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Title: Anarchism, socialism and freedom Author: Kevin Doyle Date: 1992 Language: en Topics: workers’ councils, state capitalism, Freedom, state socialism, Workers Solidarity Source: Retrieved on 9th October 2021 from http://struggle.ws/ws92/anarchism36.html Notes: Published in Workers Solidarity No. 36 Autumn 1992.
ANARCHISM IS a much maligned and misunderstood set of ideas. It has come
to symbolise, to many people, a society of destruction and disorder. Yet
nothing could be further from the truth. Anarchism has been deliberately
slandered and misrepresented, not only by those running this society but
also by most on the Left. Deliberately, for the reason that its
uncompromising and radical critique of society and how to change it
poses a challenge that can not be met except by slander. Its roots and
association with the working class of all countries tells the real
truth.
Anarchism views society, what it is and how it should be, on the basis
of two fundamental pillars. These are the economic nature of society and
the manner in which political power is organised. We believe that the
economic system under which we presently live must be abolished. We also
say that the political institutions of capitalism, which are
hierarchical and authoritarian, must go too. These institutions serve
the employer class and will have to be replaced with ones based on mass
participatory democracy and freedom.
In the new economic order the workers of the world will own and share
all the wealth they produce. Decisions will be made through workplace
and community councils which will be federated at all levels and
centrally co-ordinated. Thus political power will not be organised in a
hierarchical manner, where a central government tells everyone else what
to do.
Those socialists who follow the ideas of Lenin hold that such a society
can only be built by using the State structures, albeit a “workers
state”, under the leadership of their Party. Anarchists reject this
since both the State and Party are hierarchical and authoritarian. They
are diametrically opposed to the aims and organisation of the new
society.
Rather than building a real socialist society where both economic and
political power would be everyone’s possession and nobody’s property,
these people end up building societies that are no more than State
Capitalism like Russia was and China still is. In these countries
ordinary people do not have any say in how things are run or in the
decisions that effect them. They are ordered about and exploited just as
happens in the “free world”.
Anarchists predicted this long before it was confirmed by the betrayal
of the Russian revolution, when the workers’ soviets and factory
committees were suppressed by the Bolshevik state. After all, the means
you use and what you end up with are connected. Thus, if the structures
used to build socialism are hierarchical and undemocratic you should not
be surprised if the society you end up with is hierarchical and
undemocratic. This scientific law seemingly escapes some self-proclaimed
followers of “scientific socialism”.
The question of freedom is not just a subject for some mere
philosophical debate. It is at the very heart of revolutionary change
and socialism. A successful revolution is not just a shift in economic
power from the employers to the workers.
It is a time of real freedom. It is a time when the shackles of the old
oppressive order are thrown off and the workers movement explodes into a
recreativity as it copes with organising every facet of society so that
the needs of all are met. Everyone can get involved, through their
assemblies and delegate councils, in decision making and planning that
used to be the sole concern of central government. Freedom of ideas,
criticism and input will not only be a practical reality but a
necessity.
Capitalist society is organised in a top-down way. Orders come from the
top and those at the bottom obey them. The institutions by which the
bosses rule, the Government and the State, are built so that the rule of
a minority over the majority is possible. Control of political freedom,
ideas and information is fundamental to their working. Participation is
strictly limited so that most people never have any say.
That is why we wish to abolish these structures. They can never be used
to create socialism but instead will actively sabotage the workers’
cause. The “workers states” advocated by the Leninists for the
transition to socialism have proven to be its greatest enemy. Only
workers’ councils can form the basis of the new society.
We stand uncompromisingly for a new world. One which will be owned and
managed by all those who work. It will be organised from the bottom up
and production will be to meet peoples’ needs, not for the private
profit of a few. Anarchist society will make real the old call “from
each according to ability, to each according to need”. Every individual
will enjoy complete control of her/his life with no limit on their
freedom as long as they do not encroach on the freedom of anyone else.
Now, isn’t that something worth struggling for?