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?

Let us know if have other suggestions – or if you feel we left something out!

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