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Title: Issues That Divide Anarchists Author: James Herod Date: July 2006 Language: en Topics: social anarchism, lifestyle anarchism Notes: (An Outline Prepared for, but not Endorsed by, the Organizing Committee for the New England Anarchist Summit, October 2006)
Revised March 2007
(#s 22, 23, 24 added)
This is undoubtedly still the biggest divide in the anarchist movement.
It is more accurately described as a split between individualist
anarchists and social anarchists. So-called lifestyle anarchists have
vehemently rejected the label, and have viciously attacked Murray
Bookchin for having highlighted the distinction. Individualist
anarchists are centered around Primitivism, Crimethinc, Anarchy, Green
Anarchy, Fifth Estate, Earth First, and The Match. Individualists often
deny that they are individualists, claiming that they are social
anarchists too. In these notes I will refer to fanatic anarchist
individualists as Egoists, considering that they believe in the absolute
autonomy of the individual, see society as an aggregate of such
autonomous individuals, and often cite Max Stirner's The Ego and Its Own
as one of their favorite texts. About half of the issues discussed below
are related to this basic split in one way or another. Social anarchists
are represented in the United States by the Northeastern Federation of
Anarchist Communists (and other similar federations throughout the
nation), Social Anarchism, Anarcho-Syndicalist Review, Perspectives on
Anarchist Theory, and in general the rest of the anarchist movement.
This split is peculiar to the United States (with perhaps just an
inkling of it in England); that is, it is not found in the international
anarchist movement, which is overwhelmingly grounded in social
anarchism.
So-called post-left anarchists deny the label of anarchist to all
anarchists who reject the fanatic individualist stance of post-leftists.
They claim that social anarchists are leftists not anarchists, and of
course "left" is a derogatory term for them. Similarly, some social
anarchists, especially some platformists, deny the label of anarchist to
the individualists, claiming that the beliefs of these people have
virtually nothing to do with anarchism as understood historically. Each
side also accuses the other side of being sectarian. It is not a
question drawing boundaries around anarchism to distinguish it from
other political initiatives, which is natural and inevitable, but a
disagreement about where the boundary will be drawn.
Some social anarchists, often calling themselves platformists, believe
strongly that a membership organization of anarchists is vital and
necessary to achieve an anarchist revolution. The history of this
tendency has been written up by Alexandre Skirda, Facing the Enemy: A
History of Anarchist Organization from Proudhon to May 1968. Egoists
will have nothing to do with this, bitterly denouncing platformists. Not
only are they opposed to organizations of anarchists, but to
organization in general, for example, workers councils at the workplace,
or neighborhood assemblies, or housing co-ops. The affinity group is the
largest social form that they will contemplate. In practice though,
self-contradictorily, they organize themselves enough to publish
magazines, run infoshops, and operate houses for traveler kids. This is
a huge split in the anarchist movement, which basically follows the
individual/social split. Nevertheless, not all anarchists who remain
unaffiliated with any of the recently established federations of
anarchist communists are egoists.
Egoists hate meetings and refuse to go to them, ridiculing and
disparaging them, saying that they are a waste of time. Meetings, and
the decisions taken at them, infringe on the autonomy of the individual
and are therefore rejected. For the rest of the anarchist movement,
meetings are a normal and necessary part of being an activist, and of
planning and executing projects and campaigns. Social anarchists claim
that no cooperative endeavors could take place without meetings, and
therefore argue that the rejection of meetings by egoists is highly
destructive to the anarchist revolution.
Egoists reject voting, even consensus voting (obviously, because they
don't go to meetings to begin with). When pressed as to how even a small
affinity group of eight will make decisions about a common course of
action, they say that it is contingent, and that the group will be able
to figure it out. Essentially, they refuse to endorse or accept an
explicit voting procedure, relying instead on informal practices. For
social anarchists, voting is also a contentious issue, however, mainly
because of confusion about whether to operate by majority rule or
consensus voting. So-called consensus voting is the predominant practice
however. Often it is believed that this means that majority rule has
been rejected. It does not. It means merely that simple majority rule
has been rejected. So-called consensus voting is a procedure for
arriving at the largest possible majority on any given issue. Many
groups function without ever having clarified explicitly what voting
procedure they are following, and often decisions are made rather
informally, through a sense of the meeting, which often is based however
on hidden hierarchies.
