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Title: Sane Anarchy Author: Larry Gambone Date: 1995 Language: en Topics: introductory, the state, New Left, Third World, pessimism, authoritarianism, political correctness, bureaucracy, utopianism, nihilism Source: Retrieved 11/30/2021 from https://archive.org/details/lantern-library_20200604_1726/ Notes: Published by Red Lion Press, 1995
The polls and surveys show it. The majority of the population have no
faith in government. They dispise bureaucracy and stifling regulations.
They want decentralization of political power and more say in the
workplace. They are also concerned about the environment, the equality
of the sexes and the growth of poverty. Perhaps never in history have
people been so radical in their opinions. Think only of the 1960âs â the
small minority of new leftists were denounced as âstop the world I want
to get offâ types or Communist dupes for thinking similar thoughts.
Ironically, the left has never been in worse shape. As a result, the
chief beneficiaries of the unrest have been the populists and
free-market liberals. (conservatives in American political parlance)
These forces combine decentralist, direct-democratic impulses with
conservative social issues or free-market economics.
Harder to fathom than the failure of the left, is the absence of
anarchism or âtraditional libertarianismâ.[1] There seems to have been a
marked decline in anarchist activity from a high point in the mid to
late 1980âs. How to explain this paradox? Blaming the media is not the
answer â other groups have been subjected to unfair media attention, or
worse no attention at all, and this has not prevented them from becoming
a significant force in society â think only of the Women âs Liberation
Movement and the trashing it got and how influential feminism is today.
The fault can only lie with the anarchists themselves.
Who are the anarchists and where did they come from? It is necessary to
point out, in North America at least, little connection existed be-
tween the old pre-WW2 or âclassicalâ anarchist movement and the group of
people who came to reestablish anarchism in the late 1960âs. By the
1950âs there was no longer a libertarian movement, but a number of
isolated individuals.[2] Those who formed the new anarchism came out Of
the New Left, people dissatisfied with the Stalinist takeover of the
movement, who saw anarchism as the logical outgrowth of their beliefs.
What was in reality a neo-anarchism, synthesized traditional anarchism
with ideas taken from the New Left. Both the New Left and neo-anarchism
(also called anti-authoritarianism) influenced the âNew Movementsâ
(Feminism, ecology, anti-nuke) of the 1970âs and 1980âs, and anarchism
was in turnâ influenced by these movements.
Certain attitudes derived from the New Left and the so-called
counter-culture. permeated neo-anarchism and had a deleterious effect
upon it. Chief among these was elitism. It was the common belief among
the New Left that the majority of the population were âco-optedâ,
âsold-outâ, âracistâ and âsexistâ. For the hippie-left, most people were
considered to be beer-swilling, short-haired rednecks. Much of this
youthful hostility was directed against their parents and hence was more
of an expression of adolescent rebellion than political insight. With
the exception of those who opted for anarcho-syndicalism, most
neo-anarchists carried this contemptous attitude with them. The majority
was written-off as hopelessly corrupted and this attitude still
continues today; Such contempt is in complete contrast to classical
anarchism, which even at its most vanguardist, saw itself as only a
catalyizer or spokesman of the masses.
While rejecting the majority, they became infatuated with minorities.
The New Left, scorning workers, turned to racial minorities and the
âpoorâ as possible agents of social change. Native people, prisoners,
dropouts, homosexuals, all have been given a high profile, virtually to
the exclusion of the rest of the population.[3]
Another aspect inherited from the New Left was the obsession about the
Third World and Western imperialism. Many neo-anarchists, while paying
lip service to anarchist critiques of Leninism, actually supported
so-called national liberation groups. Some lauded the Vietnamese NLF,
others whitewashed the Castro regime. Many swallowed the Leninist
propaganda that the West, in particular the US, was completely
responsible for the Cold War. So too, the view that âwe live off the
Third Worldâ â at a time when developed countries mainly invest in each
other. These positions which are nothing more than a cover-up for
Stalinist atrocities, have been recycled through neo-anarchism and the
Peace and Green movements, right up to the present day.
