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Title: Anarchy 101 Author: Bob Black Date: Fall/Winter 2005–2006 Language: en Topics: introductory, AJODA, AJODA #60, Little Black Cart Source: Bob Black, “Anarchy 101,” in *Defacing the Currency: Selected Writings, 1992–2012* (Berkeley, Calif.: LBC Books, 2012), pp. 37–51. Notes: This piece was originally published in *Anarchy: A Journal of Desire Armed* No. 60, 23(2), Fall/Winter 2005–2006, pp. 65–68. This Revised and expanded version appeared in *Defacing the Currency: Selected Writings, 1992–2012* (Berkeley, Calif.: LBC Books, 2012), pp. 37–51. The original version can be read at: https://web.archive.org/web/20220920041347/https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/bob-black-anarchy-101
Anarchism is an idea about what’s the best way to live. Anarchy is the
name for that way of living.
Anarchism is the idea that the state (government) is unnecessary and
harmful. Anarchy is society without government. Anarchists are people
who believe in anarchism and desire for us all to live in anarchy (as
all our ancestors did for at least a million years).
People who believe in government (such as liberals, conservatives,
socialists and fascists) are known as “statists.” Anarchists appreciate
that statists don’t believe all the same things. Some of their
differences with each other are important. But the most important
difference of all is between what they all believe in—the state—and what
anarchists believe in: anarchy
It might sound like anarchism is purely negative, that it’s just against
something. Anarchism truly is unconditionally against something: the
state. But it is also for something: a decentralized, cooperative,
human-scale society. Anarchists have many positive ideas about life in a
stateless society. But, unlike Marxists, liberals and conservatives,
they don’t offer a blueprint.
No — at least not compared to, say the United States Government. Why do
we still hear about “bomb-throwing anarchists,” although anarchists
rarely throw bombs any more, but not about “bomb-dropping Presidents”?
According to one study, governments killed 292 million civilians during
the 20^(th) century. They are by far the greatest terrorists.
Anarchists have been active for many years and in many countries, under
autocratic as well as democratic governments. Sometimes, especially
under conditions of severe repression, some anarchists have thrown
bombs. But that has been the exception. The “bomb-throwing anarchist”
stereotype was concocted by politicians and journalists in the late
19^(th) century, and they still won’t let go of it, but even back then
it was a gross exaggeration.
Yes, many thousands of them. For their first million years or more, all
humans lived as hunter-gatherers in small bands of equals, without
hierarchy or authority. These are our ancestors. Anarchist societies
must have been successful, otherwise none of us would be here. The state
is only a few thousand years old, and it has taken that long for it to
subdue the last anarchist societies, such as the San (Bushmen), the
Pygmies and the Yanamomo Indians in the Amazon.
Most anarchists would agree. But it’s still worthwhile to study these
societies, if only to learn that anarchy isn’t impossible. We might even
to pick up some ideas on how a completely voluntary, highly
individualistic, yet cooperative society might work. To take just one
example, anarchist foragers and tribesmen often have highly effective
methods of conflict resolution, including mediation and nonbinding
arbitration. Their methods work better than our legal systems because
the family, friends and neighbors of the disputants encourage disputants
to agree, helped by sympathetic and trustworthy go-betweens, to find
some reasonable resolution of the problem. In the 1970s and 1980s,
academic supposed experts tried to transplant some of these methods into
the American legal system. Naturally the transplants withered and died,
because they only live in a free society.
Not so. It’s true that anarchists reject ideas of innate depravity or
Original Sin. Those are religious ideas that most people no longer
believe in. But anarchists don’t usually believe that human nature is
essentially good either. They take people as they are. Human beings
aren’t “essentially” anything. We who live under capitalism and its
ally, the state, are just people who have never had a chance to be all
we can be.
(And surely the last place to be all you can be is in the Army!—which is
where you can most clearly see the essence of the state: blind
obedience, hierarchy, and systematic violence.)
Although anarchists often make moral appeals to the best in people, just
as often they appeal to enlightened self-interest. Anarchism is not a
doctrine of self-sacrifice, although anarchists have fought and died for
what they believe in. Anarchists believe that the carrying-out of their
basic idea would mean a better life for almost everyone.
state to control crime?
If you can’t trust ordinary people not to victimize each other, how can
you trust the state not to victimize us all? Are the people who get into
power so unselfish, so dedicated, so superior to the ones they rule?
