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version of Section J.
J.4 What trends in society aid anarchist activity?
In this section we will examine some modern trends which we regard as being
potential openings for anarchists to organise. These trends are of a general
nature, partly as a product of social struggle, partly as a response to
economic and social crisis, partly involving people's attitudes to big government
and big business partly in relation to the communications revolution we
are currently living through, and so on. We do this because, as Kropotkin
argued, the anarchist "studies human society as it is now and was in
the past. . . He [or she] studies society and tries to discover its tendencies,
past and present, its growing needs, intellectual and economical, and in
his ideal he merely points out in which direction evolution goes." [Anarchism
and Anarchist Communism, p. 24] In this section we highlight just a
few of the tendencies in modern society which point in an anarchist direction.
Of course, looking at modern society we see multiple influences, changes
which have certain positive aspects in some directions but negative ones
in others. For example, the business-inspired attempts to decentralise or
reduce (certain) functions of governments. In the abstract, such developments
should be welcomed by anarchists for they lead to the reduction of government.
In practice such a conclusion is deeply suspect simply because these developments
are being pursued to increase the power and influence of business and capital
and undermine working class power and autonomy. Similarly, increases in
self-employment can be seen, in the abstract, as reducing wage slavery.
However, if, in practice, this increase is due to corporations encouraging
"independent" contractors to cut wages and worsen working conditions, increase
job insecurity and undermine paying for health and other employee packages
then is hardly a positive sign. Obviously increases in self-employment would
be different if such an increase was the result of an increase in the number
of co-operatives, for example.
Thus few anarchists celebrate many apparently "libertarian" developments
as they are not the product of social movements and activism, but are the
product of elite lobbying for private profit and power. Decreasing the power
of the state in (certain) areas while leaving (or increasing) the power
of capital is a retrograde step in most, if not all, ways. Needless to say,
this "rolling back" of the state does not bring into question its role as
defender of property and the interests of the capitalist class -- nor could
it, as it is the ruling class who introduces and supports these developments.
As an example of these multiple influences, we can point to the economic
crisis which has staggered on since 1973 in many Western countries. This
crisis, when it initially appeared, lead to calls to reduce taxation (at
least for the wealthy, in most countries the tax-burden was shifted even
more onto the working class -- as was the case in Thatcher's Britain). In
most countries, as a result, government "got off the back" of the wealthy
(and got even more comfy on our back!). This (along with slower growth)
helped to create declining revenue bases in the advanced capitalist nations
has given central governments an excuse to cut social services, leaving
a vacuum that regional and local governments have had to fill along with
voluntary organisations, thus producing a tendency toward decentralisation
that dovetails with anarchist ideals.
As Murray Bookchin points out, a sustainable ecological society must shift
emphasis away from nation-states as the basic units of administration and
focus instead on municipalities -- towns, villages, and human-scale cities.
Interestingly, the ongoing dismantling of the welfare state is producing
such a shift by itself. By forcing urban residents to fend for themselves
more than ever before in meeting transportation, housing, social welfare,
and other needs, the economic crisis is also forcing them to relearn the
arts of teamwork, co-operation, and self-reliance (see his Remaking Society:
Pathways to a Green Future, p. 183).
Of course the economic crisis also has a downside for anarchists. As hardships
and dislocations continue to swell the ranks and increase the militancy
of progressive social movements, the establishment is being provoked to
use ever more authoritarian methods to maintain control (see D.9). As the
crisis deepens over the next few decades, the reactionary tendencies of
the state will be reinforced (particularly as the neo-liberal consensus
helps atomise society via the market mechanism and the resulting destruction
of community and human relationships). However, this is not inevitable.
The future depends on our actions in the here and now. In this section of
the FAQ we highlight some developments which do, or could, work to the advantage
of anarchists. Many of these examples are from the US, but they apply equally
to Britain and many other advanced industrial states.
In this section, we aim to discuss tendencies from below, not above
-- tendencies which can truly "roll back" the state rather than reduce its
functions purely to that of the armed thug of Capital. The tendencies we
discuss here are not the be all nor end all of anarchist activism or tendencies.
We discuss many of the more traditionally anarchist "openings" in section
J.5 (such as industrial and community unionism, mutual credit, co-operatives,
modern schools and so on) and so will not do so here. However, it is important
to stress here that such "traditional" openings are not being downplayed
-- indeed, much of what we discuss here can only become fully libertarian
in combination with these more "traditional" forms of "anarchy in
action."
For a lengthy discussion of anarchistic trends in society, we recommend
Colin Ward's classic book Anarchy in Action. Ward's excellent book
covers many areas in which anarchistic tendencies have been expressed, far
more than we can cover here. The libertarian tendencies in society are many.
No single work could hope to do them justice.
Simply because it shows that people are unhappy with the existing society
and, more importantly, are trying to change at least some part of it. It
suggests that certain parts of the population have reflected on their situation
and, potentially at least, seen that by their own actions they can
influence and change it for the better.
Given that the ruling minority draws its strength of the acceptance and
acquiescence of the majority, the fact that a part of that majority no longer
accepts and acquiesces is a positive sign. After all, if the majority did
not accept the status quo and acted to change it, the class and state system
could not survive. Any hierarchical society survives because those at the
bottom follow the orders of those above it. Social struggle suggests that
some people are considering their own interests, thinking for themselves
and saying "no" and this, by its very nature, is an important, indeed, the
most important, tendency towards anarchism. It suggests that people are
rejecting the old ideas which hold the system up, acting upon this rejection
and creating new ways of doing thinks.
"Our social institutions," argues Alexander Berkman, "are founded
on certain ideas; as long as the latter are generally believed, the institutions
built upon them are safe. Government remains strong because people think
political authority and legal compulsion necessary. Capitalism will continue
as long as such an economic system is considered adequate and just. The
weakening of the ideas which support the evil and oppressive present-day
conditions means the ultimate breakdown of government and capitalism."
[The ABC of Anarchism, p. xv]
Social struggle is the most obvious sign of this change of perspective,
this change in ideas, this progress towards freedom.
Social struggle is expressed by direct action. We have discussed both
social struggle and direct action before (in sections J.1 and J.2 respectively) and some
readers may wonder why we are covering this again here. We do so for two
reasons. Firstly, as we are discussing what trends in society help anarchist
activity, it would be wrong not to highlight social struggle and
direct action here. This is because these factors are key tendencies towards
anarchism as anarchism will be created by people and social struggle is
the means by which people create the new world in the shell of the old.
Secondly, social struggle and direct action are key aspects of anarchist
theory and we cannot truly present a picture of what anarchism is about
without making clear what these are.
So social struggle is a good sign as it suggests that people are thinking
for themselves, considering their own interests and working together collectively
to change things for the better. As the French syndicalist Emile Pouget
argues:
"Direct action . . . means that the working class, forever
bridling at the existing state of affairs, expects nothing from
outside people, powers or forces, but rather creates its own
conditions of struggle and looks to itself for its methodology . . .
Direct Action thus implies that the working class subscribes to
notions of freedom and autonomy instead of genuflecting before
the principle of authority. Now, it is thanks to this authority
principle, the pivot of the modern world - democracy being its
latest incarnation - that the human being, tied down by a
thousand ropes, moral as well as material, is bereft of
any opportunity to display will and initiative."
[Direct Action]
Social struggle means that people come into opposition with the boss and
other authorities such as the state and the dominant morality. This challenge
to existing authorities generates two related processes: the tendency of
those involved to begin taking over the direction of their own activities
and the development of solidarity with each other. Firstly, in the course
of a struggle, such as a strike, occupation, boycott, and so on, the ordinary
life of people, in which they act under the constant direction of the bosses
or state, ceases, and they have to think, act and co-ordinate their actions
for themselves. This reinforces the expression towards autonomy that the
initial refusal that lead to the struggle indicates. Thus struggle re-enforces
the initial act of refusal and autonomy by forcing those involves to act
for themselves. Secondly, in the process of struggle those involved learn
the importance of solidarity, of working with others in a similar situation,
in order to win. This means the building of links of support, of common
interests, of organisation. The practical need for solidarity to help win
the struggle is the basis for the solidarity required for a free society
to be viable.
Therefore the real issue in social struggle is that it is an attempt by
people to wrestle at least part of the power over their own lives away from
the managers, state officials and so on who currently have it and exercise
it themselves. This is, by its very nature, anarchistic and libertarian.
Thus we find politicians and, of course, managers and property owners, often
denouncing strikes and other forms of direct action. This is logical. As
direct action challenges the real power-holders in society and because,
if carried to its logical conclusion, it would have to replace them, social
struggle and direct action can be considered in essence a revolutionary
process.
Moreover, the very act of using direct action suggests a transformation
within the people using it. "Direct action's very powers to fertilise,"
argues Pouget, "reside in such exercises in imbuing the individual with
a sense of his own worth and in extolling such worth. It marshals human
resourcefulness, tempers characters and focuses energies. It teaches self-confidence!
And self-reliance! And self-mastery! And shifting for oneself!" Moreover,
"direct action has an unmatched educational value: It teaches people
to reflect, to make decisions and to act. It is characterised by a culture
of autonomy, an exaltation of individuality and is a fillip to initiative,
to which it is the leaven. And this superabundance of vitality and burgeoning
of 'self' in no way conflicts with the economic fellowship that binds the
workers one with another and far from being at odds with their common interests,
it reconciles and bolsters these: the individual's independence and activity
can only erupt into splendour and intensity by sending its roots deep into
the fertile soil of common agreement." [Pouget, Op. Cit.]
Emma Goldman also recognised the transforming power of direct action.
Anarchists, she argues, "believe with Stirner that man has as much liberty
as he is willing to take. Anarchism therefore stands for direct action,
the open defiance of, and resistance to, all laws and restrictions, economic,
social and moral. But defiance and resistance are illegal. Therein lies
the salvation of man. Everything illegal necessitates integrity, self-reliance,
and courage. In short, it calls for free independent spirits. . ." [Red
Emma Speaks, p. 61-2]
Social struggle is the beginning of a transformation of the people involved
and their relationships to each other. While its external expression lies
in contesting the power of existing authorities, its inner expression is
the transformation of people from passive and isolated competitors into
empowered, self-directing, self-governing co-operators. Moreover, this process
widens considerable what people think is "possible." Through struggle, by
collective action, the fact people can change things is driven home,
that they have the power to govern themselves and the society they
live in. Thus struggle can change people's conception of "what is possible"
and encourage them to try and create a better world. As Kropotkin argued:
"since the times of the [first] International Working Men's Association,
the anarchists have always advised taking an active part in those workers'
organisations which carry on the direct struggle of labour against
capital and its protector -- the State.