With the love of âliberation movementsâ came a glorification of
violence. As ârepresentatives of the oppressedâ planted bombs on
airliners, machine-gunned tourists and threw grenades into pubs and
theatres, neurotic or disillusioned New Leftists decided it was time to
move beyond apologetics and take action. Some so-called anarchists gave
support to terrorist gangs like the French Action Direct and the
Stasi-infiltrated Red Army Faction.[4] Naive souls on the fringes of the
anarchist movement like the Angry Brigade and the Canadian Direct Action
did take up arms and wasted a good portion of their young lives in
prison.
But the New Left wasnât the only influence. Throughout the â60âs there
had been a cross-fertilization with ideas derived from the ultra-Left or
council communism. Some of this was positive, most especially with the
followers of Paul Mattick or Castoriadisâ Socialism ou Barbarie.
However, with the break up of the Situationists and the continuous
schisms within councilism, some very strange âtheoriesâ began to make
the rounds. Modern (Western) society was âwritten off as completely
totalitarian with Capital having complete autonomy over humanity. Others
proclaimed the whole of civilization evil and-told us to abandon
technology (and even agriculture) and go back to hunting and gathering.
Such âtheoriesâ, marxism in its decadence, found an airing among a
section of North American neo-anarchists during the rise of the
anti-nuclear and environmental movements. (Its ultimate product being
the âUnabomberâ) For everyone else such ideas are total lunacy. Any
normal person picking up a journal espousing such views in the name of
anarchy will dismiss anarchism as the ideology of crackpots. (And they
will be right) Marxism in its decadence has taken its concerns with real
or imagined evils to an ultimate extreme â to the point where it can be
considered an ideology of misrablism.
The average personâs life is neither unending suffering or mindless joy.
Only the minority is in misery, the majority are discontented but not
wretched, we may dislike the government or the boss but these things are
not our entire life. We have our families, our friends and our personal
interests and it is here that our real lives begin and end. Thanks to
the mass media, even though the images are greatly distorted, people are
well aware of the misery in the world, whatâs needed is less moan and
groan and more of a positive vision.
Rooted in the Leninist notion of the âcorrect lineâ, and further
developed by feminist and black nationalist extremism, Political
Correctness has plagued neo-anarchism like fleas on a dog.[5] How anyone
can reconcile censorship with anarchism is hard to imagine, yet this is
precisely what some âanti-authoritariansâ have done to the point of
fire-bombing video shops that sell pornography.
The obsession with âcorrectnessâ, the harshness engendered by violence
fetishism and the love of obscure and extreme ideologies leads naturally
to sectarianism. It isnât enough that all libertarians desire the
abolition of statism, corporatism and authoritarianism, and that they
have far more in common with each other than with those who donât hold
these opinions. No. Hairs must be split and those closest to your
position are often treated as the worst of enemies.
Contempt for the masses, misrablism, sectarianism, Third Worldism,
political correctness and the love of violence are all aspects of
authoritarianism hidden behind the libertarian mask. The so-called
anarchists are just members of one more authoritarian leftist sect, the
only difference being they pretend to be anti-authoritarianism â a kind
of soft-core Leninism, if you will.
The left is the vanguard of the state bureaucratic corruption of
society.[6] It is not without reason that âsocialismâ is a curse-word
for the majority of people. Injustice, exploitation, poverty,
discrimination,â hunger, and ignorance were and are still real problems
facing the world, and almost everyone agrees that this is so. But the
left sought to remedy these ills through the state, and in so doing,
merely recreated these evils in a new form. Rather than allowing various
contending groups to freely arbitrate, the state became the supreme
arbitrator. Rather than allowing people to rise out of misery through a
combination of individual effort, solidarity and mutual aid, the state
became the source of social security.
Today we live in a kind of liberal corporate state[7] â business and
farmers are subsidized by the government, so too, culture, the poor,
minorities, in fact, every sector of society fights for its place at the
trough and all these aspects have become highly politicized. This
porking has to be paid for by the working population. Each year the debt
piles up higher and everyone wonders why.
The left is also corporatismâs guard dog. Any attempt to attack this
system is reviled as âright-wingâ and the various populists, anarchists,
free market libertarians and small âcâ conservatives are libeled as
fascists, reactionaries and racists. There is nothing new in this
tactic, a variation on the Stalinist labeling of socialists as âsocial
fascistsâ and anarchists as âanarcho-fascistsâ in the 1920âs.
