PANOS DRAKOS
«In this problematique, it seems that the anti-globalisation
‘movement’ in the form it has today will not be able to
transcend its present character as an organised ‘resistance
movement’ of the ‘multitude’ against the ‘empire’ on the basis
of a set of reformist demands —as described by Hardt & Negri.
One could therefore foresee that the anti-globalisation
‘movement’ in the future will either be phased out or, more
likely, will be transformed into another kind of ‘new’ social
movement, like, for instance, the green movement, and will be
integrated within the ‘system’ soon afterwards».
T. Fotopoulos, «The End of Traditional Antisystemic Movements»,
November 2001
Death of the anti-globalization movement and movements of
“resistance”
The anti-globalization movement can be officially proclaimed
dead. While the social desolation caused by the global financial
crisis is spreading exponentially on a global scale and while
the political, social and economic rights of the non-privileged
social majority are under savage attack by the transnational
elite, the movement has maintained a disconcerting silence and,
in reality, is nowhere to be seen. Whereas the current phase of
the Social Struggle is marked by the effort of the transnational
elite to avoid a systemic meltdown by restructuring the
parameters of systemic domination through the intensification of
the concentration of power at all levels, the inability of the
movement to intervene in the social process and act as a viable
opposition and alternative force to the onslaught of neoliberal
modernity is merely the logical, yet regrettable, consequence of
the hegemonic position attained by reformist organizations such
as the World Social Forum (WSF) and ATTAC within the social
movement sector, at the expense of the more radical, potentially
anti-systemic, political groups and formations.
This dichotomy is all the more pertinent
today, when the measures of social cannibalism introduced
everywhere by the political elites of representative
“democracy”, irrespective of their ideological denomination,
bear strong testimony to the fact that the crisis is rooted in
common systemic factors that may account for this uniformity of
action “from above” and therefore it cannot be countered or
reversed within the institutional framework of the present
political and economic system.
The
natural consequence of this is that reformist organizations such
as the WSF which advocate the “reform” of the dominant,
internationalized economic institutions and do not question the
legitimacy of the system as a whole by demanding its complete
overthrow, have no alternatives to offer when these same
systemic institutions can only ensure their reproduction by
intensifying the unequal distribution of political, economic and
social power between upper social strata and the dependent
bottom layers of the social pyramid. In other words, the WSF and
its “civilized” political message advocating the use of
institutional means for promoting social change, have become
increasingly irrelevant in a context of intensified Social
Struggle on a global scale, when those very institutional
devices upon which the WSF relied for the implementation of its
“strategy”, have been completely eradicated by the ruling elites
through the conscious modification of the legal framework of
legitimate political activity, so as to make it conform with the
security needs of neoliberal representative totalitarianism.
The introduction of repressive legislation
establishing the core legal tenets of a police state and the
deployment of the full ideological force of systemic mass media
for the purpose of cultivating a semi-fascist political culture
prone to the systematic suppression of dissent, have redefined
the boundaries of legitimate political action in Western
representative regimes.
Furthermore,
the basic assumption of the reformist political agenda, namely
that the system can be improved from within through civil
society mobilization, peaceful demonstrations and electoral
pressure, has been exposed for its fraudulent and utopian (in
the negative sense) nature. For it is the very dynamics and
function of the system of the internationalized market economy
with its unilateral reliance on the unfettered activity of
multinational corporations and the private sector as sole
catalysts for economic growth, that have made compulsory the
mass transfer of public funds into the financial system of
private banks, the opening up of new business opportunities for
private actors through the parallel depreciation of public
services in fields like education and health-care, the balancing
of state deficits by the curtailment of welfare-state
institutions and the imposition of harsh measures of austerity
aimed exclusively against the underclass and the lower-level
social strata.
Ongoing developments have brought home the conclusion that the
multidimensional crisis of the system cannot be resolved within
the existing institutional framework. Social phenomena such as
political subjugation, economic dependence, social oppression
and the destruction of the environment, are only symptoms of the
existing hierarchical form of social organization which
reproduces its dominance through the uneven distribution of
power between elite groups, on the one hand, and the vast
majority of the social body, on the other. Only the complete
abolition of these systemic structures and their replacement by
free and autonomous institutions generated in the context of
collective political praxis carried out by a mass antisystemic
movement engaged in Social Struggle can eliminate all forms of
domination and oppression from all spheres of organized social
life.
