💾 Archived View for library.inu.red › file › kevin-doyle-thinking-about-anarchism.gmi captured on 2023-01-29 at 11:51:03. Gemini links have been rewritten to link to archived content

-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Title: Thinking about anarchism
Author: Kevin Doyle
Date: November 2003
Language: en
Topics: anarcha-feminism, equality, Workers Solidarity
Source: https://web.archive.org/web/20151001013202/http://flag.blackened.net/revolt/wsm/ws/2003/ws78/equalpay.html
Notes: Originally published in Workers Solidarity No78

Kevin Doyle

Thinking about anarchism

During the year a spate of reports have ‘discovered’ what a lot of

workers already know — that equal pay for equal work just doesn’t exist.

Although legal victories and a raft of employment equality legislation

have made some dents, the fact remains that discrimination on the

grounds of gender, ethnicity and age (to name just a few) persists and

is widespread. It seems obvious to ask: why?

To attempt to answer this question, anarchists argue that we have to

look at an aspect of life that is often ignored — how the workplace and

the office are organised. Take any workplace — small or large, corporate

or local sweatshop — and what you will find, first and foremost, is a

hierarchy. At the top is the manager or boss, and beneath him (mostly

him) are layers of management; then supervisors. At the bottom of the

hierarchy are the full-time workers, then contract workers... and so on.

What distinguishes the different layers within the hierarchy? Well one

thing is the job they do, of course. But a second fundamental difference

is the power they have. At the top is the boss with most power — the

power to hire and fire, to set wages and hours and conditions. At the

bottom is the contract worker — often with the worst wages and hours,

the least benefits and the least security of income. In between are a

layer of other mangers and supervisors, with different duties but also

with different levels of power.

Anarchists call this form of organisation a power-hierarchy. In

capitalism, workplaces are organised like this because in reality there

is no other way to get thing done. Most people, given a choice, would

not work for an employer. Employers are people we have to work for

because if we don’t we will end up poor (and in many countries, very

poor) if we don’t. A good example of what’s at stake is found in the

difference we often notice in ourselves when we are doing work at home

‘for ourselves’ compared to when we are doing work at the job for the

boss. Working ‘for your self’, as we all know, is a lot more pleasant

and productive. Bosses know this too, which is why they need active

methods to force us to work harder.

Under capitalism the workplace is organised around a huge imbalance in

power. The boss and the top managers have most control; the rest of us

toe the line. There are many consequences for organising economic life

in this way. One of the most significant is the key issue mentioned

above — persistent inequality. To survive in a competitive environment a

boss must fundamentally encourage discrimination. Promoting division and

competition makes the existing hierarchy dynamic — there is a constant

threat of falling lower in the pecking order, as well a chance of going

upwards too.

For the boss the overall reward is increased productivity. A second,

crucially important consequence is that the generalised division that is

caused within the workforce which acts as a buffer for the boss’s rule.

It is not surprising that the power-hierarchy that exists in presence

day workplaces makes use of human differences such as gender, ethnicity

and age to divide us. A system of economic organisation — capitalism —

that is fundamentally about greed and theft through profit must rely on

unfair and inhuman means to survive. Women, for example, traditionally

suffer lower pay and longer work hours in the workplace; they also do

less well in their efforts to climb up the power-hierarchy. But this

‘lower reward for effort’ that many women suffer has nothing to with

women being women. It has everything to do with increasing employee

productivity through the promotion of division and competition.

Although modern ‘equality legislation’ has outlawed overt discrimination

in a lot of countries, the general format of discrimination continues

unabated in covert form. This (and the persistence of inequality in pay)

shouldn’t surprise us. In reality no matter how much legislation is

enacted, such statutes will never challenge the fundamental right of a

boss or corporation to create and actively maintain a power-hierarchy.

To challenge this right we need a revolution.