Anarcho-syndicalists have traditionally (and still do) focused
exclusively on workplace organizing. Anarcho-communists have generally
been more focused on community organizing, although not to the exclusion
of organizing at the workplace too. Libertarian municipalism, a strategy
proposed by Murray Bookchin, decidedly rejects workplace organizing and
calls instead for the establishment of municipal assemblies, after
getting control of local governments by winning elections. These
divisions may be breaking down somewhat. Libertarian municipalism never
became a strategy that is actually being practiced. Contemporary
anarcho-communists typically include both neighborhood and workplace
organizing. Only traditional anarcho-syndicalists stick doggedly to the
workplace as the primary arena for revolutionary struggle.
Black bloc tactics have been bitterly controversial. They were not
surprisingly condemned by the main progressive (i.e., left-liberal)
protest organizations which are imbued with a pacifist ideology. But
also within the anarchist movement itself, the arguments have raged.
This is an issue which doesn't split along individualist / social
anarchist lines. Most anarchists are agreed that there is nothing wrong
in principle with symbolic destruction of property, or with militant
street fighting, especially when this is done in self-defense or in
defense of other less prepared demonstrators. The argument has been
about whether it is efficacious. Are the gains overshadowed by the
disadvantages? This may be a moot question, because it would seem that
most of those who were forming the black blocs have consciously decided
to abandon the tactic (at least in the United States; Europe is another
matter).
Since the Battle of Seattle in 1999, anarchists and other protesters
have been following the ruling class around the world as it meets first
here and then there in annual meetings (WTO, G8, WMF, etc), conducting
the business of empire. Questions emerged early on about whether this
(summit hopping) was a useful expenditure of resources for radicals. The
matter has more or less resolved itself though because very few
anarchists have the money to travel like this. So the protests have
continued but have taken on distinctly local airs.
A very faint opposition to the politics of protest has finally begun to
emerge. Critics of protest marching claim that the tactic accomplishes
almost nothing, and that it is therefore an incredible waste of
resources, which are always in short supply in left radical movements.
The organizers of the demonstrations continue to believe that the
marches and rallies make a difference. The habit of organizing marches
to protest policies of the ruling class is deeply entrenched in
opposition culture, and it is a worldwide practice. It will take a
revolution in strategic thinking to dislodge it.
Primitivists have decided that civilization is the problem, not
capitalism. In the extreme version, not only modern industry, but
language, art, mathematics, and agriculture are all rejected, as having
contributed to hierarchy. Not all egoists go this far (they're not all
that batty), but the habit of denouncing civilization, instead of
capitalism, has become quite common in the anarchist movement. There are
many primitivists themes in Crimethinc, and now in Green Anarchy. This
obviously has serious consequences for revolutionary strategy.
Primitivists are reduced to waiting for civilization to destroy itself,
or else trying to help the process along. In the meantime they will try
to learn survival skills. Critics point out that egoists have once again
gotten tangled up in an abstraction. A world wide anarchist society
would be a civilization. In fact, the historical anarchist movement has
been a struggle to create a higher level of civilization, not get rid of
civilization. Critics of primitivism deny that it has anything to do
with anarchy at all, claim that it has usurped the name, and that it is
sowing enormous confusion and doing terrible damage to the fight for a
free society.
