                       A.2 What does anarchism stand for?

   These words by Percy Bysshe Shelley gives an idea of what anarchism
   stands for in practice and what ideals drive it:

                                   The man
                  Of virtuous soul commands not, nor obeys:
                    Power, like a desolating pestilence,
                Pollutes whate'er it touches, and obedience,
                 Bane of all genius, virtue, freedom, truth,
                Makes slaves of men, and, of the human frame,
                           A mechanised automaton.

   As Shelley's lines suggest, anarchists place a high priority on
   liberty, desiring it both for themselves and others. They also consider
   individuality -- that which makes one a unique person -- to be a most
   important aspect of humanity. They recognise, however, that
   individuality does not exist in a vacuum but is a social phenomenon.
   Outside of society, individuality is impossible, since one needs other
   people in order to develop, expand, and grow.

   Moreover, between individual and social development there is a
   reciprocal effect: individuals grow within and are shaped by a
   particular society, while at the same time they help shape and change
   aspects of that society (as well as themselves and other individuals)
   by their actions and thoughts. A society not based on free individuals,
   their hopes, dreams and ideas would be hollow and dead. Thus, "the
   making of a human being. . . is a collective process, a process in
   which both community and the individual participate." [Murray Bookchin,
   The Modern Crisis, p. 79] Consequently, any political theory which
   bases itself purely on the social or the individual is false.

   In order for individuality to develop to the fullest possible extent,
   anarchists consider it essential to create a society based on three
   principles: liberty, equality and solidarity. These principles are
   shared by all anarchists. Thus we find, the communist-anarchist Peter
   Kropotkin talking about a revolution inspired by "the beautiful words,
   Liberty, Equality and Solidarity." [The Conquest of Bread, p. 128]
   Individualist-anarchist Benjamin Tucker wrote of a similar vision,
   arguing that anarchism "insists on Socialism . . . on true Socialism,
   Anarchistic Socialism: the prevalance on earth of Liberty, Equality,
   and Solidarity." [Instead of a Book, p. 363] All three principles are
   interdependent.

   Liberty is essential for the full flowering of human intelligence,
   creativity, and dignity. To be dominated by another is to be denied the
   chance to think and act for oneself, which is the only way to grow and
   develop one's individuality. Domination also stifles innovation and
   personal responsibility, leading to conformity and mediocrity. Thus the
   society that maximises the growth of individuality will necessarily be
   based on voluntary association, not coercion and authority. To quote
   Proudhon, "All associated and all free." Or, as Luigi Galleani puts it,
   anarchism is "the autonomy of the individual within the freedom of
   association" [The End of Anarchism?, p. 35] (See further section A.2.2
   -- [1]Why do anarchists emphasise liberty?).

   If liberty is essential for the fullest development of individuality,
   then equality is essential for genuine liberty to exist. There can be
   no real freedom in a class-stratified, hierarchical society riddled
   with gross inequalities of power, wealth, and privilege. For in such a
   society only a few -- those at the top of the hierarchy -- are
   relatively free, while the rest are semi-slaves. Hence without
   equality, liberty becomes a mockery -- at best the "freedom" to choose
   one's master (boss), as under capitalism. Moreover, even the elite
   under such conditions are not really free, because they must live in a
   stunted society made ugly and barren by the tyranny and alienation of
   the majority. And since individuality develops to the fullest only with
   the widest contact with other free individuals, members of the elite
   are restricted in the possibilities for their own development by the
   scarcity of free individuals with whom to interact. (See also section
   A.2.5 -- [2]Why are anarchists in favour of equality?)

   Finally, solidarity means mutual aid: working voluntarily and
   co-operatively with others who share the same goals and interests. But
   without liberty and equality, society becomes a pyramid of competing
   classes based on the domination of the lower by the higher strata. In
   such a society, as we know from our own, it's "dominate or be
   dominated," "dog eat dog," and "everyone for themselves." Thus "rugged
   individualism" is promoted at the expense of community feeling, with
   those on the bottom resenting those above them and those on the top
   fearing those below them. Under such conditions, there can be no
   society-wide solidarity, but only a partial form of solidarity within
   classes whose interests are opposed, which weakens society as a whole.
   (See also section A.2.6 -- [3]Why is solidarity important to
   anarchists?)

   It should be noted that solidarity does not imply self-sacrifice or
   self-negation. As Errico Malatesta makes clear:

     "we are all egoists, we all seek our own satisfaction. But the
     anarchist finds his greatest satisfaction in struggling for the good
     of all, for the achievement of a society in which he [sic] can be a
     brother among brothers, and among healthy, intelligent, educated,
     and happy people. But he who is adaptable, who is satisfied to live
     among slaves and draw profit from the labour of slaves, is not, and
     cannot be, an anarchist." [Errico Malatesta: His Life and Ideas, p.
     23]

   For anarchists, real wealth is other people and the planet on which we
   live. Or, in the words of Emma Goldman, it "consists in things of
   utility and beauty, in things which help to create strong, beautiful
   bodies and surroundings inspiring to live in . . . [Our] goal is the
   freest possible expression of all the latent powers of the individual .
   . . Such free display of human energy being possible only under
   complete individual and social freedom," in other words "social
   equality." [Red Emma Speaks, pp. 67-8]

   Also, honouring individuality does not mean that anarchists are
   idealists, thinking that people or ideas develop outside of society.
   Individuality and ideas grow and develop within society, in response to
   material and intellectual interactions and experiences, which people
   actively analyse and interpret. Anarchism, therefore, is a materialist
   theory, recognising that ideas develop and grow from social interaction
   and individuals' mental activity (see Michael Bakunin's God and the
   State for the classic discussion of materialism versus idealism).

   This means that an anarchist society will be the creation of human
   beings, not some deity or other transcendental principle, since
   "[n]othing ever arranges itself, least of all in human relations. It is
   men [sic] who do the arranging, and they do it according to their
   attitudes and understanding of things." [Alexander Berkman, What is
   Anarchism?, p. 185]

   Therefore, anarchism bases itself upon the power of ideas and the
   ability of people to act and transform their lives based on what they
   consider to be right. In other words, liberty.

A.2.1 What is the essence of anarchism?

   As we have seen, "an-archy" implies "without rulers" or "without
   (hierarchical) authority." Anarchists are not against "authorities" in
   the sense of experts who are particularly knowledgeable, skilful, or
   wise, though they believe that such authorities should have no power to
   force others to follow their recommendations (see [4]section B.1 for
   more on this distinction). In a nutshell, then, anarchism is
   anti-authoritarianism.

   Anarchists are anti-authoritarians because they believe that no human
   being should dominate another. Anarchists, in L. Susan Brown's words,
   "believe in the inherent dignity and worth of the human individual."
   [The Politics of Individualism, p. 107] Domination is inherently
   degrading and demeaning, since it submerges the will and judgement of
   the dominated to the will and judgement of the dominators, thus
   destroying the dignity and self-respect that comes only from personal
   autonomy. Moreover, domination makes possible and generally leads to
   exploitation, which is the root of inequality, poverty, and social
   breakdown.

   In other words, then, the essence of anarchism (to express it
   positively) is free co-operation between equals to maximise their
   liberty and individuality.

   Co-operation between equals is the key to anti-authoritarianism. By
   co-operation we can develop and protect our own intrinsic value as
   unique individuals as well as enriching our lives and liberty for "[n]o
   individual can recognise his own humanity, and consequently realise it
   in his lifetime, if not by recognising it in others and co-operating in
   its realisation for others . . . My freedom is the freedom of all since
   I am not truly free in thought and in fact, except when my freedom and
   my rights are confirmed and approved in the freedom and rights of all
   men [and women] who are my equals." [Michael Bakunin, quoted by Errico
   Malatesta, Anarchy, p. 30]

   While being anti-authoritarians, anarchists recognise that human beings
   have a social nature and that they mutually influence each other. We
   cannot escape the "authority" of this mutual influence, because, as
   Bakunin reminds us:

     "The abolition of this mutual influence would be death. And when we
     advocate the freedom of the masses, we are by no means suggesting
     the abolition of any of the natural influences that individuals or
     groups of individuals exert on them. What we want is the abolition
     of influences which are artificial, privileged, legal, official."
     [quoted by Malatesta, Anarchy, p. 51]

   In other words, those influences which stem from hierarchical
   authority.

   This is because hierarchical systems like capitalism deny liberty and,
   as a result, people's "mental, moral, intellectual and physical
   qualities are dwarfed, stunted and crushed" (see [5]section B.1 for
   more details). Thus one of "the grand truths of Anarchism" is that "to
   be really free is to allow each one to live their lives in their own
   way as long as each allows all to do the same." This is why anarchists
   fight for a better society, for a society which respects individuals
   and their freedom. Under capitalism, "[e]verything is upon the market
   for sale: all is merchandise and commerce" but there are "certain
   things that are priceless. Among these are life, liberty and happiness,
   and these are things which the society of the future, the free society,
   will guarantee to all." Anarchists, as a result, seek to make people
   aware of their dignity, individuality and liberty and to encourage the
   spirit of revolt, resistance and solidarity in those subject to
   authority. This gets us denounced by the powerful as being breakers of
   the peace, but anarchists consider the struggle for freedom as
   infinitely better than the peace of slavery. Anarchists, as a result of
   our ideals, "believe in peace at any price -- except at the price of
   liberty. But this precious gift the wealth-producers already seem to
   have lost. Life . . . they have; but what is life worth when it lacks
   those elements which make for enjoyment?" [Lucy Parsons, Liberty,
   Equality & Solidarity, p. 103, p. 131, p. 103 and p. 134]

   So, in a nutshell, Anarchists seek a society in which people interact
   in ways which enhance the liberty of all rather than crush the liberty
   (and so potential) of the many for the benefit of a few. Anarchists do
   not want to give others power over themselves, the power to tell them
   what to do under the threat of punishment if they do not obey. Perhaps
   non-anarchists, rather than be puzzled why anarchists are anarchists,
   would be better off asking what it says about themselves that they feel
   this attitude needs any sort of explanation.

A.2.2 Why do anarchists emphasise liberty?

   An anarchist can be regarded, in Bakunin's words, as a "fanatic lover
   of freedom, considering it as the unique environment within which the
   intelligence, dignity and happiness of mankind can develop and
   increase." [Michael Bakunin: Selected Writings, p. 196] Because human
   beings are thinking creatures, to deny them liberty is to deny them the
   opportunity to think for themselves, which is to deny their very
   existence as humans. For anarchists, freedom is a product of our
   humanity, because:

     "The very fact. . . that a person has a consciousness of self, of
     being different from others, creates a desire to act freely. The
     craving for liberty and self-expression is a very fundamental and
     dominant trait." [Emma Goldman, Red Emma Speaks, p. 439]

   For this reason, anarchism "proposes to rescue the self-respect and
   independence of the individual from all restraint and invasion by
   authority. Only in freedom can man [sic!] grow to his full stature.
   Only in freedom will he learn to think and move, and give the very best
   of himself. Only in freedom will he realise the true force of the
   social bonds which tie men together, and which are the true foundations
   of a normal social life." [Op. Cit., pp. 72-3]

   Thus, for anarchists, freedom is basically individuals pursuing their
   own good in their own way. Doing so calls forth the activity and power
   of individuals as they make decisions for and about themselves and
   their lives. Only liberty can ensure individual development and
   diversity. This is because when individuals govern themselves and make
   their own decisions they have to exercise their minds and this can have
   no other effect than expanding and stimulating the individuals
   involved. As Malatesta put it, "[f]or people to become educated to
   freedom and the management of their own interests, they must be left to
   act for themselves, to feel responsibility for their own actions in the
   good or bad that comes from them. They'd make mistakes, but they'd
   understand from the consequences where they'd gone wrong and try out
   new ways." [Fra Contadini, p. 26]

   So, liberty is the precondition for the maximum development of one's
   individual potential, which is also a social product and can be
   achieved only in and through community. A healthy, free community will
   produce free individuals, who in turn will shape the community and
   enrich the social relationships between the people of whom it is
   composed. Liberties, being socially produced, "do not exist because
   they have been legally set down on a piece of paper, but only when they
   have become the ingrown habit of a people, and when any attempt to
   impair them will meet with the violent resistance of the populace . . .
   One compels respect from others when one knows how to defend one's
   dignity as a human being. This is not only true in private life; it has
   always been the same in political life as well." In fact, we "owe all
   the political rights and privileges which we enjoy today in greater or
   lesser measures, not to the good will of their governments, but to
   their own strength." [Rudolf Rocker, Anarcho-syndicalism, p. 75]

   It is for this reason anarchists support the tactic of "Direct Action"
   (see [6]section J.2) for, as Emma Goldman argued, we have "as much
   liberty as [we are] willing to take. Anarchism therefore stands for
   direct action, the open defiance of, and resistance to, all laws and
   restrictions, economic, social, and moral." It requires "integrity,
   self-reliance, and courage. In short, it calls for free, independent
   spirits" and "only persistent resistance" can "finally set [us] free.
   Direct action against the authority in the shop, direct action against
   the authority of the law, direct action against the invasive,
   meddlesome authority of our moral code, is the logical, consistent
   method of Anarchism." [Red Emma Speaks, pp. 76-7]

   Direct action is, in other words, the application of liberty, used to
   resist oppression in the here and now as well as the means of creating
   a free society. It creates the necessary individual mentality and
   social conditions in which liberty flourishes. Both are essential as
   liberty develops only within society, not in opposition to it. Thus
   Murray Bookchin writes:

     "What freedom, independence, and autonomy people have in a given
     historical period is the product of long social traditions and . . .
     a collective development -- which is not to deny that individuals
     play an important role in that development, indeed are ultimately
     obliged to do so if they wish to be free." [Social Anarchism or
     Lifestyle Anarchism, p. 15]

   But freedom requires the right kind of social environment in which to
   grow and develop. Such an environment must be decentralised and based
   on the direct management of work by those who do it. For centralisation
   means coercive authority (hierarchy), whereas self-management is the
   essence of freedom. Self-management ensures that the individuals
   involved use (and so develop) all their abilities -- particularly their
   mental ones. Hierarchy, in contrast, substitutes the activities and
   thoughts of a few for the activities and thoughts of all the
   individuals involved. Thus, rather than developing their abilities to
   the full, hierarchy marginalises the many and ensures that their
   development is blunted (see also [7]section B.1).

   It is for this reason that anarchists oppose both capitalism and
   statism. As the French anarchist Sebastien Faure noted, authority
   "dresses itself in two principal forms: the political form, that is the
   State; and the economic form, that is private property." [cited by
   Peter Marshall, Demanding the Impossible, p. 43] Capitalism, like the
   state, is based on centralised authority (i.e. of the boss over the
   worker), the very purpose of which is to keep the management of work
   out of the hands of those who do it. This means "that the serious,
   final, complete liberation of the workers is possible only upon one
   condition: that of the appropriation of capital, that is, of raw
   material and all the tools of labour, including land, by the whole body
   of the workers." [Michael Bakunin, quoted by Rudolf Rocker, Op. Cit.,
   p. 50]

   Hence, as Noam Chomsky argues, a "consistent anarchist must oppose
   private ownership of the means of production and the wage slavery which
   is a component of this system, as incompatible with the principle that
   labour must be freely undertaken and under the control of the
   producer." ["Notes on Anarchism", For Reasons of State, p. 158]

   Thus, liberty for anarchists means a non-authoritarian society in which
   individuals and groups practice self-management, i.e. they govern
   themselves. The implications of this are important. First, it implies
   that an anarchist society will be non-coercive, that is, one in which
   violence or the threat of violence will not be used to "convince"
   individuals to do anything. Second, it implies that anarchists are firm
   supporters of individual sovereignty, and that, because of this
   support, they also oppose institutions based on coercive authority,
   i.e. hierarchy. And finally, it implies that anarchists' opposition to
   "government" means only that they oppose centralised, hierarchical,
   bureaucratic organisations or government. They do not oppose
   self-government through confederations of decentralised, grassroots
   organisations, so long as these are based on direct democracy rather
   than the delegation of power to "representatives" (see [8]section A.2.9
   for more on anarchist organisation). For authority is the opposite of
   liberty, and hence any form of organisation based on the delegation of
   power is a threat to the liberty and dignity of the people subjected to
   that power.

   Anarchists consider freedom to be the only social environment within
   which human dignity and diversity can flower. Under capitalism and
   statism, however, there is no freedom for the majority, as private
   property and hierarchy ensure that the inclination and judgement of
   most individuals will be subordinated to the will of a master, severely
   restricting their liberty and making impossible the "full development
   of all the material, intellectual and moral capacities that are latent
   in every one of us." [Michael Bakunin, Bakunin on Anarchism, p. 261]
   That is why anarchists seek to ensure "that real justice and real
   liberty might come on earth" for it is "all false, all unnecessary,
   this wild waste of human life, of bone and sinew and brain and heart,
   this turning of people into human rags, ghosts, piteous caricatures of
   the creatures they had it in them to be, on the day they were born;
   that what is called 'economy', the massing up of things, is in reality
   the most frightful spending -- the sacrifice of the maker to the made
   -- the lose of all the finer and nobler instincts in the gain of one
   revolting attribute, the power to count and calculate." [Voltairine de
   Cleyre, The First Mayday: The Haymarket Speeches 1895-1910, pp, 17-18]

   (See [9]section B for further discussion of the hierarchical and
   authoritarian nature of capitalism and statism).

A.2.3 Are anarchists in favour of organisation?

   Yes. Without association, a truly human life is impossible. Liberty
   cannot exist without society and organisation. As George Barrett
   pointed out:

     "To get the full meaning out of life we must co-operate, and to
     co-operate we must make agreements with our fellow-men. But to
     suppose that such agreements mean a limitation of freedom is surely
     an absurdity; on the contrary, they are the exercise of our freedom.

     "If we are going to invent a dogma that to make agreements is to
     damage freedom, then at once freedom becomes tyrannical, for it
     forbids men to take the most ordinary everyday pleasures. For
     example, I cannot go for a walk with my friend because it is against
     the principle of Liberty that I should agree to be at a certain
     place at a certain time to meet him. I cannot in the least extend my
     own power beyond myself, because to do so I must co-operate with
     someone else, and co-operation implies an agreement, and that is
     against Liberty. It will be seen at once that this argument is
     absurd. I do not limit my liberty, but simply exercise it, when I
     agree with my friend to go for a walk.

     "If, on the other hand, I decide from my superior knowledge that it
     is good for my friend to take exercise, and therefore I attempt to
     compel him to go for a walk, then I begin to limit freedom. This is
     the difference between free agreement and government."
     [Objections to Anarchism, pp. 348-9]

   As far as organisation goes, anarchists think that "far from creating
   authority, [it] is the only cure for it and the only means whereby each
   of us will get used to taking an active and conscious part in
   collective work, and cease being passive instruments in the hands of
   leaders." [Errico Malatesta, Errico Malatesta: His Life and Ideas, p.
   86] Thus anarchists are well aware of the need to organise in a
   structured and open manner. As Carole Ehrlich points out, while
   anarchists "aren't opposed to structure" and simply "want to abolish
   hierarchical structure" they are "almost always stereotyped as wanting
   no structure at all." This is not the case, for "organisations that
   would build in accountability, diffusion of power among the maximum
   number of persons, task rotation, skill-sharing, and the spread of
   information and resources" are based on "good social anarchist
   principles of organisation!" ["Socialism, Anarchism and Feminism",
   Quiet Rumours: An Anarcha-Feminist Reader, p. 47 and p. 46]

   The fact that anarchists are in favour of organisation may seem strange
   at first, but it is understandable. "For those with experience only of
   authoritarian organisation," argue two British anarchists, "it appears
   that organisation can only be totalitarian or democratic, and that
   those who disbelieve in government must by that token disbelieve in
   organisation at all. That is not so." [Stuart Christie and Albert
   Meltzer, The Floodgates of Anarchy, p. 122] In other words, because we
   live in a society in which virtually all forms of organisation are
   authoritarian, this makes them appear to be the only kind possible.
   What is usually not recognised is that this mode of organisation is
   historically conditioned, arising within a specific kind of society --
   one whose motive principles are domination and exploitation. According
   to archaeologists and anthropologists, this kind of society has only
   existed for about 5,000 years, having appeared with the first primitive
   states based on conquest and slavery, in which the labour of slaves
   created a surplus which supported a ruling class.

   Prior to that time, for hundreds of thousands of years, human and
   proto-human societies were what Murray Bookchin calls "organic," that
   is, based on co-operative forms of economic activity involving mutual
   aid, free access to productive resources, and a sharing of the products
   of communal labour according to need. Although such societies probably
   had status rankings based on age, there were no hierarchies in the
   sense of institutionalised dominance-subordination relations enforced
   by coercive sanctions and resulting in class-stratification involving
   the economic exploitation of one class by another (see Murray Bookchin,
   The Ecology of Freedom).

   It must be emphasised, however, that anarchists do not advocate going
   "back to the Stone Age." We merely note that since the
   hierarchical-authoritarian mode of organisation is a relatively recent
   development in the course of human social evolution, there is no reason
   to suppose that it is somehow "fated" to be permanent. We do not think
   that human beings are genetically "programmed" for authoritarian,
   competitive, and aggressive behaviour, as there is no credible evidence
   to support this claim. On the contrary, such behaviour is socially
   conditioned, or learned, and as such, can be unlearned (see Ashley
   Montagu, The Nature of Human Aggression). We are not fatalists or
   genetic determinists, but believe in free will, which means that people
   can change the way they do things, including the way they organise
   society.

