Anarchism as a political philosophy, is booming. Foundation of the organization in the global justice movement as they were, the traditional anarchist principles-autonomy, voluntary association, self-management, mutual aid, direct democracy-have come to play this role in radical movements of all kinds in the world . And yet it had almost no echo in academia. Anarchists often ask anthropologists on their ideas about various ways to organize society on more egalitarian, less alienating. Anthropologists have only one answer for their silence, their silence. And if it were otherwise?
p.112:
I am proposing this reluctantly but relentlessly to naturalize capitalism by reducing it to a matter of commercial calculation (which can claim it is as old as Sumer), the make it imperative. We need at least an adequate theory of the history of labor relations and other employee related. It is, after all, in paid work, not by buying and selling, that most humans today are wasting most of their days, and that's what makes them unhappy. (Thus the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) were not saying they were "anti-capitalist" although they had been, they went straight to the point and told to be "against the wage system.") The first employee labor contracts that we have seem to concern the rental of slaves. And if our model of capitalism from here? If anthropologists like Jonathan Friedman argue that the old forms of slavery were simply an older version of capitalism, we might as well move-in fact much could easily-that modern capitalism is just a new version of slavery. Rather than being rented or sold by others, we praise ourselves. But it is essentially the same sort of arrangement.
p.114:
In fact the threat this man armed with a stick is omnipresent in our world, most of us have abandoned the idea of crossing the endless lines and barriers it creates, only to avoid having to remember its existence. If you see a starving woman who stands a few meters from a huge pile of food - an everyday occurrence for Most of us who live in town, there's a reason you just can not take a little and give him some. A man with a big stick and you would probably hit. Anarchists, by contrast, have always taken pleasure in recalling his presence. Residents of the squatter community of Christiania, Denmark, for example, have a ritual for the holiday season: they dressed as Father Christmas, take toys in department stores and distribute them to children in the street, party just so that everyone can enjoy the image of policemen beating Santa and snatching toys to children in tears.
p.115:
A surefire way to simplify the social arrangements, to ignore the game incredibly complex perspectives, passions, intuitions, desires and mutual understanding that human life is made, is to establish a rule and threaten to attack any person who contravenes. C'st why violence has always been the favorite resort of stupid people: it is the form of stupidity that it is almost impossible to give an intelligent answer. This is certainly the foundation of the state.
p.120:
anarchist social relations and forms shares are not disposed of all around us. This is especially important that this shows that anarchism is already and always has been a key foundation of human interaction. We self-organize and we practice mutual aid all the time. We have always done.
p.124:
During the demonstrations that preceded the World Economic Forum, a host of important businessmen, press officers of large corporations and politicians, while developing networks of relationships and drinking cocktails at the Waldorf Astoria, claimed discuss ways to reduce global poverty. I was invited to participate in a radio debate with one of their representatives. The task has finally fallen to another activist, but I went far enough to prepare a three-point program that I think would have solved the problem:
- the immediate cancellation of international debt (an amnesty for debts personal may not be a bad idea either, but that's another issue);
- the immediate cancellation of all patents and other intellectual property rights related to technologies for over a year;
- The elimination of all restrictions to freedom of movement or choice of residence in the world.
The rest takes care of itself almost. As soon as he would no longer prohibits the average person in Tanzania or Laos to settle in Minneapolis or in Rotterdam, the governments of all countries rich and powerful in the world certainly decide that nothing is more important than to find a way to ensure that people in Tanzania and Laos prefer to stay. Do you really think they would not find a solution?
The important thing is that despite a rhetoric that wishes ending about "subtle and complex issues insoluble" (justifying decades of expensive research by the rich and their minions well-paid), the anarchist program would probably solve most of them in 5 or 6 years. But, you say, these claims are totally unrealistic! That's true. But why are they? Mainly because these rich men gathered at the Waldorf does not tolerate. That's why we say that are the problem.
p.126:
The fight against child
For anarchists, the struggle against child labor has always been central, understood not as the fight for better wages or better working conditions, but as the total elimination of labor as a relation of domination. Hence the slogan of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) "against the wage system." It is a long-term goal, of course. In the shorter term, which can not be eliminated may be limited. At the turn of last century the Wobblies and anarchists played a central role in achieving the five-day week and eight-hour day.
In recent years, social democratic governments in Western Europe have further reduced the work week, for the first time in nearly a century. These changes are insignificant (from 40 to 35 hours per week), but the U.S. it does not even matter. It discusses instead of eliminating compensation and one-half for overtime, despite the fact that Americans now work more hours than any other population in the world, including Japan. The Wobblies are returned with that already in the 1920s, was to be the next step in their program: the week of 16 hours ("the 4-day week, day 4 hours).
Again, this seems unrealistic at first sight, and even foolish. But has anyone done a feasibility study? After all, it was shown that a significant number of hours worked in the United States does its necessary, in fact, to remedy the problems caused by the fact that Americans work too. (Take, for example, jobs such as pizza delivery at night or dog groomer, or women who take care of the night for the children of women in business ... not to mention the endless hours spent by specialists to repair the damage emotional physical and caused by overexertion, injuries, suicides, divorces, murderous rampage, the production of drugs to calm the children ...)
