Against Dogmatic Anarchism
On Dogmatic Anarchism
When I use the term ‘Dogmatic Anarchism’, I am referring not to a particular kind of anarchism, but to a particular attitude amongst anarchists; a conception of anarchism as a homogeneous movement with a complete blueprint for the future free society, whether a federation of communes, or anything else.
One can find this attitude in Adamas, who believes in “an organized, homogeneous, continuative anarchist movement, connected for a common action of struggle and demand,” and imagines it possible that “all who call themselves anarchists” will “agree about what is to be done.” And one can find it in the anarchism of anybody who believes a free society will be uniformly communist, or uniformly socialist; indeed, in the anarchism of anybody who does not acknowledge the pluralism inherent in a free society, or dictates to others what kinds of relationships they can ethically enter.
On Pluralist Anarchism
Pluralist anarchism primarily insists that people should be free to organize their own communities, their own workplaces, their own families, and so on, as they see fit; not according to the dogmatic ethics of any particular anarchist, but as suits them.
This means abandoning the axiom that anarchism means opposition to hierarchy, imposed or otherwise. It is dogma to insist that the possibility of benign or even beneficial hierarchies (voluntarily entered into) doesn't exist, and it is authoritarian to forbid them.
The pluralist anarchist does not forbid the football team it’s captain, or the IRC channel it’s operators, or the building site its foreman and its architects, if this is what the people directly involved want. The consistent anarchist does not seek to abolish delegation, and the consistent anarchist does not dictate to other human beings how their associations should be structured.
It is dogma to say that all human associations must be horizontal, and it is authoritarian to forbid people from entering voluntarily into a vertical structure.
If that is what he or she wishes, then their wish is immediately at odds with the anti-hierarchical axiom; you must choose between your dogma, on the one hand, and their autonomy on the other.
The question is not hierarchy or non-hierarchy, vertical or horizontal; the question is consent.
This means abandoning axiomatic opposition to authority. The pluralist anarchist accepts “certain attenuated forms of authority. Bakunin, while rejecting the government of science, accepts the authority of superior or technical knowledge. However, while recognizing the authority of technical competence, he insists that the advice of an expert should only be accepted on the basis of voluntary consent: if I am to accept the authority of the cobbler in the matter of shoes, my decision to act on his advice is mine and not his.”
The question, again, is consent.
The pluralist anarchist understands that people will never “agree about what is to be done,” and that, to the pluralist, is the point. People have different ideas about what to do, and to the extent that the ‘doing’ of one thing doesn’t forcibly prevent the ‘doing’ of another, they should all be allowed to institute these ideas. THAT is anarchism.
What makes one person happy, secure, and free, does not necessarily make all people happy, secure, and free: there is no single pattern of social or economic existence to which everybody ought to adhere; there is no such pattern to which adherence would be beneficial for all people; it does not exist. Different people need different things; thus, Anarchism.
Malatesta, in responding to Adamas, is more perceptive of the plurality inherent in the concept of a free society, declaring that “we remain communist in our sentiment and aspiration, but we want to leave freedom of action to the experimentation of all ways of life that can be imagined and desired.”
This is to say, as I have above, that communism is a statement of preference, to which not all people will adhere, and to which nobody in a free society will be forced to adhere. Because communism, imposed from without, “would be the most detestable tyranny that the human mind could conceive.” Furthermore, “free and voluntary communism is ironical if one has not the possibility to live in a different regime - collectivist, mutualist, individualist - as one wishes, always on condition that there is no oppression or exploitation of others.”
And thus Malatesta affirms Proudhon’s praise of competition: “Probably all possible forms of ownership, use of the means of production and all forms of distribution will be experimented with simultaneously, in the same or other locations, and they will be merged together and adapted in various ways until practical experience identifies the best form or forms.”