"Such a struggle, they say, . . . permits the worker to obtain some temporary
improvements. . ., while it opens his [or her] eyes to the evil that is
done by capitalism and the State. . . , and wakes up his thoughts concerning
the possibility of organising consumption, production, and exchange without
the intervention of the capitalist and the State." [Kropotkin's
Revolutionary Pamphlets, p. 171]
In other words, social struggle has a radicalising and politicising
effect, an effect which brings into a new light existing society and the
possibilities of a better world ("direct action", in Pouget's words,
"develops the feeling for human personality as well as the spirit of
initiative . . . it shakes people out of their torpor and steers them to
consciousness."). The practical need to unite and resist the boss also
helps break down divisions within the working class. Those in struggle start
to realise that they need each other to give them the power necessary to
get improvements, to change things. Thus solidarity spreads and overcomes
divisions between black and white, male and female, heterosexual and homosexual,
trades, industries, nationalities and so on. The real need for solidarity
to win the fight helps to undermine artificial divisions and show that there
are only two groups in society, the oppressed and the oppressors.
Moreover, struggle as well as transforming those involved is also the
basis for transforming society as a whole simply because, as well as producing
transformed individuals, it also produces new forms of organisation, organisations
created to co-ordinate their struggle and which can, potentially at least,
become the framework of a libertarian socialist society.
Thus anarchists argue that social struggle opens the eyes of those involved
to self-esteem and a sense of their own strength, and the groupings it forms
at its prompting are living, vibrant associations where libertarian principles
usually come to the fore. We find almost all struggles developing new forms
of organisation, forms which are often based on direct democracy, federalism
and decentralisation. If we look at every major revolution, we find people
creating mass organisations such as workers' councils, factory committees,
neighbourhood assemblies and so on as a means of taking back the power to
govern their own lives, communities and workplaces. In this way social struggle
and direct action lays the foundations for the future. By actively taking
part in social life, people are drawn into creating new forms of organisation,
new ways of doing things. In this way they educate themselves in participation,
in self-government, in initiative and in asserting themselves. They begin
to realise that the only alternative to management by others is self-management
and organise to achieve thus.
Given that remaking society has to begin at the bottom, this finds its
expression in direct action, individuals taking the initiative, building
new, more libertarian forms of organisation and using the power they have
just generated by collective action and organisation to change things by
their own efforts. Social struggle is therefore a two way transformation
-- the external transformation of society by the creation of new organisations
and the changing of the power relations within it and the internal transformation
of those who take part in the struggle. And because of this, social struggle,
"[w]hatever may be the practical results of the struggle for immediate
gains, the greatest value lies in the struggle itself. For thereby workers
learn that the bosses interests are opposed to theirs and that they cannot
improve their conditions, and much less emancipate themselves, except by
uniting and becoming stronger than the bosses. If they succeed in getting
what they demand, they will be better off . . . and immediately make greater
demands and have greater needs. If they do not succeed they will be led
to study the causes of their failure and recognise the need for closer unity
and greater activism and they will in the end understand that to make their
victory secure and definitive, it is necessary to destroy capitalism. The
revolutionary cause, the cause of the moral elevation and emancipation of
the workers must benefit by the fact that workers unite and struggle for
their interests." [Errico Malatesta, Life and Ideas, p. 191]
Hence Nestor Makhno's comment that "[i]n fact, it is only through that
struggle for freedom, equality and solidarity that you reach an understanding
of anarchism." [The Struggle Against the State and other Essays,
p. 71] The creation of an anarchist society is a process and social
struggle is the key anarchistic tendency within society which anarchists
look for, encourage and support. Its radicalising and transforming nature
is the key to the growth of anarchist ideas, the creation of libertarian
structures and alternatives within capitalism (structures which may, one
day, replace capitalism and state) and the creation of anarchists and those
sympathetic to anarchist ideas. Its importance cannot be underestimated!
It is often argued that social struggle, by resisting the powerful and the
wealthy, will just do more harm than good. Employers often use this approach
in anti-union propaganda, for example, arguing that creating a union will
force the company to close and move to less "militant" areas.
There is, of course, some truth in this. Yes, social struggle can lead
to bosses moving to more compliant workforces -- but, of course, this also
happens in periods lacking social struggle too! If we look at the down-sizing
mania that gripped the U.S. in the 1980s and 1990s, we see companies down-sizing
tens of thousands of people during a period where unions were weak, workers
scared about loosing their jobs and class struggle basically becoming mostly
informal and "underground." Moreover, this argument actually indicates the
need for anarchism. It is a damning indictment of any social system that
it requires people to kow-tow to their masters otherwise they will suffer
economic hardship. It boils down to the argument "do what you are told,
otherwise you will regret it." Any system based on that maxim is an
affront to human dignity!
It would, in a similar fashion, be easy to "prove" that slave rebellions
are against the long term interests of the slaves. After all, by rebelling
the slaves will face the anger of their masters. Only by submitting to their
master can they avoid this fate and, perhaps, be rewarded by better conditions.
Of course, the evil of slavery would continue but by submitting to it they
can ensure their life can become better. Needless to say, any thinking and
feeling person would quickly dismiss this reasoning as missing the point
and being little more than apologetics for an evil social system that treated
human beings as things. The same can be said for the argument that social
struggles within capitalism do more harm than good. It betrays a slave mentality
unfitting for human beings (although fitting for those who desire to live
of the backs of workers or desire to serve those who do).
Moreover, this kind of argument ignores a few key points. Firstly, by
resistance the conditions of the oppressed can be maintained or even improved.
After all, if the boss knows that their decisions will be resisted they
may be less inclined to impose speed-ups, longer hours and so on. If they
know that their employees will agree to anything then there is every reason
to expect them to impose all kinds of oppressions, just as a state will
impose draconian laws if it knows that it can get away with it. History
is full of examples of non-resistance producing greater evils in the long
term and of resistance producing numerous important reforms and improvements
(such as higher wages, shorter hours, the right to vote for working class
people and women, freedom of speech, the end of slavery, trade union rights
and so on).
So social struggle has been proven time and time again to gain successful
reforms. For example, before the 8 hour day movement of 1886 in America,
for example, most companies argued they could not introduce that reform
without doing bust. However, after displaying a militant mood and conducting
an extensive strike campaign, hundreds of thousands of workers discovered
that their bosses had been lying and they got shorter hours. Indeed, the
history of the labour movement shows what bosses say they can afford and
the reforms workers can get via struggle are somewhat at odds. Given the
asymmetry of information between workers and bosses, this is unsurprising.
Workers can only guess at what is available and bosses like to keep their
actual finances hidden. Even the threat of labour struggle can be enough
to gain improvements. For example, Henry Ford's $5 day is often used as
an example of capitalism rewarding good workers. However, this substantial
pay increase was largely motivated by the unionisation drive by the Industrial
Workers of the World among Ford workers in the summer of 1913 [Harry
Braverman, Labour and Monopoly Capitalism, p. 144]. More recently,
it was the mass non-payment campaign against the poll-tax in Britain during
the late 1980s and early 1990s which helped ensure its defeat (and the 1990
poll-tax riot in London also helped and ensured that the New Zealand government
did not introduce a similar scheme in their country too!). In the 1990s,
France also saw the usefulness of direct action. Two successive prime ministers
(Edouard Balladur and Alain Juppe) tried to impose large scale "reform"
programmes that swiftly provoked mass demonstrations and general strikes
amongst students, workers, farmers and others. Confronted by crippling disruptions,
both governments gave in. Compared to the experience of, say Britain, France's
tradition of direct action politics proved more effective in maintaining
existing conditions or even improving on them.
Secondly, and in some ways more importantly, it ignores that by resistance
those who take part can the social system they live in can be changed.
This radicalising effect of social struggle can open new doors for those
involved, liberate their minds, empower them and create the potential for
deep social change. Without resistance to existing forms of authority a
free society cannot be created as people adjust themselves to authoritarian
structures and accept what is as the only possibility. By resisting, people
transform and empower themselves, as well as transforming society. In addition,
new possibilities can be seen (possibilities before dismissed as "utopian")
and, via the organisation and action required to win reforms, the framework
for these possibilities (i.e. of a new, libertarian, society) created. The
transforming and empowering effect of social struggle is expressed well
by the ex-IWW and UAW-CIO shop steward Nick DeGaetano in his experiences
in the 1930s:
"the workers of my generation from the early days up to now had
what you might call a labour insurrection in changing from a
plain, humble, submissive creature into a man. The union made
a man out of him. . . I am not talking about benefits . . . I am
talking about the working conditions and how they affected the
man in plant. . . Before they were submissive. Today they are
men." [quoted in Industrial Democracy in America, Nelson
Lichtenstein and Holwell John Harris (eds.), p. 204]
Other labour historians note the same radicalising process elsewhere (modern
day activists could give more examples!):
"The contest [over wages and conditions] so pervaded social life
that the ideology of acquisitive individualism, which explained and justified
a society regulated by market mechanisms and propelled by the accumulation
of capital, was challenged by an ideology of mutualism, rooted in working-class
bondings and struggles. . . Contests over pennies on or off existing piece
rates had ignited controversies over the nature and purpose of the American
republic itself." [David Montgomery, The Fall of the House of Labour,
p. 171]
This radicalising effect is far more dangerous to authoritarian structures
than better pay, more liberal laws and so on as they need submissiveness
to work. Little wonder that direct action is usually denounced as pointless
or harmful by those in power or their spokespersons, for direct action will,
taken to its logical conclusion, put them out of a job! Struggle, therefore,
holds the possibility of a free society as well as of improvements in the
here and now. It also changes the perspectives of those involved, creating
new ideas and values to replace the ones of capitalism.