Political power, as anarchist Alex Comfort argued, attracts some of the
same kind of people as crime does. The more you distrust your fellow
man, the more reason there is for you to become an anarchist. Under
anarchy, power is reduced and spread around. Everybody has some, but
nobody has very much. Under the state, power is concentrated, and most
people have none, really. Which kind of power would you like to go up
against?
As anarchist Allen Thornton observes, “Police aren’t in the protection
business; they’re in the revenge business.” Forget about Batman driving
around interrupting crimes in progress. Police patrol does not prevent
crime or catch criminals. When police patrol was discontinued secretly
and selectively in Kansas City neighborhoods, the crime rate stayed the
same. Other research likewise finds that detective work, crime labs,
etc. have no effect on the crime rate. But when neighbors get together
to watch over each other and warn off would-be criminals, criminals try
another neighborhood which is protected only by the police. The
criminals know that they are in little danger there.
everyday life. Almost every activity has some sort of state connection.
That’s true — but when you think about it, everyday life is almost
entirely anarchist. Rarely does one encounter a policeman, unless he is
writing you a traffic ticket for speeding. Voluntary arrangements and
understandings prevail almost everywhere. As anarchist Rudolph Rocker
wrote: “The fact is that even under the worst despotism most of man’s
personal relations with his fellows are arranged by free agreement and
solidaric cooperation, without which social life would not be possible
at all.”
Family life, buying and selling, friendship, worship, sex, and leisure
are anarchist. Even in the workplace, which many anarchists consider to
be as coercive as the state, workers notoriously cooperate, independent
of the boss, both to minimize work and to get it done. Some people say
anarchy doesn’t work. But it’s almost the only thing that does! The
state rests, uneasily, on a foundation of anarchy, and so does the
economy.
You don’t have to be an atheist to be an anarchist. Anarchists respect
everyone’s personal beliefs, they just don’t want them to be imposed on
others. Historically, many anarchists have been atheists because
organized religion has historically been the ally of the state, and
because religion has discouraged people from thinking for themselves.
All anarchists oppose the unholy alliance of church and state whether in
Iran or Israel or the United States. But there have been influential
Christian anarchists (Leo Tolstoy, Dorothy Day), Jewish anarchists (Paul
Goodman), Muslim anarchists (Hakim Bey), and anarchists who identify
with pagan or Eastern religious traditions.
Anarchism has always attracted generous and creative spirits who have
enriched our culture. Anarchist poets include Percy Bysshe Shelley,
William Blake, Arthur Rimbaud, and Lawrence Ferlinghetti. American
anarchist essayists include Henry David Thoreau and, in the 20^(th)
century, Dwight Macdonald, Paul Goodman, and the Catholic anarchist
Dorothy Day. Anarchist scholars include the linguist Noam Chomsky, the
historian Howard Zinn, and the anthropologists A.R. Radcliffe-Brown,
Pierre Clastres and David Graeber. Anarchist literary figures are far
too numerous to list but include Leo Tolstoy, Oscar Wilde, B. Traven,
Mary Shelley (author of Frankenstein ), and Alex Comfort (author of
anarchist essays as well as The Joy of Sex). Anarchist painters include
Gustav Courbet, Georges Seurat, Camille Pissarro, and Jackson Pollock.
Other creative anarchists include such musicians as John Cage, John
Lennon, the band CRASS, etc.
what we have now, how can we possibly overthrow the state if it’s as
powerful and oppressive as you say it is?
Anarchists have always thought about this question. They have no single,
simple answer. In Spain, where there were one million anarchists in 1936
when the military attempted a coup, they fought the Fascists at the
front at the same time that they supported workers in taking over the
factories, and the peasants in forming collectives on the land.
Anarchists did the same thing in the Ukraine in 1918–1920, where they
had to fight both the Czarists and the Communists. But that’s not how we
will bring down the system in the world of the 21^(st) century.
Consider the revolutions that overthrew Communism in Eastern Europe.
There was some violence and death involved, more in some countries than
in others. But what brought down the politicians, bureaucrats and
generals — the same enemy we face — was most of the population just
refusing to work or do anything else to keep a rotten system going. What
were the commissars in Moscow or Warsaw to do, drop nuclear weapons on
themselves? Exterminate the workers that they were living off?
Most anarchists have long believed that what they call a general strike
could play a large part in crumbling the state. That is, a collective
refusal to work.
