Section J - What do anarchists do?

J.1 Are anarchists involved in social struggles?
	J.1.1 Why are social struggles important?
	J.1.2 Are anarchists against reforms?
	J.1.3 Why are anarchists against reformism?
	J.1.4 What attitude do anarchists take to "single-issue" campaigns?
	J.1.5 Why do anarchists try to generalise social struggles?

J.2 What is direct action?
	J.2.1  Why do anarchists favour using direct action to change things?
	J.2.2  Why do anarchists reject voting as a means for change?
	J.2.3  What are the political implications of voting?
	J.2.4  Surely voting for radical parties will be effective?
	J.2.5  Why do anarchists support abstentionism and what are its
	       implications?
	J.2.6  What are the effects of radicals using electioneering?
	J.2.7  Surely we should vote for reformist parties in order to show 
	       them up for what they are?
	J.2.8  Will abstentionism lead to the right winning elections?
	J.2.9  What do anarchists do instead of voting?
	J.2.10 Does rejecting electioneering mean that anarchists are 
	       apolitical?

J.3 What forms of organisation do anarchists build?
	J.3.1 What are affinity groups?
	J.3.2 Why do anarchists organise into federations?
	J.3.3 What is "the Platform"?
	J.3.4 What is anarcho-syndicalism?
	J.3.5 Why do many anarchists think anarcho-syndicalism is not enough?
	J.3.6 What is a TAZ?

J.4 What trends in society aid anarchist activity?
	J.4.1 Why is social struggle a good sign?
	J.4.2 Are the new social movements a positive development 
	      for anarchists?
	J.4.3 What is the "economic structural crisis" and why is it important 
	      to social struggle?
	J.4.4 Are declining state revenues a hopeful sign for anarchists? 
	J.4.5 What are implications of anti-government and anti-big business 
	      feelings?
	J.4.6 What about the communications revolution?
	J.4.7 What is the significance of the accelerating rate of change 
	      and the information explosion?
	J.4.8 What are Netwars?

J.5 What alternative social organisations do anarchists create?
	J.5.1 What is community unionism?
	J.5.2 Why do anarchists support industrial unionism?
	J.5.3 What attitude do anarchists take to existing unions?
	J.5.4 What are industrial networks?
	J.5.5 What forms of co-operative credit do anarchists support?
	J.5.6 What are the key features of mutual credit schemes?
	J.5.7 Do most anarchists think mutual credit is sufficient to abolish
	      capitalism?
	J.5.8 What would a modern system of mutual banking look like? 
	J.5.9 How does mutual credit work?
	J.5.10 Why do anarchists support co-operatives?
	J.5.11 If workers really want self-management, why aren't there more
	       producer co-operatives? 
	J.5.12 If self-management is more efficient, surely capitalist firms 
	       will be forced to introduce it by the market?
	J.5.13 What are Modern Schools?
	J.5.14 What is Libertarian Municipalism?
	J.5.15 What attitude do anarchists take to the welfare state?
	J.5.16 Are there any historical examples of collective self-help?

J.6 What methods of child rearing do anarchists advocate?
	J.6.1 What are the main principles of raising free children and 
	      the main obstacles to implementing those principles?
	J.6.2 What are some examples of libertarian child-rearing methods
	      applied to the care of newborn infants?
	J.6.3 What are some examples of libertarian child-rearing methods
	      applied to the care of young children? 
	J.6.4 If children have nothing to fear, how can they be good? 
	J.6.5 But how can children learn *morality* if they are not given
	      punishments, prohibitions, and religious instruction?  
	J.6.6 But how will a free child ever learn unselfishness?
	J.6.7 Isn't what you call "libertarian child-rearing" just another 
	      name for spoiling the child?
	J.6.8 What is the anarchist position on teenage sexual liberation? 
	J.6.9 But isn't this concern with teenage sexual liberation just a 
	      distraction from  issues that should be of more concern to 
	      anarchists, like restructuring the economy?

J.7 What do anarchists mean by "social revolution"?
	J.7.1 Is social revolution possible? 
	J.7.2 Why is social revolution needed?
	J.7.3 What would a social revolution involve?

Section J - What do anarchists do?

This section discusses what anarchists get up to. There is little point
thinking about the world unless you also want to change it for the better.
And by trying to change it, you change yourself and others, making radical
change more of a possibility. Therefore anarchists give their whole-hearted 
support to attempts by ordinary people to improve their lives by their 
own actions. As Max Stirner pointed out, "The true man does not lie in 
the future, an object of longing, but lies, existent and real, in the
present." [_The Ego and Its Own_, p. 327]

For anarchists, the future is *already appearing in the present* and is
expressed by the autonomy of working class self-activity. Anarchy is
not some-day-to-be-achieved utopia, it is a living reality whose growth
only needs to be freed from constraint. As such anarchist activity 
is about discovering and aiding emerging trends of mutual aid which
work against capitalist domination (i.e. what is actually developing), 
so the Anarchist "studies society and tries to discover its *tendencies*, 
past and present, its growing needs, intellectual and economic, and in 
his [or her] ideal he merely points out in which direction evolution 
goes." [Peter Kropotkin, _Kropotkin's Revolutionary Pamphlets_, p. 47] 

The kinds of activity outlined in this section are a general overview
of anarchist work. It is by no means exclusive as we are sure to have
left something out. However, the key aspect of *real* anarchist
activity is *direct action* - self-activity, self-help, self-liberation 
and solidarity. Such activity may be done by individuals (for example, 
propaganda work), but usually anarchists emphasis collective activity. This 
is because most of our problems are of a social nature, meaning that their 
solutions can only be worked on collectively. Individual solutions to 
social problems are doomed to failure (for example green consumerism). 

In addition, collective action gets us used to working together, promoting 
the experience of self-management and building organisations that will allow
us to activity manage our own affairs. Also, and we would like to emphasis 
this, it's *fun* to get together with other people and work with them, 
it's fulfilling and empowering.

Anarchists do not ask those in power to give up that power. No, they
promote forms of activity and organisation by which all the oppressed
can liberate themselves by their own hands. In other words, we do not
think that those in power will altruistically give up that power or
their privileges. Instead, the oppressed must take the power *back*
into their own hands by their own actions. We must free ourselves,
no one else can do it for use.

As we have noted before, anarchism is more than just a critique of statism
and capitalism or a vision of a freer, better way of life. It is first and
foremost a movement, the movement of working class people attempting to 
change the world. Therefore the kind of activity we discuss in this 
section of the FAQ forms the bridge between capitalism and anarchy. By 
self-activity and direct action, people can change both themselves and 
their surroundings. They develop within themselves the mental, ethical and 
spiritual qualities which can make an anarchist society a viable option. 

As Noam Chomsky argues, "Only through their own struggle for liberation 
will ordinary people come to comprehend their true nature, suppressed and 
distorted within institutional structures designed to assure obedience and 
subordination. Only in this way will people develop more humane ethical 
standards, 'a new sense of right', 'the consciousness of their strength and 
their importance as a social factor in the life of their time' and their 
capacity to realise the strivings of their 'inmost nature.' Such direct
engagement in the work of social reconstruction is a prerequisite for
coming to perceive this 'inmost nature' and is the indispensable 
foundations upon which it can flourish." [preface to Rudolf Rocker's 
_Anarcho-Syndicalism_, p. viii]

In other words, anarchism is not primarily a vision of a better future, but 
the actual social movement which is fighting within the current unjust and 
unfree society for that better future and to improve things in the here and 
now. Without standing up for yourself and what you believe is right, nothing 
will change. Therefore anarchists would agree whole-heartedly with Frederick 
Douglass (an Abolitionist) who stated that:

"If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favour 
freedom and yet deprecate agitation are people who want crops without plowing 
up the ground. They want rain without thunder and lightning. That struggle 
might be a moral one; it might be a physical one; it might be both moral and 
physical, but it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand. 
It never did and never will. People might not get all that they work for in 
this world, but they must certainly work for all they get." 

In this section of the FAQ we will discuss anarchist ideas on struggle, 
what anarchists actually (and, almost as importantly, do not) do in the
here and now and the sort of alternatives anarchists try to build within
statism and capitalism in order to destroy them. As well as a struggle 
against oppression, anarchist activity is also struggle for freedom. As 
well as fighting against material poverty, anarchists combat spiritual 
poverty. By resisting hierarchy we emphasis the importance of *living* 
and of *life as art.* By proclaiming "Neither Master nor Slave" we urge 
an ethical transformation, a transformation that will help create the 
possibility of a truly free society. 

This point was argued by Emma Goldman after she saw the defeat of the 
Russian Revolution by a combination of Leninist politics and capitalist 
armed intervention:

"the ethical values which the revolution is to establish must be initiated 
with the revolutionary activities. . . The latter can only serve as a real 
and dependable bridge to the better life if built of the same material as 
the life to be achieved" [_My Further Disillusionment in Russia_]

In other words, anarchist activity is more than creating libertarian
alternatives and resisting hierarchy, it is about building the new
world in the shell of the old not only with regards to organisations
and self-activity, but also within the individual. It is about transforming
yourself while transforming the world - both processes obviously interacting
and supporting each other - "the first aim of Anarchism is to assert and 
make the dignity of the individual human being." [Charlotte Wilson, _Three
Essays on Anarchism_, p. 17]

And by direct action, self-management and self-activity we can make the 
words first heard in Paris, 1968 a living reality -

			"All power to the imagination!"

Words, we are sure, the classic anarchists would have whole-heartedly
agreed with. There is a power in humans, a creative power, a power to alter 
what is into what should be. Anarchists try to create alternatives that will
allow that power to be expressed, the power of imagination.

In the sections that follow we will discuss the forms of self-activity and 
self-organisation (collective and individual) which anarchists think will 
stimulate and develop the imagination of those oppressed by hierarchy, build 
anarchy in action and help create a free society.

J.1 Are anarchists involved in social struggles?

Yes. Anarchism, above all else, is a movement which aims to not only
analyze the world but also to change it. Therefore anarchists aim to
participate in and encourage social struggle. Social struggle includes
strikes, marches, protests, demonstrations, boycotts, occupations and so
on. Such activities show that the "spirit of revolt" is alive and well,
that people are thinking and acting for themselves and against what
authorities want them to do. This, in the eyes of anarchists, plays a
key role in helping create the seeds of anarchy within capitalism.

Anarchists consider socialistic tendencies to develop within society, as
people see the benefits of cooperation and particularly when mutual aid
develops within the struggle against authority, oppression and
exploitation. Therefore, anarchists do not place anarchy abstractly against
capitalism, but see it as a tendency within (and against) the system - a
tendency which can be developed to such a degree that it can *replace*
the dominant structures and social relationships with new, more liberatory 
and humane ones. This perspective indicates why anarchists are involved
in social struggle - they are an expression of this tendency within but
against capitalism which can ultimately replace it.

As we will see later (in section J.2) anarchists encourage direct action
within social struggles as well as arguing anarchist ideas and theories.
However, what is important to note here is that social struggle is a sign 
that people are thinking and acting for themselves and working together to
change things. Anarchists agree with Howard Zinn when he points out that:

"civil disobedience. . . is *not* our problem. Our problem is civil
*obedience.* Our problem is that numbers of people all over the world
have obeyed the dictates of the leaders of their government and have
gone to war, and millions have been killed because of this obedience. . .
Our problem is that people are obedient all over the world in the face
of poverty and starvation and stupidity, and war, and cruelty. Our
problem is that people are obedient while the jails are full of petty
thieves, and all the while the grand thieves are running the country.
That's our problem." [_Failure to Quit_, p. 45]

Therefore, social struggle is an important thing for anarchists and we
take part in it as much as we can. Moreover, anarchists do more than just
take part. We are fighting to get rid of the system that causes the
problems which people fight again. We explain anarchism to those who are
involved in struggle with us and seek to show the relevance of anarchism to 
people's everyday lives through our work in such struggles and the popular
organisations which they create (in addition to trade unions, campaigning 
groups and other bodies). By so doing we try to popularise the ideas and
methods of anarchism, namely solidarity, direct democracy and direct action.

Anarchists don't engage in abstract propaganda (become an anarchist, wait for
the revolution). We know that our ideas will only win a hearing and respect 
when we can show both their relevance to people's lives in the here and now,
and show that an anarchist world is both possible and desirable. In other
words, social struggle is the "school" of anarchism, the means by which
people become anarchists and anarchist ideas are applied in action. Hence 
the importance of social struggle and anarchist participation within it.

Before discussing issues related to social struggle, it is important to
point out here that anarchists are interested in struggles against all
forms of oppression and do not limit ourselves to purely economic issues. 
The exploitative nature of the capitalist system is only part of the story 
- other forms of oppression are needed in order to keep it going and have 
resulted from its workings. Like the bug in work, exploitation and oppression 
soon spreads and invests our homes, our friendships and our communities.

Therefore, anarchists are convinced that human life (and the struggle against
oppression) cannot be reduced to mere money and, indeed, the "proclivity
for economic reductionism is now actually obscurantist. It not only shares
in the bourgeois tendency to render material egotism and class interest
the centrepieces of history it also denigrates all attempts to transcend
this image of humanity as a mere economic being. . . by depicting them as
mere 'marginalia' at best, as 'well-intentioned middle-class ideology' at
worse, or sneeringly, as 'diversionary,' 'utopian,' and 'unrealistic.' . . .
Capitalism, to be sure, did not create the 'economy' or 'class interest,' 
but it subverted all human traits - be they speculative thought, love,
community, friendship, art, or self-governance - with the authority of
economic calculation and the rule of quantity. Its 'bottom line' is the
balance sheet's sum and its basic vocabulary consists of simple numbers."
[Murray Bookchin, _The Modern Crisis_, pp. 125-126]

In other words, issues such as freedom, justice, individual dignity, quality
of life and so on cannot be reduced to the categories of capitalist economics.
Anarchists think that any radical movement which does so fails to understand
the nature of the system they are fighting against. Indeed, economic
reductionism plays into the hands of capitalist ideology. So, when anarchists
take part in and encourage social struggle they do not aim to restrict or
reduce them to economic issues (however important these are). The anarchist
knows that the individual has more interests than just money and we consider
it essential to take into account the needs of the emotions, mind and spirit
just as much as those of the belly.

As the anarchist character created by the science-fiction writer Ursula
Le Guin (who is an anarchist) points out, capitalists "think if people have
enough things they will be content to live in prison." [_The Dispossessed_,
p. 120] Anarchists disagree, and the experience of social revolt in the
"affluent" 1960s proves their case.

This is unsurprising for, ultimately, the "antagonism [between classes] is 
spiritual rather than material. There will never be a sincere understanding 
between bosses and workers. . . because the bosses above all want to remain
bosses and secure always more power at the expense of the workers, as well 
as by competition with other bosses, whereas the workers have had their fill
of bosses and don't want any more." [Errico Malatesta, _Life and Ideas_,
p. 79]

J.1.1 Why are social struggles important?

Social struggle is an expression of the class struggle, namely the struggle 
of working class people *against* their exploitation, oppression and
alienation and *for* their liberty from capitalist and state authority.
It is what happens when one group of people have hierarchical power over
another. Where there is oppression, there is resistance and where there
is resistance to authority you will see anarchy in action. For this reason
anarchists are in favour of, and are involved within, social struggles.
Ultimately they are a sign of individuals asserting their autonomy and
disgust at an unfair system.

When it boils down to it, our actual freedom is not determined by the law
or by courts, but by the power the cop has over us in the street; the
judge behind him; by the authority of our boss if we are working; by the
power of teachers and heads of schools and universities if we are students; 
by the welfare bureaucracy if we are unemployed or poor; by landlords if we 
are tenants; by prison guards if we are in jail; by medical professionals if
we are in a hospital. These realities of wealth and power will remain unshaken
unless counter-forces appear on the very ground our liberty is restricted 
- on the street, in workplaces, at home, at school, in hospitals and so
on.

Therefore social struggles for improvements are important indications of
the spirit of revolt and of people supporting each other in the continual
assertion of their (and our) freedom. They show people standing up for
what they consider right and just, building alternative organisations,
creating their own solutions to their problems - and are a slap in the
face of all the paternal authorities which dare govern us. Hence their
importance to anarchists and all people interested in extending freedom.

In addition, social struggle helps break people from their hierarchical
conditioning. Anarchists view people not as fixed objects to be classified
and labeled, but as human beings engaged in making their own lives. They
live, love, think, feel, hope, dream, and can change themselves, their
environment and social relationships. Social struggle is the way this
is done collectively.

Struggle promotes attributes within people which are crushed by hierarchy 
(attributes such as imagination, organisational skills, self-assertion,
self-management, critical thought, self-confidence and so on) as people
come up against practical problems in their struggles and have to solve
them themselves. This builds self-confidence and an awareness of
individual and collective power. By seeing that their boss, the state
and so on are against them they begin to realise that they live in a
class ridden, hierarchical society that depends upon their submission
to work. As such, social struggle is a politicising experience.

Struggle allows those involved to develop their abilities for self-rule
through practice and so begins the process by which individuals assert
their ability to control their own lives and to participate in social life 
directly. These are all key elements of anarchism and are required for
an anarchist society to work. So self-activity is a key factor in
self-liberation, self-education and the creating of anarchists. In a 
nutshell, people learn in struggle.

A confident working class is an essential factor in making successful
and libertarian improvements within the current system and, ultimately, in
making a revolution. Without that self-confidence people tend to just
follow "leaders" and we end up changing rulers rather than changing
society.

Part of our job as anarchists is to encourage people to fight for
whatever small reforms are possible at present, to improve our/their
conditions, to give people confidence in their ability to start taking
control of their lives, and to point out that there is a limit to whatever
(sometimes temporary) gains capitalism will or can concede. Hence the need
for a revolutionary change.

Until anarchist ideas are the dominant/most popular ones, other ideas will
be the majority ones. If we think a movement is, all things considered, a
positive or progressive one then we should not abstain but should seek to
popularise anarchist ideas and strategies within it. In this way we create
"schools of anarchy" within the current system and lay the foundations of
something better.

Hence the importance of social (or class) struggle for anarchists (which,
we may add, goes on all the time and is a two-sided affair). Social struggle
is the means of breaking the normality of capitalist and statist life, a
means of developing the awareness for social change and the means of
making life better under the current system. The moment that people refuse 
to bow to authority, it ceases to exist. Social struggle indicates that
some of the oppressed see that by using their power of disobedience they
can challenge, perhaps eventually end, hierarchical power.

Ultimately, anarchy is not just something you believe in, it is not a cool 
label you affix to yourself, it's something you do. You participate. If you 
stop doing it, anarchy crumbles. Social struggle is the means by which we 
ensure that anarchy becomes stronger and grows.

J.1.2 Are anarchists against reforms?

No, we are not. While most anarchists are against reformism (namely the
notion that we can somehow reform capitalism and the state away) they are
most definitely in favour of reforms (i.e. improvements in the here and now).

The claim that anarchists are against reforms and improvements in the here
and now are often put forth by opponents of anarchism in an effort to paint 
us as extremists. Anarchists are radicals; as such, they seek the root causes
of societal problems. Reformists seek to ameliorate the symptoms of societal
problems, while anarchists focus on the causes.

For example, a reformist sees poverty and looks at ways to lessen the
destructive and debilitating effects of it: this produced things like the
minimum wage, affirmative action, and the projects in the USA and similar
reforms in other countries. An anarchist looks at poverty and says, "what 
causes this?" and attacks that source of poverty, rather than the symptoms. 
While reformists may succeed in the short run with their institutional
panaceas, the festering problems remain untreated, dooming reform to
eventual costly, inevitable failure--measured in human lives, no less. 
Like a quack that treats the symptoms of a disease without getting rid of 
what causes it, all the reformist can promise is short-term improvements 
for a condition that never goes away and may ultimately kill the sufferer.
The anarchist, like a real doctor, investigates the causes of the illness
and treats them while fighting the symptoms.

Therefore, anarchists are of the opinion that "[w]hile preaching against
every kind of government, and demanding complete freedom, we must support 
all struggles for partial freedom, because we are convinced that one learns 
through struggle, and that once one begins to enjoy a little freedom one
ends by wanting it all. We must always be with the people. . . [and] get
them to understand. . . [what] they may demand should be obtained
by their own efforts and that they should despise and detest whoever is
part of, or aspires to, government." [Errico Malatesta, _Life and Ideas_
p. 195]

Anarchists keep the spotlight on the actual problems, which of course
alienates them from their "distinguished" reformists foes. Reformists are
uniformly "reasonable" and always make use of "experts" who will make
everything okay - and they are always wrong in how they deal with a problem.

The recent "health care crisis" in the United States is a prime example of
reformism at work...

The reformist says, "how can we make health care more affordable to people? 
How can we keep those insurance rates down to levels people can pay?"

The anarchist says, "should health care be considered a privilege or
a right? Is medical care just another marketable commodity, or do living
beings have an inalienable right to it?"

Notice the difference? The reformist has no problem with people paying for
medical care-business is business, right? The anarchist, on the other hand,
has a big problem with that attitude - we're talking about human lives, here!
For now, the reformists have won with their "managed care" reformism, which
ensures that the insurance companies and medical industry continue to rake
in record profits - at the expense of people's lives.

Reformists get acutely uncomfortable when you talk about genuinely bringing
change to any system - they don't see anything wrong with the system itself,
only with a few pesky side effects. In this sense, they are stewards of the
Establishment, and are agents of reaction, despite their altruistic
overtures. By failing to attack the sources of problems, and by hindering
those who do, they ensure that the problems at hand will only grow over
time, and not diminish.

So, anarchists are not opposed to struggles for reforms and improvements
in the here and now. Indeed, few anarchists think that an anarchist society 
will occur without a long period of anarchist activity encouraging and
working within social struggle against injustice. Thus Malatesta's words:

"the subject is not whether we accomplish Anarchism today, tomorrow or
within ten centuries, but that we walk towards Anarchism today, tomorrow
and always." ["Towards Anarchism,", _Man!_, M. Graham (Ed.), p. 75]

So, when fighting for improvements anarchists do so in an anarchist way,
one that encourages self-management, direct action and the creation of
libertarian solutions and alternatives to both capitalism and the state.

J.1.3 Why are anarchists against reformism?

Firstly, it must be pointed out that the struggle for reforms within
capitalism is *not* the same as reformism. Reformism is the idea
that reforms within capitalism are enough in themselves and
attempts to change the system are impossible (and not desirable).
As such all anarchists are against this form of reformism - we think 
that the system can be (and should be) changed.

In addition, particularly in the old social democratic labour movement,
reformism also meant the belief that social reforms could be used to
*transform* capitalism into socialism. In this sense, only the Individualist
anarchists and Mutualists can be considered reformist as they think
their system of mutual banking can reform capitalism into a cooperative
system. However, in contrast to Social Democracy, such anarchists
think that such reforms cannot come about via government action, but
only by people creating their own alternatives and solutions by their
own actions.

So, anarchists oppose reformism because it takes the steam out of revolutionary
movements by providing easy, decidedly short-term "solutions" to deep social
problems. In this way, reformists can present the public with they've done
and say "look, all is better now. The system worked." Trouble is that over
time, the problems will only continue to grow, because the reforms didn't
tackle them in the first place.

Reformists also tend to objectify the people whom they are "helping;" they 
envision them as helpless, formless masses who need the wisdom and guidance 
of the "best and the brightest" to lead them to the Promised Land. Reformists
mean well, but this is altruism borne of ignorance, which is destructive over
the long run. As Malatesta put it, "[i]t is not true to say . . . [that
anarchists] are systematically opposed to improvements, to reforms. They
oppose the reformists on the one hand because their methods are less
effective for securing reforms from government and employers, who only give
in through fear, and because very often the reforms they prefer are those
which not only bring doubtful immediate benefits, but also serve to
consolidate the existing regime and to give the workers a vested interest
in its continued existence." [_Life and Ideas_, p. 81]

Reformists are scared of revolutionaries, who are not easily controlled;
what reformism amounts to is an altruistic contempt for the masses.
Reformists mean well, but they don't grasp the larger picture--by focusing
exclusively on narrow aspects of a problem, they choose to believe that is
the whole problem. In this willfully narrow examination of pressing social
ills, reformists are, in effect, counter-revolutionary. The disaster of the
urban rebuilding projects in the United States (and similar projects in
Britain which moved inter-city working class communities into edge of
town developments during the 1950s and 1960s) are an example of reformism 
at work: upset at the growing slums, reformists supported projects that
destroyed the ghettos and built brand-new housing for working class people 
to live in. They looked nice (initially), but they did nothing to
address the problem of poverty and indeed created more problems by
breaking up communities and neighbourhoods.

Logically, it makes no sense. Why dance around a problem when you can attack
it directly? Reformists dilute revolutionary movements, softening and
weakening them over time. The AFL-CIO labour unions in the USA, like the
ones in Western Europe, killed the labour movement by narrowing and channeling
labour activity and taking the power from the workers themselves, where it 
belongs, and placing it the hands of a bureaucracy. And that's precisely
what reformists do; they suck the life from social movements until the
people who are supposed to be in a better situation because of the reformists
end up in a worse situation.

Reformists say, "don't do anything, we'll do it for you." You can see why
anarchists would loathe this sentiment; anarchists are the consummate
do-it-yourselfers, and there's nothing reformists hate more than people who
can take care of themselves, who won't let them "help" them.

Also, it is funny to hear left-wing "revolutionaries" and "radicals" put
forward the reformist line that the capitalist state can help working people
(indeed be used to abolish itself!). Despite the fact that leftists blame 
the state and capitalism for most of the problems we face, they usually
turn to the state (run primarily by rich - i.e. capitalist - people) to
remedy the situation, not by leaving people alone, but by becoming more
involved in people's lives. They support government housing, government
jobs, welfare, government-funded and regulated child care, government-funded
drug "treatment," and other government-centered programmes and activities. If
a capitalist (and racist/sexist/authoritarian) government is the problem, 
how can it be depended upon to change things to the benefit of working class
people or other oppressed sections of the population like blacks and women? 

Instead of encouraging working class people to organise themselves and
create their own alternatives and solutions to their problem (which can
supplement, and ultimately replace, whatever welfare state activity which 
is actually useful), reformists and other radicals urge people to get the 
state to act for them. However, the state is not the community and so
whatever the state does for people you can be sure it will be in *its*
interests, not theirs. As Kropotkin put it:

"each step towards economic freedom, each victory won over capitalism will
be at the same time a step towards political liberty - towards liberation
from the yoke of the state. . . And each step towards taking from the
State any one of its powers and attributes will be helping the masses to
win a victory over capitalism." [_Kropotkin's Revolutionary Pamphlets_,
pp. 181-2]

Getting the state out of the way is the only thing that will lead to the
changes that can produce an improvement in the lives of working class people.
Encouraging people to rely on themselves instead of the state can lead to 
self-sufficient, independent, and, hopefully, more rebellious people - people
who will rebel against the real evils in society (capitalist and statist
exploitation and oppression, racism, sexism, ecological destruction, and
so on) and not their neighbours.

Working class people, despite having fewer options in a number of areas in 
their lives, due both to hierarchy and restrictive laws, still are capable 
of making choices about their actions, organising their own lives and are 
responsible for the consequences of their decisions, just as other people 
are. To think otherwise is to infantilise them, to consider them less fully 
human than other people and reproduce the classic capitalist vision of
working class people as means of production, to be used, abused, and
discarded as required. Such thinking lays the basis for paternalistic
interventions in their lives by the state, ensuring their continued dependence
and poverty and the continued existence of capitalism and the state.

Ultimately, there are two options:

"The oppressed either ask for and welcome improvements as a benefit
graciously conceded, recognise the legitimacy of the power which is over
them, and so do more harm than good by helping to slow down, or divert . . .
the processes of emancipation. Or instead they demand and impose improvements
by their action, and welcome them as partial victories over the class
enemy, using them as a spur to greater achievements, and thus a valid
help and a preparation to the total overthrow of privilege, that is,
for the revolution." [Errico Malatesta, Ibid., p. 81]

Reformism encourages the first attitude within people and so ensures the
impoverishment of the human spirit. Anarchism encourages the second
attitude and so ensures the enrichment of humanity and the possibility
of meaningful change. Why think that ordinary people cannot arrange
their lives for themselves as well as Government people can arrange it
not for themselves but for others?

J.1.4 What attitude do anarchists take to "single-issue" campaigns?

Firstly, we must note that anarchists do take part in "single-issue"
campaigns, but do not nourish false hopes in them. This section
explains what anarchists think of such campaigns.

A "single-issue" campaign are usually run by a pressure group which
concentrates on tackling issues one at a time. For example, C.N.D.
(The Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament) is a classic example of
"single-issue" campaigning with the aim of getting rid of nuclear
weapons as the be all and end all of its activity. For anarchists,
however, single-issue campaigning can be seen as a source of false
hopes. The possibilities of changing one aspect of a totally
inter-related system and the belief that pressure groups can
compete fairly with transnational corporations, the military and
so forth, in their influence over decision making bodies can both
be seen to be optimistic at best.

In addition, many "single-issue" campaigns desire to be "apolitical",
concentrating purely on the one issue which unites the campaign and
so refuse to analyze or discuss the system they are trying to change.
This means that they end up accepting the system which causes the
problems they are fighting against. At best, any changes
achieved by the campaign must be acceptable to the establishment
or be so watered down in content that no practical long-term good
is done.

This can be seen from the green movement, where groups like
Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth accept the status quo as a given
and limit themselves to working within it. This often leads to them
tailoring their "solutions" to be "practical" within a fundamentally
anti-ecological political and economic system, so slowing down (at
best) ecological disruption.

For anarchists these problems all stem from the fact that social
problems cannot be solved as single issues. As Larry Law argues
"single issue politics. . .deals with the issue or problem in
isolation. When one problem is separated from all other problems,
a solution really is impossible. The more campaigning on an issue
there is, the narrower its perspectives become. . .As the perspective
of each issue narrows, the contradictions turn into absurdities. . .
What single issue politics does is attend to 'symptoms' but does
not attack the 'disease' itself. It presents such issues as nuclear
war, racial and sexual discrimination, poverty, starvation, pornography,
etc., as if they were aberrations or faults in the system. In reality
such problems are the inevitable consequence of a social order based
on exploitation and hierarchical power. . .single issue campaigns
lay their appeal for relief at the feet of the very system which
oppresses them. By petitioning they acknowledge the right of those
in power to exercise that power as they choose" [_Bigger Cages, Longer
Chains_, pp. 17-20].

Single issue politics often prolong the struggle for a free society
by fostering illusions that it is just parts of the capitalist system
which are wrong, not the whole of it, and that those at the top of
the system can, and will, act in our interests. While such campaigns
can do some good, practical, work and increase knowledge and education
about social problems, they are limited by their very nature and can
not lead to extensive improvements in the here and now, nevermind a
free society.

Therefore, anarchists often support and work within single-issue
campaigns, trying to get them to use effective methods of activity
(such as direct action), work in an anarchistic manner (i.e. from
the bottom up) and to try to "politicise" them into questioning
the whole of the system. However, anarchists do not let themselves
be limited to such activity as a social revolution or movement is
not a group of single-issue campaigns but a mass movement which
understands the inter-related nature of social problems and so the
need to change every aspect of life.

J.1.5 Why do anarchists try to generalise social struggles?

Basically, we do it in order to encourage and promote solidarity. This
is *the* key to winning struggles in the here and now as well as creating 
the class consciousness necessary to create an anarchist society. At its
most simple, generalising different struggles means increasing the chances 
of winning them. Take, for example, a strike in which one trade or one
workplace goes on strike while the others continue to work:

"Consider yourself how foolish and inefficient is the present form of labour
organisation in which one trade or craft may be on strike while the other
branches of the same industry continue to work. Is it not ridiculous that
when the street car workers of New York, for instance, quit work, the
employees of the subway, the cab and omnibus drivers remain on the job? . . .
It is clear, then, that you compel compliance [from your bosses] only when
you are determined, when your union is strong, when you are well organised,
when you are united in such a manner that the boss cannot run his factory
against your will. But the employer is usually some big . . . company that
has mills or mines in various places. . . If it cannot operate . . . in
Pennsylvania because of a strike, it will try to make good its losses by
continuing . . . and increasing production [elsewhere]. . . In that way
the company . . breaks the strike." [Alexander Berkman, _The ABC of
Anarchism_, pp. 53-54]

By organising all workers in one union (after all they all have the same
boss) it increases the power of each trade considerably. It may be easy
for a boss to replace a few workers, but a whole workplace would be far
more difficult. By organising all workers in the same industry, the
power of each workplace is correspondingly increased. Extending this
example to outside the workplace, its clear that by mutual support between
different groups increases the chances of each group winning its fight.

As the I.W.W. put it, "An injury to one is an injury to all." By generalising
struggles, by practicing mutual support and aid we can ensure that when
we are fighting for our rights and against injustice we will not be
isolated and alone. If we don't support each other, groups will be picked
off one by one and if we are go into conflict with the system there will
be on-one there to support us and we may lose.

Therefore, from an anarchist point of view, the best thing about generalising
different struggles together is that it leads to an increased spirit of
solidarity and responsibility as well as increased class consciousness.
This is because by working together and showing solidarity those involved
get to understand their common interests and that the struggle is not
against *this* injustice or *that* boss but against *all* injustice and
*all* bosses.

This sense of increased social awareness and solidarity can be seen from the
experience of the C.N.T in Spain during the 1930s. The C.N.T. organised all 
workers in a given area into one big union. Each workplace was a union branch
and were joined together in a local area confederation. The result was that:

"The territorial basis of organisation linkage [of the C.N.T. unions] brought
all the workers form one area together and fomented working class solidarity
over and before corporative [i.e. industrial] solidarity." [J. Romero Maura, 
"The Spanish Case", in _Anarchism Today_, D. Apter and J. Joll (eds)., p. 75]

This can also be seen from the experiences of the syndicalist unions in Italy
and France as well. The structure of such local federations also situates
the workplace in the community where it really belongs (particularly if
the commune concept supported by social anarchists is to be realistic).

Also, by uniting struggles together, we can see that there are really no
"single issues" - that all various different problems are interlinked. For 
example, ecological problems are not just that, but have a political and
economic basis and that economic exploitation spills into the environment.
Inter-linking struggles means that they can be seen to be related to other
struggles against capitalist exploitation and oppression. What goes on in 
the environment, for instance, is directly related to questions of domination
and inequality within human society, that pollution is often directly
related to companies cutting corners to survive in the market or increase
profits. Similarly, struggles against sexism or racism can be seen as
part of a wider struggle against hierarchy, exploitation and oppression in 
all their forms. As such, uniting struggles has an important educational
effect above and beyond the benefits in terms of winning struggles.

J.2 What is direct action?

Direct action, to use Rudolf Rocker's words, is "every method of
immediate warfare by the workers [or other sections of society] against
their economic and political oppressors. Among these the outstanding are:
the strike, in all its graduations from the simple wage struggle to the
general strike; the boycott; sabotage in all its countless forms;
[occupations and sit-down strikes;] anti-militarist propaganda, and 
in particularly critical cases,... armed resistance of the people for 
the protection of life and liberty" [_Anarcho-Syndicalism_, p. 66]. 

Not that anarchists think that direct action is only applicable within
the workplace. Far from it. Direct action must occur everywhere! So, in 
non-workplace situations, direct action includes rent strikes, consumer 
boycotts, occupations (which, of course, can include sit-in strikes by 
workers), eco-tage, individual and collective non-payment of taxes, 
blocking roads and holding up construction work of an anti-social nature 
and so forth. Also direct action, in a workplace setting, includes strikes 
and protests on social issues, not directly related to working conditions 
and pay. Such activity aims to ensure the "protection of the community 
against the most pernicious outgrowths of the present system. The social 
strike seeks to force upon the employers a responsibility to the public. 
Primarily it has in view the protection of the customers, of whom the 
workers themselves [and their families] constitute the great majority" 
[Op. Cit., p. 72]

Basically, direct action means that instead of getting someone else to act 
for you (e.g. a politician) you act for yourself. Its essential feature is 
an organised protest by ordinary people to make a change by their own efforts.
Thus Voltairine De Cleyre's excellent statement on this topic:

"Every person who ever thought he had a right to assert, and went boldly and
asserted it, himself, or jointly with others that shared his convictions,
was a direct actionist. Some thirty years ago I recall that the Salvation
Army was vigorously practicing direct action in the maintenance of the
freedom of its members to speak, assemble, and pray. Over and over they were
arrested, fined, and imprisoned; but they kept right on singing, praying,
and marching, till they finally compelled their persecutors to let them
alone. The Industrial Workers [of the World] are now conducting the same 
fight, and have, in a number of cases, compelled the officials to let them 
alone by the same direct tactics.

"Every person who ever had a plan to do anything, and went and did it, or who
laid his plan before others, and won their co-operation to do it with him,
without going to external authorities to please do the thing for them, was a
direct actionist. All co-operative experiments are essentially direct
action.

"Every person who ever in his life had a difference with anyone to settle,
and went straight to the other persons involved to settle it, either by a
peaceable plan or otherwise, was a direct actionist. Examples of such action
are strikes and boycotts; many persons will recall the action of the
housewives of New York who boycotted the butchers, and lowered the price of
meat; at the present moment a butter boycott seems looming up, as a direct
reply to the price-makers for butter.

"These actions are generally not due to any one's reasoning overmuch on the
respective merits of directness or indirectness, but are the spontaneous
retorts of those who feel oppressed by a situation. In other words, all
people are, most of the time, believers in the principle of direct action,
and practicers of it. . ." [_Direct Action_]

So direct action means acting for yourself against injustice and oppression.
It can, sometimes, involve putting pressure on politicians or companies, for 
example, to ensure a change in an oppressive law or destructive practices. 
However, such appeals are direct action simply because they do not assume
that the parties in question we will act for us - indeed the assumption is
that change only occurs when we act to create it. Regardless of what the
action is, "if such actions are to have the desired empowerment effect,
they must be largely self-generated, rather than being devised and 
directed from above." [Martha Ackelsberg, _Free Women of Spain_, p. 33]

So, in a nutshell, direct action is any form of activity which people
themselves decide upon and organise themselves which is based on their 
own collective strength and does not involve getting intermediates to act 
for them. As such direct action is a natural expression of liberty, of
self-government for "[d]irect action against the authority in the shop,
direct action against the authority of the law, direct action against 
the invasive, meddlesome authority of our moral code, is the logical,
consistent method of Anarchism." [Emma Goldman, _Red Emma Speaks_, 
pp. 62-63] It is clear that by acting for yourself you are expressing 
the ability to govern yourself. Thus its a means by which people can
take control of their own lives. It is a means of self-empowerment and
self-liberation:

"Direct action meant that the goal of any and all these activities was 
to provide ways for people to get in touch with their own powers and 
capacities, to take back the power of naming themselves and their lives."
[Martha Ackelsberg, Op. Cit., p. 32]

In other words, anarchists reject the view that society is static and that
people's consciousness, values, ideas and ideals cannot be changed. Far from 
it and anarchists support direct action *because* it actively encourages
the transformation of those who use it. Direct action is the means of
creating a new consciousness, a means of self-liberation from the chains
placed around our minds, emotions and spirits by hierarchy and oppression.

Because direct action is the expression of liberty, the powers that be are 
vitally concerned only when the oppressed use direct action to win its 
demands, for it is a method which is not easy or cheap to combat. Any 
hierarchical system is placed into danger when those at the bottom start 
to act for themselves and, historically, people have invariably gained more 
by acting directly than could have been won by playing ring around the 
rosy with indirect means.

Direct action tore the chains of open slavery from humanity. Over the 
centuries it has established individual rights and modified the life and 
death power of the master class. Direct action won political liberties
such as the vote and free speech. Used fully, used wisely and well, 
direct action can forever end injustice and the mastery of humans 
by other humans.

