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INDEX
INDEX..............................................................................................................................................................................................1 ***IMPORTANT QUOTE***..............................................................................................................................................................3 ***SHELL***.....................................................................................................................................................................................4 Shell 1/.............................................................................................................................................................................................4 Shell 2/.............................................................................................................................................................................................5 Shell 3/.............................................................................................................................................................................................6 Shell 4/.............................................................................................................................................................................................7 THE ANARCHIST FAQ 06...............................................................................................................................................................7 A2 Gendered language....................................................................................................................................................................8 ***ANARCHY SOLVENCY***..........................................................................................................................................................9 Anarchy Solvency1/.........................................................................................................................................................................9 Anarchy Solvency 2/......................................................................................................................................................................10 Anarchy Solvency 3/......................................................................................................................................................................11 Anarchy Solvency 4/......................................................................................................................................................................12 Anarchy Solvency 5/......................................................................................................................................................................13 THE ANARCHIST FAQ 06 ............................................................................................................................................................13 Anarchy Solvency 6/......................................................................................................................................................................14 Anarchy Solvency..........................................................................................................................................................................15 Anarchy Solvency..........................................................................................................................................................................16 THE ANARCHIST FAQ 06.............................................................................................................................................................16 Anarchy Solves- Empirical Evidence.............................................................................................................................................17 Anarchy Solves Capitalism............................................................................................................................................................18 Individual Action Key......................................................................................................................................................................19 ***LINKS***....................................................................................................................................................................................20 State Links 1/.................................................................................................................................................................................20 THE ANARCHIST FAQ 2k6...........................................................................................................................................................20 THE ANARCHIST FAQ 2k6...........................................................................................................................................................20 State Links 2/.................................................................................................................................................................................21 THE ANARCHIST FAQ 06.............................................................................................................................................................21 State Links 3/.................................................................................................................................................................................22 THE ANARCHIST FAQ 06.............................................................................................................................................................22 THE ANARCHIST FAQ 06.............................................................................................................................................................22 Capitalism Links1/..........................................................................................................................................................................23 THE ANARCHIST FAQ 06.............................................................................................................................................................23 THE ANARCHIST FAQ 06.............................................................................................................................................................23 THE ANARCHIST FAQ 06.............................................................................................................................................................23 Capitalism Links 2/.........................................................................................................................................................................24 THE ANARCHIST FAQ 06.............................................................................................................................................................24 Capitalism Links 3/.........................................................................................................................................................................25 Capitalism Links- Unemployment 1/...............................................................................................................................................26 THE ANARCHIST FAQ 06 ............................................................................................................................................................26 Capitalism Collapse Inevitable 1/...................................................................................................................................................27 THE ANARCHIST FAQ 2k6...........................................................................................................................................................27 IMF/World Bank Link......................................................................................................................................................................28 ***IMPACTS***..............................................................................................................................................................................29 Impacts- Negation of Humnity1/.....................................................................................................................................................29 Impacts- Negation of Humnity 2/....................................................................................................................................................30 Impacts- Negation of Humnity 3/....................................................................................................................................................31 THE ANARCHIST FAQ 06.............................................................................................................................................................31 Impacts- War and Destruction.......................................................................................................................................................32 MARTIN 1990................................................................................................................................................................................32 Impacts- Environmental Destruction..............................................................................................................................................33 Impacts- Violence..........................................................................................................................................................................34
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Impacts- Freedom..........................................................................................................................................................................35 Impacts- Racism, Sexism, Homophobia........................................................................................................................................36 Racism Impacts.............................................................................................................................................................................37 Biopower Impact............................................................................................................................................................................38 Dehum Impacts..............................................................................................................................................................................39 Capitalism Impacts- General..........................................................................................................................................................40 Capitalism Impacts- General..........................................................................................................................................................41 Capitalism Impacts- Freedom........................................................................................................................................................42 Capitalism Impacts- Dehumanization.............................................................................................................................................43 Capitalism Impacts- Slavery..........................................................................................................................................................44 Capitalism Impacts- Racism, Sexism, Homophobia.......................................................................................................................45 Capitalism Impacts- Racism, Sexism, Homophobia.......................................................................................................................46 ***PUNISHMENT AD-ON***..........................................................................................................................................................47 PUNISHMENT ADD-On.................................................................................................................................................................47 THE ANARCHIST FAQ 2k6...........................................................................................................................................................47 SULLIVAN IN 1980........................................................................................................................................................................47 Punishment Ad-on.........................................................................................................................................................................48 THE ANARCHIST FAQ 2k6...........................................................................................................................................................48 Punishment Extensions.................................................................................................................................................................49 SULLIVAN IN 1980........................................................................................................................................................................49 Punishment Extensions.................................................................................................................................................................50 CHANDLER IN 2003......................................................................................................................................................................50 Punishment Extensions.................................................................................................................................................................51 SULLIVAN IN 1980........................................................................................................................................................................51 FINKIELKRAUT in 2000................................................................................................................................................................51 ****ANSWERS TO***.....................................................................................................................................................................52 A2 Perm.........................................................................................................................................................................................52 THE ANARCHIST FAQ 2k6...........................................................................................................................................................52 THE ANARCHIST FAQ 2k6...........................................................................................................................................................52 A2 Perm.........................................................................................................................................................................................53 A2 Perm.........................................................................................................................................................................................54 A2 State = Freedom.......................................................................................................................................................................55 THE ANARCHIST FAQ 06.............................................................................................................................................................55 A2 Anarchy = violence...................................................................................................................................................................56 THE ANARCHIST FAQ 2k6...........................................................................................................................................................56 A2 Anarchy = violence...................................................................................................................................................................57 A2 Anarchy = Crazy ......................................................................................................................................................................58 A2 We break down capitalism........................................................................................................................................................59 THE ANARCHIST FAQ 2k6...........................................................................................................................................................59 A2 State = Protection.....................................................................................................................................................................60 THE ANARCHIST FAQ 2k6...........................................................................................................................................................60 A2 Anarchy is against human nature.............................................................................................................................................61 A2 Natural Capitalism....................................................................................................................................................................62 A2 Democracy Good......................................................................................................................................................................63 THE ANARCHIST FAQ 2k6...........................................................................................................................................................63 THE ANARCHIST FAQ 2k6...........................................................................................................................................................63 A2 Individualized Action Key..........................................................................................................................................................64 THE ANARCHIST FAQ 2k6...........................................................................................................................................................64 A2 Political Reforms Good.............................................................................................................................................................65 THE ANARCHIST FAQ 2k6...........................................................................................................................................................65 Anarchy FYI...................................................................................................................................................................................66 ****AFF ANSWRS***......................................................................................................................................................................67 Notes.............................................................................................................................................................................................67 Perms............................................................................................................................................................................................68 Status Quo Solves.........................................................................................................................................................................69
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***IMPORTANT QUOTE***
THEY CAN SHOOT US NOW. GO AHEAD. THEY CAN PUT US IN JAIL. FEEL FREE. THEY CAN BEAT US. DO IT, IVE PAID FOR BETTER. THEY CAN THROW US OUT OF FIRST-FLOOR WINDOWS. BUT WE CAN FLY. THEY CAN SAY HOW IT AINT ON THEIR MONOPOLY MEDIA. PLEASE DO. THEY CAN EQUATE OUR JUSTICE WITH THEIR VIOLENCE. OF COURSE THEY WILL. THEY CAN DRAFT IN LIBERALS TO STEAL IDEAS. YOU KNOW THEYLL TRY. THEY CAN BAN US. STOP US. FIGHT US. SCARE US. KILL US. THEY CAN CLOSE AIRPORTS, STATIONS, ROADS AND MINDS. THEY CAN PROVOKE AND SCHEME. CHEAT AND PROSPER. DISTORT AND DESTROY. THEY CAN CREATE LAWS, MORE LAWS, AND BY-LAWS TO SUIT THEMSELVES. THEY CAN BUILD BIGGER AND BETTER WEAPONS TO ATTACK US WITH AND TO ENRICH THEIR PALS. THEY CAN SELL US CRAP, SELL US FEAR AND SELL US OUT. THEY CAN CALL US CONSUMERS NOT CITIZENS. APATHETIC NOT ANGRY. DISINTERESTED NOT DILLUSIONED. THEY CAN MAKE US DESPAIR AND WEEP, FEAR AND LOATH, RUN AND HIDE. THEY CAN TAKE OUR WORK, OUR MONEY AND OUR LIVES. BUT WE COME WITH JUSTICE AND FIRE. WE COME WITH HONOUR AND IDEAS. WE COME WITH DECENCY AND DESIRE. WE COME NOW AND WE COME AS UNSTOPPABLE AS THE RAIN. THEY CAN SHOOT US NOW. GO AHEAD.ADAM PORTER.
