Lately, I’ve been thinking about
how the diverse anarchist strategies could combine against our
current class society. How every variation on the theme of “assert
your freedom now,” from the anarcho-syndicalist direct action to
Sam Konkin’s agorism, could combine in order to make the existing
order ever less interesting and more impracticable. How we might
eliminate political, economic and social privileges, while also
promoting mutual aid among human beings.
It might look a little complicated
to reconcile the specific goals of anarcho-syndicalists, collectivist
anarchists, anarcho-communists and individualist anarchists –
especially with those last two. However, I believe there’s more
common ground than conflict between these schools, and the
institutions they wish to develop can be complementary to one
another. I will seek to outline here how anarchists can form a
coherent coalition to overthrow the current statist-capitalist
system.
I will begin with the institutions
proposed by individualist anarchists in the mutualist tradition,
since they are the ones I am most intimately familiar with. The
central idea of mutualism is to establish the control of the
productive process by workers through the widespread dispersion of
capital in society. Proudhon held that every individual should own a
means of production, individually or collectively with others by
contract, and Kevin Carson outlined in Homebrew Industrial
Revolution some of the ways in which current desktop production
technologies and hobby material can help accomplish this ideal.
It’s not hard to imagine how the
current monopoly capitalism, – increasingly bureaucratic,
hierarchical and centralized, relying on state intervention to keep
competitors out of the market, – creates serious incentives for
people to look for more and more ways to get out of the crushing
routine of wage slavery. A brief investigation of the lifestyles of
the average metropolitan inhabitant will show people want something
more.
Thus, one can imagine that more and
more people will seek to acquire some personal means of production.
In the beginning this may be individualist anarchists committed to
the cause, but then others without any ideological affiliation will
follow, only seeking more independence. Technologies such as the
personal computer, 3D printers and CNC tools, increasingly more
accessible, can help a lot, but a good old garden in any piece of
land one can get is enough to begin with.
These independent workers will
initially produce to the general market, for sure. But the general
market is subject to government taxation, a spoliation of their work
just as much as the monopolist profit, and it is in the interest of
these revolutionaries to subvert this state of affairs. An ingenious
recent crypto-anarchist contribution, virtual crypto-currencies, can
come to their aid in this regard. These independent producers can
form mutual aid and commerce networks, exchanging their products
through bitcoins (or any other currency, who knows, maybe a labor
bitnote?), that are resistant to regulation. As long as all
transactions be made inside the network and with virtual currencies,
it is impossible to track them, regulate them or even tax them.
Such a network of independent
producers establishes yet another incentive: bringing more producers
into the network. The more products and services can be offered
inside the network, the less dependent on the state-dominated formal
economy (in Konkin’s terms, the “white” and “pink” markets)
producers are. How to do this? Once again mutualist ideas come to our
aid: the establishment of a mutual bank, as proposed by Proudhon and
William Greene, which lends capital with almost zero interest (or at
least infinitely smaller than those of the current bank cartel)
through virtual currencies. Such a bank would be able to finance the
acquisition of means of production by an even greater share of the
population disgruntled with the current economic system.
With the growth of the producer’s
network and the mutual trust relations promoted by the mutual bank, a
truly revolutionary potential is unleashed. Increasingly more complex
production processes can be organized through cooperatives, P2P
projects, and other kinds of collaboration. This makes the network
more and more independent from the state-dominated formal economy we
live under today. As this network gets stronger and more resilient,
more goods may be created inside of it, such as schools, aid to
people in hardship, medical treatment and collective transportation.
So far I have described a way to
begin a parallel economy inside the current economy, as defended by
mutualists and agorists. Let’s now add a little spice from other
anarchist schools.
Anarcho-syndicalists defend the
establishment of a worker’s democratic self-managed workplace, to
be achieved through direct action and solidarity among the working
classes. We can see clearly how the independent producers’ network
described above would have a huge space for the establishment of
trade unions and decentralized federations through cooperatives. But
let’s examine the possibility of, through trade unions in the
formal economy, bring the current corporations to worker’s control
of production.
