I.5 What could the social structure of anarchy look like?

   The social and political structure of anarchy is similar to that of the
   economic structure, i.e., it is based on a voluntary federation of
   decentralised, directly democratic policy-making bodies. These are the
   neighbourhood and community assemblies and their confederations. In
   these grassroots political units, the concept of "self-management"
   becomes that of "self-government", a form of municipal organisation in
   which people take back control of their living places from the
   bureaucratic state and the capitalist class whose interests it serves.
   Bakunin's comments are very applicable here:

     "[A] truly popular organisation begins from below, from the
     association, from the commune. Thus starting out with the
     organisation of the lowest nucleus and proceeding upward, federalism
     becomes a political institution of socialism, the free and
     spontaneous organisation of popular life." [The Political Philosophy
     of Bakunin, pp. 273-4]

   "A new economic phase demands a new political phase," argued Kropotkin,
   "A revolution as profound as that dreamed of by the socialists cannot
   accept the mould of an out-dated political life. A new society based on
   equality of condition, on the collective possession of the instruments
   of work, cannot tolerate for a week . . . the representative system . .
   . if we want the social revolution, we must seek a form of political
   organisation that will correspond to the new method of economic
   organisation . . . The future belongs to the free groupings of
   interests and not to governmental centralisation; it belongs to freedom
   and not to authority." [Words of a Rebel, pp. 143-4]

   Thus the social structure of an anarchist society will be the opposite
   of the current system. Instead of being centralised and top-down as in
   the state, it will be decentralised and organised from the bottom up.
   As Kropotkin argued, "socialism must become more popular, more
   communalistic, and less dependent upon indirect government through
   elected representatives. It must become more self-governing."
   [Anarchism, p. 185] In this, Kropotkin (like Bakunin) followed Proudhon
   who argued that "[u]nless 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, is the only natural and legitimate
   representative of the Sovereign, and that therefore each locality
   should act direct and by itself in administering the interests which it
   includes, and should exercise full sovereignty in relation to them."
   [Propert is Theft!, p. 595] While anarchists have various different
   conceptions of how this communal system would be constituted (as we
   will see), there is total agreement on these basic visions and
   principles.

   The aim is "to found an order of things wherein the principle of the
   sovereignty of the people, of man and of the citizen, would be
   implemented to the letter" and "where every member" of a society
   "retaining his independence and continuing to act as sovereign, would
   be self-governing" and any social organisation "would concern itself
   solely with collective matters; where as a consequence, there would be
   certain common matters but no centralisation." This means that the
   "federative, mutualist republican sentiment" (as summarised these days
   by the expression self-management) will "bring about the victory of
   Labour Democracy right around the world." [Proudhon, Op. Cit., p. 574
   and p. 763]

   This empowerment of ordinary citizens through decentralisation and
   direct democracy will eliminate the alienation and apathy that are now
   rampant in the modern city and town, and (as always happens when people
   are free) unleash a flood of innovation in dealing with the social
   breakdown now afflicting our urban wastelands. The gigantic metropolis
   with its hierarchical and impersonal administration, its atomised and
   isolated "residents," will be transformed into a network of humanly
   scaled participatory communities (usually called "communes"), each with
   its own unique character and forms of self-government, which will be
   co-operatively linked through federation with other communities at
   several levels, from the municipal through the bioregional to the
   global.

   This means that the social perspective of libertarian socialism is as
   distinctive as its economic vision. While mainstream socialism is
   marked by support for centralised states, anarchists stay true to
   socialism as equality and argue that means decentralisation. Thus
   socialism "wears two distinct faces. When it is said that a man is a
   Socialist, it is implied that he regards the monopoly of private
   property in the means of production as the cause of the existing
   unequal distribution of wealth and its attendant ills . . . Socialists
   are divided into the centralising and decentralising parties, the party
   of the State and the party of the federatic commune." [Charlotte M.
   Wilson, Anarchist Essays, p. 37] Only such a federal, bottom-up, system
   can ensure people can manage their own fates and ensure genuine freedom
   and equality through mass participation and self-management.

   Of course, it can (and has) been argued that people are just not
   interested in "politics." Further, some claim that this disinterest is
   why governments exist -- people delegate their responsibilities and
   power to others because they have better things to do. Such an
   argument, however, is flawed on empirical grounds. As we indicated in
   [1]section B.2.6, centralisation of power in both the French and
   American revolutions occurred because working people were taking too
   much interest in politics and social issues, not the reverse ("To
   attack the central power, to strip it of its prerogatives, to
   decentralise, to dissolve authority, would have been to abandon to the
   people the control of its affairs, to run the risk of a truly popular
   revolution. That is why the bourgeoisie sought to reinforce the central
   government even more. . ." [Kropotkin, Words of a Rebel, p. 143]).

   Simply put, the state is centralised to facilitate minority rule by
   excluding the mass of people from taking part in the decision making
   processes within society. This is to be expected as social structures
   do not evolve by chance -- rather they develop to meet specific needs
   and requirements. The specific need of the ruling class is to rule and
   that means marginalising the bulk of the population. Its requirement is
   for minority power and this is transformed into the structure of the
   state.

   Even if we ignore the historical evidence on this issue, anarchists do
   not draw this conclusion from the current apathy that surrounds us. In
   fact, we argue that this apathy is not the cause of government but its
   result. Government is an inherently hierarchical system in which
   ordinary people are deliberately marginalised. The powerlessness people
   feel due to the workings of the system ensure that they are apathetic
   about it, thus guaranteeing that wealthy and powerful elites govern
   society without hindrance from the oppressed and exploited majority.

   Moreover, government usually sticks its nose into areas that most
   people have no real interest in. Some things, as in the regulation of
   industry or workers' safety and rights, a free society could leave to
   those affected to make their own decisions (we doubt that workers would
   subject themselves to unsafe working conditions, for example). In
   others, such as the question of personal morality and acts, a free
   people would have no interest in (unless it harmed others, of course).
   This, again, would reduce the number of issues that would be discussed
   in a free commune.

   Also, via decentralisation, a free people would be mainly discussing
   local issues, so reducing the complexity of many questions and
   solutions. Wider issues would, of course, be discussed but these would
   be on specific issues and so more focused in their nature than those
   raised in the legislative bodies of the state. So, a combination of
   centralisation and an irrational desire to discuss every and all
   questions also helps make "politics" seem boring and irrelevant.

   As noted above, this result is not an accident and the marginalisation
   of "ordinary" people is actually celebrated in bourgeois "democratic"
   theory. As Noam Chomsky notes:

     "Twentieth century democratic theorists advise that 'The public must
     be put in its place,' so that the 'responsible men' may 'live free
     of the trampling and roar of a bewildered herd,' 'ignorant and
     meddlesome outsiders' whose 'function' is to be 'interested
     spectators of action,' not participants, lending their weight
     periodically to one or another of the leadership class (elections),
     then returning to their private concerns. (Walter Lippman). The
     great mass of the population, 'ignorant and mentally deficient,'
     must be kept in their place for the common good, fed with 'necessary
     illusion' and 'emotionally potent oversimplifications' (Wilson's
     Secretary of State Robert Lansing, Reinhold Niebuhr). Their
     'conservative' counterparts are only more extreme in their adulation
     of the Wise Men who are the rightful rulers -- in the service of the
     rich and powerful, a minor footnote regularly forgotten." [Year 501,
     p. 18]

   This marginalisation of the public from political life ensures that the
   wealthy can be "left alone" to use their power as they see fit. In
   other words, such marginalisation is a necessary part of a fully
   functioning capitalist society. Hence, under capitalism, libertarian
   social structures have to be discouraged. Or as Chomsky puts it, the
   "rabble must be instructed in the values of subordination and a narrow
   quest for personal gain within the parameters set by the institutions
   of the masters; meaningful democracy, with popular association and
   action, is a threat to be overcome." [Op. Cit., p. 18] This philosophy
   can be seen in the statement of a US Banker in Venezuela under the
   murderous Jimenez dictatorship:

     "You have the freedom here to do whatever you want to do with your
     money, and to me, that is worth all the political freedom in the
     world." [quoted by Chomsky, Op. Cit., p. 99]

   Deterring libertarian alternatives to statism is a common feature of
   our current system. By marginalising and disempowering people, the
   ability of individuals to manage their own social activities is
   undermined and weakened. They develop a "fear of freedom" and embrace
   authoritarian institutions and "strong leaders", which in turn
   reinforces their marginalisation.

   This consequence is hardly surprising. Anarchists maintain that the
   desire to participate and the ability to participate are in a symbiotic
   relationship: participation builds on itself. By creating the social
   structures that allow participation, participation will increase. As
   people increasingly take control of their lives, so their ability to do
   so also increases. The challenge of having to take responsibility for
   decisions that make a difference is at the same time an opportunity for
   personal development. To begin to feel power, having previously felt
   powerless, to win access to the resources required for effective
   participation and learn how to use them, is a liberating experience.
   Once people become active subjects, making things happen in one aspect
   of their lives, they are less likely to remain passive objects,
   allowing things to happen to them, in other aspects.

   All in all, "politics" is far too important a subject to leave to
   politicians, the wealthy and bureaucrats. After all, it is (or, at
   least, it should be) what affects, your friends, community, and,
   ultimately, the planet you live on. Such issues cannot be left to
   anyone but you.

   Hence a meaningful communal life based on self-empowered individuals is
   a distinct possibility (indeed, it has repeatedly appeared throughout
   history). It is the hierarchical structures in statism and capitalism,
   marginalising and disempowering the majority, which are at the root of
   the current wide scale apathy in the face of increasing social and
   ecological disruption. Libertarian socialists therefore call for a
   radically new form of political system to replace the centralised
   nation-state, a form that would be based around confederations of
   self-governing communities. In other words, in anarchism "[s]ociety is
   a society of societies; a league of leagues of leagues; a commonwealth
   of commonwealths of commonwealths; a republic of republics of
   republics. Only there is freedom and order, only there is spirit, a
   spirit which is self-sufficiency and community, unity and
   independence." [Gustav Landauer, For Socialism, pp. 125-126]

   To create such a system would require dismantling the nation-state and
   reconstituting relations between communities on the basis of
   self-determination and free and equal confederation from below. In the
   following subsections we will examine in more detail why this new
   system is needed and what it might look like. As we have stressed
   repeatedly, these are just suggestions of possible anarchist solutions
   to social organisation. Most anarchists recognise that anarchist
   communities will co-exist with non-anarchist ones after the destruction
   of the existing state. As we are anarchists we are discussing anarchist
   visions. We will leave it up to non-anarchists to paint their own
   pictures of a possible future.

I.5.1 What are participatory communities?

   A key concept in anarchist thought is that of the participatory
   community. Traditionally, these participatory communities were called
   communes in anarchist theory ("The basic social and economic cell of
   the anarchist society is the free, independent commune" [A. Grachev,
   quoted by Paul Avrich, The Anarchists in the Russian Revolution, p.
   64]). These are seen as the way people participate in the decisions
   that affect them and their neighbourhoods, regions and, ultimately,
   planet. These are the means for transforming our social environment
   from one disfigured by economic and political power and its needs to
   one fit for human beings to live and flourish in.

   The creation of a network of participatory communities ("communes")
   based on self-government through direct, face-to-face democracy in
   grassroots neighbourhood assemblies is the means to that end. As we
   argued in [2]section I.2.3 such assemblies will be born in social
   struggle and so reflect the needs of the struggle and those within it
   so our comments here must be considered as generalisations of the
   salient features of such communities and not blue-prints.

   The reason for the use of the term commune is due to anarchism's roots
   in France where it refers to a organisation unit of the state which can
   be of any size, from the smallest hamlet to the biggest city (hence the
   Paris Commune). Proudhon used the term to describe the social units of
   a non-statist society and subsequent anarchists like Bakunin and
   Kropotkin followed his lead. As the term "commune" has, since the
   1960s, often referred to "intentional communities" where people drop
   out of society and form their own counter-cultural groups and living
   spaces we have, in order to avoid confusion, decided to use
   "participatory community" as well (other anarchists have used other
   terms, including "free municipality").

   Within anarchist thought, there are two main conceptions of the free
   commune. One vision is based on workplace delegates, the other on
   neighbourhood assemblies. We will sketch each in turn.

   The first type of participatory community (in which "the federative
   Alliance of all working men's associations . . . will constitute the
   commune") is most associated with Bakunin. He argued that 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 communes, regions, nations and finally in a great federation,
   international and universal." [Michael Bakunin: Selected Writings, p.
   170 and p. 206] This vision was stressed by later anarchist thinkers.
   For example, Spanish anarchist Issac Puente thought that in towns and
   cities "the part of the free municipality is played by local federation
   . . . Ultimate sovereignty in the local federation of industrial unions
   lies with the general assembly of all local producers." [Libertarian
   Communism, p. 27] The Russian anarchist G. P. Maximoff saw the
   "communal confederation" as being "constituted by thousands of freely
   acting labour organisations." [The Program of Anarcho-Syndicalism, p.
   43]

   This vision of the commune was created during many later revolutions
   (such as in Russia in 1905 and 1917 as well as Hungary in 1956). Being
   based on workplaces, this form of commune has the advantage of being
   based on groups of people who are naturally associated during most of
   the day (Bakunin considered workplace bodies as "the natural
   organisation of the masses" as they were "based on the various types of
   work" which "define their actual day-to-day life" [The Basic Bakunin,
   p. 139]). This would facilitate the organisation of assemblies,
   discussion on social, economic and political issues and the mandating
   and recalling of delegates. Moreover, it combines political and
   economic power in one organisation, so ensuring that the working class
   actually manages society.

   Other anarchists counterpoise neighbourhood assemblies to workers'
   councils. These assemblies will be general meetings open to all
   citizens in every neighbourhood, town, and village, and will be the
   source of and final "authority" over public policy for all levels of
   confederal co-ordination. Such "town meetings" will bring ordinary
   people directly into the political process and give them an equal voice
   in the decisions that affect their lives. Such anarchists point to the
   experience of the French Revolution of 1789 and the "sections" of the
   Paris Commune as the key example of "a people governing itself directly
   -- when possible -- without intermediaries, without masters." It is
   argued, based on this experience, that "the principles of anarchism . .
   . dated from 1789, and that they had their origin, not in theoretical
   speculations, but in the deeds of the Great French Revolution." [Peter
   Kropotkin, The Great French Revolution, vol. 1, p. 210 and p. 204]

   Critics of workers' councils point out that not all working class
   people work in factories or workplaces. Many are parents who look after
   children, for example. By basing the commune around the workplace, such
   people are automatically excluded. Moreover, in most modern cities many
   people do not live near where they work. It would mean that local
   affairs could not be effectively discussed in a system of workers'
   councils as many who take part in the debate are unaffected by the
   decisions reached (this is something which the supporters of workers'
   councils have noticed and some argue for councils which are delegates
   from both the inhabitants and the enterprises of an area). In addition,
   some anarchists argue that workplace based systems automatically
   generate "special interests" and so exclude community issues. Only
   community assemblies can "transcend the traditional special interests
   of work, workplace, status, and property relations, and create a
   general interest based on shared community problems." [Murray Bookchin,
   From Urbanisation to Cities, p. 254]

   However, such community assemblies can only be valid if they can be
   organised rapidly in order to make decisions and to mandate and recall
   delegates. In the capitalist city, many people work far from where they
   live and so such meetings have to be called for after work or at
   weekends. Thus the key need is to reduce the working day/week and to
   communalise industry. For this reason, many anarchists continue to
   support the workers' council vision of the commune, complemented by
   community assemblies for those who live in an area but do not work in a
   traditional workplace (e.g. parents bring up small children, the old,
   the sick and so on).

   These positions are not hard and fast divisions, far from it. Puente,
   for example, thought that in the countryside the dominant commune would
   be "all the residents of a village or hamlet meeting in an assembly
   (council) with full powers to administer local affairs." [Op. Cit., p.
   25] Kropotkin supported the soviets of the Russian Revolution, arguing
   that the "idea of soviets . . . of councils of workers and peasants . .
   . controlling the economic and political life of the country is a great
   idea. All the more so, since it necessarily follows that these councils
   should be composed of all who take part in the production of natural
   wealth by their own efforts." [Anarchism, p. 254]

   Which method, workers' councils or community assemblies, will be used
   in a given community will depend on local conditions, needs and
   aspirations and it is useless to draw hard and fast rules. It is likely
   that some sort of combination of the two approaches will be used, with
   workers' councils being complemented by community assemblies until such
   time as a reduced working week and decentralisation of urban centres
   will make purely community assemblies the more realistic option. It is
   likely that in a fully libertarian society, community assemblies will
   be the dominant communal organisation but in the period immediately
   after a revolution this may not be immediately possible. Objective
   conditions, rather than predictions, will be the deciding factor. Under
   capitalism, anarchists pursue both forms of organisation, arguing for
   community and industrial unionism in the class struggle (see sections
   [3]J.5.1 and [4]J.5.2).

   Regardless of the exact make up of the commune, it has certain key
   features. It would be a free association, based upon the self-assumed
   obligation of those who join. In free association, participation is
   essential simply because it is the only means by which individuals can
   collectively govern themselves (and unless they govern themselves,
   someone else will). "As a unique individual," Stirner argued, "you can
   assert yourself alone in association, because the association does not
   own you, because you are one who owns it or who turns it to your own
   advantage." The rules governing the association are determined by the
   associated and can be changed by them (and so a vast improvement over
   "love it or leave") as are the policies the association follows. Thus,
   the association "does not impose itself as a spiritual power superior
   to my spirit. I have no wish to become a slave to my maxims, but would
   rather subject them to my ongoing criticism." [Max Stirner, No Gods, No
   Masters, vol. 1, p. 17]

   Thus participatory communities are freely joined and self-managed by
   their members with no division between order givers and order takers as
   exists within the state. Rather the associated govern themselves and
   while the assembled people collectively decide the rules governing
   their association, and are bound by them as individuals, they are also
   superior to them in the sense that these rules can always be modified
   or repealed (see [5]section A.2.11 for more details). As can be seen, a
   participatory commune is new form of social life, radically different
   from the state as it is decentralised, self-governing and based upon
   individual autonomy and free agreement. Thus Kropotkin:

     "The representative system was organised by the bourgeoisie to
     ensure their domination, and it will disappear with them. For the
     new economic phase that is about to begin we must seek a new form of
     political organisation, based on a principle quite different from
     that of representation. The logic of events imposes it." [Words of a
     Rebel, p. 125]

   This "new form of political organisation has to be worked out the
   moment that socialistic principles shall enter our life. And it is
   self-evident that this new form will have to be more popular, more
   decentralised, and nearer to the folk-mote self-government than
   representative government can ever be." Kropotkin, like all anarchists,
   considered the idea that socialism could be created by taking over the
   current state or creating a new one as doomed to failure. Instead, he
   recognised that socialism would only be built using new organisations
   that reflect the spirit of socialism (such as freedom, self-government
   and so on). He, like Proudhon and Bakunin before him, therefore argued
   that the " was the form that the social revolution must take -- the
   independent commune" whose "inhabitants have decided that they will
   communalise the consumption of commodities, their exchange and their
   production." [Anarchism, p. 184 and p. 163]

   In a nutshell, a participatory community is a free association, based
   upon the mass assembly of people who live in a common area, the means
   by which they make the decisions that affect them, their communities,
   bio-regions and the planet. Their essential task is to provide a forum
   for raising public issues and deciding them. Moreover, these assemblies
   will be a key way of generating a community (and community spirit) and
   building and enriching social relationships between individuals and,
   equally important, of developing and enriching individuals by the very
   process of participation in communal affairs. By discussing, thinking
   and listening to others, individuals develop their own abilities and
   powers while at the same time managing their own affairs, so ensuring
   that no one else does (i.e. they govern themselves and are no longer
   governed from above by others). As Kropotkin argued, self-management
   has an educational effect on those who practice it:

     "The 'permanence' of the general assemblies of the sections -- that
     is, the possibility of calling the general assembly whenever it was
     wanted by the members of the section and of discussing everything in
     the general assembly. . . will educate every citizen politically. .
     . The section in permanence -- the forum always open -- is the only
     way . . . to assure an honest and intelligent administration." [The
     Great French Revolution, vol. 1, pp. 210-1]

   As well as integrating the social life of a community and encouraging
   the political and social development of its members, these free
   communes will also be integrated into the local ecology. Humanity would
   live in harmony with nature as well as with itself -- as discussed in
   [6]section E.2, these would be eco-communities part of their local
   eco-systems with a balanced mix of agriculture and industry (as
   described by Kropotkin in his classic work Fields, Factories and
   Workshops). Thus a free commune would aim to integrate the individual
   into social and communal life, rural and urban life into a balanced
   whole and human life into the wider ecology. In this way the free
   commune would make human habitation fully ecological, ending the sharp
   and needless (and dehumanising and de-individualising) division of
   human life from the rest of the planet. The commune will be a key means
   of the expressing diversity within humanity and the planet as well as
   improving the quality of life in society:

     "The Commune . . . will be entirely devoted to improving the
     communal life of the locality. Making their requests to the
     appropriate Syndicates, Builders', Public Health, Transport or
     Power, the inhabitants of each Commune will be able to gain all
     reasonable living amenities, town planning, parks, play-grounds,
     trees in the street, clinics, museums and art galleries. Giving,
     like the medieval city assembly, an opportunity for any interested
     person to take part in, and influence, his town's affairs and
     appearance, the Commune will be a very different body from the
     borough council . . .

