A call for human rights that can’t be taken away by the first idiot is not anarchism, it’s the most basic common sense and logic upon which a good society should be built.
And if we want to have actual rights, then we must build a system in which no one has the power to take them away to begin with.
So, they had me up till here. But what I think they’re trying to describe is a dual-power relationship between the state and labor, by which the powers of the state are checked by the power of working people. That’s an idealistic vision of the future, but it isn’t a proven strategy. Just the opposite - its a strategy riddled with more failures than successes.
A call for human rights that can’t be taken away by the first idiot is not anarchism
The belief that we can build a system to self-perpetuate civil rights is at the heart of the anarchist ideology.
But the promise of an immaculate statutory framework that denies any individual or coalition power is a false one. Power is a consequence of social relationships and control of physical capital by individuals. There is no established structure that can prevent a cartel of insiders from seizing control of critical infrastructure. They don’t even have to be particularly powerful. Any sufficiently motivated Houthi brigade can shut down the Suez Canal. Any sufficiently popular social media platform can derail a positive social movement (witness what happened to Occupy Wall Street or BLM or the Hong Kong Democracy protests or the disintegration of the Yugoslavian government).
Civil Rights can only ever be aspirational in a world where a local monopoly on violence undoes in days what a community spent generations building.
A call for human rights that can’t be taken away by the first idiot is not anarchism, it’s the most basic common sense and logic upon which a good society should be built.
So, they had me up till here. But what I think they’re trying to describe is a dual-power relationship between the state and labor, by which the powers of the state are checked by the power of working people. That’s an idealistic vision of the future, but it isn’t a proven strategy. Just the opposite - its a strategy riddled with more failures than successes.
The belief that we can build a system to self-perpetuate civil rights is at the heart of the anarchist ideology.
But the promise of an immaculate statutory framework that denies any individual or coalition power is a false one. Power is a consequence of social relationships and control of physical capital by individuals. There is no established structure that can prevent a cartel of insiders from seizing control of critical infrastructure. They don’t even have to be particularly powerful. Any sufficiently motivated Houthi brigade can shut down the Suez Canal. Any sufficiently popular social media platform can derail a positive social movement (witness what happened to Occupy Wall Street or BLM or the Hong Kong Democracy protests or the disintegration of the Yugoslavian government).
Civil Rights can only ever be aspirational in a world where a local monopoly on violence undoes in days what a community spent generations building.