By Petri Lahtinen
In the ideological struggle of the 20th century, after the defeat of fascism in World War II and the crumbling of the dream of traditional communism with the collapse of Chile under Salvador Allende and the Soviet Union, liberalism and democracy as its governmental system seemed to be the most sustainable and viable alternatives. However, it is clear that the current alliance of neoliberalism, capitalism and democracy is an increasingly unsatisfactory option for a growing proportion of the world’s population. Environmental disasters and the deterioration of human living conditions are just a few symptoms of a larger set of interrelated phenomena closely linked to the structures of neoliberal democracy and capitalism. The quest for a better world must therefore explore alternatives to the current systems. Anarchism and the solutions it offers could possibly play a central role in this. In the broadest sense, anarchist ideology can be defined precisely as a challenge to the status quo, which seeks on the one hand to implement de facto egalitarian principles and on the other to promote various forms of cooperation characterised by a desire to distance oneself from positions of power.
The etymology of anarchy comes from classical Greek, where the word ἀναρχία means ‘without a leader’. If anarchism is understood in its simplest form as a resistance to authority or central leadership, it can be said to have always played a role in human history. However, anarchism is generally understood as a political ideology. In historical social discourse, anarchism is often seen in an antagonistic role: it is a chaotic state of nature, a ‘war of all against all’ as described by David Hume, from which people seek to escape by entering into a social contract and surrendering part of their freedom to the state. However, the emergence of anarchism as a political ideology is difficult to pinpoint for several reasons. The nature of anarchy in general opposes the categorisation of the movement and its principles. Any categorisation of anarchism is often seen as a counterproductive attempt to define the principled, political or ideological boundaries of anarchism, which anarchists themselves often see as blurred and variable. In general, the attribution of the origins of anarchism to a particular time, place, group or individual seems both arbitrary and exclusionary. Thus, this text also focuses less on the history of anarchism and more on the principles, practices and tools that are applied within it.
Anarchism and Domination
Anarchist ideology can begin to be outlined by looking at its opposition to and definitions of domination i.e. control and power. Here, domination is to be understood as a diffuse form of power found in hierarchies and unequal access to both economic and cultural resources. It also refers to both formal and informal customs and practices that organise everyday relationships, in particular by assigning people different social positions. There is a general consensus among anarchists about the privileges created by domination and the disdain it normalises. Control has established social hierarchies by separating masters from subjects, which, in the context of capitalism, has historically meant a separation between owners of the means of production and workers. Today, there is a general distinction between the wage-earners and the so-called ‘owning class’.
In anarchist politics, the concept of domination is also closely linked to the concept of conquest: it describes the institutional and social processes that establish domination, which always involves enslavement and usually also killing. Violence is an integral part of conquest, but other processes – homogenisation, monopolisation, centralisation, nationalisation and internationalisation – also play a role. Violence must be understood here in a broad sense: it is not only the infliction of physical pain and killing of living beings, but also, among other things, mental violence, the hijacking of the common good and resources of nature, and the infliction of mental ill-health. The relationship between violence and conquest is evident in the colonial history of the West, the effects of which are still felt around the world in the form of complex conflicts. At the same time, some argue that neoliberal capitalism functions as a machine of violent conquest that seeks to forcefully exploit all possible resources, both material and immaterial, in order to maximise economic surplus value. When analysing contemporary societies in general, it can be argued that they continue to exercise power and control in ways that create and maintain both hierarchies and unequal systems. In previous publications of Global Visions, we have analysed, among other things, how neoliberal capitalism has led to a global situation in which, for example, natural resources are exploited unsustainably, basic human needs are not met in a manner consistent with human dignity, wage workers are alienated from their own work and its results, and wealth is unequally distributed.