Egoists have launched a campaign to abolish work. The trouble with this
is that they are attacking an abstraction. The term work could refer to
chattel slavery, serfdom, indentured service, backyard gardening, garage
workshop repairs, mutual aid barn building, tenant farming, unpaid
housework, shop keeping, management, or self-employed professionals and
trades people, to name just a few uses. Egoists however haven't even
bothered themselves to specify wage-slavery as the type of work they are
against (presuming this is what they actually mean), but just condemn
work in general. Crimethinc has added a twist of its own, namely, don't
work, quit your job. There was a precursor initiative in the 1970s -- a
Zero Work initiative -- by some activists related to the autonomist
movement. Critics point out that by attacking work in the abstract,
rather than concrete wage-slavery, egoists have muddied the waters and
damaged the anti-capitalist struggle. They have shifted the focus away
from fights at the workplace into the dropout culture and dumpster
diving.
So-called post-left anarchists have drawn a circle around a very narrow
definition of anarchy, namely, extreme, fanatic individualism, and have
declared that all anarchists outside that circle are not anarchists at
all but leftists. It is an extremely sectarian move. They are especially
disdainful of anarchists who engage in workplace organizing. They also
claim that anarchy is not, nor has it ever been, a part of the left.
This way of thinking and talking has spread far and wide in the
anarchist movement. It is quite common now to hear the term left used in
a derogatory way, even by anarchists who have no affiliation with
post-left anarchism. Critics claim that post-left anarchists have
impaled themselves on an abstraction. The term left has always been
vague, its boundaries being rather fuzzy. But the historical ignorance
shown by those claiming that anarchy is not part of the left is truly
astonishing. Moreover, 'left" is an inherently relative term, its
meaning depending on the starting point. For extreme right-wing
republicans, mainstream liberals are left. However, post-left anarchists
have simply invented their own highly idiosyncratic definition and then
used it to rewrite history. Critics claim that what they are really
against is just leninism. So why don't they simply say that instead of
attacking anyone who thinks that anarchists have to organize to make a
revolution. Post-left anarchists are in fact just attacking social
anarchists, in this round about way, by taking an ordinary word,
redefining it, putting a negative connotation on it, and then sticking
the label on their opponents, thus defining them out of the revolution.
This has been an extremely divisive campaign. It's no wonder that
anarcho-communists have replied in kind, and written post-left
anarchists out of the movement.
Many contemporary anarchists, in marked contrast to nineteenth century
anarchists, are uncomfortable with an anarchism that does not include a
spiritual dimension. But of course there are as many definitions of
spiritual as there are persons making an argument for its necessity. For
some it merely means moral or ethical, and is counter posed to the
scientific outlooks of earlier generations which tended to slight
morality. For others it means communion with nature. Derrick Jensen
believes in talking to rivers, for example, and believes that he can
understand coyotes talking to him. Some, like Starhawk, use it to mean a
rather comprehensive female centered cosmology. For some it is a
pervasive mysticism. Quite frankly, I hardly know what to make of all
this, but I can't think that it is healthy.
Recently some egoists, like Aragorn, have been pushing nihilism,
claiming that it is a part of, or at least useful to, anarchism
(Nihilism, Anarchy, and the 21st Century, 35 page pamphlet). A book of
essays on Nietzsche has even been compiled, which attempts to
appropriate him for the anarchist tradition (John Moore, editor,
Frederick Nietzsche and the Anarchist Tradition). Brian Morris, the
brilliant British anarchist, demolished the effort in a short review
article in Freedom (25 March 06). This is one weird campaign.
A very small contingent of contemporary anarchists identify as Christian
Anarchists. Only one major anarchist thinker took this position, namely,
Leo Tolstoy. Other anarchists have overwhelmingly been atheists, and, in
the classic period, they vigorously fought religion. Their unrelenting
attacks on religion are not characteristic of the contemporary anarchist
movement, however, much to the chagrin of some (like me). Tolstoy of
course could hardly be called a Christian. He lived by a religion which
he pretty much invented himself. It's hard to know what to say about
this tendency. They see it as legitimate of course, and defend it. Their
critics say that it is a contradiction in terms. Anarchism, they say, is
completely at odds with everything Christianity stands for.