When left means statism and right anti-statism, âleftâ vs. ârightâ is an
archaism we can do without. The real divisions within society are
between authoritarians and anti-authoritarians, centralists and
decentralists and between the political and the anti-political. Leftism
and libertarianism areincompatable, for the former stands for statism
and centralization and the latter for decentralism and opposition to
state power.[8] Anarchists should sever their ties with leftism and
strike off on their own, free of this authoritarian umbilical cord. This
does not mean sectarianism. It goes without saying that we should unite
with the left (or any other group) when common needs or policies arise,
but we should not be ideologically beholden to so-called âleft-wingâ
ideas.
Whatever positions the left takes on issues, one finds anarchists who
adopt them. They end up as apologists for the leftâs cult of bureaucracy
and statism. There are many examples of this. Take welfare. Anyone who
criticizes the welfare state, for whatever reason, is deemed âagainst
the poorâ. One finds anarchists going along with this, even though there
is a very strong anarchist case against the welfare system.[9]
Its a demographic fact. In the developed world there are fewer and fewer
teenagers and young adults and hence less and less reason to base a
strategy on a youth revolt or counter-culture. What is needed is a
middle-aged and âgrey-powerâ anarchism, for this is where you find the
vast majority of the population. The present anti-state mood is also
related to middle-aged concerns, of which a perfect example is taxation.
While neo-anarchism is plagued with contradictions, some traditional
anarchists also have a problem. While identifying with working people
(what a relief) they suffer from archaism. It is as though nothing has
changed since 1910 â workers are still poor, beaten-down wretches and
society is controlled by a band of fat-bellied, t0p-hatted capitalists
who manipulate the elections and control all the media. That the economy
is largely institutional, that society is bureaucratic and that the
majority of workers are, in spite of technology and down-sizing, well
off by any standard you can measure, has completely missed them. Some
anarcho-syndicalists donât seem to realize that work doesnât occupy the
position it used to. To organize solely around work is to ignore 3/4 of
a personâs life. Nor do trade unions tend to excite many people, most of
whom see the union as one more bureaucracy imposed upon them. (Even
though they like the high wages) Syndicalists well-intentioned attempts
to appeal to the regular person fail, since blinded by an out-of-date
world view, they also donât know or understand Joe Average.
One also finds an elitist tendency among the traditionalists. Anarchism
grew out of a revolt against societyâs overwhelming authoritarianism and
the popular acceptance of it. Anarchists are used to being a tiny
minority âcrying in the wildernessâ and have not been able to adjust to
a situation where the majority of the people accept many anarchist
ideas. The tendency is to think and act as though the majority still
idolized their masters, when, in fact, what is needed is not to convince
people of the iniquities of the system, but to find a way to build a
society that is human scale.
In seeking to create a society that has greater freedom and humanity, we
must not fall into the utopian trap. Few ideas have caused more
suffering than this delusion. Utopians dream up schemes for âthe perfect
societyâ and then try to force everyone into that mold. If people wonât
go along with the fantasy, they are called âbackwardâ, necessitating the
use of force. The ultimate end of utopia is the gulag and the gas-oven.
The liberal and socialist utopias would only work if people were angels,
but they are not. Humanity is imperfect and any social system we divise
must take that into account. Thomas Jefferson understood this and hence
sought to limit the power of the state as much as possible. Pierre
Joseph Proudhon, the Father of Anarchism, had a similar awareness and
demanded not just the limitation, but the abolition of the state. For if
we are all imperfect â capable of greed, envy, ignorance, neurosis etc.
â why should we place a small minority of such imperfect creatures in
charge of all the others? Who is ultimately better than anyone else?
Anarchists should not seek utopia, but the minimalization of the
authority of one person over an other and therefore the rejection of all
utopias. Such a society will never be perfect, but at least will allow
us imperfect human beings an attempt to work out our grievances on a
face-to-face basis and come up with practical solutions to many social
and economic problems.
