But wait! Isn't my country already a democracy?
"All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing." - Edmund Burke
"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful committed citizens can change the world; indeed it's the only thing that ever has." - Margaret Mead
"It is the common fate of the indolent to see their rights become a prey to the active. The condition upon which God hath given liberty to man is eternal vigilance; which condition if he break, servitude is at once the consequence of his crime and the punishment of his guilt." - John Philpot Curran
"Every new child born brings the message that God is not yet discouraged of man." - Tagore
Why act?
"Imagine that you're beside a river, that quickly turns into rapids and a waterfall. Let's say that there are people upstream, who are throwing other people in, faster and faster. You have a net beside you, so you try to rescue the people as they float by. However, there's too many of them. You catch some in your net, but you see others float by, and go over the waterfall. There are several things you can do:
Give up and go home, seeing the futility of it all.
Focus on those you're helping, and give yourself a big pat on the back.
Work harder and harder to catch people, probably burning yourself out, and never getting everyone anyway.
Blame the people who you don't catch for not swimming hard enough.
Go upstream and try to do something -- anything -- to stop the people from being thrown in the first place.
This is what life is like a lot of times. Charity is necessary in the short term to stop needless suffering and death. But for the long term, it only makes sense to help people by not hurting them anymore. This means a change in how we live our own lives, and trying to change the way our various communities, governments, and businesses conduct their business." - Kev Smith
The time is near
The year 2000 - Liberalism Resurgent
The year 2000 - Labor and Capital in the New World Order
1. Free yourself as an individual
2. Free your community
3. Free the world
If this seems simple, it is because democracy needs to have faith in individuals and communities to be capable of working out their own details. As Proudhon argued, "liberty is the mother of order, not its daughter." There must be no "rules in stone" or doctrine - democratic strength is found in diversity and change. The chaotic organization (and improvisation) of democracy will be superior to any designed system, because it will have been made by we the people, who are superior to any one individual.
When people serve and obey, (in this example, under wage labour) they are selling their creative energy and control over themselves. The boss does not just take spare value from the time employees sell, but the time itself -their ability to make their own decisions, express themselves through work and with their fellow workers. A worker in a democracy "takes his stand on his positive right to life and all its pleasures, both intellectual, moral and physical. He loves life, and intends to enjoy it to the full." [Mikhail Bakunin, quoted in _Bakunin: The Philosophy of Freedom_, p. 118]
In conclusion, this section is not about democracy must be done, but a few ways it *could* be done. If you want utopia with a blueprint, you'd be wanting something authoritarian.
As the word "revolution" suggests, it always ends up right back where it started. It is not a situation of a decisive battle between power and the people, in which power would win no matter who loses. It should be a contstant war, a series of campains that hit at weak spots, isolate strong points, using judo tactics instead of suicidal head-on attacks; to gradually wear down the power of authority, while preparing humanity for democracy.
One of the best ways to destroy something is to ignore it. If we the people decide to ignore the bosses and leaders that profit from us, their illusion of being superhumans will be shattered. Of course, nothing is that simple - just because we ignore them doesn't mean that they'll ignore us! We must enter our battle against authoritarianism with both a shield and a sword. We need to build an alternative society, while agressively attacking the current system to weaken it. Without a combination of offence and defence, even the best warrior gets defeated.
In another militant analogy (I recommend reading all about the art and science of war - after all, it's mainly what's going on, except only the government is shooting) consider a geurilla war and a war on an obvious front. (Napoleon in Spain), or a tactical war on the battlefield, with a strategic war being fought with bombers. ( ww2). While we can weaken authority, we need to finish it off. If we just plain fight without weakening them, we will be overpowered.
I'll get more and more specific as this page goes on...
The key word here is DO. Don't talk. "In earlier times, muckraking writers showed Americans the underbelly truths of their society, and shocked, Americans reacted by demanding change. But the realities of television and advanced communications today mean we know all the horrible truths, not only of our society but our world. We are force-fed them again and again, until we are numb. Perhaps, now, [we] must show us something else: how to act like a civilized and caring people." - Joyce Marcel
First of all, take an axe or crowbar to your television set (you won't believe how satisfying this is!). If you find this too wasteful, leave it in the basement until some tv channels are viewer-controlled. Whatever you do, don't sell it - that's just putting your garbage in someone else's yard. Read! Encourage others to read! Here's a list of good books (ask your librarian to get them - maybe you'll want to buy them and donate them to the library, but be warned - usually they only accept donations for PR purposes. Make sure the books will actually be added to the collection!)
Secondly, see if there's any communities around that could lessen your dependence on authoritarian society. Look here
Next, either join them, help them out, or start your own and co-operate with them. Shop at the Salvation army, or at garage sales. Forget luxuries - Jesus didn't need a VCR and neither do you. Send the money you save here.
See if you can set up or join a Local Economy Trading System (LETS).
Get involved in direct action. Participate in any decent protests that are around, get yourself arrested a few times, (make it a hobby, and get your friends to join you) make sure people know that there's a resistence movement. Lots of people are sympathetic to the democratic movement, they just don't know it exists (they learn from mainstream media). Overall, be aggressive - you can't just hide away from authoritarianism!
Always remember the rule of "1% inspiration, 99% perspiration". This is a gruntwork revolution, one of building, rather than destroying. Destructive and bloody revolutions are easy - and result accordingly, with things ending up the same way they began.
Be ready for setbacks. Lots of 'em! You're not here just because you wanted to be on the side that's winning, are you?
Radicals have no excuse for being a minority movement. Large numbers (The stats are somewhere else in the FAQ) of people know the government is of no use to the common people, lots of people consider corporations to be immoral, etc. People continue to hold the hands that hold them down because "it could be worse" or "what else is there?" etc.
The problem with radicalism is that it's aimed at students. It should be aimed primarily at workers, but also at the bourgeoisie - after all, they (we: I'm bourgeois) will have to be converted sometime.
Big money propaganda-BS tends to get people drooling over riches (think of Forbes's magazine) while completely ignoring the reality of life for most people. If we respond by pointing out how lousy economic-freedom-to-own-slaves makes the world, the bourgeois won't want to listen - it just won't cheer them up. For us bourgeois, that's the whole point of information. Us bourgeoises love nothing more than some good band-aid-liberalism, but when it comes to change - no-no.
