Anarchism is a tendency which holds that hierarchies
which fail to prove their legitimacy should
be dismantled, to increase the scope of human
liberty. Anarchists advocate a stateless society
in which the means of production are held
in common, and industry and communities are
organised democratically by means of decentralised
free federation. Modern anarchists (so long
as they’re consistent in their anarchism)
also oppose racism, sexism, queerphobia and
ableism. Because we take this unique position
on the political compass of rejecting hierarchy
altogether, we are reviled by people who advocate
all kinds of hierarchical systems – liberals,
Leninists, etc. Anarchism is one of the most
misunderstood and misrepresented tendencies.
In this video I want to respond to common
arguments against anarchism.
“An anarchist society would be rife with
anti-social behaviour. Individuals could be,
for example, physically violent towards others,
or they could rob people of their possessions,
and there would be no repercussions for these
kinds of actions. In an anarchist society,
someone who gets a kick out of being horrible
to others would be free to terrorise the community
as they see fit!”
Importantly, anarchists hold that freedom
to limit others’ freedom is no freedom at
all. We want a society run by means of horizontal,
democratically controlled federations. Within
that institutional framework, people could
collectively determine codes of conduct in
an anarchist manner, to address and respond
to any anti-social behaviour that might arise.
In present organisations such as AFed, there
are codes of conduct against oppressive behaviour,
abuse, harassment etc. I don’t have a blueprint
for exactly how those kinds of procedures
would work in a large scale society because
I think that’s for participants in the future
society to decide. Nevertheless, the point
stands that anarchism does not mean ‘everyone
does what they want no matter the harm to
others’.
Secondly, anarchists generally argue that
the majority of anti-social behaviour occurs
as a result of hierarchical systems. Under
capitalism, the ruling class appropriate the
products of the labour of the workers, leaving
everyone else fighting for scraps, lashing
out in violence, and committing robberies
out of necessity. In ‘The Spirit Level’
by Kate Pickett and Richard Wilkinson, evidence
is given to show that economic inequality
damages mental and physical health, corrodes
trust, and increases violence and anxiety.
The introduction of a socialist system, where
the means of production are democratically
controlled, would eliminate structural poverty
and the crime that goes with it. We could
also massively reduce sexual violence by abolishing
patriarchy, normalising sex positivity, and
providing people with a robust and comprehensive
understanding of consent and human relationships
from an early age. The overarching point here
is that the relations of equality and solidarity
created by an anarchist social order would
eliminate the structural causes of most crimes
to the extent that police and prisons would
be unnecessary.
Finally, in a hierarchical society, power
structures exist where those who get a kick
out of being horrible to others can gain tremendous
influence and get away with their crimes scot-free.
A society structured in an anarchist manner
would stop these people from gaining such
influence and nip the problem in the bud.
Anarchists are not under the illusion that
everybody would be perfect in an anarchist
society. Rather, we think that an anarchist
society would create conditions under which
the likelihood of anti-social behaviour would
be dramatically reduced, responses to such
behaviour could be democratically organised,
and there would not be centres of power through
which those individuals could do far more
damage than they would in a horizontal society.
“Anarchism only works on a small scale.
There are billions of people in the world!
Horizontalism could not work on that scale.”
Horizontalism does not mean that we don’t
have any kind of delegation when that’s
necessary to organise in large groups. For
example, in a large federation with huge numbers
of people and lots of groups in different
localities, it’s just not practically feasible
to have decisions taken in one giant meeting
of every single member of the federation.
Delegation means that each of the local groups
in a federation comes to a decision democratically,
and instead of the giant meeting, we have
a delegate meeting in which the decisions
of the local groups are gathered by delegates
from each group, allowing for the local groups
to effectively work together and take decisions
as a mass body.
Delegates can be selected typically by direct
democracy, lottery (picking names out of a
hat), or rotation (people taking turns). They
are instantly recallable should they fail
to do their democratic duties properly. Delegates
are not politicians, considering that they’re
not a ruling class, and they don’t control
any kind of centralised state apparatus. Crucially,
they don’t make decisions for other people
– the people decide and then they take the
message. Delegation presents a non-hierarchical
solution to the practical question of large
scale organisation.
An example of this kind of delegation in action
would be in the organisation of healthcare
in Barcelona during the Spanish revolution.
Barcelona was divided into nine zones, each
with its own syndicate, and delegates from
each zone would come together into a committee
that would deal with common problems and implement
a common plan. The Spanish revolution, from
1936-39, was the largest example of an anarchist
society, in which, according to Frank Mintz,
1,838,000 people were involved in collectivisation
and self-management. Sam Dolgoff’s estimate
is much higher at around 8 million. The population
of the less well-known Ukrainian Free Territory
was around 7 million. So anarchism in practice
is not just a small, hippie commune in the
woods – we have the tools to make it work
for millions of people.