The question arises then of whether the militant wing
(associated mainly with anarchist groups and organizations) of
what used to be the anti-globalization movement can take
advantage of this opportunity and reassert its primacy within
the social movement milieu. In my view, this question can be
better answered by reviewing the causes that led to the militant
wing’s defeat the first time around and calling for a revision
and rethinking of the strategy and tactics it has employed so
far. As Takis Fotopoulos had written back in 2001, «this
does not deny the fact that there are antisystemic elements
within the ‘movement’ that could potentially function as
catalysts for the creation of a true antisystemic movement. The
problem with these antisystemic elements at the moment is that
they do not have any clear vision for a future society and
therefore a long-term strategy and short-term program».[1]
By adopting such a broad vision, the militant currents can
breathe new energy into popular movements
“from
below” by virtue of advocating a purely antisystemic outlook and
agenda that would revive the radical movement’s dwindling
fortunes and would reconfigure its ideological structure and
internal form of organization along purely libertarian,
democratic lines.
As a way of illustration: The Occupy Wall Street Movement
Sadly, the pseudo-anarchist Occupy Wall Street (O.W.S.) movement
is yet another example of a reformist movement which reproduces
all the popular misconceptions about the dominant institutions
of the system, both in terms of the political aims that it
espouses and also with regard to its tactics and methods of
action. The practice of occupation of public spaces can only be
interpreted as a gesture of collective protest aimed against the
political and economic elites. However, in choosing such a form
of action the organizers of the movement seem to base their
strategy on the assumption that the political structures of
representative “democracy” are somehow receptive or prone to
respond to requests coming from below. Such a naïve presumption
implies that the important question is to find ways for the
people to express collectively their will to their masters, as
if the problem was that the elites in power were not aware of
where their subjects stand on matters such as the elimination of
poverty, the preservation of institutions of social solidarity,
the uneven distribution of wealth, etc. which are directly
affected by the growing concentration of income and economic
power.
The fetish of non-violence is yet another suicidal prejudice
undermining the protest movement, particularly in the present
phase of neoliberal totalitarianism in which the elites rely
increasingly in their apparatus of organized force so as to
enforce the various aspects of the process of marketization upon
society. In other words, the increase in the manifestations of
state violence is a direct outcome of the breakdown of the
system’s legitimacy, of its growing inability to obtain the
approval of subordinate and underprivileged social groups for
the implementation of policies that can only result in the
further deterioration of their social position. OWS organizers
seem to conveniently forget that the Arab Spring (from which
they claim to draw inspiration) was not a peaceful, non-violent
affair and for the masses to be able to impose their will upon
the elites, they have to be willing to defend themselves against
systemic attacks, both in the physical and the ideological
sense.
Lastly, the aim of creating “a general assembly in every back
yard”[2]
is indicative of the fact that OWS conceives of direct democracy
as a mere process of collective decision-taking to be practiced
within the existing institutional framework, since it does not
attach any institutional, structural-economic or philosophical
qualifications to its establishment as an alternative and
autonomous form of social organization. In this connection, we
must stress that the organizers’ insistence on consensus[3]
by
definition precludes the possibility of the movement becoming a
harbinger for the establishment of autonomous institutions of
popular self-management on a mass social scale. The fact of the
matter is that for direct democracy to flourish two things must
happen: a) the systemic factors which negate democracy by virtue
of reproducing the unequal distribution of political, economic,
social and cultural power must be attacked and eliminated (not
“reformed” as the OWS suggests) and b) direct democracy should
be conceived as a holistic, emancipatory political project for
the radical transformation of society consisting in a
combination of processes, collective institutions of
self-management and economic, political and social structures
embodying the equal distribution of power in all spheres of
social activity. In this context, direct democracy ceases to be
an end-in-itself and becomes a means for the self-institution of
the free, autonomous society.