In the sections that follow, we will indicate why anarchists are in
favour of direct action and why they are against electioneering as
a means of change.

J.2.1 Why do anarchists favour using direct action to change things?

Simply because it is effective and it has a radicalising impact on those
who practice it. As it is based on people acting for themselves, it
shatters the dependency and marginalisation created by hierarchy. As
Murray Bookchin argues, "[w]hat is even more important about direct action 
is that it forms a decisive step toward recovering the personal power 
over social life that the centralised, over-bearing bureaucracies have 
usurped from the people... we not only gain a sense that we can control 
the course of social events again; we recover a new sense of selfhood 
and personality without which a truly free society, based in self-activity 
and self-management, is utterly impossible." [_Toward and Ecological 
Society_, p. 47]

By acting for themselves, people gain a sense of their own power and 
abilities. This is essential if people are to run their own lives. As
such, direct action is *the* means by which individuals empower themselves,
to assert their individuality, to make themselves count as individuals. It 
is the opposite of hierarchy, within which individuals are told again and 
again that they are nothing, are insignificant and must dissolve themselves 
into a higher power (the state, the company, the party, the people, etc.) and
feel proud in participating in the strength and glory of this higher power.
Direct action, in contrast, is the means of asserting ones individual
opinion, interests and happiness, of fighting against self-negation:

"man has as much liberty as he is willing to take. Anarchism therefore
stands for direct action, the open defiance of, and resistance to, all 
laws and restrictions, economic, social and moral. But defiance and
resistance are illegal. Therein lies the salvation of man. Everything
illegal necessitates integrity, self-reliance, and courage. In short, it
calls for free independent spirits, for men who are men, and who have
a bone in their back which you cannot pass your hand through." [Emma
Goldman, _Red Emma Speaks_, pp. 61-62]

In addition, because direct action is based around individuals solving their
own problems, by their own action, it awakens those aspects of individuals
crushed by hierarchy and oppression - such as initiative, solidarity, 
imagination, self-confidence and a sense of individual and collective
power, that you do matter and count as an individual and that you, and others
like you, *can* change the world. Direct Action is the means by which people 
can liberate themselves and educate themselves in the ways of and skills 
required for self-management and liberty. Hence:

"anarchists insisted that we learn to think and act for ourselves by joining 
together in organisations in which our experience, our perception and our
activity can guide and make the change. Knowledge does not precede
experience, it flows from it. . . People learn to be free only by 
exercising freedom. [As one Spanish Anarchist put it] 'We are not going 
to find ourselves. . . with people ready-made for the future. . . Without
continued exercise of their faculties, there will be no free people. . .
The external revolution and the internal revolution presuppose one
another, and they must be simultaneous in order to be successful.'"
[Martha Ackelsberg, _Free Women of Spain_, pp. 32-33]

So direct action, to use Murray Bookchin's words, is "the means whereby each 
individual awakens to the hidden powers within herself and himself, to a new 
sense of self-confidence and self-competence; it is the means whereby 
individuals take control of society directly." [Op. Cit., p. 48] 

In addition, direct action creates the need for new forms of social 
organisation. These new forms of organisation will be informed and shaped
by the process of self-liberation, so be more anarchistic and based upon
self-management. Direct action, as well as liberating individuals, can also
create the free, self-managed organisations which can replace the current
hierarchical ones. In other words, direct action helps create the new world
in the shell of the old:

"direct action not only empowered those who participated in it, it also
had effects on others. . . [including] exemplary action that attracted 
adherents by the power of the positive example it set. Contemporary
examples. . . include food or day-care co-ops, collectively run businesses,
sweat equity housing programmes, women's self-help health collectives, urban
squats or women's peace camps [as well as traditional examples as industrial
unions, social centres, etc.]. While such activities empower those who
engage in them, they also demonstrate to others that non-hierarchical
forms of organisation can and do exist - and that they can function
effectively." [Martha Ackelsberg, Op. Cit., p. 33]

Also, direct action such as strikes encourage and promote class consciousness
and class solidarity. According to Kropotkin, "the strike develops the
sentiment of solidarity" while for Bakunin it "is the beginnings of the
social war of the proletariat against the bourgeoisie. . . Strikes are a
valuable instrument from two points of view. Firstly, they electrify the
masses, invigorate their moral energy and awaken in them the feeling of
the deep antagonism which exists between their interests and those of
the bourgeoisie. . . secondly they help immensely to provoke and establish
between the workers of all trades, localities and countries the consciousness
and very fact of solidarity: a twofold action, both negative and positive, 
which tends to constitute directly the new world of the proletariat, 
opposing it almost in an absolute way to the bourgeois world." [cited
in Caroline Cahm, _Kropotkin and the Rise of Revolutionary Anarchism
1872-1886_, p. 256, pp. 216-217]

Direct action and the movements that used it (such as unionism) would be 
the means to develop the "revolutionary intelligence of the workers" and 
so ensure "emancipation through practice" (to use Bakunin's words). 

Direct action, therefore, helps to create anarchists and anarchist
alternatives within capitalism and statism. As such, it plays an 
essential role in anarchist theory and activity. For anarchists, 
direct action "is not a 'tactic'. . . it is a moral principle, an ideal,
a sensibility. It should imbue every aspect of our lives and behaviour
and outlook." [Murray Bookchin, Op. Cit., p. 48]

J.2.2 Why do anarchists reject voting as a means for change?

Simply because electioneering does not work. History is littered with 
examples of radicals being voted into office only to become as, or even
more, conservative than the politicians they replaced.

As we have discussed previously (see B.2 and related sections) any 
government is under pressure from two sources of power, the state bureaucracy 
and big business. This ensures that any attempts at social change would be 
undermined and made hollow by vested interests, assuming they even reached 
that level of discussion to begin with (the de-radicalising effects of 
electioneering is discussed below in section J.2.6). Here we will highlight 
the power of vested interests within democratic government.

In section B.2 we only discussed the general nature of the state and 
what its role within society is (i.e. "the preservation of the economic
'status quo,' the protection of the economic privileges of the ruling
class," in the words of Luigi Galleani). However, as the effectiveness of 
the vote to secure change is now the topic we will have to discuss how and
why the state and capital restricts and controls political action.

Taking capital to begin with, if we assume that a relatively
reformist government was elected it would soon find itself facing 
various economic pressures. Either capital would disinvest, so forcing 
the government to back down in the face of economic collapse, or the 
government in question would control capital leaving the country and so 
would soon be isolated from new investment and its currency would become 
worthless. Either way, the economy would be severely damaged and the 
promised "reforms" would be dead letters. In addition, this economic 
failure would soon result in popular revolt which in turn would lead 
to a more authoritarian state as "democracy" was protected from the 
people.

Far fetched? No, not really. In January, 1974, the FT Index for the 
London Stock Exchange stood at 500 points. In February, the miner's went 
on strike, forcing Heath to hold (and lose) a general election. The new 
Labour government (which included many left-wingers in its cabinet) talked 
about nationalising the banks and much heavy industry. In August, 74, Tony 
Benn announced Plans to nationalise the ship building industry. By December
of that year, the FT index had fallen to 150 points. By 1976 the British
Treasury was spending $100 million a day buying back of its own money to 
support the pound [_The London Times_, 10/6/76]. The economic pressure 
of capitalism was at work:

"The further decline in the value of the pound has occurred despite the high 
level of interest rates. . . dealers said that selling pressure against the 
pound was not heavy or persistent, but there was an almost total lack of 
interest amongst buyers. The drop in the pound is extremely surprising in 
view of the unanimous opinion of bankers, politicians and officials that the 
currency is undervalued" [_The London Times_, 27/5/76]

The Labour government faced with the power of international capital ended up 
having to receive a temporary "bailing out" by the I.M.F. who imposed a 
package of cuts and controls which translated to Labour saying "We'll do 
anything you say", in the words of one economist [Peter Donaldson, _A 
Question of Economics_, p. 89]. The social costs of these policies was
massive, with the Labour government being forced to crack down on strikes
and the weakest sectors of society (but that's not to forget that they "cut 
expenditure by twice the amount the I.M.F. were promised." [Ibid.]). In
the backlash to this, Labour lost the next election to a right-wing, 
pro-free market government which continued where Labour had left off.

Or, to use a more recent example, "The fund managers [who control the flow
of money between financial centres and countries] command such vast
resources that their clashes with governments in the global marketplace
usually ends up in humiliating defeat for politicians. . . In 1992, US
financier George Soros single-handedly destroyed the British government's
attempts to keep the pound in the European Exchange Rate Mechanism (ERM). 
Soros effectively bet, and won, that he could force the British government
to devalue. Using his huge resources, he engineered a run on the pound,
overwhelming the Bank of England's attempts to use its reserves to keep
sterling within its ERM band. The British government capitulated by
suspending sterling's membership of the ERM (an effective devaluation) and
Soros came away from his victory some $1bn richer. Fund managers then 
picked off other currencies one by one, derailing the drive for European
monetary union, which would, incidentally, have cut their profits by making
them unable to buy and sell between the different European currencies."
[Duncan Green, _The Silent Revolution_, p. 124]

The fact is that capital will not invest in a country which does not meet 
its approval and this is an effective weapon to control democratically 
elected governments. And with the increase in globalisation of capital over
the last 30 years this weapon is even more powerful (a weapon we may add 
which was improved, via company and state funded investment and research in 
communication technology, precisely to facilitate the attack on working class 
reforms and power in the developed world, in other words capital ran away
to teach us a lesson - see sections C.8.1, C.8.2, C.8.3 and D.5.3).

As far as political pressures go, we must remember that there is a difference 
between the state and government. The state is the permanent collection of 
institutions that have entrenched power structures and interests. The 
government is made up of various politicians. It's the institutions that 
have power in the state due to their permanence, not the representatives 
who come and go. In other words, the state bureaucracy has vested interests
and elected politicians cannot effectively control them. This network
of behind the scenes agencies can be usefully grouped into two parts:

"By 'the secret state' we mean. . . the security services, MI5 [the FBI in 
the USA], Special Branch. . . MI6 [the CIA]. By 'the permanent government' 
. . . we mean the secret state plus the Cabinet Office and upper echelons 
of Home and Foreign and Commonwealth Offices, the Armed Forces and Ministry 
of Defence, the nuclear power industry and its satellite ministries; and
the so-called 'Permanent Secretaries Club,' the network of very senior
civil servants - the 'Mandarins.' In addition. . . its satellites"
including M.P.s (particularly right-wing ones), 'agents of influence' in 
the media, former security services personnel, think tanks and opinion
forming bodies, front companies of the security services, and so on.
[Stephen Dorril and Robin Ramsay, _Smear! Wilson and the Secret State_,
p. X, XI]

These bodies, while theoretically under the control of the elected government,
can effectively (via disinformation, black operations, bureaucratic slowdowns,
media attacks, etc.) ensure that any government trying to introduce policies 
which the powers that be disagree with will be stopped. In other words
the state is *not* a neutral body, somehow rising about vested interests
and politics. It is, and always will be, a institution which aims to protect
specific sections of society as well as its own. 

An example of this "secret state" at work can be found in _Smear!_, where 
Dorril and Ramsay document the campaign against the Labour Prime Minister of 
Britain, Harold Wilson, which resulted in his resignation. They also indicate 
the pressures which Labour M.P. Tony Benn was subjected to by "his" Whitehall
advisers:

"In early 1985, the campaign against Benn by the media was joined by the
secret state. The timing is interesting. In January, his Permanent Secretary
had 'declared war' and the following month began the most extraordinary
campaign of harassment any major British politician has experienced. While
this is not provable by any means, it does look as though there is a clear
causal connection between withdrawal of Prime Ministerial support, the
open hostility from the Whitehall mandarins and the onset of covert
operations." [Stephen Dorril and Robin Ramsay, Op. Cit., p. 279]

Not to mention the role of the secret state in undermining reformist and 
radical organisations and movements. Thus involvement goes from pure 
information gathering on "subversives", to disruption and repression. 
Taking the example of the US secret state, Howard Zinn notes that in 1975 
"congressional committees. . . began investigations of the FBI and CIA.

"The CIA inquiry disclosed that the CIA had gone beyond its original mission
of gathering intelligence and was conducting secret operations of all kinds
. . . [for example] the CIA - with the collusion of a secret Committee of
Forty headed by Henry Kissinger - had worked to 'destabilize' the 
[democratically elected, left-wing] Chilean government. . .

"The investigation of the FBI disclosed many years of illegal actions to
disrupt and destroy radical groups and left-wing groups of all kinds. The
FBI had sent forged letters, engaged in burglaries. . . opened mail 
illegally, and in the case of Black Panther leader Fred Hampton, seems to
have conspired in murder. . .

"The investigations themselves revealed the limits of government willingness
to probe into such activities. . . [and they] submitted its findings 
on the CIA to the CIA to see if there was material the Agency wanted 
omitted." [_A People's History of the United States_, pp. 542-3]

Also, the CIA secretly employs several hundred American academics to write
books and other materials to be used for propaganda purposes, an important
weapon in the battle for hearts and minds. In other words, the CIA, FBI
[and their equivalents in other countries] and other state bodies can hardly 
be considered neutral bodies, who just follow orders. They are a network of 
vested interests, with specific ideological viewpoints and aims which usually 
place the wishes of the voting population below maintaining the state-capital 
power structure in place.

This can be seen most dramatically in the military coup in Chile against
the democratically re-elected (left-wing) Allende government by the military,
aided by the CIA, US based corporations and the US government cutting economic
aid to the country (specifically to make it harder for the Allende regime). 
The coup resulted in tens of thousands murdered and years of terror and 
dictatorship, but the danger of a pro-labour government was stopped and the 
business environment was made healthy for profits. An extreme example, we 
know, but important ones for any believer in freedom or the idea that the 
state machine is somehow neutral and can be captured and used by left-wing 
parties. 

Therefore we cannot expect a different group of politicians to react in 
different ways to the same economic and institutional influences and 
interests. Its no coincidence that left-wing, reformist parties have 
introduced right-wing, pro-capitalist ("Thatcherite/Reaganite") policies 
at the same time as right-wing, explicitly pro-capitalist parties introduced 
them in the UK and the USA. As Clive Ponting (an ex-British Civil Servant) 
points out, this is to be expected:

"the function of the political system in any country in the world is to
regulate, but not alter radically, the existing economic structure and
its linked power relationships. The great illusion of politics is that
politicians have the power to make whatever changes they like. . . On a
larger canvas what real control do the politicians in any country have 
over the operation of the international monetary system, the pattern of
world trade with its built in subordination of the third world or
the operation of multi-national companies? These institutions and the
dominating mechanism that underlies them - the profit motive as a sole
measure of success - are essentially out of control and operating on
autopilot." [quoted in _Alternatives_, # 5, p. 10]

Of course there have been examples of quite extensive reforms which
did benefit working class people in major countries. The New Deal in 
the USA and the 1945-51 Labour Governments spring to mind. Surely these
indicate that our claims above are false? Simply put, no, they do not.
Reforms can be won from the state when the dangers of not giving in
outweigh the problems associated with the reforms. Reforms can therefore
be used to save the capitalist system and the state and even improve their
operation (with, of course, the possibility of getting rid of the reforms
when they are no longer required). 

For example, both the reformist governments of 1930s USA and 1940s UK
were under pressure from below, by waves of militant working class
struggle which could have developed beyond mere reformism. The waves 
of sit-down strikes in the 1930s ensured the passing of pro-union laws 
which while allowing workers to organise without fear of being fired. 
This measure also involved the unions in running the capitalist-state 
machine (and so making them responsible for controlling "unofficial"
workplace action and so ensuring profits). The nationalisation of roughly 
20% of the UK economy during the Labour administration of 1945 (the most 
unprofitable sections of it as well) was also the direct result of 
ruling class fear. As Quintin Hogg, a Tory M.P. at the time, said, 
"If you don't give the people social reforms they are going to give you 
social revolution". Memories of the near revolutions across Europe after 
the first war were obviously in many minds, on both sides. Not that 
nationalisation was particularly feared as "socialism." Indeed it was
argued that it was the best means of improving the performance of the 
British economy. As anarchists at the time noted "the real opinions of 
capitalists can be seen from Stock Exchange conditions and statements of 
industrialists than the Tory Front bench . . . [and from these we] see that 
the owning class is not at all displeased with the record and tendency of 
the Labour Party" [_Neither Nationalisation nor Privatisation - Selections 
from Freedom 1945-1950_, Vernon Richards (Ed), p. 9]

So, if extensive reforms have occurred, just remember what they were in
response to militant pressure from below and that we could have got so
much more.

Therefore, in general, things have little changed over the one hundred years 
since this anarchist argument against electioneering was put forward:

"in the electoral process, the working class will always be cheated and
deceived. . . if they did manage to send, one, or ten, or fifty of
them[selves to Parliament], they would become spoiled and powerless.
Furthermore, even if the majority of Parliament were composed of workers,
they could do nothing. Not only is there the senate . . . the chiefs of
the armed forces, the heads of the judiciary and of the police, who would
be against the parliamentary bills advanced by such a chamber and would
refuse to enforce laws favouring the workers (it has happened [for example
the 8 hour working day was legally created in many US states by the 1870s,
but workers had to strike for it in 1886 as it as not enforced]; but 
furthermore laws are not miraculous; no law can prevent the capitalists
from exploiting the workers; no law can force them to keep their factories
open and employ workers at such and such conditions, nor force shopkeepers
to sell as a certain price, and so on." [S. Merlino, quoted by L. Galleani,
_The End of Anarchism?_, p. 13]

Moreover, anarchists reject voting for other reasons. The fact is 
that electoral procedures are the opposite of direct action - they 
are *based* on getting someone else to act on your behalf. Therefore, 
far from empowering people and giving them a sense of confidence and 
ability, electioneering *dis*-empowers them by creating a "leader" figure 
from which changes are expected to flow. As Martin observes "all the 
historical evidence suggests that parties are more a drag than an 
impetus to radical change. One obvious problem is that parties 
can be voted out. All the policy changes they brought in can simply be 
reversed later. More important, though, is the pacifying influence of the 
radical party itself. On a number of occasions, radical parties have been 
elected to power as a result of popular upsurges. Time after time, the 
'radical' parties have become chains to hold back the process of radical 
change" ["Democracy without Elections," _Social Anarchism_, no. 21, 1995]

This can easily be seen from the history of the various left-wing parties.
Ralph Miliband points out that labour or socialist parties, elected in
periods of social turbulence, have often acted to reassure the ruling
elite by dampening popular action that could have threatened capitalist
interests [_The State in Capitalist Society_, Weidenfeld and Nicolson,
1969]. For example, the first project undertaken by the Popular Front,
elected in France in 1936, was to put an end to strikes and occupations
and generally to cool popular militancy, which was the Front's strongest
ally in coming to power. The Labour government elected in Britain in 1945
got by with as few reforms as it could, refusing to consider changing
basic social structures. In addition, within the first week of taking office
it sent troops in to break the dockersÆ strike. Labour has used troops to 
break strikes far more often than the Conservatives have. 

These points indicate why existing power structures cannot effectively be
challenged through elections. For one thing, elected representatives are 
not *mandated,* which is to say they are not tied in any binding way to 
particular policies, no matter what promises they have made or what voters 
may prefer. Around election time, the public's influence on politicians is
strongest, but after the election, representatives can do practically
whatever they want, because there is no procedure for *instant recall.* 
In practice it is impossible to recall politicians before the next
election, and between elections they are continually exposed to pressure
from powerful special-interest groups -- especially business lobbyists,
state bureaucracies and political party power brokers. 

Under such pressure, the tendency of politicians to break campaign
promises has become legendary. Generally, such promise breaking is blamed
on bad character, leading to periodic "throw-the-bastards-out" fervour --
after which a new set of representatives is elected, who also mysteriously
turn out to be bastards! In reality it is the system itself that
produces "bastards," the sell-outs and shady dealing we have come to
expect from politicians. As Alex Comfort argues, political office
attracts power-hungry, authoritarian, and ruthless personalities, or at
least tends to bring out such qualities in those who are elected
[_Authority and Delinquency in the Modern State: A Criminological Approach
to the Problem of Power_ , Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1950]. 

In light of modern "democracy", it is amazing that anyone takes the system
seriously enough to vote at all. And in fact, voter turnout in the US and
other nations where "democracy" is practiced in this fashion is typically
low. Nevertheless, some voters continue to participate, pinning their
hopes on new parties or trying to reform a major party. For anarchists,
this activity is pointless as it does not get at the root of the problem.
It is not politicians or parties which are the problem, its a system
which shapes them into its own image and marginalises and alienates 
people due to its hierarchical and centralised nature. No amount of party
politics can change that.

However, we should make it clear that most anarchists recognise there is a 
difference between voting for a government and voting in referendum. Here 
we are discussing the former, electioneering, as a means of social 
change. Referenda are closer to anarchist ideas of direct democracy 
and are, while flawed, far better than electing a politician to office 
once every four years or so.

In addition, Anarchists are not necessarily against all involvement in 
electoral politics. Bakunin thought it could sometimes be useful to 
participate in local elections in relatively small communities where 
regular contact with representatives can maintain accountability. This
argument has been taken up by such Social Ecologists such as Murray
Bookchin who argues that anarchists, by taking part in local elections,
can use this technique to create self-governing community assemblies.
However, few anarchists support such means to create community assemblies 
(see section J.5.9 for a discussion on this).

However, in large cities and in regional or national elections, certain 
processes have developed which render the term "democracy" inappropriate. 
These processes include mass advertising, bribery of voters through government 
projects in local areas, party "machines," the limitation of news coverage to 
two (or at most three) major parties, and government manipulation of the news. 
Party machines choose candidates, dictate platforms, and contact voters by 
phone campaigns. Mass advertising "packages" candidates like commodities,
selling them to voters by emphasising personality rather than policies,
while media news coverage emphasise the "horse race" aspects of campaigns
rather than policy issues. Government spending in certain areas (or more
cynically, the announcement of new projects in such areas just before
elections) has become a standard technique for buying votes. And we have
already examined the mechanisms through which the media is made dependent
of government sources of information (see D.3), a development that
obviously helps incumbents. 

Therefore, for these related reasons anarchists reject the voting as a
means of change. Instead we wholeheartedly support direct action as
the means of getting improvements in the here and now as well as the
means of creating an alternative to the current system.

J.2.3 What are the political implications of voting?

At its most basic, voting implies agreement with the status quo. It
is worth quoting the Scottish libertarian socialist James Kelman at
length on this:

"State propaganda insists that the reason why at least 40 percent of
the voting public don't vote at all is because they have no feelings one 
way or the other. They say the same thing in the USA, where some 85
percent of the population are apparently 'apolitical' since they don't
bother registering a vote. Rejection of the political system is 
inadmissible as far as the state is concerned. . . Of course the one
thing that does happen when you vote is that someone else has endorsed an
unfair political system. . . A vote for any party or any individual is
always a vote for the political system. You can interpret your vote in
whichever way you like but it remains an endorsement of the apparatus. . .
If there was any possibility that the apparatus could effect a change 
in the system then they would dismantle it immediately. In other words
the political system is an integral state institution, designed and
refined to perpetuate its own existence. Ruling authority fixes the 
agenda by which the public are allowed 'to enter the political arena'
and that's the fix they've settled on" [_Some Recent Attacks_, p.87]

We are taught from an early age that voting in elections is right and a
duty. In US schools, children elect class presidents and other officers. 
Often mini-general elections are held to "educate" children in "democracy".
Periodically, election coverage monopolises the media. We are made to
feel guilty about shirking our "civic responsibility" if we don't vote. 
Countries that have no elections, or only rigged elections, are regarded
as failures [Benjamin Ginsberg, _The Consequences of Consent: Elections,
Citizen Control and Popular Acquiescence_, Addison-Wesley, 1982]. As a
result, elections have become a quasi-religious ritual.

As Brian Martin points out, however, "elections in practice have served
well to maintain dominant power structures such as private property, the
military, male domination, and economic inequality. None of these has been
seriously threatened through voting. It is from the point of view of
radical critics that elections are most limiting" ["Democracy without
Elections," _Social Anarchism_, no. 21, 1995]. 

Benjamin Ginsberg has noted other ways in which elections serve the
interests of state power. Firstly, voting helps to legitimate government;
hence suffrage has often been expanded at times when there was little
popular demand for it but when mass support of government was crucial, as
during a war or revolution. Secondly, since voting is organised and
supervised by government, it comes to be seen as the only legitimate form
of political participation, thus making it likely that any revolts by
oppressed or marginalised groups will be viewed by the general public as
illegitimate. [_The Consequences of Consent_] 

In addition, Ginsberg argues that, historically, by enlarging the number
of people who participate in 'politics,' and by turning this participation
into the "safe" activities of campaigning and voting, elections have
reduced the risk of more radical direct action. That is, voting
disempowers the grassroots by diverting energy from grassroots action. 
After all, the goal of electoral politics is to elect a representative who
will act *for* us. Therefore, instead taking direct action to solve
problems ourselves, action becomes indirect, though the government. This
is an insidiously easy trap to fall into, as we have been conditioned in
hierarchical society from day one into attitudes of passivity and
obedience, which gives most of us a deep-seated tendency to leave
important matters to the "experts" and "authorities." 

Anarchists also criticize elections for giving citizens the false
impression that the government serves, or can serve, the people. As
Martin puts it, "the founding of the modern state a few centuries ago was
met with great resistance: people would refuse to pay taxes, to be
conscripted or to obey laws passed by national governments. The
introduction of voting and the expanded suffrage have greatly aided the
expansion of state power. Rather than seeing the system as one of ruler
and ruled, people see at least the possibility of using state power to
serve themselves. As electoral participation has increased, the degree of
resistance to taxation, military service, and the immense variety of laws
regulating behaviour, has been greatly attenuated" [Op. Cit.]

Ironically, however, voting has legitimated the growth of state power to
such an extent that the state is now beyond any real popular control by
the form of participation that made that growth possible. Nevertheless,
as Ginsberg observes, the idea that electoral participation means popular
control of government is so deeply implanted in people's psyches "that
even the most overtly skeptical cannot fully free themselves from it"
[_The Consequences of Consent_, op. cit., p. 241].

Therefore, voting has the important political implication of encouraging
people to identify with state power and to justify the status quo. In 
addition, it feeds the illusion that the state is neutral and that
electing parties to office means that people have control over their
own lives. Moreover, elections have a tendency to make people passive,
to look for salvation from above and not from their own self-activity.
As such it produces a division between leaders and led, with the voters
turned into spectators of activity, not the participants within it. 

All this does not mean, obviously, that anarchists prefer dictatorship 
or an "enlightened" monarchy. Far from it, democratising state power
can be an important step towards abolishing it. All anarchists agree
with Bakunin when he argued that "the most imperfect republic is a 
thousand times better that even the most enlightened monarchy." [cited
by Guerin, _Anarchism_, p. 20] . But neither does it mean that anarchists 
will join in with the farce of electioneering, particularly when there 
are more effective means available for changing things for the better.

J.2.4 Surely voting for radical parties will be effective?

There is no doubt that voting can lead to changes in policies, which can
be a good thing as far as it goes. But such policies are formulated and
implemented within the authoritarian framework of the hierarchical
capitalist state -- a framework which itself is never open to challenge by
voting. To the contrary, voting legitimates the state framework, ensuring
that social change will be mild, gradual, and reformist rather than rapid 
and radical. Indeed, the "democratic" process has always resulted in (and
will always result in) all successful political parties becoming committed 
to "more of the same" or tinkering with the details at best (which is 
usually the limits of any policy changes). 

However, given the need for radical systemic changes as soon as possible 
due to the exponentially accelerating crises of modern civilisation, working 
for gradual reforms within the electoral system must be seen as a potentially 
deadly tactical error. In addition, it can never get to the root causes of
our problems. Anarchists reject the idea that our problems can be solved by 
the very institutions that cause them in the first place! What happens in 
our communities, workplaces and environment is too important to be left 
to politicians - or the ruling elite who control governments.

Because of this anarchists reject political parties and electioneering. 
Electioneering has always been the death of radicalism. Political parties 
are only radical when they don't stand a chance of election. However, many
social activists continue to try to use elections, so participating in the
system which disempowers the majority and so helps create the social problems
they are protesting against.

"It should be a truism that elections empower the politicians and not the
voters," Brian Martin writes, "yet many social movements continually are
drawn into electoral politics." ["Democracy without Elections," _Social
Anarchism_, no. 21, 1995] There are a number of reasons for this. "One is 
the involvement of party members in social movements. Another is the 
aspirations for power and influence by leaders in movements. Having the 
ear of a government minister is a heady sensation for many; getting elected 
to parliament oneself is even more of an ego boost. What is forgotten in 
all this 'politics of influence' is the effect on ordinary activists." 

Rudoph Bahro gives an example of how working "within the system"
disempowered grassroots Green activists in Germany during the early
eighties, pointing out that the coalitions into which the Greens entered
with Social Democrats in the German legislature often had the effect of
strengthening the status quo by co-opting those whose energies might
otherwise have gone into more radical and effective forms of activism
[_Building the Green Movement_, New Society Publishers, 1986]. 
 
No doubt the state is more complicated than the simple "executive
committee of the ruling class" pictured by Marxists. There are
continual struggles both within and without the state bureaucracies,
struggles that influence policies and empower different groups of people. 
Because of this, many radical parties believe that it makes sense to work
within the state -- for example, to obtain labour, consumer, and
environmental protection laws. However, this reasoning ignores the fact
that the organisational structure of the state is not neutral.

To quote Martin again, "The basic anarchist insight is that the structure
of the state, as a centralised administrative apparatus, is inherently
flawed from the point of view of human freedom and equality. Even though
the state can be used occasionally for valuable ends, as a means the state
is flawed and impossible to reform. The nonreformable aspects of the state
include, centrally, its monopoly over 'legitimate' violence and its
consequent power to coerce for the purpose of war, internal control,
taxation and the protection of property and bureaucratic privilege.

"The problem with voting is that the basic premises of the state are never
considered open for debate, much less challenge. The state's monopoly over
the use of violence for war is never at issue. Neither is the state's use
of violence against revolt from within. The state's right to extract
economic resources from the population is never questioned. Neither is the
state's guarantee of either private property (under capitalism) or
bureaucratic prerogative (under state socialism) -- or both" [Op. cit.]

But, it may be said, if a new political group is radical enough, it will
be able to use state power for good purposes. While we discuss this in
more detail later in section J.2.6, let us consider a specific case:
that of the Greens, many of whom believe that the best way to achieve 
their aims is to work within the representative political system. 

By pledging to use the electoral system to achieve change, Green parties
necessarily commit themselves to formulating their proposals as
legislative agendas. But once legislation is passed, the coercive
mechanisms of the state will be needed to enforce it. Therefore, Green
parties are committed to upholding state power. However, our analysis 
in section. B.2 indicated that the state is a set of hierarchical
institutions through which a ruling elite dominates society and
individuals. And, as we have seen in the introduction to section E,
ecologists, feminists, and peace activists -- who are key constituencies
of the Green movement -- all need to *dismantle* hierarchies and
domination in order to achieve their respective aims. Therefore, since
the state is not only the largest and most powerful hierarchy but also
serves to maintain the hierarchical form of all major institutions in
society (since this form is the most suitable for achieving ruling-class
interests), the state itself is the main obstacle to the success of key
constituencies of the Green movement. Hence it is impossible *in
principle* for a parliamentary Green party to achieve essential objectives
of the Green movement. A similar argument would apply to any radical
party whose main emphasis was social justice, which like the goals of 
feminists, radical ecologists, and peace activists, depends on dismantling
hierarchies. 
 
And surely no one who even is remotely familiar with history will
suggest that 'radical' politicians, even if by some miracle they were to
obtain a majority in the national legislature, might dismantle the state. 
It should be axiomatic by now that when a 'radical' politician (e.g. a
Lenin) says to voters, "Give me and my party state power and we will
'wither away'" it's just more campaign rhetoric (in Lenin's case, the 
ultimate campaign promise), and hence not to be taken seriously. And, as
we argued in the previous section, radical parties are under pressure
from economic and state bureaucracies that ensure that even a sincere
radical party would be powerless to introduce significant reforms.

The only real response to the problems of representative democracy is to 
urge people not to vote. This can be a valuable way of making others aware 
of the limitations of the current system, which is a necessary condition 
for their seriously considering the anarchist alternative, as we have
outlined in this FAQ. The implications of abstentionism are discussed
in the next section.

J.2.5 Why do anarchists support abstentionism and what are its
      implications?

At its most basic, anarchists support abstentionism because "participation
in elections means the transfer of one's will and decisions to another,
which is contrary to the fundamental principles of anarchism." [Emma
Goldman, "Anarchists and Elections", _Vanguard_ III, June-July 1936,
p. 19]

If you reject hierarchy and government then participating in a system
by which you elect those who will govern you is almost like adding insult
to injury! And as Luigi Galleani points out, "[b]ut whoever has the political
competence to choose his own rulers is, by implication, also competent
to do without them." [_The End of Anarchism?_, p. 37] In other words,
because anarchists reject the idea of authority, we reject the idea that
by picking the authority (be it bosses or politicians) makes us free.
Therefore, anarchists reject governmental elections in the name of
self-government and free association. We refuse to vote as voting is
endorsing authoritarian social structures. We are (in effect) being asked
to make obligations to the state, not our fellow citizens, and so anarchists
reject the symbolic process by which our liberty is alienated from us.

For anarchists, then, when you vote, you are choosing between rulers. 
Instead of urging people to vote we raise the option of choosing to rule 
yourself, to organise freely with others - in your workplace, in your 
community, everywhere - as equals. The option of something you cannot
vote for, a new society. And instead of waiting for others to do make some 
changes for you, anarchists urge that you do it yourself. This is the 
core of the anarchist support for abstentionism.

In addition, beyond this basic anarchist rejection of elections from a
anti-statist position, anarchists also support abstentionism as it allows
us to put across our ideas at election time. It is a fact that at election
times individuals are often more interested in politics than usual. So,
by arguing for abstentionism we can get our ideas across about the
nature of the current system, how elected politicians do not control
the state bureaucracy, now the state acts to protect capitalism and so
on. In addition, it allows us to present the ideas of direct action and
encourage those disillusioned with political parties and the current
system to become anarchists by presenting a viable alternative to the
farce of politics.

And a sizable percentage of non-voters and voters are disillusioned
with the current set-up. According to the US paper _The Nation_
(dated February 10, 1997):

"Protest is alive and well in the growing non-electorate, now the majority
(last fall's turnout was 48.8 percent). According to a little-noticed
post-election survey of 400 nonvoters conducting by the Polling Company, a
Washington-based firm, 38 percent didn't vote for essentially political
reasons: they 'did not care for any of the candidates' (16 percent), they
were 'fed up with the political system' (15 percent) or they 'did not feel
like candidates were interested in people like me' (7 percent). That's at 
least 36 million people--almost as many as voted for Bob Dole. The nonvoting 
majority is also disproportionately liberal-leaning, compared with those 
who did vote."

So, anarchist abstentionism is a means of turning this negative reaction
to an unjust system into positive activity. So, anarchist opposition to 
electioneering has deep political implications which Luigi Galleani addresses 
when he writes that the "anarchists' electoral abstentionism implies not 
only a conception that is opposed to the principle of representation 
(which is totally rejected by anarchism), it implies above all an absolute 
lack of confidence in the State. . . Furthermore, anarchist abstentionism 
has consequences which are much less superficial than the inert apathy 
ascribed to it by the sneering careerists of 'scientific socialism' 
[i.e. Marxism]. It strips the State of the constitutional fraud with 
which it presents itself to the gullible as the true representative
of the whole nation, and, in so doing, exposes its essential character 
as representative, procurer and policeman of the ruling classes.

"Distrust off reforms, of public power and of delegated authority, can 
lead to direct action [in the class struggle]. . . It can determine the 
revolutionary character of this . . . action; and, accordingly, anarchists 
regard it as the best available means for preparing the masses to manage their 
own personal and collective interests; and, besides, anarchists feel that even 
now the working people are fully capable of handling their own political and
administrative interests." [_The End of Anarchism?_, pp. 13-14]

Therefore abstentionism stresses the importance of self-activity and
self-libertarian as well as having an important educational effect in
highlighting that the state is not neutral, but serves to protect class
rule, and that meaningful change only comes from below, by direct action. 
For the dominant ideas within any class society reflect the opinion of the 
ruling elite of that society and so any campaign at election times which 
argues for abstentionism and indicates why voting is a farce will obviously 
challenge these dominant ideas. In other words, abstentionism combined with 
direct action and the building of socialist alternatives is a very effective 
means of changing people's ideas and encouraging a process of self-education 
and, ultimately, self-liberation.

Anarchists are aware that elections serve to legitimate government. We
have always warned that since the state is an integral part of the system 
that perpetuates poverty, inequality, racism, imperialism, sexism, 
environmental destruction, and war, we should not expect to solve
any of these problems by changing a few nominal state leaders every four
or five years. [See P. Kropotkin, "Representative Government," _The
Commonweal_, Vol. 7, 1892; Errico Malatesta, _Vote: What For?_, Freedom
Press, 1942]. Therefore anarchists (usually) advocate abstentionism
at election time as a means of exposing the farce of "democracy", the
disempowering nature of elections and the real role of the state.

Therefore, anarchists urge abstentionism in order to *encourage* activity,
not apathy. The reasons *why* people abstain is more important than the act.
The idea that the USA is closer to anarchy because around 50% of people
do not vote is nonsense. Abstentionism in this case is the product of
apathy and cynicism, not political ideas. So anarchists recognise that 
apathetic abstentionism is *not* revolutionary or an indication of anarchist
sympathies. It is produced by apathy and a general level of cynicism at 
*all* forms of political ideas and the possibility of change. 

Not voting is *not* enough, and anarchists urge people to *organise* and 
*resist* as well. Abstentionism must be the political counterpart of class
struggle, self-activity and self-management in order to be effective - 
otherwise it is as pointless as voting is.

J.2.6 What are the effects of radicals using electioneering?

While many radicals would be tempted to agree with our analysis of the
limitations of electioneering and voting, few would automatically
agree with anarchist abstentionist arguments. Instead, they argue that
we should combine direct action with electioneering. In that way (it is
argued) we can overcome the limitations of electioneering by invigorating
the movement with self-activity. In addition, it is argued, the state
is too powerful to leave in the hands of the enemies of the working
class. A radical politician will refuse to give the orders to crush
social protest that a right-wing, pro-capitalist one would.

This reformist idea met a nasty end in the 1900s (when, we may note, social 
democracy was still considered revolutionary). In 1899, the Socialist 
Alexandre Millerand joined the cabinet of the French Government. The 
Marxian-Socialist Second International approved of this with such leaders 
as Lenin and Kautsky supporting it at the 1904 conference. However, nothing
changed:

"thousands of strikers. . . appealed to Millerand for help, confident that,
with him in the government, the state would be on their side. Much of this
confidence was dispelled within a few years. The government did little 
more for workers than its predecessors had done; soldiers and police were
still sent in to repress serious strikes." [Peter N. Stearns, _Revolutionary
Syndicalism and French Labour_, p. 16]

In 1910, the Socialist Prime Minister Briand used scabs and soldiers to again 
break a general strike on the French railways. And these events occurred 
during the period when social democratic and socialist parties were 
self-proclaimed revolutionaries and arguing against anarcho-syndicalism 
by using the argument that working people needed their own representatives
in office to stop troops being used against them during strikes!

