anarchism = liberation movement

• criticism of authority
• alternative – free association, autonomy, mutual aid, solidarity, horizontality
• set of tools for moving from the current state to the alternative – by embodiment, prefiguration, direct action

“organize as if we are already free”

authority = power over other people whether they want to or not

hierarchy = order of power = organized authority

• order of importance is more like priority
• “it’s ok that there are taller and shorter people, but if everything is on the top shelf, it is a problem”
• rigidity

capitalism

• accumulation of stuff
• private ownership of the means of production
• extraction

state

• monopoly on violence
• nation = social construct
• organisations for managing population in an authoritarian manner
• group that defines the socioeconomic of system of a nation
• separate from society, it rules society

capitalism and the state

• states can exist whenever exploitation exists – capitalism is just one instance

freedom and autonomy

• having a voice to influence and change our conditions
• independence
• self-determination for individuals
• “ability to express yourself fully”
• can be separated?
• could self-expression be violent? – ✨no✨
• degrees of freedom – not all or nothing
• freedom of enterprise and markets

mutual aid

• taking, initiating freedom
• helping oneself by helping one another
• example: masks in a pandemic!
• keeping each other safe – not as market transactions
• = cooperation? – cooperation can be organised in markets, too
• cooperation based on equality

free association

• everything you do, organise together with others on your own will, voluntarily
• collectives
• blaming Bakunin for something
• is expertise inherently authoritative? – anarchists are divided on this
• freedom in another language: “under your own self” – under your own authority
• is management always needed in an organisation?
• hierarchy is always present
• dialogues: if you speak, I don’t speak – but it switches from time to time
• authority = imposed version of power
• lack of threat of violence
• management: oversight can happen, if the group can change their position
• division of roles is fine in itself

anarchism

• do it yourself, do it together, no one above or below you
• opposing authority for 3 reasons:
• authority hurts
• authority is a tool for exploitation – police, army
• authority is needless

federation = free association of free associations

• networking is more horizontal
• no central committees
• example: RSS is in the Vrije Bond – we do what we want but use VB funds and networks
• marxists: socialism is between capitalism and communism – is there an inbetween for capitalism and anarchy?
• difference from marxism and other leftists
• marxism is also very broad
• marxists claim to use authority for the good of society – anarchists don’t
• marxism, anarchism, communism, … – can become buzzwords
• anarchism is more bottom-up, communism is more top-down
• some people identify as marxists but can also be seen as anarchists
• some marxists use hierarchy, authority, the army to achieve communism – these things are supposed to gradually dissolve
• anarchists’ critique: authority tends to reproduce itself
• example: NATO – should have dissolved with the end of the Cold War because it came to life because of the USSR → yet its existence is justified with different reasons now
• the party is authoritarian
• difference between anarchism and anarcho-communism?
• communism with little c is good, but with a big C it’s bad
• state capitalist states
• maoism – Mao saw the party as acting as capitalists
• Mao criticised the party then just stepped into its place – stalinist
• working on abolishing the state on both small and big scales – examples? how to get rid of the state?
• doing the state’s job is anarchism → it takes power away from the state, separating social functions from the state
• loud street sweeping in Philadelphia at 7 in the morning → barricade → police? → success✨
• replacing relationships and spaces that the state would provide → making the state obsolete
• big scale? – Vrije Bond
• CNT in Spain
• connecting people is the big scale
• winning requires large numbers of people
• preventing a nazi march = making the police obsolete
• cooperatives – workers controlling their own work and means of production
• anarchic things = doing what anarchists would want without labelling yourself as anarchist
• enacting what we believe in
• force and violence might not be avoided – the state will be violent if you bother it too much
• anarchism is inherently violent towards the state – on small scale, it can be ignored, on large scale, it will lead to violence from the state
• there can be oppression without the state – that oppression is also bad
• “after the revolution…” – no happy ever after, it will just be less bad
• freedom is a process, not a thing
• reproducing oppression even if we try to be anarchist…
• patriarchy, white supremacy, colonialism, exploitation of nature…
• new oppressions are possible – eternal fight
• anarchists are not immune to these things, but anarchy offers possible answers
• oppose it where you see it, find allies for it
• there’s no complete solution

What to read?¶

pls add if I left out something!

• old anarchists: Malatesta
• Bakunin is harder to read, Kropotkin, Emma Goldman
• Goldman: Anrchism and other essays
• Zoe Baker: Means and ends
• theanarchistlibrary.org
  (decentralization)