Think You're Not an Anarchist? Download This Book!

Anarchism is political philosophy of radical humanism that commends itself to Quakers and many others who should give it more attention. It's a vision of human relations that is egalitarian as opposed to hierarchical; communitarian as opposed to individualistic; and ecological and sustainable as opposed to extractive and doomed. Anarchists assess the modern condition as slavery to modern instutions of dominance and oppression; and they seek freedom for all. The anarchist vision is not an unconstrained, chaotic nightmare that replaces modern institutions with nothing; it is a highly organized, nonheirarchical web of community-scale institutions within which to conduct human activities. By far, it is the political philosophy most compatible with Quaker testimony and practice; and also most compatible with the values of many advocates of participatory democracy, equal rights, feminism, environmentalism, and holistic health and living.

Anyone interested in anarchism should read Getting Free: Creating an Association of Democratic Autonomous Neighborhoods by James Herod. In this succinct work, Herod makes the case for some form of anarchism as the only viable alternative to the current system of global capitalism. But more importantly, he addresses the question of strategy in a straightforward manner. He conducts an unblinking critical survey of the failed past and current strategies of the left, rejecting them all as unable to defeat the capitalist system. Our alternative parties, our vigils and demonstrations, our civil disobedience, our single issue campaigns, and our educational efforts are all ineffective against capitalism, in Herod's view. The most they can achieve is to temporarily curb the worst abuses of capitalism. Depressing stuff, but I would suggest that a lot of the torper we feel on the left stems from our repressed understanding that Herod's criticism is correct. We have not been getting anywhere.

But Herod doesn't leave it at that.

In place of past strategies to overthrow or reform capitalism, Herod advocates a strategy of the gradual abandonment of capitalist institutions and substitution of alternative, community-based democratic structures. Here is the list of specific strategies he proposes:

Form a Neighborhood Association
Form an Employees' Association
Form a Cooperative Housing Association
Build a Meeting Hall
Organize Worker-Owned Businesses
Try to Convert Local Business Families to the Democratic Autonomous Way of Life
Change Jobs and Move to Worker-Managed Projects as Opportunities Emerge
Set up Local Currencies
Organize a Community Land Trust
Will Your House to a Community Controlled Trust Fund
Start Switching to Solar/Wind Energy
Start Growing Some of Our Own Food
Set up a Neighborhood Storehouse to Facilitate Mutual Aid
Support Orthomolecular Medicine and the Preventive Health Care Movement
Do Not Work Hard at Our Jobs
Organize Locally to Stop Ruling-Class Offenses in the Community
Start Applying Criminal Laws to Capitalists and Government Officials
Democratize All Voluntary Associations
Reject Mainstream Divisions of Social Knowledge
Don't Watch Television or Listen to the Radio
Support Independent Media
Don't Buy into the Culture Industry or Commodified Entertainment
Recover Our Own Language
Recover the Capacity for Self-Defense
Engage the Fight Against Religion
Start Negotiating Global Agreements
Abolish War
Get Control over Union Pension Funds
Don't Cooperate with the Police
Don't Join the Military or Become a Cop
Do Not Become a Boss
Reject Robert's Rules of Order
Don Not Deposit Your Money in Corporate Banks
Try Not to Fall Into Debt
Break Free From Schooling
Support the Unschooling Movement
Don't Let the Church or the State Certify Your Marriage
Begin to Break Away from the Nuclear Family
Don't Recycle
Don't Wear a Suit
Don Not Play the Lottery
Reject and Campaign Vigorously Against Representative Government

Most of us will find something in the above list to take issue with or amend -- but read the book first! Herod's strategy makes sense as a path to the future of "democratic autonomous neighborhoods" that he envisions. And for progressives, it weaves many of the "buck the system" things we have been doing our whole lives into a strategy for putting an end to global capitalist domination. Getting Free is both a cathartic demolition of our reliance on tired strategies and an affirmation of our intuition about how to live. It should be read and discussed widely.

Herod's book, together with other works from the ample list of Recommended Reading at the back, could be a starting point for a great discussion group. The entire book is contained in a 176-page PDF file (about 8 megabytes) that can be downloaded from the web. I found it quite readable when four pages are printed per standard sheet of paper; in this manner, the whole thing can be printed on 44 sheets of paper, or 22 sheets double-sided. The book is also available from Herod's web site in print for $14 or as an HTML file.