I am trying to write a simple faq about anarchism. One of the question is “Why do anarchist want to abolish hierarchies?”. This question sounds so obvious to me I cannot write something convincing enough.
…
My answer to the concept of “justifiable hierarchies”
how you would propose preventing hierarchies from forming
Well that’s very precisely what anarchism is about: a collection of mental tool and individual/collective strategies to sabotage all forms of domination.
hierarchical organization tends to outcompete one that’s non hierarchical
That is true. Most autonomous communes have been assimilated or exterminated over the years. Contrary to popular belief, the middle ages were a rather free time for those people who lived far away from the centers of power. Nowadays, nobody can escape State control. This state of things was obtained through a mix of technological progress (gasoline motors considerably expanded the reach of State control) and progressive narrative (“public school is mandatory for the good of the children”).
It seems to me that many anarchists work of an assumption that majority of people will have a similar mindset to their own and choose the anarchist approach voluntarily.
Many anarchists are very skeptical/defiant and would rather on a daily basis only interact/cooperate with other anarchists (affinity) because they assume other people have an opposite mindset. However, despite all our formatting from years of school and media propaganda, most people in practice agree with anarchist principles when faced with actual situations, for example:
why should the municipality decide to tear down a public park to build an apartment building, when most neighbors are opposed?
why should we go to the police when we perfectly know nobody’s getting justice from that? in case of clear abuse, let’s involve the community to find justice, and if we can’t because justice is denied on one side, revenge is always an option
why are we listening to an asshole who’s got no clue what he’s talking about, when there’s plenty of knowledgeable good-will people in our ranks?
why should one of us get paid when others are volunteers? why should anyone be paid more than someone else? hell, why should anyone be paid at all if we’re in it together?
etc…
Many people have argued in the past that in nature humans and other species tend towards anarchism (disinterested cooperation). That was the main point of Kropotkin’s Mutual aid, or David Graber’s Are you an anarchist? the answer may surprise you.
Despite my criticizing “nature” as a valid concept at all, i do believe most humans tend to be compassionate and critical by default, and it takes considerable amount of resources to indoctrinate people into behaving otherwise. For example, it takes many years of public schools to “teach” kids helping one another is cheating… and some like me will never “learn” ;)
Any ideology that aims to be successful has to be able to effectively compete with and hold its own against others.
Competing is not exactly the word. But authoritarian systems and libertarian capitalist communes tend to exterminate alternatives, so we do have to be prepared. However in anarchist thought/practice this is usually understood as specific of a specific context (power balance). Two examples:
a single person holding bigoted/hateful views in a public assembly is not a problem, as long as this person is understood by everyone else to be in the wrong ; a fascist propagandist is a problem in a society where their voice has credibility
a libertarian capitalist community is not a problem as long as it’s not aggressive to other communes, because if other communes around keep an open door for refugees, nobody will ever want to be exploited by this people ; a proliferation of capitalist communes would be a problem because anarchists would be isolated and wage slavery would be the norm, not the exception
etc…
About defending ourselves, popular self-defense is an important notion for anarchists. Basically, it’s the idea that most conflicts can be resolved through non-violent means (deescalation and community accountability) but we should have the power to defend ourselves and our communities violently if the need arises. Both aspects are core principles of popular self-defense.
There isn’t much demonstrated success applying this in practice however.
There is and there was. That most anarchist communes have been eradicated by authoritarians of all stripes doesn’t mean they weren’t successful. The two last ones to fall in the past few years, la ZAD and Exarchia, were really amazing communities where one could live without money and (mostly) without oppression.
they were still very much under state control
It depends. State control was widely limited by (lack of) technological means. People living in the mountains/swamps were mostly rid of State control because there was no gasoline to take an army up there. And whatever control the State had, they didn’t have cameras on the streets and a television spitting lies in every home to exert their control.
I’m not idealizing the middle ages, there were a lot of problems. But free communes and peasant uprisings were a thing back then. Can we say the same today in the western world?
Feudalism wasn’t any closer to anarchism than capitalism.
Definitely not. My point was simply that back then, people could technically evade feudalism by fleeing from the centers of power. While evading capitalism today is mostly impossible (or please show me how).
Perhaps Zapatista would be the closest example, although they don’t consider themselves anarchist. Yet, even they only managed to carve out a niche for themselves within of a capitalist state.
From my (limited) understanding of the zapatistas, they are indeed an anarchist movement (from my definition). They are building dual power from the ground up without higher authority.
What really sets zapatism apart from other marxist revolutions, is that the armed branch of the revolution (EZLN) explicitly recognizes they are not representative of the people and the people should decide for themselves. EZLN is only here to protect the revolution against outside threats, and does not worry about internal politics.
This healthy self-criticism and strong separation of powers is what enables the movement to build concrete autonomy, whereas revolutionary avant-garde (of the past) have actively sabotaged revolutionary efforts (eg. bolsheviks taking power away from the soviets, into the hands of the State).
