Theory

Concepts

Note: This section is largely based on pages from Beautiful Trouble, Black Socialists in America, An Anarchist FAQ, and TV Tropes' Anarchism page.

Types of power

Power is simply the ability to act. There are different types.

• Power-over: the ability to command, control the resources of, or limit the choices of others. It's also called domination and constituted power.
• Power-to: the ability to act. It's sometimes called constituent power, counter-power and anti-power.
• Power-with: collective power when people act together.
• Power-among: influence within a group, based on respect. It involves being an authority on something, as opposed to having authority over others.
• Power-within: the individual's internal strength, courage and creativity. For some, it's also spiritual.

Human Nature

An Anarchist FAQ writes:

"All we will say is that human beings have an innate ability to think and learn -- that much is obvious, we feel -- and that humans are sociable creatures, needing the company of others to feel complete and to prosper. Moreover, they have the ability to recognise and oppose injustice and oppression [...] These three features, we think, suggest the viability of an anarchist society. The innate ability to think for oneself automatically makes all forms of hierarchy illegitimate, and our need for social relationships implies that we can organise without the state. The deep unhappiness and alienation afflicting modern society reveals that the centralisation and authoritarianism of capitalism and the state are denying some innate needs within us."

Gender and Sexuality

In addition to championing gender equality and sexual freedom, anarchistic societies have been at the forefront of recognizing Third gender and Transgender identities.

Pendulum of power

The pendulum of power, in African foraging cultures, is an alternation of men's and women's rituals that has the effect of ensuring gender equality. The rituals often involve gender-bending components. The pendulum of power was theorized by Morna Finnegan and expanded upon by other members of the Radical Anthropology Group. See the Pendulum of power page for examples.

Historical Naturalism

TV Tropes describes the theory of historical naturalism:

"So for most social anarchists:

• material conditions are central, but not primary, to conditioning human society and how it develops

• the relation between material conditions people live in and their social consciousness is reciprocal, instead of the former determining the latter

• non-economic power hierarchies (racism, sexism, queerphobia, speciesism, ecological domination) are shaped by economic class relations but are not reducible to them

• the drive of people to gain social power in general over others is at least as important as the drive of ruling classes to gain economic leverage over the producing classes

• human progress doesn't proceed along a fixed path with a linear trajectory

• changes in social consciousness can precede (and cause) changes in material conditions

While this social-ontological perspective - in between idealism and materialism - was never given a formal name, anarchist anthropologist Brian Morris has used the term historical naturalism to describe it. Meaning they accept the naturalist (non-supernatural) and realist view of reality, and see economic factors and classes as vital to understanding how the world works, but also place importance on ecological and ideological forces as shapers of human behaviour and development; in particular the effects of hierarchical power on both its wielders and those subject to it. The drive of humans to have power over others - from primeval foragers to modern nation-states - is seen as at least as important a force of social development as the material conditions they exist in. Jesse Cohn explains the anarchist conception of history as being akin to working with clay: humans shape and reshape the world using the material and ideational resources at their disposal, equal parts created by and creators of their social evolution."

Analysis of hierarchical society

Alienation

"Alienation (or 'estrangement') means, for Marx, that man does not experience himself as the acting agent in his grasp of the world, but that the world (nature, others, and he himself) remain alien to him. They stand above and against him as objects, even though they may be objects of his own creation. Alienation is essentially experiencing the world and oneself passively, receptively, as the subject separated from the object."

Campism

“'The enemy of my enemy is my friend' as geopolitics. This is the idea that, within the metaphor that the world is divided into several military 'camps' (the largest being the Western camp led by the United States), any government opposing American foreign policy and interests – no matter how much it may oppress its own people, or how connected to global Capitalism it may be – can (and should) be supported."

Capitalism

"Capitalism is a profit-driven economic system rooted in inequality, exploitation, dispossession and environmental destruction." Autonomous Marxists define capitalism as "an endless imposition of work."

Cedric Robinson uses the term "racial capitalism" to signify that capitalism is an intrinsically racist system that maintains and modernizes feudalism's (proto-)racial forms of colonialism and oppression.

Many anarchists describe Soviet-style economies as "state capitalist," emphasizing how those economies still centralize the means of production under minority control (by bureaucrats instead of the bourgeoisie), produce commodities, pay workers in money, and participate in the global market and thus are subject to its grow-or-die pressures. However, others consider those economies as something distinct from capitalism, whether "coordinatorism," "bureaucratic collectivism," or "state socialism."

Black Socialists in America describe state capitalism as:

An economic system where some means of production are owned by the state, surplus labor is still extracted, and wage labor still exists. Here, the state decides how to distribute the surplus. Engels argued that the state form of Capitalism would be the final stage of Capitalism.

