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Title: How would Anarchism work ? Author: Zoe Baker Date: January 17th, 2020 Language: en Topics: Anarchism, post-capitalism, solving problems, Council decision-making, consensus Source: https://anarchopac.com/2020/01/19/how-would-anarchism-work/ Notes: Bibliography Malatesta, Errico. 2014. The Method of Freedom: An Errico Malatesta Reader. Edited by Davide Turcato. Oakland, CA: AK Press.
I’m an anarchist which means I want to abolish capitalism and the state
in favour of the free association of free producers. In response to this
people often ask me questions about how an anarchist society would solve
all kinds of different social problems. People in the comment section be
like hey anarchopac how will anarchism organise healthcare? How would an
anarchist society respond to people who go drunk driving? How would an
anarchist society deal with scientology or other dangerous cults? What
would happen to murderers? And so on and on.
All these are very sensible questions and raise problems any society
will have to overcome if it is function and guarantee human well-being.
But I can’t answer these questions by myself. I’m just a nerd who has
spent far too much time reading books on anarchism. If you want to know
what anarchists historically argued on a certain topic I can tell you
but I don’t have all the answers. I can’t tell you how people in the
21st century should solve all kinds of really complex problems like how
to effectively organise public infrastructure because I myself know
basically nothing about public infrastructure. These are the kinds of
question which can only really be answered in practice by lots of
different people with different kinds of expertise and life experiences
who are organised on the ground. They’re not going to be solved by an
anarchist youtube philosopher sitting in their room thinking about the
topic. To suggest otherwise is to put myself on the pedestal and act as
if everyone else should just listen to me.
Anarchist theory doesn’t tell you exactly how to solve social problems.
Instead anarchism advocates a system of self-organisation through which
people come together to solve the problems which arise in their specific
situation. It proposes that people horizontally associate as equals and
make decisions as a group through a system of direct democracy in which
everyone has a vote and an equal say in decisions which affect them.
These groups then associate with other groups to form federations at a
regional, national and international level in order to co-ordinate
action over a large area through regular congresses. These congresses
would be attended by instantly recallable mandated delegates that
councils had elected to represent them. Crucially, delegates would not
be granted the power to make decisions independently and impose them on
others. Decision making power would remain in the hands of the group who
had elected them. This system of decision making isn’t something I
invented in a study. It’s how anarchists and syndicalist trade unions
with memberships in the hundreds of thousands actually organised in real
life since the 19th century to the present. We know it works because it
already has.
What decisions these groups make isn’t something anarchist theory can
give you all the answers to. Instead they’ll have to work things out for
themselves and decide on what they think the best course of action is.
In other words, anarchist theory doesn’t tell you what decisions to
make. It only indicates a method through which to make decisions
yourselves and the values which these decisions should seek to promote,
such as freedom, equality and solidarity.
This idea was explained in-depth by the Italian anarchist theorist
Malatesta in his 1891 pamphlet anarchy, which you should read if you
haven’t already. According to Malatesta,
All that you have said may be true, say some; Anarchy may be a perfect
form of social life; but we have no desire to take a leap in the dark.
Therefore, tell us how your society will be organised. Then follows a
long string of questions, which would be very interesting if it were our
business to study the problems that might arise in an emancipated
society, but of which it is useless and absurd to imagine that we could
now offer a definite solution. According to what method will children be
taught? How will production and distribution be organised? Will there
still be large cities? or will people spread equally over all the
surface of the earth? Will all the inhabitants of Siberia winter at
Nice? Will every one dine on partridges and drink champagne? Who will be
the miners and sailors? Who will clear the drains? Will the sick be
nursed at home or in hospitals? Who will arrange the railway time-table?
What will happen if the engine-driver falls ill while the train is on
its way? And so on, without end, as though we could prophesy all the
knowledge and experience of the future time, or could, in the name of
Anarchy, prescribe for the coming man what time he should go to bed, and
on what days he should cut his nails!
Indeed if our readers expect from us an answer to these questions, or
even to those among them really serious and important, which can be
anything more than our own private opinion at this present hour, we must
have succeeded badly in our endeavour to explain what Anarchy is. We are
no more prophets than other men, and should we pretend to give an
official solution to all the problems that will arise in the life of the
future society, we should have indeed a curious idea of the abolition of
government. We should then be describing a government, dictating, like
the clergy, a universal code for the present and all future time.
(Malatesta 2014, 139-40)
Anarchists can instead only indicate a method through which society
would be organised and decisions would be made. For Malatesta the method
of anarchism is:
the free initiative of all and free agreement, when, after the
revolutionary abolition of private property, every one will have equal
power to dispose of social wealth. This method, not admitting the
reestablishment of private property, must lead, by means of free
association, to the complete triumph of the principles of solidarity.
Thus we see that all the problems put forward to combat the Anarchistic
idea are on the contrary arguments in favor of Anarchy; because it alone
indicates the way in which, by experience, those solutions which
correspond to the dicta of science, and to the needs and wishes of all,
can best be found.
How will children be educated? We do not know. What then? The parents,
teachers and all, who are interested in the progress of the rising
generation, will meet, discuss, agree and differ, and then divide
according to their various opinions, putting into practice the methods
which they respectively hold to be best. That method which, when tried,
produces the best results will triumph in the end. And so for all the
problems that may arise. (ibid, 142)
What Malatesta said was true in the 19th century and I think its only
become more true in the 21st century. Society is larger and more complex
than it used to be. I can’t create a detailed blueprint for how an
anarchist society would function but I don’t need to. Anarchism isn’t
about me telling you exactly how you will live in my ideal society. Its
you and everyone else deciding for yourselves how you shall live through
a decentralised system of self-management, rather than doing what a tiny
minority of rulers, like bosses or politicians, tell you to do. I don’t
have all the answers but collectively we can pool our shared knowledge,
skills and experiences to solve the problems which we will have to
overcome in an anarchist society. We won’t always make the best or the
right decisions but it doesn’t have to be perfect, only better than what
we currently have – which is an oligarchy that is currently driving all
7 billion of us towards total environmental collapse in order to make
short term profits.