   And there is no doubt that society needs to be better organised,
   because presently most of its wealth -- which is produced by the
   majority -- and power gets distributed to a small, elite minority at
   the top of the social pyramid, causing deprivation and suffering for
   the rest, particularly for those at the bottom. Yet because this elite
   controls the means of coercion through its control of the state (see
   [10]section B.2.3), it is able to suppress the majority and ignore its
   suffering -- a phenomenon that occurs on a smaller scale within all
   hierarchies. Little wonder, then, that people within authoritarian and
   centralised structures come to hate them as a denial of their freedom.
   As Alexander Berkman puts it:

     "Any one who tells you that Anarchists don't believe in organisation
     is talking nonsense. Organisation is everything, and everything is
     organisation. The whole of life is organisation, conscious or
     unconscious . . . But there is organisation and organisation.
     Capitalist society is so badly organised that its various members
     suffer: just as when you have a pain in some part of you, your whole
     body aches and you are ill. . . , not a single member of the
     organisation or union may with impunity be discriminated against,
     suppressed or ignored. To do so would be the same as to ignore an
     aching tooth: you would be sick all over." [Op. Cit., p. 198]

   Yet this is precisely what happens in capitalist society, with the
   result that it is, indeed, "sick all over."

   For these reasons, anarchists reject authoritarian forms of
   organisation and instead support associations based on free agreement.
   Free agreement is important because, in Berkman's words, "[o]nly when
   each is a free and independent unit, co-operating with others from his
   own choice because of mutual interests, can the world work successfully
   and become powerful." [Op. Cit., p. 199] As we discuss in [11]section
   A.2.14, anarchists stress that free agreement has to be complemented by
   direct democracy (or, as it is usually called by anarchists,
   self-management) within the association itself otherwise "freedom"
   become little more than picking masters.

   Anarchist organisation is based on a massive decentralisation of power
   back into the hands of the people, i.e. those who are directly affected
   by the decisions being made. To quote Proudhon:

     "Unless democracy is a fraud and the sovereignty of the People a
     joke, it must be admitted that each citizen in the sphere of his [or
     her] industry, each municipal, district or provincial council within
     its own territory . . . should act directly and by itself in
     administering the interests which it includes, and should exercise
     full sovereignty in relation to them." [The General Idea of the
     Revolution, p. 276]

   It also implies a need for federalism to co-ordinate joint interests.
   For anarchism, federalism is the natural complement to self-management.
   With the abolition of the State, society "can, and must, organise
   itself in a different fashion, but not from top to bottom . . . The
   future social organisation must be made solely from the bottom upwards,
   by the free association or federation of workers, firstly in their
   unions, then in the communes, regions, nations and finally in a great
   federation, international and universal. Then alone will be realised
   the true and life-giving order of freedom and the common good, that
   order which, far from denying, on the contrary affirms and brings into
   harmony the interests of individuals and of society." [Bakunin, Michael
   Bakunin: Selected Writings, pp. 205-6] Because a "truly popular
   organisation begins . . . from below" and so "federalism becomes a
   political institution of Socialism, the free and spontaneous
   organisation of popular life." Thus libertarian socialism "is
   federalistic in character." [Bakunin, The Political Philosophy of
   Bakunin, pp. 273-4 and p. 272]

   Therefore, anarchist organisation is based on direct democracy (or
   self-management) and federalism (or confederation). These are the
   expression and environment of liberty. Direct (or participatory)
   democracy is essential because liberty and equality imply the need for
   forums within which people can discuss and debate as equals and which
   allow for the free exercise of what Murray Bookchin calls "the creative
   role of dissent." Federalism is necessary to ensure that common
   interests are discussed and joint activity organised in a way which
   reflects the wishes of all those affected by them. To ensure that
   decisions flow from the bottom up rather than being imposed from the
   top down by a few rulers.

   Anarchist ideas on libertarian organisation and the need for direct
   democracy and confederation will be discussed further in sections
   [12]A.2.9 and [13]A.2.11.

A.2.4 Are anarchists in favour of "absolute" liberty?

   No. Anarchists do not believe that everyone should be able to "do
   whatever they like," because some actions invariably involve the denial
   of the liberty of others.

   For example, anarchists do not support the "freedom" to rape, to
   exploit, or to coerce others. Neither do we tolerate authority. On the
   contrary, since authority is a threat to liberty, equality, and
   solidarity (not to mention human dignity), anarchists recognise the
   need to resist and overthrow it.

   The exercise of authority is not freedom. No one has a "right" to rule
   others. As Malatesta points out, anarchism supports "freedom for
   everybody . . . with the only limit of the equal freedom for others;
   which does not mean . . . that we recognise, and wish to respect, the
   'freedom' to exploit, to oppress, to command, which is oppression and
   certainly not freedom." [Errico Malatesta: His Life and Ideas, p. 53]

   In a capitalist society, resistance to all forms of hierarchical
   authority is the mark of a free person -- be it private (the boss) or
   public (the state). As Henry David Thoreau pointed out in his essay on
   "Civil Disobedience" (1847)

     "Disobedience is the true foundation of liberty. The obedient must
     be slaves."

A.2.5 Why are anarchists in favour of equality?

   As mentioned in [14]above, anarchists are dedicated to social equality
   because it is the only context in which individual liberty can
   flourish. However, there has been much nonsense written about
   "equality," and much of what is commonly believed about it is very
   strange indeed. Before discussing what anarchist do mean by equality,
   we have to indicate what we do not mean by it.

   Anarchists do not believe in "equality of endowment," which is not only
   non-existent but would be very undesirable if it could be brought
   about. Everyone is unique. Biologically determined human differences
   not only exist but are "a cause for joy, not fear or regret." Why?
   Because "life among clones would not be worth living, and a sane person
   will only rejoice that others have abilities that they do not share."
   [Noam Chomsky, Marxism, Anarchism, and Alternative Futures, p. 782]

   That some people seriously suggest that anarchists means by "equality"
   that everyone should be identical is a sad reflection on the state of
   present-day intellectual culture and the corruption of words -- a
   corruption used to divert attention from an unjust and authoritarian
   system and side-track people into discussions of biology. "The
   uniqueness of the self in no way contradicts the principle of
   equality," noted Erich Fromm, "The thesis that men are born equal
   implies that they all share the same fundamental human qualities, that
   they share the same basic fate of human beings, that they all have the
   same inalienable claim on freedom and happiness. It furthermore means
   that their relationship is one of solidarity, not one of
   domination-submission. What the concept of equality does not mean is
   that all men are alike." [The Fear of Freedom, p. 228] Thus it would be
   fairer to say that anarchists seek equality because we recognise that
   everyone is different and, consequently, seek the full affirmation and
   development of that uniqueness.

   Nor are anarchists in favour of so-called "equality of outcome." We
   have no desire to live in a society were everyone gets the same goods,
   lives in the same kind of house, wears the same uniform, etc. Part of
   the reason for the anarchist revolt against capitalism and statism is
   that they standardise so much of life (see George Reitzer's The
   McDonaldisation of Society on why capitalism is driven towards
   standardisation and conformity). In the words of Alexander Berkman:

     "The spirit of authority, law, written and unwritten, tradition and
     custom force us into a common grove and make a man [or woman] a
     will-less automation without independence or individuality. . . All
     of us are its victims, and only the exceptionally strong succeed in
     breaking its chains, and that only partly." [What is Anarchism?, p.
     165]

   Anarchists, therefore, have little to desire to make this "common
   grove" even deeper. Rather, we desire to destroy it and every social
   relationship and institution that creates it in the first place.

   "Equality of outcome" can only be introduced and maintained by force,
   which would not be equality anyway, as some would have more power than
   others! "Equality of outcome" is particularly hated by anarchists, as
   we recognise that every individual has different needs, abilities,
   desires and interests. To make all consume the same would be tyranny.
   Obviously, if one person needs medical treatment and another does not,
   they do not receive an "equal" amount of medical care. The same is true
   of other human needs. As Alexander Berkman put it:

     "equality does not mean an equal amount but equal opportunity. . .
     Do not make the mistake of identifying equality in liberty with the
     forced equality of the convict camp. True anarchist equality implies
     freedom, not quantity. It does not mean that every one must eat,
     drink, or wear the same things, do the same work, or live in the
     same manner. Far from it: the very reverse in fact."

     "Individual needs and tastes differ, as appetites differ. It is
     equal opportunity to satisfy them that constitutes true equality.

     "Far from levelling, such equality opens the door for the greatest
     possible variety of activity and development. For human character is
     diverse . . . Free opportunity of expressing and acting out your
     individuality means development of natural dissimilarities and
     variations."
     [Op. Cit., pp. 164-5]

   For anarchists, the "concepts" of "equality" as "equality of outcome"
   or "equality of endowment" are meaningless. However, in a hierarchical
   society, "equality of opportunity" and "equality of outcome" are
   related. Under capitalism, for example, the opportunities each
   generation face are dependent on the outcomes of the previous ones.
   This means that under capitalism "equality of opportunity" without a
   rough "equality of outcome" (in the sense of income and resources)
   becomes meaningless, as there is no real equality of opportunity for
   the off-spring of a millionaire and that of a road sweeper. Those who
   argue for "equality of opportunity" while ignoring the barriers created
   by previous outcomes indicate that they do not know what they are
   talking about -- opportunity in a hierarchical society depends not only
   on an open road but also upon an equal start. From this obvious fact
   springs the misconception that anarchists desire "equality of outcome"
   -- but this applies to a hierarchical system, in a free society this
   would not the case (as we will see).

   Equality, in anarchist theory, does not mean denying individual
   diversity or uniqueness. As Bakunin observes:

     "once equality has triumphed and is well established, will various
     individuals' abilities and their levels of energy cease to differ?
     Some will exist, perhaps not so many as now, but certainly some will
     always exist. It is proverbial that the same tree never bears two
     identical leaves, and this will probably be always be true. And it
     is even more truer with regard to human beings, who are much more
     complex than leaves. But this diversity is hardly an evil. On the
     contrary. . . it is a resource of the human race. Thanks to this
     diversity, humanity is a collective whole in which the one
     individual complements all the others and needs them. As a result,
     this infinite diversity of human individuals is the fundamental
     cause and the very basis of their solidarity. It is all-powerful
     argument for equality." ["All-Round Education", The Basic Bakunin,
     pp. 117-8]

   Equality for anarchists means social equality, or, to use Murray
   Bookchin's term, the "equality of unequals" (some like Malatesta used
   the term "equality of conditions" to express the same idea). By this he
   means that an anarchist society recognises the differences in ability
   and need of individuals but does not allow these differences to be
   turned into power. Individual differences, in other words, "would be of
   no consequence, because inequality in fact is lost in the collectivity
   when it cannot cling to some legal fiction or institution." [Michael
   Bakunin, God and the State, p. 53]

   If hierarchical social relationships, and the forces that create them,
   are abolished in favour of ones that encourage participation and are
   based on the principle of "one person, one vote" then natural
   differences would not be able to be turned into hierarchical power. For
   example, without capitalist property rights there would not be means by
   which a minority could monopolise the means of life (machinery and
   land) and enrich themselves by the work of others via the wages system
   and usury (profits, rent and interest). Similarly, if workers manage
   their own work, there is no class of capitalists to grow rich off their
   labour. Thus Proudhon:

     "Now, what can be the origin of this inequality?

     "As we see it, . . . that origin is the realisation within society
     of this triple abstraction: capital, labour and talent.

     "It is because society has divided itself into three categories of
     citizen corresponding to the three terms of the formula. . . that
     caste distinctions have always been arrived at, and one half of the
     human race enslaved to the other. . . socialism thus consists of
     reducing the aristocratic formula of capital-labour-talent into the
     simpler formula of labour!. . . in order to make every citizen
     simultaneously, equally and to the same extent capitalist, labourer
     and expert or artist."
     [No Gods, No Masters, vol. 1, pp. 57-8]

   Like all anarchists, Proudhon saw this integration of functions as the
   key to equality and freedom and proposed self-management as the means
   to achieve it. Thus self-management is the key to social equality.
   Social equality in the workplace, for example, means that everyone has
   an equal say in the policy decisions on how the workplace develops and
   changes. Anarchists are strong believers in the maxim "that which
   touches all, is decided by all."

   This does not mean, of course, that expertise will be ignored or that
   everyone will decide everything. As far as expertise goes, different
   people have different interests, talents, and abilities, so obviously
   they will want to study different things and do different kinds of
   work. It is also obvious that when people are ill they consult a doctor
   -- an expert -- who manages his or her own work rather than being
   directed by a committee. We are sorry to have to bring these points up,
   but once the topics of social equality and workers' self-management
   come up, some people start to talk nonsense. It is common sense that a
   hospital managed in a socially equal way will not involve non-medical
   staff voting on how doctors should perform an operation!

   In fact, social equality and individual liberty are inseparable.
   Without the collective self-management of decisions that affect a group
   (equality) to complement the individual self-management of decisions
   that affect the individual (liberty), a free society is impossible. For
   without both, some will have power over others, making decisions for
   them (i.e. governing them), and thus some will be more free than
   others. Which implies, just to state the obvious, anarchists seek
   equality in all aspects of life, not just in terms of wealth.
   Anarchists "demand for every person not just his [or her] entire
   measure of the wealth of society but also his [or her] portion of
   social power." [Malatesta and Hamon, No Gods, No Masters, vol. 2, p.
   20] Thus self-management is needed to ensure both liberty and equality.

   Social equality is required for individuals to both govern and express
   themselves, for the self-management it implies means "people working in
   face-to-face relations with their fellows in order to bring the
   uniqueness of their own perspective to the business of solving common
   problems and achieving common goals." [George Benello, From the Ground
   Up, p. 160] Thus equality allows the expression of individuality and so
   is a necessary base for individual liberty.

   Section F.3 ([15]"Why do 'anarcho'-capitalists place little or no value
   on equality?") discusses anarchist ideas on equality further. Noam
   Chomsky's essay "Equality" (contained in The Chomsky Reader) is a good
   summary of libertarian ideas on the subject.

A.2.6 Why is solidarity important to anarchists?

   Solidarity, or mutual aid, is a key idea of anarchism. It is the link
   between the individual and society, the means by which individuals can
   work together to meet their common interests in an environment that
   supports and nurtures both liberty and equality. For anarchists, mutual
   aid is a fundamental feature of human life, a source of both strength
   and happiness and a fundamental requirement for a fully human
   existence.

   Erich Fromm, noted psychologist and socialist humanist, points out that
   the "human desire to experience union with others is rooted in the
   specific conditions of existence that characterise the human species
   and is one of the strongest motivations of human behaviour." [To Be or
   To Have, p.107]

   Therefore anarchists consider the desire to form "unions" (to use Max
   Stirner's term) with other people to be a natural need. These unions,
   or associations, must be based on equality and individuality in order
   to be fully satisfying to those who join them -- i.e. they must be
   organised in an anarchist manner, i.e. voluntary, decentralised, and
   non-hierarchical.

   Solidarity -- co-operation between individuals -- is necessary for life
   and is far from a denial of liberty. Solidarity, observed Errico
   Malatesta, "is the only environment in which Man can express his
   personality and achieve his optimum development and enjoy the greatest
   possible wellbeing." This "coming together of individuals for the
   wellbeing of all, and of all for the wellbeing of each," results in
   "the freedom of each not being limited by, but complemented -- indeed
   finding the necessary raison d'etre in -- the freedom of others."
   [Anarchy, p. 29] In other words, solidarity and co-operation means
   treating each other as equals, refusing to treat others as means to an
   end and creating relationships which support freedom for all rather
   than a few dominating the many. Emma Goldman reiterated this theme,
   noting "what wonderful results this unique force of man's individuality
   has achieved when strengthened by co-operation with other
   individualities . . . co-operation -- as opposed to internecine strife
   and struggle -- has worked for the survival and evolution of the
   species. . . . only mutual aid and voluntary co-operation . . . can
   create the basis for a free individual and associational life." [Red
   Emma Speaks, p. 118]

   Solidarity means associating together as equals in order to satisfy our
   common interests and needs. Forms of association not based on
   solidarity (i.e. those based on inequality) will crush the
   individuality of those subjected to them. As Ret Marut points out,
   liberty needs solidarity, the recognition of common interests:

     "The most noble, pure and true love of mankind is the love of
     oneself. I want to be free! I hope to be happy! I want to appreciate
     all the beauties of the world. But my freedom is secured only when
     all other people around me are free. I can only be happy when all
     other people around me are happy. I can only be joyful when all the
     people I see and meet look at the world with joy-filled eyes. And
     only then can I eat my fill with pure enjoyment when I have the
     secure knowledge that other people, too, can eat their fill as I do.
     And for that reason it is a question of my own contentment, only of
     my own self, when I rebel against every danger which threatens my
     freedom and my happiness. . ." [Ret Marut (a.k.a. B. Traven), The
     BrickBurner magazine quoted by Karl S. Guthke, B. Traven: The life
     behind the legends, pp. 133-4]

   To practice solidarity means that we recognise, as in the slogan of
   Industrial Workers of the World, that "an injury to one is an injury to
   all." Solidarity, therefore, is the means to protect individuality and
   liberty and so is an expression of self-interest. As Alfie Kohn points
   out:

     "when we think about co-operation. . . we tend to associate the
     concept with fuzzy-minded idealism. . . This may result from
     confusing co-operation with altruism. . . Structural co-operation
     defies the usual egoism/altruism dichotomy. It sets things up so
     that by helping you I am helping myself at the same time. Even if my
     motive initially may have been selfish, our fates now are linked. We
     sink or swim together. Co-operation is a shrewd and highly
     successful strategy - a pragmatic choice that gets things done at
     work and at school even more effectively than competition does. . .
     There is also good evidence that co-operation is more conductive to
     psychological health and to liking one another." [No Contest: The
     Case Against Competition, p. 7]

   And, within a hierarchical society, solidarity is important not only
   because of the satisfaction it gives us, but also because it is
   necessary to resist those in power. Malatesta's words are relevant
   here:

     "the oppressed masses who have never completely resigned themselves
     to oppress and poverty, and who . . . show themselves thirsting for
     justice, freedom and wellbeing, are beginning to understand that
     they will not be able to achieve their emancipation except by union
     and solidarity with all the oppressed, with the exploited everywhere
     in the world." [Anarchy, p. 33]

   By standing together, we can increase our strength and get what we
   want. Eventually, by organising into groups, we can start to manage our
   own collective affairs together and so replace the boss once and for
   all. "Unions will. . . multiply the individual's means and secure his
   assailed property." [Max Stirner, The Ego and Its Own, p. 258] By
   acting in solidarity, we can also replace the current system with one
   more to our liking: "in union there is strength." [Alexander Berkman,
   What is Anarchism?, p. 74]

   Solidarity is thus the means by which we can obtain and ensure our own
   freedom. We agree to work together so that we will not have to work for
   another. By agreeing to share with each other we increase our options
   so that we may enjoy more, not less. Mutual aid is in my self-interest
   -- that is, I see that it is to my advantage to reach agreements with
   others based on mutual respect and social equality; for if I dominate
   someone, this means that the conditions exist which allow domination,
   and so in all probability I too will be dominated in turn.

   As Max Stirner saw, solidarity is the means by which we ensure that our
   liberty is strengthened and defended from those in power who want to
   rule us: "Do you yourself count for nothing then?", he asks. "Are you
   bound to let anyone do anything he wants to you? Defend yourself and no
   one will touch you. If millions of people are behind you, supporting
   you, then you are a formidable force and you will win without
   difficulty." [quoted in Luigi Galleani's The End of Anarchism?, p. 79 -
   different translation in The Ego and Its Own, p. 197]

   Solidarity, therefore, is important to anarchists because it is the
   means by which liberty can be created and defended against power.
   Solidarity is strength and a product of our nature as social beings.
   However, solidarity should not be confused with "herdism," which
   implies passively following a leader. In order to be effective,
   solidarity must be created by free people, co-operating together as
   equals. The "big WE" is not solidarity, although the desire for
   "herdism" is a product of our need for solidarity and union. It is a
   "solidarity" corrupted by hierarchical society, in which people are
   conditioned to blindly obey leaders.

A.2.7 Why do anarchists argue for self-liberation?

   Liberty, by its very nature, cannot be given. An individual cannot be
   freed by another, but must break his or her own chains through their
   own effort. Of course, self-effort can also be part of collective
   action, and in many cases it has to be in order to attain its ends. As
   Emma Goldman points out:

     "History tells us that every oppressed class [or group or
     individual] gained true liberation from its masters by its own
     efforts." [Red Emma Speaks, p. 167]

   This is because anarchists recognise that hierarchical systems, like
   any social relationship, shapes those subject to them. As Bookchin
   argued, "class societies organise our psychic structures for command or
   obedience." This means that people internalise the values of
   hierarchical and class society and, as such, "the State is not merely a
   constellation of bureaucratic and coercive instituions. It is also a
   state of mind, an instilled mentality for ordering reality . . . Its
   capacity to rule by brute force has always been limited . . . Without a
   high degree of co-operation from even the most victimised classes of
   society such as chattel slaves and serfs, its authority would
   eventually dissipate. Awe and apathy in the face of State power are
   products of social conditioning that renders this very power possible."
   [The Ecology of Freedom, p. 159 and pp. 164-5] Self-liberation is the
   means by which we break down both internal and external chains, freeing
   ourselves mentally as well as physically.

   Anarchists have long argued that people can only free themselves by
   their own actions. The various methods anarchists suggest to aid this
   process will be discussed in section J ([16]"What Do Anarchists Do?")
   and will not be discussed here. However, these methods all involve
   people organising themselves, setting their own agendas, and acting in
   ways that empower them and eliminate their dependence on leaders to do
   things for them. Anarchism is based on people "acting for themselves"
   (performing what anarchists call "direct action" -- see [17]section J.2
   for details).

   Direct action has an empowering and liberating effect on those involved
   in it. Self-activity is the means by which the creativity, initiative,
   imagination and critical thought of those subjected to authority can be
   developed. It is the means by which society can be changed. As Errico
   Malatesta pointed out:

     "Between man and his social environment there is a reciprocal
     action. Men make society what it is and society makes men what they
     are, and the result is therefore a kind of vicious circle. To
     transform society men [and women] must be changed, and to transform
     men, society must be changed . . . Fortunately existing society has
     not been created by the inspired will of a dominating class, which
     has succeeded in reducing all its subjects to passive and
     unconscious instruments of its interests. It is the result of a
     thousand internecine struggles, of a thousand human and natural
     factors . . .

