Anarchism, Again

Earlier this week, I was involved in an email correspondence that encouraged me to write down the basic outlines of the anarchism that I talk about. And I thought, well if I’m going to be writing it anyway, I might as well put it out on the site and see if there any comments to be had. It is only through honest debate that lessons are learned and concepts sharpened. Anyway, I started by distinguishing my anarchism from the “far-left” with which it is often confused.

The structural difference between my anarchism and the socialist left is stark. The left generally seeks larger and larger organizations or sets of organizations, pushing the locus of power ever further from the people. According to this schema, local organization should fall under the jurisdiction of a national organization which in turn should operate under the aegis of an international organization. The "people" becomes an abstraction rather than a collection of living breathing bodies, and the leadership (which becomes an ever smaller group as the breadth of their power expands) is abstracted from everyday reality. Although this discussion began as a comparison with socialism, the premise is true, of course, whether these leaders are democratically elected politicians, business titans, generals, thugs, or party aparatchnik.

By contrast, my anarchism seeks to dismantle the whole system from the top down. Unstitch the international alliances, treaties and bargains. Then, erode the nation State into regional, and then local units. Always pushing power down towards the people. At each stage the simulacrum that constitutes "the people" today shatters a little more finely, until at the end the individual person stands in perfect focus, unlimited and limitless.

The whole process toward my anarchism is entirely different than the process toward socialism or revolutionary anarchism. For instance, revolution is by any definition anti-anarchist. Revolution implies forcing people to change their beliefs and actions: I know better than you, and so I am ordering you to act in a new way. How far from freedom to choose is that?

I prefer a conscious withdrawal from the binding threads of capaitalism and government, bit by bit, as circumstances allow. With each individual moving at their own pace.

Finally, my anarchism is not about an absence of rules; it is about positive consent to a set of social “rules”, and the absolute right to refuse to consent without fear of coercive reprisal. That is the primary foundation of my philosophy. That leads directly to my anarchism not being about space. The anarchist “group” (for want of a term right now) acts on and for the members (those who have positively consented) of the "group" alone; it has no territorial properties. In other words, there is no territory within which the “rules” of that particular “group” operate. This allows those who have opted out of that “group” to pursue their own way as close neighbours to those who are within the “group”.

How this would work exactly -- and why I am so optimistic that such a setup would work -- are not subjects of this essay. I'll tackle those ideas as time goes on. For now I am happy to have sketched the outlines.