Tag: state

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The Politics of Social Ecology : Libertarian Municipalism (1998)

Author(s)

Janet Biehl

Contents

“Libertarian municipalism is one of many political theories that concern themselves with the principles and practices of democracy.

In contrast to most such theories, however, it does not accept the conventional notion that the State and governmental systems typical of Western countries today are truly democracies. On the contrary, it considers them republican States with pretensions of being democratic. Republican States, to be sure, are more “democratic” than other kinds of States, like monarchies and dictatorships, in that they contain various kinds of representative institutions. But they are nonetheless States—overarching structures of domination in which a few people rule over the great majority.

A State, by its very nature, is structurally and professionally separated from the general population—in fact, it is set over and above ordinary men and women. It exercises power over them, making decisions that affect their lives. Its power in the last instance rests on violence, over whose legal use the State has a monopoly, in the form of its armies and police forces. In a structure where power is distributed so unevenly, democracy is impossible. Far from embodying rule by the people, even a republican State is incompatible with popular rule. Libertarian municipalism advances a kind of democracy, by contrast, that is no mere fig leaf for State rule.

The democracy it advances is direct democracy—in which citizens in communities manage their own affairs through face-to-face processes of deliberation and decision-making, rather than have the State do it for them.”

Janet Biehl

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Anarchy Works (2010)

Author(s)

Peter Gelderloos

Contents

“Anarchism is the boldest of revolutionary social movements to emerge from the struggle against capitalism—it aims for a world free from all forms of domination and exploitation. But at its heart is a simple and convincing proposition: people know how to live their own lives and organize themselves better than any expert could.

Others cynically claim that people do not know what is in their best interests, that they need a government to protect them, that the ascension of some political party could somehow secure the interests of all members of society.

Anarchists counter that decision-making should not be centralized in the hands of any government, but instead power should be decentralized: that is to say, each person should be the center of society, and all should be free to build the networks and associations they need to meet their needs in common with others.

Anarchy means different things to different people. However, here are some basic principles most anarchists agree on.

– Autonomy and Horizontality : All people deserve the freedom to define and organize themselves on their own terms. Decision-making structures should be horizontal rather than vertical, so no one dominates anyone else; they should foster power to act freely rather than power over others. Anarchism opposes all coercive hierarchies, including capitalism, the state, white supremacy, and patriarchy.

– Mutual Aid : People should help one another voluntarily; bonds of solidarity and generosity form a stronger social glue than the fear inspired by laws, borders, prisons, and armies. Mutual aid is neither a form of charity nor of zero-sum exchange; both giver and receiver are equal and interchangeable. Since neither holds power over the other, they increase their collective power by creating opportunities to work together.

– Voluntary Association : People should be free to cooperate with whomever they want, however they see fit; likewise, they should be free to refuse any relationship or arrangement they do not judge to be in their interest. Everyone should be able to move freely, both physically and socially. Anarchists oppose borders of all kinds and involuntary categorization by citizenship, gender, or race.

– Direct Action : It is more empowering and effective to accomplish goals directly than to rely on authorities or representatives. Free people do not request the changes they want to see in the world; they make those changes.

– Revolution : Today’s entrenched systems of repression cannot be reformed away. Those who hold power in a hierarchical system are the ones who institute reforms, and they generally do so in ways that preserve or even amplify their power. Systems like capitalism and white supremacy are forms of warfare waged by elites; anarchist revolution means fighting to overthrow these elites in order to create a free society.

– Self-liberation : ‘The liberation of the workers is the duty of the workers themselves,’ as the old slogan goes. This applies to other groups as well: people must be at the forefront of their own liberation. Freedom cannot be given; it must be taken.”

Peter Gelderloos

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Worshiping Power – An Anarchist view of Early State Formation (2017)

Author(s)

Peter Gelderloos

Contents

“The question of how and why states were formed is the keystone of Western civilization’s creation mythology. Most readers will share my experience of having been brought up in a society where history begins with the appearance ofthe State.

Anything outside its domain is a Dark Age, terra incognita, a savage and barbarian land. We are taught that communities created the hierarchical structures of territorial governance that would eventually solidify as states out of a need to organize more efficiently, to respond to natural disasters or population growth, to administer large-scale infrastructure, to defend against hostile outsiders, to protect individual rights through a social contract, or to regulate economic production and surplus value.

All of these hypotheses are demonstrably false, yet we are continually indoctrinated to accept them, to keep us from grasping the predatory, parasitic, elitist, and completely unnecessary nature of the State.