     "From this the possibility of progress . . . We must take advantage
     of all the means, all the possibilities and the opportunities that
     the present environment allows us to act on our fellow men [and
     women] and to develop their consciences and their demands . . . to
     claim and to impose those major social transformations which are
     possible and which effectively serve to open the way to further
     advances later . . . We must seek to get all the people . . . to
     make demands, and impose itself and take for itself all the
     improvements and freedoms it desires as and when it reaches the
     state of wanting them, and the power to demand them . . . we must
     push the people to want always more and to increase its pressures
     [on the ruling elite], until it has achieved complete emancipation."
     [Errico Malatesta: His Life and Ideas, pp. 188-9]

   Society, while shaping all individuals, is also created by them,
   through their actions, thoughts, and ideals. Challenging institutions
   that limit one's freedom is mentally liberating, as it sets in motion
   the process of questioning authoritarian relationships in general. This
   process gives us insight into how society works, changing our ideas and
   creating new ideals. To quote Emma Goldman again: "True emancipation
   begins. . . in woman's soul." And in a man's too, we might add. It is
   only here that we can "begin [our] inner regeneration, [cutting] loose
   from the weight of prejudices, traditions and customs." [Op. Cit., p.
   167] But this process must be self-directed, for as Max Stirner notes,
   "the man who is set free is nothing but a freed man. . . a dog dragging
   a piece of chain with him." [The Ego and Its Own, p. 168] By changing
   the world, even in a small way, we change ourselves.

   In an interview during the Spanish Revolution, the Spanish anarchist
   militant Durutti said, "we have a new world in our hearts." Only
   self-activity and self-liberation allows us to create such a vision and
   gives us the confidence to try to actualise it in the real world.

   Anarchists, however, do not think that self-liberation must wait for
   the future, after the "glorious revolution." The personal is political,
   and given the nature of society, how we act in the here and now will
   influence the future of our society and our lives. Therefore, even in
   pre-anarchist society anarchists try to create, as Bakunin puts it,
   "not only the ideas but also the facts of the future itself." We can do
   so by creating alternative social relationships and organisations,
   acting as free people in a non-free society. Only by our actions in the
   here and now can we lay the foundation for a free society. Moreover,
   this process of self-liberation goes on all the time:

     "Subordinates of all kinds exercise their capacity for critical
     self-reflection every day -- that is why masters are thwarted,
     frustrated and, sometimes, overthrown. But unless masters are
     overthrown, unless subordinates engage in political activity, no
     amount of critical reflection will end their subjection and bring
     them freedom." [Carole Pateman, The Sexual Contract, p. 205]

   Anarchists aim to encourage these tendencies in everyday life to
   reject, resist and thwart authority and bring them to their logical
   conclusion -- a society of free individuals, co-operating as equals in
   free, self-managed associations. Without this process of critical
   self-reflection, resistance and self-liberation a free society is
   impossible. Thus, for anarchists, anarchism comes from the natural
   resistance of subordinated people striving to act as free individuals
   within a hierarchical world. This process of resistance is called by
   many anarchists the "class struggle" (as it is working class people who
   are generally the most subordinated group within society) or, more
   generally, "social struggle." It is this everyday resistance to
   authority (in all its forms) and the desire for freedom which is the
   key to the anarchist revolution. It is for this reason that "anarchists
   emphasise over and over that the class struggle provides the only means
   for the workers [and other oppressed groups] to achieve control over
   their destiny." [Marie-Louise Berneri, Neither East Nor West, p. 32]

   Revolution is a process, not an event, and every "spontaneous
   revolutionary action" usually results from and is based upon the
   patient work of many years of organisation and education by people with
   "utopian" ideas. The process of "creating the new world in the shell of
   the old" (to use another I.W.W. expression), by building alternative
   institutions and relationships, is but one component of what must be a
   long tradition of revolutionary commitment and militancy.

   As Malatesta made clear, "to encourage popular organisations of all
   kinds is the logical consequence of our basic ideas, and should
   therefore be an integral part of our programme. . . anarchists do not
   want to emancipate the people; we want the people to emancipate
   themselves. . . , we want the new way of life to emerge from the body
   of the people and correspond to the state of their development and
   advance as they advance." [Op. Cit., p. 90]

   Unless a process of self-emancipation occurs, a free society is
   impossible. Only when individuals free themselves, both materially (by
   abolishing the state and capitalism) and intellectually (by freeing
   themselves of submissive attitudes towards authority), can a free
   society be possible. We should not forget that capitalist and state
   power, to a great extent, is power over the minds of those subject to
   them (backed up, of course, with sizeable force if the mental
   domination fails and people start rebelling and resisting). In effect,
   a spiritual power as the ideas of the ruling class dominate society and
   permeate the minds of the oppressed. As long as this holds, the working
   class will acquiesce to authority, oppression and exploitation as the
   normal condition of life. Minds submissive to the doctrines and
   positions of their masters cannot hope to win freedom, to revolt and
   fight. Thus the oppressed must overcome the mental domination of the
   existing system before they can throw off its yoke (and, anarchists
   argue, direct action is the means of doing both -- see sections [18]J.2
   and [19]J.4). Capitalism and statism must be beaten spiritually and
   theoretically before it is beaten materially (many anarchists call this
   mental liberation "class consciousness" -- see [20]section B.7.4). And
   self-liberation through struggle against oppression is the only way
   this can be done. Thus anarchists encourage (to use Kropotkin's term)
   "the spirit of revolt."

   Self-liberation is a product of struggle, of self-organisation,
   solidarity and direct action. Direct action is the means of creating
   anarchists, free people, and so "Anarchists have always advised taking
   an active part in those workers' organisations which carry on the
   direct struggle of Labour against Capital and its protector, -- the
   State." This is because "[s]uch a struggle . . . better than any
   indirect means, permits the worker to obtain some temporary
   improvements in the present conditions of work, while it opens his [or
   her] eyes to the evil that is done by Capitalism and the State that
   supports it, and wakes up his [or her] thoughts concerning the
   possibility of organising consumption, production and exchange without
   the intervention of the capitalist and the state," that is, see the
   possibility of a free society. Kropotkin, like many anarchists, pointed
   to the Syndicalist and Trade Union movements as a means of developing
   libertarian ideas within existing society (although he, like most
   anarchists, did not limit anarchist activity exclusively to them).
   Indeed, any movement which "permit[s] the working men [and women] to
   realise their solidarity and to feel the community of their interests .
   . . prepare[s] the way for these conceptions" of communist-anarchism,
   i.e. the overcoming the spiritual domination of existing society within
   the minds of the oppressed. [Evolution and Environment, p. 83 and p.
   85]

   For anarchists, in the words of a Scottish Anarchist militant, the
   "history of human progress [is] seen as the history of rebellion and
   disobedience, with the individual debased by subservience to authority
   in its many forms and able to retain his/her dignity only through
   rebellion and disobedience." [Robert Lynn, Not a Life Story, Just a
   Leaf from It, p. 77] This is why anarchists stress self-liberation (and
   self-organisation, self-management and self-activity). Little wonder
   Bakunin considered "rebellion" as one of the "three fundamental
   principles [which] constitute the essential conditions of all human
   development, collective or individual, in history." [God and the State,
   p. 12] This is simply because individuals and groups cannot be freed by
   others, only by themselves. Such rebellion (self-liberation) is the
   only means by which existing society becomes more libertarian and an
   anarchist society a possibility.

A.2.8 Is it possible to be an anarchist without opposing hierarchy?

   No. We have seen that anarchists abhor authoritarianism. But if one is
   an anti-authoritarian, one must oppose all hierarchical institutions,
   since they embody the principle of authority. For, as Emma Goldman
   argued, "it is not only government in the sense of the state which is
   destructive of every individual value and quality. It is the whole
   complex authority and institutional domination which strangles life. It
   is the superstition, myth, pretence, evasions, and subservience which
   support authority and institutional domination." [Red Emma Speaks, p.
   435] This means that "there is and will always be a need to discover
   and overcome structures of hierarchy, authority and domination and
   constraints on freedom: slavery, wage-slavery [i.e. capitalism],
   racism, sexism, authoritarian schools, etc." [Noam Chomsky, Language
   and Politics, p. 364]

   Thus the consistent anarchist must oppose hierarchical relationships as
   well as the state. Whether economic, social or political, to be an
   anarchist means to oppose hierarchy. The argument for this (if anybody
   needs one) is as follows:

     "All authoritarian institutions are organised as pyramids: the
     state, the private or public corporation, the army, the police, the
     church, the university, the hospital: they are all pyramidal
     structures with a small group of decision-makers at the top and a
     broad base of people whose decisions are made for them at the
     bottom. Anarchism does not demand the changing of labels on the
     layers, it doesn't want different people on top, it wants us to
     clamber out from underneath." [Colin Ward, Anarchy in Action, p. 22]

   Hierarchies "share a common feature: they are organised systems of
   command and obedience" and so anarchists seek "to eliminate hierarchy
   per se, not simply replace one form of hierarchy with another."
   [Bookchin, The Ecology of Freedom, p. 27] A hierarchy is a
   pyramidally-structured organisation composed of a series of grades,
   ranks, or offices of increasing power, prestige, and (usually)
   remuneration. Scholars who have investigated the hierarchical form have
   found that the two primary principles it embodies are domination and
   exploitation. For example, in his classic article "What Do Bosses Do?"
   (Review of Radical Political Economy, Vol. 6, No. 2), a study of the
   modern factory, Steven Marglin found that the main function of the
   corporate hierarchy is not greater productive efficiency (as
   capitalists claim), but greater control over workers, the purpose of
   such control being more effective exploitation.

   Control in a hierarchy is maintained by coercion, that is, by the
   threat of negative sanctions of one kind or another: physical,
   economic, psychological, social, etc. Such control, including the
   repression of dissent and rebellion, therefore necessitates
   centralisation: a set of power relations in which the greatest control
   is exercised by the few at the top (particularly the head of the
   organisation), while those in the middle ranks have much less control
   and the many at the bottom have virtually none.

   Since domination, coercion, and centralisation are essential features
   of authoritarianism, and as those features are embodied in hierarchies,
   all hierarchical institutions are authoritarian. Moreover, for
   anarchists, any organisation marked by hierarchy, centralism and
   authoritarianism is state-like, or "statist." And as anarchists oppose
   both the state and authoritarian relations, anyone who does not seek to
   dismantle all forms of hierarchy cannot be called an anarchist. This
   applies to capitalist firms. As Noam Chomsky points out, the structure
   of the capitalist firm is extremely hierarchical, indeed fascist, in
   nature:

     "a fascist system. . . [is] absolutist - power goes from top down .
     . . the ideal state is top down control with the public essentially
     following orders.

     "Let's take a look at a corporation. . . [I]f you look at what they
     are, power goes strictly top down, from the board of directors to
     managers to lower managers to ultimately the people on the shop
     floor, typing messages, and so on. There's no flow of power or
     planning from the bottom up. People can disrupt and make
     suggestions, but the same is true of a slave society. The structure
     of power is linear, from the top down."
     [Keeping the Rabble in Line, p. 237]

   David Deleon indicates these similarities between the company and the
   state well when he writes:

     "Most factories are like military dictatorships. Those at the bottom
     are privates, the supervisors are sergeants, and on up through the
     hierarchy. The organisation can dictate everything from our clothing
     and hair style to how we spend a large portion of our lives, during
     work. It can compel overtime; it can require us to see a company
     doctor if we have a medical complaint; it can forbid us free time to
     engage in political activity; it can suppress freedom of speech,
     press and assembly -- it can use ID cards and armed security police,
     along with closed-circuit TVs to watch us; it can punish dissenters
     with 'disciplinary layoffs' (as GM calls them), or it can fire us.
     We are forced, by circumstances, to accept much of this, or join the
     millions of unemployed. . . In almost every job, we have only the
     'right' to quit. Major decisions are made at the top and we are
     expected to obey, whether we work in an ivory tower or a mine
     shaft." ["For Democracy Where We Work: A rationale for social
     self-management", Reinventing Anarchy, Again, Howard J. Ehrlich
     (ed.), pp. 193-4]

   Thus the consistent anarchist must oppose hierarchy in all its forms,
   including the capitalist firm. Not to do so is to support archy --
   which an anarchist, by definition, cannot do. In other words, for
   anarchists, "[p]romises to obey, contracts of (wage) slavery,
   agreements requiring the acceptance of a subordinate status, are all
   illegitimate because they do restrict and restrain individual
   autonomy." [Robert Graham, "The Anarchist Contract, Reinventing
   Anarchy, Again, Howard J. Ehrlich (ed.), p. 77] Hierarchy, therefore,
   is against the basic principles which drive anarchism. It denies what
   makes us human and "divest[s] the personality of its most integral
   traits; it denies the very notion that the individual is competent to
   deal not only with the management of his or her personal life but with
   its most important context: the social context." [Murray Bookchin, Op.
   Cit., p. 202]

   Some argue that as long as an association is voluntary, whether it has
   a hierarchical structure is irrelevant. Anarchists disagree. This is
   for two reasons. Firstly, under capitalism workers are driven by
   economic necessity to sell their labour (and so liberty) to those who
   own the means of life. This process re-enforces the economic conditions
   workers face by creating "massive disparities in wealth . . . [as]
   workers. . . sell their labour to the capitalist at a price which does
   not reflect its real value." Therefore:

     "To portray the parties to an employment contract, for example, as
     free and equal to each other is to ignore the serious inequality of
     bargaining power which exists between the worker and the employer.
     To then go on to portray the relationship of subordination and
     exploitation which naturally results as the epitome of freedom is to
     make a mockery of both individual liberty and social justice."
     [Robert Graham, Op. Cit., p. 70]

   It is for this reason that anarchists support collective action and
   organisation: it increases the bargaining power of working people and
   allows them to assert their autonomy (see [21]section J).

   Secondly, if we take the key element as being whether an association is
   voluntary or not we would have to argue that the current state system
   must be considered as "anarchy." In a modern democracy no one forces an
   individual to live in a specific state. We are free to leave and go
   somewhere else. By ignoring the hierarchical nature of an association,
   you can end up supporting organisations based upon the denial of
   freedom (including capitalist companies, the armed forces, states even)
   all because they are "voluntary." As Bob Black argues, "[t]o demonise
   state authoritarianism while ignoring identical albeit
   contract-consecrated subservient arrangements in the large-scale
   corporations which control the world economy is fetishism at its
   worst." [The Libertarian as Conservative, The Abolition of Work and
   other essays, p. 142] Anarchy is more than being free to pick a master.

   Therefore opposition to hierarchy is a key anarchist position,
   otherwise you just become a "voluntary archist" - which is hardly
   anarchistic. For more on this see section A.2.14 ([22] Why is
   voluntarism not enough?).

   Anarchists argue that organisations do not need to be hierarchical,
   they can be based upon co-operation between equals who manage their own
   affairs directly. In this way we can do without hierarchical structures
   (i.e. the delegation of power in the hands of a few). Only when an
   association is self-managed by its members can it be considered truly
   anarchistic.

   We are sorry to belabour this point, but some capitalist apologists,
   apparently wanting to appropriate the "anarchist" name because of its
   association with freedom, have recently claimed that one can be both a
   capitalist and an anarchist at the same time (as in so-called "anarcho"
   capitalism). It should now be clear that since capitalism is based on
   hierarchy (not to mention statism and exploitation),
   "anarcho"-capitalism is a contradiction in terms. (For more on this,
   see [23]Section F)

A.2.9 What sort of society do anarchists want?

   Anarchists desire a decentralised society, based on free association.
   We consider this form of society the best one for maximising the values
   we have outlined above -- liberty, equality and solidarity. Only by a
   rational decentralisation of power, both structurally and
   territorially, can individual liberty be fostered and encouraged. The
   delegation of power into the hands of a minority is an obvious denial
   of individual liberty and dignity. Rather than taking the management of
   their own affairs away from people and putting it in the hands of
   others, anarchists favour organisations which minimise authority,
   keeping power at the base, in the hands of those who are affected by
   any decisions reached.

   Free association is the cornerstone of an anarchist society.
   Individuals must be free to join together as they see fit, for this is
   the basis of freedom and human dignity. However, any such free
   agreement must be based on decentralisation of power; otherwise it will
   be a sham (as in capitalism), as only equality provides the necessary
   social context for freedom to grow and development. Therefore
   anarchists support directly democratic collectives, based on "one
   person one vote" (for the rationale of direct democracy as the
   political counterpart of free agreement, see section A.2.11 -- [24]Why
   do most anarchists support direct democracy?).

   We should point out here that an anarchist society does not imply some
   sort of idyllic state of harmony within which everyone agrees. Far from
   it! As Luigi Galleani points out, "[d]isagreements and friction will
   always exist. In fact they are an essential condition of unlimited
   progress. But once the bloody area of sheer animal competition - the
   struggle for food - has been eliminated, problems of disagreement could
   be solved without the slightest threat to the social order and
   individual liberty." [The End of Anarchism?, p. 28] Anarchism aims to
   "rouse the spirit of initiative in individuals and in groups." These
   will "create in their mutual relations a movement and a life based on
   the principles of free understanding" and recognise that "variety,
   conflict even, is life and that uniformity is death." [Peter Kropotkin,
   Anarchism, p. 143]

   Therefore, an anarchist society will be based upon co-operative
   conflict as "[c]onflict, per se, is not harmful. . . disagreements
   exist [and should not be hidden] . . . What makes disagreement
   destructive is not the fact of conflict itself but the addition of
   competition." Indeed, "a rigid demand for agreement means that people
   will effectively be prevented from contributing their wisdom to a group
   effort." [Alfie Kohn, No Contest: The Case Against Competition, p. 156]
   It is for this reason that most anarchists reject consensus decision
   making in large groups (see section [25]A.2.12).

   So, in an anarchist society associations would be run by mass
   assemblies of all involved, based upon extensive discussion, debate and
   co-operative conflict between equals, with purely administrative tasks
   being handled by elected committees. These committees would be made up
   of mandated, recallable and temporary delegates who carry out their
   tasks under the watchful eyes of the assembly which elected them. Thus
   in an anarchist society, "we'll look after our affairs ourselves and
   decide what to do about them. And when, to put our ideas into action,
   there is a need to put someone in charge of a project, we'll tell them
   to do [it] in such and such a way and no other . . . nothing would be
   done without our decision. So our delegates, instead of people being
   individuals whom we've given the right to order us about, would be
   people . . . [with] no authority, only the duty to carry out what
   everyone involved wanted." [Errico Malatesta, Fra Contadini, p. 34] If
   the delegates act against their mandate or try to extend their
   influence or work beyond that already decided by the assembly (i.e. if
   they start to make policy decisions), they can be instantly recalled
   and their decisions abolished. In this way, the organisation remains in
   the hands of the union of individuals who created it.

   This self-management by the members of a group at the base and the
   power of recall are essential tenets of any anarchist organisation. The
   key difference between a statist or hierarchical system and an
   anarchist community is who wields power. In a parliamentary system, for
   example, people give power to a group of representatives to make
   decisions for them for a fixed period of time. Whether they carry out
   their promises is irrelevant as people cannot recall them till the next
   election. Power lies at the top and those at the base are expected to
   obey. Similarly, in the capitalist workplace, power is held by an
   unelected minority of bosses and managers at the top and the workers
   are expected to obey.

   In an anarchist society this relationship is reversed. No one
   individual or group (elected or unelected) holds power in an anarchist
   community. Instead decisions are made using direct democratic
   principles and, when required, the community can elect or appoint
   delegates to carry out these decisions. There is a clear distinction
   between policy making (which lies with everyone who is affected) and
   the co-ordination and administration of any adopted policy (which is
   the job for delegates).

   These egalitarian communities, founded by free agreement, also freely
   associate together in confederations. Such a free confederation would
   be run from the bottom up, with decisions following from the elemental
   assemblies upwards. The confederations would be run in the same manner
   as the collectives. There would be regular local regional, "national"
   and international conferences in which all important issues and
   problems affecting the collectives involved would be discussed. In
   addition, the fundamental, guiding principles and ideas of society
   would be debated and policy decisions made, put into practice,
   reviewed, and co-ordinated. The delegates would simply "take their
   given mandates to the relative meetings and try to harmonise their
   various needs and desires. The deliberations would always be subject to
   the control and approval of those who delegated them" and so "there
   would be no danger than the interest of the people [would] be
   forgotten." [Malatesta, Op. Cit., p. 36]

   Action committees would be formed, if required, to co-ordinate and
   administer the decisions of the assemblies and their congresses, under
   strict control from below as discussed above. Delegates to such bodies
   would have a limited tenure and, like the delegates to the congresses,
   have a fixed mandate -- they are not able to make decisions on behalf
   of the people they are delegates for. In addition, like the delegates
   to conferences and congresses, they would be subject to instant recall
   by the assemblies and congresses from which they emerged in the first
   place. In this way any committees required to co-ordinate join
   activities would be, to quote Malatesta's words, "always under the
   direct control of the population" and so express the "decisions taken
   at popular assemblies." [Errico Malatesta: His Life and Ideas, p. 175
   and p. 129]

   Most importantly, the basic community assemblies can overturn any
   decisions reached by the conferences and withdraw from any
   confederation. Any compromises that are made by a delegate during
   negotiations have to go back to a general assembly for ratification.
   Without that ratification any compromises that are made by a delegate
   are not binding on the community that has delegated a particular task
   to a particular individual or committee. In addition, they can call
   confederal conferences to discuss new developments and to inform action
   committees about changing wishes and to instruct them on what to do
   about any developments and ideas.