Thirdly, it ignores the fact that such arguments do not imply the end
of social struggle and working class resistance and organisation, but rather
its extension. If, for example, your boss argues that they will move
to Mexico if you do not "shut up and put up" then the obvious solution is
to make sure the workers in Mexico are also organised! Bakunin argued this
basic point over one hundred years ago, and it is still true -- "in the
long run the relatively tolerable position of workers in one country can
be maintained only on condition that it be more or less the same in other
countries." If, for example, workers in Mexico have worse wages and
conditions than you do, these same conditions will be used against you as
the "conditions of labour cannot get worse or better in any particular
industry without immediately affecting the workers in other industries,
and that workers of all trades are inter-linked with real and indissoluble
ties of solidarity," ties which can be ignored only at your own peril.
Ultimately, "in those countries the workers work longer hours for less
pay; and the employers there can sell their products cheaper, successfully
competing against conditions where workers working less earn more, and thus
force the employers in the latter countries to cut wages and increase the
hours of their workers." Bakunin's solution was to organise internationally,
to stop this undercutting of conditions by solidarity between workers. As
recent history shows, his argument was correct [The Political Philosophy
of Bakunin, pp. 306-7]. Thus it is not social struggle or militancy
which is bad, just isolated militancy, struggle which ignores the
ties of solidarity required to win, extent and keep reforms and improvements.
In other words, our resistance must be as transnational as capitalism is.
The idea that social struggle and working class organisation are harmful
was expressed constantly in the 1970s. If we look at the arguments of the
right in the 1970s, we also find evidence that the "struggle does more harm
than good" viewpoint is flawed. With the post-war Keynesian consensus crumbling,
the "New Right" argued that trade unions (and strikes) hampered growth and
that wealth redistribution (i.e. welfare schemes which returned some of
the surplus value workers produced back into their own hands) hindered "wealth
creation" (i.e. economic growth). Do not struggle over income, they argued,
let the market decide and everyone will be better off.
This argument was dressed up in populist clothes. Thus we find the right-wing
guru F.A. von Hayek arguing that, in the case of Britain, the "legalised
powers of the unions have become the biggest obstacle to raising the standards
of the working class as a whole. They are the chief cause of the unnecessarily
big differences between the best- and worse-paid workers." He maintained
that "the elite of the British working class. . . derive their relative
advantages by keeping workers who are worse off from improving their
position." Moreover, he "predict[ed] that the average worker's income
would rise fastest in a country where relative wages are flexible, and where
the exploitation of workers by monopolistic trade union organisations of
specialised workers are effectively outlawed." ["1980s Unemployment
and the Unions" reproduced in The Economic Decline of Modern Britain,
p. 107, p. 108, p. 110]
Now, if von Hayek's claims were true we could expect that in the aftermath
of Thatcher government's trade union reforms we would have seen: a rise
in economic growth (usually considered as the means to improve living
standards for workers by the right); a decrease in the differences between
high and low paid workers; a reduction in the percentage of low paid workers
as they improved their positions when freed from union "exploitation";
and that wages rise fastest in countries with the highest wage flexibility.
Unfortunately for von Hayek, the actual trajectory of the British economy
exposes his claims as nonsense.
Looking at each of his claims in turn we discover that rather than "exploit"
other workers, trade unions are an essential means to shift income from
capital to labour (which is way capital fights labour organisers tooth and
nail). And, equally important, labour militancy aids all workers
by providing a floor under which wages cannot drop (non-unionised/militant
firms in the same industry or area have to offer similar programs to prevent
unionisation and be able to hire workers) and by maintaining aggregate demand.
This positive role of unions/militancy in aiding all workers can
be seen by comparing Britain before and after Thatcher's von Hayek inspired
trade union and labour market reforms.
As far as economic growth goes, there has been a steady fall since trade
union reforms. In the "bad old days" of the 1970s, with its strikes and
"militant unions" growth was 2.4% in Britain. It fell to 2% in the 1980s
and fell again to 1.2% in the 1990s [Larry Elliot and Dan Atkinson, The
Age of Insecurity, p. 236]. So the rate of "wealth creation" (economic
growth) has steadily fallen as unions were "reformed" in line with von Hayek's
ideology (and falling growth means that the living standards of the working
class as a whole do not rise as fast as they did under the "exploitation"
of the "monopolistic" trade unions). If we look at the differences between
the highest and lowest paid workers, we find that rather than decrease,
they have in fact shown "a dramatic widening out of the distribution
with the best-workers doing much better" since Thatcher was elected
in 1979 [Andrew Glyn and David Miliband (eds.), Paying for Inequality,
p. 100]
Given that inequality has also increased, the condition of the average
worker must have suffered. For example, Ian Gilmore states that "[i]n
the 1980s, for the first time for fifty years. . . the poorer half of the
population saw its share of total national income shirk." [Dancing
with Dogma, p. 113] According to Noam Chomsky, "[d]uring the Thatcher
decade, the income share of the bottom half of the population fell from
one-third to one-fourth" and the between 1979 and 1992, the share of
total income of the top 20% grew from 35% to 40% while that of the bottom
20% fell from 10% to 5%. In addition, the number of UK employees with weekly
pay below the Council of Europe's "decency threshold" increased from
28.3% in 1979 to 37% in 1994 [World Orders, Old and New, p. 144,
p. 145] Moreover, "[b]ack in the early 1960s, the heaviest concentration
of incomes fell at 80-90 per cent of the mean. . . But by the early 1990s
there had been a dramatic change, with the peak of the distribution falling
at just 40-50 per cent of the mean. One-quarter of the population had incomes
below half the average by the early 1990s as against 7 per cent in 1977
and 11 per cent in 1961. . ." [Elliot and Atkinson, Op. Cit.,
p. 235] "Overall," notes Takis Fotopoulos, "average incomes increased
by 36 per cent during this period [1979-1991/2], but 70 per cent of the
population had a below average increase in their income." [Towards
an Inclusive Democracy, p. 113]
Looking at the claim that trade union members gained their "relative
advantage by keeping workers who are worse off from improving their
position" it would be fair to ask whether the percentage of workers
in low-paid jobs decreased in Britain after the trade union reforms. In
fact, the percentage of workers below the Low Pay Unit's definition of low
pay (namely two-thirds of men's median earnings) increased -- from
16.8% in 1984 to 26.2% in 1991 for men, 44.8% to 44.9% for women. For manual
workers it rose by 15% to 38.4%, and for women by 7.7% to 80.7% (for non-manual
workers the figures were 5.4% rise to 13.7% for men and a 0.5% rise to 36.6%).
If unions were gaining at the expense of the worse off, you would
expect a decrease in the number in low pay, not an increase.
[Paying for Inequality, p.102] An OECD study concluded that "[t]ypically,
countries with high rates of collective bargaining and trade unionisation
tend to have low incidence of low paid employment." [OECD Employment
Outlook, 1996, p. 94]
Nor did unemployment fall after the trade union reforms. As Elliot and
Atkinson point out, "[b]y the time Blair came to power [in 1997], unemployment
in Britain was falling, although it still remained higher than it had been
when the [the last Labour Government of] Callaghan left office in May 1979."
[Op. Cit., p. 258] Von Hayek did argue that falls in unemployment
would be "a slow process" but over 10 years of higher unemployment
is moving at a snail's pace! And we must note that part of this fall in
unemployment towards its 1970s level was due to Britain's labour force shrinking
(and so, as the July 1997 Budget Statement correctly notes, "the lower
1990s peak [in unemployment] does not in itself provide convincing evidence
of improved labour performance." [p. 77]).
As far as von Hayek's prediction on wage flexibility leading to the "average
worker's income" rising fastest in a country where relative wages are
flexible, it has been proved totally wrong. Between 1967 and 1971, real
wages grew (on average) by 2.95% per year (nominal wages grew by 8.94%)
[P. Armstrong, A. Glyn and John Harrison, Capitalism Since World War
II, p.272]. In comparison, in the 1990s real wages grew by 1.1 per cent,
according to a TUC press release entitled Productivity Record, how the
UK compares released in March 1999.
Needless to say, these are different eras so it would also be useful to
compare the UK (often praised as a flexible economy after Thatcher's "reforms")
to France (considered far less flexible) in the 1990s. Here we find that
the "flexible" UK is behind the "inflexible" France. Wages and benefits
per worker rose by almost 1.2 per cent per year compared to 0.7% for the
UK. France's GDP grew at a faster rate than Britain's, averaging 1.4 per
cent per year, compared with 1.2 per cent. Worker productivity is also behind,
since 1979 (Thatcher's arrival) Britain's worker productivity has been 1.9
per cent per year compared to France's 2.2 per cent [Seth Ackerman, "The
Media Vote for Austerity", Extra!, September/October 1997]. And
as Seth Ackerman also notes, "[w]hile France's dismal record of job creation
is on permanent exhibit, it is never mentioned that Britain's is even more
dismal." [Ibid.]
Moving further afield, we find von Hayek's prediction falsified yet again.
If we look at the USA, frequently claimed as a model economy in terms of
wage flexibility and union weakness, we discover that the real wages of
the average worker has decreased since 1973 (the weekly and hourly
earnings of US production and non-supervisory workers, which accounts for
80% of the US workforce, have fallen in real terms by 19.2% and 13.4% respectively
[Economic Report of the President 1995, Table B-45]). If we look
at figures from U.S. Bureau of the Census (Current Population Survey) we
can see how increased flexibility has affected income:
Income Growth by Quintile
| Quintile | 1950-1978 | 1979-1993 |
| Lowest 20% | 138% | -15% |
| 2nd 20% | 98 | -7 |
| 3rd 20% | 106 | -3 |
| 4th 20% | 111 | 5 |
| Highest 20% | 99 | 18 |
As can be seen, flexible wages and weaker unions have resulted in the direct
opposite of von Hayek's predictions. Within the US itself, we discover that
higher union density is associated with fewer workers earning around the
minimum wage -- "the percentage of those earning around the minimum wage
are both substantially higher in right-to-work states [i.e. those that pass
anti-union laws] than overall and lower in high union density states that
overall" and "in right-to-work states . . . wages have traditionally
been lower." [Oren M. Levin-Waldman, The Minimum Wage and Regional
Wage Structure] If unions did harm non-union workers, we would
expect the opposite to occur. It does not. Of course, being utterly wrong
has not dented his reputation with the right nor stopped him being quoted
in arguments in favour of flexibility and free market reforms.