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***SHELL*** Shell 1/
OBSERVATION ONE: TEXT THE UNITED STATES FEDERAL GOVERNMENT SHOULD BE DISBANDED. OBSERVATION TWO: THE COUNTERPLAN IS LEGITIMATE A: THE COUNTERPLAN IS NOT TOPICAL BECAUSE IT DOES NOT INCREASE THE NUMBER OF PEOPLE SERVING B: THE COUNTERPLANS USE OF FIAT IS LEGITIMATE, GERMANE AND PREDICTABLE BECAUSE IT TESTS THE EFFICACY OF GOVERNMENT ACTIONS C: THE COUNTERPLAN IS NO MORE ABUSIVE THAN ANY CRITIQUE ALTERNATIVE. IN FACT, IT IS FAR MORE FAIR TO THE AFFIRMATIVE BECAUSE THEY HAVE THE ABILITY TO RUN TRANSITION ARGUMENTS D: THE COUNTERPLAN COMPETES BECAUSE IT SOLVES ALL POTENTIAL CASE HARMS AND AVOIDS THE DISADVANTAGES OF STATE ACTION E: THE COUNTERPLAN COMPETES BECAUSE IT IS IMPOSSIBLE FOR A NON-EXISTENT STATE TO IMPLEMENT THE AFFIRMATIVE PLAN F: THE COUNTERPLAN COMPETES BECAUSE ANY POLICY THAT INCLUDES STATE PROTECTION ACTION LINKS TO OUR HIERARCHY DISADS AND IS LESS EFFECTIVE THAN THE COUNTERPLAN IN SOLVING OUR IMPACTS
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G: THE COUNTERPLAN ALSO COMPETES BECAUSE THE PLAN AND ANY PERMUTATION LINK TO THE DISADVANTAGES OF REFORMIST, ACCOMMODATIONIST POLITICS
Louis Rene Beres, Professor, International Law, Purdue University, Self-Determination, International Law and Survival on Planet Earth, ARIZONA JOURNAL OF INTERNATIONAL AND COMPARATIVE LAW v. 11, Spring 1994, p. 5--6.
What do we really seek in world affairs? If it is authentic peace and an end to war crimes 11 and crimes against humanity, 12 then the expectation of self-determination must be balanced against the needs of planetization, of a new world order 13 in which the commonality and community of the entire human species takes precedence over the lethal calls of separatism, ethnic rivalry, and militaristic nationalism. Poised to consider that national liberation can itself be the source of armed conflict and murder, individuals everywhere must learn to affirm their significance outside the herd, as persons rather than as members. The herd is always potentially dangerous, whether it be the herd of a criminal band, a discontented nationality, or a State. 14 Before the residents of this [*6] endangered planet can discover safety in world politics, they will have to discover power and purpose within themselves. In the end, humankind will rise or fall on the strength of a new kind of loyalty, one that recognizes the contrived character of national, religious, and ethnic differences and the primacy of human solidarity. Although this kind of loyalty is certainly difficult to imagine, especially when one considers that organization into and belonging within competitive herds still offers most people a desperately needed sense of self-worth, there seems to be no alternative. Whether we seek an accommodation of Palestinians 15 and Israelis 16 in the Middle East, of Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland, or of different nationalities in Eastern Europe, in the former USSR, or in the former Yugoslavia, the only real hope lies in getting those involved to see themselves as individuals.
OBSERVATION THREE: SOLVENCY AND ADVANTAGES FIRST, THE DESTRUCTION OF STATISM AND HUMAN SURVIVAL CAN ONLY BE ASSURED IF A VANGUARD OF INDIVIDUALS REJECT THEIR TIES TO THE STATE
Louis Rene Beres, Professor, International Law, Purdue University, Self-Determination, International Law and Survival on Planet Earth, ARIZONA JOURNAL OF INTERNATIONAL AND COMPARATIVE LAW v. 11, Spring 1994, p. 7-8.
To fulfill the expectations of a new global society, one that would erect effective barriers around humankind's most murderous forms of self-determination, 17 the essential initiatives must be undertaken within States. In this connection, national leaders can never be expected to initiate the essential changes on their own. Rather, the new evolutionary vanguard must -- in the fashion of the growing worldwide movement against nuclear weapons and nuclear war 18 -- grow out of informed publics throughout the world. Such a vanguard [*8] must aim to end the separation of State interests from those of its citizens and from those of humanity as a whole. This vanguard must grow out of searches for individual self-determination. But the journey from the herd to selfhood begins in myth and ends in doubt. For this journey to succeed, the individual traveling along the route must learn to substitute a system of uncertainties for what he has always believed; learn to tolerate and encourage doubt as a replacement for the comforting "securities" of Statism. Induced to live against the grain of our civilization, he must become not only conscious of his singularity, but also satisfied with it. Organically separated from "civilization," he becomes aware of the forces that undermine it, forces that offer him a last remaining chance for both meaning and survival.
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SECOND, OUR DESTRUCTION IS INEVITABLE UNLESS WE ELIMINATE HEIRARCHY: (1) SOCIAL BREAKDOWN; (2) ECO-DOOM; (3) NUCLEAR ANNIHILATION AN ANARCHIST FAQ, Introduction, primarily by Iain McKay, Gary Elkin, Dave Neal and Ed Boraas, version 11.1, January 10, 2005. Available from the World Wide Web at: www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/1931/secAint.html,
accessed 5/10/05.
Modern civilisation faces three potentially catastrophic crises: (1) social breakdown, a shorthand term for rising rates of poverty, homelessness, crime, violence, alienation, drug and alcohol abuse, social isolation, political apathy, dehumanisation, the deterioration of community structures of self-help and mutual aid, etc.; (2) destruction of the planet's delicate ecosystems on which all complex forms of life depend; and (3) the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, particularly nuclear weapons. Orthodox opinion, including that of Establishment "experts," mainstream media, and politicians, generally regards these crises as separable, each having its own causes and therefore capable of being dealt with on a piecemeal basis, in isolation from the other two. Obviously, however, this "orthodox" approach isn't working, since the problems in question are getting worse. Unless some better approach is taken soon, we are clearly headed for disaster, either from catastrophic war, ecological Armageddon, or a descent into urban savagery -- or all of the above. Anarchism offers a unified and coherent way of making sense of these crises, by tracing them to a common source. This source is the principle of hierarchical authority, which underlies the major institutions of all "civilised" societies, whether capitalist or "communist." Anarchist analysis therefore starts from the fact that all of our major institutions are in the form of hierarchies, i.e. organisations that concentrate power at the top of a pyramidal structure, such as corporations, government bureaucracies, armies, political parties, religious organisations, universities, etc. It then goes on to show how the authoritarian relations inherent in such hierarchies negatively affect individuals, their society, and culture. In the first part of this FAQ (sections A to E) we will present the anarchist analysis of hierarchical authority and its negative effects in greater detail.
THIRD, THE STATE IS RESPONSIBLE FOR ALL PROBLEMS, INCLUDING WAR, GENOCIDE, AND OPPRESSION
Brian Martin, Associate Professor, Science, Technology, and Society, University of Wollongong, UPROOTING WAR, 1990. Available from the World Wide Web at: www.uow.edu.au/arts/sts/bmartin/pubs/90uw/uw07.html, accessed 2/1/05.
Is the state system really so bad? War is the most obvious indictment of the system, and this alone should be enough to justify questioning the state. As wars have become more destructive, there is no sign that any steps to re-examine or transform the state system are being taken by state elites. This should not be surprising. War is not simply a by-product of the state system, to be moderated and regulated when it becomes too dangerous to populations. Rather, war is part and parcel of the state system, so the destructiveness of war makes little difference. State elites (and many others) see the world as a state-structured world, and all action is premised on this perspective. War is the external manifestation of state violence. w.' One of the most telling indictments of the state system is found in Leo Kuper's book Genocide. Kuper documents the most horrific exterminations in this century, including the killing of the Jews by the Nazis, the massacre of the Bangladeshis by the Pakistan army in 1971 and the extermination in Cambodia beginning in 1975. What is damning of the state system is the reluctance of governments (and of that assemblage of state actors, the United Nations) to intervene against even the most well documented genocidal killing. The reason for this reluctance is the concern for the autonomy of the state. In short, maintaining the 'integrity' of the state system is more important for state elites than intervening against genocide. There are many other social problems caused, sustained or aggravated by the state, including suppression of dissent, state support for corporate elites, and the activities of spy agencies and secret police. These problems stem essentially from the system of unequal power and privilege which the state both is part of and sustains. The state is not the only way to embody and sustain unequal power and privilege: it is a particular way involving bureaucracies for administration and military forces for defending against external and internal enemies.