Looking at the British Labour government of 1945 to 1951 we find the same
actions. What is often considered the most left-wing Labour government 
ever used troops to break strikes in every year it was in office, starting 
with a dockers' strike days after it became the new government. And again 
in the 1970s Labour used troops to break strikes. Indeed, the Labour Party 
has used troops to break strikes more often than the right-wing Conservative 
Party. 

In other words, while these are important arguments in favour of radicals
using elections, they ultimately fail to take into account the nature of 
the state and the corrupting effect it has on radicals. If history is 
anything to go by, the net effect of radicals using elections is that by 
the time they are elected to office the radicals will happily do what they 
claimed the right-wing would have done. Many blame the individuals elected
to office for these betrayals, arguing that we need to elect *better* 
politicians, select *better* leaders. For anarchists nothing could be more
wrong as its the means used, not the individuals involved, which is the 
problem.

At its most basic, electioneering results in the party using it becoming
more moderate and reformist - indeed the party often becomes the victim 
of its own success. In order to gain votes, the party must appear "moderate"
and "practical" and that means working within the system. This has meant
that (to use Rudolf Rocker words):

"Participation in the politics of the bourgeois States has not
brought the labour movement a hair's-breadth nearer to Socialism, but
thanks to this method, Socialism has almost been completely crushed
and condemned to insignificance. . . Participation in parliamentary
politics has affected the Socialist Labour movement like an insidious
poison. It destroyed the belief in the necessity of constructive Socialist
activity, and, worse of all, the impulse to self-help, by inoculating 
people with the ruinous delusion that salvation always comes from above." 
[_Anarcho-Syndicalism_, p. 49]

This corruption does not happen overnight. Alexander Berkman indicates how 
it slowly develops when he writes:

"[At the start, the Socialist Parties] claimed that they meant to use politics
only for the purpose of propaganda. . . and took part in elections on order
to have an opportunity to advocate Socialism

"It may seem a harmless thing but it proved the undoing of Socialism. 
Because nothing is truer than the means you use to attain your object soon
themselves become your object. . . [so] There is a deeper reason for this
constant and regular betrayal [than individual scoundrels being elected]
. . . no man turns scoundrel or traitor overnight.

"It is *power* which corrupts. . . Moreover, even with the best intentions
Socialists [who get elected]. . . find themselves entirely powerless to
accomplishing anything of a socialistic nature. . . The demoralisation and
vitiation [this brings about] take place little by little, so gradually
that one hardly notices it himself. . . [The elected Socialist] perceives
that he is regarded as a laughing stock [by the other politicians]. . .
and finds more and more difficulty in securing the floor. . . he knows
that neither by his talk nor by his vote can he influence the proceedings
. . . His speeches don't even reach the public. . . [and so] He appeals to 
the voters to elect more comrades. . . Years pass. . . [and a] number . . .
are elected. Each of them goes through the same experience. . . [and]
quickly come to the conclusion. . . [that] They must show that they are
practical men. . . that they are doing something for their constituency. . .
In this manner the situation compels them to take a 'practical' part in the
proceedings, to 'talk business,' to fall in line with the matters actually
dealt with in the legislative body. . . Spending years in that atmosphere,
enjoying good jobs and pay, the elected Socialists have themselves become
part and parcel of the political machinery. . . With growing success in
elections and securing political power they turn more and more conservative
and content with existing conditions. Removal from the life and suffering
of the working class, living in the atmosphere of the bourgeoisie. . . they
have become what they call 'practical'. . . Power and position have
gradually stifled their conscience and they have not the strength and
honesty to swim against the current. . . They have become the strongest
bulwark of capitalism."[_What is Communist Anarchism?_, pp. 78-82]

And so the "political power which they had wanted to conquer had gradually
conquered their Socialism until there was scarcely anything left of it."
[Rudolf Rocker, Op. Cit., p. 50] Not that these arguments are the result
of hindsight, we may add. Bakunin was arguing in the early 1870s that
the "inevitable result [of using elections] will be that workers' deputies,
transferred to a purely bourgeois environment, and into an atmosphere
of purely bourgeois political ideas. . . will become middle class in their
outlook, perhaps even more so than the bourgeois themselves." [_The
Political Philosophy of Bakunin_, p. 216] History proved Bakunin's 
prediction correct (as it did with his prediction that Marxism would
result in elite rule).

History is littered with examples of radical parties becoming a part of
the system. From Marxian Social Democracy at the turn of the 19th
century to the German Green Party in the 1980s, we have seen radical
parties, proclaiming the need for direct action and extra-parliamentary
activity denouncing these activities once in power. From only using
parliament as a means of spreading their message, the parties involved
end up considering votes as more important than the message. Janet
Biehl sums up the effects on the German Green Party of trying to combine 
radical electioneering with direct action:

"the German Greens, once a flagship for the Green movement worldwide, 
should now be considered stink normal, as their *de facto* boss himself
declares. Now a repository of careerists, the Greens stand out only for
the rapidity with which the old cadre of careerism, party politics, and
business-as-usual once again played itself out in their saga of 
compromise and betrayal of principle. Under the superficial veil of their
old values - a very thin veil indeed, now - they can seek positions and
make compromises to their heart's content. . . They have become 'practical,'
'realistic' and 'power-orientated.' This former New Left ages badly, not
only in Germany but everywhere else. But then, it happened with the S.P.D."
[The German Social Democratic Party] in August 1914, then why not with
Die Grunen in 1991? So it did." ["Party or Movement?", _Greenline_, no.
89, p. 14]

This, sadly, is the end result of all such attempts.  Ultimately,
supports of using political action can only appeal to the good intentions
and character of their candidates. Anarchists, however, present an analysis
of the structures and other influences that will determine how the character
of the successful candidates will change. In other words, in contrast to
Marxists and other radicals, anarchists present a materialist, scientific 
analysis of the dynamics of electioneering and its effects on radicals. 
And like most forms of idealism, the arguments of Marxists and other 
radicals flounder on the rocks of reality as their theory "inevitably
draws and enmeshes its partisans, under the pretext of political tactics,
into ceaseless compromises with governments and political parties; that is,
it pushes them toward downright reaction." [Bakunin, Op. Cit., p. 288]

However, many radicals refuse to learn this lesson of history and keep 
trying to create a new party which will not repeat the saga of compromise 
and betrayal which all other radical parties have suffered. And they say
that anarchists are utopian! In other words, its truly utopian to
think that "You cannot dive into a swamp and remain clean." [Alexander 
Berkman, Op. Cit., p. 83] Such is the result of rejecting (or 
"supplementing" with electioneering) direct action as the means to
change things, for any social movement "to ever surrender their commitment 
to direct action for 'working within the system' is to destroy their 
personality as socially innovative movements. It is to dissolve back 
into the hopeless morass of 'mass organisations' that seek respectability 
rather than change." [Murray Bookchin, _Toward an Ecological Society_, 
p. 47]

Moreover, the use of electioneering has a centralising effect on the
movements that use it. Political actions become considered as parliamentary
activities made *for* the population by their representatives, with the
'rank and file' left with no other role than that of passive support.
Only the leaders are actively involved and the main emphasis falls upon
the leaders and it soon becomes taken for granted that they should
determine policy (even ignoring conference decisions when required - how
many times have politicians turned round and done the exact opposite of
what they promised or introduced the exact opposite of party policy?). In
the end, party conferences become simply like parliamentary elections,
with party members supporting this leader against another.

Soon the party reflects the division between manual and mental labour
so necessary for the capitalist system. Instead of working class
self-activity and self-determination, there is a substitution and
a non working class leadership acting *for* people replaces self-management
in social struggle and within the party itself. Electoralism strengthens
the leaders dominance over the party and the party over the people it
claims to represent. And, of course, the real causes and solutions to
the problems we face are mystified by the leadership and rarely discussed
in order to concentrate on the popular issues that will get them elected.

And, of course, this results in radicals "instead of weakening the false 
and enslaving belief in law and government . . . actually work[ing] to
*strengthen* the people's faith in forcible authority and government."
[A. Berkman, Op. Cit., p. 84] Which has always proved deadly to encouraging
a spirit of revolt, self-management and self-help - the very keys to creating
change in a society. 

Instead of trying to gain control of the state, for whatever reasons, 
anarchists try to promote a culture of resistance within society that
makes the state subject to pressure from without. To use an analogy, 
the pro-election radical argues that the state is like an person with
a stick that intends to use it against you and your friends. Then you notice 
that their grasp of that stick is uncertain, and you can grab that stick 
away from them. If you take the stick away from them, that doesn't mean 
you have to hit them. After you take the weapon away from them, you can 
also break it in half and throw it away. They will have been deprived of 
its use, and that's the important thing.

In response the anarchist argues that instead of making plans to take their 
stick, we develop our muscles and skill so that we don't need a stick, so 
that we can beat them on our own. It takes longer, sure, to build up 
genuinely libertarian working class organs, but it's worth it simply
because then our strength is part of us, and it can't be taken away by 
someone offering to "wield it on our behalf" (or saying that they will
break the stick when they get it). And what do socialist and radical
parties do? Offer to fight on our behalf and if we rely on others to
act for us then we will be disarmed when they do not (and instead use
the stick against us). Given the fact that power corrupts, any claim
that by giving the stick of state power to a party we can get rid of
it once and for all is naive to say the least.

And, we feel, history has proven us right time and time again.

J.2.7 Surely we should vote for reformist parties in order to show
      them up for what they are?

Some Leninist socialists (like the British Socialist Workers Party and their
offshoots like ISO in the USA) argue that we should urge people to vote for
Labour and other social democratic parties. This is because of two reasons.

Firstly, it is argued, radicals will be able to reach more people by 
being seen to support popular, trade union based parties. If they do not,
then they are in danger of alienating sizable sections of the working class 
by arguing that such parties will be no better than explicitly pro-capitalist 
ones. 

The second argument, and the more important one, is that by electing reformist 
parties into office the experience of living under such a government will 
shatter whatever illusions its supporters had in them. In other words, by 
getting reformist parties elected into office they will be given the test of 
experience. And when they betray their supporters to protect the status 
quo the experience will radicalise those who voted for them, who will then 
seek out *real* socialist parties (namely the likes of the SWP and ISO).

Anarchists reject these arguments for three reasons. 

Firstly, it is a deeply dishonest tactic as it hides the true thoughts of 
those who support the tactic. To tell the truth is a revolutionary act. 
Radicals should not follow the capitalist media by telling half-truths or 
distorting the facts or what they believe. They should not hide their 
politics or suggest they support a system or party they are opposed to. If 
this means being less popular in the short run, then so be it. Attacking 
capitalism, religion, or a host of other things can alienate people but few 
radicals would be so opportunistic as to hold their tongues attacking these.
In the long run being honest about your ideas is the best way of producing
a movement which aims to get rid of a corrupt social system. Starting such
a movement with half-truths is doomed to failure.

Secondly, anarchists reject the logic of this theory. The logic underlying
this argument is that by being disillusioned by their reformist leaders
and party, voters will look for *new,* "better" leaders and parties. However,
this fails to go to the root of the problem, namely the dependence on
leaders which hierarchical society creates within people. Anarchists do not
want people to follow the "best" leadership, they want them to govern 
themselves, to be *self*-active, manage their own affairs and not follow 
any would-be leaders. If you seriously think that the liberation of the 
oppressed is the task of the oppressed themselves (as these Leninists claim 
to do) then you *must* reject this tactic in favour of ones that promote 
working class self-activity.

And the third reason is that this tactic has been proven to fail time and
time again. What most of its supporters seem to fail to notice is that 
voters have indeed put reformist parties into office many times (for example, 
there have been 7 Labour Party governments in Britain before 1997, all of 
whom attacked the working class) and there has been no movement away from 
them to something more radical. Lenin suggested this tactic over 70 
years ago and there has been no general radicalisation of the voting 
population by this method, nor even in reformist party militants. Indeed, 
ironically enough, most such activists have left their parties when its 
been out of office and they have become disgusted by the party's attempts 
to appear "realistic" in order to win the next election! And this disgust
often expresses itself as a demoralisation with socialism *as such*, 
rather than with their party's watered down version of it.

This total failure, for anarchists, is not surprising, considering the
reasons why we reject this tactic. Given that this tactic does not attack
hierarchy or dependence on leaders, does not attack the ideology and
process of voting, it will obviously fail to present a real alternative 
to the voting population (who will turn to other alternatives available
at election time and not embrace direct action). Also, the sight of a 
so-called "socialist" or "radical" government managing capitalism, imposing 
cuts, breaking strikes and generally attacking its supporters will damage the 
credibility of any form of socialism and discredit all socialist and radical
ideas in the eyes of the population. And if the experience of the Labour
Government in Britain during the 1970s is anything to go by, it may result 
in the rise of the right-wing who will capitalise on this disillusionment. 

By refusing to argue that no government is "on our side," radicals who urge 
us to vote reformist "without illusions" help to disarm theoretically the 
people who listen to them. Working class people, surprised, confused and 
disorientated by the constant "betrayals" of left-wing parties may turn 
to right wing parties (who can be elected) to stop the attacks rather 
than turn to direct action as the radical minority within the working 
class did not attack voting as part of the problem.

How many times must we elect the same party, go through the same process,
the same betrayals before we realise this tactic does not work? And, if
it *is* a case of having to experience something before people reject it, few
state socialists take this argument to its logical conclusion. We rarely
hear them argue we must experience the hell of fascism or Stalinism or the
nightmare of free market capitalism in order to ensure working class people
"see through" them.

Anarchists, in contrast, say that we can argue against reformist politics 
without having to associate ourselves with them by urging people to vote for 
them. By arguing for abstentionism we can help arm theoretically people who 
will come into conflict with these parties once they are in office. By arguing 
that all governments will be forced to attack us (due to the pressure from 
capital and state) and that we have to reply on our own organisations and 
power to defend ourselves, we can promote working class self-confidence in 
its own abilities, and encourage the rejection of capitalism, the state and 
hierarchical leadership as well as encouraging the use of direct action.

And, we may add, it is not required for radicals to associate themselves with 
the farce of parliamentary propaganda in order to win people over to our 
ideas. Non-anarchists will see us use *direct action,* see us *act,* see 
the anarchistic alternatives we create and see and read our propaganda. 
Non-anarchists can be reached quite well without taking part or associating 
ourselves with parliamentary action.

J.2.8 Will abstentionism lead to the right winning elections?

Possibly. However anarchists don't just say "don't vote", we say "organise"
as well. Apathy is something anarchists have no interest in encouraging. So,
if anarchists could persuade over half the voters to abstain it would, in all
probability, contribute to a electoral victory for the Right. However, this
would be a hollow victory for what government could rule when half the
electorate had expressed its lack of confidence in all governments by not
voting?

In other words, whichever party was in office would have to rule over a
country which had rejected government as such. This means that the politicians
would be subjected to *real* pressures from people who believed in their
own power and acted accordingly. So anarchists call on people *not* to vote,
but instead organise themselves and be conscious of their own power as both
individuals and as part of a union with others. This will command the 
respect of any government and can curb the power of the state more than
millions of crosses on bits of paper ever could.

As Emma Goldman pointed out, "if the Anarchists were strong enough to
swing the elections to the Left, they must also have been strong enough
to rally the workers to a general strike, or even a series of strikes. . .
In the last analysis, the capitalist class knows too well that officials,
whether they belong to the Right or the Left, can be bought. Or they are
of no consequence to their pledge." [_Vision on Fire_, p. 90]

The mass of the population, however, cannot be bought off and if they
are willing and able to resist then they can become a power second to none. 
Only by organising, fighting back and practicing solidarity where we live 
and work can we *really* change things. That is where *our* power lies, that 
is where we can create a *real* alternative. By creating a network of 
self-managed, pro-active community and workplace organisations we can 
impose by direct action that which politicians can never give us from 
Parliament. And only such a movement can stop the attacks upon us by whoever 
gets into office. A government (left or right) which faces a mass movement 
based upon direct action and solidarity will always think twice before 
proposing cuts or introducing authoritarian laws.

Of course, all the parties claim that they are better than the others
and this is the logic of this question - namely, we must vote for the
lesser evil as the right-wing in office will be terrible. But what this 
forgets is that the lesser evil is still an evil. What happens is that 
instead of the greater evil attacking us, we get the lesser evil doing 
what the right-wing was going to do. And, since we are discussing the
"lesser evil," let us not forget it was the "lesser evil" of the Democrats 
(in the USA) and Labour (in the UK) who introduced the monetarist and
other policies that Reagan and Thatcher made their own (and we may add
that the US Air Traffic Controllers union endorsed Reagan against Carter
in 1980 because they thought they would get a better deal out of the
Republicans. Reagan then went on to bust the union once in office). Simply 
put, we cannot expect a different group of politicians to react differently 
to the same economic and political pressures and influences.

So, voting for other politicians will make little difference. The reality
is that politicians are puppets. As we argued above (in section J.2.2) 
real power in the state does not lie with politicians, but instead within 
the state bureaucracy and big business. Faced with these powers, we have 
seen left-wing governments from Spain to New Zealand introduce right-wing
policies. So even if we elected a radical party, they would be powerless 
to change anything important and soon be forced to attack us in the 
interests of capitalism. Politicians come and go, but the state bureaucracy 
and big business remain forever!

Therefore we cannot rely on voting for the lesser evil to safe us from 
the possible dangers of a right-wing election victory brought about by
abstentionism. All we can hope for is that no matter who gets in, the
population will resist the government because it knows and can use its
real power - direct action. For the "only limit to the oppression of
government is the power with which the people show themselves capable
of opposing it." [Errico Malatesta, _Life and Ideas_, p. 196]

J.2.9 What do anarchists do instead of voting?

While anarchists reject electioneering and voting, it does not mean
that we are politically apathetic. Indeed, part of the reason why
anarchists reject voting is because we think that voting is not part of 
the solution, its part of the problem. This is because it endorses an 
unjust and unfree political system and makes us look to others to fight 
our battles for us. It *blocks* constructive self-activity and direct 
action. It *stops* the building of alternatives in our communities and 
workplaces. Voting breeds apathy and apathy is our worse enemy. 

Given that we have had universal suffrage for well over 50 years in many
countries and we have seen the rise of Labour and Radical parties aiming
to use that system to effect change in a socialistic manner, it seems
strange that we are probably further away from socialism than when 
they started. The simple fact is that these parties have spent so much
time trying to win elections that they have stopped even thinking about
creating socialist alternatives in our communities and workplaces. That
is in itself enough to prove that electioneering, far from eliminating
apathy, in fact helps to create it.

So, because of this, anarchists argue that the only way to not waste your vote 
is to spoil it! We are the only political movement who argue that nothing 
will change unless you act for yourself, take back the power and fight the 
system *directly.* Only direct action breaks down apathy and gets results -
and its the first steps towards real freedom, towards a free and just
society.

Therefore anarchists are the first to point out that not voting is not 
enough - we need to actively struggle for an alternative to both voting 
*and* the current system. Just as the right to vote was won after a long 
series of struggles, so the creation of a free, decentralised, self-managed, 
libertarian socialist society will be the product of social struggle. 

Anarchists are the last people to deny the importance of political
liberties or the importance in wining the right to vote. The question we
must ask is whether it is a more a fitting tribute to the millions of people 
who used direct action, fought and suffered for the right to vote to use 
that victory to endorse a deeply unfair and undemocratic system or to use 
other means (indeed the means they used to win the vote) to create a system
based upon true popular self-government? If we are true to our (and
their) desire for a real, meaningful democracy, we would have to reject 
political action in favour of direct action. So, if we desire a truly 
libertarian and democratic society then its clear that the vote will not 
achieve it (and indeed put back the struggle for such a society).

This obviously gives an idea of what anarchists do instead of voting,
we agitate, organise and educate. While we will discuss the various
alternatives anarchists propose and attempt to organise in more detail
in section J.5 ( What alternative social organisations do anarchists 
create?) it is useful to give a brief introduction to anarchist activity
here, activity which bases itself on the two broad strategies of encouraging
direct action and building alternatives where we live and work.

Taking the first strategy, anarchists say that by using direct action we
can force politicians to respect the wishes of the people. For example,
if a government or boss tries to limit free speech, then anarchists would
try to encourage a free speech fight to break the laws in question until
such time as they were revoked. If a government or landlord refuses to
limit rent increases or improve safety requirements for accommodation, 
anarchists would organise squats and rent strikes. In the case of 
environmental destruction, anarchists would support and encourage attempts
at halting the damage by mass trespassing on sites, blocking the 
routes of developments, organising strikes and so on. If a boss refuses 
to introduce an 8 hour day, then workers should form a union and go on 
strike or stop working after 8 hours. Unlike laws, the boss cannot ignore
direct action (and if such action is successful, the state will hurry to
pass a law about it).

Similarly, strikes combined with social protest would be effective means of 
stopping authoritarian laws being passed. For example anti-union laws would 
be best fought by strike action and community boycotts (and given the utterly
ineffectual defence pursued by pro-labour parties using political action
to stop anti-union laws who can seriously say that the anarchist way would
be any worse?). And of course collective non-payment of taxes would ensure
the end of unpopular government decisions. The example of the poll tax
rebellion in the UK in the late in 1980s shows the power of such direct
action. The government could happily handle hours of speeches by opposition
politicians but they could not ignore social protest (and we must add
that the Labour Party which claimed to oppose the tax happily let the
councils controlled by them introduce the tax and arrest non-payers). 

In this way, by encouraging social protest, any government would think 
twice before pursuing authoritarian, destructive and unpopular policies. In
the final analysis, governments can and will ignore the talk of opposition
politicians, but they cannot ignore social action for very long. In
the words of a Spanish anarchosyndicalist, anarchists 

"do not ask for any concessions from the government. Our mission and our 
duty is to impose from the streets that which ministers and deputies are 
incapable of realising in parliament."[quoted by Graham Kelsey, 
_Anarchosyndicalism, Libertarian Communism and the State_, p. 79]

The second strategy of building alternatives flows naturally from the
first. Any form of campaign requires organisation and by organising in
an anarchist manner we build organisations that "bear in them the living
seed of the new society which is replace the old world" (to use Bakunin's
words). In organising strikes in the workplace and community we can create a 
network of activists and union members who can encourage a spirit of revolt 
against authority. By creating assemblies where we live and work we can create 
an effective countering power to the state and capital. Such a union, as the 
anarchists in Spain and Italy proved, can be the focal point for recreating 
self-managed schools, social centres and so on. In this way the local 
community can ensure that it has sufficient independent, self-managed 
resources available to educate its members. Also, combined with credit 
unions (or mutual banks), cooperative workplaces and stores, a self-managed 
infrastructure could be created which would ensure that people can directly 
provide for their own needs without having to rely on capitalists or 
governments.

In other words, an essential part of anarchist activity is (in the
words of a C.N.T. militant):

"We must create that part of libertarian communism which can be created 
within bourgeois society and do so precisely to combat that society with 
our own special weapons." [quoted Op. Cit., p. 79] 

So, far from doing nothing, by not voting the anarchist actively encourages 
alternatives. But what about government policies which actually do help
people? While anarchists would "hesitate to condemn those measures
taken by governments which obviously benefited the people, unless we saw
the immediate possibility of people carrying them out for themselves. This
would not inhibit us from declaring at the same time that what initiatives
governments take would be more successfully taken by the people themselves
if they put their minds to the same problems. . . to build up a hospital
service or a transport system, for instance, from local needs into a national
organisation, by agreement and consent at all levels is surely more
economical as well as efficient than one which is conceived at top level
[by the state]. . . where Treasury, political and other pressures, not
necessarily connected with what we would describe as *needs*, influence the
shaping of policies." [_The Raven_, no. 14, p. 179]

Ultimately, what the state and capital gives, they can also take away.
What we build by our own self-activity can last as long as we want it
to and act to protect it. And anarchists are convinced that:

"The future belongs to those who continue daringly, consistently, to fight
power and governmental authority. The future belongs to us and to our
social philosophy. For it is the only social ideal that teaches independent
thinking and direct participation of the workers in their economic struggle
[and working class people in their social struggles, we may add]. For it is
only through he organised economic [and social] strength of the masses that
they can and will do away with the capitalist system and all the wrongs 
and injustices it contains. Any diversion from this stand will only retard
our movement and make it a stepping stone for political climbers." [Emma
Goldman, _Vision on Fire_, p. 92]

J.2.10 Does rejecting electioneering mean that anarchists are apolitical?

No. Far from it. The "apolitical" nature of anarchism is Marxian nonsense. 
As it desires to fundamentally change society, anarchism can be nothing
but political. However, anarchism does reject (as we have seen) "normal"
political activity as ineffectual and corrupting. However, many (particularly
Marxists) imply this reject of the con of capitalist politics means
that anarchists concentration on purely "economic" issues like wages,
working conditions and so forth. And, by so doing, Marxists claim that
anarchists leave the political agenda to be dominated by capitalist
ideology, with disastrous results for the working class.

This view, however, is *totally* wrong. Indeed, Bakunin explicitly rejected
the idea that working people could ignore politics and actually agreed
with the Marxists that political indifference only led to capitalist 
control of the labour movement:

"[some of] the workers in Germany . . .[were organised in] a kind of 
federation of small associations. . . 'Self-help'. . .  was its slogan,
in the sense that labouring people were persistently advised not to 
anticipate either deliverance or help from the state and the government,
but only from their own efforts. This advise would have been excellent
had it not been accompanied by the false assurance that liberation for
the labouring people is possible under *current conditions of social
organisation* . . . Under this delusion. . . the workers subject to [this]
influence were supposed to disengage themselves systematically from all
political and social concerns and questions about the state, property,
and so forth. . . [This] completely subordinated the proletariat to the
bourgeoisie which exploits it and for which it was to remain an obedient
and mindless tool." [_Statism and Anarchy_, p. 174]

So, anarchists reject capitalist politics (i.e. electioneering), but we 
do not ignore politics nor wider political discussion. Anarchists have 
always recognised the importance of political debate and ideas in social 
movements. As Bakunin argued should "the International [an international 
organisation of working class unions and groups]. . . cease to concern itself 
with political and philosophical questions? Would [it] . . . ignore progress 
in the world of thought as well as the events which accompany or arise from 
the political struggle in and between states[?]. . . We hasten to say that it 
is absolutely impossible to ignore political and philosophical questions. An 
exclusive pre-occupation with economic questions would be fatal for the 
proletariat. . . [I]t is impossible for the workers to stop there without 
renouncing their humanity and depriving themselves of the intellectual and 
moral power which is so necessary for the conquest of their economic rights" 
[_Bakunin on Anarchism_, p. 301]

As Rudolf Rocker points out, anarchists desire a unification of political
and economic struggles as the two as inseparable:

"[T]he Anarchists represent the viewpoint that the war against capitalism 
must be at the same time a war against all institutions of political power,
for in history economic exploitation has always gone hand in hand with
political and social oppression. The exploitation of man by man and the
domination of man over man are inseparable, and each is the condition
of the other." [_Anarcho-Syndicalism_, p. 15]

Such a unification must take place on the social and economic field, not
the political, as that is where the working class is strongest. In other words
anarchists "are not in any way opposed to the political struggle, but in
their opinion this struggle. . . must take the form of direct action. . .
It would. . . be absurd for them [the working class] to overlook the
importance of the political struggle. Every event that affects the live of
the community is of a political nature. In this sense every important
economic action. . . is also a political action and, moreover, one of
incomparably greater importance than any parliamentary proceeding."
[Rudolf Rocker, Op. Cit., pp. 65-66]

So, anarchists reject the idea that political and economic struggles can
be divided. Such an argument just reproduces the artificially created
division of labour between mental and physical activity of capitalism
within working class organisations and within anti-capitalist movements.
We say that we should not separate out politics into some form of
specialised activity that only certain people (i.e. our "representatives")
can do. Instead, anarchists argue that political struggles, ideas and
debates must be brought into the *social* and *economic* organisations
of our class where they must be debated freely by all members as they
see fit and that political and economic struggle and change must go
hand in hand.

History indicates that any attempt at taking social and economic issues into 
political parties has resulting in wasted energy and the watering down
of these issues into pure reformism. In the words of Bakunin, such activity
suggests that "a political revolution should precede a social revolution... 
[which] is a great and fatal error, because every political revolution taking 
place prior to and consequently without a social revolution must necessarily 
be a bourgeois revolution, and a bourgeois revolution can only be instrumental 
in bringing about bourgeois Socialism", i.e. State Capitalism. [_The Political 
Philosophy of Bakunin, p. 289] 

We have discussed this process of socialist parties becoming reformist in
section J.2.6 and will not repeat ourselves here. Only by rejecting the
artificial divisions of capitalist society can we remain true to our
ideals of liberty, equality and solidarity. Anarchists "maintain that
the State organisation, having been the force to which minorities resorted
for establishing and organising their power over the masses, cannot be
the force which will serve to destroy these privileges." [Peter Kropotkin,
_Kropotkin's Revolutionary Pamphlets_, p. 170]. Every example of radicals 
using the state has resulted in them being changed by the system instead of 
them changing it and, to use Bakunin's words, "tied the proletariat to
the bourgeois towline" (i.e. resulted in working class movements becoming
dominated by capitalist ideas and activity - becoming "realistic" and 
"practical").

Therefore Anarchist argue that such a union of political ideas and social 
organisation and activity is essential for promoting radical politics as it 
"digs a chasm between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat and places the 
proletariat outside the activity and political conniving of all parties within 
the State. . . in placing itself outside all bourgeois politics, the 
proletariat necessarily turns against it." So, by "placing the proletariat 
outside the politics in the State and of the bourgeois world, [the union 
movement] thereby constructed a new world, the world of the united 
proletarians of all lands." [Michael Bakunin, Op. Cit., p. 303, p. 305]

In addition, so-called "economic" struggles do not occur in a social vacuum. 
They take place in a social and political context and so, necessarily, there 
can exist an separation of political and economic struggles only in the 
mind. Strikers or eco-warriors, for example, face the power of the state
enforcing laws which protect the power of employers and polluters. This
necessarily has a "political" impact on those involved in struggle. As
Bakunin argued social struggle results in "the spontaneous and direct 
development of philosophical and sociological in the International [i.e. 
union/social movement], ideas which inevitably develop side by side with and
are produced by the first two movements [of strikes and union organising]" 
[Op. Cit., page 304]. By channeling any "political" conclusions drawn by 
those involved in struggle into electoral politics, this development of
political ideas and discussion will be distorted into discussions of what
is possible in the current system, and so the radical impact of direct
action and social struggle is weakened.

Therefore anarchists reject electioneering not because they are "apolitical"
but because they do not desire to see politics remain a thing purely for
politicians and experts. Political issues are far too important to leave to
such people. Anarchists desire to see political discussion and change
develop from the bottom up, this is hardly "apolitical" - in fact with our
desire to see ordinary people directly discuss the issues that affect them,
act to change things by their own action and draw their own conclusions 
from their own activity anarchists are very "political." The process of
individual and social liberation is the most political activity we can think
of!

J.3 What forms of organisation do anarchists build?
	J.3.1 What are affinity groups?
	J.3.2 Why do anarchists organise into federations?
	J.3.3 What is "the Platform"?
	J.3.4 What is anarcho-syndicalism?
	J.3.5 Why do many anarchists think anarcho-syndicalism is not enough?
	J.3.6 What is a TAZ?

J.4 What trends in society aid anarchist activity?
	J.4.1 Why is social struggle a good sign?
	J.4.2 Are the new social movements a positive development 
	      for anarchists?
	J.4.3 What is the "economic structural crisis" and why is it important 
	      to social struggle?
	J.4.4 Are declining state revenues a hopeful sign for anarchists? 
	J.4.5 What are implications of anti-government and anti-big business 
	      feelings?
	J.4.6 What about the communications revolution?
	J.4.7 What is the significance of the accelerating rate of change 
	      and the information explosion?
	J.4.8 What are Netwars?

J.5 What alternative social organisations do anarchists create?

Anarchism is all about "do it yourself," people helping each other out
in order to secure a good society to live within and to protect, extend
and enrich their personal freedom. As such anarchists are keenly aware of 
the importance of building alternatives to both capitalism and the state 
in the here and now. Only by creating practical alternatives can we
show that anarchism is a viable possibility and train ourselves in 
the techniques and responsibilities of freedom:

"If we put into practice the principles of libertarian communism within
our organisations, the more advanced and prepared we will be on that
day when we come to adopt it completely." [C.N.T. member, quoted by 
Graham Kelsey, _Anarchosyndicalism, Libertarian Communism and the 
State_,p. 79]

By building the new world in the shell of the old, we help create the
environment within which individuals can manage their own affairs and
develop their abilities to do so. In other words, we create "schools of
anarchism" which lay the foundations for a better society as well as
promoting and supporting social struggle against the current system.
Make no mistake, the alternatives we discuss in this section are not
an alternative to direct action and the need for social struggle - they
are an expression of social struggle and a form of direct action. They
are the framework by which social struggle can build and strengthen the
anarchist tendencies within capitalist society which will ultimately 
replace it.

Therefore it is wrong to think that anarchists are indifferent to making
life more bearable, even more enjoyable, under capitalism. A free society
will not just appear from nowhere, it will be created be individuals and
communities with a long history of social struggle and organisation. For 
as Wilheim Reich so correctly pointed out:

"Quite obviously, a society that is to consist of 'free individuals,'
to constitute a 'free community' and to administer itself, i.e. to
'govern itself,' cannot be suddenly created by decrees. It has to 
*evolve* organically." [_The Mass Psychology of Fascism_, p. 241]

And it is this organic evolution that anarchists promote when they create
anarchist alternatives within capitalist society. The alternatives anarchists
create (be they workplace or community unions, co-operatives, mutual banks,
and so on) are marked by certain common features such as being self-managed,
being based upon equality and decentralisation and working with other groups
and associations within a confederal network based upon mutual aid and
solidarity. In other words, they are *anarchist* in both spirit and 
structure and so create a practical bridge between what is and what is 
possible.

Therefore, anarchists consider the building of alternatives as a key 
aspect of their activity under capitalism. This is because they, like
all forms of direct action, are "schools of anarchy" and also because
they make the transition to a free society easier. "Through the
organisations set up for the defence of their interests," in Malatesta's
words, "the workers develop an awareness of the oppression they suffer and 
the antagonism that divides them from the bosses and as a result begin to
aspire to a better life, become accustomed to collective struggle and
solidarity and win those improvements that are possible within the 
capitalist and state regime." [_The Anarchist Revolution_, p. 95] By 
creating viable examples of "anarchy in action" we can show that 
our ideas are practical and convince people of anarchist ideas by "good 
examples." Therefore this section of the FAQ will indicate the alternatives 
anarchists support and *why* we support them.

The approach anarchists take to this activity could be termed "social
unionism" -- the collective action of groups to change certain aspects
(and, ultimately, all aspects) of their lives. This "social unionism"
takes many different forms in many different areas (some of which, not
all, are discussed here) -- but they share the same basic aspects of
collective direct action, self-organisation, self-management, solidarity 
and mutual aid. These "social unions" would be a means (like the old labour
movement) "of raising the morale of the workers, accustom them to free 
initiative and solidarity in a struggle for the good of everyone and 
render them capable of imagining, desiring and putting into practice 
an anarchist life." [Errico Malatesta, _The Anarchist Revolution_, 
p. 28]

As will quickly become obvious in this discussion (as if it had not
been so before!) anarchists are firm supporters of "self-help," an 
expression that has been sadly corrupted (like freedom) by the right 
in recent times. Like "freedom", "self-help" should be saved from
the clutches of the right who have no real claim to that expression. 
Indeed, anarchism was created from and based itself upon working class
self-help -- for what other interpretation can be gathered from the famous
slogan of the _First International_ that "the emancipation of the working 
class must be the task of the working class itself"? So, Anarchists have 
great faith in the abilities of working class people to work out for 
themselves what their problems are and act to solve them.

Anarchist support, and promotion, of alternatives is a *key* aspect
of this process of self-liberation, and so a key aspect of anarchism. 
While strikes, boycotts, and other forms of high profile direct action
may be more sexy than the long and hard task of creating and building
social alternatives, these are the nuts and bolts of creating a new
world as well as the infrastructure which supports the "high profile"
activities. Hence the importance of highlighting the alternatives anarchists
support and build. The alternatives we discuss here is part of the process 
of building the new world in the shell of the old -- and involve both
combative organisations (such as community and workplace unions) as well
as more defensive/supportive ones (such as co-operatives and mutual banks).
Both have their part to play in the class struggle, although the combative
ones are the most important in creating the spirit of revolt and the 
possibility of creating an anarchist society (which will be reflected 
in the growth of supportive organisations to aid that struggle).

We must also stress that anarchists look to "natural" tendencies
within social struggle as the basis of any alternatives we try to
create. As Kropotkin put it, anarchism is based "on an analysis of 
*tendencies of an evolution that is already going on in society*, and 
on *induction* thereform as to the future." It is "representative . . . 
of the creative, instructive power of the people themselves who aimed at 
developing institutions of common law in order to protect them from the 
power-seeking minority." In other words, anarchism bases itself on those 
tendencies that are created by the self-activity of working class people
and while developing within capitalism are *in opposition* to it -- such 
tendencies are expressed in organisational form as trade unions and 
other forms of workplace struggle, cooperatives (both productive and 
credit), libertarian schools, and so on. For anarchists, anarchism is 
"born among the people - in the struggles of real life and not in the 
philosopher's studio" and owes its "origin to the constructive, creative 
activity of the people . . . and to a protest - a revolt against the 
external force which hd thrust itself upon [communal] . . . institutions." 
[_Kropotkin's Revolutionary Pamphlets_, p. 158, p. 147, p. 150, 
p. 149] This "creative activity" is expressed in the organisations 
created in the class struggle by working people, some of which we
discuss in this section of the FAQ. Therefore, the alternatives 
anarchists support should not be viewed in isolation of social struggle
and working class resistance to hierarchy - the reverse in fact, as these
alternatives are almost always expressions of that struggle.

Lastly, we should note that this list of alternatives does not list all the 
forms of organisation anarchists create. For example, we have ignored 
solidarity groups and organisations which are created to campaign against or
for certain issues or reforms. Anarchists are in favour of such organisations
and work within them to spread anarchist ideas, tactics and organisational
forms. However, these interest groups (while very useful) do not provide a
framework for lasting change as do the ones we highlight below although we 
stress that anarchists do not ignore such organisations and struggles (see 
sections J.1.4 and J.1.5 for more details on anarchist opinions on such 
"single issue" campaigns).

We have  also ignored what have been called "intentional communities". This 
is when a group of individuals squat or buy land and other resources within 
capitalism and create their own anarchist commune in it. Most anarchists 
reject this idea as capitalism and the state must be fought, not ignored. 
In addition, due to their small size, they are rarely viable experiments 
in communal living and nearly always fail after a short time (for a good 
summary of Kropotkin's attitude to such communities, which can be taken 
as typical, to such schemes see Graham Purchase's book _Evolution & 
Revolution_, pp. 122-125). Dropping out will not stop capitalism and 
the state and while such communities may try to ignore the system, they 
will find that the system will not ignore them -- they will come under 
competitive and ecological pressures from capitalism whether they like 
it or not.

Therefore the alternatives we discuss here are attempts to create anarchist
alternatives within capitalism and which aim to *change* it (either by 
revolutionary or evolutionary means). They are based upon *challenging*
capitalism and the state, not ignoring them by dropping out. Only by a 
process of direct action and building alternatives which are relevant to
our daily lives can we revolutionise and change both ourselves and society.

J.5.1 What is community unionism?

Community unionism is our term for the process of creating participatory 
communities (called "communes" in classical anarchism) within the state. 

