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Title: After the Revolution Author: Anark Date: Nov. 11th, 2019 Language: en Topics: Post-revolution, anarchist society, democratic confederalism, Transition, Breadtube Source: Author script
The following is the script of the video I published on my channel
Anark. If you would like to watch that video, it is here:
Minor edits have been made to the script to instead refer to itself as
an essay instead of a video. Other than this, the content has remained
the same and may be seen as a copy of the video, in text form, that can
be distributed wholly in place of the video.
Given that this is one of the older videos on the channel, there are
parts of this script that I would clarify or detail in greater depth if
I were to write it now. A finer point would have been put on the meaning
of certain terms: communalism or democratic confederalism, for example.
I would have also likely referenced this to other projects and compared
and contrasted its relation to historical anarchist suggestions.
However, I think the work may benefit from this lack of longwindedness.
It is quite a bit more readable because I have avoided jargon and dense
theoretical expansion.
For this reason, some anarchists who read this will naturally object to
the usage of certain words within this piece: democracy, constitution,
civil rights, and so on... However, one should read this work
understanding that it is a sort of plain language presentation of
anarchist solutions, foregoing most of the special terminology utilized
by anarchists to describe their ideas. For this reason, though one might
find that there are technical differences between these stand-in terms
and those that anarchists use, I ask that you read it thinking of how
this terminology fits much better with the common words used by the
average person. This is one of the few works offered on the channel with
this goal and thus I ask you to keep it in mind while you read.
If one were to orient this work within the mileu of ideas that I have
set out since this piece, they could see this as an example of what I
might call an “anarchistic society.” It is not a representation of
anarchy, nor anarcho-communism. It is a sort of transition system that
might exist after a revolutionary rupture and during a period where
anarchists are weathering global sabotage, but which retains some of the
birthmarks of the previous system.
Regardless, I hope this rough outline of an anarchistic society offers
food for thought for those who wish to imagine a different world.
Solidarity forever.
In my previous essays I’ve expressed a concern I have that the left
seems to spend too much time engaged in deconstruction and not enough
time on ideological construction and education. It’s almost like we
think we’re in an era where it’s no longer necessary to create new
theory or to outline new principles of struggle based upon present
conditions. Because of this, I argue, we run the risk of creating a
movement based upon distress and aimlessness instead of hope and
liberation.
For this reason, I want to use this essay to outline a world that we
might all cooperate to strive for. I won’t claim this world to be
uniquely of my own mind. This solution is based upon the principles of
anarcho-syndicalism and has great similarities to the Communalism of
Murray Bookchin and, therefore, the Democratic Confederalism of Abdullah
Ocalan. There are thus numerous examples where these principles have
been instituted to great success and this essay represents a sort of
synthesis of these ideas and a central location for how they might be
implemented. I also don’t want to give the impression that I am
reductively tied to the creation of the exact structures I will lay out
here. If a structure is built which balances the principles of
decentralism, minimization of coercion, and robust protection of the
masses, I am quite open to any suggestions. Instead, I view the aim of
this essay as the creation of a rough sketch of a future society that I
believe best balances the principles I have presented on this channel
against real world difficulties.
Although the topics we’re going to cover here will get pretty complex,
I’ll do my best best, as we proceed, to summarize the ideas in a way
that will inspire confidence that they could coherently manage a complex
society. After all, we want to maintain the gains that humanity has made
through the Industrial and Digital Era, while not trampling the
environment or disempowering the great mass of laborers which animate
all progress and that is no small task.
So let’s have a discussion about what comes after the revolution.
As we begin, I want to address a few pressing concerns which I feel we
are obligated to answer over the course of this essay if we believe this
society will function.
inherent logistical problems of direct participation?
resurgence of reactionary forces?
makes it superior to capitalism?
what is implemented?
I hope to offer coherent and enduring answers to each of these, although
I won’t claim to have solved all of these issues completely. These are
not trivial problems and it is likely that any society will struggle
with them to some degree. But let us begin.
In my last essay, I laid out a framework which made an analogy which
compared the processes of social change and revolution with the
scientific field called complex systems analysis, which concerns itself
with feedback cycles and their behaviors. We will continue now with that
metaphor, focusing upon two other concepts that occur in complex
systems.