Moreover, the growth of the US economy has also slowed down as wage flexibility
and market reform has increased (it was 4.4% in the 1960s, 3.2% in the 1970s,
2.8% in the 1980s and 1.9% in the first half of the 1990s [Larry Elliot
and Dan Atkinson, The Age of Insecurity, p. 236]). In addition, inequality
in the US has dramatically increased since the 1970s, with income and wealth
growth in the 1980s going predominately to the top 20% (and, in fact, mostly
to the top 1% of the population). The bottom 80% of the population saw their
wealth grow by 1.2% and their income by 23.7% in the 1980s, while for the
top 20% the respective figures were 98.2% and 66.3% (the figures for the
top 1% were 61.6% and 38.9%, respectively). [Edward N. Wolff, "How the
Pie is Sliced", The American Prospect, no. 22, Summer 1995]
Comparing the claims of von Hayek to what actually happened after trade
union reform and the reduction of class struggle helps to suggest that the
claims that social struggle is self-defeating are false (and probably self-serving,
considering it is usually bosses and employer supported parties and economists
who make these claims). A lack of social struggle has been correlated
with low economic growth, stagnant (even declining) wages and the creation
of purely paid service jobs to replace highly paid manufacturing ones. So
while social struggle may make capital flee and other problems, lack
of it is no guarantee of prosperity (quite the reverse, if the last quarter
of the 20th century is anything to go by!). Indeed, a lack of social struggle
will make bosses be more likely to cut wages, worsen working conditions
and so on -- after all, they feel they can get away with it! Which brings
home the fact that "to make their [the working class'] victory secure
and definitive, it is necessary to destroy capitalism." [Errico Malatesta,
Life and Ideas, p. 191]
Of course, no one can know that struggle will make things better.
It is a guess; no one can predict the future. Not all struggles are successful
and many can be very difficult. If the "military is a role model for
the business world" (in the words of an ex-CEO of Hill & Knowlton Public
Relations [quoted by John Stauber and Sheldon Rampton in Toxic Sludge
Is Good For You!, p. 47]), and it is, then any struggle against
it and other concentrations of power may, and often is, difficult and dangerous
at times. But, as Zapata once said, "better to die on your feet than
live on your knees!" All we can say is that social struggle can and
does improve things and, in terms of its successes and transforming effect
on those involved, well worth the potential difficulties it can create.
Moreover, without struggle there is little chance of creating a free society,
dependent as it is on individuals who refuse to bow to authority and have
the ability and desire to govern themselves. In addition, social struggle
is always essential, not only to win improvements, but to keep
them as well. In order to fully secure improvements you have to abolish
capitalism and the state. Not to do so means that any reforms can and will
be taken away (and if social struggle does not exist, they will be taken
away sooner rather than later). Ultimately, most anarchists would argue
that social struggle is not an option -- we either do it or we put up with
the all the petty (and not so petty) impositions of authority. If we do
not say "no" then the powers that be will walk all over us.
As the history of the last 20 years shows, a lack of social struggle is
fully compatible with worsening conditions. Ultimately, if you want to be
treated as a human being you have to stand up for your dignity -- and that
means thinking and rebelling. As Bakunin often argued, human development
is based on thought and rebellion (see God and the State). Without
rebellion, without social struggle, humanity would stagnant beneath authority
forever and never be in a position to be free. We would agree wholeheartedly
with the Abolitionist Frederick Douglass:
"If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who
profess to favour freedom and yet deprecate agitation are
people who want crops without plowing up the ground. They
want rain without thunder and lightning. That struggle might
be a moral one; it might be a physical one; it might be both
moral and physical, but it must be a struggle. Power concedes
nothing without a demand. It never did and never will. People
might not get all that they work for in this world, but they
must certainly work for all they get."
When assessing the revolutionary potential of our own era, we must note again
that modern civilisation is under constant pressure from the potential catastrophes
of social breakdown, ecological destruction, and proliferating weapons of
mass destruction. These crises have drawn attention as never before to the
inherently counter-evolutionary nature of the authoritarian paradigm, making
more and more people aware that the human race is headed for extinction
if it persists in outmoded forms of thought and behaviour. This awareness
produces a favourable climate for the reception of new ideas, and thus an
opening for radical educational efforts aimed at creating the mass transformation
of consciousness which must take place alongside the creation of new liberatory
institutions.
This receptiveness to new ideas has led to a number of new social movements
in recent years. From the point of view of anarchism, the four most important
of these are perhaps the feminist, ecology, peace, and social justice movements.
Each of these movements contain a great deal of anarchist content, particularly
insofar as they imply the need for decentralisation and direct democracy.
Since we have already commented on the anarchist aspects of the ecology
and feminist movements, here we will limit our remarks to the peace and
social justice movements.
It is clear to many members of the peace movement that international disarmament,
like the liberation of women, saving the planet's ecosystem, and preventing
social breakdown, can never be attained without a shift of mass consciousness
involving widespread rejection of hierarchy, which is based on the authoritarian
principles of domination and exploitation. As C. George Bennello argued,
"[s]ince peace involves the positive process of replacing violence by
other means of settling conflict. . . it can be argued that some sort of
institutional change is necessary. For if insurgency is satisfied with specific
reform goals, and does not seek to transform the institutional structure
of society by getting at its centralised make-up, the war system will probably
not go away. This is really what we should mean by decentralising: making
institutions serve human ends again by getting humans to be responsible
at every level within them." [From the Ground Up, p. 31]
When pursued along gender, class, racial, ethnic, or national lines, these
two principles are the primary causes of resentment, hatred, anger, and
hostility, which often explode into individual or organised violence. Therefore,
both domestic and international peace depend on decentralisation, i.e. dismantling
hierarchies, thus replacing domination and exploitation by the anarchist
principles of co-operation, sharing, and mutual aid.
But direct democracy is the other side of decentralisation. In order for
an organisation to spread power horizontally rather than concentrating it
at the apex of hierarchy, all of its members have to have an equal voice
in making the decisions that affect them. Hence decentralisation implies
direct democracy. So the peace movement implies anarchism, because world
peace is impossible without both decentralisation and direct democracy.
Moreover, "[s]o long as profits are tied to defence production, speaking
truth to the elites involved is not likely to get very far" as "it
is only within the boundaries of the profit system that the corporate elites
would have any space to move." [Op. Cit., p. 34] Thus the peace
movement implicitly contains a libertarian critique of both forms of the
power system -- the political and economical.
In addition, certain of the practical aspects of the peace movement also
suggest anarchistic elements. The use of non-violent direct action to protest
against the war machine can only be viewed as a positive development by
anarchists. Not only does it use effective, anarchistic methods of struggle
it also radicalises those involved, making them more receptive to anarchist
ideas and analysis (after all, as Benello correctly argues, the "anarchist
perspective has an unparalleled relevance today because prevailing nuclear
policies can be considered as an ultimate stage in the divergence between
the interests of governments and their peoples . . . the implications when
revealed serve to raise fundamental questions regarding the advisability
of entrusting governments with questions of life and death. . . There is
thus a pressing impetus to re-think the role, scale, and structure of national
governments." [Op. Cit., p. 138]).
If we look at the implications of "nuclear free zones" we can detect
anarchistic tendencies within them. A nuclear free zone involves a town
or region declaring an end of its association with the nuclear military
industrial complex. They prohibit the research, production, transportation
and deployment of nuclear weapons as well as renouncing the right to be
defended by nuclear power. This movement was popular in the 1980s, with
many areas in Europe and the Pacific Basin declaring that they were nuclear
free zones. As Benello points out, "[t]he development of campaigns for
nuclear free zones suggests a strategy which can educate and radicalise
local communities. Indeed, by extending the logic of the nuclear free zone
idea, we can begin to flesh out a libertarian municipalist perspective which
can help move our communities several steps towards autonomy from both the
central government and the existing corporate system." While the later
development of these initiatives did not have the radicalising effects that
Benello hoped for, they did "represent a local initiative that does not
depend on the federal government for action. Thus it is a step toward local
empowerment. . . Steps that increase local autonomy change the power relations
between the centre and its colonies. . . The nuclear free zone movement
has a thrust which is clearly congruent with anarchist ideas. . . The same
motives which go into the declaration of a nuclear free zone would dictate
that in other areas where the state and the corporate systems services are
dysfunctional and involve excessive costs, they should be dispensed with."
[Op. Cit., p. 137, pp. 140-1]
The social justice movement is composed of people seeking fair and compassionate
solutions to problems such as poverty, unemployment, economic exploitation,
discrimination, poor housing, lack of health insurance, wealth and income
inequalities, and the like. Such concerns have traditionally been associated
with the left, especially with socialism and trade-unionism. Recently, however,
many radicals have begun to perceive the limitations of both Marxist-Leninist
and traditional trade-unionist solutions to social justice problems, particularly
insofar as these solutions involve hierarchical organisations and authoritarian
values.
Following the widespread disillusionment with statism and centrally planned
economies generated by the failure of "Communism" in the ex-Soviet Union
and Eastern European nations, many radicals, while retaining their commitment
to social justice issues, have been searching for new approaches. And in
doing so they've been drawn into alliances with ecologists, feminists, and
members of the peace movement. (This has occurred particularly among the
German Greens, many of whom are former Marxists. So far, however, few of
the latter have declared themselves to be anarchists, as the logic of the
ecology movement requires.)
It is not difficult to show that the major problems concerning the social
justice movement can all be traced back to the hierarchy and domination.
For, given the purpose of hierarchy, the highest priority of the elites
who control the state is necessarily to maintain their own power and privileges,
regardless of the suffering involved for subordinate classes.
Today, in the aftermath of 12 years of especially single-minded pursuit
of this priority by two Republican administrations, the United States, for
example, is reaping the grim harvest: armies of the homeless wandering the
streets; social welfare budgets slashed to the bone as poverty, unemployment,
and underemployment grow; sweatshops mushrooming in the large cities; over
43 million Americans without any health insurance; obscene wealth inequalities;
and so on. This decay promises to accelerate in the US during the coming
years, now that Republicans control both houses of Congress. Britain under
the neo-liberal policies of Thatcher and Major has experienced a social
deterioration similar to that in the US.