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FINALLY, THE STATE IS THE UTTER NEGATION OF HUMANITY- THE STATE WILL DO ANYTHING TO PROTECCT ITSELF AND ONLY BRINGS HUMANITY TOGETHER TO DESTROY CONQUER AND ENSLAVE THE REST
THE ANARCHIST FAQ 06
[13 May 2006, http://www.infoshop.org/faq/secB2.html, accessed July 10, 2006, Iain McKay, Gary Elkin, Dave Neal and Ed Boraas, //wfi-pinto]
Such is the nature of the state that any act, no matter how evil, becomes good if it helps forward the interests of the state and the minorities it protects. As Bakunin put it: "The State . . . is the most flagrant, the most cynical, and the most complete negation of humanity. It shatters the universal solidarity of all men [and women] on the earth, and brings some of them into association only for the purpose of destroying, conquering, and enslaving all the rest . . . "This flagrant negation of humanity which constitutes the very essence of the State is, from the standpoint of the State, its supreme duty and its greatest virtue . . . Thus, to offend, to oppress, to despoil, to plunder, to assassinate or enslave one's fellowman [or woman] is ordinarily regarded as a crime. In public life, on the other hand, from the standpoint of patriotism, when these things are done for the greater glory of the State, for the preservation or the extension of its power, it is all transformed into duty and virtue. And this virtue, this duty, are obligatory for each patriotic citizen; everyone if supposed to exercise them not against foreigners only but against one's own fellow citizens . . . whenever the welfare of the State demands it.
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A2 Gendered language
NOTE: THIS ONLY APPLIES TO THE ANARCHIST FAQ USE OF MAN IS A CONVENTION THAT IS APPROPRIATELY CHANGING--WE HAVE CORRECTED ITS USE WHEREEVER POSSIBLE AN ANARCHIST FAQ 2005, Introduction, primarily by Iain McKay, Gary Elkin, Dave Neal and Ed Boraas, version 11.1
2005. Available from the World Wide Web at: http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/1931/, accessed 5/10/05.
, January 10,
One last point. Language has changed a lot over the years and this applies to anarchist thinkers too. The use of the term "man" to refer to humanity is one such change. Needless to say, in today's world such usage is inappropriate as it effectively ignores half the human race. For this reason the FAQ has tried to be gender neutral. However, this awareness is relatively recent and many anarchists (even the female ones like Emma Goldman) used the term "man" to refer to humanity as a whole. When we are quoting past comrades who use "man" in this way, it obviously means humanity as a whole rather than the male sex. Where possible, we add "woman", "women", "her" and so on but if this would result in making the quote unreadable, we have left it as it stands. We hope this makes our position clear.
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Anarchy Solvency 2/
Equality is necessary for true individual liberty to flourish. Anarchism allows for equality in terms of opportunity which allows for humans to attain their own potential and march by the beat of their own drum. Nothing else solves this
Iain McKay et al, Gary Elkin, Dave Neal and Ed Boraas; The Anarchist FAQ, May 13, 2006; http://www.infoshop.org/faq/secA2.html; Accessed July 10, 2006; // WFI- DR
As mentioned in 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 recognize 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 standardize so much of life (see George Reitzer's The McDonaldisation of Society on why capitalism is driven towards standardization 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 recognize 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 leveling, 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]
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Anarchy Solvency 3/
Anarchy would not facilitate the natural differences of humans to recreate hierarchical power, but social equality would allow for integration of functions to sustain freedom
Iain McKay et al, Gary Elkin, Dave Neal and Ed Boraas; The Anarchist FAQ, May 13, 2006; http://www.infoshop.org/faq/secA2.html; Accessed July 10, 2006; // WFI- DR
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 monopolize 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 realization 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, laborer 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."
Solidarity is the key to evolution of the human species and is necessary for individuals to assure the wellbeing of each other without sacrificing their own liberties
Iain McKay et al, Gary Elkin, Dave Neal and Ed Boraas; The Anarchist FAQ, May 13, 2006; http://www.infoshop.org/faq/secA2.html; Accessed July 10, 2006; // WFI- DR
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 . . . cooperation -- 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]
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We must reject all hierarchy, which embodies domination and exploitation, and represses dissent and rebellion
Iain McKay et al, Gary Elkin, Dave Neal and Ed Boraas; The Anarchist FAQ, May 13, 2006; http://www.infoshop.org/faq/secA2.html; Accessed July 10, 2006; // WFI- DR
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: 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.
HUMAN NATURE ARGUMENTS ARE BASED ON INCOMPLETE HUMANS UNDER THE STATE; ONLY THROUGH ANARCHY CAN WE SEE TRUE HUMAN NATURE
Iain McKay et al, Gary Elkin, Dave Neal and Ed Boraas; The Anarchist FAQ, May 13, 2006; http://www.infoshop.org/faq/secA2.html; Accessed July 10, 2006; // WFI- DR
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 today, 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]
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DISMANTLING CAPITALISM AND HIERARCHY IS THE SOLUTION TO SEXISM, RACISM, AND HOMOPHOBIA
THE ANARCHIST FAQ 06
(Iain McKay, Gary Elkin, Dave Neal and Ed Boraas), 13 May 2006, http://www.infoshop.org/faq/secB1.html, accessed July 10, 2006//WFI KEC
The long-term solution is obvious: dismantle capitalism and the hierarchical, economically classstratified society with which it is bound up. By getting rid of capitalist oppression and exploitation and its consequent imperialism and poverty, we will also eliminate the need for ideologies of racial or sexual superiority used to justify the oppression of one group by another or to divide and weaken the working class. However, struggles against bigotry cannot be left until after a revolution. If they were two things are likely: one, such a revolution would be unlikely to happen and, two, if it were then these problems would more than likely remain in the new society created by it. Therefore the negative impacts of inequality can and must be fought in the here and now, like any form of hierarchy. Indeed, as we discuss in more detail section B.1.6 by doing so we make life a bit better in the here and now as well as bringing the time when such inequalities are finally ended nearer. Only this can ensure that we can all live as free and equal individuals in a world without the blights of sexism, racism, homophobia or religious hatred.
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Society currently sits with a wealthy elite controlling the power needed to coerce and suppress the majority into a functional means to their own pleasure. Anarchy would allow for social reorganization to topple this hierarchy
Iain McKay et al, Gary Elkin, Dave Neal and Ed Boraas; The Anarchist FAQ, May 13, 2006; http://www.infoshop.org/faq/secA2.html; Accessed July 10, 2006; // WFI- DR
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 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 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]
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Solidarity is necessary to resist hierarchy
Iain McKay et al, Gary Elkin, Dave Neal and Ed Boraas; The Anarchist FAQ, May 13, 2006; http://www.infoshop.org/faq/secA2.html; Accessed July 10, 2006; // WFI- DR
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]
Anarchy will end inequality, injustice, homelessness, nonpossession, and provide wealth for all
Iain McKay et al, Gary Elkin, Dave Neal and Ed Boraas; The Anarchist FAQ, May 13, 2006; http://www.infoshop.org/faq/secA2.html; Accessed July 10, 2006; // WFI- DR
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 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]
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Anarchy is the only way for freedom, uniqueness, and liberty
Iain McKay et al, Gary Elkin, Dave Neal and Ed Boraas; The Anarchist FAQ, May 13, 2006; http://www.infoshop.org/faq/secA2.html; Accessed July 10, 2006; // WFI- DR
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?
