I started out as a communist.
Marx didn’t distinguish between communism and socialism – to him, they were one and the same. And so I called myself a communist, because that was 2015 and “socialism” was increasingly being watered down from a radical anti-capitalist ideology into social welfare statism with a few defined platforms (medicare for all, social security, and other Americo-centric issues). And I wanted to let people know I meant it – the real deal. When I said I was a communist, I was more pro-revolution than pro-reform. I wasn’t here for watered-down scraps of social democracy within the same system.
And so that stuck around for a while until I met an anarchist, and he described his position. And I said: “huh, that sounds a lot like how I would my describe my position on communism.”
Because what we talked about were things like mutual aid, and self-determination by the people. In thsoe words, communism and anarchism have a lot in common.
My definition of communism was one I’d read in a book and stuck with me:
- economy controlled by the government
- government controlled by the people
Most popular implementations of communism (USSR, China, Cuba, etc) achieved step one and failed step 2. That’s the classic communist answer to “communism failed in [country]” – it’s that [country] wasn’t actually doing communism.
And that’s fair. It’s true. But as I read more literature, and talked to more people, I started to shift my position that why create a structure such as “government” to control the economy. Why subscribe to an ideology that lays out the specific implementation on how one must “govern”?
Anarchism is the power to transcend systems. I firmly believe there is a world in which an anarchist collective forms something that looks very much like “communism”. Because anarchism is a level above – it’s the power of the people to create and change systems as the situation needs it.
People put too much stock in the idea of lasting structure. I’m an American, and the idea that our system of governance is founded on a document written about 250 years ago is just…wild. And we have a whole class of people (judges, constitution scholars) whose job is to interpret what was meant or intended to be written in that document. Note – their job is not to think about what should be, or what is “right”, or what is the best solution for the situation. The job is to take a old fucking document and analyze it, to decide what someone else who lived in a context completely different from anything we experience or understand, and interpret based on 4500 words, how we should make decisions from now into eternity.
And don’t get me started on “amendments” bullshit and “we built in a system for changing the document.” When we have 27 amendments total, and what does it take to make them happen? It takes voting for your federal senators and representatives so that they can propose an amendment and get that two-thirds majority, and then vote for the president so that they sign off, and then vote for your state legislators so that they can get vote on it and pass a three-quarters majority of states, and then through all these layers of indirection, with an individual citizen involved once every couple years at the ballot box with no thought of amendments on their mind – yes, that’s the “built-in system” we have for changing the way that we govern ourselves.
So that’s my point – anarchism doesn’t have to be anti-system. I’m reasonably well-versed in systems theory and I don’t think it’s possible to be anti-system. I think the defining characteristic of anarchism is the power to create systems as the need arises, and to destroy them as the need vanishes. And that power rests in the individual, and the community, and not above that. Anarchism has to be localized.
My anarchism is also anti-hierarchical. To me, this shows itself in anarchism’s staunch anti-racist, anti-sexist, anti-xenophobic, anti-bigotry principles. If your anarchism is not opposed to structures of power based on race, gender, sex, sexual orientation, class, or anything else, then you’re not anti-hierarchical and what are you even doing calling yourself an anarchist.
I apologize for that one. More on this later, but I do hate gatekeeping of labels that someone wants to call themselves. More like, I call the principles of your belief system into question.
Anti-hierarchical doesn’t need to mean we don’t have systems of organization. It can – if the situation calls for it – but we don’t need to. And there should never exist a power hierarchy between organizational groups.
For now, our working definition: anarchism is anti-hierarchical power to transcend systems. Later, I’ll talk about power vs anti-power and whether claiming anarchism is “power to transcend systems” is inherently a hierarchical form of power, and therefore anti-anarchist. Let’s keep in mind that I might change my thoughts on this later. I often try to play with rationales and opinions to see how they fit, and argue them to see if I can find any inconsistencies, and adjust my thoughts as I go. Always provide the space for you and the people around you to learn, experiment, and grow, even when it comes to something foundational like belief systems.
> kria