Basically, a community union is the creation of interested members of a 
community who decide to form an organisation to fight against injustice 
in their local community and for improvements within it. It is a forum 
by which inhabitants can raise issues that affect themselves and others 
and provide a means of solving these problems. As such, it is a means 
of directly involving local people in the life of their own communities
and collectively solving the problems facing them as both individuals
and as part of a wider society. Politics, therefore, is not separated
into a specialised activity that only certain people do (i.e. politicians).
Instead, it becomes communalised and part of everyday life and in the
hands of all.

As would be imagined, like the participatory communities that would
exist in an anarchist society, the community union would be based
upon a mass assembly of its members. Here would be discussed the
issues that effect the membership and how to solve them. Like the
communes of a future anarchy, these community unions would be
confederated with other unions in different areas in order to
co-ordinate joint activity and solve common problems. These 
confederations, like the basic union assemblies themselves, would
be based upon direct democracy, mandated delegates and the
creation of administrative action committees to see that the
memberships decisions are carried out.

The community union could also raise funds for strikes and other 
social protests, organise pickets and boycotts and generally aid 
others in struggle. By organising their own forms of direct action 
(such as tax and rent strikes, environmental protests and so on) 
they can weaken the state while building an self-managed 
infrastructure of co-operatives to replace the useful functions 
the state or capitalist firms currently provide.

So, in addition to organising resistance to the state and capitalist
firms, these community unions could play an important role in
creating an alternative economy within capitalism. For example,
such unions could have a mutual bank or credit union associated
with them which could allow funds to be gathered for the creation
of self-managed co-operatives and social services and centres. In
this way a communalised co-operative sector could develop, along
with a communal confederation of community unions and their 
co-operative banks. 

Such community unions have been formed in many different countries
in recent years to fight against particularly evil attacks on the 
working class. In Britain, groups were created in neighbourhoods across 
the country to organise non-payment of the conservative government's 
community charge (popularly known as the poll tax). Federations of these
groups and unions were created to co-ordinate the struggle and pull
resources and, in the end, ensured that the government withdrew the
hated tax and helped push Thatcher out of government. In Ireland,
similar groups were formed to defeat the privatisation of the water
industry by a similar non-payment campaign.

However, few of these groups have been taken as part of a wider strategy
to empower the local community but the few that have indicate the potential
of such a strategy. This potential can be seen from two examples of
community organising in Europe, one in Italy and another in Spain.

In Italy, anarchists have organised a very successful _Municipal Federation
of the Base_ (FMB) in Spezzano Albanese (in the South of that country). This
organisation is "an alternative to the power of the town hall" and provides
a "glimpse of what a future libertarian society could be" (in the words of
one activist). The aim of the Federation is "the bringing together of all
interests within the district. In intervening at a municipal level, we
become involved not only in the world of work but also the life of the
community. . . the FMB make counter proposals [to Town Hall decisions],
which aren't presented to the Council but proposed for discussion in
the area to raise people's level of consciousness. Whether they like
it or not the Town Hall is obliged to take account of these proposals."
["Community Organising in Southern Italy", pp. 16-19, _Black Flag_ 
no. 210, p. 17, p. 18]

In this way, local people take part in deciding what effects them and their
community and create a self-managed "dual power" to the local, and national,
state. They also, by taking part in self-managed community assemblies,
develop their ability to participate and manage their own affairs, so
showing that the state is unnecessary and harmful to their interests.
In addition, the FMB also supports co-operatives within it, so creating
a communalised, self-managed economic sector within capitalism. Such a
development helps to reduce the problems facing isolated co-operatives
in a capitalist economy -- see section J.5.11 -- and was actively done
in order to "seek to bring together all the currents, all the problems
and contradictions, to seek solutions" to such problems facing co-operatives
[Ibid.].

Elsewhere in Europe, the long, hard work of the C.N.T. in Spain has also
resulted in mass village assemblies being created in the Puerto Real
area, near Cadiz. These community assemblies came about to support
an industrial struggle by shipyard workers. As one C.N.T. member explains,
"[e]very Thursday of every week, in the towns and villages in the area,
we had all-village assemblies where anyone connected with the particular 
issue [of the rationalisation of the shipyards], whether they were 
actually workers in the shipyard itself, or women or children or
grandparents, could go along. . . and actually vote and take part 
in the decision making process of what was going to take place." 
[_Anarcho-Syndicalism in Puerto Real: from shipyard resistance to
direct democracy and community control_, p. 6]

With such popular input and support, the shipyard workers won their 
struggle. However, the assembly continued after the strike and
"managed to link together twelve different organisations within the
local area that are all interested in fighting. . . various aspects
[of capitalism]" including health, taxation, economic, ecological and
cultural issues. Moreover, the struggle "created a structure which
was very different from the kind of structure of political parties,
where the decisions are made at the top and they filter down. What
we managed to do in Puerto Real was make decisions at the base
and take them upwards." [Ibid.]

In these ways, a grassroots movement from below has been created, with
direct democracy and participation becoming an inherent part of a local
political culture of resistance, with people deciding things for 
themselves directly and without hierarchy. Such developments are the
embryonic structures of a world based around direct democracy and
participation, with a strong and dynamic community life. For, as
Martin Buber argued, "[t]he more a human group lets itself be represented 
in the management of its common affairs. . . the less communal life there 
is in it and the more impoverished it becomes as a community." [_Paths 
in Utopia_, p. 133]

Anarchist support and encouragement of community unionism, by creating
the means for communal self-management, helps to enrich the community
as well as creating the organisational forms required to resist the
state and capitalism. In this way we build the anti-state which will
(hopefully) replace the state. Moreover, the combination of community 
unionism with workplace assemblies (as in Puerto Real), provides a
mutual support network which can be very effective in helping winning
struggles. For example, in Glasgow, Scotland in 1916, a massive rent
strike was finally won when workers came out in strike in support of
the rent strikers who been arrested for non-payment.

Such developments indicate that Isaac Puente was correct to argue that
"[l]ibertarian Communism is the organisation of society without the state
and without capitalism. To establish Libertarian Communism it will not be
necessary to invent artificial social organisations. The new society will
naturally emerge from 'the shell of the old.' The elements of the future
society are already planted in the old existing order. They are the Union
and the Free Commune which are old, deeply rooted, non-statist popular
institutions, spontaneously organised, and embracing all towns and
villages in urban and rural areas. Within the Free Commune, there is also
room for co-operative associations of artisans, farmers and other groups or
individuals who prefer to remain independent or form their own groupings
to meet their own needs [providing that they do not exploit hired labour
for wages] . . .

The terms libertarian and communism denote the fusion of two inseparable
concepts, the indispensable prerequisites for the free society:
collectivism an individual freedom . . ." [_Libertarian Communism_]

The combination of community unionism, along with industrial unionism
(see next section), will be the key of creating an anarchist society,
Community unionism, by creating the free commune within the state,
allows us to become accustomed to managing our own affairs and seeing
that an injury to one is an injury to all. In this way an social power
is created in opposition to the state. The town council may still be
in the hands of politicians, but neither they nor the central government
can move without worrying about what the people's reaction might be,
as expressed and organised in their community unions and assemblies.

J.5.2 Why do anarchists support industrial unionism?

Simply because it is effective, expresses our ideas on how industry will 
be organised in an anarchist society and is a key means of ending 
capitalist oppression and exploitation. As Max Stirner pointed out the
"labourers have the most enormous power in their hands, and, if they
once become thoroughly conscious of it and used it, nothing could withstand
them; they would only have to stop labour, regard the product of labour as
theirs, and enjoy it. This is the sense of the labour disturbances which
show themselves here and there." [_The Ego and Its Own_, p. 116] 

Libertarian workplace organisation is the best way of organising and 
exercising this power. However, before discussing why anarchists support 
industrial unionism, we must point out that the type of unionism anarchists 
support has very little in common with that associated with reformist or 
business unions like the TUC in Britain or the AFL-CIO in the USA (see 
next section).

In such unions, as Alexander Berkman points out, the "rank and file
have little say. They have delegated their power to leaders, and 
these have become the boss. . . Once you do that, the power you
have delegated will be used against you and your interests every
time." [_The ABC of Anarchism_, p. 58] Reformist unions, even if
they do organise by industry rather than by trade or craft, are
top-heavy and bureaucratic. Thus they are organised in the same
manner as capitalist firms or the state -- and like both of these,
the officials at the top have different interests than those
at the bottom. Little wonder anarchists oppose such forms of 
unionism as being counter to the interests of their members. The
long history of union officials betraying their members is proof
enough of this.

Therefore anarchists propose a different kind of workplace organisation,
one that is organised in a totally different manner than the current,
mainstream, unions. We will call this new kind of organisation "industrial 
unionism" (although perhaps industrial syndicalism or workplace
assemblies may be a better, less confusing, name for it).

Industrial unionism is based upon the idea that workers should directly 
control their own organisations and struggles. As such, it is based
upon workplace assemblies and their confederation between different
workplaces in the same industry as well as between different workplaces
in the same locality. An industrial union is a union which organises all 
workers in a given type of industry together into one body. This means 
that all workers regardless of their actual trade would ideally be in 
the one union. On a building site, for example, brick-layers, plumbers, 
carpenters and so on would all be a member of the Building Workers 
Union. Each trade may have its own sections within the union (so 
that plumbers can discuss issues relating to their trade for 
example) but the core decision making focus would be an assembly 
of all workers employed in a workplace. As they all have the same 
boss it is logical for them to have the same union.

However, industrial unionism should *not* be confused with a closed 
shop situation where workers are forced to join a union when they 
become a wage slave in a workplace. While anarchists do desire to 
see all workers unite in one organisation, it is vitally important 
that workers can leave a union and join another. The closed shop 
only empowers union bureaucrats and gives them even more power
to control (and/or ignore) their members. As anarchist unionism has
no bureaucrats, there is no need for the closed shop and its voluntary
nature is essential in order to ensure that a union be subject to 
"exit" as well as "voice" for it to be responsive to its members wishes.

As Albert Meltzer argues, the closed shop means that "the [trade union] 
leadership becomes all-powerful since once it exerts its right to expel 
a member, that person is not only out of the union, but out of a job." 
Anarcho-syndicalism, therefore, "rejects the closed shop and relies on 
voluntary membership, and so avoids any leadership or bureaucracy." 
[_Anarchism: Arguments for and against_, p. 56 -- also see Tom Wetzel's 
excellent article "The Origins of the Union Shop", part 3 of the series 
"Why does the union bureaucracy exist?" in _Ideas & Action_ no. 11, 
Fall 1989 for a fuller discussion of these issues] Without voluntary 
membership even the most libertarian union may become bureaucratic and 
unresponsive to the needs of its members and the class struggle (even
anarcho-syndicalist unions are subject to hierarchical influences by
having to work within the hierarchical capitalist economy although 
voluntary membership, along with a libertarian structure and tactics, 
helps combat these tendencies -- see section J.3.5).

Obviously this means that anarchist opposition to the closed shop has
nothing in common with boss, conservative and right-wing libertarian
opposition to it. These groups, while denouncing coercing workers into
trades unions, support the coercive power of bosses over workers without
a second thought (indeed, given their justifications of sexual harassment
and other forms of oppressive behaviour by bosses, we can imagine that 
they would happily support workers having to join *company* unions to 
keep their jobs -- only when bosses dislike mandatory union membership 
do these defenders of "freedom" raise their opposition). Anarchist
opposition to the closed shop (like their opposition to union bureaucracy) 
flows from their opposition to hierarchy and authoritarian social 
relationships. The right-wing's opposition is purely a product of their 
pro-capitalist and pro-authority position and the desire to see the worker 
subject only to *one* boss during working hours, not *two* (particularly 
if this second one has to represent workers interests to some degree). 
Anarchists, on the other hand, want to get rid of all bosses during 
working hours.

In industrial unionism, the membership, assembled in their place of 
work, are the ones to decide when to strike, when to pay strike pay, 
what tactics to use, what demands to make, what issues to fight over 
and whether an action is "official" or "unofficial". In this way the 
rank and file is in control of their unions and, by confederating with 
other assemblies, they co-ordinate their forces with their fellow workers. 
As syndicalist activist Tom Brown makes clear:

"The basis of the Syndicate is the mass meeting of workers assembled
at their place of work. . . The meeting elects its factory committee
and delegates. The factory is Syndicate is federated to all other
such committees in the locality. . . In the other direction, the
factory, let us say engineering factory, is affiliated to the District
Federation of Engineers. In turn the District Federation is affiliated
to the National Federation of Engineers. . . Then, each industrial
federation is affiliated to the National Federation of Labour . . .
how the members of such committees are elected is most important. 
They are, first of all, not representatives like Members of Parliament
who air their own views; they are delegates who carry the message of
the workers who elect them. They do not tell the workers what the
'official' policy is; the workers tell them.

"Delegates are subject to instant recall by the persons who elected
them. None may sit for longer than two successive years, and four
years must elapse before his [or her] next nomination. Very few will
receive wages as delegates, and then only the district rate of wages 
for the industry. . . 

"It will be seen that in the Syndicate the members control the
organisation - not the bureaucrats controlling the members. In a
trade union the higher up the pyramid a man is the more power he
wields; in a Syndicate the higher he is the less power he has.

"The factory Syndicate has full autonomy over its own affairs. . ."
[_Syndicalism_, pp. 35-36]

As can be seen, industrial unionism reflects anarchist ideas of
organisation - it is organised from the bottom up, it is decentralised
and based upon federation and it is directly managed by its members
in mass assemblies. It is anarchism applied to industry and the needs
of the class struggle. By supporting such forms of organisations, 
anarchists are not only seeing "anarchy in action," they are forming
effective tools which can win the class war. By organising in this
manner, workers are building the framework of a co-operative society
within capitalism. Rudolf Rocker makes this clear:

"the syndicate. . . has for its purpose the defence of the interests of
the producers within existing society and the preparing for and the 
practical carrying out of the reconstruction of social life . . .
It has, therefore, a double purpose: 1. As the fighting organisation 
of the workers against their employers to enforce the demand of the
workers for the safeguarding of their standard of living; 2. As the
school for the intellectual training of the workers to make them
acquainted with the technical management of production and
economic life in general." [_Anarcho-Syndicalism_, p. 51]

Given the fact that workers wages have been stagnating (or, at
best, falling behind productivity increases) across the world as 
the trade unions have been weakened and marginalised (partly
because of their own tactics, structure and politics) it is clear that
there exists a great need for working people to organise to defend
themselves. The centralised, top-down trade unions we are accustomed
to have proved themselves incapable of effective struggle (and, indeed,
the number of times they have sabotaged such struggle are countless 
- a result not of "bad" leaders but of the way these unions organise
and their role within capitalism). Hence anarchists support industrial
unionism (co-operation between workers assemblies) as an effective 
alternative to the malaise of official trade unionism. How anarchists 
aim to encourage such new forms of workplace organisation and struggle 
will be discussed in the next section.

We are sure that many radicals will consider that such decentralised, 
confederal organisations would produce confusion and disunity. However,
anarchists maintain that the statist, centralised form of organisation
of the trades unions would produce indifference instead of involvement,
heartlessness instead of solidarity, uniformity instead of unity, and
elites instead of equality, nevermind killing all personal initiative
by lifeless discipline and bureaucratic ossification and permitting
no independent action. The old form of organisation has been tried
and tried again - it has always failed. The sooner workers recognise
this the better.

One last point. We must note that many anarchists, particularly 
communist-anarchists, consider unions, even anarchosyndicalist ones, as 
having a strong reformist tendency (as discussed in section J.3.5). 
However, all anarchists recognise the importance of autonomous class 
struggle and the need for organisations to help fight that struggle. 
Thus anarchist-communists, instead of trying to organise industrial 
unions, apply the ideas of industrial unionism to workplace struggles. 
In other words, they would agree with the need to organise all workers 
into a mass assembly and to have elected, recallable administration 
committees to carry out the strikers wishes. This means that such
anarchists they do not call their practical ideas "anarcho-syndicalism" 
nor the workplace assemblies they desire to create "unions," there are 
*extremely* similar in nature and so we can discuss both using the term
"industrial unionism". The key difference is that many (if not most) 
anarcho-communists consider that permanent workplace organisations that 
aim to organise *all* workers would soon become reformist. Because of
this they also see the need for anarchist to organise *as anarchists*
in order to spread the anarchist message within them and keep their
revolutionary aspects at the forefront (and so support industrial
networks -- see next section). 

Therefore while there are slight differences in terminology and practice,
all anarchists would support the ideas of industrial unionism we have
outlined above. 

J.5.3 What attitude do anarchists take to existing unions?

As noted in the last section, anarchists desire to create organisations 
in the workplace radically different from the existing trade unions.
The question now arises, what attitude do anarchists generally take to 
these existing unions?

Before answering that question, we must stress that anarchists, no matter
how hostile to trade unions as bureaucratic, reformist institutions, *are*
in favour of working class struggle. This means that when trade union
members or other workers are on strike anarchists will support them
(unless the strike is totally reactionary -- for example, no anarchist
would support a strike which is racist in nature). This is because almost 
all anarchists consider it basic to their politics that you don't scab and 
you don't crawl (a handful of individualist anarchists are the exception).
So, when reading anarchist criticisms of trade unions do not for an
instant think we do not support industrial struggles -- we do, we 
are just very critical of the unions that are sometimes involved.

So, what do anarchists think of the trade unions?

For the most part, one could call the typical anarchist opinion toward 
them as one of "hostile support." It is hostile insofar as anarchists 
are well aware of how bureaucratic these unions are and how they continually 
betray their members. Given that they are usually little more than "business" 
organisations, trying to sell their members labour-power for the best deal 
possible, it is unsurprising that they are bureaucratic and that the 
interests of the bureaucracy are at odds with those of its membership. 
However, our attitude is "supportive" in that even the worse trade 
union represents an attempt at working class solidarity and self-help,
even if the attempt is now far removed from the initial protests and ideas 
that set the union up. For a worker to join a trade union means having to 
recognise, to some degree, that he or she has different interests from 
their boss. There is no way to explain the survival of the unions other 
than the fact that there are different class interests, and workers have 
understood that to promote their own interests they have to organise on 
class lines. 

No amount of conservatism, bureaucracy or backwardness within the unions 
can obliterate the essential fact of different class interests. The very 
existence of trade unions testifies to the existence of some level of 
basic class consciousness -- even though most trade unions claim otherwise
and that capital and labour have interests in common. As we have argued,
anarchists reject this claim with good reason, and the very existence of
trade unions show that this is not true. If workers and capitalists have
the same interests, trade unions would not exist. Moreover, claiming that
the interests of workers and bosses are the same theoretically disarms
both the unions and its members and so weakens their struggles (after all,
if bosses and workers have similar interests then any conflict is bad
and the decisions of the boss must be in workers' interests!).

Thus anarchist viewpoints reflect the contradictory nature of business/trade
unions -- on the one hand they are products of workers' struggle, but on 
the other they are *very* bureaucratic, unresponsive and centralised and 
(therefore) their full-time officials have no real interest in fighting 
against wage labour as it would put them out of a job. Indeed, the very
nature of trade unionism ensures that the interests of the union (i.e.
the full-time officials) come into conflict with the people they claim
to represent. 

This can best be seen from the disgraceful activities of the TGWU with 
respect to the Liverpool dockers in Britain. The union officials (and 
the TUC itself) refused to support their members after they had been 
sacked in 1995 for refusing to cross a picket line. The dockers 
organised their own struggle, contacting dockers' unions across the 
world and organising global solidarity actions. Moreover, a network 
of support groups sprung up across Britain to gather funds for their
struggle (and, we are proud to note, anarchists have played their role
in supporting the strikers). Many trade unionists could tell similar
stories of betrayal by "their" union.

This occurs because trade unions, in order to get recognition from 
a company, must be able to promise industrial pieces. They need to
enforce the contracts they sign with the bosses, even if this goes
against the will of its members. Thus trade unions become a third
force in industry, somewhere between management and the workers and
pursuing its own interests. This need to enforce contracts soon ensures
that the union becomes top-down and centralised -- otherwise its
members would violate the unions agreements. They have to be able 
to control their members - which usually means stopping them
fighting the boss - if they are to have anything to bargain with 
at the negotiation table. This may sound odd, but the point is that 
the union official has to sell the employer labour discipline and 
freedom from unofficial strikes as part of its side of the bargain.
Otherwise the employer will ignore them. The nature of trade unionism
is to take power away from out of local members and centralise it
into the hands of officials at the top of the organisation.

Thus union officials sell out their members because of the role trade 
unions play within society, not because they are nasty individuals 
(although some are). They behave as they do because they have too much 
power and, being full-time and highly paid, are unaccountable, in any real 
way, to their members. Power -- and wealth -- corrupts, no matter who you 
are. (also see Chapter 11 of Alexander Berkman's _What is Communist 
Anarchism?_ for an excellent introduction to anarchist viewpoints on 
trade unions).

While, in normal times, most workers will not really question the nature
of the trade union bureaucracy, this changes when workers face some threat.
Then they are brought face to face with the fact that the trade union
has interests separate from theirs. Hence we see trade unions agreeing to
wage cuts, redundancies and so on -- after all, the full-time trade union 
official's job is not on the line! But, of course, while such a policy
is in the short term interests of the officials, in the longer term it goes
against their interests -- after all, who wants to join a union which rolls
over and presents no effective resistance to employers? Little wonder
Michael Moore has a chapter entitled "Why are Union Leaders So F#!@ing
Stupid?" in his book _Downsize This!_ -- essential reading to realise how
moronic trade union bureaucrats can actually be. Sadly trade union 
bureaucracy seems to afflict all who enter it with short-sightedness, as 
seen by the countless times the trade unions have sold-out their members -- 
although the chickens do, finally, come home to roost, as the bureaucrats 
of the AFL, TUC and other trade unions are finding out in this era of 
global capital and falling membership. So while the activities of trade
union leaders may seem crazy and short-sighted, these activities are
forced upon them by their position and role within society -- which
explains why they are so commonplace and why even radical leaders end
up doing exactly the same thing in time.

Few anarchists would call upon members of a trade union to tear-up their 
membership cards. While some anarchists, particularly communist anarchists 
and some anarcho-syndicalists have nothing but contempt (and rightly so) 
for trade unions (and so do not work within them -- but will support trade 
union members in struggle), the majority of anarchists take a more pragmatic 
viewpoint. If no alternative syndicalist union exists, anarchists will work 
within the existing unions (perhaps becoming shop-stewards -- few anarchists 
would agree to be elected to positions above this in any trade union, 
particularly if the post was full-time), spreading the anarchist message and 
trying to create a libertarian undercurrent which would hopefully blossom 
into a more anarchistic labour movement.

So most anarchists "support" the trade unions only until they have created 
a viable libertarian alternative. Thus we will become trade union members
while trying to spread anarchist ideas within and outwith them. This means 
that anarchists are flexible in terms of their activity in the unions. For
example, many IWW members were "two-carders." This meant that as well 
as being members of the IWW, they were also in the local AFL branch in 
their place of work and turned to the IWW when the AFL hierarchy refused 
to back strikes or other forms of direct action. Anarchists encourage 
rank and file self-activity, *not* endless calls for trade union 
bureaucrats to act for us (as is unfortunately far too common on 
the left).

Anarchist activity within trade unions reflects our ideas on hierarchy and
its corrupting effects. We reject totally the response of left-wing social 
democrats, Stalinists and mainstream Trotskyists to the problem of trade
union betrayal, which is to try and elect and/or appoint 'better' officials. 
They see the problem primarily in terms of the individuals who hold the posts.
However this ignores the fact that individuals are shaped by the environment
they live in and the role they play in society. Thus even the most left-wing
and progressive individual will become a bureaucrat if they are placed
within a bureaucracy -- and we must note that the problem of corruption
does not spring from the high-wages officials are paid (although this is a 
factor), but from the power they have over their members (which partly 
expresses itself in high pay). 

Any claim that electing "radical" full-time officials who refuse to take 
the high wages associated with the position will be better is false. The 
hierarchical nature of the trade union structure has to be changed, not 
side-effects of it. As the left has no problem with hierarchy as such,
this explains why they support this form of "reform." They do not actually
want to undercut whatever dependency the members has on leadership, they 
want to replace the leaders with "better" ones (i.e. themselves or members 
of their party) and so endlessly call upon the trade union bureaucracy to 
act *for* its members. In this way, they hope, trade unionists will see
the need to support a "better" leadership -- namely themselves. Anarchists, 
in stark contrast, think that the problem is not that the leadership of the 
trade unions is weak, right-wing or does not act but that the union's 
membership follows them. Thus anarchists aim at undercutting reliance on
leaders (be they left or right) by encouraging self-activity by the rank
and file and awareness that hierarchical leadership as such is bad, not 
individual leaders.

Instead of "reform" from above (which is doomed to failure), anarchists work 
at the bottom and attempt to empower the rank and file of the trade unions. 
It is self-evident that the more power, initiative and control that lies with 
the rank & file membership on the shop floor, the less it will lie with the 
bureaucracy. Thus anarchists work within and outwith the trade unions in order 
to increase the power of workers where it actually lies: at the point of 
production. This is usually done by creating networks of activists who 
spread anarchist ideas to their fellow workers (see next section -- "What 
are Industrial Networks?"). 

These groups "within the unions should strive to ensure that they [the trade 
unions] remain open to all workers of whatever opinion or party on the sole
condition that there is solidarity in the struggle against the bosses. They 
should oppose the corporatist spirit and any attempt to monopolise labour or 
organisation. They should prevent the Unions from becoming the tools of the 
politicians for electoral or other authoritarian ends; they should preach and 
practice direct action, decentralisation, autonomy and free initiative. They 
should strive to help members learn how to participate directly in the life 
of the organisation and to do without leaders and permanent officials.

"They must, in short, remain anarchists, remain always in close touch with
anarchists and remember that the workers' organisation is not the end but
just one of the means, however important, of preparing the way for the
achievement of anarchism." [Errico Malatesta, _The Anarchist Revolution_,
pp. 26-27]

As part of this activity anarchists promote the ideas of Industrial
Unionism we highlighted in the last section -- namely direct workers
control of struggle via workplace assemblies and recallable committees 
-- during times of struggle. However, anarchists are aware that economic
struggle (and trade unionism as such) "cannot be an end in itself, since
the struggle must also be waged at a political level to distinguish the
role of the State." [Errico Malatesta, _Life and Ideas_, p, 115] Thus,
as well as encouraging worker self-organisation and self-activity, 
anarchist groups also seek to politicise struggles and those involved 
in them. Only this process of self-activity and political discussion
between equals *within* social struggles can ensure the process of
working class self-liberation and the creation of new, more libertarian,
forms of workplace organisation.

The result of such activity may be a new form of workplace organisation 
(either workplace assemblies or an anarcho-syndicalist union) or a reformed, 
more democratic version of the existing trade union (although few anarchists
believe that the current trade unions can be reformed). But either way,
the aim is to get as many members of the current labour movement to become
anarchists as possible or, at the very least, take a more libertarian and 
radical approach to their unions and workplace struggle. 

J.5.4 What are industrial networks?

Industrial networks are the means by which revolutionary industrial unions 
and other forms of libertarian workplace organisation can be created. 
The idea of Industrial Networks originated with the British section of the
anarcho-syndicalist International Workers' Association in the late 1980s. It 
was developed as a means of promoting anarcho-syndicalist/anarchist ideas 
within the workplace, so creating the basis on which a workplace movement
based upon the ideas of industrial unionism (see section J.5.2) could grow 
and expand.

The idea is very simple. An Industrial Network is a federation of
militants in a given industry who support the ideas of anarchism and/or 
anarcho-syndicalism, namely direct action, solidarity and organisation 
from the bottom up (the difference between purely anarchist networks
and anarcho-syndicalist ones will be highlighted later). In other words, 
it would "initially be a political grouping in the economic sphere, aiming 
to build a less reactive but positive organisation within the industry.
The long term aim. . . is, obviously, the creation of an anarcho-syndicalist
union." [_Winning the Class War_, p. 18]

The Industrial Network would be an organisation of groups of anarchists
and syndicalists within a workplace united into an industrial basis. They
would pull their resources together to fund a regular bulletin and other
forms of propaganda which they would distribute within their workplace
and industry. These bulletins and leaflets would raise and discuss issues
related to work and how to right back and win as well as placing workplace
issues in a social and political context. This propaganda would present
anarchist ideas of workplace organisation and resistance as well as general
anarchist ideas and analysis. In this way anarchist ideas and tactics 
would be able to get a wider hearing and anarchists can have an input *as
anarchists* into workplace struggles.

Traditionally, many syndicalists and anarcho-syndicalists advocated the 
*One Big Union* strategy, the aim of which was to organise all workers into 
one organisation representing the whole working class. Today, however, most 
anarcho-syndicalists and all social anarchists advocate workers assemblies 
for decision making during struggles (the basic form of which we discussed
in section J.5.2). The role of the anarchist group or anarcho-syndicalist 
(or revolutionary) union would basically be to call such workplace assemblies,
argue for direct workers control of struggle by these mass assemblies, promote
direct action and solidarity, put across anarchist ideas and politics and 
keep things on the boil, so to speak.

This support for industrial networks exists because most anarcho-syndicalists 
recognise that they face dual unionism (which means there are more than one 
union within a given workplace or country). This was the case, historically, 
in all countries with a large anarcho-syndicalist union movement - in Spain 
and Italy there were the socialist unions along with the syndicalist ones 
and so on). Therefore most anarcho-syndicalists do not expect to ever get 
a majority of the working class into a revolutionary union before a
revolutionary situation develops. In addition, anarcho-syndicalists 
recognise that a revolutionary union "is not just an economic fighting 
force, but also an organisation with a political context. To build such 
a union requires a lot of work and experience" of which the Industrial
Networks are but one aspect. [Ibid.]

Thus industrial networks are intended to deal with the actual situation
that confronts us, and provide a strategy for moving from our present
reality toward out ultimate goals. Where one has only a handful of
anarchists and syndicalists in a workplace or scattered across several 
workplaces there is a clear need for developing ways for these fellow 
workers to effectively act in union, rather than be isolated and
relegated to more general agitation. A handful of anarchists cannot 
meaningfully call a general strike. But we can agitate around specific 
industrial issues and organise our fellow workers to do something about 
them. Through such campaigns we demonstrate the advantages of 
rank-and-file unionism and direct action, show our fellow workers 
that our ideas are not mere abstract theory but can be implemented 
here and now, attract new members and supporters, and further develop 
our capacity to develop revolutionary unions in our workplaces. 

Thus the creation of Industrial Networks and the calling for workplace 
assemblies is a recognition of where we are now -- with anarchist ideas
very much in the minority. Calling for workers assemblies is not
an anarchist tactic per se, we must add, but a working class one developed
and used plenty of times by workers in struggles (indeed, it was how the
current trade unions were created). It also puts the onus on the reformists 
and reactionary unions by appealing directly to their members as workers 
and showing their bureaucrat organisations and reformist politics by 
creating an effective alternative to them.

A few anarchists reject the idea of Industrial Networks and instead support
the idea of "rank and file" groups which aim to put pressure on the current
trade unions to become more militant and democratic (a few anarcho-syndicalists
think that such groups can be used to reform the trade-unions into libertarian,
revolutionary organisations -- called "boring from within" -- but most reject
this as utopia, viewing the trade union bureaucracy as unreformable as
the state's). Moreover, opponents of "rank and file" groups argue that
they direct time and energy *away* from practical and constructive activity
and instead waste them "[b]y constantly arguing for changes to the union
structure. . . the need for the leadership to be more accountable, etc., 
[and so] they not only [offer] false hope but [channel] energy
and discontent away from the real problem - the social democratic 
nature of reformist trade unions." [_Winning the Class War_, p. 11]

Supporters of the "rank and file" approach fear that the Industrial Networks
will isolate anarchists from the mass of trade union members by creating
tiny "pure" syndicalist unions or anarchist groups. But such a claim is 
rejected by supporters of Industrial Networks. They maintain that they 
will be working with trade union members where it counts, in the 
workplace and not in badly attended, unrepresentative branch 
meetings. So:

"We have no intention of isolating ourselves from the many workers who
make up the rest of the rank and file membership of the unions. We 
recognise that a large proportion of trade union members are only
nominally so as the main activity of social democratic [i.e. reformist]
unions is outside the workplace. . . *We aim to unite and not divide
workers.*

"It has been argued that social democratic unions will not tolerate this
kind of activity, and that we would be all expelled and thus isolated.
So be it. We, however, don't think that this will happen until. . .
workplace militants had found a voice independent of the trade unions
and so they become less useful to us anyway. Our aim is not to 
support social democracy, but to show it up as irrelevant to the
working class." [Op. Cit., p. 19]

Whatever the merits and disadvantages of both approaches are, it seems 
likely that the activity of both will overlap in practice with Industrial 
Networks operating within trade union branches and "rank and file" groups 
providing alternative structures for struggle. 

As noted above, there is a slight difference between anarcho-syndicalist
supporters of Industrial Networks and communist-anarchist ones. This is to
do with how they see the function and aim of these networks. While both
agree that such networks should agitate in their industry and call and 
support mass assemblies to organise resistance to capitalist exploitation
and oppression they disagree on who can join the network groups and what
they aims should be. Anarcho-syndicalists aim for the Industrial
Networks to be the focal point for the building of permanent syndicalist
unions and so aim for the Industrial Networks to be open to all workers
who accept the general aims of the organisation. Anarcho-communists,
however, view Industrial Networks as a means of increasing anarchist
ideas within the working class and are not primarily concerned about
building syndicalist unions (while many anarcho-communists would
support such a development, some do not). 

These anarchists, therefore, see the need for workplace-based branches
of an anarchist group along with the need for networks of militant 
'rank and file' workers, but reject the idea of something that is one 
but pretends to be the other. They argue that, far from avoiding the 
problems of classical anarcho-syndicalism, such networks seem to emphasise
one of the worst problems -- namely that of how the organisation
remains anarchist but is open to non-anarchists. 

But the similarities between the two positions are greater than the 
differences and so can be summarised together, as we have done here.

J.5.5 What forms of co-operative credit do anarchists support?

Anarchists tend to support must forms of co-operation, including those
associated with credit and money. This co-operative credit/banking takes
many forms, such as credit unions, LETS schemes and so on. In this 
section we discuss two main forms of co-operative credit, *mutualism*
and *LETS*.

Mutualism is the name for the ideas associated with Proudhon and his _Bank 
of the People_. Essentially, it is a confederation of credit unions in
which working class people pool their funds and savings. This allows 
credit to be arranged at cost, so increasing the options available to
working people as well as abolishing interest on loans by making increasing
amount of cheap credit available to working people. LETS stands for Local 
Exchange Trading Schemes and is a similar idea in many ways (and apparently
discovered independently) -- see _Bringing the Economy Home from the
Market_ by V.G. Dobson for a detailed discussion on LETS. 

Both schemes revolve around creating an alternative form of currency and 
credit within capitalism in order to allow working class people to work 
outwith the capitalist money system by creating "labour notes" as a 
new circulating medium. In this way, it is hoped, workers would be able 
to improve their living and working conditions by having a source of 
community-based (very low interest) credit and so be less dependent on
capitalists and the capitalist banking system. Some supporters of mutualism
considered it as the ideal way of reforming capitalism away. By making
credit available to the ordinary worker at very cheap rates, the end of 
wage slavery would soon occur as workers would work for themselves by 
either purchasing the necessary tools required for their work or, by their
increased bargaining power within the economy, gain industrial democracy
from the capitalists by buying them out.

Such ideas have had a long history within the socialist movement, originating
in the British socialist movement in the early 19th century. Robert Owen
and other Socialists active at the time considered the idea of labour
notes and exchanges as a means of improving working class conditions within
capitalism and as the means of reforming capitalism into a society of
confederated, self-governing communities. Indeed, "Equitable Labour Exchanges" 
were "founded at London and Birmingham in 1832" with "Labour notes and the
exchange of small products" [E.P. Thompson, _The Making of the English
Working Class_, p. 870] Apparently independently of these early attempts 
in England at what would later be called mutualism, P-J Proudhon arrived 
at the same ideas decades later in France. In his words, "The People's Bank 
quite simply embodies the financial and economic aspects of the principle 
of modern democracy, that is, the sovereignty of the People, and of the 
republican motto, 'Liberty, Equality, Fraternity.'" [_Selected Writings of 
P-J Proudhon_, p. 75] Similarly, in the USA (partly as a result of Joshua
Warren's activities, who got the idea from Robert Owen) there was extensive
discussion on labour notes, exchanges and free credit as a means of protecting 
workers from the evils of capitalism and ensuring their independence and
freedom from wage slavery. When Proudhon's works appeared in North America,
the basic arguments were well known.

Therefore the idea that mutual banking using labour money as a means 
to improve working class living conditions, even, perhaps, to achieve
industrial democracy, self-management and the end of capitalism has a long
history in Socialist thought. Unfortunately this aspect of socialism became
less important with the rise of Marxism (which called these early socialists
"utopian") attempts at such credit unions and alternative exchange schemes
were generally replaced with attempts to build working class political 
parties. With the rise of Marxian social democracy, constructive socialistic 
experiments and collective working class self-help was replaced by working 
within the capitalist state. Fortunately, history has had the last laugh 
on Marxism with working class people yet again creating anew the ideas of 
Mutualism (as can be seen by the growth of LETS and other schemes of
community money).

J.5.6 What are the key features of mutual credit schemes?

Mutualism, as noted in the last section, is a form of credit co-operation, 
in which individuals pull their resources together in order to benefit 
themselves as individuals and as part of a community. LETS is another form 
of mutualism which developed recently, and apparently developed independently
(from its start in Canada, LETS has spread across the world and there are
now hundreds of schemes involved hundreds of thousands of people). Mutual 
banks and LETS have the following key aspects:

	1) Co-operation: No-one owns the network. It is controlled by
	   its members directly.
	2) Non-exploitative: No interest is charged on account balances
	   or credit. At most administrative costs are charged, a result
	   of it being commonly owned and managed.
	3) Consent: Nothing happens without it, there is no compulsion
	   to trade.
	4) Money: They use their own type of money (traditionally called
	   "labour-notes") as a means of aiding "honest exchange".

It is hoped, by organising credit, working class people will be able to
work for themselves and slowly but surely replace capitalism with
a co-operative system based upon self-management. While LETS schemes
do not have such grand schemes, historically mutualism aimed at 
working within and transforming capitalism to socialism. At the very
least, LETS schemes reduce the power and influence of banks and finance
capital within society as mutualism ensures that working people
have a viable alternative to such parasites.

This point is important, as the banking system and money is often
considered "neutral" (particularly in capitalist economics). However,
as Malatesta correctly argues, it would be "a mistake to believe . . .
that the banks are, or are in the main, a means to facilitate
exchange; they are a means to speculate on exchange and currencies,
to invest capital and to make it produce interest, and to fulfil
other typically capitalist operations." [_Life and Ideas_, p. 100]

Within capitalism, money is still to a large degree a commodity which
is more than a convenient measure of work done in the production
of goods and services. As a commodity it can and does go anywhere in
the world where it can get the best return for its owners, and so it
tends to drain out of those communities that need it most. It is the
means by which capitalists can buy the liberty of working people and
get them to produce a surplus for them (wealth is, after all, "a power 
invested in certain individuals by the institutions of society, to
compel others to labour for their benefit." [William Godwin, _The 
Anarchist Writings of William Godwin_, p. 130]. From this 
consideration alone, working class control of credit and money 
is an important part of the class struggle as having access to 
alternative sources of credit can increase working class options 
and power. 