I suggest getting involved at the closest church and trying to get some democratic activism going there. If you're an atheist, read up on your local religion - basically they all say "do good", and insist that this be your church's top priority. If it seems hopeless or too reformist for you, get to know people, then announce that you're starting your own church in your garage. Who knows, it might work.
To communicate with the droolers we should point out how much more efficient democratic communities are - an easy example is how the sharing of property cuts out a load of stupidity. Point out to your neighbours that every house on the street has a lawn mower, a waffle iron, an ice cream machine, etc. etc. That's a phenomenal waste of "money" (sadly, that's what efficiency and prosperity are measured in) which could be spent on (say something to get your neighbour drooling) vacations (very effective in Canada), a fancy sports car that the whole community would have access too etc.
Once property is being shared, and people actually meet with each other, the activism can get started. Maybe your community will rent a bus and take part in every protest and strike there is.
Once people are active, start boycotting the authoritarian world (this is the tough part - you'll probably need religion on your side, unless your neighbours are incredibly moralistic).
Next, get economic freedom (go ahead, call it that!) for your community, but using the spare cash (or spare time, by convincing people to quit (or slack until they get "downsized") their wage-slave jobs) to get/make capital. Team up with other democratic communities and decide what need you'll be fulfilling - don't make lava lamps, those are only good for the authoritarian world - focus on food and capital.
Of course, focus on what the people want to do - this is the main weakness of trying to democratize the bourgeoises, the threat that the slaves will turn into enslavers. We will just have to trust that with the changes in system will be paralleled by changes in attitudes.
Can it wait?
The Baby boomers, who caused so much pinkness duing the 60's, will soon be retireing, and finding much time on their hands. Meanwhile, the young are getting active, and the miracle invention of pepper spray isn't slowing us down. Maybe we got inspired by the Berlin wall - petty vandalism sometimes isn't all it seems. Maybe with the end of the cold war we can't be branded as the enemy. Maybe the internet has something to do with it.
We must act fast. The Baby boomers will get senile, the young will be replaced by the barney-generation, and (unless we do something about it) the internet will become a despotic pap-injector like television. Search engines will ignore whatever isn't "appropriate". Keyboards will be replaced by "for" and "against" buttons. "Should we kill dissidents or just torture them? It's your call!"
I'll also mention that every year democracy is delayed another holocaust occurs (See "Why?")
But I can help as an individual, right?
Some things can be done by individuals, like making a web site (though with anti-copywrite it's possible to get help from people you've never met or even communicated with). Individual work can only go so far, mainly because our problems are mainly social, not individual. That's why it's best to fight for democracy collectively. Besides, it's fun!
There's no point in asking those with power to surrender it. There's also no point in fighting on their "home turf", their courthouses, senates, lobbys, and stock markets (or battlefields). All of these things are designed to be totally alien (or just plain deadly) to the average person. They require endless training, ritual, and most of all, money.
What we need to do is liberate ourselves, get others to liberate themselves, and then ensure that our freedom can be taken away again. Voting for some political party wouldn't do the first two- we'd be expecting someone else to do our work for us - and can be expected to turn rotten the moment it become establishment. That said, there's nothing wrong with us using votes as tools but let's always remember that we're voting for the lesser of two evils, and that itself is evil!
As Noam Chomsky argues, "Only through their own struggle for liberation will ordinary people come to comprehend their true nature, suppressed and distorted within institutional structures designed to assure obedience and subordination. Only in this way will people develop more humane ethical standards, 'a new sense of right', 'the consciousness of their strength and their importance as a social factor in the life of their time' and their capacity to realise the strivings of their 'inmost nature.' Such direct engagement in the work of social reconstruction is a prerequisite for coming to perceive this 'inmost nature' and is the indispensable foundations upon which it can flourish." [preface to Rudolf Rocker's _Anarcho-Syndicalism_, p. viii]
In other words, democracy is not merely a utopian vision of a better future, but the battle to gain that future.
Frederick Douglass (an Abolitionist) said that:
"If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who claim to like freedom yet don't want agitation are people who want crops without plowing up the ground. They want rain without thunder and lightning. That struggle might be a moral one; it might be a physical one; it might be both moral and physical, but it must be a struggle. Power gives nothing without a demand. It never did and never will. People might not get all that they work for in this world, but they must certainly work for all they get." (Slightly translated)
As well as fighting against material poverty, democracy combats spiritual poverty. By resisting hierarchy it emphasizes the importance of *living* and of *life as art.* By proclaiming "Neither Master nor Slave" we urge an ethical transformation that will lead to freedom.
In the Russian revolution there was a demand for freedom, but not the new ethics to gain it. As a result, they let Lenin become ruler. The resulting state-capitalist oppression has been well documented.
What's the link between democracy and social struggles?
"Social struggle" includes strikes, marches, protests, demonstrations, boycotts, occupations (squatting) and so on. Such activities show that the "spirit of revolt" is alive and well, that people are thinking and acting for themselves, regardless of what what authoritarians want them to do.
Social struggle brings common people together, and gets them used to cooperation and mutual aid - as opposed to competition and bargaining. This unity breaks the authoritarian strategy of "divide and conquer".
Howard Zinn said that "civil disobedience. . . is *not* our problem. Our problem is civil *obedience.* Our problem is that numbers of people all over the world have obeyed the dictates of the leaders of their government and have gone to war, and millions have been killed because of this obedience. . . Our problem is that people are obedient all over the world in the face of poverty and starvation and stupidity, and war, and cruelty. Our problem is that people are obedient while the jails are full of petty thieves, and all the while the grand thieves are running the country. That's our problem." [_Failure to Quit_, p. 45]
To help democracy, one should take part in any decent social struggles, as well as explain to fellow strugglers what democracy is about, and how authority is not democratic.
There's no point in "waiting for the revolution" if you're not free now, most likely you won't be free in democracy.
