A tribute to Anarchism as an innocuous intellectual spur....
Civil Disobedience and the Individualist Anarchist Tradition
Civil Disobedience was the chief weapon of opposition to the lack of real democracy in the Seattle WTO talks. It was manifested by those who did not threaten life and limb, and yet who would stand against the machine of imperial rule. It was essentially "leaderless". What the Seattle protests did not manifest were the trademarks of previous movements; reliance on the gun, and reliance on a program or manifesto.
There was no real goal among the mainstream protestors except the abolition of the undemocratic WTO (among some of the "official" leaders there was talk of reform, but it certainly did not express the general sentiment), and no need to form armies, leadership hierarchies, and replace one set of rulers for another. To all appearances, it reflected the "individualist anarchist" tradition of the past in at least some forms. Individualist anarchism was roundly denounced in the past as essentially useless before global capital, and yet these individualist anarchists prevented a more firmly entrenched GATT from being implemented, something which all the Communists, "official" anarchists, and, to be entirely honest, nationalists such as myself, were unable to do. It must be explored, and critiqued, but from a point of generousity not afforded it in most circles.
Emerson, Thoreau, William Godwin, Staughton Lynd, and to some extent, leaders of the modern libertarian movement*, represent in the minds of many a philosophy of anti-Statism in which there is neither a ballot nor a bullet, but simply living without granting the State one's support. On the pro-capitalist side of the question, we have the influence of Wendy McElroy and David Friedman, or the "anarcho-capitalists". On the Left, closer to the realities of the Seattle protest, we have John Zerzan and Bob Black. The capitalist libertarians favor a borderless world of non-monopoly capitalism. The Left-libertarians favor a borderless world of non-statist socialism.** Traditionally, Lockeans and Leftists have both upheld the right of revolution, as well as the necessity of some form of organization, and libertarians in both camps have not been immune.
Today, their positions seem closer to those of Thoreau and Godwin in that revolution and legalistic "evolution" have been scrapped in favor of spontaneity.
This new radicalism, a post-structured radicalism which is much more refreshing than the stale notions of change
presented as "revolutionary" in times past, has captured the allegiance of the disenfranchised of the new "information
economy". One can no longer criticise it and suggest that it is ineffectual before organized State power. The WTO, the Mayor of Seattle, the Governor of Washington, and President Clinton were powerless to stop the unarmed might of the masses. The protestors held a real power against the full might of the Machine. It was not the power of an obstacle, but of a monkey-wrench. The monkey-wrench was not planted by any group of sabateurs. The disruption existed because creative entropy had become a possibility. In the end, the possibility became reality.
Conspiracy theories have suggested that the protests were orchestrated by forces within the Establishment itself to
strengthen its hand over the WTO, preventing the Third World from usurping power away from the white Insider elite. If so, the conspiracy failed because it did not take in to account that fact that, though President Clinton has had to swear his loyalties to CFR "Internationalism" as part of the politics of survival while in the jaws of the corporate media and Washington establishment, his real loyalty is to the one person who would protect him from prosecution by an over-zealous Ken Starr. If Vice President Al Gore does not get the unions and environmentalists to back him, and non-establishment capitalist interests to fund him, he does not stand a chance against Insider family man George Bush, Jr. President Clinton had to become a more "inward-looking" President, which is a cardinal sin in the eyes of Internationalists. He essentially had to yield to the "excess of democracy" on the streets of Seattle, another cardinal sin for the Establishment in general, in order to get his own parochial agenda forward. The unexpected occured, and it occured precisely because there was no hidden control on what became an essentially uncontrolled moment of free expression, though not a random or violent mobocracy.
Anarchists have had a bad century. They were betrayed by the Bolsheviks in Russia, betrayed by Bolsheviks and "republicans" in Spain, subsequently to be decimated by Franco, and have been persecuted in the former Soviet republics for their work in environmental organizing. Today, they are regrouping, and often consider themselves to be the only viable revolutionary force on the planet. Left-anarchists do not recognize the capitalistic anarchists as anarchists, seemingly upholding the rather contradictory position that there is an "official" anarchism. The anarcho-capitalists have yet to prove, to be sure, that property inequality does not require a State. However, Left-anarchists have their own contradictions. Some have noted them, attempting to reconcile them by proposing that modern movements towards anarchy have transcended traditional Left-wing anarchism. To all appearances, however, Bob Black and John Zerzan, articulate spokesmen of this school of philosophy, are indeed Left-anarchists, and maintain the traditional dislike of capitalism, patriarchy, and gigantism shared by their socialist forebears.