Moreover, credit is also an important form of social control -- 
people who have to pay their mortgage or visa bill are more pliable, 
less likely to strike or make other forms of political trouble. And, 
of course, credit expands the consumption of the masses in the face 
of stagnant or falling wages while allowing capitalists to profit 
from it. Indeed, there is a link between the rising debt burden on 
households in the 1980s and 1990s and the increasing concentration 
of wealth. This is "because of the decline in real hourly wages and 
the stagnation in household incomes, the middle and lower classes 
have borrowed to stay in place; they've borrowed from the very rich
who have gotten richer. The rich need a place to earn interest on 
their surplus funds, and the rest of the population makes a juicy 
lending target." [Doug Henwood, _Wall Street_, pp. 64-65]

Little wonder that the state (and the capitalists who run it) is so 
concerned to keep control of money in its own hands  or the hands
of its agents. With an increase in mutual credit, interest rates 
would drop, wealth would stay more in working class communities,
and the social power of working people would increase (for people 
would be more likely to struggle for higher wages and better
conditions -- as the fear of debt repayments would be less).

Therefore, mutualism is an example of what could be termed 
"counter-economics". By counter-economics we mean the creation of 
community-based credit unions that do not put their money into 
"Capital Markets" or into capitalist Banks. We mean finding ways 
for workers to control their own retirement funds. We mean finding
ways of using money as a means of undermining capitalist power
and control and supporting social struggle and change.

In this way working people are controlling more and more of the
money supply and using it ways that will stop capital from using
it to oppress and exploit the working class. An example of why
this can be important can be seen from the results of the existing
workers' pension fund system. Currently workers pension funds are 
being used to invest in capitalist firms (particularly transnationals 
and other forms of Big Business) and these companies use the invested 
money to fund their activities. The idea is that by so investing, 
workers will receive an adequate pension in their old age. 

However, the only people actually winning are bankers and big companies. 
Unsurprisingly, the managers of these pension fund companies are 
investing in those firms with the highest returns, which are usually 
those who are downsizing or extracting most surplus value from their 
workforce (which in turn forces other companies to follow the same 
strategies to get access to the available funds in order to survive). 

Basically, if you are lending your money to be used to put your 
fellow worker out of work or increase the power of capital, 
then you are not only helping to make things harder for others 
like you, you are also helping making things worse for yourself. 
No person is an island, and increasing the clout of capital over 
the working class is going to affect you directly or indirectly. 
And, of course, it seems crazy to suggest that workers desire to 
experience insecurity, fear of downsizing and stagnating wages 
during their working lives in order to have slightly more money 
when they retire.

This highlights one of the tricks the capitalists are using against 
us, namely to get us to buy into the system through our fear of old age. 
Whether it is going into lifelong debt to buy a home or lending our 
money to capitalists, we are being encouraged to buy into something 
which we value more than what is right and wrong. This allows us to 
be more easily controlled by the government. We need to get away 
from living in fear and stop allowing ourselves to be deceived 
into behaving like "stakeholders" in Capitalistic and Plutocratic 
systems. As can be seen from the use of pension funds to buy
out firms, increase the size of transnationals and downsize
the workforce, such "stakeholding" amounts to trading in the
present *and* the future while others benefit.

The real enemies are *not* working people who take part in such
pension schemes. It is the people in power, those who manage the 
pension schemes and companies, who are trying to squeeze every 
last cent out of working people to finance higher profits and stock
prices -- which the unemployment and impoverishment of workers on 
a world-wide scale aids. They control the governments of the world. 
They are making the "rules" of the current system. Hence the 
importance of limiting the money they have available, of creating 
community-based credit unions and mutual risk insurance 
co-operatives to increase our control over our money and create our
own, alternative, means of credit and exchange (as presented as
mutualism) which can be used to empower ourselves, aid our struggles
and create our own alternatives. Money, representing as it does the 
power of capital and the authority of the boss, is not "neutral" and 
control over it plays a role in the class struggle. We ignore such
issues at our own peril.

J.5.7 Do most anarchists think mutual credit is sufficient to abolish
      capitalism?

The short answer is no, they do not. While the Individualist Anarchists
and Mutualists (followers of Proudhon) do think that mutual banking is
the only sure way of abolishing capitalism, most anarchists do not see 
mutualism as an end in itself. Few think that capitalism can be 
reformed away in the manner assumed by Proudhon. Increased access to
credit does not address the relations of production and market power 
which exist within the economy and so any move for financial transformation 
has to be part of a broader attack on all forms of capitalist social power 
in order to be both useful and effective (see section B.3.2 for more 
anarchist views on mutual credit and its uses). So, for most anarchists, 
it is only in combination with other forms of working class self-activity 
and self-management that mutualist institutions could play an important 
role in the class struggle. 

By creating a network of mutual banks to aid in creating co-operatives, union 
organising drives, supporting strikes (either directly by gifts/loans or 
funding food and other co-operatives which could supply food and other 
essentials free or at a reduction), mutualism can be used as a means of 
helping build libertarian alternatives within the capitalist system. Such 
alternatives, while making life better under the current system, also can 
play a role in overcoming that system by being a means of aiding those in 
struggle make ends meet and providing alternative sources of income for 
black-listed or sacked workers. Thus Bakunin's comments:

"let us co-operate in our common enterprise to make our lives a little
bit more supportable and less difficult. Let us, wherever possible,
establish producer-consumer co-operatives and mutual credit societies which,
though under the present economic conditions they cannot in any real or
adequate way free us, are nevertheless important inasmuch they train the
workers in the practices of managing the economy and plant the precious 
seeds for the organisation of the future." [_Bakunin on Anarchism_, 
p. 173]

Therefore, while few anarchists think that mutualism would be enough
in itself, it can play a role in the class struggle. As a compliment to
direct action and workplace and community struggle and organisation,
mutualism has an important role in working class self-liberation. For 
example, community unions (see section J.5.1) could create their own
mutual banks and money which could be used to fund co-operatives and
support strikes and other forms of social struggle. In this way a 
healthy communalised co-operative sector could develop within capitalism,
overcoming the problems of isolation facing workplace co-operatives
(see section J.5.11) as well as providing a firm framework of support
for those in struggle.

Moreover, mutual banking can be a way of building upon and strengthening 
the anarchistic social relations within capitalism. For even under 
capitalism and statism, there exists extensive mutual aid and, indeed, 
anarchistic and communistic ways of living. For example, communistic 
arrangements exist within families, between friends and lovers and 
within anarchist organisations.

Mutual banking could be a means of creating a bridge between this 
alternative (gift) "economy" and capitalism. The mutualist alternative
economy would help strength communities and bonds of trust between 
individuals, and this would increase the scope for increasing the scope 
of the communistic sector as more and more people help each other out 
without the medium of exchange - in other words, mutualism will help 
the gift economy that exists within capitalism to grow and develop.

J.5.8 What would a modern system of mutual banking look like? 

The mutual banking ideas of Proudhon could be adapted to the conditions of
modern society, as will be described in what follows. (Note: Proudhon is
the definitive source on mutualism, but for those who don't read French,
there are the works of his American disciples, e.g. William B. Greene's
_Mutual Banking_, and Benjamin Tucker's _Instead of a Book by a Man Too
Busy to Write One_).

One scenario for an updated system of mutual banking would be for a
community barter association to begin issuing an alternative currency
accepted as money by all individuals within the system. This "currency"
would not at first take the form of coins or bills, but would be
circulated entirely through transactions involving the use of barter-cards, 
personal checks, and "e-money" transfers via modem/Internet. Let's call 
this currency-issuing type of barter association a "mutual barter 
clearinghouse," or just "clearinghouse" for short. 

The clearinghouse would have a twofold mandate: first, to extend credit
at cost to members; second, to manage the circulation of credit-money within 
the system, charging only a small service fee (probably one percent or less)
which is sufficient to cover its costs of operation, including labour costs
involved in issuing credit and keeping track of transactions, insuring
itself against losses from uncollectable debts, and so forth.

The clearinghouse would be organised and function as follows. Members 
of the original barter association would be invited to become
subscriber-members of the clearinghouse by pledging a certain amount of
property as collateral. On the basis of this pledge, an account would be
opened for the new member and credited with a sum of mutual dollars
equivalent to some fraction of the assessed value of the property pledged.
The new member would agree to repay this amount plus the service fee
by a certain date. The mutual dollars in the new account could then be
transferred through the clearinghouse by using a barter card, by writing a
personal check, or by sending e-money via modem to the accounts of other
members, who have agreed to receive mutual money in payment for all
debts. 

The opening of this sort of account is, of course, the same as taking out
a "loan" in the sense that a commercial bank "lends" by extending credit
to a borrower in return for a signed note pledging a certain amount of
property as security. The crucial difference is that the clearinghouse
does not purport to be "lending" a sum of money that it *already has,* as
is fraudulently claimed by commercial banks. Instead it honestly admits
that it is creating new money in the form of credit. New accounts can
also be opened simply by telling the clearinghouse that one wants an
account and then arranging with other people who already have balances to
transfer mutual money into one's account in exchange for goods or
services. 

Another form is that associated with LETS systems. In this a number of 
people get together to form an association. They create a unit of exchange
(which is equal in value to a unit of the national currency usually),
choose a name for it and offer each other goods and services priced in
these units. These offers and wants are listed in a directory which is
circulated periodically to members. Members decide who they wish to
trade with and how much trading they wish to do. When a transaction is
completed, this is acknowledged with a "cheque" made out by the buyer 
and given to the seller. These are passed on to the system accounts
administration which keeps a record of all transactions and periodically
sends members a statement of their accounts. The accounts administration
is elected by, and accountable to, the membership and information about
balances is available to all members.

Unlike the first system described, members do not have to present property
as collateral. Members of a LETS scheme can go into "debt" without it,
although "debt" is the wrong word as members are not so much going into
debt as committing themselves to do some work within the system in the
future and by so doing they are creating spending power. The willingness
of members to incur such a commitment could be described as a service to
the community as others are free to use the units so created to trade
themselves. Indeed, the number of units in existence exactly matches
the amount of real wealth being exchanged. The system only works if 
members are willing to spend and runs on trust and builds up trust 
as the system is used. 

It is likely that a fully functioning mutual banking system would
incorporate aspects of both these systems. The need for collateral may 
be used when members require very large loans while the LETS system of
negative credit as a commitment to future work would be the normal
function of the system. If the mutual bank agrees a maximum limit for
negative balances, it may agree to take collateral for transactions
that exceed this limit. However, it is obvious that any mutual banking
system will find the best means of working in the circumstances it
finds itself.

J.5.9 How does mutual credit work?
  
Let's consider an example of how business would be transacted in the new
system. There are two possibilities, depending on whether the mutual
credit is based upon whether the creditor can provide collateral or
not. we will take the case with collateral first.

Suppose that A, an organic farmer, pledges as collateral a certain plot 
of land that she owns and on which she wishes to build a house. The land 
is valued at, say, $40,000 in the capitalist market. By pledging the land, 
A is able to open a credit account at the clearinghouse for, say, $30,000 
in mutual money (a ratio of 3/4). She does so knowing that there are 
many other members of the system who are carpenters, electricians, 
plumbers, hardware dealers, and so on who are willing to accept mutual 
dollars in payment for their products or services.

It's easy to see why other subscriber-members, who have also obtained
mutual credit and are therefore in debt to the clearinghouse for mutual
dollars, would be willing to accept such dollars in return for their goods
and services. For they need to collect mutual dollars to repay their
debts. But why would someone who is not in debt for mutual dollars be
willing to accept them as money? 

To see why, let's suppose that B, an underemployed carpenter, currently
has no account at the clearinghouse but that he knows about the
clearinghouse and the people who operate it. After examining its list of
members and becoming familiar with the policies of the new organisation,
he's convinced that it does not extend credit frivolously to untrustworthy
recipients who are likely to default. He also knows that if he contracts
to do the carpentry on A's new house and agrees to be paid for his work in
mutual money, he'll then be able to use it to buy groceries, clothes, car
repairs, and other goods and services from various people in the community
who already belong to the system. 

Thus B will be willing, and perhaps even eager (especially if the economy
is in recession and regular money is tight) to work for A and receive
payment in mutual dollars. For he knows that if he is paid, say, $8,000
in mutual money for his labour on A's house, this payment constitutes, in
effect, 20 percent of a mortgage on her land, the value of which is
represented by her mutual credit. B also understands that A has promised
to repay this mortgage by producing new value -- that is, by growing
organic fruits and vegetables and selling them for mutual dollars to other
members of the system -- and that it is this promise to produce new wealth
which gives her mutual credit its value as a medium of exchange. 

To put this point slightly differently, A's mutual credit can be thought
of as a lien against goods or services which she has guaranteed to create
in the future. As security of this guarantee, she agrees that if she is
unable for some reason to fulfil her obligation, the land she has pledged
will be sold for mutual dollars to other members. In this way, a value
sufficient to cancel her debt (and probably then some) will be returned to
the system. This provision insures that the clearinghouse is able to
balance its books and gives members confidence that mutual money is sound.

It should be noticed that since new wealth is continually being created,
the basis for new mutual credit is also being created at the same time. 
Thus, suppose that after A's new house has been built, her daughter, C,
along with a group of friends D, E, F, . . . , decide that they want to
start a collectively owned and operated organic restaurant (which will
incidentally benefit A, as an outlet for her produce), but that C and her
friends do not have enough collateral to obtain a start-up loan. A,
however, is willing to co-sign a note for them, pledging her new house
(valued at say, $80,000) as security. On this basis, C and her partners
are able to obtain $60,000 worth of mutual credit, which they then use to
buy equipment, supplies, furniture, advertising, etc. and lease the
building necessary to start their restaurant. 

This example illustrates one way in which people without property are able
to obtain credit in the new system. Another way -- for those who cannot
find (or perhaps don't wish to ask) someone with property to co-sign for
them -- is to make a down payment and then use the property which is to be
purchased on credit as security, as in the current method of obtaining a
home or auto loan. With mutual credit, however, this form of financing
can be used to purchase anything, including capital goods.

Which brings us to the case of an individual without means for providing
collateral - say, for example A, the organic farmer, does not own the
land she works. In such a case, A, who still desires work done, would
contact other members of the mutual bank with the skills she requires.
Those members with the appropriate skills and who agree to work with
her commit themselves to do the required tasks. In return, A gives
them a check in mutual dollars which is credited to their account and
deducted from hers. She does not pay interest on this issue of credit
and the sum only represents her willingness to do some work for other
members of the bank at some future date.

The mutual bank does not have to worry about the negative balance, as
this does not create a loss within the group as the minuses which have
been incurred have already created wealth (pluses) within the system
and it stays there. It is likely, of course, that the mutual bank
would agree an upper limit on negative balances and require some form
of collateral for credit greater than this limit, but for most exchanges
this would be unlikely to be relevant.

It is important to remember that mutual dollars have no *intrinsic* value, 
since they can't be redeemed (at the mutual bank) in gold or anything else. 
All they are promises of future labour. Thus, as Greene points out in
his work on mutual banking, mutual dollars are "a mere medium for the
facilitation of barter." In this respect they are closely akin to the
so-called "barter dollars" now being circulated by barter associations
through the use of checks and barter cards. To be precise, then, we
should refer to the units of mutual money as "mutual barter dollars." But
whereas ordinary barter dollars are created at the same time that a barter
transaction occurs and are used to record the values exchanged in that
transaction, mutual barter dollars are created *before* any actual barter
transaction occurs and are intended to facilitate *future* barter
transactions. This fact is important because it can be used as the basis
for a legal argument that clearinghouses are essentially barter
associations rather than banks, thrifts, or credit unions, and therefore
should not be subject to the laws governing the latter institutions.

J.5.10 Why do anarchists support co-operatives?

Support for co-operatives is a common feature in anarchist writings. Indeed,
anarchist support for co-operatives is as old as use of the term anarchist to
describe our ideas is. So why do anarchists support co-operatives? Basically
it is because a co-operative is seen as an example of the future social
organisation anarchists want in the present. As Bakunin argued, "the
co-operative system. . . carries within it the germ of the future economic
order." [_The Philosophy of Bakunin_, p. 385]

Anarchists support all kinds of co-operatives - housing, food, credit unions
and productive ones. All forms of co-operation are useful as they accustom
their members to work together for their common benefit as well as ensuring
extensive experience in managing their own affairs. As such, all forms of
co-operatives are useful examples of self-management and anarchy in action
(to some degree). However, here we will concentrate on productive 
co-operatives, i.e. workplace co-operatives. This is because workplace
co-operatives, potentially, could *replace* the capitalist mode of production
with one based upon associated, not wage, labour. As long as capitalism
exists within industry and agriculture, no amount of other kinds of
co-operatives will end that system. Capital and wealth accumulates by 
oppression and exploitation in the workplace, therefore as long as wage
slavery exists anarchy will not. 

Co-operatives are the "germ of the future" because of two facts. Firstly, 
co-operatives are based on one worker, one vote. In other words those who do 
the work manage the workplace within which they do it (i.e. they are based 
on workers' self-management in some form). Thus co-operatives are an example 
of the "horizontal" directly democratic organisation that anarchists support 
and so are an example of "anarchy in action" (even if in an imperfect way)
within the economy. In addition, they are an example of working class 
self-help and self-activity. Instead of relying on others to provide work, 
co-operatives show that production can be carried on without the existence 
of a class of masters employing a class of order takers.

Workplace co-operatives also present evidence of the viability of an anarchist
"economy." It is well established that co-operatives are usually more 
productive and efficient than their capitalist equivalents. This indicates
that hierarchical workplaces are *not* required in order to produce
useful goods and indeed can be harmful. Indeed, it also indicates that
the capitalist market does not actually allocate resources efficiently
(as we will discuss in section J.5.12). So why should co-operatives be more 
efficient?

Firstly there are the positive effects of increased liberty associated
with co-operatives. 

Co-operatives, by abolishing wage slavery, obviously increases the liberty 
of those who work in them. Members take an active part in the management 
of their working lives and so authoritarian social relations are replaced 
by libertarian ones. Unsurprisingly, this liberty also leads to an increase 
in productivity - just as wage labour is more productive than slavery, so 
associated labour is more productive than wage slavery. Little wonder 
Kropotkin argued that "the only guarantee not to be robbed of the fruits 
of your labour is to possess the instruments of labour. . . man really 
produces most when he works in freedom, when he has a certain choice in 
his occupations, when he has no overseer to impede him, and lastly, when 
he sees his work bringing profit to him and to others who work like him, 
but bringing in little to idlers." [_The Conquest of Bread_, p. 145]

There are also the positive advantages associated with participation
(i.e. self-management, liberty in other words). Within a self-managed, 
co-operative workplace, workers are directly involved in decision
making and so these decisions are enriched by the skills, experiences 
and ideas of all members of the workplace. As workers also own their place
of work, they have an interest in developing the skills and abilities of
their members and, obviously, this also means that there are few conflicts
within the workplace. Unlike capitalist firms, there is no need conflict
between bosses and wage slaves over work loads, conditions or the division
of value created between them. All these factors will increase the quality,
quantity and efficiency of work and so increases efficient utilisation of
available resources and facilities the introduction of new techniques and
technologies.

Secondly, the increased efficiency of co-operatives results from the benefits
associated with co-operation itself. Not only does co-operation increase
the pool of knowledge and abilities available within the workplace and
enriches that source by communication and interaction, it also ensures that 
the workforce are working together instead of competing and so wasting
time and energy. As Alfie Kohn notes (in relation to investigations of 
in-firm co-operation):

"Dean Tjosvold of Simon Frazer. . .conducted [studies] at utility companies,
manufacturing plants, engineering firms, and many other kinds of organisations.
Over and over again, Tjosvold has found that 'co-operation makes a work force
motivated' whereas 'serious competition undermines co-ordination.' . . . 
Meanwhile, the management guru. . . T. Edwards Demming, has declared that
the practice of having employees compete against each other is 'unfair [and]
destructive. We cannot afford this nonsense any longer. . . [We need to]
work together on company problems [but] annual rating of performance, 
incentive pay, [or] bonuses cannot live with team work. . . What takes
the joy out of learning. . .[or out of] anything? Trying to be number one.'"
[_No Contest_, p. 240]

(The question of co-operation and participation within capitalist firms will
be discussed in section J.5.12).

Thirdly, there are the benefits associated with increased equality. Studies 
prove that business performance deteriorates when pay differentials become 
excessive. In a study of over 100 businesses (producing everything from 
kitchen appliances to truck axles), researchers found that the greater the 
wage gap between managers and workers, the lower their product's quality. 
[Douglas Cowherd and David Levine, "Product Quality and Pay Equity,"
_Administrative Science Quarterly_ no. 37 (June 1992), pp. 302-30] Businesses 
with the greatest inequality were plagued with a high employee turnover 
rate. Study author David Levine said: "These organisations weren't able to 
sustain a workplace of people with shared goals." [quoted by John Byrne in 
"How high can CEO pay go?" _Business Week_, April 22, 1996]

(In fact, the negative effects of income inequality can be seen on a national
level as well. Economists Torsten Persson and Guido Tabellini conducted a
thorough statistical analysis of historical inequality and growth, and found
that nations with more equal incomes generally experience faster productive
growth. ["Is Inequality Harmful for Growth?", _American Economic Review_
no. 84, June 1994, pp. 600-21] Numerous other studies have also confirmed 
their findings. Real life yet again disproves the assumptions of 
capitalism - inequality harms us all, even the capitalist economy 
which produces it).

This is to be expected. Workers, seeing an increasing amount of the value
they create being monopolised by top managers and a wealthy elite and not
re-invested into the company to secure their employment prospects, will
hardly be inclined to put in that extra effort or care about the quality
of their work. Managers who use the threat of unemployment to extract
more effort from their workforce are creating a false economy. While they
will postpone decreasing profits in the short term due to this adaptive 
strategy (and enrich themselves in the process) the pressures placed
upon the system will bring a harsh long term effects - both in terms of 
economic crisis (as income becomes so skewed as to create realisation 
problems and the limits of adaptation are reached in the face of 
international competition) and social breakdown.

As would be imagined, co-operative workplaces tend to be more egalitarian 
than capitalist ones. This is because in capitalist firms, the incomes of
top management must be justified (in practice) to a small number of
individuals (namely, those shareholders with sizeable stock in the firm), 
who are usually quite wealthy and so not only have little to lose in 
granting huge salaries but are also predisposed to see top managers as
being very much like themselves and so are entitled to comparable incomes.
In contrast, the incomes of top management in worker controlled firms
have to be justified to a workforce whose members experience the relationship
between management incomes and their own directly and who, no doubt, are
predisposed to see their top managers as being workers like themselves
and accountable to them. Such an egalitarian atmosphere will have a positive 
impact on production and efficiency as workers will see that the value
they create is not being accumulated by others but distributed according
to work actually done (and not control over power). In the Mondragon 
co-operatives, for example, the maximum pay differential is 14 to 1 
(increased from 3 to 1 in a response to outside pressures after much
debate, with the actual maximum differential at 9 to 1) while (in the
USA) the average CEO is paid over 140 times the average factory worker
(up from 41 times in 1960).

Therefore, we see that co-operatives prove (to a greater or lesser extent)
the advantages of (and interrelationship between) key anarchist principles
such as liberty, equality, solidarity and self-management. Their application,
whether all together or in part, has a positive impact on efficiency and
work -- and, as we will discuss in section J.5.12, the capitalist market 
actively *blocks* the spread of more efficient productive techniques instead 
of encouraging them. Even by its own standards, capitalism stands condemned 
- it does not encourage the efficient use of resources and actively places 
barriers in the development of human "resources."

From all this its clear to see why co-operatives are supported by anarchists.
We are "convinced that the co-operative could, potentially, replace capitalism
and carries within it the seeds of economic emancipation. . . The workers
learn from this precious experience how to organise and themselves conduct
the economy without guardian angels, the state or their former employers."
[Michael Bakunin, Op. Cit., p. 399] Co-operatives give us a useful insight 
into the possibilities of a free, socialist, economy. Even within the 
hierarchical capitalist economy, co-operatives show us that a better 
future is possible and that production can be organised in a co-operative 
fashion and that by so doing we can reap the individual and social 
benefits of working together as equals.

However, this does not mean that all aspects of the co-operative movement 
find favour with anarchists. As Bakunin pointed out, "there are two kinds of 
co-operative: bourgeois co-operation, which tends to create a privileged 
class, a sort of new collective bourgeoisie organised into a stockholding 
society: and truly Socialist co-operation, the co-operation of the future 
which for this very reason is virtually impossible of realisation at 
present." [Op. Cit., p. 385] In other words, while co-operatives are the
germ of the future, in the present they are often limited by the 
capitalist environment they find themselves and narrow their vision to
just surviving within the current system.

For most anarchists, the experience of co-operatives has proven without
doubt that, however excellent in principle and useful in practice, if they
are kept within the narrow circle of "bourgeois" existence they cannot
become dominant and free the masses. This point is argued in Section J.5.11
and so will be ignored here. In order to fully develop, co-operatives must
be part of a wider social movement which includes community and industrial
unionism and the creation of a anarchistic social framework which can 
encourage "truly Socialist co-operation" and discourage "bourgeois
co-operation." As Murray Bookchin correctly argues, "[r]emoved from
a libertarian municipalist [or other anarchist] context and movement
focused on achieving revolutionary municipalist [or communalist] goals
as a *dual power* against corporations and the state, food [and other
forms of] co-ops are little more than benign enterprises that capitalism
and the state can easily tolerate with no fear of challenge." [_Democracy
and Nature_ no. 9, p. 175]

Therefore, while co-operatives are an important aspect of anarchist ideas and
practice, they are not the be all or end all of our activity. Without a
wider social movement which creates all (or at least most) of the future
society in the shell of the old, co-operatives will never arrest the growth
of capitalism or transcend the narrow horizons of the capitalist economy.

J.5.11 If workers really want self-management, why aren't there more
       producer co-operatives? 

Supporters of capitalism suggest that producer co-operatives would spring 
up spontaneously if workers really wanted them. Their argument is that
co-operatives could be financed at first by "wealthy radicals" or by
affluent workers pooling their resources to buy out existing capitalist
firms; then, if such co-operatives were really economically viable and
desired by workers, they would spread until eventually they undermined
capitalism. They conclude that since this is not happening, it must be
because workers' self-management is either economically unfeasible or is
not really attractive to workers or both. [see, for example, Robert Nozick, 
_Anarchy, State, and Utopia_, pp. 250-52]

David Schweickart has decisively answered this argument by showing that 
the reason there are not more producer co-operatives is structural:  

"A worker-managed firm lacks an expansionary dynamic. When a capitalist
enterprise is successful, the owner can increase her profits by
reproducing her organisation on a larger scale. She lacks neither the
means nor the motivation to expand. Not so with a worker-managed firm. 
Even if the workers have the means, they lack the incentive, because
enterprise growth would bring in new workers with whom the increased
proceeds would have to be shared.  Co-operatives, even when prosperous, 
do not spontaneously grow. But if this is so, then each new co-operative
venture (in a capitalist society) requires a new wealthy radical or a new
group of affluent radical workers willing to experiment. Because such
people doubtless are in short supply, it follows that the absence of a
large and growing co-operative movement proves nothing about the viability
of worker self-management, nor about the preferences of workers." 
[_Against Capitalism_, p. 239]

There are other structural problems as well. For one thing, since their
pay levels are set by members' democratic vote, co-operatives tend to be
more egalitarian in their income structure.  But this means that in a
capitalist environment, co-operatives are in constant danger of having
their most skilled members hired away. Moreover, there is a difficulty in
raising capital: "Quite apart from ideological hostility (which may be
significant), external investors will be reluctant to put their money into
concerns over which they will have little or no control -- which tends to
be the case with a co-operative. Because co-operatives in a capitalist
environment face special difficulties, and because they lack the inherent
expansionary dynamic of a capitalist firm, it is hardy surprising that
they are far from dominant." [Ibid., p 240]

In addition, co-operatives face the negative externalities generated
by a capitalist economy. The presence of wage labour and investment capital
in the economy will tempt successful co-operatives to increase their flexibility
to adjust to changes in market changes by hiring workers or issuing shares
to attract new investment. In so doing, however, they may end up losing their
identities as co-operatives by diluting ownership or by making the co-operative
someone's boss:

"To meet increased production, the producer co-operatives hired outside
wage workers. This created a new class of workers who exploit and profit
from the labour of their employees. And all this fosters a bourgeois
mentality." [Michael Bakunin, _Bakunin on Anarchism_, p. 399]

Hence the pressures of working in a capitalist market may result in 
co-operatives pursuing activities which may result in short term gain or
survival, but are sure to result in harm in the long run. Far from
co-operatives slowly expanding within and changing a capitalist environment 
it is more likely that capitalist logic will expand into and change the
co-operatives that work in it (this can be seen from the Mondragon 
co-operatives, where there has been a slight rise in the size of wage 
labour being used and the fact that the credit union, since 1992, has 
invested in non-co-operative firms). These externalities imposed upon 
isolated co-operatives within capitalism (which would not arise within a 
fully co-operative context) block local moves towards anarchism. The idea 
that co-operation will simply win out in competition within well developed
capitalist economic systems is just wishful thinking. Just because a 
system is more liberatory and just does not mean it will survive in an
authoritarian economic and social environment.

There are also cultural problems as well. As Jon Elster points out, it is
a "truism, but an important one, that workers' preferences are to a large
extent shaped by their economic environment. Specifically, there is a 
tendency to adaptive preference formation, by which the actual mode of
economic organisation comes to be perceived as superior to all others."
["From Here to There", in _Socialism_, p. 110] In other words, people 
view "what is" as given and feel no urge to change to "what could be." 
In the context of creating alternatives within capitalism, this can 
have serious effects on the spread of alternatives and indicates the 
importance of anarchists encouraging the spirit of revolt to break 
down this mental apathy.

This acceptance of "what is" can be seen, to some degree, by some
companies which meet the formal conditions for co-operatives, for
example ESOP owned firms in the USA, but lack effective workers' control. 
ESOP (Employee Stack Ownership Plans) firms enable a firms workforce
to gain the majority of a companies shares but the unequal distribution 
of shares amongst employees prevents the great majority of workers from
having any effective control or influence on decisions. Unlike real
co-operatives (based on "one worker, one vote") these firms are based
on "one share, one vote" and so have more in common with capitalist
firms than co-operatives.

Moreover, we have ignored such problems as natural barriers to entry
into, and movement within, a market (which is faced by all firms) and 
the difficulties co-operatives can face in finding access to long term 
credit facilities required by them from capitalist banks (which would 
effect co-operatives more as short term pressures can result in their 
co-operative nature being diluted). As Tom Cahill notes, the "old co-ops
[of the nineteenth century] also had the specific problem of . . . 
*giving credit* . . . [as well as] problems . . . of *competition
with price cutting capitalist* firms, highlighting the inadequate
reservoirs of the under-financed co-ops." ["Co-operatives and
Anarchism: A contemporary Perspective", in _For Anarchism_, edited by
Paul Goodway, p. 239]

In addition, the "return on capital is limited" in co-operatives [Tom
Cahill, Op. Cit., p. 247] which means that investors are less-likely
to invest in co-operatives, and so co-operatives will tend to suffer
from a lack of investment. Which also suggests that Nozick's argument
that "don't say that its against the class interest of investors to
support the growth of some enterprise that if successful would end
or diminish the investment system. Investors are not so altruistic.
They act in personal and not their class interests" is false [Op. Cit., 
pp. 252-3]. Nozick is correct, to a degree -- but given a choice 
between high returns from investments in capitalist firms and lower 
ones from co-operatives, the investor will select the former. This 
does not reflect the productivity or efficiency of the investment --
quite the reverse! -- it reflects the social function of wage
labour in maximising profits and returns on capital (see next
section for more on this).In other words, the personal interests 
of investors will generally support their class interests (unsurprisingly, 
as class interests are not independent of personal interests and 
will tend to reflect them!).
<p>
Tom Cahill outlines the investment problem when he writes that 
the "financial problem" is a major reason why co-operatives failed
in the past, for "basically the unusual structure and aims of
co-operatives have always caused problems for the dominant sources
of capital. In general, the finance environment has been hostile
to the emergence of the co-operative spirit. . ." And he also 
notes that they were "unable to devise structuring to *maintain 
a boundary* between those who work and those who own or control. . . 
It is understood that when outside investors were allowed to have 
power within the co-op structure, co-ops lost their distinctive 
qualities." [Op. Cit., pp. 238-239] Meaning that even *if*
co-operative do attract investors, the cost of so doing may be
to transform the co-operatives into capitalist firms.
 
Thus, in spite of "empirical studies suggest[ing] that co-operatives are
at least as productive as their capitalist counterparts," with many
having "an excellent record, superior to conventionally organised firms
over a long period" [Jon Elster, Op. Cit., p. 96], co-operatives are more
likely to adapt to capitalism than replace it and adopt capitalist 
principles of rationality in order to survive. All things being equal,
co-operatives are more efficient than their capitalist counterparts - but
when co-operatives compete in a capitalist economy, all things are *not*
equal.

In spite of these structural and cultural problems, however, there has been 
a dramatic increase in the number of producer co-operatives in most Western 
countries in recent years. For example, Saul Estrin and Derek Jones report 
that co-operatives in the UK grew from 20 in 1975 to 1,600 by 1986; in 
France they increased from 500 to 1,500; and in Italy, some 7,000 new
co-operatives came into existence between 1970 and 1982 ["Can Employee-owned 
Firms Survive?", Working Paper Series, Department of Economics, Hamilton 
College (April, May, 1989)]. Italian co-operatives now number well over 
20,000, many of them large and having many support structures as well
(which aids their development by reducing their isolation and providing
long term financial support lacking within the capitalist market). 

We have already noted the success of the Mondragon co-operatives in Spain,
which created a cluster of inter-locking co-operatives with its own credit
union to provide long term financial support and commitment. Thus, in Europe 
at least, it appears that there *is* a rather "large and growing co-operative 
movement," which gives the lie to Nozick's and other supporters of 
capitalism arguments about co-operatives' lack of economic viability 
and/or attractiveness to workers. 

However, because co-operatives can survive in a capitalist economy it does 
not automatically mean that they shall *replace* that economy. Isolated
co-operatives, as we argued above, will more likely adapt to capitalist
realities than remain completely true to their co-operative promise. For
most anarchists, therefore, co-operatives can reach their full potential
only as part of a social movement aiming to change society. As part of
a wider movement of community and workplace unionism, with mutualist banks
to provide long terms financial support and commitment, co-operatives 
could be communalised into a network of solidarity and support that 
will reduce the problems of isolation and adaptation. Hence Bakunin:

"We hardly oppose the creation of co-operative associations; we find
them necessary in many respects. . . they accustom the workers to
organise, pursue, and manage their interests themselves, without
interference either by bourgeois capital or by bourgeois control. . .
[they must] above all [be] founded on the principle of solidarity and
collectivity rather than on bourgeois exclusivity, then society will
pass from its present situation to one of equality and justice without
too many great upheavals." [Op. Cit., p. 153]

Co-operation "will prosper, developing itself fully and freely, embracing
all human industry, only when it is based on equality, when all capital
. . . [and] the soil, belong to the people by right of collective
property." [Ibid.]

Until then, co-operatives will exist within capitalism but not replace it
by market forces - only a *social* movement and collective action can
fully secure their full development. As David Schweickart argues: 

"Even if worker-managed firms are preferred by the vast majority, and 
even if they are more productive, a market initially dominated by capitalist 
firms may not select for them. The common-sense neo-classical dictum that only 
those things that best accord with people's desires will survive the struggle 
of free competition has never been the whole truth with respect to anything; 
with respect to workplace organisation it is barely a half-truth." 
[Op. Cit., p. 240]

This means that while anarchists support, create and encourage co-operatives
within capitalism, they understand "the impossibility of putting into 
practice the co-operative system under the existing conditions of the 
predominance of bourgeois capital in the process of production and 
distribution of wealth." [Michael Bakunin, Op. Cit., p. 185] Because of 
this, most anarchists stress the need for more combative organisations 
such as industrial and community unions and other bodies "formed,"
to use Bakunin's words, "for the organisation of toilers against the
privileged world" [Ibid.] in order to help bring about a free society. 

J.5.12 If self-management is more efficient, surely capitalist firms will
       be forced to introduce it by the market?

While it may be admitted that co-operatives cannot reform capitalism away
(see last section), many supporters of "free market" capitalism will claim 
that a laissez-faire system would see workers self-management spread within 
capitalism. This is because, as self-management is more efficient than
wage slavery, those capitalist firms that introduce it will gain a
competitive advantage, and so their competitors will be forced to 
introduce it or go bust. While not being true anarchistic production, 
it would (it is argued) be a very close approximation of it and so 
capitalism could reform itself naturally to get rid of (to a large degree) 
its authoritarian nature.

While such a notion seems plausible in theory, in practice it does not 
work. Free market capitalism places innumerable barriers to the spread of 
worker empowering structures within production, in spite (perhaps, as we
will see, *because*) of their more efficient nature. This can be seen 
from the fact that while the increased efficiency associated with workers' 
participation and self-management has attracted the attention of many 
capitalist firms, the few experiments conducted have failed to spread.
This is due, essentially, to the nature of capitalist production and
the social relationships it produces.

As we noted in section D.10, capitalist firms (particularly in the west) 
made a point of introducing technologies and management structures that 
aimed to deskill and disempower their workers. In this way, it was hoped 
to make the worker increasingly subject to "market discipline" (i.e. easier 
to train, so increasing the pool of workers available to replace any specific 
worker and so reducing workers power by increasing management's power to fire 
them). Of course, what actually happens is that after a short period of 
time while management gained the upper hand, the workforce found newer 
and more effective ways to fight back and assert their productive power 
again. While for a short time the technological change worked, over
the longer period the balance of forces changed, so forcing management to
continually try to empower themselves at the expense of the workforce.

It is unsurprising that such attempts to reduce workers to order-takers 
fail. Workers' experiences and help are required to ensure production
actually happens at all. When workers carry out their orders strictly and
faithfully (i.e. when they "work to rule") production threatens to stop.
So most capitalists are aware of the need to get workers to "co-operate" 
within the workplace to some degree. A few capitalist companies have
gone further. Seeing the advantages of fully exploiting (and we do mean 
exploiting) the experience, skills, abilities and thoughts of their employers 
which the traditional authoritarian capitalist workplace denies them, some
have introduced various schemes to "enrich" and "enlarge" work, increase 
"co-operation" between workers and their bosses. In other words, some 
capitalist firms have tried to encourage workers to "participate" in
their own exploitation by introducing (in the words of Sam Dolgoff) "a
modicum of influence, a strictly limited area of decision-making power, a
voice - at best secondary - in the control of conditions of the workplace."
[_The Anarchist Collectives_, p. 81] The management and owners still have
the power and still reap the majority of benefits from the productive
activity of the workforce.

Therefore, capitalist-introduced and supported "workers' control" is very like 
the situation when a worker receives stock in the company they work for. If 
it goes some way toward redressing the gap between the value of that person's 
labour, and the wage they receive for it, that in itself cannot be a totally 
bad thing. The real downside of this is the "carrot on a stick" enticement 
to work harder - if you work extra hard for the company, your stock will be 
worth more. Obviously, though, the bosses get rich off you, so the more you 
work, the richer they get, the more you are getting ripped off. It's a 
choice that anarchists feel many workers cannot afford to make - they need 
or at least want the money - but we believe that the stock does not work 
for many workers, who end up working harder, for less. After all, stocks 
do not represent all profits (large amounts of which end up in the hands 
of top management) nor are they divided just among those who labour. 
Moreover, workers may be less inclined to take direct action, for fear
that they will damage the value of "their" company's stock, and so they
may find themselves putting up with longer, more intense work in worse
conditions.

The results of such capitalist experiments in "workers' control" are 
interesting (and they bear direct relevance to the question of why *real*
co-operatives are not widespread within capitalism -- see last section).