INDIVIDUALS EXERCISING THEIR JUDGMENT AND FREEDOM ALLOWS FOR CONSTANT SCRUTINY AND THUS INCREASES PERFORMANCE
THE ANARCHIST FAQ 06
(Iain McKay, Gary Elkin, Dave Neal and Ed Boraas), 13 May 2006, http://www.infoshop.org/faq/secB1.html, accessed July 10, 2006//WFI KEC
It is, in other words, the difference between taking part in a decision and listening to alternative viewpoints and experts ("natural influence") before making your mind up and having a decision made for you by a separate group of individuals (who may or may not be elected) because that is their role in an organisation or society. In the former, the individual exercises their judgement and freedom (i.e. is based on rational authority). In the latter, they are subjected to the wills of others, to hierarchical authority (i.e. is based on irrational authority). This is because rational authority "not only permits but requires constant scrutiny and criticism . . . it is always temporary, its acceptance depending on its performance." The source of irrational authority, on the other hand, "is always power over people . . . Power on the one side, fear on the other, are always the buttresses on which irrational authority is built." Thus former is based upon "equality" while the latter "is by its very nature based upon inequality." [Erich Fromm, Man for Himself, pp. 9-10]
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DEMOCRACIES WILL DECEND INTO DICTATORSHIPS BECAUSE THEY RELY ON THE ECONOMY FOR THEIR POWER
THE ANARCHIST FAQ 2k6
[13 May 2006, http://www.infoshop.org/faq/secB2.html, accessed July 10, 2006, Iain McKay, Gary Elkin, Dave Neal and Ed Boraas, //wfi-pinto]
Moreover, anarchists argue that "the political regime . . . is always an expression of the economic regime which exists at the heart of society." This means that regardless of how the state changes, it "continues to be shaped by the economic system, of which it is always the expression and, at the same time, the consecration and the sustaining force." Needless to say, there is not always an exact match and sometimes "the political regime of a country finds itself lagging behind the economic changes that are taking place, and in that case it will abruptly be set aside and remodelled in a way appropriate to the economic regime that has been established." [Kropotkin, Words of a Rebel, p. 118] At other times, the state can change its form to protect the economic system it is an expression of. Thus we see democracies turn to dictatorships in the face of popular revolts and movements. The most obvious examples of Pinochet's Chile, Franco's Spain, Mussolini's Italy and Hitler's Germany are all striking confirmations of Bakunin's comment that while "[n]o government could serve the economic interests of the bourgeoisie better than a republic," that class would "prefer . . . military dictatorship" if needed to crush "the revolts of the proletariat." [Bakunin on Anarchism, p. 417] However, as much as the state may change its form it still has certain characteristics which identify a social institution as a state. As such, we can say that, for anarchists, the state is marked by three things: 1) A "monopoly of violence" in a given territorial area; 2) This violence having a "professional," institutional nature; and 3) A hierarchical nature, centralisation of power and initiative into the hands of a few.
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THE DELEGATION OF POWER GIVES BUREAUCRACY POWER TO GOVERN PEOPLE -> MARGINALIZES PEOPLE AND DISEMPOWERS THEM
THE ANARCHIST FAQ 06
[13 May 2006, http://www.infoshop.org/faq/secB2.html, accessed July 10, 2006, Iain McKay, Gary Elkin, Dave Neal and Ed Boraas, //wfi-pinto]
As the state is the delegation of power into the hands of the few, it is obviously based on hierarchy. This delegation of power results in the elected people becoming isolated from the mass of people who elected them and outside of their control (see section B.2.4). In addition, as those elected are given power over a host of different issues and told to decide upon them, a bureaucracy soon develops around them to aid in their decision-making and enforce those decisions once they have been reached. However, this bureaucracy, due to its control of information and its permanency, soon has more power than the elected officials. Therefore "a highly complex state machine . . . leads to the formation of a class especially concerned with state management, which, using its acquired experience, begins to deceive the rest for its personal advantage." [Kropotkin, Selected Writings on Anarchism and Revolution, p. 61] This means that those who serve the people's (socalled) servant have more power than those they serve, just as the politician has more power than those who elected him. All forms of state-like (i.e. hierarchical) organisations inevitably spawn a bureaucracy about them. This bureaucracy soon becomes the de facto focal point of power in the structure, regardless of the official rules. This marginalisation and disempowerment of ordinary people (and so the empowerment of a bureaucracy) is the key reason for anarchist opposition to the state. Such an arrangement ensures that the individual is disempowered, subject to bureaucratic, authoritarian rule which reduces the person to an object or a number, not a unique individual with hopes, dreams, thoughts and feelings. As Proudhon forcefully argued: "To be GOVERNED is to be kept in sight, inspected, spied upon, directed, law-driven, numbered, enrolled, indoctrinated, preached at, controlled, estimated, valued, censured, commanded, by creatures who have neither the right, nor the wisdom, nor the virtue to do so . . . To be GOVERNED is to be at every operation, at every transaction, noted, registered, enrolled, taxed, stamped, measured, numbered, assessed, licensed, authorised, admonished, forbidden, reformed, corrected, punished. It is, under the pretext of public utility, and in the name of the general interest, to be placed under contribution, trained, ransomed, exploited, monopolised, extorted, squeezed, mystified, robbed; then, at the slightest resistance, the first word of complaint, to be repressed, fined, despised, harassed, tracked, abused, clubbed, disarmed, choked, imprisoned, judged, condemned, shot, deported, sacrificed, sold, betrayed; and, to crown it all, mocked, ridiculed, outraged, dishonoured. That is government; that is its justice; that is its morality." [General Idea of the Revolution, p. 294]
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EVEN IN INSTANCES TO HELP THE WORKING CLASS THE STATE WILL ONLY REINSCRIBE THE HEIRARCHY TO ENSURE DOMINATION OVER LABOR
THE ANARCHIST FAQ 06
[13 May 2006, http://www.infoshop.org/faq/secB2.html, accessed July 10, 2006, Iain McKay, Gary Elkin, Dave Neal and Ed Boraas, //wfi-pinto]
This suggests that there is a continuing tension and conflict between the efforts to establish, maintain, and spread the "free market" and the efforts to protect people and society from the consequences of its workings. Who wins this conflict depends on the relative strength of those involved (as does the actual reforms agreed to). Ultimately, what the state concedes, it can also take back. Thus the rise and fall of the welfare state -- granted to stop more revolutionary change (see section D.1.3), it did not fundamentally challenge the existence of wage labour and was useful as a means of regulating capitalism but was "reformed" (i.e. made worse, rather than better) when it conflicted with the needs of the capitalist economy and the ruling elite felt strong enough to do so. Of course, this form of state intervention does not change the nature nor role of the state as an instrument of minority power. Indeed, that nature cannot help but shape how the state tries to implement social protection and so if the state assumes functions it does so as much in the immediate interest of the capitalist class as in the interest of society in general. Even where it takes action under pressure from the general population or to try and mend the harm done by the capitalist market, its class and hierarchical character twists the results in ways useful primarily to the capitalist class or itself. This can be seen from how labour legislation is applied, for example. Thus even the "good" functions of the state are penetrated with and dominated by the state's hierarchical nature. As Malatesta forcefully put it: "The basic function of government . . . is always that of oppressing and exploiting the masses, of defending the oppressors and the exploiters . . . It is true that to these basic functions . . . other functions have been added in the course of history . . . hardly ever has a government existed . . . which did not combine with its oppressive and plundering activities others which were useful . . . to social life. But this does not detract from the fact that government is by nature oppressive . . . and that it is in origin and by its attitude, inevitably inclined to defend and strengthen the dominant class; indeed it confirms and aggravates the position . . . [I]t is enough to understand how and why it carries out these functions to find the practical evidence that whatever governments do is always motivated by the desire to dominate, and is always geared to defending, extending and perpetuating its privileges and those of the class of which it is both the representative and defender." [Op. Cit., pp. 23-4]
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CAPITALISM IS HIERARCHICAL AND THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN BOSSES AND WORKERS IS THAT OF A MASTER AND SERVANT
THE ANARCHIST FAQ 06
(Iain McKay, Gary Elkin, Dave Neal and Ed Boraas), 13 May 2006, http://www.infoshop.org/faq/secB1.html, accessed July 10, 2006//WFI KEC
You need only compare this to Proudhon's comments quoted in section B.1 to see that anarchists have long recognised that capitalism is, by its very nature, hierarchical. The worker is subjected to the authority of the boss during working hours (sometimes outside work too). As Noam Chomsky summarises, "a corporation, factory of business is the economic equivalent of fascism: decisions and control are strictly top-down." [Letters from Lexington, p. 127] The worker's choices are extremely limited, for most people it amounts to renting themselves out to a series of different masters (for a lucky few, the option of being a master is available). And master is the right word for, as David Ellerman reminds us, "[s]ociety seems to have 'covered up' in the popular consciousness the fact that the traditional name [for employer and employee] is 'master and servant.'" [Property and Contract in Economics, p. 103]