Anarcho-syndicalists see anarchy as a system of workers councils
federated at the local and regional levels. Anarcho-communists tend to
see anarchy as a world full of autonomous communities. Libertarian
municipalists see anarchy as a confederation of municipal assemblies or
town councils. Egoists see anarchy as an aggregate of autonomous
individuals. They are unwilling to even talk about the social forms that
anarchy might take, evidently because they don't think in those terms
and don't think that anarchy will take social forms. Situationism, a
related tendency, has pictured a free society in terms of generalized
self-management. This image has recently been quite nicely fleshed out
in Ken Knabb's Joy of Revolution, which is a useful synthesis of the
work and community perspectives. The picture that one has of mature
anarchy obviously determines the strategy that is settled on to get
there. Orthodox anarcho-syndicalists focus exclusively on workplace
organizing. Anarcho-communists focus on work, housing, and community, in
varying mixes. Libertarian municipalists focus on setting up popular
assemblies. Egoists occupy themselves with attacking the system in
various ways, trying to destroy it and get it out of their lives, so
that they can live as they please.
A few lonely voices have criticized Food Not Bombs for really being no
different from any other charitable organization that feeds the poor,
like the Salvation Army. These critics claim that this is not a
revolutionary activity. A loud clamor erupted across the anarchist
movement denouncing such criticism. But the arguments in defense of it
were not all that convincing, to my mind. Thousands of anarchists though
are obviously fondly devoted to the organization.
If ever there was a political, theoretical, and moral muddle it is the
issue of nonviolence. Anarchists have been on both sides of the issue.
On the one hand we have Zapata, Makhno, Durruti -- warriors. On the
other hand, Tolstoy, Goodman, Landauer -- pacifists. And in-between, the
bulk of anarchists, I believe, who do not reject revolutionary violence
in principle but are not engaged in it, and may even believe that it is
not an effective strategy. Anarchism also had its period, long since
past, of "propaganda by the deed" (or rather one wing of anarchism did).
These were people who were dead serious about fighting capitalism, with
dynamite if necessary. Most anarchists rejected "propaganda by the deed"
even at the time. In the contemporary anarchist scene, there are those
who automatically assume that armed struggle will be necessary to
establish anarchy while others vigorously reject and oppose this view.
So this is the debate.
Contemporary anarchism's close ties to punk rock is not so much a
clearly defined issue that divides as it is a pervasive uneasiness among
some anarchists. As it happens, hundreds of people come to anarchism
through the punk rock subculture. This is a subculture characterized by
a near total rejection of the established society, but it is not
necessarily imbued with many coherent anarchist ideas, especially those
of social anarchism. Critics complain that to the extent that anarchism
is identified with punk rock the anarchist movement is seriously
handicapped in winning over ordinary Americans. Nobody that I have
talked to has the slightest idea of what to do about this, if they even
want to do anything.
It is my understanding that not all members of the recently established
federations of anarcho-communists call themselves platformists. So even
within these organizations there is some disagreement or uneasiness
about the label. Nevertheless, one of the main web sites of this
tendency, Anarkismo, explicitly identifies with platformism, as do many
of the most prominent founders and activists in these organizations. It
is a strange identity, to my mind. Whatever. Most platformists do not
mean by adopting this label that they adhere strictly to the original
platform written in 1926 by Russian anarchists. What they mean is that
some explicit platform, some clear statement of goals and strategy, is
necessary. They insist on this, in part, to counter the vagueness of
individualist anarchism and its unwillingness to take explicit stands on
the goals and strategy of the anarchist revolution. But is having a
platform unique to anarchists? It is not. All political parties and all
voluntary organizations have platforms or explicit statements of
purpose, which are often incorporated into constitutions and bylaws. So
what's all the fuss about? Probably about the content of the platform,
not the existence of a platform as such. Which of course brings us to
all the issues being discussed here about the nature of anarchism and
strategies to achieve it.