According to one expert "[t]here is scarcely a study in the entire 
literature which fails to demonstrate that satisfaction in work is 
enhanced or. . .productivity increases occur from a genuine increase
in worker's decision-making power. Findings of such consistency, I
submit, are rare in social research." [Paul B. Lumberg, cited by
Hebert Gintiz, "The nature of Labour Exchange and the Theory of
Capitalist Production", _Radical Political Economy_ vol. 1, p. 252]

In spite of these findings, a "shift toward participatory relationships
is scarcely apparent in capitalist production. . . [this is] not
compatible with the neo-classical assertion as to the efficiency of
the internal organisation of capitalist production." [Herbert Gintz,
Op. Cit., p. 252] Why is this the case?

Economist William Lazonick indicates the reason when he writes that "[m]any 
attempts at job enrichment and job enlargement in the first half of the 
1970s resulted in the supply of more and better effort by workers. Yet 
many 'successful' experiments were cut short when the workers whose work 
had been enriched and enlarged began questioning traditional management 
prerogatives inherent in the existing hierarchical structure of the 
enterprise." [_Competitive Advantage on the Shop Floor_, p. 282]

This is an important result, as it indicates that the ruling sections within 
capitalist firms have a vested interest in *not* introducing such schemes, 
even though they are more efficient methods of production. As can easily be 
imagined, managers have a clear incentive to resist participatory schemes 
(and David Schweickart notes, such resistance, "often bordering on sabotage, 
is well known and widely documented" [_Against Capitalism_, p. 229]). 

However, it could be claimed that owners, being concerned by the bottom-line 
of profits, could *force* management to introduce participation. By this 
method, competitive market forces would ultimately prevail as individual 
owners, pursuing profits, reorganise production and participation spreads 
across the economy. Indeed, there are a few firms that *have* introduced 
such schemes, but there has been no tendency for them to spread. This 
contradicts "free market" capitalist economic theory which states that 
those firms which introduce more efficient techniques will prosper and 
competitive market forces will ensure that other firms will introduce the 
technique. 

This is for two reasons. Firstly, the fact is that within "free market" 
capitalism *keeping* (indeed strengthening) skills and power in the hands
of the workers makes it harder for a capitalist firm to maximise profits. 
Workers' control basically leads to a usurpation of capitalist prerogatives 
-- including their share of revenues. So, in the short run workers'
control may lead to higher productivity (and so may be toyed with),
in the long run, it leads to difficulties for capitalists to maximise
their profits. So, "given that profits depend on the integrity of the
labour exchange, a strongly centralised structure of control not only
serves the interests of the employer, but dictates a minute division
of labour irrespective of considerations of productivity. For this
reason, the evidence for the superior productivity of 'workers
control' represents the most dramatic of anomalies to the neo-classical
theory of the firm: worker control increases the effective amount of
work elicited from each worker and improves the co-ordination of
work activities, while increasing the solidarity and delegitimising
the hierarchical structure of ultimate authority at its root; hence
it threatens to increase the power of workers in the struggle over 
the share of total value." [Hebert Gintz, Op. Cit., p. 264]

Thus increased workers' control reduces the capitalists potential
to maximise their profits and so will be opposed by both management
*and* owners. Indeed, it can be argued that hierarchical control
of production exists solely to provide for the accumulation of
capital in a few hands, *not* for efficiency or productivity 
(see Stephan A. Margin, "What do Bosses do? The Origins and
Functions of Hierarchy in Capitalist Production", Op. Cit., 
pp. 178-248] So profit maximisation does not entail efficiency
and can actively work against it.

So a workplace which had extensive workers participation would hardly 
see the workers agreeing to reduce their skill levels, take a pay cut 
or increase their pace of work simply to enhance the profits of capitalists. 
Simply put, profit maximisation is not equivalent to technological efficiency.
By getting workers to work longer, more intensely or in more unpleasant
conditions can increase profits but does not yield more output for
the *same* inputs. Workers' control would curtail capitalist means of 
enhancing profits by changing the quality and quantity of work. It is 
*this* requirement which is the key to understanding why capitalists 
will not support workers' control -- even though it is more efficient,
it reduces the ability of capitalists to maximise profits by minimising
labour costs. Moreover, demands to change the nature of workers' inputs 
into the production process in order to maximise profits for capitalists 
would provoke a struggle over the time and intensity of work and over 
the share of value added going to workers, management and owners and 
so destroy the benefits of participation. 

Secondly, to survive within the "free" market means to concentrate 
on the short term. Long terms benefits, although greater, are irrelevant. 
A free market requires profits *now* and so a firm is under considerable 
pressure to maximise short-term profits by market forces (a similar 
situation occurs when firms invest in "green" technology, see 
section E.5).

Participation requires trust, investment in people and technology and 
a willingness to share the increased value added that result from workers'
participation with the workers who made it possible. All these factors 
would eat into short term profits in order to return richer rewards in the 
future. Encouraging participation thus tends to increase long term
gains at the expense of short-term ones (for it ensures that workers
do not consider participation as a con, they must experience *real*
benefits in terms of power, conditions and wage rises). For firms within 
a free market environment, they are under pressure from share-holders 
and their financiers for high returns as soon as possible. If a company 
does not produce high dividends then it will see its stock fall as 
shareholders move to those companies that do. Thus the market *forces* 
companies (and banks, who in turn loan over the short term to companies) 
to act in such ways as to maximise short term profits. 

If faced with a competitor which is not making such investments (and
which is investing directly into deskilling technology or intensifying
work loads which lowers their costs) and so wins them market share, or
a downturn in the business cycle which shrinks their profit margins 
and makes it difficult for the firm to meet its commitments to its 
financiers and workers, a company that intends to invest in people 
and trust will usually be rendered unable to do so. Faced with the 
option of empowering people in work or deskilling them and/or using 
the fear of unemployment to get workers to work harder and follow 
orders, capitalist firms have consistently chosen (and probably 
preferred) the latter option (as occurred in the 1970s).

Thus, workers' control is unlikely to spread through capitalism because
it entails a level of working class consciousness and power that is
incompatible with capitalist control. In other words, "[i]f the
hierarchical division of labour is necessary for the extraction of
surplus value, then worker preferences for jobs threatening capitalist
control will not be implemented." [Hebert Gintiz, Op. Cit., p. 253]
The reason why it is more efficient, ironically, ensures that a
capitalist economy will not select it. The "free market" will 
discourage empowerment and democratic workplaces, at best reducing 
"co-operation" and "participation" to marginal issues (and management 
will still have the power of veto).

In addition, moves towards democratic workplaces within capitalism is an
example of the system in conflict with itself - pursuing its objectives
by methods which constantly defeat those same objectives. As Paul Carden
argues, the "capitalist system can only maintain itself by trying to
reduce workers into mere order-takers. . . At the same time the system
can only function as long as this reduction is never achieved. . . [for]
the system would soon grind to a halt. . . [However] capitalism constantly
has to *limit* this *participation* (if it didn't the workers would soon
start deciding themselves and would show in practice now superfluous the
ruling class really is)." [_Revolution and Modern Capitalism_, pp. 45-46]

The experience of the 1970s supports this thesis well. Thus "workers' 
control" within a capitalist firm is a contradictory thing - too little
power and it is meaningless, too much and workplace authority structures
and short-term profits (i.e. capitalist share of value added) can be 
harmed. Attempts to make oppressed, exploited and alienated workers 
work if they were neither oppressed, exploited nor alienated will 
always fail.

For a firm to establish committed and participatory relations internally,
it must have external supports - particularly with providers of
finance (which is why co-operatives benefit from credit unions and
co-operating together). The price mechanism proves self-defeating to
create such supports and that is why we see "participation" more fully
developed within Japanese and German firms (although it is still along
way from fully democratic workplaces), who have strong, long term
relationships with local banks and the state which provides them with
the support required for such activities. As William Lazonick notes,
Japanese industry had benefited from the state ensuring "access to
inexpensive long-term finance, the sine qua non of innovating 
investment strategies" along with a host of other supports, such as
protecting Japanese industry within their home markets so they
could "develop and utilise their productive resources to the point 
where they could attain competitive advantage in international
competition." [Op. Cit., p. 305] The German state provides its
industry with much of the same support.

Therefore, "participation" within capitalist firms will have little or
no tendency to spread due to the "automatic" actions of market forces.
In spite of such schemes being more efficient, capitalism will not
select them because they empower workers and make it hard for capitalists
to maximise their short term profits. Hence capitalism, by itself, will 
have no tendency to produce more libertarian organisational forms within 
industry. Those firms that do introduce such schemes will be the exception 
rather than the rule (and the schemes themselves will be marginal in most 
respects and subject to veto from above). For such schemes to spread, 
collective action is required (such as state intervention to create the 
right environment and support network or -- from an anarchist point of 
view -- union and community direct action). 

However such schemes, as noted above, are just forms of self-exploitation, 
getting workers to help their robbers and so *not* a development 
anarchists seek to encourage. We have discussed this here just to be 
clear that, firstly, such forms of structural reforms are *not* 
self-management, as managers and owners still have the real power, 
and, secondly, even if such forms are somewhat liberatory, market forces 
will not select them (i.e. collective action would be required).

For anarchists "self-management is not a new form of mediation between
workers and their bosses . . . [it] refers to the very process by which
the workers themselves *overthrow* their managers and take on their
own management and the management of production in their own workplace."
[Sam Dolgoff, Op. Cit., p. 81] Hence our support for co-operatives, unions
and other self-managed structures created and organised from below by 
and for working class people. 

J.5.13 What are Modern Schools?

Modern schools are alternative schools, self-managed by students, teachers
and parents which reject the authoritarian schooling methods of the
modern "education" system. Such schools have a feature of the anarchist
movement since the turn of the 20th century while interest in libertarian
forms of education has been a feature of anarchist theory from the beginning.
All the major anarchist thinkers, from Godwin through Proudhon, Bakunin 
and Kropotkin to modern activists like Colin Ward, have stressed the 
importance of libertarian (or "rational") education, education that 
develops all aspects of the student (mental and physical -- and so termed
"integral" education) as well as encouraging critical thought and mental 
freedom. The aim of such education is, to use Proudhon's words, ensure
that the "industrial worker, the man [sic!] of action and the intellectual 
would all be rolled into one" [cited by Steward Edward in _The Paris 
Commune_, p. 274]

Anyone involved in radical politics, constantly and consistently challenges 
the role of the state's institutions and their representatives within our 
lives. The role of bosses, the police, social workers, the secret service, 
middle managers, doctors and priests are all seen as part of a hierarchy 
which exists to keep us, the working class, subdued. It is relatively 
rare though for the left-wing to call into question the role of teachers. 
Most left wing activists and a large number of libertarians believe that 
education is good, all education is good, and education is always good. 
As Henry Barnard, the first US commissioner of education, appointed in 
1867, exhorted, "education always leads to freedom".

Those involved in libertarian education believe the contrary. They
believe that national education systems exist only to produce citizens
who'll be blindly obedient to the dictates of the state, citizens who
will uphold the authority of government even when it runs counter to
personal interest and reason, wage slaves who will obey the orders of
their boss most of the time and consider being able to change bosses
as freedom. They agree with William Godwin (one of the earliest critics
of national education systems) when he wrote in _An Enquiry Concerning
Political Justice_ that "the project of a national education ought to be
discouraged on account of its obvious alliance with national government
. . . Government will not fail to employ it to strengthen its hand
and perpetuate its institutions. . .Their views as instigator of a 
system will not fail to be analogous to their views in their political 
capacity." [cited by Colin Ward, _Anarchy in Action_, p. 81]

With the growth of industrialism in the 19th century schools triumphed, 
not through a desire to reform but as an economic necessity.  Industry 
did not want free thinking individuals, it wanted workers, instruments 
of labour, and it wanted them punctual, obedient, passive and willing 
to accept their disadvantaged position. According to Nigel Thrift, many 
employers and social reformers became convinced that the earliest 
generations of workers were almost impossible to discipline (i.e. to get 
accustomed to wage labour and workplace authority). They looked to children, 
hoping that "the elementary school could be used to break the labouring 
classes into those habits of work discipline now necessary for factory 
production. . . Putting little children to work at school for very 
long hours at very dull subjects was seen as a positive virtue, for 
it made them habituated, not to say naturalised, to labour and fatigue." 
[quoted by Juliet B. Schor in _The Overworked American_, p. 61]

Thus supporters of Modern Schools recognise that the role of education 
is an important one in maintaining hierarchical society -- for government
and other forms of hierarchy (such as wage labour) must always depend on 
the opinion of the governed. Franciso Ferrer (the most famous supporter 
of Modern Schooling due to his execution by the Spanish state in 1909) 
argued that:

"Rulers have always taken care to control the education of the people. They
know their power is based almost entirely on the school and they insist on
retaining their monopoly. The school is an instrument of domination in the
hands of the ruling class." [cited by Clifford Harper, _Anarchy: A Graphic 
Guide_, p. 100]

Little wonder, then, that Emma Goldman argued that the "modern method of 
education" has "little regard for personal liberty and originality of 
thought. Uniformity and imitation is [its] motto" and that the school 
"is for the child what the prison is for the convict and the barracks 
for the solder - a place where everything is being used to break the 
will of the child, and then to pound, knead, and shape it into a being 
utterly foreign to itself." [_Red Emma Speaks_, p. 118, p. 116] 

Hence the importance of Modern Schools. It is a means of spreading
libertarian education within a hierarchical society and undercut one
of the key supports for that society -- the education system. Instead
of hierarchical education, Modern schools exist to "develop the
individual through knowledge and the free play of characteristic
traits, so that [the child] may become a social being, because
he had learned to know himself [or herself], to know his [or her]
relation to his fellow[s]. . . " [Emma Goldman, Op. Cit., p. 121]
It would, in Stirner's words, be "an education for freedom, not 
for subservience."

The Modern School Movement (also known as the Free School Movement)
over the past century has been an attempt to represent part of this
concern about the dangers of state and church schools and the need 
for libertarian education. The idea of libertarian education is that 
knowledge and learning should be linked to real life processes and 
personal usefulness and should not be the preserve of a special 
institution. Thus Modern Schools are an attempt to establish an 
environment for self development in an overly structured and 
rationalised world. An oasis from authoritarian control and as 
a means of passing on the knowledge to be free. 

"The underlying principle of the Modern School is this: education is
a process of drawing out, not driving in; it aims at the possibility
that the child should be left free to develop spontaneously, directing
his [or her] own efforts and choosing the branches of knowledge 
which he desires to study. . . the teacher . . . should be a sensitive
instrument responding to the needs of the child . . . a channel 
through which the child may attain so much of the ordered knowledge
of the world as he shows himself [or herself] ready to receive and
assimilate". [Emma Goldman, Op. Cit., p. 126]

The Modern School bases itself on libertarian education techniques.
Libertarian education, very broadly, seeks to produce children who 
will demand greater personal control and choice, who think for
themselves and question all forms of authority:

"We don't hesitate to say we want people who will continue to develop.
People constantly capable of destroying and renewing their surroundings 
and themselves: whose intellectual independence is their supreme power, 
which they will yield to none; always disposed for better things, eager 
for the triumph of new ideas, anxious to crowd many lives into the life 
they have. It must be the aim of the school to show the children that 
there will be tyranny as long as one person depends on another." 
[Ferrer, quoted by Clifford Harper, Op. Cit., p. 100]

Thus the Modern School insists that the child is the centre of gravity 
in the education process -- and that education is just that, *not*
indoctrination:

"I want to form a school of emancipation, concerned with banning from the
mind whatever divides people, the false concepts of property, country and
family so as to attain the liberty and well-being which all desire. I will
teach only simple truth. I will not ram dogma into their heads. I will not
conceal one iota of fact. I will teach not what to think but how to think."
[Ferrer, cited by Harper, Op. Cit., pp. 99-100]

The Modern School has no rewards or punishments, exams or mark -- the 
everyday "tortures" of conventional schooling. And because practical 
knowledge is more useful than theory, lessons were often held in factories, 
museums or the countryside. The school was also used by the parents, and 
Ferrer planned a Popular University.

"Higher education, for the privileged few, should be for the general 
public, as every human has a right to know; and science, which is 
produced by observers and workers of all countries and ages, ought 
not be restricted to class." [Ferrer, cited by Harper, Op. Cit., 
p. 100]

Thus Modern Schools are based on encouraging self-education in a
co-operative, egalitarian and libertarian atmosphere in which the
pupil (regardless of age) can develop themselves and their interests
to the fullest of their abilities. In this way Modern Schools seek
to create anarchists by a process of education which respects the
individual and gets them to develop their own abilities in a 
conducive setting. 

Modern Schools have been a constant aspect of the anarchist movement
since the later 1890s. The movement was started in France by Louise
Michel and Sebastien Faure, where Franciso Ferrer became acquainted
with them. He founded his Modern School in Barcelona in 1901, and
by 1905 there were 50 similar schools in Spain (many of them funded
by anarchist groups and trade unions and, from 1919 onward, by the 
C.N.T. -- in all cases the autonomy of the schools was respected). In 
1909, Ferrer was falsely accused by the Spanish government of leading an 
insurrection and executed in spite of world-wide protest and overwhelming 
proof of his innocence. His execution, however, gained him and his 
educational ideas international recognition and inspired a Modern School 
progressive education movement in Britain, France, Belgium, Holland, Italy, 
Germany, Switzerland, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, Argentina, Brazil, 
Mexico, China, Japan and, on the greatest scale, in the USA.

However, for most anarchists, Modern Schools are not enough in themselves
to produce a libertarian society. They agree with Bakunin's argument
that "[f]or individuals to be moralised and become fully human . . .
three things are necessary: a hygienic birth, all-round education,
accompanied by an upbringing based on respect for labour, reason,
equality, and freedom and a social environment wherein each human
individual will enjoy full freedom and really by, *de jure* and *de 
facto*, the equal of every other.

"Does this environment exist? No. Then it must be established. . . 
[otherwise] in the existing social environment . . . on leaving
[libertarian] schools they [the student] would enter a society
governed by totally opposite principles, and, because society is 
always stronger than individuals, it would prevail over them . . .
[and] demoralise them." [_The Basic Bakunin_, p, 174]

Because of this, Modern Schools must be part of a mass working class
revolutionary movement which aims to build as many aspects of the new 
world as possible in the old one before, ultimately, replacing it. 
Otherwise they are just useful as social experiments and their impact 
on society marginal. Little wonder, then, that Bakunin supported the 
International Workers Association's resolution that urged "the various 
sections [of the International] to establish public courses . . . 
[based on] all-round instruction, in order to remedy as much as possible 
the insufficient education that workers currently receive." [quoted by 
Bakunin, Op. Cit., p. 175] 

Thus, for anarchists, this process of education is *part of* the class 
struggle, not in place of it and so "the workers [must] do everything 
possible to obtain all the education they can in the material circumstances 
in which they currently find themselves . . . [while] concentrat[ing] their 
efforts on the great question of their economic emancipation, the mother 
of all other emancipations." [Michael Bakunin, Op. Cit., p. 175]

Before finishing, we must stress that hierarchical education (like the media), 
cannot remove the effects of actual life and activity in shaping/changing
people and their ideas, opinions and attitudes. While education is an 
essential part of maintaining the status quo and accustoming people to 
accept hierarchy, the state and wage slavery, it cannot stop individuals
from learning from their experiences, ignoring their sense of right and
wrong, recognising the injustices of the current system and the ideas that
it is based upon. This means that even the best state (or private) education 
system will still produce rebels -- for the *experience* of wage slavery and
state oppression (and, most importantly, *struggle*) is shattering to the 
*ideology* spoon-fed children during their "education" and reinforced by
the media. 

For more information on Modern Schools see Paul Avrich's _The Modern
School Movement: Anarchism and education in the United States_, 
Emma Goldman's essay "Francisco Ferrer and the Modern School" in
_Anarchism and Other Essays_ and A.S Neil's _Summerhill_. For a good
introduction to anarchist viewpoints on education see "Kropotkin and
technical education: an anarchist voice" by Michael Smith in _For 
Anarchism_ and Michael Bakunin's "All-Round Education" in _The Basic 
Bakunin_. For an excellent summary of the advantages and benefits 
of co-operative learning, see Alfie Kohn's _No Contest_.

J.5.14 What is Libertarian Municipalism?

In his article "Theses on Libertarian Municipalism" [in _The Anarchist
Papers_, Black Rose Press, 1986], Murray Bookchin has proposed a
non-parliamentary electoral strategy for anarchists. He has repeated
this proposal in many of his later works, such as _From Urbanisation to
Cities_ and has made it -- at least in the USA -- one of the many 
alternatives anarchists are involved in. The main points of his argument 
are summarised below, followed by a brief commentary. 

According to Bookchin, "the proletariat, as do all oppressed sectors of
society, comes to life when it sheds its industrial habits in the free 
and spontaneous activity of *communising,* or taking part in the 
political life of the community." In other words, Bookchin thinks that
democratisation of local communities may be as strategically important, 
or perhaps more important, to anarchists than workplace struggles. 

Since local politics is humanly scaled, Bookchin argues that it can be
participatory rather than parliamentary. Or, as he puts it, "[t]he 
anarchic ideal of decentralised, stateless, collectively managed, and 
directly democratic communities -- of confederated municipalities or 
'communes' -- speaks almost intuitively, and in the best works of 
Proudhon and Kropotkin, consciously, to the transforming role of 
libertarian municipalism as the framework of a liberatory society. . . " 
He also points out that, historically, the city has been the principle
countervailing force to imperial and national states, haunting them as 
a potential challenge to centralised power and continuing to do so 
today, as can be seen in the conflicts between national government and
municipalities in many countries.

But, despite the libertarian potential of urban politics, "urbanisation"
-- the growth of the modern megalopolis as a vast wasteland of suburbs,
shopping malls, industrial parks, and slums that foster political apathy
and isolation in realms of alienated production and private consumption --
is antithetical to the continued existence of those aspects of the city
that might serve as the framework for a libertarian municipalism. "When
urbanisation will have effaced city life so completely that the city no
longer has its own identity, culture, and spaces for consociation, the
bases for democracy -- in whatever way the word in defined -- will have
disappeared and the question of revolutionary forms will be a shadow game
of abstractions." 

Despite this danger, however, Bookchin thinks that a libertarian politics
of local government is still possible, provided anarchists get their act
together. "The Commune still lies buried in the city council; the
sections still lie buried in the neighbourhood; the town meeting still lies
buried in the township; confederal forms of municipal association still
lie buried in regional networks of towns and cities." 

What would anarchists do electorally at the local level? Bookchin
proposes that they change city and town charters to make political
institutions participatory. "An organic politics based on such radical
participatory forms of civic association does not exclude the right of
anarchists to alter city and town charters such that they validate the
existence of directly democratic institutions. And if this kind of
activity brings anarchists into city councils, there is no reason why such
a politics should be construed as parliamentary, particularly if it is
confined to the civic level and is consciously posed against the state." 

In a latter essay, Bookchin argues that Libertarian Muncipalism "depends
upon libertarian leftists running candidates at the local level, calling
for the division of municipalities into wards, where popular assemblies
can be created that bring people into full and direct participation in
political life . . . municipalities would [then] confederate into a
dual power to oppose the nation-state and ultimately dispense with it
and with the economic forces that underpin statism as such." [_Democracy
and Nature_ no. 9, p. 158] This would be part of a social wide 
transformation, whose "[m]inimal steps . . . include initiating Left 
Green municipalist movements that propose neighbourhood and town 
assemblies - even if they have only moral functions at first - and
electing town and city councillors that advance the cause of these 
assemblies and other popular institutions. These minimal steps can
lead step-by-step to the formation of confederal bodies. . . Civic
banks to fund municipal enterprises and land purchases; the fostering
of new ecologically-orientated enterprises that are owned by the 
community. . ." [_From Urbanisation to Cities_, p. 266]

Thus Bookchin sees Libertarian Muncipalism as a process by which the
state can be undermined by using elections as the means of creating
popular assemblies. Part of this process, he argues, would be the 
"municipalisation of property" which would "bring the economy *as
a whole* into the orbit of the public sphere, where economic policy
could be formulated by the *entire* community." [Op. Cit. p. 235] 

Bookchin considers Libertarian Muncipalism as the key means of
creating an anarchist society, and argues that those anarchists
who disagree with it are failing to take their politics seriously.
"It is curious," he notes, "that many anarchists who celebrate the
existence of a 'collectivised' industrial enterprise, here and there, 
with considerable enthusiasm despite its emergence within a thoroughly
bourgeois economic framework, can view a municipal politics that entails
'elections' of any kind with repugnance, even if such a politics is
structured around neighbourhood assemblies, recallable deputies, radically
democratic forms of accountability, and deeply rooted localist networks." 
["Theses on Libertarian Municipalism"]

In evaluating Bookchin's proposal, several points come to mind. 

Firstly, it is clear that Libertarian Muncipalism's arguments in
favour of community assemblies is important and cannot be ignored.
Bookchin is right to note that, in the past, many anarchists placed
far too much stress on workplace struggles and workers' councils
as the framework of a free society. Many of the really important
issues that affect us cannot be reduced to workplace organisations,
which by their very nature disenfranchise those who do not work
in industry (such as housewives, the old, and so on). And, of
course, there is far more to life than work and so any future
society organised purely around workplace organisations is
reproducing capitalism's insane glorification of economic activity,
at least to some degree. So, in this sense, Libertarian Muncipalism 
has a very valid point -- a free society will be created and
maintained within the community as well as in the workplace.

Secondly, Bookchin and other Libertarian Muncipalists are totally
correct to argue that anarchists should work in their local communities.
As noted in section J.5.1, many anarchists are doing just that and
are being very successful as well. However, most anarchists reject
the idea that using elections are a viable means of "struggle toward
creating new civic institutions out of old ones (or replacing the
old ones altogether)." [_From Urbanisation to Cities_, p. 267]

The most serious problem has to do with whether politics in most cities
has already become too centralised, bureaucratic, inhumanly scaled, and
dominated by capitalist interests to have any possibility of being taken
over by anarchists running on platforms of participatory democratisation. 
Merely to pose the question seems enough to answer it. There is no such
possibility in the vast majority of cities, and hence it would be a waste
of time and energy for anarchists to support libertarian municipalist
candidates in local elections -- time and energy that could be more
profitably spent in direct action. If the central governments are too
bureaucratic and unresponsive to be used by Libertarian Municipalists,
the same can be said of local ones too.

The counter-argument to this is that even if there is no chance of such
candidates being elected, their standing for elections would serve a
valuable educational function. The answer to this is: perhaps, but would
it be more valuable than direct action? And would its educational value,
if any, outweigh the disadvantages of electioneering mentioned in sections
J.2.2 and J.2.4, such as the fact that voting ratifies the current system? 
Given the ability of major media to marginalise alternative candidates, we
doubt that such campaigns would have enough educational value to outweigh
these disadvantages. Moreover, being an anarchist does not make one immune
to the corrupting effects of electioneering (as highlighted in section 
J.2.6). History is littered with radical, politically aware movements 
using elections and ending up becoming part of the system they aimed to
transform. Most anarchists doubt that Libertarian Muncipalism will be
any different -- after all, it is the circumstances the parties find 
themselves in which are decisive, not the theory they hold (the social
relations they face will transform the theory, not vice versa, in other
words).

Lastly, most anarchists question the whole process on which Libertarian
Muncipalism bases itself on. The idea of communes is a key one of anarchism 
and so strategies to create them in the here and now are important. However, 
to think that using alienated, representative institutions to abolish
these institutions is mad. As the Italian activists (who organised a 
neighbourhood assembly by non-electoral means) argue, "[t]o accept power
and to say that the others were acting in bad faith and that we would
be better, would *force* non-anarchists towards direct democracy. We
reject this logic and believe that organisations must come from the
grassroots." ["Community Organising in Southern Italy", pp. 16-19, 
_Black Flag_ no. 210, p. 18]

Thus Libertarian Municipalism reverses the process by which community
assemblies will be created. Instead of anarchists using elections to
build such bodies, they must work in their communities directly to
create them (see section J.5.1 - "What is Community Unionism?" for
more details). Using the catalyst of specific issues of local interest,
anarchists could propose the creation of a community assembly to discuss
the issues in question and organise action to solve them. Instead of
a "confederal muncipalist movement run[ning] candidates for municipal
councils with demands for the institution of public assemblies" [Murray
Bookchin, Op. Cit., p. 229] anarchists should encourage people to
create these institutions themselves and empower themselves by
collective self-activity. As Kropotkin argued, "Laws can only *follow* 
the accomplished facts; and even if they do honestly follow them - which 
is usually *not* the case - a law remains a dead letter so long as there 
are not on the spot the living forces required for making the *tendencies* 
expressed in the law an accomplished *fact*." [_Kropotkin's Revolutionary 
Pamphlets_, p. 171] Most anarchists, therefore, think it is far more
important to create the "living forces" within our communities directly
than waste energy in electioneering and the passing of laws creating or
"legalising" community assemblies. In other words, community assemblies 
can only be created from the bottom up, by non-electoral means, a process
which Libertarian Muncipalism confuses with electioneering. 

So, while Libertarian Muncipalism *does* raise many important issues
and correctly stresses the importance of community activity and
self-management, its emphasis on electoral activity undercuts its
liberatory promise. For most anarchists, community assemblies can
only be created from below, by direct action, and (because of its
electoral strategy) a Libertarian Municipalist movement will end up 
being transformed into a copy of the system it aims to abolish.

J.5.15 What attitude do anarchists take to the welfare state?

Currently we are seeing a concerted attempt to rollback the state within
society. This has been begun by the right-wing in the name of "freedom,"
"individual dignity and responsibility" and "efficiency." The position
of anarchists to this process is mixed. On the one hand, we are all in
favour of reducing the size of the state and increasing individual
responsibility and freedom, but, on the other, we are well aware that
this process is part of an attack on the working class and tends to
increase the power of the capitalists over us as the state's (direct)
influence is reduced. Thus anarchists appear to be on the horns of a 
dilemma -- or, at least, apparently.

So what attitude *do* anarchists take to the welfare state and the current
attacks on it? (see next section for a short discussion of business based
welfare)

First we must note that this attack of "welfare" is somewhat selective.
While using the rhetoric of "self-reliance" and "individualism," the
practitioners of these "tough love" programmes have made sure that the
major corporations continue to get state hand-outs and aid while attacking 
social welfare. In other words, the current attack on the welfare state 
is an attempt to impose market discipline on the working class while 
increasing state protection for the ruling class. Therefore, most 
anarchists have no problem in social welfare programmes as these can 
be considered as only fair considering the aid the capitalist class
has always received from the state (both direct subsidies and protection
and indirect support via laws that protect property and so on). And,
for all their talk of increasing individual choice, the right-wing
remain silent about the lack of choice and individual freedom during
working hours within capitalism.

Secondly, most of the right-wing inspired attacks on the welfare state
are inaccurate. For example, Noam Chomsky notes that the "correlation 
between welfare payments and family life is real, though it is the 
reverse of what is claimed [by the right]. As support for the poor has 
declined, unwed birth-rates, which had risen steadily from the 1940s through 
the mid-1970s, markedly increased. 'Over the last three decades, the rate of
poverty among children almost perfectly correlates with the birth-rates among
teenage mothers a decade later,' Mike Males points out: 'That is, child
poverty seems to lead to teenage childbearing, not the other way around.'"
["Rollback III", _Z Magazine_, April, 1995] The same can be said for
many of the claims about the evil effects of welfare which the rich
and large corporations wish to save others (but not themselves) from.
Such altruism is truly heart warming.

Thirdly, we must note that while most anarchists *are* in favour of 
collective self-help and welfare, we are opposed to the welfare state. 
Part of the alternatives anarchists try and create are self-managed and 
communal community welfare projects (see next section). Moreover, in the 
past, anarchists and syndicalists were at the forefront in opposing state
welfare schemes (introduced, we may note, *not* by socialists but by
liberals and other supporters of capitalism to undercut support for
radical alternatives and aid long term economic development by creating
the educated and healthy population required to use advanced technology
and fight wars). Thus we find that:

"Liberal social welfare legislation. . . were seen by many [British
syndicalists] not as genuine welfare reforms, but as mechanisms of 
social control. Syndicalists took a leading part in resisting such 
legislation on the grounds that it would increase capitalist discipline 
over labour, thereby undermining working class independence and 
self-reliance." [Bob Holton, _British Syndicalism: 1900-1914_, 
p. 137]

Anarchists view the welfare state much as some feminists do. While they
note the "patriarchal structure of the welfare state" they are also
aware that it has "also brought challenges to patriarchal power and
helped provide a basis for women's autonomous citizenship." [Carole
Pateman, "The Patriarchal Welfare State", in _The Disorder of Women_,
p. 195] She does on to note that "for women to look at the welfare state
is merely to exchange dependence on individual men for dependence on
the state. The power and capriciousness of husbands is replaced by the
arbitrariness, bureaucracy and power of the state, the very state that
has upheld patriarchal power. . . [this] will not in itself do
anything to challenge patriarchal power relations." [Ibid., p. 200]

Thus while the welfare state does give working people more options than
having to take *any* job or put up with *any* conditions, this relative
independence from the market and individual capitalists has came at 
the price of dependence on the state -- the very institution that 
protects and supports capitalism in the first place. And has we have
became painfully aware in recent years, it is the ruling class who has 
most influence in the state -- and so, when it comes to deciding what
state budgets to cut, social welfare ones are first in line. Given that
state welfare programmes are controlled by the state, *not* working class
people, such an outcome is hardly surprising. Not only this, we also
find that state control reproduces the same hierarchical structures
that the capitalist firm creates. 

Unsurprisingly, anarchists have no great love of such state welfare schemes 
and desire their replacement by self-managed alternatives. For example, 
taking municipal housing, Colin Ward writes:

"The municipal tenant is trapped in a syndrome of dependence and resentment,
which is an accurate reflection of his housing situation. People care about
what is theirs, what they can modify, alter, adapt to changing needs and
improve themselves. They must have a direct responsibility for it.

". . .The tenant take-over of the municipal estate is one of those obviously
sensible ideas which is dormant because our approach to municipal affairs
is still stuck in the groves of nineteenth-century paternalism." [_Anarchy
in Action_, p.73]

Looking at state supported education, Ward argues that the "universal education
system turns out to be yet another way in which the poor subsidise the rich."
Which is the least of its problems, for "it is in the *nature* of public
authorities to run coercive and hierarchical institutions whose ultimate
function is to perpetuate social inequality and to brainwash the young
into the acceptance of their particular slot in the organised system." 
[Op. Cit., p. 83, p. 81]

The role of state education as a means of systematically indoctrinating
the working class is reflected in William Lazonick's essay "The
Subjection of Labour to Capital: The rise of the Capitalist System":

"The Education Act of 1870. . . [gave the] state. . . the facilities. . .
to make education compulsory for all children from the age of five to
the age of ten. It had also erected a powerful system of ideological
control over the next generation of workers. . . [It] was to function
as a prime ideological mechanism in the attempt by the capitalist class
through the medium of the state, to continually *reproduce* a labour
force which would passively accept [the] subjection [of labour to
the domination of capital]. At the same time it had set up a public
institution which could potentially be used by the working class for
just the contrary purpose." [_Radical Political Economy_ Vol. 2, p. 363]

Lazonick, as did Pateman, indicates the contradictory nature of welfare
provisions within capitalism. On the one hand, they are introduced to help 
control the working class (and to improve long term economic development).
On the other hand, these provisions can be used by working class people as 
weapons against capitalism and give themselves more options than "work or 
starve" (the fact that the recent attack on welfare in the UK -- called, 
ironically enough, _welfare to work_ -- involves losing benefits if you 
refuse a job is not a surprising development). Thus we find that welfare 
acts as a kind of floor under wages. In the US, the two have followed a 
common trajectory (rising together and falling together). And it is *this*, 
the potential benefits welfare can have for working people, that is the 
*real* cause for the current capitalist attacks upon it.

Because of this contradictory nature of welfare, we find anarchists like
Noam Chomsky arguing that (using an expression popularised by South American 
rural workers unions) "we should 'expand the floor of the cage.' We know 
we're in a cage. We know we're trapped. We're going to expand the floor, 
meaning we will extend to the limits what the cage will allow. And we intend 
to destroy the cage. But not by attacking the cage when we're vulnerable, 
so they'll murder us. . . You have to protect the cage when it's under 
attack from even worse predators from outside, like private power. And 
you have to expand the floor of the cage, recognising that it's a cage. 
These are all preliminaries to dismantling it. Unless people are willing 
to tolerate that level of complexity, they're going to be of no use to 
people who are suffering and who need help, or, for that matter, to 
themselves." [_Expanding the Floor of the Cage_]

Thus, even though we know the welfare state is a cage and an instrument
of class power, we have to defend it from a worse possibility -- namely,
the state as "pure" defender of capitalism with working people with
few or no rights. At least the welfare state does have a contradictory 
nature, the tensions of which can be used to increase our options. And 
one of these options is its abolition *from below*! 

For example, with regards to municipal housing, anarchists will be 
the first to agree that it is paternalistic, bureaucratic and hardly
a wonderful living experience. However, in stark contrast with the
"libertarian" right who desire to privatise such estates, anarchists
think that "tenants control" is the best solution as it gives us
the benefits of individual ownership *along with* community (and so
without the negative points of property, such as social atomisation).
And anarchists agree with Colin Ward when he thinks that the demand
for "tenant control" must come from below, by the "collective resistance"
of the tenants themselves, perhaps as a growth from struggles against
rent increases. [Op. Cit., p. 73]

And it is here that we find the ultimate irony of the right-wing, "free
market" attempts to abolish the welfare state -- neo-liberalism wants to
end welfare *from above,* by means of the state (which is the instigator
of this "individualistic" "reform"). It does not seek the end of dependency
by self-liberation, but the shifting of dependency from state to charity
and the market. In contrast, anarchists desire to abolish welfare from
below, by the direct action of those who receive it by a "multiplicity
of mutual aid organisations among claimants, patients, victims" for
this "represents the most potent lever for change in transforming the
welfare state into a genuine welfare society, in turning community care
into a caring community." [Colin Ward, Op. Cit., p. 125]

Ultimately, unlike the state socialist/liberal left, anarchists reject the 
idea that the case of socialism, of a free society, can be helped by using 
the state. Like the right, the left see political action in terms of the 
state. All its favourite policies have been statist - state intervention 
in the economy, nationalisation, state welfare, state education and so on. 
Whatever the problem, the left see the solution as lying in the extension 
of the power of the state. And, as such, they continually push people in 
relying on *others* to solve their problems for them (moreover, such 
state-based "aid" does not get to the core of the problem. All it does 
is fight the symptoms of capitalism and statism without attacking their 
root causes -- the system itself). 

Invariably, this support for the state is a move away from working class 
people, of trusting and empowering them to sort out their own problems. 
Indeed, the left seem to forget that the state exists to defend the 
collective interests of capitalists and other sections of the ruling 
class and so could hardly be considered a neutral body. And, worst of 
all, they have presented the right with the opportunity of stating that 
freedom from the state means the same thing as the freedom of the market 
(and as we have explained in detail in sections B, C and D, capitalism is 
based upon domination -- wage labour -- and needs many repressive measures 
in order to exist and survive). Anarchists are of the opinion that changing 
the boss for the state (or vice versa) is only a step sideways, *not* 
forward! After all, it is *not* working people who control how the
welfare state is run, it is politicians, "experts" and managers who
do so. Little wonder we have seen elements of the welfare state used
as a weapon in the class war *against* those in struggle (for example,
in Britain during the 1980s the Conservative Government made it illegal
to claim benefits while on strike, so reducing the funds available to
workers in struggle and helping bosses force strikers back to work faster).

