Albert
Like
most social movements anarchism is diverse. Most broadly an anarchist seeks out
and identifies structures of authority, hierarchy, and domination throughout
life, and tries to challenge them as conditions and the pursuit of justice
permit. Anarchists work to eliminate subordination. They focus on political
power, economic power, power relations among men and women, power between
parents and children, power among cultural communities, power over future
generations via effects on the environment, and much else as well. Of course
anarchists challenge the state and the corporate rulers of the domestic and
international economy, but they also challenge every other instance and
manifestation of illegitimate authority.
So
why wouldn’t everyone concerned that people ought have appropriate control over
their lives admire anarchism?
Problems arise because from being "opponents of illegitimate authority" one can
grow movements of incomparable majesty, on the one hand, and movements that are
majestically unimpressive, on the other hand. If anarchism means mostly the
former, good people will admire and gravitate toward anarchism. But if anarchism
means mostly the latter, then good people will have reservations or even be
hostile to it. So what’s the not so admirable or even distasteful version of
anarchism now? And what is the admirable version? And do even the admirable
strands incorporate sufficient insight to be successful?
Distasteful "anarchism" is the brand that dismisses political forms per se, or
institutions per se, or even plain old technology per se, or that dismisses
fighting for reforms per se, as if political structures, institutional
arrangements, or even technological innovation, all intrinsically impose
illegitimate authority, or as if relating to existing social structures to win
immediate limited gains is an automatic sign of hypocrisy.
Folks
holding these views presumably see that contemporary state’s use of force and
rule to subjugate the many, and deduce that this is an outgrowth of trying to
adjudicate, or legislate, or implement shared aims, or even just to cooperate on
a large scale, per se, rather than seeing that it is instead an outgrowth of
doing these things in particular ways to serve narrow elites and what we need is
to fulfill the functions more positively.
They
see that many and even most of our institutions, while delivering to people
needed organization, celebration, food, transport, homes, services, etc., also
restrict what people can do in ways contrary to human aspirations and dignity.
They wrongly deduce that this must be the case for all institutions per se, so
that instead of institutions we need only voluntary spontaneous interactions in
which at all times all aspects are fluid and spontaneously generated and
dissolved. Of course, in fact, without stable and lasting institutions that have
well conceived and lasting norms and roles, advanced relations among disparate
populations and even among individuals are quite impossible. The mistake is that
while institutional roles that compel people to deny their humanity or the
humanity of others are, of course, abominable, institutions that permit people
to express their humanity more fully and freely are not abominable at all, but
part and parcel of a just social order.
The
situation with technology is similar. The critic looks at assembly lines,
weapons, and energy use that despoil our world, and says there is something
about pursuit of technological mastery that intrinsically breeds these sorts of
horrible outcomes so that we’d be better off without technology. Of course, this
misses the point that pencils are technology, clothes are technology, and indeed
all human artifacts are technology, and that life would be short and brutish, at
best, without technologies. So, the issue isn’t to decry and escape technology
per se, but to create and retain only technologies that serve humane aims and
potentials.
And
finally, regarding reforms, the debilitating orientation notices that with many
reforms the gains are fleeting, and elites even manage to reinforce their
legitimacy and extend their domain of control by first granting and then
domesticating and then eliminating the advances. But again, this doesn’t result
from change or reform per se, but from change conceived, sought, and implemented
in reformist ways that presuppose and do not challenge system maintenance.
What’s needed instead isn’t to have no reforms, which would simply capitulate
the playing field to elites, but to fight for reforms that are non-reformist,
that is, to fight for reforms that we conceive, seek, and implement in ways
leading activists to seek still more gains in a trajectory of change leading
ultimately to new institutions.
It
shouldn’t be necessary to even discuss the above addressed "bad trajectory" of
anarchism and its anti political, anti-institutional, anti-technology, and
anti-reform confusions. It is perfectly natural and understandable for folks
first becoming sensitized to the ills of political forms, or institutions, or
technologies, or first encountering reform struggles to momentarily go awry and
blame the entire category of each for the ills of the worst instances of each.
But if this confusion were to thereafter be addressed naturally, it would be a
very temporary one. After all, without political structures, without
institutions per se, and/or without technology, not to mention without
progressive reforms, humanity would barely survive much less prosper and fulfill
its many capacities. But, of course media and elites will take any negative
trajectory of anarchism and will prop it up, portraying it as the whole of
anarchism, elevating the confused and unworthy to crowd out the valuable and
discredit the whole. In this context, some of the most extreme (but colorful)
advocates of these counter productive viewpoints will be highlighted by media.
The whole unsustainable and objectionable approach will thereby gain far more
visibility than warranted by its numbers, much less by its logic or values, and,
thereafter, also a certain tenacity.
What
about the good trajectory of contemporary anarchism, less visible in the media?
This seems to me to be far more uplifting and inspiring. It is the widely
awakening impetus to fight on the side of the oppressed in every domain of life,
from family, to culture, to state, to economy, to the now very visible
international arena of "globalization," and to do so in creative and courageous
ways conceived to win improvements in people’s lives now even while leading
toward winning new institutions in the future. The good anarchism nowadays
transcends a narrowness that has often in the past befallen the approach.
