Life Without Law

Author: Strangers In a Tangled Wilderness Publisher: https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/strangers-in-a-tangled-wilderness-life-without-law Publish Date: 2013-11-18 Review Date: Status:💥

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An anarchist is someone who rejects the domination of one person or class of people over another.

We’re told that anarchy can’t work because people are “inherently” flawed and are motivated solely by self-interest. They some-how make the illogical jump from this idea to the idea that we therefore need leaders and government. But if we don’t trust people to lead themselves, why do we trust them enough to put them in charge of everybody?

Note: and the irony is that the people who care about self-interest the most (those in power) tell us this

One way some anarchists like to think about it is that anarchism is the marriage of responsibility and freedom. In a state society, under the rule of government, we are held responsible to a set of laws to which we did not consent. We are expected to be responsible without being trusted with freedom. There are laws about everything: whom we can love, what imaginary lines we can cross, what we can put into our own bodies. We are not trusted to act on our own authority, and at every turn we are being man-aged, observed, policed, and, if we step out of line, imprisoned.

The reverse—freedom without responsibility—is not much better, and it forms the mainstream myth of anarchy. Government thrives off this misconception, the idea that it’s only the existence of cops and prisons that keeps us from murdering one another wholesale. But in reality, the people in this world who act with total freedom and no responsibility are those so privileged in our society so as to be above reproach, such as the police and the ultra-rich. Most of the rest of us understand that in order to be free, we must hold ourselves accountable to those we care about and those our actions might impede upon: our communities and families and friends.

There’s this idea, which has proven demonstrably false on a global level, that it’s “good” or “healthy” or “more natural” for most everyone in a society to act solely for personal gain. In economic terms, this is the central myth of capitalism: that everyone should try to get one over on everyone else all the time, and that if everyone does that, most people win. The people who want you to believe that myth are the people who do win: the people who already control everything.

Capitalism does not, as is popularly misunderstood, mean an economic system in which people work for money that they can exchange for goods or services. Capitalism is, instead, an economic system in which people can leverage their access to capital to extort money from other people. That is to say, capitalism is the system by which people who own things don’t have to work and everyone else does. The owning class makes money just by already having money. They make money off investments, off renting property, off the value produced by their employees. They live in luxury because they are in the process of dominating everyone who makes money through work.

Capitalism is a system by which one class of people dominates another, and we oppose it. Instead, we suggest all kinds of different ways of organizing our economies. Some anarchists argue for communism, in which the means of production are held in common by communes. Others favor mutualism, in which means of production are owned by individuals or collectives and money is used but money can only be made through work, not through capital. Still others push for a system of gift economics, an organic system in which people give to one another freely and without compulsion, sharing when and what they would like with whom they’d like. There are many more ideas than this besides, and most anarchists believe that any given group of anarchists ought to be free to choose the system that they prefer—as long as these ideas steer clear from demonstrably oppressive systems like capitalism.

Amongst ourselves, we create organizing structures that allow for the full autonomy of every individual, wherein no person can be compelled to go along with the wishes of the group. Because we are not interested, by and large, in static organizational structures with fixed and official membership, anarchists are able to organize organically. People come and go from organizations and the organizations themselves come and go over time based on the needs of the people who make use of them. When larger structures are deemed useful or necessary, various groups often form networks, which are horizontal structures for disseminating ideas and information and for planning complex operations.

A law is not actually a particularly useful tool for judging human behavior. As the folk wisdom suggests, good people don’t need laws and bad people don’t follow them. Laws are black and white, forcing people to obey the “letter” of the law while gleefully ignoring the “spirit.” And what’s more, because they are enforced through violence at the slightest provocation, they polarize society into those too afraid to step out of line but without knowing why they obey and those who disobey simply for the sake of disobeying. Either way, they hinder people’s ability to develop their own personal sets of ethics. They don’t help people learn to respect people for the sake of respecting people.