What is fascinating is that most anarchist camps tend to renounce traditional methods; violence, the dead world of
assassination, and the overthrow of the existing order as a future goal to plan for instead of spontaneous anarchy as a mode of being. The world of the internet and (forgive me) globalization have changed anarchism. A strong argument could be made that it changed for the better. The appeal of this new school of anarchism is strong, especially for those who are cynical about all current modes of political thought. Social credit, Marxism, LaRouchism, traditional Left-anarchism, "libertarianism", and Buchananism are all presented as viable alternatives to the status quo when in effect they are inevitably elitist and mostly statist.
Social credit is enticing, and I do not dismiss it, yet it fails to answer the question of how a State so easily corruptible by special interests could actually maintain an honest control of money. If the bankers could control the currency in the first place by subtly manipulating politicians and political movement, then there is no stopping them from doing it again. Traditionally, social credit has been the refuge of those who would see themselves as a righteous white Christian bastion against the evil capitalist-communist corruptions of modernism. Not anti-Semitic necessarily, they still harbored some of the resentments found within racial extremist movements. Like all reform socialist movements, Social Credit puts a great deal of faith in the State, a State which has proven itself corruptible. Its arguments are not to be dismissed out of hand, especially since the Social Creditors expose what other socialist movements ignore, the vast monopoly powers that bankers have to create money out of nothing and loan it for something. It has its limits, however, not least of which is its tolerance of scapegoating. In fact, Social Creditors would often see movements such as those of Seattle as Leftist and corrupted by secularism or modernism, and as being ineffectual in dealing with the subtler realities of globalization. They were, in fact, proven wrong. Those "heathenous hippies" in Seattle triumphed where Leninists and Social Creditors failed.
Individualist anarchism is here to stay. It merits a proper analysis. The argument is profound, suggesting that the only
way a society is to be free is if its members are not controlled from the top down. It goes even further than this, however, in suggesting that top-down class control is not the central issue, but individual spontaneity is. The argument is reasonable. As Wendell Berry suggested, if the generals and politicians learn your mind, loose it. A nationalist such as myself feels like a stuffed shirt. If the nation-state, a heirarchical organization, is merely a front for class rule, then it is not worthy of protection, even against the WTO/IMF New World Order itself. It simply would be the lesser of two evils. The greater good would be the individualist anarchist Utopia.
The question seems to boil down to a question of human nature, that terrible conservative concept all Rousseau followers hate, not simply individualist anarchists. If human nature can exist without controls of any kind, we are free then to dismiss the State entirely. If, however, the human person is fallible, then humility requires that we find a form of social organization compatible with human freedom---and human limitation. It would mean that easy to digest ideas, even if they do threaten those who would limit our freedom, are not to be ingested unless the warning labels are read. Humility is required in discussing this question, a humility which does not seem to suggest that the State can be dismissed.***
Humility would mitigate against the global State in either its monopolistic or Utopian forms. The global state is a kind of affront against the cosmos, suggesting that Man has the wisdom to dominate, not only the planet, but if the principle is taken to its illogical but consistent conclusion, the entire Universe. It is a position that is actually anti-thetical to "deep ecology" and environmentalism, vesting vast powers in the hands of human bureaucrats.**** The local biosphere requires local control, or "eco-democracy" as the green left would refer to it. Environmentalists who have adopted globalist ideology should think wisely. The origins of globalism lie partially in the Enlightenment's human-centered hubris (and partially in pre-Enlightenment ideologies of Imperial control), a hubris which has never been friendly to the rainforest or the light-pollution free night sky.
Anarchism is also not realistic if we are to truly be honest. Human frailty requires that we honor the moral and religious codes that predate the Enlightenment, albeit without the oppression that went with them. Anarchism in all its forms is really Enlightenment Utiopianism in "hyper-drive". Even deep ecological anarchism is "humanistic" despite all protests to the contrary. As much as it appeals to those of us who are tired of our sovereignty being usurped, in the end it is as much of a
palliative philosophy as the others. Human spontaneity and freedom must always be cherished, and the inherently corruptible nature of the State must never be forgotten. The Left-anarchists are also correct in pointing out the vast amount of power that property has to create laws around it, and never let Justice by the tool of class society. The anarchists must be viewed as they never have been viewed in all of history, a respectable (perhaps even loyal) opposition. Their critiques must be noted, and their energy valued. They must never be in a position to dominate social policy or a dangerous Utopianism would reign, and then give way to despotism.
The nation-state which emerged after the wars of religion is the only realistic template for human society. Far from preventing human unity, as Albert Einstein and other World Federalists have believed, the nation-state enhances it.
