106 lines
6.1 KiB
Plaintext
106 lines
6.1 KiB
Plaintext
ANARCHISM AND POWER
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by Ron Carrier
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I originally wrote the following piece for the February 1993 issue of
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_Autonomy_, which is the monthly newsletter of Some Chicago Anarchists, an
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educational anarchist group which holds monthly (at least) forums and (during
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the summer) picnics. If you would like to get in touch with Some Chicago
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Anarchists, you can write to:
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Some Chicago Anarchists
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Box 163
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1340 West Irving Park Road
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Chicago, IL 60613
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==============================================================================
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A common description of anarchism is that it has as its aim the abolition of
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the state. Now, while this is certainly correct -- it would indeed be hard to
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find an anarchist who is positively enamored of any government apparatus, be
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it located in Chicago, Washington, Moscow, or Baghdad -- , it is not (to my
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mind) the best way of describing the anarchist goal.
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Rather, anarchism should be understood as aiming at the abolition of all forms
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of domination. That is, anarchism is resolutely opposed to any relations
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between humans in which one decides for another, without the other's consent,
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how that other is to live and coerces that other into living that way. So
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anarchism is opposed not only to government, to the police and military and
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legislature and judiciary. It is also opposed to capitalism, in which a few
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possessing the means of production compel the rest, on pain of starvation, to
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produce for the profit of those few in return for a wage; and to racism of any
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form; and to any sort of oppression on the basis of one's sexuality. In place
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of all this, which is inherently reprehensible (and if you want a
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justification of this claim, try living in an explicit state of being
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dominated and see what you think of it!), anarchists seek to being about a
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situation in which everybody determines for oneself as much as possible, in as
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free and cooperative as can be devised, how one is to live one's life.
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So anarchism is opposed to power, right? All we need to do is overthrow all
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the bosses who are repressing our desire for freedom, and all will be well? --
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Well, not quite. I don't think it's right to identify power with domination
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and domination with repression, as was just done in the two questions just
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posed. Here's why.
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What is power? It seems to me that power shouldn't be thought of as some
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mysterious substance which some people (at the top of the heap) possess by
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some means or other and which others (at the bottom) do not. Rather, power
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exists only as a certain kind of relation between people in which one person
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does what another person wants the first person to do. Now, simply described
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that way, power relations are not inherently relations of domination: one can
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do what another wants her/him to do because the two of them have both freely
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consented to this as much as because the latter person has coercive control
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over the former. So anarchism, properly understood, does not seek the
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abolition of power, in the sense that it does not seek to eliminate the
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possibility of power relations. For it is hard to see how this could come
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about without the abolition of any and all social relations, which no
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anarchist wants! Instead, anarchism seeks to foster and maintain only those
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power relations which do not involve coercive domination, and to destroy those
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that do.
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Furthermore, not all those power relations which involve domination operate by
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repression alone. That is, domination does not, to my mind, consist only in
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keeping people from doing things. Rather, domination also involves a certain
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positive aspect, in that it involves the dominator acting positively (and not
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just by denial) upon the one to be dominated (upon both her/his body and mind)
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so that the dominated will reliably act in a docile and obedient fashion. For
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example, part of that power relation which is wage slavery consists in making
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the wage slave an obedient slave by a careful and meticulous technique of
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training by which the wage slave-to-be is brought to act in as productive a
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manner for the employer and not otherwise. (This training does not take place
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only within the factory gates -- our system of compulsory education
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contributes mightily to producing docility.) In other words, relations of
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domination have the force they do in large part because they endow kthe
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dominated with positive characteristics, with real abilities that they did not
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have before.
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What this means for anarchists is that it is not sufficient for eliminating
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domination and establishing a free and cooperative society merely to eliminate
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repression. (Which is not to say that it shouldn't be done; only that this
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isn't enough.) For the ability to act in a free and cooperative fashion is
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not something that one possesses naturally, is not a natural capacity which
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one already possesses in a fully developed way and which is somehow being
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stifled by the oppressors. On the contrary, it is also a product of training,
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of a training in which one is encouraged to act freely and cooperatively, to
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develop one's own singular capacities and one's ability to think for oneself
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(so that is training is necessarily a self-training). Just as one's
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domination is something that is made, so one's liberty is something that
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cannot simply be uncorked, but also has to be made. If all one does is throw
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the bums out, one does nothing either to undo the effects of the training
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which one has received or to actually bring about the ability to live in a
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cooperative and uncoerced fashion. If throwing the bosses out is all one
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does, it will not be surprising to find a new set of bosses setting themselves
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up in short order; for the greater part of the relations of domination will
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remain, relatively unscathed.
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In short, anarchists should not trust to the so-called natural proclivities of
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human beings toward freedom and cooperation, for there are no such
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proclivities. Or rather such proclivities are, as proclivities, no stronger
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than the equally antural human proclivities to dominate and be dominated. The
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task must be to encourage these proclivities, to make them into really
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existing practices of freedom and cooperation, for it is only in this way that
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there can be any realistic hope of bringing about a society without
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domination.
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