     "In ancient and medieval times cities and villages expressed the
     different characters of different localities and their inhabitants.
     In redstone, Portland or granite, in plaster or brick, in pitch of
     roof, arrangements of related buildings or patterns of slate and
     thatch each locality added to the interests of travellers . . . each
     expressed itself in castle, home or cathedral.

     "How different is the dull, drab, or flashy ostentatious monotony of
     modern England. Each town is the same. The same Woolworth's, Odeon
     Cinemas, and multiple shops, the same 'council houses' or
     'semi-detached villas' . . . North, South, East or West, what's the
     difference, where is the change?

     "With the Commune the ugliness and monotony of present town and
     country life will be swept away, and each locality and region, each
     person will be able to express the joy of living, by living
     together." [Tom Brown, Syndicalism, p. 59]

   The size of the neighbourhood assemblies will vary, but it will
   probably fluctuate around some ideal size, discoverable in practice,
   that will provide a viable scale of face-to-face interaction and allow
   for both a variety of personal contacts and the opportunity to know and
   form a personal estimation of everyone in the neighbourhood. This
   suggests that any town or city would itself be a confederation of
   assemblies -- as was, of course, practised very effectively in Paris
   during the Great French Revolution.

   Such assemblies would meet regularly, at the very least monthly
   (probably more often, particularly during periods which require fast
   and often decision making, like a revolution), and deal with a variety
   of issues. In the words of the CNT's resolution on libertarian
   communism:

     "the foundation of this administration will be the commune. These
     communes are to be autonomous and will be federated at regional and
     national levels to achieve their general goals. The right to
     autonomy does not preclude the duty to implement agreements
     regarding collective benefits . . . [A] commune without any
     voluntary restrictions will undertake to adhere to whatever general
     norms may be agreed by majority vote after free debate . . . the
     commune is to be autonomous and confederated with the other communes
     . . . the commune will have the duty to concern itself with whatever
     may be of interest to the individual.

     "It will have to oversee organising, running and beautification of
     the settlement. It will see that its inhabitants; are housed and
     that items and products be made available to them by the producers'
     unions or associations.

     "Similarly, it is to concern itself with hygiene, the keeping of
     communal statistics and with collective requirements such as
     education, health services and with the maintenance and improvement
     of local means of communication.

     "It will orchestrate relations with other communes and will take
     care to stimulate all artistic and cultural pursuits.

     "So that this mission may be properly fulfilled, a communal council
     is to be appointed . . . None of these posts will carry any
     executive or bureaucratic powers . . . [its members] will perform
     their role as producers coming together in session at the close of
     the day's work to discuss the detailed items which may not require
     the endorsement of communal assemblies.

     "Assemblies are to be summoned as often as required by communal
     interests, upon the request of the communal council or according to
     the wishes of the inhabitants of each commune . . . The inhabitants
     of a commune are to debate among themselves their internal
     problems." [quoted by Jose Peirats, The CNT in the Spanish
     Revolution, vol. 1, pp. 106-7]

   Thus the communal assembly discusses that which affects the community
   and those within it. As these local community associations, will be
   members of larger communal bodies, the communal assembly will also
   discuss issues which affect wider areas, as indicated, and mandate
   their delegates to discuss them at confederation assemblies. This
   system, we must note, was applied with great success during the Spanish
   revolution (see [7]section I.8) and so cannot be dismissed as wishful
   thinking.

   However, of course, the actual framework of a free society will be
   worked out in practice. As Bakunin correctly argued, society "can, and
   must, organise itself in a different fashion [than what came before],
   but not from top to bottom and according to an ideal plan" [Michael
   Bakunin: Selected Writings, p. 205] What does seem likely is that
   confederations of communes will be required. We turn to this in the
   [8]next section.

I.5.2 Why are confederations of participatory communities needed?

   Since not all issues are local, the neighbourhood and community
   assemblies will also elect mandated and recallable delegates to the
   larger-scale units of self-government in order to address issues
   affecting larger areas, such as urban districts, the city or town as a
   whole, the county, the bio-region, and ultimately the entire planet.
   Thus the assemblies will confederate at several levels in order to
   develop and co-ordinate common policies to deal with common problems.
   In the words of the CNT's resolution on libertarian communism:

     "The inhabitants of a commune are to debate among themselves their
     internal problems . . . Federations are to deliberate over major
     problems affecting a country or province and all communes are to be
     represented at their reunions and assemblies, thereby enabling their
     delegates to convey the democratic viewpoint of their respective
     communes.

     "If, say, roads have to be built to link villages of a county or any
     matter arises to do with transportation and exchange of produce
     between agricultural and industrial counties, then naturally every
     commune which is implicated will have its right to have its say.

     "On matters of a regional nature, it is the duty of the regional
     federation to implement agreements which will represent the
     sovereign will of all the region's inhabitants. So the starting
     point is the individual, moving on through the commune, to the
     federation and right on up finally to the confederation.

     "Similarly, discussion of all problems of a national nature shall
     follow a like pattern . . . " [quoted by Jose Peirats, The CNT in
     the Spanish Revolution, p. 107]

   In other words, the commune "cannot any longer acknowledge any
   superior: that, above it, there cannot be anything, save the interests
   of the Federation, freely embraced by itself in concert with other
   Communes." [Kropotkin, No Gods, No Masters, vol. 1, p. 259]

   Federalism is applicable at all levels of society. As Kropotkin pointed
   out, anarchists "understand that if no central government was needed to
   rule the independent communes, if national government is thrown
   overboard and national unity is obtained by free federation, then a
   central municipal government becomes equally useless and noxious. The
   same federative principle would do within the commune." [Anarchism, pp.
   163-164] Thus the whole of society would be a free federation, from the
   local community right up to the global level. And this free federation
   would be based squarely on the autonomy and self-government of local
   groups. With federalism, co-operation replaces coercion.

   This need for co-operation does not imply a centralised body. To
   exercise your autonomy by joining self-managing organisations and,
   therefore, agreeing to abide by the decisions you help make is not a
   denial of that autonomy (unlike joining a hierarchical structure, where
   you forsake autonomy within the organisation). In a centralised system,
   we must stress, power rests at the top and the role of those below is
   simply to obey (it matters not if those with the power are elected or
   not, the principle is the same). In a federal system, power is not
   delegated into the hands of a few (obviously a "federal" government or
   state is a centralised system). Decisions in a federal system are made
   at the base of the organisation and flow upwards so ensuring that power
   remains decentralised in the hands of all. Working together to solve
   common problems and organise common efforts to reach common goals is
   not centralisation and those who confuse the two make a serious error
   -- they fail to understand the different relations of authority each
   generates and confuse obedience with co-operation.

   As in the economic federation of collectives, the lower levels will
   control the higher, thus eliminating the current pre-emptive powers of
   centralised government hierarchies. Delegates to higher-level
   co-ordinating councils or conferences will be instructed, at every
   level of confederation, by the assemblies they represent, on how to
   deal with any issue. As Proudhon argued in March 1848:

   "In the end, we are all voters; we can choose the most worthy.

   "We can do more; we can follow them step-by-step in their legislative
   acts and their votes; we will make them transmit our arguments and our
   documents; we will suggest our will to them, and when we are
   discontented, we will recall and dismiss them.

   "The choice of talents, the imperative mandate [mandate impertif], and
   permanent revocability are the most immediate and incontestable
   consequences of the electoral principle. It is the inevitable program
   of all democracy." [Property is Theft!, p. 273]

   So these instructions will be binding, committing delegates to a
   framework of policies within which they must act and providing for
   their recall and the nullification of their decisions if they fail to
   carry out their mandates. Delegates may be selected by election and/or
   sortition (i.e. random selection by lot, as for jury duty currently).
   As Murray Bookchin argued:

     "A confederalist view involves a clear distinction between policy
     making and the co-ordination and execution of adopted policies.
     Policy making is exclusively the right of popular community
     assemblies based on the practices of participatory democracy.
     Administration and co-ordination are the responsibility of
     confederal councils, which become the means for interlinking
     villages, towns, neighbourhoods, and cities into confederal
     networks. Power flows from the bottom up instead of from the top
     down, and in confederations, the flow of power from the bottom up
     diminishes with the scope of the federal council ranging
     territorially from localities to regions and from regions to
     ever-broader territorial areas." [From Urbanisation to Cities, p.
     253]

   Thus the people will have the final word on policy, which is the
   essence of self-government, and each citizen will have his or her turn
   to participate in the co-ordination of public affairs. In other words,
   self-government will be the people themselves organised in their
   community assemblies and their confederal co-ordinating councils, with
   any delegates limited to implementing policy formulated by the people.

   In such a system there will, undoubtedly, be the need for certain
   individuals to be allocated certain tasks to do. We stress the word
   "tasks" because their work is essentially administrative in nature,
   without power. For example, an individual or a group of individuals may
   be elected to look into alternative power supplies for a community and
   report back on what they discover. They cannot impose their decision
   onto the community as they do not have the power to do so. They simply
   present their findings to the body which had mandated them. These
   findings are not a law which the electors are required to follow, but a
   series of suggestions and information from which the assembled people
   chose what they think is best. Or, to use another example, someone may
   be elected to overlook the installation of a selected power supply but
   the decision on what power supply to use and which specific project to
   implement has been decided upon by the whole community. Similarly with
   any delegate elected to a confederal council.

   The scales and levels of confederation can only be worked out in
   practice. In general, it would be safe to say that confederations would
   be needed on a wide scale, starting with towns and cities and then
   moving onto regional and other levels. No village, town or city could
   be self-sufficient nor would desire to be -- communication and links
   with other places are part and parcel of life and anarchists have no
   desire to retreat back into an isolated form of localism:

     "No community can hope to achieve economic autarchy, nor should it
     try to do so. Economically, the wide range of resources that are
     needed to make many of our widely used goods preclude self-enclosed
     insularity and parochialism. Far from being a liability, this
     interdependence among communities and regions can well be regarded
     as an asset -- culturally as well as politically . . . Divested of
     the cultural cross-fertilisation that is often a product of economic
     intercourse, the municipality tends to shrink into itself and
     disappear into its own civic privatism. Shared needs and resources
     imply the existence of sharing and, with sharing, communication,
     rejuvenation by new ideas, and a wider social horizon that yields a
     wider sensibility to new experiences." [Bookchin, Op. Cit., p. 237]

   This means that the scale and level of the confederations created by
   the communes will be varied and extensive. It would be hard to
   generalise about them, particularly as different confederations will
   exist for different tasks and interests. Moreover, any system of
   communes would start off based on the existing villages, towns and
   cities of capitalism. That is unavoidable and will, of course, help
   determine the initial scale and level of confederations.

   It seems likely that the scale of the confederation will be dependent
   on the inhabited area in question. A village, for example, would be
   based on one assembly and (minimally) be part of a local confederation
   covering all the villages nearby. In turn, this local confederation
   would be part of a district confederation, and so on up to (ultimately)
   a continental and world scale. Needless to say, the higher the
   confederation the less often it would meet and the less it would have
   to consider in terms of issues to decide. On such a level, only the
   most general issues and decisions could be reached (in effect, only
   guidelines which the member confederations would apply as they saw
   fit).

   In urban areas, the town or city would have to be broken down into
   confederations and these confederations would constitute the town or
   city assembly of delegates. Given a huge city like London, New York or
   Mexico City it would be impossible to organise in any other way.
   Smaller towns would probably be able to have simpler confederations. We
   must stress that few, if any, anarchists consider it desirable to have
   huge cities in a free society and one of the major tasks of social
   transformation will be to break the metropolis into smaller units,
   integrated with the local environment. However, a social revolution
   will take place in these vast metropolises and so we have to take them
   into account in our discussion.

   Thus the issue of size would determine when a new level of
   confederation would be needed. A town or village of several thousand
   people could be organised around the basic level of the commune and it
   may be that a libertarian socialist society would probably form another
   level of confederation once this level has been reached. Such units of
   confederation would, as noted above, include urban districts within
   today's large cities, small cities, and rural districts composed of
   several nearby towns. The next level of confederation would, we can
   imagine, be dependent on the number of delegates required. After a
   certain number, the confederation assembly may became difficult to
   manage, so implying that another level of confederation is required.
   This would, undoubtedly, be the base for determining the scale and
   level of confederation, ensuring that any confederal assembly can
   actually manage its activities and remain under the control of lower
   levels.

   Combined with this consideration, we must also raise the issue of
   economies of scale. A given level of confederation may be required to
   make certain social and economic services efficient (we are thinking of
   economies of scale for such social needs as universities, hospitals,
   and cultural institutions). While every commune may have a doctor,
   nursery, local communal stores and small-scale workplaces, not all can
   have a university, hospital, factories and so forth. These would be
   organised on a wider level, so necessitating the appropriate
   confederation to exist to manage them.

   Moreover, face-to-face meetings of the whole population are impractical
   at this size. Therefore, the decision making body at this level would
   be the confederal council, which would consist of mandated, recallable,
   and rotating delegates from the neighbourhood assemblies. These
   delegates would co-ordinate policies which have been discussed and
   voted on by the neighbourhood assemblies, with the votes being summed
   across the district to determine district policy. The issues to be
   discussed by these confederal meetings/assemblies would be proposed by
   local communes, the confederal council would collate these proposals
   and submit them to the other communes in the confederation for
   discussion. Thus the flow of decision making would be from the bottom
   up, with the "lowest" bodies having the most power, particularly the
   power to formulate, suggest, correct and, if need be, reject decisions
   made at "higher" levels in the confederation.

   Ties between bioregions or larger territories based on the distribution
   of such things as geographically concentrated mineral deposits, climate
   dependent crops, and production facilities that are most efficient when
   concentrated in one area will unite communities confederally on the
   basis of common material needs as well as values. At the bioregional
   and higher levels of confederation, councils of mandated, recallable,
   and rotating delegates will co-ordinate policies at those levels, but
   such policies will still be subject to approval by the neighbourhood
   and community assemblies through their right to recall their delegates
   and revoke their decisions.

   In summary, the size and scale of confederations will depend on
   practical considerations, based on what people found were optimal sizes
   for their neighbourhood assemblies and the needs of co-operation
   between them, towns, cities, regions and so on. We cannot, and have no
   wish, to predict the development of a free society. Therefore the scale
   and levels of confederation will be decided by those actually creating
   an anarchist world. All we can do is make a few suggestions of what
   seems likely.

   Thus confederations of communes are required to co-ordinate joint
   activity and discuss common issues and interests. Confederation is also
   required to protect individual, community and social freedom, allow
   social experimentation and protect the distinctiveness, dignity,
   freedom and self-management of communities and so society as a whole.
   This is why "socialism is federalist" and "true federalism, the
   political organisation of socialism, will be attained only" when
   "popular grass-roots institutions" like "communes, industrial and
   agricultural associations" are "organised in progressive stages from
   the bottom up." [Bakunin on Anarchism, p. 402]

I.5.3 Would confederations produce bureaucrats and politicians?

   Of course, any organisation holds the danger that the few who have been
   given tasks to perform could misuse their position for personal benefit
   or, over time, evolve into a bureaucracy with power over the rest of
   society. As such, some critics of social anarchism suggest that a
   system of communes and confederation would simply be a breeding ground
   for politicians and bureaucrats. This is obviously the case with the
   state and many generalise from this experience for all forms of social
   organisation, including the anarchist commune.

   While recognising that this is a danger, anarchists are sure that such
   developments are unlikely in an anarchy. This is because, based on our
   analysis and critique of the state, we have long argued for various
   institutional arrangements which, we think, reduce the danger of such
   things developing. These include electing delegates rather than
   representatives, giving these delegates a binding mandate and
   subjecting them to instant recall by their electors. They would not, in
   general, be paid and so delegates are expected, as far as possible, to
   remain in their current communities, conducting their communal tasks
   after their usual work. For the few exceptions to this that may occur,
   delegates would receive the average pay of their commune, in mutualism
   and collectivism or, in communism, no special access to communal
   resources. Moreover, it seems likely that regular rotation of delegates
   would be utilised and, perhaps random selection as happens in jury duty
   today in many countries. Lastly, communes could leave any confederation
   if its structure was becoming obviously misshapen and bureaucratic.

   By these methods, delegates to communal bodies would remain under the
   control of their electors and not, as in the state, become their
   masters. Moreover, anarchists have stressed that any communal body must
   be a working organisation. This will reduce bureaucratic tendencies as
   implementing tasks will be done by elected delegates rather than
   faceless (and usually unelected) bureaucrats. This means, as Bakunin
   put it in 1868, that "the Communal Council" (made up of delegates "with
   binding mandates and accountable and revocable at all times") would
   create "separate executive committees from among its membership for
   each branch of the Commune's revolutionary administration." [Bakunin,
   No Gods, No Masters, vol. 1, p. 155] This would no longer be a body of
   people, a government, separate from the delegates of the people. This,
   it should be noted, repeats Proudhon's comments from 1848:

     "It is up to the National Assembly, through organisation of its
     committees, to exercise executive power, just the way it exercises
     legislative power . . . Besides universal suffrage and as a
     consequence of universal suffrage, we want implementation of the
     binding mandate. Politicians balk at it! Which means that in their
     eyes, the people, in electing representatives, do not appoint
     mandatories but rather abjure their sovereignty! That is assuredly
     not socialism: it is not even democracy." [Op. Cit., p. 63]

   Due to mandating and recall, any delegate who starts to abuse their
   position or even vote in ways opposed to by the communal assembly would
   quickly be recalled and replaced. As such a person may be an elected
   delegate of the community but that does not mean that they have power
   or authority (i.e., they are not a representative but rather a
   delegate). Essentially they are an agent of the local community who is
   controlled by, and accountable to, that community. Clearly, such people
   are unlike politicians. They do not, and cannot, make policy decisions
   on behalf of (i.e., govern) those who elected them -- they are not
   given power to make decisions for people. In addition, people in
   specific organisations or with specific tasks will be rotated
   frequently to prevent a professionalisation of politics and the problem
   of politicians being largely on their own once elected. And, of course,
   they will continue to work and live with those who elected them and
   receive no special privileges due to their election (in terms of more
   income, better housing, and so on). This means that such delegates
   would be extremely unlikely to turn into representatives or bureaucrats
   as they would be under the strict control of the organisations that
   elected them to such posts. As Kropotkin argued, the general assembly
   of the community "in permanence - the forum always open -- is the only
   way . . . to assure an honest and intelligent administration" as it is
   based upon "distrust of all executive powers." [The Great French
   Revolution, Vol. 1, p. 211]

   The current means of co-ordinating wide scale activity -- centralism
   via the state -- is a threat to freedom as, to quote Proudhon, "the
   citizens resign their sovereignty" and the commune, the department and
   province "are absorbed into the central authority, becoming mere
   agencies under the immediate direction of the ministry." The
   consequences are obvious: "the citizen and the commune being deprived
   of all dignity, the invasions of the State increase . . . It is no
   longer the government that is made for the people, it is the people
   that is made for the government. Power invades everything, seizes
   everything, claims everything." [Property is Theft!, p. 706] In such a
   regime, the generation of a specific caste of politicians and
   bureaucrats is inevitable.

   Moreover, "[t]he principle of political centralism is openly opposed to
   all laws of social progress and of natural evolution. It lies in the
   nature of things that every cultural advance is first achieved within a
   small group and only gradually finds adoption by society as a whole.
   Therefore, political decentralisation is the best guaranty for the
   unrestricted possibilities of new experiments. For such an environment
   each community is given the opportunity to carry through the things
   which it is capable of accomplishing itself without imposing them on
   others. Practical experimentation is the parent of every development in
   society. So long as each district is capable of effecting the changes
   within its own sphere which its citizens deem necessary, the example of
   each becomes a fructifying influence on the other parts of the
   community since they will have the chance to weigh the advantages
   accruing from them without being forced to adopt them if they are not
   convinced of their usefulness. The result is that progressive
   communities serve the others as models, a result justified by the
   natural evolution of things." [Rudolf Rocker, Pioneers of American
   Freedom, pp. 16-7] The contrast with centralisation of the state could
   not be more clear. Rocker continued:

     "In a strongly centralised state, the situation is entirely reversed
     and the best system of representation can do nothing to change that.
     The representatives of a certain district may have the overwhelming
     majority of a certain district on his [or her] side, but in the
     legislative assembly of the central state, he [or she] will remain
     in the minority, for it lies in the nature of things that in such a
     body not the intellectually most active but the most backward
     districts represent the majority. Since the individual district has
     indeed the right to give expression of its opinion, but can effect
     no changes without the consent of the central government, the most
     progressive districts will be condemned to stagnate while the most
     backward districts will set the norm." [Op. Cit., p. 17]

   Little wonder anarchists have always stressed what Kropotkin termed
   "local action" and argued that the libertarian social revolution would
   "proceed by proclaiming independent Communes" which "will endeavour to
   accomplish the economic transformation within . . . their respective
   surroundings." [Act For Yourselves, p. 43] Thus the advanced
   communities will inspire the rest to follow them by showing them a
   practical example of what is possible. Only decentralisation and
   confederation can promote the freedom and resulting social
   experimentation which will ensure social progress and make society a
   good place to live.

