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An Anarchist FAQ - 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, "[t]he 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 favor 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.
Are anarchists involved in social struggles?[edit]
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 What are "synthesis" federations?
J.3.3 What is the "Platform"?
J.3.4 Why do many anarchists oppose the "Platform"?
J.3.5 Are there other kinds of anarchist federation?
J.3.6 What role do these groups play in anarchist theory?
J.3.7 Doesn't Bakunin's "Invisible Dictatorship" prove that anarchists are secret authoritarians?
J.3.8 What is anarcho-syndicalism?
J.3.9 Why are many anarchists not anarcho-syndicalists?
- J.4 What trends in society aid anarchist activity?
J.4.1 Why is social struggle a good sign?
J.4.2 Won't social struggle do more harm than good?
J.4.3 Are the new social movements a positive development for anarchists?
J.4.4 What is the "economic structural crisis"?
J.4.5 Why is this "economic structural crisis" important to social struggle?
J.4.6 What are implications of anti-government and anti-big business feelings?
J.4.7 What about the communications revolution?
J.4.8 What is the significance of the accelerating rate of change and the information explosion?
J.4.9 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 ethics 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 Are all anarchists revolutionaries?
J.7.2 Is social revolution possible?
J.7.3 Doesn't revolution mean violence?
J.7.4 What would a social revolution involve?
J.7.5 What is the role of anarchists in a social revolution?
J.7.6 How could an anarchist revolution defend itself?