The first of these concepts is called the edge of chaos. This phenomena
takes place when a feedback cycle crosses a particular boundary and goes
from being predictable to completely unpredictable. Upon first blush,
when applied to politics, this may sound like it is the naive critique
of anarchism; but quite the contrary, the analogy to political chaos is
primitivism. Primitivism, seeking to recreate the conditions of
humanity’s existence in the state of nature, offers no resistance to
would-be tyrants, turning humans into atomized and defenseless subjects.
But, interestingly, scientific inspection shows that systems which are
allowed to reach harmony naturally tend to lie just upon the edge of
chaos. This tendency is the second of the two concepts that we’re
interested in, called “self-organizing criticality.” Anarchist
structures, stopping short of primitivism and advocating a mutual social
code to maintain a communal defense against the power hoarders,
exemplify self-organizing criticality.
How that social code is enforced is far from a settled affair, however.
After all, historical anarchists have tended to object to the concept of
building an ideal society on a formal agreement. The constitution,
representing to the anarchists a sort of authoritarian document which is
both unnecessary and oppressive, has been rejected quite widely. Yet in
practice, every sustained and wide scale anarchist inspired society has
had one anyway. Why?
Perhaps a biological metaphor will help us think more clearly about
this. In immunology, there is a popular conception that viruses can be
thought of like keys and the immune system like a series of locks. If
the locks are coded appropriately to their environment, the viruses
won’t be able to open them. However, over time, viruses evolve and
therefore develop the correct keys to open those locks. The immune
system, in response, has to code new locks that will be unable to be
opened by the new keys. But, crucially, the immune system can’t
configure itself with the locks to every possible key at the same time.
Thus, in doing so, the new locks are now susceptible to one of the old
keys.
This is the same reason why constitutions are used. Over time, many,
many people will be cycled through our system and, eventually, at least
a few of those people will have an ill intent to concentrate power. If
we don’t create some formal mechanism to respond to those corrupt
actors, we may find our future society co-opted by authoritarian
parasites. And, certainly, if this constitution is built wrong, it can
serve to be a tool of oppression. Just as someone who has an auto-immune
disease is often more hurt than helped by their body’s immune response.
But we can’t sanction the idea that all social and political
interactions will spontaneously organize toward stability with zero
institutions or formal social contracts, just as we can’t expect a body
without an immune system to properly fight off bacterial predators.
Every system will contain a flaw, just as every immune system can only
maintain a limited set of locks. This is why our constitution must aim
to simultaneously seal away the risk of the tyrants, while also paying
heed to the risk of primitivism. This is the political equivalent of
balancing upon the edge of chaos. So...we’ll break with the anarchist
orthodoxy and advocate a constitution here, even if it’s one that is
constantly in flux. Let’s list some of the features that might be in it:
delegates at every level.
freedom of expression, freedom of travel, the right to democratic
access, and others, to be expanded by democratic mandate.
transportation, communication, and others, as society sees fit.
produce and distribute all products not outlined as basic necessities,
held accountable through regulation by citizen bodies.
Like the concerns presented at the beginning of this section, I will try
to describe how some of these principles are actualized in our
theoretical society as we proceed. Although, naturally, I will have to
leave out a great deal in order for us to accommodate such an enormous
topic within the amount of time available, I will try as best I can to
touch on the most important subjects so that a framework might arise in
the mind of the reader.
First, let it be said, although the individual is a member of a greater
collective in this theoretical society, we wish to avoid
“collectivizing” them and therefore diminishing their unique capacities
and desires. And, although the individual’s rights are held sacrosanct,
we also don’t want them to be alienated from their fellow humans by
ruthless expectations of complete self-sustenance. Instead, what we
attempt here is a synthesis of the principles of individual autonomy and
collective responsibility. In every place where an individual is
affected by the actions of some power structure, that individual is
given a democratic body where they may vest control over that power
structure and therefore maintain a sort of radical accountability. These
structures will be called the Workplace, the Community, the
Municipality, the Region, and the Collective. Every individual is a
member of each and their cumulative consent determines the direction of
each.
These entities, built to balance the needs of the individual and the
needs of the collective, therefore reject the tenets of representative
democracy, which has proven only to be a tool of class control, and
instead codify a modified direct democracy. This means that, when
legislation is made, it is crafted, edited, and enacted by the people.
