             Section I - What would an anarchist society look like?

   So far this FAQ has been largely critical, focusing on hierarchy,
   capitalism, the state and so on, and the problems to which they have
   led, as well as refuting some bogus "solutions" that have been offered
   by authoritarians of both the right and the left. It is now time to
   examine the constructive side of anarchism -- the libertarian-socialist
   society that anarchists envision. This is important because anarchism
   is essentially a constructive theory, in stark contradiction to the
   picture of usually painted of anarchism as chaos or mindless
   destruction.

   In this section of the FAQ we will give an outline of what an anarchist
   society might look like. Such a society has basic features -- such as
   being non-hierarchical, decentralised and, above all else, spontaneous
   like life itself. To quote Glenn Albrecht, anarchists "lay great stress
   on the free unfolding of a spontaneous order without the use of
   external force or authority." ["Ethics, Anarchy and Sustainable
   Development", pp. 95-117, Anarchist Studies, vol. 2, no. 2, p. 110]
   This type of development implies that anarchist society would be
   organised from the simple to the complex, from the individual upwards
   to the community, the bio-region and, ultimately, the planet. The
   resulting society, which would be the outcome of nature freely
   unfolding toward greater diversity and complexity, is ethically
   preferable to any other sort of order simply because it allows for the
   highest degree of organic solidarity and freedom. Kropotkin described
   this vision of a truly free society as follows:

     "We foresee millions and millions of groups freely constituting
     themselves for the satisfaction of all the varied needs of human
     beings . . . All these will be composed of human beings who will
     combine freely . . . 'Take pebbles,' said Fourier, 'put them in a
     box and shake them, and they will arrange themselves in a mosaic
     that you could never get by instructing to anyone the work of
     arranging them harmoniously.'" [The Place of Anarchism in
     Socialistic Evolution, pp. 11-12]

   Anarchist opposition to hierarchy is an essential part of a
   "spontaneously ordered" society, for authority stops the free
   development and growth of the individual. From this natural growth of
   individuals, groups and society as a whole anarchists expect a society
   which meets the needs of all -- for individual and social freedom,
   material goods to meet physical needs and free and equal social
   relationships that meet what could be termed "spiritual needs" (i.e.,
   mental and emotional wellbeing, creativity, ethical development and so
   on). Any attempt to force society or individuals into a pre-determined
   structure which restricts their liberty will produce dis-order as
   natural balances and development is hindered and distorted in
   anti-social and destructive directions. Thus an anarchist society must
   be a free society of free individuals, associating within libertarian
   structures, rather than a series of competing hierarchies (be they
   political or economical). Only in freedom can society and individuals
   develop and create a just and fair world. In Proudhon's words, "liberty
   is the mother of order, not its daughter."

   As the individual does not exist in a social vacuum, appropriate social
   conditions are required for individual freedom to develop and blossom
   according to its full potential. The theory of anarchism is built
   around the central assertion that individuals and their organisations
   cannot be considered in isolation from each other. That is, social
   structures shape us, "that there is an interrelationship between the
   authority structures of institutions and the psychological qualities
   and attitudes of individuals" and that "the major function of
   participation is an educative one." [Carole Pateman, Participation and
   Democratic Theory, p. 27] Anarchism presents this position in its most
   coherent and libertarian form. In other words, freedom is only
   sustained and protected by activity under conditions of freedom, namely
   self-government. Freedom is the only precondition for acquiring the
   maturity required for continued freedom: "Only in freedom can man grow
   to his full stature. Only in freedom will be learn to think and move,
   and give the very best in him." [Emma Goldman, Red Emma Speaks, p. 72]

   As individual freedom can only be created, developed and defended by
   self-government and free association, a system which encourages
   individuality must be decentralised and participatory in order for
   people to develop a psychology that allows them to accept the
   responsibilities of self-management. Living under the state or any
   other authoritarian system produces a servile character, as the
   individual is constantly placed under hierarchical authority, which
   blunts their critical and self-governing abilities by lack of use. Such
   a situation cannot promote freedom, and so anarchists "realise that
   power and authority corrupt those who exercise them as much as those
   who are compelled to submit to them." [Bakunin, The Political
   Philosophy of Bakunin, p. 249]

