means and ends

Means and Ends: The Anarchist Critique of Seizing State Power (2023) by zoe baker via 258 kindle version from anarchist library [https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/anarchopac-means-and-ends]

zoe – @anarchopac on twitter

notes/quotes:

4

This work, which began as a PhD thesis submitted to Loughborough University

5

intro

I wrote this book because I want to live in a society in which everyone is free. I am convinced that, if we are to achieve this goal, it is important to know the history of previous attempts to do so. My hope is that, through learning about how workers in the past sought to emancipate themselves, workers alive today can learn valuable lessons and develop new ideas that build on the ideas of previous generations.

root of problem

legit freedom will only happen if it’s all of us.. and in order to be all of us.. has to be sans any form of measuring, accounting, people telling other people what to do

6

The vast amount of theory that the anarchist movement produced can be broken down into five main elements:

  1. A theoretical framework for thinking about humans, society, and social change.
  2. A set of ethical principles that form the value system of anarchism.
  3. An analysis and critique of existing social relations and structures in terms of their failure to promote these ethical principles.
  4. A vision of alternative social relations and structures that are achievable and would actually promote these ethical principles.
  5. A series of strategies (which are consistent with the ethical principles) for

The true history of anarchism can only be written as a global history. My book is a contribution toward this global history but only covers a small fragment of it.

she addresses same w language barriers on p 7 (can only read english et al)

8

A rational reconstruction of the ideas of anarchism as a social movement must be sensitive to the fact that anarchist theory was not a single unchanging monolith, but a cluster of different tendencies in dialogue and debate with one another.

earlier talked about how it was via short/easy writings amongst several diff authors and diff changing mindset of individual authors

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To give one example, Malatesta wrote in 1899 that “the anarchist socialist program is the fruit of collective development which, even ignoring its forerunners, lasted several decades, and which no one individual could claim to have authored.”

beyond the monastic self ness

The central argument of this book is that the reasons anarchists gave for supporting or opposing particular strategies were grounded in a theoretical framework—the theory of practice—which maintained that, as people engage in activity, they simultaneously change the world and themselves. This theoretical framework was the foundation for the anarchist commitment to the unity of means and ends: the means that revolutionaries proposed to achieve social change had to be constituted by forms of activity that would develop people into the kinds of individuals who were capable of, and were driven to, (a) overthrow capitalism and the state, and (b) construct and reproduce the end goal of an anarchist society.

The structure of this book is as follows. In chapter 1, I define anarchism in depth. In chapter 2, I explain anarchism’s theoretical framework—the theory of practice. With this in place, I rationally reconstruct anarchism’s value system, critique of existing society, and vision of a future society in chapter 3. The core ideas on strategy that were in general shared by the anarchist movement are described in chapter 4. Chapter 5 reconstructs the anarchist critique of state socialism. Chapters 6 and 7 provide an overview of the two main schools of anarchist strategy: insurrectionist anarchism and mass anarchism. Chapters 8 and 9 expand the discussion of mass anarchism by explaining the history, theory, and practice of one of its main forms: syndicalist anarchism, which is a kind of revolutionary trade unionism. Chapter 10 continues the discussion of mass anarchism by describing the history and theory of organizational dualism, which was the idea that anarchists should simultaneously form mass organizations open to all workers and smaller organizations composed exclusively of anarchists. Chapter 11 summarizes the main ideas of anarchist political theory and reaffirms my central argument that the revolutionary strategy of anarchism was grounded in the theory of practice.

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Chapter 1: Defining Anarchism

Overviews of anarchism often begin by claiming that it is incredibly broad, incoherent, and inherently difficult to define. *Being difficult to define is not a unique feature of anarchism. It is a general problem facing the intellectual historian because, as Friedrich Nietzsche wrote, “only something which has no history can be defined.” That is to say, the reason why one can define hydrogen in terms of essential and unchanging necessary and jointly sufficient conditions is that it lies outside of history and so does not vary within and between human societies. What hydrogen is does not change between tenth-century France and twentieth-century Alaska. This remains true even though how humans have understood or thought about hydrogen has changed over time. But the same is not true of things that are historical in the sense of being inherently connected to and concerned with human activity, such as Christianity or anarchism.

*we have no trace/history of legit free people.. graeber unpredictability/surprise law et al

There is no one true version of a historically produced entity. Instead, there is only what elements do or do not compose it according to different individuals or groups of people at the various stages of its development.

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The point is not to establish what anarchism truly means once and for all, but to construct a definition of anarchism that is useful for investigating a particular historical period, topic, or type of anarchism.

why? why is that the point?

14

Decades later, Errico Malatesta wrote in 1925 that there was a distinction between “Anarchy,” which is a cooperative society without oppression and exploitation, and “Anarchism,” which “is the method of reaching anarchy, through freedom, without government.”

15

Matters are only made more complicated by the fact that a significant number of stateless societies move between very different forms of social organization on a seasonal basis

dawn of everything (book)

17

He defined “Anarchy” as “the absence of a master” and argued that the “highest perfection of society is found in the union of order and anarchy.” It is important to note that Proudhon was not consistent with his vocabulary and sometimes used the word “anarchy” to signify chaos and disorder. On other occasions, Proudhon labeled himself an advocate of “mutuality,” “mutualism,” and “the mutualist system.” This was a term that Proudhon borrowed from a previously existing social movement among silkworkers in Lyon

He thought that, over time, these cooperatives could grow in number, trade with one another, and take on more and more social functions until socialism as a society-wide economic system had been established.

or not.. ie: dil on co ops

skim

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For the purposes of this book, anarchism will be defined as a form of revolutionary anti-state socialism that first emerged as a social movement in late nineteenth-century Europe within the First International between 1864 and 1872 and the subsequent Saint-Imier International, which included anarchist groups in Europe, South America, and Egypt, between 1872 and 1878. I will focus exclusively on anarchist collectivists, anarchist communists, and anarchists without adjectives who advocated the same strategy as anarchist collectivists and anarchist communists.

kevin on anarchism w/o adj.. et al

My definition of anarchism only specifies the kind of anarchism I will be examining, and does not claim to establish the one true version of anarchism.

