Anarchy 66/Observations on Anarchy 62

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Follow-up and argument:

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OBSERVA­TIONS ON ANARCHY 62:

ANAR­CHISM AS A THEORY OF ORGAN­ISA­TION

Colin ward’s article on anar­chism as a theory of organ­isa­tion was most inter­est­ing and in­struct­ive but the sting, I feel, lies in the tail. Anar­chism does pre­sent an al­tern­at­ive theory of organ­isa­tion but how do we set about mak­ing “the op­por­tun­it­ies of put­ting (it) into prac­tice”?

  So­cial ideas may well be­come im­port­ant but will they be con­cerned with “sys­tems of large vari­ety suf­fi­cient to cope with a com­plex un­pre­dict­able en­viron­ment”? It is pos­sible that they would rather be con­cerned with a com­plex, but es­sen­tially more pre­dict­able en­viron­ment in which “wel­fare” is dis­trib­uted more equably but in which the gov­ern­ment’s grip on the citi­zen is vastly in­creased—though in more subtle ways than in the past.

  Ward notes that “people have been con­di­tioned from in­fancy to the idea of ac­cept­ing an ex­ternal au­thor­ity”. Ac­cept­ing the au­thor­ity of the gov­ern­ment in the so­cial sphere ab­solves one from so much (pain­ful) re­spons­ibil­ity to one’s fellows. “They” may put awk­ward ir­ri­tat­ing ob­stacles in one’s way in cer­tain spheres but it seems that for the ma­jor­ity, un­con­cerned with so­cial and “world” prob­lems, life is re­mark­ably pleas­ant and orderly in the af­flu­ent so­ciety.

  For what are the anar­chists of­fer­ing? Free­dom yes, but how is this con­cept to be made mean­ing­ful to the ma­jor­ity? It is free­dom with re­spons­ibil­ity; prob­lems will have to be solved by the use of per­sonal ef­fort and ini­tia­tive.

  How are people to be per­suaded that this will give them a more satis­fy­ing life than the pres­ent at­ti­tude of let­ting “them” get on with it. Anar­chist organ­isa­tion would re­quire active parti­cip­a­tion not ac­qui­es­cence but I am sure that it is not im­medi­ately ap­par­ent to many people that this is “free­dom” or, indeed, worth very much.

  Rousseau was very well aware of this di­lemma, al­though he sug­gested a Legis­lator (!) as the way out for people en­meshed in a de­struc­tive so­cial pro­cess over which they had no con­trol. Sub­sti­tute “anar­chism” for “law” and this seems to sum up the situ­a­tion very well; “The so­cial spirit, which should be cre­ated by these in­sti­tu­tions, would have to pre­side over their very found­a­tion; and men would have to be before law, what they should be­come by law”.

Witney

carole pateman