From the politics of resistance, to the politics of emancipation
In all major summits of the transnational elite (WTO, G8, IMF),
there unfolded violent confrontations between the predominantly
anarchist black bloc and the security forces of the
transnational elite. In spite of the climate of terror
cultivated by the elites and the measures of brutal repression
carried out against the more radical sectors of the movement,
anarchist militants refused to be intimidated and combated the
police forces of occupation, fighting pitched battles against a
superior enemy in Seattle, Genoa, Strasbourg and so on. However,
courageous as it was, the insurrectional strategy has proven to
be counter-productive in terms, both of bringing globalization
to a halt and also of expanding the social base of the anarchist
collectivities (two aims which, in our view, are organically
related to each other).[4]
The one-dimensional anarchist perception of violence as the sole
legitimate method of political action has resulted in the
ideological and practical marginalization of the black bloc,
effectively hindering its development into becoming a mass
anti-systemic movement capable of challenging the status-quo. In
this sense, mass counter-violence as a political
strategy
which is sufficient-to-itself, is an essentially reformist
tactic, in that it reduces the substance of anti-systemic
political activity to mere violent resistance. In other words,
the fundamental goals of the anti-systemic movement are made to
conform to the inherent limitations of the chosen method. It
concedes the political initiative to the ruling elites adopting
a passive, re-active posture against their oppressive policies.
To overcome this seeming quagmire, we need to revert to the
philosophical concept of violence as an «instrument», to be used
in the service of a broader, radical political agenda.
One of the primary strategic objectives of the black bloc was to
avert the crystallization of a formal division within the
anti-globalization movement between the segment of activists who
espouse peaceful protest, and the more militant wing who uses
violence as a method for social change. Unfortunately, such a
division
was, in the end, successfully
imposed by the authorities and, it seems, not without a measure
of consent on the part of the peaceniks. This
was
not because peaceful protesters
were
necessarily intimidated by anti-terrorist laws and rising levels
of violence in the context of anti-globalization marches,
although fear for one’s own personal safety cannot be excluded
as a factor. Apparently decisive for the lack of sympathy shown
towards the black bloc was the fact that reformist protest
organizations were able to retain the affiliations of their
membership by cultivating the illusion that they offer a
«political
solution»
to the problems engendered by globalization, a piecemeal
strategy by which to achieve concrete results through the reform
of global political and economic institutions. Illusive as
this prospect was,
it
was nevertheless appealing enough to secure a continuous
commitment from their membership and absorb its energies in the
pursuit of harmless goals and away from militant political
activity.
On the contrary, no such outlet was provided by anarchist groups
participating in the anti-globalization movement. By this,
we
do not mean that anarchists should
have
abandoned
their radical
agenda
and tactics in order to embark on a process of “civilized”
consultation with the ruling elites. But,
our
position does imply that violent confrontational strategies and
systematic political work towards a pre-defined political end
are not two mutually exclusive concepts as many postmodern
anarchists seem to believe. The black bloc is essentially a
loose network of individuals or groups of people bound together
by a shared perception of what it means to be activist. Their
common focus is exclusively on method, purposefully neglecting
matters of theoretical substance. They do not possess a general
political theory, a corresponding radical vision by which to
secure the affinity of a growing number of activists who will
agree to participate in the high-risk, militant activity of the
groups,
knowing that such actions constitute an integral dimension of a
broader political movement, with a vigorous presence in all
levels of organized social life.
The Inclusive Democracy Project
The building of such a mass organization presupposes the serious
involvement of a growing number of people in the daily practice
of anarchism. This position should not be confused with the
“anarchism in action” approach advocated by many Anglo-Saxon
libertarian thinkers, who propound an escapist creed that
presents anarchism as an alternative life-style which can be
practiced in isolated communities within the context of the
existing institutional framework.[5]
In fact, our position is exactly the opposite, in that it
presupposes that the conquest of freedom, in the form of
collective (social) and individual autonomy as a whole, is not a
private, but a collective enterprise. It postulates that true
autonomy and freedom are concepts that may be implemented only
through the agency of the social individual acting in concert
with his peers and, therefore, it deals also with the question
of democratic organization and the extension of the public
sphere
to include almost every social aspect of human existence.
In view of the pressing need for organization, I believe that it
is time for anarchists everywhere to adopt the ideas outlined in
the inclusive democracy project, which contains the blueprint
for a future anarchical society based on the principles of
direct political, economic, social and ecological democracy. The
theoretical work
carried out
in the framework of inclusive democracy is, in my mind, the only
scheme
for an anarchist organization of society which addresses our
contemporary problems and needs. The purpose of the Inclusive
Democracy project is to propose an alternative model of social
organization that eliminates all forms of institutionalized
power and oppression from the social realm. The only way to
accomplish this and also to ensure that new forms of oppression
do not arise to replace the old ones, is to develop and build
the institutional preconditions for the equal distribution of
all forms of political, economic, cultural and social power
among the citizenry, along with a solid
philosophical/theoretical foundation that is needed to change
the corresponding social mentality. By introducing the idea of a
confederation of popular assemblies operating on the principle
of direct democracy, the social ideal of autonomy is revived
once again and becomes relevant to our time. In this form of
organization, each individual citizen is invested with equal
political power residing in his / her institutional ability to
contemplate, deliberate and decide along with his/her peers on
the type of laws which govern his society. However, only by
participating in the institutional collectivity of the assembly
does the individual citizen become sovereign, meaning
that he becomes able to enact legislation.