HIERARCHICAL CONTROL OF LABOR REMOVES WORKERS FROM THEIR WORK AND THEMSELVES, TAKING AWAY THEIR FREEDOM
THE ANARCHIST FAQ 06
(Iain McKay, Gary Elkin, Dave Neal and Ed Boraas), 13 May 2006, http://www.infoshop.org/faq/secB1.html, accessed July 10, 2006//WFI KEC
This hierarchical control of wage labour has the effect of alienating workers from their own work, and so from themselves. Workers no longer govern themselves during work hours and so are no longer free. And so, due to capitalism, there is "an oppression in the land," a "form of slavery" rooted in current "property institutions" which produces "a social war, inevitable so long as present legal-social conditions endure." [Voltairine de Cleyre, Op. Cit., pp. 54-5]
CAPITALISM VALUES PEOPLE AS THINGS AND REPLACES HUMAN VALUES WITH ECONOMIC LANGUAGE
THE ANARCHIST FAQ 06
(Iain McKay, Gary Elkin, Dave Neal and Ed Boraas), 13 May 2006, http://www.infoshop.org/faq/secB1.html, accessed July 10, 2006//WFI KEC
Capitalism only values a person as representing a certain amount of the commodity called "labour power," in other words, as a thing. Instead of being valued as an individual -- a unique human being with intrinsic moral and spiritual worth -- only one's price tag counts. This replacement of human relationships by economic ones soon results in the replacement of human values by economic ones, giving us an "ethics" of the account book, in which people are valued by how much they earn. It also leads, as Murray Bookchin argues, to a debasement of human values: "So deeply rooted is the market economy in our minds that its grubby language has replaced our most hallowed moral and spiritual expressions. We now 'invest' in our children, marriages, and personal relationships, a term that is equated with words like 'love' and 'care.' We live in a world of 'trade-offs' and we ask for the 'bottom line' of any emotional 'transaction.' We use the terminology of contracts rather than that of loyalties and spiritual affinities." [The Modern Crisis, p. 79]
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CAPITALISM MAKES WORKERS INTO COMMODITIES WITH NO SELF, THEY IN TURN TREAT OTHERS IN THE SAME WAY
THE ANARCHIST FAQ 06
(Iain McKay, Gary Elkin, Dave Neal and Ed Boraas), 13 May 2006, http://www.infoshop.org/faq/secB1.html, accessed July 10, 2006//WFI KEC
The debasement of the individual in the workplace, where so much time is spent, necessarily affects a person's self-image, which in turn carries over into the way he or she acts in other areas of life. If one is regarded as a commodity at work, one comes to regard oneself and others in that way also. Thus all social relationships -- and so, ultimately, all individuals -- are commodified. In capitalism, literally nothing is sacred -- "everything has its price" -- be it dignity, self-worth, pride, honour -- all become commodities up for grabs. Such debasement produces a number of social pathologies. "Consumerism" is one example which can be traced directly to the commodification of the individual under capitalism. To quote Fromm again, "Things have no self, and men who have become things [i.e. commodities on the labour market] can have no self." [Op. Cit., p. 143]
2006;
http://www.infoshop.org/faq/secB4.html; Accessed July 10, 2006; // WFI- DR
As we've seen in the discussion of hierarchy (sections A.2.8 and B.1), all forms of authoritarian control depend on "coercive molestation" -- i.e. the use or threat of sanctions. This is definitely the case in company hierarchies under capitalism. Bob Black describes the authoritarian nature of capitalism as follows: "[T]he place where [adults] pass the most time and submit to the closest control is at work. Thus . . . it's apparent that the source of the greatest direct duress experienced by the ordinary adult is not the state but rather the business that employs him. Your foreman or supervisor gives you more or-else orders in a week than the police do in a decade." ["The Libertarian as Conservative", The Abolition of Work and other essays, p. 145]
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CAPITALISM CREATES SWEATSHOPS AND HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATIONS
Iain McKay et al, Gary Elkin, Dave Neal and Ed Boraas; The Anarchist
2006;
http://www.infoshop.org/faq/secB4.html; Accessed July 10, 2006; // WFI- DR
And so, by the same strange co-incidence that marked the industrial revolution, capitalists today (in the form of multinational corporations) gravitate toward states with terrible human rights records. States where, at worse, death squads torture and "disappear" union and peasant co-operative organisers or where, at best, attempts to organise a union can get you arrested or fired and blacklisted. States were peasants are being forced of their land as a result of government policies which favour the big landlords. By an equally strange coincidence, the foreign policy of the American and European governments is devoted to making sure such anti-labour regimes stay in power. It is a co-incidence, of course, that such regimes are favoured by the multinationals and that these states spend so much effort in providing a "market friendly" climate to tempt the corporations to set up their sweatshops there. It is also, apparently, just a co-incidence that these states are controlled by the local wealthy owning classes and subject to economic pressure by the transnationals which invest and wish to invest there.
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CAPITALISM MAKES PEOPLE INTO COMMODITIES AND THEREFORE CANNOT PROVIDE FULL EMPLOYMENT
THE ANARCHIST FAQ 06
(Iain McKay, Gary Elkin, Dave Neal and Ed Boraas), 13 May 2006, http://www.infoshop.org/faq/secC9.html, accessed July 10, 2006//WFI KEC
However, people are not commodities but living, thinking, feeling individuals. The "labour market" is more a social institution than an economic one and people and work more than mere commodities. If we reject the neo-liberals' assumptions for the nonsense they are, their case fails. Capitalism, ultimately, cannot provide full employment simply because labour is not a commodity (and as we discussed in section C.7, this revolt against commodification is a key part of understanding the business cycle and so unemployment).
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THE ANARCHIST FAQ (Iain McKay, Gary Elkin, Dave Neal and Ed Boraas), 13 May 2006,
http://www.infoshop.org/faq/secB1.html, accessed July 10, 2006//WFI KEC
Anarchists argue that hierarchical social relationships will have a negative effect on those subject to them, who can no longer exercise their critical, creative and mental abilities freely. As Colin Ward argues, people "do go from womb to tomb without realising their human potential, precisely because the power to initiate, to participate in innovating, choosing, judging, and deciding is reserved for the top men" (and it usually is men!) [Anarchy in Action, p, 42]. Anarchism is based on the insight that there is an interrelationship between the authority structures of institutions and the psychological qualities and attitudes of individuals. Following orders all day hardly builds an independent, empowered, creative personality ("authority and servility walk ever hand in hand." [Peter Kropotkin, Anarchism, p. 81]). As Emma Goldman made clear, if a person's "inclination and judgement are subordinated to the will of a master" (such as a boss, as most people have to sell their labour under capitalism) then little wonder such an authoritarian relationship "condemns millions of people to be mere nonentities." [Red Emma Speaks, p. 50]
human rights are of supreme importance, and are central to all other moral considerations, because they are rights of every human being to the necessary conditions of human action, i.e., those conditions that must be fulfilled if human action is to be possible either at all or with general chances of success in achieving the purposes for which humans act. Because they are such rights, they must be respected by every human being, in the primary justification of governance is that they serve to secure these rights. Thus the Subjects as well as the respondents of human rights are all human beings; the Objects of the rights are the aforesaid necessary conditions of human action and of successful action in general; and the justifying basis of the rights is the moral principle which establishes that all humans are equally entitled to have these necessary conditions, to fulfill the general needs of human agency.
The primary thesis of the following essays is that
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If we look at those at the top of the system, yes, indeed they often do very well in terms of material goods and access to education, leisure, health and so on but they lose their humanity and individuality. As Bakunin pointed out, "power and authority corrupt those who exercise them as much as those who are compelled to submit to them." [The Political Philosophy of Bakunin, p. 249] Power operates destructively, even on those who have it, reducing their individuality as it "renders them stupid and brutal, even when they were originally endowed with the best of talents. One who is constantly striving to force everything into a mechanical order at last becomes a machine himself and loses all human feeling." [Rudolf Rocker, Anarcho-Syndicalism, pp. 17-8]
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WAR IS THE MANIFESTATION OF THE STATE- THE STATE USES WARS WITHOUT CONSULTING THE PUBLIC TO CONTINUE ITS DOMINATION
MARTIN 1990
[Brian, Associate Professor, Science, Technology, and Society, University of Wollongong, UPROOTING WAR, 1990. Available from the World Wide Web at: www.uow.edu.au/arts/sts/bmartin/pubs/90uw/uw07.html, accessed July 14, 2006 //wfi-pinto]
Is the state system really so bad? War is the most obvious indictment of the system, and this alone should be enough to justify questioning the state. As wars have become more destructive, there is no sign that any steps to re-examine or transform the state system are being taken by state elites. This should not be surprising. War is not simply a by-product of the state system, to be moderated and regulated when it becomes too dangerous to populations. Rather, war is part and parcel of the state system, so the destructiveness of war makes little difference. State elites (and many others) see the world as a state-structured world, and all action is premised on this perspective. War is the external manifestation of state violence. Political repression is its internal form. Political freedoms are not only at a premium under military dictatorships and state socialism, but are also precarious in the representative democracies, especially in relation to 'national security.'
