No more talk about the old days, it’s time for something great.
I want you to get out and make it work...
Thom Yorke
Dedicated to the wonderful people of RuinAmalia, La Revoltosa, and the Kyiv infoshop, for making anarchy work.
Although this book started out as an individual project, in the end a great many people, most of whom prefer to remain anonymous, helped make it possible through proofreading, fact-checking, recommending sources, editing, and more. To acknowledge only a small part of this help, the author would like to thank John, Jose, Vila Kula, aaaa!, L, J, and G for providing computer access throughout a year of moves, evictions, crashes, viruses, and so forth. Thanks to Jessie Dodson ... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)
1. Human Nature
Anarchism challenges the typical Western conception of human nature by envisioning societies built on cooperation, mutual aid, and solidarity between people, rather than competition and survival of the fittest.
Aren’t people naturally selfish?
Everybody has a sense of self-interest, and the capability to act in a selfish way at other people’s expense. But everyone also has a sense of the needs of those around them, and we are all capable of generous and selfless actions. Human survival depends on generosity. The next time someone tells you a communal, anarchistic society could not work because people are naturally selfish, tell him he should withhold food from his children pending payment, do not... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)
2. Decisions
Anarchy is the absence of rulers. Free people do not follow orders; they make their own decisions and come to agreements within their communities, and develop shared means for putting these decisions into practice.
How will decisions be made?
There should be no doubt that human beings can make decisions in non-hierarchical, egalitarian ways. The majority of human societies have been stateless, and many stateless societies have not been governed by the dictates of some “Big Man,” but by common assemblies using some form of consensus. Numerous consensus-based societies have survived thousands of years, even through European colonialism into the present day, in Africa, Australia, Asia, the Americas, an... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)
3. Economy
Anarchism is opposed to capitalism and to private ownership of the tools, infrastructure, and resources everyone requires for sustenance. Anarchist economic models range from hunter-gatherer communities and agricultural communes to industrial complexes in which planning is carried out by syndicates and distribution is arranged through quotas or a limited form of currency. All these models are based on the principles of working together to fulfill common needs and rejecting hierarchy of all kinds — including bosses, management, and the division of society into classes such as wealthy and poor or owners and laborers.
Without wages, what is the incentive to work?
Some worry that if we abolish capitalism and wa... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)
4. Environment
No philosophy or movement for liberation can ignore the connection between human exploitation of the environment and our exploitation of one another, nor can it ignore the suicidal ramifications of industrial society. A free society must forge a respectful and sustainable relationship with its bioregion, on the understanding that humans depend on the health of the entire planet.
What’s to stop someone from destroying the environment?
Some people oppose capitalism on environmental grounds, but think some sort of state is necessary to prevent ecocide. But the state is itself a tool for the exploitation of nature. Socialist states such as the Soviet Union and People’s Republic of China have been amon... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)
5. Crime
Prison is the institution that most concretely symbolizes domination. Anarchists wish to create a society that can protect itself and resolve internal problems without police, judges, or prisons; a society that does not view its problems in terms of good and evil, permitted and prohibited, law-abiders and criminals.
Who will protect us without police?
In our society, police benefit from a tremendous amount of hype, whether it’s biased and fear-mongering media coverage of crime or the flood of movies and television shows featuring cops as heroes and protectors. Yet many people’s experiences with police contrast starkly with this heavy-handed propaganda.
In a hierarchical society, whom do police pr... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)
6. Revolution
To put an end to all coercive hierarchies and open space for organizing a horizontal, liberated society, people must overcome the repressive powers of the state, abolish all institutions of capitalism, patriarchy, and white supremacy, and create communities that organize themselves without new authorities.
How could people organized horizontally possibly overcome the state?
If anarchists believe in voluntary action and decentralized organization, how could they ever be strong enough to topple a government with a professional army? In fact, strong anarchist and anti-authoritarian movements have defeated armies and governments in a number of revolutions. Often this occurs in periods of economic crisis, when the ... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)
7. Neighboring Societies
Because anarchism opposes domination and enforced conformity, an anarchist revolution would not create a completely anarchist world. Anarchist societies would need to find peaceful ways of coexisting with neighboring societies, defending themselves from authoritarian neighbors, and supporting liberation in societies with oppressive internal dynamics.
Could an anarchist society defend itself from an authoritarian neighbor?
Some people worry that an anarchist revolution would be a pointless venture because an anti-authoritarian society would quickly be conquered by an authoritarian neighbor. Of course, an anarchist revolution is not a strictly national affair limiting itself to the borders of the gove... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)
8. The Future
We are fighting for our own lives, but also for a world we might never get to see.
Won’t the state just reemerge over time?
Most of the examples cited in this book no longer exist, and some only lasted a few years. The stateless societies and social experiments were mostly conquered by imperialist powers or repressed by states. But history has also shown that revolution is possible, and that revolutionary struggle does not inevitably lead to authoritarianism. Authoritarian revolutionary ideas such as social democracy or Marxist-Leninism have been discredited the world over. While socialist political parties continue to be parasites sucking at the vital energies of social movements, predictably selling ou... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)
It Works When We Make It Work
The many people who conspired to commit these rebel stories to paper and get them into your hands have been thoughtful enough to provide you with one parting example of anarchy: the book itself. Imagine the decentralized network, the harmonious chaos, the confluence of liberated desires, that made it possible. With passion and determination millions of people breathed life into the stories we present, and many of them struggled even past the point of certain defeat in the hopes their utopias might inspire future generations. Hundreds of other people documented these worlds and kept them alive in our minds. A dozen more came together to edit, design, and illustrate the book, and even more collaborated wit... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)
Bibliography
Emily Achtenberg, “Community Organizing and Rebellion: Neighborhood Councils in El Alto, Bolivia,” Progressive Planning, No.172, Summer 2007.
Ackelsberg, Martha A., Free Women of Spain: Anarchism and the Struggle for the Emancipation of Women, Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1991.
William M. Adams and David M. Anderson, “Irrigation Before Development: Indigenous and Induced Change in Agricultural Water Management in East Africa,” African Affairs, 1998.
AFL-CIO “Facts About Worker Safety and Health 2007.” www.aflcio.org [viewed January 19, 2008]
Gemma Aguilar, “Els Okupes Fan la Feina que Oblida el Districte,” Avui, Saturday, Decemb... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)
[1] Sam Mbah and I.E. Igariway write that before colonial contact nearly all traditional African societies were “anarchies,” and they make a strong argument to this effect. The same could also be said of other continents. But as the author does not come from any of these societies, and since Western culture traditionally believes it has the right to represent other societies in self-serving ways, it is best to avoid such broad characterizations, while still endeavoring to learn from these examples.
[2] “The Really Really Free Market: Instituting the Gift Economy,” Rolling Thunder, No. 4 Spring 2007, p. 34.
[3] Robert K. Dentan, The Semai: A Nonviolent People of Malaya. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, ... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)