If democracy means that people control their own lives, then all
anarchists would be, as American anarchist Benjamin Tucker called them,
“unterrified Jeffersonian democrats” — they would be the only true
democrats. But that’s not what democracy really is. In real life, a part
of the people (in America, almost always a minority of the people) elect
a handful of politicians who control our lives by passing laws and using
unelected bureaucrats and police to enforce them whether the majority
likes it or not.
As the French philosopher Rousseau (not an anarchist) once wrote, in a
democracy, people are only free at the moment they vote, the rest of the
time they are government slaves. The politicians in office and the
bureaucrats are usually under the powerful influence of big business and
often other special interest groups. Everyone knows this. But some
people keep silent because they are getting benefits from the
powerholders. Many others keep silent because they know that protesting
does no good and they might be called “extremists” or even “anarchists”
(!) if they tell it like it is. Some democracy!
make them? You can’t tell me that everybody can do as he personally
pleases without regard for others.
Anarchists have many ideas about how decisions would be made in a truly
voluntary and cooperative society. Most anarchists believe that such a
society must be based on local communities small enough for people know
each other, or people at least would share ties of family, friendship,
opinions or interests with almost everybody else. And because this is a
local community, people also share common knowledge of their community
and its environment. They know that they will have to live with the
consequences of their decisions. Unlike politicians or bureaucrats, who
decide for other people.
Anarchists believe that decisions should always be made at the smallest
possible level. Every decision which individuals can make for
themselves, without interfering with anybody else’s decisions for
themselves, they should make for themselves. Every decision made in
small groups (such as the family, religious congregations, co-workers,
etc.) is again theirs to make as far as it doesn’t interfere with
others. Decisions with significant wider impact, if anyone is concerned
about them, would go to an occasional face-to-face community assembly.
The community assembly, however, is not a legislature. No one is
elected. Anyone may attend. People speak for themselves. But as they
speak about specific issues, they are very aware that for them, winning
isn’t everything. They value fellowship with their neighbors. They try,
first, to reduce misunderstanding and clarify the issue. Often that’s
enough to produce agreement. If that’s not enough, they work for a
compromise. Very often they accomplish it. If not, the assembly may put
off the issue, if it’s something that doesn’t require an immediate
decision, so the entire community can reflect on and discuss the matter
prior to another meeting. If that fails, the community will explore
whether there’s a way the majority and minority can temporarily
separate, each carrying out its preference.
If people still have irreconcilable differences about the issue, the
minority has two choices. It can go along with the majority this time,
because community harmony is more important than the issue. Maybe the
majority can conciliate the minority with a decision about something
else. If all else fails, and if the issue is so important to the
minority, it may separate to form a separate community, just as various
American states have done. If their secession isn’t an argument against
statism, then it isn’t an argument against anarchy. That’s not a failure
for anarchy, because the new community will recreate anarchy. Anarchy
isn’t a perfect system — it’s just better than all the others.
Maybe not all of them, but there’s evidence from archaeology of
long-distance trade, over hundreds or even thousands of miles, in
anarchist, prehistoric Europe. Anarchist primitive societies visited by
anthropologists in the 20^(th) century, such as the San (Bushmen)
hunter-gatherers and the tribal Trobriand Islanders, conducted such
trade between individual “trade-partners”—although it was more like
exchanging gifts than what we think of as commerce. Practical anarchy
has never depended on total local self-sufficiency. But many modern
anarchists have urged that communities, and regions, should be as
self-sufficient as possible, so as not to depend on distant, impersonal
outsiders for necessities. Even with modern technology, which was often
designed specifically to enlarge commercial markets by breaking down
self-sufficiency, much more local self-sufficiency is possible than
governments and corporations want us to know.
be — chaos?
Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, the first person to call himself an anarchist,
wrote that “liberty is the mother, not the daughter of order.” Anarchist
order is superior to state-enforced order because it is not a system of
coercive laws, it is simply how communities of people who know each
other decide how to live together. Anarchist order is based on common
consent and common sense.
Some anarchists think that anarchist ideas were expressed by Diogenes
the Cynic in ancient Greece, by Lao Tse in ancient China, and by certain
medieval mystics and also during the 17^(th) century English Civil War.