This aspect of inclusive democracy is again at odds with
individualist anarchism. While the individualist’s ideal
anthropological type is a person admitting of no law and
rejecting any “artificial” constraints
on his / her behavior and desires,[6]
the essence of autonomy presents us with a human being capable
of self-reflectively providing himself with his own set of laws,
in accordance with
the
values and belief-system
that are compatible with collective and individual autonomy.
What is needed then, in the collective, is the development of
institutions of direct democracy on a mass scale, namely the
institution of a confederal network of
demotic
assemblies which will embody the decentralization of power in
all its forms, given that the face-to-face assembly will be the
central decision-making organ of the community (demos)
possessing
supreme authority over the local political, economic and
cultural spheres. Such a model is neither absolute, nor
immutable. It simply lays down the necessary institutional
preconditions for the complete elimination of
authoritarian/power relations from organized social life. As it
considers that popular assemblies are the ultimate source of
authority in a genuinely democratic society, it depends on the
assemblies themselves to
ratify
the model of such a novel social arrangement, to overrule it
altogether (if they want to abolish democracy), or to modify
certain aspects of their local model as they see fit. But in our
view, the confederal scheme proposed by inclusive democracy must
be expounded as an alternative form of social organization by
anarchists everywhere. Otherwise, the movement will eventually
subside and the people will return to their habitual practices,
in want of a better solution.
“Take the power back”: Liberation on the political level
These institutions cannot resemble the
isolated and disjointed anarchist collectives of the present,
because radical social transformation cannot be attained through
a strategy which simply aims at disrupting the social consensus
on the level of ideas and precipitating a change in prevalent
social values and beliefs by way of “leading by example”.
Attracting sympathy and provoking an emotional response on the
part of the social body is a noble endeavor, but it is not
revolutionary in its own right. In fact, it reinforces the
divide between the fragmented anarchist social formations and
the rest of society by enunciating the “exotic” quality of
anarchist ideas and positing the necessity for a voluntary
withdrawal from society as a precondition for living in
accordance with anarchist, egalitarian norms. However, such a
strategy simply overlooks the repressive power which social
institutions and dominant economic structures (what we call the
dominant social paradigm) exert upon the social body and their
ability to ultimately affect the behavioral patterns and beliefs
both of the majority of the individual human subjects and also
of the collectivity. This is why, a movement for social
liberation cannot be introvert and content itself to co-exist
peacefully with dominant social institutions, but must devote
its energies to compete with state/systemic structures and to
openly challenge their authority on the political, economic and
cultural level. Under this light, self-organization in every
sphere of social life is indeed indispensable but only as a
method
incorporated in a political strategy aiming to achieve something
greater: the complete abolition of hierarchical social
structures which reproduce the concentration of power in all its
forms. Only then will the members of the demoi be truly
autonomous, by being in control of the central political and
economic decisions that determine the
material
conditions and the
general
framework of their social existence.
Through the confederacy,
organized around the principal administrative unit of the demos,
the movement will gain the holistic, coordinated perspective
necessary to overthrow the system, without having to renounce
decentralization and its effective transfer of power to the
community. The confederal scheme will provide the power-base
from which the movement might proceed to launch its campaign
against the status-quo. If adopted, the struggle to develop now
ID “organizations” (which in reality is nothing more than the
nucleus of the future demotic assembly itself) will constitute a
qualitative leap in the political activity of anarchist groups
signifying the passage from the politics of adolescent
resistance to globalization, to the politics of emancipation
through the establishment of a network of autonomous political
communities. These communities will strive to gradually develop
their basis of political, economic and cultural decentralization
of power and expand their resources in terms
both
of human personnel,
but also of creating
a demotic economic sector, operating without money and state and
completely separate and autonomous from the system of the market
economy. This process
of gradual expansion
ideally will continue to the point that the state apparatus will
be no more than an empty shell, stripped completely of its
ideological authority, deprived of its economic resources and
abandoned by
a
disaffected citizenry.