   Looking at capitalism, we find that under wage labour people sell their
   creative energy and control over their activity for a given period. The
   boss does not just take surplus value from the time employees sell, but
   the time itself -- their liberty, their ability to make their own
   decisions, express themselves through work and with their fellow
   workers. Wage labour equals wage slavery as you sell your time and
   skills (i.e. liberty) everyday at work and you will never be able to
   buy that time back for yourself. Once it is gone; it is gone for good.
   It also generates, to quote Godwin, a "sense of dependence" and a
   "servile and truckling spirit", so ensuring that the "feudal spirit
   still survives that reduced the great mass of mankind to the rank of
   slaves and cattle for the service of the few." [The Anarchist Writings
   of William Godwin, pp. 125-6] This is why anarchists see the need to
   "create the situation where each person may live by working freely,
   without being forced to sell his [or her] work and his [or her] liberty
   to others who accumulate wealth by the labour of their serfs."
   [Kropotkin, Words of a Rebel, p. 208]

   Thus the aim of anarchism is to create a society in which every person
   "should have the material and moral means to develop his humanity" and
   so to "organise society in such a way that every individual . . .
   should find . . . approximately equal means for the development of
   [their] various faculties and for their utilisation in [their] work; to
   create a society which would place every individual . . . in such a
   position that it would be impossible for [them] to exploit the labour
   of anyone else" and be "enabled to participate in the enjoyment of
   social wealth" as long as they "contributed directly toward the
   production of that wealth." [Bakunin, Op. Cit., p. 409] As such,
   anarchists would agree with George Orwell: "The question is very
   simple. Shall people . . . be allowed to live the decent, fully human
   life which is now technically achievable, or shan't they? Shall the
   common man be pushed back into the mud, or shall he not?" [Orwell on
   Spain, p. 361]

   Anarchism, in summary, is about changing society and abolishing all
   forms of authoritarian social relationship, putting life before the
   soul-destroying "efficiency" needed to survive under capitalism; for
   the anarchist "takes his stand on his positive right to life and all
   its pleasures, both intellectual, moral and physical. He loves life,
   and intends to enjoy it to the full." [Bakunin, Michael Bakunin:
   Selected Writings, p. 101] Thus, to quote Emma Goldman, "all
   human-beings, irrespective of race, colour, or sex, are born with the
   equal right to share at the table of life; that to secure this right,
   there must be established among men economic, social, and political
   freedom." [A Documentary History of the American Years, vol. 2, p. 450]
   This would be a classless and non-hierarchical society, one without
   masters and servants, one based on the free association of free
   individuals which encourages and celebrates individuality and freedom:

     "The phrase, 'a classless society', no doubt has terrors for any
     thoughtful person. It calls up immediately the image of dull
     mediocrity . . . all one uniform scale of self-sufficient
     individuals, living in model-houses, travelling in uniform Fords
     along endless uniform roads . . . But . . . the sharing of this
     wealth would not produce a uniformity of life, simply because there
     is no uniformity of desire. Uniformity is an unintelligent
     nightmare; there can be no uniformity in a free human society.
     Uniformity can only be created by the tyranny of a totalitarian
     regime." [Herbert Read, Anarchy and Order, pp. 87-8]

   Anarchists think that the essential social values are human values, and
   that society is a complex of associations which express the wills of
   their members, whose well-being is its purpose. We consider that it is
   not enough that the forms of association should have the passive or
   "implied" consent of their members, but that the society, and the
   individuals who make it up, will be healthy only if it is in the full
   sense libertarian, i.e. self-governing, self-managed, and egalitarian.
   This implies not only that all the members should have a right to
   influence its policy if they so desire, but that the greatest possible
   opportunity should be afforded for every person to exercise this right.
   Anarchism involves an active, not merely passive, citizenship on the
   part of society's members and holds that this principle is not only
   applied to some "special" sphere of social action called "politics" but
   to any and every form of social action, including economic activity.

