Anarchism is an oft misunderstood social system, probably because
it claims to not be a system at all! This of course is not true. Anarchism is a
system of practiced social principles based on self-organization, voluntary
association, mutual aid, and a rejection of authority as well as all forms of
structural violence, inequality, and domination (Graeber 2004:3). Anarchism is
about individual actors coming together in mutually beneficial communities and
structuring their lives based on notions of self-autonomy, freedom (so long as
not infringe upon another’s freedom), and caring for one another. It recognizes
the individual as the primary actor, but places them inherently within a
cooperative community environment not based solely on self-interest, but rather
individual autonomy within communal interests. This differs from Adam Smith and
Friedrich Hayek who viewed the individual actor – acting in their own
self-interest, their own localized setting, using their own expertise, for
their own good, as the foundation for a better society. The society of self-interested
actor they depicted fostered competition between individual actors, while
anarchism tries to create a cooperative environment for autonomous actors to
work in cooperation with each other. In
(neo)classical and neoliberal ideology the state is used to provide the most
fruitful and secure environment for the market to regulate society and foster individual
entrepreneurship, anarchism in turn rejects the state outright as authoritative,
exploitative, stifling, oppressive, violent, and utopian (Graeber 2004, Shannon
et al. 2012, Kropotkin 1970). It is the state regulations and violence that
pushes the agendas of the powerful on the less powerful. In short, “the economic function of the
state” is to “protect private property and the accumulation of capital”
(Shannon et al. 2012:21). And in totality, anarchism is a set of ideas that
happen to be inherently anti-capitalist (Shannon et al. 2012).
So what does capitalism look like to an anarchist, and why don’t
we hear much about it? Firstly, anarchism – much like Polanyian thought – does
not separate the economy from the rest of society, and sees “forms of
domination presenting themselves in society without the need to root them in
the economy” (Shannon et al. 2012:15). Anarchist philosophy or prescriptions for society are
less visible for numerous reasons, but one is that while Marxism tended to be
“a theoretical or analytical discourse about revolutionary strategy,” anarchism tended to be “an ethical discourse about
revolutionary practice” (Graeber 2004:6, my emphasis). While anarchism has roots globally and
throughout human history, it is not a planned system, rather a practiced system
of human interaction based on individuals taking initiative and acting in real
time within a caring community of equals. this is however, not a prescribed
utopian vision, but “since anarchism is a prefigurative practice, part of what
makes an anarchist economics distinctly anarchist
is a focus on alternatives and resistance enacted in the here and now” (Shannon et al. 2012:35).
This being said, Anarchism’s critique of capitalism largely
centers on the wage labor system (as slavery), property (as theft), markets (as
exclusionary), the state (as oppressive), and the system itself as inherently
exploitative, hierarchical, and exclusionary. Within anarchist thought, the
capitalist and the worker were only equal “from the point of juridical
fiction,” as their economic situation – their “real situation” – proved to be
amazingly unequal as the capitalist could survive the day without work if need
be, while the worker could not (Bakunin 1871:7). If the capitalist thought the workers wanted too much
money, s/he could wait a few days or find another place. For the “terrible threat of starvation” hung
over the worker and their family, and forced them “to accept any conditions
imposed by the gainful calculations of the capitalist, the industrialist, the
employer” (Bakunin 1871:8). Within this, the capitalist and property owners were
afforded (actually guaranteed) by the state, the power and the right “to live
without working” (Bakunin
1871:2; van der Walt and Schmidt 2009:50). This was seen as “a system of exploitation, which
the anarchists evidently understood as the transfer of resources from a productive
class to a dominant but unproductive one” (van der Walt and Schmidt
2009:50). After all, in terms of output, the
capitalists did not actually physically produce anything themselves. Capitalism
is therefore seen inherently to not reward the actual producers of the goods,
rather to position these laborers as serfs or – even worse – as slaves.
“Instead of people selling us or renting us out, we rent out ourselves. But
it’s basically the same sort of arrangement [as slavery].” (Graeber
2004:70-71)
“If I offer my labor at the lowest price, if I consent to have you live off my labor, it is certainly not because of devotion or brotherly love for you… I do it because my family and I would starve to death if I did not work for an employer. Thus I am forced to sell you my labor at the lowest possible price, and I am forced to do it by the threat of hunger” (Bakunin 1871:2).
Or as Bakunin quotes a fictitious capitalist: “Know it well, I
will pay you a salary as small, and impose on you a working day as long,
working conditions as severe, as despotic, as harsh as possible; not from
wickedness — not from a motive of hatred towards you, nor an intent to do you
harm — but from the love of wealth and to get rich quick; because the less I
pay you and the more you work, the more I will gain” (Bakunin
1871:7)
“Under capitalism, goods and services were distributed through the market; they were commodities that had to be bought before they could be used. Access was conditional on the ability to pay, rather than on actual need. An unemployed person without a wage had no specific right to the goods or services one needed to survive, while the wages of the employed workers were at best just able to cover ones basic needs” (van der Walt and Schmidt 2009:51).
This process excluded many from obtaining the goods they needed
to survive and excel. The ability to participate is the key factor which
determines an anarchist styled economy (Buck 2009:68). This is one of the main critiques of
capitalism by anarchist practitioners and scholars; that “the capitalist
structuring of life excludes participation from so much of human existence.