"Capitalism, to be sure, did not create the 'economy' or 'class interest,' but it subverted all human traits - be they speculative thought, love, community, friendship, art, or self-governance - with the authority of economic calculation and the rule of quantity. Its 'bottom line' is the balance sheet's sum and its basic vocabulary consists of simple numbers." [Murray Bookchin, _The Modern Crisis_, pp. 125-126]
Freedom, justice, individual dignity, and quality of life can never be mesured in dollars and cents.
As the anarchist character created by the science-fiction writer Ursula Le Gui points out, capitalists "think if people have enough things they will be content to live in prison." [_The Dispossessed_, p. 120]
Why are social struggles important?
When it boils down to it, our actual freedom is not determined by the law or by courts, but by the power the cop has over us in the street; the judge behind him; by the authority of our boss if we are working; by the power of teachers and heads of schools and universities if we are students; by the welfare bureaucracy if we are unemployed or poor; by landlords if we are tenants; by prison guards if we are in jail; by medical professionals if we are in a hospital. The battle should be on the same ground our liberty is restricted - on the street, in workplaces, at home, at school, in hospitals and so on.
Social struggle helps break people away from their hierarchical conditioning. People not as fixed objects to be classified and labeled, but as human beings engaged in making their own lives. They live, love, think, feel, hope, dream, and can change themselves, their environment and social relationships.
Struggle promotes qualities within people which are crushed (by rules, or because of no need for them) by hierarchy (attributes such as imagination, organisational skills, self-assertion, self-management, critical thought, self-confidence and so on) as people come up against practical problems in their struggles and have to solve them themselves. This builds self-confidence and an awareness of individual and collective power. When people struggle, they learn.
Should we support reforms?
Yes, but we should not *DEPEND* on them.
Any Radicial movement seeks the root causes of problems, not the mere problems themselves. For example, consider a tree, representing poverty. If we want to end poverty, we must kill that tree (Sorry, I love trees, but it's the best analogy I can come up with - try the next paragraph and see if you prefer it). We could give to starving people, which would be like cutting leaves off the tree with a pair of scissors - it's quick and easy, but doesn't do much, and the leaves will simply grow back. In order to really end poverty, one should start hacking away at the thick trunk - it's hard, you don't know if you're making much progress, but it's the only way that works. Now, cutting off leaves while we're at it wastes time and effort, though it has some uses. Maybe we some practice before we trust ourselves with an axe.
Okay, here's an environmentally friendly analogy: there's an evil fortress that must be destroyed. Do you climb to the top and pick off bricks one by one (while it's defenders quickly repair the damage), or do you use explosives on the foundations? Knocking out bricks is fun, while working with explosives is difficult and dangerous - but there's only one way to destroy the fort.
A reformist sees poverty and looks at ways to lessen it's effects: this produced things like the minimum wage and affirmative action, things we'd never complain about. However, we should look at poverty and ask, "what causes this?" We should attack the source of poverty, (or whatever) rather than the symptoms. It's like being treated by a doctor that gives you pain-killer pills, or a doctor who will find your hideous tumor and cut it out before it kills you.
However, there's no need not to prescribe pain-killers while waiting for the operation: "[w]hile preaching against every kind of government, and demanding complete freedom, we must support all struggles for partial freedom, because we are convinced that one learns through struggle, and that once one begins to enjoy a little freedom one ends by wanting it all. We must always be with the people. . . [and] get them to understand. . . [what] they may demand should be obtained by their own efforts and that they should despise and detest whoever is part of, or aspires to, government." [Errico Malatesta, _Life and Ideas_ p. 195]
This doctor analogy leads us to the recent "health care crisis" in the United States.
The reformist says, "how can we make health care more affordable to people? How can we keep those insurance rates down to levels people can pay?" when we should be saying "should health care be considered a privilege or a right? Is medical care just another marketable commodity, or do living beings have an inalienable right to it?"
Notice the difference? The reformist has no problem with people paying for medical care-business is business, right? An ethical person would never have that attitude - we're talking about human lives, here! For now, reformists have won with their "managed care" reformism, which ensures that the insurance companies and medical industry continue to rake in record profits - at the expense of people's lives.
Reformists get uncomfortable when you talk about genuinely bringing change to any system - they don't see anything wrong with the system itself, only with a few pesky side effects (like 12 million starvation deaths every year). In this sense, they are stewards of the Establishment, and are agents of reaction, despite their altruistic overtures. By failing to attack the sources of problems, and by hindering those who do, they ensure that the problems at hand will only grow over time.
So is reformism helpful?
Reformists can present the public with they've done and say "look, all is better now. The system worked." Trouble is that over time, the problems will only continue to grow, because the reforms didn't tackle them in the first place.
Reformists also tend to objectify the people whom they are "helping;" they envision them as helpless, formless masses who need the wisdom and guidance of the "best and the brightest" to lead them to the Promised Land. Reformists mean well, but this is altruism borne of ignorance, which is destructive over the long run. As Malatesta put it, "[i]t is not true to say . . . [that anarchists] are systematically opposed to improvements, to reforms. They oppose the reformists on the one hand because their methods are less effective for securing reforms from government and employers, who only give in through fear, and because very often the reforms they prefer are those which not only bring doubtful immediate benefits, but also serve to consolidate the existing regime and to give the workers a vested interest in its continued existence." [_Life and Ideas_, p. 81]
Reformists are scared of revolutionaries, who are not easily controlled; what reformism amounts to is an altruistic contempt for the masses (think of attempts to "civilize the savages", in which natives were put in the world's first concentration camps) Reformists mean well, but they don't grasp the larger picture--by focusing exclusively on narrow aspects of a problem, they choose to believe that is the whole problem. The disaster of the urban rebuilding projects in the United States (and similar projects in Britain which moved inter-city working class communities into edge of town developments during the 1950s and 1960s) are an example of reformism at work: upset at the growing slums, reformists supported projects that destroyed the ghettos and built brand-new housing for working class people to live in. They looked nice (initially), but they did nothing to address the problem of poverty and indeed created more problems by breaking up communities and neighbourhoods.
Logically, it makes no sense. Why dance around a problem when you can attack it directly? Reformists dilute revolutionary movements, softening and weakening them over time. The AFL-CIO labour unions in the USA, like the ones in Western Europe, killed the labour movement by narrowing and channeling labour activity and taking the power from the workers themselves, where it belongs, and placing it the hands of a bureaucracy. And that's precisely what reformists do; they suck the life from social movements until the people who are supposed to be in a better situation because of the reformists end up in a worse situation.