At this point, one understands that what we are describing is a
gradual process of revolutionary change, not a watershed event
in the form of an uprising that aims to transform the dominant
social paradigm (ideological structures and value-system
congruent to the status quo) overnight. In the contemporary
mythology of postmodern anarchism the spontaneous popular
uprising is a mystical event that incorporates all those social
characteristics deemed necessary to bring about the
establishment of a new social order. Like a raging fire, the
“Uprising” will consume the final remains of the old society and
usher in a new era of peace, brotherhood and equality for the
human race. However, past experience from Argentina in 2001 and
Greece in 2008 has repeatedly validated the resilience of
entrenched social reality against such magical recipes for
change. In Greece, groups identifying with the insurrectionary
tendency within the broader anarchist movement were so
absolutely convinced about the revolutionary virtues of
spontaneity, that they purposefully overlooked all forms of
conscious political work, in favor of engaging in
one-dimensional actions that would serve to escalate the levels
of violent confrontation with the state
without the concomitant high level of political consciousness
required to overthrow the system.
The latent rationale behind this strategic decision (which was
more a tacit agreement on a common line of action,
rather
than a self-conscious decision resulting from collective
deliberation) was that if anarchists managed to avert the
restoration of social peace, the
«Uprising»
would somehow find its way into producing forms of
self-management and self-organization consistent with the
prescriptions of their limited anarchist vision of society.
Hence,
in this worldview
we see that human action,is
seen as
predictable and is made to conform to a necessary outcome, while
the
«Uprising»
assumes the attributes of a metaphysical social entity
deterministically moving towards a preordained and “socially
necessary” political end. Yet, such
a mystical concept is not entirely alien to classical anarchism
and its emphasis on the determinism found in the natural
environment, on the innate inclinations of mankind towards
solidarity and collectivist forms of co-existence and on the
conception of hierarchical forms of social organization as
simple obstacles to be removed and swept away by violent
revolution, so that the “true” and spontaneous collectivist
dispositions of the proletariat may be allowed to express
themselves freely and flourish. Such mythical notions are
evident in the works of Malatesta and other anarchist-communist
thinkers. However, never did those classical thinkers of
anarchism eschew or abandon conscious political work at a mass
social scale, as post-modern anarchists do, favouring instead
the «creative interplay» of dormant social forces, and never did
they stop believing that human liberation and the abolition of
domination is possible without the prior elimination of those
systemic institutions concentrating political power in the hands
of the State apparatus, and economic power in the hands of
private capital which has ownership and control over the means
of production and distribution. In stark contrast to this
antisystemic stance of classical anarchism, post-modern
anarchists in their majority reject grand narratives of human
liberation and seem to favour some sort of
modus vivendi
with the system
From the above, it becomes apparent that
even though a popular revolt might represent the outright
rejection of the status-quo by the masses, in no way can it be
interpreted as an automatic endorsement of the ideal of autonomy
by the majority of the social body, or as a harbinger of the
collective institutions through which the practice of
self-government may be realized. In other words, people might be
quite certain about what they do
not want, but this does not mean
that they have developed a political consciousness and
a concomitant political
project which allows them to undertake the self-organization of
their lives in a way that will eliminate the sources of their
present grievances.
Of course, this lack of subjective realization on the part of
the citizenry does not mean that the mass movement should
delegate power to an elite group of professional
“revolutionaries”, who by virtue of possessing a “superior”
knowledge of social affairs, would be in a better position to
formulate “revolutionary” strategy and dictate to the masses
their future actions.
The transitional strategy of inclusive democracy suggests
precisely the opposite. Namely, that
activists should work towards the establishment of a confederal
network of demotic assemblies which will assume the role of the
principal decision-making organ of the movement. In this manner,
inclusive democracy militants will not act as an elitist group,
semi-detached from the core constituency of the movement, but
instead will act
at the local level
as a catalyst that will radicalize the grass-roots and inject into
it
the conceptual tools and institutional mechanisms through which
the demotic assemblies
may begin to articulate an autonomous political discourse and
establish its self-reflective political identity. In other
words, through the application of the unitary confederal
principle and through the implementation of a strategy for the
economic empowerment of the demoi, the movement will, for the
first time, become aware of itself.[7]
Liberation on the economic level
This strategy for emancipation on the political level must
necessarily be accompanied by a strategy for liberation on the
economic level, through a step-by-step plan of “disengagement”
from the market-economy, outlining the practical measures for
the creation of a demotic economic sector. The material basis of
the autonomous economic sector of the demos will be the social
ownership of the means of production
and distribution.
