My dream of anarchy

People think of the word “Anarchy” as meaning chaotic disorder, or else they confuse it with a sort of extreme libertarianism. The bomb throwing Bakunin or John Galt in a backwoods cabin. Neither view is wrong but I want to coöpt the label for a utopian vision of my own. Whereas most political ideas come with the notion of imposing a change on society so as to improve people’s lives, my suggestion is for a process which would improve people so that a better society evolved naturally. A process of individual transformation over a long period of time, leading to a world which can’t be reached by either revolution or the institutionalised self interest of the market.

A digression: why the top down approach fails.

[This is very long. Skip to “My hippie dream..” If you want the shorter version.]

In 1793, following the Revolution, the French state ate itself. Between twenty and forty thousand people were executed — seventy percent of them peasants or workers — for their political views, on suspicion of plotting treason, or simply because someone had something to gain by denouncing them. At the climax of Le Terreur there was a pogrom against Catholicism, grain was requisitioned from farmers without payment, and dissent became a capital crime. It was a time of totalitarian repression in the name of liberty, caused at least in part by the weakness and factionalism of the state.

This demonstrated that the overthrow of a manifestly brutal and burdensome system was not by itself sufficient to bring about the equality, brotherhood, and freedom dreamt of by the revolution. The destruction of the power of the feudal lords and the church brought forth a crop of cruel leaders who exploited the disorder and the rhetoric of the altruists for their own benefit.

It also demonstrated that any attempt to achieve a good end by evil means is likely to backfire. The French revolutionary state had real enemies both within and without its borders. The reign of terror was a success in that it preserved the government, and yet it created awful suffering and led to the empire of Napoleon. Mao showed the process, horrifyingly, with the cultural revolution. An attempt to transform society and stamp out the social norms which reinforced the old empire, its disastrous cost produced not the workers’ paradise but a totalitarian oligarchy.

But the most successful attempt to produce a free and just society by fiat is certainly the United States. Its founders did not seek to become “fathers” of their people, in the style of Mao or Castro or Robespierre. Power was devolved largely to the people, and for that reason and the geography of the new country it was perhaps as much as a century before wealthy individuals were able to significantly wrest it from them. However, that did happen and today the corporations rule like feudal overlords. That we have a better status than that of medieval serfs is largely because the mechanics of the modern western state demand a relatively wealthy, educated, and free population.

So what am I saying by all this cynicism? Well first, that power abhors a vacuum. It’s also clear that human beings are capable of amazing kindness and self sacrifice, but when they are fearful or in pain or inflamed by greed they become terribly selfish and cruel. Political systems recognise this and take advantage of it, channelling people’s energies in directions which are either generally positive or else reinforce and perpetuate the system. So simply imposing freedom by fiat will not work. Doing so is an invitation to Darwinian selection among methods of concentrating power in the hands of those who would exploit it. The robber barons of 19th Century America and late 20th Century Russia show how that works — and by the way give a demonstration of the outcome of reliance on the “invisible hand” of a deregulated market. Strongmen and what amounts to organised crime manipulate the legal system and create monopolies to their own benefit. The market is distorted and government corrupted, and a kleptocracy develops.

These days we’re caught up in the retarded religion of the neocons — which I would reject even if it could work because of the soulless and cold world it envisages. The things which make life worth living are love and creativity; human interaction and culture. Reducing all value to what can be bought and sold is a tragedy, and hoping that compassion and fulfilment would “trickle down” from the rich man’s table has proved futile. In any case the worship of money is founded on the blindness of the west to the cost of corporate neocolonialism in the developing world.

There you have my objection to structural, top down approaches to political change. They’re inherently flawed because they attempt to compel people to act well. It works to a certain extent so long as bribery is used in preference to force, but the cost of the bribery is greed and a terrible distortion of human potential. Our much admired western democracies have some good qualities, but in essence they seduce the middle classes with baubles, oppress the poor, and enslave the developing world. Power is held by institutions, corporations, and the very wealthy. Most of all they’re a criminal waste of the energy, creativity, and especially the compassion of the world’s people.

My hippie dream of change.

The grassroots approach is to catalyse a change in individuals, without any time scale or exact goal or even expectation of “victory”. One by one wake people up to the idea that they are already free, and have the innate ability to engage with the world on their own terms, and attempt any goal, without limitation. The world is in fact made of love, not fear or greed or pain, and humans are an excellent vehicle for the realisation of this perception. But it requires trust rather than direction or manipulation.

You may be wondering about the semantic content of that last paragraph, so I’ll to give examples. When a new car or a new pair of shoes are a pleasure rather than a desire, then they won’t be sought at human cost. When selfishness and anger are seen as childish affectations, then they quickly become boring, both in others and in oneself. Most of all, when you treat others as adults and demand to be so treated, then compassion replaces pity and respect replaces arrogance. It sounds a lot harder than it is, because it’s a way of seeing the world which can be taught just by example. It becomes impossibly difficult, however, when there’s not enough food or your family is under threat of violence. People are understandably compelled by real fear, but that’s an incredibly inefficient way to run a state, and quickly descends to poverty and chaos. Cambodia, Zimbabwe, Burma – the jackboots and guns regimes are disastrous but fairly short lived.