Reformists say, "don't do anything, we'll do it for you."
Also, it is funny to hear left-wing "revolutionaries" and "radicals" put forward the reformist line that the capitalist state can help working people (indeed be used to abolish itself!). Despite the fact that leftists blame the state and capitalism for most of the problems we face, they usually turn to the state (run primarily by rich - i.e. capitalist - people) to remedy the situation, not by leaving people alone, but by becoming more involved in people's lives. They support government housing, government jobs, welfare, government-funded and regulated child care, government-funded drug "treatment," and other government-centered programmes and activities. If a capitalist (and racist/sexist/authoritarian) government is the problem, how can it be depended upon to change things to the benefit of working class people or other oppressed sections of the population like blacks and women?
Instead of encouraging working class people to organise themselves and create their own alternatives and solutions to their problem (which can supplement, and ultimately replace, whatever welfare state activity which is actually useful), reformists urge people to get the state to act for them. However, the state is not the community and so whatever the state does for people you can be sure it will be in *its* interests, not theirs. As Kropotkin put it:
"each step towards economic freedom, each victory won over capitalism will be at the same time a step towards political liberty - towards liberation from the yoke of the state. . . And each step towards taking from the State any one of its powers and attributes will be helping the masses to win a victory over capitalism." [_Kropotkin's Revolutionary Pamphlets_, pp. 181-2]
Getting the state out of the way is the only thing that will lead to the changes that can produce an improvement in the lives of working class people. Encouraging people to rely on themselves instead of the state can lead to self-sufficient, independent, and, hopefully, more rebellious people - people who will rebel against the real evils in society (authoritarian exploitation and oppression, racism, sexism, ecological destruction, and so on) and not their neighbours.
Working class people, despite having fewer options in a number of areas in their lives, due both to hierarchy and restrictive laws, still are capable of making choices about their actions, organising their own lives and are responsible for the consequences of their decisions, just as other people are. To think otherwise is to infantilise them, to consider them less fully human than other people and reproduce the classic capitalist vision of working class people as means of production, to be used, abused, and discarded as required. Such thinking lays the basis for paternalistic control of their lives by the government, ensuring their continued dependence and poverty and the continued existence of capitalism and the state.
Why think that ordinary people cannot arrange their lives for themselves as well as Government people can arrange it not for themselves but for others?
What about "single issue" campaigns?
If chosen wisely and done properly, these can be effective. Most of the time, they are not.
A "single-issue" campaign are usually run by a pressure group which concentrates on tackling issues one at a time. For example, C.N.D. (The Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament) is a classic example of "single-issue" campaigning with the aim of getting rid of nuclear weapons as the be all and end all of its activity. The possibilities of changing one aspect of a totally inter-related system and the belief that pressure groups can compete fairly with transnational corporations, the military and so forth, in their influence over decision making bodies can both be seen to be optimistic at best. It's like an army attacking along a narrow front, with nobody to protect their sides - the enemy just goes around the army and attacks them from behind.
In addition, many "single-issue" campaigns desire to be "apolitical", concentrating purely on the one issue which unites the campaign and so refuse to discuss the system responsible for the problem. This means that they end up accepting the system which causes the problems they are fighting against. At best, any changes achieved by the campaign must be acceptable to the establishment or be so watered down in content that no practical long-term good is done.
This can be seen from the green movement, where groups like Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth accept the status quo as a given and limit themselves to working within it. This often leads to them tailoring their "solutions" to be "practical" within a fundamentally anti-ecological political and economic system, so slowing down (at best) ecological disruption.
As Larry Law argues "single issue politics. . .deals with the issue or problem in isolation. When one problem is separated from all other problems, a solution really is impossible. The more campaigning on an issue there is, the narrower its perspectives become. . .As the perspective of each issue narrows, the contradictions turn into absurdities. . . What single issue politics does is attend to 'symptoms' but does not attack the 'disease' itself. It presents such issues as nuclear war, racial and sexual discrimination, poverty, starvation...etc., as if they were aberrations or faults in the system. In reality such problems are the inevitable consequence of a social order based on exploitation and hierarchical power. . .single issue campaigns lay their appeal for relief at the feet of the very system which oppresses them. By petitioning they acknowledge the right of those in power to exercise that power as they choose" [_Bigger Cages, Longer Chains_, pp. 17-20].
Single issue politics often prolong the struggle for a free society by fostering illusions that it is just parts of the capitalist system which are wrong, not the whole of it, and that those at the top of the system can, and will, act in our interests. While such campaigns can do some good, practical, work and increase knowledge and education about social problems, they are limited by their very nature and can not lead to extensive improvements in the here and now, never mind a free society.
Flawed as single issue campaigns are, they are good places to get contacts and argue for more effective activities. If these campaigns help limit authoritarian power, or do something to empower the people, they are better than nothing. The civil rights struggle may have been single issue, but it has made a very big difference.
Why generalize social struggles?
Basically, in order to encourage solidarity. This is *the* key to winning struggles in the here and now as well as creating the class consciousness necessary to create a democratic society. At its most simple, generalising different struggles means increasing the chance of winning them. Take, for example, a strike in which one trade or one workplace goes on strike while the others continue to work:
"Consider yourself how foolish and inefficient is the present form of labour organisation in which one trade or craft may be on strike while the other branches of the same industry continue to work. Is it not ridiculous that when the street car workers of New York, for instance, quit work, the employees of the subway, the cab and omnibus drivers remain on the job? . . . It is clear, then, that you compel compliance [from your bosses] only when you are determined, when your union is strong, when you are well organised, when you are united in such a manner that the boss cannot run his factory against your will. But the employer is usually some big . . . company that has mills or mines in various places. . . If it cannot operate . . . in Pennsylvania because of a strike, it will try to make good its losses by continuing . . . and increasing production [elsewhere]. . . In that way the company . . breaks the strike." [Alexander Berkman, _The ABC of Anarchism_, pp. 53-54]
By organising all workers in one union (we all have the same boss!) it increases the power of each trade considerably. It may be easy for a boss to replace a few workers, but a whole workplace would be far more difficult. By organising all workers in the same industry, the power of each workplace is correspondingly increased. Extending this example to outside the workplace, its clear that by mutual support between different groups increases the chances of each group winning its fight.