Class

Many Anarchists and libertarian Marxists divide society into two classes, with a capital-owning ruling class and a subordinate working class. An Anarchist FAQ elaborates:

"For most anarchists, there are two main classes:

(1) Working class -- those who have to work for a living but have no real control over that work or other major decisions that affect them, i.e. order-takers. This class also includes the unemployed, pensioners, etc., who have to survive on handouts from the state. They have little wealth and little (official) power. This class includes the growing service worker sector, most (if not the vast majority) of 'white collar' workers as well as traditional 'blue collar' workers. Most self-employed people would be included in this class, as would the bulk of peasants and artisans (where applicable). In a nutshell, the producing classes and those who either were producers or will be producers. This group makes up the vast majority of the population.

(2) Ruling class -- those who control investment decisions, determine high level policy, set the agenda for capital and state. This is the elite at the top, owners or top managers of large companies, multinationals and banks (i.e., the capitalists), owners of large amounts of land (i.e. landlords or the aristocracy, if applicable), top-level state officials, politicians, and so forth. They have real power within the economy and/or state, and so control society. In a nutshell, the owners of power (whether political, social or economic) or the master class. This group consists of around the top 5-15% of the population."

This two-class framework fairly closely matches the analysis of the Industrial Workers of the World which lets basically anyone join who is not a boss, landlord, or police officer. It also matches the Autonomist Marxist conception of the working class as including "the industrial proletariat, [...] students, housewives, slaves, peasants, the unemployed, welfare recipients, and workers in the technical and service industries."

Autonomists Jason Hribal and Silvia Federici add that exploited animals are part of the working class, and that these animals help grow the economy by laboring for food, transportation, and entertainment industries.

Colonialism

"Colonialism can refer to a transnational process of domination, the policies by which it is carried out, and the ideologies that underwrite it," explains Maia Ramnath. Types of colonialism include franchise colonialism (one state directly dominating another, mainly in order to exploit the labor and resources of the colonized), settler colonialism (where the settlers structurally replace and eliminate the colonized population), and neo-colonialism (where economic imbalances continue transnational domination despite ).

Conservatism

"Characterized in America by respect for traditions, republicanism, support for Judeo-Christian values, moral absolutism, free markets and free trade, anti-Communism, individualism, American exceptionalism, and a defense of 'Western culture' from outside threats. Conservative philosophy has deep ties to Classical Liberalism (18th and 19th centuries), which advocated for economic freedom and deregulation.

Modern Conservatism is closer to Classical Liberalism to some, and fascism to others."

Commodity fetishism

"There is nothing natural or inevitable about money, debt, property rights, or markets; they are symbolic systems that derive their efficacy from collective belief. Activists should inspire radical hope by exposing the mutability of these social relationships."

Cultural hegemony

"Politics is not only fought out in state houses, workplaces or on battlefields, but also in the language we use, the stories we tell, and the images we conjure — in short, in the ways we make sense of the world."

Fascism

"A multi-definition term generally characterized by hyper-nationalism, racial supremacy, a cult of personality around a 'strong' leader as superior to democracy, and an alliance between big and small Capitalists."

According to Mathew Lyons: "Fascism is a revolutionary form of right-wing populism, inspired by a totalitarian vision of collective rebirth, that challenges capitalist political and cultural power while promoting economic and social hierarchy."

Feudalism

"An arrangement predominating in the middle ages where a local lord would allow serfs to live and sustain themselves on their land, as long as they provided them labor and military support."

Hierarchy

Hierarchy refers to a relationship of command and obedience, or more broadly, a relationship where one party can control the resources of and limit the choices of another. Examples include patriarchy, racism, class exploitation, and rule of the State. For social and ecological reasons, anarchists and anti-authoritarians oppose almost all forms of hierarchy (except for some temporary instances like that of a parent over very young children).

Liberalism

"Formalized around the 19th century (Classical Liberalism), but with roots that extend further back into history, Liberalism justifies free markets, representative democracy, freedom of the press, free speech, freedom of religion, and freedom to own property.

Modern Liberalism is closer to Social Democracy to some, and Classical Liberalism to others."

Means of Production

"Physical, non-human inputs used for the production of economic value, such as workplaces, factories, machinery, or tools. Synonymous with 'capital.'"

Nationalism

"An ideology which emphasizes nations (and often specific races living in those nations), self-governance, national identity, and patriotism over internationalism."

Pillars of support

"Power stems not just from a ruler’s ability to use force, but from the consent and cooperation of the ruled, which can be voluntarily and nonviolently withdrawn by identifying, targeting and undermining the ruler’s 'pillars of support' — the institutions and organizations that sustain its power."