In short, social injustice is inherent in the exploitative functions of
the state, which are made possible by the authoritarian form of state institutions
and of the state-complex as a whole. Similarly, the authoritarian form of
the corporation (and capitalist companies in general) gives rise to social
injustice as unfair income differentials and wealth disparity between owners/management
and labour.
Hence the success of the social justice movement, like that of the feminist,
ecology, and peace movements, depends on dismantling hierarchies. This means
not only that these movement all imply anarchism but that they are related
in such a way that it's impossible to conceive one of them achieving its
goals in isolation from any of the others.
To take just one example, let's consider the relationship between social
justice and peace, which can be seen by examining a specific social justice
issue: labour rights.
As Dimitrios Roussopoulos points out, the production of advanced weapons
systems is highly profitable for capitalists, which is why more technologically
complex and precise weapons keep getting built with government help (with
the public paying the tab by way of rising taxes).
Now, we may reasonably argue that it's a fundamental human right to be
able to choose freely whether or not one will personally contribute to the
production of technologies that could lead to the extinction of the human
race. Yet because of the authoritarian form of the capitalist corporation,
rank-and-file workers have virtually no say in whether the companies for
which they work will produce such technologies. (To the objection that workers
can always quit if they don't like company policy, the reply is that they
may not be able to find other work and therefore that the choice is not
free but coerced.) Hence the only way that ordinary workers can obtain the
right to be consulted on life-or-death company policies is to control the
production process themselves, through self-management.
But we can't expect real self-management to emerge from the present labour
relations system in which centralised unions bargain with employers for
"concessions" but never for a dissolution of the authoritarian structure
of the corporation. As Roussopoulos puts it, self-management, by definition,
must be struggled for locally by workers themselves at the grassroots level:
"Production for need and use will not come from the employer. The
owners of production in a capitalist society will never begin to
take social priorities into account in the production process.
The pursuit of ever greater profits is not compatible with social
justice and responsibility." [Dissidence]
For these reasons, the peace and social justice movements are fundamentally
linked through their shared need for a worker-controlled economy.
We should also note in this context that the impoverished ghetto environments
in which the worst victims of social injustice are forced to live tends
to desensitise them to human pain and suffering -- a situation that is advantageous
for military recruiters, who are thereby able to increase the ranks of the
armed forces with angry, brutalised, violence-prone individuals who need
little or no extra conditioning to become the remorseless killers prized
by the military command. Moreover, extreme poverty makes military service
one of the few legal economic options open to such individuals. These considerations
illustrate further links between the peace and social justice movements
-- and between those movements and anarchism, which is the conceptual "glue"
that can potentially unite all the new social movement in a single anti-authoritarian
coalition.
There is an ongoing structural crisis in the global capitalist economy. Compared
to the post-war "Golden Age" of 1950 to 1973, the period from 1974 has seen
a continual worsening in economic performance in the West and for Japan.
For example, growth is lower, unemployment is far higher, labour productivity
lower as is investment. Average rates of unemployment in the major industrialised
countries have risen sharply since 1973, especially after 1979. Unemployment
"in the advanced capitalist countries (the 'Group of 7'. . .) increased
by 56 per cent between 1973 and 1980 (from an average 3.4 per cent to 5.3
per cent of the labour force) and by another 50 per cent since then (from
5.3 per cent of the labour force in 1980 to 8.0 per cent in 19994)."
[Takis Fotopoulos, Towards and Inclusive Democracy, p. 35] Job insecurity
has increased (in the USA, for example, there is the most job insecurity
since the depression of the 1930s [Op. Cit., p. 141]). In addition,
both national economies and the international economy have become far less
stable.
This crisis is not confined to the economy. It extends into the ecological
and the social. "In recent years," point out Larry Elliot and Dan
Atkinson, "some radical economics have tried to [create] . . . an all-embracing
measure of well-being called the Index of Sustainable Economic Welfare [ISEW]
. . . In the 1950s and 1960s the ISEW rose in tandem with per capita GDP.
It was a time not just of rising incomes, but of greater social equity,
low crime, full employment and expanding welfare states. But from the mid-1970s
onwards the two measures started to move apart. GDP per head continued its
inexorable rise, but the ISEW start to decline as a result of lengthening
dole queues, social exclusion, the explosion in crime, habitat loss, environmental
degradation and the growth of environment- and stress-related illness. By
the start of the 1990s, the ISEW was almost back to the levels at which
it started in the early 1990s." [The Age of Insecurity, p. 248]
Which indicates well our comments in section C.10,
namely that economic factors cannot, and do not, indicate human happiness.
However, here we discuss economic factors. This does not imply that the
social and ecological crises are unimportant or are reducible to the economy.
Far from it. We concentrate on the economic factor simply because this is
the factor usually stressed by the establishment and it is useful to indicate
the divergence of reality and hype we are currently being subjected to.
Ironically enough, as Robert Brenner points out, "as the neo-classical
medicine has been administered in even stronger doses [since the 1960s],
the economy has performed steadily less well. The 1970s were worse than
the 1960s, the 1980s worse than the 1970s, and the 1990s have been worse
than the 1980s." ["The Economics of Global Turbulence", New
Left Review, no. 229, p. 236] This is ironic because during the crisis
of Keynesianism in the 1970s the right argued that too much equality and
democracy harmed the economy, and so us all in the long run (due to lower
growth, sluggish investment and so on). However, after over a decade of
pro-capitalist governments, rising inequality, increased freedom for capital
and its owners and managers, the weakening of trade unions and so on, economic
performance has become worse!
If we look at the USA in the 1990s (usually presented as an economy that
"got it right") we find that the "cyclical upturn of the 1990s has, in
terms of the main macro-economic indicators of growth -- output, investment,
productivity, and real compensation -- has been even less dynamic than its
relatively weak predecessors of the 1980s and the 1970s (not to mention
those of the 1950s and 1960s)." [Op. Cit., p. 5] Of course, the
economy is presented as a success because inequality is growing, the rich
are getting richer and wealth is concentrating into fewer and fewer hands.
For the rich and finance capital, it can be considered a "Golden Age" and
so is presented as such by the media. Indeed, it is for this reason that
it may be wrong to term this slow rot a "crisis" as it is hardly one for
the ruling elite. Their share in social wealth, power and income has steadily
increased over this period. For the majority it is undoubtedly a crisis
(the term "silent depression" has been accurately used to describe
this) but for those who run the system it has by no means been a crisis.
Indeed, the only countries which saw substantial and dynamic growth after
1973 where those which used state intervention to violate the eternal "laws"
of neo-classical economics, namely the South East Asian countries (in this
they followed the example of Japan which had used state intervention to
grow at massive rates after the war). Of course, before the economic crisis
of 1997, "free market" capitalists argued that these countries were classic
examples of "free market" economies. For example, right-wing icon F.A von
Hayek asserted that "South Korea and other newcomers" had "discovered
the benefits of free markets" when, in fact, they had done nothing of
the kind ["1980s Unemployment and the Unions" reproduced in The
Economic Decline of Modern Britain, p. 113]. More recently, in 1995,
the Heritage Foundation released its index of economic freedom. Four
of the top seven countries were Asian, including Japan and Taiwan. All the
Asian countries struggling just four years latter were qualified as "free."
However, as Takis Fotopoulos argues, "it was not laissez-faire
policies that induced their spectacular growth. As a number of studies have
shown, the expansion of the Asian Tigers was based on massive state intervention
that boosted their export sectors, by public policies involving not only
heavy protectionism but even deliberate distortion of market prices to stimulate
investment and trade." [Op. Cit., p. 115] After the crisis, the
free-marketeers discovered the statism that had always been there and danced
happily on the grave of what used to be called "the Asian miracle."
Such hypocrisy is truly sickening and smacks of a Stalinist/Orwellian
desire to re-write history so as to appear always right. Moreover, such
a cynical analysis actually undermines their own case for the wonders of
the "free market." After all, until the crisis appeared, the world's investors
-- which is to say "the market" -- saw nothing but blue skies ahead for
these economies. They showed their faith by shoving billions into Asian
equity markets, while foreign banks contentedly handed out billions in loans.
If Asia's problems are systemic and the result of these countries' statist
policies, then investors' failure to recognise this earlier is a blow against
the market, not for it.
Still more perverse is that, even as the supporters of "free-market" capitalism
conclude that history is rendering its verdict on the Asian model of capitalism,
they seem to forget that until the recent crisis they themselves took great
pains to deny that such a model existed. Until Asia fell apart, supporters
of "free-market" capitalism happily held it up as proof that the only recipe
for economic growth was open markets and non-intervention on the part of
the state. Needless to say, this re-writing of history will be placed down
the memory-hole, along with any other claims which have subsequently been
proved utter nonsense.
So, as can be seen, the global economy has been marked by an increasing
stagnation, the slowing down of growth, in the western economies (for example,
the 1990s business upswing has been the weakest since the end of the Second
World War). This is despite (or, more likely, because of) the free
market reforms imposed and the deregulation of finance capital (we say "because
of" simply because neo-classical economics argue that pro-market reforms
would increase growth and improve the economy, but as we argued in section
C such economics have little basis in reality and so their recommendations
are hardly going to produce positive results). Of course as the ruling class
have been doing well in this New World Order this underlying slowdown has
been ignored and obviously
In recent years crisis (particularly financial crisis) has become increasingly
visible, reflecting (finally) the underlying weakness of the global economy.
This underlying weakness has been hidden by the speculator performance of
the world's stock markets, whose performance, ironically enough, have helped
create that weakness to begin with! As one expert on Wall Street argues,
"Bond markets . . . hate economic strength . . . Stocks generally behave
badly just as the real economy is at its strongest. . . Stocks thrive on
a cool economy, and wither in a hot one." [Wall Street, p. 124]
In other words, real economic weakness is reflected in financial strength.