Therefore, anarchists consider it far better to encourage those who 
suffer injustice to organise themselves and in that way they can change 
what *they* think is actually wrong, as opposed to what politicians and 
"experts" claim is wrong. If sometimes part of this struggle involves 
protecting aspects of the welfare state ("expanding the floor of the 
cage") so be it -- but we will never stop there and will use such 
struggles as a step in abolishing the welfare state from below by 
creating self-managed, working class, alternatives. As part of this 
process anarchists also seek to *transform* those aspects of the welfare 
state they may be trying to "protect". They do not defend an institution 
which *is* paternalistic, bureaucratic and unresponsive. For example, if 
we are involved in trying to stop a local state-run hospital or school 
from closing, anarchists would try to raise the issue of self-management 
and local community control into the struggle in the hope of going beyond 
the status quo.

Not only does this mean that we can get accustomed to managing our own 
affairs collectively, it also means that we can ensure that whatever
"safety-nets" we create for ourselves do what we want and not what
capital wants. In the end, what we create and run by our own activity
will be more responsive to our needs, and the needs of the class
struggle, than reformist aspects of the capitalist state. This much,
we think, is obvious. And it is ironic to see elements of the 
"radical" and "revolutionary" left argue against this working class
self-help (and so ignore the *long* tradition of such activity in
working class movements) and instead select for the agent of their 
protection a state run by and for capitalists!

There are two traditions of welfare within society, one of "fraternal 
and autonomous associations springing from below, the other that of 
authoritarian institutions directed from above." [Colin Ward, Op. Cit., 
p. 123] While sometimes anarchists are forced to defend the latter 
against the greater evil of "free market" corporate capitalism, we 
never forget the importance of creating and strengthening the former. 
A point we will discuss more in section J.5.16 when we highlight the 
historical examples of self-managed communal welfare and self-help 
organisations.

J.5.16 Are there any historical examples of collective self-help?

Yes, in all societies we see working people joining together to practice
mutual aid and solidarity. These take many forms, such as trade and
industrial unions, credit unions and friendly societies, co-operatives
and so on, but the natural response of working class people to the 
injustices of capitalism was to practice collective "self-help" in order
to improve their lives and protect their friends, communities and fellow
workers. 

Unfortunately, this "great tradition of working class self-help and
mutual aid was written off, not just as irrelevant, but as an actual
impediment, by the political and professional architects of the welfare
state. . . The contribution that the recipients had to make to all
this theoretical bounty was ignored as a mere embarrassment - apart,
of course, for paying for it. . . The socialist ideal was rewritten
as a world in which everyone was entitled to everything, but where
nobody except the providers had any actual say about anything. We 
have been learning for years, in the anti-welfare backlash, what a
vulnerable utopia that was." [Colin Ward, _Social Policy: an
anarchist response_, p. 3]

Ward terms this self-help (and self-managed) working class activity
the "welfare road we failed to take."

Indeed, anarchists would argue that self-help is the natural side 
effect of freedom. There is no possibility of radical social change 
unless people are free to decide for themselves what their problems 
are, where their interests lie and are free to organise for themselves 
what they want to do about them. Self-help is a natural expression of 
people taking control of their own lives and acting for themselves. 
Anyone who urges state action on behalf of people is no socialist 
and any one arguing against self-help as "bourgeois" is no 
anti-capitalist. It is somewhat ironic that it is the right who
have monopolised the rhetoric of "self-help" and turned it into
yet another ideological weapon against working class direct action
and self-liberation (although, saying that, the right generally
likes individualised self-help -- given a strike or squatting
or any other form of *collective* self-help movement they will be 
the first to denounce it):

"The political Left has, over the years, committed an enormous 
psychological error in allowing this king of language ["self-help",
"mutual aid", "standing on your own two feet" and so on] to be
appropriated by the political Right. If you look at the exhibitions
of trade union banners from the last century, you will see slogans
like Self Help embroidered all over them. It was those clever
Fabians and academic Marxists who ridiculed out of existence the
values by which ordinary citizens govern their own lives in favour
of bureaucratic paternalising, leaving those values around to be
picked up by their political opponents." [Colin Ward, _Talking
Houses_, p. 58]

We cannot be expected to provide an extensive list of working class
collective self-help and social welfare activity here, all we can
do is present an overview. For a discussion of working class self-help 
and co-operation through the centuries we can suggest no better source
than Kropotkin's _Mutual Aid_. Here we will (using other sources than
_Mutual Aid_) indicate a few examples of collective welfare in action.

In the case of Britain, we find that the "newly created working class 
built up from nothing a vast network of social and economic initiatives 
based on self-help and mutual aid. The list is endless: friendly 
societies, building societies, sick clubs, coffin clubs, clothing 
clubs, up to enormous federated enterprises like the trade union 
movement and the Co-operative movement." [Colin Ward, _Social Policy: 
an anarchist response_, p. 2]

The historian E.P. Thompson confirms this picture of a wide network
of working class self-help organisations:

"Small tradesmen, artisans, labourers - all sought to insure themselves
against sickness, unemployment, or funeral expenses through membership
of . . . friendly societies." These were "authentic evidence of 
independent working-class culture and institutions . . . out of 
which . . . trade unions grew, and in which trade union officers were
trained." Friendly societies "did not 'proceed from' an idea: both
the ideas and institutions arose from a certain common experience
. . . In the simple cellular structure of the friendly society, with 
its workaday ethos of mutual aid, we see many features which were
reproduced in more sophisticated and complex form in trade unions,
co-operatives, Hampden clubs, Political Unions, and Chartist
lodges. . . Every kind of witness in the first half of the
nineteenth century - clergymen, factory inspectors, Radical
publicists - remarked upon the extent of mutual aid in the
poorest districts. In times of emergency, unemployment, strikes,
sickness, childbirth, then it was the poor who 'helped every one
his neighbour.'" [_The Making of the English Working Class_, 
p. 458, pp. 460-1, p. 462]

Taking the United States, Sam Dolgoff presents an excellent summary
of similar self-help activities by the American working class:

"Long before the labour movement got corrupted and the state stepped
in, the workers organised a network of co-operative institutions of
all kinds: schools, summer camps for children and adults, homes for
the aged, health and cultural centres, credit associations, fire,
life, and health insurance, technical education, housing, etc."
[_The American Labour Movement: A New Beginning_, p. 74]

Dolgoff, like all anarchists, urges workers to "finance the establishment 
of independent co-operative societies of all types, which will respond 
adequately to their needs" and that such a movement "could constitute 
a realistic alternative to the horrendous abuses of the 'establishment' 
at a fraction of the cost." [Op. Cit., p. 74, pp. 74-75]

In this way a network of self-managed, communal, welfare associations
and co-operatives could be built -- paid for, run by and run for
working class people. Such a network could be initially build upon,
and be an aspect of, the struggles of claimants, patients, tenants,
and other users of the current welfare state (see last section).

The creation of such a co-operative, community-based, welfare system
will not occur over night. Nor will it be easy. But it *is* possible,
as history shows. And, of course, it will have its problems, but as
Colin Ward notes, that "the standard argument against a localist and 
decentralised point of view, is that of universalism: an equal service 
to all citizens, which it is thought that central control achieves. 
The short answer to this is that it doesn't!" [Colin Ward, Op. Cit., 
p. 6] He notes that richer areas generally get a better service from 
the welfare state than poorer ones, thus violating the claims of
equal service. And a centralised system (be it state or private) will 
most likely allocate resources which reflect the interests and (lack 
of) knowledge of bureaucrats and experts, *not* on where they are 
best used or the needs of the users. 

Anarchists are sure that a *confederal* network of mutual aid 
organisations and co-operatives, based upon local input and control, 
can overcome problems of localism far better than a centralised one 
-- which, due to its lack of local input and participation will more 
likely *encourage* parochialism and indifference than a wider vision
and solidarity. If you have no real say in what affects you, why
should you be concerned with what affects others? Centralisation leads 
to disempowerment, which in turn leads to indifference, *not* solidarity. 
Rudolf Rocker reminds us of the evil effects of centralism when he 
writes:

"For the state centralisation is the appropriate form of organisation, 
since it aims at the greatest possible uniformity in social life for the
maintenance of political and social equilibrium. But for a movement whose
very existence depends on prompt action at any favourable moment and on the
independent thought and action of its supporters, centralism could but be a
curse by weakening its power of decision and systematically repressing all
immediate action. If, for example, as was the case in Germany, every local
strike had first to be approved by the Central, which was often hundreds of
miles away and was not usually in a position to pass a correct judgement
on the local conditions, one cannot wonder that the inertia of the apparatus
of organisation renders a quick attack quite impossible, and there thus
arises a state of affairs where the energetic and intellectually alert
groups no longer serve as patterns for the less active, but are condemned by
these to inactivity, inevitably bringing the whole movement to stagnation.
Organisation is, after all, only a means to an end. When it becomes an end
in itself, it kills the spirit and the vital initiative of its members and
sets up that domination by mediocrity which is the characteristic of all
bureaucracies." [_Anarcho-Syndicalism_, p. 54]

And, as an example, he notes that while the highly centralised German
labour movement "did not raise a finger to avert the catastrophe" of Hitler's
seizing power and "which in a few months beat their organisation completely 
to pieces" the exact opposite happened in Spain ("where Anarcho-Syndicalism 
had maintained its hold upon organised labour from the days of the First 
International"). There the anarcho-syndicalist C.N.T. "frustrated the
criminal plans of Franco" and "by their heroic example spurred the Spanish 
workers and peasants to the battle." Without the heroic resistance of the
Anarcho-Syndicalist labour unions the Fascist reaction would have dominated
the whole country in a matter of weeks. [Op. Cit., p. 53]

This is unsurprising, for what else is global action other than the product 
of thousands of local actions? Solidarity within our class is the flower 
that grows from the soil of our local self-activity, direct action and 
self-organisation. Unless we act and organise locally, any wider organisation
and action will be hollow. Thus *local* organisation and empowerment is
essential to create and maintain wider organisations and mutual aid.

To take another example of the benefits of a self-managed welfare system,
we find that it "was a continual complaint of the authorities [in the
late eighteenth and early nineteenth century] that friendly societies allowed
members to withdraw funds when on strike." [E.P. Thompson, Op. Cit., 
p. 461f] The same complaints were voiced in Britain about the welfare 
state allowing strikers to claim benefit will on strike. The Conservative
Government of the 1980s changed that by passing a law barring those in
industrial dispute to claim benefits -- and so removing a potential support
for those in struggle. Such a restriction would have been far harder (if
not impossible) to impose on a network of self-managed mutual aid 
co-operatives. And such institutions would have not become the plaything 
of central government financial policy as the welfare state and the 
taxes working class people have to pay have become. 

All this means that anarchists reject totally the phoney choice between 
private and state capitalism we are usually offered. We reject both 
privatisation *and* nationalisation, both right and left wings (of
capitalism). Neither state nor private health care are user-controlled
-- one is subject to the requirements of politics and the other places
profits before people. As we have discussed the welfare state in the
last section, it is worthwhile to quickly discuss privatised welfare and 
why most anarchists reject this option even more than state welfare.

Firstly, all forms of private healthcare/welfare has to pay dividends to 
capitalists, fund advertising, reduce costs to maximise profits by 
standardising the "caring" process - i.e. McDonaldisation - and so on, 
all of which inflates prices and produces substandard service across the 
industry as a whole. According to Alfie Kohn, the "[m]ore hospitals and
clinics are being run by for-profit corporations; many institutions,
forced to battle for 'customers,' seem to value a skilled director of
marketing more highly than a skilled caregiver. As in any other economic
sector, the race for profits translates into pressure to reduce costs,
and the easiest way to do it here is to cut back on services to
unprofitable patients, that is, those who are more sick than rich . . ."
"The result: hospital costs are actually *higher* in areas where there
is more competition for patients." [Alfie Kohn, _No Contest_, p. 240]
In the UK, attempts to introduce "market forces" into the National
Health Service also lead to increased costs as well as inflating 
the services bureaucracy.

Looking at Chile, hyped by those who desire to privatise Social Security,
we find similar disappointing results (well, disappointing for the 
working class at least, as we will see). Seemingly, Chile's private system 
has achieved impressive average returns on investment. However, once 
commissions are factored in, the real return for individual workers 
is considerably lower. For example, although the average rate of return 
on funds from 1982 through 1986 was 15.9 percent, the real return after 
commissions was a mere 0.3 percent! Between 1991 and 1995, the 
pre-commission return was 12.9 percent, but with commissions it 
fell to 2.1 percent. According to Doug Henwood, the "competing mutual 
funds have vast sales forces, and the portfolio managers all have their
vast fees. All in all, administrative costs . . . are almost 30% of
revenues, compared to well under 1% for the U.S. Social Security system."
[_Wall Street_, p. 305] Although market competition was supposed to lower 
commissions in Chile, the private pension fund market is dominated by a 
handful of companies. These, according to economists Peter Diamond and
Salvador Valdes-Prieto, form a "monopolistic competitive market" rather 
than a truly competitive one. A similar process seems to be taking place 
in Argentina, where commissions have remained around 3.5 percent of 
taxable salary. As argued in section C.4, such oligopolistic tendencies
are inherent in capitalism and so this development is not unexpected. 

Even if commission costs were lowered (perhaps by regulation), the 
impressive returns on capital seen between 1982 and 1995 (when the 
real annual return on investment averaged 12.7 percent) are likely 
not to be sustained. These average returns coincided with boom years 
in Chile, complemented by government's high borrowing costs. Because 
of the debt crisis of the 1980s, Latin governments were paying 
double-digit real interest rates on their bonds -- the main investment 
vehicle of social security funds. In effect, government was subsidising 
the "private" system by paying astronomical rates on government bonds.

Another failing of the system is that only a little over half of 
Chilean workers make regular social security contributions. While many 
believe that a private system would reduce evasion because workers have a 
greater incentive to contribute to their own personal retirement accounts, 
43.4 percent of those affiliated with the new system in June of 1995 did 
not contribute regularly (see Stephen J. Kay, "The Chile Con: Privatizing 
Social Security in South America," _The American Prospect_ no. 33, 
July-August 1997, pp. 48-52 for details).

All in all, privatisation seems to be beneficial only to middle-men and
capitalists, if Chile is anything to go by. As Henwood argues, while
the "infusion of money" resulting from privatising social security "has
done wonders for the Chilean stock market" "projections are that as many
as half of future retirees will draw a poverty-level pension." [Op. Cit.,
pp. 304-5] 

So, anarchists reject private welfare as a con (and an even bigger one 
than state welfare). Instead we try to create *real* alternatives to 
hierarchy, be it state or capitalist, in the here and now which reflect 
our ideas of a free and just society. For, when it boils down to it, 
freedom cannot be given, only taken and this process of *self*-liberation 
is reflected in the alternatives we build to help win the class war. 

The struggle *against* capitalism and statism requires that we build *for*
the future ("the urge to destroy is a creative urge" - Bakunin) and,
moreover, we should always remember that "he who has no confidence in the 
creative capacity of the masses and in their capability to revolt doesn't 
belong in the revolutionary movement. He should go to a monastery and get 
on his knees and start praying. Because he is no revolutionist. He is a 
son of a bitch." [Sam Dolgoff, quoted by Ulrike Heider, _Anarchism: left, 
right, and green_, p. 12]
J.6 What methods of child rearing do anarchists advocate? 

Anarchists have long been aware of the importance of child rearing and
education. As such, we are aware that child rearing should aim to develop
"a well-rounded individuality" and not "a patient work slave, professional
automaton, tax-paying citizen, or righteous moralist." [Emma Goldman,
_Red Emma Speaks_, p. 108] In this section of the FAQ we will discuss
anarchist approaches to child rearing bearing in mind "that it is through
the channel of the child that the development of the mature man must go,
and that the present ideas of. . . educating or training. . . are such as
to stifle the natural growth of the child." [Ibid., p. 107]

If one accepts the thesis that the authoritarian family is the breeding
ground for both individual psychological problems and political reaction, 
it follows that anarchists should try to develop ways of raising children 
that will not psychologically cripple them but instead enable them to 
accept freedom and responsibility while developing natural self-regulation. 
We will refer to children raised in such a way as "free children." 

Work in this field is still in its infancy (no pun intended). Wilhelm
Reich is again the main pioneer in this field (an excellent, short 
introduction to his ideas can be found in Maurice Brinton's _The Irrational 
in Politics_). In _Children of the Future_, Reich made numerous suggestions, 
based on his research and clinical experience, for parents, psychologists, 
and educators striving to develop libertarian methods of child rearing. 
(He did not use the term "libertarian," but that is what his methods are.) 

Hence, in this and the following sections we will summarise Reich's main 
ideas as well as those of other libertarian psychologists and educators who 
have been influenced by him, such as A.S. Neill and Alexander Lowen. 
Section J.6.1 will examine the theoretical principles involved in raising 
free children, while subsequent sections will illustrate their practical 
application with concrete examples. Finally, in section J.6.8, we will 
examine the anarchist approach to the problems of adolescence. 

Such an approach to child rearing is based upon the insight that children
"do not constitute anyone's property: they are neither the property of
the parents nor even of society. They belong only to their own future
freedom." [Michael Bakunin, _The Political Philosophy of Bakunin_, p. 327]
As such, what happens to a child when it is growing up *shapes* the
person they become and the society they live in. The key question for 
people interested in freedom is whether "the child [is] to be considered 
as an individuality, or as an object to be moulded according to the 
whims and fancies of those about it?" [Emma Goldman, Op. Cit., 
p. 107] Libertarian child rearing is the means by which the individuality 
of the child is respected and developed. 

This is in stark contrast to standard capitalist (and individualist anarchist
we should note) claim that children are the *property* of their parents. 
If we accept that children *are* the property of their parents then we are 
implicitly stating that a child's formative years are spent in slavery, 
hardly a relationship which will promote the individuality and freedom of 
the child or the wider society. Little wonder that most anarchists reject 
such assertions. Instead they argue that the "rights of the parents shall 
be confined to loving their children and exercising over them . . . authority 
[that] does not run counter to their morality, their mental development, 
or their future freedom." [Bakunin, Op. Cit., p. 327] Being someone's 
property (i.e. slave) runs counter to all these and "it follows that 
society, the whole future of which depends upon adequate education and 
upbringing of children. . . , has not only the right but also the duty 
to watch over them..." [Ibid., p. 327] 

Hence child rearing is *part* of society, a communal process by which 
children learn what it means to be an individual by being respected as 
one by others. In Bakunin's words, "real freedom - that is, the full 
awareness and the realisation thereof in every individual, pre-eminently 
based upon a feeling of one's dignity and upon the genuine respect for 
someone else's freedom and dignity, i.e. upon justice - such freedom can 
develop in children only through the rational development of their minds, 
character and will." [Op. Cit., p. 327]

We wish to point out at the beginning that a great deal of work remains to
be done in this field. Therefore our comments should be regarded merely
as tentative bases for further reflection and research by those involved
with raising and educating children. There is, and cannot be, any "rule
book" for raising free children, because to follow an inflexible 
rule book is to ignore the fact that each child and its environment is 
unique and therefore demands unique responses from its parents. Hence the
"principles" of libertarian child rearing to which we will refer should
not be thought of as rules, but rather, as experimental hypotheses to be
tested by parents within their own situation by applying their intelligence 
and deriving their own individual conclusions. 

Bringing up children must be like education, and based on similar principles,
namely "upon the free growth and development of the innate forces and
tendencies of the child. In this way alone can we hope for the free
individual and eventually also for a free community, which shall make
interference and coercion of human growth impossible." [Goldman, Op. Cit.,
p. 115] Indeed, child rearing and education *cannot* be separated as
life itself is an education and so must share the same principles and
viewed as a process of "development and exploration, rather than as one
of repressing a child's instincts and inculcating obedience and discipline."
[Martha A. Ackelsberg, _Free Women of Spain_, p. 132]

Moreover, the role of parental example is very important to raising 
free children. Children often learn by mimicking their parents - children 
do what their parents do, not as they say. If their mother and father lie 
to each other, scream, fight and so on, then the child will probably do 
so as well. Children's behaviour does not come out thin air, they are a 
product of the environment they are brought up in (partly by, initially at 
least, copying the parent). Children can only be encouraged by example, not 
by threats and commands. How parents act can be an obstacle to the development 
of a free child. Parents must, therefore, be aware that they must do more 
than just *say* the right things, but also act as anarchists in order to 
produce free children.

The sad fact is that most modern people have lost the ability to raise 
free children, and regaining this ability will be a long process of trial 
and error and parent education in which it is to be hoped that each 
succeeding generation will learn from the failures and successes of their 
predecessors, and so improve. In the best-case scenario, over the course 
of a few generations the number of progressive parents will continue to 
grow and raise ever freer children, who in turn will become even more 
progressive parents themselves, thus gradually changing mass psychology 
in a libertarian direction. Such changes *can* come about very fast, 
as can be seen from various communes all over the world and especially 
in the Israel-Palestine kibbutz where society is organised according to
libertarian principles, and children are mainly growing in their 
collective homes. As Reich puts it: 

"We have learned that instead of a jump into the realm of the Children of
the Future, we can hope for no more than a steady advance, in which the
healthy new overlaps the sick old structure, with the new slowly
outgrowing the old." [_Children of the Future_, pp. 38-39]

By means of freedom-based child rearing and education, along with other
methods of consciousness raising, as well as encouraging resistance to
the existing social order anarchists hope to prepare the psychological 
foundation for a social paradigm shift, from authoritarian to 
libertarian institutions and values. And indeed, a gradual cultural
evolution toward increasing freedom does seem to exist. For example, as
A.S. Neill writes in _Summerhill_, "There is a slow trend to freedom, sexual
and otherwise. In my boyhood, a woman went bathing wearing stockings and
a long dress. Today, women show legs and bodies. Children are getting
more freedom with every generation. Today, only a few lunatics put
cayenne pepper on a baby's thumb to stop sucking. Today, only a few
countries beat their children in school." [p. 115]

Most anarchists believe that, just as charity begins at home, so does
the anarchist revolution. As some anarchists raise their own children in 
capitalist society and/or are involved in the raising and education of the
children of other parents, they can practice in part libertarian 
principles even before the revolution. Hence we think it is important 
to discuss libertarian child rearing in some detail. 

J.6.1 What are the main principles of raising free children and the main
      obstacles to implementing those principles? 

Let's consider the obstacles first. As Reich points out, the biggest one
is the training and character of most parents, physicians, and educators. 
Based on his clinical experience, Reich maintained that virtually all
adults in our society have some degree of psychological problems, which 
is manifested somatically as a rigid muscular "armour": chronic muscular 
tensions and spasms in various regions of the body. One of the main 
functions of this armour is to inhibit the pleasurable sensations of 
life-energy that naturally "stream" or flow through an unarmoured body. 
Reich postulated that there is one basic bioenergy ("orgone") in the body, 
identical with what Freud called "libido," which, besides animating the 
tissues and organs is also the energy of sex and the emotions (we should 
note that most anarchists do not subscribe to Reich's idea of "orgone" - 
the existence of which, we may note, has not been proved. However, the 
idea of character armour, by which individuals within a hierarchical 
society create psychological walls/defences around themselves is one 
most anarchists accept. Such walls will obviously have an effect both on
the mental and physical state of the individual, and their capacity 
for living a free life and experiencing pleasure). This means that the 
pleasurable "streamings" of this bioenergy, which can be felt when the 
muscular armour is relaxed, have an erotic or "libidinous" quality. Thus 
an unarmoured organism (such as a new-born infant) automatically experiences 
pleasure with every breath, a pleasure derived from perception of the 
natural bioenergetic processes within its body. Such a mode of being 
in the world makes life intrinsically worth living and renders 
superfluous all questions about its "meaning" or "purpose" -- questions 
that occur only to armoured people, who have lost contact with their 
bioenergetic core of bodily sensations (or it is distorted, and so is
changed from a source of pleasures to a source of suffering) and thus 
restricts their capacity to fully enjoy life. 

It is important for those involved in child rearing and education to
understand how armouring develops in the new-born child. Reich points out
that under the influence of a compulsive, pleasure-denying morality,
children are taught to inhibit the spontaneous flow of life-energy in 
the body. Similarly, they are taught to disregard most bodily sensations. 
Due to Oedipal conflicts in the patriarchal family (see below), parents 
usually take the most severely repressive disciplinary measures
against sexual expressions of life-energy in children. Thus, all erotic
feelings, including the erotically-tinged "streaming" sensations, come to
be regarded as "bad," "animalistic," etc., and so their perception begins
to arouse anxiety, which leads, among other bad results, to chronic 
muscular tensions as a way of cutting off or defending against such 
perceptions and their attendant anxiety. Shallow breathing, for example, 
reduces the amount of life-energy available to flow into excitation 
and emotion; tightening the muscles of the pelvic floor and abdomen 
reduces sexual feelings, and so on. As these tensions become chronic 
and unconscious, piling up in layer after layer of muscular armour, 
the person is eventually left with a feeling of inner emptiness or 
"deadness" and -- not surprisingly -- a lack of joy in life. 

For those who fail to build a stable physical and psychological armour 
around themselves to suppress these feelings and sensation, they just 
twist them and are flooded again and again with intense unpleasant 
feelings and sensations.

Muscular armouring has its most profound effect on back pains and various 
respiration problems. Reich found that the "normal" man or woman in our 
society *cannot* spontaneously take full, deep, natural breaths, which 
involves both the chest and abdomen. Instead, most people (except when 
making a conscious effort) restrict their breathing through unconscious 
tensing of various muscles. Since the natural response to any restriction 
in the ability to breathe is anxiety, people growing up in repressive 
cultures such as ours are plagued by a tendency toward chronic anxiety. 
As a defence against this anxiety, they develop further layers of 
muscular armouring, which further restricts their ability to breathe, 
and so on, in a vicious circle. In other words, it is *literally* 
true that, as Max Stirner said, one cannot "take breath" in our 
authoritarian society with its life-denying atmosphere based on 
punishments, threats, and fear. 

Of course sex is not the only expression of life-energy that parents try
to stifle in children. There are also, for example, the child's natural
vocal expressions (shouting, screaming, bellowing, crying, etc.) and
natural body motility. As Reich notes, 

"Small children go through a phase of development characterised by
vigorous activity of the voice musculature. The joy the infant derives
from loud noises (crying, shrieking, and forming a variety of sounds) is
regarded by many parents as pathological aggressiveness. The children are
accordingly admonished not to scream, to be "still," etc. The impulses of
the voice apparatus are inhibited, its musculature becomes chronically
contracted, and the child becomes quiet, "well-brought-up," and
withdrawn. The effect of such mistreatment is soon manifested in eating
disturbances, general apathy, pallor of the face, etc. Speech
disturbances and retardation of speech development are presumably caused
in this manner. In the adult we see the effects of such mistreatment in
the form of spasms of the throat. The automatic constrictions of the
glottis and the deep throat musculature, with subsequent inhibition of the
aggressive impulses of the head and neck, seems to be particularly
characteristic." [Op. Cit., p. 128]

(And we must add, that the suppression of the urge to move all children 
have is most destructive to the 15% or so of "Hyper-active" children,
whose urge to move is hard to suppress.)

"Clinical experience has taught us," Reich concludes, "that small children
must be allowed to 'shout themselves out' when the shouting is inspired by
pleasure. This might be disagreeable to some parents, but questions of
education must be decided *exclusively in the interests of the child,* not
in those of the adults." [Ibid.] 

Besides deadening the pleasurable streamings of life energy in the body,
muscular armouring also functions to inhibit the anxiety generated by the
presence of anti-social, cruel, and perverse impulses within the psyche
(impulses referred to by Reich as "secondary" drives) -- for example,
destructiveness, sadism, greed, power hunger, brutality, rape fantasies,
etc. Ironically, these secondary drives result from the *suppression of
the primary drives* (e.g. for sex, physical activity, vocal expression,
etc.) and the sensations of pleasure associated with them. The secondary
drives develop because, when muscular armouring sets in and a person loses
touch with his or her bioenergetic core and other emotional urges, 
the only emotional expressions that can get through the thick, hard 
wall of armour are distorted, harsh, and/or mechanical. Thus, for example, 
a heavily armoured person who tries to express love may find that the 
emotion is shredded by the wall of armour and comes out in distorted 
form as an impulse to hurt the person loved (sadism) -- an impulse 
that causes anxiety and then has to be repressed. In other words, 
compulsive morality (i.e. acting according to externally imposed 
rules) becomes necessary to control the secondary drives *which
compulsion itself creates.* By such processes, authoritarian
child-rearing becomes self-justifying. Thus: 

"Psychoanalysts have failed to distinguish between primary natural and
secondary perverse, cruel drives, and they are continuously killing nature
in the new-born while they try to extinguish the 'brutish little animal.' 
They are completely ignorant of the fact that it is *exactly this killing
of the natural principle which creates the secondary perverse and cruel
nature,* human nature so called, and that these artificial cultural
creations in turn make compulsive moralism and brutal laws necessary"
[Ibid., p. 17-18]. 

Moralism, however, can never get at the root of the problem of secondary
drives, but in fact only increases the pressure of crime and guilt. The
real solution is to let children develop what Reich calls *natural
self-regulation.* This can be done only by not subjecting them to
punishment, coercion, threats, moralistic lectures and admonitions,
withdrawal of love, etc. in an attempt to inhibit their spontaneous
expression of natural life-impulses. The systematic development of the
emphatic tendencies of the young infant is the best way to "socialise"
and restrict activities that are harmful to the others. As A.S. Neill 
points out, "self-regulation implies a belief in the goodness of human 
nature; a belief that there is not, and never was, original sin." 
[Op. Cit., p. 103]

According to Neill, children who are given freedom from birth and not
forced to conform to parental expectations spontaneously learn how to keep
themselves clean and develop social qualities like courtesy, common
sense, an interest in learning, respect for the rights of others, and so
forth (see next section). However, once the child has been armoured
through authoritarian methods intended to *force* it to develop such
qualities, it becomes what Reich calls "biopathic" -- out of touch with
its living core and therefore no longer able to develop self-regulation. 
In this stage it becomes harder and harder for the pro-social emotions
to shape the developing mode of life of the new member of society. At 
that point, when the secondary drives develop, parental authoritarianism 
becomes a *necessity.* As Reich puts it: 

"This close interrelation between biopathic behaviour and authoritarian
countermeasures seems to be automatic. Self-regulation appears to have no
place in and no influence upon emotions which do not come from the living
core directly but only as if through a thick hard wall. Moreover, one has
the impression that secondary drives cannot stand self-regulatory
conditions of existence. They force sharp discipline on the part of the
educator or parent. It is as if a child with an essentially
secondary-drive structure feels that it cannot function or exist without
disciplinary guidance. This is paralleled by the interlacing of
self-regulation in the healthy child with self-regulation in the
environment. Here the child cannot function unless it has freedom of
decision and movement. It cannot tolerate discipline any more than the
armoured child can tolerate freedom." 

This inability to tolerate freedom, which the vast majority of people
develop *automatically* from the way they are raised, is what makes the
whole subject of armouring and its prevention of crucial importance to
anarchists. Reich concludes that if parents do not suppress nature in 
the first place, then no anti-social drives will be created and no
authoritarianism will be required to suppress them: "*What you so
desperately and vainly try to achieve by way of compulsion and admonition
is there in the new-born infant ready to live and function. Let it grow as
nature requires, and change our institutions accordingly*" [Ibid., p. 47,
italics in original].

As Alexander Lowen points out in _Fear of Life_, parents are particularly
anxious to suppress the sexual expressions of life energy in their
children because of unresolved Oedipal conflicts within themselves. 

Hence, in order to raise psychologically healthy children, parents need 
to acquire self-knowledge, particularly of how Oedipal conflicts, sibling
rivalry, and other internal conflicts develop in family relationships, 
and to free themselves as much as possible from neurotic forms of 
armouring. The difficulty of parents acquiring such self-knowledge 
and sufficiently de-conditioning themselves is obviously another 
obstacle to raising self-regulated children.

However, the greatest obstacle is the fact that armouring and other
twisting mechanisms set in so very early in life, i.e. soon after 
birth. Reich emphasises that *with the first armour blockings, the 
infant's self-regulatory powers begin to wane.* "They become steadily 
weaker as the armouring spreads over the whole organism, and they *must* 
be replaced by compulsive, moral principles if the child is to exist 
and survive in its given environment." [Ibid., pp. 44-45] Hence it 
is important for parents to obtain a thorough knowledge of what 
armouring and other rigid suppressions are and how they function, 
so that from the beginning they can prevent (or at least decrease) 
them from forming in their children. Some practical examples of how 
this can be done will be discussed in the next section. 

Finally, Reich cautions that it is crucial to avoid any mixing of
concepts. "One cannot mix a bit of self-regulation with a bit of moral
demand. Either we trust nature as basically decent and self-regulatory or
we do not, and then there is only one way, that of training by
compulsion. It is essential to grasp the fact that the two ways of
upbringing do not go together." [Ibid., p. 46]

J.6.2. What are some examples of libertarian child-rearing methods
       applied to the care of new-born infants?

According to Reich, the problems of parenting a free child actually begin 
before conception, with the need for a prospective mother to free herself 
as much as possible from chronic muscular tensions, especially in the 
pelvic area, which may inhibit the optimal development of a foetus. As 
Reich points out, the mother's body provides the environment for the 
child from the moment the embryo is formed until the moment of birth, 
and strong muscular armouring in her pelvis as a result of sexual 
repression or other emotional problems is very detrimental. Such a
mother will have a bioenergetically "dead" and possibly spastic uterus,
which can traumatise an infant even before it is born by reducing the
circulation of blood and body fluids and making the energy metabolism
inefficient, thus damaging the child's vitality. 

Moreover, it has been found in many studies that not only the physical 
health of the mother can influence the foetus. Various psychological 
stresses influence the chemical and hormonal environment, affecting 
the foetus. Even short ones, when acute, can have significant effects 
on it.

Immediately after birth, it is important for the mother to establish
contact with her child. This means, basically, constant loving 
attention to the baby, expressed by plenty of holding, cuddling,
playing, etc., and especially by breast feeding. By such "orgonotic"
contact (to use Reich's term), the mother is able to establish the
initial emotional bonding with the new born, and a non-verbal 
understanding of the child's needs. This is only possible, however, 
if she is in touch with her own internal processes - emotional
and cognitive - and bioenergetic core, i.e. is not too neurotically 
armoured (in Reich's terminology). Thus: 

"The orgonotic sense of contact, a function of the . . . energy field of
both the mother and the child, is unknown to most specialists; however,
the old country doctor knew it well. . . . *Orgonotic contact is the most
essential experiential and emotional element in the interrelationship
between mother and child,* particularly prenatally and during the first
days and weeks of life. The future fate of the child depends on it. It
seems to be the core of the new-born infant's emotional development." [Ibid.
p. 99] It is less crucial but still important for the father to
establish orgonotic contact as well, although since fathers lack the
primary means of establishing it -- namely the ability to breast feed --
their contact can never be as close as the mother's (see below). 

A new-born child has only one way of expressing its needs: through
crying. Crying has many nuances and can convey much more than the 
level of distress of the child. If a mother is unable to establish 
contact at the most basic emotional ("bioenergetic," according to
Reich) level, she will be unable to understand intuitively what needs 
the child is expressing through its crying. Any unmet needs will 
in turn be felt by the child as a deprivation, to which it will 
respond with a wide array of negative emotions and deleterious 
physiological processes and emotional tension. If continued for 
long, such tensions can become chronic and thus the beginning of 
"armouring" and adaptation to a "cruel" reality. 

The most important factor in the establishment of bonding is the 
tender physical contact between mother and infant is undoubtedly 
breast feeding. Thus: 

"The most salient place of contact in the infant's body is the
bioenergetically highly charged mouth and throat. This body organ reaches
out immediately for gratification. *If the nipple of the mother reacts to
the infant's sucking movements in a biophysically normal manner with
sensations of pleasure, it will become strongly erect and the orgonotic
excitation of the nipple will become one with that of the infant's mouth,
just as in the orastically gratifying sexual act, in which the male and
female genitals luminate and fuse orgonotically*. There is nothing
'abnormal' or 'disgusting' in this. Every healthy mother experiences the
sucking as pleasure and yields to it. . . . However, about 80 percent of
all women suffer from vaginal anaesthesia and frigidity. Their nipples
are correspondingly anorgonotic, i.e. 'dead.' The mother may develop
anxiety or loathing in response to what would naturally be a sensation of
pleasure aroused in the breast by the infant's sucking. This is why so
many mothers do not want to nurse their babies." [pp. 115-116] 

Reich and other libertarian psychologists therefore maintain that the
practice of bottle feeding is harmful, particularly if it completely
replaces breast feeding from the day of birth, because it eliminates one
of the most important forms of establishing bioenergetic contact between
mother and child. This lack of contact can then contribute in later life
to "oral" forms of neurotic character structure or traits. (For more on
these, see Alexander Lowen, _Physical Dynamics of Character Structure_,
Chapter 9, "The Oral Character"]. Lowen believes that the practice of
breast feeding should be continued for about three years, as it usually is
among "primitive" peoples, and that weaning before this time is 
experienced as a major trauma. "[I]f the breast is available to a child
for about three years, which I believe to be the time required to fulfil
a child's oral needs, weaning causes very little trauma, since the loss of
this pleasure is offset by the many other pleasures the child can then
have." [_Depression and the Body_, p. 133]

Another harmful practice in infant care is the compulsive-neurotic method
of feeding children on schedule, invented by Pirquet in Vienna, which "was
devastatingly wrong and harmful to countless children." Frustration of
oral needs through this practice (which is fortunately less in vogue now
than it was fifty years ago), is guaranteed to produce neurotic armouring
in infants. 

As Reich puts it, "As long as parents, doctors, and educators approach
infants with false, unbending behaviour, inflexible opinions,
condescension, and officiousness, instead of with orgonotic contact,
infants will continue to be quiet, withdrawn, apathetic, "autistic,"
"peculiar," and, later, "little wild animals," whom the cultivated feel
they have to "tame." [Op. Cit. p. 124]

Another harmful practice is allowing the baby to "cry itself out." Thus: 
"Parking a baby in a baby carriage in the garden, perhaps for hours at a
time, is a dangerous practice. No one can know what agonising feelings of
fear and loneliness a baby can experience on waking up suddenly to find
himself alone in a strange place. Those who have heard a baby's screams
on such occasions have some idea of the cruelty of this stupid custom." 
[Neill, _Summerhill_, p. 336] Indeed, in _The Physical Dynamics of
Character Structure_, Lowen has traced specific neuroses, particularly
depression, to this practice. Hospitals also have been guilty of
psychologically damaging sick infants by isolating them from their 
mothers, a practice that has undoubtedly produced untold numbers of 
neurotics and psychopaths. 

Also, as Reich notes, "the sadistic habit of circumcision will soon be
recognised as the senseless, fanatical cruelty it truly is." [Op. Cit., p.
68] He remarks that he has observed infants who took over two weeks to
"recover" from the trauma of circumcision, a "recovery" that left
permanent psychological scars in the form of chronic muscular tensions in
the pelvic floor. These tensions form the first layer of pelvic armouring,
to which sexual repression and other inhibitions (especially those
acquired during toilet training) later add. 

The diaphragm, however, is perhaps the most important area to protect from
early armouring. After observing infants for several years in a research
setting, Reich concluded that armouring in babies usually appears first as
a blocking of free respiration, expressed as harsh, rough, uneven, or
laboured breathing, which may lead to colds, coughs, bronchitis, etc. 

"The early blocking of respiration seemed to gain importance rapidly as
more children were observed. Somehow the diaphragmatic region appeared to
respond first and most severely to emotional, bioenergetic discomfort."
[Ibid., p. 110] Hence the infant's breathing is a key indicator of its
emotional health, and any disturbance is a signal that something is
wrong. Or, as Neill puts it, "The sign of a well-reared child is his
free, uninhibited breathing. It shows that he is not afraid of life" 
[Op. Cit., p. 131]. 