Private property and possession

Personal possession refers to something one personally uses, like a home, a coffee mug, a pair of shoes, or a car, and therefore has a right to own. Private property refers to something one owns not in order to use, but in order to extract profit or rent from the people who use it. So, a capitalist factory is the private property of its owner and an apartment building the private property of its owner. The establishment of capitalism and most of its private property required extensive violent theft through the dispossession of peasants from their lands, the enslavement of Africans, the genocide of indigenous peoples, witch hunts against subversive women, and the imperial conquest of countries in the Global South. Moreover, the mere maintenance of private property today requires a violent State, whose police will arrest tenants that refuse to pay rent, workers who try to run their factory without a boss, or hikers who ignore a developer's "No Trespassing" sign. So, anarchists since Proudhon have argued that "Property is theft!"

Representative Democracy

"A governance system in which people are offered a(n illusion of) choice to elect figures who "represent" them and enact policies on their behalf within the confines of top-down, hierarchical organization structures controlled by those with the most power, access, and/or resources."

Reformism

"A position advocating for the 'reform' of an existing system instead of its abolition or replacement."

Social Democracy

"Social Democracy is an ideology that supports economic interventionism to promote 'social justice' whilst retaining a capitalist economy. It is often seen by Socialists as supporting 'welfare-state' band-aids to Capitalism."

Slavery

A system that allows individuals to own other human beings in order to extract a surplus from their labor.

Society of the spectacle

"Modern capitalism upholds social control through the spectacle, the use of mass communications to turn us into consumers and passive spectators of our own lives, history and power. As our experience become shaped by spectacle, we get increasingly alienated from our communities, our environment, and even our own desires."

The propaganda model

"The propaganda model seeks to explain the behavior of news media operating within a capitalist economy. The model suggests that media outlets will consistently produce news content that aligns with the interests of political and economic elites."

The shock doctrine

"Pro-corporate neoliberals treat crises such as wars, coups, natural disasters and economic downturns as prime opportunities to impose an agenda of privatization, deregulation, and cuts to social services."

The State

The State is a body of professional decision-makers, or politicians, who rule over the rest of society. Anarchists oppose the State as a form of hierarchical rule and because it corrupts the people who serve in it, because it props up private property and capitalism, and because its top-down approach proves devastating for the environment.

Anti-authoritarians disagree over whether any government is necessarily a State. On one hand, Errico Malatesta declared, "the word State means government." On the other hand, Piotr Kropotkin distinguished between the two concepts, advocating a horizontal form of governance as distinct from rule by elites or representatives He wrote:

However, it seems to me that State and government are two concepts of a different order. The State idea means something quite different from the idea of government. It not only includes the existence of a power situated above society, but also of a territorial concentration as well as the concentration in the hands of a few of many functions in the life of societies. It implies some new relationships between members of society which did not exist before the formation of the State.

Perhaps providing a more consistently anarchist form of horizontal direct democracy, Carole Pateman argues the following, as summarized by Robert Graham:

The feminist political theorist, Carole Pateman, has proposed a model of direct, participatory democracy that is non-hierarchical and anti-authoritarian. To give substantive recognition to the freedom and equality of all citizens, Pateman argues, one must give practical recognition to `the right of minorities to refuse or withdraw consent, or where necessary, to disobey' majority decisions (PPO, p162). Political relationships remain non-hierarchical, because the majority does not exercise institutional power over the minority. The minority is free to decide `whether or not they ought to consent to, or comply with', majority decisions (PPO, p137). Direct democracy conceived in these terms is compatible with a social ecological and anarchist conception of non-dominating, non-hierarchical community.

Welfare State

"A state that provides social services on behalf of the well-being of its citizens, while retaining Capitalism. It often refers to Germany, the UK, and the Nordic countries, but can refer to any state with social services."

Resistance and Reconstruction

Blockadia

Blockadia refers to autonomous blockades of extractive and destructive projects. With Indigenous guidance and/or horizontal decision making, these projects are seen by more radical participants as prefiguring a decolonized and anarchistic world. See the Blockadia page for examples.

Action logic

"Your actions should speak for themselves. They should make immediate, natural sense to onlookers. They should have an obvious logic to the outside eye."

Affinity group

Affinity groups are the basic unit used by anarchists and many direct action movements to organize social struggle. The term comes from the Iberian Anarchist Federation. The affinity group is a small group, usually about 5 to 15 people in the context of contemporary North America, that educates the public, participates in campaigns, and injects anti-authoritarian ideas into popular organizations.

See also Catalyst group.

