Anarchism is...

Anarchism is the only political philosophy where the practitioners can say "we are not hopeless utopians". It is modelled entirely on the past practice of cooperative institutions (hence names such as Anarcho-Syndicalism as opposed to Blanquism etc.). Furthermore it doesn't seek the 'perfect', 'rational' or 'objective' State. It recognises that such a thing cannot exist, because humans are not perfect. In light of this the State becomes a mere parasite, an unsustainable form of control. Anarchism is the revolutionary struggle to remove that parasite and replace it with more productive and equal social relationships.

The Pursuit of Happiness

Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Such was one of the great call to arms, a true raison d’être, of so many revolutionaries during the 18th century.

Yet we now live in a vastly different world. Although the core struggle for revolutionaries is still resistance against tryanny and oppression, the terrible two are recognised as being explicit in almost every aspect of our lives. Primarily we see a great inequality in society, the sort of inequality which the slave-owning revolutionaries of the colonies too often seemed blind to. It was the chauvinism of the north-western hemisphere which allowed them to determine freedom as being their own right to make money and exploit the New World, rather than freedom for all of humanity. I would argue that this is a narrow-minded tradition carried on from the Ancient Greeks - the so-called founders of democracy and philosophy. It is a Western tradition which is, basically, racist. We created ‘democracy’, we developed it, freedom is for us.

And yet ‘Happiness’ simply hasn’t arrived for ‘us’ (the westerners). Why? Because we are living stressful lives based on ‘rational’ concepts of time and competition. With the development of capitalism came goal-driven business - you must complete x task in y time. You are in open competition with the hundreds of other wage slaves who also have the same prescribed task, and who are competing with you for the privilege of undertaking it to meet their economic needs and stresses.

I believe that the following video articulates this view quite nicely. It speaks of an evidence base for the critique of individualism, and argues for a socially embedded model of autonomy. The entire video is well worth watching for an insightful and animated (literally) overview of the issue.

“The research is clear. If you want to be a happier person don’t read a self-help book, just have happier friends”.

Finally I’d like to mention one of the models of ‘happiness’ that comes from the Americas. It isn’t the sacred cow of ‘progress’ that we see in North America, but is instead the decolonising ‘buen vivir’ (Spanish translation) that originates from the Andean region of South America. My main source of information on this practice (and it is a practice, not an abstract concept, it is built on Indigenous experience) comes from this Independent article:


“buen vivir is a solid principle which means life in harmony and equilibrium between men and women, between different communities and, above all, between human beings and the natural environment of which they are part.”

For thousands of years these native peoples have carried out their philosophy of ‘live well’. They live sustainably in their environment, their society is built on consensus not social division, and they will always be opposed to the world model of ever-more-exploitative corporations churning up natural resources and defenceless ‘undeveloped’ communities in the name of ‘progress’. It is a praxis which we can learn from, a model which could be drawn from, while we build up alternative cooperative institutions to the State.

So let's forget about the ‘tradition’ of freedom that we supposedly inherit from the Ancient Greeks, the classical model imposed on every corner of the earth. There was a reason why the highly egalitarian contemporaries of Robin Hood were known as the ‘Merry Men’. Oppose the sacred cow of ‘progress’, let the pursuit of happiness truly begin.

First Article: Natural Equality and Real Freedom Pt.2

A Human Income sourced from the profits of natural resource exploitation should be distributed.

I finished Pt.1 with this sentence. In the following piece I intend to discuss what form a Human Income could take, and what the implications would be.

A universal flat rate payment has been floated before by a number of people. In my opinion the latest elucidation of the concept is the best, and that comes in the writings of Philipe Van Parijs. He names it a ‘Basic Income’ (BI) and my understanding of his concept comes from this interview. In short he believes that it should be:

• For all individuals regardless of economic or social situation.
• It will force employers who offer jobs that are unattractive and offer no training to reconsider their wage levels “It can be used that way by the beneficiaries of basic income, who are enabled to accept jobs which pay less than those that are currently available; but they will do so only on condition that these jobs are sufficiently attractive to them, compared to the alternatives on offer. They may be more attractive because of some intrinsic feature, or because of the training they provide."
•  Conditional welfare benefits would be reduced in relation to the BI (i.e., if you are guaranteed £500 a month in state pension money, with a conditional £200 extra based on your social need, and the BI is £150 a month, then you would get £550 in pension - the unconditional BI replacing the conditional welfare to bring it back up to £700).
• Those working would stay on the same income as their income tax/something similar would be adjusted to make up for the extra BI money 
• Those who don’t receive an income or benefits, mostly housewives, would get a BI. Again this would be deducted based on any tax allowance that spouses may receive (and so on, you get the picture) but if they have no ‘legal money’ income then they will get the lot.
• There should be an aim to introduce a BI across many nation states and even internationally, perhaps starting with the EU.