   So, as will be seen, the key concept underlying both the
   social/political and the economic structure of libertarian socialism is
   "self-management," a term that implies not only workers control of
   their workplaces but also citizens' control of their communities (where
   it becomes "self-government"), through direct democracy and voluntary
   federation. Thus self-management is the positive implication of
   anarchism's "negative" principle of opposition to hierarchical
   authority. For through self-management, hierarchical authority is
   dissolved as self-managing workplace and community assemblies/councils
   are decentralised, "horizontal" organisations in which each participant
   has an equal voice in the decisions that affect his or her life,
   instead of merely following orders and being governed by others.
   Self-management, therefore, is the essential condition for a world in
   which individuals will be free to follow their own dreams, in their own
   ways, co-operating together as equals without interference from any
   form of authoritarian power (such as government or boss).

   Perhaps needless to say, this section is intended as a heuristic device
   only, as a way of helping readers envision how anarchist principles
   might be embodied in practice. It is not (nor is it intended to be, nor
   is it desired to be) a definitive statement of how they must be
   embodied. The idea that a few people could determine exactly what a
   free society would look like is contrary to the anarchist principles of
   free growth and thought, and is far from our intention. Here we simply
   try to indicate some of the structures that an anarchist society may
   contain, based on the what ideals and ideas anarchists hold, informed
   by the few examples of anarchy in action that have existed and our
   critical evaluation of their limitations and successes. As Herbert Read
   once put it, "it is always a mistake to build a priori constitutions.
   The main thing is to establish your principles -- the principles of
   equity, of individual freedom, of workers' control. The community then
   aims at the establishment of these principles from the starting-point
   of local needs and local conditions." [Op. Cit., p. 51]

   Moreover, we must remember that, the state has changed over time and,
   indeed, has not always existed. Thus it is possible to have a social
   organisation which is not a state and to confuse the two would be a
   "confusion" made by those "who cannot visualise Society without a
   concentration of the State." Yet this "is to overlook the fact that Man
   lived in Societies for thousands of years before the State had been
   heard of" and that "large numbers of people [have] lived in communes
   and free federations." These were not states as the state "is only one
   of the forms assumed by society in the course of history. Why then make
   no distinction between what is permanent and what is accidental?"
   [Kropotkin, The State: Its Historic Role, pp. 9-10] Similarly, the
   axioms of capitalist economics not withstanding, capitalism is but
   latest of a series of economies. Just as serfdom replaced slavery and
   capitalism replaced serfdom, so free (associated) labour can replace
   hired labour. As Proudhon noted, the "period through which we are now
   passing . . . is distinguished by a special characteristic, - WAGES."
   Capitalism, this system of wage-labour, has not always existed nor need
   it continue. Thus "the radical vice of political economy", namely
   "affirming as a definitive state a transitory condition - namely, the
   division of society into patricians and proletares." [System of
   Economic Contradictions, p. 198 and p. 67] Anarchists seek to make that
   transitory condition shorter rather than longer.

   Ultimately, a free society based on self-managed communities and
   associated labour is, in many ways, a natural evolution of tendencies
   within existing society. For example, the means of production can only
   be used collectively, so suggesting that relations of equality and
   freedom based on associations of workers are a sensible alternative to
   ones based on hierarchy, exploitation and oppression based on masters
   and servants. It is the struggle against those oppressive social
   relationships which creates the very associations (workplace strike
   assemblies) which could expropriate the workplaces and make that
   possibility a reality.

   So an anarchist society will not be created overnight nor without links
   to the past, and so it will initially be based on structures created in
   social struggle (i.e. created within but against capitalism and the
   state) and will be marked with the ideas that inspired and developed
   within that struggle. For example, the anarchist collectives in Spain
   were organised in a bottom-up manner, similar to the way the C.N.T.
   (the anarcho-syndicalist labour union) was organised before the
   revolution. In this sense, anarchy is not some distant goal but rather
   an expression of working class struggle. The creation of alternatives
   to the current hierarchical, oppressive, exploitative and alienated
   society is a necessary part of the struggle and the maintaining of your
   liberty and humanity in the insane world of hierarchical society. As
   such, an anarchist society will be the generalisation of the various
   types of "anarchy in action" created in the various struggles against
   all forms of oppression and exploitation (see [1]section I.2.3).

