On Anarchists

Installment #2 of my analysis of our ideological moment

Want to start an argument on the internet? Just type the word “anarchism” into a browser window. They’ll find you. They always find you.

Far more than any of our current political tendencies — more so even than fascism — it is difficult for me to talk about anarchism. Part of this is because of this weird combativeness. I hesitate to call it “defensiveness”, since anarchists have historically gotten it in the neck on more than one occasion, but the internet in the 21st century is perhaps the biggest safe space for them that has ever existed, about which more later. But part of it is that I really do think, of all the left tendencies, the anarchist truly is the ally of the communist, the Marxist, and the principled leftist — or, at least, they should be.

Hell, I used to be, if not an actual anarchist, certainly an anarchist sympathizer, and definitely an anarchist ally. I was in Seattle in 1999; I ran with a black bloc crew whose anarchist membership was far greater than the handful of reds who were bold enough to join up. I appreciate many of anarchism’s foundational principles, at least in its leftist manifestation. I don’t believe in bosses, I don’t care for most forms of hierarchy, I think the people can and should govern themselves, and I agree that authority tends to perpetuate itself and that power can, and often is, a corrupting force. I have called more anarchists friends and comrades than I have liberals, and I have been proud to fight alongside them.

Even when it comes to cases, I think the anarchist critique has some merit. When it is not just knee-jerk anti-authoritarianism, their distrust of power can show hidden oppressions and the perpetuation of bad ideas. Many anarchists, especially of the late 19th-century variety, contributed valuable scholarship to the leftist project, in politics and in science and in social study. And, as they will never hesitate to remind you, even Marx was on their side! I agree with him — and with them — that to truly complete the project of human liberation, the state must wither away, yielding to a true self-governed society in which the word of the worker is the only law.

So what’s the problem? Well, since it’s so often the bandage that’s used to cover up open ideological wounds on the left, let’s talk about that withering away of the state. It must, as Marx and Lenin and others argued in places anarchists don’t like to quote, be preceded by a period in which the machinery of the state must be used to rectify the exploitative crimes of the past, a period in which the government’s gears are recalibrated to support the will of the people instead of the will of the capitalist class. One problem is when this withering away is supposed to occur. Some anarchists have argued that it should take place over a period that can be measured by a calendar, whereas I suspect it might play out over a lifetime, or several lifetimes. Many more seem to argue that the abolition of the state should take place before the destruction of capitalism, which is surely putting the cart before the horse.

Indeed, this leads to one of the most thorny issues of all: the existence of “libertarian socialism”. Certain, such people exist (again, they will be the first to tell you). But why? It’s to contrast themselves with the more commonly understood variety of libertarianism, which, of course, is a right-wing capitalist ideology. The mere fact that it is necessary for anarchists to add qualifiers to their identified belief system in order to make sure it is not mistaken for one that is in many ways identical but is geared towards further entrenching the very capitalist system they oppose is very telling. There is no such thing as capitalist socialism, or socialist fascism, or reactionary progressivism; and yet anarchists must constantly define their terms so as not to be taken for devotees of, say, Rand Paul.

This is because anarchism is, at heart, an individualist philosophy, and socialism is a communalist philosophy. The two are not inherently incompatible, as an individual should have rights within a society. But a philosophy that places the sacrosanct rights of the single person ahead of the needs of the society in which that person lives is perhaps too compatible with the system we already have. America has already choked itself nearly to death gorging on individualism, and the notion that nobody can tell us what to do has had results that you can see just by opening the window and looking outside, let alone actually reading history or the news.

Now, I know that anarchism, especially in its purest form, isn’t as simple as extreme individualism. (Although, well, it’s not not extreme individualism.) But it does point to two conflicts between the red and the black that it’s exceedingly difficult to resolve. First, what happens when an individual will opposes the mechanism of the state — especially when that will is in opposition to a state action desired by the majority of the people? And second, how can a philosophy of leaderlessness, anti-authoritarian organization, and individual license possibly work on a scale that will lead to the liberation of humanity as a whole?

The first question is not a particularly bothersome one for me, because I have seen many anarchists willing to suborn their desires and wills to the greater good of organizations, projects, or actions. But it does play up, to me, the role of anarchists in larger left organizing. They tend to be very good at sniffing out conflicts of interest, potential abuse of power, or the misapplication, intentional or otherwise, of rules. (A bit ironic, this, as no one loves rules more than an anarchist.) As analysts, they tend to be excellent. As builders, though, they tend to be much less so. Their commitment to individual identity, or even the theoretical phantom of same, makes it extremely difficult for them to build anything that lasts, and the result of their skittishness around even the appearance of wielding authority leads to horizontalist nonsense of the kind that’s gotten its hooks into the left since Occupy.