In effect I agree with the above format. But obviously further justification is needed, ultimately an explanation of the rationale. Why do I call it a Human Income for example?

Justification for a Human Income 

The name Human Income is for me more than a matter of departing from previous traditions. I am hesitant to carry on using the term ‘Basic Income’ because for me it emphasises too heavily the role of the income as explained above. I do not see the concept as purely a means of creating a basic living standard for the dispossessed (neither does Van Parijs it must be noted), but also as a means of accessing our common right to the natural resource. Our common right to Earth. It is a human right in essence, and for that reason it is a Human Income.

The other name attributed to this concept has been a ‘Citizen’s Income’. I am fully against that title for the simple reason that it implies a relationship between the State and the recipient. If we are all citizens, with a special income, then some sort of civic or even patriotic duty will always threaten to rear an ugly chauvinist head.

One obvious contradiction in my line of thought is that I, someone who identifies as an anarchist, am proposing an essentially statist reform. I’d like to defend my position.

First, I am not proposing just how this Income comes about. Although I deferred to the formatting of Van Parijs which makes references to State Welfare (of the European model) and the like, this is more of a practicality. A helpful explanatory tool. I believe that this should be a movement not restrained by narrow minded ideas of national solidarity etc. and that we should be agitating for this on a global scale as a human income. In the current world that would probably mean individual countries taking up the scheme one by one, if at all. It is still statist; it would likely mean bigger government in the short term. So, again, how can I justify this?

The answer is simple. I believe that the positive effects of a Human Income, the progress it would make towards a more free society, would outweigh the negatives of greater government intervention.

For a start I believe it would damage the ‘efficiency’ of the state. If the state is confiscatory in nature (as discussed here) and the aim of the state is to consolidate its power (retain a monopoly of violence) then any redistribution which is flat rate, guaranteed, and helps to emancipate the recipient is counterproductive.

Why do I think a Human Income is revolutionary and has the capacity to emancipate the recipient? This idea is based on a further elucidation by Van Parijs, the principle of ‘Real Freedom’.
This is an old Marxist idea that legal liberties may give us the technical right to fulfil our wishes but that you are not truly free until you also have the means to achieve that wish. If we all receive a Human Income then suddenly being a wage slave isn’t the only absolute option; there is more room in the system for creativity, divergent thinking, and enterprise.

But more importantly - imaging the effect it would have for the poor? Currently the menace of transnational corporations forces people all over the world into a “work for us or starve” situation. Their traditional society is ravaged by the corporation - at the assistance of the self-proclaimed ‘progressive’ State - as traditional economies are forcibly replaced with ‘efficient’ factory work. Imagine now that these workers (vulnerable peasants would be more apt) each hold the right to a Human Income. Imagine how could they band together and stand up those companies, forcing them either to leave completely by supporting a counter-economy with their guaranteed income, or forcing them to provide good wages and working hours. Corporations find it difficult to exploit people who have alternatives.

I genuinely think, in light of these benefits, that a Human Income would be a huge step forward in self-ownership. The idea that my ego is my own and that “each person enjoys, over himself and his powers, full and exclusive rights of control and use, and therefore owes no service or product to anyone else that he has not contracted to supply” (as defined by Cohen but also an idea widely accepted in libertarianism).

Will politicians ever agree?

Of course not. A flat rate and universal distribution (as opposed to collection, such as poll tax) of finance is against all of the ‘rules’. It has no benefits for the politician, it gives them no leverage. But I believe that they could potentially be forced to, by agitation and popular demand. Doesn’t this just make me a reformist? Yes, in a sense. But I don’t believe the State will ever dismantle itself, so state reforms which give us greater liberties and freedoms should always be accompanied by a diversity of action. Once the apparatus is in place, once we reach that optimum moment, revolution will be necessary. Until then the principle must be established:

We have a common right to the earth, all humans are born equal, and we will happily butcher the sacred cow of chance!

                                     The sacred cow - butcher it!

                                     

First Article: Natural Equality and Real Freedom Pt.1

The first SacredCow Steak to deal with is ‘chance’. That age-old mantra ‘life is unfair’, the ultimate fall back for any anti-perfectionist or conservative. 