[…] Thanks to social movements and anti-authoritarian struggles in the streets, and a growing recognition—starting with the near nuclear disasters of the Cold War and accelerating with climate change and mass extinction—that the State may well be the death of us all, room has finally been created for the scholarship that backs up what has been obvious for centuries: that the State is the enemy of freedom, human well-being, and the health of the planet.”

Peter Gelderloos

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How Non-violence Protects the State (2007)

Author(s)

Peter Gelderloos

Contents

“Because of the hegemony advocates of nonviolence exert, criticisms of nonviolence are excluded from the major periodicals, alternative media, and other forums accessed by anti-authoritarians. Nonviolence is maintained as an article of faith, and as a key to full inclusion within the movement.

Anti-authoritarians and anti-capitalists who suggest or practice militancy suddenly find themselves abandoned by the same pacifists they’ve just marched with at the latest protest. Once isolated, militants lose access to resources, and they lose protection from being scapegoated by the media or criminalized by the government. Within these dynamics caused by the knee-jerk isolation of those who do not conform to nonviolence, there is no possibility for a healthy or critical discourse to evaluate our chosen strategies.

[…] This book will show that nonviolence, in its current manifestations, is based on falsified histories of struggle. It has implicit and explicit connections to white people’s manipulations of the struggles of people of color. Its methods are wrapped in authoritarian dynamics, and its results are harnessed to meet government objectives over popular objectives. It masks and even encourages patriarchal assumptions and power dynamics. Its strategic options invariably lead to dead ends. And its practitioners delude themselves on a number of key points.

Given these conclusions, if our movements are to have any possibility of destroying oppressive systems such as capitalism and white supremacy and building a free and healthy world, we must spread these criticisms and end the stranglehold of nonviolence over discourse while developing more effective forms of struggle.”

Peter Gelderloos

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The Political Thought of Abdullah Öcalan (2017)

Kurdistan, Woman’s Revolution and Democratic Confederalism
Author(s)

Abdullah Öcalan

Contents

“Öcalan coined several slogans, such as ‘A country can’t be free unless the women are free’, and later he restated this more strongly as ‘To me women’s freedom is more precious than the freedom of the homeland’, thereby redefining national liberation as first and foremost women’s freedom. In his prison writings, women’s freedom is taken up constantly as an essential part of his discussions of history, contemporary society and political activism. The practice he observed in real socialist countries and his own theoretical efforts and practice since the1970s led Öcalan to the conclusion that the enslavement of women was the origin of all other forms of enslavement. This, he concludes, is not due to woman being biologically different to man, but because she was the founder and leader of the Neolithic matriarchal system.

[…] Öcalan has examined the issue of women’s freedom, the phenomena of power and state and how interrelated they all are. This has led him over and over again to return to an analysis of history. In doing so he stumbled over nation, state and nation-state and how detrimental these are for any movement; turning even the most revolutionary individuals into mere practitioners of capitalism. For Abdullah Öcalan it is not sufficient to produce critique and self-critique. He feels compelled to lay out what might constitute an alternative to the way of life that is being imposed on society. Therefore, he makes an effort to systematise the lives and struggles of all those oppressed and exploited throughout history, aswell as to propose an alternative model and way of life outside of capitalist modernity and thus classical civilisation.

[…] Öcalan’s voice is tremendously important as one of peace and reason, but it is all too often silenced by his solitary confinement on Imrali Island. His freedom is in the interest of all peoples in the Middle East – not only of the Kurds. As you will see, the writings in this book do not address only the Kurds. There is no ethno-centrist or even nationalist perspective here. Everybody can be inspired by them or benefit from them. The Rojava Revolution may be the initial spark to a wave of transformations in the Middle East and perhaps beyond. And with the support of you, the reader, this wave will also carry Abdullah Öcalan himself out of his prison cell and to freedom.”

International Initiative ‘Freedom for Abdullah Öcalan’ – Peace in Kurdistan

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Anarchism – A Documentary History of Libertarian Ideas, Volume 3 (2013)

The New Anarchism 1974–2012

Volume 1 : From Anarchy to Anarchism (300 CE to 1939)

Volume 2 : The Emergence of The New Anarchism (1939-1977)

Author(s)

Robert Graham

Contents

“Anarchy, a society without government, has existed since time immemorial. Anarchism, the doctrine that such a society is desirable, is a much more recent devel­opment.