   In other words, any delegates required within an anarchist organisation
   or society are not representatives (as they are in a democratic
   government). Kropotkin makes the difference clear:

     "The question of true delegation versus representation can be better
     understood if one imagines a hundred or two hundred men [and women],
     who meet each day in their work and share common concerns . . . who
     have discussed every aspect of the question that concerns them and
     have reached a decision. They then choose someone and send him [or
     her] to reach an agreement with other delegates of the same kind. .
     . The delegate is not authorised to do more than explain to other
     delegates the considerations that have led his [or her] colleagues
     to their conclusion. Not being able to impose anything, he [or she]
     will seek an understanding and will return with a simple proposition
     which his mandatories can accept or refuse. This is what happens
     when true delegation comes into being." [Words of a Rebel, p. 132]

   Unlike in a representative system, power is not delegated into the
   hands of the few. Rather, any delegate is simply a mouthpiece for the
   association that elected (or otherwise selected) them in the first
   place. All delegates and action committees would be mandated and
   subject to instant recall to ensure they express the wishes of the
   assemblies they came from rather than their own. In this way government
   is replaced by anarchy, a network of free associations and communities
   co-operating as equals based on a system of mandated delegates, instant
   recall, free agreement and free federation from the bottom up.

   Only this system would ensure the "free organisation of the people, an
   organisation from below upwards." This "free federation from below
   upward" would start with the basic "association" and their federation
   "first into a commune, then a federation of communes into regions, of
   regions into nations, and of nations into an international fraternal
   association." [Michael Bakunin, The Political Philosophy of Bakunin, p.
   298] This network of anarchist communities would work on three levels.
   There would be "independent Communes for the territorial organisation,
   and of federations of Trade Unions [i.e. workplace associations] for
   the organisation of men [and women] in accordance with their different
   functions. . . [and] free combines and societies . . . for the
   satisfaction of all possible and imaginable needs, economic, sanitary,
   and educational; for mutual protection, for the propaganda of ideas,
   for arts, for amusement, and so on." [Peter Kropotkin, Evolution and
   Environment, p. 79] All would be based on self-management, free
   association, free federation and self-organisation from the bottom up.

   By organising in this manner, hierarchy is abolished in all aspects of
   life, because the people at the base of the organisation are in
   control, not their delegates. Only this form of organisation can
   replace government (the initiative and empowerment of the few) with
   anarchy (the initiative and empowerment of all). This form of
   organisation would exist in all activities which required group work
   and the co-ordination of many people. It would be, as Bakunin said, the
   means "to integrate individuals into structures which they could
   understand and control." [quoted by Cornelius Castoriadis, Political
   and Social Writings, vol. 2, p. 97] For individual initiatives, the
   individual involved would manage them.

   As can be seen, anarchists wish to create a society based upon
   structures that ensure that no individual or group is able to wield
   power over others. Free agreement, confederation and the power of
   recall, fixed mandates and limited tenure are mechanisms by which power
   is removed from the hands of governments and placed in the hands of
   those directly affected by the decisions.

   For a fuller discussion on what an anarchist society would look like
   see [26]section I. Anarchy, however, is not some distant goal but
   rather an aspect of current struggles against oppression and
   exploitation. Means and ends are linked, with direct action generating
   mass participatory organisations and preparing people to directly
   manage their own personal and collective interests. This is because
   anarchists, as we discuss in [27]section I.2.3, see the framework of a
   free society being based on the organisations created by the oppressed
   in their struggle against capitalism in the here and now. In this
   sense, collective struggle creates the organisations as well as the
   individual attitudes anarchism needs to work. The struggle against
   oppression is the school of anarchy. It teaches us not only how to be
   anarchists but also gives us a glimpse of what an anarchist society
   would be like, what its initial organisational framework could be and
   the experience of managing our own activities which is required for
   such a society to work. As such, anarchists try to create the kind of
   world we want in our current struggles and do not think our ideas are
   only applicable "after the revolution." Indeed, by applying our
   principles today we bring anarchy that much nearer.

A.2.10 What will abolishing hierarchy mean and achieve?

   The creation of a new society based upon libertarian organisations will
   have an incalculable effect on everyday life. The empowerment of
   millions of people will transform society in ways we can only guess at
   now.

   However, many consider these forms of organisation as impractical and
   doomed to failure. To those who say that such confederal,
   non-authoritarian organisations would produce confusion and disunity,
   anarchists maintain that the statist, centralised and hierarchical form
   of organisation produces indifference instead of involvement,
   heartlessness instead of solidarity, uniformity instead of unity, and
   privileged elites instead of equality. More importantly, such
   organisations destroy individual initiative and crush independent
   action and critical thinking. (For more on hierarchy, see section B.1
   -- [28]"Why are anarchists against authority and hierarchy?").

   That libertarian organisation can work and is based upon (and promotes)
   liberty was demonstrated in the Spanish Anarchist movement. Fenner
   Brockway, Secretary of the British Independent Labour Party, when
   visiting Barcelona during the 1936 revolution, noted that "the great
   solidarity that existed among the Anarchists was due to each individual
   relying on his [sic] own strength and not depending upon leadership. .
   . . The organisations must, to be successful, be combined with
   free-thinking people; not a mass, but free individuals" [quoted by
   Rudolf Rocker, Anarcho-syndicalism, p. 67f]

   As sufficiently indicated already, hierarchical, centralised structures
   restrict freedom. As Proudhon noted: "the centralist system is all very
   well as regards size, simplicity and construction: it lacks but one
   thing -- the individual no longer belongs to himself in such a system,
   he cannot feel his worth, his life, and no account is taken of him at
   all." [quoted by Martin Buber, Paths in Utopia, p. 33]

   The effects of hierarchy can be seen all around us. It does not work.
   Hierarchy and authority exist everywhere, in the workplace, at home, in
   the street. As Bob Black puts it, "[i]f you spend most of your waking
   life taking orders or kissing ass, if you get habituated to hierarchy,
   you will become passive-aggressive, sado-masochistic, servile and
   stupefied, and you will carry that load into every aspect of the
   balance of your life." ["The Libertarian as Conservative," The
   Abolition of Work and other essays, pp. 147-8]

   This means that the end of hierarchy will mean a massive transformation
   in everyday life. It will involve the creation of individual-centred
   organisations within which all can exercise, and so develop, their
   abilities to the fullest. By involving themselves and participating in
   the decisions that affect them, their workplace, their community and
   society, they can ensure the full development of their individual
   capacities.

   With the free participation of all in social life, we would quickly see
   the end of inequality and injustice. Rather than people existing to
   make ends meet and being used to increase the wealth and power of the
   few as under capitalism, the end of hierarchy would see (to quote
   Kropotkin) "the well-being of all" and it is "high time for the worker
   to assert his [or her] right to the common inheritance, and to enter
   into possession of it." [The Conquest of Bread, p. 35 and p. 44] For
   only taking possession of the means of life (workplaces, housing, the
   land, etc.) can ensure "liberty and justice, for liberty and justice
   are not decreed but are the result of economic independence. They
   spring from the fact that the individual is able to live without
   depending on a master, and to enjoy . . . the product of his [or her]
   toil." [Ricardo Flores Magon, Land and Liberty, p. 62] Therefore
   liberty requires the abolition of capitalist private property rights in
   favour of "use rights." (see [29]section B.3 for more details).
   Ironically, the "abolition of property will free the people from
   homelessness and nonpossession." [Max Baginski, "Without Government,"
   Anarchy! An Anthology of Emma Goldman's Mother Earth, p. 11] Thus
   anarchism promises "both requisites of happiness -- liberty and
   wealth." In anarchy, "mankind will live in freedom and in comfort."
   [Benjamin Tucker, Why I am an Anarchist, p. 135 and p. 136]

   Only self-determination and free agreement on every level of society
   can develop the responsibility, initiative, intellect and solidarity of
   individuals and society as a whole. Only anarchist organisation allows
   the vast talent which exists within humanity to be accessed and used,
   enriching society by the very process of enriching and developing the
   individual. Only by involving everyone in the process of thinking,
   planning, co-ordinating and implementing the decisions that affect them
   can freedom blossom and individuality be fully developed and protected.
   Anarchy will release the creativity and talent of the mass of people
   enslaved by hierarchy.

   Anarchy will even be of benefit for those who are said to benefit from
   capitalism and its authority relations. Anarchists "maintain that both
   rulers and ruled are spoiled by authority; both exploiters and
   exploited are spoiled by exploitation." [Peter Kropotkin, Act for
   Yourselves, p. 83] This is because "[i]n any hierarchical relationship
   the dominator as well as the submissive pays his dues. The price paid
   for the 'glory of command' is indeed heavy. Every tyrant resents his
   duties. He is relegated to drag the dead weight of the dormant creative
   potential of the submissive all along the road of his hierarchical
   excursion." [For Ourselves, The Right to Be Greedy, Thesis 95]

A.2.11 Why are most anarchists in favour of direct democracy?

   For most anarchists, direct democratic voting on policy decisions
   within free associations is the political counterpart of free agreement
   (this is also known as "self-management"). The reason is that "many
   forms of domination can be carried out in a 'free.' non-coercive,
   contractual manner. . . and it is naive. . . to think that mere
   opposition to political control will in itself lead to an end of
   oppression." [John P. Clark, Max Stirner's Egoism, p. 93] Thus the
   relationships we create within an organisation is as important in
   determining its libertarian nature as its voluntary nature (see
   [30]section A.2.14 for more discussion).

   It is obvious that individuals must work together in order to lead a
   fully human life. And so, "[h]aving to join with others humans" the
   individual has three options: "he [or she] must submit to the will of
   others (be enslaved) or subject others to his will (be in authority) or
   live with others in fraternal agreement in the interests of the
   greatest good of all (be an associate). Nobody can escape from this
   necessity." [Errico Malatesta, Life and Ideas, p. 85]

   Anarchists obviously pick the last option, association, as the only
   means by which individuals can work together as free and equal human
   beings, respecting the uniqueness and liberty of one another. Only
   within direct democracy can individuals express themselves, practice
   critical thought and self-government, so developing their intellectual
   and ethical capacities to the full. In terms of increasing an
   individual's freedom and their intellectual, ethical and social
   faculties, it is far better to be sometimes in a minority than be
   subject to the will of a boss all the time. So what is the theory
   behind anarchist direct democracy?

   As Bertrand Russell noted, the anarchist "does not wish to abolish
   government in the sense of collective decisions: what he does wish to
   abolish is the system by which a decision is enforced upon those who
   oppose it." [Roads to Freedom, p. 85] Anarchists see self-management as
   the means to achieve this. Once an individual joins a community or
   workplace, he or she becomes a "citizen" (for want of a better word) of
   that association. The association is organised around an assembly of
   all its members (in the case of large workplaces and towns, this may be
   a functional sub-group such as a specific office or neighbourhood). In
   this assembly, in concert with others, the contents of his or her
   political obligations are defined. In acting within the association,
   people must exercise critical judgement and choice, i.e. manage their
   own activity. Rather than promising to obey (as in hierarchical
   organisations like the state or capitalist firm), individuals
   participate in making their own collective decisions, their own
   commitments to their fellows. This means that political obligation is
   not owed to a separate entity above the group or society, such as the
   state or company, but to one's fellow "citizens."

   Although the assembled people collectively legislate the rules
   governing their association, and are bound by them as individuals, they
   are also superior to them in the sense that these rules can always be
   modified or repealed. Collectively, the associated "citizens"
   constitute a political "authority", but as this "authority" is based on
   horizontal relationships between themselves rather than vertical ones
   between themselves and an elite, the "authority" is non-hierarchical
   ("rational" or "natural," see section B.1 - [31]"Why are anarchists
   against authority and hierarchy?" - for more on this). Thus Proudhon:

     "In place of laws, we will put contracts [i.e. free agreement]. - No
     more laws voted by a majority, nor even unanimously; each citizen,
     each town, each industrial union, makes its own laws." [The General
     Idea of the Revolution, pp. 245-6]

   Such a system does not mean, of course, that everyone participates in
   every decision needed, no matter how trivial. While any decision can be
   put to the assembly (if the assembly so decides, perhaps prompted by
   some of its members), in practice certain activities (and so purely
   functional decisions) will be handled by the association's elected
   administration. This is because, to quote a Spanish anarchist activist,
   "a collectivity as such cannot write a letter or add up a list of
   figures or do hundreds of chores which only an individual can perform."
   Thus the need "to organise the administration." Supposing an
   association is "organised without any directive council or any
   hierarchical offices" which "meets in general assembly once a week or
   more often, when it settles all matters needful for its progress" it
   still "nominates a commission with strictly administrative functions."
   However, the assembly "prescribes a definite line of conduct for this
   commission or gives it an imperative mandate" and so "would be
   perfectly anarchist." As it "follows that delegating these tasks to
   qualified individuals, who are instructed in advance how to proceed, .
   . . does not mean an abdication of that collectivity's own liberty."
   [Jose Llunas Pujols, quoted by Max Nettlau, A Short History of
   Anarchism, p. 187] This, it should be noted, follows Proudhon's ideas
   that within the workers' associations "all positions are elective, and
   the by-laws subject to the approval of the members." [Proudhon, Op.
   Cit., p. 222]

   Instead of capitalist or statist hierarchy, self-management (i.e.
   direct democracy) would be the guiding principle of the freely joined
   associations that make up a free society. This would apply to the
   federations of associations an anarchist society would need to
   function. "All the commissions or delegations nominated in an anarchist
   society," correctly argued Jose Llunas Pujols, "must be subject to
   replacement and recall at any time by the permanent suffrage of the
   section or sections that elected them." Combined with the "imperative
   mandate" and "purely administrative functions," this "make[s] it
   thereby impossible for anyone to arrogate to himself [or herself] a
   scintilla of authority." [quoted by Max Nettlau, Op. Cit., pp. 188-9]
   Again, Pujols follows Proudhon who demanded twenty years previously the
   "implementation of the binding mandate" to ensure the people do not
   "adjure their sovereignty." [No Gods, No Masters, vol. 1, p. 63]

   By means of a federalism based on mandates and elections, anarchists
   ensure that decisions flow from the bottom-up. By making our own
   decisions, by looking after our joint interests ourselves, we exclude
   others ruling over us. Self-management, for anarchists, is essential to
   ensure freedom within the organisations so needed for any decent human
   existence.

   Of course it could be argued that if you are in a minority, you are
   governed by others ("Democratic rule is still rule" [L. Susan Brown,
   The Politics of Individualism, p. 53]). Now, the concept of direct
   democracy as we have described it is not necessarily tied to the
   concept of majority rule. If someone finds themselves in a minority on
   a particular vote, he or she is confronted with the choice of either
   consenting or refusing to recognise it as binding. To deny the minority
   the opportunity to exercise its judgement and choice is to infringe its
   autonomy and to impose obligation upon it which it has not freely
   accepted. The coercive imposition of the majority will is contrary to
   the ideal of self-assumed obligation, and so is contrary to direct
   democracy and free association. Therefore, far from being a denial of
   freedom, direct democracy within the context of free association and
   self-assumed obligation is the only means by which liberty can be
   nurtured ("Individual autonomy limited by the obligation to hold given
   promises." [Malatesta, quoted by quoted by Max Nettlau, Errico
   Malatesta: The Biography of an Anarchist]). Needless to say, a
   minority, if it remains in the association, can argue its case and try
   to convince the majority of the error of its ways.

   And we must point out here that anarchist support for direct democracy
   does not suggest we think that the majority is always right. Far from
   it! The case for democratic participation is not that the majority is
   always right, but that no minority can be trusted not to prefer its own
   advantage to the good of the whole. History proves what common-sense
   predicts, namely that anyone with dictatorial powers (by they a head of
   state, a boss, a husband, whatever) will use their power to enrich and
   empower themselves at the expense of those subject to their decisions.

   Anarchists recognise that majorities can and do make mistakes and that
   is why our theories on association place great importance on minority
   rights. This can be seen from our theory of self-assumed obligation,
   which bases itself on the right of minorities to protest against
   majority decisions and makes dissent a key factor in decision making.
   Thus Carole Pateman:

     "If the majority have acted in bad faith. . . [then the] minority
     will have to take political action, including politically
     disobedient action if appropriate, to defend their citizenship and
     independence, and the political association itself. . . Political
     disobedience is merely one possible expression of the active
     citizenship on which a self-managing democracy is based . . . The
     social practice of promising involves the right to refuse or change
     commitments; similarly, the practice of self-assumed political
     obligation is meaningless without the practical recognition of the
     right of minorities to refuse or withdraw consent, or where
     necessary, to disobey." [The Problem of Political Obligation, p.
     162]

   Moving beyond relationships within associations, we must highlight how
   different associations work together. As would be imagined, the links
   between associations follow the same outlines as for the associations
   themselves. Instead of individuals joining an association, we have
   associations joining confederations. The links between associations in
   the confederation are of the same horizontal and voluntary nature as
   within associations, with the same rights of "voice and exit" for
   members and the same rights for minorities. In this way society becomes
   an association of associations, a community of communities, a commune
   of communes, based upon maximising individual freedom by maximising
   participation and self-management.

   The workings of such a confederation are outlined in section A.2.9
   ([32] What sort of society do anarchists want?) and discussed in
   greater detail in section I ([33]What would an anarchist society look
   like?).

   This system of direct democracy fits nicely into anarchist theory.
   Malatesta speaks for all anarchists when he argued that "anarchists
   deny the right of the majority to govern human society in general." As
   can be seen, the majority has no right to enforce itself on a minority
   -- the minority can leave the association at any time and so, to use
   Malatesta's words, do not have to "submit to the decisions of the
   majority before they have even heard what these might be." [The
   Anarchist Revolution, p. 100 and p. 101] Hence, direct democracy within
   voluntary association does not create "majority rule" nor assume that
   the minority must submit to the majority no matter what. In effect,
   anarchist supporters of direct democracy argue that it fits Malatesta's
   argument that:

     "Certainly anarchists recognise that where life is lived in common
     it is often necessary for the minority to come to accept the opinion
     of the majority. When there is an obvious need or usefulness in
     doing something and, to do it requires the agreement of all, the few
     should feel the need to adapt to the wishes of the many . . . But
     such adaptation on the one hand by one group must be on the other be
     reciprocal, voluntary and must stem from an awareness of need and of
     goodwill to prevent the running of social affairs from being
     paralysed by obstinacy. It cannot be imposed as a principle and
     statutory norm. . ." [Op. Cit., p. 100]

   As the minority has the right to secede from the association as well as
   having extensive rights of action, protest and appeal, majority rule is
   not imposed as a principle. Rather, it is purely a decision making tool
   which allows minority dissent and opinion to be expressed (and acted
   upon) while ensuring that no minority forces its will on the majority.
   In other words, majority decisions are not binding on the minority.
   After all, as Malatesta argued:

     "one cannot expect, or even wish, that someone who is firmly
     convinced that the course taken by the majority leads to disaster,
     should sacrifice his [or her] own convictions and passively look on,
     or even worse, should support a policy he [or she] considers wrong."
     [Errico Malatesta: His Life and Ideas, p. 132]

   Even the Individual Anarchist Lysander Spooner acknowledged that direct
   democracy has its uses when he noted that "[a]ll, or nearly all,
   voluntary associations give a majority, or some other portion of the
   members less than the whole, the right to use some limited discretion
   as to the means to be used to accomplish the ends in view." However,
   only the unanimous decision of a jury (which would "judge the law, and
   the justice of the law") could determine individual rights as this
   "tribunal fairly represent[s] the whole people" as "no law can
   rightfully be enforced by the association in its corporate capacity,
   against the goods, rights, or person of any individual, except it be
   such as all members of the association agree that it may enforce" (his
   support of juries results from Spooner acknowledging that it "would be
   impossible in practice" for all members of an association to agree)
   [Trial by Jury, p. 130-1f, p. 134, p. 214, p. 152 and p. 132]

   Thus direct democracy and individual/minority rights need not clash. In
   practice, we can imagine direct democracy would be used to make most
   decisions within most associations (perhaps with super-majorities
   required for fundamental decisions) plus some combination of a jury
   system and minority protest/direct action and evaluate/protect minority
   claims/rights in an anarchist society. The actual forms of freedom can
   only be created through practical experience by the people directly
   involved.

   Lastly, we must stress that anarchist support for direct democracy does
   not mean that this solution is to be favoured in all circumstances. For
   example, many small associations may favour consensus decision making
   (see the [34]next section on consensus and why most anarchists do not
   think that it is a viable alternative to direct democracy). However,
   most anarchists think that direct democracy within free association is
   the best (and most realistic) form of organisation which is consistent
   with anarchist principles of individual freedom, dignity and equality.

A.2.12 Is consensus an alternative to direct democracy?

   The few anarchists who reject direct democracy within free associations
   generally support consensus in decision making. Consensus is based upon
   everyone on a group agreeing to a decision before it can be put into
   action. Thus, it is argued, consensus stops the majority ruling the
   minority and is more consistent with anarchist principles.

   Consensus, although the "best" option in decision making, as all agree,
   has its problems. As Murray Bookchin points out in describing his
   experience of consensus, it can have authoritarian implications:

     "In order. . . to create full consensus on a decision, minority
     dissenters were often subtly urged or psychologically coerced to
     decline to vote on a troubling issue, inasmuch as their dissent
     would essentially amount to a one-person veto. This practice, called
     'standing aside' in American consensus processes, all too often
     involved intimidation of the dissenters, to the point that they
     completely withdrew from the decision-making process, rather than
     make an honourable and continuing expression of their dissent by
     voting, even as a minority, in accordance with their views. Having
     withdrawn, they ceased to be political beings--so that a 'decision'
     could be made. . . . 'consensus' was ultimately achieved only after
     dissenting members nullified themselves as participants in the
     process.