One does not need to read Nietzsche to realize that the problem in the
developed world is not so much traditional authoritarianism, but
nihilism. The most noticable aspects of nihilism, shouted at us by every
newspaper and TV newscast are the breakdown of the family, drug
addiction, crime and delinquency. But there are also ideological
aspects. The campus fad, Deconstructionism, for which history is bunk,
and an over-stressed multiculturalism fragmenting society and destroying
commonality are two of these. So too, Political Correctness with its
extreme cultural and moral relativism. Nihilism is âanything goesâ up to
the point where those seeking or capturing power impose their arbitrary
rules in place of the old morality. (Truth is whatever The Party says it
is) Nihilism is therefore the new form of authoritarianism, one far more
dangerous than the old variety, since it pretends to be
anti-authoritarian and liberatory.
Anarchists are wrong to attack authoritarianism as though nothing has
changed in the last 100 years. The real threat lies in its new nihilist
form. The best way to combat nihilism is with anarchist ethics. Genuine
anarchists have never believed in âanything goesâ. Here lies a way-to
approach the average person. Most people are deeply concerned about
todayâs nihilism, and as a response there is a partial return to
âtraditional moralityâ. This should not shock or unnerve anarchists, for
conservatism and anarchism have this in common â both confront amorality
with a strong ethical stance. Nor need there. always exist a great
divergence of opinion on what constitutes desireable ethics.
Conservatives stress family and community, and such values as honesty,
work, responsibility and autonomy. Turn of the century French
syndicalists hated capitalism because it destroyed the family and
community.[10] The values they stressed were sobriety, frugality, world
education and mutual aid.
Nihilists would write these anarchists off as reactionaries.[11] But
these are some of the the values making a society possible. Without them
you have a âdog eat dogâ situation.
When anarchism was a mass movement 75 to 100 years ago, it spoke the
language of the artisans, peasants and industrial workers and immersed
itself in their causes and struggles. While anarchism spoke for the
majority of society, it also exhorted them to overcome chauvinism,
corporatism and other divisive practices and stood up for minorities.
But these aspects were not the sole content of their propaganda. In the
main, the militants were concerned with the needs and desires of the
âmassesâ.
Today, things are very different. The left seeks to impose an ideology
upon the people, telling them what to believe, rather than listening to
them. Rather than being an agency of the people, the left is the
spokesman for a host of petty bureaucrats âwho claim to rep resent
minorities, the poor and workers. Whenever any of these bureaucracies
are criticized, for any reason what so ever, the left sets up a
hysterical chorus of âracismâ, âblaming the victimâ, âanti-workerâ,
âsexismâ, etc. Unfortunately, some anarchists go along with this.
It is time to go back to the old ways of anarchism, to abandon the
elitistâs view that the people are the enemy, and sit down and listen to
them.
Not that it is hard to hear what they are yelling. Do I really need to
tell you what their concerns are?
someone on minimum wage gives one day a week to the government.
its programs solve nothing â more people are poor, line-ups grow in
hospitals, nothing works as it is supposed to.â
permit, everything is regulated beyond reason. Example -try building
your own home and see how many expense-adding by-laws you must obey.
a population which has not asked for them. Example â quota systems for
employment.
thereby make decisions to the detriment of the citizen.
poor, the lack of job security and the undemocratic way most work-places
are managed.
general lack of a sense of responsibility and respect for the
individual.
dishonest and hypocritical.
There are a number of aspects integral to anarchism which work together
in synthesis. These seven points also form the basis of an anarchist
ethics.
creation should stand above the individual other than what he or she
freely grants. An absolute minimum of coercion in society.
unite to help each other in activities that they cannot accomplish by
themselves.
contract and agreement, individuals or groups, formally or informally,
freely exchange goods or services.
natural human scale units such as workshops, families, villages,
neighborhoods, counties and regions.
which also implies a very high level of personal and intra-personal
responsibility.
those units.
true federation the power always flows from the bottom up.
Read even the most superficial book on anarchism and you will discover
that many forms of anarchism exist â anarchist-communism,
individualist-anarchism, anarcho-syndicalism, free market-anarchism,
anarcho-feminism and greetâanarchism. This division results from people
taking their favorite economic system or extrapolating from what they
see as the most important social struggle and linking this to anarchism.
