247-9249) ]
|
||
|
|
||
|
Latin America:
|
||
|
|
||
|
'Anarchism and the Mexican Working Class 1860-1931', John M. Hart,
|
||
|
Univ. of Texas press (ISBN 0 292 70400 3).
|
||
|
|
||
|
Chapter on Argentina and Uruguay in 'Anarchism Today' (above)
|
||
|
|
||
|
'The Cuban Revolution' by Sam Dolgoff
|
||
|
|
||
|
Britain:
|
||
|
|
||
|
'The Slow Burning Fuse' by John Quail (also see bibliography in the
|
||
|
Anarchist Reader)
|
||
|
|
||
|
Russian:
|
||
|
|
||
|
I don't know which of these are anarchosyndicalist, there are a number
|
||
|
listed in the above bibliographies, esp. Voline's 'The Unknown Revolution'
|
||
|
Paul Avrich's 'The Russian Anarchists' and Peter Arshinov's 'History
|
||
|
of the Makhnovist movement'. Emma Goldman wrote a fair bit, in
|
||
|
'Living My Life', volume 2, 'My Disillusionment with Russia', etc.
|
||
|
|
||
|
[From Ian Heavens]
|
||
|
|
||
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|
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|
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|
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|
||
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|
||
|
Appendix 6
|
||
|
- Contacting the Author -
|
||
|
|
||
|
BBS's: The Subversive Anarchist and cyberpunk discussion,
|
||
|
(USA)+214/224.7858 electronic magazines,
|
||
|
14.4kbps - N/8/1 electronic publishing.
|
||
|
SysOp: Brian Crabtree
|
||
|
|
||
|
Zines: Digital Revolution News from the anarchist front,
|
||
|
attn: Brian Crabtree some artwork, poetry, articles,
|
||
|
11111-A N. Central Expwy. cyberpunk stuff. $1 or three
|
||
|
Dallas, TX 75243 stamps suggested for sample copy,
|
||
|
Editor: Brian Crabtree $6-7 for a ten-issue subscription.
|
||
|
|
||
|
Internet addresses:
|
||
|
|
||
|
Brian Crabtree: subv@netcom.com,
|
||
|
brian.crabtree@chrysalis.com,
|
||
|
bri@sdf.lonestar.org.
|
||
|
|
||
|
X-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-X
|
||
|
Another file downloaded from: The NIRVANAnet(tm) Seven
|
||
|
|
||
|
& the Temple of the Screaming Electron Taipan Enigma 510/935-5845
|
||
|
Burn This Flag Zardoz 408/363-9766
|
||
|
realitycheck Poindexter Fortran 510/527-1662
|
||
|
Lies Unlimited Mick Freen 801/278-2699
|
||
|
The New Dork Sublime Biffnix 415/864-DORK
|
||
|
The Shrine Rif Raf 206/794-6674
|
||
|
Planet Mirth Simon Jester 510/786-6560
|
||
|
|
||
|
"Raw Data for Raw Nerves"
|
||
|
X-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-X
|