Some workplaces are worker-managed, some are even worker-owned, but the
communities in which such workplaces are located have no say over the values,
processes, and results of the workplace itself” (Buck
2009:68). Capitalism as such is seen as a non-participatory economy in which
countless people are marginalized, ostracized, or outright denied entry. This
creates multiple hierarchies that interact with each other in dangerous ways –
i.e. colonization, white racism, patriarchy, and capitalist modes of production
– all acting together in debilitating ways (Volcano and Shannon 2012:89).
Anarchists generally employed (actually were equally involved in
creating) Marxist class analysis (Shannon et. al. 2012:14). However, anarchist
theory points to the possibility of three classes rather than just two. There
was the working class – the producers (or those that were or will be) – which
included workers, unemployed, pensioners, etc. The ruling class – the owners of
power, people who controlled investment decisions, determined policy, etc –
which was comprised of owners, top managers, large land owners, top state
officials, politicians, etc. And a third class, often referred to as “the
middle class,” “the coordinator class,” or the “techno-managerial class,” which
highlights “the existence of people with a high degree of social power—often
directly over working people—such as high paid lawyers, tenured professors at
elite institutions, and so on.” This group is seen to have “material interests
in opposition to the ruling class and the working class,” though are placed
above workers in capitalist society due to their social power (Shannon et al. 2012:19-20). The
“oppressive hierarchies,” “pervasive social injustices,” and exploitation
inherent in the class issue “was uppermost in the minds of the anarchist
movement” (van der Walt and Schmidt 2009:50).
As such, anarchists “viewed class struggle as a necessary part of social
change, and saw in the victims of class domination and exploitation—the working
class and peasantry—[as] the agents of that change” (van der Walt and
Schmidt 2009:51-2). Within this class system, the
free market, private property, and wage-labor was nothing “but a means to
exploitation,” that could “be put aside whenever it suited the ruling class.”
To this accord, the ruling elite would publically imbue the rhetoric of ‘non-interference,'
by the state in economic and regulatory affairs while simultaneously using the
state to directly support, help, and protect their interests (the interests of
the exploiters), and bolster their positions of power” (i.e. protecting private
property) (van der Walt and Schmidt 2009:52).
Capitalism to anarchists was seen as using the state as a tool for the ruling
class, to the detriment of the working and coordinator classes.
This is the crux of anarchist thought, the state as a coercive,
violent actor that limits individual autonomy and freedom. To anarchists, the
role of the state within capitalist societies is clear: “the economic function
of the state” is to “protect private property and the accumulation of capital.”
(Shannon et al. 2012:21). These are things that obviously benefit the ruling
classes, and most certainly act against the interests of the working class, as
“the state is seen as a defender of the class system and a centralised body
that necessarily concentrates power in the hands of the ruling classes; in both
respects, it is the means through which a minority rules a majority” (van der Walt and
Schmidt 2009:52). Hence the need for the state…
“When a mother in search of food and shelter for her children must pass by shops filled with the most refined delicacies of refined gluttony; when gorgeous and insolent luxury is displayed side by side with the most execrable misery; when the dog and the horse of a rich man are far better cared for than millions of children whose mothers earn a pitiful salary in the pit or the manufactory; when each "modest" evening dress of a lady represents eight months, or one year of human labor; when enrichment at somebody else's expense is the avowed aim of the "upper classes," and no distinct boundary can be traced between honest and dishonest means of making money, then force is the only means for maintaining such a state of things. Then an army of policemen, judges, and hangmen becomes a necessary institution” (Kropotkin 1970[1887]:72).
Whether strong welfare, or a modern neoliberal, the state was
designed to dictate social and economic terms (and structures) that affected
individual and community capacities for self-determination. Capitalism and
landlordism did not exist in some “invisible” vacuum, they relied on the state
to enforce (or create) the optimum conditions for corporate rule and success.
To Anarchists, capitalism could not exist without the state, if you wanted to
abolish capitalism, and its inherent social inequality, you had to abolish the
state. Or as Peter Kropotkin said: “The no-capitalist system implies the
no-government system" (Kropotkin 1970[1887]:52).
While anarchism stresses
that people can run their own affairs “without the need for experts or
bureaucrats” (Shannon et al. 2012:13), it also differs from capitalism with an
ideology that does not just focus on the self and self-autonomy, but on the
individual’s place in society and communal life. Anarchists believe in mutual
aid and a self-autonomy that does not willfully harm others. This tends to be
the main distinction between anarchist autonomy and capitalist autonomy (or
what some erroneously call “anarcho-capitalism”[1]);
anarchism takes others into account and has “no legal possibility for coercive
aggression against the person or the property of any individual” (Marshall
2012:561). This of course differs from the individualism of Rand and Hayek that
posits that if one focuses on one’s self, acts in their own singular interests,
and makes themselves the best they can be, that society as a larger whole will
benefit – even if it may harm people within their direct contact in the shorter
term. Again, calling upon Kropotikin:
“It is impossible to conceive a society in which the affairs of any one of its members would not concern many others members, if not all; still less a society in which a continual contact between its members would not have established an interest of every one towards all others, which would render it impossible to act without thinking of the effects which our actions may have on others” (Kropotkin 1970[1887]:173-4).
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