In the present-day world, the most obvious and visible manifestation of governance is the sovereign state. Its power is based on the concept of legality brought about by the social contract. In general, legal theory justifies the enforcement of the law on the grounds of necessity. According to anarchist analysis, this in turn is based on two assumptions: first, that social groups are incapable of inventing their own regulatory systems, and second, that social life without law is an unattractive alternative. Anarchist theories argue instead that the law has seamlessly transformed the revolutionary principle of individual right into a very bourgeois right to private property. The law may only partially mediate disputes and perpetuate the inequalities created by the commitment to exclusivity. Indeed, anarchism often sees the state as a form of violence. States still have a monopoly on violence, and some of them continue to use it against their own citizens in ways that are unjust and violate human rights. More broadly, state violence in the anarchist context means the creation and maintenance of oppressive and welfare-degrading structures and bureaucracies. The history of state formation does not affirm the integrity of the nation, but instead emphasises the contingency of states and the commonality of territorial power and its subsequent purpose of exploiting the resources of nations beyond the borders of the nation state. In other words, the gap between consent and appropriation is filled by the concept of colonisation. In a broader anarchist analysis, the processes of internationalisation – which can be understood now as the process of globalisation – and the so-called ‘Europeanisation’, driven by technological change, partly explain the dominance of Western culture over rest of the world.
Anarchism and Education
Instead of central governments, anarchist theories mostly emphasise the individual and local small communities as forms of social organisation. The anarchist model assumes that individuals are autonomous and cooperative, ready to make decisions and listen to others, take initiatives, share benefits and support others in times of need. The implementation of such principled approaches, in turn, requires relearning on the one hand and unlearning on the other. In anarchism, education, teaching and training are typically understood as a holistic approach, drawing on established practices that emphasise processes of socialisation, moral development, learning or the acquisition of knowledge. The goal of anarchist education is the creation of individuals who are inherently self-motivated. Current school systems and curricula are not conducive to this: the contradiction between the elitist promotion of learning and the egalitarian impulse of general education ultimately leads to a weakening of education and the emergence of different knowledge hierarchies. The attempt to teach excellence in accordance with the general school model leads, in turn, to a situation in which education contributes to the maintenance of social conservatism. In other words, pupils are forced to learn what is considered valuable or useful. At the same time, they are denied the leeway traditionally enjoyed by the elite to deal creatively with all the social and cultural influences they encounter.
In the view of anarchism, state regulation of education, in turn, allows governments to shape and prescribe curricula, choose and enforce languages of instruction, reinforce patriarchy through gendered education programmes and build loyalty to predetermined national cultures. Equality of access to schooling and the reduction of education to mere teaching recreate master-servant relationships and cultures of domination. Moreover, elitism is preserved, even if scholasticism has now been replaced by meritocracy. The normalisation of elitist values can therefore be measured by the adoption of meritocracy as a principle of national programme in an era of mass education. Education, from the anarchist perspective, like wage employment, is essentially designed to prepare students to become the cogs in the neoliberal and capitalist cultural machine.
As an alternative to state-regulated education, anarchism has proposed, first, the rejection of state education and classroom learning. Second, in their place, anarchism offers a rebalancing of education towards practical skills and away from the so-called book learning or merely theoretical knowledge. In general, anarchist education includes the principle of education as a means of self-management and socialisation. Education is based on practical learning in the community, with the aim of creating critical and practical members of the community. Furthermore, learning and sharing practical skills are about supporting other members of the community. Practice-based learning differs from conventional knowledge transfer in that skills are developed mainly through reciprocity. Anarchist pedagogy argues that learning should be promoted through free dialogue and exchange of ideas, copyright relinquishment, travel and intercultural exchange. Local people should be able to shape their own environment by applying knowledge and sharing insights on practices on a grassroot level instead of governmental or, more generally, central administrative regulations.
In the next Blog post Anarchism (part two) Petri Lahtinen discusses the role of Activism in contemporary Anarchist thought.
SOURCES:
Deneen, Patrick J.: Why Liberalism Failed, New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2018.
Europe refuses to work: interviews and critique of the prevailing work.Interviews by Lasse Poser, Ilona Raivio, Henri Salonen; essays by Klaus Maunuksela, Pontus Kurokuru; photos by Henri Salonen. Helsinki: Khaos Publishing 2023.
Haymarket Statements of the Accused: Address of Albert Parsons. https://www.marxists.org/subject/mayday/articles/speeches.html#PARSONS
Kinna, Ruth: The Government of No One: The Theory and Practice of Anarchism, London: Pelican, an imprint of Penguin Books, 2020.
Make Rojava Green Again. Rojava Internationalist Commune. Tulirinta, Sirpa Elina & Rantanen, Ville. Lode Publishing 2022.
Malm, Andreas: The Progress of This Storm: Nature and Society in a Warming World, New York: Verso 2018.
Malm, Andreas: How to Blow Up a Pipeline. Verso, London 2021.
http://www.freeocalan.org/books/#/book/democratic-confederalism