   Moreover, confederation is required to maximise self-management and
   reduce the possibility that delegates will become isolated from the
   people who mandated them. As Rocker explained:

     "In a smaller community, it is far easier for individuals to observe
     the political scene and become acquainted with the issues which have
     to be resolved. This is quite impossible for a representative in a
     centralised government. Neither the single citizen nor his [or her]
     representative is completely or even approximately to supervise the
     huge clockwork of the central state machine. The deputy is forced
     daily to make decisions about things of which he [or she] has no
     personal knowledge and for the appraisal of which he must therefore
     depend on others [i.e. bureaucrats and lobbyists]. That such a
     system necessarily leads to serious errors and mistakes is
     self-evident. And since the citizen for the same reason is not able
     to inspect and criticise the conduct of his representative, the
     class of professional politicians is given added opportunity to fish
     in troubled waters." [Op. Cit., p. 17-18]

   These principles, it must be stressed, have been successfully applied
   on a mass scale. For example, this is how anarcho-syndicalist unions
   operate and, as was the case with the CNT in Spain in the 1930s, worked
   well with over one million members. They were also successfully applied
   during the Spanish Revolution and the federations of collectives
   produced by it.

   So the way communes and confederations are organised protect society
   and the individual against the dangers of centralisation, from the
   turning of delegates into representatives and bureaucrats. As Bakunin
   stressed, there are two ways of organising society, "as it is today,
   from high to low and from the centre to circumference by means of
   enforced unity and concentration" and the way of the future, by
   federalism "starting with the free individual, the free association and
   the autonomous commune, from low to high and from circumference to
   centre, by means of free federation." [Michael Bakunin: Selected
   Writings, p. 88] In other words, "the organisation of society from the
   bottom up." [The Basic Bakunin, p. 131] This suggests that a free
   society will have little to fear in way of its delegates turning into
   politicians or bureaucrats as it includes the necessary safeguards
   (election, mandates, recall, decentralisation, federalism, etc.) which
   will reduce such developments to a small, and so manageable, level (if
   not eliminate it totally).

I.5.4 How will anything ever be decided by all these meetings?

   Anarchists have little doubt that the confederal structure will be an
   efficient means of decision making and will not be bogged down in
   endless meetings. We have various reasons for thinking this. As Murray
   Bookchin once noted: "History does provide us with a number of working
   examples of forms that are largely libertarian. It also provides us
   with examples of confederations and leagues that made the coordination
   of self-governing communities feasible without impinging on their
   autonomy and freedom." [The Ecology of Freedom, p. 436]

   Firstly, we doubt that a free society will spend all its time in
   assemblies or organising confederal conferences. Certain questions are
   more important than others and few anarchists desire to spend all their
   time in meetings. The aim of a free society is to allow individuals to
   express their desires and wants freely -- they cannot do that if they
   are continually at meetings (or preparing for them). So while communal
   and confederal assemblies will play an important role in a free
   society, do not think that they will be occurring all the time or that
   anarchists desire to make meetings the focal point of individual life.
   Far from it!

   Thus communal assemblies may occur, say, once a week, or fortnightly or
   monthly in order to discuss truly important issues. There would be no
   real desire to meet continuously to discuss every issue under the sun
   and few people would tolerate this occurring. This would mean that such
   meetings would occur regularly and when important issues needed to be
   discussed, not continuously (although, if required, continuous assembly
   or daily meetings may have to be organised in emergency situations but
   this would be rare). Nor is it expected that everyone will attend every
   meeting for "[w]hat is decisive, here, is the principle itself: the
   freedom of the individual to participate, not the compulsive need to do
   so." [Op. Cit., p. 435] This suggests that meetings will be attended by
   those with a specific interest in an issue being discussed and so would
   be focused as a result.

   Secondly, it is extremely doubtful that a free people would desire to
   waste vast amounts of time at such meetings. While important and
   essential, communal and confederal meetings would be functional in the
   extreme and not forums for hot air. It would be the case that those
   involved in such meetings would quickly make their feelings known to
   time wasters and those who like the sound of their own voices. Thus
   Cornelius Castoriadis:

     "It might be claimed that the problem of numbers remains and that
     people never would be able to express themselves in a reasonable
     amount of time. This is not a valid argument. There would rarely be
     an assembly over twenty people where everyone would want to speak,
     for the very good reason that when there is something to be decided
     upon there are not an infinite number of options or an infinite
     number of arguments. In unhampered rank-and-file workers' gatherings
     (convened, for instance, to decide on a strike) there have never
     been 'too many' speeches. The two or three fundamental opinions
     having been voiced, and various arguments exchanged, a decision is
     soon reached.

     "The length of speeches, moreover, often varies inversely with the
     weight of their content. Russian leaders sometimes talk on for four
     hours at Party Congresses without saying anything . . . For an
     account of the laconicism of revolutionary assemblies, see Trotsky's
     account of the Petrograd soviet of 1905 -- or accounts of the
     meetings of factory representatives in Budapest in 1956." [Political
     and Social Writings, vol. 2, pp. 144-5]

   As we shall see below, this was definitely the case during the Spanish
   Revolution as well.

   Thirdly, as these assemblies and congresses are concerned purely with
   joint activity and co-ordination, it is likely that they will not be
   called very often. Different associations, syndicates and co-operatives
   have a functional need for co-operation and so would meet more
   regularly and take action on practical activity which affects a
   specific section of a community or group of communities. Not every
   issue that a member of a community is interested in is necessarily best
   discussed at a meeting of all members of a community or at a confederal
   conference. As Herbert Read suggested, anarchism "proposes to liquidate
   the bureaucracy first by federal devolution" and so "hands over to the
   syndicates all . . . administrative functions" related to such things
   as "transport, and distribution, health and education." [Anarchy and
   Order, p. 101] Such issues will be mainly discussed in the syndicates
   involved and so community discussion would be focused on important
   issues and themes of general policy rather than the specific and
   detailed laws discussed and implemented by politicians who know nothing
   about the issues or industries at hand.

   In other words, communal assemblies and conferences will have specific,
   well-defined agendas, and so there is little danger of "politics" (for
   want of a better word!) taking up everyone's time. Hence, far from
   discussing abstract laws and pointless motions on everything under the
   sun and which no one actually knows much about, the issues discussed in
   these conferences will be on specific issues which are important to
   those involved. In addition, the standard procedure may be to elect a
   sub-group to investigate an issue and report back at a later stage with
   recommendations. The conference can change, accept, or reject any
   proposals.

   As Kropotkin argued, anarchy would be based on "free agreement, by
   exchange of letters and proposals, and by congresses at which delegates
   met to discuss well specified points, and to come to an agreement about
   them, but not to make laws. After the congress was over, the delegates"
   would return "not with a law, but with the draft of a contract to be
   accepted or rejected." [Conquest of Bread, p. 131]

   By reducing conferences to functional bodies based on concrete issues,
   the problems of endless discussions can be reduced, if not totally
   eliminated. In addition, as functional groups would exist outside of
   these communal confederations (for example, industrial collectives
   would organise conferences about their industry with invited
   participants from consumer groups), there would be a limited agenda in
   most communal get-togethers.

   The most important issues would be to agree on the guidelines for
   industrial activity, communal investment (e.g. houses, hospitals, etc.)
   and overall co-ordination of large scale communal activities. In this
   way everyone would be part of the commonwealth, deciding on how
   resources would be used to maximise human well-being and ecological
   survival. The problems associated with "the tyranny of small decisions"
   would be overcome without undermining individual freedom. (In fact, a
   healthy community would enrich and develop individuality by encouraging
   independent and critical thought, social interaction, and empowering
   social institutions based on self-management).

   Is such a system fantasy? Given that such a system has existed and
   worked at various times, we can safely argue that it is not. Obviously
   we cannot cover every example, so we point to just two -- revolutionary
   Paris and Spain.

   As Murray Bookchin points out, Paris "in the late eighteenth century
   was, by the standards of that time, one of the largest and economically
   most complex cities in Europe: its population approximated a million
   people . . . Yet in 1793, at the height of the French Revolution, the
   city was managed institutionally almost entirely by [48] citizen
   assemblies. . . and its affairs were co-ordinated by the Commune .. .
   and often, in fact, by the assemblies themselves, or sections as they
   were called, which established their own interconnections without
   recourse to the Commune." ["Transition to the Ecological Society", pp.
   92-105, Society and Nature, no. 3, p. 96]

   Here is his account of how communal self-government worked in practice:

     "What, then, were these little-known forty-eight sections of Paris .
     . . How were they organised? And how did they function?

     "Ideologically, the sectionnaires (as their members were called)
     believed primarily in sovereignty of the people. This concept of
     popular sovereignty, as Albert Soboul observes, was for them 'not an
     abstraction, but the concrete reality of the people united in
     sectional assemblies and exercising all their rights.' It was in
     their eyes an inalienable right, or, as the section de la Cite
     declared in November 1792, 'every man who assumes to have
     sovereignty [over others] will be regarded as a tyrant, usurper of
     public liberty and worthy of death.'

     "Sovereignty, in effect, was to be enjoyed by all citizens, not
     pre-empted by 'representatives' . . . The radical democrats of 1793
     thus assumed that every adult was, to one degree or another,
     competent to participate in management public affairs. Thus, each
     section . . . was structured around a face-to-face democracy:
     basically a general assembly of the people that formed the most
     important deliberative body of a section, and served as the
     incarnation of popular power in a given part of the city . . . each
     elected six deputies to the Commune, presumably for the purpose
     merely of co-ordinating all the sections in the city of Paris.

     "Each section also had its own various administrative committees,
     whose members were also recruited from the general assembly." [The
     Third Revolution, vol. 1, p. 319]

   Little wonder Kropotkin argued that these "sections" showed "the
   principles of anarchism" had "their origin, not in theoretical
   speculations, but in the deeds of the Great French Revolution" [The
   Great French Revolution, vol. 1, p. 204]

   Communal self-government was also practised, and on a far wider scale,
   in revolutionary Spain. All across Republican Spain, workers and
   peasants formed communes and federations of communes (see [9]section
   I.8 for fuller details). Gaston Leval summarised the experience:

     "There was, in the organisation set in motion by the Spanish
     Revolution and by the libertarian movement, which was its
     mainspring, a structuring from the bottom to the top, which
     corresponds to a real federation and true democracy . . . the
     controlling and co-ordinating Comités [Committees], clearly
     indispensable, do not go outside the organisation that has chosen
     them, they remain in their midst, always controllable by and
     accessible to the members. If any individuals contradict by their
     actions their mandates, it is possible to call them to order, to
     reprimand them, to replace them. It is only by and in such a system
     that the 'majority lays down the law.'

     "The syndical assemblies were the expression and the practice of
     libertarian democracy, a democracy having nothing in common with the
     democracy of Athens where the citizens discussed and disputed for
     days on end on the Agora; where factions, clan rivalries, ambitions,
     personalities conflicted, where, in view of the social inequalities
     precious time was lost in interminable wrangles . . .

     "Normally those periodic meetings would not last more than a few
     hours. They dealt with concrete, precise subjects concretely and
     precisely. And all who had something to say could express
     themselves. The Comite presented the new problems that had arisen
     since the previous assembly, the results obtained by the application
     of such and such a resolution . . . relations with other syndicates,
     production returns from the various workshops or factories. All this
     was the subject of reports and discussion. Then the assembly would
     nominate the commissions, the members of these commissions discussed
     between themselves what solutions to adopt, if there was
     disagreement, a majority report and a minority report would be
     prepared.

     "This took place in all the syndicates throughout Spain, in all
     trades and all industries, in assemblies which, in Barcelona, from
     the very beginnings of our movement brought together hundreds or
     thousands of workers depending on the strength of the organisations.
     So much so that the awareness of the duties, responsibilities of
     each spread all the time to a determining and decisive degree . . .

     "The practice of this democracy also extended to the agricultural
     regions . . . the decision to nominate a local management Comité
     for the villages was taken by general meetings of the inhabitants of
     villages, how the delegates in the different essential tasks which
     demanded an indispensable co-ordination of activities were proposed
     and elected by the whole assembled population. But it is worth
     adding and underlining that in all the collectivised villages and
     all the partially collectivised villages, in the 400 Collectives in
     Aragon, in the 900 in the Levante region, in the 300 in the
     Castilian region, to mention only the large groupings . . . the
     population was called together weekly, fortnightly or monthly and
     kept fully informed of everything concerning the commonweal.

     "This writer was present at a number of these assemblies in Aragon,
     where the reports on the various questions making up the agenda
     allowed the inhabitants to know, to so understand, and to feel so
     mentally integrated in society, to so participate in the management
     of public affairs, in the responsibilities, that the recriminations,
     the tensions which always occur when the power of decision is
     entrusted to a few individuals, be they democratically elected
     without the possibility of objecting, did not happen there. The
     assemblies were public, the objections, the proposals publicly
     discussed, everybody being free, as in the syndical assemblies, to
     participate in the discussions, to criticise, propose, etc.
     Democracy extended to the whole of social life." [Collectives in the
     Spanish Revolution, pp. 204-7]

   These collectives organised federations embracing thousands of communes
   and workplaces, whole branches of industry, hundreds of thousands of
   people and whole regions of Spain. As such, it was a striking
   confirmation of Proudhon's argument that under federalism "the
   sovereignty of the contracting parties . . . serves as a positive
   guarantee of the liberty of . . . communes and individuals. So, no
   longer do we have the abstraction of people's sovereignty . . . but an
   effective sovereignty of the labouring masses"and "the labouring masses
   are actually, positively and effectively sovereign: how could they not
   be when the economic organism -- labour, capital, property and assets
   -- belongs to them entirely." [Property is Theft!, pp. 760-1]

   In other words, it is possible. It has worked. With the massive
   improvements in communication technology it is even more viable than
   before. Whether or not we reach such a self-managed society depends on
   whether we desire to be free or not.

I.5.5 Aren't participatory communities and confederations just new states?

   No. As we have seen in [10]section B.2, a state can be defined both by
   its structure and its function. As far as structure is concerned, a
   state involves the politico-military and economic domination of a
   certain geographical territory by a ruling elite, based on the
   delegation of power into the hands of the few, resulting in hierarchy
   (centralised authority). As such, it would be a massive theoretical
   error to confuse any form of social organisation with the specific form
   which is the state.

   As we have discussed in [11]section H.3.7, the state has evolved its
   specific characteristics as a result of its role as an instrument of
   class rule. If a social organisation does not have these
   characteristics then it is not a state. Thus, for anarchists, "the
   essence of the state" is "centralised power or to put it another way
   the coercive authority of which the state enjoys the monopoly, in that
   organisation of violence known as 'government'; in the hierarchical
   despotism, juridical, police and military despotism that imposes laws
   on everyone." [Luigi Fabbri, "Anarchy and 'Scientific' Communism", in
   The Poverty of Statism, pp. 13-49, Albert Meltzer (ed.), pp. 24-5] This
   is why Malatesta stressed that the state "means the delegation of
   power, that is the abdication of initiative and sovereignty of all into
   the hands of a few." [Anarchy, p. 41] If a social organisation is not
   centralised and top-down then it is not a state.

   In a system of federated participatory communities there is no ruling
   elite, and thus no hierarchy, because power is retained by the
   lowest-level units of confederation through their use of direct
   democracy and mandated, rotating, and recallable delegates to meetings
   of higher-level confederal bodies. This eliminates the problem in
   "representative" democratic systems of the delegation of power leading
   to the elected officials becoming isolated from and beyond the control
   of the mass of people who elected them. As Kropotkin pointed out, an
   anarchist society would make decisions by "means of congresses,
   composed of delegates, who discuss among themselves, and submit
   proposals, not laws, to their constituents" [The Conquest of Bread, p.
   135] So it is based on self-government, not representative government
   (and its inevitable bureaucracy). As Proudhon put it, "the federative
   system is the opposite of administrative and governmental hierarchy or
   centralisation" and so "a confederation is not precisely a state . . .
   What we call a federative Authority, finally, is not a government; it
   is an agency created . . . for the common running of some services".
   [Property is Theft!, pp. 697-8]

   Perhaps it will be objected that communal decision making is just a
   form of "statism" based on direct, as opposed to representative,
   democracy -- "statist" because the individual is still being subject to
   the rules of the majority and so is not free. This objection, however,
   confuses statism with free agreement (i.e. co-operation). Since
   participatory communities, like productive syndicates, are voluntary
   associations, the decisions they make are based on self-assumed
   obligations (see [12]section A.2.11), and dissenters can leave the
   association if they so desire. Thus communes are no more "statist" than
   the act of promising and keeping ones word.

   In addition, in a free society, dissent and direct action can be used
   by minorities to press their case (or defend their freedom) as well as
   debate. As Carole Pateman argues, "[p]olitical disobedience is merely
   one possible expression of the active citizenship on which a
   self-managing democracy is based." [The Problem of Political
   Obligation, p. 162] In this way, individual liberty can be protected in
   a communal system and society enriched by opposition, confrontation and
   dissent. Without self-management and minority dissent, society would
   become an ideological cemetery which would stifle ideas and individuals
   as these thrive on discussion ("those who will be able to create in
   their mutual relations a movement and a life based on the principles of
   free understanding . . . will understand that variety, conflict even,
   is life and that uniformity is death" [Kropotkin, Anarchism, p. 143]).
   So a society based on voluntary agreements and self-management would,
   out of interpersonal empathy and self-interest, create a society that
   encouraged individuality and respect for minorities.

   Therefore, a commune's participatory nature is the opposite of statism.
   April Carter agrees, stating that "commitment to direct democracy or
   anarchy in the socio-political sphere is incompatible with political
   authority" and that the "only authority that can exist in a direct
   democracy is the collective 'authority' vested in the body politic . .
   . it is doubtful if authority can be created by a group of equals who
   reach decisions by a process of mutual persuasion." [Authority and
   Democracy, p. 69 and p. 380] Which echoes, we must note, Proudhon's
   comment that "the true meaning of the word 'democracy'" was the
   "dismissal of government." [No Gods, No Masters, vol. 1, p. 42] Bakunin
   argued that when the "whole people govern" then "there will be no one
   to be governed. It means that there will be no government, no State."
   [The Political Philosophy of Bakunin, p. 287] Malatesta, decades later,
   made the same point: "government by everybody is no longer government
   in the authoritarian, historical and practical sense of the word." [No
   Gods, No Masters, vol. 2, p. 38] And, of course, Kropotkin argued that
   by means of the directly democratic sections of the French Revolution
   the masses "practic[ed] what was to be described later as Direct
   Self-Government" and expressed "the principles of anarchism." [The
   Great French Revolution, vol. 1, p. 200 and p. 204]

   Anarchists argue that individuals and the institutions they create
   cannot be considered in isolation. Authoritarian institutions will
   create individuals who have a servile nature, who cannot govern
   themselves. Anarchists, therefore, consider it common sense that
   individuals, in order to be free, must take part in determining the
   general agreements they make with their neighbours which give form to
   their communities. Otherwise, a free society could not exist and
   individuals would be subject to rules others make for them (following
   orders is hardly libertarian). Somewhat ironically, those who stress
   "individualism" and denounce communes as new "states" advocate a social
   system which produces extremely hierarchical social relationships based
   on the authority of the property owner. In other words, abstract
   individualism produces authoritarian (i.e., state-like) social
   relationships (see [13]section F.1). Therefore, anarchists recognise
   the social nature of humanity and the fact any society based on an
   abstract individualism (like capitalism) will be marked by authority,
   injustice and inequality, not freedom. As Bookchin pointed out: "To
   speak of 'The Individual' apart from its social roots is as meaningless
   as to speak of a society that contains no people or institutions."
   [Anarchism, Marxism, and the Future of the Left, p. 154]

   Society cannot be avoided and "[u]nless everyone is to be
   psychologically homogeneous and society's interests so uniform in
   character that dissent is simply meaningless, there must be room for
   conflicting proposals, discussion, rational explication and majority
   decisions - in short, democracy." [Bookchin, Op. Cit., p. 155] Those
   who reject democracy in the name of liberty (such as many supporters of
   capitalism claim to do) usually also see the need for laws and
   hierarchical authority (particularly in the workplace). This is
   unsurprising, as such authority is the only means left by which
   collective activity can be co-ordinated if self-management is rejected
   (usually as "statist", which is ironic as the resulting institutions,
   such as a capitalist company, are far more statist than self-managed
   ones).