What jobs are really needed, then? Well, for starters, there are many jobs that would disappear, the general view, a net gain for humanity. Take for instance, telemarketers, manufacturers of sport utility vehicles "stretched" or, since there is, the corporate lawyers. We could also eliminate the advertising industry and public relations, send all the politicians and their staff, eliminate anyone who is linked directly or indirectly with organizations of health maintenance (HMO), and we would still be far from essential social functions. Eliminating advertising would also reduce the production, transportation and sale of products unnecessary, since people will always find a way to purchase the goods they want or they need. The radical elimination of inequalities mean that we would no longer require the services of the majority of millions of people currently employed as doormen, private security officers, guards Piso or special forces to intervene, not to mention the military. Beyond that, it should be researched. Financiers, insurers and securities dealers are essentially parasites, but some functions in these sectors can be useful and could simply be replaced by software. One the other, if we identify the work that is really necessary to maintain a comfortable standard of living and environmentally sustainable, and if we redistribute the hours, the program could prove Wobbly perfectly realistic. Especially since it's not as if anyone would be forced to stop work after four hours he likes it or not. Many people love their jobs, certainly more than laze all day (which is why, in prisons, they deprive the detainees of their right to work when they want to punish them), and much more if you would like the eliminated the constant humiliation and sado-masochistic games that inevitably result from the hierarchical organization. It could even be that nobody would have to work more than he wants. Note
secondary
It is true that all this presupposes the complete reorganization of work, a kind of scenario after revolution "which, as I mentioned, is a necessary tool even if only to start thinking about human possibilities, even if the revolution will never take such an apocalyptic form. This raises the obvious question: who will do the dirty work? "A question that always started with anarchists. Peter Kropotkin pointed out long ago that it was a fallacy. There is no reason for there being dirty jobs. If we divided the tasks equally unpleasant, all scientists and engineers should also make known, and then one could expect such as kitchens and self-cleaning robots coal mining are designed almost instantly.
p.131:
Democracy
The first cycle of the new world rising - what the press continues to call, what is more ridiculous, the "anti-globalization - began with the autonomous municipalities Chiapas and culminated with the Asamblea Barreales Buenos Aires and cities across Argentina. I can not tell the whole story here, which begins with the rejection by the Zapatistas of the idea of taking power and their attempt to create a model of democratic self-organization that would inspire the rest of Mexico, the creation of an initiative to their international network (People's Global Action), which was subsequently appealed to the days of action against the World Trade Organization (Seattle) and the International Monetary Fund (Washington, Prague ...) and so on, and finally collapse and the massive popular uprising which, again, rejected the idea that we can find a solution by replacing a group of politicians with another. The slogan of the movement in Argentina, was from the beginning, that is Vayana todos - "they all leave . Rather than a new government, they created a vast network of alternative institutions, starting with popular assemblies to govern each district (the only restriction being that participation can not be employed by a political party ) occupation and management by workers in hundreds of factories, a complex system of barter, and a modern alternative monetary system to sustain them-in short, an endless variation on the theme of direct democracy .
All this happened completely off the radar screen of mainstream media, who did not understand the goal of large mobilizations. The organization of these actions would be a living illustration of what would a truly democratic world, giant puppets in the careful organization of affinity groups and councils for deliberation, all operating without leadership structure, and always based on the principles of direct democracy based on consensus. it was the kind of organization that most people have dismissed as a pipe dream if it had been proposed, but it worked so effectively and that in a city after another, the police did absolutely not know how to react.
p.139:
The real reason behind the reluctance of most scholars consider a village council or sulawesi Tallensi as "democratic" - apart from simple racism, refusal to admit that none of those who were massacred by the West with impunity was less than Pericles-is that their members do not vote. However, it must be admitted that this is an interesting fact. Why do not they? If we admit that a vote by show of hands or by storing a side of the place or the other depending on whether one supports or opposes a proposal, are not incredibly sophisticated methods if they would never have occurred to anyone before some brilliant minds of antiquity does "inventions", then why are they so rarely used? Again, it seems that we have here an example of explicit rejection. Repeatedly, throughout the world, from Australia to Siberia, egalitarian communities have preferred a variant or another of the consensus process.
Why?
I propose the following explanation: it is much easier in a community where everyone knows each other, to achieve what most members of this community want to find ways to convince those who do not follow. Decision making by consensus is characteristic of societies where there is no way to compel a minority to accept a majority decision - either because there are no state with a monopoly of coercive force, or because the state does not deal with decisions of a local. If there is no way to force those to whom the decision of the majority does inappropriate to follow them, then the last thing we want is to take a vote: a public competition where someone will be necessarily seen as a loser. Voting is the surest guarantee of humiliation, resentment, hatred, ultimately, destruction of communities. What appears to be a complex and difficult to reach a consensus is indeed a long process to ensure that nobody is left with the impression that his views have received no attention.
p.148:
"We", whether "the West", the "modern world" or whatever what else, we're not as exceptional as we think, we are not alone in practicing democracy, and in fact, rather than to spread democracy around the world, governments 'Western' spent at least as much time to meddle in the lives of people who have practiced for thousands of years and tell them one way or another, to terminate.
One of the most encouraging about these new anarchist-inspired movements is that they offer a new form of internationalism. The former communist internationalism had beautiful ideals, but in organizational terms were all in the same direction. It became a way for schemes outside Europe and its colonies to learn Western styles of organizations: the structures of the party, the whole drains, bureaucratic hierarchies, the secret police in ... what might be called the second wave of internationalism or, simply, globalization anarchist forms of organization have largely moved in the opposite direction. It's not just the process of consensus: the idea of direct action mass non-violent first developed in South Africa and India, the current networking model was first proposed by the rebels in Chiapas, even the affinity group concept comes from Spain and Latin America. The fruit-and technical-of ethnography could be of immense value if anthropologists were able to overcome their reluctance (even if they are understandable) for their own sordid story colonial times, and if they were to see that on which they sit, not as a guilty secret, but now as a common heritage of mankind.
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