But modern anarchism began with William Godwin’s Political Justice
published in England in 1793. It was revived in France by Pierre-Joseph
Proudhon in the 1840s (What Is Property?). He inspired an anarchist
movement among French workers. Max Stirner in The Ego and His Own (1844)
defined the enlightened egoism which is a basic anarchist value. An
American, Josiah Warren, independently arrived at similar ideas at the
same time and influenced the large-scale movement at the time to found
thousands of American utopian communities. Anarchist ideas were
developed further by the great Russian revolutionary Michael Bakunin, by
the respected Russian revolutionary and scholar Peter Kropotkin, and by
the great Russian author Leo Tolstoy. (Several influential American
anarchists, such as Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman, were also
Russian-born.) Anarchists hope that their ideas continue to develop in a
changing world.
wants.
Anarchists and Marxists have been enemies since the 1860s. Although they
have sometimes cooperated against common enemies like the Czarists
during the Russian Revolution and the Spanish Fascists during the
Spanish Civil War, the Communists have always betrayed the anarchists.
From Karl Marx to Joseph Stalin, Marxists have denounced anarchism.
Some anarchists, followers of Kropotkin, call themselves “communists” —
not Communists. But they contrast their free communism, arising from
below — the voluntary pooling of land, facilities and labor in local
communities where people know each other — to a Communism imposed by
force by the state, nationalizing land and productive facilities,
denying all local autonomy, and reducing workers to state employees. How
could the two systems be more different?
Anarchists welcomed and in fact participated in the fall of European
Communism. Some foreign anarchists had been assisting Eastern Bloc
dissidents — as the U.S. Government had not — for many years. Anarchists
are now active in all the former Communist countries as well as in other
formerly authoritarian countries (whose regimes the U.S. Government did
support) such as Greece, Turkey, Spain, Portugal, Brazil, Argentina, the
Philippines, etc.
The Communist collapse certainly did discredit much of the American
left, but not the anarchists, many of whom do not consider themselves
leftists anyway. Anarchists were around before Marxism and we are still
around after it.
Does anybody advocate violence for its own sake? Not anarchists,
certainly. Anarchists aren’t nearly as violent as Democrats,
Republicans, liberals and conservatives. Those people only seem to be
nonviolent because they use the state to do their dirty work—to be
violent for them. But violence is violence. Wearing a uniform or waving
a flag does not change that. The state is violent by definition. The
police routinely commit acts of violence which are crimes when they are
committed by anybody else than the police. Without violence against our
anarchist ancestors—hunter-gatherers and farmers—there would be no
states today. Some anarchists advocate violence, and a few of them
engage in it—but all states engage in violence all the time.
Some anarchists, in the tradition of Tolstoy, are pacifist and
nonviolent on principle. A relatively small number of anarchists believe
in going on the offensive against the state. Most anarchists believe in
self-defense and would accept some level of violence in a revolutionary
situation.
The issue is not really violence vs. nonviolence. The issue is direct
action. Anarchists believe that people — all people — should take their
fate into their own hands, individually or collectively, whether doing
that is legal or illegal and whether it has to involve violence or it
can be accomplished nonviolently.
Most anarchists are not “exactly” sure. The world will be a very
different place after government has been abolished. We will just have
to look around at the world the state has left us with, and see what we
can do with it. That’s what anarchy is all about: deciding for
ourselves.
Anarchists don’t usually offer blueprints, but they propose some guiding
principles. They say that mutual aid — cooperation rather than
competition — is the soundest basis for social life. They are
individualists in the sense that they think society exists for the
benefit of the individual, not the other way around. They favor
decentralization, meaning that the foundations of society should be
local, face-to-face communities. These communities then federate — in
relations of mutual aid — but only to coordinate activities which can’t
be carried on by local communities.
Anarchist decentralization turns the existing hierarchy upside down.
Right now, the higher the level of government, the more power it has.
Under anarchy, higher levels of association aren’t governments at all.
They have no coercive power, and the higher you go, the less
responsibility is delegated to them from below. Still, anarchists are
aware of the risk that these federations might become bureaucratic and
statist. We are utopians but we are also realists. We will have to
monitor those federations closely. As Thomas Jefferson put it, “eternal
vigilance is the price of liberty.”
Winston Churchill, a deceased alcoholic English politician and war
criminal, once wrote that “democracy is the worst system of government,
except for all the others.” Anarchy is the worst system of society —
except for all the others. So far, all civilizations (state societies)
have collapsed and have been succeeded by anarchist societies. State
societies are inherently unstable. Sooner or later, ours will also
collapse. It’s not too soon to start thinking about what to put in its
place. Anarchists have been thinking about that for over 200 years. We
have a head start. We invite you to explore our ideas — and to join us
in trying to make the world a better place.