     "On a more theoretical level, consensus silenced that most vital
     aspect of all dialogue, dissensus. The ongoing dissent, the
     passionate dialogue that still persists even after a minority
     accedes temporarily to a majority decision,. . . [can be] replaced.
     . . .by dull monologues -- and the uncontroverted and deadening tone
     of consensus. In majority decision-making, the defeated minority can
     resolve to overturn a decision on which they have been defeated --
     they are free to openly and persistently articulate reasoned and
     potentially persuasive disagreements. Consensus, for its part,
     honours no minorities, but mutes them in favour of the metaphysical
     'one' of the 'consensus' group." ["Communalism: The Democratic
     Dimension of Anarchism", Democracy and Nature, no. 8, p. 8]

   Bookchin does not "deny that consensus may be an appropriate form of
   decision-making in small groups of people who are thoroughly familiar
   with one another." But he notes that, in practical terms, his own
   experience has shown him that "when larger groups try to make decisions
   by consensus, it usually obliges them to arrive at the lowest common
   intellectual denominator in their decision-making: the least
   controversial or even the most mediocre decision that a sizeable
   assembly of people can attain is adopted-- precisely because everyone
   must agree with it or else withdraw from voting on that issue" [Op.
   Cit., p.7]

   Therefore, due to its potentially authoritarian nature, most anarchists
   disagree that consensus is the political aspect of free association.
   While it is advantageous to try to reach consensus, it is usually
   impractical to do so -- especially in large groups -- regardless of its
   other, negative effects. Often it demeans a free society or association
   by tending to subvert individuality in the name of community and
   dissent in the name of solidarity. Neither true community nor
   solidarity are fostered when the individual's development and
   self-expression are aborted by public disapproval and pressure. Since
   individuals are all unique, they will have unique viewpoints which they
   should be encouraged to express, as society evolves and is enriched by
   the actions and ideas of individuals.

   In other words, anarchist supporters of direct democracy stress the
   "creative role of dissent" which, they fear, "tends to fade away in the
   grey uniformity required by consensus." [Op. Cit., p. 8]

   We must stress that anarchists are not in favour of a mechanical
   decision making process in which the majority just vote the minority
   away and ignore them. Far from it! Anarchists who support direct
   democracy see it as a dynamic debating process in which majority and
   minority listen to and respect each other as far possible and create a
   decision which all can live with (if possible). They see the process of
   participation within directly democratic associations as the means of
   creating common interests, as a process which will encourage diversity,
   individual and minority expression and reduce any tendency for
   majorities to marginalise or oppress minorities by ensuring discussion
   and debate occurs on important issues.

A.2.13 Are anarchists individualists or collectivists?

   The short answer is: neither. This can be seen from the fact that
   liberal scholars denounce anarchists like Bakunin for being
   "collectivists" while Marxists attack Bakunin and anarchists in general
   for being "individualists."

   This is hardly surprising, as anarchists reject both ideologies as
   nonsense. Whether they like it or not, non-anarchist individualists and
   collectivists are two sides of the same capitalist coin. This can best
   shown be by considering modern capitalism, in which "individualist" and
   "collectivist" tendencies continually interact, often with the
   political and economic structure swinging from one pole to the other.
   Capitalist collectivism and individualism are both one-sided aspects of
   human existence, and like all manifestations of imbalance, deeply
   flawed.

   For anarchists, the idea that individuals should sacrifice themselves
   for the "group" or "greater good" is nonsensical. Groups are made up of
   individuals, and if people think only of what's best for the group, the
   group will be a lifeless shell. It is only the dynamics of human
   interaction within groups which give them life. "Groups" cannot think,
   only individuals can. This fact, ironically, leads authoritarian
   "collectivists" to a most particular kind of "individualism," namely
   the "cult of the personality" and leader worship. This is to be
   expected, since such collectivism lumps individuals into abstract
   groups, denies their individuality, and ends up with the need for
   someone with enough individuality to make decisions -- a problem that
   is "solved" by the leader principle. Stalinism and Nazism are excellent
   examples of this phenomenon.

   Therefore, anarchists recognise that individuals are the basic unit of
   society and that only individuals have interests and feelings. This
   means they oppose "collectivism" and the glorification of the group. In
   anarchist theory the group exists only to aid and develop the
   individuals involved in them. This is why we place so much stress on
   groups structured in a libertarian manner -- only a libertarian
   organisation allows the individuals within a group to fully express
   themselves, manage their own interests directly and to create social
   relationships which encourage individuality and individual freedom. So
   while society and the groups they join shapes the individual, the
   individual is the true basis of society. Hence Malatesta:

     "Much has been said about the respective roles of individual
     initiative and social action in the life and progress of human
     societies . . . [E]verything is maintained and kept going in the
     human world thanks to individual initiative . . . The real being is
     man, the individual. Society or the collectivity - and the State or
     government which claims to represent it - if it is not a hollow
     abstraction, must be made up of individuals. And it is in the
     organism of every individual that all thoughts and human actions
     inevitably have their origin, and from being individual they become
     collective thoughts and acts when they are or become accepted by
     many individuals. Social action, therefore, is neither the negation
     nor the complement of individual initiatives, but is the resultant
     of initiatives, thoughts and actions of all individuals who make up
     society . . . [T]he question is not really changing the relationship
     between society and the individual . . . [I]t is a question of
     preventing some individuals from oppressing others; of giving all
     individuals the same rights and the same means of action; and of
     replacing the initiative to the few [which Malatesta defines as a
     key aspect of government/hierarchy], which inevitably results in the
     oppression of everyone else . . . " [Anarchy, pp. 38-38]

   These considerations do not mean that "individualism" finds favour with
   anarchists. As Emma Goldman pointed out, "'rugged individualism'. . .
   is only a masked attempt to repress and defeat the individual and his
   individuality. So-called Individualism is the social and economic
   laissez-faire: the exploitation of the masses by the [ruling] classes
   by means of legal trickery, spiritual debasement and systematic
   indoctrination of the servile spirit . . . That corrupt and perverse
   'individualism' is the straitjacket of individuality . . [It] has
   inevitably resulted in the greatest modern slavery, the crassest class
   distinctions driving millions to the breadline. 'Rugged individualism'
   has meant all the 'individualism' for the masters, while the people are
   regimented into a slave caste to serve a handful of self-seeking
   'supermen.'" [Red Emma Speaks, p. 112]

   While groups cannot think, individuals cannot live or discuss by
   themselves. Groups and associations are an essential aspect of
   individual life. Indeed, as groups generate social relationships by
   their very nature, they help shape individuals. In other words, groups
   structured in an authoritarian way will have a negative impact on the
   freedom and individuality of those within them. However, due to the
   abstract nature of their "individualism," capitalist individualists
   fail to see any difference between groups structured in a libertarian
   manner rather than in an authoritarian one -- they are both "groups".
   Because of their one-sided perspective on this issue, "individualists"
   ironically end up supporting some of the most "collectivist"
   institutions in existence -- capitalist companies -- and, moreover,
   always find a need for the state despite their frequent denunciations
   of it. These contradictions stem from capitalist individualism's
   dependence on individual contracts in an unequal society, i.e. abstract
   individualism.

   In contrast, anarchists stress social "individualism" (another, perhaps
   better, term for this concept could be "communal individuality").
   Anarchism "insists that the centre of gravity in society is the
   individual -- that he [sic] must think for himself, act freely, and
   live fully. . . . If he is to develop freely and fully, he must be
   relieved from the interference and oppression of others. . . . [T]his
   has nothing in common with. . . 'rugged individualism.' Such predatory
   individualism is really flabby, not rugged. At the least danger to its
   safety, it runs to cover of the state and wails for protection. . .
   .Their 'rugged individualism' is simply one of the many pretences the
   ruling class makes to mask unbridled business and political extortion."
   [Emma Goldman, Op. Cit., pp. 442-3]

   Anarchism rejects the abstract individualism of capitalism, with its
   ideas of "absolute" freedom of the individual which is constrained by
   others. This theory ignores the social context in which freedom exists
   and grows. "The freedom we want," Malatesta argued, "for ourselves and
   for others, is not an absolute metaphysical, abstract freedom which in
   practice is inevitably translated into the oppression of the weak; but
   it is a real freedom, possible freedom, which is the conscious
   community of interests, voluntary solidarity." [Anarchy, p. 43]

   A society based on abstract individualism results in an inequality of
   power between the contracting individuals and so entails the need for
   an authority based on laws above them and organised coercion to enforce
   the contracts between them. This consequence is evident from capitalism
   and, most notably, in the "social contract" theory of how the state
   developed. In this theory it is assumed that individuals are "free"
   when they are isolated from each other, as they allegedly were
   originally in the "state of nature." Once they join society, they
   supposedly create a "contract" and a state to administer it. However,
   besides being a fantasy with no basis in reality (human beings have
   always been social animals), this "theory" is actually a justification
   for the state's having extensive powers over society; and this in turn
   is a justification of the capitalist system, which requires a strong
   state. It also mimics the results of the capitalist economic relations
   upon which this theory is built. Within capitalism, individuals
   "freely" contract together, but in practice the owner rules the worker
   for as long as the contract is in place. (See sections [35]A.2.14 and
   [36]B.4 for further details).

   Thus anarchists reject capitalist "individualism" as being, to quote
   Kropotkin, "a narrow and selfish individualism" which, moreover, is "a
   foolish egoism which belittles the individual" and is "not
   individualism at all. It will not lead to what was established as a
   goal; that is the complete broad and most perfectly attainable
   development of individuality." The hierarchy of capitalism results in
   "the impoverishment of individuality" rather than its development. To
   this anarchists contrast "the individuality which attains the greatest
   individual development possible through the highest communist
   sociability in what concerns both its primordial needs and its
   relationships with others in general." [Selected Writings on Anarchism
   and Revolution, p. 295, p. 296 and p. 297] For anarchists, our freedom
   is enriched by those around us when we work with them as equals and not
   as master and servant.

   In practice, both individualism and collectivism lead to a denial of
   both individual liberty and group autonomy and dynamics. In addition,
   each implies the other, with collectivism leading to a particular form
   of individualism and individualism leading to a particular form of
   collectivism.

   Collectivism, with its implicit suppression of the individual,
   ultimately impoverishes the community, as groups are only given life by
   the individuals who comprise them. Individualism, with its explicit
   suppression of community (i.e. the people with whom you live),
   ultimately impoverishes the individual, since individuals do not exist
   apart from society but can only exist within it. In addition,
   individualism ends up denying the "select few" the insights and
   abilities of the individuals who make up the rest of society, and so is
   a source of self-denial. This is Individualism's fatal flaw (and
   contradiction), namely "the impossibility for the individual to attain
   a really full development in the conditions of oppression of the mass
   by the 'beautiful aristocracies'. His [or her] development would remain
   uni-lateral." [Peter Kropotkin, Anarchism, p. 293]

   True liberty and community exist elsewhere.

A.2.14 Why is voluntarism not enough?

   Voluntarism means that association should be voluntary in order
   maximise liberty. Anarchists are, obviously, voluntarists, thinking
   that only in free association, created by free agreement, can
   individuals develop, grow, and express their liberty. However, it is
   evident that under capitalism voluntarism is not enough in itself to
   maximise liberty.

   Voluntarism implies promising (i.e. the freedom to make agreements),
   and promising implies that individuals are capable of independent
   judgement and rational deliberation. In addition, it presupposes that
   they can evaluate and change their actions and relationships. Contracts
   under capitalism, however, contradict these implications of
   voluntarism. For, while technically "voluntary" (though as we show in
   [37]section B.4, this is not really the case), capitalist contracts
   result in a denial of liberty. This is because the social relationship
   of wage-labour involves promising to obey in return for payment. And as
   Carole Pateman points out, "to promise to obey is to deny or to limit,
   to a greater or lesser degree, individuals' freedom and equality and
   their ability to exercise these capacities [of independent judgement
   and rational deliberation]. To promise to obey is to state, that in
   certain areas, the person making the promise is no longer free to
   exercise her capacities and decide upon her own actions, and is no
   longer equal, but subordinate." [The Problem of Political Obligation,
   p. 19] This results in those obeying no longer making their own
   decisions. Thus the rational for voluntarism (i.e. that individuals are
   capable of thinking for themselves and must be allowed to express their
   individuality and make their own decisions) is violated in a
   hierarchical relationship as some are in charge and the many obey (see
   also [38]section A.2.8). Thus any voluntarism which generates
   relationships of subordination is, by its very nature, incomplete and
   violates its own justification.

   This can be seen from capitalist society, in which workers sell their
   freedom to a boss in order to live. In effect, under capitalism you are
   only free to the extent that you can choose whom you will obey!
   Freedom, however, must mean more than the right to change masters.
   Voluntary servitude is still servitude. For if, as Rousseau put it,
   sovereignty, "for the same reason as makes it inalienable, cannot be
   represented" neither can it be sold nor temporarily nullified by a
   hiring contract. Rousseau famously argued that the "people of England
   regards itself as free; but it is grossly mistaken; it is free only
   during the election of members of parliament. As soon as they are
   elected, slavery overtakes it, and it is nothing." [The Social Contract
   and Discourses, p. 266] Anarchists expand on this analysis. To
   paraphrase Rousseau:

     Under capitalism the worker regards herself as free; but she is
     grossly mistaken; she is free only when she signs her contract with
     her boss. As soon as it is signed, slavery overtakes her and she is
     nothing but an order taker.

   To see why, to see the injustice, we need only quote Rousseau:

     "That a rich and powerful man, having acquired immense possessions
     in land, should impose laws on those who want to establish
     themselves there, and that he should only allow them to do so on
     condition that they accept his supreme authority and obey all his
     wishes; that, I can still conceive . . . Would not this tyrannical
     act contain a double usurpation: that on the ownership of the land
     and that on the liberty of the inhabitants?" [Op. Cit., p. 316]

   Hence Proudhon's comment that "Man may be made by property a slave or a
   despot by turns." [What is Property?, p. 371] Little wonder we discover
   Bakunin rejecting "any contract with another individual on any footing
   but the utmost equality and reciprocity" as this would "alienate his
   [or her] freedom" and so would be a "a relationship of voluntary
   servitude with another individual." Anyone making such a contract in a
   free society (i.e. anarchist society) would be "devoid of any sense of
   personal dignity." [Michael Bakunin: Selected Writings, pp. 68-9] Only
   self-managed associations can create relationships of equality rather
   than of subordination between its members.

   Therefore anarchists stress the need for direct democracy in voluntary
   associations in order to ensure that the concept of "freedom" is not a
   sham and a justification for domination, as it is under capitalism.
   Only self-managed associations can create relationships of equality
   rather than of subordination between its members.

   It is for this reason that anarchists have opposed capitalism and urged
   "workers to form themselves into democratic societies, with equal
   conditions for all members, on pain of a relapse into feudalism."
   [Proudhon, The General Idea of the Revolution, p. 277] For similar
   reasons, anarchists (with the notable exception of Proudhon) opposed
   marriage as it turned women into "a bonded slave, who takes her
   master's name, her master's bread, her master's commands, and serves
   her master's passions . . . who can control no property, not even her
   own body, without his consent." [Voltairine de Cleyre, "Sex Slavery",
   The Voltairine de Cleyre Reader, p. 94] While marriage, due to feminist
   agitation, in many countries has been reformed towards the anarchist
   ideal of a free union of equals, it still is based on the patriarchal
   principles anarchists like Goldman and de Cleyre identified and
   condemned (see [39]section A.3.5 for more on feminism and anarchism).

   Clearly, voluntary entry is a necessary but not a sufficient condition
   to defend an individual's liberty. This is to be expected as it ignores
   (or takes for granted) the social conditions in which agreements are
   made and, moreover, ignores the social relationships created by them
   ("For the worker who must sell his labour, it is impossible to remain
   free." [Kropotkin, Selected Writings on Anarchism and Revolution, p.
   305]). Any social relationships based on abstract individualism are
   likely to be based upon force, power, and authority, not liberty. This
   of course assumes a definition of liberty according to which
   individuals exercise their capacities and decide their own actions.
   Therefore, voluntarism is not enough to create a society that maximises
   liberty. This is why anarchists think that voluntary association must
   be complemented by self-management (direct democracy) within these
   associations. For anarchists, the assumptions of voluntarism imply
   self-management. Or, to use Proudhon's words, "as individualism is the
   primordial fact of humanity, so association is its complementary term."
   [System of Economical Contradictions, p. 430]

   To answer the second objection first, in a society based on private
   property (and so statism), those with property have more power, which
   they can use to perpetuate their authority. "Wealth is power, poverty
   is weakness," in the words of Albert Parsons. This means that under
   capitalism the much praised "freedom to choose" is extremely limited.
   It becomes, for the vast majority, the freedom to pick a master (under
   slavery, quipped Parsons, the master "selected . . . his own slaves.
   Under the wage slavery system the wage slave selects his master.").
   Under capitalism, Parsons stressed, "those disinherited of their
   natural rights must hire out and serve and obey the oppressing class or
   starve. There is no other alternative. Some things are priceless, chief
   among which are life and liberty. A freeman [or woman] is not for sale
   or hire." [Anarchism, p. 99 and p. 98] And why should we excuse
   servitude or tolerate those who desire to restrict the liberty of
   others? The "liberty" to command is the liberty to enslave, and so is
   actually a denial of liberty.

   Regarding the first objection, anarchists plead guilty. We are
   prejudiced against the reduction of human beings to the status of
   robots. We are prejudiced in favour of human dignity and freedom. We
   are prejudiced, in fact, in favour of humanity and individuality.

   ([40] Section A.2.11 discusses why direct democracy is the necessary
   social counterpart to voluntarism (i.e. free agreement). [41]Section
   B.4 discusses why capitalism cannot be based on equal bargaining power
   between property owners and the propertyless).

A.2.15 What about "human nature"?

   Anarchists, far from ignoring "human nature," have the only political
   theory that gives this concept deep thought and reflection. Too often,
   "human nature" is flung up as the last line of defence in an argument
   against anarchism, because it is thought to be beyond reply. This is
   not the case, however. First of all, human nature is a complex thing.
   If, by human nature, it is meant "what humans do," it is obvious that
   human nature is contradictory -- love and hate, compassion and
   heartlessness, peace and violence, and so on, have all been expressed
   by people and so are all products of "human nature." Of course, what is
   considered "human nature" can change with changing social
   circumstances. For example, slavery was considered part of "human
   nature" and "normal" for thousands of years. Homosexuality was
   considered perfectly normal by the ancient Greeks yet thousands of
   years later the Christian church denounced it as unnatural. War only
   become part of "human nature" once states developed. Hence Chomsky:

     "Individuals are certainly capable of evil . . . But individuals are
     capable of all sorts of things. Human nature has lots of ways of
     realising itself, humans have lots of capacities and options. Which
     ones reveal themselves depends to a large extent on the
     institutional structures. If we had institutions which permitted
     pathological killers free rein, they'd be running the place. The
     only way to survive would be to let those elements of your nature
     manifest themselves.

     "If we have institutions which make greed the sole property of human
     beings and encourage pure greed at the expense of other human
     emotions and commitments, we're going to have a society based on
     greed, with all that follows. A different society might be organised
     in such a way that human feelings and emotions of other sorts, say,
     solidarity, support, sympathy become dominant. Then you'll have
     different aspects of human nature and personality revealing
     themselves."
     [Chronicles of Dissent, pp. 158]

   Therefore, environment plays an important part in defining what "human
   nature" is, how it develops and what aspects of it are expressed.
   Indeed, one of the greatest myths about anarchism is the idea that we
   think human nature is inherently good (rather, we think it is
   inherently sociable). How it develops and expresses itself is dependent
   on the kind of society we live in and create. A hierarchical society
   will shape people in certain (negative) ways and produce a "human
   nature" radically different from a libertarian one. So "when we hear
   men [and women] saying that Anarchists imagine men [and women] much
   better than they really are, we merely wonder how intelligent people
   can repeat that nonsense. Do we not say continually that the only means
   of rendering men [and women] less rapacious and egotistic, less
   ambitious and less slavish at the same time, is to eliminate those
   conditions which favour the growth of egotism and rapacity, of
   slavishness and ambition?" [Peter Kropotkin, Act for Yourselves, p. 83]

   As such, the use of "human nature" as an argument against anarchism is
   simply superficial and, ultimately, an evasion. It is an excuse not to
   think. "Every fool," as Emma Goldman put it, "from king to policemen,
   from the flatheaded parson to the visionless dabbler in science,
   presumes to speak authoritatively of human nature. The greater the
   mental charlatan, the more definite his insistence on the wickedness
   and weakness of human nature. Yet how can any one speak of it to-day,
   with every soul in prison, with every heart fettered, wounded, and
   maimed?" Change society, create a better social environment and then we
   can judge what is a product of our natures and what is the product of
   an authoritarian system. For this reason, anarchism "stands for the
   liberation of the human mind from the dominion of religion; the
   liberation of the human body from the dominion of property; liberation
   from the shackles and restraint of government." For "[f]reedom,
   expansion, opportunity, and above all, peace and repose, alone can
   teach us the real dominant factors of human nature and all its
   wonderful possibilities." [Red Emma Speaks, p. 73]

   This does not mean that human beings are infinitely plastic, with each
   individual born a tabula rasa (blank slate) waiting to be formed by
   "society" (which in practice means those who run it). As Noam Chomsky
   argues, "I don't think its possible to give a rational account of the
   concept of alienated labour on that assumption [that human nature is
   nothing but a historical product], nor is it possible to produce
   something like a moral justification for the commitment to some kind of
   social change, except on the basis of assumptions about human nature
   and how modifications in the structure of society will be better able
   to conform to some of the fundamental needs that are part of our
   essential nature." [Language and Politics, p. 215] We do not wish to
   enter the debate about what human characteristics are and are not
   "innate." All we will say is that human beings have an innate ability
   to think and learn -- that much is obvious, we feel -- and that humans
   are sociable creatures, needing the company of others to feel complete
   and to prosper. Moreover, they have the ability to recognise and oppose
   injustice and oppression (Bakunin rightly considered "the power to
   think and the desire to rebel" as "precious faculties." [God and the
   State, p. 9]).

   These three features, we think, suggest the viability of an anarchist
   society. The innate ability to think for oneself automatically makes
   all forms of hierarchy illegitimate, and our need for social
   relationships implies that we can organise without the state. The deep
   unhappiness and alienation afflicting modern society reveals that the
   centralisation and authoritarianism of capitalism and the state are
   denying some innate needs within us. In fact, as mentioned earlier, for
   the great majority of its existence the human race has lived in
   anarchic communities, with little or no hierarchy. That modern society
   calls such people "savages" or "primitive" is pure arrogance. So who
   can tell whether anarchism is against "human nature"? Anarchists have
   accumulated much evidence to suggest that it may not be.