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Chapter 2: Theoretical Framework

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Anarchists viewed humans as unchanging and changing at the same time. They are unchanging in that there are certain characteristics that all humans across all societies have in common: they need food, water, and sleep to survive; reproduce through sex; have brains; are social animals who communicate through language; experience emotions; and so on. As Rocker wrote: “We are born, absorb nourishment, discard the waste material, move, procreate and approach dissolution without being able to change any part of the process. Necessities eventuate here which transcend our will.… We are not compelled to consume our food in the shape nature offers it to us or to lie down to rest in the first convenient place, but we cannot keep from eating or sleeping, lest our physical existence should come to a sudden end.”

but to me those are secondary ish.. and our problem has been that we keep trying to org around them.. rather than a deeper essence/need of all of us.. ie: maté basic needs to org around legit needs

One of the distinguishing characteristics of humans as a species is their consciousness. Bakunin argued that, since this is the product “of the cerebral activity of man” and “our brain is wholly an organization of the material order… it follows that what we call matter, or the material world, does not by any means exclude, but, on the contrary, necessarily embraces the ideal world as well.” With this consciousness, humans think about themselves, other people, the world in which they live, and worlds that they have imagined. They make plans for the future and reflect on past events. They direct and alter their behavior. In short, humans are able to mentally stand apart from their immediate experience and make their own life an object of their thought. According to Reclus, *“humanity is nature becoming self-conscious.” Cafiero wrote that “the feeling of one’s self is without doubt the dominant sentiment of the human soul. The awareness of one’s being, its development and betterment, **the satisfaction of its needs, these make up the essence of human life.” Each individual human always possesses a particular form of consciousness, by which I mean the specific ways in which they experience, conceptualize, and understand the world in which they live. I will refer to this as ***“consciousness” for short.

whatever/regardless.. need global detox leap to get to legit itch-in-the-soul.. currently (and since forever) living off intoxicated ‘consciousness’

*maybe.. but hasn’t been.. rather.. nature becoming static whales in sea world.. ie: black science of people/whales law et al..

**which we haven’t yet seen/tried.. because again.. we have not yet org’d around legit needs

***so far (since forever) it’s been rather.. whalespeak.. again because.. black science of people/whales law et al.. wilde not-us law et al

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Stereotypes of anarchists depict them as having naive conceptions of human nature in which it is imagined that humans are innately good and kind. In reality, anarchists held that humans were defined by two main distinct tendencies: struggle/strife and sociability/solidarity. Malatesta thought that humans possessed both the “*harsh instinct of wanting to predominate and to profit at the expense of others” and “another feeling which draws him closer to his neighbor, the feeling of sympathy, tolerance, of love.” **As a result, human history contained “violence, wars, carnage (besides the ruthless exploitation of the labor of others) and innumerable tyrannies and slavery” alongside “mutual aid, unceasing and voluntary exchange of services, affection, love, friendship and all that which draws people closer together in brotherhood.” This position was shared by Kropotkin, who wrote in his Ethics that there are “two sets of diametrically opposed feelings which ***exist in man.… In one set are the feelings which induce man to subdue other men in order to utilize them for his individual ends, while those in the other set induce human beings to unite for attaining common ends by common effort: ****the first answering to that fundamental need of human nature—struggle, and the second representing another equally fundamental tendency—the desire of unity and mutual sympathy.”

*just because we haven’t yet org’d around legit needs.. so khan filling the gaps law et al

**rather.. as a result of being in sea world.. need hari rat park law et al

***rather.. in whales

****rather.. as cope\ing ness.. hari present in society law et al.. khan filling the gaps law et al

this thinking.. that the negative is natural.. is why we have not yet gotten to legit freedom/equity.. and why we keep perpetuating myth of tragedy and lord

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A capacity is a person’s real possibility to do and/or to be, such as playing tennis or being physically fit. It is composed of two elements: (a) a set of external conditions which enable a person to do and/or be certain things, and (b) a set of internal abilities which the person requires in order to be able to take advantage of said external conditions. For example, a person’s capacity to play tennis consists of external conditions like a tennis court, a tennis racket, someone to play against, and so on. Internally, it consists of abilities such as being able to hold a racket, hit a ball, and know the rules of the game. In the absence of either the external or internal conditions, a person lacks the real possibility to achieve the doing of playing tennis and therefore lacks the *capacity to play. A drive, in comparison, is a person’s particular desires, intentions, motivations, goals, values, or concerns—such as wanting to play tennis.

*hope she’s just referring to play tennis.. because to me.. play has nothing to do with pre reqs..

Engaging in practice not only affects a person’s capacities and drives, but also has a significant impact on their consciousness. Learning music theory will not only, for example, make us better at reading sheet music or acquire the motivation to learn more about the subject. It also changes how we experience, conceptualize, and understand music—or life in general—such as noticing a feature of a song or thinking of oneself as a person of culture and sophistication.

yeah.. see.. ooof.. to me that’s whalespeak.. red flags.. cancerous distractions et al.. not legit art/play.. not legit free human beings ness

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 Luigi Galleani, for example, thought that when a human develops themselves they acquire “a series of ever-more, growing and varied needs claiming satisfaction.” These “needs vary, not only according to time and place, but also according to the temperament, disposition, and development of each individual.

rather.. cope\ing ness because hari present in society law et al.. khan filling the gaps law because missing pieces

43

Rocker and Kropotkin later developed a model in which a range of social structures—economic, political, religious, cultural etc.—were taken to mutually determine one another but *no social structure or causal factor was thought to be necessarily primary. Which causal factor played the most important role varied among different moments and so could only be established through empirical investigation on a case-by-case basis.