   So, far from being new states by which one section of a community
   (historically, almost always a wealthy ruling minority) imposes its
   ethical standards on another, the anarchist commune is just a public
   forum. In this forum, issues of community interest (for example,
   management of the commons, control of communalised economic activity,
   and so forth) are discussed and policy agreed upon. In addition,
   interests beyond a local area are also discussed and delegates for
   confederal conferences are mandated with the wishes of the community.
   Hence, administration of things replaces government of people, with the
   community of communities existing to ensure that the interests of all
   are managed by all and that liberty, justice and equality for all are
   more than just ideals. Moreover, a free society would be one without
   professional bodies of armed people (i.e., there would be no armed
   forces or police). It would not have the means of enforcing the
   decisions of conferences and communes which reflected the interests of
   a few (would-be politicians or bureaucrats) rather than popular
   opinion.

   Of course, it could be argued that popular opinion can be as oppressive
   as any state, a possibility anarchists are aware of and take steps to
   combat. Remember, the communities and confederations of a free society
   would be made up of free people. They would not be too concerned with
   the personal behaviour of others unless it impacted on their own lives.
   As such, they would not be seeking to restrict the liberty of those who
   live with them. A community, therefore, is unlikely to make decisions
   like, for example, outlawing homosexuality or censoring the press. This
   is not to say that there is no danger of majorities abusing minorities.
   As we discuss in the [14]next section, anarchists are aware of this
   possibility and suggest means of reducing it, even eliminating it.
   Suffice to say, a free society would seek to encourage diversity and so
   leave minorities free to live their own lives (assuming they are not
   oppressing or exploiting others, of course).

   For these reasons, a libertarian-socialist society would not have a
   state. Structurally, it would be based on egalitarian and decentralised
   institutions, the direct opposite of the hierarchical and centralised
   state. Functionally, it would be based on mass participation of all to
   ensure they manage their own affairs rather than, in a state, exclusion
   of the many to ensure the rule by an elite (usually the wealthy). The
   communes and confederations of a libertarian system are not just states
   with new names but rather the forums by which free people manage their
   own affairs rather than being ruled by a state and its politicians and
   bureaucrats.

   This is why Proudhon, for example, argued that "under the democratic
   constitution . . . the political and the economic are . . . one and the
   same system . . . based upon a single principle, mutuality . . . and
   form this vast humanitarian organism of which nothing previously could
   give the idea." And so "is this not the system of the old society
   turned upside down"? [Property is Theft!, p. 760 and p. 761]

I.5.6 Won't there be a danger of a "tyranny of the majority" under
libertarian socialism?

   While the "tyranny of the majority" objection does contain an important
   point, it is often raised for self-serving reasons. This is because
   those who have historically raised the issue (for example, and as
   discussed in [15]section B.2.5, creators of the 1789 American
   constitution like Hamilton and Madison) saw the minority to be
   protected as the rich. In other words, the objection is not opposed to
   majority tyranny as such (they have no objections when the majority
   support their right to their riches and powers) but rather attempts of
   the majority to change their society to a fairer and freer one. Such
   concerns can easily be dismissed as an ingenious argument in favour of
   rule by the few -- particularly as its proponents (such as the
   propertarian right and other defenders of capitalism) have no problem
   with the autocratic rule of property owners over their wage-slaves!

   However, as noted, the objection to majority rule does contain a valid
   point and one which anarchists have addressed -- namely, what about
   minority freedom within a self-managed society? So this is a danger,
   one raised by people who are most definitely not seeking minority rule.
   For example, someone who was sympathetic to anarchism, George Orwell,
   expressed this fear:

     "the totalitarian tendency which is explicit in the anarchist . . .
     vision of Society. In a Society in which there is no law, and in
     theory no compulsion, the only arbiter of behaviour is public
     opinion. But pubic opinion, because of the tremendous urge to
     conformity in gregarious animals, is less tolerant than any system
     of law. When human beings are governed by 'thou shalt not', the
     individual can practise a certain amount of eccentricity: when they
     are supposedly governed by 'love' or 'reason', he is under
     continuous pressure to make him behave and think in exactly the same
     way as everyone else." [Inside the Whale and Other Essays, p. 132]

   There is, of course, this danger in any society, be its decision making
   structure direct (anarchy) or indirect (by some form of government).
   However, this does not really address the issue to point out this
   obvious fact. Anarchists are at the forefront in expressing concern
   about it, recognising that the majority is often a threat to freedom by
   its fear of change (see, for example, Emma Goldman's classic essay
   "Minorities versus Majorities"). We are well aware that the mass, as
   long as the individuals within it do not free themselves, can be a
   dead-weight on others, resisting change and enforcing conformity. As
   Goldman argued, "even more than constituted authority, it is social
   uniformity and sameness that harass the individual the most." [Red Emma
   Speaks, p. 116] Hence Malatesta's comment that anarchists "have the
   special mission of being vigilant custodians of freedom, against all
   aspirants to power and against the possible tyranny of the majority."
   [Errico Malatesta: His Life and Ideas, p. 161]

   However, rather than draw elitist conclusions from this fact of life
   under capitalism and urge forms of government and organisation which
   restrict popular participation (and promote rule, and tyranny, by the
   few) -- as classical liberals do -- libertarians argue that only a
   process of self-liberation through struggle and participation can break
   up the mass into free, self-managing individuals (as discussed in
   [16]section H.2.11 attempts by Leninists to portray anarchists as
   elitists are both hypocritical and wrong). Moreover, we also argue that
   participation and self-management is the only way that majorities can
   come to see the point of minority ideas and for seeing the importance
   of protecting minority freedoms. This means that any attempt to
   restrict participation in the name of minority rights actually enforces
   the herd mentality, undermining minority and individual freedom rather
   than protecting it. As Carole Pateman argues:

     "the evidence supports the arguments . . . that we do learn to
     participate by participating and that feelings of political efficacy
     are more likely to be developed in a participatory environment.
     Furthermore, the evidence indicates that experience of a
     participatory authority structure might also be effective in
     diminishing tendencies towards non-democratic attitudes in the
     individual." [Participation and Democratic Theory, p. 105]

   However, while there is cause for concern (and anarchists are at the
   forefront in expressing it), the "tyranny of the majority" objection
   fails to take note of the vast difference between direct and
   representative forms of democracy.

   In the current system, as we pointed out in [17]section B.5, voters are
   mere passive spectators of occasional, staged, and highly rehearsed
   debates among candidates pre-selected by the corporate elite, who pay
   for campaign expenses. More often the public is expected to choose
   simply on the basis of political ads and news sound bites. Once the
   choice is made, cumbersome and ineffective recall procedures insure
   that elected representatives can act more or less as they (or rather,
   their wealthy sponsors) please. The function, then, of the electorate
   in bourgeois "representative government" is ratification of "choices"
   that have been already made for them! This is also the case in
   referenda, where the people "are not to propose the questions: the
   government is to do that. Only to questions proposed by the government,
   the people may answer Yes or No, like a child in the catechism. The
   people will not even have a chance to make amendments." [Proudhon,
   General Idea of the Revolution, p. 148]

   By contrast, in a direct, libertarian democracy, decisions are made
   following public discussion in community assemblies open to all. After
   decisions have been reached, outvoted minorities -- even minorities of
   one -- still have ample opportunity to present reasoned and persuasive
   counter-arguments to try to change the decision. This process of
   debate, disagreement, challenge, and counter-challenge, which goes on
   even after the defeated minority has temporarily acquiesced in the
   decision of the majority, is virtually absent in the representative
   system, where "tyranny of the majority" is truly a problem. In
   addition, minorities can secede from an association if the decision
   reached by it are truly offensive to them.

   And let us not forget that in all likelihood, issues of personal
   conduct or activity will not be discussed in the neighbourhood
   assemblies. Why? Because we are talking about a society in which most
   people consider themselves to be unique, free individuals, who would
   thus recognise and act to protect the uniqueness and freedom of others.
   Unless people are indoctrinated by religion or some other form of
   ideology, they can be tolerant of others and their individuality. If
   this is not the case now, then it has more to do with the existence of
   authoritarian social relationships -- relationships that will be
   dismantled under libertarian socialism -- and the type of person they
   create rather than some innate human flaw.

   Thus there will be vast areas of life in a libertarian socialist
   community which are none of other people's business. Anarchists have
   always stressed the importance of personal space and "private" areas.
   Indeed, for Kropotkin, the failure of many "utopian" communities
   directly flowed from a lack personal space. One of the mistakes made by
   such intentional communities within capitalism was "the desire to
   manage the community after the model of a family, to make it 'the great
   family.' They lived all in the same house and were thus forced to
   continuously meet the same 'brethren and sisters.' It is already
   difficult often for two real brothers to live together in the same
   house, and family life is not always harmonious; so it was a
   fundamental error to impose on all the 'great family' instead of
   trying, on the contrary, to guarantee as much freedom and home life to
   each individual." Thus in an anarchist society, continual agreement on
   all issues is not desired. The members of a free society "need only
   agree as to some advantageous method of common work, and are free
   otherwise to live in their own way." [Small Communal Experiments and
   Why they Fail, pp. 8-9 and p. 22]

   Which brings us to another key point. When anarchists talk of
   democratising or communalising the household or any other association,
   we do not mean that it should be stripped of its private status and
   become open to the "tyranny of the majority" or regulation by general
   voting in a single, universal public sphere. Rather, we mean that
   households and other relationships should take in libertarian
   characteristics and be consistent with the liberty of all its members.
   Thus a society based on self-management does not imply the destruction
   of private spheres of activity -- it implies the extension of anarchist
   principles into all spheres of life, both private and public. It does
   not mean the subordination of the private by the public, or vice versa.

   As an example, we can point to inter-personal relationships. Anarchists
   are opposed to the patriarchy implicit (and, in the past, explicit) in
   marriage and suggest free love as an alternative. As discussed in
   [18]section H.4.2 , free love means that both people in a relationship
   have equal decision making power rather than, as in marriage, the woman
   becoming the property of the husband. Thus, self-management in this
   context does not mean the end of interpersonal relationships by the
   imposition of the commune onto all spheres of life but, obviously, the
   creation of interpersonal relationships based on equality and liberty
   within them.

   So, in other words, it is highly unlikely that the "tyranny of the
   majority" will exert itself where most rightly fear it -- in their
   homes, how they act with friends, their personal space, and so on. As
   long as individual freedom and rights are protected, it is of little
   concern what people get up to (including the rights of children, who
   are also individuals and not the property of their parents). Direct
   democracy in anarchist theory is purely concerned with common resources
   and their use and management. It is highly unlikely that a free society
   would debate issues of personal behaviour or morality and instead would
   leave them to those directly affected by them -- as it should be, as we
   all need personal space and experimentation to find the way of life
   that best suits us.

   Today an authoritarian worldview, characterised by an inability to
   think beyond the categories of domination and submission, is imparted
   by conditioning in the family, schools, religious institutions, clubs,
   fraternities, the army, etc., and produces a type of personality that
   is intolerant of any individual or group perceived as threatening to
   the perpetuation of that worldview and its corresponding institutions
   and values. Thus, as Bakunin argued, "public opinion" is potentially
   intolerant "simply because hitherto this power has not been humanised
   itself; it has not been humanised because the social life of which it
   is ever the faithful expression is based . . . in the worship of
   divinity, not on respect for humanity; in authority, not on liberty; on
   privilege, not on equality; in the exploitation, not on the
   brotherhood, of men; on iniquity and falsehood, not on justice and
   truth. Consequently its real action, always in contradiction of the
   humanitarian theories which it professes, has constantly exercised a
   disastrous and depraving influence." [God and the State, p. 43f] In
   other words, "if society is ever to become free, it will be so through
   liberated individuals, whose free efforts make society." [Emma Goldman,
   Anarchism and Other Essays, p. 44] In an anarchist society a conscious
   effort will be made to dissolve the institutional and traditional
   sources of the authoritarian/submissive type of personality, and thus
   to free "public opinion" of its current potential for intolerance.

   This is not to suggest that such a society of free individuals will not
   become stuck in routine and, over time, become oppressive to minorities
   who question certain aspects of public opinion or how it works. Public
   opinion and social organisations can evolve over generations in ways
   which no one expects. The best known, albeit fictional, example is in
   Ursula Le Guin's classic science-fiction book The Dispossessed where
   the anarchist society of Anarres has developed something of a weak
   informal bureaucracy due to the routine of everyday life and the
   unconscious pressures of public opinion. When the protagonist, Shevek,
   and his friends try to point this out and do something about (including
   Shevek leaving Anarres for the capitalist world of Urras), most on the
   planet are extremely hostile to this activity (precisely because it is
   going against the normal routine). Significantly, though, a large
   minority end up supporting their activities, activities which can occur
   precisely because the society is still fundamentally
   communist-anarchist and so the dissenters have a rich libertarian
   tradition and sensibility to base their direct action on as well having
   use-rights over the resources they need to propagate their ideas and
   practice their protest.

   In the real world, the best example would be the Mujeres Libres in
   Spanish anarchist movement in the 1930s (see Martha A. Ackelsberg's
   classic Free Women Of Spain: Anarchism And The Struggle For The
   Emancipation Of Women for more on this important movement). This
   organisation arose in response to the fact that many male anarchists,
   while expressing a theoretical commitment to sexual equality, were as
   sexist as the system they were fighting against. In other words, they
   subconsciously reflected the oppressive public opinion of what a
   woman's position should be. Unsurprisingly, many anarchist women were
   (rightly) angry at this and their marginalised status within a
   libertarian movement that ostensibly sought to abolish all forms of
   domination and hierarchy. In response, and often in the face of the
   hostility or indifference of their male comrades, they organised
   themselves to change this situation, to combat and transform public
   opinion both within and outwith the anarchist movement. Their
   activities meet with some success before, like the rest of the
   libertarian revolution, it was crushed by Franco's victory in the civil
   war.

   We can, therefore, suggest that a free society is unlikely to see
   public opinion becoming authoritarian. This is because, as the example
   of the Mujeres Libres shows, members of that society would organise to
   combat such developments and use various means to raise the problem to
   public awareness and to combat it. Once a free society has been gained,
   the task of anarchists would be to ensure it remained free and that
   would mean keeping a constant watch on possible sources of authority,
   including those associated with organisations developing informal
   bureaucracies and public opinion. While a free society would place
   numerous safeguards against such developments, no system would be
   perfect and so the actions of dissident minorities would be essential
   to point out and protest if such dangers appeared to be developing.

   As such, it should be noted that anarchists recognise that the practice
   of self-assumed political obligation implied in free association also
   implies the right to practice dissent and disobedience as well. As
   Carole Pateman notes:

     "Even if it is impossible to be unjust to myself, I do not vote for
     myself alone, but alone with everyone else. Questions about
     injustice are always appropriate in political life, for there is no
     guarantee that participatory voting will actually result in
     decisions in accord with the principles of political morality." [The
     Problem of Political Obligation, p. 160]

   If an individual or group of individuals feel that a specific decision
   threatens their freedom (which is the basic principle of political
   morality in an anarchist society) they can (and must) act to defend
   that freedom:

     "The political practice of participatory voting rests in a
     collective self-consciousness about the meaning and implication of
     citizenship. The members of the political association understand
     that to vote is simultaneously to commit oneself, to commit one's
     fellow citizens, and also to commit oneself to them in a mutual
     undertaking . . . a refusal to vote on a particular occasion
     indicates that the refusers believe . . . [that] the proposal . . .
     infringes the principle of political morality on which the political
     association is based . . . A refusal to vote [or the use of direct
     action] could be seen as an appeal to the 'sense of justice' of
     their fellow citizens." [Pateman, Op. Cit., p. 161]

   As they no longer consent to the decisions made by their community they
   can appeal to the "sense of justice" of their fellow citizens by direct
   action and indicate that a given decision may have impacts which the
   majority were not aware. Hence direct action and dissent is a key
   aspect of an anarchist society and help ensure against the tyranny of
   the majority. Anarchism rejects the "love it or leave it" attitude that
   marks classical liberalism as well as Rousseau (this aspect of his work
   being inconsistent with its foundations in participation).

   This vision of self-assumed obligation, with its basis in individual
   liberty, indicates the basic flaw of Joseph Schumpeter's argument
   against democracy as anything bar a political method of arriving at
   decisions (in his case who will be the leaders of a society).
   Schumpeter proposed "A Mental Experiment" of imagining a country which,
   using a democratic process, "reached the decision to persecute
   religious dissent" (such as Jews and witches). He argued that we should
   not approve of these practices just because they have been decided upon
   by a majority or using a democratic method and, therefore, democracy
   cannot be an end in itself. [Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy, pp.
   240-3]

   However, such systematic persecution would conflict with the rules of
   procedure required if a country's or community's political method is to
   be called "democratic." This is because, in order to be democratic, the
   minority must be in a position for its ideas to become the majority's
   via argument and convincing the majority (and that requires freedom of
   discussion and association). A country or community in which the
   majority persecutes or represses a minority automatically ensures that
   the minority can never be in a position to become the majority (as the
   minority is barred by force from becoming so) or convince the majority
   of the errors of its way (even if it cannot become the majority
   physically, it can become so morally by convincing the majority to
   change its position). Schumpeter's example utterly violates democratic
   principles and so cannot be squared with the rules of democratic
   procedure. Thus majority tyranny is an outrage against both democratic
   theory and individual liberty (unsurprisingly, as the former has its
   roots in the latter). Unsurprisingly, then, the "freedom of the
   collectivity to crush the individual is not, however, true Liberty in
   the eyes of Anarchists. It is one of those shams, which the Revolution
   is to destroy." [Charlotte M. Wilson, Anarchist Essays, p. 25]

   This argument applies with even more force to a self-managed community
   too and so any system in which the majority tyrannises over a minority
   is, by definition, not self-managed as one part of the community is
   excluded from convincing the other ("the enslaving of part of the
   nation is the very negation of the federative principal." [Proudhon,
   Property is Theft!, p. 698f]). Thus individual freedom and minority
   rights are essential to direct democracy and self-management. As
   Proudhon argued, "a new spirit has dawned on the world. Freedom has
   opposed itself to the State, and since the idea of freedom has become
   universal people have realised that it is not a concern of the
   individual merely, but rather that it must exist in the group also."
   [quoted by Martin Buber, Paths in Utopia, p. 28]

   It should be stressed, however, that most anarchists do not think that
   the way to guard against possible tyranny by the majority is to resort
   to decision-making by consensus (where no action can be taken until
   every person in the group agrees) or a property system (based in
   contracts). Both consensus (see [19]section A.2.12) and contracts (see
   [20]section A.2.14) soon result in authoritarian social relationships
   developing in the name of "liberty." Rather, we seek new forms of free
   agreement to replace contract and new forms of decision making which do
   not replace the possible tyranny of the majority with the real tyranny
   of a minority.

   As Malatesta argued, "for if it is unjust that the majority should
   oppress the minority, the contrary would be quite as unjust; and if the
   minority has a right to rebel, the majority has a right to defend
   itself . . . it is true that this solution is not completely
   satisfactory. The individuals put out of the association would be
   deprived of many social advantages, which an isolated person or group
   must do without, because they can only be procured by the co-operation
   of a great number of human beings. But what would you have? These
   malcontents cannot fairly demand that the wishes of many others should
   be sacrificed for their sakes." [A Talk about Anarchist-Communism, p.
   29] In other words, freedom of association means the freedom not to
   associate and so communities can expel individuals or groups of
   individuals who constantly hinder community decisions -- assuming they
   do not leave voluntarily and seek a community more in tune with their
   needs. This is a very important freedom for both the majority and the
   minority, and must be defended.

   So while minorities have significant rights in a free society, so does
   the majority. We can imagine that there will be ethical reasons why
   participants will not act in ways to oppose joint activity -- as they
   took part in the decision making process they would be considered
   childish if they reject the final decision because it did not go in
   their favour. Moreover, they would also have to face the reaction of
   those who also took part in the decision making process. It would be
   likely that those who ignored such decisions (or actively hindered
   them) would soon face non-violent direct action in the form of
   non-co-operation, shunning, boycotting and so on. Anarchists think that
   such occurrences would be rare.

   However, as an isolated life is impossible, the need for communal
   associations is essential. It is only by living together in a
   supportive community that individuality can be encouraged and developed
   along with individual freedom. However, anarchists are aware that not
   everyone is a social animal and that there are times that people like
   to withdraw into their own personal space. Thus our support for free
   association and federalism along with solidarity, community and
   self-management. Hence most anarchists have recognised that majority
   decision making, though not perfect, is the best way to reach decisions
   in a political system based on maximising individual (and so social)
   freedom. Direct democracy in grassroots confederal assemblies and
   workers' councils ensures that decision making is "horizontal" in
   nature (i.e. between equals) and not hierarchical (i.e. governmental,
   between order giver and order taker). In other words, anarchists
   support self-management because it ensures liberty -- not because we
   subscribe to the flawed assumption that the majority is always right.

I.5.7 What if I don't want to join a commune?

