Rejection of the Anarchist Federation Australia Proposed Constitution
Typical, I know. [Constitution here.]
For a few years now I have tried to articulate a pluralist and anti-dogmatic anarchism. Anarchism tells us that people can be free, but it cannot tell us how free people will behave. It tells us that they can and should organize their own lives and their own communities, that they should be allowed, as far as possible, to determine their own economic relations, but it cannot tell us what these communities or these economic relationships will look like. I am taking up this argument again to critique the constitution of a propose Anarchist Federation in Australia, as drafted by Jura Books; a document which exhibits the tendencies I have called Dogmatic Anarchism.
I believe in anarchism as a deontological system. That is, anarchism in its totality is logically deducible from one principle. If it weren’t, it would not be called anarchism, which, it is corrected noted, “literally means the absence of rulers,” the corollary of which is self rule; our one principle. That principle, more properly, is this: that every individual human being is in possession of their own body and mind. The first and most important conclusion that can be drawn from this is that every individual human being has rightful ownership of anything they create or improve with their body and mind, provided it is not already owned. All anarchists, including the authors of this constitution, agree with my first premise and the first conclusion I have drawn from it. We differ only when they abandon deontological ethics in favour of idealism, violating this first principle, or when they (in my view) draw false conclusions from it. I believe they have made missteps in the following ways.
I - Property
This document asserts that an anarchistic society will be characterized, in the economic sphere, by “the free federation of productive and communal organisations,” which is to say by “libertarian communism.” Pluralist anarchism asserts that an individual owns that which he brings into being. He owns the land that he works, and whatever he produces with it. He can do with these things as he pleases. Libertarian communists agree, this far, but fail to realize that the possibility exists for non-communal ownership under such a system.
To illustrate, if a man fences off unused land and devotes his knowledge and labour to improving it, to installing aquaponics and to fertilizing the soil, to whatever else farmers do, it is his land. If over the course of a decade he radically improves the value of the land, it is all the more his belonging.
Now, suppose another man comes along, with no fertile patch of land to call his own and no knowledge of agriculture, and instead of trying to improve an adjacent field without these skills he offers to work on this mans land for shelter and food. He is shown how to tend cows, sow seeds, and so on, and he does so. He does not, as libertarian communism suggests, acquire a 50% share of the land. He hasn’t spent a decade improving it. It isn’t his land. He acquires only what the rightful owner of the land has agreed to give him in return for his labour, which is food and shelter.
In accordance with the only first principle of libertarian communism, which is that individuals own that which they create, he is now a worker, and the farmer is now his boss; an arrangement which libertarianism communism also asserts is ethically unjust, and thus falls into incoherence.
II - Ideology
It goes on to assert that anarchists must oppose “oppression based on class, gender (both trans and cis), race, ethnicity, colonialism, sexuality, appearance and ability.”
Oppression is not defined, but having read enough of the literature of modern anarchism we can imagine what they mean. It is regularly asserted that an anarchist must oppose sexism, racism, homophobia, transphobia, and so on. And well they should, and it is a queer and intellectually vapid anarchist who does not, but the assertion is in fundamental contradiction to our first principle of anarchism. As we have said, in an anarchist society, all people have ownership of their own bodies and their own minds. That means that they may think as they please. The anarchist can and should encourage people, with all his energy, to abandon hate and bigotry in all its forms, but if he is an anarchist he must also assert the inalienable right of all individuals to think however they please and to associate with whoever they please, and this includes the right to hatred and bigotry in all its forms.
III - Equality
It further asserts that “anarchists maintain that individuals are most free in a society in which there is economic, political, and social equality.” Once again setting aside that these ideals are left largely undefined and in need of significant unpacking, they are, at any rate, at odds with out first principle. Our first principle asserts the individual’s ownership over himself, which is perfect legal equality. To claim that anarchism means economic or social equality, therefore, is to claim that economic and social equality are the inevitable result of legal equality, which is dubious to say the least.
You cannot control people’s minds, you may only persuade them. We will make progress, but people are never going to think as we would like them to think. And as long as they are allowed to think as they please, and to act upon their thoughts (provided they do not violate another individual’s ownership of themselves), they will discriminate socially on the basis of their own personal worldview and social equality cannot exist. As long as people are to own the product of their labour, and people’s capacity and will to perform labour are unequal, economic equality cannot exist. I do not know what political equality means in a society without the State.
IV - Mutual Aid
I’m a strong believer in mutual aid, personally, and the communist Kropotkin’s book on the subject contains some of the most beautiful writing in the anarchist tradition. But it is simply false to say that anarchists “believe that human survival and social development can be best secured through co-operation among individuals and groups to their mutual benefit.” As our first principle would tell you, anarchists believe whatever the hell they like.
V - Structure and Hierarchy
It is false, on similar grounds, to assert that anarchists “advocate the creation of directly democratic forms of social organisation, in which individual members have an equal right to take part in decision-making processes.” Once again, the only logical conclusion to be drawn from our first principle is that people can associate freely. They can form whatever social organisations they like. It is absolutely not derivable from our first principle that all social organizations must be directly democratic.
I, with a dozen other people, run a social organization for the welfare of drug users. We, the dozen who run it, decide its form and its rules. Among those rules, in accordance with Jura’s desire for a non-discriminatory society, is that we do not allow racial, sexual, homophobic, or transphobic slurs in our community. It is not, and will not be, up for a vote. We have created our own space, and we decide based on local information and our own judgement how it shall be structured. And we have decided that it would not prosper under direct democracy, and the number of suburban white kids who demand the right to use the word ‘nigga’ affectionately vindicates this decision. Perhaps it is wrong, but it is our right to organize our own community as we see fit, and it is the right of everybody else to join or not join as they see fit.
…
Finally, I still wish to work with the anarchists who wrote and who will sign this document, as I see they are well-intentioned and are no doubt intelligent, but the purpose of signing a constitution is to concur with its stated principles and I do not. At any rate, I am an individual and not an organization. Oh well.
Peace.