*but there is.. (2 missing pieces).. and so what we need to org around

Rocker similarly argued that “all social phenomena are the result of a series of various causes, in most cases so inwardly related that it is quite impossible clearly to separate one from the other. We are always dealing with the interplay of various causes.”

actually.. since forever.. we’ve just been dealing w various symptoms.. we haven’t yet gotten to the root of problem

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This commitment to multicausality accompanied the view that dominant structures do not ever include or exhaust all the elements that constitute a particular society. Rather, they exist alongside a wide variety of less influential or smaller social structures that are constituted by and reproduced through distinct kinds of practice and their accompanying capacities, drives, and consciousness. *These smaller social structures include ways of life as diverse as Romanticism, punk, Scientology, and the microstructure of a particular family. It is because of the existence of these less influential or smaller social structures that it is possible for alternative practices to emerge and modify or replace existing dominant structures. .. I will describe these forces that are fundamentally at odds with existing dominant structures as **radical: if universalized they would transform society and replace one dominant structure with another. The drive to not oppress women, for instance, is radical within a patriarchal society because its universalization is incompatible with the ongoing existence of patriarchy

*to me those are cancerous distractions.. only legit change/reset will happen if org around legit needs

**yeah.. none yet to date are legit radical.. again.. nothing yet has gotten to the root of problem

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Chapter 3: Values, Critique, and Vision

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This emphasis on having the actual means to lead a specific kind of life can be seen in Malatesta’s claim in 1884 that “true freedom is not the right but the opportunity, the strength to do what one will” and in his observation, decades later, that “freedom is a hollow word unless it is wedded to ability, which is to say, to the means whereby one can freely carry on his own activity.” Yet, people’s real possibility to do and/or to be can be restricted through domination by others. Malatesta also wrote that freedom “presupposes that everybody has the means to live and to act without being subjected to the wishes of others.” As a result, he advocated “the complete destruction of the domination and exploitation of man by man.”

any form of m\a\p.. but don’t need to destruct.. just try something legit diff.. ie: a nother way.. where domination/exploitation are irrelevant s

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Malatesta was not the only anarchist to define freedom as a person’s real possibility to do and/or to be. In 1927, Berkman distinguished between “negative liberty,” which is *freedom from something, and “positive freedom,” which is “the opportunity to do, to act.” Two years later, he wrote that “freedom really means opportunity to satisfy your **needs and wants. If your freedom does not give you that opportunity, then it does you no good. Real freedom means opportunity and well-being. If it does not mean that, it means nothing. His comrade Goldman similarly wrote in 1914 that “true liberty… is not a ***negative thing of being free from something.… Real freedom, true liberty is positive: it is freedom to something; it is the ***liberty to be, to do; in short, the liberty of actual and active opportunity.

*not from.. rather .. kept in..

**we have no idea what those are.. need global detox leap.. ie: need means (nonjudgmental expo labeling) to undo hierarchical listening as global detox so we can org around legit needs

***ie: re ness as cancerous distraction..

****of everyone getting a go everyday

All anarchists thought that one of the main reasons why freedom is valuable is that it is a prerequisite for full human development in the sense of people improving their internal abilities in multiple directions and, in so doing, truly realizing their potential. Rocker claimed that “freedom is not an abstract philosophical concept, but the vital concrete possibility for every human being to bring to full development all the powers, capacities, and talents with which nature has endowed him.” Goldman argued that “authority stultifies human development, while full freedom assures it.” Elsewhere she declared that “only in freedom can man grow to his full stature. Only in freedom will he learn to think and move, and give the very best in him. Only in freedom will he realize the true force of the social bonds which knit men together, and which are the true foundations of a normal social life.”

yeah.. ie: the unconditional part of left to own devices ness.. but that includes .. not being about development, potential, et al.. just about the dance

48

For anarchists, in order for a society to be free over an extended period of time, it must be structured so that it both enables the freedom of the people who comprise it and prevents individuals from being able to oppress others. The social structures and relations that ensure the ongoing freedom of individuals are necessarily egalitarian ones. Anarchists thought that freedom and equality are so interconnected that it is in practice impossible to have one without the other. Bakunin wrote, “I am a convinced supporter of economic and social equality, because I know that, outside that equality, freedom… will never be anything but lies.” Kropotkin echoed this sentiment: “to have the individual free, they must strive to constitute a society of equals.”

not about equal ness.. because that involves measuring things.. rather about unconditional ness.. ie: the unconditional part of left to own devices ness

50

As Malatesta explained to a jury while on trial in 1921, “social wrongs do not depend on the wickedness of one master or the other, one governor or the other, but rather on masters and governments as institutions; therefore, the remedy does not lie in changing the individual rulers, instead it is necessary to demolish the principle itself by which men dominate over men.

need a legit re\set.. for (blank)’s sake

humanity needs a leap.. to get back/to simultaneous spontaneity .. simultaneous fittingness.. everyone in sync..

56

Malatesta, to give one example, wrote in 1924 that “even in the most democratic of democracies it is always a small minority that rules and imposes its will and interests by force.” As a result “Democracy is a lie, it is oppression and is in reality, oligarchy; that is, government by the few to the advantage of a privileged class.”

any form of democratic admin as cancerous distraction

57

A few years later in 1899, Malatesta defined “Anarchy” as “a society based on free and voluntary accord—a society in which no one can force his wishes on another and in which everyone can do as he pleases and together all will voluntarily contribute to the well-being of the community.

legit freedom will only happen if it’s all of us.. and in order to be all of us.. has to be sans any form of measuring, accounting, people telling other people what to do

58

By this, Malatesta meant that anarchists should:

  1. envision anarchy as a society that successfully instantiates certain social conditions, such as people being free from domination, people having access to the external conditions that are necessary to develop themselves, or social relations being infused with a sense of solidarity.
  2. articulate general anarchist methods of organization and association that could successfully actualize these conditions, *such as each person in a group having a vote, smaller groups federating together to form larger groups, or organizations electing instantly recallable mandated delegates to perform administrative tasks.

oi.. *cancerous distractions

According to this view, anarchists could not know with absolute certainty how, say, the *education of children would be organized under anarchy, but they were in a position to indicate the method through which it would be organized. Parents, teachers, and other adults interested in the positive development of children would **come together as equals within general assemblies to “meet, discuss, agree and differ, and then divide according to their various opinions, putting into practice the methods which they respectively hold to be best” and, in so doing, establish through a process of experimentation what the best system of education was. How anarchy was organized would “be modified and improved as circumstances were modified and changed, according to the teachings of experience.” It was for this reason that ***Malatesta saw anarchist ideals as “the experimental system brought from the field of research to that of social realization.”