People who are encouraged to act socially tend to act socially, and people who are treated with empathy will, by and large, respond in kind. There will always be exceptions, of course, but for dealing with those people, guidelines—which remain mutable to circumstance—are a significantly more useful tool than law will ever be. Further, many anarchists work towards what is referred to as “transformative justice.” This is the concept that, while it is impossible to repair the harm done by the perpetrator of an unjust act, one can work to help the perpetrator take personal responsibility for what they have done so as to prevent them from returning to such behavior in the future. An anarchist society, like any other, will still defend itself from those who cannot or will not take responsibility for their actions, but this self-defense is done in the name of protection rather than “punishment” or “revenge.” It’s worth acknowledging here that like many of our ideas and methods, transformative justice is practiced—and was developed—not just by anarchists but by a wide range other marginalized groups.

I am truly free only when all human beings, men and women, are equally free. The freedom of other men, far from negating or limiting my freedom, is, on the contrary, its necessary premise and confirmation.

—Mikhail Bakunin, 1871

Mutual aid is a fancy way of saying “helping each oth-er out,” and it’s one of the core anarchist beliefs. We believe that people can interact in meaningful ways by sharing resources freely, without coercion. We share because it helps ourselves and everyone around us live more meaningful lives. We put more stock in cooperation than competition.

Solidarity is a fancy word for “having one another’s backs.” Solidarity is the most powerful force that the oppressed can bring to bear upon their oppressors. Every time they come after one of us, we act as though they are coming after all of us.

Solidarity is when we show the world that none of us is alone, when we choose to intertwine our struggles.

Solidarity is, in some ways, the opposite of charity. Charity is a way of providing aid that reinforces the hierarchical relationship between groups. Rich people donating money to charity makes poor people even more dependent upon the rich. Poor people, however, organizing to share resources as equals, are acting out of solidarity.

Since we anarchists are committed to only doing things with people that those people want to do, we utilize a number of methods to determine what those things are.

On an individual level, we’re interested in practices based on consent.

Consent is a way of finding out what other people are interested in doing with you. Mostly, this just means asking people before you do things with them. “Do you want to come to this demonstration?” “Can I kiss you?” “Would you like me to touch your back?” “Can I help you with that?” Some people consciously develop non-verbal ways of communicating consent, but the important thing is to not act without knowing if the other person is informed of the ramifications of an action, is in a headspace to make decisions, and is enthusiastic.

One tool we use for finding consent in larger groups is consensus.

Most anarchist decision-making is built around this method. Consensus is a way of determining what everyone in a group is comfortable with doing. “Do we want to blockade this building?” “Do we want to sign our group’s name on this public letter?” “Do we want to publish this book?” A group that respects the autonomy of every individual within it will generally act via consensus in some form or another. Some people mistake consensus to be basically the same as voting but where everyone agrees instead of a majority. This thinking however, is still built around voting, which is a form of competitive decision-making that is not designed to respect people’s autonomy. Consensus, instead of being a way to convince everyone to agree to the same plan, is a way of exploring what the logical limits of any given group are. If all members of a group cannot agree on a specific action, then it clearly needs to take place outside of that group, if at all. Unlike consent on an individual level, however, it is not always the case that a group seeking consensus needs everyone to be enthusiastic about the given action, and “standing aside” on a decision is common and respectable behavior.

Not all collectives and groups are very formal in their consensus decision-making, and many groups tend to work more on an “autonomy” model in which everyone is trusted to act on behalf of the group and then be responsible to everyone else for the actions and decisions they made on behalf of the group.

Anarchists know that a long period of education must precede any great fundamental change in society, hence they do not believe in vote begging, nor political campaigns, but rather in the development of self-thinking individuals.

—Lucy Parsons, 1890s

Anarchists do not want to reform the existing political system, we want its abolition. Instead of political advocacy, by which we might appeal to others to change our conditions, we generally practice direct action.

Direct action is a means by which we take control over our own lives, by which we regain the autonomy and agency that is systematically stripped away from us by governmental systems, by which we become self-thinking individuals.

Rather than plead and beg for the government or corporations to start protecting forests, we put our bodies between the trees and the chainsaws—or sneak in at night and burn their logging trucks.

