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Anarchism and Capitalism

Historically and currently the anarchist movement has
consisted over whelmingly of socialists.  To-day for instance
there are anarchist organisations of over 10,000 members that
are also trade unions in Sweden and Spain.  There are many
other organisations with memberships in the hundreds in
most countries world-wide. All of these organisations are
explicitly anarchist, revolutionary and anti-capitalist.

When we come to looking at North America however we find
a curious thing.  Since the mass expulsion and criminalisation
of anarchists in the period during and after the first world war
there has been no major anarchist movements in Canada or
the US.  This has created a curious situation where pro-
capitalist utopians feel comfortable calling themselves
anarchists.  These people seem to be particularly dominant in
the white, university educated middle class and as such have
a voice far outweighing their support on electronic mailing
lists.  (Access to such facilities is dominated by this section of
society although there are exceptions to this).  They also
commonly call themselves libertarians which again is strange
because in the rest of the world this word is most commonly
followed by the word communist.

Now I find the use of the term anarchist by these people to be
insulting to all that anarchists have stood for and continue to
fight for.  It is the case that capitalism has killed, imprisoned
or executed at least one million anarchists from the aftermath
of the Paris commune of 1871 to the concentration camps of
Hitler, Mussolini and Franco.  European examples because
those are the ones I am most familiar with but lets not forget
those anarchists who have died fighting capitalism in Japan,
Korea, Argentina, Mexico and even the USA.  The use of the
term anarchist by these 'libertarians' spits in the face of all
these people and in the face of the tens of thousands of
anarchists fighting capitalism to-day.

Now the only way of stopping the misuse of this term is to
build a real anarchist movement in north America so that the
word anarchism becomes
fused once more to the idea of revolutionary anti-state anti-
capitalist ideas.  They will stop using the label pretty fast then.
In the meantime lets expose the contradictions between
anarchism and capitalism.

Anarchism as political movement grew out of the
International Workingmen's Association or the 1st
International.  Immediately before this came into being a
Frenchman called Proudhon played a part in the conception
of anarchism when he asked the question "What is Property"
and answered it with the simple slogan "Property is Theft".
This in a nutshell is the revolutionary socialist theory of how
the mechanism of capitalist exploitation works.  It was of
course late expanded and formalised by Marx in the Labour
Theory of Value  (he did actually credit Proudhon too!).

The argument is simple.  In order to live under capitalism it is
necessary to work to earn money in order to life.  However
due to automation and the high price of machinery as well as
the "ownership" of land by an elite few it is not possible to
own the tools by which you work.  Therefore _most_ workers
are forced to work for somebody who has ownership of
factories etc.  This is the property referred to in the slogan,
ownership of the means of production.  It does not refer to CD
players, your underwear or other personnel property.

That's the property part, where does the theft come in.  The
worker working in the factory produces $600 dollars worth of
goods in a week of which $400 dollars when sold is straight
profit for the owner of the machinery.  The owner of the
machinery then pays the worker $200 dollars, stealing $200
for themselves.  In this model it is not necessary for the owner
to have done any work (some do) all that is necessary is for
him/her to own the machinery.  This is the theft.  This
ownership constitutes the capital.  How the owner came
across this capital is also irrelevant in the model, it could have
been through working in a fast food joint for 24 hours a day, 7
days a week for 20 years.  Or it could have been wealth passed
down through a family ever since great granddad made it by
kidnapping people from Africa and selling them in America.

That is the model of capitalist exploitation.  Of course in life
we seldom see simple models, a host of other factors are
involved from the capitalist actually doing some productive
work to individual workers having a good idea and somehow
saving enough money to become capitalists themselves.  Such
complications do not however contradict the model, the same
basic exploitation still runs beneath the surface.  Anarchism is
about opposing all forms of exploitation and capitalism as
illustrated is a mechanism of exploitation.

In addition anarchists see most other forms of exploitation as
originating and being reinforced by capitalism.  Racism for
instance was created and expanded by the early capitalists to
justify slavery and the plundering of the rest of the world by
Europe.  It is maintained by capitalism to-day as a way of
dividing the workers and justifying imperialism.  Again a
basic model, life is more complicated, but the basic model
although not a complete explanation is at least a clear starting
point.