And if individuals see fit to elect some person to carry out a task,
they elect a temporary delegate who can be recalled whenever the
individuals choose. Delegates therefore do not “govern” nor do they
“manage,” they carry out a mandate that was given to them by a
democratic body. Power in this society, is therefore only durable if it
comes along with continuous consent.
Yet...we won’t claim we’ve eliminated coercion. After all, the theorists
of history were not wrong to say that in a majoritarian democracy, the
interests of the many overwrite the interests of the few. Whether the
minority is 49% or 1%, they are tyrannized by those who have succeeded
in democratic mandate. But the best way to fix this problem is not to
jettison democracy. In any system, some group of people will make the
decisions for society and thus a similar sort of tyranny will arise. In
other systems it is just that a minority tyrannizes, accelerating the
concentration of power. Thus, if the problem is the tyranny of the
majority, the solution is to create as large a majority as possible, so
we can gain the highest consensus possible.
With this idea in mind, let me offer a voting system that I think is a
healthy balance between majoritarianism and full consensus. Where voting
is said to take place in this theoretical society, let us imagine, in
all occasions to come, that it will function in the following way:
First, a resolution is presented by an individual in the democratic
body. Following this, there is a discussion period about the resolution.
After this discussion has concluded, the voters all place their first
votes as a temperature check and the results are tallied. If the first
vote comes to a 90% majority, the measure is passed and planning will
begin.
If not, those who voted against the measure are asked to qualify their
concerns into deal-breakers or non-deal-breakers. Those who have said
that their grievances are not deal-breakers put their complaints into
one of several categories and each category of complaint elects a
delegate to plead their case.
After these delegates have each plead their case, voters are asked to
weigh in on their agreement with the grievance and those with the
grievance offer amendments that, if instituted, would garner their
support. These friendly amendments are then voted on and a temperature
check is taken to re-assess the status of consensus. If majority has now
reached 90%, the motion is passed and planning will begin.
If not, those who said that their grievance was a complete deal-breaker
are asked to categorize their complaints and elect delegates to plead
their case. Voters are then asked to weigh in on their agreement with
these grievances and more amendments are gathered. If, after all
amendments have been passed, turned down, or sustained, the majority has
now reached 2/3, the motion is passed and planning will begin.
After passage, the minority enters into a contention process during the
planning phase of the resolution, such that they might still have some
recourse before the resolution is fully implemented. If, during this
contention phase, the majority drops below 50%, the resolution is tabled
or dismissed.
However, if the minority can’t reach a simple majority during planning
and implementation, the resolution is carried forward. The body now
elects a delegate or numerous delegates to carry out the implementation
of the measure under the strict mandate of what was contained in it.
Now that this very particular aspect has been laid out, let’s expand our
scope. We will now walk through a series of descriptions of each of the
governing bodies in this society, all of which are democratically
managed by the populace within them. These different groupings will all
contribute an important aspect of cooperative management to the
citizens, checking one another when they step out of line, and serving
to safeguard the needs of differing cultures and regions.
The first governing body is the individual. In this society, the
individual’s right to bodily autonomy is held sacrosanct. And, insofar
as their actions involve only themselves and place no other person under
coercion, they may do as they please. This would mean the complete
legalization of all drugs, the sanctioning of sport fighting, the
acceptance of both suicide and assisted suicide as implied civil rights,
and the legalization of sex work, even though we may desire to create
systems to ameliorate negative repercussions for any number of these.
By contraposition, however: when the individual makes decisions that
affect others, they are accountable for those outcomes, whether they are
making those decisions as an individual or part of another democratic
body. This effectively abolishes the justification for capitalism from
first principle, given that private ownership of workplaces affects
other people against their will, and therefore functions on coercion and
violates individual autonomy. This also extends to the topic of property
rights: individuals may own personal belongings, but they may not own
anything which is communally operated. They may do what the will with
their own bodies, but when their own self-treatment affects others, they
are held accountable.
This leads us now to the Workplace. Like all other entities in this
society, workplaces would function through consensus. Here, the voting
body would be the workers at each workplace and those workers would
directly and democratically manage their own affairs. If any higher
level management or coordination was needed in carrying this out, the
workers could delegate people to those positions, able to be recalled at
their discretion at any time.