Neill sums up the libertarian attitude toward the care of infants as
follows: "*Self-regulation means the right of a baby to live freely
without outside authority in things psychic and somatic*. It means that
the baby feeds when it is hungry; that it becomes clean in habits only
when it wants to; that it is never stormed at nor spanked; that it is
always loved and protected." [Op. Cit. p. 105]

Obviously self-regulation doesn't mean leaving the baby alone
when it heads toward a cliff or starts playing with an electrical
socket. Anarchists do not advocate a lack of common sense. We
recognise that adults must override an infant's will when it is a question
of protecting its physical safety. As Neill writes, "Only a fool in charge
of young children would allow unbarred bedroom windows or an unprotected
fire in the nursery. Yet, too often, young enthusiasts for
self-regulation come to my school as visitors, and exclaim at our lack of
freedom in locking poison in a lab closet, or our prohibition about
playing on the fire escape. The whole freedom movement is marred and
despised because so many advocates of freedom have not got their feet on
the ground." [Ibid., p. 106]

Nevertheless, the libertarian position does not imply that a child should
be *punished* for getting into a dangerous situation. Nor is the best 
thing to do in such a case to shout in alarm (unless that is the
only way to warn the child before it is too late), but simply to remove the
danger without any fuss. As Neill says, "Unless a child is mentally
defective, he will soon discover what interests him. Left free from
excited cries and angry voices, he will be unbelievably sensible in his
dealing with material of all kinds." [Ibid., p. 108] Provided, of course,
that he or she has been allowed self-regulation from the beginning, and 
thus has not developed any irrational, secondary drives. 

J.6.3 What are some examples of libertarian child-rearing methods
      applied to the care of young children? 

The way to raise a free child becomes clear when one considers how
an *un*free child is raised. Thus imagine the typical infant, John Smith,
whose upbringing A.S. Neill describes: 

"His natural functions were left alone during the diaper period. But when
he began to crawl and perform on the floor, words like *naughty* and
*dirty* began to float about the house, and a grim beginning was made in
teaching him to be clean.

"Before this, his hand had been taken away every time it touched his
genitals; and he soon came to associate the genital prohibition with the
acquired disgust about faeces. Thus, years later, when he became a
travelling salesman, his story repertoire consisted of a balanced number of
sex and toilet jokes.
 
"Much of his training was conditioned by relatives and neighbours. 
Mother and father were most anxious to be correct -- to do the proper
thing -- so that when relatives or next-door neighbours came, John had to
show himself as a well-trained child. He had to say *Thank you* when
Auntie gave him a piece of chocolate; and he had to be most careful about
his table manners; and especially, he had to refrain from speaking when
adults were speaking." [_Summerhill_, p. 97]

When he was little older, things got worse for John. "All his
curiosity about the origins of life were met with clumsy lies, lies so
effective that his curiosity about life and birth disappeared. The lies
about life became combined with fears when at the age of five his mother
found him having genital play with his sister of four and the girl next
door. The severe spanking that followed (Father added to it when he came
home from work) forever conveyed to John the lesson that sex is filthy and
sinful, something one must not even think of." [Ibid.]

Of course, parents' ways of imparting negative messages about sex are not
necessarily this severe, especially in our allegedly enlightened age. 
However, it is not necessary for a child to be spanked or even scolded or
lectured in order to acquire a sex-negative attitude. Children are very
intuitive and will receive the message "sex is bad" from subtle parental
cues like facial expressions, tone of voice, embarrassed silence,
avoidance of certain topics, etc. Mere "toleration" of sexual curiosity
and play is far different in its psychological effects from positive
affirmation. 

Based on the findings of clinical psychiatry, Reich postulated a "first
puberty" in children, from the ages of about 3 to 6, when the child's
attention shifts from the satisfaction of oral needs to an interest in its
sexuality -- a stage characterised by genital play of all kinds. The
parents' task at this stage is not only to allow children to engage in such
play, but to encourage it. "In the child, before the age of four or five,
genitality has not yet fully developed. The task here plainly consists of
removing the obstacles in the way of natural development toward full
genitality. To fulfil this task, we must agree that a first puberty in
children exists; that genital games are the peak of its development; that
lack of genital activity is a sign of sickness and not of health, as
previously assumed; and that healthy children play genital games of all
kinds, which should be encouraged and not hindered." [_Children of the
Future_, p. 66]

Along the same lines, to prevent the formation of sex-negative attitudes
means that nakedness should never be discouraged. "The baby should see
its parents naked from the beginning. However, the child should be told
when he is ready to understand that some people don't like to see children
naked and that, in the presence of such people, he should wear clothes." 
[Neill, _Summerhill_, p. 229]

Neill maintains that not only should parents never spank or punish a child
for genital play, but that spanking and other forms of punishment should
never be used in *any* circumstances, because they instil fear, turning
children into cowards and often leading to phobias. "Fear must be
entirely eliminated -- fear of adults, fear of punishment, fear of
disapproval, fear of God. Only hate can flourish in an atmosphere of
fear." [Ibid., p. 124]

Punishment also turns children into sadists. "The cruelty of many
children springs from the cruelty that has been practised on them by
adults. You cannot be beaten without wishing to beat someone else. . .
Every beating makes a child sadistic in desire or practice." [Ibid., p. 269,
271] This is obviously an important consideration to anarchists, as
sadistic drives provide the psychological ground for militarism, war,
police brutality, and so on. Such drives are undoubtedly also part of the
desire to exercise hierarchical authority, with its possibilities for
using negative sanctions against subordinates as an outlet for
sadistic impulses. 

Child beating is particularly cowardly because it is a way for adults to
vent their hatred, frustration, and sadism on those who are unable to
defend themselves. Such cruelty is, of course, always rationalised with
excuse like "it hurts me more than it does you," etc., or explained in
moral terms, like "I don't want my boy to be soft" or "I want him to
prepare him for a harsh world" or "I spank my children because my parents
spanked me, and it did me a hell of a lot of good." But despite such
rationalisations, the fact remains that punishment is always an act of
hate. To this hate, the child responds in kind by hating the parents,
followed by fantasy, guilt, and repression. For example, the child may 
fantasise the father's death, which immediately causes guilt, and so is
repressed. Often the hatred induced by punishment emerges in fantasies
that are seemingly remote from the parents, such as stories of giant
killing -- always popular with children because the giant represents
the father. Obviously, the sense of guilt produced by such fantasies is 
very advantageous to organised religions that promise redemption from "sin." 
It is surely no coincidence that such religions are enthusiastic promoters
of the sex-negative morality and disciplinarian child rearing practices
that keep supplying them with recruits.

What is worse, however, is that punishment actually *creates* "problem
children." This is so because the parent arouses more and more hatred 
(and diminishing trust in other human beings) in the child with each 
spanking, which is expressed in still worse behaviour, calling for more 
spankings, and so on, in a vicious circle. In contrast, "The 
self-regulated child does not need any punishment," Neill argues, "and 
he does not go through this hate cycle. He is never punished and he does 
not need to behave badly. He has no use for lying and for breaking things. 
His body has never been called filthy or wicked. He has not needed to
rebel against authority or to fear his parents. Tantrums he will usually
have, but they will be short-lived and not tend toward neurosis." [Ibid.,
p. 166]

We could cite many further examples of how libertarian principles of
child-rearing can be applied in practice, but we must limit ourselves to
these few. The basic principles can be summed up as follows: Get rid of
authority, moralism, and the desire to "improve" and "civilise" children. 
Allow them to be themselves, without pushing them around, bribing,
threatening, admonishing, lecturing, or otherwise forcing them to do
anything. Refrain from action unless the child, by expressing their
"freedom" restricts the freedom of others and *explain* what is wrong
about such actions and never mechanically punish.

This is, of course, a radical philosophy, which few parents are willing to
follow. It is quite amazing how people who call themselves libertarians
in political and economic matters draw the line when it comes to their
behaviour within the family -- as if such behaviour had no wider social
consequences! Hence, the opponents of children's freedom are legion, as
are their objections to libertarian child rearing. In the next few sections
we will examine some of the most common of these objections.

J.6.4 If children have nothing to fear, how can they be good? 

Obedience that is based on fear of punishment, this-worldly or
otherworldly, is not really goodness, it is merely cowardice. True
morality (i.e. respect for others and one-self) comes from inner 
conviction based on experience, it cannot be imposed from without 
by fear. Nor can it be inspired by hope of reward, such as praise or 
the promise of heaven, which is simply bribery. As noted in the 
previous section, if children are given as much freedom as possible
from the day of birth and not forced to conform to parental expectations, 
they will spontaneously learn the basic principles of social behaviour, 
such as cleanliness, courtesy, and so forth. But they must be allowed to 
develop them *at their own speed,* at the natural stage of their growth, 
not when parents think they should develop them. And what is "natural" 
timing must be discovered by observation, not by defining it a priori 
based on one's own expectations.

Can a child really be taught to keep itself clean without being punished
for getting dirty? According to many psychologists, it is not only
possible but *vitally important* for the child's mental health to do so,
since punishment will give the child a fixed and repressed interest in his
bodily functions. As Reich and Lowen have shown, for example, various
forms of compulsive and obsessive neuroses can be traced back to the
punishments used in toilet training. Dogs, cats, horses, and cows have no
complexes about excrement. Complexes in human children come from the
manner of their instruction. 

As Neill observes, "When the mother says *naughty* or *dirty* or even
*tut tut*, the element of right and wrong arises. The question becomes a
*moral* one -- when it should remain a *physical* one." He suggests that
the *wrong* way to deal with a child who likes to play with faeces is to
tell him he is being dirty. "The right way is to allow him to live out
his interest in excrement by providing him with mud or clay. In this way,
he will sublimate his interest without repression. He will live through
his interest; and in doing so, kill it." [_Summerhill_, p. 174]

Similarly, sceptics will probably question how children can be induced to
eat a healthy diet without threats of punishment. The answer can be
discovered by a simple experiment: set out on the table all kinds of
foods, from candy and ice cream to whole wheat bread, lettuce, sprouts,
and so on, and allow the child complete freedom to choose what is desired
or to eat nothing at all if he or she is not hungry. Parents will find
that the average child will begin choosing a balanced diet after about 
a week, after the desire for prohibited or restricted foods has been
satisfied. This is an example of what can be called "trusting nature." 
That the question of how to "train" a child to eat properly should even be
an issue says volumes about how little the concept of freedom for children
is accepted or even understood, in our society. Unfortunately, the
concept of "training" still holds the field in this and most other areas. 

The disciplinarian argument that that children must be *forced* to respect
property is also defective, because it always requires some sacrifice of
a child's play life (and childhood should be devoted to play, not to
"preparing for adulthood," because playing is what children spontaneously 
do). The libertarian view is that a child should arrive at a sense of 
value out of his or her own free choice. This means not scolding or 
punishing them for breaking or damaging things. As they grow out of
the stage of preadolescent indifference to property, they learn to 
respect it naturally. 

"But shouldn't a child at least be punished for stealing?" it will be
asked. Once again, the answer lies in the idea of trusting nature. The
concept of "mine" and "yours" is adult, and children naturally develop it
as they become mature, but not before. This means that normal children
will "steal" -- though that is not how they regard it. They are simply
trying to satisfy their acquisitive impulses; or, if they are with friends,
their desire for adventure. In a society so thoroughly steeping in the
idea of respect for property as ours, it is no doubt difficult for parents
to resist societal pressure to punish children for "stealing." The reward
for such trust, however, will be a child who grows into a healthy
adolescent who respects the possessions of others, not out of a cowardly
fear of punishment but from his or her own self-nature. 

J.6.5 But how can children learn *ethics* if they are not given
      punishments, prohibitions, and religious instruction? 

Most parents believe that, besides taking care of their child's physical
needs, the teaching of ethical/moral values is their main responsibility 
and that without such teaching the child will grow up to be a "little wild 
animal" who acts on every whim, with no consideration for others. This idea
arises mainly from the fact that most people in our society believe, at
least passively, that human beings are naturally bad and that unless they
are "trained" to be good they will be lazy, mean, violent, or even
murderous. This, of course, is essentially the idea of "original sin." 
Because of its widespread acceptance, nearly all adults believe that it is
their job to "improve" children. 

According to libertarian psychologists, however, there is no original
sin. In fact, it would be more accurate to say that there is "original
virtue." As we have seen, Reich found that externally imposed,
compulsive morality actually *causes* immoral behaviour by creating cruel
and perverse "secondary drives." Neill puts it this way: "I find that
when I smash the moral instruction a bad boy has received, he becomes a
good boy." [_Summerhill_, p. 250] 

Unconscious acceptance of some form of the idea of original sin is, as
mentioned previously, the main recruiting tool of organised religions, as
people who believe they are born "sinners" feel a strong sense of guilt
and need for redemption. Therefore Neill advises parents to "eliminate
any need for redemption, by telling the child that he is born good -- not
born bad." This will help keep them from falling under the influence of
life-denying religions, which are inimical to the growth of a healthy 
character structure. 

As Reich points out, "The Church, because of its influence on the
sexuality of youth, is an institution that exerts an extremely damaging
effect on health." [_Children of the Future_, p. 217] Citing ethnological
studies, he notes the following: 

"Among those primitive peoples who lead satisfactory, unimpaired sexual
lives, there is no sexual crime, no sexual perversion, no sexual brutality
between man and woman; rape is unthinkable because it is unnecessary in
their society. Their sexual activity flows in normal, well-ordered
channels which would fill any cleric with indignation and fear, because
the pale, ascetic youth and the gossiping, child-beating woman do not
exist in these primitive societies. They love the human body and take
pleasure in their sexuality. They do not understand why young men and
women should not enjoy their sexuality. But when their lives are invaded
by the ascetic, hypocritical morass and by the Church, which bring them
'culture' along with exploitation, alcohol, and syphilis, they begin to
suffer the same wretchedness as ourselves. They begin to lead "moral"
lives, i.e. to suppress their sexuality, and from then on they decline
more and more into a state of sexual distress, which is the result of
sexual suppression. At the same time, they become sexually dangerous;
murders of spouses, sexual diseases, and crimes of all sorts start to 
appear." [Ibid., p. 193] 

Such crimes in our society would be greatly reduced if libertarian child
rearing practices were widely followed. These are obviously important
considerations for anarchists, who are frequently asked to explain how
crime can be prevented in an anarchist society. The answer is that if
people are not suppressed during childhood there will be far less crime,
because the secondary-drive structure that leads to anti-social behaviour
of all kinds will not be created in the first place. In other words, the
solution to the so-called crime problem is not more police, more laws, or a
return to the disciplinarianism of "traditional family values," as
conservatives claim, but depends mainly on *getting rid* of such 
values. 

There are other problems as well with the moralism taught by organised
religions. One danger is making the child a hater. "If a child is taught
that certain things are sinful, his love of life must be changed to hate. 
When children are free, they never think of another child as being a
sinner." [Neill, Op. Cit., p. 245] From the idea that certain people are
sinners, it is a short step to the idea that certain classes or races 
of people are more "sinful" than others, leading to prejudice,
discrimination, and persecution of minorities as an outlet for repressed
anger and sadistic drives -- drives that are created in the first place by
moralistic training during early childhood. Once again, the relevance 
for anarchism is obvious. 

A further danger of religious instruction is the development of a fear of
life. "Religion to a child most always means only fear. God is a mighty
man with holes in his eyelids: He can see you wherever you are. To a
child, this often means that God can see what is being done under the
bedclothes. And to introduce fear into a child's life is the worst of all
crimes. Forever the child says nay to life; forever he is an inferior;
forever a coward." [Ibid., p. 246] People who have been threatened with
fear of an afterlife in hell can never be entirely free of neurotic
anxiety about security in *this* life. In turn, such people become easy
targets of ruling-class propaganda that plays upon their material
insecurity, e.g. the rationalisation of imperialistic wars as necessary to
"preserve jobs" (cited, for example, by US Secretary of State James Baker
as one rationale for the Gulf War). 

J.6.6 But how will a free child ever learn unselfishness?
 
Another common objection to self-regulation is that children can only be
taught to be *unselfish* through punishment and admonition. Again,
however, such a view comes from a distrust of nature and is part of the
common attitude that nature is mere "raw material" to be shaped by human 
beings according to their own wishes. The libertarian attitude is that
unselfishness develops at the proper time -- which is *not* during
childhood. Children are primarily egoists, generally until the beginning
of puberty, and until then they usually don't have the ability to identify
with others. Thus: 

"To ask a child to be unselfish is wrong. Every child is an egoist and
the world belongs to him. When he has an apple, his one wish is to eat
that apple. The chief result of mother's encouraging him to share it with
his little brother is to make him hate the little brother. Altruism comes
later -- comes naturally -- *if the child is not taught to be unselfish.* 
It probably never comes at all if the child has been forced to be
unselfish. By suppressing the child's selfishness, the mother is fixing
that selfishness forever." [Neill, Op. Cit., pp. 250-251]

Unfulfilled wishes (like all "unfinished business") live on in the 
unconscious. Hence children who are pressured too hard - "taught" - 
to be unselfish will, while conforming outwardly with parental
demands, unconsciously repress part of their real, selfish wishes, and 
these repressed infantile desires will make the person selfish (and 
possibly neurotic) throughout life. Moreover, telling children that what 
they want to do is "wrong" or "bad" is equivalent to teaching them to 
hate themselves, and it is a well-known principle of psychology that 
people who do not love themselves cannot love others. Thus moral 
instruction, although it aims to develop altruism and love for others, 
is actually self-defeating, having just the opposite result. 

Moreover, such attempts to produce "unselfish" children (and so adults) 
actually works *against* developing the individuality of the child and
their abilities to develop their own abilities (in particular their
ability of critical thought). As Erich Fromm puts it, "[n]ot to be selfish
implies not to do what one wishes, to give up one's own wishes for the
sake of those in authority. . . Aside from its obvious implication, it
means 'don't love yourself,' 'don't be yourself', but submit yourself to
something more important than yourself, to an outside power or its
internalisation, 'duty.' 'Don't be selfish' becomes one of the most
powerful ideological tools in suppressing spontaneity and the free
development of personality. Under the pressure of this slogan one is
asked for every sacrifice and for complete submission: only those acts
are 'unselfish' which do not serve the individual but somebody or something
outside himself." [_Man for Himself_, p. 127]

While such "unselfishness" is ideal for creating "model citizens" and
willing wage slaves, it is not conducive for creating anarchists or
even developing individuality. Little wonder Bakunin celebrated the
urge to rebel and saw it as the key to human progress! Fromm goes on to
note that selfishness and self-love, "far from being identical, are actually 
opposites" and that "selfish persons are incapable of loving others. . .
[or] loving themselves..." [Op. Cit., p. 131] Individuals who do not love
themselves, and so others, will be more willing to submit themselves to 
hierarchy than those who do love themselves and are concerned for their
own, and others, welfare. Thus the contradictory nature of capitalism,
with its contradictory appeals to selfish and unselfish behaviour, can be
understood as being based upon lack of self-love, a lack which is promoted
in childhood and one which libertarians should be aware of and combat.

Indeed, much of the urge to "teach children unselfishness" is actually an
expression of adults' will to power. Whenever parents feel the urge to
impose directives on their children, they would be wise to ask themselves
whether the impulse comes from their own power drive or their own 
selfishness. For, since our culture strongly conditions us to seek power 
over others, what could be more convenient than having a small, weak 
person at hand who cannot resist one's will to power? Instead of issuing 
directives, libertarians believe in letting social behaviour develop 
naturally, which it will do after other people's opinions becomes 
important *to the child.* As Neill points out, "Everyone seeks the good 
opinion of his neighbours. Unless other forces push him into unsocial 
behaviour, a child will naturally want to do that which will cause him 
to be well-regarded, but this desire to please others develops at a 
certain stage in his growth. The attempt by parents and teachers to 
artificially accelerate this stage does the child irreparable damage." 
[Neill, Op. Cit., p. 256]

Therefore, parents should allow children to be "selfish" and "ungiving", 
free to follow their own childish interests throughout their childhood. And
when their individual interests clash with social interests (e.g. the
opinion of the neighbours), the individual interests should take precedence.
Every interpersonal conflict of interest should be grounds for a lesson 
in dignity on one side and consideration on the other. Only by this process
can a child develop their individuality. By so doing they will come to 
recognise the individuality of others and this is the first step in 
developing ethical concepts (which rest upon mutual respect for others 
and their individuality).

J.6.7 Isn't what you call "libertarian child-rearing" just another name
      for spoiling the child? 

No. This objection confuses the distinction between freedom and license. 
To raise a child in freedom does not mean letting him or her walk all over
you; it does not mean never saying "no." It is true that free children
are not subjected to punishment, irrational authority, or moralistic
admonitions, but they are not "free" to violate the rights of others. As
Neill puts it, "in the disciplined home, the children have *no* rights. 
In the spoiled home, they have *all* the rights. The proper home is one
in which children and adults have equal rights." Or again, "To let a
child have his own way, or do what he wants to *at another's expense,* is
bad for the child. It creates a spoiled child, and the spoiled child is a
bad citizen." [_Summerhill_, p. 107, 167]

There will inevitably be conflicts of will between parents and children,
and the healthy way to resolve them is to come to some sort of a
compromise agreement. The unhealthy ways are either to resort to
authoritarian discipline or to spoil the child by allowing it to have all
the social rights. Libertarian psychologists argue that no harm is done
to children by insisting on one's individual rights, but that the harm
comes from moralism, i.e. when one introduces the concepts of right and
wrong or words like "naughty," "bad," or "dirty," which produce guilt.
 
Therefore it should not be thought that free children are free to "do as
they please." Freedom means doing what one likes so long as it doesn't
infringe on the freedom of others. Thus there is a big difference between
compelling a child to stop throwing stones at others and compelling him or
her to learn geometry. Throwing stones infringes on others' rights, but
learning geometry involves only the child. The same goes for forcing
children to eat with a fork instead of their fingers; to say "please" and
"thank you;" to tidy up their rooms, and so on. Bad manners and
untidiness may be annoying to adults, but they are not a violation of 
adults' rights. One could, of course, define an adult "right" to be free
of annoyance from *anything* one's child does, but this would simply
be a license for authoritarianism, emptying the concept of children's
rights of all content. 

As mentioned, giving children freedom does not mean allowing them to
endanger themselves physically. For example, a sick child should not 
be asked to decide whether he wants to go outdoors or take his 
prescribed medicine, nor a run-down and overtired child whether she 
wants to go to bed. But the imposition of such forms of necessary 
authority is compatible with the idea that children should be given as 
much responsibility as they can handle at their particular age. For only 
in this way can they develop self-assurance. And again, it is important for
parents to examine their own motives when deciding how much responsibility
to give their child. Parents who insist on choosing their children's'
clothes for them, for example, are generally worried that little Tommy
might select clothes that would reflect badly on his parents' social
standing. 

As for those who equate "discipline" in the home with "obedience," the
latter is usually required of a child to satisfy the adults' desire for
power. Self-regulation means that there are no power games being played
with children, no loud voice saying "You'll do it because I say so, or
else!" But, although this irrational, power-seeking kind of authority is
absent in the libertarian home, there still remains what can be called a
kind of "authority," namely adult protection, care, and responsibility, as
well as the insistence on one's own rights. As Neill observes, "Such
authority sometimes demands obedience but at other times gives obedience. 
Thus I can say to my daughter, 'You can't bring that mud and water into
our parlour.' That's no more than her saying to me, 'Get out of my room,
Daddy. I don't want you here now,' a wish that I, of course, obey without
a word" [Op Cit., p. 156]. Therefore there will still be "discipline" in
the libertarian home, but it will be of the kind that protects the
individual rights of each family member. 

Raising children in freedom also does not imply giving them a lot of toys,
money, and so on. Reichians have argued that children should not be given
everything they ask for and that it is better to give them too little than
too much. Under constant bombardment by commercial advertising campaigns,
parents today generally tend to give their children far too much, with the
result that the children stop appreciating gifts and rarely value any of
their possessions. This same applies to money, which, if given in excess,
can be detrimental to children's' creativity and play life. If children
are not given too many toys, they will derive creative joy out of making
their own toys out of whatever free materials are at hand -- a joy of
which they are robbed by overindulgence. Psychologists point out that
parents who give too many presents are often trying to compensate for
giving too little love. 

There is less danger in rewarding children than there is in punishing
them, but rewards can still undermine a child's morale. This is because,
firstly, rewards are superfluous and in fact often *decrease* motivation
and creativity, as several psychological studies have shown (see section
I.4.10). Creative people work for the pleasure of creating; monetary
interests are not central (or necessary) to the creative process. Secondly, 
rewards send the wrong message, namely, that doing the deed for which the 
reward is offered is not worth doing for its own sake and the pleasure 
associated with productive, creative activity. And thirdly, rewards 
tend to reinforce the worst aspects of the competitive system, leading to 
the attitude that money is the only thing which can motivate people to do 
the work that needs doing in society. 

These are just a few of the considerations that enter into the distinction
between spoiling children and raising them in freedom. In reality, it 
is the punishment and fear of a disciplinarian home that *spoils* 
children in the most literal sense, by destroying their childhood 
happiness and creating warped personalities. As adults, the victims of
disciplinarianism will generally be burdened with one or more anti-social
secondary drives such as sadism, destructive urges, greed, sexual
perversions, etc., as well as repressed rage and fear. The presence of
such impulses just below the surface of consciousness causes anxiety,
which is automatically defended against by layers of rigid muscular
armouring, which leaves the person stiff, frustrated, bitter, and burdened
with feelings of inner emptiness. In such a condition, people easily fall
victim to the capitalist gospel of super-consumption, which promises that
money will enable them to fill the inner void by purchasing commodities --
a promise that, of course, is hollow. 

The neurotically armoured person also tends to look for scapegoats on whom
to blame his or her frustration and anxiety and against whom repressed 
rage can be vented. Reactionary politicians know very well how to direct
such impulses against minorities or "hostile nations" with propaganda
designed to serve the interests of the ruling elite. Most importantly,
however, the respect for authority combined with sadistic impulses which
is acquired from a disciplinarian upbringing typically produces a
submissive/authoritarian personality -- a man or woman who blindly follows
the orders of "superiors" while at the same time desiring to exercise
authority on "subordinates," whether in the family, the state bureaucracy,
or the corporation. In this way, the "traditional" (e.g., authoritarian,
disciplinarian, patriarchal) family is the necessary foundation for 
authoritarian civilisation, reproducing it and its attendant social evils 
from generation to generation. Irving Staub's "Roots of Evil" includes 
interviews of imprisoned SS men, who, in the course of extensive interviews 
(meant to determine how ostensibly "normal" people could perform acts of 
untold ruthlessness and violence) revealed that they overwhelmingly came 
from authoritarian, disciplinarian homes.

J.6.8 What is the anarchist position on teenage sexual liberation? 

One of the biggest problems of adolescence is sexual suppression by
parents and society in general. The teenage years are the time when
sexual energy is at its height. Why, then, the absurd demand that
teenagers "wait until marriage," or at least until leaving home, before
becoming sexually active? Why are there laws on the books in "advanced"
countries like the United States that allow a 19-year-old "boy" who makes
love with his 17-year-old girlfriend, with her full consent, to be
*arrested* by the girl's parents (!) for "statutory rape?" 

To answer such questions, let us recall that the ruling class is 
not interested in encouraging mass tendencies toward democracy and
independence and pleasure not derived from commodities but instead 
supports whatever contributes to mass submissiveness, docility, 
dependence, helplessness, and respect for authority -- traits that 
perpetuate the hierarchies on which ruling-class power and privileges 
depend. 

We have noted earlier that, because sex is the most intense form of
pleasure (one of the most prominent contributors for intimacy and
bonding people) and involves the bioenergy of the body and emotions,
repression of sexuality is the most powerful means of psychologically
crippling people and giving them a submissive/authoritarian character
structure (as well as alienating people from each other). As Reich 
observes, such a character is composed of a mixture of "sexual 
impotence, helplessness, a need for attachments, a nostalgia for 
a leader, fear of authority, timidity, and mysticism." As he also 
points out, "people structured in this manner are *incapable of 
democracy.* All attempts to build up or maintain genuine democratically 
directed organisations come to grief when they encounter these character
structures. They form the psychological soil of the masses in which
dictatorial strivings and bureaucratic tendencies of democratically
elected leaders can develop. . . . [Sexual suppression] produces the 
authority-fearing, life-fearing vassal, and thus constantly creates new
possibilities whereby a handful of men in power can rule the masses." 
[_The Sexual Revolution: Toward a Self-Regulating Character Structure_, 
p. 82, emphasis added]

No doubt most members of the ruling elite are not fully conscious that
their own power and privileges depend on the mass perpetuation of
sex-negative attitudes. Nevertheless, they unconsciously sense it. 
Sexual freedom is the most basic and powerful kind, and every
conservative or reactionary instinctively shudders at the thought of 
the "social chaos" it would unleash -- that is, the rebellious,
authority-defying type of character it would nourish. This is why
"family values," and "religion" (i.e. discipline and compulsive sexual
morality) are the mainstays of the conservative/reactionary agenda. Thus
it is crucially important for anarchists to address every aspect of sexual
suppression in society. And this means affirming the right of adolescents
to an unrestricted sex life. 
 
There are numerous arguments for teenage sexual liberation. For example,
many teen suicides could be prevented by removing the restrictions on 
adolescent sexuality. This becomes clear from ethnological studies of
sexually unrepressive "primitive" peoples. Thus: 

"All reports, whether by missionaries or scholars, with or without the
proper indignation about the 'moral depravity' of 'savages,' state that
the puberty rites of adolescents lead them immediately into a sexual life;
that some of these primitive societies lay great emphasis on sexual
pleasure; that the puberty rite is an important social event; that some
primitive peoples not only do not hinder the sexual life of adolescents
but encourage it is every way, as, for instance, by arranging for
community houses in which the adolescents settle at the start of puberty
in order to be able to enjoy sexual intercourse. Even in those primitive
societies in which the institution of strict monogamous marriage exists,
adolescents are given complete freedom to enjoy sexual intercourse from
the beginning of puberty to marriage. None of these reports contains any
indication of sexual misery or suicide by adolescents suffering from
unrequited love (although the latter does of course occur). The
contradiction between sexual maturity and the absence of genital sexual
gratification is non-existent." [Ibid., p. 85]

Teenage sexual repression is also closely connected with crime. If there
are hundreds of teenagers in a neighbourhood who have no place to pursue
intimate sexual relationships, they will do it in dark corners, in cars 
or vans, etc., always on the alert and anxious lest someone discover them. 
Under such conditions, full gratification is impossible, leading to a 
build-up of tension, frustration and stagnation of bioenergy (sexual 
stasis). Thus they feel unsatisfied, disturb each other, become jealous 
and angry, get into fights, turn to drugs as a substitute for a 
satisfying sex life, vandalise property to let off "steam" (repressed 
rage), or even murder someone. As Reich notes, "juvenile delinquency 
is the visible expression of the subterranean sexual crisis in the 
lives of children and adolescents. And it may be predicted that no 
society will ever succeed in solving this problem, the problem of 
juvenile psychopathology, unless that society can muster the courage 
and acquire the knowledge to regulate the sexual life of its children 
and adolescents in a sex-affirmative manner." [Ibid., p. 271]

For these reasons, it is clear that a solution to the "gang problem" 
also depends on adolescent sexual liberation. We are not suggesting, of
course, that gangs themselves suppress sexual activity. Indeed, one of
their main attractions to teens is undoubtedly the hope of more
opportunities for sex as a gang member. However, gangs' typical
obsessiveness with the promiscuous, pornographic, sadistic, and other
"dark" aspects of sex shows that by the time children reach the gang age
they have already developed unhealthy secondary drives due to the
generally sex-negative and repressive environment in which they have grown
up. The expression of such drives is *not* what anarchists mean by "sexual
freedom." Rather, anarchist proposals for teenage liberation are based on
the premise that unrestricted sexuality in early childhood is the
necessary condition for a *healthy* sexual freedom in adolescence. 

Applying these insights to our own society, it is clear that teenagers 
should not only have ample access to a private room where they can be
undisturbed with their sexual partners, but that parents should actively
*encourage* such behaviour for the sake of their child's health and
happiness (while, of course, encouraging the knowledge and use of 
contraceptives and safe sex in general as well as respect for the other
person involved in the relationship). This last point (of respecting 
others) is essential. As Maurice Brinton points out, attempts at sexual
liberation will encounter two kinds of responses from established society -
direct opposition and attempts at recuperation. The second response 
takes the form of "first alienating and reifying sexuality, and then of 
frenetically exploiting this empty shell for commercial ends. As modern
youth breaks out of the dual stranglehold of the authoritarian patriarchal
family it encounters a projected image of free sexuality which is in fact
a manipulatory distortion of it." This can be seen from the use of sex in
advertising to the successful development of sex into a major consumer
industry.

However, such a development is the opposite of the healthy sexuality
desired by anarchists. This is because "sex is presented as something to
be consumed. But the sexual instinct differs from certain other instincts...
[as it can be satisfied only by] another human being, capable of thinking,
acting, suffering. The alienation of sexuality under the conditions of
modern capitalism is very much part of the general alienating process, in
which people are converted into objects (in this case, objects of sexual
consumption) and relationships are drained of human content. Undiscriminating,
compulsive sexual activity, is not sexual freedom - although it may sometimes
be a preparation for it (which repressive morality can never be). The illusion
that alienated sex is sexual freedom constitutes yet another obstacle on
the road to total emancipation. Sexual freedom implies a realisation and
understanding of the autonomy of others." [_The Irrational in Politics_, 
p. 60, p. 61]

Therefore, anarchists see teenage sexual liberation as a means of developing
free individuals *as well as* reducing the evil effects of sexual repression 
(which, we must note, also helps dehumanise individuals by encouraging 
the objectification of others, and in a patriarchal society, particularly
of women). 

J.6.9 But isn't this concern with teenage sexual liberation just a distraction 
      from issues that should be of more concern to anarchists, like 
      restructuring the economy?

It would be insulting to teenagers to suggest that sexual freedom is, or
should be, their *only* concern. Many teens have a well-developed social
conscience and are keenly interested in problems of economic exploitation,
poverty, social breakdown, environmental degradation, and the like. 

However, it is essential for anarchists to guard against the attitude
typically found in Marxist-Leninist parties that spontaneous discussions
about the sexual problems of youth are a "diversion from the class
struggle." Such an attitude is economistic (not to mention covertly
ascetic), because it is based on the premise that the economy must be
the focus of all revolutionary efforts toward social change. No doubt
restructuring the economy is important, but without mass sexual
liberation no working class revolution be complete. In a so called
free society, there will not be enough people around with the character
structures necessary to create a *lasting* worker-controlled economy --
i.e. people who are capable of accepting freedom with responsibility. 
Instead, the attempt to force the creation of such an economy without
preparing the necessary psychological soil for its growth will lead to a 
quick reversion to some new form of hierarchy and exploitation. 

Moreover, for most teenagers, breaking free from the sexual suppression
that threatens to cripple them psychologically is a major issue in their
lives. For this reason, not many of them are likely to be attracted to
the anarchist "freedom" movement if its exponents limit themselves to dry
discussions of surplus value, alienated labour, and so forth. Instead,
addressing sexual questions and problems must be integrated into a 
multi-faceted attack on the total system of domination. Teens should feel
confident that anarchists are on the side of sexual pleasure and are not
revolutionary ascetics demanding self-denial for the "sake of the
revolution." Rather, it should be stressed that the capacity for full
sexual enjoyment is the an essential part of the revolution. Indeed,
"incessant questioning and challenge to authority on the subject of sex
and of the compulsive family can only complement the questioning and
challenge to authority in other areas (for instance on the subject of who
is to dominate the work process - or the purpose of work itself). Both
challenges stress the autonomy of individuals and their domination of
over important aspects of their lives. Both expose the alienated concepts
which pass for rationality and which govern so much of our thinking and
behaviour. The task of the conscious revolutionary is to make both 
challenges explicit, to point out their deeply subversive content, and
to explain their inter-relation." [Maurice Brinton, Op. Cit., p. 62]

We noted previously that in pre-patriarchal society, which rests on the
social order of primitive communism, children have complete sexual freedom
and that the idea of childhood asceticism develops as matricentric clan
societies turn toward patriarchy in the economy and social structure (see
section <a href="secB1.html#secb15">B.1.5</a>). This sea-change in social attitudes toward childhood
sexuality allows the authority-oriented character structure to develop
instead of the formerly non-authoritarian ones. Ethnological research has
shown that in pre-patriarchal societies, the general nature of work life
in the collective corresponds with the free sexuality of children and
adolescents -- that is, there are no rules coercing children and
adolescents into specific forms of sexual life, and this creates the
psychological basis for voluntary integration into the collective and
voluntary discipline in work. This historical fact supports the premise
that widespread sex-positive attitudes are a necessary condition of a
viable libertarian socialism. 

Psychology also clearly shows that every impediment to infantile and
adolescent sexuality by parents, teachers, or administrative authorities
must be stopped. As anarchists, our preferred way of doing so is by
direct action. Thus we should encourage teens to feel that they have
every chance of building their own lives. This will certainly not be an
obstacle to or a distraction from their involvement in the anarchist
movement. On the contrary, if they can gradually solve the problem of
(e.g.) private rooms themselves, they will work on other social projects
with greatly increased pleasure and concentration. For, contrary to
Freud, Reichian psychologists argue that beyond a certain point, excess
sexual energy cannot be sublimated in work or any other purposeful 
activity but actually disturbs work by making the person restless 
and prone to fantasies, thus hindering concentration. 

Besides engaging in direct action, anarchists can also support legal
protection of infantile and adolescent sexuality (repeal of the insane
statutory rape laws would be one example), just as they support
legislation that protects workers' right to strike, family leave, and so
forth. However, as Reich observes, "under no circumstances will the new
order of sexual life be established by the decree of a central authority." 
[Ibid., p. 279] That was a Leninist illusion. Rather, it will be
established from the bottom up, by the gradual process of ever more
widespread dissemination of knowledge about the adverse personal and
social effects of sexual suppression, which will lead to mass acceptance 
of libertarian child-rearing and educational methods. 

A society in which people are capable of sexual happiness will be one
where they prefer to "make love, not war," and so will provide the best
guarantee for the general security. Then the anarchist project of 
restructuring the economic and political systems will proceed
spontaneously, based on a spirit of joy rather than hatred and revenge. 
Only then can it be defended against reactionary threats, because the
majority will be on the side of freedom and capable of using it
responsibly, rather than unconsciously longing for an authoritarian
father-figure to tell them what to do. 

Therefore, concern and action upon teenage sexual liberation (or child
rearing in general or libertarian education) is a *key* part of social
struggle and change. In no way can it be considered a "distraction"
from "important" political and economic issues as some "serious"
revolutionaries like to claim. As Martha A. Ackelsberg notes (in relation 
to the practical work done by the *Mujeres Libres* group during the Spanish 
Revolution):

"Respecting children and educating them well was vitally important to the 
process of revolutionary change. Ignorance made people particularly vulnerable
to oppression and suffering. More importantly, education prepared people
for social life. Authoritarian schools (or families), based upon fear,
prepared people to be submissive to an authoritarian government [or
within a capitalist workplace]. Different schools and families would
be necessary to prepare people to live in a society without domination."
[_Free Women of Spain_, p. 133]

J.7 What do anarchists mean by "social revolution"?
	J.7.1 Is social revolution possible? 
	J.7.2 Why is social revolution needed?
	J.7.3 What would a social revolution involve?