This means that the productive resources located in the vicinity
of the administrative unit of the demos will be under the
control of the demotic assembly which will
establish
the right to decide about their allocation and utilization in
accordance with the democratically articulated material needs of
the community. The aim of such an economic system is not the
self-sufficient economic development of the demos, but the
restoration of the sovereignty of the demos over the economic
process, through the decentralization of production and
self-reliance primarily on the productive resources of the
locality. Indeed, self-sufficiency is neither tenable, nor
desirable under contemporary economic conditions. Each demotic
economic unit will be integrated in a confederal economic
system, the principles (mutuality, solidarity, cooperation) of
which will regulate the direct exchange of goods and services
with other demotic communities.
Of course, the substance (productive goals) of the economic plan
of the confederacy will not be determined unilaterally by some
upper caste of “professional” functionaries invested with power
to formulate policy on the “confederal level”. The formation of
such an institutional power elite is out of the question, since
delegates to the peripheral and confederal assemblies will be
appointed directly by the demotic assemblies and will be subject
to their strict mandate and revocable at any time, should their
actions exceed or violate the extent of their mandate. Instead,
peripheral and confederal organs will primarily serve an
administrative
function. Their job will be to coordinate the efforts of the
individual demotic sectors in order to meet the requirements of
the confederal plan and to facilitate the constant and
reciprocal flow of information from the confederal to the
demotic level, in the interests of improving or adjusting
individual aspects of the confederal plan whenever this is
necessary.
To ensure that the equal distribution of economic power is
safeguarded money as a medium for the appropriation of goods and
services and as a means for income accumulation will be
abolished. Instead, a system of vouchers or credit cards will be
put in place. The units contained in a credit card will
represent purchasing power corresponding to the amount of labor
offered by the individual citizen as
a
minimum requirement for the satisfaction of his basic material
needs by the confederacy. Of course, this minimum amount of
labor again will be subject to the decisions of the demotic
assembly, and will not be pre-determined by so-called “experts”
(although their expertise will be taken under consideration)
or bureaucrats. Furthermore, additional consumption of
non-basic
goods will be accessible through the provision of additional
working hours, but such non-basic needs will be satisfied on the
level of the demos. Purchasing power is strictly ascribed to the
individual citizen and cannot be transferred
to,
or appropriated by another person. In this manner, the
accumulation of wealth and the hereditary preservation of social
privilege are prevented from occurring in the economic framework
of an Inclusive Democracy.
Of course, special provisions will apply for those social groups
who are not in a position to contribute the necessary amounts of
labour such as children, the elderly, the handicapped etc.
Overall, the primary economic unit is the demos, the members of
which are invested with the authority to make all the
fundamental macroeconomic decisions regulating economic
production in the confederacy («what», «how» and «for whom» it
is produced). The confederal assemblies serve the executive
function of coordinating the
production
of the autonomous demoi in the economic framework of the
confederacy, according to the instructions given to them by the
demotic assemblies. Also, their primary task is to ensure that a
uniform level of
comprehensive
social welfare exists throughout the confederacy, as regards the
satisfaction of the basic needs of all citizens, which are
democratically
defined by the citizens themselves. However, even at this
advanced stage of the economic process, the power rests with the
collective body of the demos, who have the right to decide about
the material means and the division of labour by which
production is implemented.[8]
A new concentration of power?
The argument has been made that such a strategy is bound to
result
to
a new concentration of power within the social movement sector.