Instead of being solely politically anti-authoritarian, as often in the old
days, nowadays being an anarchist more and more implies having a gender,
cultural, and an economic, as well as a politically-rooted orientation, with
each aspect taken on a par with and also informing the rest. This is new, at
least in my experience of anarchism, and it is useful to recall that many
anarchists as little as a decade back, perhaps even more recently, would have
said that anarchism addresses everything, yes, of course, but via an
anti-authoritarian focus rather than by simultaneously elevating other concepts
in their own right. Such past anarchists thought, whether implicitly or
explicitly, that analysis from an overwhelmingly anti-authoritarian angle could
explain the nuclear family better than an analysis rooted as well in kinship
concepts, and could explain race or religion better than an analysis rooted as
well in cultural concepts, and could explain production, consumption, and
allocation better than an analysis rooted as well in economic concepts. They
were wrong, and it is a great advance that many modern anarchists know this and
are broadening their intellectual approach in accord so that anarchism now
highlights not only the state, but also gender relations, and not only the
economy but also cultural relations and ecology, sexuality, and freedom in every
form it can be sought, and each not only through the sole prism of authority
relations, but also informed by richer and more diverse concepts. And of course
this desirable anarchism not only doesn’t decry technology per se, but it
becomes familiar with and employs diverse types of technology as appropriate. It
not only doesn’t decry institutions per se, or political forms per se, it tries
to conceive new institutions and new political forms for activism and for a new
society, including new ways of meeting, new ways of decision making, new ways of
coordinating, and so on, most recently including revitalized affinity groups and
original spokes structures. And it not only doesn’t decry reforms per se, but it
struggles to define and win non-reformist reforms, attentive to people’s
immediate needs and bettering people’s lives now as well as moving toward
further gains, and eventually transformative gains, in the future.
So
why doesn’t the good anarchism trump the not so good anarchism out of
visibility, so to speak, leaving the way clear for most everyone on the left to
gravitate toward anarchism’s best side? Part of the answer, already noted, is
that elites and mainstream media highlight the not-so-good, giving it far more
weight and tenacity than it would otherwise embody. But part of the answer is
also that the good side of contemporary anarchism is in various respects too
vague to rise above the rest. What’s the problem? I think it’s that the good
anarchism doesn’t posit clear and compelling goals.
Anarchism has historically focused on the political realm of life. But even
there, even with the long history, the emerging anarchism of today’s movements
doesn’t clarify for us what an anarchist polity could be. Assuming that
societies need to fulfill adjudicative, legislative, and implementation
functions in the political realm of life, and need to do this via institutions
which citizens partake of and constitute, then what should these institutions
be? If the bad trend is to say that we favor no political institutions but only
spontaneous face to face interaction of free individuals each doing as they
choose with no constraints on them, then what is the good trend’s better
viewpoint? What kind of structures with what kinds of social roles and norms in
an anarchist polity will accomplish political functions while also propelling
values that we support?
It is
perhaps premature to expect newly enlarging anarchism to produce from within a
compelling vision of future religion, ethnic identification, or cultural
community, or a future vision of kinship, sexuality, procreation, or
socialization relations, or even a future vision of production, consumption, or
allocation relations. But regarding attaining, implementing, and protecting
against the abuse of shared political agendas, adjudicating disputes, and
creating and enforcing norms of collective interaction, it seems to me that
anarchism ought to be where the action is. Nonetheless, has there been any
serious anarchist attempt to explain how legal disputes should be resolved? How
legal adjudication should occur? How laws and political coordination should be
attained? How violations and disruptions should be handled? How shared programs
should be positively implemented? In other words, what are the anarchist’s full
set of positive institutional alternatives to contemporary legislatures, courts,
police, and diverse executive agencies? What institutions do anarchists seek
that would advance solidarity, equity, participatory self-management, diversity,
and whatever other life-affirming and libratory values anarchists support, while
also accomplishing needed political functions?
Huge
numbers of citizens of developed societies are not going to risk what they have,
however little it may be in some cases, to pursue a goal about which they have
no clarity. How often do they have to ask us what we are for before we give them
some serious, sufficiently extensive, carefully thought through, and compelling
answers? Offering a political vision that encompasses legislation,
implementation, adjudication, and enforcement and that shows how each would be
effectively accomplished in a non-authoritarian way promoting positive outcomes
would not only provide our contemporary activism much-needed long-term hope, it
would also inform our immediate responses to today’s electoral, law-making, law
enforcement, and court system, and thus many of our strategic choices. So
shouldn’t today’s anarchist community be generating such political vision? I
think it should, and I eagerly hope it will be forthcoming soon. Indeed, I
suspect that until there is a widespread component of anarchism that puts forth
something positive and worthy regarding political goals, the negative component
decrying all political structures and even all institutions will remain highly
visible and will greatly reduce potential allegiance to anarchism.
Some
will say anarchism has more than enough vision already. Too much vision will
constrain ingenuity and innovation. I reply that this is the same type mistake
as dumping political structures, or all institutions, or all technology, or all
reforms. The problem isn’t vision per se. The problem is vision that is held and
owned only by elites and that serves only elites. Public, accessible vision,
political and otherwise, which truly serves the whole populace is precisely what
we need.
So
what about good anarchism’s potentials? I guess I would say that if anarchism
has truly recognized the need for culture-based, economy-based, and
gender-based, as well as for polity-based concepts and practice, and if
anarchism can support vision originating in other movements about
non-governmental social dimensions while itself providing compelling political
vision, and if the anarchist community can avoid strange confusions over
technology, political structures, institutions per se, and seeking to win
non-reformist reforms—then I think anarchism has a whole lot going for it and
could well become a main 21st century source of movement inspiration and wisdom
in the effort to make our world a much better place.