*cancerous distraction.. ed we need (aka: drawing forth from w/in) is for all of us.. ie: imagine if we listened to the itch-in-8b-souls 1st thing everyday & used that data to connect us (tech as it could be.. ai as augmenting interconnectedness)

**oi oi ooof ooof.. cancerous distractions.. the worst form of people telling other people what to do.. ie: in the guise of help\ing ness

***not really experimenting though.. same song as long as any form of m\a\p

Some anarchist authors did articulate detailed models of how an anarchist society would function. They generally focused on how workers should reorganize production and distribution during a revolution and, as a result, largely discussed practical issues. The Russian anarcho-syndicalist Gregori Maximoff, for example, developed proposals for how an anarchist revolution could reorganize agriculture, cattle rearing, fishing, hunting, manufacturing, forest management, mining, construction, transportation, healthcare, sanitation, and education. These proposals largely specify (a) how organizations should be structured, make decisions, and coordinate with one another; (b) what kind of organization is responsible for a specific aspect of the economy; and (c) general principles that should be implemented, such as the abolition of rent or both men and women receiving an education.

cancerous distractions..

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Malatesta, in comparison, conceded that “some comrades” mistakenly “expect Anarchy to come with one stroke—as the *immediate result of an insurrection which violently attacks all that which exists and replaces it with institutions that are really new.” These comrades, he said, were wrong, because the full achievement of anarchy requires that **“all men will not only not want to be commanded but will not want to command… [and] have understood the advantages of solidarity and know how to organize a plan of social life wherein there will no longer be traces of violence and imposition.” ***Such a significant transformation of individuals and social structures would take a long time to achieve.

*to me.. one stroke would work.. but not a violent one.. that’s not a stroke (something diff).. but rather a perpetuation.. takes a lot of work ness is red flag we’re doing it/life wrong

**that will only happen sans any form of m\a\p.. where missing pieces would be restored.. no more khan filling the gaps law et al

***well.. not really.. what you describe is just a perpetuation of same song.. something legit diff could (would have to) turn on a dime.. for (blank)’s sake

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Anarchists generally envisioned an anarchist society as having four main components. These were:

1/ Humanity as a whole collectively owns land, raw materials, and the means of production. The division of society into economic classes is abolished such that there are no longer workers or proletarians but only people who engage in acts of production and consumption. Those who occupy or use a piece of land, raw materials, or the means of production on a daily basis directly control and self-manage the relevant sphere of production or distribution. Individuals can only own possessions they personally use without exploiting the labor of others. In other words, humanity owns the watch factory, those who labor in the watch factory directly control and self-manage watch production, and individuals own their personal watches.

2/ Workplaces and communities are self-managed by the people who constitute them through general assemblies in which everyone involved has an equal say in collective decisions.

3/ Markets and money are replaced by a system of decentralized planning.

4/ The rigid capitalist division of labor is abolished such that people do a combination of mental and physical labor, and unsatisfying labor is either removed, automated, or shared among producers. Individuals would still specialize in specific skills, such as learning how to drive a train or build a house, but they would not be limited to one sphere of activity such that they only drove trains or built houses. This would go alongside a significant reduction to the length of the working day, such as four hours instead of ten.

would we even have ie: watches, assemblies, decision making, planning, 4 hr work days.. ? we have no idea.. black science of people/whales law

61

In an anarchist society, “the relations between its members are regulated, not by laws… not by any authorities—whether they are elected or derive their power by right of inheritance—but by mutual agreements, freely made and always revocable, as well as [social] customs and habits, also freely accepted.” Such statements are not advocating a society in which people are free to do absolutely anything, including acts that oppress others. *Anarchists argued that, if a person imposes their will on another via violence or coercion, they are engaging in an act of domination and should be prevented from doing so, by force if necessary. Such force, providing it is proportionate and does not reconstitute the state, **would not be a form of authority or a violation of the equal freedom of all. It would rather defend the freedom of all in a manner compatible with the goal of anarchy

*ha.. who’s deciding what.. both are violent coercion .. red flags we’re doing it wrong

**actually.. yeah it would.. same song.. any form of people telling other people what to do

If a collective decision required everyone involved to agree on a single course of action, *such as when the next meeting would take place or what color a room would be painted, then minorities would voluntarily defer to the majority decision.. This freedom of association also included the freedom of majorities to voluntarily dissociate from minorities, such as a person who **constantly shouted at and bullied other people during meetings being expelled from a group.

*irrelevant s.. cancerous distractions..