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Impacts- Violence
SERVITUDE DEGRADES HUMAN NATURE ITSELF; WE CANNOT REGAIN OUR RIGHTS UNTIL IT DISAPPEARS
THE ANARCHIST FAQ (Iain McKay, Gary Elkin, Dave Neal and Ed Boraas), 13 May 2006, http://www.infoshop.org/faq/secB1.html, accessed July 10, 2006//WFI KEC
Authoritarian social relationships means dividing society into (the few) order givers and (the many) order takers, impoverishing the individuals involved (mentally, emotionally and physically) and society as a whole. Human relationships, in all parts of life, are stamped by authority, not liberty. And as freedom can only be created by freedom, authoritarian social relationships (and the obedience they require) do not and cannot educate a person in freedom -- only participation (selfmanagement) in all areas of life can do that. "In a society based on exploitation and servitude," in Kropotkin's words, "human nature itself is degraded" and it is only "as servitude disappears" shall we "regain our rights." [Anarchism, p. 104]
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Impacts- Freedom
Solidarity key for freedom
Iain McKay et al, Gary Elkin, Dave Neal and Ed Boraas; The Anarchist FAQ, May 13, 2006; http://www.infoshop.org/faq/secA2.html; Accessed July 10, 2006; // WFI- DR
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.
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DOMINATION AND EXPLOITATION ALLOW OPPRESSION BASED ON RACE, SEX, AND SEXUALITY
THE ANARCHIST FAQ 06 (Iain McKay, Gary Elkin, Dave Neal and Ed Boraas), 13 May 2006, http://www.infoshop.org/faq/secB1.html, accessed July 10, 2006//WFI KEC
From the anarchist standpoint, oppression based on race, sex or sexuality will remain forever intractable under capitalism or, indeed, under any economic or political system based on domination and exploitation. While individual members of "minorities" may prosper, racism as a justification for inequality is too useful a tool for elites to discard. By using the results of racism (e.g. poverty) as a justification for racist ideology, criticism of the status quo can, yet again, be replaced by nonsense about "nature" and "biology." Similarly with sexism or discrimination against gays.
EMPIRICALLY, HIERARCHIES LEAD INDIVIDUALS TO SUPPRESS THEIR ANGER TOWARD THE AUTHORITY AND DIRECT IT INSTEAD AT MINORITIES
THE ANARCHIST FAQ 06 (Iain McKay, Gary Elkin, Dave Neal and Ed Boraas), 13 May 2006, http://www.infoshop.org/faq/secB1.html, accessed July 10, 2006//WFI KEC
Eisler also points out that there is "ample evidence that people who grow up in families where rigid hierarchies and painful punishments are the norm learn to suppress anger toward their parents. There is also ample evidence that this anger is then often deflected against traditionally disempowered groups (such as minorities, children, and women)." [Sacred Pleasure, p. 187] This repressed anger then becomes fertile ground for reactionary politicians, whose mass appeal usually rests in part on scapegoating minorities for society's problems.
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FAILURE TO COMBAT RACISM RISKS EXTINCTION
Joseph Barndt, Co-Director, Crossroads, DISMANTLING RACISM, 1991, p. 155-156
The limitations imposed on people of color by poverty, subservience, and powerlessness are cruel, inhuman, and unjust: the effects of uncontrolled
the walls of racism can be dismantled. We are not condemned to an inexorable fate, but are offered the vision and the possibility of freedom. Brick by brick, stone by stone, the prison of individual, institutional, and cultural racism can be destroyed. You and I are urgently called to join the efforts of those who know it is time to tear down, once and for all, the walls of racism. The danger point of selfdestruction seems to be drawing even more near. The results of centuries of national and worldwide conquest and
power privilege, and greed, which are the marks of our white prison, will inevitably destroy us. But we have also seen that colonialism, of military buildups and violent aggression, of overconsumption and environmental destruction, may be reaching a point of no return. A small and predominately white minority of the global population derives its power and privilege from the suffering of the vast majority of peoples of color.
For the sake of the world and ourselves, we dare not allow it to continue.
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Biopower Impact
BIOPOWER SETS THE STAGE FOR OUR OWN EXTINCTION
Mitchell , Professor, Sociology, Macquarie University, STATES OF IMAGINATION: ETHNOGRAPHIC EXPLORATIONS OF THE POSTCOLONIAL STATE, ed. T.B. Hansen & F. Stepputat, 2001, p. 53-54.
Consider again the contrastive terms in which it is possible to view biopolitics and sovereignty. The final chapter in the first volume of the History of Sexuality that contrasts sovereignty and biopolitics is titled Right of Death and Power Over Life. The initial terms of the contrast between the two registers of government is thus between one that could employ power to put subjects to death, even if this right to kill was conditioned by the defense of the sovereign, and one that was concerned with the fostering of life. Nevertheless, each part of the contrast can be further broken down. The right of death can also be understood as the right to take life or let live; the power over life as the power to foster life or disallow it. Sovereign power is a power that distinguishes between political life (bios) and mere existence or bare life (zoe). Bare life is included in the constitution of sovereign power by its very exclusion from political life. In contrast, biopolitics might be thought to include zoe in bios: stripped down mere existence becomes a matter of political reality. Thus, the contract between biopolitics and sovereignty is not one of a power of life versus a power of death but concerns the way the different forms of power treat matters of life and death and entail different conceptions of life. Thus, biopolitics reinscribes the earlier right of death and power over life and places it within a new and different form that attempts to include what had earlier been sacred and taboo, bare life, in political existence. It is no longer so much the right of the sovereign to put to death his enemies by to disqualify lifethe mere existenceof those who are a threat to the life of the population, to disallow those deemed unworthy of life, those whose bare life is not worth living. This allows us, first to consider what might be thought of as the dark side of biopolitics (Foucault 1979a: 136-137). In Foucaults account, biopolitics does not put an end to the practice of war: it provides it with new and more sophisticated killing machines. These machines allow killing itself to be reposed at the level of entire populations. Wars become genocidal in the twentieth century. The same state that takes on the duty to enhance the life of the population also exercises the power of death over whole populations. Atomic weapons are the key weapons of this process of the power to put whole populations to death. We might also consider here the aptly named biological and chemical weapons that seek an extermination of populations by visiting plagues upon them or polluting the biosphere in which they live to the point at which bare life is no longer sustainable. Nor does the birth of biopolitics put an end to the killing of one's own populations. Rather, it intensifies that killing--whether by an "ethnic cleansing" that visits holocausts upon whole groups or by the mass slaughters of classes and groups conducted in the name of the utopia to be achieved. There is a certain restraint in sovereign power. The right of death is only occasionally exercised as the right to kill and then often in a ritual fashion that suggests a relation to the sacred. More often, sovereign power is manifest in the refraining from the right to kill. The biopolitical imperative knows no such restraint. Power is exercised at the level of populations and hence wars will be waged at that level, on behalf of everyone and their lives. This point brings us to the heart of Foucault's provocative thesis about biopolitics: that there is an intimate connection between the exercise of a life-administering power and the commission of genocide: If genocide is indeed the dream of modern powers. This is not because of recent return of the ancient right to kill: it is because power is situated and exercised at the level of life, the species, the race, and the large-scale phenomena of population" (1979a: 137). Foucault completes this same passage with an expression that deserves more notice: massacres become vital.
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Dehum Impacts
dehumanization is the sum of all evil and justifies all of the worlds atrocities Berube 97
(David, Ph.D. in Communications, Nanotechnological Prolongevity: The Down Side, NanoTechnology Magazine, June/July 1997, p. 1-6, URL: http://www.cla.sc.edu/ENGL/faculty/berube/prolong.htm)
Assuming we are able to predict who or what are optimized humans, this entire resultant worldview smacks of eugenics and Nazi racial science. This would involve valuing people as means. Moreover, there would always be a superhuman more super than the current ones, humans would never be able to escape their treatment as means to an always further and distant end. This means-ends dispute is at the core of Montagu and Matson's treatise on the dehumanization of humanity. They warn: "its destructive toll is already greater than that of any war, plague, famine, or natural calamity on record -- and its potential danger to the quality of life and the fabric of civilized society is beyond calculation. For that reason this sickness of the soul might well be called the Fifth Horseman of the Apocalypse.... Behind the genocide of the holocaust lay a dehumanized thought; beneath the menticide of deviants and dissidents... in the cuckoo's next of America, lies a dehumanized image of man... (Montagu & Matson, 1983, p. xi-xii). While it may never be possible to quantify the impact dehumanizing ethics may have had on humanity, it is safe to conclude the foundations of humanness offer great opportunities which would be foregone. When we calculate the actual losses and the virtual benefits, we approach a nearly inestimable value greater than any tools which we can currently use to measure it. Dehumanization is nuclear war, environmental apocalypse, and international genocide. When people become things, they become dispensable. When people are dispensable, any and every atrocity can be justified. Once justified, they seem to be inevitable for every epoch has evil and dehumanization is evil's most powerful weapon.