   As would be expected, no one would be forced to join a commune nor take
   part in its assemblies. To suggest otherwise would be contrary to
   anarchist principles. Thus a commune would be a free society, in which
   individual liberty would be respected and encouraged.

   However, what about individuals who live within the boundaries of a
   commune but decide not to join? For example, a local neighbourhood may
   include households that desire to associate and a few that do not (this
   is actually happened during the Spanish Revolution). What happens to
   the minority of dissenters?

   Obviously individuals can leave to find communities more in line with
   their own concepts of right and wrong if they cannot convince their
   neighbours of the validity of their ideas. And, equally obviously, not
   everyone will want to leave an area they like. So we must discuss those
   who decide not to find a more suitable community. Are the communal
   decisions binding on non-members? Obviously not. If an individual or
   family desire not to join a commune (for whatever reason), their
   freedoms must be respected. However, this also means that they cannot
   benefit from communal activity and resources (such a free housing,
   hospitals, and so forth) and, possibly, have to pay for their use. As
   long as they do not exploit or oppress others, an anarchist community
   would respect their decision (as discussed in [21]section G.2.1, for
   example).

   Many who oppose anarchist self-management in the name of freedom often
   do so because they desire to oppress and exploit others. In other
   words, they oppose participatory communities because they (rightly)
   fear that this would restrict their ability to oppress, exploit and
   grow rich off the labour of others (this type of opposition can be seen
   from history, when rich elites, in the name of liberty, have replaced
   democratic forms of social decision making with representative or
   authoritarian ones -- see [22]section B.2.6). So it goes without saying
   that the minority, as in any society, will exist within the ethical
   norms of the surrounding society and they will be have to adhere to
   them in the same sense that they have to adhere to not murdering people
   (few sane people would say that forcing people not to commit murder is
   a restriction of their liberty). Therefore, while allowing the maximum
   of individual freedom of dissent, an anarchist community would still
   have to apply its ethical standards to those beyond that community.
   Individuals would not be allowed to murder, harm or enslave others and
   claim that they are allowed to do so because they are not part of the
   local community (see [23]section I.5.8 on crime in an anarchist
   society).

   Similarly, individuals would not be allowed to develop private property
   (as opposed to possession) simply because they wanted to. This
   rejection of private property would not be a restriction on liberty
   simply because stopping the development of authority hardly counts as
   an authoritarian act (for an analogy, supporters of capitalism do not
   think that banning theft is a restriction of liberty and because this
   view is -- currently -- accepted by the majority, it is enforced on the
   minority). Regardless of what defenders of capitalism claim, "voluntary
   bilateral exchanges" affect third parties and can harm others
   indirectly. This can easily be seen from examples like concentrations
   of wealth which have effects across society or the ecological impacts
   of consumption and production. This means that an anarchist society
   would be aware that inequality, and so statism, could develop again and
   take precautions against it. As Malatesta put it, some "seem almost to
   believe that after having brought down government and private property
   we would allow both to be quietly built up again, because of respect
   for the freedom of those who might feel the need to be rulers and
   property owners. A truly curious way of interpreting our ideas."
   [Anarchy, p. 43]

   The suggestion that denying property ownership is a restriction in
   freedom is wrong, as it is the would-be capitalist who is trying to ban
   freedom for others on their property. Members of a free society would
   simply refuse to recognise the claims of private property -- they would
   simply ignore the would-be capitalist's pretensions and "keep out"
   signs. Without a state, or hired thugs, to back up their claims, they
   would just end up looking silly.

   This means that Anarchists do not support the liberty of being a boss
   (anarchists will happily work with someone but not for someone). Of
   course, those who desire to create private property against the wishes
   of others expect those others to respect their wishes. So, when
   would-be propertarians happily fence off their "property" and exclude
   others from it, could not these others remember these words from Woody
   Guthrie's This Land is Your Land, and act accordingly?

   class=HTMLMarkup> lang=EN-US style='color:red'><div align="center">"As
                     I went rumbling that dusty highway
                   I saw a sign that said private property
                 But on the other side it didn't say nothing
            This land was made for you and me" class=HTMLMarkup>
                          style='color:red'></div>

   While happy to exclude others from "their" property, such owners seem
   more than happy to use the resources held in common by others. They are
   the ultimate "free riders," desiring the benefits of society but
   rejecting the responsibilities that go with it. In the end, such
   "individualists" usually end up supporting the state (an institution
   they claim to hate) precisely because it is the only means by which
   private property and their "freedom" to exercise authority can be
   defended.

   This means, it should be stressed, the freedom to live your life as you
   see fit, using the resources you need to do so. It simply means not
   being able to proclaim ownership over more than you could reasonably
   use. In other words, "Occupancy and use" would be the limits of
   possession -- and so property would become "that control of a thing by
   a person which will receive either social sanction, or else unanimous
   individual sanction, when the laws of social expediency shall have been
   fully discovered." [Benjamin Tucker, Instead of a Book, p. 131] As we
   discuss in [24]section I.6.2, this perspective on use rights is shared
   by both individualist and social anarchists.

   Therefore anarchists support the maximum of experiments while ensuring
   that the social conditions that allow this experimentation are
   protected against concentrations of wealth and power. As Malatesta put
   it: "Anarchism involves all and only those forms of life that respect
   liberty and recognise that every person has an equal right to enjoy the
   good things of nature and the products of their own activity." [The
   Anarchist Revolution, p. 14]

   So, as a way to eliminate the problem of minorities seeking power and
   property for themselves, an anarchist revolution places social wealth
   (starting with the land) in the hands of all and promises to protect
   only those uses of it which are considered just by society as a whole.
   In other words, by recognising that "property" is a product of society,
   an anarchist society will ensure than an individual's "property" is
   protected by his or her fellows when it is based purely upon actual
   occupancy and use. Thus attempts to transform minority dissent into,
   say, property rights would be fought by simply ignoring the "keep out"
   signs of property owned, but not used, by an individual or group.

   Therefore, individuals are free not to associate, but their claims of
   "ownership" will be based around use rights, not property rights.
   Individuals will be protected by their fellows only in so far as what
   they claim to "own" is related to their ability to personally use said
   "property." Without a state to back up and protect property "rights,"
   we see that all rights are, in the end, what society considers to be
   fair (the difference between law and social custom is discussed in
   [25]section I.7.3). What the state does is to impose "rights" which do
   not have such a basis (i.e. those that protect the property of the
   elite) or "rights" which have been corrupted by wealth and would have
   been changed because of this corruption had society been free to manage
   its own affairs.

   In summary, individuals will be free not to join a participatory
   community, and hence free to place themselves outside its decisions and
   activities on most issues that do not apply to the fundamental ethical
   standards of a society. Hence individuals who desire to live outside of
   anarchist communities would be free to live as they see fit but would
   not be able to commit murder, rape, create private property or other
   activities that harmed individuals. It should be noted, moreover, that
   this does not mean that their possessions will be taken from them by
   "society" or that "society" will tell them what to do with them.
   Freedom, in a complex world, means that such individuals will not be in
   a position to turn their possessions into property and thus recreate
   capitalism (for the distinction between "property" and "possessions,"
   see [26]section B.3.1). This will not be done by "anarchist police" or
   by "banning" voluntary agreements, but purely by recognising that
   "property" is a social creation and by creating a social system that
   will encourage individuals to stand up for their rights and co-operate
   with each other to protect their freedom against those seeking to
   reduce others to the conditions of servants working their property for
   them.

I.5.8 What about crime?

   For anarchists, "crime" can best be described as anti-social acts, or
   behaviour which harms someone else or which invades their personal
   space. Anarchists, in other words, "believe that to act criminally
   means to violate the liberty of others" and so criminals in a free
   society would be "those who would encroach on personal integrity,
   liberty and the well being of others." [Malatesta, At the Café, p. 100
   and p. 132]

   This definition of crime is similar, of course, to that used in
   capitalist society but libertarians note that the state defines as
   "crime" many things which a sane society would not (such as, say,
   consensual acts of adults in private or expropriation of private
   property). Similarly, a free society would consider as anti-social many
   acts which the state allows under capitalism (such as the appropriation
   of resources or exploitation of others labour). This is to be expected,
   as social customs evolve and reflect the socio-economic basis of a
   given society. Hence Malatesta:

     "Naturally the crimes we are talking about are anti-social acts,
     that is those which offend human feelings and which infringe the
     right of others to equality in freedom, and not the many actions
     which the penal code punishes simply because they offend against the
     privileges of the dominant classes." [Errico Malatesta: His Life and
     Ideas, pp. 105-6]

   Anarchists argue that the root cause for crime is not some perversity
   of human nature or "original sin" but is due to the type of society by
   which people are moulded. For example, anarchists point out that by
   eliminating private property, crime could be reduced significantly,
   since most crime today is currently motivated by evils stemming from
   private property such as poverty, homelessness, unemployment, and
   alienation. Moreover, by adopting anarchist methods of
   non-authoritarian child rearing and education, most of the remaining
   crimes could also be eliminated, because they are largely due to the
   anti-social, perverse, and cruel "secondary drives" that develop
   because of authoritarian child-rearing practices (see [27]section J.6).
   However, as long as the few "violates the equal freedom of others . . .
   we must defend ourselves." [Malatesta, Op. Cit., p. 106]

   Nor can it be said that governments are required to protect people from
   crime and criminals. Rather, as Alexander Berkman argued, "[d]oes not
   government itself create and uphold conditions which make for crime?
   Does not the invasion and violence upon which all governments rest
   cultivate the spirit of intolerance and persecution, of hatred and more
   violence?" Crime, then, "is the result of economic conditions, of
   social inequality, of wrongs and evils of which government and monopoly
   are parents. Government and law can only punish the criminal. They
   neither cure nor prevent crime. The only real cure for crime is to
   abolish its causes, and this the government can never do because it is
   there to preserve those very causes." This suggests that crimes
   "resulting from government, from its oppression and injustice, from
   inequality and poverty, will disappear under Anarchy. These constitute
   by far the greatest percentage of crime." [What is Anarchism?, p. 151]
   Nor should we forget that today we are subject to rule by the
   anti-social, for the "owners and rulers" are "criminals" who are
   "powerful and have organised their dominance on a stable basis" ("Who
   is more of a thief than the owners who get wealthy stealing the produce
   of the workers' labour?"). [Malatesta, At the Café, p. 100 and p. 130]

   "Crime", therefore, cannot be divorced from the society within which it
   occurs. Society, in Emma Goldman's words, gets the criminals it
   deserves. For example, anarchists do not think it unusual nor
   unexpected that crime exploded under the pro-free market capitalist
   regimes of Thatcher and Reagan. Crime, the most obvious symptom of
   social crisis, took 30 years to double in Britain (from 1 million
   incidents in 1950 to 2.2 million in 1979). However, between 1979 and
   1992 the crime rate more than doubled, exceeding the 5 million mark in
   1992. These 13 years were marked by a government firmly committed to
   the "free market" and "individual responsibility." It was entirely
   predictable that the social disruption, atomisation of individuals, and
   increased poverty caused by freeing capitalism from social controls
   would rip society apart and increase criminal activity. Also
   unsurprisingly (from an anarchist viewpoint), under these pro-market
   governments we also saw a reduction in civil liberties, increased state
   centralisation, and the destruction of local government. As Malatesta
   put it, the classical liberalism which these governments represented
   could have had no other effect, for "the government's powers of
   repression must perforce increase as free competition results in more
   discord and inequality." [Anarchy, p. 47]

   Hence the apparent paradox of governments with flowing rhetoric about
   "individual rights," the "free market" and "getting the state off our
   backs" increasing state power and reducing rights while holding office
   during a crime explosion is no paradox at all. "The conjuncture of the
   rhetoric of individual freedom and a vast increase in state power,"
   argues Carole Pateman, "is not unexpected at a time when the influence
   of contract doctrine is extending into the last, most intimate nooks
   and crannies of social life. Taken to a conclusion, contract undermines
   the conditions of its own existence. Hobbes showed long ago that
   contract -- all the way down -- requires absolutism and the sword to
   keep war at bay." [The Sexual Contract, p. 232]

   Capitalism, and the contract theory on which it is built, will
   inevitably rip apart society. Capitalism is based upon a vision of
   humanity as isolated individuals with no connection other than that of
   money and contract. Such a vision cannot help but institutionalise
   anti-social acts. As Kropotkin argued "it is not love and not even
   sympathy upon which Society is based in mankind. It is the conscience
   -- be it only at the stage of an instinct -- of human solidarity. It is
   the unconscious recognition of the force that is borrowed by each man
   [and woman] from the practice of mutual aid; of the close dependency of
   every one's happiness upon the happiness of all; and of the sense of
   justice, or equity, which brings the individual to consider the rights
   of every other individual as equal to his [or her] own." [Mutual Aid,
   p. 16] The social atomisation required and created by capitalism
   destroys the basic bonds of society - namely human solidarity - and
   hierarchy crushes the individuality required to understand that we
   share a common humanity with others and so understand why we must be
   ethical and respect others rights. Significantly, as Richard Wilkinson
   and Kate Pickett note in The Spirit Level: Why More Equal Societies
   Almost Always Do Better, more unequal societies have more crime and
   bigger prison populations (equality, as well as reducing crime,
   consistently delivers other advantages for people).

   We should also point out that prisons have numerous negative affects on
   society as well as often re-enforcing criminal (i.e. anti-social)
   behaviour. Anarchists use the all-to-accurate description of prisons as
   "Universities of Crime" wherein the first-time criminal learns new
   techniques and has to adapt to the prevailing ethical standards within
   them. Hence, prisons would have the effect of increasing the criminal
   tendencies of those sent there and so prove to be counter-productive.
   In addition, prisons do not affect the social conditions which promote
   many forms of crime.

   We are not saying, however, that anarchists reject the concept of
   individual responsibility. While recognising that rape, for example, is
   the result of a social system which represses sexuality and is based on
   patriarchy (i.e. rape has more to do with power than sex), anarchists
   do not "sit back" and say "it's society's fault." Individuals have to
   take responsibility for their own actions and recognise the
   consequences of those actions. Part of the current problem with "law
   codes" is that individuals have been deprived of the responsibility for
   developing their own ethical code, and so are less likely to develop
   "civilised" social standards (see [28]section I.7.3).

   Therefore, while anarchists reject the ideas of law and a specialised
   justice system, they are not blind to the fact that anti-social action
   may not totally disappear in a free society. Nor are they blind to the
   fact that, regardless of our hopes about a free society reducing crime,
   we will not create it over-night ("all the bad passions . . . will not
   disappear at a stroke. There will still be for a long time those who
   will feel tempted to impose their will on others with violence, who
   will wish to exploit favourable circumstances to create privileges for
   themselves" [Malatesta, At the Café, p. 131]). Therefore, some sort of
   justice system would still be necessary to deal with the remaining
   crimes and to adjudicate disputes between citizens.

   This does not, it must be stressed, signify some sort of contradiction
   within anarchism. Anarchists have never advocated the kind of "freedom"
   which assumes that people can do what they want. When people object to
   anarchy, they often raise the question as to those who would steal,
   murder, rape and so forth and seem to assume that such people would be
   free to act as they like. This is, needless to say, an utter
   misunderstanding of both our ideas and freedom in general. Simply put,
   if people impose themselves by force on others then "they will be the
   government" and "we will oppose them with force" for "if today we want
   to make a revolution against the government, it is not in order to
   submit ourselves supinely to new oppressors." [Malatesta, Op. Cit, p.
   99] This applies equally to the need to defend a free society against
   organised counter-revolution and against those within it conducting
   anti-social ("criminal") activities. The principle is the same, it is
   just the scale which is different.

   It should be remembered that just because the state monopolises or
   organises a (public) service, it does not mean that the abolition of
   the state means the abolition of what useful things it provided. For
   example, many states own and run the train network but the abolition of
   the state does not mean that there will no longer be any trains! In a
   free society management of the railways would be done by the rail
   workers themselves, in association with the community. The same applies
   to anti-social behaviour and so we find Kropotkin, for example,
   pointing to how "voluntary associations" would "substitute themselves
   for the State in all its functions," including for "mutual protection"
   and "defence of the territory." [Anarchism, p. 284]

   This applies to what is termed justice, namely the resolution of
   disputes and anti-social acts ("crime"). This means that anarchists
   argue that "people would not allow their wellbeing and their freedom to
   be attacked with impunity, and if the necessity arose, they would take
   measures to defend themselves against the anti-social activities of a
   few. But to do so, what purpose is served by people whose profession is
   the making of laws; while other people spend their lives seeking out
   and inventing law-breakers?" [Anarchy, pp. 43-4] This means that in a
   free society the resolution of anti-social behaviour would rest in the
   hands of all, not in a specialised body separate from and above the
   masses. As Proudhon put it, an anarchy would see the "police,
   judiciary, administration, everywhere committed to the hands of the
   workers" [Property is Theft!, p. 596] And so:

     "Let each household, each factory, each association, each
     municipality, each district, attend to its own police, and
     administer carefully its own affairs, and the nation will be policed
     and administered. What need have we to be watched and ruled, and to
     pay, year in and year out, . . . millions? Let us abolish prefects,
     commissioners, and policemen too." [Op. Cit., p. 593]

   Precisely how this will work will be determined by free people based on
   the circumstances they face. All we can do is sketch out likely
   possibilities and make suggestions.

   In terms of resolving disputes between people, it is likely that some
   form of arbitration system would develop. The parties involved could
   agree to hand their case to a third party (for example, a communal jury
   or a mutually agreed individual or set of individuals). There is the
   possibility that the parties cannot agree (or if the victim were dead).
   Then the issue could be raised at a communal assembly and a "court"
   appointed to look into the issue. These "courts" would be independent
   from the commune, their independence strengthened by popular election
   instead of executive appointment of judges, by protecting the jury
   system of selection of random citizens by lot, and so "all disputes . .
   . will be submitted to juries which will judge not only the facts but
   the law, the justice of the law [or social custom], its applicability
   to the given circumstances, and the penalty or damage to be inflicted
   because of its infraction". [Benjamin Tucker, The Individualist
   Anarchists, p. 160] For Tucker, the jury was a "splendid institution,
   the principal safeguard against oppression." [Liberty, vol. 1, no. 16,
   p. 1]

   As Malatesta suggested, "when differences were to arise between men
   [sic!], would not arbitration voluntarily accepted, or pressure of
   public opinion, be perhaps more likely to establish where the right
   lies than through an irresponsible magistrate which has the right to
   adjudicate on everything and everybody and is inevitably incompetent
   and therefore unjust?" [Anarchy, p. 45] It is in the arbitration system
   and communal assemblies that what constitutes anti-social behaviour
   will be discussed and agreed.

   In terms of anti-social events when they happen, "when there remains a
   residue of criminals, the collective directly concerned should think of
   placing them in a position where they can do no harm, without
   delegating to anyone the specific function of persecuting criminals"
   [Malatesta, At the Café, p. 101] In the case of a "police force", this
   would not exist either as a public or private specialised body or
   company. If a local community did consider that public safety required
   a body of people who could be called upon for help, we imagine that a
   new system would be created. Such a system would "not be entrusted to,
   as it is today, to a special, official body: all able-bodied
   inhabitants will be called upon to take turns in the security measures
   instituted by the commune." [James Guillaume, "On Building the New
   Social Order", pp. 356-79, Bakunin on Anarchism, p. 371]

   This system could be based around a voluntary militia, in which all
   members of the community could serve if they so desired. Those who
   served would not constitute a professional body; instead the service
   would be made up of local people who would join for short periods of
   time and be replaced if they abused their position. Hence the
   likelihood that a communal militia would become corrupted by power,
   like the current police force or a private security firm exercising a
   policing function, would be vastly reduced. Moreover, by accustoming a
   population to intervene in anti-social acts as part of the militia,
   they would be empowered to do so when not an active part of it, so
   reducing the need for its services even more. In this way "we will
   defend ourselves . . . without delegating to anyone the special
   function of the defence of society" and this is "the only effective
   method" of stopping and reducing anti-social activity. [Malatesta, Op.
   Cit., p. 132]

   Such a body would not have a monopoly on protecting others, but would
   simply be on call if others required it. It would no more be a monopoly
   of defence (i.e. a "police force") than the current fire service is a
   monopoly. Individuals are not banned from putting out fires today
   because the fire service exists, similarly individuals will be free to
   help stop anti-social crime by themselves, or in association with
   others, in an anarchist society.

   Of course there are anti-social acts which occur without witnesses and
   so the "guilty" party cannot be readily identified. If such acts did
   occur we can imagine an anarchist community taking two courses of
   action. The injured party may look into the facts themselves or appoint
   an agent to do so or, more likely, an ad hoc group would be elected at
   a community assembly to investigate specific crimes of this sort. Such
   a group would be given the necessary "authority" to investigate the
   crime and be subject to recall by the community if they start trying to
   abuse whatever authority they had. Once the investigating body thought
   it had enough evidence it would inform the community as well as the
   affected parties and then organise a court. Of course, a free society
   will produce different solutions to such problems, solutions no-one has
   considered yet and so these suggestions are just that, suggestions.