On the one hand, it is good they have made these linkages, but on the
other, it seems unnecessary and can result in serious problems.
Anarchism, as a theory of liberty, is from the beginning opposed to the
domination of women, and with its concept of reciprocity and
responsibility, anarchism is ecological. Anarchism is not opposed to
free exchange nor voluntary communism and has always bee) in favor of
workers organizing themselves. It is simply unnecessary to hyphenate
anarchism with anything else, because anarchism includes all.
The hyphenation presents a danger. Like it or not, everyone, without
exception, compromises, modifies or softens their beliefs at some point.
Where they compromise is what is important. Do they give up on the
anarchism or the other aspect? You can be assured that most hyphenated
anarchists will prefer to drop the libertarian side of the hyphen. There
are plenty of examples of this occurring. Immediately after the
Bolshevik Revolution, thousands of anarcho-communists and
anarcho-syndicalists flocked into the Communist Party. Many
anarcho-feminists came out in favour of censorship and some
environmental anarchists are quite happy to support strong state
intervention. Certain free-market libertarians idolize Margaret Thatcher
or Ronald Reagan. The only way to avoid these unfortunate compromises is
to cut out the hyphen and emphasize anarchism.
The first thing that must be done is that anarchists have to become real
libertarians. The residual authoritarian leftism must be shed. It must
also be realized that to be an anarchist means more than adopting an
anti-authoritarian rhetoric and ideology. It means a transformation of
the personality â the rejection of personal authoritarian traits and
their replacement with libertarian ones. As long as you are an elitist,
you are only a skin deep anarchist. So too, an anarchist who is
intolerant of others and their opinions. And an anarchist who lies and
slanders other groups and individuals is a fascist poorly disguised.
Far too many people are attracted to anarchism by the erroneous idea
that anarchy means being able to do what ever you want. That freedom
comes at a cost, a cost too great to be born by the immature and the
authoritarian, is forgotten. That cost is responsibility. It is a cost a
genuine anarchist gladly shoulders, for it is our link with other human
beings, and in fact, helps make us human. Our relationship with others
should not be one of dominance or parasitism. The basis of freedom is
one of reciprocity, the foundation of all notions of justice,
solidarity, and autonomy. Something without which society cannot exist.
This personal anarchism must be the bedrock upon which the movement is
founded. Today, the mark of an anarchist is the ability to say the right
things about certain issues. One can learn such a âparty lineâ in a
matter of a few days. The mark of being a real militant super-anarchist
is to heat up ones rhetoric or start mouthing off about violence.
Anybody, no matter how stupid (especially the stupid) can do that.
Another mark of an anarchist is the ability to quote âscriptureâ on any
occasion. This takes a good deal longer than learning the anarchist
âparty lineâ, but any pedant can do it.
Personal changes are a good deal more difficult than such
superficiality. What we must look for when someone says âI am an
anarchistâ or âI would like to join your groupâ, is personal anarchism.
This must be the first thing to look for. Stating the need for a
personal anarchism does not imply that it is easy to accomplish or that
we need wait until everyone is emotionaly healthy to do anything.
Rather, we must become aware of the need for these changes and work
toward them.
To re-emphasize the point, here is a list of the traits that we must
develop:
ideologies, especially oneâs own.
This is the area where anarchists have had the greatest success, one
need only think of individual research projects, bookshops, journals,
radio (pirate and legit.) and action committees. But there is still room
for improvement and new ideas.
There will always be a need for specifically anarchist journals-those
which talk directly to the committed, but more is needed than this. When
anarchism was popular it had a press which spoke the language of the
workers and artisans and addressed their concerns. Today, many
supposedly anarchist journals speak a leftist jargon and address the
concerns of the writers and editors. Back in the late â70âs anarchists
began to produce free weekly or bi-weekly newsheets. In itself, this is
a good idea and should be reexamined, but these free sheets were
completely mired in the leftist counter-culture and ignored the
population at large.
One method of outreach is through existing weekly and community
newspapers. Such papers are always looking for new material and if well
written, articles and book reviews containing libertarian ideas will get
far more publicity than any anarchist magazine. Some communities do not
have their own paper. Here is an opportunity for erterprizing anarchists
to start their own community paper, externally no different than any
other weekly, yet containing a subtle libertarian message.