Alienation effect

"Bertolt Brecht developed a set of theatrical techniques to subvert the emotional manipulations of bourgeois theater. The alienation effect was Brecht’s principle of using innovative theatrical techniques to 'make the familiar strange' in order to provoke a social-critical audience response."

Anti-oppression

"Anti-oppression practice provides a framework for constructively addressing and changing oppressive dynamics as they play out in our organizing."

For example, Earth First! Journal has adopted a thorough Anti-Oppression Policy.

Catalyst Group

"Similar to an affinity group, it is defined by the revolutionary Black Anarchist Lorenzo Kom'boa Ervin as 'an Anarchist-Communist federation of affinity groups in action' that, after systems change in any particular place, is 'dissolved' so that its members can be 'absorbed into the new society’s collective decision-making process.' In essence, it is a smaller group of coordinators, advisors, and organizers for a radically democratic mass movement.

Class struggle Class struggle is the struggle of the working class against their exploiters in the ruling class, often thought to be the top 5-15% of society that control key investment and policy decisions.

Commune

Communes are communities based on self-government through direct, face-to-face democracy in grassroots neighbourhood assemblies is the means to that end. An anarchist society would be one big confederation of communes.

Communism

Basically, communism is a society based on the credo, "From each according to their ability, to each according to their needs!"

Black Socialists in America define communism:

"A classless, moneyless, stateless, post-scarcity system where the means of production are democratically controlled by the community for the benefit of all. Under this system, wage labor is non-existent, and production is planned for human needs, rather than private profit."

Although BSA and many Marxists distinguish between communism and socialism (the latter being broader), Marx himself arguably viewed communism and socialism as synonymous. See "Maoist Rebel News Does Not Understand Marx" and Peter Hudis's Marx's Concept of the Alternative to Capitalism .

Debt revolt

"Today’s class consciousness falls increasingly along debtor-creditor lines rather than worker-capitalist lines."

Direct action

Direct action is acting for oneself instead of waiting for someone else to do it. In the words of the Ruckus Society, direct action is "the strategic use of immediately effective acts to achieve a political or social end and challenge an unjust power dynamic." This concept encompasses anything from cooking free community meals, to blocking a road used by an oil company, to conducting a strike that forces the boss to make concessions. David Graeber writes, " Mass direct action—especially when organized on democratic lines—is incredibly effective. Over the last thirty years in America, there have been only two instances of mass action of this sort: the anti-nuclear movement in the late ‘70s, and the so called “anti-globalization” movement from roughly 1999-2001. In each case, the movement’s main political goals were reached far more quickly than almost anyone involved imagined possible." See also Points of Intervention.

Direct Democracy

"A bottom-up self-governance system in which the people themselves have a direct say over all social, economic, and/or political matters impacting their daily lives, as opposed to 'representative democracy.'"

Dual power

"Dual power" refers to a situation where autonomous institutions and official institutions compete against each other for legitimacy. Though Lenin first used the term "dual power" in 1917, the idea of building a free society from below has much earlier roots, including the Industrial Workers of the World's 1905 call for "forming the structure of the new society within the shell of the old."

Dunbar’s number

"Dunbar’s number refers to the approximate number of primary, care-based relationships people can maintain. The concept carries interesting implications for navigating the leap from organizing among friends to organizing under formal structures."

Environmental justice

"By exposing the connections between social justice and environmental issues we can most effectively challenge abuses of power that disproportionately target indigenous and other economically and politically disenfranchised communities."

Ethical spectacle

"To be politically effective, activists need to engage in spectacle. By keeping to certain principles, our spectacles can be ethical, emancipatory, and faithful to reality."

Expressive and instrumental actions

"Political action tends to be driven by one of two different motivations: expressing an identity, and winning concrete changes. It’s important to know the difference, and to strike a balance between the two."

Floating signifier

An empty or “floating” signifier is a symbol or concept loose enough to mean many things to many people, yet specific enough to galvanize action in a particular direction.

Framing

"In the words of media researcher Charlotte Ryan, “A frame is a thought organizer, highlighting certain events and facts as important, and rendering others invisible.” Framing a message correctly can make or break an entire campaign."

Hamoq and hamas

"Turning anger into action is necessary to move the powers that be, but that anger is most effective when it is disciplined and intelligently focused (hamas). Uncontrolled, stupid anger (hamoq) mostly undermines your own cause."

Hashtag politics

"Hashtags are powerful tools for conveying a conversation around a strategically chosen subject. In many cases the hashtag is a person, place, thing or other concrete noun. Your action or campaign doesn’t just send a message, it convenes a conversation. By strategically defining the hashtag and curating the ensuing conversation, you can expand and deepen your support base."