   As is often stated, prevention is better than cure. This is as true of
   crime as of disease. In other words, crime is best fought by rooting
   out its causes as opposed to punishing those who act in response to
   these causes. For example, it is hardly surprising that a culture that
   promotes individual profit and consumerism would produce individuals
   who do not respect other people (or themselves) and see them as purely
   means to an end (usually increased consumption). And, like everything
   else in a capitalist system, such as honour and pride, conscience is
   also available at the right price -- hardly an environment which
   encourages consideration for others, or even for oneself.

   In addition, a society based on hierarchical authority will also tend
   to produce anti-social activity because the free development and
   expression it suppresses. Thus, authority (which is often claimed to be
   the only cure for crime) actually helps produce it. As Emma Goldman
   argued, crime "is naught but misdirected energy. So long as every
   institution of today, economic, political, social, moral conspires to
   misdirect human energy into wrong channels; so long as most people are
   out of place doing things they hate to do, living a life they loathe to
   live, crime will be inevitable, and all the laws on the statues can
   only increase, but never do away with, crime" [Red Emma Speaks, p. 71]
   Erich Fromm, decades later, made the same point:

     "It would seem that the amount of destructiveness to be found in
     individuals is proportionate to the amount to which expansiveness of
     life is curtailed. By this we do not refer to individual
     frustrations of this or that instinctive desire but to the thwarting
     of the whole of life, the blockage of spontaneity of the growth and
     expression of man's sensuous, emotional, and intellectual
     capacities. Life has an inner dynamism of its own; it tends to grow,
     to be expressed, to be lived . . . the drive for life and the drive
     for destruction are not mutually interdependent factors but are in a
     reversed interdependence. The more the drive towards life is
     thwarted, the stronger is the drive towards destruction; the more
     life is realised, the less is the strength of destructiveness.
     Destructiveness is the outcome of unlived life. Those individual and
     social conditions that make for suppression of life produce the
     passion for destruction that forms, so to speak, the reservoir from
     which particular hostile tendencies -- either against others or
     against oneself -- are nourished." [The Fear of Freedom, p. 158]

   Therefore, by reorganising society so that it empowers everyone and
   actively encourages the use of all our intellectual, emotional and
   sensuous abilities, crime would soon cease to be the huge problem that
   it is now. As for the anti-social behaviour or clashes between
   individuals that might still exist in such a society, it would be dealt
   with in a system based on respect for the individual and a recognition
   of the social roots of the problem. Restraint would be kept to a
   minimum. Anarchists think that public opinion and social pressure would
   be the main means of preventing anti-social acts in an anarchist
   society, with such actions as boycotting and ostracising used as
   powerful sanctions to convince those attempting them of the errors of
   their way. Extensive non-co-operation by neighbours, friends and work
   mates would be the best means of stopping acts which harmed others.
   Thus Malatesta:

     "In order for crime to be treated rationally, in order to seek for
     its causes and really do everything possible to eliminate it, it is
     necessary for this task to be entrusted to those who are exposed to
     and suffer the consequences of crime, in other words the whole
     public, and not those to whom the existence of crime is a source of
     power and earnings." [At the Café, p. 135]

   An anarchist system of justice, we should note, would have a lot to
   learn from aboriginal societies simply because they are examples of
   social order without the state. Indeed many of the ideas we consider as
   essential to justice today can be found in such societies. As Kropotkin
   argued, "when we imagine that we have made great advances in
   introducing, for instance, the jury, all we have done is to return to
   the institutions of the so-called 'barbarians' after having changed it
   to the advantage of the ruling classes." [The State: Its Historic Role,
   p. 18]

   Like aboriginal justice (as documented by Rupert Ross in Returning to
   the Teachings: Exploring Aboriginal Justice) anarchists contend that
   offenders should not be punished but justice achieved by the teaching
   and healing of all involved. Public condemnation of the wrongdoing
   would be a key aspect of this process, but the wrong doer would remain
   part of the community and so see the effects of their actions on others
   in terms of grief and pain caused. It would be likely that wrong doers
   would be expected to try to make amends for their act by community
   service or helping victims and their families.

   So, from a practical viewpoint, almost all anarchists oppose prisons on
   both practical grounds and ethical grounds. Simply put, prison "does
   not improve the prisoner . . . it does not prevent him from committing
   more crimes. It does not then achieve any of the ends it has set
   itself" [Kropotkin, Anarchism, p. 228] Moreover, they are a failure in
   terms of their impact on those subject to them: "We know what prisons
   mean -- they mean broken down body and spirit, degradation,
   consumption, insanity". [Voltairine de Cleyre, quoted by Paul Avrich,
   An American Anarchist, p. 146] The Makhnovists took the usual anarchist
   position on prisons:

     "Prisons are the symbol of the servitude of the people, they are
     always built only to subjugate the people, the workers and peasants
     . . . Free people have no use for prisons. Wherever prisons exist,
     the people are not free. . . In keeping with this attitude, [the
     Makhnovists] demolished prisons wherever they went." [Peter
     Arshinov, The History of the Makhnovist Movement, p. 153]

   With the exception of Benjamin Tucker, no major anarchist writer has
   supported the institution. Few anarchists think that private prisons
   (like private policemen) are compatible with their notions of freedom.
   However, all anarchists are against the current "justice" system which
   seems to them to be organised around revenge and punishing effects and
   not fixing causes.

   However, there are psychopaths and other people in any society who are
   too dangerous to be allowed to walk freely. Restraint in this case
   would be the only option and such people may have to be isolated from
   others for their own, and others, safety. Perhaps mental hospitals
   would be used, or an area quarantined for their use. However, such
   cases (we hope) would be rare and "should be cared for according to the
   most humane methods of treating the mentally afflicted." [Voltairine de
   Cleyre, The Voltairine de Cleyre Reader, p. 160]

   The one thing that needs to be avoided is the creation of a
   professional and specialised "justice" system as this would be a key
   means by which the state could reconstitute itself. As Malatesta
   explained, "the major damage caused by crime is not so much the single
   and transitory instance of the violation of the rights of a few
   individuals, but the danger that it will serve as an opportunity and
   pretext for the constitution of an authority that, with the outward
   appearance of defending society will subdue and oppress it." In other
   words, it "would truly be a great piece of foolishness to protect
   oneself from a few violent people, a few idlers and some degenerates,
   by opening a school for idleness and violence" [Op. Cit., p. 101 and p.
   132] The libertarian perspective on crime does not rest on an idealised
   vision of people. "We do not believe", as Malatesta suggested, in the
   infallibility, nor even the general goodness of the masses", rather "we
   believe even less in the infallibility and goodness of those who seize
   power and legislate" and so we must "avoid the creation of bodies
   specialising in police work". [Errico Malatesta: His Life and Ideas, p.
   109 and p. 108] After all, as George Barrett argued:

     "All that we can say is that . . . disputes are very much better
     settled without the interference of authority. If the two [parties]
     were reasonable, they would probably mutually agree to allow their
     dispute to be settled by some mutual friend whose judgement they
     could trust. But if instead of taking this sane course they decide
     to set up a fixed authority, disaster will be the inevitable result.
     In the first place, this authority will have to be given power
     wherewith to enforce its judgement in such matters. What will then
     take place? The answer is quite simple. Feeling it is a superior
     force, it will naturally in each case take to itself the best of
     what is disputed, and allot the rest to its friends.

     "What a strange question is this. It supposes that two people who
     meet on terms of equality and disagree could not be reasonable or
     just. But, on the other hand, it supposes that a third party,
     starting with an unfair advantage, and backed up by violence, will
     be the incarnation of justice itself. Commonsense should certainly
     warn us against such a supposition, and if we are lacking in this
     commodity, then we may learn the lesson by turning to the facts of
     life. There we see everywhere Authority standing by, and in the name
     of justice and fair play using its organised violence in order to
     take the lion's share of the world's wealth for the governmental
     class." [Objections to Anarchism, pp. 349-50]

   So instead of prisons and a legal code based on the concept of
   punishment and revenge, anarchists support the use of pubic opinion and
   pressure to stop anti-social acts and the need to therapeutically
   rehabilitate those who commit anti-social acts. Rather than a parasitic
   legal system which creates and defends inequality and privilege,
   anarchists agree with Kropotkin: "Liberty, equality, and practical
   human sympathy are the most effective barriers we can oppose to the
   anti-social instinct of certain among us". [Op. Cit., p. 218] "We want
   justice, not rigid, but elastic", argued Tucker, "we want justice, not
   stern, but tempered with mercy, with eyes sharp enough to detect
   causes, conditions, and circumstances; we want justice, not
   superficial, but profound." The current system of rigid law imposed by
   the state and implemented by a judge was false and "no such justice is
   wanted in any civilised community." [Op. Cit., Vol. 13, No. 5, p. 4]

   In summary, then, anarchists have spent considerable time discussing
   the issue and how it could (and should not) be dealt with in a free
   society. Somewhat ironically, given that many think the issue of crime
   is the weakest point of the anarchist case, the outlines of a solution
   to this problem are well established in anarchist theory, both in terms
   of what not to do and in terms of combating both crime and its causes.
   Anarchy is based on people being free but freedom does not mean the
   "freedom" to violate the equal freedom of others. That is oppression,
   that is exploitation, that is the embryo of the state and capitalism.

   Unsurprisingly, most anarchist thinkers have discussed the issue of
   anti-social activity. We can recommend the section "Crime and
   Punishment" by Malatesta (Errico Malatesta: His Life and Ideas) as well
   as Kropotkin's essays "Law and Authority" and "Prisons and their moral
   influence on prisoners" (both within the Anarchism collection). Emma
   Goldman's "Prisons: A social crime and Failure" (Red Emma Speaks), de
   Cleyre's "Crime and Punishment" (The Voltairine de Cleyre Reader) and
   Colin Ward's "How Deviant Dare you get?" (Anarchy in Action) are also
   worth reading. A useful collection of writings on this issue are found
   in Under the Yoke of the State: Selected Anarchist Responses to Prisons
   and Crime (edited by the Dawn Collective).

I.5.9 What about Freedom of Speech under Anarchism?

   Free speech in an anarchist society would be far greater than under
   capitalism. This is obvious, anarchists argue, because we "fight
   against oppression and tyranny for a future in which they will be
   neither masters nor slaves, neither rich nor poor, neither oppressors
   nor oppressed . . . the freedom of each is rooted in the freedom of
   all, and that in this universal freedom is the guarantee of liberty,
   self-development, autonomy, and free speech for each and everyone."
   [Emma Goldman, A Documentary History of the American Years, p. 104] As
   such, libertarian socialism would be marked by extensive freedom of
   speech but also freedom of the press, of the media and so forth.

   Some, however, express the idea that all forms of socialism would
   endanger freedom of speech, press, and so forth. The usual formulation
   of this argument is in relation to state socialism and goes as follows:
   if the state (or "society") owned all the means of communication, then
   only the views which the government supported would get access to the
   media.

   This is an important point and it needs to be addressed. However,
   before doing so, we should point out that under capitalism the major
   media are effectively controlled by the wealthy. As we argued in
   [29]section D.3, the media are not the independent defenders of freedom
   that they like to portray themselves as. This is hardly surprising,
   since newspapers, television companies, and so forth are capitalist
   enterprises owned by the wealthy and with managing directors and
   editors who are also wealthy individuals with a vested interest in the
   status quo. Hence there are institutional factors which ensure that the
   "free press" reflects the interests of capitalist elites.

   However, in democratic capitalist states there is little overt
   censorship. Radical and independent publishers can still print their
   papers and books without state intervention (although market forces
   ensure that this activity can be difficult and financially
   unrewarding). Under socialism, it is argued, because "society" owns the
   means of communication and production, this liberty will not exist.
   Instead, as can be seen from all examples of "actually existing
   socialism," such liberty is crushed in favour of the ruling elites'
   point of view.

   As anarchism rejects the state, we can say that this danger does not
   exist under libertarian socialism. However, since social anarchists
   argue for the communalisation of production, could not restrictions on
   free speech still exist? We argue no, for three reasons.

   Firstly, publishing houses, radio and TV stations, newspapers, internet
   sites and so on will be run by their workers directly. They will be
   supplied by other syndicates, with whom they will make agreements, and
   not by "central planning" officials, who would not exist. In other
   words, there is no bureaucracy of officials allocating (and so
   controlling) resources (and so the means of communication). Hence,
   anarchist self-management will ensure that there is a wide range of
   opinions in different magazines and papers. There would be community
   papers, radio and TV stations, internet sites, etc., and obviously they
   would play an increased role in a free society. But they would not be
   the only media. Associations, political parties, industrial syndicates,
   and so on would have their own media and/or would have access to the
   resources of communication workers' syndicates, so ensuring that a wide
   range of opinions can be expressed.

   Secondly, the "ultimate" power in a free society will be the
   individuals of which it is composed. This power will be expressed in
   communal and workplace assemblies that can recall delegates and revoke
   their decisions. It is doubtful that these assemblies would tolerate a
   set of would-be bureaucrats determining what they can or cannot read,
   see, or hear.

   Thirdly, individuals in a free society would be interested in hearing
   different viewpoints and discussing them. This is the natural
   side-effect of critical thought (which self-management would
   encourage), and so they would have a vested interest in defending the
   widest possible access to different forms of media for different views.
   Having no vested interests to defend, a free society would hardly
   encourage or tolerate the censorship associated with the capitalist
   media ("I listen to criticism because I am greedy. I listen to
   criticism because I am selfish. I would not deny myself another's
   insights" [For Ourselves, The Right to be Greedy, Thesis 113]).

   Therefore, anarchism will increase freedom of speech in many important
   ways, particularly in the workplace (where it is currently denied under
   capitalism). This will be a natural result of a society based on
   maximising freedom and the desire to enjoy life: "We claim the right of
   discussing . . . whatever subject interests us. If free speech and free
   press mean anything, they mean freedom of discussion." [Goldman, Op.
   Cit., p. 203]

   We would also like to point out that during both the Spanish and
   Russian revolutions, freedom of speech was protected within anarchist
   areas. For example, the Makhnovists in the Ukraine "fully applied the
   revolutionary principles of freedom of speech, of thought, of the
   Press, and of political association. In all the cities and towns
   occupied . . . Complete freedom of speech, Press, assembly, and
   association of any kind and for everyone was immediately proclaimed."
   [Peter Arshinov, The History of the Makhnovist Movement, p. 153] This
   is confirmed by Michael Malet who notes that "[o]ne of the most
   remarkable achievements of the Makhnovists was to preserve a freedom of
   speech more extensive than any of their opponents." [Nestor Makhno in
   the Russian Civil War, p. 175] In revolutionary Spain republicans,
   liberals, communists, Trotskyites and many different anarchist groups
   all had freedom to express their views. Emma Goldman wrote that "[o]n
   my first visit to Spain in September 1936, nothing surprised me so much
   as the amount of political freedom I found everywhere. True, it did not
   extend to Fascists" but "everyone of the anti-Fascist front enjoyed
   political freedom which hardly existed in any of the so-called European
   democracies." As for the few restrictions that were in place, remember
   that there was a war on so it was "childish to expect the CNT-FAI to
   include Fascists and other forces engaged in their destruction in the
   extension of complete political freedom." [Vision on Fire, p.147 and p.
   228] The freedom of speech in anarchist areas is confirmed in a host of
   other eye-witnesses, including George Orwell in Homage to Catalonia (in
   fact, it was the rise of the pro-capitalist republicans and communists
   that introduced censorship).

   Both movements were fighting a life-and-death struggle against
   communist, fascist and pro-capitalist armies and so this defence of
   freedom of expression, given the circumstances, is particularly
   noteworthy. Freedom of speech, like freedom of association, applies to
   all groups (including, of course, religious ones). The only exception
   would be, as Goldman noted, for organisations which are actively
   fighting to enslave a free society. In other words, during a social
   revolution it is unlikely that freedom of speech and organisation would
   apply to those supporting the counter-revolutionary forces. As the
   threat of violence by these forces decreases, so the freedom of their
   supporters would increase.

   It is in this context we must discuss what some could point to as an
   example of anarchists denying freedom of speech, association and
   worship, namely the burning of churches during the Spanish Revolution.
   In fact, some would use this as evidence of anarchist intolerance of
   religion and to those who disagree with them. Anarchists reject such
   charges.

   As is well known, after the successful defeat of the fascist-military
   coup in late-July 1936, Catholic Churches were burned and members of
   the Catholic Church were killed. However, these acts were not acts
   against freedom of religion or speech. Rather they were popular acts
   against both the oppressive and reactionary role of the Catholic Church
   in Spanish society as well as its active support for fascism throughout
   the 1920s and 1930s, including Franco's coup. As historian Paul Preston
   summarises:

     "religion was an issue which could be used to mobilise mass peasant
     support behind the interests of the oligarchy. Having lost the
     political hegemony in April 1931, the ruling classes clung all the
     more to the Church as one of the key redoubts of their social and
     economic dominance. Equally, the Church hierarchy, as a major
     landowner, had a somewhat similar view of the value of an alliance
     with the new political formation being created to defend
     oligarchical agrarian interests. Not surprisingly, throughout the
     Republic, the clergy used both pulpit and confessional to defend the
     existing socio-economic order and to make electoral propaganda for
     the successive political organisations of the Right." [The Coming of
     the Spanish Civil War, pp. 42-3]

   The Catholic Church "was the bulwark of the country's conservative
   forces" and no more than 15 days after the announcement of the Republic
   in 1931, the Primate of Spain "issued a pastoral denouncing the new
   government's intention to establish freedom of worship and to separate
   Church and state. The cardinal urged Catholics to vote in future
   elections against an administration which in his view wanted to destroy
   religion." [Antony Beevor, The Battle for Spain, p. 91 and p. 25] This
   opposition to the Republic and support for right-wing, near-fascist
   parties, continued throughout the 1930s and climaxed with the Church's
   backing of Franco's coup.

   Nor should it be forgotten that the "Catholic press applauded the Nazi
   destruction of the German Socialist and Communist movements. Nazism was
   much admired on the Spanish Right because of its emphasis on authority,
   the fatherland and hierarchy -- all three of which were central
   preoccupations of CEDA." It also "urged its readers to follow the
   example of Italy and Germany and organise against the dragon of
   revolution" while the Nazis "signed a concordat with the Vatican". The
   CEDA would "proceed to the establishment of an authoritarian regime of
   semi-fascist character along Austrian lines". So awareness of what had
   happened in Italy and Germany (with Church support) was keen in
   anarchist and other left-wing circles, particularly as the "Spanish
   Right had not hidden its sympathy for the achievements of Hitler and
   Mussolini. The CEDA had many of the trappings of a fascist
   organisation" and its leader "had declared his determination to
   establish a corporative state in Spain." [Op. Cit. p. 69, p. 72, p. 120
   and p. 121] As one Catholic writer, Francois Mauriac, put it
   "Christianity and fascism have become intermingled, and they cannot
   hate one without hating the other." [quoted by Beevor, Op. Cit., p.
   270]

   Given all this, the attacks on the Catholic Church really come as no
   surprise. If after an attempted fascist coup people burned down the
   offices of the fascist and pro-fascist parties few people would be
   surprised. Why should a pro-fascist church be considered immune to such
   popular anger? As George Orwell pointed out:

   "No one can blame [someone] for being angry when churches are burned
   and priests murdered or driven into exile. But I think it is a pity
   that he has not looked more deeply into the reasons why these things
   happen." [Orwell in Spain, p. 314]

   Unsurprisingly, then, those priests who had not supported the right,
   those who had treated the working class the same as the rich, were
   usually spared. In the Basque Country, where the church supported the
   Republic, not a single church was burnt. Nor were synagogues or
   Protestant churches targeted. In Barcelona "the Quakers established
   canteens which were staffed by refugee women." [Gabriel Jackson, The
   Spanish Republic and the Civil War, 1931-1939, p. 446]

   It should also be stressed that the repression in the fascist zone was
   much worse than that in the Republican one. Of a ecclesiastical
   community of 115,000, 6,845 were killed ("the vast majority during the
   summer of 1936"). This is in stark contrast to right-wing claims at the
   time. It should be mentioned that in the province of Seville, the
   fascist repression killed 8,000 during 1936 alone. In Cordoba, 10,000
   were killed during the war -- a tenth of the population. Once an area
   was captured by nationalist forces, after the initial killing of
   captured troops, union and party leaders, a "second and more intense
   wave of slaughter would begin" ("in fact anyone who was even suspected
   of having voted for the Popular Front was in danger"). This was
   organised by "local committees, usually consisting of leading
   right-wingers, such as the major landowner, the local Civil Guard
   commander, a Falangist and quite often the priest". This was "clearly
   not just a question of revenge, they were also motivated by the idea of
   establishing a reign of terror". This did not, of course, hinder "the
   unqualified backing of the Vatican and the Spanish Church for General
   Franco" while "the Catholic press abroad sprang to the support of the
   nationalist rising". Obviously killing (many, many more) left-wingers
   in the name of god is of no concern to the Catholic hierarchy nor did
   it stop "the Church's official support for Franco". [Beevor, Op. Cit.,
   p. 92, p. 101, p. 99, p. 104, p. 250, p. 269 and p. 270]

   Under Franco, everyone had to "submit themselves to the authority of
   the Church as well as to their temporal masters. Franco had been
   extremely generous in restoring all the Church's privileges and wealth,
   as well as its power in education, but in return he expected the
   priesthood to act virtually as another arm of the state." In other
   words, "Nationalist Spain was little more than an open prison for all
   those who did not sympathise with the regime" and the "population was
   encouraged to accuse people as part of its patriotic duty. Concierges
   and caretakers became police spies . . . and priests noted those who
   did not turn up to mass." [Beevor, Op. Cit., p. 452, p. 453 and p. 454]
   All with the firm support of the Catholic Church.