As the I.W.W. put it, "An injury to one is an injury to all." By generalising struggles, by practicing mutual support and aid we can ensure that when we are fighting for our rights and against injustice we will not be isolated and alone. If we don't support each other, groups will be picked off one by one and if we are go into conflict with the system there will be on-one there to support us and we may lose.
Therefore, from an anarchist point of view, the best thing about generalising different struggles together is that it leads to an increased spirit of solidarity and responsibility as well as increased class consciousness. This is because by working together and showing solidarity those involved get to understand their common interests and that the struggle is not against *this* injustice or *that* boss but against *all* injustice and *all* bosses. Is injustice only wrong when it applies to you? Is your boss the only corrupt one? Think of how the world reluctant to go to war against Hitler. As a result, Poland, France, Yugoslavia and most of Russia were overrun, while America and the British commonwealth suffered horrible losses - yet together they could have easily crushed Nazism in 1939, making the wosrt war in history a mere "police action"!
Solidarity on the human level can be seen from the experiences of the Spanish revolution, and the syndicalist unions in Italy and France. The structure of such local federations also puts the workplace in the community where it actually belongs.
Also, by uniting struggles together, we can see that there are really no "single issues" - that all various different problems are interlinked. For example, ecological problems are not just that, but have a political and economic basis and that economic exploitation spills into the environment. Inter-linking struggles means that they can be seen to be related to other struggles against exploitation and oppression. What goes on in the environment, for instance, is directly related to questions of domination and inequality within human society, that pollution is often directly related to companies cutting corners to survive in the market or increase profits. Similarly, struggles against sexism or racism can be seen as part of a wider struggle against hierarchy, exploitation and oppression in all their forms. As such, uniting struggles has an important educational effect above and beyond the benefits in terms of winning struggles.
What is direct action?
Direct action includes (but sure as hell isn't limited to!) rent strikes, consumer boycotts, occupations (which, of course, can include sit-in strikes by workers), eco-tage, individual and collective non-payment of taxes, blocking roads and holding up construction work of an anti-social nature and so forth. Also direct action, in a workplace setting, includes strikes and protests on social issues, not directly related to working conditions and pay. Direct action means fighting of the "home turf" of the people, not in the courthouses and other lairs of authority.
Direct action means that instead of getting someone else to act for you (e.g. a politician) you act for yourself. Its essential feature is an organised protest by ordinary people to make a change by their own efforts. Thus Voltairine De Cleyre's excellent statement on this topic:
"Every person who ever thought he had a right to assert, and went boldly and asserted it, himself, or jointly with others that shared his convictions, was a direct actionist. Some thirty years ago I recall that the Salvation Army was vigorously practicing direct action in the maintenance of the freedom of its members to speak, assemble, and pray. Over and over they were arrested, fined, and imprisoned; but they kept right on singing, praying, and marching, till they finally compelled their persecutors to let them alone. [That is, they were slapped, and turned the other cheek, showing authority the uselessness of violence] The Industrial Workers [of the World] are now conducting the same fight, and have, in a number of cases, compelled the officials to let them alone by the same direct tactics.
"Every person who ever had a plan to do anything, and went and did it, or who laid his plan before others, and won their co-operation to do it with him, without going to external authorities to please do the thing for them, was a direct actionist. All co-operative experiments are essentially direct action.
"Every person who ever in his life had a difference with anyone to settle, and went straight to the other persons involved to settle it, either by a peaceable plan or otherwise, was a direct actionist. Examples of such action are strikes and boycotts; many persons will recall the action of the housewives of New York who boycotted the butchers, and lowered the price of meat; at the present moment a butter boycott seems looming up, as a direct reply to the price-makers for butter.
"These actions are generally not due to any one's reasoning overmuch on the respective merits of directness or indirectness, but are the spontaneous retorts of those who feel oppressed by a situation. In other words, all people are, most of the time, believers in the principle of direct action, and practicers of it. . ." [_Direct Action_]
So direct action means acting for yourself against injustice and oppression. It can, sometimes, involve putting pressure on politicians or companies, for example, to ensure a change in an oppressive law or destructive practices. However, such appeals are direct action simply because they do not assume that the parties in question we will act for us - indeed the assumption is that change only occurs when we act to create it. Regardless of what the action is, "if such actions are to have the desired empowerment effect, they must be largely self-generated, rather than being devised and directed from above." [Martha Ackelsberg, _Free Women of Spain_, p. 33]
Any hierarchical system is placed into danger when those at the bottom start to act for themselves and, historically, people have invariably gained more by acting directly than could have been won by playing ring around the rosy with indirect means.
Direct action tore the chains of open slavery from humanity. Over the centuries it has established individual rights and modified the life and death power of the master class. Direct action won political liberties such as the vote and free speech. Used fully, used wisely, well and often, direct action can forever end injustice and the control of humans by other humans.
Why use direct action to change things?
Simply because it is effective and it has a radicalising impact on those who practice it. As it is based on people acting for themselves, it shatters the dependency created by hierarchy. As Murray Bookchin argues, "[w]hat is even more important about direct action is that it forms a decisive step toward recovering the personal power over social life that the centralised, over-bearing bureaucracies have usurped from the people... we not only gain a sense that we can control the course of social events again; we recover a new sense of selfhood and personality without which a truly free society, based in self-activity and self-management, is utterly impossible." [_Toward and Ecological Society_, p. 47]
By acting for themselves, people gain a sense of their own power and abilities. This is essential if people are to run their own lives. As such, direct action is *the* means by which individuals empower themselves, to assert their individuality, to make themselves count as individuals. It is the opposite of hierarchy, within which individuals are told again and again that they are nothing, are insignificant and must dissolve themselves into a higher power (the state, the company, the party, etc.) and feel proud in participating in this higher power. Direct action, in contrast, is the means of asserting ones individual opinion, interests and happiness.