Intellectuals and power

"Intellectuals should use their specialized knowledge to expose the machinations of power, utilize their position in institutions to amplify the voices of people struggling against oppression, and work tirelessly to reveal the ways that they themselves are agents of power."

Labor Theory of Value

"A theory of value that argues that the economic value of a good or service is determined by the total amount of average socially-necessary labor required to produce it, rather than by the use or pleasure its owner gets from it."

See also Harry Cleaver's interpretation of the LTV in Reading Capital Politically.

Mass Strike

"A strike action in which a substantial proportion of the total labor force in a city, region, or country participates, spreading class consciousness, and forcing Capitalist concessions. Rosa Luxemburg identified it as one of the most powerful tactics available to workers."

Memes

"Memes (rhymes with 'dreams') are self-replicating units of cultural information that spread virally from mind to mind, network to network, generation to generation."

Narrative power analysis

"All power relations have a narrative dimension. Narrative power analysis is a systematic methodology for examining the stories that abet the powers that be in order to better challenge them."

Pedagogy of the Oppressed

"An approach to education that aims to transform oppressive structures by engaging people who have been marginalized and dehumanized and drawing on what they already know."

People's Shock

In contrast to the authoritarian shock doctrine, the masses can organize around crisis in order to advance a liberatory agenda. Naomi Klein writes, "There is a rich populist history of winning big victories for social and economic justice in the midst of large-scale crises. These include, most notably, the policies of the New Deal after the market crash of 1929 and the birth of countless social programs after World War II."

Permanent Revolution

"In Marxism, this is the strategy of a revolutionary class to continue to pursue its class interests independently and without compromise, despite overtures for political alliances, and despite the political dominance of opposing sections of society. In Trotskyism, PR holds that the only way to achieve world Communism is to allow the revolution to spread unimpeded from nation to nation, the theory being that a revolution in one nation would ignite revolutionary fervor worldwide, and that full-scale working class revolution must be allowed to germinate."

Points of intervention

"A point of intervention is a physical or conceptual place within a system where pressure can be put to disrupt its smooth functioning and push for change. Points of intervention include (1) Point of production (2) Point of destruction (3) Point of consumption (4) Point of decision (5) Point of assumption."

Points of Intervention, from Re:Imagining Change by Patrick Reinsborough and Doyle Canning

Political identity paradox

"Group identity offers embattled activists a cohesive community, but also tends to foster a subculture that can be alienating to the public at large. Balancing these two tendencies is crucial to sustaining the work of an effective group, organization or movement."

Praxis

"The act of engaging, applying, exercising, realizing, or practicing ideas (theory in action). 'Praxis' is really just a fancier, more pretentious word for 'strategy.'"

Radical flank effect

The radical flank effect refers to radicals' effect on moderates within a social struggle. Many moderates warn that radicals discredit moderate groups. The political scientist Herbert H. Haines has argued that radicals often strengthen moderates and thus have a "positive radical flank effect": "Radicals may thus provide a militant foil against which moderate strategies and demands can be redefined and normalized, i.e., responded to as 'reasonable.'"

Revolution

Traditionally, anarchists saw revolution as a rapid, violent break with the institutions and culture of society. Kropotkin wrote, "A revolution is a swift overthrow in a few years, of institutions which have taken centuries to root in the soil, and seem so fixed and immovable that even the most ardent reformers hardly dare to attack them in their writings. It is the fall, the crumbling away in a brief period, of all that up to that time composed the essence of social, religious, political and economic life in a nation." More recently, some anarchists like David Graeber have reconceptualized revolution to include phenomenon like the dramatic cultural changes brought by modern feminism since the 1960s. Graeber writes, citing the ideas of Immanuel Wallerstein, that revolutions now consist "above all of planetwide transformations of political common sense." See also social revolution and world revolution.

See also Permanent revolution and World revolution.

Revolutionary nonviolence

"Revolutionary nonviolence emphasizes unity among radicals and proposes a militant nonviolent praxis based on revolutionary transformation and mass civil resistance."

Social revolution

A social revolution is a change in all spheres of society, including the political, the economic, the cultural, and the interpersonal.

Spectrum of allies

The spectrum of allies is a concept and diagram created by Training for Change that illustrates how a campaign can strategically move people over to its side. The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee's 1964 Freedom Summer campaign is a good example. SNCC invited some passive allies, sympathetic students in the northern US, to become active allies by spending the summer working on civil rights organizing in Mississippi. These volunteers wrote home about the white mobs and police brutality they saw, and their parents and friends became passive allies. When some of the volunteers went back to school, they became leaders and recruited more people to the movement. "The landscape in the U.S. changed."

