Albert

Like

most social movements anarchism is diverse. Most broadly an anarchist seeks out

and identifies structures of authority, hierarchy, and domination throughout

life, and tries to challenge them as conditions and the pursuit of justice

permit. Anarchists work to eliminate subordination. They focus on political

power, economic power, power relations among men and women, power between

parents and children, power among cultural communities, power over future

generations via effects on the environment, and much else as well. Of course

anarchists challenge the state and the corporate rulers of the domestic and

international economy, but they also challenge every other instance and

manifestation of illegitimate authority.

So

why wouldn’t everyone concerned that people ought have appropriate control over

their lives admire anarchism?

Problems arise because from being "opponents of illegitimate authority" one can

grow movements of incomparable majesty, on the one hand, and movements that are

majestically unimpressive, on the other hand. If anarchism means mostly the

former, good people will admire and gravitate toward anarchism. But if anarchism

means mostly the latter, then good people will have reservations or even be

hostile to it. So what’s the not so admirable or even distasteful version of

anarchism now? And what is the admirable version? And do even the admirable

strands incorporate sufficient insight to be successful?

Distasteful "anarchism" is the brand that dismisses political forms per se, or

institutions per se, or even plain old technology per se, or that dismisses

fighting for reforms per se, as if political structures, institutional

arrangements, or even technological innovation, all intrinsically impose

illegitimate authority, or as if relating to existing social structures to win

immediate limited gains is an automatic sign of hypocrisy.

Folks

holding these views presumably see that contemporary state’s use of force and

rule to subjugate the many, and deduce that this is an outgrowth of trying to

adjudicate, or legislate, or implement shared aims, or even just to cooperate on

a large scale, per se, rather than seeing that it is instead an outgrowth of

doing these things in particular ways to serve narrow elites and what we need is

to fulfill the functions more positively.

They

see that many and even most of our institutions, while delivering to people

needed organization, celebration, food, transport, homes, services, etc., also

restrict what people can do in ways contrary to human aspirations and dignity.

They wrongly deduce that this must be the case for all institutions per se, so

that instead of institutions we need only voluntary spontaneous interactions in

which at all times all aspects are fluid and spontaneously generated and

dissolved. Of course, in fact, without stable and lasting institutions that have

well conceived and lasting norms and roles, advanced relations among disparate

populations and even among individuals are quite impossible. The mistake is that

while institutional roles that compel people to deny their humanity or the

humanity of others are, of course, abominable, institutions that permit people

to express their humanity more fully and freely are not abominable at all, but

part and parcel of a just social order.

The

situation with technology is similar. The critic looks at assembly lines,

weapons, and energy use that despoil our world, and says there is something

about pursuit of technological mastery that intrinsically breeds these sorts of

horrible outcomes so that we’d be better off without technology. Of course, this

misses the point that pencils are technology, clothes are technology, and indeed

all human artifacts are technology, and that life would be short and brutish, at

best, without technologies. So, the issue isn’t to decry and escape technology

per se, but to create and retain only technologies that serve humane aims and

potentials.

And

finally, regarding reforms, the debilitating orientation notices that with many

reforms the gains are fleeting, and elites even manage to reinforce their

legitimacy and extend their domain of control by first granting and then

domesticating and then eliminating the advances. But again, this doesn’t result

from change or reform per se, but from change conceived, sought, and implemented

in reformist ways that presuppose and do not challenge system maintenance.

What’s needed instead isn’t to have no reforms, which would simply capitulate

the playing field to elites, but to fight for reforms that are non-reformist,

that is, to fight for reforms that we conceive, seek, and implement in ways

leading activists to seek still more gains in a trajectory of change leading

ultimately to new institutions.

It

shouldn’t be necessary to even discuss the above addressed "bad trajectory" of

anarchism and its anti political, anti-institutional, anti-technology, and

anti-reform confusions. It is perfectly natural and understandable for folks

first becoming sensitized to the ills of political forms, or institutions, or

technologies, or first encountering reform struggles to momentarily go awry and

blame the entire category of each for the ills of the worst instances of each.

But if this confusion were to thereafter be addressed naturally, it would be a

very temporary one. After all, without political structures, without

institutions per se, and/or without technology, not to mention without

progressive reforms, humanity would barely survive much less prosper and fulfill

its many capacities. But, of course media and elites will take any negative

trajectory of anarchism and will prop it up, portraying it as the whole of

anarchism, elevating the confused and unworthy to crowd out the valuable and

discredit the whole. In this context, some of the most extreme (but colorful)

advocates of these counter productive viewpoints will be highlighted by media.

The whole unsustainable and objectionable approach will thereby gain far more

visibility than warranted by its numbers, much less by its logic or values, and,

thereafter, also a certain tenacity.

What

about the good trajectory of contemporary anarchism, less visible in the media?

This seems to me to be far more uplifting and inspiring. It is the widely

awakening impetus to fight on the side of the oppressed in every domain of life,

from family, to culture, to state, to economy, to the now very visible

international arena of "globalization," and to do so in creative and courageous

ways conceived to win improvements in people’s lives now even while leading

toward winning new institutions in the future. The good anarchism nowadays

transcends a narrowness that has often in the past befallen the approach.