Every large city has its entertainment weekly often controlled by
leftists. Should anyone start writing articles that address the needs of
the majority, the public will pick up on this and start reading that
persons column or by-line. Hence these papers could be a useful outlet.
There is also the possibility of creating an anarchist controlled
entertainment weekly.
College and community radio, television and pirate radio have had some
anarchist attention paid to them, but not usually in the most accessable
manner. Having a weekly âAnarchist Hourâ is not the answer, nor is ever
having a specifically anarchist radio station. Once again, you are
largely preaching to the converted. Few people are interested in
ideology, most want information. A better alternative would be to have a
program that cannot be typecast, yet has an anarchist bent to it.
One should not ignore computer bulletin boards and the Internet since
these are quickly becoming major sources of communication. Here it is
necesary to create two different types of groups; one specifically
anarchist for more high-falutin in-group discussions and those that are
more general, but have an anarchist orieltation.
Anarchists need a think tank or anarchist versibn of the Fabian Society.
It is easy to toss around rhetoric about abolishing the state. One can
make programmatic suggestions, but a more intensive approach is needed.
However, few people are really attempting to deal with the diflicult
problems arising from the debureaucratizing of society. What does one do
with thousands of former government workers? How does one change a
welfare state into a mutual aid system? How can one best introduce
self-management? There is also a pressing need for indepeident economic
and social research rather than relying upon the usually dishonest
leftist sources, as most anarchists do at present. Such a group could be
international, corresponding through the Internet and publishing a
journal, pamphlets and studies on various topical subjects.
Anarchists should organize at the local level, ie., neighborhood,
village, municipality or county, around issues that effect the
population. The areas of popular discontent discussed above should all
be part of the libertarian âprogramâ. At the city level, Murray
Bookchinâs concept of libertarian municipalism is worth consideration. A
city-wide organization could fight to decentralize the city government
to the neighborhood level and gain greater autonomy for the
municipality.
But try as much as you like, you canât ignore the big one â Leviathan â
the central state. Eventually it must be tackled head on and this can
only be done by a nation-wide mass movement. This does not mean an
opposition between local organizations and the larger movement, on the
contrary, the latter must be based upon the former. This must be a
single issue movement, uniting everyone with a grievance against the
state into a movement for the decentralization of power. It must not be
allowed to be bogged down by secondary and therefore divisive issues,
these can be dealt with by other groups.
Methods could include mass demonstrations in the nationâs capital, mass
strikes, occupation of government offices, both local and in the capital
city. The populations in the former Stalinist regimes have shown us the
way. Tyranny was overthrown in Poland, the former Czechoslovakia,
Hungary and the former East Germany virtually without violence. This
proves that if more than 90% of the population is actively opposed to
the state, there is little the bureaucrats can do to maintain their
rule. We arenât that far off from the 90% figure and the main task is to
create an active and non-violent opposition. That the movement must be
non-violent cannot be emphasized enough. Violence plays into Leviathanâs
hands. We have seen with attentats of the 19^(th) Century
anarcho-terrorists to the Oklahoma bombing, that such actions only serve
to discredit and divide a revolutionary movement.
A non-violent revolution might develop in this manner -People begin
taking control at the local level, developing or reinstituting forms of
self-government and ignoring the state. Certain politicians at the
national level become cognisant of the anti-statist sentiment, and for
genuine or opportunist reasons, will help prevent the regime from
attacking the decentralists. They may also pass certain âdefangingâ
legislation which will weaker the state. Demonstrations accompanied by
mass strikes will occur on an almost daily basis in the capital cities
in support of the local movements and as a means to keep up the pressure
on the politicos. Links with anarchists and decentralists in other
countries will also be developed to insure a massive outcry should the
state choose to repress the libertarian upsurge. The outcome will be the
development of genuine federal institutions.