For tens of thousands of years, human beings lived in societies without any for­mal political institutions or constituted authority. About 6,000 years ago, around the time of the so-called dawn of civilization, the first societies with formal structures of hierarchy, command, control and obedience began to develop. At first, these hierar­chical societies were relatively rare and isolated primarily to what is now Asia and the Middle East. Slowly they increased in size and influence, encroaching upon, some­times conquering and enslaving, the surrounding anarchic tribal societies in which most humans continued to live. Sometimes independently, sometimes in response to pressures from without, other tribal societies also developed hierarchical forms of social and political organization.

Still, before the era of European colonization, much of the world remained essentially anarchic, with people in various parts of the world continuing to live without formal institutions of government well into the 19th cen­tury. It was only in the 20th century that the globe was definitively divided up be­tween competing nation states which now claim sovereignty over virtually the entire planet.

The rise and triumph of hierarchical society was a far from peaceful one. War and civilization have always marched forward arm in arm, leaving behind a swath of destruction scarcely conceivable to their many victims, most of whom had little or no understanding of the forces arrayed against them and their so-called primitive ways of life. It was a contest as unequal as it was merciless.

[…]

Anarchists and their pre­cursors, such as Fourier, were among the first to criticize the combined effects of the organization of work, the division of labour and technological innovation under capi­talism. Anarchists recognized the importance of education as both a means of social control and as a potential means of liberation. They had important things to say about art and free expression, law and morality. They championed sexual freedom but also criticized the commodification of sex under capitalism. They were critical of all hierarchical relationships, whether between father and children, husband and wife, teacher and student, professionals and workers, or leaders and led, throughout society and even within their own organizations. They emphasized the importance of maintaining consistency between means and ends, and in acting in accordance with their ideals now, in the process of transforming society, not in the distant future. They opposed war and militarism in the face of widespread repression, and did not hesitate to criticize the orthodox Left for its authoritarianism and opportunism.

They developed an original conception of an all-encompassing social revolution, rejecting state terrorism and seeking to reduce violence to a minimum.”

Robert Graham

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Anarchism – A Documentary History of Libertarian Ideas, Volume 2 (2009)

The Emergence of The New Anarchism (1939-1977)

Volume 1 : From Anarchy to Anarchism (300 CE to 1939)

Volume 3 : The New Anarchism (1974–2012)

Author(s)

Robert Graham

Contents

“Anarchy, a society without government, has existed since time immemorial. Anarchism, the doctrine that such a society is desirable, is a much more recent devel­opment.

For tens of thousands of years, human beings lived in societies without any for­mal political institutions or constituted authority. About 6,000 years ago, around the time of the so-called dawn of civilization, the first societies with formal structures of hierarchy, command, control and obedience began to develop. At first, these hierar­chical societies were relatively rare and isolated primarily to what is now Asia and the Middle East. Slowly they increased in size and influence, encroaching upon, some­times conquering and enslaving, the surrounding anarchic tribal societies in which most humans continued to live. Sometimes independently, sometimes in response to pressures from without, other tribal societies also developed hierarchical forms of social and political organization.

Still, before the era of European colonization, much of the world remained essentially anarchic, with people in various parts of the world continuing to live without formal institutions of government well into the 19th cen­tury. It was only in the 20th century that the globe was definitively divided up be­tween competing nation states which now claim sovereignty over virtually the entire planet.

The rise and triumph of hierarchical society was a far from peaceful one. War and civilization have always marched forward arm in arm, leaving behind a swath of destruction scarcely conceivable to their many victims, most of whom had little or no understanding of the forces arrayed against them and their so-called primitive ways of life. It was a contest as unequal as it was merciless.

[…]

Anarchists and their pre­cursors, such as Fourier, were among the first to criticize the combined effects of the organization of work, the division of labour and technological innovation under capi­talism. Anarchists recognized the importance of education as both a means of social control and as a potential means of liberation. They had important things to say about art and free expression, law and morality. They championed sexual freedom but also criticized the commodification of sex under capitalism. They were critical of all hierarchical relationships, whether between father and children, husband and wife, teacher and student, professionals and workers, or leaders and led, throughout society and even within their own organizations. They emphasized the importance of maintaining consistency between means and ends, and in acting in accordance with their ideals now, in the process of transforming society, not in the distant future. They opposed war and militarism in the face of widespread repression, and did not hesitate to criticize the orthodox Left for its authoritarianism and opportunism.

They developed an original conception of an all-encompassing social revolution, rejecting state terrorism and seeking to reduce violence to a minimum.”

Robert Graham

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Anarchism – A Documentary History of Libertarian Ideas, Volume 1 (2005)

From Anarchy to Anarchism (300 CE to 1939)

Volume 2 : The Emergence of The New Anarchism (1939-1977)

Volume 3 : The New Anarchism (1974–2012)

Author(s)

Robert Graham

Contents

“Anarchy, a society without government, has existed since time immemorial. Anarchism, the doctrine that such a society is desirable, is a much more recent devel­opment.