**shouting/bullying symptoms of same song

1fp as red flag.. sent mid 2fp.. if a collective.. last sent 2fp.. ha.. oi

63

The forms of organization and decision-making that anarchists advocated were not invented by isolated theorists imagining abstract social possibilities from their studies. 

ha.. no but by whales in sea world.. as cope\ing ness

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From 1876 onward, a number of prominent anarchists, including Malatesta, Cafiero, and Reclus, rejected anarchist collectivism in favor of anarchist communism. This soon came to be the dominant position within the anarchist movement, although anarchist collectivism continued to be advocated by a significant segment of anarchists in Spain during the 1880s. Anarchist communism was seen as a society in which each person voluntarily contributes to production according to their abilities and the products of labor are collectively owned by humanity as a whole and distributed according to need. This would, during and immediately after the social revolution, be organized through a system of rationing. Once the economy was sufficiently developed and stable, rationing would be abolished in favor of free access to the products of labor. In contrast to Guillaume, who had previously proposed distribution according to need as the long-term goal, anarchist communists rejected the idea of distribution via labor vouchers as an intermediary system.

great until rational ing ness

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No destruction of what exists is possible without, during the struggles leading to the destruction and during the period of destruction itself, already visualizing mentally what will take the place of what you want to destroy.

won’t get to diff if re ing

Anarchists had to decide not only on “the aim which we ourselves propose to attain” but must also “make it known, by words and deeds, in such a way as to make it notably popular, so popular that on the day of action it will be on everybody’s lips.”

need to be what’s on each heart

67

One of the central problems that their strategies had to overcome was that both the abolition of class society in favor of an anarchist society and the day-to-day reproduction of an anarchist society require the bulk of the population to have developed a vast array of different capacities, drives, and consciousness, such as the ability to make collective decisions in general assemblies, the desire to not dominate or exploit others, and the understanding that capitalism and the state make people unfree.

need a diff strategy then.. if pre req’s.. not going to get to legit freedom.. ie: unjustifiable strategy – no prep.. no train

legit freedom will only happen if it’s all of us.. and in order to be all of us.. has to be sans any form of measuring, accounting, people telling other people what to do

Such individuals would arise in a properly functioning anarchist society due to the forms of practice they engaged in on a daily basis, such as *participating in a workplace assembly or being taught how to horizontally associate as a child. These are exactly the kinds of people that anarchist social movements need in order to succeed. Anarchists, unfortunately, live in a class society. They therefore have a problem: **in order to transform society they need transformed people. In order to have transformed people, they need a new society. How then could anarchist social movements effectively transform society? This problem was succinctly expressed by Malatesta:

*cancerous distractions

**rather.. a detoxed people..

Between man and his social environment there is a reciprocal action. Men make society what it is and society makes men what they are, and the result is therefore a kind of vicious circle. *To transform society men must be changed, and to transform men, society must be changed.

*today we have the means to do this simultaneously.. (which is what we need to be set free).. hari rat park law and detox leap.. for (blank)’s sake

70

Chapter 4: Anarchist Strategy

A crucial aspect of anarchist theory was, therefore determining what methods of action to engage in. According to Malatesta, “to be able to act, to be able to contribute to the realization of one’s cherished ideas, one has to choose one’s own path. In parties, as more generally in life, the questions of method are predominant. If the idea is the beacon, the method is the helm.” It is for this reason that “we are anarchists in our goal… but we are anarchist in our method too.” Elsewhere Malatesta defined anarchism as “the method of reaching anarchy, through freedom, without government.”

need a method not yet tried.. ie: means to facil the the unconditional part of left to own devices ness.. aka: nonjudgmental expo labeling..  sans any form of measuring, accounting, people telling other people what to do

errico on anarchism

72

A worker acted spontaneously when they acted of their own volition, even if their actions were inspired by the actions of those around them. 

if calling ‘worker’ (and all the other cancerous distractions/titles).. already not of own volition (itch-in-the-soul).. not spontaneous

79

For anarchists, this commitment to universal human solidarity entailed an opposition to imperialism and colonialism and the support of anticolonial national liberation movements, such as those in Cuba, India, and Ireland

not legit universal if against ness (method not yet tried: all ness of the unconditional part of left to own devices ness).. skimmed to here.. was all about assuming method had to be gradual and violent .. oof

81

One of the main forms of evolutionary change anarchists engaged in was spreading anarchist ideas through newspapers, pamphlets, books, talks, and demonstrations.

red flag that this is not all ness rather.. people telling other people what to do ness.. oi

82

This emphasis on spreading ideas was motivated by the awareness that, to quote Lucy Parsons, fundamental social change was preceded by “a long period of education” that developed “self-thinking individuals.”

ooof.. so many red flags.. ie: people telling other people what to do; takes a lot of work; et al..

87

Prefiguration

The anarchist commitment to the unity of means and ends led them to argue that working-class social movements should establish horizontal social relations that are, as far as is possible, the same as those that would constitute an anarchist society. In so doing, workers attempt to construct the world as they wish it to be during their struggle against the world as it is. They also create, through experimentation in the present, the real methods of organization and association that people in the future might use to achieve the states of affairs that characterize an anarchist society. Kropotkin, for example, argued in 1913 that anarchists “have to find, within the practice of life itself and indeed working through their own experiences, new ways in which social formations can be organized… and how these might emerge in a liberated society.”

During the second half of the twentieth century, this idea was called prefiguration or prefigurative politics. It should be kept in mind that this term was not used by anarchists historically. Nonetheless, anarchist organizations generally prefigured the future anarchist society in two ways.