Surplus Value

"The difference between the value a worker adds, and the value that they receive (such as a wage) and are able to use for themselves. This surplus value goes to another leeching party that controls production (Capitalists, slave masters, etc.). Surplus Value = Worker Value Added – Wage Paid. Synonymous with unpaid labor, profit, exploitation, and wage theft."

Spectrum of allies

Syndicate

A syndicate, also known as a worker cooperative, is a democratically self-managed productive enterprise whose assets are controlled by its workers. Anarchists believe that most workplaces will be run as syndicates in an anarchist society.

Temporary autonomous zone

An alternative to traditional models of revolution, the T.A.Z is an uprising that creates free, ephemeral enclaves of autonomy in the here-and-now.

The commons

"Our common wealth — the shared bounty that we inherit and create together — precedes and surrounds our private wealth. By building a system that protects and expands our common wealth rather than one that exploits it, we can address both our ecological and social imbalances."

The social cure

"The student movement Otpor was able to galvanize a movement against Serbian president Milošovic through hip slogans and a cult of cool around getting arrested. People are more likely to be motivated to action by peer groups than by information or appeals to fear. The social cure is a method of harnessing this power of social groups for social change."

Theater of the Oppressed

"Theater of the Oppressed provides tools for people to explore collective struggles, analyze their history and present circumstances, and then experiment with inventing a new future together through theater."

Third revolution

Both the French Revolution's sans-culottes in 1973 and the Russian Revolution's Kronstandt sailors in 1921 advocated a third revolution. In each case, a first revolution overthrew a repressive authority and installed a moderate government consisting of liberals, radicals and disaffected members of the ruling class. Then, a second revolution replaced the moderate government with a more radical government: the National Convention in France and the Bolsheviks in Russia. The proposed third revolution referred to the installation of a genuinely libertarian power structure. In his multi-volume study The Third Revolution, Murray Bookchin explored the libertarian tendencies of revolutions.

Transitional Demand

"In Trotskyism, this is an agitational demand made by a socialist organization with the aim of linking the current situation to progress toward their goal of a socialist society. Transitional demands differ from calls for reform in that they call for things that governments and corporations are unwilling or unable to offer, and therefore, any progress toward obtaining a transitional demand is likely to weaken Capitalism and strengthen the hand of the working class. Examples of transitional demands would be 'employment for all' or 'housing for all' – demands that sound reasonable to the average citizen, but are practically impossible for Capitalism to deliver on."

United Front

"Under Trotskyism, this is an initiative whereby Communists propose to join with all workers belonging to other parties and groups and all unaligned workers in a common struggle to defend the immediate, basic interests of the working class against the bourgeoisie. The idea is that, through united struggle, many workers can be won over to revolutionary Socialism."

World revolution

The historian Immanuel Wallerstein and anthropologist David Graeber argue that revolutions consist "above all of planetwide transformations of political common sense." Examples include the world revolutions of 1789, 1917, 1968 and 2011. The world revolution of 1789 mainstreamed the notions that political change is a normal and desirable phenomenon, and that the government gets its legitimacy from "the people" rather than from the sovereign. These ideas were heretical a generation earlier, but even conservatives had to pay lip service to these ideas a generation afterwards. The world revolution of 1848 introduced radicalism as a very serious force in world politics. In no place did the 1848 revolutionaries take state power, but nonetheless, their ideal of universal education became widely implemented soon afterwards. The Russian Revolution of 1917 mobilized people around the world and scared elites into implementing welfare state policies in the United States and Europe. The world revolution of 1968 smashed the conventional faith in bureaucratic institutions and popularized modern feminism and struggles against racism, heterosexism and conformity. The ultimate effect of the world revolution of 2011--a rebellious wave that spread from the Arab Spring to Occupy Wall Street--remains to be seen.

Types of Libertarian Socialism

Note: Many of these theories are not mutually exclusive. Also, one can practice any of the broader categories without identifying as a subcategory.

Anarchism

Anarchism (from the Greek words "an" (without) and "archos" (ruler) is a political theory and practice that aims to abolish coercive hierarchy. In other words, Anarchists try to implement anarchy, an absence of rulers. In 1840, Pierre-Joseph Proudhon first called himself an Anarchist and used the words anarchy and Anarchism in this way. Anarchism is a type of libertarian socialism: libertarian because it seeks to maximize liberty and socialist because it supports the abolition of private property and wage labor. As Peter Kropotkin explained in 1910 (using now-archaically gendered language), Anarchists believe that in a libertarian socialist society, "Man would thus be enabled to obtain the full development of all his faculties, intellectual, artistic and moral, without being hampered by overwork for the monopolists, or by the servility and inertia of mind of the great number."

Most forms of Anarchism can be classified as either social Anarchism or individualist Anarchism. Social Anarchism is the more common orientation today, and within that category, Anarchist Communism is the most popular tendency.