“Production and consumption guided by the
principle, “from each according to their
ability, to each according to their need”
would never work. Under communism, everybody
would just greedily take stuff, and nobody
would bother to do the unpleasant work.”
First of all, ‘to each according to their
need’ does not necessarily mean everyone
would consume to excess in practice. For example,
if you go to a library, you don’t just take
as many books as possible, you take the books
you need. An interesting example is all-you-can-eat
buffets. A 2011 study of an all-you-can-eat
pizza restaurant found that when the buffet
was more expensive, people ate more to try
to get their money’s worth. They ate less
when they had a discount – even though in
both cases they could eat as much as they
want (take according to need). If money weren’t
involved at all, would people just gorge themselves?
No, they’d just eat to satisfy the need
for a full stomach.
When it comes to unpleasant work, there are
a number of points to make. The first is that,
if the means of production were held in common,
much of the unpleasant work could be automated.
Secondly, we could decide democratically to
share the remaining unpleasant work among
the community, perhaps by means of rotation.
Thirdly, by abolishing unnecessary and bureaucratic
jobs, we would have more people to share the
work among. Finally, in a communitarian anarchist
society, work would be self-managed, which
would make it far less unpleasant. More generally,
the institutions of such a society would foster
a sense of belonging. By doing this work,
people would know that they are contributing
to the good of society, and the satisfaction
of human needs. For those reasons, I think
people would choose to do the necessary, unpleasant
work under anarchist communism.
“But aren’t hierarchies just natural?
Anarchism goes against human nature.”
Human beings do have a nature. We need food,
shelter, sleep, we reproduce from sex, and
so on. Furthermore, psychologists Ed Deci
and Richard Ryan founded self-determination
theory, which posits that humans have innate
psychological needs for competence, relatedness
and autonomy, and that these needs exist across
cultures. We need to feel like we’re effective
in dealing with the environment around us
and that we’re good at what we do. We need
to feel connected to other people, and we
need control over our lives. To the extent
that those needs are met, we thrive, and to
the extent that they are thwarted, we become
ill and alienated.
Anarchists argue that hierarchical systems
produce illness and alienation, whereas systems
based on horizontal, free co-operation create
the conditions for human flourishing. In my
opinion, this is because horizontal systems
are more appropriate to satisfy our innate
needs for competence, relatedness and autonomy
than hierarchical systems – I have a full
video on this called ‘Anarchism and Human
Nature’ which goes into more detail on these
points. I disagree with anarchists who claim
that there is no human nature.
Given the findings of self-determination theory,
the idea that hierarchies go with the grain
of human nature is dubious – it disregards
the negative psychological impact that domination
has on those who are subjected to it by depriving
them of autonomy.
Human nature arguments for hierarchy seem
to merely defend power on the grounds of the
felt experience of exercising it, which is
seriously ethically questionable. The claim
that hierarchical systems are built into our
nature is an extremely conservative argument
masquerading as realism, and the science just
doesn’t support it.
“But everyone naturally gravitates towards
cultivating different sets of skills and abilities.
Doesn’t that mean that people who are particularly
good at something will be deferred to, and
doesn’t that make hierarchy inevitable?”
Anarchists conceive of liberty as the possibility
of engaging in self-directed activity, through
which one can develop human capacities to
the fullest extent. We advocate equality of
liberty, meaning we want the possibility of
self-improving, self-directed activity to
be equally available to everyone. Anarchists
distinguish between competent authority and
hierarchical authority. Hierarchical authority
is placing limitations on liberty, whereas
competent authority is when an individual
is deferred to for their skills and knowledge
in a given area. An example of competent authority
would be deferring to a good doctor for appropriate
medical advice.
In this case an individual recognises that
they need medical advice, and that their own
knowledge is insufficient to satisfy this
need, so the constraints of their own reasoning
lead them to defer to the good doctor with
the relevant knowledge. Deferring to someone
for their knowledge does not limit your self-directed
activity and human development, and so competent
authority does not violate liberty. The fact
that humans tend towards diverse interests
means that competent authority will inevitably
emerge from equality of liberty. Under communism,
where all things are for all, and everyone
has access to the means of developing whatever
skills and abilities they choose, competent
authority doesn’t have to be transmuted
into hierarchical authority. People can specialise
in an egalitarian society, there’s just
no monopolisation of resources that means
certain professions are the reserve of a few
while everyone else is condemned to drudgery.
Now let’s consider some of the criticisms
that Marxists, especially Leninists, make
about anarchism.