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CAPITALISM IS SLAVERY
Iain McKay et al, Gary Elkin, Dave Neal and Ed Boraas; The Anarchist FAQ, May 13, 2006; http://www.infoshop.org/faq/secB4.html; Accessed July 10, 2006; // WFI- DR
When power is exercised over one's self, it is a source of freedom, but under capitalism it is a source of coercive authority. As Bob Black points out in The Abolition of Work: "The liberals and conservatives and Libertarians who lament totalitarianism are phoneys and hypocrites. . . You find the same sort of hierarchy and discipline in an office or factory as you do in a prison or a monastery. . . A worker is a part-time slave. The boss says when to show up, when to leave, and what to do in the meantime. He tells you how much work to do and how fast. He is free to carry his control to humiliating extremes, regulating, if he feels like it, the clothes you wear or how often you go to the bathroom. With a few exceptions he can fire you for any reason, or no reason. He has you spied on by snitches and supervisors, he amasses a dossier on every employee. Talking back is called 'insubordination,' just as if a worker is a naughty child, and it not only gets you fired, it disqualifies you for unemployment compensation. . .The demeaning system of domination I've described rules over half the waking hours of a majority of women and the vast majority of men for decades, for most of their lifespans. For certain purposes it's not too misleading to call our system democracy or capitalism or -- better still -- industrialism, but its real names are factory fascism and office oligarchy. Anybody who says these people are 'free' is lying or stupid." [The Abolition of Work and other essays, p. 21]
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ALLOWING THE MARKET TO CONTROL INDIVIDUALS WILL RESULT IN THE DEMOLITION OF SOCIETY
THE ANARCHIST FAQ (Iain McKay, Gary Elkin, Dave Neal and Ed Boraas), 13 May 2006, http://www.infoshop.org/faq/secB1.html, accessed July 10, 2006//WFI KEC
This is not all. Capitalism, by treating labour as analogous to all other commodities denies the key distinction between labour and other "resources" - that is to say its inseparability from its bearer labour, unlike other "property," is endowed with will and agency. Thus when one speaks of selling labour there is a necessary subjugation of will (hierarchy). As Karl Polanyi writes: "Labour is only another name for human activity which goes with life itself, which is in turn not produced for sale but for entirely different reasons, nor can that activity be detached from the rest of life itself, be stored or mobilised . . . To allow the market mechanism to be sole director of the fate of human beings and their natural environment . . . would result in the demolition of society. For the alleged commodity 'labour power' cannot be shoved about, used indiscriminately, or even left unused, without affecting also the human individual who happens to be the bearer of this peculiar commodity. In disposing of a man's labour power the system would, incidentally, dispose of the physical, psychological, and moral entity 'man' attached to that tag." [The Great Transformation, p. 72]
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SEXISM, RACISM, AND HOMOPHOBIA HURT ALL WORKERS IN THE CAPITALIST SYSTEM
THE ANARCHIST FAQ (Iain McKay, Gary Elkin, Dave Neal and Ed Boraas), 13 May 2006, http://www.infoshop.org/faq/secB1.html, accessed July 10, 2006//WFI KEC
This is not all. As well as adversely affecting those subject to them, sexism, racism and homophobia are harmful to those who practice them (and in some way benefit from them) within the working class itself. Why this should be the case is obvious, once you think about it. All three divide the working class, which means that whites, males and heterosexuals hurt themselves by maintaining a pool of low-paid competing labour, ensuring low wages for their own wives, daughters, mothers, relatives and friends. Such divisions create inferior conditions and wages for all as capitalists gain a competitive advantage using this pool of cheap labour, forcing all capitalists to cut conditions and wages to survive in the market (in addition, such social hierarchies, by undermining solidarity against the employer on the job and the state possibly create a group of excluded workers who could become scabs during strikes). Also, "privileged" sections of the working class lose out because their wages and conditions are less than those which unity could have won them. Only the boss really wins.
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PUNISHMENT IS A TERRIBLE FRAMEWORK- IT PRE-EMPTS ALL REAL SOLUTIONS AND THREATENS TO DESTROY THE UNIVERSE AS WELL AS DESTROYING ALL VALUE TO LIFE
SULLIVAN IN 1980
[Dennis, Criminal Justice Author of Various Monographs and Scholarly Articles, The Mask Of Love: Corrections in America]
To use power as a principle for relationship- whether the relationship is between person and environment or between persons- is to share in the cultivation of the despair and violence one is attempting to dissolve. For correctionalists it is a sharing in the creation of the very social conditions that bring about the social harm they claim they are attempting to eliminate. Power is never a means to health or safety or unity. In fact, power as a tool only threatens the physical structure of the universe, undermines our participation in useful activity, deadens our creative imagination, usurps our autonomy and threatens the diversity of human language, culture and beliefs.
Sharing in the pursuit of an abstract goal such as community safety or a crime-free society is simply one more justification for continuing the present and personal exploitation of others. To use power is to share in the domination of both nature and people, Jerome states, as might a rapist, getting what passed for love the only way he knew how, knowing all the while he was destroying the possibility of real love, like a drowning man compulsively breathing water, unable to wait a panicky moment until he can breathe air. To base ones life on power is to invade and violate the sanctity of others and to forclose the possibility of unity within oneself and with others. Power militates
against the natural impulse of people, which is to grow, change to rectify error as a stalk seeks sunlight, to seek self-actualization through symbiotic relationship with -other self-actualizatizing and very diverse individuals (as healthy flowers require healty bees, and vice versa). Mechanistic controls and constraints interrupt this process.
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Punishment Ad-on
ANARCHY SOLVES PUNISHMENT FOR THE VIOLENT FEW THAT REMAIN
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Punishment Extensions
REJECTING PUNISHEMENT CREATES THE IMPETUS FOR SOLVING ALL SOCIAL PROBLEMS THROUGH PEACE AND HARMONY
SULLIVAN IN 1980
[Dennis, Criminal Justice Author of Various Monographs and Scholarly Articles, The Mask Of Love: Corrections in America p 169-70]
Resolutions of conflict in the context of mutual aid do not end in hatred, for the foundations of that hatred are explored and given vent and changed, perhaps by people doing more agreeable work-a revolutionary idea for this culture! These kinds of resolutions can only evolve into a deeper commitment on the part of people to each other, to community living. The conflicts themselves are seen as the material for growth and solidarity. Done through face-to-face negotiation, instead of through and impersonal, stigmatizing system, such resolutions bring each person to trust more in others. People trust more of what is other in themselves and to accept what is unique and different in others. This has both social and religious consequences, for the exiled, fugitive deities that inhabit the woods and streams and fields can be welcomed to our receptive consciousness: they are no longer seen as elements that are destructive to sanity or religion but as a positive foundation for both. Even each persons own unique, daimonic mystery, that will not allow rational control or understanding is increasingly accepted. Bit by bit each person finds him or herself rejecting power and punishment as methods for correcting severed relationship, realizing that such processes destroy the foundations of personal history, and of personal and communal continuity. They destroy presence and therefore theh essence of history, the struggling, vulnerable self in the community. One experiences a dying to methods that reinforce a life based on status and differentiation, that sever connectedness, that assert: You are guilty. I am innocent! We find we can begin to forgo conceptions of life based on privatization and ethics, of private property, whatever it is; our knowledge, our good name, our land, our money, or the many objects we have collected around us.
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THE POLITICS OF CONDEMNATION IGNORE THE ACTUAL IMPACTS OF SANCTIONS AND INTERNATIONAL ISOLATIONISM- THE IMPACT IS VIOLENCE AND WAR
CHANDLER IN 2003
[David, University of Westminster, Centre for the Study of Democracy, Rhetoric without responsibility: the attraction of ethical foreign policy, The British Journal of Politics and International Relations, August 2003, //wyo-pinto]
It appears that the NGO approach of seeking worst cases to highlight their good work through mounting a populist campaign of condemnation has been willingly followed by western governments. For example, in his ethical mission statement of July 1997, the British foreign secretary, Robin Cook identified the key aspects of ethical foreign policy. These all prioritised coercion over co-operation, ranging from public condemnation to international sanctions to threats to try political leaders at new ad hoc international courts (UKSCFF 1998; Cook 1997). The ethical policy of condemnation has, in fact, been central to the success of ethical foreign policy activism. The politics of condemnation takes for granted that the problems of weak and fragile states are internal matters of poor governance or questions of the mind-set of ruling elites. In this way, western governments justified their military action to remove the Afghan regime, after September 11, through the condemnation of the human rights record of the Taliban government, Tony Blair arguing: Look for a moment at the Taliban regime. It is undemocratic. That goes without saying. There is no sport allowed, or television or photography. No art or culture is permitted ... Women are treated in a way almost too revolting to be credible. First driven out of university; girls not allowed to go to school; no legal rights; unable to go out of doors without a man. Those that disobey are stoned (Blair 2001a). This approach ignores the international context, for example the impact of sanctions and international isolation. It also pays scant attention to the domestic social and political context, never asking how women can have equal rights, or how high art and culture can flourish in a society ravaged by war and intervention and now largely based on feudal backwardness and a subsistence economy. The foreign policy of criticism exploits the narrow focus of the human rights framework to portray even destructive actions such as carpet bombing as a viable solution to problems which might more rationally be seen to lie in earlier international policies that had encouraged economic and social disintegration.