Also it’s not a small niche. Zapatist communities are huge, and are well connected to the social struggles of the urban centers. As recently as last year, the movement announced the creation of new autonomous regions (caracols) so it’s still growing.
there have been numerous successful ML revolutions that liberated millions of people across the globe
And killed/enslaved millions of others. “Liberation” is not how people in the USSR/Spain/China experienced it: see Cronstadt/Makhnovtchina for example of true revolutionaries rising up against the counter-revolutionary bolshevik tyrants for social justice and self-determination (spoiler: they were massacred). If you’re interested in that, Emma Goldman has very detailed, first-hand accounts of her disillusions with the Russian revolution and the bolshevik dictatorship (of the proletariat, or so they say).
The first question that needs to be asked is how such a system can be overthrown in order for something different to be possible.
For me the first question is how can we avoid reproducing this, personally and as communities. Overthrowing a system of oppression to replace it with another one is of no interest to me. Whether i’m placed in a concentration camp by the capital’s police or the people’s police makes no difference to me. Burn all prisons and police stations, then we can start to think differently about living together as a society.
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Well that’s very precisely what anarchism is about: a collection of mental tool and individual/collective strategies to sabotage all forms of domination.
That is true. Most autonomous communes have been assimilated or exterminated over the years. Contrary to popular belief, the middle ages were a rather free time for those people who lived far away from the centers of power. Nowadays, nobody can escape State control. This state of things was obtained through a mix of technological progress (gasoline motors considerably expanded the reach of State control) and progressive narrative (“public school is mandatory for the good of the children”).
Many anarchists are very skeptical/defiant and would rather on a daily basis only interact/cooperate with other anarchists (affinity) because they assume other people have an opposite mindset. However, despite all our formatting from years of school and media propaganda, most people in practice agree with anarchist principles when faced with actual situations, for example:
Many people have argued in the past that in nature humans and other species tend towards anarchism (disinterested cooperation). That was the main point of Kropotkin’s Mutual aid, or David Graber’s Are you an anarchist? the answer may surprise you.
Despite my criticizing “nature” as a valid concept at all, i do believe most humans tend to be compassionate and critical by default, and it takes considerable amount of resources to indoctrinate people into behaving otherwise. For example, it takes many years of public schools to “teach” kids helping one another is cheating… and some like me will never “learn” ;)
Competing is not exactly the word. But authoritarian systems and libertarian capitalist communes tend to exterminate alternatives, so we do have to be prepared. However in anarchist thought/practice this is usually understood as specific of a specific context (power balance). Two examples:
About defending ourselves, popular self-defense is an important notion for anarchists. Basically, it’s the idea that most conflicts can be resolved through non-violent means (deescalation and community accountability) but we should have the power to defend ourselves and our communities violently if the need arises. Both aspects are core principles of popular self-defense.
Removed by mod
There is and there was. That most anarchist communes have been eradicated by authoritarians of all stripes doesn’t mean they weren’t successful. The two last ones to fall in the past few years, la ZAD and Exarchia, were really amazing communities where one could live without money and (mostly) without oppression.
It depends. State control was widely limited by (lack of) technological means. People living in the mountains/swamps were mostly rid of State control because there was no gasoline to take an army up there. And whatever control the State had, they didn’t have cameras on the streets and a television spitting lies in every home to exert their control.
I’m not idealizing the middle ages, there were a lot of problems. But free communes and peasant uprisings were a thing back then. Can we say the same today in the western world?
Definitely not. My point was simply that back then, people could technically evade feudalism by fleeing from the centers of power. While evading capitalism today is mostly impossible (or please show me how).
From my (limited) understanding of the zapatistas, they are indeed an anarchist movement (from my definition). They are building dual power from the ground up without higher authority.
What really sets zapatism apart from other marxist revolutions, is that the armed branch of the revolution (EZLN) explicitly recognizes they are not representative of the people and the people should decide for themselves. EZLN is only here to protect the revolution against outside threats, and does not worry about internal politics.
This healthy self-criticism and strong separation of powers is what enables the movement to build concrete autonomy, whereas revolutionary avant-garde (of the past) have actively sabotaged revolutionary efforts (eg. bolsheviks taking power away from the soviets, into the hands of the State).
Also it’s not a small niche. Zapatist communities are huge, and are well connected to the social struggles of the urban centers. As recently as last year, the movement announced the creation of new autonomous regions (caracols) so it’s still growing.
And killed/enslaved millions of others. “Liberation” is not how people in the USSR/Spain/China experienced it: see Cronstadt/Makhnovtchina for example of true revolutionaries rising up against the counter-revolutionary bolshevik tyrants for social justice and self-determination (spoiler: they were massacred). If you’re interested in that, Emma Goldman has very detailed, first-hand accounts of her disillusions with the Russian revolution and the bolshevik dictatorship (of the proletariat, or so they say).
For me the first question is how can we avoid reproducing this, personally and as communities. Overthrowing a system of oppression to replace it with another one is of no interest to me. Whether i’m placed in a concentration camp by the capital’s police or the people’s police makes no difference to me. Burn all prisons and police stations, then we can start to think differently about living together as a society.
Removed by mod