Instead of being solely politically anti-authoritarian, as often in the old

days, nowadays being an anarchist more and more implies having a gender,

cultural, and an economic, as well as a politically-rooted orientation, with

each aspect taken on a par with and also informing the rest. This is new, at

least in my experience of anarchism, and it is useful to recall that many

anarchists as little as a decade back, perhaps even more recently, would have

said that anarchism addresses everything, yes, of course, but via an

anti-authoritarian focus rather than by simultaneously elevating other concepts

in their own right. Such past anarchists thought, whether implicitly or

explicitly, that analysis from an overwhelmingly anti-authoritarian angle could

explain the nuclear family better than an analysis rooted as well in kinship

concepts, and could explain race or religion better than an analysis rooted as

well in cultural concepts, and could explain production, consumption, and

allocation better than an analysis rooted as well in economic concepts. They

were wrong, and it is a great advance that many modern anarchists know this and

are broadening their intellectual approach in accord so that anarchism now

highlights not only the state, but also gender relations, and not only the

economy but also cultural relations and ecology, sexuality, and freedom in every

form it can be sought, and each not only through the sole prism of authority

relations, but also informed by richer and more diverse concepts. And of course

this desirable anarchism not only doesn’t decry technology per se, but it

becomes familiar with and employs diverse types of technology as appropriate. It

not only doesn’t decry institutions per se, or political forms per se, it tries

to conceive new institutions and new political forms for activism and for a new

society, including new ways of meeting, new ways of decision making, new ways of

coordinating, and so on, most recently including revitalized affinity groups and

original spokes structures. And it not only doesn’t decry reforms per se, but it

struggles to define and win non-reformist reforms, attentive to people’s

immediate needs and bettering people’s lives now as well as moving toward

further gains, and eventually transformative gains, in the future.

So

why doesn’t the good anarchism trump the not so good anarchism out of

visibility, so to speak, leaving the way clear for most everyone on the left to

gravitate toward anarchism’s best side? Part of the answer, already noted, is

that elites and mainstream media highlight the not-so-good, giving it far more

weight and tenacity than it would otherwise embody. But part of the answer is

also that the good side of contemporary anarchism is in various respects too

vague to rise above the rest. What’s the problem? I think it’s that the good

anarchism doesn’t posit clear and compelling goals.

Anarchism has historically focused on the political realm of life. But even

there, even with the long history, the emerging anarchism of today’s movements

doesn’t clarify for us what an anarchist polity could be. Assuming that

societies need to fulfill adjudicative, legislative, and implementation

functions in the political realm of life, and need to do this via institutions

which citizens partake of and constitute, then what should these institutions

be? If the bad trend is to say that we favor no political institutions but only

spontaneous face to face interaction of free individuals each doing as they

choose with no constraints on them, then what is the good trend’s better

viewpoint? What kind of structures with what kinds of social roles and norms in

an anarchist polity will accomplish political functions while also propelling

values that we support?

It is

perhaps premature to expect newly enlarging anarchism to produce from within a

compelling vision of future religion, ethnic identification, or cultural

community, or a future vision of kinship, sexuality, procreation, or

socialization relations, or even a future vision of production, consumption, or

allocation relations. But regarding attaining, implementing, and protecting

against the abuse of shared political agendas, adjudicating disputes, and

creating and enforcing norms of collective interaction, it seems to me that

anarchism ought to be where the action is. Nonetheless, has there been any

serious anarchist attempt to explain how legal disputes should be resolved? How

legal adjudication should occur? How laws and political coordination should be

attained? How violations and disruptions should be handled? How shared programs

should be positively implemented? In other words, what are the anarchist’s full

set of positive institutional alternatives to contemporary legislatures, courts,

police, and diverse executive agencies? What institutions do anarchists seek

that would advance solidarity, equity, participatory self-management, diversity,

and whatever other life-affirming and libratory values anarchists support, while

also accomplishing needed political functions?

Huge

numbers of citizens of developed societies are not going to risk what they have,

however little it may be in some cases, to pursue a goal about which they have

no clarity. How often do they have to ask us what we are for before we give them

some serious, sufficiently extensive, carefully thought through, and compelling

answers? Offering a political vision that encompasses legislation,

implementation, adjudication, and enforcement and that shows how each would be

effectively accomplished in a non-authoritarian way promoting positive outcomes

would not only provide our contemporary activism much-needed long-term hope, it

would also inform our immediate responses to today’s electoral, law-making, law

enforcement, and court system, and thus many of our strategic choices. So

shouldn’t today’s anarchist community be generating such political vision? I

think it should, and I eagerly hope it will be forthcoming soon. Indeed, I

suspect that until there is a widespread component of anarchism that puts forth

something positive and worthy regarding political goals, the negative component

decrying all political structures and even all institutions will remain highly

visible and will greatly reduce potential allegiance to anarchism.

Some

will say anarchism has more than enough vision already. Too much vision will

constrain ingenuity and innovation. I reply that this is the same type mistake

as dumping political structures, or all institutions, or all technology, or all

reforms. The problem isn’t vision per se. The problem is vision that is held and

owned only by elites and that serves only elites. Public, accessible vision,

political and otherwise, which truly serves the whole populace is precisely what

we need.

So

what about good anarchism’s potentials? I guess I would say that if anarchism

has truly recognized the need for culture-based, economy-based, and

gender-based, as well as for polity-based concepts and practice, and if

anarchism can support vision originating in other movements about

non-governmental social dimensions while itself providing compelling political

vision, and if the anarchist community can avoid strange confusions over

technology, political structures, institutions per se, and seeking to win

non-reformist reforms—then I think anarchism has a whole lot going for it and

could well become a main 21st century source of movement inspiration and wisdom

in the effort to make our world a much better place.