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Punishment Extensions
THE ETHIC OF PUNISHMENT FAILS- THE POWER DESTROYS OUR EXISTENCE SULLIVAN IN 1980 [Dennis, Criminal Justice Author of Various Monographs and Scholarly Articles, The Mask Of
Love: Corrections in America]
While this may sound to many like a tortuous route, there is no other way of making contact with another human being, of creating the conditions of solidarity. Walls, punishment, imposed schedules, therapies based on power, not the well being of each, will not do. They never have. Despite Hobbes, Skinner, Wilson, and Van den Haag, and the seeming endless list of those who support punishment and power-based relations, the history of the human community tells us otherwise. It tells us that punishment and power destroy and that when they persist as social evolutionary means the group decays and soon passes out of existence.
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WORKING WITHIN THE SYSTEM ONLY PLAYS INTO THE HEIRARCHY, NOT TO MENTION THAT RADICAL POLITICS WILL NEVER WIN
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A2 Perm
Only a bottom-up venture can work to bring a common good that can garner truly popular support
Iain McKay et al, Gary Elkin, Dave Neal and Ed Boraas; The Anarchist FAQ, May 13, 2006; http://www.infoshop.org/faq/secA2.html; Accessed July 10, 2006; // WFI- DR
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]
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A2 Perm
EVEN AN ECONOMICALLY CLASSLESS AND NON-EXPLOITATIVE SOCIETY THAT IS HIERARCHICAL IN THE SOCIAL SENSE PREVENTS AN INDIVIDUAL FROM CONTROLLING HIS OR HER LIFE
THE ANARCHIST FAQ (Iain McKay, Gary Elkin, Dave Neal and Ed Boraas), 13 May 2006, http://www.infoshop.org/faq/secB1.html, accessed July 10, 2006//WFI KEC
"There can be a decidedly classless, even a non-exploitative society in the economic sense that still preserves hierarchical rule and domination in the social sense -- whether they take the form of the patriarchal family, domination by age and ethnic groups, bureaucratic institutions, ideological manipulation or a pyramidal division of labour . . . classless or not, society would be riddles by domination and, with domination, a general condition of command and obedience, of unfreedom and humiliation, and perhaps most decisively, an abortion of each individual's potentiality for consciousness, reason, selfhood, creativity, and the right to assert full control over her or his daily live." [Toward an Ecological Society, pp. 1-5]
HIERARCHIAL AUTHORITY IS A SELF-PERPETUATING PROBLEM; THERE IS NO INCENTIVE FOR THE PEOPLE IN TOP POSITIONS TO SOLVE THESE PROBLEMS
THE ANARCHIST FAQ (Iain McKay, Gary Elkin, Dave Neal and Ed Boraas), 13 May 2006, http://www.infoshop.org/faq/secB1.html, accessed July 10, 2006//WFI KEC
In fact, we argue that hierarchical authority creates the conditions it is presumably designed to combat, and thus tends to be self-perpetuating. Thus hierarchical organisations erode the ability of those at the bottom to manage their own affairs directly so requiring hierarchy and some people in positions to give orders and the rest to follow them. Rather than prevent disorder, governments are among its primary causes while its bureaucracies ostensibly set up to fight poverty wind up perpetuating it, because without poverty, the high-salaried top administrators would be out of work. The same applies to agencies intended to eliminate drug abuse, fight crime, etc. In other words, the power and privileges deriving from top hierarchical positions constitute a strong incentive for those who hold them not to solve the problems they are supposed to solve. (For further discussion see Marilyn French, Beyond Power: On Women, Men, and Morals, Summit Books, 1985.)
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A2 State = Freedom
BECAUSE OF THE HEIARCHIRAL NATURE OF THE STATE TRUE FREEDOM CAN NEVER BE ACHIEVED
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ANARCHISTS DO NOT WANT TO BREAK DOWN SOCIETY- THEY WANT TO BREAK DOWN THE STATE CENTERED SYSTEM OF HEIARCHY
The argument that anarchism supports the idea that anyone should be able to do whatever they please is bogus anarchists reject any form of control over another which will topple oppression (including crimes like rape, etc.)
Iain McKay et al, Gary Elkin, Dave Neal and Ed Boraas; The Anarchist FAQ, May 13, 2006; http://www.infoshop.org/faq/secA2.html; Accessed July 10, 2006; // WFI- DR
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).
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ANARCHY IS AGAINST TERRORISM
Iain McKay et al, Gary Elkin, Dave Neal and Ed Boraas; The Anarchist FAQ, May 13, 2006; http://www.infoshop.org/faq/secA2.html; Accessed July 10, 2006; // WFI- DR
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).
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A2 Anarchy = Crazy
Disagreements will still occur, and are encouraged to share wisdom
Iain McKay et al, Gary Elkin, Dave Neal and Ed Boraas; The Anarchist FAQ, May 13, 2006; http://www.infoshop.org/faq/secA2.html; Accessed July 10, 2006; // WFI- DR
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 A.2.12).
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A2 State = Protection
THE STATE ONLY PROTECTS PRIVATE PROPERTY- ALL OTHER INTERESTS ARE ONLY SECONDARY
Claims that anarchy would send society back into the stone age are false assumptions the need for a hierarchical state is a social condition that can actually be unlearned
Iain McKay et al, Gary Elkin, Dave Neal and Ed Boraas; The Anarchist FAQ, May 13, 2006; http://www.infoshop.org/faq/secA2.html; Accessed July 10, 2006; // WFI- DR
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.
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A2 Natural Capitalism
THE CLAIM THAT WAGE LABOR IS BASED ON NATURAL LIBERTY IS FALSE
THE ANARCHIST FAQ (Iain McKay, Gary Elkin, Dave Neal and Ed Boraas), 13 May 2006, http://www.infoshop.org/faq/secB1.html, accessed July 10, 2006//WFI KEC
Ignoring its origins in state action, the social relationship of wage labour is then claimed by capitalists to be a source of "freedom," whereas in fact it is a form of (in)voluntary servitude (see sections B.4 and A.2.14 for more discussion). Therefore a libertarian who did not support economic liberty (i.e. self-government in industry, libertarian socialism) would be no libertarian at all, and no believer in liberty. Capitalism is based upon hierarchy and the denial of liberty. To present it otherwise denies the nature of wage labour. However, supporters of capitalism try to but -- as Karl Polanyi points out -- the idea that wage labour is based upon some kind of "natural" liberty is false: "To represent this principle [wage labour] as one of non-interference [with freedom], as economic liberals were wont to do, was merely the expression of an ingrained prejudice in favour of a definite kind of interference, namely, such as would destroy non-contractual relations between individuals and prevent their spontaneous re-formation." [Op. Cit., p.163]
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A2 Democracy Good
WHILE UNIVERSAL SUFFRAGE IS A STEP FORWARD- IT ONLY HANDS POWER OVER TO A SMALL MINORITY THAT HAS ALL THE CAPITAL
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ANARCHY IS NEITHER MAJORITY NOR MINORITY RULE; ITS A CONSENSUS WHICH CAN BE DENIED BY THOSE WHO DO NOT AGREE
Iain McKay et al, Gary Elkin, Dave Neal and Ed Boraas; The Anarchist FAQ, May 13, 2006; http://www.infoshop.org/faq/secA2.html; Accessed July 10, 2006; // WFI- DR
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. 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."
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Cooperation and anarchy are not mutually exclusive insofar as mutual agreements can be made as an exercise of true freedom
McKay et al, Gary Elkin, Dave Neal and Ed Boraas; The Anarchist FAQ, May 13, 2006; http://www.infoshop.org/faq/secA2.html; Accessed July 10, 2006; // WFI- DR
Iain
"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 cooperation 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."
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organisations and preparing people to directly manage their own personal and collective interests. This is because anarchists, as we discuss in 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.
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