“To achieve a socialist or communist society,
you need to coercively expropriate capitalists,
and you need to defend the revolution against
reactionary forces. How can that be done without
a state?”
Anarchists agree on the necessity of coercive
expropriation to establish socialism. For
anarchists, a state is a hierarchical and
centralised institution with a monopoly on
the legitimate use of violence, governed by
a class of professional rulers. However, coercive
expropriation of capitalists and revolutionary
defence can be organised by federations of
horizontal workers’ councils and workers’
militias, and because these institutions are
non-hierarchical, they aren’t a state.
They might be a state in the Marxist sense
of the term. However, if you’re trying to
refute anarchism on this point, you have to
prove that the state in the sense that anarchists
define it is necessary to carry out coercive
expropriation and revolutionary defence. If
you just say that federations of horizontal
workers’ councils and workers’ militias
are a state, and then say ‘see, why would
you be an anarchist’, you’re actually
just missing the point of why anarchists critique
hierarchical organisation and the political
class, and you’re failing to justify that
particular kind of system.
The seizure of state power is an extremely
effective way of crushing a socialist revolution.
Historically, the ruling classes that have
governed states have always acted to destroy
the institutions of workers’ control. So
seizing state power isn’t a good means of
defending a revolution, but rather crushing
it. The Soviet Union, China, Cuba, and the
actions of the Communists in Spain, France,
and Ukraine, attacking self-management during
the Spanish revolution and trying to contain
the French wave of wildcat strikes in May
1968, and crushing the Ukrainian Makhnovist
movement are all examples of how Leninist
methods are profoundly counter-revolutionary
in practice.
“Anarchists don’t realise that Marxists
and Leninists want to smash the existing state
machinery and replace the capitalist state
with a workers’ state. They conflate the
two because they think all states are bad.”
Anarchists would respond to this by arguing
that, if by the state we mean the hierarchical
institution as previously defined, then there
can be no workers’ state, precisely for
the reasons mentioned earlier – that the
ruling class governing the state represents
its own distinct interests rather than those
of the working class. Again, we think that
federations of workers’ militias and councils
are good, but we don’t define that as a
state. In practice Leninists don’t replace
the state machinery with these kinds of organisation,
but in fact leave the hierarchical system
intact, regardless of the libertarian-sounding
rhetoric Lenin used in ‘State and Revolution’.
“Anarchism is just bourgeois individualism,
because they centre individual freedom rather
than collective organisation as the basis
of their politics.”
This is probably the weakest critique that
Marxists and Leninists make of anarchists,
as it just shows a lack of basic understanding
of anarchist theory and practice. We have
historically understood liberty as an eminently
social phenomenon. In ‘Man, Society and
Freedom’, Bakunin wrote,
“The materialistic, realistic, and collectivist
conception of freedom, as opposed to the idealistic,
is this: Man becomes conscious of himself
and his humanity only in society and only
by the collective action of the whole society.
He frees himself from the yoke of external
nature only by collective and social labor,
which alone can transform the earth into an
abode favorable to the development of humanity.
Without such material emancipation the intellectual
and moral emancipation of the individual is
impossible.”
We can of course disregard Bakunin’s typical
use of the default man here, but nevertheless
the points about freedom stand. The individual
is only able to fully develop themselves as
part of a community. The Makhnovists in Ukraine
and the CNT in Spain illustrated the anarchist
values of collective organisation in practice
historically. The charge that anarchists don’t
centre collective organisation in our politics
is false. Also, generally decrying anarchists
for caring about individual freedom does a
disservice to some of the most positive ideas
within Marxism, namely that communism provides
the appropriate conditions for the emancipation
of the individual.
Those are my responses to some of the major
objections to anarchism. I hope that you’ve
enjoyed this series, that you found it informative
and accessible, and that any misconceptions
you might have had about anarchism were put
to rest. I also hope that you’re inspired
to join anarchist organisations in your area
or start one if they don’t exist yet, and
take action to change the world. I’m going
to upload the transcripts for this series
to the anarchist library. I’ve enjoyed putting
this together, I think that it’s a big improvement
on the old series, I’ve tried to take a
lot more care with the arguments and the structure,
and also to try to promote more of an intersectional
vision of anarchism.
Many thanks to my contributors on Patreon:
Brandon Haukoos-Tischer
Comrade Dr Frasier Crane
Cyclidéon
Divayth Fyr
Flagburner
Jack Bryant
Joe Martin
Komrade Klaus
Luke Smith
Marty
Michael Norling
Patrick Gordon
Richard Pearson
Vrisha Jhriress
XxX_swagmaster420_XxX
This has been Libertarian Socialist Rants,
thanks for watching.