   As for the charge the anarchists demand too much of "human nature," it
   is often non anarchists who make the greatest claims on it. For "while
   our opponents seem to admit there is a kind of salt of the earth -- the
   rulers, the employers, the leaders -- who, happily enough, prevent
   those bad men -- the ruled, the exploited, the led -- from becoming
   still worse than they are" we anarchists "maintain that both rulers and
   ruled are spoiled by authority" and "both exploiters and exploited are
   spoiled by exploitation." So "there is [a] difference, and a very
   important one. We admit the imperfections of human nature, but we make
   no exception for the rulers. They make it, although sometimes
   unconsciously, and because we make no such exception, they say that we
   are dreamers." [Peter Kropotkin, Op. Cit., p. 83] If human nature is so
   bad, then giving some people power over others and hoping this will
   lead to justice and freedom is hopelessly utopian.

   Moreover, as noted, Anarchists argue that hierarchical organisations
   bring out the worse in human nature. Both the oppressor and the
   oppressed are negatively affected by the authoritarian relationships so
   produced. "It is a characteristic of privilege and of every kind of
   privilege," argued Bakunin, "to kill the mind and heart of man . . .
   That is a social law which admits no exceptions . . . It is the law of
   equality and humanity." [God and the State, p. 31] And while the
   privileged become corrupted by power, the powerless (in general) become
   servile in heart and mind (luckily the human spirit is such that there
   will always be rebels no matter the oppression for where there is
   oppression, there is resistance and, consequently, hope). As such, it
   seems strange for anarchists to hear non-anarchists justify hierarchy
   in terms of the (distorted) "human nature" it produces.

   Sadly, too many have done precisely this. It continues to this day. For
   example, with the rise of "sociobiology," some claim (with very little
   real evidence) that capitalism is a product of our "nature," which is
   determined by our genes. These claims are simply a new variation of the
   "human nature" argument and have, unsurprisingly, been leapt upon by
   the powers that be. Considering the dearth of evidence, their support
   for this "new" doctrine must be purely the result of its utility to
   those in power -- i.e. the fact that it is useful to have an
   "objective" and "scientific" basis to rationalise inequalities in
   wealth and power (for a discussion of this process see Not in Our
   Genes: Biology, Ideology and Human Nature by Steven Rose, R.C. Lewontin
   and Leon J. Kamin).

   This is not to say that it does not hold a grain of truth. As scientist
   Stephen Jay Gould notes, "the range of our potential behaviour is
   circumscribed by our biology" and if this is what sociobiology means
   "by genetic control, then we can scarcely disagree." However, this is
   not what is meant. Rather, it is a form of "biological determinism"
   that sociobiology argues for. Saying that there are specific genes for
   specific human traits says little for while "[v]iolence, sexism, and
   general nastiness are biological since they represent one subset of a
   possible range of behaviours" so are "peacefulness, equality, and
   kindness." And so "we may see their influence increase if we can create
   social structures that permit them to flourish." That this may be the
   case can be seen from the works of sociobiologists themselves, who
   "acknowledge diversity" in human cultures while "often dismiss[ing] the
   uncomfortable 'exceptions' as temporary and unimportant aberrations."
   This is surprising, for if you believe that "repeated, often genocidal
   warfare has shaped our genetic destiny, the existence of nonaggressive
   peoples is embarrassing." [Ever Since Darwin, p. 252, p. 257 and p.
   254]

   Like the social Darwinism that preceded it, sociobiology proceeds by
   first projecting the dominant ideas of current society onto nature
   (often unconsciously, so that scientists mistakenly consider the ideas
   in question as both "normal" and "natural"). Bookchin refers to this as
   "the subtle projection of historically conditioned human values" onto
   nature rather than "scientific objectivity." Then the theories of
   nature produced in this manner are transferred back onto society and
   history, being used to "prove" that the principles of capitalism
   (hierarchy, authority, competition, etc.) are eternal laws, which are
   then appealed to as a justification for the status quo! "What this
   procedure does accomplish," notes Bookchin, "is reinforce human social
   hierarchies by justifying the command of men and women as innate
   features of the 'natural order.' Human domination is thereby
   transcribed into the genetic code as biologically immutable." [The
   Ecology of Freedom, p. 95 and p. 92] Amazingly, there are many
   supposedly intelligent people who take this sleight-of-hand seriously.

   This can be seen when "hierarchies" in nature are used to explain, and
   so justify, hierarchies in human societies. Such analogies are
   misleading for they forget the institutional nature of human life. As
   Murray Bookchin notes in his critique of sociobiology, a "weak,
   enfeebled, unnerved, and sick ape is hardly likely to become an 'alpha'
   male, much less retain this highly ephemeral 'status.' By contrast, the
   most physically and mentally pathological human rulers have exercised
   authority with devastating effect in the course of history." This
   "expresses a power of hierarchical institutions over persons that is
   completely reversed in so-called 'animal hierarchies' where the absence
   of institutions is precisely the only intelligible way of talking about
   'alpha males' or 'queen bees.'" ["Sociobiology or Social Ecology",
   Which way for the Ecology Movement?, p. 58] Thus what makes human
   society unique is conveniently ignored and the real sources of power in
   society are hidden under a genetic screen.

   The sort of apologetics associated with appeals to "human nature" (or
   sociobiology at its worse) are natural, of course, because every ruling
   class needs to justify their right to rule. Hence they support
   doctrines that defined the latter in ways appearing to justify elite
   power -- be it sociobiology, divine right, original sin, etc.
   Obviously, such doctrines have always been wrong . . . until now, of
   course, as it is obvious our current society truly conforms to "human
   nature" and it has been scientifically proven by our current scientific
   priesthood!

   The arrogance of this claim is truly amazing. History hasn't stopped.
   One thousand years from now, society will be completely different from
   what it is presently or from what anyone has imagined. No government in
   place at the moment will still be around, and the current economic
   system will not exist. The only thing that may remain the same is that
   people will still be claiming that their new society is the "One True
   System" that completely conforms to human nature, even though all past
   systems did not.

   Of course, it does not cross the minds of supporters of capitalism that
   people from different cultures may draw different conclusions from the
   same facts -- conclusions that may be more valid. Nor does it occur to
   capitalist apologists that the theories of the "objective" scientists
   may be framed in the context of the dominant ideas of the society they
   live in. It comes as no surprise to anarchists, however, that
   scientists working in Tsarist Russia developed a theory of evolution
   based on cooperation within species, quite unlike their counterparts in
   capitalist Britain, who developed a theory based on competitive
   struggle within and between species. That the latter theory reflected
   the dominant political and economic theories of British society
   (notably competitive individualism) is pure coincidence, of course.

   Kropotkin's classic work Mutual Aid, for example, was written in
   response to the obvious inaccuracies that British representatives of
   Darwinism had projected onto nature and human life. Building upon the
   mainstream Russian criticism of the British Darwinism of the time,
   Kropotkin showed (with substantial empirical evidence) that "mutual
   aid" within a group or species played as important a role as "mutual
   struggle" between individuals within those groups or species (see
   Stephan Jay Gould's essay "Kropotkin was no Crackpot" in his book Bully
   for Brontosaurus for details and an evaluation). It was, he stressed, a
   "factor" in evolution along with competition, a factor which, in most
   circumstances, was far more important to survival. Thus co-operation is
   just as "natural" as competition so proving that "human nature" was not
   a barrier to anarchism as co-operation between members of a species can
   be the best pathway to advantage individuals.

   To conclude. Anarchists argue that anarchy is not against "human
   nature" for two main reasons. Firstly, what is considered as being
   "human nature" is shaped by the society we live in and the
   relationships we create. This means a hierarchical society will
   encourage certain personality traits to dominate while an anarchist one
   would encourage others. As such, anarchists "do not so much rely on the
   fact that human nature will change as they do upon the theory that the
   same nature will act differently under different circumstances."
   Secondly, change "seems to be one of the fundamental laws of existence"
   so "who can say that man [sic!] has reached the limits of his
   possibilities." [George Barrett, Objections to Anarchism, pp. 360-1 and
   p. 360]

   For useful discussions on anarchist ideas on human nature, both of
   which refute the idea that anarchists think human beings are naturally
   good, see Peter Marshall's "Human nature and anarchism" [David Goodway
   (ed.), For Anarchism: History, Theory and Practice, pp. 127-149] and
   David Hartley's "Communitarian Anarchism and Human Nature". [Anarchist
   Studies, vol. 3, no. 2, Autumn 1995, pp. 145-164]

A.2.16 Does anarchism require "perfect" people to work?

   No. Anarchy is not a utopia, a "perfect" society. It will be a human
   society, with all the problems, hopes, and fears associated with human
   beings. Anarchists do not think that human beings need to be "perfect"
   for anarchy to work. They only need to be free. Thus Christie and
   Meltzer:

     "[A] common fallacy [is] that revolutionary socialism [i.e.
     anarchism] is an 'idealisation' of the workers and [so] the mere
     recital of their present faults is a refutation of the class
     struggle . . . it seems morally unreasonable that a free society . .
     . could exist without moral or ethical perfection. But so far as the
     overthrow of [existing] society is concerned, we may ignore the fact
     of people's shortcomings and prejudices, so long as they do not
     become institutionalised. One may view without concern the fact . .
     . that the workers might achieve control of their places of work
     long before they had acquired the social graces of the
     'intellectual' or shed all the prejudices of the present society
     from family discipline to xenophobia. What does it matter, so long
     as they can run industry without masters? Prejudices wither in
     freedom and only flourish while the social climate is favourable to
     them . . . What we say is . . . that once life can continue without
     imposed authority from above, and imposed authority cannot survive
     the withdrawal of labour from its service, the prejudices of
     authoritarianism will disappear. There is no cure for them other
     than the free process of education." [The Floodgates of Anarchy, pp.
     36-7]

   Obviously, though, we think that a free society will produce people who
   are more in tune with both their own and others individuality and
   needs, thus reducing individual conflict. Remaining disputes would be
   solved by reasonable methods, for example, the use of juries, mutual
   third parties, or community and workplace assemblies (see [42]section
   I.5.8 for a discussion of how could be done for anti-social activities
   as well as disputes).

   Like the "anarchism-is-against-human-nature" argument (see [43]section
   A.2.15), opponents of anarchism usually assume "perfect" people --
   people who are not corrupted by power when placed in positions of
   authority, people who are strangely unaffected by the distorting
   effects of hierarchy, privilege, and so forth. However, anarchists make
   no such claims about human perfection. We simply recognise that vesting
   power in the hands of one person or an elite is never a good idea, as
   people are not perfect.

   It should be noted that the idea that anarchism requires a "new"
   (perfect) man or woman is often raised by the opponents of anarchism to
   discredit it (and, usually, to justify the retention of hierarchical
   authority, particularly capitalist relations of production). After all,
   people are not perfect and are unlikely ever to be. As such, they
   pounce on every example of a government falling and the resulting chaos
   to dismiss anarchism as unrealistic. The media loves to proclaim a
   country to be falling into "anarchy" whenever there is a disruption in
   "law and order" and looting takes place.

   Anarchists are not impressed by this argument. A moment's reflection
   shows why, for the detractors make the basic mistake of assuming an
   anarchist society without anarchists! (A variation of such claims is
   raised by the right-wing "anarcho"-capitalists to discredit real
   anarchism. However, their "objection" discredits their own claim to be
   anarchists for they implicitly assume an anarchist society without
   anarchists!). Needless to say, an "anarchy" made up of people who still
   saw the need for authority, property and statism would soon become
   authoritarian (i.e. non-anarchist) again. This is because even if the
   government disappeared tomorrow, the same system would soon grow up
   again, because "the strength of the government rests not with itself,
   but with the people. A great tyrant may be a fool, and not a superman.
   His strength lies not in himself, but in the superstition of the people
   who think that it is right to obey him. So long as that superstition
   exists it is useless for some liberator to cut off the head of tyranny;
   the people will create another, for they have grown accustomed to rely
   on something outside themselves." [George Barrett, Objections to
   Anarchism, p. 355]

   Hence Alexander Berkman:

     "Our social institutions are founded on certain ideas; as long as
     the latter are generally believed, the institutions built on them
     are safe. Government remains strong because people think political
     authority and legal compulsion necessary. Capitalism will continue
     as long as such an economic system is considered adequate and just.
     The weakening of the ideas which support the evil and oppressive
     present day conditions means the ultimate breakdown of government
     and capitalism." [What is Anarchism?, p. xii]

   In other words, anarchy needs anarchists in order to be created and
   survive. But these anarchists need not be perfect, just people who have
   freed themselves, by their own efforts, of the superstition that
   command-and-obedience relations and capitalist property rights are
   necessary. The implicit assumption in the idea that anarchy needs
   "perfect" people is that freedom will be given, not taken; hence the
   obvious conclusion follows that an anarchy requiring "perfect" people
   will fail. But this argument ignores the need for self-activity and
   self-liberation in order to create a free society. For anarchists,
   "history is nothing but a struggle between the rulers and the ruled,
   the oppressors and the oppressed." [Peter Kropotkin, Act for
   Yourselves, p. 85] Ideas change through struggle and, consequently, in
   the struggle against oppression and exploitation, we not only change
   the world, we change ourselves at the same time. So it is the struggle
   for freedom which creates people capable of taking the responsibility
   for their own lives, communities and planet. People capable of living
   as equals in a free society, so making anarchy possible.

   As such, the chaos which often results when a government disappears is
   not anarchy nor, in fact, a case against anarchism. It simple means
   that the necessary preconditions for creating an anarchist society do
   not exist. Anarchy would be the product of collective struggle at the
   heart of society, not the product of external shocks. Nor, we should
   note, do anarchists think that such a society will appear "overnight."
   Rather, we see the creation of an anarchist system as a process, not an
   event. The ins-and-outs of how it would function will evolve over time
   in the light of experience and objective circumstances, not appear in a
   perfect form immediately (see [44]section H.2.5 for a discussion of
   Marxist claims otherwise).

   Therefore, anarchists do not conclude that "perfect" people are
   necessary anarchism to work because the anarchist is "no liberator with
   a divine mission to free humanity, but he is a part of that humanity
   struggling onwards towards liberty." As such, "[i]f, then, by some
   external means an Anarchist Revolution could be, so to speak, supplied
   ready-made and thrust upon the people, it is true that they would
   reject it and rebuild the old society. If, on the other hand, the
   people develop their ideas of freedom, and they themselves get rid of
   the last stronghold of tyranny --- the government -- then indeed the
   revolution will be permanently accomplished." [George Barrett, Op.
   Cit., p. 355]

   This is not to suggest that an anarchist society must wait until
   everyone is an anarchist. Far from it. It is highly unlikely, for
   example, that the rich and powerful will suddenly see the errors of
   their ways and voluntarily renounce their privileges. Faced with a
   large and growing anarchist movement, the ruling elite has always used
   repression to defend its position in society. The use of fascism in
   Spain (see [45]section A.5.6) and Italy (see [46]section A.5.5) show
   the depths the capitalist class can sink to. Anarchism will be created
   in the face of opposition by the ruling minorities and, consequently,
   will need to defend itself against attempts to recreate authority (see
   [47]section H.2.1 for a refutation of Marxist claims anarchists reject
   the need to defend an anarchist society against counter-revolution).

   Instead anarchists argue that we should focus our activity on
   convincing those subject to oppression and exploitation that they have
   the power to resist both and, ultimately, can end both by destroying
   the social institutions that cause them. As Malatesta argued, "we need
   the support of the masses to build a force of sufficient strength to
   achieve our specific task of radical change in the social organism by
   the direct action of the masses, we must get closer to them, accept
   them as they are, and from within their ranks seek to 'push' them
   forward as much as possible." [Errico Malatesta: His Life and Ideas,
   pp. 155-6] This would create the conditions that make possible a rapid
   evolution towards anarchism as what was initially accepted by a
   minority "but increasingly finding popular expression, will make its
   way among the mass of the people" and "the minority will become the
   People, the great mass, and that mass rising up against property and
   the State, will march forward towards anarchist communism." [Kropotkin,
   Words of a Rebel, p. 75] Hence the importance anarchists attach to
   spreading our ideas and arguing the case for anarchism. This creates
   conscious anarchists from those questioning the injustices of
   capitalism and the state.

   This process is helped by the nature of hierarchical society and the
   resistance it naturally developed in those subject to it. Anarchist
   ideas develop spontaneously through struggle. As we discuss in
   [48]section I.2.3, anarchistic organisations are often created as part
   of the resistance against oppression and exploitation which marks every
   hierarchical system and can., potentially, be the framework of a few
   society. As such, the creation of libertarian institutions is,
   therefore, always a possibility in any situation. A peoples'
   experiences may push them towards anarchist conclusions, namely the
   awareness that the state exists to protect the wealthy and powerful few
   and to disempower the many. That while it is needed to maintain class
   and hierarchical society, it is not needed to organise society nor can
   it do so in a just and fair way for all. This is possible. However,
   without a conscious anarchist presence any libertarian tendencies are
   likely to be used, abused and finally destroyed by parties or religious
   groups seeking political power over the masses (the Russian Revolution
   is the most famous example of this process). It is for that reason
   anarchists organise to influence the struggle and spread our ideas (see
   [49]section J.3 for details). For it is the case that only when
   anarchist ideas "acquire a predominating influence" and are "accepted
   by a sufficiently large section of the population" will we "have
   achieved anarchy, or taken a step towards anarchy." For anarchy "cannot
   be imposed against the wishes of the people." [Malatesta, Op. Cit., p.
   159 and p. 163]

   So, to conclude, the creation of an anarchist society is not dependent
   on people being perfect but it is dependent on a large majority being
   anarchists and wanting to reorganise society in a libertarian manner.
   This will not eliminate conflict between individuals nor create a fully
   formed anarchist humanity overnight but it will lay the ground for the
   gradual elimination of whatever prejudices and anti-social behaviour
   that remain after the struggle to change society has revolutionised
   those doing it.

A.2.17 Aren't most people too stupid for a free society to work?

   We are sorry to have to include this question in an anarchist FAQ, but
   we know that many political ideologies explicitly assume that ordinary
   people are too stupid to be able to manage their own lives and run
   society. All aspects of the capitalist political agenda, from Left to
   Right, contain people who make this claim. Be it Leninists, fascists,
   Fabians or Objectivists, it is assumed that only a select few are
   creative and intelligent and that these people should govern others.
   Usually, this elitism is masked by fine, flowing rhetoric about
   "freedom," "democracy" and other platitudes with which the ideologues
   attempt to dull people's critical thought by telling them want they
   want to hear.

   It is, of course, also no surprise that those who believe in "natural"
   elites always class themselves at the top. We have yet to discover an
   "objectivist", for example, who considers themselves part of the great
   mass of "second-handers" (it is always amusing to hear people who
   simply parrot the ideas of Ayn Rand dismissing other people so!) or who
   will be a toilet cleaner in the unknown "ideal" of "real" capitalism.
   Everybody reading an elitist text will consider him or herself to be
   part of the "select few." It's "natural" in an elitist society to
   consider elites to be natural and yourself a potential member of one!

   Examination of history shows that there is a basic elitist ideology
   which has been the essential rationalisation of all states and ruling
   classes since their emergence at the beginning of the Bronze Age ("if
   the legacy of domination had had any broader purpose than the support
   of hierarchical and class interests, it has been the attemp to exorcise
   the belief in public competence from social discourse itself."
   [Bookchin, The Ecology of Freedom, p. 206]). This ideology merely
   changes its outer garments, not its basic inner content over time.

   During the Dark Ages, for example, it was coloured by Christianity,
   being adapted to the needs of the Church hierarchy. The most useful
   "divinely revealed" dogma to the priestly elite was "original sin": the
   notion that human beings are basically depraved and incompetent
   creatures who need "direction from above," with priests as the
   conveniently necessary mediators between ordinary humans and "God." The
   idea that average people are basically stupid and thus incapable of
   governing themselves is a carry over from this doctrine, a relic of the
   Dark Ages.

   In reply to all those who claim that most people are "second-handers"
   or cannot develop anything more than "trade union consciousness," all
   we can say is that it is an absurdity that cannot withstand even a
   superficial look at history, particularly the labour movement. The
   creative powers of those struggling for freedom is often truly amazing,
   and if this intellectual power and inspiration is not seen in "normal"
   society, this is the clearest indictment possible of the deadening
   effects of hierarchy and the conformity produced by authority. (See
   also [50]section B.1 for more on the effects of hierarchy). As Bob
   Black points outs:

     "You are what you do. If you do boring, stupid, monotonous work,
     chances are you'll end up boring, stupid, and monotonous. Work is a
     much better explanation for the creeping cretinisation all around us
     than even such significant moronising mechanisms as television and
     education. People who are regimented all their lives, handed to work
     from school and bracketed by the family in the beginning and the
     nursing home in the end, are habituated to hierarchy and
     psychologically enslaved. Their aptitude for autonomy is so
     atrophied that their fear of freedom is among their few rationally
     grounded phobias. Their obedience training at work carries over into
     the families they start, thus reproducing the system in more ways
     than one, and into politics, culture and everything else. Once you
     drain the vitality from people at work, they'll likely submit to
     hierarchy and expertise in everything. They're used to it." [The
     Abolition of Work and other essays, pp. 21-2]

   When elitists try to conceive of liberation, they can only think of it
   being given to the oppressed by kind (for Leninists) or stupid (for
   Objectivists) elites. It is hardly surprising, then, that it fails.
   Only self-liberation can produce a free society. The crushing and
   distorting effects of authority can only be overcome by self-activity.
   The few examples of such self-liberation prove that most people, once
   considered incapable of freedom by others, are more than up for the
   task.