Henwood also notes that "[w]hat might be called the rentier share of
the corporate surplus -- dividends plus interest as a percentage of pre-tax
profits and interest -- has risen sharply, from 20-30% in the 1950s to 60%
in the 1990s." [Op. Cit., p. 73] This helps explain the stagnation
which has afflicted the economies of the west. The rich have been placing
more of their ever-expanding wealth in stocks, allowing this market to rise
in the face of general economic torpor. Rather than being used for investment,
surplus is being funnelled into the finance markets, markets which do concentrate
wealth very successfully (retained earnings in the US have decreased as
interest and dividend payments have increased [Brenner, Op. Cit.,
p. 210]). Given that "the US financial system performs dismally at its
advertised task, that of efficiently directing society's savings towards
their optimal investment pursuits. The system is stupefyingly expensive,
gives terrible signals for the allocation of capital, and has surprisingly
little to do with real investment." [Op. Cit., p. 3] As most
investment comes from internal funds, the rise in the rentiers (those who
derive their incomes from returns on capital) share of the surplus has meant
less investment and so the stagnation of the economy. And the weakening
economy has increased financial strength, which in turn leads to a weakening
in the real economy. A viscous circle, and one reflected in the slowing
of economic growth over the last 30 years.
In effect, especially since the end of the 1970s, has seen the increasing
dominance of finance capital. This dominance has, in effect, created a market
for government policies as finance capital has become increasingly global
in nature. Governments must secure, protect and expand the field of profit-making
for financial capital and transnational corporations, otherwise they will
be punished by the global markets (i.e. finance capital). These policies
have been at the expense of the underlying economy in general, and of the
working class in particular:
"Rentier power was directed at labour, both organised and
unorganised ranks of wage earners, because it regarded rising
wages as a principal threat to the stable order. For obvious
reasons, this goal was never stated very clearly, but financial
markets understood the centrality of the struggle: protecting
the value of their capital required the suppression of labour
incomes." [William Greider, One World, Ready or Not, p. 302]
Of course, industrial capital also hates labour, so there is a
basis of an alliance between the two sides of capital, even if they do disagree
over the specifics of the economic policies implemented. Given that a key
aspect of the neo-liberal reforms was the transformation of the labour market
from a post-war sellers' market to a nineteenth century buyers' market,
with its effects on factory discipline, wage claims and proneness to strike,
industrial capital could not but be happy with its effects. Doug Henwood
correctly argues that "Liberals and populists often search for potential
allies among industrialists, reasoning that even if financial interests
suffer in a boom, firms that trade in real, rather than fictitious, products
would thrive when growth is strong. In general, industrialists are less
sympathetic to these arguments. Employers in any industry like slack in
the labour market; it makes for a pliant workforce, one unlikely to make
demands or resist speedups." In addition, "many non-financial corporations
have heavy financial interests." [Op. Cit., p. 123, p. 135]
Thus the general stagnation afflicting much of the world, a stagnation
which has developed into crisis as the needs of finance have undermined
the real economy which, ultimately, it is dependent upon. The contradiction
between short term profits and long term survival inherent in capitalism
strikes again.
Crisis, as we have noted above, has appeared in areas previously considered
as strong economies and it has been spreading. An important aspect of this
crisis is the tendency for productive capacity to outstrip effective demand
(i.e. the tendency to over-invest relative to the available demand), which
arises in large part from the imbalance between capitalists' need for a
high rate of profit and their simultaneous need to ensure that workers have
enough wealth and income so that they can keep buying the products on which
those profits depend (see section C). Inequality has been increasing in the USA,
which means that the economy faces as realisation crisis (see section
C.7), a crisis which has so far been avoided by deepening debt for working
people (debt levels more than doubled between the 1950s to the 1990s, from
25% to over 60%).
Over-investment has been magnified in the East-Asian Tigers as they were
forced to open their economies to global finance. These economies, due to
their intervention in the market (and repressive regimes against labour)
ensured they were a more profitable place to invest than elsewhere. Capital
flooded into the area, ensuring a relative over-investment was inevitable.
As we argued in section C.7.2, crisis is possible simply due to the
lack of information provided by the price mechanism -- economic agents can
react in such a way that the collective result of individually rational
decisions is irrational. Thus the desire to reap profits in the Tiger economies
resulted in a squeeze in profits as the aggregate investment decisions resulted
in over-investment, and so over-production and falling profits.
In effect, the South East Asian economies suffered from a problem termed
the "fallacy of composition." When you are the first Asian export-driven
economy, you are competing with high-cost Western producers and so your
cheap workers, low taxes and lax environmental laws allow you to under-cut
your competitors and make profits. However, as more tigers joined into the
market, they end up competing against each other and so their profit
margins would decrease towards their actual cost price rather than that
of Western firms. With the decrease in profits, the capital that flowed
into the region flowed back out, thus creating a crisis (and proving, incidentally,
that free markets are destabilising and do not secure the best of all possible
outcomes). Thus, the rentier regime, after weakening the Western economies,
helped destabilise the Eastern ones too.
So, in the short-run, many large corporations and financial companies
solved their profit problems by expanding production into "underdeveloped"
countries so as to take advantage of the cheap labour there (and the state
repression which ensured that cheapness) along with weaker environmental
laws and lower taxes. Yet gradually they are running out of third-world
populations to exploit. For the very process of "development" stimulated
by the presence of Transnational Corporations in third-world nations increases
competition and so, potentially, over-investment and, even more importantly,
produces resistance in the form of unions, rebellions and so on, which tend
to exert a downward pressure on the level of exploitation and profits (for
example, in South Korea, labour' share in value-added increased from 23
to 30 per cent, in stark contrast to the USA, Germany and Japan, simply
because Korean workers had rebelled and won new political freedoms).
This process reflects, in many ways, the rise of finance capital in the
1970s. In the 1950s and 1960s, existing industrialised nations experienced
increased competition from the ex-Axis powers (namely Japan and Germany).
As these nations re-industrialised, they placed increased pressure on the
USA and other nations, reducing the global "degree of monopoly" and forcing
them to compete with lower cost producers (which, needless to say, reduced
the existing companies profits). In addition, full employment produced increasing
resistance on the shop floor and in society as a whole (see
section C.7.1), squeezing profits even more. Thus a combination of class
struggle and global over-capacity resulted in the 1970s crisis. With the
inability of the real economy, especially the manufacturing sector, to provide
an adequate return, capital shifted into finance. In effect, it ran away
from the success of working people asserting their rights at the point of
production and elsewhere. This, combined with increased international competition
from Japan and Germany, ensured the rise of finance capital, which in return
ensured the current stagnationist tendencies in the economy (tendencies
made worse by the rise of the Asian Tiger economies in the 1980s).
From the contradictions between finance capital and the real economy,
between capitalists' need for profit and human needs, between over-capacity
and demand, and others, there has emerged what appears to be a long-term
trend toward permanent stagnation of the capitalist economy. This
trend has been apparent for several decades, as evidenced by the continuous
upward adjustment of the rate of unemployment officially considered to be
"normal" or "acceptable" during those decades, and by other symptoms as
well such as falling growth, lower rates of profit and so on.
This stagnation has recently become even more obvious by the development
of crisis in many countries and the reactions of central banks trying to
revive the real economies that have suffered under their rentier inspired
policies. Whether this crisis will become worse is hard to say. The Western
powers may act to protect the real economy by adopting the Keynesian policies
they have tried to discredit over the last thirty years. However, whether
such a bailout will succeed is difficult to tell and may just ensure continued
stagnation rather than a real up-turn, if it has any effect at all.
Of course, a deep depression may solve the problem of over-capacity and
over-investment in the world and lay the foundations of an up-turn. Such
a strategy is, however, very dangerous due to working class resistance it
could provoke, the deepness of the slump and the length it could last for.
However, this, perhaps, has been the case in the USA in 1997-9 where over
20 years of one-sided class war may have paid off in terms of higher profits
and profit rate. However, this may have more to do with the problems elsewhere
in the world than a real economic change, in addition to rising consumer
debt (there is now negative personal savings rate in the US), a worsening
trade deficit and a stock market bubble. In addition, rising productivity
has combined with stagnant wages to increase the return to capital and the
profit rate (wages fell over much of the 1990s recovery and finally regained
their pre-recession 1989 peak in 1999! Despite 8 years of economic growth,
the typical worker is back only where they started at the peak of the last
business cycle). This drop and slow growth of wages essentially accounts
for the rising US profit rate, with the recent growth in real wages being
hardly enough to make much of an impact (although it has made the US Federal
Reserve increase interest rates to slow down even this increase, which re-enforces
our argument that capitalist profits require unemployment and insecurity
to maintain capitalist power at the point of production).
Such a situation reflects 1920s America (see section
C.7.3 for details) which was also marked by rising inequality, a labour
surplus and rising profits and suggests that the new US economy faces the
same potential for a slump. This means that the US economy must face the
danger of over-investment (relative to demand, of course) sooner or later,
perhaps sooner due to the problems elsewhere in the world as a profits-lead
growth economy is fragile as it is dependent on investment, luxury spending
and working class debt to survive -- all of which are more unstable and
vulnerable to shocks than workers' consumption.
Given the difficulties in predicting the future (and the fact that those
who try are usually proven totally wrong!), we will not pretend to know
it and leave our discussion at highlighting a few possibilities. One thing
is true, however, and that is the working class will pay the price of any
"solution" -- unless they organise and get rid of capitalism and the state.
Ultimately, capitalism need profits to survive and such profits came from
the fact that workers do not have economic liberty. Thus any "solution"
within a capitalist framework means the increased oppression and exploitation
of working people.
Faced with negative balance sheets during recessions, the upper strata
occasionally panic and agree to some reforms, some distribution of wealth,
which temporarily solves the short-run problem of stagnation by increasing
demand and thus permits renewed expansion. However, this short-run solution
means that the working class gradually makes economic and political gains,
so that exploitation and oppresion, and hence the rate of profit, tends
to fall (as happened during the post-war Keynesian "Golden Age"). Faced
with the dangers of, on the one hand, economic collapse and, on the other,
increased working class power, the ruling class may not act until it is
too late. So, on the basis that the current crisis may get worse and stagnation
turn into depression, we will discuss why the "economic structural
crisis" we have lived through for the later quarter of the 20th
century (and its potential crisis) is important to social struggle in the
next section.
The "economic structural crisis" we out-lined in the last
section has certain implications for anarchists and social struggle.
Essentially, as C. George Benello argues, "[i]f economic conditions worsen.
. . then we are likely to find an openness to alternatives which have not
been thought of since the depression of the 1930s. . . It is important to
plan for a possible economic crisis, since it is not only practical, but
also can serve as a method of mobilising a community in creative ways."