You *DO* matter and count as an individual and you, and others like you, *can* change the world.
In addition, direct action creates the need for new forms of social organisation. These new forms of organisation will be informed and shaped by the process of self-liberation, and will based upon self-management. Direct action, as well as liberating individuals, can also create the free, self-managed organisations that will replace the current hierarchical ones. In other words, direct action helps create the new world in the shell of the old:
"direct action not only empowered those who participated in it, it also had effects on others. . . [including] exemplary action that attracted adherents by the power of the positive example it set. Contemporary examples. . . include food or day-care co-ops, collectively run businesses, sweat equity housing programmes, women's self-help health collectives, urban squats or women's peace camps [as well as traditional examples as industrial unions, social centres, etc.]. While such activities empower those who engage in them, they also demonstrate to others that non-hierarchical forms of organisation can and do exist - and that they can function effectively." [Martha Ackelsberg, Op. Cit., p. 33]
Direct action and the movements that used it (such as unionism) would be the means to develop the "revolutionary intelligence of the workers" and so ensure "emancipation through practice" (to use Bakunin's words).
Direct action "is not a 'tactic'. . . it is a moral principle, an ideal, a sensibility. It should imbue every aspect of our lives and behaviour and outlook." [Murray Bookchin, Op. Cit., p. 48]
So what about voting?
No revolution was ever fought out in a ballot box. Think about the right to vote - did we get that by voting for it? Obviously not!
After centuries of half-democracy, it is obvious that electioneering does not work. History is littered with examples of radicals being voted into office only to become as, or even more, conservative than the politicians they replaced.
Any government is under pressure from two sources of power, the state bureaucracy and big business.
Let's start with big business, which can overpower even the best government. Very simply, they can take their property elsewhere, destroying the local economy.
Far fetched? No, not really. In January, 1974, the FT Index for the London Stock Exchange stood at 500 points. In February, the miner's went on strike, forcing Heath to hold (and lose) a general election. The new Labour government (which included many left-wingers in its cabinet) talked about nationalising the banks and much heavy industry. In August, 74, Tony Benn announced Plans to nationalise the ship building industry. By December of that year, the FT index had fallen to 150 points. By 1976 the British Treasury was spending $100 million a day buying back of its own money to support the pound [_The London Times_, 10/6/76]. The economic pressure of capitalism was at work:
"The further decline in the value of the pound has occurred despite the high level of interest rates. . . dealers said that selling pressure against the pound was not heavy or persistent, but there was an almost total lack of interest amongst buyers. The drop in the pound is extremely surprising in view of the unanimous opinion of bankers, politicians and officials that the currency is undervalued" [_The London Times_, 27/5/76]
The Labour government faced with the power of international capital ended up having to receive a temporary "bailing out" by the I.M.F. who imposed a package of cuts and controls which translated to Labour saying "We'll do anything you say", in the words of one economist [Peter Donaldson, _A Question of Economics_, p. 89]. The social costs of these policies was massive, with the Labour government being forced to crack down on strikes and the weakest sectors of society (but that's not to forget that they "cut expenditure by twice the amount the I.M.F. were promised." [Ibid.]). In the backlash to this, Labour lost the next election to a right-wing, pro-free market government which continued where Labour had left off.
The Labour government failed because it had not freed the economy from those conservatives that held it hostage. In the end, conservatives use examples such as this to prove that leftism is wrong - even though it was the capitalist's economic hostage-shooting that caused the disaster!
For a more recent example, "The fund managers [who control the flow of money between financial centres and countries] command such vast resources that their clashes with governments in the global marketplace usually ends up in humiliating defeat for politicians. . . In 1992, US financier George Soros single-handedly destroyed the British government's attempts to keep the pound in the European Exchange Rate Mechanism (ERM). Soros effectively bet, and won, that he could force the British government to devalue. Using his huge resources, he engineered a run on the pound, overwhelming the Bank of England's attempts to use its reserves to keep sterling within its ERM band. The British government capitulated by suspending sterling's membership of the ERM (an effective devaluation) and Soros came away from his victory some $1bn richer. Fund managers then picked off other currencies one by one, derailing the drive for European monetary union, which would, incidentally, have cut their profits by making them unable to buy and sell between the different European currencies." [Duncan Green, _The Silent Revolution_, p. 124]
The fact is that capital will not invest in a country which does not meet its approval and this is an effective weapon to control democratically elected governments. And with the increase in globalisation of capital over the last 30 years this weapon is even more powerful (a weapon we may add which was improved, via company and state funded investment and research in communication technology, precisely to facilitate the attack on working class reforms and power in the developed world, in other words capital ran away to teach us a lesson!
Currently in America, take "B. Sanders...congress's only "independent progressive socialist,"...who has been prominent among those in the North East congressional delegation on trying to export the region's nuclear waste to a poor, largely Hispanic community in Texas, Sierra Blanca. The only merit in dumping the waste there as opposed to, say, Burlington is that the people in Burlington are richer and have more clout..." -Jeffrey St. Clair and Alexander Cockburn _Eat the State_ volume 3 #8
As far as political pressures go, we must remember that there is a difference between the state and government. The state is the permanent collection of institutions that have entrenched power structures and interests. The government is made up of various politicians. It's the institutions that have power in the state due to their permanence, not the representatives who come and go. In other words, the state bureaucracy has vested interests and elected politicians cannot effectively control them. This network of behind the scenes agencies can be usefully grouped into two parts:
"By 'the secret state' we mean. . . the security services, MI5 [the FBI in the USA], Special Branch. . . MI6 [the CIA]. By 'the permanent government' . . . we mean the secret state plus the Cabinet Office and upper echelons of Home and Foreign and Commonwealth Offices, the Armed Forces and Ministry of Defence, the nuclear power industry and its satellite ministries; and the so-called 'Permanent Secretaries Club,' the network of very senior civil servants - the 'Mandarins.' In addition. . . its satellites" including M.P.s (particularly right-wing ones), 'agents of influence' in the media, former security services personnel, think tanks and opinion forming bodies, front companies of the security services, and so on. [Stephen Dorril and Robin Ramsay, _Smear! Wilson and the Secret State_, p. X, XI]
These bodies, while theoretically under the control of the elected government, can effectively (via disinformation, black operations, bureaucratic slowdowns, media attacks, etc.) ensure that any government trying to introduce policies which the powers that be disagree with will be stopped. You may vote for a president or congressperson, but you can't choose the CIA spooks.