   Those who proclaim their "superiority" often do so out of fear that
   their authority and power will be destroyed once people free themselves
   from the debilitating hands of authority and come to realise that, in
   the words of Max Stirner, "the great are great only because we are on
   our knees. Let us rise"

   As Emma Goldman remarks about women's equality, "[t]he extraordinary
   achievements of women in every walk of life have silenced forever the
   loose talk of women's inferiority. Those who still cling to this fetish
   do so because they hate nothing so much as to see their authority
   challenged. This is the characteristic of all authority, whether the
   master over his economic slaves or man over women. However, everywhere
   woman is escaping her cage, everywhere she is going ahead with free,
   large strides." [Vision on Fire, p. 256] The same comments are
   applicable, for example, to the very successful experiments in workers'
   self-management during the Spanish Revolution.

   Then, of course, the notion that people are too stupid for anarchism to
   work also backfires on those who argue it. Take, for example, those who
   use this argument to advocate democratic government rather than
   anarchy. Democracy, as Luigi Galleani noted, means "acknowledging the
   right and the competence of the people to select their rulers."
   However, "whoever has the political competence to choose his [or her]
   own rulers is, by implication, also competent to do without them,
   especially when the causes of economic enmity are uprooted." [The End
   of Anarchism?, p. 37] Thus the argument for democracy against anarchism
   undermines itself, for "if you consider these worthy electors as unable
   to look after their own interests themselves, how is it that they know
   how to choose for themselves the shepherds who must guide them? And how
   will they be able to solve this problem of social alchemy, of producing
   the election of a genius from the votes of a mass of fools?"
   [Malatesta, Anarchy, pp. 53-4]

   As for those who consider dictatorship as the solution to human
   stupidity, the question arises why are these dictators immune to this
   apparently universal human trait? And, as Malatesta noted, "who are the
   best? And who will recognise these qualities in them?" [Op. Cit., p.
   53] If they impose themselves on the "stupid" masses, why assume they
   will not exploit and oppress the many for their own benefit? Or, for
   that matter, that they are any more intelligent than the masses? The
   history of dictatorial and monarchical government suggests a clear
   answer to those questions. A similar argument applies for other
   non-democratic systems, such as those based on limited suffrage. For
   example, the Lockean (i.e. classical liberal or right-wing libertarian)
   ideal of a state based on the rule of property owners is doomed to be
   little more than a regime which oppresses the majority to maintain the
   power and privilege of the wealthy few. Equally, the idea of near
   universal stupidity bar an elite of capitalists (the "objectivist"
   vision) implies a system somewhat less ideal than the perfect system
   presented in the literature. This is because most people would tolerate
   oppressive bosses who treat them as means to an end rather than an end
   in themselves. For how can you expect people to recognise and pursue
   their own self-interest if you consider them fundamentally as the
   "uncivilised hordes"? You cannot have it both ways and the "unknown
   ideal" of pure capitalism would be as grubby, oppressive and alienating
   as "actually existing" capitalism.

   As such, anarchists are firmly convinced that arguments against anarchy
   based on the lack of ability of the mass of people are inherently
   self-contradictory (when not blatantly self-servicing). If people are
   too stupid for anarchism then they are too stupid for any system you
   care to mention. Ultimately, anarchists argue that such a perspective
   simply reflects the servile mentality produced by a hierarchical
   society rather than a genuine analysis of humanity and our history as a
   species. To quote Rousseau:

     "when I see multitudes of entirely naked savages scorn European
     voluptuousness and endure hunger, fire, the sword, and death to
     preserve only their independence, I feel that it does not behove
     slaves to reason about freedom." [quoted by Noam Chomsky, Marxism,
     Anarchism, and Alternative Futures, p. 780]

A.2.18 Do anarchists support terrorism?

   No. This is for three reasons.

   Terrorism means either targeting or not worrying about killing innocent
   people. For anarchy to exist, it must be created by the mass of people.
   One does not convince people of one's ideas by blowing them up.
   Secondly, anarchism is about self-liberation. One cannot blow up a
   social relationship. Freedom cannot be created by the actions of an
   elite few destroying rulers on behalf of the majority. Simply put, a
   "structure based on centuries of history cannot be destroyed with a few
   kilos of explosives." [Kropotkin, quoted by Martin A. Millar,
   Kropotkin, p. 174] For so long as people feel the need for rulers,
   hierarchy will exist (see [51]section A.2.16 for more on this). As we
   have stressed earlier, freedom cannot be given, only taken. Lastly,
   anarchism aims for freedom. Hence Bakunin's comment that "when one is
   carrying out a revolution for the liberation of humanity, one should
   respect the life and liberty of men [and women]." [quoted by K.J.
   Kenafick, Michael Bakunin and Karl Marx, p. 125] For anarchists, means
   determine the ends and terrorism by its very nature violates life and
   liberty of individuals and so cannot be used to create an anarchist
   society. The history of, say, the Russian Revolution, confirmed
   Kropotkin's insight that "[v]ery sad would be the future revolution if
   it could only triumph by terror." [quoted by Millar, Op. Cit., p. 175]

   Moreover anarchists are not against individuals but the institutions
   and social relationships that cause certain individuals to have power
   over others and abuse (i.e. use) that power. Therefore the anarchist
   revolution is about destroying structures, not people. As Bakunin
   pointed out, "we wish not to kill persons, but to abolish status and
   its perquisites" and anarchism "does not mean the death of the
   individuals who make up the bourgeoisie, but the death of the
   bourgeoisie as a political and social entity economically distinct from
   the working class." [The Basic Bakunin, p. 71 and p. 70] In other
   words, "You can't blow up a social relationship" (to quote the title of
   an anarchist pamphlet which presents the anarchist case against
   terrorism).

   How is it, then, that anarchism is associated with violence? Partly
   this is because the state and media insist on referring to terrorists
   who are not anarchists as anarchists. For example, the German
   Baader-Meinhoff gang were often called "anarchists" despite their
   self-proclaimed Marxist-Leninism. Smears, unfortunately, work.
   Similarly, as Emma Goldman pointed out, "it is a known fact known to
   almost everyone familiar with the Anarchist movement that a great
   number of [violent] acts, for which Anarchists had to suffer, either
   originated with the capitalist press or were instigated, if not
   directly perpetrated, by the police." [Red Emma Speaks, p. 262]

   An example of this process at work can be seen from the current
   anti-globalisation movement. In Seattle, for example, the media
   reported "violence" by protestors (particularly anarchist ones) yet
   this amounted to a few broken windows. The much greater actual violence
   of the police against protestors (which, incidentally, started before
   the breaking of a single window) was not considered worthy of comment.
   Subsequent media coverage of anti-globalisation demonstrations followed
   this pattern, firmly connecting anarchism with violence in spite of
   that the protesters have been the ones to suffer the greatest violence
   at the hands of the state. As anarchist activist Starhawk notes, "if
   breaking windows and fighting back when the cops attack is 'violence,'
   then give me a new word, a word a thousand times stronger, to use when
   the cops are beating non-resisting people into comas." [Staying on the
   Streets, p. 130]

   Similarly, at the Genoa protests in 2001 the mainstream media presented
   the protestors as violent even though it was the state who killed one
   of them and hospitalised many thousands more. The presence of police
   agent provocateurs in creating the violence was unmentioned by the
   media. As Starhawk noted afterwards, in Genoa "we encountered a
   carefully orchestrated political campaign of state terrorism. The
   campaign included disinformation, the use of infiltrators and
   provocateurs, collusion with avowed Fascist groups . . . , the
   deliberate targeting of non-violent groups for tear gas and beating,
   endemic police brutality, the torture of prisoners, the political
   persecution of organisers . . . They did all those openly, in a way
   that indicates they had no fear of repercussions and expected political
   protection from the highest sources." [Op. Cit., pp. 128-9] This was,
   unsurprisingly, not reported by the media.

   Subsequent protests have seen the media indulge in yet more
   anti-anarchist hype, inventing stories to present anarchists are
   hate-filled individuals planning mass violence. For example, in Ireland
   in 2004 the media reported that anarchists were planning to use poison
   gas during EU related celebrations in Dublin. Of course, evidence of
   such a plan was not forthcoming and no such action happened. Neither
   did the riot the media said anarchists were organising. A similar
   process of misinformation accompanied the anti-capitalist May Day
   demonstrations in London and the protests against the Republican
   National Congress in New York. In spite of being constantly proved
   wrong after the event, the media always prints the scare stories of
   anarchist violence (even inventing events at, say Seattle, to justify
   their articles and to demonise anarchism further). Thus the myth that
   anarchism equals violence is perpetrated. Needless to say, the same
   papers that hyped the (non-existent) threat of anarchist violence
   remained silent on the actual violence of, and repression by, the
   police against demonstrators which occurred at these events. Neither
   did they run apologies after their (evidence-less) stories of doom were
   exposed as the nonsense they were by subsequent events.

   This does not mean that Anarchists have not committed acts of violence.
   They have (as have members of other political and religious movements).
   The main reason for the association of terrorism with anarchism is
   because of the "propaganda by the deed" period in the anarchist
   movement.

   This period -- roughly from 1880 to 1900 -- was marked by a small
   number of anarchists assassinating members of the ruling class
   (royalty, politicians and so forth). At its worse, this period saw
   theatres and shops frequented by members of the bourgeoisie targeted.
   These acts were termed "propaganda by the deed." Anarchist support for
   the tactic was galvanised by the assassination of Tsar Alexander II in
   1881 by Russian Populists (this event prompted Johann Most's famous
   editorial in Freiheit, entitled "At Last!", celebrating regicide and
   the assassination of tyrants). However, there were deeper reasons for
   anarchist support of this tactic: firstly, in revenge for acts of
   repression directed towards working class people; and secondly, as a
   means to encourage people to revolt by showing that their oppressors
   could be defeated.

   Considering these reasons it is no coincidence that propaganda by the
   deed began in France after the 20 000-plus deaths due to the French
   state's brutal suppression of the Paris Commune, in which many
   anarchists were killed. It is interesting to note that while the
   anarchist violence in revenge for the Commune is relatively well known,
   the state's mass murder of the Communards is relatively unknown.
   Similarly, it may be known that the Italian Anarchist Gaetano Bresci
   assassinated King Umberto of Italy in 1900 or that Alexander Berkman
   tried to kill Carnegie Steel Corporation manager Henry Clay Frick in
   1892. What is often unknown is that Umberto's troops had fired upon and
   killed protesting peasants or that Frick's Pinkertons had also murdered
   locked-out workers at Homestead.

   Such downplaying of statist and capitalist violence is hardly
   surprising. "The State's behaviour is violence," points out Max
   Stirner, "and it calls its violence 'law'; that of the individual,
   'crime.'" [The Ego and Its Own, p. 197] Little wonder, then, that
   anarchist violence is condemned but the repression (and often worse
   violence) that provoked it ignored and forgotten. Anarchists point to
   the hypocrisy of the accusation that anarchists are "violent" given
   that such claims come from either supporters of government or the
   actual governments themselves, governments "which came into being
   through violence, which maintain themselves in power through violence,
   and which use violence constantly to keep down rebellion and to bully
   other nations." [Howard Zinn, The Zinn Reader, p. 652]

   We can get a feel of the hypocrisy surrounding condemnation of
   anarchist violence by non-anarchists by considering their response to
   state violence. For example, many capitalist papers and individuals in
   the 1920s and 1930s celebrated Fascism as well as Mussolini and Hitler.
   Anarchists, in contrast, fought Fascism to the death and tried to
   assassinate both Mussolini and Hitler. Obviously supporting murderous
   dictatorships is not "violence" and "terrorism" but resisting such
   regimes is! Similarly, non-anarchists can support repressive and
   authoritarian states, war and the suppression of strikes and unrest by
   violence ("restoring law and order") and not be considered "violent."
   Anarchists, in contrast, are condemned as "violent" and "terrorist"
   because a few of them tried to revenge such acts of oppression and
   state/capitalist violence! Similarly, it seems the height of hypocrisy
   for someone to denounce the anarchist "violence" which produces a few
   broken windows in, say, Seattle while supporting the actual violence of
   the police in imposing the state's rule or, even worse, supporting the
   American invasion of Iraq in 2003. If anyone should be considered
   violent it is the supporter of state and its actions yet people do not
   see the obvious and "deplore the type of violence that the state
   deplores, and applaud the violence that the state practises." [Christie
   and Meltzer, The Floodgates of Anarchy, p. 132]

   It must be noted that the majority of anarchists did not support this
   tactic. Of those who committed "propaganda by the deed" (sometimes
   called "attentats"), as Murray Bookchin points out, only a "few . . .
   were members of Anarchist groups. The majority . . . were soloists."
   [The Spanish Anarchists, p. 102] Needless to say, the state and media
   painted all anarchists with the same brush. They still do, usually
   inaccurately (such as blaming Bakunin for such acts even though he had
   been dead years before the tactic was even discussed in anarchist
   circles or by labelling non-anarchist groups anarchists!).

   All in all, the "propaganda by the deed" phase of anarchism was a
   failure, as the vast majority of anarchists soon came to see. Kropotkin
   can be considered typical. He "never liked the slogan propaganda by
   deed, and did not use it to describe his own ideas of revolutionary
   action." However, in 1879 while still "urg[ing] the importance of
   collective action" he started "expressing considerable sympathy and
   interest in attentats" (these "collective forms of action" were seen as
   acting "at the trade union and communal level"). In 1880 he "became
   less preoccupied with collective action and this enthusiasm for acts of
   revolt by individuals and small groups increased." This did not last
   and Kropotkin soon attached "progressively less importance to isolated
   acts of revolt" particularly once "he saw greater opportunities for
   developing collective action in the new militant trade unionism."
   [Caroline Cahm, Kropotkin and the Rise of Revolutionary Anarchism, p.
   92, p. 115, p. 129, pp. 129-30, p. 205] By the late 1880s and early
   1890s he came to disapprove of such acts of violence. This was partly
   due to simple revulsion at the worse of the acts (such as the Barcelona
   Theatre bombing in response to the state murder of anarchists involved
   in the Jerez uprising of 1892 and Emile Henry's bombing of a cafe in
   response to state repression) and partly due to the awareness that it
   was hindering the anarchist cause.

   Kropotkin recognised that the "spate of terrorist acts" of the 1880s
   had caused "the authorities into taking repressive action against the
   movement" and were "not in his view consistent with the anarchist ideal
   and did little or nothing to promote popular revolt." In addition, he
   was "anxious about the isolation of the movement from the masses" which
   "had increased rather than diminished as a result of the preoccupation
   with" propaganda by deed. He "saw the best possibility for popular
   revolution in the . . . development of the new militancy in the labour
   movement. From now on he focussed his attention increasingly on the
   importance of revolutionary minorities working among the masses to
   develop the spirit of revolt." However, even during the early 1880s
   when his support for individual acts of revolt (if not for propaganda
   by the deed) was highest, he saw the need for collective class struggle
   and, therefore, "Kropotkin always insisted on the importance of the
   labour movement in the struggles leading up to the revolution." [Op.
   Cit., pp. 205-6, p. 208 and p. 280]

   Kropotkin was not alone. More and more anarchists came to see
   "propaganda by the deed" as giving the state an excuse to clamp down on
   both the anarchist and labour movements. Moreover, it gave the media
   (and opponents of anarchism) a chance to associate anarchism with
   mindless violence, thus alienating much of the population from the
   movement. This false association is renewed at every opportunity,
   regardless of the facts (for example, even though Individualist
   Anarchists rejected "propaganda by the deed" totally, they were also
   smeared by the press as "violent" and "terrorists").

   In addition, as Kropotkin pointed out, the assumption behind propaganda
   by the deed, i.e. that everyone was waiting for a chance to rebel, was
   false. In fact, people are products of the system in which they live;
   hence they accepted most of the myths used to keep that system going.
   With the failure of propaganda by deed, anarchists turned back to what
   most of the movement had been doing anyway: encouraging the class
   struggle and the process of self-liberation. This turn back to the
   roots of anarchism can be seen from the rise in anarcho-syndicalist
   unions after 1890 (see [52]section A.5.3). This position flows
   naturally from anarchist theory, unlike the idea of individual acts of
   violence:

     "to bring about a revolution, and specially the Anarchist
     revolution[, it] is necessary that the people be conscious of their
     rights and their strength; it is necessary that they be ready to
     fight and ready to take the conduct of their affairs into their own
     hands. It must be the constant preoccupation of the revolutionists,
     the point towards which all their activity must aim, to bring about
     this state of mind among the masses . . . Who expects the
     emancipation of mankind to come, not from the persistent and
     harmonious co-operation of all men [and women] of progress, but from
     the accidental or providential happening of some acts of heroism, is
     not better advised that one who expected it from the intervention of
     an ingenious legislator or of a victorious general . . . our ideas
     oblige us to put all our hopes in the masses, because we do not
     believe in the possibility of imposing good by force and we do not
     want to be commanded . . . Today, that which . . . was the logical
     outcome of our ideas, the condition which our conception of the
     revolution and reorganisation of society imposes on us . . . [is] to
     live among the people and to win them over to our ideas by actively
     taking part in their struggles and sufferings." [Errico Malatesta,
     "The Duties of the Present Hour", pp. 181-3, Anarchism, Robert
     Graham (ed.), pp. 180-1]

   Despite most anarchists' tactical disagreement with propaganda by deed,
   few would consider it to be terrorism or rule out assassination under
   all circumstances. Bombing a village during a war because there might
   be an enemy in it is terrorism, whereas assassinating a murdering
   dictator or head of a repressive state is defence at best and revenge
   at worst. As anarchists have long pointed out, if by terrorism it is
   meant "killing innocent people" then the state is the greatest
   terrorist of them all (as well as having the biggest bombs and other
   weapons of destruction available on the planet). If the people
   committing "acts of terror" are really anarchists, they would do
   everything possible to avoid harming innocent people and never use the
   statist line that "collateral damage" is regrettable but inevitable.
   This is why the vast majority of "propaganda by the deed" acts were
   directed towards individuals of the ruling class, such as Presidents
   and Royalty, and were the result of previous acts of state and
   capitalist violence.

   So "terrorist" acts have been committed by anarchists. This is a fact.
   However, it has nothing to do with anarchism as a socio-political
   theory. As Emma Goldman argued, it was "not Anarchism, as such, but the
   brutal slaughter of the eleven steel workers [that] was the urge for
   Alexander Berkman's act." [Op. Cit., p. 268] Equally, members of other
   political and religious groups have also committed such acts. As the
   Freedom Group of London argued:

     "There is a truism that the man [or woman] in the street seems
     always to forget, when he is abusing the Anarchists, or whatever
     party happens to be his bete noire for the moment, as the cause of
     some outrage just perpetrated. This indisputable fact is that
     homicidal outrages have, from time immemorial, been the reply of
     goaded and desperate classes, and goaded and desperate individuals,
     to wrongs from their fellowmen [and women], which they felt to be
     intolerable. Such acts are the violent recoil from violence, whether
     aggressive or repressive . . . their cause lies not in any special
     conviction, but in the depths of . . . human nature itself. The
     whole course of history, political and social, is strewn with
     evidence of this." [quoted by Emma Goldman, Op. Cit., p. 259]

   Terrorism has been used by many other political, social and religious
   groups and parties. For example, Christians, Marxists, Hindus,
   Nationalists, Republicans, Moslems, Sikhs, Fascists, Jews and Patriots
   have all committed acts of terrorism. Few of these movements or ideas
   have been labelled as "terrorist by nature" or continually associated
   with violence -- which shows anarchism's threat to the status quo.
   There is nothing more likely to discredit and marginalise an idea than
   for malicious and/or ill-informed persons to portray those who believe
   and practice it as "mad bombers" with no opinions or ideals at all,
   just an insane urge to destroy.

   Of course, the vast majority of Christians and so on have opposed
   terrorism as morally repugnant and counter-productive. As have the vast
   majority of anarchists, at all times and places. However, it seems that
   in our case it is necessary to state our opposition to terrorism time
   and time again.

   So, to summarise - only a small minority of terrorists have ever been
   anarchists, and only a small minority of anarchists have ever been
   terrorists. The anarchist movement as a whole has always recognised
   that social relationships cannot be assassinated or bombed out of
   existence. Compared to the violence of the state and capitalism,
   anarchist violence is a drop in the ocean. Unfortunately most people
   remember the acts of the few anarchists who have committed violence
   rather than the acts of violence and repression by the state and
   capital that prompted those acts.

A.2.19 What ethical views do anarchists hold?

   Anarchist viewpoints on ethics vary considerably, although all share a
   common belief in the need for an individual to develop within
   themselves their own sense of ethics. All anarchists agree with Max
   Stirner that an individual must free themselves from the confines of
   existing morality and question that morality -- "I decide whether it is
   the right thing for me; there is no right outside me." [The Ego and Its
   Own, p. 189]

   Few anarchists, however, would go so far as Stirner and reject any
   concept of social ethics at all (saying that, Stirner does value some
   universal concepts although they are egoistic ones). Such extreme moral
   relativism is almost as bad as moral absolutism for most anarchists
   (moral relativism is the view that there is no right or wrong beyond
   what suits an individual while moral absolutism is that view that what
   is right and wrong is independent of what individuals think).

   It is often claimed that modern society is breaking up because of
   excessive "egoism" or moral relativism. This is false. As far as moral
   relativism goes, this is a step forward from the moral absolutism urged
   upon society by various Moralists and true-believers because it bases
   itself, however slimly, upon the idea of individual reason. However, as
   it denies the existence (or desirability) of ethics it is but the
   mirror image of what it is rebelling against. Neither option empowers
   the individual or is liberating.