One of the favourite retorts of these right wing utopians who
call themselves 'anarchist' is that if you look up anarchism in a
dictionary you will find a definition that essentially limits it to
opposition to government.  Very true, but political
movements do not flow from dictionaries, they come from
history.  A brief discussion of anarchist history follows later
but first lets look at why being anti-state means you have to
be anti-capitalist in the first place.

The state is essentially a creation of class society.  In a society
where one group of people owned more than another then
you needed a state to maintain this situation.  Under
capitalism the state was transformed from a small body to a
huge one.  The increase in size was necessary because of the
increase in the organisation of the non-ruling classes.
Capitalism created its own gravedigger in the form of the
working class.  Under capitalism huge number of people are
placed in close proximity under similar if not identical wages
and conditions.  The possibility for them to act together is thus
greatly magnified.  At the end of the day the capitalists are
outnumbered by well over 20 to 1.

During the miners strike of 1984 in Britain the state spent tens
of millions of pounds smashing what was one of the most
militant and powerful unions.  Over 10,000 police were
permanently deployed against the miners for a year and
rumours still persist of the military being used (in police
uniforms).  A serious of huge court cases were waged by the
state against the NUM in order to seize their funds.  The
miners lost but without this state deployment they would
have won their strike immediately.  Similarly whenever
workers occupy factories it is the state that moves in, evicts
them and arrests the ringleaders.  Without the state those of
us working would take over our workplaces and evict the
bosses within days if not hours.

The state also plays a role in the conflicts between capitalists.
Within a country the state lays down rules about how far
individual companies can go in order to make a profit.  Can
they employ children and if so for how long.  The state
protects the companies of one country against another
through import tariffs or subsidising exports.  In a general
sense the state helps all companies by paying for the vital
infrastructure if the form of road, education etc.  Ultimately
the state may seek to protect the companies by declaring war
on another state.  In short the state is that body by which the
individual capitalists come together and form a larger block to
work in their common interests.  The most important common
interest is the suppression of the working class.  If the state
did not exist the libertarians would have to invent it.

To finish with a brief discussion of what defines anarchism.
As I have already said the dictionary does not.  Anarchism is
above all defined by what anarchists have said and fought for.

Right from the start anarchists have been socialists.  The 1st
International was an explicitly socialist body that included
anarchists, Marxists and others.  At the same time in the USA
anarchists were involved in the trade unions.  Indeed when
the Haymarket martyrs were executed in the 1880's for
fighting for the eight hour day this was one of the earliest
defining features of anarchism in the USA.  From the start
anarchism was a working class revolutionary movement.

The biggest single anarchist event was the Spanish revolution
of 1936.  The CNT which was an anarchist trade union had
between 1 and 2 million members which included all sections
of the working class in Spanish society.  Despite their mistakes
the Spanish workers put anarchism into practise as never
before.  Industry and agriculture were collectivised and ran
along anarchist lines throughout most of republican Spain.
We are talking here of millions of workers, probably in the
order of 5 million as many who were not members of the CNT
joined in the constructive activity.  If libertarians had existed
in Spain we might have expected to find themselves either on
the side of Franco or perhaps with the Spanish communist
party which fought against collectivisation and the return of
the factories and lands to its "owners".

One further point about Spain.  Many libertarians claim
socialism means forcing people to work for the state at the
point of a gun. In Spain the workers did not work for the state
but worked for themselves through the collectives.  They
elected delegates who made decisions about how the
factory/collective farm would be run, a process sometimes
called workers self management.  These delegates elected
others to decide on regional and national planning of
industry.  Not every one was happy with being part of the
collective, particularly some small farmers.  Rather then being
forced to join it was decided they could work their own land
and trade with the collectives providing they employed no
one and providing they worked all the land.  Land that was
unused was confiscated by the collective.  Many of these
people in fact joined the collectives within months.

When the capitalists came back to power in Spain they
destroyed not only the collectives but all those who led the
building of them.  Perhaps half a million anarchists were
killed by the Spanish capitalists, many more were imprisoned
in either France or Spain.  The libertarians have nothing in
common with those people and their use of the term anarchist
is an insult to their memory.