Social Anarchism

Unlike individualist Anarchists, the social Anarchists advocate putting the means of production under communal (or social) control. There are four main types of social Anarchism: mutualism, collectivism, communism and syndicalism. These tendencies are not mutually exclusive. Many anarchists see mutualism or collectivism as a necessary step before communism. Moreover, Anarchists generally see communism and syndicalism as compatible or even as necessarily conjoined.

Mutualism

Mutualism, a type of Anarchism developed by Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (1808-1865), combines an opposition to coercive hierarchy with a commitment to market socialism. One main difference between the mutualists and the individualists is that mutualists advocate a community-owned bank that would provide very low-interest or even no-interest loans. A second main difference is that many mutualists support what Proudhon called an "agro-industrial federation", a federation of worker-cooperatives and producers to help each other out and build public goods like roads. Finally, mutualists have a more pronounced opposition to private property, influenced by Proudhon's slogan "property is theft".

Anarchist Collectivism

Anarchist collectivism, developed by Mikhail Bakunin (1814-1876), combines an opposition to coercive hierarchy with a commitment to an economy coordinated with money between federations of worker-cooperatives and federations of communes. The main difference between collectivism and communism is that only the latter abolishes money. Under collectivism, the product of labor is put on a communal market, and people are remunerated according to their deeds (for example, how many hours they worked), not their needs.

Anarchist Communism

Anarchist Communism, articulated by Joseph Déjacque and then developed by Peter Kropotkin (1842-1921), combines an opposition to coercive hierarchy with a commitment to the distribution of economic goods to each person according to their needs. The economy is coordinated between industry-wide federations of worker-cooperatives and federations of communes. This is the most popular of the specific anarchist tendencies today.

Anarchist Syndicalism

Under Anarchist Syndicalism, decentralized and federated trade unions use strikes and other direct action to enact reforms under capitalism until they are powerful enough to overthrow it. Syndicalists sometimes place a greater emphasis on workplace organizing than do other social anarchists, and there is arguably tension between the syndicalists' support of worker control and the communists' support of community control. Nonetheless, the great anarchist communist Peter Kroptokin saw syndicalism as totally compatible with his own theory. Peter Kropotkin, "Syndicalism and Anarchism," LibCom, https://libcom.org/library/syndicalism-anarchism-peter-kropotkin.</ref>

Individualist Anarchism

Individualist Anarchists share the social anarchists' opposition to hierarchy, the State and capitalism. Individualist Anarchists are often market socialists, and they are more likely than social Anarchists to insist on using only gradual and nonviolent means of social change. Unlike the mutualists, who advocate a community-owned bank to help equalize wealth, the individualists would have banks run as worker-cooperatives. Benjamin Tucker (1854-1939) is the most significant individualist anarchist theorist. Social Anarchist critics warn that the individualist Anarchists' reliance on a market economy could introduce significant wealth disparities and recreate hierarchies such as boss-worker and landlord-tenant relationships.

Green Anarchism

Green Anarchists combine anarchism with an emphasis on protecting the environment. In his 1964 essay "Ecology and Revolutionary Thought," the writer and activist Murray Bookchin argued that an ecologically sound society would necessarily be an anarchistic one, with decentralized decision-makers taking into account the conditions of their local ecosystems. Often, green anarchists combine anarchism with Social Ecology, green syndicalism, or the controversial but influential "primitivist" tendency.

Social Ecology

Social Ecology, a type of libertarian communism first developed by Murray Bookchin, asserts that social hierarchy is the root cause of the destructive belief that humans may dominate nature. The implication, then, is that the solution of ecological problems requires a movement to abolish hierarchy within human society. Social Ecologists posit an account of the rise of hierarchy, a political strategy for social change (libertarian municipalism, or Communalism), and even a philosophy for understanding evolution (dialectical naturalism). Unusual for an Anarchist, Bookchin advocated running Green candidates for local office to educate the public about Anarchism. Bookchin had heated debates with syndicalists, deep ecologists, primitivists, proponents of consensus decision-making, and many others who disagreed with him. Toward the end of his life, Bookchin broke with Anarchism, advancing Social Ecology as a stand-alone theory.

Green Syndicalism

Green syndicalism is a term Jeff Shantz uses to describe a tendency among syndicalists that emphasizes ecological protection. Judi Bari, a particularly influential figure, united members of Earth First! and Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) in the struggle to protect redwood forests in northern California. Today, the IWW's Environmental Union Caucus advocates an Ecological General Strike.