   Consequently, both of these attitudes hold enormous attraction to
   authoritarians, as a populace that is either unable to form an opinion
   about things (and will tolerate anything) or who blindly follow the
   commands of the ruling elite are of great value to those in power. Both
   are rejected by most anarchists in favour of an evolutionary approach
   to ethics based upon human reason to develop the ethical concepts and
   interpersonal empathy to generalise these concepts into ethical
   attitudes within society as well as within individuals. An anarchistic
   approach to ethics therefore shares the critical individual
   investigation implied in moral relativism but grounds itself into
   common feelings of right and wrong. As Proudhon argued:

     "All progress begins by abolishing something; every reform rests
     upon denunciation of some abuse; each new idea is based upon the
     proved insufficiency of the old idea."

   Most anarchists take the viewpoint that ethical standards, like life
   itself, are in a constant process of evolution. This leads them to
   reject the various notions of "God's Law," "Natural Law," and so on in
   favour of a theory of ethical development based upon the idea that
   individuals are entirely empowered to question and assess the world
   around them -- in fact, they require it in order to be truly free. You
   cannot be an anarchist and blindly accept anything! Michael Bakunin,
   one of the founding anarchist thinkers, expressed this radical
   scepticism as so:

     "No theory, no ready-made system, no book that has ever been written
     will save the world. I cleave to no system. I am a true seeker."

   Any system of ethics which is not based on individual questioning can
   only be authoritarian. Erich Fromm explains why:

     "Formally, authoritarian ethics denies man's capacity to know what
     is good or bad; the norm giver is always an authority transcending
     the individual. Such a system is based not on reason and knowledge
     but on awe of the authority and on the subject's feeling of weakness
     and dependence; the surrender of decision making to the authority
     results from the latter's magic power; its decisions can not and
     must not be questioned. Materially, or according to content,
     authoritarian ethics answers the question of what is good or bad
     primarily in terms of the interests of the authority, not the
     interests of the subject; it is exploitative, although the subject
     may derive considerable benefits, psychic or material, from it."
     [Man For Himself, p. 10]

   Therefore Anarchists take, essentially, a scientific approach to
   problems. Anarchists arrive at ethical judgements without relying on
   the mythology of spiritual aid, but on the merits of their own minds.
   This is done through logic and reason, and is a far better route to
   resolving moral questions than obsolete, authoritarian systems like
   orthodox religion and certainly better than the "there is no wrong or
   right" of moral relativism.

   So, what are the source of ethical concepts? For Kropotkin, "nature has
   thus to be recognised as the first ethical teacher of man. The social
   instinct, innate in men as well as in all the social animals, - this is
   the origin of all ethical conceptions and all subsequent development of
   morality." [Ethics, p. 45]

   Life, in other words, is the basis of anarchist ethics. This means
   that, essentially (according to anarchists), an individual's ethical
   viewpoints are derived from three basic sources:

     1) from the society an individual lives in. As Kropotkin pointed
     out, "Man's conceptions of morality are completely dependent upon
     the form that their social life assumed at a given time in a given
     locality . . . this [social life] is reflected in the moral
     conceptions of men and in the moral teachings of the given epoch."
     [Op. Cit., p. 315] In other words, experience of life and of living.

     2) A critical evaluation by individuals of their society's ethical
     norms, as indicated above. This is the core of Erich Fromm's
     argument that "Man must accept the responsibility for himself and
     the fact that only using his own powers can he give meaning to his
     life . . .there is no meaning to life except the meaning man gives
     his life by the unfolding of his powers, by living productively."
     [Man for Himself, p. 45] In other words, individual thought and
     development.

     3) The feeling of empathy - "the true origin of the moral sentiment
     . . . [is] simply in the feeling of sympathy." ["Anarchist
     Morality", Anarchism, p. 94] In other words, an individual's ability
     to feel and share experiences and concepts with others.

   This last factor is very important for the development of a sense of
   ethics. As Kropotkin argued, "[t]he more powerful your imagination, the
   better you can picture to yourself what any being feels when it is made
   to suffer, and the more intense and delicate will your moral sense be.
   . . And the more you are accustomed by circumstances, by those
   surrounding you, or by the intensity of your own thought and your
   imagination, to act as your own thought and imagination urge, the more
   will the moral sentiment grow in you, the more will it became
   habitual." [Op. Cit., p. 95]

   So, anarchism is based (essentially) upon the ethical maxim "treat
   others as you would like them to treat you under similar
   circumstances." Anarchists are neither egoists nor altruists when it
   come to moral stands, they are simply human.

   As Kropotkin noted, "egoism" and "altruism" both have their roots in
   the same motive -- "however great the difference between the two
   actions in their result of humanity, the motive is the same. It is the
   quest for pleasure." [Op. Cit., p. 85]

   For anarchists, a person's sense of ethics must be developed by
   themselves and requires the full use of an individual's mental
   abilities as part of a social grouping, as part of a community. As
   capitalism and other forms of authority weaken the individual's
   imagination and reduce the number of outlets for them to exercise their
   reason under the dead weight of hierarchy as well as disrupting
   community, little wonder that life under capitalism is marked by a
   stark disregard for others and lack of ethical behaviour.

   Combined with these factors is the role played by inequality within
   society. Without equality, there can be no real ethics for "Justice
   implies Equality. . . only those who consider others as their equals
   can obey the rule: 'Do not do to others what you do not wish them to do
   to you.' A serf-owner and a slave merchant can evidently not recognise
   . . . the 'categorial imperative' [of treating people as ends in
   themselves and not as means] as regards serfs [or slaves] because they
   do not look upon them as equals." Hence the "greatest obstacle to the
   maintenance of a certain moral level in our present societies lies in
   the absence of social equality. Without real equality, the sense of
   justice can never be universally developed, because Justice implies the
   recognition of Equality." [Peter Kropotkin, Evolution and Environment,
   p. 88 and p. 79]

   Capitalism, like any society, gets the ethical behaviour it deserves..

   In a society which moves between moral relativism and absolutism it is
   little wonder that egoism becomes confused with egotism. By
   disempowering individuals from developing their own ethical ideas and
   instead encouraging blind obedience to external authority (and so moral
   relativism once individuals think that they are without that
   authority's power), capitalist society ensures an impoverishment of
   individuality and ego. As Erich Fromm puts it:

     "The failure of modern culture lies not in its principle of
     individualism, not in the idea that moral virtue is the same as the
     pursuit of self-interest, but in the deterioration of the meaning of
     self-interest; not in the fact that people are too much concerned
     with their self-interest, but that they are not concerned enough
     with the interest of their real self; not in the fact that they are
     too selfish, but that they do not love themselves." [Man for
     Himself, p. 139]

   Therefore, strictly speaking, anarchism is based upon an egoistic frame
   of reference - ethical ideas must be an expression of what gives us
   pleasure as a whole individual (both rational and emotional, reason and
   empathy). This leads all anarchists to reject the false division
   between egoism and altruism and recognise that what many people (for
   example, capitalists) call "egoism" results in individual self-negation
   and a reduction of individual self-interest. As Kropotkin argues:

     "What was it that morality, evolving in animal and human societies,
     was striving for, if not for the opposition to the promptings of
     narrow egoism, and bringing up humanity in the spirit of the
     development of altruism? The very expressions 'egoism' and
     'altruism' are incorrect, because there can be no pure altruism
     without an admixture of personal pleasure - and consequently,
     without egoism. It would therefore be more nearly correct to say
     that ethics aims at the development of social habits and the
     weakening of the narrowly personal habits. These last make the
     individual lose sight of society through his regard for his own
     person, and therefore they even fail to attain their object, i.e.
     the welfare of the individual, whereas the development of habits of
     work in common, and of mutual aid in general, leads to a series of
     beneficial consequences in the family as well as society." [Ethics,
     pp. 307-8]

   Therefore anarchism is based upon the rejection of moral absolutism
   (i.e. "God's Law," "Natural Law," "Man's Nature," "A is A") and the
   narrow egotism which moral relativism so easily lends itself to.
   Instead, anarchists recognise that there exists concepts of right and
   wrong which exist outside of an individual's evaluation of their own
   acts.

   This is because of the social nature of humanity. The interactions
   between individuals do develop into a social maxim which, according to
   Kropotkin, can be summarised as "[i]s it useful to society? Then it is
   good. Is it hurtful? Then it is bad." Which acts human beings think of
   as right or wrong is not, however, unchanging and the "estimate of what
   is useful or harmful . . . changes, but the foundation remains the
   same." ["Anarchist Morality", Op. Cit., p. 91 and p. 92]

   This sense of empathy, based upon a critical mind, is the fundamental
   basis of social ethics - the 'what-should-be' can be seen as an ethical
   criterion for the truth or validity of an objective 'what-is.' So,
   while recognising the root of ethics in nature, anarchists consider
   ethics as fundamentally a human idea - the product of life, thought and
   evolution created by individuals and generalised by social living and
   community.

   So what, for anarchists, is unethical behaviour? Essentially anything
   that denies the most precious achievement of history: the liberty,
   uniqueness and dignity of the individual.

   Individuals can see what actions are unethical because, due to empathy,
   they can place themselves into the position of those suffering the
   behaviour. Acts which restrict individuality can be considered
   unethical for two (interrelated) reasons.

   Firstly, the protection and development of individuality in all
   enriches the life of every individual and it gives pleasure to
   individuals because of the diversity it produces. This egoist basis of
   ethics reinforces the second (social) reason, namely that individuality
   is good for society for it enriches the community and social life,
   strengthening it and allowing it to grow and evolve. As Bakunin
   constantly argued, progress is marked by a movement from "the simple to
   the complex" or, in the words of Herbert Read, it "is measured by the
   degree of differentiation within a society. If the individual is a unit
   in a corporate mass, his [or her] life will be limited, dull, and
   mechanical. If the individual is a unit on his [or her] own, with space
   and potentiality for separate action . . .he can develop - develop in
   the only real meaning of the word - develop in consciousness of
   strength, vitality, and joy." ["The Philosophy of Anarchism," Anarchy
   and Order, p. 37]

   This defence of individuality is learned from nature. In an ecosystem,
   diversity is strength and so biodiversity becomes a source of basic
   ethical insight. In its most basic form, it provides a guide to "help
   us distinguish which of our actions serve the thrust of natural
   evolution and which of them impede them." [Murray Bookchin, The Ecology
   of Freedom, p. 442]

   So, the ethical concept "lies in the feeling of sociality, inherent in
   the entire animal world and in the conceptions of equity, which
   constitutes one of the fundamental primary judgements of human reason."
   Therefore anarchists embrace "the permanent presence of a double
   tendency - towards greater development on the one side, of sociality,
   and, on the other side, of a consequent increase of the intensity of
   life which results in an increase of happiness for the individuals, and
   in progress - physical, intellectual, and moral." [Kropotkin, Ethics,
   pp. 311-2 and pp. 19-20]

   Anarchist attitudes to authority, the state, capitalism, private
   property and so on all come from our ethical belief that the liberty of
   individuals is of prime concern and that our ability to empathise with
   others, to see ourselves in others (our basic equality and common
   individuality, in other words).

   Thus anarchism combines the subjective evaluation by individuals of a
   given set of circumstances and actions with the drawing of objective
   interpersonal conclusions of these evaluations based upon empathic
   bounds and discussion between equals. Anarchism is based on a
   humanistic approach to ethical ideas, one that evolves along with
   society and individual development. Hence an ethical society is one in
   which "[d]ifference among people will be respected, indeed fostered, as
   elements that enrich the unity of experience and phenomenon . . . [the
   different] will be conceived of as individual parts of a whole all the
   richer because of its complexity." [Murray Bookchin, Post Scarcity
   Anarchism, p. 82]

A.2.20 Why are most anarchists atheists?

   It is a fact that most anarchists are atheists. They reject the idea of
   god and oppose all forms of religion, particularly organised religion.
   Today, in secularised western European countries, religion has lost its
   once dominant place in society. This often makes the militant atheism
   of anarchism seem strange. However, once the negative role of religion
   is understood the importance of libertarian atheism becomes obvious. It
   is because of the role of religion and its institutions that anarchists
   have spent some time refuting the idea of religion as well as
   propagandising against it.

   So why do so many anarchists embrace atheism? The simplest answer is
   that most anarchists are atheists because it is a logical extension of
   anarchist ideas. If anarchism is the rejection of illegitimate
   authorities, then it follows that it is the rejection of the so-called
   Ultimate Authority, God. Anarchism is grounded in reason, logic, and
   scientific thinking, not religious thinking. Anarchists tend to be
   sceptics, and not believers. Most anarchists consider the Church to be
   steeped in hypocrisy and the Bible a work of fiction, riddled with
   contradictions, absurdities and horrors. It is notorious in its
   debasement of women and its sexism is infamous. Yet men are treated
   little better. Nowhere in the bible is there an acknowledgement that
   human beings have inherent rights to life, liberty, happiness, dignity,
   fairness, or self-government. In the bible, humans are sinners, worms,
   and slaves (figuratively and literally, as it condones slavery). God
   has all the rights, humanity is nothing.

   This is unsurprisingly, given the nature of religion. Bakunin put it
   best:

     "The idea of God implies the abdication of human reason and justice;
     it is the most decisive negation of human liberty, and necessarily
     ends in the enslavement of mankind, both in theory and in practice.

     "Unless, then, we desire the enslavement and degradation of mankind
     . . . we may not, must not make the slightest concession either to
     the God of theology or to the God of metaphysics. He who, in this
     mystical alphabet, begins with A will inevitably end with Z; he who
     desires to worship God must harbour no childish illusions about the
     matter, but bravely renounce his liberty and humanity.

     "If God is, man is a slave; now, man can and must be free; then, God
     does not exist."
     [God and the State, p. 25]

   For most anarchists, then, atheism is required due to the nature of
   religion. "To proclaim as divine all that is grand, just, noble, and
   beautiful in humanity," Bakunin argued, "is to tacitly admit that
   humanity of itself would have been unable to produce it -- that is,
   that, abandoned to itself, its own nature is miserable, iniquitous,
   base, and ugly. Thus we come back to the essence of all religion -- in
   other words, to the disparagement of humanity for the greater glory of
   divinity." As such, to do justice to our humanity and the potential it
   has, anarchists argue that we must do without the harmful myth of god
   and all it entails and so on behalf of "human liberty, dignity, and
   prosperity, we believe it our duty to recover from heaven the goods
   which it has stolen and return them to earth." [Op. Cit., p. 37 and p.
   36]

   As well as the theoretical degrading of humanity and its liberty,
   religion has other, more practical, problems with it from an anarchist
   point of view. Firstly, religions have been a source of inequality and
   oppression. Christianity (like Islam), for example, has always been a
   force for repression whenever it holds any political or social sway
   (believing you have a direct line to god is a sure way of creating an
   authoritarian society). The Church has been a force of social
   repression, genocide, and the justification for every tyrant for nearly
   two millennia. When given the chance it has ruled as cruelly as any
   monarch or dictator. This is unsurprising:

     "God being everything, the real world and man are nothing. God being
     truth, justice, goodness, beauty, power and life, man is falsehood,
     iniquity, evil, ugliness, impotence, and death. God being master,
     man is the slave. Incapable of finding justice, truth, and eternal
     life by his own effort, he can attain them only through a divine
     revelation. But whoever says revelation, says revealers, messiahs,
     prophets, priests, and legislators inspired by God himself; and
     these, as the holy instructors of humanity, chosen by God himself to
     direct it in the path of salvation, necessarily exercise absolute
     power. All men owe them passive and unlimited obedience; for against
     the divine reason there is no human reason, and against the justice
     of God no terrestrial justice holds." [Bakunin, Op. Cit., p. 24]

   Christianity has only turned tolerant and peace-loving when it is
   powerless and even then it has continued its role as apologist for the
   powerful. This is the second reason why anarchists oppose the church
   for when not being the source of oppression, the church has justified
   it and ensured its continuation. It has kept the working class in
   bondage for generations by sanctioning the rule of earthly authorities
   and teaching working people that it is wrong to fight against those
   same authorities. Earthly rulers received their legitimisation from the
   heavenly lord, whether political (claiming that rulers are in power due
   to god's will) or economic (the rich having been rewarded by god). The
   bible praises obedience, raising it to a great virtue. More recent
   innovations like the Protestant work ethic also contribute to the
   subjugation of working people.

   That religion is used to further the interests of the powerful can
   quickly be seen from most of history. It conditions the oppressed to
   humbly accept their place in life by urging the oppressed to be meek
   and await their reward in heaven. As Emma Goldman argued, Christianity
   (like religion in general) "contains nothing dangerous to the regime of
   authority and wealth; it stands for self-denial and self-abnegation,
   for penance and regret, and is absolutely inert in the face of every
   [in]dignity, every outrage imposed upon mankind." [Red Emma Speaks, p.
   234]

   Thirdly, religion has always been a conservative force in society. This
   is unsurprising, as it bases itself not on investigation and analysis
   of the real world but rather in repeating the truths handed down from
   above and contained in a few holy books. Theism is then "the theory of
   speculation" while atheism is "the science of demonstration." The "one
   hangs in the metaphysical clouds of the Beyond, while the other has its
   roots firmly in the soil. It is the earth, not heaven, which man must
   rescue if he is truly to be saved." Atheism, then, "expresses the
   expansion and growth of the human mind" while theism "is static and
   fixed." It is "the absolutism of theism, its pernicious influence upon
   humanity, its paralysing effect upon thought and action, which Atheism
   is fighting with all its power." [Emma Goldman, Op. Cit., p. 243, p.
   245 and pp. 246-7]

   As the Bible says, "By their fruits shall ye know them." We anarchists
   agree but unlike the church we apply this truth to religion as well.
   That is why we are, in the main, atheists. We recognise the destructive
   role played by the Church, and the harmful effects of organised
   monotheism, particularly Christianity, on people. As Goldman summaries,
   religion "is the conspiracy of ignorance against reason, of darkness
   against light, of submission and slavery against independence and
   freedom; of the denial of strength and beauty, against the affirmation
   of the joy and glory of life." [Op. Cit., p. 240]

   So, given the fruits of the Church, anarchists argue that it is time to
   uproot it and plant new trees, the trees of reason and liberty.

   That said, anarchists do not deny that religions contain important
   ethical ideas or truths. Moreover, religions can be the base for strong
   and loving communities and groups. They can offer a sanctuary from the
   alienation and oppression of everyday life and offer a guide to action
   in a world where everything is for sale. Many aspects of, say, Jesus'
   or Buddha's life and teachings are inspiring and worth following. If
   this were not the case, if religions were simply a tool of the
   powerful, they would have long ago been rejected. Rather, they have a
   dual-nature in that contain both ideas necessary to live a good life as
   well as apologetics for power. If they did not, the oppressed would not
   believe and the powerful would suppress them as dangerous heresies.

   And, indeed, repression has been the fate of any group that has
   preached a radical message. In the middle ages numerous revolutionary
   Christian movements and sects were crushed by the earthly powers that
   be with the firm support of the mainstream church. During the Spanish
   Civil War the Catholic church supported Franco's fascists, denouncing
   the killing of pro-Franco priests by supporters of the republic while
   remaining silent about Franco's murder of Basque priests who had
   supported the democratically elected government (Pope John Paul II is
   seeking to turn the dead pro-Franco priests into saints while the
   pro-Republican priests remain unmentioned). The Archbishop of El
   Salvador, Oscar Arnulfo Romero, started out as a conservative but after
   seeing the way in which the political and economic powers were
   exploiting the people became their outspoken champion. He was
   assassinated by right-wing paramilitaries in 1980 because of this, a
   fate which has befallen many other supporters of liberation theology, a
   radical interpretation of the Gospels which tries to reconcile
   socialist ideas and Christian social thinking.

   Nor does the anarchist case against religion imply that religious
   people do not take part in social struggles to improve society. Far
   from it. Religious people, including members of the church hierarchy,
   played a key role in the US civil rights movement of the 1960s. The
   religious belief within Zapata's army of peasants during the Mexican
   revolution did not stop anarchists taking part in it (indeed, it had
   already been heavily influenced by the ideas of anarchist militant
   Ricardo Flores Magon). It is the dual-nature of religion which explains
   why many popular movements and revolts (particularly by peasants) have
   used the rhetoric of religion, seeking to keep the good aspects of
   their faith will fighting the earthly injustice its official
   representatives sanctify. For anarchists, it is the willingness to
   fight against injustice which counts, not whether someone believes in
   god or not. We just think that the social role of religion is to dampen
   down revolt, not encourage it. The tiny number of radical priests
   compared to those in the mainstream or on the right suggests the
   validity of our analysis.

   It should be stressed that anarchists, while overwhelmingly hostile to
   the idea of the Church and an established religion, do not object to
   people practising religious belief on their own or in groups, so long
   as that practice doesn't impinge on the liberties of others. For
   example, a cult that required human sacrifice or slavery would be
   antithetical to anarchist ideas, and would be opposed. But peaceful
   systems of belief could exist in harmony within in anarchist society.
   The anarchist view is that religion is a personal matter, above all
   else -- if people want to believe in something, that's their business,
   and nobody else's as long as they do not impose those ideas on others.
   All we can do is discuss their ideas and try and convince them of their
   errors.

   To end, it should noted that we are not suggesting that atheism is
   somehow mandatory for an anarchist. Far from it. As we discuss in
   [53]section A.3.7, there are anarchists who do believe in god or some
   form of religion. For example, Tolstoy combined libertarian ideas with
   a devote Christian belief. His ideas, along with Proudhon's, influences
   the Catholic Worker organisation, founded by anarchists Dorothy Day and
   Peter Maurin in 1933 and still active today. The anarchist activist
   Starhawk, active in the current anti-globalisation movement, has no
   problems also being a leading Pagan. However, for most anarchists,
   their ideas lead them logically to atheism for, as Emma Goldman put it,
   "in its negation of gods is at the same time the strongest affirmation
   of man, and through man, the eternal yea to life, purpose, and beauty."
   [Red Emma Speaks, p. 248]

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  45. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/secA5.html#seca56
  46. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/secA5.html#seca55
  47. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/secH2.html#sech21
  48. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/secI2.html#seci23
  49. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/secJ3.html
  50. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/secB1.html
  51. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/secA2.html#seca216
  52. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/secA2.html#seca53
  53. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/secA3.html#seca37