Instead politics runs on bribery ideology (religion; nationalism; hope of advancement; or “truth, justice, and the American way”), and the threat rather than the actuality of physical sanction — with the last backed up by just enough reality to keep people properly frightened. The greatest threat to most totalitarian (fear based) regimes is that their people will wake up and call their bluff. Tienanmen shows the potential of this and how it can go wrong. The first troops ordered to the square would not fire on the students, and so a unit from the far west of China, who did not speak the same language or identify with the students’ stand, were brought to the capital. The old men knew that if they failed the empire would be shown to have no clothes.

I dream of a day when soldiers will only agree to pick up their weapons as a last ditch defence of innocent lives. When no accountant or bank manager will foreclose on the needy and no doctor will turn away the uninsured sick. Much of what seems inescapable and necessary is only actually so because we buy into the distorted view of the world which creates and maintains the power and wealth of a few. We’re all complicit in propping up a system which does few of us any good, but we go along with it because there’s not something better.

Well at the moment there is nothing better. If we gave up the idea of ownership, greedy people would steal. We’re trapped in jobs we don’t enjoy, pushing around records of who has what an who owns what, because it’s at least better than the alternative. We’re not ready for a power vacuum because evil men will replace a system which at least moderates the activity of other evil men. But this system costs us nearly everything that’s best in life. How much time do the inhabitants of the most privileged society in the world have to spend creating and caring and experiencing the world? The system and our own blindness costs us sunlight and love and beauty and purpose.

It’s too soon to change the system, but it’s not too soon to take off the blinkers. Choose to be your own person and choose to give and to love rather than to take and desire and fear. It’s an infectious idea, and I want to explain a little more about how to go about it.

“The political is personal”

Whatever political system you’re living under, one of its functions is to enforce a certain degree of fairness in the dealings between people. This can be more of an illusion than a reality, and there’s also institutionalised privilege and inequity, but the system makes things bearable. That was the reason for the 60s catchcry “the personal is political” — by bringing to light the individual injustice against this black man or that woman, it could be seen that a political solution had to be found for all African Americans and all women. But the cost is a loss of autonomy. By seeing oneself as suffering a systematic inequality and seeking redress from government, a person gives up self regard as and becomes imprisoned by entitlement and relative thinking. It is true, though: political change is needed and there must be pressure on the government for equity and fairness.

While living within the system we do our best to make the system work well. Each person is not only a political actor but also an individual, however. Live, as far as possible, in your ideal world. Take back your autonomy by acting according to your own belief in how others should be treated. Be compassionate and just and ask others to treat you the same way. That’s what I mean by saying the political is personal.

Anarchy, to me, is about choosing complete personal autonomy. I act as I think best, not allowing any authority to overrule my own heart. I believe all human beings have this right, and consequently there are two ways to sabotage this state of being. The first, obviously, is to believe oneself dependent (or worse, entitled to dependence). It’s a childlike way of life, subject to the anger and selfishness and shortsightedness of children.

If you treat others as a creatures to be manipulated and exploited, then you are in fact acting as a baby, not an adult. But babies at least have their priorities right. They want love more than they want food. It’s only their innate selfishness which prevents them giving, and thereby truly engaging with those around them, and that’s normally something which is learned, bit by bit. Sociopaths, (some of them highly placed in society, since ruthlessness is valued in an inherently cruel system) live in a world in which all those around them are machines. They may “win” their game but it’s a lonely and futile victory.

A more subtle lack of autonomy is the second sabotage; to deny the autonomy of others. This puts one in the role of parent and forces them into dependence. At the very least it denies their creativity and humanity. In an abstract sense this is the problem of any sort of political state, however well intentioned. It takes the role of parent and reduces the autonomy of its subjects. The approach is prideful and arrogant. Things given from this point of view are given begrudgingly and accepted without gratitude. True communion between people is lost. Possession and ownership, of things and people, become a primary focus because they demonstrate dependency and subjugation. A parent proved his value by giving. Gratitude is enforced by engineering need.

So my dream is of a future where authority is neither needed, to compel people to care for one another, nor accepted, by a people who have individual self possession and the ability to love unselfishly. Systematic political rule-based solutions are not required because problems are solved according to the particular needs of each situation. Not everyone has to be perfect to make a perfect world, but evil men must meet resistance rather than complicity. Henchmen must be outnumbered by the generous. Nor is there any need to decide the exact details of this future utopia. The whole point, after all, is to have reached a point where trust can be safely placed in the predominance of goodwill over greed.