[From the Ground Up, p. 149]
In the face of economic stagnation and depression, attempts to improve
the rate of exploitation (i.e. increase profits) by increasing the authority
of the boss grow. In addition, more people find it harder to make ends meet,
running up debts to survive, face homelessness if they are made unemployed,
and so on. Such effects make exploitation ever more visible and tend to
push oppressed strata together in movements that seek to mitigate, and even
remove, their oppression. As the capitalist era has worn on, these strata
have become increasingly able to rebel and gain substantial political and
economic improvements, which have, in addition, lead to an increasingly
willing to do so because of rising expectations (about what is possible)
and frustration (about what actually is). This is why, since 1945, the world-wide
"family" of progressive movements has grown "ever stronger, ever
bolder, ever more diverse, ever more difficult to contain." [Immanuel
Wallerstein, Geopolitics and Geoculture, p. 110] It is true that
libertarians, the left and labour have suffered a temporary setback during
the past few decades, but with increasing misery of the working class due
to neo-liberal policies (and the "economic structural crisis" they create),
it is only a matter of time before there is a resurgence of radicalism.
Anarchists will be in the forefront of this resurgence. For, with the
discrediting of authoritarian state capitalism ("Communism") in the Soviet
Union and Eastern Europe, the anti-authoritarian faction of the left will
increasingly be seen as its only credible one. Thus the ongoing structural
crisis of the global capitalist economy, combined with the other developments
springing from what Takis Fotopoulos calls (in his book Towards and Inclusive
Democracy) a "multidimensional crisis" (which included economic,
political, social, ecological and ideological aspects), could (potentially)
lead over the next decade or two to a new international anti-authoritarian
alliance linking together the new (and not so new) social movements in the
West (feminism, the Green movement, rank-and-file labour militancy, etc.)
with non-authoritarian liberation movements in the Third World and new anti-bureaucracy
movements in formerly "communist" countries. However, this is only likely
to happen if anarchists take the lead in promoting alternatives and working
with the mass of the population. Ways in which anarchist can do this are
discussed in some detail in section J.5.
Thus the "economic structural crisis" can aid social struggle by placing
the contrast of "what is" with what "could be" in a clear
light. Any crisis brings forth the contradictions in capitalism, between
the production of use values (things people need) and of exchange value
(capitalist profits), between capitalism's claims of being based on liberty
and the authoritarianism associated with wage labour ("[t]he general
evidence of repression poses an ancient contradiction for capitalism: while
it claims to promote human freedom, it profits concretely from the denial
of freedom, most especially freedom for the workers employed by capitalist
enterprise" [William Greider, One World, Ready or Not, p. 388])
and so on. It shakes to the bone popular faith in capitalism's ability to
"deliver the goods" and gets more and more people thinking about alternatives
to a system that places profit above and before people and planet. The crisis
also, by its very nature, encourages workers and other oppressed sections
of the population to resist and fight back, which in turn generates collective
organisation (such as unions or workplace-based assemblies and councils),
solidarity and direct action -- in other words, collective self-help and
the awareness that the problems of working class people can only be solved
by themselves, by their own actions and organisations. The 1930s in the
USA is a classic example of this process, with very militant struggles taking
place in very difficult situations (see Howard Zinn's A People's History
of the United States or Jeremy Brecher's Strike! for details).
In other words, the "economic structural crisis" gives radicals a lot
potential to get their message across, even if the overall environment may
make success seem difficult in the extreme at times!
As well as encouraging workplace organisation due to the intensification
of exploitation and authority provoked by the economic stagnant/depression,
the "economic structural crisis" can encourage other forms of libertarian
alternatives. For example, "the practical effect of finance capital's
hegemony was to lock the advanced economies and their governments in a malignant
spiral, restricting them to bad choices. Like bondholders in general, the
new governing consensus explicitly assumed that faster economic growth was
dangerous -- threatening to the stable financial order -- so nations were
effectively blocked from measures that might reduce permanent unemployment
or ameliorate the decline in wages. . . The reality of slow growth, in turn,
drove the governments into their deepening indebtedness, since the disappointing
growth inevitably undermined tax revenues while it expanded the public welfare
costs. The rentier regime repeatedly instructed governments to reform their
spending priorities -- that is, withdraw benefits from dependent citizens.
. . " [Op. Cit., pp. 297-8]
Thus the "economic structural crisis" has resulted in the erosion of the
welfare state (at least for the working class, for the elite, state aid
is never far away). This development as potential libertarian possibilities.
"The decline of the state," argues L. Gambone, "makes necessary
a revitalisation of the notions of direct action and mutual aid. Without
Mama State to do it for us, we must create our own social services through
mutual aid societies." [Syndicalism in Myth and Reality, p. 12]
As we argue in more depth in section J.5.16,
such a movement of mutual aid has a long history in the working class and,
as it is under our control, it cannot be withdrawn from us to enrich and
empower the ruling class as state run systems have been. Thus the decline
of state run social services could, potentially, see the rise of a network
of self-managed, working class alternatives (equally, of course, it could
see the end of all services to the most weak sections of our society --
which possibility comes about depends on what we do in the here and now.
see section J.5.15 for an anarchist analysis
of the welfare state).
Food Not Bombs! is an excellent example of practical libertarian
alternatives being generated by the economic crisis we are facing. Food
Not Bombs helps the homeless through the direct action of its members. It
also involves the homeless in helping themselves. It is a community-based
group which helps other people in the community who are needy by providing
free food to those in need. FNB! also helps other Anarchist political projects
and activities.
Food Not Bombs! serves free food in public places to dramatise the plight
of the homeless, the callousness of the system and our capacity to solve
social problems through our own actions without government or capitalism.
The constant harassment of FNB! by the cops, middle classes and the government
illustrates their callousness to the plight of the poor and the failure
of their institutions to build a society which cares for people more than
money and property (and arms, cops and prisons to protect them). The fact
is that in the US many working and unemployed people have no feeling
that they are entitled to basic human needs such as medicine, clothes, shelter,
and food. Food Not Bombs! does encourage poor people to make these demands,
does provide a space in which these demands can be voiced, and does help
to breakdown the wall between hungry and not-hungry. The repression directed
towards FNB! by local police forces and governments also demonstrates the
effectiveness of their activity and the possibility that it may radicalise
those who get involved with the organisation. Charity is obviously one thing,
mutual aid is something else. FNB! as it is a politicised movement from
below, based on solidarity, is not charity, because, in Kropotkin's
words, charity "bears a character of inspiration from above, and, accordingly,
implies a certain superiority of the giver upon the receiver" and hardly
libertarian [Mutual Aid, p. 222].
The last example of how economic stagnation can generate libertarian tendencies
can be seen from the fact that, "[h]istorically, at times of severe inflation
or capital shortages, communities have been forced to rely on their own
resources. During the Great Depression, many cities printed their own currency;
this works to the extent that a community is able to maintain a viable internal
economy which provides the necessities of life, independent of transactions
with the outside." [C. George Benello, Op. Cit., p. 150]
These local currencies and economies can be used as the basis of a libertarian
socialist economy. The currencies would be the basis of a mutual bank (see
sections J.5.5 and J.5.6),
providing interest-free loans to workers to form co-operatives and so build
libertarian alternatives to capitalist firms. In addition, these local currencies
could be labour-time based, eliminating the profits of capitalists by allowing
workers to exchange the product of their labour with other workers. Moreover,
"local exchange systems strength local communities by increasing their
self-reliance, empowering community members, and helping to protect them
from the excesses of the global market." [Frank Lindenfield, "Economics
for Anarchists," Social Anarchism, no. 23, p. 24] In this way
local self-managing communes could be created, communes that replace hierarchical,
top-down, government with collective decision making of community affairs
based on directly democratic community assemblies (see section
J.5.1). These self-governing communities and economies could federate
together to co-operate on a wider scale and so create a counter-power to
that of state and capitalism.
This confederal system of self-managing communities could also protect
jobs as the "globalisation of capital threatens local industries. A way
has to be found to keep capital at home and so preserve the jobs and the
communities that depend upon them. Protectionism is both undesirable and
unworkable. But worker-ownership or workers' co-operatives are alternatives."
[L. Gambone, Syndicalism in Myth and Reality, pp.12-13] Local communities
could provide the necessary support structures which could protect co-operatives
from the corrupting effects of working in the capitalist market (see section
J.5.11). In this way, economic liberty (self-management) could replace
capitalism (wage slavery) and show that anarchism is a practical alternative
to the chaos and authoritarianism of capitalism, even if these examples
are fragmentally and limited in nature.
However, these developments should not be taken in isolation of
collective struggle in the workplace or community. It is in the class struggle
that the real potential for anarchy is created. The work of such organisations
as Food Not Bombs! and the creation of local currencies and co-operatives
are supplementary to the important task of creating workplace and community
organisations that can create effective resistance to both state and capitalists,
resistance that can overthrow both (see sections J.5.2
and J.5.1 respectively). "Volunteer and
service credit systems and alternative currencies by themselves may not
be enough to replace the corporate capitalist system. Nevertheless, they
can help build the economic strength of local currencies, empower local
residents, and mitigate some of the consequences of poverty and unemployment.
. . By the time a majority [of a community are involved it] will be well
on its way to becoming a living embodiment of many anarchist ideals."
[Frank Lindenfield, Op. Cit., p. 28] And such a community would be
a great aid in any strike or other social struggle which is going on!
Therefore, the general economic crisis which we are facing has implications
for social struggle and anarchist activism. It could be the basic of libertarian
alternatives in our workplaces and communities, alternatives based on direct
action, solidarity and self-management. These alternatives could include
workplace and community unionism, co-operatives, mutual banks and other
forms of anarchistic resistance to capitalism and the state. We discuss
such alternatives in more detail in section J.5,
and so do not do so here.
Before moving on to the next section,
we must stress that we are not arguing that working class people
need an economic crisis to force them into struggle. Such "objectivism"
(i.e. the placing of tendencies towards socialism in the development of
capitalism, of objective factors, rather than in the class struggle, i.e.
subjective factors) is best left to orthodox Marxists and Leninists as it
has authoritarian underpinnings (see section H).