Again, the approach of the inclusive democracy project takes
caution against the reproduction of hierarchical structures
within the movement by effectively disallowing the possibility
for the accumulation and institutionalization of political power
in the hands of a privileged minority, even a group of ID
sympathizers. On the subjective level, the sphere of individual
commitments, value-systems and beliefs (the social paradigm
which is congruent with the ID institutions), it is made
abundantly clear that the loyalty of inclusive democracy
activists should not rest with a particular ID
“organization”,
but with the autonomous
collective
institution itself, namely the demotic assembly. This is quite
understandable, since an ID organization is in effect a non-organization,
whose sole aim in terms of a private political agenda, is
slowly to disintegrate
and be absorbed within an expanded demotic assembly formed to
put into effect
the practical steps for the political and economic emancipation
of the demos. On the objective level, the level of political and
economic structures, the blueprint for a future society
propounded by the ID project simply negates the institutional
factors which might contribute to the creation of a dynamic
towards the concentration of political or economic power by any
one person or group. Nor does it afford the institutional means
for the consolidation
and reproduction
of such power
However, many post-modern anarchists distrust even direct
democracy. They argue that, by definition, it entails the
repression of the will of the minority and for this reason it
will have to rely on a new mechanism of organized force in order
to secure compliance with the decisions taken by the majority.[9]
They propose consensual decision-taking as an alternative to the
‘inherently oppressive’ democratic ideal. This view is
emblematic of the ideological hegemony that liberal
individualist currents have achieved within the contemporary
anarchist movement and has taken a disastrous toll on the
revolutionary prospects of libertarian socialism and its
relevance as a viable social alternative, in a historical
juncture when statist socialism in both East (existing
socialism) and West (social-democracy) has collapsed and the
path had been cleared for libertarian socialism to forcefully
assert itself as the only genuine revolutionary solution to the
political, economic, cultural, ecological and social impasses
generated by the hierarchical structures of heteronomous
society.
The position advocating consensus is fundamentally flawed and is
mistaken in more than one respect. First, it sees the defence of
individual autonomy as a matter of simple procedure and it
reproduces within emancipatory discourse the antithesis between
society and the person, without taking into account that in an
autonomous society individual autonomy complements social,
collective autonomy and vice versa, since the whole purpose of
the emancipatory project is to organize social coexistence in
such a way that does not contradict or negate the liberty of the
person, but on the contrary enhances its autonomy by reconciling
personal interests with the interests of the whole. Under this
light, autonomy is a matter of installing a combination of
interdependent democratic processes, structures, institutions
and culture, which can only be implemented if they are
incorporated as the mutually-complementing political goals of a
mass libertarian movement fighting for radical systemic change.
However, the very prospect of the construction of such a
holistic movement with its own analysis of social reality and
its own emancipatory political strategy is shunned by the
post-modern anarchist adherents of consensus.
Furthermore, the argument which claims that democracy
constitutes a type of state-structure is also flawed, since the
very essence of state power resides in the separation of the
political process from society and the construction of a formal
public sphere outside and above the social body. However, in the
context of ID political structures and institutions, the
separation of the political sphere from society is abolished.
Politics is re-integrated into society, which practices politics
as the systematic activity making possible the concrete
self-institution of the social body. The citizenry regains
access to the political process and everyone participates on an
equal footing in the self-management of society as a whole, thus
making self-government on a mass social scale possible. Hence,
it is evident that the state-analogy cannot be made to hold in a
social context where all forms of power are distributed equally
among all citizens and everyone participates directly in the
formulation of decisions that determine the greater political,
economic and ecological parameters of his / her social
existence.
Even as regards the question of the protection of “minorities”,
this argument is void of meaning in the context of an Inclusive
Democracy. This is because, the demotic assembly (main
decision-taking body in an ID) operates on the principle of
democratic rationalism, a core philosophical belief of which is
that there are no eternal truths and the validity of a premise
is determined, in the last instance, by its ratification by the
assembly of autonomous citizens. It follows, that no decisions
or laws passed by the assembly are immutable and that any one
citizen can challenge the correctness or just nature of a
decision providing rational arguments to support his position.
Of course, this adoption of the open discourse of democratic
rationalism as the common language and cultural paradigm of the
autonomous citizenry is imperative. Otherwise, we are left in a
situation where any citizen, without any adherence to the
freely-agreed collective criteria entailed in the common
cultural paradigm, might be free to repudiate or sabotage the
decisions of the assembly out of selfish impulses, spite, or
ulterior political motives, thus making self-government
untenable. Furthermore, the terms majority and minority in an ID
do not correspond to fixed social entities and this division
does not express an institutionalization of the power of one
group at the expense of the other, since the institutional
framework of ID does not contain the preconditions for such a
concentration of power by any group or private person. It simply
corresponds to an institutionalization of the difference of
opinion and the right to dissent. Far from leading to new forms
of power-relations, this division embodies in ID the free
expression of individual differences in the personality and
character of each citizen, contrary to consensus, which
envisages a society of robots where everyone will think and act
exactly the same. In fact, it is not difficult to imagine a
frightening consensual society, in which dissent and «deviant»
viewpoints become outlawed as impediments to the smooth
functioning of “harmonious” social affairs.
