Prefigurative politics are the modes of organization
and social relationships that strive to reflect
the future society being sought by the group.
According to Carl Boggs, who coined the term,
the desire is to embody "within the ongoing
political practice of a movement [...] those
forms of social relations, decision-making,
culture, and human experience that are the
ultimate goal".
Prefigurativism is the attempt to enact prefigurative
politics.
== History ==
Boggs was writing in the 1970s about revolutionary
movements in Russia, Italy, Spain, and the
US New Left.
The concept of prefiguration was further applied
by Sheila Rowbotham to the women's movement
of the 1960s and 1970s, by Wini Breines to
the US SDS; and by John L. Hammond to the
Portuguese Revolution.The politics of prefiguration
rejected the centrism and vanguardism of many
of the groups and political parties of the
1960s.
It is both a politics of creation, and one
of breaking with hierarchy.
Breines wrote: "The term prefigurative politics
[...] may be recognized in counter institutions,
demonstrations and the attempt to embody personal
and anti-hierarchical values in politics.
Participatory democracy was central to prefigurative
politics.
[...] The crux of prefigurative politics imposed
substantial tasks, the central one being to
create and sustain within the live practice
of the movement, relationships and political
forms that "prefigured" and embodied the desired
society."Anarchists around the turn of the
twentieth century clearly embraced the principle
that means used to achieve any end must be
consistent with that end, though they apparently
did not use the term "prefiguration".
For example, James Guillaume, a comrade of
Mikhail Bakunin, wrote, "How could one want
an equalitarian and free society to issue
from authoritarian organisation?
It is impossible."The Industrial Workers of
the World (IWW) and various libertarian-socialist
and anarchist groups refer to this as "building
a new world in the shell of the old".
If a group is aiming to eliminate class distinctions,
prefigurative politics demands that there
be no class distinctions within that group,
nor should that group's actions reinforce
classism.
The same principle applies to hierarchy: if
a group is fighting to abolish some or all
forms of hierarchy in larger society, prefigurative
politics demands they individually and as
a group adhere as closely to that goal as
possible.
The concept of prefiguration later came to
be used more widely, especially in relation
to movements for participatory democracy.
It has especially been applied to the antinuclear
movement of the 1970s and 1980s in the US
and the antiglobalization movement at the
turn of the 21st century.
== Perspectives on prefigurative politics
==
Anthropologist David Graeber in Fragments
of an Anarchist Anthropology described the
prefigurative politics of those at the 1999
Seattle WTO protest:
When protesters in Seattle chanted "this is
what democracy looks like," they meant to
be taken literally.
In the best tradition of direct action, they
not only confronted a certain form of power,
exposing its mechanisms and attempting literally
to stop it in its tracks: they did it in a
way which demonstrated why the kind of social
relations on which it is based were unnecessary.
This is why all the condescending remarks
about the movement being dominated by a bunch
of dumb kids with no coherent ideology completely
missed the mark.
The diversity was a function of the decentralized
form of organization, and this organization
was the movement’s ideology.
(p. 84)
== Examples of prefigurative political programs
==
The global Bahá'í Faith community strives
to realise a model of society by developing
its movement and administration which endeavour
to embody several renowned social principles.
After sufficient development, many Bahá'í
communities of the world may reach a transitional
stage of dual power with the traditional pre-existing
administrative institutions in their respective
areas.
The Black Panther Party in the United States
was responsible for creating what members
referred to as survival programs, including
the well-known Free Breakfast for Children
Program.
These programs were designed to provide food,
education, medical care, and clothing for
individuals outside of traditional capitalist
relations, as well as state-sponsored social
service programs.
They embodied, at least on a small scale,
the kind of self-determination in the black
community that the Panthers were working toward
on a large scale.
The Community land trust model provides a
method of providing cooperatively-owned, resident-controlled
permanent housing, outside of the speculative
market.
In Argentina, the occupation and recuperation
of factories by workers (such as Zanon), the
organizing of many of the unemployed workers
movements, and the creation of popular neighborhood
assemblies reflect the participants' desire
for horizontalism, which includes equal distribution
of power among people, and the creation of
new social relationships based on dignity
and freedom.
The occupation movements of 2011 in Egypt
and the Arab world, in Spain, and in the United
States embodied elements of prefiguration
(explicitly in the case of Occupy Wall Street
and its spinoffs in occupations around the
United States).
They envisaged creating a public space in
the middle of American cities, for political
dialogue and achieved some of the attributes
of community in providing free food, libraries,
medical care, and a place to sleep.
== See also ==
Consensus decision-making
Counter-economics
Food Not Bombs
Squatting
Workers' self-management
== References ==
== Further reading ==