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In 1898, a number of prominent anarchists, including Louise Michel, Reclus, Grave, and Kropotkin, signed an article published in Les Temps Nouveaux that advocated the creation of anarchist schools on the grounds that “education is a powerful means of disseminating and infiltrating minds with generous ideas” and so could become “the most active motor of progress,” acting as “the lever that will lift up the world and will overthrow error, lies and injustice forever

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Direct Action

The primary means by which the working classes would simultaneously transform themselves and the social world was direct action. Individuals or groups engage in direct action when they act themselves to bring about social change, rather than relying upon intermediaries or representatives to act on their behalf. Direct action, to quote Rocker, encompasses “every method of immediate warfare by the workers against their economic and political oppressors.” By “immediate warfare,” Rocker meant actions such as strikes, boycotts, industrial sabotage, distributing antimilitarist propaganda and, in certain circumstances, the “armed resistance of the people for the protection of life and liberty.” Direct action thus includes nonviolent and violent actions that contribute toward both evolutionary and revolutionary change. The social revolution is in a sense the ultimate form of direct action.

direct action as cancerous distraction.. warfare.. ooof

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This phrase initially referred to when workers drew on their own strength to personally struggle against capitalism and thereby achieve their own liberation through their own actions.. Direct action against the authority in the shop, direct action against the authority of the law, direct action against the invasive, meddlesome authority of our moral code, is the logical, consistent method of Anarchism.

against ness as cancerous distractions

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From these examples, it is clear why anarchists advocated direct action. When successful, it either immediately results in a goal being achieved or imposes costs onto the ruling classes, such that they acquire an incentive to give into the demands of workers.

cancerous distraction perpetuating same song

Anarchists advocated direct action not only because it was an *effective means for achieving social change but also because it positively transformed those who engaged in it. According to the Austrian anarchist Siegfried Nacht, “it is above all through action that the **people can educate themselves. Little by little, action will give them a revolutionary mentality.” Pouget held that “direct action has an unmatched educational value: It teaches people to reflect, to make decisions and to act.… Direct action thus ***releases the human being from the strangle-hold of passivity and listlessness.… It ****teaches him will-power, instead of mere obedience, and to embrace his sovereignty instead of conferring his part upon a deputy.

*not

**ok i guess to this.. because ed (as we keep doing it.. even if we say we’re ‘drawing forth from w/in’.. haven’t seen/tried that yet) as cancerous distraction.. any form of people telling other people what to do

***not.. actually perpetuates same song

****rather.. teach ness leads to obedience

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It was, as Galleani wrote, “the best available means for preparing the masses to manage their own personal and collective interests.”

perhaps.. prior to now

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The success of anarchism therefore required establishing how evolution develops into revolution. 

again.. perhaps prior to now.. need (and have means for) global detox leap/re\set

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Chapter 5: Anarchism and State Socialism

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Chapter 6: Insurrectionist Anarchism

Insurrectionist anarchists advocated the formation of small, loosely organized groups that met to learn and discuss ideas, plan direct action, organize talks and countercultural activities—such as dances and picnics—produce or distribute anarchist literature, and engage in violent acts of revolt against the ruling classes and their institutions.

1 (of2) anarch orgs.. oi.. .. makes no diff .. size et al.. if still re ing

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As the paper L’Insurrezione argued in 1881, “anything that facilitates and brings the time of the insurrection nearer, is good; all that keeps it away through maintaining the appearance of progress, is bad. This is the principle that guides us.”

cancerous distractions ness

Insurrectionist anarchists rejected struggling for immediate reforms for three main reasons. First, they held that reforms did not challenge, but rather rested upon, the ongoing existence of dominant institutions. Social movements that aim to win reforms will therefore end up consenting to and reproducing the existing economic and political system, rather than overthrowing it. 

same song ness

Second, they thought that the ruling classes only conceded reforms to the working classes in order to calm popular discontent. Although reforms might improve people’s lives in the short term, they also stabilized class society and thereby perpetuated the suffering and oppression of the working classes. This is because the achievement of reforms can alter the consciousness of workers such that they come to mistakenly believe that the ruling classes are benevolent, view the state as a servant of the people, and put their hopes in politicians and the law. Reforms could, in short, have the dangerous effect of causing workers to desire a better and more humane master, rather than no master at all.

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In place of struggles for immediate reforms, insurrectionist anarchists advocated immediate violent confrontation with dominant institutions. .. Insurrectionist anarchists held that, instead of waiting for the revolution to happen, it would be better to “start the revolution inside oneself and realize it according to the best of our abilities in partial experiments, wherever such an opportunity arises, and whenever a bold group of our comrades have the conviction and courage to try.” These tactics were thought to “exert the most spirited influence over the masses” and would therefore inspire the working classes to rise up.

Propaganda of the Deed

If revolutions were, as an article in La Révolte stated in 1890, “the product of a spontaneous explosion of the masses’ discontent and anger,” then the role of revolutionaries was to ignite this anger. Propaganda of the deed was one of the primary means through which insurrectionist anarchists attempted to spread the spirit of revolt and thereby contribute toward the emergence of a social revolution. Historians of terrorism frequently make the mistake of equating the entire idea of propaganda of the deed with the kinds of high-profile assassination or bombings carried out by anarchists at the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth century. 

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What would come to be called “propaganda of the deed” started out as the view that anarchist ideas could and should be spread through actions, rather than only through written or spoken propaganda. 

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During the violent repression of the Paris Commune, at least seventeen thousand people were, according to the official government report, executed for having risen up against the ruling classes. Anarchists, in comparison, believed that between thirty and thirty-six thousand people had been slaughtered. 

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Ultimately, it is fair to say that insurrectionist anarchism was unsuccessful, in so far as the main forms of propaganda of the deed they advocated and engaged in failed to inspire the working classes to rise up, and in so doing, form a mass movement capable of overthrowing class society. ..

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Chapter 7: Mass Anarchism

Mass anarchists advocated forming, or participating in, large-scale, formal organizations that prefigured the future anarchist society and engaged in collective struggles for immediate reforms in the present. It was held that these collective struggles for reforms would, over time, develop a revolutionary mass movement that was both capable of, and driven to, overthrow capitalism and the state in favor of an anarchist society. The struggle for immediate reforms was, in other words, viewed as the best means to develop the social force that was necessary for launching a successful armed insurrection.

Large-scale federations were advocated by mass anarchists for two main practical reasons. First, they held that they were necessary to achieve coordination between, and effective action by, large groups of people in different areas.