   This means that how an anarchist society would look like and work is
   not independent of the specific societies it is created from nor the
   means used to create it. In other words, an anarchist society will
   reflect the economic conditions inherited from capitalism, the social
   struggles which preceded it and the ideas which existed within that
   struggle as modified by the practical needs of any given situation.
   Therefore the vision of a free society indicated in this section of the
   FAQ is not some sort of abstraction which will be created overnight. If
   anarchists did think that then we would rightly be called utopian. No,
   an anarchist society is the outcome of social struggle, self-activity
   which helps to create a mass movement which contains individuals who
   can think for themselves and are willing and able to take
   responsibility for their own lives.

   So, when reading this section please remember that this is not a
   blueprint but only possible suggestions of what anarchy would look
   like. It is designed to provoke thought and indicate that an anarchist
   society is possible. We hope that our arguments and ideas presented in
   this section will inspire more debate and discussion of how a free
   society could work and, equally as important, help to inspire the
   struggle which will create that society. After all, anarchists desire
   to build the new world in the shell of the old. Unless we have some
   idea of what that new society will be like it is difficult to
   pre-figure it in our activities today! A point not lost on Kropotkin
   who argued that it is difficult to build "without extremely careful
   consideration beforehand, based on the study of social life, of what
   and how we want to build -- we must reject [Proudhon's] slogan [that
   "in demolishing we shall build"] . . . and declare: 'in building we
   shall demolish.'" [Conquest of Bread, p. 173f] More recently, Noam
   Chomsky argued that "[a]lternatives to existing forms of hierarchy,
   domination, private power and social control certainly exist in
   principle. . . But to make them realistic will require a great deal of
   committed work, including the work of articulating them clearly." [Noam
   Chomsky, Turning the Tide, p. 250] This section of the FAQ can be
   considered as a contribution to the articulating of libertarian
   alternatives to existing society, of what we want to build for the
   future.

   We are not afraid that many will argue that much of the vision we
   present in this section of the FAQ is utopian. Perhaps they are right,
   but, as Oscar Wilde once said:

     "A map of the world that does not include Utopia is not worth
     glancing at, for it leaves out the one country at which Humanity is
     always landing. And when Humanity lands there, it looks out and,
     seeing a better country, sets sail. Progress is the realisation of
     Utopias." [The Soul of Man Under Socialism, p. 1184]

   However, we have attempted to be as practical as we are visionary,
   presenting realistic problems as well as presenting evidence for our
   solutions to these problems from real life where possible, rather than
   present a series of impossible assumptions which dismiss possible
   problems by definition. It is better to consider the worse possible
   cases for if they do not appear then nothing has been lost and if they
   do at least we have a starting point for possible solutions. So, all in
   all, we have tried to be practical utopians!

   We must stress, however, that anarchists do not want a "perfect"
   society (as is often associated with the term "utopia"). This would be
   as impossible as the neo-classical economic vision of perfect
   competition. Rather we want a free society and so one based on real
   human beings and so one with its own problems and difficulties. Our use
   of the word "utopia" should not be taken to imply that anarchists
   assume away all problems and argue that an anarchist society would be
   ideal and perfect. No society has ever been perfect and no society ever
   will be. All we argue is that an anarchist society will have fewer
   problems than those before and be better to live within. Anyone looking
   for perfection should look elsewhere. Anyone looking for a better, but
   still human and so imperfect, world may find in anarchism a potential
   end for their quest.

   So anarchists are realistic in their hopes and dreams. We do not
   conjure up hopes that cannot achieved but rather base our visions in an
   analysis of what is wrong with society today and a means of changing
   the world for the better. And even if some people call us utopians, we
   shrug off the accusation with a smile. After all, dreams are important,
   not only because they often the source of change in reality but because
   of the hope they express:

     "People may . . . call us dreamers . . . They fail to see that
     dreams are also a part of the reality of life, that life without
     dreams would be unbearable. No change in our way of life would be
     possible without dreams and dreamers. The only people who are never
     disappointed are those who never hope and never try to realise their
     hope." [Rudolf Rocker, The London Years, p. 95]