In this aspect alone, we would reduce a great deal of the toxic behavior
seen in capitalist workplaces. It is not to say that this new version of
the workplace is free from any incentive to act badly. It is simply to
say, it is less likely to do so. Instead of managers functioning as
enforcers for the class interests of the capitalists, they would be
co-equal laborers. Businesses, now managed completely by the laborers
would also be much more responsive to the concerns of those in the
workplace, both as laborers and as citizens of the world. Externalities,
such as environmental damage, would no longer be hidden from the workers
behind opaque hierarchies, but would instead be transparently available,
compelling the workers to act responsibly.
The workplace, in this society, would no longer be a place that seeks to
domineer the laborers, but would instead function on their constant
direction, now a sort of civic body that is woven into a democratic
tapestry.
The next grouping we will discuss is what we call the Community.
Although named in a traditional sense, it takes on a technical meaning
in this system. Here, every person would only belong to one Community,
decided by the separation of the total landmass into non-overlapping
geographical areas. Communities should be separated into some consistent
number of people, perhaps 150 (as per Dunbar’s Number), so that each
Community is given equal power and is simultaneously small enough that
face-to-face democracy can still be carried out. Nonetheless, whatever
number is chosen, these communities should never grow so large that the
people within them can’t meet and make decisions easily.
These Communities would then create and pass legislation that applies to
their shared surroundings, while simultaneously functioning as the
primary democratic bodies that operate at the very top of the structure.
Although the Community will participate in all of the larger groupings,
there are a few particular tasks they will need to fulfill.
First, the Community is the level at which the lowest tier of the
justice system would exist and by which all laws and enumerated measures
for reparation or rehabilitation not explicitly present in the
constitution, would be outlined. The fundamental ethos of the justice
system in this society would be that justice means “repairing the wrongs
that have been done and preventing further ones from being committed.”
Punitive justice, caring nothing for reparation or rehabilitation,
functioning only on fear, would therefore not be permitted. All
violators of the common law should be treated as if they are
fundamentally capable of being rehabilitated. Further, because
“repairing wrongs” is part of the very foundations of justice,
reparation for the victim should always be a primary concern.
A society such as this should avoid the creation of mandatory minimum
sentences and worship of previous rulings. These Community Justice
Councils should decide for themselves what the process of rehabilitation
and reparation would look like. Permanent separation of citizens from
society would therefore be extremely rare and would only occur in
situations where that person is an active threat to their community and
have to be separated in order to maintain the safety of others.
This sequestering of citizens, not viewed as punishment for the sake of
punishment, would also therefore avoid placing violators in oppressive
and traumatic jail systems. Instead, sequestered citizens would live in
Rehabilitation Communities which function democratically just the same
as regular Communities, but they would have to be monitored and required
to undergo rehabilitative measures. Once the Community Justice Council
assesses that these sequestered citizens are rehabilitated, they would
then be released back into the general population, although not forced
to do so if they wish to stay.
But what if the community comes under threat? As we have conceded, there
will be those who choose to use coercion, both in the interpersonal
sense and political sense, in any society. Some measures for social
self-defense, beyond the primitivist notion of atomized individuals with
firearms, must be instituted if there is to be a coordinated response to
wide scale attack. For this reason, I suggest that each Community would
have its own Community Militia, consisting of all members of that
Community, although not compelling all of those members to actively
participate if they did not want to. Given that this Community Militia
would not be given any greater right to coerce the populace than the
call to self-defense, they could not arrest citizens for anything short
of an active risk to the Community. Community Militias are defensive,
non-active military units; flexible and able to confederate, just as all
other bodies in this society, based upon the scale of the threat that is
involved.
From here, the next largest deliberative body would be called the
Municipality. This body, comprised of several Communities and Workplace
Councils, would necessarily represent something akin to a city or
county.
The Municipality, now covering a more significant territory and
containing many Workplaces and Communities, is the first level at which
most economic and environmental concerns would arise. The people in a
Municipality, joined by their shared location, would naturally be
closest to any negative environmental and economic effects of society’s
various Workplaces. If their local river was polluted or the price of
their goods was unreasonable, they would collectively experience that
problem. That would make them best oriented to attend to that problem,
although they may desire to seek expertise in solving it.
But, given that some Municipalities could be quite large, this is also
the scale at which face to face democracy would become somewhat
difficult. For this reason, we will introduce a mechanic that will be
used in all groupings from here on. In this schema, we won’t only seek
the consensus of individuals within each Community, we will seek the
unity consensus of all pertinent groupings affected by the decision at
hand.