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The second reason why mass anarchists advocated large-scale federations was that they were necessary for developing the kinds of people and social relations that were needed to abolish capitalism and the state and create an anarchist society. In 1892, Malatesta argued that since “agreement, association, and organization represent one of the laws governing life and the key to strength—today as well as after the revolution,” it follows that the working classes must be organized prior to the social revolution. This is because “tomorrow can only grow out of today—and if one seeks success tomorrow, the factors of success need to be prepared today.” This was especially important given that, as Malatesta explained in 1897, workers cannot be “expected to provide for pressing needs” during the social revolution “unless they were already used to coming together to deal jointly with their common interests.” For example, supplying bread to everyone in a city would have to be organized, and this required that bakers were “already associated and ready to manage without masters.”

need to try a diff way.. ie: org around legit needs.. no prep.. no train

147

Malatesta advocated the formation of an organization that united individuals under a common program, which specified the goals of the group and the means they proposed to achieve them. The purpose of such an organization was to enable individuals to *pursue their shared goals by educating one another, engaging in joint activity, and coordinating action over a large-scale. In so doing, an organization would develop a collective strength to change society that was not only impossible for an individual to develop in isolation, but was also **greater than the sum of the individual strengths that composed it.

*oi.. aka: people telling other people what to do ness

**perhaps.. but today we have means to expo to infinity.. aka: the dance

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Even the agenda is devised by the assemblies where the items on the agenda are debated and delegates appointed as the executors of their collective will. This federalist procedure, operating from the bottom up, constitutes a precaution against any possible authoritarian degeneration in the representative committees

not legit bottom up if any form of m\a\p

158

Organizing to win reforms through direct action was considered valuable for three main reasons. First, and most obviously, achieving reforms *improved the lives of workers and put them in a position where they had more time, energy, and motivation to emancipate themselves fully. Malatesta wrote in 1897 that anarchists are “interested in people’s circumstances being improved to the greatest possible extent, starting today,” both because of the “immediate impact of reduced suffering” and “because when one is better nourished, has greater freedom, and is **better educated, one has a greater determination and more strength to fully emancipate oneself.”

*perhaps but nothing compared to what we can do/be now

**better educated bad on its own.. but in whalespeak..? oooof

160

In September 1897, Malatesta wrote that “the reforms, both economic and political, that can be obtained under certain institutions, are limited by the very nature of those institutions, and sooner or later, depending on the degree of popular consciousness and the more or less blind resistance from the ruling classes, a point of irreconcilability is reached and the very existence of these institutions needs to be called into question.”

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Mass anarchists understood, alongside anarchists in general, that evolutionary change does not necessarily lead to progress or an anarchist revolution. They were careful about which reforms they supported, who they worked with, and the means they proposed to achieve these reforms. In 1897, Kropotkin insisted that anarchists “have to cling to our principles while working with others” and therefore must “never allow ourselves to be chosen as or turn into exploiters, bosses, leaders,” “never have any truck with the building of some pyramidal organization, be it economic, governmental or educational-religious (even be it a revolutionary one),” and “never have any hand in conjuring up man’s governance of his fellow man in the realm of production and distribution, political organization, leadership, revolutionary organization, etc.”

then has to be any form of m\a\p

162

He rejected “false reforms” that “tend to distract the masses from the struggle against authority and capitalism” and instead “serve to paralyze their actions and make them hope that something can be attained through the kindness of the exploiters and governments.”

any form of against ness is already that

166

Although mass anarchists viewed themselves as a militant minority who sought to influence the consciousness of other workers, they explicitly rejected authoritarian forms of vanguardism due to their commitment to the self-emancipation of the working classes. 

ooooof.. if militant/influence ness then authoritatiran ness

167

Fourth, mass anarchists opposed the seizure of state power in the name of the working classes because, as was explained in chapter 5, it would lead to the death of the revolution, and the establishment of a new system of minority rule in which the majority of workers were oppressed and exploited. The social revolution could only be achieved if workers decided to reorganize society themselves through their own organs of self-management. All mass anarchists could do to facilitate this process was to act as a militant minority in the same manner that they had done prior to the revolution: spreading anarchist ideas and engaging in actions that implemented the anarchist program and thereby served as an example to others.

ooooof

170

Chapter 8: The History of Syndicalist Anarchism

190

Chapter 9: The Theory and Practice of Syndicalist Anarchism

200

The General Strike

One of the main tactics that syndicalist anarchists advocated and engaged in were general strikes in which a significant number of workers went on strike at once. Rocker viewed the general strike as “the most powerful weapon which the workers have at their command” because it “brings the whole economic system to a standstill and shakes it to its foundations.” 

ooof .. cancerous distraction.. we have yet to do anything that has shaken our sea world/rat cage to its foundatoin

207

This is not to say that general strikes were always unsuccessful. Swiss anarchists participated in a 1907 general strike against local chocolate companies, including Nestlé, after a worker was unfairly fired. The general strike, which lasted from March 25 to 29, spread to Montreux, Lausanne, and Geneva in response to gendarmes firing on and wounding ten workers. It *resulted in the rehiring of the worker, recognition of the trade union, and various material improvements. **Even when general strikes were militarily crushed or failed to achieve their immediate objectives, they could still bring about social change.