Rather we are aware that the class struggle, the subjective pressure on
capitalism, is not independent of the conditions within which it takes place
(and helped to create, we must add). Subjective revolt is always present
under capitalism and, in the case of the 1970s crisis, played a role in
creating it. Faced with an economic crisis we are indicating what we can
do in response to it and how it could, potentially, generate libertarian
tendencies within society. Economic crisis could, in other words, provoke
social struggle, collective action and generate anarchic tendencies in society.
Equally, it could cause apathy, rejection of collective struggle and, perhaps,
the embracing of false "solutions" such as right-wing populism, Leninism,
Fascism or right-wing "libertarianism." We cannot predict how the future
will develop, but it is true that if we do nothing then, obviously, libertarian
tendencies will not grow and develope.
According to a report in Newsweek ("The Good Life and its Discontents"
Jan. 8, 1996), feelings of disappointment have devastated faith in government
and big business. Here are the results of a survey in which which people
were asked whether they had a "great deal of confidence" in various
institutions:
| |
1966 | 1975 | 1985 | 1994 |
| Congress | 42% | 13% |
| 16% | 8% |
| Executive Branch | 41% | 13% | 15% | 12% |
| The press | 29% | 26% | 16% | 13% |
| Major Companies | 55% | 19% | 17% | 19% |
As can be seen, the public's faith in major companies plunged 36% over a 28-year
period in the survey, an even worse vote of "no confidence" than
that given to Congress (34%).
Some of the feelings of disappointment with government can be blamed on
the anti-big-government rhetoric of conservatives and right-wing populists.
But such rhetoric is of potential benefit to anarchists as well. Of course
the Right would never dream of really dismantling the state, as is
evident from the fact that government grew more bureaucratic and expensive
under "conservative" administrations than ever before.
Needless to say, this "decentralist" element of right-wing rhetoric is
a con. When a politician, economist or business "leader" argues that the
government is too big, he is rarely thinking of the same government functions
you are. You may be thinking of subsidies for tobacco farmers or defence
firms and they are thinking about pollution controls. You may be thinking
of reforming welfare for the better, while their idea is to dismantle the
welfare state totally. Moreover, with their support for "family values",
"wholesome" television, bans on abortion, and so on their victory would
see an increased level of government intrusion in many personal spheres
(as well as increased state support for the power of the boss over the worker,
the landlord over the tenant and so on).
If you look at what the Right has done and is doing, rather than what
it is saying, you quickly see the ridiculous of claims of right-wing "libertarianism"
(as well as who is really in charge). Obstructing pollution and health regulations;
defunding product safety laws; opening national parks to logging and mining,
or closing them entirely; reducing taxes for the rich; eliminating the capital
gains tax; allowing companies to fire striking workers; making it easier
for big telecommunications companies to make money; limiting companies'
liability for unsafe products-- the program here is obviously to help big
business do what it wants without government interference, and to help the
rich get richer. In other words, increased "freedom" for private power combined
with a state whose role is to protect that "liberty."
Yet along with the pro-business, pro-private tyranny, racist, anti-feminist,
and homophobic hogwash disseminated by right-wing radio propagandists and
the business-backed media, important decentralist and anti-statist ideas
are also being implanted in mass consciousness. These ideas, if consistently
pursued and applied in all areas of life (the home, the community, the workplace),
could lead to a revival of anarchism in the US -- but only if radicals take
advantage of this opportunity to spread the message that capitalism is not
genuinely anti-authoritarian (nor could it ever be), as a social
system based on liberty must entail.
This does not mean that right-wing tendencies have anarchistic elements.
Of course not. Nor does it mean that anarchist fortunes are somehow linked
to the success of the right. Far from it (the reverse is actually the case).
Similarly, the anti-big government propaganda of big business is hardly
anarchistic. But it does have the advantage of placing certain ideas on
the agenda, such as decentralisation. What anarchists try to do is point
out the totally contradictory nature of such right-wing rhetoric. After
all, the arguments against big government are equally applicable to big
business and wage slavery. If people are capable of making their
own decisions, then why should this capability be denied in the workplace?
As Noam Chomsky points out, while there is a "leave it alone" and
"do your own thing" current within society, it in fact "tells
you that the propaganda system is working full-time, because there is no
such ideology in the U.S. Business, for example, doesn't believe it. It
has always insisted upon a powerful interventionist state to support its
interests -- still does and always has -- back to the origins of American
society. There's nothing individualistic about corporations. Those are big
conglomerate institutions, essentially totalitarian in character, but hardly
individualistic. Within them you're a cog in a big machine. There are few
institutions in human society that have such strict hierarchy and top-down
control as a business organisation. Nothing there about 'Don't tread on
me.' You're being tread on all the time. The point of the ideology is to
try to get other people, outside of the sectors of co-ordinated power, to
fail to associate and enter into decision-making in the political arena
themselves. The point is to atomise everyone else while leaving powerful
sectors integrated and highly organised and of course dominating resources."
He goes on to note that:
"There is a streak of independence and individuality in
American culture which I think is a very good thing. This
'Don't tread on me' feeling is in many respects a healthy
one. It's healthy up to the point where it atomises and keeps
you from working together with other people. So it's got
its healthy side and its negative side. It's the negative
side that's emphasised naturally in the propaganda and
indoctrination." [Keeping the Rabble in Line, pp. 279-80]
As the opinion polls above show, must people direct their dislike and
distrust of institutions equally to Big Business, which shows that people
are not stupid. However, the slight decrease in distrust for big business
even after a period of massive business-lead class war, down-sizing and
so on, is somewhat worrying. Unfortunately, as Gobbels was well aware, tell
a lie often enough and people start to believe it. And given the funds available
to big business, its influence in the media, its backing of "think-tanks,"
the use of Public Relations companies, the support of economic "science,"
its extensive advertising and so on, it says a lot for the common sense
of people that so many people see big business for what it is. You simply
cannot fool all the people all of the time!
However, these feelings can easily be turned into cynicism and a hopelessness
that things can change for the better and than the individual can help change
society. Or, even worse, they can be twisted into support for the right,
authoritarian, populist or (so-called) "Libertarian"-Right. The job for
anarchists is to combat this and help point the healthy distrust people
have for government and business towards a real solution to societies problems,
namely a decentralised, self-managed anarchist society.
Another important factor working in favour of anarchists is the existence
of a sophisticated global communications network and a high degree of education
and literacy among the populations of the core industrialised nations. Together
these two developments make possible nearly instantaneous sharing and public
dissemination of information by members of various progressive and radical
movements all over the globe -- a phenomenon that tends to reduce the effectiveness
of repression by central authorities. The electronic-media and personal-computer
revolutions also make it more difficult for elitist groups to maintain their
previous monopolies of knowledge. In short, the advent of the Information
Age is potentially one of the most subversive variables in the modern equation.
Indeed the very existence of the Internet provides anarchists with a powerful
argument that decentralised structures can function effectively in today's
highly complex world. For the net has no centralised headquarters and is
not subject to regulation by any centralised regulatory agency, yet it still
manages to function quite effectively. Moreover, the net is also an effective
way of anarchists and other radicals to communicate their ideas to others,
share knowledge and work on common projects (such as this FAQ, for example)
and co-ordinate activities and social struggle. By using the Internet, radicals
can make their ideas accessible to people who otherwise would not come across
anarchist ideas (obviously we are aware that the vast majority of people
in the world do not have access to telephones, never mind computers, but
computer access is increasing in many countries, making it available, via
work, libraries, schools, universities, and so on to more and more working
people). In addition, and far more important than anarchists putting their
ideas across, the fact is that the net allows everyone with access to express
themselves freely, to communicate with others and get access (by visiting
webpages and joining mailing lists and newsgroups) and give access (by creating
webpages and joining in with on-line arguments) to new ideas and viewpoints.
This is very anarchistic as it allows people to express themselves and start
to consider new ideas, ideas which may change how they think and act. Of
course most people on the planet do not have a telephone, let alone a computer,
but that does not undermine the fact that the internet is a medium in which
people can communicate freely (at least until it is totally privatised,
then it may prove to be more difficult as the net could become a giant shopping
centre).
Of course there is no denying that the implications of improved communications
and information technology are ambiguous, implying Big Brother as well the
ability of progressive and radical movements to organise. However, the point
is only that the information revolution in combination with the other new
social developments we are considering could (but will not necessarily)
contribute to a social paradigm shift. Obviously such a shift will not happen
automatically. Indeed, it will not happen at all unless there is strong
resistance to governmental attempts to limit public access to information
technology (e.g. encryption programs) and censor citizens' communications.
How anarchists are very effectively using the Internet to co-ordinate
struggles and spread information is discussed in section
J.4.9.
This use of the Internet and computers to spread the anarchist message
is ironic. The rapid improvement in price-performance ratios of computers,
software, and other technology today seems to validate the faith in free
markets. But to say that the information revolution proves the inevitable
superiority of markets requires a monumental failure of short-term historical
memory. After all, not just the Internet, but the computer sciences and
computer industry represent a spectacular success of public investment.
As late as the 1970s and early 1980s, according to Kenneth Flamm's 1988
book Creating the Computer, the federal government was paying for
40 percent of all computer-related research and probably 60 to 75 percent
of basic research. Even such modern-seeming gadgets as video terminals,
the light pen, the drawing tablet, and the mouse evolved from Pentagon-sponsored
research in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s. Even software was not without state
influence, with database software having its roots in US Air Force and Atomic
Energy Commission projects, artificial intelligence in military contracts
back in the 1950s and airline reservation systems in 1950s air-defence systems.
More than half of IBM's Research and Development budget came from government
contracts in the 1950s and 1960s.
The motivation was national security, but the result has been the creation
of comparative advantage in information technology for the United States
that private firms have happily exploited and extended. When the returns
were uncertain and difficult to capture, private firms were unwilling to
invest, and government played the decisive role. And not for want of trying,
for key players in the military first tried to convince businesses and investment
bankers that a new and potentially profitable business opportunity was presenting
itself, but they did not succeed and it was only when the market expanded
and the returns were more definite that the government receded. While the
risks and development costs were socialised, the gains were privatised.
All of which make claims that the market would have done it anyway highly
unlikely.
Looking beyond state aid to the computer industry we discover a "do-it-yourself"
(and so self-managed) culture which was essential to its development. The
first personal computer, for example, was invented by amateurs who wanted
to build their own cheap machines. The existence of a "gift" economy among
these amateurs and hobbyists was a necessary precondition f |