An example of this "secret state" at work can be found in _Smear!_, where Dorril and Ramsay document the campaign against the Labour Prime Minister of Britain, Harold Wilson, which resulted in his resignation. They also indicate the pressures which Labour M.P. Tony Benn was subjected to by "his" Whitehall advisers:
"In early 1985, the campaign against Benn by the media was joined by the secret state. The timing is interesting. In January, his Permanent Secretary had 'declared war' and the following month began the most extraordinary campaign of harassment any major British politician has experienced. While this is not provable by any means, it does look as though there is a clear causal connection between withdrawal of Prime Ministerial support, the open hostility from the Whitehall mandarins and the onset of covert operations." [Stephen Dorril and Robin Ramsay, Op. Cit., p. 279]
Not to mention the role of the secret state in undermining reformist and radical organisations and movements. Thus involvement goes from pure information gathering on "subversives", to disruption and repression. Taking the example of the US secret state, Howard Zinn notes that in 1975 "congressional committees. . . began investigations of the FBI and CIA.
"The CIA inquiry disclosed that the CIA had gone beyond its original mission of gathering intelligence and was conducting secret operations of all kinds . . . [for example] the CIA with the collusion of a secret Committee of Forty headed by Henry Kissinger - had worked to 'destabilize' the [democratically elected, left-wing] Chilean government. . .
"The investigation of the FBI disclosed many years of illegal actions to disrupt and destroy radical groups and left-wing groups of all kinds. The FBI had sent forged letters, engaged in burglaries. . . opened mail illegally, and in the case of Black Panther leader Fred Hampton, seems to have conspired in murder. . .
"The investigations themselves revealed the limits of government willingness to probe into such activities. . . [and they] submitted its findings on the CIA to the CIA to see if there was material the Agency wanted omitted." [_A People's History of the United States_, pp. 542-3]
Also, the CIA secretly employs several hundred American academics to write books and other materials to be used for propaganda purposes, an important weapon in the battle for "hearts and minds". In other words, the CIA, FBI [and their equivalents in other countries] and other state bodies can hardly be considered neutral bodies, who just follow orders. They are a network of vested interests, with specific ideological viewpoints and aims which usually place the wishes of the voting population below maintaining the state-capital power structure in place.
This can be seen most dramatically in the military coup in Chile against the democratically re-elected (left-wing) Allende government by the military, aided by the CIA, US based corporations and the US government cutting economic aid to the country (specifically to make it harder for the Allende regime). The coup resulted in tens of thousands murdered and years of terror and dictatorship, but the danger of a pro-labour government was stopped and the business environment was made healthy for profits. An extreme example, we know, but important ones for any believer in freedom or the idea that the state machine is somehow neutral and can be captured and used by left-wing parties.
Therefore we cannot expect a different group of politicians to react in different ways to the same economic and institutional influences and interests. Its no coincidence that left-wing, reformist parties have introduced right-wing, pro-capitalist ("Thatcherite/Reaganite") policies at the same time as right-wing, explicitly pro-capitalist parties introduced them in the UK and the USA. As Clive Ponting (an ex-British Civil Servant) points out, this is to be expected:
"the function of the political system in any country in the world is to regulate, but not alter radically, the existing economic structure and its linked power relationships. The great illusion of politics is that politicians have the power to make whatever changes they like. . . On a larger canvas what real control do the politicians in any country have over the operation of the international monetary system, the pattern of world trade with its built in subordination of the third world or the operation of multi-national companies? These institutions and the dominating mechanism that underlies them - the profit motive as a sole measure of success - are essentially out of control and operating on autopilot." [quoted in _Alternatives_, # 5, p. 10]
Of course there have been examples of quite extensive reforms which did benefit working class people in major countries. The New Deal in the USA and the 1945-51 Labour Governments spring to mind
Sure, reforms can be won from the government when the dangers of not giving in outweigh the problems associated with the reforms. Reforms only save the capitalist system and the state and even improve their operation, while the reforms can be destroyed at any time - what can be reformed can be deformed!
For example, both the reformist governments of 1930s USA and 1940s UK were under pressure from below, by waves of militant working class struggle which could have developed beyond mere reformism. The waves of sit-down strikes in the 1930s ensured the passing of pro-union laws which while allowing workers to organise without fear of being fired. This measure also involved the unions in running the capitalist-state machine (and so making them responsible for controlling "unofficial" workplace action and so ensuring profits). The nationalisation of roughly 20% of the UK economy during the Labour administration of 1945 (the most unprofitable sections of it as well) was also the direct result of ruling class fear. As Quintin Hogg, a Tory M.P. at the time, said, "If you don't give the people social reforms they are going to give you social revolution". Memories of the near revolutions across Europe after the first war were obviously in many minds, on both sides. Not that nationalisation was particularly feared as "socialism." Indeed it was argued that it was the best means of improving the performance of the British economy. As anarchists at the time noted "the real opinions of capitalists can be seen from Stock Exchange conditions and statements of industrialists than the Tory Front bench . . . [and from these we] see that the owning class is not at all displeased with the record and tendency of the Labour Party" [_Neither Nationalisation nor Privatisation - Selections from Freedom 1945-1950_, Vernon Richards (Ed), p. 9]
So, whenever reforms have occurred, they were in response to militant pressure from below (power gives nothing without demand) and that the militant pressure could have achieved far more by itself.
Therefore, in general, things have little changed over the one hundred years since this argument against electioneering was put forward:
"in the electoral process, the working class will always be cheated and deceived. . . if they did manage to send, one, or ten, or fifty of them[selves to Parliament], they would become spoiled and powerless. Furthermore, even if the majority of Parliament were composed of workers, they could do nothing. Not only is there the senate . . . the chiefs of the armed forces, the heads of the judiciary and of the police, who would be against the parliamentary bills advanced by such a chamber and would refuse to enforce laws favouring the workers (it has happened [for example the 8 hour working day was legally created in many US states by the 1870s, but workers had to strike for it in 1886 as it as not enforced]; but furthermore laws are not miraculous; no law can prevent the capitalists from exploiting the workers; no law can force them to keep their factories open and employ workers at such and such conditions, nor force shopkeepers to sell as a certain price, and so on." [S. Merlino, quoted by L. Galleani, _The End of Anarchism?_, p. 13] Not the example of the 8-hour working day: just because an elected leader makes a reform doesn't mean that it will even be enforced!