*this is not humane ‘success’

**nothing to date has been legit social change.. all same song

208

Chapter 10: Organizational Dualism: From Bakunin to the Platform

A significant number of mass anarchists thought that federations of trade unions or community groups were insufficient to bring about the social revolution. They held that anarchists must, in addition to this, form specific anarchist organizations that would exist alongside mass organizations. These specific anarchist organizations were advocated as the means to unite committed revolutionaries in order to develop correct theory and strategy, coordinate their actions both among themselves and within broader mass organizations or movements, and push the revolutionary struggle forward through persuasion and engaging in actions that provided an example to others.

oi

232

Despite the various negative interpretations of the Platform, its commitments were not a break with anarchism. They were instead one of many ways in which anarchists sought to build upon and update the kind of specific anarchist organization that Bakunin had advocated, decades previously. This remains true even though other anarchists thought their proposals were misguided. Although proponents of organizational dualism disagreed about how specific anarchist organizations should be structured and make decisions, they nonetheless agreed on the need to unite committed revolutionaries under a common program in order to develop correct theory and strategy, coordinate their actions both among themselves and within broader mass organizations or movements, and to push the revolutionary struggle forward through persuasion and engagement in actions that provided an example to others.

again.. with the correct ness.. oi

233

Chapter 11: Conclusion

Between 1868 and 1939, anarchists living in Europe and the United States developed a political theory that guided their attempts to bring about fundamental social change. This theory can be summarized as follows. Anarchists were antistate socialists who advocated the achievement of freedom, equality, and solidarity. For anarchists, these values were interdependent, such that the realization of one of them can only occur through the realization of all three at once. Although all anarchists advocated freedom, they disagreed with one another about how to define it. Some anarchists defined freedom as nondomination such that a person is free if and only if they are not subordinate to someone who wields the arbitrary power to impose their will on them. Other anarchists defined freedom as the real possibility to do and/or be a broad range of things such that a person becomes more free as their opportunities expand. One of the main reasons why anarchists valued freedom is that it is a prerequisite for people fully developing themselves and realizing their human potential. Irrespective of how they defined freedom, anarchists agreed that humans can, given the kind of animals we are, only be free in and through society.

In order for this to occur, society has to be structured in an egalitarian manner. *There must be no hierarchical divisions between rulers who issue commands and make decisions and subordinates who obey and lack decision-making power. Organizations should instead be structured horizontally, such that each member is neither a master nor a subject. They are instead an associate who has an **equal say in collective decisions, and so, codetermine the voluntary organization with every other member. Such equality of self-determination must go alongside equality of opportunity. Each individual should have access to the external conditions that are necessary for self-development, and having the real possibility to do and/or be a broad range of things, such as food, health care, and education. The reproduction of such a society requires solidarity, in the sense of individuals and groups cooperating with one another in pursuit of common goals and people, in their personal lives, forming reciprocal caring relationships, such as by being a loving parent, good friend, or supportive teacher.

*so no form of m\a\p

**ie of form of m\a\p.. people telling other people what to do

Anarchists argued that capitalism and the state, alongside all structures of domination and exploitation, should be abolished in favor of *a stateless classless society without authority, in which everyone is free, equal, and bonded together through relations of solidarity. They called this society anarchy.

The creation of anarchy requires the abolition of capitalism and the state but the ruling classes will never give up their power voluntarily and instead violently defend it. They must be overthrown. The majority of anarchist theory was concerned with how to do this. Anarchists argued that the goal of universal human emancipation could only be achieved through the formation of working-class social movements that engage in class struggle against the political and economic ruling classes and, ultimately, launch a social revolution.

oi.. how in the world is that universal human emancipation…? oi.. can’t be any form of us & them ness for the dance to dance

Anarchists envisioned the social revolution as a lengthy process of simultaneous destruction and construction.

there is a nother way

Anarchists therefore face a paradox: in order to transform society they need transformed people. In order to have transformed people, they need a new society.

not a paradox.. possible today.. ie: global detox leap

humanity needs a leap.. to get back/to simultaneous spontaneity .. simultaneous fittingness.. everyone in sync..

Through engaging in direct action with prefigurative organizations, workers simultaneously change the world and themselves. A group of workers might form a tenant union, organize a rent strike against their landlord, and make collective decisions about the rent strike within a general assembly. In so doing, they change social relations—rent decreases and workers gain more power over their landlord—and change people—workers develop the capacity to organize a rent strike and make decisions within a general assembly, acquire an increased sense of solidarity with one another, and realize that housing should be free.

not legit change (nothing to date is).. these are ie’s of same song

The state would never wither away. It had to be intentionally and violently destroyed.

it would if we org’d around legit needs.. then no khan filling the gaps law et al..

we haven’t yet tried anything that gets to the root of problem

legit freedom will only happen if it’s all of us.. and in order to be all of us.. has to be sans any form of measuring, accounting, people telling other people what to do

Unfortunately, time is not on our side. Capitalism’s insatiable drive for profit and economic growth is destroying the environment. The climate crisis is not merely coming, it has already begun. Things are only going to get worse. Billionaires and politicians are not going to save us. We have to save ourselves. The actions we take now determine the future we and future generations face. *Our only choice is collective struggle. We have to generate a social force that can dismantle the fossil fuels industry and, in so doing, achieve survival pending revolution. In response to these dire circumstances, a large number of people have put their hopes in the election of socialist politicians into parliaments and congresses. Historical anarchist theory informs us why this strategy is mistaken: even if socialists manage to win an election, which frequently does not happen, they will be compelled by the threat of capital flight and their institutionalized role as managers of the capitalist economy to implement policies that serve the interests of the very corporations driving climate change forward. Socialist politicians will not transform the state. The state will transform them. **We have to instead develop the power of workers to engage in direct action outside of and against the state, disrupt the smooth functioning of the economy, and, in so doing, impose external pressure onto the ruling classes to give into our demands.

*not true

**cancerous distractions

for (blank)’s sake

Even if the specifics of historical insurrectionist anarchism, mass anarchism, syndicalist anarchism, and organizational dualism are deemed to be no longer appropriate strategies within modern society, the core insight of historical anarchist strategy would remain—anarchist ends can only be achieved through anarchist means. Our task remains that of anarchists in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries: *to develop forms of practice that can simultaneously resist, and ultimately overthrow, the ruling classes and render us fit to establish a society with neither masters nor subjects. Tomorrow can only grow out of today and the march toward anarchy begins now.

*ie: a nother way via a sabbatical ish transition

**today we have the means for a global detox leap and we’re missing it.. with all these cancerous distractions

findings from on the ground ness:

1\ undisturbed ecosystem (common\ing) can happen

2\ if we create a way to facil the seeming chaos of 8b legit free people

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