And this leads directly into the second question. I remember in the late ‘90s and early 2000s — a time when I was deeply involved in anarchist-dominated direct action simply because it was some of the only leftist activity that was doing anything — I also read a lot of anarchist fiction. And most of it ended with pure deus ex machina wish fulfillment; the perfectly organized, well-defended, and resource-heavy anarchist commune in these stories always tended to be run by some secret billionaire, a well-meaning guy who inherited a uranium mine or something like that. It struck me as not only unlikely, but diametrically opposed to the whole concept of organizing the masses. Why do the hard work of convincing people of your arguments or building power through movements when you can just wait for a sugar daddy who shares your ideology to appear?

This problem carries through into contemporary, real-world anarchist work. Mutual aid, for example, is not bad in and of itself; despite the claims thrown at me by people who don’t like my politics, I think mutual aid is good, vitally necessary, and a good channel to the working class. I built the first mutual aid program in Chicago DSA’s history, only to see it dismantled largely by anarchists who didn’t want to place it under the organization’s control. But that’s not the inherent problem with mutual aid. The problem is, it depends on the largesse of wealthier donors to succeed. If everyone’s broke, who’s going to pay for all the free breakfasts and hand-warmers? As with NGOs and charities, what happens if the people paying the bills stop coughing up donations, or start making demands of the people providing the aid?

More importantly, how can this sort of model be scaled? I’m fighting for the liberation of all mankind, not for the liberation of a small number of people lucky enough to live in the immediate vicinity of my commune. The idea of a small community that has enough resources, labor, and power to sustain itself is hardly radical; it exists now and is called capitalism. What’s the inherent difference between a commune of 500 people who happen to have enough resources to support a small handful of the dispossessed, and a community of 500 people who happen to have enough wealth to support themselves? Primitivism cannot save us here; we are a planet of eight billion people, and while we have (for the moment) enough resources to provide for all of them, it cannot be done without extremely complicated networks of infrastructure, transportation, industrialization, and control. The reason anarchists have never attained a sizable community that lasts isn’t because they’re somehow less competent or morally pure than anyone else; it’s because their system cannot scale to the size needed to provide for a large population.

I realize that one reason I feel as if I am on rocky ground when providing a critique of anarchism is that it makes me feel as if I am in the liberal position and they in the socialist one. Many times, I have said that a primary problem liberals have with socialists is that liberals believe that they have occupied the ultimate leftist ground, that they have staked out the maximum possible moral position, and it galls them to think that socialists have expanded their critique and proved them wrong. Well, of course, anarchists believe the same thing about Marxists and communists; I have had this said to my face, and it’s a difficult thing to repute, especially as it requires me to defend things — patience and slow progress, movement-building, violence, and state power — that I feel uncomfortable defending at the best of times.

But, god damn it, someone’s got to take the trash out. I might think differently were I completely unfamiliar with the anarchist milieu, but I’m not. I’ve known people in anarchist communes who constantly complain that they’re often the only adult in the room, the only person focused on practical matters while everyone else just stakes out more extreme left positions which is why they’re too busy to wash dishes. I’ve seen libertarian socialist groups in action, refusing to take the democratic process seriously unless it happens to go their way. I’ve been present at horizontalist meetings and been agog at how quickly they subsume the goal of actually accomplishing something to complex and unwieldy accommodations to universal consent (which almost always fail to achieve that consent, leading to nothing being done). I’ve experienced anarchists fighting organizational efforts tooth and nail (usually over some kind of fash-jacketing around the very idea one person might tell another to take their responsibilities seriously), only to claim credit for the project if it happens to succeed.

If this sounds like I am excessively cynical about human nature (a pretty standard charge leveled against communists by anarchists), I believe the opposite is true. I believe it is cynical to think that the powers of the state can only be used for ill. I believe it is cynical to think that complex organization is impossible, or inherently abusive. And I believe it is incredibly cynical, not to mention ahistorical and unscientific, to believe that humans cannot self-govern in numbers beyond triple digits. If this is the case, humanity is well and truly doomed, the socialist project is hopeless, and the best any of us can ask for is to live, by chance, in or near one of the few groups that manage to get it right. I don’t believe it, and I don’t know how I could convince someone to join the struggle if I did.

When Marx wrote that the state will eventually wither away, he did so in the knowledge that, just as he had shown us, new hierarchies will arise to take the place of the old ones. He was no naïve utopian. He told us that the history of the world had been the history of class struggle, and certainly, history since then has shown us that even in largely socialist societies, new class characteristics can arise along which the same injustices as under the old regime can be repeated, whether on the same old victims or new ones. But it is our job to first attain the conditions of a classless society, to overthrow the infinite cruelty of capitalism and replace it with a state run by the working class, and then to combat any new class or other oppressions that occur. Our job is not to reject the whole system as unworkable based on theory or sentimental inclination. To do so is to mistake, as leftists so often do, tactics for strategy, conformity for discipline, and authority for organization.

I believed when I was young as I believe now that anarchists should and can be some of the strongest and most thoughtful soldiers in the war against capital. I believe they are smart, insightful, and vital to our cause. But I don’t believe this can happen if they continue to see themselves as oppositional to the red left, or if they insist on conflating internal organization for external oppression, or if they are willing to sacrifice communal solidarity for individual desire. We win together, or we lose alone.