   One last point. We must point out here that we are discussing the
   social and economic structures of areas within which the inhabitants
   are predominately anarchists. It is obviously the case that areas in
   which the inhabitants are not anarchists will take on different forms
   depending upon the ideas that dominate there. Hence, assuming the end
   of the current state structure, we could see anarchist communities
   along with statist ones (capitalist or socialist) and these communities
   taking different forms depending on what their inhabitants want --
   communist to individualist communities in the case of anarchist ones,
   state socialist to private state communities in the statist areas, ones
   based on religious sects and so on. As Malatesta argued, anarchists
   "must be intransigent in our opposition to all capitalist imposition
   and exploitation, and tolerant of all social concepts which prevail in
   different human groupings, so long as they do not threaten the equal
   rights and freedom of others." [Errico Malatesta: His Life and Ideas,
   p. 174] Thus we respect the wishes of others to experiment and live
   their own lives as they see fit, while encouraging those in capitalist
   and other statist communities to rise in revolution against their
   masters and join the free federation of the anarchist community.
   Needless to say, we do not discuss non-anarchist communities here as it
   is up to non-anarchists to present their arguments in favour of their
   kind of statism.

   So remember that we are not arguing that everyone will live in an
   anarchist way in a free society. Far from it. There will be pockets of
   unfreedom around, simply because the development of ideas varies from
   area to area. Anarchists, needless to say, are against forcing people
   to become anarchists (how can you force someone to be free?) Our aim is
   to encourage those subject to authority to free themselves and to work
   with them to create an anarchist society but, obviously, how successful
   we are at this will vary. We can, therefore, expect areas of freedom to
   co-exist with areas dominated by, say, state socialism, religion or
   capitalism just as we can expect to see different kinds of anarchism
   co-existing.

   However, it would be a mistake to assume that just because there are
   many choices of community available that it automatically makes a
   society an anarchist one. For example, the modern world boasts over 200
   different states. For most of them, individuals can leave and join
   another if it will let them. There is no world government as such. This
   does not make this series of states an anarchy. Similarly, a system
   based on different corporations is not an anarchy either, nor would be
   one based on a series of company towns and neither would a
   (quasi-feudal or neo-feudal?) system based on a multitude of landlords
   who hire their land and workplaces to workers in return for rent. The
   nature of the associations is just as important as their voluntary
   nature. As Kropotkin argued, the "communes of the next revolution will
   not only break down the state and substitute free federation for
   parliamentary rule; they will part with parliamentary rule within the
   commune itself . . . They will be anarchist within the commune as they
   will be anarchist outside it." [Selected Writings on Anarchism and
   Revolution, p. 132] Hence an anarchist society is one that is freely
   joined and left, is internally non-hierarchical and non-oppressive and
   non-exploitative. Thus anarchist communities may co-exist with
   non-anarchist ones but this does not mean the non-anarchist ones are in
   any way anarchistic or libertarian.

   To conclude. Anarchists, to state the blindly obvious, do not aim for
   chaos, anarchy in the popular sense of the word (George Orwell once
   noted how one right-wing author "use[d] 'Anarchism' indifferently with
   'anarchy', which is a hardly more correct use of words than saying that
   a Conservative is one who makes jam." [Op. Cit., p. 298]). Nor do
   anarchists reject any discussion of what a free society would be like
   (such a rejection is usually based on the somewhat spurious grounds
   that you cannot prescribe what free people would do). In fact,
   anarchists have quite strong opinions on the basic outlines of a free
   society, always premised on the assumption that these are guidelines
   only. These suggestions are based on libertarian principles,
   developments in the class struggle and a keen awareness of what is
   wrong with class and hierarchical systems (and so what not to do!).

   When reading this section of the FAQ remember that an anarchist society
   will be created by the autonomous actions of the mass of the
   population, not by anarchists writing books about it. This means any
   real anarchist society will make many mistakes and develop in ways we
   cannot predict. This implies that this is only a series of suggestions
   on how things could work in an anarchist society -- it is not a
   blueprint of any kind. All anarchists can do is present what we believe
   and why we think such a vision is both desirable and viable. We hope
   that our arguments and ideas presented in this section of the FAQ will
   inspire more debate and discussion of how a free society would work. In
   addition, and equally as important, we hope it will help inspire the
   struggle that will create that society.

References

   1. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/secI2.html#seci23