So, for example: if a resolution were presented at the level of the
Municipality, it would have to also be presented as a resolution to
every individual Community within that Municipality and each would have
to reach their own Community Verdict. Only by combining these Community
Verdicts together at the level of the Municipality could it then be
determined whether the measure passed or not. This process holds true
for any grouping to come, requiring that entity to receive Community
Verdicts in order to pass their measure.
The next grouping we will discuss is called the Region. Each Region is a
combination of numerous Municipalities, incorporating the needs of all
of the Workers’ Councils and Communities contained within. The Region,
now comprised of such a wide variety of different people and competing
needs, would probably be the stage for an enormous number of disputes, a
last stop of deliberation before any issue is determined to require the
Collective Body. The Region comes along with its own particular
environmental and economic considerations, now seeing a bigger picture
than that of the Municipalities. This means that many of the concerns of
the Region will be more sweeping versions of the concerns of the
Municipalities.
This is especially important, given that power structures have a
tendency to externalize their problems. For example: what would happen
if a Municipality made a decision that was in the interest of their
local ecology or environment, but that decision negatively affected
people elsewhere? Well, although the desired outcome would be that these
two Municipalities would mediate a mutual agreement, this will not
always be possible. In that particular occasion, the Region would then
find itself making determinations about their dispute and would, in this
process, determine how the Regional environment should be maintained,
how the economy should be stabilized, and what the solutions to those
issues will look like. It is therefore, in many ways, a body that is
meant to settle the disagreements or short-sighted decisions made by the
Municipalities.
That leads us finally to a body called the Collective. This is the
largest deliberative body and would represent everyone in this
autonomous leftist society. This body is very, very important, as the
verdicts that would be issued at this level would be meant to represent
the fundamental rights of every person and thing in existence. It would
find itself frequently making determinations about the macroeconomic
arrangements of the society, the amendment and clarification of the
constitution, the creation and sustenance of social programs, and the
management of collectivized industries. Wherein there is some right made
explicit in the constitution, this is the level at which a mechanism to
deliver it would be made. Collectivized, non-market entities for the
production and distribution of food, water, clothing, shelter,
healthcare, education, access to information, transportation and all
other amenities not considered luxuries, would be outlined and
instituted by delegate councils.
When there is a dispute that takes place that can’t be resolved by the
Regional bodies, this Collective body is where it would ultimately
arrive. Often, these concerns will be able to be addressed through
mediation or collective proposal, but sometimes they will address issues
which are quite foundational and require a reformulation of the
constitution. Through the direct proposal and direction of the masses,
any of the stipulations written in the Collective Constitution could
therefore be changed or expanded. In this way, we hope that society
never becomes shackled to a founding document, but instead continually
reforms it based upon their values and moves forward within the scope of
their mutual agreement.
With this, we conclude our summary of the democratic bodies that would
comprise this system. We have endeavored to balance the needs of the
individual and the needs of the collective, and to grant exceptional
autonomy, while never granting the right to tyranny. As I have said
before, I don’t claim that this is exactly the society that we will
create, nor that every aspect is perfect. What I have presented in this
essay is a relatively detailed sketch of how anarchist principles might
be used to create a socialist economic model with robust democratic
recourse.
Ideally, what we have built here is a system under which the people can
simply will the next revolution by mandate, rather than having to
struggle through violence and insurrection. After all, there are fixes
for all of the problems this society has left unsolved, when they see
fit to institute them: market abolition, currency abolition, and
distribution based upon need by communal and uncoerced management would
all be desirable, if they could be put in place coherently.
After all, we don’t mean to suggest here that a full communist economic
arrangement is not desirable. We suggest this society as a sort of
training ground to teach the masses how to manage themselves, how to
cooperate on various scales, and how to reorganize our social
arrangements such that there is no longer even a conception that capital
should tyrannize.
This society is a seed which...if planted in fertile soil...might create
a new political paradigm, capable of perpetual revolution and yet still
be prepared to fight bitterly to defend the gains it has made. We offer
the people of this future society a way that they might choose the time,
place, and condition for all future abolitions of unchecked power,
untrammeled by dictators and centralized bureaucracies, able to protect
themselves from the reactionary element without having to sacrifice
their principles. A society truly based in solidarity and respect, yet
not naivete. A new society of the unbroken, never to be held in chains
again.