Nation-state war when one seeks to be an Empire. Empires are what we need to avoid if we are to have peace. A world state would only be a monopoly of force, in effect, and Empire. Nations emerged when the barbarous Empires broke down during the Age of Revolution. The nation lost power over its own currency and economic sovereignty to the new financial Empire of the late nineteenth century (as Social Creditors have rightfully noted), and the result was chaos and war. Karl Polanyi, hardly a champion of Social Credit philosophy, has demonstrated this in "The Great Transformation".
Nations themselves, if formed on stable principles of industrial science and rational economics, are very conservative and do not war. World War II was the result of monetary and social chaos, and of a dictator covertly encouraged to grow in his fanatical might by powers behind the scenes. The Cold War could be said to have been the result of the same principle at work, with the difference that the stakes of war were raised. The other difference between the world of the Cold War and that of the thirties was that the borders of the United States and the Soviet Union were themselves secure. This stability was the result of a mutual agreement by both elites to respect the national sovereignty of the other, a reversal from Wilsonian and Leninist-Trotskyist interventionism which set the stage for much of the conflict plaguing this century. It led to a far from perfect peace, but the imperialisms which disguised themselves as univeralisms almost led to nuclear war. War is not the product of the nation-state, as anarchists and globalists have both suggested, but of the denial of it, whether by imperialists or by Utopians.
Nation statism should never be a loyalty that is put above human loyalty. It must certainly not be a loyalty above one's loyalty to spiritual growth. The reason for the nation is humility, not idolatrous pride. Those who forswear allegiance to war---including honest globalists and anarchists---are greater patriots in many regards than those who glorify in it. The cardinal sin of the globalists is not in the believers themselves, they are merely deluded, but in the covert Imperialisms manipulating them. These same Imperialisms have been the perpetuators of the war machine since its inception. The short-sidedness of honest globalists is that they simply have not realized that the greater path to peace and humility lies in the realization that the human imagination, though great, cannot always comprehend the twists and turns of reality. They can no more comprehend that they are pawns in global designs than nationalists can. Few of us can see our own place in the vast beehive of manipulated reality. It is much easier to blame another.
Anarchists are vital to the health of society. In any rational scenario, there should always be anarchists. They should never be "official", but neither should they be feared. In Seattle, they were an unwitting, but heroic, ally of nationalists in helping to overturn the WTO. They were heroes, not villains. As with all dialectics that are natural, the dialectic of rationalized control versus liberty will always be present, and any imbalance on either side would be hubris. If there is to be any imbalance, let it be towards anarchism, but let it be corrected as quickly as possible. Republics are stable, and workable if they do not have too much control over the citizenry. Anarchy must always work against Empire and oppression. It must also work against conformity and repression. It is, however, its own contradiction if it were ever to seize power.
In a truly rational republican nation-state, monetary policy should be honest, of an honest gold standard or else an honest Social Credit. Perhaps there is a creative theme that would address the problem of monopoly control of money not addressed by either the gold standard or Social Credit camp. Any way one looks at the situation, money should not be built on an Empire of secret debt. I believe in my heart that some day, through Enlightenment and Grace, we can transcend the need for political loyalty, which is so much the pawn of Empire and false "globalisms", but for now I am reconciled to the realities as they appear to present themselves. The nation is the only realistic way to address the dynamic of freedom and order that is the underpinning of human society. I hope that not all anarchists realize this, because they are necessary in keeping the social dynamic free, and the nation purged of all contradictions within it leading away from itself. If they are truly to triumph, in the best sense, the irony of history would seem to be one in which their triumph would be in a stronger nation-state system, not a weaker one.
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*There is a disagreement between propertarian anarchists and "minimal statists" within the libertarian movement as much as there is disagreements between anti-propterty anarchists and Marxists on the Left.
**Traditionally, anti-property anarchists have idenitified themselves as "libertarian socialist". Modern anti-property anarchism has often declared itself to transcend Leftist shibbolets (worker democracy, syndicalism, etc.), and have moved to direct abolition of "Leftism" as itself a bastion of patriarchy, heirarchy, and class rule. Even the CNT, considered by traditional Left anarchists to be of the halcyon age of "class struggle", has been called statist by some modern "post-Leftist" anarchists.
***The anarchist argument against the "social contract" is that States have never been formed for the protection of liberty, but in order to institutionalized the rule of some by others. This is true, but it only strengthens the argument that dismantling the State while retaining current human nature would simply allow the process of accumulation of power to renew itself, with possibly disasterous results for human liberty in the end.
****All this from the folks who brought you the IMF loans to China and Brazil!
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