Anarcho-primitivism

A controversial tendency, anarcho-primitivists advocate a global return to hunter-gatherer society. They argue that industrial society requires extensive division of labor, leading to hierarchy and ecological destruction. Even agriculture is thought to require the unhealthy domestication of humans and wildlife. Critics say that the anarcho-primitivists lack a non-authoritarian strategy for reducing the global population to the low levels that a hunter-gatherer lifestyle could support.

Ecofeminist Anarchism

Ecofeminism explores the connections between the domination of women and the domination of nature. Ecofeminist thinkers have often been anarchist or close to anarchist.

Communalism (libertarian municipalism) and Social Ecology

See Social Ecology under Social Anarchism. Initially, Bookchin declared Social Ecology and Libertarian Municiaplism (which he later called Communalism) to be fully compatible with the Anarchist tradition. Privately in 1995 and publicly in 1999, Bookchin broke with Anarchism and declared Communalism to be a stand-alone theory.

"Broad Anarchist Tradition"

In their book Black Flame: The Revolutionary Politics of Anarchism and Syndicalism, Lucien van der Walt and Michael Schmidt speak of a broad anarchist tradition that encompasses class-struggle Anarchists since Bakunin as well as revolutionary syndicalists. Because of their insistence that Anarchism requires class struggle, their "broad" tradition excludes many self-identified Anarchists like Proudhon.

Participatory Society

Michael Albert and Robin Hanhel's theory of participatory economics and Stephen Shalom's theory of participatory polity propose complementary visions for a Participatory Society. In participatory economics, workers' councils and consumers' councils deliberate with each other in order to optimally allocate materials to workplaces and goods to consumers. Workers' councils ensure that each worker has an interesting variety of tasks and workplaces, called a balanced job complex. Workers are remunerated based on their effort and sacrifice.

In participatory polity, nested councils make decisions, striving for consensus and resorting to majority vote when consensus is not reached. From the the local councils upward, councils send immediately recallable, rotating delegates to coordinate affairs among regions. Delegates are not mandated to vote for the position favored by their council, since such an arrangement would prevent them from reaching a more informed decision based on deliberation with members from other councils. The higher councils only vote on relatively non-controversial matters. When there is a close vote, or when enough lower councils demand it, matters are returned to the lower councils for a vote. Each council above the local level has a council court, made of randomly-selected, rotating citizens, who overrule decisions they deem in violation of the rights of minorities.

Syndicalism

This category includes, among others Anarchist Syndicalism, Marxist Syndicalism, and Green Syndicalism.

Libertarian Marxism

Situationism

The Situationist International was a libertarian Marxist group, based primarily in France from 1957 to 1972, that criticized the consumerist “society of the spectacle” and played a guiding role in the May 1968 French revolt. They urged the creation of spontaneous "situations" that would jolt people out of their ordinary routines. Ever since, their cultural critiques have influenced anti-authoritarian movements around the world.

Potential Problems

Compulsory conformity describes when the price for egalitarianism is peer pressure to sacrifice individuality and conform to the wishes of the majority. The classic case is the fictional society of Anarres.

In Anarchy Works, Gelderloos lists the following reasons why anarchies tend to eventually stop working especially under capitalism:

Isolation: Many anarchist projects work quite well, but only make an impact in the lives of a tiny number of people. What engenders this isolation? What tends to contribute to it, and what can offset it?

Alliances: In a number of examples, anarchists and other anti-authoritarians were betrayed by supposed allies who sabotaged the possibility of liberation in order to gain power for themselves. Why did anarchists choose these alliances, and what can we learn about what kind of alliances to make today?

Repression: Autonomous communities and revolutionary activities have been stopped cold by police repression or military invasion time after time. People are intimidated, arrested, tortured, and killed, and the survivors must go into hiding or drop out of the struggle; communities that had once provided support withdraw in order to protect themselves. What actions, strategies, and forms of organization best equip people to survive repression? How can those on the outside provide effective solidarity?

Collaboration: Some social movements or radical projects choose to participate in or accommodate themselves to aspects of the present system in order to overcome isolation, be accessible to a greater range of people, or avoid repression. What are the advantages and pitfalls of this approach? Are there ways to overcome isolation or avoid repression without it?

Temporary gain: Many of the examples in this book no longer exist. Of course, anarchists are not trying to create permanent institutions that take on lives of their own; specific organizations should come to an end when they are no longer helpful. Realizing that, how can we make the most of bubbles of autonomy while they last, and how can they continue to inform us after they have ceased to be? How can a series of temporary spaces and events be linked to create a continuity of struggle and community?

External Links

An Anarchist FAQ

Beautiful Trouble

Black Socialists in America, "Mumbo Jumbo"

Wikipedia: Anarchist schools of thought

Wikipedia: Libertarian socialism

TV Tropes' Anarchism page.