Following the Wobblies’ direct
action tactics, in their classic pamphlet How to Fire Your Boss,
workers in the most diverse industries can use direct and
decentralized organizations, gain a huge bargaining power in the face
of these industries’ management. The greater such bargaining power,
the closer to the democratic self-management ideal they are. The
constant disruptions in these industries’ productivity will
systematically hurt the capitalist profit, and if they are
sufficiently unpredictable and concerted, they will have little
effect on workers, even taking into consideration the probable state
intervention on behalf of the capitalist by the police.
An effect of this disruption in
production (and the consequent decrease in the market value of the
company) may be the gradual take over, by workers individually or as
a collective, of the involved companies’ shares in stock exchanges.
Such a stock purchase would provide more and more control over the
workplace, and could be funded through the mutual banks described
above.
Once a certain workplace had
completely come under worker’s direct self-management, its products
can be exchanged inside the network of independent producers on a
mutual basis. This would greatly add to the stability and to the
welfare of all inside the network, since a large quantity of people
are now connected. We can see now that mutualist and
anarcho-syndicalists can work together against the state and
capitalism, achieving not only the goals they share, but also their
more specific aims. Let’s try to expand this to include some more
anarchist schools.
Collectivist anarchism, heavily
connected with the ideas of Mikhail Bakunin, defends a form of social
organization much like a society organized around the trade unions
described above. If these unions adopted a wage policy (or, more
properly speaking, a division of production) based on the quantity of
labor performed by each of its members, possibly through the labor
bitnotes accepted by the whole network of independent producers, it
would be simple to organize collectivist anarchist communes. I
imagine that such communes would decentralized societies, located
around the unionized industries, with the relevant social
organizations being all of collective nature. Several of these
communes, also connected to the market through the network of
independent producers, could coordinate to supply their members with
products and services that were not available locally.
Another possible organization for
these communes would be around the principles of anarcho-communism,
whose main theorist Peter Kropotkin defended the end of wages and a
division of the products of labor according to the individual
necessities instead of the quantity of labor [1]. For this, it would
suffice that the unions abolished payments and the use of any
currency, and that communal distribution systems were created.
In the economic sense, the
anarcho-communist societies would be outside the network of
independent producers, since there would be no exchanges even in
crypto-currencies. But certainly they would be connected by ties of
trust and mutual aid. For example, the network could supply products
and services for free through those members that so wished.
Other models for integrating
anarchist institutions and communities, similar to those just
described, can be developed in order to harmonize with the specific
interests of green anarchists, anarcho-naturists and, who knows,
maybe even anarcho-primitivists!
In conclusion, I would like to
include one last thought, from a classical liberal with serious
anarchist tendencies, Gustave de Molinari. As this intricate network
of producers and independent communities were simultaneously
developed by the anarchists’ direct actions, it would ever more be
at the capitalist state’s gunpoint and at odds with its armed
forces. The 20th century has shown us what states are capable of when
promoting horror and violence. It’s not hard to imagine that this
revolutionary network would need protection. Molinari proposed
that the services of protections and conflict resolution be
provided by independent producers, and not by a monopolist
institution like the state. Surely our network of independent
producers could include people interested in providing these
services. Also, several kinds of decentralized and community
organizations of protections and conflict resolution could emerge in
the collectivist anarchist and anarcho-communist communes. This
collaboration between the communes and the market of independent
producers would create a powerful bulwark against the lethal dangers
of the state.
In conclusion, my central point here
was that anarchists from every school can unite into a coherent
coalition. Through concrete actions derived from their own
traditions, they can advance both their common causes of overthrowing
statist-capitalist domination and their specific causes, in the most
genuine spirit of mutual aid.
I myself am preparing a sustainable
community project, and mining some bitcoins,. I look forward to
collaborating with you all!
[1] a great description of such
a society is the book The Dispossessed by Ursula LeGuin
(Source)
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