Two final points should be made. Firstly,
consensus as a method does not offer any incentive or promote
self-reflection with a view for compromise and a collective
synthesis of opinions, but encourages the individual to
selfishly adhere to his own attitudes and ideas, having no
reason to doubt them. It also leads to the incorporation of
interactions in the private sphere as an integral and indeed
necessary part of the political process, given that as
individualist anarchists contend, preparation of the conditions
that will make consensus possible must be made before the
assembly comes together to discuss any issue. Hence,
behind-the-curtain negotiations and pressures exerted in the
private sphere are made a component of the decision-taking
process, before citizens enter the realm of complete equality
instituted by the explicitly political body of the demotic
assembly. Secondly, consensus might be viable in small affinity
groups concerning themselves exclusively with the organization
and implementation of direct action, but it cannot be applied to
decisions regarding issues of actual self-government on a mass
social scale, i.e. the allocation of scarce material resources,
or matters pertaining to the large-scale organization of society
in terms of safeguarding individual and social autonomy and
economic self-sufficiency.
Counter-violence and Inclusive Democracy
For
the disenfranchised
sectors of the population,
counter-violence is an important and legitimate method of
resistance and intervention
in the political process. Through the use of violent forms of
protest and self-defense the antisystemic movement proclaims its
autonomous will, its reluctance to rely on the mediation of the
established institutional mechanisms for the advancement of its
goals and its refusal to recognize the elite as legitimate
actors. Violent actions might serve to accentuate the already
existing divisions within the political establishment and
possibly even generate new ones. For all these reasons, the
inclusive democracy approach does not overrule the use of
violence as an acceptable method of political action. However,
it attaches certain political qualifications to its deployment.
Namely, inclusive democracy subscribes to the view that
counter-violence, either has to be a necessary measure of
self-defense against repressive attacks
from
the state, or it has to be employed within a clearly defined
political framework, as a means of advancing goals which have
been formulated and ratified in the context of the autonomous
collective organs of the movement
(i.e. interventions through the method of direct-action, taking
the form of militant demonstrations, occupations of the offices
of municipal authorities, workplaces and abandoned buildings,
wildcat strikes organized «from below», etc).
In the aftermath of the December uprising in Greece, an informal
divide has become apparent between a small, but energetic
segment of Greek anarchists who seem to have come to the
realization that mass political work is necessary in order to
cultivate and consolidate ties with communities on the local
level and the bulk of insurrectional anarchists who have opted
for a more violent course of action, a type of low-intensity
urban guerrilla warfare, as a means
of
preserving the “spirit” of a “constant” uprising and upsetting
the status-quo. As a stark daily example, the difference between
the two concepts of struggle became pronounced in their
respective approach towards the issue of free public
transportation. While “political” anarchists who identify with
the neighborhood assemblies that were founded in December,
launched an initiative in which activists simultaneously
occupied several metro stations, sabotaging ticket-validation
machines and enabling passengers to travel freely from one
destination to another, the insurrectionists responded by
organizing a raid against a station of the urban railway, in
which part of a train was set alight and utterly destroyed (of
course the proper measures ensuring the physical safety of the
passengers were taken).
The first direct action is in touch with the everyday needs of
local populations and as such, it serves to expand the social
appeal of anarchist ideas. On the other hand, the second action
is inward-looking and designed to secure rather questionable
gains on the level of political symbolism. However, even the
first action, well-planned and well executed, was fundamentally
lacking the overall political framework which might show
the
people how this one-time event (free tube for everyone), can be
transformed into a permanent
situation (free public transport for all citizens). This
context, in our view, can only be provided by the application of
the Inclusive Democracy project for political, economic and
social liberation.
[5]
For example, such was the type of anarchism promoted by
the «Practical Anarchy» periodical (http://www.practicalanarchy.org/),
or by the anarcho-primitivist, anti-rational writings of
John Zerzan, who was closely associated with the Eugene
Oregon anarchists providing the driving force behind the
violent clashes between the black bloc and the state
security forces during the W.T.O. summit in Seattle