One of the most stupid ideas ever to enter the authoritarian mind was
consolidating and centralizing the schools. That students drop out and
that alienation and delinquency exists in the huge factory-like schools
is no surprise. Schools must be returned to a human scale. One
possibility is the voucher concept which allows parents to use their
share of the school taxes as fees to place their children where they
wish. This also allows parents and teachers to create their own,
self-funded schools. The Education Departments of the provincial, state
and federal governments must be abolished as they are a waste of money
and the source of all the crack-pot concepts such as consolidation.
Another possibility would be to maintain the public school system but
return it to the community. Primary and secondary schooling would be the
full responsibility of the villages and neighborhoods. No school should
have more than 250â300 pupils and they should be able to walk there.
Back in the fifties a poor person bought a cheap piece of land outside
town and put up a plywood cabin. The savings in rent or mortgage
payments would be converted into construction materials for a real
house. While travelling in France a few years ago I noticed suburban
houses advertised which were only 400 square feet and because of this
size were at a cost that all but the very poorest could afford. Neither
of these alternatives are possible in North America because they are
against the municipal by-laws. These by-laws are the biggest obstacle to
allowing the poor to have their own homes. The alternative offered by
the state is subsidized or state-owned housing, which is very expensive
and of which there is never enough. The answer is to take away the power
of government to regulate house construction â other than in the areas
of safety, fire, health and environmental regulations. (Furthermore,
these regulations must be reasonable.) People could band together in
housing construction co-operatives to buy property, building materials
and help each other in construction.
Governments (state, provincial and federal) are the largest landowners.
Much of the land is restricted from settlement or sale which
artificially inflates the cost of real estate, making it harder for poor
people to become homeowners. (This is particularly true in the West.)
The state bureaucrats have instead, giver or leased at a very cheap
rate, land to their friends for the building of railroads, mines, dams
or logging operations. The ownership of all this real estate naturally
gives the state a great advantage over the local community. All state
land should be immediately turned over to the municipality, village or
county. There should be a covenant with environmental provisos. To
prevent possible corruption at the local level, all sales or leases of
community lands should be overseen by an elected board and all
large-scale alienation subject to a referendum with a required 2/3rds
majority. This is also a way of settling Native land claims â by simply
turning government lands in the vicinity of Native communities over to
them.
We hear a great deal about the health-care crisis. Seems there isnât
enough money to go around. No surprise with any institution run by the
state. Sixty years ago most people in Great Britain were covered by
hospital insurance systems set up by trade unions or other non-profit
associations. Health care in present day France is largely in the hands
of non-profit, democratically controlled mutual aid societies. Part of
the cost-control of these associations (other than being more efficient
than government) is that doctors are employees, rather than getting paid
on a per visit basis. Health care should be turned over to mutual aid
societies and those people who are too poor to afford the premiums
should have the state pay the fees to the mutual of their choice.
Hospitals should be owned outright, controlled and funded by mutual aid
societies or the community. The situation must never again arise where
the state can tell a neighborhood hospital that it must close.
Trade unions once had their own unemployment insurance, in fact, this
was a major reason for their existence. Government control certainly
extended coverage to those who were not not union members, but
typically, the system has gone into crisis. UI must be taken away from
the state and handed over to those who actually use the fund. There is
no reason why insurance co-operatives run on credit union lines could
not be organized. Workers should pay the entire premium themselves to
avoid having to involve employers in the running of the fund (and
creating conflict). This may seem a bit steep, but this would not be a
problem if it was 100% tax deductable.
The same idiots who conjured up school consolidation must have divised
the government pension schemes. Rather than taking pension payroll
deductions and investing them (as any person with a grain of
intelligence would do) the federal government spent the money. Pensions
must come out of general revenue and therefore, when the baby-boomers
retire, the state will be unable to pay up. Solution -abolish the
present pension system, âgrandfatheringâ those who are already
collecting or are near to retirement age. Give everyone else their share
of what they have already paid â to be placed in the pension fund of
their choice. All workers to place a minimum of 10 and a maximum of 20%
of their income in a pension fund with 100% tax deductability. Workers
too poor to afford the mini-mum may receive assistance in making their
payments. Ideally, pension funds should be democratically controlled in
the manner of credit unions, so the investors have some say over what
happens to their money. All pension funds should be insured (like bank
accounts) so no one will be left destitute, should a fund go bankrupt.