No system based on industrialization and capitalism is ever going to prioritize natural ecosystems over profit, so we won’t waste our time asking nicely. Rather than ask the capitalists to repeal their trade policies that are gutting developing nations, we will show up en masse to their summits and block trade delegates from ever having the chance to scheme. Rather than campaign for the right to marry, we’ll live our queer lives however we feel with whomever we choose, and we’ll defend ourselves from bigots instead of asking the state to intervene.

We participate in direct action because we find the means and the ends to be inseparable. It’s quite likely that none of us will live in an anarchist society, but that doesn’t mean we can’t act like anarchists now. To be an anarchist is at least as much about the ways in which you engage with the world and how you treat people as it is about what fantastic utopia you hope to one day live in.

Sometimes we call this intertwining of the means and the ends “prefiguration.” Anarchists aim to act in ways that maximize other people’s autonomy. Most Marxists, state communists, and other “revolutionary” ideologies suggest a vanguard with which to seize power. We’ve no interest in seizing power for anyone but ourselves, and we oppose anyone who thinks they ought to rule us, “revolutionary” or not.

A lot of broader strategies have been suggested for how we might go about creating an anarchist society—or even just strategies of how we might best live as anarchists here and now. Each has their proponents and detractors, but few people believe that there is one single correct path to take towards freedom, and all of these strategies have in the past and will continue to overlap.

The most famous strategy is that of revolution, in which a single, reasonably organized mass uprising allows for the oppressed classes to seize the means of production and take their lives into their own hands. Many anarchists remain skeptical of how we might go about organizing such a thing in a way that doesn’t simply leave a different class of people, an anarchist government of sorts, in charge.

Furthermore, exemplified in the recent uprisings in the Middle East, revolution does not have the best track record in terms of increasing liberty to those in the revolutionary country. Quite often, state communists or other authoritarian groups have essentially seized control of the revolution at the last minute, stepping into the vacuum of power. This, many anarchists would argue, doesn’t mean that an anti-authoritarian revolution is impossible, only that it faces numerous challenges.

A second strategy is that of advocating and participating in insurrections. Insurrections are moments of freedom and revolt, often occurring in times of crisis. These insurrections would, ideally, allow for areas to be liberated from state control and, if they came in increasing strength and frequency, allow for a generalized revolt that could break state power. It has been argued that insurrections do not provide lasting change and can often simply serve as an excuse for government repression, but insurrections have also played important roles in numerous anarchist struggles.

A third strategy that anarchists have historically tried is syndicalism.

This method is a “workerist” method that suggests destroying the capitalist state economy by means of workers taking direct control of their factories.

While largely popular and indeed, often successful, in the past, the nature of modern labor and the shift in developed countries away from manufac-turing makes syndicalism less popular than it has historically been.

Another strategy is referred to sometimes as the dual power strategy.

This is a strategy of building up “counter-infrastructure” along anarchist lines to fulfill people’s needs and desires while simultaneously attacking the mainstream institutions that are destroying the world.

We fought for revolution in Russia for decades, only to be betrayed when the Bolsheviks turned around and murdered us in 1917. For three years, from 1918–1921, seven million Ukrainians lived as anarchists until the Bolshevik army betrayed an alliance and conquered us while we were busy fighting armies hired by the capitalists.

We had another three-year go of it from 1936–1939, when syndicalist labor unions took control of Catalonia, a region in Spain, during the Spanish Revolution. Once again, while anarchists were busy fighting a right-wing invasion, the Bolshevik-controlled communist party opened fire on us and the country fell to fascists.

Anarchists were heavily involved in Korean independence from Japanese colonial rule and labor struggle in South America. We were involved in the Mexican Revolution. We organized hobos with guns in the US and we robbed banks in France. And we’ve been involved in numerous art, literary, and music movements—from André Breton’s involvement in surrealism to Crass’s influence on punk.

As a word of warning, there are predators in the anarchist movement.

Agents of the state infiltrate our movement and do their utmost to destroy it. They prey upon new people in particular, setting them up to break the law and then sending them to prison for years or decades.

Read up about what happened to Eric McDavid, David McKay, and the Cleveland 4.

🔮 The Cosmos

Life Without Law

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