   Rather than an attempt to repress religion as such, it was a product of
   popular hostility to a corrupt church, one which was deeply
   reactionary, pro-fascist and a major landowner in its own right. This
   means that an awareness of the nature and role of the Church "does not
   leave much doubt as to why practically all the churches in Catalonia
   and eastern Aragon were burnt at the outbreak of war." The
   anti-clerical movement was a "popular movement and a native Spanish
   movement. It has its roots not in Marx or Bakunin, but in the condition
   of the Spanish people themselves." [Orwell, Op. Cit., p. 300 and p.
   315] While under Franco "the relentless purging of 'reds and atheists'
   was to continue for years" in the Republican areas "the worst of the
   violence was mainly a sudden and quickly spent reaction of suppressed
   fear, exacerbated by desires of revenge for the past." [Beevor, Op.
   Cit., p. 91]

   So the burning of churches in Spain had very little to do with
   anarchist atheism and much, much more to do with the Catholic Church's
   social role in Spain, its reactionary position, its hatred of the
   unions and social protest and the fact it supported the fascist coup.
   It does not imply an opposition to freedom of speech by libertarian
   socialists but was rather an expression of popular opposition to a
   ruling class and pro-fascist organisation.

   One last point to make on this issue. Given the actual role of the
   Church during this period and its wholehearted support for fascism in
   Spain, Italy and elsewhere, it seems strange that the Catholic church
   has declared the murdered priests as martyrs, part of a planned
   religious persecution. This is not true, if they were martyrs then they
   were martyrs to their pro-fascist politics and not their faith ("The
   political role of the Church was ignored when the religious victims
   were made into martyrs"). Significantly, the Catholic Church "said
   nothing when the nationalists shot sixteen of the Basque clergy,
   including the arch-priest of Mondragon" (the nationalists also killed
   some twenty Protestant ministers). In 2003 when John Paul II beatified
   a teacher killed in July 1936 he "still made no mention of the Basque
   priests killed by the nationalists." [Beevor, Op. Cit., p. 270, p. 92
   and p. 527] Clearly a priest being murdered by fascists backed by the
   Vatican is ineligible for sainthood and so the Catholic Church makes
   little mention, nor is seeking to make saints, of those Basque priests
   murdered by Franco once fascist troops conquered Euskal Herria.

   Ultimately, given the actual role of the Catholic Church during this
   period it is surprising the Catholic hierarchy would seek to bring
   attention to it. Perhaps it is confidant that the media will not
   mention these awkward facts, although this context makes the deaths and
   church-burning in 1936 understandable. Perhaps we should not be too
   surprised, for as we noted in [30]section A.2.18, it appears that
   killing working class people is not worthy of comment but assassinating
   members of the ruling elite (and its servants) is. So the fact that the
   burning of churches and killing of clergy is well known but the
   pro-fascist activities of the church (a product of both its reactionary
   politics and position in the ruling elite) which provoked it is not
   should come as no surprise.

   In summary, then, a free society would have substantial freedom of
   speech along with other fundamental freedoms (including freedom of
   worship and of religious association). Such freedoms would be
   respected, supported and encouraged for all shades of political
   opinion, from the left through to the right. The only exception would
   be if an organisation were actively supporting those seeking to impose
   their rule on a free people and in such cases some restrictions may be
   decided upon (their nature would depend on the state of the struggle,
   with them decreasing as the danger decreased).

   To those who claim that refusing freedom of speech to
   counter-revolutionaries equates to statism or implies a contradiction
   in libertarian ideas anarchists would reply that such arguments are
   flawed. In terms of the former, it is equating state imposed censorship
   with the active disobedience of a free people. Rather than the
   government imposing a ban, members of a free society would simply
   discuss the issue at hand and, if considered appropriate, actively and
   collectively boycott those supporting attempts to enslave them. Without
   electricity, paper, distribution networks and so on, reactionaries
   would find it hard to publish or broadcast. As for the latter, there is
   no contradiction as it is hardly contradictory to support and encourage
   freedom while, at the same time, resisting attempts to enslave you! As
   such, this argument makes the same logical error Engels did in his
   diatribe against anarchism, namely considering it "authoritarian" to
   destroy authority (see [31]section H.4.7). Similarly, it is hardly
   authoritarian to resist those seeking to impose their authority on you
   or their supporters! This perspective seems to assume that the true
   'libertarian' approach is to let others impose their rule on you as
   stopping them is 'authoritarian'! A truly strange way of understanding
   our ideas....

   To conclude, based upon both theory and practice, we can say that
   anarchism will not endanger freedom of expression. Indeed, by breaking
   up the capitalist oligopoly which currently exists and introducing
   workers' self-management of the media, a far wider range of opinions
   will become available in a free society. Rather than reflect the
   interests of a wealthy elite, the media would reflect the interests of
   society as a whole and the individuals and groups within it.

I.5.10 What about political parties, interest groups and professional bodies?

   Political parties and other interest groups will exist in an anarchist
   society as long as people feel the need to join them. They will not be
   banned in any way, and their members will have the same rights as
   everyone else. Individuals who are members of political parties or
   associations can take part in communal and other assemblies and try to
   convince others of the soundness of their ideas.

   However, there is a key difference between such activity and politics
   under a capitalist democracy. This is because the elections to
   positions of responsibility in an anarchist society will not be based
   on party tickets nor will they involve the delegation of power. Emile
   Pouget's description of the difference between the syndicalist trade
   union and elections drives this difference home:

     "The constituent part of the trade union is the individual. Except
     that the union member is spared the depressing phenomenon manifest
     in democratic circles where, thanks to the veneration of universal
     suffrage, the trend is towards the crushing and diminution of the
     human personality. In a democratic setting, the elector can avail of
     his [or her] will only in order to perform an act of abdication: his
     role is to 'award' his 'vote' to the candidate whom he [or she]
     wishes to have as his [or her] 'representative.'

     "Affiliation to the trade union has no such implication . . . In
     joining the union, the worker merely enters into a contract -- which
     he may at any time abjure -- with comrades who are his equals in
     will and potential . . . In the union, say, should it come to the
     appointment of a trade union council to take charge of
     administrative matters, such 'selection' is not to be compared with
     'election': the form of voting customarily employed in such
     circumstances is merely a means whereby the labour can be divided
     and is not accompanied by any delegation of authority. The strictly
     prescribed duties of the trade union council are merely
     administrative. The council performs the task entrusted to it,
     without ever overruling its principals, without supplanting them or
     acting in their place.

     "The same might be said of all decisions reached in the union: all
     are restricted to a definite and specific act, whereas in democracy,
     election implies that the elected candidate has been issued by his
     [or her] elector with a carte blanche empowering him [or her] to
     decide and do as he [or she] pleases, in and on everything, without
     even the hindrance of the quite possibly contrary views of his [or
     her] principals, whose opposition, in any case, no matter how
     pronounced, is of no consequence until such time as the elected
     candidate's mandate has run its course.

     "So there cannot be any possible parallels, let alone confusion,
     between trade union activity and participation in the disappointing
     chores of politics." [No Gods, No Masters, vol. 2, pp. 67-68]

   In other words, when individuals are elected to administrative posts
   they are elected to carry out their mandate, not to carry out their
   party's programme. Of course, if the individuals in question had
   convinced their fellow workers and citizens that their programme was
   correct, then this mandate and the programme would be identical.
   However this is unlikely in practice. We would imagine that the
   decisions of collectives and communes would reflect the complex social
   interactions and diverse political opinions their members and of the
   various groupings within the association.

   This freedom of political association has existed in every anarchist
   revolution. During the Russian Revolution, the Makhnovists organised
   soviets and regional congresses at every opportunity and these saw
   delegates elected who were members of different political parties. For
   example, members of the peasant-socialist Left-SR party were active in
   the Makhnovist movement and attended soviet congresses (for example,
   the resolution of the February 1919 congress "was written by the
   anarchists, left Socialist Revolutionaries, and the chairman." [Michael
   Palij, The Anarchism of Nestor Makhno, 1918-1921, p. 155]). The
   Makhnovist Revolutionary Military Soviet created at the Aleksandrovsk
   congress in late 1919 had three Communists elected to it while there
   were 18 delegates from workers at that congress, six being Mensheviks
   and the remaining 12 included Communists [Malet, Op. Cit., p. 111, p.
   124] Clearly, members of political parties were elected to both the
   congresses and the Revolutionary Military Soviet. As such, the idea
   that libertarian socialism excludes members of political parties
   standing for election is false. In the words of the Makhnovist reply to
   a Bolshevik attempt to ban one of their congresses:

     "The Revolutionary Military Council . . . holds itself above the
     pressure and influence of all parties and only recognises the people
     who elected it. Its duty is to accomplish what the people have
     instructed it to do, and to create no obstacles to any left
     socialist party in the propagation of ideas. Consequently, if one
     day the Bolshevik idea succeeds among the workers, the Revolutionary
     Military Council . . . will necessarily be replaced by another
     organisation, 'more revolutionary' and more Bolshevik." [quoted by
     Peter Arshinov, The History of the Makhnovist Movement, pp. 103-4]

   As such, the Makhnovists supported the right of working-class
   self-determination, as expressed by one delegate to a conference in
   February 1919:

     "No party has a right to usurp governmental power into its hands . .
     . We want life, all problems, to be decided locally, not by order
     from any authority above; and all peasants and workers should decide
     their own fate, while those elected should only carry out the
     toilers' wish." [quoted by Palij, Op. Cit., p. 154]

   It should be mentioned that a myth has sprung up fostered by some
   Leninists that parties were banned from election to these bodies (for
   example, Jason Yanowitzs terrible "On the Makhno Myth" [International
   Socialist Review, no. 53]). These claims flow from basic ignorance of
   how the soviets were organised during the revolution combined with a
   misunderstanding of this Makhnovist proclamation from January 1920:

     "Only workers participating in work vital to the people's economy
     should be elected to these soviets. The representatives of political
     organisations have no place in the soviets of workers and peasants
     given that their participation in a soviet could turn it into a
     soviet of party political deputies, thereby leading the soviet order
     to perdition." [quoted by Alexandre Skirda, Nestor Makhno: Anarchy's
     Cossack, p. 164]

   When the soviets were formed in Petrograd and other Russian cities in
   1917 the initiative had come (unlike in 1905) from political parties
   and these ensured that they had members who were representatives from
   political parties within their executive committees (as distinct from
   elected delegates who happened to be members of a political party).
   This was how, for example, "high party leaders became voting delegates"
   in the soviets, by being "selected by the leadership of each political
   organisation, and not by the soviet assembly itself." [Samuel Farber,
   Before Stalinism, p. 31] Thus the Makhnovists were rejecting the means
   by which many soviet members were not directly elected by actual
   workers.

   In addition, the Makhnovists were following the Russian
   Anarcho-Syndicalists who argued for "effective soviets organised on
   collective lines with the direct delegation of workers and peasants . .
   . and not political chatterboxes gaining entry through party lists and
   turning the soviets into talking-shops". [The Anarchists in the Russian
   Revolution, Paul Avrich (ed.), p. 118] This use of party lists meant
   that soviet delegates could be anyone. For example, the leading
   left-wing Menshevik Martov recounts that in early 1920 a chemical
   factory "put up Lenin against me as a candidate [to the Moscow soviet].
   I received seventy-six votes he - eight (in an open vote)." [quoted by
   Israel Getzler, Martov, p. 202] How would either of these two
   intellectuals actually know and reflect the concerns and interests of
   the workers they would be "delegates" of? If the soviets were meant to
   be the delegates of working people, then why should non-working class
   members of political parties be elected as mandated and recallable
   delegates to a soviet from a workplace they have never visited except,
   perhaps, to gather votes?

   Hence anarchism will likely contain many different political groupings
   and ideas. The relative influence of these within collectives and
   communes would reflect the strength of their arguments and the
   relevance of their ideas, as would be expected in a free society. As
   Bakunin argued: "The abolition of this mutual influence would be death.
   And when we vindicate the freedom of the masses, we are by no means
   suggesting the abolition of any of the natural influences that
   individuals or groups of individuals exert on them. What we want is the
   abolition of influences which are artificial, privileged, legal,
   official." [quoted by Malatesta, Anarchy, p. 51]

   It is only when representative government replaces self-management that
   political debate results in "elected dictatorship" and centralisation
   of power into the hands of one party which claims to speak for the
   whole of society, as if the latter had one mind.

   This applies, needless to say, to other areas of life. Anarchists do
   not think that social life can be reduced to political and economic
   associations alone. Individuals have many different interests and
   desires which they must express in order to have a truly free and
   interesting life. Therefore an anarchist society will see the
   development of numerous voluntary associations and groups to express
   these interests. For example, there would be consumer groups, musical
   groups, scientific associations, art associations, clubs, housing
   co-operatives and associations, craft and hobby guilds, fan clubs,
   animal rights associations, groups based around gender, sexuality,
   creed and colour and so forth. Associations will be created for all
   human interests and activities. As Kropotkin argued:

     "He who wishes for a grand piano will enter the association of
     musical instrument makers. And by giving the association part of his
     half-days' leisure, he will soon possess the piano of his dreams. If
     he is fond of astronomical studies he will join the association of
     astronomers . . . and he will have the telescope he desires by
     taking his share of the associated work . . . In short, the five or
     seven hours a day which each will have at his disposal, after having
     consecrated several hours to the production of necessities, would
     amply suffice to satisfy all longings for luxury, however varied.
     Thousands of associations would undertake to supply them." [The
     Conquest of Bread, p. 120]

   We can imagine, therefore, an anarchist society being based around
   associations and interest groups on every subject which fires the
   imagination of individuals and for which individuals want to meet in
   order to express and further their interests. Housing associations, for
   example, would exist to allow inhabitants to manage their local areas,
   design and maintain their homes and local parks and gardens. Animal
   rights and other interest groups would produce information on issues
   they consider important, trying to convince others of the errors of
   eating meat or whatever. Consumer groups would be in dialogue with
   syndicates about improving products and services, ensuring that
   syndicates produce what is required by consumers. Environment groups
   would exist to watch production and make sure that it is not creating
   damaging side effects and informing both syndicates and communes of
   their findings. Feminist, homosexual, bisexual and anti-racist groups
   would exist to put their ideas across, highlighting areas in which
   social hierarchies and prejudice still existed. All across society,
   people would be associating together to express themselves and convince
   others of their ideas on many different issues.

   This applies to professional groupings who would seek to ensure that
   those work tasks that require qualifications to do (for example,
   medicine and such like) have recognised standards and certifications.
   In this way, others in society would know whether a fellow worker is a
   recognised expert in their field and has the appropriate qualifications
   to do the work required or give advice. While a free society would
   break down the line between intellectual and manual work, the fact
   remains that people will wish to be happy that the doctor or nurse they
   are visiting knows what they are doing. This is where professional
   groupings would come into play, organising training and certification
   based on mutually agreed standards and qualifications. This would not
   stop others seeking to practice such tasks, of course, but it will mean
   that few, if any, would frequent someone without the basic professional
   standards.

   Hence in a anarchist society, free association would take on a stronger
   and more positive role than under capitalism. In this way, social life
   would take on many dimensions, and the individual would have the choice
   of thousands of societies to join to meet his or her interests or
   create new ones with other like-minded people. Anarchists would be the
   last to deny that there is more to life than work!

I.5.11 How will an anarchist society defend itself against the power hungry?

   A common objection to anarchism is that an anarchist society will be
   vulnerable to be taken over by thugs or those who seek power. A similar
   argument is that a group without a leadership structure becomes open to
   charismatic leaders so anarchy would just lead to tyranny.

   For anarchists, such arguments are strange. Society already is run by
   thugs and/or the off-spring of thugs. Kings were originally just
   successful thugs who succeeded in imposing their domination over a
   given territorial area. The modern state has evolved from the structure
   created to impose this domination. Similarly with property, with most
   legal titles to land being traced back to its violent seizure by thugs
   who then passed it on to their children who then sold it or gave it to
   their offspring. The origins of the current system in violence can be
   seen by the continued use of violence by the state and capitalists to
   enforce and protect their domination over society. When push comes to
   shove, the dominant class will happily re-discover their thug past and
   employ extreme violence to maintain their privileges. The descent of
   large parts of Europe into Fascism in the 1920s and 1930s, or
   Pinochet's coup in Chile in 1973 indicates how far they will go. As
   Peter Arshinov argued (in a slightly different context):

     "Statists fear free people. They claim that without authority people
     will lose the anchor of sociability, will dissipate themselves, and
     will return to savagery. This is obviously rubbish. It is taken
     seriously by idlers, lovers of authority and of the labour of
     others, or by blind thinkers of bourgeois society. The liberation of
     the people in reality leads to the degeneration and return to
     savagery, not of the people, but of those who, thanks to power and
     privilege, live from the labour of the people's arms and from the
     blood of the people's veins . . . The liberation of the people leads
     to the savagery of those who live from its enslavement." [The
     History of the Makhnovist Movement, p. 85]

   Anarchists are not impressed with the argument that anarchy would be
   unable to stop thugs seizing power. It ignores the fact that we live in
   a society where the power-hungry already hold power. As an argument
   against anarchism it fails and is, in fact, an argument against
   hierarchical societies.

   Moreover, it also ignores fact that people in an anarchist society
   would have gained their freedom by overthrowing every existing and
   would-be thug who had or desired power over others. They would have
   defended that freedom against those who desired to re-impose it. They
   would have organised themselves to manage their own affairs and,
   therefore, to abolish all hierarchical power. And we are to believe
   that these people, after struggling to become free, would quietly let a
   new set of thugs impose themselves? As Kropotkin argued:

     "The only way in which a state of Anarchy can be obtained is for
     each man [or woman] who is oppressed to act as if he [or she] were
     at liberty, in defiance of all authority to the contrary . . . In
     practical fact, territorial extension is necessary to ensure
     permanency to any given individual revolution. In speaking of the
     Revolution, we signify the aggregate of so many successful
     individual and group revolts as will enable every person within the
     revolutionised territory to act in perfect freedom . . . without
     having to constantly dread the prevention or the vengeance of an
     opposing power upholding the former system . . . Under these
     circumstance it is obvious that any visible reprisal could and would
     be met by a resumption of the same revolutionary action on the part
     of the individuals or groups affected, and that the maintenance of a
     state of Anarchy in this manner would be far easier than the gaining
     of a state of Anarchy by the same methods and in the face of
     hitherto unshaken opposition . . . They have it in their power to
     apply a prompt check by boycotting such a person and refusing to
     help him with their labour or to willing supply him with any
     articles in their possession. They have it in their power to use
     force against him. They have these powers individually as well as
     collectively. Being either past rebels who have been inspired with
     the spirit of liberty, or else habituated to enjoy freedom from
     their infancy, they are hardly to rest passive in view of what they
     feel to be wrong." [Act for Yourselves, pp. 87-8]

   Thus a free society would use direct action to resist the would-be
   ruler just as it had used direct action to free itself from existing
   rulers. An anarchist society would be organised in a way which would
   facilitate this direct action as it would be based on networks of
   solidarity and mutual aid. An injury to one is an injury to all and a
   would-be ruler would face a whole liberated society acting against him
   or her. Faced with the direct action of the population (which would
   express itself in non-co-operation, strikes, demonstrations,
   occupations, insurrections and so on) a would be power seeker would
   find it difficult to impose themselves. Unlike those accustomed to
   rulership in existing society, an anarchist people would be a society
   of rebels and so difficult to dominate and conquer: "In the future
   society, Anarchy will be defence, the prevention of the
   re-establishment of any authority, any power, any State." [Carlo
   Cafiero, "Anarchy and Communism", pp. 179-86, The Raven, No. 6, p. 180]

   Anarchists point to the example of the rise of Fascism in Italy, Spain
   and Germany to prove their point. In areas with strong anarchist
   movements the fascists were resisted most strongly. While in Germany
   Hitler took power with little or no opposition, in Italy and Spain the
   fascists had to fight long and hard to gain power. The anarchist and
   anarcho-syndicalist organisations fought the fascists tooth and nail,
   with some success before betrayal by the Republicans and Marxists. From
   this historical experience anarchists argue that an anarchist society
   would quickly and easily defeat would-be thugs as people would be used
   to practising direct action and self-management and would have no
   desire to stop practising them. A free people would quickly organise
   itself in self-managed militias for self-defence (just as they would
   during a social revolution to defend it -- [32]section J.7.6).