Pension funds have an added advantage, for within no time they would own
all of the large companies and the division between worker and owner
would dissappear.
Never more must the state have the right to fund or subsidize these
costly, wasteful and useless projects. Canada is littered with railroads
to nowhere, dams that export electricity below cost, unnecessary
bridges, city destroying freeway systems, superfluous airports, Tar
Sands Projects that never produced a drop of oil and billion dollar
stadiums with retractable roofs that donât retract. This corruption on a
scale undreamed of by Roman emperors can be stopped. All large scale
expenditures should be subject to referendum with a required 2/3
majority. NIMBY could be used, any area subject to possible development
would require consent of the area afflicted (2/3 majority again) and the
right of immanent domain abolished.
Encourage workâsharing and allow employees to contract a four-day work
week. Spread the jobs around so everyone can have one. With every week
end a long week end there will be a boom in volunteer and âleisure timeâ
activities. This will give a further job-creating boost to the economy.
Taken in isolation, none of these measures are particularly radical, all
have been suggested by someone else, and all are in line with what
people seem to want. But these eight suggestions, if enacted, would
completely transform and revolutionize society. The vast majority of the
population would have control over their lives by having the power to
limit the state, the bureaucracy and big business.
[1] âTraditional libertarianismâ â that of European anarchists from
Proudhon to Colin Ward, American Individualism as exemplified by Josiah
Warren and Benjamin Tucker, and Syndicalism, sees abolition of the state
as an ultimate goal. Much of modern so-called âright wingâ
libertarianism is a form of limited state liberalism.
[2] One should not underestimate the importance of these individuals â
such as Sam Dolgoff, Murray Bookchin, Dorothy Day, Paul Goodman, George
Woodcock and Art Bartell â they were a positive influence upon the early
New Left and neo-anarchism.
[3] No doubt someone will accuse me of wanting to ignore minorities. Put
in plain English, this is NOT the case. The problem lies not in taking
up their various causes but that of totally ignoring the majority of the
population. There is also the problem of looking at minorities in at
reductionist fashion. Does a black PHD have more in common with the
ghetto underclass or other university educated people regardless of
race? Such things as class, education, income, culture and ideology are
usually thicker than blood.
[4] Such as Black Flag and Open Road.
[5] For a more developed criticism of PC, see Laughter Is Bourgeois.
[6] If the state is the enemy and is the origin of capitalist inequality
(the traditional anarchist viewpoint) what there is the left but part of
that enemy? But it also goes without saying the vast majority of
leftists are sincere people who genuinely wish to help the poor and
oppressed. The problem is, they cannot conceive of any way of doing so
other than through government.
[7] I do not like the term âcorporatismâ applied to a democratic state
since it really applies to fascism. However the term does contain more
than a grain of truth if stripped of its black-shirt. In the â70âs the
far left used to throw the word around in reference to social democracy
as a means of implying that it was some how fascistic. (Whereas
Stalinism was not, of course) These same people today are at the
forefront of defending âcorporatismâ- with the same hysteria they once
used to attack the moderate left. This only shows what liars and
hypocrites they are.
[8] This was not always the case. In the 19^(th) Century most socialists
(including Karl Marx) wanted an economy based on workersâ co-operatives.
About 100 years ago this began to change into state ownership.
Contemporary people who call themselves âleft-wing anarchistsâ are
harkening back to the earlier era â a time when a mass anti-statist left
no longer exists.
[9] Welfare, while certainly better than starving, is actually a new
form of Oppression. Anarchists have traditionally favored full
employment by work-sharing and the operation of social security through
mutual aid, as humane alternatives to. dumping people on the dole.
Furthermore, no 19^(th) Century socialist ever favored paying
able-bodied people not to work. They would be outraged at such a notion.
What they sought was a progressive reduction of labor time and
employment for all who were capable of working.
[10] âFamilyâ does not have to mean patriarchy. Most leftists and
anarchists rejected the family because of the authoritarianism of the
patriarchal variety. In doing so, they threw the baby out with the bath.
[11] I remember 25 years ago thinking how old Wobblies and Spanish
anarcho-syndicalists seemed like such Puritans in comparison with the
hippie left. We could have learned something from them.