💾 Archived View for library.inu.red › file › connor-owens-why-social-anarchism.gmi captured on 2023-01-29 at 08:44:20. Gemini links have been rewritten to link to archived content
➡️ Next capture (2024-06-20)
-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Title: Why “Social” Anarchism? Author: Connor Owens Date: February 25, 2016 Language: en Topics: social anarchism, introductory, Source: Retrieved on September 9, 2017 from https://solarpunkanarchists.com/2016/02/25/why-social-anarchism/
You may have wondered why I keep referring to social anarchism rather
than just anarchism when I talk about the subject. Social anarchism is
in fact what most who understand anarchism are referring to when they
talk about “anarchism” without another word in front of or after it.
It is an ethical-political traditional which (contrary to popular
belief) does not seek chaos or disorder, but the “flattening” of social,
political, and economic power relations: dissolving hierarchical
authority into horizontal power, so that people are able to govern
themselves as free equals rather than having to take orders from
centralised institutions of control and subordination. So, as a process,
if focuses on the continual empowerment of the disempowered, inclusion
of the excluded, and the decentralisation of power and authority.
It seeks (in the long term) a directly-democratic and non-hierarchical
society characterised by:
individualism or smothering collectivism, balancing the personal and
social instincts.
domination: racism, sexism, queerphobia, ableism, and the domination of
nature.
self-management; beyond the profit motive, market capitalism, and
central planning by the state.
of a directly-democratic, self-governing communities.
As a tradition, social anarchism first emerged out of the wider
socialist movement in the 1860s, with most of its foundational traits
being developed within the First International out of the ideas of
Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, only taken in a more anti-authoritarian
direction by figures such as Mikhail Bakunin and James Guillaume, and
later in a more communalistic direction by Peter Kropotkin, Élisée
Reclus, and Emma Goldman. It has been regarded by many as a confluence
of the best of (classical) liberalism and (democratic) socialism, with
its economics being described as libertarian socialism, in constrast to
the authoritarian state socialism of most Marxist movements and to
paternalistic social democracy as it exists on most of the liberal left.
It also contrasts with the so-called “libertarianism” of the neoliberal
right, a term they appropriated from social anarchists in the mid 20th
century.
It is by far the majority tendency among those who describe themselves
as anarchists and to many it is even considered the only form of
anarchism, and it’s followers the sole legitimate users of the label.
So if it’s the primary (or even only) form of anarchism anyway, why the
need for the adjective “social”?
Well, there are three reasons:
1. Specificity
There are countless ideologies which slap the prefix “anarcho-” onto
themselves and whose adherents describe themselves as “anarchists”:
anarcho-capitalists, “post-left” anarchists, anarcho-primitivists,
market anarchists, national-anarchists, anarcho-monarchists (yes,
really).
Specifying a more particular tradition helps reorient things and
disassociates one’s ideas/practices from every silly belief-system which
self-identifies with the a-word.
2. Accessibility
The word “anarchist” is quite loaded and carries with it a whole heap of
stereotypes and myths. Calling yourself an anarchist to someone
uninitiated with anarchist theory is likely to make them think you’re
insane, or perhaps just immature.
Social anarchism on the other hand is something they’re at least likely
to Google before dismissing you as some kind of nutter.
3. Definition
Adding the word social helps emphasise the positive features of the
philosophy rather than just its oppositional aspects. The very etymology
of the word anarchism means “without/against rulership”. So the term
anarchism by itself refers to what it’s against rather than what it’s
for.
Social however implies communality, popular order, and the connections
between individuals. So putting them together the two terms – social
anarchism – denote “society without rulers” and “sociality against
rulership”; implying that authentic human sociability itself is contrary
to the logic of hierarchical power.
The term itself isn’t even new. It first emerged in the late 19th
century as a way to distinguish the anarchist mainstream from various
individualist or egoist strains which promoted a kind of anti-social
worldview opposed to building popular movements and in many cases
content to merely live freely within the capitalist state system rather
than doing anything to get rid of it.
So do try to make the term more popular if you can. There’s at least a
slightly better chance that more people will google it, learning what
real anarchism is all about, rather than dismissing it out of hand as
mindless chaos or black-clad teenagers hurling Molotov cocktails and
getting smashy-smashy with shop windows.
For a world beyond hierarchy and domination; for freedom, equality, and
solidarity; for Social Anarchism.