Post-left anarchists are not the only ones who criticize the
Federationists (for lack of a better name). Their complaint, that
federationists are organizing themselves, is ridiculous. But there is a
more serious criticism, namely that the federations, as currently
conceived, transfer over into themselves, obviously inadvertently or
unconsciously, a whole lot of leninist baggage, even though they reject
the goal of seizing state power and generally insist on internal
democracy. For example, they call for anarchists to intervene in mass
movements to radicalize them; they point to what they see as different
levels of radical consciousness and recommend that anarchists tailor
their message to the particular level of consciousness of their audience
in order not to alienate it; they claim that an anarchist revolution
cannot be made without a membership anarchist organization; they believe
that the organization must preserve through periods of quiet the new
ideas generated by the working class during periods of struggle; they
insist that the organization assume the role of leadership of ideas;
they call for the unity of the working class; they put more stress on
building their revolutionary organizations than they do on actually
bringing into being anarchist social forms like workers councils,
neighborhood assemblies, or housing co-ops. These are not anarchist
ideas: they come straight out of bolshevism, critics claim. In short,
federationists, in claiming that theirs are not merely propaganda
organizations, but rather are interventionist, violate what might be
said is the first principle of anarchist revolutionary strategy: fight
first for your own liberation. As far as I know, these charges have
never been seriously answered.
It is quite commonplace in the contemporary anarchist movement to hear
people talk about "red" and "green" anarchists. These are very spurious
labels. I know of no social anarchists who call themselves "red"
anarchists. It is my impression that the red/green distinction was
invented by primitivists in order to bolster their position by
denigrating social anarchists. Primitivists hate Marx, for example, and
associate him with "communism," and therefore with "red." It is a form
of red-baiting, it seems. Most social anarchists believe in class
analysis and are anti-capitalist. Apparently, this makes them "red," in
the eyes of primitivists. The "red" however is way off the mark, as
applied to anarcho-communism. Communism in this phrase does not refer to
soviet communism or leninism or even to Marx. The phrase was in use
years before the Bolsheviks ever appeared on the scene. It refers to
Kropotkin, to communalism, and to the original idea of communism, as
practiced even in the Middle Ages, and as articulated later by utopian
socialists, for example, as meaning local community control and
autonomy. Most of the so-called green anarchists I know deny that they
are primitivists. They claim that they are social anarchists. What is
amazing, though, is how commonplace this way of talking has become,
nevertheless. As for green anarchism, how in the world did it ever
happen that "green" anarchists are claiming exclusive rights to radical
environmentalism. Bookchin practically invented the orientation
single-handedly in the late '50s and early '60s. There were radical
environmentalists decades ago, before primitivism was even thought of.
Do social anarchists reject radical environmentalism? Of course not.
Anyway, since we're talking about "issues that divide," this is
definitely one of them.
Many anarchists claim that the defense of animals and the protection of
their rights should be on a par with all the other issues that occupy
left libertarians. They say that how "society" treats animals is closely
connected to, and reflexive of, how "society" treats humans (and
workers, for example). Others deny this, saying that the struggle
against wage-slavery, for example, should take priority over the defense
of animals. So this is the dispute, and it can get quite heated.
This is not an issue peculiar to anarchism. It divides the entire left.
Identity politics emerged out of the New Left, as the massive radical
movements of the sixties began to dissipate. It is the New Left's most
lasting (and in my view, the most unfortunate) legacy. They were called
the New Social Movements, and were based on race, gender, and sexual
orientation (mostly, but also on numerous other identities -- welfare
mothers, disabled, ethnicity, age, immigrants, veterans, students,
obesity, and so forth). These movements thrived almost everywhere at the
expense of class analysis and anti-capitalist struggles. Although they
did a lot of good, they also did a lot of harm. In recent years, since
the Battle of Seattle in 1999, the pendulum has been swinging back a bit
towards class struggle. But in anarchist circles there is still hardly
anything as divisive as identity issues. As far as I know, no one yet
has succeeded in getting a worthy handle on the issue.