For tens of thousands of years, human beings lived in societies without any for­mal political institutions or constituted authority. About 6,000 years ago, around the time of the so-called dawn of civilization, the first societies with formal structures of hierarchy, command, control and obedience began to develop. At first, these hierar­chical societies were relatively rare and isolated primarily to what is now Asia and the Middle East. Slowly they increased in size and influence, encroaching upon, some­times conquering and enslaving, the surrounding anarchic tribal societies in which most humans continued to live. Sometimes independently, sometimes in response to pressures from without, other tribal societies also developed hierarchical forms of social and political organization.

Still, before the era of European colonization, much of the world remained essentially anarchic, with people in various parts of the world continuing to live without formal institutions of government well into the 19th cen­tury. It was only in the 20th century that the globe was definitively divided up be­tween competing nation states which now claim sovereignty over virtually the entire planet.

The rise and triumph of hierarchical society was a far from peaceful one. War and civilization have always marched forward arm in arm, leaving behind a swath of destruction scarcely conceivable to their many victims, most of whom had little or no understanding of the forces arrayed against them and their so-called primitive ways of life. It was a contest as unequal as it was merciless.

[…]

Anarchists and their pre­cursors, such as Fourier, were among the first to criticize the combined effects of the organization of work, the division of labour and technological innovation under capi­talism. Anarchists recognized the importance of education as both a means of social control and as a potential means of liberation. They had important things to say about art and free expression, law and morality. They championed sexual freedom but also criticized the commodification of sex under capitalism. They were critical of all hierarchical relationships, whether between father and children, husband and wife, teacher and student, professionals and workers, or leaders and led, throughout society and even within their own organizations. They emphasized the importance of maintaining consistency between means and ends, and in acting in accordance with their ideals now, in the process of transforming society, not in the distant future. They opposed war and militarism in the face of widespread repression, and did not hesitate to criticize the orthodox Left for its authoritarianism and opportunism.

They developed an original conception of an all-encompassing social revolution, rejecting state terrorism and seeking to reduce violence to a minimum.”

Robert Graham

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Anarchism : a Beginner’s Guide (2005)

Author(s)

Ruth Kinna

Contents

“This book falls into four chapters, each organized around a particular theme: (i) the ideology of anarchism; (ii) anarchist conceptions of the state; (iii) principles of anarchist organization (ideas of anarchy); and (iv) strategies for change.

The first chapter begins by introducing the terms anarchism, anarchist and anarchy and then discusses the problems anarchists have encountered with popular conceptions of anarchy. The main body of the chapter looks at three different approaches to anarchism.ances, active in the latter decades of nineteenth-century Europe. The aim of this chapter is to suggest that anarchism can be defined as an ideology by the adherence of anarchists to a core belief namely, the rejection of the state.

The second chapter considers some of the ways in which anarchists have theorized the state and the grounds on which they have called for its abolition. This chapter also reviews anarchist theories of liberty, in an effort to show why anarchists believe anarchy is superior to the state, and to illustrate the broad difference between anarchist communitarians and “libertarians”.

The third chapter looks at anarchist ideas of organization and some models of anarchy. It looks first at the ways in which anarchists have understood the relationship between anarchy and statelessness, and the use they have made of anthropology to formulate ideas of anarchy. The second part of the chapter considers anarchist responses to utopianism, identifies decentralized federalism as the principle of anarchist planning and outlines two ‘utopian’ views of this principle. The last part of the chapter considers some experiments in anarchy, both historical and contemporary, highlighting the relationship that some anarchists posit between organization and revolutionary change.

The final chapter examines strategies for change – both revolutionary and evolutionary – and different methods of protest, from symbolic to direct action. The chapter includes [reviews] of the important arguments that anti-globalization protest has raised : the justification of violence.”

Ruth Kinna

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Anarchy (1891)

Author(s)

Errico Malatesta

Vernon Richards (translator)

“We struggle for anarchy, and for socialism, because we believe that anarchy and socialism must be realised immediately, that is to say that in the revolutionary act we must drive govern­ment away, abolish property and entrust public services, which in this context will include all social life, to the spontaneous, free, not official, not authorised efforts of all interested parties and of all willing helpers.

Of course there will be difficulties and drawbacks; but they will be resolved, and they will only be resolved in an anarchist way, by means, that is, of the direct intervention of the interested parties and by free agreements.”

Errico Malatesta

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