I believe that all humans should be born equal. The idea that the son should be born unequal because of a father’s failures etc., must be fundamentally challenged. I argue that equality is not fought for on a purely emotive basis - were it so then the fight for it wouldn’t be nearly as enduring as it is - it is also grounded heavily in solid reason. Why should you be condemned to poverty just because you were born east of the river? The logical conclusion of this principle is that either (a) all children are separated from their parents at birth and brought up in equal and controlled environments in a somewhat-authoritarian utopia, or (b), regardless of location or class, children (and for that matter adults) should have equality of opportunity. 

This is the simple idea that we may not all have the same abilities, in other words our natural talents are all different, but none of us should be restricted by environment. You shouldn’t be afforded a lesser education just because you (or more likely your family) are poor and so on. 

There are huge potential benefits of having such an equality. Putting the vital principle of ‘what is fair’ behind for just a moment, imagine the subsequent explosion in ingenuity and prosperity if we all had the same chance that upper class ‘entrepreneurs’ have had for centuries now? 

In my opinion we should all be aiming towards such a state of things. It seems to me that the ‘fairest’ society in this sense would be a collectivist one, or perhaps a Market variation, without the harmful, in-voluntary and prejudicing monopoly that is the State. 

The State in the sense to which I refer is a ‘hierarchical institution with a monopoly on violence, usually highly-subject to the interests of an elite within a hegemonic culture’. In other words: we currently live in a world where State Capitalism dominates our lives from cradle to crib. More discussion of this concept is clearly called upon in a later post but for now I’ll take it as a given that every State on earth, that I can recall, is subject to the demands of powerful corporations. This situation, disproportionate power in the hands of a few, automatically means that every citizen is by no means equal. 

What, then, is to be done? If we hold our hands up and admit that achieving anarchy (if that is where efforts towards freedom and equality take us) is going to be a fearsome struggle, then which steps should we take? First I would argue that no cemented guideline will take us to victory. Anyone who says that aiming our actions at one particular segment of the State Apparatus is the right course of action, or that there is only one route (e.g., that of the pacifist reformers, or that of the hard-line insurrectionists) is wrong. No such course of action has ever worked, and the historical evidence suggests that the largest social revolution in history (the feudal-capitalist transition) was the result of a number of interlinked factors. That is not to say that we should do nothing, or that we cannot in any way accelerate the cogs of history, but that we must recognise a diversity of action. 

But I must return to my salient point. I would like to outline one objective that I believe all egalitarians should hold, and which may be a building block for anarchy. That is to recognise the friendship between Equality of Opportunity and our common right to the Earth. 

Our common right to the Earth recognises that individuals and corporations have long utilised natural resources to gain profit and power over others, natural resources which they have no rightful claim to other than they beat the rest to it. Why should Water Incorporated be able to close off a natural water supply and exploit huge profit from it? Why should they be able to tell those who wish to share this water that they are trespassing on private property? When did the human race, who inherited this earth equally, give such permission?

Let us remedy this great injustice, and let us do it by achieving equality of opportunity. Let me boldly suggest the first step, a first step inspired by Thomas Paine (who in turn was inspired by the struggle of the oppressed and by the example of Native American society):

“There could be no such thing as landed property originally. Man did not make the earth… he had no right to locate as his property in perpetuity any part of it; neither did the Creator of the earth open a land-office, from whence the first title-deeds should issue… when cultivation began the idea of landed property began with it, from the impossibility of separating the improvement made by cultivation from the earth itself, upon which that improvement was made.

Cultivation is at least one of the greatest natural improvements ever made by human invention… But the landed monopoly that began with it has produced the greatest evil. It has dispossessed more than half the inhabitants of every nation of their natural inheritance, without providing for them, as ought to have been done, an indemnification for that loss, and has thereby created a species of poverty and wretchedness that did not exist before.” Thomas Paine in his ‘Agrarian Justice’. 

I propose that it should be an inalienable right that every living person receive an equal share of this ‘natural inheritance’ (something we can presume in an egalitarian anarchist society) and that in order to establish this right we must sow the seeds into the State Capitalist framework.

A Human Income sourced from the profits of natural resource exploitation should be distributed.

More details of the proposal will follow in Chapter 2 of this essay. 

“Imagine that all humans are handed the same opportunity in life. Imagine such a revolution. A revolution in ingenuity, a dynamic revolution, a revolution of the people. No more privilege gained by exploitation, no more sacred cows.”