Remember (I don't mean literally of course) when women were gaining the vote, that many people thought it would mean an end to war, or some other massive effect (not all good, there were always wild prediction's from opponents!)? When women got their vote, there was no change. One conclusion could be that women think the same as men, but the other is that votes make no difference. (I'm not sure myself.)
Voting is the opposite of direct action- they are *based* on getting someone else to act on your behalf. Therefore, far from empowering people and giving them a sense of confidence and ability, electioneering *dis*-empowers them by creating a "leader" figure from which changes are expected to flow. As Martin observes "all the historical evidence suggests that parties are more a drag than an impetus to radical change. One obvious problem is that parties can be voted out. All the policy changes they brought in can simply be reversed later. More important, though, is the pacifying influence of the radical party itself. On a number of occasions, radical parties have been elected to power as a result of popular upsurges. Time after time, the 'radical' parties have become chains to hold back the process of radical change" ["Democracy without Elections," _Social Anarchism_, no. 21, 1995]
This can easily be seen from the history of the various left-wing parties. Ralph Miliband points out that labour or socialist parties, elected in periods of social turbulence, have often acted to reassure the ruling elite by dampening popular action that could have threatened capitalist interests [_The State in Capitalist Society_, Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1969]. For example, the first project undertaken by the Popular Front, elected in France in 1936, was to put an end to strikes and occupations and generally to cool popular militancy, which was the Front's strongest ally in coming to power. The Labour government elected in Britain in 1945 got by with as few reforms as it could, refusing to consider changing basic social structures. In addition, within the first week of taking office it sent troops in to break the dockers strike. In fact, the Labour Party has used troops to break strikes far more often than the Conservatives have!
These points indicate why existing power structures cannot effectively be challenged through elections. For one thing, elected representatives are not *mandated,* which is to say they are not tied in any binding way to particular policies, no matter what promises they have made or what voters may prefer. Around election time, the public's influence on politicians is strongest, but after the election, representatives can do practically whatever they want, because there is no procedure for *instant recall.* In practice it is impossible to recall politicians before the next election, and between elections they are continually exposed to pressure from powerful special-interest groups -- especially business lobbyists, state bureaucracies and political party power brokers.
Under such pressure, the tendency of politicians to break campaign promises has become legendary. Generally, such promise breaking is blamed on bad character, leading to periodic "throw-the-bastards-out" fervour -after which a new set of representatives is elected, who also mysteriously turn out to be bastards!
In reality it is the system itself that produces "bastards," the sell-outs and shady dealing we have come to expect from politicians. As Alex Comfort argues, political office attracts power-hungry, authoritarian, and ruthless personalities, or at least tends to bring out such qualities in those who are elected [_Authority and Delinquency in the Modern State: A Criminological Approach to the Problem of Power_ , Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1950].
In light of modern "democracy", it is amazing that anyone takes the system seriously enough to vote at all. And in fact, voter turnout in the US and other nations where "democracy" is practiced in this fashion is typically low. Nevertheless, some voters continue to participate, pinning their hopes on new parties or trying to reform a major party. Of course, these hopes are pointless as they do not get at the root of the problem. It is not politicians or parties which are the problem, its a system which shapes them into its own image and marginalises and alienates people. No amount of party politics can change that.
What about referendums?
Referendums, while flawed, are far better than electing a politician to office once every four years or so, but they still are vulnerable to processes such as mass advertising, bribery of voters through government projects in local areas, party "machines," the limitation of news coverage to two (or at most three) major parties, and government manipulation of the news. Party machines choose candidates, dictate platforms, and contact voters by phone campaigns. Mass advertising "packages" candidates like commodities, selling them to voters by emphasising personality rather than policies, while media news coverage emphasise the "horse race" aspects of campaigns rather than policy issues. Government spending in certain areas (or more cynically, the announcement of new projects in such areas just before elections) has become a standard technique for buying votes.
What are the political implications of voting?
At its most basic, voting implies agreement with the status quo. It is worth quoting the Scottish libertarian socialist James Kelman at length on this:
"State propaganda insists that the reason why at least 40 percent of the voting public don't vote at all is because they have no feelings one way or the other. They say the same thing in the USA, where some 85 percent of the population are apparently 'apolitical' since they don't bother registering a vote. Rejection of the political system is inadmissible as far as the state is concerned. . . Of course the one thing that does happen when you vote is that someone else has endorsed an unfair political system. . . A vote for any party or any individual is always a vote for the political system. You can interpret your vote in whichever way you like but it remains an endorsement of the apparatus. . . If there was any possibility that the apparatus could effect a change in the system then they would dismantle it immediately. In other words the political system is an integral state institution, designed and refined to perpetuate its own existence. Ruling authority fixes the agenda by which the public are allowed 'to enter the political arena' and that's the fix they've settled on" [_Some Recent Attacks_, p.87]
We are taught from an early age that voting in elections is right and a duty. In US schools, children elect class presidents (who are remarkably superficial, just like real life!) Often mini-general elections are held to "educate" children in "democracy". Periodically, election coverage monopolises the media. We are made to feel guilty about shirking our "civic responsibility" if we don't vote. Countries that have no elections, or only rigged elections, are regarded as failures [Benjamin Ginsberg, _The Consequences of Consent: Elections, Citizen Control and Popular Acquiescence_, Addison-Wesley, 1982]. As a result, elections have become a quasi-religious ritual.
As Brian Martin points out, however, "elections in practice have served well to maintain dominant power structures such as private property, the military, male domination, and economic inequality. None of these has been seriously threatened through voting. It is from the point of view of radical critics that elections are most limiting" ["Democracy without Elections," _Social Anarchism_, no. 21, 1995].