   As for self-management resulting in "charismatic" leaders, well the
   logic is astounding. As if hierarchical structures are not based on
   leadership structures and do not require a charismatic leader! Such an
   argument is inherently self-contradictory -- as well as ignoring the
   nature of modern society and its leadership structures. Rather than
   mass assemblies being dominated by leaders, it is the case that
   hierarchical structures are the natural breeding ground for dictators.
   All the great dictators the world has seen have come to the forefront
   in hierarchical organisations, not libertarian structured ones. Hitler,
   for example, did not come to power via a libertarian organisation.
   Rather he used a highly centralised and hierarchically organised party
   to take control of a centralised, hierarchical state. The very
   disempowerment of the population in capitalist society results in them
   looking to leaders to act for them and so "charismatic" leaders are a
   natural result. An anarchist society, by empowering all, would make it
   more difficult, not less, for a would-be leader to gain power -- few
   people, if any, would be willing to sacrifice and negate themselves for
   the benefit of another.

   Our discussion on the power hungry obviously relates to the more
   general question of whether ethical behaviour will be rewarded in an
   anarchist society. In other words, could an anarchist society be stable
   or would the unethical take over?

   One of the most disturbing aspects of living in a world where the rush
   to acquire wealth is the single most important aspect of living is what
   happens to people who follow an ethical path in life. Under capitalism,
   the ethical generally do not succeed as well as those who stab their
   fellows in the back, those who cut corners, indulge in sharp business
   practises, drive competitors into the ground and live their lives with
   an eye on the bottom line but they do survive. Loyalty to a firm or a
   group, bending over backwards to provide a service, giving a helping
   hand to somebody in need, placing friendship above money, count for
   nothing when the bills come in. People who act ethically in a
   capitalist society are usually punished and penalised for their
   ethical, moral and principled behaviour. Indeed, the capitalist market
   rewards unethical behaviour as it generally reduces costs and so gives
   those who do it a competitive edge.

   It is different in a free society. Anarchism is based on two principles
   of association, equal access to power and wealth. Everybody in an
   anarchist society irrespective of what they do, or who they are or what
   type of work they perform is entitled to share in society's wealth.
   Whether a community survives or prospers depends on the combined
   efforts of the people in that community. Ethical behaviour would become
   the norm in an anarchist community; those people who act ethically
   would be rewarded by the standing they achieve in the community and by
   others being more than happy to work with and aid them. People who cut
   corners, try to exercise power over others, refuse to co-operate as
   equals or otherwise act in an unethical manner would lose their
   standing in an anarchist society. Their neighbours and work mates would
   refuse to co-operate with them (or reduce co-operation to a minimum)
   and take other forms of non-violent direct action to point out that
   certain forms of activity were inappropriate. They would discuss the
   issue with the unethical person and try to convince them of the errors
   of their way. In a society where the necessities are guaranteed, people
   would tend to act ethically because ethical behaviour raises an
   individuals profile and standing within such a community. Capitalism
   and ethical behaviour are mutually exclusive concepts; anarchism
   encourages and rewards ethical behaviour. Needless to say, as we
   discussed in [33]section I.5.8, anarchists are aware that a free
   society would need to defend itself against whatever anti-social
   behaviour remains in a free and equal society and seeking to impose
   your will on others defines unethical and anti-social!

   Therefore, as can be seen, anarchists argue that a free society would
   not have to fear would-be thugs, "charismatic" leaders or the
   unethical. An anarchist society would be based on the co-operation of
   free individuals. It is unlikely that they would tolerate such
   behaviour and would use their own direct action as well as social and
   economic organisations to combat it. Moreover, the nature of free
   co-operation would reward ethical behaviour as those who practice it
   would have it reciprocated by their fellows, and, if worse came to
   worse, they would defend their liberty!

   One last point. Some people seem to think that anarchism is about the
   powerful being appealed to not to oppress and dominate others. Far from
   it. Anarchism is about the oppressed and exploited refusing to let
   others dominate them. It is not an appeal to the "better side" of the
   boss or would-be boss; it is about the solidarity and direct action of
   those subject to a boss getting rid of the boss -- whether the boss
   agrees to it or not! Once this is clearly understood the idea that an
   anarchist society is vulnerable to the power-hungry is clearly nonsense
   -- anarchy is based on resisting power and so is, by its very nature,
   more resistant to would-be rulers than a hierarchical one.

   So, to summarise, anarchists are well aware that an anarchist society
   will have to defend itself from both inside and outside attempts to
   re-impose capitalism and the state. Indeed, every revolutionary
   anarchist has argued that a revolution will have to defend itself (as
   proven in [34]section H.2.1, Marxist assertions otherwise have always
   been myths).

I.5.12 Would an anarchist society provide health care and other public
services?

   It depends on the type of anarchist society you are talking about.
   Different anarchists propose different solutions.

   In an individualist-mutualist society, for example, health care and
   other public services would be provided by individuals or co-operatives
   on a pay-for-use basis. It would be likely that individuals or
   co-operatives/associations would subscribe to various insurance
   providers or enter into direct contracts with health care providers.
   Thus the system would be similar to privatised health care but without
   the profit margins as competition, it is hoped, would drive prices down
   to cost.

   Other anarchists reject such a system. They are in favour of
   socialising health care and other public services. They argue that a
   privatised system would only be able to meet the requirements of those
   who can afford to pay for it and so would be unjust and unfair. In
   addition, such systems would have higher overheads (the need to pay
   share-holders and the wages of management, most obviously) as well as
   charge more (privatised public utilities under capitalism have tended
   to charge consumers more, unsurprisingly as by their very nature they
   are natural monopolies).

   Looking at health care, for example, the need for medical attention is
   not dependent on income and so a civilised society would recognise this
   fact. Under capitalism, profit-maximising medical insurance sets
   premiums according to the risks of the insured getting ill or injured,
   with the riskiest not being able to find insurance at any price.
   Private insurers shun entire industries as too dangerous for their
   profits due to the likelihood of accidents or illness. They review
   contracts regularly and drop people who get sick for the slightest
   reason (understandably, given that they make profits by minimising
   payouts for treatment). Hardly a vision to inspire a free society or
   one compatible with equality and mutual respect.

   Therefore, most anarchists are in favour of a socialised and universal
   health-care system for both ethical and efficiency reasons (see
   [35]section I.4.10 for more details). Needless to say, an anarchist
   system of socialised health care would differ in many ways to the
   current systems of universal health-care provided by the state (which,
   while called socialised medicine by its enemies is better described as
   nationalised medicine -- although it should be stressed that this is
   better than the privatised system). Such a system of socialised
   health-care will be built from the bottom-up and based around the local
   commune. In a social anarchist society, "medical services . . . will be
   free of charge to all inhabitants of the commune. The doctors will not
   be like capitalists, trying to extract the greatest profit from their
   unfortunate patients. They will be employed by the commune and expected
   to treat all who need their services." Moreover, prevention will play
   an important part, as "medical treatment is only the curative side of
   the science of health care; it is not enough to treat the sick, it is
   also necessary to prevent disease. That is the true function of
   hygiene." [James Guillaume, "On Building the New Social Order", pp.
   356-79,Bakunin on Anarchism, p. 371] The same would go for other public
   services and works.

   While rejecting privatisation, anarchists also reject nationalisation
   in favour of socialisation and worker's self-management. In this we
   follow Proudhon, who argued that there was a series of industries and
   services which were "public works" which he thought best handled by
   communes and their federations. Thus "the control undertaking such
   works will belong to the municipalities, and to districts within their
   jurisdiction" while "the control of carrying them out will rest with
   the workmen's associations." This was due to both their nature and
   libertarian values and so the "direct, sovereign initiative of
   localities, in arranging for public works that belong to them, is a
   consequence of the democratic principle and the free contract: their
   subordination to the State is . . . a return to feudalism." Workers'
   self-management of such public workers is, again, a matter of
   libertarian principles for "it becomes necessary for the workers to
   form themselves into democratic societies, with equal conditions for
   all members, on pain of a relapse into feudalism." Railways should be
   given "to responsible companies, not of capitalists, but of WORKMEN."
   [General Idea of the Revolution, p. 276, p. 277 and p. 151]

   This was applied during the Spanish Revolution. Gaston Leval discussed
   "Achievements in the Public Sector" and a whole chapter of his account
   of the collectives is concerned with this. Syndicates organised water,
   gas and electricity utilities in Catalonia, while the Trams and
   railways were run more efficiently and cheaper than under capitalist
   management. All across Spain, the workers in the health service
   re-organised their industry in libertarian lines and in association
   with the local collective or commune and the unions of the CNT. As
   Leval summarised:

     "For the socialisation of medicine was not just an initiative of
     militant libertarian doctors. Wherever we were able to make a study
     of villages and small towns transformed by the Revolution, medicine
     and existing hospitals had been municipalised, expanded, placed
     under the aegis of the Collective. When there were none, they were
     improvised. The socialisation of medicine was becoming everyone's
     concern, for the benefit of all. It constituted one of the most
     remarkable achievements of the Spanish Revolution." [Collectives in
     the Spanish Revolution, p. 278]

   So the Spanish Revolution indicates how an anarchist health service
   would operate. In rural areas local doctors would usually join the
   village collective and provide their services like any other worker.
   Where local doctors were not available, "arrangements were made by the
   collectives for treatment of their members by hospitals in nearby
   localities. In a few cases, collectives themselves build hospitals; in
   many they acquired equipment and other things needed by their local
   physicians." For example, the Monzon comercal (district) federation of
   collectives in Aragon established maintained a hospital in Binefar, the
   Casa de Salud Durruti. By April 1937 it had 40 beds, in sections which
   included general medicine, prophylaxis and gynaecology. It saw about 25
   outpatients a day and was open to anyone in the 32 villages of the
   comarca. [Robert Alexander, The Anarchists in the Spanish Civil War,
   vol. 1, p. 331 and pp. 366-7]

   In the Levante, the CNT built upon its existing Sociedad de Socorros
   Mutuos de Levante (a health service institution founded by the union as
   a kind of mutual benefit society which had numerous doctors and
   specialists). During the revolution, the Mutua had 50 doctors and was
   available to all affiliated workers and their families. The
   socialisation of the health care took on a slightly different form in
   Catalonia but on the same libertarian principles. Gaston Leval provided
   us with an excellent summary:

     "The socialisation of health services was one of the greatest
     achievements of the revolution. To appreciate the efforts of our
     comrades it must be borne in mind that the rehabilitated the health
     service in all of Catalonia in so short a time after July 19th. The
     revolution could count on the co-operation of a number of dedicated
     doctors whose ambition was not to accumulate wealth but to serve the
     afflicted and the underprivileged.

     "The Health Workers' Union was founded in September, 1936. In line
     with the tendency to unite all the different classifications,
     trades, and services serving a given industry, all health workers,
     from porters to doctors and administrators, were organised into one
     big union of health workers . . .

     "Our comrades laid the foundations of a new health service . . . The
     new medical service embraced all of Catalonia. It constituted a
     great apparatus whose parts were distributed according to different
     needs, all in accord with an overall plan. Catalonia was divided
     into nine zones . . . In turn, all the surrounding villages and
     towns were served from these centres.

     "Distributed throughout Catalonia were twenty-seven towns with a
     total of thirty-six health centres conducting services so thoroughly
     that every village, every hamlet, every isolated peasant in the
     mountains, every woman, every child, anywhere, received adequate,
     up-to-date medical care. In each of the nine zones there was a
     central syndicate and a Control Committee located in Barcelona.
     Every department was autonomous within its own sphere. But this
     autonomy was not synonymous with isolation. The Central Committee in
     Barcelona, chosen by all the sections, met once a week with one
     delegate from each section to deal with common problems and to
     implement the general plan . . .

     "The people immediately benefited from the projects of the health
     syndicate. The syndicate managed all hospitals and clinics. Six
     hospitals were opened in Barcelona. . . Eight new sanatoriums were
     installed in converted luxurious homes ideally situated amidst
     mountains and pine forests. It was no easy task to convert these
     homes into efficient hospitals with all new facilities." [The
     Anarchist Collectives, Sam Dolgoff (ed.), pp. 99-100]

   People were no longer required to pay for medical services. Each
   collective, if it could afford it, would pay a contribution to its
   health centre. Building and facilities were improved and modern
   equipment introduced. Like other self-managed industries, the health
   service was run at all levels by general assemblies of workers who
   elected delegates and hospital administration.

   We can expect a similar process to occur in the future anarchist
   society. It would be based on self-management, of course, with close
   links to the local commune and federations of communes. Each hospital
   or health centre would be autonomous but linked in a federation with
   the others, allowing resources to be shared as and when required while
   allowing the health service to adjust to local needs and requirements
   as quickly as possible. Workers in the health industry will organise
   their workplaces, federate together to share resources and information,
   to formulate plans and improve the quality of service to the public in
   a system of generalised self-management and socialisation. The communes
   and their federations, the syndicates and federations of syndicates
   will provide resources and effectively own the health system, ensuring
   access for all.

   Similar systems would operate in other public services. For example, in
   education we expect the members of communes to organise a system of
   free schools. This can be seen from the Spanish revolution. Indeed, the
   Spanish anarchists organised Modern Schools before the outbreak of the
   revolution, with 50 to 100 schools in various parts funded by local
   anarchist groups and CNT unions. During the revolution everywhere
   across Spain, syndicates, collectives and federations of collectives
   formed and founded schools. Indeed, education "advanced at an
   unprecedented pace. Most of the partly or wholly socialised collectives
   and municipalities built at least one school. By 1938, for example,
   every collective in the Levant Federation had its own school." [Gaston
   Leval, quoted by Sam Dolgoff, Op. Cit., p. 168] These schools aimed, to
   quote the CNT's resolution on Libertarian Communism, to "help mould men
   with minds of their own -- and let it be clear that when we use the
   word 'men' we use it in the generic sense -- to which end it will be
   necessary for the teacher to cultivate every one of the child's
   faculties so that the child may develop every one of its capacities to
   the full." [quoted by Jose Periats, The CNT in the Spanish Revolution,
   p. 70] Libertarian education, of encouraging freedom instead of
   authority in the school, was applied on vast scale (see [36]section
   J.5.13 for more details on Modern Schools and libertarian education).

   This educational revolution was not confined to collectives or
   children. For example, the Federacion Regional de Campesinos de Levante
   formed institutes in each of its five provinces. The first was set up
   in October 1937 in an old convent with 100 students. The Federation
   also set up two "universities" in Valencia and Madrid which taught a
   wide variety of agricultural subjects and combined learning with
   practical experience in an experimental form attached to each
   university. The Aragon collectives formed a similar specialised school
   in Binefar. The CNT was heavily involved in transforming education in
   Catalonia. In addition, the local federation of the CNT in Barcelona
   established a school to train women workers to replace male ones being
   taken into the army. The school was run by the anarchist-feminist group
   the Mujeres Libres. [Robert Alexander, Op. Cit., p. 406, p. 670 and pp.
   665-8 and p. 670]

   Ultimately, the public services that exist in a social anarchist
   society will be dependent on what members of that society desire. If,
   for example, a commune or federation of communes desires a system of
   communal health-care or schools then they will allocate resources to
   implement it. They will allocate the task of creating such a system to,
   say, a special commission based on volunteers from the interested
   parties such as the relevant syndicates, professional associations,
   consumer groups and so on. For example, for communal education a
   commission or working group would include delegates from the teachers
   union, from parent associations, from student unions and so on. The
   running of such a system would be based, like any other industry, on
   those who work in it. Functional self-management would be the rule,
   with doctors managing their work, nurses theirs and so on, while the
   general running of, say, a hospital would be based on a general
   assembly of all workers there who would elect and mandate delegates,
   the administration staff and decide the policy the hospital would
   follow. Needless to say, other interested parties would have a say,
   including patients in the health system and students in the education
   system. As Malatesta argued:

     "And is it difficult to understand why there should be people who
     believe that the carrying out and the normal functioning of public
     services vital to our daily lives would be more reliable if carried
     out under the instructions of a government rather by the workers
     themselves who, by direct election or through agreements made with
     others, have chosen to do that kind of work and carry it out under
     the direct control of all the interested parties." [Anarchy, p. 41]

   Needless to say, any system of public services would not be imposed on
   those who did not desire it. They would be organised for and by members
   of the communes. Therefore, individuals who were not part of a local
   commune or syndicate would have to pay to gain access to the communal
   resources. However, it is unlikely that an anarchist society would be
   as barbaric as a capitalist one and refuse entry to cases who were ill
   and could not pay, nor turn away emergencies because they did not have
   enough money to pay. And just as other workers need not join a
   syndicate or commune, so doctors, teachers and so on could practice
   their trade outside the communal system as either individual artisans
   or as part of a co-operative. However, given the availability of free
   medical services it is doubtful they would grow rich doing so.
   Medicine, teaching and so on would revert back to what usually
   initially motivates people to take these up professions -- the desire
   to help others and make a positive impact in peoples lives.

   Thus, as would be expected, public services would be organised by the
   public, organised in their syndicates and communes. They would be based
   on workers' self-management of their daily work and of the system as a
   whole. Non-workers who took part in the system (patients, students)
   would not be ignored and would also play a role in providing essential
   feedback to assure quality control of services and to ensure that the
   service is responsive to users needs. The resources required to
   maintain and expand the system would be provided by the communes,
   syndicates and their federations. For the first time, public services
   would truly be public and not a statist system imposed upon the public
   from above nor a system by which the few fleece the many by exploiting
   natural monopolies for their own interests. Public Services in a free
   society will be organised by those who do the work and under the
   effective control of those who use them.

   Finally, this vision of public services being run by workers'
   associations could be raised as a valid libertarian reform under
   capitalism (not to mention raising the demand to turn firms into
   co-operatives when they are bailed out during economic crisis).
   Equally, rather than nationalisation or privatisation, public utilities
   could be organised as a consumer co-operative (i.e., owned by those who
   use it) while the day-to-day running could be in the hands of a
   producer co-operative.
   [37] I.4 How could an anarchist economy function? [38]up [39]I.6 What
   about the "Tragedy of the Commons"? 

References

   1. //usr/share/doc/anarchism/txt/secB2.txt#secb26
   2. //usr/share/doc/anarchism/txt/secI2.txt#seci23
   3. //usr/share/doc/anarchism/txt/secJ5.txt#secj51
   4. //usr/share/doc/anarchism/txt/secJ5.txt#secj52
   5. //usr/share/doc/anarchism/txt/secA2.txt#seca211
   6. //usr/share/doc/anarchism/txt/secE2.txt
   7. //usr/share/doc/anarchism/txt/secI8.txt
   8. //usr/share/doc/anarchism/txt/secI5.txt#seci52
   9. //usr/share/doc/anarchism/txt/secI8.txt
  10. //usr/share/doc/anarchism/txt/secB2.txt
  11. //usr/share/doc/anarchism/txt/secH3.txt#sech37
  12. //usr/share/doc/anarchism/txt/secA2.txt#seca211
  13. //usr/share/doc/anarchism/txt/secF1.txt
  14. //usr/share/doc/anarchism/txt/secI5.txt#seci56
  15. //usr/share/doc/anarchism/txt/secB2.txt#secb25
  16. //usr/share/doc/anarchism/txt/secH2.txt#sech211
  17. //usr/share/doc/anarchism/txt/secB5.txt
  18. //usr/share/doc/anarchism/txt/secH4.txt#sech42
  19. //usr/share/doc/anarchism/txt/secA2.txt#seca212
  20. //usr/share/doc/anarchism/txt/secA2.txt#seca214
  21. //usr/share/doc/anarchism/txt/secG2.txt#secg21
  22. //usr/share/doc/anarchism/txt/secB2.txt#secb26
  23. //usr/share/doc/anarchism/txt/secI5.txt#seci58
  24. //usr/share/doc/anarchism/txt/secI6.txt#seci62
  25. //usr/share/doc/anarchism/txt/secI7.txt#seci73
  26. //usr/share/doc/anarchism/txt/secB3.txt#secb31
  27. //usr/share/doc/anarchism/txt/secJ6.txt
  28. //usr/share/doc/anarchism/txt/secI7.txt#seci73
  29. //usr/share/doc/anarchism/txt/secD3.txt
  30. //usr/share/doc/anarchism/txt/secA2.txt#seca218
  31. //usr/share/doc/anarchism/txt/secH4.txt#sech47
  32. //usr/share/doc/anarchism/txt/secJ7.txt#secj76
  33. //usr/share/doc/anarchism/txt/secI5.txt#seci58
  34. //usr/share/doc/anarchism/txt/secH2.txt#sech21
  35. //usr/share/doc/anarchism/txt/secI4.txt#seci410
  36. //usr/share/doc/anarchism/txt/secJ5.txt#secj513
  37. //afaq/secI4.html
  38. //afaq/secIcon.html
  39. //afaq/secI6.html
